Tasers for Teachers

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[Prologue:  Back in 1977, those callow days before the Internet and email, Don Novello aka Saturday Night Live’s  Father Guido Sarducci published a little 160 page book titled The Lazo Letters: The Amazing Real-Life Correspondence of Lazlo Toth: American. To quote Amazon: "In letters to stars, dignitaries, and chairmen of the country's most powerful organizations, Don Novello's alter ego Lazlo Toth pestered his victims for photographs, offered outlandish advice, fired off strange inquiries, and more. The strangest part? Practically everyone answered, leaving Toth with a hilarious collection of outlandish correspondence unmatched in the history of American letters.”   

The book truly is a riot and is still in print. I recommend it highly. Lazlo’s occasionally tortured prose only heightens the impact of his often misguided passion. But beneath the brilliant satire lies a darker side. Novello occasionally takes on the absurdities of the rich and powerful, pointing out with razor-sharp wit that “Look! These folks are naked. The Emperor has no clothes. They are not only naked, they are also stupid.” Having spent 65 years in classrooms, either as a student or a teacher, I feel qualified to assert that President Trump’s recent proposal that a good response to the continuing national disgrace of school shootings would be to arm classroom teachers falls beyond the pale of rational thought.  Frankly the proposal calls into question the President’s mental health.  It is clear from his personal history that at one time Donald Trump was a cagey businessman, adept at working a complex commercial world to his personal advantage. This recent proposal provides no indication of such acumen. Rather it seems to reveal evidence of significant intellectual decline. It hints of the aggressive and irrational outbursts commonly found in the victims of dementia. As such it becomes a natural target for Lazlo Toth: Real American.  If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I hope Mr. Novello will accept my poaching on his nom de plume as just such a tribute from a fellow Buckeye.] 

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Right On Mr. President!

Well, I guess you Trumped those fake crisis actors from Florida! “Trumped,” get it? Ha ha. I don’t understand why there haven’t always been guns in classrooms. I mean guns for the teachers - forget that ruler on the knuckles, or a quick swat on the butt. Guns for the teachers! Yeah! I bet our founding Four Fathers didn’t leave their muskets at home when they rode over to the old one room school house! And how about Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and John Wayne? Real Americans with guns!

But, Mr. President, here's an idea that might play better in the faking liberal press. “Tasers for Teachers!” It fits really well on a bumpersticker or as a hashtag. And there are other good things about the idea. Saving money! With tasers whining teachers can’t come asking for money for school budgets, books and stuff instead of guns. Tasers are cheaper than guns! And they don’t use expensive bullets!  Have you checked the price of ammunition for an AR-15 these days? Disgraceful! How are we supposed to defend ourselves at those prices!? Besides, from what I see on TV you get two taser-thingies that shoot out every time you pull the trigger! Twice the chance of hitting what you shoot at!  No need to pay for target training!  And dual purpose. If you just crank the charge down a bit, teachers could use the tasers on the students too! Those smart-aleck kids in the back row who are always laughing and checking their Facebook pages? Let’s see if they are still laughing after they catch a few thousand volts from the teacher’s taser! 

I think this could be really big Mr. President! The National Taser Association!!  Yeah! Yeah for the NTA!!  Scoop up those chicken companies who are abandoning the good old NRA!

Yours for safe schools! 

Lazlo Toth, Real American

Make America Grate Again!

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Clarity Will Take Some Getting Used To

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To begin at the beginning, I don’t remember life without glasses. Well, that’s not really true.  I wasn’t one of those babies you see in the newborn nurseries with glasses taped to their tiny little heads. I must have started school without glasses, because I remember sitting in the back of class and peering through my fist so I could read what was written up front on the blackboard.  I’m not exactly sure how that worked but it did. You turn your fist into a little telescope, peer through it and you can see the blackboard better. No doubt some deep principle of optics at work there.  

My teachers probably reported my strange behavior to my parents, and I’m guessing it was around then that I got my first pair of glasses. Hence for pretty much all my life I have “visually challenged,” very, very nearsighted.  I wore glasses until my sophomore year in high school. The musical that year was West Side Story and I was cast as one of The Jets - the Anglo gang. It was 1965 or 66, and so while the idea of dancing gangbangers seemed tolerable, Action singing "Gee, Officer Krupke" while wearing glasses the thickness of Coke bottles just wouldn’t wash. So, one rehearsal I went on without my glasses and casually danced off the stage and into the orchestra pit. My pride, a major aspect of any high school identity, was the only casualty - and I got contacts!

Now, contacts in the late 1960s were very different than today’s high tech versions.  But they were well-suited for the lifestyle of my next few years. Hard little disks of plastic they were well nigh indestructible.  No solution really needed. At night you could just stick them on any surface - the nightstand, between the pages of a book, or in the spirit of full disclosure, down the sides of a pack of cigarettes.  Come morning you just popped them in your mouth, sloshed them around a bit and transferred them directly back into your eyes. No big deal. I know, I know, sounds totally disgusting nowadays, but those were simpler times. Like the rest of the world I eventually moved into soft lenses with toric astigmatism correction that required a second mortgage to buy the necessary cases, fluids, etc. 

About 15 years ago a normal check-up at the eye doctor detected a cataract in my right eye, so I had that fixed.  Leaving my really, really near-sighted left eye untouched.  I had actually become rather attached to the visual anomaly in that eye. Those of you out there who are near-sighted may understand what I mean. An uncorrected near-sighted eye is also a pseudo-microscope.  I could take out my left lens and see tiny things in incredible detail. Great for removing splinters and - much more importantly - drawing tiny little details. And so I have lived in that visually-unbalanced world ever since.

Fast forward to, oh, maybe 6 months ago.  My microscopic left eye began to acquire a plastic wrap like persona.  I would pop the lens out several times a day, run it through its multiple solutions, and put it back in.  It would, seemingly, be better for awhile, and then not.  It eventually dawned on me that the problem might lie elsewhere. I went to see MyEyeDoctor.  

“Whoa,” she opined. “You are really nearsighted!”

“Yes, I am.” I replied proudly.

“And I can’t believe you can see at all though this cataract.”

“Beg pardon?”

That conversation led me to another round of cataract surgery about a week ago. And the world truly is different.  I can now read my powerpoint slides in class without having to stand directly in front of the screen. I can tell immediately that I did not leave my keys, phone, iPad, etc., in that empty space where I thought I had left them. My doc tells me that I now have 20/20 vision in that eye.  However, unlike the folks touting lasik in commercials I do not walk around muttering “I can’t believe I didn’t do this years ago.” More often I find myself thinking “This is strange.”

Take waking up for example. For most of my life I would ease my way into consciousness. The world first presented itself through a gentle haze. Back in 1967 the film Elvira Madigan made its debut.  It was largely forgettable except for the incredible visual quality - ethereal, yet lush, quite beautiful.  It was rumored to have been shot with a silk stocking stretched over the camera lens.  The point is that that is how I used to see the world in the morning.  Then, when I decided it was time to fully engage with the world, I would put in my lenses.  Now I open my eyes and "WHOA! WAKE UP, DUDE! HERE WE ARE! UP AND AT ‘EM!" The temptation to simply close my eyes and go back to sleep again is significant. 

And then, as I mentioned earlier, there is the drawing thing.  Those of you who bought my coloring book.  .  .  What, you haven’t? Well, I can wait. Just log in to Amazon and search for Schrag Color Me Chilled Out. There it is. Hit “Buy with One Click.” OK, back now? Good. As you can see there is a lot of detail in some of those images - even more if you were looking at the original drawings that are 17 x 14. Back in the  PL (pre-lasik) era, all I had to do was pop out my left lens an I could draw those tiny little lines. Now I have to scramble around for ultra-magnifying reading glasses. Not the same thing at all.

Mind you I don’t regret the surgery.  The dizziness and unsteadiness on my feet that I used to write off to just another little gift of getting older have either disappeared or been greatly reduced. Driving at night is no longer a nervous game of “dodge ‘em” in a snow storm. The TV has gained significant clarity. Typing is a lot easier. I can recognize friends, students and colleagues from a far greater distance.

So, yes, no regrets. But unremitting visual clarity is not always the unabashed “good thing” you might assume. I now wonder what we might learn if we could slip back in time and give the impressionist and expressionist artists modern eye exams.  We might discover that they were actually realists - painting to world exactly as they saw it.

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Gelato Implications in Collisional Augmented Poetic Constructions

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I’m sure my friends over in English have the proper phrase. 

We are talking about poetry, and they are academics. 

And that is what we do, isn’t it?  

We make up phrases for conference programs, 

Or titles for articles in learned journals. 

“An Exploration of the Epistemological and Theoretical Implications of  

Collisionally Augmented Poetic Constructions.” 

I am thinking of a form of poetry 

That draws meaning from the improbable  

Intersection of two trains of thought. 

It is approaching 2 AM, so one train is insomnia. 

The other, for no particular reason, is a piazza in Florence 

That houses, according to our guidebook, 

Two exceptional gelato shops. 

Both claim to be the best in the city. 

The inevitable intersection  

Of these two trains of thought  

Demands a deeper consideration of the  

Various flavors of insomnia. 

Basic, of course, is vanilla insomnia. 

A subtle form, you may not realize 

You are involved in it until you notice 

That midnight has turned to 2 AM. 

Mild concerns ping the cranium. 

Chocolate insomnia is the darker shade. 

You brought the seeds to bed with you. 

The “I should have saids!” the “Oh, yeahs?” 

Chocolate insomnia is a pillow thumper, 

A fan adjuster, a fetch a glass of water 

Variant of the breed. 

Your chocolate cherry insomnia 

Is all of the above, but sweeter.

Irritating, of course, but sprinkled

With a happy occasional recollection.

Perhaps the fleeting memory of 

A favorite face or place.

Not surprising, pistachio insomnia 

Can drive you nuts. 

Layered between chucks of dreams 

It masquerades as sleep, blending 

The real exasperations of the day 

With those we construct internally  

Until we are unable to mark the difference. 

Peach insomnia is rare and gentle. 

Sweet thoughts shepherd memories, 

Sunny and drowsy. 

Still awake, but pleasantly so, 

You drift down the river that leads, 

Sometime before morning, 
To actual sleep. 

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It Is Quite Different When You Know It Is The Last Time

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First times are easy to recognize. “Wow. I’ve never done that before.”  “Who is that? I’ve never seen them before.” “Interesting taste. What did you say it’s called?” First times are brand new and usual carry the possibility of a second, third, or fourth opportunity.

Last times - not so much. You often don’t even realize that it is a last time.  What’s the line from that James Taylor song?  Fire and Rain “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain, I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end, I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I’d see you again.” Sometimes the last time just sneaks up on you.  Like the fact that next Fall will be the first time in 45 years that I will not watch the leaves change through the windows of a college classroom.

Currently, I am teaching a course called Communication Technology for the "last time." I didn’t teach it the “first time.” We saddled a young assistant professor with the rather challenging task of designing the course.  It was to be a required course with the daunting charge of covering both the history and impact of technology on human communication.  He did a great job, but as you might be able to tell from the content demands, the course really should have been at least 2 or 3 courses.  He taught it the first couple of times, but we soon realized he’d never get tenure if we kept beating him up with that course load. So I took over the course and have taught it ever since - 30 or 40 times.  He will teach it again next Fall. Everybody hum “The Circle of Life.”

But for me, now, it is the last time.  

Obviously, the world in which the course lives has radically changed. Today you can Google “advances in communication technology” and encounter a world of incredible gadgets, networks, processes and policies. But when our course began there was no Google, there was barely an Internet. 

The students who inhabit the world have also changed. Before the Internet, the World-Wide-Web and Google, students would read - books. There were no K-12 rubrics, no fantasy 5.3 GPAs on a 4.0 scale. There were no internet savvy helicopter parents - should we call them “drone parents” now? - plotting their child’s academic life and keeping unruly professors on task. There seemed to be a greater degree of curiosity, fewer feelings of entitlement. It was, to sound like an old fart, a simpler world. 

And now it is the last time. 

There is no “Hm, maybe I’ll do it differently the next time.” There will be no next time. A little scary, but a definite sizzle as well. In my attempt to always bring at least one new fact or concept to every class meeting I have amassed a dragon’s hoard of fun facts, strange ideas and important concepts.  And so my last semester in this course has something in common with the first time the course was offered - way too much content, way too little time. The challenge, obviously, is to put the most important content into the smallest amount of time, to get it right this one last time. But how?

My father, also a university professor, once told me “Teach to the top 10%, the others will stretch, And if they can’t, they shouldn’t be there.”  Ah, yes. He lived and taught in an even “simpler simpler” time. Back before “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” designed to guard students against actually learning “uncomfortable” concepts. Back when universities believed that exposing students to “everything,” the good, the bad, and the ugly, was part and parcel of their mandate.

But now it is the last time.

What to say?

I always quote a “rule of three” to my students: Three years after graduation you will remember three courses you took here. And if you think, very hard, you may remember three things you took away from those three classes.

I acknowledge that our course - a required undergraduate core course - will probably not be among those three. But if it were, here are the three points I would choose for them to remember:

1. Technology is designed by, made for, and should serve, people.
2. Every technological innovation follows the same process which is ultimately driven by our demands as expressed in the marketplace.
3. Despite the “herd” implications of the Internet world, you are absolutely unique. No one can be a better “you” than “you.” Becoming that best “you” is the only job you will keep all your life.

And now it is the last time. 

How do I teach them that?  

They will want to know if it will be on the test.  

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Many Worlds at the Edge of a Black Hole

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I love it when I encounter data that supports my biases. We all do. That's what makes fake news work.  We love the feel of our blinders. Breitbart or Slate, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal, Fox News or CNN. Love one, hate the other. I try to get my students to occasionally browse across the ideological aisle. Who knows, maybe they do. But those blinders, so soft and comfy, so affirming. So mostly we stay curled up in our slanted digital silos. 

The point is that I just read in New Scientist that the black hole firewall paradox may have been resolved. Makes your heart go pitter-pat, doesn't it? Makes my blinders quiver! This particular paradox grows out of dueling notions regarding how space-time behaves around the edges of a black hole. General relativity says one thing, quantum mechanics another. For those of you intrigued by the debate, it is in the January 6, 2018 issue. Take a look, it is an interesting read. But I'm not going to go into the details of the debate, I'm going to cut right to the solution: "many-worlds," because that fits right here in my blinders. 

In a nutshell the many-worlds idea - found in quantum mechanics - asserts that our "here and now reality,” the one we wake up in, live in, walk around in, etc., is simply one iteration of countless realities that chain out as a result of our existence in a quantum universe. It is this view of reality that resolves the the firewall paradox at the edge of a black hole. There is no forced choice of either general relativity reality A or quantum mechanics reality B at the edge of a black hole. There is no either-or at the edge of a black hole, rather there is a both-and, and another and another and another. A cosmic kind of schizophrenia that is really amazing once you get past how freaky it seems. 

OK.  Being a fan of supersymmetry I ask myself, "Self," I ask. "What keeps this notion of many-worlds from functioning in our lives?" I mean what are our lives but a series of existential choices? Obviously we think that our "here and now" is the "real here and now." But what if the major choices in our lives were quantum branch-points? Each choice wasn't either-or but was rather “a both-and multi-path branching?” And we followed all the paths. One self followed the 5th grade aptitude test and became a forest ranger, another joined a religious order, a third went to Hollywood, a fourth married that pretty girl in seventh grade and had 8 kids, and so on and so on and so on. 

This isn't just idle rambling here. Well, maybe it is, but the New Scientist article reminds me that I have rambled down this path before. You see, there have been times in my life when I sensed that I was at a quantum branch point. I chose, and followed, a particular "here and now" yet never completely severed ties with the other self who chose another branch. I know, I know, they have medication for that. But consider this quote from the New Scientist article: 

"In this way of thinking, the formation of a black hole and its evaporation due to Hawking radiation - both of which are quantum mechanical processes with different possible outcomes - lead to possible branches of the wave function. An observer monitoring a black hole also splits into multiple observers, one in each branch." 

I just love that! If the observer splits along with the observed "here and now" weren't those myriad observers once one? And who is to say that those observers don't remain a bit "entangled" - another cool quantum mechanics concept. And if they remain entangled should they not be able to experience what their other entangled selves are experiencing? So maybe those dreams, or sensations of being present in "the paths not chosen," are not totally illusory or "an undigested bit of beef" as Scrooge Before the Change might claim. Perhaps they are instead echoes, not of the path not taken, but soundings from the paths taken by our other selves. 

Perhaps enlightenment, or grace, or nirvana, or however we might seek to define the undefinable, contains some element of consciousness across those many selves, down many paths, in many worlds. 

To what end? In truth, I don't think the idea of an "end" is at all relevant. At least it seems to have no place here, in my blinders. 

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Claiming the Legagcy

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My previous post claimed that in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,  Scrooge pointed the path to compassionate optimism. Yet, we need to remember that Scrooge did not simply awake to Christmas morning magically transformed through his own efforts. Indeed, left to his own devices, he might have remained unchanged, or to be truly pessimistic, may not have awakened at all, left instead in the graveyard to which the spirit of Christmas yet-to-be had led him. It was the spirits of Christmas past, present and yet-to-be, who taught him the path to compassionate optimism. And in truth, attaining the grace of compassionate optimism does require guidance, skills and practice. 

As Dylan Thomas requires, "to begin at the beginning," it is my firm conviction that compassionate optimism rests most firmly on a bed of language. Language not only separates us from the other creatures with whom we share the globe, it is also the uniquely human tool that allows us to both formulate and communicate our most subtle perceptions. Furthermore, it is those perceptions that define our truth, our beliefs and our attitudes. If we are to confront the misanthropic pessimism of “Scrooge Before the Change” and become compassionate optimists we need to learn and practice the language of compassionate optimism. 

Back when I was a young fresh-faced grad student "counter attitudinal advocacy" was a hot bit of jargon in the discipline.  It sprang out of courses and theories dealing with debate, argumentation and advocacy. Leon Festinger was one of its primary advocates. Bottom line, it became an element in the "how do you win an argument" toolbox. The idea was that you would attempt to construct an argument based on the beliefs of your opponent. By attempting to get inside your opponent's head to construct the opposition's best argument, you could discover the weaknesses in their position and take advantage of them. Interestingly, and perhaps not intentionally, forming an argument from your opponent’s point of view allowed you to also learn the strengths of their position. You could learn the language of an alternative perspective. 

To claim Scrooge’s legacy of compassionate optimism we can employ that same "counter attitudinal advocacy" strategy in the service of a linguistic objective.  The idea is to convert the language of misanthropic pessimism into the more gentle, kinder, and humane language of compassionate optimism. 

Not surprisingly, I will assert that Distilled Harmony can smooth the path to compassionate optimism with a designed application of the power of language. But first we need to understand the issues that may stand in our way. The tools of digital technology used in current human communication would have sent their practitioners to the stake in any previous century. To our ancestor's eyes our smartphones and other digital whiz bang gizmos would have appeared at best to be magic, at worst witchcraft.  And while we may still cling to the slippery belief that Facebook, Twitter, et al have not sprung from the dark arts, digital communication has deeply bruised some of the more graceful aspects of language. 

We have, in service to the overpowering digital need for speed, sacrificed nuance for numbers. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways - in 146 characters and spaces or less. Better yet in two - a V lying on its side followed by the number 3 which makes a kind of heart. [A construction I cannot replicate here because because the blogging software tries to read it as HTML code.]

Pessimism finds its expression more easily in harsh language: No! Wrong! Liar! Just about every racial or political slur, and of course the all purpose "F You!" Pessimism uses sledgehammer language, brutish, blunt, bullying, often profane, and emotionally simplistic.  

The first tenet of Distilled Harmony is to foster harmony. This dictates that in the linguistic pursuit of compassionate optimism we must purge our own language of those traces of brutish pessimism. That is harder than it seems. Language evolved. It did not descend from the perfect prose or poetry of the angels. As human thought and perception elevated, language worked to keep pace. The graceful capabilities of language are hard won prizes that must not be tossed aside for some facile flirtation with speed or a childish fear of falling behind in the pursuit of the latest obsession of the herd. Oops. Obviously I meant FOMO. 

To foster linguistic harmony means to avoid the language of discord. Nobody is truly interested in our complaints. They may be irritated by the same issues that grate on our nerves, but in truth - contemporary American politics notwithstanding - venting does little to assuage our listeners ire or our own. Rather ranting and brief bursts of accusatory complaints merely increases discord and fosters pessimism. Think of a recent example of brutish, bullying language you had the misfortune to encounter. To quote Professor Harold Hill: "Make your blood boil?  Well, I should say!"  

The language of misanthropic pessimism makes does make your blood boil. The language of compassionate optimism cools the venting spleen, gentles the roiling soul. So train yourself to bite back the cutting remark, the disparaging retort. No one really wants to hear about it, and you simply raise your own blood pressure to little or no avail. And here kindergarten may offer a bit of wisdom - if you can't say something nice, it is preferable to say nothing at all. 

The second tenet of Distilled Harmony is to enable beauty. The potential for beauty in the language of compassionate optimism, to twist a metaphor, leaves one speechless. From ancient tomes, through the compelling literature of every age, to the latest novel or musical lyric we all cling to phrases that stagger us with their linguistic perfection, with their ability to engage and enchant our soul. Truly it is the hope of crafting such a phrase, poem, novel, essay or post that has inspired millions of persistent souls across time to confront the daunting challenge of the blank page. 

When considering the contribution of the the third tenet of Distilled Harmony - distill complexity - to the language of compassionate optimism I must admit to significant personal failure. Brevity can be beautiful. But clearly I am not so inclined. A quote attributed to many sculptors is the advice to envision the finished work within a block of marble and then simply carve away everything that doesn't look like the finished work. I can offer similar advice when you sense I am having too much fun with words. Read the whole post and then throw away whatever words you think I really don't need. After all, once I hit "post" you are free to make what you will of my ramblings. 

Oppose Harm. What role does this fourth tenet of Distilled Harmony play in our pursuit of a language of compassionate optimism? A simple one I think. Do not debase yourself, your thoughts, emotions and beliefs with blunt and brutish language. We should use language thoughtfully to express our best self, the person we would most like to become. Our language, written, spoken or sung should paint that person, clearly, gracefully, beautifully. 

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Ebenezer's Legacy

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A couple of weeks ago my younger daughter, knowing of my lifelong affection for Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and buttered theater popcorn, wrote to urge us to see the recently released, The Man Who Invented Christmas. We did and it proved a delight. The film, which depicts the variety of personal and professional pressures and convictions that led to the novel's completion, is a kaleidoscopic construction in which the characters of the incubating narrative wander through Dickens’s real life much like Scrooge and his ghostly companions wander unseen through Scrooge's past and present lives in the completed novel. 

Other than recommending it, I will not dip deeply into the film. That is not the purpose of this post. However, I must offer a word of caution. If you are among the handful of unfortunate souls in the world who have neither read nor seen A Christmas Carol, you must remedy that sad situation before seeing The Man Who Invented Christmas. I suppose the film would still engage the unprepared viewer, but knowledge of the original text adds significant spice to the dish.  

The novel is widely available in both digital and analog media. To my mind, it is one of those works that particularly lends itself to the turning of physical pages. A comfortable chair and some mulled wine further enhances the experience. If you prefer your fiction on the big - or little- screen, I strongly recommend the George C. Scott version. Others have portrayed Scrooge well. Scott becomes him. The attentive parent will shield their young children from the Disney version. The damage this travesty can visit upon the evolving brain is still uncertain, but in this unfortunate instance one cannot be too careful. 

While The Man Who Invented Christmas is a welcome addition to the Christmas Carol universe, I came away from the film thinking more about the original work. It strikes me that the actual world to which the three spirits led Scrooge that Christmas morning had changed not a whit from the one realized in the Christmas Eve before. What had changed was how Scrooge saw the world. 

It was a profound change. In the course of a few short hours Scrooge morphs from a miserly misanthropic pessimist to a gregarious generous optimist. In The Man Who Invented Christmas Dickens, as the author, agonizes over the seeming improbability of such a transformation. In the end it is "the Scrooge character in Dickens's head" who sways him. Standing in his own grave the changed Scrooge promises, "I will honor Christmas in my heart!" And Dickens, finally realizing the power of that sentiment, captures the words on paper, and with the novelist's omnipotence, makes it so and ends the book. 

Christmas was, in Dickens' era, a minor holiday often viewed suspiciously by the Anglican Church of the time as having pagan roots. As such, it makes sense that the dominant theme of the work is social rather than religious. As Scrooge's nephew Fred puts it, "I have always thought of Christmas time…as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they were really fellow-passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

This sweeping, secular definition of Christmas is a call to a compassionate optimism that in those days was economically feasible only for the gentry. Today, in our hopefully more permeable society, it is an option open to us all. It is a choice we can shoulder in the face of a cynical pessimism that advocates behaviors and social policies that spring from a fear that some pernicious "other" will steal what is rightfully ours. Following this path of cynical pessimism leaves us as snarling dogs fighting over a single bone, blind to the feast that surrounds us.

Pessimism, then, is a self-protective worldview with its roots in fear. From the point of view of the pessimist, one must seek to beat a punitive fate to the punch. If I habitually assume the worst will happen, it hurts a little less when I am proven right.

Optimism however requires the courage of hope. Yes, things may go badly, but I choose to believe they will not. Furthermore, if things do go astray, I hope to have the courage to carry on and seek the silver lining of whatever clouds I may encounter.

It is this compassionate optimistic worldview that is Ebenezer Scrooge's legacy - should we choose to accept it. This is Dickens's pantheistic spirit of Christmas, the one his protagonist urges us to honor in our hearts. It is not a simplistic Pollyanna optimism. It is rather a worldview of hope chosen in the face of an often capricious realty. It comes with its share of bruises. But, more often it brings the gift of a quiet enlightenment that allows us to echo Tiny Tim - who remember, did not die - and say, "God bless us, everyone!"

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Bedtime Poetry

The problem with writing poetry 

In bed, in your head

Is that should you happen to stumble across

A good one

You either have to get up

And write it down

Or give in to the futile illusion 

That you will remember it

In the morning.

How The Internet is Killing Intimacy

George Strait sings a song called “Check Yes or No.” It is about passing notes in class, back in third grade. Part of the lyric goes like this:

"Do you love me? Do you want to be my friend? . . .

If you want to, I think this is how love goes,

Check yes or no.”

I remember my own embarrassment when my mother discovered my fifth-grade “list of the cutest girls in class.”  And then there was the summer when I made my normal visit to my Uncle Paul’s farm. This time I was tragically separated from my first “real girl friend.” I would scan the horizon looking for the dust cloud raised by the mail carrier’s truck. Upon spying it, I would leap upon my bike and pedal furiously down the seemingly endless lane to the mailbox. All the while humming the Marvelette’s refrain - “Please, please, Mr.Postman. Look and see. Is there a letter in your bag for me?”

That was the way love went back in those innocent days before the Internet. Words on paper. Words handwritten on paper. From hand to hand, from heart to heart. 

And not just for love-struck youngsters.  Who better than The Bard?

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate."

Much of Shakespeare’s life remains unknown. Scholars debate for whom Sonnet 18 was written. Yet, they agree it was probably intended for a particular lady, or perhaps a young man. As I said they debate - endlessly. However, I’d be willing to bet the farm that he did not compose those lines with his thumbs.

In that seeming simple time of my high school years, love and intimacy were far more private concerns.  As close as we got to posting our "status" on social media was exchanging ID bracelets or carrying your girlfriend’s books to class. That was harder than it sounds. We didn’t have backpacks. Just humongous binders upon which you stacked a dozen textbooks - his and hers - and strolled off to class with what you hoped was nonchalance. It that wasn’t love, what was?

Then the Internet went public in 1994. Ten years later Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook” and intimacy has never been the same.  I don’t know who first said, “Privacy is so 20th century.”  Zuckerberg has been accused of being the source - but I can find no reliable data to convict him. So, unlike the renamed Facebook, I will refrain from simply laying that damning  accusation at his feet with no proof.  But his creation is the easiest target to snipe at when seeking to lay blame for the destruction of private intimacy.

When we consider privacy in their world, I ask my students “What do you do if you want to send a message to one other person, and be sure that the other person is the only person who will have access to that message?” The major social media platforms quickly fall by the wayside because those pages usually fail to employ even the existing security tools and hence are easy to hack. Furthermore, I learn from the class discussion, one contemporary version of the “exchanging ID bracelets” from the '60s has become sharing, with your significant other, the passwords to your social media accounts. No, really, I am serious. Next, the latest incarnations of "The Disappearing Message” applications like Snapchat get short shrift due to a campus-wide brouhaha last year that was fueled by the swift distribution of such “private" messages that were captured by screen shots. 

We eventually stumble our way to two options. The first is the most frightening, and the most common. They simply accept that "privacy is so 20th century,” and they try to game the system. I recently sat in on a colleague’s class and was introduced to what I have come to think of as “hiding intimacy in plain sight.” Her students knew it as “sub-tweeting.”  They thought of it as a passive-agressive form of messaging.  As I understand it, you post on Twitter or some similar site a message that does not refer to a specific "other person." However, the context allows a group of others - or a specific other - to understand that the message is directed at a particular person, perhaps themselves.

I was surprised that the students seemed to agree that this strategy was a variant of cyberbullying, a tool to attack.  It strikes me, old 20th-century romantic that I am, that sub-tweeting could just as easily be employed as a subtle form of flirting. A digital version of "Check yes or no" that carries the kind of deniability so important in the fragile early years of dating: “Huh? Me? Sub-text to whom? Are you nuts? Oh. You think she does? Really? Cool!”

So fun. Maybe. But still the "hide intimacy in plain sight" strategy is based on accepting the idea that privacy really is impossible on the Internet. You accept that there is no way on the Internet to send a love letter or a sonnet - or, for a more prosaic example, a private message exploring a possible new job at a different company. Every Internet message, it seems, runs the risk of becoming a public document that can be hacked and distributed to people who can then turn it to whatever intention may please them.   

The second - and to many of my students utterly alien - solution is to actually write a message on a piece of paper. Then you put the letter in an envelope, write the name and address of the person for whom the letter is intended on the envelope. Buy a stamp. Put the stamp on the envelope. And put the letter in a mailbox.  Actually finding a mailbox may be a bit of a challenge. If you have a physical mailbox where you get shopping flyers and political junk mail you can usually mail things from there as well. Put the letter in the mailbox and raise the little flag on the side.  That will tell the mail carrier that there is a letter there to be picked up. They will be surprised. If your mail comes to a bank of mailboxes - look for one that says “Outgoing Mail” or something like that. Put your letter in there.   

I know it sounds silly to provide those step-by-step instructions for mailing a letter, but a friend told me that he had posed a similar "how do you send a private message" question to his students. They had come to the same "snail mail" conclusion. After class a young woman came up to him and asked for more information because she had never actually mailed anything in her entire life.

Oh, and another thing to remember about this whole "put it in an envelope and mail it" thing - it all has to be done by hand.  Once you turn on your tablet, phone or computer and start typing you have created a digital version of your letter. It is harder to hack that kind of "on my own machine" message than it is to hack a post on social media, but it is far from impossible. Remember, the question was “What do you do if you want to send a message to one other person, and be sure that they are the only person who will have access to that message?” 

We find ourselves forced to the conclusion that attempting intimate communication in digital space is a risky proposition, no matter what your tech guru or personal teenage consultants tell you. To make a message digital is to make it public and hackable, as so many of our politicians and celebrities continue to discover. 

True love and deep friendship visit rarely. It seems quite sad to think that we live in a world where the "new normal" channels of expression for the sharing of those precious emotions are fragile and untrustworthy. That realization may, in itself, be sufficient to chill the urgings of a cautious heart. 

Yet there may be good news here, not to mention a dearly needed uptick in business for the US postal services. The purveyors of fine stationary, fountain pens, calligraphy teachers, and sealing wax manufacturers likewise may take heart. Remember the second option.  

You take a piece of paper. You pick up your pen .  .  .   

On Computers and Chess and Go

On Computers and Chess and Go

The latest edition of New Scientist [October 21, 2017] reports that Google's super computer DeepMind no longer needs human modeling to devise ultra-sophisticated strategies in the ancient Japanese board game Go. This comes on the heels of myriad laments regarding the apparent impotence of human chess grand masters when confronted with computers like the newly crowned Komodo which according to ExtremeTech [March 15, 2016] "can reach an Elo rating as high as 3304 — about 450 points higher than Kasparov, or indeed any human brain currently playing chess." No, I don't know what an Elo rating is, but I assume I should be impressed. 

The implications in stories such as these are that we should worry that computers in league with Artificial Intelligence will relegate humanity to the sidelines of meaningful advances in, well, in what? Confronting computers in board games? Seriously now, how often do we do that? Light a fire in the hearth, open a nice bottle of brandy and invite R2D2 over for a nice game of chess?

Our paranoia regarding man versus machine is well entranced in our folklore. The ballad of John Henry tells the tale of a "steel-driving man" who successfully raced a steam-powered steel-driving engine. The victory however was short-lived as just after having been declared the winner, John Henry "laid down his hammer and he died."  Incidentally, John Henry is declared by a number of local residents to have been a real steel driver working for the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad's Big Bend tunnel in West Virginia. But that is not the point. The issue here is what do we ask of our machines, and should we be worried when they do it?

Behind a barn on my cousins Dean and Lori's farm in southeastern South Dakota is a "horsepower gear." It is a machine to which 1 to 4 horses could be hitched. The horses would walk around in a circle. The gear would translate that circular power to rotational power that could drive belts that could power a variety of other machines on the farm - conveyor belts, mill wheels, water pumps, etc. Machines like the horsepower gear shifted the need for muscle power from humans to horses and then to engines. So machines are tools designed to do the tasks that human beings don't want to do, or if we chose to do those tasks, would be an incredible waste of human muscle or brain power.

Now, there is no denying that throughout history machines have replaced human jobs. The Luddites broke up weaving mills, not because the technology was inherently bad. Actually quite the opposite, the mills were so efficient that they would replace the less efficient human weavers. Contemporary robots are replacing assembly line workers in factories like Tesla's "secret second floor" where the robots moved at such high speeds that their arms needed to be built from carbon fiber instead of steel. [Wired Backchannel 10.18.17] Robots like these will obviously reduce the number of human workers who can safely and efficiently move about a factory floor. 

The point is that we have always built machines that perform the jobs we don't want to do, or can't do simply because of our innate physical limitations.  To begin to judge our human efforts by the capabilities of our machines stands rationality on its head. I will never be able to compute the value of pi to several thousand places in less than a second. And why would I want to? Can we outrun a car, even a bicycle? Swim faster than a jet ski? Hoist more than a forklift? And let's not even think about airplanes, rockets and ocean liners. 

Similarly, why would I want to play chess or Go against a computer? If two human beings faced off across a game board and one could look up all the best moves and strategies in a huge database while the other had to relie on just their memory and instinct would we consider that match a fair assessment of their respective abilities? Of course not. But that is essentially what goes on when a human plays a computer. So by the normal rules of fair play, the computer is cheating. The results are no contest. The victories are meaningless.

And that is the point. We should not lament the fact that our machines surpass us at doing the jobs we don't want to do anyhow. It should not depress us if human beings lose games to machines designed to be "super cheaters" capable of not only stealing our playbook, but every playbook ever written.

Perhaps a better lesson to be drawn from these human versus machine events is not a consideration of how we might design ever better game-playing machines. Instead we might consider a deeper reflection on what fields of endeavor are uniquely human, beyond the ken of the most clever coder. 

I am uncomfortable with the Turing test that measures the ability of a computer program to trick human beings into believing that they are interacting with another human being and not a computer. To what end? To make our "in home personal assistants" like Siri and Alexa sound more human? Perhaps. And there may be value there, but not if we continue to treat these powerful machines like carnival attractions: Guess your weight! Tell me what cup the pea is under!

Here is a thought. Rather than trying to build a computer that can deceive our notion of humanity, why not seek to articulate notions of humanity that are utterly alien to the computational power of these machines?  Here are a few that spring to mind.

1. The soul. Despite absolutely no data to confirm the notion, most major faith-based communities espouse something like a "soul." Something that has - as of now - no discernible physical properties but is essential for a meaningful existence.
2. Life after death. Another belief with no objective data to support it that is widely spread throughout human society.
3. Love. Again we have, at best, only indirect evidence of its existence. Yet love is universally acclaimed as, if not the most powerful of human motivations, then certainly among the most powerful emotions that shape human behavior.
4. Creativity. We are constantly pushing the origins of human creativity further back in our time on the planet. While we quickly utilize every emerging technology in service to our creative impulses, the impulse to create, to express our feelings and perceptions exists independent of our machines.

There are undoubtedly more areas of human interest and concern that transcend the ability of our machines to manage or manipulate, let alone "understand" in anything like the human notion of understanding. That is not to say that we cannot harness the impressive power of our machines in service to these uniquely human arenas. But it strikes me as imperative that we need to reassess the relationship between the machines and their makers and mentors. I really don't care too much about the raw power of chess or Go playing computers. I care very much about how that power is harnessed in service to humanity. I am all in favor of the technological advances that free me from the mundane activities of everyday. So AI,  please, go ahead. Find my keys. Better yet, drive my car. Do my taxes. Wash the dishes, do the laundry. Even diagnose illness, compound medicines, perform surgery. We have human mentors who can guide you in those important tasks.

That leaves me more time to write and draw and listen to music, to go for a walk. That frees me up to reflect on all those uniquely human concerns that, I'm sorry Alexa, you just don't understand. And Siri, with all those "in service to humanity tasks" on your plate do you really have time to be playing chess?

Walking the Peaceful Path

Dear Friends and Family  - 

I finished writing this the day before the horrific manifestation of insanity that ripped the nation from Las Vegas during the first days of October.  My initial inclination was to hold off sharing it with you as a sign of respect for those whose lives were torn apart in that eruption of violence. On further reflection it occurs to me that this might be exactly the right time to send it. We are living in a time when our culture, our politicians, even our entertainment seems to glory in violent divisiveness. Perhaps if there were more expressions of serenity to surround us, little bits of sanity, our world might slowly reconfigure itself as a more gentle and compassionate place. It is in that hope that I offer the following post. 

- Peace, 

RLS

Walking the Peaceful Path

A new “imagining” has presented itself to me over the last few weeks. Actually it isn’t completely new, it is rather sort of an extension of a previous mental construction. I have written before about using the image of the front porch of the house in which I was raised as a meditation device to get rid of the clutter of the day, easing me out of the waking world into sleep for a nap or through the night. 

For the “porch sessions" I employ either classical music or my favorite tracks from Naturespace along with noise canceling headphones to block the external world. Next, I imagine the porch with a host of tennis balls scattered about. The tennis balls are, of course, the phone calls, meetings, obligations, and irritating individuals that I have encountered during the course of the day. I take the conveniently available broom and chase the tennis balls off the porch chanting, “Get off my porch! Get off my porch!” Sometimes a ball or two prove unusually resistant. In those instances, I simply grab a new broom, which .  .  . well, you know, sweeps clean. 

One night, I had finished sweeping the porch while listening to the Naturespace track Stream of Consciousness. No big surprise there, it is a recording of a rushing but still sonorous stream. Anyhow, I had cleaned the porch and found myself at the front door of the house. I usually never go inside - not really sure why.  I’ll have to think about that. But this time I did.  Nothing terribly surprising inside. The familiar upright piano rested against the wall immediately to my left. The sofa claimed its spot between twin windows that faced the street to my right. The large oval braided rug where we would race marbles around the ridges covered the center of the floor. The cobblers bench with the drawer where playing cards, jacks, little rubber balls and other small games were stored, anchored the center of the rug.  Dad’s collection of pipes hung above the bookcase that sat next to the easy chair by the vintage gas fireplace along the far left-hand wall. Beyond the fireplace a stretch of waist-high built-in bookcases completed the wall. They held my parent's books. Weighty tomes with dark spines, titles writ in small letters. I remember none of them.  

But the wall opposite me - that should have looked out across the driveway to the neighbor's house next door - was wrong. There was a large door in the right-hand corner of the room, where no door should be. Even now I’m not exactly sure what should have been along that wall. TV set in the corner I think? Record player? Bookcase? Maybe all of those. But now there was just this door. Naturally, I opened it and stepped through.  

I’m not really sure what to call the space into which I stepped. Technically it was a loggia, which Wikipedia tells us is "an architectural feature which is a covered exterior gallery or corridor usually on an upper level, or sometimes ground level. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns or arches.” That pretty well defines it. It was a long white corridor, but quite dim since it was night. The stream ran along the open right-hand side, clearly audible, but out of sight and seemingly below the floor level. The open wall was supported by simple white pillars, every eight feet or so. Several paces down the corridor a table lamp cast a warm glow over two easy chairs gathered around a small white wicker table identical to the one behind me on the porch.  I could see that the pattern of "dark path leading to illuminated resting space” was repeated as far as I could see. "Very cool,” I thought as I wandered down the corridor listening to the stream. I would occasionally stop and sit down.  There must be some couches along the way, because sometimes I would lie down and doze off.

This mental construction is, as I said, an extension of the front porch meditation. But the effect is almost the opposite. The porch is an exercise in mindfulness.  The loggia is an exercise in mindlessness.  Let me explain.

The porch allows me to call to mind the irritants of the day, identify them with their unique tennis ball, and smack them off the porch, maybe not resolved, but hopefully out of sight and out of mind.

The loggia is simply a peaceful path. There are no books or magazines on the tables. The chairs and sofas are without resistant surfaces.  I float on them. The only sound is the stream. Beyond the loggia there is an occasional hint of light off water. There is the slight taste of cool air wafting in from the calm space beyond. The mind drifts untethered. Occasionally, a series of connected thoughts intrudes. Remnants, perhaps from the battle on the porch. Like unruly children, they seem oblivious to the rules of behavior that govern this space.  I arise and meander on down the loggia until I leave their quarrelsome yapping behind. The stream again asserts itself. The easy chairs beckon. I sit. It reclines. Calm rules. Thoughts drift off down the path. I am at peace.

Naturespace URL: [http://www.naturespace.org/]

Metaphor, Supersymmetry and the Original Singularity

I lie in bed.

Birds serenade the sun.

The day begins.

I gather the thought carefully.

Deep within the center of my consciousness.

Molding each particle of power to Zen-like purity.

I fling the command into the universe.

“Coffee! Make thyself!”

Silence. Failure. Despair.

The semester begins and I fight a more than normal disorientation.  With the exception of teaching my online course, I have been pretty much "off the grid" for the last two months. We have been vacationing and visiting friends and family - West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, South Dakota. No doubt some Wall postings will spring from those rambles. But in the midst of them, often the richness of immediate experiences overwhelms any directly related musings.  Instead, when I drift off into Alternia - that cotton-swathed land that hovers somewhere between the sleeping and the waking world - my thoughts tend to be even less firmly tethered than usual to the reality churning before open eyes.  These are some of them. 

The third tenet of Distilled Harmony, Distill Complexity, derives from the assertion - based on my own observations and the far less subjective work of others in a variety of disciplines - that often what initially appears complex is actually far less so. Consider E=mc².  Einstein's five symbols fundamentally altered our perception of the universe. We most often interpret them as five symbols that point the way to comprehending the incredible complexity of the physical reality in which we exist. Yet, it strikes me that perhaps that notion results from looking through the wrong end of the telescope leading us to that conclusion: "E=mc² reveals the awesome complexity of the universe." A glance from the other end of the telescope may yield a more helpful perspective: "The awesome complexity of the universe points us to the refreshing simplicity of E=mc²." We should move from the complex to the simple, not the other way around.  Distill complexity. 

Reflecting on life from the perspective of “complexity distilled” leads to some interesting reflections. Consider, for example, the relationship between metaphor and reality. A colleague of mine used to warn against "getting stuck to the metaphor." It is a concern that grows naturally from the extensive use of metaphor in teaching. Because of our real world experience with spiders’ webs, using the "World-Wide-Web" as a metaphor for the Internet creates a powerful representation of the connectedness of the Internet. Similarly our experiences on highways allows the metaphor of "the information superhighway" to capture the dynamic notion of how information both flows over, but can also become congested on, the Internet.  These are indeed helpful metaphors.  But the warning not to get “stuck” on them grows from Korzybski’s general semantics assertion that "the word is not the thing, the map is not the territory."

Maybe so, maybe not.  Consider the extent to which the global positioning system - aka the gps - actually has become the territory. The little screen often takes precedence over the “real” world passing by outside the vehicle even when we know "she" (No, I don’t know why the voice always seems to be female.) is wrong.  The “reality” of the gps may signal a similar, more widespread rise in the dominance of the metaphor. This makes me wonder if the traditional idea that "the map is not the territory" aka "the metaphor is not the reality" may be giving complexity unwarranted precedence over a more distilled option. 

OK. It's going to get a little strange now. Bear with me as I consider the relationship between metaphor and supersymmetry.  Supersymmetry is a concept in theoretical physics.  More specifically in quantum mechanics, that posits a specific set of related particles. If you have particle A, supersymmetry demands that particle B must exist to "partner" particle A.  And that is really as far as I am going to go with supersymmetry in its normal world of particle physics. I am more interested in what supersymmetry may teach us about metaphor and "reality."  

Remember the reason for metaphor.  Metaphor, when properly constructed, distills complexity. It makes the complicated clear. I wonder if there is more to metaphor than that, something far deeper.  Just as the complexity of the universe points to E=mc², perhaps all the metaphors that clarify a particular reality, are also a part of that underlying reality. And that each of those clarifying metaphors, being an actual part of that underlying reality, can increase our understanding of the underlying reality. This asserts that a kind of supersymmetry unites those related metaphors, and that by "getting stuck" to any one of a group of supersymmetrical metaphors allows us to further distill the underlying reality - to approach the "E=mc²" - that unites that cluster of metaphors. So each metaphor can become an actual tool for understanding and utilizing the underlying reality. Just as the physics and geometry of various flying and gliding creatures aid in the design of planes, drones, gliders, etc., the "sticky" parts of each related metaphor help us to better understand the underlying reality of the supersymmetrical metaphor cluster. 

And that's not all! Stranger still! Don't forget entanglement! If we hop over to quantum mechanics for a moment, we learn that when two particles become "entangled," a change to any property of one particle is instantly reflected in the other particle regardless of the distance between the two particles - Einstein's "spooky action at a distance."  Chinese scientists recently demonstrated entanglement over a distance of some 1200 kilometers.  Look in one end of that telescope and the complexity is overwhelming.  I mean how can that be? How do the two particles know how to change? If the information regarding the change travels from one particle to the other “instantly” the information must be traveling faster than the speed of light and that is the Mother of all physics no-nos. 

But if we look in the other end of the telescope - distilling the complexity - a different reality comes into focus: there aren’t really two particles.  There is only one particle connected in ways we do not yet understand. We will understand how eventually, and scientists of that future will wonder how we overlooked such a simple connection. 

Perhaps the same kind of simple connection underlies the supersymmetrical metaphor cluster. There is only one reality being described by the cluster. We fail to recognize it because looking in the complexity inducing end of the telescope reveals what appears to be a complicated scattering of metaphors. It is only when we peer through the distilling end of the telescope that we see the unified reality. And, that takes me to the last, and perhaps most outrageous conjecture of this post. 

Again, bear with me. We fail to see that what we believe to be two entangled particles are really one particle because we can manipulate their physical properties in such a way that our measuring devices report the existence of two particles which nevertheless act as one. Metaphors also appear to describe varying realities that nonetheless appear to act as one. In both situations we appear to have identical realities that somehow became separated.  

But what if they haven't really become separated - but rather have been stretched to such an extent that they appear to us as separate? And where might they have been originally unified - upstretched?  At what where/when point of compression of information was the underlying reality and all its related metaphors “unseparated,” “unstretched?” Yes, I'm afraid that is where I am heading. Back to the original singularity before the Big Bang.  It was the Big Bang and the resultant instant of inflation of the universe that drove everything, particles, the realities underlying metaphors, everything apart. So, it was the birth of the universe that created the illusion of separateness, and the resultant mask of complexity. 

And what was the reason for the instant of the inflation of the original/ singularity? And will the universe continue to expand? Or will the expanding universe eventually meet the expanding edges of other universes and coalesce into new more informed singularities that continue to compress until some concentration of information demands a new inflation? And again and again and again, universes without end. 

So what? I hate it when I go rushing through this torrent of suppositions and come to what seems a logical insight only to be faced with the wet towel of "So what?"  I have a bit of an answer that seems to fit with the current torrent: Things are not as complicated as they seem. Look for what makes reality - people, ideas, beliefs, philosophies, facts - the same. Look for commonalities, not differences. Distill Complexity. 

Egocentrism: The Stage Piaget Forgot

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Jean Piaget's inclination to base his theory of cognitive development on the progressive stages he observed in the behaviors of his own children pretty well guaranteed that everyone past "a certain age" would get passed over by his system.  Not only was he never able to observe his kids when they were older than he was - a bizarre but interesting notion - but, in addition, back in the early 1900s, there weren't many people old enough to have entered this proposed fifth stage as part of a natural developmental progression.

I began to become increasingly aware of the "egocentrism stage" as my own father moved through his 80s and 90s on his way to the century mark.  The egocentrism stage is marked by an increasing certainty that you are right about everything. But, unlike politicians and religious fundamentalists who often make these claims regardless of age, "egocentrists" don't make their claims in the absence of data. Rather their claims are based on the notion that their own longevity has exposed them to all the necessary data to support whatever claims they chose to make. No further data is required. Been there, done that. My unique data is sufficient to support my assertion.

A couple of examples:

When Dad was into his eighties - maybe even a touch older - we were playing golf.  The foursome behind us drove a ball fairly close to our position. Golf etiquette calls for a glance back at the following group, who usually wave and non-verbally indicate "Sorry!" And the game goes on. That tradition was observed. But after we teed off on the next hole and the following foursome of middle-aged business types approached Dad remarked in his finest professorial voice, "Hit that one a bit close, eh, boys?"  Sort of a "tradition be damned, I'll decide when comment is necessary" perspective. Under ideal conditions I would have invited them to play through, but the course was already pretty crowded so it wouldn't have made any difference. Instead, I just quickly waved, and as I was driving the cart, sent us scurrying down the fairway. 

Around that same time my wife and I took Dad to one of our favorite galleries, sadly now much altered, in Long Grove, Illinois.  Dad seemed to be enjoying himself amidst the paintings, sculpture and jewelry.  But then he paused before an admittedly rather strange contemporary piece hanging on the wall. After a moment of reflection he announced in a voice that easily carried to the owner at the front desk - and anyone in between: "Well. I wouldn't hang that in my toilet!" His notion seemed to be that if you hang it here, I have every right to tell you what I think of it. And loudly.

But the egocentrism stage rests not so much on intentional rudeness, as it does on an inclination to give the knee-jerk certainties in our head free access to our vocal cords.  And at the same time, giving little if any thought as to how our words might impact others. Most often it is not a good thing.

Toddlers, as they move blithely through Piaget's earlier stages, have to be taught how to be civil in society - another concept that currently seems sadly much altered. But as adults, who are all hopeful of reaching the age when egocentrism rears its unpleasant head, we need to consciously confront looming egocentrism. At mere months shy of 69, I occasionally feel its early stirrings. I mean, I'm right. Right? :-) The challenge, as implied in the previous paragraph, is to not give those egocentric certainties unfettered access to your vocal cords.

The fourth tenet of Distilled Harmony - Oppose Harm - speaks to this issue. When we consider opposing harm, we most often think about confronting the "bad guy."  However, in this instance - to quote Walt Kelly's famous 1971 line from Pogo - "We have met the enemy, and he is us!” Hence, in this instance, opposing harm can benefit from an ancient concept, now often attributed to Thumper the rabbit in Disney's 1942 classic Bambi: "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." 

Being pleasant isn't always easy, and apparently it becomes more difficult when the "certainties" we acquire over an increasingly long life come into conflict with the differing perceptions of others. We all have a friend or acquaintance deep in the throes of egocentrism. My advice is to keep them in mind, listen to the words that come out of their mouths, especially the ones that bruise. Do not speak those words.  Do not become that person.

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Beauty Part 2

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I have been thinking about the word "eustress" for awhile.  It is one of those words that almost never comes up in conversation, but for which you can imagine lots of possible uses:

"While excavating a new subway line in Rome, workers were stunned to encounter a remarkably well-preserved 3000 year-old Eustressian Temple.”  or

"Scientists at NASA discovered that when placed under extreme pressure between diamond plates, eustress will form precise layers of crystals with unique characteristics."

In reality it has a very different meaning: eustress is "good" stress. Stress that makes you feel good, even exhilarated.  I have a friend whose daughter is an accomplished  "rock climber." I have seen videos of the teenager hanging by her fingertips above empty spaces that make me more than a little queasy. But the youngster is obviously delighted. Hence, the same situation engenders polar opposite reactions in two individuals - eustress for the young climber, distress in me.  

So it seems to me that I had short-changed the notion of beauty in my previous post about "enable beauty."  I would still assert that beauty is the stuff of dreams, while a variety of artists create "art" more suited to our nightmares.

But I would short change beauty if I were to ignore the fact that beauty also can be divided into two parts: tranquility and exhilaration.  And exhilaration is where eustress comes in. My own strong inclination to tranquility makes it more difficult for me to imagine an artwork that I find "eustressian" - exhilarating.  In the world outside of galleries the examples are rampant - thunderstorms, waterfalls, fireworks, and for some, I understand, roller coasters.  So, as I think about it, it strikes me that I have missed some of these exhilarating works within the traditional realm of the arts: Architecture -  Frank Gehry’s works.  The Anasazi constructions in the four corners area of the American Southwest.  Sculpture also springs to mind. The Winged Victory of Samothrace and Michelangelo's David.  Music - well, of course. The myriad of works that set our feet tapping, or move us to some "air guitar," or even "air conducting." Yes, eustress lives there.  Another yin-yang duality circling within the yang of beauty proposed in the previous post. 

I'll continue to think about it.  Your suggestions are always welcome :-)

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