My Blog entries came to a screeching halt a year and half ago, although it seems much longer to me. Time seems to be moving very quickly and very slowly at the same time. It seems like I have a birthday every few months, but then events that happened not very long ago seem to have happened a much longer time ago. I blame some of this on age, but I’d rather not dwell too much on that three-letter word. My body is screaming at me that I’m getting older, but my mind — for the most part — still feels like 40. My life seems to have veered into two, or maybe more, intertwined worlds. One world is a surreal visionary combination of Salvador Dali, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini with twists of Luis Buñuel and David Lynch, while the other world is intensely real — whatever that means — and riddled with the suffering indicative of being alive, while also riddled with moments of joy and clarity. Surprisingly, these seemingly different worlds occur in conjunction with one another. The last year and a half, but actually more like seven years, has been a joyful, painful, insightful, and very bizarre and surreal period of time.
In the midst of caring for one of my sons, who’s been chronically ill for 18 years and living his own version of a real—surreal, painful—joyful life, my own body’s aging issues — daily headaches, brain fog, and ongoing muscle and joint revolts, and a wide assortment of everyday life issues with home and car repairs, fighting with corporations who wrongly bill for services or goods not provided, and other issues that seem to be indicative of collapsing social systems. During this particularly intense past 18 months, I haven’t been particularly productive in terms of writing or working on other projects. I’ve started writing a book that has been gurgling along for a couple of decades. But, this project seems to have fallen into a rut in the fast lane construction zone. I’ve started a couple dozen articles and blogs, but they are backed up in long lines of bumper-to-bumper traffic. I’ve also dabbled in several photographic and multi-media projects, but most of these are still in various stages of development.
How do you like these excuses for not accomplishing anything?
But, this very question is a symptom of our real—surreal world. “Accomplishing” is like the gnawing desire to speed along in the fast lane… weaving in and out of traffic… avoiding any connection to the real people in their cars, while tail-gating and cutting them off, barely avoiding collisions, just to get where you’re going a minute or two earlier. But, it’s an adrenalin-rush… that could be deadly… but rarely resulting ins a traffic stop and speeding ticket. Yesterday, I was keeping up with the flow of most of the traffic in a 65 mph speed zone, but going 75 mph, when a state trooper drove by going at least 85 mph. He or she was just cruising by and not in pursuit. “Accomplishing” something just like trying to get somewhere faster and “better.” It’s factory work on steroids. Wanting to produce more, more, more, while desiring more, more, more money and “stuff.” While I was seemingly not “accomplishing” much over the past year and a half, I actually did quite a bit. I help my son with food, appointments, shopping, house repairs, and, I really hope, with maintaining some sense of well-being and some progress (whatever this is) in dealing with his wicked illness that most doctors just don’t understand, and don’t want to understand. I did more plumbing in his house, my other son’s. house, and my own house in the past couple of years, than I’ve done in my entire life… and, of course, I really dislike plumbing… much more than electrical, which isn’t far behind, structural, and painting. And, my aging body doesn’t like any of them any more. I hope I helped alleviate some of the intense stress for my wife in dealing with many of the same issues. However, I also managed to think about all sorts of topics and issues, I want to develop into various writing and/or multimedia projects. I have taken notes and written paragraphs, taken photos, recorded videos, and sketched out various ideas. Will I “accomplish” anything? Well, I already have. I’ve delved into many topics, read more in these areas, and hopefully learned something in the process. But, hopefully, I will produce some of this material for public consumption, but most will probably stay in my notebooks. I still love physical notebooks, but also use notebook apps on my phone and computer. But, there is something deeper, more flexible, and more aesthetically pleasing and stimulating about writing with various colored pens and pencils in real paper notebooks. Many of my notes will never move beyond the notebooks, but will always be there to ponder and expand upon. Others may make their way to documents or other types of projects. But, for me, time is running out…. it’s something I ponder more often now as age is taking on a new meaning that is both real and surreal at the same instant.
And, the idea of using AI to write blog entries and papers is somewhere beyond abhorrent, repulsive, and frightening.
Writing is a wonderful process that involves something like pulling teeth, sitting in a sauna then diving into cold water, and watching the sun rise over the ocean beach with the vibrancy of many lives waking up …. birds flying and singing, fiddler crabs looking for food, insects combing the beaches, fish jumping out of the water, and, maybe a deer or two walking along the dunes. Writing is both difficult and easy. It is cathartic, stimulating, clarifying. It points out very clearly what you don’t know. It helps you explore new crevices in your world. Writing is a set of processes of learning and growing. AI is none of these things. It’s hollow, lifeless, value-less, ….. (add your own descriptors and 4-letter words).
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SOME OF MY THOUGHTS & PONDERINGS OVER THE PAST 18-MONTHS
BOOK — LEARNING & EPISTEMOLOGY — BUT WITH A MUCH CATCHIER & CREATIVE TITLE
Sounds boring and lifeless, but I’ve been trying to bring this project to life. I want to push away from the jargon and stifled writing styles of academia — styles of writing that are mindless, but formulaic and easy to do. What I’m trying to do in this book is look at learning as a fundamental set of processes that are descriptive of all living things. This perspective tries to stretch our understandings of shared experiences, but also our understandings of diverse and wonderfully complex differences. “Epistemology” is used, from the perspective of Gregory Bateson, to describe how we and all living things organize our own personal and socially-shared knowledge. I’m hoping this book will be of interested and helpful to teachers, future teachers, parents, and researchers, if they can stand reading a less formally and academically written book.
PROBLEMS WITH DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
This is not at all in my area of expertise, but has become a growing and increasingly important issue to ponder. We’re now in the midst of crumbling political, economic, and social systems…. and not just here in the United States, but in countries around the world. Democracy seems to be completely unstable, with no viable ways of self-correcting. Autocracies are gnawing at the bit and threatening democratic forms of governments from both the inside and outside, like internal and external parasites. But, those autocracies that do exist are not doing well either. The entire set of nations is wobbling out of control. Our futures are more uncertain than ever before. And, all of this uncertainty and crumbling of social and political “structures” are occurring in a world of dwindling resources, a population that is completely unsustainable, and a growing divisiveness among people within nations and between nations. There is no ONE solution… and even MANY solutions may not be enough. So many intertwined and interdependent patterns of being and living and believing and thinking and desiring … And, to make it all work again is seemingly out of reach. Change can’t be forced upon others. Change happens whether we like it or not. And, all of humanity is unable to control the change. It seems that all we can hope for is to somehow find a way to get along with each other and to develop the flexibility to adjust to the changes occurring throughout the biosphere. Empathy and a sense of humor may be very helpful in this regard.
LEARNING & THE FEAR OF LEARNING PARADOX
I continue to be flummoxed by the fear of learning that appears to be ubiquitous within the United States, and many other countries. I can understand, but do not like or support, governments that intentionally dumb down children and adult students, so that they pose very little threat to the perpetuation of the power elite. But, people’s fears of learning is baffling to me. We have the capability of learning all kinds of things, but what we learn doesn’t necessarily have to threaten our personal or culture beliefs or our ways of being. We are quite capable of learning about autocrats without becoming an autocrat, or learning about psychopathology without becoming a psychopath, or learning about all religions without believing in one or any of them. Of course, this paradoxical situation is much more complex and is a situation I continue to explore.
THE DISCONNECTS & SCHISMOGENESIS BETWEEN SCIENCE & THE GENERAL POPULATION — OR — MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF SCIENCE AS PROPAGATED BY SCIENTISTS, SCIENCE TEACHERS, THE MEDIA, & POLITICIANS
Very little attention is paid to how scientists and the institutions of science have perpetuated and continue to perpetuate certain misrepresentations of science, barriers to understanding science as a process, and barriers to understanding scientific concepts. Scientists, as well as teachers, the media, and politicians exacerbate these disconnects, misrepresentations, and barriers to varying degrees. In addition, the institution of science and its members often portray themselves as intellectual elites and use ways of communicating that prevent even the educated public from understanding almost anything that is communicated. Science teachers pass on the same misrepresentations, since the vast majority have learned from the very scientists who perpetuate the somewhat misleading nature of science and scientists. The media and politicians can and often do twist everything about science even further out of whack. People are left confused, misled, and in a very mucky muddle of misunderstandings. No wonder people don’t trust scientists and doctors and are drifting into “anti-science” stance.
PANDEMIC OF DISTRUST
For millennia, distrust seems to have been a staple of leaders… from family clans and tribes to nation. But, in the everyday lives of people, trust was a necessary ingredient of relationships with others. Of course, the whole notion of “trust” has issues. Putting total trust in someone else, even in oneself, can be risky. There is a long history of a trusted leader turning around and killing his or her “trusted” advisor. Personally, I trusted my Doberman Pinscher more than I’ve trusted just about any person. And, I suspect she trusted me more than any other person, but I’ll never know. As for trusting oneself, I keep a little slogan by my desk and try to remember to repeat it to myself often: “Don’t believe everything you think.” My own thoughts can certain turn around and bite my butt, poison me, or lead me astray. However, relationships that depend on a fair degree of trust are beginning to fall apart as that trust is being destroyed. We see this collapse between doctors and patients, journalists and readers, parents and children, teachers and children, law enforcement and citizens, politicians and voters, priests—rabbis—pastors—mullahs—gurus—other-spiritual-leaders and their followers, and so on. What happens when such relationships fall apart? We’ve seen some of the consequences, but how have you experienced this collapse in trust? Although the demise of trust can have huge effects on large groups of people, such loss of trust can have very deep and devastating effects at a very personal level.
THE POLITICS OF HEALTHCARE & THE PROPAGATION OF LYING & DISTRUST: THE PATHOLOGIES OF DOCTOR—PATIENT RELATIONSHIPS
As politicians, the judicial system, and law enforcement systems take more and more control over healthcare, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare workers are being caught up in incredibly awful double binds. They have to dispense medications according to some randomly formulated algorithm that has no relationship to the complexity of and variability among individual patients. Doctors can have their licenses revoked or end up in prison for caring about his or her patients and for making informed decisions about their care. Patients can end up in prison or psychiatric wards for trying to deal with their health issues when doctors can’t take the types of steps that need to be taken. And, then there is a public uproar about sick people committing suicide or becoming addicted to some street drug, when the care they need isn’t and can’t be provided. And, it’s the rare health professional who has some understanding about what “addiction” is and is NOT. Certainly, politicians, media pundits, and media commentators are clueless. Addiction is a deeply transcontextual or multi-contextual issue. While the “object” of addiction, such as oxycodone or morphine, is always blamed as the great evil monster, the object is only a part of the complete story. Addiction always involves the context of one’s own cognitive contexts. We are very good at making up stories and justifications for our actions, and justifying the taking of a particular drug is just one of many rationales for any kind of addiction. But, there are always one or more other contexts involved in addiction, as well. Someone, who is under incredible stress in the workplace or living in a dysfunctional family or trying to cope with being stuck in poverty or whatever, can often be driven to finding some way to cope with all these intense situations through addiction. Addiction is a way of learning to cope. It may not be a very healthy way of learning, but it is nevertheless a way of learning. And, most of us are addicted to one or more “things,” though we probably don’t want to admit it. Some common “objects” of addiction may include, Facebook, texting, Fox “News(????),” electronic games, gambling, TV, shopping, chocolates, anger, sexual gratification, hate, guns, aggression, our own ideas of who we are, and on and on. — And, here we are in the middle of a dangerous muddle of double binds, fear, anger, desperation, confusion, agony, despair, and nowhere to go, no one to trust, and seemingly helpless to make a difference.
THE DYNAMICS OF RELATIONSHIPS, IDENTITIES, & PERSONAL FEELINGS ACROSS GROUPS AND COMMUNITIES — THE STICKINESS, STUCKNESS, SUCKINESS, BUT HOPEFULNESS OF PEOPLE IN GROUPS
More and more frequently, I find myself pondering how humans almost always find ways to make things very difficult, painful, stressful, and confusing for themselves. I don’t think bacteria, fungi, plants, or any other kind of animal is quite as adept of creating such bizarre situations for themselves. Pondering such contrasts seems to lead back to the question of “what is intelligence?” Somehow one’s ability to survive as both an individual and as a group or species should be a characteristic result or process of intelligence. If that is the case, bacteria, fungi, many plants, and many animals seems to be much more intelligent than us. At the same time, there are glimmers of hope, when people’s courage, creativity, empathy and compassion, insight, and selflessness shine through and illuminate, even if just for a moment, our lives as humans. The processes involved in these contrasting tendencies are fascinating and complexly intertwined in ways that are often quite befuddling. But, maybe this befuddling quality is where human creativity and hope lie… if we can just figure out how to manifest this creative befuddlement in ways that will help humanity survive.
I’ll post Part 2 of this list of ideas I’ve been pondering as soon as I can. Please stop back, leave comments &/or questions, and share your thoughts and experiences.