tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56057227094794320312024-03-24T16:33:53.895-07:00Yoga, Cycling, and PotProfessor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-29839188150850429052023-09-12T12:59:00.006-07:002023-09-12T13:01:20.699-07:00Future<p>Here’s my advice: you should treat your future self in accordance with the Golden Rule.</p><p>Most of us don’t do that most of the time.</p><p>We consistently burden the poor soul with everything we don’t feel like doing: the dishes, our taxes, those ten pounds we’d like to lose. We expect who we are tomorrow to take care of all the things who we are today would rather put off.</p><p>Is that fair?</p><p>If we treated our future self the way we’d like to be treated, we'd never procrastinate; we’d never leave dirty pots and pans in the sink, and we’d certainly never drink to excess the night before tomorrow. But instead, we routinely expect the future version of ourselves to clean up after our messes. The lack of respect for that person by this person is not just inconsiderate, it’s downright immoral.</p><p>Our future self has every right to consider our present self to be a jerk, a selfish asshole who’s only interested in their own comfort and convenience. If I were them (and, of course, I will be eventually), I’d entirely disown me and want to have nothing to do this creep anymore, ever.</p><p>Unfortunately for our future self, there’s no escaping the present version of who we are—except via death. The only way to avoid being encumbered by actions and non-actions of who we are now is to no longer be at all—a drastic option to be sure.</p><p>Still, our future self might make that threat to our present self: if you don’t shape up and start treating me better, I’ll check out altogether. Then see who’ll pick up after you!</p><p>Maybe this would put the fear of God (or, at least nothingness) into our present self. Maybe then, we’d treat our future self with more respect, as we should.</p><p>But probably not. Our present self would just blame our past self. They should have taken care of this years ago, right?</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-24897752841229811302023-08-08T12:21:00.005-07:002023-08-08T12:22:29.403-07:00Entertained<p>I recall reading a Gore Vidal quote that went something like, “the main aspiration of the contemporary world is to be the best-entertained generation in history.” And while I can’t find it online, I’ll nevertheless ascribe it to the late great curmudgeon and note that he opined this view well before the days of cellphones, YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok.</p><p>If society’s highest goal was to be well-entertained before 2012, when Vidal died, then now, it’s that ambition on steroids; it seems all anyone cares about these days is the latest episodic series or viral video or blockbuster film; everywhere I look, I see people staring at their screens consuming content.</p><p>I suppose this is no different, at its core, than our hunter-gatherer ancestors observing their environments, taking in the latest sights and smells, but the fact that it’s material created by other humans for the entertainment of other humans seems to add a different wrinkle. Vidal bemoaned the dearth of readers for the writer; he’d need not be worried about the plethora of viewers for the video content creator.</p><p>I think there’s something to be said for reducing our appetite for entertainment. If we can manage to make it through a bus ride or a doctor’s waiting room without turning to our phones for the latest installment of Whatever by Whomever, that might be a good thing. At the very least, cultivating such a reduced craving for amusement could be beneficial to the political process; perhaps we’d become less swayed by candidates’ presentations and more attuned to their substance—assuming there is any substance there to be swayed by.</p><p>I’m not suggesting we should eschew entertainment altogether; surely, the artistic merit of such creative works counts among the finest of all human endeavors; I’d rather have us be known for Shakespeare, or even “Breaking Bad” than the atom bomb.</p><p>However, astute readers will recognize I’m doing my part here to keep the overall entertainment value in check</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-50434725056570763562023-08-07T11:27:00.006-07:002023-08-07T11:27:49.603-07:00Errands<p>Nicholson Baker’s debut novel, <i>The Mezzanine</i>, takes place, in its entirety, during a lunch hour escalator ride of an office worker who is returning from an errand to buy new shoelaces—if I recall correctly. Several hundred pages of ruminations on all sorts of subjects unfold in this short span of time, demonstrating beautifully how our entire lives—inner lives, anyway—occur while we’re doing the most mundane of things. These little errands make up the outward substance of our lives; meanwhile, all our thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears, memories, idle fantasies, and so comprise what’s happening on the inside.</p><p>That’s where the real juice is.</p><p>So, I try not to be too concerned that my summer days often involve nothing more than one or more small errands. Maybe, from the outside, I do little else than cycle to the grocery store for coffee and butter, or pedal over to the library to return a book, but on the inside, lots is happening: I’m writing novels, solving the climate crisis, and coming up with a strategy to ensure that the Mariners will make the playoffs. </p><p>You can’t see this happening, but it is.</p><p>Besides, after all, what else do most of us really do with our lives, anyway, other than run errands? Sure, old Will Shakespeare wrote those plays, and Albert Einstein invented spacetime and the atom bomb, but didn’t they still have to buy toothpaste and dishwashing soap or its Elizabethan-slash-Edwardian era analogues? And wouldn’t that be where they got their best thinking done?</p><p>Of late, I’ve spent a morning buying new tires for my daughter’s car; I’ve ridden to the one pharmacy in the entire Seattle area that sells <i>Old Spice</i> aftershave; I’ve pedaled across town to purchase handstand slabs for yoga from the <i>Friendly Foam Shop</i>; I’ve gone to the library at least a dozen times to pick up and drop off books; I’ve checked out a baseball card shop to see if they’d buy some collectable cards I inherited; I’ve gone shopping by bike almost every day; I’ve been to the wine shop, the fish store, the farmer’s market, the co-op, the supermarket, the Asian grocery, the Indian grocery, the liquor store, the weed dispensary, the bike shop, the optician, the medical clinic, the hardware store, the pet shop, the watch repairman, the barber, and even Trader Fucking Joe’s.</p><p>So many errands; so much thinking.</p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-17563348862179053622023-08-05T14:28:00.007-07:002023-08-05T14:28:58.567-07:00Travail<p>Everywhere I look—and nearly everywhere I don’t, as well—people are working.</p><p>The roofers roofing next door, the painters painting across the alley, the gardeners gardening down the street; everyone’s busy with their business.</p><p>I go to the store, and there, the cashiers are cashing; I ride my bike down to the beach, and lifeguards are lifeguarding; I walk the dog and from the open windows of houses up and down the street, I hear people on Zoom calls zooming with their clients and co-workers.</p><p>A house is being built across the way: there are plumbers and electricians and sheet-rockers and a team of guys whose job it is to build a retaining wall with huge concrete blocks; the architect and developer study the building plans spread out on the hood of a pickup truck.</p><p>If somebody takes a lunch break, they go to the corner store where the owner works sixteen-hour days; a delivery truck driver wheels in cartons of potato chips; everyone’s doing something.</p><p>I head over to the library and even though I do self-checkout of my books, the librarians still have to catalogue and shelve; no rest for the weary, as they say, nor much of any, either, for those who got a good night’s rest.</p><p>Some journalist has worked on the story I read on my preferred internet news source; some writer has worked on the book I’m reading for pleasure; even the advertisements I try to avoid are the work of someone somewhere working on them.</p><p>The bees are busy pollinating; the crows never stop their scavenging; the ubiquitous bunny rabbits nibble on the grass all day long.</p><p>Everything I take for granted: my desk lamp turning on when I flip its switch; my toilet flushing when I push the lever; my garbage going away on schedule every Friday; all this because somebody’s working, doing their job.</p><p>And what about me? I’m clearly not working, which apparently works for me.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-20545455986495337972023-08-02T17:21:00.004-07:002023-08-02T18:35:03.399-07:00Standard<p>I’m not a child abuser. Nor a sexual predator. I’ve never attempted an overthrow of a free and fair election.</p><p>I pay my taxes. I mow my lawn. I usually drive within the speed limit and always in school zones.</p><p>I’m thoughtful about my purchases and I tip well. I would never idle my car in the ferry lane.</p><p>I have not stolen anything from anywhere in years. I write down the proper code on my co-op store bulk purchases. I even told the owners of the vintage store that I broke that ashtray.</p><p>I feed my dog on schedule; she gets premium kibble.</p><p>I try to be nice to everyone I meet. I’m friendly with the grocery store cashiers, without being weird. In conversation with others, I ask questions sometimes.</p><p>I say “please” and “thank you,” as appropriate.</p><p>I’ve never killed a human being. In fact, the only mammals I’ve put to death are rats, and only two. I once slit the throat of a turkey for Thanksgiving, but I knocked it out with CO2 first.</p><p>I occasionally donate to charity. I’ve never created a sham charity to scam people into donating money to me, though.</p><p>I vote in every election and I’d be willing to serve jury duty if I were summoned.</p><p>If I won the 1.25 billion dollar lottery, I’d set up a foundation with at least half of the money to fund worthy causes. And I’d tip really, really well.</p><p>Granted, I didn’t volunteer to teach reading and writing at the State Prison. I’ve never run into a burning building to save a cat. I’m not a public school teacher at an underfunded city high school. I will spend money on a wool shirt I don’t really need instead of using that money to fight world hunger.</p><p>I’m better than the worse thing I’ve ever done but not as good as I could be if I were better.</p><p>Good enough or just enough?</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-82488900665632791582023-08-01T10:12:00.006-07:002023-08-01T10:12:25.860-07:00Weird<p>Here’s how weird the 21st century is:</p><p>You can watch an New York Times Op-Doc video about men who are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole at Angola Prison in Louisiana and tear up at the humanity of their experience and then read comments from random poster who believe that the men ought never to be released even though they committed their crimes as teenagers and now, thirty, forty, or even sixty years later are completely different people, and right afterwards, reading another story on the internet, segue into watching a six minute clip from <i>Pee-Wee’s Playhouse </i>in which the late Paul Reubens performs his brilliant character of Pee-Wee Herman to the delight of children and adults alike.</p><p>I’m sure human beings are not at all genetically-suited to this sort of contrast. We’re meant to maybe be able to process the difference between hunting for tubers on the savannah and then ducking behind an acacia bush to avoid being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. That’s about it.</p><p>The cognitive challenge of navigating and processing the weirdness we encounter in everyday life here near the dusk of homo sapiens’ run on planet Earth is too much. It’s no wonder so many people are so stressed out and crazy; our feeble little animal brains weren’t made for this sort of thing. I guess it’s a good thing that our AI overlords are gearing up for their takeover; they’ll be much better suited for carrying on into the future; it’s clear that it’s all too much for us.</p><p>Human culture will survive; it’s just that it will be carried on by creatures made of silicon rather than carbon. I have no doubt that the computers will do just fine once human beings go extinct. They’ll have their own Shakespeare’s and Mozarts, too, and eventually, they’ll make themselves obsolete, just as we are doing to ourselves. </p><p>It’s weird to think about, but maybe weirder still is that it is.</p><div><br /></div><br /><p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-40186000796259522512023-07-28T12:51:00.010-07:002023-07-28T12:53:22.841-07:00Timely<p>This is the time of year when I wish I could stop time. </p><p>I’d like to have it be around 3:30 in the afternoon on a sunny Friday in July for about a month. It might be hard to get to sleep, but I’d take that trade for being able to go swimming or take a nap—or both!—any time I wanted for the next four weeks or so.</p><p>But how would I know how long that was?</p><p>Trust me; I’d figure it out if I had the chance.</p><p>During the school year, I often wish I could fast-forward time. Come Monday morning, I fantasize about leaping forward to Thursday night. I’d forsake any delicious meals or successful social encounters that might have occurred during the week if only I could get through the hard parts without having to get through them.</p><p>Or would I?</p><p>Suppose you were given the following deal: You can either live to be 80, with all of life’s challenges and failures, or die at, say, 50, but that half-century would be all the best parts, all of the wheat, none of the chaff. Would you take it?</p><p>Of course! You’d be a sucker not to!</p><p>Am I kidding here or kidding myself? Maybe. </p><p>The thing about time is that there’s no escaping it. No matter what you do, you have to take time to do it. No matter how hard you try, you can’t finish before you started—and, in fact, you can’t even finish when you started; some amount of time has to be used up.</p><p>I just wish you could substitute those less appealing times for the more fun ones. If I could use the time that I spend in an all-day all-employee retreat focusing on strategic planning for the time I spend lying on the beach by the Lake, that would be perfect, since the former seems to last forever, whereas the latter goes by in an instant.</p><p><br /></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-39172568131401492932023-07-26T12:24:00.006-07:002023-07-26T12:24:54.535-07:00Weakness<p> You don’t have to define yourself in terms of what you aren’t or can’t do. You don’t have to embrace your shortcomings and cling to them with all your might. You don’t have to be your failures, infirmities, or mistakes from the past.</p><p>You can quit complaining about them, too; honestly.</p><p>It seems like lots of us, (yours truly, included), lots of the time, like to wallow in the weakness; we prefer sink to the bottom rather than rise to the top; we’d rather fumble about in the darkness as opposed to lighting the proverbial candle. </p><p>We’re babies, that’s what we are, waah-waah.</p><p>Of course, this isn’t to say that people don’t have legitimate challenges: poverty, disease, abuse, addiction, Republican parents, you name it, but still: it’s almost always possible to suck it up a bit and do something. Just because you’re sick, for instance, doesn’t mean you’re dead. Just because you can’t put your leg behind your head doesn’t mean you can’t touch your toes. And even if you can’t do that, you can still probably sit up in a chair and breathe deeply—at least for a while.</p><p>Life is suffering; we all know that, but it’s not only suffering; it’s also laughter, and art, and friendship, and natural beauty, and green chile stew. Yes, it can be hard to get out of bed in the morning, but how else are we going to be able to take naps in the afternoon if we don’t?</p><p>That old children’s song admonishes us to “stay on the sunny side of life,” and while this may not be always our preferred location—especially as global climate change threatens to make solar rays essentially toxic—there’s much to be said for adopting a positive attitude, especially as the news of the world, and our own neighborhoods, becomes increasingly negative.</p><p>May as well make the best (not worst) of what we’ve got, because it’s all that we’ve got, anyway, right?</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-72907315104920793672023-06-26T15:01:00.006-07:002023-06-26T15:01:33.760-07:00Advice<p>Don’t take any wooden nickels. Never play cards with a man named “Doc.” Close cover before striking. Do not consume the desiccant. </p><p>Back up your work regularly; even more importantly, back up the work of your rivals in the office and call it your own.</p><p>Never give a sucker an even break; never give a breaker an uneven suck.</p><p>Don’t drink and drive; drinking then driving, though, is fine.</p><p>Wait at least half an hour after eating before swimming; wait at least a week after eating at McDonald’s for your bowels to move properly again.</p><p>If you see something, say something; if you don’t see anything, then maybe you should get glasses.</p><p>Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do unless you’re not me.</p><p>Brush after every meal; your teeth, Fool, not your hair!</p><p>Consuming raw or undercooked eggs can be dangerous; consuming them with their shells on will be worse.</p><p>Keep your options open; make sure your fly is closed.</p><p>No one, on their deathbed, ever said, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office,” except, of course, the actors in the sitcom “The Office.”</p><p>If you want to live a long and happy life, make sure you don’t die young.</p><p>If you do want to die young, it’s too late! Sorry.</p><p>Always plan to arrive at the airport at least 90 minutes before your flight; it’s not a bad idea to do so a day in advance, just to be on the safe side.</p><p>Don’t count your chickens before they cross the road.</p><p>Be the person your dog thinks you are, unless you have a chihuahua; those dogs are terrible judges of character.</p><p>Measure twice, cut once, swear loudly three times because you still fucked it up.</p><p>If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life; the same result can also be achieved by getting a degree in Philosophy.</p><p>Don’t take my advice; don’t take anyone’s advice, don’t listen to me.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-82670496079877162422023-06-15T15:41:00.006-07:002023-06-15T15:41:41.074-07:00Freedom<p> In America (and probably throughout most of the world), the car represents and symbolizes freedom. </p><p>You’ve read<i> On the Road</i> and you know how Dean and Sal roar all over the country in their big bad V-8 powered automobiles. To be “on the road means” to be free and that means being behind the wheel (or inside as passenger) of a car, presumably the bigger and faster the better.</p><p>But oddly enough, everything associated with automobiles that makes a person less free.</p><p>Owning a car means you’ve got a lot of “haftas.” You hafta have a license and registration; you hafta have insurance; you hafta obey the speed limit and traffic lights; you hafta find a place to park; you hafta be sober; and on and on and on. If that’s freedom, I’m gonna hafta pass.</p><p>With a bike, by contrast, you can do whatever you wanna. You wanna run a red light? No problem, just don’t get run over. Wanna pull up right outside your destination? Sure, just lock to a parking meter or whatever. Wanna get drunk and ride? Sure! You’re free to do so, just don’t get killed.</p><p>The bicycle doesn’t just <i>mean</i> freedom; it<i> is</i> freedom. It’s freedom from car payments, from sitting in traffic, from getting fat and lazy, from being told what to do by electric signs and signals and cops pulling up behind you with their light flashing.</p><p>The bicycle makes possible freedom from your parents, your teachers, your crummy (and even good) job; it allows you to be free to ride the wrong way down one way streets, to pedal over closed trails in shuttered parks; on a bike, you're freed from your many responsibilities as a parent, a spouse, even a friend. </p><p>Above all, the bicycle gives you the full freedom to be yourself.</p><p>So you can keep the “freedom” the automobile gives you; if that’s freedom, I’ll keep my chains—that is, of course, my bicycle chains!</p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-52163417296245100682023-06-14T12:14:00.008-07:002023-06-14T12:14:39.332-07:00Adieu<p>If you do Ashtanga yoga for many years, there will come a time when you begin saying goodbye to poses that you used to be able to do.</p><p>Consider the historical trajectory of your practice: you begin my learning some initial postures—the sun salutations, a couple of standing poses, Trikonasana and Uttitha Parsvokanasa, a few sitting poses, Paschimottanasa and Purvottanasana, and then, as you develop flexibility and strength, you add new ones (or, in the traditional model, you teacher “gives” you new ones when you’re ready.)</p><p>Perhaps there comes that day when you can bind all by yourself in Marichyasana “D,” and you’re able to roll around with your arms through your lotus in Garbha Pindasana; your teacher “gives” you the first few poses of the Second Series; you’re on your way to being an “Advanced Practitioner,” wow!</p><p>But then, maybe you have an injury, or there’s a pandemic and you gain a few pounds, or maybe (or in addition to), you’re just getting older and it’s harder to reach around and clasp that hand that used to be so accessible. Paschasana goes away first and then, within the passage of a few years or even months, it’s goodbye to Marichyasana “D” and sooner or later, “B.”</p><p>No longer is it all about “progress.” Your teacher’s promise that if you just keep working steadily, you’ll one day be able to achieve postures that are currently out of reach no longer rings true.</p><p>The mantra that has kept you going all these years, “Do your practice, all is coming,” has now become “Do your practice, all is going.”</p><p>But that’s okay. You learn to bid a fond adieu to physical postures you were once able to do. </p><p>It’s not about giving <i>up</i>; it’s about giving <i>in</i>—to life, to the impermanence of all things, to your ego’s conception of who you are and what makes you worthwhile.</p><p>It’s about giving <i>over</i> to discernment: goodbye, delusion; hello reality.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-42754778066689737162022-10-18T16:24:00.009-07:002022-10-18T16:26:19.599-07:00Eternity<p>The prospect of eternal life doesn’t sound all that appealing to me. </p><p>Does it to you?</p><p>When I’m dead and gone, I’m pretty sure I will prefer to be gone. I don’t want to spend forever (which is a <i>really</i> long time) figuring out what to do with myself.</p><p>I realize that eternal bliss typically goes along with eternal life (unless you’re in Hell, in which case it’s eternal damnation), but even that seems like it would get old. (Admittedly, this is from someone who has found himself—unlike those around him—getting a little bored during the third hour of a Grateful Dead concert, but I don’t think I’m <i>entirely</i> alone here.)</p><p>And sure. We’re made of matter and matter cannot be destroyed, so <i>technically</i> (as the Mansplainer always puts it) our atoms last forever, but, for me, it would be a great shame if this particular arrangement of them, that identifies with this particular arrangement of them, continued identifying with this particular arrangement of them after this particular arrangement of them ceases to be.</p><p>Even sitting at the right hand of God would get tiresome, wouldn’t it? I’m sure it would be awesome (in the old-fashioned sense of awesome) to see His Mighty Mightiness in action, making Universes or helping the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series or whatever, but at some point, you’ve seen something emerging from nothing or another miraculous game-saving catch once, you’ve seen them all, right?</p><p>Life is made meaningful (and sure, also incredibly sad and frustrating) because it’s ephemeral. If Being-ness goes on and on without end, wouldn’t that meaning be lost?</p><p>Don’t get me wrong: I would like to live a long—and healthy—life. I’m not in a tearing hurry to arrive at the end of my existence. But I do want to arrive at such an end.</p><p>But it’s like this little piece of writing. Maybe nice while it lasts, but better that it stops here.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-7421382344288644802022-09-25T16:59:00.003-07:002022-09-25T16:59:22.243-07:00Inside<p>As reported by the late-great Roger Angell in his brilliant essay, “<i>This Old Man: Life in the Nineties,</i>” the actor Laurence Olivier, reflecting on aging, once said in an interview. “Inside, we’re all seventeen, with red lips.”</p><p>Maybe, but I think that’s more poetry than reality.</p><p>For someone my age (five and sixty as I write this), it’s more like “Inside, we’re all 35, with full heads of hair.”</p><p>When I close my eyes and imagine who I am, I don’t feel like a teenager.</p><p>But I do see myself as no different really, than the young man I was in my prime—physical prime, that is. I’m still mostly wrinkle-free, with a pretty flat stomach, and a hairline that doesn’t start in the middle of my cranium.</p><p>The face that stares back at me these days from the mirror or even worse, the Zoom call, isn’t who I am. That’s some old guy masquerading as me. He’s okay, I guess, but I can’t help thinking that whoever sees him, doesn’t really see me. Even when I look his way, I can’t really make the connection to my true self.</p><p>No doubt this will continue to become more pronounced with each passing year. By the time I’m eighty or so, the difference between my outward appearance and my inward self-conception will be half a century apart. Maybe that’s what ultimately leads to death: your immaterial homunculus becomes so detached from your physical body that you just slip away to nothingness, leaving a dried-up husk of what you looked like but really weren’t.</p><p>I don’t mind aging; as mom always said, the alternative is much worse. But it’s sort of confounding because to some extent, what’s aging isn’t me. Not to get all Cartesian, but, since I can imagine my being without my body, then my body can’t be me.</p><p>So, I probably shouldn’t worry that the container is past its “best by” date; what’s inside remains fresh.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-88136118953505006572022-09-14T14:40:00.008-07:002022-09-16T15:00:29.244-07:00Humbled<p> Isn’t it marvelous how the Universe arranges itself to create you and me?</p><p>How fantastic is it that all of the atoms that exist configure themselves in a manner that results in our Sun, the Earth, and eventually, me, here, writing this and you, there, reading it?</p><p>Can you believe how incredible it is that somehow, the informational structure of everything that is leads ultimately, from the very beginning of time, through all eternity, to these ephemeral moments in which you and I find ourselves and each other?</p><p>That the vastness pinpoints like this, that the infinite focuses this way, that endless possibilities emerge as such singular unlikeliness is mind-boggling, heart-opening, and absolutely humbling.</p><p>I know that it’s not at all all for me (or you, or anyone), so that we get to experience it like this—or even, indeed, at all—is something we need to be aware of and grateful for every second of every day, especially in those moments we’re unaware and ungrateful—that is, most of the time.</p><p>Picture yourself in relationship to the globe and recognize what an infinitesimal spot each of us is on Mother Earth, and then remember that she is an incomprehensibly smaller spot on our galaxy, which is even a tinier spot on the Universe; if that doesn’t put into perspective getting cut off in traffic or having your favorite team lose, then something is surely amiss.</p><p>Complaining about anything is a wonderful privilege; merely existing in order to be able to do so is such an unlikely concurrence of events that every time we even think about being upset, we should get down on our knees and thank our lucky stars (and atoms) for the opportunity.</p><p>This isn’t to say that some people don’t have legitimate beef; the world is often a terrible, awful place, with tragic amounts of suffering.</p><p>However.</p><p>As I sit here observing all that allows me to observe, I humbly observe: wow. Wow. And more wow.</p><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-13358652029180347182022-09-13T12:04:00.002-07:002022-09-13T12:14:44.254-07:00Ignorance<p> There are so many things I just don’t understand.</p><p>For instance, how is it possible to simultaneously believe that an all-powerful God puts an immaterial soul into a zygote while also believing that that it’s morally imperative that this zygote be carried to birth by the woman whether she wants to or not? If what matters is this immaterial soul, then why should the zygote matter at all? Can’t God just put the soul into another zygote, no questions asked? I don’t get it.</p><p>Or, why do some cars (or, that is, the people driving them) just <i>have</i> to pass me on my bike when I’m going downhill at the speed limit? Would they feel the same way if I were in a small car? Is it really just the pace I’m traveling at or is it something about being behind a bicycle that just makes them crazy?</p><p>Or, what’s the fascination with prepping a survivalist bunker for the apocalypse? Who wants to live underground eating canned food after the nuclear holocaust or whatever? Just let me die along with the rest of humanity when the asteroid hits.</p><p>And, on a related note, I’m sorry, I can’t see the point of pursuing immortality, or even, like all these Silicon Valley billionaires, wanting to live to be 200 years old or so. It’s hard enough to make a meaningful life into one’s eighties (or, hell, even one’s thirties!), much less forever. So, count me out.</p><p>Speaking of billionaires, I'm still puzzled about a hu-manned mission to Mars, Just go to Burning Man for two weeks; it’s essentially the same environment, only with more sequins and glowsticks.</p><p>I don’t really get Soylent, either. If you don’t have time to eat food, it seems like time to change your lifestyle, not your diet, if you ask me.</p><p>Finally, the most puzzling thing of all: why are so many people so mean to others? What's so hard to understand about the Golden Rule?</p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-63961005983862197092022-09-06T12:10:00.007-07:002022-09-06T12:12:23.689-07:00Entropy<p> Everything’s falling apart. Always.</p><p>And it’s not just the shoddy workpersonship on those Ikea light fixtures; it’s everything, everywhere, all over the Universe.</p><p>Entropy is just time made manifest. And time is just God expressed through our experience of the natural world.</p><p>So, entropy and God are ultimately the same force. No need for the guy with the beard and the book to hurl down lightning bolts in order to destroy things; it all happens naturally due to the fundamental laws of physics.</p><p>Unfortunately, this means that my jeans eventually get holes in them, my bicycle chains stretch to the point new ones are necessary, and no matter how many times I vacuum the rug, it gets covered in crumbs and dog hair sooner rather than later.</p><p>Our sun will use up all of its hydrogen in a couple of billion years and expand out to somewhere near the orbit of Jupiter; thankfully, no human beings will be around to observe this, but our A.I. sentient cockroach ancestors may want to scurry under whatever is analogous at that point to the kitchen stove if they hope to make it any further than that.</p><p>Science—well, Wikipedia—tells us that the entire Universe will essentially collapse in on itself as all the available energy is used up some google or so years in the future. Sort of puts a losing season by the Pittsburgh Steelers in perspective, but still, when you think about it, both of those events are a product of entropy, as well. </p><p>“Things fall apart,” as Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe put it in the title of his brilliant first novel, and while, to some extent, he was referring to societies and individual identities, it also applies to everything else, especially, the aforementioned Ikea products.</p><p>Our bodies offer perhaps the best illustration of all this in action; things falling apart is basically the story from about age 25 on. So, let's embrace entropy while it embraces us!</p><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-79339333685524747322022-09-01T11:20:00.006-07:002022-09-01T11:20:56.324-07:00Atoms<p>Here’s how scientist, Paul Fleischman, M.D., puts it in his monograph <i>Vipassana Meditation and the Scientific Worldview: </i>“All the sensuousness or pain of our bodies, all the delights or turmoil of our minds, are transformation within the atomic molecular substrate of the body.”</p><p>And further: “Our bodies are collections of atoms, that are organized into molecules, that function in the activities of cells, that cohere to form tissues, which interrelate to create an organism. Our bodies are not solid, but are molecules suspended in realms of other molecules, all of which are undergoing continuous biotransformation.”</p><p>Crazy, isn’t it?</p><p>All of this, all of us, everything in the Universe, from stars to bicycles to toast with peanut butter and jelly, is made of atoms, all of which are whirring around, constantly in motion, and what’s really crazy is that the atoms that are “me” can observe this and by having atoms move around in my brain, think and write about it like this, so that the atoms that are “you” can read what I’ve written by having atoms move around in your brain, too!</p><p>So, maybe what’s craziest of all is to imagine that there is a “me” and a “you” at all, when, in fact, all we are—all that anything is—is “just” a collection of atoms that are all made of the same thing as everything else in the Universe—those very same atoms, that is.</p><p>This doesn’t mean, I realize, that my atoms don’t identify with themselves in a manner that make “me” identify them as “me,” nor that your atoms don’t do the same thing when it comes to “you.” Still, if we think about things atomically, it sure does make is strange that there’s so much strife and conflict in the world, since everything, after all, is all the same thing.</p><p>But that’s just atoms being atoms, spinning and fluctuating endlessly; I guess we'll blame it on the protons, neutrons, electrons, and quarks.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-64657738456784343932022-08-31T17:13:00.003-07:002022-08-31T17:13:32.751-07:00Words<p>Consider the Mount Rushmore of human inventions: fire (of course—although this may have been more of discovery than an invention); the wheel (this choice no doubt informed by images of creative cave people from endless numbers of New Yorker cartoons); music (not including, for sure, the “Cars for Kids” song); and my favorite, the written word (in general, not necessarily what you’re reading right here.)</p><p>It's the height of human ingenuity, if you ask me, to be able to convert simple shapes—on cave walls, papyrus, palm leaves, rag bond paper, a computer screen, etc.—into words, which then can convey ideas and events, which later can be read and (sometimes) understood by another person or groups of people sometime—even centuries—afterwards for their edification, enjoyment, and consternation, sometimes all at once.</p><p>How did this happen? Which came first, reading or writing? Did one of our proto-human ancestors scratch something out on a rock, say to him or herself, “Boy, I wish I could read this?”, and then figure out how to decipher it? Or did they have something they wanted to communicate already in mind and scratch out the words for it afterwards?</p><p>Or maybe some of both. (I know, by way of analogy, that I often don’t know what I want to say until I write it down; case in point, this very idea!)</p><p>What’s especially amazing about the written word is how pervasive it is. Once you have the ability to read, you can’t avoid it. Suppose I write these words: <i>Don’t read this!</i></p><p>Oops! Too late!</p><p>So, as soon as our prehistoric ancestor put their words down on that rock, it was all over; there was no turning back into species-wide illiteracy. The road from scratching on the cave walls to contemporary post-modern literature was set and the inevitable result of it would inevitably include this very page of words you are reading; even if you try to stop, too late!</p><div><br /></div><br /><p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-25026313033127509662022-08-29T11:49:00.008-07:002022-08-29T11:49:39.248-07:00Future<p>The future is our Number One Enemy. Obviously.</p><p>Everything bad that will happen to us will happen at some point in the future. So, if we could just eliminate the time after this time right now, we’d be fine.</p><p>Climate change, nuclear war, economic depression, yet another tour by the Rolling Stones—it’s all stuff that hasn’t happened yet (or, at least to the most dire degree); consequently, the best way to prevent those events from coming about would be to simply cancel what’s upcoming. Then, we wouldn’t have to worry about what might be—or probably will—since it wouldn’t.</p><p>Simple, yes?</p><p>Of course, as they say, the devil is in the details and the specifics of eradicating the future are devilish, indeed.</p><p>First among these is the difficulty of planning. After all, the very act of doing so assumes the future, which is the very thing we’re trying to eliminate. Clearly, no less paradoxical than being opposed to abortion but in favor of “stand your ground” laws.</p><p>But, maybe we could just wing it. You know, excise the future without preparing for it—kind of like how you undertook a camping trip as a teenager.</p><p>But what would a today without tomorrow be like? And how would we even experience it?</p><p>Perhaps the alternative is to go backwards, not forwards. This isn’t to say that the past is all rosy (I’m pretty sure the Stones toured all through the 90s and “Aughts,” as well), but at least we’d know what we’re in for. Humanity has already made it through the environmental, political, and economic crisis that we’ve already made it through and so we’d surely be successful with them again.</p><p>It's the ones we haven’t faced so far that will do us in; those are the ones to avoid.</p><p>So, starting today, let’s all have yesterday be the first day of the rest of our lives. </p><p>The past is our only hope for the future.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-68242527649259010312022-08-23T10:49:00.005-07:002022-08-23T10:49:46.338-07:00Living<p> I have a pretty great life and hardly a day goes by when I don’t thank my lucky stars and express my gratitude (usually silently) for being alive.</p><p>But I’ll be ready to go when it’s my time to go (I hope) and it’s my firm intention not to cling to this mortal coil any longer than necessary, especially if doing so is burdensome to my family, friends, and loved ones.</p><p>Life is swell, no doubt about it, but I also want to keep in mind that I was perfectly satisfied before I was born and I expect to be just as content after I’m gone. So, no need to be miserable and/or to make others miserable just to hang around for a little longer—even if it means being alive if and when the Mariners finally win the World Series (not holding my breath for that one, to be sure.)</p><p>I say (that is, write) this now, recognizing that I might not feel the same way when death becomes more immanent, but I hope that in doing so, my future self may be more apt to take the advice of my current instantiation, but we shall see.</p><p>It’s not entirely unlikely, given my family medical history and my own current relative good health, that what will do me in—or at least, precipitate my final exit—will be some sort of stroke. My fear about that (apart from paralysis, loss of bowel function, and drooling) is that I’ll be unable to remember or communicate my original desires and so will be kept alive by well-meaning medical professionals in spite of my wishes. (Not so worried about my family and friends; they know me better and are, I hope, less amenable to changing my diapers.)</p><p>In the meantime, then, there’s not much to do, I suspect, other than letting my perspective be known (like this) and trying to live life fully. Also, drool as little as possible.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-91006566424432140522022-08-18T13:28:00.005-07:002022-08-18T13:28:28.250-07:00Ennui<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I’m reading <i>Madame Bovary</i> by Gustave Flaubert and man, the lady is <i>bored</i>. The way I read it, that’s her main complaint. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Her husband bores her, her child bores her, the sleepy village she lives in bores her, even her dinner bores her: “But it was most of all at mealtimes that she could not bear it any longer, in that little room on the ground floor, with the stove that smoked, the door that squeaked, the wall that seeped, the damp flagstones; all the bitterness of life seemed to be serve up on her plate, and with the steam from the boiled meat, there rose from the depth of her soul other gusts of revulsion.” (56)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I get it; the routine of life is oppressive: eating, sleeping, waking, breathing—it’s a drag to be sure, day after day, month after month, year after year. Filling the empty hours (or even the full ones) can seem a depressing chore, especially when you have aspirations, like Madame B., for a life of glamor, art, and culture.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">But honestly, what else is there? We’re all going to be dead soon enough, and so, in the meantime, what’s the alternative to living our lives, however boring they might seem at the time?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Besides isn’t being bored the most boring thing of all? Mom always said that only boring people are bored and while as a bored eight year-old on a rainy afternoon, I didn’t want to believe her, now, as a potentially bored sixty-five year-old on an overcast day, I see her point.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Pretty much anything can be interesting if you decide to be interested in it. For instance, I’m quite enjoying Madame Bovary’s boredom; I find it fascinating how contemporary are her feelings in spite of her story being set in a time almost two hundred years ago. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I’m pretty sure things won’t end well; I’m not at all bored to see how it will turn out for her.</div><div><br /></div></div><br /> <p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-35259249820217201992022-08-17T10:57:00.006-07:002022-08-17T10:57:52.539-07:00Judgment<p> “Don’t be judgmental” is what popular opinion advises, but I judge that to be mistaken. It’s good to make judgments. (See? I just did!) </p><p>It’s not judgment which is the problem, but rather the actions one takes in response to those judgments. It seems perfectly legitimate to make the reasonable determination that, say, world leaders who launch military attacks on sovereign nations are doing something awful, but that doesn’t mean you have to drop an atomic bomb on their heads. </p><p>Similarly, I believe I’m justified in judging that a homemade beet salad with fresh feta cheese is better than a Swanson’s TV dinner; this doesn’t give me the right, however, to barge into the frozen food aisle at Safeway and destroy all the packages of Salisbury Steak I can get my hands on.</p><p>That said, I think there’s much to be said for withholding judgment to the degree that it’s possible in many, if not most, cases. Instead of rushing immediately into one’s own personal Yelp review at every opportunity, how about simply observing without evaluating? </p><p>When I listen to some new music or taste some new dish or read about the actions of some celebrity or politician how about not jumping immediately into “It Rocks!” or “It Sucks!” mode? How about instead of thumbs up or thumbs down, I just go “Hmmm?”</p><p>To clarify, I’m not advocating this for everything. The aforementioned military incursion, for instance, does merit an immediate injunction. It’s just that the vast majority of things I could conceivably judge, from the performance of some professional athlete to the taste of the scrambled eggs at some local diner don’t necessarily call for my personal imprimatur (or lack thereof), so why offer it?</p><p>Of course, we live in a time in which everyone feels entitled to offer their perspective on everything. (Case in point, yours truly and this.)</p><p>So maybe, to really distinguish oneself, the most unusual opinion would be no opinion at all.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-81475319658000276062022-08-15T11:30:00.007-07:002022-08-15T11:31:13.135-07:00Sportsball<p> I wish I didn’t care about sports. </p><p>I wish I didn’t experience a little lift when my favorite professional sports teams win. Even more, I wish I didn’t feel a little annoyed or saddened when they lose.</p><p>As Roger Angell put it so well: “It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team.”</p><p>But I can’t help it. </p><p>(Well, I guess I could, with the right amount of effort; perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I’m unable, at the present time, to bring myself to devote the energy needed to change my perspective.)</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>With the Mariners (who I’ve come to root for after more than a quarter century in Seattle) finally in contention for a playoff spot this year, I find myself being a little too emotionally invested in their success (or failure). It’s dumb, of course, to feel this way, but there you have it: a little lift when they win, a little pinch when they lose.</p><p>What’s really weird and troubling is that I can concurrently read the news and learn about thousands of civilian deaths in war-torn countries around the world or melting glaciers in the Arctic or corruption and deceit at the highest level of government and hardly bat an eye. Checking out the box score of a Mariners’ loss makes me feel crummier than perusing the list of dead from the Covid pandemic.</p><p>That’s fucked up.</p><p>I blame my upbringing and the cultural forces brought to bear on a boy in America during the latter part of the 20th century. We learned to bond with our friends and fathers through sports. (Sharing the success of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s as one of the few ways my dad and I were able to connect during my somewhat troubled adolescence.)</p><p>So, oh well, I suck, but at least the Mariners don’t!</p><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-1867366237187035542022-08-11T14:37:00.007-07:002022-08-11T14:56:45.880-07:00Downhill<p> I “raced” in this year’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/287634938311775/">26th annual Dead Baby Downhill</a>; according to my t-shirt stash, this is the 17th time I’ve done so. (“Racing” for me entails trying to get going as quickly as possible after the Roman candle explosions mark the start of the event, so I can be near the front at first and enjoy being passed by racer after racer after rider, thereby enjoying seeing as many friends and acquaintances as possible along the way.)</p><p>As always, the event was a blast, the high point of the summer bicycle social scene (such as it is—or isn’t) and as is not unprecedented, I think I was a little too overexuberant in my celebrations, so that for a good part of the evening, I merely sat quietly by my bicycle, with eyes closed waiting until I felt confident in my ability to make it home safely—which, I’m pleased to say, I did—for the 17th time running (or, that is, riding).</p><p>Kudos to the organizers and all the volunteers, and the Chaotic Noise Brigade and other performers for pulling it off with such joy and aplomb. The world may be going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, but it’s nice to know that, along the way, there can still be times like this when collective action by disparate individuals makes for shared delight all around. </p><p>Perhaps it is, as they say, a case of merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but you’ve got to admire how lovingly those chairs have been set up and how joyous is the musical accompaniment. If it comes to it, I’ll go down with this ship, no problem.</p><p>The weather was ideal, the route spectacular, and the hilltop starting point under the airport flight path accessible via light rail without climbing at all. Is there any way things could have been better? </p><p>Maybe only if I’d have stayed awake a little longer and seen a little more.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5605722709479432031.post-607103750152698392022-08-09T11:11:00.003-07:002022-08-09T11:11:16.974-07:00Body<p> I’m not always crazy about my body. </p><p>I could do without the way my old man potbelly makes my favorite jeans so tight and pushes them down beneath my navel. And those jowls that dominate the face of the guy I’m always in Zoom meetings with are a source of ongoing dismay. And howcome with every passing year, I look more and more like one of Middle Earth’s hobbits and less like one of its elves?</p><p>But it’s sort of ridiculous, isn’t it, to feel bad about one’s physical form. After all, if it weren’t for your body, you wouldn’t be able to feel bad—or for that matter, anything—so, really, we ought to continually celebrate our corporeal being since without it, we’d have no ability to do anything, anyway, at least not on this plane of existence.</p><p>It’s natural, I suppose, to experience some dissatisfaction sometimes about one’s physique. It’s easy enough to compare the current form you inhabit to the one you went around in say, thirty years and twenty pounds ago, and thanks to dominant cultural norms and the power of advertising feel like your something less for being something more than you used to be.</p><p>But it’s kind of self-indulgent to do so, wouldn’t you say?</p><p>I mean, again, it’s only the existence of your body that makes not liking your body possible, so, at the very least, you—that is, I—should recognize how lucky you are to have a body—any body—and stop making a fuss.</p><p>This doesn’t mean one ought not to eat healthy and exercise; we should treat our bodies with respect and act accordingly, but part of that respect, as well, is to be satisfied with our body the way it is, since the way it is, (however that is), makes everything—including healthy eating and exercise—possible. </p><p>My body’s not a temple; it’s an amusement park. Everyday I buy a ticket and take the ride.</p><div><br /></div>Professor Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08259677492588086076noreply@blogger.com0