Certainly Flexible

In our teenage years, we become convinced we know everything and are consequently certain we are always right. We may learn more as time goes on, we may change our minds, but we remain just as certain all the time.

Science constantly tries to break this tendency. The worst scientist is one who knows what, how, and why. In many other careers, it is equally important to acquire knowledge, apply it, think out of the box, and flexibly move on to better understanding .

On the other hand, in society and politics, changing one’s mind is a “flip-flop” and a sign of horrible dishonesty. “How can you have deceived me so?” Friends, families, elected representatives are supposed to remain frozen in attitude and belief, as we once thought we knew them .

It’s understandable. After all, the core of a society must be relatively conservative to function at all. We need to believe that lives have fundamental organization. Total chaos is unsustainable .

The only thing worse than an ongoing movement in what we are certain of, is to be frozen at one point until a sudden internal revelation forces us to reject all that we know, start over, and be absolutely certain, once again, that we are right in whatever new belief.

Like most of our leaders .

Aging Sitcom

One of my semi-schizophrenic personalities has always enjoyed viewing my life as an ongoing situational comedy. Sometimes an office nerd, sometimes a “father knows best”, sometimes a secret Van Gogh. Currently, I play the star role as a bumbling senior gradually losing his edge .

Surely it’s helpful to laugh at the minor problems that come with age, rather than raging against the inevitable. Not finding the right word is common with anyone, but frequent as I near eighty. I walk in a room and wonder why I am there. I miss the usual moves in the kitchen. I stumble when I stop paying attention. And I often sit, doing little, not even wanting to do more. All that can only make me smile. Another cute episode .

Fortunately, I’ve been spared real tragedy so far. That will require a different viewpoint, I suppose. Although media long ago learned to twist horror into entertainment . Perhaps my secret selves will be able to do the same .

In the meantime, the laugh track adds spice and softens fear. I regard it as part of the glorious ability to enjoy a constantly changing existence . So I am more forgetful, clumsier, or less ambitious. Hopefully not too dull. Each day, hopefully, to be continued. Not at all ready for the grand finale yet .

Now, exactly where was I? And what was I trying to say? 

No matter, chuckle and move along .

Entitled

Political speech is usually more concerned with connotation than definition. Consider the current polemics about “rights: which are viewed as free, and “entitlements” which cost money. What these words actually mean is best described in the lovely legalistic phrase “normal and customary” .

There are no absolutes. The rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are contradicted by graveyards, prisons, and slums. Entitlements such as pensions are viewed as earned rewards, but tend to include expected safety nets for food clothing shelter and medicine. 

The rich, of course, always think that whatever they have is a form of right – granted by God, superiority, hard work. The poor assume society owes them other rights such as education. Everyone considers security and property protection on the fuzzy borderline .

This is where the war of connotation spills into redistribution of wealth. If everyone is entitled to health care, are we infringing on the rights of the well-off by taking away some of their assets? There is no easy answer, although the way politicians twist meanings may make it seem so .

Utopians have always claimed that the problem is simply scarcity. In a world of abundance the difference between what costs money and what does not will vanish .

Perhaps .

I’m not holding my breath .

Life Luck

Obviously people are born into different situations, endowed with certain traits. Equally obviously, they are buffeted throughout life by good and bad events. Religions may variously assign this to a karma of rebirth, God, universal plan, or other mysticism, but even the most fanatic admit that it is unknowable and hence as irrelevant as its apparent randomness.

Most folks have some control over their own lives. But a brilliant beautiful wellborn woman has different options than a stupid ugly diseased man. Anyone born wealthy in a stable rich society will face different choices than another born into war-torn misery .

That is the luck of human life. Many of us believe that it is the role of society to aid the disadvantaged and to harness the skills and resources of the well-off to do so. We have taken to calling such ambition “civilization”, whatever that term may have meant in the past .

I do accept that people should be rewarded for good actions, especially those that make life better. There are a great variety of ways to do so, and generally reward should flow to the most innovative, ambitious, and hardworking. With two caveats .

First, always recognizing the role of luck, constantly compensate by leveling outcomes from the fortunate to the unfortunate .

Second, never mistake the fortunate few for the purpose of the universe .

Life is universally a gift, but not equally supported, nor equally the result of individual actions .

Babies and Puppies

Advertisers know that big eyes sell. Slap a picture of a baby or a puppy on a product and more people will buy it. Most of us can scarcely resist those cute expressions, and we get a rush of endorphins just looking at them .

Nature probably evolved this in certain mammalian species (especially primates) which have young who require extended care. Humans then tended to breed dogs whose puppies were more appealing. In both cases, the cutest survived. 

Social causes have now become deeply entangled with standard advertising. In particular, anti-abortion groups always picture helpless human infants as those being “murdered”. In truth of course most modern abortion involves discarding a lump of mostly formless tissue .

Ah, but the potential… Unsurprisingly anti-abortion never mentions surly teenagers nor terrifying criminals who may result from the rescue. 

After babies grow up to be surly teenagers, hardened criminals, nasty insane terrorists, or just people we dislike, we have little trouble handling them roughly. “Pro-life” can be code for a social movement to preserve the “right people”. 

Of course the crusaders are sincere. After all, they’ve seen the cuddly pictures on the propaganda media.

Looney Geniuses

Overwired brains often descend into what seems madness to others. Brilliance can be associated with insanity. Isaac Newton pored over mysticism, medieval alchemists tried to turn lead to gold, Chinese emperors ate crazy stuff to become immortal, many religious fanatics  pondered the ineffable reasons for the universe even as they admitted humans cannot know .

Most of our current batch of lunatic geniuses concentrate on science fiction. They want to move humans to other worlds, live forever young, turn the next stage of evolution over to silicon machines, vanish into a “singularity” which, if it existed, would exactly resemble the current universe .

But in one or two areas (when financed with other gullible people’s money) they are indeed brilliant. Some actually build things, many simply manipulate gambling spreadsheets. Their narrow focus on whatever they succeed at makes them less than stable and realistic in other areas of their lives .

I truly enjoy reading of their adventures in immortality. Instead of ingesting gold or jade, hiring magicians to enchant them, or bathing in virgins’ blood, they simply do weird self-denying rituals. Living in oxygen tents, starving, precise foods. All to extend lives which _ examined from a wider human experience _ hardly seem worth living .

I wander outside to smell the roses and laugh in the moonlight . In my own world, forever, eternally young