Mentally Obese

I’ll use the ancient politically incorrect connotation of obese to mean someone who is excessively fat from enjoying eating way too much with no regard to health consequences. That may damage an individual, but what I will call a “mentally obese” person may endanger a society .

In a consumer driven culture, most of us are “mentally fat”. We acquire too much and may desire even more. But we have limits to our greed, some self-imposed, some forced on us. Many folks honestly believe that what they do not own cannot be enjoyed. They must possess a thing before they dare appreciate it.

The worst mentally obese people are not simple consumers, but titans of industry. They must have more and more and more regardless of consequence. They think they are “lean and mean” but they are a social tub of lard, wallowing about in plans, risks, and ambitions .

They remind me of Marx’s observation that the end of classic capitalism would result in a few gargantuan monopolies owned and controlled by one survivor each. These days, it is not hard to imagine such a scenario where the CEO has no employees at all – only AI agents. And, for that matter, no CEO .

Perhaps, Marxist dystopia is only a temporary stage. With current IPOs, our mentally obese masters of the universe are well on their way to the ultimate end. 

Equilibrium

Balance and equilibrium are often regarded as synonymous, but I regard balance as more static, equilibrium as dynamic. A rock perched on a pinnacle is balanced. A healthy pond is in equilibrium. 

That boulder will not move until something disturbs it. A tightrope walker, on the other hand, maintains equilibrium with constant adjustments or plummets off the wire.

So when we are told to balance our lives, it’s not very useful. Maintaining dynamic social and personal equilibrium is what’s essential. Work, friends, wealth, health, and so – all the usual suspects in constant movement, tension, countertension, and adjustment .

I realize that I’ve exaggerated somewhat. But my point is that whatever one labels it, the condition is fragile and when lost hard to regain. Once that boulder rolls into the valley it would take stupendous and often impossible effort to put it back. As far as a tightrope walker …

We live in a crowded world of homeostasis where we usually take equilibrium for granted. Sometimes that causes us to do rash things with consequences far beyond what we intend with one relatively minor effort. Once equilibrium is destroyed it may never return in the same form. Just review any ongoing ecological or social disaster .

I’m grateful for the massive, seemingly effortless, equilibriums in my own life, and try to be conscious of how fragile they are .

Spectacle

Now seems an age of spectacles. Huge crowds attend sports events, electronic extravagances in stadiums, concerts, and crazy oddities like “Burning Man”. A thirst for the exotic, satisfied continuously by spectacular technology .

Yet many spectators are really not on site. They view the show on tiny screens, or even large screens, with none of the crowding and hormones that make a live event so noteworthy. Yet they count it as a spectacle nonetheless .

I’ve grown more sedate, although I still do enjoy the ideas of some spectacles. But older and more fragile, I’m quite content to be an armchair adventurer most of the time. The revelation for me has been how much spectacle I can create in my immediate surroundings, by careful and total immersion in the moment. Truly listening to bird calls, rapidly staring at patterns of leaf shadows in a breeze, even staring for minutes at an ant or spider. 

The whole world, properly seen, is a constant surprising miraculous spectacle. That’s really why I continue to draw. A sketch forces a trance-like state that squeezes my concentration to the point where whatever I am looking at is spectacular. With luck, that intensity carries over when I am done .

Giant spectacles are grand real marvels _ I’m not knocking them. But I find that without all the muss and fuss I am usually surrounded by equivalent possibility. True wonder .

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 .