Influences

Angry white folks are upset that Horatio Alger is no longer taught in public school. He was, of course, a fictional character, fake even in his own time way over a century ago, as unreal as Sir Lancelot .

Alger represented an ideal that anyone could succeed with luck and pluck. Like Caesar, Washington, Napoleon. More to the point Carnegie, Edison, and Ford. In more modern times Gates, Jobs, Musk. Ruthless, lucky, smart and very hard working to achieve great things from their own effort .

Implication in my tender years was that anyone could do this, just by working hard. Only later did we realize that most of those heroes came from backgrounds of wealth, social status, or unusual training. Even Jobs, now lionized, had a technically employed father who brought home computer stuff when most people had never heard of it .

Influences, contacts – whatever. I am not saying that these paragons did not work hard, did not deserve success. They did. But “merit” as a fairy tale of rags to riches is rarely any more true than any other apology for the wealthy and powerful .

The playing field was never level. Maybe even less so now.

Progress

We cherish an ideal of progress. “Practice makes perfect”. The human world obviously runs on learned accomplishment. It does not matter if you are an athlete, a mathematician, or a parent. There’s always something to learn, some way to improve .

My art hobby has reached a point when it has stalled. At least in the sense of progressing to something better. Partly it’s a matter of accepting limitations. More truly, it’s a realization that choosing among various and often contradictory goals is not easy .

I don’t, for example, wish to become more realistic like a camera. Don’t want to head into absolute abstraction. Don’t want to be like any other style. Don’t actually want much of an audience .

I’ve settled for a realization that progress in this is, for me, a blending of the journey with the goal. I’m gratified to wake up enthused, to not be intimidated by a blank page, to not be discouraged if something does not work out. Like my walks, art activity is simply fun, meditative, instructive, and inspiring .

Long ago when I grew up many ordinary activities were like that. Sports, community, home, family, even work. Not improvement ad infinitum, little progress, just a happy sense of doing well and taking advantage of each moment .

Art Copy

For the last few months, I’ve been engaged in exercises making relatively simple copies of my old sketches onto new small drawings with ink and pastel. It has allowed me to regain some technical facility, engage in quality time in a rough winter, and – lately – ponder philosophical questions .

First, of course, is what was the purpose of the original sketch? It is not a copy of what I see – a photograph does that much better. It is rather an active comment of my momentary existence, leaving a lot out, rearranging as I please, constrained by my abilities and completed in a reasonable amount of time. When doing it, I am almost in an enchanted trance state .

To copy THAT to another media is totally different. I categorize the activity as more “inspired by” than “reproduce”. I have more lingering choices of how to do it, what to accent, what to redo. And never slavish reproduction. More time to plan, more chance to react. Alas, still greatly constrained by ability. Less of a trance, more of artisanship .

Copies of art have always been artistically in style. Until recently, only a painter could give a true replication of a painting, although engravers could produce the essence. Patrons often paid, but artists probably enjoyed what they were doing .

Unlike “real art,” copies do not try to amaze, shock, or change the world. As pleasant as a good meal, with just as few long-term consequences .

Millions

My dental hygieneist tries to scare me into flossing better by saying “there are MILLIONS” of bacteria on your teeth. I am not impressed. All numbers are relative, and this is a little like exclaiming “that brick is chipped!” when viewing a high brick wall a mile long.

“Millions” of bacteria, after all, are not the same as “millions of harmful bacteria”. And there are just as many or more body cells dealing with them. A minor thing that we have evolved to handle.

And, in context, millions doesn’t mean all that much. After all, I have over 30 TRILLION cells, and an almost equal number of quiet or symbiotic bacteria, not even mentioning viruses. A few on my teeth – relatively well-defended against as part of my outer membrane – hardly much to worry about .

We are an alarmist culture, always looking for “news” which is naturally not “ordinary”. We take for granted how well adapted we are for “normal” life. We worry as soon as some obscure tidbit is brought to our attention. This has become a culture with very little perspective .

I know that things can go wrong. I may get sick. At some point I shall certainly die. But I’ve learned it hardly serves my sanity to be alarmed all the time, often about things of very little immediate consequence .

Like those millions of tiny creatures in my mouth .

Tao-Chi

Or Shitao – translations are imperfect and names often change with careers. A Chinese painter contemporary with Reubens and Rembrandt who could not be more different. I’ve never really enjoyed Rubens, but I adore Rembrandt as a free spirit. Shitao is much more modern and kin to John Marin .

Whatever visual art may be in its many forms naturally reflects on its culture. Much of the Renaissance work now seems pretty boring in light of cinema, photography, AI, and slick advertising. The “shocking” impressionists are easily imitated by ubiquitous computer programs. What is a painter to do ?

I’ve gone my own way. I accept my various handicaps as part of what makes me unique. I try to correct a few things, work on fluidity and spontaneousness, be creative but not lose touch with the real world as I experience it .

There’s a great satisfaction in that. It’s why I’ve always admired the “literati” tradition. Although often observed in the breach, the ideal was of gentlemen of means who made pictures in their spare time and did not need to sell them. With a bit of philosophy thrown in .

So periodically I pull out my library volumes and admire some nearly life-size color reproductions. It truly helps me relax and create on my own blank sheets of mulberry paper .

A Pound of Prevention

Everyone knows “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Another one of those wise sayings that seem less useful when applied to your own life .

Oh it’s good to be prepared, and to try to avoid horrible later problems by planning for them and even taking some action to avoid the worst. As a first approximation, it’s hardly bad advice. Filling the gas tank before a long trip across the desert avoids pain and expense .

But these days, there’s a little too much prevention available, and much of that only haphazardly connected to avoiding cures. If you follow every bit of internet advice on diet, for example, no good is likely to result. Much “prevention” rests on flimsy evidence. And genuine “cures” are not all that hard to come by. Pounds of (possible) prevention are hardly worth carrying around to avoid an ounce of cure .

One of the biggest problems, of course, is that advice for the future is based on past experience. In rapidly changing times, the past is hardly the best guide to what will be. Even when we think we are following tradition, the chicken soup we eat today may scarcely resemble that of our ancestors. And honestly, we live in a much different environment from them .

Common sense old proverbs have therefore become suspect. Even though they may sound comforting .

Glad I’m Me

Some mornings I wake up simply thrilled to be me, alive and conscious in this time and place. I once had a colleague who described life as “a vacation from eternity”. Today I would agree with him .

Like most of our evaluations, I suppose this attitude is simply an illusion. Nothing rational about it. Logic can always pick out problems – past present and future. But from my current perspective, the illusion is more real and meaningful than logic. I cherish it .

No doubt many others would mock my happiness as simply the advancing incapacity of old age. Our facilities weaken, so we wallow in imaginary nostalgia, thinking our sorry lives were rich and meaningful. Fortunately, I rarely care what others – especially the pessimists and gloomers – think about me. They are free to frolic in their depressing visions – which I tend to believe are also illusions .

Nah, I’m not that far around the bend. I know the world has problems. I’m aware I have my own. But on some days, as the sunshine streams in the window, I can just forget all that and happily play in the enchanting glory of being alive here at this exact moment.

Ain’t What You Do

As the old song goes “ain’t what you do, it’s the way what you do it.” We have come to recognize the value of those lyrics in these days of a clumsy, brutalist federal government. Maybe what they are doing is not strictly “illegal” – although that is open to question – but the manner in which they carry out activities is simply awful and completely out of step with the traditions of this culture .

The president is a loose cannon. Taking outrageous positions, annoying or horrifying everyone, then forgetting what he was trying to do. His asymptotic hyperbole – anyone who disagrees with his current thinking is foul evil incarnate for a day or so. He must be stroked and praised or he throws a tantrum. We’re not used to that in the US .

And, of course, we have the focal point of ICE, a law enforcement body whose members have no resemblance in appearance nor deed to any police here in the past. To begin with they assume their target is guilty, violent, and vicious (with no evidence whatsoever) and pretend they are engaged in a dangerous heroic act as they haul away frightened men, women, and children whose only fault is to be around when a quota comes due .

There are, and were, civilized and less provocative ways to do this. We used to call it “rule of law” and “due process.” The appropriate terminology now might be “fear and awe”. Or simply “terror” .

Fragile AI Dreams

The WSJ and other media are filled with stories and predictions about the “AI revolution”. Some are utopian, some dystopian, some just weird and crazy. But all seem to have one glaring flaw .

That is the fact that AI – unlike life – is quite fragile. All the scenarios I have read assume that somehow things go on as now – lots of power, a connected grid, open communication, government power, social order, no electronic catastrophe (EMP blast, malware, whatever).

None of that is guaranteed, nor even likely .

I sense it as a lot like the advent of the internal combustion engine. Most dreamers saw it as a replacement for a horse. Some maybe understood it had advantages over steam. But nobody foresaw the social dynamics that ensued. Few even understood what it might do to transportation itself – for example to the road infrastructure .

Right now AI is free and exciting. But it can be easily wrecked. I’m not saying it will be, I’m not pretending I know what’s coming .

But I am sure it will be a lot different than what is currently predicted by both admirers and those who worry .

Immoral/Evil

This is an age of hyperbole. Everything is bigger, flashier, “more unique”. And there is a quick slide from what used to be gradients to absolutes .

This is easily demonstrated in the current description of “bad” things. We can all pretty much agree that “bad” means something we do not approve of (although what that may be might vary considerably). But there is a tendency for ‘“bad” to slip from “disapproval” to “immoral” to “evil” .

You can easily try it yourself. We may agree that illegal drug use is bad. Yet depending on circumstance, it rapidly becomes immoral, then evil. Then we must expend our energy to vanquish it. We lose our center in an overbalance about something that may not be very important in the larger scheme of things _ trivial stuff like sex, rock and roll, clothing.

The world is complicated but except in special (personally defined) instances we prefer to understand it in binary black and white. Any other approach is too slow and confusing. I realize we are wired for this biologically. We are, after all, often confronted by clearly marked divisions – awake or asleep, fight or flight, be or not be.

We should always retain the flexibility to redefine, and to be aware that such clear judgments are in fact a continuum. Shades of gray. More than that, on a complicated matrix of interest of intersecting evaluations .

Everyone knows that. But time is short, life is frantic, and slogans are easy .