New Amish

It is well known that we establish certain likes or dislikes at definite ages. Boys center on sports attachments around 10 or 11. People tend to enjoy the music of teenage years as long as they live. It is, of course, possible to change, but there can be a lot of resistance .

Cultures too have some of that stickiness. Religions are long-lasting but centered on origins. Nation states have a definite point of origin and tradition. And then we have social cults like the Amish.

As far as I can tell – I’m too lazy to investigate on Google – the Amish basically picked a date around 1880 as “thus far and no further”. Anything invented before that, fine and dandy. After that – just frivolous garbage .

We may laugh at the arbitrariness of the cutoff, seemingly picked at random without much real logic involved. Yet I have found myself doing the same thing. An old “neo Amish” gentleman. The “new stuff” is “stupid and irrelevant” and just makes me crazy. Current music, film, food, fads – I ignore them all. I froze my electronic usage about 10 or 15 years ago. I like older books. And I don’t care – let the wider world go down its own devil’s route .

A complete curmudgeon. I still enjoy complaining with my peers. But I float along in my neo Amish nostalgia, content with the memories in my own life. And all the things that I accept as necessary. From that personal arbitrary cut off point years ago.

Target Rock

It can be useful to be reminded of both the age and impermanence of the world around us. For those of us aware on Long Island, that is pretty easy. This is a “new” land, formed of sand debris as the last glaciers melted, raised from the ocean when the continent lifted as it was freed of the weight of the ice. Perhaps soon to be submerged by rising seas .

European history here is almost ancient (by European standards). Over 400 years ago – Louis XIV was just building Versailles – the town of Huntington was founded. Before Napoleon, the British defended the island fiercely .

They captured Nathan Hale on the shore line here. They smashed a graveyard to use as a cannon emplacement. And from sandy bluffs, they practiced gunshots at Target Rock, a large erratic boulder lying in Lloyd Inlet .

People and politics come and go. The rock is still there, preserved from use and indignity by its “useless” location. Now the center of a wildlife refuge formed from old Gold Coast estates destroyed by time and taxes .

I love to visit in all seasons, enjoying the trees and birds and wind and shells. Become aware once again of the impermanence of life. Enjoy the connection to “olden times”. Imagine being a native American, a colonist, even a wealthy owner in the gilded age .

But, quite honestly, mostly happy to be exactly like that rock. Contented where I am .

Modesty

This is no age to celebrate modesty. Everyone wants to show off, to prove that they have “arrived” and that they are (at least in some way or another) better than anyone else .

An example is houses, where the idea that “a person’s home is their castle” has been raised to extremes which would astonish Louis XIV. More than that, it is a constant striving for even more. Renovations are re-renovated; massive chateaus are “flipped” .

I don’t mind all that. People have a right to enjoy what they want (although I sometimes do worry about effects on the environment). Whatever makes them happy. Beautiful, tacky, stupendously ugly – joy in the eye of the beholder (usually the one paying the bills).

I draw the line at being required to appreciate private marvels. Public works – yes something done for the community can deserve applause. But miserly accretions perched on a hill? Marvelous rooms hidden away? No. The screams of need from plutocrats wanting affirmation of their taste leave me cold .

Modesty serves no purpose in this society. You’ll never get anywhere by smelling a rose rather than posting massive floral arrangements on social media.

Probably only I consider that a tragedy .

Fear

Fear or its equivalent is instinctually hardwired into most animals. A deer may not experience “fear” as we know it, but certain perceptions of sight, sound, or smell will provoke a flight response. Humans seem to inherit the whole range of abilities to be afraid of various things and provide actions to avoid or deal with issues .

A problem is that our overactive brains can invent many things to fear. Some are real – will that approaching car hit us? Some are imaginary – does that creaking tree contain a malignant ghost? It is useless to talk about rationality, because all fear is only probability, and my mind can manipulate anything to appear rational (at least to me) .

“Paralyzed by fear” is a real thing, often transmuted to “enervated by fear”. Today there are such fears everywhere, focused by attention-grabbing media or sales provocateurs. If we listened to them all, we’d never leave the house. We’d be deeply worried all the time anyway .

I think the greater danger is that all the minor trivial fears desensitize us to real problems. We have to learn to ignore so much that we cannot recognize something we really should do something about .

Like that deer caught in the headlights, we never react to the sound of the rifle being cocked. Our entire civilization is now paralyzed by the onslaught of the internet .

Dance

I courted my wife under false pretenses. At the time I met her, I was heavily involved – for the only time in my life – with a dance group in Cambridge Massachusetts. Mid ’70s, lots of young energy trying to change the world. I went to many events, helped with the light show and administration .

I enjoyed the times, but it was only for a few years. I’m not graceful and have no sense of rhythm. I can’t learn dance steps because I hate being told what to do. So after we were married _ no more dancing except once in a while at weddings and such .

Joan, on the other hand, is a natural. She starts to move unconsciously when she hears music. She loves to get out and sway. She has many fond memories of all the early times she spent in high school, college, and beyond with groups of friends at parties and bars .

Partly, I write this to know that people often turn out to be different than we expect. But the core takeaway may be that dance even for that short time was good for me. I ended a better person for the experience. I wish Donald and Elon would do more of it.

Dance puts a different perspective on things. Less intellectual, more physical, less meditative, more immersed .

Oh well, at least I got well rewarded.

Appreciating Stuff

“Imagination is funny” goes an old song “it can make cloudy days sunny …” For the more intellectual, we have Milton’s ” “mind can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.” True thoughts .

But they hardly apply to declared modern aesthetics. It is no longer appreciation that is the key to happiness, but pure quantity. A lot of anything (even misery _ read the books!) is what winning in life is all about .

Those “ancient” notions about valuing things applied to times in which folks did not have a lot to count. Oh, there was the moon and the scent of roses, but also disease and hunger. Masses of people could not accumulate mountains of stuff .

According to media and politics, the only concern of modern Americans is how many dollars they think they have, how new their houses look, how many shallow experiences they can brag about. Not a moon gaze or rose sniff in the bunch .

I suspect most people are more appreciative in their private lives. Unfortunately, none of that translates to public exposure. Appreciation is the road to ruin. Our shallow philosophies and politics reflect that .

Whatever happened to “cups running over ?”

Sex, Drugs, and Golden Old

Wealthy scions who are taking over our country are well trained in the ways of technology, finance, and getting what they want. These paragons know nothing about the rest of society or history, and think all other people are just plug-in employees to be used like any other tool (when useful and inexpensive) and discarded when they wear out. Of course, their own daddy’s old days were perfection.

I think of them as the rich “frat boys” I always hated. They believe rules are made for lesser folks. The “brothers” can drink and carouse without limit. They talk the talk, walk the walk, and hire each other on the “merit” of being alike, and having the same background, and knowing the right people. Grudgingly, they may admit nouveau riche to their closed club room .

Currently, their goal is to enshrine a 19th century capitalistic corporate mentality into government. This requires a strong authoritarian CEO who is only removed by actions of the “board” _ meaning them. Citizens are either consumers (who can like it or lump it) or employees (who are simply another inert productive input.) If they could, they’d fire everyone when times get rough .

It’s sad. We’ve seen such fanaticism before in Europe in the guise of socialism, in China in the guise of communism, in South America in the guise of superman magic fables.

Ah, but the dream of capitalistic government must surely be different .

Consolations of Continuity

Boethius wrote his enduring classic Consolations of Philosophy after he had been condemned to death by his Roman emperor. A sad story, we think, but with a smug twinge of admiration at his accomplishment at a difficult time.

Like the rest of us, Boethius was mortal. Like the rest of us, condemned to death sooner or later. For us elders, of course, it’s sooner. We may have less time to do anything then Boethius. We may have far less chance of producing anything significant. He was after all in the literate elite of Rome – a tiny fraction of a powerful population. We inhabit a world of 8 billion, all of them equally literate (or illiterate) on social media .

I suspect from all the chatter, few classics will emerge, let alone endure for thousands of years .

So my attempts in the face of fate have been reduced to revisiting my life, producing a stream of continuity – in words and artifacts, memories and conversations and even hidden thoughts. Directed at me. A consolation, if only for an hour, or late at night. Recall of a thread of being, meaningful in spite of its cosmic insignificance .

A philosophy? I guess. At this point, I’m happy to discover and utilize anything that increases my enchantment with existence. A busy pen, a happy mind .

Triumphant Ignorance

Lately, everyone seems to love ignorance. “I didn’t know”, “I wasn’t aware”, “I haven’t seen” are all played as “get out of jail free cards” when anyone is caught in a lie. Ignorance is truly bliss .

Of course, ignorance is hardly ever used in the present. “I don’t know” is certain doom. One must be confident and strident even when making up lies out of whole cloth. No matter if later you are proved wrong, because you were either “misinformed” or “misunderstood.”

Once upon a time, as in all good fairy tales, there was a standard of truth, and a test of past truthfulness applied to congenital liars. Now we simply accept them as entertaining orators, making up tall tales to enliven our dull lives .

There is a pervading zeitgeist that ignorance doesn’t matter. We can always learn the truth later and correct any mistakes “inadvertently” made by not learning the truth ahead of time .

As bridge builders still know, that’s a dangerous philosophy in a lot of areas. Apparently, government is no longer one of them .

Vox Populi

“The voice of the people is the voice of God.” Perhaps. But the wealthy, the bureaucrats, and the lawyers actually run things. It is claimed that if “vox populi” selects the rulers, they will keep all the others in line with what people want .

The problem, of course, is that “the people” can be defined in many ways and aggregated differently. Majority does not equal unanimity. Two thousand voting yes against two thousand one voting no is a muffled mutter from god at best. But winners of an election like that will nevertheless declare a “mandate” to do what they want .

And rulers – elected or not – are clever folks, or they would not be rulers. They can easily manipulate the shouts of a mob for one thing or another to camouflage what they really want to do .

Finally, “the people” tend to be many “peoples” in different places and situations. Federalism just disguises the problem – there will still be minorities everywhere. Sure, constitutions can guarantee “rights” to keep vox populi in check, but that has historically been a very weak reed, especially if times get difficult .

All that is why I cringe every time a politician claims “the people have spoken.” I think democracy may be the “least bad” form of government, but we should never pretend that it is actually close to “god“.