Diogenes went around town with a lantern looking for an honest man whom he, presumably, never found. A lot of the problem is definitions, as in the proverbial differences between “truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Not only how honest, but how relevant is it to me.

For example, I recently bought a new cell phone at the Verizon store. Three hours later my family had three new phones to replace our 8-year-old ones and a not too much more expanded data plan. All very pleasant, well within what I expected to pay, no haggling or whining. I suppose maybe a little taken advantage of but I’d rather assume not. 

People see the world through their own lenses. The guilty flee where no man pursueth. Crooks see everyone else as a dishonest crook. I prefer to try to stay internally honest and, at least within bounds, see most other people as reasonably honest as well. For 70-odd years such an approach has worked adequately for me. 

In spite of Spencerian Darwinism, ecologies exhibit a great deal of balance, particularly within species. A degree of cooperation works well for herds and wolves as well. In society, it can drain a great deal of happiness and energy to be suspicious all the time, and in my perception is usually not worth the effort.

So I set my limits, go forth, and am often pleasantly surprised. An old fool, but a contented one.

America was founded on and grew by celebrating risk. Western Europe had immersed ideology in the “wheel of fortune,” only mitigated by the idea that earthly life was simply a temporary test leading to an eternal jackpot. Luck gave good and ill indiscriminately, God dispensed favors via an ineffable plan of his own. Anyone riding high today might suddenly be cast down tomorrow.

The wheel of fortune, like death, is a great leveler. Those who are up may be down tomorrow, and vice versa. And it is strangely comforting that this happens despite one’s plans and efforts. Calvinism achieved the same goal with its view of predestination, as we merely play at what has been ordained in heaven.

But, of course, our current mythology left all that behind with the coming of industrialization. Now, we believe, risk is ever present and _ if well planned and executed _ inevitably leads to social gains. Even individual failure is merely training for the next attempt. Luck plays only a transient short-term role and we deserve whatever we make of it.

Except _ well _ it’s just another mythology. Plenty of people remain trapped on the wheel of fortune, or subject to heaven’s whim. This is now the great divide in outlook between the rich and poor. And an even greater divide between the brazen promoters and those “sheep” just trying to live a decent life.

But that wheel still turns.

“History is written by the winners,” but history is also, by definition, written by those living in later times. Most historians cannot avoid the moralizing bias of their own environment, seeking lessons in the past to apply to their perception of current problems. 

So I find it refreshing to read historians from former ages, who are not nearly so ignorant as some suppose. Right now I am enjoying the extremely long and detailed History of the French and English in America by Francis Parkman, author of the well-known Oregon Trail. This history is a vivid portrait of the early wilderness and its inhabitants, and a refreshing counterpunch to those who like to magnify certain parts of the past, ignore harsh realities, and see it as a romantic golden age.

In 1550, Canadian forests were dark, filled with mosquitoes, and although wild game was abundant in summer, aborigines often starved in winter. Society was vicious, capricious, uncertain, and insanely cruel. Life was so harsh that the best way to endure it was with childish enthusiasm (and fear) mixed with inert complacent stoicism.

I’ve always been extremely grateful to inhabit my own era. Now I am a septuagenarian who can live like a 20-year-old of days gone by. And I have food, heat, water, comfort, and basic security.

Best of times, indeed. The “snowflakes” of today, caught up in petty victimhood and anger, will never understand. 

Sometimes it seems civilization is always “the best of times, the worst of times.” Good and bad continually compete to define the future. Only rarely is life perfectly balanced or obviously destined to become brighter. And when we think that may be true, it is often just hubris unaware of an unexpected disaster lurking just ahead.

One new issue, among many, is that so many of us are so aware of how fragile things seem to be that we are perpetually worried. Instant updates have made us all cultural hypochondriacs, imagining massive illness with every ache or collapse with every awful news story, however minor in the grand scheme of things. 

My hope is that society can evolve just like an organism. And learn just like a mind. Perhaps at some point a mass of people who count become immunized to social media. Or somehow that deus-ex-machina of AI begins to instantly ground all that is claimed with honest fact. Perhaps civilization can acquire its own electronic immunities.

But nobody knows, and it is a process that seems undirected. Advanced countries have tried to teach science and history, but masses of folks ignore all general education. Authoritarian governments try to decree “truth” but usually end in revolution by those who disagree with the groundwork. Who knows?

Not I. In the meantime, as all this goes on, it sure is entertaining to live in “interesting times.”

“Carpe diem” means “seize the day”, which is sometimes good advice. Do what needs to be done now! Cross that Rubicon! Fix that roof! Go for the gold! Time’s awastin’. 

There are many things which need doing, and they will not do themselves, it is true. But these days a lot of things do not need doing and are simply wants or habits. Time on social media, for example, or following events on video feeds. If those are not seized, no big deal, to you or the universe

I’ve come to use carpe with a different connotation. As I get elderly, every moment is precious, and there is no reason to believe that anything I do will make my future ones brighter. Oh, I can follow common sense, and even occasionally work on that roof, but all in all I really need to appreciate my good fortune in still being alive and relatively aware.

I admit that throughout my life I have done some of the same, probably hurting my earning potential. Dithering on the banks of the Rubicon, enjoying the sparkles and the butterflies. As I look back, no regrets at a life filled with as much contemplation as action.

We are all unique. That seems to have been a good path for me _ at least I can imagine it so _ but that does not mean it would be so for you also. Carpe what you will.

As a person of a certain age and background, I often wax nostalgic in midsummer on the vanished ecological paradise of my boyhood. Birds nested in the yard, there were natural fish in clear streams, box turtles and snakes inhabited the woods. We wandered freely because strict property boundaries were rarely enforced. And there seemed to be many, many fewer people.

Oh, I know a lot of it is illusion. The US had already decimated a lot of its flora and fauna. The rivers were becoming filled with centuries of casually dumped pollution. The air was smoggy. More land was being developed on a large scale day by day. Already, Thoreau would not have recognized our haunts or, if he had, he would certainly have wept.

And yet. Even looking with clearer eyes, there were good points. Lots of land remained quiescent, not required for our multi-fold increase in population. Large stretches of the world remained nearly virgin wilderness. Few species had actually become extinct. Even fought-over Europe, blasted for hundreds of years, remained full of birds, insects, forests.

Alas, much gone now. The real worry has become less “worry” and more “preservation.” No matter where one goes there are lines, fences, rules, and _ often  _ crowds. So even though my golden nostalgia is mistaken in a lot of ways, it is not in many others.

Well as we say “it is as it is.” I can only hope sanity prevails at some point, but all that is well beyond my influence and control. 

Making a list is by definition exclusionary. There are things which are “in,” and all the rest is “out.” That is why the current fanatic devotion of “constitutionalists” who focus on the “founders’” original thoughts of “enumerated rights” is so corrosive to our society.

Those who actually study history know that the real founders did not want to include the first ten amendments _ The Bill of Rights. They actually claimed that by proclaiming some rights, they were trivializing others just as important. In the end, they went along but more in the line of “for example”, then “this one only.”

They were wise enough to understand time changes things, and they were masters of balancing dynamics. How could they possibly know what society would consider necessary in the future? They were humble enough to think that their careful system of checks and balances would work it out. Flawed perhaps, but possible.

I think they would be aghast that pseudoscientific lawyers have been trying to make each of their decisions a kind of holy writ. Instead of rights, we have commandments. And if we have need for new ones _  too bad. Whatever they did not think of “need not be considered.”

I hate it when very intelligent people get swept into a fanatic mania. It all has happened before, and is often a precursor to inquisition and enforced dogma. 

In this age of gentle euphemisms and “snowflakes” it is no doubt horrifying to label those over 80 as “crones.” I take the liberty since I approach that threshold myself and know many people beyond it. That has required a personal survey of the future, filled with visions of self-decline, home care, senior centers, nursing homes, hospice, and so on.

The most striking thing about the whole slide of age is the common agreement of a decline to “second childhood.” With good intentions, the elderly are fed, cheered up, kept active, pushed to stay curious and socially engaged. Treated, in fact, as if they were elementary school students gradually regressing through kindergarten and preschool. Even using some of the same tools (arts and crafts) and techniques (group singing.)

That is wrong.

Children are being socialized, taught how to survive in their culture, with expanding horizons of mind and body. A child sitting alone in a corner is a problem to be dealt with. An old person in the same situation may be quite content.

Crones have a lot to remember. They enjoy the luxury of being still and relaxed within tiring bodies. They have slow and gentle needs, when modern medicine does not intrude. They have already gone through civilized culture and are mostly happy to just watch it from now on. People in a different stage of life.

Not children. Not to be treated as such. 

The Wall Street Journal has two types of columnists. One set is crusty, old, and angry that the world has changed not at all to their liking. The other is fresh young whippersnappers sure that they have figured everything out.

One of the latter recently declaimed that what we should all do to live better lives is to consider our “future self.” Hardly new. “Don’t drink to excess, think how you will feel tomorrow.” But since at least the invention of movable type, future self has gotten out of control. Or maybe it goes even further back, to ancient Kings and warriors wanting to be immortal, remembered forever.

But the idea has limits, largely based on time scale. The nearby makes lots of sense as in the example of wine. But the further we move away, the more irrelevant and even counterproductive “future self” becomes. 

A literally fatal flaw is that there may be no future self. And any elder will usually admit that life never turned out as planned. Furthermore, very remote (and fully imaginary) future selves tend to lead to a lot of immediate local damage, in religions and social movements. Wars are fought, people are killed, and in real life looking back much of it seems rather silly and trivial. Mostly driven by thinking of “future self.”

Our effect on our future should be kept in a sane range. Yes, I can surely affect my future self tomorrow, next week, maybe even a month from now. After that, it’s a crapshoot run by fate. Anyone saying different is probably trying to sell you something.

And, of course, the very concept of who and what our future may or should be morphs as we age. A guideline, all in all of limited value beyond common sense.

I spent some years in the early 70’s in Berkeley, associated with a commune. It was not exactly a crazy cult, but it had peripheral contact with some of the more fanatic tribes of “the movement.” I was more amused than intrigued.

But I did understand how anyone can start with a logical (although usually false or warped) perspective and then use anything that happens as support. And automatically dismiss or hate anyone who interprets or evaluates things differently.

Off the deep end, this leads to Manson or Hitler. Avoiding that is the best case for promotion of free speech, in the fond hope that two extremes can somehow synthesize in the middle, even though that rarely happens.

Such Artificial Ignorance _ using “facts” to support a previously determined outlook is what we should most fear from AI. Humans, after all, are complex and can often change their minds. Machines, not so much.

But the more current danger is the artificial ignorance of the various tribes formed by background, media, and social computerization. Good examples are cable news, newspaper editorial pages, and all the various organizations on one mission or another. They hear what they want, and make anything fit their preconceived notions.

The saving grace has been that fanatic obsessions are often (not always) taken over by exploiting cynics _ another human trait missing in silicon circuits.