Overprep

We each have at one time or another encountered the phenomenon known as beginner’s luck. A naive person tries something for the first time and succeeds beyond the dreams of the more experienced. And then, the luck mysteriously goes away .

On the other side of the curve, suave experts can suddenly lose their magic. A baseball pitcher can’t find the strike zone. A musician can’t craft a salable tune. Usually, such events are short-lived, but unnerving .

Ours is a culture of perfectability, where everyone likes to believe that with hard work they can do anything. For that reason overpreparation is almost a disease. If a certain behavior is good, more training should make it better .

Except – often it doesn’t. There is a golden patch for anyone doing anything, beyond which extra exertion yields actively declining results. The mood can quickly turn to frustration and anger (and in these times, blame) .

I’ve often tried to invoke the counter-mantra of “just good enough”. That used to suit American pioneers. Not more and more perfect, but adequate to accomplish the task. Anything beyond, however elegant or pretty, would be superfluous waste of time and energy. It fit nicely with my other belief that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” .

Nice to call it a philosophy. Honestly, more likely just innate laziness

Short Tempers

Since at least the Revolution of 1776, Americans have been known for their rudeness, volatility, haste, and short tempers. Once encapsulated in the concept of the “New York minute” with angry drivers honking a second after (or before) a light turned green .

In spite of various calming fads like meditation, that hasn’t changed much. People still get angry at traffic – and so much more. Anything that isn’t exactly as smooth as expected, or delayed, can cause a flash of temper. We are far from becoming a “kinder and gentler” society .

The saving grace has always been that since we get so angry at so much so easily, we rarely have time to hold a grudge. Old injuries are quickly forgotten, we need to reserve our temper for the next problem. The Hatfields and McCoys were an outlier .

These days, the real issue is that our immediate means of expression has escalated and become lethal. The worst is “road rage” where instead of honking or yelling, one driver will ram or shoot another. Almost as bad is lashing out into viral space on the internet, which can ruin lives .

I like to say I’ve mellowed as I got older. Unfortunately, I find my patience just as short, my expression just as loud, my short temper just is stupidly prevalent. Minor disagreements can become either sullen withdrawal or loud argument.

Sure, I forget by next morning, or even within a few minutes.

But I remain fully traditional American .

Social Dinner

People can adjust almost infinitely to social expectations. On the other hand, I tend to cling to activities that please me, especially in daily life. This leads to minor conflicts with my wife – she enjoys social dinners, I hate them .

Oh, she has good reasons. It expands our horizons, makes times special. Gets us out of our shells, cements friendships. Interesting relevant conversations. And, of course, a feeling of doing something rewarding .

Me – I’m a curmudgeon. The food is not good, the costs are high, I can’t hear well. What we discuss is dull and repetitious. I don’t like being served. I’d much rather be reading or taking a walk .

We manage to get along. Go out less than she would prefer, more than I would. I can’t honestly say I “hate” the experience anymore than she “hates” staying home .

No doubt, most of our outlook in things like this is driven by how we were raised and how we lived our lives. Neither of our childhoods – although wonderful – were particularly affluent. Especially in “eating out” at upscale places. Nor did we have much money to waste during most of our lives. We enjoyed fast food with our kids when (once upon a time) it was inexpensive .

Now, I suppose, we could afford better.

As in many other areas of life, we muddle along in compromise, happy and grumpy, it is, after all, quite meaningless .

Paving the Road to Evil .

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Although the concept of hell has become somewhat obscured in these enlightened times, we all agree that there is such a thing as evil. Creators of horror media feast on it. Nobody denies that evil exists in the world, but an awful lot of it seems a result of somebody’s good intentions .

For example, we all might easily agree that a psychopath kidnapping a 4-year-old and torturing her to death is an act of pure evil. Yet the same outcome, on a massive scale, might happen as “collateral damage” in what many regard as a just war. In such cases, I suppose, we could say that the event was evil, but the people who caused it were acting with justifiable intentions in a good cause .

It is all very well to dilute the idea of evil to the “intent of those causing it”. That goes right back to the old monotheistic question of why an omnipotent God allows evil to happen. And it helps us build a bearable framework around an unbearable tragedy .

The problem with that – and it always has been – is that we degrade our moral sense and treat evil in a rather cavalier attitude. Fortified by a contradictory certainty that we can clearly determine intent, and can easily assign relative weight (“how evil”) to what should be a uniquely absolute moral judgment .

Anyway, I surely see a lot of earnest paving going on all around me these days .

Joy

In my same moments, I simply rejoice in being conscious and aware. A perfect enchanted unity. I reject the artificial division of body and mind, and the still more degraded notion of defining mind as logic. Down that useless path wanders the progress of AI .

We need not celebrate life itself so much as awareness. True awareness, of course, is built on life. An organism that is aware in any sense possesses consciousness. Without running off to deeper metaphysics, I find my own consciousness the ultimate glory of all I am .

Logic, after all, is a barren brittle construct. The joy in solving a puzzle has nothing inherently logical about it. The joy is an awareness of having achieved a solution .

My heresy is to claim that awareness – enabling that joy – requires life, requires a body. Whatever we’ve constructed without life will lack that. No joy. No awareness. No consciousness. Logic will exist, but never the actual exuberance of being .

I have a short “objective” window of existence as measured in years, although my subjective time feels infinite. During that opportunity, I joyfully seize the world and myself in the universe .

I pity those unaware of their own precious gift.

Science has value, as does logic, but that value is hardly logical. Without resort to dry ancient or futuristic metaphysics, I am free to expand into infinity.

Aesthetics

The old Roman saying went “there is no questioning taste”. Even if we hate what someone else likes, even if we think it is evil, it remains true that that person enjoys it. So aesthetics is an almost impossible ideal on which to base society, or even an activity like art .

Of course, within any subculture or social group, argument is possible. Religions thrive on it – the ultimate form of an aesthetic outlet is probably deep faith. Less life-changing agreements – as in art criticism – are all around us. Fashion, food, morality, even life purpose. What looks good to us? What constitutes a masterpiece ?

Unfortunately, an extremely finely tuned aesthetic sense in anything usually brings problems. The least is an individual obsession, the worst is mob madness. Fine art is littered with the judgments of serious critics which have aged into silly constipated irrelevance .

I found that I must spend effort – before making an aesthetic judgment _ to understand the context. “A beautiful tree” might mean almost anything depending on where your mind is coming from. Are you painting a picture or evaluating lumber possibilities?

Realizing that – and understanding that most aesthetics are careful and often valid in one way or another may be one of the necessary conditions of wisdom .

Hegel Madness

The philosopher Hegel proposed that knowledge advances in a series of intertwined opposites. A “thesis” was declared, an “antithesis” developed and the combined “synthesis” was closer to “truth”. It’s a comforting thought in these times of polarized political and social dynamics .

But there are problems with this cozy illusion .

With evidence-based observation it is pretty quickly determined which is more right. To state that “iron is hard” is not negated nor modified by spouting “iron is soft”. Even if true under certain conditions such as high heat, soft iron is not what most of us encounter most of the time. No synthesis possible .

Then there is the problem of balance. A bucket of boiling water poured into a bucket of ice water might synthesize to a nice bathtub temperature. But a thimbleful of boiling water into a bucket of ice water will hardly modify it .

Finally – and most important for social views – are we even talking about the same thing? A bucket of boiling oil added to a bucket of ice water will do nothing but give us a horrible mess, mostly separated, but with foul water and useless oil.

I’ve never much appreciated pure philosophers. My mind has been fully corrupted by science. Theorize, test, modify.

Philosophers remain active in all areas we cannot test, such as meaning, future and the many instances when consciousness and life are just too complicated. But I never trust their ideas – not thesis, nor antithesis, nor synthesis .

Drunken Boat

Rimbaud wrote a famous poem called “The Drunken Boat”. Sometimes I feel I am aboard. The world spins by madly and unpredictably, the guide has drowned, the oarsman has gone overboard. I’m not sure where I’m going, have never seen this place, all is mist and rapids and whirlpools and churning danger .

All around me. Yet here I sit, dry and terrified, the last occupant of the vessel. We might crash or overturn any second but – not yet. Nothing I can do about it. Staying aboard is folly, jumping overboard is worse .

So what should I do? Stay calm? Have another glass of wine? Admire the sky and cliffs and spray? Panic when panic is useless? Appreciate the adventure? Hope? Pray? Review my life ?

Ah, anyway, right now an awful lot seems like that voyage. Everything is spinning and changing and even the experts are blind. Plenty of soothsayers, of course, but I don’t really trust any of them. Economy, society, family, self – argggh!

And yet – I sit in the dry spinning boat. Writing calmly, reading about the world, enjoying quotidian routines, delighting in the local. Perhaps – but only perhaps – that is the only sane reaction .

Fit for Spring

Many people know that evolution involves “survival of the fittest” although sometimes that really implies “survival of the luckiest”. Too many also assume fitness is a rabid struggle of tooth and claw. Not always .

Consider flowers. Yes, they need to be adapted to environment. But for hundreds of millions of years flowers have also “fought” to have attractive blooms for pollinators, and fruit which will be eaten by mobile animals to allow species dispersal .

Odd things can be involved in fitness. Around here, most of the spring blooms – all magnificent right now – are either invasive or human cultivated species. Cherry trees, magnolias, forsythias are breathtaking. Daffodils and tulips blanket flower beds everywhere. In the current suburban environment, pure beauty can be “fitness” for a plant.

Even more surprising, recognizing “beauty” can be fitness for animals. Bees need to head for the right flowers, by sight or scent. Animals need to locate sugary pulp. Surely some of this has actively worked and is still working on our own human sensibilities .

But surprisingly, around me, beauty is its own reward, causing me to smile, neighbors to spend money, and all of us to be delighted with the floral displays of April .

Shock

In art, as in society, bland beauty is out, shock is in. We are inundated with machine replicated loveliness. No real complaints about that – it surely makes our lives better. I’m not about to harp on “bourgeois aesthetics” – taste is always fickle and in the eye of the beholder .

Ah, but to get someone’s attention? That is difficult. Pretty much impossible to out-machine machines – folks can easily buy relatively cheap stuff indistinguishable from the original masterpieces of the ages. And the whole world of artisans, amateurs, and now AI churns out more mountains of stuff hour by hour, day by day, year by year .

All that remains is notoriety. Become famous. A red x on a black splotch done by a celebrity is worth something. A ceiling that resembles a palatial achievement done by Jane Doe – not so much. So shock it is – blood, guts, mess or – as Tom Wolfe called it – aesthetics of “the painted word” – slavishly adhering to an artificial intellectual formulation .

And so it is becoming with work, life, being. Shock everyone to “go viral”. Become well known. Stand out from the crowd. No matter how crude, stupid, senseless – shock the complacent herd into frenzies .

Ah, elusive success .