Que Sera

“Que sera sera, whatever will be will be”, a song from childhood. Nice to embrace as one grows older, but in opposition to progressive capitalism .

It’s kind of a variant on “accept God’s will”, a mantra in some form of almost every religion. So obviously it has relevance to just about how everyone considers life, at least part of the time. Find the good, enjoy the moment, do what must be done, “Don’t worry, be happy” .

Of course we also have that old standby “carpe diem”. Seize the day, grab opportunities, define goals, change things you don’t like. There is no shame in failure, only in never trying.

Two conflicting outlooks. Hegel might claim that of such opposites a synthesis could be formed. But that is wrong. Instead we fragment our times, finding some moments when one approach applies, others when the opposite is appropriate, a lot of situations when neither quite fits .

For me, the resolution has been that rigid dogmatism is useless in life. A person who never lifts a finger is frequently a useless drudge. A maniac who is always taking risks may destroy our community. So we end up back with another aphorism – “moderation, even in moderation” .

Hot Shower

This morning I pulled myself from my comfortable clean insect-free bed. Heated instant coffee in a microwave, drank it gratefully in a soft chair as I watched birds fly against a blue sky behind budding maple branches. Wrote in a journal with a ball-point pen, checked news on the internet. Woke up with a hot shower, shave, brushing teeth. Put on warm clothes, brought in the emptied trash cans and newspaper … and on and on .

Every one of these things would seem miraculous to most humans living over a hundred years ago. Many are still unavailable to many people today. All taken for granted by me .

Electricity! Water! Safety! But you can complete the endless list without help.

A sad note is that we rarely notice how wonderful all this is. From the top down, everyone loves to complain. Our leaders scream that we live in a hell hole surrounded by horrible aliens. Neighbors worry that their house is too old and small, their yards too filled with dust, perhaps their children less than perfect. Ignore the wonderful, concentrate on whatever bothers us (this moment).

I’ve always been a little too complacent and content, more so now that I am elder and retired. I’m amazed that the sun rises, electricity works, and that I am so much alive. And that hot morning shower remains a treat worthy of gods – which in some ways we are .

Fire, Flood, Drought

“Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” In this era of massive technology, scientific hubris claims we can . Geo engineering concepts abound, from seeding the oceans, to sulfuric acid clouds and/or reducing certain gas emissions .

So far, it does seem the climate is more extreme. Bigger storms, major variations in “normal patterns.” Pretty clearly this is not simply “better weather reporting”. But equally, it is not immediately disastrous to everyone, nor an existential survival threat .

It may be humanity can change things. If not, some small fragment of our bloated numbers could probably survive anything. Famine and catastrophe first, of course .

But what does it mean to me and you? Obviously most of us should avoid building or living in river valleys or on sandy barrier Islands, among other adjustments. But personal changes are largely symbolic, especially if they are not normalized for everyone.

Brushing my teeth more quickly or dashing in the shower do nothing unless everyone is forced to do so. Also what kind of car I drive or what I eat. Giant problems, unfortunately, require giant solutions. Feeling virtuous about my CO2 footprint is like feeling lucky when I throw a coin down a wishing well .

In the meantime, I better fix my leaky roof.

Digital Dizzy

Digital technology surrounds us, and becomes more immersive by the day. As a person who had a (relatively) happy career programming computers in the good old days (ie until 2010 or so), I should enjoy the advances.

Besides it’s silly to rant against so useful a tool. Might as well claim walking is better than one of those newfangled wheeled contraptions, memory is ruined by written words, or the pride of John Henry is lost to steam machinery. Digital aids are very useful .

I guess my main concern – outside of how radically they are changing society – is their fragile nature. An awful lot of things can make them fail in minor or catastrophic ways.

“Oh come on!” you yell – organic stuff, including especially people, fails all the time. Makes mistakes, dies. That is quite true .

The difference is that life is based on dealing with the unexpected. Organisms have embedded feedback and repair systems that work remarkably well. Adjustments to changing environments usually happen. Life seems almost impossible to create from scratch, but once started it is very hard to stop. Even people are tougher than we usually think .

But digital technology? Especially remote centralized AI? I wonder if it is too much, too soon, and all eggs in one fragile, dizzy basket .

Idiot Savant

The classic “idiot savant” is an individual whose brain is wired differently. Brilliant at something – math is a frequent example – but unable to shop for food. We have expanded the idea into “spectrum” to account for the fabulous complexity of human consciousness, but the idea remains useful .

Thus I imagine a new breed of idiot savant, less based on basic brain wiring (although of course genetics may be strongly involved), and more on shallow but focused training. Such a person can become rich and even powerful, but treats other people as if they did not exist – or rather exist only as other objects like rocks or bacteria. Because of such focus, that idiot may have undue influence on society. Like any other amoral cripple, that person may have disastrous effects on everyone else.

Unfortunately we have been educated to admire financial success more than social success. Making more dollars seems much more important than making people happy. We easily offer excuses for the worst behavior of billionaires .

Worst of all, we have let them advance to become rulers, where they fail miserably.

Government is about people, not money. But the “idiot savants” never learn that fundamental truth .

Wrong Track

I appreciate democracy (if rights are guaranteed to the minority), and respect people’s opinions as much as I do my own. But I find polls on issues increasingly silly. A good example is one of the current favorites – “is this country on the right track or the wrong track?”.

In my experience, if asked how I feel about the world in general, on any given day my reply might vary considerably. Actually, it might change a good deal from hour to hour. And ” how do I feel” is at least a pretty firm question .

But ask me if I am on the “right track” or not and I would be pretty lost. The thing is, a track goes somewhere. So the first question implied is do I think there is a single destination like Chicago or am I just “heading west.” And am I sure that’s where or the way I want to go?

The second problem is momentary detours with good reason. I want to get to Chicago but this train is heading for Pittsburgh. Is that bad? If it’s heading south to avoid a mountain range, is my journey going wrong? And trains? Tracks? Who uses tracks anymore anyway. So restrictive.

But okay, all of that, bundle it up, maybe I can give an answer in personal terms. But a whole country,? Everyone? The vast future? This is a ridiculous and meaningless waste of time.

But folks like to believe in something. At least asking about non-existent tracks is relatively harmless

Legacy

Before writing, humans seem to have existed in almost perpetual ” dreamtime”. There was today, tomorrow, yesterday – and awareness of seasons. But the idea of long time was irrelevant. The world was and is as it always is and was .

Writing gradually evoked a sense of time, a knowledge of change. Rulers followed known rulers. Cities waxed and waned. Heroes might be remembered for a while.

Eventually civilizations got used to the idea that all would be judged somehow in and by eternity. It might be gods, or universal spirits, or culture or history, or simply some limited posterity. That would be preserved forever as a slice of eternity. Such gave meaning to life.

The subsequent loss of really long time perspective created one of the profoundly deep and usually submerged sicknesses of our culture. An engulfing pessimistic nihilism overlays our actions. The gods have dissipated into geologic eons. Nothing – not even the sun – remains forever. No judges, no long-term legacy. Only the insane believe that what they do or do not do matters at all in the long run .

In fact, we need to adjust to this new mental reality of inhabiting dreamtime once more. What we do is what we do now. We can remember our past, in the future we can remain proud of those recent achievements, we can strive so we have happier future memories.

“Legacy” is currently reserved for use by charlatans and others seeking any way to gain or maintain immediate power .

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.

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 .