First Blog

Nothing to lose vs. Nothing to gain Everyone has heard the expression, “ Nothing to Lose .”   This is the dinner bell for action.   Do it now and why not?   Fight it now. Sacrifice what will.   There can be no limit with such stakes.   This state can cause revolutions, riots, protests, disavowal, frustration, rebellion, and profound fundamental changes in direction.   It is the portal to sacrificing everything, including life and limb. " Nothing to Lose " puts power at risk  History has proved this. But what if there is “ Nothing to Gain ?”   This compresses, depresses, and stultifies any action.    It creates passivity, complacence, and inaction in all unhappy parties.    Why take any action when risk has no rewards, for self, for family, for friends, for community, or for the future?   This is the soporific of maintaining a compliant population.   This is the cynical calculation made by power in any society.   It keeps the population quiescent and inert.   &qu

     Aging is a natural part of life – for the lucky.   In the centuries of literature have been multiple interpretations of what this means and what it implies. In earlier chapters of this set On Aging , we celebrated aging as the once and glorious time of life, a time for celebration and reflection, with deep quotes about the process, and with humor – a natural response to a natural process.    This note reflects upon the darker side of aging, that of vulnerability .    As you age…     Few have the resources to continue on as though nothing’s happened, to regard ourselves as immune from age, to feel that old sense of immortality, to keep the unbounded optimism of youth, or to have that wonderful fellowship with our community.   Age happens.   The facts of limited engagement, diminishing strength, and attenuated energy cannot be denied.   Many are fortunate to have a kindred soul to help us, as in the 1961 British movie title, “Carry On, Regardless.”   But…     the curr

Wars are all over the place.  Please forget about Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan for a couple of minutes.  These are serious and tragic wars with many lives lost.   But kids play wars, too, like in the card game . Let's do this.     Almost every kid plays war of some kind. Aside from the usual cowboy and other war games, rainy afternoons were often the time to get out a deck of cards and play the card game War. As many times as I played this game as a kid, I can hardly ever remember finishing a game. What I can remember mostly is making a "tactical" agreement to quit and do something else.     The other day, I thought to play war again --- but on a computer. For a game of pure chance, there is a remarkable amount of mathematics involved. If your mathematical toolkit includes course in probability, then you can appreciate just how complex this simple kids game is. Just determining the expected outcome after playing the first round after dealing is complex enough, let a

Depth, humor, and politics, all have their perspectives in aging.  We need them surely.  Another facet of this great time is the clarity of vision. Or wisdom.  This is a time when we can see more clearly than ever - despite wearing glasses.  This is a time when the world becomes clear, void of the blur and emotions of youth, the confusions of achievement, and the abstractions of thought. Our vision becomes as simple as when we were children. This is not to say we are checking out or coming to a finality. It is to say this is a time when we can cut away the fog of all that heavy living.  Some achieve this from the beginning.  We never understood them; they were discounted as out of touch.  But in fact they were fully engaged with the depth of life as we could not comprehend it.  We do now.  We have returned to fundamental principles of life, and like me, have returned late in the game. It is a time for religion, for family, for politics, for fishing, for traveling, for sewing, for

Whether you support either Governor Romney or President Obama, whether you have strong political views favoring one or the other, whether you don't really care who wins, there is one aspect of this political race that is missing all news coverage.  It is Age . Gov. Romney is 65 years old, putting him at the traditional retirement age for most people.  This age of retirement is when folks, having worked a lifetime, can take moments to reflect on life, enjoy their family, read a few books, and otherwise take it easy.  Romney, at this same age, is competing for the most stressful job on earth.  It is one of those 24/7 jobs where just one misstep can cost billions in dollars, millions in jobs, and thousands in lives. This job allows its holder to set long term trajectories for a powerful nation, arguably the most powerful nation on earth. Yet, his age has not been a factor at all.  The beautiful thing here is that the age of 65 seems not to be important as a foundatio

The new dark age of man is upon us.  Is technology at its base? Though I'm kind of a techie geek, I don't know, but...  Are we taking mental shortcuts to opinion?  Are we taking quickie paths to comprehension. Are we taking easy steps to problem solving? Technology has reached far beyond the ordinary person's ability to understand it, its basis and its implications.  This engenders a basic insecurity in the mental systems of humanity, politics, religion, and science.  It goes much deeper, way beyond technology.  When there is no firmament of comprehension, other tools are in play. Perhaps this is driving the religious right,  cult-type movements, the slavish adherents of left, and in general all fundamentalist type movements.  Each has the common quality of wanting, desiring, and needing something simply framed to follow.  The suspension of understanding has been achieved.  Folks can now barrel headlong into anything, such as literal biblical teachings, lite

Note:  I try hard to keep politics out of this blog.  This one may seems to plunge right into politics, but as it applies to at least the last four presidents, two Democrats and two Republications, it is at any rate not partisan. In his 1810 book , Aphorisms on Man, Manners, Principles and Things* ,  Joseph Barlett pens the following on friendship between nations. National friendship never existed. Interest is the basis of all their connections.  So long  as any nation's glory and resources are  aided and advanced by another kingdom,  so long, and no longer, will they be in amity. This has been a guidepost for understanding other nations interests for centuries.  As long as the money is flowing, we are friends.  This is not to say "true" friends, but that is well understood.  The country giving the aid is often reviled by the recipient at the population level.  While the aid giving country is praised an revered at the national and diplomatic

It never ceases to amaze me that some folks, expert in one area, believe their expertise or excellence automatically transfers to another area. I mean, they really believe it!  Examples: physics → politics, business → education, any domain → sports, chemistry → religion, and so on. We’ll call this the transference effect or the transference phenomenon.  [I'm not sure if this note is an admonition to others or a personal admission; let's make it both to be on the safe side.] We restrict this note to arguments made outside one’s expertise, not within for which there are many more argument types. The expertise areas will be called domains . So, we are discussing the arguments made by a person, expert in one domain, toward conclusions made for another domain. For our purposes here we use the domains: Science, Education, Politics, Philosophy, Religion, Humanities, and Business. You may wish to add your own. The types of assertions we discuss are direct assertions