Welcoming the roads ahead

Sometimes the curves in the road are steep and immediate.

Sometimes the road curves into the density of the forest and the next few miles cannot be seen.

Sometimes the curves are slick and full of potential danger.

And sometimes the roads are just straight and the skies are blue.

For whatever roads you encounter in the coming year, I wish for you the Gaelic proverb:

Spirals

Fairy tales all have a beginning at a time when things good happen, before events turn south.  That's why they begin "Once upon a time..."  A period of time ensues when a spiral downward occurs: good turns to bad, bad turns to worse, worse turns worst, bottoming out when that very lowest situation hits.

But out of that bottom situation, things hoped for happen, magic happens...  things like experiencing Times Square in NYC on New Year's eve lighting up one's life...  things like walking on a beach in the heat of summer comforting one's feet and soul.  Events turn north again.  What had turned south is rerouted and a spiral upward is created. By the end of the story two people ride off happily into the sunset together.

                         I think a new year is in the offing.

Gotta have one of these

I passed a sign about 3 weeks ago.  It was advertising homes for sale.  That's not what caught my eye though.  The sign said, "Smart homes from the 140s."

Smart Homes

I blogged about this a couple of years ago, saying that it was coming.  Not anymore - it's here.  My next move will be to one of these smart homes.  My next car is going to be one of those smart cars, too, parked in the garage of my smart home.

I like the sound of all that.  Besides sounding technologically savvy, it just makes one sophisticated. I need the edge, I think.

(Just a notice.  It's more about 1s and 0s than about words.)

The right one

I simply love this child-like video.  In simplest terms possible it portrays the power of two.  The snowflakes come down throughout the video as does precipitation in all of our lives.  The snow is constant, affecting at times our head (thinking), our nose (sensual perception), and our hand (belonging).  It only takes one other person in our lives to skate with us, not to stop the snow but to enjoy the beauty of the snow together.  I am warm tonight as I think of this person for me.

Effects of three

Many years ago, I read a chapter in a book stating that there seemed to be something magical about the number 3.  It talked of the numerology of the number from world religions, but went on to talk about how people like to list things in triplets.  The idea was that people trust the number 3.

About 25 years after that, in conducting research, I read an article in an edited book talking about the number 3.  This time it was talking about people who testify.  The author was pointing to a lawyer trying to get a witness to list 3 things that would incriminate him.  The witness resisted, saying only two things even though the lawyer was pushing for three.  Finally, the witness did mention a third thing and people felt that that point was the incriminating moment.  It seemed that the witness knew that the third thing on the list would be complete, credible, and trusted if he were to give the third thing.

Watching a show of Ancient Aliens, I saw the writer talk of the number 3 in works from antiquity.  Part of the discussion was that the number 3 was considered trustworthy because it numbered the deities that were important in a society or that gods seemed to be complete in three parts.  But, the show also mentioned language in general uses lists in increments of 3 in order to be considered a complete list or representative of the whole (that which is complete). 

In working with deception in the courtroom, I have seen the idea of getting witnesses and the accused to admit to things in trios.  For some reason, it does have that of effect of being trustworthy.  It's a type of litmus test.  It's not a widely known or used strategy, but it has worked on every occasion I have seen it tried.  Get the accused to admit to lists of three and people feel that (s)he is admitting to a mistake or to something (s)he has hidden.

It's, of course, true for more than working with deception.  Good speeches very often center around three points, and good writing much of the time contains three developmental paragraphs in order to make it sound complete or trustworthy.  (Even right now, you may be thinking I need to give one more example to make this a complete list of examples of proof).  Dissertations have 5 parts usually - an introduction and conclusion, yes, but 3 parts in the middle to establish the science behind the proof of thesis - review of literature, method of experimentation, and results of experimentation.

Three's a charm, no doubt about it. 

What could be

Who really knows what happened in the past, and by past I mean before recorded history on the order of 10,000 BCE to around 500,000 BCE.  There is some evidence lying under the oceans and large bodies of water like the Mediterranean and Black Seas.  Tantalizing artifacts and stone pyramid structures have been filmed.  If it turns out to be true that civilizations existed that far back in time, then we moderns have a lot of adjustments to make.

The Earth has it in its nature to hide what has come before.  And, it can hide it in ways that can never be found.  So, it's highly unlikely that humans today or going forward will find physical evidence of the civilizations that have preceded recorded history.

I wish we could actually know what happened.  It could mean that we would find our origins.  It might mean that our civilization would make quantum strides toward some way of breaking out of our own solar system like the movie Interstellar suggests.  I do wonder about the ancient world, but the Earth's lips are sealed.  In the meantime, I just have to live in wonder.  But that wonder keeps my imagination alive.  And it is in the imaginative world that I can truly have happiness and construct scenarios of what could be.

The slow time

Grass is green only one season of the year.  When it is green, it colors everything and life around it appears so vibrant and exciting.  Then comes Fall and Winter.  And while the two seasons have a beauty all their own, they are phase out seasons of a year.  Grass is brown.  The vibrance is lost from everything and life around it appears slower and introspective.

The new year changes during this slower, more introspective time of year.  People seem to be ready for a change.  They resolve to make certain changes to better their lives.  They try to affect them when things around them are slower.  That's as it should be.  Changes usually happen slowly before building momentum.  As Spring arrives, momentum builds and the changes take root, they help people become ready for the one season of the year where life is vibrant and exciting.  It is then that people actually believe the changes that they might have detected or seen in those who followed through with their resolutions.

I always look forward to the time of year when grass is green to see all the nuances of the changes people have  made.  But, I pay attention during this time of year, the beginning of Winter because I know people are resolving to affect their lives during these days.  My hat is off to all the new resolutions.  It should make for greener summer.

Light and darkness

One of the best allegories ever written is still the one by Plato, usually called The Cave. In the cave are people bound by chains, unable to see anything real.  The only images they see are shadows flickered on the cave wall by a fire.  Gradually, one person in particular finally frees himself from the cave to see real objects in real sunlight.

It's a great analogy of the trip from darkness of understanding to enlightenment.  It is my wish that everyone this year will take such a journey, either by starting or finishing one or by taking one more step toward the light.  We all have talents to bestow on people and to leave as our mark on the world. I am hoping someone will share with me as I share with others.

One last note about The Cave.  At the end of the allegory, the person who broke out of the cave and came to englightenment felt the need to return to the depths of the cave in order to share his experience above ground.  Those in the cave wouldn't listen to him, of course.  And, in fact, convinced the man that he lived under an illusion while on the surface.

I hope that is not true with anyone who sees the light and shares her or his insights with the rest of us. Light pierces darkness and darkness can never extinguish light.  This I truly believe.  Have a great next year!

Blooming from frozen water

She said, "I've tried everything.  I got my father's genes.  He never could do anything smart either."

She said, " I went to my children's teachers when they were in junior high.  They referred me to the special ed teacher who taught me how to spell a few things in the sand, but I never could get it."

She said, "I quit school in the 8th grade.  I've just forgotten everything.  I don't think I learned it in the first place.  I just couldn't get it."

She said, "I went to the college here to see if they could help me.  They wanted to give me a test, but I didn't have the money for it."

These four statements represent a lady who is raising two children, raising a third who is not her own, has survived a terribly abusive marriage lasting 8 years. an abusive father to her and her mother, has lived in two different countries, and who has doggedly sought to better herself so that people will think well of her.

I have emotional aches for this lady.  I ache for the embarrassment she has suffered at the hand of those who should have been able to help her.  I ache for her past that disallowed a more robust understanding of life.  And I ache for the thousands of thoughts that capped her esteem and mitigated the truth of her "intellect."

Over the last 8 weeks this lady has reoriented her thinking, unmitigated what was mitigated, uncapped what has been capped, allowed what has heretofore been disallowed.  Embarrassment is coming to an end.  It's a beautiful thing to see.

The very idea that intelligence can be  measured, categorized, and dealt with in "special" ways is insidious, ludicrous, unscientific, capricious, and deceptive.  It is on the same path that the Spanish Inquisition was on in trying to kill those who knew the science of a heliocentric universe.  People died from believing the Earth was not flat nor the center of the universe.  I  am thrilled this lady has been saved from the grips of "intelligence."

No more.  She believes in herself now.  She sees new horizons now.  She is proud of her talents now.  She enjoys the effect of more robust thinking now.  2015 has at least one enlightened soul who will blossom to a new life.

I say, "Go and flourish. Show the world what you can do and who you are."

Hallmarks of deception

People can get away with lying because deception is a semantic game.  Some are really good with semantics, others are lousy.  Semantics is the study of what people mean with their words.  Immediate context is the most important part of semantic lying.  When people speak there is a general topic, but lying takes place inside a more immediate space of time.  What words made up the utterance just prior to the deception maker's remarks?  Follow the logic on a micro scale (one person's thought in an utterance to trigger the following person's thought in his or her utterance)  and you'll see the deception.  Connect one's utterance to the topic, the macro scale and you miss the blip on the radar.

Hedging is the second most important marker in deceiving people. Hedge in the right way, and you can perform hocus pocus with your words just like magicians' misdirections to hide what is happening away from your eyes.  Using filler's is the hall mark hedge, "well" and "uh" in particular.  Lapsed time can also be a hedge when it is longer than what normal people use when formulating an answer to a question.  Changing someone's statement, however, is the key to success in hedging.  When a person wants to change some of the words, what part of the word domain did that person not like about the original?  The answer to that question would definitely be the trail to follow.

It takes practice to lie, and it takes practice to detect lying.  People expect and want honesty, and don't mistrust until they are given a reason.  In the length of time from expectation and desire to a reason to mistrust, deception has happened.  It's too late unless you're practiced, to ferret out the truth.

One moment to the next

Every time I hear an interview by NFL players and coaches, they seem very focused on playing the next game.  When they are asked about any other question than the opponent who is next, they defer the answer to a time when the question might be more relevant.  In the early part of the season, if asked about how their record will turn out, they never make predictions but say only that the next game matters.  If asked near the end of the season how they feel about the remaining few games, they reply that only the next game matters.  If asked about their superbowl chances, they say there will be no chances if they don't take care of the opponents to n the next game.  They go through the entire season game to game to game.

That's not a bad way to lead life.  In fact, motivators who give speeches often talk about how to create winning habits.  They tell people to live each day with the habit they want to create.  After a period of time, the deed or deeds they have been doing one day at a time become habits.  Recovery programs don't ask people to change their lives, they ask them to live only one day at a time.  Be clean only one day.  Addiction-free days will string themselves together if each day is lived separately.

I know that enjoying the moment is important as is living in the moment.  I know that plans come to fruition when the steps to fulfill them are taken singly and consistently.  I know that a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step and the decision to move forward is the will to take another step, then another until the journey has been completed.

Regret is less likely to happen when life is lived in this way.  But, regret happens because no one can see where the steps lead exactly.  By the time one realizes what has taken place, it is too late - too many steps have been taken to go back.  Too many days have passed to make a U-turn.

But, I believe in U-turns and return steps.  They take a little time.  Restoration is nice, though.

Same features but better

One of the great features of writing has been that people could send their feelings or events to others. Presence with others wasn't mandatory.  The note in writing would allow people to remain in one place and have a representation of themselves in another place.  Another feature of writing was that people could save what they themselves had written and others could save what was sent to them to hold and cherish.

The following commercial by Samsung shows that these two features of sending a representation and storing for oneself or others is visual now and faster, easier, and more efficient.than writing could ever be.  When a person sees this commercial, one can very easily understand why this way of communication supersedes everything writing has to offer.  The tone, the gestures, the feeling, the background, and the appearance of the person and message are not left out or detached.  It's ALL there.  No one misses a lick on the sending end or the receiving end.

It's only two years away from 2017.  There is no doubt that the 10 year period from 2007 to 2017 featured a war between those who wanted writing to stay and those who have barraged the present with technology to move society forward.  Goodbye to writing... a new age has been ushered in.

Queen

If ever there was a word that goes all the way back to the original human language it would be the word for woman.  Linguists call the language that predates nearly all languages proto-Indo-European or PIE.  That root of the word  without the inflected endings is *gwen-.

As language developed, it had some variants of *gwen-.  Gothic used kwenon, Greek took the form gyne,  Scandinavia appears to be the birthplace of the tribes that came to inhabit England via Germany and Denmark that gave rise to English.  The Old Norse word was kvaen.  V became pronounced like the letter U in the modern alphabet, so kuan was the pronunciation.  The Anglo-Saxon spelling of the word was quan. to set in motion the modern spelling queen, the result of some vowel changes that occurred around 1700 in England.


This word is a great study in word transmission because it changes in meaning as well as spelling and pronunciation.  It started as woman, of course.  But as time passed, the word woman was also used to mean wife.  With more time, the designation applied to the king's wife.  From that time on, the meaning of woman took a back seat and in some languages disappeared altogether.  Woman started deriving from the word for man while queen became a place of honor from designating either the king's wife or the female ruler of a country.  The derivative language for English simply used quan to mean woman of honor.


This day of the year is very special, and I would like to honor a woman by wishing her a happy birthday.  She is a leader of leaders, to be sure.  She is a mother, also, and one who has raised children who will be the diamonds of their world when they inherit it a few years from now.  She deserves so very much the meaning of the Old Norse kvaen, the Anglo-Saxon quan.

I wish you a grand year.  You deserve it for you are a leader with influence, an honorable woman and woman in an honorable position.  You are an authentic, genuine queen.

My Quan - Godgifu

Evidence please

Recently I was in a group with a lawyer in a social situation.  I asked if he had seen the archaeological discovery of a cave in Israel where burned flint had been discovered.  It had been dated to 250,000 years ago.  I added that maybe some adjustments to the story of civilization needed to be made.

About 2 hours later, the lawyer wanted to know what I thought of carbon dating.  I figured he was baiting me, so I reversed the same question back to him.  He proceeded to tell me his reasoning, not based on science in the least, for not trusting carbon dating.  When I brought up that if you see something modern and something ancient, something in the middle is not hard to connect dots to.  His response was that not everything is linear.

He's right about that.  Euclidean Geometry isn't.  The theory of relativity isn't.  The spiral design that appears in the universe and in life forms on Earth isn't.  Other examples exist as well.  But, carbon dating's basis is linear and uniform.  Not to trust the science of carbon dating would require that one know what the limitations of the theory are, distrust the statistical margin of error established by the theory, and replace it with something definite and scientific that is not linear.

He couldn't do that.  Since he can't, I think he was letting what lawyers do best guide him.  And what do lawyers do best?  They think they know how to use words better than anybody, so they can create a mirage, and no one can see what lies behind it.  They are most of the time so arrogant with that attitude, that they believe themselves and their illusion turns to facts in their eyes because they have made a plausible case for an alternative explanation.

I don't want to live under an illusion.  I have done that before and try hard not to have that happen.  It would be more honest to acknowledge that he doesn't trust science for other than scientific reasons and hope that science will someday follow his way of thinking (which is based on religious conditioning in his case).

Following evidence has a much better record for proving things than notions.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Yep, next year for me

I have seen the present and the future this Christmas.  My daughter who lives with me works a schedule that is almost parallel with retail stores.  So, she would have had a really tough time shopping in my world.  But not in her world!

Packages have been delivered almost daily for the last 3 weeks.  She has shopped totally online.  She has bought all manner of items online from beds to dolls.  This is my kind of shopping.  She bought an Amazon membership last spring and so all her shipping is free.  Good move.

I can see this being more than a trend. Especially when Amazon starts using their drone fleet.  Yeah, a drone right to your front door with your package.  It's definitely a picture of what is to come.  I shopped only at stores this year - but next year... you betcha. All online.  Every bit of it.

The world changes

Click here.

A video of four sisters who posed for a picture every year for forty years.  There are lessons for us all as we view the four decade transformation.

Nobody really needs proof that the world changes.  Our bodies are living proof.  From the time we are born until the time we die.  One change leads to another which leads to another... ad infinitum.

Such pictures are good to have because we all make footprints in the sand.  We get to remember afresh the times in our lives.  I'm thankful for mine.  They have put me where I am today,  It's a pretty good place to be, all changes considering.

Terrain of memories

I don't really have many memories of growing up.  I can remember what all but one of the houses looked like  Five out of six isn't bad.  I remember snow fights outdoors and some ice skating ventures on rivers, lakes, and skating rinks.  I remember what all of my schools looked like.  I can recall the names, but not the faces of my four girlfriends before high school.  I can call to mind spending the night with a my best friend from elementary school.  Beyond that, the first twelve years of my life must have gone smoothly enough for me not to have bothered
with memories.


From 12 on, memories abound both good and bad.  I remember the good, the bad, the zany, the miserable, the lonely, the ecstatic, the mundane, the angry, and the ugly.  It have a mixed bag of memories, a potpourri of sounds, sights, smells, and feelings.  I guess everyone has to own his/her own past.  Denial of what happened never changes what happened.  But, the opposite is also true. One embraces his/her past to enjoy the moments that have built the present moment.


As I look back, the terrain looks like a mountain range snapshot.  The peaks and valleys are there.  The rolling hills with meadows, the rock cliffs and flat buttes, the dry lake beds, the snow-capped tops, and the pine-covered slopes.  But the peaks always stand out the most, as with any view of a mountain range.  Some are jagged, other smooth.  They stand out against the sky.  They represent the zeniths of life.  I have memorized all their shapes.  The one in the foreground is the one I love the most... I wanted to build a cabin there, still would... It's so beautiful... majestic... enchanting!

The meaning of night

It's late.  Tomorrow is a really busy day as the last two days have been.  Busier than normal for sure.  The lights around the house are off.  Everything is quiet, inside and outside.  The night has taken over.

But I like it.  It's my best thinking time.  It's my best memory time.  People go to bed and leave you alone to think things through, to revitalize and evaluate.  Thoughts of great moments flow uninhibited to your mind's eye and bring smiles.

Viva la noche!  The best time of a 24-hour period.  Visuals abound.

The grandest spin

Sometimes history glosses what actually happened.  People ignore the facts or align them favorably toward someone who was not well liked by most of the people.  How does that happen?

I'm talking about Abraham Lincoln.  Most people would put him in the top three American presidents that they like - Washington, Kennedy, and Lincoln.  The order of these three vary considerably, but consistently, these three presidents are named most often as their top three picks.

That's astounding to me, knowing what happened with Lincoln.  When he was president, he wasn't America's darling.  It's a miracle he was president at all.  In 1860 there were four candidates for the top job.  Each had to tell how they would handle the issue of slavery.  One said each new state that came into the union should decide.  People didn't like that because it had the potential to upset the balance of power in Congress.  Imagine that - people worrying about the  balance of power in Congress!  One said that states should enter the union on an every other state basis as a slave or free state.  One said people shouldn't care because the ways of life in both north and south were good for each other, both were good for the economy.  

And then there was Lincoln.  From the beginning, he said that the stance of the northern non-slave states were right.  No human being should be a slave.  If elected, he would move to abolish such a depraved institution as slavery.  That stance, of course, divided the nation in half.  As a result, 10 southern states refused to put Lincoln on the ballot for the 1860 election.  How did Lincoln still win the presidency?  

He took a divisive position before the election, and he became the most divisive president to that point in American history.  Southern legislatures vowed that if Lincoln won, they would secede from the union.  He was elected and a month later southern legislatures were true to their word.  Out of all the options available to a president, Lincoln chose war as his prime option to force the southern states to recognize the error of their ways, pitting family members against each other in the border states. Even among northern states, people and federal legislators didn't support the war option.

Tell me again why Lincoln is one of the most loved presidents in American history?  I tire of hearing disgruntled people today whining about current events of the current administration.  It's all happened before.  And I can't imagine that anyone short of a king would be more divisive than the one of the top three most beloved presidents in U.S. history.  Lincoln even has status enough to be depicted on currency we use everyday.  How did that happen?  It's called spin.

Good will to all

Let's see.  250 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone.

Even if the chances of life were 10 billion to 1, there would still be 25 planets like Earth.  And where are they in their development?  Will our 15 minutes of fame exist in the same 15 minutes as theirs? Or are they like Mars.  We missed their window by about a billion years.  They had water and life, but their atmosphere burned away and all their water evaporated.  Too bad.  It would have been a nice dance to have two planets so close exchanging ideas and DNA, I'm sure.

I would really like to meet E.T. one day.  The chances are good.  The Milky Way is not the only Galaxy, and the chances are really better than 10 billion to 1.  It could happen.  We'll probably meet them on another planet as we continue to explore.  It will be a neutral meeting place.

It'll probably happen after I am long gone, but that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for seeing how they would communicate with us.  Possibilities are numerous - with math, with the universal shapes of space, with colors, with a certain spectrum like x-ray or gamma ray, maybe even with a language of some sort.  The symbol of M or W, with rounded peaks, and O, with or without other symbols inside the O, will definitely be one of their main symbols.  They are their chosen symbols of communication.  How ironic it would be (given the "peace, goodwill to men" heard so much at this time of year) if the symbols mean "peace" and "good will."

At the speed of light

Here it is.  Virtual Telemedicine.

All I have to say is that the virtual application of any field is going to be continuous and ongoing. Those who train children to contribute to society should take notice.  Applications of technology like this will continue to make the news.  The virtual will aid, supplant, and grow in every field.  It is efficient economically, physically, and temporally.

I truly hope the ones wanting to follow the old paths will not persist in their pursuit of training children using old world means to achieve new world ends.  It won't work, will end in unproductive denizens, and will cripple the abilities of those on whom it is imposed.

It's twilight for a day that is about to dawn in splendorous glory for those who can work at the speed of light, at the speed of visual cues and stimulus, not at the speed of black symbols on white pages that takes hours to read and mull and respond.

Waking in a different world

I hear jets a lot at my house.  I hear them at midnight, at midmorning, during the early afternoon.  I hear them a lot.  They run military maneuvers from a nearby noncommercial airport.  Twice now I have seen them practicing their hovering techniques.  Right.  Helicopters hover, jets fly at supersonic speed.  Nope, not these.

When I was growing up, I lived near a naval air base, and the experimental jets there ran maneuvers over our house.  One day I saw a propeller plane adjust the position of its rotors in midair and practice hovering.  They have come a long way over the last few centuries.

It's only when people can think creatively that machines can do the seemingly impossible.  Hovering jets - whoever would have thought of such a thing?  But when I looked about a month ago and saw it hovering over a neighborhood next to mine, there was no mistaking that it was a jet not a helicopter.

Society is probably not ready for such things as non-car transportation, but as surely as that jet hovered over my next door neighbors' houses, there will be such a thing.  When it happens, people will be waking in a different world.  That will be my granddaughter's world a half-century from now. She'll be ready along with most her age.  She represents the second generation after the birth of computers and digital storage and transmission.  They'll know all about creatively combining ideas.  Non-car transportation is only the beginning of what they will be able to do.

A thousand expletives for people like that

It's true - the saying - that a person's judgment is only as good as his/her information.

I was talking to a woman who had come for help with a life-long struggle she had had.  She had spent 39 years trying to overcome the problem that she felt had shut her out of the world.  Along the way, she had gone to schools, both public and private, to receive help.  They referred her to different places and people, had given her various remedial help, and had filled her with information that she believed to be true about herself.

The people that tried to help her were either uninformed or arrogant beyond belief since the information they gave her was way off the beaten path from reality and the best science.  But, she believed them.  It was information that she considered to be better than her own information and was given to her by sources she trusted.

After dealing with the misinformation, the woman was able to do some things for the first time that she had longed to do her entire adulthood.  It's a work of beauty to see people free themselves from misery after enduring it for so long, and it is a work of discipline to provide information that others lack.  And, it's a work of disgust to observe what others have placed on someone because of ignorance and laziness.  Total disgust.  Needless,  And a thousand more expletives for people like that.

I am so glad to see this woman blossom, restore her happiness, and renew her dreams as she accomplishes the steps to normalcy.

For  this woman I have nothing but admiration for her determination.  For the many who failed her I have nothing but a wish that their own Dark Ages approach to problems closes in around them.

Full control

"Keep this between you and I," I heard one woman tell another.

"I want this for you and I," one sister told another.

"That made Elyssa and I mad," my daughter said describing an action taken by a cousin.

The above three examples don't use the grammar of textbooks, for sure.  I've seen a couple of my Facebook friends also complaining about the grammar of the mistake made above.  And, I'll never forget sitting in a teacher conference area listening to a bunch of English teachers talking and one in particular was railing against students who made the mistake above when talking to each other. Within 20 minutes, the same teacher made the exact same mistake.  Laughable, really.

Every English teacher worth her/his salt knows that me is the right choice, not I.  If a sentence requires the objective case of a pronoun like all three sentences above, then me is the correct choice. I is the subjective pronoun and never doubles in the objective position.

But what English teachers don't seem to recognize is that they don't control what people say.  So what is the pattern the people have chosen?  When using a compound object, if the first person pronoun is used, it appears second and is found in the subjective case.  The generation of Americans under 40 are pretty clear about their preference.  It doesn't match the grammar taught in schools, but that generation regularly follows their own rule unapologetically.

What happens when the people speak so clearly?  The same thing that happened when the people pronounced blood as blo-duh and spelled it blode.  Another generation came along, pronounced the word blo-o-ohd and spelled it blood.  Another generation came along and pronounced the word bluhd but declined to change the spelling.  Speakers of a language have full control over their language.  They can change it at will whenever, however they want.

The purpose of language is to communicate ideas.  People want, like, and need things, so they create a system to express those ideas.  If people understand each other, that is what matters.  Period. Without variance.  Rules change; they don't last.  If that wasn't true, all of us would still understand the English of 1380: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote, and the droghte of march hath perced to the roote.  Those who stand in the way of the change get aggravated like my good Facebook friends and like the teacher in the conference room.  But language is bigger by far than the people who teach its use and/or try to control its patterns.

Long live the will of the people - the real controllers and keepers of their language.

People love their pictures

Here's just one more fact in an overall trend, an irreversible trend at this point.  Officially, today Instagram passed Twitter for the overall number of accounts.  Of course, nobody can touch Facebook, but Twitter was reporting 284 million users while Instagram surpassed 300 million today.  In just the last 9 months, 100 million Instagram accounts were established. Mark Zuckerberg's bet paid off for him.  He bought Instagram for 1 billion dollars not too long ago.  He knew people loved their pictures.

The commentator who was giving the information went on to say that she had to admit that she uses Instagram and likes it the best of all social media because she likes pictures.  Another announcer chided her kiddingly by saying, "So, you don't read books I take it."  The announcer said she does read books, but only those that have a lot of pictures.

It's a visual world and getting to be more so.  Social media has gone from the world of bulletin boards in the 1990s to MySpace to Blogs, both written and video, to Facebook, to Instagram.  It certainly makes you wonder what is next.  That's not really much of a question though.  3D and holographics are on the horizon.

I embrace this world we're entering wholeheartedly.  It will be a faster, richer, more emotional world. It's time.

Hiding in the open

People rely on implicatures all the time to communicate their ideas.  An implicature happens when someone says something that is obvious or that seems odd for someone to say aloud rather than merely thinking it or that seems astray from the topic at hand.  When that happens, the meaning of the utterance is implied, and many times it is sarcastic or denigrating in some way.

An example of an implicature is something like the following.  Two people are talking.  A third person walks in.  The person talking says to the third person, "Please give us a moment."  The third person knows that it is implied that he should leave the two people he tried to join alone to finish their conversation.  Another example is when you are talking to a friend who knows you, and you say, "I'm going to visit my mother this weekend, but I'm going to leave on Saturday night."  Your friend replies, "Yeah, I don't blame you."  The answer seems like a non sequitur. Why is leaving Saturday a good idea?  The friend knows that the mother goes to church every Sunday, the daughter doesn't go, and the whole issue is uncomfortable because the mother is so judgmental of her daughter's absence from church on Sunday.  By not being with the mother on Sunday, the issue doesn't arise.  But, all of that information is implied between friends who know each other.

Sometimes implicatures are called inside jokes or friendly banters.  Innuendo is another popular word for implicature.  Whatever it's called, it's part of the communication system we have developed, and we all use it pretty well.  Mostly implicatures are hurtful to someone in some way or another.  Comedians use it for laughter, but still the implied information is hurtful.  It's just that it is better to laugh so you don't cry when it comes to some things.

It's hard to say

It's hard to say which influences are the greatest in our lives.  Influences sometimes build on each other.  So, the second influence couldn't happen unless and until the first influence is felt.  Sometimes influences establish stability in our lives, and at other times the influences seem to take us to a new level.  However, it is the stability that was important before we were prepared to pass to a new level.

Sometimes influences compete with each other.  While one influence may eventually subdue or  displace the other, the influence that  wins becomes clearer and more entrenched in our behavior.  And while the one that loses is replaced, it had to be considered in the first place, so it affected our behavior in part during its consideration period.

A man born in England in 1942 is a good example.  He was born into a family in which the mother and father were both supremely educated.  Thus, they put an emphasis on education.  But, the young man didn't do well in school, later commenting that he nearly didn't learn how to read.  The family moved, so fortunately, the young man learned to read at a different school.  His father was an eccentric, medical researcher and traveled often to Africa, so he shared some characteristics with the fabled "absentee father."  One biographer says that at the dinner table (especially when the father was at home) each person at the table had a book to read, making the meals a really quiet time of day.

Backgrounds make us what we are, right?  Well... when the young man went to college he was a social misfit, but soon learned how to correct that.  And, for many, at this point in life there is that magical moment that supersedes any shape background has given us.  It is that meeting with the one who tickles our senses and wins our heart.  The young man listened to his sister and met the one who would "give him a reason to live" (his own words).

Debilitating illness can be a major influence for sure and set aside any influence that has affected our lives to that point.  Such was the case for our young man.  Debilitation can end an academic career, end a marriage, and end any immediate family connections. It is hard to overcome and is all-pervasive.  Initially, all three possibilities seemed to have its way with this man, but other influences helped him overcome what usually happens.

Because the young man grew up to have so much notoriety, one naturally who the greatest influence in this man's life was?  His father, who provided stability even though he was absent?  His mother, who had studied politics, economics, and philosophy?  His sister who earned enough respect from him that he listened to her when she recommended a woman he might like?  His wife, who stuck by him even after he developed a crippling medical condition.  His parents as a team, who provided a better than average base for him to grow up in?  His teachers at all the levels of his education, who recognized that this quirky, aggravating young man actually had much to offer.  A committee of professors who denied him the track to Cambridge that sprung his career because he failed an exit test.  He had to convince them in a subsequent oral exam that he was worthy of being in an honors program before he was allowed to continue.

It could be none of the above.  It could have been a thought developed from seeing something happen or a book that he read to help him develop a radical theory.  It could have been the treatment of students at his high school or his first year at college.  Maybe it was the snub by the mentor that he had wanted to study under.  Maybe it was his doctor's attitude when the doctor told him that he would die in two years from the time of the diagnosis of his disease.

Who knows?!  But, Stephen Hawking had something to influence him, or many things, that would propel him to the forefront of the physics cosmos and make him the most imminent scientist in the modern world.  I'm glad for him and for us who live in the world of a better understanding because of him.

But, we nearly didn't have him.  He nearly couldn't read during his early school years.  He nearly didn't make it to Cambridge to follow his dreams with world renowned faculty.  He nearly gave up on his education after learning of his disease.  He nearly lost all hope before he submitted his dissertation finding a theory everything that exists... Nearly... but something influenced him... It's just hard to know what exactly... Maybe everything!

Life's snarls

I had a great visual reminder today of how life is sometimes.  I was driving to my destination that under normal circumstances would have taken 55 minutes to an hour to drive.  Given the time of day, it would probably take a little longer, maybe an hour and 15 minutes.  Well, that didn't account for lane closures.  Lane closures on two different freeways backed up traffic so badly that it affected the road I was on as well.  Add 30 more minutes to the schedule for stop and go traffic for about a 10 mile stretch.  It doubled the time of the normal drive.

And that's really how it happens, right?  You can't really tell when you're about to come up on a stretch that will slow you down - not just a little bit, but a whole lot.  It gets your attention,  It makes you a little angry.  It gives time to think about a lot of things, one of which is jumping off the freeway and taking an alternate route.  That nearly always costs me more time than the slow pace driving on the freeway.

When you make it out of the snarl, you sure feel like whooping and hollering.  Yes, that is the way life is.

It will be all right

I had a chance to talk to a 14 year-old Chinese youth.  He was very friendly and talked freely of his experiences in the U.S. and China.  He was under no illusion as to life in China having what most would consider "less freedom" than the United States.  He accepted the Chinese way of life, of course.  It was his frame of reference for living.  He had only been in the U.S. for four months, so his knowledge was limited of how things work politically here.  But, he did know how things worked socially for 9th graders in a rich, private school.

I was encouraged by what he spoke of - his dreams for his future, his immediate life, his family.  It's the same as what any ninth grader would speak of.  He didn't really have any axes to grind.  He wasn't bitter about being a fish out of water for a while in his life.  He seemed really comfortable in his own skin.  He was confident, content, determined, and affable.

I don't really want to live life over just to see if I would do anything different from the way it happened.  But, talks with young people, especially from other countries, allow me to imagine what the future will hold.  People are just people, so in some ways the future will be the same as the present.  But, it seems that there will be a more concerted effort for working hard to make life better.  These young people aren't satisfied with the imperfections they see around them.  They want something better.  They want a safe world, a good world (as opposed to an evil one).  They want to excel, they want to take the world farther.  They certainly have my vote.  I'll be gone when they are running things.  But, I sleep easier at night.  My children and their children are headed for a grand future.

Blue hair evening

I walked up to order my tacos from the waiting cashier.  It was not a chain restaurant but a place my daughter wanted me to visit with her.  My daughter turned to me and asked me if I wanted tacos. "They're bison tacos.  I'm getting two.  Do you want two?"

"Sure," I replied.

The cashier punched in the order.  She had long, blue hair.  Six rhinestone studs dotted the middle of her face - one on each nostril, one below each nostril, one above each corner of her mouth.  She was very competent, and we were finished ordering in no time.

After the meal, we walked to a store called Hey Sugar.  Now that was a really different experience.  They had 20 different kinds of popcorn, from the regular, buttered popcorn to cashew caramel, cotton candy, and cilantra chile popcorn.  They had about the same number of odd combinations of flavors of jelly beans as well.  And the chocolate counter had some normal and abnormal combinations too.  I ended up buying some malt balls that were called bacon, toffee malt balls.  M-m-m-m, delicious.  I left after ordering (and drinking) a cafe latte milkshake.  Delicious too.

What a different kind of night, thanks to my daughter.  Looks and eats out on the fringe.  I like those kinds of evenings.  They help me know where the center of living is, but they also help me enjoy the edge even if I don't live on it.  Bison, blue hair, and bacon malt balls.  What a way to stretch my horizons!  I'm  better for having done it.

Life fluency

One helpful exercise on the journey to fluency in another language is to record one's own voice while reading aloud.  This exercise allows a person to pronounce words more crisply and to acquire the underlying tones or melody of the language.

Hearing one's own voice is quite the experience.  It doesn't sound quite like one would expect.  It makes one much more aware of the nuances that aren't the same as native speakers.  But it certainly helps in learning what adjustments to make.

The movies of our own lives so much like this tried and true language learning exercise.  When we get to see it, either from pictures, videos, or others' accounts of something that happened when we're spoken of as a third party, we notice things about ourselves that we wouldn't expect.  It allows us to make adjustments so that we can be more authentic to what we believe, what we want from life, or what we want to add to life.  I've come to fully respect these opportunities to make adjustments

After a number of adjustments have been made, this life becomes manageable, even fun, and we can live so much more in the moment.  To make the analogy complete, a person could say that we use moments for seeing ourselves as lessons in life fluency.

Fantastic imprint

Coca Cola put out a fantastic commercial this year.  It's easy to see what they wanted to do.  Coca Cola is recognized worldwide as represented by all the major languages of the world.  They wanted to show that diversity is important - Coke is not just one group's drink.  And the maker of Coca Cola wanted to be thought of as soothing, peaceful, and fun - in a word, beautiful.

I love commercials like this.  They're clear, insightful, upbeat, deliberate, and hopeful.  They make us feel good.

It is my hope that the footprint I leave in this world is the same as the imprint of this commercial.

Around the very next bend

Yep!!!

And this is only the first wave of something authentic using holographic technology.  It's not a prank.  It's a projection bracelet.  It's not a dream; it's a live project with donors who want to see its completion. You can find it at Cicret.com.

This device and few others will stake out a new territory.  What follows is the revolution that changes the definition of virtual from things that are simply data driven (as in 1s and 0s) to things that are visually driven.  The devices that follow the first wave will actually be three dimensional.  The difference between reality and virtualality will be seamless and nondistinctive.

The combination of the new Firestick from Amazon and the Cicret Bracelet will allow a whole different mode of operation for communicating, learning, planning, and defining sphere of influence and sphere of operation.  We're just on the cusp of something fantastic and a quantum leap from where we will find ouselves, but the prototype is underway.  I'm excited beyond belief!  I can connect dots from here.

Deep beauty

Depth only comes from two things: time and force.  This is very clearly seen in nature when a person looks at canyons, lakes, rivers, and oceans.  Over a long period of time, winds, waves, earthquakes, rains. and weight take their toll.  Rock gets carved out, eroded, moved, shaken, and pushed down.  That allows for water and related canyons to become deeper, to have more character.

Depth in people comes from the same two things: time and force.  This is very clearly seen as a person looks at people's losses, their misfortunes, their reversal of fortunes, their fortunes, their accomplishments, and the friends they keep.  Over long periods of time, people move, friends and family die, they work hard sometimes at two or more jobs, they play, they travel, they go to college, and they take a few chances now and then.  All of it together allows them to become deeper, to have character.

Depth happens, but not quickly.  Depth is forged.  It's a crucible.  But it makes us rich and beautiful beyond measure.

A little note about plenishing

I heard in a speech one time that a person is going into a storm, coming out of a storm, or in the eye of a storm.  One should never be complacent since change is about to happen or since the eye of the storm means that whatever has been achieved is short-lived until the next storm arrives.

That philosophy is a little pessimistic for my liking.  It is true that life has its ups and downs, but I'm not so sure about the analogy to storms.  Life is really complex.  We have a lot to do with how our circumstances happen around us, but at the same time, no one has complete control of circumstances.  People act unilaterally.  Problems arise that have ramifications no matter how they are solved.  Those ramifications influence the current situation, and life changes or is altered slightly.  But not everything that happens is a storm.  On some occasions accomplishments materialize, not problems, and those accomplishments influence the current situation, and life changes or is altered in some way.

No matter what the circumstances of life bring, however, one word is true about how we act as humans - plenish.  We are in the business of plenishing our lives during every one of its phases or through every change or alteration.  Plenish you say?  Right.  It's English, well, it is if you believe that what the Scots speak is English.  After the French defeated the British in 1066 A.C.E., they introduced the verb replenir to the English language.  The British changed the pronunciation and, therefore, its spelling to replenish.  At the time, the prefix re- didn't mean "again," it was an intensifier, so replenish didn't mean "to fill again," it meant "to fill completely."  Plenish, therefore, meant "to fill."  The people around London decided not to use the word much without a prefix, which later came to mean "again," which is why Americans don't use plenish either.  But, those darned Scots were too far north of London to care much what Londoners thought, so before one can replenish something it must be plenished in the first place.  Leave it to the Scots...

That's the beauty of life, though.  We get to plenish it during every phase.  What we plenish it with is up to us regardless of how the circumstances came about.  And it is exactly this thought that makes me able to smile regardless, to answer yes, everything's fine, and to be contented enough to be happy rather than miserable.  Certainly there are degrees of happiness, but there is an even keel in disaster or in ecstasy because we get to plenish our lives.