Following the lead

I am really taken with Elon Musk, owner of many companies, but Space X among them.  He has a space vehicle that can  enter and return from space with soft landings. His spaceships are light weight and mostly electric as are his all-electric cars, called the Tesla series.  In fact, he uses much of the same technology from his Tesla cars with Space X. He is cutting edge because he is a visionary that puts his predictions for the future into actions for today.

Musk leads people into a new age.  He stands side by side with others who have done the same like Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs.  I don't have illusionary dreams that any work I do rates anywhere close to the great minds that lead others to a new age, but I want the small amount of work that I accomplish to be on the same track as these great thinkers.  I want people to know that they have been somewhere they would not have otherwise gone when they engage me or hire me.  I want to take people off the beaten path, not just for the  adventure, but for the improvement of their lives and their thoughts.

My hat is off to the greats who have gone before, who inspire the rest of us to provide those in our spheres an enlightened experience.

Leaving the arbitrary

Some things are so arbitrary. Days of the week are an example. Division of time into hours, minutes and seconds is another.  I guess those who lived in ancient times just needed something to do after dark since they had no electricity. The names of everything are also arbitrary. Try learning a couple or three languages to prove that point. The work day is arbitrary.  I would like to know who in the world began the 8-5 work day.  I do so much better starting work at 10 or working a few hours in the evening.  My mind is clearest between 11 at night and 1 in the morning.  Eating 3 squares a day is sometimes too much and sometimes not enough. But, most events work around the noon meal and the evening meal.  Dressing with a tie or not, putting on heels or not, follow rules that are so arbitrary.

Unfortunately, society is built around making normally arbitrary matters a matter of rule.  So, people's jobs revolve around the noon meal and their evening events around the evening meal.  People dress up or dress down according to the rules of etiquette governing what is appropriate at work and play.  Most events have a starting and ending point; they are not come and go affairs.  Figuring time by days, years, decades, and centuries helps categorize without a doubt. But, what if something is not in a person's memory (or cell phone these days)? Does that person need to categorize anything?

Working with those who have ventured into the virtual world already, I have found that there is really no need to keep the arbitrary reckoning for things.  Who cares when the work is done as long as it is ready when it is needed?  Who cares when a person learns particular target information as long as it is learned in a manner timely enough to be used for a person's needs?  Who cares when the next meal is as long as a person eats when hunger urges one to eat?  Who cares when sleep happens as long as a person is rested at the times (s)he needs to have energy?

The mind is truly more creative when allowed to follow what is needed when it is needed rather than assigning or being assigned busy work to fill time and to meet deadlines.  That freedom, not to live according to the arbitrary-turned-mandatory, allows me to do what is necessary, and I feel so much more fulfilled, more energetic, more optimistic. I fully support the movement of the world to what is less arbitrary-turned-mandatory.  It actually leads people to the more deliberate things in life.

Replenish me

It's so beautiful, peaceful, and lovely. It splashes lightly into puddles and it drives down hard on the ground, windowshields and anything else that is covering the ground when it falls. It comes in torrents or merely mists ever so wispy-like hanging in the air, brushing your face and skin.  Sometimes it lasts for a whole day or two.  At other times it rushes  through a territory in a matter of minutes.  But it always brings refreshment and hope of new life.

In the very beginning it brought original life to the Earth.  It contains the ingredients needed to build life anywhere in any galaxy on any planet.  It's magical that way.  The variety of forms produced radiate with color of all kinds in every imaginable pattern and design. It's pleasant and enjoyable like that.

That's why I love rain.  It's a miracle-worker for my way of thinking.  It gives me hope and allows me to have momentary freedom from the rules that bind me to the world I live in.  Tomorrow and the next day are supposed to have rain of all kinds, torrents, mist, soft, and hard-driving.  I can't wait.  It will adjust my attitude and allow me to break free from my normal way of viewing things.  It will produce a world of new colors and refreshing life in my mind.  Bring on the rain!  Two days of heaven.  I'll be a better person when the sun reappears.

Ruminating on a dream

Dreams, to me, represent fragments of information that are jumbled in the mind, information containing unresolved issues from different sources. The mind jumbles them into scenarios for me to mull. Dreaming is a way for the mind to nudge a person to resolve what has gone untended.

So, I contemplate my dreams when I remember them. Thinking through the dream helps me resolve the issue in my conscious life.  A couple of days ago, I had a dream that happened in a house which I had seen in previous dreams. The house was in a different place this time, a different street and town, but it was the same house.  The layout of the rooms was familiar, the way I explored the house's three stories was the same, but the 4 people in the dream were different from times past.

The dream ended with me being drugged so that I was sluggish and couldn't find the person and things I needed to find. Truly I have wanted to act on a desire I have had for a while now, but have found myself "drugged" from acting on it. Of the 4 people that were in the dream, only one was a person I knew, and he was someone I don't really care for. He is a very judgmental person, distant, and always rude in one form or another. Near the end of the dream two people spirited me away from the house. I think it shows that life as I desire it isn't happening.

I suppose the house represents my current world. Every time it appears in a dream I am exploring it, running all over it.  This time, though, the back yard began filling up with water. When I went to the neighbor's house for help, I saw that his yard was underwater too. That was when I was spirited away in a car. I very soon afterward showed up again drugged. As I was leaving the car, I woke up.  (I felt very groggy when I got up, I might add.)

I plan to make "exploring this house in a different place" a much more pleasant experience. Nothing will be underwater when I am through. I will have my wits fully functional. And my greatest desire will be closer to being accomplished rather than lost and distant.

Don't tout the notional

The Language of Love was a very popular book in some circles when it was published in 1988.  It was a book about how to use word pictures to express one's affection. I heard a number of people talking about it at the time, but I didn't read it. Yesterday, a conversation I heard on how to talk to a spouse triggered a memory in me of this book's title and the gist of the book according to people who had read it.

I looked up the book on Amazon.com and was able to read excerpts from the book.  I found that a revision of the book had been published in 1991 and that in their revised edition, the authors apologized for quoting research and misapplying it in their book about the functions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The authors said that they were shown more current research indicating that their applications of the functions of the right and left hemispheres to expressions of love between men and women were without substance.

I admire the intellectual honesty of people who change when others show them when misapplication has occurred.  I wish they had known about some other research that had been conducted so they could have corrected another notion they had as well.  In their authors' note, they claimed that their observations from hundreds of talk therapy sessions (not their research or review of the literature on the subject, only their observations) showed "God-given differences" in the way men and women communicate. Men use a "language of the head," while women lean on a "language of the heart." They went on to say that men speak of facts and when they run out of facts to speak, then they are out of words - they stop talking.

It's time for a GM recall here.  Literature on men and women's language (even in 1991) doesn't show a picture like the one the authors presented here at all, not at all.  I would like to see the notes they made on their observations in order to conclude that men run out of words when the facts they know have been exhausted.  And the language of the head and heart categories are a gross oversimplification of both the styles of their speech and the substance of it.  What? Do women not have a language of the head?  And do men not have a language of the heart?  Absurd.  Of course, they do.  And finally, what the authors attribute to God-given differences seem to be more related to the socialization process dictated by culture.

In 1998 the authors put out study books for their main book so that couples in small groups could learn how to communicate well.  That was 16 years ago, but the thinking they presented in their book continues to make the rounds misinforming people of men's and women's communication process.  I hope that people will have either heard about more recent research or have the good sense to know that observations and empirical study are two very different animals.  For whatever reason I didn't read the book in 1988 or 1991, I am thankful that it steered me clear of some erroneous reasoning and saved me from more "unlearning," which I had to do during the whole decade of life from 1995-2005.  

I am much more careful in my learning these days. These days empirical evidence is the beginning of learning.  I don't have time for notions and observations.

Pretty sure

Last week on the local weather forecast, the weather man reminded everyone that we are more than 8 inches behind the average for the year. It seems that we are in the middle of a bad drought that is getting worse with time. Three summers ago it was really bad too, the second worst in the 120 year record of tracking rainfall.  This year is the third worst in that historical record so far.  The difference is that it is not particularly hot this spring, and three years ago nearly all records were broken with the scorching heat.

Some years are just like this one in our lives.  We mentally track our lives making comparisons from one year to the next, one decade to the next, one quarter century to the next.  Pictures help us remember too.  Some years are good ones like others have been, some bad like others have been.  Events happen to us that spiral us downward for a while, others propel us to great heights to enjoy the scenery for a while.  Like the weather, there are seasons to life.  I could tell you about the most scorching year in my life and the one that had the most rain when lakes and pools of water were full.  I have tracked them.

This year is the third worst drought in 120 years.  That's about right for what I remember of my life as well.  But, I do know this: rain will fall even if it is not soon.

Next year, the record will reflect a different set of events.  And sometime in the future, the third worst flood on record will happen.  So, I contentedly wait.  I would like that flood sooner rather than later, but it will come.  I am sure of it.

Clear air

I am always humbled when I spend time with my linguist friend from the Graduate Institute of Linguistics in Duncanville. His presence always lets me know how good life is for me. He recently came back from a stint in Nigeria. His stories make me glad I'm alive and not being threatened and my worst days are good by comparison to life in a third world country. He is home permanently now because of medical conditions he developed while in Nigeria.  That's the second linguist friend that has been docked stateside because of illness from a third world country. The other happened about 13 years ago, and he had been in Ethiopia.

Most of all, visiting with them reminds me how they have used their talents in the field and not wasted their training. Both are now still employing their talents, but in teaching others who are headed to the field. That is admirable on both counts. A conversation with either of them shows me how sharp their minds are, how developed their talents are, and what standard I must maintain in order to keep having conversations with them.  And how I love holding conversations with them.

My most recent conversation, last Wednesday, brought a great discussion about an ancient language.  I was reminded of how that language functioned so differently from English. We bantered about translation of that ancient tongue on a few points, and I applauded his most recent conference presentation presenting his discourse analysis of a reading from this language.  I came away from the meeting feeling good about contributing something, and feeling better from having been contributed to.

I felt that way a couple of weeks ago as well when another friend came to visit. We spent the day together just talking. We ended on a great note by attending a professional baseball game.  Our discussions were not linguistic in nature, instead they were conversations that fed my soul because we fully understand what the other is about.  He also inspires me to be better because we talk about matters of the mind and soul.  Our thinking is often the same even though we arrive at  the same conclusions in very different ways and apply them differently in our outward lives. But we get each other.

I love being around compatibility.  It's the same as breathing fresh air.  Very often the air around me gets stale. Being around compatible friends help clear the air.

Gatekeeping

During the last 50 years, those who prepared educational reports drew the conclusion that skill in reading divided those who did well in society and those who didn't. This was no surprise; society expected that it had been true all along.  However, in the last 10 years, those who prepare educational reports have changed their minds.  Algebra is the gatekeeper course for those who do well in college (who are the ones who do well in society according to them).  That seems to be a little counterintuitive to the public.  Most people don't do well in math and plenty of successful people say they don't have math skills, at least not algebra skills. Surely there is some mistake.

Sometimes those writing reports say the discipline of learning algebra is the indicator for doing well later rather than the algebra itself.  But, I would like to point out that many contributing factors create discipline in our lives, not just algebra.  And when reading was king of the gatekeeping courses preparing us to do well in college, it was said that the discipline of reading was the indicator, not the reading itself.

The world today and the world of yesteryear are very different.  So, for that reason I am glad to hear the change in rhetoric from reading to algebra.  Today it is much more incumbent on someone to know math than reading.  But, the underlying assumption that doing well in school and doing well in society has really eroded in reality.  The perception of those making educational reports still say there is a link between school success and business success.

If I look at the larger circle of my family and friends, I see the inverse is rather true. Less education equals more money.  Reading is not part of the equation because all friends and family can read what is necessary to perform well on their jobs whether or not they have read a novel since high school. Algebra appears to have little to do with business success too. The discipline in people's lives who have the most money seems to be driven by desires other than the one to learn the mechanics of solving for x. Success has come in a variety of ways, not the ability to perform well in school as a teenager in a gatekeeper course.  One middle school dropout I know has more money saved from doing consulting than almost all of the people with college degrees I know.  The driving force behind his discipline to do well was that he was always trying to show that his word was his bond and he would guarantee any work he did.  Now he only consults on the big money jobs of his choice.

Developing skills of any sort takes discipline.  Becoming the best poker player in the world could be a gatekeeper skill because of the discipline involved in manipulating card decks in one's mind.  Learning three or more languages contains enough discipline to be a gatekeeper skill because of the different grammatical and lexical manipulations required.  Neither is a school-oriented learned ability.  I wish those who write educational reports would understand their circular reasoning.  Desire for heightening any skill leads to discipline and expertise.  If Steve Jobs taught the world anything, it was this principle.

Creativity is an attribute of humans just because they are members of the human race.  It is not an attribute learned at school necessarily.  Creativity is derived from a whole spectrum of human activities, not merely from a regimen of core subjects studied.