More is less

English has a saying: When all is said and done, there's always more said than done.

I know that the saying is aimed at how people say that things will get done and then they fall through on what needs getting done.  But, there is also an upside to the saying.  When people get peeved, they threaten with all kinds of epithets.  They don't really mean it though.  They threaten to sue, but they don't and won't.  Anyone in his/her right mind would not spend the money it takes to litigate an issue during the course of the 18-24 months it takes to go from start to finish with an attorney.  People say they will file complaints, and they might.  But by the time a complaint takes its course, much of the sting has been taken out of it.

Anymore, when I hear venomous speech, I will listen and acknowledge on the outside.  But on the inside I am yawning.  There's always more said than done.

Swish - a story of faith

Kobe Bryant is undoubtedly one of the best basketball players ever to play in the NBA.  He practices longer, plays harder, and extends himself more than most to win when the situation calls for it.  He is in the same company with Jordan, Johnson, Bird, Russell, and all the other greats who have played the game.

It was not just a really bad day today for Kobe as the Lakers hosted New Orleans; it was his worst day ever.  It had been since 2004 that he had gone a whole first half without scoring - this from a player that has led or has been close to leading the whole league in scoring over the last 13 years.  And it wasn't for lack of shooting that Kobe was scoreless.  He had tried two-footers and thirty-two-footers, but nothing had fallen.  The third quarter was not any better.  Finally, by the time the last two minutes of the game came around, Kobe had scored 2 baskets making him something like 2 for 20 attempts.

What a horrible, no-good day for Kobe.  But, that will not be how this game will be remembered.  This game will go down in the books as Kobe winning the game for the Lakers in the fading seconds of the game - like Jordan, Bird and all the greats did for their teams.  With 20 seconds to go in the game, and for the lead in the game, Kobe had the ball thrown to him with the possession clock winding down to 0.  He shot with great concentration as he had done on days when he was the game's leading scorer.  No hesitation and no doubting even though to this point he was having the worst shooting day of his NBA career.  The ball swished down the cords of the net - 3 points and the lead.  New Orleans had two subsequent shots to try to win, but failed.

There is no telling how many shots over the course of all his practices and all his games Kobe has taken.  But, even on his worst day, he felt comfortable in his shooting skin.   All the shots he had taken to that point paid off.  Without hesitation he took the jumper.  The mechanics of 30,000 shots kicked in.  It was automatic and perfect.  There was no strain, no adjustment, just comfortable, confident mechanics.  The game went in the books as Kobe winning the game with a last-second basket.

The last two years plus a little have been to me much like Kobe's game today.  They have had something huge missing from them.  I don't think time has run out yet for this period in my life.  I hope not, anyway.  I still go through the motions of shooting, that is, going to work and performing other duties as needed.  I reread a blog today that I had read a few months ago.  It ended with the word Faith.  That's certainly what I have, what I hold on to.  And it will be the empowering force behind the shot that puts life and happiness back into my soul before time expires.

A picture for my heart

Today I stood in the back yard.  It was late in the evening, just about dusk.  The scene was picturesque with the two rose bushes by the back stone fence showing their beauty of red velvet blooms.  The freshly budded trees around the yard and in the neighbors' yards showed a bare breeze, their leaves flickering ever so slightly.  It was quiet, serene, and reflective.  The grass was verdant green from the more than average rainfall that it has received.

That was also the picture in my heart.  I was in need of some warm thoughts.  So I brought to mind the scenes that gave me the effect of the sweet aroma filling my sense of smell from the roses, of the pleasing sight of the green leaves moving spirited by the breeze, of the grass sprigs thickening with the rising heat of spring.  Those scenes calmed me because of the refreshment they brought.  They planted anew the sounds of laughter and cheer, a glimpse once again of a smiling, welcome face, and the essence of the most life-giving spirit I have ever met.

I reentered the house after those moments in the back yard, but the scene, both the physical and the remembered, lasted on into the evening and night.

Showing proper regard

At least two languages in the world sport a female and male version of the language.  One of the languages is in northwestern South America, the other on a Polynesian island.  The male and female versions of these languages share some of the function words such as prepositions, articles, and semantic organization, but they have different content words carried by nouns and verbs.

We don't really have that in the United States, but there are some analogs.  Some words in English are spoken primarily by women.  Rarely would a male say, "wonderful, sweet, marvelous, cute, (although men less than 50 are more prone to say this word than men over 50), and lavender." In this latter case, men seem to stick to mainstream colors and shy from colors such as magenta and peaches and cream.  Women, on the other hand, steer clear of words like "slugged, smashed, pus, snuffed, and fecal" in favor of ameliorated terms.

Growing up male, then, or female partially determines which set of words are learned to be used and which are learned merely to understand.  Cross-gender conversations happen more often in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, more than likely, just because of the values held in our culture.  As a result, frustration from cross-gender conversations abound.  Men and women have distinct, negative impressions of the other gender's speech.  A number of factors contribute to this idea, but having "male" and "female" words is certainly one contributor.  Savvy women and men know this and make adjustments in their speech when carrying on a cross-gender conversation.  At least they appear to "understand" rather than "condescend" to the way ideas are expressed.  They are usually richly rewarded for doing so.

Noticing underground activity

The Earth, like every living organism has all kinds of systems built into it that keep it changing.  The Earth's surface may look like it doesn't change much, but it is constantly changing, just at a speed that is slower than the life span of humans.  In fact, it would take about 30,000 years of humans to see quite a good number of the changes Earth undergoes.  No one saw the Mid-Atlantic Ridge form, and it's likely our species will be extinguished before we see it disappear.  But, the ridge is there now for us to see in all of its glory.  We can imagine what will happen and what has happened by watching the Ethiopian rift and Greenland rift on the surface.
 
We know from Tsunamis that plates on the Earth's surface on the ocean floor drop a foot or two.  We know from  caving what the forces of water and heat cause under the Earth.  We know from volcanic explosions of the pressurized plumes beneath the surface blasting molten rock over calderas.  We can see layers of rock jutting above ground to investigate what happened before it came to the surface.  We can see fern leaves and crocodile bones inside the Arctic Circle and understand that at some point that piece of land used to be located elsewhere.

National Geographic put together a documentary called Journey to the Center of the Earth in which its photographers and script writers logged what occurs between the surface and the core.  The documentary ended with the words, "It's what happens underground that ultimately causes what happens on the surface."  I think the Journey to the Center of the Earth is also the Journey to the Center of Human Beings.  What a great metaphor for the forces that are at work inside each of us.  And, it is so true that what happens at our core and other invisible points under our skin, like our mind, ultimately affects the emotions we have, the words we speak, and the actions we take.

So I watch for people's tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic explosions (or even minor seismic activity) to know how to react to it.  It helps in staying alive a lot of times.

Escaping the big quid pro quo

When I was in managerial positions, I used to hear "I owe you," frequently.  Most of the time people were asking for help that didn't take long or that fell within the purview of some talent someone had that (s)he didn't mind performing.  Those were petty (but meaningful to others) tasks for the most part.

But, I knew instantly when someone meant, because they rarely voiced it, that I would owe them something rather magnanimous if I continued with a request for their help.  The quid pro quo was more than usual.  I would rather do it myself incompletely than to get into those kinds of tit for tats.  And even though I have been able to avoid those kinds of exchanges, I continue to see the more than usual tradeoffs exchanged.  It ranges from finding and giving information that is not known (and shouldn't be known) to sexual favors for fulfillment of ambition.

I don't know why betrayal ranks as number 1 for me on the unforgivable sin list, but it does.  Unusual quid pro quos, that is, the ones that go beyond gladly getting somebody out of a small fix or gladly giving up time to help with a task, bother me severely because they are a form of betrayal.  I find myself actually despising the ones who get caught up in them, thinking that I need to be a part of exposing them and causing them to move on or at least lose their grip on those who have succumbed to such exploitation.  When someone lies in a situation that causes harm, I like to bring any forensic ability I have to bear on exposing and causing equivalent harm on them.  But, quid pro quos are different.  I see them, but am most of the time left without any means to cause a change or to expose.  I am left to loathe. 

I will work on turning the energy I give to loathing those who continue their quid pro quos for exploitation into more productive actions... not easy for me, but I will work on it.  I need to take myself from the arena where it happens and focus on what I can productively do.

Time to add

One of my favorite movies of all time is Contact.  That's because I am fascinated with receiving communication from a world other than Earth.  It actually happens in the movie.  Tonight I am watching a Science channel documentary on what would happen if scientists at the SETI Institute received messages from "out there."  It is very interesting to see the reactions of people to the idea that we have been communicated with.  I hope the follow-up episode will be about the actual communication.  In the meantime it doesn't hurt to speculate.

When it does happen, I can't wait to add a new language to my repertoire.

Comfort, calm

I have been in a few storms that blow through strongly, toss things around, then bluster their way into the distance.  I have been through some rain events as well, rain that settles in and stays for a couple of days.

But, the rain tonight is wave-like and has lasted 6 solid hours already with at least 5 more hours on the way according to radar.  It's not a blustery storm, not a stalled front, and not one of those dreaded electric storms with streak lightning filling the sky.  Along with the steady rain, the lightning has also been steadily illuminating the clouds that rumble in the wake of  quickly disappearing lightning.  Not the streak lightning, but the nightlight flashes that cast light across sky behind the clouds.  This is the kind of rain I remember well from my adolescent years.

This kind of a rain event is so comforting.  It makes me feel as if all is well with the world.  I guess the interaction of heaven and earth in this way makes me feel that the wold is as it should be.  I know otherwise.  I have a very good friend that is living through rough times at the moment.  I, myself, am waiting on dawn to began to break up the darkness.  I have another friend suffering from the cancer that is taking a toll on her entire body.  Even another friend is living across the ocean right now in the middle of feuding tribes trying to sort out whether Islam or Christianity should be the religion of the country.

But for this small moment in time, surrounded by such a duration of comforting, familiar splashes on the window pane, iterations of gentle rumbling in the sky, and flashes of quilted light brilliantly showing the ground below, I am comforted and given additional energy to make it through till dawn.  And for my very good friend, and other friends who face their own black enemies, I wish the same momentary comfort in the middle of their dark fights and the energy to make it till those storms subside and calm is restored.

A lament

The joke goes:
Two people were engaged in conversation.  They were exchanging information about each other: where each had gone to school, who the family members were, etc.  To end the conversation, one asked the other "Where are you from."  The second person snidely remarked, "I'm from a place where they don't end sentences with a preposition."

Well, who's wrong here?  You could say that a Latinate rule exists in English not to end a sentence in a preposition.  But that was Latin.  The grass roots of English syntax are from Anglo-Saxon.  Rules are a little different in that source.  Or you could say that historical linguistics doesn't matter.  The acceptable threshold of English usage of ending a sentence with a preposition is very clearly over 75% (closer to 98%).  What dictates a rule - history or usage?  Obviously usage.  So, the first person could have ended the conversation with "Sorry, you  must be speaking of that non-standard, Latin-based, 2% dialect called 'proper' English. Would you like to learn American English?"

Yesterday I was around a person who decided to join a religious denomination which required a covenant to be taken to be a member of that church in addition to the normal Christian creed so that he could be held accountable.  I don't even have words for such a surrender of personal freedom because he doesn't have the discipline to trust himself to be a good person.

What I wouldn't give to be around a creative, efficient, giving, cheerful, free-spirited, consistent, tender-hearted, strong, smart, and open soul...  instead of those who keep this rule and that rule and a hundred thousand other rules...  who stifle others from thinking on their own...  who joylessly move through life robotically, emotionlessly...  who wear ankle-length skirts with tennis shoes...  What I wouldn't give.

Waiting on dawn

Every day ends in darkness.  Every night ends in light.  In life they are not exactly as equally measured  as units of time are.  But the cycle actually gives hope.  Good times are marked because we know they don't last forever.  On the other hand, horrors are somewhat mitigated because we know they will end.

I want to remind myself of this since tonight it is midnight, no matter what the time on the clock reads.  I will certainly be ready for the first rays of light signaling the end of this particular night and the hope that lies ahead.

A very young heart

I saw a billboard today advertising heart care.  It showed a man with a gray beard smiling and enjoying himself with his adult children.  Across the middle of the sign in very large letters was the question, "How old is your heart?"  I suppose your heart could age more quickly or less quickly than other parts of your body or your body as a whole.  If it pumps harder for a longer period of time, such as the heart of a high blood pressure patient or one of a person on the way to having a stroke, then it is older.  If it pumps with no back pressure built up in it, then it would be a younger heart.  I get the sign.

But there may be a second way the heart ages.  Life is long for those who are alone or for those who don't experience the sheer enjoyment of meeting the love of their lifetime.  People sometimes opt for going the journey through life alone.  A few are quite adjusted to life alone and seem to manage life with joy and aplomb, but many more don't adjust and wither away joylessly.  For those who decide to choose a companion, life can still age them because they pick companions for all kinds of reasons.  One of the reasons is because (s)he has met his/her one true love.  But, there are many reasons, some for convenience, some for money, some for mere companionship or out of arrangement, some for partial compatibility.  There is probably a continuum for these reasons to fall across, but the one that keeps the heart the youngest has to be the one in which the heart enjoys the pure moments of just being with one who makes her/him happy, just because of who the companion is.

That means, then, that there are several different answers to the question on the billboard, "How old is your heart?"  One answer would be to measure blood pressure or cholesterol levels frequently.  Another is to see if you're living life alone or with someone who only gives a partial amount of enjoyment.  But for someone whose heart has been with the one who gives sheer enjoyment of life, the answer is that her/his heart is young.

After I passed the sign, I smiled, knowing my heart would last a long, long time because it was so very young.

Heart rain

Tonight the weather forecast predicted that there would be 100% coverage of rain on Thursday evening.  That's rare.  A person usually sees the percentage of the area that could be hit by rain storms at less than 100 because rain is spotty.  Some pockets of air are less dense than others even along a front.

Life's events are weather events.   Attitudes, mores, cultural values, educational levels, religious views, and a sundry amount of other influences make any one prediction of how people will act less than 100%.  It's rare to get people's actions to be 100% behind any one belief or event.

But, I do know that when one's heart has been touched by someone, coverage of refreshing thoughts and enraptured moments is 100%.  They are rain full of vitality, happening every day.

Don't jump in until/unless

I was watching a young scholar over the last 2 weeks.  He decided to enter an arena that he clearly didn't have much of an idea what was being discussed.  He didn't have the breadth of knowledge he needed in order to understand the argument.  As a result, he said some things that he couldn't substantiate and that he couldn't seem to get a handle on.  The people in the discussion were nice at first to him, but then ended up ignoring him altogether since he had nothing to contribute, even continuing to respond.  At one point, he could have easily acceded to someone's comments who gave him the perfect out.  But, he was too foolish to even take that generous gesture.

The saying, "You have to pay to play" came into full effect in the conversation.  If you have paid your dues, it shows, usually in the level of argument you bring to the discussion.  If you haven't paid your dues, you usually find an unkind audience.  This guy hopefully learned the pay to play principle and will wait until he has a something substantive to offer before entering another discussion.

I've been a couple of times in this man's place, but I learned my lesson.  It gave me the caution I needed to speak when I have something to say and not to speak in places where my knowledge is limited.  Seeing this man's faux pas only makes my awareness of this kind of ambush that much keener.

Oh Xanadu!

I watched a film from a few years back today - Sanctum.  The characters of the story were all avid spelunkers and were discovering new veins to a cave only partially explored.  Although they were all fairly rugged characters all but one of them died in the cave.  Near the end of the movie, the last two characters were facing their darkest moments in the cave.  Viewers didn't know whether or not the two would make it out alive.  As they moved along the cave wall in the dark, they quoted the poem Xanadu by Coleridge to give them comfort.  The poem speaks of a paradise, of a place of unparalleled beauty.

The phone I had before the smart phones came out allowed pictures to be placed as a background or beside phone numbers.  I placed one of the most marvelous underwater pictures I have ever seen in my phone and called it Xanadu.  It was my paradise.  I had the phone for one year.  I am two phones removed from that one now, and the picture was not available to me on my new phones.  But under X in my phone directory I still have Xanadu listed because I forever cherish the one year I got to see paradise daily.

Tonight is dedicated to the most amazing, most beautiful place I could humanly imagine.  It has no parallel.  I can identify with the last two lines because for one year I delighted in the taste of honey dew and drank in the milk of paradise.

Xanadu
Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.





  So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.





But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!




The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

  A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Sharing a dark sky

I looked out at the sky tonight.  It was black and shared a darkness.  So, I visited a place within the recesses of my mind, a special, blended place, and saw again breath of life, faith, and hope.  I wanted the darkness of this night to see that it can shroud a certain part of my life, but it cannot extinguish this most sacred place.  Someone who gives me life lives there.

Landscapes tell their history

The Grand Canyon is a beautiful place today.  But it has a history that goes way back to the time when the Earth had only one land mass.  Of course, everything has a history.  The land that was the canyon was underwater at one time.  The Pacific Ocean used to cover the land that is now the canyon area.  Shells give that away.  As Pangea broke apart the tectonic activity was prolific.  The ocean receded, and the grinding of the Pacific plate against the North American plate caused huge mountains, taller than the Himalayans today.  But time and nature's forces wore down the mountains.  Ice ages  took their toll as well.  So did earthquakes because there was a huge lake bigger than any of the great lakes located close by in lower Utah and Nevada that had one side of it lowered by an earthquake.  The water emptied out of the lake and poured down through the canyon to carve it out deeper.  After that huge lake dried up, temperatures increased so much that a desert ensued.  Now, we see it as it is.  The history ahead of the canyon will be about like it has been in the past.

The beauty of the lives around us have their histories all right.  I had a text from a friend earlier this evening.  This person lives in pain but refuses to let the pain get in the way of ambitions to be realized.  This person's history is littered with events that cause different landscapes to appear.  But for the moment life is beautiful.  I have another friend whose story reads like a book written as a result of many interruptions.  Each interruption produced a different landscape until what shows today is a beautiful place to look at.  Another friend of mine has had a number of upheavals with children, the desert of experience with his late wife, the pinnacle experience in education between wives, and tremendous climate change with a second wife.  But, to talk to him is to talk to someone beautiful.  I need their experiences.  It helps me to put my own life in perspective, and not to be discouraged, for it has its own share of changing landscapes.

The unenlightened herd

The Barnett Shale is a geological formation that is currently producing a great amount of oil and gas in the north Texas area.  A number of large oil companies are sinking a lot of money into the area because the return is very good.  One of the features of the formation that yields the oil is that it is dense, that is, it doesn't have much porosity.  So, the companies have to fracture the formation.

For  the last 5 years, coinciding with the advent of the drilling of the Barnett Shale play, several earthquakes have happened in the area where earthquakes had not happened on any regular basis before.  Of course, the people correlate the drilling with the earthquakes. 

The University of Texas just released a scientific study on whether the affects of drilling and fracturing the Barnett Shale caused the earthquakes.  The cause-effect study was very clear.  There was not a correlation between facturing and the local earthquakes.  The people of the area decided that the study was not accurate since it didn't uphold their opinions.  They could have accepted the study and kept looking for a cause.  Knowing the cause of the earthquakes may save them from the big one one of these days.  But, no.  The herd didn't want to look elsewhere, and thus find a true explanation that would help them in their progress.

That's the way of it.  It applies in every area of life.  Long-held beliefs underpinning the herd mentality, even in light of evidence to the contrary, rule the day and allow great injustices to continue and not be curtailed.  It is so indicative of the mistrust of the average person toward scientific studies.  For all the so-called education Americans receive, one could hope that a trust for things educated, such as scientific studies, would help lead the people forward and become more advanced.  Alas.  The herd would rather follow the adage, "If the blind lead the blind, they both fall into the ditch."  Too bad.  Society could be a whole lot farther down the road.  But, that's just the way of the herd.

Language - precise? Ha!

Cuneiform was a language used long ago.  The language was like English, it was used across a great extent of the commercial world, called a lingua franca.  It was the first written script that the modern world knows about.  It was spoken for a really long time in this commercial center of the world, probably around 2000 years.  People knew of it or knew it well enough to trade with it apparently because people from both east and west came to the fertile crescent area of the Earth.

That old script of runes was used to record business transactions at first, but as time passed, it was used for everything writing is used for, such as laws and stories.  Very few people can read this script, so we have to take the word of these erudite individuals as to what the signs mean, but there has been little controversy, for the most part, over the translations of tablets using these symbols.  As with any ancient tongue, some controversy does arise, however, because some words seem to have a plethora of meanings and context determines what is being said. That's a little problematic, though, because sometimes contexts are figurative, so they support more than one meaning of a word.  These are called interpretations, of course.

There's  a very interesting word from cuneiform that has the potential to change the way we think about our origins.  The idea is not new, but it is gaining more and more support.  It was perpetuated in the 1980s by a movie about Mars.  At the end of the movie, Earth travelers found a disguised edifice on Mars that housed the account of the destruction of Mars and the migration of its inhabitants to the Earth.  Stargate the movie and series capitalized also on the idea that humans were started as a result of efforts of ETs from another galaxy.  The story in cuneiform echoes this theme because it has to do with the origins of humanity on Earth and uses the term anunaki. Mostly the translators have assigned the word's meaning as a group of gods.  So, all the council of the gods like Ea and Enlil are considered the Anunaki.  But, there is a part of the story that doesn't fit this assignment of meaning.  The Anunaki said they came from another galaxy to be here.  Now if this is true, then we need to evaluate again the creation myths that come from this time period.  For one, there's not really a creation.   For two, there's not really a council of deities, but a people from another planet.  The Hopi Native American stories support the same hypothesis.

A word like Anunaki makes one aware of the pitfalls of reducing any language into some precise set of rules for spelling (for there are 3 spellings of annunnaki), syntax or meanings.  But, it's ok.  Those who consider themselves a part of the established gatekeepers of the English language are about to meet their demise.  Of course, they will depart with their usual venting of spleens, and vocally at that.  Language has its moments when it is exact, but it sure has its moments that cause discomfort for those who want it to always be exact.  Language was rich in its cuneiform form.  It's rich now.  It will be rich when its current written form goes by the wayside in favor of holographic transmission of complete environments.  Whatever form language takes, it will have a precise side, but it will mainly deal in interpretations into perpetuity.  Can't wait to see the holographic form of Anunaki!  Maybe the movies E.T. and Paul have merit.  What cute Anunaki if that's true.

No, not a dictate from the genes

The formation of sounds in English by infants is predictable and developmental.  So, it was of particular note to me that someone told me that learning sounds was genetic.  I am not certain what the person meant exactly since I was told by a third party bearing news of someone who was told first-hand, but I took it to mean that people are controlled by their genes as to whether they can form the sounds of all the available sounds in the language they are born into.  This flies in the face of current observation and theory.

An infant learns sounds naturally, no matter what language,  The human speaking apparatus of tongue, palate, mouth cavity, nasal passage, lips, pharynx, and larynx have been toyed with for many, many thousand years.  It's no mystery on how sounds are made, how many sounds have been made, which sounds are easiest to make, which are hardest, and which come in early in an infant's development, which are later.  So imagine my astonishment when I was told that a child had to be taken speech therapy at age 4 for defective sounds and that it was genetic because there was not a hearing or vision problem that impeded the sounds, no malformation of any of the speaking apparatus parts, no environmental intrusion causing sound to be warped, and normal parents who had no history of phonetic malformation when young.

The child had particular problems pronouncing the so-called hidden sounds because they cannot be readily seen like the gutteral sounds at the back of the mouth cavity at the top of the throat.  But an anomaly occurred.  Nasals, such as m and n, were not malformed whereas l and r were.  This for sure discounts the genetic theory.  All of these sounds have a constant flow of air and voice, like vowels do, but the air stream is redirected inside the mouth where no one can see how exactly they are redirected with the exception of m which one can see (the lips are closed in order to direct the air flow through the nose rather than through the mouth).

I think the culprit for the young boy's trouble is not in the genes, but in missing the stage from about 3-9 months of age when the infant studies the faces of the caregivers to produce just the right sounds of the language they have been born into.  Not being in a position to see and study would delay or allow one to miss altogether how to form the needed sounds to develop and later compete with others in acceptable communication.

It's a little bit like Freud's theory of missing the crawling stage and having problems with socialization in teen and young adult years.  The young boy is 6, so he still has another couple of years to work on seeing and hearing how the formation of sounds happens, but it will increasingly be an issue for him since his need to communicate with others his age begins to help him establish his role and place in his world.  A smart language therapist will give him some dialect substitute sounds to compensate for the stage he missed.  It's quite acceptable to hear people pronounce here as heah. No one makes a big deal about that.  Or the acceptable Boston brogue which drops r's at the ends of words or near the ends of words as in pahk for park, and caw for  car.  Dropping the l altogether in all but the initial position in a word is quite acceptable as well.  No doubt the young man will learn the compensations and become a full-fledged, successful member of society.  But if this development is genetic, then the therapist who made the statement ought to make a full-blown case study of this encounter and publish it because it would be rare, to say the least.

No comprende, senor

Build Social Value

Once again, Facebook exists to make the world more open and connected, and not just to build a company. We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value for the world in everything they do.

 Zuckerberg defines social value here as more open and connected.  Good for him.  In his letter, he speaks of wanting to affect government in this way.  Kudos, because then the idea of democracy by the people would be more realized than the republican form of representation we have now.  I look forward to that day.  He also wants to the corporate world more connected and open so that they can take that quantum leap into advancing the same cause faster than it would normally advance by being more open and connected.  This would be nice.  It is logical that this could happen, and I hope it does because I am all for advancement of society.

But when it comes to the system that wants to control what our children think these days, there is a total nonsequitur between Zuckerberg's statement and the way the system is run.  First, the system is a basic quid pro quo system.  The people who run the system will give in return for all kinds of favors.  Thus, they can't afford for it to be too open and certainly not connected or they would be found out.  Promotion comes mainly from within the system in order to perpetuate the quid pro quo aspect it is built upon.  Those within the system have to conform at some point or they will be worked out of the system even if they have the talent to offer many new directions to it.  The youth see this model for 12 of their formative years in life.  Guess what model most of them will perpetuate!

Second, the system is built around so-called success for students.  It's an artificial success because the grading system is unbelievably faulty.  Parents think grades are based on a 100 point system when it is really a 50 point system.  The Bell curve is a mathematical reality for the students who attend, but the grading system alters the Bell curve so that students will look good for the community.  On a 50 point system (the upper 50 points from 50-100) the middle grade for which half of the students fall below and half above is a sham.  Administrators make extreme efforts to create the aritificial idea that 90% of the students should be in the upper half of the curve rather than 49%.  That means that almost half of students passing or graduating really ought not to be passing or graduating.  

Third, the system educating our youth has rhetorically given lip service to the integration of content areas.  But, the rhetoric is empty.  For upwards of 30 years, they have talked about integration of the subject areas.  Curriculum has even been made with this integration in mind.  But, nearly all children still take English, Math, Social Studies, and Science as separate subjects.  Connectedness is not a trademark of the antiquated configuration for children to learn in this system.  Real world value of the content areas doesn't exist in these compartmental instructional pods.

So, when Zuckerberg asks his employees to FOCUS on real world values, the children of the system in place now can't even think along the same lines as he does.  Real world means artificial, canned answers rather than real, flexible, sovlable problems that arise in a working environment.

I admire Zuckerberg for being able to take his company to the next level from the world in which he began his efforts and for having a vision to take his company to even higher levels with his aspirations for his workers.  And, he does have those kind of employees.  I just don't know where he found them.  He is speaking an obscure language like Pame (Mayan) to us English speakers.  Our children are basically outsiders to one of the best American companies ever formed.

It's the Zuckerbergs, however, that will lead the way into the next phase of civilization.  I wish he had one of the largest pools to draw from for his employee selections.  It's not true, however.  Most of them can click on Like and write a few words for their status.  But work for him, they could not do. They haven't seen "open and connected" in any experience in their 12 years of mind control from the model the system runs by to the curriculum they study.

More is actually more, not less

Almost 2500 years ago a phenomenon in the world happened in Athens, Greece.  The people of Athens decided that they wanted all the men in the town to participate in their own governance.   It was called, in English, a democracy, or a government by its populace.  It didn't last long in historical terms.  Rome decimated it a couple of hundred years later.  It would be 2000 years before that idea would resurface in the United States.  Attempts were made along the way like the government formed by the two tribes of the Angles and Saxons in England when they stopped feuding, and in 1215 when the Magna Carta was signed.  Whenever attempts were made in the world, people after that were better off.

Two popular books in 20th century America have chronicled what a nation is like when information is suppressed.  In both Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World, books with the world's knowledge are no longer wanted or needed and have been burned.  Oppression of many people in these two books is apparent.  The point of the books is that whenever information is not freely available to people, they suffer at the hands of someone who is not a benefactor.

The Spanish Inquisition is a time in Medieval Europe noted for its extreme persecution of knowledge/information.  It is not a pretty period in history.  China, too, devolved into chaos at two times in their history between two strong empires in which knowledge had flourished.  So, the idea that information needs to be accessible to as many people as possible should be something the people of the world understand very well.  A great principle from history is that people's judgment is only as good as their information.

So, why is it still an anomaly when Zuckerberg declares that he wants his employees to have access to as much information as possible?  Below is Zuckerberg's guideline for his employees and new investors.  It's an anomaly.  

Be Open  

We believe that a more open world is a better world because people with more information can make better decisions and have a greater impact. That goes for running our company as well. We work hard to make sure everyone at Facebook has access to as much information as possible about every part of the company so they can make the best decisions and have the greatest impact.

A question is begged here.  Why is it, then, since history points out that good happens with information and bad happens in its absence, that oppression of information is still the order of the day?  All one has to do is to look to the system in place that keeps the nation's children from ages 6-18.  That system says to its children, "Here is what you need to know this year, and next year, and next, etc... This is how you do what you need to know.  Don't step out of established territory.  Sit down, shut up, look busy, turn in work, and we'll reward you for it."  It's the greatest straight-jacket approach around. No graduate school in the country is run this way.  And why not?  Because they know that a person has to try out information in experiments or in the field, gathering facts and coming to reasonable conclusions.  Heaven forbid that that method should be for graduate students only.  Kids 6 years old understand the beauty of the scientific method.  They know that this method is how knowledge is gathered. They would love to experiment and do field work to see how to distill and apply principles in all their subjects.  And how much would children learn if they knew how to discover and apply school content, then apply the principles to the interests they love so much?  Go Zuckerberg!  Access to information would lead to so much more in your industry and everywhere else you look just like your letter states. However, children also know that the current system doesn't really want them to discover and apply, performing at a level above mediocrity.  It is a system that encourages average (even their grading system uses this method) and following the path of least resistance.

  

The kids today are the children of the information age.  Denying access to information is to kill them, disadvantage them, force them onto an uneven playing field.  How many computers are in a classroom today? One for every ten kids?  And what happens if a student brings her/his own computer to class?  Can (s)he use it?  Of course not.  It would put the other children at a disadvantage  EXACTLY! So, conventional wisdom is to handicap all instead of applauding someone who might get a quantum leap ahead and perform well.  That person might think for herself/himself.  NO, No, no what a stir that would cause.  The current method of keeping a whole lot of people from flourishing is to deny them knowledge/information.  It's really the Spanish Inquisition with a palatable name so as not to make its taste too bitter.

Mark Zuckerberg, where are you finding people to work in your company?  They have to be few and far between!

Outcome guaranteed

In a classroom in graduate school the professor was showing her graduate students the difference between the way young people learn a second language and the way adults learn a second language.  The class had already read a great number of theoretical articles and a book on various methods for learning a second language.  Now came the field experiments.  

A group of 8 nine-year-olds filed into the room and took their seats in front of the graduate students.  Then 8 adults came into the room and took their seats in front of the room.  The class had previously voted on what method they thought would be the best, so teachers for the two groups had come prepared to teach their student groups according to the voted-on method.  The two groups began to learn some language parcels simultaneously while the graduate students observed, taking notes on how much and in what ways the individuals in the two groups learned. 

There were two very clear differences in the way the two groups approached learning that day (and it happens to be the case for learning language in general between children 10 and younger and children older than 10 into adulthood).  The young people's group tried guessing about 15 times more often than the adults who were bent on getting the right form before they would speak out.  The older group covered less material because they wanted to master the language forms before pressing on while the younger group covered a great deal of territory, sometimes even randomly repeating the forms they had touched on earlier.  When the two observations were pointed out to the adult group, and that group was asked to change their learning style to match that of the younger group, they couldn't make the adaptation.

Zuckerberg's third principle for his workers is to be bold.  He elaborates below:

Be Bold

Building great things means taking risks. This can be scary and prevents most companies from doing the bold things they should. However, in a world that's changing so quickly, you're guaranteed to fail if you don't take any risks. We have another saying: "The riskiest thing is to take no risks." We encourage everyone to make bold decisions, even if that means being wrong some of the time.

If anything is true in the great American daycare system for children 6-18, it is that there is a methodical progression of ideas.  "Grind it out" would be a saying true of the children who are products of this system.  While it is true in some instances that learning (that includes performing aloud what has been learned) on a macro- scale may need to conform to a progression at some points, it would not naturally hold that learning on a micro- scale should be so methodical.  Learning is random at that level most of the time.

Math classes are typical, but any class would do.  If one were to observe a lesson by a teacher methodically teaching a concept that was next in some micro-curricular progression, (s)he would see a teacher explaining, calling on students to feed back the concept, giving some examples, then asking students to practice what they have learned. After that the teacher calls on students to give answers from their practice work.  In this last phase of asking children to give answers from their practice problems , one would see a great deal of silence and hesitation.  Teachers say it is like pulling teeth to get children to shout out their answers.  Many times the children wouldn't answer even when called upon by name.  According to Mark Zuckerberg, such children are guaranteed to fail.  Hmmm...

 This method works well for the teacher who learned how to teach after becoming an adult, but who has forgotten how learning happens for the young. The adults who manage the system as a whole ask the teachers to teach methodically at all levels and measure them according to the adult learning stick.  Teachers only look for right answers rather than random, many times wrong, answers so that they will measure up on the stick.

So where does Zuckerberg go to get employees who are taking risks, learning randomly, boldly calling out learning forms or math answers even if they are not called upon?  These children work for the other companies he refers to in his principle.  I'm still looking for the pool Zuckerberg is drawing from.  The Wright brothers, Fords, Bells, and Edisons are all dead and still stand out as anomalies in history.

The beat of a different drummer

In 1920s America, one-room school houses dotted the countryside everywhere across the country.  In those houses, older students were taught, then the younger while the older students did their classwork.  When instruction was finished to the younger, the older students then helped the younger students with their classwork.  In 1950s America, the cities had undergone a great migration from the rural areas.  In those school rooms, the teachers taught the students, allowed for classwork to be done, checked the work, gave more work to the students who performed to satisfactory standards while those who needed more work were grouped with the teacher for extra and remedial work.  In 1980s America, about 20 years after mandatory education had become law, school rooms followed a regimen in which the teacher gave group instruction, allowed time to do classwork, checked the classwork, gave homework, and while many worked on homework using class time, those who didn't do well when the class work was checked gathered to an area of the room to get more personal instruction.

The 20s, 50s, 80s, and any other decade to the present day has a lulling familiarity to it - configure the day or period so that students are presented a concept and given time - checked time, independent time, and reiterated time to understand a concept.  If an idea is drummed into the environment enough times, then most (meaning a majority percentage) in earshot of the drum beat would understand the idea.

How very different is the method used if you are an employee of Facebook.  Zuckerberg calls this the Hacker Way and he explains that method in his letter to his new investors.

The Hacker Way

As part of building a strong company, we work hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people. We have cultivated a unique culture and management approach that we call the Hacker Way.

The word "hacker" has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I've met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world.
...
Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook. We have the words "Done is better than perfect" painted on our walls to remind ourselves to always keep shipping.

What's that again? Done is better than perfect? Zuckerberg obviously never heard clearly the drum beat method of the schools through the last two centuries.  But, you understand his Move Fast principle if you understand his method of the Hacker Way.  The second principle he wants his employees to abide by at FB is to Move Fast.

Move Fast

Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they're more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: "Move fast and break things." The idea is that if you never break anything, you're probably not moving fast enough.

This is so foreign to someone who sits in the school houses around the nation, no matter what the decade, that (s)he probably missed its importance.  Break things, not sit and listen to a repetitive drum beat passively.  Move fast, not sit for repetitive lessons a week or two at a time moving through concepts at the pace of continents moving apart from each other 3 centimeters a year.

So who will work for Zuckerberg?  Not very many from the primary pool producing young people supposedly ready for the work force after satisfying drum beat requirements.

Shallow pool

As the commercial begins, a crowd is gathering in an auditorium to watch someone perform.  A piano sits center-stage.  The crowd grows; then, the camera focuses on a husband and wife.  They ask where their son is, making the viewer aware that the son is small since he still needs adult supervision.  As the couple look around the auditorium from their seats, the light dims and the pianist begins playing.  Panic-striken, the husband and wife realize their son is seated at the piano, his hands pressing the keys to a simple song.  They try to figure out exactly what to do about this when from the side of the stage strides the musician that everyone has come to see.  He doesn't chastise the 10-year-old, call for security, or even stop the boy from playing.  Instead, he joins the boy on the bench, whispers to him to continue playing, and adds a very sophisticated rhythm to the simple notes being played.  The master turned what could have been a fiasco into something touching, showing his true talent in adding sophistication to an otherwise simple tune.  He had the human touch along with his masterful expertise.

It sounds simple.  Focus on the most pressing problem.  Don't waste time in fixing it.  Don't act poorly as you are solving the problem.  The outcome will be touching, astounding.  Zuckerberg put it in the following words.

Focus on Impact

If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems. It sounds simple, but we think most companies do this poorly and waste a lot of time. We expect everyone at Facebook to be good at finding the biggest problems to work on.

Is this something that kids 6-18 can learn to do?  First they are the problem, someone helps them with great finesse.  Then, they learn what causes problems.   And, finally they learn to address problems, feebly at first, but with increasing finesse as they become older.  The word mastery means exactly that by age 18, not proficient, or minimally skilled, or regular, or average.  It means seeing a little boy who ventured onto a stage, unknowingly attracted to a piano that invited him to play (he didn't know it was showtime), and walk onto the stage to add zest and life to what the boy has to offer, so that the crowd gives a standing ovation by the end of the song.

Sure someone 18 can do that.  But not by being dumped into a group with 25-30 others their same age for 12 straight years.  Nor by being given less than 15 minutes a day of personal time with someone who teaches basic principles over and over to the mean of the group, or worse yet, to the lowest common denominator of the group.  Not even by allowing "involvement" by participating in group projects.  And certainly not by dulling the mind with mindless repetition, usually with homework, but with the normal "first run" of a concept sometimes.  There is no impact using this method.  And focus is out of the question for content redundantly presented.

So who works for Zuckerberg?  I at least know the pool of people he didn't draw from, and that is a very large pool.

Disparate worlds

Last week Facebook went public.  I guess that was inevitable since it was one of the world's largest corporations.  However, Zuckerberg took the time to write his new investors that the original mission of the company was not to become a company.  He wrote a lengthy letter to his investors to let them know that his mission is the same as when he started Facebook even before it became a privately held company.  The very last portion of his letter is below.

He is right for his own company and he is right in the way the world is beginning to turn around, which is different from the way the world has revolved in the past.  There is a whole generation coming up that will be at odds with itself because they will have to enter a professional daycare institution that is diametrically opposed to the principles below.  

Children from 6-18 will want what Zuckerberg has written about here.  But, they could never work for FB because they will have been trained by a system that will dilute their efforts into mediocrity and deceive their thinking about success, saying that it has made them ready for their future.  It's a sad day when they realize that they have been duped.

Simply reading his five principles will allow a person to see how far the current training is from what the most financially successful young person on the planet says he wants his employees to be known for.   Zuckerberg is pledging that the people who invest and work with him can be reputed for the following 5 principles.

Focus on Impact

If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems. It sounds simple, but we think most companies do this poorly and waste a lot of time. We expect everyone at Facebook to be good at finding the biggest problems to work on.

Move Fast

Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they're more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: "Move fast and break things." The idea is that if you never break anything, you're probably not moving fast enough.

Be Bold

Building great things means taking risks. This can be scary and prevents most companies from doing the bold things they should. However, in a world that's changing so quickly, you're guaranteed to fail if you don't take any risks. We have another saying: "The riskiest thing is to take no risks." We encourage everyone to make bold decisions, even if that means being wrong some of the time.

Be Open

We believe that a more open world is a better world because people with more information can make better decisions and have a greater impact. That goes for running our company as well. We work hard to make sure everyone at Facebook has access to as much information as possible about every part of the company so they can make the best decisions and have the greatest impact.

Build Social Value

Once again, Facebook exists to make the world more open and connected, and not just to build a company. We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value for the world in everything they do.

Thanks for taking the time to read this letter. We believe that we have an opportunity to have an important impact on the world and build a lasting company in the process. I look forward to building something great together.
Mark Zuckerberg

Brilliant anomalies

Today was a beautiful day.  It started nicely - 60 degrees, increased to 73 during the day, and is back to 62 at the current hour.  Most of the morning was cloudy with the sun popping in and out of clouds.  The afternoon was the opposite, mostly sunny with the clouds covering the sun just every once in a while.

But today is an anomaly.  There aren't many days that have been close to this one in the history of record keeping for January 31st.  I love anomalies.  They happen in life once in a while.  And, when they happen, life is as brilliant and radiant as a nova burst.  There is still light in my life from  my most recent anomaly because nova bursts are intense and shed light for many light years.

Patterns of behavior

 I love the term Language Behavior.  I never knew the term until I was about 30.  I had never really thought in terms of language having behavior.  It's a personification, however, that has a lot of meaning.  Language does behave a certain way because of all the patterns in it.  Patterns show up in language in nearly every linguistic area.  Grammatically, patterns fill the language books, such as the regularization of verbs.  Prosodically, patterns fill our tones and melodies, such as the way questions are intoned.  Semantically, patterns can be seen in ways that signal what a listener would expect if sentences are said a certain way, such as the use of a stock phrase, a dialectal phrase, or a borrowed phrase from another language.  There are many patterns language fits into.

This idea makes it possible to reduce language to quantifiable terms and measure it.  For example, if people in their writing would have certain sentence lengths, like t-units, then their writing would be much more readable.  If sentence length and vocabulary frequencies are combined, then those that read written language can be measured into imaginary units, such as the lexile.  And, if stretches of utterances are recorded and sifted for repetitive words versus unique words, such as the Type-token Ratio, then one could find topics of discomfort for those who are speaking.

Knowing the behavior in language, one can start to draw some conclusions.  For example, it seems ludicrous for vocabulary study to be undertaken without an eye toward frequency in language.  Likewise, it is absurd to teach any part of grammar without the noticeable patterns that occur with words and their placement in sentences.  And, it's impossible to teach writing with any competence unless the writing follows patterns to organize around or the strategic use and placement of words exhibiting sophistication.

Our language behavior gives us away in every area of life because people know how to read the behaviors.  And I'm guilty.  Very measurably my patterns have given away exactly where my heart is.  And it underlies my hope and faith so obviously.

Front

Facades are great because people use them to present what they want people to see.  They can decorate them and make them beautiful to gaze at.  Facades have something very different behind them than what they represent on the front of them.  Movies use facades often.  They can create, for example, a whole main street of a western town - a general store, a saloon, a hotel, a bank, a jail, a blacksmith shop, and a doctor's office.  But if you were to go through the front door of these facades, you would see nothing of what you would expect.  Go in the door to the jail, expecting to see a cell, and you see nothing but dirt.  It's a facade.  Go in the door to the general store, and you don't see rows of things to buy.  You see dirt or mountains or desert or whatever is behind the facade.  Go through any of the facade doors and you know that nothing is behind the front of the building.  It's just a store front.

What I see everyday in myself as I work or go about my daily business is genuine in that I work at what I want, but I know that behind the door of the job is no heart, no real passion.  What is all the busy-ness fronting for?  For something?  For someone?  My heart presents what I want people to know and see. Deep care and reason for life have been deep-sixed.

Facades can be replaced with the real thing, of course.  The heart can show its passion, its life, its reason for carrying on.  I trust that that will one day be resurrected.  It's just not this moment in time.

A champion at 9

The Stars played Anaheim tonight.  It was a pretty good game, nothing to write home about, but enjoyable nonetheless.  If one were to look at the shot count, Dallas never should have won.  Anaheim had to have had twice the number of shots.  Much of the game's action took place on the Anaheim end of the ice.  But, Dallas was lucky.  They won 1-0. 

It's a thing of beauty to watch talented athletes skate over the ice at high speeds all the while working on maneuvering a puck into a goal.  Talented skaters every one.  As I was watching this game, I was reminded of a young man who turned 9 today.  He's a hockey player.  He's talented at skating and works hard at being a great athlete.  He's a champion.  His amazing mother has raised him to be the best he can be in hockey and in every other arena in life.  In a year and a half he'll get to go to the camp for champions in the Hill Country.  Happy Birthday my champion young man!

Cycle of the sensational

When I was growing up, I never heard of what is going to be happening tomorrow.  The phenomenon had not been discovered yet.  As a young adult, I heard of the discovery because NASA had begun watching the sun.  Just 5 years ago, I had heard of this recently discovered happening and seen a few catastrophic scenarios of the sun's hyperactivity during one of its anniversaries in an 11-year activity cycle, but it was not within my daily experience. 

But today, the phenomenon was reported with the weather as if it was a common occurrence.  The weather anchor reported a coming rain storm that would have 100% coverage of the area.  He reported on the drought.  And, yes, as if he was reporting the same routine information, he reported that the sun was at its peak in activity and had released a flare that would reach earth tomorrow.  Three pictures showed the flare, but there was no fanfare.  The anchor merely reported that people could expect interrupted cell phone service periodically, broken internet service from time to time throughout the day, but not particularly strong radioactivity.  Only in some parts of the world would people get radiated to the extent of taking an x-ray....  Next item.

Wow.  What a step forward in weather reporting.  Sun activity and its effects on Earth as a part of the daily routine.  I wouldn't want to live in any previous age.

I think there's a lesson here.  As civilization progresses, it gets smarter.  And, the sensational becomes the mundane as time progresses, making way for something else to be sensational.  That's the normal pattern.  It works just like short and long term memory.  Our educational system needs to also learn this lesson.  They seem to hang on to what was sensational behind us in time and perpetuate it as sensational.  But, the landscape is ever-changing, allowing the stupendous discoveries and events to be important for a time, then cycle through to the ordinary.

In August of 2012, a very sophisticated Mars laboratory will land on that planet.  I look forward to hearing the weather of Mars on newscasts not too long after that.  Sensational today, ordinary tomorrow.  That's the natural way.  I wish those who teach would follow the natural way, not keep youth looking backward.

Closing in on signature time

More on the disappearance of reading and writing:

The new commercial advertising Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet shows the user flipping screens.  The narrator's voice is telling what the Kindle can do with each flip of the screen.  It streams movies for you to watch.  It contains apps for you to touch and go to.  It lets you play games.  It plays YouTube videos that people make or attach to Facebook or other social media.  It contains programs for you to work in.  And then, as if by after-thought, the narrator says, "And, of course, you can read..." 

The very reason for Kindle in the first place several years ago has now been relegated to an after-thought because, in order to keep up in the modern world, a user has to do many more important or rewarding jobs on a screen than simply sit, do nothing, and read.  The message is that reading is pretty unproductive... which it is in the future... life is interactive, so any device worth its productive weight will be interactive as well.  Amazon is right on target following the money path to the future - streaming and allowing people control of what they want to SEE AND DO...  oh, and still allowing something passive like reading, too... but it's last, and outmoded, and a really unproductive use of time.

The death warrant for reading and writing will be signed at the close of 2017.

Watching the note

I happened to watch the decade memorial showing of the 9/11 episode of CSI:NY on a replay earlier tonight.  It was very well written.  The writer had the major characters of the show in modern day flashing back to where they were and what they did on the day the twin towers fell.  It was moving.  The main character, Gary Senise's character, Mac Taylor, was shown in a flashback sitting with his wife on a subway, then getting off at his stop to go to work.  They sat lovingly next to each other during the ride and kissed before he left her.  He didn't know at that time that it would be their last moment together.

At the end of the show, Mac went to a waterfront beach near the towers at the end of a memorial ceremony a decade after 9-11 and placed a note to his wife in the water letting the tide drag it out to sea.  He missed her, and the camera showed Mac in a pensive mood watching the note of his expression of love being washed out to the larger ocean.   In the background a voice repeated the last words on the note, which had been shown a little earlier when Mac wrote them... I will wait.

We wait on people who are really important to us.  Sometimes we get separated from them... but our hearts still send the message... I'll wait.

Dynamic and deep

When a person learns the vocabulary of a language, (s)he learns that words fit into grammatical categories that start with a root and subsequently use suffixes to represent grammatical categories.  These categories using the same root are often referred to as word families.  An example of this is found in the root beau-.  This root yields the verb beautify, the noun beauty, the adjective beautiful, and the adverb beautifully.  A great number of words follow this model.

But, occasionally, a word doesn't change or add suffixes even when changing grammatical categories. One such word is love.  The verb is love; the noun is love; the adjective is love (as in love interest).  One could add some suffixes if wanted, for example, love-r and love-ly.  But, the additions just enrich the word with more forms than other words have.  Stock is another such word.  The noun is stock; the verb is stock; the adjective is stock (as in stock item).  This can be enrichedby adding a noun suffix (stock-er).  There is a trade-off, however.  In these two cases there is no adverb.  The family line is cut short in one place, even though enriched in another.

It seems to me that much of life happens according to models that families have, their family traditions.  My family certainly has its share.  But parts of life aren't meant to be according to some steady model.  They take on other characteristics.  Some of life seems to act on its own, enriching us in some areas, keeping matters the same in some areas, cutting off some of life's known forms in other areas.  Like language, life is dynamic, a thing of beauty.  Sometimes places and times cause life's enriching moments, sometimes it's people.  I have such vivid pictures of those times and places, and such enjoyable snapshots of the people along the way... and such an awesome, amazing, revered spot for the one whose dynamic place is deep, so deep within.

Plee-ready

Words do funny things through history.  In Rome, the people didn't mind talking about movement and maneuvering, using the word plicare.   It was an action.  The action form, verb form, was retained in the languages that derived from Latin after the Roman Empire died out.  One version of the word, in French, had quite an influence in England where the American version of English derived.  So, when the French during the early Middle Ages wanted to speak of movement and maneuvering, they didn't mind using their derived action word ployer (modern plier).  The British turned the French word into two words because speakers of English dialects heard the word differently.  In the north, Scotland, people used ploy as an action and combined it with prepositions em- and de-.  The British in the south, London and Sussex, pronounced the word a little differently, ply.   But, Londoners spoke the prestige version of English, so modern English adopted this form of the word when needing a word for maneuvering something if they meant to shape it.  Those hillbilly Scots didn't know anything, of course.  So, their usage of ploy was stripped of its action.  It was left in the language, but only as a noun.

It's strange to see words move around in the history of language.  People too often think that the language they have learned is static.  And for the most part it is - during our lifetimes.  But, history teaches that the language we speak is dynamic.  I don't know what will happen to ploy in the future.  It could be that the word will drop from the language altogether in favor of maneuver, shape, or bend.  It could be that it will be stripped of its priority status over ply and be reduced to a noun.  Then, it would compete for survival with ply.  It could be that a new pronunciation of the words will merge the two words by pronouncing them both the same. If so, the spelling might be changed to reflect that new pronunciation.  Then both words would become one, maybe plee.  And, if writing were to disappear, plee would survive in spoken form only, captured, of course, by video and holograph of people speaking it in speeches, movies, and music.

Both the current forms, ply and ploy, don't resemble the original Latin word plicare much, nor would any future derivative. But, following the history of the word makes the changes plausible and traceable.  My own life resembles this word's history so much.  I began with a certain form, but as life has happened, changes took place and for good reasons, much like the influence of the prestige of Latin on French, French on London English, less influence on Scotland, and London and Scotland on America.  My latest form doesn't resemble much the original form, I know.  But it's OK; it's to be expected; it's the natural order.  And, I am looking forward so much to the catalyst that will change both ploy and ply to plee, making my journey complete.

I have looked over

Experiences in life are classified using a number of different analogies.  One classification is the mountaintop experience.  That analogy is used for only the very best experiences in life.  They are the ones that add majesty to your life, and laughter, and unspeakable joy, ecstasy in time, clarity of vision, and reinforcement of the moment for recreating at any future time.  Whenever I do think of those mountaintop moments, one peak is higher than any other in the range. To look at that peak is to see the shining splendor of feeling whole.

When my mind goes to that one peak, I am reminded of the inspiring words from a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I have been to the mountaintop... I have looked over, and I've seen the promised land."

I have no greater enjoyment!

Holes of enjoyment

How many times do we find ourselves at various junctures in life wondering how in the world something happened?  Life didn't ask for permission to take.  It simply took. I should have known life was like this when it took my favorite college professor, whom I was taking for the second time, in mid-semester.  I learned from this man like I had never learned anything before or after him.  But, I wasn't asked if I approved.  Life took him... He vanished. But I do some of my work in life based on what he taught me, and it gives me joy.

I look in my heart these days.  It has much for which to be thankful, no doubt.  So, in that regard my heart is full.  There are also these times when what is absent comes to the foreground.  I ponder those times and see the holes.  Life did some more taking.  So, when I look deeply into my heart, I try to see what is joyful and appreciate the fullness those times bring.  And I see the holes and fill them with the one whose essence has supplied me with much laughter, joy, and zest for life.  The holes disappear for as long as I can maintain those thoughts and give me periods of sheer enjoyment.

The character of this year

Years have different characters to them.  2010 was a year of taking three steps forward and two steps backward.  There was a net gain perhaps, but at what cost!  2011 was a year of learning to be content with what life dealt out of its hand and trying to make sense of its events.  I look at it and tell people it was all right, but there was something missing.  2012 is hidden right now. 

One of the differences this year will be that the hope I have had is swallowed by faith.  That's a game of semantics to a lot of people.  But, not to me.  Hope is about a journey with a brilliant palette of colors against the backdrop of the sky.  Faith allows me to see what has been invisible... the rainbow, for sure, but the pot of gold at its end too.  It's still about a journey, but it has a destination at some point. 

So this year, I strike out in faith.