The mind is designed to work off of predictions that it makes from available information. It will receive a certain amount of stimuli and project how to fill out the rest of the information that is going to be received. When the information is received, the mind converts that information into what is expected whether or not that information matches what is actual. Steven Pinker aptly demonstrates this in his book How the Mind Works by talking about how the eye takes in stimuli for the brain to convert to the right colors and shapes. The brain will analyze a more or less checkerboard scan of the stimuli and interpret what has been seen based on a projection of what was seen rather than what was actually seen. That's why people have wrecks sometimes. They look in a certain direction not expecting to see anything. A car is coming, but since the brain didn't expect to see it, it tells the interpreter that nothing is coming. A wreck occurs.
Language operates in much the same fashion. People use words in predictable pattern sets much of the time. So, people become accustomed to hearing certain sets of words together. When a word out of the norm is used, many times people fill in the out of norm word with the word they were expecting. If the word is too different from what the original speaker said, the original speaker will correct the listener's word, and an argument ensues on what word was used. This happens a great number of times between people who have been friends a long time or who have been married or together a long time.
I have a high appreciation of those who bring fresh perspectives of life to me. They fill in life in such a different way than the way I have come to expect life to happen. We all have a habit of seeing life like we want it and predict it to be. Different perspectives are needed to jolt us into a new way of seeing things sometimes. I relish the moments of being in the company of people who offer that different perspective to me. They stretch me and make my life so much more enriched than it would otherwise have been.
In case you thought the previous blog was an idea from never never land...
Yeah, Facebook, Twitter, Playlists, GPS, and warnings of collision that speak to you as you drive. A transparent, holographic-like speedometer above the steering wheel. It's on the car lot right now. If I were a betting man on what value reading and writing have, I would begin to bet on what is and what is coming, not on what used to be.
It is unclear exactly to what extent cell phone communication will change the modes of communication, particularly written communication. Weird Al Yankovic created a spoof on some of the extent writing has been affected. But, the more sophisticated the cell phones become, the more written communication will be affected. I see signs along the highways all the time about the hazard of texting and driving. No problem. I simply touch the microphone symbol on my phone and speak into it. Text immediately appears on the screen. All I have to do is press send. Now will that have an affect on writing? At what point will speaking become the preferred method of delivery, not writing. Probably when someone contacts you and you hear their voice in real time and you can see their symbol or their holograph. And that is not 25 years away. It's happening noncommercially already. The reason Yankovic's spoof is funny at all is that writing has already been affected, albeit not so much as to make people think the affectation is here to stay.
But it is. Yankovic's next video could be about writing crimes, not merely word crimes.
This is a big day for one little girl. She has won my heart. She is so full of confidence in her abilities, so exuberant in her conversations. Every picture you ever see of her contains her trademark smile denoting her carefree spirit and love of life. Her positive perspective on life is such a mirror image of her mother that it is hard to see one without seeing the other.
Six is a big number for young ones. It is the year doors start to swing open, the beginning of independence. First grade starts, circle of friends increase, formal learning begins to incubate in receptive children. No one is more receptive than this little lady who has won my heart. Welcome to this big world you are now becoming aware of. Have a fantastic birthday today!!!
Whenever I go walking with my two-year-old granddaughter, we have no plan about where we are going to walk. Sometimes she wants to go around the block to look at houses and their attendant shrubs and flowers. Sometimes she just wants to be outside for a while and not walk out of the cul-de-sac. And sometimes, she wants to walk in the nature area, throw rocks in the creek, watch ducks in the nearby pond, or walk the length of the creek to the point it crosses a major road. It's different each time. She picks wild buttercups or dandelions along the way and gives them to me. She stops to look more closely at potato bugs, ants, dragonflies, and grasshoppers. She has learned the sounds of frogs croaking and owls hooting. She likes to try to find them when she hears them, usually without success, though.
She loves going walking, and I love going with her. It's a new adventure each time. Even though it is the same scenery that we walk in, we see it differently each time. We take different routes, we find new logs or dams that kids have made in the creek. We'll wait different intervals to go on our walks, stay different lengths of time, or go at different times of day. But we always enjoy our walking time.
I have been around a person for two years now that likes to have A LOT of structure in her life. She needs and relies on rules to regulate her days. She has to know where all the boundaries and limits are and is rather judgmental about others who don't follow the rules she keeps or the structures she has put in place. It's not fun to be around her. I can feel the straightjacket being put on the minute I am in her presence. It's so unlike the imaginative, exploratory walks with my granddaughter that I cringe to put the two experiences in juxtaposition to each other. Any time, any day, I would stroll the neighborhood or nature area seeing again what is in my environment than to enter the world of the regulated life.
I know there are rules in life. They keep order on the boundaries between people. But when it comes to enjoying life, I want to see the possibilities, follow the rabbit trails, see what's behind bushes, watch little waterfalls, pursue interests requiring rigor and interests requiring only presence, and note beauty wherever it occurs.
Strata is an English word that shows how meanings change over the years. Romans used the word (in Latin, of course) to mean blankets or materials to cover yourself with when sleeping. Both the derivative Spanish word and English word changed the idea of blanket somewhere around the year 1600 into a layer of something - skin, plant life, and below the surface of the earth. However, the derivative language French multiplied the meaning of the word. Latin was still in ecclesiastical use in the 1600s in France, Spain, and England, so it was still being used dynamically as a language.
Over time, words become unstable and begin to change. So, strata, meaning blanket, lost the semantic domain of keeping something or someone warm as a cover. In France it came to mean a coating on an object and some place soft to lay a baby. In England and Spain strata was left with merely the size and shape of a blanket, but not its function, which allowed people to use it as a layer of something. And, where do you find layers of things? Why, yes, in your body, on the ground, and under the ground.
I had an interesting conversation with my mother not long ago. She was noting some of the great changes that had taken place in my life. While she was lamenting them as unnecessary, I was allowing for the changes as a dynamic part of growth in my life. To me, words like strata have a lot in common with humans as they become older. Both are allowed to take on a life of their own by adapting to the world around them. Sometimes they add more to themselves, sometimes they shed their original essence, but rarely do they stay the same. Maybe there were those who lamented the change in the word strata. But, I rather think the change happened subtly and gradually - without note - and differently, depending on the language. While there is merit to consistency in life, some values mature and become altered with that maturity.
The story is told of William Waldorf Astor about a time when he was traveling around Philadelphia, couldn't make it into the city and couldn't find a hotel to stay in between smaller towns. Finally, he entered a decent sized town and chanced upon a hotel. He had been traveling with his wife, it was 1 in the morning, and rain, lightning, and thunder had followed them for most of the night.
The young man at the desk informed Astor, who was just an elderly man to him since he didn't know Waldorf, that three conventions were in town and there were no rooms available. Then, the young man said, "But I live in the hotel and you can stay with me in my room. It's not a suite or anything, but I don't think you and your wife should have to go back out into the rain at 1 in the morning." Astor declined and turned to go when the young man said, "Don't worry about me. You can have my room." Astor replied, "You are exactly the kind of man that should run a hotel for me." The two had a laugh, the Astors stayed the night in the young man's room and left the next morning.
Two years later, the young man received a letter in the mail inviting him to New York to meet the elderly man he had helped in the storm. Enclosed were round-trip tickets. When the two met on 5th Avenue and 36th street, the older man introduced himself, pointed to a brand new building, and said, "I have built this building for you." Of course, the young man thought the older man was joking because he didn't recognize the name of William Waldorf Astor until he looked on the top of the building and saw the hotel's name Waldorf Astoria and on the door saw his name as General Manager. George Boldt from that moment on was the best operator of the best hotel in New York City.
An ancient Hebrew teacher/philosopher taught, "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you."
George Boldt would agree 1000 times over. I suspect every living adult has this story to tell in one fashion or another. It's a very trustworthy saying, true in thought and in experience.
On CNN today the author of a book was trying to tell why women apologize "all the time" and men rarely apologize. Her explanation was that women know they are "bitchy" at times. So, they know that saying "bitchy" things takes up time and space to help them clear the air for themselves. That's when they apologize. They know that they have wasted someone else's time just to help themselves. The apology is for a few moments of self centered expression. Men, on the other hand don't take up someone else's space and time to clear the air for themselves, so they apologize when needed, not for "merely breathing."
Well, everyone is entitled to an opinion. Validity, on the other hand, is a little harder to come by. The statement above is by a woman, so who am I, a male, to call her into question too much? I would refer to some literature about the subject, however. Some psychologists would say that women apologize to show deference, to symbolize their role as slightly inferior, or to denigrate their self-efficacy so that the males might have an opportunity to show prowess. Some linguists see the behavior more as a way to manipulate the conversation to get what they want. If a woman shows weakness, the male will respond with a statement of redirection, but in so doing leaves himself open to being led in logic toward a desired goal by the woman. The apology is a distraction from her goal, so that the man doesn't see it but feels inclined to comfort or guide. Then, the woman obtains her goal by leading the thought process from that point.
The CNN author's explanation doesn't seem too plausible because women don't like to waste someone's time anymore than men do. Women's self-efficacy is not deficient in any way to men's. The psychological explanation seems plausible only if women actually feel as if they need to defer for some reason or that they want to cater to a man's view of the world. That seems unlikely since they want just as much from life as men do. But, the linguists' point of view seems to have some merit. Humans in general are manipulative because they seek to control what they can of the world around them. Using language to aid in keeping control is something that both sexes do.
People don't like to think in terms of manipulation. The word connotes deviousness and deceit. But, creating facades is a practice humans commonly engage in. Everyone does this for their own survival first, and for control after that. When I hear an apology from a woman, I know that I should not be distracted. Something in the environment is about to move on me ( a nice way to say something is being manipulated).
I remember distinctly hearing a special education expert say that a method of teaching to special education students was to use hand signals in explaining grammar to them. And then she explained that that what was good for special education students (the signal system) was also good for regular education students.
I thought to myself, "Did I just hear that a method that worked in a special situation for a special population could be generalized to the mainstream population?" Surely not. Oh, but I did. In fact, I heard more than one special education expert say the same thing to different people.
Now I could understand that someone untrained might have the notion that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. But, I would never expect an expert in the field to make such a statement without empirical evidence. None was forthcoming, however. That's because the statement is counterintuitive. What is good for special education students should be easier for regular education students.
I hear too many stories coming out of education like this. I remember the 1990s. It was the decade of the learning style (Ken and Rita Dunn), even the reading style (Marie Carbo). A four segment teaching plan was circulated for a while that bordered on learning style. The categories of styles were different, such as "kinesthetic" or "visual," but were stylistic categories nonetheless.
Of course, if the originators of the style theories had done empirical studies on their theories to prove them, the notion of styles enhancing learning would have been less trendy than they were. But, no, quantitative evidence was not forthcoming. The learning style theory faded into oblivion with other notional ideas about education like hemisphericity of the brain. And, testing over a common curriculum will share the same fate as the rest of the notions as it runs its course in a few more years, thankfully.
I would hope that colleges of education would provide more informed educators in the future in order to lead eager and willing students into a better way of thinking.
I thought it very curious today as I watched and listened to a young high school student from Mexico City join in a discussion with adults who had migrated to the U.S. from Mexico The young student seemed unable to believe her ears, it seemed, at the reasons and other attitudes expressed by her fellow compatriots toward their native country. However, she came to accept their explanations for leaving and ended the discussion by saying that her generation could be ready to reject the current government's status quo and create a nation that gives people jobs and makes the country safer. I hope she has success in this when she returns to her education in Mexico next September and finishes soon with a medical degree. I tend to believe her efforts because of her sincerity and because by going to the best university in the whole of Mexico she has positioned herself in an influential place.
The generation of people 20 or younger right now will certainly come to power in about another 25 years, and they will have absolutely no influence from the generation I am a part of. I trust the swing generation of those in their 30s and 40s currently have done a good job of leaving the world a better place for them. I'm an optimist. The world gets better by degrees as it turns around the sun. The world seems to be coming together a little at a time. Brave New World will come true someday. Probably not in 25 years, but in about 10-15 of those 25-year periods, shades of a one-world government might surface. Katie bar the door when that happens. What the world won't achieve at that point!
The Algonquin Native Americans gathered their strawberries in the first half of June every year. The strawberries had a really narrow window for harvesting the berry. Of course, the moon has its phases in June, but at some point in June a full moon appears. When it does, it has a name just like every other month of the year when a full moon occurs. In May, the full moon is called the flower moon, because all the flowers are blooming during this month, and in April, the full moon is called the pink moon because of the color of the pink phlox that bloom as they cover the ground. So, that's right, you guessed it. For June the full moon is called the strawberry moon.
So, tonight I drove home with the strawberry moon looking through my passenger window. It was really, really pretty. But one thing I noticed was that the strawberry moon was not strawberry colored in the least. In fact, the full moon in June is nearly always a golden color because when it is low on the horizon the heat from the Earth colors the view of the moon, transforming its usually white glow to a honey shade. Those who drink ale or amber beer call it the old word for beer - mead. So, tonight my passenger on the way home from work was the honey moon, the mead moon.
This moon was a little more special tonight than most full moons, though. Tonight is Friday the 13th. What are the odds that a full moon would land on a Friday the 13th? Pretty high, right. The last time that occurred was October 13th, 2000. The next occurrence of a full moon on a Friday the 13th will be in the year 2049. Now, that's special. So, I'm feeling pretty loved for my good fortune of having the honey moon accompany me on my way home tonight. But, this is really a much more special moon than what I would have ever imagined. The last time a honey moon appeared in June on Friday the 13th was in 1919, almost 100 years ago. The next time that will happen will be almost 100 years in the future, 2098.
I am now feeling that the celestial order has treated me royally. The majestic splendor of the strawberry moon rode with me my entire 50 minute commute from work to home. Wow. I haven't been treated so special in I don't know how long, and couldn't help but compare it, figuratively, to times in my life when I was treated that regally. The strawberry moons in our lives, like the real ones, happen rarely, and the figurative honey moons of Friday the 13th even more rarely, so when they happen, we see their majestic splendor. The most recent strawberry full moon for Friday the 13th in my life was so special that I still feel its warmth, its heat coloring my life in the amber of mead. It was my honey moon because it was pure gold, my strawberry moon because of its taste - J ust L ike S trawberries.
I only live on a small block of a very big nation, but the idea of "being smart" is still the talk of young mothers and young teachers.
The idea of intelligence and ranking that intelligence is still alive and well. The arguments that surface most often in favor of its existence are that some kids score high on tests consistently, understand a concept the first time, need very little reinforcement to retain the concept, and retain the concept over a six-month span of time or longer.
They make some good observations that have to be addressed. Those who believe in intelligence take the three observations above and construct measurements that correlate initial depth of understanding, speed of understanding, and length of understanding.
At the outset, a definition of terms needs to be addressed. Understanding and learning are terms that appear to be synonymous among those doing the measuring. In popular vernacular, the two terms certainly have the same meaning. But, when working with statistical measurement, it is important to make all terms clear. Understanding contains the idea that information has been taken in and that a person can manipulate it, use it, have experience with its applications, and have enhanced familiarity with it without forgetting the concept or the mechanics involved in massaging it. Learning is related to taking in information and in a very short period of time after the information has been presented, mimicking or applying the principles to a problem containing them on a test (an artificial written instrument, not experience nor manipulation in real-world use).
So, when people begin to make observations about intelligence, they tend to measure learning rather than understanding, they exclude real world application and experience with a concept in favor of presenting information in books and testing retention. And, they restrict the learning to academic subjects. Of course, many kinds of information can be learned besides what is contained in books in a so-called core curriculum... many, many kinds.
Just on the basis of how restricted the sources for learning are (academic sources only) that are measured, the results should never be generalized from such a narrow database to the larger world of learning. The learning is different outside the books and core curriculum, so the results cannot be generalized. A non sequitur exists.
When it comes to the observations of depth, speed, and length of time applied to learning, then one sees right away that other factors enter in. What is depth? Is it how much that can be reflected in a test once or should it be how much can be applied in 10 different situations? Is it a percentage of correct answers on a test or is it knowing how to act, what to say when one is in the presence of someone whose career or life's work uses the information, someone with the knowledge of something through experimentation and presentation of a variety of problems?
What is speed? Reflecting a right answer on a test immediately following a concept? Showing knowledge after working with carefully constructed experimentation? Spending a year in the same grade level and remembering a particular fact for that length of time? Is it learning something, forgetting it, being reminded, forgetting again, finally seeing the fact appear in one's environment, forgetting, seeing the fact again being presented in the environment, not forgetting finally (like learning the tax code, jumping a car from another car's battery, knowing to check air pressure in tires in spring and fall because of the fluctuation in temperature during those seasons, applying rate of metabolism to exercise and intake of calories, etc.)?
What is length? Understanding implies experience. How long does that take? Learning doesn't necessarily require experience or manipulation. Learning can be a demonstration of facts. Retention of facts depend on how synapses in the brain have been organized by individuals. That organization is dependent on children's backgrounds. So, is length related to a type of background that produces a particular synaptic organizational pattern? Of course, that thought is absurd since synaptic organization is as individual as fingerprints. So, should there be different measurements for length? One for learning facts and one for learning applications?
Even if one could measure what is learned, then is it proper to tie those individual measurements to a general number, an index number? What does a 70 IQ mean? Does it mean that someone has difficulty with understanding or learning? Is the problem with speed, length, and depth, or is one area more affected than another? Is the problem transferring learning to understanding? Oh, right, transfer was not part of the measurement process... ha. And other factors enter in that are considered more minor to the intelligence measurers like background and personality traits, neither of which is considered in their IQ index.
I wish people would not be fooled. Unless there is a defect in the development of the mind in the womb or shortly after birth, every child is smart because the chemicals of the brain are distributed to the same areas and in amounts common to all humans. Biologically, infants learn to navigate their new environments in predictable ways. After two years of age, personality enters into the equation of navigating the environment as does a child's health. As time goes by, the influence of the parents begins to enter into the navigation. And as a little more time goes by, peer influence becomes a factor.
Intelligence is a false notion. It is a game concocted by those who want to structure society according to a system of role recognition so that they can belong to the role in some prestigious way, a way that touts the taste of apples above the taste of oranges or grapes.
On April 17, 2014, an Earth II was discovered in the habitable zone of the Kepler 186 star system, constellation Cygnus. It is about 10% larger than Earth and could contain life. You can read all about it in the journal Science.
On June 2, 2014, an Earth II was discovered in the habitable zone of the Kepler 10 star system, Constellation Draco. It is a little over 2 times the size of earth and has dense composition for rocks and other solids, so life could exist. You can view the press conference made at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society to hear all about it.
There will be many more announcements in the future simply because there are a myriad more planets to be found all around our galaxy. And when we can break free of our own spiral arm of the Milky Way, we'll find thousands more. They're out there. Once you start looking, you tend to find what you're looking for.
Discoveries like this sure make me wonder about life out there. I'm quite sure we'll meet ET sooner or later. It would excite me beyond words to be a part of the first contact. I would love to hear the story he or she tells of the existence each one has in the universe. I won't make it to that point in time, nor my daughter or my granddaughter. But in a couple or three hundred years, I'm hoping that some posterity of mine will eventually migrate to the place I'll be staying at that time and tell me what it is like to know about all those other worlds and the ETs that exist on them. I can't wait to have that conversation.
We all know that scientists have been working on artificial intelligence for 30 years now. It's old news. But news clips have been reporting that progress in the field has made great strides and have shown robots that greet you and carry on a simple question and answer exchange. The military has demonstrated its own success with drones (primitive, but first-step AI) in both a battle and surveillance mode. They run remotely and are controlled to a certain degree, but they also can think for themselves when taking camera shots or adjusting missile ranges and margins of error, or make recommendations to fine-tune any commands they think aren't entirely accurate.
Everyone knows that the day is coming when machines will think for themselves. And we know we will get there step by step. So when Apple held its news conference two days ago, step one for the commercial use of very early AI was seen. My goodness, now the apps on a phone can communicate with each other. Apple called it a "kit." They had two that they announced. The home kit takes a voice command, "I am going to sleep for the night," and turns off the lights in the house or turns off the ones you want off and leaves on the ones you want on. It also adjusts the thermostat, sets the coffee pot to turn on at a particular time in the morning, sets alarms, turns on night lights in halls and/or bathrooms, and activates the alarm system, shuts off or changes the setting of ceiling fans, and about anything else that is electronic in nature. That is all coordinated by a voice command.
Oh, it will get increasingly more sophisticated from here, but this is an impressive first step. I wonder what a person would have had to know to make this kit come together. You would have to know how devices communicate with each other. You would have to know how to bundle them. In old computer terms you would say you have to know how to make the information into a macro. You would have to tie the macro to oral language. You would have to know how to parse speech into the particular syllables that spark the catalyst for the macro to cause all the settings, adjustments, and activations to take place. In other words, you would have to know how technology works, how code works, how algorithms work, how spoken language is keyed to electronic signals, etc.
Would a student in an average school today even understand the first thing about the concept of a kit? They would be reading stories and adding, doing a little averaging, working with fractions, writing an essay or two. Ha! They would know how to work in a job for the 1980s well enough. Can anyone see that the syntax of coding has replaced stories and essays, that sets and algorithm use have displaced averaging and fractions, that the dreaded science fair project is really the kind of logic one needs to have as a rule, not as a project so uninteresting that kids won't do it and their parents try to help them save face? Tell me how important the facts of Westward Expansion are or the Treaty of Versailles in a world where the boundaries of space are pushed outside of our solar system and instant communication happens between people 24/7? The cell phone is a major tool so the apps and now the kits that control a person's environment seem a little more important than learning how a speech course, for example, painfully and slowly reviews the rudiments of face-to-face interaction for occasions that might not even exist in about another quarter-century.
If Apple's announcement didn't get the attention of those in charge of children's learning, then truly they are dinosaurs seeing the meteor streaking across the atmosphere within seconds of wiping them out never to return as one of Earth's life forms again. I trust there are those out there who understand adaptation and make some bold moves. The world is not in books. It's in real time. We'll get more of the past if we continue to prepare people by studying it and filling the ranks with those who know it. 3D copiers, 3D imaging, holographic transmission and viewing are already in use. Tablets (the electronic kind) for two-year-olds contain cameras for pictures and software to photoshop them. That's the new child's play.
Holy Mackerel!!! The Earth has gone around the sun 900 times already since the Medieval Ages, 238 times since the Yankees and Red Coats fought, 70 times since World War II, and even 34 times since the advent of the personal computer in commercial markets.
When my children were in grade school and younger, we used to buy party invitations for their birthday parties, write out the details of the party, and invite the friends they wanted to come. There would always be that R.S.V.P. number on the card for people to reply if they were coming or not. So phone conversations would ensue, at least 10 of them.
That was then. This is now.
I click on the Facebook icon on my computer's favorites bar to bring up my newsfeed. I scroll down and see that there is a picture of a birthday invitation saying that I and only 24 other people have been invited to click on the card. So I do. I am taken to a screen that gives a few details of the party for this person's twin 6-year-olds and a way to reply to the invitation, meaning I acknowledge that I am coming.
If social life has changed this radically in just 20 years, I'm thinking that other things have too. For sure it applies to how information is learned. Dinosaurs on the cusp of the KT boundary of reading and writing from books need to take note - just saying yet one more time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Of course language is for communication. In the first days of language, it was for face-to-face communication. Then, people saw that simply making marks for money transacted was a good way of keeping people from changing what they agreed to. Later, marks for representing geographical landmark words and words for boundaries and measurements were devised. Before long, a system emerged that represented what people wanted to perpetuate. Kings, for example, wanted to tout their spoils in war, and those who knew how to write wanted to keep a list of kings and sometimes their accomplishments for posterity.
Not too far down the line from property records and annals of kings came the keepers of stories. People wanted to record their myths (used in a literary sense), so they wrote them down. But, more and more tasks were put into writing as cultures flourished for long periods of time. However, at the root of every written system was the face-to-face communication.
Now, however, face-to-face communication is beginning to disappear. Virtual communication has begun replacing face-to-face. With virtual communication, the need for writing stories or observable information for posterity or for back-up of a real conversation is dying. People can record their virtual communication in several different forms. Thus, the need for making marks on a page is dying. The other forms are more efficient, faster, and are more exact.
Making the marks and making sense of those marks (writing and reading) have lasted a very long time - about 5000 years, but since their need has become unnecessary, their perpetuation has also become unnecessary. It's really that simple. Adios, farewell, goodbye to an old friend who has served us well. It was a good run. But, it's time to move on.
I've been hearing about electric cars for years. I have read of the experiments. I have seen the tests of fully electric and hybrids. I have been waiting... until now. Now let the hoopla begin. The fully electric car is practical, safe, and synced with your cell phone for convenient functionality. Charge stations exist nearly everywhere.
Tesla S
I knew the time would arrive if I would just have the patience. And do I like it because it is a new toy, a new gadget to play with? Hardly! It is the next stage in transportation because it is a gateway vehicle to another way to travel. The kinks will be worked out on existing roadways. But the fully electric idea makes the car run digitally - from a computer, from a cell phone, from the car itself. A self-sufficient car controllable from remote means.
Nissan Leaf
This is the stuff of science fiction. Well, not this car exactly. But about the fourth generation from now, it will prompt advances in roadway construction, such as the totally drivable road without having people steer the car. The road will have electronic signals built into blocks the road is built with and will communicate with the car's electronic signals. It's really not science fiction because this type of road has already begun its experimental stage. And, it opens the way for engines in vehicles without wheels. Usually people are thinking about backpack travel when they think of wheeless vehicle travel. But Tesla has already experimented with above ground movement using electro-magnetic propulsion.
Nissan Leaf
A car driven and controlled electronically and digitally is only one way the world is entering a very visual stage in its history. And, of course, everything digital can have an associated file for transmission to a cloud storage source. Call it Big Brother if you like, but it is a significant advancement in transportation for what it allows to happen next. I'm almost due for my next car purchase. It will almost certainly be an electric car.
Someone showed me a reading list for their daughter's sophomore year from a home school association. The person said the teacher was a "classical education" teacher and wanted her students to be able to pick up any piece of literature and be able to read it in her students' futures. The teacher said it was the best approach for college preparation.
,
I had to show my disbelief that such a teacher still existed, but after recovering from that, I had to comment on about the 18 novels on the list. Oh, yes - 18... in a year. Complete with a major written composition (literary criticism) after each novel. Well, here's the deal. A classical education prepares a student for a classical world, which the year 2014 doesn't belong to nor did any year after the invention of the computer and its connection to the internet.
College preparedness these days doesn't necessarily include knowing how to critique a fictional story, ancient or contemporary or anywhere in between. The University of Phoenix' online college, which probably represents most of the online world of private universities, explicitly states that their curriculum is built around asking businesses what they want out of a graduate. Being able to pick up any piece of literature and read it was not a priority on that list. In fact, writing a literary criticism expertly wasn't either. Presenting graphs and charts and meaningful talking points in a meeting, however, was.
I exaggerated a little to say that I was in disbelief that such a teacher still existed. I hear about them too often. I rather think that teacher is a typical English teacher. I also think the University of Phoenix is on the right track for preparing students for the future. The reality is about to be that reading and writing are going to bite the dust. If a graduate picks any field in science, the field will be about the iconic use of the alphabet, not reading. If technology is chosen, it will be all about working on monitors or in 3D as the medical field exemplifies with MRI and laparoscopic (robotic) surgeries. Choosing engineering will be all about numbers, charts and graphs, of course. And, math? Well, there are letters, but not for reading - for showing variation. And the letters are not always from the English alphabet.
Wow. 18 novels... 18 compositions. Not even the discipline of doing that will prepare you for anything I know of in the year 2016 (the year of graduation for the student I saw the list for).
It was only a matter of time. But, the time has come. Knowledge is always first. Pursuit will be soon to follow. These are exciting times. The link below contains the explanation.
Now it is much more believable that reading and writing are relics from a world not dependent on telescopes, infrared detection, computer simulations, 3D graphic representations, and other ways to present information. But our world is dependent on all these things and will increasingly store, transmit, and present in only visual modes with the aid of identifying symbols and tags.
Time is quickly disappearing for reading and writing to serve a useful function... only a short 2 1/2 more years now until the two will decisively be relegated to the rear view mirror.
Intersections are everywhere around us. Everyday I pass through at least 20 of them. Usually they are the same ones, the ones around the area I live. Sometimes, I go to a place where I pass 20 intersections in just one trip. And, if I leave town, I get to to experience new and different intersections than the ones in my daily routine.
With people it is the same. There are those whose lives I intersect everyday, those whose lives I intersect weekly, and those whose acquaintances I make only occasionally or only once. Some people say the intersections are by divine appointment, others say intersections are completely random, still others have some existential combination of the two possibilities.
It seems that to some extent we choose the intersections we have on a routine basis. At times, though, it is clear that outside forces make our paths cross with other people. Opportunities are presented to us daily that are unplanned and planned. The planned intersections comprise our daily routines for the most part although we plan trips and vacations (the occasional or singular intersections). The unplanned ones comprise the occasional and singular intersections for the most part
As we construct our lives as adults, we know our personalities well. So, we plan the intersections that are compatible, or compatible enough, for us to enjoy, risk, have adventure, achieve, and experience many other activities within the limits of our personalities. Rarely, we are subjected to intersections beyond any control, but we keep these to a minimum if at all possible.
So, I'm not much of a believer in the divine appointment idea for daily activities, maybe for the rare ones, but not for most. We are all control freaks when it comes to establishing routines that match our personalities so that we can have maximal enjoyment of our lives. And, for those intersections that have happened that we didn't control and that have dropped from our routines, there are three choices for us. We can discard them, treat them as part of our normal experience, or consider them sacred. Sacred ones are few, but I am thankful to have had them.
I watched a TV program to its conclusion and left the TV on unintentionally. I got up to make a sandwich, and when I returned to the living room, the next program had already begun. A local prominent speaker was in the middle of one of his advice-giving speeches. I don't normally watch this program, but I thought I would just listen for a minute to see if I should listen further this time.
He spoke of the importance of communication. I couldn't agree with him more about that. The next thing he said was one of those ideas that got a lot of air play about 30 years ago when it was being investigated more scientifically for the first time, but he must have quit listening after that point because the investigation has continued and the newer information is quite different from the advice he was giving. He continued to say that communication was important and that men in particular needed to learn that. He said that men didn't communicate well how they feel or what they are thinking.
If the speaker had paid attention to more recent investigation, he would have known that his advice didn't represent an accurate picture. Men talk. They talk frequently, on subjects of interest to them and of interest to others, and reciprocate when asked about personal matters. They talk to women, they talk to men, and they listen as well. There's really not a communication problem that men have to work through. I hated that a lot of people heard inaccurate information from an advice-giver that people seemingly like and follow.
Generalization of a concept is not the best thing to do most of the time. And, pop culture psychology is not something that should be disseminated or adhered to as if it is the gospel truth. Research is finer-grained about men's communication patterns than the generalizations made of them 30 years ago, and people, like this speaker, merely want to share their unrefined gist of the research to sound as if they are well versed on a topic geared to half his audience. But the actual research is usually too detailed for people who want only the bottom line to spew out for impressing people of their grand amount of knowledge.
A little lesson from the car manufacturers is in order for this person. R-E-C-A-L-L.
I don't often go to see a movie on opening day, but today I made an exception for Draft Day. It was good for several reasons. I had wanted to see draft day strategy. I wasn't disappointed on that account. The plot was simple, but had several points of suspense built in. I wasn't disappointed on that account either. But, the movie had a subplot that I hadn't heard about and that I really enjoyed. Kevin Costner's character didn't want to lose the woman he loved. It was a great parallel subplot to the main plot. He didn't want to lose in his job, in the competition of football, or in expressing his love for the woman he loved. He succeeded with relish on all three arenas.
I am jealous of Costner's character. He succeeded in making himself a premier general manager. He succeeded in having a team that could win the Superbowl. He succeeded in restoring the relationship he most coveted in life. Yep, I'm more than jealous. Succeeding in life is a very sweet feeling, but more than a feeling when speaking of love. Life is hardly worth it if love is absent. Costner's character was a lucky man to have someone who believed in him. She made him successful, and he worked hard to keep her at his side. His world turned more pleasantly with her.
Three times in the last two weeks, I have asked for an explanation to something. Each of these three times I received an attempt at an answer, but the person giving it was so limited in both knowledge and words to use for description that the person became frustrated. I marveled at the inability of these people to explain something.
The question was asked to employees who were supposed to have been trained by a company to give explanations of how cell phones work. But, the company either didn't give the workings of data transmission or didn't give the trainees the vocabulary to work with. Eventually, in the questioning of the employee, the person couldn't make the right connections of one idea to another. The person's knowledge was compartmentalized. The meanings of particular terms, like gigabyte, data transmission, and resident on device were fuzzy for the person as well.
The whole reason people talk is to communicate ideas. If that end is missing then the means (the vocabulary) is lacking. I have to ask myself what in the world is going on in the mind of people who can't explain something. In an unrelated matter, a person called me for directions but couldn't tell me her own location in order for me to help her easily. It's tempting to relate all this to whether or not I get the right food in my sack at a fast-food restaurant after placing the order at the speaker. About 50% of the time something has been changed or omitted. But the problem may be in lack of life experience, unfamiliarity with input to an ordering system, or inability to transfer the meaning of an order to a screen for someone at a different area of the restaurant to read rather than a direct communication problem.
Part of the problem lies in the socialization process of young people. It is a well known phenomenon that teenagers learn their initial introduction to adult vocabulary from their peers. If that becomes the extent of the person's experience with communication (often the case), the communication process is truncated and the person will struggle when posed with questions that lead to ideas outside of their experience and consciousness (theory of mind).
I relish the times when communication happens on a level above the one described. But it is certainly not as common an experience as I would like it to be. I am relegated to speaking on life's simplest terms.
Everyday I pass a house that fronts the service road of the highway I drive on. The construction is out of the 1970s, and it's in need of a lot of repair. Behind the house is the rest of the property, what looks like about 10 acres covered with a forest. The forest is thick and appears overgrown with low-lying shrubbery, making it look shabby, uneven, unkempt.
That's about all a person can see from the highway. But, if one is on the service road, or if one has to drive slowly on the highway, then (s)he can see beyond the house sitting in front of the forest. Slightly above the tree line, the tops of some very nice houses, the million dollar variety, can be seen. Turrets appear on these houses, double chimneys, peaked roofs covering two stories, and gables. A whole housing addition full of brand new million dollar houses lies hidden behind the shabby, overgrown forest enticing people to come and see more.
Forensic sciences in general, and forensic linguistics in particular, act in much the same way. Speech at regular speed doesn't allow a view of what's behind it, what it might be hiding. Many times speech is verbose, repetitive, containing fillers, and passive constructions to hide meaning - what one might call overgrown. It contains informalities, expletives, and idiomatic expressions that appear inexact; they're decoys But, if a person looks beyond the words, a truer image of the meaning of the words appears - elaborate constructions to dress up the truth, to hide accuracy, to report what didn't happen.
Facades of beauty house rotten things so much of the time. Forensics bring out what is hidden. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
It's quiet right now. In less than 8 hours it will be raining, and in about 24 hours the wind will be howling through the chimney flue and at the back door. The weather forecast is pretty accurate these days. Details are missing, like amounts of rainfall or intensity of barometric pressure, but I know to count on something if rain is forecast at 100% coverage.
I can't really see around the corners on the journey ahead of me, but there is some accuracy in what happens if I chart the future based on the patterns we know about. In 8 hours when it's raining, I will be working, and in 24 hours the pace of work will pick up, blowing through faster than in the past.
What I enjoy more than knowing the patterns, though, are the wild card factors that don't appear in the patterns. It's not in the usual cards, it's the wild card. I love those when they happen. They're not often; that's why they're not a part of the pattern. Generally, the changes they bring are pleasant. It's about time for one of those jokers.
Civilization has come a long way. Ancient humans knew quite a bit about their immediate environment. But, when they looked to the heavens, it was an amazement to them. They really didn't know what was out there or how to put in perspective what they saw. The Mayans, and the Babylonians before them, were very well versed in the movement of planets and the various constellations, but beyond tracking movement, they didn't know much. The makers of Stone Henge and some of the other stone monuments around the world knew about length of days and associated that to the time of year, especially the two solstices. But, they didn't really know how to view the heavens.
Compare that to modern knowledge and perspective. There are 8 planets, an asteroid belt, moons revolving around most planets, a Kuiper Belt containing icy planetisimals, such as Pluto, and an Oort Cloud, which has two parts, an inner disc around the Kuiper Belt and an outer circle that defines the cosmograph of the solar system. From the sun to the outer limits of the Oort Cloud is about 1 light year.
If I travel beyond the Oort cloud another 5 light years, I come to Alpha Centauri the nearest star to Earth's sun. Astronomers have found another 4 stars in the Alpha Centauri field since originally finding and identifying Alpha Centauri. Those other four stars have planets revolving around them. Of course, there are many more solar (stellar) systems in the Milky Way Galaxy, between 100 and 200 billion of them, all of them in the 100,000 light year diameter of the galaxy.
Beyond that are billions and billions of more galaxies, with diameters up to 25 times that of the Milky Way. All of them contain billions and billions of stars, many of them with planets, which have moons.
So, when I read documents from the ancient past, I know to read them with the perspective they had of the heavens, which was very, very, very, very limited. We still have much to learn about our skies, but we know infinitely more than the documents coming from generations before the 1600s C.E. Ancient documents were intended for people with the same understanding as they themselves, not for people of the future who know infinitely more. If I understand that, then ancient documents don't impede future progress or hold me back from doing what is right for me in a modern period of civilization.
The last 5 years I have worked against the grain. That means I have worked at a time when others are off. I have worked in a field that tries to improve what is typically available. I have worked with a company that would end the way things have been done for the last 500 years. And I am working now to innovate a realm that has not listened to the experts in its field for over 60 years. Yes, against the grain I would say.
My personality is well-suited for working this way. When I was only 8, my third grade teacher told my mother that I always seemed to take the opposite viewpoint. In college I took some of the least taken courses like the history of China, the history of Rome, history of the English language, and the introduction to linguistics. When I was in my 20s my mother told me I was a contrarian because of the type of reading I would spend time with, such as Qabala. In my 30s I sided with the evidence that Shakespeare hadn't written the world class plays attributed to him. I now believe in the properties of logic that show that language and math are manifestations of one and the same system of order our brains depend on. The list goes on...
While I enjoy a good debate, I relish the time I spend with like-minded people and those who are compatible with my personality. And if someone is compatible, it means they too are working against the grain in some fashion or another, like not settling for what 75% of people settle on for their own education, or what even another 18% of people settle for in receiving formal training, or even what another 5% try in advancing their educations one more level from the 18%. They settle for what only 3% push on to receive. They do things like disagree with the way things are and see the things that are coming. They can work within a system already in place in order to drive that system to a new place.
I have come to accept my role in society, the stripes on my zebra coat that won't be changed. It's a comfortable place to be, I like being there and with those who "get" what this role is about. Everyone recognizes it's not the same grain.
