Salve plus

I saw the word salve the other day. I hadn't seen that word in a long time. It always strikes a chord with me when I see it because it has a certain connotation with me. I know that it means any lotion or lubricant a person puts on skin, but to me it means that it is put on the skin if the skin needs healing in some way. Salve=healing is the first thought for me when I see or hear this word.

I can think of a number of things from the past that have made me well. I have been made well by pills, by liquids, by jobs, and by good will from others. I am grateful for them all. But, there is a category above what salve can do. It's the salve plus category. It can only be experienced when a person is made better by another. It's not something that makes one well, it's someone who makes well being an everyday matter... like smiling, laughing, enjoying, living fully, seeing new horizons, and feeling fully satisfied.

Salve plus might just be Nirvana! It most certainly is heaven on earth!

Life in the brain

The survival of the fittest idea from 180 years ago has undergone some scrutiny by the last 4 generations. Many just dismiss the idea out of hand. But, science seems to meet in coming and going, so it has to be given some credence. The latest brain book I have read uses it as its basis in order to arrive at some of the conclusions it draws.

One of the principles of this book is that humans have lived in a changing environment over time. The brain organizes itself according to what is needed in a human's environment. In that way, we become strong and dominant in our environment. It also means that our brains reorganize neural networks as we put ourselves in different environments. We can remain fit enough to see what is needed at every turn and remain strong and dominant. That means that change is natural, which goes against an adage in our society, "change comes hard." What is natural doesn't come hard. The adage, then, is not accurate according to science.

I know from experience over the last 8 years that change comes pretty naturally. Having a son, not having a son, jolts the emotions and changes the environment. The brain reorganized itself. From that point, the environment around me changed because it unraveled. But the brain kept up. It reorganized. Then my life encountered something bright, brilliant, vibrant, and joyous. It reorganized again. Change did not come hard. Change came naturally. And, I will vouch that because my needs changed, my brain reorganized. I am a joyous person, a better person as a result.

Dimensions illuminating us

Our lives have dimensions to them. We grow over time in different areas that add to our beings. We try to develop some interest of ours into something large and productive, so we pursue it as far as we can. We want to hone a skill we have, so we spend time making it better and better. We want to be the best in our jobs, so we learn all there is about it to enhance our performance of it. Our children force us to see life again from a really young perspective, through the eyes of someone we really love and cherish, so we don't forget the world we left behind. We love others, so we learn about the give and take of experiencing the world in an unselfish manner. We make it a point to place people in our lives who are head and shoulders above all others who surround us, who make us better. We have all kinds of dimensions to us.

All those dimensions work together to help us look forward to getting up every morning. They act as one to give us a reason for living. They strengthen us to do what we would otherwise not be inspired to do. They work as rays from the sun to illuminate our otherwise mundane lives. Heaven forbid that we should take the dimensions of our lives for granted. It would greatly weaken us.

He's got my full attention

There are just some things that shouldn't happen. A couple who has infant twins and loves them dearly shouldn't have an impersonal institution take the children from them in the name of protection. What will the institution do? Love the children? Hardly.

Somebody with credentials has to be behind such a move. Child Protective Services doesn't just act alone unless a very severe case presents itself. But, most of their cases are not severe requiring immediate attention. So, when the "somebody" decides to make a travesty of justice with the system in place, he needs to have to face a little travesty of his own.

The case of taking infants from their parents with bogus evidence to do so, should deserve misery in return. Some would say people should be better than to render an eye for an eye. The difference is that the "somebody" in this case has had time to reconsider his own position with evidence contrary to his own opinion. Still he is unchanging. But arrogance is a blinding disease. And it is a disease that allows me to do my work more effectively because the person can't see the lies he tells himself and spreads to others. But, I can see those lies. And, there are some things that just shouldn't happen.

Charades

I was listening to a teacher talk tonight. She was mentioning that she had had some kids "tested." That's code for getting an official designation to label the kids with so that everybody knows they are behind. The kids had come to her without any records of tests, and she thought they were low in skills for the grade level. The teacher went on to say that over 50% of the kids qualified for an intervention program. That speaks volumes. Not about the teacher necessarily, but about the educational system.

For one, what is being tested is not IQ (and there is not such thing as intelligence) because who really knows how to define and measure intelligence. It is not ability because the test was not an achievement test. It is not innate ability because the test was not an aptitude test. What is being tested is the average performance level a child is supposed to perform at given a certain grade level. And how is that average performance level determined? It's not the statistical part that is in question here, but the arbitrary performance level assigned to grade levels. Given that kids cognitively mature at different rates, it fails me that any grade level assignation could be made and called "average."

For two, what kind of system needs to have labels for some group of kids who are cognitively maturing at different rates according to the dictates of nature. Who is really in charge of some set of skills (call it curriculum) well enough to set parameters around something even nature has not settled on?

The educational system may be beyond repair in this country. I firmly believe the people in the year 2200 will refer to the way we do things presently as the failed educational experiment for the masses. It boils down to one thing. Education, which touted the scientific method as a way to discover knowledge, failed to heed its own advice. It pays very little attention to what science has to offer it, giving it lip service, offering bogus tests as a charade for deceiving the communites that have entrusted their kids to it. I implore the leaders and those who will lead in the future to pay attention to the science that really would inform the system on how to give kids something to help them with their futures.

Notional, flawed education

From time to time I get to have a theoretical discussion about critical learning windows regarding education. I usually find myself in a minority when such a discussion happens. I recently read a book about the brain that also addressed this idea although the authors called it sensitive learning windows (time-sensitive, that is). The authors of the book hesitated to completely agree with the idea, but they did give a couple of instances where the best explanation was the disappearance of the window. A critical learning window is the time period that exists during which learning takes place or some programmed events happens, such as puberty. Before the window, proper cognition is not in place to understand a concept fully, and after the window, the optimal conditions for learning a concept no longer exist and learning that concept becomes virtually impossible to enhance but more than a little.

The American school system ignores the idea of a critical learning window altogether. In second language acquisition, for example, nearly all offerings for language learning appear in high school a good 5-8 years after the critical window has closed. I guess it's no wonder that America remains mostly a monolingual country. Reading by teaching it phonetically also rejects the idea of a critical learning window. The child of 2-4 years of age learns that way, but not afterward much (only about 25% of children learn phonetically after that point). It's no wonder that many children grow into adulthood reading slowly and painfully. They were forced to "learn" reading through a method that yields limited results. And, horrendously, math from the time of kindergarten through 2nd grade gets roughly half the time dedicated to it that reading does. Mistakenly, the educational establishment thinks reading improves math skills. It's no wonder at all that children come away from the critical learning window during which math logic can best be instilled with only half or less of the time they need to do well. That certainly shows up in older children and young adults.

Surely, at some point, science will prevail and educating by notion will give way. When that happens, education will take a great leap forward. Learning will take place in more natural ways, according to natural rhythms, yielding naturally higher results. Knowledge will take a quantum leap. And, performance of individuals will correspondingly increase.

Beautiful script

One of my favorite TV shows is Flashpoint. Tonight was a particularly well written script. The episode contained a main plot and four subplots. All five fit together perfectly. Two of the plots dealt with children learning to trust in people they had been conditioned to distrust. One of the plots showed the vulnerability of parents in trying to work in the best interests of their child. One subplot depicted a woman who had lost a 3-year-old daughter getting to work through her grief by saving another small girl. The four parts were woven together in a seamless, delicate manner. By the end of the time slot, all the subplots had come to a noble resolution. It was simply beautiful - a good reminder of how life is orchestated sometimes in piecing together people's lives for happiness and satisfaction.

Some of life either doesn't work out or it works against you. But, sometimes it works together seamlessly, delicately. And for the portions that are still in the making, a person can work to make them turn out well or put them in the hope category. I look at the last three jobs I have had as an example of life working together in the same way as the Flashpoint episode I watched tonight. They worked together seamlessly, one building to the other, one being incorporated into parts of the other.

It's a good feeling when some of the important things in life, like a job, fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. My greatest hope and dream, however, has not yet been fit into that seamless, delicate puzzle of life. Should the script of life incorporate this episode into my experience, life would not have just been pieced together happily and satisfactorily, but ecstatically and totally enjoyably.

In the center

The downtown areas of major cities are distinctive. They have defining shapes in size of area, height and slope of skycrapers, and geographical features like harbors, lakes, plains, or mountains. They are considered the hub of the city because they have the meaningful activities going on in them, such as finiancial districts, business, industial, and government provenances, restaurant regions, and shopping stretches. They many times are the pulse of the suburbs around them, pumping life into those smaller towns. Show me the downtown areas of the top 10 US cities, and I would bet you money that I could recognize them because they have their particular characteristics.

We need the people in our lives that sit in the downtown of our hearts. The people that are distinctive. The ones that rise head and shoulders above anyone else because of their personalities and accomplishments. The special ones among us who thrive and provide others much of life's pleasure, cheer, and enjoyment. The ones who sit dead-center in our psyches. Our thoughts wander onto them so many of the minutes during a day.

I don't know that everyone has such people. Perhaps I am fortunate. I can easily draw the skyline in the center of my heart and thoughts.

Coming in handy

One of the forensic methods I learned in my formal training in sociolinguistics was how to chart the strength of social networks. I didn't think anything about it at the time, but it has really proved to be useful in the line of work that I have been in, including my current position. It helps in particular to know what to say to whom.

I think because of having this information, I have been able to say the right words at the right time to the right people. It may have just saved my bacon. I remember when I was in my 20s that I didn't always know what to say or who to say something to or what to keep silent until just the right person was available. While some of what to say at the right time to the right people is a matter of maturity over time, some of it is correctly judging the strength of a social network. Some people in the network will spread your words to many people, sometimes in a twisted form or in a twisted context, and some will not.

But, over the last 9 months, I had to make sure that I protected myself in my work with words that followed particular channels of networking with the right information reaching the right people at the right time in order for the result to turn out in my favor. It took some work, but last Saturday I had it verified to me that I had judged the social network just right. Whew!

There but not here

The other night I was watching dark clouds move into the area from the north. I could see a flash or two of lightning, hear thunder rumbling, and feel the rush of wind that often precedes a rain storm. I checked my phone for the radar on whether the storm would hit my house directly. I was not in the main path of the storm, but on the fringe. The brunt of the storm was headed a little west of my house, headed toward a place that I care a great deal about. That place did receive quite a bit of rain. My house? Only a trace. I had to laugh. Rain usually does elude my house. I could see all the signs of a storm, but it was virtually a dry run with all the visual, audio, and tactile effects of the real thing. If I compare the number of rain storms that happen to the place just to the west to the number I receive at my place, a pattern emerges. It nearly always gets the measurable amounts, and I nearly always get the trace amount. I have to laugh at the irony of that. I don't know why that happens.

Life is intermittent in what it brings. There is no doubt about that. Trying to understand why things happen the way they do drives me crazy. A pattern emerges there too. I don't understand why things happen. My way of dealing with things I don't understand is to shake my head, and laugh at my little understanding of the grand scheme of things. But I am really glad that things happen well or right just to the west of me.

The pool effect

Having a back yard pool does not add value to your house according to realtors. I guess that's right. At least, if you sell your house, realtors don't want you to depend on added value from having a pool. But, to me, a pool adds value, aesthetic value if nothing else. The water surface shimmers when the sun glints off of it. It ripples when the wind blows. It makes small little splashes all over when it rains. It adds blue to the color of the green yard surrounding it. It invites you to jump in and refresh your day!

A pool is a symbol of the quality certain people add to our lives. We need that person who makes our lives shimmer, ripple, make little splashes all over, add color, and invite us to refresh our day. A pool and the person it represents are sheer enjoyment. Life could be lived without that person, but what a hole that would leave!

Radiant brilliance

One thing about the sun - it's brilliant. I've heard it's more of an average to low-medium star in the big scheme of the universe. Other stars can outshine it. That doesn't matter a whole lot since I will never get to see any of those other stars in any way except as remotely distant stars in a dark night sky. The sun I see everyday is the most brilliant object I will ever get to see in life.

I have people around me, fortunately, who shine brightly and send their rays into my life. I bask in their radiance. They make me better. I even try to light up others' lives because I have been warmed. I am grateful for the sun that greets me every morning as I wake and for those who warm my heart and make me better from their brilliance.

And there's really only one sun that greets my thoughts as I walk in the park most mornings.

Making the shape beautiful

A couple of days ago, I had the trees at my house pruned. They had not been pruned in a really long time. They look so much better. The limbs are in the shape they should be, and they are at the right height. The limbs that had begun to touch the roof were removed, and the ones on wires were cut back. The usual pruning.

Our bodies do it naturally, too. Cells die and are replaced, even in the brain. Hair grows and falls out, but is replaced by other hair. Nails act the same way. Internally, white blood cells have to always watch to remove the toxins and unwanted substances from making us ill.

Pruning just helps. Occasionally, I have to look around to see what I can do to make my life more shapely, more effecient, less at risk, more productive. Sometimes, I can do this automatically and at other times, I have to make time to do it. One part of this process is to be mentally productive, shedding antiquated information and preparing it with new for those times when knowledge will win the day. Another part is to shape the heart, allowing it to drop unpleasant feelings of past events and to continue very special memories and hope of moments that bring true enjoyment in life.

3-2=+1

I read a book a great number of years ago called Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Backward. It was about the trials and tribulations of life. But, as I think of the title, I see that the book is really about forward progress. The net result is still a postiive one step (3-2). It's a great principle in life that Rome was not built in a day or that we can only take one step at a time. As convoluted as the picture of life is at times, it's refreshing to know that progress is made in the smallest units - a step at a time. Even if the path beneath our feet seems to have reversed, it's just the two steps backwards before we are propelled ahead 3 steps. Backwards is merely a snapshot. It really is a two-step prelude to the forward three steps that follow. And forward progress means we are on the road to somewhere, the road toward our goals.

Exchanges

The brain does something curious at 10 months of age. Its produces about double the amount of neurons than before and it lasts just about 4 months. After that the signal is given to prune the brain's neurons. It will be another 10-12 years before that happens again and it will be driven by hormones when it happens at that time. At 10 months the brain needs all those cells in order to test the full range of possible sounds for the language the child is born into. After the sounds have been tested in all that babbling and after the baby is sure that (s)he has distilled the sounds from the native tongue, then the neurons are reduced in by about 1/2 and the neural network for language acquisition has been started. After the language network has been started, then the brain can concentrate on something else to develop. It trades the neurons available to keep the full range of sounds to develop whatever else in the baby's environment needs developing, keen eyesight, for example, or keen hearing.

There is a saying in English, "Life is a series of trade-offs." I know the saying originated from something else in life other than language acquisition, but what the brain does with language is a good example of the principle. When we need something, it is produced but at the cost of something else. When a stroke victim has to learn language again, it is not usually through the left hemisphere, the original location of language, but with the right hemisphere since there is no damage there. Another example is with cab drivers. The area of the brain that works with directionality is larger with cab drivers than in other people. But, to gain that directionality, something has to be traded off. So, they are weaker in speed in some area of lesser utility than the area using directions.

Had I known the trade-off principle earlier in life, I know I would have done things differently. Now I understand, which makes me more leary of being willing to pursue something because I know there will be a trade-off somewhere. There are also those times when I know exactly what would be traded off if I were to make particular decisions. I would jump at those opportunities and fully enjoy the new pursuit. Some trades are desired and are the stuff dreams and hopes are made of.

Few have seen

These tracks cross a snowpatch on Rapadalen Mountain, Sweden, above the Arctic Circle. Very few people will ever see these tracks. That doesn't matter. It doesn't reduce their beauty in such a pristine environment. Symbolically speaking, we all have people in our lives that we retreat to (whether physically present or not) when we need their beautiful qualities, their smiles, their vibrance. When life produces frustration from its twists and curves, it's the retreat to the almost hidden snow tracks that offer comfort and renewed spirits for hanging on till better times come. I am thankful for the snow tracks high on the mountain, created by that special one, to retreat to this evening. Monday brings a better day.

Fast-paced investing

Trading currencies is a little like gambling in Las Vegas. You have to know when to buy and sell based on the spread of a pair two currencies. It's a very fast-paced style of trading. In stocks, you can look at charts of today's trading, the last week's trading, the last month's, the last year's, on up to the last decade's. In trading currency you click on 1 month, 1 week, 1 hour, down to 1 minute. You have to be really on your toes.

It's not the kind of investing for the faint-hearted. It takes some risk, but it also takes study and watching particular pairs, like the Euro and US dollar, or the Chinese Yuan and the US Dollar. It's only fun if you're in the plus column. It's such a sinking feeling to look up and see that you have lost 20% of your money.

It has taken me a while to settle on something to invest in, but now I think I have found a niche. It's my version of being around something lively, challenging, and productive even if it drives me into an ADHD world. If done right, it will provide profit along with its suspense and fast pace.

Top of the heap

I am sitting here watching the Patriots play tonight. I watch them every chance I get, which is not every week since I do not live in New England. I watch them for the same reason I watch the Lakers in basketball. I like the coach and the main player. Nobody is better than Bill Bellicek and Tom Brady. Both are at the very top of their game. They just win - not every game, but most of the time. They are competent.

I am attracted to people who are competent. They study hard, work hard, and most of the time you can place a winning bet on their outcomes. I have been around both competent and incompetent people at work and in other categories of life. What I really despise is the person who has swagger and a high opinion of himself/herself but who has little to offer except bluster. It doesn't take long for the bluster to become a thin veil for the incompetence that lies behind it.

Everyone has an area or two of incompetence, but generally people know what those areas are and try to compensate through friends who can help or through avoidance of situations that might show their flaws. Just in the last week I have come across several such incompetent people - an attorney who has given bad advice to jeopardize the custody of a couple's children, a detective that refuses to advance a case that clearly begs for something to be done, a person at work who cannot be organized on any kind of long or medium term basis and who proffers opinions not based on evidence or research, and a speaker who gave out inaccurate information because of lack of preparation.

So, when I see competence, especially in people I like to surround myself with or to relax in watching as a form of entertainment, I want to shout and jump and let them know that I do so appreciate the beauty of their level of performance. Few have it. It's why they are the top rock on the heap.

The face of attitude

I see faces when I think of attitudes of people in my life. I see my father's face when I think of leaving for college. I'll never forget his words to me as I left for my freshman year, representing an attitude of support for all my future endeavors. And when I think of times of honesty and rejuvenation, I see a face of a friend who over a 20 year period of time has been with me through thick and thin. And when I think of repulsion, I think of someone in whose veins I am sure Neanderthal blood runs. I have a face for repression, egocentrism, eternal optimism, and chronic depression. I can see a host of other faces, all exhibiting certain attitudes or behaviors. But, there is a single face that appears when it comes to vitality, exuberance, and competence... a single, smiling face.

Enchanted

I used to have a picture of the Andes Mountains similar to this one hanging in my office. I find the mountains enchanting. They intrigue me. I like their beauty because they are in stark contrast to most other scenic terrains.

People who stand in stark contrast to the run-of-the-mill crowd I am also enchanted by. I can't exactly hang them up in my office, but I can love being around them whenever possible, love hearing their voices when they call, and lock them into my heart forever.