Living in dystopia

In literature, the study of a utopian society that has unraveled over time or spiraled far away from its utopian ideas is called a study of dystopia.  Two of the most studied of all dystopian novels in the United States are 1984 and Brave New World.

People have grown to disdain intrusion into privacy since our country's inception.  1984 shows a great departure from the premise of a treasured American value because a government has been created that intrudes to a major extent into people's private lives.  A leader (probably manufactured by The Party) knows almost every move of the society's citizens.  The Party revises all events from history and its current events to fit the official party line of the government.  Individual thinking is named a thoughtcrime.  Mind control is everywhere present in the book.  Doublethink and Newspeak are terms that were coined in the book to represent the type of mind control taking place.

Brave New World is a world created to show what would happen in a society controlled by a one-world government.  Sex in the book is experienced for pleasure only; it has nothing to do with propagation of the species.  A person is supposed to experience multiple sex partners in a lifetime.  Multiple might be the wrong word because in the book multiple could mean 50 to 100 not 10 or less.  People are born from test tubes and designed genetically to have a certain amount of intelligence.  This allows for a caste system to ensure that menial work gets done by the lowest thinking humans and the research in science gets done by the highest thinking humans.  Children are raised in schools run by the State.  Everyone in the society takes Soma, a drug to make people feel good, and it is passed out free to citizens to make sure that everyone is taking it.

The society of Big Brother was eschewed by the people of England and the United States in 1949 when Orwell wrote 1984.  And the readers of both countries thought Aldous Huxley was way out of bounds when he wrote of the World Controllers in 1932.  The book was banned in some places.

Let's see... Fast forward 80 years from Huxley's time and 63 years from Orwell's day.  I live in a society that
1) sends a ticket to me by mail if I run a red light because a camera was monitoring the intersection,
2) sends a bill to me by mail for my toll usage because a camera snapped my presence on the toll road,
3) can tell my location on Facebook (if enabled by me, at least for now) when I make an entry,
4) can show who I am with and my activity when I am tagged in Facebook,
5) tracks every single call I make on the phone (and my emails, and my texts, and my voice messages),
6) requires all children to go to a state-run school to obtain a standardized curriculum approved by the state (with an exception for home-schooling, which few people opt for),
7) encourages young people to choose multiple sex partners (5 or more is common among seniors in high school, so this is only through age 18),
8) forces all its citizens to pay an income tax for access by underdogs of the state and has just now added access to insurance to that list, (disincentives for people to perfect their life's crafts and charge for it),
9) allows revisionist history to exist on all major networks and many cable networks and to align with one of the two major parties' official lines,
10) pays for drugs (generics are basically costless) of all kinds of diseases, regardless of side-effects, so people can be addicted to feeling good constantly.
11) has deceived the public about intelligence and grading practices in its schools, so that now people think there are levels of intelligence, and they make decisions about careers based on those ideas as if they were born that way (such as restricting jobs to certain levels of educational attainment),
12) puts forth charismatic leaders as puppets of the party in power to further agendas of the party.

This list is incomplete, but one gets the idea.  Every major, onerous, dystopian idea proffered by both books has been incorporated in today's society in the U.S. either in whole or to a great extent.  There are books about what society will look like in another 60-80 years, but I will be cryogenically stored on a space vessel headed for terraformed Mars for a life outside of that society.  It's hard enough to live in the one we have today.

Secrets of going deep

Medical advancement is really nice.  I am alive myself from some of the advancements made in sleep technology and in control of hypertension.  It should make me better for the wear when I turn 85 and 90.  But I am told that it is attitude that makes one live long.  Perhaps one day there will be some advancements in evenness of attitude.  But even if not, then I have taken advantage of the adjustments that have been documented as having an effect on longevity.   Laughter being the best medicine, making lemonade from lemons, and being content (accepting) in difficult situations have all lengthened my life.  Fortunately,  I had lessons in both anger and bitterness management and formal training on deception and use of language by both genders to help in navigation of other things that can cause stress.  Am I headed for 120 years of age?  This should be a fun journey!

An imprint person

The Mayan Empire stretched out all across Latin America and into a location or two in the United States and South America on its extreme ends.  One historian would even have the empire's reach extend to some islands off the coast of Peru.  It operated at the same time as another more famous empire halfway around the world whose base was in Italy.  Both empires lasted approximately 1000 years.  Both ruled with iron fists.  Both had violent, brutal methods of handling their enemies.  Both used science, especially astronomy, to construct calendars and use knowledge of the stars for travel and soothsaying.  A number of other similarities exist.

The difference in the two empires was that Rome's conquests included England, so its influence on law and military prowess trickled into the books and educational system of the United States.  Everyone knows the about the rise and decline of the Roman Empire.  People can tell you who the 12 first emperors were or can quote the poets and historians who wrote throughout the empire.  The Mayan Empire which was in our own hemisphere has been unknown until just recently.  Its writings are hieroglyphic in nature and are translated but are not widely read.  The only remnant from any of its writers is the highly disputable meaning of the end of the Mayan calendar.  Its temples and cities have long been abandoned and grown over by jungles.  Its conquests included non-English speaking countries, non-European for that matter, so people in the United States have little knowledge of its existence.

But there is another difference.  Rome declined over  a long period of time.  When the final demise came, it was well publicized and chronicled in all the countries it brutalized.  The language it spoke had been a lingua franca and lives still in 5 main European languages.  Roman values lived beyond the empire, and its history was kept in books and embedded in architecture for all to remember.  The Mayan Empire seems to have met its end rapidly and suddenly.  Posterity has nothing but guesses on the reasons for the apparent quick end to a 1000 year reign.  Any descendants have lost the language it spoke, the values they had, and the history that might have accrued during its reign.  The Mayan story stopped as the jungles crept over its temple and housing structures.

This tale of two empires has a lesson for me.  I don't want to live so that at life's end people have to piece together what I may have been about.  I don't want to leave a vague reputation or indecipherable legacy.  I want to plant seeds that outlast my life and that create memories for others to cherish.  It's more the Roman way than the Mayan way.  Books have been written about the glory that was Rome's.  But the only writings about the Mayans contain questions about who they might have been and what some of their writings and sciences may have meant.   I want to be an imprint person. 

In all the way

Sometimes we act or change our actions based on perspective.  That's why education is important to give a population of people.  Education let's us know what is important to a lot of people (the norms) and what is important to a few people (the extremes).  Education provides perspectives from a number of points of view and from a number of different disciplines.  We all settle on which of the norms we want to see things from or which extreme, but at least we have an idea how far away from the middle we may be.  Experience is a corollary to education.  It's just that education allows us to experience life through books and artificial situations to get ahead of the normal learning curve that life supplies so freely.

When I learned a second language, I did everything I could to learn it.  I even went to some events where mostly the second language was spoken.  But, after seeing life from the perspectives included in the culture of the second language, I decided I liked the point of view I had before immersing myself in the second language.  But, at least I had a better idea where my point of view lay on the Bell curve and how many people I didn't share that view with. 

On the other hand, when we participate in something and have an emotional attachment, all bets are off.  Perspective is based on the heart, on the strength of an attachment, not the perspective that education provides.  Passion drives us to perspectives that we wish for or that we want again or that give us pleasure of some sort.

When I was young, I was told to make a list when making a major decision, keeping pros on one side and cons on the other.  Now I know that is a really simplified version of how people make decisions or develop perspectives.  Now I know that people consult their perspectives first.  They see the ramifications of something based on facts from education or experience, and they see other ramifications if acting from merely an emotional attachment.

Anymore, I know that I will base most decisions on checking ramifications against education and experience, but will act on those decisions based on strength of emotional attachment.  So, when I make a decision, you can know that I am in it heart and soul.

Wonder and savor

I'm always fascinated with what is in the Earth's past.  Not too far back (11,000 BCE) is an ice age.  Humanity's advancement has only come since the ice melted and the climate around the Earth warmed.  Humanity was around a long time before that, however.  One has to assume humans weren't idle. Then, there was the explosion of a volcano 75,000 years ago that created such a tremendous volume of ash that a cloud covered the Earth for 10 years.  The human race nearly went extinct.  Fortunately, 10,000 people survived.  Before the eruption, at least 9 different types of humans existed (like the characteristics today that Caucasion, Negroid, and Asian races have, but 9 of them).  All those differences would have been fun to see.  Then there was the fire that covered all of Siberia, the asteroid that annihilated every dinosaur, and the period in which the Atlantic Ocean didn't exist.  All of it so fascinating.

We all have events that change us, destroy us for a time, and restore us in a different form.  We don't look at all of the events happening to us as fascinating so much.  But, maybe we should.  Perhaps we should stand in wonder at what we have been through and savor each change, each destruction, each new form that emerges.  If we did, maybe life would seem more breathtaking.  Even at that, though, I still know which event represents the most scenic part of my life.  And, perhaps, there is something breathtaking up the way a bit that I don't know about yet.  If the past is a sign of the future, then I'm pretty sure there is.

The great enhancer

Where is the luster?  Some say you have to work at having luster.  It's the polish on silverware that requires elbow grease often for the silverware to shine.  Some say you have to find something like a diamond in its rough form and remove layers to get to the diamond and spend a lot of time cutting and polishing it.  Some you have to simply take a cloth and rub off the dust from something like ceramic.  Some say its like shoes that get scuffed and you have to polish over and over to restore the shine.

To me, luster is automatically apparent and attractive.  You might shine something from time to time to enhance its distinction, but luster is always apparent.  When an object has luster, everything else in the background is faded, blurred, or otherwise insignificant.  So, when luster is absent, you know instantly what's missing because it enhances everything else around it in the picture.

I've tried the elbow grease, cutting, and adding polish.  My, how I miss the luster in my life...

Preparation

I have a linguist friend who is on holiday in this country after spending two years in Nigeria.  I love it when he gets furloughs.  We always set aside time to talk about the cultural and language differences between the two countries.  I find his work fascinating.  He works with the Nigerian people in a translation school and has story after story of how these people learn language from him.

He hasn't always done this.  It's new for him.  He's been a linguist for a long time, but going to Nigeria was recent.  For about half of his life he worked either preaching or working in a warehouse.  Then, he got his formal training in languages and discourse analysis.  The second half of his life he taught at a university.  Finally, after many years and two halves of his life working jobs to prepare him, he is finally getting to a job that he has always wanted to do - field linguistics.

I admire him for doing this because I know that I couldn't.  But he has taught me a lesson or two about life.  Most of life is the warm-up for the main event.  And, when you get to the main event of your life, enjoy it second by second.  I know that's true.

Neil Diamond wrote a song a long time ago talking about the same thing.  I liked the song then, and I still enjoy hearing it.  It's about the main event.

Did you ever read of a frog
Who dreamed of being a king - 
And then became one.
Well, except for the names
and few other changes,
If you talk about me,
The story's the same one.
(I am I said)

And, how do I know it's true?  I went through the first half of my life working hard like everyone else.  Then, the second half, I got to do work that included what I had formally trained for.  Finally, I got to a place for a main event to happen.  It did.  Every second of it was a memory worth waiting for.

What about those outliers?

Scattergrams are useful for showing trends, progressions sometimes, norms sometimes, and continuous attempts at trying to replicate results.  If given a large sample, most points lie on the predictable course.  But, then there are those points that don't.  They lie far away from the trend or norm.  They can show a disruption of a pattern.  They're called outliers.

A person has a choice about outliers - discount them as just the exception to a much broader rule of behavior or find out what causes the point to be off the beaten path.  Sometimes, there are nice little surprises when one goes to the trouble to find the reason for the outlier's position off out of the norm.  They tell their own story.  And if lucky, one can see a separate pattern emerge from the outliers.

Our lives have a scattergram pattern to them.  Most events lie along a trend line as time passes.  That's because we mainly stay the same.  Our values don't change all that much.  Our location doesn't change all that much.  Our jobs, at least in type, don't change all that much.  But, now the outlying events off the trend line have interesting stories to tell as to why they are there.

One of my outliers is the blackest dot on the page because something unnatural happened - the death of a child.  Another of my outliers is the brightest, most colorful dot on the page because the loveliest of all things happened.  Both dots changed the direction of the trend line although they were opposite in nature.  I'm very glad my story didn't end after the blackest dot happened because the bright, colorful dot happened in time after the blackest dot.  But, if my story should end now, I am satisfied that I have seen the best life has to offer.

There may be more outliers on my chart, but I seriously doubt they could top either of the two events that have changed my life.  Only one event that I could think of would top the two that have happened.  It would be a progression changing outlier if it were to happen.  Perhaps...

Night dances

My daughter told me about a dream she had.  It was not one she liked, and it stuck in her mind for about a day.  After she told me what she dreamed, I understood why she dreamed it.  Our minds take our conscious thoughts from the day and randomizes them into possible scenarios no matter how crazy.  Her dream was one of the implausible scenarios that had come from jumbled plausible threads.

Dreams are like that.  They can go the other way too.  They can take thoughts of scenarios from real life that didn't work out so well, randomize them, and get them to work out in our dreams.  I'm sure we smile during such episodes.  Dreams can mix present and past, make up settings for real people or put unlikely people in real settings.  They can play out the possibilities for us, so that we don't have to be timid in real life because we have seen it eerily before in our dreams, which makes us stronger in the real world.

What does our will have to do with them?  Can we drive our dreams to certain outcomes?  Do they represent what we wish would happen, really?  Yes to all.  It's still our minds.  Alien thoughts don't come into play.  Real thoughts from real scenes play out according to the way we want them or allow them to be randomized.

I had this dream last night...  I felt a smile on my face this morning...  I'm hoping for a repeat tonight...  same time, same place...  what are the chances, right?

Equivalence shouldn't suffice

Language has a phenomenon that has a great parallel to life.  In language, when people hear words that they don't know or have heard very few times, they guess at the sounds of the words.  And, when people hear sounds that are not in their own tongue, they assign equivalent sounds.  It is almost hilarious to see the written differences (although there are legitimate phonetic processes at work) between ancient Hebrew and ancient Persian.  For example, King Ahasuerus is mentioned in the Old Testament as a king of Persia.  The Greek form of that word is Artaxerxes.  Persian for the word is Artakhshatra.  (Some scholars go with the word Xerxes to be the equivalent of Ahasuerus).

Another example from modern times, and using English, is the last name of a number of immigrants from Vietnam, Nguyen.  English doesn't ever begin a word with the combination ng.  It can end a word with that sound, but never start one even though the sound is the same combination of nasal and gutteral.  The Vietnamese don't have a problem with starting a word with that sound, and English could too, but its speakers have a tradition of not doing it.  Also, most varieties of English in the United States use a blend of i and u (like the pronunciation for yu) for the second sound of the Vietnamese name, the long vowel u.  The Vietnamese would pronounce the letter like Americans pronounce the sound oo.  So, the ng + u + y to an English speaker sounds just like some slightly distorted sound of w.  Thus, Ngyuen becomes Winn to the American ear.  That's as hilarious as the Persian to Greek and Hebrew example.

There are a huge number of examples of changed sounds when going between languages because language speakers resist learning a foreign way to say a word.  They merely select some close sounds in their native tongue and call it good.  That has a great parallel to life's events.  When we experience them, we compare them to what has happened to us before.  Or, we compare the event  to some model we have seen before.  That's dangerous.  We try to have equivalent experiences, then, instead of letting the authentic experience speak for itself.  I had a number of experiences in my 20s and 30s that I tried to fit into some teenage model of mine or that I tried to fit to some prior experience (mine or my friends' or family's).  That didn't get me very far in life.  I missed a lot of authentic experiences.

Not anymore.  It is the highest compliment to someone in Vietnam to take the time to learn to pronounce their names as they would.  And, it is the highest compliment to ourselves to take the time to follow an experience for all it is worth on its own merits.  It makes us more well-rounded people, better people.  Some experiences in life are comparable to other experiences.  But, when I start with an event that has no precedent, I no longer try to make it fit some category that I recognize.  I am certainly better for that.  I understand the human experience a whole lot better... and much more joyfully.

A splendid speck

There was something outstanding tonight about watching a speck pass in front of the sun.  The speck was Venus.  For 6 hours and  40 minutes Venus' speck of a shadow crossed the face of the sun where people in countries facing the sun would be able to watch.  It will be another 105 years before that happens again.  It is grand to be a part of a generation that gets to see the transit of Venus because not just everyone who has lived on Earth has gotten to see it.  Pictures of the transit were very clear.  I enjoyed it in pictures since I didn't buy any of the glare glasses to watch the sun directly.

Life's events intersect us sometimes full force like a meteorite hitting the Earth's surface.  But, sometimes they are distant enough for us to see the whole thing taking place, knowing full well that it is a once-in-a-lifetime intersection and that one can enjoy the whole spectacle from start to finish in a short span of time.  Viva la life's transits... enjoying the splendid events that are simply outstanding for the entire length of time they last!

The idea is to be without pain

Healed is an interesting word in that it has different meanings to different people.  Some people merely use it to mean what makes them feel better than they did before, as in going to a spa for "healing therapy."  Some people mean that sickness is cured, it goes away either by medical treatment or it merely goes away because of what the body normally does with its immune system.  Still others use the term for a supernatural miracle cure that earthly medicine couldn't handle.

I've had holes in my heart before.  Those have healed.  Some of the holes were created years ago.  Time has certainly overlaid them with events to eclipse the previous ones.  Some have been created by family because of the kind of treatment received from someone close that shouldn't be shooting arrows.  I have learned to get past those through lowering my expectations.  Some are created by a spouse.  Those disappear by redefining love, kindness, intimacy,  or whatever idea caused the hole in the heart, to a definition different from what I held first.  Two people rarely have the same definition or even agree on a common definition for emotional terms like the three above.  So, that's generally how I have experienced healing.

In the ancient Hebrew way of thinking, there was a season for every activity under heaven - a time to love and a time to hate, a time to make war and a time to enjoy peace... and a time to see  injury inflicted and a time to see healing occurring.  I love the latter and try to be part of that process.  I don't see the supernatural kind.  I am not a doctor of medicine to help the medical kind happen either.  But, as far as making a wound (usually emotional) get better or go away, I can help with that or at least express happiness to someone when I see it happen.

For the walking wounded...  I'm with you all the way, whether or not you deal with healing like I do or like someone else.  I am working on a couple of wounds right now myself.  I know how you feel.

I watch the sky

Sometimes I just want to sit outside, watch the sky, and imagine.   I play out different scenarios to their logical conclusions.  So, if something happens as I had imagined it, I can say, "It worked out just like I thought it would."  But, often, something happens differently from the way I had imagined it.  I usually don't comment on that.   I still think, though, that if it had worked out, then... and I have various paths to go down in my mind.

There are a number of recent developments that I have imagined.  They haven't all come to finality yet.  So, when they do, I will either be shaking my head, wishing for a different conclusion, or saying, "It worked out just like I thought I would."  If I could do anything to tip the scales in favor of the latter, I would sure do it.  However, I don't think I have much control over the outcomes this time.  Much of what happens is in the hands of someone else.

I have faith, however.  So, I am not practicing ahead of time moving my head from side to side.  I am watching the sky, imagining, reimagining, imaging, and reimaging, so that I can say, "It worked out..."

Tops determine margins

The Titanic accident is the perfect example of what happens when people navigate the waters they're in by sight only.  Yeah, they see the tops of icebergs all right.  But, they don't leave any margin for error for what is beneath the water.

So like the waters of life we navigate.  It's not that we don't know that more than half the iceberg is out of our view.  It's that we operate with no margin for error. 

My boat has been sunk before.  So, I know to leave that margin.  It still saddens my heart beyond belief when my boat sinks even though the margin was allowed.  But, speaking of belief - I have it.

Too many are content

The poetry of Stephan Crane is like an old, leather shoe to me.  His poems are form-fitted to my foot.  I have read, reread, memorized, used as illustration, and recited the short, pithy lines he created because they speak volumes.  I am an admirer of ideas succinctly stated.  Crane is the best.

From time to time, when I get frustrated, I call up a Crane poem.  It comforts me.  It lets me know that my frustration is not new, that the behavior I get frustrated about is the behavior that frustrated him and hundreds of thousands before him.  So, I pull out his poem from my collection or from my mind and recite.

A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
He, scowling through the thickets,
And dagger poised quivering,
Rushed upon the youth.
"Sir," said this latter,
"I am enchanted, believe me,
To die, thus,
In this medieval fashion,
According to the best legends;
Ah, what joy!"
Then took he the wound, smiling,
And died, content. 

On this weekend, through the week, and next weekend as well, institutions in grim forests cloaked in medieval garb, scowl with drawn daggers at youths who look at them, thank them for the legendary knowledge and skills they learned, shake a hand, and cry "What joy!" for the sheepskin that will wound them and kill them, its value drawn from the 19th and 20th centuries.  But they will die content.


Crane is right, at least for another decade.  I am fortunate to live in the days of another poet who speaks of everyday matters, Bruce Springsteen.  My hope is the same as his.  I may be deluded, though, because hope springs eternal...

Beauty... smiles

Not often, but certainly more than in the past, I get to soak in the beauty of surroundings that are either the result of nature's forming hand or of humanity's ostentatious craft.  Today was such a day.  I found myself staring at a 15-story, shaved, marble-like stone edifice with dark glass panes.  It was in the heart of the city and belonged to a sequestered, nestled boulevard 1 block long.  Manicured shrubs, grass, trees, and flowers surrounded the building.  It was complete with valet parking for the hotel of the same height and stone look on the other side of the boulevard from the place where I had business.  After finishing what I had come to do in the miniature sky-skyscraper, I meandered over to the Starbucks that adjoined the hotel to enjoy a drink and a morsel of food.

When I get to sit in grandiose places, my mind takes a journey to its own realms.  Today it was to some of the beautiful events that have happened to me and delightful words that people have said to me in years gone by.  It  seemed like just yesterday those events happened or words were spoken.  I finished my drink and food with my lips bowed in a smile.  I sighed thinking how different a road I travel now than the one that carried the events and words bringing the smile to my face.  At least, though, I have the beauty of delightful memories to bring to the beautiful places I get to sit in now.  At least that.

The picture comes clear

The scientific method makes so much sense.  You start with a question: What is the truth about... ? or What if... ?  Then, you try answers that both fit what you think is true or what could be a counter-argument with evidence.  Finally, you pick out the patterns that emerge and explain those patterns.  How beautiful.

But, it took a while to get to that point in civilization.  The first people had to make observations.  They tried explaining those observations but didn't have time to worry so much about the truth of them.  The next wave of humans decided to put the observations into myths to perpetuate them or implemented the observations into laws to abide by.  Inevitably, the farther away from the observation people grew, the more it gave room to question its truth or its old patterns for a current world with new observations.  So, new observations were made.  This went on for a long while.  Finally, people wanted to know what would be true over time, what would be constant and what would be variable.  They developed rules for following hypotheses and calculations to measure the patterns.  How brilliant.

Now we're trying to apply those rules and calculations to the exploration of space.  It might work.  It's likely that a new way of thinking about what is true will be discovered.  And, there will certainly be new questions to ask on the stem of "What if... ?" with a plethora of new answers and observations.

That is so much like our own lives.  When we were young, we made some pretty good observations and tried to live by them and perpetuate them.  Then we experienced that what we had come up with didn't apply across the board even if we wanted them to.  So we were able to ask "What if... ?" and find patterns that were constant and variable.  Then we saw ahead of us that the method might have to be applied in unknown territory because people are living longer than ever on average, new territory.  How contemplative.

Scientific reasoning brought civilization from darkness to light over time.  Our journeys from immaturity to maturity are much the same way.  We go through the beautiful stage, usually arrogantly.  Then, we face reality and get to the brilliant stage, confidently.  Eventually, we get to the contemplative stage, humbly.

It feels like 1816 around here

No one knew on New Year's Day in 1815 that the world was about to change.  The year started as it normally did any other year.  Winter ended, spring started, the world was spinning around as if nothing special was going to happen.  But, the Earth had an opinion about what should happen next.  Too bad the people of Indonesia didn't know that.  They went to bed on April 13th as if the world would continue as it had. But the next day, they heard the Earth's complaint very loudly.

Mount Tambora had a magma chamber beneath it that had been building a long time.  It began to smoke, voicing its complaint that the Earth had built up too much pressure through early warning signs.  The people then didn't know too much about volcanic activity, so they missed the sign.  12,000 people regretted that since they were the casualties of the first round of eruptions and tsunamis.  Mount Tambora exploded on April 14th, 1815, with such ferocity that agriculture around the Polynesian Islands came to a halt.  Plants were rained on with all kinds of lava, hot rocks from the air, pyroclastic flow, and soot. Another 60,000 couldn't find anything to eat and tasted their last meals about a week after the eruption.  Recorded history had never seen an eruption of this magnitude.

That was just the immediate effect on the Earth. The summer and the fall passed while people around Mount Tambora were struggling to get back on their feet. The rest of the world hadn't even heard of the eruption, but they were about to experience its effect.  The winter started, and as it deepened in the early months of 1816, it became really harsh.  Spring was supposed to come, but it was bypassed.  Temperatures were really cool.  Summer was next.  Well, normally it would have been next.  This is the year that was named The Year Without a Summer.  No summer... no crops... famine... cold temps in summer... People died worldwide because of the famine of 1816.  Plants struggled to live without too much light.  Clouds from the volcano were still in place in the atmosphere making photosynthesis difficult.  Volcanic Winter had occurred.

Eventually, the Earth warmed up and had seasons again.  But not in 1816, The Year Without a Summer, the year of Volcanic Winter.  The people of Earth had to endure the effects of Earth's fury whether or not they had heard on April 14, 1815, of the worst eruption in human experience since the Ice Age ended.  That makes me a bit wary as I go through life.  I don't always hear of the matters that affect me, some of them in the greatest way.

I haven't really heard anything lately that might affect me.  But, I see some ash in the sky and it's been a cool spring.  I'm thinking that...

(X)

A Tale of Two Cities portrays two characters opposite in nature and station of life but identical in purpose for living.  The protagonist of the novel is noble in his ambition but not admirable in character.  The other character (at times a true antagonist, but mostly a minor protagonist) ignoble in ambition (because he was born into status, so he really only has to maintain what he has) but admirable in character.  The story is written so that the two characters get a crossover effect in character development.  By the end of the story, a person cannot believe that, when Carton takes such great pains to get into prison and try to force Darnay to switch places with him, Darnay actually does switch.  What a scoundrel to let someone else take his place for execution.  There is nothing admirable about that - just selfishness.

A number of stories studied in literature have the dynamic of the crossover effect between two characters.  A character starts one way in a story, but through a series of circumstances beyond what the character can control, (s)he makes an about face from the way (s)he was originally portrayed.

Not everyone has the experience of the crossover effect in his/her life.  Most people operate under the belief that consistency is the best policy (and many times it is for image's sake).  But, I have found myself to have undergone the crossover in the matter of politics, religion, and philosophy of the heart.  I was with a high school friend not long ago, and in the three matters just mentioned we have changed places.  Another way to achieve crossover is to measure it against someone who has remained consistent over time.  I have a lifelong friend who fits this mold.  One of his admirable traits is that I can count on his steadiness of purpose, which we share.  But when I measure myself against him, I can see how much I have changed because we used to be much alike.

In stories, a person doesn't have to worry so much about whether the crossover is moral, costly, advantageous, or unnatural.  But in life, I have to evaluate all four of those.  I only live once, so the stakes are really high to cross over in the three matters of life mentioned.  Tonight, though, I can sleep well.  Sydney Carton and I have crossed over in much the same way.  And, if Carton and Darnay are but representations of the dual nature that lives inside each one of us, I hope people don't view me in disbelief, shaking their heads at my selfishness because I have let the Carton side of the dual nature switch with Darnay's side

It's all in the rub

I guess I am a counter-culturist at heart.  But, there have been others, and they have been very famous and influential: Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson (at the top of the list).  Every poet probably qualifies as a counter-culturist, particularly so, though, Gwendolyn Brooks, e.e. cummings, and Walt Whitman.  And there have been those standouts through time like Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Leonardo Di Vinci, Herodotus, ad infinitum.  So, I love it when the status quo gets challenged.

People get comfortable in their routines, which is why routines exist.  But, when routines that work for a few are made into routines that become law for everyone, I get disgusted because precious little is a one-size-fits-all shirt for all to wear. Certainly business in the world knows the beauty of custom design.  Something simple like a pen has so many variations that it is hard to describe their appearance anymore.  The clothing industry for sure knows not to make clothes look alike.  Ask someone about what (s)he likes in a car, and you would get many different answers.  The car industry knows that.

Then there are the social sciences.  They seem to be shielded from the reality of the colors that exist in life.  Psychologists, for the most part, have tried to reduce the study of personality to 4 or 5 traits and put those traits in a test for people to take and match to.  Educators want to reduce everything to a 4-core curriculum and create tests to compare everyone to.  Politicians want to reduce society to blocks of voters and make laws that benefit those blocks.  Athletes get reduced to skill sets and traded as a commodity to teams needing those skill sets.

So I applaud people like Freud and Piaget who refused to have their thinking reduced to match some known model.  I laud educators like Dewey, Montessori, and the founders of the University of Phoenix who know that education cannot be done in a cookie-cutter factory.  I support people like Noam Chomsky, Ted Kennedy, and Ron Paul who try to get people to see that routines need to shaken up once in a while so that progress doesn't pass us by.  And I love to follow teams whose owners know to stick with a player and not abandon him if he gets hurt or goes through a slump like Robert Kraft's Patriots, Nolan Ryan's Rangers, and Jerry Buss' Lakers.

In order to get a spark to start a fire, a person has to rub two sticks together or two flint rocks against each other.  Progress depends on the rub, not the straightjacket.