Doubling what I know

My college roommate came to town last week, so we met for lunch.  We were comparing some of the experiences we had had with our children and some of our philosophy on raising them, given certain situations.  I made some comment, I don't remember what it was at this point, and he just laughed and said, "You really only know something about one thing in life and this is really not it."  We both just laughed.

But I get to thinking how true his comment really was.  And the irony is that that one thing I know something about has rarely appeared on my agenda in life.  It was not something that I really knew about until my 40s (so most of my life, I didn't know something about one thing.  I guess I knew nothing about everything), so I have spent most of my life knowing nothing.  I guess that is a point of humor.  I probably shouldn't have laughed about knowing nothing.

Of course, my roommate knew me before I knew anything at all, so he's qualified to make such an observation.  And, he has never wandered onto the one subject I might know something about.  So, it's only hearsay to him that I might have gained knowledge of one thing.  There's a comfort being around him.  He has known me in every stage of life from college onward, probably through 5 distinct stages.  But, he's knowledgeable about one thing in life too (it's a different thing).  So, we're even and it's no wonder that we were laughing about raising our children.  We didn't really know what we were doing.  Now, I have two things in life I'm relatively sure about.

Water for my heart

The earliest human records with any meaning come from Sumeria and Akkad, the birthplace of civilization (not human settlement, but civilization).  Water was important to the people of Sumeria, which is why they had settled along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the Persian Gulf. Water was something they had depended on for life, and something they could not create themselves, so they assigned a supernatural origin to it.  That deity filled river beds and dry inlets with life-giving water.  A temple to this deity has been found in Eridu.  He had other attributes as well, but he was named for being responsible for the life-giving water he made sure humans had.  So they called him The One Who Presides Over the Earth, or Enki.  Later, the priests who represented Enki took the title En (the equivalent of lord).  Enki's personal number was 40.  His symbol was the fish at first (he allowed them to flourish since he was the provider of water).  Later, he also was given the symbol of the goat since that was the plentiful meat that was the source of life-giving food from the earth.  When people looked to the sky and imagined the zodiac, the goat was named among the stars and given the name of Capricorn.


It's a story that resonates with me.  On nights when I need to listen to my heart, I look skyward and see the stars of Capricorn, the sign of Enki, the one who provided life-giving water.  But, I don't think in terms of goats and fish, but in terms of laughter, smiles, cheer, and generosity... attributes of the one who has given my heart life.

What's the right measure?

How much does a person really know?  A lot or a little or somewhere in between? 

It's virtually impossible to know.  Tests  have been designed to attempt the answer to that question, but they fall very short in measuring what the human mind uses as knowledge and have no predictive power about how a person will create or react in given situations, under duress, or in relationships. Love in the Wild, Survivor, and  Bachelorette are as good a test for measuring these ideas as specially designed tests are.

I suppose a person could say that one should check her/his grades in school.  That suggestion is the most laughable of all solutions.  If you are talking about college, everyone knows that professors have to give grades according to a Bell curve.  In addition, only about 25% of the population graduate from college, so the comparison is not how much one might know against the general population, but how much memorization or  knowledge from practicum one can reproduce in comparison to others who want to mortgage their futures in pursuit of a certain level of a quality life.  It is even more absurd on the high school level.  Teachers are forbidden to give less than a 50, so automatically the grading field is reduced to 50 points from 100.  That means a 70 isn't 70% any longer, but is the 40% marker in a 50 point grading field.  Students graduating with a 70 (or a 65 that teachers magically turn into 70 to move the student through the grade level) are really, really subpar.

One could compare financial income assuming that the people who know more make more money.  But knowledge doesn't work like that.  Given that hard work can substitute for knowledge in the workplace, or connections to the right people can substitute for knowledge, it is impossible to look at the tax return and determine how much a person knows.  There is also the lack of equivalence among work fields.  If one works in a "hot" field such as computer programming, natural language analysis, geophysics, petroleum engineering, actuarial tables, medicine and the like, then (s)he makes much more than public servants with the same experience, education, number of connections, and desire.

Life experience is a pretty good teacher, I would have to say.  So maybe the best way to know how much one knows is not to compare oneself against people but against previous experience.  How much better does one react to life's situations?  How much better does a person create, preparing for potential situations?  How much fear or courage does one have in making it through unknown situations?  Then, maybe one can know how much knowledge has been gained.

If true, I would like to think that experience prepares one to make great decisions given cumulative effect.  So, instead of grades, money, or tests, a much truer measure of how much a person knows is performance after a catalyst.  That (catalysts) is what makes people creative, or determined, or courageous, or failing, or recovering, or contented, or happy.  Catalysts come in many, many forms.  Sometimes a catalyst is a difficult time.  At other times a catalyst is having a simple conversation with someone because the way becomes clear after talking.

I have a good idea of how much I know because I can predict now what catalysts might be lurking around the next corner when I used to be surprised a lot.  Some catalysts I have imagined and never had to face.  Other catalysts have repeated themselves a few times, so I know what to expect and when to expect them.  Some catalysts are even hoped for.  I have one of those catalysts.  It's more of a craving.  If it happens, I would be the most knowledgeable I have ever been in my life... and the most satisfied.

Old word - new application

Ancient Greek has a word for setting things aside because they are special.  I like this word because it allows me to express the very special place a group of pictures has for me.  I have albums and albums of pictures.  Some are important because they are old and contain my college experience.  Some are put in albums because they represent firsts in life, such as first child or first birthday or first bike ride.  Some have been kept because they simply chart the journey of life.  But, there is a group of pictures totally set aside for special remembrance.  If I spoke ancient Greek, I would apply this word for setting aside something special in this circumstance.  The group of pictures is not a closed set.  I just added a few more to it in the last couple of days.

Religion has translated this word as either holy or sacred.  Their translation and subsequent application of the Greek word takes it out of its natural context and distorts its meaning, or at least specializes the meaning to an extent not intended.  The semantics might include the idea of "special" and "other," but not the many other attributes conjured by religion for holy and sacred.

But misuse of the principles of translation doesn't deter me from assigning this Greek word to my very, very special pictures that I have placed in their own category.  Agios works for me whenever I ponder, gaze, study, and otherwise simply enjoy looking at these pictures - over and over, time and again.

Oh, to be 4!

It's that special day again.  She's 4 today.  She will grow up using technology like it is first nature, not second.  She will demand to know more until she is satisfied.  She is determined and won't stop till she gets to her goal.  I know this because her amazing mother is the same way...  Happy Birthday... I hope you never outgrow your beautiful bows.

Stifling heat both inside and out

The temperature set a record today.  The old record was reached in 1939.  The new record exceeded the old  by 3 degrees.  Heat waves literally could be seen rising from the concrete on sidewalks and roads.  I can count on two hands the number of times in my life I have been in a place of 112 or more degrees, the hottest being 118.  The heat is stifling past 110, so today was 2 degrees above stifling.  Sweat appears without any movement.  Add tiny movement and it feels as if one has run a marathon.  I am more than thankful for the taste of refreshing water on days like this. 

Some days my soul hits record high temperatures when it is bereft of the laugh and smile that made it quite an oasis once.  Fortunately, the refreshing taste of a picture satisfies the soul's palate and allows one to move past the empty space creating such stifling heat.  I am more than thankful for such images.

What informs us?

I was speaking with a man who taught Spanish in a high school not long ago.  As we talked about his job, he spoke of the "Natural" method for learning language.  It's not a new method.  It's been around for a great number of years.  In fact, it may be the original "method" assuming the word means a systematic order by which to learn something.  The thinking is that babies have to go from 0-60 in a quarter mile.  Since many babies begin speaking by around 9 months and continue learning language at a very rapid pace until around 5, then the stages through which they pass in piecing together language must be the proper sequence for all learners to acquire a language.

I can't believe the method is still around.  I thought it had been reasoned that the onset of reading changes the language dynamic.  Most 8-year-olds can read, so that would preclude the "natural" method from being followed for people 8 and above.  Puberty also changes things.  Cognition, especially how thought is organized, is fundamentally different after puberty than before.  That would certainly prevent the "natural' method from being followed by teens and those older.

But, here I was in the summer of 2012 talking with someone who had been presented the "natural" method and had accepted its premise.  I thought that maybe someone had reworked the idea and used an old name for a new method based on current research.  But, alas, this was not the case.  Wherever he got the notion that the way young children learn a language is the correct way to learn a language should be the last place ever to offer this method as viable.  Children learn their first words as a result of a caretaker modeling the language.  Nowhere in the public schools is this modeled no matter what the grade level, particularly not high school.  Children go through an identifiable two-word utterance stage.  Teenagers and above don't even come close to thinking in these terms.  Children experiment with sounds for the nine months they are in waiting for language to spring forth from their mouths.  That is not the case for older learners. 

Brain studies alone over the last 10 years obliterate the "natural method."  There are two periods of time when the brain prunes its organization of connections, one at around 10 months, one at around 14 years.  After each of the "prunings" the brain advances in its organizational capacity and structure.  There is no way a person after the prunings could return to the stages of a previous organization after it takes place.  And after the first organizational restructuring, the brain learns according to exposure to a child's environment and internal impressions such as interest, motivation, personality, and utility.  By age six, children are set on a learning track unique to themselves.  By age 10 the corpus callosum thins and allows more nerve endings to develop to connect the two hemispheres of the brain.  Language learning is totally different after this stage than before.

I could go on.  The idea is obvious.  The "natural" method has no basis for modern language learning because it has no truth in its learning principles.  This is also a good corollary for life.  Basing one's lifestyle and habits on some notion that life should be lived according to principles we learned as children or as teenagers (even young adults) is probably flawed.  Just as the best method for language learning is probably the one that pays closest attention to the state-of-the-art research, the best way to live life is to do so according to our latest wisdom based on experience and knowledge of our own personality in the situations we have encountered.  Then, we won't be trapped by youthful ideas that go awry in the face of true situations, teachings that were supposed to guide us through childhood but that were never intended for adulthood, or missteps that cost us in time, energy, money, and love along our journey's way.

Turning the performance

Once in a while the opportunity arises to perform the thing for which you have been formally trained to do, the craft which you have worked so hard to perfect.  Not that it is appreciated; it is just an opportunity to perform it.  I have often wondered what it would feel like to do this.

It comes so naturally that it doesn't feel like work.  Your mind feels so totally at ease that the manipulations required to perform the task are automatic.  There's a lot of energy in doing it.  It's not tiring, but synergetic.  Had I been able to make a job out of doing this for most of my life, I think I would have had a whole different outlook on life.  The only thing left is to turn performance into something people have to have and can't live without.  That would be the apex of reward for two reasons: people would appreciate the performance and my life would have buoyancy.

Once again

One of the smallest yet most influential linguistic centers in all the world is nestled in the hills out of the way from a heavily trafficked interstate just a couple of miles north of it.  I took a course there once.  My professor was a visiting professor for the summer from Brown University.  It was one of the best courses I have ever taken.  He had a knack for guiding one into large amounts of knowledge in a very short time.

Today when I visited the campus and meandered among the offices of the esteemed instructors, I couldn't help but notice the great diversity of the faculty there.  One office had a sign "Wild-eyed bibliomaniac" on the doorpost, another had "Second Language and Culture Acquisition."  These teachers have all been in the field for a long time before they ever wind up in the halls of academe here. But, that only enhances the intrigue they bring to the place.

The teachers do have one thing in common.  Every single one of them has had to go to various groups, individuals, and corporations to raise their support.  The university doesn't pay them at all.  They have lived such sacrificial lives (in that they have sacrificed prestige and a certain level of prosperity for the passion of working in the field and trying to impart that knowledge later in life to those who come behind them).

I am always impressed with their knowledge, but inspired as well.  I am inspired that the professors there, some of whom I know and have gone to school with, know so much, work hard at transmitting their knowledge to others, and act so humbly as if they are regular people.  I am inspired by their discipline in the midst of austerity.  I am awed by their wit and humor because I am very short in both of these categories.  I am so aware of the tiny little niche I may fill compared to the vast array of opportunities for learning the average student is exposed to there.  But, that inspires me to do well in my little space in the world.

I needed the trip to this private, backwoods, semi-hidden, tranquil environment to be around such an assorted crew of individuals.  I needed to be prodded and to be inspired once again, for I had lost a step in getting to the top and staying there in a very specialized field.  Inspiration is such a positive feeling.

Lord of the Flies

I passed through Colorado City not long ago.  As a person enters the town from the east side, a billboard still carries the image of Hailey Dunn with contact information if you have seen her.  Travesty, sham, and farce are three words that come to mind whenever I see that sign.  The sign has been there for a year and a half.  Of course, no one has called the number on the sign in recent history because no one has seen Hailey.

The local police decided early on not to press the disappearance because they knew not to delve too far.  It wasn't for ineptitude.  They have investigated other crimes with some forensic skill.  The FBI decided it was a minor case and let local authorities handle it.  Given limited resources, no leads, and the location and size of Colorado City ( a really small town in remote West Texas), one could have predicted their quick exit.  The Texas Rangers stayed somewhat longer.  But they did so only to make the community think they were doing something.  They are understaffed with more to police in a  large state than a missing girl in her early teens.  So, other than entertaining cold tips, they were never really a factor.

Hailey's mother was on the fringe of society, popping a few pills, having a good time in life, subsisting on very little money (which is why she was selected in the first place by a third party), so the police found it very easy to ignore the real issues.  They knew that Hailey's mother didn't have the background or the means to resolve this crime.  Instead of focusing on finding Hailey, they arrested the mother a couple of times for her drug use.  Her interrogations yielded little because the police deliberately questioned her about murdering Hailey or being an accomplice to her murder.  Of course, they fully realized that murder wasn't involved.  But, they had to deflect attention from themselves since their every intention was to look good in the beginning and let the case fade with time.

It's beyond comprehension that the one who knows what happened to Hailey and has been laughing in the background every time he goes to the bank was never pursued.  The lies this person has told to satisfy the smoke and mirrors put up by the detective in the case only show the depth of corruption involved in not finding Hailey.  The legal system wasn't ever allowed to kick in because of Hailey's mother's status in the town.  The townspeople eventually ran her out of the town.

What a travesty.  A young teen was whisked away from her roots and replanted in an evil environment far away from everything she knew and loved.  What a sham.  Local authorities from law enforcement to school officials, from the mayor to the mother's attorney have turned their backs on someone down a few rungs on the prestige ladder in the community.  What a farce.  All the searches that were encouraged, but that were of no use even from the beginning, and the total lack of reliance on any true forensic techniques that could have been brought to bear on finding Hailey shout to the heavens that a miscarriage of justice has happened.

But, as the sun sets tonight in Colorado City, someone knows about Hailey Dunn.  It's hard to imagine a human being so calloused and emotionally detached that he reeks from the smell of his singed soul still smoking from the sulfurous flames of the Great Inferno!

The grass is greener...

I have a friend who goes on a semi-regular basis to a close casino to play his games.  He rarely loses money.  One could call him lucky.  He has a certain knack for slowly building his gains and an uncanny will power to be able to shut it down once he hits his goal.

I could use his luck in the routines of life.  I really don't know how to slowly build on anything life dishes out.  Life seems to give, then take away as if the odds were stacked in favor of the house.  I have tried to build on some really important things only to have them vanish as if my hands were sieves for important things to filter through, then vanish.  I would like to once hit my goal and walk away with my gains in hand.

It's ironic that if you talk to him about the routines of life, he'll tell you he'd rather have stability (which he says I have in life) than the ability to win at betting.  He considers himself to lack that.  I think it's a matter of perspective here.  He would trade luck for stability, but I would trade my routines for the ability to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.  Perhaps my friend is right and I'm stable.  Or perhaps, I should still strive for knowing when to make a bold move and walk away happy.

Love the green

This year I water the grass about every other day to keep it green.  Heat is high, so without the water, the lawn turns brittle brown.  Even with watering it pretty often, cracks appear in the ground below the grass.  And the bald spots of the edges of the lawn don't have those creeping runners to help spread the lawn.  Fertilizer has not even greened the lawn like one would expect.

Keeping a lawn is reminiscent of how things turn out over the long haul.  High heat, high maintenance, cracked ground, and no spreading.  That's just how life is, isn't it.  I will say, though, that when the patches of green turn the lawn in its entirety to green, there is jubilation, and sometimes it is jubilation that lasts till the next greening event.  And since life happens in cycles, jubilation of a once green lawn gets a person through till the next greening event.  That makes jubilation that much sweeter.

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...