It could be WAY different

Facebook is not the only source for English as it is used in a social setting, nor is it a source showing the "average" American speaker's usage of English.  It also is not the only way to judge language trends in English.  But, it is certainly one source to use, and with a plethora of examples of anything that is trending on it.

One such trend that has increased over the last two years of Facebook use is the number of "stickers" used, usually at the end, but sometimes in the middle, of a post.  In addition, more people are  "commenting" on other people's posts with pictures of their own rather than typing a response.  Both of these trends show that people are increasingly tired of using words when something else is available to them to represent ideas.

I don't think this bodes well for those interested in keeping the old ways of keeping English around in print.  Handwriting is very much a pain to anyone anymore.  People are resistant to handwriting since they can just as easily type something into a notes app or paste and copy much more efficiently than ever before.  Typing, not handwriting, is taught in lower grade levels in most schools that try to "keep up" with technology advances.  But, even that is not where the Facebook trends seem to be stopping.  Emoticons, mojis, stickers, and pics have sharply affected how people want to respond to others.  Even in advertising used on Facebook, outside of people's posting, the marketing experts have instilled into everyone to use pictures when possible and words only to give essential information like a slogan or product highlights.

I think it is easy to connect dots from the present to the future at this point.  But, I still see people who hang on to the idea that using words, usually formal words, shows how educated (and by association) how respected one is.  Maybe that's true if I use sources from other sectors of English language use.  But, if I think Facebook is a good indicator of things to come, I am betting on a really different kind of future for English.

At present English is a lingua franca, but if the nature of English changes, what happens to the lingua franca?  Next year, it is estimated that more speakers of English will be spoken by people in and from China than by any other country.  That also will affect the nature of English in the realms of the spoken language.

I'm not at all worried about the future of English since I am not an elitist of the language.  I just think it will be WAY different than what people are seeing at the moment... say in 10 years.

Working with the brain

One of the most noticeable features of brain operation is how efficient it is.  The functions it controls are well organized and hierarchically organized.  So, in the portions of the brain that capture electrical impulses and change them to information, the collection and interpretation points automatically log the information into the storage areas of other related ideas.  When the impulse carries information that already has been set up in storage, the collection point for it interprets the semantic domains for the information and again sends it to the storage areas.  Some storage areas receive repeated information a lot and some not so much, depending on the semantics for each piece of related information.  It's how the brain determines importance and priority because it is an extremely efficient manager of information.  If information comes to the brain that doesn't have a storage area, it is temporarily stored in an area for one to make a conscious decision to keep it or not.  If no attention is paid to consciously categorizing it, it stays in the temporary area until it is bumped out as the area refills with more temporary information.

Efficient, swift, easy, continuous, and effortless.  That's the brain at its best.  And although the brain contains millions upon millions of storage areas for information, when a storage area is not tapped by the memory in a really long time, the information is also released to the temporary storage area for one to decide to re-store it or let it go.

Just knowing this much about the brain should change the way learning happens, and it should shape how learning should occur as the virtual world continues to grow and take on the function of educating people 16 and older.  Before age 16, two great pruning periods occur automatically around 10 months of age and again between 14 and 16years of age.  For infants and youth, then, a slightly different process happens.  Learning among these two groups should take into account the differences.

Those businesses who train employees and educational institutions, physical and virtual, should really use methods of learning compatible with how the brain naturally works.  The brain will do what it does best with or without compatible learning methods, but those who work with the brain will achieve learning in a much more efficient manner because that's what the brain does - work efficiently.  A method that doesn't work with the brain will find a lot of resistance among students.

Applauding what's implied

USA Today carried a story with the following headline:

New analysis of math, reading scores 'very disconcerting'

The article mentioned that over the last decade the scores in US population centers have declined, but that the new scores are rock bottom enough to be disastrous - lower than ever.  Educators are so worried that they wanted to give these miserable results their due misery, so they changed the way the percentages were reported.  In all of Detroit, the article said, only 120 African American students would be considered proficient.  They presented results in the same way for several major cities, the number of students in a city who would be proficient.  Another example is that only 40 Hispanic students would score proficient or better in all of Atlanta.

That should get people's attention all right.  Yes it should... but for a very different reason.

The scores are not lying, of course.  But, they are telling us that reading and math (the way it is taught, at least, with discrete skills) are not relevant any longer.  Of course, educators don't want to hear that.  Reading and math (the way it is taught) are definitely in peril.  Educators ignored the reasons for the decline, and scrambling to fix scores now is futile.   Reading and math (the way it is taught) scores are irretrievably in peril.  Why?  Reading is dying.   A decline has happened over the last ten years because there was a war with technology, and technology won.  Visual presentation has replaced it.  Math taught as a series discrete skills is dying.  Operations are not the end game any longer.  An environment for those skills has replaced them.  The new environments are algorithms, coding, and math syntax.

I'm sure there will be other articles of gloom and doom to follow this one.  They will decry the poor scores.  They will try to use the smoke and mirrors of how the poor and minority children are way behind.  They will continue reporting on tests that measure reading and discrete math skills.  But, if those in charge of education were to test the skills for the new world, the world people really wake up in every day, they might see an increase in scores for disciplines that actually count, disciplines that are the building blocks of the world now, and increasingly, the coming world.  Test basic computer programming.  Test video presentation of ideas.  Test the construction of meaningful algorithms.  See if those scores show proficiency.  Tout the increase of web page organization and use.  Applaud the widespread use of photo presentation that yield interpretation of real world events.

Reading and math skills are not going to improve.  But, who cares!  Let's be done with measuring skills from the 20th century.  Let's construct tests that measure what students are really learning, what they absolutely should learn to survive in a global economy.  I think people would be proud of the results, not "disconcerted" with them.

Speaking has a diminishing role, thankfully

I'm a little bit picky about the public speakers I want to hear.  I'm really not inclined to waste my time if the speaker doesn't follow certain criteria.  It's a little hard to take instruction from him or her if his or her speech is sprinkled with ain'ts and she don'ts, for instance.  And, if a disconnect happens between what is proposed and what is real, I'm out.  The two reference points are too different from each other.  If I hear too many You ought tos, then my mind checks out for sure.  The number one criterion for me is not to ask me to raise my hand for any reason.  Speakers think that is a point of engagement with the audience, a type of participation that keeps the audience listening to him or her.  I won't raise my hand for any reason in an audience.  The speaker either has my attention or (s)he doesn't.  Raising my hand doesn't show that I am engaging with the speaker.  I have been known to walk out if speakers do that too much.

If I am listening to a speaker, first and foremost, I am there to be informed in some way.  So, inform me.  If the information is something I need, then I'm all ears.  Another reason I might attend a public speaker is to listen to substance.  Wasting my time with fluffy stories that bear little relevance to the substance I am there for is inconsiderate.  Most of the time informing me using substance is enough for me to act in a certain way if I deem it necessary.  So, the practical part I respond to is if the speaker gives a variety of ways for the substance to happen in, not with inexperiential or poorly thought through methods of implementation.

In this day of video presentation, public speakers are few and far between for me.  Increasingly, I choose ones that present using media.  A droning voice can get old after about 20 minutes.  Needless to say, I don't go very often to see a speaker.

What's the effect?

Education is not preparation for life.  Education is life itself.
- John Dewey

            

I normally wouldn't put stock in a saying like this one because the people who say such things are generally not among those who are educated.  That to me means they are speaking about something they haven't experienced, so they don't know if their words are true or not.  But the quotation above is from one of the pioneers of modern education, a premier educational reformer.  He would know the truth of his words.

One of the stated missions for many school districts across the U.S. is to prepare students for life.  If Dewey is right, the school should have no such mission.  I had a great discussion with two people last night, one from Honduras, the other from Mexico, over this idea.  Both of them didn't have much formal education and thought that formal training would have changed things for them.  I could see their point of view since I have espoused the idea of preparation for life before.

But really, Dewey is right.  Society is set up to provide jobs that require "training" in order to enhance performance.  But part of "life itself" that Dewey speaks of is experiencing life as it happens, solving problems as they happen, overcoming difficulties as they happen.  The experience itself is what allows success or failure.  There's no grade given for one's performance.  Your experience worked for you or it didn't.

It is true that researching how to do something is part of any experience, but life happening to a person is not artificial like most people's education.  Life happening to a person isn't artificial.  It has tangible, real, long or short term effects. 

And how should one attempt to duplicate the experience of life happening.  In Dewey's day, one attempt was the Motessori approach to education.  Discovery learning it has been called.  Many approaches have come and gone since that time.  But, the mission of preparation for life has prevailed throughout all the attempts.

I hope that today's educators would see the truth of Dewey's statement.  We need education to give life experiences that have effects for those engage in it.  Education should not be simply periods of learning subject facts.  It should include a broader scope of experience that has tangible, real, long and short term results.

Imagine an 18-year-old who knows that life has effects and tries to take on life by competently, deliberately solving problems and overcoming difficulties.  It shouldn't be imagination!

Argument lost

Today I was at a university.  It didn't at all look like a university. The building that housed the university was a new building on a major highway in a major city, very modern looking.  The university took up only the 8th floor of the building.  All offices had full length windows to the outside and were divided from each other by glass walls.  There were areas where tables existed in front of large white screens/smartboards, but a person could easily see there were no classrooms, no brick and mortar buildings making up a campus, and no library, the heart and center of traditional universities.  The people that worked in the glass offices had almost nothing on their desks, certainly not paper.  Computers were on the desks, but there were no wires as eyesores snaking along the floor to a hole in the wall or across desktops or down the sides of the desks.  The monitors were sleek and curved convexly.  In the first days of computers, this environment would have been called sterile, but today the word is efficient.

Where were the students carrying all their books or sitting around tables in the midst of library stacks of books?  Where were the teachers speaking in front of their students?  Where was the student center, usually a hub of activity?

Of course, you know the answers to those questions.  It's 2016.  Next year is the end of a 10 year war between technology and books.  The war between reading, writing, and arithmetic and the world of coding, algorithms, and applications.  The university I was in today is a perfect example of who has won that war.

Right now, the university is a sign of a growing trend, but my three-year-old granddaughter will call it mainstream and traditional, not cutting-edge at all.  There are so many students preparing for the wrong world that it hurts to look around.  So sad when it could have been otherwise.

Choosing mediocrity

I have heard that students at school tend toward mediocrity in their academic subjects.  I have heard that students ostracize smart people or befriend them only to cheat from them.  I have heard that no one really wants to be one of the smart ones, so a student "dumbs himself down" in order to have a less than smart reputation.

I have not seen a correlation between academic competence and competence level later in life in one's job.  But, I have seen the same behavior from people not in a particular career field judging unquestionable competence by someone outstanding in another career field.  They get jealous; they find excuses why they can't be as outstanding in their own career field; they disparage the exhibited competence every chance they get; they attribute traits such as "arrogance" in order to villainize the outstanding person's achievements.

Don't believe me?  I'll show you an example.

That's what I thought.  Oh, he's a cheater you say.  Really?  Cheating his way to 7345 passing yards in playoff games?  Well, he's so arrogant you say?  Six categories that no one else in history has done before might just give a person a little confidence, a little swagger in his walk.  There have been other great quarterbacks and you can't compare apples to oranges you say.  Hmm.  Records have been kept for all the great quarterbacks.  So, "most in NFL history" is a standard that includes the great quarterbacks.

I have my favorite greats - Joe Montana, Roger Stabuach, Brett Favre, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Namath.  All of them have some qualities I like more than Brady's.   But those qualities don't confuse me with the facts.  There are many reasons that Brady is the most efficient, most renowned, most competent quarterback in NFL history.

In many ways the school world is merely a microcosm of the larger adult world.  Recognizing competence, expecting competence, challenging the people around you to have competence is not highly valued in the world around us.  It's no surprise at all that the smaller world of school would reflect what is seen in the adult world - mediocrity.  So, I have a hard time putting any credibility in the complaint that students are coming out with mediocre grades and performance even if it is true.  It's the trait they see in the larger world reflecting in their own.

We should be asking Brady how he does it, so that we can copy some of that competence.  If we did, we would hear him say, "Just do your job, improve, and be the best you can be."  That's what he has said on numerous occasions.  We all can do that.  It's just something we choose not to do, not to hear.

Again - and again

The way you recover affects the way you play.

That's the saying used on a recent Gatorade commercial.  It shows two pro football players in a hot tub drinking Gatorade soothing their aches and pains after a game.   At the end, the two players are silent and the narrator gives the saying.

It's true in football.  A person has to learn to mend the right way or the muscles, tendons, and organs keep giving way in game situations.  That's why proper protocols and regimens are followed.

It's true in everyday living, too.  A person has to learn so many lessons on their journey that a person has to develop strategies for setbacks.  Sometimes credit gets destroyed.  Sometimes marriages fail.  For some, dreams for education get tabled.  For others, disease strikes.  Many reasons exist such as job loss, death, family censorship, bad business relationships, bad friendships, bad economy, arrogance, sabotage, and many other life situations.  Therefore, the strategy for bouncing back becomes paramount.

No bounce-back, no quality of life.  Rising from
the ashes, great respect from yourself and others around you.

Megaquakes that drive, shake, and test

One thing is for sure.  I will die.  Everyone does.  However, the unexpected death of someone close is really difficult because I share time and space with that person.  And sharing time and space is the definition for me of being close.  When suddenly I have time to spare because that person is not with me, or when I am not sharing the same space to hear laughs and cries, to see smiles and piercing eyes, I more than miss that person.

Soon, a person uses replacement therapy in order to move on.  That helps for one to see that productivity is still the number one way to refocus the missing time and place.  It works, but the memories of the time and space shared with another continues in the quiet, tranquil, and reflective moments.

Three times in my life I have experienced missing time and space with someone of great importance to me... once when I was in college, another time when my son had just finished high school, and again when I changed a steady job for a consulting job.  Those three times registered the megaquakes in my life that defined who I was and am now.  The first loss drove me to define the parameters of religion in my life.  The second shook my world view until the replacement for it changed radically.  I had to learn that acceptance was much more valuable than control.  The third loss was not a physical death.  But, the definition was the same.  It tested my lesson of acceptance, and I have never been the same.

The three megaquakes in my life, the unexpected deaths, have taught me, ironically, how to live.  I am grateful to them for that.  So, when that one sure thing happens to me, I will be a great deal different from when I first started and hope my death will have that same irony for someone else.

Ignoring the obvious

I read the list today in USA Today of retailers that are going to have difficulty staying afloat during the coming years.  Surprisingly, Macy's was number one on the list.  They have plans to save money and try to make it, though.  They're laying off a great number of employees and closing stores to save almost half a billion dollars.  Four other retailers are in the same boat including Sears, Nordstrom's and Aeropostale.

Part of the problem these companies had was that they didn't count on this winter being a warm winter.  So, thousands and thousands of cold weather articles and implements are sitting in inventory and on shelves unsold.  But the news story also said part of the problem was that these retailers didn't keep up with current marketing trends.  All of the mentioned retailers had plans to make their online presence much more visible than it is now.

Can you imagine miscalculating online business?  This is 2016.  Black Friday has been followed by Cyber Monday for at least 5 years.  Well, that's what happens when a company is on coast and ignores a sizable portion of their client base moving in a different direction.  They get into trouble and have a chance of going completely under - depending on the client base's actions, which they have ignored to get into their condition in the first place.

Dinosaurs seem to be everywhere among us, those who live in the present without a thought for the immediate future.  Creatures who graze the land without looking to the sky.  Then they see a flash in the sky, feel the earth rumble under their feet, and die in their tracks from shockwave and fire from a descending, massive meteorite.  

I can live without any of the stores mentioned.  I never shop at them anyway.  I'm part of the client base that's moved on.  Boxes come to my door almost weekly from the stores online that I shop at.

You can't fix stupid

Incompetence seems to be so prevalent in my dealings with the marketplace.  

Scenario:

A single mother works at a job, shows up every day and pays her bills timely.  She has a customer who befriended her who makes so much money he will not spend it all in his lifetime.  They talk one day, and the single mom mentions that her 11-year-old car is in need of repairs (again) and she needs to buy a new car.  They talk a little more, and the rich customer told her he would make a call to a dealership that he's bought 7 cars from in the last 4 years.  He said he would tell them to put her in a car.

The mother was naturally excited.  She went to the dealership and talked to the salesman.  The salesman decided he wanted to talk finances before even showing her a car.  Then he asked her to find a co-signer because she had not built up any credit.  The mom has paid cash for everything to this point, so does not have credit built up.  So, the mom tells the salesman she cannot find a co-signer and the salesman loses the deal.

Now I'm thinking what an idiot this salesman is that he would be asked by someone who has bought 7 cars from his dealership and who can take his business anywhere in town and then not fulfill a simple request.  The salesman didn't think this one through very well.  He wants to screen the single mom's finances and then tell the rich customer he can't help her.  That's bad business for a number of reasons:  a dissatisfied frequent and rich customer foremost, insensitive treatment to the single mom, a high stakes gamble if he makes the rich guy mad, and a single mom whose situation will probably improve but who will never return to this particular dealership when it does.  What an idiot!

A car salesman has a number of avenues at his disposal to put someone in a car if he wants to.  His action just shows his haughty and condescending attitude toward others.  He needs to be trained in a hurry by the sales manager before his ineptness costs the dealership a bad reputation among the residents it is in business to serve.  What a complete and total idiot!

Even if the rich guy is not bothered too much by the actions of the salesman, all the observers of this situation will know not to deal with the dealership because of this incident.  I know of 8 people that this situation has affected already.  I don't know how many others, but there are more because people talk to their friends.

Is there a way to eliminate stupid people from a business?!

Everyone's story has a "bottom"

This morning as I was driving a song came on the radio.  Just with the opening chords of the piano, I recognized the singer, the title, the main line from the chorus, and a time period in my own life.  All of that just as the song began.  It seemed like I was there again frozen in a time period that had already come and gone in my life.

Mainly, it was the time period in my life that my mind recalled as I was driving.  The song was not particularly memorable.  In fact, if I ever think of songs from that era, this one never comes to mind.  But there I was driving down the road in a trance, stuck in 1986.  1986 was the lowest point in my life - still is.  Most everything I had expected, dreamed of, and worked for was totally shattered.  I was working part of 1986 in a job I had never done before and wasn't related to anything I liked or had trained for.  I wasn't living at the time with my wife and son.  The job after I quit the one just mentioned was in a field I had trained for, but was below even the entry level, a hack job.  I had gone not just 3 steps backward, but more like 20 steps backward.

Popular in 1986 was the song, That's Just the Way It Is, by Bruce Hornsby.  The opening line speaks of people lined up in a welfare line with someone driving by to mock those in the line by shouting to them, "Get a job!"  The chorus reverberated in my reasoning.  I identified.

That's just the way it is,
Some things'll never change,
That's just the way it is...

Yep, it was a very low time in my life.  I remember the distinct thought, if I ever get out of this situation, then I will appreciate everything from that point on.

At the same time, Bruce Hornsby made another song popular, Mandolin Rain. That song was about a sour relationship.  The lines of the chorus:

Listen to the banjo wind,
Sad song drifting low,
Listen to the tears as they roll,
Down my face as she turns to go,

actually brought tears to my eyes whenever I heard the song since I was living almost 6 hours from my wife and two-year-old son.  It made my nights very, very long because I was alone.

So, as I was driving, scenes of those two jobs floated in front of my eyes.  Mistakes I had made, moves I wanted to make (that also would have spiraled me further downward), particular people I had come into contact with, and just the sensation of perfect misery flooded my thinking.  I missed the laughter of my little boy and his journey of discovering life without me.

It's not 1986 now.  We're in the third decade removed from that time.  It's amazing how powerful a song can be to be able to put you in a certain time and circumstance far removed from the present.  But, it happened today.

Fortunately, the chorus of The Way It Is, ends with a more optimistic line and is repeated after the first two verses (even though the song ends on the pessimistic note of "That's just the way it is."  But there is encouragement in the song.  The ending line of the chorus reads, "Ah-h-h but don't you believe them."  That's what I had to believe, too, in my miserable condition long ago.  And I didn't.  Today the story is a far cry different from the days of 1986.  Occasionally, I

Listen to the Mandolin rain,
Listen to the music on the lake,
Listen to my heart beat...

But the words that come next are not "tears rolling down my face," but satisfaction with particular accomplishments in life that 20+ years later have given me something to at least smile about and rest in.  I have learned that the things that never change are not for me.  Don't believe them.  Listen to the Mandolin Rain, all right, but, see yourself engaging in

A cool evening dance,
Listen to the bluegrass band,
It takes the chill from the air,
As they play the last song...

Let the music on the lake soothe your soul.

The art of the deal... finally.

I remember the first car I bought when I was in my mid 20s, a Datsun B210.  I was nervous in the salesman's office making the deal.  All the terms were new to me, and I didn't really know where the leverage points were as we were dealing.  I was nervous about the financing too.  I didn't really know anything about credit and how it worked.  I had to leave the dealership for about 3 days in a row with no deal in order to check with others on whether I had missed anything about the deal.  I just didn't know.

After many years and a whole string of cars, I found myself again at a car dealer at the end of this year.  Through those years, I made some bad decisions and some really good ones.  Some cars I was proud of and drove for a long time, while others were just doomed cars - one that sat in front of my house that a 17-year-old hit the day after I brought it home from the lot.  (That was the same car for which the dealer failed to make the pay-off of my trade-in.  After I received notice of past due payment three weeks after the deal and made three calls to the general manager, they finally paid off the car.)  Each car brought more experience to me about all of the ways car salesmen and dealers make their money.

All of those years had made me much better with the art of the deal.  This time I wasn't nervous at all.  I knew all the leverage points (including time of year) and shady practices of the dealers and salesmen.  It was actually kind of a pleasure this time to sit down and see how the salesman was approaching the various points of the deal.  Sitting across the desk from the business manager didn't raise the stress levels either.  As he rapidly went through the numbers so that I wouldn't notice the leverage point numbers he had put in, it was kind of amusing.  We would talk about each of those numbers, and he would change them to some lesser negotiated number.

So, this time at the end of the deal, I didn't walk away wondering how I got screwed this time.  I left with a smile on my face from a really good deal for a really nice car.  And that's the best way to leave one year in the dust and drive right into the next one... in the driver's seat with a smile on my face.  Viva 2016!

Eloquence in tragedy

The Big Short is one of the best movies to show how human nature works.  It illustrates in four parallel planes how corrupt people really are at the top of an organization, how oblivious and unaware most people are to something that doesn't affect their moment-to-moment living, how nauseating/sobering enlightenment is of the human condition, and how short people's memories are when something very intense leaves the radar screen.

Many books and movies have this theme.  But this movie is about a very recent and real time period only a short 8 years ago.  But, times are better and different now.  People have already forgotten how sharp the pain was and how much "bleeding" happened during that time.  It's truly amazing and incredible the depths to which human nature can sink and the extreme shortsightedness that occurs after an event is over.

It's not a pleasant theme.  But, it's a good reminder of the parallel planes of existence we all live in.  And one great, great lesson is that terrible times are opportunities for people with the right vision.  And there is a second great, great lesson in that for every gain some people have, many others experience tragedy - yin and yang.  It is sure worth the money to see this wonderfully structured, eloquently depicted film of human nature.

Arbitrary restrictions

Every once in a while I see the famous photograph of the Earth called "The Blue Marble."  It's a photo of Earth taken from the moon.  It certainly is a beautiful shot, and it calls to mind how suspended we are in space.  It shows how real it is that the Earth is not attached to anything as it makes its way around the sun.

Also from time to time I see the Earth from the surface of Mars from the Curiosity rover.  It's not as close, of course, as the shot of the Earth from the moon, but it puts in perspective that Earth is only one of the planets making it journey around the sun.  One becomes aware of the rotation of the Earth as it travels on its path of revolution.

This year everyone got to see some close-up photos of Pluto for the first time in human history.  That certainly lets everyone see that many planets exist other than the one we all live on.  It has its own path around the sun, and one that is different from the other 8 planets in front of it.  That photo recalls a few facts about the planet, in particular, that one day on Pluto is 6.39 days on Earth.  And, one year on Pluto is 247.92 years on Earth.

That illustrates how arbitrary time is once a person is able to break out of thinking like one who can only see things from an Earthly point of view.  That tells me that holidays that come once a year are so very man-made.  Even the weekly rituals, like those of a religious nature who like to strap their thinking to 3 prayers at certain times of the day or the first day of the week (or sabbath day), seem so regimented on Earth, but so unnecessary from any other perspective.  Once humans begin to travel in space, we will find how utterly arbitrary are the rituals and customs of the days of our lives.

Although I like the holidays observed in the U.S., both religious and secular, I do understand that one rotation of the Earth is like all the other rotations of the Earth.  One rotation is not any more special than another.  One revolution of the Earth is merely that and doesn't match the revolution of any other planet, so marking a new year with a lot of pomp and circumstance is a little unnecessary.  It's just that we want to do it.  The same day has happened with and without humans, with and without celebration.

Thinking in an off-Earth  manner helps to keep my thinking open and not bound by clutter that would otherwise make life so very restrictive.  I just can't handle limited living any longer and refuse to be bound by thinking that arbitrarily binds one to customs and traditions as if that thinking was the only game in town.

Hardly pedictable

I hear a siren moving down the road in the distance at this moment.  At the same time the television is on to storm coverage in the area.  A newsman is interviewing a woman whose house had been hit by a tornado.  Across the street from her is a house that was completely gutted by a tornado.  5 people are reported dead in one suburb and two in another.  11 tornadoes have been reported.  In the town where the first tornado hit, two church buildings have been leveled and their membership had gathered on the property already cleaning up.  One of the towns had a tornado touchdown on its interstate highway and threw 10 cars off an overpass as it passed through the area.  Rain is pounding my house as I write and it's about the 7th or 8th wave of such heavy rain, lightning, and thunder.

It has been  a rather historical day.  Not just the fact of a tornado on this date in history.  There have been two others.  One in 1984 killing one person, and one in 1957 killing none but damaging a big area of the western part of the city.  But never 11 tornadoes and never more than one person killed on this date as a result.  Christmas was a historical day for warm temperature also. 

The year is almost over.  It has been a record setting year for weather from the day January started until the close of the year.  Rain records were set.  Number of days without rain was set.  Drought started the year.  A spring of flooding ended the drought.  The heat of the summer produced a string of days without rain bringing back the drought that records rains had corrected.  Now it's wet again.

Not only the world of weather can be have cycles of craziness, but humans also can have the same crazy cycles.  Just when one problem gets fixed another problem begins.  When that situation has passed, then the old problem resurfaces.

As I finish the blog tonight, rain has completely stopped but only for the moment.  More can be seen coming on the radar.  The wettest year on record just got a little wetter.  The tornadoes ended the year in spectacularly destructive fashion.  In life terms, one of the craziest years is also coming to a close.  I have had 3 major plan changes during the year.  Other issues have been roller coaster rides as well.

Whatever.  Life goes on despite the calamity-related weather and despite calamity-related life-situations.  Who wants to live a predictable, placid life anyway.  I am glad to bring it to an end though.  Each year is different.  I am entirely grateful for that.

Ageless and aged

The band The Who is one of those ageless bands.  They stayed together for who knows what reason, creating music for a couple of decades.  Then, they toured the next two decades playing all of their songs.  I have really liked their music over the years, even attending a live concert myself in one of their first two-decade glory years.  And, I have always liked their signature song "Won't Get Fooled Again."  It represents both in lyric and instrumentation the spirit of freedom, reckless abandon, determination, and lack of gullability.  I have two anthems from the first two decades of my own life: "Stairway to Heaven" and "Won't Get Fooled Again."  This first video merely represents my memory of such a great song.  It's taken from a 1971 performance in England and shows the short, energetic, enthusiastic version of a young band enjoying their fame.

Earlier this year, The Who decided to perform a 50 years together tour around Europe and the U.S.  They capped off their performances in England in Glastonbury on June 28th.  Above is their same signature song 44 years later than the first video in this blog.  All I can say is "What a difference!"

The band is old now.  But, their mastery of music, particularly their own music is mere pleasure to watch and hear.  The signature song above illustrates the difference.  The song itself is 3 times the length of the original song that they played in 1971.  The two leaders of the band know each other's moves intricately.  They enjoy each other and they enjoy performing on stage.  That is not so apparent in 1971.  They have learned to manipulate their music as well.  It's not just a song they're playing.  It's something alive that their paying customers want to enjoy.  So, the band energizes the song with miniature modern minuets and interludes at various places in the song.  They allow the audience to participate in the song.  The band knows that the event spotlights them, but is not really about them.  It's about customers and band alike becoming one with the music produced.

The Who didn't just show this understanding of music and audience in Glastonbury.  Their entire 50 year anniversary tour including Houston, Nashville, Miami, New York, London, Paris, and Amsterdam shows this great band playing their hearts out for sheer love of music with and for their fans.  The 100,000 people that gathered at Hyde Park in London depicts them living in the moment with smiles on their faces.  The above video clip in Hyde Park is of their signature song once again in the heart of the country they lived in all their lives.

I can't help but notice that the principle is true in more than music.  That is, if a person practices and performs (s)he learns to enjoy the thing of his or her passion.  (S)He learns to manipulate it, wringing out every drop of joy it brings.  It's a pleasure to witness and participate with the person.  I have found that whatever I am passionate about, immersed in, and otherwise busy about improving, gets better and better with age, with practice, and with performance.  It happens without fail... every time... for everyone.  It's a true work of beauty and splendor for all who indulge.

Snapshot collections

An article appeared in USA Today talking about the last 4 generations.  It started with saying that the Baby Boomer generation wasn't at all pleased with or proud of their children's generation.  The children's generation didn't have very good morals, thought they were entitled to a better life, and didn't have a good work ethic.

Funny how things work.  Tom Brokaw wrote a book back before the turn of the millennium talking about what the Great Generation thought of their children.  The Great generation was the generation that survived the Great Depression and World War II.  They thought their hippie children didn't have good morals, had life too easy, were being brainwashed by television, and would have a hard time becoming responsible in a harsh world.

That's really funny.  Woodrow Wilson was supposed to be the model person of his generation and often was reported as being their spokesperson.  He is quoted as saying that his generation who fought the war to end all wars (WWI) and gave women the right to vote looked upon their children as losing touch with what counts in life, that they were letting inventions like the car make them soft people instead of harder people who still rode horses.

It's ironic how that generational perspective works.  Plato said the same thing about the youth of his generation and is quoted as saying Socrates didn't have a high opinion of them either.  Even farther back in history by 5 centuries, Hesiod, a Greek poet, speaks of the slothfulness of youth.

Maturity is very often left out of the picture by those who would judge young adults.  Of course, adolescents are erratic and irresponsible at the beginning of the maturity process.  Development is ragged around the edges.  The phase after adolescence is characterized by myopic self-centeredness.  People in their 30s are typified by their ambitions in becoming whatever floats their boats.  And so the story goes.

Maturity simply takes experience, which is indelibly related to the passage of time.  That process yields snapshot perspectives on life.  Maturity is a snapshot.  These snapshots assembled make for great stories.  Everyone has a great story - the story of their maturity.  It's a shame that people can't connect dots in early snapshots to know what they will yield in later years, but then, that is the human condition.

One shot in life

(In the library of the third most expensive school in the 4^th largest metropolitan area in the U.S.)

“Do you like math?” I asked.
“Yes,” came the answer.  “So Chemistry is no problem for me.”
“OK. Let’s work on finding the net charge of an atom in a particular element.  Can you  show me how to do that?”
“No.  I don’t know what to do with the numbers.  I don’t know how to work the negative numbers.”
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(Same library, different day)

“Do you speak other languages?” she asked me.

“Yes. Do you?” I answered.
“I’m in my third year of Spanish,” she said.
“¿Bueno, como estás hoy?” I asked.
“Could you repeat that? I didn’t understand what you said.”
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These students’ grades were better than average, but their abilities were not well developed for the level of math/chemistry and language they were in.  It bears out that testing and grade-giving are masks to ability.  What should be taught in classes across this country is practice in real world abilities.  What is taught is a lot of theory, rules, artificial, and simplistic situations.  A student’s world is artificial enough.  The real world has to become incorporated at some point.  Otherwise, if I ask a third year student in another language what her family is doing for Christmas, I won’t get an answer.  Or if I ask why Toyota's new hydrogen-powered engine is an improvement over electric and gasoline engines, I won’t get the most general of answers or "I don't know."

There’s one shot at life.  Experts in the field of education need to sound off in journals, in leadership for reforming the direction, in voicing an objection to political interference in curriculum, and in laying out a plan to directing a new flow to learning.  The new federal law, Every Student Succeeds Act is a good place to start because it ends the federal cookie cutter model of creating average students and lowering the level of the average.  If experts refuse to speak out, keeping the artificial world of the classroom cripples students until they figure it out on their own.  By that time, how many years have been wasted in an artificial world that can’t connect to a real world?  Some figure it out early and refuse to be crippled.  Others lose about 10 years before they figure it out.  Still others find it out too late to do anything about it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if students had a training so that they wouldn’t have to figure it out.  They just have to get better at seeing what the real world brings to the table and working with it to make it become a worn shoe that fits their feet very comfortably.  Then they can manipulate to their heart's content and be able to see new horizons, new angles with greater ease (and frequency, probably).

Just saying… just hoping… just shaking my head in the meantime... just applauding each reform that draws upon productive learning... just noticing those who lead young minds from darkness to light.

What?

What does that mean - to see a fully formed rose in the middle of December?  Better yet, what does it mean to have this rose on a knock-off bush on which no fully formed roses ever bloom?  Still one better, why did the rose form in the center of the bush and last for a week in beautiful form, then begin to wither?  Two weeks later it is still fully formed on the branch although in a slightly lesss vibrant state.  The 4 or 5 roses on the bush that bloomed with this fully formed one had a couple or three petals, lasted for 3 or 4 days, then vanished in the wind.

I'm sure there is a scientific explanation for it.  The climate is affected by the strongest El Nino on record this year.  That translates to warmer temperatures and wetter than average weather.  The leaves on my porch potted flowers are still on their stems even though there have been two freezes already.  The warmer, wetter weather allows for plants to bloom later, last longer, or have an extra blooming period.

Right.  But, of the three rose bushes in my yard, only one produced a fully formed rose in mid-December.  Only one.  I'm hoping it will be representative of what roses symbolize.  Something special is due to happen soon.  I couldn't tell from what quarter something special would come because I see nothing on the horizon that would blossom into anything big and exciting and special.  If it happens it would definitely be as surprising as the rose in mid-December.

Today, the skies are perfectly blue, not a cloud in them.  It's warmer by 10 degrees than it was last year at this time, which was above average even then.  If something extraordinary does happen, I will look to this week of the rose, this day of crystal clear skies and warm temps, and be thankful for the symbol that allowed me the hope of better things to come.