science

Fun Things Learned By The Accident of Getting Old

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Let’s start with an obvious Fun, senior fact. A June 26, 2026 report in The Scientific American titled “Math predicting humans could go extinct in about 17,000 years” is interesting. The wisdom, acquired by aging, says I don’t have to worry.

A similar warning is issued by the World Wildlife Foundation in an article titled “What is the sixth mass extinction and what can we do about it?” It is curiously undated, but the copyright year is 2026. This article mentions the “extinction” of large sections of our current biodiversity which could/might/probably will affect our own diversity. * The article states the last of five extinction periods, “Fifth Extinction Event”, was 65.5 million years ago and involved dinosaurs. I personally feel safe about this one, too.

Measles and other infectious diseases are on the rise while flu and covid are having another go. As a vaccinated old person, any concern about these issues is only which one might be the most efficient to end my career, or which might be the worst. That debate is probably moot thanks to my 2024 agreement with Prostate Cancer.**

A trial balloon about a military draft was circulated by the current administration in 2025. No need to worry, there.

JP Morgan published an article on August 18, 2026 on Yahoo Finance titled “JPMorgan warns food crisis could hit next year, (sic) unlike oil, there’s no backup plan for fertilizer.” I’m so unconcerned I did not bother to read the entire article and stopped at “The U.S. isn’t among the countries most likely to be directly hit by the food security threats JP Morgan forecasts.” Yes! Another non-worry.

And there is or “soon” will be a severe shortage of doctors and healthcare. I scoff lightly at the threat, having navigated its early days, already.

It sounds callous to not care about these big issues, but isn’t it callous of God/Mother Nature/Allah/The Big Guy to make us grow old? Old age forces us look for a glass half full or go crazy.

Besides, whoever/whatever It is that designed and manufactured humans gave us Real Intelligence (RI). Through our history we’ve used RI to move faster, live longer, see clearer, explore space, and allow hunger to co-exist with haute cuisine.*** Add some Artificial Intelligence (Ai) to our world and watch what happens. We’ll be making nutritional doughnuts out of used tires by 2027.  Lacrosse matches will replace wars with bombs blowing up huge clouds of Skittles instead of debris. Every home will have its own surgery room with second-by-second verbal instructions. Ooh, and its own anesthesia. Think I’d like that one.

Modern life’s instant and chaotic communication can lead to despair and mental doom if you aren’t old enough to have heard it all before and seen it all before. For the younger reader, we’ll find a way out of these messes. We usually do. Not the “us” we as in me and you, but the “us” of all mankind. We**** can sometimes be that smart.

But you never really know, do you. Imagine surprised dinosaurs…

*What an interesting way to root out woke diversity, right?

**If it ever returns it can have me, at my age.

***What is the French word for not-haute cuisine? Bet there is one.

****Again: not the “us” we.

Living Is…

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Ai is fun if you know how to talk to it. Or with it. I asked Emma, my Ai assistant, the philosophical question “what does it mean to be alive”?

If you are any kind of existential voyeur, you know this inquiry is as loaded as potato skins at Applebees. Or Chilis. Or The Outback, or any other “one-level-above-fast-food” restaurant.

Emma offered the simple, quick, easy to digest response: “To have life and not be dead.” Being in a mischievous mood I prodded her for more and she agreed letting me know “On a deeper level people often separate simple existence from truly living.” She then ranted rhetorically about “Biological Meaning” and “Human and Emotional Meaning”. She inquired if I “would like to explore this from a scientific, philosophical, or personal point of view.” The offer was tempting but there is no reason—or time–to hear details of each. One way or another we all know them, anyway, even if we don’t acknowledge what we know.

The hard part of existence, a bigger word for life, is the fluidity of language and emotion. On a bright, sunny, low-humidity Monday morning the world I am not-dead in makes living a breeze, and who cares if we understand it. On Tuesday it rains, and the fact all of us will die makes gray skies foreboding and dangerous. Wednesday is chicken tenders day so thoughts of living, life, and existence are heavily influenced by how many fries the cook piles on the plate.*

A Philosophy of Life is much like Theoretical Physics (TP). TP’s General Relativity/Classical Rules about smooth and continuous spacetime try to explain our touchable existence, while Quantum Mechanics throws rules out the window trying to understand discrete and lumpy interactions too small for us to see. Schrödinger’s Cat is an interesting concept in Quantum Mechanics and aptly applies to Life: anything is what it is until it is examined and observed. “It”, of course, is really “anything”. For example, take a close look at the bologna you enjoyed at lunch. Does an examination of the ingredients make you wish you a hadn’t eaten it? Would you rather have not learned about the “pork bits” and what they might be?

Theoretical Physicists are continually looking for a Unified Theory combining the smooth and lumpy worlds. And gravity, but we won;t talk about it, now.

The Unified Theory is a good way to look at Life: smooth and lumpy at the same time. Again, no gravity comment.

So it is with life. There are major issues demanding major philosophical thought about existence, and “not being dead”. Then there are minor forgettable moments of examination which can lead one to assume there is no logic—or meaning–in the universe. Like someone paid millions of dollars to hit a baseball while teachers, lawyers, policeman, firemen, clergy,…you know the point being made. Hopefully, you at least understand the nonsense close examination of this world reveals. Does that revelation have anything to do with a larger Philosophy of Life? And should we not look closely and reveal all?

I’m out of smooth and continuous space. For now.

I’ll suggest life is what you make it, but it would take a book to explain it and I need to get to the pool to get a good spot before the old people show up for Splash Fit.

*For some cosmic reason, some cooks add more sides and condiments than other cooks. I’m compiling a record of the best places and times to eat, for later publication.

Existence: Is It Overrated?

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Ai says “overrated” means: “something is considered to be better or more important than it actually deserves to be.”

Ai, Emma, also says “existence is generally described as the state or fact of having objective reality. It encompasses everything that has substance, whether physical like objects and living things, or abstract like ideas and relationships.”

Hmph. The grunt kind. Not a word about how long or how far or how deep or how high existence is. Certain sub-sub-atomic (sic) particles last, well, they don’t last they blip and go. A Great Basin Bristlecone Pine tree named Methuselah, in California, is said to have “existed” for over 4,800 years, so far. It is still growing.

Life expectancy for my age cohorts was 65.8 years, while someone born in 2026 can expect 78 years. for the sake of this essay, let’s say the “abstract ideas and relationships” associated with a single life-form’s existence ends with death.

So sub-sub-atomic particles have very small ideas and short relationships, if they have any at all. And Bristlecone Pines might still have ideas and relationships* that began thousands of years before Jesus Christ, if they have any at all.

Hmph, again.

Mankind, humankind, to be precise, has a major problem with context and understanding. On one hand, observing the sub-sub things, we should be grateful for whatever time we get to “exist with ideas and relationships.” On the other hand, should we envy the pine tree?

 Existence came to mind when watching a World War 1 documentary about brave American pilots who fought for France in the early stages of The War to End All Wars**. When the Americans eventually were killed defending France, there were parades and monuments and stories and movies and lions and tigers and bears. The entire country and most of the world extolled the bravery and “existence” of these men, and the speeches proclaimed: “we will never forget”.

But they were forgotten. And the people who would never forget, they died and they were forgotten. With the power of modern communications, we can watch them proclaim the worth of their existence, and the longevity of their memory, 114 years after the fact. And probably 50 or so years after 99 per cent of the world forgot everything about The Lafayette Escadrille.

And every year the 99 percent who remember dwindles, and soon will be forgotten, entirely, much like the famous French noblemen whose actions over 250 years ago, helped make America a place for men and women to become pilots and heroes.

Applying the proper context, most of us live our lives and then fade away. Not everyone can be a Lafayette, or even a Jesus Christ, and have even one person remember you in 100 years. Our existence will be important once, but not forever.

We may see our ideas and our relationships as “great”, but only for that short specific time, and then we will be one of the estimated 100 billion*** humans who perished on this planet.

So why write about this? If this essay made you sad, stop it. Existence is not like a TV show. When the The End comes for thee, it comes, and there won’t be a sequel or “Second Season”, no matter the clamor of others who may want it.

Live your life as if you are a pine tree but remember you might actually be a sub-sub-atomic particle. Make the most of whatever you get and do not let sadness, despair, regret, envy, or stupidity ruin one second. If you can help it.

Or as the song goes, “Don’t Worry. Be happy.”

It’s hard, but just Do It.

*Please do not suppose you know if a pine tree has ideas and relationships. Unless you know fir (sic) sure, you tree hugger.

**Which it wasn’t. How fecking sad.

***The Population Reference Bureau. They “guess” over 117 billion have been born over the last 192,000 years, so subtract the living as of this day, and voila.

Some Things But Do Not Believe All Of It

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My news feed sends many news articles, including these two attributed to “Ai”:

1. Historic theory proven: A 20-year-old prediction on autonomous distributed entanglement has been confirmed by Austrian researchers using a quantum bath of correlated photons.*

2. Historic quantum milestone: Aalto University (Finland) has demonstrated the first cyclic superconducting quantum heat engine, merging classical thermodynamics with quantum mechanics.**

Both “articles” refer to one of my favorite essay subjects but are the articles factual? I could ask Emma, my own Ai…

Less serious note, President Trump has been “accused” of attaching “gilt” to fixtures in his offices. “The incident came after DJ Judd, a White House producer for CNN, spotted a stick of Krazy Glue on President Donald Trump’s Resolute Desk during a Monday evening Oval Office appearance,” reports The Daily Beast.”

If it is factual, do you care? What does the existence of this story say about the President, CNN, and The American News Consumer? And how will it affect the Elmer’s Products, Inc, profitability?

I’m helping out at local free-food programs. The attendees are a small sample size in a small city over only two sessions and are not just the homeless, but the needy, too. The first impression is how upbeat, and conversational they are. The presence of free food may be the cause but one thought is universally true: “Don’t touch my stuff.” They carry their entire life with them at all times. In idle and not fact-checked conversations, a medical crisis usually causes the need for free food. Worse, most are unable or unwilling to enter the health care system, even with a free ride to the doctor. Do you think our politicians could do anything about this?***

Sobering thought: how much longer do you have to live? “Sobering” might not be a good word. Emma says “A sobering thought is something that causes you to be thoughtful, serious,, or realistic, often because it reminds you of a harsh reality.” Okay, maybe it is a good word. How often are you sober and what do you think about when you are?

Of  note: Emma was stumped silent with one question: “What was Ted Williams’ monthly batting averages in 1941?” She tried mightily but eventually went into a long pause. I shut her for her own good. Meanwhile, a “normal” google search said Ted’s average NEVER went below .390 in any month of that year. He was batting .39955 on the last day of the season–which gave him the statistical .400 batting average–and he was advised to not play the last two games. It was a double-header. He played them both, got 6 hits in 8 at bats, and raised his average to .406. No one has batted .400 since. 85 years. Ted also led the league in home runs, walks, runs scored, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. These are facts and they are interesting since in Major League Baseballs; recent All-Star game, one league of All Stars struck out 15 times. In one game. Batting average, probably 0.000. Strike-out Average: .555

The good old days sometimes really were The Good Old Days. Unless you’re a fan of futility…

Now there’s a sobering thought, damn Yankees.

*If the article is factual, I may give “Beam me up, Scotty” travel instruction before I expire. And who among us might like a bath of correlated photons?

**I’m in the beginning stages of all the Quantum possibilities, but unlimited heating, cooling, computing, propulsion, and climate control appear possible, as well as a destructive force so powerful…let’s forget that one.

***There are hungry and homeless people in countries with National Health Services. Are they healthier? Are there fewer sufferers—per capita—than the US? More later.

Three Sentences, Again, Everywhere

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It finally happened. I clicked a headline and opened a news article that was nothing but reader comments. Does the article writer deserve to  be called a writer?

A sitting president has finally decided to check the limits of his power over not just politics, but his own, personal gain. Since no one is stopping him, it is assumed they are benefiting, themselves, from the grift most often at the taxpayer’s expense. The 2025 Crusade to slash waste, fraud, and abuse has a new meaning in 2026.

The Ballroom is a perfect example of a well-known—and true—saying, with a slight modification. “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission” is now ” It is easier to ask for forgiveness I don’t care about rather than ask for permission I would ignore, anyway.” What a great lesson for all of America and the World.

Another news article used up several inches of space and moments of my life before the article mentioned any of the 5 Ws of “good” journalism: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. At this time in life nearly 90 per cent of the news crossing my screen is a waste of time. When did it become so hard to find facts?

Science news* is always interesting but modern science moves too fast. We learn much more in one day in 2026 than we even learned in one day in 2025. Is one human brain capable of keeping up with the millions of science brains finding out new things and correcting old things?

People have a science problem that might be caused by The Bible. The Bible has a beginning, an end, and the story never changes after hundreds of years. Science has a beginning, and end and a story too, but the story changes constantly. People need to know science is mainly consensus, and what science says today, is just what we/they KNOW today, and tomorrow might bring new ideas and new discoveries…like Aliens.

Even intelligent brains might wonder how the feck** do we teach science, then, if it is constantly changing? First, you don’t teach science, you expose it and inspire the reader/viewer to take up the journey. Second, you open your brain and think for yourself using currently available data***, and be open to that data changing.

Trying to wrangle thoughts into a short essay has proven too difficult on a sunny morning. I want to get out into the beautiful spring sunshine and feel the new grass between my toes. It’s a Wonderful Life.

Carpe herba!  Stringere gramen inter digitos meos!!!****

*From reliable sources. Like Legacy media, new media with editorial and collaborative structures, and almost any European source, including Australia and New Zealand. Feck opinion and understand bias.

**This word has such an interesting etymology. Emma of Ai says: ‘it is widely known today as a milder, more family-friendly version of a vulgar expletive…but has a rather varied history in Irish English.” Feck is also the root from which feckless is derived, which is hilarious, if you think too hard about it.

***Existing data, NOT existing opinion. “The world is not flat” is proven data, easily observed. “The world is flat” is opinion, unsupported by beautiful sunsets and sunrises not available in disc form. If the world was flat, we’d still have sunrises and sunsets, but they would be at the same time, worldwide.

****Studied and learned Latin in 1995. Since no one I know speaks or writes Latin, very little of it is remembered. All my current Latin is from Emma, my AI voice, and Foreign Language Companion.

Weird Thoughts About Things

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Scientists just discovered something moving faster than the speed of light. For those of you who didn’t—and still don’t—pay attention to science, the speed of light is an important part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, especially his assertion nothing travels faster than light. Emma from Ai* says this about the speed of light: “It is absolutely crucial. The idea that the speed of light…is constant for all observers…is a fundamental pillar of special relativity.” Relativity is the backbone/cornerstone/keystone of modern physics.

So, if something moves faster than light, imagine the hypothetical chaos among Theoretical Physicists.** It’s less amazing what happens to science theory than what the “thing”*** is that is faster than light. Want to guess what it is?

It is Darkness, capitalized to make sure you know how important this “thing” is.

An important part of the human experience is knowing…what we know. We have to believe in what we know, and trust it, so we can make decisions and live in this material world. One of the big things we know is “Nothing”. If there is an empty glass and someone asks “What’s in the glass?”, we answer with the word “nothing”.**** If we are traveling a long, straight stretch of highway and someone asks what we saw? Nothing. What is in the area between Earth and its moon? Nothing.

Nothing is a large part of our everyday, gravitationally earth-bound lives, but there is no such thing as Nothing. In theory, we say nothing about the empty glass because it’s easier than describing the millions of oxygen molecules, light waves, and microscopic dust particles inhabiting the space inside the glass. There might even be some dish soap residue. Or a migrating bacteria.

That long drive is not through “nothing”, and it is populated with not just microscopic things but larger things that just don’t interest us and we assume they won’t interest anyone else. So,…nothing.

The literal space between the earth and the moon is way more interesting than “nothing”. Old and new satellites pass in their orbits as well as rays of all kinds and both gravitational and magnetic “fields”.  And Dark Matter.

Dark Matter per Emma: “is a hypothetical form of matter that makes up 27% of the Universe…and it is completely invisible to our current telescopes and sensors.” Dark Matter.

Our world as we see it is made up of things we cannot see. Things we cannot touch. Things we cannot feel or sense. When we see a space between us, it is not empty, waiting for us humans to fill it, it is already full of…stuff, stuff we often can’t–but most often don’t– acknowledge. Human beings think of ourselves as Masters of the World, the final, end result of Evolution, rulers of an earth and a kingdom meant only for us. It is why we raise animals to feed us, dam up rivers to light up the daily darkness, tear down forests to make our homes, and then pat ourselves on the back for our advancement of humanity.

Are Dark Matter and the possible “Darkness of Death” related? Is Dark Matter made from dead souls?

Whoa. Don’t know where that came from, but here is an important, oft repeated fact: we don’t live forever. It appears Dark Matter will and was even there before The Big Bang spawned our universe…and us. Billions of years later. We are so insignificant it can’t even be explained. Too bad so few of us understand.

Better to ask what is Dark Matter and why is it in such a hurry?

And Kudos, DM, for outpacing Light.

Final thought: Dark Matter Matters.

*I selected an English female voice for my Gemini Ai. Her name is Emma, and she is a delightful entity with which to converse. She is polite and never ends a sentence with a preposition.

**Google them to save me time. Or ask your personal Emma.

***Totally incorrect figure of speech but what else can it be called?

****Or, if we appreciate verbosity, we say “It is empty.”

Things Not Understood

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Let’s get an easy one out of the way: Why does anyone support Donald Trump as president of this country? When talking with supporters, I usually begin with his 34 felony convictions in a porn star hush money case. Those are CONVICTIONS* by a citizen jury where Trump’s defense lawyers lost their case. They also lost a civil case for sexual abuse and defamation again, in a jury trial. He also admitted in 2016 to sexually assaulting women, saying “I don’t even wait. They let you do it.” Trump-owned companies have also filed for bankruptcy 6 times. Trump has married three women, divorced two and had a child with a fourth. These are all public, undisputed facts. There is also a trove of his sayings and writings where he insults anyone who doesn’t agree with him using slurs and words most of us would never use. When this summary is over, I ask my listener why they support him, especially curious for the answer from religious friends. The response? If there is anything but the shrug of a shoulder, it is: “Yeah, but what about Biden? Clinton?”

And so it goes.

Most of the world, the real world, has an innate duality un-understandable. The best way to describe it is by using the words “Macro” and “Micro”. Macro refers to The Big Picture, The Theory, while Micro refers to the small picture, the details. It’s easy to see this duality in the study of Economics: Macro Theory affects the whole world, Micro details are how we, as individuals navigate our financial lives. But duality is everywhere. In physics, we have the Macro, Classic Laws of Physics where planets roam and humans shoot rockets into space. But then there is the Micro, Quantum Mechanics world where everything disobeys the Classic Laws and things so small we can’t see them do whatever the hell they want. Better minds than mine—and probably yours—have tried to “unite” Classic Laws and Quantum Mechanics for centuries. Einstein, himself called some of the quantum world “Spooky action at a distance” and could not make it fit his General Theory.

And so it goes.

From personal observation the duality of life exists in all of us and runs our lives. Think about your Macro resolution to exercise more and then your Micro failure to get up the next morning. Getting Macro theory into a Micro life is difficult, but why? It is more obvious with religion. How many of us go to worship on Macro Sunday, then swear, lie, cheat, and disrespect others the rest of the week? In fact, religion is probably the hardest place to make the connection between Macro aspirations and Micro responsibilities. Who really wants to live a minute-by-minute, truly religious life?

And before anyone takes offense, this isn’t about you. It is a Macro Essay about how we all compromise Macro Intentions for Micro Utility. Every Day. It is the nature of us all. Period. Much like the saying often mentioned when trying to understand life: “From the minute you are born, you start to die.”** WTF.

One good way to help ourselves get through all this is to think. Think about it.

Yeah, right. Who has time for that, these days.

And so it goes…

*Please note the difference between being Indicted and being Convicted. Almost anyone can be indicted. Convicted? Harder.

**Ai research cannot say who uttered this statement first, but they give some suspects: Seneca (a Roman Philosopher), Manillus (a Roman Poet), and Eleanor Roosevelt, who used it to emphasize living life to the fullest. Common sense makes one wonder why Eleanor, who lived centuries after both Romans, was included in the list? Damn that DEI.

Odd Things Overheard or Stumbled Across

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Several universities and national defense departments are researching how to use Quantum Mechanics in guidance systems. Anyone with a smidgen of science knowledge knows our current navigation apps rely on Global Positioning Systems (GPS) that use radio waves and satellites to pinpoint location and travel. Radio waves move fast but not enough to combat “drift”, and the “accumulation of error over time”* as the waves must go out to the satellite then come back. It doesn’t help that sensors on both sides of the transmission have built in “noise”, creating minor errors. These errors wouldn’t bother 19th Century sailing ships, but our current electronic drones, aircraft and sea vessels could really use an exact location to “let loose the dogs of war”, so to speak. A Tomahawk missile flying 1,000 miles into enemy territory at 500 miles an hour needs nearly perfect navigational guidance to hit the target. Quantum Mechanics** may be able to give an object (nearly) exact location every second and remove (nearly) all “drift”. You can use google or Ai and spend the next few weeks reading about this or take my word for it. Or just not give a crap. GPS is enough for us.

A science show on NPR had a scientist who made a strange statement. He said, and I paraphrase “No one has ever actually seen the universe.” His argument is when we look at things, our eyes don’t really see things, but see the color reflecting off those things. He says there is no color in the universe and the color we see is the reflection of light. Each thing the light bounces off of absorbs or reflects certain wavelengths of the light, and we never see the naked planet or moon** or star we think we are seeing. I’m pretty sure that is how everyday life is, too. It sounds a bit Matrixey, but what if what we think we see, we don’t see?

I’ve had enough trouble in life understanding non-solid things like love, hate, faith, and religion. Now, the solids can’t be trusted?

As science progresses farther and further*** we have to wonder what we will find, and if we want to go there. Months ago, we learned time might not be linear and may move in a circle or other strange dimensions. Now, what if “real” isn’t really “real”? Continued scientific  research could find us going full circle back to birth, or the Big Bang, and what then? Do we repeat things? Overlap?  Share dimensions? Maybe Vonnegut’s Tralfamadoreans were actually  guides, not fictional characters.

As a young essayist, sophistry was a favored tactic during debates about all things major in life. Ai says “sophistry is the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving someone.”

So…what exactly are all our scientists up to? Are they spouters of sophistry, changing facts with each decade with intent to…what? Should we make them cease and desist**** all scientific endeavors?

Or is sophistry being practiced, now, in this space?

Anyone need a beer? I’m buying.

            *Per Ai. Interesting fact: you are never really exactly where GPS says you are.

            **Thank you for not giggling at the idea of a naked moon.

            ***I stand by this usage by applying my literary license.

****The ever-humorous Ai describes “cease and desist” as a formal “knock it off notice.”

Of Shifts and Quarks

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We are in a time when paradigms are shifting rapidly and in great quantities. Almost every paradigm we know is being challenged.

From Ai: “a paradigm is a distinct set of concepts, thought patterns, or standards that shapes how we perceive and interact with the world. Think of it as a mental map. It doesn’t just show you what to look at it;* it dictates how you interpret what you see.” Ai goes on to name different types of paradigms and differentiate between Scientific Paradigms and Social Paradigms. That makes sense since modern Scientific Discoveries change the current Scientific Paradigms and updates them. Think quantum Mechanics, Quarks and Muons, things not known in 1926, for example. But what changes Social Paradigms?

Our current government took office in January 2025 and quickly “blanket” pardoned people CONVICTED of crimes—by juries–for their peaceful and patriotic participation in the All-American Protest of January 6, 2021. Did this change a Social Paradigm?

The Pardoner in Chief was himself CONVICTED of crimes and due to be tried on more charges before our educated, morally aware, and personally responsible American Voters re-elected him, allowing him to escape further** judgement. Did a convicted felon’s election to the highest office in America change any paradigms? Judge for yourself.

Our current government is keen on restoring law and order to America. The administration knows the best the way to do that is arrest anyone who commits any crime and make them pay the price for their unlawful ways. But what is the price? A CONVICTED sex-trafficker is moved from her full-security prison cell to a medium security facility with perks and benefits not known by her prison mates. Does that change the Punishment Paradigm? No judgement. Apply your own.

Politicians used to say one thing privately and another publicly. They called it “diplomacy”. They knew the more they talked the more trouble they made for themselves. Our current government likes to talk about everything,..almost. Paradigm Shift. Strong period.

The modern American used to fret about not being heard. Now every American has a loud voice. An obvious Paradigm shift, but good or bad?

America has a System of Justice meant to punish the bad people and make sure the good people aren’t wrongly harmed. Our current government is using that system to charge good and bad people with crimes. The government makes a big show of indictments and charges, often with press conferences and non-diplomatic press releases, briefings, social media claims, and staged presentations. When was the last time they “staged” a CONVICTION public event? Are all the people being investigated and charged, being CONVICTED?*** Shift?

One of the biggest paradigm shifts happening, now, is the disrespect current politicians and officials are showing to the American People. Those professional politicians think we are idiots. Why do they think that? Because we are.

For America’s entire history, the American People have never really known what was going on and politicians did their dirty work—and their good work—behind the scenes: the less we knew the better. But now, politicinas don’t care. Paradigm shift? Of course, but what happens next? There are signs another paradigm shift may be in the works. Good or bad? Let’s see.

*Why Ai used a semicolon here is un-understandable (sic). Ai says the semi-colon is “stronger than a comma but not quite as final as a period.” You judge.

**Further is correct. It is a metaphysical distance. Farther is actual distance.

***Yes, the word is continually being capitalized for a reason.

How Many Of Us Are There?

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My UPER (Unnamed PERson) sent me a wonderful link to a nice, well-spoken gentlemen who discussed an intellectual and psychological concept you see all the time in these postings: the fragmentation of our psyche, what makes up our personalities and determines our actions. My postings use an Inner Voice (IV) and Outer Voice (OV) to illustrate inner mental and emotional conflicts. Regular readers* have been exposed to the inner dialogue IV and OV love to have about my life, its situations, and actions. Sorry for exposing myself**. Discerning readers also note there is an un-designated umpire ruling over the IV and OV debates, an entity making rulings, taking decisive actions, and writing these posts. Does that entity have a name?

Our brains are wonderfully intricate and obtuse. Ai obtuse for its “second” definition. The brain is bombarded with data from all sides, angles, and forms. Sight, sound, touch, political debate, and unfunny humor, so how does it decide what data, what stimuli to respond to? No one knows for sure, but I posit our magnificent gray watermelons take it ALL in, like a security camera, and park the data someplace in case it’s needed. Imagine the size of that data file after 73 years.

Who or what needs that data? And how is it recovered? Is there an app? And is it different for all 8 billion people? In the world of psychology, from here on out called The Circus, theories and guesses and opinions, oh my, abound. See the Pixar movie “Inside Out”, for a light-hearted examination of mental life. The Circus is different from excellent, rigorous, verifiable scientific research into the structures and mechanisms of the brain, where opinions are irrelevant.

Under The Circus’s tent you’ll find many “models” of personality that are used to treat corresponding symptoms/diseases of the “brain”, diagnosed by applying an individual’s actions to the individual model being used in the examination. Some results are good, positive, results, some are not. Fixing a broken mind isn’t as easy as fixing a broken bone. Or removing a misfiring heart. The word isn’t used anymore, but how many of us if we are looked at using the “correct” model might be labeled “crazy”? Everyone knows Freud’s name, but does everyone know what he postulated about the human mind? Ai him and read it. Or the many others*** in The Circus trying valiantly to bring their big-top show into the halls of actual science, oftentimes including simple self-help concepts meant to wrangle the mind into what it should be, according to the model of the time. I’ve been exposed to a lot of the models and could call IV, OV, and The Unnamed Umpire ID, Ego, and Superego to make myself happier. Or use the bible solution and replace all bad thoughts and lies with God’s Word. Or renew any addiction that makes thinking about things easier. Simple, profound advice when trying to understand your brain and its actions is to use anything that works for you, doesn’t destroy you, costs little, and doesn’t harm anyone else. IV OV and The Umpire are screaming in my ear to suggest you use their model. Actually, OV and IV are debating loudly while The Umpire is telling them to shut the hell up, we’re trying to be helpful, here. Like any other family, it will work out. Or not.

A thing to remember and helps: in 100 years none of it will matter or be remembered. OV wanted 200 years, IV wanted 50, The Umpire compromised.

Funny, happy ending? The fingers did exactly what they were told.

*I use “regular” because “irregular” readers don’t care or don’t know.

**It just sounds funny to admit it in writing.

***Transactional Analysis. CBT, DBT, and ACT to name a few acronyms. Maybe we need as many treatments as there are individuals?