Numerology
In a few minutes, I will have completed 66 years on this earth. Add another 6 . . .
turn it upside down . . .
and you have the Mark(down) of the Discount Retailer!
A musical interlude…
Here’s a little something for our cat dancing bloggeress to get those kitties bouncing around the room too! Hat Tip to you, Mighty Amba!
Neoteny, or What’s It All About?
Not long ago, my new little girl kitty was absorbed in the pure delight of play for play’s sake. Watching her I thought, “Maybe this is the ultimate aim of life. Maybe all the struggle and passion and toil is about recreating this state of pure play over and over again, since it can’t last.” Like tossing a ball up into the air again and again just for that moment when the sun gilds the ball at its apogee, its moment of freedom from gravity.
And then it falls, its momentum harvested for the next toss.
Kitty, barely legal at 9 or 10 months, is in the agonies of heat for the second time in three weeks. As young men are drafted into the army before they’re even mature, young females are drafted into the army of reproduction before they’ve had more than an eyeblink to enjoy life and discover their powers. Said powers, barely suspected, will be bent to the service of feeding the next generation as it enjoys its brief moment of consummate freedom to play. This is as true of traditional human societies as it is in nature.
It’s easy to understand why this has been necessary. Life is in a race against death and this was the only way not to lose. The second law of thermodynamics is on the side of death; life is an energetic defiance with a high cost. It can afford only the briefest of escapes from the drag of thermodynamic necessity.
This disproportion between the time spent keeping life going and the time spent enjoying it may be natural, but let’s not pretend it’s noble. It’s brutal. Rilke wrote about life’s mystery that too many of us “pass it on like a sealed letter.” Or, at best, we steam it open and steal a glimpse before guiltily gluing it shut again to get it back in the mail to the ever-receding future.
I propose that traditional societies are misguided in glorifying submission to necessity and trying to keep life confined within its strict forms. I propose that the greatest achievement of human beings (which indeed has come at a high cost of extraction of energy from the rest of the living planet) has been to push back death far enough to prolong that time of pure play. Curiosity, creativity, wonder, pleasure, delight—there can’t be too much time for that. There still isn’t enough. Growing up late, having fewer children later and handing them an opened letter, playing one way or another all our lives—call it narcissistic self-indulgence, call it “failure to launch” or “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” call it art, call it witness, call it high praise.
Medical Mythology
I was walking through town today (Sunday) and a woman offered to give me a ride home. I said no thanks, I have a car, I’m just taking a walk. But then I went back and asked how she knew where I live. She said she sees me walking, walking, walking, all the time. I explained that I only walk a half hour before work on week days, which really is not much. I asked if she thought I was a crazy homeless person, just because she sees me walking. I said I have been walking, and doing yoga, all my life and that is probably the reason I am not sick and on drugs, like practically everyone else my age.
(I don’t usually do this, must have been in a weird mood today).
So she replied that the drugs must be doing something right, because we are living longer than ever now. She said there are lots of people in their 90s now, and there never were before.
I said first of all, there were always people in their 90s. And if you ask someone in their 90s you may very well find out they don’t go to doctors or take drugs. I said we are not being kept alive past age 40 thanks to the drugs, that is just propaganda from the drug companies, to make us think we need them.
I tried to explain that average lifespan has increased, mostly because young children are not dying anymore, thanks to antibiotics and vaccines. I tried to explain how the drug companies misuse the statistics to make us think we would all drop dead at 40 if not for them.
She waited patiently for me to give up and leave. If she didn’t think I was a homeless crazy before, she was sure of it after my lecture.
But I am so tired of hearing the same old myth.
Tree & Me
This young Magnolia grandiflora, planted today on my friend Chris’s land outside Chapel Hill, will incorporate some atoms of Jacques and will eventually grow to be 40 to 50 feet tall.
The priest, the rabbi, and the minister
So, officer O’Malley comes into the back room at the Italian restaurant, only to find the priest, the rabbi and the minister sitting on the floor with dice and cash in plain view. It is obvious that they have been illegally gambling, but the cop hasn’t actually seen them doing it. So, he turns to the priest ans says, “Father, have you been gambling?” The priest says a quick Hail Mary, then says, “No.” The cop turns to the minister and says, “Reverend, have you been gambling?. The minister says a short prayer asking Jesus for forgiveness, then he also denies gambling.
Frustrated, he asks the rabbi if he has been gambling. The rabbi responds, “With whom?”
I heard a number of such jokes when I was growing up. They were pretty mild, but they often played softly with stereotypes. The priest was generally earnest and a little naive. The rabbi was usually clever and a little more worldly.
It is hard to imagine a little joke like this getting through the din of vulgarity in the modern world.
The Creationist Conspiracy
Steven Novella, who writes a skeptic’s blog, has discovered a sinister conspiracy. The Creations have joined forces and organized and they are infiltrating our universities and scientific publications. Scary!
“… they want to change society and the nature of science itself. They want to inject supernaturalism into the process of science, so that it can be made to support their world-view and religious beliefs. They cannot do this honestly, so they do it deceptively. They are also well-funded and tireless.”
Oh my godless! The Creationists are coming and we must find a way to stop them!
Harassment Theater
Did you hear the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the minister? You better not tell it at my office – or a lot of offices these days.
The partners in my firm were gathered together again for sexual harassment training. The earnest young lawyer talked about recent developments in the law, then she put on a film which, on about a sixth grade level, told us a pat on the back for a job well done constitutes sexual harassment. As management, We’re supposed to be safe persons to whom to report sexual harassment – as well as inappropriate religious jokes or ethnic comments. We then trigger the investigation. The basic message is better safe than sorry – don’t touch anyone you work with – or engage in conversation that touches on race, sex, gender, religion, physical handicaps, etc. Half the people in the room – essentially lawyers aged 35 – 70, were checking emails on their iphones as the earnest young lady spoke. We all knew the drill.
Two hours later, my secretary attended the “staff” session of the same program . At age 64, she found the “training” mildly insulting, and mostly just stupid. She walked into my office afterward, mockingly saying she had to report questionable conduct – while on the elevator, a secretary had touched an attorney. Playing along, I reminded her that I had a duty to investigate to determine whether the contact was inappropriate. So I quietly asked, “Were they going down?” We laughed at the stupidity of the behavior code, and we got back to work.
Several other long time secretaries commented on how lame the “training” was. Our office is not a hotbed of harassment, but most people ignore the code which sounds like it is out of Catholic school in the 50s. Most folks know the difference between office banter and harassment and know how to tell somebody who is taking things too far to knock it off , and most dislike sitting through some fatuous film telling them what they already know.
Why do we go through (and pay for) this Kabuki theater? Because, if a harassment suit is filed, a good defense is that the firm was unaware of the harassment and had in place a harassment policy with regular sessions designed to tell us what behaviors are inappropriate and who we can complain to.
I am old enough to remember when women put up with real workplace harassment. The situation was not good. But, the remedy – establishment of a statutory right to be free from upsetting behavior in the workplace, or any comments based on gender, gender preference, or gender expression, which is defined as a “hostile work environment,” has created a cottage industry paid to teach us what we already know. It is Harassment Theater.
Why, yes I did go.
I went to the Altan show that I had mentioned earlier last night. Pics and video interview over at Fluffy Stuffin. Enjoy!
Ambiance 