A View Askew

(Or: Did the Dinosaurs See the Comet?)

Dec 31, 2013                                                                                                              Issue 6

Which view would you prefer from your deck? This . . .

                                                                                                                Or This ?

                                                                                                          
                Me too - I'm gone.

                 (Thanks to Monsieur Kearns for hospitality)

Short Takes

Post Solstice . . . Arrrggghhhh!

As I write this Dear Leader is preparing for a quick sojourn to FL. Yes, I know I was just waxing philosophical about how great the solstice is and how life now gets brighter every day after it. Forget that. Winter in Minnesota is so freaking long that it makes even a raging optimist like myself lose faith and be willing to do anything to bear it. This is not the main event just a little jaunt to allow my fingers and toes to warm up enough to make the real trip in Feb with Mrs Dear Leader. I shall, of course, drag my clubs down there. (You know you can’t just visit museums and libraries all the time!)

I am lucky enough to have friends who welcome me with open arms whenever I need to get away from this abysmal place. Okay, maybe not open arms but at least they don’t pretend they’re not home when I call like some of my acquaintances do. I do appreciate their generosity though and have made an open ended offer to them for a place to stay with us here in January as well. No takers so far.

My goal has long been to get the hell out of Dodge right after Christmas and return some time after the snow is gone or June, whichever is later. Alas, many things come up in the course of life that interferes with our plans. Like jobs, aging parents, inertia – and money.  So for the time being, I will be willing to share my bright and sparkling personality with anyone who will take me in. I suppose I’m kind of a vacation whore. (But only in the winter.)

 Triple garages

Something seems odd in my neighborhood - and I think I know what it is. Recently, while walking my dog one morning, it occurred to me: most people have a car or cars parked in their driveway even over night. This, of course, implies that they don’t have room in their garage and in many cases these are triple garages. Obviously, most American families can’t get by on 1 or 2 cars but you would think that even with 3 cars you could fit some of them into your triple garage. Apparently not. I have since talked to other friends in other neighborhoods and I guess this is not some aberrant behavior, this is going on all over the Twin Cities (and probably everywhere in the USA).

So how is it possible that we can have triple garages and no room for our cars? I mean, there is an old Murphy’s law that says that if you have a closet, it will always fill up. So perhaps this is the corollary: garages will be filled with stuff that is not a car - Snowmobiles, boats, lawn mowers, extra clothes, extra dishes, extra appliances - extra everything . . . except cars.

I’m certain that I am not the first person to stumble upon this. It really seems like a no brainer message but somehow I don’t get it. Well, I’ll have to deal with this later - right now I need to go re-arrange my garage so I can squeeze my daughter’s stuff in.

Obamacare . . . A Success Story?

Having bashed the ACA in the last issue (and I remain very dubious) I thought it only fair to say that my daughter, who hasn’t been able to afford insurance and has gone without for the last 6 years, has found a good plan that’s very affordable through the MNCare site. Despite other problems it speaks well of Minnesota that she was able to find a good deal here and supports my contention that Minnesota’s should be the model for national health care in a lot of ways. 

So Much for Blog Comments

Well, THAT didn’t work like I had planned! I guess I’m just not going to worry about finding out what other people think of what I think (although that was always the point.) I shall take comfort in the fact that 170 people visited my site and hopefully read and enjoyed at least some of my meanderings.

Things That I Think About

iPhones, Xboxes, Black Friday . . . and Myth of Time

Continuing the line of thought about aging and growing up, how about time itself and our lack thereof?

Fundamentally, the concept of time really is a myth. It is a human construct to create order out of chaos. Seconds, minutes, hours, years – eons; they provide us humans with a way to give importance to what we do and a context for doing them. The man of the hour! The woman of the year! Greatest invention of the century! Without time everything we do would, indeed, have much less meaning and, in fact, it encourages us to focus on what is important at that time. Perhaps that is why we put so much value in time and rightly so. But it’s a myth nonetheless.

With that thought in mind, I have been pondering the current lament of modern man i.e. that we don’t have as much time as we used to or that we are so busy that we can’t find the time for everything that we want to do. I have wondered if that can possibly be true. To my knowledge, we all still have 7 days weeks with 60 minutes per hour and 168 hours per week so how can we be short of time? The answer, of course, is that it isn’t true; it’s not lack of time, it’s too much time. How can that be you ask? Read on.

The perceived lack of time was not a problem when people had to work all the time just to eat.  My dad worked twelve hours a day, often six days a week (work as in work, not as in investment banker – not that there’s anything wrong with them!) Neither mom nor I could remember him ever saying he didn’t have enough time. He could still play catch once in a while and managed to make it to a ballgame or two.  I’ll bet that’s true of your mom and dad also. So what happened? Progress happened. The workplace changed - for the better, I guess. We became better educated, got better jobs, we spent less time at work (well, at first.) Somehow, we had more “free” time. Nature, not liking a vacuum, however, rushed in to fill this free time with . . . other stuff.

We poor sad humans (or at least Americans) simply are not content with having time to spend with ourselves.  No, siree, we need to DO something. Thus we created an entire lifestyle of other things “we need to do.” By the way, I realize we use the kids as an excuse for much of this endless activity; soccer, basketball, flute lessons - and don’t forget shopping! (And, since so many of us live in the suburbs it takes time to get around). Obviously kids are worthy of our constant attention but it can’t have escaped anyone that, ironically, a lot of this activity simply created a need for more work i.e. money. Voila! The dual income family, which, fortunately for us, I guess, has removed the pesky issue of “free time.” Also, and again iroinically, creating out of thin air, so-called Quality Time! Quality time: spending less time with our kids but it’s “higher quality.” Evidence of this can be seen at kids sporting events or people just pushing a stroller (while parents ponder the latest important information on their smart phones rather than what the kid is doing.  I’m wondering now if smart phone is, indeed, a misnomer.)

Soooo anyhoo, in my opinion, and thinking logically, the problem isn’t that we don’t have enough time; it’s that we have too many things “we have to do.” I submit that we really don’t HAVE to do a lot of those things; we simply want to. Why? Because if we didn’t want to, we wouldn’t.  It is also true, according to my Pervasive Fear Theory at least, that many of us are afraid that our personal way of life is threatened by the Constantly Shrinking Pie (for you doubters, the PERCEIVED Constantly Shrinking Pie) ergo we need to work even longer and harder to give our kids every advantage; Mozart while in the womb,  the right preschool, the right college. (More than likely, we give them a bunch of other stuff they probably don’t want too.) And so it goes. 

The outcome is the same though; not lack of time but too many dubious things with which to fill it. And, I suggest, that taking work home is one of them; how did we let companies do this to us?! Pervasive Fear? Easy for me to say, since, well, you know, I don’t really work anymore. That’s beside the point though because I never took any work home from any of my jobs and was proud of it. (Of course, I never climbed very high up the corporate ladder either. Oh well.) On the other hand, I still managed to fill my time with a lot nonsense too so who cares.

I almost forgot; what about iPhone5, Xbox games and Black Friday? Well, in either complete refutation of everything above or utter support for it, don’t you have to wonder how people can find the time to camp out over night in order to be first in line to buy a stupid device or some meaningless doo dad that will still be there the next day? Too much time – or not enough? You be the judge.

Critical Thought Corner

Every week I try to offer my students some current events items to think about. It’s an optional question that they can comment on if they want but really all I want them to do is think about it – critically.

Snowden and drones. That was my thought in class and thought I'd offer here to to see what you folks think.

Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a hero? Why do you think so? Separately but related, how do you feel about the use of drones within the borders of the US for drugs, immigration or just about anything the government wants?  I don’t know about you but thinking about these things gave me a headache. (BTW, my students – ended up on both sides of both issues – made me proud with the quality of their thinking. Must be a great teacher!) 

 Final Flights of Fancy – and Time

I have mentioned before that I receive the greatest magazine I’ve ever had the pleasure to read (and that includes Golf Digest, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone so that’s saying a lot). It’s called The Week. Enough of a commercial for them. One little blurb recently caught my eye. It was a little more info about something that I had seen in our local fish wrap about these aborigine people, the Nukak-Maku, who recently came out of the jungle in Columbia for good. I cannot improve on the brilliant analysis offered by the article so I shall quote it. (and properly give credit!)

" A group of 80 of them emerged naked from the Amazon jungle where they and their ancestors have lived in primitive splendor for thousands of years…" "We do not want to go back," a Nukak named Ma-be tells Juan Forero of the New York Times. "We want to be near town. Near town , they’ve discovered, where… the Columbian government will bestow upon them such modern wonders as shoes and pants, refined sugar and white flour and cooking oil. The Nukak don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into, said a doctor who has been helping them."

The journalist now goes on to write:

"They sure don’t. In short order, I predict, the Nukak will lose their taste for boiled monkey heads, and surrender to the seduction of fried foods, cheeseburgers and pie. Nukak women, who’ve been unselfconsciously naked all their lives, will start wondering if they’re fat. Instead of hunting, Nukak men will spend their days shouting at sports event on TV. Nukak teens will begin dressing like hip-hop artists from Los Angeles, refuse to speak Nukak, and lock themselves indoors with a cell phone or an iPod jammed in their ears. Soon, the Nukak will wonder how they lived without e mail, sleeping pills, and wonder Bras. At the moment, the Nukak have no word for "future." But unless they return to the jungle, we all know what lies ahead." William Falk, Editor, The Week Magazine.

Wish I had written that.

Like most light hearted insights this is also a very illuminating look at human nature. Everyone occasionally looks fondly - and often erroneously - on the past as the best of times. Oddly, we also hasten to embrace false gods that we THINK are improving our lives and we call it progress. Maybe, after a little reflection, they aren’t and it’s not.

I’m not saying that I want to live in the jungle and eat berries but then I’m not a Nukak Maku. On the other hand, maybe I’m not so different as them after all. Looking at what they are facing with the perspective above, maybe I shouldn’t feel impelled to embrace every sexy little nuance, doo dad and expectation that so called modern life proposes - and hasten to call it progress. (Actually I’m toying with the thought that maybe a lot of what we call modern life is just life - period - but with an ever-changing set of clothes that only occasionally makes us LOOK like better men. I’ll have to think about that some more.)

So if it comes down to eating berries and running naked in the forest or being on call 24/7 with your hands-free smart phone … well, I’ll let you decide. (And there’s nothing like a good par 3 in the jungle!)

Good Bye to the Year . . . and Another Issue

Before bidding you a Happy New Year I would remind you that a new year starting on Jan 1st is a myth as well. Like hours, minutes and seconds, months are yet another way to help us humans think the universe rotates around us, not the other way around. So you could actually wish someone a happy new year pretty much any time you want. And maybe we should. Oh well, Happy New Years, friends – use your time wisely. And remember . . .

 “Be a good citizen of your world . . .” and don’t be a dope!

          (And share this link with someone you hate)

Quote Du Jour

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Henry David Thoreau

A View Askew is the sole property of D Roger Pederson, Mpls MN. You may forward without special permission but if you want to use anything here for your own purposes please send me a request at dpeders2002@gmail.com.

                          A View Askew