tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-100322872024-03-07T16:05:47.322-08:00Naked ReflectionsRelatively uninhibited philosophizings on self and kosmos whenever the mood strikes...Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.comBlogger870125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-23647483025420940732024-01-22T08:56:00.000-08:002024-01-23T06:12:26.358-08:00Mom's Stroke and the Likely Challenges to Come<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhk2NzNeZ_mxbVyr8geDOzB9KcUSLejpx9Z8aYgvGtyx3j6_KsQGoSyCNJPJpQVDyznoXwXmwdwSsYZyr5D335xWN7OnxDJcnQMPHs-6HaQNcPKowUMWnK6icekx9YzjnO3ZJnuSdhmQyQEPFRfhMhHa5JU3ulwk5xGuFGsEVNw9q335HgLmCKO" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="670" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhk2NzNeZ_mxbVyr8geDOzB9KcUSLejpx9Z8aYgvGtyx3j6_KsQGoSyCNJPJpQVDyznoXwXmwdwSsYZyr5D335xWN7OnxDJcnQMPHs-6HaQNcPKowUMWnK6icekx9YzjnO3ZJnuSdhmQyQEPFRfhMhHa5JU3ulwk5xGuFGsEVNw9q335HgLmCKO" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />My mother fell and broke her hip recently at home. I had to persuade her over the phone to call her stepdaughter Karen to come check on her. Karen came and, with the help of the local fire department, got her in the car and drove her to the hospital where it was promptly determined that she had, indeed, fractured her hip. <br /><br />Soon after that, she had hip replacement surgery, and then, soon after that, she had a stroke. It was her second over the past several months, and it seemed to have a similar effect to her previous one, affecting chiefly the left side of her body, mostly above the waist. But whereas the previous stroke was mild enough that she was able to largely regain most of the functions she initially lost, it seems that the effects of this one may be permanent. She seems to have largely lost the ability to use her left hand, and that may not change. This and other physical deficits resulting from her strokes may not allow her to continue living at home even semi-independently. And this, of course, raises momentous questions about her long-term residence and care that she, Karen, and I are now contemplating.<br /><br />I think major changes lie ahead not only for Mom but also for me. So I'd best prepare myself for them to the fullest extent possible so I can be the best son, husband, and all-around person I can be throughout the likely challenges to come.<p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-8569039338029668482023-12-26T10:30:00.000-08:002023-12-26T10:30:03.573-08:002001 and 2010: A Movie Comparison<p><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/48110631372/posts/10159395185116373/"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0HNQo-PgB2_lyQMHVwXp2VK3YvhdyaJxfqdyy8dK5xz5GcsAyDM9wyWxyLMgYNHTfOIAOTw7SDtpPMHNQ7It9s0W952U_K9-e73jF0rst918vxchAl6t4202e18FQJAhaGyYIz5xac_XmP0BYDs854MpupXY88iwfNk_g0pJISjp11ggk55b/s755/2010%20Movie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="506" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0HNQo-PgB2_lyQMHVwXp2VK3YvhdyaJxfqdyy8dK5xz5GcsAyDM9wyWxyLMgYNHTfOIAOTw7SDtpPMHNQ7It9s0W952U_K9-e73jF0rst918vxchAl6t4202e18FQJAhaGyYIz5xac_XmP0BYDs854MpupXY88iwfNk_g0pJISjp11ggk55b/s320/2010%20Movie.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><br />Someone recently shared <a href="https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/80s-sci-fi-2010-movie.html">an article</a> in the Facebook group <i>2001--A Space Odyssey</i> arguing that the movie's sequel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_The_Year_We_Make_Contact">2010: The Year We Make Contact</a> deserves as much praise as its legendary predecessor. Most commenters disagreed, often with unbridled contempt. Yet, some agreed with the article. And some even went so far as to assert that <i>2010</i> was the much better movie. <br /><br />As someone who loves both movies but reveres 2001, I commented:<br /><br />“<i>Like many who’ve commented here, I don’t agree that 2010 deserves “as much” praise as 2001. However, I do agree with the OP that it’s been woefully under-appreciated by movie critics and the general public alike.<br /><br />I think 2010 is a wonderful film with a plausibly epic and intelligent storyline, excellent performances from an outstanding cast, stunning sequences, superb special effects that serve the story, and overall quality that distinguish it as one of the finest sci-fi films ever and make it a thrilling and extremely satisfying sequel to the unparalleled, sublime, and utterly miraculous original.<br /><br />And I agree with at least one commenter who said that if 2010 weren’t eclipsed by the awesomely artistic splendor of 2001, it might well have received the accolades and enjoyed the popularity it richly deserves in its own splendid right.</i>”<br /><br /><i>2010</i> is one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time. But as Dan Quayle was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator,_you%27re_no_Jack_Kennedy" target="_blank">"no Jack Kennedy,"</a> <i>2010</i> was no 2001. Nevertheless, regardless of how one regards Dan Quayle as a senator, I think <i>2010</i> stands as a great sci-fi film, and I wish movie critics and the general public agreed.<p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-20554627962769905892023-12-19T08:37:00.000-08:002023-12-19T08:37:09.677-08:00Blogging Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZyt5sQC6gJ-hLxTyHOKjaiueCYtDm88Z-yX-RfV_KWscKCk5Ws87EaZiLCFw-7PyfZtZ5FGag3Oqc_nX5CeTISfalswrA_dm5AI7dsxBFf4zhirM5N34IPsbYYuyEIsD_8Bq8BazCEEzZVmhYAL9hF_AkWraaKQZu6yvvfbgEQyZlMQ7rHq7/s275/Write%20something.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZyt5sQC6gJ-hLxTyHOKjaiueCYtDm88Z-yX-RfV_KWscKCk5Ws87EaZiLCFw-7PyfZtZ5FGag3Oqc_nX5CeTISfalswrA_dm5AI7dsxBFf4zhirM5N34IPsbYYuyEIsD_8Bq8BazCEEzZVmhYAL9hF_AkWraaKQZu6yvvfbgEQyZlMQ7rHq7/s1600/Write%20something.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><p><br />I haven't blogged in over a year. I think it's time I resume. Writing is probably what I do best, yet, I haven't been doing it. Not here. Not like this. <br /><br />I think I know why. I think I concluded sometime back that I have nothing worthwhile to say. So, if nobody, including me, wants to read my hollow words, why bother writing them?<br /><br />Yet, what else am I going to do that engages me more? I haven't been habitually bored doing what I've been doing. I've been reading content online and on my Kindle. I've been posting on Facebook and reading and commenting on other people's posts. I've been watching entertaining programs on TV in the evening. I've been listening to great podcasts and to my beloved <a href="https://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2012/01/enthralled-with-hiromi-uehara.html">Hiromi</a> and other musicians online at home and on my walks, and on CD when I drive. Even so, something's been missing. <br /><br />I haven't been writing content that forces me to reflect as deeply, sustain my focus as strongly, and express myself as fully as I can. My inner light may be dim, but I think I still want to let what there is of it shine. I've been proverbially hiding it under a bushel for too long.<br /><br />No, I'm not a smart guy with brilliant things to say that people probably want to read. But I am a guy who still desires to do what he does best instead of stewing in the chronic dissatisfaction of settling for less. And I'm someone who wants to get better at what he does best by making it clearer, more concise, more veridical, and more pleasing to himself and to any reader who may come along.<br /><br />So, it's time to get and stay with it. Maybe I won't do all my effortful writing here. But I need to do it somewhere and keep doing it. And, for the time being, this is probably as good a place as any and better than most.</p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-82418460175525803832022-08-24T17:10:00.003-07:002022-08-26T13:32:39.389-07:00Gone to His Eternal Sleep<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmAAUfBk2j_19VTQ4Ch4DjqzMX0_PMnEM-KH9icK142B1vfTHaPE0k468i9FU3Cz5n8cfcBoqTmJZlyDM8h2nNoRFRDNarbOY_RRvNCpnJzQaib7bWBOa6srhooHEJiS4ijdhOJJE1N3ahTsxKOvEdcJrLljmboxelosUhujBqmreSl7PmA/s960/Jaidee_tower.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmAAUfBk2j_19VTQ4Ch4DjqzMX0_PMnEM-KH9icK142B1vfTHaPE0k468i9FU3Cz5n8cfcBoqTmJZlyDM8h2nNoRFRDNarbOY_RRvNCpnJzQaib7bWBOa6srhooHEJiS4ijdhOJJE1N3ahTsxKOvEdcJrLljmboxelosUhujBqmreSl7PmA/s320/Jaidee_tower.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />I just had my cat put down at the vet's. His name was Jaidee, and he was the sweetest cat anyone could ever have. I had him almost fifteen years before he developed intestinal cancer, much like <a href="https://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2018/12/eternal-king-of-suburban-jungle.html">my Tao-Tao</a> did a few years ago, and we knew he wouldn't be around long after his diagnosis. Prednisolone kept him going for a couple of months, and I was hoping he could hang on till my wife returned from Thailand in three days so she could see him one last time and say a proper goodbye. <br /><br />But Jaidee suddenly seemed to have trouble passing stool yesterday and began looking very uncomfortable, so I took him to the vet today virtually certain it would be a one-way trip for him. I was right.<br /><br />Perhaps it's better that my wife wasn't here to deal with that. But now I'm home alone and very, very sad. For as much as I've loved the cats who have blessed my life and would dearly love, even now, to adopt another, it doesn't seem financially feasible at my age and under my circumstances. Not if I want to be here long enough and financially able to provide another cat with the lasting love and every kind of care it might need for the rest of its precious life.<br /><br />I want to share my pain with others. But the truth is, no one cares or can care as much as I do. Even if they've had and lost cats, their cats weren't my cat, and they weren't me. And, when you come right down to it, I wouldn't even want anyone to feel as bad as I do right now. Or I would and I wouldn't.<br /><br />I won't keep on about this. Jaidee has gone to his eternal sleep, and I may not be terribly far behind. Not from "unnatural" causes but from pathologically natural ones.<br /><br />All I can say is that I don't believe in a heavenly afterlife, but if there is one, I'd want the cats I've loved over the past thirty-five years to be part of it, and especially my sweet Jaidee. There'll never be another like him.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-66449271840119139582022-03-25T09:42:00.011-07:002022-04-18T12:37:16.352-07:00A Melancholic Birthday<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdO2A_Ju3c9NEo7J3NQsMRLRDM1gjraDyKfTySw8BFubpZ4O35RwgayHloSEUJAo_Xsq3k__ThpxN-VDc7S1mF1gMnRtdf6K-gfWj2yI-xrUZjpTMDi-8c-RRyJxHvqvOmvOB_C-PUNZczkfFI48zrearMbo5wvCH5P8LxTmI7YMAZauEeng/s1200/sad%20birthday.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdO2A_Ju3c9NEo7J3NQsMRLRDM1gjraDyKfTySw8BFubpZ4O35RwgayHloSEUJAo_Xsq3k__ThpxN-VDc7S1mF1gMnRtdf6K-gfWj2yI-xrUZjpTMDi-8c-RRyJxHvqvOmvOB_C-PUNZczkfFI48zrearMbo5wvCH5P8LxTmI7YMAZauEeng/s320/sad%20birthday.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">
Another birthday came and went yesterday. In some ways, the year preceding it was a typical year for me. I won’t dwell on that. But some noteworthy things, at least to me, occurred. </span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-76d0e5f3-7fff-0d35-3ed0-658e4cb41a2c" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My wife and I caught Covid on separate occasions after being fully vaccinated and boosted, and it was no worse than a standard cold for either of us, except that I had an unusual sore throat for a couple or so days.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I saw a local 15-year-old bowling prodigy named </span><a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/PKF8PjK-iCg?feature=share" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saphyre</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> compete in the U.S. Women’s Open in Rohnert Park last August and stun and thrill me by beating some of the best female bowlers on the planet, including my beloved </span><a href="https://stevesbowlingblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/new-hui-fen-bowlings-rising-superstar.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Hui Fen</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, on one of the oil patterns. Later, she took </span><a href="https://youtu.be/dfbW3OfMhLI" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jillian Martin</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, probably the most heralded female junior bowling phenom ever, to the wire in two Storm Youth Championship tournaments and convinced me that she’s a young sorceress with her amusingly nonchalant bowling style, deadly powerful release, and deceptively wizardlike lane play skills. Watching and rooting for her has been one of my biggest recent if not lifetime surprises and pleasures.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking of bowling, I shot a 300 in league a few months ago, and a 290 and 278 more recently, but I’ve struggled to carry consistently and score well on the new lanes and oil, which is all the more frustrating when I see so many others in my league tearing them up. But I attribute some of this struggle to my unwillingness to put in the time and effort to get and do better. Isn’t that a central element in the story of my life? And can I change that? Will I change that? Not only in bowling but in every other important respect?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My mom seems to be doing well as she approaches 85, but I’m not sure how forthcoming she’s been about her health and well-being. One concern I have is that one of her step-daughters who lives nearby and has been so helpful to her may be moving away before long, and I will need to take up the slack that I may be ill-equipped to do.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My wife is still with me but I don’t know for how long as her parents back home get older and older and become more dependent on her overworked younger sister. When she finally does leave, my life may change drastically.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, arguably the most important event of the year since my previous birthday and unquestionably one of the most important of my entire life occurred less than two weeks before my newest birthday. </span><a href="http://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2022/03/rip-old-friend.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My best friend</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of over fifty years, Craig, was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound to the head miles away from his residence in Southern California. The police and medical examiner have ruled it a suicide, but I and everyone I know who knew him just can’t believe he killed himself. There were no signs whatsoever, even in retrospect, that pointed to suicidal ideation or tendencies, and there’s no apparent reason why he would have done such a thing and many reasons why he wouldn’t have done that to himself at this point in his life when he had so many things he enjoyed doing and so many achievable plans for his retirement. Yet, it looks like his family has accepted the ruling and that he will be cremated and buried soon.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been shy and reclusive all my life and have had no other friends for as long as I did Craig or shared as much with any other male friends over the decades as I did with Craig. I got drunk for the first time with him. I saw my first Bruce Lee movie and countless other movies thereafter with him. I went to my first Mahavishnu Orchestra concert and many concerts later on with him. We bowled together. Played basketball together. Spent countless hours in each other’s company or on the phone talking about this and that. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even as our interests diverged over the past few years and we had far less contact than we used to, it was reassuring to know he was out there and was someone I could turn to if I ever needed him, and I hope and think he felt the same about me.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His sudden and mystifying departure has left a hole in my life. I will miss not only our phone conversations, occasional visits, Facebook messagings, and so much else, but I will miss the warm reassurance that the potential for sharing a reminiscence or other simple pleasures of our abiding friendship exists even when it resides in the background. For now it exists no longer.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Craig told me that after his parents died years ago, he became acquainted with a psychic who could communicate with his parents and enable him to communicate with them through her. I’m very skeptical of this but not completely convinced it wasn’t true; he told me some amazing things about what he learned from that communication that gave me pause. And so I wish that if my friend does consciously survive in a different or alternate realm in which he retains awareness of what’s going on here and an emotional connection with family and friends still inhabiting this plane of existence, he will find a way to reach out to that psychic so that she can reach out to me and tell me what really happened to him and why, and so that I’ll really know there’s life beyond death.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And now I look toward another year with plans and goals to fulfill, new friendships to forge and old ones to strengthen, new challenges to face, and all without the reassuring constant in my life that was Craig.</span></span>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-19547172653701805412022-03-14T15:06:00.003-07:002022-04-18T12:36:37.270-07:00RIP, Old Friend<p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzVxq0BEzAOgXE-1bW01eOjix1yU4kDTDG3UEZtOR06fE1i43jXZv0oKDbFjBTl_TzAXkNBglLRMYjE9mwWGXhish9VHV_ho_z2_3nqKqqj0tGuXk7LHifJgMk6cvJTaxP_3X8sfJs7qAbc5nq-9lf3-BnAUpz7bFnhAkDIidhJX7_HNFZag=s259" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzVxq0BEzAOgXE-1bW01eOjix1yU4kDTDG3UEZtOR06fE1i43jXZv0oKDbFjBTl_TzAXkNBglLRMYjE9mwWGXhish9VHV_ho_z2_3nqKqqj0tGuXk7LHifJgMk6cvJTaxP_3X8sfJs7qAbc5nq-9lf3-BnAUpz7bFnhAkDIidhJX7_HNFZag" width="259" /></a></div><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">
I learned last night that my best friend of over fifty years died of undisclosed causes sometime Saturday night or Sunday and his body was found in another county than where he lived. The details are very murky so far, but I’m hoping to learn more over time.</span></b><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-bef6c609-7fff-48ea-6d77-9471a327e3ac"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He had retired very recently and was looking forward to traveling the world to see new sights, meet new people, play poker, at which he was quite proficient, and live the good life he had worked so long and so hard to be able to enjoy and surely would have.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He and I had so many fun times together going all the way back to the late 60’s. We met in a junior bowling league, played basketball, got drunk for the first time, attended many great Bay Area concerts, saw scores of movies, especially of the martial arts variety, and hung out a lot.
</span><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Over the years, our interests and activities increasingly diverged and we’d had very little contact recently, but we were still and would have always been there for each other if needed.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know yet what happened to him and am still getting over the shock of his sudden and very unexpected death, but I’ll miss him.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rest In Peace, old friend.</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-92106716597107610312021-09-09T13:01:00.003-07:002022-04-18T12:39:04.338-07:00A Facebook Post About Covid Vaccination<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">(I posted the following comment this morning to a friend’s Facebook page in a thread discussing vaccination.)</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-86ef1418-7fff-55dc-d54e-3aa095ad163f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBRFSL4abW54zyM8OS6tqieunYCpQmg3z1Ky3j7QzfYvYL0brpk4rhQw0i4f6WiWvy61CpFhagE6UP1UeA-DWM-S8vNnaprX2TNQIrj_3IurOf-prfPGrLIixOF610MdH4PVyU/s1000/Covid+vaccination.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBRFSL4abW54zyM8OS6tqieunYCpQmg3z1Ky3j7QzfYvYL0brpk4rhQw0i4f6WiWvy61CpFhagE6UP1UeA-DWM-S8vNnaprX2TNQIrj_3IurOf-prfPGrLIixOF610MdH4PVyU/s320/Covid+vaccination.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">On a personal note, my wife and I were fully Modernized months ago. We had slightly unpleasant but not severe reactions to the second injection and have experienced no discernible ill effects since.</span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nevertheless, we<a href="http://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2021/09/taking-foolish-covid-risk.html"> recently attended</a> a major bowling tournament for a couple of days in a crowded bowling center, and even though masking was required and practiced by all spectators and competitors, it was a reckless risk we shouldn’t have taken in the middle of a Delta Covid surge.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Four days after we came home, my wife began experiencing subtle symptoms of possible infection and subsequently tested positive. But her symptoms remained mild and have now virtually disappeared.
<br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moreover, I never had any symptoms to speak of but got tested Tuesday and received my test result this morning. It was negative.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
I don’t know how much of a role our being fully inoculated with a mRNA vaccine played in this very favorable outcome, but I think it’s pretty reasonable to surmise that getting vaccinated didn’t harm either of us and that, given my wife’s age and especially mine, it may well have spared us serious illness or worse and with no apparent downside.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
And even before this recent brush with Covid, ever since we were fully vaccinated, we’ve experienced so much less anxiety about becoming infected and severely sickened with this deadly and pervasive disease than we did previously.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Vaccination removes or at least greatly lessens the terrible, nagging fear of catching Covid and makes life so much more enjoyable.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
I guess some dispel this fear by underestimating or even outright denying the threat Covid poses to the unvaccinated. But that seems to me like a perilously risky strategy with potentially deleterious if not deadly consequences for them personally, for their loved ones, and, collectively, for society at large.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.59996; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I say don’t be foolish. Get vaccinated. Do it for yourself. Do it for your loved ones and friends and coworkers and other people around you. Do it for your country. And do it for the world.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #f9f7f6; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><div><br /></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-50872300113091885472021-09-08T15:25:00.004-07:002022-04-18T12:39:44.552-07:00Taking a Foolish Covid Risk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh76SSV4VXcQIl5frCPb4ErSI6tqBX_rES3lu6BnSM4vxYNzX1NmSLctwT8yffvYYDt7kvH5RgwLNhWtACdZeGPBnELet589NIOrtO56BbXPYSFXVe4D3dU0BdZk-7XncwO3RrV/s1200/Covid+test.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh76SSV4VXcQIl5frCPb4ErSI6tqBX_rES3lu6BnSM4vxYNzX1NmSLctwT8yffvYYDt7kvH5RgwLNhWtACdZeGPBnELet589NIOrtO56BbXPYSFXVe4D3dU0BdZk-7XncwO3RrV/s320/Covid+test.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I did a very foolish thing late last month. I did it out of love for my lifelong favorite sport and its practitioners, but that's no excuse.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I went with my wife to a major professional women's bowling tournament and spent two days in a crowded bowling center during a surging pandemic worse than anything the world has experienced since the 1918 influenza pandemic.<br /><br />Yes, I had a great time watching the world's best female professional bowlers compete in arguably their most prestigious tournament. Yes, everyone was masked inside the building. And, yes, we were both fully Modernized. But it wasn't worth the risk of still catching a disease that has killed millions and severely sickened and debilitated many millions more over less than two years. I should have known better. I did know better. But I did it anyway because I felt like I just had to see all those great bowlers up close and personal come what may.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Four days after we returned home, my wife began feeling a little odd. She reported intermittent piercing pains in her head she said she'd never felt before, a somewhat unusually dry if not semi-sore throat, and mild muscle aches and bodily fatigue. She wasn't sure that it wasn't her allergies acting up or something else innocuous, but when those symptoms persisted, she got tested at work for Covid and was informed the next day that she was positive. <br /><br />By that time, I was feeling a little "under the weather" as well and even developed some unusual diarrhea for half a day after prolonged lower digestive tract discomfort the day before, so I decided to get tested too. I did that yesterday and am awaiting my result while assuming and acting as though I'm infected until I receive it. And if my result is negative, I'm a little afraid that the exposure I may have had to people infected with Covid while waiting in the long, serpentine line ahead of and behind me outside and inside the testing center may have infected me.<br /><br />My wife and I now feel almost back to normal, and if one or both of us doesn't take a turn for the worse like has been known to happen with some after they thought they were out of the woods, I will consider us exceedingly blessed.<br /><br />And I will have learned my lesson. No more needless venturing into precarious places and situations until the pandemic is no more. Yes, maybe my wife didn't catch Covid on our trip. And maybe I don't have it or didn't catch it from the trip either. Maybe I caught it from my wife who caught it somewhere else, or I caught it somewhere else. But it doesn't much matter. The aforementioned "lesson" is to not take needless risks in the time of surging Covid-19 no matter how tempted I am to do so.</span><br /><br /><br /></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-28610950793739181332021-03-24T08:42:00.005-07:002022-04-18T12:40:20.746-07:00My Happy Birthday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9SoNmeNMZ7hmhcC92zZINjnxmw0gMe3LmBiJqnb8SMm1rfb4wLtPZmldUlfEzoLHnSx10Z32PwEqd9Z4_QSYz_1QDNJbQPvJzjNuqA4kJJVJ6Wf78OyWHmfna5lfyfyOeVnzN/s1600/birthday+cake_68.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9SoNmeNMZ7hmhcC92zZINjnxmw0gMe3LmBiJqnb8SMm1rfb4wLtPZmldUlfEzoLHnSx10Z32PwEqd9Z4_QSYz_1QDNJbQPvJzjNuqA4kJJVJ6Wf78OyWHmfna5lfyfyOeVnzN/s320/birthday+cake_68.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I turned 68 today. Who woulda thunk I'd make it this far? <br /><br />When I was a kid, the year 2000 seemed impossibly remote and the thought of being 47 years old almost inconceivable. But I'm now 21 years into the twenty-first century, and my body and mind are still relatively intact. <br /><br />Not only that, but the Covid threat I worried about <a href="https://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2020/03/not-just-another-birthday-post.html" target="_blank">a year ago</a> seems markedly diminished by the fact that my wife has had both of her Moderna shots and I'll be getting my second in six days. I'm not looking forward to the potential side-effects of that infamous booster, but I am looking forward to the immunity from serious illness I'll very likely soon enjoy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is not to say that I don't still harbor ample concerns that I won't detail here and now. But I feel plenty grateful and happy today, and I'm just going to embrace that happiness and get on with getting on. Maybe I'll still be here next year to post again, and maybe I won't. But I'm glad I'm here today, and if anyone else ever reads this, I hope you are too, whether it's your birthday or not.</span></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-31998667284394225902021-02-15T13:39:00.002-08:002022-04-18T12:41:01.681-07:00Bye for Now, Facebook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfpRcp1iCfXpbMRnOkrnGhv-kkdQt4Vq_BQCg5mjfPbQte-NKT6MP5LLGoHWe1aSAdpFve-R_MYzZKSc5el-jBdSftPzYg05grwDXlyQjmuib_utIwKpybtn-DCP_mkRw5Q68J/s1000/Facebook+leaving.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfpRcp1iCfXpbMRnOkrnGhv-kkdQt4Vq_BQCg5mjfPbQte-NKT6MP5LLGoHWe1aSAdpFve-R_MYzZKSc5el-jBdSftPzYg05grwDXlyQjmuib_utIwKpybtn-DCP_mkRw5Q68J/s320/Facebook+leaving.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yesterday, I did something I needed to even though I didn't want to. I announced on Facebook that I'm "taking an indefinite leave of absence from posting to or commenting on [the platform] while I work on some projects I've been neglecting including bettering myself and launching one or more podcasts." And now I need to honor that pledge.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It won't be easy. I love participating on Facebook because it's about the only social interaction I have these days. Sharing and discussing articles I've read; reading and commenting on articles, opinions, or personal matters others have shared or comments they've made; and just receiving "likes" for things I've shared or comments I've made feels good. I'm going to miss it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But Facebook has diverted me from so many things I need to do to fulfill myself more deeply and, perhaps, save my marriage if it can be saved. My participation on Facebook has also brought out some of my worst qualities in terms of how I feel about and interact with people who, for example, support Donald Trump or downplay the seriousness of Covid-19.<br /><br />I hope to return to Facebook someday. But not until I have at least one podcast up and running, and not until I'm ready and able to consistently dialogue with people I disagree with on politics and other matters in a more respectful and kindly manner. And even then, I can't spend most of my day there doing what I've been doing. Much of my future activity on Facebook and other social media sites such as Twitter must revolve around sharing and discussing my podcast episodes or written pieces I've published somewhere or other. <br /><br />I simply don't have enough time and cognitive bandwidth to do more if I'm going to make the most of what time I have left in this world to, in the words of a prayer I composed that I recite every night before sleeping, "do and be my very best from now on and to mindfully shine as a bright beacon of wisdom, strength, equanimity, compassion, and lovingkindness lighting the path of goodness, truth, and beauty."</span></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-88933042792024935072021-02-01T11:51:00.002-08:002022-04-18T12:42:04.201-07:00Should I Change How I Speak and Write?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfEFTknpcDB_fOosVI6x0ZT0BeIBu77vA1aRwZjWrW7bBa4sHeZfHkD5k6eCwgPvq9QARWwxPsyDUsofouWDLBQ8FBLoK3JPn0RUNPPpu8DCVwSbVMERMcE4K8-ZUfOJGbVx-k/s786/Writing1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="786" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfEFTknpcDB_fOosVI6x0ZT0BeIBu77vA1aRwZjWrW7bBa4sHeZfHkD5k6eCwgPvq9QARWwxPsyDUsofouWDLBQ8FBLoK3JPn0RUNPPpu8DCVwSbVMERMcE4K8-ZUfOJGbVx-k/s320/Writing1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">I've <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/health/alzheimers-prediction-speech.html?fbclid=IwAR2ooo1q29NALrl517NVt8SJLNGx72SQuGyvoST9ahJoc16JIA_8bVMV53k" target="_blank">read recently</a> that psychologists have conducted research suggesting that people with deteriorating brains from Alzheimer's and other dementias exhibit telltale signs early on in the ways they speak and write. That is, they express themselves with diminishing sophistication in their syntax and resort to more concrete words and convey fewer abstract ideas. <br /><br />If neuropathology causes this degradation of language, I'm wondering if this unfortunate process might work both ways. That is, if a deteriorating brain causes deteriorating use of language, might deliberately simplifying one's syntax and using simpler and more concrete words cause the brain to deteriorate faster or in worse ways than it would otherwise?<br /><br />I ask because I feel a growing urge to <a href="http://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2016/12/overhauling-my-writing-style.html" target="_blank">radically change the way I write</a> and speak so that it's much simpler, clearer, and more succinct than it has been.<br /><br />Of course, I want to continue addressing the generally abstract topics and issues that interest me most not only without oversimplifying them but by being more incisive than I ever have before. Yet, I wonder if this is even possible, and worse still, whether I might initiate my brain's precipitous decline.<br /><br />I tell myself that the greater effort I'll need to make to speak and write the way I wish will preserve and maybe even strengthen my brain's verbal centers and my corresponding language fluency. I also plan to do even more focused and extensive reading in various subjects, to write more, and to even systematically expand my vocabulary. So, maybe my concerns are groundless.<br /><br />But they're still my concerns.</span><p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-80143394989064912292020-06-28T12:06:00.002-07:002020-06-28T12:18:31.233-07:00Pandemic Party Perils<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQskN8Lcy2e95xwyFGCIQT61YLPww-L-FotOs0vRCFp2GXpvgXXVj79EK8Hq-pbmNzhLBCltm9lMEiMKIXyxHKtBDWSlCpJI0_jQ68isHi40j2avGtspEDPP2Zkk5toikGCOAz/s1600/Covid+party.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQskN8Lcy2e95xwyFGCIQT61YLPww-L-FotOs0vRCFp2GXpvgXXVj79EK8Hq-pbmNzhLBCltm9lMEiMKIXyxHKtBDWSlCpJI0_jQ68isHi40j2avGtspEDPP2Zkk5toikGCOAz/s320/Covid+party.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I've been deeply concerned about the Covid pandemic ever since it struck. I follow news and research on the disease pretty closely, and I'm very mindful of the physical, psychological, economic, and societal damage the disease can cause and of the grave threat it poses especially to the health, well-being, and very lives of people such as myself.<br />
<br />
So, I'm disappointed and distressed over the fact that someone very dear to me attended a party yesterday in which if anyone there happened to be infected with Covid-19 and was able to spread it, I don't see any way in hell that she wouldn't catch it too and gravely endanger not only her own health and life but also mine as well as the health and lives of others with whom she comes in contact after her infection.<br />
<br />
I guess I'm not as distressed over this as I could and arguably should be. Is it because I don't think anyone at the party was infected and, therefore, neither she nor I nor anyone else will be harmed by her attending that party? Or is it because I just don't care anymore? Or I no longer care enough about what happens to her, to me, or to anyone else? And how much does she care that she placed and kept herself for hours in a situation of which she knows full well the profound dangers?<br />
<br />
I feel sad, perplexed, and troubled over what happened yesterday and over how I feel (and don't feel) about it today. I'll also keep my fingers figuratively crossed that the person dear to me, everyone at that party, and I dodged lightning this time and that we never place or find ourselves again in the precarious situation we're in now.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-81695329676341953202020-03-25T14:14:00.001-07:002020-04-09T11:57:35.649-07:00Coronavirus by Mail?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFJa2PZ1q2xMiTqqdKMFrF5d6rzinBNZZmcXsGNTelsYALdfxv7bVYpqKAxlKjdS6Uhi5TPuz0zKUeZ1k89lw7MYkqaEHlf-6bRw5XDq9Jfcjl86iAv41o1I675PvBNZox7oo/s1600/package+delivery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFJa2PZ1q2xMiTqqdKMFrF5d6rzinBNZZmcXsGNTelsYALdfxv7bVYpqKAxlKjdS6Uhi5TPuz0zKUeZ1k89lw7MYkqaEHlf-6bRw5XDq9Jfcjl86iAv41o1I675PvBNZox7oo/s320/package+delivery.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Something "funny" just happened. Right after I read and shared a NYT article assessing the risks of being infected by handling delivered mail, my doorbell rang. I walked to the door wondering if it was my neighbor or notification that a Costco grocery package my wife ordered Monday night had been left on the porch even though we weren't expecting it for several more days.<br />
<br />
Looking through the peephole, I discovered that it was neither. It was a mail carrier holding a small package I wasn't expecting. So, I opened the door and greeted him and asked if he could just leave the package on the porch. But, of course, he couldn't. It was a package from Thailand and I had to sign for it. So, I signed for it by holding the mail carrier's electronic device and using his pen that had been handled by heaven knows how many people before me, and then I took the package.<br />
<br />
The aforementioned article I read and shared said the chances of becoming infected by handling delivered envelopes or packages appear to be minimal although not out of the question. Okay. But what about taking and handling the electronic signature device and pen from the mail carrier and then the package?<br />
<br />
Had I thought to be more careful, I could have asked the mail carrier to leave the signing device and package on the porch and step back at least six feet. But, under the circumstances, my mind didn't work that quickly. Actually, I've always been kind of slow on my metaphorical feet if not on my actual ones.<br />
<br />
Yes, I washed my hands thoroughly with lots of soap after the encounter. But I've recently been reading, somewhat confusingly, that we're much more likely to become infected by breathing in virus particles expelled into the air by infected people in close proximity than by transferring virus from our contaminated hands to our mouth, nose, or eyes. So, it would seem that I incurred my greatest risk not from the signature device, pen, and package but from the mail carrier himself.<br />
<br />
I surmise that the risks from all were vanishingly small. Or were they? These are very uncertain times that leave one anxiously second-guessing so many things.<br />
<br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-72714161479455752352020-03-24T20:15:00.001-07:002021-03-24T09:10:42.014-07:00Not Just Another Birthday Post<span id="docs-internal-guid-ab72cc3a-7fff-df2c-e10a-70fdeec679f1"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For years, I’ve published birthday blog posts where I’ve said I don’t know if I’ll be alive for my next birthday. Well, that’s never been truer than today. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is not only because I’m a year older and closer to my end whenever that will be, but also because a deadly viral pandemic called Covid-19 is raging around the globe sickening people and claiming lives at exponential rates of increase, and older people are especially prone to die from it with respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am now closer to 70 than I am to 60, placing me squarely and ominously in the “older people” camp, and I may even have one or more co-morbidities of an, as yet, undiagnosed nature that render me even more vulnerable to the virus’ death grip than does my age alone. I’ve never lived through such a time of overt existential threat, discounting, perhaps, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I’m far from certain that I’m going to come out the other side of this one.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, this could be my last birthday blog post. Perhaps even my last blog post of any kind. Or maybe there will be many, many more if I not only come through this plague intact, but also renew my desire to write and publish after having passed through an extended dry spell of disillusionment with trying to write anything worth saying and sharing.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not that I have something profound to say here today. I just want to indelibly mark this occasion rather than let it pass unrecognized. I want to express my deep gratitude for the life I’ve been fortunate to live. I say “fortunate” because I don’t begin to deserve the comforts I’ve enjoyed or the pleasures and joys I’ve experienced. I’ve wasted my life and burdened others unconscionably and let them down and worse over the decades. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But if I can make it through this pandemic with my modest passions and abilities intact, maybe I can accomplish something before the end finally comes. I wake up every morning grateful to be alive to greet another day, and I go to bed each night reciting the following prayer of my own composition: </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Lord, please forgive me and everyone else for all the unjustifiable harm we’ve caused ourselves and others and for all the times we could and should have helped ourselves or others but didn’t. And, Lord, please help all of us to do and be our very best from now on and to mindfully shine as bright beacons of wisdom, strength, equanimity, compassion, and lovingkindness lighting the path of goodness, truth, and beauty.”</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I have appreciably longer to live than I think I might, my greatest hope is that I can become a fuller and more radiant embodiment of my nightly prayer for everyone in my life.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy Birthday to me in the Time of Covid-19, and thanks to everyone living and long passed who’ve made it possible for me to sit here this evening writing this post in gratitude for my bountiful blessings, remorse for my failings, and deep desire to do better with the time and opportunities that remain.</span></span>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-25088941685548378822019-05-15T13:38:00.000-07:002019-05-15T21:37:00.342-07:00Bowling--You're Not Worthy!?<span id="docs-internal-guid-f778752e-7fff-6e0d-1ec8-70fcadad6178"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got mad at a friend yesterday for saying bowling doesn’t get good media coverage because it isn’t “worthy” of it. What I found especially maddening about this was that he and I subscribe to FloBowling and regularly and enthusiastically follow professional male and female bowling and chat about it virtually every day. Watch some televised PWBA stepladders from early in the 2016 season, and you will see him sitting in the stands watching and texting me about what’s happening. And although you can’t see him in the audience of the televised PBA Masters stepladder recently that Jacob Buturff won, he was there. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I confess that I felt his remark like a slap in the face. And when he defended it against my protests and then said I needed to stop being so “emotional” and "honestly" face up to the truth, I didn’t exactly feel more favorably disposed to his point of view. Because what I understood him to mean, which he did not dispute, by his “not worthy” remark is not that bowling simply isn’t popular enough to garner more media coverage, but that it isn’t GOOD enough to deserve greater popularity and coverage. And while I realize that many people believe this, to the extent that they ever even give elite bowling a thought, it shocked me that HE would believe and say this to ME.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And because I felt my temperature rising as this discussion unfolded, I quickly made it very clear that I didn’t see any point in continuing along that line because it seemed that we had made our respective views plenty clear and that there was nothing to be gained (and, by implication) much to possibly be lost by chatting any more about it at the time.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was I being too “emotional”? In hindsight, I’m willing to consider that possibility. In fact, I concede that a wiser or more mature response would have been to dispassionately take note of my friend’s opinion and then just let it go like I would a similar remark from a child or adult who knew nothing about bowling and was just talking out of his ass or trolling.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But my friend knew a lot more than nothing about bowling and he knew full well whom he was talking to, and he still said bowling wasn’t “worthy” of more popularity than it enjoyed or coverage than it received and that he had the right to hold this opinion and to express it. Well, I disagree with his opinion of bowling’s worthiness, but I agree with him that he has a right to that opinion and to express it. By the same token, I could say that I had a right to disagree with him and to express my emotional antipathy to his holding and expressing his opinion so long as I didn’t didn’t do it any more disagreeably than I did. But I’m not sure our asserting our respective rights in this regard gets us anywhere we want to go. I don’t know how he feels in the aftermath of our disagreement, although his uncharacteristic silence may well provide a clue, but I do know that I don’t feel particularly good about it.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it’s not only because I don’t like having angry confrontations with people whose friendship I value and then having, with unpleasant awkwardness, to try to reconcile, but I also wonder if I don’t deep down agree with his opinion of bowling and am angry over the fact that he forced me to confront and examine it. Is elite bowling NOT worthy of the greater popularity and media coverage that other sports including football, basketball, baseball, boxing, soccer, tennis, and golf enjoy and receive? And am I foolish to be working, as I now am, to produce a podcast devoted to covering elite bowling?</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t have any solid answers. Just unsettling questions. I guess I’ll mull on them a while.</span></span>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-30452973364311582052019-03-25T19:31:00.001-07:002019-03-25T19:31:52.135-07:00Another Year Around the SunYesterday was my 66th birthday. And I once again find myself wondering whether I'll be here a year from now to reflect on yet another birthday. <br /><br />For the longest time, I've had reasons to think that the birthday I was writing about then could very well be my last. Maybe they weren't such good reasons. Or maybe they were. The fact that I'm still here and seemingly in decent health would seem to suggest the former. But what do I know for sure about such matters?<br /><br />The fact is, I'm still here and grateful to be here without being in misery. And I still have a headful of dreams and goals that, even if I make no significant effort to achieve them and no significant progress toward achieving them, still give me more reason to want to go on living than to die. I have eternity, maybe, to be dead, but only a few short more years at most to live and, perhaps, to leave this world feeling like my life wasn't a complete waste or worse.<br />
<br />
And that's really about all there is to say on the matter of my birthdays and of longevity. Despite the fact that writing is probably what I do best, I'm increasingly disinclined to do it because, in the final analysis, I believe I have so little to say that's worth saying or that would sufficiently interest anyone including myself.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-33727467663955315992018-12-02T11:48:00.000-08:002018-12-02T11:56:56.083-08:00Eternal King of the Suburban Jungle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-Kk3KNPGyTiuQvw9smG8aKF6QlB80lK9ZbglM7TXVXD-iQV3j0VPdY-duITagvkv4DWbeQwnztKsL5hkp1eYxaHv0meGft2DgMsineXVZ2J9rPwYjVuIwW81oDgVBeH51aln/s1600/TaoTao_jungle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-Kk3KNPGyTiuQvw9smG8aKF6QlB80lK9ZbglM7TXVXD-iQV3j0VPdY-duITagvkv4DWbeQwnztKsL5hkp1eYxaHv0meGft2DgMsineXVZ2J9rPwYjVuIwW81oDgVBeH51aln/s320/TaoTao_jungle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
My Tao-Tao died on October 15. But for some reason, I didn’t blog about it then. Maybe it just hurt so much that writing about it while it was still raw would have been like rubbing salt in a wound. And maybe I was thinking so many thoughts and feeling so many powerful emotions that I couldn’t separate out what I needed to say from what I didn’t, and so I didn’t say anything.<br />
<br />
But now I’m feeling more at peace with something I was initially told would happen much, much sooner. I <a href="https://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2017/10/to-euthanize-or-not-to-euthanize.html">wrote</a><a href="https://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2017/10/my-cats-dying.html"> </a>on October 7, 2017 that Tao-Tao had been diagnosed with high-grade lymphoma of the liver and intestines two days before and that without prohibitively expensive treatment with a still bleak prognosis, he probably had only a few days to live, maybe up to a couple of weeks if I fed him a nutrient-dense prescription food and gave him prednisolone every day.<br />
<br />
I declined the intensive radiotherapy and chemo and opted for only the special food and medication, and, to my surprise and then growing astonishment, Tao-Tao’s few days extended to a few weeks and then a few months and finally passed the year mark ten days ago. <br />
<br />
His vets began calling him a “miracle cat,” and I cherished the miraculous prolongation of his precious life as he kept on going with an irrepressible brightness in his big, beautiful eyes. But one of his vets, a leading diagnostic specialist in the Sacramento area, told me that someday the prescription food and medication would stop working and that Tao-Tao’s decline would change from slow and steady to extremely fast and unstoppably fatal.<br />
<br />
So every day I got up praying that this would not be THAT day I’d been warned about. And then one day it was. <br />
<br />
On an early Monday morning, I got up to see that Tao-Tao was not in the kitchen waiting if not crying for his food that he normally proceeded to gobble as though he were starving to death, which, in a sense, he was from his impaired ability to adequately absorb and process even the most nutritious food on the market. Instead, I found him in a dark closet, the kind of secluded indoor place where cats might go to die when they can’t disappear outside. And when I picked up his emaciated body, brought him out into the light and saw his strangely dull eyes and then, with hopeless hope, carried him into the kitchen and set food down for him that he not only didn’t eat but seemed completely indifferent to, I knew without question that his time had come. <br />
<br />
I told my wife, and she was clearly very sad about it. She and I don’t treat pets like pets so much as like vital parts of the family. We love our cats almost as though they were our human children that we never had. But she knew, as I knew, that this day was long overdue, and she did her best to resign herself to it as she prepared to go to work and said to me just before she left that I should do what I thought was best.<br />
<br />
I certainly wasn’t going to let him suffer needlessly until he died in the house. So, I made an appointment at the vet for that afternoon. An hour or so before it was time to leave, my wife came home early. She said she’d been crying so much at work that her coworkers advised her to take off early and just go home. She took some pictures of Tao-Tao, including one in his carrier just before I left with him, and spent a few final moments stroking, hugging, and kissing him before it was time for me to leave. She couldn’t bring herself to accompany us, and I didn’t blame her one bit. My grief over seeing through what needed to be done was enough for both of us.<br />
<br />
Tao-Tao’s vet that day was one I hadn’t seen before. She had only recently started working there. But I liked her immediately. She, like all the vets there, was not only female but also a graduate of the local vet school which happens to be widely acknowledged as the <a href="https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/university-subject-rankings/what-its-study-best-universities-veterinary-science-2018">leading vet school</a> in the world. <br />
<br />
I liked the way she handled and examined Tao-Tao with well-practiced skill and genuine tenderness and affection for her patient. And I loved how she seemed very empathic to my distress and didn’t rush me to come to a decision about how to proceed until I had been informed of and able to weigh all my options regarding testing and palliative care. <br />
<br />
I decided not to prolong Tao-Tao’s suffering just so I could spend a few more hours or days with him and authorized them to euthanize him then and there. When she asked if I wanted to be present during the procedure, I said I did. She explained how the procedure would be carried out and then took TaoTao out of the examination room to insert a catheter into one of his front legs to facilitate injection of the chemicals that would end his life.<br />
<br />
While they were out of the room, I tried to steel myself for what was coming. She brought Tao-Tao back in wrapped in a blanket and gently put him on my lap while I held him. <br />
<br />
He didn’t seem fearful or distressed as she gave him the first of, as I recall, four injections of different substances. The final one stopped his heart, which she confirmed a minute later with her stethoscope. She then said I could be alone with him if I wanted for as long as I wanted and left the room. I began sobbing as she left the room. But as I looked at Tao-Tao, he seemed so at peace in his eternal rest, like he had fallen into a deep and blessed sleep. <br />
<br />
I stroked him, told him how much I loved him, kissed him, and then tenderly placed him, still wrapped in his blanket, on the examining table, gathered my cat carrier, and quietly left the room. The receptionist out front said, “I’m so sorry” as I fought back my tears, croaked “Thank you,” and headed for the car.<br />
<br />
Later that evening I walked to the grocery store, and, while I was shopping, I heard Al Stewart’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/neqfWdiKt8g">Year of the Cat</a>” for the first time in over a decade playing over the store’s speakers.<br />
<br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-83ec15f8-7fff-ec65-396e-435939bfbf56">It had been quite a year, indeed, for our two cats. Neither of them had ever been seriously ill and taken to the vet since we acquired Tao-Tao from an animal rescue society over ten years ago and Jaidee from the same organization about two years later. <br /><br />And then, just a little over a year ago, Tao-Tao began losing weight and acting listless. I finally took him to the vet, and, after a series of tests and consultation with a renowned veterinary diagnostician, eventually received the terminal diagnosis, and soon afterwards, Jaidee became deathly ill with a virus that almost killed him but was saved by intensive and very costly treatment.<br /><br />Tao-Tao was a beautiful Russian Blue mix with gorgeously large green eyes that almost never registered anything but an almost Buddha-like equanimity and gentleness, and he had the most compliant disposition of any cat I’d ever had or seen. He was like a warm, silky-haired toy you could handle almost any way you wanted and he wouldn’t complain. And dosing him every night for a year with prednisolone tablets was incredibly easy every time as I would just gently push open his mouth, drop in the tablet, and he’d obligingly chew it a little and swallow it and then eat his last of many servings of canned food for the day before I went to bed.<br /><br />There will never be another Tao-Tao. Rest in eternal peace, my sweet and lovely Buddha-boy.</span>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-25907367836932370122018-10-06T12:13:00.001-07:002018-12-02T11:55:19.093-08:00Saying No Thanks to Religious Proselytizers<br />
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<br />
<div>
A young woman, probably still in high school, just knocked on my door. She was accompanied by an older lady using a walker. When I answered, the young woman, holding an electronic tablet and some literature in her hands, asked me if I was much of a "Bible-reader" and if I'd like to talk with her for a moment about the Bible. I gave her an almost rote response honed by countless similar turnings-away of religious proselytizers at my door by saying something like, "I'm really not interested in discussing it, but thank you anyway," at which point, she and the older lady politely took their leave.<br />
<br />
I felt uncomfortable about the robotic delivery of my refusal and, as I always do in such circumstances, about declining to talk with this sweet young woman. I'm one of those hapless individuals who hates to say "No" to people and who will often go to considerable lengths to avoid it and invariably feels vaguely guilty about it afterward, as though I have some moral obligation to say "Yes" even to unreasonable requests.<br />
<br />
As they walked away en route to the next front porch, I also contemplated the effect decades of arguing my non-belief face-to-face and online with theists has had on me. I used to relish confronting believers with probing questions about and passionate counterarguments to their beliefs, but that thrill is pretty much gone. Not only have I become bored with such pursuits, but given the sad state of America and the world today in so many respects, I find myself increasingly sympathetic to those who argue that they need to believe in divine goodness and posthumous release into everlasting bliss from the travails and chaos of this earthly life to make this life tolerably "meaningful."<br />
<br />
Still, I wonder if the best way to make this life better is to believe in what I regard as patent nonsense and to go door-to-door trying to lure others into the fold of embracing fairy tales dressed up as momentous facts. And I wonder if I might and should have said something to that young woman that might, just might have set her to thinking and questioning and maybe someday have helped lead to her abandoning her foolish "faith" for something truer and potentially more fulfilling.<br />
<br />
But then I thought, "Leave the poor girl be." My decades of fruitlessly arguing religion with believers has largely convinced me that such activity is pointlessly ineffectual. I couldn't persuade her to abandon her faith even if I really wanted to and truly had something better to offer in its place, and I'm not even sure that I do on either count.<br />
<br />
Yes, I think I did the right thing firmly but respectfully turning her and her mentor away.</div>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-16653975136070751322018-08-18T10:53:00.000-07:002018-08-18T11:28:45.154-07:00Goodbye, Dearest Aretha<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
August 16 was not a fortuitous day for American "royalty." I refer to the "Sultan of Swat" Babe Ruth, the original "King of Rock and Roll" Elvis Presley," and the one and only "Queen of Soul" Aretha Franklin. All three died on August 16. And when they did, the nation grieved.<br />
<br />
I grieve now for Aretha. I knew she was dying, but when she finally passed Thursday from pancreatic cancer, I read the effusive tributes to her greatness while listening to some of her finest performances, and tears welled in my eyes. Was I really crying for her, or was I crying for the loss of a dazzling force of nature's vibrant constancy throughout most of my life?<br />
<br />
It's not that, as a young white boy growing up in the suburbs and as a young and not-so-young man fixated on instrumental jazz and jazz-rock fusion for decades, I always appreciated Aretha's greatness as much as it richly deserved to be. I heard and liked many of her songs on the radio over the years, but I didn't attend any of her concerts or buy any of her albums. I knew she was revered and believed she deserved to be, but my reverence for her was superficially felt. Still, she was always a vital part of my culture and, therefore, a part of me.<br />
<br />
Yet, around ten or so years ago after I began watching "American Idol" with my wife, I started paying more attention to male and female vocals and vocalists. And only after I'd been doing that a while did my appreciation of the greatest of the great vocalists swell to unadorned adoration of the singer Rolling Stone magazine <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-147019/aretha-franklin-6-227696/">ranked in 2010</a> as the greatest singer of all time. I'm no music expert, but I've never heard anyone who could convey so much powerful emotion with such heartfelt mastery, or seen anyone do it with such sublime regality as Aretha did. <a href="https://youtu.be/qz2efshhuq4">This astonishing performance</a> when she was 73 years old says everything more that needs to be said about Aretha Franklin and will remain indelibly etched in my mind forever.<br />
<br />
Thank you, Aretha Frankin, for being such an enduring part of the soundtrack of my life and for doing it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufo5asgnnrI">your way</a>!Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-28216607478717102562018-08-11T11:26:00.000-07:002018-08-11T12:49:10.081-07:00Unfree Will and CBT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
My wife sent me to the store this morning for a cucumber. She needed it for a dish she cooked for the <a href="https://www.watsacramento.org/w-0e.htm">Thai temple</a>.<br />
<br />
When I got to the checkout counter, there was a young guy ahead of me with a basket full of groceries. He looked at me and my single cucumber but went ahead and checked out first.<br />
<br />
If I had been the one with the basket full of groceries and he had been the one with the single cucumber, I would have let him go ahead of me. I always do. And most people do the same with me. But this guy was not me or most people. At least not this morning.<br />
<br />
I confess that I felt some resentment. And I'm pretty sure I could have silently talked myself into more of it. But I didn't want to do this. So, I did the opposite.<br />
<br />
People with whom I discuss my belief in unfree will often ask me what good could come of such a belief. Today's incident is one place where my nonbelief in free will can be beneficial. When people do things we don't like but we don't think they could have done otherwise given their nature and circumstances, it's hard to feel or stay angry with them.<br />
<br />
And if we subscribe to the principles of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy">CBT</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_therapy">REBT</a>, it's hard to feel or stay angry with someone who does things we don't like even if we believe they freely chose to do it. Why? Because it can be reasonably argued that most things people do that we don't like don't violate any demonstrable divine edict or societal or natural law.<br />
<br />
Theists and some philosophers might disagree, but I'm neither a theist nor philosopher who believes in divine edicts or natural law. So, when people do things I don't like, in most cases I tell myself something such as: "I don't like the fact that this person did this, but there was no divine or natural law I know of that said they MUST or SHOULD do it, and so it's an inconvenience but not an awful or terrible thing that I have good reason to upset myself over." And when I do this, I generally don't feel angry with someone or hold on to anger I'm already feeling.<br />
<br />
Unfree will and CBT are potent antidotes to needless emotional upset when I have the self-discipline to exercise them skillfully. May I continue to exercise and refine my ability to do this.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-35635062729298763532018-07-28T10:59:00.000-07:002018-07-28T10:59:02.620-07:00Air Conditioner Woes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
My air conditioner finally broke and doesn't appear to be repairable, and it happened in the middle of an extended heatwave. A friend of the family had been nursing our ancient system along through frigid winters and scorching summers over the past several years. But the compressor finally gave up the ghost, and it's unlikely it can be replaced. This means paying a godawful amount of money we can ill afford to have a new system installed. Yet, if it comes down to it, afford it we must.<br /><br />In the meantime, I'm researching our options for which kind of system we want and how we can best finance it, and I'm soliciting advice and estimates from various sources. I wish I knew a lot more about these things than I do and were better and more confident at making decisions involving home and car repairs than I am, but I'm largely at the mercy of other people whom I have to trust.<br /><br />I hope I make the right decisions and that we get a new system that works well and for as long as we need it. Whatever I do, I need to act quickly, because it's supposed to stay hot for a long time, and I'm no spring chicken at tolerating the heat. And even though my wife is considerably younger than me, she's no fan of interior evening temperatures in the high 80's or low 90's either. Ceiling and floor fans can provide only limited relief by themselves.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-89218968183898335702018-07-12T09:40:00.002-07:002018-07-12T21:36:27.303-07:00Trump Supporters Are Defective?<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I just posted this to Facebook today. Am I wrong to be so opinionated about this? I guess I'm being somewhat hyperbolic out of unrestrained desire to vent my building frustration and anger over the Trump presidency. I suppose there could be other causes or reasons why people love President Trump that I don't list here. Even so...<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<i><span style="color: red;">There is something seriously, SERIOUSLY lacking in anyone who enthusiastically supports Trump and can't understand the legitimate reasons why so many of us despise his presidency.</span> </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i><span style="color: red;">The evidence documenting his abominable character and actions throughout his adult life and his gross ignorance, intellectual and social incompetence, crippling psychopathology, mendacity, and odious conduct overall as president is too abundant for anyone with their eyes even halfway open to think he's an exemplary president worthy of their fawning support.</span> </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"><i>It's one thing to hold one's nose and vote for him because he supports, even if for blatantly opportunistic reasons, policies one believes are of overriding urgency such as anti-abortion, but it's quite another to praise him to the heavens as God's chosen representative and as a great man and great president. Anyone who does THAT clearly has a screw loose, or they're just plain STUPID!</i></span></blockquote>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-24989182573193725452018-03-25T16:07:00.000-07:002018-04-02T13:08:25.934-07:00Time to Shine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">I used to post here every year on my birthday. Then I missed a year or maybe more. This year, I missed again. Or I decided not to post. I decided it would be better if I waited until the day after to write about the day before.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">I enjoyed my birthday yesterday. Maybe more than usual. It's not that I did anything special. There was no party and cake or romantic dinner with my wife in some fancy restaurant.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">Instead, I drove to my wife's Thai Buddhist temple and presented gifts to the temple in return for receiving good karma that will help me enjoy a better life in my next incarnation, or something like that. I don't believe that stuff, but I like to give and to help out the temple even if I receive nothing more from it than the pleasure of giving. And I like to please my wife who wants me to give to help out the temple and earn good karma for myself and for her.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">After the presentation and the usual morning round of chanting, which I always sit back with eyes closed and listen to respectfully while the others carry on, I piled delicious potluck Asian food on my plate and savored every bite until I was uncommonly full by recent standards. And many people, including some of the monks, wished me a Happy Birthday.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">After all that, I drove home while my wife remained behind, and I took a nap and then rose and started thanking people on Facebook for their birthday wishes. I really enjoyed reading their wishes and replying to them. Yes, I harbor no illusions that my birthday means anything special to them, unless they happen to share it, which some of my Facebook friends and acquaintances do. I know they're just being nice in what is probably an obligatory sort of way. After all, there's always someone we know on Facebook who's having a birthday no matter what date it is, especially if we know a lot of people on Facebook. Yet, I still appreciate, more than I ever have before, that they took a few seconds to write to me.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">As I wrote on Facebook today, the older I get, and I'm well into my 60's now, the more I appreciate the simpler things in life. Yesterday I was and today I am still filled with gratitude that I was able to experience yet another birthday and that I am still alive and still in abundant possession of my modest faculties.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">Is this because I know my time is running out? That's surely part of it. My time IS running out. And given what may loom in my near future, it might be better if it runs out sooner than later. But I think it's also the case that when we've been around long enough, we come to realize, if we're lucky, that many of the so-called "big" things in life--i.e., buying costly or prestigious items, accomplishing ballyhooed goals and reaping extravagant rewards for it--is often not as fulfilling as stroking my <a href="http://nagarjuna1953.blogspot.com/2017/10/to-euthanize-or-not-to-euthanize.html">dying cat</a> on my lap, seeing my wife off to work in the morning, reading a wonderful essay on philosophy or science, listening to a beautiful </span></span><a href="https://youtu.be/RXY0gtkBCMs">Hiromi solo</a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">, or thanking someone for their birthday message.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">I don't know if I'll be around next year to write on or soon after my birthday. I never know from year to year, and I know even less this year than ever before. Yet, from this point on, I'm going to write more and do more and be better for as long as I can. Not because I expect external rewards for it. But because it's my inner calling. To do my best and be my best.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">I will focus much of my effort, wherever I am and whatever my circumstances, on producing a podcast and writing a book on free will and on becoming a professional writer and podcaster. Nobody would hire me for anything else because I'm old and have nothing to offer them. But I can speak and I can write and I can deliver something to this world that nobody else can exactly like me, especially if I stop trying to be different or better than anyone else. And I've hidden my light under a bushel for far, far too long.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;">Time to shine.</span></span>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-69074792354905901292018-03-16T16:42:00.000-07:002018-03-16T16:47:20.971-07:00David Mamet Gives Me Pause<img alt="Image result for david mamet" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRReYk2MaQDA0t-utcY_43PrtzWdfPyIZs4lrXgx-LRjDTA5ErM" /><br />
<br />
I listened to a WTF <a href="http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-898-david-mamet">podcast episode</a> this morning in which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Maron">Marc Maron's</a> guest was award-winning playwright, film director, screenwriter, and novelist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet">David Mamet</a>. <br />
<br />
I haven't seen or heard much of Mamet himself over the years. But based on what I've seen of his films and plays and a smattering of him in the media, I expected him to be less cordial and talkative than he was with Maron. On that podcast, he wasn't the intensely terse man of his fictional creations but an outspoken, almost garrulous man of strong opinions.<br />
<br />
And one of his opinions is that a play or film is worth nothing if it doesn't "entertain" the audience. It can be filled with lofty ideas, but if it doesn't entertain the audience, it's just a bunch of pretentious crap.<br />
<br />
He cited the example of poetry in the New Yorker that wannabe intellectuals praise. He says when he asks them to recite a line or two from some poem they say they liked, they can't. He takes this to mean they want to like it because they think they're supposed to, and they pretend to like it because they believe it will make them appear or actually become smarter and more cultured than they are. But they don't really like it because it isn't any good and doesn't entertain the reader enough to like and remember it well enough to recite it the way, say, a great Shakespeare sonnet does.<br />
<br />
As I listened to this, I thought of the kinds of books, articles, and blogposts I want to write and podcasts I want to produce about subjects such as free will, Christian counter-apologetics, integral Buddhist stoicism, integral health, and so forth, and I wonder how entertaining I can make any of it. And if I can't make it entertaining, who's going to read or listen to it? And why would they? To foolishly put on airs of effete intellectualism and learnedness? I lack the academic bonafides to lure paying customers to my work even for that empty purpose.<br />
<br />
Yet, I feel compelled to produce written works and podcasts that offer the best I can concerning the subjects and issues that fascinate me come what may. And so I shall.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10032287.post-85128524584207306252018-03-15T19:44:00.000-07:002018-03-15T19:44:02.526-07:00Can't Give UpI feel desperate. Everything is coming to a head. I can't continue the way I have, and I'm afraid. I'm afraid for my marriage. I'm afraid of losing everything. I'm afraid of being left in the figurative if not literal cold.<br /><br />I've had such a long time and so many opportunities to at least try to do better, and I've squandered them. I don't blame myself for this. I understand that when a man is convinced he's so intellectually weak and psychologically flawed that he has no chance of succeeding at anything he might try that's worth trying for, he's not going to make much of an effort. And that's how I've thought, felt, and lived most of my adolescent and adult life. Maybe I've had good reason to do this, and maybe I haven't. But here I am, and I don't think I'm being too dramatic when I say that I find myself peering into the darkness.<br /><br />But here's the thing. Even if my best efforts from now on are doomed to fail, at least I can try while I still can draw breath, think coherent thoughts, and put my fingers to the keyboard. I can still read. I can still study. I can still write for my blogs. I can still compose and publish my book. I can still produce my podcast. I can still keep up my household duties. I can still be the best husband to my wife, caretaker to my cats, son to my mom, friend to my friends, and person to everybody that I can possibly be every remaining moment of my waking life.<br /><br />That's worth something! Going out trying my best has to be better than the alternative, no matter what the result. I can't let myself give up. I have to try like I've never tried before until there's nothing left of me.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02549770321948541384noreply@blogger.com0