I Am Programmed

For the past couple of years I've been noticing - as in catching myself in the act - how much of my thinking, behavior and actions are programmed, so much so that I haven't observed very much at all that is original.

To that end I've made a conscious effort to notice, to ponder upon what could qualify as new thinking, or behaviors. I'd thought I'd found and example in my gym routines, where I've been modifying and upping the focus of, and difficulty of, my workout routines to improve my strength in certain body areas that have been experiencing aches and pains

I recently watched the Public TV program, The Brain with David Eagleman, which served to elucidate my ponderings by illustrating the brain's mechanics and their consequences. Since watching I've been able to more clearly and more completely watch my programming at work.

This morning I was watching  an interview on the Today Show with three women talking about their various religions and their desire to coexist with other's religions. It occurred to me that the entire conversation was a clear example of programmed thinking.

So I started to wonder, as we age, let's just say past the age of 65, what percentage of our thinking could be said to be original? Any? How much have we been programmed by the people, media, and environment around us? I mean 65 years is a lot of programming time!

Consider: we truck off to church once a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, to be told stories about how people behaved in the past; and how we are expected to copy those behaviors, and retell those same stories. Most religions have a) some element of defining good and bad behavior, b) some mystical leader who tells his/her followers how these behaviors should be maintained and spread to others, and c) an indisputable clarity about the rightness of their own version of the right behavioral doctrine.

All followers go through a kind of indoctrination. I recall as a child, being carted off to church, sitting through a "service", listening to what supposed wisdom was being espoused, at least the little that I could understand; and repeatedly practicing those programming ceremonies that claimed those who participated were "good" people. So naturally in a good/bad paradigm, that meant anyone not "good" was automatically "bad".

I sometimes wondered, "is there any other way to be?" Could I be neither good, nor bad? Could I be both? Do I really have to be one or the other? Is there some other paradigm for human beings? When I brought that up in Cataclysm, it didn't go over well. What if I was neither?, I asked. Would people still like me? Would I be acceptable? Could I survive? Should I survive? How did I arrive to this question?, my minister asked. Should I even be asking such things?

Throughout my religious training (Sunday School, Church, Cataclysm, Youth Group, Boy Scouts, Holidays, and holiday ceremonies, etc) did I ever hear anyone suggest that there might be other ways to think about these stories, this history, this behavioral indoctrination, this programming? Nope.

I do remember hearing a few people say, "think for yourself". I recall wondering on a few of those occasions, "what does that mean?'. Before I got the distinction voice-in-my-head, "I" was my thinking. There was no me separate from those never ending thoughts. And now the voice in my head is wondering, "how much of what is occurring as my thinking, have I ever invented?"

The mind and aging

I've been noticing lately the correlation between my mind (the voice-in-my-head that seems to be separate from me - that does what we call thinking) and what's going on in my aging body. Sometimes the aches and pains get intense; enough to make it very clear that I probably don't have decades left.

I've noticed that in my mind, I'm OK with dying. That doesn't seem so foreboding any longer. What's way more annoying are the same-old-and-new-daily-discovered-pains-in-my-body. My joints hurt. Not all of them, mind you. Just the ones that I use.

I play golf and my lower right side back muscles are sore for a couple days. I walk 9 holes (according to fitbit that is 10000 steps - 5 miles) and my right knee and shin hurt. And when I finish my right-side and back hurt, right under my right shoulder blade and in my lower right lats.  My right wrist needs a steroid shot now once a year as the sheath around the tendon where it crosses the bone in my wrist is worn and frazzled - the doctor philosophically tells me "it's just age".  I swim laps 3 or 4 times a week to stretch my pecs, lats, and my abdominal external obliques (are you impressed?) and they are all sore for two days. I wonder. Do lefty's experience this same pains on the left side of their back? But I digress.

A few days ago I decided I'd build a raised garden for our back deck. I thought I'd be smart and build it to about waist height, use plastic deck lumber so it doesn't rot, mount it on wheels, and make it v-shaped so deep rooting plants could grow in a middle row while shallower rooting plants could grow along the edges - final size = 96" L x 30" W x 32" H. Weight turned out to be about 1000 lbs.

There was a time when I would have planned this out more sensibly, but my brain no longer thinks that clearly. Anyway, that voice-in-my-head had lots of good reasons why it made sense at the time.

It took three days to build it. The last day was the hardest. I had constructed the plastic-plank sides, each of which weighed in at about 90 lbs. I had to lift each of them in and out of the frame four times  to mark and measure the cuts in them so they'd fit as needed. Once I got the whole thing built, I then had to lift 6 forty lb bags of drainage stone (into the bottom of the v) and 12 forty lb bags of planting soil to fill the garden. By that time, given the unbelievable pain in my back, it was clear this was a stupid project.

After each day of work there were nights of pain and body soreness. The last night I was bone tired and slept 11 hours. The next day I did nothing - well I mean nothing really physical. I was too tired to even go to the gym. I did manage to plant some veggies and seeds - my reward for all that stupidity and pain.

So why do I go on so? Well on that fourth day I reflected back on my stupidity. Before I started, in my mind, I knew I could figure out how to do this project. And before I began, the voice-in-my-head figured I was still physically able. And finally my annual-spring-exuberant-energy relished this opportunity to appropriately celebrate the season's arrival. So I dove in. Ouch.

However, upon reflection I remembered back to high school days, coming home from track practice, or an all-day tennis match, with similar pains. And after a typical summer day building houses as a carpenter, I came home feeling tired and sore. If I complained my mother would just call it "growing pains", or say something like, "no gain without ___". You know how it goes. So I didn't give it any credence. I knew I'd outlive it. Context is everything.

Now however, it seems that my mind and body live on different planets. That seems like my daily reality. However as I reflected, there were notable exceptions to that thought:

1. I noticed that in my spring exuberance, my daily dose of vertigo-every-time-I-bend-over was gone! No vertigo! 
2. The more my back hurt the less my wrist hurt! I don't really know if my wrist actually hurt less, or if my mind could tolerate only so much discomfort at one time. The voice-in-my-head just realized (noticed-and-informed-me) at the end of day one, that my wrist didn't seem to hurt any more.

So the voice-in-my-head began to wonder. Is there a phenomenon where the brain accepts aging (and dying) as we go through the process? 

I mean I know my brain is less capable in some very noticeable ways. My mind-body connection is not as automatic as it used to be. I noticeably can do only one thing at a time now. And I typically have to stop and concentrate on that thing - even something as simple as carrying an arm full of things up stairs to put away. I have to stop, empty my arm load onto something; then take each item one-at-a-time and put them away. That of course assumes I was able to navigate the stairs without holding on; which isn't always possible; and, that I'll remember when I get to the top of the stairs, why I came up in the first place - yes, even with an arm load of things.

I used to be able to do that sort of thing all automatically without thinking; and do it as easily and naturally as southerners say "You'all" (sounds more like yawl}. But now I can do neither - walk up the stairs without any thought, or say "yawl" like a southerner.

So the next time my exuberance grabs me to do a stupid project, I need an interruption. I thought I could post my plans on Facebook and ask my friends to intervene by comment. However as I complete this, the voice-in-my-head is saying, "you'll just forget".

Us and the Universe

Having done some catching up on the universe, what we know about it, and what we are recently attempting to discover with the telescope we are deploying to replace Hubble (i.e - the edge of the universe), I'm struck by the way we (as a planet of human beings) interact with the magnitude, the humanly unfathomable scale of it all, and what that scale seems to do to how we see ourselves.

Recent predictions are that we will actually be able to see back to the earliest moments of the birth of the universe, discovering countless more new galaxies in the process. And with those billions (yes it's with a b) of galaxies, which our astronomers are now convinced to be home to maybe trillions of planets, we are confronting a scale that shatters our invention "God". For if we look past our parochial God, the one who resides in a nearby heaven, invented by superstitious story tellers a couple thousand years back, and expand that all encompassing God out to include the whole know universe, it short-circuits our God character.

To say that God created this known universe to the scale that we now can confront and measure, and did so just for us - our existence, our petty paces, our teeny-tiny little nuclear wars, mass shootings, planetary warming issues, and the current president of the United States - is to so diminish that God as to make him/her's existence comical.

God created billions of galaxies containing billions of suns, home to trillions of planets (or other sundry celestial bodies) all just to entertain a species we call earth-human-beings (we have no idea what God calls earth or us). And that he/she put all of this in place in seven days, which of course doesn't compute with the science (one of those inconvenient truths we are driven to avoid confronting).

According to what I'm seeing and reading, leading astrophysicists now calculate it's likely there is life elsewhere in the universe. It may not be life as we know it or define it, but nonetheless some sort of life. Just the sheer billions of planets estimated to exist with conditions similar to planet earth make this forecast (which depending on the hard wiring in your brain, is either overwhelmingly possible, or undeniably heretical.

I know it's treasonous to suggest we are thrown to our perspective, programmed to insist that our interpretations are truths ("What interpretations? I know reality when I see it!"). And if we could  arrive to a place where we simply don't dismiss our science as fake news, it might be that God, if he/she does exist, didn't just create all this universe for us to observe, explore and/or transform (in science destruction is simply a transformation of energy). There are, excuse me, may-well-be other entities out there who can also grok this existence we call a "universe"!

What continues to puzzle me is how entities as developed as humans, are so driven to avoid confronting evidence of our smallness and lack-of-importance within the context - the scale - of this thing we call the universe. I'm supposing we just can't be with the notion - as grounded on our most focused and intelligent observations as those notions may be - that the universe simply doesn't care about human beings.

Realize that to claim any other conclusion is to demote the universe to the status of organized/existing- just-for-us. Organized just for our pleasure, or amazement, or observation; or perhaps, overwhelm. It occurs to me that the abyss we so desperately avoid facing is the one that says, on a universal scale, we don't matter.

"Of course we matter!", we scream. "How dare you suggest otherwise? You heathen!"

For me, the real opportunity for humans is having us somehow evolve to confront the possibility that the only ones who care if we matter is us. There is no "God-who will-ultimately-keep-us-from-destroying-ourselves, or our environments. There is no "mother nature", who will magically reverse our environmental stupidities to maintain a "balance". In the universal scheme of things, a sweltering hot planet is just another among billions of sweltering hot planets. No big deal!

Nor with trillions of planets to worry about, is "God" going to waste any time patching up our planet. In the universe we are just one form of energy that will, with our ultimate transgressions, devolve to transform to another form of energy, and will do so without pain, struggle, or emotion. The best we can do is speed it up or slow it down. And neither the universe nor our God(s) care about how much time we take.

The wake we leave behind us

As we (Brian M and myself) have been hosting various memorial services for Jessica (Colker), I've been struck by the magnitude and consistency of how Jess has impacted the communities in which she lived, worked, and played..

She has been repeatedly, and simultaneously, described as sometimes quiet or maybe soft, sometimes spontaneous, always authentic, apparently (to anyone who took time to pay attention) loving, and typically present - as in grounded without pretense, and therefore, available. 

People have, of course, remarked about her physical beauty, but it's been apparent that there's more there than her smile and her looks. Her beauty is more complex, sometimes expressed  as grace, sometimes expressed as her availability. She's been described both as "graceful"; and at other times as "having grace".

And I've been struck by breadth of people's expressions. People have shared about Jess all the way back to her childhood, through her college years, and her early employment positions. They have driven several hours to attend the memorials, "just because". Just because Jess has somehow touched them, such that they would do so in order to express themselves and complete their relationship with her.

Last night's group gathered in Charlottesville, VA where Jess has both lived after college, and regularly participated in 5rhythms dance programs/workshops, dance that accesses authenticity through kinetic motion - providing opportunities for accessing transformation through structural conversations.

As described on the 5rhythms web site:

Our bodies and behaviors tell the story of our social conditioning, our belief systems, and our personal experience. In movement we embody these narratives, we give them form. We also have the opportunity to deconstruct and re–imagine our identities, every time we step on the floor.

As I listened to people sharing about what Jess meant to them, or how she had impacted them, I found myself noticing her wake - the way each of these communities was touched by Jess, was impacted by her passing through, her presence among them, and the connection she brought with her into each of these communities and relationships. It was without guile and obviously prodigious

Joy

Julia Dederer has gotten me wondering about the next 30 years of my life. GEESH!

When I started the inquiry what showed up was joy. Imagine that! Thirty years of joy! Impossible you say? My first thought was, "what a stupid notion".

Well maybe. Maybe not.

I was fishing today. It was windy so it was hard to manage the boat as it was pushed around by the wind. It didn't seem like there was a lot of joy around. Then I began to execute my down-wind drift strategy which allowed me to stop struggling with the wind and get present to where the fish were (joy).

Shortly thereafter, when bringing in a nice bass, I realized I was in a state of joy. It occurred to me that there are lots of states of joy and that if I'm willing I can maybe find joy in lots of places, with lots of people, in many moments, for many years.

Until now I sort of thought there was just one kind of joy and it was only present in special occasions or with special people.

Interesting.

I looked up the words joy and enjoy to trace the derivations. Both trace back to the Latin word gaudere which translates to rejoice. So I'm thinking that joy as a noun is grounded in rejoicing (a verb). So joy as a state is grounded in an action. The action of rejoicing. That was enlightening because it made joy something other than a state in which I might find myself. It now occurs as something I bring about by generating, by rejoicing.

Physical issues

As of this writing I am 76.

Today I decided to walk 9 holes at our golf course here at Mill Creek. The temperature was forecast to be in the low 90s and I wanted to see if I could get around 9 holes without passing out.

I've recently bought a remote controlled electric (battery powered) bag cart to carry my bag as I walk the course. It's sort of like walking the dog. Sometimes the cart leads me and sometimes I lead the cart.

According to my fitbit, walking the front 9 sets me up to walk between 6 and 7 miles for the whole day. Most of that is on the golf course. I live on the 17th tee, so I begin there, walk down to the club house, play holes 1 through 9, and then walk back to my house. That circuit racks up about 11000 steps, or about 5 1/2 miles (there's a lot of distance between holes on this course, probably accounting for 25% of the circuit).

Heat has bothered me since elementary school. I don't tolerate it well and have passed out from it maybe a dozen times through the years, so I bought this cart hoping to extend my walking golf longer into the summer. Not only does the cart carry my 45 lb bag but it's also powerful enough to help pull me up the many inclines and hills on our golf course, when I hold on to the cart's handle going up hill. Surprising how much difference that makes.

Well I started on my experiment around 1:30 - temperature clocking 90. If I were pushing my old 3-wheel cart, no way would I make this circuit. During the outing, I drank two 12oz Gaterades and 24 ounces of iced tea that I took in my thermos. I also ate a nice juicy apple walking down to the first hole and an energy bar after 5 holes.

By the time I got to the 9th green I was feeling a light headed, so after finishing, I found a bench in the shade and sat (and hydrated) for about 5 minutes before making the trek back home. When I got home the thermometer registered 92. I was soaked, bushed, and feeling woozy, clearly just on the limit of what I could physically tolerate.

So while the cart is making a difference and will expand my walking season, I'm clear it won't allow me to walk throughout our typically blazing NC summers. My summer golf will be relegated to riding in a golf cart, and even that gets iffy in August and September - until the heat breaks.

Political Ruminations

I’ve been thinking back over my politically conscious life experiences (I wasn’t politically aware as a child) and pondering the swings back and forth between what we now call “left” and “right”. My first conscious recollections were from conversations between my parents when Truman was president in the early 50’s.

He seemed to be respected but not particularly exciting. When Ike came along the mood seemed to change to one of relief. We expected our “general” could keep us safe so we could get into action, building our infrastructures and developing new economic opportunities. Despite the nagging fear that we could at any moment, be bombed into oblivion, it seemed to be a period of prosperity - such that I grew up thinking that was just the way the world was. Prosperity was an “is”, a guaranteed future.

Kennedy came along and defined a new set of hopes. And after he forced Russia to stand down during the Cuban crisis, we sighed relief that maybe we could actually somehow no longer fear a nuclear holocaust. Hope and optimism were front and center again. This is about the time when I remember the terms “right’ and “left” coming into use, mostly on TV.

When Kennedy was assassinated it was a psychological blow to our solar plexus. The lesson seemed to be that hope and optimism were emotional inventions and were subject to instant eradication. The mood was sadness. We mourned.

Although he tried, Johnson could not stem the downward emotional spiral we had fallen into. We weren’t just morning Kennedy, we were mourning the loss of our hopeful innocence.

When Nixon entered the picture the mood of the country went even darker. It wasn’t just a shift to the right. It was a shift in what had constituted the purposes of our leaders. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson had all seemed to be organized around serving their country. With Nixon, I remember being worried, perhaps for the first time, that our prosperity was threatened not just by foreign “enemies”, but also by the very politicians we had elected to lead us. It now seemed clear that they put themselves before the country they aspired to lead.

Ford seemed to stem that drift as he seemed decently organized around the good of country before himself. Carter turned our attentions back toward the values and hopes of the left, followed by Reagan and Bush (1) who seemed more centrists and less about themselves. Maybe we hoped, it could be that the intentions of our leaders were once again trustworthy.

Clinton wanted to be, and clearly was to some extent, a resurrection of the Kennedy hope, now labeled by journalists as “the Left”. Noticeably he also reveled in the notoriety and adulation. Even so, we enjoyed a period of relative safety and prosperity.

Bush (2) then swung our attention back toward what we needed to be afraid of. We now faced enemies all over the middle east and learned through our media that we needed to fear and be suspicious of Muslims, jihadists, and weapons of mass destruction.

Then Obama swung us right back to the hope theme, now not just for white-middle-class-America, but also for African-Americans and other minorities. We now hoped we could finally all get along together. Still there was, and remains, a festering unspoken undercurrent of bigotry and covert fear-based righteousness. These fears were finally given voice, given a political theater from which to act out, to resist, and hopefully, even defeat that nascent hope and innocence of Obama's presidency.

And now Trump seems to be telling us we need to turn back to the right, to hunker down and defend our shores against all kinds of enemies some real, many imagined, all fodder for dramatic narratives, and wildly invented realities.

And so it seems, we swing back and forth between a national mood of hope, then fear, then hope, then fear. The hope survives briefly until we invent a new threat to its future, then we dive back into the fear syndrome, righteous about our need to protect ourselves.

What’s so interesting is that none of machinations ever seem to be fully realized. The mood of the majority swings back and forth. We’re either certain of our impending doom, or our next revived optimism. Now, our mood is fearful - looking for some hope to grasp upon, wanting to invent our next calling.

Of course, I have my personal preferences.  And even though they seem to be under assault right now, I’m reminded, we have until now, and I expect will in the future, survive. Whether for four years or eight years, Trump is by his very actions and behaviors, laying the ground work to swing the pendulum back toward “the left”, whatever the hell that is. A little drama gets the blood flowing again, yes?