Aging Capriciously

The “time trap” is an expression we have all heard before, but what is a “time trap?” What exactly qualifies something for being a time trap? Is a time trap like a mouse trap where time runs in and can’t get out? Or is it only a figurative illusion for something that eats our time up? Is it simply a person, place or thing that captures our time and will not let it go?

It’s barely yours on loan
What you think you own
The place that you call home
The ideas in your bones (in your bones)
This would still feel dumb
Back where you’re from
Do you (do you) want to change your mind
Do you want to change your mind
Cause you could never know that
In a time trap
In a time trap (Lyrics by the Built to Spill Band)

Some things that come to mind as time traps for me are the following: working on a computer bug, a wedding, working in the yard, doing a word puzzle or cleaning up the house. Time traps are things that unexpectedly capture our time or use up more of our time than we had originally allocated. For some of us, time traps are a routine hazard of life. Just like sand traps on a golf course, we see them, but can’t avoid them. Once we fall into them, they are very difficult to get out of. Of course, this metaphor suggests that we want to avoid them and that may not be the case. Many of us like to find some type of activity to spend our time on and for us, it is not a time trap. It all becomes very relative. One person’s trap is another persons passion.

What constitutes a time trap for one of us might be a joyful use of time for another. What are those things in your life that you consider “time traps?” How do you avoid or get out of them? How often do you still fall into them?

Futurists or prophets – do you know the difference? The World Future Society is an organization of people (Futurists) who attempt to look at the future through a variety of tools. Forecasting, scenarios and environmental scans are all methods of trying to extract possible futures from present and predicted trends. Of course, many times there are “discontinuities” that are not predicted or even predictable. Hurricanes, earthquakes, assassinations, and deaths can radically alter the best laid plans or projections. Thus, futurists do not attempt to proscribe the future as much as set out a variety of possible scenarios given what is currently known about the world.

Prophets on the other hand are more artistic and less logical. Their knowledge about the future appears to come from some inner vision or perhaps inspired vision. The ancient Greeks would go to the Oracle at Delphi to find out what the future held for them. Legend has it that the Oracle or Oracles were generally very obtuse with their predictions. Even back then, they did not want a negative prediction being held against them. Thus, you could infer many different possibilities from visiting with the Oracle. The same thing could be said today about spiritualists, palm readers, tarot card readers and astrologists. Most of the interpretations of these “seers” could be viewed from a variety of possibilities and outcomes.

Then we have the Weather Forecasters! Those seers who attempt to tell us whether we will have a nice weekend or a rotten one. Of course, this often depends on what weather you would prefer to have. Myself, I love a nice rainy and stormy day. Karen (my spouse) would prefer it be warm and sunny year round. That is why we are now snow- birding between Arizona and Wisconsin.

People have been trying to predict the future since the time of Adam and Eve. Have you ever thought about why we keep trying or why we so desperately want to know the future? It probably seems evident with just a little thought that we all want to reduce risk. By knowing what is coming, we can make contingency plans or know what to avoid or at the very least, feel more confident today. Or so we would like to think. We all want more control over our lives, but as history has shown, this is an elusive goal. Moreover, if we did achieve it, we would be bored silly. Risk brings excitement and adventure. Would you really want to get up each day knowing exactly what was going to happen to you today, tomorrow and the next day? Would you want to know the day and means of your death? How much risk are you comfortable with in your life? How do you attempt to predict your future? Do you go to seers or fortune tellers? Do you think it will rain or snow today?

So, does history repeat itself and is Heraclitus wrong when he says that “we never step in the same river twice?” There seems to be considerable evidence on both sides. Santayana said that: “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it” and Hegel said that: “What experience and history teach is this-that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” Both Hegel and Santayana imply that history keeps repeating itself because of the folly of humans. We do not learn from putting our hand in the fire so we keep getting burned when we put our hand back in the fire. The constant wars between people would seem to validate this rather negative view of humans.

A good friend of mine had a sign over his desk that read: “There are no mistakes, only lessons to be learned.” I loved his optimistic and hopeful view that we can learn from our mistakes and continue to see life as one big school. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of people who do not want to go to school or who think that once they have finished school, they never need pick up a book again. Marx once said that “religion was the opiate of the masses.” Today, it seems that sports are the opiate of the masses.

Millions of people watch TV daily to view basketball, soccer, football, golf, tennis, hockey, baseball, and now NASCAR racing. How many of these same people will watch any political debates, documentaries, The History Channel or take a class again in some new subject or language? How many will care enough to learn about the politicians who make decisions over their lives. How many will bother to learn the “statistics” of the candidates the same way they learn the stats on their favorite players? We complain about our politicians as being unreliable and weak, but how many of us blame ourselves for the government we get? I once heard it said that “people get the government they deserve.” If most of us would rather watch the latest football game, should we really condemn the mediocrity of the politicians we elect? My students tell me that “sports are more interesting then the debates.” They fail to understand the long term significance of their input into the political system. I am sure you have heard people who say “my vote really does not matter.”

I like the thought that you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. You may not agree with the Occupiers, but at least they are trying to be part of a solution. What have you done lately to take part in your government? How much effort do you spend on learning about the people running for office? Do you spend money on campaign contributions or do you just let the “big shots” fund the candidates? What are you doing to help stop history from repeating itself?

Time and time again! We make the same mistakes over and over again. We say that history repeats itself. Styles return and fashions go in cycles. Some of us believe we will be born again and others believe in reincarnation. The same people give us the same headaches time and time again. Is there anything new under the sun or is life simply one big process of recycling? What does it mean to be new or different? When we think we are being unique, are we simply copying an earlier style or idea? Who among us has had an idea that has never been thought of before? We have here the makings of an age old argument wherein there are those who believe that there is nothing new under the sun and those who like Heraclitus (535 BC) say “we never step in the same river twice.” The Chinese invented an early form of vaccination four thousand years ago and the Romans had an early form of air conditioning. Are old ideas simply recycled and modernized to be labeled like the “New Improved Tide.” We all know it is the same old Tide, with a new package.

On the other hand, how could we be living in the world today if not due to brand spanking new ideas? Satellites, automobiles, computers, cell phones, blogs, and myriad other products and services did not exist more than 100 years ago. How could these all be simply old ideas recycled? This question forces us to think about the definitions of new and old. New ideas surely stem from old ideas and many ideas were first thought of hundreds if not thousands of years ago. However, it is one thing to think of an idea and another thing to bring it to fruition. Many of the products and services we have today would not have been possible even decades ago. They would not have had the supply, production, distribution or technology to create the products and services we so casually enjoy today. No, I say give the old it’s due but today is not the past. I agree with Heraclitus, “You never step in the same river twice.”

What is one thing that you feel is truly new in your life? What is one thing different about your life from anyone else in your family? What is something that you think is unique about today’s world that differentiates it from the world of your ancestors? Do you think we are making progress in the world, staying in the same place or falling behind?

Time is what we all need to watch, at least according to the special advertising supplement that was in the USA edition of the Times on October 23, 2011. The title of this supplement was “Watch Your Time” and it was full of exotic and extraordinarily expensive wrist watches. At a time when many people have lost their jobs and homes, it seems unbelievable that anyone could advertise 68 pages of watches that are worth more than many houses. Breguet, Longines, Audemar Piguet, Gucci, Dior, Piaget, Harry Winston, Bulgari and Chopard are just a few of the luxury watches that were advertised. My favorite was a Van Cleef & Arpels called “Landscape with Elephant.” It had a white gold case, elephant set with diamonds and a mother of pearl sculpted background with more diamonds and enamel depicting a jungle setting. Unlike my Casio, it did not have a stop watch, countdown timer, backlight, alarm or running mode. The price was listed at 77,900 Euros which I guess is about $106, 358 US dollars. I tried finding it on EBay or Craigslist but did not have much luck. I don’t think Karen would have liked it anyway as she is not a big watch fan. (The median price for a home in Arizona City was $109, 542 dollars in 2009. My guess is it’s about $20,000 less today or closer to $89, 000 dollars)

Now if you are expecting me to decry the rampant excesses of capitalism or the greedy pride of bankers and Wall Street tycoons that sport such paraphernalia, you had better turn to another blog. A friend of mine once reminded me to be grateful to the people that can afford such “wretched excesses” since they keep the economy going. Do you remember when shortly after 9/11, President Bush exhorted the American public to get out there and spend since it was good for the country? I wonder if the WSO should not simply be exhorting the 1% percent to spend more. Perhaps that is the real solution to the economic problems that we are now facing. The rich simply are not spending enough of their hard earned cash. As proof, I noticed that the Van Cleef & Arpels watch I wanted to buy was only offered in a limited edition of 22 units. I think if the rich were buying more, they could make more of these watches and sell more.

The real issue I have with the notion of exotic luxury time pieces is that they are so passé. In the first place, they are not as accurate as cellphones and they are usually clumsy to put on and take off. I already mentioned their limited functionality (at least compared to my Casio, which is also shock resistant, I should add). It makes me wonder why anyone buys a watch simply to look at or to hope others look at. I have always chosen function over form. I am less concerned with what something looks like and more with what it will do. Of course, I am reminded by Karen that watches are a fashion item now and not just for telling time. Still if I had a watch like the Van Cleef, I would have to wear a t-shirt that read: “Please look at my extraordinarily expensive watch, that I spend an entire year working to own.” The heck with being humble! I guess that is what really separates the rich from the nouveau riche. Unless you have had 3 or more generations of being rich, you would want the world to notice your Guccis, Ferraris and Rolexes, at least I would. Perhaps most of you would be more subtle. I presume some of you might skip the watch and pay off your mortgage or student loan. Just remember, paying bills is not good for the economy.

Do you value form or function? Do you wear a watch? What does the style of a watch tell you about anyone? Does having money and stuff make us better people? If I gave you a $100,000 dollar watch for a gift, what would you do with it?

November is the month that winter really begins in Minnesota. The song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot always lurks in my mind during November. I can hear the following refrain from his song whenever the wind blows strong:

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call ‘Gitche Gumee’.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early!

“November is the eleventh and penultimate month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. In Latin, novem means “nine”. November was also the ninth month in the Roman calendar until a month less winter period was divided between January and February” (Wikipedia).
November is when our leaves have all gone, fall is over and we expectantly wait the coming snow. Although in many years, like this one, we often get surprised very early with an “unseasonably” early storm. Our November days alternate between gray and gloomy with strong winds and an occasional burst of weak sunshine. It is as if the weather gods are building up to heap winter upon us but they haven’t yet quite got the steam for an all out winter storm. The lakes are not fully frozen, the paths have little snowfall and the woods are bleak and dreary looking. Not too many people choose November in Minnesota as their favorite month. The storms we get send you inside with a cold beating rain that is no fun to be caught in. But for a few degrees, a November storm could have been a real blizzard. No snow means no skiing and no snowmobiling. It has not been cold long enough for the ice to be deep enough for ice skating or ice fishing.

What to do in November in Minnesota is a puzzling question. If you are smart, you will build a fire, find a good book, get a hot chocolate, throw a blanket over yourself and resign yourself to five months of winter. With enough firewood, hot chocolate and books, you can make it through another November in Minnesota. You still have Thanksgiving to look forward to. Thanksgiving marks the gateway to the shopping and holiday season. No matter how cold and how much snow there is, you will need to get outside to find the best bargains and put the holiday season in order. Sadly, Karen and I have become snowbirds and to be quite frank, we will no longer puzzle over what to do in November since we are now in Arizona for the winter.

What do you like and dislike about November? What are your associations with this month? How do you get through November? What is the most important or fun thing that you have ever done in November?

Happy Halloween. See my post on Halloween, which I suppose I should have posted today but did not. I guess it has to do with my “obsessive personality,” the subject of today’s blog. Anyway, maybe how we deal with holidays also speaks to our personality. For me, keeping track of time is perhaps the most important thing in my life.

Keeping track of time! The concept of tracking time brings forth images of tracking some wild beast in the woods. Deer, moose, bear, cougars, tigers all leave very distinctive tracks. Time also leaves distinctive tracts. Time leaves physical as well as emotional tracks on all of us. Not to mention the tracks time leaves on the environment. Emotional tracks are evident in the greater cautiousness and fears we have as we age. From experience, once burned, we no longer want to get so close to the flame. Indeed, many of us will not even go near the fire again. Divorce, rejection, death, pain all leave emotional scars. For some of us they may never quite heal. Physical tracks show up as lines, creases, joint aches, hair thinning, broken bones and disease. I often joke that physically I am aging more like cheese then a fine wine. I am getting squishier and somewhat moldy around the edges.

Perhaps you see the ideas of tracking time through a different lens. Maybe you think of the need to track your minutes and seconds each day, a twist on tracking your dollars and cents. Certainly, if you watch your time carefully, you will have more of it. Mark down your time spent each day in an Excel spreadsheet and carefully log your corresponding activities. This last task seems somewhat obsessive to me and I am often accused of being a Type A personality. I once worked at a job where I was required to mark my work in fifteen minute intervals each day and log what I was doing during each interval. After I left this job, I decided I would never work for anyone again where I had to justify myself at this level of detail. It was simply an exercise in obsessive control and domination.

Type A personalities are supposed to be more compulsive and more aggressive than Type B personalities. I wonder if type A personalities are more prone to track their time? Are Type B personalities more prone to go with the flow? Do Type B people live more moment to moment? Are you a Type A or Type B personality? Do you go with the flow or do you track your time? Regarding the physical and emotional tracks that time leaves, how have you fared? What emotional tracks has time left in your life? What physical tracks do you see time making for you?

The phrase “hard times” reminds us of those days when things really were tough. They might have been when we had no money, no place to live, no one who cared about us, or when we faced all of the problems of the world alone. Studs Terkel interviewed hundreds of people for his book “Hard Times”, which told the story of the Great Depression through the words of the people who actually lived it. Many people still remember the Great Depression when unemployment rates soared to thirty percent and higher. It affected people not only in the US but in many other countries as well. Ironically and tragically, some people today still live no better than many did in the Great Depression. The world is full of areas where poverty and unemployment are rife and where “hard times” are the norm.

When we think of the hard times in our life, we may appreciate more where we are now and what we have now. This is a good thing. However, how often do we think of the hard times in the lives of others? What does the phrase “hard times” mean to people who live where there is no medical care or where starvation and disease still kill thousands? The “Great Recession” is “hard times” to those who have no job and are out of work and whose home is being foreclosed. Greed became good in the 80’s with Gordon Gecko’s infamous “Greed is good speech.” Thank God, the Wall Street Occupiers and others are now trying to return us to more commendable values. Greed is not good. Greed may not be the worst of all sins, but “it is the gateway to all others.”

It became fashionable to believe that: “They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If only they had our work ethic or were more like us, they could have what we have. They could live the good life.” This logic assumes that all things in the world are equal and that all circumstances are equal. It does not take much research or knowledge to realize that this is not true. People do not always bring their hard times on themselves by ignorance or sloth. We cannot always control the world and events around us. Remember the quote by Rudyard Kipling “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Jesus Christ said: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew, Chapter 5-7). He did not say “blessed are the hard-hearted, or blessed are those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or blessed are those who have the most.” Funny, how many of us can forget the help we needed or wanted when hard times were upon us. Can you find some way to share your good fortune today with others? What can you do today to take some hard times away from someone else? Be grateful for what you have today and see if you can share some of your good feelings and benefits with others. Let’s all work on rolling back the “greed is good ethic that has permeated our culture.”

A three ring circus! The phase usually means something that is wild, crazy, chaotic, and unpredictable. In a three ring circus, you have multiple acts and performances going on at the same time. Today we often hear talk about multi-tasking, but circuses have been multi-tasking long before the word was even in use. Have you ever thought about the planning and coordination that must go into a circus? You can have clowns, acrobats, lion tamers, horses, dogs and jugglers all performing at the same time. Not an easy production to manage! When we think about the fast paced life that many of us live, it cannot compare to a circus.

Well, maybe our lives feel like a circus at times, but most of us are probably not quite at their level of complexity, not to mention risk taking. Lion tamers, acrobats, trapeze artists are all risking their lives each time they get in a ring. For many people, circuses seem exotic and exciting. Kids once dreamed of leaving home and joining a circus. Many movies have been made about circus life and the romance and drama amidst the big top.

Compare your life to a circus. Are you the ringmaster, a high wire artist, a clown or one of the support people that make the circus work behind the scenes? What part of the circus life do you live? Is your life filled with exciting drama, risk-taking, death defying stunts or mostly the daily chores of watering the elephants and camels? For some of us, life may be picking up the poop behind the horses. Real life is not always exciting and glamorous. What part of a circus would you add to your life if you could? What gets in the way? Have you ever thought of running away and joining a circus? What stopped you?

Have you ever heard the term “Roman Holiday?” Do you know what it means? Allwords.com defines it as: “An event or occasion when pleasure is taken from the suffering of others. Etymology: so called because days of gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome were public holidays.” Does this definition surprise you? Did you think the phrase had a more benign meaning? Perhaps, you thought it meant something like having fun in Rome while on vacation. Well, in one sense, it does, but the “fun” came at the death and suffering of others. Do we still take Roman Holidays? Some people might say boxing, football and many contact sports are enjoyed more for their violent elements than for the athletic prowess they display. Nevertheless, while we might enjoy these sports, it does not mean that we enjoy the suffering of others.

We may in fact enjoy violence, but I draw the line at thinking that many of us really go to events to see people hurt or suffer. In fact, I have a hard time understanding how even the ancient Roman citizens could have been so callous and insensitive. Perhaps, we would have to live in that era to understand why a Roman holiday would have been fun. Today, I think there is a greater sensitivity and awareness of obvious cruelty. Even in contact sports, I see little evidence of a Roman holiday.

Has the world really grown and become more caring or do I have my rose colored glasses on? Are we less likely to go on a Roman holiday? Do you want to see anyone hurt or get any pleasure from the suffering of others? Do you secretly hope to see a crash during a NASCAR race or do you want to see the acrobat fall during the high wire act at the circus? I will bet not. Why would you or anyone else want to see someone hurt?