Still Aging In Place

 Increasingly, I have begun feeling like I am somehow “outside” of wherever it is I am in. Even if I am sitting within a family group, with, say, kids and/or grandkids I have begun feeling as though I am sitting somewhere else, but still observing them.  Sometimes, I am almost startled when one of them actually addresses me directly by asking me a question, or commenting on something about me.  And then that state of being (or maybe non-being) is enhanced when I am reading the news, or a news e-mail, or listening/watching the news on TV or radio.  Why? Well, inevitably the reporter or the article begins discussing one of our republican friends, and then I feel like I have just arrived from outer space, and they are discussing something I simply do not understand. The other day, for example, I sat and watched the Governor of North Dakota address the NRA at their convention. And she told us that she had made sure to arm her two-year old grandchild with both a rifle and a shotgun. I mean, you just never know when another two-year old brat is going to do something threatening, and her grandkid might have to shoot that other kid. Well, sort of like that dude who answered his door, gun in hand (don’t we all answer our doorbell with a gun in hand?) and then when he saw a young Black kid, he began firing his gun.  I mean, clearly that young Black kid was going to harm him, so he was simply protecting himself. Right?? Or that other dude who saw three young ladies enter his driveway in their car, and then began to back away, but he of course had to open fire on them.  Obviously, the girls meant him harm, even if they were backing away.

And then there is that whole set of characters who profess to represent the Republican Party. Take Marjory Taylor Greene. She actually said that the California wildfires were caused by Jewish Space Lasers. And then she failed to back away and laugh.

Oh and that January 6^th thing at the Capitol? They are now portrayed of course as simple tourists who wanted to visit the Capitol, but were being denied their proper tourist rights.  Now, as you watch that event taking place, don’t you begin to feel as though you have just arrived from Mars and you really don’t understand what you are witnessing? I sometimes think I am actually in 1936 Germany and I am wondering when Adolph is going to show up (Oh, that’s Ron DeSantis, not Adolph Hitler approaching the podium?)

See, it isn’t a specific person, oh like Donald Trump. It’s that there seem to be so many of them. An entire political party has actually entered the realm of 1936 Nazi Germany, or maybe just 2023 Crazy America. But how did that happen, and will it (and I) ever return to something approaching normalcy? I’m 88 for Christ sake, and I can’t take much more of this.

And worse, it seems to be the case that Americans in very large numbers have joined this Crazy Party, yet how could that have happened. See, I still remember voting for Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for President in 1952. Can you even imagine what Ike would be thinking were he present at some rally where Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis were rambling on about one of their latest thoughts concerning America? Would that Ike not also begin wondering whether he had somehow been transmitted to a Foreign Land on Mars? Surely this could not be Florida within the US of A.

And I listen to/watch the commentary and they tear that bunch apart, but nothing actually happens to them.  Americans, actual Americans keep on listening to them and, whenever they can, still voting for them.  That is the part I fail to understand and why I feel like I am floating somewhere in outer space. How could this be? How is it possible that Americans in any number beyond a few hundred (ok even a few thousand) could possibly go to a polling place and mark the ballots to elect such people—Trump, DeSantis, Greene, Hawley, Cawthorne, McConnell, McCarthy? Really, America . . . you actually approve of such manic pseudohumans?  And you are going to refuse to control guns, while facing the largest collection of mass shootings in our history? And you also refuse to allow people to have medical abortions, or even to buy and consume abortion pills, regardless of the later effects on the lives of the women involved.  So, you’re not actually “Pro-Life” as much as you are Anti-sex, or maybe “Pro-Foetus”. Yeah, once those foetuses become actual humans, it’s ok to shoot them, right?

And so, I have begun drifting off into some outer space existence. I am no longer a full-time resident of America, maybe even of Earth, I am still technically alive, I know, cuz I can still watch Stephen Colbert or John Oliver, but I no longer recognize what I observe going on around me.

Maybe I am actually in a dream-state and I will awaken to re-enter our world and it will still be 1975, or maybe even 2010 and that dude Barack Obama is still president. Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? Oh shit, go back to sleep Richard. That ain’t gonna happen.

Life Ends Language

 “It’s not your fault. My father died in my arms. So did my wife,” he said. “It’s just my turn now.”

“I feel bad that I didn’t talk to you about this sooner,” I said. “I thought I’d upset you or maybe you weren’t ready yet.”

He laughed. “Ready?” he said. “I’ve wrapped my head around being dead, certainly. Not sure if I’ll ever really be ready. It’s not like packing a bag and standing outside waiting for a taxi.”

“He died in his sleep a month later, missing his vacation and his friend’s wedding. Even if he told me he was ready, nothing could have lessened the blunt force of losing him.”

 

This was from a Sunday NY Times article by Dr. Sunita Puri. In the article she talks about how doctors try to sense a patient’s readiness to die, that is, when they realize they are in the final stage of life and will soon die. The interesting thing to me is the question, “Why is that important?” To a doctor, the only point of importance here is that a patient who is “ready to die” is also finally ready to give up “end of life treatments”.  There really is no other issue that matters to the doctor, because doctors are no better prepared to talk about the actual Cessation of Life than anyone else. 

I wonder myself how I might become “ready to die”, given what I believe that means. See, I think that the end of life is not a journey, as when we say the person “has gone”, or “has departed”. Those words imply a journey, whereas I believe strongly that the end of life means only a cessation of the brain’s function. That is, when we die, our brain ceases operating, and we no longer are aware of anything. We do not know we are dead, because we do not know anything.  And that is hard to wrap one’s head around. We are not embarking on a final journey. Instead, we simply cease knowing anything. We are not even aware that we are dead, because we are not “aware” of anything. And see, we actually have no language that describes that state of Non-being.

What would it be like, for the brain to simply cease functioning? It is not like we are moving into a sort of dream-like state. Because see, a dream-like state implies that the brain continues to function, even if we do not move onto some cloud and begin looking down on our still-alive relatives.  And we do not suddenly come back into contact with all of our deceased relatives.

See, we have no language to describe what I believe actually happens. How does one describe  a state of “nothingness”, a state in which we are no longer aware of our former self, or in fact of anything.  Now that is hard to wrap your current lively head around.

So, I guess it is understandable that doctors do not have such a talk with their patients who express an understanding that their life is about to cease.  Why? Well, because the doctor also has no language to express what that means.  And, I guess that’s why they (our forebears) invented Heaven and Hell, and folks sitting around on clouds looking down while they played their harps.  The Heaven or Hell thing is obviously a device to get you to behave, or to pay proper attention to what this priest is telling you to do, or not to do. That’s their main tool in the Priestly Ponzi Scheme called Religion.

Now if the priests of our world need that Ponzi scheme portrait of “Life After”, our poor doctors are stuck without any serious explanation to offer their patients. As we said, the doctor’s only reason for a patient reaching such a state of understanding is that the doctor then has some guidance on “end of Life” care, which is known often as “Palliative Care”, whose aim only is to relieve suffering, so as to improve the quality of that final life stage. Maybe the medical profession needs some kind of “after-Life” language that is at least equal in some value to the Ponzi scheme language of religious purveyors. So, maybe the medical profession needs to step up their game to create a kind of “after-life” death description that seems more promising than “Nothingness”. Somehow, the reality of brain cessation seems at best difficult to convey in positive terms. So, docs need to become more inventive so as to at least compete with the religious purveyors.  Something that conveys a sense of final peace, like entering a long state of deep sleep. Yeah, that’s it. Just try not to get into anything like dreams, cuz then the docs would be competing with the Ponzi-guys.

So, Think On Docs. You need a new language. Put on your most creative brain caps and get to work. Maybe eventually, you too will be able to make it profitable, like those religious dudes. How to make "nothingness" sound desirable . . . hmmmm. 

Getting Old Again . . . Still

Hey, did I tell you . . . I am getting old(er). Yeah, seems like every day I get/feel a little bit older. Part of it is this back sciatic nerve thingie. Yeah, I thought maybe it was going away, cuz it seemed to ease for a couple of days. But then it came back again   . . . maybe not with the same fierceness, but a lingering pain nonetheless.  But even beyond that daily pain, there is a lingering thing about being old. Somehow I just feel differently about my life, each day. And yes, there is this thing about reading the paper or listening to a radio report about some dude or dudette who just passed on. And they often say, conclusively, He/she was 85, as though that is the explanation. And I’m sitting there thinking, “Hell, he was younger than me”.

And then I find myself thinking about an old friend, maybe someone I knew in India. Yeah, of the 8 people who served there with me during the mid-60’s, four are still alive, one has passed on and two are just lost—I have no idea about them.  And that was nearly 60 years ago. So, yeah, I think about them often.  Part of this lingering thought pattern is that I no longer work for a living. So, I don’t have this preoccupation with a job. Now, I awaken, and my next job, after showering is to turn on the computers, and then go make a nice cappuccino for me and my bride.  And then, hey, it’s almost noon, time for an espresso and a small piece of chocolate.

And then, hey it’s time to Wine On and Dine On.

And so life goes on. Now Carol still makes quilts for little sick kids at the Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital. She and her crew of women, still create quilted, knitted and crocheted blankets for the kids. The hospital loves them, because they make sick kids feel a little bit better.  And so Carol goes on.  Oh, and she is also responsible for keeping me alive by creating wondrous meals every day. Amazing really. Almost 68 years together and she continues to amaze me with her cooking creativity.

While me? Well, I occasionally do what I’m doing here, and write some drivel just to demonstrate that I haven’t yet croaked.  Now, until a little while ago, I also used to pretend I was an artist. Yeah, I created something called Digital Art. What’s that you say? Well, I have this camera thingie and I use it to take pictures. Then I fool with the resulting images until I have something that folks might call “ART”. And what is “ART” you might ask? Well, “ART” is what I call a picture, after I get finished fooling around with it.  See, here’s a picture I converted into “ART”, after I snapped it inside my camera, and then played with it.

So, “ART” literally is in the eye of the creator, not to mention the Beholder.  But, in any case, I don’t do such things any longer. No, our local Arts Council used to sponsor these things they called Art Walks. They would find a nice empty indoor space right downtown (mostly an empty Bank office space) and make that space available for local artists. We would pay them $25 and gain access to a space and a modest table on which to display our art. But then the empty office spaces were lost to new ventures and so the Arts Council was reduced to offering a space outside on the street. And so I at least decided that Art Walk days were now over, and so my artsy phase ceased.

So, now my days are reduced to wondering who is still alive in my little world.  Now I still take pictures of naturey things, and “publish” them on Facebook, but art it ain’t.  See, in part, Art is a creation of a somebody that might be sold to another somebody. The exchange of money makes the object “ART” officially.

And so my aging life continues day by day. And each day, I am aware that my life continues through sheer luck. Each day is a new gift to me , I guess from my mom, no longer with us. She passed on these genes that comprise my body. So, thanks Mom. As usual, you did good.

Continue you LIFE thingie. Each day might be boring for some, but it opens the possibility of something new and vastly more interesting.  You never know, do you? Age on Richard, Age on. 100 is out there somewhere. So go get it.

Passwords & Life

 I finally just completed two days of struggling to regain my access to my e-mail system under Spectrum and Outlook.  Something happened to my ability to “send” e-mails from Outlook, and then it all went downhill from there. I got onto Chat with Spectrum and as we were beginning to conclude, suddenly the chat session ended, but not before a message flashed onto the screen, something about how some Spectrum technical change had caused a problem with e-mail that seemed to reflect what happened to mine. But then, I continued to have no access to my e-mail. It kept asking for my password, which I was unable to provide, because the Tekkie had changed it just before we lost contact.  When I tried to change it via their system, it kept asking me for both the new password, and my MAC ID. I looked on the Spectrum modem for the MAC ID, thought I recorded it, but that failed to work. So, then I was stuck without a valid password. Therefore, I also had no access to my e-mail.

Passwords are becoming the bane of my existence. It seems I need to change a password every time I turn around.  I had settled on a nice new one a while ago, and suddenly I was unable to use that one—it was an oldie, don’t you know.

But why do we use passwords on everything?  Well, because there are crooks all around us. Apparently America is filled with con men. Well, maybe the whole world is filled with con men, following Donald Trump’s lead.  I mean, if it’s ok for the President of the United States to be a con man, then why not everybody?

And so, we use passwords for everything. And we periodically have to change our passwords, don’t you know?  I mean, wouldn’t do to keep that same old thing, cuz the con men of the world will soon discover our passwords, and then we’re screwed.

So, get out your table of random letters and numbers folks, and get on with this password juggling game.

And speaking of con men, what is our ex-president up to lately? Well, he was asserting that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday, and he was urging his MAGAHead violence crowd to repeat their January 6^th actions and protest peacefully, like they did on January 6^th. But nobody else seemed to know anything about this supposed arrest. He really is amazing. He continues this game of conning the American people, urging them to do evil things, and then pretending he had nothing to do with any of it.  And his gangbangers continue to love him. I keep wondering whether this is what happens when the head of some Italian Mafia crew gets into trouble.  Does he escape the same way? Do Mafia bosses ever go to jail, or only their underlings?  Well, No, some mob bosses, Al Capone, John Gotti, Lucky Luciano all served time in Federal prisons, mostly as a result of the RICO Act.  But Trump, maybe because he served as the World’s Greatest Mob boss (President of the US), has avoided prison. He does seem to be creeping closer and closer, however.  Makes me kind of wish Alcatraz was still open.  Or maybe we should send him down to Guantanamo.  Hey that would be nice, huh?  Then his MAGAHeads would have to go down there and face the US military to spread their hate.

OK, go for it dudes.

Life and Pain

So, I awakened on a Saturday morning 1 ½ weeks ago, to a seemingly normal day.  But then as I began the day, I noticed suddenly a new pain. My left back, down by my hip, in that sciatic nerve area, suddenly began throwing pain down my leg from the hip area. Odd, I thought. It’s almost as though someone just flipped a switch. “OK, turn on the pain. It’s his turn to hurt”.  I mean, I know I’m old. 88 years is old by anyone’s definition. But, c’mon folks, I was just as old on Friday when I went to bed. What the hell is going on? I mean, I didn’t fall. I know, Falling is really bad when you’re my age. But I didn’t do that. I just went to bed and woke up with this new pain thing. Now, to be fair, On Friday, I did go to work out at the gym, as usual on Fridays. Then we went shopping at Trader Joe’s. Then what? We came home, put away the groceries and got on with our usual Friday. So I hadn’t tried to lift 400 pounds, or run on the treadmill. Nope. The workout was my usual one—ya’know, boring but a classic old dude’s workout routine.  So, maybe this is Life?  You go along normally and then one day, suddenly life is no longer “normal”.  And then what? It ends? So, this is how it ends? No, that’s crap.

OK, so now I have to go get an MRI. I went for an X-Ray, but it showed nothing beyond the fact that, yeah I’m old.  So, we will have to see what, if anything this MRI thingie shows. They tried “prescribing” some exercises for me, but they seem about as useless as teats on a boar.  See, the central problem is that the docs really did not know what was causing the problem, so they were forced to guess at some ameliorative solution.  Hopefully, after the MRI, we will have actual diagnostic data—a picture of what is actually wrong.

So, we now await that picture.  But maybe I am getting a preliminary picture of life as an old dude. Ya know. Shit happens, and then . . . well then you try to make believe nothing happened. Happily, we have some pretty fine medical practitioners at work trying to help me deduce what happened. Still, I think maybe the Old Guy has begun beckoning. We’ll see.

And in the meantime, I remain hopeful that Tucker Carlson and that Gang of thieves at The Fox Republican Mafia will continue demonstrating to the American people that, deep down, they, directed by Rupert, are actually Anti-American. Well, technically, we know Rupert is. But now we know for sure that the Foxies and all their republican friends are also ANTI-AMERICAN.  So, welcome to our new world folks.

I will yell out and about whenever I discover what is actually wrong with me. Meanwhile, I will limp along as best I can.

War & God

1934 – Hey, I am born in Brooklyn. So far as I know, there isn’t much going on in the world, i.e., no serious wars going on.  I mean that thing between 1914 and 1918 finally ceased, and it was replaced by great uncertainty, but then the 20s hit and the world started dancing and singing again.

1939 – ok, I’m now 5, not yet in school. Rudy (my dad) has begun his thing, which is to get drunk a lot and stay out for long periods. That means Daisy, the Mother, has to begin working to support us. Of course, the Germans under Hitler have begun acting out, sort of like my father, except the Germans are killing people, just cuz. Yeah, the beginnings of a second bigtime war have now begun in earnest.

1941 – OK, I’m now 7 and enrolled at PS82 in Manhattan. The Japanese drag US into the War by doing something terminally stupid—bombing Pearl Harbor. And so we got into it big time. Lots of Blackouts in Manhattan. Nothing much said in school about all the booming going on around the world. But to be fair, we weren’t getting boomed. Just everyone else. That continued until 1945 when Germans and Japanese both threw up their hands and said, “OK, we give up”.  Course, we had to drop a couple of those big nasty nuclear things on Two Japanese cities before they made that decision.

1946 – ok it’s now post World War II, and, Hey, I’m now 12. So roughly half of my kidlife so far has had killing wars going on. But now things calm down for a few years.  And then I turn 15 and North Korea, supported by China decides to invade South Korea.  And, “So What” you say. Well, after that nasty Second bigtime War. America decided it kind of liked wars, so we decided to step in and help South Korea, by sending our guys with some arms to help out.  And that went on til 1953, when I am already in college at Stanford.  And I had to register for the draft when I turned 18 in 1952. But since I am officially a college kid, I get a deferment from the draft, so I can avoid going off to get killed in some far-off place.

1954 – I’m now entering my junior year at college, and we begin to engage in Vietnam. The French had been in control throughout Vietnam, but they were never too good at the war thingie, so they just opened a nice bottle of wine and sat back, as we entered.   Then in 1955, I was entering my senior year, but my really my bigtime event is getting married in July. Yeah, but, guess what?  This War is a bit bigger than the war in Korea. So, China backed North Vietnam, and we decided to back the South.  And America becomes engaged again.  We do so love War, as does apparently almost everyone on this Planet.  I guess God decided that humans killing other Humans is just a normal thing to do, and perfectly ok with her.  But again, I am deferred from entering. First, I’m still in college, then I get married and have a kid. And then, the Biggie, I obtain a secret clearance and become involved in the development of big missiles. So, it’s almost like I’m in the military, except nobody’s shooting at me.  This shoot’m up goes on through several presidents. Dwight Eisenhower got us involved in 1954, by sending troops to train the South Vietnamese army. Then Kennedy in 1961 sent in more troops to advise, followed by Lyndon Johnson who expanded our role because he said the North had attacked one of our warships. Then Tricky Dick Nixon took over and promised to end that war, yeah right, hahahahaha.  So tricky Dick kept the war thingie going on, ensuring that we would lose more thousands of our troops.  Finally, we got the hell out, with Nixon resigning with dishonor from his post.  And, I guess if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that this is the first War we actually lost. Well, we didn’t say that, but we just left with our tail twixt our legs. We didn't even open a nice bottle of wine like the French.

1979 – 2023 – The Middle East. Yeah that place.  For reasons I fail to properly comprehend, the Russians got themselves into a war in the Middle East, if you can count Afghanistan as “The Middle East”.  And where’s “The Middle East”? Well, I guess it’s anywhere from Pakistan westward all the way into Northern Africa. If Muslims are either in charge or at War, it’s “The Middle East”.  And then, we helped the Afghans and the Russians got their asses kicked out. But then the Middle East erupted in wars all over the place. Turns out Muslims love war even more than we do. And Israel being set up in the midst of all those armed Muslims was probably less than the World’s best idea. I guess everyone thought they would just get over it, but apparently these folks don’t get over such things. So, the bombs have kept flying ever since.

And now, I’m in my 49^th 39^th year of age, and I have difficulty looking back to a “peaceful age”. I wonder whether Neanderthals knew peace.  Apparently their replacement humans were born to kill.

And that is a truly sad commentary on life. Why can’t we all just get along? Evidently, if humans were truly invented by God, then she has a weird sense of humor. I mean, I doubt that Trevor Noah or Jon Stewart would have invented humans. And since comedians seem to be the smartest people on the planet, how come God didn’t just put them in charge> Are all these killing machines part of some other God’s Plan, one she hasn’t told us about?

Well, maybe God is waiting for all the killing doofuses to leave—that is idiot-malenfants like Putin and Trump and DeSantis, and MTG. Maybe God is waiting for our Great Grandkids to become a little bit more mature before she just turns everything over to them.  Too bad I won’t be around to see all that peace and kindness spreading around the world. It’s really overdue God. Can’t we accelerate the changeover a bit . . . PLEASE? Some Peace would be really nice.

The Not So Great Salt Lake

I was just reading an article about the coming demise of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It has shrunk to a shadow of its former glory, and it is threatening the entire state. Partly, it is the loss of water in one of the driest states in the nation. But partly, the residue left behind as the lake shrinks is apparently filled with potentially poisonous debris. Apparently arsenic, mercury and lead line the desiccated lake bed, and those toxins are being picked up by winds, creating clouds of polluted air that threaten all who live even remotely close to the lake. The entire state is at risk.

Exactly what a solution would look like seems unclear at the moment. Water drainage from the lake (mostly agricultural) from farmers and increasingly from the state’s growing population continues to threaten this formerly huge body of water.  Some reduction is vital, but how and when are questions not open to easy answers.

The retreat of The Great Salt Lake is sometimes compared to the drying up of Lake Owens in California, producing one the largest sources of air pollution in the country. But in fact, the Salt Lake is more akin to the loss of The Aral Sea, straddling Israel and Jordan. That sea was largely killed off by the Soviets via irrigation projects.

The main issue in Utah is the likely air pollution that may infect much of the state’s population.  Perhaps the state, and in fact the Nation may move to somehow resolve the current dangers, but, given our record, a successful solution seems unlikely. I am thinking of Climate Change of course. We have known of the need to act for at least 50 years, yet we seem incapable of useful solutions, even though those solutions are staring at us in our collective faces. The solutions to climate change, now likely beyond our grasp were available had we acted. But we didn’t. Instead, we dithered and allowed political shouting matches to substitute for serious adult actions. So, now it may well be too late.

And then, I was just reading in a newsletter called Nautilus about the possibility of humans turning into dinosaurs—remember them? Yeah, they disappeared some 60+ million years ago, due to the after-effects of a rather large meteor striking Earth. It was a pretty big dude as meteors go—several miles wide.  And No, the authors are not predicting a similar event. They are merely speculating that such an event is at least possible, given the amount of crap continually wandering about in our galaxy, and sometimes striking home.  So, they speculate that it is at least possible we might encounter a meteor akin to the one that did in the dinosaurs. If so, we would be screwed, much like the Dinies. What they are suggesting is that, unlike Climate Change where we mostly suck our thumbs and argue amongst ourselves, that we actually begin preparing for such an event, by figuring out ways to avoid it.

Now you and I will likely not be a direct part of such an effort. Much like Climate Change, and even the cataclysmic Great Salt Lake event, most of us don’t get to participate in avoidance of such things. But also, like World Wars, we can at least participate from afar. How? Well, by voting of course.

We seem to have two kinds of people in our once Great Nation—folks who read, and therefor think, and folks who prefer to allow Fox News to do their thinking.  And we all know what Fox News does to brain cells. Ugh.  So, for the folks who still consider themselves thinking creatures, regardless of which side of the political aisle you inhabit, it really is vital to become involved politically. At a minimum, register to vote. And then, when it is time, actually go to the polls and cast your vote for those persons who are more likely to be treating such issues as Climate Change, or meteor-prevention seriously. See individually, we are not big enough to have any effect. But collectively, we can act with intelligence to keep our planet reasonably healthy. But we must read, and we must think. And then we must act through our elected representatives to act collectively as an intelligent force for good.

Do it folks.  Otherwise, we might follow the Dinies. And we really do not want that. So Do It!