At The MOMA when the Flag came Down

For reasons that I can hardly understand myself, I was sitting smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, NYC. It is a beautiful night and it has been a stimulating and fascinating day. Of course, it could not be anything else here in the Big Apple. Even thought we were in Brooklyn last December, checking in on a friend's new venture, it seems as if I have been away too long.

I have lived up in New England for the large majority of my years, and I must say my personality blends much better up there.  The quiet reserve and the self depreciation, even if it hides a smug sense of slight superiority, fits me well.  But I was born here, in Brooklyn, and NYC, is and will always be, the center of the universe. It is the place where things really begin, where it all happens, where everyone is.  There are enough people here who care about anything and everything. They make it happen, whatever it is. They come here from all over the world to make it happen. It is brash, noisy, nosey, loud, dirty and crowded. It is diverse, accepting, stimulating, provocative, and inspiring.It is expensive!

We only stayed a couple of days and we have did lots. We went to the MOMA, we went to,the Whitney.  We walked the Highline, we drank at the Carlyle for $20 a pop. We walked up Madison Ave past Gucci, Armani, Loren, Buccelatti, Coach, DKNY, and dozens of others. Rows of places selling watches for $1500, $15,000, $150,000. Handbags,handbags, handbags, I guess everyone needs a dozen, almost,as expensive as the watches. Keep your stuff in them. Your Botox, your Xanex, your iPhone, your make-up and your works.

We were there less than a week after some crazy kid went into a church and murdered Black people.  He acted alone, they say.  But at the MOMA we saw the paintings by  Jacob Lawrence, the Migration Series, that he did  about 80 years ago. In series of 60 pictures he explored how Black People were beaten, exploited, burned out and lynched. Mr. Roof did not act alone, he was part of a long tradition.

At the Whitney there are four floors of over a hundred years so American art.  For a hundred years ( I know it's much more) American artists have shown in many ways, how racism in America is pervasive, how bad times are worse for for poor people. Yet, there are so many rich people who sponsor these artists, and who endow the big new museums that are full of all kind of art that depicts how the rich exploit the poor.

We were there when Obama gave yet another speech about how our country seems to tolerate the senseless killing of innocents on almost a monthly basis.  But it also seemed as if the sun began to peek through the clouds. We were there two days before the Gay Pride parade.  We were there when the Supreme Court handed down the two decisions that seemed to move the world slightly in a different direction. We were in New York when the people in South Carolina began to take down the flag that had been flying for a hundred and fifty years after the war ended.

Does that mean the war is over?  Does that mean that artists can begin to paint more colorful pictures? Maybe not yet. But as all the gay couples stood up straighter, smiled and waved, and felt a bit more a part of our country, and some Balck people see that at least more people are realzing that somethings may have to change, it may mean that Dr. King might be right, and that the long arc of history is pointing a bit more toward freedom.

The sun was shining, people were smiling, and it seemed like everyone, from all over the world, was just hangin' out, enjoying the day.

We Will Do Better!

Last time I deviated from my new policy of being positive and upbeat.  I went back to being realistic, which is never a big seller. I believe everything I wrote, but my marketing department was upset.

By now, it should be obvious to me, if anyone, that blurting out ideas and strong opinions, and then trying to support those ideas with any kind of objective information is never going to convince anyone to change their mind.

If I could have started with the heartbreaking story of one of the victims, or showed a video of the families who have stated that they can forgive the killer, the piece may have been more effective. But I didn't do that. I just listed a bunch of negative historical trends.

So today, I will just say that I will try to go back to finding silver linings. I will try to remember that about 66% of Americans are living pretty decent lives, although at least half of them are pretty stressed out about it. Also, suffering and racism are not uniquely American.  They have been a major trend in the history of the world since before any humanoid creature walked on two legs, or since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, which ever story you want to use as a point of reference.

Please accept my apology for going off on such a rant.  It's not that i am not sincere, or don't believe in anything I said, it's just that I hope I didn't upset anyone.  If I am going to be persuasive I have to be trustworthy and likable. More the later than the former. So please push the "Like" button on my Facebook page (which you won't find because I don't have one).

To end on a note that will make you smile I would have attached a video of my almost two year-old grandson doing his best dance moves in front of a street band last week.  Unfortunately, I don't have a signed release, but you can just imagine a really cute, round,  smiling kid shakin' and groovin'.

Have fun and expect the best!

Bang, Bang, (9x) and Sorrow for Our National Memes

Tonight was a beautiful early summer evening.  I sat at the neighborhood park

and listened to a band of old men playing rock tunes from 1960.  The parents of young children danced with their kids.  The older children ran around, playing mixtures of baseball and soccer.  They wore jerseys that read Messi, James, Perdroia, and “Free Brady”. The older people sat on lawn chairs and nodded in time to the music. There were about two hundred people, of almost every race and age out together as a community.

It was the kind of evening I would have loved, but I was distracted by a pervasive feeling of sorrow. I was again, worried about what continually happens in my country. Land of the Free.  Home of the Brave.

I never have met or evaluated Dylann Roof, the adolescent who murdered nine people during their bible study, so it is unethical for me to diagnose him.  But i have known people like him, angry, lost, misguided, racist, violent, paranoid.  Also, given my age, of three score and ten, I can put him in the context of the America I have lived in and see how his actions, like so many before him, are so much a part of the contradictions and conflicts built into our culture.

This is not just a simple act of racism. Yes, it was racist, but he wasn’t a lone, deranged racist, he was part of the culture. Also, he was another in a long line of mass shooters, many of whom, as we have seen lately, are White people shooting Black people.  But it takes many other factors to even allow a disturbed person to have the idea that it is possible to walk into a church and start shooting. 

The most obvious, of course, is racism, which was written in to the Constitution. Black people were the basis of the energy and economic policy of several of the original colonies.  For this to be permitted by our ethical Founding Fathers, Black people could not be considered people. Even the Civil War did not erase this view. Clearly, it still haunts America.

But a confounding, and more complex factor, is the importance of individualism and individual freedom in America.  It is this idea that has exaggerated both America’s strengths and weaknesses.  Individualism has lead to some great new ideas, freedoms, creativity and entrepreneurship.  It is really what attracts people from all over the world to come here and make their own way. Part of the real attraction of America is that people can succeed based upon their own efforts.   In that way, there is no other country comes close.

However, now that the world has become more complex, individualism shows it’s frightening underbelly.  It easily promotes narcissism, which leads to greed and paranoia. Our society has become so complex, with all of us so intertwined that asserting one’s own individualism often invades the space of others. Usually, the rich and powerful invade the space of the poorer and weaker. Those who feel trampled, confused and left behind either become depressed or violent.

It is this distortion of individualism that is woven in with the longstanding American tradition of guns and violence.  The tradition holds that a person has a right to defend himself (him is the defining pronoun), and that he has the right to a gun to do it. That tradition began when the early Europeans drove the Native Americans away.  It has been revised and intensified with anti-government sentiments, since the election of a Black President.

Also, for the last hundred and fifty years America has almost always been at  war. This was viewed as a great strength when the U.S. was the saving force for Europe and Asia when tyrants threatened the world. But now has turned into a never ending, never winnable struggle with a undefined objectives.  The cost of this has been huge, in lives, money, and our views of morality.  We appear to the world, and ourselves also, as killing to make the world safe for big corporations, especially energy companies.  We easily justify killing by declaring we are always right.

Underlying all of this, and really the original and basic cause, is money.  Half of the country feels that the basic American freedom is to be able to make as much money as possible, and any means is acceptable.  That was the original basis of slavery. It is the reason we go to war.  It is what keeps the NRA going.  It is why corporations don’t like government regulation. Money is the way narcissists prove themselves. 

All of these factors have become tightly woven together and have created a society that becomes horrified but does nothing about the killing of dozens of elementary school children, of high school students, of college students, of Black people by White police, of families by their fathers, of wives and girlfriends by the hundreds, of people who may have parked in the wrong place, of kids riding their bicycles in their neighborhoods, or playing basketball, of shoppers in malls, of people sitting at a movie, of people sitting in beauty parlor, of people worshiping at a temple, and now at a church. Add to that the many veterans of those wars who come home and kill themselves. Also the unnoticed but huge amount of white men, usually in their fifties, who blow their own brains out with the guns they have had for years.

Dylann Roof was not one lone deranged person, acting on his own. The was a member of our conflicted society.

This leads to the last point, which is something I am very aware of after forty years as a Psychologist. This type of tragedy is usually labelled the act of someone who is mentally disturbed.Somehow, that seems to end the discussion.  But we know that the mental health treatments available in America range from inadequate to nonexistent. During the forty years that I have been practicing their have been very few innovations in treatment that could have prevented these awful events, and even those are rarely funded or implemented. 

Part of this is because, even more than other complex diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and even ALS or cancer, the causes of emotional and psychological disturbances are complex.  Mental health issues are the result not only of biological factors, which include genetics and brain disorders, but are also affected by family dynamics, cultures and subcultures. Also there are other physical causes such as toxins in the body, physical pain, and traumas both mental and physical. I would guess all of those factors played a role in shaping that Dylann Roof’s ability to kill.  Real treatments need to be more comprehensive and to include input from many professions. 

That would cost money. Money that many individuals are not yet willing to part with for the good of the whole society, a very diverse society.

Can three hundred and fifty years of the shaping of a culture be changed? Yes, it will finally happen when enough people feel that we have all suffered enough.  But tonight, in the friendly park in a prosperous New England suburb, not enough people were suffering. We have learned to let life roll on unless the bullet ripped through our own family. The people we see crying on the news will fade away until next time, which is usually only a week or two away.

Let's Get Happy

I’ve been reading the Sunday papers, and mostly that upsets me, especially when I see that so much really is about issues relating to mental health.  I was going to write, again, about how these issues are handled badly, inefficiently, or mishandled, if they are handled at all.  For many mental health issues the police are the first responders., Some police are very skilled and sensitive, while there are others, who we see of the news, who beat people, humiliate them, or shoot them.

I also question both the motives and the sanity of many of the people who have managed to push themselves into a position of power, either economically or politically. These days, with money being such a factor in how our country is run, it seems as if business owners, the heads of big corporations and just your regular very, very rich people, have all become intertwined.  They then anoint themselves as the “ruling elite,” and set out to inflict their values and views upon the rest of us. Meanwhile most of “the rest of us” is too busy scratching out a living and struggling to find a few moments of peace and relaxation to pay too much attention to how many of the decisions made by those “ruling elites” is making it much more difficult for “the rest of us” to scratch out a living and find a few moments of peace and relaxation.

Then I read a article about the secrets of success and going viral on the Internet.  It turns out that complaining about how things are bad is not one of them.  Everyone knows things are bad; everyone is complaining. What most people are looking for is a brief respite from all of the complaints that I listed above. It's enough already.

But, if I can come up with an enticing heading, with the emotional promise of a short-cut to happiness, and include a cute, heartwarming picture, that will make them happy, everyone will flock to my site.

How misguided I've been to complain, to talk about the deficiencies of mental heath treatment, or how difficult it may be to make big changes in your life, even if it may be helpful to know that.

So, let's skip that and have a good time.

Here's some good advice to make you happy:

Sing, dance and fall in love!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ

Crazy? or part of the culture?

It summer and time for dancin' in the street.

But, as we can already see, the summer not only rots my brain but it begins to bring out the best and worst in people. Lots of people are out in the streets and lots of things happen. Some of the heat seems to get into the brains of some folks and drives them over the line.

Here is a list of some people who have made the news for shooting people.  You task is determine who among these folks are crazy, who are just part of the culture, and who is just bad guys:

James Holmes, who killed 12 and shot 70 in Aurora CO movie theater.

Michale Slager, who shot a man who was running away from him after a traffic stop in South Carolina

Whoever it was who shot and killed a 16 year-old boy who was riding his bike on a Boston Street yesterday.

Jihad John, the ISIL guy who is in the video executing people.

George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Travon Martin while "standing his ground," but who was NOT arrested in Ferguson,Mo.

Are they crazy? Some and not others?
Are we all crazy?
or is it only me?

Anyway, summer is here.  Use sunscreen. Have fun.

We were relaxing on the deck, talking to some friends this weekend, now that it's Summer.  We don't get Spring any more; it goes from sixteen feet of snow to 87 degrees in a week. But all this climate change stuff is just a Liberal plot to ruin business and make coal and oil companies look bad.

Relating to that, one of my friends has just returned from one of his many trips to China where he, like many American businesses, has employees.  He told me that he has a factory in a city I had never heard of that has nine million people.  I looked it up and saw that there are about twenty cities in China with more than five million people. Half of those have over ten million. By contrast, the U.S. has one city with a population of over five million,NYC. One.

I have worked as a mental health professional in a city that has a population of 110,000. There are lots of mental health problems to be dealt with. So, I wondered, what goes on on China?  What do those people think about?  What is it like to be in a swarming city of new high rise apartments that go on and on.

I have never been to China. I think I'd like to go, but I don't think I would really get to answer my questions since I don't know the language and I probably wouldn't get to do interviews with any of the people who live in those high rise apartments.

But I'm sure that their outlook on life, and the things that run through their brains and minds are in many ways very different, and in other ways very similar to mine.

I imagine they worry about their families and hope for the best for their children.
Do they worry about climate change?
I'm sure they have personal relationships, and relationship problems.
Would they talk to a therapist?  Is that something that is done?
Do they relate to a tight little community that surronds them, or are left feeling overwhelmed by having millions of people close by.

Culture, and subculture has so much to do with how our brains are programed and how we view ourselves and how we fit into the world.  We are all human, and that gives us some basics, but it can be molded and shaped so differently.

So many of the differences are clearly learned and shaped by culture. We know several Chinese-American families that are very American, but still have Chinese customs.  We know several Chinese born women who were adopted by American families as infants, and they are totally American.

The world shrinks, but it doesn't
People get to know each other, but they don't

This will continue to change.  I believe that we will all become more homogenized over time.
But not in the same ways.  Sadly, I am beginning to believe that the rich all over the world will become more like each other.  The poor all over the world will have similar difficult lives.  Those two groups will be very different.

I hope that the future proves me wrong.

Mental Health and Weather

The more that I continue to reflect on the psychotherapy treatment I am still doing, and that I have done over the last forty years, as well as what I read about in books, journals and in discussions with my colleagues, the more I see similarities between the treatment of mental health issues and the weather.

Psychology and psychiatry have both become very skilled at describing what is happening.  Weather people do that too.  We can describe the kind of storm that people are going through in their lives and in their minds.  It could be a panic attack storm, or a depressive storm, or perhaps a more destructive bipolar storm.

All of the mental illness diagnoses are descriptive.  They do not really give any idea of the cause of the problem.  But they usually are very good descriptions of what is going on.  However, if the cause is not known, finding a solution becomes more difficult.

Mental health professions are very good, although not quite as good as weather people, at making predictions.  We have a good idea of when someone will fall apart or pull themselves together. We can look at history and try to predict the future, often with surprising accuracy.

Weather people are better at that.  They have a lot of computer models to follow, all with little swirling diagrams of high and low pressure systems, wind currents, water temperatures, and cloud formations.

Psychologists don't have too many computer models that are used to predict human behavior.  Marketers have very good ones, and they use them more than Psychologists.  Google, Amazon, Walmart and Target are especially good at knowing what you will buy, even before you do, and then selling it to you. But I expect that computer models of your behavior will be coming soon.

Too often however, helping people to change is too much to trying to change the weather.  We can talk about it , be supportive, undeerstanding, and make suggestions.  But often, too often, the best we can do is give people an umbrella to help them weather the storm.

NOTE:
Now this post seems pretty negative.  I don't mean it to be.  I really just want to give people the idea that change is difficult, especially significant behavioral change.  I want people to realize that it's not surprising or their fault that it takes a long time.  They should hang in there and keep at it.

But I know that what catches on on the Internet, and it the world in general, is promising, hopeful messages, with an upbeat spirit and a happy ending, even when the odds of that are not very good.

Our brains like to be happy, even if it isn't realistic --- almost especially if it's not realistic.

So next time I will be more Inspirational, and not be such a grumpy old man.

I will be upbeat and show you how you Can Be anything you wish to be.
I'll try.
i mean I WILL!
(Happier now?)

Baltimore: Solutions

Really, what’s the problem in Baltimore?  And more important: what’s are some solutions?

There is plenty of blame to be put on everyone.  It is easy to get angry.  It is easy to take a stand of righteous indignation, no matter what your point of view. It’s easy to show where the other side is wrong, because in some ways they are. But, sadly, as always, the answer is more complex.

Who’s wrong?  Everybody and nobody.

The underlying problem is fear and misunderstanding.  That has been going on for three hundred years, and three thousand years.  It was written into the hallowed United States Constitution.  Slavery was allowed.  That meant some people could legally own and rule over the lives of others. 

From today’s point of view that was awful.  Back then it was common practice.  A few people opposed it, but certainly not a majority.  Really, it was an energy policy.

However, the enslaved Africans were not happy with it, not even then.  They feared the people who owned them, and the owners knew it.  So the fear and resentment began then. Fear and resentment is circular.  It breeds on itself and expands. 

The police in Baltimore were doing their job.  They had to deal with a population that didn’t trust them.  They had to be on guard.  They were afraid.  That fear, magnified by both stereotypes and experience, shaped their reactions. 

Those reactions created more resentment in the community. They feel mistreated because of prejudice, and they are.

Both parties were correct in their assumptions.  The cycle of fear, resentment and misunderstanding continued.

This is not new. Nor is it unique to America.  Last month I was in Israel and saw how the cycle of fear and misunderstanding in that part of the world goes back 3000 years.  It continues there today.  There are big fears over very small differences.  But there is no communication.  The different communities are isolated.  The fear increases because no one really knows the “other” as people.  Prejudice and stereotypes and misinformation take over.  The political system reinforces that. Politicians are good at splitting people into “interest groups.” And that is certainly true in Baltimore.

This has been so true for so long that it seems as if there is a genetic basis for it. It probably was adaptive a thousand, or even five hundred years ago to be fearful of people and tribes who were unknown.  Those strange young men swooping into your valley were not coming to teach meditation and yoga.  They wanted your gold, your crops, your women and your water.  They also were eager to cut off your head or make you a slave.

But fear and prejudice are not adaptive any more.  The people of the world overlap too much.  Our lives are too intertwined.  Our enemies have become our suppliers and our customers. Yet, fear, prejudice, hatred and vengeance still seem to be very widespread. It’s an easy sell, and our brains like easy.

What can be done?

We have to get to know each other as people, as individuals.  We have to see we are really all the same.  We have to care about each other instead of blaming each other. We have to build empathy based on our similarities, instead of fear based on our differences.

Sure? Easy to say, hard to do.

For example:

 Brown vs. Board of Education, 1951. A huge landmark case for racial equality.  Integrated schools.  A big step forward.  For a while, maybe, but that didn’t last.

The backlash drove white families into private schools and out of the cities.  Most cities now have badly funded, poorly run schools, filled with poor, almost all minority children.  Their skills are limited. Their networks are limited, and so is their future. The parents who pay for private schools don’t vote to pay taxes for the public schools. People who go to public schools don't pay taxes because they don't have the money.

The idea was to get people to know each other as people.  Instead now, whites and non-whites, rich and poor, religious and secular are now further apart.  We don’t know each other, but we have developed distorted ideas about how the “others” think. People get separated.  Fear and resentment develop.

Solution:  Close all private schools.  Integrate schools with an equal mixture of all levels of wealth.  Give the same education and same resources to all. All families would participate in developing, delivering and monitoring the same education. But mostly get children to feel safe and familiar with those who they now see as different. Fear declines, prejudice declines. America flourishes with contributions from everybody.

Likelihood of happening:  nil. 

Or

Mandatory two years of national service between high school and college.  Everyone

would be sent away from homes and put into small, diverse groups that work on community building and nation building projects together: building a school, building a day care, building a wireless network. Asking not what their country can do for them but……

This is really possible, but likelihood of happening : .00003%

Or

A family dinner exchange program.  Twice a month everyone would have dinner with some folks they didn’t know, who were different in some ways from themselves: racially, economically, professionally, culturally. Six families in six months, with dinner at each person’s place twice.  The costs would be shared unequally, or from the government.  Get to know new people, eat different food, open new pathways in your brain.

Another fun possibility that could be implemented in any city, county or state.

            Likelihood of happening: .00004%

            Why? Because it’s new and therefore feels risky. Because it’s so much easier to stick with the old way of thinking, to blame someone else, and to be frightened.

            If you don’t agree with me, come up with your own idea.  I like new ideas.  I’m an old dog that can learn new tricks.

“Look at me, Look at me, Look at me now.  It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how”

            --- The Cat in the Hat.

inspiration, with mixed feelings (of course)

This weekend was the once a year conference of the writer’s group that has helped me put together a proposal for a book I am writing.

Everyone there is writing a book, hopes to write a book, would like to write a book.  Some have written books, some are published, some are published and read.

I admired everyone who was there for their devotion, creativity, perceptiveness and most of all to their persistence.   So many people these days feel they have something to say; and in truth, all of us do.

It can be infuriating to see that some folks  get so much attention for writing and saying foolish and misleading things, but it happens.

The writing, reading and publishing business is in flux these days, much like so many other businesses and professions.  That would music, medicine, law, organic farming, credit cards, nursing homes and taxi driving, along with just about everything else we spend money and time doing.  About the only thing that hasn’t changed is the duckpin bowling alley in Billerica, where I’m sorry to say I lost to my son in a rematch of a game that took place nine years ago.

Yet, of course, being who I am, I have mixed feelings.  The people were admirable: smart, witty, earnest and most of them trying to make sense out of the chaos of the world we live in.

The market is mean and merciless; as bad as dealing with health insurance companies who don’t understand or care about mental health.

The market, especially now, with so much competition from other media, wants redemptive stories, happy endings, and simple solutions. Especially from someone they have heard of and trust.  That’s understandable.

Except I don’t believe there are too many redemptive stories.  There are some happy endings, but there are very few, if any, simple solutions.

Also, I am less well known than Chris Christie, to pick on someone who deserves to be picked on. I'm even less well known than his cousin, and I don't even know who that would be.

That’s two strikes against me.

But, we are allowed three strikes, and as many foul balls as we can manage, so I will persevere.

Me and him, Ferguson and Baltimore

He sits and talks to me about the stress and anxiety he feels trying to keep his business running during these changing times.  He feels it was much easier when his father ran the business, and I have to agree with him. His father had it easier sending him to college than it is for him to send his daughter.  Finding employees who are reliable and sophisticated is difficult he says. I don't quite agree with him on that because I don't pull away from everyone who speaks with an accent.

Soon we are talking about Ferguson and Baltimore the Black Deaths, the protests, and the riots.He agrees that many police people misuse their power.  Sometimes enforcement seems almost arbitrary.  And the court system is a mess.  He knows; he's been sued a few times on matters even he and the judge couldn't understand. But it still cost a lot of time, money and aggravation.

But what about those kids in the streets. That's a mess too, he says.  It drives people away, he says, even those who feel sympathetic to the cause.

Would anything change if they stayed quiet? I asked.

He gave me a look that said "Oh my God, you're one of those!"

Maybe it's really a good strategy. It certainly gets attention." I said, feeling that I had overstated my case and gave the kids too much credit for actually having a strategy.

Then I didn't ask what he thought about so many Black men being in jail, most of whom for things white men don't go to jail for.  And while you're in jail you can't be with your family and be a role model for your son.  And when you get out of jail you can't get a job because you've been in jail.

So then you stay mad at the white cop who arrested you for smoking a joint, or for giving him attitude, or for just being big and Black on a dark night in the city. And you son gets angry too.

While I wasn't saying all of those things my friend asked me why these kids didn't just take advantage of all of the new educational opportunities being offered to them.  Why didn't they stay in school and get good jobs.

I asked him how many would somehow get $70,000 to go to NYU with is daughter. I didn't bring up my concern about new studies which show that if kids are undernourished, impoverished, abused or neglected their brains don't grow as fast or develop as completely.  And how Black children face the same problems in school that they do on the streets: they get suspended and expelled for things that white kids are made to stay after school.  I did say that in those elite, often privately funded special city school that have small classes. long days and a lot of structure, many of those inner city kids do very well.  But most inner city public  school are underfunded and poorly equipped. They have large classes. That's because the wealthier white kids are down the block in private schools and their parents don't vote to expand the school budget.

It's all complicated.  It all goes in circles. It's difficult to sort out cause or effect.

Then he asked me why these kids end up in gangs and sell drugs to their neighbors and ruin their own neighborhood.

They like to be in groups, I said.  Most of us do.

Those are the wrong groups, he said.  And he left to join his friends for dinner at the country club where he paid $100,000 to join.  It's good for business to be a member.

I told him to hire someone with an accent.  Isn't that what "job creators" do?

We Build Machines

            Part of what makes humans special is that we build machines.  There are a few other creatures that make tools, but only humans make machines.  We’ve gotten better and better at it over the last two hundred years; and really super at it in the last thirty.

            These machines have helped us build even better machines.  They have helped us explore all the fields of science in ways that could not even be imagined forty years ago.  Think about all we’ve learned about genetics, or how the brain works.  The Super- Collider; that’s kind of special.  I’m impressed that this post will be read by people all over the world.  I even get a map of where they live as Google tracks us all.

            It’s amazing stuff to a guy like me who once had to climb up three stories on a fire escape and sit outside a window to watch a new device called television, and be able to see a little puppet sing that it was “Dootie Time.”

            Is there a downside?

            Of course there is.  We all have learned that there are always trade offs in life. Even the best medication has side effects.  Every change brings unanticipated consequences.

            I’ll take two examples that I read about in yesterday’s paper.  The first was a review of the new movie, Ex Machina.  I haven’t seen it yet, and it may not be the kind of thing I want to take my wife to, but it is a highly over-dramatized version of what people are becoming afraid of: that machines will begin to be smarter than we are, psych us out, replicate themselves and being running our lives.

            That movie seems to get all involved with the sex thing, which is kind of creepy but will certainly attract a crowd.  I am also not really as worried about  “Ava” or HAL becoming President as I would be about Ted Cruz, but there are other real fears.

            One fear is the one I got when I read Nicholas Kristof’s column that described how badly American kids do at math.  Mr. Kristof didn’t talk about machines; he just said that most Americans can barely make change, and that we are terrible when dealing with more complex numerical situations (Boastful Disclaimer:  I solved all of his problems, even his last one, and I’m proud of being good at 8^th grade math).

            Bit I relate America’s lack of numerical skills to its accessibility to machines for a few reasons.  First, doing math requires people to think slowly.  You have to add this, divide by that, watch out of the signs, think about the ratios, and check to see if the answer makes sense. Yes, many people can do it really quickly, but those are people who do it a lot and have developed all the good habits.

            Most people, partly because of machines, are expecting everything to come with one flash and one click and don’t have the patience to think slowly.  Also, we all have access to those kinds of machines.  I just asked “Siri” for the square root of 6789. It took literally two seconds for it to tell me 82.39538822.  I could have done it the long way and actually gone to the calculator app, but why go through all that trouble.

            Also, the same phone (hand held computer) has a GPS system.  That gives me pretty exact directions to almost anywhere that has a road to it.  I use it often.  But I try not to use it if I go back again.  I want to know where the place really is and have that in my mind.  I want to know how it is attached to the rest of the world.

            I know, from recent developments in brain science, that if we don’t learn and use these skills, then certain areas of our brains just won’t develop and the skills not only won’t be there when we need them, we will limit the way we think about almost every thing we do and almost every situation that confronts us.  If we don’t know ratios, and connections and locations, and relative strengths, and causes and effects we won’t be very successful at feeding ourselves, finding a safe place to live and getting along with a mate.

            If we can’t do that very well then machines will do it for us. Then we may reach a state in which we won’t even be able to tell if the machines are doing a good job.

            That may still be better than following Ted Cruz, but not much.

Changing History?

I am still thinking about my trip to Israel and still trying to figure out what upset me so much.  What is slowing becoming clear to me is that I have been deeply affected by learning how often the land upon which Israel now sits has been invaded and overtaken.  All of these conquerors came, raped, pillaged, and slaughtered the inhabitants, often enslaving those they didn’t kill, or else ruling them strictly and taking away a lot in taxes and restricting freedoms.

When the inhabitants rose up against whoever was the ruling power, sometimes, for a brief period, they drove them away.  But most times, and always eventually, the power came back stronger and raped, pillaged and murdered even more savagely. The Romans were especially good at that.  

Yes, this was history, but what is most troubling is that it is the present, and it seems to be the future.  It makes me wonder if there is really too much of a genetic basis that makes humans easily vulnerable to fear which leads to hate which leads to violence.

It seems to be so much easier to destroy than to build, or to stir up fear than to create understanding.  It is happening in Israel; it is happening in the U.S.  In many states, recent examples of which are Maine and Missouri,  the war on poverty seems to have turned into a war on the poor.  People who are broke and hungry are being demeaned, humiliated and even prosecuted.

The sense that someone who is different, or someone who makes us uncomfortable is evil and must be feared, has taken over our politics, or economics, and our worldview.    This should not be surprising because, in truth, as we can see from Israel, it has always been that way. 

What makes me sad, is that with all of our new technology, and all of the new knowledge that it has brought us, these more basic, primitive behaviors,  still so easily and quickly, become dominant. 

Yes, in some ways, there have been real improvements. While we have all these local, horrendous civil and religious wars going on, but the world seems to have learned to avoid the huge wars of the 20th century that killed millions of people.  Technology has given us a much greater awareness, and a much stronger reaction to some of the injustices that are happening. Abuses of power are being called out, and that will, eventually, lead to change.

So perhaps the tide is turning, and much of what is happening is the frightened reaction to those who are feeling left out or left behind.  Yet, as the tide moves out very, very slowly, it leaves so much wreckage behind.

Holy Land, Holy Sh....Moley

We went, we saw, we certainly didn't conquer, although it seems that almost everyone else did, and many are still trying.

I have been back for over a week now, but my travels still reverberate through my mind and body.  I had a dream about being in Jerusalem again last night, so I can see how emotional the trip was.  It was not only emotional, it was confusing and my ideas are still not resolved.

It was fascinating, yet depressing.  The country of Israel is thriving.  It's people are friendly, for the most part, industrious, proud and scared.  Yet, it seems to me, that they are confronted with a huge problem and their solution, so far, has been to ignore it.  What makes it worse, is that the problem is not really of their own making, and they cannot solve it by themselves, yet they are making it worse.

We travelled all over the country.  We saw many, too many, ancient sites.  That piece of land has had 4,000 years of invasions.  The ones I can remember include the Canaanites, the Hittites, Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans,the Byzantines,  the Muslims, the Crusaders, the Muslims again, the Crusaders again, the Muslims again, The Ottomans, the British and the Israelis. I am sure I am leaving some out and probably got some of the order wrong.

Jerusalem is an amazing city, but to me it seemed to be taken over by salesman selling schlock to the millions of touring pilgrims who come from all over the world.  Three major religions fight over the square mile of the Holy City, and there are many soldiers with automatic weapons who have to keep the peace.

I will write more in a couple of days as I have more time to think about all I saw and felt, but I am left feeling a bit sad.  We were able to talk to many different people, mostly because of the tour guide, who was marvelous.  We spoke to a Christian Arab, who is an Israeli citizen. We spoke to some Orthodox Jews.  We spoke to a Druze family.  We spoke to Palestinian who had no passport and no country.  We spoke to a Bedouin, who is an Israeli citizen.  We spoke to other Israelis on the street.  I was left with the feeling that the Jews have about seven different sects and positions and they have a great deal of trouble agreeing.  The Arabs have about eleven different sects and opinions and they often resort to killing each other.  There are huge differences between the Arabs and the Israelis and they hardly talk to each other at all.

Everyone is dug in.  Everyone feels they have been wronged.  Everyone feels they have history and God on their side.  Everyone is right to some degree

But my feeling is; "So What?"  What are you going to do now.
No one knows.
So things go on.  There has been tension in the region since the British took over at the end of the first world war, a hundred hears ago.  It feels like it can continue for another hundred years.

Very old, but New to me

Tonight we get on a plane and fly away.  It's part of the changes in my life as I morph into being one of the travelling "young-old". There are flocks of us, from almost every country, going almost everywhere.  We are even going on a tour, which is something I've never done.Aside from basketball and baseball, I never meshed well with group things.

I always preferred to feel my way along in the dark.

But we are headed to a hot spot, and it's better to be with a group.
Israel.
The election is going on there.  Just like here, we will see if a huge amount of American money from very few sources ( many of the same sources actually) can decide who runs  a country.

As many of you know by now, my religious commitments are vague at best.  Still, we will see most of the historical sites, places that date back hundred and thousand of years.  These places have a long history of people claiming important reasons for being there, and getting quite upset if others want to be there too.  All that ruckus continues to this day, and it would be fascinating to see it all if all of this had not resulted in so many fatalities.

My view on all of this is that I am totally skeptical of anyone who is certain that they have the truth, the ONLY truth.

I know I'm right about that....but I could be wrong.

Making Changes --Me

It's been about six months since I have taken on this new lifestyle.  It was on the Summer Solstice that I officially cut down on seeing patients by about 90%.  Then I had the summer to play and frolic. That doesn't count as a real test of change as I easily did more of the things I did every summer, paddle and putt, bike and chase children across the sand and into the waves.  I can’t say that I suffered.

But as the leaves began to change, the daylight hours became fewer and the air took on a bit of a chill, I began to notice that I was waking up here, and I didn’t have to go there.  It was certainly easier, but it certainly felt strange.

I had gradually been working my way towards this time.  I had always wondered how I would do.  I had worked with  thousands of people, trying to help them make changes in their lives.  I talked to others about how they would feel weird and out of place, even when the changes were the ones they had wanted to make.  Many of my patients were about my age and I had gone through their retirement transition with them.  For many different reasons, they had a much rougher road to travel than I did.  I had worked with several men who had been in powerful positions in corporations or in government, and now they weren’t.  And endings like that don’t usually happen gracefully.

Mine was of my own choosing, at my own time, and with a plan of what I wanted to do next. 

Now, six, or nine months later, depending on when I start to count, I am just beginning to feel comfortable.  I am doing what I set out to do, which is trying to explain to others about how difficult change really is.  The future of that endeavor is not yet clear, but I feel I have made a good start, and hope to get some traction soon.

Still, it’s more difficult psychologically, being on the edges than being in the action.  My new pattern of living is certainly less stressful physically, but I have never really felt the free-floating anxiety that goes with such a lack of structure before. 

Thankfully, that is lifting, and I am feeling hopeful and invigorated.  You never feel as good as you do after you feel bad. Being able to see over the snowdrifts and believe that spring is coming has also given me an emotional boost. 

From this vantage point I can only encourage all of you to keep going through your own periods of transition, which I know, for many people is constant.  Change always brings with it a realigning of emotions, an adjustment, a new perspective.   Like our species, we are all evolving and adapting in our own lives.   If we can’t change we risk extinction. 

That doesn’t sound like fun. 

Thoughts about the Boston Bomber

Almost two years after the horrifying explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the surviving suspected perpetrator of that act is going on trial.  The trial is expected to last two or three months. There seems to be enough evidence to convict him.  Most of the attention is focused on whether he should be put to death as a punishment.

To me, the death penalty is only part of the question, what is really the question is the whole trial.  If the  death penalty was dropped then the whole trial and all of it’s horror show could be avoided.  The trail will only incite more anti-terrorist, anti-Muslim, anti-non white, non Christian feelings.  It will provoke passions of revenge, for war, for proactive strikes against whomever doesn't like us anywhere in the world.

I believe that the kid is responsible for what he did, at least as far as the law and the state are concerned.  How much of a real choice he had to really consider what he was doing; I guess he didn’t. He was boxed in, he was persuaded. He became a believer in the jihadist mission.

I don’t know this kid.  I have had some contact with one of his high school teachers who feels shocked and mortified by what he did. Tsarnaev has been described by others in interviews with the press as a decent kid, who was more of a partier than political, more passive than an activist.

I read that his family are Muslims who live in Russia.  The Russians have persecuted Muslims for years.  The Muslims have committed many terrible terrorist acts in Russia in response.  So there has been an example in his culture of how to respond to feelings of persecution and marginalization.  Why this kid, who was going to college, had friends and was going to parties, felt so persecuted and marginalized is my question.

Most people blame his older brother, who seemed to have failed at boxing, at his marriage and a few other things and seemed to have very little going for him.  This is probably part of it.

What I would like to know is what has to transpire to make someone who doesn’t seem to be genetically hot-tempered, reach a level of alienation and rejection that he needs to call attention to his pain by killing total strangers who are just living their lives.  His pain overcame any feelings of empathy, any sense of humanity, or even the consequences on what this act would do to the value of his own life.  Did he "choose" this?  Was he challenged? Was he trapped?  Did he ever have doubts?

I doubt it will ever be explained.  I’m sure Mr. Tsarnaev can’t explain it himself.  He probably doesn’t even have accurate memories of what he was thinking at the time.

Now it’s just a news story.  Nothing really, will be learned.

Not Due to Climate Change: The Tammy Meyers Shooting

I rarely follow the latest media hyped (white) killing of the week, but I have found the shooting of  Tammy Meyers  to be a fascinating reflection of Americana.

First, it is a great example of something that really isn't what it appeared to be, and then it is an even better example of Thinking Fast, and not Slow. It seems that almost everyone involved did a lot of reacting and very little planning.  No one seemed to be thinking about probable outcomes.

Reality TV could not do a better job of highlighting the craziness in the current culture.  Guns and drugs in family life.

I have been doing a lot of reading about new discoveries which describe how our brains work. Our brains are marvelously complex products of evolution that can do amazing things. One of those things is the brain's ability to synthesize a huge amount of information very quickly.  However, it has been shown in many of these studies that in order to gain speed, the brain sacrifices accuracy.  We all do it, all the time.  In order to protect us, our brains rush to form an idea of what is going on, and based on that idea, we respond, usually quickly and emotionally. We have evolved to do that, so that we can catch food to eat, instead of being caught and eaten.

The downside of this, and I am paraphrasing one of the scientists, I think it was Dr. Michael Gazzaniga ( but maybe someone else) who said that humans are the only creature we know of who can make up a story, and then get themselves to believe it. But in many ways, that is what we all do, every day.  However, some people's stories offer a better picture of reality than others.

I fear that one of the stories that is common in the mind of some, certainly a minority, but still many, gun owners, is that guns really make them safer, and also that they are better shots than whomever their adversary may turn our to be.  

But in today's complex world, we don't need guns to catch food. They are only helpful in specific, structured situations, such as hunting seasons in the woods.  Taking a gun and going out to find the bad guys usually proves to be problematic. Adding drugs to the mix doesn't help either.  

The foolish, confusing, and truly tragic death of Tammy Meyers is an example of everyone involved getting caught up in their own story; stories that were believed too quickly; with no real consideration of what might happen next. And unlike the video game this resembles, there is no reset button.

Connect the dots: piles of snow and the ISIS killings.

            Today the sun came out for a few hours and the temperature rose to thirty-six degrees.  The snow around my house began to melt for the first time in weeks.  The seven-foot high piles are now only five feet high, the twenty-foot piles seem about the same.  The dripping off the icicles of mass destruction was constant.  Of course, now that the sun is setting, and the temperature is dropped, everything with freeze solid.

            As anyone who has paid any attention to any media knows, this has been an historic winter here in New England.  And it shows no sign of getting easier.  It will be very cold tomorrow, and more snow will come on Wednesday.

            Last winter did not have as much snow, but the cold came very early, before Thanksgiving and it stayed very cold until the middle of March.  This year seemed as if it was going to be an easy winter until the middle of January, but then everything changed.

            During this time there has been a group of religious zealots who say they are trying to bring about the end of the world.  Their stated goal is to incite a holy war between Muslim extremists, and the rest of the world, a war that will result in total destruction.  This kind of disruptive, oppositional thinking has attracted a following of people who seem to be either fed-up or frightened about things that are happening in the world today, including globalization, exploitation, multiculturalism, allowing women to think and mostly, worshiping the wrong God.

            For a while these were just two different things that upset me, and then I read the article in the February issue of Scientific American by Michael E. Webber that explains the interactive dependence of the availability of water, food and energy.  He shows clearly how the abundance of one of those can help create an abundance of all of them, and how a scarcity of any one of them can lead to the scarcity of the others.

            I also remember reading a few years ago (sorry, but I can’t cite the source right now) about how climate change has lead to the drought in Sudan and how that was large contributing factor in the civil war that broke out in that country.  It is also true that there has been a drought for the last few years in Syria, and that drought lead, as Dr. Webber ‘s thinking would predict, to a rise in food prices, which was a large part of why, after many years of being able to tolerate a repressive government in Syria, there was a revolt among the hungry and dissatisfied people. 

            That civil war has been going on for three years now, and has ruined the country.  Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and millions have been injured, displaced and traumatized.  That kind of chaos and instability easily spread to the neighboring counties that were already full of conflict and turmoil, and that allowed ISIS to rise and attract followers.

I believe that it is the same forces that has changed the climate and lead to a drought in Sudan and Syria that has lead to the long period of cold and heavy snows here in New England. There will not be a drought in New England this year; we will have too much water for a while, including some flooding.  But the states in the Western part of the U.S. are still in a continuing drought and there will be many struggles for water; water for crops, water for drinking, water for the fountains at the hotels in Las Vegas.

            This will lead to uncertainty, discontentment and anger.  I don’t think it will lead to a revolution.  But people will blame the government, the immigrants, and the corporations.

            How many people will realize that the world is now linked and interdependent in many complex ways?  Probably more than just me.

            But how many people are ready to make the significant changes?  Probably more than before, and hopefully enough to make a difference, but that remains to be seen. 

            When there is scarcity there is fear, and when there is fear most people worry most about themselves and their own families.  It’s hard to put it all in context when your livelihood is threatened.

Valentine Snow

            I am back in New England.  It is a Saturday night.  It is Valentine’s Day.  For most restaurants this is a confluence that they experience once or twice in a decade.  At the most romantic spots reservations must have been made months in advance. Take you Valentine out for a romantic evening of a few drinks, a candle light meal and some slow dancing. What could be better?

            But as I look out my window I can see no one.  Almost nothing is moving at the moment, everyone and everything is waiting for what they have been told will come next and come soon.     

            Right now there is four inches of glistening new snow that has fallen through out the afternoon.  It has covered over the piles of older snow and ice that have blown up against buildings or has been pushed by plows and snow blowers to clear the roads and walkways. Those piles now stand higher than I do.  The roads through these canyons of ice and snow are very narrow; there is room for one car or three people.  But no one and nothing is out on the roads.

            It is twenty-eight degrees but, at the moment, there is no wind, so it does not feel cold.  However, very soon, perhaps an hour,  we have been told, over and over, for the past four days, that the wind will begin to blow.  On it’s back it will bring more snow.  Then the wind will blow harder and harder and the snow will fall faster and faster, swirling around in circles, going up as well as down, going across the street and back again.  I will not be able to see the house across the street that right now stands so clear and white .

            The wind will blow harder and the snow will fall and the temperature will drop to zero.  The snow will pile on top of the snow that has already fallen on top of the snow and ice that already sits in huge piles and drifts. A blizzard.

           

            There have been blizzards before, many here in New England, usually, one or two a year.  This will be the fourth, this month.

            This weather development has made the news, the world knows about what is happening here in New England.  It is right up on the attention screens, along with the people who got shot in the head, the people who had their heads cut off, the price of oil, the newsman who lied, the newsman who died, and ads for diamonds and perfume that will stop tomorrow, after Valentine’s Day passes,   Oh, yes, and the kitty-cats that  looked so cute, doing…what?…..I don’t understand.

            In a month the snow will melt.  Then this year’s tornadoes will begin, followed by the big fires, and the big droughts will continues, but hose are not so photogenic.  Last June two people were killed in a small town in Iowa.  They were the first fatalities from a tornado in Iowa in ten years.

 I wonder how that town is doing now.  Do you?

Snow -- No Snow

We went away.
We slipped out just in time and headed south.
We arrived in Miami the day before it began to snow where we left.
Up there is snowed a lot.  Then it snowed again.
And again.

We missed the snow.
Well, really, the snow missed us, I didn't miss it at all.

It is dark out now, but I can see the lights on the causeway.
I can look to my right and see the city, to my left is the bay.

Miami is a very different culture than Boston.

Boston values intellect, tradition, hard work, and now, innovation
       (and football -- Go Pats!)
Miami is international, Latin, colorful, sensual, banking, big deals, big boats
Big parties

Bostonians can give you a knowing smile
In Miami they laugh out loud

Who is better?
Depends upon where you were raised, how old you are, what your temperament is, how much money you want to spend, where you come from, and how comfortable you are showing off your body.

Miami is warmer.
That's a big plus in January.  Not so great in July.