Mushroom Memoir

I joined the Brownie Troop at Oakview Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1965. The troop was full, but the Girl Scout Troop needed leaders, and they told my mom that they would let me join if she volunteered. I don’t remember much about the Brownie activities. I do recall the day an older kid leaving detention, for an infraction unknown to me, set the couch in the teacher’s lounge on fire during our Brownie meeting, and I do remember being one of only two girls who were crying about it. Half the school burned down from that little lit cigarette butt. I also remember wearing the Brownie uniform, and I kept the little gold Brownie pin for many years.

In fact, the little gold pin (not real gold!) was only recently stolen, when someone broke into my house, left my old laptop and took the jewelry box. I live, and have lived, in a rural area for 34 years now. They didn’t have to break the wood frame of the door, but they did. The basement door is left unlocked. But that would have been too easy. Of course, the cops didn’t care, even though it was one of a series of recent B&E’s.

Of course, the size lumber that was used to build the house in the 1840’s no longer exists. My neighbor Wayne had the brilliant idea of flipping the board around its vertical axis, so the damaged portion would be hidden in the wall. That facilitated and sped up the repair.

Anyway, back to the Girl Scouts. My mother kept on being a troop Leader when I graduated to the Junior Girl Scouts in 4^th Grade. Pretty much everyone disliked her. She had a short fuse. Perhaps due to lead poisoning. She grew up in Fairmont, West Virginia. After the Flint (Michigan) Water Crisis (due to lead contamination), a large group of scholars got together for a research project, and they showed that local murder rates in the early part of the 20^th Century were very closely correlated with the distance of the town from a lead smelter. Lead, at that time, was the material of choice for all the snazzy new municipal water system pipes. It didn’t rust like steel. Richer municipalities, along with those closer to the lead smelters, used lead pipes. Flint was wealthy at the time. A center of manufacturing.

Back to my mom. Perhaps adding to her lack of patience were her bad teeth. She had a lot of mercury based amalgam fillings. My sister didn’t want to hear my theory of our mother’s temper’s relationship to her fillings, but I think the fillings and the lead pipes in Fairmont probably had a significant effect. I didn’t know her father, who died before I was born, but nobody else in the family ever seemed to have such a temper. Anyway, she was a tough woman, but the Girl Scout Troop did a lot of exciting outdoor activities when she was the leader. We did many overnight camping trips. Way more than most troops. People are always complicated.

Adding to my early exposure to nature, at some time even before joining the Girl Scouts, my parents had decided that we should do family camping. No trailer for them. After the first trial with rented equipment, we had a giant canvas tent that would sleep 8, for the four of us and the miniature poodle. We visited the Shenandoah National Forest on our early trips, and my parents kept the top of the Styrofoam “ice-chest” with the bear fang punctures for many years, as a souvenir of one of the most exciting nights of our lives. The dog was terrified. It made a good story. See, I am still telling it 60 years later!

All that goes to say that, at an early age, I was, despite growing up in suburbia, introduced to nature. My first gardening adventure was growing radishes at age 4. They turned out very spicy. My mother served them as the “bitter herb” for the Passover Seder. The years that I have not had a garden are very few. A couple of summers when I was in college. A couple of years when I lived overseas.

When I had a chance, I moved to a rural area. I live on a forty acre plot, with a hundred by hundred foot fenced area for a garden and small orchard. For the last 5 years or so, I have been growing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, parsley, radishes, garlic, nasturtiums, and various other things, to make “veggie juice smoothie packs.” I try to have a home grown juice smoothie every morning for breakfast. My goal is 225 juice packs in the freezer for the winter and spring.

The garden is a big part of why it’s painful for me to contemplate moving away. Losing the chance to see a dark night sky is another big reason. Looking up and the stars, and thinking about how people have been looking at some of the same groups of stars that we call constellations for as long as 30,000 years is just amazing to me. Way back then, Deneb, the swan goddess’s tail, was the pole star. Myths and archeological finds (Gobeckli Tepe) from the ancient near east and Europe hint at the religious traditions of that time. Before I moved out to the country, I knew the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia (the giant double-u). I don’t really remember even understanding the mythological significance of Orion, and his dog, Sirius. The whole calendar of the ancient Egyptians was based on the appearance of Sirius after it had spent time below the horizon. During the Geminid meteor showers last week, it was very clear and the date was close to the new moon, so very dark. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, was sparkling white, green and red. I feel sorry for city dwellers.

But, as much as I love working in the garden, being in the garden, eating my own produce, ugly heirloom tomatoes and all, and taking a few minutes on clear nights to ponder the stars, there’s something even more special about hunting for wild mushrooms in the woods at the back of the property. On occasion, on my way to the back of the property, I have found Dryad’s Saddles, edible if young enough, in the grass, or sprouting from a tree, or giant puffballs along the south-eastern edge of the property. Neither are very tasty, but they are edible and so a decent consolation prize. But the tastiest prizes are in the back, with the big oaks and maples and other, mostly deciduous, trees.

Learning to recognize and get brave enough to eat chicken-of-the-woods, hens-of-the-woods, shrimp-of-the-woods, green quilted Russulas, black trumpets, white and yellow oysters, red chanterelles, entolomas, and a VERY few morels, while avoiding eating Jack-O-Lanterns, red Russulas, Destroying Angels, “Little Brown Mushrooms,” and Angels Wings…. Now that’s a skill. Because I have taught myself, and have never yet gotten sick. As “they” say, “There are old mushroom hunters, and bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters!”

Most of the people in my neighborhood learned to find morels when they were kids. Nobody where I grew up hunted mushrooms. Or at least I do not recall, even among the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts in my social circles, anyone who hunted and ate wild mushrooms. And even my current neighbors are surprised to discover that when I say I hunt mushrooms, I do not mean “only morels.”

It has definitely been challenging to learn to understand the jargon of mycology. One of my early finds was a whole clump of giant white, funnel-shaped mushrooms at the edge of a water-logged area near the tree that I was convinced for years was an elm, but I now think is a beech. I looked through all my books and could not find anything remotely resembling these beautiful, snow-white, 8 – 10 inch high, 5- 6 inch diameter fungi. Any one would have made a meal! Some months later, I finally “grokked” that the cap shape descriptions in the books were not random. “Oh it might be flat, it might be convex.” No. The point was that they always go through a sequence, usually from convex, to flat, to concave. So the reason that those shrooms looked the way they did was because they were at the end of the cycle of maturity of the “fruiting body,” and the caps had turned inside out. Usually, the pictured examples of mushrooms in guide books are sooner after they pop up.

The aspiring shroom hunter needs to learn all the vocabulary associated with the way the gills, or other “fertile” surface is connected, or not, to the stem; the vocabulary to describe the shape of the stems; and the vocabulary used to describe the habits of the particular species, such as “gregarious,” or “solitary,” or “clustered.” The aspiring mycologist needs to know the difference between gilled shrooms, and shrooms with pores. For the pored shrooms, are they boletes, or are they polypores? Numerous older books say no polypores (which include Dryad’s Saddles, Chickens, and Hens) are poisonous, but newer books don’t want to be that BOLD!!!! Too many people have taken up this hobby. The experts want people to be sure that they have identified the exact species before cooking and consuming it.

Way too many people, IMO, are willing to eat a shroom that someone in a Reddit forum or some software says is ok. This is insane. Ok, there are a FEW mushrooms that are recognizable, just by looking at the cap shape and coloration. But the software apps that act like they can identify a mushroom from the view of the cap are completely ridiculous. Ok, for pure curiosity, fine. But not to eat. Period. Stay cowardly.

A lot of my finds go in the compost, mostly unidentified. For the first time, I found what I was pretty sure were blewits this fall, but after checking in all of my books and a few reliable on-line sites, I wasn’t sure if a) they were blewits or b) blewits are always safe to eat. I was excited when I identified “Woman on a Motorcycle.” I didn’t eat it, but I was highly confident that I knew what it was.

Maybe it would be ok to die of mushroom poisoning, since that supposedly was how the Buddha finally entered Nirvana. But, the symptoms of organ failure that the Amanitas and other really deadly shrooms cause are not reportedly fun to live through. One of my engineer colleagues told me about mistaking Jack-O-Lanterns for chanterelles. He does not care to repeat the experience. My plan is to continue to be a cowardly mushroom hunter.

As I age, and my joints creak, and I don’t move so fast, and I still have to work for a living, I wonder if it even makes sense for me to keep living out in the country, where it’s so hard to find people to help with the garden and mowing the lawn, etc. But then I realize that if I move to the city or the suburbs, I will sit on my rear end even more of the time, instead of getting out in the fresh air and growing and hunting my own produce, and admiring the same stars that all the famous and forgotten people since antiquity, and even before antiquity, have viewed.

Joyous Just Passed Solstice, Merry Christmas if you celebrate, and happy New Year. I’m not terribly optimistic that 2024 will be an improvement over 2023. The world seems to be falling apart. But some people manage to find joy anyway.

Wax On, Wax Off!

Perhaps the most memorable part of the original 1984 Karate Kid movie for me was the scene when the Kid, Daniel, first shows up to his new teacher’s home for a lesson in self-defense, and makes a sacred pact to to obey, no questions asked, in exchange for being taught karate. Pat Morita, as the teacher, hands Daniel a sponge to wash his collection of “Detroit” cars. Daniel is then is told to wax them, as well. Morita demonstrates the hand and arm motions to put the wax on the car, and then wipe it off. Wax on, Wax off. “Don’t forget to breathe!” I love this scene.

Of course, later we find out that the “wax on, wax off” motion is identical to a basic karate move used to block and attack. The Karate Kid learns karate by repeated practice performed doing what he considers menial work.

Way back when, students learned to write by practicing writing. With a thick pencil, then later, a thinner pencil, and eventually, a pen. By repeating the motions, we learned to write legibly, and without having to think too hard about how to make each letter.

anonymous ethnic tutor helping little multiracial students with task in classroom — Photo by Katerina Holmes on Pexels.com

Piano students have to practice scales and guitar students have to practice chords. That’s just the way it is. Acquiring a skill requires practice.

Learning how to safely forage for edible mushrooms requires knowing the difference between decurrent, attached and free gills, and gregarious and solitary growth habits, as well as how to make and interpret a spore print, among many other characteristics, to identify the spore colors. It scares the crap out of me when people show some software a picture to get an ID.

Green Russula, an edible choice mushroom that I was afraid to eat as I was not sure I had correctly identified it at the time.

It also, as I finally figured out, requires being able to interpret the descriptions of the changing shapes of the caps, often from convex to flat to concave, as the mushroom ages. I drove myself nuts looking through five mushroom books trying to identify a giant white mushroom with a large concave, almost funnel shaped, cap. I finally found it in one of the books. As my studies continued, I learned that this mushroom had been misidentified and argued about by experts for decades. In any case, the convex shape wasn’t what finally helped with the ID. The convex shape was simply because these stunning, large white mushrooms were well into the spore spreading segment of their lifecycle. The convex shape seemed distinctive to me, because this is generally not the time when people capture images for identification guides. They generally capture the photos when the shrooms are young and fresh and colorful and convex. This is only one aspect of why it’s generally not recommended to teach yourself mushroom foraging. I did take to heart the adage that there are old mushroom hunters, and bold mushroom hunters, but no old, bold mushroom hunters.

Learning has to start with small skills, and mastery of the basics allows us to gain greater skills. This goes for such tasks generally characterized as “Thinking” as well as playing a musical instrument, swimming competitively, or practicing medicine, repairing cars, or gardening. As the practitioner acquires more basic knowledge of the objects and practices associated with a “body of knowledge,” it’s possible to be more creative with those data and skills, and accomplish more and more. The knowledge builds on and feeds itself.

What is going to happen to humanity if we don’t learn how to learn?

This is the scariest thing for me about SALAMI, or Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences, a more accurate description of what we call AI, or artificial intelligence.

Note that SALAMI and Bologna might be related.

It’s pretty ridiculous to call machine learning intelligence. Intelligence requires conscious awareness, and compassion. It must be grounded in empathy, resulting from awareness of the pains and fears and longings that all humans, most animals, and perhaps even plants, are subject to. It’s part of being alive.

Objectivity is scary, as well as having been proven mathematically and philosophically to be non-existent. I don’t want someone to give me objective advice. I want advice that’s RIGHT for ME! Part of wisdom is knowing how to GIVE advice that’s right for the person seeking the advice!

A professor at a large, accredited university recently told me that many of his current students truly think that they don’t need to know anything other than how to look something up on Google. They believe they will be able to Google their way through their engineering careers. He told me that the students would not want to read a long text book, that many of them don’t buy the short textbook he requires now. I replied that I was not going to pander to ignoramuses. The movie Idiocracy was hilarious, but it’s scary to contemplate the fact that that’s where we’re headed.

We need to wake up, and smell the roses and the coffee, or all we will have left to smell is shit.

pink carnation flower and pink rose flower in clear glass vase beside mug of coffee — Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

OR

HERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PHOTO OF SOME MANURE. BUT NONE OF THE IMAGE SERVICES ASSOCIATED WITH MY CURRENT SOFTWARES SHOW A SINGLE PHOTO OF A FARMER SHOVELING MANURE. ALL THE FARM PHOTOS ARE OF CUTE ANIMALS OR BEAUTIFUL GRAINS, FRUITS, ETC. 

WHY THIS CENSORSHIP ABOUT SHIT?????

This is the skatole molecule, according to Wikipedia, it’s what makes shit smell like shit. The Wiki article also shows a small image of human “poo” alongside a shot of elephant “POO.” Hmm, looks like precursors to ammonia and methane in there.

By Dschanz – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4834135

100th Anniversary of the END of World War I- Reprise

Please click below to hear the audio Recording of the actual sermon. Note content is an elaboration of some of the points made below.

Today is November 11, 2018.

It is the hundredth anniversary of the end of the first World War.

Some wars, as the Hindu’s great scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, tells us, are justified. Sun Tzu of China also wrote a book held in longstanding honor that explains how to determine when war is justified. Sun Tsu’s classic, The Art of War, is still used today for its advice on how to gain a speedy end to any war that is justified.

We in the West have our own traditions justifying war. The Trojan War between the Achaeans (predecessors of the culture occupying what we now call Greece) was fought due to a pact between rich landowners to defend whichever of them took the most beautiful woman of the times as a wife, from anyone who tried to take her away. The Hebrew Bible documents many wars fought at the direction of God’s commands to cleanse the Promised Land of its supposedly sinful occupants.

At that time, people were led to believe that they were doing good by helping their God to annihilate offending peoples. I personally have a hard time deciding if this seems morally superior or inferior to the idea of preventing Helen from leaving her short, fat, ugly Achaean (Greek) husband and going off with the handsome Prince of Troy. I am also struggling to come to a conclusion about whether ethnic cleansing is superior or inferior as a supposedly legitimate cause of war, compared to one fought over the refusal of a king to return his cousin’s domain after the allotted time had elapsed since the dice gambling match forced him to go into a 13 year exile.

Are all of these reasons morally inferior or superior to the ones that Americans have used in recent times? (Securing our supply of oil? Liberating Afghan women from those who were forcing them to give up their right to education and liberty to walk about in town? Destroying what turned out to be non-existent weapons of mass destruction?)

Apparently, back in the Bronze age, in what we now call the Middle East, wars fought to perform ethnic cleansing were considered good deeds. The episodes of what today would be called ethnic cleansing, or genocide, were thought to endear the people to their god. Because of this, Israelite editors of the Bible made up the story of their ancestors’ destruction of the great city of Jericho. Historians and archeologists seem quite certain that the city of Jericho was already a pile of ruins at the time of the Israelites occupation of Canaan. But it was important to tell the story of the destruction of every resident of Jericho- man, woman (except the certified virgins of child bearing age), child, even the livestock. Important to remind God of the obedience of the people, and important to remind the Israelites of their fierce warrior natures.

Now, before you, dear reader, accuse me of being NEGATIVE, wallowing in the horrific deeds and attitudes of the past, I want to say that THE FACT that we now find these deeds HORRIFIC gives me some hope for future progress. As the great Rabbi Hillel said, what is hateful to you, do not do to others.

Sure, it’s great to give charity, and to smile as you go about your daily business. But destruction is so much swifter than construction, that you could be loving and kind 364 days a year, and on that one day of destruction, ruin more than you built. Perhaps that is likely if we try to suppress our negative aspects, rather than bringing them into the light of day to figure out how we can move beyond them.

So first, let’s avoid destruction of the beautiful, the useful, and the spiritually uplifting.

How much progress have we made in the last 3 or 4 thousand years?

The kings of Assyria and Babylon used to have their scribes count the enemy hands in the piles that the warriors made, so they could brag to their god of how many enemies his army had eradicated. Most of the armies of the day only killed men and children, sparing all women of child bearing age, and taking the livestock. Women were spared as the men of the day had an incorrect belief that THEY carried the complete genetic seeds of their offspring, and the females were merely incubators.

Getting back to more modern times, World War I resulted in 10 million civilian deaths and 6 million military personnel deaths. Another 20 million were injured. In the heat of the battle, many soldiers had been brainwashed as to the necessity of continuing to kill until the moment of cease-fire at 11 am on 11/11/1918. The last soldier was killed at 10:58 am. This was almost six hours after the announcement of the cease-fire. The combatant had become so filled with hatred that they did not want to waste a chance for a little more glory on the battlefield, a few more enemies killed.

But, as a result of this bloody, horrible war, many people did start to undertake organization building for the purposes of reducing the pain, suffering, and losses of war. Some people also worked to reduce the likelihood of war.

As we look back in history on this hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I, we can’t celebrate the end of war. We can’t even celebrate the end of the desire for war. But we do have some progress to report. We have the knowledge of the Buddhist prayer that all beings be happy, and more importantly that all beings have the causes of happiness. Again, I’d like to suggest that we not pray for the currently unrealistic end to war, which would leave many people in untenable conditions. Rather, I pray for an end to the causes of war.

What are the causes of war? I am not a historian, so probably no historian would take my opinion into account. However, I think that injustice is the biggest. I will claim that I’m not the first to think along the lines of social structures contributing to war. Matthew O. Jackson and Massimo Morelli wrote (in 2007) an article called “Political Bias and War,” in the American Economic Review, 97 (4): 1353-1373. I haven’t read it because I don’t want to pay for the article at this point. From another article by these authors, which I found in its entirety, they apparently make the case that PEOPLE LIKE to CHOOSE those with belligerent tendencies as leaders to negotiate for them. They also provide information that led me to understand that in hierarchical societies (all human societies), the LEADERS actually tend to benefit from war more than the citizens. Let’s think about the rich Americans who benefit from selling arms. They are not the ones being shot at on the battlefields! Be that as it may, these two historians see war most frequently resulting from bargaining failures. To me, bargaining failures is a “HOW wars start” factor, while injustice is a “WHY wars start” factor.

If peace and justice prevailed everywhere on the face of the earth, and people LOVED peace and justice, I think that there would be a lower driving force for wars.

But injustice is the hardest thing to eradicate. Or perhaps I should say that the manifestations of injustice are very difficult to eradicate. When we start to try to disentangle a single strand of injustice, we find ourselves pulling on one end of what seems like an infinite spider web.

Two years ago I studied the Flint Water Crisis, in order to prepare a presentation for an engineering conference. The “ROOT CAUSE” of the children’s lead poisoning was eventually found by the American Civil Liberties Union to be a failure of democracy. Of course with any big failure, there are multiple points of view. From another vantage point, the Flint problem was economic in nature. The city had been a thriving center of manufacturing, but the losses of the automotive industry had left it as the home of one of the most poverty stricken populations in the country. But defining the situation in those terms is philosophically defeatist. It implies that poor people don’t have a right to safe drinking water. Or it leaves poor people waiting for charity.

Calling the situation a failure of democracy leads to more immediately actionable plans. The control of the government of Flint has now been returned to its elected mayor from the State appointed emergency manager, who took control after the bankruptcy of the city. Several years on, there are still a lot of lead pipes in Flint, and some people are still relying on bottled water to drink, although it’s been safe to wash even babies in the water for some time now.

There are still ongoing lawsuits over the actions taken by the officials appointed by the State, who abused their authority and ignored safety warnings from the employees of the water department. Some of these former authorities are facing criminal charges. (Feel free to contact me for a copy of my slide show or paper on the subject.)

Should all humans have safe drinking water? Is that a matter of justice? Lead in drinking water has been shown to cause irreversible brain damage in infants and young children. The brain damage leads to a higher incidence of behavioral problems, and even murder rates. (My previously mentioned paper has references to a scholarly article on this issue.) Of course “normal” people don’t want violent, brain damaged people in their neighborhoods.

What about toilets? Should all humans have toilets?

And education? Should all humans have access to basic education? Should they learn how to read, do arithmetic, and practice basic hygiene?

Are these issues of justice?

If we are able to envision a world of both peace and justice, we bring it closer to reality. Jesus’ teachings encouraged his followers to enter the Kingdom of Heaven within. Yet, as we leave the Halloween season, and approach the Thanksgiving Season, overshadowed as it now is in the American Retail environment, by a frenzy of Christmas capitalism, let’s rejoice that Christians have not totally given up the idea of the Old Testament prophet, that one day there would be Peace on Earth.

If all of us spread the word that our chances of Peace on Earth coming sooner will be improved once we start praying for an end to the CAUSES of war, we will be doing a small part to making it happen.

Tomatoes

All beginners once
Some day we come to an end
Recycling matter

There’s nothing like an heirloom beefsteak tomato, hot from the sun, sliced, and drizzled with a little bit of Ken’s Steakhouse Greek dressing! This dressing looks like it might be my own home made recipe.

Soon, come February, the Zip-locks of seed packets will be taken out of the freezer. Their temperature will be allowed to equilibrate with that of the living room prior to opening for the annual census. Tomatoes. Tomatoes first. I used to start one or two seedlings of each of 25 varieties. The last two years, I have increased the roma types, because of their convenient size for my juice packs. That has decreased the variety of heirloom beefsteaks. The salad tomatoes are holding steady. But I still like to try at least one completely new to me heirloom every year. I’d been growing Paul Robeson for years, a delicious blue salad tomato that my racist right leaning pal likes, before finding out that Paul Robeson was a famous African American socialist.

I have not shared this knowledge with my pal yet. Who am I to take away his enjoyment of a healthy pleasure? Besides, there’s some poetic justice in the situation….

So anyway, first, I take stock of the tomatoes, and figure out how many new packs to order. The peppers. Let’s not forget the peppers. I’m more open minded on the peppers. The individual variety packets don’t last as long, so there’s more opportunity for experimentation. Next, the lettuces, cabbages, broccoli, cukes, melons, etc. Then, the flowers. Gotta have zinnias and cosmos, and something new. The garden provides the chance to see a cycle of life in less than a year. From infant to crone, despite the infant mortality that comes with weeding, and the early maturity deaths due to bacterial wilt, etc., March to September is all it takes.

They say gardening is good for health. It provides opportunities for exercise, and the potential for nutritious food. Some also say it’s cheaper than hiring a shrink, but serves the same purpose. I say gardening is all of the above, and the most spiritual activity there is, linking us from beginning to end, from dust to dust.

All beginners once
Some day we come to an end
Recycling matter

I came from behind. Did you?

This is a “Ghost Pipe” plant! It seems unbelievably cool, and I am really amazed to have found several clumps on my property this past summer. That way, I did not have to feel bad about taking one back to the house, for science!

I come from behind. I imagine that many people might think that. David Levy quotes Barry Switzer having said “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” What proportion of our characteristics must be underdogs before we have a legitimate claim to having come from behind? For that matter, what scheme would be available to define the basic characteristics of any human?

I will try out my Thinking Skills to address this issue.

Hmm, would this ghost pipe be considered to have come from behind? As a plant, with no chlorophyll, that seems like it COULD be a disadvantage….

I found this “Ghost Pipe” or “Indian Pipe” while on a mushroom hunt. This is classified as a plant, but has no chlorophyll. It gets its nutrients from fungi in the soil.

A human is a certain type of animal that evolved on the planet, called Earth by its English speaking inhabitants. For the last 5,000 years at least, by the accounts of the social scientists, at least those finding themselves clinging to conventional wisdom, most humans live in fairly strongly hierarchical societies. I’m not talking a village chief, or even a multi-village “Big Man.” I’m talking multi-level with multi being definitely more than three. Three levels of society goes back to what some anthropologists consider the original human social hierarchy of Alpha and Shaman versus the men, women, and children. Of course it was always more complicated than that. But, we have to start somewhere. So does than mean that everyone but the Alpha and Shaman are coming from “behind”? Or are the men still in the top half? In matriarchal societies, would that mean the women were on top? So, thinking about it in this new way, I guess most people DO come from behind.

My ex always got very aggravated when someone would imply that he was part of “the people.” The people were uneducated, shallow, and boring. All characteristics that he most certainly did not apply to himself. Boring was definitely the biggest sin. at least in his book.

A week or so later, the white was staring to discolor to brown and black, and the open shape of the flower was starting to pinch into a seed pod. Eventually, it turned completely dark brown and black, and head dried and shrunk. I took the head back out to the swampy area where I found it, and sprinked the seeds on the ground.

So now we are moving from our place in the basic social hierarchy as the source of defining who we are / where we come from, to the realm of learned or/and chosen behavior. Behavior, as we all know, starts in the mind. I don’t think I have ever seen “entertaining and boring” as poles of a foundational system of categorizing people. But that brings us perhaps to something akin to either the Myers-Briggs personality typing program, or the Enneagram, or astrology of the Eastern or Western types.

The most promising on short reflection seems to be Myers-Briggs, where we could say that extroverts are ahead, or at least out front, and introverts are behind. Going on extroverted people being more likely to be regularly entertaining. Maybe I err, in using my exe’s system. But I will keep going on this premise for now. So going back to the main story line, most personality type statistics indicate that the extroverts are a bigger group than the introverts. So where’s the cut off for being behind? Do only the top 75% (or whatever the statistics say) of extroverts belong in “the ahead,” and the bottom 25% of extroverts have a legitimate claim to coming from behind?

Of course in today’s economy, a big chunk of what determines if you are coming from behind, or not, has to do with your financial resources. Sadly, the very few are on the very pinnacle, and the rest of us are not. So, by basic statistics, it seems that a lot of us might well have a legitimate claim to be coming from behind.

Do we get to combine the less “desirable” traits to claim greater disadvantage? Certainly this discussion is happening today.

Hmm. I am going to have to think about this….

Well, since I mentioned a mushroom hunt above, I will include this scanning electron microscope image of a spore from what I am quite confident was a Green Quilted Russula. They are edible, when fresh. Now t that I am confident I know how to identify them, the next time I find one, I will overcome my “Green Eggs and Ham” “yuck factor,” and cook some up. They are reputed to be very good eating!

What do YOU think???

Stardate 5AUG2041

Wow. Well I hardly imagine I will still be alive at that time…. But here goes…. to the writing group prompt: Write your diary entry for a date 20 years from now.

Not that this image has anything to do with twenty years in the future, but I always enjoy a chance to show people the hidden worlds revealed by my scanning electron microscope. This is the ball joint enabling motion of a bumblebee’s antenna. Note the varying length of the hairs. Those that would cause interference otherwise are shorter! I just came across a report on some research showing that these short hairs actually lubricate the interface of these joints!

Eighty three years old.

Impossible.

Several friends have birthdays this week.

In a few days will be the birthday of the person who used to be my favorite aunt. I suppose she’s still my favorite among my parents female siblings, but none of them really care to keep any communication going with me.

It’s likely my fault. I never did feel like I fit in with the family, and for most of my life, friends have been more important than family.

Despite what many social scientists have shown is an astounding 25% of American families with estranged children, it still seems like most people, including those of my first circle of friends, prioritize family time. That is ok. At age 83, I find myself more and more satisfied with my dead friends who never met me, supplementing, but of course never supplanting, the remaining live ones.

Yes, the dead friends. The writers, some, if not most, or even almost all, of them long dead before my birth, keep me company. And anyway, the cosmologists assure us that time, as we understand it passing, is an illusion.

The only reality is eternity.

What has been, as well as what will be, is already always here.

As John Newton wrote, “When we’ve been here 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we’d first begun.”

All we have to do in order to let this fact of our reality sink in is go outside on a clear, moonless (dark!) night. Admittedly, this is not that frequent in Michigan, so one must plan in advance to be able to take advantage of it. But, on finding yourself outside on such a clear moonless night, look up and think about when the light from any six visible stars started its photonic journey to our retinas.

Hmm, seems like I have been writing for a third person. Who is that? Is it my own ghost? Is it the universal soul? Who the heck do I think will ever read this?

Who?

You?

medication pills isolated on yellow background — Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Not directly related to my content, except at the macro-scale of the question mark!

I have never contemplated…

Bronze Snake Charmer Figurine from India. Nothing like a pipe and cobra to encourage contemplation!

Such a pleasure to be able to return to my Thursday writing group. The prompt was:

“I have never contemplated…” Hmm…I dug right in. SOC (stream of consciousness). Other members of the group apparently experience my writing as a flood of words. They think I type fast. They are not the only ones who think so, but I have always made errors and the severe arthritis in my right hand in particular means the typos are more numerous than ever. “Nevertheless, she persisted….”

I have never contemplated not contemplating a significant decision. And that is just the problem. Because I have learned, through painful experience, that it’s just the things that we don’t know that we should be contemplating that are going to, as they say, nip us in the ass, or, more politely, become a sea of alligators surrounding us.

You may or may not have noticed that the writer of this paragraph has changed from the first person singular to the first person plural, and now to the second person. Shortly, the writer will change from this hated second person narrative, allowed by conservative writing pundits only to poets writing in the love lost genre, to the omniscient third person.

Getting back to the subject at hand, the contemplationless situations in the writer’s life, is easy. That is due to the fact that all humans have no choice but to participate in the human condition. Thus, each of us has much, indeed most, of our life in common with all other humans.

So just what is the nature of this thing called the human condition? The root cause of it all is consciousness. A way to explain human consciousness is the ability to keep multiple things and viewpoints in mind simultaneously. Thus, humans have always, since Eve staked the claim for choice, been able to eat, or not eat, the apple, whereas a chimpanzee faced with the same apple, in similar nominal circumstances, admittedly here left to the reader / listener to define, will eat the apple.

Other animals, for the most part, crows, ravens, elephants and some others intentionally habituated to the human world excepted, are simply driven by nature’s preprogrammed instructions. And here is the problem. We have to choose our actions.

Have you noticed that I changed back to the first person, moving in a single paragraph among different points of view? Tough bananas for those writing instructors who don’t like that. I am convinced that this paragraph is perfectly clear and not confusing at all. And if it is confusing, it’s because you, dear reader, are in a rush. Slow down for goodness’ sake, and take in these pearls of understanding.

So, if individuals take not the time to consciously choose, then the subconscious mind will take over the choosing function, which will then closely resemble that of a hard programmed member of the animal kingdom. Modern humans have this situation compounded by the fact that we have multiple layers, only partially overlapping, of loyalties, demanding that we move in direction x, y or z.

This compels the thoughtful contemplators among us to create a personal value hierarchy, or valuarchy. More on this later.

What is a fact?

What is a fact? How can we tell if something is a fact? What about something being factual? Is there a difference? What is the opposite of a fact? Sometimes considering the opposite can help us define the thing of interest. One opposite of a fact is an opinion.

For example, a circle is round. But a cylinder is also round, and so is a sphere. From certain viewpoints, a cylinder could look like a rectangle, a trapezoid, or some other type of polygon. From certain viewpoints, a circle could look like an ellipse, or even a line. If the cylinder looks like a rectangle or a circle looks like a line, are we still seeing a round object? How would we know? If we are able to acquire different viewing angles, maybe we could figure it out, but if not, we’re stuck in our ignorance.

If we are looking directly at an object, we have one type of data. If we are looking at a picture of an object, we have a different type of data. Looking at the single picture, we might not know if something is circular, elliptical, cylindrical, or spherical. If we are looking directly at the object, if we can handle it, we can figure out quickly if it is two or three dimensions. We can look from different angles, and readily determine if it is a cylinder or a cube.

If we think we are seeing a cylinder, but it’s a picture, and we can’t be sure, then we would be demonstrating intelligence to admit uncertainty. We would say that it’s our opinion. We could say we believe it is a picture of a cylinder. In the best cases, belief is founded on data. But sometimes, belief is totally founded on faith because an authority told us. That is different from faith based on our own personal experience, even if our experience is supplemented by teachings from an authoritative source.

Sorting out facts and opinions is a difficult task. In order to learn to distinguish facts from opinions, it’s wise to start with simple facts. Like describing simple physical objects. The pen I used to write two checks a few minutes ago is mostly purple, and it has silver colored accents. The pen is a cylindrical shape, with one pointed (tapered) end, from which protrudes the rolling ball that transfers the ink to the paper. The other end is a slightly smaller diameter cylinder, with a hemi-spherical flexible tip. That reminds me that most of the rest of the pen is rigid. There is an arm that protrudes slightly from the untapered end, which is folded to be more or less parallel to the length of the main cylinder itself. It is silver colored, and shiny like the other silver accents. Everything I have said up to now is a fact. If anyone else looked at this pen, unless they wanted to pick an argument, or were unfamiliar with my language, or did not know what a pen is (or is for) they would agree. But in some sense, unless I have used it to write with, which I have, I can’t be sure it’s really a pen. It could be a prop for some demonstration. And that small flexible tip makes this object into a stylus for use on a phone screen, in addition to being a pen. So my calling it a pen in a way may be considered to be an opinion. In any case calling it a pen is not the same type of fact that calling it purple or cylindrical is. And truthfully calling it purple is dependent not only on the cylindrical object itself, but on the light in which it is viewed. Knowing that it is purple is a conclusion that a human with unimpaired color vision could determine, in the right light. But other organisms might see a different color, because different animals see colors differently. Finally, even men and women humans see colors differently. Many men, even those who are not colorblind at all, see fewer colors than women.

I have run into people encouraging us to reach out and speak to people who have different beliefs from those we hold. I have spent a lot of time doing so. I was involved in interfaith dialogue for many years. But with a breakdown in agreement about which facts are true, I don’t think we have much hope until we re-establish some sort of agreement on basic facts. The sentences in this post are made up of words. The post has layers of sentences and then paragraphs. The sentences convey meaning, for anyone who speaks English and wants to try to understand them. The individual meanings conveyed in the sentences and paragraphs are trying to encourage each reader to do a thought experiment, by describing a familiar object.

Appearance, heft, size, etc. are facts that most can agree to. Whether it’s a good pen, a nice pen, a useful pen, a stupid stylus, an ugly weapon, or mightier than a sword? Those are all definitely opinions.

Note that SALAMI and Bologna might be related.

OR

All beginners onceSome day we come to an endRecycling matter

Who?

You?

All beginners once
Some day we come to an end
Recycling matter