Random Notes from a Crank

If you're interested in how brains react to music, check out "Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing" in the New York Times. The bottom-line is that music we like releases dopamine in the reptilian part of our brains, and as the researchers relate, "Composers and performers intuitively understand this: they manipulate these prediction mechanisms to give us what we want — or to surprise us, perhaps even with something better." That point reminds me of why I like Todd Snider's "Big Finish" so much. 



I recently finished Kurt Spellmeyer's Buddha at the Apocalypse. It's a good book, but he covers ground I've gone over previously through other Buddhist texts, Deep Ecology thinkers, and various social critics, especially those discussing environmental issues. Here's a few quotations to consider though: 

• "We we call knowledge might actually be another example of the images of order we've mistaken for the real."
• "The future can't undo what we do here -- not even with the best technology. Our only hope is acting mindfully today."
• "From the polemical perspective of Zen, living for the future isn't living skillfully. In fact it's destructive in many ways that we ignore at our detriment." 

Below is a short video, a precis, of his book.



Now I'm on to Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow and various other books from my on-deck shelf. 

The Plight of the Connected

As many of my readers might know or might have noticed, I work in higher education. I'm around 18-2osome-year-olds every day. Well, not every day now since this week is finals, but you get the drift: I have contact with the "next generation" of America on a cyclical basis. 

And I'm tired of seeing them so fucking connected. 

Last week I was walking down the hall in the academic building I work in. It was right before the 8:00 a.m. class, and I walked right by a classroom with college students waiting for their instructor to open up it for class.

There were probably at least a dozen students waiting there. Every single one of them was looking at their damn smart phones -- texting, surfing, checking out statuses, whatever. 

It's not that I hate smart phones. I don't. Mrs. Nasty has an iPhone, and she uses it all the time to help us out -- looking up stuff, getting directions, etc. 

However, the plight of the connected is that they're constantly tied to and looking at their phones at the expense of other endeavors. 

Take the example I used above -- and it's a real-life one, not a hypothetical. It's close to 8 a.m. in the morning, and they're looking at their phones. Even at that time of the morning, I have better suggestions for college students' time as they wait in the hallway: daydreaming, "resting their eyes," chatting with a classmate, reviewing notes, flirting with someone, rereading material because there might be a quiz, checking out someone's ass, et al.

But no, they're tied to their phones, like the devices are electronic newborns/kids that always have to be checked on, cradled, and helicoptered. 

Meanwhile back in the other tactile world, less face-to-face conversation is happening. 

I, like some others, agree with the solution Sherry Turkle relates at the end of "The Flight from Conversation": "look up, look at one another, and let’s start the conversation."

Her argument and what she relates in her book reminds me of Robert Putnam's points in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. 

Yes, technology can help community-building initiatives and spur civic engagement. I think that's hard to deny, and I know people could trot out copious examples of how online systems and smart phones have aided and abetted good (and bad) things happening for a community and for individuals. 

However, I am troubled by people being so tied to their phones that they don't notice what's around them, whether it's people, birds, trees, their own reflections, and other aspects of the "environment."

Look up and notice what's happening around you. 

Or just think about something -- reflect and ponder -- instead of being hyper-connected to your phones. Practice mindfulness. 

Wake up from your technological blinders. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm not a huge fan of mixed drinks or cocktails, but one of the simplest and best out there is an Old Fashioned made with a good bourbon like Maker's Mark, Old Grand Dad, Wild Turkey, et al. 

It's unfortunate that boxing isn't as big as it used to be or that there aren't any boxers that have the drawing power like they did. I have fond memories of watching boxing on TV with my Dad. 

As I've written about before, this is a dead season of sports for me. I can't get into college basketball anymore. I usually only watch Crimson Tide basketball games and want them to do well and I like Anthony Grant as a coach, but I don't know about their chances of getting into the tournament.   

Check this out: Mindfulness & Marines. 

Random Notes from a Crank

On Monday evening when I picked up my daughter from dance class, I observed a simple conversation between two people who were also there to pick up their daughters. I happened to notice as one speaker asked a question and the other replied and the conversation went on for a bit that they never looked each other in the eyes. They talked to each other as they stared at their iPhones. No eye contact -- just talking while looking at their phones. I don't even think they knew they were doing it, and I'm not sure if they would care if they knew. 

Also on Monday, I had to deal with a tremendous headache. I don't know whether the headache stems from going back to work after the holiday or because I'm somehow mimicking what I've been reading about Thomas Jefferson, who suffered from debilitating migraines. 

And after reading about the various accounts of what Aaron Burr might have been up to after he lost the presidential election and killed Alexander Hamilton, I had to order David O. Stewart's American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America. But I'm also wondering if there's ever been some "what if?" fiction written about Aaron Burr winning the 1800 election or being successful with whatever he intended to do in New Orleans or Texas or Mexico or elsewhere around 1807 and 1808. Someone could write some serious dystopian historical fiction if they wanted to. If you do take this idea and run with it, you owe me. 

Random Notes from a Crank

This morning I walked to work after dropping off Mrs. Nasty's car to get an oil change and new tires. As I was nearing the building where I work, there were dudes taking care of the leaves. It's fall and all. One of the guys working was a clearly out of shape individual smoking a cigarette while he operated a gas-powered leaf blower. That was quite a picture to behold. I'm a well known hater of leaf blowers because of their pollution-spewing motors and noise, but the image of that dude makes my hatred of them even richer. 

Recently my five-year old son told me that I needed to get an iPhone like Mrs. Nasty. The conversation went like this: 

• Son: Dad, you need to get an iPhone like Mommy.
• Me: Why, so you can play games on it?
• Son: Yes.

I'm still rockin' a flip phone and don't plan to get a smart phone anytime soon. Why do I need to be that connected anyway? I don't want to be like those people I see all around me who are always staring down at their phones and texting God knows what. Get your heads up, people, pay attention and take in what's going in the world, not your stupid-ass phone. Quintilian B. Nasty no text. 

Possession

Today was one of those days that could get me going on a pretty good rant. Initially, I thought about critiquing our over-reliance on technology and people's (myself included) lack of mindfulness, which is one of the concepts I've been focusing on over the past few years through reading various books and articles.

[And in this spot you can now grin or roll our eyes about how someone would write a blog post railing against technology.]

However, what I think I'm really focused on -- at the basic level -- is what Thoreau states in Walden about how our possessions possess us.

One of the books I'm reading right now is an edited collection from New Society Publishers called Less is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, a Caring Economy, and Lasting Happiness.

What many of the authors in the collection are promoting is living with lighter ecological footprints while embracing Thoreau's aphorism of "Simplify, simplify." Many of the authors are in or are influenced by the Slow Movement, and they're trying to persuade readers to live more simple, less hectic, and more meaningful lives by focusing more on our inner lives than outward possessions. In other words, they want folks to fully enjoy their lives instead of what Wordsworth refers to in "The World Is Too Much With Us" as "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;/ Little we see in Nature that is ours;"

Some of the selections venture toward the whiny liberal variety of changing the world for the greater good of all and the planet. I like that message in general but not the whiny, unassertive tone of the some pieces. And I say all this as someone who would be considered a political "liberal" (on most issues) even though I see both American political parties as screwed up and usually spewing hokum backed by corporate interests. Or, put another way, I see some truth to how Lewis Black describes them--that the Democrats are a "party of no ideas" and Republicans are a "party of shitty ideas." And when they "work together," one guy says he has a bad idea, and the other collaborates to make the idea even "shittier."

But now I've gotten on a political tangent/rant. Back to what I'm supposed to be doing...

Okay, so one of my favorite essays in the book so far is co-authored by two Professors of Psychology, Tim Kasser (Knox College) and Kirk Warren Brown (Virginia Commonwealth). In their "A Scientific Approach to Voluntary Simplicity," they inform readers of their social-scientific study comparing two different sets of Americans (200 people per set), folks who lead lives of "voluntary simplicity"--people who "had voluntarily chosen to earn less than they could earn and had voluntarily chosen to spend less than they could spend" (37)--and mainstream Americans. Both groups took a survey that asked them about how happy they were and their environmental choices along with the Ecological Footprint Questionnaire. In addition, they "also measured two variables that past research found were associated with happiness and sustainability: mindfulness and values" (38).

But the results were a little surprising since the book is called Less Is More, a tome about simplicity after all. They found that happiness and sustainable lifestyle choices "were indeed compatible" (39). However, as the professors relate, "While there is some evidence that Voluntary Simplifiers were happier than mainstream Americans and were living more sustainable lives, ultimately our statistical analyses showed that identifying as a Voluntary Simplifier (versus a mainstream American) was not as important as being mindful and being oriented toward intrinsic values (relative to materialistic values)" (39).

So you're probably asking what the heck does being "mindful" mean, right? Earlier in the article, they talk about the "growing body of research on mindfulness shows that people vary considerably in the level attention they give to their thoughts, emotions and behaviors, and that to the extent they are more mindful, they report a higher sense of well-being" (38).

As Kasser and Brown conclude, the findings show that "living more happily and more lightly on the Earth is not as much about whether people think of themselves as Voluntary Simplifiers, but instead is more about their inner life -- that is, whether they are living in a conscious, mindful way and with a set of values organized around intrinsic fulfillment" (40).

So what this essay takes me to is another comedian, George Carlin, who satirized the American "getting and spending" long ago.

Be sure to take care of your "Stuff." And you're supposed to get more of it, especially that newer stuff.

And while you're at it, buy some Thneeds, "which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs!"

Busyness

This link is related to the "Keeping Dusk" post, so I thought I'd pass it along. It's a post from HTML Giant.

Click HERE unless you're too busy.

Keeping Dusk

I finally finished a book I've been reading intermittently for a while now. It's The Secret World of Doing Nothing by Billy Ehn and Orvar Lofgren, and in it they detail the "inner world" behind activities that evoke nothingness to us on the surface: waiting, routines, and daydreaming.

I had high hopes for the book but am disappointed. Most of the book is a synthesis of research about these non-activities, which is interesting, but the text ventures toward data dumping at times. The activity I am most interested in--daydreaming--got the most coverage in the book, however. And in that third chapter, the authors (both Swedes) introduce a cultural ritual that I was unfamiliar with, what Scandinavians call "keeping dusk"

Here's how Ehn and Lofgren describe it: "After a day of work people sat silently in the approaching darkness [of dusk] and let their thoughts wander freely. After a while, the light was turned on and the magic disappeared. It was one of many special daydreaming situations that still are remembered by older people all over Scandinavia, and some still practice it today" (162-3).

As they further relate, "The tradition of 'keeping dusk' was a way of creating a space of rest between day and evening. The actual lighting of the first candle or lamp turned into a ritual," and "To those who were not used to this kind of meditation the behavior could seem strange. In houses everywhere people sat staring, with the vacant gaze that is typical of daydreaming, at the fireplace, at the window, or out on the veranda" (163).

I'm really intrigued by this cultural practice since it seems to have served as a traditional mass meditation, simply a time for quiet amidst the solitude of inner thoughts. The slow quietness enveloping the room, a certain degree of solemnity surrounding the ritual, thoughts on people's minds playing freely in silence, this is a tradition we Americans might want to appropriate.

No TV, no music, no computer, no interactive clutter--just you and the interplay of duskdreams.

The End of Silence

One of the slicks (as Dubya likes to call magazines) I get every month is the international magazine, Ode. This month's edition is devoted entirely to "silence," or more precisely our world's disturbing lack of silence or quietness.

The article, "Quiet, Please?," is attached (click HERE), and it provides a number of findings and studies about how the lack of silence or even just the lack of quiet can very detrimental to our physical and mental health. The article, at times, gets to be a bit of information overload for me, but it simply confirms a number of thoughts I've had for years:

I hate noise pollution from mowers and leaf blowers. They not only cause horrible noise pollution, they're also incredibly dirty because they're unregulated. The amount of CO2 they emit is atrocious. As the Union of Concerned Scientists relate (LINK), "the average lawn mower emits as much smog-forming pollution in one hour as eight new cars traveling at 55 miles per hour." 

While I own a cell phone, I detest having them go off in one of my classes, and conversations on them do invade public space. Added to that annoyance are the dreaded blue tooth devices that facilitate people walking down the sidewalk as if they've escaped from an asylum and they're talking to their imaginary friends because we don't recognize the ear set (for lack of a better term) right away. The worst is when you're watching a baseball game, and some fool behind the plate or to the side of the plate is on his cell phone (and it's usually a male) while waving and talking to one of his nitwitish brethren on the other line with inane questions such as, "Hey, do you see me?"

The plethora of folks plugged into their iPods disturbs me too. They're all plugged in, shoving out other opportunities to hear the beauty of everyday life: the wind blowing, leaves rustling, birds chirping, kids laughing as they play, etc. The iPod, in this sense, simply exemplifies how our country has a hyper-individualistic culture. We plug iPods into our ears. We drive our pods (cars) to work every day. We park our pods in our pods (garages). And we live in planned pods (houses) that look a lot like the other pods and focus on our our pod (family) while not getting to know our neighbors or going outside much. 

More than anything, I think I and others need much more time to relax and do nothing for a change: time to "recharge our batteries."

The Italian psychologist Piero Ferrucci said it well when he stated, "Our culture is suffering form an overdose of action and a shortage of contemplation. I consider contemplation a basic need; you even see it in animals. Just think about dogs and cats. You often see them starting off into space. I think that their way of meditation, their way of recharging their batteries. We have that need too. But we deny this basic, physiological need--as if an entire society were to forget to go the bathroom. That's serious."