Monthly Archives: April 2017

Family Matters: Part One

30 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in America, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

, ,

 

IMG_5452

 

———————————-

Perhaps you recall, as I do, that in the very earliest memories, parents are huge! My mother was huge and my dad was huge! Of course, they not only loomed gigantic physically, they also had a huge influence on me. That, I never thought about as a child, but we’ll return to influence later.

The other remarkable thing about my parents, in early memories, is how different they were from each other. My mother was soft, gentle, smooth-skinned with a soprano voice. My dad was completely different. He was even larger, but besides that, he was hard, physical, hairy and his voice boomed so loud I could feel as well as hear the vibrations. Needless to say, they smelled completely different and I generally saw them at different times of the day, or, more accurately, I saw my mother most of the day and my dad only for small segments on most days. They did different things, said different things, held me differently. There was no way as a child that I saw them as two different examples of a larger class of things called “people.” They were as different as night and oranges to me.

These differences were not just physical and perceptual. As I grew older, I also realized that the species of “Dad” and the species of “Mom” also behaved quite differently.  For example, I could generally count on my dad to remain calm and to get things done whereas in an emergency, my mother generally fell to pieces emotionally. No, come to think of it, she always fell to pieces.

When I was about five years old, my parents took me to a stranger’s house for one of their “Bridge Parties.” To me, “Bridge” was a complete mystery. I understood the concept of games; e.g., “Mother May I”, “Red Light Green Light”, “Pick Up Sticks”, “Checkers”, and (my personal favorite), “Red Rover, Red Rover.” In Red Rover, Red Rover, the opposing team formed a human chain by holding hands. Everyone on a team would chant in unison, “Red Rover, Red Rover, let Tommy come over.” (Tommy was my nick-name at the time). There were two really cool parts to this game in addition to the chanting. One, when it was your turn to make a human chain, you might get to hold hands with a pretty girl. Two, when you were called, you were allowed, indeed encouraged, to run as fast you could, and then SMASH right into the opposing team! That was fun. Honestly, I think I’d like to do that right now. But “Bridge?” The adults just took turns throwing cards on the table. Yet, they were generally screaming and laughing while playing this game. They seemed to be enjoying themselves but I had no idea why.

In any case, however much Mom and Dad enjoyed “Bridge Club”, I certainly didn’t. My parents took me into some random bedroom and said, “you will sleep in here.” Right. I’m five years old in a strange place and I am supposed to go to sleep while there is, basically, a mini-version of Woodstock going on about ten feet from my five year old (and therefore highly sensitive) ears. No, I’m not going to sleep. Even as a five year old, I knew that wasn’t happening. I’m not sure how my parents could have deluded themselves, but apparently they managed. Since sleep was out of the question, I needed to find some way to occupy myself.  What I can do? I’m going to explore the room!

I rather liked the room. It had wall to wall carpeting and dark, heavy, solid wood furniture. I padded about the room looking at this and that, but there wasn’t much to see really. This is what necessitated me to go to phase two of exploring the room; that is, looking under and in things. I looked under the bed, but it was just dusty. I knew it was a long shot that anyone else was trying to invent a new color and keeping the best results under the bed in little jars that had held maraschino cherries, but you never know. Well, actually, yes, eventually you do know. But I didn’t know then because I didn’t know that many people so I didn’t really know how many might be trying to invent new colors. Since then, I’ve met many people who do exactly that although not quite so literally as I was trying to do way back then. I have eleven grandchildren and every one of them is inventing new colors, each in their unique way.

My explorations of the bedroom bureau began very disappointingly. Drawer after drawer was filled with clothes. Sigh. Then, as they say, my eyes actually did become as big as saucers. Large saucers. Because lying right there atop some boring gray gaberdine pants was the coolest biggest gun I had ever seen! I liked my guns! In fact, one of my earliest memories was of a red plastic one. But now, as a “big boy”, I had metal guns. Even better, when I pulled the trigger, they went “BAM” “BAM” because of the caps. I liked my own guns all right, but this gun was way, way cooler. For one thing, it was all metal. Mine were partly plastic. And, the gun was shiny with a depth of its own — except for the handle which had a wonderful pebbled grain.

 

handgun

I could have enjoyed looking at that black gun (similar to, but not identical to the one above) for an hour. But, of course, I had to pick it up. Well, if the look of that gun had been exquisite, and it was, the feel of the gun thrilled me, filled me with uncertain terrors never felt before — to quote Mr. Poe. But alongside the terror was admiration that quickly blossomed into love. The object that constituted the gun seemed so beautifully and solidly built. Had I ever before held something that heavy and dense? I don’t think so.

I knew that my parents had told me to stay in the room and go to sleep. But they were the two people I loved most in the universe. How could I keep the discovery of something this cool, go unshared? I had to let them find out just how cool this gun was. I probably also thought that no little credit would be coming my way for being the discoverer of this marvelous instrument. (Somehow, it never once crossed my mind that the people who owned the house probably already knew about this gun). I definitely thought of it as my discovery, and so it was, in a way. And, if I were never going to get any credit from Grandpa for inventing a new color, at least I would have this great accomplishment forever written into my plus column.

Out into the living room full of laughing, screaming adults somehow getting pleasure out of “Bridge” I tottered, slightly off balance from the weight of the gun, though I was able to hold it one hand, just the way the cowboys and policemen did. “Look what I found.” Now, listening to  the memory of how I said it, I realize it probably was getting credit for my discovery rather than sharing it that most motivated me. Ah, well. Live and learn, as they say. I expected to gain some credit for my discovery and some appreciation for the gun, but I never expected the eruption of adult action and concern and panic and fear and anger and utter surprise. They provided such a sensory overload that my memory is like a loud noise and a great white light. Not only did I receive no plaudits for my wonderful discovery, I definitely had done something unspeakably wrong. (I later discovered that the gun had been loaded with the safety off). But at the time, I felt only bewildered disappointment. However, the one thing I do recall through the white noise was that Dad remained calm and managed to take the gun from me without my trying it out on him for fun. Meanwhile, Mom was being her usual “hysterical in an emergency” self.

At the time, I did not think that my mother was “typical” of all women nor did I think that she was “atypical.” It’s just that I knew this about my mother, but my mother formed one edge or point on  the growing conceptual map of people. And, everything that was true about her was all there together in her own rather large corner of my mind: soft, smooth, soprano, hysterical, gentle, slightly hard of hearing, illogical, loving, beautiful, and fun. Her body positively writhed when she found something funny. Early on, I tried to learn how to cause one of those paroxysms of laughter. Dad, on the other hand, could be counted on in a crisis. He was also hard and hairy and loud and undemonstrative. When, he laughed, most of the time, it was “UH!” That’s it! One sort of half snort, half laugh. I do that too sometimes. On the other hand, I also go into a full out writhe with laughter as well. I am part Mom; part Dad just like most of us with respect to our parents.

My parents had two different professions as well. Dad was an engineer. He was very logical; yes, even as a very young kid I saw this. Mom was an English and Drama teacher. Years later, at CHI in Atlanta, talking with Doug Engelbart, I discovered his parents had the same combination. As an adult, I can imagine that their professions not only seemed to be choices that sprung from their native talents, but that the professions, in turn, helped cement these traits in place.

I met other family members at a young age and each of them was quite different as well. My mother’s mother, Ada was smart, soft, and she told me “Old Pete” stories. We listened to radio programs together such as “The Lone Ranger”, “Roy Rogers”, “Hop-along Cassidy”, and “Tom Corbett and the Space Cadets.” Grandma was the Superintendent of Sunday School at the Methodist church we went to. She also founded the Firestone Park Dramatic Club and ran it for decades. Meetings were held at my grandparents’ house and the women (all the members were women) read plays. This turned out to be a cool deal for me because, as a little kid, whenever someone didn’t show up, I filled in because my memory was so good, that even without trying, I knew all the parts. Grandma also had to take “iron shots” because she was anemic. The best thing though was that she baked peanut butter cookies and when she made a pie, she made butter, sugar, and cinnamon roll-ups!

Her obituary from the Akron Beacon Journal begins this way: “Ada Weimer: Founder Of Drama Club Mrs. Ada P. Weimer, 78, founder of the Firestone Park Dramatic Club and its director for 30 years, died at Edwin Shaw Hospital Wednesday after a six-month illness. Born in Akron, Mrs. Weimer, 1384 Grant St., attended Greensburg High School and Heidelberg College. For many years, she was a Sunday school superintendent at Firestone Park Methodist Church, of which she was a member.” Apart from that, it lists her three sons and daughter whom she “left behind.” No mention of her peanut butter cookies though. Occasionally, after much begging, she would also make popcorn “from scratch” in a kettle. Not mentioned. She also spent a lot of time canning for the extensive “root cellar” my grandparents had in their basement. Not mentioned. Sometimes, she would walk with me up Grant Street to meet Grandpa at the bus stop. On the way, she never failed to scowl at the “beer joint” up the street where the overwhelming odor of beer and alcohol would flood out onto the street. Not mentioned. On rainy days, Grandma would take out two large shoe boxes that contained her extensive post card collection. Each had a photo, or more rarely, a cartoon, on one side and a hand-written or hand-printed note on the other side. They had come from many US states and from many countries around the world. The foreign ones also had interesting stamps to ponder with miniature scenes or portraits or animals from far-away places. I found all of it fascinating: the varieties of handwriting, the stamps, the pictures, the addresses. I would often ask her who these people were and what their comments meant. Usually, she would answer, but occasionally she wouldn’t. The newspaper was silent on the whole matter. Not one single post card was cited.

Grandma was affectionate as was her sister Mary, but their sister Emma took the cake. She was forever pawing, fawning, making a fuss, telling me nursery rhymes, hugging, kissing, etc. All three of these women were somewhat overweight and typically wore loose print dresses. I tend to think of my grandmother mainly wearing white, or off-white dresses with small flowers printed on them. Mary, on the other hand, the largest of the three, tended to wear dark blue dresses with white flowers. Emma typically wore brown or yellow dresses but made up for it with bright red lipstick and lots of make up. That entire branch of the family held family reunions every year. Much later, I met a cousin of Mom’s that had grown up with her family for a time.  He eventually became a psychology professor at an Ivy League School. Although I met numerous distant uncles and cousins over the years, I don’t much recall any of these more distant relatives. Grandma’s mother had come from Wales. My Grandpa painted a picture of the Welsh cottage that she was born in. It was beautiful and set in beautiful country but quite modest in size.

Now, speaking of Grandpa, he was as different and distinct from Grandma as Mom was from Dad. Grandpa smelled of pipe tobacco and although he too, like Dad, seldom laughed very demonstrably, he always seemed to have a twinkle in his grey eyes. Grandpa was extremely smart and knew about everything; or so it seemed at the time. Besides that, he was multi-talented. He worked as an engineer, but he was also an artist of some note. He was also an accomplished musician. Best of all, from my perspective, he was an excellent teacher. When we went out to the garden to pick corn on the cob, he taught me something about plants, soil or gardening. Einstein died when I was almost ten years old. Grandpa showed me the item about it in the Akron Beacon Journal and then proceeded to tell me about Einstein’s work (in elementary terms). He subscribed to “Sky and Telescope” as well as “The Atlantic” and “Scientific American” and the magazine of the American Museum of Natural History. He would point out particular articles to me and then discuss them with me or explain something in more detail.

No need to point out and describe every single person in my family. The main point is that each of these people seemed very very different from the others. Much later, I can see many “family resemblances” in terms of skills, interests, psychology and physical characteristics. But as a child, I perceived none of that. It never even occurred to me that we all needed to breathe or had two arms and two legs. If someone had asked me, I could have answered correctly, of course, but the similarities among these people never crossed my mind. Every week, I listened as The Lone Ranger and Tonto found someone in trouble, tracked down the bad guys, shot a gun out of their hand and rode away. After they were gone, the beneficiaries of their bravery would remark that they didn’t know the true identity of The Lone Ranger, but he had left behind a single silver bullet. In retrospect, these stories were quite formulaic. But at the time, every story was just a different story. And so it was with folks in my family. They were different. They were individuals. Beyond that, they collectively made up the space of possible individuals.

As childhood continued, of course, that people-space continued to grow. New people often revealed, not just that people could be more extreme on existing dimensions such as age, size, or how much they laughed, but they forced me to consider and construct entirely new dimensions as well. People, it turned out, came in different colors; they spoke with different accents. In fact, they spoke in entirely different languages! When I was about three and a half, Mom, Dad and I all left for Portugal. My Mom told me later that I was frustrated that a bunch of Greek sailors could not communicate with me. I don’t recall this. But I do recall a little of learning to speak Portuguese although to me, it was not “learning to speak a different language.” It was just that I encountered people who spoke differently and I learned to communicate with them. Some people don’t laugh much while others laugh quite a lot. Similarly, some people spoke the way I was used to and others spoke some entirely different way. It never occurred to me, as a child, that they spoke an entirely different language and certainly not that they spoke that strange other way because of their own family and their own country. If asked, I imagine that I might have answered that they chose to speak Portuguese rather than English. But mainly, it just was. I didn’t consider why people were fat or skinny; why they spoke with an accent or not; why some people were male and some female; why some were old and some were young. Each person was simply and completely the way they were. They went about their business and as I interacted with them they punched at the edges of the net of my ideas about what people were like. Each person punched outwards in their own direction and the space of people grew larger and larger and larger.

I guess not everyone reacts that same way. It now seems to me, as an adult, that some people only expand their space of people a little ways from the points laid down by their first family and friends. When someone is too different, they are not really part of the whole human condition, but instead, are assigned to some other category such as “old person” or “toddler” or “professional athlete” or “foreigner” or “cripple” or “gay.” For some, each category requires special treatment different from all the rest. If, for instance, a “professional athlete” assaults or rapes someone, that might be okay because there are special rules for such folks. If, on the other hand, a “foreigner” assaults or rapes someone, they should at least be put in prison and quite possibly killed.

Indeed, even my own family gave some hints that this was the way to think about people. You had to be careful with grandparents because they were “old” and could be easily injured or broken into small pieces. When my cousin threw a xylophone across the room and hit me in the head, no punishment was forthcoming because he was “just a little kid” and “didn’t know any better.” When I went to the hospital, people did not seem to be treated as people but rather as “patients” or perhaps as “pneumonia” or “burn victim” or “appendicitis.” Given names were rarely used. Although, even as an adult, I see that there are commonalities in the way doctors need to treat patients with particular diseases, it seems to me that there are also often important differences as well.

One way that people differ quite a bit is how they treat and categorize other people. To me, every new individual I meet still seems quite different although the differences I see now are not nearly so gigantic as the differences that I saw as a child. It might be similar to the way in which both our house and my grandparents’ houses seemed gigantic in that there were so many separate places or regions to the house.

In the next blog, I examine further implications of family matters.

——————————————

(The story above and many cousins like it are compiled now in a book available on Amazon: Tales from an American Childhood: Recollection and Revelation. I recount early experiences and then related them to contemporary issues and challenges in society).

Tales from an American Childhood

Author Page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/truthtable

Ripples

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 22 Comments

Ripples: “Water, water, everywhere nor any drop to drink.”

(The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge).

IMG_3256

One of my earliest memories: splashing water. I know it is an early recollection because of the decontextualized nature of the memory and the lack of color constancy. Let me explain. I recall that yesterday I met with some friends for dinner at True Foods Kitchen. I know how I got there. I know why I went there. I know what I had for dinner. We met the manager. We had a great conversation and so on. I know we stopped on the way back to visit my mother-in-law. In other words, any particular memory of the sights, smells, tastes, and so on is put into a temporal and spatial context. Granted, this is a much more recent memory, but this kind of contextualization is present in my memories after starting school. I recall falling down the steps in first grade. I know why I was at school, where the steps were, that someone pushed me, and so on. But my memory of splashing is simply splashing. In my memory, it is not even splashing really so much as “painting” (in effect) with the water. As an adult, if I recall splashing in the water, I would know where I was, whom I was splashing and so on. I also see the water in the swimming pool at Gindra’s as being blue. Of course, light on the water would appear different colors depending on what was nearby. I recall “chicken fights” in which we teenage boys would put girls on our shoulders and each team would try to get the other team to fall apart. It was a fun game that required balance and strength for the “horses” below, and complete body strength and balance for the “rider” above, but the main thrill for a young teen boy was being that close to a girl!

That early vision of splashing though is of causing the water to appear in patterns and colors by smashing my hands into the water. I was, in effect, conducting an orchestra of color, shape, and noise. Later, there were other adventures in water such as dropping a stone in and watching the ripples go out to the sides of a sink, tub, bucket or pond and watching them reflect off the edges. On and on the ripples went.

I conducted other, larger scale childhood experiments. For example, I discovered in the bathtub that if I swayed my body in time to my own waves, I could make the waves go higher and higher with each body swing eventually causing the water to reach and then breach the edge of the tub and slosh out onto the floor. Amazing! Making these “tidal waves” did not require great strength. The timing was critical though. I could “stop” the waves by going out of synch. Or, I could make them larger and larger by careful timing. The “ripples” were no longer passive but adding energy at the right time, grew them ever larger. Then, when the water slopped out onto the floor and seeped through the floor, it caused another kind of “ripple.”

Those ripples might be called “behavioral ripples.” While I was concerned with the vital work of trying to understand the basic physical phenomena of the universe my parents seemed far more concerned with the structural and aesthetic integrity of our house. They made these priorities quite clear. Alas, my tub experiments had to be limited to creating waves that went up to the edge of the tub but not beyond.

Rain-soaked storm gutters provided a similar challenge. All the kids in my neighborhood wanted to find the deepest possible streams that would pool water up to the very top edge of our black rubber four-buckled boots. Naturally, there is a fine line, often crossed, between water coming up to the very edge of the boot tops and going ever so slightly over the edge. Once the water started going over the edge, however, that water seemed to invite more water to follow along. This foot soaking provided more “behavioral ripples”; namely, finding a way to sneak into the house and not have my mom notice that my shoes, socks, and feet were soaked. Sometimes I succeeded…but most times, I failed. Looking back, it does seem I found water to be a much less “invasive” substance than did my parents. I probably should have been more careful. On the other hand, even looking back, it seems they really exaggerated the damage done to socks, shoes, feet, and floors by a few drops of water. It seems almost as though they were afraid any amount of water in the house where it didn’t belong could slide down some slippery slope toward flooding or having our house carried away like a little stick raft on a creek.

IMG_9171

Water fascinates people around the world, not only because it’s essential for life, but also because of its strange properties. As a liquid, we become familiar with its cohesion, waves, and ripples. We marvel at its power to destroy as well as to build. Beyond that, we learn that it changes state. Ice is frozen water. Ice itself exists in many forms such as snowflakes, icebergs, the solid ice of frozen winter ponds, the deceptive nature of candle ice. (As it turns out, under laboratory conditions of extreme pressure, ice can exist in scores of additional crystalline structures). But even in our natural lives, we see liquid water and frozen water quite often and the transitions between them. Moreover, we also see water vapor, mist, clouds, and steam. There are actually very few substances that we see in two, let alone three phases: solid, liquid and gaseous. Yes, we have seen demonstrations of frozen nitrogen and we may know that mercury freezes at close to -40 degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit. But for most substances, it is rare that we are privileged to see it change phase.

Water not only makes up most of the surface of the earth and most of the substance of our own bodies; not only do we drink it and swim in it and dive into it and skate on it as ice; we use it to clean; we use it to mix with other things in industry as well as our own kitchen.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

The amount of water that falls in a region makes a huge difference in the flora and fauna that populate that area. As we all know, cacti dot the sands of hot deserts, while the rain forests favor a wider variety of trees, shrubs, moss, ferns and even plants that live on other plants. Naturally, animals that actually live in the water have adapted to living, loving, and dying in that water. We typically think of the animal species as being subject to the laws of natural selection that eventually result in that species changing to adapt to that watery environment (or going extinct). But, I believe evolution is a two way street that also involves choice.

IMG_7304

Imagine a species of animal that lives on the edge of a pond in an arid region. Initially, they are all one species and, by definition, can mate with each other. Let’s call them “tortles.” In the same way that some people prefer the seashore while others like forests and still others like desert, we would expect that some of these tortles really enjoy hanging out in the water. Others prefer the nearby desert and only come to the pond in order to drink. Over many eons, those who spend a lot of time in the water are likely to mate with other like-minded tortles. Those that love the desert will tend to find their mates from that population. There will be a natural variation in bodies of these tortles with some having stronger shorter legs, for example, while others are born with longer legs with webbing between their toes. When times are tough, the web-toed tortles who like water will be able to swim better and have better luck finding food, escaping predators and hooking up with their mates. The web-toed variety on land, however, will not be so lucky. They will tend to get tiny pebbles stuck between their toes and have a harder time “racing”, if I may use that word for tortles, to beat out rivals to a mate or to escape predators. Meanwhile, the stocky legged tortles who live on land will have advantages while if they choose to spend most of their time in the water, they will be at a disadvantage. After many generations, the tortles will actually drift into two completely different species. The land tortles will no longer be able to mate with water-based tortles. Indeed, they may find the prospect very off-putting in their tortlely way. Similarly, the water tortles will no longer be able to mate with land tortles (and, yech, who would want to?). Eventually, though many similarities might remain, the water tortles would come to be what we now know as turtles and the land tortles would evolve into tortoises. What started as the pebble of desire and preference, would over many millennia, ripple into wave after wave of evolutionary pressure eventually resulting in two different species.

The reason I bring this up is that we often think of evolution as something that happens to a species in response to the environment and that is certainly valid. In some cases, the environment changes for various reasons and having a diverse population is a kind of “insurance” that some of the population will be adapted to that new environment. If the change is too sudden or too drastic, the entire species will die. If the pond and the nearby desert were both to be suddenly covered in hot lava from a volcanic eruption, both the turtles and the tortoises would perish. However, if the pond spread suddenly because of unusual flooding, only the turtles would survive. On the other hand, if the pond dried up for months at a time, only the tortoises would likely survive.

Equally important however, is that over a long period of time, conscious choices of the tortles plays an important part in natural selection. The same thing has been true for the entire 4.75 billion years of evolutionary history of life on earth. What we humans have become today is partly a response to environmental pressures, but it is also partly because of the “choices” our living ancestors made over the course of life’s 4.75 billion years on earth.

There are two other important “levels” of choice and adaptation. Within the life of an individual animal, much is learned via a variety of mechanism. For example, if your dog goes for a walk and you train him properly, he will not yank your arm but walk with the lead comfortably loose. A really well-trained dog might even keep beside you under the extreme provocation of a squirrel running by. If the dog continues to pull hard on the leash despite your attempts to train him, you will eventually find it too much work to take him for walks and he will suffer physically from the lack of exercise. Over longer periods of time, people as a whole will tend to breed dogs so as to make them be more trainable rather than less trainable. Eventually, the ability of the individual dogs to learn to adapt to their situations will impact the evolution of the species. A dog whose body is adapted so that many walks are necessary for health will be subject to a greater degree of evolutionary pressure toward learning how to walk socially than will a dog whose body allows a greater amount of sedentary life. Further, to the extent that dogs keep choosing to go for walks, those choices will impact both their learning and eventually their evolution.

There is yet another level of choice-evolution interaction. If a human society “choses” (via laws, customs, regulations, etc.) to reward one kind of behavior and punish another, the first will tend to be learned and the second not learned within the lifetime of an individual. Eventually, there will even be evolutionary pressure toward one kind of behavior (and body) and away from the other. For example, imagine a society that idealizes and rewards athletic excellence over artistic excellence. Athletes might make more money and have higher social status. They will tend to mate more often and eventually the whole species will tend to be more athletic. This might seem a tremendously good thing. In addition, if there is a huge population of athletes in a society, they may learn from each other and challenge each other toward ever greater feats of athletic prowess. Their bodies will tend to be evolve in various ways to support athletic activity. However, there is a down side too. In order to be a more successful athlete, the individual will have to take greater risks, spend a lot of time in athletic endeavors, and consume more food and water. If resources are scarce in a society, having everyone being athletic could be problematic. Other things being equal, there would tend to be less time spent in building shelters, caring for children, finding food, etc.

volleyballvictory

On the other hand, we can imagine a society that rewards artistic achievement over everything else. In this case, those who have a natural proclivity toward art will be rewarded in various ways, learn to be great artists. Typically, those who love art will spend more time doing it and improve their skill. They will also develop communities of practice and learn from each other. We can imagine a society eventually developing rules and regulations as well as customs that favor artistic expression. In such a monoculture society, a person of unusual athletic ability might not be much noticed while a person of unusual artistic ability would be. While it would certainly be nice to be surrounded by beautiful artwork all one’s life, there are some potential down-side risks to a society that concentrated all its efforts toward art. People might make shelters that looked beautiful but did not work very well. They might favor crops with beautiful flowers even if the resulting fruit was inedible or poisonous.

While the examples above describe athletics and artistic endeavors, the same principles would apply toward any physical characteristic (being tall or short, being very strong or less so) or mental characteristic (being extremely curious, loving greatly, being cold-hearted). There are some situations and some aspects of various situations that favor any one mental or physical characteristic over another. And eventually the choices that the species makes about those characteristics that we most favor will come to be more prevalent in the population. Just as you were partly shaped by the choices made by every single one of your ancestors, so too do your choices today impact what kind of world your descendants will live in and therefore, eventually also determine what they are, how they look, and how they are prone to behave. And, because our modern society is so tightly interconnected in so many ways, your choices will not only impact what becomes your descendants but also those of your neighbors and quite possibly what becomes of everyone on the planet. That is an awesome responsibility. In the same way, the choices that your neighbors make will impact the world that your descendants will live in. That is an awesome pain. Because you personally would not make some of those choices that your neighbors make.

For example, I personally love nature. I have always loved going out into the woods or fields, and I feel better and more alive when I am outdoors. I would love it if we make the wild world livable forever. I would very much like to see people, a thousand generations from now, be able to experience trees, flowers, birds, and so on. I hate the idea that everything will end up as one giant city of plastic and metal. What kind of life would that be? Not one I would like and not one I would like for others. But not everyone agrees with my vision of the future. Some would see the endless world-filling mega-super-city-state as a great culmination.

It seems to me that in our current state of confusion about where civilization and our environment is headed, the very best we can do is to encourage the maximum amount of diversity. There certainly is no world-wide shared vision of who we are and where we are headed. If there were, we could debate about the best way to get there, but we don’t have any consensus on what that “there” should be.

Here is just a small sample of the various visions people seem to have about humanity’s future. 1) We don’t have to do anything. God has a plan and it will happen. 2) We need to grab all the resources for our country by whatever means necessary because the resources are limited and time is running out. 3) The government is out to get our guns but they won’t. 4) In a decade or two, AI will surpass human intelligence and tell us how to get out of the mess we’re in. 5) All sovereign nations will work together toward peace and prosperity for all. 6) It’s a dog eat dog world. Always was. Always will be.  7) We are evolving to a higher plane of existence.

I didn’t pick these particular set to make fun of anyone. The point is that these are just seven out of thousands that could be listed. We humans clearly have extremely different ideas of where we want to go! The fact that you have a vision shared by lots of other people and you’re convinced it’s the right one doesn’t change the fact that not everyone has the same vision. Let’s just take those specific ones. What do these various visions imply about what we should do in the real world of today? Who should we vote for? Where should we live? Should we recycle? How should we raise our children? What should we eat?

The thing is this. Let’s face it. We humans have never been here before. We lived in little tribes of people who had over a thousand square miles to roam around in and do with what they please. The human population of the entire earth may have been a million for the vast majority of our time as a species. Now, earth has 7 billion people! If we had to hunt and gather for our food, the vast majority of us would die, full stop. We have technologies and speeds and greeds that were literally unimaginable to most of our ancestors. We’ve been following many scripts for most of our individual lives and for most of our life as a species. Guess what? Now, the play is over, but we are still on stage! We have to improvise. We don’t know where we are headed or where we should be headed. This is completely new ground! Don’t be terrified because we don’t know. Don’t hold on tightly to a teeny corner. Grab the challenge. If we pull this off, it will be the greatest come-from-behind victory in the history of, well, anything.

 

(The story above and many cousins like it are compiled now in a book available on Amazon: Tales from an American Childhood: Recollection and Revelation. I recount early experiences and then related them to contemporary issues and challenges in society).

 

http://www.amazon.com/author/truthtable