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~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

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Tag Archives: cats

The Puppy’s Snapping Jaws

28 Sunday Aug 2022

Posted by petersironwood in poetry

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cats, dogs, life, love, music, pets, poem, poetry, sound

The puppy’s snapping jaws;

The whack of oaken bat;

The thwack of tennis ace;

Each one is singing grace!

Photo by Mark Milbert on Pexels.com

The crack of Maestro Thor;

The roar of Neptune’s tide;

The sound of buzzy bee;

The distant bird’s: “Tee-Twee!!”

The pattering of rain; 

That oddly warms the heart;

The purr of fluffy cat

Who always means ‘that’s that’

The laughing of a babe;

And then the first real word.

The far and lonely train 

Who whistles out each pain.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The crack of trodden branch —

Raised hairs upon the neck;

The distant tolling bell —

Who dongs that all is well.

Photo by Brian de Karma on Pexels.com

The world sings sweet songs.

Though music rights not wrongs,

The love that sings through all:

Can you harken to its call?

Commentary. 

I’m mainly a visual person. I’m much more distracted by, for instance, a butterfly wafting by than a truck backfiring. Like nearly everyone, I love music. But I don’t go out of my way to hear it nearly so much as do many others. But there are sounds that I love: Simple sounds. That is why the poem itself needs to be short and neat. Those are the kinds of sounds I’m talking about. Discrete. 

And some of these sounds I think I inherited a love for. Others, I grew to love. And some sounds I believe have elements of innate beauty and of learned significance. The sound of a well-hit baseball is satisfying in some deep sense over and above the significance in terms of the game. It has a resonance of beauty beyond the even more important sense that it shows what humans are capable of. All of us feel pride when we watch an athlete perform some amazing feat of strength and skill and training and will and concentration all coming down to a moment of truth and *CRACK!* there it is and you know long before it clears the fence because you heard the Home Run first. 

So, there’s that. But I can’t help wondering why we can’t find a way to also feel pride in all the accomplishments of all human beings. They’re all in our family. And, we recognize that, at some level. See paragraph above. 

The snapping sound of a puppy’s jaws “missing” a toy is something I haven’t heard for many decades. Sadie reminded me of that sound from more than a half century ago. Some sounds you remember your entire life. 

Dance of Billions

Life is a Dance

Take a glance join the dance

A cat’s a cat & that’s that

Sonnet for Sadie

After the Fall

Author Page on Amazonets

Hai-Cat-Ku for You

02 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

cats, kittens, poem

Hai-Cat-Ku for You

Frankly staring eyes

Gently lead me to surmise:

Evolution’s wise.

Cats are cats; that’s that.

Her pleasures: Sun, Food, Lap, Nap —

All black shadow cat.

On high alert, she 

Lives as now as possibly:

Nature teaching me.  

Kitchen cats remind

My mind magicality

Seek and I will find.

Orange blaze would laze

All day in sun’s warmish rays —

Sadly sunlight strays. 

The fondest Tally wish: 

To feast on five fresh fried fish.

Her feline fetish. 

Shadow’s sometimes sad;

To see rich humans act so bad.

Ignore brains they had. 

Charles Wallace Cat:

Has grown a tiny bit fat.

I also share in that.

Luna asks me why

(With her squeaky little sigh)

Won’t nations unify?

———————

Three Blind Mice

Stoned Soup

A Cat’s a Cat and That’s That

A Suddenly Springing Something

Absolute is not just a vodka

I’ve been screaming out a warning

Getting Into (the “right”) Shape

07 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cats, consumer products, Design, form, function, HCI, human factors, kittens, usability, UX

 

 

A truism we have all heard is that “form should follow function.”  I tend to agree with this as a good general principle, but only if the designer has given more than 30 milliseconds of thought about what the actual function is. Even better is to observe function being used in practice.  Below, I give examples of how form may look like function but not actually follow (actual) function.

The first comes from the complex and technical domain of nail clippers.  My nails are tough and I actually need to use toenail clippers to cut my fingernails.  But the same principle applies to both fingernail clippers and toenail clippers.  I see many many examples where the designer has attempted to curve the surface of the nail clipper to “match” the curve of nails.  This is a brilliant idea, but only if every nail on every human being on the planet has the same curvature.  A priori, I would tent to think this is not the case, but being empirically oriented I decided to test it out by actually looking at real nails.  I looked at my thumbnail and the fingernail on my little finger.  Sure enough, my hypothesis was borne out.  They are NOT the same.  What this means is that a nail clipper that is curved so that it fits my pinkie will wreak havoc when applied to my thumbnail.  I am probably going out on a limb here, but I suspect that if one were to include fingernails from other people in this sample, one might find an even wider variation in curvature.  What are people thinking when they make curved nail clippers? I can only speculate that they have never looked at the fingernails of more than one person and that, indeed, they never looked at more than one fingernail on that one person.

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If only there were a solution.  Sigh.  Oh, wait!  There is a solution. Make the cutting surface of the nail clippers flat.  This enables the person to clip nails of any curvature.  It does, of course, require multiple cuts.  It has the added advantage, that if you so wish, you can sharpen your nails so they resemble cat claws.

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Cats bring me to my second example.  When we moved to California amid a large garden, we wanted to let our cats to spend most of their time outdoors, partly so litter box cleaning would be at a minimum.  Unfortunately, we soon discovered that while the outdoors here offers many opportunities for cats to be hunters of lizards and mice, it also offers even more opportunities for them to be prey for bobcats, cougars, eagles, and especially coyotes.

Now, here is a beautifully shaped litter box (a gift).  It even has a place for the cats to clean their paws before they track litter back into the living room.  Nice.  Unfortunately, this is a beautiful shape by someone who has never cleaned a litter box, at least not by litter box shovel.  Perhaps they clean litter boxes with their bare hands?  Anyway, this curved shape does not jibe well with the typical litter box shovel.  Of course, the cats could choose to do their business along the gently curving side of the litter box.  And, of course, they never do.  They choose instead the places along the edge of the litter box where there is maximum curvature.

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The idea that there is a place for the cats to clean their feet before venturing back out into the living room or pouncing up on the kitchen counter is a sweet idea.  It is an idea that would never occur to the owner of an actual cat, however.  Here are two cats we obtained from a shelter (Tally on the left, Molly on the right).

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They are cute, but defective in that they do not speak English, nor so far as I have been able to discover, any other language.  So, despite my explanations that they are supposed to wipe their feet on the way out of the litter box, they do not.  Instead, they do their business on the foot-wiping section of the litter box.  So, apart from the annoying high curvature, if you are unlucky enough to get a cat who either does not understand complex sentences or just doesn’t care, this is probably not the litter box for them either.  It might work for cats who: 1) speak your language fluently and 2) are cooperative. (Recent estimates indicate the total number of such cats is zero).

The third example comes from health care and is a bit more abstract.  On my insurance ID card is a field which is labeled: “Identification number.”  In order to use this, I have to go to their website and “register.”  In order to register, the website says I need to enter my “identification number.” But in actuality, that does not work!  No.  Instead, I am supposed to leave off the first three characters in what is labeled my identification number.  The website doesn’t say this.  But the help desk is quite familiar with the issue and will happily explain it to you after you listen to musak for three or four hours.  This is not so much shape not matching real function, but label not matching function.

The fourth example comes from some of our “bookcases.”  Why, I hear you ask, are there scare quotes around bookcases.  I will tell you why.  I put scare quotes because although the shelves are flat and just the right size for books, and although this piece of “furniture” is sold as a bookcase, in fact, it is a nick-knack shelf.  My wife and I foolishly tried filling it with books and it collapsed.  So, in this case, the label and the shape lead one to believe it serves a particular function but the underlying functionality is insufficient to fulfill that dream of ours (that the “bookshelf” would actually hold books).

 

grey metal hammer

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

The fifth example comes from my experience with companies who want to simplify things for their customers.  That sounds worthwhile.  So, they launch major efforts to make their products “consistent.” But they soon learn that making products behave consistently years after they were independently developed is way too expensive.  So instead, they focus on making them look the same and using consistent terms across products, while leaving the underlying functionality behave quite differently.  To me, this is quite akin to the bookshelf case. Making things look the same while continuing to have them act differently is actually worse for the user than having things that act differently also look different! 

 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com



The moral of the story? It’s fine to have form follow (and signal) function, but you need to understand how users actually behave. They won’t necessarily behave as you imagine they are supposed to any more than a cat will read your mind in order to please you. Of course, if you see yourself, not as a partner of your users, but rather out to deceive them into thinking they are buying and using something different from what they really are… 

—————————————

Introduction to Pattern Language for Collaboration and Cooperation.

Index for Collaboration Patterns  

Author Page on Amazon

Using Stories and Storytelling 

What do you do when the client insists you solve the “wrong” problem? 

A Cat’s a Cat & That’s That.

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by petersironwood in family, poetry, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

cats, gratitude, kitten, life, love, mindfulness, peace, pets, poem, poetry

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Sirius and Mister Jones watching TV with us.

Mister Mitchell is his name.
He would rather be in my lap
Than curled up beside the keyboard
Sneaking a paw out to help me,
Tapping out a random,
(Or, seemingly random),
// here and there.

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Jones checking out the new sound system.

But //? Who knows?
Perhaps he’s trying to find some website
Devoted to the feline.
After all,
They have a TV program now for cats.

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‘Mister Mitchell’ is not a name we chose;
Rather the name came with the cat.
He mostly seems a fur generating machine
Sidling up to the Thinkpad.

orange cat foot on laptop keyboard

Photo by Александар Цветановић on Pexels.com

Yet, he is not a machine
But a living breathing system
Turning fish and turkey into more Mister Mitchell
And every one of his trillions of cells:
A miracle of masterly mechanism,
Much like me,
Getting sick and getting well,
Much like me,
Sleeping, eating, wishing the endless rain would let up
And some sun would shine at last
Much like me.

farm land during sunset

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’m not sure he has an opinion on the world situation,
Or of whether we’ll ever fire the Liar-In-Chief,
Or of what should be done with corporate crooks,
Or cares whether the Dow is up or down.

pile of gold round coins

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Mister Mitchell never helps me take out the recycling
Or do the dishes or the shopping;
In reality, Mister Mitchell is not much use —
And maybe that’s the point:

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The miracle of life is point enough without a use.
People are so forgetful,
Of the miracles all around,
Large and small.

woman raising her hands

Photo by Marlon Schmeiski on Pexels.com

Much like me.

 

people in concert

Photo by Sebastian Ervi on Pexels.com


Author Page on Amazon

Other Poems on this Blog:

Race, Place, Space, Face

Piano

A Suddenly Springing Something

Hauntings Across the Time Zone

Is a Dream? 

The Most Serious Work 

The Joy of Juggling

Wristwatch

Continental Breakfast

Maybe it Needs a New Starter

The Truth Train

Sunless Sunday of Faith

Camelot

Peace

The Impossible

Ambition

America

Don’t They Realize How Much Better Off They Are Now? 

The Bubble People

 

 

A Suddenly Springing Something

22 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by petersironwood in creativity, family, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

cats, kittens, life, love, poem, poetry

adorable animal baby cat

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

I thought it was an apropos time to remind people of what really matters: life, love, truth, curiosity. This poem was from 2004. The cats bookending the poem are cousins to Jones and Sirius and taken at the approximate age when this poem was written.

A Sudden-
ly

Spring –
ing

Some –
thing!

Two Courageous
Ridiculous
Sputtering
Kitteny
Little
Furry
Balls of Hellfire!

Two Demanding
Loving
Roving
Fighting
Biting
Leaping
Back-bending
Over-arching
Maddeningly
Swaying
Pouncing
Little Furry Balls of
Hellfire!

Jones and Sirius:
Two Snooping
Into every
Teeny crevice
Nosing out
Empty cans
Empty wrappers
For every scrap
Of cheese whiff
Or oil drip
In the cracks of tin foil
Growling
Little Furry Ball
Of Hellfire!

A tag-team, dynamic duo;
One cave-black and one marmalade;
Skittering over my keyboard
Chasing the cursor on my screen
Grabbing at my sox, my belt,
Chasing my tying lace-tips
Scrabbling up my shins
Snapping at my pencil and my pen
Jackknifing dive without a when
Little Furry Balls of Hellfire!

Purring, sleeping, curled and cuddled
Into the crook of my arm
Warmth feeling warmth
I laugh inside, I smile inside
At my little furry furies
Who remind my mind
Of Gandhi and Goodness.

Ultimately, Love,
Love is Strong
And will outlast
The longest Wrong.

cute short fur black kitten with blue eyes

Photo by Lad Fury on Pexels.com

Here below are the real Jones and Sirius, but grown up. Jones, left, loved everyone and everything. He stayed curious & affectionate till the day he died. Sirius proved to be a very smart cat, but would brook no non-sense. He was the most difficult cat any of our vets ever had to deal with. Yet, he was affectionate with us and with Jones.

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It’s Your Call!

19 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, psychology, sports, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cats, Democracy, fascism, Feedback, games, politics, sports, Tennis

It’s Your Call

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Tennis is played on a so-called court. As a matter of fact, when tennis began, it was literally played in a courtyard and people could hit the ball off roofs, etc. But, now the game has become much more regular. Historians believe tennis began in the 12th century. At that point, the ball was hit with the hand. At what point does it become close enough to modern tennis to deserve the name? I don’t know. My cats have been known to play a kind of primitive tennis with me and, more rarely, with each other. 

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The most elaborate example of the latter was something I walked in on. Under the kitchen table were three of our cats batting back and forth the lifeless body of a small lizard who had unfortunately managed to sneak into our house. The cats are well-fed so there was no rushing or fighting over the meat. No, they were batting it back and forth. I don’t know how long they had been playing this little game, but at the point I observed them, they seemed rather bored. I can tell you that when I play tennis, almost all the time, almost all the players exhibit enthusiasm for the game. 

Tennis, it turns out, is much like the game my cats played. Just as the cats did, there is a defined space within which a small object (lizard, tennis ball, etc.) gets batted back and forth. Sides (one or two people to a side) take turns batting the ball over to the other side. This back and forth continues until one side is unable to return the ball into their opponents side of the court. The ball must pass over the net before bouncing and it must land in the opponent’s side of the court. In tennis, as in baseball, if a ball hits the line (even a little) it is “in.” So, knowing when the ball is “in” or “out” is quite critical for scorekeeping purposes, just as it is in nearly every game or sport. “Baseball,” they say, “is a game of inches.” And so is tennis. And football, and hockey, and gymnastics, and basketball, and golf! There are boundaries — and often it is both critical and hard to determine where something falls with respect to those boundaries. 

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For that reason, professional tennis tournaments have not just one, but several people whose sole responsibility is to determine whether balls are “in” or “out.” There is also a “chair umpire” who has several roles but one of which is to serve as a kind of “over-judge.” He can “overrule” one of the linesman as to whether a ball was in or out. More recently, technology has added yet another layer of “presumed certainty” about whether a ball was in or out. Everyone assumes — or has agreed to act as though they assume — that the technology is perfect. As someone who spent many years working with technology, I think it is perfectly safe to assume that the technology is not perfect. But it is, in pro tennis, the final arbiter. 

The kind of tennis I play, “Club Tennis” or “Friendly Tennis” is quite another matter! Our prize money is nil. Our trophies are nil. That doesn’t mean people don’t play their hearts out! But who gets to say whether a ball is in our out? We don’t have technology or line judges; we make our own calls. Here is the over-riding rule of “Friendly tennis”: people call the ball “in” or “out” on their own side of the court. There are three major reasons for this. First, when you hit a ball, you intend for it to be “in.” Second, if the ball is “in” that is to your advantage in winning the game. Both of these are “psychological” effects that impact everyone to a greater or lesser degree and will tend to make them “see” their close shots as in that are really out. The third reason, however, is much more important and it is purely physical. In nearly every case, the person who is attempting to hit the ball is way way closer to the ball (and the line) than anyone else. 

Sometimes, however, there are mitigating circumstances. The person hitting the ball may be running hard and tracking the ball in order to hit it. It sometimes happens that they will admit to having no idea whether the ball was in or out. The first recourse is to ask their partner whether they saw the ball clearly. They might also ask their opponents. Remember: it’s a friendly game. But that does not mean it always stays free from controversy. 

You are supposed to call a ball “out” only if you are sure it was out. What “sure” means though can vary quite a bit from person to person. There are also physical reasons why some people’s line calling is better than others. Many players in our games wear glasses. I won’t go into all the various issues with glasses. If you wear glasses you already know and if you don’t, you couldn’t care less. (Unless you’re extremely empathic and then, you might want to read “The Myths of the Veritas” which delve heavily into empathy; go ahead; give it a try; it’s free with no ads). People also differ in how much they compensate for the effect of parallax. If I am receiving a serve, for instance, I am likely to see a ball that’s slightly long as “in” while the server will tend to see it as “out” even if it is barely in. If a serve comes to my side and lands near the line, the effect of parallax is to make them look “out” even when they are slightly in. Some people are aware of these effects and some aren’t. To make a long story short, people don’t always make the best call. 

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We have the exact same issues that we had when we played baseball, football, in grade school. The only difference is that now that we are in our 70’s we don’t spoil our day and tell Johnny we’re not going to play with him any more. Instead, we revert to “It’s your call” even when we “know” that our opponents have just called one of our hits that was really in, out. 

In the same way, in life outside the tennis realm, we can sometimes see problems that the person nearest to their problem cannot see. We may know that you are eating too much for your own good, or drinking too much, or would be happier in the long run if you studied harder. We might say that, under the right circumstances, to a good friend. But — at the end of the day, it is “their call.” 

alcohol event fun hangover

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

As I’ve argued elsewhere, there seems to be an urban/rural difference in how hard one pushes to let people know they are screwing up. It isn’t only an urban rural split. It seems to me, that many conservatives are afraid that liberals want to make them do and be and like all the things they do! But liberals, you see, by the very nature of the word “liberal,” don’t want to have everyone the same. It’s okay with almost all liberals if you go bowling, or play tennis, or watch NASCAR. We’re not going to force everyone to eat quiche or adopt a “gay lifestyle.” I have to admit, I do think there are some liberals who would be happy to write you an extremely detailed “prescription” for your life. But they are really rare exceptions, in my experience. Liberals, just like conservatives, do want to have laws that prevent people from hurting others for no reason. 

There are interesting edge cases that people may differ on. Is this “your call” or “our call”? That has changed over time as people have multiplied across the earth and as science has understood more and more of our interactions. In the middle ages, when people began congregating in large cities, they lived in (what we would now call) disastrously unsanitary conditions that were ideal for plagues. Dump your sewage into a place that flows into the water supply? Sure. It’s your sewage after all. But now we know that is not a good idea. 

photo of landfill

Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

When I was a kid, my dad and my grandpa would “rake the leaves” in the fall; rake the leaves into a big pile; and then burn them. And, everyone was doing that. Now, I would guess that such is illegal in most places in the US. We realize that the smoke doesn’t simply “disappear” but is, in fact, bad for other people. You are burning the leaves on your land, but the smoke doesn’t stay there. Now, we’re more savvy than when I was a kid. But it’s much more than that. There are also a lot more of us! When I born, there were about 2.4 billion people on earth; now there are more than 7 billion. But it isn’t only the number. Many of us around the earth, including me, are using up a lot more resources than we did back then. We are using materials like plastics and sending more and worse chemicals out into the environment we all share. I still believe in the general principle that it’s your call, in terms of how much pollution you are willing to live with. 

As I’ve mentioned before, Air Fresheners are a good example of a bad example. So-called “Air Fresheners” do nothing of the kind. They make you think the air is fresher because they have perfume in them. Not only that; they typically include carcinogens, a chemical to mess with your hormones and another chemical that deadens your sense of smell! You see? Air Fresheners, some people might call the “Bill Barr” of household products. They label themselves as “Air Freshener” but they are really noxious stuff that only makes the whole situation worse. 

I’m afraid that what is “your call” will continue to shrink in some ways if humanity keeps expanding the population and using up more and more resources. On the other hand, the space of what is your call is also expanding. Whether it is sports, clothing, food, games, movies, TV, books, experiences — even with the choice of burning autumn leaves in your backyard gone, you have way more choices available to you than your parents or grandparents had. 

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If there is one person in a car driving alone, they can pick the music they want and play it loud. They can change stations every two seconds. Or not. But if there are six people in the car, it’s going to be more complicated. That’s not because people hate your music or hate you. Now, you could take the attitude: “It’s my car, so I’ll pick whatever music I please!” And then, you might choose to play disco music at full blast. You could. But if you do that, then as soon as possible, people will choose note to ride with you. That’s okay. But don’t complain that you’re ever more isolated. It’s not your choice of music that isolates you. It’s your insistence that everyone is subjected only to what appeals to you. 

And, then we come, at last, as we seem to inevitably do, to the crisis at hand.  

It’s our collective “call” to determine who our leaders are. Some prefer someone who is stately, intelligent, and diplomatic. And, some prefer Donald Trump: bombastic, often inarticulate, and crude. Styles and tastes differ. It’s your call. Personally, I don’t think style is irrelevant, but I don’t think it’s vital either. 

But being an agent, witting or unwitting, of Vladimir Putin, rather than of America, is not a question of style. Doing what is in Russian interests and against the interest of America over and over is not a matter of style. Nor is dividing the country against itself. Nor isolating us from our allies. Nor destroying the morale of our intelligence agencies, our military command, our State Department, and the Justice Department. 

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If it were possible for you to have a dictatorship and for me to stay in a democracy, that might be fine. I would caution you that you wouldn’t really be the least bit happy about living in a dictatorship, but in the end, that’s your call. Also problematic is the fact that dictators are almost never satisfied with the absolute power they have and want to keep extending it to other areas. 

Donald Trump doesn’t want to just be dictator of the Republican Party (which he pretty much already is). He wants to be dictator of the entire country. That is destroying and will continue to destroy everything good about America. It’s the whole country. It’s not just your car. Before finding out just how horrendous it is for everyone to live in a dictatorship, go live for a few months at least, in a cult that has a dictator and see how you like it. You might like it. You might not. It’s your call. 

But America is not going to let our entire country go to ruin. No-one has the right to make that call. 

That would be like one of my tennis opponents saying, “The ball was “out” and furthermore, from now on, everyone’s tennis rackets are mine and you can only play when I say so and I win every game no matter what happens! 

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You know. It’s possible it could happen one day. We’re old. People have strokes. People get dementia. I hope none of my regular tennis players go insane like that, and if they do, I hope they get appropriate care. 

We’re not crazy enough to “give in” to such absurd demands! Not even if he yells and screams and says, “It’s my call!” 

Because it isn’t. 

It’s our call.

———————————-

Author Page on Amazon. 

The Myths of the Veritas 

Trumpism as the new religion

Why the Rule of Law is important

City Mouse and Country Mouse

 

Corn on the Cob

06 Monday May 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, family, management, psychology, Uncategorized, Veritas

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

altrusim, cats, fascism, gratitude, politics, science, selfishness, truth

{This is not part of the “Myths of the Veritas” series. But writing about these ancient, if mythical, people has caused me to reflect on how much we owe today to the millennia of humans who preceded us.}

Corn on the Cob.

boiled corn

Photo by Kaboompics .com on Pexels.com

I made corn on the cob tonight for dinner. I cooked it in the micro-wave the perfect amount  of time and put just the right amount of butter and seasoning. I loved it. And, I have loved corn on the cob ever since I can remember. 

Now, I am guessing that most of you saw no problem with my first statement. Indeed, this is how most people speak about “making dinner” and generally the way I think about it as well. 

But think for another moment. Did I really make the dinner? I might have grown the corn in my garden (in this case, I did not), but I certainly didn’t build the microwave from scratch! And, I did not milk the cow nor churn the butter. And similarly, the seasonings were not something I went out and found. 

Corn? Corn was first domesticated in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. It did not look or taste like it does today. Consider: the first corn was not something that these early Mexicans discovered in a seed catalog or happened across on an afternoon stroll through the supermarket. 

agriculture arable barley close up

Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

There were people among these tribes who learned from people who learned from people who learned…from many generations how to grow food, how to choose the very best from among those foods and then not eat them but instead use them to seed the next generations. 

I am quite sure that most of you have worked hard in your careers. Maybe your career lasted 50 years, like mine. A half century is not an inconsiderable time. But the corn that we eat today is the result of the labor of many people: ancient Mexicans; early settlers to the American continent; scientists from across the globe. The overall effort it took to create the corn that I cooked today is undoubtedly thousands of times greater than the effort I spent preparing it. 

Not to mention the microwave! How did that come about? How many scientists and engineers over how many years? Of course, they could not even have begun to work on such a thing without other scientists and mathematicians from around the world advancing basic physics, equations, zero, numbers, counting — going back again — thousands of years! 

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Statue of Archimedes who brought value to many, and who was killed by a Roman soldier.

A similar timeline exists for salt, pepper, and butter. Have you ever actually seen a cow? They’re big! They’re strong! Who knows how many ancient peoples died in the process of trying to domesticate cows. 

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And, let us not forget the leisure that comes from living in a house and not fighting off Saber-Tooth tigers while I’m trying to cook. (Although our youngest kitten Luna, did persistently try to lick the butter and nibble the tuna salad. She’s still young and has much to learn.)

Everything in the way of goods and services and security that we enjoy in a so-called “civilized” society is something we might think is something we “deserve” because, after all, we worked hard all our lives. But let’s not forget that if you were born in the stone age, you could work hard all your life and not get anything like the luxuries we have today. Those products and services are the result of countless numbers of other people who tried to leave the earth better for their fellow humans than the way they found it.  

The next time a thought crosses your mind that you ought to be able to keep every cent of the income that “you” earned, hopefully you will chew awhile on the fact that everything you enjoy today is the result of other living beings doing things for themselves and doing things for future generations. Some of them were your direct ancestors but the vast majority were not. They were people of all colors, countries and religious persuasions. 

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And, every time you look at your computer screen, or watch a movie, or put on a pair of shoes, or use your indoor plumbing, or sleep in a vermin free house, or listen to a song, or pet your dog without it biting off your hand — all these things we take for granted were vast gifts from earlier and current generations. 

Yes, you should we rewarded for your hard work, but let’s not delude ourselves. The fraction of all that we have that we could have achieved on our own is miniscule. 


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the “RULES” of CreaTIVity

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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BHAGs, cats, creativity, innovation

Last week, I finished the on-line course: 5 Habits of the Highly Creative Teacher, and I still keep thinking about it. It strikes me that everyone hasto be creative pretty much all day long just to live. For example, if you move through your physical environment by walking, you have to readjust your balance as you go. If you live with six cats, you have to be ready for one of them (in this case, Jones) to burst into the path of where you are about to plant your foot. What I have to do is try to keep from spilling my breakfast all over the carpet. I am convinced that cats do this, not to annoy, but to destroy. The chances of bringing down such a large beast as I am are slim, but if they succeed, they figure they will be able to feast for days on my carcass. It is, in management-speak a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) for a housecat. I am reasonably sure that none of my cats have actually read any books on management theory, but they seem to grasp many of the concepts instinctively. Any way, the point is not about Jones and his ilk but about me and my ilk — namely human beings. We have to adjust our plans and our behavior constantly in response to external events. Sure, we have skills (walking, driving, talking, listening — well, okay not listening) but these are not pre-programmed sequences of actions. We may have plans but we constantly adjust these without endless committee meetings or e-mail chains. If I had had to get my spleen and liver on board with my sudden change of direction, I’d be lying on the floor dead and Jones would be feasting.

As I pointed out some time ago, when people communicate they are always designing and interpreting, not coding and decoding. People use language in endless new and creative ways all the time. Let us even imagine you are telling a joke you have told scores of times before. As you tell it, a train roars by and you either pause or raise your voice till the train goes by. This, in essence, is creativity. You are using what you know in order to create a new twist on the delivery of your joke appropriate to the circumstances.

What is also interesting is this: Almost all people are creative almost all the time BUT they do not “count” what they do as creative. They imagine themselves as in the large majority of “non-creative” people because they have been told they lack skill in writing poetry or painting. For that reason, their mental model of themselves is that they are not capable of creativity when in actuality they express themselves creatively every time they move; every time they speak.

So, here is the challenge I am wondering about. Is there a way to show people that they are actually being creative in many areas of life all the time; getting them thereby to alter their self-concept and their self-talk so that they see themselves as creative people and therefore take it as “okay” to be creative in every other area of their life as well? Would they be willing to run full tilt at a weighty problem and try to time their actions so as to topple that problem? If my cat can, can you?

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