Archives for posts with tag: update your software

Hope and Failure

April 8, 2025 //
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Prices have been going up noticably since the election, and longer. They rarely go down. Some of this is due to human greed. Sometimes it’s about demand for a limited supply. Sometimes it’s about chaos and uncertainty, and regulatory bullshit. There’s always someone making money off of rising prices, though it may not be who we assume it is.

Recent price of blueberries. I am waiting impatiently for the blueberries in my garden.

I’m as frustrated and angry as anyone else over the weird petty and destructive policy making coming out of Washington DC these days. 61 (almost 62) and I’ve never seen the bullshit quite so deep. We have failed to elect a competent, skillful, effective government (unless your goal was to bring about the decline of Democracy altogether). It’s pretty horrific. I’m not sure what everyday folks were expecting – or how they were played so easily by power-seeking billionaires.

…Still…

Life goes on. Mostly pretty comfortably routine, moment to moment. I’m not personally reliant on the market fluctuations, beyond how such things affect the prices of groceries and gas (and they definitely do). I have been spending less with greater care, like a lot of people. It’s necessary. Instead of steak, we have chili. Instead of dining out, we cook at home (which is healthier anyway). Instead of going to a distant specialty market for some interesting ingredient I can’t get locally, I use a recipe that doesn’t require exotic ingredients at all. Choices are being made every day. I’m still choosing to live well, as much as I can, but I’m choosing to do so more affordably. It’s clearly necessary, and I may as well get really good at it. Soon enough things like oranges and bananas may become seasonal, coffee may become a luxury for the wealthy, and dining out impractical due to the lack of restaurants still in business.

… Sorry. I’m being a bit gloomy, eh? I’m in a ferocious amount of pain today and it may be coloring my thinking. I’m just saying, maybe it’s time to embrace simpler things and more affordable pleasures, disconnect from the Internet and social media, go outside, and exist in the real world among real people, and be less dependent on so many systems thoroughly outside my own control? I do remember a life before the Internet existed at all… A time when bad news didn’t travel as far or as fast, and it was more difficult to deceive or influence an entire population. I mean… I think I remember that world. Certainly there were fewer billionaires and they weren’t straight up buying the fucking government for their own benefit.

I stretch and sigh, and remind myself to be here, now, and let that shit go.

An excellent pot of chili, and an affordable hearty meal.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I think about the romaine lettuce and bok choy growing in the garden. I think about the radishes, carrots, and spinach sprouting in neat rows, and the onions and leeks standing tall in their corner of the garden. I feel myself relax. What matters most? How can I best care for hearth and home and family? It’s important to do more than exist in difficult times. It is helpful to act, to choose, and to create the life I want to live and the world I’d like to live in. Yes, there are surely assholes, nitwits, and idiots literally everywhere, but I don’t have to hang out with them, or allow my life to become about them. I’m free to choose differently.

It’s raining this morning. Not a hard rain, just occasional sprinkles, but the wind is blowing like those rain drops have places to be, right now. lol I don’t let it stop me from getting a walk in, this morning, in spite of the pain I’m in. This morning it’s both the headache and the arthritis. I deal with it, and walk on, grateful to walk another mile. I walk with my thoughts to my halfway point and stop for a little while, to write and reflect and watch dawn become a new day.

I think about ignorance and failure for some little while, and ponder all the many things I don’t (and possibly can’t) know. It’s a good time to buy books and read more. I often find inspiration and even real hope between the pages of a book. My own journey suggests that reading may be one of the most valuable skills a human primate can develop and use. I’m proud of the small library of excellent books I’ve accumulated over time. I’ve read nearly all of them, with some exceptions (some of the books my Traveling Partner owns are distinctly outside my areas of interest), but I cherish even those; they represent more to learn and know. They are well-chosen, well-written and purposeful.

I smile to myself. My book wishlist is huge. I definitely don’t have space for all of them, but… I’ll continue to add to the books I own. How to cook things. How to make things. How to survive things. How to garden and how to fight tyranny. How to think and how to paint. How to listen and how to love, and books about why all those things matter. I sigh contentedly thinking about books and gardening, and what it means (to me) to live a good life. The wind blows, tossing the trees from side to side. The dense gray clouds overhead don’t appear to move at all, they are a smooth homogeneous mass other than the strip of blue sky peaking through near the eastern horizon.

I finish my writing, and get to my feet. The clock is ticking, and it’s time to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Practices, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

Update Your Software!

January 2, 2025 //
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I’m not even joking, this morning. Have you seen the news? A man in New Orleans drives a truck through a crowd, killing and wounding many…a man in Virginia with a “no lives matter” patch and a stockpile of more than 150 homemade improvised explosive devises at the time of his arrest…a man in Montenegro fatally shoots 12 people… It’s pretty horrible the quantity of killing going on. Let’s not even get started on the multiple genocides being committed around the world. It’s bad. Horrifying. Contributing to the horror is that it also amounts to an enormous distraction from other pretty terrible things going on in the world around us, that slowly degrade global quality of life (at a time when we have so much technology and resources available that we should be easily able to end disease and poverty, entirely).

…Humanity needs a “software update” to our operating systems…

While I intend that metaphorically, I am totally serious about it. It’s hard to “do your best” in the world, if you’re inclined to think that “your best” includes mass murder, fraud, dehumanizing cruelty, and petty bullshit justified by how right you think you are. I sip my coffee thinking about that. How to do better, I mean. I’ve been to war. I’ve seen combat. I’ve seen killing “up close”. I’ve seen violence and rage. I’ve seen the damage done by “othering” groups on the basis of some bullshit criteria. I’ve seen pain and fear and hopelessness – and the behavior it can produce. We can do better. Doing better unavoidably begins with each of us, individually, doing better ourselves – and then setting clear expectations with each other, and holding ourselves and our societies accountable to an ethical standard. I’m not saying it’s easy – I’m saying it probably begins with a change in thinking (and choices). I’m saying starting with a “software upgrade” could be helpful.

…When was the last time you read a book, an actual bound book that you held in your hands?

Consuming media through the internet doesn’t reach us the same way reading books does. There’s science on that. (I recognize the conflict in provide a link to an online source. It’s difficult to link directly to the printed word.) You could “do the thing“, of course, and read about reading (how delicously meta). I’m just pointing out that reading and doing are the two most direct means by which we human primates “upgrade our software”. We become what we practice – and it’s helpful to learn what practices we might do well to adopt, rather than wandering about just trying things out and breaking shit or hurting people.

Why am I even on about this? The current political climate, mostly, but also the nasty shit in the news recently. I just don’t get it – it’s the 21st century, how are people still so ignorant that mass killings seem like an effective solution to anything… or that an indvidual even has that right? So… yeah. Here I am. Reading books and doing my best to be a better human being today than I was yesterday – because I have learned more than I knew yesterday. It’s slow going, no doubt, but it’s better than not learning and growing at all, isn’t it? Steps on a path.

So far this year – and possibly over the past decade – the most important book I’ve read is On Tyranny, by Timoth Snyder. No kidding. It’s even pretty small. I don’t ask much of you, but this one is that big a deal; I’m asking that you consider reading it (please), and if not this book, then some other* that may advance your understanding of the world, and the part you play in the society we live in. Surely that matters?

If you knew that reading a book could change the world, wouldn’t you do it? Hell, if you even suspected it might be helpful, wouldn’t you make the attempt? Such a small thing… and another way to begin again. I know, changing the world isn’t easy – there are a lot of verbs involved, and our results vary. It can be discouraging. Still, we become what we practice, and incremental change over time is powerful. We’re all in this together… what are you doing to make the world a better place for all of us to thrive in? Something to think about, and I do. I sit here with my coffee on the first workday of a new year, dismayed by the bad news on display, and grateful to have a chance to begin again. Again.

*Please note; if the books you are reading make you want to kill people, or seem to justify the killing other people are doing, or somehow excuse other vile human behavior, you are likely reading the wrong fucking books. Choose your books with care; you’re putting that shit into your brain.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Life is an Open Book Test

March 27, 2024 //
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No one person can possibly know “all the things” there are to know. No one person can even know all the things that have accumulated in the body of documented human knowledge – it’s just too much for one person to hold onto within the confines of a single mind, and one lifetime. We’re born knowing basically nothing, and with a characteristic curiosity that leads us to quickly begin learning, and continue (if we don’t halt the process) throughout our lives. Some people eagerly embrace learning, and consume new knowledge from a variety of sources. Some people have to be prodded into learning, once some basics are learned that get them by in life. Some people furiously resist new knowledge, if there’s any chance it may unsettle what they already think they know. We’re interesting creatures, and there’s quite a bit of variation in our interest in knowledge, what we’re capable of learning, and what we choose to care about.

Life is very much an open book test, after a fashion. We each have the chance to address our own ignorance live, in real-time, through an almost ludicrous assortment of means and resources. Don’t know the answer to some question? Don’t have a solution to some problem? More than ever the fix could be as simple as “looking it up” – somewhere – or asking someone who knows (or thinks they do). What an incredible luxury to have so much stored knowledge available more or less on demand.

…Remember encyclopedias? I remember…

…Remember vast shelves of hardbound books with fine print, spanning floor-to-ceiling, row after row, almost having a visible “vanishing point” or horizon in huge elegant libraries populated with quiet folks, head-down, reading things? (They still exist… when was the last time you went to a library?) I used to go to the library all the time…

I’m sipping my coffee thinking about libraries, books, and knowledge, and all the many resources that exist for answering unanswered questions. I’m thinking about “lifelong learning” and the power of learning to “keep us young” (cognitively). It’s only just now daybreak, and the sunrise is still in the future by some small amount. Another sip of my coffee, and I find myself considering how easily an encyclopedia becomes “out of date” compared to the living body of knowledge stored on servers, on “the cloud”, and archived digitally. There was a time when a good encyclopedia was about as “state of the art” as stored knowledge got – compressed into smaller pieces, widely available as resource in most any library, it was where so many of us found information on some topic, person, or place when we needed it.

Now? Just “google it”… “Google” even became a verb for that activity of searching for something using a search engine online. LOL In spite of how much knowledge is so easily available, somehow we still haven’t eliminated misinformation, nor have we “learned all there is to know”, nor have we even mastered who and what we are as creatures, nor fully understood the world we live in. Wild. All that knowledge and we’re still ignorant primates muddling along adding to our available knowledge without being able to consume it all.

…I sit with my coffee and my thoughts, watching the sky slowly shift from darkness to shades of gray with a hint of blue, to something bluer and less gray, as the clock ticks away the moments until the sun rises…

After talking over my self-care needs and “where I’m at” with my Traveling Partner, I planned some downtime and reserved a room on the coast at a favorite (and inexpensive) spot with good views and easy beach access. It’ll be good to get some quiet time for myself listening to the wind and the waves, and watching the tide come and go – and only a week away! 😀 I’m getting better at this self-care thing…

I watch the traffic on the streets below making the trip around the park block below the office window. It’s rather like some peculiar merry-go-round of commuter traffic as cars turn left on these one-way streets, looking for a choice parking spot. The street car also goes around this block, as it doubles-back to return the way it came, but a block over. Humans being human, in the machines they’ve created. I finish my coffee, contemplating what it means to be human in this moment. I guess it’s a good one to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Small Things Add Up

January 6, 2023 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and enjoying the quiet hours before the work day begins. I woke with a stuffy head, and started my morning with a long hot shower, which helped immensely. I definitely have more difficulty with anxiety when I have difficulty breathing! (How very mammalian of me.) My voice is a little “froggy” – I notice when I greeted my Traveling Partner (I think I woke him when I got up…?). I find myself wondering if I’ve managed to pick up a head cold somewhere… ? Well, it is January, and there is still a nasty pandemic raging all around us. (I remind myself to mask up if I go out.)

New year, new beginning. The holiday decorations are all packed up and ready to go back up into the attic space for another year. I’m pleased with how compact and tidy they are.

A clear indication that the holidays are over.

At the end of last year I switched up my meds, and I’ve noticed that I seem a bit… clumsier? Less precise in my movements in very subtle ways, at least. It shows in unexpected bumps, bangs, and things unexpectedly dropped. I can count on one hand the number of holiday ornaments I’ve broken as an adult over decades of celebrating the yule season… and one of those was this year. 😦 It was an antique glass bell ornament that I remember seeing on the family Christmas tree as a child. I was saddened but not “struck down” over it. From the perspective of this moment, here, now, that feels like amazing growth.

It’s not a tragedy, just a small loss.

New year, new beginnings. I’m making a point to walk more, and I’ve returned (comfortably and easily) to previously practiced practices that really help me stay fit. Simple changes like parking as far from the door of a place I intend to shop as I can within their parking lot, for example, really add up over time. I’m allowing life to be “less convenient”, simply to get more steps in and exert more effort. It works surprisingly well. The more I do, the more I can do. Bit “late in the game”, sure, but every small change adds up. Details like walking further from the car to the store, and having to get up for the remote (every time, because I put it too far away to reach), and not trying to “make one trip” when I unload the car – those are tiny details that often get worked precisely in the “other direction” as we master adulthood – more ease, more convenience. Cooking real food from fresh ingredients takes so much more effort than a quick trip for fast food. Giving up convenience 100% means exerting more effort. More effort is more calories burned, more movement, and, over time, more fitness.

I’m quite a bit heavier than I’d ideally like to be. My goals are practical and health/longevity focused, and I try to keep them achievable, so small steps first makes sense. I’ve got dumbbells at home and I use them. There are trails and pavement all around for getting more miles on my boots. I’m even getting back to healthier eating habits and foods that support my health.

A recent weekend breakfast, simple and nourishing.

My focus on improving my sleep seems to be paying off, and I am getting better quality rest in the hours that I sleep. Win! 😀 None of this is costly. Most of this comes without a direct cost, for many people. (Let’s note that it can be quite a bit more expensive to buy fresh good quality ingredients for cooking wholesome food, and kitchen gadgets are not cheap, either.)

Have you noticed that I’m not talking about this stuff in terms of “resolutions”? Yeah… resolutions in that classic American-New-Years-y sense just don’t really work for me. They get dropped along the way, and by the end of February they’re just a memory of an intention once formed and never fulfilled. LOL I prefer to think in terms of making change and practicing practices. Seems to work out for me far more often. When it doesn’t? I can more simply shrug off that “false start” and begin again. No guilt, no shame, no awkwardness. 😀 My results vary – I know that, and I plan on it, account for it, and don’t take it personally.

How about a New Year’s book recommendation? I’ll be adding this one to my reading list once I’m finished reading it myself… Have you read The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck? The author, Mark Manson, provides an excerpt on his website. Not gonna lie, it’s a very approachable take on mindfulness basics, and a usefully practical approach to what could be called “secular Buddhism” for 21st century humans. So far I’m finding it helpful, useful, and wholly entertaining. I’d definitely sit down for a coffee with the author and enjoy a conversation if the opportunity came up. 😀

Anyway. If you haven’t already, what are you waiting for? Isn’t it time to begin again?

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets