We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
That is a deep psychological truth. The deep psyche has no sense of time. Memories, for example, can affect us as if they were happening today. ("effect" and "affect" always challenge my grammatical memory.)
My topic however, is the internet. This thing has become a gigantic repository of everything, and it is all basically accessible to anybody. Even the FBI can't really "lose" old emails. There is no need to get paranoid about it because nobody gives a damn about most of us, but it is a strange development that much of our lives have become searchable.
It's like living in a small town, where everybody knows everything that goes on and especially the secrets. How easy was it to find out about Trump's goumada?
A friend and I were discussing this over drinks the other night, and we agreed that we were glad that the shameful things and misdemeanors we had done in reckless youth were pre-internet. We both grew into straight-arrow adults after our careless phases, so that worked.
If anybody can find it, there was a Calvin and Hobbes toon in which Calvin as a 6 year-old (?) was documenting a false childhood for himself in case he ever decided to run for president or something. Genius. Hobbes took a photo of Calvin pretending to read a book.
A fake past is a cool idea, but how does anybody turn over a new leaf when the past is always dragged behind them? It makes it difficult to do or say stupid things, which means it makes it difficult to be normal.
On Sunday we went to the Michelangelo show at the Met. It's been a must-see, especially for art scholars (which is not me - confirmed dilettante), because a show like this will not be assembled again in our lifetimes. It's a giant collection of "Il Divino's" drawings, sketches, and cartoons for his works in painting, architecture (Rome's St. Peter's), and military fortifications (for Florence - below). Few sculptures, because it's about drawings. However, his drawings are sculptural.
Mrs. BD and I reflected that Michelangelo indeed was enchanted by male bodies, but that muscular male bodies also offer more sculptural opportunities than female curves.
We have rambled over the remains of the fortifications he designed for Florence. You have to find them there, on your own. I can tell you where to look.
She doesn't want to learn. She wants a gotcha for her own career, but he gets the gotchas. Unfortunately, she acts foolish to try to be provocative. Not a good approach for a woman because it makes a woman seem foolish.
As the father of two entrepreneurial-minded daughters, they would be entirely on Peterson's side. Life is highly competitive and tests your grit, moxie, brains, adaptability, and determination. And yes, they want strong powerful partners. Who would not? Men want and need strong, energetic partners too. Thus selective breeding.
Fun stuff. (Yes, reposted for educational purposes for women).A Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism.
O’Neill rose to the rank of senior chief petty officer in the United States Navy and served as a team leader at DEVGRU, positions not come by easily. O’Neill has a laundry list of certifications, including instructor, physical trainer, master training specialist, special warfare sniper and breacher, diving supervisor, and survival expert. He was also an officer in charge of small arms, demolition, close quarters combat, explosives breaching, fire and maneuvers, and laser systems safety. His military air operations qualifications include high-altitude and high-opening free fall jump master, tandem and bundle master, parachute rigger, master naval parachutist, drop zone safety officer, and air operations trainer/examiner and quality assurance inspector. He has completed more than 1000 jumps.
O’Neill has been decorated more than 52 times with honors, including two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars with Valor, a Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor, three Presidential Unit citations, and two Navy/Marine Corps Commendations with Valor.
Living near sea-level or on flood plains have forever been risky propositions, calculated (or uncalculated) risks. All the same, people do it. This is interesting:
Thanks to a reader for forwarding the link to this brilliant 1995 article from the Wisconsin Law Review by John Hasnas.
It's not just about "how to think like a lawyer." It's about how political law is, and about how much doublethink is required to understand American law. He makes the case that good laws must be squishy. He offers excellent examples too.
Specifically, I intend to establish three points: 1) there is no such thing as a government of law and not people, 2) the belief that there is serves to maintain public support for society's power structure, and 3) the establishment of a truly free society requires the abandonment of the myth of the rule of law...
It's a cool term. It refers to the ability to master all aspects of living so as to have the chance for a fulfilling and successful life: Bunky Mortimer’s Guide to Lifemanship
Sad to say, many people do not get As in that course. I'd give myself a B if I compare myself with others I know for whom mastery of most of life's challenges appears to come effortlessly.
I was randomly thinking this weekend about how many current-day American hobbies, pastimes, and avocations have their origins in necessities, or near-necessities, of the past. We are all aristocrats now.
Consider these. You might think of more examples:
Hunting, fishing, weaponry, and gardening used to be necessary for survival.
Dog-raising and training used to be very helpful for survival
Weaving, knitting and sewing used to be the only ways to be clothed.
Music-making used to be for story-telling (still is, to some extent)
We used to have to create our own amusements: make plays, have sing-alongs, invent or play games. Now it's the TV and the computer.
We used to write elegant letters to communicate or to stay in contact. Very few do that any more. Fine writing is now a hobby (mostly)
Painting and sculpting (image-making) used to be special ways to worship God or gods
Golf used to be necessary to prevent deadly boredom for shepherds
Most sports are refined variants of physical combat
Cooking of all sorts used to be the only way to have food. Now it's become a hobby.
Hiking, running, horse-riding, boating, etc used to be the only ways to go places. Now hobbies.
Physical fitness used to be what you got from your daily labor. Now it's the gym in your spare time.
Time's winged chariot does hurry along. As life goes on, it hurries faster, frighteningly so.
I know only one way to slow down that acceleration: do new things, take on new challenges, visit new places, have new experiences, find some fresh successes and failures, make new friends, . While routine and structure are generally useful and comforting for people, new challenges and adventures, large or small, which entail some special stimulations and anxieties.
Yes, anxieties. New stresses are good. Seek God, learn Mandarin, lift heavier weights, remodel the house, take a Great Courses course on something about which you are totally ignorant and uninterested to open your mind, find a new mate (not for me - we make new together), climb a mountain, or try some good therapy and reawaken or unleash parts of your inner true self which have been smoldering in the dark for years.
All such things have the effect of adding punctuation marks, or even fresh chapters, to the humdrum prose of life.
While it's not just about a manipulative seduction, Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) was spot on with the time thing.
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
VDH notes the paradox of middle class people filling gyms while immigrants do their physical chores for them. Brawn in an Age of Brains:
Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, millions of Americans—far more than just those constituting an economic elite—decided that a key to the good life was to be free from, say, the need to cook, watch children, mow the lawn, or rake leaves. Illegal immigration promised cheap help for the upper middle classes that had once been the exclusive domain of the aristocracy. In theory, skipping the gym for four hours a week would provide more than enough time to mow the lawn, prune the bushes, or vacuum the floor. Yet sweaty and studied exercise is often deemed preferable to rote labor, given that it is more scientifically calibrated to making one look and feel better. Repetitive muscular work is not seen as commensurately valuable, whether for the exercise it provides or for its psychic benefits. Yet for all one’s degrees and income, a person can still retain some sense of autonomy and an ability to master the surrounding material landscape, if only for a few hours each week, and to appreciate how the other half lives that does such physical labor for wages. It is a choice...
I get his point, but I do not think that fitness is equivalent to physical labor. Our carpenter lifts weights in the gym with the intention of continuing to be able to carry heavy things at work through his 70s. In my case, I have always done all of the outdoor labor at the HQ and the farm that I have time for (ie weekends), but I never saw any fitness gains from that. It is enjoyable for me, though.
For house-cleaning and laundry, we have two high-energy Polish immigrants who leave everything spotless, neat, and sparkling. Their only requirement of us is that there be no clutter, nothing on the floor, and nothing on any surfaces.
When you have day jobs, nobody wants to spend a weekend house-cleaning and doing laundry. Heck, we even do our workouts Sunday morning before church.
I plan to keep myself in fighting shape so I can fulfill that job, or duty, or whatever you call it. Little boys, little girls, whatever comes my way. I am prepared.
My plan them is to teach my family ways, to transfer my culture. I will talk with them about books, I will take them on hikes in the woods, I will teach them my secrets about the trees and the birds and amphibians and reptiles and fish and wildflowers, and all of their names. I will teach them how to use a hand saw and a table saw, and how to screw a screw and how to nail a nail. How to make a rustic outdoor table.
I will quote to them from Milton, the Bible, and Shakespeare while I take them on fishing hikes to mountain lakes, valley streams, Atlantic bays, and the ocean itself. I know from myself that grandkids remember every word their grandfathers utter and every bit of lore they convey.
I will reprimand them when they behave uncivilly or in an unsportsmanlike manner. I will teach them firearms and archery. I will teach them how to comport themselves at my NYC club, and how to dine with adults in an adult venue. I would be happy to introduce them to sailing craft, or handling powerboats for that matter. I will expose them to serious music and talk to them about it. I will encourage them towards the discipline of making serious music, or any music.
My two grandpas together helped teach me all of these things and I am forever grateful for that. My Mom and Dad were busy with all of the other kids, plus work of course.
I learned a lot besides all that from my two genteel Grandpas, including how to handle hunting dogs (Don't give them an inch, or they'll take a mile"), handling horses ("Dumb as rocks. Show them who's boss, and they will do anything you want."), and driving tractors on New England hills ("attend to the angles").
They also taught me how to speak with adults. "Ask them about themselves. Learn all you can from them."
Sports? I am no athlete but I would be joyful to swat tennis balls with a kid or kids for hours. Just buy me a couple of beers after as compensation. Interest and cheerful cooperation are required. I am sorry, but the business-essential art of golf is not in my repertoire.
My own Christmas kids are the best, and I will welcome some Christmas grandkids when the time is ripe.
A commenter: "Kill your TV and take a walk through the woods with your kids, spouse, friends and or loved ones."
We all know that TV and movies are aimed at an IQ of 100. That's the market. Even Tucker aims low. A good life can be had by shooting the TV and getting out in the world, meeting new people, doing interesting challenging things - and going to Christmas parties.
Again, a Christmas book only for those who wish to continue or to update their secondary or college educations: Campbell's Biology.
It is the current basic text, and it guarantees a thorough grounding in the basics. If you shop around on line, you can find it for much less than the list price.
A magnificent book, clear and easy to read if you recall some basic biochem. If you took college bio ten years ago, you know almost nothing.
I plan to keep myself in fighting shape so I can fulfill that job, or duty, or whatever you call it. Little boys, little girls, whatever comes my way. I am prepared.
Again, a Christmas book only for those who wish to continue or to update their secondary or college educations: