Life On A B-I7

I stumbled into the phrase cohesiveness. As applied to writing, it refers to when there are logical flaws in the context.. We’re not just talking about the tense of words not matching; we’re talking about calling something “red” and then turning around in the next sentence and calling it “blue.” (Almost that bad.) It was also pointed out to me that I love the run-on sentence. I was told to look up the definition of the “colon.” All I can say in my defense is that I haven’t paid much attention to conjunctions in the past. I’m going to have to rewire my brain to look for separate ideas and quit putting them together as one idea. (This problem is largely one of deep internal disorganization between the two hemispheres of my brain, I’m sure.)

I’m working on it…

I’ll figure out what a paragraph is at some point too…

I went away for 3 days and my cat was distraught. The third day I was away he only touched a bite of his food. He had a companion in the house all but the third day too. I’m back now, it’s the next morning, he has been shadowing me all morning. He’s sitting on my desk right now as I write this, head on the book I was reading so I can no longer turn the page — I’m sure he does this because he knows that prevents me from ignoring him. He has learned my ways thoroughly.

He’s not going to be happy in June when I go away for three months. I’m going to feel almost as bad as he will. I regret that. Someday I will come home and he won’t be there any longer. He’s been my companion for well over six years, I’ve stopped counting. I adopted him after my second divorce. (He and I both have sordid backgrounds.) He has stood faithfully by me, never holding back his affection. Cats are marvelous creatures. I have tried to be there for him as completely as he has been there for me. It makes me sad to think that when I go away in June, he won’t understand what is going on.

The big deal last weekend was the Emerald City Ride in Seattle. Over 3,000 cyclists rode from Lumen field in South Seattle over the West Seattle Bridge to Alki Point then along the West Seattle shoreline and back over the West Seattle hill returning to Lumen Field. There was just over 1,000 feet of climbing. I added an additional 5 miles to and from my hotel in Georgetown for a total morning ride of just under 30 miles. I was mildly surprised that I made it without having to give up on any hills. There were two rest stops. The first I stopped at briefly to quickly snap a photo and the second briefly to use the port-a-potty. Grand total rest time, perhaps 10 minutes. I completed the entire 30 miles in just under 3 hours. (That’s solid touring speed.) At the second rest stop I chatted with a fellow, He complemented me on my Davidson. He said he has a friend that owns seven of them. That is hard to appreciate. You could probably buy a Porsche for the price of seven Davidson’s.

On my Social Science journey this week, I’ve learned a tiny bit about what constitutes meaning in life. (There are many possible answers to this question.) It’s a theory called the “Discovery Loop of Romantic Love.”

It goes something like this.

1. Fall in love
2. Take risk
3. Fail
4. Suffer
5. Learn

It is possible to exit the loop when you have not failed. When you succeed you find the meaning of love (and a lot of other things.) Let’s step through this one experience at a time.

A couple of things worth noting. I did more learning than suffering, I hope that is true for those persons that were along on the ride with me. If you are fortunate to exit the loop successfully, there is still suffering — just a lot less. There is always learning. The longer I live, the more wonderful the meaning is. “The Cat” is a stand-in. No one (not even The Cat) could reach the level of, let alone replace, the meaning that the LOML and I have been fortunate to acquire. In case there is any confusion — that would be our children.

Credit where credit is due. I learned this from reading “The Meaning of Your Life,” by Albert C. Brooks.

The problem with hemorrhoids is similar to “hanging chads.”

I never thought I would need to go into depth on this, and indeed I don’t. One final thought on this subject however: Politics and the people make for strange bed fellows, but also strange bathroom fellows

I found this quote in Chole Dalton’s book “Raising Hare.”

Seton was not writing philosophy, but what he is saying is philosophical. Seton is expressing the notion, as was put forth by the Stoics, that logos i.e., reason, underpins all of nature. That animals are just as beholden to logos as are humans. In fact, there is no distinction between humans and animals other than by degree of separation when it comes to recognition of logos.

Fascinating isn’t it? My only question is how did Trump resist the temptation to replace the word “Let’s” with the word “I’ll.” He probably thought of it and realized he would get more followers by not revealing his true self.

What does it mean for our country to be engage in an irrational and likely illegal war, while at the same time we are witnessing an historic human event, the circumnavigation of Earth’s moon by humans for the first time in our species history.

I’m baffled to explain the coincidence that these events evoke.

My hope, as naive as it may be, is that somehow, someway, the peoples of our planet will take from the latter. the desire to come together and cooperate with one another, rather than continue to insist that conflict is the only way to resolve differences.

If, as a species, we were to truly work together, the natural result of our capabilities as is truly limitless.

That is my hope.

What is a “blog?”

Starting a blog involves selecting a niche, choosing a platform (like WordPress or Squarespace), purchasing a hosting service and a domain name, and creating consistent, high-quality content.

That is one commonly accepted definition.

I find all of that humorous. “What is a blog” is different for everyone that has a blog. A couple of things (ten to be exact) should be noted there.

1. I’m not curating an audience, because frankly, there is no one interested in reading my writing. Even the people that are closest to me, the people that I love the most, don’t read this. So what? The jury is out on all of this, and that’s okay. (I’ve been informed I’m wrong about this by some of those I am referring to — for those that informed me thus, I made it very clear they are under no obligation to read this…)

2. I do this because I love doing this. Good for me. Maybe you like woodworking or fiddling with cars, good for you. We do what we have to do.

3. Maybe someday this will be of value? I doubt it, but you never know.

4. The notion that “high quality” content is intrinsic to blogging is a bit over the top. Look at any number of websites that damand your attention and subscription and if they are examined closely, reveal that “high quality” is not really a prerequisite.

5. My explanation in reason number four above _coincidentally_lsts me off the hook…

6. “Blogging” is helping me improve my language skills. Good for me.

7. “Blogging” is helping me see myself better as a person and as a member of the human race, Also, good for me.

8. After a career of working in the technology sector, blogging allows me to feel like I am still engaged in that arena. (That is also a bit of a stretch.)

9. It gives me a reason to write, which is the _real_benefit of all this. It helps me. if it helps you then we both win. But keep in mind, I don’t care about you…

10} I said in the title “Ten reasons why I blog,” I don’t have ten, so you’ll have to be satisfied with nine.

Note: My hosting service is Micro.bog, they are awesome. My domain name is Live On A B-17 (dot) me, because cycling is my deal, and skiing, and the occasional pickleball round robin.

I would live in a School Bus.

To be a bit more specific, I would live in a School Bus converted into an overland vehicle with a ton of solar on the roof.

Imagine the freedom that would provide. Of course gas prices are now a consideration. Even if gas is not affordable, you still have a pretty damn nice living set-up.

I’d paint it grey-green, or maybe tan, like my Tacoma…

The President of The United States is insane. I hope all the other leaders in the world are more stable than he is. That’s all we can hope for at this point.

Good leaders are like medicine. They heal, strengthen, and lift all those that rely on them. Bad leaders are like poison; they weaken those around them leading everyone to failure. Surround yourself with (choose) good leaders. Don’t just listen to their words, study their actions and their history.

Stoic Thoughts

It would not surprise me if people thought my project to write a stoic thought every day was a waste of time. Maybe on a good day people think it odd at best. I would not fault anyone for thinking either of those things. That makes it a good thing that no one reads this blog. Let me explain a bit more (to myself).

I am well aware that the words I read, and the words my posts are based upon, are not mine alone. In fact, they represent wisdom that has been around for a long time. What is unique here (I hope) is the shape I put the words into when I try and convey the ideas they represent. This I do primarily for myself. I plan to make this a years long effort by coming back to these entries and looking at them periodically. My hope in doing that is I will eventually incorporate these ideas into something resembling practice.

I Bit the Bullet

Lots of people are talking about Anthropic Claude. I decided to give it a try. I told Claude (it’s difficult for me to call an AI by a human name) a little bit about myself and asked it to build me an FAQ Page for my Blog. I like the initial replay Claude gave me:

I’m glad Claude thinks so, I’m a bit skeptical. I’m not certain that everyone stumbling into this site would agree… But I’m not accepting opinions at this time…

I’m not going to bore you with the FAQ Page that Claude generated. It’s actually quite good. A couple of the sentences provided are probably better written than what I would have come up with.

Claude provided the following to describe my journal entries when I’m bicycle touring:

On the subject of philosophy, Claude answered the question “are you a practitioner or a reader” this way:

This one actually strikes me as pretty good. This is Claude answering the question “why I write.”

There you have it. That’s what Claude thinks about me. Who am I to disagree…

Just for fun, I asked Gemini what Claude meant by “rich and genuine creative life.” This is what Gemini told me:

For goodness sake! I’m really something!

Shiva

I don’t pray to this statue of Shiva but I have great respect for what Shiva stands for. I keep this statue on my desk and will often meditate on the attributes that Shiva represents. I bought this when I was in India in late 2025. I didn’t fully understand the significance when I purchased it. After living with it for a while, I have come to appreciate all that this deity represents. There is no supreme god in Hinduism, but Shiva is worshipped as a supreme being in Shaivism. It is the attributes of Shiva that I find fascinating. Many of them are worth incorporating into my own life. (As far as humanly possible.)

Trident The Trident that Shiva is holding represents Shiva’s control over creation, preservation and destruction. The Trident also represents the three qunas: Past, present and future. Meditation on these is grounding.

Serpent The Serpent represents power over ego and desire. It also represents control over the primal forces of nature. While my control over natures forces is limited, I certainly can benefit from meditating about the role of ego and desire in my life.

Legs Crossed The meditative position, legs crossed, represents deep concentration, spiritual discipline, and transcendence of all things. Contemplating these in meditation brings one onto solid ground.

Third Eye The third eye (not clearly visible in this statue represents wisdom and insight. Looking for wisdom and insight is something we all should spend time doing whenever possible.

Ornaments The Ornaments represent the divine status of Shiva and the cosmic energy that Shiva possesses. The blue color represents Shiva’s ability to swallow poison, the ability to save the Universe, Shiva as protector of the Universe. Meditating with a desire to obtain these attributes is not the point. Meditating to look for ways to protect the Universe, that portion that we have within our control, is the point.

Change

There are two types of people in the world, those who look forward and those who look backward. Forward to a brighter future, backward to a past that was better than today.

I realize this is an oversimplification, but when you think about it, we are living in a time when the exceptions are few. This is the very nature of the polarized social climate that we live in today.

If you happen to be in the latter group, that’s fine, but indulge me for a moment if you will to consider how we got where we are today… We did not arrive here because of leadership that wanted to take us to an earlier time, we arrived where we are today because of leadership that looked forward to a brighter future. Can you honestly say that life in the 16th century, 15th century, 100 A.D., was better than it is today? I you consider that honestly, I think you have to conclude that looking forward is the very nature of man, and it is the capacity that allows us to evolve. It is to be pedantic, our future.

Differences

Of course this is a weak metaphor. But if you examine the two municipalities carefully, I think it’s hard to deny this. Central Oregon is a marvelous place. Working man’s town (Redmond). Vacation/Retirement paradise (Bend). Kitschy cute tourist town (Sisters). Classic rural ghost town (Brothers). You really can’t go wrong here.

Decision Making

I’m a big fan of David Brooks. His writing for The Atlantic is wonderful. He recently wrote a piece describing three decision making strategies. Here they are in a nutshell (in my words):

1. I’m smatter than you; I make decisions when I “feel them in my bones.”
2. I will make decisions based on analysis of facts and data.
3. I understand and can exercise the art of compromise.

Note: I’m sure you have noticed we are currently suffering a plague of bad decision making because strategy #1 is the prevailing methodology in use today by our administration in Washington D.C.

What David Brooks does so well is take a position and not only explain it, but do so in a fashion that is both erudite and also beautiful.

Of course the position I’m referring to here is his support of strategy #3. Before I share his words, which I am quoting because I could not improve upon them, let me set them up so they stand more firmly on their own.

Lord Halifax, the Anglo-Catholic reformer in late 17th Century England was often criticized as being a “Trimmer.” At the time, “a Trimmer” was a disparaging term used to describe someone with no clear course either for or against some position. The figure of speech is a reference to someone who trims the sails of a ship in order to capture the most favorable winds. Of course this is a common practice in sailing, but during Lord Halifax’s time the exercise of compromise in politics was considered anathema.

Here is why the exercise of compromise is so important. In David Brooks’ own words:

“The Trimmer understands that reality is more complicated than any single person can comprehend, and therefore he insists that no decision be taken until there has been a collision of diverse views. He maintains trust and communication with the broadest possible range of stakeholders but refuses to be owned by any of them. He governs through cooperation and compromise, not through domination and fear. His greatness comes in the art of holding his nation together, not in the exercise of arbitrary power. He perceives that if a leader loses the affection of his people, he can no longer govern except by threat of violence.”

It is my personal opinion that weak minded people (non-thinkers) prefer to follow people who use decision making strategy #1 because that makes life simpler for them and they don’t need to do any work on their own. I believe the smartest among us use decision making strategy #3 with input from people that fall into category #2.

The Game Within the Game

_ There is little to be gained by getting angry. There is always something we can do to adjust our behavior to avoid becoming a victim of anger._

I play pickleball with a woman that always turns her back on the court when she walks back to the baseline to get ready for her next serve. She is completely oblivious to what is going on around her. When returning the ball to the serving court after a point, we all tend to pick up the ball and toss it, expecting the serving player to grab it on the way back to the baseline. Not so with this woman. It invariably rolls past her and now she has to walk an additional distance behind the baseline to retrieve the ball. This slows down play even more. It’s frustrating and I’ve seen other players get frustrated with this behavior. I’ve seen people tell her to pay attention but the comment seems to be lost on her. I’ve decided to take a different approach. I’ve turned this otherwise frustrating behavior into a game. When I pick up the ball I hold it in my hand until she is almost to the baseline, I then roll it slowly back to her and try and time it so the ball rolls up to her feet just seconds after she turns around to face her opponents. It’s almost as challenging as the game itself. I guess you could call that an example of the “game within the game.”

Happiness

How do you gauge the happiness of the human species — taken as a whole — now vs. 100, 200, 1,000, 4 million years ago? I’m not aware of any scientific study that has addressed that question (or possibly could). We know from recent studies that a greater percentage of the population is “unpartnered” than when the first study of this phenomenon was undertaken. What does this mean to our species? It has been recently postulated that in the last four million years of human evolution, two events have had a dramatic effect on the species perception of intimacy. The agricultural revolution and the internet revolution. Each of these watersheds, in their own way, have led us towards a decreased need for monogamous bonding and have (presumably) led to a decline in long term intimacy. This could potentially having a blow-back effect on reproductive trends.

Will the human race become extinct? Will a handful of people with the resources live forever and the rest of us die off? That is anybody’s guess. I think the real point here is happiness. Happiness will be the driving force which chooses our path as a species. Let us think about happiness and how important it is not only to our personal survival, but the survival of all of us.

National Security

Guess what? Socialism is good for National Security. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check back with me in 10 years. You’ll want to buy me a drink…

Political Language

In George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language, he warns us:

“Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservative to anarchist — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

This is as true today as it was in 1946. All people need to be aware of this propensity of politics, but there is even more to be aware of. With the increasing use of AI in all forms of human communication, this problem is only going to get worse. The species needs to be careful when it comes to speech in all forms, else we become little more than slaves to communication, rather than masters of it.

Premeditatio Malorum

Latin for Premeditation of Evils.

It’s good to ask in advance what can go right about this plan? It’s also good to ask in advance what can possible go wrong about this plan? Unless you are able to see both sides of the coin, and in particular the latter, you aren’t allowing yourself a “Plan B.”

TDOV

Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility. Today is internationally recognized as a day to celebrate transgender people, their accomplishments and the barriers they confront in many societies. Sadly, it seems to me, those barriers are greater in the United States than they should be. Perhaps our political climate (Trump, MAGA and their entourage of toadies) makes the discrimination more visible to us. Perhaps that discrimination has always been there, just not used as a political weapon like it is today. I hope that someday we will, all of us, even those mentioned above, wake up and look at one another through open and caring eyes.

To celebrate this day I’ve ordered a copy of “The Lilac People,” by Milo Todd. I will begin reading it as soon as it arrives. This is a novel about a trans man in WWII Germany and his struggle to survive first the Nazis then the Allies, all the while protecting the ones he loves.

Prevarications

No President of the United States has ever lied to the American people more than has Donald Trump. If you wear a red hat you don’t have to believe me. It really doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. History will be the final arbiter and it is highly unlikely that history will not confirm that conclusion.

I find it ironic that the term “fake news” is shouted from the rooftops to deny something that has actually happened, while often explanations with no substance in reality are handed to excuse some decision or event. What is even more astonishing than this irony, is the fact that there is a large segment of the population that eats these statements up (both of them).

For those of you who may be curious: “Prevarication is the act of intentionally deviating from the truth, lying, or avoiding giving a direct answer in order to mislead.” That is the trifecta of deception.