Life On A B-I7

Journal Entry (Saturday January 21, 2023)

I’m happy. Not just today, I mean in general. Like yesterday too… At certain times, something will hit you. I know someone I love that would chide me for what I’m about to say. (It’s all a matter of perspective I suppose.) I’m going to say it anyway, there have really been few times I can think of when I have been happier, and maybe, just maybe, this is the happiest I’ve ever been.

I’m not just talking about happiness for a day or two, here or there, I’m talking about over time, a really good bit of time. Will this be sustainable? Of course over time nothing is easy to sustain. It’s called entropy. Everything has a tendency to devolve. Even so, I don’t really look at this feeling that way. The feeling I have now is both comfortable and eager at the same time. Comfortable in the sense that I have confidence (more than in the past) that the life I’m living now is sustainable. Eager in the sense that I want to not only continue sustaining it, but more importantly, make it better.

There is no doubt in my mind, the person closest to me is a big part of the reason for this happiness. This is my thanks to her.

Journal Entry (Friday January 20, 2023)

“Receive without conceit; release without struggle.”

—Marcus Aurelius

Journal Entry (Thursday January 19, 2023)

Yes, it’s that time again. I am officially a year older. Time I suppose to look back on the previous year and reflect. Here goes. It was the best year of my life. A ridiculous thing to say, but ok, it hasn’t been that bad, really, maybe the best, you never know! I’ve learned a few things, especially about myself. What can be better than that? I’m looking forward to the next year of life. What can be better than that? If I can say all of this a year from now, I will win the prize again!

Journal Entry (Wednesday January 18, 2023)

What is the role of philosophy in life, if not to change your life. I suppose it is a bit like fly fishing. You can do it and enjoy it of course, but if you do it with skill and attention, you are rewarded with dinner. Of course, what do I know, I’ve never fly fished, and I’m allergic to fish anyway. I hope this means I’ll have better luck with philosophy. Philosophy may not reward you with dinner, but there is a chance you will catch something more valuable — knowledge about yourself — and the ability to change yourself…

Journal Entry (Tuesday January 17, 2023)

How do we find worth in ourselves, are we born with it? Is it given to us? Perhaps, though probably it is inside of us. We have to reach in and pull it out. There is no other way to gain it. Unless we do that, we have nothing to give to anyone else. Life and giving is not a quid pro quo. You do it. When it comes back to you, it comes from a place freely given if it is of any value.

Journal Entry (Monday January 16, 2023)

It has been a good day. All I need to do to close out this day is clean the kitty crapper and sweep the floor. I have determined my calling for the next few months. Prepare to take on the TransAm Trail. I’m excited. I’m also hopeful the doctor will give me the green light. At my age, you never know. Arthritis is starting to set in, gotta keep moving. Isn’t that the truth no matter the age? I do worry about a few things, like why haven’t I spent a bigger portion of my life reading great works of poems, essays, and novels? Instead I read computer books. They were enjoyable, no question. They put bread on the table, no question. But what purpose do they server me now? Now I’m more interested in skiing and learning how bind books by hand than I am in learning how to stand up a Hugo website written using the Go programming language…

To evolve can be a bitch.

Journal Entry (Saturday January 14, 2023)

It is agonizing
sending a poem into the world
wondering how it will be received
like watching a child grow up
wondering about the result.

The sun rises every morning
in glorious light
when the child loves you.

The sun sets at night
into perpetual darkness
when you realize the child
has no use for you.

I have been fortunate
I see the sun rising every morning.

Journal Entry (Friday January 13, 2023)

Friday the 13th seems somewhat appropriate for this…

I wrote you a poem yesterday
(a prose poem)
I hope it didn’t scare you
it would have overwhelmed
a man on the street
walking his dog
had it been about him
I would have said something
very different
in that case
but it wasn’t about him
or his dog
the poem was about you
had I seen you on the street
walking a dog
(unlikely I know)
I would not have changed a word

Journal Entry (Thursday January 12, 2023)

This is a post long overdue. Although it is personal in nature, it reflects where I am at this stage in my life, which is simply, less afraid to share my feelings. I realize words like these can sound cliche, but this is truly my best attempt to share a realization and a feeling that has been a long time in coming, one I hope will define the rest of my life. This is the most important thing I have ever written, and probably will be the most important thing I ever write. If you stop reading here, I will have no regrets and I will be perfectly content. if you read on, do me a favor and come back to these words once in awhile, I will be doing that as well…

I’ve been asking myself lately, what is my gift. At first I was looking at this from the perspective of what is my gift to the world. That is much too broad in scope. After a few days of letting the whole idea rest, it came to me (just now in fact) that you have to look at your daily life and extrapolate from that to the world at large. Suddenly, it become clear quite quickly that there is nothing more important than you. To have found you is truly remarkable. A gift greater than I had hoped for. Not exactly true. I knew in a way too deep to depend on, that you were out there. I’m a pragmatist and a romantic. The pragmatist in me wasn’t sure I would find you, the romantic hoped that I would. Both of us got lucky. I found you. Now I realize clearly what I have wanted, what has been missing, and what I want to give going forward, that is my love to you. I suspect you know this, you are a lot smarter than I am, but it makes me feel good to be able to express this to you. Never mind that it has taken me as long as it has to find you and for me to realize what my gift is, that’s how things work I suppose. Now that I realize what my gift is — to love you, I also realize the gift that has come to me, the gift that I treasure above all others, your love for me. These two things have brought me to a place never before experienced, where I want to reside, a place from which I can share myself. So the gift I give to you, and the one you share with me, is now also the gift I give to the world…

Journal Entry (Wednesday January 11, 2023)

ALTA

Another Long Tirade (on being a writer) Again

I can’t even begin to imagine what it would take to be an author, to write something that is remotely good enough to be recognized as literature. I have said in the past I would love to be a writer. But (1) you should not confuse “writer” with “author.” I am a writer (of sorts) not an author. The difference of course is like the difference between night and day. What I do, what I call writing, takes no real skill, all it takes is the willingness to embarrass yourself. To be an author takes real work, not to mention skill, probably beyond my current abilities for sure, and likely beyond my capacity. Perhaps if I had realized at a young age how much I enjoy doing this — stringing words together — I might have been able to make the commitment to become a writer with a story worth sharing (of course there is no guarantee of that). The reality is that given my current age, that goal is more than likely out of my reach. I don’t have twenty or thirty years to reach that lofty height. (It has taken 50 years just to learn how to get my weight forward on my skis, and I’m only successful in doing that a small percentage of my time.) Becoming an author would be something that would likely take even longer…

(1) Can you start a sentence with the word “but?” Part of becoming a (good) writer is learning a bit about grammar. I’m definitely behind on that score. After all, I’ve spent my life as a computer programmer. Programming languages are not known for complex grammar, the English language is a marvelous exception. Apparently it is okay to start a sentence with the word “but.” If Herman Melville can do it, then I suppose I can. To justify that, I give you the following quote:

“Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep; and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to turning in, I took my heavy bear-skin jacket…”

The bottom line here is, yes, you can do it as long as the sentence can stand on its own two legs without the use of the “but,” and as long as you don’t over use it. However, it should probably be avoided in Grand Jury reports, Supreme Court Opinions and other documents more formal than blog posts… unless you are Herman Melville…

Journal Entry (Tuesday January 10, 2023)

I need to… realize am evolving.

I need to… send myself gratitude for where I am and where I am going.

I need to… take time to examine the path I am on.

I need to… give the past its due then let it go.

I need to… trust the future has great things in store for me.

I need to… rest in the current moment.

I need to… contemplate these things nightly.

Journal Entry (Monday January 9, 2023)

Skiing is like life.
There’s a right way and a wrong way.
You can do it either way you want.
How you choose to do it
is largely a matter desire and effort.

Journal Entry (Sunday January 8, 2023)

The “Remains of the Day” is now just “the remains,” period. I did not enjoy this book but something drove me to finish it. I think it was my desire to find out how a book so boring could be brought to an end. I was hoping for something dramatic and satisfying but was disappointed, for that I should not be terribly surprised.

The author is talented, there is no question. The story was an excellent portrayal of a self-deluded, not so bright man, who dedicated his life to the service of people not truly worthy of his efforts while denying himself the only chance of love that came his way. The author had the speech and vernacular of a 20th century British man-servant down perfectly. I felt sorry for the protagonist throughout the entire excruciating journey. I think the author simply wanted me to ask myself a few questions of my own. 1) What am I dedicating my life to? 2) In what ways am I deluding myself? 3) What is it I should be doing to correct any insights I gained by examining questions 1 and 2. The author did a masterful job of keeping his intent for me largely unexposed until the very last page of the book.

Sometimes you have to work hard to get to the answers, I think that is what this book was all about.

Journal Entry (Saturday January 7, 2023)

I’m going to take a few days off. I’m taking my laptop with me, but I don’t know if I will get a chance to do any writing. I’m taking the time to visit friends and family, ski, and do some warm weather mountain biking a bit south of here. As far as reading goes, I hope to finish “The Remains of the Day,” and give you my final review of that work (don’t hold your breath, it may turn out I’ve already said all that I think needs to be said about that.) Along the lines of self-improvement, I hope I will finish reading “Do I Make Myself Clear.” It’s my hope that there will be something in that book that will make me a better writer. I’m sure there is, will I be able to apply that something is the question. Finally, I would also like to finish “Snow Falling on Cedars,” it’s on my 2023 list of books to read. If I finish reading it on this trip I’ll be off to a great start on completing this year’s reading list.

Wish me luck. I’m looking forward to these next few days and I’m also looking forward to 2023 in general. I think it’s going to be a great year.

Cheers!

Journal Entry (Friday January 6, 2023)

I continue to wade my way through “The Remains of the Day.” I’m well aware that I shouldn’t be wasting my time on a book that doesn’t speak to me, and this one certainly doesn’t. I suppose the biggest problem I have is I can’t believe a person can be as self-deluded as the protagonist appears to be in this work. He is humble to a fault, generous beyond expectation, and gracious enough to make even the nicest people I know vomit. I’m waiting to see if the protagonist realizes his “faults,” but I don’t anticipate that is where the author is taking me. I keep reading because I want to find out why this book won the Nobel Prize in Literature and why the Boston Globe called it “one of the 10 best books of the decade.” I’m not going to wait until I get to the end to answer that, I’ve decided to ask the internet…

What a marvelous thing the internet. I have now been schooled along the following lines. According to a CNBC article (my first hit) the author is touching on the theme of “self-delusion.” (Well, I feel a little better, that is exactly what I was saying in the opening paragraph, before I hit up the internet for a second opinion.) The article claims Ishiguro is a mix of Jane Austin and Franz Kafka. I have no desire to read Jane Austin. Kafka I get. My exposure to Kafka in the past has left me confused and just a little depressed. I don’t expect “The Remains of the Day” to be a whole lot different. (There is a movie version of the book starring Anthony Hopkins. I may have to watch it just to torture myself a bit more, and because I like Anthony Hopkins.)

The Nobel Prize in Literature is considered the most prestigious literary award. It would be fascinating to ask the judges why this deserves to be ranked with Hemingway and Solzhenitsyn. The prize in literature is one of five prizes awarded annually. The literary award goes to “the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.” Okay. Whatever. There is some chatter that the Nobel committee may not be the best judge of what constitutes literature deserving of such an important distinction as the Nobel Prize. I’m in no position to comment on that but you can probably hazard a guess what my opinion on that is. Apparently today’s academy places a priority on what it calls “the pioneers.” It seems to me “The Remains of the Day” is more about perfection of a form (a study in manners) rather than a pioneering form, unless by pioneering they mean raising a form to new levels of perfection (not to be confused with boredom). The committee also gives attention to “unknown masters” which may be a factor in the Academy’s choice here. I can’t argue on that score because this is my first exposure to Ishiguro, I haven’t read any of his other work. When I look at the list of recipients of the award, I’m left with the conclusion that I’m hardly a judge of fine literature and certainly not one to raise a serious objection to the academy’s decision making process. I just hope that Ishiguro uses the substantial monetary award received for this work to write a truly great novel about baseball, bicycling, or skiing.

Journal Entry (Thursday January 5, 2023)

What does it mean to be a writer? It’s not about the act of writing per se, or the product of the writing effort, these flow from the true task of writing. The true task of writing is finding things to write about that have value, or to put it another way, having something to say. When I can’t think of anything to say, I pick up a book and have a good read, often that leads me where I need to go, before I know it, I am putting pen to paper. The part about your words adding value can be a bit tricky. Once the “something to say” is realized, recognizing that it actually holds value for people other than yourself is the final ingredient. I’m still working on the second part.

Journal Entry (Wednesday January 4, 2023)

Change is hard. Not only that, but you can expect it to be uncomfortable. I want to drink less coffee, but what am I going to do instead when I want another cup of coffee after I have already had two or three? I want to row and do yoga daily, but that is as hard to get started as changing the coffee routine. (I have to take a break now for my third cup of coffee.) I suppose if it feels uncomfortable it is probably worth doing. Perhaps a good way to accomplish change is to break it down into small steps or increments. Saying to myself that I am going to start rowing and doing yoga is not granular enough. Something easier, and at the same time more concrete, might produce better results.

I’m taking a break to think about this a bit more, and have my fourth cup of coffee.

I think the approach to take is one that uses small two-minute steps. These are easy to do daily and lead to establishment of the new habit. For yoga, I’ll start by getting out the mat. For rowing I’ll get on the machine and row for no more than two minutes. It also doesn’t hurt to have a goal that can only be achieved by establishing the new habits, in may case I want to do these things so I can take a bicycle trip in the Spring.

I think I have a plan! I’m going to celebrate with a cup of coffee!

Journal Entry (Tuesday January 3, 2023)

I thought it would be fun to calculate the reading level for some of my recent entries. The results shown below use the  Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level Calculator. I’m happy with the results. I like the idea that my writing is accessible to most people. There is one caveat that has to be kept in mind, the calculator measures the reading level based on word length and the structure of the sentences. That does not mean the thoughts presented in the sentences make sense to the reader… Hopefully mine do, at least most of the time…

• Friday December 30, 2022
  • Reading Level: 6th grade Easy to read
• Thursday December 29, 2022
  • Reading Level: 7th grade Fairly easy to read
• Wednesday December 28, 2022
  • Reading Level: 8th & 9th grade Plain English
• Monday December 26, 2022
  • Reading Level: 7th grade Fairly easy to read
• Sunday December 25, 2022
  • Reading Level: 8th & 9th grade Plain English
• Saturday December 24, 2022
  • Reading Level: 7th grade Fairly easy to read
• Friday December 23, 2022
  • Reading Level: 6th grade Easy to read
• Thursday December 22, 2022
  • Reading Level: 6th grade Easy to read
• Wednesday December 21, 2022
  • Reading Level: 7th grade Fairly easy to read

If you average these scores you get a reading level of 7.2. Good for blogs, not so good for graduate school. It does raise an interesting hypothetical question, could you write a passing graduate school paper if it used a reading level of 7.2?

Today’s Reading Level score (first and last paragraph) is 8th & 9th grade.

Journal Entry (Monday January 2, 2023)

What makes Trump such a good speaker? His followers will tell you it is because he “tells it like it is.” Loosely translated, that means he is providing a picture that can easily be grasped by his listeners and shared with their friends at a later date. He is not making an attempt to convey truth, in fact if there are any truths being expressed it is most likely an accident. What he is doing, he’s doing in a marvelously simple way. He uses repetition and alliteration to deliver ideas, that, even if they make no sense when exposed to the light of critical thought, they are easy to digest and regurgitate. Take as an example the following:

We have to stop illegal immigration. We have to do it. We have to do it. And when I hear some of the people that I am running against, including the Democrats. We have to build a wall, folks. We have to build a wall. And a wall works. All you have to do is go to Israel and say is your wall working? Walls work.

It is impossible to find a truth in the preceding statement. There isn’t a single one lurking there, passing as a thought that might accidentally be discerned as truth. What it contains, is a lot of repetition and assertion of thoughts where no supporting fact has been established. As Harold Evans puts it, his audience is “seduced by his insistent certainty.” It is probably dangerous to say this style of speech is designed to appeal to a specific segment of the populous, but that is exactly what it is designed to do.

 Flesch Kincaid Calculator

Flesch Kincaid Score for my words:

• Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.9
• Flesch Reading Ease Score: 62.2
• Reading Level: 8th & 9th grade (Plain English)
• Average Words per Sentence: 17.5
• Average Syllables per Word: 1.5

Flesch Kincaid Score for Trump’s words:

• Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level: 1.4
• Flesch Reading Ease Score: 97.9
• Reading Level: 5th grade (Very easy to read)
• Average Words per Sentence: 7.3
• Average Syllables per Word: 1.2

Journal Entry (Sunday January 1, 2023)

My daughter’s request to share with her my list of favorite reads got me thinking… what should I read in 2023 that likely would end up on that list once I had a chance to absorb them…. Here’s what I came up with. I’m going to limit myself to ten, there is no guarantee I will actually get through these this year, but it is a worthy new year goal, don’t you think? I’ll probably end up watching that many Netflix crime dramas, so I might as well read that many books…

• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• Candide by Voltaire
• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
• The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
• Rabbit, Run by John Updike
• Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
• Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

I probably should have chosen twelve books to make it a little easier for me to keep track of my progress, i.e., one per month. Having only ten books on the list is probably going to make it difficult for my simple brain to know how I am progressing at any given point in time…

Journal Entry (Saturday December 31, 2022)

My daughter asked me to send her a list of my top 30 favorite reads. That is a tall order. It would take many more than these to draw up a complete list of my favorite reads, but I consider these a good start.

In no particular order…

• Swiss Family Robinson by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• The Trial by Franz Kafka
• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
• The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Brave New World by Aldo’s Huxley
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
• Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami

I said these were in no particular order, but in fact they are listed here in the same order they appear on the website The Greatest Books. There is one exception, “Killing Commendatore,” which I added myself because in my opinion it is an oversight by the list maker. Murakami’s books “IQ84” and “Norwegian Wood” did make The Greatest Books list. There are 2,688 books on The Greatest Books list (in case you were curious).

Journal Entry (Friday December 30, 2022)

I’m reading “The Remains of the Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro. This book ranks 168th on the list of best books of all time (1) and it won the Nobel Prize in Literature, but it’s still boring. (2) It’s a story about a Butler in England. If you can think of anything less interesting than that, good for you, I can’t. Oh, it’s well written. The author has the British upper-crust manner of speech down to a tee. I think that Is precisely what causes this book to drag incessently. I’ve read that you should never be afraid to put down a book that you don’t find interesting, there are too many in the world to spend your time reading one that does not speak to you. Generally, I subscribe to that philosophy. But for some reason I can’t put this one down, even though it is annoying the hell out of me. The reason I suppose is that I want to find out why it is regarded so highly. I just hope I don’t get to the end and find out I regret the investment. I can tell you one thing for sure, it won’t wind-up on my list of the top reads. (See tomorrow’s post.)

(1) https://thegreatestbooks.org/?page=4 I think this should be considered a trusted source, at least as far as book lists go. The list was compiled using what appears to be a pretty sophisticated algorithm, a “list of lists” approach which probably yields good results, at lest as far as something this subjective can be calculated.

(2) In fairness, I’m only on page 43. I looked it up on Wikipedia and I’ll admit it probably gets better from here. Still, I find the “air” a bit tedious.

Journal Entry (Thursday December 29, 2022)

Sometimes you just want to write and your mind is so full of horse shit nothing of value (including this) can find its way out. The question becomes at that point, how do you settle your mind into a place where it can begin to relax and let itself associate freely. I’m working on that right now. Routine might be the answer, or rather, having a routine. Something I don’t have and desperately need. I think mine should look something like the following. (Trust me, I’m just trying this on for size and this is in no way a commitment or a new year resolution.) Get up in the morning, have coffee and make some notes about the day if anything comes to mind, if nothing does, fine. Do some yoga and row, then have a morning protein shake. After that would be a good time to sit down and write. Finally, spend some time with the cat. If I were to practice this routine, I think it would constitute a pretty good start to the day, would also be doing some good things for myself (which is the whole point I suppose). I said this wasn’t a new year resolution, but in fact that seems to be what it is… Just don’t hold me to it…

Journal Entry (Wednesday December 28, 2022)

I read recently that you have to look at life’s tasks as though they were floating in a river rather than thrown into a bucket. You will never get to the bottom of the bucket but you can pluck things out of the river as they float by. Some things will float past you but there is nothing you can do once they have drifted by. I would add to this beautiful analogy that if they are worthy of your attention, they will haul themselves out of the river and put themselves back into the current upstream to give you another opportunity to pull them out and work on them. If they are not worthy of your attention, they will drift into the ocean and you won’t have to worry about seeing them again.

Journal Entry (Tuesday December 27, 2022)

Former United States Senator Gary Hart reflecting on the impact of the events that occurred on January 6, 2020.

“We Americans are at a moment of decision. The moment began years ago, and its final resolution will depend on the outcomes of at least several more elections. By the end, we will have decided collectively whether to continue our history as a republican democracy or to begin a dramatic departure from our past with the advent, whether gradual or sudden, of an authoritarian state. In either case, our future is our choice.”

Please, think about who Trump most admires if you step into a polling place in the future and you find his name on the ballot…