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I write so I know what I think.
Joan Didion
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Don’t explain your philosophy, embody it.
Epictetus
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To know is passive; to understand is to be able to act
on one’s knowledge.
Aldous Huxley
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When forced with a difficult question, we often answer
the easier one instead, usually without noticing.
Daniel Kahneman
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When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good
measure.
Goodhart’s Law (Interpreted)
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An obsession is a pleasure that has attained the status
of an idea.
Balzac
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This tradition of the State of
the Pete letter started during my gradual school years. I was writing holiday
cards as I was waiting for my simulations to run, and it has evolved into these
overly long and verbose tomes. My friends have told me they liked it, and I was
not going to not believe them, so I have continued the tradition. It has grown to be more than just a letter of update;
it is a snapshot of my thinking and opinion over the year. This has become one
of my favorite quotes of all time: ”I write to find out what I think” from Joan
Didion, who has just passed away recently. This exercise has been the means for
me to integrate my disjoint thoughts and summarize the year, as most humans are
wont to do at the end of the year. I have tried to steer this away from being a
paean to me, as anything written about personal thoughts will de-evolve into;
you, my friend, are the ones who need to decide it I am successful in that
endeavor.
This letter is anything but an
extemporaneous output, which is what I had hoped for, although this is not
quite as difficult as giving birth to a
dissertation. I have much more fun writing this than writing about controlling
motors.
My friends,
A new year is upon us. I wish you the best of the new year and
an upward trend in good fortune in these uncertain times.
As 2020 ended, I had hoped, along with the rest of humanity,
that we would finally revert to our state of existence from two years ago; that
this transient state in which we have been living is exactly that: an
unfortunate and short-lived transient; that our society can be resilient in the
face of this challenge. Alas, that is not to be, some of the persisting problems ailing us can be attributed to the perniciousness of the
COVID virus; while another part of the problem can be attributed to human
nature: our inability to trust science and our inability to be altruistic to
our fellow humans.
But we will have to Be Calm and Persist in living our lives.
Mom and I
At this point in 2020, my mother was still in a
rehabilitation home just minutes from our house. She had fallen in July of 2020
and had broken her pelvis in two places and her hip in one place. She finally came
home in February of 2021. I am happy to say that she is doing well, scooting
around the house with her walker. It wasn’t an immediate recovery however, as
the ravages of age are accelerated by the rehab home experience. The institution
was a reasonable one, they did what they could under the pall cast by the
pandemic: I could not see her, or even enter the facility, and we had to communicate
with each other by cell phone while looking at each other through the window. As
those of you who know my mother, she is a tough woman in a tiny package so she
persevered. The only fortunate result was that she was one of the first people
who received the initial vaccine. She has also been recently boosted.
Mom is now back at home, rarely venturing out because it is
difficult for her to leave home, as well as living with a healthy dose of
precaution. She only goes out for doctor’s appointments. Otherwise, she spends
her time watching Chinese soap operas and tracking the stock markets’ daily
troughs and peaks. She puts up with my cooking, which I must admit is getting
better as I get to practice the culinary arts, if you can call it that. The
long time away from the practice of cooking has eroded her skills, and she
needs help to remember certain tricks. Occasionally, she will get frustrated
with what I am putting out and she would make her own favorite dishes, those
are good days. A lady from mom’s church comes in twice a week to do the
cleaning and help mom with her laundry.
I spend much of my time at home, which has its advantages
and disadvantages. Advantages are that I am around in case anything happens;
the disadvantage is that I rarely have a continuous thought for an extended
period of time.
Since her return to the house, we successfully resolved
parts of her hearing and dentistry issues. Unfortunately, she also came down
with a case of the shingles. I would not wish that on my worst enemy.
Fortunately, we are over that disaster, fingers crossed.
We are doing quite well, considering the circumstances. Mom
turned 96 this past August, we had a small celebration at home, her many nieces
and friends sent birthday wishes and cards, and we had a low-key Chinese feast.
It was an interesting experience as I did a progressive restaurant pickup run.
I got steamed flounder from one place, tiramisu from a local Italian restaurant
—mom’s favorite dessert— and the bulk of the rest of the meal was ordered from
one of the few decent Chinese restaurants in town.
She is averse to speaking on the phone these days, contrary
to her previous habit. Part of the reason is that her hearing has deteriorated,
and it is difficult for her to understand what people are saying on the phone.
The hearing aids are already cranked up to eleven.
On the other hand, she gets excited when people reach out to
her. So., I don’t know what to tell you.
Contrary to the general media reports about expanding
waistlines for the general population, I ended up losing some weight during the
last few years, at least I sustained my weight loss momentum during the
pandemic. I am down about 60 pounds in the last six years. Not bad. 40-inch
vertical, here I come! (No? Not even a
chortle? Tough crowd.) My diabetes is somewhat in control. I certainly have not
experienced any sugar lows, thank goodness.
My Engineering Life
My engineering life, or what is left of it, involves working
as the portal manager for my engineering society, the IEEE Industry Application
Society. The work is, like most work, generally monotonous, disrupted occasionally
by a sheer stress as the society conferences and time pressures pile on. I have
learned about the other parts of the IAS and more than enough about the paper
publishing world, and people’s reaction to those pressures.
I am still the chair of the IEEE Smart Grid, an organization
that exists to promote Smart Grid within the parts of the IEEE that are
tangentially related to the electric power grid, as those who are working in
the area are already well aware of the developments. We had struggled a bit
with the responses to our programs as people are just Zoomed out. What was once
popular are now lagging in interest. We have been working on changing that
perspective by creating and offering new programs. As a part of that effort, I
was asked to be the Educator in Chief of the Smart Grid Academy for the IEEE.
It sounds a whole lot more impressive that it is. I don’t do much except to
interphase between instructional designers who are completely ignorant of the
topic but well versed in producing educational materials; and the Subject Area
Experts whose areas of expertise are the completely opposite. One of the key issues is one of
communication, people are speaking in completely different vernaculars and
slangs, it is like speaking different languages. I am working along with the program manager at
IEEE Smart Grid with being the horse whisperers, iterating between the
instructional designers and the Subject Matter Experts. It reminds me of
playing telephone as children, and just about as aggravating.
One thing that I quite enjoyed is the opportunity to convene
a panel at the virtual ECCE 2021. The panel was on the intersection of
experimentation and simulation, where are the lines of demarcation, if there
are any? How do we determine the accuracy and precision of the two very
different practices and how does the engineer decide whether to trust the
experimental results as opposed to the simulation models. It is a wide-open
topic and expectedly, the panel discussion dove deeply into the granularities
quickly. Indeed, it was a completely refreshing intellectual exploration. There
were no conclusions, but it did what I wished to happen when I proposed the
panel, that we start thinking and discussing the complex topic. It was great
fun.
Teaching
I taught two classes at the University of Dayton last year,
the same classes that I have been teaching for the last few years. I think I am
at the point where more of my lectures are backed by actual understanding
rather than an equal mix of knowledge and BS.
I have come to be much more comfortable teaching about
electric power now, I have learned about the nuances with the issues, and I
have come to read the information disseminated in the media with discernment.
In fact, there is a web-based game that helps people understand the ideas of
the load profile and gives them an opportunity to play power generation planner.
I made my class play the game as a part of their class work. They seem to enjoy
it, and they have learned some valuable knowledge through playing the game.
One salient teaching experience involved the higher-level
power system analysis class. I only had five students in the class, the class
was intended to be a hybrid but four out of the five were taking the class
virtually, so I made it a virtual class. Three of the students were working
engineers from Kabul Afghanistan, all three were Fulbright scholars. Since they
have been working in the electric power industry for many years, they are very conversant
in the area. To be honest, I think I learned more from them than they did from
me.
The energy situation in Afghanistan is significantly
different from the electric energy situation here in North America, the
challenges that they face and the solutions that they are implementing. There was
a moment of clarity and sheer terror when one of them emailed me to ask my
forgiveness for not attending the Zoom class because the internet disappeared
as the location where he was at was being bombarded. It was a learning
experience for me to have had the opportunity to interact with them. The good
news is that all three are now in Dayton trying to finish their graduate
degrees through the Fulbright. They arrived on August 1 of this year. Kabul
fell August 15. Now it is a race for them to finish their degrees and find work
here in the US.
Volleyball
As with all things this year, the state of volleyball was
affected, both in my small epsilon neighborhood of club coaching as well as
with the larger world involving college and Olympics volleyball.
I took a regional team this last season because I could not
travel on overnight trips, not being able to leave my mom alone overnight. The
coaching part was de rigueur, we did everything as we always had, we
took great care with the new practice of wiping the volleyballs down, taking temperatures
of everyone that enters the gym, wear masks when we are not practicing, and
learning to deal with missed practices
because of quarantines. The difficulty
comes with dealing with the mental and emotional part of training a team. Emotions
ran high, and the team survived while dealing with the uncertainties and the
inevitable upheavals it generated emotionally.
This regional team was generally shorter and slightly less
schooled than I was used to, but most were eager to improve their skills. We
had a difficult challenge to start the season when my setter, the one who
didn’t want to set, ruptured her Achilles tendon at the first tournament of the
season. One of the DS stepped up to set a 5-1 for the rest of the season and
she did wonderfully well. The team improvised and transformed their games to
help her be more productive, bettering the ball became our raison d’etre.
We lost, a lot in the beginning of the seasons, but we had improved
considerably at the end of the season. The improvement came at a good time
because we were all exhausted by the end of the season, and I don’t think we
could have persisted any longer than we did.
As far as the watching of the game, we had the unique
situation of the 2020 season being played in the beginning of 2021, with most
D1 college teams playing, but not all, due to each school’s response to the
pandemic. Many matches were cancelled, the natural ebb and flow of the season
were constantly disrupted. The inspiring part was that everyone persevered,
which makes all of us volleyball dorks very happy. In a twisted way, it
reinforced our belief in the sport, and it validated our devotion and
dedication to the game. It showed us that the game matters to us: the coaches,
the players, and the fans. The whole playoff was played in a bubble without
spectators. The reaction from the players and coaches was that the single site
tournament brought out the best of the players and the coaches. They felt that
they were able to focus because there were no distractions. It was a monk like
existence: eat, sleep, rest, play, and train. The NCAA continued to treat
women’s sports as an afterthought: the training accommodations were dismal; the
matches were played atop plastic tiles that served as padding over concrete.
Yet these women persevered. University of Kentucky won the 2020 championship in
a dominant fashion.
The actual 2021 season was played as a traditional season, just
a few short months after the end of the 2020 season with very little time for
rest in between. The 2021 finals finished in mid-December. It was probably the
best level of play ever, thanks to the extra year of eligibility granted by the
NCAA to those athletes that might have missed their senior season. Some surprises and some surprising
performances, both good and bad, from known powerhouses. The University of
Wisconsin won the 2021 national championship, in five, over the University of
Nebraska. Five very taut sets. The high level of play and the amount of defense
played by both teams in the final match made Pete a happy man, even though I
was not able to watch it in person.
My two alma maters both made it into the final 64 team
bracket. Georgia Tech lost in the elite 8 and Illinois in the sweet sixteen. I
am a doubly happy man.
I did manage one day in Columbus for the coach’s convention,
hanging out with my friends and socializing like I had not done in two years,
as last year’s convention was canceled, and I was not able to travel to the
2019 convention. I felt truly fortunate to be in the Greater Columbus
Convention Center. Seeing old friends and telling the oft told tales of yore
was comforting to me. The capper was having dinner with my partners in crime,
the people I partnered with when we started the St. Louis Elite Volleyball
Club. Time flowed backwards and I felt like twenty years had melted away in a
blink.
The final four and the coach’s convention did turn into a
super spreader event. Both teams who played in the finals were hit with
infections, Omicron had a field day in Columbus. Even as the city of Columbus
had a mask mandate, most of the people I saw at the exhibit hall were unmasked.
I, however, escaped. I need to go buy a lottery ticket.
The Olympics comes once every four years, in this case five
years. Those athletes who had planned on retiring after 2020 had to extend
their athletic careers one more year, a single year which carried a significant
amount of challenges and hardship. My friend John Kessel had wanted to go out
with leading the USA Volleyball’s Paralympics team in 2020 and had decided to
stay another year to fulfill his wish. Unfortunately, the powers in USA
Volleyball decided for him and forced him into retirement because they had a
crap financial model. A loyal soldier for the volleyball cause was thus unceremoniously
sent packing. Yes, I am still bitter for John.
The road to Tokyo was fraught with landmines, although the
results were spectacular on the women’s side. All the women’s team: indoors,
beach, and sitting teams all earned gold medals. It certainly was not easy. The
coaches made difficult decisions and had to leave deserving players back home,
and once they arrived in Tokyo they had to isolate and live in the Olympic
bubble, cut off from all fans and the usual fanfares.
I religiously watched all the USA matches, men, and women,
indoors and beach. Indeed, since this is a once in a quadrennial celebration of
athleticism, I indulged in watching as many volleyball matches as I could. It
was a lot of matches. My enthusiasm never waned. My energy did however. Old age
sucks.
The USA women’s indoors team has historically had an uneven
history; even though historically we had some of the best volleyball athletes
in the world, yet the gold always seemed ridiculously elusive. The trials and
tribulations they had to endure to finally finish with a gold was the
culmination of many fan’s dreams, especially this fan. I had written a blog
post describing my feelings a week after
the USA women’s won the gold. It was an emotional roller coaster, which made me
an emotional wreck. Here is the blog post.
https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2021/08/ruminations-why-did-i-cry.html
I then wrote the following a few
weeks after the end of the Olympics. It was one of the more satisfying
overthinking episodes in my life. It pulled together a few things that I had
been working on, it also allowed me to try to explain all that I had learned
and express it in something that is close to being coherent. I hope.
https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2021/08/an-appreciation-of-karch-kiraly.html
The BIG Topic: Books
Being a Curious Polymath
It is no surprise that I spent a lot of time reading in the
last couple of years. The central theme that dominated my reading can be
roughly be aggregated into the areas of learning and cognition. I read many
books on teaching and learning as I was embarking on this teaching career. I
was also learning about coaching and how to best leverage the most recent research
results about learning. I dug into a number of books which I had referred to
and reviewed previously. One of the books was by Doug Lemov, about teaching
online, a most timely book. I was to find out that he also had a book titled: The
Coaches Guide to Teaching (Lemov 2020),
which I found enlightening and very useful.
In parallel to that book, I read Scott Grafton’s Physical
Intelligence, which introduced me to the connection between decision making
by the human responses and the body actuation of the body parts, which incorporates the ideas
of Systems 1 and 2 as defined by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow. Culturally,
I was reading about the idea of wu-wei, a Chinese concept which can be
directly translate to flow in
western vernacular. In the mean time I had
bought the following books because they seemed interesting: Mind In
Motion by Barbara Tversky (Tversky 2019), The Extended Mind by Annie
Murphy Paul (Paul 2021),
and Brainscapes by Rebecca Schwarzlose (Schwarzlose 2021).
On another front, Steven Strogatz, the mathematician and
author, had recommended Sparks of Genius (Root-Bernstein 1999) on Twitter. I was
dubious, but with time on my hands I bought that book as well. This one changed
my position about being able to “teach” creativity. The book opened my
perspective on what constitutes innovative thinking, it allowed me to
extrapolate the 13 tools listed in the book from various contexts cited in each
chapter into various milieus. It made a much more profound impact than I
thought was possible.
I was able to integrate and synthesize the disparate information
presented in these books, as they seem to intersect with one another; concepts
that were seemingly decoupled seem to be closely related once seen from a
different angle and under a different light. The synthesis of ideas is what has
been exciting to me, this reminded me of my favorite part of the doctoral
experience: the research, the analogizing, the practice of transforming
concepts as I mentally twisted, turned, and morphed them into a new whole, and
then taking that whole all apart again after the new conjecture proved to be unsatisfactory
and then doing it all over again. It is exhilarating.
As a result, I am digging into the granularities of the
cognitive science. I do realize that I am entering the area through the mass
market literature and that I am not digging into the primary literature. Mea
culpa. First, this is much more entertaining, writer for mass market
literature take more care in writing for the general audience, which means I am
engaged and remember more of the material than if I was reading dry textbook
material; second, I am not sure where I would need to start if I tried to start
from the basics although I have invested in an introduction to cognitive
sciences textbook; and third, I am doing this to satisfy my curiosity, as I relish
being the neophyte at this point in my life, so I don’t really care about being
pedagogically rigorous.
I have also embarked on a digression from my digression. I
had bought The Book of Why? By Judea Pearl, a pioneer in the AI area.
Pearl had very publicly deviated from the mainstream of AI research and is
quite outspoken about the state of AI research. I wasn’t getting much traction
on that book the last few years, so I had left it alone, until I was ready. I
then bought Possible Minds (John Brockman, Editor 2019) a collection of 25
essays about AI. Judea Pearl had written one of the essays. It was edited by
John Brockman, the man behind the web site: https://www.edge.org/, a website devoted to writings by unconventional
thinkers, focused on forward thinking topics. I am feeling ready now as I have
been engrossed in the Brockman book, unless something brighter and shinier pops
up on my radar.
As a part of the reading into AI, Brockman brought my
attention to two works that I probably should have read much earlier in my
life, they would have unskewed my viewpoints on systems and controls much
earlier than now. Both books are by Norbert Wiener, one is quite famous amongst
the engineers: Cybernetics (Wiener, Cybernetics 1961). The other is The
Human Uses for Humans (Wiener,
The Human Use of Human Beings-Cybernetics and Society n.d.) We shall see how
they hold my interest.
Fun Books
Not all my readings were serious in 2021, I needed a respite
from the nonfiction books. There was a time that I read either classical
literature or whatever was on the best seller list as a diversion, but I have
grown to be more discerning. I usually follow three series: Inspector Banks
series by Peter Robinson, set in Yorkshire; Inspector Rebus series by Ian
Rankin, set in Scotland; and Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri,
set in Sicily. See the trend? Living
vicariously through the eyes of the mystery book protagonists in different
cultures and places. While I still read each new book in those series, I decided
to expand my horizons and started looking for new series. I got on the LibraryThing
https://www.librarything.com/home
mystery board. The people who are on the LibraryThing site are
passionate about reading, in this case, mysteries. I came away with two new
series. The first one is set in the Dordogne in France, the main character is
Bruno, a former soldier who had fought in the Balkans. He is now the police chief in the fictional town of St.
Denis where he has settled. The mysteries are secondary to the archeological
history, culinary arts, and viticulture
of the Dordogne, as well as the gossipy interpersonal relationships of
the people in the area, as with all good mystery books there is a mini
subculture revolving around the people surrounding the protagonist. The author
Martin Walker, who now lives in the Dordogne, used to be a reporter for the
Washington Post and had covered the Balkan war, so his writing has a historical authenticity to it. http://www.brunochiefofpolice.com/
Interestingly he also has a Facebook page devoted to the series and he often
pops in to interact with the readers. I had asked him if he was going to work
in the fact that Michel de Montaigne, the writer from the sixteenth century who
created the essay writing form and was
also a citizen of the Dordogne long ago. His response: absolument. I
can’t wait.
The second major discovery is Louise Penny https://www.louisepenny.com/ and her
character Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. The books are set in the small
fictional town of Three Pines in Quebec. This one was a major discovery for me.
The writing is impeccable, it is a pleasure to read. She does, however explore
some very difficult contemporary subjects in very fecund ways. The Chief
Inspector is more than just imperfect, but he has integrity, something that has
very important to me as I get old and crotchety. This series is one that I am
reading slowly to completely enjoy the books and writing. On a side note, after
Louise Penny published her latest Gamache book, she teamed with Hilary Clinton
on a political thriller based on HRC’s experience as secretary of state under
Obama, congresswoman, and first lady. More books to read, why not.
More Readings
I have been enamored with essays as a genre for reading. One
appealing characteristic of the book of essays is that the time commitment is
relatively short. It is also personally appalling to realize because this means
that I have succumbed to the mal effects of the prevalent malady of reading in
the Twitter age: we are all having difficulty concentrating on material that
takes longer to read than an average poop. (Reference Jeff Goldblum in The Big
Chill.)
Although I have come to admit to this unfortunate cognitive
glitch, I am not giving up the fight. I am still reading, just not massive
tomes. I have been fortunate to collect books of essays over my book buying
lifetime, all based on my many curiosities, or as I was feeding my pretension
to polymathy. Perhaps I had the foresight that I would fall in love with the
essay form. Or that this is the unintended consequence of being a book hoarder.
( I kid, it is never hoarding if it involves books.)
One of the side benefits that came with reading the Louise
Penny books is that I ended up reading about her. One of the articles I read was
from the New York Times By The Book columns. In her “interview” she
mentioned that she particularly enjoyed Will Schwalbe’s Books for Living (Schwalbe 2017). It is a compendium
of essays, book reviews, and reflections on living. Schwalbe referenced Yutang
Lin’s The Importance of Living (Lin 1937)
as the anchor for his thoughts on the subject, using Lin’s very Chinese
thoughts as the basis for comparing the western view on living a life with the
Lin’s Chinese view. Yutang Lin was considered a very important public
intellectual when he lived in Taiwan, his written works were read throughout
the island. I happened to live in Taiwan at the time, even though I left when I
was very young, I still remembered that he was a big deal. I have now come full
circle.
So that is the bulk of my readings: technical articles, books
written for the layman about how the brain works and how we learn best, mysteries
set in the wine producing regions of France or Quebec, and books of essays on
anything and everything.
Music
Genesis went on what is advertised as their last tour. I
don’t doubt it, they are all over 70 years old and Phil Collins is looking very
old. They sound good on the various cell phone recordings I have seen on social
media. My first Genesis album was also my first vinyl album: Seconds Out.
My world completely changed when the stylus hit the groove. The dulcet sounds
that emanated from my Woolco special record player was the greatest sound I had
ever heard, and my musical future completely changed. While I am sad not to
have witnessed what will be the last concert tour of my favorite band, I was
glad for them to go out in a blaze of glory, even as Phil sang while sitting in
a chair because his back is chronically causing him much pain.
Springsteen sold off his masters and the rights to his
catalogue. Kind of weird since he had been very adamant about owning his music
rights ever since he got screwed by Mike Appel.
If you have not seen the podcast with Springsteen and Obama,
do it. It was raw and honest; I didn’t think either one would be so
forthcoming. A must listen.
One of the unexpected pleasures that I had discovered are
the YouTube videos from Rick Beato. He is a music producer from Atlanta, and he
makes videos about many topics, but his claim to fame is his series titled: What
Makes This Song Great? A treasure trove. I have rediscovered and
incorporated Keith Jarrett, Michael Brecker, Joni Mitchell, Lyle Mays, Pat
Metheny, Brian May, and numerous others into my playlist after watching these
videos and finding out WHY these songs are so great.
I am listening to more classical music as I work at home, I
occasionally listen to the soft jazz station on SiriusXM because soft jazz
works well as background music, until Kenny G comes on. Why doesn’t he retire
and put us out of our misery?
I usually are not too enamored with the rap genre, but I
loved watching Hamilton time and time again. I did have to turn on the closed
caption, as my brain is not as nimble as the actor’s mouths.
In the Sporting World
The white supremacist owned baseball team from Atlanta beat
the cheaters from Houston, really nothing to celebrate here, move along.
In Formula 1, the series owners decided not to follow their
own rules and put a finger on the scales for Versteppen, I don’t think I will
follow it much anymore.
Who thought the Urban Meyer experiment was going to be a successful
one? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
It is terrific to see Cincinnati get one of the four slots
on the college football playoffs.
It is also heartening to see Harbaugh finally succeed at Michigan
this season. This is a lesson in perseverance, and most importantly, of people
learning and adjusting whether the changes were voluntary or not; all in the
service of the greater good. Even though it is Michigan.
I lack respect for the lump of flesh that Illinois hired for
football. The season was less than stellar, but the key moment came when the lump
of flesh denigrated the men he was hired to lead. Not as a motivation but as an
excuse for his own failure. Do better Josh Whitman.
The less said about the Georgia Tech football and basketball
seasons the better.
It is eye opening to see how each of the professional
leagues: NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, the IOC and the NCAA handled the pandemic, what
they were willing to do and what they were not willing to do. Some of them
opted for the bubble while others did not. They all suffered cancellations and massive
amounts of positive tests. The decisions
made by these sport leagues further illustrates the true relationship between
labor and management as we know it in this time and in this place. It doesn’t
matter that the athletes are paid massive amounts of money, the management
still think of them as cogs in the machinery, their health and well-being is
only maintained as one would maintain the machinery of profit.
The machinery analogy was especially apt and the disparity
especially egregious in the instance of the NCAA tournaments in the Spring. All
the bad publicity resulting from the women’s basketball and volleyball
tournaments managed to push the NCAA towards some half-hearted amelioration
measures but it was obvious that they were not willing, they just had to do it.
Thinking in the Bubble
The last two years have been difficult for all of us. One of
most insidious part of the experience is our biological ability to adapt to any situation:
it makes us resilient and enables us to survive, but it also makes us erase the
memory of life before the pandemic so that we come to accept the negative impact on our lives as we move
forward chronologically. We all complain,
and quite often, about the hardships; but we often don’t realize how much our
behavior have deviated from the old normal to the new normal until well after new
habits have been formed. We have
adapted, which is a part of our evolutionary advantage, but sometimes that
advantage is not healthy for our mental health.
As an introvert, the artificially enforced solitude did not
affect me much initially. I enjoyed my time at home, reading, writing my blog,
and watching too much television. Subconsciously however, my behavior was
affected, adding atop the stress of dealing with the myriad of issues that
comes with being a primary caregiver. I have not consistently acted nobly in
this time, but I am making sure that the lessons from this isolation are not
wasted.
In my present state of thinking, the pandemic has shone a
new light on Stoicism which put my attempt to live the Stoic virtues to a
stringent test. Amor fati, momento mori, and the control dichotomy
became my guiding principles as I dealt with the day to day. Sometimes I fail,
sometimes I succeed, but my stress level is better managed, and I feel more at
peace.
Fallacies and Biases
The forced isolation reminds me of an often-used metaphor:
it is like hitting driver in golf. Whatever defects exists in a golfer’s swing,
hitting the driver club magnifies those defects exponentially. So it is, that
the forced isolation resulting from the effect of the pandemic has forced
everyone’s thinking to dip deeper into our own cognitive biases and logical fallacies.
This is nothing new, as Daniel Kahneman already explored the issue in his book.
Indeed, the idea of cognitive biases and logical fallacies are so prevalent
that there are websites devoted to identifying them: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/.
It is my assertion that the combination of our emotional
response to our present state of reality and our ingrained assumptions that is
a result of our biases and fallacies has caused more damage to our perception
of reality than we are consciously aware. As a simple singular data point, I
admit that some of my thoughts and my actions during the last two years have
been sometimes contrary to my personal history. For this I apologize to my
friends who have had to deal with my behavior.
Friends
As an only child in a family that moved around quite a bit
in my childhood, my social network has been very important to me, as I
religiously hang on to the barest threads of my past friendships. In many ways,
that is a psychological crutch that I depend on to buttress my mental
existence. Yet, as an only child, I also value my independence, in thought and
in the way I spend my time. Social media is actually an outlet that I treasure
as I am able to engage and disengage at my pleasure. This is part of the reason
I am very active on my social media accounts. Whereas I used the excuse that I
was attempting to stay in contact with my volleyball players, the truth is that
the connections are far more ranging than I was willing to believe. I do treasure the friendships that I have
online, it has kept me sane through these last two years.
But there is nothing like being in the presence of friends.
The distance and time which separate us melts away and we can resume our friendship. The tri-weekly coffee klatch
has enriched my life so much more than my partners in the klatch realize. My
infrequent but always welcomed meals with my former co-workers and coaches is
another example of an oasis in the social desert. My monthly Zoom cocktails
with my friends from my undergraduate days has been a welcomed boost. Even the volleyball
practices gave me jolt of excitement because of the people and friendships that
I was able to renew.
My friends have reached out to me often at the correct
moment when I needed them. I hope to have been as beneficial for them. My
mental health would have been for the worse were it not for them.
Much thanks to one and all for being my friends and for
being present.
I wish you all Peace, Health, Good Fortune, and Joy in the
New Year.
Pete
PS A gift from me to you. This is a list that I look at
daily, it is not a check box list, it is a reminder to myself that these are
the details of life that I must try to do which will make me a better person.
- Learn something
new
- Teach someone
- Be inspired
- Be vulnerable
- Be moved to
tears
- Be kind and
generous
- Experience beauty
- Experience the
unfamiliar
- Experience the
uncomfortable
- Love
unconditionally
______________________________________________________________________________
The Red Pill
Are you sure you want to do this? Here is your demarcation
point. You can take the blue pill and escape my pontification of my personal
truths/opinions. Or you can take a chance. I hope we remain friend regardless
of your choice.
Altruism
According to the Merriam Webster
Dictionary, the formal definition for altruism is as follows.
1
: unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.
2
: behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to
itself but that benefits others of its species
As I observe the state of humanity
right now, I see many whose behavior would fit easily in the first definition
of the word. We are good altruistic people as individuals. I can find evidence
of this in the numerous news reports that appears across my radar. Steve
Hartman of CBS does an admirable job of finding stories of altruistic people. I
watch, I cry, and I feel better about our collective humanity. Reporter Eric
Johnson of KOMO in Seattle has a plethora of stories through his YouTube and
Facebook channels. I watch, I cry, and I feel better
about our collective humanity. John Krasinski has his Some Good News stories
on social media which also puts out heart rending stories of generosity,
goodness, and altruism. I watch, I cry, and I feel better about our collective
humanity.
It seems, while
just looking at a very small sample space, people are great being unselfish and
being devoted to the welfare of the individuals, we are amazingly generous in
spirit, willing to share what we have materially, and we willingly donate our
time, material wealth, and external advantages to the plight of needy
individuals.
And yet.
Many of us are
horrible at the second behavior in the definition: we do not voluntarily do
things that benefits others if it
meant we could potentially hurt our own interests. There are many, those who
serve the community in their profession comes to mind. Yet, when we look
upon the great unwashed masses, the sheen comes off the word altruism for most
of us. Indeed, in Shankar Vendantam’s radio program The Hidden Brain on NPR,
he highlights how our hidden brain works or doesn’t work logically.
Time and again we will act in generous ways when the singular person or small
number of people are in need, but we would behave atrociously if it benefited a
group that is much greater in number, a group that can easily be deprived of
their collective humanity through caricature. Which is what we do, all the
time.
Why is it that
we are quick to contribute to GoFundMe campaigns for needy individuals, while
we won’t remove the bureaucratic hurdles that created the need for the GoFundMe
campaigns? Like Universal Healthcare. Like proper funding for veteran mental
health.
Why is it
necessary for restaurant workers to subsist on below minimum wage and on the
largess of their customers? Why can we not away with tips rather than embarrass
the wait staff by over tipping by orders of magnitude?
Summum Bonum is
Latin for the greatest good. It is something that we assume that we can count
on from each other. It is the foundation of our society and culture. It is the
basis for our faith in our fellow
humans, that we are working towards the greater good of our society. It is the
basis of our faith in our government.
As I had said
before, the 2016 election was a watershed moment for me, it made me question
the heart and soul of my fellow man, dramatically. My mind has not changed, if
anything, it hardened my less than charitable opinions of my fellow humans.
Mainly because not many people believe in the Summum Bonum principle anymore.
As a part of
the pandemic’s effect on the greater society, the economic phenomenon termed The
Great Resignation is uncoiling. Workers, usually critical workers, many who are
low economic status workers, are resigning in a tsunami of pent-up dissatisfaction
with the underlying economic structure which has been in place for decades. As
the advantage finally shifted towards the workers, many addle minded
conservatives ala orange point their fingers at the emergency
federal programs to help everyone through the health emergency. Their reasoning
is that the paltry $1,800 and the enhanced unemployment benefits from the
government was the cause for the work force to not want to work. The oft
repeated trope of the lazy workers getting fat from the so-called socialist
government largess is the culprit for the economic morass. They never stop to
consider that people fear the virus. They never stop to consider that it may be
a negative cashflow situation if they must pay for childcare for the privilege
of working for minimum wage. They never stop to consider that those who have
lived from hand to mouth for years may wish to change their lives for the
better, to give themselves a better future. They never stop to consider that
the economic system might not be equitable to everyone who take part in the
machinery of economic production. They never consider creating a better, more
equitable system to replace the faulty existing system. They never consider thinking
in terms of win-win, rather than punishing the least fortunate. It is intellectual
sloth, it is against the teachings of every set of religious tenets known to
humans, and yet they claim to be religious believers. Of course, they never consider Summum
Bonum.
As the nation finally begin to approach the forbidden
subject of race in America, the knee jerk reaction of the conservative ala
orange ilk is expected.
The conservative ala orange response from the Chauvin
verdict is disheartening. Once again, they wheel out the fear mongering fantasy
of public safety as a head fake, to distract, to obfuscate. They did the same
when Kim Potter murdered Daunte Wright. Even though the verdict was equivalent
for both cases: lock them up, they are guilty. I am sure the blackhearts of the
conservative ala orange are seething with fear and indignation of someone
who have lived with privilege for all their lives at the moment of the verdict
rendering. An indignation that was in full display of joy when the Rittenhouse
verdict was rendered, even as it is obvious that the trial judge significantly
put his thumbprint on the scale to Rittenhouse’s favor.
Staying on the racial front, a question: is it considered revisionist
history if it is a correction of previous revisionist history? Afterall, the
Daughters of the Confederacy created a fiction worthy of literary recognition with
its Lost Cause narrative and its insistence on the mythology of the true cause
of the Civil War. It isn’t states’ rights. It is about the buying and selling
of humans. It is amazing just how the self-professed pro-life religious right
can be so anti-life when that life has dark skin. Hypocrite much?
The topic of Critical Race Theory (CRT) has given the
conservatives ala orange a real rallying cry. Yet, we promote if not
celebrate thinking critically in our daily examination and verification of any
other theory. Except for religion, the validity of Edmund Burke’s philosophy,
the Free Market, Milton Friedman’s trickledown economics, the qualifications or
disqualifications of supreme court nominees proposed by conservative ala
orange, the Jeffrey Epstein “suicide”, or the role of the Vatican in the
coverup of child molesting priests.
A small symbolic occurrence is the dismantling of the
statuaries to the Confederate traitors from the broad avenues throughout the
south, itself an example of revisionist history as propagated by the Daughters
of Confederacy through the person of the traitor General Robert E. Lee. At
least that Confederate traitor can no longer be seen astride his trusted steed.
A short and illuminating analysis of Lee’s competence as a strategist and a
general can be found in Gen. Stanley McChrystals’ book on Leaders (McChrystal, Eggers and Mangone
2018),
he was not impressed. In fact, he shed light on Lee’s incompetence and
cruelty when Lee failed to take the responsibility of taking care of his
soldiers, as befitting a leader and military commander.
The anniversary of the most recent act of treason in modern
American history is coming up on January 6. It will be exactly one year from
the date when the mob of conservatives ala orange tried to overturn the
results of a legal election. When their efforts to gerrymander their way back
into power failed, the conservatives ala orange pouted and convince their
feeble minded true believers to overthrow the US government. I have rarely, if
ever, agreed with Romney, Cheney, Dubya, et. al. I feel indebted, however, to them for making a principled stand. The
same can not be said of most of the rest of the GOP congressional caucus who
curried favor with the orange moron in order to get re-elected.
As the sentences comes down of the foot soldiers of the
January 6 insurrection, I am hoping, beyond all hope, that those congressional
traitors will also be sentenced and penalized. I am looking at you Turtle boy, McCarthy,
Jordan, Greene, Nunes, Cruz, Boebert, et. al.
Works Cited
John Brockman, Editor. Possible Minds-25 Ways of
Looking at AI. New York: Penguin Press, 2019.
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow. NYC:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.
Lemov, Doug. The Coach's Guide to Teaching. Clearwater,
FL: John Catt Educational Ltd, 2020.
Lin, Yutang. The Importance of Living. New
York: William Morrow and Company, 1937.
McChrystal, Stanley, Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone. Leaders:
Myth and Reality. New York City: Penguin, 2018.
Paul, Annie Murphy. The Extended Mind-The Power of
Thinking Outside the Brain. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021.
Root-Bernstein, Robert and Michele. Sparks of
Genius-The 13 Thinking Tools pf tje World's Most Creative People. New
York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Schwalbe, Will. Books For Living. New York:
Alfred Knopf, 2017.
Schwarzlose, Rebecca. Brainscapes. New York:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021.
Tversky, Barbara. Mind In Motion-How Action Shapes
Thought. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2019.
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics. Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1961.
—. The Human Use of Human Beings-Cybernetics and
Society. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, n.d.
