A penny saved is to put off until tomorrow what you could do today.
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I visited Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida with my parents on Easter 2021. They had wanted to hear the sixty-bell carillon that plays daily. We sat in a large field of grass. Children and dogs played nearby. I was told to expect recognizable tunes, but all I could hear was rambling cacophony. It was okay. Near to the tower, it is obscured by trees, but the top of it pokes above and can be seen from miles away. The hill it is on is allegedly the tallest point in Florida outside of the panhandle. The gardens and tower are the brainchild of author Edward Bok, who hired landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted Junior and architect Milton Medary. The land was first made available to the public in 1929. The gardens themselves are only about a million square feet, but they are surrounded by orange groves and fields cut through by trails. Inside the garden area are many sub-gardens, such as the carnivorous plant garden, the endangered plant garden, and the children’s garden. There are numerous sculptures too. The Japanese lantern was a gift to Mr. Bok for his efforts in promoting world peace. People have stuffed coins into it for some reason. Everywhere are little things that make the place magical, like the bird footprints in the walkway. Even the bee houses are artistic. The numerous ponds are full of large fish, but they do not show up on camera. However, I did spy a snake! It would be impossible to take pictures of everything, but here are some highlights: My favorite section was the Hammock Hollow Children’s Garden. There is a dual entrance. One is just big enough for six-year-olds, while the other fits grown-ups. Just inside is a turtle sculpture. Different sections contain different wonders. I saw a gigantic robin nest, a sandbox, a spider web for climbing, a xylophone and other instruments, and a sand pit filled with smooth stones. On these stones were written words that could be arranged into sentences for hours. Near the nest were several tiny houses on pedestals. They reminded me of gingerbread houses, but these were built to survive the outdoors. I never did finish going down every trail before it was time to leave. This is a place one can visit again and again. There were so many wonderful things that I dared not blink for fear of missing something.
I read The Sin of Certainty by Peter Enns. It lays out the case for something I noticed long ago: Too many Christians idolize their own faith, believing that believing the right things and believing them hard enough is what wins God’s favor, rather than trusting in God’s loving nature to cover our genuine ignorance. Enns goes through things he learned over the course of his life that made him doubt what his church had told him was the correct interpretation of the Bible, and sometimes make other people drop out of Christianity altogether. It’s a short, easy book I read in one day.
While I agree with the conclusion, I noticed that part of Enns’s trouble is that he has too readily accepted the credibility of secular scholars, who are at least equally guilty of false certainties. We should question everything. A stitch in time mends a fence between neighbors.
I went several places in March of 2021. None of my tales quite classify as adventures, but if I didn’t write it down, I might think I had done nothing. Such is life. Simmons Park: One day, I returned to Simmons Park to sit and read. It was nice, but too windy to write. I saw a cat in a tree. I also saw a couple humans riding on a “ball board.” It was like a skateboard, but it had a single spherical wheel underneath and appeared to be motorized. A drone followed them from high above. Another human drove by in a fancy, three-wheeled car. The Green Zone: Looking for new places to visit, I noticed a large green area on the map. Zooming in revealed no name, so I had no way of looking it up. Switching to satellite view, I saw that it was all trees. I noticed several structures in the marshy areas that could have been boardwalks or fishing piers. The only building looked neither like a residence nor a large industrial facility. It could have been a ranger office. I couldn’t think of what the place could be other than a nature preserve. I packed a lunch and sunscreen and drove over there to see what I could see. As it turns out, it was a chemical processing facility. The only driveway had a locked gate and a no trespassing sign. Since I knew from the satellite that just south of the driveway was a large brook separating most of the green area from where I was, I thought that it might be a different property and therefore still a nature preserve. Also, since the nearby power plant maintained a park on their property, I thought this company might too. Otherwise, what is all that space for? Driving south along the edge of the woods, I noticed that this was a very run-down part of town. The houses and trailers were falling apart and people had dumped their trash along the side of the road. The forest was so choked with thick vines as to be impenetrable. It reminded me of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Could there be a princess inside for me to rescue? Finally, I came to a trail, but it was clearly not maintained. There was no sign to tell me the name of the place, nor was there a sign to tell me to keep out. There was no sign at all. There was also no good place to park. I kept driving. The next trail was in better shape, but there was still no sign or place to park. I kept driving. Then, attached to the wall of green and brown that was the forest, was a single no-trespassing sign. It was the same company that had the gate. There was no trailhead within sight in either direction. There was no way into the woods without a chainsaw. Why place the sign here? I kept driving. Finally, I came to the last trail. It was also in good shape. Again, there was no sign or good place to park. I considered just going in, since the closest no-trespassing sign was nowhere in sight. There were no fences and it was not clear where the property lines were. I could have justified going in, but I wasn’t sure whether law enforcement would see it the same way. It is always a mystery with them how they will interpret the law. I also wondered what kind of chemicals might be in there. I left. Fiddler on The Marsh: On the way home, I stopped at the Apollo Beach Nature Preserve, a small patch of beach in a rich neighborhood. I had been there many years before, but then it had been closed due to erosion. They had since reopened and I found that they had built an observation tower. That was nice. They had also fenced off the part of the beach with the big rocks. That was not nice. I used to sit on them and watch the waves. After lunch, I first entered the mangrove area where all the fiddler crabs live. They would scurry to their holes as I approached, sometimes sharing holes. One got stuck outdoors with nowhere to go until I chased it into the underbrush. They had added some new trails since I had last been here, providing access to the other side of the peninsula where boats often passed back and forth. Returning on the beach side, I walked along the high bank. One tree had its roots exposed. In the water, were clusters of sharp oysters and other shells. A small human ran up to me to show me the whole shell she had found. I was only finding bits and pieces. I did find two objects that I thought would look great on someone’s coffee table if blown up to a thousand times their volume. Art is everywhere if you know where to look. I returned to the car to finish lunch and realized that it was too hot here. It wasn’t just the parking lot; it had been hot on the sand and hot among the trees. It was draining all my energy. I didn’t even want to sit and read. I was being baked alive. I had no choice but to go home. The Golf Lands: On a cloudy day, I took a walk with my mother on a defunct, old golf course. There were many cattle egrets, white ibises, and glossy ibises, which excited my mother, and a medium-large alligator, which excited me. I also saw some fungi and a caterpillar. Along the edge of the golf course was a swamp and a jungle. I felt like I was back in the cretaceous. Leftover Trails: A week later, I returned to Ford Alderman Park to explore the trails I didn’t get to last time. First, I took the bridge over the alligator pond. It was covered in plants, but I did see one alligator face poking out. I also saw some flowers. One trail led a long way to a bend in a small river. I saw two noisy hawks. Other than that, it was pretty boring. Another trail took me on a loop through an area filled with mosquitoes. There were also those blue damselflies with the black wings. On a tree were vines and a green beetle. Heading over to the big, scenic bridge where I had seen the half-hidden “secret trail,” last time, I ran into the forest to see if anything was down there. There wasn’t much. It was overgrown and I had to keep checking the palmetto for snakes. It ran along the high banks of the river for a ways before it began to get too hard to follow. In one location, I kept smelling very strong garlic. Seeing some white flowers behind me, I braved the bees to pick one and crush it near my nose, but it had no smell at all. I never could find where the garlic was coming from, but as I wondered about it, the smell began to change to root beer. It was then that I was reminded of when I was at the gator pond. I had smelled root beer there as well, but assumed it was the perfume of the human who passed near me. Now I was confused. Returning to the maintained areas of the park, I took another trail. I was getting hot and tired and everything here seemed so dry and boring. I did see a tortoise, a skink, and countless anoles, but that was it. It was nearly dinnertime. I had to go home. I did not have time to take the six other trails branching from the ones I had already taken. Return To The Golf Lands:
I took another walk with my mother on the golf course. We saw an alligator again. We also saw seven types of dragonflies. I don’t remember seeing so many kinds in one place before. There were red ones, blue ones, and yellow ones, all with transparent wings. There were green ones with black and white stripes on their abdomens and transparent wings. There were small, dark brown ones with orange wings. There were large, dark brown ones with blotchy, orange-and-brown wings. Finally, there were black ones with wings transparent except for tiny dashes of white and black. Don’t forget to enjoy the small places. Are things getting worse or better? The numbers seem to indicate dramatic improvements worldwide in standard of living, life expectancy, economic freedom, environmental and resource management, crime rates, literacy, and much more. Things have been getting measurably better since the late 1700s. Much of this improvement only happened in the last twenty years.
Those at HumanProgress.org paint the picture better than I can. They provide graphs and link to optimistic news articles from all over. Poverty and disease are being eliminated. New discoveries and technologies are made all the time. They make you feel good. It’s a perspective that is often lacking, but necessary. For our mental health, we must temper our pessimism with optimism (and vice versa). Sometimes things can seem to get worse because of our hardwired sensitivity to danger, because we tend to become acclimated to improvements, because good news tends to be incremental and slow, and most of all because of the media we consume, but numbers don’t lie. I do wonder, though, about the details. The way things are interlinked, it often doesn’t matter how well everything else is going if one important piece of the puzzle breaks. Sometimes, this is the piece you never thought to measure. Also, good things can cause bad things and the relationships are complex. Also, I know that data crunchers have been caught lying before. Rationally, I can see many ways that things could go wrong, and many reasons to think going wrong is likely (based on understanding of fundamental processes), but empirically, I see that my scariest predictions are almost always wrong and things tend to work out in the end. Somewhere in the complexity of many things happening at once, good happens. I also know that bad things can be harnessed to create good, so that even when bad happens, it isn’t really bad. It’s complicated. I recently finished reading Brilliant Beacons, a history of the American lighthouse, by Eric Jay Dolin (2016). The book covers the upgrades in lantern technology and changes in management from colonial times forward. It mentions some of the more interesting examples of special construction on submerged ground or on the sides of cliffs. It even mentions a strange case of geese crashing through the windows of one lighthouse by the hundreds.
The book is packed full of anecdotes from the lives of the lighthouse keepers. There was the crew that stayed in the lighthouse even as ice floes broke it free from the ground and carried it around the bay. There were the many keepers who rescued people from drowning on multiple occasions. There were the keepers who got into a fight over how they wanted their potatoes cooked. Reading the book makes one think that lighthousing is a dangerous job, since so many of them have been destroyed by weather, war, and one was even destroyed by tsunami. That seems to be the theme. It is especially dangerous to shoot yourself in the foot when your foot is in your mouth.
I finally did it! I have created an online store at WayOutLife.com, where I have shirts, mugs, hats, bags, and other merchandise with my art on it. Buying my products helps me to keep doing what I do, bringing the joy and philosophy of the way out life to people everywhere. Look it over.
I like writing. In addition to managing this blog, I also post on FloraAndFaunaOfTheUniverse.com, a blog on the biology of aliens. I have been creating fictional plants, animals, and microbes my entire life and I now have enough ideas to fill several books I am still working on. I also link to the books, projects, and resources of others in this growing genre. If you have a relevant project or want your organisms featured, let me know. Use the contact form on this page.
I have started a community at locals.com for people to discuss writing, art, travel, philosophy, science, and science fiction. I hope to inspire hope, bravery, appreciation of nature, interest in science, respect for logic, and awe of the creator. This binds up all my different projects. Below is the charter:
Charting Existence is a support group for seekers of adventure. We encourage each other to recognize problems and solve them. We breed heroes. We help people find adventure and we help people see that in some ways life is already an adventure. We discuss travel, science, philosophy, and science fiction. We are all explorers. Some of us explore land and sea. Some explore space. Some explore the nature of matter and energy through experiment. Some explore the human mind through self-reflection. We are all on an expedition for knowledge, a quest for truth, and a journey to understand. This is where we swap our stories of heroism and cowardice and genius and stupidity, whether true or fabricated. Even fictional stories tell much truth about the storyteller. We use our creativity to create art. We use our creativity to recognize art, digging up the beauty in things normally passed over, and to celebrate the beauty in others. We will not ignore the bad, but will find the good hidden inside. We celebrate the wonder and intricate complexities of nature, giving glory to the creator of everything, whatever form he (she? It?) might take. Here we discuss philosophy, religion, science, math, and literature. Everyone puts forth their wacko fringe theories only to have them torn down because no finite idea can ever fully capture truth. The incompleteness theorem, the Berry paradox, chaos theory, cyclic conformal cosmology, and eternal inflation all strongly imply there will always be something outside our understanding. For all we know, the universe is infinite. In an infinite universe, the laws of probability tell us that any combination of matter allowable under the laws of physics will exist somewhere. This means that even fictional places such as Vulcan, Tatooine, Gallifrey, and Narnia actually exist. This means that there are infinitely many parallel Earths, some of them just slightly different, some of them slightly ahead or behind us in time. In an infinite universe must be beings capable of building advanced simulations wherein different laws of physics reign, allowing anything that can be coherently described. By playing the simulation forward and backward, time travel is possible. Some of these simulations may be infinitely large and infinitely old. For all we know, we are in one now. In an infinite universe are multiple infinities that will interact in potentially paradoxical and unpredictable ways, leading to situations mortal minds will not comprehend, such that even some internally contradictory ramblings might in some sense be “true.” Instead of dreaming of some magical place that might await us after death, we live it now. “That is the exploration that awaits you, not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.” – Q, Star Trek The Next Generation Spelling is the difference between having bean soup and having been soup.
It has come to my attention that nobody reads blogs. People these days want video and audio. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at these. I forget to say things I wanted to say, I lose my train of thought, and I struggle with how best to word things in a language other people will understand. I have no patience for editing and something usually goes wrong when I try. Still, I am reminded of something the Apostle Paul once said: “My strength works best in your weakness.”
I have started a YouTube channel at Way Out Dan. I talk about philosophy and draw alien creatures. Don’t worry about getting it wrong and being exposed as a neophyte; nobody else knows what they’re talking about either.
Being a leader is 1% the will to lead and 99% the will of others to follow. The best leadership skills in the world get you nowhere if surrounded by those who will follow nobody. The worst leadership skills in the world won’t hold you back if surrounded by those who will follow anybody.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So are charisma, awkwardness, grace, and leadership. I visited Alderman Ford County Park in Lithia, Florida in February of 2021. There are at least two different entrances on either side of the road. The paved path between them goes underneath the road twice in a grand loop. It also crosses multiple rivers and tiny streams on wooden bridges. A long boardwalk loop complete with covered benches attaches to one side. Small side trails cut through the jungle. It’s complicated. There are many good places to watch the river, full of whirlpools and boils. There were also turtles and cypress. I could not take every side path that day, but I had planned on returning anyways. I encountered several strange things: This tree with an eye: This tree with a face: This tree with a lap: And these scary-looking holes to Hades:
This is a poem I wrote in 2020. I imagine it roughly to the tune of Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. I wake up in the morning and it's still dark outside - yeah it's dark But I know I've got to go to work I climb out of bed, when I stand up my back creaks - so loud The dog is already running around my feet I get lost on my way to the bathroom in my own house - oh yeah So tired I could pass out standing up The clock is spinning ever faster but all I do is stare - at it, yeah I can't remember what I'm supposed to do next I need some coffee I need some coffee I need some coffee inside of me I feed the dog, the cat, the iguana, hold it, I don't have a cat - no cat Oh hell, I'll figure it out this afternoon I put on my socks, my shoes, my coat, my purse and hat - oh yeah I gotta go back inside to put on my shirt and pants The keys won't open the car, oh, these are the house keys - house keys Oh, I'm not sure this is my car I make it safely to the drive-through, I only hit the curb twice - only twice The employees ask me what I need I need some coffee I need some coffee I need some coffee inside of me The nice employees they help me, they tell me, they say Sorry ma-am, this is an oil-change bay You want the place next door Oh dear I need some coffee I need some coffee I need some coffee inside of me I recently read Love Your Enemies (2019) by Arthur C. Brooks. The main premise of the book seems to be that Americans are addicted to outrage. Most of them want to quit, but can’t. When people know little more about another than their party affiliation, it is easy to assume motives and think the worst. Brooks claims we should not only tolerate our enemies, but love them and cherish the valuable insights they bring by disagreeing with us. The process of disagreeing peacefully is the best way to get to the best ideas.
This is the extent to which I agree with the book. Beyond this I run into problems: Brooks claims that we all agree on the why, but not the what. We agree on the goals, but not on the best policies to get us there. This is what I used to believe. Then I made extra effort to reach out to people and allow them to explain themselves. Ten years later, it is now overwhelmingly clear to me that we agree on nothing. I care about removing obstacles to progress. If an individual woman wants to go into business or politics or journalism or whatever, she should be able to because everyone should be able to. On the other hand, if she wants to be a full-time mother, she should be able to do that. I care about individual liberty. Other people don’t want individual women to have the option of pursuing full-time motherhood. It is as though they feel they are “letting the team down” when women on average make less money than men. That they personally are doing well means nothing. That other women that pursue wealth are doing well means nothing. That those who make less do so by choice means nothing. They care about group parity so much that they end up hating liberty. I care nothing about group parity. Don’t tell me we want the same things! Another claim made by Brooks – so wildly false that I dropped the book in shock – Is that while people get angry disagreeing over politics, they do not get angry when disagreeing over ideas (page 297). He does not clearly define the difference between politics and ideas, but I gather that politics to him is about what party or candidate is in power, while ideas are ideas about policies or the underlying values behind those policies. These we certainly do disagree on, and these are what make me (and my opponents) several orders of magnitude angrier than I ever could be over who holds what office. Holding that the term “free market” is inherently racist is an idea I cannot tolerate (and shouldn’t). The idea of Marxism is abominable to me. It makes me mad. At the same time, my opponents get mad at me when I espouse capitalist ideas. My opponents get mad at me when I state my idea that the word marriage is heterosexual by definition. My opponents get mad at me when I state my idea that men are not women (and vice versa). People I know have stopped speaking to me over this. Another claim I found very confusing was his idea – based on the research of Johnathan Haidt – that the people on the other side aren’t evil; they simply have different moral foundations. What does the word “evil” mean, then? The word exists in the English language, so it must refer to something. I have always used it to refer to those operating on different moral foundations. This is the way everyone else uses it. Another claim that I used to believe myself is that a kind word turns away wrath. Brooks gives an example of how he responded to a critical email that worked out well for him. In my life, things rarely go so smoothly. People will twist my words over and over when I am trying to be nice. I have even been charged with harassment for nothing more than offering my emotional support and friendship to someone going through a tough time. I only contacted her once! At this point, there is absolutely no loss if I just go ahead and insult people like they deserve. On the level of national politics, being nice gets you destroyed. When Trump supporters were attacked and beaten by Antifa, unfairly targeted by law enforcement, and then watched their votes be overrun by proven fraud, they had every right to defend their lives and livelihoods by violence, yet they trusted the system and challenged the vote peacefully. As the process played out, Antifa attacked the capitol and Trump supporters were blamed for the violence anyways. There is truly nothing to lose anymore. Being nice didn’t stop the Nazis. Being nice didn’t stop the Japanese. Being nice didn’t stop the British. It won’t stop the Democrats either. Being nice has never worked in all of history. Speaking of being nice, Brooks also cites psychological studies to make his case. He cites a study showing that nice people get ahead in the workplace and in romance, while meanies do not. I have heard of studies claiming exactly the opposite. He cites a study showing that faking a smile even when we don’t mean it can make us happier in the long run than frowning. I’ve heard this study many times before, but it seems to backfire for me and I have read other studies claiming that fake smiles are not the same as the real thing (physically) and that repressing emotion only makes it stronger. He cites a study that listing our blessings will make us more content. This doesn’t always work when our blessings only exist in relation to our troubles, and I have read studies showing exactly the opposite. It seems that for every study supporting one psychological phenomenon, there is an equal and opposite study supporting its inverse. I don’t believe anything coming out of psychology. Brooks also seems to be of the mistaken impression that political strife today occurs because people do not know each other as whole persons first, but by their ideological labels first. This does not apply to my life. I not only knew people pretty well, I actually liked some of them and thought of them as friends, and I thought they knew me, but then they started to get into politics and turned against me. It’s another useless book. While out on errands in January 2021, I stopped at Edward Medard Conservation Park in Plant City to look around. Not having a map, I kept driving until seeing a large parking lot next to a playground. Once I got out and looked around, I saw that beyond the playground was a land of roots. I had never seen so many. The ground around was hard, smooth, and hilly. It was like something out of a movie. There were probably hundreds of angles I could have chosen to make good photographs, but the two above capture the feeling of this alien landscape. Beyond this region was a low area of green-covered ponds and frisbee golf structures. I couldn’t imagine throwing a frisbee so close to so many ponds. Who knows what’s underneath? Christmas lichen was plentiful. Other lichens I did not know the name of, so I had to guess based on the color. I’m probably right. I was tempted to carve a heart into a tree and claim it was Valentine’s-Day lichen, but I didn’t want to hurt a tree just to make a joke. Trees are nice. This area was where I also saw a cardinal and several woodpeckers, who made a constant racket. Also hearing roosters in the distance, I pressed on through the woods in that general direction and came to a road. The roadbank was made of bags! This really was an alien planet! What was it doing on Earth? After climbing up to the road, I decided the direction of the chickens didn’t look that interesting and I went the other way, eventually reaching the road I had driven on and walking toward the park entrance. This is where I saw several interesting things: The orange leaf was one of three on the ground that resembled nothing above. Where did they come from? Were they alien scouts disguised as leaves to throw me off the trail? I’m going to say yes. It’s the only logical explanation. I also saw a red-backed wasp, but unlike the bug seen above, it did not hold still long enough to pose for a picture. I searched for information online, but could not identify it. Perhaps it was an alien too. Near the park entrance is the heavily-branching, looped path leading onto the small peninsula in the lake. This peninsula has high banks from which one can observe the many inlets. These are the bird lands. It was humid that day, but it was cool and cloudy and a slight breeze blew over the lake. This made for an enjoyable time while I watched the ducks, storks, red-winged blackbirds, anhingas, alligators, and other birds. Birds were everywhere. I had never seen so many anhingas in all my life put together. One of them surfaced right in front of me. Others were perched in trees, drying their wings. The water was very dark and blocked all vision beyond two centimeters deep. This was one place I would not want to dip my feet into. The parts furthest from the coast are populated almost exclusively by vultures. This is apparently where vultures come from all over the planet just to poop – a lot. It smells like a gas station bathroom. Every tree had a vulture or two in it that would rustle their wings as I walked by, causing me to duck and raise my fists. I think they were doing it on purpose. After spending much time roaming around every loop in the trail and just absorbing the feel of the place, I went back the way I came until passing the playground and pushing deeper into the park. I found a set of several clearings, divided by tree-lined brooks and connected by wooden bridges. Each of them had one or two humans just sitting there. One of them had a laptop. Another had a fishing pole. Beyond this was the boat ramp. Beyond that was the fishing pier. That was when I found more evidence of an alien invasion: The texture of the sand here reminds me of worm poop, but I’ve never seen so much in one place like this or such big pellets. Don’t tell me it’s not aliens!
This is a poem I wrote in 2020. I imagine it to the tune of Yuve Yuve Yu by The Hu. Well you're a monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey livin' in a zoo Well you're a monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey yes it's true Well a monkey sees me drinking and what a monkey sees a monkey's gonna do Well a monkey's gonna find a way to get out, gonna find a way to get himself a brew - find himself a brew Hey monkey, what's up? You better put down that cup Well you're a monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey screamin' night and day Well you're a monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey always wants to play Well you've been a drinkin', stealin', wreckin', climbin', fightin' that's all I'm gonna say Well I think it's well past your welcome now; I'd wish you'd go away - wish you'd go away Hey monkey, shut up! Give me back my cup! Hey monkey, shut up! Better clean this mess right up! A while ago I read Them, the thought-provoking 2018 book by Senator Ben Sasse. It is a book on political polarization in the United States. The main point seems to be that our policy differences are only part of what makes us who we are and that too many of us have allowed party to become dominant, pushing away those in the other party without even listening to them. People support parties the way they support sports teams. Furthermore, voices in the media keep us divided on purpose because outrage is big business. It sells ad time. They will also seek out the rare nut on the fringe to represent a whole group, giving false impressions.
Sasse claims that all this partisanship is just a symptom of a deeper problem: We are so lonely we can’t think straight. Normal human relationships are so strained and people are so desperate to belong to something that they will join groups defined only by being against other groups. They are bound not by love, but by shared hate. Sasse claims that to feel whole, people must be connected to other people, must be rooted to a place, and must have meaningful work. All of these things are being changed and disrupted by the digital revolution. People move much more often than they used to, losing all feeling of allegiance to a place and sometimes losing any friends they made. Because they know they might move again – and because anybody else might move – they don’t even put in the effort to forge permanent friendships. People become expendable. With the ubiquity of smartphones, people are easily distracted. The moment an interaction turns a bit boring, people withdraw into the digital world. They may be connecting with others in cyberspace, but this is superficial and ultimately unsatisfying. No effort is put in to maintain a conversation because so many other conversations are waiting to be had almost immediately. Because of the demands and luxuries of the modern world, our brains are being trained to have shorter attention spans and poorer memories. There is even a phenomenon called pornography-induced erectile dysfunction, meaning that some men have become so acclimated to easy pornography that they can no longer be aroused by real women. Note: Speaking from my experience, I am surprised how many people can’t go anywhere without a speaking GPS and how few people are able to give directions. They can’t even get from the workplace back home without them. I’ve never used the things. Whatever happened to maps? Sasse suggests several solutions. He says to invest in tough relationships, to have a home base to return to even if living elsewhere for a few years, and to create a small group of people that promise to keep contact no matter where life takes them. His group commits to meet once a year. Most importantly, join clubs or other groups that define the members as something other than political party. See people by their other roles in society than their party affiliation. The book is pretty good. It is well-written. The message seems to make sense, except of course that there is no point telling the individual all this when those around him/her haven’t read the book. I’ve always had trouble both making and keeping friends and many of my friendships stay very superficial. More importantly, politics can’t simply be swept under the rug. Just because someone might be an excellent biking partner, grocer, cobbler, cook, brother, or father in no way protects them from my wrath if I find out that they actually support a political party that terrorizes people into submission to their narrow, ill-informed vision of how life should be. Politics is simply war by other means. Because government is by definition the use of force – and because it involves itself in every aspect of human life, there is nothing more defining or revealing of someone’s heart than their political affiliation. Nothing is more important. Only religion – which deals with the next world as well as this one – could be argued to be more important. It is absolutely impossible to be friends with people that actually wish you harm. Sasse assumes that our current political climate is a symptom of our social problems, but I think that it is mostly the other way around; our social problems are a symptom of our current political climate. Maybe it’s both. |
AuthorMy name is Dan. I am an author, artist, explorer, and contemplator of subjects large and small. Archives
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