Unfolding Origami

I had a great 'origami exchange' with a elderly woman on my flight today. I gave her a butterfly in a small envelop. She was so thankful, but, after a few moments, I had to advise her that the gift was not simply a pretty rectangle. She opened it up and marveled at the butterfly. From the corner of my eye, I could see her examining it closely. After about 5 minutes, she asked if I could make her another one. "Sure", I said, "do you want a different color or something?". "No", she said, "the same color would be nice", and then she showed me a rectangular piece of paper which had previously been the butterfly. "I tried to figure out how it was made", she admitted. "No problem!", I replied, and then I countered, "I just hope you did not have a puppy when you were little" ;-)

Religious versus Spiritual

Whenever I hear one person say "we are born with an innate sense of 'goodness'", and another person say "without religion, there would be no check against our 'evilness'", I think that the first person forgot that they were born into a world that is already rooted in religion, and therefore grew up in an environment that is inescapable from its influences, and I think that the second person forgot that religion came from us, not divine providence, so its influences likely stem from an innate understanding of 'goodness', as surely as its perversions likely stem from our inadequate understanding. And then I remember that categorization is yet another fault in our thinking, as both of the actors depicted above likely have views that are along a spectrum of infinite granularity, and therefore always gray. And even here, some would say 'grey' ;-)

The American Roots of Racism

A friend of mine posted a question on FB that asked "if schools stopped teaching [that] America is built on racism and racism exists where none actually does [...] would [...] racism completely disappear in a generation?"

If you leave aside the presupposition and focus on the supposition, it is a very good question.

Here was my answer:

A question within your question is: where do children learn racism, either being racist or suffering from it? I think that they learn it long before they encounter any lessons about it in school. Still, you ask a great question. What if, instead of fixating on our sordid past, we, collectively, focused on the complex present and open future? Would it be better to learn about the causes and effects of economic and social injustice, our shared and personal responsibility to fight it and our common humanity, without linking it back to our racists roots? My answer is yes, because the historical root causes of economic and social injustice have little to do with the present day root causes or solutions, and the fixation on these historical root causes only widens the cultural divide that feeds racism. But this only works if we all commit to the ideals of equality and justice for all. When an African American man is shot 6 times in his car during a routine traffic stop, for no apparent reason other than the officer 'fearing for his life', and said officer is later cleared of any crime, then you have to expect an outsized reaction from African Americans, and you have to expect the search for why such a thing would happen. At that point, finding the cause in our past might actually be more palatable than the truth of the matter: racism is alive and well in the present. So the caveat to my answer is that we would need to grapple with this present day fact.

Thoughts?

Intellectual Acceptance

The more intellectual duels I read on FB - or see on the news - the more I realize that we all need to keep in mind that, at the end of the day, our beliefs are based on... [drum roll]... beliefs. Whether you think there is a God who controls all outcomes and takes a personal interest in your life, or a system of rules that govern the chaos within, with no vested interest in individuals, it all comes down to belief. Of course, a scientist can legitimately state the system of rules embodied in physics, chemistry, biology, etc, are much better explainers of the past and predictors of the future, but, when it comes to the outright origin of 'truth', scientists may very well be just as wrong as religious scholars. I - personally - believe that science offers a better foundation for understanding the world, but I also - personally - believe that there is a threshold between physical bodies and spiritual bodies that science cannot penetrate, even if so-called spiritual realms are merely biochemical reactions. At the end of the day, we all try to use the tools available to us to make sense of the world and deal with the ups and downs of everyday life. So long as there is no imposition of beliefs, we should try to occupy a live and let live kind of world, though I would not force this upon anyone ;-)

Qualified Thinking

I just watched an interview with the Prime Minister of a country that has been lurching from democracy to dictatorship over the past few years, and his belief in his own lies, as well as his ability to calmly recount those lies to the interviewer, was absolutely incredible. Of course, being able to delude one’s self can be a good thing. Believing in your own greatness ahead of your achievement of same is akin to self-delusion. As well, believing in the delusions of those we look to for leadership can also be a good thing, from children of parents to astronauts in the Kennedy era. But both of these are aspirational, whereas this fellow’s beliefs are revisionist. In an era of ever-decreasing signal to noise ratio, with ever-increasing effort to get to objective facts, I can see how convenient it is to just believe in the lie. I can see that Trump’s true allure is his removal of the anxiety of doubt when he speaks to his constituents, even if the certainty in which he says one thing or another has little to do with facts, forethought or even afterthought. It’s comfort food for the common citizen, and, like most comfort food, it’s a heart attack waiting to happen. I think that the most important lesson to teach our children is to think objectively and draw qualified conclusions, but children learn from their parents, so I think that we - collectively - need to learn that lesson first. 

The Final C

This morning on my way to work, I listened to a book on Audible (Guns, Germs and Steel - quite a fascinating book) and did not fire up any other audio or video apps at work during the day, which is why I was duly surprised, as I got in my car at 11pm to drive home, that Jussi Bjorljng's 'Che Gelida Manina' was playing through my Bluetooth audio. I did not try to investigate why or switch back to my book, but, rather, took it as a sign and decided to listen through to its climactic conclusion. If you are familiar with Puccini's 'La Boheme' and you've listened to this particular aria from a variety of tenors, you will instantly recognize how Bjorling completely butchers his Italian and plows through some of the nuances of the aria, but all of that is forgiven with his signature, albeit a bit strident, high C. And that, my friends, is the analogy that I took as a sign. Even after a less than effective day or week or month or year or life, even a haggard wolf can howl in a way that is haunting, so go ahead and slug your way through this life, but leave enough for a high C, in whatever form that is for you, at the very end.

https://youtu.be/K_1Ry44K-MM

The Pattern of the Problem

The pattern of the problem I am noticing in the news and on Facebook seems to have less to do with Republican or Democrat, Right-wing or Left-wing, Conservative or Liberal, or anything in between, and more to do with the oversimplification of stereotypes. I - personally - have not seen anything from my friends that would cause me to love them any less, because I understand that an opinion that I might not agree with is not their defining characteristic. At the end of the day, we are far more alike and not nearly as separate from one another as we think. If we could embrace debates with this kind of understanding, we might get a lot more value out of points and counterpoints than we do today. Given that the world is divided into people who think they are right (wink), we should be open to and investigate differing opinions, with the exception of opinions that are akin to outright hate and discrimination, which I almost never see in my network of friends. How about you?

And Now for Some Real Progress on Climate Change

The reaction and action stemming from Trump's announcement that he is pulling the US out of the Paris Accord leads me to believe that the movement is actually quite antifragile. I am not in agreement with Trump taking the US out of a leadership role on climate change, but I foresee some benefits: (1) other countries will step in to fill the void, and, perhaps, do even more than they might have with the US in the picture, (2) within the US, other entities below the Federal level - states, cities, towns, companies and individuals - also appear to be stepping in to fill the void, as they reaffirm their commitment to countering global climate change. It is altogether possible that we've gone from lower-potential agreement and complacency to higher-potential disagreement and momentum, such that the US, as a collection of smaller entities, will do more to fight climate change than it otherwise might have with the Federal Government in the lead.  In my opinion, this is a foreshadowing of a similar, antifragile 'snap back' that Trump's very election will yield: Whether Democrat or Republican, and irrespective of policy views, voters will see the cost of incompetency, and they will choose more wisely the next time around. Again, irrespective of party or policy, I believe the choice will be better next time. If not, then I will start to worry. At the moment, I think we are just being led around by the Ghost of Christmas Future, who is giving us a clear dose of our choices today, and we'll wake up in time to save Tiny Tim, minus a few appendages, unfortunately, but that is the price of lessons learned. 

Immoral vs Illegal

This distinction between immoral and illegal is getting to be quite troubling, but also, unfortunately, quite pertinent. We've all heard one politician or business leader or another say "I have broken no laws", without necessarily denying whatever immoral atrocity they've been accused of committing. A recent example: On CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, Michael Reagan first postulated that this whole investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with the Russians was a political witch hunt, and then followed that up with something like "even if the Trump campaign did collude with the Russians, what law did they break?" This left Don Lemon stupefied, as he patently did not know. His best response, when asked again, was something like "people go to jail for collusion all the time", as if to say that the verb itself is illegal, like two 3rd graders colluding to pool their lunch money together to buy one of those big chocolate chip cookies in the cafeteria (god I loved those cookies) could actually go to jail for engaging in the act of an illegal verb. I am disappointed on two fronts: (1) the guest's attempt to mitigate the immorality of the alleged collusion by relying the legality of same, and (2) the fact that the host, who I am taking to be representative of the press at large, has been talking about this topic for months, while not being quite sure as to the legal implications of it. One person is trying to sell us a false equivalence, and the other is trying to sell us the news. Either way, it seems like both of them are lacking some foundation. 

The Darker Side of Analog-Digital Convergence

I performed the ultimate computer science move on my Ford Focus today: My radio stopped working. so, at a Red light, I turned the car off, started it up and, voila, the radio worked again. I don't know why and I venture a guess that Ford would not know why, but there you have it. Coincidentally, as I drove off, there was a story on NPR about how Farmers are now having to jailbreak their tractors to perform repairs that they have otherwise been doing in the past, but are now precluded from doing by John Deere, as only authorized dealers have a USB key loaded up with the right software to unlock the system for repairs and testing. This blending of analog and digital worlds is disconcerted. What if the zipper on my pants encounters a buffer overflow error when I have to pee? Will I suffer a personal buffer overflow? ;-)

Baby Poop

I have been trying to figure how to describe the new brand of poop that Nicholas has been selling over here. When we first brought him home he was producing a winter formulation: diesel. Then, he quickly, if not prematurely, switched over to a summer formulation: gasoline. Now that we are entering the festive months of Primavera, he has switched over to a more appropriate formulation: Pesto (I can just taste that fresh basil, pine nuts and parmesan!) How can I describe this new version of poop? I imagine a closed-circuit video of me strolling along a crowed subway platform in NYC. I pause, look around, and slowly pull out a zip lock bag with what appears to be a dirty diaper in it. I slowly slip on a small gas mask and goggles, then open the bag and let the diaper slip behind a trash can. I walk away calmly but expediently. 5 minutes later, would be passengers start collapsing, with foam coming out of their mouths :-/

Support Not Illumination

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The other night on NPR's Intelligence Squared, a modern day marvel of civil debate that I highly recommend, someone quoted Andrew Lang (1884-1912), albeit incorrectly attributing the quote to Mark Twain, as a caution against relying too heavily on statistics. Lang stated that we should use "statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts – for support rather than for illumination." This concept can and should be extended to the modern day combination of big data, AI and algorithms, though by the time the virtuous cycle of ingesting, analyzing and automating through algorithms has been created, the analogy has gone way beyond lampposts to the very sidewalk under our feet, which gives us great confidence and comfort as we stroll along said sidewalk, until a 1970 Buick Skylark comes careening off the road and runs us over ;-)

AT&T's Workforce 2020

I am duly impressed by AT&T’s Workforce 2020, wherein the Company identified the skills it needed to compete in the future, and created a blueprint for sourcing them ***internally*** This entailed collapsing 250+ traditional roles into 80 more integrated future roles, and clarifying to employees that they had first dibs on those roles, provided that they spent their own time (sometimes money) to acquire the skills for same. This is a brilliant strategy, because hiring for skills in an age where technology evolves so rapidly would be futile, and engaging in traditional training and skills development would be prohibitive. It also aligns with the idea that we are all responsible for our skills and careers, and companies can only provide and environment to for us to exercise that responsibility, nothing more. In the long run, this type of approach might return us to the so-called 'golden age' of employment, where you could potentially spend your entire career with a single company, because the internal ecosystem within the [sufficiently large] company will approximate the external market in terms of creative-destruction and related opportunities for advancement. 

The Inner Clock

My hierarchy of priorities in the gym are encapsulated in the following acronym: PFRW. This is an easy acronym for me to remember, as I work out at Planet Fitness and used 'rw' quite a bit as a UNIX admin in the 1990s (good old 'chmod'). The acronym stands for Pace, Form, Reps and Weight. In other words, keep to a pace, favor form over reps and favor reps over weight. I typically keep to a 2 minute pace, 5 sets and 16 reps to adhere to my golden rule of NOT ... GETTING ... HURT! I used to count to 60 between sets, as a form of meditation, but I found that using a timer allowed for a better form of meditation, devoid of the constant question of whether or not I was counting at a uniform pace. There are occasions when I keep to a 1 minute pace to accommodate a left then right strategy for a particular exercise, and this is when I discovered something: I inherently get ready for the next set within 1-2 seconds of my timer going off, without any internal counting or other form of awareness. I just get set, and the timer goes off. If I try to count or be aware of the passage of time, then I inevitably get ready too early or too late. If I don't try, then I am right on time. This reminds me of a scene from a wonderful moving called Infinity, starring Matthew Broderick as Richard Feynman: While he was a teenager, he was on his front porch jumping up and down and periodically checking his watch to see if he was keeping pace with time - in reality, to see if his sense of time kept pace with the universe. Of course, seconds are arbitrary units of time, but the passage of time itself may not be arbitrary at all, and our minds may very well be in tune with the pace of the universe in a way that that is intuitive if we listen to it, and disrupted if we try to control it. This 'listening' versus 'controlling' is not a theme that is limited to pace, so I suspect that there are a lot of areas that might benefit from letting go and listening, versus holding on and controlling. One's inner clock benefits from the external, objective clock to gauge accuracy, so applying this to other areas might be a bit more complex, unless one lets go of accuracy altogether, and that might be the real insight here.