Two Netflix series that make television worth watching again

As I've written before in other posts, most of the programs on television these days are reality TV programs that reflect the wasteland that TV has become. I counted at least fifteen reality TV shows the other night after flipping through about twenty channels--everything from shows about people with strange illnesses, people who have suffered surgical mishaps, people in debt, people competing to open storage lockers, people who are hoarders, people who are grossly overweight, young adults living together on an island where they are expected to party and have sex, young people who marry strangers, young women looking for wedding dresses, cringe-worthy dating shows, people competing in weird sports programs, and cooking competition shows. The only 'reality' shows I think are worth watching are shows having to do with cooking--hosted by real chefs who prepare interesting meals. Jamie Oliver's show, or Guy Fieri's 'Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives' (a favorite of mine) fall into this category. But cooking shows have been around for years--and they serve a purpose, which is to show how different dishes are prepared so that viewers could try to do the same. I see no purpose for the other reality shows; I don't want to see other people's weird or bad behavior, illnesses, surgical mishaps, dating mishaps, fake weddings, or the like.

I miss the golden age of television, when the major channels produced interesting shows and movies that were entertaining and quite often meaningful. Shows, movies and series that challenged the imagination and touched the heart. Shows that made us think about other people and the society we lived in. Nowadays the major point seems to be to embarrass other people, or laugh at them for their lack of couth or intelligence. There is no heart or intelligence in the creation of such shows.

It is no surprise to me that companies like Netflix, HBO and Amazon have stepped into the business of making movies and series and that they are successful at it. Their products are far superior to what is ordinarily available on television. The majority of their movies and series are quality productions, with some few exceptions. There is something for everyone's taste. And that's a good thing.

There are two Netflix series that I can highly recommend: After Life with Ricky Gervais, and Russian Doll with Natasha Lyonne. Both series are for adults, not for children. They deal with adult themes; the conversations, arenas and language are for adults who are searching for meaning. Both shows are excellent in their own ways. One deals with grief connected to losing a loved one, and how that affects one man's behavior (After Life). The other deals with the evolution of self from unenlightened and narcissistic to enlightened and caring via a series of personal and continual deaths (Russian Doll). Both are wryly humorous, touching, engaging, and ultimately human. They offer everything that reality TV lacks. 

Reflections on getting older in our society

I was listening to one of Oslo’s more well-known psychotherapists the other night on the nightly news; she was talking about the problem of aging in our society and how older people become ‘invisible’ as they age. She meant that both women and men felt this way, and she should know since she deals with both. I have written about this before; my mother used to say that she felt invisible as she got older—to the society around her, in the doctor’s office, and in her dealings with the bureaucracy that is supposed to help older people. My mother was not an aggressive soul, and often not even an assertive one. She accepted this type of behavior without reacting or fighting back. I doubt that I would be the same, but you never know what you will face as an older person. I have friends my age who are chronically ill, not old, and they complain about the same thing—they feel invisible, ignored, and that they should basically just stop bothering others and fade away. If I sort through their comments, I realize that much of what they comment on has to do with the loneliness associated with their illnesses. They feel abandoned, mostly by friends, sometimes by family. They have become immobile, they can no longer work or contribute to society in the ways to which they were accustomed. And today’s society will leave you in the dust as it pushes onward in its continual quest for more wealth, more material goods, and more consumerism. If you cannot produce for that society, or consume the products of that society, you have no role, really. Older people were once revered for their wisdom and experience; that is no longer the case, at least in Western society. They are more likely to be pushed out of their jobs once they turn sixty; they are considered burdensome to deal with in many cases. It occurred to me recently that old age is treated like a chronic illness in our society; older people are often shoved to the side, ignored, and abandoned to ‘their fate’, especially if they are alone. My mother did something about that; she volunteered at her local library (having been a librarian earlier in her life), and enjoyed that for most of her seventies. She worked there up until a few months before she died. But still, she often complained of loneliness and of 'not being seen'.

Many people fear getting older. I can understand why, because the society we live in worships youth and youthful attractiveness. You are considered attractive if you remain 'youthful-looking'. If you are attractive, you get 'noticed', you get 'seen'. You need only look at Facebook and the comments made about cover photos of women in their sixties whom others say still look like they did in high school. I hardly think that is the reality, but it doesn't matter. People still make these comments and I have to wonder why--why is it so important that older women look like they did in high school, and why are women flattered by these comments? These comments are not made so much about older men, but that is perhaps because men generally don't comment on such things. Women are told by society to be interested in how they look almost from the time they are pre-teenagers.

Society does not revere older people as once it did. It focuses solely on younger people and their contributions to society, workplaces, and culture. The media are to blame for much of this; articles about older artists, actors, actresses, workers, etc. are often few and far between. We have become an age-fixated society; you cannot read an article without being told how old someone is, and more often than not, if the article is about a woman, her age is usually mentioned as early as in the second sentence of the article. A man’s age is often not mentioned, or mentioned further down in the article. There is a certain amount of ‘surprise’ in some of these articles; surprise that this or that older person is still working, producing, contributing. It is strange sometimes to read these articles. They reinforce the fixation on age and the idea that the norm is that older people have stopped doing these things. Sometimes I wonder what has happened to this or that person since they are no longer written about, and then I remember, oh yes, that person is now ‘old’ by society’s definition. In other words, no longer media-worthy.

I used to think that old age meant age 70 or older. Old age includes anyone over 55 at present, at least in Scandinavia. There are many articles that talk about how employees who are 55 or older are offered ‘sluttpakker’ (severance packages) so that companies can hire younger people in their place. They don’t say that outright of course, but the intent is clear. And it is a way of getting rid of employees they feel cost the workplace too much. There is truth in that older people often have higher salaries than the younger people, but that is natural after a long work life. It is strange to think that we are living longer, but that the age for being considered old in a workplace has gotten lower. I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that if society considers you to be old at 55, society is going to have a real problem with this portion of the population that can in theory live until they are well into their 80s.

The psychotherapist’s advice was that older people should ‘tar plass’ (literally take up space) in society. What she means is that older people should make themselves noticed, that they should announce their presence; that they should do everything within their power to not be ignored. This means that older people need to be more proactive about how they approach retirement and old age. They should not passively let society and the media define their roles in society. They should not let younger people dictate to them how they will function in society. They should not let themselves be treated as though getting older is an illness. Because it is not.

We need to be more accepting of life’s phases and to not be so afraid of aging. One thing is certain—everyone will get old at some point, and everyone will die at some point. The focus on ‘forever young’ may be in vogue, but if you take a look at some of the men and women who try desperately to remain youthful-looking via plastic surgery, you will learn quite quickly that it is better to age gracefully. With some few exceptions, most of those who have opted for extensive plastic surgery do not look younger, they look different; they do not look like themselves. I would not want to go into old age no longer looking like myself, but that is my choice. The psychotherapist said the same thing; she was not planning on using plastic surgery to remain young-looking. I applaud her. She will lead the way to something better, something healthier, than what we have in society now. When I remember the older people in my life who have passed away, I think of people whom I respect. I miss them, their wisdom, their patience, their kindness, and their civilized way of living. I miss their generation—the post WWII generation, the generation that sacrificed for a larger cause. They grew older with grace and with patience. They may not always have liked what was happening to them, but they accepted it and lived their lives as best they could. I want more respect for that approach in society. I want more kindness and more acceptance, on both sides. Everyone loses if the polarization of young versus old continues.

  

Some reflections on a Saturday morning.

Every now and then I reflect on my work career, and what it has been like/is like to be a woman in a mostly male-dominated profession (at least when I started out). When I started out in science, it was not unusual to find a preponderance of men in the top positions (professor, research leader, department leader, group leader), whereas the majority of women were research technicians, junior scientists, or assistant professors. Very few were department heads or group leaders. There are more women in science now, and more women in top positions, but that has been a gradual development, and the profession still struggles with the loss of women once they reach the critical points in their careers where they have to decide if they want to be research or group leaders. The demands on their time are intense, and it's often hard to combine that with family life. So that is one problem that I see still exists, almost forty years after I started out in science. The married women I knew who had top positions when I was starting out had husbands who chose less demanding professions, or both had help from nannies when raising their children. However it worked out, women struggled to balance it all, and they are still struggling. Even here in Norway, a lot of the recent surveys have concluded that women still hesitate to invest the time in top leader positions because of the inevitable conflicts with family life. I don't have an answer; I think there will always be a conflict, because it is a question of prioritizing. If we prioritize family life, then our work lives can suffer, and if we prioritize our work lives, our family lives can suffer. Finding the balance is not an easy task. I never had my own children, so I was never faced with that conflict. But of course I was faced with the challenge of not devoting all my waking hours to my work at the expense of my family life. Having a husband who works in the same profession and who understands the demands it makes on our time, has been a godsend. When we were struggling to build careers, we invested a lot of time in our work. I don't regret it, because I am sure that I would have done the same thing no matter what profession I chose. I was raised to work hard and do my best. That meant hard work and long hours in order to become good at something. And I am good at what I do.

The latter is something I think about often now as I approach retirement. Have I done the best job I could do? Have I been a good mentor and leader for the younger women and men coming after me? The answer to the first question is yes, I have done the best job I could do given the talents I have. I have become a good scientist, albeit not a great one, and that is fine with me. I found my niche and did my best. I can honestly say that. I've published nearly one hundred articles, have had the chance to lead a small team of researchers, managed to get funding to support my position until I was hired permanently by my hospital, and have mentored Master and PhD students. I have believed in myself even when the odds were against me. I did not give up on myself, and that is thanks to my early bosses. I had bosses early on (in New York) who pushed me and challenged me to take on new opportunities, some of which I feared. But I did. They saw potential in me and were not afraid to push me to do something with it. But they did it in a respectful way. When I moved to Norway, I confronted new challenges, but without the same level of personal interest from my bosses. They were more interested in their own careers than in mine. I have discovered that this was often the case in academic science (that I grew up with), which is highly competitive. If a senior researcher showed a professional interest in you, it mostly had to do with what you could do for them. The outcome in any case was that both won in a sense--the senior researcher got the necessary lab work done by others, but the junior researchers got publications that helped them in their own careers. So even if the latter felt like slaves at times, it often ended well once they moved up the ladder and started research groups of their own. That is the way it used to be well into the early 2000s. And then it all changed. Younger people no longer had the chance to start their own research groups; they were suddenly expected to work for a senior group leader until they were well into their late 40s/early 50s. A lot of young people simply cannot accept this and leave academia for greener pastures that give them the chances that my husband and I were given in the 1990s. We had an intellectual independence and freedom that is no longer encouraged; now it is expected that you work in a large research group for one senior research leader and that you simply accept your role passively. You are not encouraged to start your own research group, and the (natural) desire to do so is frowned upon--you are looked upon as a troublemaker if you go around stating that you would like more intellectual freedom and independence so that you can start your own research group. I do not support this new way of doing science; it does nothing but create frustration and disappointment in young people in their professional prime. But that's the way it is now. When I talk to young people, I tell them what it was like for my husband and me; I don't want them to think that it was always as restrictive and demotivating as it is now. But it doesn't always register, because young people often think that the present is the only thing that counts. We were like that too, I guess.

The answer to the second question is also yes, with reservations. I had to grow into the role of mentor, and I did make some mistakes early on, especially when a student was stubborn or narcissistic. Nevertheless, I think I have done the best job I could do under sometimes difficult circumstances. I have reflected upon the psychological costs involved in pursuing an academic scientific career. The daily assaults on your self confidence, your expertise, your way of treating students--are many. I realize that I have a healthy self confidence; if I think I am right, it is because I have reflected on a particular situation and come to a conclusion that reflects that investment of time and reflection. It will then be difficult to sway me. I operate using principles that I grew up with--I believe in fair play, respect, and justice, and I behave accordingly. I treat others as I would like to be treated. I have tried to encourage my students to think for themselves, to have their own ideas and opinions, to think creatively. I have tried to get women to stop feeling guilty for saying no when it is their right to do so. So many women still think that saying no, as in--I cannot do this or that for you right now, I have no time, or I have other priorities--is a wrong way to behave. It is not. In my experience, saying no is what gets you noticed (and I am not talking about saying no in a rude way to your boss or about being difficult for the sake of being difficult). Saying no prevents you from becoming someone else's doormat. Saying yes all the time may work out well for some people, but it does not work out well for women. Saying no when necessary may get you labeled as difficult, but that most women can live with, in my opinion, or should get used to living with. Because whatever profession you choose, there will come a time when saying no is what will get you noticed. Saying no says--I am doing the best job I can, and if you want me to do more, then you need to sit down with me and negotiate that. You need to negotiate a reciprocal relationship that is win-win for all, not just for the senior leaders. Women often fall back on the service aspect--serving others, and that is fine, but it is also about taking care of yourself and what you want. Women should not be doormats at work, nor at home, and a workplace culture that pushes women to aspire to being doormats is not a workplace you want to work in. Do you want to take on that extra project for no extra pay and no recognition, at the expense of your free time or your family time, just because your boss asks you to because he or she knows it will get done well if you do it rather than giving it to the shirker in the department? Do you want to be available 24/7 to a workplace that won't think twice about laying you off in times of budget crises?

The word 'professional' has taken on a new meaning for me now after many years in the workforce. I define it as behavior that involves doing the best job you can, in an expert way, without becoming too emotionally involved or too loyal to your workplace. It means being aware of your valuable skills at all junctures. It means visualizing how valuable you are to your present company but also to other workplaces. It means never forgetting that. It means standing up for yourself. It means being able to negotiate with senior leaders about how those skills are to be used. It means being rational, logical, objective, rather than emotional, illogical, and subjective. It means seeing both sides and keeping a cool head in situations where others might become irrational (playing it cool). It means remaining centered in yourself; it means not letting other people push you off balance. Women need to learn more of this, and to learn the value of their own worth. Women also need to give up the idea that they need to be ‘rescuers’. Where you would rush in to save a sinking project that is the result of someone else's negligence (too many women I know), you should hold back and let it sink. You should let the chips fall where they may. You should let the shirkers face the negative feedback; let them face being exposed for the shirkers they are. You should let the bullies and harassers sink and not make excuses for them. You should not defend the demotivators or try to explain away their behavior. You should hold other people accountable for their bad behavior and not keep your mouth shut when you see injustice. You should not just blindly follow the crowd. You should stand apart, express your ideas and opinions, and keep on expressing them, in a professional and respectful way. You should remind yourself that 'being respectful and nice does not define you as a weak person', and that 'saying no does not define you as a bad person'. This is what I say to women now--be professional, have a healthy self-confidence, think for yourselves, and don't become workplace doormats. It's the only way to grow into the best versions of yourselves.

Black Cherries--a poem by W.S. Merwin

I often find myself thinking about how human beings are an odd mixture of so many different interests and influences. I know I fit that description. I can go from listening to hard rock one day, to reading and finding meaning in a poem that touches me with its simplicity the next day. The fact that we can move from one sphere to another freely, is what makes us human. I am glad for the incongruities and illogical behavior I see in myself, because I find it helps me relate to others (who are much the same).

In that vein, moving on from yesterday's post about a rock song that I really like, here is a poem that I found this morning in a New York Times obituary for the poet W.S. Merwin (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/obituaries/w-s-merwin-dead-poet-laureate.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR0hJX5PK6Zmj_gY_mBuKHfBPLAS3yhWUXMtyKvd2F9l9fhG1HZnYJVmFfI). I haven't read much of his poetry, but that can be remedied. This poem is entitled Black Cherries, and it is a beautiful poem.


BLACK CHERRIES

Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day’s colors in the day’s shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this

 by W.S. Merwin

Good song alert--Joker and the Thief, by Wolfmother

I've been doing a lot of repetitive work for one of my research projects, which involves counting cells on a computer screen. One mouse click is one cell counted--that kind of thing. It can get tiresome very quickly. So I've been listening to music with real energy and drive while I do this kind of counting, and it makes the work a whole lot more tolerable. Here is one of the songs I've been listening to: Joker and the Thief, by Wolfmother--it's become a real favorite of mine.

More of Bramhall's political cartoons

Once again, Bramhall's political cartoons are spot on...... He has taken Oliphant's place, and those were big shoes to fill. I think he fills them quite well.

Here are his recent ones: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/nydn-bramhall-cartoons-for-january-2019-20190108-photogallery.html

An article about shame worth reading

Worth reading: a recent article in The New York Post by Maureen Callahan ...........

There is no shame left in America anymore  https://nypost.com/2019/03/07/there-is-no-shame-left-in-america-anymore/

Love this song--Juice, by Lizzo

Loved it from the first time I heard it--pure funk.......Lizzo's having fun. Definitely makes you want to get up and dance. Works for me!!....Enjoy.