Bye bye Tucker Carlson (thank you, Dominion)

The shit hit the fan.

Karma is a bitch.

Payback is a bitch.

Justice is served.

The chickens came home to roost.

What goes around comes around.

What goes up must come down.

As you give so shall you receive.

You reap what you sow.

Harm set, harm get.

That dog had its day.

You made your bed and now you must lie in it.

It ain't over till it's over (and now it's over). 

Don't let the door hit you on your way out. 

---------------------------------

On April 24th, Fox News and Tucker Carlson parted ways. The day should go down in American history as a turning point of sorts. Dare we hope that it marks the beginning of better times for America--a return to truth in journalism, a return to integrity and a focus on personal ethics? One can hope. My other hope is that Fox News sinks into the muck that it helped to engender; with all the lawsuits against the company, perhaps they'll sink quickly under the financial pressure. One can hope. 

Tackling the daily news

This is often exactly how I feel, but not just about social media. The daily news stories in general, delivered to us on tv, radio and in newspapers, are disheartening, to put it mildly. Thus the dilemma has become (for me and for others I know): how to stay abreast of what is happening in the world without losing heart (and our minds)? Listening to tv or radio news is not part of my morning routine, and I am very selective about the few online newspaper sites I visit. I skim news stories and don't let myself drown in all the bad news. I know that there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, and I care about the people experiencing them, but I would rather stay hopeful and pray for a better world than go down the road of nihilism and despair. It serves no purpose and helps no one.  

Wandering through church history

My resolution for Lent this year was to read the New Testament. I was inspired by a Norwegian friend of mine who read the Bible and the Koran some years ago. She is not religious, but she was interested in learning about Christianity and Islam from a historical perspective and decided to go right to the sources. I will read the Old Testament at some point, but decided to start with the New Testament because Christianity as we know and practice it is based on the life and death of Christ. And his life and death are chronicled quite well in the New Testament. 

I grew to enjoy starting each day reading passages from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It was very interesting to compare their different styles as well as what they focused on and emphasized. Much of what they wrote about was similar, but I found John's gospel to be the most reflective and I preferred it to the others. But all of them present the life of Christ in an affecting way. I found myself marveling at the different miracles he performed; I'd known about them from previous gospel readings during the countless masses I've attended over the years, but I don't think I fully appreciated the extent of his miracles until now. Nor did I fully understand how much he was hated by the authorities and leaders at that time and those places, mostly because they felt threatened by him. Here was this man walking in their midst, preaching about loving God and your neighbor, healing the sick, allowing the blind to see, turning water into wine, walking on water, and taking a small number of loaves of bread and a small number of fish and multiplying them by the thousands in order to feed the crowds that came to listen to him speak. He made the Pharisees look like the hypocrites they were, but he did it without brutally judging them. He challenged them verbally by asking questions as replies to the questions they asked him. He embarrassed them, and that must have been the worst sin of all for him to have committed. After all, many of them considered themselves learned men and protectors of the laws. Christ in their eyes was a transgressor of those laws.  

My favorite book of the New Testament would have to be the Acts of the Apostles (the fifth book of the New Testament), presumably written by Luke (who wrote one of the gospels). If you want to learn about the founding and history of the early Church, the movement away from Judaism (the Jews ultimately rejected the Church) and toward the inclusion of the Gentiles, the spread of Christianity and further development of the Church, if you want to wander with the apostles from town to town and region to region, you can do so by reading the Acts. This book starts with the Ascension of Christ, describes the conversion of St. Paul and his subsequent missionary journeys in detail, and prepares readers for Paul's epistles. 

I enjoyed reading Paul's epistles to the Galatians, Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, and Thessalonians, among others. There are thirteen books in all. Paul was preoccupied with getting everyone on the same page, especially those to whom the job of passing along Christ's teachings had been entrusted. Paul couldn't be everywhere at once, so he relied on his fellow disciples and believers to preach the word of God. But these were men, not gods. They were often weak, proud, competitive, gossipy and backbiting. Conflicts and controversies arose. Paul warned against all those sins. He encouraged the teachers to take the moral high road. He reassured them, offered comfort and support, and chided them for their pettiness and unethical behaviors. But he did so in a loving way and always ended his letters by promising that he would soon visit those to whom he wrote. 

Nowhere in the New Testament did I find any statement that priests could not marry or that women could not become priests. What I did find were statements that advised men who wanted to become priests to have only one wife (not to be divorced) and to otherwise lead moral and upstanding lives. Women would not have been allowed to become priests at that time because society at that time did not allow women to have much power or say over their lives at all. Considered to be the weaker sex, women were mostly encouraged to obey their husbands, to stay in the shadows of their husbands. As the Church grew, it became more practical to encourage unmarried men to become priests and to remain celibate, simply because once they had a wife and children, their focus would be on them and not on their priestly duties. In other words, they would be distracted from their mission. Celibacy was thus encouraged and became the rule over time, but the rule is based on tradition, not dogma. Perhaps the Church should reconsider its position and relax the celibacy rule, allowing men who want to become priests to marry or not marry as they wish. Perhaps it should also reconsider its ban on women becoming priests, especially since there has been a decline in vocations among men. 

I did not like the final book of the New Testament--the book of Revelation. I found it to be quite bizarre and unenlightening. I learned very little from it, except that it contains apocalyptic visions and imagery that I don't want to delve into further in order to learn more about them. I'm not sure why this book was even included in the New Testament, as its style is quite different from all of the other books. 

The Old Testament awaits, and I look forward to starting on a new journey. As Christians, we were taught that the New Testament was more important for our spiritual journey than the Old, but there is a wealth of history in the Old Testament that I look forward to exploring. 

Forgiveness in our times

Our society has become more secular over the past few decades; there is less emphasis on the religious and spiritual aspects of life. I know that religion isn't necessary to create or achieve goodness in the world, but it has and does help people in that regard. Belief in God and/or a higher power and following the tenets of religion have defined and still define the lives of many people here on earth. That's a good thing, even though religious differences still underlie serious conflicts and wars.

With the gradual decrease in the importance of religion in society, one might expect that sin, guilt, and forgiveness were things of the past, belonging to the realm of religion. After all, if there is no sin, there is no guilt and no need to ask for forgiveness. But this is not the case. Religion has been replaced with an extreme form of political correctness that is focused on public shaming and on calling out the foibles and mistakes that others make. Where once sin and guilt were private matters between a person and his or her God, or between the sinner and the person sinned against, they are now public matters, especially if you are in the public eye. Think politician, actor, newscaster, celebrity. Nowadays major media organizations and social media behave like lions at a kill when they learn that someone has made a mistake, spoken out of turn, said something stupid, or done something embarrassing. I'm not talking about major crimes (murder, assault, rape etc.), I'm talking about some of the stupid or thoughtless things that people do or say. The things that make others cringe and the perpetrator cringe when he or she thinks about it afterward. Everyone has or will have such a moment at some point--perhaps a public meltdown, an argument with a spouse, yelling at a child. And rest assured, someone is always listening or watching, ready to pounce on what others say or do. Media spies or folk willing to publicly shame others are everywhere. 

Maybe the perpetrators of these transgressions shouldn't have said or done what they did, but done is done. But if what was said or done is caught on microphone or camera, their fifteen minutes of fame (infamy) await. It's not enough to report the news of the transgression once; it's reported over and over ad nauseam. Eventually the perpetrator is publicly shamed to the point where he or she says (is forced to say) 'I'm sorry' and asks for forgiveness. But from whom are they asking forgiveness? The public, the media, the wounded parties, or God? Or all of them? Because nowadays, one can't be sure. 

Why does society have this persistent and exaggerated need to pillory folk? Why are we so quick to judge others and to find the worst in others? It reminds me of the unenlightened times in past centuries, where people who had done wrong were locked into the pillory in the town square for a few hours. The aim was to publicly humiliate them. The pillory was often used to punish perjurers or those who incited to perjury. In that sense, our society is worse because individuals are pilloried via the media for much longer periods of time and for much lesser 'crimes', and the internet records the punishment for posterity. Some people 'survive' the punishment and make the best of it; others disappear from public life for good. 

I think it's odd that as secularism has increased, the ability to forgive others has diminished. The same people who scorn religion think it's perfectly alright to judge and punish the people they deem to have 'sinned'. They think it's perfectly alright to publicly humiliate others until the 'sinners' beg for forgiveness. The sinners are up against a tough crowd. Those doing the judging and humiliating are more like the Pharisees than like Christ. I'd rather take my chances with the latter; at least if you are truly sorry, forgiveness is available to you, and you need not be publicly scorned in order to obtain it. 

April garden update

Today, the first day of April, was an absolutely beautiful day in Oslo. No joke (since it's April Fool's Day); the temperatures were in the forties, the sky was blue and cloudless, and the sun shone down and warmed everything it touched. That's a good thing, because the garden has gotten a late start this year due to all the snow and cold we've had. I cannot remember a winter during the past thirty years that has had so much snow as this year's. There are still snow patches in the garden, and ice in the places where the sun hasn't reached yet. But if we have a week with the temperature we had today, the snow and ice will melt and we'll be on our way toward a real spring. And from what I can see of the weather forecast for the next week or so, no more snow is predicted, thankfully. I hope that is the case; you never know. 

I sowed out seeds in the greenhouse this past Wednesday and Thursday--pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber, cherry tomato, sunflower, cornflower, pot marigold, nasturtium, and rose mallow. I will sow out string bean seeds on Monday. I decided to sow out now rather than wait two more weeks. The greenhouse is nice and warm during the day, even though temperatures at night still dip to around freezing. But the seed containers are on raised benches, nowhere near the ground. So they'll be fine; that has been my experience in previous years. Some of my fellow gardeners call me an optimist because I sow out so early. But last year I waited too long--to mid-April--and the vegetable plant seedlings were a bit too small when I planted them outdoors. So it took time for them to grow large enough, which delayed their vegetable production. 

When the ground is completely ice-free and I can work the soil, I'll plant my seed potatoes. That will probably be somewhere around mid-April. I've already started cutting down and removing dead stems and leaves, and I've pruned the rose bush that adorns the garden arch, as well as the ninebark tree near the greenhouse. I'm hoping that pruning the rose bush will force growth on the stems growing on the sides of the arch so that when the roses bloom it doesn't look like a bouffant hairdo at the top of the arch--piled high on top and little on the sides. 

The snowdrops are finally blooming, and the grape hyacinth and daffodils are starting to come up. I haven't seen any crocuses yet, but I guess they'll bloom soon. I'm looking forward to my forsythia blooming; I have three bushes planted in different areas of the garden. They are one of my favorite spring flowers. The cherry tree and lilac bushes survived the winter, as did my wisteria and magnolia tree. The berry bushes always do well--black currant, red currant, blueberry and gooseberry. They come back each year without fail. 

I'll post some photos soon. In the meantime, for all the gardeners I know and for the gardeners who read my blog--happy gardening!

An update--more generosity of spirit

I wrote a post on March 3 about generosity of spirit (A New Yorker in Oslo: Generosity of spirit (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). I had experienced that in connection with my book about growing up in Tarrytown New York--A Town and A Valley: Growing Up in Tarrytown and the Hudson Valley. The administrator of the Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow: We've Lived and Loved There Facebook page where a notice had been posted about my book praised the book as great and meant that I was a fabulous author. It's nice to hear that as I wrote in my post from March 3rd, because if you think a writer hears that a lot, you'd be wrong. His generosity of spirit gave me a real boost in spirit (self-confidence, motivation, perseverance). Writers need that from time to time. Heck, everyone needs a mental boost from others from time to time. We're human after all. It keeps us going.

Since that time, I've heard from other people who've bought the book; one man wrote that he 'devoured it' and that the book contained wonderful memories. I've heard from a man who works at the Warner Library in Tarrytown that the library has purchased a copy and will make it available for loan to library users. And someone associated with The Tarrytown Historical Society told me that they will buy a copy of the book. All of this is wonderful news and makes me quite happy! I've also contacted several local bookstores in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow to hear if they will carry the book. We'll see what happens.

There is much to be grateful for in this life. I am grateful for this attention at present. I know it's likely to be my fifteen minutes of fame. I know it won't last. But it's a nice fifteen minutes. Writers don't get rich from writing books; very few do. That's not why most of them write. At least it's not why I write. But it's nice to know that something I wrote hit a nerve among folk who lived and grew up in the same town as I did. I thank them for the verbal support and for buying my book. I will pay it forward, that's for sure. 

A slippery slope

We live in a strange world now, one that promotes mediocre books, movies, music and art as very good or even excellent. The reviews are often stellar; I know because I read them. I'm always interested in what others mean or have to say. I will often watch a film or read a book because it's gotten good reviews, but it happens more often than not these days that I disagree with the reviewers, professional and non-professional. That was the case with the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once (I don't understand how this film won so many Oscars) and with some recent best-selling books (The Midnight Library, Euphoria, and Normal People come to mind). All of them received stellar reviews, but I was disappointed by them. My criteria for judging them to be less than stellar are the following: poor plotting, disjointed plots, disguised preachiness, banal fluff that passes for philosophical thought, lack of depth concerning the serious matters that are taken up in the film or books, and so on. That being said, there were some classic books I read when I was growing up that I didn't like or didn't make me feel good, but objectively I know that they were good books. I have read books considered to be classics, by authors who are considered to be excellent that I haven't liked--for example, some few books by Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene. I evaluate them as mediocre because they had poor plots or rather ridiculous or superficial plotting and a failure to create engaging characters--mediocre at best. Most writers would probably agree that not everything they've published is up to snuff. How could it be? My point is that we need to be able to discuss some of these aspects when reading and writing reviews, because otherwise we can just accept that reviews have become sycophantic. Real objective discussion is rare at present. It seems as though the criteria for judging something as excellent or not have been pushed aside in favor of how one feels about the book, movie, art or politician in question. In other words, using subjective criteria for evaluations rather than objective criteria. If one likes a book, movie, piece of art, or politician because it/he or she made you feel good, I have no problem with that, but it can't end there. There have to be logical objective reasons as well for why one thinks something is excellent. But that's the slippery slope we're heading down right now. The definition of a slippery slope is a dangerous pathway or route to follow; a route that leads to trouble (Slippery slope - Idioms by The Free Dictionary). On that slippery slope, feelings alone matter, not logic or common sense. Feelings determine nearly everything, and it's easy to get fooled into thinking that something is good merely because other people feel that it is good. But it isn't. 

Nowadays we read about a classic book or film being 'cancelled' because it contained some off-color language or outmoded ideas that the woke crowd found insulting and wanted to rid the world of. One simply cannot do this. I am not in favor of cancelling books, films and pieces of art simply because they are outdated or not relevant to current societal mores and ways of doing things. One can teach students about those novels or films in reference to the age in which they were written or made, in other words, place them in their proper historical context. But we cannot rid the world of everything we don't like or pretend that it doesn't exist. We cannot cancel everything we don't like merely based on feelings. 

The potential for harmful situations exists when we abandon logic in favor of feelings alone. Basing judgments solely on feelings leads to a mob mentality, and mob mentalities never lead to anything good. In political situations, we've seen what can happen when mobs get out of control--the January 6th Capitol attack, for example. Even if it didn't start out as a planned attack, it became an attack and got out of control, no matter what Tucker Carlson says and feels. Again, Carslon knows (feels) that it was basically a sightseeing tour. He's concluded for us all and we should just accept his word. Except that I don't. His evaluation is not based on facts, but on feelings, his feelings. It's also based on his network's greed; how much they can milk this situation for all it's worth. 

So true

 

"It's not that I have something to hide.....I have nothing I want you to see."

Anon is a futuristic dystopic sci-fi film from 2018 (Anon (2018) - IMDb) where everyone has a digital signature that is available at all times on society's augmented reality grid. Individuals are tracked every minute of the day, every day, on government orders, rendering privacy and anonymity non-existent. The tracking is essentially done by others around you, and is accomplished via ocular implants that record everything individuals see in order to provide augmented-reality displays to them and others.  In other words, the implants overlay this recorded information onto real-life situations almost immediately. If you see a person on the street, the overlays let you see all the digital information that exists about that person because all that information from everyone's ocular implants has been uploaded to the grid. It's almost like having a search engine in your brain. This makes policemen's jobs easier, because they pretty much already know who the criminal is immediately after a crime has been committed or while it is being committed. Policemen can tap into the scene of the crime using coordinates and gather the information that is needed; in principle they don't even need to be present. In practice, they visit crime sites in order to gather forensic clues that confirm their case against perpetrators. 

But there is a person who is not on the digital grid, a tech-savvy young woman (The Girl/Anon, played by Amanda Seyfried) whose analog life makes her invisible to anyone looking for her. It turns out that she has cleverly disguised herself in the system using algorithms that 'disseminate' information about her. It is impossible to gather a complete picture of her or to get complete information about her. Those who pass her in the street register her presence but get no information about her. She is a glitch in the system, and that makes the detective (Sal Frieland, played by Clive Owen) who is working on a series of inexplicable serial murders, curious. The murders are committed from the murderer's perspective, not the victim's, and the victims' views don't provide any information about the killer. He passes The Girl one day on the street, and when he cannot retrieve information about her, it occurs to him that she may be the murderer for whom he is looking. I won't divulge the plot or provide any spoilers, since I thought the film was a pretty good (albeit a little confusing) sci-fi film. 

But at one point toward the end of the film, The Girl says to Sal, "It's not that I have something to hide.....I have nothing I want you to see." Think about that for a second. She wants privacy for privacy's sake. She wants to be anonymous to the system. She is not doing anything criminal, she just wants her life to remain untracked, to remain outside the digital universe. She wants to be free, to say and do things without worrying that she is being tracked and recorded at all times. Although this is a futuristic sci-fi film, it made me realize how far we have come toward creating this exact society, where all of us are digitally connected at all times. We do not lead anonymous lives, nor is there that much privacy left. For example, our cell phone use provides information about our whereabouts at all times as long as we have our phones with us and turned on, which most of us do. The Alexa devices in our homes listen to everything we say and record our conversations, unless we turn off the recording function (The creepy reason why you don't want to put Alexa in your bedroom | Fox News) and Amazon’s Alexa Never Stops Listening to You | Wirecutter (nytimes.com). If you ask me, the society of Anon has already arrived. It's just that our governments have not mandated that we be on the grid if we don't want to. But we already do most of our banking online, the use of paper money has declined drastically, likewise the writing of actual paper letters. We can order food, clothing, concert tickets, and plane tickets online and never have to leave our homes if we don't want to except to attend the actual events or take the actual trips. But if the day comes when governments mandate having a digital signature, freedom as we know it will disappear forever. But rest assured, some few tech-savvy people will find ways around the system. It would be the height of irony if we begin to pay large sums of money to such people in order to return us to an analog society. We may find that an analog society is preferable if the digital one we live in imprisons us by forcing us to have our digital signature available at all times. 

A daily reminder

 

News reporting and bottom feeders

I don't need a dose of daily news from any source. I can live my life fine without it. But it's impossible to escape the news. Wherever you turn, you are inundated with news from newspapers, tv, and social media, all ready and willing to keep you updated (and get you hooked). Even with the minimal amount of exposure to world news that I allow myself, I remain updated on what is going on. I'm part of the world around me after all. But I've learned to limit my intake of news; I had to, because otherwise it's overwhelmingly depressing to be inundated by it. And being depressed about the state of the world does nothing to help the problems in the world. 

I'm not even sure we can solve the problems in the world; there are too many. I think it's enough that we do our little part each day to be good people, to be kind and generous, to help others when they need help, to guide children in the best possible way, to create a future for them that is better than the present. To do unto others as we would have them do unto us. It really just comes down to that. My parents were good people who lived their lives in a simple, honest and unaffected way. They raised a family and did a good job. They were good citizens who loved their country despite its flaws. All countries have flaws. Our parents could not foresee the world we live in currently, but their good values and ethics were and are timeless, relevant in any generation. 

Those who produce and provide the news for us are like dogs with a bone. They get a hold of a news story and literally worry it to death. They hash and rehash it ad nauseam. If you hear it once, you hear it a hundred times a day if you are so inclined. I am not. The constant presentation of the same news story amounts to a kind of brainwashing in my book. I am not interested in being brainwashed. There has to be a less insane way of dealing with the world. It boggles the mind that people like Tucker Carlson are allowed to lead news programs, insisting that what they report is true when they have verbalized the opposite privately. I think of his insistence that Trump was cheated out of the presidency and his defense of Trump as the victim of election fraud when Carlson knew it was patently untrue. I hope his news channel has to pay out bigtime to Dominion Voting Systems (their $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News). I have no use for these kinds of people. Bottom feeders. There seem to be so many bottom feeders now in the world, who have given in and given up their good values and ethics (did they ever have them). And we wonder why the world is in the mess it's in. 

Some thoughts on life, roads, gratitude, and faith

I was reading through some old Time magazines, specifically one from 2019, and came across a short article--a Quick Talk with Deepak Chopra, who was promoting his book Metahuman, Unleashing Your Infinite Potential. He talked about the importance of becoming 'metahuman' in order to make the world around us a better place, and defined 'metahuman' as 'connecting with our innate beings'. He included four questions that people can ask themselves in order to get started on the path toward becoming metahuman. They are as follows: 

1. Who am I?
2. What do I want from my life?
3. What is my purpose?
4. What am I grateful for?

I don't read this genre of literature anymore, at least not like I did when I was younger and thought that such books were written by people much wiser than I was (am). It's always tempting to think that there is a guru out there who can answer all of the questions that one might have concerning life and how to live it, especially when one is younger and hits a wall of sorrows that threaten to destroy one. But there isn't a cure-all for anything in life, and there is no guru to set us on the path of enlightenment. It is the journey that matters, after all, and you find that out when you get older. The road of life is difficult and we can only navigate it by living life with all its joys and sorrows. 'The only way out is through', as one wise person once said; the quote is attributed to Robert Frost, from his poem 'A Servant to Servants'. 

The four questions are worth asking ourselves every now and then, especially if we feel we have strayed from the paths we intuitively know we'd like to be on. We have to take stock every now and then and ask ourselves if what we are doing in life is what we ought to be doing. Is it good for us? Are we wasting time on things that give us nothing or have no real meaning? For example, are we glued to our screens many hours during the day, wasting time on social media that really doesn't make us or the world a better place. Do we want to take risks or make changes that would be good for us, but are too fearful to do so? 

One of the simplest ways to find our true paths again is to start by being grateful for something in our lives. That has helped me in tough times. There is always something for which we can be grateful. Just the fact that we have been given another day is a gift. I find that gratitude comes easier to me now, perhaps because I am older, but also because I know how difficult life is for some people in my life. They have sorrows in abundance. Yet they plod on. They have faith in God and that seems to help them. I don't purport to understand faith and how it strengthens people. I have faith but I also have dark times where I question it. I do know that it is a solace, albeit a mysterious one. But life gets simpler with each passing year. It's getting easier to say yes, to accept, to let go, to not argue or want to dissect or overanalyze. Perhaps that's one path that will put us in touch with our innate selves and strengthen our faith. Your will, not mine. There is a lot of power in that. I just never knew how much before. 

On writing and why I write

I've been writing this blog since 2010, and every once in a while I stop to reflect on writing it and on why I continue to write it. Those thoughts lead me down the path toward writing in general--why do I write poetry, short stories, and novels (both fictional and non-fictional)? 

I've been writing since I was fourteen years old, inspired by my high school teacher Brendan who encouraged each of us in my sophomore year class to keep a creative writing journal. We did, and he was interested in reading what we wrote and critiquing it. That started the process for me, because prior to his class, the activity I hated the most was having to write short creative essays on exams, which was not uncommon practice in grammar school. Perhaps because we only had one hour to get it done. For the life of me I couldn't be creative on demand, nor could I write anything of interest in the space of one hour. Luckily the latter is no longer true; however, I find it impossible to be creative on demand, one of the reasons I have always hated brainstorming meetings of any kind together with colleagues. They became very popular during the last fifteen or so years. I'm simply not a team player in that respect, nor did I ever aspire to becoming one. I'd say one of the main reasons I enjoyed being a scientist was because I could retire to my office and think for myself. I could come up with experimental designs and plans on my own. At that point I could share them with others if I wanted to, but I had no desire to hash out experimental designs and plans at meetings. My brain simply could not tolerate the chaos associated with trying to take into account everyone's opinions. Some scientists enjoy that; I'm not one of them. That may have been detrimental to my scientific progression. No matter. 

Writing is a solitary activity, and I enjoy it for exactly that reason. Now that I'm retired, I awake each day and look forward to my writing time in solitude. It may be one or two hours each day, but whatever time I manage, I'm grateful for it. It's time well-spent for the most part, especially when I complete a blog post or a poem and am happy with the result. Writing novels is more difficult, but when the words 'flow', the process is rewarding. I love reading about the creative process as described by other writers; I like knowing that they struggled with many of the same thoughts and feelings as I do when it comes to being creative. 

Writing is a 'private room' that I choose to enter each day. There can be noise around me, people talking, or the tv, but I don't hear them in the same way when I am inside my room. It's about having a focus and staying focused. Do I get distracted? Yes, at times, especially if I end up on the internet for one thing and then lose track of time while I meander the internet universe. But as I write my blog posts, I'm grateful for what the internet has given me--information at my fingertips. If you use the internet wisely, you won't lose your focus. 

I write because I feel that I have something to say and writing is the best way I know how to express it. I've never been very good at verbally commanding attention from others in a roomful of people. I'm not an extrovert; I feel more comfortable away from the crowd. I find that creativity manifests itself best when I am alone, unencumbered by the demands of daily life. The latter will always be there, but they can be put on hold for a few hours. I write in order to learn about the world but mostly about myself. The unconscious is a large part of our brain, but mostly unreachable/untapped. I believe that writing allows me to access my unconscious mind, which houses forgotten memories and repressed feelings, among other things. Or perhaps better put, my unconscious mind sometimes provides my conscious mind with a thought or feeling that I end up writing about. The unconscious mind tosses up tidbits of interest that I can write about if I so choose. 

Interestingly, the existence of a  'collective unconscious' has also been postulated. The term was coined by Carl Gustav Jung, who theorized that the unconscious mind consists of two layers--the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The latter according to Jung is 'the deepest level of our psyche', and is 'the whole spiritual heritage of mankind's evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual'. In other words, it is inherited through the generations (see Wikipedia for more complete information). I find this idea very appealing; it means that the collective unconscious can also influence us creatively. When I was younger I used to envision the collective unconscious as a 'ring' (not unlike the ring(s) around Saturn) swirling about above my head, containing the knowledge, thoughts and feelings of all of humanity. Sometimes I saw the faces of poets and literary figures swirling above me. I thought that if I reached my hand upward, I could pluck some of the knowledge from that ring. I knew the ring would go on forever and that it would grow ever larger the longer mankind lived. 

I've kept a dream journal for years. Some of my dreams have been quite startling and have become poems. I'd never really had what one could call nightmares until recently. I cannot shake some of the images from those dreams, so perhaps they will find their way into new poems or short stories. The following poem started life as a dream; when I remember writing this poem, I can see the images in the dream very clearly:

Confrontation            

Seated at a table on a grassy knoll
Odd people milling about me 
Talking frenetically the clocks toll

Standing then upon the table
Large coyotes all around me
Marvel at the deception they enable

He loves you he loves you she whispers in my ear
But he does not oh this I know
She may be sure of it but no

How many times I’ve wandered
From this battered table to the door
Of this old house abandoned

Once inside, light all around me, glass doors
Between the rooms, large windows
Unencumbered views of crocodile-infested shores

Turn to face the crocodiles and coyotes
Tracking me at all turns
Turn away unsure of what they want from me

Uncover what it is that must be faced
Appease the predators take them on
Make peace with treachery and move on

(from Quantum Bloom, published in 2014--Quantum Bloom: De Angelis, Paula Mary: 9781505211160: Amazon.com: Books) 

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Perhaps it isn't possible to fully know why a writer writes; the writer may not know either. That is part of the mystery of creativity. The results, when they are good, remain in the minds of the people who read the words that make up the fiction, non-fiction, dramas, and poetry collections that are cherished, often for generations. 

Hear me out

'Hear me out' is a good expression. It asks another person, persons, or an audience to listen to what the speaker has to say, without interrupting him or her, until the speaker has completed what he or she wanted to say. It asks listeners to 'let me finish what I'm saying, please'. It's a little plea for civility. 

The world needs more civil listeners who are willing to hear a speaker out, before they voice their own opinions. I'm all for a good civilized discussion between decent people. It can be an animated discussion; it can even get a bit testy on both sides. But it cannot descend into mayhem. It cannot become an attack on the speaker or an attack by the speaker on his or her listeners. It also cannot be a one-sided discussion, in the way that some discussions become, when the speaker (or the listeners) dominate the discussion. No one likes to be told that they have to think or act in a certain way, no one likes to be told that their opinion is the wrong one, with the implication that the other person's opinion is the only correct one. 

When I use internet, I read the user comments to the stories that are presented on different social media platforms. Some of the comments invite civil discussion; many do not. And I often wonder, when I sit in a room full of politically-correct (on the surface) people, how the same individuals let loose when they get the chance, often on social media. It's been written about many times before, but for some reason people feel freer to be rude and derogatory when they're on social media. Twitter is a good example. The limitations on how many words your tweet can be often generate rude and startling tweets. I rarely visit Twitter anymore exactly for that reason. No one hears the other person out. The platform is not set up that way. It does not invite real discussion. It does invite venting. Venting is fine, but it's probably best to do it in the privacy of your own home, preferably away from family members who have most likely grown tired of listening to the same rants and raves. Venting does not invite discussion; it destroys discussion, and it destroys the willingness on the part of listeners to hear the venter out. 

In normal conversation, it should be possible to listen to what another person has to say before answering. It should be possible to not interrupt, to not jump in with your opinion, to not destroy the focus and flow of another person's thoughts and feelings (if they are being expressed). As long as the speaker is civil, the responses should be civil. But we have come to a point in the world where even if the speaker is civil and asks an audience to let him or her finish, there is no guarantee that civil responses will be the outcome, even in family situations. And the latter are often the most insidious, especially if one person (male or female) dominates all discussions and the rest of the family end up being helpless listeners or cowed into listening. 

How did we get to this point? I don't know. I remember watching 'Meet the Press' with my father during the late 1970s. If there were people on the show with opposing ideas, they each got their say. There was a host/moderator who ensured that the tone stayed civil. Critics might say that this emphasis on civility limited real discussion; I disagree. Even talk show hosts listen to their guests. If a civil discussion degenerates into chaos, what does one learn then? Nothing. Chaos does not lead to real discussion, truthfulness, honesty or awareness. It destroys whatever decency exists. That's how I view Twitter. I don't learn anything useful on that platform, at least where politics are concerned. There are no 'take home messages' that help me in my daily life. 

My hope for today is that we try to be better listeners. Thank you for reading and for hearing me out. 

A glorious day

Today is one of those glorious rare winter days here in Oslo--the sun is shining full-force, the sky is blue, the temperature is hovering just around freezing, the streets are clear and the sidewalks likewise. In other words, an outdoor day! It doesn't take more than this to convince me. Whenever the sun shines, I feel my motivation and energy bubbling under the surface, pushing me this way and that. It's never a problem to fill these kinds of days, the question is rather, what do I do first? It's not a question of what I should do, rather, of what I want to do. It's a privilege to be able to decide that in the peace of my own home, without having to worry about running off to work. One of the nice perks of being retired. 

On these kinds of days, I look forward to getting back to work in my garden. I look at my houseplants, and they are basking in the sun, much like cats and dogs do when the sun is streaming through the windows. You can just tell that the plants are loving the sunshine as much as I am. That does my heart good, and God knows my heart, actually many hearts in the world, need a lot more sunshine to lift us all out of the winter darkness. Is it any wonder that most people love the spring and summer months? Even the autumn months have their charm despite being a prelude to winter. I think of New York State in the autumn; the temperatures are often quite mild until November, and the humidity is much less than it is during the summer months, which makes life very pleasant.

It's not that I dislike winter, it's just that it's such a long season (November until mid-March if we're lucky). It's also a dark season, and it doesn't help that most of the days are gray, cloudy, and sometimes rainy. I actually look forward to snow, because it 'lightens' the environment. If you look out the window on a snowy evening, you'll see how bright it is outside. That helps. I know that winter is a season of rest for plants, animals and humans alike. Gardens need a growth pause; they need to recoup their energy losses and start anew. A lot is going on underground in a winter garden. Microbes, bacteria, fungi and other organisms in the soil transform the soil and make nutrients during the winter months that will then be available to the plants that come back to life in the spring. 

But back to today's wonderful longed-for sunshine! It's a wonderful, glorious day. I wish you all a lovely day, wherever you are in the world. 

The lies we tell others and ourselves

I am currently watching The Lying Life of Adults series on Netflix, based on the book of the same name by Elena Ferrante. I read the book in 2021 and wrote a post about it (A New Yorker in Oslo: Elena Ferrante's The Lying Life of Adults (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). The Netflix series encompasses six episodes, and I've already seen four of them. Elena Ferrante has been involved in the writing of the script for the series, and you can always tell when she has had her hand in things. There is a certain identifying mark that raises the overall quality to very good (this series: The Lying Life of Adults (TV Series 2023– ) - IMDb) to superb (My Brilliant Friend on HBO: My Brilliant Friend (TV Series 2018– ) - IMDb ). The series was created by Edoardo De Angelis (every time I see his last name on the screen I have to smile since it is my last name as well, spelled the same way). His wife Pina Turco plays Nella, whose husband Andrea leaves her for Costanza, a family friend. But by extension, he leaves his teenage daughter Giovanna as well. The series is about Giovanna (very well-acted by Giordana Marengo) and her growing up amidst the turmoil around her: her parents' separation and divorce; her father's eventual remarriage to Costanza and his new home in Posillipo (an affluent area of Naples) on the Gulf of Naples; Giovanna's introduction to her aunt Vittoria (wonderfully-acted by Valeria Golino) and to the family of Enzo, Vittoria's now-deceased lover; her relationships with her two best friends, Angela and Ida, who just happen to be Costanza's daughters. But it is her relationship with Vittoria (Andrea's sister whom he cannot abide) that changes her life and moves her firmly into adulthood. 

Andrea, Nella, Costanza, Mariano (Costanza's ex-husband), and Vittoria all lie to others and to themselves. Andrea and Costanza have lived a lie for years by having an affair and keeping it secret. Nella has either refused to see the truth or has turned a blind eye to it; in any case, she continues to defend Andrea and to call him a good man. Vittoria initially seems to be the most honest of all the adults in Giovanna's life, but she too turns out to be a liar who tells herself and others (particularly Giovanna) that she loved only Enzo and has never been with another man since he died, but this is not true. Giovanna learns that she cannot trust very many people, which of course is the demarcation between childhood and adulthood. What do you do with that knowledge? What do you do when you find out that the adults in your life are no better at handling/navigating their lives than the teenagers they are trying to raise? What do you do when you find out that their lives are as miserable and chaotic as yours? 

The lies we tell others and ourselves, when others ask us how we are, how our lives are going. How many people really answer honestly? We do so with those few people we love and trust, with our closest friends. We know we can trust them to listen to us without judging us, without abandoning us. That is a rarity in a world that seeks to judge (and cancel) another immediately without knowing or being interested in the facts. Of course we can ask, what is the truth? Is your side of a story truer than mine? We all lie to ourselves to some extent; we do so in order to deal with each day. We tell ourselves that our spouses and children are better than those of others we know, but the reality is otherwise. All families have problems, perhaps the same types of problems but to varying degrees. All families have squabbles, some have real fights, and some are on the outs with other family members for entire lifetimes. We may not have much of a relationship with a sibling, but we say that he or she has a busy life and we talk to them when we can. A spouse may not be all that involved in the family life at home, and we make the same excuse--he or she has a demanding job that keeps him or her busy. Those who are workaholics know that they are overworking to avoid something else in their lives, perhaps an unhappy home life, and those who are diehard alcoholics, drug addicts and overeaters tell themselves that they have their addictions under control, that they can quit drinking, doing drugs, or overeating any time they want. But deep down inside, they know the truth; they can't quit overworking, drinking to excess, doing drugs, or overeating, not without help and a lot of motivation to change. Lying to ourselves, even just a little, helps to mitigate the intensity of our problems. And for most of us, it does; we get through each day without major calamities ensuing. But for those with serious problems, those problems just get worse. 

It might not be a good thing if we were always honest about our thoughts and feelings in relation to others. Little white lies help us survive in what could be awkward situations with loved ones. We do our best to be truthful, but sometimes you have to weigh the situation and ask yourself if others (or you yourself) can tolerate hearing the truth or the answers to the questions they've asked. I think of those I know with health problems; is it better for them to hear that their overall prognosis could be good if they do this or that, rather than dismal because of the type of illness they have or because of one's hereditary tendencies? Nobody wants to be told straight out that they are going to die in a few months or years. And if people are told that, they often want to consider themselves the outliers--those few who fall outside the norm. Can you blame people for thinking this way? I think we are hotwired to think this way to some degree, due to the idea of self-preservation and the instinct for survival. We lie to ourselves in the hope that it will turn out alright. And sometimes it does. 

Reflections on knowledge and love

I have reflected often on portions of this passage from 1 Corinthians 13:

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.....

Also:

.....Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

We come to the eventual understanding that secular knowledge (not relating to the spiritual world) is infinite, that we will never learn all there is to learn. The pursuit of new and greater knowledge will be the task of each new generation. We have come very far since our early days on earth in terms of the accumulation of secular knowledge. History is full of the stories of vast empires, overwhelming defeats, plagues, holy wars and wars in general, colonization, slavery and renaissance periods that moved humankind forward in great strides. Over the many centuries, humankind has become more civilized. Technological advances just within the past thirty years have changed our lives forever--personal computers, cell phones, the digital age. Accumulated earthly knowledge is at our fingertips for the most part; we need only do online searches to find what we are looking for. That was not the case thirty years ago, a century ago, a millennium ago. We keep up with all the new changes and innovations. We have to, since we belong to this generation. 

What I mostly wonder about is the pursuit of secular knowledge. We are told as children that education is very important for getting the right kind of job or career. But education in and of itself is not knowledge. It is the impartment of knowledge, but it is up to each individual to receive and accept that knowledge. A degree in a specific subject does not necessarily imply that the recipient is knowledgeable; it merely states that the recipient has fulfilled the requirements for a particular degree. The person may have cheated or obtained the degree unethically. There is no guarantee that education will produce knowledgeable individuals. But generally speaking, it does to a point. However, that knowledge is limited. There are people with advanced degrees who can tell you everything you'd like to know about a very specialized subject. They have a wealth of limited secular knowledge that they can impart to others if others wish. But they cannot necessarily impart knowledge in other areas, and if they try to do so, they can be criticized for doing so. 

However, let us imagine that such people had learned all that it was possible to learn in this life. Do they eventually come to the realization that the accumulation of secular knowledge will never cease? As long as humankind continues to exist, knowledge will change, grow and evolve. Current secular knowledge will pass away in the sense that the possessor of that knowledge passes away, but secular knowledge in and of itself does not cease to exist. Future secular knowledge will build upon it, just that it has yet to be discovered. Secular knowledge is infinite in its scope, even though we cannot imagine what the future will bring. It will always be in front of humankind, an aim, a challenge. It's tiring in some respects to realize this. Perhaps it is at this point that individuals realize that the accumulation of more and more secular knowledge isn't of paramount importance. Letting go of the quest for the incessant accumulation of such knowledge may be the right path for many people who have realized that no matter how much they learn, it will never be enough. Their current knowledge will eventually become passé, it will pass away as will they. We learn as we grow older that we are replaceable and that we will be replaced. Others will be younger, smarter, better equipped for the new world that awaits. That is the way of the world. We don't think about this when we are young. And that is also the way of the world. 

We will never have perfect or total secular knowledge as humans; that would be an existence in a realm outside of earth's. Corinthians is not saying that there is something wrong with pursuing secular knowledge, just that we need to be aware of its transience. Spiritual knowledge and learning to love are of equal importance. I don't think secular knowledge and spiritual knowledge are mutually exclusive; they are connected. We need to learn how to love and to recognize the divine, and that requires the impartment of a body of knowledge having to do with both. We will never have perfect human love, just as we will never have perfect secular knowledge. But God's love will always be there, it never fails. It underlies all that we do in our human lives. We learn by doing, by practicing the commandments, but we also learn by reading spiritual literature. We learn by adopting a mindset open to the spiritual. There ought to be more emphasis on imparting this kind of knowledge in the world. There are parents who take on this task; they are spiritual guides or at least they ought to be, but not all parents can open the non-secular world of knowledge for their children because they are not aware of it themselves. It's often left to religious schooling to do that, e.g. Catholic schools. My parents were my first spiritual teachers, and I'm grateful for the knowledge they imparted to me. They did the best they could. I'm also grateful to Catholic grammar school for the same thing. 

Reflections on relevance, leadership, and freedom

Once you are no longer a part of the work world, a certain amount of your professional relevance disappears. For many people, that is the same as their professional identity, and it can be difficult to deal with that 'loss' of identity. Perhaps it is most difficult for those who had leadership responsibilities; it seems to be difficult for some to acknowledge that they are not 'in charge' anymore. They may cast around for new venues that will allow them to be in charge once again, and that can be somewhat disconcerting for those who know them. I don't feel that I've lost my professional identity now that I am no longer working. I am no longer relevant to my former workplace, that's true, but I trained as a scientist and a scientist I will always be. It's in my blood, in the same way as my love of books and movies is in my blood. I've always focused on keeping my personal identity alive. After all, even when I was working, I still had nights and weekends and vacations to pursue my hobbies and interests. And I did. 

There is a lot of freedom in no longer having to be relevant to a workplace. I am now free to write and to verbalize about many aspects of workplaces with which I was dissatisfied. It won't lead to much in the sense that workplaces will continue doing pretty much what they've been doing; my opinions won't change them. But it feels good to have that freedom to comment on them, to not have to be so careful about what I say or how I say it. I've always taken good care to not be rude or destructive in my previous posts about workplaces, and that won't change. But I can now state more emphatically that I agree or disagree with this or that way of doing things. I was able to do that this past summer at a garden party, and it felt good. And one of my former leaders (who is no longer a leader) actually agreed with me, whereas when she was my leader, she would have probably told me that my comments were out of place. It made me view her in a new light, because I thought, ah yes, she too had to report to a leader above her, and that was probably not always the easiest thing to do. So I gained a new understanding of her and her attempts (mostly unsuccessful) at being a good leader. As I've stated before, most of the leaders I've had to do with have not been good leaders. And a few are honest and say that themselves. I'm not sure I would have been a good leader either, at least not a top-level leader. There's too much blah blah ad nauseam. I am solution-oriented; I don't want to meet and talk for hours about how to get something done, I want to discuss what needs to be discussed, come up with some plans for a solution(s) (if there are problems), and execute them. I am practical by nature, at least where the work world is concerned. 

I've been a team and project leader and I've reported to several leaders above me during a long career. I've also participated in committee work at the highest leadership level at my former workplace and found it rather disappointing. I had a (rather) utopian view of it; I thought that there was much more freedom at the top level to set things in motion, to be innovative, to be efficient, to effect change. I found out that that wasn't necessarily the case; more often, it was frustrating work. There wasn't more freedom, because in the end, we are always having to answer to other people; we are never truly free. Top-level leaders must answer to the politicians who deal out the money that keeps public sector workplaces going. And unfortunately politicians don't always understand what's at stake or what is needed. Sometimes it amazes me that anything gets done at all in the public sector. But it does, so that's proof that things do work, albeit very very slowly and in a frustrating manner. I probably would have experienced less frustration in the private sector. But it's a moot point at this juncture in my life. 

New year, new beginnings

Ending this year on an optimistic note.... It's been a tough year for many people. Let's hope that the new year brings good health and many blessings to all those who are dealing with illness especially. 

Just light one candle

These are strange times we live in, but I suppose many generations before us and many that will come after us did and will say the same. It seems as though war, famine, poverty, natural disasters, manmade catastrophes, greed, corruption, inhumanity and lack of compassion will always be with us. Each generation seems to invent a new way to be unkind to humanity. And yet, humanity persists. There must be a reason for that. I believe it is because the numbers of good people in the world outweigh the bad. For all of the media focus on each act of evil in the world, there are probably many more acts of goodness. It's just that we don't hear about them very often. When I look at the number of volunteers around the world, I know that there are many people who make a difference for the better in other people's lives. Without volunteers, the world would truly be a poor place in which to live. People do care about others--about their families and friends, about strangers, about world problems. But most of us know that we cannot solve the big problems, so we support those we know who can and do. Most of us live and will live unremarkable lives; we will not achieve great things by worldly standards, but we do make a difference to those in our lives. And that's really all that matters. The important thing is that we love, try to love, fail at times, and that we try again. Most of us are trying to do our best, and that is what makes the difference, in our own lives and in the lives of those with whom we live and those we love. That doesn't mean that we are able to live each day in a cheerful and upbeat way; sometimes we are cranky, impatient, out of sorts, and dealing with our own aches and pains. It does mean that even when we don't feel like being nice, we try to be nice, because it matters. Sometimes a smile is all it takes to make another person feel ok. I know that's true for me. Or a simple small act of kindness; that can make my day. And then I have more of a desire to 'pay it forward'. So if that's true for me, I'm guessing it's true for others too. 

I've written about this before, but in the end, if we light one candle rather than curse the darkness*, we have done something positive for humanity, for our fellow men and women. If we are that light to others, we guide them through the darkness. And sometimes the others are our guides. Regardless of who is holding the candle, the important thing is that the candle is lit and held by someone. 

Wishing all my readers a blessed Christmas!

*Yet it is far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness. (W. L. Watkinson)