Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts

Friday, January 12, 2024

The waning of common sense

Actions speak louder than empty words, strange ideas, or half-baked theories. When you put any of the latter into action and the results are underwhelming or even foolish, you have to ask why. The answer is found in the waning of common sense. Society is losing its ability to think, discuss, and act rationally. 

People are talking about how AI (artificial intelligence) is going to be the undoing of the human race--that AI technology/machines are going to wipe us out. As far as I can see, the human race is doing a bang-up job of wiping itself out all by its lonesome. AI doesn't worry me half as much as does the bad behavior of human beings. Let's list up the bad behavior: greed and more greed, lust, envy, stealing, cheating, murder, lack of peace, warmongering--all of which will be our undoing.  

Climate change hysteria has invaded and permeated every aspect of our lives. While I don't deny that there have been increases in different types of climate changes (global warming, rising seas, melting polar caps), no one can say for sure if the causes are due to man or to natural changes or both. I would guess both. We should make adjustments to the way we live, yes. That we should uncritically swallow every new idea that is put forth as to how to eliminate climate change, no. 

Pertinent to the previous point, here in Norway, electric cars are overtaking gas cars, which will likely be phased out in a few years. The politicians are totally on board with this way of thinking. There is little to no discussion of why electric cars are better than gas cars. I understand that the carbon dioxide emissions from gas cars can contribute to a greenhouse effect. But what about the production of the huge lithium-ion batteries needed to run these cars? What about the mining that is necessary to obtain the metals needed for these batteries? What about the disposal of these huge batteries? And additionally, let's get real, Norway is a winter country with snow and bitter cold from November until April. Cold temperatures reduce the efficiency of these batteries which in turn affects the performance of electric cars. Heating electric cars is a drain on the batteries, so in the wintertime the cars can be quite cold so as not to drain the batteries. Also, I've read that the production of lithium-ion batteries results in more carbon dioxide emissions compared to gas car usage. So tell me again, why are electric cars better? Why not push hybrid cars that can run on gas fuel in the winter and on battery power in the summer, if you've got to push anything at all? The goal is null emissions from gas-fueled cars, but it's ok if the emissions come from electric car battery production. This makes no sense to me since the emissions from the latter are only going to increase as more and more transportation vehicles (cars, boats, planes) 'go electric'. 

I am on board with using public transportation more, rather than using our cars for everything. Better yet, get out and walk if you can. Interestingly enough, Oslo has invested millions of dollars in electric buses and is phasing out its biofuel/diesel buses. But do the electric buses run in the wintertime when it is bitter cold outside, like it has been the past few weeks? No, they don't. They've stopped running, they're cold inside because to warm the buses up drains the batteries, the distance range (how long you can drive before the battery needs recharging) is abysmal, and the bus drivers are fed up. Do the bus company managers listen to their drivers? No, they don't. They continue to push their agenda, that electric buses are the future, no matter what. The same problem has occurred with the electric ferries that run between the Oslo fjord islands. Who wants to be out in the middle of the ocean when the ferries stop due to battery problems? These problems don't inspire confidence at all. I don't even want to think about the airline companies; eventually they'll be pushing electric airplanes. I won't be flying on them. 

Oslo has invested millions of dollars in bike lanes. Admirable, yes. You can really get around the city using your bicycle. We can thank the Green Party for that. But again, this has been their focus to the exclusion of other equally important issues. And during the wintertime, the bike lanes are cleared of snow and salted. The sidewalks are another story. Walking is just as healthy for you as biking, perhaps more so. But no one is going to get out and walk when they fear falling and breaking an arm or leg on slippery snowy sidewalks. It makes no sense to me, this strange prioritizing. Additionally, very few people except the diehards bike during the wintertime. 

Food prices continue to increase. The increases seen are for the healthy foods--fruits and vegetables, fish, etc. I can attest to that. But a box of gingerbread cookies after Christmas in one of the Oslo supermarkets was selling for less than a dollar. Go figure. The Green Party is pushing us all to eat less or no meat. But I don't see them pushing the supermarket owners to lower the prices of healthy foods. I don't see them making that their focal point. The thinking is that we should continue to pay higher prices for them. Is it any wonder that people eat at fast food places where they can still afford the prices? The thinking that 'I should pay more for the quality food that is best for me' only goes so far. Most people have a food budget. I feel sorry for families of four or more. Their food budgets must be very high. And while I'm on the subject of food, salmon has been pushed and is still being pushed as being very healthy for us. Wild salmon, yes. Farmed salmon, not so much. The open tanks for fish farming use antibiotics and pesticides to keep the salmon 'healthy'. Sick fish find their way into the processing plants. What is healthy about keeping fish swimming around in crowded conditions in tanks compared to having them swimming wild in the ocean? The answer given is that it isn't possible to catch enough wild salmon for human consumption, thus we need fish farms. My answer--eat less salmon, eat less tuna, eat less meat. You don't have to cut them out completely from your diet. Just cut down. We're overfishing the oceans as it is. 

Norway is very good at recycling plastic bottles and plastic items in general. However, plastic waste is exported to other European countries that presumably have ways of dealing with this type of waste. I'm not sure of the percentage of plastic waste that is exported, but it seems to me that in a country as rich as this one, that a solution could be found so that Norway could take care of its own plastic waste, rather than export it. Apparently, many countries have previously exported their plastic waste to developing countries which have found themselves overwhelmed by the sheer amounts. So these countries have dumped the waste they cannot process into the waterways and oceans. So what has been accomplished? It is not correct to say that Norway (or the USA or other European countries) are not polluting the oceans. They are, just not directly. Each country should take care of its own waste. Rich countries should lead the way, and the Green Party in this country should prioritize that. 

Friday, November 3, 2023

Odds and ends

We're watching The Rockford Files these days, one of the better American tv detective series from the 1970s that ran from 1974 to 1980. I remember watching it sporadically back then; my mother was a fan of the show and of James Garner who played private detective Jim Rockford, and sometimes I watched it with her. Here in Norway it's available for streaming on SkyShowtime. We're only seven episodes into the first season, and the guest stars have been Lindsey Wagner, Susan Strasberg, Sian Barbara Allen, Gretchen Corbett, Roger Davis, James Woods--all actresses and actors I remember well from the 1970s and 1980s. 

Last night we watched Where Eagles Dare, an action-packed WWII thriller from 1968 starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. I'd never seen it before, and it was well-worth watching. Pretty amazing scenes--fighting atop a cable car, climbing up the side of a castle--definitely not what you see everyday. It made me realize that some of the action films with Bruce Willis were definitely influenced by films such as this one. James Bond films as well. Enjoyable to watch, even though the body count in Where Eagles Dare was over the top. You don't forget for one minute that you're dealing with Nazi Germany and that the enemy has to be vanquished. 

I am drawn more and more to the older films and series, possibly because they are more enjoyable to watch than many of the newer films, even if they are less realistic. And if they deal with dark subject matter, they still manage not to sink into a morass of despair. I watch them and can then let them go after they're finished. I don't know if that's good or bad in the context of war films, but there are plenty of the latter that will leave you in a despairing frame of mind for a long time afterward. I watch them too, but it's hard to say I enjoy them. I can comment on them as quality films, well-acted films, etc. Realistic films. Where Eagles Dare is not a realistic film by any stretch of the imagination. In the same vein, we watched A Haunting in Venice two nights ago, Kenneth Branagh's new Agatha Christie film about Poirot who is now retired and living in Venice Italy. He is pulled out of retirement by an author friend of his to solve a presumed murder (that end up being multiple murders) in a spooky old house in Venice. Fun to watch, and again, the dark subject matter doesn't bring you down. I don't know how Agatha Christie did it, but she managed to write entertaining books about murders and murderers. Much like Dorothy Sayers. Both had a way of writing that drew you into the novels without burying you. 

Winter arrived early this past Monday. No one I know was ready for it psychologically. Too soon for snow and accumulation. Luckily most of the snow has melted due to the steady rain that we've had for the last twenty-four hours. But this has been the year for windiness. It seems like the wind has blown continually this year. I wish it would stop and I wish that the sun would shine more. But we're living in the era of climate change, so I'm not sure I can wish for anything of the sort.

Halloween was fun for the kids this year. But of course we always have the killjoys and the sourpusses, the ones who can't and won't let anyone off the hook for having a bit of fun. God forbid you should have some fun. How many articles I've read by young people/parents who criticize that 'American' Halloween has arrived in Norway and appears to have settled into the October repertoire. They resent having to spend money on costumes and candy. For the first, Halloween isn't originally an American holiday, but I'm not going to be bothered to get into that aspect of it. A young man I worked with years ago, who was studying to become a doctor, referred to some of his fellow students as people who walked around with rods up their rear ends. That's how I view some of the killjoys--stiff, uptight, unable to just 'let it go'. If they don't like it, no one else should, and by extension, no one else should be able to enjoy it.

Why can't more people just 'let it go' or 'live and let live?' Our society comments ad nauseam about everything under the sun. The more that gets criticized, the more I want to uphold and support all that gets criticized. I'm 'trassig' (defiant in English) that way. And I intend to remain defiant. 

And finally, I've switched off the ability to comment on my blog posts again due to a troll that leaves disturbing comments. Notice I refer to the troll as a 'that'. Not a 'who'. You never know these days. It could just be a robot or a non-human posing as a human. I thought I had set the filters correctly, perhaps I didn't. But if it's a human doing it, that person is an 'it' in my book. In any case, it's now a moot point. No more comments. 

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Random reflections and observations

Politics. We're heading into a new presidential race that unsurprisingly enough feels like a repeat of four years ago. Biden versus Trump, unless each party comes up with a better candidate to represent them. I wish both men would retire quietly, without a lot of fanfare and chest beating, and leave the arena to new and younger blood. Although promising at one time, De Santis just doesn't make the grade; he seems like a mini-Trump sans the bravado and in-your-face aggressiveness. But he pales in Trump's shadow. If Trump wasn't in the picture, maybe he'd have half a chance. But I don't think he has what it takes to be president. Neither does Trump, for that matter. I cannot understand why anyone still supports Trump, but I've given up trying to figure people out. He's a national embarrassment and I can say that; I live abroad and I see the reactions of the European media to him. No one can figure out the Trump supporters. Many theories have been advanced as to why they support him, but there doesn't seem to be one defining thing that makes them like him. It's actually a bit scary. 

Society. I saw a meme on Facebook today "Forget world peace, just try visualizing using your turn signal when driving". That's about where it is for me. I suppose we need to aim high--world peace--but at this point, I'd settle for a return to common courtesy and common sense in society. It seems that the world is mired in greed, lack of ethics, lack of empathy, lack of respect, and lack of common sense. I see it every day here in Oslo. The rudeness in society is appalling; bicyclists who don't stop for pedestrians in the crosswalks, but who suddenly stop for no good reason in the bike lanes, causing those behind them to brake suddenly. One day there is going to be a major accident involving many cyclists. Bicyclists here are as thoughtless as many car drivers, but we're always hearing about how rude car drivers are, never how rude bicyclists are. That's because the Green Party here has to push its message, which is to bike in any and all circumstances. "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail" should prevent the good Oslo citizen from biking. It borders on ridiculous. It's like the Green Party has forgotten that winter in this country is a good five to six months long. I don't understand their point of view and I never will. Some construction projects take years to plan, finalize and complete. Not so with bike paths; they are constructed and finished before you have the chance to take a breath. When they want something, nothing stands in their way--that's the motto of the Green Party. I have no problems with biking; I've been biking my entire life, since I was a child. But I won't bike in the wintertime, and I don't need fascist propaganda telling me to do just that. And as an 83-year old friend of mine recently commented--not everyone can or is able to bike, regardless of age. She's right. 

Religion. I attend mass on Saturday evenings/Sunday mornings hoping to find some peace and quiet that are conducive to contemplation and prayer. Not to be had. No matter what (purportedly sans music) mass I attend, the priest insists on singing some part of the mass. Unfortunately, about half of the priests who say mass cannot sing to save their lives, so it's both painful and irritating to listen to them. I stand in the pew and pray that my irritation dissipates, but it's a bit sad to find myself in that position at mass. I don't want to be thinking about my irritation at something that could be solved easily--just have one mass for those people who don't want priests and/or the congregation singing at them, who don't want to sing the entire mass or even parts of it. Just have a quiet mass, for heaven's sake. Is that too much to ask?

Friendship. In the final analysis, friendship is defined for me by who is there for you in good times and in bad. I have a small circle of lifelong friends without whom I couldn't imagine my life. They are in my heart forever. The rest are just acquaintances or work friends, and with a few exceptions, I cannot rely on them to be there for me. It's always been that way, but now that I'm retired, I see it more clearly. They do not prioritize getting together; they prioritize work and more work, anything that furthers the work cause. Now that I no longer work, we have less in common. If one relies on these types of people for friendship, one will be quite lonely. I don't, but I acknowledge the strangeness and clarity of it all. But suddenly, when they want to get together, they expect you to dance to their tune; they decide the time and place, you show up. Not all of them behave that way, of course. But accommodating their schedules doesn't work for me anymore. I used to do that, but no longer. My schedule is just as important as theirs, perhaps more so, because I have plenty to do now that I'm retired. They don't think so, however. So these types of relationships will eventually fade away. As will many other things, since life is about letting go.

Getting older. That leads me to the final observation--getting older means getting tougher in all ways. I'm simply not interested in wasting my time on people, situations, books, films, series etc. that give me nothing, that don't inspire me, that don't make my life better. I don't want to waste time doing things that I don't want to do, and that includes spending time with people who are sometimes nice and sometimes not. I want to spend time with people whose moods are for the most part stable, who are kind at heart, who have Christian values, and who are not rude or aggressive or passive-aggressive, or who try to gaslight you (as in, they never said or meant this or that, but they did say it and they did mean it). I want to spend time with people who are as interested in my life and what I'm doing as I am in theirs. I want to spend time with people with whom I can have a real and meaningful conversation. There is so little of the latter; it truly surprises me that more people don't miss having good conversations. I miss my parents and my brother, who were people I loved and with whom I could converse. Our times together were real, likewise our conversations. 

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Reflections on the last day of March

The last day of March. The days roll by, the months likewise. One year ago, pandemic lockdown started. One year later, we're still not out of the woods. It's strange to think about. Surreal, really. I've given up trying to follow the news in any great depth. I manage to grasp the gist of news stories without really perusing them. I gravitate toward more optimistic articles, but even those tire me out after a while. I am not sure what I'm waiting for. I want society to get vaccinated and to reopen, but I have a feeling the whole thing will be anti-climactic by the time that happens. My trust in science has not really wavered, but my trust in leaders and politicians has not gotten stronger during the past year. In all fairness, I understand that they are just human beings like the rest of us, woefully unprepared for what has happened and scrambling to make the best of a bad situation. 

The only place I feel whole these days is in my garden. The rest of the time I feel rather fragmented, pulled in all directions, by what is going on in the world, by country and local politics, by workplace politics and leadership (or lack thereof), and by spiritual leaders. It's all too much and it's all too overwhelming. The garden keeps life simple. It needs what it needs and you know what you need to do, each year, every year for as long as you have a garden. The garden keeps me sane. There's a job to do, a goal that gives one purpose. Our divorce from the natural world has come at a high price, too high if you ask me. But no one is asking me. I look at the urban policies just in Oslo alone. They keep on building and building ugly modern minimalistic new apartment buildings; all of them look the same and all of them have the same purpose, to pack as many people into them as possible. Oslo is to become an urban city--large, sprawling, packed with people. Why, I'm not sure. It's part of the Green Party politics, but I don't think their politics are smart. When one looks at pandemics, for example, it's clear that living together like sardines is not a good idea for keeping a pandemic infection rate low. Oslo can never become Manhattan, and why should it? Manhattan is Manhattan, and much of what characterizes Manhattan is due to politics from one hundred and two hundred years ago; having people packed into tight living quarters was not so much a decision as a result of and a need for dealing with the number of immigrants to the USA around the turn of the 19th century (late 1800s to early 1900s). 

My husband and I got the first dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine this past Saturday. Without going into a lot of detail, there are questions as to whether the actual vaccine we received, which was not stored at the correct temperature and needed to be used up, will actually work; will our immune systems produce antibodies against covid-19? We were only told that its expiration date was on Sunday and we decided to take it, as did many other hospital employees that evening. At the same time, the Oslo municipality is calling in its residents to get vaccinated, and this is again separate from our hospital's vaccination plan, which is again separate from the vaccination program on Saturday. We got a message from the municipality yesterday saying that we will be called in soon to be vaccinated. The problem of course is that we don't know yet if the first dose we got on Saturday will work (it takes twelve to fourteen days to produce antibodies) so that we are hoping against hope that we get called in to be vaccinated at the three- to six-week time point, so that we can either get a second dose (or a first new dose), depending on whether the original first dose is effective or not. Complicated? Yes. It always amazes me how a small country can make things so complicated. The major problem is the lack of complete information; we get dribs and drabs of information but never the entire story. It's akin to being treated like stupid sheep, which I hate. It will probably all work out, but the ensuing disorder and logistical disturbance are totally boring and unnecessary. 

Liquor stores remain open, likewise pharmacies and supermarkets. They do a good job of controlling the numbers of people allowed in at any given time, so no complaints. Otherwise, most everything happens online; you order online and your order is either delivered to your home or you go to the store to pick it up. Those stores that don't provide online ordering have suffered and some will probably close for good eventually (unfortunately). Pubs, restaurants, and training centers remain closed indefinitely. Not sure about massage parlors or tanning salons. Hair salons remain open. Churches remain closed. 

I read the news from the USA, and it's not very encouraging there either. Spring break in Florida, where social distancing is non-existent. Rape and murder of a young woman who traveled on her own to Florida for spring break. Hate crimes against minorities. The level of racism in the USA appalls me; I wish the racists would go back to hiding under their slimy disgusting rocks. Politicians together with underage young women. NY State governor Cuomo accused of sexually harassing a number of women who worked for him. Republican men who won't get vaccinated. Still a huge amount of support for Trump. It's tiring to read and to listen to. When does it all get better? A vaccine against covid-19 won't impart immunity against stupidity, idiocy, hatred, racism, vitriol and bad behavior. I wish it did, but even if it did, there'd still be many people who wouldn't take it. Guaranteed. Because there are some people who won't listen to any reason and who only have contempt for science. It's always been that way, and at one point in time, even churches erred on the side of ignorance when it came to supporting or not supporting scientists. Luckily that is no longer the case for the most part. 

We are three days away from Easter Sunday. I am hoping for a resurrection into a new year filled with life, not death, filled with good things, not bad. I am hoping for an Easter miracle, a rebirth of values, ethics, good behavior, kindness and empathy--for us all. 


Sunday, March 17, 2019

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.

  

Monday, September 24, 2018

The world needs a giant wake-up call. I think this is it.

Everyone in the world needs to read this article. I posted this on my Facebook page today, and some of my friends commented and said they were horrified by it. I am as well.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278?pfmredir=sm&sf197878142=1&smid=Page%3A+ABC+Australia-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic

We need to wake up fast to what is really going on around us. Look up from your cell phones and see what is happening. China is just the start of this insanity. If you don't think it can happen in your own country, think again. We only need the right combination of circumstances for it to take hold. This is scary stuff, people. We need to fight this kind of digital control with every ounce of our beings. Otherwise, there will be no humanity left after these types of governments and dictators gain complete control of us. I don't want this kind of society for the future, and I will fight against it in any way possible. Please share this article; unfortunately, it is not fake news. I checked around online, and found other articles dealing with this story:

https://mindmatters.today/2018/09/digital-dictatorship/

https://www.realclearscience.com/2018/09/20/china_is_building_a_digital_dictatorship_282883.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eViswN602_k

I do understand why some people want to go off the grid and live without internet, without an online presence. The problem is that almost all the things we do nowadays are connected in some way, shape, or form to internet--banking, stock trading, shopping, social media, smartphones, travel, careers, reading, music, and so on. Our lives may not be 'tracked' in the same way as they will be in China by 2020, but our digital lives are alive and thriving online as we speak. It will not surprise me if major companies dabbling in AI will find a way to tie all our digital information together and begin to exert control over us. Most of that type of control will have to do with marketing--pressuring us to buy this or that by defining our needs for us. But if the government begins to do that, it will be the end of freedom as we know and take for granted--the end of being able to think, speak and write freely. It will not be a world that I will want to live in.



 

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

More Lincolns and less Trumps

There has always been contention and conflict in American politics. You need only watch Lincoln, Steven Spielberg's terrific movie from 2012, to see how the politicians of that time behaved toward each other, how they argued and fought with each other, and ultimately how making deals and utilizing their networks was what moved them toward consensus and solution. This was business as usual. Yes, the arguments were heated at times, feelings were hurt, and people didn't speak to each other. But they got over it and moved on. That doesn't seem to be happening now. If 2017 has taught us anything, it's that the behavior of the president and some congressmen is not business as usual. They seem to be in it for themselves, and to have forgotten about what's good for America. They want unquestioning loyalty to the president no matter how badly he behaves, and obedience to their whims and demands. We need better politicians, people who are truly interested in working to make society better for the people they represent, not for themselves. We need politicians who are not afraid to challenge the status quo, but who do so in a civilized manner, without crudely attacking others. Our job as non-politicians is to listen to what they have to say and to consider what it is they stand for and how they want to change America. Our job is to be actively engaged in protecting and caring for our society and our traditions, protecting what we stand for, protecting the values our country was founded on. Our job is not to be blindly loyal to any politician or dogma. Yes, America is my country and I am loyal to her, but I will object to all forms of abuse of power, whether nationally or internationally. Constructive criticism is also a part of being an actively-engaged citizen. Additionally, a civilized society respects quiet time, reflection and reasoning, and we need more politicians who appreciate these things. President Lincoln was a man who knew their value and who utilized them in his decision-making. We need more Lincolns and less Trumps.

The media cover every little thing that is said and done by politicians (among others), ad nauseum. I believe in the necessity of a free press. But I also believe in a citizen's right to privacy. It's not necessary to dissect every little thing about an individual. To dissect means to 'cut to pieces' and is usually done to a dead animal for scientific/medical purposes. Dissections of political figures are not necessary, at least not on a daily basis. The media dissect politicians and politics to a point where we cannot escape, no matter how hard we try. The constant unrelenting coverage is like a hungry animal that consumes us; the problem is is that it's never satisfied. Sometimes my reaction is to take a break from all the coverage, to seek silence and peace. Because silence and peace are what are needed to allow for reflection on the events of the world and how one might want to tackle them. It is ok to say that 'yes, I've had enough of the world's problems for one day', and to go for a long walk in nature. It's ok to want to start the day by feeding the birds, watching how they start their day. It's ok to start the day with a prayer of thanks for another day of life. It's ok to want to start the day with a peaceful soul. Because God knows that your half hour of reprieve won't last long. You will face spouses, friends, and colleagues who want nothing more than to discuss with you the latest political or world news: Trump, all the atrocities committed in the name of patriotism, why this, why that, the world is coming to an end, civilized society is coming to an end. My retort is that we need to seek refuge from the coming zombie apocalypse. That usually silences the fatalists. But who knows, that could be a relevant scenario in a few years--a genetically-engineered virus that spreads rapidly, infecting its victims and causing them to become 'anger zombies', similar to the zombies in the horror film '28 Days Later'.

This is what I don't want each day, at least when I first wake up. I don't want to start my day being bombarded with all of the bad news in the world. I want to say hello to the birds outside my kitchen window, to give them some food to start their day, to watch them for a few minutes. I want to make some coffee, putter around my kitchen in complete peace and quiet, ignoring the presence of the newspaper that will invade my day. I do read it, but I start with the comics, as they give me some fortitude to face the coming day. I need fortitude because our days are nothing short of frustrating and complicated. Bureaucracy, rules and regulations are the order of business. Our bosses and co-workers require our attention or interrupt us during the day with their concerns. Plans that have been discussed and agreed upon at multiple meetings are tossed aside in order to remake them in a new image. Our society is in constant upheaval, everywhere you turn. The seasons in nature do not change like this; the change is more orderly. Spring leads to summer leads to autumn. Autumn doesn't arrive and then suddenly decide that nature must return to July again. It would be a bizarre chain of events if such things happened in nature. But such bizarreness is almost the order of business now in the workplace and in politics.

I am looking for consistency and will never find it. I have accepted that now. I am looking for peace and quiet in a global society that has forgotten what peace and quiet are and why they are valuable for society. I am looking for manners, less aggression, more real feelings, more caring, more respect. I am looking for less egoism and more interest in the welfare of others. I wonder if we could all take a collective step backward and collectively breathe. Count to ten. Dig into our souls to find some patience, with ourselves and others. Be quiet. Be grateful. Stop forcing our ways of thinking down others' throats. Stop being aggressive. Stop being crude. Stop being Trump. For God's sake, start there.



Sunday, January 8, 2017

Women, men, careers and choices

I wonder about the consequences of certain behaviors—what they lead to and how they change people. I was talking to a good friend yesterday about careers and career progression, and we were exchanging war stories from our respective workplaces. It struck me that she is experiencing now some of what I experienced about ten years ago. In my case, those experiences led to a significant change in how I viewed workplace leadership, careers in general, my career, and career progression. I have come full circle when it comes to careers; I started my work life with real gusto. I wanted a career and went after it. That’s no different than what many younger women experience these days, just that at the time I did it (the late 1970s/early 1980s), it was still considered a ‘big thing’ to want a long-term career if you were a woman. I remember Ms. magazine and how it promoted women’s value in the workplace and the importance of a career in women’s lives. Feminism promoted the idea of women having a choice; they could choose the home or the workplace, or both. The latter proved to be quite difficult when I was young, because it wasn’t easy to give your all to the workplace and then at home with a family and children. Most of the women I knew at that time (in the USA) solved that dilemma in different ways; some were wealthy enough to hire nannies to care for their children, while others placed them in private daycare. Others worked part-time and gave up the idea of having a full-time career. They had a job that helped pay the bills but which gave them the opportunity to be with their children more. All of them acknowledged that it was not possible to be a full-time employee and a full-time mother, and whether they felt guilt about that was not the issue. They acknowledged that something had to give, and sometimes it was their taking care of their own children that was sacrificed for their career. I don’t know how most of them feel about that decision at this point in their lives (most are in their early 60s). The few women I know who have truly reached the top were and still are dynamos whose children respect them for the fact that they broke through the barriers that had hindered women. But again, those women had full-time help in the form of nannies or parents who were available to help them raise their children.

Sometimes now I look at the younger women I know, who have so many more choices than we ever did, and I don’t see their lives as easier than ours. I rather see them as much more difficult. Even here in Norway, where equality between the sexes has come a long way, there is still grumbling and dissatisfaction with the way things have worked out for women. Why? Men are expected to do more at home and to contribute equally to childcare and housework. But most of the polls show that women are still doing most of the housework and taking care of many aspects of childcare that men don’t seem to or want to manage. I have no firm opinion about it; I am merely an observer and a listener. I know many younger women who live alone and have no desire to have children, while others have married later and had children later in order to give themselves the opportunity to build a career. What I hear from many younger women who work full-time is that they miss not being with their children when they are working; they wish they could spend more time with them. Their consciences bother them a lot. I think it’s an instinct in women to want to be with their children; perhaps an instinct that men have as well. When children arrive, life takes on a different character. The future of their children becomes important, more important than their own lives. That’s the way of nature, a way of ensuring the survival of future generations. There is not enough time in life to do everything wholeheartedly. We cannot have it all—the perfect job, the perfect home life, the perfect social life. None of them exist. Guilt simply makes life more stressful. I am not saying we can eradicate guilt; I don’t believe we can nor should we. But there is a happy medium. There is a way of living life that does not require a person (woman or man) to sacrifice her or his all on the altar of the workplace, only to go home completely sapped for energy and willingness to take part in family life. I think it is wrong of workplaces to expect that, and yet, that is the definition of the modern workplace—more efficient, more productive, always can be better, always can top last month’s or last year’s sales—in other words, never good enough. Striving for more—more power, more prestige, and more money--continually. That is the nature of the workplace and perhaps the nature of human beings. But it does not lead to happiness, real happiness. It does not lead to any sort of internal peace, it ignores the needs of the soul and the heart. Because in the midst of the striving, the questions come. What am I doing this for? Why am I doing this? What’s the goal? Why am I sacrificing my family life for a job that will spit me out when the time comes to cut budgets and personnel? Why do we willingly sign our lives over to a corporation that cares nothing about us in the long run? Why do we do it? We have to start asking the tough questions. If we do, there is hope for change.

My career is nearing its natural end. I never had my own children, but I think if I had had them, I would have wanted to spend time with them. I say that however from the perspective of now. I really don’t know what it would have been like to have tried to balance children and a career. Of course I would have had help from my husband, but still, I think it would have been stressful. He and I have careers that are not 9 to 5, and they still demand a level of engagement that we cannot give them anymore. I want much more free time to pursue my hobbies and other activities. I don’t regret my choice of career or the financial and intellectual independence it gave me, but I can see why women and men choose not to pursue a career. It comes down to listening to yourself, to your heart and soul. If you know you don’t want to devote your life to a career and that you would rather stay at home with your children or work part-time in order to spend more time with them, then that should be a choice that society respects and rewards both women and men for. Such a choice is no longer ridiculed, but it remains difficult for many couples to make it work. Social trends and our culture have created the need for materialistic lifestyles that require that couples work full-time in order to make them possible. Something has to give. Some couples are choosing simpler lives—making do with less, moving from cities, working for smaller companies, starting their own companies, working for companies that allow them to work at home—all those things. I hope that society moves in that direction—toward smaller rather than larger, and toward less materialistic rather than more. I hope too that the right to personal choice, to following one’s heart, and to wanting peace of soul count for more in the years to come.   


Saturday, March 19, 2016

Things I do not want

Sometimes there are dry spells when it comes to creativity, energy, and motivation, and I’ve had some dry spells recently, when it seems that writing, photography and all of the other creative things that nourish the soul, are not worth pursuing. A spiritual malaise sets in, and sometimes spills over into the physical realm. The darkness and grayness of winter can sap a person for strength, ditto for soulless workplaces that do nothing to nourish the soul. They rather destroy it slowly.

What I don’t want at this point in my life: I don’t want to work anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. My soul derives nothing from the daily 9 to 5 grind that I used to love so much. It gets zero nourishment from a public sector workplace that is dominated by a bureaucracy that kills all motivation, by numerous leaders who are completely ineffective and who could care less about their employees, and by a level of inefficiency that in and of itself could drive a normal person to drink. Albert Einstein wrote that “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work”. He wrote that line during the early part of the 20th century and was completely spot on! The saving grace of any workplace is of course your co-workers, many of whom feel the same way as I do, so there is some amount of shared commiseration while we all plod onward in the muck. But some of them are younger and haven’t experienced soul-sucking environments for years on end, so they are not as weary of the whole thing as I am. I still have several years to go before I can retire, and I honestly wonder at times how I’m going to survive those years without burning out.

I also do not want to work all day in an office the size of a tiny kitchen that I share with another person, with windows that open a crack, with fluorescent lighting that can never in a million years take the place of sunlight, for the prescribed number of hours. I find all sorts of excuses now to be out of my office, to be outdoors, or to leave early. Modern workplace buildings, for all their so-called environmentally-friendly architecture and technology, are completely divorced from nature, from wildness, from the outdoors. There is nothing like fresh air, a gentle breeze, sunshine on your skin, a walk along a river, or just being outdoors, to restore the soul. I want to be outdoors any chance I get. My body makes those decisions for me, and I am learning to just follow what it wants, because it wants healthy things for me.

I don’t want to listen to or to watch endless news stories about all of the horrible things going on in the world for which there are no solutions. All those stories do is create despair. Newspapers and television have become like the Dementors in the Harry Potter books—soul-sucking creatures. They bring up a problem again and again, propose few to no solutions, and suck the energy from those who try by bombarding them nonstop with stupid questions. If you are going to have an opinion about the problem, then for God’s sake have an opinion about the solution to that problem. I know the world is in deep trouble; tell me something else. Tell me about the people working to change things, trying to solve problems, trying to help, and tell me about all that in an intelligent, respectful, and decent way. Stop being belligerent, aggressive, nonstop pandering machines. Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator in listeners--to the basest instincts in people, every chance you get. Don’t encourage bigotry, hatred, and violence by talking about it ad nauseam. Stop making the rest of the world think that America is filled with pro-Trump and pro-Palin idiots. There are over 315 million people in the USA; the news media in Europe would have us think that all Americans support Trump; the American media are doing very little to dispel that notion. All of the Americans I know that are family and close friends, do not support Trump or the other GOP idiots. So there. My appeal to the media here and in the USA—please shut up unless you have something positive to say or some solution for how to get rid of Trump before November.

And while we’re at it—could we please end the reality TV culture and celebrity worship? I don’t want to see another Kardashian (any of them) on my TV screen or in any newspapers for as long as I live. I don’t watch these shows, never have and never will, but it seems as if whatever so-called 'celebrities' do is news-worthy. Here's a quick tip--NOT. Is this what money does to people’s brains? Can heads of the media no longer see what quality is and what crap is?

I no longer read the newspaper at breakfast. I read the comics page (since it is actually more intelligent than much of what passes for news--you need only to read Bloom County to know that) and then put the paper aside until later in the day. I refuse to discuss the grotesque goings-on in the world when I first get up. There are many things to be thankful for--the life we have been given, the chance to live another day, the chance to wake up to sunshine, the chance to love those in our lives (humans and pets), to chance to choose healthy, and the chance to appreciate the world we live in and to take care of it. That's how I want to start my day, and live my day. 





Sunday, February 26, 2012

A super-duper uber work world


One hundred academics at the University of Sydney, Australia, have this week been told they will lose their jobs for not publishing frequently enough. The move is part of wider cost-cutting plans designed to pay for new buildings and refurbishment to the university.

This article appeared on the Nature News Blog this past Thursday (http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/02/university-of-sydney-sackings-trigger-academic-backlash.html) and I have to say that it was one of the wilder things I’ve read this week--as in bizarre or very odd news. But I have a feeling this is shades of things to come globally. The university was quite blatant about its motives. They want to fire academics they deem to be non-productive in order to use the money saved to refurbish the university. If it wasn’t for the fact that this story was true, I would think it was an April Fools’ Day joke.

So we’re back to the good old question that is being fired more and more at academics and scientists these days. How can you be more productive? How can you rake in money for your universities? Can you patent your ideas and your inventions? If not, why not? How can you make your research patentable? How can the universities get huge returns on their investments (their academics)? My question is—how do you define productivity for a research scientist or for an academic in general? And who gets to define productivity? Administrators? Accountants? Other academics? Research directors and deans? What is poor productivity and what is optimal productivity? The University of Sydney defines optimal productivity as ‘at least four “research outputs” over the past three years’, and informed its non-productive academics (not just scientists) that their positions were being terminated because they hadn’t published this amount of articles. It’s a bit daunting to hear about a university doing this. Why? Because it is all part of the larger global trend to make everything more productive, without defining what productive means in the first place for each respective profession. I’m waiting for the powers-that-be to start on children and babies next. How can schoolchildren and babies be made productive? How can they earn money for the schools and child care centers they attend? And what about mothering? There is no real money involved in doing it, so isn’t this a non-productive job? But I digress.

I have to say that I am glad that I am closer to leaving the work world behind rather than to starting off in it. I know I have a good number of years to go before I can take early retirement, but I won’t mind leaving behind a work world that is focused solely on money and how to make more of it. There will never be enough money. Man’s nature is greedy. He will always want more. Enough is never enough. It’s boring really. I’ve written about the different management philosophies that have taken over the business world. They’re all about productivity, cost-effectiveness, and control of employees. The joy of working is disappearing. I want to say it is disappearing slowly, but it’s not. For some professions it is happening at a rapid rate. If every profession becomes like a factory, what good will that be to society? Couldn’t society get to a point where non-vocational learning and knowledge will be deemed useless and a waste of time and money? Where the study of art, literature, and music for the pure sake of learning will be considered a waste of time? Where turning out well-rounded individuals who appreciate beautiful things for their beauty and spiritual worth and not for their economic worth alone will be considered treasonous? We are fast becoming a work world comprised of super-duper uber organizers, controllers, bureaucrats, administrators, money-pushers and money-makers. These are the only types of jobs that seem to matter. I look ahead and I see a sterile world--an organized, cost-effective world, yes, but not necessarily a productive one. At least not how I define productive. And that will be the theme of a future post.   

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Ten Things I’m Concerned About (a la David Letterman)


10. Triple booking—the new trend among some ‘cool’ people. They say yes to three dinner or party invitations for the same evening, and then choose the one that’s ‘coolest’ (translated—populated by people just like them), without informing the other two that they’re not coming. Isn’t this just plain rude behavior? Can’t we call a spade a spade?
9. Do we need to text when we could call?
8. I feel like I am being stalked by disturbed people every time someone walking behind me is talking loudly on their cell phone and walking up to within inches of me. Are you talking to me? Whatever happened to truly private conversations?
7. The sad state of TV programming: the irony being that now we have HD-TVs that give us gorgeous details but there are only reality shows to watch. It’s like getting all dressed up with no place to go. How did reality trash TV get to where it’s gotten? Who watches it?
6. The media’s desperate and obsessive focus on updating us on trite celebrities and their banal lives: Lindsey Lohan, can you please go to jail already or wherever it is you’re supposed to be. And Kim Kardashian? Can anyone tell me why this woman is famous? Can anyone tell me why Snooki is famous?
5. Poorly-written newspaper articles, especially about science. If society is to understand what scientists do, journalists need to write better articles about them and what they do, especially in Europe. American science journalists can out-compete European science journalists any day. 
4. How come Wall Street determines the health of an economy? What do stock brokers do all day except buy and sell stock? Is this is a real job? Are they producing anything of worth? Why do they get to determine the fate of companies?
3. The political scene in the USA—where are the good candidates in the Republican Party? The ones that have appeared so far just plain scare me.
2. Obama, get moving and take a stand—you have some good ideas but you’re stuck. Tell it like it is.
1. Political correctness is killing us as a democratic society. We need to be able to say what we mean in a civilized way without fear of retribution, attack, or ridicule. We should be able to discuss and debate and shake hands afterwards. The real messages are not getting out.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Work-life balance in Norway

The Huffington Post just published a list of the 10 countries worldwide that have the best work-life balance; Denmark topped the list, followed by Norway in the number two spot. Finland and Sweden also made the list, as did the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal and Germany. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/01/top-ten-countries-with-work-life-balance_n_868224.html#s285271&title=1_Denmark
The USA was conspicuously absent. The work-life balance as defined by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was assessed using three indicators: “(1) the amount of time spent on personal activities; (2) the employment rate of women with children between 6 and 14 years of age; and (3) the number of employees working over 50 hours a week”. Scandinavia in other words has a good work-life balance, meaning that work life does not eat up all free time, leaving time for personal activities and for child-raising. After living here for over twenty years, I can attest to the fact that there is a good work-life balance here. But I also have to say that after studying and working in New York City for over ten years prior to moving to Norway, it took me a long time to let go of the idea that I had to work long hours to get ahead, to have a successful career. So when I first moved to Norway, I worked long hours, as did my husband who is Norwegian. We are both scientists, so there is no fixed time that one must spend in the lab. Your weekly hours are often defined by the types of experiments you are doing that week in the lab. Sometimes the experiments required 60-70 hour weeks. Sometimes they required that we worked one or both weekend days. The life of a scientist is not really a 9 to 5 affair. But I see now that the younger scientists are making it so. They are getting their experiments done between 9am and 4pm, because many of them have to leave then to pick up their children from daycare. There are a lot of factors that figure into this new equation; young couples make deals with each other—one drops off the child in the morning and the other picks up the child in the afternoon. Maybe they alternate weeks or months—such that each person gets a chance to stay a bit longer at work if necessary. But by and large, they are better than my husband and I were at leaving work at a decent hour each day. I often say to my stepdaughter that I wish we had spent more time with her when she was growing up. Not that it seems to have affected her too much that we worked late hours or talked a lot about science when she was a child. She has also chosen a career in science, as has her husband.

The point is that it’s possible to have a good career here without killing yourself, without working 70-80 hour weeks. But that’s where the problem begins for foreigners who work here, and I am not just speaking for myself now. You come to Scandinavia with your expertise, competence and willingness to work hard and to make a good impression. You end up working overtime and it is not necessarily looked upon favorably. It does not score you any extra points as it might in the USA. In fact the opposite is true, you might be viewed rather suspiciously—why are you working so hard when the others around you have gone home? What is it you are trying to prove? Are you trying to make the others look bad? It was exceedingly hard for me to accept that this is how I might have been viewed at one point when I had first come to Norway. One of the elderly professors at my institute—who did appreciate long hours and hard work—often said that if he was at work late, he knew that it was only foreigners who were there working late along with him. The Norwegians had gone home for the day. This is not absolutely true. I know a number of Norwegian medical doctors and scientists who put in long hours each day. But overall, the general attitude is that it is not necessary to kill yourself, so if you choose to do so, you do so at your own ‘risk’ without promise of reward. You do so because you absolutely love what you do; you might even be slightly obsessed with your work—a workaholic. I was one for a while. I am not one anymore, for a number of reasons. But ultimately, it becomes hard to not be influenced by the society you live in. In the beginning, I worked overtime, worked holidays, and took short summer vacations, simply because that is the way I did things in New York. My husband, who also loved his work, did the same. Our life proceeded in this way for about fifteen or so years; after that a lot of things changed, especially for me. Suffice it to say that hard work does not always yield the expected rewards. I don’t regret working so hard, but I don’t work that hard anymore. The problem with letting go of the ‘work hard’ ethic was the guilt associated with giving up my intense work ethic. Believe me, guilt is real. It nags at you. It tells you that you should be working when you are doing something fun. I’m past the guilt now. I will never be Norwegian, but I have adopted the Scandinavian work ethic. And in the process, I have learned something about myself and about the society here. It is possible to get a lot done in a shorter amount of time. It is possible to let go of the idea of having to be at work and having to be so incredibly efficient all the time. It is possible to not be a robot for the company you work for. And by letting go of my workaholic life, I found time for my hobbies—writing, photography, biking, cultural events, and so forth. Not that I didn’t try to do these things when I was working 70-80 hour weeks; just that it wasn’t always feasible because I was so tired. And that’s the main difference now. If I go home at 5pm, I have an evening ahead of me—to plan as I want. It may mean dinner out for me and my husband, or it may mean that I have more time to prepare a good dinner at home. It means that we can take a walk in the evening without feeling exhausted; it means that we don’t just come home anymore and collapse in front of the TV, dead tired after a long day in the lab.

Why is it possible to have a good career here without having to kill yourself with overwork? Because at some point, you hit the salary ceiling. For example, as senior scientists, we make decent salaries and get cost-of-living raises each year (and sometimes small merit salary increases if we have done something extra special during the year). But we know that we are never going to get huge raises, and there is a ceiling above which we cannot rise unless our job title changes to Research director or Hospital director. So staff scientists who have worked in their positions for a number of years, cannot rise very far salary-wise above their fellow staff scientists, thanks in part to the union we belong to, which ensures each year that the small amount of money appropriated for individual merit raises gets spread fairly among the members. You can rebel against this idea, or you can learn to accept it. Either way, you won’t find yourself in a ‘special’ or ‘favored’ position. That’s just the way it works here. The ‘goods’ get spread around, like it or not. And sometimes I haven’t liked it because it means that the lazy workers benefit in the same way as the hard workers. The hard workers are not necessarily rewarded. That’s the flip side of the coin. That’s the negative aspect that you simply have to learn to swallow. You’re on your honor here. If you slack off, you get paid anyway, and you most likely will not get fired. Workers’ rights are strong here—very protected. If you work overtime, you won’t get paid any more than someone who works normal hours, at least not in academia. So you end up choosing to work normal hours, to value your free time, to use your vacation time (30 days each year), to take a week off at Christmas and at Easter, and to sometimes leave work early in the spring and summer when the sun appears. After twenty years in Norway, I understand why people leave work early when the sun comes out to go sit outdoors in cafes and restaurants, or at seaside cottages, or wherever. Because the sun is to be worshipped---the months of summer pass quickly and then we are back to the dark winters again. I have learned. I love the sun, I love my free time, and I look forward to summer vacation. There is something to be said for an easier and more peaceful life after years of working long hours, overtime, and intense striving, first in NY and then in Norway during the first ten years or so until I finished my doctorate. I’ve let go of my earlier intense work ethic after some internal resistance, and I can honestly say that I don’t miss it. I still have a strong work ethic, but I've made room for the other things in my life that are just as important, if not more important, than work alone. That's what balance means, and when I was younger, I didn't have that balance between work and life outside of work. 

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Collective egoism

In some recent conversations with a good friend, I coined the expression ’collective egoism’ to describe a particular mentality that has become prevalent in nouveau riche Norwegian culture, in our opinion at least. Before I describe how I would define the term, I will say that I googled the expression earlier today, and sure enough, it has been coined before and described extensively. No matter. I will define it in my way. We were talking about our workplace (as usual) and it struck us both that there is incredible pressure on all of us (as scientists) now to get grant money, fame and glory for ourselves for the greater glory of our workplace—to succeed, to be the best, to reach the top. When you try to remind certain workplace leaders that some people are in fact smarter, more creative or more talented than others (always have been, always will be) and that these people will always get more grant money, power and success, you get told that, no, if you only do so-and-so, you can be just as good as the others. You can of course catch up, match them, and achieve their worldly successes. You don’t really have to compete with them, because if you only knew their secrets, which are of course penetrable, well, you could be just like them. I don’t know if they really believe their own rhetoric. If they do, it is yet another example of the Scandinavian socialist mentality at work. I want to like this mentality, I really do, but I don’t. I resent any mentality that tells me that all people can be the same, that all people have the same opportunities, talents, and means to make it in this world. It is patently untrue. It does not matter if the same opportunities are presented to for example, twenty high school students. Each of those twenty students has different talents, smarts, and capabilities. None of them will respond similarly to the same challenge. And why should they, and how can they? It is the differences in people that make a society tick—make it varied and interesting and multi-cultural and all the things we want it to be. Do we really want a society where all people are equally-talented—whether they be musicians, scientists, writers, actors, or medical doctors? Do we really want to teach our children that if you show talent as a musician that could also be a writer even if you show no natural talent in this regard? This sounds quite delusional to me. It also presupposes that there is a script that one can follow to become successful. If you just conform and do this, follow that, take that course, work that shift, you too can achieve the same pinnacle of success in your chosen field, just like all your colleagues. I don’t know where these ideas came from, but they don’t work. The more pressure that is placed upon us to be similar, the more different we end up—because the differences between people are impossible to suppress and because human nature will want to reveal and express those differences.

But it is the huge pressure to achieve materialistic success that has gotten me thinking about collective egoism. There is tremendous pressure in this country to own your own home, to have the best possible interior design and architecture, to own a cottage by the sea, possibly a cottage in the mountains, two or more cars, several TVs, to be able to travel abroad several times a year, buy expensive clothes and shoes, go to the theater and the opera—the list goes on and on. Suffice it to say that the pressure is more subtle than overt, but for each year that passes, this society becomes richer and the pressure mounts. Is this what happens in a rich society? Again we are faced with the same mentality—collective egoism—the acquisition of money and material goods for ourselves, ultimately for the greater good of our society. We have become a nation of collective egoists. Equal opportunity greed. I see it in the commercials on TV for kitchen renovations. It seems as though everyone is renovating their kitchen (or being encouraged to do so) these days in order to have a state-of-the-art, modern kitchen, and this is pushed and supported by the media, such that those who do not have the means to obtain this kind of kitchen (younger couples for example) end up on the outside looking in. But not for long. Now there are commercials advertising how this or that company can provide you with the kitchen that the ‘others’ have for a fourth of the price. Not only are we presented with the suggestion that it should be so (that everyone should have the same type of kitchen), but we are also told what kind of kitchen qualifies to be the best. This may be all well and good, but does everyone need this kind of kitchen? And what happened to the idea of working toward the goal of acquiring a new kitchen in a few years, of saving money to make that dream happen if you are a young couple starting out? The one important aspect of collective egoism is the ‘I have to have it now’ aspect. It is boring to have to wait for anything that one wants. Ultimately, it is all about ‘show’—that you ‘get’ a particular look that is ‘cool’. The exterior matters more than the interior. In other words, even if you never really use your kitchen to cook, it still looks top-notch and that’s what is important. The same could apply to widescreen TVs or broadband. Each person in society shall have the same as everyone else in society—the same wealth, the same goods, the same access to those goods, etc. But again, this is a fallacy. There are rich people in socialist-democratic societies just like in other societies who have wealth that others could only dream about—it may be inherited or hard-earned. But it makes them different from the rest of us, and to spend one’s life in pursuit of this kind of wealth just to make it to the same level as these people seems quite pointless to me. I’d rather pursue my own talents and interests, as these are what make me happy and an individual. That is important to me.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Changing the world

It sometimes seems to me as though the apocalypse is coming, in one form or another, and perhaps it is best not to know how it will occur—earthquake, tsunami, meteor hitting the earth, droughts, fires, floods—there could be many different scenarios. It didn’t help to hear today that the nuclear crisis in Fukushima Japan has been upgraded to Chernobyl status. I wonder how much more Japan can take. How much is too much before a country collapses? I look at what we are doing to our planet in addition to the natural disasters that occur, courtesy of Mother Nature, and we don’t need to add our man-made disasters to the natural ones. I need only think of the chlorine poisoning of the Akerselva River to remind me that carelessness abounds and that many disasters are man-made, and that animal life suffers at our hands. The world has witnessed recent oil spills and the tragic loss of animal and fish life. We really need to start re-thinking our priorities. I think there is so much that is topsy-turvy in the world, average ordinary people know it, and they know or sense that some monumental change is coming, because this unlimited greed and consumption and utter indifference to anything other than a huge paycheck cannot continue. God knows what that will be--perhaps a huge worldwide revolution against greed and inhumanity and lack of concern for the planet, or a return to a simpler way of life, more agrarian, less industrialized, less money-oriented, and less competitive. I’d be all for it.

It’s hard not to feel drained by the way we are living our lives now, and very tiring to hear that nothing can change because this is ‘just the way the world is’—full of greed, competition, unscrupulousness, lack of empathy (for people and for animals), carelessness, indifference, and hatred. I know there are good average ordinary people in the world, because I know a lot of them and I am one myself. But the people in power are the ones who worry me. The Wall Street moguls are the ones who worry me. And why I ask do we need Wall Street? Really, why do we? Why can’t we start by dismantling Wall Street? I applaud Michael Moore in his recent film Capitalism: A Love Story, for trying to make a citizen’s arrest of Wall Street denizens at the end of the film. Of course you laugh or smile when you see him do that, but you know too that he is serious, even though he is making a point. There is no real work done on Wall Street from the standpoint of actually producing viable products. And when did it become cool to buy warrants and derivatives in the hope that a company will do poorly so that you can earn money on the possibility of its failure? I just don’t get the world these days. Literally everything has to do with money, all business and political decisions seem to be guided solely by the prospect of making money. It’s boring. It’s become a non-creative world that is slowly sinking into a quagmire. And perhaps the best thing is to let it sink so that it can be replaced by a better world—one in which people in power care about the planet and the lands they live in, one in which money isn’t the be-all and the end-all of everything .

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

On civility and respect

I was talking to one of my friends the other day, and our conversation veered into the area of civility and respect for others. She was bemoaning the lack of respect that she deals with on an often daily basis in her job as grammar school teacher. The fact of the matter is that children don’t respect teachers nor are they instructed at home to do so. Her feeling is often that some parents have ‘abandoned ship’ by not involving themselves in their children’s education. I listen to her frustration and understand that it must be very difficult to teach when you do not have the attention and respect of your class. This is not to say that all her pupils are like this, but those who are disrespectful make it difficult for the rest of the class, as always. I remember this from my own grammar school days, seething because one or two boys disrupted the class and the teacher ended up punishing the entire class for the sins of a few. But generally, the disrespect and the lack of manners that we are witnessing at present are slowly destroying the fabric of society. We need respect and civility in order to deal with each other on a daily basis. When these disappear, I think I will move to the hills, far away from everyone, and live as a hermit.

Oslo is now trying to do something about the lack of manners that abound on public transportation. There have been several newspaper articles recently describing how younger people are not offering their seats on buses or trams to older people or to pregnant women for example during rush hour, and discussions and debates abound on television about how to deal with the problem. In my book, it’s a simple answer. Just do it. Just open your mouth and offer your seat to an older person or an obviously pregnant woman. For every person who says no thanks, there are two who will say thank you and take you up on your offer. It costs nothing to try offering your seat. It is better than never offering it at all. Have we become such a passive society that we ignore what is going on around us? Are we so tuned out listening to our music or reading our newspapers that we cannot see what is going on around us? Have we become thoughtless people? There are other problems as well. There is no such thing as ‘cueing up’ in Norway, at least not from what I can see in Oslo. Lines that form are suddenly ‘ignored’ by a few people who decide that they need to be first. It is infuriating to witness this, because none of the Norwegians get angry either when this happens (except me, the American and the New Yorker). I just think back to the time when there was a public transportation strike in New York City during the early 1980s; lines stretched around the block to take the private buses that transported folk to and from the different boroughs, and you could easily wait in line for an hour to board a bus. If you had tried to cut in line before someone else, you would have had your head handed to you. New Yorkers believe in lines and they will (loudly) defend their place in line and prevent another from unfairly cutting in line before them. That’s just how it is and I for one think it’s correct to comment someone else’s rude behavior if they try to cut in line. It may lead to arguments, but hey, that’s better than standing by passively letting the rudeness and disrespect occur.

A new and particularly disrespectful trend among some people (especially the younger people but also some middle-aged as well) is to double or triple book an evening—in other words, to say yes to two or three invitations and then to choose the best or what they consider to be the coolest event to attend. I am just surmising that this is the case because I have no other explanation for the behavior. I have now witnessed (and experienced personally) this several times.  On one occasion, I invited several people to a small dinner party, and all of them said they could come. The day before the dinner, I sent out a little reminder email and wished everyone welcome. Immediately afterward, I received an email from one person telling me she could not make it because of last minute work deadlines. Had I not emailed her, she would not have showed up and would not have informed me at all. I would have called her wondering where she was and she would have waited until then to tell me. I cannot rule out that she had made other plans that were more important to her. On the evening in question, another person almost didn’t come because her thirty year old son was returning home from traveling and she ‘suddenly’ had to pick him up at the airport. As it was, she showed up late but at least she showed up. But those of us who were present at the dinner wondered why he couldn’t just have taken a taxi home when he knew his mother had made other plans. But it was her fault anyway for not standing up for herself and saying that she had other plans. And so it goes. On a recent job outing (dinner out at a restaurant), ten people had agreed to meet for dinner and all of them expressed enthusiasm about getting together, even up until three days before we were all to meet. Exactly three days before the dinner, four people canceled: two had made other plans and were completely open about this (!); one said it would probably be difficult for her to make it without giving any specific reason; and one was genuinely sick. A table had been booked for ten people, and six people showed up. I can only wonder how conferences and seminars can plan anything, especially if food is ordered for participants. You could order food for two hundred people who say they will attend a seminar, and one hundred people show up. As I recall now, that has also happened in recent years, and the participants ended up taking the leftover food home. But the arrangers still had to pay for it. It’s completely rude and disrespectful to behave this way, but it has become much more common now than before. I never remember people behaving this way before. I have another example from last autumn—also work-related. A tour of Oslo’s haunted old buildings had been planned and ten people said they would join. A guide was booked (that ten people would have paid for). Only three people showed up. The tour was fun and very interesting, but even the guide seemed a bit taken aback and wondered where the other seven people were. This is just plain wrong--bad behavior, rude behavior. The seven people who did not show up knew that they were leaving the eventual cost over to three people. Disrespectful. As it was, the bill was paid by our institute and did not come out of our pockets, simply because one of the bosses also thought as I did, that this behavior was irresponsible. I am commenting on this type of behavior because it seems as though this is where society is heading. We ‘commit’, but only half-heartedly. We don’t show up and we don’t feel bad (none of the ‘cancellers’ in question felt badly about their behavior). We cannot count on the word of another. And that is something to worry about. If this type of behavior had just happened once, I would be inclined to let it go as a one-time thing. But unfortunately it is becoming all too prevalent. People need to speak up, to say ‘this is rude’, ‘I don’t like this behavior’ and so forth. Having manners and respect for others is part of what it means to be a responsible adult, and children need to be taught these as well. But they cannot learn the correct way to behave from adults when the adults themselves don’t know how to behave.

The surreal world we live in

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