More pandemic humor

Pearls Before Swine is probably my favorite comic strip at this point in time. Stephan Pastis has had so many good commentaries on the pandemic in which we find ourselves trapped. Here are some recent strips that are pretty funny. 

 

Pandemic humor

My friend Stef has been sending me coronavirus-inspired cartoons and memes since shortly after the pandemic started. These two made me laugh out loud......

Exit and the quest for more and more money

It strikes me, after having seen seasons 1 and 2 of Exit, the Norwegian series about four investment brokers--Henrik, Jeppe, William, and Adam--in the Norwegian financial world and their (mostly miserable) personal lives, that we have been handed a morality tale, yet again, on the evils of greed. Much like Wall Street and The Wolf of Wall Street, where ‘greed is good’, except that it isn’t. We the viewers know it, the creators and producers of the series know it, and the actors know it. There’s a price to pay for being greedy, and it’s huge, even though payment might not come due immediately. But because Exit is a series and not a movie, it’s possible to delve into the lives of each of these men, and you come to learn quite a lot about them and what made them the way they are. None of them are nice men, none of them are men you root for, and none of them are men you’d like your daughters to marry. They are actually evil men, except that their brand of evil is banal—they are unfaithful husbands, whore chasers, alcoholics, and drug users—by choice. Some of them are bullying and aggressive (violent) toward other men (Jeppe and Henrik) while one of them (Adam) is a bona fide wife abuser. There are several scenes with William, where the camera focuses on his face and his eyes, which hold a contempt for others that is positively chilling. Overall, these men are dinosaurs when it comes to their views on women and careers. Their dinosaur stance is that they are the providers, they want to marry trophy wives who don’t work and who bear them children who are mostly raised by au pairs, and they end up resenting their trophy wives for loving the life and the money that they provide for them. Part of the deal between marital partners is that the trophy wives don't complain when their husbands work long hours, are out late, don't account for their absences, and have little or nothing to do with raising the children. 

Exit is not for everyone, definitely not for the prudish, because of the amount of sex and no-holds barred presentation of prostitution and sexual activity. It’s all staged, that I know. But nevertheless, it pushes the boundaries for what could be considered decent behavior in most circles. Perhaps there is a point to it, or perhaps not. Perhaps the series’ creators and producers are cynical enough to know that sex sells. It does, because Exit has been a ratings hit here in Norway (both seasons 1 and 2). When the series is sold to other countries, it will probably do well there also. The acting is very good, the storylines likewise. It’s a soap opera for adults with lots of sex, about the financial world, the highs, the lows, the drug abuse, the alcohol abuse, the cynicism, the hubris (that comes before a fall), and the daily abuse by these four men of people who would be seen as normal people under most circumstances. These four men have zero concept of what happiness is; the strange thing is that they know it, and still they carry on doing all the things that most of us would never do. They are on a quest for more and more money and greater and greater kicks, and that can only lead to one end—the deaths of others or the deaths of themselves, or both. At heart, they are miserable human beings who ruin the lives of most people with whom they come into contact.

The character William tried to commit suicide in season 1 after many bouts with cocaine abuse and alcoholism. He enters rehab, only to return to the same environment that he left—an empty soulless environment that really does not permit or encourage sobriety, monogamy, fidelity, kindness, or empathy. So he falls again and again, and by the time season 2 ends, it’s not clear whether he will survive. The story does not really create much compassion for him; rather, it seemed that the inevitable outcome of the storyline will be his death, and it seemed almost natural that it should end up that way. That actually seemed fine with me since he doesn’t really want to continue living and since no one can get through to him. He wants to die. The others lead pointless lives with wives and children for whom they have little or no feelings or connection. They would rather party, screw hookers, and dull their consciences with booze and cocaine. They would do that 24/7, except that they cannot because they always have to wake up, sober, and start a new workday, until they can dull their consciences again later on in the day.

One of the best scenes in season 2 is when Jeppe manages to get his divorced elderly parents together in the same restaurant. His mother and father (who now has a terminal illness) divorced due to his father’s predilection for whores, his infidelity, and his mistreatment of his wife. When you see the father who once was like Jeppe, but who is now lonely and decrepit, you see Jeppe as an old man, and he is aware of that on some level. His mother has no use for his father, and only agreed to the restaurant meeting to please Jeppe. When they all sit down at the table and begin to look at the menu, his mother suggests to his father that perhaps he should order some ‘ung due’ (young pigeon) or ‘små rype’ (small birds). The insinuation is clear, and it is an excellent scene showing his mother’s visceral hatred of her ex-husband. Jeppe’s father gets the not-so-subtle message, some unkind words are exchanged, and he leaves the restaurant. There is no reconciliation as Jeppe had hoped for before his father dies. Again on some level, it registers inside of him that this could well be his future as an old man.   

So what is the point of their lives, of living in this way? These men have it all—great material success and a lot of money--and yet they have nothing. They are morally bankrupt. It’s been said many times before--the quest for more and more money is nothing but greed. I look at the television portrayal of these men and their ‘successful’ lives--beautiful large houses, expensive sports cars, extensive wine cellars, built-in pools, yachts, private planes, being able to afford expensive restaurants and to travel, and I think to myself—so what? Absolutely none of it appeals to me—not the materialism, not the unbridled ambition and aggression, not the greed, not the cynicism attached to the greed, not the cynicism attached to the abuse and exploitation of women, not the ennui. It’s a bore, all of it. To paraphrase the bible—what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Indeed. Is it worth it? What is the meaning of life between birth and death? What should one do with all those years in-between, if one is so lucky to have been given a long life? Should one waste it on activities that produce nothing, like working as an investment broker, partying, contributing nothing of value to society and the lives around you? It seems to me that a life spent on intellectual, vocational, and/or creative pursuits is a much better life, not necessarily always happier, but much better spent, with something concrete to be proud of at life’s end.

There are also people who don’t work as investment professionals for whom money is paramount. They live their lives in an endless quest for more money, and the more money they go after, the more they fail at one scheme or another that is going to make them rich. They want money too much. They make stupid and irrational mistakes trying to attain it. They don’t use their heads. They trust the wrong people. They exploit their families and friends. They are rude to other people, behave like narcissists, and think that the world owes them a living. They are ‘high maintenance’ individuals, often live (or have lived) lives of privilege, generally lack gratitude for most of the good things in their lives, and have no idea of what it means to be happy. Some grew up without money, some grew up with plenty of it; thus there is no meaning to be derived from their upbringings. Some of them have fallen on hard times. I observe such people from a distance. Like the scientist I am, I study them and have for years. If they ever do become rich, it will have less to do with brains and intellect and more to do with pure luck, just statistics. Perhaps it was ‘just their time’. Or perhaps not. It is strange, this thing called greed. It makes people behave in strange ways, it makes them rude to others, it makes them proud, it makes them abusive, and it makes them miserable people to be around. There are wealthy people who have learned to live with their wealth, who live their lives wisely, who do not abuse others, who have humility, and who do not feel the need to flaunt their material possessions. So it is possible to behave decently and have a lot of wealth. It's just that we rarely hear about such people. 

Social media and unhappiness

I still use Facebook, but less and less these days. Since I live abroad, it remains a good way to stay in touch with my friends and colleagues in the USA. But after the political circus that was the 2020 election and Facebook's huge (and unforgivable) failure to block fake news, I lost a lot of respect for them and for social media generally. 

There is research that shows that social media makes people feel unhappy, but much of it that unhappiness has to do with your popularity on whatever medium you use most, according to this article: Social media makes people feel unhappy, less popular: Study | Business Standard News (business-standard.com). Perhaps the bigger problems in terms of creating unhappiness are how much time one wastes on social media when one could be using that time more productively, and how unhappy one can become if one sees that friends or colleagues seem to be having a better life than you have. One can be assuaged by the fact that most people using social media are probably in the same boat--happy at times, frustrated at others. No one's life is perfect, no matter how perfect it may seem on social media. So my guess is that the more time you waste on Facebook, the more your brain will believe that others are happier and better off than you are. Just remember that this is not true; in fact, it's nonsense. There is no perfect world. 

I'm generally not hugely affected one way or another by what people post--if it's happy news I'm happy for the poster, if it's sad news, I'm sad for them. I usually remain on an even keel. Recently I found out, via Facebook, that one of my three bosses from my workplace at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center passed away; he was 84. His son posted a nice tribute to him on Facebook; that is one of the good things about Facebook, being able to find out such things and being able to leave a tribute of one's own. It makes paying your respects and sending condolences much easier, as I found out when my brother died in 2015. It was nice to hear from the people we grew up with, fellow Tarrytowners. 

But still, I found this Pearls Before Swine comic strip from yesterday, quite funny, and probably true for a good many people. Stephan Pastis seems to be focusing on the perils of social media these days, and he's come up with quite a lot of humorous strips.  

Just one more

 Today's Non Sequitur by Wiley comic strip (another one of my favorites) was pretty apt as well 😀:

'If real life was like social media'--Pearls Before Swine for today

I love the comic strip Pearls Before Swine; I've been following it for years. It has the type of irony and zaniness that appeal to my sense of humor. This was today's strip--pretty apt: 

Elena Ferrante's The Lying Life of Adults

I begin Elena Ferrante's novels with a mixture of fascination and dread. Fascination, because everything I've read by her has gripped me. Her novels are riveting and her words flow on the pages, moving me along and immersing me in her Italy, her Naples, and her family dramas that she has carefully constructed. Dread, because I know that this immersion will stir up the mud in my own life and memory; it will murky the waters that I think are so clear, and yet when I dive deeper, I know they aren't.

How is it that one person, one writer, can speak to me and to so many people at the same time? She has an uncanny way of getting right to the core of what drives families apart and what keeps them together. She describes the behaviors, utterances and dramas that comprise the push and pull of family life, mostly without judging them, and that is where the fear comes in. Because you know that the behaviors she writes about are real and often violent to the spirit and body. Sometimes she judges them, but only within the contexts of her characters, the ones who want to escape the oppression, claustrophobia, and violence of family life. She allows them to judge, and we follow their attempts to escape, which are seemingly successful, but we know that somewhere down the line, the past will knock on their door and demand its due. At some point, they will face the same situations that they ran from, and come face to face with their early selves—the ones who said that they would never tolerate this or that behavior, the ones who said that they would never behave like their parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. They experience the human frailties, deceptions, betrayals, frustrations, rage, and even violence (psychological and physical) that can be part of family life. The characters in her books are flawed human beings, like we all are. Perhaps that is part of her appeal. She explains some parts of our lives for us; I know she does that for me. I finish her novels thinking, yes, that helps to explain this or that family member’s behavior, or utterances, or bizarre points of view.

Everyone lies in Ferrante’s novels. Adults lie, but so do children and teenagers. The Lying Life of Adults is really the story of how teenagers become adults who lie to themselves and to others. It is the story of how we become the adults we profess to hate. Giovanna, the main character who is a teenager, is acutely aware of the hypocritical behavior of the adults in her life. She has two friends she confides in, Angela and Ida, the daughters of her parents’ friends Mariano and Costanza. Her attempt to develop a relationship with her hated aunt Vittoria, her father’s sister, has far-reaching repercussions for her parents, her parents’ friends, involved children, and her own life. Vittoria is a destructive force of nature. She is (presumably) the opposite of Giovanna’s educated, intellectual and refined father, Andrea, who hates his coarse uneducated sister (the feeling is mutual), and yet, that is what Ferrante wants to show us, that at their core, both Vittoria and Andrea are the same. They are egotists and liars, they think nothing of destroying others’ lives by wanting what they want (Vittoria wanted Enzo--the husband of her friend Margherita, and Andrea wanted Costanza—the wife of his friend Mariano). They justify their betrayals of spouses and families and lie to themselves about how ‘noble’ their intentions are. Nella, Andrea’s wife, is crushed by his betrayal and their eventual divorce, but tries to live her life following the divorce as best she can. Mariano, who has cheated on Costanza often, is also lost; eventually Nella and Mariano find each other despite Nella’s protests to the contrary. Giovanna is witness to all of these happenings. At the same time, she becomes friends with Vittoria (who worshipped Enzo), Margherita, and Margherita’s children (Corrado, Tonino, and Giuliana). Vittoria dominates Margherita and her children’s lives; she tells them how to live and what to do and not to do. The relationship between Vittoria and Margherita is strange and one I found hard to understand, but for the purposes of the book, I accepted it. But I know very few people in real life who would have become friends with their husbands’ mistresses.

Vittoria brought to the surface memories of my father’s eldest sister Carmela, who was also not much-liked in my family. Unlike Vittoria, she was considered to be good-looking; she was a refined woman with many intellectual and cultural interests. But she was a drama queen, and no family gathering ever ended pleasantly when she was present. She was unhappily married to one of my father’s childhood friends, which didn’t help matters. My father probably felt pressured to take sides, and he took his sister’s side against his friend. My mother and my aunt did not get along at all; my mother found her domineering, controlling, and nosy. Carmela and her husband eventually divorced; she lived alone afterward until she died, but did have a lover whom she could have married but chose not to. After one too many unpleasant family gatherings when we were children, my father and mother decided not to see her anymore, and by extension, we were not to see her either. After my father died, my sister and I made an effort to re-establish contact with her. We found her to be a decent person, but of course by that time she was old and in a different frame of mind. I think she was happy to see us again, but our lives were busy and we didn’t see her often. She died eight years after my father.

I could relate to those feelings that Ferrante describes—remaining loyal to parents while wondering why we all couldn’t just get along, and feeling guilty for wanting to have some kind of relationship with my aunt. My aunt made an effort to remember our birthdays with gifts and cards, but they were never well-received, and eventually she ceased to make the effort. I remember when my grandmother died, I was around twelve or so. Frustrations and anger came to the surface, people said things they probably regretted, and the war only intensified. It was difficult to deal with all those feelings as a child. But I knew even then that this kind of family life was oppressive and claustrophobic, and I wanted no part of it. And for the most part, I have managed to escape it, but not without many mistakes and poor decisions of my own before I got to a place in life with which I could be comfortable. Reading Ferrante reminds me of my early family life, and it’s a mixed blessing, as I wrote at the beginning of this post—I am fascinated by what she manages to stir up in me, and fearful of it at the same time. Like a moth to the flame, as the old saying goes. I know I will get burned. Unlike the moth, I survive being burned, but it is a strange experience nonetheless.

 

Memories and the concept of time

Twenty years ago today, March 4, 2001, my mother passed away. Thirty-six years ago, March 7, 1985, my father passed away. Twenty years ago and thirty-six years ago. It seems so long ago, these parcels of years, and yet sometimes they seem like artificial constructs to help me locate my memories. They contribute to the reality of memory. Sometimes the past seem so real, as though it is right there in front of me. The people in that past are gone, but the memories of them are not. The memories are vivid and real. The concept of time and the reality of memory are intertwined. I cannot explain the connection, but I don't think one exists without the other. It is when I begin to consider and reflect upon memory, that I also begin to reflect upon the concept of time. No one can or has satisfactorily answered the question--what is time? We say that time is linear, because it apparently keeps moving us forward. But is it really linear? The Oxford online dictionary defines time as the "indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole". It's a vague definition, but it's a starting point for reflection. 

It was not until I started working in a garden that I became aware of the reality that time is also circular. Or perhaps better put, a garden manifests circular time within the human concept of linear time, if that is possible. Our gardens have no memory, they just do what they do independent of the human concept of linear time. A gardener plants seeds, watches them grow into mature flowers that produce seeds, the annual flowers die, become compost and then soil again, which is used for next season's garden, as are the seeds. It's a cycle that continues annually in perpetuity, starting in spring, continuing into summer and fall, then winter, and then back to spring. It can continue in this way for many years, given the right conditions. Perennial plants come back each year barring a natural disaster--the same plant, just new stems and new growth. The actual plants don't really die. It's the closest thing to immortality that we may be witness to on this earth. Do we know why they come back, year after year? Apparently there is no specific lifespan for plants, except for the annuals. The annual plants must be seeded anew. But eventually, even perennial plants die, as do our house plants that can live for decades given the right conditions. Death comes to all living things. 

I remember my parents, sitting in their living room in the apartment where I grew up, reading in the evenings. I remember my mother feeding the birds from her kitchen window each morning. I remember eating breakfast before we left for school, listening to 'Rambling with Gambling' on the radio. I remember commuting to and from Manhattan for several years with my father, and meeting him for lunch in Manhattan. I remember my father's illnesses and knowing we would lose him; I 'saw' and 'knew' the future. I remember shopping with my mother and driving around lower Westchester County with her on one of our many fun car rides. I remembering seeing a future without her and how painful it would be to lose her too. I remember my brother, who is dead six years as of this writing. I did not 'see' his death coming. They have been dead for many years, but they remain in my memory. All those memories of beloved people, places and experiences co-exist. And that is what I wonder about. Memories are dependent upon functioning brain neurons that transmit electrical signals to other neurons via synapses. Without neurons and neural networks, there are no memories. Plants do not have neurons, so they do not have memories, and so no concept of time, or none that they are 'aware' of. We have them, and so we have memories. But how and where are those memories truly situated in time? Or can we even ask those questions?

There are some physicists who theorize that time as we know it is not real, that it is simply a construct devised to help us differentiate between the present and our perception of the past. The 'block universe' theory, as their theory is called, can be summarized as follows. "The theory, which is backed up by Einstein’s theory of relativity, states that space and time are part of a four dimensional structure where everything that has happened has its own coordinates in spacetime" (Time is NOT real – Physicists show EVERYTHING happens at the same time | Science | News | Express.co.uk). In this theory, all our past experiences co-exist simultaneously with all our present and future experiences. If that is the case, there is no 'time', at least not as we define it. Stated in a different way: "Your birth is out there in space-time. Your death, too, is in space-time. Every moment of your life is out there, somewhere, in space-time. So says the block universe model of our world" (The block universe theory, where time travel is possible but time passing is an illusion - ABC News). What made the strongest impression upon me from the second article was reading that "Everything is relative: what is past to you, will be future to someone else. So if I travel back to the past I'm travelling to what is someone else's future. That means the past won't be any different, in kind, to the present." 

My brain seems able to grasp these concepts, however briefly. But they are also confusing. The philosophy and science involved in these concepts can seem overwhelming. In the end, they are mysteries that may or may not be elucidated in my lifetime. I hope however that they will be. I also hope that one day there could be time travel between the coordinates in the block universe. How cool that would be, to be able to visit 'a past moment with loved ones who are now gone', or even in another context, visit a 'future you'. How that would come to pass is anyone's guess. I don't see it happening for several more centuries. And yet sci-fi writers have written about time travel for years. They could visualize the future, at least one they 'saw', and committed that vision to paper. We who exist now were the future to their present, but we are also the past to someone else. It makes sense, and then it doesn't. But I like the idea that all the constructs of time exist equally and simultaneously. 

Television shows from the 1960s and 1970s

We watched all of these television shows as children and teenagers growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. Looking at them all from today's vantage point, I'd say that these decades were the golden age of television. And when I compare the television offerings on regular channels today to the shows from  these decades, I'd have to say that the shows on regular channels (linear tv) cannot hold a candle to the old shows. Most of what passes for tv entertainment on the regular channels at present is a wasteland. Streaming channels like Netflix and HBO have supplanted the regular channels, and they are far and away a better deal in terms of watching good films and series. 

Here are some of the shows we watched, enjoyed, and sometimes loved:

1960s shows

• Bewitched 
• Bonanza
• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
• Flipper
• Get Smart
• Gilligan's Island
• Gomer Pyle USMC
• Green Acres
• Hogan's Heroes
• I Spy
• Land of the Giants
• Leave It to Beaver
• Maya
• My Favorite Martian 
• My Three Sons
• Petticoat Junction
• Star Trek: The Original Series
• That Girl
• The Addams Family
• The Andy Griffith Show
• The Avengers
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• The Beverly Hillbillies
• The Donna Reed Show
• The Flintstones
• The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
• The Lucy Show
• The Munsters
• The Prisoner
• The Twilight Zone

1970s shows

• All in the Family
• Columbo
• Kojak
• Kolchak: The Night Stalker 
• M*A*S*H
• Night Gallery
• Quincy, M.E.
• Sanford and Son
• The Bob Newhart Show
• The Brady Bunch
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show
• The Partridge Family
• The Rockford Files
• The Six Million Dollar Man
• The Streets of San Francisco
• The Waltons
• WKRP in Cincinnati

Trying to find sanity

Someone should develop this as an app, it would be a rather apt app, especially in these pandemic times. 😀  

A year of the pandemic

Mid-March will mark the one-year anniversary of the month in 2020 when life as we knew it came to a grinding halt. Normalcy disappeared, replaced by uncertainty and a fair amount of gloom and doom. People were told to work from home if they could. Day-care centers closed, likewise most schools and universities. Restaurants, bars, theaters, movie theaters, malls and shops also closed. Plane travel ceased, as did international travel. Supermarkets remained open, as did shops deemed essential for the daily lives of men and women. Norway did not institute a curfew, but all of the above closings constituted a lockdown of society, however partial. 

When the pandemic first began, my husband and I were glued to all the news programs we could find about the coronavirus. We watched the news religiously, and read the rapidly multiplying scientific articles about the virus. We wanted to learn as much about it as we could. Norwegian immunology and virology experts weighed in with their opinions. Politicians and health officials collaborated on a daily basis. I watched Andrew Cuomo and Anthony Fauci in the USA update the public on the latest about the virus and the numbers of people infected as well as the number of deaths. Intensive care units in hospitals were overwhelmed, as were funeral homes. The media photos of mass burials around the world will stay in my mind for always. 

There was nowhere to go, so we went nowhere. We ordered food delivered to our home from time to time. I stocked up on face masks in anticipation of the coming winter; I knew the pandemic would not be over by then. Last March, however, I had a different kind of hope than I do now. Having never experienced a pandemic before, I went into it, probably like many others, with expectations that the scientists would have it covered and that it might also just die out like the flu viruses often do after wintertime. But the infection rate of this virus didn't seem to wax and wane with the seasons. It worsened after vacation times, whether it was summer vacation, autumn vacation, or Christmas vacation. 

The pandemic was the year that Trump got louder and louder, and grew bigger and bigger until he finally burst. He lost the presidential election, refused to accept that loss, and fomented a rebellion and a capitol invasion that will forever in my mind be linked to the year of the pandemic. People lost their minds, literally, and followed an unstable man into an unstable and divided future. 

I worked from home, and found out that I enjoyed it, until I realized that it might be a permanent situation. But I stayed focused and got my work done, usually by 3 pm each day. That left time in March for watching the HBO series My Brilliant Friend, which I looked forward to watching each day like I used to do when I followed specific soap operas on television many moons ago. When April came, I went to work in my garden after my workday was done. That got me outdoors and kept me physically active and busy so I had no time to think about the virus. It stayed that way until early November, when the garden was closed for the winter. And then came Christmas, followed by the months of January and February which I liken to a wasteland for all they contribute to my life at present. But we are healthy so I can't complain. As the one-year anniversary approaches, I am also glad for Netflix and HBO--for all the movies and series they offer--some of them excellent. There is always something to watch on the streaming channels, unlike regular television channels that are a complete wasteland and waste of time. I also have mostly given up listening to the news--it's depressing and keeps us stuck in the same mindset.

I've realized that having a garden and being to work in it from April until November kept me sane. It got me outdoors together with my fellow gardeners, and we could chat with each other at safe distances. No one took any stupid chances; we behaved and followed the rules for not getting infected. It worked. I am grateful for my garden because it saved me. It provided peace of mind when I could not find it anywhere else. Besides the activities one has to do in a garden in order for it to flourish, the garden let me think of other things, like why did the honeybees gather at the birdbath to drink water. At times there were twenty or thirty of them lined up on the rim of the birdbath. It was an incredible sight to behold, and I loved it. Or the day when the sparrows decided to bathe together en masse in the birdbath--chirping and flapping their wings while enjoying their bath. And then they would all fly away together, and then fly back to the birdbath together. It was truly a communal bee- and bird-bath last summer. 

I bring this up now because I cannot wait to be able to get back to my garden this year. January and February have had me climbing the walls of our apartment. It was bitter cold for most of January, so going outdoors was a chore. I did so anyway since the sun shone and the days were lovely. But cold it was. Just being outdoors kept me sane, even if I froze doing it. But I miss the interactions with other people. Humans are not made for isolation. I went back to work more during the past few months, despite the continued recommendation to work from home. I needed to see co-workers in person. I discovered that I hate zoom meetings and most things digital as far as work-related activities are concerned. I want real-life people that I can physically relate to in real-time, not virtual. I would prefer a room full of masked people that had gathered for a meeting, rather than a zoom meeting. My heart goes out to all those who live alone; it must be difficult whether you are young or old. I feel for students and young people whose social lives have been severely restricted. And yet, what else is there to look forward to if we don't follow the rules? My sense of hope has changed; it is tinged with a sorrow for mankind in case life never really returns to normal. I hope it does, but you never know. And some of that sorrow is for myself, since I never for one moment considered that my yearly trip to NY would disappear last summer and most likely this summer. I miss the other life I have in NY with my good friends and my family. 

I feel for people who don't have a haven, a refuge to go to, to get away from the news, the virus, the regulations and restrictions, the slow vaccination process, the new virus mutant variants, the constant talk about how many people are infected and how many have died. It's all too much, and it overwhelms the mind. I've talked to several people about fuzzy brain function lately, due to the anxiety and stress of living with the pandemic day in and day out. One can only hope that it comes to an end very soon. 

Quotes for weary souls

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit. --Robert Louis Stevenson

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. –Epicurus

It is as necessary for man to live in beauty rather than ugliness as it is necessary for him to have food for an aching belly or rest for a weary body. --Abraham Maslow

Rest when you're weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work. --Ralph Marston

Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do. --Eric Hoffer

Some of our life experience makes us weary of love and make it difficult to forgive others. –Parvathy

We all get weary sometimes, and we tend to think that life is what makes us weary. --Joyce Meyer

We can be tired, weary and emotionally distraught, but after spending time alone with God, we find that He injects into our bodies energy, power and strength. --Charles Stanley

Christian, learn from Christ how you ought to love Christ. Learn a love that is tender, wise, strong; love with tenderness, not passion, wisdom, not foolishness, and strength, lest you become weary and turn away from the love of the Lord. --Saint Bernard

If we grow weary and give up, the goal remains for someone else to achieve. --Zig Ziglar

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. --Paul the Apostle

We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously He once waited for us. --Charles Spurgeon

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary. --Charles Spurgeon

I never weary of great churches. It is my favorite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral. --Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Remembering Frank

I found out yesterday that one of my former bosses at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where I worked in the 1980s, passed away this past August. Frank was one of the cytometry triumvirate at the Laboratory for Investigative Cytology together with Zbigniew and Myron. Myron passed away in 2013 after battling pancreatic cancer for six years. I remember when I interviewed for the job of daily manager of the flow cytometry core facility, I ended up interviewing with Myron and Frank, as well as with Don, who was another senior scientist in the lab. I had experience in biophysical techniques from my first job, and I guess that contributed to my getting the job. 

Myron, Zbigniew and Frank were wonderful men to work for, and I treasure my time in their lab. I've written about this lab several times before in this blog. I had most to do with Frank on a daily basis. He was my immediate boss and he taught me everything I know about flow cytometry. There was almost no scientific question he couldn't answer, and he was generous with his time and help. He was also very protective of his employees and stood firmly on our side whenever conflicts arose with external labs. He seemed to be unflappable, but when he did get mad, which happened once or twice in the seven years I worked with him, it was best not to be on the receiving end of his anger. I pitied the scientists who ended up having any sorts of conflicts with him. They knew that without his help, their projects would become stranded. If he thought something was stupid, he said so, complete with sarcastic comments and a roll of his eyes. And he was usually right. He didn't waste his own time or others' time, and he didn't allow anyone else to waste his employees' time. He put his foot down firmly and simply stopped the nonsense in its tracks. I learned a lot from him about how to protect my own employees through the years. I could wish that some of my other leaders in recent times were as good a leader as he was.  

I have fond memories of my time in the lab--we worked hard together and traveled together to conferences. In August 1987, our lab went to a Society for Analytical Cytology meeting that was held in Cambridge, England. It was my first trip abroad, and I was so looking forward to having a proper British tea experience. I am quite sure that I never shut up about it, and probably drove most people around me crazy. But when we got to Cambridge, I wandered around the city together with Frank and Jola, a postdoc in the lab, trying to find just the right tea shop. It had to be just the right one. Frank was very patient while I hunted around and settled on just the right one. And then we enjoyed great tea, good scones, raspberry jam and clotted cream. I was in heaven. I'm sure Frank humored me, but that was the kind of man he was--he had infinite patience with people he liked, and I was one of them. 

I also remember that all of us (there must have been at least six or seven of us from the lab who traveled to Cambridge) decided to go punting on the river Cam. Frank and another senior scientist Jan took turns trying to punt, which turned out to be not at all easy. Steering a large boat without banging into the other boats and without losing your balance were quite challenging. Frank managed it, but just barely, and I remember thinking that it would be terrible if he fell into the river. There were a couple of times when he and Jan very nearly fell into the water. The fact that Frank was the consummate New Yorker--well-dressed, with nice shoes and leather jacket--would have made falling in even worse as it would have ruined his clothing and shoes. But that was Frank; I don't think he considered the possibility that he could fall into the water or that he couldn't learn to punt. They didn't fall in, and they did learn to punt. Other things I remember about him--he smoked too much, and we were always trying to get him to quit cigarette smoking. One of his technicians would bring him a big bowl of sliced carrots, celery and cucumbers so that he wouldn't smoke on Great American Smokeout Day in November of each year. But he never quit as far as I know. I also remember that at one of our lab parties at his Manhattan apartment, he played Roxy Music's Avalon album for us. To this day, I cannot hear the song More than This without thinking of him. 

As fate would have it, I met my husband Trond at the same conference in Cambridge when he came to sit with our lab group one evening at one of the local pubs. That was the kind of lab group we were--welcoming to others from all countries. You could sit down with us and just start chatting. Our lab in New York was multinational, with scientists from many different countries--among them Poland, Italy, Sweden, and Germany. Scientists visited the lab while traveling through on their way to other meetings in the USA. My husband did just that; he said that he remembers seeing me in the lab when he came to visit Frank and the others. I don't remember that. But we did end up meeting again in Cambridge. Even though I moved to Norway, I stayed in touch with the Memorial lab. Working there was one of the best experiences of my life. 

Stick to your business

Many years ago, my husband and I had the privilege of working in a large lab in California headed by a man whom I can only call a visionary scientist. He was one of those rare scientists who made things happen, whose ideas were ground-breaking and game-changers. It was an exciting time in our lives, when we ourselves were still young scientists who hadn’t yet built scientific careers. Even then, I was an observer in terms of watching how he led his lab, and I learned a lot from him. For starters, he surrounded himself with talented people who were smart and who worked hard. He expected a lot from them, but the rewards for producing were good. He was good at picking the right people to have around him—a good blend of visionaries like himself as well as scientists who were able to translate his ideas into practice using ingenuity and inventiveness and the more technical scientists who were able to use these new ideas and procedures to answer specific questions and to generate more questions. In all cases, these scientists were concerned with the practice of science, and they stuck to their business, to what they were good at. He was also an excellent grant writer who had paid his dues working in national government labs for most of his adult life; he had learned the practice of science and managed to draw in quite a lot of funding for the lab that he headed.

I remember that he visited us here in Oslo some years later. I picked him up at his hotel to drive him back to our house for dinner, to which we had invited another couple who also worked in science. It was a pleasant evening. But what I remember most was the conversation I had with him when we were driving to our house at the beginning of the evening. I had just finished my doctoral work and was starting on my postdoctoral work, but I had some misgivings about pursuing an academic career. I was describing to him my different interests and how I felt pulled in several different directions. I remember exactly what he said to me--‘stick to your business’. That was about twenty years ago. Since then, the world of academic research science has changed tremendously, and it has become harder to stick to the business of just doing science. Business administration, leadership education, public relations and social networking have become part and parcel of an academic scientific career. To some extent, they always were, from the standpoint that it was good to know how to run a lab or to run a research group, but they weren’t the main focus. The main focus was always on the science. Nowadays, it is quite different. There is a multifocal approach to science that I don’t think benefits the profession because the multifocal aspects are time-drainers. Academic scientists are pulled in all directions now; they are supposed to be scientists, grant writers, business leaders, networkers, sales people, administrators, technical managers, and personnel managers. They are expected to understand complicated accounting and budget practices. They are expected to understand a multitude of bureaucratic procedures, all of which involve complicated legal aspects having to do with e.g. patient confidentiality if one works with patient data. One should understand the use of databases, registers, and complex statistical programs. There are lengthy leadership courses to attend so that one can become a good business leader. There are courses having to do with animal welfare if you plan on using animals for experiments, courses about good clinical practice, how to biobank, how to use quality registers, how to create quality presentations, how to write fundable grants, LEAN for hospital administration, and so on. It all ‘sounds’ good in theory, but in practice, they all take valuable time away from the actual doing of science, which is the only activity that will make you a good scientist. Working in the lab and actually doing science are what make you a good scientist. Reading scientific articles, coming up with new ideas based on what you’ve read, trying and failing, making mistakes, learning and following procedures and recipes, making solutions and buffers, reading technical manuals for complicated instrumentation, writing and publishing scientific articles, writing grants—all of those things will ensure that you become a good scientist. Taking a course here and there to learn a new lab procedure that will aid your scientific project is a good idea. Mentoring Masters and PhD students is also a good idea and will help you become a good mentor and manager. Training research technicians and working closely together with them on research projects will make you a good manager, or at least reveal to you whether or not you will qualify to be a research group leader. The rewards for such mentoring and training will be competent workers and independent thinkers who will further your research projects. That is sticking to your business. Attending generalized business leadership courses, although interesting, will not make you a better scientist. But nowadays, it is the norm to be all things to all people. In the space of twenty years, academic science has become less scientific and more business-like. It has been a strange evolution that I don’t think has been beneficial for the profession. The overall idea is perhaps that scientists should be able to adapt themselves to any profession if necessary. But the visionary aspect of science loses out. The purity of science loses out. Academic science has moved in a more mundane direction, concerned more with business administration/practices, PR, salesmanship, networking, self-improvement, public speaking, and interpersonal skills than with much else. Yes, it helps to be able to hold a polished presentation, or to know how to network, but something has been lost in the process. Perhaps it is what I call the eccentricities and difficulties of science and scientists. The practice of science is not supposed to be smooth and predictable, or controllable, or able to be perfectly regulated. The unpredictability of doing research, the not knowing how it all will turn out, is what makes academic science interesting and rewarding. It is the eureka moments in the lab that one remembers, those moments when you know that the practice of pure science is worth it. 

Fight or flight response to the daily media bombardment of our lives with fake threats

It is possible to become extremely weary of the current climate of hysteria, conspiracy theories, arrogance, paranoia, continual anger, hostility and the sowing of divisiveness everywhere one turns. The media should be very careful moving forward, not to foment divisiveness and hysteria at every juncture. It simply is not healthy to live each day in 'fight or flight' mode in response to anger, threats or stress. Adrenaline (epinephrine) levels rise and lead to rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, anxiety, excessive sweating and palpitations, among others. This response is necessary when we are faced with real threats where we need to escape in order to survive. But when we watch tv, read newspapers or look at other media that cause us constant anger and stress, we open ourselves to a lot of unnecessary health problems. 

There are so many irritating situations and people that abound these days. The media latch on to them and blow them up or out of proportion. They exaggerate their importance. Their readers or viewers end up yelling at the tv or becoming angry at what they read in the newspapers, and they anger and irritate family members who have null desire to be sucked into that black hole of anger on a daily basis. Each day, we allow media versions of the daily miseries around us, to invade our living rooms. Each day, we allow ourselves to get angry, stressed, confused, hysterical, and our bodies thank us by raising our levels of adrenaline and cortisol so that we can fight the threats. The problem is that this daily practice leads to unhealthy bodies. We can't be constantly on the alert for threats. Like adrenaline, cortisol is also produced by the adrenal glands. Cortisol narrows the arteries, while adrenaline increases the heart rate. The combined effect of both hormones is to make the heart pump harder. Another effect of cortisol is to stimulate fat and carbohydrate metabolism to provide energy for the body in threatening situations, which can in turn increase appetite. Weight gain and elevated cortisol levels can often go hand in hand. It makes sense that these are not physiological states that one would want to experience often during each day in response to 'fake' threats. 

The media may say they are interested in presenting the facts, but even the few that try to live up to that ideal do make serious mistakes or find that their journalists are not always ethical human beings. 'Fact-based' stories can end up being anything but. I am fed up with newspapers that do not wish to be labeled tabloid newspapers, yet their headlines are nothing more than click bait. The editors know that the online versions of their newspapers will garner many views if they include click bait headlines. So they do. This doesn't make them ethical, it makes them greedy. It shows me that they are only interested in beating their competition. They're not really interested in the truth. They're part of the problem, since they help to create anger, divisiveness, and conspiracy theories in the quest for money. Greed is the root of all evil. Greed is the root of the insanity we are witness to in our present societies. 

Let's rid our daily lives of the fake threats. I am slowly reaching the point where I no longer want to know what is going on in the world on a daily basis. I'm happier not knowing. If I need to stay updated, I can briefly skim an online version of Reuters or the BBC, where the hysteria is kept to a minimum. And an added benefit is that I don't have to see too many headlines about celebrities doing stupid things or making stupid pronouncements about things they know nothing about. Because that's another thing I'm fairly fed up with--the entire celebrity culture. I simply don't care about any of them. They're no better than any of us, they're just richer, and as such, also represent the insane quest for money that permeates our societies.