The roots are down there riotous--Rumi

Apropos my earlier post about the beauty of frost in a winter garden--I wrote that there's a lot going on under the soil in a winter garden. I found this today in my wanderings online..... 

Winter solstice

This is a poem I wrote in 2013 that later became a part of a poetry collection--Remnants of the Spirit World--that I published in 2014. The collection is available for purchase here: Remnants of the Spirit World: De Angelis, Paula Mary: 9781495376450: Amazon.com: Books

Solstice

Mid-winter night of nights

The shortest day of days

Walk into darkness’ might

And leave behind the light

Darkness falls upon the land

A weary world adrift in dream

Awaits return of sunshine’s hand

That stays its course upon the stream

What shadows lie in wait

For simple souls who traipse

Into their world of hate

Locked beyond the gate

Gather round the blazing fire

Hands clasped against the gloom

Fear of what events transpire

Chanting as dark shadows loom

And so the shadows lie

Cast doubt upon fair souls

Where shadows do not tread

Just souls have found their stead

Gather round the blazing fire

That warms dark frozen souls

Gather round the cleansing pyre

That burns to make them whole

The longest night of nights

Turns slowly toward the sun

Moving on to longer days

In the end the battle won

O’er darkness and the shadow life

Creatures retreat behind the gate

The cracks filled in with blessed light

Sealed against the wall of hate

Copyright 2013 Paula Mary De Angelis 

The beauty of frost in my garden

Winter has its own charm and beauty. I need only go to my garden to experience it. Some people would say they only see a dead garden, which is partially true. On the surface, most (not all) of the plants appear to be withered and dead. But there is a lot going on underground in a garden and other places where there is plant life, during the wintertime ( In the dead of winter, plants are already starting to prepare for spring — underground | The World from PRX). 

So a winter garden may be resting, but also preparing for spring. Be that as it may, I am fascinated by what a winter garden can offer in the way of beauty. Yesterday the temperatures were in the low forties, but when I went to my garden to add some dead roses to the compost, there was frost on the ground, which I might not have expected given the temperature. Wikipedia states that "As a rule, except in conditions where supercooled droplets are present in the air, frost will form only if the deposition surface is colder than the surrounding air". So this means that the ground surface in the garden is colder than the surrounding air--very interesting.  

I captured the beauty of winter's frost in photos. Enjoy. 

The rhododendron bush is not covered in frost

The bamboo bush is also not covered in frost

Christmas tree in front of Iladalen Church

Iladalen Church (Ila Church) is located in the vicinity of where we live in Oslo. It overlooks Iladalen park to the south which has recently undergone a major facelift. The church too has undergone some changes in the past few years. Thanks to an allocation of circa 1600 USD from the Sagene district local government and the parish itself in 2016, grapes, different bushes and cherry trees were planted, as well as a herb garden. I often walk by the church garden (klosterhage in Norwegian) on my daily walks.  

Winter brings its own beauty to the church and park. There is an evergreen tree near the parking lot and entrance to the church that is decorated with lights for Christmas. I happened to be walking home during the early evening a few days ago and I saw the Christmas tree lit up in the dark. It was a pretty winter scene that I thought I'd share with you. 

Gray heron swimming in the Akerselva river

I was out for a walk today around lunchtime, and found myself walking up along the Akerselva from Sannergata/Sannerbrua. When I was crossing the footbridge that leads to Wallman's Salong, I detected movement in the water out of the corner of my eye. I stopped in the middle of the bridge (looking north) and watched to see what was moving in the water. I thought it might be a large fish, but lo and behold, it was a bird. And not just any bird, but a gray heron. When he first surfaced after diving, I thought he might be in trouble, possibly drowning, and I began to wonder how I would help him. But then he looked around him and swam across the river toward the river's edge furthest away from me, swam under the bridge, and continued swimming downstream until he came to a small waterfall, at which point he flapped his wings and 'flew' down the waterfall. I was so fascinated by him that I forgot to take a photo of him--a beautiful majestic bird--clearly quite happy in the river on a beautiful mild winter day. 

I didn't know it was a heron when I first saw it. I didn't find out what it was until I googled large gray bird with long beak. The common crane came up as did the gray heron. My sister mentioned that it could be an egret, which I remember seeing in upstate New York some years ago when she and I visited a park not far from Pine Bush. Egrets are a type of heron, usually smaller, and often white. So did I see a crane or a heron? I'm sure it was a heron because its beak was very long, which is a characteristic of herons. Gray herons are called 'gråhegre' in Norwegian. When I googled the Norwegian name, a few articles came up detailing individual sightings of gray herons in the Akerselva river during the past year. So cool. My heart was so happy to see this beautiful bird. It struck me how lucky we are to live in a city with a river that runs through it, a river that attracts so many different kinds of birds and other creatures. I hope I see the gray heron again; this time I will take photos of him. 

Here are some photos of a gray heron (perhaps my gray heron?) from two articles (in Norwegian) talking about gray heron sightings along the Akerselva river in our neck of the woods: 

Se hva vi «traff på» langs Akerselva (nab.no)

– Den kom flyvende oppover elva, og tok en hvil på en snødekt stein (nab.no)

Light in the December darkness

December is a dark month in Oslo. Actually it's a dark month in the whole of Norway. We're luckier here in Oslo than are those who live in Tromsø in northern Norway, where it is dark for most of the day. Tromsø gets about two to three hours of light per day during the winter (How People Stay Happy in the Norewegian Town Where the Sun Doesn't Rise - The Atlantic). I say that we're luckier in Oslo because we get more daylight; sunrise is around 9 am and sunset shortly after 3 pm. That gives us six hours of daylight. But I suppose it depends on how you look at it. When I first moved to Oslo, I found the darkness in wintertime too dark. It enveloped me like a cloud or a blanket, smothering me with its endlessness. Winters at that time were for me all about looking forward to spring and summer. Christmas 'saved' me in the sense that I had something happy to prepare for and to focus on; between working full-time, Christmas parties, social gatherings, Christmas shopping and writing Christmas cards, etc., there was plenty to take my mind off the dark days. But over the years, I've adjusted to the short winter days. That happened because I take advantage of the small amount of available light to be outdoors. And if I can't be outdoors when it's light out, I take a walk in the early evening, when it's relatively quiet. Walking in the darkness in a well-lit city is no problem. I realized recently that being outdoors at any time is a tonic for all that ails me. Just getting outdoors for a long walk soothes my soul. Even when it has snowed and the sidewalks are impassable, I still look forward to getting outdoors for my walk. I couldn't do that when I was sitting in an office all day, trapped indoors during peak daylight hours. 

Oslo sets up a Christmas market on Karl Johan street (at Spikersuppa) in mid-November that adds to the festive feeling preceding Christmas. It stays up until early January. The lights shine in the darkness, welcoming tourists and city dwellers alike. I met some friends for dinner near the beginning of December and on my way home I passed the market and took a few photos. Light in the darkness......

The darkness of December can be tackled in different ways. One of them is to surround oneself with light of all kinds. Christmas decorations and trees contribute to this. The co-op complex where we live in Oslo sets up a Christmas tree each year that is lit for most of the day. Just looking at it soothes my soul. Most of the co-op complexes set up Christmas trees and some of them have Christmas tree celebrations for the children in early January. Our co-op complex has a small tree-lighting ceremony where residents gather for fifteen or twenty minutes to watch the tree get lit and to drink gløgg (mulled wine) and eat some pepperkaker (gingerbread cookies). It's a nice gesture that was started a few years ago by the co-op board. 

People are clever about decorating their balconies with strings of white lights that light up the darkness; the balconies look beautiful and the lights create a feeling of coziness. I do this too and love looking at all the balconies when I come home in the early evening. House owners do the same, decorating their windows, balconies, and outdoor trees and bushes with string lights. City streets are decorated with hanging lights that span the width of the streets; one street in particular--Bogstadveien--has lovely bell-shaped Christmas lights.  

Indoors, tea candles are used to create light and a cozy feeling. They are placed in holders of all shapes, colors, and sizes. My favorite tea candle holder is one that looks like a stained glass window that I received as a gift many years ago from a woman with whom I worked; I'm including a photo of it here. When the candle is lit, it reflects all the colors of the holder onto the surface of the table where it is placed--quite pretty to behold.  

The candle holders I like the best at present are the translucent ones, where the light passes through the images on the holder, illuminating them in a peaceful way. These are not tea candle holders necessarily, although you can use tea candles in them. 

Flameless candles have become popular. I like them because there is little risk of fire and the LED lights last a long time (much longer than the batteries that are needed for the candle to function). 

When I first came to Norway, the most popular light decorations that people placed in their windows were called 'Adventsstake' (translated Advent candlestick--see photo below). You can still see them in some windows, but their popularity has waned. I had one for years until it fell into disrepair. 

 

Window light decorations are also popular. Hanging stars, like the one in this photo, are now in favor.  

And of course there's the snow. It doesn't snow every year in December, but the past few years we've had some snow accumulation in December. If it doesn't rain, the snow remains on the ground and lights up the darkness. It's a welcome sight, especially when it's cold outside and it first has snowed; everything seems so unspoiled, pretty and peaceful. Magical almost. 

Whenever I feel out of sorts, I try to remember all of the things about this month, about Advent, about traditions, about the true spirit of Christmas, and slowly they seep in and lift my spirit. I am reminded that the season is about kindness and patience and about bringing light to others-- humans, animals and birds. Each morning when I see the birds gathered on the fire balcony outside our kitchen window waiting for their daily dose of sunflower seeds, I realize that I am their light in the darkness. They show up when they see the lights go on in the kitchen as breakfast is being readied. They remember from year to year where to go to find sustenance. They remember those who are kind to them. 

There is grace all around us, in the simplest of things. Those things can be all of the little things that we use to create a Christmas spirit in our homes--our traditions, the Christmas tree, books, flowers, decorations and other treasured items. That is why we have accumulated them over the years--they give us joy and they give joy to others. They give light to world-weary souls. 

Remembering Thu

It's not often you meet a real-life angel, but when you do, you feel certain that you are in the presence of goodness. My friend Thu, who worked for me as a research assistant during 2011-2012, was smart, quick, competent and willing to go the extra mile. Thu the employee was always motivated, always positive, always had a smile. I don't think I've ever seen her angry or be rude to anyone. She got involved in my research project and had timely and useful suggestions for how to improve certain procedures. She worked for the department of pathology doing necessary routine procedures so that the department could function efficiently, but her mind and heart preferred the research side of science and medicine. So it was a huge surprise when she came to me one day back in late 2012 and said she was leaving the work world behind in order to enter the convent. She wanted to become a Dominican nun. In early 2013 she gave up her job and moved into the Katarinahjemmet here in Oslo, which is a convent/cloister that currently houses twelve Dominican nuns. She became a novice and was very happy with her decision. I visited her there regularly during 2013, as did several others who had worked with her. We would eat lunch together and just talk. I remember asking her about her vocation, her call to serve God in this way. She said it was probably always there but just got stronger as the years went on. Katarinahjemmet is a beautiful and serene place in the middle of Oslo, but you'd never know you're in a city once you are inside the building. It is a place conducive to prayer and contemplation and I understood immediately why Thu chose to be there. 

Unfortunately Thu did not get to experience more than about a year and a half in the convent. She was diagnosed with non small cell lung cancer in 2014, when she was 35 years old, and that was the start of seven years of hell for her. The tumor was removed and she started on very heavy chemotherapy afterward (cisplatin derivative) that is very tough on the body. Besides losing her hair, she lost her energy completely. She had a hard time just getting out of bed in the morning. She could no longer pursue her vocation and live in the convent, so she ended up moving home to her mother's house. Luckily her family live in Oslo or right outside of it (they all came originally from Vietnam). Thu did manage to meet me and two other co-workers for dinner a couple of times in 2015. Toward the end of 2015 she asked me if she could come to work for me again, and I arranged for her to work part-time together with our research group. We agreed that she could work one day a week and increase her work time gradually if she felt up to it. We often ate lunch together and talked about so many things; she was always honest about her situation. I know she suffered from the severe effects of her chemotherapy, the downside of chemo, but it did keep her cancer in check for a couple of years. In 2017 her cancer returned, this time with metastatic spread to her brain. There were only a few brain metastases that the oncologists could see, so she underwent a brain operation to remove them, which was successful. Unfortunately, the operation left her partially lame, so that she had to start physical therapy in order to learn to walk properly again. When we would visit her at her apartment (she had purchased a small apartment), she was using a walker to get around, but she was a trooper and managed it very well. She never complained, never whined, never wondered 'why me'. She just did what she needed to do. And gradually she got better at walking so that she could walk unaided to the supermarket and do what she needed to do on a daily basis to take care of herself. But her family was always within driving distance so that they could help her if she needed it. She started taking a new drug (I think it is called Osimertinib) that is given to non small cell lung cancer patients when the cancer has spread or may come back after surgery. This would have been around 2018. The side effects of this drug are fast or pounding heartbeats, swelling in the lower legs, fever, cough, trouble breathing, skin blistering or peeling, vision changes, eye pain, increased sensitivity to light, light-headedness and shortness of breath. Thu ended up having eye problems, especially increased sensitivity to light, so that it was very difficult for her to read, watch tv, or use her computer. The last time we saw her was when we had dinner together in her apartment; that would have been right before the pandemic started in March 2020. She mentioned the sensitivity to light but was otherwise in good spirits. We did not see her again after that, although I have had contact with her via Messenger. Her cancer ended up coming back in June 2020 and she underwent radiation treatments to shrink the brain tumors. By this time she was having severe headaches and was very light-sensitive. The last time we wrote to each other was in December 2020; I told her how much she meant to me and how much I appreciated all the work she did for me. After that point, I don't think she was able to use any devices. We heard from her family that she did not want visitors anymore. 

Thu died yesterday, on my birthday, at the age of 42. I'd like to think that heaven gained an immediate angel. I hope that she will look out for me--that she will be my guardian angel. Rest in peace, my friend. I will miss you. 

Reflections on men who kill their partners

I read about the Gabby Petito case as it was unfolding; it was no surprise to me that Brian Laundrie who went missing ended up dead. My guess is that he simply couldn't live with what he had done and that he knew he would go to prison for a long time for killing her. He also knew he was one of the most hated men in the USA at that point. He simply couldn't face a trial and life in prison so he probably ended his own life. There are several other plausible scenarios, but this is the most likely one in my mind. Brutal enough in one instance to take his girlfriend's life; cowardly enough not to want to pay the price for doing so. Although committing suicide takes some guts, so go figure. I guess he figured it was the lesser of two evils, one that spared him the horror of reliving his crime in a trial. He spared his family and Gabby's family the horror of it as well.

Today I read about another young man who beat his girlfriend to death while they were on vacation in Mexico. Her family had gotten bad vibes about him and wanted her to end her relationship with him. She didn't. The night before he killed her, she had contacted her family to let them know that he had assaulted her viciously enough so that she needed stitches. A day later, she was dead, 'beaten to a bloody pulp' as the newspapers reported it. 

Every week there are news stories about men who murder their wives/girlfriends/lovers and their children. Or about women who disappear and are never found (and are presumed dead, just that the body cannot be found). If it's not a divorce case where the man stands to lose custody and takes revenge, it's a man wanting out of his marriage because he met someone new and doesn't want to pay alimony/child support to the woman he's discarding. Or you have the cold-blooded psychopaths who enjoy gaslighting and abusing their wives/girlfriends/lovers/children. All of these cases are reported on the news, made into films and crime series, or written about in articles and books. And if these men don't kill the women in their lives, they physically and mentally abuse them and make their lives a living hell. They threaten them with bodily harm and death, they threaten to kill their children if there are any, they threaten to make the lives of these women and their extended families a living hell. Sometimes they do. It's hard to predict which of them will act on their threats. 

What is wrong with these men? With regard to the murder cases, why do they go down the path of murder rather than just walking away from the women? Why do they kill them? Is it a moment of rage, or is it years of rage that have built up? Where does that rage come from? Are these men who don't want to be tied down by marriage and children, or by demanding girlfriends and lovers? Men who don't want to pay alimony and child support? Are they all psychopaths? According to my online searches, about 1% of the general population are psychopaths; in the USA that amounts to circa 3,337,548 people. The majority of crime films and television crime series nowadays present many men as predators, opportunists, pricks, and despicable human beings (read psychopaths). They are fooling around with other women while their wives are at home taking care of the kids. They are gaslighting their wives or complaining that she doesn't work/bring in enough money/look the same as before she had children. They are aggressive, brutal, and only interested in demeaning the women in their lives.

The odd thing is that many of the photos of these couples that end up on social media in real life these days present a united and happy front. When you see the violent outcome, you realize how fake it all is, all the lovey-dovey fakery on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. The poses, the fake happiness, the perfect family. Except it's not. You could wonder why women in these relationships go to such lengths to present the image of a happy relationship/family. Psychiatrists and psychologists have probably written a plethora of books on that subject. Abused women retreat into their own twilight world, forced there by the men in their lives. They are forced into secrecy; they cannot tell their families about how bad it all is, because the men in their lives would punish them and/or their families. So they put on the happy face. You could wonder if the men want this image presented to the world in photos, or if the women feel guilted into doing this. It's hard to know. One thing is clear; the use of social media seems to actually help crime scene investigators, because there's usually something of interest, something useful, that they can find to help them with their cases. The Gabby Petito case made that clear with the different video footage that documented escalating tensions between the two young people. Why didn't Gabby just go home? What did she believe would change? That's the tragedy, that when you're young, you have a lot of hope--that people can change, that situations can change, that life can be better. Regardless of what people say to you, you hang onto that belief. In some few cases, things do get better. In the majority of bad relationships, they don't. And that's what you know when you are older. Don't waste your time. Cut your losses. Better to be alone than together with someone who doesn't love you. We need to do a better job with our daughters when it comes to telling them that men who gaslight and abuse them don't love them. It needs to be drummed into women's heads from the time they are young, along with 'don't get into strangers' cars' and 'don't talk to strangers'. A man who truly loves and respects a woman will never be violent with her, will never try to manipulate or control her, will never humiliate her in front of others, will never be a Jekyll/Hyde personality. It's that simple. 

People choose to go down the path of evil. It doesn't matter if they're young or old. The more incidences of abuse, violence, lying and other bad behavior, the further along the path of evil they come. Literature is full of references to a person's demons. Are demons real? I believe they are when you look at the depravity of the crimes committed by some of these people. I wonder if the perpetrators, the men, ever thought about the repercussions of their behavior on their consciences. The more frequent the bad behaviors, the more dulled and numb the conscience becomes. The final destination on this path is a completely-numbed conscience, where physical and mental abuse become commonplace. Is that what happened in some of these high-profile domestic violence cases? We may never know. 

I'll end this post by including some links to online articles that discuss this topic in more detail:

• Domestic abuse: Killers 'follow eight-stage pattern', study says - BBC News
• Men who murder their families: what the research tells us 230412.pdf (ojp.gov)

Reflections on workism

I learned a new word from an article I read yesterday in The New York Times. I'll get to the article in a moment. The new word is 'workism'; it is defined as follows: 

What is workism? It is the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one's identity and life's purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work........(https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/)

The article itself was the transcript of an interview between Rogé Karma, the staff editor for The Ezra Klein Show, and Sarah Jaffe, an author who has written a book called Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone (Transcript: Rogé Karma Interviews Sarah Jaffe for ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ - The New York Times (nytimes.com). I sent the link to a few of my friends whom I know will enjoy reading it, because we have discussed several aspects of this topic earlier. The interview provides food for thought and discussion but not concrete solutions for how to deal with the problem, and it clearly is a problem (Workism Is Making Americans Miserable - Marcellus). There are a lot of research studies being conducted about the effects of workism on the lives of Americans. 

Americans have been overworking for years and the word workaholism was often used to describe the almost addictive behavior that many workers exhibited. They had to be at the office no matter what, and it was not uncommon for them to announce that whenever you ran into some of them. They wore their workaholism like a badge of honor, even though it affected their physical and mental health. They worked overtime, on weekends, during their free time. They lived, breathed and ate work at the expense of their family and social lives. I personally know a woman (in New York) who had a high-powered job for which she sacrificed her social life. That meant rarely getting together with good friends; her husband worked at an equally high-powered job so apart from their jobs and raising two children with the help of a live-in nanny, their lives were quite socially isolated. I'm not sure how she feels about her choices today as a sixty-five year old woman, but back in the 1980s 'marrying your job' was almost encouraged for women. Women had to get ahead, make inroads, compete with and in the same way as men. Women's magazines (e.g. Ms. magazine) encouraged this way of thinking. It was hard not to be affected by it all, because the allure of work was already strong without the hype surrounding it. Remember, we grew up in an America where the work ethic was alpha and omega. It was drummed into us that having a strong work ethic was important, that getting a good job (well-paying) was important. A college education would make the latter possible. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Nose to the grindstone, whether it meant studying hard or working hard or both. I remember it well. I started working part-time jobs when I was fourteen, and each summer I got agitated if I couldn't find a summer job. In my twenties, I worked at my first lab job and finished my biology master's degree at night. I switched jobs (another lab job) and began an MBA program after work. When my father died I realized that I couldn't do it all and quit the MBA program in order to focus on my work and on having free time to be together with friends (not always easy when your commute to and from Manhattan was about two hours long). When I moved abroad I worked sixty-hour weeks, as did my husband. We were scientists working in the lab and we loved what we did. I spent six years doing my PhD alongside my job. I don't think we worried about whether our jobs loved us back. But a certain amount of our identity came from our work. We were concerned with doing good research and publishing the results of that work, and we did that well until the way of doing research changed drastically around 2005. I'll come back to that. But suffice it to say that we overworked ourselves for many years. Do I regret it? No, I don't. We were not real workaholics because we did not sacrifice our personal lives for our work. We got together often with friends and family, raised a child, pursued our hobbies, took vacations, and did all those things that make for a good life outside of work. Now that I'm retired, I do wonder if one of the reasons I retired early is because I literally ran out of steam, physically. I was tired. Perhaps no wonder. Having retired, I don't miss work nor do I miss the workplace atmosphere of competition and politics. 

When I moved to Norway in my thirties, it took me quite a while to get used to having four weeks of summer vacation. In the States, I hardly used my summer vacation so that it accumulated and my workplace had to remind me to take my two weeks each year. I remember sitting by the pool at the apartment complex where I lived on a few of those vacation days during the hot New Jersey summers, wondering what I was going to do and how I would use the time. I spent one vacation visiting a friend in Kentucky; another time I visited another friend who had moved to Michigan. But by and large I really didn't know what to do with 'all that free time'. The same was true for several years after I moved to Norway. And then it changed. Slowly I began to look forward to summer vacations. My husband and I traveled around Europe. I traveled back to New York for a week or two at a time to visit family and friends, and still do that each summer. I began to relish having free time. The only time I had ever had so much time off (four weeks) was when I was still working in Manhattan and had a major operation that forced me to recover at home for six to eight weeks. I couldn't do much physically so I had to learn to lie on the sofa and take it easy, read, listen to music, write, do photography, and play with my cats. I wasn't married then so I spent that time by myself. It was an eye-opener and quite valuable, as the forced time off showed me that I had an identity apart from 'employee'. 

'Workism' has apparently taken over American work life. Work has become an all-consuming activity and the sole source of a person's identity according to the articles I've been reading. Companies want more and more from their employees without paying them more. At the same time they want them to be motivated and happy workers. Companies are interested in efficiency and production and have developed all sorts of novel ways to measure both. Control of employees is paramount. Smart phones have made it possible for work to invade all aspects of life at all times of the day. Employees feel obligated to answer emails at all hours of the day. Leadership courses promote the idea of motivation as being paramount for a good workplace environment; the idea of transactional work, going to work to get a paycheck and doing just what you need in order to get that paycheck, is discouraged. Nowadays you go to work to get motivated, to enhance your life and your identity. Work provides your identity and the main purpose of your life. Nowadays your work should feed your soul, heart, body and mind. But what if work doesn't do that? The majority of employees don't experience work in this way, yet they are told the opposite. It is a recipe for misery, yes. 

Has workism taken hold in Norway? Yes, it has to a large degree. I can only speak for the scientific community, but my impression is that many scientists derive their identity and life's purpose from their work and that they have bought into the workism hype. The workism hype includes all the tricks that workplaces (university hospitals and universities) use to maintain control over their employees, to keep them efficient and productive. Around 2005, the way of doing science in Norway changed. Policies surrounding the way that science was organized and conducted changed, determined by the government. First came the large centers of excellence (idea adapted from the USA and England), where one or two group leaders received huge amounts of funding to organize research centers devoted to one specific field of research, e.g. molecular cancer or personalized medicine. These centers created extensive networks with other centers, nationally and internationally. The emphasis was on creating large research groups at the expense of small ones; the latter were left to their own devices, most of them without further funding, so many of them ceased to exist after a time. Those who carried on did so knowing they would not get funding and knowing too that they would be harassed, mocked or ignored. At the same time, researchers were told that their output was to be controlled and measured continually via progress reports, internal reports, impact factors and H-indices. All of these determined your worth and identity as a scientist. The greater the output (publications in high-impact factor journals, PhD students, book chapters, courses, etc.) and the higher your H-index, the greater your chances of getting funding and the better you were as a scientist. I've written about this many times before. Scientists with funding in Norway are considered to be 'good' scientists; those without are considered to be 'bad' ones. Black and white, no in-between. Think big and dream big (and throw in the buzzword innovation) and you're a 'good' scientist, think small and you're not. Scientists without funding don't 'work hard enough' in the view of the 'good' scientists. The 'good' scientists are those who find a way to constantly remind others (the bad scientists) that they're the best--they work the hardest, they're at work all the time, they get the most funding, they live/breathe/sleep science, and they have the most students (translated, they're popular). Their identity is totally wrapped up in their work. They have no insight into themselves or others and possess little empathy for others. They complain a lot. They complain that they work too hard but they wear their overwork like a badge of honor. They complain that they have hundreds of emails to answer, too many meetings to attend, but they would never trade away the irritations for the 'boring' lives of the scientists they label as 'bad'. They like to complain because that's part of their identity. They have little else in their lives that motivates or drives them, and in some cases they resort to borderline ethical behavior in order to keep what money they've gotten, e.g. trying to intimidate granting agencies into giving them money they mean is rightfully due them as the great scientists they are. They can't wait for the 'bad' scientists to quit or retire, because that frees up more money for them or their cronies. The hype surrounding them is that they are important; the reality is something else again. The undercurrent in Norway at present is that you should be working, always, and that extends even to retirees. Whenever I bring up volunteer work as a possible activity for retirees, people get quiet. They don't know what to say. You should be working and getting paid for it. After all, we're talking identity, we're talking prestige, status, importance. Retirement is not looked upon favorably here as it is in America. It rankles several people in their seventies whom I know here that they 'had to retire' because they had reached retirement age. They resent being made to feel old; the truth is that they derive their identities from their jobs. They resent the loss of their identities. That does not describe me. 

Social interactions, faith/religion, and extracurricular activities outside of work used to contribute to a healthy self-image and identity. The idea that work will be the sole contributor to creating our identities is a very misguided one. When things are going well at work, we don't think about our vulnerability in the workplace. It is not until we are threatened with the loss of our jobs that we 'wake up' and realize that we may be spending too much time at the office and that the rest of our lives deserve as much if not more attention and focus. It is not until we burn out or hit the wall that we realize that we can actually lose our motivation for a job and that sometimes it is nearly impossible to get it back. That forces us to rethink things. I think it's healthy to hit the wall, even though it's painful and uncomfortable. It's our minds and bodies telling us that they have had enough, that they cannot continue doing what they've been doing anymore. 

I am flying in the face of every leadership and motivational course I have attended during the past ten years when I say that we should return to or adopt a transactional approach to work, as in, I the worker will do the work stipulated in the contract I sign with my workplace for a set salary. If I do more work than stipulated then I will receive overtime for it. If the workplace wants me to be available after hours and on weekends, then they must pay for that. White collar workers, e.g., academic research scientists, typically are not unionized (in Norway they are) and the idea of transactional work would not appeal to most of them. They are used to giving their all and working long hours to make it in order to obtain permanent jobs and tenure. Most don't obtain these things; the hype in Norway is that you will after four years in one position and it's one big lie. Scientific academia is an elite profession populated by elitists who have no interest in opening up the field to all. It is not a profession populated by truly great visionary scientists, teachers and writers, although you do find them. So therefore I think that a transactional approach to the profession is warranted. Some of the younger scientists here are starting to think in that way; science is a job, like any other. They want a 9 to 5 life with weekends and evenings free and time for family and friends. Why shouldn't they have that? Just because the reigning powers that be say otherwise?

You find out how much you are worth to your workplace when you are sick, need time off for personal issues, or when management has to get rid of a certain percentage of its workforce. If the company needs to fire you, they will, no questions asked, no mercy. Firing is transactional; there is nothing motivational about it, as in, we need to fire you, you need to leave, you will get unemployment etc. until you get a new job. No emotions involved, just pure efficiency. That's how it should be when an employee decides to quit his or her job. No emotions, just do it. The reality is something else again because workers grow attached to their co-workers. But if we had a less work-centered approach to life, we could leave workplaces behind much easier, and that would contribute to changing how workplaces deal with employees. My recent reading has indicated that up to the pandemic year, most power was centered in workplace management. Post-pandemic, much less so. Employees simply don't want to return to 'what was' and many have quit their jobs. The pendulum swung too far in the wrong direction, where employees were little more than pieces on a chessboard, moved around at the whims of their employers. Told to accept any and all changes at a moment's notice (don't be resistant to change--that's anathema to management). Told to be available at all hours in order to increase efficiency and productivity, regardless of what that does to employees' personal lives. Time will tell in terms of what develops, but I hope that younger employees especially retain their newfound power and that necessary changes in policies are made so that Americans (and others) can get their lives back. 

Cultivating gratitude

Cultivating gratitude. How easy is it to do that, to learn to be grateful for what we have? When we're young, we really don't think much about it. When we're older, we do, because we have more time to look back on and reflect on our lives and how we've lived them up to this point. We look around us and see the lives of other people, the struggles and the good times, and we look at our own lives and reflect on the same. I've thought a lot about gratitude during the past decade especially. When life doesn't go the way you thought it would, when disappointments abound (and they will inevitably appear), they push you in the direction of reflection and eventually gratitude or bitterness. The latter is a recipe for doom. If you choose bitterness because your life didn't work out the way you planned, then you essentially tell yourself that the rest of your life is not worth living and exploring. Because here's the kicker--you have no idea how the rest of your life will turn out. If you close yourself off and wallow in bitterness, you will not experience what God wants for your life. If you let your bitterness lead you down the path to self-destruction in the form of different physical addictions, you will not honor the life that God has given you. Nothing is set in stone. Unhappy times can lead to happy ones. Life can change for the better. Life is not static, it is constantly moving, flowing onward, changing. Life is fluid, and thank God for that. 

If you choose gratitude eventually after having gone through hard times and disappointments, you will free yourself. It sounds hard but it is not over time. Gratitude is what develops in our minds and hearts when we are patient with ourselves and others, when we forgive ourselves and others. When we let go of whatever millstones we are dragging around that tell us that we failed because we didn't measure up to this or that level that someone else said we should have reached. Whenever we drag around the 'should-haves' for our lives, we won't be grateful--should have worked more, should have been richer, should have traveled more, and so on. When we let go of the should-haves, we learn to be content with good enough. We are good enough as we are. That doesn't mean that we can't try to be better people each day. It means that we accept ourselves for where we are in this moment, grateful for what we have--families, friends, good health, hobbies, material wealth, a good life. None of these are guaranteed anyone. I have friends who no longer have good health; they mourn that loss but they are not bitter people. They could have been. They are adjusting to their new daily lives patiently, sometimes with irritation or anger, but overall in a spirit of wanting to continue to live life as normally as possible. They have not given up, and they would say they are thankful that they have the material wealth that provides them with the support they need. Not everyone has that. 

I've read many columns in the last few days about gratitude and what it means. Most of them point out that being grateful one day a year, on Thanksgiving Day, is not enough. They're right, it isn't. Cultivating gratitude on a daily basis, that's a worthwhile pursuit. One of the books that has helped me through the years, given to me by a good friend after a particularly sad time in my twenties, is Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women (Hazelden Meditations) by Karen Casey (Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women (Hazelden Meditation Series): Karen Casey: 9780866835015: Amazon.com: Books ). This little green book is worth its weight in gold. I am grateful for the messages it contains but also for the friend who cared enough to give it to me. Whenever I find myself moving toward bitterness, I pick it up and find in it what I need to steer me toward a spirit of gratitude. 

Happy Thanksgiving

We have much to be thankful for, and on this Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful for who I am and for being able to live freely and responsibly, grateful for all that I have, and most importantly, grateful for all those in my life whom I love. Despite setbacks, disappointments, sadness and loss, life is good. God has been and is good to me. Happy Thanksgiving--enjoy the day and give thanks for all your blessings. 

The 'market value' of men and women

And now we've reached this point, at least in Norway, where journalists, psychologists, tv personalities and celebrities are now discussing the 'market value' of men and women. But not just any men and women; men and women over a certain age. Over the age of 40, when market value apparently decreases drastically, especially for women. In line with my post from the other day, I am now relating what some of these 'experts' have to say on the matter. But mostly I know what I want to say in response to all of it. One major comment--it should come as no surprise to media honchos that many people are cancelling their newspaper and magazine subscriptions. They simply don't want to be bothered with these types of articles and discussions. 

According to the so-called experts (psychologists and journalists), single women over 40 apparently don't want to get together with men in their 50s and 60s because those men are apparently bombastic, archaic, old-fashioned, domineering, and only interested in women under 40. These women want to be together with men in their 30s and 40s because younger men are apparently less bombastic, archaic, etc., but apparently those men are only interested in women under 40 as well. So what's a woman over 40 to do? Some male psychologists step up to the plate to say that women over 40 are perhaps too picky. They don't want older men, who in turn don't want them. What came first, the chicken or the egg? If older single men find out that women their age don't want them, perhaps they will aim for younger women. Or is it the other way around? Women over 40 have experienced rejection after rejection from men their age, so they aim for younger men, who again aim for younger women. This imbalance is not a problem for most younger people; as I wrote the other day, the majority of young men and women find partners their own age. So what is a single woman or man over 40 (over the hill?) to do? I don't have the answer to that question. I tried to offer some solutions in my recent post, among them not defining yourself in terms of how others view you. Your worth as a human being is not dependent upon what others think of you. But perhaps I am just yelling into the wind. 

I think we have a huge problem in society when we reduce men and women to their 'market value'. What are people now, commodities? Products on a store shelf that have an expiration date? Apparently yes. I don't know who first used this term in connection with describing people, but if I met him or her, I'd tell him or her the following: Take a long walk off a short pier. Why do I care, you ask. Read on. 

We've reached the point of saturation with articles written about this nonsense. I'm tired of reading about what experts think, experts who haven't managed to get their own lives in order. Additionally, expertise is relative. You may perhaps have had something worthwhile to say ten years ago, but not now. We should be looking at the market value of some of these 'professions' that dispense out hip wisdom to their readers/patients. My point is that this is an individual's job here on earth--to prevent garbage in. If we take in a lot of garbage, there will be a lot of garbage going out. We will just pass on the garbage spiel to others, ad nauseam. Do we want to do that? No. 

I envision a world where we ordinary people rise above the new-speak, the hype, the garbage, the trendy, the hip, the fake outrage, the woke mentality, the non-woke mentality. I envision a world where individuals take responsibility for their own intellectual and spiritual evolution. It's hard work, yes it is. But God it's worth it. Because once you've risen above the things that want to keep you down in the muck, you will see these 'experts' for what they are--money-hungry grifters and grubbers, bottom feeders, out to make a buck at our expense. You will not buy their books, watch them on tv, or feed into their PR hype. You will instead tune them out and turn off the tv or social media and promote and prioritize your own life, your own good values, your spouse, your family, your soul. You will realize just how much time is wasted on useless discussions and debates, and you will find something worthwhile to focus on. God knows there are a myriad of projects out there just waiting for you to get involved. And if you're single, you just might meet someone while you're focusing on something worthwhile, rather than wasting your time on dating sites. I know I don't have street cred because I am married and have no idea about these sites, but I do have single women friends, and from what I've heard about these so-called dating sites from them, I surmise that they're mostly a waste of time. If I was single, I wouldn't waste my time on them. I'd be traveling, visiting friends and family, or outdoors biking, in my garden, walking, doing photography, or indoors writing, reading, cooking and trying new recipes. My life is full and I'm grateful for that. Our lives are as empty or as full as we make them. If experts deem that people have a market value or a shelf life, then let the experts live and think that way. Let them debate ad nauseam and stir up a lot of false outrage or write the nth self-help book about it. If the masses feed into it, that's their problem. The way we live our ordinary lives--full of meaning--will give us the strength to rise above the nonsense.  

Righteous anger and forcing change in the Catholic Church

I've written about the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church several times, the latest post being in October of this year: A New Yorker in Oslo: French clergy and the latest sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). I had a suggestion for how to force the Church to change, and that was to hit them in the pocketbook. Ordinary parishioners, men and women alike, should be angry enough to cease their financial support of the Church at least for the period of time it takes the Church to clean up the mess it's made globally. If the Church needs money, it can sell some of its Vatican treasures; that way it will learn the true value of behaving ethically and decently toward its faithful, be they young or old. 

A couple of days ago I read an online article by a former Norwegian Catholic who was outraged that more churchgoers weren't up in arms about the sex abuse scandals. He said he felt ashamed that more of them didn't vocalize their anger. I understand his anger. At the same time, he really has no idea how many Catholics are or aren't outraged by them. But he's correct that parishioners at least haven't vocalized their anger in their churches. He has left the Church and no longer considers himself a Catholic, unlike me. I will always be a Catholic even though I'm not always a regular churchgoer each Sunday. I keep hoping that the priests will talk about these scandals from the pulpit. So far, they haven't, and I'm not sure why. The victims of these crimes are not even mentioned in the prayers of the faithful. We could pray for them for starters. 

Some of the young priests who preach from the pulpit now seem to be more aware of the problems in society generally and are more willing to bring them up, and that tells me there's hope for change. A few of the older priests also seem aware, but most are not. I am not interested in listening to the same old spiel preached by many of the older priests who deliver company/party line without much insight or reflection. If I know they will have a particular mass I tend to avoid it. They are the types who preach that we should do this or that because that's how the Church wants it done, the Church meaning the Vatican and the men running the Church. They attribute many things to Christ that I doubt Christ would have stood for. I think they would be surprised that Christ would not be willing to look the other way in the face of the sex abuse scandals. Christ did show outrage when he saw that the temple was being used as a marketplace; he tossed the sellers out of the temple. He was angry, and his anger is characterized as righteous anger Righteous Anger - Catholic Daily Reflections (catholic-daily-reflections.com) 

"Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”  John 2:13b-16

He lectured the Pharisees in ways that made them angry. He lost no opportunity to needle the Pharisees, who thought they were wonderful people simply because they followed church laws to a tee. In other words, justifiable anger was allowed. The definition of that type of anger can be discussed, but I certainly think that the sex abuse scandals qualify as the type of crime that can justify righteous anger in Catholic parishioners. After all, we are the Church; the Church is not the Vatican or the clerics in Rome. We have a huge say in how we want the Church to be; we have the power to force it to change. We should use that power. 

As Christians, we must be aware of what goes on around us and not sit back and accept all behavior in the Church simply because it is our Church. If we accept everything, what is the point of trying to recognize good and to do good? We can just stop trying to do so. We must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff--distinguish the good from the bad in all things, be they people, laws, behavior, or material things. The Vatican and clerics have no right to tell us how to feel or think. I think we've reached the point where there is too much passivity in the face of the bad behavior in the Church. People have lost their capacity for righteous anger and protest, willingly or unwillingly. Many become outraged about insignificant things (the loss of the Latin mass being one of them) and stay silent about truly significant things like the sex abuse scandals and the huge harm they have done to the Church. Those Catholics who only want to sweep these scandals under the rug and 'carry on' with the way the Church has always done things are true hypocrites who do not love their Church. 

We must learn to discern what is truly righteous anger and what is anger that will only harm us and others. The former is allowable, the latter is not because the latter often leads to mob rule, violence and vigilante justice. We don't want that. What we do want is justice for the sex abuse victims and punishment for their abusers; the punishments should be public trials in courts of law and long jail terms for the abusers and large financial payments to the victims. These scandals should cost the Church considerably. I've already set in motion my particular brand of punishment; I eliminated my regular monetary contribution to the Church. I will continue this until I see that the Church begins to open its doors to real discussions from the pulpit about these scandals, what they have done to the morale and faith of loyal parishioners, and what is being done about them. I think it is healthy for parishioners to exercise righteous anger and to stand up to what is wrong or evil in society and in the Church. I hope more Catholics begin to protest in this way, because the Church cannot continue on the path it's on without major changes if it hopes to survive. 

 

Learning to be less concerned about what others think

Do men really prefer younger women rather than women their own age when looking for potential partners? This question came up at a recent couples' dinner party where the men sat talking together at one end of the table about cars, motorcycles and the stock market and the women sat at the other end talking about work, leadership, and eventually movies and television series. At one point one of the women brought up a recent survey that purportedly says that men really do prefer younger women rather than women their own age as partners; dating sites seemed to confirm this from their statistical data. Older women had a harder time finding a suitable partner on most dating sites because most of the men on the sites, even men their own age, preferred younger women. She thought that was very unfair to older women (namely women our age) and brought it up for discussion to the entire table of guests; the men wisely avoided the subject so the topic didn't get discussed much further. What should the men have said anyway? That it's not true? They cannot say that it's not true nor that it is true. Older men may be more interested in younger women than in older women on these dating sites, but no one really knows how the game plays out. Do the younger women actually go out with the older men? Or do they end up preferring men their own age?

What I found interesting is that any of the women sitting at that table would even care about this topic. All of them are in good relationships. All of them are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves financially if their husbands left them for younger women. They all make/made very good salaries and have good careers. Yes, it would be unfair, unkind, abominable, etc. if their husbands left them for younger women. We can all agree on that. My mother would have called them cads. But the women would survive. My major question is the following: why do women even care about what men think in this regard? Why do women need to see themselves in the eyes of men at all after many years of doing so? Because when you are younger you compete with other women for available men, you are looking for potential partners for marriage and children, you are looking for someone to perhaps take care of you financially, and so on. Competition is part of the picture when you are young. Much of this is built into who we are as human beings; the human race needs to continue and the instinct is to reproduce. That instinct leads to finding a partner with which to accomplish that. Men are looking for fertile women, and those women are usually young, under the age of fifty, because the childbearing years usually end around that time. Most young couples end up being together with partners their own age; some marry younger partners, some marry older. But the majority of young people marry within their own age group. So should older women be mad at evolution and the biology that renders women infertile after a certain point? Of course not. They shouldn't even be preoccupied with these thoughts after a certain point. Why should they? Why should they be at all preoccupied with what men or society at large think about them as older women? Trying to compete with younger women (or younger men in the case of older men) is just plain foolish. And if the older women I know, who are accomplished career women with no financial problems are concerned about this, then what about women who are less fortunate, financially or otherwise? 

My point is that older women should be less concerned about what men and society think of them and more concerned about enjoying their lives and their good fortune whether or not a man is in the picture. Nice if you have a good man with whom you can share your life, but what if there is no good man in the picture? Should you lay down and die? No. You should take your rightful place at the table of life; you've earned it. You should 'take up space', make your presence known, bring up your interests and hobbies, be yourself and live in harmony with yourself. Pursue your interests as far as they take you. If you have good health, be happy. Be happy in your own company. Take the trips you want to take by yourself. Do what you want to do. If you don't 'live' and merely wait around for a man to do these things with you, how long are you willing to wait? When will you do the things you want to do, when you are eighty years old? Forget about whether men will like you. Stop trying to mold yourself to please them. Don't define your worth in terms of whether you are together with a man or not. Why spend the last chapter of your life worrying about whether your husband would prefer being with a younger woman? If he leaves you for one, let him go, he wasn't worth hanging onto anyway. Look at your life as the adventure it really is, with its ups and downs and detours. It's your life, no one else's. I cannot imagine a worse fate than spending my entire life trying to mold myself to fit any man's preferences, rather than having lived my life being true to myself. 

 

'Get busy living or get busy dying'

'Get busy living or get busy dying'. One of the most memorable lines from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption, which I watched again the other night for about the fifth time. The quote is actually from the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, on which the movie is based. 

Andy says this to Red right after Andy has spent more than a month 'in the hole' (solitary confinement) for trying to get the warden to arrange for a new trial for him after new evidence turns up that he is actually innocent of murdering his wife and her lover. But the warden won't hear of it and goes about destroying all possibilities for this. The warden has his reasons, none of them ethical or good. It is his refusal to help Andy that pushes Andy to make the choice to escape prison, but not without bringing down the warden along the way. Get busy living is another way of saying 'focus on the positive', on what you can positively do about a difficult situation. It's about having hope, because hope is what man needs to keep him going and to keep him alive. Without hope, man can just lay down and die. As Andy says in the film 'Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies'. And that is Andy's point. You either have hope and move toward the positive, or you don't and then you move toward the negative. You give up all hope and get busy dying. Get busy living is also about adjusting to the curve balls that life throws at you. You have to be proactive, to take the reins of your own life, to change and to grow in order to deal with the tough times. You have to have hope that you'll come through them. 

The Shawshank Redemption is a remarkable film. I can't imagine two better actors playing the parts of Andy and Red than Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman respectively. The bond of friendship that develops between them is beautiful to see. Andy was a generous soul, whose prison term allowed him to develop into a man who truly cared about others. He managed to maintain his humanity in the morass of inhumanity that prison often is. He offered hope to his fellow prisoners without pushing it on them; he just lived according to his principles and that had an effect on those around him, especially Red. 

If you've never seen the film, I recommend it highly. It's violent and tough to watch in places. It doesn't present a rosy view of prison or of Andy's experiences in prison. The beauty of the film is in watching Andy slowly decide what he wants and how he wants to live out the rest of his life, and it's not in prison. He makes his decision without hurting his fellow prisoners, whom he has often helped. He offers Red the chance to join him, leaving the decision up to Red, after they've discussed how they want to live the rest of their lives. Andy never tells Red about his escape plans, thus protecting Red from possible repercussions. But he provides the means (money) for Red to eventually join him and he makes Red promise that he will try to find the place in Maine where Andy has buried something for him. He never tells Red what he's buried, which piques Red's curiosity and gives him the motivation to survive life outside of prison. We need more films like this in the world--films about hope, friendship, generosity (fiscal as well as spiritual), integrity, and goodness.