The need to breathe--dealing with psychological suffocation

What happens to us when we are constantly bombarded by a barrage of outrage fomented by news and social media, or nitpicking courtesy of the news pundits and social media, or constant noise, or people/events that clamor for our constant attention? My friend Jean came up with the term 'psychological suffocation' to aptly describe how we can feel when faced with all of this--smothered, unable to breathe. Psychological suffocation--when the heart and mind can't breathe--can affect us physiologically. Both she and I agree that modern society as we know it is too focused on fomenting outrage and division instead of peace and harmony, too 'in your face', too noisy, and too 'on' all the time. Even if all these things are not intentionally designed to suffocate us psychologically, they have that effect far too often. As she says, the feeling of psychological suffocation makes her want to throw open the windows and the door to breathe in the air, the peace, the quiet of nature outside her door. When I reach that point, all I want to do is go to my garden or for a long walk or bike ride. Just to get away from it all--from the influences that get the heart pounding in anger and outrage and that make it difficult to breathe. 

The ultimate solution to dealing with the things that psychologically suffocate us is to prevent them from having that power over us. That means keeping them at bay--shutting out the news or walking away from people and situations that want us to be continually outraged. It means being selective about what we let into our minds and hearts. Garbage in, garbage out, as the old saying goes. It's like junk food; if all we eat is junk food, then our bodies will not be healthy. Likewise our minds; they will not be healthy if all we feed them is outrage, aggression, anger, and more outrage. We are constantly being told how to think and how to feel. I'm surprised that doesn't bother more people. 

Both the regular media and social media are invested in riling us up with what I call fake outrage because that's how they drag in viewers. More viewers, better ratings, more money. It's all about the money. If they were really interested in solving the problems in society, they would come up with solutions to problems, even if those solutions were on a small scale. Because I ask you, what is the point of getting riled up if we don't come up with a solution, however small, to deal with whatever problem is brought up? If we do nothing about the problem that we are told to be outraged about, then the outrage is pointless and by extension, false. Additionally, false outrage is demotivating and leads to feelings of hopelessness and despair. As Christians, we are called to act as well as to have faith and to pray. An old Chinese proverb that was adopted by the Christian inspirational group The Christophers as their motto says 'it is better to light one candle than curse the darkness'. I understood this already in my twenties when I discovered The Christophers. If you wait for the big solutions to occur to solve any problem whatsoever, you'll wait a long time. Better to start small. As Mother Teresa said, we can start by loving and showing charity in our own homes and families, before we worry about the rest of the world. She understood that if we managed to do this in our own homes, we would find it less difficult to extend love and charity to strangers. Additionally, if more people did this in their own homes, a number of family problems might actually be solved. Her focus was on starting where we find ourselves on a daily basis--home or work for most people. This makes sense because most of us will never live a life like Mother Teresa's. But she is an inspiration for us when we feel psychologically suffocated, when hope feels like it has disappeared, when outrage and despair take center stage. 

Hope. Hope counteracts psychological suffocation. Hope is found in nature, which exists outside of us and carries on despite what goes on in the world. There is the promise of hope in each new season. Prayer also counteracts it, regardless of how we define prayer or of how we pray. Prayer centers us and leads us to a quiet place, far away from the talking heads in the television studios and their obsession with outrage that borders on monomania. Hope and prayer give us the energy to deal with the problems around us. Continual outrage does not; it may seem like it would, but in the final analysis the energy we expend on continual outrage does nothing but exhaust us, leaving very little positive energy with which to work on the problems in the world. 

My laugh for today

 

Walking along the Akerselva River on a beautiful autumn day

My daily walk today was along the Akerselva River, walking on the path that parallels the river. I try to vary the trips; sometimes I'll walk to St. Hanshaugen Park, sometimes up along the river, or sometimes just around the neighborhood. When spring comes I'll do some biking as well and try some of the new routes along the Oslo fjord. I try to walk one to two miles per day; it varies depending on the route and on how energetic I am. Today was another beautiful autumn day in Oslo, so I took some photos as I walked. The color contrasts are lovely. It will start to rain as of tomorrow and will continue to rain steadily for at least a week. By then we're into November and the temperatures will be chillier. I've pretty much finished prepping the garden for winter, so when I visit the garden now it's nice just to sit there and enjoy the warm sun on my face. I'll miss it during the winter months. But when days are like today, all's right with the world. These beautiful days are gifts from God. 

A good laugh for the day

An old Peanuts comic strip, I'm not sure from which year, but it made me laugh. It's amazing when you consider that this strip ran from 1950 until 2000 (Schulz's death) and has continued in reruns ever since. We grew up with this comic strip and I still receive the reruns daily in an email from GoComics.com that lets me choose which comic strips I want to get. Thank God for the comic strips, they add that little extra to life! Enjoy.......

The phoenix rises from the ashes

Two months of freedom. It's been nearly two months since I retired. I don't miss the daily grind and I don't miss my former workplace. I miss some of the people I worked with, but that's about it. 

I was out with three former colleagues and friends last night to celebrate my retirement. We ended up at a very nice Italian restaurant called Olivia--very good food and a very pleasant atmosphere. We talked for almost three hours straight, mostly about my former workplace, since they've all worked there over the years. None of them miss it. Strange how that is. We all have different reasons for not missing it, but most of them come down to the arrogance of some of the male leaders (and one female leader) in our department, many of whom thought they were far brighter than they are, as well as the built-in egoism and arrogance of academia. The problem is that you are never good enough except when you drag in a lot of research funding. Then you are worth something. Money talks. It always has and always will. And who you know trumps what you know, every time. George Orwell's quote always comes to mind when I think about some of these 'great' research leaders "All pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others". That about sums up the research experience in my former department. The bullshit that we got fed constantly was that if we wrote good grants and competed with these 'great' scientists, that we too would have a chance to get funding. The reality was that the same (large) research groups and the same researchers got funding every year, and every year one or two more 'small' scientists were squeezed out and deemed unproductive and lazy because they weren't getting funding. The lie we were asked to believe was that there was the real possibility of fair competition based on good ideas and expertise. The reality as I and many others see it was that much of the actual granting of funds was decided beforehand, based on who these researchers knew. As in, calls were made to the relevant political networks and contacts, who always take care of their own. Academia is often defined by cronyism--the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications (from the online dictionary). A very disagreeable business at times, with the emphasis on business, because in the end, it always comes down to money. Who would miss this crap or the continual scorn heaped upon those scientists who didn't want to (or couldn't) do science the way the big guys did it? Scorn is something many of them are very good at publicly dishing out, so that everyone in their vicinity knows that they're the important guys and the rest are just the stupid underdogs who should serve them. I understand that scientists need to bring in funds to do their research, but there should still be room for small scientists who never wanted to be leaders of huge research centers, who were content with a small research group and with just enough funding to get by each year. What was wrong with that way of doing science? Not everyone has sky-high ambitions; some simply want to do good research the way it was done in the 1990s and early 2000s, before politicians got involved and started demanding results for the money that was appropriated. Politics and science are not a good mix. And lest anyone think that more money equals better science, that is not necessarily true. There is a lot of good science that has resulted from limited funding. Politicians should remember that.  

My self-confidence is slowly returning. The past ten years in academia have been akin to being in a bad marriage where one gets harassed for the least little thing, where there is no kindness, no empathy, no understanding, just unreasonable demands, abuse, distress and unhappiness. My friend's father used to say 'don't let the turkeys get you down'. I tried not to let them get me down every day for the past ten years. I spent much of my time trying to build up the self-confidence of students who were treated rudely by their arrogant mentors in those 'great' research groups; I consoled tearful PhD students and postdocs who were members of those research groups. That took the focus off myself, so that I had little time to deal with my own problems. But my own self-confidence suffered, no doubt about that. I remember wanting to shift jobs back in 2010 and struggling to find something cohesive and positive to say about myself and my expertise. But I am proud of the fact that I never let myself be defeated by those leaders for whom I had NO respect. That has never happened in the past and will never happen as long as I remember to put my soul first. The health of my soul trumps any attempt to destroy my self confidence, my faith, my positivity, my kindness, my empathy. The health of my soul is all that matters. The rest of it--the bullshit--can just fall away. I don't view retirement as an end to anything other than an end to ten years of bullshit. That bullshit has been placed on a huge bonfire and has been reduced to nothing but ashes. The purveyors of the bullshit are another story; I'm guessing that karma will take care of them. One can only hope. And one can hope for a return to a time when what you knew trumped who you know. But I doubt that will happen in my lifetime. 

The phoenix rises from the ashes of the past. We rise from the ashes of our past selves. We are renewed. We are new people. We emerge from the shadows, we are no longer held under the thumbs of those who do not wish us well. We are free, free to fly. That is a good feeling. No amount of money can trump freedom--the freedom to decide for ourselves how we want to live the rest of our lives. 

A beautiful autumn day in Oslo

This past Saturday was a beautiful autumn day in Oslo, and I spent a couple of hours just wandering around the city as I often do on nice days. I walked to and through St. Hanshaugen Park and then made my way down Ullevålsveien and walked through Vår Frelsers Gravlund (Our Savior's cemetery), out onto Akersveien and down Telthusbakken where I crossed Uelandsgate and walked along the Akerselva River on my way home.

We have had a very rainy fall so far, so it was good to experience a few sunny days this past week. Today we're back to rain and the rest of the week will be rainy on and off. So when the nice weather comes it's just to make the most of it. 

A very good Italian deli in the vicinity of St. Hanshaugen Park

in the park itself

Vår Frelsers Gravlund (cemetery)

Gamle Aker church at the top of Telthusbakken

The Akerselva River 

The waterfall at Honsa Lovisas house

Dealing with honey fungus in the garden

Cultivating a garden each year is like taking a botany course with updates. Each year you learn something new. Every time you think that you've 'learned' what it takes to make plants happy, you find out (often the hard way) that you haven't. Sometimes you find out too that even if you've done everything in your power to keep your plants healthy and happy, it's not enough. There is evil lurking in the garden too, in the form of destructive pathogens that are just waiting to pounce when the time is right. I am learning that now. A pathogen called honey fungus has shown up in my garden, and has infected two plants--a blackberry bush and a rose bush. It's an insidious little underground creeper, as it sends out reddish-brown to black rhizomorphs that look like “bootlaces”. It spreads underground (up to three feet per year) infecting the root systems of susceptible trees and eventually killing them. It can also spread via spores. There is no chemical that can kill this fungus, and at present it is the most destructive fungal disease in gardens in the United Kingdom, according to my online research. 

One way to deal with this fungus is to completely dig out the stumps and roots of the infected tree(s). These should be removed from the infected area and destroyed. I have already done this with the blackberry bush, and will do the same with the rose bush come spring. They were very close to each other, no more than a couple of feet apart. I plan on letting the area where the infected trees have been, lie fallow for a year as well as on turning the soil in order to get rid of any rhizomorphs that may turn up. I had hoped to plant a new tree in this area, but this will have to wait a few years. I will have to move the birdbath to another area of the garden, since emptying the birdbath each day kept part of the area wet. But apparently plants get stressed by warm dry summers, and this makes them susceptible to attack. This past summer was warm and dry, at least in July and August. But June was rainy, as was September--very rainy. I would have thought that fungal infections would thrive in moist areas. Perhaps they do, after the plants have been weakened by too much warmth and dryness. 

There are many good garden sites online, the majority of them in the United Kingdom and the USA. I'm glad they exist, because you can get the advice and help you need very quickly. That helps me make the decisions I need to make. Some decisions need to be made immediately, like the decision to remove the blackberry bush and to cut down the rose bush to a stump. I'm hoping to stem the spread by doing this, because once winter comes, the fungus will die. But if it has spread widely underground, it will be a problem again come spring. 

'Finish every day and be done with it'

I love what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1854; it's his philosophy for how to approach each day and it makes good sense. Especially, 'finish every day and be done with it'. That way there's no time for self-reproach, anxiety and second guessing. As he said, 'You have done what you could'. So true. We are not perfect and never will be, no matter how hard we try to get it perfect. So it's just to let go and let God after having done the best we can, in any situation. If we can say that, then that's saying a lot. 

 

Autumn in the garden

Each year I try to post some photos from the garden once autumn is upon us. I watch the changes in the garden with fascination: the growth of several kinds of mushrooms at the base of the dead cherry tree covered in wild ivy, grass that begins to turn yellow, the summer aster that has started to wilt, the blackberry bush still loaded with blackberries that have begun to mold, likewise the wilting tomato plants that still have a lot of tomatoes on the vines. The krossved tree is shedding its leaves, as are the rosebushes and black currant bushes. I've already harvested the potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, and zucchinis, as well as the gooseberries, black currants, and raspberries. The yellow raspberry plants are still producing fat yellow berries, but now the daily temperature is around 40 degrees so plant growth is slowing. My neighbor had a bumper crop of grapes that she shared with me, so I was able to make grape jelly. The bees are still happily buzzing around the autumn aster and the sunflowers. I've learned that daisies prefer cooler weather; they are blooming beautifully at present. I cut back the hollyhocks and covered the plants with a thick layer of leaves to protect them from frost and cold; my attempt to get them to grow again next year. I've tried to utilize most wilting plants for compost; that seems to be working out well. I'm using the fallen leaves as mulch for plants that need protection for the winter, and I have not cut the lawn short as recommended by garden experts. My wisteria tree grew by leaps and bounds this year, using the steel fence behind it as support for its branches. I hope it blooms next year; it will be beautiful. Wild ivy (turning from green to a lovely golden-red color) and hops have also grown up along the fence; for the first time I harvested some hops for drying. I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet. 

Unfortunately, honey fungus mushrooms (the fungus Armillaria) that attack and kill the roots of many woody and perennial plants began to grow at the base of one of my blackberry bushes and at the base of one of my rose bushes. Both of these bushes have had problems in the past few years; the blackberry bush developed cane rot two years ago and I had to cut it down to the base, and the rose bush was infested with aphids during the past two seasons and this seem to have weakened the plant permanently. In other words, both plants were weakened and vulnerable to attack by this destructive fungus. We had a lot of rain this year as well, and the area where these two plants are was continually wet--ideal conditions for moss and fungus growth. Honey fungus is not a mushroom you want growing on living plants. There is no chemical that can kill it, so the only way to get rid of it is to remove the infected plants. I dug up and removed the blackberry bush, and cut the rose bush down to a stump. It was too large a stump for me to remove alone, so I'll have to tackle this job next spring when I can get help. 

I've never seen so many cobwebs as I've seen this year, in the garden and elsewhere. The spiders must have had a great year in terms of the numbers of insects that got trapped in their webs. There were a fair amount of mosquitoes at the beginning of the summer; they were replaced by small gnats toward the end of the summer. Otherwise, there were plenty of honeybees and bumblebees, and some butterflies and yellow jackets. The sparrows are still hanging around, but most of the other birds (especially thrushes) are gone. That is perhaps the most noticeable change once autumn comes--the absence of birds. They prefer warmer locations; I wonder how many of them migrate. 

I look forward to the change of seasons, even though it means that I won't be able to garden for some months. I understand that the garden needs to rest, gardeners also. It produced so well this year; it was a wonderful summer with enough sun and rain. It worked hard, as did the gardener who tends it. But that is all part and parcel of gardening. There are no results without hard work; the rewards are worth the investment of time and energy. But the rewards are not just the fruits and vegetables that are harvested. Gardeners find peace and serenity in their gardens, as has been written about often. That peace and serenity help our souls deal with the dark cold winter months. As Thanksgiving approaches, there is much to be thankful for, among them my garden and its bounty. 

Lovely pumpkins

A lot of grapes from my neighbor's garden

Autumn colors 

Wisteria growing up along the fence, wild ivy to the right of it

Mushrooms growing at base of dead cherry tree

Wild ivy covering dead cherry tree

Autumn aster (pink-purple flowers) growing along fence--the bees love it

Mold growing on a dead red currant tree branch

The garden as of this week

These destructive mushrooms are called honey fungus

Pachysandra to the right, under the krossved tree, still going strong

Coneflowers (rudbeckia) still going strong

I made grape jelly for the first time and it came out well

French clergy and the latest sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church was in the news again for yet another sex abuse of children scandal, this time in France (French clergy sexually abused over 200,000 children since 1950, report finds | Reuters). Over 200,000 children (some reports say 300,000) were abused by priests (and nuns) over the course of seventy years. The sheer number of children is staggering, and it goes without saying that these children must have suffered in silence for many years before the Church decided to do something about the global sex abuse scandals that have plagued it for many years now. All the victims deserve monetary compensation (large amounts of money); however no amount of money can erase the memories that these children, now adults, have. No amount of money can wipe out the feelings and knowledge of betrayal. Adults whom you trusted were not trustworthy. They were instead predators, preying on young children who were most likely told by all the adults in their lives to respect and listen to the adults in their lives.

Every time I read about another sex abuse scandal in the Church, it makes me angry and sad. My respect for the Church decreases; I don’t know when or if it will hit rock bottom. I hope it doesn’t reach that point. I hope that the Church manages to make the huge major changes it needs to make in order to survive well into the 21^st century. But it cannot have reactionaries at the helm if it is to undergo a revolutionary renaissance.  

Random thoughts:

I am fairly sure that the clericalism in the Church is not what Christ envisioned when he founded his church. Clericalism is a policy of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious hierarchy (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clericalism). Clericalism exists to protect clericalism and the organization of the Church. It exists to provide careers for bishops and cardinals. It exists to protect the power of bishops and cardinals—its leaders. Just the word ‘power’ ought to flag the interest of all the faithful. It ought to get Catholics asking why it is necessary for the clergy to have power over anyone, especially since Christ was not interested in earthly power. He was interested in quite the opposite: ‘The first shall be last and the last shall be first’. Those who think they are important will be relegated to last place, while the unimportant will find their place with God. I say again for anyone interested in listening; Jesus Christ was not a clerical type. I doubt he would have been interested in sitting protected inside the Vatican. He was more the type to be wandering around speaking to people, meeting people, meeting the poor, challenging authority. I can bet that there are a number of clerics who don’t particularly like this picture of Christ.  

The Church needs to do the following: open its doors wide so that all the world can see inside it; end the mendacity that has defined it for so long; release priests from their vows of celibacy (or make celibacy voluntary) and allow priests to marry; and stop trying to control the sexual lives of its married and unmarried parishioners when it cannot even control the sexual lives of its priests who have taken a vow of celibacy. The Church has had far too much to say for far too long about how ordinary Catholics live their sexual lives. While most of the latter were trying to follow archaic and illogical rules (e.g. concerning birth control), some priests (and some nuns) were acting on their sexual proclivities for children exactly as they pleased, protected by the willing silence of the Church on the one hand and the unwilling and often forced silence of their victims on the other hand.

As a consequence of this criminal behavior on the part of clerics, ordinary parishioners should cease to support the Church financially. It can be a temporary cessation, but it is the only way to force change. Hit them in the pocketbook. Yes, it means punishing all clerics, but this is how we were treated in Catholic schools—the entire class was punished for the transgressions of one or two students. We had nothing to say about that; we were told to sit down and be quiet, to accept our punishment. Protests were out of the question. Clerics should do the same—accept their punishment. I think they will begin to look at the vow of celibacy and of poverty in a new way when donations are no longer running in, and that will be a good thing. I have stopped giving to the collections as of this month, and will continue this policy until I see that the Church treats its sex abusers as the criminals they are and turns them over to the police, as well as using its wealth to compensate the victims of such priests. I want the Church to use its vast wealth to pay through the nose for what it’s done to children. And if you think I’m being harsh on and judgmental about the Church, you’re right. I am. I’m angry, and there’s nothing wrong with my being angry. How I decide to deal with that anger is my prerogative; not donating to the Sunday collection is one way of dealing with my anger.  

For those who rant and rave about how much better everything was before, and that we need to return to the Church of old--we absolutely do not. The Church of old looked the other way when dealing with pedophilia and sexual abuse, as the French scandal clearly points out. Most of the abuse went on between 1950 and 1970, exactly around the time we were growing up. The Church swept most sex abuse scandals under the rug in an effort to preserve the organization, transferred the offenders to other parishes, got offenders psychological help if possible, and carried on as though little had happened. But they did not turn the offenders over to the police.  From 1950 until well into the 1980s, the Church was still mostly ‘traditional’ in its approach to most things, still strict about sexual matters, about birth control, about divorce—about most secular matters. I have no desire to return to the Church of old, steeped as it is in bygone traditions. Will reciting the mass in Latin prevent sex abuse scandals? If the priest does not face the parishioners while on the altar, will this lessen the number of sex abusers in the Church? Doubtful. While some traditions are good, others are not. Traditions such as unquestioning obedience to the clergy or not questioning their advice on marriage, divorce and sexual matters are impossibly dated and fated for the scrap heap.

Not all pedophiles act on their desires, but the Church still needs to weed out pedophiles as best it can, vigilantly. Pedophilia is not defined as a crime, acting on pedophilic desires is a crime. But the Church would be best served by ridding its ranks of pedophiles. A priest friend I know blames the sex abuse scandals on homosexuality in the Church. I do not agree with him at all. Homosexuality is not the same as pedophilia or sex abuse. There may be homosexuals who are pedophiles, just as there are heterosexuals who are—in the Church as well as in society at large. Weeding out homosexuals will not prevent the sexual abuse of children.

Most priests and nuns are not sex abusers, thank God. One thing that strikes me as rather odd, and that is that the majority of them are rather silent on this issue. I would have expected that they would protest more as a group within the Church, to church leaders. I would have expected more anger, more discord, and more opposition. That is also one way that the Church will change and grow into the organization it needs to be for its faithful. There needs to be room for dissent, debate, disagreements and discussion. The faithful deserve nothing less. In fact, the faithful are pretty much fed up with the sex abuse scandals in the Church. They are fed up with dealing with hypocrisy and betrayal, as well they should be. If the Church wants to hang onto its parishioners, it should make the changes it needs to make, and fast.

Plato's dream--my poem from Remnants of the Spirit World

Another poem from my collection--Remnants of the Spirit World (Remnants of the Spirit World: De Angelis, Paula Mary: 9781495376450: Amazon.com: Books). I remember when I first studied the philosophy of Plato in college--I found his theory of the forms both difficult and fascinating. The Forms are described as the most pure (perfect) of all things; they exist outside of mortal time. Somewhat like heaven? Plato held that true knowledge/intelligence was the ability to understand the world of Forms with one's mind, which was controversial because it is not possible to understand perfection using an imperfect mind. 

Plato’s dream                  copyright Paula Mary De Angelis 

Being born

From nothing

Taking form

Now something

Outside space and time

Perfection of the Forms

Acquiring a body

Changes rules and norms

Seeking back to birth

Time before in space

Seeking back to earth

Before the fall from grace

Pardon--my poem from 2011 about wanting to change my life

This is a poem I wrote back in 2011. I understood already then that I was done with the academic work world as I knew it then and know it now. You have to love the political arena, love the fight, love the competition, love to win. Perhaps at one time I did, but at around the time that I wrote the poem I simply wanted no part of the academic political arena anymore. I'm not sure how or even why it happened, just that it did. I think my soul asserted itself and demanded that I pay attention to what it had to say, and I did. This poem is from my collection of poems entitled Remnants of the Spirit World that I published in 2014; you can find it on Amazon: Remnants of the Spirit World: De Angelis, Paula Mary: 9781495376450: Amazon.com: Books

Pardon                   copyright Paula M. De Angelis 

Pardon my wandering toward the door

The light beyond it shines so

I turn my head, I hear a call

And see a past that won’t let go.

Pardon my gazing at the floor

While you speak of many things

My soul’s discovered it wants more

Than small ideas and earthly things.

Pardon my wishing for release

From this prison of daily grind.

What I know is I want peace,

Serenity for a weary mind.

Pardon my wandering toward the field

Of dreams and hope and light

I’ve reached the point where I shall yield

The frenzied floor without a fight.

 

The Words by Dragonborn feat. Jacob Bellens - theme song of Dicte

This is the theme song to the Danish series Dicte that can be seen on Netflix. I've only watched a few episodes but will probably get more into it at some point. I love the theme song by Dragonborn. I'm including the lyrics to the song here:

As rockets fly above me

I wonder why

There's no one else around here

The sun has gone and left a

Hole in the sky

as if inside a nightmare

Running towards you to make you understand

The words that make us fall apart

Cannot be taken back

You hold the line that holds my heart

Don't let go of that

The stars that keep on falling down

Will shine on us forever

We disappear without a sound

On wings of hopeless dreams

In comes the ones who dream of

Life after love

Along with those who believe

While this girl I know, this girl that

I'm thinking of

is singing a slow melody

About the silence that we'll never escape

The words that make us fall apart

Cannot be taken back

You hold the line that holds my heart

Don't let go of that

The stars that keep on falling down

Will shine on us forever

We'll disappear without a sound

On wings of hopeless dreams

The words that make us fall apart

Cannot be taken back

You hold the line that holds my heart

Don't let go of that

The stars that keep on falling down

Will shine on us forever

We'll disappear without a sound

On wings of hopeless dreams

Written by Jacob Bellens, Kristian Leth & Fridolin Nordsø

Remember 'Who's on First?

Pearls Before Swine strikes again. How do I love this comic strip, let me count the ways.....For those of us who use WhatsApp, it's simply gold. 

Traveling internationally during the pandemic

My recent trip to New York State during the pandemic showed me that as long as one is fully vaccinated, it is safe to travel internationally. I had originally booked a direct flight to Newark from Oslo on SAS, but that changed to an indirect flight via Copenhagen in order to fill up the plane. There were not enough people in Oslo flying to Newark at the beginning of September. I understood why when I read the US travel restrictions; pretty much only American citizens/green card holders are allowed entry into the USA. The same holds true for Norway and many other European countries; only citizens and permanent residents are allowed entry. When I saw the empty airports in Oslo and when I arrived in Newark, I understood that most people who normally fly to the USA are in fact tourists from other countries, and that the tourism industry in the USA must have suffered big-time during the pandemic. President Biden is considering a proposal to lift the travel bans for non-Americans in November. I hope that will be the case, because I cannot imagine how those Americans who rely on tourism for a living can manage in the long run. Of course I understand that the safety of the country comes first. But now that the majority of people are vaccinated in America and in Europe, it should be safe to lift the travel restrictions. 

I have never gone through passport control in the USA as quickly as I did now, and the same was true for when I returned to Oslo. I think it took less than five minutes at both airports. I had to show my vaccine passport to airline personnel in Oslo before I was allowed to board the plane to Copenhagen, and then again in Copenhagen before I could board the plane for the USA. I also had to have proof of a negative Covid PCR test within 72 hours of traveling to the USA; I traveled on a Monday morning so I took the test on the preceding Friday afternoon. Luckily it was negative, as was the rapid Covid test I had to take in the USA within three to five days after I arrived. On the day I was to board the plane for Oslo, I had to show my vaccine passport in order to board. Norway, unlike the USA, did not require a negative Covid test in order to fly. SAS required that passengers wear masks for the duration of the flights, and although I was nervous about this particular aspect, it worked out fine, much better than I expected. The SAS personnel took good care of us; they deserve praise for good service and help. Keeping track of all the travel requirements was a bit stressful but definitely doable and I was not discouraged from wanting to travel again. 

As luck would have it, the pandemic has 'ended' for all intents and purposes in Norway. By this I mean that all restrictions were lifted as of this past Friday. No more masks, no more social distancing. The young people of Oslo responded to the news by partying wildly the entire weekend; we older folks were happy about the news but did not feel the need to behave like the young people. I was at a small dinner party at an Indian restaurant this past Friday in order to celebrate my PhD student's defence; it was nice to sit together with people again and not worry about keeping a meter's distance between us. The pandemic is not 'over' in the USA, mostly because there are still many unvaccinated people who will end up delaying the reopening of the country. Too bad, because the USA was way out in front when it came to making vaccines available for its people. European countries were slow to make the vaccines available to their citizens, but once they did, the percentage of people who got vaccinated ended up being higher than that in America. 

In any case, regardless of what transpires in the coming months, we will not be returning to lockdown conditions. I think the health officials here have understood that we need to learn to live with the virus and get vaccinated each year against it, just as we live with the different flu viruses that arrive each year and for which we take a vaccine. If it's not worse than this, it's doable. By that I mean a minor inconvenience, one I'm willing to endure in order to be able to live normally and to travel. My attitude is 'do what is necessary in order to make those things happen'. I'm not going to rant and rave about my rights being taken away and all the rest of the nonsense when I have more important goals--being together with those I love in the USA. I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen. 

Change and courage

It does, doesn't it? When you think about it, change is scary. So yes, moving out of your comfort zone requires courage. Here's to all of us who are in that boat, riding the waves of change. The water can sometimes be choppy, and sometimes we don't really know where we're going. But we manage and the waters eventually become calmer. 

What I won't miss about working in academic research science

I recently published a post 'What I will miss about working as an academic research scientist' (A New Yorker in Oslo: What I will miss about working as an academic research scientist (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). There are some things that I won’t miss about academic research, and now I can write about them. As long as I did academic research I never felt I had the freedom to really write the truth about this arena, at least the arena I've experienced here in Norway.

I won't miss the arrogance and elitism that exist in the academic workplace. Too many research leaders (mostly men but also one or two women) used their leadership positions to disparage other researchers (including PhD students and postdocs who worked for them and for whom they developed a dislike) in an effort to make themselves look much better than they actually were. Several actually thought they were extraordinary researchers, and they were not. Truth be told, they were and are middle-of-the-road researchers with grant funding and a few good papers under their belts, nothing more. They were preoccupied with prestige, power, control, and money. If they had all these things they were automatically better than the others who didn't have these things, and that viewpoint was supported all the way to the top of university hospital leadership. This is probably not ground-breaking news to those who've worked in academia for years. My point in commenting on it is the following: how research leadership behaves and what they allow in terms of bad or questionable behavior sets the tone for the workplace--pleasant and productive, or unpleasant and ultimately unproductive (or unwillingly productive). You cannot have it both ways. Arrogance and elitism do not lead to healthy research production. They lead to demotivation and inertia in those who have to suffer with them; the ones who often suffer most are the scientists in untenured positions. Arrogance and elitism were allowed (or at least not discouraged) in my former workplace, to the detriment of the careers of many younger scientists and colleagues. I know that because the latter often came to my office over the years to get support and to share their feelings of despair and demotivation. Most of them left academia when they were still young enough to start over somewhere else, usually in the private sector where they ended up not only feeling more at home but where they were able to create successful careers. 

I won't miss the conformity/lack of intellectual diversity that characterize a lot of academic workplaces. I could list up several areas, among them immunotherapy, that would guaranteed get you a lot of grant funding, but at what cost? It stands to reason that not everyone can work in this field, and why would they want to? Researchers are at heart an independent bunch; they like to have the intellectual freedom to study what they want (within the guidelines of their institutions, of course). But it is that intellectual freedom that is important, or at least was important. Nowadays you are likely to be told by research leadership that your area of interest is not worth pursuing; you should pursue an area that will net you the most money. I have no problems with their advice or suggestions, but it is very unrealistic to expect that all medical research scientists would want to work in the field of immunotherapy. You don't just snap your fingers and poof--now I know all there is to know about immunotherapy and patient treatment when for years your research interests tended toward basic science (non-patient-related) questions. Conformity and intellectual freedom are a poor match. But since conformity leads to money, and academic research is now big business, it stands to reason that conformity rules. Some of the scientists I most enjoyed talking to and collaborating with were non-conformists (like me) who believed in what they were doing and struggled along. It must be said that up until around 2006, it was still possible to get a basic research project funded. Nowadays it is a rare occurrence.

I won't miss the frequent lack of interest in informing employees of what was going on in the department, in dealing with pressing problems, or in the research that employees were doing. One leader had the habit of shrugging his shoulders whenever problems that needed to be addressed and discussed were brought up. They weren't his problem. 'I really don't care, do you?' That type of attitude, which essentially says to others--F*** off and don't bother me. Even those leaders who did listen did very little about the problems at hand. And just to be clear, there is a big difference between running to a leader with every minute problem versus talking to them about one or two select issues. Very few people did the former. It wouldn't have mattered one way or another; the response would have been the same--lack of interest. It was demoralizing, because nothing ever gets solved with that attitude. 

I won't miss the indecisiveness, procrastination, non-committal leadership, and inertia of academia, the countless meetings about the same problem or issue that could have been solved with clear-cut decisions but rarely were. Some leaders were deathly afraid of making a decision that could turn out down the road to be a mistake, so they didn't make any decisions at all. Fear leads to indecisiveness and procrastination. Indecisiveness and procrastination help no one, and simply contribute to the inertia that a workplace becomes mired in over time. My motto was 'Just do it' (to paraphrase Nike). That doesn't mean that I was impulsive or proactive without good and well-researched reasons for acting. It means that I was ready and able to make a decision and to stick to it after I reviewed the facts. I was not afraid to be wrong, because if your decision proves to be the wrong one you admit that and move on. But if you remain non-committal you won't (ever) make a mistake. But you won't take a risk either, and that is necessary in order for an institution to move forward. For all the incessant talking about change and the necessity for it, there was very little actual change. I discovered that most people simply liked to talk rather than act. That wasn't me. Perhaps I too would have found a better fit in the private sector. 

And finally, I won't miss feeling old. I’m three weeks into retirement and I don’t feel old anymore. The last few years in academia made me feel old—no longer professionally relevant, no longer competitive, no longer in the game. I’ve written about the reasons why in my ‘Publish or languish’ post (A New Yorker in Oslo: Publish or languish (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). If you don’t get grant funding, you’re just ‘hanging on in quiet desperation’ until retirement. Some hang on until they’re sixty-seven; others until they’re seventy-two. I was simply not interested in doing either. I retired early. Older scientists are not really respected anymore (if they ever were). I don't know if my viewpoints can be extrapolated to other countries, but I'm guessing that they can (if the limited Netflix series The Chair gives a good indication of what goes on at top universities in the USA these days). In that series, the leadership of the English literature department wants to get rid of its older professors. It doesn’t prove to be an easy task, but it must be rather dismaying to know that your workplace would prefer that you retire or quit. But that’s all part of the game; best not to take it too seriously. Best to leave when the going is good, when you still have your health, when life is still an adventure. Because life is an adventure, and work is not the only thing in life that defines us. The fun part will be discovering and rediscovering the parts of us that have been hidden all these years. I’m looking forward to that.

My laugh for the day

If you need a good laugh, here are some recent comic strips from two of my favorites--Pearls Before Swine and Non Sequitur: 

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller 

Publish or languish

"Hanging on in quiet desperation", to paraphrase Pink Floyd. That about sums up remaining in academia as an older scientist (over sixty) in some workplaces and universities. At my former workplace, there were many older scientists who were deemed unproductive by research leadership. That may have been true for one or two older scientists, but by and large the majority of older scientists were just as productive and had just as much motivation to do research, publish, and mentor PhD and Masters students as scientists half their age. But they seldom got the chance because research funding dried up and no matter how relevant they tried to make their grant applications, they were rejected. It often started when they were in their mid- to late-fifties and just continued. My question is why any older scientist in his or her right mind would want to hang around languishing in a workplace that no longer wants them or considers them productive? To languish is to be 'forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation'. That describes the daily life of many older scientists. Of course I understand that not all cannot retire in their fifties (although I know teachers and civil servants who did just that, with good pensions to support them). 

So what's an older scientist to do in an academic workplace that no longer values him or her? He or she can hang on in quiet desperation and 'hope' for more grant funding after having written grant application after grant application ad nauseam. Good luck with that. 'Hope springs eternal', as Alexander Pope said. Or the older scientist can hope for some good will from research leadership, but I would say don't hold your breath. From what I've seen and heard during the past decade, some of the research leaders did nothing but badmouth the older scientists they deemed unproductive. They disparaged them or poked fun at them; I know because I sat in on some of the leader meetings and was witness to their behavior. Of course not all research leaders were like this. But as karma would have it, one of those types of leaders in my former workplace is now having problems getting funding for his research; he's reached that crucial age when it all changes. And so it goes. Since he was one of those leaders who actively disparaged his peers, I am very glad to hear that he is now having problems of his own. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy as we say in America.

Publish or languish. That is the choice for many older tenured scientists. It becomes a catch-22 situation after a while. If you no longer obtain funding for your research, you cannot attract students nor will you be able to get technical help. You will end up working alone in the lab, and it goes without saying that your research production will slow down, you will publish much less, and that will go a long way toward ensuring that you do not remain in the running for grant funding. And so it goes. No grant funding, no students and no help, thus no publications and no grant funding. 

Do I have ready answers to this problem? I do not. I merely present it. It used to be publish or perish, but nowadays it's publish or languish because so many older scientists hang onto their tenured positions with every ounce of strength they've got. Some who should have more self-insight refuse to acknowledge that their time in the sun is over. For some it's an identity problem; they simply cannot see themselves doing anything else other than research. They've lived and breathed research their entire lives. My advice to academic scientists who are approaching that crucial age when it all changes, is to take a good long hard look around them, around their workplace. See if older scientists are valued or if they are just pushed to the side and ignored. See if there is subtle pressure on them to retire early. Just see how they're treated, because guaranteed, once you reach their age, that is how you yourself will be treated. 

 

Daily outrage as interpreted by Wiley Miller

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller is one of my favorite comic strips. I thought this comic from a few days ago was rather apt, since the people who need to be outraged on a daily basis get excellent help from the media--newspapers, cable news, television news, online news. Take your pick.