Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Sunday musings…

1) Fall. As in “fall back”. I slept 10.5 hours last night. I. Feel. Great.

2) Digital. As in watch. At the moment I am wearing an $11.00 Casio digital watch. It took 2 beeps to reset 2 time zones, and I know it’s November 4th by looking at a watch purchased 2 years ago.

$11.00. Is this a great world or what?

3) Techquake. Term used to describe the advances that have come to our digital world that began with the opening of the internet to regular folks like you and me by Netscape (among others).

I think that fits quite nicely, thank you very much.

4) Historic. “…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and  me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” –George Elliot* (HT to my friend Bruce K.)

We in the U.S. have been bombarded of late with missives that declare that we are living in “historic times”, that we have a “historic opportunity” to participate in an election that will “determine our fate as a country in historic ways.” But is that really so? Are we truly at an altogether unique inflection point, one so different from all that have come before that our fate, our daily experiences to come will be affected in ways that we cannot miss or ignore? Or is this particular upcoming election simply the next in an unbroken series of political or governing evolutionary steps that has been unbroken since the end of the Civil War? Is the excitement and the drama simply an extension of the “Techquake” and its always on firehose of information?

Seriously now, if you are one who is on your soapbox (facing in either direction), are you really telling us that Election Day is going to change our nation to a greater degree than the one that brought us 4 years of LBJ and the Great Society?

As a people the citizens of the developed world have been swept along in the great rivers of effluent poured forth from that firehose of information that was spawned by the internet. Have we forgotten the accuracy and truthfulness of Elliot’s words? If so is it because we simply cannot get even a single pupil above the torrent of information to see what he saw? Or is it more that we have lost the ability to paddle even the tiny amount necessary to do so? No matter, the result is the same.

Literary fiction is taught as the study of quiet acts of desperation and the fall-out that follows. Life, on the other hand, is made up of quiet acts made out of sight of nearly everyone. Anonymous acts carried out with neither malice nor benevolence. These are what constitute the reality of life. It seems to me that at least a (very loud) portion of our people have lost the appreciation of this reality. For them each act is either an affront or a tiny step toward canonization. I do not believe they are correct. Elliot is only wrong in that he underestimates his object; that  things are not so ill with you and me, is not half but mostly owing to those who lived that faithful life.

To what, then, is this anonymous majority faithful? This is quite simple, and because this is so it is all the more painful that it must be pointed out: they are faithful to one another. They live lives that are faithful to the belief that it is another person with whom they are living, not an opinion or a belief. This anonymous mass lives lives that are intertwined with other people, not other opinions. When they look to their left or to their right what they see is not a position or a platform, but a person. It is this, the acknowledgement that we are surrounded first by other people, that leads to salvation in this life.

You are surrounded by people who are faithfully living quiet lives, anonymous to all but a handful of others, whose lives will be remembered by even fewer, if at all. Unbeknownst to one another they likely crossed paths with someone with whom they would find little common ground in belief, someone who is close to you, about whom you care very much. Despite this lack of commonality the crossing was uneventful. It was peaceful. On balance it was marked by quiet goodwill, if it was marked at all. It was a moment that will have passed directly into an unvisited “tomb” in the memory of each of these individuals.

And yet it was that quiet faithfulness that behind whatever disagreement might exist between the two there lived much more than another opinion or belief. There lived another person. Another person living a life largely unnoticed, hopefully a quiet one with less desperation than more, on their way to an end noticed by few and mourned by fewer still. Lives that were lived in the faith that there exists much, much more good in others than not.

A faith that we, the living, must endeavor to keep.

I’ll see you next week (which will surely arrive, regardless)…

–bingo

*George Elliot is the pseudonym of a woman. In order to write and be read she felt the need to write as a man. That most women who write today can do so using their own name is “unhistoric” is yet another indication of how wonderful are our times.

This weekend was spent in Chicago at the annual meeting of men and women with whom I share my day job. As I noted in “Sunday musings…” I’ve been suffering a bit from some sort of degenerative issue in my hip. Traversing the longest indoor “bridge” outside of the Providence airport rental car connector, my discomfort made me think of my Dad and the back pain that grew to consume him as he aged. Mind you, my discomfort is minimal in comparison, and my particular problem is quite amenable to a surgical fix with a high success rate. Still, it made me feel older, and it made me think of my Dad, gone these 3 years.

Below is what I wrote some years ago when I started to notice the changes in Dad.

When did my Dad get so small? Close your eyes. Think of your Dad. What does he look like? How old is he with your eyes closed? He’s younger, isn’t he? And bigger. MUCH bigger.

I spend most of every day in the company of people decades my senior. I’ve watched some of them age over 20 years or so. There are a few with whom I’ve bonded, who I remember and can conjure up an image if asked. I never appreciate the change in size in them, though.

It’s a strange phenomenon. It’s uncomfortable, no? There really IS a physical change that occurs as we age; we really DO shrink physically. No, it’s more than that when you look at your Dad, more than the physical decrease in size, the loss of vigor and all that goes along with it, the stuff I might actually notice in my patients. What makes it so striking when it’s your Dad is that it’s more than just physical, but a diminution in all dimensions and domains including the one inside your head.

He WAS strength when I was a kid. Literally, a rock. Immovable and unshakeable at all times. Unmoved by excuses or explanations when he knew he was right, or if he MIGHT be right. The final arbiter of discipline (“wait ’til your FATHER gets home…”) in a very traditional family, every thing about the guy was just huge.

When did he get so small? It’s almost scary, you know. He was the guy who stood between me and everything that might be dangerous, at least figuratively. At least in my mind. It’s hard to reconcile the guy I just put on a plane back to RI with my Mom, and the guy who’s there–right in front of me–when I close my eyes. So small now, almost frail. That classic love/fear thing now replaced with something more like love/protect. Does he see it, too? How small?

Will I see it, when I’ve become small?

Sunday musings…

Old is as old does. Kinda Forrest Gumpian there, I know. Sadly, even a relatively minor injury or degenerative issue can turn even the fittest of individuals into an older version of themselves. So I’ve been learning after a tiny little jolt to my hip while doing a power clean that was just enough to make a heretofore unknown degree of degenerative arthritis become an every minute part of my life.

As they say, getting old ain’t for sissies.

While the discomfort is certainly noticeable for a significant amount of my day, it’s really what it keeps me from doing that brings on that oldish feeling. All of my usual fitness activities are curtailed. In no way am I attempting to be any type of super version of the middle-aged dud I am, but feeling as if I was physiologically 10 years younger was a really big part of who I’ve been for some 12 years. That’s slipping away as I find more and more stuff I need to avoid in the gym. For sure, modern medicine (sick care) is all over this, and I certainly have any number of friends and acquaintances who have already crossed this bridge.

Was it CrossFit that did in my hip? Nah. Some of my less fit colleagues are almost delighted to tell my about what their doctors and PT friends say about CF. But my buddy Dr. Bones pointed out all of the miles I ran in my 30’s, the pounding I took as a rather small guy playing a big guy’s game. Is there some kind of little injury from that power clean making stuff worse? Who knows. The X-rays show the effects of decades of heavy use on both sides.

That first step to a fix, though, is as daunting as the first time you walk through the front door to a new gym. No matter; having spent 12 years doing high intensity exercise that included a heavy dose of lifting heavy stuff, the guy who will put humpty dumpty back together is kind of excited to get to work. Why? Well that’s the lesson here this week: prepare for whatever tomorrow may bring. Your work in the gym makes you stronger, more resilient, and more able to bounce back from adversity of all type. In the end only my hips are old. At least at the moment. More work now while I figure out when I go into the repair shop should have me street-ready afterward that much faster.

The fountain of youth flows freely in the gym.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

1) Banal. Ordinary. Most tragedies begin with something banal. A tiny misstep. Truth bent just a little bit. Took a wrong turn.  Tragedy averted or avoided is likewise usually accomplished by the banal.

When doing the next right thing, in spite of an error either forced or unforced, is the ordinary thing.

2) Proximity. To greatness that is. What must it be like to spend your life in the presence or proximity of true greatness? I’ve long publicly held that I am not in possession of the genius gene. Rather I seem to have a rather dominant expression of the “Salieri” gene, that certain ability to both identify and promote the genius of another. Unlike the real Salieri I also inherited the gene that prompts me to protect any of those geniuses with whom I may come in contact (Salieri famously was said to have destroyed Mozart the man while promoting, and profiting from, his genius).

To be in the presence of the giants in any field is a privilege. In my day job I have reached a stage (I’m old enough) and have acquired enough status (a few people know who I am) where I occasionally share a stage with the giants upon whose shoulders we all ride. Just last month I sat next to Ken Kenyon and Hank Perry, two of the pioneers in the tiny slice of eye care where I might yet make my mark. Not gonna lie, it’s hard not to be a little bit starstruck up there.

Which makes me wonder what it must be like to spend your entire career recording the exploits and the thoughts on the same of some of the best “whatever” in the world. More than that, what if in so doing you become one of them, so good at how you let the rest of us into the world of whoevers, athletes or musicians, artists or scientists who are simply the best at what they do. Sometimes the best ever. Hemingway taught us about soldiers and war in his early works. Jimmy Chin and Jon Krakauer have likewise opened the eyes of flatlanders everywhere to what it’s like to stand on the top of the world.

Sportswriters are classic examples of individuals who spend their days in the presence of varying degrees of excellence. Of genius. Most give us a fair rendering of the facts, sometimes leavened by insight, but an occasional writer stands out among the others through their own sheer excellence. Grantland Rice, Red Smith, and Jim Anderson form a kind of Mt. Rushmore of pioneers. Perhaps Dan Deform and Bob Ryan belong there as well. If you follow athletics at all you have favorites. At some time, though, these men and women either pass from this life or simply pass from writing. My point, then, is a simple one: those who spend their working lives in the presence of other types of genius who are, themselves, the very best at putting together the words that let us, those who are at best a Salieri, see into the world of the best athletes should be treasured. Recognized and enjoyed while they ply their gifts on our behalf. Their words, like “A Farewell to Arms”, will live on, but there is something special about reading those words when they are fresh.

Do yourself a favor. Pick up or surf to Sports Illustrated and read Tim Layden’s piece on Tommie Smith and John Carlos. It’s a story 50 years in the making that in the hands of Layden feels as fresh as last week’s news. Yet like so many of his pieces you know that it will feel just as important 5, or 10, or 50 years hence. Read it and be in the presence of greatness.

3) Judgement. Who am I? Today, that is. Who am I today? Who is it you know if you know me today? My friend and I were chatting a bit about our college years and who we were (and who we thought we were) back then. Make no mistake, we both loved our years in school (though we went to the same college our paths did not cross until many years later) and look back on them with great fondness. Recent events in our country have prompted us to look back and view our college years through a slightly different lens. While we were enjoying our college experience, how did our experience impact others there at the time? How have we grown as men and women since then?

Who are we today? When you think of us, judge us, choose whether or not to associate with us, are you thinking of who we are today or who we were (or you thought we were) at some time in our past? Which version of who we are–for you cannot escape any version of yourself–is the one that makes you choose to stand with us or agin us? Nobody is the same person today that they were yesterday, and who you are today is only how you start out tomorrow. Which version do you see when you see us?

No answers here my friends; the answers are for you to divine when you look at all of us in and around your life. For my friend and for me we appear to be mostly cut from similar cloth, two men with some of the standard issue flaws of humanity who have simply tried to be better in all ways each tomorrow since we started thinking about it. We were hardly “bad boys” but we are both saddened when we look back and realize that we could have done better, been better. We want to give our children a head start by sharing this; they are often already there, instead guiding us to be better now.

We are who we have become today, and who we will continue to try to be for a forever’s worth of tomorrow’s. Because we did want to be better, even as we were learning what that meant. We still do. Who am I to you today? Who do you see when I stand before you today?My friend and I have spent many yesterday’s trying to be better so that who you see today is worthy of you.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of the Age of Volunteerism. While there exist tiny spaces where true volunteers live and thrive in a bilateral exchange of freely given goodwill, by and large volunteerism has been extinguished by the actions of its historical recipients. Sunday marks my last day ever of hospital ER call, the end of 2 years of receiving token payment for making my expertise available following 25 years of doing so for free. My experience is typical, as is this denouement.

Once upon a time all of your doctors were in private practice. We all had tiny little cottage businesses, did our work, and billed you or your insurance company for the work we did. Some of us worked in tiny little groups, but it was the rare doctor who was part of a large group or business whether in a big city or out in the country. Even the slickest Madison Avenue internist was basically a country doc, just with a better, more expensive wardrobe. In addition to having a greater familiarity with our patients we also enjoyed a very clubby relationship with all of the other doctors where we practiced. There was a collegiality, a sense that we were all in the struggle together. Folks who shirked their duties, foisting them off on other docs, were quickly educated about proper protocol or left to toil alone.

Hospitals were different, too. Local or regional, they were hardly the gargantuan mega-businesses they’ve become. The org chart was shallow, and most local doctors were on a first name basis with the few administrators on the hospital payroll. You took call for the ER as a volunteer; the ER respected that you were donating your skill and your time and handled everything it could before calling you. Same thing for consultations. Your colleague only called you if they couldn’t figure out a problem or ran out beyond their scope of practice. There was a faint air of apology with each request, and a definite unspoken appreciation for the help that would be given. You helped because you were appreciated.

This is really no different from all manner of volunteerism in America. Smallish, closely knit organizations depending on the goodwill and generosity of members of their community pitching in to ensure success. Think local memorial 5K races, or CrossFit Games Regionals in the days before ESPN or the Home Depot Center. Countless small private schools that depended on the largesse and time offered by the families who sent their children there. You gladly accepted the opportunity to volunteer because you knew that without you the organization would not be able to function. You also knew that the recipient of your generosity not only appreciated your contribution, they really had no other options. Not only that, but if that organization somehow existed in your professional space you knew that it would never, not ever, abuse the trust necessary for volunteers to continue.

What happened? Money. Money and size and the distance that they create between an organization and its volunteers. Let’s go back to the hospital and the ER for a minute. Where once your efforts as a volunteer were deeply appreciated and those efforts rewarded with respect and care for your time and your expertise, the growth of employment of doctors by hospitals opened a gap between colleagues. No longer was there the esprit de corps, the shared notion that the primary target of our efforts was the patient was replaced by so very many doctors by the reality that they worked first for a business as faceless and uncaring as GM. Work that was once done by your colleague was now pushed to the volunteers whenever possible. It’s cheaper that way. Worse, boxes to be checked by the employed (to maximize revenue and minimize risk) meant demands made of volunteers, not requests. Worse, still, were discoveries that some “volunteers” were more equal than others: they were paid.

Innumerable examples are there for the picking. Some times it was just a case of laziness. Other times the insult was a clear effort to dump work on the volunteer. A critical care fellow requested a consult for acute narrow angle glaucoma. For those of you not medical this is one of the few “drop everything and go” consultations in eye care. When I arrived in the ICU I found a young patient with a black cornea who was mildly uncomfortable. I did what every highly experienced specialist does when they start a consultation, I asked the patient: “Hey, what’s up with your eye?” Turns out they had a blind, painful eye as the result of a surgical mishap, and surgery to remove the eye was already scheduled. Their discomfort was because none of the eye medications had been ordered; the fellow never asked. No doctor (or nurse) would have allowed this to happen in the Age of Volunteerism.

While this is nothing short of tragic in health care, it was inevitable once medical businesses were incentivized to grow ever larger. It is not confined to health care by any means. How do you think that volunteer at a Spartan Race feels when he learns how much his “team leader” is being paid? Have you ever “discovered” how much the Executive VP of your favorite professional organization is paid? As a people we Americans are generous to a fault. That generosity usually continues right up until we discover that we have been duped, and even worse that we have been purposely duped by the people who run the organizations for which we volunteer.

And so we gather here to mourn the passing of the Age of Volunteerism. Like so many things of wonder and goodness there remain pockets of resistance, little oases where the goodwill, honesty, and appreciation beget the kind of ebb and flow that made things so much better, kinder, more collegial at the apex of Volunteerism. My friend Tom Gardner was just named the president of the Society of Alumni of our Alma Mater. Tom has given tirelessly of his “spaces”, his timespace, brainspace and emotionalspace to help shepherd tiny Williams College as it flows on though time. Is this truly different? A tiny refuge from the Zombie Apocalypse of corporatization of all things to which we once volunteered?

We can only hope. Hope that Tom and those like him who continue to find places and causes where their volunteerism is met with what we in medicine have had to bid farewell. We can only hope that there will be places where being a volunteer means receiving the respect and appreciation and even a kind of love in return for what we have given. We can only hope that there will continue to be places where the incessant drive to grow ever bigger, size measured on a spreadsheet rather than by heart, will be resisted. For if it can happen in medicine, if volunteerism can be killed in what is arguably the most noble of all endeavors, I fear that it is doomed everywhere.

We mourn the end of the Age of Volunteerism. We wait with equal parts sadness and fear for arrival of whatever comes next.

Sunday musings…

1) Feral. Abbie the Wonder Dog was feral for the first 6 or 9 months of her life. I can’t remember exactly. She was live-trapped and rehabilitated by a Border Collie rescue organization in north central Ohio. When she frustrates me it is always helpful to remember this.

Having a formerly feral creature living in our midst is also a very good counter to the frustrations of modern life. I try to remember how far I am from true privation whenever I find myself railing agains the insanity and inherent indifference that the world clearly has toward my existence.

A quick thought of my clever (read: sneaky) pup is usually all it takes to quell my urge to explode when I encounter the tragedy of a poor internet connection…while hurtling through a mountain pass in a car going 80 MPH.

2) Test. Some 10 years ago or so I proposed that a true measurement of health should be possible. Something that combined the most basic of classic medical knowledge (weight, %BW fat, BP, Cholesterol, etc.) and the breakthrough notion that physical fitness could be measured and tracked. My theory included the necessity of including some sort of measurement of “well-being”, a mandate that was initially openly mocked but seems to have been rather meekly accepted as both logical and necessary.

Creation and launch of such a value, call it “Total Health” or something along that line, has fizzled due to the lack of consensus–nay, even interest–in coming up with a way to measure Fitness. Imagine, in a place like CrossFit where the very definition of Fitness was created, no one save me and a tiny group of equal obsessives has so much as let fly a tiny trial balloon. The original owners of CrossFit LA were the first to use a standard entry test. 500M Row/40 Squats/30 Sit-Ups/20 Push-Ups/10 Pull-ups. I suggested pulling from both traditional sources (The President’s Fitness Test) as well as CrossFit and the larger endurance communities: 2:00 each of PU/Push-Up/Sit-Up/Squat, 1RM Deadlift, 1 mile Run. We ran a competition once called the “Fittest Eye Doc” using this.

What is necessary is a test that is a) doable by the general public, and b) capable of creating a single value that can be measured and tracked. Once that is done mathematicians and statisticians can be let loose with the various factors and given the task of coming up with a formula that includes all three categories. Why bring this here, again, when thus far my previous dozen or so postings have been met with crickets? With the pivot to health and the rapid build-up of a cadre of physicians who are at least superficially interested in using high intensity exercise for the purpose of increasing health, I am hopeful of a broader dialogue that comes to an agreement on a test.

Challenge: create a test of fitness that is broadly accessible in all ways (scalable) that can be included in a definition of health. 3-2-1…Go.

3) Volunteerism. Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of the Age of Volunteerism. While there exist tiny spaces where true volunteers live and thrive in a bilateral exchange of freely given goodwill, by and large volunteerism has been extinguished by its historical recipients. Today marks my last day ever of hospital ER call, the end of 2 years of receiving token payment for making my expertise available following 25 years of doing so for free. My experience is typical, as is this denouement.

Once upon a time all of your doctors were in private practice. We all had tiny little cottage businesses, did our work, and billed you or your insurance company for the work we did. Some of us worked in tiny little groups, but it was the rare doctor who was part of a large group or business whether in a big city or out in the country. Even the slickest Madison Avenue internist was basically a country doc, just with a better, more expensive wardrobe. In addition to having a greater familiarity with our patients we also enjoyed a very clubby relationship with all of the other doctors where we practiced. There was a collegiality, a sense that we were all in the struggle together. Folks who shirked their duties, foisting them off on other docs, were quickly educated about proper protocol or left alone.

Hospitals were different, too. Local or regional, they were hardly the gargantuan mega-businesses they’ve become. The org chart was shallow, and most local doctors were on a first name basis with the few administrators on the hospital payroll. You took call for the ER as a volunteer; the ER respected that you were donating your skill and your time and handled everything it could before calling you. Same thing for consultations. Your colleague only called you if they couldn’t figure out a problem or ran out beyond their scope of practice. There was a faint air of apology with each request, and a definite unspoken appreciation for the help that would be given. You helped because you were appreciated.

This is really no different from all manner of volunteerism in America. Smallish, closely knit organizations depending on the goodwill and generosity of members of their community pitching in to ensure success. Think local memorial 5K races, or CrossFit Games Regionals in the days before ESPN or the Home Depot Center. Countless small private schools that depended on the largesse and time offered by the families who sent their children there. You gladly accepted the opportunity to volunteer because you knew that without you the organization would not be able to function. You also knew that the recipient of your generosity not only appreciated your contribution, they really had no other options. Not only that, but if that organization somehow existed in your professional space you knew that it would never, not ever, abuse the trust necessary for volunteers to continue.

What happened? Money. Money and size and the distance that they create between an organization and its volunteers. Let’s go back to the hospital and the ER for a minute. Where once your efforts as a volunteer were deeply appreciated and those efforts rewarded with respect and care for your time and your expertise, the growth of employment of doctors by hospitals opened a gap between colleagues. No longer was there the esprit de corps, the shared notion that the primary target of our efforts was the patient was replaced by so very many doctors by the reality that they worked first for a business as faceless and uncaring as GM. Work that was once done by your colleague was now pushed to the volunteers whenever possible. Worse, boxes to be checked by the employed (to maximize revenue and minimize risk) meant demands made of volunteers, not requests. Worse, still, were discoveries that some “volunteers” were more equal than others: they were paid.

While this is nothing short of tragic in health care, it was inevitable once medical businesses were incentivized to grow ever larger. It is not confined to health care by any means. How do you think that volunteer at a Spartan Race feels when he learns how much his “team leader” is being paid? Have you ever “discovered” how much the Executive VP of your favorite professional organization is paid? As a people we Americans are generous to a fault. That generosity usually continues right up until we discover that we have been duped, and even worse that we have been purposely duped by the people who run the organizations for which we volunteer.

And so we gather here to mourn the passing of the Age of Volunteerism. Like so many things of wonder and goodness there remain pockets of resistance, little oases where the goodwill, honesty, and appreciation beget the kind of ebb and flow that made things so much better, kinder, more collegial at the apex of Volunteerism. My friend Tom Gardner was just named the president of the Society of Alumni of our Alma Mater. Tom has given tirelessly of his “spaces”, his timespace, brainspace and emotionalspace to help shepherd tiny Williams College as it flows on though time. Is this truly different? A tiny refuge from the Zombie Apocalypse of corporatization of all things to which we once volunteered?

We can only hope. Hope that Tom and those like him who continue to find places and causes where their volunteerism is met with what we in medicine have had to bid farewell. We can only hope that there will be places where being a volunteer means receiving the respect and appreciation and even a kind of love in return for what we have given. We can only hope that there will continue to be places where the incessant drive to grow ever bigger, size measured on a spreadsheet rather than by heart, will be resisted. For if it can happen in medicine, if volunteerism can be killed in what is arguably the most noble of all endeavors, I fear that it is doomed everywhere.

And so we mourn the end of the Age of Volunteerism. We wait with equal parts sadness and fear for arrival of what follows.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

There is such a thing as right and wrong. Good and bad are different. My reminder came while reading about Dale Murphy, the retired baseball player most famously remembered for his days as an Atlanta Brave. Mr. Murphy was noted for his career-long insistence on doing the with thing. If you are a baseball fan you may remember that he retired 2 HR short of the magic 400 that likely would have guaranteed his election into the Hall of Fame; he could no longer stand to be the shell of his former self and so he went home rather then extend his career with PEDs.

Dale Murphy is a good man who did the right thing.

We have been living in an age of moral equivalence for a very long time. Certainly no less than 30 years. A time in which the ends justify the means. Something is not really wrong if it was done by or directed at the right people. Generations ago one could enunciate a coda of what was nearly universally recognized as good, as right. Be honest. Don’t steal or cheat. Work hard. Don’t cause harm to another on purpose. As a society Americans had an ethic of working together toward a common goal, a common idea of what was good. None other than de Tocqueville observed this and included it in his historic musings about America and Americans. As a people we had a sense of what was right and what was wrong, a clear understanding about the difference between good and bad for a couple hundred years. Sometimes we got it wrong, but in general we strove as a people to be better.

This is the place where naysayers jump in with comments about various types of discrimination, about groups for whom this ideal was simply not a reality. I fully acknowledge these facts. Racial discrimination was terrifically worse in previous generations, as was the unconscionable treatment of women (entire categories of people could not vote for 150 years). All true. Still true. But as de Tocqueville anticipated, there has been an inexorable (albeit painful and often excruciatingly slow) movement toward more of better. It has hardly been a straight line from bad to better, but that is the journey we have taken.

Dale Murphy is looked upon with a kind of wonder, as if he and his life are somehow not of this time. Marry someone you love. If you have a family prioritize raising your children to be good citizens who know the traditional difference between good and bad. Be honest. Don’t hurt people. Be kind and generous to those outside of your family whenever you can. Do these things in a quiet manner, not out loud in self-aggrandizement as you build “your brand”. There are certainly others who fit this mold; Denzel Washington and Neil Patrick Harris come to mind. Lots of no-name folks, men and women  you will never meet who will never be famous are doing the same thing.

You could say that what I bemoan about our present society has always been thus; that I, we,  simply know more about it now because of newer, freer information streams. I cannot argue against this possibility. Still, it seems as if even knowing this, that a return to an acknowledgement that there is a clear difference between good and bad, between right and wrong, can only strengthen the fabric of our society. Different, on its face, is neither good nor bad, it is simply different. Something that is unattractive or distasteful may be just that and nothing more. We can disagree in the great middle. Good and bad is bigger than taste or style or personal preference.

In the dark we are all the same. We live together unseen. We have the same dreams and the same fears. Though we cannot see we still feel. Right and wrong are different. There is such a thing as good and bad. These things do not change when the lights are turned on. Seek the good. Do the right.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

1) JFK. So. Big.

2) NYC. So. Big.

3) Fact. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. However, everyone is not entitled to their own facts.

4) Homage. There’s a big ol’ plane sitting outside the window waiting to take me to Mexico. Beth, her sisters and their husbands are on the other side of this leg waiting for me. We are all spending a week in the time share that my father-in-law willed to his girls. As a financial move it’s hard to think of an “asset” that comes with more strings attached and is more difficult to enjoy. As a gesture, however, it was made out of the deepest well of love imaginable.

How will we use it? Meh, who knows? The details hardly matter, though. It appears that our girls and their boys will use this weekend to plot and plan how it is that we will use our little oasis as an excuse and an incentive to spend time together as a family. I can think of no better way to honor Bob’s memory.

Hang on Dollie…I’m almost there.

5) Tiny Tim. Beth has a little mutt that Megan named Tiny Tim. You see, Timmy was about 9 months old when he arrived, so emaciated that he looked like a little fluffy Beanie Baby with a bum leg. Hence, you know, Tiny Tim of Dicken’s fame. Part shitzu, poodle, and terrier, I decided we’d call him a “Shitpoo”. Pretty fitting if you know our pooch. Now 17 years old Timmy is half blind, mostly deaf, and dumb as a rock. He is also the happiest, goofiest, lovingest thing imaginable.

And boy, does he love his Mom.

We are coming to the end of his journey. Soon, though we don’t know quite how soon, we will bid him farewell as he precedes us into whatever comes next. There’s no message here. No lesson or teachable moment. No, Tiny Tim has been doing all of the teaching just like so many beloved pets. He has reminded us that love matters more than a carpet stain. That we should all wag our tails more often. There is nothing better than a random late morning nap. Important  stuff like that. He is home bringing smiles to his babysitter and my little granddaughter who has decided that he is hers and she is his.

Do hang on Timmy, just a bit longer so Mom (and Dad) can give you a little more love.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

1) Autumn. Yep. Here it is. First day of Fall and it’s 55 degrees outside at Casa Blanco.

2) Movie. Mark Wahlberg perfectly captures the intensity and the desperation I would feel if one of my children went missing. The Lovely Bones is gut wrenching.

3) Chardonnay. Do you partake of the grape? My darling Beth has become physically intolerant of red wine (though she will choose to suffer for a special Zinfandel) and so we have been on a white wine quest for the last couple of years. Our first such journey was the classic rite of passage new wine drinkers all embrace as beginners before they are inevitably swept up in the “only red wine is worthy” stage. This has been fun because we’ve given ourselves permission to just enjoy whatever we find for whatever we spend.

Look for Goldschmidt “Singing Tree” from Cali. You’re welcome.

4) Non-Zero. In my travels, and those of my oldest friends and acquaintances, I have come across scores of people who are truly happy. Capable of feeling and giving in to joy. It’s such a special thing to see, and even better to in some way feel a part of that joy, wherever it may be from and whatever may have brought it to life. It’s out there, you know. Sometimes it’s subtle, as gentle and quiet as the proverbial footstep of a butterfly landing on a leaf. Other times it is raucous and riotous and simply blasts through your space like a runaway train.

That’s kinda cool.

Sadly, there are others out there who resent the joy in others. Whether they are themselves happy or not so much, the happiness of another feels to them like losing. It’s more than envy in the unhappy. For these folks it’s as if there is a finite about of happiness and joy in the world; no matter how much of either they may have at any one time they cannot see another’s joy without feeling as if it is somehow draining the reservoir from which they may drink some time in the future. Weird, huh? They sometimes seem more fixated on the blessings of others than on their own, so much so that their own joy slowly seeps away.

Happiness and joy are not limited resources. Quite the contrary. My happiness, my joy is not predicated on your unhappiness or your sorrow, and vice versa. Heavens, if one person’s happiness could come only from another’s despair we’d have long ago slipped into a rather dismal anarchy. No, joy is the ultimate non-zero sum measure. More than that, joy is an exponential multiplier. When you find or see joy in someone else and that vision makes you happy, the mount of happy you get is a full order of magnitude greater than it should be. If that joy and happiness should come to someone who has lately had little of either, well, that’s just that much better.

Life is pretty good around Casa blanco right now, and as much as I’d like to think that means it will always be thus that’s not how life works. Regardless, if I should stumble upon you in the midst of something joyous you can be sure that no matter what happens to be going on in my little world I’m surely not going to resent you or your joy. Quite the opposite.

Whether the skies be cloudy or eggshell blue, a glimpse of the sun always warms.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

1) Sabbath. I read this week a proposal to reinstate the institution of the Sabbath, with or without religion, as a way to force at least one day each week without any work in the U.S.

This is an idea worth considering.

2) Bubble. Yesterday’s WSJ Magazine had something like 15 full page ads for really expensive wristwatches. Like, stupid expensive wristwatches. Says here that’s a sign of a bubble about to burst. If people have so much money they can be persuaded to buy a watch by a magazine ad then I’m saying the economy is overheated. Like the P/E ratio, the Wristwatch Index.

First offered on “Sunday musings”, 9/16/18.

3) Communication. My Mom needs a new cellphone. Her old one is apparently dying, and the service contract that covers the phone is so expensive that it borders on usury. Mom needs a new phone and this is turning out to be a rather fraught experience not only for her, but also for her 4 adult children and their spouses. As is the case with all things family, the “why” of this is complex because participating in the process of obtaining a new phone involves so much more than just the kind of financial and technical exercise that you, or your kids, go through when your iGalaxaPhone goes on the fritz.

Oh sure, the technical part is important here, too. Mom’s not all that good on using her 2003-level tech on a phone that doesn’t even “flip”. Think about your first cell phone and how it worked. Kinda like a “real” phone, wasn’t it? At least a real touchtone phone at least. You hit “ON” or “SEND”, tapped in a number on a standard 1-9+0 keypad, and waited for the phone on the other end to ring. If you were born before 1980 or so this was second nature. Texting was exotic and expensive, so most people didn’t do it. Interestingly, if you were born before 1950, it actually took a bit of doing to get used to having to hit “SEND” to make the call; your home phone just did the job after you dialed. My Mom has found this to be a problem. She is a phone caller and a talker, and still has 2 phones attached to a wall in her house  to supplement a “cordless” phone. How will she do with a password-locked screen, the swipes and touches of a state-of-the-art smartphone?

This brings up the first uncomfortable topic for her kids and their spouses: Mom is getting older. Make no mistake, Mom is still in full control of all of her faculties. She is whip smart and continues to be able to call into play everything she knows. Indeed, she is quite happy to share with all of us her thoughts on how what she knows squares with what we are all doing! But she will admit that she has changed as she has gotten older, and that some of those changes have made life a bit harder. She doesn’t really like to drive after dark or in the rain, for example, a couple of very common things that happen to everyone. Changes occurring around her over which she has little control make her more unhappy than they did when she was younger. Thank Heaven’s she is surrounded by so many wonderful folks who look after her! A few months ago her plumber figured out the software change to her TV cable remote so she didn’t have to, and got her all set up in time for Jeopardy.

As an aside, tech companies should be tasked with making all of their offerings geared to be usable by the LEAST technically savvy users in their markets. That would demonstrate real innovation.

Over my years musing on Sundays I have often thought about how people communicate. The differences in style between generations, and the changes that have occurred over my lifetime, for example. This is the hardest part for us in my generation as we tackle this issue for Mom; we must look through HER eyes, through the prism of HER needs and HER comfort as we seek to find the successor to her 15 year old cellphone. You see, we communicate much differently than Mom. When she wants to get in touch that means she wants to TALK to you. That’s right…old-fashioned verbal communication. This morning I have texted with Randy’s family  (pics of The Littles included!) and Beth (from an airplane!), emailed a colleague, Tweeted @ someone and answered a FB message. With all of that I am a comparative Luddite; I don’t Snap, Instagram, or WhatsApp. Mom dials up a call.

What my Mom needs is a phone. A telephone. What she wants is a phone that feels as close to a phone that is wired into the wall next to her fridge. She is emblematic of her generation; a phone call is in itself a compromise, because the person to whom she is speaking isn’t right there with her in the kitchen or on the couch. We want Mom to be available to us and we want her to feel that we are available to her, but what that means is terrifically different to each of us. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to just send her a quick text. It is at the same time the most loving, and yet the hardest thing to do for us to acknowledge our Mom is ready only for a new version of what for us is an old thing, a phone that can make phone calls.

There is nothing wrong with that.

In this day and age how we communicate with someone else is a sign of commonality, but it is also a sign of respect. I text Dan to make sure it’s OK to call for example. My daughters-in-law text me the photos and videos that they Snap to everyone else. My Mom wants to talk. When she has a problem or is in need of some help, being able to reach out and talk makes her more comfortable. My siblings and I so desperately want to believe that Mom is just like us, only now maybe just a little slower around the house. We want that to be more than we allow ourselves to think or say. Mom needs a phone to make phone calls. As hard as it is for us to be here and to think along these lines we need to show that we see her and love her as she is today. We need to help her get that phone.

We need to call her on it for as long as we have her here to call.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo