Sea Change

Interesting phrase, sea change, also rendered as seachange, sea-change and Sea Change. Credited to Shakespeare who used it in The Tempest to describe changes wrought by the sea on a drowned man. Nowadays it's usually used to describe a dramatic change in this, that or the other but it can also refer to a gradual change that eventually produces unexpected results somewhat different than those originally intended. Life's like that, methinks, sayeth the Crank, clearly (hopefully) temporarily deranged by the Shakespeare reference.

I've deployed it for two reasons. Firstly (which ain't Shakespearean but sounds like it) I've never had occasion to use the phrase/word before but I've been waiting for a chance just because it's cool, well, at least I think so. Forgive me, gentlereaders and (eventual) grandstickies and great-grandstickies, if your reaction to the previous statement is one of dubiety (another word, recently discovered, that I've been itching to use and that means exactly what you think it does). I'll stop now.

The other reason is that henceforth from now most of my weekly columns will be addressed directly to my (eventual) grandstickies and great-grandstickies, although I will continue to be putenem out there for the general public. Also, I will continue to speak directly to my gentlereaders and to give voice to my muse, as well as some other individuals that live in my head, via my wildly entertaining and world famous asides.

[Clarification: The previous paragraph has nothing to do with general August Public, the little-known Revolutionary war hero and favorite son of the tiny English hamlet of Putenem-upon-Ditch, his boyhood home before his family emigrated to the American colonies in search of liberty and um, debt relief.]

Now, in light of the fact that three recent columns have been directly addressed to my (eventual) grandstickies and great-grandstickies, one could make a plausible argument this may not qualify as a sea-change. And, after all, the Stickies are mentioned early on in the Read This First Please introduction tab on my website where they, as well as my daughter and son-in-law, are credited as the inspiration for this blog.

[Policy Update: I have decided that it's not pretentious to use the word one rather than the word you occasionally and going forward I'll be using them both. Which one gets chosen will depend on which one sounds or feels right, rather than which one is technically correct. This is a general policy, that sound and feel trumps technically correct, for all of my feeble scribbles. Also, although I am King Crank, and if this country should ever come to its senses I will be the King of America, I will continue to be I, never we, for I am a benevolent tyrant.]

However, seachange works because I confess that the primary reason I've generated a weekly column for almost a year and a half in spite of occasionally not feeling the least bit motivated, and in spite of the fact that the income generated by my efforts is laughable, was the hope that I might break through the babble of billions of bloggers, go viral, make a deal (honey, get the Donald on the phone), and quit my day job.

Still is.

BIG BUT.

It's also true that when I finish the rare column that I'm (well, more or less anyway) happy with I am a very happy camper. It's also true that I enjoy writing enough to keep on with it despite the fact it hasn't yet provided the key to happiness, earned success (1). It's also true that even if I were to drop dead one day soon I would do so content that I had made the effort to pass along some observations and hard learned lessons, however limited in scope and utility, to my beloved Stickies. Even the ones that aren't here yet.

And.

Since I'm technically 63 years old (though just 39 in all the ways that count) and since my sell by date (statistically speaking) is less than 20 years away, and could be tomorrow...

...I shall soldier on (another cool phrase I've always wanted to use) and I've decided that going forward, my column will primarily be a weekly letter to the (eventual) Stickies, that is, the existing Stickies future, mature selves, and their yet to be conceived children --my (eventual) grandstickies, and great-grandstickies. I shall write each column as if it's a letter to be placed in a virtual vault of some sort that will not permit a given column to be read, by them, until 20 years after I've published it to the web.

Pretending to write to/for someone(s) that will not see my shtuff until 20 years from now provides a framework and perspective that I find appealing. Gentlereaders are, of course, are encouraged to not only eavesdrop in the interim but also to share my correspondence with whoever they think might find it interesting.

Finally, some shtuff (there will be more in future columns) about your friendly neighborhood cranks policies and procedures. If you've been here before and/or if you come back. you may have or will notice a general absence of what used to be called profanity. Nowadays, particularly on the web, it's frequently not called anything, it's just how people talk.

I consciously choose to use it sparingly in my writing (more frequently in real life) for two reasons. First, George Carlin was wrong, words are not just words. Context -- who you're trying to communicate with and what you're trying to communicate -- is vitally important. (WARNING:
Run on sentence ahead.) I use the word shtuff (shit + stuff) rather than shit when I'm writing to be (in a lame fashion) funny, to be unique, to try and make a point without offending certain people (but I'm prepared to be offensive if I think it's necessary), and to give the word stuff more power.

Second, when words are just words, powerful words become lame words, beautiful words become ugly words. A delicious salad of words is reduced to the worst salad you ever had in a hospital cafeteria. Like what passes for art in many circles in these strange times, shocking rules, until it doesn't, because once there's nothing left to rebel against, everything is just, well, shit.

Have an OK Day

(1) The Secret of Happiness

The History of the World, Part Eight

Since it's been (accidentally, sorry) awhile since part seven gentlereaders, a quick review would seem to be called for. According to the lopsided way King Crank looks at world history: H. sapiens won the real hunger games, rose to the top of the food chain, and established various and sundry civilizations.

Let's jump in the WAYBAC machine and return to part two.

Next, depending on how you look at it, an awful lot of history happened, or, a few things happened over and over again and once in a great, great while something really cool happened. Kind of like the life of the modern day average Joe/Joan Bagadonuts, but much more violent.

They attacked us or we attacked them in the name of cash, conquest, revenge, God, the gods, hunger, honor, slaves et cetera. Fortunately, God was on our side or it would have been even worse. As Thomas Hobbes pointed out, life is indeed, “...solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  Mr. H. was arguing that this is the natural state of man (he was right) and that’s why we need an all-powerful ruler to keep us on the straight and narrow (he was wrong, but we do need some form of gubmint). That way we can direct our energies to defend our playground and/or slaughtering them instead of each other.  

Once in awhile, peace would break out but Mother Nature provides us with a way to stave off boredom and complacency, natural disasters and disease.

This is how things rolled most days in most places. Why? Well, it’s either because we’re naked apes living in a dangerous world, or, someone screwed up the paradise we were provided with by God and he’s still mad (details depend on which creation myth you subscribe to). It wasn’t all bad though. Once in awhile Joe or Joan B. was fortunate enough to have an actual boring day. Also, as mentioned above, once in a great, great while, something truly cool happened."

Next, we jump ahead to part three.

... . In 1776 the world caught a major break.

In Great Britain's North American colonies a bunch of folks got together and invented the United States of America. In Scotland, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, invented modern economics, and taught the world how free markets would eventually lead to the need for a weight loss industry. These two events occurred while the industrial revolution was picking up steam.  A trifecta!  

And then, everyone lived happily ever after.

The End

Well, not exactly. Naked apes will be naked apes after all. Mother Nature loves all her children equally, from deadly pathogens to would be Mother Theresas. Thomas Hobbes famous observation about the nature of life on Earth -- that it tends to be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short -- continued, and continues, to be true.

For example, the same America that often claims to be the world's oldest democracy (if you go a-googling you will find this factoid disputed by many) didn't get around to outlawing slavery until nearly a hundred years after formally declaring that it was obvious that all men, well, white males anyway, are created equal. It took even longer to acknowledge that the ladies aren't chattel.

Even then, we had to go to war with each other to make it happen. Even then, Jim Crow laws, literally or figuratively, remained in effect for another 100 years. Even now, we still have a handful (relatively speaking) of maroons in this country that think race predetermines an individual's character.

[Gentlereaders, an aside, 'cause that's how I roll. Not so fun fact: According to this PBS website (1) if the American Civil War was fought today and the same percentage of the population (2.5%) were killed, 7,000,000 people would be deleated.]

Even then... (insert your favorite crappy thing that someone, or several someones, did to someone else, or several someone elses in the last couple of hundred years, here).

Now, no matter what you believe, or who you blame, or what you think should be done, life on Earth is, as they say, is what it is -- always has been, and probably always will be. As to potential utopias, or heaven, or advanced civilizations from other planets, etc. -- I have little interest, less knowledge. My focus is on what's best for the most during the blink of an eye we call a lifetime.

Deidre McCloskey figured it out. About two hundred years ago, certain people in certain places discovered that free people + free markets + "Humanomics" (2) = unprecedented prosperity. The modern era was born. The old normal, thousands of years of a handful of kings and clerics in charge and almost everyone else a virtual or actual slave, began to die off.

The American and the Industrial Revolutions, combined with the economic revolution embodied in the concept of free trade will, long after we're all dead, be considered as important as the invention of agriculture.

But I'm not a nationalist, a little nationalism is necessary and healthy, a lot is tacky. I'm a gratitudalist. I believe that in spite of our many flaws and historical sins that the USA is (arguably, and at least for now) about as good as it gets. I'm grateful, as I did nothing to earn this, I just had the dumb luck to be born here.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the prosperity, freedom, and obesity epidemic that we take for granted in the USA, and that has taken hold to one degree or another elsewhere, will last. Some local version of Putin, or one of his Darth Vaderish ilk, might someday manage to take over the country and go all Orwellian on our pampered asses.

We live in gut-wrenching scary times. We live in a nation that has lost its cultural consensus in a world that's never had one. We're awash in information, good and bad. The digital revolutions daily disruptions are as likely to generate high anxiety as high expectations.

H. sapiens are what they are, and though they have, and continue, to evolve, all you and I actually have is this moment, now this one, now this one... Deep breath, savor what you have, stop fussing about what you don't. If your life sucks sweaty socks just now, know that it could be worse and that if you wait it out, it might get better. It always stops raining eventually.

Resolve to be kind. You don't have to like the other kids on the playground but you need to get along with them for everyone to get a chance on the swings.

Have an OK day.

(1) PBS -- The Civil War By the Numbers

(2) Humanomics

Dear (Eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (#3)

Dear (E) G & GG (#3),

As promised, Here is Poppa's take on the recent, unexpected triumph of the Donald.

The Donald won because he's an expert in what I call gut first/brain later. Scott Adams, semi-famous cartoonist, one of my virtual gurus and (like me a perpetual) student of human nature, would say that the Donald grasps that H. Sapiens are meat puppets that react emotionally/instinctively/intuitively to most everything, and then rationalize their behavior afterward.

As Martha Stewart used to say (still says?), it's a good thing, or at least it was. Because...

H. sapiens have spent a lot more time fighting their way to the top of the food chain than they have enjoying the benefits of having won the real hunger games. Visceral reactions are dramatically faster than rational ones. Effective visceral reactions became innate biases because sitting around a cozy fire with the gang and eating -- rather than being eaten -- rocks.


"The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally."
-Salena Zito

The traditional approach for a dude/dudette seeking to be elected/reelected to a position in The Gubmint, or even just the gubmint, has been to tell enough people what they want to hear and then if elected/reelected doing/saying whatever will get 'em reelected to the same or an even better position. There's an entire industry devoted to helping politicians/would be politicians do this.

 BIG BUT.

The Donald, like the other Wizard of Oz, and who may be the best salesman the world has ever seen, understands that the quickest, most effective way to make the sale is by emotional/psychological manipulation. Capture the heart and the customer will invent a justification.

The word manipulation, to me at least, generally has a shady connotation. I use it here in a neutral sort of way. As my late wife, that sadly only one of you will remember, used to say, it's not what you do so much as why you do it. Example: Advertising that guilts you into donating to a worthy, legitimate charity v. advertising that manipulates you into buying a worthless piece of crap.

The customer, in this case, is the American people. The polls tell us that most of us think the country is on the wrong track, and they have for years. In my semi-humble opinion, this is true, because this is the attitude I encounter on a daily basis. What we're fighting over is what path to take and who should be the tour guide.

So, how does a politically (mostly) non-ideological, been there, done that gazillionaire with only one more prize left to win, one more achievement to add to his resume to obtain a sort of virtual/historical immortality become the CEO of the USA?

He turns himself into the political version of a TV wrestling superstar. Most TV wrestling fans over the age of 10 or so, understand it's not real, it's entertainment. They still enjoy it.

Most declared Trumpets understand, to one degree or another, that the Donald deliberately farts in church just to rattle the chains of the fat, smug, complacent church elders who run things primarily for their own benefit. They still enjoy it.

In TV wrestling, or soap operas for that matter, "good" guys persons become "bad" guys persons and back again at the flip of a switch. "Bad" guys persons are often quite popular characters.

America didn't just elect Donald J. Trump president, they elected a character he created, that I call (one of his wives thought it up) the Donald.

The Donald is what you get when the hyper-partisans of the left and right have managed to divide the nation into two roughly equal teams of bitter rivals.

The Donald is what you get when one out of every 15 jobs is a government job and the folks who have given up on finding a job aren't counted as part of the official unemployment rate. The Donald is what you get when millions of people who want full-time work can't get it.

The Donald is what you get when his opponent is a woman whose platform was "I'm a woman, and it's my turn, and I'm gonna' give you all sorts of free shtuff."

The Donald -- with his ever-shifting positions, the occasional lies, the hyperbole, the venom, the midnight tweeting -- is what you get when things are so screwed up America is prepared to take a chance on choosing a president based on the good show he put on.

For now, all we can do is wait and hope, because no one is sure exactly what he's going to do. In the meantime, we get to enjoy watching him torment the people that still take the bad guy/crazy person persona literally. I was one, I admit, for a minute or two.

I decided, no hoped, that it was a game prior to the election. But for the record, I didn't vote for him (or her), so if it turns out he is the Hitler of the new millennium, don't blame me.

Have an OK day.