The History of the World (Part Two)

  The History of the World

(The Flyoverland Crank Version)

Part Two

In our last episode, we covered the period of time stretching from the Big Bang (Bigus Bangus) to the invention of agriculture (the Burgeriniumbun Finalae era) to Mesopotamia, where history really got cooking.

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. For example, say King Bob is sitting in the privy waiting for nature to take it’s course and his mind starts to wander because the only copy of The Dark Ages Digest at hand is more than a year old. He’s been giving a lot of thought to attacking a kingdom just down the road because he’s got his fair share of bloodthirsty warriors and greedy nobles to keep happy and if he doesn’t keep them busy they may turn on him or each other for entertainment and booty.

He’s been through that before and knows that even if he and his allies triumph, invariably lots of innocent serfs, peasants and slaves are slaughtered. Collateral damage, sure. But since they're the ones that do all the heavy lifting and since most of the population live out their lives at this level and die by the time they’re 30, you need to be blessed with a good inventory to dodge some significant downsides. He’s still short of  virtual slaves, actual slaves and cash from last season, not one of his better ones, and short of potential solutions as well. Things are so bad he’s considering hiring one of those expensive consultants his buddy King Steve favors. He’s heard good things about  a firm called DPD, Diabolical Plots by the Dozen, founded incidentally, by a distant ancestor of Vladimir Putin.

His ruminations are interrupted by a hysterical minion pounding on the door and screaming, “Your majesty, your majesty there are reports of plague (or flood, or fire, or hairy weather, or insects, or blight, or famine, etc.) in the kingdom!” This solves the problem, short term at least. Now, everyone's job one becomes survival. Assuming this isn’t an apocalyptical level crisis and assuming that King Bob is one of the survivors, he can deal with his other problem later.

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.

Somebody came up with the wheel, someone perfected bronze, then iron came along, the printing press was invented, Mr. and Mrs. Vermeer had a baby - that sort of thing. Being the clever creatures that we are we even came up with all sorts of ways to use these breakthroughs for things other than killing each other. If you’re religious, an entity or their messenger(s) may have stopped by to light the path to paradise. This phenomenon continues apace, right up to this very moment. These days the entities and/or their messengers may be politicians, pundits, environmentalists, etc. The field has broadened considerably. Being a much more sophisticated creature than our ancestors, we may even seek to strive for seemingly unrelated utopian goals via the same person or movement. We are the ones we have been waiting for! Indeed.

And then, in 1776, the planet Earth finally caught a break.

To be continued...

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016

If you access my column via my website, you can like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop, tablet, and desktop.    

       

Reading My Columns Will Extend Your Life (Source: Yale University)

It's official, researchers at Yale University have determined that people who spend at least a half hour per day reading my column (oh, and other stuff) will live longer.

Now, if you were to read my stuff for at least a half hour per day you would run out of fresh material fairly quickly since I've only been at this for a little better than a year. However, there's no need to read my stuff over and over again, anxiously waiting for each new weekly column to be published. Or, even to hope that I write another looong essay, or produce some new chapters for my great not too shabby American novel.

By the way, the looong essay, the introduction and first three chapters of my novel, as well as other material, are all available at The Flyoverland Crank (.com). While you're probably reading this via my website, I have readers that access my weekly column by other methods -- so no smarty-pants, I'm not losing it.

[What I am doing is engaging in some shameless self-promotion. And, making history, because I've never included a link within the text of one of my columns. And, I ask you, how often are you going to read something on the web that links to itself? I think it's cool -- I apologize if you don't. And, it's test of a technical question I have, I'll spare you the details. And, at the very least, you gotta admit, considering all that this one paragraph accomplishes, that I'm doing my part to combat the problem of stagnating American productivity. And, you may not have even been aware of the fact that stagnating American productivity is a thing, but now you are, which makes me that much more productive. I'll stop now.]

Where was I, oh, fortunately for you, there are several other people loose in the world that write on a fairly regular basis. Also, there's a bunch of dead people that no longer write, but who wrote stuff going back, oh, I don't know how long.

It gets better. People who read actual books, for at least 3.5 hours per week live, on average, almost two full years longer than those who don't. The bad news is that the number of people that do read actual books is in decline. The good news is that the non-readers now have a new reason/motivation to start reading. (396)

The best news is that those of us who are voracious readers, regardless of what we're into, have another reason to feel smugly superior to non-readers, although I don't encourage this, at least not officially. We are polarized/fragmented/factionalized enough. We readers should be humbly smug, for there are hoopleheads even in our ranks. Hoopleheads are everywhere, and we humblysmugs, like everyone else, must be forever vigilant. (472)

[Wait a minute sez Dana, my imaginary gentlereader, who just woke up from a nap (Marie-Louise is visiting friends in Quebec), the Yale researchers studied readers in general, and this had nothing to do with you in particular. You can't go around...]

Sure I can. My very first sentence ("oh, and other stuff") gives away the humbug (see Barnum, P.T.), my ethics are sound. There is no shortage of popular and mainstream websites, including those of what passes for the news media these days, that do the same thing. And the Drudge Report, for example, has refined this particular humbug to an art form, and is wildly successful.

I'd like to be widely successful, but the important thing is that your dilettante about town has just provided you with yet more proof that we live in the Dizzinformation Age. (Sheesh, can I get any more productive?)

I realize that I risk alienating at least some of my gentlereaders due to my oft-repeated references to a phenomenon that I've named the Dizzinformation Age, but I'm on a mission from God (see Blues, Elwood). Dizzinformation Syndrome (DS): dizzy from too much information -- correct, incorrect, or worst of all, contradictory. Also, I must add, deceptive. Deliberately twisting the data in question to deceive the reader (for a humbug, maliciously, or something in between) and/or to secure additional clicks. (686)

Which brings us The Hilliam, The Donald, Mr. Obama, and sadly, the FBI, all of whom are
masters of dizzinformation.

[What!]

Patience. I began this piece by deliberately positing some dizzinformation. The Hilliam have become rich and successful by combining a lawyer's sensibility with masterful dizzinformation and have been refining their techniques for decades. Here's a clip from a mind movie, or at least an old fashion radio drama for ya'. From, "Bill and Hill Have 'The Talk' with Chelsey."

Bill (Southern drawl with a touch of vocal fry) -  "The most important element of the game is that no matter how sleazy the behavior, your actions must be technically legal. When I slipped up it cost me mah law license. Fortunately, it didn't even slow us down (chuckles). But, you gotta' be careful if ya' wanna stay out jail, baby."

Hillary (Accent depends on current geographical location, always stop just short of this side of shrill/harpy)  "Second, relentless dizzinformation. Spin and flip-flop. Try to shade the truth rather than lie outright. Contradict past statements and/or behavior. Stick to the current talking points and order your posse to do the same. Always remember the news media mostly tilts in our direction and will usually spin things our way, but if you go too far they might turn on you. It's not because they're about to let truth or objectivity get in the way of pushing their agenda. This even applies to their mortal enemy, The Trump Network, otherwise known as Fox News. Infotainment rules -- ratings, circulation, and profits -- rule. So don't take it personally sweetie.

The bottom line is, you want to drown the public in contradictory info; this helps you to speak directly to their emotions and cognitive biases and bypass their intellects, honey."

I'm sure you can imagine The Donald having a similar conversation with his kids. Even the FBI, who's sorry about all that character assassination, and the other shady sh... , uh shtuff that they used to dabble in (it was J. Edgar's fault) and would like us to believe that they now embody the Efrem Zimbalist Jr. version of federal law enforcement play the Dizzinformation card. Which is why they released the heavily redacted notes of their recent interview of The Hilliam on a Friday afternoon. At three o'clock. As the nation was trying to sneak out of work early. For the Labor Day holiday weekend. (1024)

[Note: The numbers in parentheses at the ends of some of the above paragraphs are word totals (approximate) that are there to demonstrate to potential syndicators/publishers that I'm aware that I'm a bit windy and that I know they mostly prefer shorter columns to accommodate H. Sapiens rapidly declining attention spans, my gentlereaders excepted. I'd much prefer for my shtuff to be the sort of thing that's read on a lazy week-END (pronounce with a British accent). However, I can be bought. 

Please note that this column could end at any of these demarcated points and still make sense.]

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016

If you access my column via my website, you can like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop, tablet, and desktop.    

The History of the World (Part One)

The History of the World
(The Flyoverland Crank Version)
Part One

This is the first chapter of a multi-part series that I will publish every other week or so, starting this week

The universe we inhabit appeared 13.82 billion years ago on a Tuesday. A single, unimaginably dense point began expanding and a lot of complex stuff happened and continues to happen. Now, the most interesting thing that resulted, from an Earthlings perspective, is that 4.54 billion years ago, the Earth appeared. The Earth is the result of some of the complex stuff that happened and continues to happen. At some point this complex stuff produced man.

Or… to one degree or another, everything mentioned in the preceding paragraph, as well as what follows, happened because God decided when and if it should be so. The details depend on your personal belief. I know some very nice, perfectly normal people that believe what I consider to be some very strange things (of course I’m not talking about your beliefs). I freely concede that one of them may turn out to be right and that I may be wrong. I’m wrong with disturbing regularity so I try to keep an open mind. I highly recommend this approach as I’ve found it to be the only effective defense against blind panic when a high-velocity radioactive fact comes crashing through the roof of my thought structure like a meteorite, and lands in the chair I just got out of to answer the phone. The meteorite analogy is a paraphrase of a bit of a Marc Cohn song, “Live Out the String.”  

Regardless, man gradually learned to use tools. Also fire: For warmth, light, and most importantly (in my semi-humble opinion) cooking. Personally, although I’m an enthusiastic carnivore, I’ve never cared for the taste of raw meat. Along the way the attributes and technology that distinguish us from the other animals on the planet such as language, art, religion, the wheel, etc. developed.

Agriculture came along roughly 12,000 years ago and changed everything.

Our ancestors had been hunters/gatherers for eons. Since grocery stores hadn’t been invented yet everyone had the same job -- killing something or harvesting something that nature had randomly produced -- to keep from starving to death. Now, on a good day, this wasn’t a half bad way to make a living. If you, or you and the gang (odds are you belonged to some sort of tribe or odds are you would be dead) managed to find something to kill and eat without getting killed and eaten in the process and/or stumbled onto an apple tree full of ripe apples early in day, why, you could go home early!  Assuming you had found enough food you were free for the rest of the day. Of course, this could be quite boring because there wasn’t a lot to do since they had neither cable or computers, not even smartphones. This was why sex was invented. I refer to sex as practiced by homo sapiens, which tends to be a somewhat frequent and obsessive activity as compared to most other animals.

Anyway, various someone's at various locations gradually figured out how to plant and nurture crops as well as domesticate animals. While this required a lot more work than hunting and gathering it was a somewhat more reliable way to keep from starving to death or from becoming some other species lunch. Also, there are a few scientists, and some evidence, that suggest getting high was a significant motivation as well. Turning grains into beer is easier than turning them into food, and beer was just as popular then as it is now, even without clever commercials -- please drink responsibly. Eventually, we got good enough at this agriculture thing to produce more food than was absolutely needed for the gang to just scrape by. This made it possible to settle down instead of wandering all over the place looking for enough calories to keep body and soul together.

Man, by nature and necessity, is a social animal. It takes quite a few years before we reach maturity so we’re dependent on our parents ( a mom and a dad if we’re lucky) much longer than the average creature. Also, survival is considerably easier and our lives are  potentially much more pleasant when we work together. For example, everyone knows that bringing down a wooly mammoth with the tribes' help is much easier and more efficient than trying to do it yourself. That’s why most people naturally prefer to hang out or at least affiliate with a clique of some sort, it’s a  survival mechanism. Getting along with the inhabitants of the other huts on the block not only promotes regular meals and security, it enables you to get your fair share of woolyburgers without having to slay the neighbors.

Social cohesion increased the likelihood, and quality of, survival. Having to share the playground with the other kids is where morality (the rules) come from. Please see, The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt.

And somebody came up with monogamy. I’m guessing it was ancient history's version of Dear Abby. Under this system, everyone got to have sex, not just the alpha males and their harems. If all the dudes could count on access to, um, companionship, it made the cooperation needed for the hunt less prone to social drama. The dudettes could count on access to, um, companionship, and protection for the kids. This arrangement was/is disproportionately beneficial for dudes. Dudes need their significant dudette to be, among other things, a good mom, a good wife, and often as not, willing and able to work outside the home. This is necessary to counter a given dude's natural tendency to rapidly devolve into a naked ape when left to his own devices.      

   

We figured all this out long before agriculture made villages not only possible but necessary and humans began clawing their way to the top of the food chain (the original corporate ladder). When we reached the point where we could produce more food than we needed it was only natural that folks began to specialize. Most remained farmers, but surplus food made it possible for some people that had abilities that benefited the community to do their thing without having to farm. A relatively reliable supply of food and water (and/or beer) leads to increased populations. If enough people can produce enough food to keep themselves alive and have enough left over to feed specialists such as craftspersons, cops, kings etc. -- well, before you know it, a village becomes a town becomes a city becomes a civilization. The rest is history. History began in Mesopotamia, an area that corresponds roughly to greater modern day Iraq, that fertile crescent thing that gets so much press. Ain’t that ironical in light of recent events. This happened about 3,500 BCE. To be continued.

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016

If you access my column via my website, you can like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop, tablet, and desktop.    

EpiPens

I was, briefly, delighted when the current kerfuffle concerning EpiPens broke out last week.

Red meat for the infotainment industry! Something they would sink their teeth into because EpiPens are ubiquitous, necessary, life-saving devices. They are carried in the backpacks of innocent school children (and the purse of my adult daughter) with certain allergies/conditions to keep them from dying! It's the duty of the infotainment industry to make the public at large aware that yet another greedy, evil, tax dodging corporation run by an evil, greedy, tax dodging CEO is ripping us off!

Because, it's the infotainment industry's (sometimes quaintly called the news media) job, nay duty, to keep the public informed via impartial and professional reportage!

In theory.

Of course, a hot story that affects lots of people means lots of ears and eyeballs. Which means higher ratings. Which is the name of the game. Which is the story behind the story. Which is the story behind many stories.

Because, the more ears and eyeballs, the more money that can be made fueling the 20 or so minutes of advertising in every hour of televised infotainment. Or the more money that can be made by the ever more aggressive methods used to advertise on the web. My current personal favorite shtick is when websites run full blown audio and visual commercials that automatically pop up and that, often as not, require me to go scrolling around to locate, and click to shut down -- if I can find the right place to click. One false move and another tab will open devoted to hyping the product I'm trying to avoid.

[Dana and Marie-Louise have appeared at their assigned shoulders. Dana is bitching about what any of this has to do with EpiPens. Marie-Louise is scratching my back and almost purring. She's proud that although this week's column was already written and ready to go I just got out of a warm comfortable bed and am writing a different one at 3 a.m., Saturday morning. She attributes this to her power as my muse.

Which, is partially true, but the fact that my swollen prostate and aging bladder keep odd hours is a significant factor as well. And now, unable to go back to sleep, well, here we are.]

I was briefly delighted because it was my hope that lots of EpiPen stories might mean a lot less The Donald v. The Hilliam stories. It did  -- for about a half of a New York minute. Before the week was out, The Hilliam attempted to fold it into her campaign by calling for The Gubmint to investigate.

The endless campaign is approaching its current climax, the climax occurs every other year on federal election day and then the cycle starts all over again -- the day after federal election day. Which means, in presidential elections, that one of the two people that have willingly endured at least (usually more) two years of climbing up a steep, jagged mountain, on their knees so they can win one of the most stressful jobs on Earth, will win the ultimate merit badge. Which should, make you think twice about what sort of person would put themselves through such a thing, and then you should vote for Gary Johnson, the real anti-establishment candidate, and supporter of congressional term limits.

Which means, we've reached that point in the process when both candidates spend most of their time playing a spirited game of You suck sweaty socks! No, you suck sweaty socks!

[You suck sweaty socks! exclaims Dana, what's your point! Marie-Louise is smiling, she can see where this is going. Scratch, scratch.]

Where I'm going with all this is that in light of the above, consider the following.

We rely on the infotainment industry to keep us informed. However, many claim the media overall is biased, and oversimplifies, for reasons ranging from laziness to being primarily profit-oriented (less text, more ads) to thinking the public is stupid. How's a person with a life go about finding out whether we can rely on them or not? Well, it's simple actually (you're welcome, GRIN).

Bookmark both the Fox news website and USA Today's website with your browser of choice. Whenever the mood strikes check one, read only the major headlines, and then do the same thing on the other. This will only take a sec'. You'll be amazed.

Obviously important information, particularly important info about The Gubmint, The Hilliam and/or The Donald for example, will turn up on one site, but be completely missing on the other. If you want to go into the weeds a bit more, read an article about the same subject on each site. It doesn't take long, they're deliberately dumbed down so you don't have to think any more than necessary and take up as little of your time as possible. They'd rather you clicked on an ad, or clickbait. Once again, you'll be amazed.

As to EpiPens specifically, consider this. Most coverage, regardless of source, rarely ventures beyond the familiar evil CEO/drug company taking advantage of a monopoly version of events. Even if they do, the headline and the first few paragraphs will probably take that tone. And in this case at least, they're more or less right, although personally I think sleazy is probably a more accurate adjective than evil. The story will probably be made into a movie eventually, one that's very loosely based on reality, stars lots of pretty people with perfect teeth, and the male and female lead will fornicate within the first ten minutes. Why mess with a winning formula?

However, you're much less likely to hear that the incompetence of the FDA, i.e. The Gubmint is the reason one company was able to capture, and continues to maintain, a monopoly. Google that and see what pops up.

In the meantime, various congresspersons, as well as senators and senatorettes (The Gubmint) are vowing to hold hearings to determine how the FDA (The Gubmint) that was established by -- The Gubmint, and is regulated by --The Gubmint, could let this happen. Fear not, The Gubmint will thoroughly investigate The Gubmint and find out how this evil sleazy company has been getting away with this, for years.

A big part of the answer is the screwed up health care system, the one The Gubmint fixed a few years back, the one that's about to launch some significant rate increases. But when it does, The Gubmint will once again investigate itself and straighten everything out.

[Aside: Why do we hate CEOs (saints or sinners) who get paid a ton of money for doing a job most sane people can't/wouldn't want to do but not professional football players (too many sinners, not enough saints) who get paid a ton of money to play a game? Just askin'.]

I gotta' get some sleep.

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016

If you access my column via my website, you can like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop, tablet, and desktop.    

The Pursuit of Contentment (Again)

Someone recently pointed out to me that I've been writing these columns for just over a year now. I missed my first anniversary as a wannabe professional writer. This provoked two reactions.

First, I was kind of bummed. I've been at this for over a year without somehow going viral or someone stepping up and offering to pay me to write? Sheesh. Sure, hundreds of thousands of people, millions for all I know, have the same goal, but I thought God was on my side. 

On the other hand, I'm proud of the fact that I've published a new column every week, as I set out to do. 

If I drop dead as I'm writing this I will have managed to leave a batch of love letters for the Stickies and my daughter and son-in-law, which are what my feeble scribbles actually are. I feel like I've followed through on a New Year's resolution for the first time in my life.

The Pursuit of Contentment, my first column, remains, as far as I can tell, one of my most frequently accessed columns. But the statistics and technical tools helpfully provided by Google (the force behind Blogger which is the force behind my columns) often as not leave me baffled. 

For example, I just managed to accidentally delete the original column, and I have no idea how I did it, or where it went. It was my intention to re-publish my first and most popular (at least I think it is) column so far to celebrate my first anniversary and make it available for anyone not aware of it. 

Fortunately, I just happened to have a copy of the original stored offline, which is amazing since I stuff almost everything into the cloud. 

Anyway, for the record, The Pursuit of Contentment, my very first column, was published on 7.23.15. However, if you go looking, the first column you will find is Republicrats v. Depublicans, 7.29.15, because of my technical incompetence I'm technically challenged. Happy anniversary to me!

When I become king I'm going to order that the phrase, "...the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence be replaced with, "...the pursuit of Contentment."

As to precisely what Mr. Jefferson meant by the original phrase, well, that depends on which scholarly interpretation you choose to accept. I'm not a scholar, nor do I play one on TV. I've conducted a (brief) in-depth study and the result was a mild headache and an inexplicable desire to watch reality show marathons.

Since I plan to alter one of the nation's most sacred and fundamental founding documents once I become the King, I must explain the logic at work in this fantasy.

Granted, my critics may claim that any logic promulgated by a man that thinks he should be the king of America should be dismissed as pretzel logic. Two quick points. First, I promise to be a benevolent tyrant. Also, note the fact that I refer to myself as I, not we, a clear demonstration of my sincerity.

To me, and I suspect I'm not alone, the right to pursue happiness means that we — Americans (well, everyone actually), not my would-be royal personage — have the right to choose whatever course of action that we find agreeable, within certain limits, that we feel (hope) will make us happy.

I use the phrase within certain limits because most of us semi-rational adults, though unfortunately not all, understand that we're not the king/queen of, or even the only kid on, the playground. This is important. We must share the swings, sliding board, etc. with others.

However, there's a problem. It's human nature to believe that once a certain goal or desire is realized, we will, at long last, be happy. "Once I graduate, turn 16, 18, 21 or 65, get the job, have sex, win the lottery, retire or _____, I WILL BE HAPPY!" and we will — until we're not.

This tendency is amplified by a consumer culture that bombards us with a firestorm of advertising promising happiness will at long last arrive, via UPS, in 3 to 5 business days. Feelings, like coins, flip easily.

Contentment is also a feeling, of course, but I use it here in a philosophic sense, as a way of looking at things and a strategery for getting through the day. I wish to change a common noun to a proper noun, kings can do stuff like that. Full disclosure: I freely admit that what follows is merely my personal, highly condensed take on a particular aspect of Stoicism, a philosophy that's been with us for over 2,000 years.

Also, I must acknowledge my debt to a book you should read called, "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" by William B. Irvine. And, to my late wife, Ronbo, who always insisted on looking on the bright side... which sometimes pissed me off (GRIN).


It could always be worse, much worse.

This is the central tenet of King Crank's Philosophy of Contentment. Be thou a believer (in God, a God, or the Gods), an atheist, an agnostic, or _______, the fact remains that if you choose to keep showing up you're going to occasionally experience happiness.

You will also occasionally get caught in a crap storm. Mostly, you will just be doing what needs to be done to keep body and soul together. This is often boring, which may lead us to pursue happiness and explains why it's relatively easy to sell us lottery tickets, politicians, and beauty aids.

How do I maintain my contentment buzz in the midst of a crap storm? Reminding myself that it could be worse fosters a sense of gratitude. Gratitude is important because while our wants are seemingly limitless, what we are given is not.

If you know any recovered drunks or druggies, ask them to explain the phrase, "attitude of gratitude." Being grateful for what I have serves to curb my longing for what I don't. I still want stuff, but I seek Contentment in what I do have today, not what I might have tomorrow.

When I go out to eat I sometimes find myself wishing I could afford a better restaurant than one where the decor includes much in the way of brightly colored petroleum byproducts. Of course, I'm fortunate to be able to eat out at all, or even to count on regular meals since many Earthlings can't.

And Wendy's is waaay better than having to sharpen my spear, round up the gang, and engage in mortal combat with a wooly mammoth.

Have an OK day.

The Importance of Things We Take For Granted, a Tribute to Andy Rooney

I wish to salute the 1,001 conveniences of modern life that we take for granted. There's a vast range of various variables concerning the size/significance/importance/etc of these things, and I could live, no, survive (there's a difference), without many of them, but all are important to one degree or another or they wouldn't exist.

Dr. Deirdre McCloskey, the subject of a recent post, would call them market-tested betterments. They exist because someone had an idea, and multiple someones found the implementation of that idea useful.

Paper towels, or rather a lack thereof, is the genesis of this column. I live in the attic of the large house that me and my freakishly large household lease from our tight fisted but blessedly mostly absentee landlord. It's quite pleasant, as far as starving artists garrets go. It's a finished attic and my hunger pangs will be alleviated shortly via my portable refrigerator and my microkiller. Incidentally, my late wife called call microwave ovens microkillers, for no reason other than it made us both smile and just sounded right. It still works for me. Miss ya' babe.

However, I'm out of paper towels, which I discovered yesterday, much to my horror, when I was doing a bit of cleaning. This means that I'll have to use two paper plates instead of one since I don't have a paper towel to place betwixt the pre-cooked snausage (please refer to microkiller justification above) patties I'm rapidly becoming obsessed about (I told you I was hungry) and the aforementioned paper plate. See, without a paper towel to serve as a pork grease absorber ("pork fat rules!") a second paper plate will be needed to prevent pork grease from leaching through and leaving a spot on my desk, which apropos of nothing, is actually a high-quality, six foot long (30" wide) utility table. Well, it's apropos to me, I like a large desk/workspace.

[Marie-Louise and Dana, are glancing at each other, and me, nervously, as if to say, no, you ask him if he's having a breakdown of some sort.]

Lest you think I'm having some sort of breakdown, fear not. I'm merely setting the stage for what follows.

[Dana heaves a sigh of relief; Marie-Louise smiles and administers a brief back scratch of encouragement.]

See, everything mentioned above, except the utility table that I use for a desk, are relatively recent inventions. All of them exist in the background of my life, I take them for granted and give them very little thought except for when they stop working (or need cleaning). I'm a firm believer in, and derive much enjoyment from, cleanliness in general. However, I don't enjoy having to do the work necessary to effect a clean environment.

I suspect this is genetic. For those of you that don't know, or may have forgotten, I am descended from a very old European aristocratic family. By the time I came along, years of deep dissipation had caught up with them and when I was kidnapped by gypsies my family refused to pay the ransom (it's complicated). This led to a series of events that culminated in my "father" winning me in a poker game at the Gem Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota.

I've always felt that I was destined to have a small, devoted coterie of servants (to whom I would be exceptionally kind) to deal with all the daily humdrumery. I've also assumed that at some point I would be independently, but not embarrassingly, wealthy and would live the life of a mildly dissipated, but nevertheless enlightened, dilettante. I'm still cautiously optimistic but I'm 62.75 years old chronologically speaking (39 spiritually) which means I only have 38.25 years left.

At this point, I'd settle for enough dough to take the Stickies to Disney World. But none of this has anything to do with the Importance of Things We Take For Granted so I better move on. Dana and Marie-Louise are starting to look jumpy again.

I go to great lengths to use paper towels responsibly. Primarily because I'm cheap relatively poor frugal. Also, for environmental reasons, though I must admit that while I suspect paper towels degrade quickly and efficiently and constitute no threat to mother Earth, I don't actually know. Better safe than sorry.

But there it sits (I've secured a fresh roll.) A pristine, white, sanitary sentinel. While I'm an enthusiastic user of rags, because I'm cheap relatively poor frugal, but sometimes only a paper towel will do. When certain things need cleaning, I must have paper towels.

Stoicism...

[What!]

Bear with me.

Stoicism, I refer to the now mostly ignored philosophy (not an attitude) that teaches that the remedy for longing for stuff we don't, or can't have, is to be aware of the stuff we do have and contemplate how we would feel if we were to lose it. Paper towels for example. Or computers.

I have lived without both paper towels and computers. I need to check in with my older sibs for verification but I don't remember having paper towels in our house when I was a kid. I do remember being amused when my roommate (I was about 25 at the time) came home with not only paper towels but with a paper towel holder/rack/dispenser as well (which was installed with limited success so we stopped using it eventually and just left a roll sitting on the kitchen counter).

I was amused because paper towels seemed like a waste of our limited resources, and besides, that's what worshrags were for (see ubiquitous My Pillow commercial wherein the "inventure" of the My Pillow brags about it being machine worshable). However, over the years I've developed a deep and lasting affection for paper towels. Oh, I also have a deep and lasting affection for my My Pillow.

And computers. I lived without a personal computer for more than half my life and I'm so old I personally know people that don't use one, don't even own a cell phone. I currently don't own a cell phone, but for the record, I was an early adopter and had given up my landline very early on just to see if I could, and I did. But now I hate them, cell phones I mean, but there's no point in getting into that just now, so I won't.

I love my computer, it's a current events junkies/music lovers/dilettantes delight. "Need input!" And unlike a cell phone, If I choose to ignore it occasionally to read a real book or play around with my keyboard (as in music, as in piano, not the device that I'm typing this on), that I'm going to someday actually learn how to play, when I'm out and about in the world no one will approach me, wild-eyed and salivating, demanding to know, "when was the last time you checked your phone! I left you a gazillion messages!" Sorry, I said I wasn't going to go into that.

But the other day Mark's Toy IV, my current computer, for some mysterious reason wouldn't let me fire up Chrome, my window on the world, my access to all the stuff that I keep in the cloud -- until I rebooted, which fixed everything. Phew! Which set me to thinking about Stoicism and how appreciating what you have is much better than bitching about what you don't.

Have you ever wondered why phew starts with the letter p? I miss you, Andy Rooney.

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016

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The Secret of Life

The secret of life is that so-called real life is just high school with money. Once you embrace this notion, much becomes clear.

When I was in school, I noticed a phenomenon that has not changed. Much has changed since I graduated from high school in 1971 and the subsequent, but unrelated, beginning of the collapse of Western Civilization in 1972. (1972 was the year disco songs started showing up on the charts). I'm certain it hasn't changed because I have several hundred grandchildren, all children of the new millennium, all of whom I monitor closely.

[Aside: I help to support this sticky syndicate of savages in various ways for various reasons. I've been unusually lucky in that all of them, without exception, are fundamentally kind. Thanks to good parenting they're all well aware that while it's sometimes difficult to discern the straight and narrow path, it does exist, and should be followed if at all possible. I believe that the future will benefit from the fact they're in the world. 

Also, I'm reasonably confident that if I help them out as much as I can now, they'll make sure a certain old crank will never starve, or go without internet access, even if it's just from guilt.]

Where was I? Oh, yeah. As a young callowyute, I found it interesting that kids of only slightly different ages were often radically different creatures. Grade levels served as a reliable index. Every September, when I returned to school after another summer of back-breaking work in our family steel mill that was located in the Sou-side-a-Pittsburgh, it was the same.

Most of the kids that were one grade level behind me, the one that I had been in three months previously, were childish and dorky. Most of the kids that were one grade ahead, who were in the grade I was now in, just three months ago, were cooler than me and seemed to know something I didn't know.

[Begged question: Why is the American school calendar still built around an agrarian economy that no longer exists?]

As a callowyute, I was taught that at some point this process would end; that I would be a grup. All that was necessary after that was a slow but steady accumulation of skills and wisdom which I would pass on to the callowyutes in my life. Of course, I wouldn't be like most grups, I'd still be cool. I'd never wear socks with sandals. I'd open a vein rather than wear an all-polyester outfit that included a white patent leather belt and shoes (and sandals with socks). I'd only drive cool cars. Etc.

[Legally speaking, in the US at least, we're adults, or at least callowyutes with privileges, at the age of 16, 18 or 21, depending on the subject at hand and/or the location. Science tells us that H. sapiens are not fully mature until roughly the age of 25. This explains a lot. I find it interesting that car insurance companies figured this out before I was born based strictly on statistics. No theories, opinions, or legal judgments were needed or called for. The careful collection and verification of the facts was all that was needed. Life as it is, not as we would like it to be. We need more of that.]

Once we finally fully mature we spend the rest of our lives waiting for the next dramatic step -- that day we will wake up filled with wisdom and certainty -- which never actually happens. We never graduate. The rate of change slows down, the lines blur, the average reasonably well-adjusted 40-year-old will find the average reasonably well-adjusted 30-year-old lacking, in specific as well as vague ways.

Most will gradually/slowly/painfully get better at impulse control and learning to share the playground with others, perhaps even pick up a bit of wisdom here and there. Many will not. We will start out confident that we won't be like our parents; that our lives will be _______, _______, and _______! Then our lives will mostly just happen to us.

You're probably in better shape than me. I'm almost 63 years old and over think everything but in my heart of hearts, I'm the same horny, insecure callowyute destined to be a rockstar and enlightened Taoist master that I was in high school -- just less so (thank God).

We will do our best to keep the boat in the middle of the stream and going in the right direction. For a tiny minority, this will be easy, not so much for most. Some will win, some will lose, most will tie.

We will do the job, take care of the kids and the parents that are morphing back into kids, keep the car running, etc. Since it's relatively easy to fool most callowyutes/ourselves/other grups, we will all participate in a lie agreed upon (HT: David Milch). We'll all pretend to be well-adjusted grups when in reality we're just high functioning high school kids.

Have an OK day.


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©2017 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

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