The answer is "no"...I, therefore, am going anyway.
---Admiral James T. Kirk, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
My views about assorted topics that interest me
The answer is "no"...I, therefore, am going anyway.
---Admiral James T. Kirk, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
The past few weeks I've been exploring podcasts and videos...Timothy Ferriss has a podcast, as well as a best-selling book titled The 4-Hour Workweek. In it he makes the claim...backed up by his own recounted experiences...that people don't need to limit their lives to the ordinary, humdrum routines of nine-to-five jobs or careers that spill over into their private lives with homework, emails and the like. No, it's possible to fashion their own lifestyles, and to his credit, Ferris doesn't just leave it there with a lot of vague, positive exhortation: he gets down to the nitty-gritty of the self-liberation process, spelling it all out step-by-step. The dude is obviously super-intelligent...I've heard his podcast as well, and sometimes I felt while reading this book that his message was for someone with mental faculties far beyond my own. Part of the book's premise is to convince the boss that working remotely (for me at least) is more productive than working on-site, allowing for my freedom of movement and even extended travel abroad. Another part is how to delegate my remaining work to others while I soak up the sun in some exotic dream place or climb mountains or whatever suits my fancy. While I applaud Ferris' attention to detail in explaining how this can be accomplished, I do have a problem with his sales pitch for this book. Back in the 1990s I experienced a similar argument from an Amway meeting I was invited to attend. The idea then was that all you need to do is get enough hard-working folks "under" you and then you'll be freed to go ice-fishing in Canada or do whatever you want. I even heard a coworker tout the company as an alternative to the "dead-end" job we were working. I think there is a personality type out there, a restless soul who is prone to travel addiction and sees hopping on planes to this place or that as an absolute necessity when they want to appraise the quality of their own lives. The notion of tending to a steady job, being good at it, and more or less staying in one locale while occasionally traveling to fun spots is, to them, a kind of surrender...I, on the other hand, don't feel the need to follow suit. The 4-Hour Workweek encourages deception on the job in that the employee has to convince their boss that their performance in person is markedly worse than when they are away from the office...that, to me is unethical. There's also another problem: like in the classic Broadway show and movie titled You Can't Take It with You, everybody in the featured Vanderhof family lives in their roomy house doing whatever they want...but they still depend on the paid, structured labor of others, including their own housekeepers. When Mr. Ferriss is visiting all his exotic places, I'm sure that he is constantly around others engaged in their employment which support his adopted lifestyle...does he think they're all losers in dead-end jobs? I tend to see all this in a more universalist light, believing that while it's good to improve your living conditions...including allowing for more travel and fun...life in all its different levels of perception, struggle, and relationships is much more complex and interesting than the way this book's author presents it, even if he is one bigshot smartass son-of-a-gun...
Carrie, from 1974, was Stephen King's first published novel, paving the way to his close identification with the horror genre in fiction. I first read it before 2007 when I began this blog...hence, no review until today, after I have just reread it. It's not my favorite King book by a longshot, but it does touch upon a theme that the author and I both seem to have sensitivity toward: teenage bullying and the often-indifferent attitude that adults witnessing it take, as if the victim were the culprit, not the aggressor. Carrie White, the title character, is a shy girl, dominated by her nearly insane religiously fanatical mother as she unsuccessfully tries to socially fit in her high school, in the small fictional Maine town of Chamberlain. Susan Snell sympathizes with Carrie and asks her own boyfriend Tommie to ask Carrie to the senior prom. But other classmates, bent on revenge for their punishment after mocking Carrie's onset of menstruation in the girls' shower...a very traumatic event for her...have their own ideas concerning Carrie for the prom. What results is very definitely horror, with telekinesis (the ability to move objects with one's mind) a major factor. The 1976 Carrie movie starring Sissy Spacek as Carrie presents the narrative chronologically, but the book treats the events from a future date looking back, as an assemblage of investigative articles and analyses...King then inserts key narrative passages in between these to present an interesting collage where the reader knows what ultimately happens early on while the movie viewer experiences more building suspense to the climactic scene. Like I said earlier, Carrie is not one of my favorite King novels, but since I'm going back to his longer works that I hadn't yet discussed, this seemed to be a good opportunity. But I think he's come out with a lot better stuff than this although his depiction of the psychological makeup of bullies in this story was right on target...
It's been a while since I missed a daily entry in this blog...this past weekend I skipped both Saturday and Sunday. The reason's simple: I'm riding out a period of constant and recurring physical pain, a type of which I've experienced in the past and which I'm hoping and praying will end soon...yes, I'm seeing a doctor. But life goes on, and so does this blog, which I've always defined for myself as a writing exercise and discipline. It's also a good way to work out various issues in my mind, be they personal, societal, or news items. Sometimes I'll sit down to address a topic and find myself changing my point of view as I write, the process itself aiding me in my reasoning. For that reason, along with many others, I encourage you to start a blog of your own...tailoring it to your own special interests, of course. Back during the decade before Facebook came along, personal blogs were the rage on the Internet...I loved randomly going through others' blogs and reading their stuff, especially the ones whose writers shared my interests. But personal blogging diminished significantly after mega-social media sites sucked in so many people that they became the places to go on the Web...and many blogs ended or were never started. I plan to keep on with my blog as long as I am able and Google keeps it going...hope you enjoy it...
Podcaster Rob Dial, on his show Mindset Mentor, recently gave his own take about the meaning of money for him...and naturally extended his conclusions to what attitudes each of us should have about the subject. This in itself raises little warning alarms within me, for in our diverse society based in large part on economic freedom, that is, the liberty to decide what you do with your money, widely differing decisions folks make have combined to create the most prosperous economic culture in history. Dial presents his own experiences...he makes no secret of the fact that he is one of those travel addicts, especially enamored with Italy. I have no problem with this except that he seems to think we should all follow his footsteps in this regard, promoting his conclusions like a true evangelist. The truth is that he found in his life a nice little money-making strategy for himself, worked very hard to achieve his goals and has become financially independent: good for him, nothing wrong with that! I don't think, though, that his experiences are completely translatable to the population at large, even the much smaller body that tunes in to his podcasts. Dial says that while being responsible about how we manage our money, we shouldn't be like Scrooge in treating it like wealth itself...by itself money is valueless, useful only in what it can bring us. And to Rob Dial, whose financial blessings in his life have pretty much guaranteed him an easy retirement with plenty of moolah to fuel his every desire, he apparently interprets being careful with finances, to the extent that most of us are with more limited incomes and resources as we plan for our later years, as a mistake. At least that's how I see it. I travel, too, but I don't just pick up whenever I want and spend weeks somewhere across the world...if that's what you like to do and you have the resources to do it, then be like Rob Dial and do that: I'm happy for you. This fits in with what I had earlier termed "our diverse society based in large part on economic freedom". And I know of several people who have limited incomes and means and must be very careful about their finances. So, although I deeply understand the "you can't take it with you" mentality of Dial's podcast about money, I felt he was a bit flippant and insensitive about the wide range of circumstances people find themselves in regarding it...
Steve Kaufmann, as I have written in a recent article, is a polyglot (speaker of several languages) whose views about language learning pretty much line up with those I've embraced over the years. He strongly stresses passive vocabulary amassment through reading and listening over the traditionally taught emphasis on perfect pronunciation and grammar, areas that are also worth studying but are secondary to the main goal: comprehension. He has a company, LingQ (pronounced "link") whose website offers detailed instruction and practice in many languages. After discovering that its free version gave few benefits, yesterday I finally decided to sign up for the premium, which provides all of Steve's touted advantages to language learning that appeals to me...it's only about nine bucks a month. Last night I started out with basic lessons in six different languages...but the user can skip around to any level so desired. There's also a feature in which I can import material from outside the site...I'll get around to figuring that out, I'm sure. In any event, I needed something like this that offered quick, effective translation to what I'm reading and/hearing so that I can learn new words faster without slowing down my studying. From time to time, I plan to write about how I'm doing here...should be an adventure of sorts...
On a warm and humid June morning following a day loaded with rain and thunder (and work), I managed to get down to Gainesville's pleasant Depot Park...a few blocks south of downtown...home of the "gator in the pond" and full of birds singing away, chief among them red-winged blackbirds and mourning doves. Saturday mornings at 7:30 they hold 5K (3.1 mile) races, free of charge and supported by volunteers...I did just that, checking the course before the race. I had a choice during the event: either run the whole distance, walk the whole distance, or split it up between running and walking...I chose running, but taking it easy on the first (of four laps) and building up my speed to finish at 33:48: not my best, but during this time of year I'm going for covering the distance, not doing it fast. Click HERE to see the results. Next week, instead of the Depot Parkrun, they will be staging the Juneteenth-themed Freedom Walk...also 5K (but not a timed race), starting and ending from this park and going through various historic neighborhoods in the vicinity. Then on the 24th the parkrun resumes...I might just walk that one if my plans work out...
It's sad for me to see my state's governor sink so low in pandering to his constituency's base of hate as he seeks to out-bully his only major rival for his party's presidential nomination for 2024. I had written in an earlier article how I would support DeSantis over Trump after the latter sought with every means possible...including urging a swing state's secretary of state to manufacture more than eleven thousand nonexistent votes for him...to overturn a free and fair election he closely lost. But with the Florida governor's recent antics, I'm afraid that he's lost my primary vote...instead I'm strongly leaning to South Carolina senator Tim Scott, a decent and likeable conservative who recently threw his hat into the ring. Ronald Reagan, considered by many on the political right to be the greatest president of our era, in 1976 ran unsuccessfully as an ideologue, pushing the hot-button issues for his base in similar manner to what DeSantis has been doing. But in 1980 he drastically changed his approach, presenting himself as an effective leader who wanted to bring the country together, make the economy strong again and protect it from outside adversaries. And he was wildly successful, trouncing incumbent Jimmy Carter in that year's general election. Well, I'm only one individual but I thought I'd set the record straight about who I support and who I don't. I may or may not vote for Senator Scott were he to (improbably) win the Republican nomination next year, but at least I can see him as a thoughtful president who respects our Constitution and shows responsibility for the nation as a whole, not just one fraction of it...
Today's topic on personal development coach Rob Dial's Mindset Mentor podcast is one he's covered in the past: how to read faster and more effectively. I may have already covered a few of his points in an earlier blog article, but I couldn't find it...so here goes. Dial cites some kind of study from a year ago in which it stated that only 33% of high school graduates have ever read a single book after finishing school...the figure isn't much better for college graduates: 42 %! Additionally, some 80% of American households have never bought a book...I'm presuming that doesn't count the times kids in school have to buy stuff for reading assignments. On the other side, the "average" CEO of a corporation reads some 60 books a year: if I were Archie Bunker, I'd say so much reading is why they're average...but I get Dial's point: reading a lot can help make you smarter and more successful in life. He then expands upon his own reading habits, which although he tends to prefer paper books, have evolved into using several available features of the digital Kindle and Audible services. He's a big fan of highlighting sections of text and saving them for future viewing...that tells me that he is primarily a non-fiction reader. Dial likes to combine buying Kindle books...which he can read on his computer, iPad or iPhone, along with the audio text component when that is available. For me, although I use Kindle, primarily for my Gardner Dozois science fiction anthology series, I've never used audio with it...and that series doesn't offer it anyway. I do use my public library's free Libby service to check out audiobooks that I can read on my phone, often at work during appropriate times. Although reading books may indeed help with intelligence, knowledge and worldly success, that's not why I like to read. I like to read because it's fun...I don't think Rob Dial ever got around to mentioning that...
Last Saturday morning was unusually pleasant for this time of year, with the temperature dipping to the upper 50s with low humidity...today it returned to warm and humid: 69 degrees and 94% humidity at race time at Gainesville's free, volunteer-run weekly 5K event, the Depot Parkrun. Depot Park is a few blocks south of downtown, accessible from both Main Street and Depot Road. I had thought of volunteering for today's event, but it looked as if they had plenty of folks already signed up. No problem: I ran it instead! It's always a bit challenging at the start of these runs since so many people are crowded together in such a small space, with establishing a workable, steady running pace next to impossible. Since this "race" (they don't like to call it that for some reason) involves four laps around the park, I was able to get split times called out by one of those blessed volunteers. As is usually the case, I had negative splits, with my fastest one by far being that final lap. I finished with an improved time of 31:22, far from my best but a good effort anyway. The good people running this show meet after the race at 9 in a nearby coffee shop (Opus Coffee on SW 4th Avenue) and invite anyone to join them...I'd like to go but not all hot and sweaty: maybe later in June when I walk the course again. As for today's posted results, you can see them by clicking HERE...
In May I kept up my pace of running training, adding to it a regimen of incremental speed walking. On the 6th and 20th I ran the Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5K here in Gainesville, and on the 27th I walked the course. I've also been paying regular visits late night after work to my local 24/7 gym, where I have been gradually increasing my walking speed on their treadmill...now up to 4.6 mph (13:02/mile) for a mile's duration. I'd like to develop a good mix in the future for half-marathons...and possibly even marathons...of a steady running pace regularly interrupted with fast walking breaks: in other words, the Galloway Method perfected by marathoner Jeff Galloway. In June I plan to do more of the same with my training and sticking to that Parkrun for public races...although they're PC about calling them "runs" and not "races". I've also done a lot of my running in my own nicely air-conditioned house while listening to podcasts and watching race videos on YouTube...lots of fun and pretty convenient, too. Hope you're doing well with whatever you may be training on...