March 8th, 2024

I've been watching a 24 year old guy on YouTube who's interviewing older people he meets randomly and asks them how old they are and other general questions about what it's like to be the age they are.

I thought I might answer some of these here, now that I'm older myself.

This is this phenomena that my best friend refers to as "Beer Thinking."  But I imagine it's better explained with the term, "Productive Procrastination." 

For instance, I bought these "desert boots" to walk on this road pictured above when it's raining and muddy.

I write by hand quite often.

Mostly I do so because I enjoy it.

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WOOFer Warnings

There are some worldwide hospitality membership clubs that seem to work to forge some interesting scenes. But watch out for the model of accepting temporary work using the "WOOFer" model!

WOOF stands for "Workers On Organic Farms".

Why doesn't "no" mean "no" when a guy propositions a gal?

Guys don't understand what's going on when a woman is afraid of a man who seems to has the potential to get angry at a woman for rejecting him personally.

Coming home from college in the mid 1970s, I was riding in the back of the bus at night when I heard a man going through the pockets of a lone sleeping child with a knife, ripping the pockets of the kid's pack and coat.

Logic says, "the only time another way is necessary to seek out is when current ways are blocked." I know ways to be more creative.

The weirdest thing about getting older is...your peer group starts dying. Relationships that have spanned decades suddenly vanish.

There's a strange routine that happens when people die...and it seems really tragic to me. People recognize how someone dying deserves attention.

Just so I can attach this to an email...

I have quite a few friends who are passionate and feel responsible to become activists. I am thankful that questions opened by serious issues have inspired involvement and activism on a whole new level.

But really, I hate politics.

At the Laupahoehoe library where I live in Hawaii, we are going to design a way for library patrons to check out a real person at the library.

Have any ideas how that might work?

Hopefully, you'll enjoy watching this two minute video that I made with a free online editing service.

I'd like your feedback. I'm writing a series on Using Judgments. I need your suggestions on how you find this section on turning judgmental questions into meaningful ones. I'd like to hear how it could be better organized or edited for your understanding and needs.

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Isn't it curious how, once the scientific method was introduced how everyone scrambled on board to demonstrate they knew how to use it's value? Every published thinker had to justify their observations in at least the semblance of an empirical manner...if not hard fact.

When I was sixteen, I made an agreement with my mother to smile more often. Because of our bone structure, we have a mouth that turns down because our lower jaw is a bit small in relation to our skulls.

Although two people may share a particular value, say - "mutual respect is important," exactly HOW "respect" is shown - that is demonstrated with a cultural sense as well as an individually assigned meaning.

Well, what is Genius?

I would say that the ability to combine details or characteristics that most of the rest of us have passed over is a mark of genius. Insights can become, with some work to make it happen, into being a new synergistic synthesis.

Colleagues in my Alexander Technique community were talking about how various Eastern disciplines involving movement commonly use a concept about "centering."

Bruce Fertman blogged:  http://peacefulbodyschool.com/2013/04/21/on-the-grounds-of-modesty/ and he also wrote:

Just thinking out loud.

When finding spiders in their house, many people go to the trouble of taking them out into the garden rather than more easily killing them. Doing such a thing makes me feel that I'm doing a bit to accommodate how humans have eliminated the habitat of so many other species.

How do I tell when I'm happy? I have had lots of trouble with answering the question for myself. Here's a report on my discoveries.

First problems were my misconceptions about the nature of happiness.

Actually, I find the opposite strategy of slowing down to be a productive strategy. Except at my current pace, it seems that I'm slowed to the point of irritating productive, functional people. I've been accused of being passive-aggressively slow, which is not what I intend.

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If you've always been confused about music theory, this book will make it understandable. If you've written music by ear and don't know what you did, this book will give you the tools to be a better composer and communicate with other musicians.

To Endgain - to be an endgainer - endgaining

Thought you might enjoy learning an interesting new word. It has been in use by the Alexander Technique community since 1930s, invented by F.M Alexander.

When I first came to Hawaii, I wondered where the smart people were. Found some of 'em. This is a pic of me with the the hardcore movers and shakers of my writer's group who meet at Tutu's House in Waimea-Kamuela. Luckily, where this group meets is located a short walk from my home these days.

It's quite a common assumption that just because you both speak the same language, that there are not serious cultural differences. I spent ten years with guy from a very British family who had come to the USA to work as librarians.

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When I was a kid, I learned by imitation; gaining rapport with my teachers was irresistible. When I was a teen, I learned by accident, in spite of myself. I was lucky to have teachers who accepted that I was learning while half asleep.

Since the art of telling stories is so essential for the articulation of almost anything that is communicated, I thought I'd bring forward the continued inspiration for new creative inventions that I get from the field of screenwriting.

I've worked for a long time to make small talk meaningful. It's my favorite application of thinking skills.

Why would I consider apprenticeship? That began with a college experience.

I had previously had the experience of adopting a mentor with a professor named Dung Fong Lee at U.S. International Univ. in Poway. I was in the habit of "checking out" my teachers before taking a class.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light w

Partly the reason I love October, is that in most places, fall makes dramatic changes. It makes me feel like getting busy. This is probably a squirrel-like urge to sock away food for the winter. I still enjoy fall in Hawaii, even though there isn't much evidence of change.

An interesting view, that relationships have stages. Regarding the few intimate relationships I've had, would say the stages are:

1. Who is this person? What might we do together as a team? 2. Wow, this is wonderful. I'll do anything for her/him. 3. Wait a minute.

Really fun to do a detailed window like this. Inspired from various coloring books, but the hatted sleeping moon is all mine. You can see the real thing at the San Rafael IHOP where 3rd and 4th St.

The part that is tricky for me is how to reveal my own underlying values. In myself, the deepest values often are taken for granted and are completely obscured.

What is the difference between an intuitive hunch and a prejudice? This is one of my virtual questions that I enjoy asking.

It's curious to me how each and every perceptual attitude that someone can adopt seems to have alternate ways of describing it.

In honor of deva spirits and witches everywhere, I made a witchy nymph. The face sort of looks like mine, doesn't it? That was an accident...

What you don't see in this picture is how I had to splint and graft two pieces of the stick into one to get the witchy nymph to have arms as well as legs.

It is a fact that no matter how much "better" your sensory judgment gets,  you are always going to be using your senses in a 'relative' way.  'Absolute fact' doesn't exist. It's not how people are wired.

A generous friend gave me a futon mattress that had been in storage too long and went to the trouble of re-building a bed stand for it so my bed is now off the floor. But the mattress was moldy, even if it wasn't apparent at the time.

I was thinking about Independence Day, about independence in general.

A kid and a Jehovah Witness came to my door last week. Before they started in with their religious invitations, I engaged the youngster in learning to juggle. He was a kid of around ten years old.

People seem to have a really hard time thinking for themselves. They're not practiced at thinking on demand at all, especially when asked to think about what is missing. You really can't demand that others "think outside of the box" without at least one example right on the spot of what that is.

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In my past, because I worked as a sign painter, I was in the position to be responsible to design the logos and presentational graphics for numerous businesses that were just starting out.

Would anyone like me to hire me to make some art of their favorite pet?  Just send me a photo like the photo here. Some stories about your pet would be great too, so I can understand the pet's personality. 

I'll make some art from the photo - like this....or the other drawings on this blog.

Black cats are often passed by in shelters in favor of other kitties who are more brightly colored ...because they're black, I guess.  

Besides being tricky to take a photo of a black cat, they're also tricky to make a drawing of too.

The nicest kitty I know is black. Her name is Jasmine.

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This is a drawing I made of a very lucky tabby kitty cat named Grover. He was rescued out of the engine of a car after he got tangled up when the car started. His people were nice enough to put Grover back together.

One of my ideas about blogging on so many subjects has been that themes would emerge by themselves. As I saw this happening, I reasoned that I could sift out the posts related to a certain theme and use them to start a targeted blog subject.

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