Serendipity

 Serendipity

 

According to Webster serendipity is “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.”

The unexpected happens in life all the time. Whether or not we take notice is up to us. The word “serendipity” was coined by Horace Walpole and is based on a fairy tale where the characters on their journey made discoveries by accident that they were not in quest of. We could substitute the word “magic.” Serendipity though requires that we take notice. Magic, perhaps not. With our constant focus on the “next” thing, we often don’t notice the beauty of these happy coincidences, nor do we see the miracle of how reality arises spontaneously out of nothingness filling the present moment with a magical design. What isn’t there or what didn’t happen also passes unnoticed. We take life for granted. 

Two friends and I recently spent part of a week exploring the North Shore in Minnesota along Lake Superior. It was a magical week. We turned onto poorly marked roads and discovered hidden treasures: a secluded bay where kayakers paddled on water as smooth as glass, a secluded spot along Kettle River where water gently cascaded down sandstone forming perfectly round pools of water in the rock, all framed by lush trees lining the riverbank. We enjoyed a private viewing of the charming little town of Two Harbors bathed in spectacular light as the sun set over the empty streets. Hour long drives along a two-lane coastal highway yielded stunning views that were ours alone, as there were no cars in front of us nor behind us. We streamed the greatest rock music ever created—songs that defined our youth, filling the car with gorgeous sound as we navigated from one spectacular destination to another. These songs lifted our souls with a visceral memory of hope and optimism. 

Two weeks later when I sat in urgent care awaiting transfer to a larger hospital in downtown Minneapolis for an appendectomy, I pondered the miraculous timing of events. I felt fortunate that this hadn’t happened when I was “up north” with my dear friends who would have rued the day they agreed to this cursed vacation. Needing to transport me to some unknown urgent care or to a hospital some distance away, all far from home, would not have constituted a dream vacation. Stranded in a hospital lobby or worse being forced to sit by my bedside as I anxiously awaited various test results would not make it to their “bucket” list of fun things to do. Gratitude filled me knowing this didn’t happen when I flew three hours to Seattle, then on to Spokane, and from there rode in a car for another three hours to our final destination in the middle of Washington state. Lucky for me this didn’t arise on a recent trip to Texas where the excessive heat waves are endless and the wide-open highways add to feelings of isolation. Nope. None of that happened. It did happen during a week where I had relatively little planned and was with my husband who took care of me and questioned whether it might be time to go to urgent care. 

Thankfully, my recovery was speedy. While I never once felt my life was threatened, I did notice that following surgery my “gait” in life has changed somewhat. I question the importance of things that fill my daily life. I ponder what I want to do next. I seek to understand what my life must include while I am still here. Honestly, these things have always been on my mind. But now, to say that I have few answers is an understatement. I have an abundance of questions and a scarcity in solutions. 

Here’s what I have concluded. Every thought is a calculation. I read this somewhere and believe it to be true. Each thought uses our senses as input: what do we observe, what thoughts arise, what feelings and emotions result. From this we calculate likely scenarios of future events based on a countless interplay of probable actions. Consequences are assessed in milliseconds. From all of this, we decide. Sometimes we decide not to decide. 

I believe that we live our lives much like we dream. If we pause in our journey of life for too long and allow ourselves to doubt our ability to fly, we lose altitude and fall to the earth. This has more to do with the meaning of life than all other things. Not only do I believe in serendipity, but I trust in it. My life depends upon it.

My painting and original photo 

Banner State Park 

9x12 acrylic

Amused by Life

Visiting my grandparents in Wisconsin included nightly concerts with a house full of aunts, uncles, and dozens of cousins all gathered in their living room. Every adult had an instrument or two to play, whether guitar, banjo, harmonica, or accordion, and everyone would sing. My brothers and I would run around outside with our cousins playing hide and seek until it was too dark to see the overgrown tree roots upending sections of sidewalk. Mosquito-bitten and physically spent we’d come inside and each of us would find a coveted spot on the floor at our parent’s feet. 

 

The whole house filled with music and laughter for hours. When I could no longer keep my eyes open, I gave out a round of hugs and wandered off to my favorite bedroom at the back of the house, or even better, up in the attic. I’d crawl under pounds of quilts and sink into new depths of the old mattress. It took forever to warm up the icy sheets enough to drift off to sleep. 

 

Back then nearly all my aunts and uncles smoked. My grandpa though liked to chew tobacco. When we kids navigated around his chair, we knew to watch out for his spittoon. The last thing you wanted to do was knock that thing over. One memorable photo shows me with my grandpa’s large grizzly arms around me pulling me close. I have a look of horror and am desperately leaning away from him. The smell was what bothered me more than the idea of him getting juice on me. 

 

Most memorable was when grandpa played accordion. He was transported by music. I watched him closely and would wait for him to catch my eye. He’d flash a giant bear-hug of a smile, a smile you’d never get any other time. His big belly beneath his suspenders bounced when he laughed. Suddenly he was not my grandpa at all, but was just a little kid, just like me, self-conscious and shy. He always had a twinkle in his eye as if everything in life amused him. 

 

The last time I saw my dad was in Durand, the same town in Wisconsin that he’d grown up in. His dementia was progressing and keeping him at the assisted living facility without 24x7 care was no longer an option. That morning, his words were so jumbled that he had to resort to using hand gestures. Even this yielded no discernible meaning. I knew it would be the last time I’d see him. My brother was driving him six hundred miles to a facility closer to him and my sister-in-law. The move to Indiana was not optional and was as hastily planned as a shot-gun wedding. 

 

We had a quickly gathered going away party that was surprisingly well attended given the haste. I doubt my dad even knew the party was for him. He never shied away from a party and was always happy to entertain. Not knowing what to expect, someone handed him his accordion. He played as if no time had passed since he played for us when I was a child. His fingers glided over the keys. He may have artistically combined two different songs, but he made it work. 

 

Entertaining friends and family always made him happy. Just as he finished playing, he looked up and caught my eye. His whole body bounced with laughter and his smile lit up the room. His eyes glistened; he seemed timeless. Just like Grandpa, Dad was always amused by life.  

Rickety Bridges

Cool name for the lead singer in a girl band, right? Rickety Bridges is my latest metaphor of the week. My metaphors are not standard-fare analogies but dive right into the cerebral deep end of the pool. People often use metaphors to explain complex ideas. I use deep metaphors to provide an even richer understanding of a particular issue I am facing in life.

 

Have you ever been out hiking and come upon a footbridge?  Not just any ordinary bridge, but one suspended over a vast canyon with a raging river below. It’s a terrifying view even from the safety of solid ground. And here’s the rub. This formidable path is the only route available to get you to where you need to go. There’s no going around it or under it. You must cross it. 

 

The moment your foot hits the first plank you feel how unstable it is. The boards creak, some are missing, and the wind whips it around unpredictably. If it were a short bridge, you’d just hurry across. No big deal. Just do it. But this is one long, formidable expanse. 

 

To prepare, you study it. You assess the risks and plan your strategy. At least the handrail looks sturdy enough. You remember the assurances of the guides who sent you on this mission. The bridge is quite safe. Just take your time and be smart, they advised. Oh, and don’t look down. But they’re not with you. Not now. You must do this alone. 

 

Sometimes life can feel like this. The power of the human brain to imagine things, to form images, ideas, and sensations purely in the mind is profound and uniquely human. Some call this the power of “Then.” I think of it as the power of “IF and then, THEN.” The “IFs” can often overwhelm us if we let them. They can also empower us and drive us forward. 

 

But I digress. our rock star Ms. Bridges is awaiting her introduction. Although life can certainly feel like we must cross many precarious bridges alone, Rickety Bridges as a metaphor serves a much narrower purpose, one that is far more personal. 

 

As a project manager, my job is to use teams to build bridges, each of which represents the objective of a particular project. We start with an idea, a goal in mind. We break things down, consider all factors, and devise a detailed plan on how we will successfully complete this project and ensure safe passage for all travelers to the other side. 

 

The design of the bridge is greatly dependent on its purpose. The project team, led by me, must discuss what is required, how it will be designed, procure the necessary materials, organize the work, and plan the correct sequence of activities based on complex dependencies, all of which is subject to change at a moment’s notice.  

 

But more and more, I’ve noticed a change. 

 

In recent years, unreasonable expectations are placed on both the project manager and the project teams. I get it. I know, we’re trying to do more with less. I’m not unused to challenges. 

 

For every obstacle that comes my way I handle without complaint. I scramble. I pitch in. I pivot. I regroup. I counsel people in distress, often talking people off ledges. I negotiate. We reach compromises. I motivate, and one way or another, we plunge ahead and just get ‘er done. Once a project has completed, it often takes me several days to come down from my heightened state of vigilance to relax and not check my phone every two minutes. In all my career, I’ve never failed at a project I’ve been assigned.

 

Queue Rickety Bridges. At present, I’m building not just one bridge, but half a dozen, simultaneously. Not little bridges, but big ones. Lots of traffic, heavy loads, and lots of visibility. Yet, I find more and more that resources assigned too often stand around arguing over things we’ve already agreed on. Why is this bridge needed? Why is it being built here and not over there? Granted, this is often not their fault. They were just recently assigned the project and have legitimate questions. Each time you add a new resource you exponentially increase the chance that something will not go as originally planned. 

 

Each resource plays a critical role and must identify and own the tasks for which they are responsible. Yet, more often they await direction, as if waiting for God to speak to them. They want someone else to tell them what to do, even though they were not assigned to merely take direction but were assigned to lead and to take action. Too often resources haven’t even been told they’ve been assigned to the project, and worse, many have never built a bridge before. Sure, they’ve driven on one. That must count for something.

 

And then, there are the project sponsors – the ones who wanted the bridge to be built in the first place. They are often nowhere to be found. They are scouting out new sites for more bridges.  

 

But, there is something I must also confess for full disclosure, a few more worrisome details to add to the complexity. I find myself in a position where I am managing projects well outside my core competencies. My expertise and background in leading IT projects doesn’t translate well to to the large manufacturing expansions and building construction projects I now lead. To complete my analogy, I don’t build bridges. I build roads. Now add to this the fact that as I get older, my adrenaline system which affects both mind and body is shot from all the years of stress. It has been overused, worn out, and seems now stuck in high drive. Even driving on a country road with a dip on the other side of a narrow shoulder sets me on edge. Now imagine the vertigo I feel from the cliffs and frightening precipices I am working at building bridges in the wilderness. 

 

Once again I rediscover how all things are connected. The changing dynamics in the workforce and in the world today, undertrained workers who are taught not to question but to follow directions, and an experienced, but aging workforce on the brink of retirement because the added stress is simply too much—all of these factors add up. 

 

My metaphor has certainly given me perspective, although I have not yet come to any clear conclusions. I understand more clearly why my heart is often pounding, why my hands are sweaty, and the reason I have an overwhelming sense of impending doom, knowing that a stream of big heavy trucks are rumbling towards each of my bridges, all coming at great speed, and each trucker fully expects their particular bridge will be ready for safe passage. 

 

In conclusion, it seems that Rickety Bridges may have a permanent gig. Her band may soon be booked solid as the nightly act. And, we may ultimately discover that we didn’t even need all those bridges after all. Maybe we really needed a few good roads.

 

“Curiouser and Curiouser”: A postscript on Quentin

Yesterday early afternoon, I posted my piece about the Quentin Coincidence and sent a link to my husband to read. 

That evening we settled in to watch a movie that had come out in 2014, directed by William H Macy. We hadn’t seen the movie and hadn’t even been aware of it. The movie was called Rudderless. Neither of us knew much more about it, so had no expectations. Here is the set up for the film from IMDB: 

“A grieving father in a downward spiral stumbles across a box of his recently deceased son’s demo tapes and lyrics.” 

At the turning point in the film, the father played by Billy Crudup meets a young man who alters the course of his life. The character is played by Anton Yelchin, who died tragically two years after the film was made. I found the movie very compelling and quite well done. The theme of the movie is about a tragedy that really has no answers. 

We had to pause the movie though, because when the young man introduces himself to the father, he tells him his name. His name is… 

                Quentin

All things in life are connected. RIP Anton. 

The Quentin Coincidence

My husband and I recently started watching Tarantino movies, most of which we’ve seen before. There are either devout Tarantino fans or those who avoid his movies altogether. I have friends in both camps, but like most things in life, I find myself somewhere in the middle.

Our first pick for this film renaissance was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While watching this movie in the theatre I was skeptical if I’d like it or not. But, by the end of the movie, it was clear. I loved it. The craft, beauty, and genius of his movies are best appreciated watching them a second or even third time. Or, more if you’re like us.

 

We put that movie in our Netflix queue and soon received the DVD in the mail. Thus began our Tarantino festival. Next, we watched Pulp Fiction from our home library. Since then, we’ve watched Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown and have quite a few to go. I already have a far greater appreciation of the genius behind his movies. 

 

But, the point of this is not me convincing anyone to watch Tarantino movies. You either like them or you don’t. Since we started this hobby, we had a series of coincidences that were too odd to not notice. Our initial conversations up to this point occurred in the confines of our living room, and adding movies to our Netflix queue. The morning after watching Pulp Fiction, a Tarantino interview popped up in my husband’s YouTube feed. By now, we’re all used to having our on-line life tracked and manipulated. Searching online for weight loss tips will soon flood your Inbox or browser screen with pop-up ads for weight loss supplements. The odd thing was that our conversations about revisiting Tarantino were limited to our living room, our home DVD library, and admittedly Netflix, and yet somehow Big Brother YouTube knew of our interest and suggested he watch an interview with Tarantino. 

 

A little odd, but whatever. Right? 

 

The very next week my husband met with several contractors to get bids for redoing our roof. The owner of one company had a new assistant join him. The young man introduced himself as Quentin. I wasn’t there, but I can only imagine my husband thinking this must be a put-on, like I had put them up to this. After my husband told me about his encounter, we laughed about the coincidences. The number of people either of us had met named Quentin was exactly zero. 

 

That weekend, I was digging through an old box of things saved from my college days, a box I hadn’t looked inside for several years. A file folder sat on top, so I opened it. At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was. I realized it was a subpoena issued for me to appear in court in 1981 to testify against Quinton, a young man who had walked into the house I shared off campus with several girlfriends. This same guy had a prior rape charge (something I didn’t know at the time) and had  also ventured into a different house earlier that morning (also something I didn’t know) and because both that resident and I had both called the police, they were able to find and arrest him. 

 

So, I guess I did actually know a Quinton, although spelled differently. Still—this series of Quentin coincidences was getting absurd. Was the universe really trying to tell me something? Of course, any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that this notion is ridiculous. Still, we humans do make connections with things and in doing so, we create purpose and meaning. That is just something we do. Story is in our DNA. I believe we create purpose and meaning and not the other way around.

 

We are too insignificant in the universe for “IT” to waste energy for our benefit. Humans tend to adopt an exaggerated and somewhat egotistical notion that we are far more important in the Universe than we truly are. Just ponder your significance the next time a hurricane, tornado, tsunami, earthquake, flood, fire, lightning, or even a meteorite greets you at your doorstep. 

Whether you believe that humans tip the balance in any specific area or not is not my point. The sheer chaos, randomness, violence, and creativity of nature is wildly outside our conscious control. That being said, life is certainly mysterious and I willingly admit that me implying that I have the capacity to understand this is also egotistical. 

 

Yet, from a practical perspective, I know I’ve wasted years of mental, emotional, and physical energy pursuing connections, finding reasons for things outside my control, attributing blame (or even credit) to myself or others, and then seeking out complicated solutions that leave me paralyzed in a world where I control far less than I pretend to. Many of these boondoggles I now clearly see for what they were: time sucks. 

 

But back to my Quentin Question. I still find it amusing to note the coincidences in life and read the signs posted along the meandering path in life that drives me forward. 

The meaning I settled on for this string of Quentin coincidences is this: 

Life is filled with connections, most of which we miss because our eyes are closed and we’re not open to discovery. Revisiting the past can actually give us new perspectives. So, don’t be afraid to open that box and explore. Open yourself to new things. Meet new people. There just might be a Quentin coincidence awaiting you. 

Just remember not to take yourself too seriously.

 

Slowly Changing Dimensions

Years ago, I was project manager for a data warehouse project. While my memory of the project itself has faded, one concept that fascinated me has stuck with me over the years. 

First, it might be helpful to explain what a data warehouse is. In simple terms, a data warehouse tracks historical data and is able to store what are called slowly changing dimensions. This lets you track not just the data over time, but a history of how dimensions of that data have changed over time. Well, what is a dimension you might ask, and why is this important? A dimension is a factor that you consider relevant to the data. I’ll give an example in a minute.  

Slowly changing dimensions is a perfect metaphor for how our lives change in increments. We tend not to notice things that change slowly. The majority of changes in our lives tend to be small, but numerous. We are often shocked when we realize how small changes have accumulated. When we finally take notice, we marvel at how we hadn’t even noticed that changes were occurring. And then, it is often too late to adjust our course even if we wanted to. 

For example, a habit of eating dessert every night will tend to accumulate into noticeable changes over time. Without any other adjustments, those little bites add up. What might have been a “just this once” indulgence can easily morph into a daily habit. The sheer number of self-help books on this topic give weight to this reality. 

Having reached the age of 60 and now can look back on my own slowly changing dimensions, I feel both proud and grateful that I am happily married, healthy, and happy. I've worked hard to get where I am in life. At the same time I often reflect on the countless decisions I’ve made over the course of my life that could have turned out so very badly. I've faced both early family tragedy and personal trauma. At so many points I could have chosen bitterness, anger, isolation, and perhaps even revenge. Whether justified or not, these responses would have turned me into a victim, which leads only to more sadness, self-pity, and no hope for a better future. 

Some believe fate lands each of us where we were destined to go. An absolute belief in fate removes responsibility and drains all feelings of motivation to thrive. On the other hand, a belief in God, All That Is, Self-Destiny, or even Karma all have more positive, healthier outcomes. Strong beliefs guide us and give us a sense of both control and responsibility. They also help create a sense of balance between knowing we must accept our set-backs, whether large or small, and still mobilize ourselves to carry on. 

Decisions I’d left purely to chance could have easily led to immense frustration and even a career for which I was unsuited. I also would not have found my soul-mate whom I love more than life itself. As a senior in high school, I was being recruited by the Army, promising me an opportunity to pursue music (my career choice at the time), an offer which likely would not have been kept. After numerous conversations and hours of deliberation, I finally relented and made the decision to sign up—but only if the recruiter called me one more time. To leave something so life changing up to fate was not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t know how to choose. 

It is miraculous that most decisions I’ve made in my life have not only turned out okay, but have turned out far better than I could have dreamed. Each of these were in some part due to a slowly changing dimension. A boss early in my career became a good friend and counseled me, knowing how I had dreams of doing something more important in my life than my current job. He encouraged me to take night classes, knowing I wasn't interested in this job becoming my career. “What else are you doing with your time?” he asked me. Those classes over time transformed what was just a job into a passionate, rewarding, and successful career, one that I am proud of and blends well with my personality, my desire for creativity, and need for constantly evolving intellectual challenges. 

If you hadn’t guessed, the Army recruiter never did call me again. 

In summary, if I could take my younger self aside and give one word of advice, it would be to pay attention to the little things and choose wisely. The good decisions are often harder in the short term but make life easier in the long run. Odds are if you strive to make more good choices than bad ones, your slowly changing dimensions will accumulate in the direction of positive outcomes. 

PS. As a side note, it has been a few years since I’ve checked in on Noah—He’s the guy who’s taken a picture of himself every day and posted it online. He’s been doing this now for 20 years.  Here is the link:  https://youtu.be/wAIZ36GI4p8

Synchronicity

Carl Jung first explained the concept of synchronicity in the 1920’s as the “coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.” He studied this phenomenon and felt he had given conclusive evidence for the collective unconscious. Whatever the explanation, the events cannot be explained by normal cause and effect. 

Jung often quoted Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” I like to think that there is truth to this and hope that someday we may unlock the secret. 

A week ago someone asked what my favorite word was and I replied that it was “synchronicity.” I do have a fondness for the word and over the years have collected some of my most memorable synchronistic events.

On January 29, 2002, I recorded a dream in my journal. In the dream, I was in a basement when dozens of silky shoots dropped from the ceiling. At the end of each were these pods that opened. What emerged, I realized, were little pigs. Someone nearby flung them outside, saying, “Goodbye Pigs.”

In April of that same year, I visited a friend in New York who gave me a tour of their house. When I got to the kitchen I gasped. Hanging from the window sill was a string with a ceramic pig with wings suspended in the air. I took a picture and then ran downstairs to pull my dream journal out of my suitcase to show them both the dream and my drawing of the string with the flying pig. My friend looked at me as if I were a witch. I had never been to their house and the flying pig was something they had received only that year. 

Nine years later, I started writing dreams down again and wrote of a disturbing dream where someone had both legs amputated at the knee and was hopping around on the floor. The next day at work, Simon, one of my coworkers, stopped by for one of our usual afternoon chats. We would often discuss everything from the mundane to philosophy or psychology. That day he showed me a video of his son goofing around with his legs locked in a lotus position and hopping around from the couch to the floor and back up onto a chair. I nearly fell off my chair. The similarities were far too much for coincidence. Yet, I had never even met his son.

Two weeks later, I tried to write down other images as I drifted off to sleep. I only managed to write down two words: black dog. The next day at work, my coffee grew cold as I stared at a notice on the bulletin board where someone advertised a black dog to give away.

Believing I had found the black dog’s synchronistic partner, I told my friend Simon. This time he nearly spit his coffee out. When he and his family would go for a bike ride they often made a game of calling out ‘dibs’ on something they liked. “I dibs the Porsche,” the first one to see it would call out. That weekend, they passed a black dog and his youngest son called out, “I dibs the black dog.”

After that, Simon told me not to tell him any more of my dreams. It was just getting too spooky.

I am not one who sees hidden messages in these things, or believes that the universe is trying to tell me something. I do, however, believe that life is fascinating and mysterious. Whether you find answers in these moments of connected events or just find them amusing, I do know that we don’t notice them unless we pay attention.

It’s not just me that has a knack for calling forth these synchronistic events. This past weekend after my husband and I spent much of the morning talking about the movie about Neil Armstrong and him being the first man on the moon, my husband went off to the gym and was greeted by a young man who gives out random quotes to people like fortune cookies. To David he gave this greeting: “The Eagle has Landed.”  

 One final story. When my husband was traveling in China, we would text each other all the time. Before he went to a big meeting one day, I texted him to ask how one said “Good luck” in Mandarin. Immediately I saw that he was typing a reply, which finally appeared on my screen. After phonetically working the message out, I laughed: “Ho u fin ur mon-ke.” Of all the possible random answers, this topped the list as both surprising and bizarre. That night, he sent me a picture from his hotel room. On the bed was a cute, stuffed monkey left by the hotel staff as a welcome gift.

Explain that one away.

Staying In the Zone—the Holy Grail of Consciousness

Despite the numerous articles on why multitasking is bad for us, I’ve continued to engage in this ill-advised habit—all the while feeling guilty for sacrificing productivity, something I’ve valued greatly all my life. In fact, I used to think I must have been an “efficiency expert” in the early sixties, in some past life. 

This feeling is called cognitive dissonance—the state of having two conflicting ideas or emotions simultaneously. While I know switching focus from one thing to another and then back again costs me valuable time, I also know I often feel the happiest and most productive when I multitask. So, what's going on? 

To get to the bottom of this internal conflict, I decided to do more research. How could multitasking feel so good while at other times it was a source of great frustration and even anxiety?

Multitasking is generally defined as dealing with more than one task at the same time. Studies have been done to show how it is impossible for the brain to focus on more than one task at a time. The studies seemed to prove that if the brain is forced into multitasking, then the time required to complete both tasks will take longer and is more error prone than if the tasks were done sequentially. 

So then why did my favorite multi-tasking combo platter (running on a treadmill, reading a novel on my iPad and listening to music with wireless earbuds) feel so good?

Perhaps, I decided, this was not true multitasking.

I found that this type of multitasking is really called layering. Layering is when we strategically engage in different tasks that require different “channels” of mental functioning. With that new knowledge, I was delighted. I was off the hook.  

There is, however, a real problem with other types of multitasking. Texting while watching a musical at the theater (Yep, seen it), talking on a cell phone while eating alone at a restaurant (Annoying), texting while sitting in a meeting (Please!), or the worst, texting while driving (Bye, bye Girlfriend!). These are the kinds of multitasking behaviors I advise against and are either rude or downright dangerous.

Coincidentally, this has been a time when the focus everywhere seems to be on mindfulness, which highlights yet another area of cognitive dissonance for me. How can I be fully in the moment if I multitask, or even layer activities? Yet, I realized that when I layer activities successfully, all of me is engaged. There is zero mind-, body-, or auditory-wandering. I am 100% engage in the whole of these activities. I am “in the zone,” as the say. It is when I attempt to listen to a meeting while reading a complex email that my mind shuts down and neither activity is accomplished successfully.

My final take-away is that accepting our limitations, knowing what is socially acceptable and what is not, choosing the right combinations of activities that do work together, and most importantly, sharpening our ability to focus singularly on one thing when we need to will ensure that we stay both happy and productive, stay in the good graces of others, and, with luck we stay alive. That is the Holy Grail of Consciousness. 

Suspended Curiosity

I thought I would share some of the odd questions that I ponder during a typical day. Here is a collection of the things I’ve wondered about this week:

1.  When we lose weight, where does it go? Maybe you’ve wondered about this, and then again, maybe you haven’t. I had some guesses, but those all proved to be wrong. And nothing really prepared me for the truth, which was almost too simple to be believed. 
2.  I still wonder how tadpoles get into isolated pools of water with no frogs anywhere around. Even if a frog had laid the eggs there and then leapt off to find his princess, how did the frog survive the hard-freeze of our mid-western winters? 
3.  Where do fruit flies come from? Everyone asks this question. You bring a banana home and even inspect it, but don’t see any fruit flies. But, leave it out on the counter for a short while and there they are.

The odd thing about curiosity is that the more available information is, the less likely it seems that people seek answers. Today, nearly any question one might pose can be answered in record speed. No longer does it require a trip to the local library reference desk and subsequent searching through racks to find the needle in the haystack for something that no one even thought to put in a book. For example, if you want to know who the 34^th president of the United States was, just ask Siri. Or, if you’d like to understand the history of lawns, Siri can guide you.

Today, people are more likely to take information they read or hear from a single source as gospel. Adding to that, there are still those who are susceptible to substituting passionate assertions by others as a substitute for hard facts. When it is even the slightest bit difficult to find hard answers to questions on our own, we consume the emphatic dissertations from those we are told to regard highly as truth.

Even when contradictory evidence surrounds us, this contradictory information can even strengthen the wrongly-held belief. How does this even happen? Aren’t humans supposed to be rational beings?

Well, the reason is three-fold. Once we believe in something strongly, we are unlikely to let it go easily. We’re just built that way. Secondly, we avoid cognitive dissonance at all cost and will simply avoid that dissonance rather than reconcile the information. Finally, our belief systems assemble memory and information in a way that supports our beliefs, even if it means overlooking contrary evidence.

So, before I get too far off topic, here are the answers to my queries:

1)    We all likely guessed that our body converts those pounds into usable energy. But, remember, matter is neither created nor destroyed. The answer is that fat changes form and literally vanishes into thin air.

Most of the weight we lose is EXHALED as carbon dioxide. The rest leaves our body as water. Yup, sweat, saliva, pee—you get the idea. And, sorry—hyperventilating won’t do the trick. Of course, now I have a new mystery to answer. If we have a record number of fat people who are all trying to lose weight, is all this extra air contributing to global warming?

2)    As far as the tadpoles go, nature has many ways of making sure the next generation has a good chance at life. Birds inadvertently carry eggs on their legs that get dropped into odd places. Frogs often climb all over things to find spots to lay their eggs. Many stay in deeper water to hibernate over the winter. Others dig deep into the soil. Some even have a sort of antifreeze in their organs that allow them to freeze and come back to life in the spring.

3)    So, what about fruit flies? Do they spontaneous generate, like magic? Well, I’m not going to give you the answer. You’ll have to take your own curiosity for a spin and find out for yourself. For me, I still believe they come out of the ether, materializing within our homes like magic.

https://www.thoughtco.com/where-do-fruit-flies-come-from-1968433

Resonance

I’ve recently become fascinated by the idea of resonance—not the idea of reverberating sound, but of the reinforcement of sound by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object. I know, right. What on earth does that mean?

The best analogy I’ve heard to explain resonance is that of pushing a child on a swing. First, the size of the person in the swing doesn’t matter. The pace at which the swing completes a cycle (the time the swing moves forward and then returns to its starting position) is always the same. This cycle represents the natural frequency of the swing.

Secondly, when pushing a child on the swing, we know the best point to add our thrust. By adding force at the precise point in the cycle, the amplitude of the swing increases (i.e. the swing goes higher). If a second person stands at the front of the swing and does the same thing, this adds even more to the amplitude.

But resonance doesn’t apply only to swings. This link shows a wonderful example of resonance of sound waves. Resonance with metronomes

If you are not a patient person, feel free to skip ahead to about the 2:00 minute marker. At this point, the metronomes are almost all in sync, even though each was started at random. Even here, one rebellious metronome beats at its own rhythm. Then, by 2:37, even this hold-out marches to the same rhythm as the other 31 metronomes.

The first time I saw this, I thought it was nothing short of miraculous.

Watching this sent me on a journey to understand resonance. After pondering this idea for a while, I wondered if resonance ever had a destructive effect. It didn’t take long to discover the answer.

The best example of what can happen with out of control resonance is the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed Galloping Gertie. When the wind blew long and steady, this drove the bridge to oscillate at its natural frequency, which ultimately caused it to collapse. Glad this wasn’t on my commute. Tacoma Narrows Bridge-Galloping Gertie

Today, engineers put in dampeners when designing bridges. The dampeners interrupt the resonant waves and prevent the waves from growing.

I then asked myself how else might resonance relate to our world today.

It occurred to me that ideas, especially those of a political or religious persuasion, can have a similar effect. People sometimes believe things so strongly that their collective beliefs reach a destructive amplitude. Fear can drive people to abandon logic. The added influence of other like-minded individuals acting out on these same beliefs exponentially adds energy to this fear. This fear can then cause even normally empathic people to suppress opposition at any cost. Violence becomes acceptable when people convince themselves that the end justifies the means. It doesn’t matter which side of the political aisle you are on, suppressing opposition at any cost is ultimately destructive.

What is an equivalent force that can serve as a dampener in society? The answer seemed obvious: a free press. The press is often considered the fourth branch of government. In our democracy, each of the branches of government provides a check and balance on the others, with no one branch of government becoming too powerful. The last fail-safe is a free press that always seeks to discover and report the truth, regardless of which side it finds in the wrong.

When the press abandons its responsibility, and reports only stories that give support to a single political leaning, the resulting effect is much like the destructive resonance that caused Galloping Gertie to collapse. When people believe that the only goal must be that everyone adopts the same belief system, the result is similarly destructive, ultimately leading to societal collapse, or even MAD—mutually assured destruction.

Instead, if we allow each other the right to hold differing beliefs, if we encourage the open exchange of ideas, and we ensure that the press seeks and presents the truth regardless of political leaning, the effect will be the opposite: Harmony. 

The Cough, Crunch & Squeak

The cough: Everyone in Minnesota seems to get the holiday cough. Some are unlucky enough to catch one of the viruses going around this time of year and their cough is heard down the grocery aisles and over the cubicle walls. For the rest of us, the below-zero weather does it.  Cold dry air causes spasms in our airways that makes even the healthy wheeze and cackle. We quickly learn to breathe through our scarves and not through our open mouths. When the weather gets so cold that condensation builds up on our windows inside the house, we are forced to turn the humidifier down even further—bringing on even more of the winter cough.

The crunch: Walking on snow usually produces no sound at all, as sound waves are absorbed by the fluffy blanket surrounding us. Yet, shovels scrape driveways, ice scrapers clear windshields and prying open a rarely used door that has iced over—all of these actions produce a crunch. In Minnesota, when the weather dips between 0 and 20 degrees, that same silent snow speaks to us. Walking in it produces a distinctive crunch.

The squeak: When temperature drops even further, to anything below zero and especially when it gets down to -14 as it has the past few days, even the ice crystals within snow freezes. This causes snow to squeak when compressed. It is a delightful sound. Tires backing out of driveways squeak. Footsteps approaching mall entrances squeak. We squeak walking to the mailbox. We squeak as we hurry to an open liquor store to stock up before New Year’s Eve. It matters not how big or little you may be, or what your footwear of choice might be—we all squeak. Everyone hears it, and we smile because of it. 

Even in this ridiculous cold—I love Minnesota. 

Don't believe me? Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfD11omFQ88