Category Archives: Life In General

Princes and Princesses

November 26, 2013 8:49 AM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note:  this is an edited version of a journal post that I wrote in 2010]
Sub cultures are interesting if just for the reason that they describe the way people attempt to deal with their immediate surroundings and circumstances by forming coalitions amongst themselves.  Using outward symbols such as speech, dress, and behavior help bind these groups together and set them apart.  The need to belong to something, even if it is a small sub cultural group, is strong in humans.  In ancient times this may have led to the beginnings of clans and tribes

Some people however delve deeper into their sub-culture.  They eat, live, breathe the culture and without it they would figuratively cease to exist.

In the American lexicon there exists the expression “Jewish American princess”.  Typically it refers to a shallow, materialistic, young female (Jewish in this case) that is distinct enough to categorize.  Generally it is thought of as an offensive term though some take pride in the label.  These young ladies will generally band together to share their thoughts, dress alike, talk alike, gossip, make plans, and generally just hang out together.  To some extent their world view is shaped by their self-identity and they will generally scorn or eschew anything or anyone that contradicts that.  Whereas others might put away this identity for leisure time they live this identity all the time.

At first I thought this to be a unique circumstance but looking around you begin to realize the term prince or princess can be applied to any individual that is so subsumed, so deep into their sub culture to the exclusion of all other things, that in a sense nothing else exists.  The self-identity affects not only the outward appearance but also in their speech and their thought process.

In Texas for example you have the cowboy sub culture.  The cowboy prince or princess will generally dress in jeans or western wear for work or play.  The symbols of the sub culture show up in every aspect of their lives.  The boots, that hat (though most save these for social occasions), the music, the food, even the vehicle (pick up trucks or full size trucks) are all relics of that sub culture.  But the changes are not just outward but inward as well.  Their point of view favors more rural attitudes, more traditional opinions as to social issues, and derision of anything that does not conform to the lifestyle.

Goths princes are another good example.  They tend to be more urban, they favor certain types of clothes, certain music and ideas.  Again, they tend to scorn things outside of their world view.

But sub-cultures are not solely limited to choices of music or clothes.  Just about every aspect of human endeavor can be sub-culturized.  I have seen sub-cultures based around computers, the Air Force, fitness, religion, science, wine, boats, cars, even blogging.  Just about anything you can name has a sub-culture.  Of course in all of these you will find the princess and princesses.

Although I’ve taken an interest in various sub-cultures I was never able to fully integrate into any sub culture as deeply as one of these individuals.   I could never take that final step and say I will fully and totally join in to the exclusion of all other things.  It’s something that I was always leery of but also envied to an extent.

I should explain that last part.  When you fully take on that sub culture you know what you’re about.  The parameters of your world are fully developed and you know how far you can safely wander away and how to get back to safety.  I imagine that this is comforting to some people.

But it comes at a price.  You artificially limit yourself.  Not only is your individuality compromised but there is no room to grow beyond the parameters of that sub-culture.

My individuality was always more important to me.  I could not allow that to fade into the background of a sub-culture.  I could also not limit myself to a limited pattern of thought.  I cannot claim to be totally unbiased but such an artificial limit on my mind is unacceptable.

I chose a life outside the sub-cultures.  But there is a price to be paid by those of us that walk outside the lines.

Posted in: culture, life in general, relationships

How far we’ve come

November 24, 2013 7:29 PM , 1 Comment ,

Saw an article a few days ago detailing the professions that have arisen since the turn of the century.   So many things that we take for granted now did not exist even recently.  It’s scary to think that people can’t make do without some of these conveniences nowadays.

This got me thinking of the changes that have taken place in my lifetime since I was a kid growing up in Houston all those decades back and if these changes have really improved my life, complicated it, or are in fact stifling it.

I had no internet or computers as a child.  My first brush with these was early in high school and it was laughably primitive.  Computing was mainly a one machine affair with crude graphics, monocolor TV screens and little to no storage capacity.  Video games were similarly limited.  My first pocket video game was the colecovision football game.

Texting was unheard of.  Beepers were high-tech gadgets.  Fax machines were the wonder of the age and some cost as much as $5000.  Phones were firmly plugged into the wall and using them required parental consent.  We only had 2 phones, one in the kitchen and one in my parent’s room.  I am probably one of the last people who you will meet that knows what a Telex machine is.

My cell phone can now carry out all the functions of the last 2 paragraphs combined and can do many other things besides.

Black and white television sets were still widely available.  I had a small portable black and white TV.  In the living room we had a Curtis Mathes 25 inch color TV.  Curtis Mathes was at the time the Samsung/Sony/LG of televisions and the television console itself was the size of small table.  Cable TV existed but I didn’t get this till after college.  We had a large overly complicated TV aerial on the roof that inevitably blew over or fell after a large storm and I had to climb on the roof several times to rearrange it and shout through the chimney “Is the picture better or worse?”  VCR’s were the best recording technology and I was the only one in the family who understood how to program them.

Television is in the process of ceding its dominance over the American household to mobile devices and the internet.  The process is long-term but definitely taking place.  We are no longer bound by the 3 TV networks of old and can watch what we want, where we want, when we want.

My father had a 1982 Oldsmobile Cutlass and he kept that car for nearly 12 years.  I learned to drive on that car and when my dad was on business trips I would drive that to high school.  As late as 1990 he had complete strangers drive up to the house and offer to buy it.  Eventually he passed it down to a granddaughter.  The most advanced electronics in the car were in the analog radio.

Last month I drove a rental car that did everything but fly and had electronics undreamt of in the 80s.

I could go on but won’t.  Do these new things improve my life?  In some ways yes.  I am not tied to traditional office spaces anymore for work, I can access a nearly endless library of data, information, and entertainment at a stroke of a finger.

But I have to wonder, is that in fact the trap?  If tomorrow the internet crashed, if all these techno toys shut down at once and in fact were in danger of never returning, how would we move forward?  What would the social media specialists do?  The web page designers, the e-sales people?  How would we access our clients overseas?  Would the vast forests of TV aerials sprout up again?  Are we the masters of our technology or are we its slaves?

 

Posted in: life in general

morning stretch

November 16, 2013 9:31 AM , 1 Comment ,

My eyes open to darkness.  I’m laying on my stomach.  I don’t so much wake up as come back to life.  Psychologists and those that study the mind say that everyone dreams even if they don’t remember it.  I don’t believe this.  For the most part when my eyes close everything shuts down and it’s a major effort to reboot everything.

Regardless, it’s time to get up.  I turn to my left.  My right leg goes forward and up at a 45 degree angle.  I curl and uncurl my toes slowly.  I flex the leg at the knee.  A bit of a twinge.

I slowly turn over to the right with my upper torso going first and my lower torso holding.  Vertebrae pop and creak in response.  I lay on my right and stretch my left leg now.

Back to my left and I sit up.  Hold my arms straight out from my chest and interlace the fingers.  Pull them back to my body and hear pops as the joints bend.  Raise my arms up over my head stretching almost trying to pull them off my body.  Lower my left arm perpendicular to my body and push it with my right hand back behind me.  A multiple series of popping noises.  Do the same for my right.

Everything all stretched out properly.  Now I want to go back to bed.

Posted in: health, life in general

How to fall in 4 easy steps

November 10, 2013 7:38 PM , Leave a Comment ,

When we go through life we might hope that we will cruise through life without any injuries or scars but that’s rarely the case.  All of us have to be prepared to receive and deal with life’s injuries the best way possible.  I have compiled a list of  four ways that you can best come through the inevitable falls in life.

What inspired this post was a recent event.  My second day running in central park ended on a memorable note.  I fell, and I fell hard.  I was running south towards Columbus Circle and almost finished my run when I decided to cross the street.  All I had to do is hop over the curb and it would be a straight run out of the park.  A tiny piece of cobble stone peeked over its fellow cobbles.  Maybe a millimeter higher but just enough to catch the edge of my running shoe and send me falling forward.

I hit hard.  Having not totally lost my balance this much in at least a decade I was totally unprepared for it.  I could feel and hear my knee joints grind together.  My hands out in front of me crumpled and twisted in odd directions.

I had the presence of mind afterwards to not move around too quickly and do an inventory of what might or might not be broken.  I scared a couple of kids who witnessed it and they graciously helped me back up.  I was fine but it could have been worse.

So first lesson.  Avoid the obvious perils.  In this case I should have waited for a handicap ramp or a bike lane or something rather than hopping over the curb like some kid.  In life I can do many stupidly perilous things or I can play it safe in most things possible.  It won’t make me totally safe but I can minimize the damage that I might otherwise take for no good reason.

Second lesson.  learn how to fall.  I pretty much just let this fall do what it wanted.  I didn’t try stabilize myself or guard my body.  You can trip and fall in ways that the damage is minimized to almost nothing.  But, if you do nothing you are almost asking to get hurt badly.

Third lesson.  Take stock of the damage.  This, I did do.  A disaster in your life is never as bad as you think it is.  Try and see things for what they really are.  Calm down, think, prioritize, and move forward.

Last lesson.  Thank those that try to help you.  In this case it was a pair of teenage kids that I doubt put together weighed as much as I did but they put their hearts into helping up an old man.  Be mindful to note those that helped you when you were down.  They could have walked on after all.

 

 

 

Posted in: life in general, running

nerd equality

October 29, 2013 8:30 PM , Leave a Comment ,

A couple of weeks ago I sat in on a panel about upcoming sci-fi books for the Fall and Winter seasons.  The line to get into the panel began forming about an hour ahead of time and by the time they let us in we easily had over 200 people trying to get into a room that would only hold 100 at most.

The crowd was thoroughly a heterogeneous lot.  All ages, all races, all manner of people and at least 50% female.  Now the reason I mention the last is that this is a thoroughly different situation than those that I encountered when I went to my first sci-fi convention back in the 80’s.

Back in those days the female nerd was almost unheard of.  Nerd culture was very much an old boys club in more ways than one.  Nerds always complained about being excluded and picked on by the cool kids and society in general but here they were doing the same to other fans.  Nerds did not exclude female fans outright but neither did they make them feel very welcome.

I noticed this type of behavior into college.  The gaming and sci-fi club admitted female members but usually the member was “the girlfriend” of this guy or “the sister” the other guy and the male members never went out of their way to invite female members to participate in gaming nights, and only included them when they were short a player.  Which is a really bizarre reaction as nerds typically want to meet women, and here they were shunning them.

After college my gaming activity dropped to nothing.  My only interaction with this world was through conventions.  I noted that the bad behavior continued unabated.  The worst incident I recall was at a panel for a TV show featuring a lead actress that had been invited to speak.  The talk was marred by jerks in the back of the room making constant catcalls until they were asked to leave.  At the end of the session as we were all filing out I heard a pair of guys talking.  One told the other how bored he was and how she “should have flashed the audience”.

But something was quietly happening in front of everyone’s eyes.  A small trickle of female fans was slowly growing into a mighty stream.  Not only were they attending the conventions in greater numbers but they were taking up positions of importance in the fan groups that organized these.

Those early pioneers that suffered through the “second class citizen” treatment in the 70s and 80s had grown up and transmitted their love of sci-fi and nerd culture to their kids and a new generation of female fans thoroughly inculcated in nerd culture was growing up.

Another thing happened separate to all of this.  Nerd culture had come into the limelight in the 90s.  With greater exposure came a wider fan base.  Female fans from the mainstream that refused to be marginalized entered the equation and forever changed things in the nerd world.

These new fans demanded to be heard.  Writers, artists, and those creating content began to take notice and slowly began to provide content aimed specifically at this new market.

A few remnants of the bad old days still remained however.  The “booth babes” phenomenon of the early 00’s drew in male fans by having models wear skimpy outfits.  This was quashed by those that pointed out how women were being objectified by these displays.  In the late 00s came a call to action from several prominent female gamers to stop the cyber bullying ways of certain male gamers online.

Is it a perfect world now?  By no means.  Old attitudes take time to die out.  Harassment of female fans still happens at conventions from time to time.   Now however this is dealt with as a crime and not ignored.  Those caught harassing others are at the very least ejected from the convention if not turned over to local authorities.

The younger generations coming into this culture seem to come into it with a more open mind.  I wander along the milling crowds of fans at this convention going from display to display.  Everyone happily mingling together.  The thing about nerd culture is that (for the most part) it has always been more open and accepting of different cultures, points of view, and different ideas.

We never discriminated along racial or religious or other socioeconomic divides.  Why did we discriminate along gender lines?

Posted in: feminism, life in general

into it

October 27, 2013 7:03 PM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve never been a fan of….well several things.

Math, that’s a good example.  I could, by pushing myself, extend into the realms of higher math but I never really got into it.  My problem solving skills in math are formulaic at best and I don’t have an intuitive feel for it.  As I recall my last dalliance with higher math gave me a headache back in college.

Music.  Playing I mean not listening.  I was lucky enough to go to an elementary school where music instruction was compulsory.  However that doesn’t mean I was ever any good at it.  Which is odd because I really wish that I was good at some instrument, and although I knew the keys and I could work the instrument my music always sounded mechanical and forced.  I was never able to make it flow forth as it should,

Of course there’s more examples that I could go on about but I think you get the picture.

It’s usually the way of things that if we don’t or aren’t able to commit to something that your efforts will be less than satisfactory or just plain terrible.  It’s not that I find these things difficult to do or that I don’t understand them.  I believe some mental block prevents me from doing these things the way that they should be done.  I find it irritating that I can’t.

And it’s not just skills but interests as well.  Some interests that I know I should like I can’t really get into and it’s worrisome to me that I don’t like these things while friends might.  I suppose it’s the same for friends when I go on and on about some sci-fi topic or book or tv show and they’re doing their level best not to keel over from boredom.

In some things I have to accept that I will never be that good at or be really interested in.  In others I think it’s just a matter of being exposed to it long enough to develop the skills or interests.

What’s the thing that you would like to be good at or would like to be more interested in?

Posted in: ideas, life in general, motivation

someone special

October 23, 2013 8:00 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Traveling alone can be fun.  At times.  But honestly it’s not something that can work out for an entire vacation.

In the same way living my life alone is not something that I look forward to.  This was one of the topics on my mind through a good part of my trip.  Although my parents are not in the best physical shape, they have each other and they have a dedicated family network to look after them.  Something that I do not have at the moment.

Yet physical security in my old age is not by itself a good reason to look for someone special.  It’s a bonus of a life lived with someone you care about.

I can make it through by myself for the next 40 or 50 years of life that I have left.  I’ve no doubt about that.  Life has thrown all sorts of challenges at me and I have not only survived but prospered, to a degree.  But yet it seems to me that it would not be the best of lives without someone to share it with.

This doesn’t mean that I intend to look for just anyone to share my life with.  Decisions made out of desperation are terrible decisions.  I do however intend to make a greater effort in this part of my life.

I haven’t actively pursued this aspect of my life for several years.  Circumstances have come up and given me excuses not to.  I will probably have many failures in this.  But it is far too important not to try.

Posted in: friends, life in general, relationships

Vacation 2013: epilogue

October 20, 2013 9:47 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I am writing this in the airport terminal waiting for my flight.  In front of me is a large window facing the runways.  We had a drizzle overnight and the runways are slightly damp but the sun is out and it promises to be a nice day.  Behind me there is a hurly burly of people coming and going.  Some of my fellow passengers on their way to their own vacations, some like me returning to home.  I suppose that I should recap what conclusions or lessons that I’ve learned on this trip.  Well this trip wasn’t really about that.  This was more a reset button for my life.  A chance to disconnect from all the responsibilities of my life.  In that I was mostly successful.   But I suppose some due reflection is necessary.

Firstly some thoughts for Houston with regard to New York’s success as a major city.

Don’t be afraid to embrace other cultures or new ideas.  Every few decades a new wave of immigrants descends upon this city and they find a place to live and contribute to the city.  Don’t fret about how different they look or sound.  They will integrate eventually.

Be bold enough to invest in the city’s future. World class cities need to have big infrastructure not just to grow but to survive.  The city’s subway and bridge projects were no doubt costly undertakings but today they are essential to the city.  We should not look at such things as burdens for the short-term but as investments in the future.

Redevelop the old.  Don’t just endlessly expand outwards.  We have so many derelict neighborhoods inside the loop that we can redevelop or re purpose.  We should look to growing up not out.  Think of inside the loop as our Manhattan island.  Think of how much we could do inside that little island of land surrounded by our moat of roads.

Don’t be in a rush.  Remember that New York is hundreds of years older.  Houston will get there, but take your time.

Now I’m a few short hours away from resuming my responsibilities of life.  Both work and family responsibilities.  I am no longer as fearful about these as I was before.  I believe that I can give a good accounting of myself.  Partly because I’ve been reinvigorated by the trip but also because I have begun to understand the importance of balance in my life.

Before the trip I reasoned that I needed to focus all my energy on my family responsibilities and exclude everything else in my life.  Well I can’t do that.  Firstly because I would burn out quickly if I followed that path and wouldn’t last very long, but also because it is unfair to me as an individual.  I don’t know how well this decision will be received but I think it the sensible thing to do.

I am also thinking of the long-term more these days.  What I want to accomplish, what personal projects I have ongoing that I need to finish once and for all, and what projects I need to abandon and take those resources that I’ve invested there and refocus them on more worthwhile avenues.

Of course none of this will happen overnight but with renewed vigor I hope to make good progress on all this soon.

wake me up

Posted in: life in general, vacations

time alone or time with friends

October 11, 2013 7:00 PM , 1 Comment ,

I generally like to explore things by myself.  Whenever I get the opportunity to take trips or go to new places or experience new things I usually do it alone.

I never know how the experience will go and I like to be flexible enough to change my plans at the spur of the moment, not as easy when traveling with someone else.

But see, that’s wrong.

The best trips I’ve had and the most fun that I’ve had has always been with other people.  In either groups or with someone else.  Sharing experiences seems to double or even quadruple the fun I experience.  Getting my own point of view as well as another person’s point of view provides me with an undefinable quality, something that I can’t mimic or recreate on my own.

The opportunities in life to do or see new things, and travel to new locations are diminishing as I age.  My responsibilities are such that time off is invaluable and has to be spent wisely.

My new outlook on life is that after I return from this vacation that I will do the best I can to reach out to friends and give up some of that valuable alone time that I treasure and spend it with them.

Posted in: friends, life in general

redressing the balance

October 9, 2013 8:34 PM , 1 Comment ,

I have been making some severe adjustments to my life lately  but I think I am getting a handle on them.

Going from a model which was centered on just my life to being a care giver has been stressful to say the least.  I wanted my forties to be a time of making improvements to my life, to get ahead, and to move my retirement plans forward and suddenly I got saddled with new responsibilities.

I honestly did not see how I could manage it all.  My thoughts were that my plans were totally ruined and had to abandon every hope and dream that I had.  I will admit to some desperation on my part.

But as is usually the case, when the worst thing you can imagine happens, it’s not as bad as it seems.  Life hit me hard this year but it did not finish me off.  I was able to hold on by my fingernails and by someone who bolstered me when I needed bolstering.

I am not going to move forward as planned originally.  That path is closed to me.  But then again neither am I going to move forward if I sit around feeling sorry for myself or being wistful for the old plan.  I have to embrace the new situation as is and plot a new route for myself.

Adjustments will have to be made and some have already been made.  Things are going to get better and not all of the old plan has been scrapped.  Some things in my life plan  I refuse to give up on.  They may not work out as I hope, and in fact it may be hopeless but I am not giving up on them.

I have only one real strength in life and that’s my stubborn nature.  I have to go with that strength and let it lead me forward.  That strength will let me find a new balance in my life.

Posted in: family, life in general