Assume

  There's that word, one which means to fill in the blanks, to conclude beforehand, to --as the mnemonic goes if the word is taken apart-- to make an "ass" of "u" and "me."  It's easy to do, of course, to make an assumption of someone or something, to stereotype or lump entire segments of peoples into small groups.  Think of these trigger words: homeless, immigrant, conservative/liberal, hippie, Muslim/Jew/Korean/Chinese/Saudi.  Think of your own impression when you meet someone for the first time and he or she lights up a cigarette or pours a glass of whiskey; does it repel you or draw you closer (perhaps because you do the same?), or maybe it causes you to have no judgement at all; and what if that person were pretty or handsome, or rich or poor.  There are many assumptions we tend to make, sometimes even lumping entire populations together such as "oh, those Americans;" perhaps some of this is because of the instant availability of social media. But there are also the factors in which we cannot control, such as the way we were/are raised.  Here's a quick quiz...lump three teenagers together --one from Japan, one from Singapore, and one from the U.S.-- and ask what their greatest fear would be.  You may be surprised to find that each answer will be quite different...*

   This comes from a series of lectures on the customs of the world, as presented by Dr. David Livermore, currently the head of the Cultural Intelligence Center and a self-labeled global thinker.  Said the introduction to the series: In our increasingly globalized world, the need for cross-cultural understanding has never been more essential to our success in life, both personally and professionally -- yet how can we possibly adapt to all the cultures surrounding us?...Common sense alone isn’t enough to help us navigate the cultural differences that can lead to costly misunderstandings, tension, and embarrassment.  The professor notes how in the "individualistic" U.S., parents are often quick to separate a newborn from close contact with them, placing them in a stroller or crib and often placing them in a separate room in the home; whereas other "collective" societies will often keep the child with them nearly full time, both in the bed at night and carried on their sides during the day, usually surrounded by other relatives.  Added in the introduction, Dr. Livermore notes: In the United States, the will of the individual is championed, whereas in India, priority lies with the family unit...Some cultures are uncomfortable with visible inequality in power and status, while others accept it...Speaking bluntly is appreciated in some countries, while conversational directness is avoided at all costs in others...Many cultures, such as that of the Japanese, show minimal outward signs of emotion.  Others, like Italian culture, are highly expressive...Some cultures believe rules should apply to everyone equally, while others think each situation and person needs to be handled uniquely.  Written primarily from a business viewpoint, the lectures nonetheless makes one think of how we may be jumping to conclusions about a person (or peoples) simply because of their (and our own) upbringing.  He notes that companies such as Kentucky Fried Chicken quickly discovered that in many parts of Asia, fast food is not viewed as a takeaway or grab-n-go meal but rather as a place to socialize (their stores are often twice the size of those in the U.S.); people in collective environments, whether they are alone or not, feel more comfortable sitting at a table with others, whereas in the U.S. people will generally scan an entire room looking for an empty seat so that they can sit alone.  Could this be a general conflict in our upbringings that lead us to want to "free" or to "control" a country, or to liberate or imprison their populations, or to expose them to the much better life that capitalism/socialism/communism/totalitarianism will bring, all in the belief that "our" way is the true and correct way.  And if so, then what of our religious or moral or societal values?

Government reserves of gold, from: Visual Capitalist

   My own realization of this (making assumptions) came when a friend visited but to me seemed a bit too confident of his knowledge of "facts" at times, enough to cause me to discount many of his other comments...until I began looking some of them up.  "There's only enough gold in the world to fill a swimming pool," he said, although I'm not sure how we got on the subject.  But surely that couldn't be correct, I thought, what with all the mining and jewelry and gold bars stored in vaults across the world.  --Quick aside...how much gold do you think is now in the world?-- As it turned out he wasn't that far off for the estimated amount of gold in the world would fill a crate of just 21 cubic meters.  Back in 2010, Forbes reported that there was enough gold to fill a total of 3.27 swimming pools.  But wait, deep in Peru's early history, the Spanish invader Pizzaro was reportedly paid a ransom demand by the Incas for their king with a "room 22 by 17 feet or 7 by 5 metres" filled with gold, and two additional such rooms filled with silver (Pizarro executed the king anyway but not before taking the rooms full of precious metals; Pizarro himself was later assassinated in a palace he had claimed while in Peru).  But wait again and jump to the visual graphic and the gold reserves of just the world's governments appear much larger, or at least much larger than 3+ swimming pools.  But wait one more time because if you factor in the calculation of an Olympic-sized swimming pool the cubic meter amount is 2500 cm. or just over ten times the 21 cm. calculation of the world's gold.   But it turns out that all that gold, despite its density, is filled with space and can be melted to just a fraction of its size...say, enough to fill an Olympic-sized pool?  Hmm, so who's right?  Regardless, such off-handed comments got me questioning and exploring and wondering, not only about gold but about just what other comments or reading I had blown off, perhaps for the most part, incorrectly; and how many other assumptions had I made about people and their blurbs simply because I felt that I knew better or knew more or whatever.  As it turns out, I was most likely no better than, or perhaps merely just a chunk of karst...

   Wait, what the heck is karst? But first, ponder this essay on psychoanalysis which just appeared on the New York Review Daily: On Monday, we published “The Psychopharmacology of Everyday Life” -- or, as its author, the psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster, joked was her alternative title, “Freud’s Brain on Drugs.”  The argument of her long essay is, in essence, that modern psychiatry prescribes a pill for every mental ill without treating the underlying causes of what ails us -- and that talking cures merit another look...Jamieson has a busy psychoanalytic practice in Soho, New York, but also teaches at the New School and CUNY.   How did she fall into this line of work, I asked.  “Suffering, quite a lot actually,” she said, “and being entirely confused about why and what happened to me.  Of course, also some very important moments in psychoanalysis --which I started very young, at nineteen-- that helped me feel less confused and eventually take more pleasure in life.”  But the blurb that first hooks you on the article read this way: Modern psychopharmacology goes hand in hand with a psychiatric diagnostic system that has, over time, been redefined to rely on medicating symptoms away rather than looking at the structure of the mind and its complex permutations in order to work with a patient in a deeply engaged way over the long haul.  Modern psychiatry is hailed as a scientific success story, and drug companies have profited from the fact that talking therapies are often thought to take too long, their results frequently dismissed as unverifiable.  I question, though, whether we should demand verified results when it comes to our mental life: Do you believe someone who promises you happiness in a pill?  Going full circle, don't most of us assume that what a doctor is prescribing will be good for us (same with a lawyer giving you legal advice).  But what of a person selling you a car or a plumber giving you a bid while you both stare at a plugged-up sink?  Do we assume that one group is honest and one group is perhaps a bit shaky. And what if that car salesperson or doctor was a sibling or a friend?  Would it change your view?  Would it change if that person were a female, or gay, or black or disabled in some form?

   If you think not then imagine this, a candidate running in the recent Congressional election is openly racist, so much so that all six of his siblings endorse his opponent.  Or another candidate running for Congress is indicted and awaiting trial for insider trading, but still running.  Or yet another candidate running for Congress is indicted for spending "...$250,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses, including trips to Italy and Hawaii, his family's dental work, his children's tuition, movie tickets, video games, groceries, international travel for nearly a dozen relatives and a $600 plane ticket for the family's pet rabbit," according to an article in the London Review of Books.  One would have assumed that voters would be shocked at such allegations or attitudes and certainly wouldn't put up with such shenanigans from these mid-term candidates running for office in the U.S. (all three were elected).  Or as the piece also mentioned about then-Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh: As a matter of public interest, Kavanaugh’s drunken adolescent assault has now eclipsed his extremely murky personal finances, including a lifestyle far beyond his salary and up to $200,000 of debts that recently suddenly vanished; his possible addiction to sports gambling; his unequivocal opposition to reproductive rights and trade unions; his belief that a president is exempt from criminal indictment; the list of sexually graphic questions he prepared for Kenneth Starr to ask Bill Clinton during the Clinton impeachment proceedings; and the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents relating to his work in the Bush administration which the Republicans are refusing to release – covering, among other things, his role in formulating torture policy, the theft of Democratic Party papers and authorising warrantless wiretapping.  Again, I had assumed that the Congress would have wanted to know what was on those documents, especially when it comes to approving the lifetime appointment of a Supreme Court Justice...but then what do I know because Kavanaugh was fast-tracked and quickly voted onto the Supreme Court (only a few dozen of the papers were ever released or reviewed, the majority Republican party refusing to release the rest).

    But back to karst.  It came from a piece in Hakai, an online magazine which proves a refreshing break from many of the other media sources, if only for its differing interest and angles.  But as with the Moche peoples mentioned in the last post,  I had never heard of karst.  But if it had been my friend to be the one to talk on and on about it, would I have been curious enough to hear (or learn) more or would I have simply tuned him out and tried to move on to a subject in which I felt more comfortable and one on which I felt more on solid ground?  Who knows?  But here was a piece in the magazine revealing an entire group of karst researchers.  Try and take this in, as mentioned in an introduction from the Karst Waters Institute: More than 25 percent of the world’s population either lives on or obtains its water from karst aquifers.  In the United States, 20 percent of the land surface is karst and 40 percent of the groundwater used for drinking comes from karst aquifers.  Who knew?  But now when karst is mentioned, I'll know its importance and how I learned about it at such a late point in my life.

    In some ways, we are all models of karst, a burst of knowledge and emotions and feelings all dissolved and reformed over the years, often creating vast empty spaces.  But to look at just the surface, one would never know that anything was there; the outside looks quite normal, or jagged, or rolling, or totally void.  We view these landscapes or peoples or individuals from what we can see right in front of us...and sometimes we turn away before realizing that more, perhaps much more, might be hidden just beneath that surface.  The lectures and the visit from my friend have both taught me that assuming something might have exposed me as more slanted and prejudiced in my views than I had feared.  Professor Livermore asks us to look at people and cultures as distinct and on their own basis where courtesy and family and even time are all viewed differently.  In many cultures, being "on time" for a golf game is less important than spending time with family; and in many parts of the world speaking up at a meeting does not show creativity and innovative thinking but rather shows a lack of respect for your team members.  Questioning or discounting what a person says because of his or her appearance or actions might keep us from discovering something even more valuable, a piece of ourselves.  Sometimes we think we know the mood of a person, or even of our country.  But just as with karst, the entire surface may be ready to collapse...or to reveal a vast trove of discoveries.


*In general, the youth from Japan will answer the loss of a parent, while the teenager from Singapore will answer, to fail academically.  And the one from the U.S?  Generally the teenager will answer: to be made fun of by his/her peers.  On one belated note, the days have now passed where we thank our veterans and give thanks in general (in the U.S. there are holidays scheduled for both Veterans Day and Thanksgiving); as with the comments above we should not assume that our lifestyle came without sacrifice or that we are healthy or comfortable simply because that's how the world works.  We do need to stop and give thanks, not only for how fortunate we are, whatever our circumstances, but also for those who have since passed and perhaps gave their lives so that we could be where we are today...this could be those who fought for us, who defended us, who raised us, and who provided us love.  Veterans, parents, relatives, friends...we should take, at a minimum, a day to remember all that they have accomplished.