Notes From A Bear's Journey

   One could look at that word --content-- in several ways, one definition being that of what's inside (as in the word "contains" or as is commonly seen in books, a table of contents) or that of being satiated (as in, a feeling of contentment).  And indeed, there's been a lot written on that latter definition as if our search for happiness and contentment is somehow growing more and more difficult (and not just limited to the U.S.; see my post on hygge ).  Even one of my own earlier posts on happiness continued to push me on this search, this effort to discard that which was anchoring me down and cluttering my life (truth be told, my wanting to shed five things daily has averaged out to about 2-3 daily overall, some days watching 20 files bite the dust and other days shedding none).    Some of this renewed vigor may have again started from the short piece in The Week at the beginning of the year which asked, "Can we train ourselves to live fuller, happ...

  It's been a bit of a pause since the last post; but then again it's summer and so much calls to you to get out of the house, from the cacophony of crickets giving you their nighttime mating symphony to the wild flowers just starting to bloom in the hills, even as the flowers in our gardens and yards struggle to make it through the drought-like conditions.  A quick peek at the calendar and one might gasp that here July is well past the halfway point -- summer is almost gone.  At times we might all feel that way, that of many of our own things being almost gone, even to the point of our memories or physical abilities, or the lifestyles and cultures or perhaps the neighborhoods we knew as a child; all appear to be disappearing or have disappeared entirely.  What's going on we wonder (and I say this especially to us older folks), or as the tee shirt more bluntly asked: Inside Every Older Person is a Younger Person Wondering What the Hell Happened ?  What actually ...

  The world is full of wonders, and nothing illustrates as well as that of new life emerging.  For humans, the birth of a child is truly life changing for both mother and child (and sometimes the father but hormonally it is the mother who experiences bodily changes).  In reading Paul Simon's biography this became an interesting side note, him spotting the menu offering at a Chinese restaurant, that of a dish with both chicken and egg and aptly titled Mother & Child Reunion, which led to the song.  It was a time in his life when he was going through a difficult time, everything falling into his lap (he would soon become one of the wealthiest songwriters of that time) and yet feeling so unhappy; all of this caused him to cry in the shower and wonder if he was actually crazy (he would later take that thought and write the hit song Still Crazy After All These Years ).  But even more interesting was the reflection by Christie Watson on her 20 years of nursing in...

   The film Anon with Clive Owen shows a perhaps not-so futuristic world, one where everyone's data and whereabouts is able to be viewed.  The plot centers around the main character being puzzled when a person he passes has no data showing; how is that possible?  Indeed, as Jack Shafer of Politco wrote:  Your “bloat-laden smartphone” harvests and sells personal information, including real-time location, to third parties.  Your internet service provider does the same with your online habits.  Gizmodo readers know all about how home devices --toothbrushes, smart TVs, Amazon Echos, sleep monitors, coffee makers, thermostats, smart lights, bathroom scales, et al.-- spy on them via the internet.  Meanwhile, car companies have joined the queue to sell your driver data.  We’re living in a Philip K. Dick novel!   And they want more...Facebook* and the others have realized that their audience is just beginning, even as those under 25 begin to l...

   You've likely read about the trails and travails of Facebook, how its (and your) data and privacy are collected and sold and used.  Word is that Amazon, still unprofitable in its shipping and products, makes most of its money from its data, which pretty much means...you; add Google to the mix and you're almost there.  Microsoft and Apple round out the picture, making the news in everything from the New York Review of Books (in a review of Alexander Klimberg's book, The Darkening Web ) to Rolling Stone .  The term itself --the Big Five-- has been used to describe our fears in oil companies and corporate dominance (it was commonly used in Hawaii to describe the controlling sugar interests there)...even our psychological path to success .  But trying to tackle the subjects of such massive companies as Google (which runs the platform on which this blog is appearing) or Facebook or Apple would be an exercise in futility.  So let's just jump to the data...

   Funny thing, our vision.  Remember reading about those cortical nerves and a third being dedicated just to our eyes?  Turns out that our brains devote a lot more space to our eyes as well, or maybe it's the other way around (estimates are that between 30-50% of our neocortex is devoted to our vision).  For one thing, our vision arrives upside down on our retinas, complete with a blind spot for each eye (an actual missing piece).  And the eye is constantly vibrating, anywhere from 120 to 200 times per second; and you might ask, just how do they know this?  When a drug is administered that stops this movement, the patient loses vision (which returns when the drug wears off and the eyes are allowed to resume their motion; in other words, without the vibrating we would not be able to see).  The brain is left to sort all of this out, from "filling in" the blind spot to making sense of the moving images (think Steadycam).  Sounds easy enough but...

   This recent for-sale ad caught my eye for some reason; it read: Sale of second-hand stock of philosophy books and related subjects, ca. 18,500 books.  The stock is on offer as one lot, inclusive of shelving (optional).   So I read that and thought who on earth collects (and attempts to sell) so many books?  As it turns out, quite a number of folks.  Then came this: Fast-forward to the fourteenth century and the Catholic church was again in trouble.  Between 1378 and 1417, first two and then three concurrent popes claimed authority over western Christendom.  Each contender maintained his own Sacred College of Cardinals, and his own administrators and offices.  The causes of the split were political rather than theological.  The followers of the rival popes were divided, in large part, along geographical lines...in 1414 a general council of the church convened in Constance with a view to mending the schism.  The council was a log...