The Man From Vietnam

I was in the middle of studying my Spanish lessons, and it triggered a memory. I once worked with a young man from Vietnam. He had escaped from his country and landed in a refugee camp in the Philippines. From there he found a way to get into the US, and being in the US he got a job with the tiny company where I worked. 

What triggered the memory was this: I sometimes wonder if I'll ever speak Spanish well enough for Spanish-speaking people to understand me. I wonder about that because I never understood a word of this man's English. His Vietnamese accent was so strong that he sounded like he was speaking Vietnamese. I do not exaggerate when I say that I never understood one single word of anything he said. He could understand me, but our communication was strictly one-way, from me to him.

I admit to having trouble with accents. Some people seem to handle accents quite well, but the only accents I can understand are other American accents. I can handle a Boston accent, or a Texas accent, or a Louisiana accent, and so on. And to an English speaking person, those are definitely different accents—different from, say, a Nebraska accent or a British accent. (Britain is a small country but it has a multitude of accents. Or perhaps I should say that the United Kingdom has a multitude of accents.)

But this young Vietnamese man had a disgusting habit, and I'm sure he never realized that it bothered the rest of us in our small company. When he had to urinate, he went to the bathroom, relieved himself, and left the bathroom. The next person to enter the bathroom would find a soaking wet toilet seat because the Vietnamese man had urinated all over it. It was as if his objective was to avoid peeing in the toilet bowl. So whoever followed him to the bathroom would have to clean the toilet seat before using it.

No one wanted to say anything to the man from Vietnam, but I could tolerate only so much before I thought, "This stops now." And so one day I told the man to follow me to the bathroom. We entered the bathroom and there was the toilet with it's seat dripping with pee.

I pointed to the seat and I looked him in the face and I told him to either pee into the bowl or clean the seat after he used the toilet. I made sure he understood what I wanted. And he did; he understood me. His face displayed an expression of total humiliation. I was not trying to humiliate him, but I was willing to humiliate him, if that was required to change his toilet behavior. And it did. 

When we travel to another land, who knows what taboos we may cross unknowingly. If I had known he would be so embarrassed by my little lecture, perhaps I might have put up a sign instead of talking to him. The sign would have had drawings, one showing the wrong way to use the toilet and one showing the correct way to use the toilet. Nah, who am I kidding. I would've still done the point-and-lecture. I can't finesse this kind of thing. Sometimes I feel like I'm a blunt instrument in a world of marshmallows. 

There is one more thing I should tell you about the Vietnamese man whose English was so bad that I never understood him. When he was in the refugee camp, he had a job. Guess what he did on his job.

He taught English to other refugees.

Mocedades

The song of the day is 1973's Eres Tú by Spanish singing group Mocedades featuring vocals by lead singer Amaya Uranga Amezaga. The band has been active from 1969 to the present. Mocedades came in second in the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest and has had a hugely successful music career in Spain and Latin America.

Purpose

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“We must rise above the milieu into which we were born. Sometimes, doing that requires more strength than we have at that moment. It is a task that awaits us, will always await us, and one that circumstance will one day force us to confront.”
—VirtualWayne

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As Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) said in the movie, On the Waterfront,

“You don't understand, I could'a had class, I could'a been a contender, I could'a been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.”

Regret is a sign that someone is evolving, growing. Their soul is becoming wiser. They know more today than they knew yesterday. They're a better person than they were. We all are evolving and may one day look back on our (possibly) misspent opportunities and think, "What a waste."

I suspect that the wiser we become, the tougher our life lessons become. We are always learning and we progress from easy lessons to difficult lessons.

What are we learning?

We are learning wisdom, to become wiser souls than we are today. To do that, we may have to walk a mile (or a lifetime) in someone else's shoes. You may be that person who is born with a disability, or who lives in grinding poverty, or who is innocent but is serving a life sentence in prison. As the proverb says, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

There will always be lessons. There will be lessons that, today, we cannot even comprehend. We will make mistakes, and we will learn from them. We may choose to learn, or Life may force us to learn, but we will learn and we will evolve and grow. Every life, every soul, has a purpose.

As was written long ago: 

“Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;
  Whoever is discerning, let him know them.”

Spiral

I was about four years old when I realized that sometimes we are conscious when we’re unconscious. Of course, I didn’t realize that I realized that. I didn’t think about it that way. It was just a part of life.

When I was four, my tonsils were removed. The doctor knocked me out with ether. Unfortunately, he administered too much ether. He gave me an overdose. If you’re a doctor, how do you know you’ve administered too much ether? Does your patient stop breathing? Probably. That’s what happened to me. On the outside, I was very peaceful — a little too peaceful, in fact. On the inside, it was quite another story.

I was unconscious, and perhaps my breathing had stopped, but I felt anything but unconscious. I could feel myself lying on the operating table in a dark room. Although I could not see them, I could sense around me the presence of others whom I took to be doctors and nurses. Above me in the blackness was a mighty, glowing spiral. It glowed with an intense white light as it slowly rotated. The spiral was unbelievably intense and seemed to burn its brilliance into my brain. I struggled to get off the operating table. The doctors and nurses fought to keep me on the table, but I lashed out at them with all my strength: kicking, flailing with my arms, thrashing, fighting. They held me down on the table while the burning white spiral spun slowly in space above me with an intensity beyond words.

When I awoke from surgery, I remembered how I fought to get off the operating table. I hoped that my struggle with the medical staff had happened only in my mind, but I couldn’t be sure; the struggle seemed so real. I knew the spiral had existed only in my mind, and therefore wasn’t “real”, but the memory was extremely vivid. For years afterward, whenever I remembered that spiral I re-experienced its intensity.

And now, a lifetime later, I wonder if, on some level of reality, might it have been real. Maybe something happened that my young mind tried to make sense of in the only way it could. With an overdose of ether in my brain, was I subconsciously fighting those who were administering it? Or was my soul about to leave my body, and the beings around me, the beings I assumed were doctors and nurses ... perhaps they were spirit guides and teachers working to keep my soul in my body to prevent me from dying. Perhaps it was simply an intense, drug-induced dream and nothing more.

I don’t know why I saw the spiral, but the spiral shape is surely a fundamental part of the Cosmos. From the structure of a seashell to the shape of our galaxy, spirals are truly abundant. Now there is a clue to something important.

Bureaucracy

My mother passed away in 2003. My father had died in 1994, so my mother's passing left an empty house in another city, the city where I grew up. I was living in Roanoke, Virginia, at the time of her passing. I was living in an apartment then, so it was easy for me to move into the empty house. I had to settle her estate, make repairs on and perhaps sell the house, and I couldn't do it remotely.

My mother had a safe deposit box at a local bank. One day I received a certified letter from the bank. I had already gone to the bank and told them she was deceased. But I didn't have the key to the safe deposit box, and they said they would need a court order to open it, and they'd have to call a locksmith and drill the lock out, and I'd have to pay $150 to have that done, etc. etc... It was a whole big deal. I thought "screw that" and I left. 

But they kept sending bills for the box rental. One day they sent the bill certified, and I could tell they were becoming impatient, with phrases like "you are severely behind" and "we will have to call a locksmith and there will be a $150 charge"... etc. 

So I took the bill to the bank, and I walked up to the front desk and said, "The bank keeps sending these bills addressed to my mother, and I came here last summer and told you she was deceased, and it is now 12 months later and she is still deceased, and I don't expect her condition to improve, but apparently the bank does, because you keep sending these bills." 

At first the teller girl said there was nothing she could do, then I took out some safe deposit box keys I had found at the house, and I said "maybe one of these will open it". She took the keys and, as we were walking to the vault, our conversation went like this:

Bank chick: "Who is the executor?"
Me: "There isn't one."
Bank chick: "Who is the administrator?"
Me: "There isn't one."
Bank chick: "What did your mother's will say?"
Me: "She didn't have a will."
Bank chick: "How are you handling everything then?"
Me: "I got a small estate affidavit and everything is taken care of except this."
Bank chick: "This could be a problem."
Me: "Not for me. Might be for you, though."
Bank chick: "Yeah."

We went into the vault, she put in her key, and tried one of my keys. The first one fit and she opened the door and removed the box and emptied it. There was nothing of value in it—just some old CDs.

I said, "I thought you had to have a court order to open that up," and she said, "I'm supposed to." Suddenly I understood. It's only a big deal when it's my problem. When it's their problem, that's different. Then, no big deal, we'll open it up right now and take care of everything. I thought it was really very funny. But of course, I kept a straight face as I left the bank. I didn't know it, but I was only at the beginning of a long battle with several financial bureaucracies. Oh, I could have written a book about it, and I should have. I would have titled it, "A Guidebook for Settling an Estate," or something similar. But I didn't. I had too much time-killing work ahead of me, and I'm only one person.

Payback

Life has rules. This is one of them. Parents should explain it to their children.

You may never get caught lying or stealing, but the Universe will know if you’re a liar and a thief. The Universe, God, Karma, Fate, however you think of it, operates by a set of rules. One of the rules is the law of balance: Life gives you back what you give Life. You can steal and not get caught, and then one day you fall in love and that person cheats on you and makes you miserable. You can tell a lie and never get caught, and then one day someone you trust lies to you and causes you misery. Some people say, "What goes around, comes around." I call it Payback. It is Life giving you grief because you gave grief to someone else.

This is the law of balance in the universe. Life rewards you according to the way you live. Everything you say and everything you do is balanced by Payback. You can lie, cheat, and steal, but the Universe will always know and it will always balance your actions with Payback. Fortunately, Payback works just as well when you do good things as when you do bad things. The more you give to Life, the more Life will give to you.

I know some readers will say, "What about reincarnation? If we die and are reborn, does Payback extend into our next lifetime?" My answer is, "Yes, it does." Your bad deeds may haunt you for several lifetimes. Eventually, you will learn what you must learn for your soul to advance. But why not start now? Why live miserable lifetimes if you don't have to? Be good, be decent, in your thoughts and actions starting now.

Suppose you do this. Suppose you make the necessary changes in your life. If it turns out that Payback isn't real and reincarnation doesn't exist, the "worst" that will happen is that you will make yourself into a better and happier person. So be a good person. In the long run, one way or another way, you really can't lose.

Dire Straits

The song of the day is Brothers In Arms from the 1978 album Brothers In Arms by British rock band Dire Straits, featuring vocalist and lead guitar Mark Knopfler.

Memories Etc.

The time is 2:15AM. No, nothing is wrong. This is the time of day I usually get up. Sometimes it's 3AM, sometimes it's 4AM, and sometimes it's 2AM. 

It didn't used to be like this. When I was a youngster, I had a paper route and I had to get up at 4AM every day of the week to deliver newspapers. I didn't like getting up at 4AM. I wanted more sleep. Eventually my brain and body learned to turn off the alarm clock without me waking up. That was not good.

The alarm clock was on the floor beside my bed. To turn it off, all I had to do was reach down and push the alarm button in. So I decided to make it more difficult to turn off. I placed the alarm clock under my bed, in the exact center of my bed. This way, to turn off the alarm I had to get out of bed and crawl partially under the bed in order to reach the clock. I was successful, for a while.

Then my brain and body learned to turn off the alarm clock without waking me up. That's right—I crawled out of bed, crawled under the bed, turned off the alarm, crawled out from under the bed, and got back into bed without waking up. It's amazing what the body can learn to do.

So delivering the morning paper went like this: At 4AM I rode my bike to the newspaper drop-off spot, and I gathered the bundles of papers, and I cut the wires holding the papers together and I rolled the papers and put them into a basket on the front of my bike. Then I rode my bike through the streets of my route, throwing papers at porches, on sunny days, rainy days, snowy days. Warm weather and ice cold weather, seven days a week. On Thursday afternoons (after school) I collected payment from customers on the first half of my route. On Friday afternoons (after school) I collected payment from customers on the second half of my route. On Saturday mornings I collected payments from people who were not at home on Thursday and Friday evenings.

I sold the papers for 45 cents per week, and the papers were big and heavy. They've shrunk to almost nothing nowadays, thanks to Internet competition. The 45 cents bought you seven days of home delivery newspapers. You could buy 5 days, weekdays only, for 25 cents (5 cents per day), or you could buy only the Sunday paper for 25 cents.  The Sunday paper was a monster, but the Thursday paper was no slouch—next to the Sunday paper, it was the second heaviest paper.

A bonus of delivering papers on a bike was dog attacks. I was bitten a half dozen times, always in sneak attacks, by dogs who roamed the streets freely.

For all those miserable hours of delivering newspapers on hot days, freezing cold days, rainy days, nice days, and then spending two afternoons and a morning collecting payment, how much did I make after I paid for the papers? I made about seven dollars per week. Yes, a dollar per day. I paid 3 cents for weekday papers and sold them for 5 cents. I paid 20 cents for Sunday papers and sold them for 25 cents. Times have changed. The papers now cost a lot more, and the size and weight of the newspapers have dwindled to the size of an advertising flyer that comes in the mail. But when you're 13 or 14 years old, your options for making money are limited. I suppose kids today simply ask their parents for money, but that wasn't an option for me.

Quickly changing the subject now...

I love popcorn, and I have some microwave Pop Secret (with natural butter taste) in the kitchen. I would not be surprised if one day my brain and body learn to get me up while I'm sleeping and have me make popcorn. I will know nothing of it, of course, until morning, when I awaken and become aware of butter on my face and t-shirt and then I will become suspicious that my body has been having fun without me.

The high temperature yesterday was 74°F. That's warm for mid-winter in central Virginia, but winters are generally getting warmer, as are summers. The outside temperature now is 67° and we have rain. Today is supposed to be partly sunny, and the weekend will be sunny with temperatures in the 50s. That's fine with me. I'll burn less heating oil, the house will be more comfortable, and I might even go outside for a walk. I know some people will be shocked, but I used to walk around the neighborhood every day. It became tiresome (boring) after a number of years and I quit walking. But I need to do it, so maybe I'll begin walking again. Maybe later today, when the sun is peeking out of the clouds. Maybe tomorrow, too. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

It's a little after 3AM now. Still dark, of course. I hope you have a great day! And if you can, go for a walk around the neighborhood.

Haunted Headphones

I've written about many strange occurrences in my house. The first one occurred maybe two days after I moved into the house. Here are a few of the blog posts in which I wrote about what I consider to be paranormal occurrences.

Go Figure (2012)

House Ghost (2015)

Odd Stuff (2015)

More Strangeness (2020)

Small Mysteries (2020)

Old Stuff (2021)

I have written other blog posts about the strangeness I live in, but they're hard to hunt down amongst the 1758 posts on this blog (as of this date). However, reading the above six posts will give you the flavor of what goes on in my house.

Now for something new. I was watching a video on YouTube. It was a video about odd occurrences and the title of the video has slipped my memory. It may have been "Scariest Things Caught on Live TV" but I'm not certain.

Nevertheless, I was on the web page and I was listening to the narrator through my computer speakers. On the third "strange" video, there was some narration—a spoken sentence—then there was a pause, and during that pause, I heard the narration again, the very same sentence spoken one more time, but this time the sound came from my headphones. But...my headphones were lying beside me and were not plugged in. If the headphones had been plugged into the computer, I would not have been able to listen to the speakers, because plugging in the headphones cuts out the speakers. Nevertheless, I heard the words spoken through my speakers, followed by the same words coming from my headphones which, as I just said, were not plugged into anything.

I quickly closed the page I was on. I was just a little spooked by the event. I didn't want to hear the remaining scary things. I closed that web page and began browsing other pages. I did not go back to that page. I didn't want to tempt Fate.

The Super Bowl and The Jeep

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. It's 4:20AM now, as I begin writing. It's dark, outside and inside, except for the glow of my computer screen. I hear the boiler running in the basement. My house has hot-water radiator heat. One of the radiators is very slow to warm and never gets as hot as the others. The bathroom radiator no longer gets hot at all. I don't know why. I used a radiator key to remover the bleed plug from both radiators. I used a paper clip to make sure the air bleed hole was open and not blocked by rust. Still, nothing came out of the bleed hole—not air, not water. Nada. I fear my options are (1) an expensive repair or (2) live with the problem. The ground floor of my house has five other radiators that work well, so I'm not cold.

Yesterday I drove my Jeep to Walmart at 6AM to pick up a few items. When I returned to my vehicle, still in darkness, I got in, shut the door, inserted the key into the ignition and turned the key. Nothing happened. This was not good.

I got out and raised the hood. In the dark and without tools, there wasn't much I could do. I grabbed each battery cable and pulled on it and shook it. I got back in the Jeep and turned the key again. This time the engine started. I drove home and parked inside my garage. The night air was 45° so I waited for the day to warm up somewhat. By 2PM the day was sunny and the temperature was 70°, very comfortable and warm for a February day in central Virginia. But that's the way February is. One day it's sunny and warm and the next day, like today, the high temperature will be 39° and rain then snow are in the forecast. 

At 2PM, I went to the garage and attempted to start the Jeep. Once again, nada. So I called my friend Butch who lives close by, and we worked on the Jeep for an hour. I was hoping that the problem was merely corrosion on the battery post. The battery post and the cable termination were badly corroded, so I mixed baking soda and water in a jar, stuck a toothbrush in it, and began cleaning the connection. At some point, this required removing the cable terminator from the battery post. Then it became obvious that a new battery post terminal was needed. So Butch drove me to AutoZone and I bought a new terminal for $5. 

We went back to my garage. and soon we had the new battery post terminal installed on the battery cable and connected to the battery. We checked the electrolyte level in the battery and three cells needed to have water added, so we did that. When I turned the ignition key, the Jeep started up just fine. Now, I could have taken the easy path of buying a new battery for $175, but my time and Butch's time were free. We needed something to do, anyway. 

So now it's Super Bowl Sunday. This is Super Bowl LVI—Super Bowl 56. I can remember Super Bowl 1. It didn't seem like a big deal then. It wasn't hyped like it is today. After all, it's only a football game. But I'll walk down to Butch's house around 6:30PM and, if he's home, we'll watch the Super Bowl. Did I say "walk" to his house? No, I'll probably drive to his house, what with rain and snow coming down. And it will be dark, both when I go and when I come home. So that will be my weekend. A small repair on the Jeep and watching a football game with a friend.

What will you (did you) do with your weekend?

Long-Hauler

I was reading an article about Covid long-haulers. These are people who get Covid and get over it, only to continue to have symptoms for months afterward. 

What caught my eye was the description of the symptoms. The article mentioned loss of smell, ringing in the ears, brain fog, heart problems, and severe fatigue, among other symptoms.

"Holy smokes," I muttered. "I've got all those symptoms."

• Loss of smell: check. All my frozen dinners taste the same.
• Ringing in the ears: check. It's called tinnitus and I've had it for half my life.
• Brain fog: check. Ask anyone who knows me—I'm always in a fog.
  
• Heart problems: check. I've been hospitalized several times for atrial fibrillation, a dangerous heart arrhythmia.
• Severe fatigue: check. I take naps every chance I get.

Apparently, I've had Covid for long before it became fashionable to have Covid. And I didn't know it.

I am not making light of people with Covid. But nowadays, most people in the hospital with Covid have done it to themselves. The article said that 90% of hospitalized Covid patients are not vaxxed and 98% of Covid patients are either not vaxxed or not boosted. 

Anti-vaxxers aren't necessarily stupid. They're just ignorant and arrogant.

Why ignorant? Because they have chosen not to get educated on what Covid is, how it works, and how vaccines work. They prefer to believe anonymous sources on the Internet. Or they believe sources that are not anonymous but are also not medically trained. They'll believe a neighbor or the pastor at their church before they'll believe scientists who have worked with vaccines for thirty years.

Why arrogant? Because they think they're smarter than all the world's doctors, medical institutions, the CDC, and the WHO. They think they know better than all the world's real experts. 

Some people think that the vaccine injects a "tracking chip" into their body. As an electrical engineer for many years, I can tell you that there is no "tracking chip" that can fit through the inside of a syringe.

"But they inject tracking chips into dogs," people will retort. No, they don't. A vet can put an ID chip into a dog. It's a medical procedure. The ID chip is about the size of a grain of rice. Due to its small size, when reading the chip the vet must hold the scanner about an inch from the chip, which is under the dog's skin. The chips are not GPS units, they can only provide the vet with a number. The number goes into a database, along with the owner's contact info. The owner of the dog must keep his contact info up-to-date in order for the vet to be able to contact him.

But you can get a GPS for your dog. It's a fairly large thing that attaches to a dog's collar and transmits its location to a mobile phone. Why is it large? Because the GPS electronics are much larger than the ID chip, and it also has a battery and an antenna.

My message to anti-vaxxers is: don't get your panties in a twist. You'll die one day anyway. Nothing is 100% certain except for death. You can get a flu shot and still get influenza. You can get a Covid shot and still get Covid. That happens to people who are immunocompromised. That means their immune systems have some kind of defect that doesn't allow their immune systems to fully function. It's common in elderly people. When you're old, nothing in your body works as good as it once did.

Follow your doctor's advice. Be very skeptical of medical advice on the Internet. And try to have a nice day.

Blogging For Dollars

Have you ever considered making money on YouTube? It's easy. You get some video clips from YouTube and mash them together and then give the mashup an intriguing title. "Weird Space Shuttle Landing" comes to mind. Of course, there is no actual weird landing, just a few short videos of ordinary shuttle landings. People will watch to the end while waiting for the in u "weird" landing to appear. When it doesn't appear, they'll be disappointed, but they'll get over it. Meanwhile your video, with some random advertisement that YouTube will insert, will net you $3 to $5 per 1000 views. So you start churning out stupid videos of cars crashing, dogs being adopted from a shelter, horses running in a pasture, and so on. I've already given you some smashing ideas.

The problem with those ideas is that there are tons of YouTube videos that are already profiting from those topics. So you need a very intriguing title for your video. If your title is too "far out" you might want to phrase it as a question. "Aliens Discovered on the Moon?" for example. "Bizarre Sea Creature Threatens Australia?" I've seen my share of those titles. "Is Space Infinite?" is one that comes to mind. Would it surprise you to learn that no one really knows. So you'll watch that video, sit through the ads, and learn nothing that is remotely useful. Wonderful.

Eyebolt

Here's a fact: I can put ads on my blog merely by going to a control panel and clicking a "switch". It would take just a few seconds. I doubt I have enough readers to make any significant amount of money, but who knows? I have 1755 blog posts now (February, 2022), and they receive about 300 to 500 views per day. Maybe one day I'll throw that switch and presto! my blog will have annoying adds sprinkled everywhere you look. Think of the dinero! I bet I could earn a dollar every day! But then, I'm an optimist. In reality, I'd probably earn 50 cents. Let me think—what can I buy with 50 cents? I know: I can buy an eyebolt for 47 cents. Oh wait, there's sales tax (5.3%) so that eyebolt will cost 49 cents. I just squeaked by on that purchase. But there's no gas money left for my Jeep so I'll have to walk to the store. And then walk back home. Bummer. But I could use the exercise, so maybe putting ads on my blog would be a good idea. But what am I going to do with a box full of eyebolts at the end of the month?

What do you think? Yay or Nay?

Spanish

I may have mentioned in a previous blog post that I'm studying the Spanish language. I've used Duolingo every day for the past 410 consecutive days. I studied Spanish for two years in high school, but that was so long ago that I can remember about ten words of Spanish from those years.

I'm learning more these days but I feel like a glass that is full to the brim, and the new knowledge is spilling out the top of my head like water spills out of an overly full glass. They can pour new knowledge into me but I can't retain it. My brain is too full of Spanish. (Not to mention it has a lifetime of other stuff crammed inside it.)

One thing that makes Spanish difficult for me is that the sentence structure can be very different from Engish. For example, the English sentence, "Where did Juan buy his new coat?" is translated into Spanish as, "¿Dónde compró Juan su abrigo nuevo?" And that Spanish sentence, if you translate it to English word by word, would read, "Where bought Juan his coat new?" Even worse, any of the pronouns can be translated different ways. The word "his" can be translated:

• su
• sus
• suyo
• suya
• suyos

But the Spanish word "su" can be translated:

• his
• her
• its
• their
• your

It just depends on what you want to say.

Trying to use Spanish reminds me of an experiment I read about many years ago. There is a special kind of prism, silvered on one face like the back of a mirror, that you can hold in front of your eyes and the world looks upside down. (Years ago I had one and it was pretty cool to hold it to my eyes and see everything upside down. Of course, the novelty wore off quickly.)

So scientists took volunteer subjects and affixed these special prisms in front of the eyes of each subject. At first, they (the volunteer subjects) were very flustered because their world looked upside down. But after a period of days their brains adapted to their new vision and the world looked normal again even while wearing the prisms. As you can probably guess, when the experiment ended and the volunteer subjects removed their special prisms, the world looked upside down again. This was because their brains had adapted to the prisms and was automatically turning visual images around, and without the prisms their brains continued "correcting" the already-correct images by turning those images upside down. Fortunately, after a few more days, their brains adapted again and the world that the subjects saw was right side up (normal) once more.

(A side note: the image of the world that is projected onto the retinas at the back of our eyes is, in reality, upside down! So our brains are always turning our worldview to right-side-up!)

Speaking a foreign language is like putting on the special prisms and turning our view of the world upside down (this is an analogy, of course). Reverting to one's native language is like taking off the special prisms. There are people who speak several languages and I don't know how they do it, but I suppose they were young when they learned their languages and their brains were more "flexible" and able to adapt to the new way of speaking. 

I've learned a little Spanish, but not nearly as much as I think I should have learned in 410 days. I've got some Spanish language courses from Pimsleur and I plan to try that system next. I'll need to buy an MP3 player so I can listen to Spanish lessons while I do other things. 

One day I was walking around my neighborhood and a female jogger passed me. She wore a headset and I heard her uttering foreign words. I thought that was great. If you're walking or running for physical exercise, why not exercise your brain at the same time and learn a new language? Or something. Multi-task, that's the word people use. It's hard to multi-task your brain; the brain is really good at doing one thing at a time. But training the body while training the brain shouldn't be a problem. There is much to think about. Hay mucho qué pensar.

Manners and Morals

I never had children. I'm childless. Sin hijos. But I, of course, was a child. I had "old-time" parents. They set rules for kids and if you were a child of their generation, you'd better not break one of their rules. I survived beatings with a belt and with switches (long thin branches from a bush) for the smallest infraction. I think most kids did in those days.

But I see kids today that obviously don't live by rules. I don't know if their parents simply don't set rules for them, or if the kids ignore the rules and suffer no consequences. Those kids will grow up to be adults who think rules don't apply to them. They will think they're above the law. I've seen it. The people who never had rules will be selfish. They won't care about rules and regulations—those are for other people. 

What can parents of today do for their kids? Set boundaries. Have consequences when those boundaries are crossed. I'm not saying applying a belt or a switch is the right punishment, but there must be some consequences when the parents' rules are ignored. Some rules will be for the safety of the children and ignoring them will put the children's lives in peril. Some rules will be there just because we live in a society with rules that help our society function smoothly.

Parents who don't create and enforce rules in their home can expect to have selfish and self-centered adults when their children grow up. The world already has too many of that kind of person.

I can't tell you how my country used to be. That's something you can only know if you were there. But having been there, I can say that the difference between then and now is eye-popping. It's startling. More than that, it's alarming. I look at what is happening today in my country and the old phrase "Going to Hell in a Handbasket" comes to my mind.

If you're of my generation, you know I'm right because you've lived through it and you've seen it. If you're a younger person, what's coming for you one day is a world you won't believe. 

You'll see.

Turmoil

For 13 months we've been shown videos of that winter day when rioters stormed the nation's Capitol, and I ask, what is their problem? Are they facing starvation? Are they homeless? What do they crave that they do not have and cannot obtain? What drives them to lawlessness and insurrection? If they crave a better life, what are they doing to create a path to the life they want? Are they going to night school and taking courses that will enable them to obtain a better job? People used to do that. I had my first paying job when I was 13 and I went to night school when I was 16. Are these rioters unable to find a job? There are more job openings now than job applicants. I see signs reading "Hiring Now" in shop windows wherever I go in my city. In my state, the Virginia General Assembly has passed legislation to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. The minimum wage is now $11/hour and will go to $12/hour next year. We're making progress.

But that is not the problem. The Capitol riots were not caused by the frustrations of some underclass, according to a report by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. Here's what they discovered about the Capitol rioters.

Over half of those who have been arrested are business owners and workers from white-collar occupations, doctors, lawyers, and architects. They include CEOs, a cardiovascular specialist, lawyers, a design engineer, accountants, and the founder and president of a firm that tests satellites. The percentage of business owners facing charges is 26 percent, more than twice their percentage in the U.S. population. In other words, the January 6th riots were riots of the relatively rich—not suffering farmers, inner-city gangs, or unemployed blue-collar workers. This rebellion of the well-off explains how some rioters were able to travel to Washington, DC, by passenger jet and then were able to afford hotel rooms, rental cars, and restaurant meals.

Trump is dangling the hope of pardons for the convicted rioters if he is elected again. But Trump seems to be the kind of man who only wants to help people if it benefits Trump. He will dangle the pardons (with the caveat that they would go to those who were convicted "unfairly") hoping the offer will buy votes. But once he has gotten those votes, what is the advantage to Trump of following through with his promise of pardons? Does he really care about those people? Doubtful. There is no advantage for Trump, so it is likely that he will forget about his promise of pardons. That's my opinion, of course, but also the opinion of people more knowledgeable than me.

But all that is beside the fact. The fact is that it is wrong to riot, trespass, destroy public property, to attack, injure, and kill police officers, to steal government property and commit other crimes, egged on by an ex-president. 

But suppose the rioters had been successful in overturning the 2020 election. What then? How would that improve their lives? In what ways would having Trump back in office make their lives better? Is there nothing they can do while they're at home—and not destroying property—that might make them happier and more satisfied with life? I just don't get it. But I have a message for them.

Dear unhappy people: I want you to take a deep breath, sit down, relax, and listen to the wisdom of Bobby McFerrin. His words are as on-target today as they were in 1988. Don't Worry, Be Happy. If, when the song ends, you still feel like overthrowing the U.S. government, then listen to the song again. And then again, and again, until you feel like a normal human being. You remember how that feels, right?

Upcoming Visit

My Costa Rican lady friend, Nuria, made plans to visit me in the spring of this year. She sent me her itinerary and when I read it I noticed that she had scheduled her trip home on the day before my birthday. This called for some teasing, so I said, "You're going home on the day before my birthday?!" Nuria was dismayed when she realized she had done that, and she told me that she would reschedule her return trip.

I assured her that it wasn't important. "If you want to celebrate my birthday, we can do it the day before you leave. It's really not important." She insisted on being here for my birthday, and the next day she sent me a new itinerary.

But I was serious when I said it was okay. I've lived alone for decades and I never celebrate my own birthday. It's just another day to me. It's a milestone, a marker, that reminds me (nowadays) of the approaching end of my earthly existence. Nevertheless, it's a day that many people seem to want to celebrate, in their own lives and in the lives of their family and friends. 

As for me, if I could get a piece of delicious, yellow birthday cake with white icing, like I had when I was a boy, I would be happy. Pre-diabetic, maybe, but happy. It doesn't take much for me to be content. 

I haven't posted any photos of me to this blog, at least none that I can remember, so I decided to post a photo of Nuria and myself at the Richmond airport. I took this photo on her first trip to visit me as we waited for her plane to arrive to take her back to Costa Rica.

VirtualWayne and Nuria in the RIC terminal

Wearing masks was (and still is, at this date) a requirement in order to be in the Richmond Airport Terminal. Which is to say, we're not wearing masks just to be stylish, nor to be anonymous, although wearing a mask does have those advantages.

Tomorrow is Sunday and on Monday I'll have to get busy with some housekeeping chores. In about six weeks I expect Nuria to be in my house once more, and I don't want her to be too shocked at what she sees: the home of the single man. But she's seen it before, so she won't be shocked. Aghast, maybe. Appalled, dismayed, and stunned, perhaps. But not shocked. 

Till next time. ~VW

Intuition

“At me too someone is looking, of me too
someone is saying,
He is sleeping, he knows nothing,
let him sleep on.”
— Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Most people are sleeping. The vast majority of people are sleeping. If you could look down upon a street full of people going about their business, and could truly see them, most of them would be shadows of people. Only a few would look like real people who are really alive.

The people who are shadows are like robots. They think they're conscious, they think they are making their own decisions, but they are not. Their brain is running a program, like a computer runs a program. This program has been put into their heads by television, by movies, by books and magazines, by friends and strangers, by Internet websites, by advertisements and countless things that they encounter every day.

There is something about human brains that most people don't know. Experts know that just before your conscious mind "makes" a decision, your subconscious brain makes that decision and sends it to the conscious mind. That consciousness in your head will feel like it made a decision, but it did not. The subconscious mind made the decision and presented it to your conscious mind in a way that made the conscious mind think that it made the decision. Your decisions are not yours, they are products of your subconscious mind, a part of your brain that might appear to be asleep, since you cannot talk with it. But it is awake, and always computing, and always making you think that you are making decisions.

A few people are awake, but they are a small minority. Those people have spent years practicing certain mental disciplines so they can be awake. But for some few people, just knowing that they are walking around asleep may be useful. From a BBC article:

“In other words, unconscious mechanisms, through the preparation of neural activity, set us up for any action we decide to take. But this all happens before we consciously experience intending to do something. Our unconscious appears to rule all actions we ever take."

and ...

“However, the conscious mind does not control our actions. Our actions are almost exclusively controlled by the subconscious mind. This mind is largely ruled by emotions and instinct. Its job is to help us meet our needs and urges: reproduction, food, thirst, safety, intimacy, and many others." 

Link: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210527-how-unconscious-forces-control-our-actions

Sometimes some of this subconscious information leaks into our consciousness and we call it intuition. The subconscious mind works much faster than the conscious mind. It steps in to pull us out of the way of oncoming danger. We call it reflex, but it was our subconscious mind computing what was going to happen much faster than our conscious mind could have operated. 

If you want to explore this subject, there are many articles on the Internet and many books in bookstores. 

My subconscious mind has decided that I need to go to bed now. So sayonara, goodbye, adieu, until a new day comes.