Humor

In response to my news on Monday of my colonoscopy and my daughters car wreck, my brother wrote: "Glad to hear about your rear end, sorry to hear about your front end."

Ha!

Also, the Prius is not totaled! We should have it back in a month.

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value humor as a tool to help handle the rough times and family to provide support (humorous and otherwise) when it's needed.

Good News, Bad News

I had several good news/bad news moments today.

1. Bad News: went in for my sigmoidoscopy (only 13,000 feet of tube, not the whole 17,000 feet (read that link before continuing).
   Good News: Apparently, "Flying Colors" are various shades of pink. At least, that's what I saw on the screen when the Doc said that I came through with Flying Colors.
   Side notes: I didn't get Abba. No drugs (good or otherwise). I was in and out of there in 40 minutes (including checking in!) and there was no recovery room where I could play the... uh, "trumpet" The tech said, "Pull up your pants, go out the door and to your left to the exit." He was courteous enough to leave off the "don't let the door hit you on your newly-sensitive behindular zone on the way out" part. So I had to drive home with an uncomfortable gut. All was better within an hour and a half, though, so don't any of you think you should get out of doing it.


2. Bad News: My daughter was caught in the middle of a four-car pile-up this afternoon. I would not be surprised if our Prius is totaled.
   Good News: No one was injured. I drove up and picked her up at the scene of the accident. The Highway Patrol officer was very kind and complemented her on her handling of her first accident. She did all the right things aside from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.


3. Bad News: My mom's cancer diagnosis is confirmed.
   Good News: They're starting her on a six-month chemo course tomorrow. That is a significantly better prognosis than I was expecting.

As strange as it sounds, all in all, this was a much better day than it could have been. I definitely flashed on Taarna's accident when my daughter called to say she'd been in an accident. I didn't panic at any of this news and I'm weirdly calm. I don't believe that I am in shock or denial.

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value acceptance of reality as it happens and the flexibility to adjust my actions to cope with it.

Revelation

Since about Sunday, I've been back on the Protein Power induction plan that I had such good success with several years ago. (This time for sure, Rocky!) Monday and Tuesday I felt ecstatic! I was dropping weight and feeling good, confident, powerful.

Wednesday evening I ate some very yummy taco casserole. The bottom of the dish is lined with corn tortillas then layered on top are beans, ground meat (turkey, I think), sour cream and cheese. I knew I should avoid the tortilla level but - dang! - it was tasty! I ate two servings.

Now, realize that I really don't to the beating-myself-up thing. Nutritional vacations come and go. No big deal. I get back on the bike and keep going. Then, I started feeling cravings. *sigh* I decided not to take any of the left-overs for lunch because I didn't want to go through that at work today.

Then, I started feeling stupid. Again, I don't mean that in a beat-myself-up way. I started feeling slower, duller, weak. What sprang to mind was Flowers for Algernon. That feeling was a real bummer. I started feeling down, too. The feeling lasted through this morning and started to lift. By this evening I felt good, again.

My name is ScottMGS and I am a carboholic.

Sometimes I wonder if Graham and Kellogg could have been right (in a very wrong way). There's a lot of salacious information on them here.

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value self-reflection and the insight I can gain by paying attention.

Transition II

It has always been my habit to try to control everything around me. I've suppressed that in my life, knowing that "It's not fair." Now, I see that I need to do what I need to do for internally-driven reasons.

The egalitarian ideal is just that, an ideal. It can never be implemented faithfully, try as people might, and I waste my time and energy trying to conform. There is always a power balance that favors some and is denied others. I have been feeling the stirrings of my own power for several years but I've been whining and fearful about using it, afraid that it not fair to other people, that I would be making choices for them.

Now, I see it differently. I can't empower people to do what they want and need while holding myself back. If nothing else, being in charge of myself is a good example! My community, my family and my friends need me to do what I need to do just like I need them to do what they need to do.

Dang! That sounds so... libertarian!

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value the ability to transform myself to define who I am and make myself more useful to the world.

Jury Duty

Okay, so. I was called to jury duty yesterday. I really like the idea of the jury system that we have here in the U.S. It is one of the most successful and egalitarian of our democratic institutions. According to the introduction to jury service that I attended yesterday morning, the San Diego court system (city and county, superior and municipal, I think) is the third largest court organization in the U.S. Over one million jury summons are sent out every year. That is a lot of people and takes a lot of work to keep it running smoothly.

One of the things I like about the system as it stands is that it really only requires the potential jurors to bring their common sense to bear on the case. It does not require specialized scientific, psychological, business or legal knowledge to participate. Indeed, if you have something relevant to the case you will probably be excused from serving! That, in itself, really levels the playing field.

There are, of course, some people who will be overlooked or excluded. People who are deaf or significantly hard-of-hearing and people who don't have a facile grasp of spoken English can't serve. (I wonder if people who can't read are excluded, too.) That essentially makes English the official language of our legal system so recent immigrants are likely to be underrepresented. That said, there are good reasons for this as far as making the system work properly. Translation is a tricky thing - especially live translation - and nuances are tricky enough for native speakers. Nevertheless, it is no less exclusionary even if it is necessary to make the system work.

Another aspect is the number of constraints placed on the jury. Again, there are many good reasons for some, or even most, of these constraints but it seems to me that some get in the way of finding the truth. Admittedly, the jury is expected to decide the truth but a jury is (supposedly) limited to the facts (and incident information) presented during the testimony and evidence phase of a trial.

One aspect that does bother me is how many people want to avoid serving on a jury. I admit that it is daunting on several fronts. My work will pay for me to perform up to ten days of jury service but other companies pay for fewer and some don't pay at all. The law only requires that the company not fire people for serving.

I think some people are uncomfortable with making decisions for or about other people - I speak for myself but I am sure that others feel the same. Some of these decisions are life-and-death, multiple years of incarceration, loss of rights, loss of access to loved ones, the chance that the wrong decision is made, lost hopes for justice (or revenge), lost wealth, lost health, etc. The people on a jury will be responsible for choosing who loses - somebody always loses. The loss is always a big loss. That is daunting.

I wonder if people in our society are less community-oriented and so feel less responsibility for the community and, therefore, less responsible to their community. I know that I tend to pick and choose what sub-communities I feel responsible for and to. It might be better to say that I have different levels of commitment to various aspects of our society.

Anyway, to Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value our system of justice for how effective it is considering the pressures on it. Even with its flaws, I appreciate its basis as a distinctly democratic institution.

America

This is a weird one for me. I've always been leery of people claiming to be "proud to be an American". To me, pride is a foreign concept but should be associated with personal accomplishments or, at least, something that participated in significantly. Just being born isn't really a justifiable cause for pride.

Nevertheless, I find myself contemplating being a privileged citizen of the United States of America. I didn't deserve to be born here nor did I earn the rights and privileges. So I ponder the privilege and the responsibility that I feel goes with it. The responsibilities I feel aren't the drive to fight (and risk death) against our "enemies", the drive to export our way of life, to absorb the rest of the world into our demesne.

No, rather, I feel the need to extend the way our government is, by law, required to treat its citizens to the people who are not our citizens. When someone, for whatever reason, comes into the control of any branch of the U.S. government (e.g. the legal system, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the military, the CIA, etc.) they should be accorded all rights accorded to citizens.

I am aware that the Declaration of Independence is not a document with legal standing but, oh, how I wish that the first sentence of the preamble:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

...was included in the Constitution!

Now, allowing that "men" means "people" (and some would like to extend that to "beings"), it would seem that, being equal, all people should be accorded those "unalienable Rights" regardless of their nationality and even discounting their animosity toward our nation. That, alone, might reduce some of the animosity we've earned during the "war on terror".

As opposed as I am to some of the actions of our administrations through the years, I do not oppose our form of government. There are many changes I would make but I would not suggest that they be made except through the system that the Constitution put in place. Even with our human failings, the framework is good.

I understand that I have the unearned privilege of being a citizen of the United States of America and because I am a voting citizen I can make more of a difference by participating than by withdrawing. Making change happen means more than paying taxes and voting, though. How can I use my privilege to make the world a better place?

I am grateful that I am a citizen of the United States of America.

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United State of America and believe that our government should extend these inherent privileges when dealing with nations and people at all levels.

Balance

Balance is dynamic and requires some degree of flexibility.

Physically, balance is an acquired skill. Generally, children get the ability to stand in less than a year. It seems easy but it's a complicated process - we just don't have to think about it. Later in life, balance is harder to maintain as the body and the nervous system take a beating from time.

Mental balance is the ability to stay sane with all the input we receive.

Life balance is finding the (ever-changing?) mix of seeking challenges and having fun.

I am grateful to be mostly balanced in most areas of my life.

To answer Taarna's question; What do I value most? I value balance and the awareness it takes to maintain it.

Simplicity

"Consumerism is the belief that things will make you happy. Simplicity is the acknowledgment that they will not." - From a blurb on the book "Rational Simplicity"

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value simplicity as a way of life. I am not there and I am aware that what I call simplicity will strike some people as not simple enough and other people as unnecessarily spartan.

History

I value history and what we can learn from its study (and what we can learn from our rose-tinted view from the present). We often say that the people of the past are either more sophisticated than we are (more in tune with nature or the seasons, better at predicting the weather, etc.) or more gullible, superstitious and naïve. We choose one way or another depending on what we want to convey with our story (or sermon). Let me be clear: I am not casting aspersions on this practice. It is by comparing some current practice with a similar past practice and noticing the similarities and differences that we learn from our past.

This came to mind as I was listening to some of the Earth-centered mythology around Winter Solstice. The story is often told that people way back noticed that the sun was getting lower in the sky, nights were getting longer and the days shorter and the weather getting colder, trees lost their leaves and plants died. All valid observations. For me, the iffy part starts with the interpretation of the observations. The stories say that the people feared that the sun was dying or was leaving would not come back. The people who built Stonehenge knew that the year was a cycle and they knew it to the point where they could build a sophisticated physical observatory to mark the seasons. My guess is that the people back then told their children that the people long before them feared that the sun was dying, etc. and so on back a long way. This isn't to say that they approached this time of year without fear. In fact, I would venture to guess that one of the reasons they wanted to know the exact day of the winter solstice is to be able to figure out how far their food supplies had to stretch. No one had a supermarket down the street, back then, with fresh fruit from Chile in January!

History is a wonderful source for lessons and warnings but be sure to peer beyond the top layer.

Debt

I do not value debt, or, to put it in positive terms, I value being debt-free. I am not there, yet. Consumer debt is using money I hope to have in the future to buy stuff now. Seems like a good deal until you actually think about it. You will end up paying extra for every item you buy unless you pay off your debt before it accrues any interest. Going forward, I need to reduce my debt load. That will reduce the money lost to interest payments and increase the money I can put to implementing my values.

My Job

I've been struggling with my attitude about my job for a long time. Considering this question, though, I have to admit that I've got a pretty sweet deal. I get paid well enough to support my family on one income in San Diego - no mean feat! I am not called on to work outrageous hours. I work with good people. The job is does not require me to work against my principles and values: It's not a Department of Defense job (a big employer, here). It is not involved with deceit or fraud (except to catch it). It has reasonable employment practices and there are people in management who do care about their employees.