The Sea of Cortez, Sunrise and Looking Ahead

This is more of a personal than a professional piece but with less and less separation between the two dimensions, herewith.  Our recent travels began the first week in January, took us respectively through Houston and Phoenix and we crossed the border around noon to Mexico on January 9 at Otay Mesa, the eastern port of entry at Tijuana, thus missing one of the busiest border crossings in the world.  We had camped the previous two nights in Chula Vista, CA getting ready for the big trip south to Baja.  Little did we know what lay ahead.  Driving a 39' motor home some 8' wide, towing our Jeep we stopped the first night in Ensenada, only 91 miles. We set out the next morning, quickly ran out of good roads and then began the narrow two lane roads and later on through mountains of snaking curves, steep ascents and descents and the trip to Los Barrilles, some 1000 miles, took four more days arriving on Sunday, January 13.  This fishing, kite surfing village is about 45 miles north of San Jose del Cabo and another 20 miles from there to Cabo San Lucas at the tip of Baja.

Ten days later we set off for La Paz to put our vehicles and us on a ferry to Mazatlan. We had arrived in plenty of time to pick up our reserved tickets, measure and weigh the vehicles, go through customs and inspections and get them and us, separately, on board the Mazatlan Star of Baja Ferries.  The pictures here (www.bajaferries.com) are not our ship but a newer one with a few more amenities.
This was definitely not a cruise ship but a commercial ferry that carries mostly big tractor trailer rigs and a deck or two of cars and of course some passengers, maybe 100-150 many of whom walked on.  There are six decks, four of which are for vehicles, one for reception, cafeteria and lounge and a few cabins and another with mostly cabins and outside deck space.  We had a small but comfortable cabin on the top deck.

As I started to drive on to the ferry in the motor home, Susie with the Jeep, one crew member wanted me to back on, another wanted me to drive on front first.  The two of them argued and the drive on head first guy won out and I proceeded up the steel ramp onto deck number 3 and up another  ramp to level 4.  I had to pull forward and then back into a very narrow space between two rows of tractor-trailer trucks of which there were probably five or six rows on that particular deck.  They pack all the vehicles in like sardines front to back, side to side, with several crew members directing.  That done, I squeezed through and was led by a security guard up to reception where I waited for Susie.  We had begun loading at 3 PM and all was accomplished in two hours and we cast off around 5 PM.  From the bay near La Paz, at the port of Pichilingue, we headed north then made a big turn south into the Sea of Cortez, also known as the Gulf of California.  Our course took us toward Mazatlan on the mainland, arriving there some sixteen hours later, a calm and easy crossing.

As we are often up before sunrise, we wanted to see this one especially out on the water and it was spectacular.  Sunrise on the Sea of Cortez reminded me of those early sailors and explorers who, guided by the stars, traveled so many of the oceans, searching for new lands to exploit and conquer but also seeking new countries for those willing to start a new life in another land.  Somehow, the sun over water adds a dimension of brilliance to both elements and the ocean air is a third variable in the equation that makes an early morning meditation both easy and very peaceful.  The winds were fairly clam although a flight of five large sea birds could hover almost motionless above the ferry as we plowed through the water.

Mexico has a fascinating history with significant cultures of indigenous people going back some 13,000 years.  Then the Spanish came in the early 16th century and either conquered or merged with the Mayan, Toltec and Aztec peoples.   Hernando Cortez was one of those explorers who marched across Mexico, over ran the Aztecs and established Mexico City but that whole campaign was not won easily.  There are many stories of the struggles of the Mexican people right up to the current day and the political leaders and issues that continue to plague this beautiful country and the people who live and work here.

We landed the morning of January 25th, in Mazatlan, exited the ferry for another inspection by the military and then hooked up and headed for Guadalajara, almost all expensive toll roads but easy driving until we hit the outer limits of the city.   Then it was solid six lanes of traffic in both directions until we made a wrong turn 300 feet too soon, had to unhook and get back out on the busy road before finally finding San Jose del Tajo, a remote campground in Guadalajara and drove down a cobblestone road under low palm trees and a narrow passage way.  The next day was a "morningmare" getting out of the city.  We got lost,  in spite of our GPS and good sense of directions, went at least 30+ miles out of the way, finally ended up in a barrio dead end and had to get a taxi driver to get us out to the highway headed out but in a different direction than we had planned.   We were about 2 hours delayed by that fiasco and then another wrong turn in Queretero and we ended up in some catacomb tunnels under the city, arched stone passages that were low and narrow and dark.  An angel on the street gave us directions out through a straight long tunnel and we headed on to San Miguel, arriving finally around 5 PM, about 4 hours later than planned but intact if a little harried.

Here at Hotel Balnerio San Ramon there are some concrete pads for about six RVs and one of them was already occupied by a couple with an identical Allegro Bus to ours, same year, a bit different floor plan.  They have been almost full time for about 7 years, lived on the island of Vieques in the Caribbean for six years prior and are originally from Colorado.  They have mega information about RV travels, Mexico and all the systems that make this kind of life comfortable and enjoyable.  There is good connectivity here most of the time via WiFi, cell phone and email, so I continue to work with those back in the states with whom I am engaged in several projects that are ongoing.  Another couple from the Yukon territory near Whitehorse arrived and have already been in Mexico for a month planning to spend 4-5 months seeing other parts.  They are traveling in a truck camper, the Dodge diesel truck is 10 years old, in great shape and the camper is new.  They can go many places we cannot such as boon docking on wonderful beaches, remote and beautiful mountain spots and smaller parking places in many campgrounds that cannot accommodate our big rig as they're called here and in the states.

Speaking the language would be a tremendous asset when traveling here and we're hoping that by the end of our three weeks of Level 1 Spanish classes we can at least get along better than we have thus far.  The Mexican people are wonderfully friendly and helpful and seem glad to see us Nortenos from Estados Unidas or Norteamericanos.  This is our fifth extended trip to Mexico and we are already looking forward to more.   The challenges are far outweighed by the rewards of both the travel and being here.  The weather is superb, the people gracious and generous of spirit, our house on wheels comfy and cozy with an outside patio for additional space.

Sunrise this morning over the hills of San Miguel de Allende reinforce our desire to continue this kind of travel and new living/learning experiences.  The warm days and very cool nights are most comfortable, the surroundings are beautiful, the old part of the city charming and intact, and we are looking forward to being here for the next several weeks.  School is hard, learning a new language at this age is challenging,  the teacher, Warren Hardy,  is terrific and we should come away with at least some basic language skills to help us communicate a little more effectively with our Mexican friends here south of the border.   We don't expect to become fluent but we do hope to add to our very limited vocabulary and use of the language.

I learned yesterday and even more today about why my brain is not so resilient as previously.  Both it and I are much older!  We fill that storage space with all kinds of memories, information and details.
And the older we get, the more that's in there and the harder it is to add anything more.  If someone has a way of erasing that which is no longer of use, without surgery, please let me know.  In the meantime, as lifelong learners, we continue to challenge ourselves with learning what we believe is important, valuable and practical.  The rest will just have to be put on ignore!  

Be Out of Touch and Enjoy it!

Be Out of Touch – And Enjoy It!   

As the owner/user of an iPhone, an iMac and a MacBookPro, plus a wireless connection in office and home, and in most public venues for all of them, (plus a roommate who is similarly connected) I am somewhat familiar with email, voice mail, live conversations and meetings through various means including Skype, Google+, webinars with and without video and conference calls.    Add to this mélange of apparati the social media network that includes one or more of the following social media -Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, My Space and Google + -  and you have activity that sucks up a lot of time, attention, energy and resources.  Yes, it’s how people communicate, connect and do business and fills our calendars and schedules with meetings, appointments, commitments and projects.

The phrase, “taking time off” is interesting because one cannot really ever turn time off.  What we mean is "time out" from the usual and ordinary, perhaps to invest in the unusual and extraordinary.   Like it says in the old ads for Timex, it just keeps on ticking.  One day, we will run out of time, or walk out, or lie down and check out.  Think of some of the amusing ways people speak about time.  “I didn’t have time to do it.”  What they really mean is they did not choose to take the time to do it, whatever “it” was, but who is going to say that?    How about this one?  “It’s time to eat.”  That was my mother calling from the kitchen.  Whether you were actually hungry or not didn’t matter.  It was “time” for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  One family I knew quite well, not my own, sat down precisely at 5:30 PM every evening for dinner and everyone was expected to be there and be on time.  Being “on time” is highly important to many people but different cultures regard that behavior with more or less value.  Personal priorities about being “on time” may also vary.

In certain cities in the U.S., it is not uncommon for us to find timetables or daily schedules for buses or trains. If the bus is to be at a certain stop at 10:09 PM, for example, one can expect that to happen at the designated time, give or take a minute.   For polychronic individuals such precise timetables are mind-boggling, as many of them are simply used to going to the bus stop and waiting – not knowing whether they will be waiting for five or forty-five minutes. That is just the way things are.

This difference in time orientation is reflected in the complaints of U.S. business people conducting business in Saudi Arabia or in Mexico, for example. A big source of frustration for them is the difficulty of getting through a meeting’s agenda. That is because in these countries meetings begin with an extended socializing time in which time is spent establishing social rapport – usually over many cups of coffee or tea."

We are often like Pavlov’s dog.  The bell rings and we respond whether by changing activities, answering a call or checking something in the oven.  We are conditioned and regulated by time.  It’s “time” to go to bed.  It’s “time” to get up.  It’s “time” to go to work.  It’s “time out” and “time” to start again.  It’s “time” for the meeting.  It’s “time” to leave in order to get there in a reasonable amount of time.  It’s all about time and yet time is an invention, a construct for our convenience and we are bound by it.  How we measure time and how we use it reveals an enormous amount about who we are as individuals and who we are as a culture.

Here’s a phrase that amuses me because of the double entendre. “It’s about time” we say, meaning usually that we have waited for some time for something or other to happen and finally, it has taken place. Whether that expresses gratitude, relief or annoyance depends upon the context.  A long-awaited package arrives at the door and we say, “It’s about time!”   And really, it is simply that it has taken longer than was expected or desired for the delivery to be accomplished.  Big deal!  Get over it!  At least we got the package.

ßIn order to get more done in the same amount of time the phenomenon of multi-tasking has appeared and it seems to have arrived in conjunction with the advent of computers that are able to perform several functions at the same time.   Recent research at Stanford on multi-tasking shows that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.

High-tech jugglers are everywhere – keeping up several e-mail and instant message conversations at once, text messaging while watching television and jumping from one website to another while plowing through homework assignments.  But after putting about 100 students through a series of three tests, the researchers realized those heavy media multi-taskers are paying a big mental price.

When it comes to our brain’s ability to pay attention, the brain focuses on concepts sequentially and not on two things at once. In fact, the brain must disengage from one activity in order to engage in another. And it takes several tenths of a second for the brain to make this switch. As John Medina, author of “Brain Rules” says: “To put it bluntly, research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously.” ( http://brainrules.blogspot.com/2008/03/brain-cannot-multitask_16.html)

When we are in situations where there are multiple sources of information coming from the external world or emerging out of memory, we are apparently not able to filter out what's not relevant to our current goal.  That failure to filter means we are slowed down by that irrelevant information."

However, that said, there are examples and instances that may show some exceptions and here is one such illustration.  The song, “The Time of My Life” which was the music and lyrics used in the final scene of the movie Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, was written by Frankie Previte.   Previte said: "I received a call from Jimmy Ienner who asked me to write a song for this little movie.  I told him I didn't have the time and he said, 'Make time. This could change your life.'"  Frankie's former bandmate John DeNicola and his friend Don Marowitz came up with the music for the song. Says Previte, "I received a track from John and Donny and I wrote the lyric and melody for the chorus in the car while I was driving along the Garden State Parkway, going to a studio session for another song."

Here’s the message:  Making or taking time to do what is really important can change your life. The question is, what is really important?  You are!

In light of all this connectivity, our current offering is an opportunity for a small group of people to unplug for several days and come together in an old-fashioned retreat setting and see what we might make of this kind of experience.   It will be interesting to get some feedback on the unplugged part of the Seminar and see how many were really able to stay simply unplugged for most of three full days.  Perhaps the only way to accomplish that part is to go to a hermitage where there is no electricity, no wireless, no cell service (global sat excluded) no land lines and make it a true wilderness event.   I will put it on my to do list and write it out on a yellow note pad.  Consider the SFLC event in April in Santa Fe, New Mexico!  http://www.santafelead.org

© Gary Gruber 2013

PUT YOUR MONEY ON THE KIDS!

-->

Schools, organizations, kids and the future   

When schools began to be compulsory, the model was, following the industrial revolution, to make little workers of the students.  Like their fathers, and later their mothers during wartime especially, in the factories, they were to follow instructions, work diligently at whatever was assigned as their task – reading, writing, arithmetic – and produce good work or the right answers or whatever it was that the teacher wanted.  In the factory setting the foreman was the leader/teacher of the work group and the boss/manager was the principal.

Schools are still organized around the work day schedule whether 8 AM to 5 PM or the five-day week or the nine or ten months per year.  There are some notable exceptions where some high schools, recognizing the different bio-rhythms of adolescence start later in the day and have early evening classes.   Some even have some terrific week-end activities.   There are some year-round schools that take time off throughout the year rather than the long summer break fostered by an agrarian society that needed children in the fields.  One great disadvantage of the long summer for many students is that the first part of the following year is spent in review and catching up where they left off last year.   What if schools could break out of the adult mold and respond to children’s needs in developmentally appropriate ways?

Now it seems that students have moved up a notch or two but they’re still in the organization or company mold only this time they are the managers, trying to manage their time and their resources, their schedules and their activities, their homework (increased significantly over that of the previous generation) as well as their school day, friendships, parental expectations and future plans (both strategic and long-range).  Some schools are even preparing these young protégés for the next move up the ladder to the CEO ranks and have co-opted, with the best of intentions, a leadership theme.  How else can these young worker/students climb higher on the ladder of success and achievement?

Are they only fulfilling the expectations of those adults who surround them?  Or, as we might hope, are they being encouraged to ask their own questions about meaning and value, purpose and direction?  Are we helping them to become intelligent and critical participants of the very system that often fails to inspire and support them?  Are they developing a zest for learning, exploration, discovery and expression?  What other questions must we examine carefully to know whether or not we are serving their best interests or only those we have decided are important?   .

“The Organization Kid” (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/the-organization-kid/302164/  following by 45 years The Organization Man is one look at the students in the beginning of the 21^st century that remind us that authority of parents and other adults – teachers especially, was not only back in vogue but in fact may make a significant contribution to the way young people are able to live comfortably, securely and productively within specified boundaries of respect, responsibility and restraint.  The downside to all of this is what I found for so many years when asking the following question of students in numerous private and public high schools:   Why are you here? Why are you here in this particular school at this particular time?  Similar question of an organization:  What is your business or profession? What do you hope to achieve as a result of your practice? 

None of the students that I recall answered that they were there “to be students.”    Some responded that they were there to “receive an education” but that suggests a high degree of passivity in the same way that someone might respond by saying to get something by doing simply what is required as a means to an end.  What they did say in vast numbers, was that they were there to go somewhere else and “to get ahead” which meant to go on to the next place, to get a job.  In college preparatory schools they were there to get ready to go on to the next level of education.   Their response was sufficiently intriguing to pursue the conversation by asking them to explain the purpose of the next step and the response was equally future-oriented, to prepare for the next stage of life – it was something like this – high school, college, perhaps graduate school, good job, lots of money, comfortable life, early retirement so that they could really do what they wanted to do.  Why must they wait so long to do “what they really wanted to do?”  

I queried a recent graduate of a prestigious university that many aspire to attend about what was next now that the long sought degree was in hand.  The response

was, again, intriguing.  She said that she really wanted to teach and that she thought further that she would be really good at it.  But, she also said in the next breath that she was accepting a job at a bank because it paid almost twice as much and she wasn’t sure she could afford to teach just now.  However, her hope was that someday she would get to teaching, because that is what she really felt passionate about and that was where she believed she could make a difference.. This bright, attractive, energetic student was a math major, eager to share her enthusiasm for math with younger students and could easily contribute to a school in numerous other ways as a coach, advisor, mentor and role model.  Perhaps she could do some of those things from the offices of a bank but her presence and impact might not be as great as it could be if she had found a way to

pursue her passion and not make the compromise because of 15,000 dollars. 

There are signs of a shift in the paradigm from adult-centered and teacher-centered learning to more student-centered learning that capitalizes on their genuine interests and abilities.  Less emphasis on adult generated assignments and more on student originated topics that are relevant, timely and often extraordinarily creative and productive.  There are numerous examples from science experiments that tackle real world issues in the areas of environmental concern to health care and medicine to other global topics such as poverty, hunger and social justice.  For the future, I’m putting my money on the kids! 

© Gary Gruber 2013

The Day Before Christmas, Dec 24, 2012

T’was the day before Christmas and all through the land

No one was playing, not even the band.

People were traveling from near and far

Some by airplane and others by car.

Many were troubled by visions in their head

Of children so beautiful and now they are dead.

Mothers and fathers with tears in their eyes

Thousands of prayers lifted to the skies.

In the halls of Congress there was so much chatter

But without big change it just wouldn’t matter.

There must be a way to touch peoples’ hearts

So all will stop arguing, and quit flinging the darts

There is much you can do to help all mankind

Believe in the goodness that each of us can find

And kindle that spark of wonder and joy

And share it generously with every girl and boy.

To every neighbor, relative and friend you know

Reach out and touch them with spirits aglow.

Give them reasons to love and share with another

A brother or a sister, a father and a mother.

Leaving the past and so much grief behind

Memories can endure loss so we shall find

New life like new leaves on a now empty tree

Will come this Spring for everyone to see.

Open your eyes, your ears and your heart

For this is the time and the place to start.

There is only this moment we have in time

Don’t miss it, don’t miss it, t’would be such a crime.

Look into the face of a child who is near

Precious and sacred, even more so this year

You will see in that child pure joy and delight

Ever so true on this very special night.

This season gives us reason to dance and to sing

Carols and presents and ourselves we bring

To this holiday gathering of family and clan

May yours be blessed by every woman and man

Let us take time out for moments of quiet

Amidst the noise and message to buy it.

Silent night, holy night, that is the song

For those who believe and those who belong.

Join a chorus regardless large or small

Let your voices be heard in every hall

Tell the world what you know and believe

And help those others your kindness receive.

This is the day we can all come together

Regardless of storms or lousy weather

And so we will say without any fright

Happy Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

Gary Gruber  © 2012

First Day of Winter, First Light

Today is the first full day of winter when the sun starts moving ever slightly north along the horizon.  It's all about the light, the return of the light on the shortest, darkest day of the year, at least in this northern hemisphere.  It gives me renewed hope every year, that we will see the light, understand the meaning of light, appreciate and be grateful for it and thus be enlightened.

First light, as the horizon lightens with the light that comes ahead of the sunrise, often has a glow that is enough to see what can be done without any artificial light.  I remember saying on occasion, we will sail at first light.  There was enough light to see to either cast off or pull the anchor and be on our way.  Now, as we travel in our land yacht, what we call our home on wheels, I can see enough to unhook the water and electric connections, if we're in such a campground, or even hook up the toad (car that is towed) if that's necessary.

Winter for most people in these northern climes may not represent days of light or growth but each day there is just a little more, encouraging, pushing on toward Spring.  There is underground activity as well.  That is why fall planting is recommended for bulbs, trees and bushes.  Roots have time to establish before spring when active top growth begins.  There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

From the top of a mountain, at 10,000 feet yesterday, to celebrate solstice (and to go skiing) I looked out at what looked like a frozen, snow-covered landscape.  I thought about the events of the past week in Newtown, Connecticut (and elsewhere) when people faced some of the darkest, coldest, most chilling days of their lives.  I hoped and prayed for some way for them and for all of us, to see the light, to have hope for the days ahead.  I remembered Bill Coffin, former chaplain at Yale, saying it was always darkest just before light.

May this winter of our discontent, the title of John Steinbeck's last novel and from Shakespeare's Richard III recede into the past such that we know this awful time of unhappiness is truly in the past and we can find the way forward toward the light, the light of hope, the light of Spring and something more eternal than transient, more renewing and encouraging.

The eastern sky now looks like it is on fire, brilliant orange suggesting warmth in the midst of cold temperatures, truly a paradox.  And soon, the sun will rise once more to present the gift of a new day, in the light.  Let's live as fully as we can in the light, this day and all the rest that we are given.
7:05 AM Mountain Time, December 22, 2012, Abiquiu, New Mexico

CELEBRATE WINTER SOLSTICE 2012

According to various calculations, standards and clocks, Winter solstice in the northern hemisphere will occur this year at 11:12 AM UTC, on December 21, which is 4:12 AM  Mountain Standard Time, 6:12 AM Eastern Time and 3:12 AM Pacific Time.  While it happens technically at a moment in time, the recognition and celebration may occur at any convenient time, or period of time, that is near to this point when the sun reaches it farthest journey south along the horizon and starts back on it’s northward trek toward Spring and Summer.

UTC or coordinated universal time or the world clock computed by atomic clocks in 70 different laboratories around the world is one of the successors to GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time, based in the UK.  Both are used and does it really matter to most people which clock is used? Also why isn’t UTC the abbreviation for Universal Time Clock instead of Coordinated Universal Time.  This is really quite trivial, of little consequence and in the larger scheme of things rather unimportant to most of us.   The earth continues its movements regardless who is measuring it, how and why.

It is the earth’s rotation around the sun that brings us day and night in the 24 hour cycles that we call a day and it’s the tilt of the earth that provides the various times for observing different seasons and their accompanying changes.  The differing amounts of light and dark vary according to those times in the calendar year.  Two solstices, Winter and Summer, are when we observe the days with the least or greatest amount of sunlight and two equinoxes, Spring and Fall, are when night and day are approximately equal lengths of time. These are times to celebrate our relationship with Panchamama and find ways to celebrate wherever we are.

Because I have the privilege and blessing of watching the sunrise almost every morning from my desk facing east, I feel very connected to the sun and it’s movements across the sky.  Each new day is a gift, open to tremendous possibilities. One comment, attributed to Mark Twain, is “there is nothing that cannot happen today.”  That means we have the unparalleled opportunity to create something new this day or to revisit those things that add meaning, value and purpose to our lives. 

The Romans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a weeklong period of lawless celebration between December 17-25.   Saturnalia was the most popular holiday of the Roman year. Catullus (XIV) describes it as "the best of days," and Seneca complains that the "whole mob has let itself go in pleasures" Pliny the Younger writes that he retired to his room while the rest of the household celebrated.  It was an occasion for celebration, visits to friends, and the presentation of gifts, particularly wax candles, perhaps to signify the returning light after the solstice. Aulus Gellius relates that he and his Roman compatriots would gather at the baths in Athens, where they were studying, and pose difficult questions to one another on the ancient poets, a crown of laurel being dedicated to Saturn if no one could answer them.

Winter solstice in this hemisphere celebrates the return of the light from the longer hours of darkness, thus we have Midwinter celebrations that range from Christmas to the pagan rituals celebrated before the Christians adopted the December 25 date set by Julius Caesar and the Julian calendar.

However we choose to celebrate Winter solstice, it can be a time of increasing our “circle of illumination” which is the edge of the sunlit hemisphere. That phenomenon forms a circular boundary separating the earth into a light half and a dark half.   As the hours of daylight begin to increase, we can expand our awareness of the essential connection between us earthlings and that other force that makes our world such a fascinating place in which to be fully alive and an active participant. 

We have an opportunity to make a connection between our minds and that which we can observe in our natural world and our spirits and that which we can sense in the ethereal realm.  Let that be our personal “circle of illumination” this season, increasing the light and appreciation for these wonder-filled celebrations during the holidays.  May your holidays be full of the richness of renewal, the energy of enthusiasm and the brilliance of beauty.   Such are the gifts laid before us.  Joy to the world!

VIOLENCE & VIDEO GAMES

To understand some of the effects of video games, we need to go back to debriefings conducted by the U.S. Army after WWII.  Interviewing soldiers returning from battle, researchers discovered a disturbing fact. A significant number of soldiers had been face to face with an enemy soldier, rifle in hand, enemy in their sights, gun not jammed, and had not fired. Something deep in their being, some sort of innate humanity, or values instilled early on, had prevented them from actually pulling the trigger.

    

This was very disturbing to the military. They began a research effort to figure out what to do about this problem. They discovered that in the heat of battle, under the incredible physical and psychological stress of being faced with another human being you were supposed to kill, the higher mental functions were largely absent. Under such conditions, the mind reverts to much simpler modes of operation, to deeply wired, almost instinctive behaviors. In other words, no amount of target practice and classroom lectures about how you're supposed to kill the enemy had much effect when it counted.

    

Over the following decades and wars, the Army learned that the way to get soldiers to reliably pull the trigger was to use very basic, repetitive, operant conditioning, along the lines of standard behaviorist theory. Behaviorism provides a poor model for how humans act in everyday life, but it turns out to be a fairly good model for how humans act when they are under stress and have to act quickly, and are responding primarily to fear. Under stress, fearful people do what they have been conditioned to do.  That is one reason we have repetitive fire drills, so that we know how to react in an urgent situation.  It's the same with evacuation drills without the fire component.

    

The Army's solution was to replace dry target practice with realistic training grounds, complete with pop-up targets, loud noises, smoke, stress, the works. The goal was to condition the soldiers: if it moves, shoot it now, don't think about it. Repetition, repetition, repetition: Target pops up, you shoot. Target pops up, you shoot. Do that often enough, and, research shows, next time you see something pop up, you are more likely to shoot it, even if it's a real human in a real battle. Sometimes it’s called “friendly fire” when it is a mistake.  This is not just a theory, it is documented by exit interviews from soldiers in later wars: The Army got what it wanted.

    

What does this have to do with video games? The answer should be obvious. The whole point is, if it moves, shoot it. Again and again and again.  The military uses all kinds of expensive simulators, basically high powered video games, similar to what kids use every day, to train its recruits and to overcome the aversion to killing.   And there is evidence to suggest that those who are expert at gaming are some of the best and most effective fighter pilots and soldiers.  In the end, if you believe in war, maybe video gaming is a good thing for survival!  The downside is that, in most cases, the enemy is also trained in shoot to kill.  Is it that he who presses the right buttons faster wins?

    

The cost for soldiers who survive, as witnessed by the increase in post-traumatic stress, is devastating.   As many as one-third of the homeless men in the U.S. are Viet Nam veterans, most of them suffering from PTSD and we are only beginning to count the cost from the years of human destruction in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

    

What can we learn from this?  Whether or not violent video games contributes to aggressive behavior may not be the real issue.  Perhaps the real question that needs to be explored is whether violent video games might contribute to an acceptance of the need to destroy the “enemy” without any need to feel anger or anything that can be consciously identified as aggressive behavior.   After all, it’s just a game.

Here is a sample:

“Hunched with his troops in a dusty, wind-swept courtyard, the squad leader signals the soldiers to line up against a wall. Clasping automatic weapons, they inch single-file toward a sandy road lined with swaying palm trees.

The squad leader orders a point man to peer around the corner, his quick glance revealing several foes lying in wait behind a smoldering car. A few hand signals, a quick flash of gunfire, and it's over.  The enemy is defeated, but no blood is spilled, no bullet casings spent: All the action is in an Xbox-based training simulator for the military, called Full Spectrum Warrior.”   (Associated Press 10/03)

Finally, here is something which should also concern all of us.  When many people see a real video, shot live, they think that because it’s seen on a screen, that it’s not real when it is.  It’s just like a video game or worse, a television program with a script and actors and made up in a studio or on a set somewhere like a movie.  If you want to test that out on yourself, take a look at some of the current, live, very real, military videos and register your own cognitive and emotional response.  This is somewhat the flip side of the video gaming issue and equally important because it is very real and not a game.

    

Not every child playing violent video games will develop aggressive behaviors and only a small percentage will become soldiers who are trained to do what soldiers have to do.  The point is that both children and adults can be easily influenced by the media and high powered, well- conceived video games.  What the short and long term results are will continue to be debated but there is compelling evidence to suggest we better take a hard look at what is happening as a result of violent video games.  Research suggests that these video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor.

"Top Ten Serious Afflictions Among Educators"

10. MABS - Myopic, Apathetic, Blame Syndrome - This disease is characterized by lack of vision, indifference and the attempt to shift responsibility to other people. (see following ailment).

9. PEST - Plasmapheretic Educational System Transference - A condition recognized in those who drain the organism and then because of inactivity offer bureacracy as a reason for the illness.

8. CRUD - Cholangitis Reoccurence Under Duress - Inflammation of bile ducts marked by pain in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen and caused by infection or obstruction, it is often treated by drugs or surgery.  Obstruction is a condition often occurring when progress is blocked or when one wishes to block progress.

7. DEAD - Deeply Entrenched Atrophic Dementia - Often seen in those who mistake the edge of the rut for the horizon, this condition is a progressive state of mental decline, especially in memory and judgment, often accompanied by disorientation and disintegration of the personality.  If caused by a metabolic diseases, it may be reversed.  If due to brain injury or degeneration due to aging, change may be irreversible.   This is often not recognized by those who have it.

6. PAIN - Psychogenic Aphakic Intestinal Nonsense - Persons afflicted with this cannot swallow pride or much else but is mostly a mental condition accompanied by blurred vision and there is no biological basis for the condition.  Those suffering from this disease are very uncomfortable with change and often fearful, insecure and have a weak stomach.  May be heard to whine to colleagues.  Radical and aggressive treatment often consists of removal to a new location and job.

5. BORE - Big Opthalmic Rectal Enteritis - Sometimes a crossing of certain ocular and rectal functions ause diarrhea, verbal or otherwise and this can adversely affect one's outlook; in extreme cases it can lead to fecal impaction; the reverse condition renders one filled to capacity.  Treatment is most often accompanied by a change in attitude.

4. LAME - Loud Aching Martyred Epicondylitis - This characterizes those who complain about carrying a heavy load while wishing others would work as hard as they do.  This can be very contagious so caution is recommended for those in proximity.

3. GRIPE - Glottic Repetition Instead of Pitching in Energetically - This is self-explanatory and recognizable because those so afflicted would rather talk about the problem than do something creative to solve it.  They also seem to enjoy hearing themselves more than listening to others.

2. ARUMP - Arteriosclerosis Revealing Union Mentality Proliferation - A condition that reflects a hardening of the institutional arteries which in turn prevents the open flow of communication and it can spread if not kept in check through a healthy exercise of mental and physical renewal.  (This is sometimes used as a prefix to meetings)

1. SOSOB - Same Old Same Old Beliefs or in medical terminology Systemic Osteolysis/Schizophrenic Obsessive Burnout -  Those fearing change become stuck, hard and fast in their way of acting and refuse to consider new paradigms. The result if finally just giving up and giving in rather than trying to learn something new and improve both self and system.

The Most Recent Decade

At the conclusion of the most recent decade (2000-2010) I have learned what works and what the critical variables are in the education/learning equation.  And it has taken me back to the beginning.  I call it the full circle of success - common vision, common values, and common purpose.  If we are to succeed in our schools and elsewhere in our country, we must learn how to build collaborative energy, how to listen carefully to what is and what is not being said, how to ask questions that are penetrating and honest, how to discern the real from the superficial, and how to help a group move forward with a purposeful, shared vision.  That group could be your school or college, your company, your division, your task force or wherever you find yourself at work, hopefully following your passion and purpose beyond yourself.   That is what has worked for me.  I commend it to you for your careful consideration as you continue on your own journey of lifelong learning.

In June of 2000, there were 97 million mobile phone subscribers in the United States; by the middle of 2010, the number had increased to 290 million. There are WiFi connections everywhere, even at your local Starbucks and McDonald’s, airports, shopping malls, and in some cities as well.

The web site with the most traffic in 2010 was Facebook with the number of subscribers in 2000 at zero and in 2010 it was 116 million.   Social media now includes many sites like Twitter, Linked-In, MySpace, Google+, Ning, and numerous others. Rather than replacing embodied connections between real people, our devices supplemented and extended them, an electromagnetic nervous system to match the physical infrastructure of transport built in the twentieth century, a network of connections, intersections, and switches.  The big difference, of course, is speed.  An email can travel 10,200 miles in less than .2 of a second, .012 to be precise.  That’s equivalent to 85,000 Miles per second, 5.1 million miles per minute or 306 million miles per hour!

Oddly enough, after a decade of wild growth in invisible telecommunications, where one lived and worked mattered more in 2010 than it did in 2000. Travel and transport remained basically flat throughout the decade. Total vehicle miles driven, while an impressive 3 billion miles in 2010, were only up from 2.7 billion miles in 2000, a period during which the population increased from 288 to 318 million—meaning the average American drove less in 2010 than in 2000.   However, for me that was not true as for the past seven years I have lived 110 miles from the airport and needed to fly frequently for work.  I drove many more miles in the past 10 years than in the previous decade.  For me personally, at this stage in my life, highway and byway travel is much to be preferred over air travel these days as many others who are frequent flyers can also attest.  Air travel in many instances is cumbersome, crowded, uncomfortable and fraught with lines, an inept TSA, and unhealthy, re-circulated air in the steel cocoon aloft.

At 9:45 tomorrow morning there will be roughly 4,500 commercial flights in the air, just as there were on 9:45 the morning of September 11, 2001—no change despite a decade of economic and population growth.  And mobility, the hallmark of twentieth-century United States culture, declined throughout the decade and reached a post-war low in 2010, with less than 10% of American households changing their address.   That is still a fairly large number.  We have changed our own address four or five times in the past ten years.

At a Q gathering in 2010 (events that explore the common good in a pluralistic society), urbanologist Richard Florida observed that young adults meeting one another no longer ask, “What do you do?” They ask, “Where do you live?” More and more people will change careers in order to stay in the place where they are, connected to family, friends, and local culture, than will change residence to stay in a career. The 20th-century American dream was to move out and move up; the 21st-century dream seems to be to put down deeper roots. This quest for local, embodied, physical presence may well be driven by the omnipresence of the virtual and a dawning awareness of the thinness of disembodied life.  My own preference reflects this trend as I came to New Mexico in 1994 and have stayed in the same region for the past 18 years, far surpassing any other location in my previous life, except perhaps the first 18 years of my life when I lived in one town and three different houses.

I moved from New Jersey to Albuquerque in 1994, then to Santa Fe in 1996 and 7 years ago we moved to the country to enjoy a spacious and beautiful 6 acres on a river overlooking a mountain.   Regardless of our preference for somewhat rural living, cities, the places where both connection and local presence can thrive simultaneously had an extraordinary renaissance in the first decade of the 21^st century. The revival of American cities was underway in 2000, but it reached its full flowering by 2010. Of course not every single American city flourished in the last decade, but those of us old enough to remember New York, Chicago, Atlanta, or Houston circa 1990, and others, including but not limited to Portland, Columbus, or Phoenix, can only be astonished at the way economically fading and often crime-ridden city centers have revived as centers of commerce and creativity.

The challenges often associated with urban life, meanwhile, had ignited a movement to the suburbs that may well accelerate in the 2010s. The frontiers of justice, mercy, compassion, and reconciliation are now in the suburbs, places where connections are harder to sustain and local culture is thinner and less appealing than the cities. Some suburban environments will reinvent themselves, but multi-generational poverty, crime, and gangs that provide a substitute social network where others have failed are already as common in Westchester County as in the Bronx, in the San Fernando Valley as in Compton. The most radical and difficult place to raise a family by 2020?  It may well be the suburbs, regarded by some as being their own ghettos of separation and isolation.  A recent market study by a group in Philadelphia revealed a continuing shift in population as young families with young children are again seeking urban environments.  This has significant meaning for those who live and work there and what I have learned is that these young families would rather help create a sustainable community rather than spend an enormous amount of time commuting and transporting children along grassy, tree-lined streets from one place to another.
[See Tim Keller's Q talk on "Grace and the City" and Joel Kotkin's on "The Future of the Suburbs."]

Almost everywhere in the most recent decade, cultural majorities collapsed.   We learned that predominantly black neighborhoods became half Hispanic. White rural communities saw dramatic immigration from Asia and Latin America. City centers became internationalized. Mercados and Asian food markets sprung up in suburbia and in exurbia. Drive down a thoroughfare well beyond the 285 beltway in Atlanta, and you will see shop signs in a dozen different languages. White Americans were still a bare majority of the population by the end of the decade, but in delivery rooms they were already only a plurality, the largest of many minorities.

We are all minorities now. Evangelical Christians are a minority, as are liberal Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, and atheists. The establishment of Will Herberg’s 1955 book Protestant—Catholic—Jew is now a minority. Barack Obama is a minority, but so was Sarah Palin. Republicans are a minority—so are Democrats, and so are independents.  We now live in a country defined by its minorities many of whom feel marginalized and no longer capable of wielding influence and power but it doesn’t keep them from trying.  The most recent Presidential election was a testimony to the vitality and importance of minorities and how some leaders connect better than others

There may never have been a society in history that was as culturally, religiously, and politically diverse as the United States is today—except perhaps the Roman Empire. There are few models for how such a diverse community can sustain itself, and plenty of models for failure. Perhaps the most hopeful model is a community that arose at the edges of that Empire and eventually spread to its heart, among whom there was “neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female.”     This community, in case you don’t know, was the Christian church.

That religious and spiritual community has survived but its ongoing existence will continue to be a minority in a largely secular society, much as it has been throughout its history from the first century onward.   I was part of that community in a professional role for at least ten years and while withdrawing from it officially, I still find meaningful points of connection that inform, inspire and sustain me personally.

I have watched the technologies of connection and the commitment to place define ourselves into more and more tightly homogenous subcultures, refuges both virtual and real from the heterogeneity of our society. Republicans became more Republican; Democrats became more Democratic and the divisions became so fractious that any forward movement was paralyzed. Many people turned from traditional sources of news to the Huffington Post—CNN lost ground to Fox News. A president elected on the premise of unity presided over two years of ever-sharper rhetoric of division and seemed unable to change the game. And then we hit the skids in 2008, yet to recover.  It was not at all clear, as polarization accelerated, that anyone could convince any large number of Americans that they had anything crucial in common.  My earlier vision of common or shared vision, values and purpose seemed only to disintegrate further into oblivion.

When people in the next decade are trying to convey a picture of the this most recent decade, they will use the self-portrait shot from a digital camera or cell phone held by one hand extended away from the subject. We look out at our own hand, perhaps squeezing another friend into the frame, composing our face in a smile or a laugh. We are shooting each other and more recently ourselves as well, as witnessed by weekly gun-toters totally out of control.

I watched the visual presentation of the self accelerate in this most recent decade. We see ourselves most often in mirrors. But mirrors do not show us what others see—they show us a mirror image with right and left reversed. The difference is subtle but real, and symbolic of a deeper reality. Now most 20-year-olds have seen thousands of images of themselves as others see them.  They simply hold up their cell phone and click.   In this recent decade people learned to shape and groom their image for public consumption. Body modification, augmentation, reduction, smoothing, straightening, whitening, and tanning, not to mention tattooing, became normative. The closing years of the decade gave us the word “manscaping” which means shaving, waxing and making smooth to the point of unreal.  That says a lot.

I witnessed another culture shift from more formal to what we regarded as professional appearances that are definitely informal and casual.  Men untucked their shirts, women wore pants, actually they have for a long time, billionaires wore jeans. The most powerful CEO in America was universally known as “Steve.” Indeed, informality was now a sign of privilege, only low-status workers wore uniforms. And the ubiquity of the camera meant that everyone, including celebrities, politicians, business leaders, people who in past decades would have been insulated by privilege, were caught off guard, meaning that status now accrued to those who could be most artfully informal, rather than those who could protect themselves from view.

Most of the institutions where I have worked over the past 50 years had years of tradition and they often struggled to stay relevant to an informal culture. Cable-channel comedians with open collars overshadowed tie-wearing network news anchors.  Think of the differences between Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings and Jon Stewart and Bill Maher.   Journalistic codes of integrity and objectivity gave way to entertainment and sensationalism. 

 Marriage, with its vows and formal attire, became for many young people a distant aspiration far on the horizon, while cohabitation became the accepted gateway to adult relationships. Even among some of us in the older generation, an LTA (living together arrangement) with an S.O. (significant other) was more than merely acceptable, it was desirable.  In our own case it was our own children who encouraged us to make our commitment to each other in public which we did through a ceremony on a beach in San Diego with all of them present.  We did that without benefit or burden of any governmental involvement and it wasn’t until we went to London that we had to make it “legal and official” with a piece of paper and a civil ceremony in a municipal court.  Otherwise my wife would be limited in how long she could stay in another country but as my “dependent” she could be granted a visa accompanying my own work visa.  I continue to learn the benefits and burdens of government regulations that impinge on my life much more than is comfortable and it certainly does not inspire confidence in the system.  Quite the contrary!

Wealth was ever more disconnected from real assets. Countries that pumped black gold from the ground acquired vast resources of sovereign wealth that went looking for high returns.  One of the most amusing and telling bumper stickers that I saw after our invasion of Iraq was “How Did Our Oil Get Under Their Sand?” 

The most storied and prominent financial firm, Goldman Sachs, ended its century-long system of limited partnership and became a publicly traded company. Hedge funds made billions by trading not shares, but shares of bets on the future price of shares, and derivatives far more exotic. Our mortgages, once the most boring and staid of financial instruments, were sliced and diced, traded and sold and the housing market tanked in many places making all that borrowed money subject to recall but rendering the price of the house significantly less than what was owed.  The term became quickly, “under water” or “upside down.”

As one Wall Street executive said, as long as the music was playing you had to keep dancing. As money swirled, prices of oil, food, housing, and labor spiked, then collapsed, then threatened to spike again. Those who could trade on volatility often made untold fortunes; those actually needing to buy and sell real goods often suffered.  What I learned during this period was that greed, corruption and power could easily take us down the toilet while we sat helpless watching the swirl in the toilet bowl.   I preferred Ghandi’s quote that “there is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.”

I learned that there was a shift in this most recent decade in that one of the greatest challenges for leaders, such as CEO’s of corporate and non-profit entities, was managing complexity.  Heretofore, the challenge was designing, implementing and managing change.  And change is still very present as a chief concern.  However, we were now dealing with multiple, complex systems that required enormous investments of human capital to stay either on top or ahead of what is coming down the road.

One prime example is within the field of medicine where there are at least 16,000 things that can go wrong with the human body.   There are over 6,000 drugs that can be prescribed to deal with these issues and over 4,000 surgical procedures.  To get it exactly right, at the right time, with a correct diagnosis, the precise and most appropriate treatment and accurate prognosis is nothing short of miraculous and amazing that it works as well as it does and often as it does.  That requires an immense amount of intelligence, understanding, and application of procedures all working together for the benefit of the patient.  Similar concerns exist within other disciplines and fields as well including my own field of education although I believe we are woefully lacking in significant measures of reform and updating our methods and practices.

Yet all this complexity also contains the seeds of hope for a better outcome. The human brain, after all, is also complex, interconnected, embodied, improvisational, constantly being rewired—simply put, the most complex system known in our universe. The culture of North America in the 2000s took several not inconsiderable steps toward having those same qualities as the brain. It is not without risks, not without loss, and with every expectation of grave difficulty ahead. And yet in the most surprising places what was emerging could be called intelligence. Of course, intelligence needs to be married to wisdom—and in surveying the history of that most elusive of all cultural goods, wisdom, we can only conclude that the 2000s left us neither worse nor better off than human beings have ever been.

So what have seven decades of learning taught me to understand and to appreciate, to celebrate and enjoy and to use most readily in my profession and my work?  I have learned most of all that it is about who I am, not simply about what I do.  I learned that there is an important distinction between my work and a job.  My work is what I care about the most and my job is what I have to do in order to get to my work. My work has been with people, organizations and communities, helping them to also learn about who they are and how they can get closer to their dreams of what can be.  And it’s about becoming, that we are always in process of becoming more of a human being, not a human doing.  What I do is about who I am.  That means developing and growing our humanity, our human spirits and being in touch and in tune with the natural world such that we not only know who we are and what we’re about but that we place the highest premium on the sacredness of each human being, starting with ourselves.  That yields tremendous results.

Christmas and Stuff

A funny thing happened last week on the way to Best Buy.  I was listening to NPR and an interview with Annie Leonard, author of The Story of Stuff.  If you know the book, then nothing more need be said but if you don't, the sub-title is "How our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health - and a Vision for Change."   Annie, along with some enlightened economists, believe that our current model of capitalism is not sustainable.  And there is increasing evidence to support that position.  Regardless of your values and beliefs about what might or might not be "sustainable" consider this quote from Gus Speth in his book, The Bridge at the End of the World: "Inherent in the dynamics of capitalism is a powerful drive to earn profits, invest them, innovate, and thus grow the economy, typically at exponential rates....My conclusion, after much searching and considerable reluctance, is that most environmental deterioration is a result of systemic failures of the capitalism that we have today, and that long-term solutions must seek transformative change in the key features of this contemporary capitalism."

So I walk into Best Buy in a state of conflict and resolve it by going ahead and purchasing a 40" wide screen TV which we rationalized by saying it's our Christmas present to each other.   And ever since I continue to wonder about a lot of different things including the impact of so many new televisions, computers, phones, pads, pods and other electronic devices purportedly designed, manufactured and distributed in order to make our lives easier, better, happier, more fulfilled?  We already had five other TV's, three smaller ones in our house on wheels and two 23" models in our permanent residence.   Overkill, perhaps?  At least we gave away one of the smaller ones!  And these thoughts and musings took me back to an earlier piece I had revised last August called Economic Imperatives:  http://leadsandserves.blogspot.com/2012/08/economic-imperatives_20.html.   That brief essay reflects over 40 years and more about my personal experience and conflicts with materialism and over consumption, not necessarily consumerism since we're all consumers, all the time.

I reached a point some years ago where I believed we are not asking the right question. Think about how much is invested in advertising which is designed mostly to make us think we need something better, bigger, newer or maybe even that we haven't acquired yet.  We already have too much stuff and it really is time to start some serious downsizing.  My promise to myself, at least privately, and perhaps to others, will not be  a mere resolution for a new year.  I would rather make a life resolution to see what difference I can make personally and perhaps with others as well in terms of lessening our carbon footprint, of walking more lightly upon the earth, the only life source that we and future generations have.  It is indeed a fragile planet and Annie Leonard quotes Joseph Guth, a lawyer, biochemist and legal director of the Science and Environmental Health Network:  "Nothing is more important to human beings than an ecologically functioning, life sustaining biosphere on the Earth.  It is the only habitable place we know of in a forbidding universe.  We all depend on it to live and we are compelled to share it; it is our only home.  The Earth's biosphere seems almost magically suited to human beings and indeed it is, for we evolved through eons of intimate immersion within it.   We cannot live long or well without a functioning biosphere, and so it is worth everything we have."
The question is whether each of us is doing something that contributes or whether what we are doing is taking away from the earth and its resources on which we depend totally.

We have some land next door, 6 acres to be exact.  It sits there waiting for what we will do there, perhaps in partnership with others and the place itself. A conversation this morning about aquaponics was encouraging, even exciting to contemplate.  Maybe this would be the better Christmas gift, a commitment based on gratitude for what we already have and ignore the stuff in the stores and online. If we can help figure out a way to help people to feed themselves and others, wouldn't that be a most wonderful gift.  Yes, it may take a little "stuff" to make it happen but that sounds like stuff worth investing in for the future return on the investment - for people and for the planet itself.