January 31, 2019

The temperature when I awoke this morning was -14 F.  Even though I live in the northern tier of the United States this temperature coupled with the windchill and the duration of the low temperatures is a relatively rare occurrence.  Such cold is extreme, a once in a decade or maybe a once in a quarter century event. I have seen colder here but that was forty years ago.  

Because of the cold I have been off work for two days.  Have I done anything productive?  Well, no.  I have spent most of my time under the covers watching TV serials in binge fashion.  I have move a few books from one room to another. I have sorted out some bedclothes that should be donated to charity.  Still, my fascination with vampires and demons trapping over the television landscape has be at the forefront of my behaviors.

Currently I am being more productive than I have been in the past several days.  I have a load of general laundry going, I am tending the fire in the wood stove and I am listening for the dishwasher to finish.  As the dishwasher ends it cycle, I will put dishes away.  When the washer is done I will move the load to the dryer.  About every twenty minutes I will see if the fire needs the logs to be rearranged or the bellows need to be brought into play.

Hark, the washer has rattled to a stop.  Time to walk away from this.

Washing is now in the dryer.  The bed is made.  A box of “important” papers has been brought downstairs to review and sort.  The fire has again has been stoked.  Three pillowcases have been put on three pillows on the couch.  The couch has become the family nest over the past few days of this cold.  Now, I can get back to pounding on my little toy keyboard that is Bluetooth connected to my iPad.

What I said earlier about doing “nothing” productive is not exactly true.  I have been reading small bits of Simon Blackburn’s The Big Questions. I started out reading it on an Amazon Fire device.  On that device you can cut and paste text.  Then, I had shifted over to reading it on my iPad.  On that device you can only copy a link to the text but not the text itself.  Pain in the tail when you want to use a quote.  And I had really wanted to paste this quote from the text:

“Our theories about ourselves matter. If I believe that everyone is ultimately selfish, I will conduct my life differently, and may myself become selfish, untrusting and untrustworthy, and other people may follow suit. If I believe that our genes are our fate and that culture does not matter, I will not willingly pay taxes for schools or care what my children watch on television. A mistaken view of human nature may be the beginning of a downward spiral. So not only are these questions interesting in themselves, but they have a direct practical importance”.

I get this quote, I really do.  For years I have sat mostly passively and listened to people explain the arc of theirs lives to me.  Understand that with very few exceptions the arc of these people’s lives have been troubled at best, and quite often their path has been simply disastrous. So many of the folks I see feel that they weren’t given the break others were and the perceived slight has raised a bitterness inside each of them which has only grown over the years.  In addition, there is an almost complete distrust of any governmental or other overseeing authority. 

The two groups I see most often are males.  They are either relatively young, 25-30, white and with a high school education or middle aged 42-58 and established in a trade or profession.  The younger group are more angry but less bitter.  Mostly they think they had bad luck.  These people learned how to drink at university, after football practice, after the union iron workers finished up for the day. 

The older group however are more bitter and distrustful.  They are more likely to feel that everyone and everything is out to get them.  At some point in their lives there has been an event which they view as setting them on a skid.  Pick a trauma, they had practiced regulated drinking, but then it happened and their boundary lines vanished. Their control was disregarded.

I get psychological reports on these people.  Most of both groups rate their growing up experiences as a six out of scale of 1 to 10. Of the older, distrustful, stressed group there is usually an event such as a job loss, a divorce, the death of a spouse or a child that seems to be the catalyst (or they assert is the catalyst) for their descent into alcohol dependence.  

However, if you get a good report on their early life you will see signs there such as Dad was an alcoholic, or abusive, or Mom left at an early age that triggered distrust of pretty much everybody else in their lives forever. If these issues exist early on the odds are their adult relationships both familial and work have signs of strain. They may have played the game working with a facade of normality to move along in the world but they were hurting the whole time. 

Blackburn a bit after the above quote offers this thought as he tries to work through what defines us in our human nature:

“Perhaps what is constant is not a simple trait, such as being selfish or aggressive, but an association of environment and the trait, such as being selfish if brought up to be, or aggressive if surrounded by aggressive adults, just as what is constant about language learning is not that children learn French or learn Chinese, but that they learn whichever mother tongue surrounds them.”

Yeah, I kind of buy into the genes determine a great deal of who we are school.  But I am also a believer that genes are only the starting point for some traits.  The smart ass gene will result in only mild quips if surrounded by a family of loving and nurturing people.  However, if one is raised steeped in sarcasm and relentless verbal Bulding you get somebody like Denis Leary or Sam Kinison. I think that intoxicant issues are more tied to environment than not.  However, this is my anecdotal based view.

More later.