Thinking is a good thing

Today I read a long exchange between friends on Facebook.  In the exchange, one party held the President responsible for the loss of jobs in her hometown, jobs that depend on the oil industry.  Another friend tried to point out that global demand for fossil fuels is decreasing, so that a downturn in that economic sector is inevitable.

But you could tell that the person blaming the President was not convinced.   It made me profoundly sad.  And not because I'm a fan of the President.

It made me sad because the oil industry has been cyclical ever since I can remember.  It became totally obvious in the 1970's, when OPEC created an artificial shortage to drive prices up.  The US oil industry created more refining capacity to fill the need, and OPEC flooded the market with cheap gas, causing the US refineries to lay off and mothball units.  Then OPEC cut supply again, and so on, and so on.

I know it is not always OPEC cutting supply.  We have had loss of stability in Venezuela, multiple military actions in the Middle East, strained and strange relationships with Russia all contribute to different market shortages and market gluts which have created a boom and bust cycle in the oil industry.

And whoever the President of the United States is at the time has had very little if anything to do with that boom and bust cycle.

Actually, the President of the United States has very little power to make any kind of change at all.

Change is made by the Congress, and the Senate, and the Supreme Court.  And by the will of the people.

Sure, every presidential candidate has a platform.  And every candidate has personal goals for the county.  But the power of executive orders is very limited, no matter what you heard on TV or the radio.

And Congress and the Senate make the laws.  And they also fund the laws.  An unfunded law is just words on paper.

The Supreme Court interprets the law as regards to the United States Constitution.  Interpretations of what was meant in a document written two hundred and twenty-nine years ago is an evolutionary process.  As each new court of justices is informed by the norms and politics of the times that they live in, new interpretations of the original and subsequent amendments can change.

The founding fathers deliberately set up a system of checks and balances so that no one branch of government would have too much power.

Now we have seen a corruption of power in the Congress and the Senate.  The failure to hold hearings on the vacant Supreme Court seat is an example of that corruption, as is the government shutdown in October 2013, which is estimated to have cost the US economy twenty-four billion dollars.

Unfortunately, most people blame everything on the current president, or someone else's congressman or senator.

And that is why thinking is a good thing.  As much as you can, try not to believe everything you see, hear or read.  Research.  Gather data.  Learn about how government works, and how it is supposed to work.  Analyze.  Think.  Draw your own conclusions.

Single node answers are rarely correct.  The world is always evolving, and when that evolution causes personal loss or pain it feels good to be mad at someone, to blame someone.

That doesn't solve anything.  If you are really unhappy with the government, get more involved in the political process.  Vote against your senator or your congressman if you feel they do not represent you.

Send your representative, your senator, the vice-president and the president letters and emails asking questions and making your position on issues known.

Volunteer with organizations who support your causes.

But whatever you do, try as hard as you can to not buy into the fact that one political figure or the other has created whatever hardship there is in your life.

None of them are that powerful.  We give them power when we believe and advance that our unfortunate circumstance is their fault.

It is not.  Every life has it's ups and downs.  Until each of us accepts our responsibility for our own life, and make the sometimes painful choices necessary to have the life we want, it will never get better.

No matter who the President is.

Being George's daughter, and adulting

Yesterday was my daughter's fortieth birthday.  That is a pretty big occasion, both for a person and for a parent.  I spent the day remembering her birth, and the evening celebrating with her, my husband, my son-in-law and a couple of her friends.  It was a wonderful day.

One of the memories that surfaced during the day was one that I hadn't thought about in years.  My first husband and my daughter's father was a friend of my older brother.  This meant that many of my first husband's friends were also my brother's friends.

On the night of the day that my daughter was born, a group of those friends showed up at my parent's house with a bottle of Old Grand Dad bourbon whiskey, to celebrate with my father the birth of his first grandchild.  Now, if they had stayed at my parents house and sat around the kitchen or dining room table, the story could be more bland.  That is not how it transpired.

The friends and my dad went to a local park (which had closed at dark) and sat in the deserted park drinking whiskey out of paper cups until the bottle was empty.  They had a blast.  My mother was not amused.  There was no harm done, but had they been caught, it could have been very embarrassing.  Everyone was old enough to drink, and ten guys and one bottle of whiskey is not a scary level of drinking, but while for the young men it was kind of age typical behavior, my mom thought my dad was simply to old to behave so recklessly.

And that brings me to the crux of this post.  My dad was never really good at adulting.

Don't get me wrong.  He went to work every day.  He carried more than his fair share of parenting duties, of household duties, and of lawn duties.  He volunteered in the community.  He volunteered at church.  He drove the bus for our drum and bugle corps, and chaperoned our road trips.

But he did it all with the lighthearted joy of a child.

Sure, he had bad moments and bad days, just like we all do.  But when I remember my dad, I remember him smiling and laughing.  I remember the person who everyone wanted to be around at every party, because that was where all the laughter was coming from.  I remember him dressing as a clown to take us trick or treating at Halloween, and never saying a word while in his clown costume.   I remember him doing tricks on my bicycle when he was teaching me to ride.

Looking back, I know it put more of a burden on my mom because my dad was such a kid at heart.  Mom had to be the one that enforced stopping fun and getting work done.  Because when we were playing with Daddy, he never wanted it to end just like we didn't want the fun to end.  When my daughter was small, I remember him watching Sesame Street with her and enjoying the show as much as she did.

Daddy was usually the last to leave any party, because he was having so much fun.   Over the years, he went to work on too little sleep too many times, but it just meant he fell asleep watching television really early the next night.

My dad had the rare gift of meeting all his responsibilities, and taking on responsibilities he didn't have to, all while remaining very much a child at heart.  Always able to experience the wonder of a child, always able to experience the joy.  He never lost the ability to connect with children in their world.  To participate in the imagination games, and to do so with gusto.

And that is why I am so proud to be George's daughter, and why I try so hard to be like him.  Just because you have to meet your responsibilities, just because you have to make difficult decisions and discipline yourself, it doesn't mean you have to be glum or hopeless or angry or overwhelmed.

The joy is always there.  That child is always in you.  The one who got excited by a ladybug or a butterfly.  The child who could color and be proud of staying in the lines.  The child who loved to run and spin in circles.  The child who loved to sing.  The child who was happy just because the sun was shining and they had a dog to pet.

I'm so grateful that I got to watch my dad maintain his childlike wonder and joy.  I'm so glad I got to watch him tease my mother until she remembered to see the joy too.

When I look back at the life I lived with my mom and dad growing up, I realize my mother struggled with depression and anxiety for most of her life.  And Daddy was always protecting her, and boosting her morale, and making her laugh.  Even though she had to be the one to call time on the fun, he never fussed her, he thanked her, and would tell us kids how lucky we were to have such a great mom.

So I encourage all of you to be like George.  Watch out for those who are struggling, and tell them they are doing a great job.  Meet your obligations, but don't be burdened by them.  Find the joy, and celebrate it.  Not only will your own life be greatly enriched, but you will enrich the lives of all those you meet.

Birds

It has been a long time since I sat at my computer and composed a blog post.  Eleven days in fact.  I've been traveling, and on vacation, and really never sat down at my computer for very long.  I read and crocheted more than anything else when I wasn't out and enjoying our annual visit to Cruisin' the Coast.

There were a number of significant news stories during the eleven days since I last posted, but since my purpose in starting and continuing this blog was to offer inspiration and encouragement, I'm going to leave those news stories alone.

Instead, I'm going to talk about something I observed on a daily walk with my husband across the bridge that links Biloxi, Mississippi with Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

As you cross the bridge, you are actually crossing over Biloxi Bay, but you can see out into the Gulf of Mexico.  The bridge was built after Hurricane Katrina, and includes a wide walking, running, biking path which is separated from the six driving lanes, three in each direction.  The bridge is truly a beautiful structure, soaring high above the bay to allow for the passage of marine vessels underneath.

Also under the bridge lining the shore are piers.  There are piers populated with boats in marinas, there is a dedicated fishing pier, and there are some abandoned piers that were useful at one time, but now exist in different states of disrepair.

It was one of these abandoned piers that caught my attention.  It was covered with birds.  All water birds, but birds of all kinds.  There were sea gulls, and tern, and puldo and pelicans and other birds I don't know the names of.

And they were all hanging out together on the pier, soaking in the sun.  All those different birds, and not assembled by type.  Just mixed up and peacefully hanging out.

And I thought "Why can't humans be that way?  Just hang out together in the sun and not be so hateful to those who are different from us?"  And I thought about it a lot.

And I realized something important.  Those birds all peacefully coexist because there is enough for everyone.  There is plenty of food.  The big bridge and the superstructure of the bridge provide plenty of shelter.  The area is relatively free of predators. Peaceful coexistence is easier when everyone has everything they need.

And that is where humans often fail.  It is so hard for humans to be happy with what they have, even if it is all they need.  It seems hard wired into some humans to always want more, and to always want what someone else has.

I found myself falling into that trap as the week went on.  Coveting certain beautiful cars, thinking that life must be perfect if you live in one of those big beautiful houses facing the Gulf of Mexico.  Falling into the trap of thinking happiness is related to having more.

And then I thought of those birds.  They all seemed to be enjoying life.  They weren't fighting.  They weren't striving.  They were just enjoying the beauty of the planet, in the warm sun with a full belly.

And I thought about how lucky I am, in that I have everything I need, and a lot of things I want.  I was delighted to come home to my house, and sleep in my bed, and sit in my backyard.  I was thrilled to pick my dogs up from arguably the best doggie day care in the world (Puppy Love Nola), and to eat at the great new restaurant in my neighborhood, Station 6.

And I thought about those birds again.  The secret of life is being happy with what you have.  In appreciating the simple everyday joys.  In reflecting on the people that you love and have loved, and cherishing the memories that you have of simple everyday joys with loved ones.

You can always want more.  There is always someone or something to disagree about.  But you can always be grateful for what you have.  And you can always try to find common ground.  Or at least you can peacefully coexist in silence in the warm sun.

And maybe one of the greatest gifts of vacation is how good it feels to come home again.  I loved my time at the family wedding in New Jersey, and at Cruisin' the Coast.  But I also loved waking up in the middle of the night last night in my own bed, with my husband and my two dogs close by.

And today my husband and I will walk with the dogs, and Scarlett will bark at the birds, and Beaux will stop and roll over numerous times, and I will forget to be aggravated with them because I missed them so much while we were away.

And before too many days pass, I'll get aggravated again.  But I'm going to try really hard not to.  Because even the little aggravations are what we miss when the living creatures who share our lives pass on to another plane.

I'm going to try to remember the birds.  To strive for peaceful coexistence, with gratitude for food and shelter, and the ability to appreciate basking in the warm sunshine.

Unity

This morning the local radio talk show host was quite passionate in his audience participation question, "What will it take to unite America again?"   It was obvious that he is hurting over the divisiveness he is experiencing, and wants more cohesion, more unity.

As my regular readers know, I am a big believer in finding common ground.  Everything I say in this post about unity I have probably said in another post, but I've never put it all together in one spot before.

So here is my step-by-step plan to restore unity, in whatever micro or macrocosm that you desire.

1. Listen - it is impossible to find unity with a person if I don't listen to them.  And the listening has to be non-judgemental.  If I am internally refuting your statements; I'm not listening, I'm debating or arguing.  This is not to say that I must agree with your statements.  It means that if you are describing how you feel, I must validate your feelings.  If you are stating facts that I do not believe can be substantiated, then I have a duty to let you know. But if I say "You're wrong", I'm not seeking unity, I'm seeking to be right.  So if my data is not in alignment with your data, the statement is, "Our data on this subject is not in alignment.  Can we go back to where our data agrees, and then examine the differences in our data?"  At that point, if unity is your goal, you will find the common ground in your data, and decide if agreeing to disagree at the point where your data separates will prevent you from being united on other topics.  And remember, all feelings are valid.  All unity is underpinned by valuing the feelings of everyone.
2. Accept there is no them - if my desire for unity involves saying if they or them would only, again I am not seeking unity, I am seeking to convince someone else to think or act my way, or I am deciding that the way someone thinks or acts is less good than the way I think and act.  If I seek unity, I have to value all of us in all of our differences.  I have to accept that I will not always understand, and that is fine.  Everyone is who they are for a reason.  I can learn from everyone I meet, even if what I learn is that I don't want to treat people the way another person does.  But I can't throw anyone in the "them" bucket.  I have to accept that we are all flawed, broken creatures trying our best, and not always manifesting in a positive way.  I have to love all the broken, even if I have to keep myself safe from some of the brokenness. At the very least, I have to ask the greater forces in the universe to help everyone carry their burdens in such a way that no one is tempted to do harm to another because of their own brokenness.
3. Never use one way communications to promote divisiveness.  This one is really hard in today's world.  But if I want unity, I have to be certain that I am not harming others with my broadcasts.  I am not proud to say that I have "unfollowed" a number of people on Facebook because I was offended and saddened by the hateful, divisive posts that continued to appear on my newsfeed.  I don't want to "unfriend" people, but the level of vitriol in so many posts actually hurt me, so I shielded myself from it.   If I seek unity, I can be firm in my support of my ideals, but I can't denigrate anyone else. And if I seek unity, I must stay in the most benign of subjects when I share my ideals on social media.  Love of family, love of friends, support for those fighting disease; those are ideals that mostly create unity.  Support for a political candidate or for a complex ideology?  The singular direction of social and broadcast media make it a poor platform for that sort of information.
4. Apologize - if I want unity, I have to be willing to apologize.  And to apologize for more than just my own shortcomings.  If I want unity, I will say over and over again, "I am so sorry that you were treated in a way that made you feel less than", and "I'm sorry that happened to you".  I will say, "I know I can't make it better, but if there is something I can do to ease your pain, please tell me", and "If I ever unconsciously say or do something that hurts you, please tell me so that I don't do it again".  Real unity comes when each individual takes responsibility for the feelings of others.  When each individual feels called to right wrongs, even wrongs that they did not commit.
5. Accept there are many separate and equal realities.  I can only know the reality I know.  That is the truth that each one of us lives.  I have to accept the reality that each person paints for me as a valid reality.  Even if it is far different than my own.  Once again, finding common reality is the starting point, and working forward from there to where the visions of reality diverge.  Accepting that the realities will never be the same allows me to see things from a different viewpoint.  I can only find unity when I embrace that your reality is as real to you as mine is to me.  And when I embrace that the problems that you see in your reality are legitimate problems, whether or not I have ever experienced them in my reality.   And now we can unite to solve them.

Unity is an ideal that is difficult to achieve, especially in a society like the United State of America, where rugged individualism is so prized.  Unity values the individual, but depends on each individual valuing others equally with themselves.

Long post with lots of words, and it could all be summed up in the golden rule, "Treat others as you would like to be treated".  I long for unity.  I long for a world with no "them".  I'm going to keep trying to be a person that creates unity rather then divisiveness.  Because if I don't find common ground with you, we can never even engage in the conversation to move forward towards, instead of away from, each other.

Interesting results

I'm always trying to learn more about myself, always trying to figure myself out.  A couple of years ago while I was still working, I attended a training session on Unconscious Bias.  We were given a link to a website where you could take multiple tests to see what bias was implicit in your makeup.

I think I took a couple of the tests, I really don't remember that well.  Last week, I read an article on implicit bias.  So, I clicked a link and took the race test and the gender-career test.  Here are my results.

Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for African American compared to European American.

Your data suggest a strong association of Male with CAREER and Female with FAMILY compared to Female with CAREER and Male with FAMILY.

I'm not sure if I'm surprised or validated by my results.

I thought I was more balanced than that.  I thought if I showed a preference or association it would be slight and not strong.

So on the issue of race, I'm very comfortable and validated by my results.  Either slight automatic preference, or no preference would have been fine with me.

But the gender issue - I know I have a strong association of Female and FAMILY, but I would have thought I had an equally strong association of Female and CAREER.  I wonder if my results would have been different when I was still working in corporate America.

I'm disturbed by the fact that even though I try very hard to see males and females as equals, having equal importance and responsibilities both at work and at home, I'm implicitly biased.

I wonder if and how this manifested in my working life?  Did I find it easier to ask my male employees to sacrifice family time than my female employees?  Did I give my female employees more latitude with flexible scheduling to meet their families' needs?

I don't think I did.  And that is the thing that I remember about unconscious bias from the seminar.  It is just that, unconscious.  And knowing about your biases allows you to learn compensatory behaviors, it allows you to question your initial thought or judgement, but I'm not sure you can change these bias because you want to.  If you could, I wouldn't have the strong association of Male with CAREER.

I know life experiences can change your unconscious bias.  I know that knowing them is good so that you can combat the bias you have.  There are many tests available if you are interested in learning more about yourself.  Here is a link to Project Implicit.

As for me, I think I will take a bunch more tests.  I'm comfortable with knowing more about myself, even if I'm not always comfortable with what I learn.

Oh My

It is pretty obvious from my photo that I am a woman.  I have tried throughout my life to just be a person, but I am undeniably a woman.

As a woman who worked in Environmental, Health and Safety in the Petrochemical Industry, it was not uncommon for me to be the only woman in a room, or one of two or three out of ten or twenty.  Just the way it was.

I tried as hard as I could to not call attention to gender differences, and to stay away from succumbing to feeling like a victim because of some of the inequity in the workplace.  I recognized that as a woman, there was a different set of expectations and behaviors that I had to conform to so as to not be viewed as too assertive, too aggressive, or willing to use my femininity to gain advantage.

I don't like to get into conversations that focus on our differences, I prefer to find common ground and work from there.  Sigh.

I'm afraid that because a woman is one of the major party candidates for President of the United States, the man-woman tension that has always existed is going to be worse than ever.

And I have to tell you.  It is distressing.

There are characteristics that are more dominant in men, and characteristics that are more dominant in women.  But there are also outliers to those dominant characteristics.  What I see happening as the man-woman tension increases, is that we turn each other into caricatures.

Yes, there is such a thing as mansplaining - Wikipedia describes it this way "to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing".  And to be honest, as a woman with technical expertise in my field, I had to learn to be very careful in how I presented my expertise in the workplace because many people (but predominantly men) heard my expertise as condescending or patronizing.    Everyone has the capacity to explain something to someone else in a condescending manner,  we should all police ourselves to not do that, but when I am honest with myself, as much as I want to find common ground, my life experience tells me that more men are going to explain things to women in a condescending or patronizing manner, and more men are going to hear any explanation from a woman about something they do not understand as condescending or patronizing.

And that is why it is so distressing.  I know how hard I try to stay out of falling into the trap of believing I know something about you by looking at you.  And yet when the man-woman tension ratchets up, the catalog of bad experiences I have had gains prominence in my thoughts.

And I remind myself that the majority of people that I have interacted with are wonderful people.  People who try very hard to make certain that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  People who think carefully about the words they use so as to not cause harm.

And I tell myself to not let the outliers that contributed to the catalog of bad experiences matter so much, and color my thoughts and perceptions so much.

But it is hard.  Because there were nights after a long day of meetings with predominantly men, where the frustration at being disregarded, the hurt from the casual comments of superiority, the anger at the self-censoring that I had to do left me in tears.

And those people at those meetings probably never knew.  Because they weren't consciously doing anything wrong.  They were just behaving inside the societal and workplace norms that exist.

Having a woman as the candidate of a major party in the United States Presidential election is breaking a societal norm that has existed since the inception of the United States of America.

The candidate in question absolutely has more to provoke animosity than just any woman, as she has been in politics for the best part of her life and was a First Lady of the United States, a United States Senator, and the United States Secretary of State.   But I'm afraid the animosity would exist for many just because she is a woman, just because a norm is being broken.

And as we have seen many times, there is a lot of ugliness simmering beneath the surface of our norms.  And when those norms are challenged or broken, there is a lot of anger that causes great harm.

I'm going to try my best to not get sucked into the downward spiral.  I know that men and women are more alike than different, and that you simply don't know anything about what kind of person someone is because you know their gender.

And I'm going to remind myself over and over again that it is easy to be casually cruel when you don't think about your words and actions.

And I'm going to hope that as society continues to evolve past the artificial separations we have created, that we can do so with more love than hate, more compassion than anger, and more listening than shouting.

Ugh

The level of ugliness keeps rising, and I've noticed a new horrific development.

Many people have become incapable of being embarrassed.

I see people post things that are untrue, and when someone points that out, they simply ignore the advice that they have been duped and stay the course.

There is no, "OOPS, I was duped", or "I'm sorry I didn't research that before I posted it", there is just move on to post the next passionate meme or video clip.

There is a phenomenon that has been studied for many years called confirmation bias.  Confirmation bias is the tendency for humans to seek data that confirms our hypotheses, and to more readily believe data that confirms our hypotheses.

Confirmation bias is stronger when it is related to emotional issues.  So when I'm trying to be kind and non-judgemental, I think that people's confirmation bias has overridden their sense of decency.

But come on man!  The crazy stuff  that people post on social media is just crazy.  Am I the only one who knows what Snopes is?

I know in the heated political climate right now a lot of people want to make their point.  They want to find the one story, video, piece of evidence, etc. that proves their candidate is the right candidate.

I want to share a little something with you.  The more outrageous and easily disproved your last post was, the less likely I am to even read your next post.

And in spite of how hard I try to not judge, unless it is clear your post was sarcastic, I'm going to put you in the intellectually lazy pile.  I know, terribly judgy of me.

But I really believe we all owe each other better than to just repeat what we hear without making sure it is true.  Because another facet of confirmation bias is that it impacts our memories.  So when someone hears something that supports their emotional position on a topic, even if they find out later it is not true, they may very well remember it as true.

Freaky, huh?

So we are in danger of having a society filled with people who passionately believe totally false information they have gotten from social media.  And that is scary.

We have a parallel phenomenon in which entertainers present themselves as news commentators, so that people believe they are hearing factual news when they are actually hearing very biased opinion.

News has facts.  News does not present people or events as good or bad.  Just as things that happened.  Real news allows the viewer or reader to decide how to feel about any particular news story.

And while we are at this whole scary place we are in discussion, I have another truth bomb.  Just because you and any number of other people believe something, it doesn't make it true.

I am continually amazed by the things that people I always thought were reasonably intelligent post on social media or say in conversation as factual.  Run it past the logic filter.  Check multiple sources for congruence of data.  Do anything besides take the intellectually lazy position of deciding because you agree with the emotion the information provokes that it is true.

Read Fahrenheit 451.  Think about what the book is communicating while you are reading it, and then think about how you are living.

Try harder to seek truth instead of confirmation.  It is really important.