TANSTAAFL

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Robert
Email

Years ago I read an article in a Philly newspaper about The Queen of Coupons, a mother of four who cut out and saved coupons by the hundreds.   She seemed to have a coupon for everything.  It looked like such a big job just to find the coupons and then cut them out of magazines and newspapers, and then sort all of them, that I wondered if the Queen of Coupons really benefited from her discounts and freebees considering all the time she devoted to the task of being queen in this arena.  A photo in the newspaper showed her sitting at a table and looking intently at all these coupons spread out before her.  It was a little scary.

But people must find some comfort or reward in saving coupons.  After all, everyone likes freebees.  Perhaps someone somewhere has written a Freebees Blog that keeps the public aware of the latest freebees out there.  I don’t know.

A student who works for us keeps his receipts from Subway, every time he gets a sandwich, and collects anyone else’s Subway receipts he can muster.  For these receipts he lands himself free chocolate chip cookies.  I’m not quite sure how it works, if it is one cookie per receipt, but I’ve seen him with the cookies and don’t doubt his success at all.  It really makes him happy that he can lay claim to chocolate chip cookies this way.  Maybe getting the cookie for free makes it taste better.

Another person I know who works on this campus keeps receipts from Panda, and every third entrée is free.   She’s coupon queen of the panda machine.  Of course, she eats “Chinese” quite a bit during her workweek.  No Italian and no McDonald’s for her.  Only moo goo gai pan.  And whatever else goes with chopsticks.

Which reminds me of my family, although there’s hardly any connection, but that’s what writers always do when they want to segue and it doesn’t make much sense to bridge this to that: they say, “which reminds me of . . . .”  But it does—and this time of my father.

My father and mother went quite often to New York City with my Uncle Jack and Aunt Alice.  Manhattan is not that far from Philadelphia, and they enjoyed a day’s trip for shopping, dining, perhaps a show.  While mother and Aunt Alice dodged in and out of hopeful sales at Bonwit Teller or boutiques like The Blum Store in Philly, Dad and Uncle Jack went to the bar at the Taft Hotel in Manhattan and ordered one beer each and ate lunch from the free food on the bar: cheese and crackers, hard boiled eggs, Vienna sausages, and assorted nuts, to name a few select items.  It wasn’t much, but it was free, and my father and Jack imagined “it doesn’t get better than this.” I think once when they took me with them there was boiled shrimp on ice with cocktail sauce laced with horseradish.  My father was a DDS and Jack a railroad executive—they could afford lunch anywhere, but a “free lunch,” well, that was just too good to be true, even if Milton Friedman did say there’s no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAAFL), at the Taft or anywhere else.  I don’t even know if the Taft Hotel is still there or if the free hors d’oeuvres are still available with a beer or two.   Those were the days.  Simple joys, I guess.

Long after my father died, and my mother’s life style had been reduced to selling our enormous single house and becoming a widow in a big suburban apartment, she and several of her friends, who attended events at a local senior citizen center, thought they also were cheating economics.  My mother and the other senior gals would take the charter bus from Lawrence Park Shopping Center in the Philly suburbs to the Atlantic City casinos, and when they showed their bus ticket at the casino, they were given back their bus fare in quarters, which the casino owners expected them to use to play the slot machines.  At least, that’s how my mother explained it to me.  Mother and her friends, however, pocketed the $15.00 in quarters, and headed straight for the free buffet provided for the “gamblers” inside the casino.  Filling up their little plates with goodies from the free buffet: canapés, hors d’oeuvres, cheeses, olives, nuts, slices of fresh fruit, and croissants or muffins, they “had lunch.”  At the end of the day, they had not spent their quarters, and they returned home on the bus with their round-trip ticket, never having spent a cent at the casino but being fifteen dollars ahead of the game until next time.  Perhaps the casino owners didn’t care, having lured enough genuinely hooked gamblers into the lion’s den and made sufficient profit from the ones who chained themselves by greedy and wishful thinking to the machines and tables.   One never knows.

Coupon clippers, Walmart shoppers, whatever turns you on, something about the freebees mentality is very Fifties American.  Or maybe it’s also 21st century American.  People just like to get something for free—but it is ten times more fun to do so if you are doing it with others, with your friends, with family, with your group.  Sharing in the excitement of the free adventure is what spreads the icing on the cake.  Even that solitary student who brought receipts back to Subway for his free chocolate chip cookie enjoyed the cookie tens times more when he had a chance to tell me in detail how he managed to snare one free cookie or more almost every single day.  Sharing the news, sharing the freebees in this way or that way with others, the group dynamics made the economics adventure worthwhile.

But not everybody is in a group.  And that’s sad.  So let me tell you what happens to them when they are not in fellowship with others.  They have a bad day.  I can prove it.  Just last week, I was walking to the parking lot to get in my car to meet a friend for lunch (she had a 50% off the second person’s lunch coupon), when I ran into an old acquaintance who was quite a loner.  I said,  “Good morning, how are you?”  I shouldn’t have said anything because you won’t believe me when I tell you what he replied in one fell swoop:

On the way in this morning, he said, I barely missed dodging the bullet as a wild rhino from Paris tripped on the stairs over a hippo that had stopped to munch on a Thursday special from McDonald’s and consequently bopped a very nice zebra–minding his own business–in the nose, which of course caused quite a roar among a pride of lions coming out of a local Starbucks with their coffee mugs.  I offered them all some fat-free hazelnut creamer, and that calmed everybody down until a call from Queen Elizabeth alerted us all to a snub by Harry’s horse who had taken a scuffle with a notorious beagle named MissGuided at a polo match and stubbed his toe—the horse, that is, not the beagle.  I referred Her Majesty to the Dalai Shaman, who has a lineament tea-rub perfect for polo horses who have stubbed their toes on the way to Ascot.  The Shaman—not to mention the Dalai Yak—was playing golf with Monsignor Provolone, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, in the papal gardens but took the call anyway on his cell phone in spite of purple rain and a storm of confetti from a wedding in the Sistine Chapel.  Not invited to the golf match, the groom dropped a nine iron on the bride’s foot; and Sister Mary Caddyshack was beyond evangelical at this disquieted turn of events, in spite of all the garlic she had strewn, chipping from sand traps, because of Bella and Edward.  It took the College of Cardinals, the Duke of Gloucester, and a promised luncheon catered by the Duchess of Cambridge’s Aunt Mildred to settle everyone down again.  I ordered Lobster Thermidor, Clams Casino, and Imperial Gunpowder Tea, for the Middleton luncheon, and asked if they’d send the Crab Imperial and Oysters Rockefeller to my Aunt Zasu in a box by FedEx.  Enjoy.  I hope your day is going smoother than mine . . .

See, I told you you wouldn’t believe me.  But I couldn’t resist repeating it anyhow.  Hope you and some friend you’re with get something good for free today or tomorrow!  And that’s why you shouldn’t be a loner.  See you later.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Of Vagaries & Vermin—Or “Silly” Wisdom

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Robert
Email

Consider Her Ways was a 1956 science fiction novella by John Wyndham, in which the main character decided to follow the advice of King Solomon: “Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways,” and created a caste-based society, devoid of men, in which the narrator became a member of the Mother caste. Again, the title, Consider Her Ways, comes from Solomon, and in particular, Proverbs 6:6: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise”  (KJV).  Evidently Solomon, as well as millions of other people since his day, have been fascinated with these tiny insects.  I know I have.

Proverbs adds further details about ants and what we may learn from them.  Go to the ant, O sluggard, Observe her ways and be wise, Which, having no chief, Officer or ruler, Prepares her food in the summer And gathers her provision in the harvest. How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? “A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest”—Your poverty will come in like a vagabond. And your need like an armed man. Proverbs 6:6-11 (NASB).

I asked my friend Kevin O’Connor, who owns Hydrex Pest Control, how ants operate.  He told me that ants are social insects, for they live in large colonies or groups. Some colonies house millions of ants. Ants go through four stages of development: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.  There are three types of ants in each species, the queen, the sterile female workers, and males. The male ants serve only one purpose, to mate with future queens. That’s why the males do not live very long. The queen, however, grows to adulthood, mates, and then spends the rest of her life laying eggs. A colony may have only one queen, or there may be many queens depending on the species. Too bad that a colony of humans cannot work together like a colony of ants, for ants work together toward a common goal all the time; whereas, people only do so during a crisis.   This sad thought led me to stretch my bizarre imagination to take in even stranger vagaries, as follows.  If you can stand my outlandish notions:

If a crash of rhinoceroses crashed into you, would they work together as a group to assist the EMTs or paramedics?  If a school of fish swam around you, would they teach you anything about fish culture?   If a litter of pups in a pet store window warmed your heart, would they invite you into their family of siblings?  If a flock of sheep made you an angora sweater for your birthday, would they give it to you from the flock as a whole?  If a string of ponies offered you a ride, would they circle a common carousel around you?  If a covey of partridges perched on the tree outside your bedroom window, would they coo you to sleep in concert?  If a pride of lions treated you royally, would they pay the restaurant bill with the pride’s MasterCard?  If a herd of elephants took you to the circus, would they provide you with peanuts from their entire family?  If a kindle of kittens meowed at you all night, would they apologize in the morning as a community?  If a leap of leopards vaulted off stage at the ballet, would they land in your lap in a heap if you sat in the front row?  Who was it who always said, “Leapin’ lizards”?  Oh, that’s right, Little Orphan Annie.

And if a pod of seals, a sloth of bears, a rafter of turkeys (overhead on the rafters?), a gam of whales, a nest of rabbits, a gang of elks (Crips and Bloods?), an exaltation of larks (Exsultate, jubilate?), a drove of cattle (driven to despair?), a gaggle of geese, a congregation of plovers (Presbyterians?), a husk of hares (although rabbits are hares, hares are not rabbits—figure out that one) all got together and formed a zoo for you to visit just for fun, walks through the park and picnics in the sun, would they first form a committee, establish a community, offer group therapy, incorporate a company, or all settle down in your neighborhood together and sing in the choir at the local Baptist Church?   Yes, yes, I know, I’ve really gotten totally carried away with this “pack” thing.

Perhaps that’s as silly as I can get, but going back to the colony of ants, why does it remain an essential truth that if you want to get something done, you don’t necessarily have to do it proverbially by yourself, but you should do it in group as a community of co-laborers if you want the best results!   Food for thought—and I don’t imply chocolate-covered ants.

Community, however, still sticks out as the important principle, Godiva-covered or not (what? You thought I would settle for See’s?).  Crunch, crunch.  Like our local food cooperative (munch munch bunch), whatever you do best, you can probably do even better in a cooperative, supportive, community-minded, colaboring Group!  And that’s the straight poop.  Nuff said.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Quark in Question: Or the Die Is Cast

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Robert
Email

When I was a little boy, I wanted to fly.  Not with an airplane but just with my arms.   Jumping off the porch into the air did not help.  That experiment taught me only that gravity works better than my arms do flailing at the wind that wasn’t taking me up.  Gravity was teaching me some principles of classical physics without my knowing what I was doing.

Many physicists must have felt like little boys out on a limb and flailing at the air when they tried to apply the basic rules of classical physic to the nano-world of the atom.  In this sphere of the extremely small, new laws were needed that were quite unusual, as Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr found out.  On this nano-level these new principles developed into what Max Planck eventually termed quantum mechanics.

In those early days of nano-speculation, one community of physicists did not necessarily assist the thinking of another community of physicists because those scientists who came from the old school of classical physics had to rethink the laws of the universe and adapt to the evolving conventions of the “newer” scientists who were not bothered by the strange behavior of atoms and electrons and light waves—behaviors that held not to the preconceived notions of earlier decades when an apple fell from a tree, supposedly hit Sir Isaac Newton on the head, and gravity was thereby defined in classical terms.  Is an apple a particle or a wave?  Is Golden Delicious a particulate apple and McIntosh a wavy apple?  It’s all about the sauce.

Leaving the apple sauce behind, intelligently networked communities of believers in the concept that particles were particles and waves were waves and never should a particle behave like a wave and never should a wave behave like a particle, those people were troubled when particles behaved like waves and waves behaved like particles.

Physics was becoming for physicists like a schoolyard of naughty children who refused to behave the way that their teachers insisted they should.  In fact, it seemed that light might be both waves and particles, a thought that should confuse any rational person.  Even Granny Smith was confused.

Time, however, heals all naughty children, or so we would like to hope.  And in time classical physics did find healing in the on-going study of quantum mechanics.

It was Max Planck who considered that light might not be a continuous wave as most physicists thought but that it might be certain amounts, or “quanta,” of energy.  Imagine light as applesauce.   Well, maybe toss that one for now.

Einstein reasoned from Planck’s equations that light might be understood as discrete particles, like electrons.  Later, physicist Gilbert Lewis labeled these particles photons.  And with that leap of logic, the core faith of quantum mechanics took its place in the heart of a newly developing conception of reality.  Photon sauce.

Physics has come a long way since these initial insights of Einstein and Bohr, Planck and Gilbert.  Today physicists talk almost glibly of multiples of a standard quantum of energy, and it is commonly recognized that electrons can travel wild paths that seem to defy logic and common sense.

So if an electron could be both a particle and a wave, then that electron’s location in time and space takes on mysterious implications that sound like science fiction.  And the Uncertainty Principle by Werner Heisenberg reflects a theory that reality may be defined by observation.  That is, everything depends upon how the physicist doing an experiment looks at the quark in question.  Pardon the alliteration, but I couldn’t resist.

Particles, waves, fuzzy electron paths, photons and quarks.  Some of this strangeness bothered even Einstein, who countered, “God does not play dice with the universe.”   Nevertheless, the subatomic world is just as much a part of reality as is a little boy’s front porch in the light of macrocosm’s gravity and flights of imagination.  Besides, God can play dice anyway He wants to.  And if Schrödinger’s cat is in heaven, that proves my point.  Cat got your tongue?

So where does one go these days for an expert on physics to lead a discussion group on the laws of the universe?  Whom should one trust in an intelligently networked community of aspiring experts treading the bridge over troubled waters between classical physics and quantum mechanics?

Let’s just admit it is healthy to trust those who are willing to openly dialogue and happy to place all options on the table.  Trust those whose intelligently networked community can believe in classical principles while at the same time risking the adventure of going where no quark has gone before and taking the quantum path to imaginative debate.  If that isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is.  The die is cast.  Is that Schrödinger’s cat playing with those dice?  Saucy kitty—the apple of Erwin’s eye.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Barbecued Ribs & Collective Wisdom

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Robert
Email

Tucker’s Grove Park is just like it sounds, a nice little piece of land tucked away in Goleta, California, above the road closest to the hills beyond the town.   The barbecue I was invited to was in an isolated part of the park past a brook and over a little bridge.  Pete McKenzie, former Pro Baseball player for the Detroit Tigers, was speaking to a group of about 300 men. He regularly speaks to men in various men’s events throughout the year.  Oddly enough, he ended up talking about “groups” in one way or another.  Here’s how it all began.

A friend had invited me to attend this men’s barbecue at Tucker’s Grove, which began with a great meal of barbecued chicken, tri-tip, and ribs, plus all the goodies that usually come with such an outdoor feast, like barbecued corn.   Even the beans and salad were excellent, and someone had managed to provide several trays of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies (my favorite), as well as chocolate chip and walnut cookies.  Coolers were filled with a variety of sodas and bottled water.  No one went away hungry.  The speaker did not begin talking until most of the crowd had already put away their chicken, tri-tip, and ribs.  I skipped the ribs—I was already too full.

Pete began to talk about the isolation of men, particularly in American culture, and how few men today seem to have really good friends they can count on, few friendships that go beyond superficial and artificial relationships.  But, as time has proved, everyone needs close friends, people with whom you can be transparent, with whom you can trust your guarded secrets, for no man is an island in the long run.  Mavericks are not always successful on their own.  To reach success usually takes teamwork, encouragers by your side, and just plain common sense to make yourself a genuine part of the community in which you live and thrive and expect to do business.  Even if you are an expert in some field, it is wise to build a “pride of lions” about yourself for support and strength and the collective wisdom to tackle life’s difficult issues when they surface.

That was a good part of the message that Pete McKenzie had to deliver, but it got me to thinking about the necessity of a larger variety of groups as a way of life in our contemporary culture, and how important for personal success is our relationship to either one group or another. You never lose face by wisely joining an outcome-based community of like thinkers.  After all, this is resourcing collective wisdom.   For example, people in recovery rely upon the collective wisdom of the 12 Step Anonymous Groups to assist them in growth and character development and whatever coping mechanisms the ordinary day holds for each human being who is just another person among people.

At the same time, if became fun for me to muse about what other types of groups are out there or should be out there, even ones as “funny” as the Bob clubs, for guys whose name is Bob.  But why stop at Bob?  There are groups and clubs for every interest and every need from computer literacy to love of the arts, whether music or dance or drama.  Anyway, why not a group for wine tasters, gourmet cheese samplers, and chocoholics who are not diabetic and just enjoy sharing a good box of Godiva every once in a while!   I have a friend who used to share his Godiva by bringing a box along to some conferences we attended together, and offering the chocolates along with a little fine cognac he supplied as well.   Godiva and cognac at every conference!   What a guy.

So what kind of men were there at this men’s barbecue?  Did they all have a box of Godiva chocolate and a bottle of fine cognac in their back pocket?  Not hardly.  There were young men and old men.  Some fathers and sons and granddads and teenagers.  Some white collar and blue collar, a medical doctor, a plumber, a guy who owns his own landscaping business, a CEO of a small local firm, a couple teachers and coaches and graduate students.  Some neighbors and buddies and just plain friends.  Some locals and some as far away as LA.  Some pastors and youth leaders and definitely a surfer or two.  Some talented guys, rich guys, poor guys, one homeless guy, quite a few military guys, on leave or honorably discharged years ago.  A motley crew, the usual suspects, the unusual suspects and a not-so-motley crew.  Firemen, policemen, cooks and computer geeks, employed and unemployed but hopeful.

Prince William didn’t make it to Tuker’s Grove, but I bet his brother Harry would have loved the comradery had the royals been able to slip into the crowd unnoticed.  And, of course, there were men who never belonged to a group in their life, as well as men who had quite of bit of experience belonging to one group or another at some point in their journey. Bonded men.  Isolated men.  Communities of men.  Just plain people.  Of which the world is made.

Pete McKenzie’s talk at Tucker’s Grove was aimed at men who are too often in isolation, but people in general are too often finding themselves in isolation in today’s contemporary world, afraid to discuss personal problems or problems of family and business with friends and neighbors.  How much more simple life would be if we shared with colleagues and others what questions, problems, and concerns we are facing.  Doing so, particularly within an outcome-based community, would bring answers to our questions, solutions to our problems, and understanding to our concerns.  We don’t easily find discovery, strength, and success alone, but with teammates and partners, with like-minded co-laborers, we do find well-lit paths to our goals.  Share the light.  Tread the path with others.  Your grove or mine?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Death of the Erlking

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Robert
Email

My childhood remembrances of John Wanamaker’s goal to build the greatest pipe organ in the world in the middle of a department store—he did just that—strangely conjure bizarre connections among many unrelated things, like John Donne’s metaphysical conceits floating across a ballroom floor.

Pipe organs and virtual organs dance before Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Melodic pas de deux by one performer with a harmonic happenstance on the pedal keyboard laughingly jokes, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”  Is that Fred Astaire on clouds or is that someone else glittering in the mist?  With high-heel shoes dancing on the low-note pedals.  Riverdance on the diaphonic bombard?

Some Philadelphians with long memories recall odd stories of the 64-foot diaphonic bombard that shattered all the Waterford crystal on the 8th floor of John Wanamaker’s Department Store decades ago during an organ concert.  Perhaps Friends of the Wanamaker Organ retain this urban legend in their Archives.  Perhaps not.

Organ pipe shatters crystal, opens portals into other universes, reverberates  waves against The Lion, the Witch, and the Armoire.  The 64-foot diaphonic bombard is  magically transported to Narnia for Cameron Carpenter to press into action.  Cameron the experimenter.  Cameron the explorer.

Now, how’s that for a crescendoed introduction?  But, then, Cameron is no ordinary Virgil Fox of the glissando.  So who is Cameron Carpenter?  Time to find out why we’re pulling out all the stops and talking about him today . . .

In spite of the fact that he has ruffled feathers among organ purists, pipe organ virtuoso, Cameron Carpenter, plays The Stars and Stripes Forever like we’re going to war with the Klingons before the sun sets.  His flawless performances are equally thrilling on the Wurlitzer theater organ as well, pipes or no pipes.

Cameron Carpenter, the first organist in history to be nominated for a Grammy, has been called everything from “the bad boy of the pipe organ” to “Cameron Carpenter is outrageous. You have to admire his chutzpah”—The Times of London.

Raised in rural Pennsylvania, Cameron was home schooled in a family that supported his genius and encouraged his musical talent to develop to the fullest extent.  Today, because the physical demands of touring and playing keep him from putting on weight, he has to drink a gallon of mail a day just to keep from withering away.  Well, almost.  Then he does a round of pushups in the wings, to get his blood circulating, before he goes on stage.

This profound prodigy spent six years of intense musical study at Juilliard.  No wonder he turns the pedals into another keyboard when he plays Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude, for which Cameron took Chopin’s left-hand scoring and transcribed it for the pedal keyboard, while the right-hand notes of the etude Cameron plays on the manuals above.

Cameron lives in a studio in New York with his cat and lots of keyboards and electronic equipment suitable to a virtuoso who is also a composer with cutting-edge achievements.  He is preparing to demonstrate a pipe-free electronic touring organ he built that will fully astound the public for its ability to bring the sound of a real and a large authentic pipe organ into any small space.  Revolutionary is often the best overall word to describe the genius and incredible giftedness of Cameron Carpenter.  Maybe he’ll bring that virtual organ into Narnia, through the Armoire, complete with diaphonic bombard. Maybe.

Wouldn’t you like to talk to Cameron sometime and find out what his original life goals were and what tasks he outlined for himself to achieve his goals?  I for one would be very curious to know.  Perhaps his goals and tasks resembled those of Johann Sebastian Bach himself.  I wouldn’t be surprised.  No one I ever saw before literally flew across four manuals with outstanding dexterity, from Bach to Liszt and beyond.  In short, you have to see and hear Cameron perform to believe your eyes and ears.

And yet, all this began at some point in early life with real or imagined goals for the future.  At some point, even a musical genius has to imagine such a goal, set a goal, and put forth the effort and willingness to advance from task to task until that vital goal is reached.

One of Cameron’s favorite pieces of music is Franz Schubert’s The Erlking.  This is a wonderful piece of music with intense foreboding that hides beneath the surface of its artistic canvas the voices of archetype and metaphor.

I chose to believe that with the coming of avant garde musical aspirations and further cutting-edge aesthetic exploration, prodigies and county fiddlers alike are at liberty to prophesy the inevitable death of the Erlking.  As seductively beautiful as it is, the intrinsic evil of the Erlking remains subject to the higher Ambar-metta of the unseen realms.   This is the victory that overcometh the Erlking—even our Faith.

You see, once you begin imagining connections everywhere, your musical universe crosses paths with your literary universe, and your aesthetic expressions do pushups with your artistic endeavors, even if that means shattering all the Waterford crystal in Buckingham Palace.  (I wonder if Cameron has played for the Queen yet?  Probably has.)  Be that as it may, Who’s afraid of Virginia Erlking?   Not I, said the Armoire.  Nor I, said the Bombard.  And, Cameron—I don’t think he’s afraid of anything!

He’s certainly not afraid of Goals.  (I am INC can help you achieve yours.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Exit the Chrysalis

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Robert
Email

“Get down to 195 pounds,” said my doctor.

I had lost 14lbs already by dropping from 234lbs to 220, but now I needed to lose 14 more, plus.  So, losing weight was my perceived goal; however, at the same time, another outcome was lurking in the background almost unknown to me.  Maybe because I couldn’t see the forest for the toothpicks.

Beyond achieving a particular goal there may be another factor we do not realize is coming into play.  My M.D. wanted me to lose weight because he was working with me to reverse coronary artery disease (CAD).  And no matter what “modern medical science” tells you, nearly all disease is reversible if you take the appropriate actions.

Very specific tasks have to be associated with the goal of weight loss, just as very specific tasks must be linked to the goal of arresting and also reversing any disease, such as diabetes, or some cardiovascular problem, or arthritis, and so forth.   There may be more hope out there for you than you imagine, particularly if you carefully and objectively investigate the research on alternative therapies and anti-aging modalities.

Getting back to weight loss, and what that might accomplish for CAD, the question arises, How do you measure your success in this arena?  Could one say, for example, that with every five pounds you lose, you experience also a diminishing of discomfort, such as angina pectoris?   Is that an intelligent way to think about the goal?

What became clear to me was that losing weight was only part of the reward of achieving the goal.   An unexpected reward was a great change in how my heart responded to certain kinds of normal stress.  Weight loss might bring about positives changes in the cardiovascular system, in how my body handled glucose, in how my joints dealt with activity.  The possibilities are legion.

Before I began my weight loss program, I would go for a walk through my neighborhood but always had to stop every so many blocks to catch my breath.  It wasn’t that I was experiencing severe angina; nevertheless, some discomfort weighed heavily on my chest.  My body was not responding well to walking up hill, especially.

After weight loss, a change occurred.   One day I walked all through my neighborhood without having to stop anywhere to catch my breath.   No discomfort was felt; something had changed in the way my heart responded to walking.   Of course, a lot depended upon whether or not I walked on a full stomach or on an empty one.

Now a very interesting factor emerged from something my new doctor said to me, “There is really only one magic bullet that we know of for sure.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Fasting,” he replied.

“Fasting?  You’re kidding!  That’s as old as the hills,” I scoffed.

But my doctor showed me a number of recent studies in which fasting proved to be a powerful tool in boosting the body’s own healing powers.  I had not eaten anything so far that day, and it was now 10am; so my M.D. told me to continue this fast until I had completed 24 hours of fasting.  Guess what?  I did just that.

That was a Friday.  Then Saturday morning I broke the fast when I decided to have breakfast: some oatmeal, two poached eggs, and some fruit (a few prunes, some strawberries, a bit of apple sauce).   That was it.

An hour after that small breakfast, I went for a walk all through my neighborhood.  I did not experience even the least amount of discomfort.   Certainly no chest pain, i.e., no angina.   No difficulty breathing; so I never had to stop to catch my breath.  Obviously there is something to this fasting business.   I determined to try to fast for 24 hours at least once a week.  Maybe fasting would be good for CAD.

So the goal of trying to lose weight branched out into a discovery of the positive results of fasting and also demonstrated that the more weight I lost, the better my heart responded to any normal stress placed upon it.

Because all goals have tasks associated with them, some of my new tasks turned out to be experiments with alternative therapies.   Let me tell you about just two I tried.  One was that of taking 300mg daily of Ubiquinol (a bio-available form of Coenzyme Q10) that I bought through Life Extension Foundation.  The CoQ10 seemed to give me a tremendous amount of energy that lasted all day.   Another nutritional factor I experimented with, under the doctor’s guidance, was taking my powdered Linus Pauling formula of Cardio-C from the Vitamin C Foundation, with one-half teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate.

Now, I won’t go into the long story about what one-half teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate may do for you, but if you research this yourself, you may find some interesting articles on the subject.   I am always amazed at how simple some alternative therapies are in comparison to very complicated “modern miracle drugs” so-called.  And how very inexpensive such natural therapies may be.  I wish I had time to talk about other great sources of nutritional information, such as VitaCost, Beyond-a-Century, and the ever-excellent Standard Process, but I’ll leave that whole topic for another day.

Well, before I get carried away—because this story on losing weight and using alternative therapies to help the weight loss program could go on forever—let me conclude with a few hopefully pertinent remarks and then encourage you “to be your own physician” while you try to find a medical doctor more like the one I have now.  Observation number one is that setting and achieving one good goal always leads to other fascinating discoveries, and accomplishing one task after another toward goal achievement will open other doors you may not have initially encountered.

This trend may begin exciting and beneficial adventures, as well as positive and cutting-edge insights.  For me, the entire weight loss process turned out to be something of a metamorphosis.   I felt like a big fat caterpillar, eating its way to transformation, until the ugly bug entered the mysterious black box of the chrysalis, out of which sprang forth eventually a beautiful butterfly with awesomely designed wings and multicolored delights of every tint and hue.

Sometimes that’s the way goals and tasks are.  But, you won’t know for sure yourself, unless you try setting and achieving your own personal goal.  Then you will have wonderful experiences of your own.  By the way, IamINC can help you do this.  IamINC can show you the way. Set up your own free account on IamINC today.  And exit the chrysalis, as your own brightly shining Monarch.  Thanks for listening.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Guess Doctor Who Is Coming to Dinner

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Robert
Email

The English word “wake” originated from the ancient Indo-European root wog or weg, meaning “to be active.” The word evolved, however, into several different meanings, including the word “watch.” It is in this context that people have a “wake” for someone who recently died.  It is a kind of loyal keeping watch.  “A different kind of friendly” as someone said to me at the recent funeral of a friend of mine who died quite suddenly.

My friend’s family had an upbeat viewing for him at a funeral home and a friendly reception following at a local church.  From the wake to the reception, the morning was filled with meaning, memories, and not a little genuine inspiration.

The whole idea of “wake” led me to thoughts of James Joyce’s Finnigan’s Wake and “The Dead,” the final short story in Joyce’s collection, Dubliners.  Who cannot be aesthetically overwhelmed by that brilliant last paragraph of the story:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Be that as it may, I met many people at the funeral and reception whom I had never met before.  They all were very interesting human beings.  Forever my heart will be touched by this event, this wake and gathering.

To keep from becoming morose, I found myself musing on the thought that Doctor Who, the Time Lord, had come to the reception and was sitting across the table from me.  I imagined that Doctor Who and I were having a conversation about my dearly departed friend, who I learned from the Time Lord had traveled with Doctor Who not too many weeks prior in the Doctor’s TARDIS.   They had traveled to Dublin in the 19th Century in search of Gabriel and Gretta from the final “chapter” in Dubliners but had not found them.  Instead they found a lovely little pub called The Bark and Bite on Bowls Lane.  And here they had a conversation with Joyce himself.

The Bark & Bite was nothing like Jungle George, a restaurant in Goleta, California, where the owner made a cranberry salad dressing from her own secret recipe.  My deceased friend and I had tried it there.  He relished the salad but distinctly did not like the name Jungle George.  However, reminding himself not to judge a menu by its cover, he absolutely gave carte blanche to the food, especially the owner’s cranberry salad dressing from her own secret recipe.  (I said that twice on purpose.)

You see, anything can remind you of anything, and once you’re on a roll at a wake or a dinner in a pub, there is no limit to where imaginative friends like Joyce and Doctor Who might escort you regardless of your intent on the tour.   Even at a pub like The Bark & Bite.  On a mysterious Bowls Lane that may not exist.  Except for Doctor Who.

Having learned a lot about doughnuts lately, I tried to turn the conversation to donut trivia.  Unfortunately, donuts conjured up for Doctor Who the implications of string theory.  Don’t ask my why.  Before I knew it, Joyce and the Time Lord were discussing time, bouncing around idea and phrases like: smallest units of time are discrete, through worm holes, across Einstein-Rosen bridges, where a slice of code transfers to the photon, and particles appear at point B before they leave point A because they are carrying some of that time-displacement code with them, and the laws of physics break down at quantum particle levels. I felt reduced to a fractal myself.  I could not follow their conversation at all.

I was desperate to get back to donuts, national donut day, how they are made, from empty calories to nutritious kinds, anchovy and pizza donuts, fake donuts, famous donuts, sugar blues, and cops and donuts.  But neither Doctor Who nor James Joyce, sitting at the bar in the Bark & Bite Pub, would accommodate me.  It was back across the Einstein-Rosen bridge with them into the TARDIS and through a quantum portal of quarks and bosons.   Stargates loomed on the horizon.  Where is Dr. Daniel Jackson when you need him?  Or Ra for that matter?

Some of the family of my dear deceased friend were from the Philadelphia area, which is quite famous for cheese steaks, not donuts, and their accents brought me back from my reveries.  I was at the reception once again, and the Doctor was no longer sitting across the table from me.   But there in full costume was a mummer, months of grueling practice behind him and ready to perform in the Mummers Parade.   He began to strut across the table with Philly policemen, longshoremen, firemen and others doing the dance routines they had taken all year to learn, all members of one neighborhood brigade or another, all mummers from Philly families where mummers abound from one generation to another.  Feathers and sequins and string bands floated before my eyes.  Light up the banjos, sing a line or two from Rodgers and Hammerstein.  Pray it did not snow on January first.  Better yet, make a novena.

And then they were all gone, the mummers, Doctor Who, James Joyce, and other phantoms, except for my deceased friend, who now sat across the table from me and said, “I’m really enjoying this nice reception the church put together for me.”

“Did you enjoy the funeral service this morning, too?”  I asked him.

“Sure did,” he said and smiled.  “And don’t worry about Gretta and Gabriel.  They’re up here with me.”

“That’s comforting,” I replied.

“Good thing,” he remarked.  “After all, you’ll get to meet them all, even Einstein and Rosen—you might be next!”

And he vanished amidst a flurry of quarks and photons and long peaceful notes from the French horn in F.    I thought I heard a slight roll of the timpani fade within an echo of “The Lass of Aughrim.”

You may or may not be a concert timpanist, nor first French horn, nor a longshoreman mummer at a buddy’s wake in South Philly.  But you are a person with goals—and tasks to complete them—and a need to learn the quark and donuts vital to goal achievement.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Bovine at the Podium?

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Robert
Email

Zoo music might be a choir of chirps from the birdhouse and burps from the monkey house and a roar or two from the lion’s den.  A musical zoo is a happening place.  A lama gets in your face, a trotting zebra keeps pace, alligators race, and a bunny leaves no trace.  A most mysterious rabbit.   He might be the concierge.

Which may be the reason I was a zoology minor in college.  I never did anything with zoology in grad school, but it was great fun taking Ornithology in my undergraduate senior year.  Herpetology was fun, too.   We were at a biology field station in the George Washington National Forest.  My herptiles teacher gave me a pilot black snake.  He coiled himself around my waist, and I walked into town along a dirt road with the snake under my shirt.  He made quite an impression in the barbershop.  They refused to cut my hair.

I don’t know what happened to that pilot black snake.  I took him home with me in a big box.  He wasn’t a big hit with my parents.  That was a long time ago. Perhaps the snake should have been donated to a zoo.  Would they even want a pilot black snake contributed to their collection?   I practically grew up at the Philadelphia Zoo.  It was part of the historical landscape.  And still is.   However, I came to love the San Diego Zoo.  Who doesn’t?   They had a “Bird House” way back when, and it was impressive.  It was like walking into an enormous cage, and all these wildly colored birds flew everywhere around you.  A bird ballet.  A winged choral.

The San Diego Zoo has the largest collection of bird species in the USA, such as the great blue turaco, from West Africa, and the Blyth’s tragopan, the only breeding pair in captivity in the world; species like these are hard to find at most zoos. Other rare species that are also endangered include the Micronesian kingfisher, Bali mynah, Andean condor, and Congo peafowl, all part of Species Survival Programs administered by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.  Doesn’t that make you want to become a member of a local zoo, or at least vacation in San Diego?   Good people these associations.  They are like the conductors of an enormous orchestra.   All those birds singing one song.  Now, you won’t go extinct that way.

But 3,000 miles back east, like many other Philadelphia landmarks and institutions, the Philadelphia Zoo is an American first.  After the Civil War, the Zoo opened its gates on July 1, 1874. The Frank Furness Victorian gates and gatehouses, and the Zoo’s location, are the same today as they were on the day it opened. John Penn’s home, The Solitude, sat on the land chosen for the Zoo. The Solitude is considered to be Philadelphia’s most precise and elegant expression of neoclassical style. John Penn was the grandson of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania.  So, the Philly zoo is dripping with history.  From Philadelphia to San Diego, there are zoos everywhere, some big, some small, some wildly exotic, some with more modest collections, but all zoos are special.  All are musical, too.

The Santa Barbara Zoo just presented the public with Duncan the dinosaur—a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Here is what the Santa Barbara Zoo says about Duncan on their web site: The Santa Barbara Zoo’s newest resident is a life-size, adolescent Tyrannosaurus Rex that runs, roars, snorts, blinks, growls… and even poops.  This amazingly life-like dinosaur was designed by the Chiodo Brothers, one of Hollywood’s top creature shops. He’s 15-feet long from his nose to his tail, and 7-feet tall and his name is Duncan. He’s the star of the Zoo’s fun, new, live stage show “How to Train Your Dinosaur.” What more could you want?   A Velociraptor?   Forget it!   What instrument in the zoo orchestra does the raptor play?  I’m afraid to imagine.  Did Mother Nature select the dinosaurs for extinction because she didn’t like their orchestral coloring?

To me, zoos are like museums and art galleries and even the opera and the ballet.  They are cultural places with cultural events and give meaning to our human culture.  In so many ways animals are like us.  Perhaps they mimic us.  Pets often do.  At the same time, some pet owners begin to resemble their pets—and maybe that’s an improvement!   Is that why some workplaces are like a zoo?  Sometimes the work flows like a jazz ensemble.  Other times it confuses one’s ears like a cacophonous raucous.

So if animals are like us and we are often like them, then the tasks are many to reach a goal of seeing a little of nature in all of us so that we might gain some compassion for the rest of the natural world.   Who has not gone by a pet store window and stopped to look at the slumbering puppies and kittens and bunnies all nuzzled up together in big piles of fluff and sighs.  A comforting sight.  Not the same as the roar of the lion or the teeth of the T-Rex.  Bunnies are more like Claire de Lune.

If I had a lot of money, it might be fun to start out on the East Coast and tour zoo after zoo and then caravan slowly across the USA taking in one zoo after another, with a big stop in Chicago, of course, and let’s not forget the Bronx Zoo and the Columbus Zoo and the San Antonio Zoo and the St. Louis Zoo.  And the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.  What a goal to see all of these.  What a balmy bunch of tasks to trek across America from animal collection to animal collection.  From bark to woof to arf and back.  An odd orchestral tour.

Maybe I could bring along a big check list on a big official looking pad and check off what tasks have been done to perfection in each zoo to attain the high goal of serving all the best interests of the animals and the public.  That adventure could easily be the work of a lifetime.  A dream.  A goal.  A task.  Reflections in the pool where the swans glide across the water and the polar bears sink into poignant nostalgia that haunts a zookeeper’s reveries.   Is this a hitchhiker’s guide to the galactic zoo?  Maybe.  “Oh my stars and garters.”

To look into deeper tasks and goals, explore I am INC and break out of your cage.  Moooooo.   Say, is that cow the first violinist?

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Science, Art, and Verse In-Folded

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Robert
Email

Folding is a function so easily taken for granted.  We are setting a table for dinner, and we fold a napkin and place it beside the china plate.  We take the tablecloth out of the dryer the following day and fold the tablecloth before we put it away for the next meal with guests.  We fold the clean bath towels that we put in the closet next to the bathroom.   We fold the clean dishtowels we stuff into a kitchen drawer, or we might fold an ironed shirt and place it carefully into a bureau drawer for a rainy day.   Every fold we consider, whether of cloth or paper or amino acid, is a small task.  As each task envisions a goal, so each fold seeks a goal.  Such folds are merely the beginning of a story.

Banners furl for the living; but flags are folded for the dead.  The folded flag is given to the widow by the military commander at the graveside of a fallen soldier.  Swans nearby in a pond fold their wings as if in sympathy and float away on the ripples of loss.  Folded wings taunt a goal.  Clouds folding overhead achieve a goal so cold and gray.  Eyes on the funeral flowers unfold tears.  Perhaps a new day will unfold on the morrow.  And a pressed rose will mark a folded page of delicate history.  If history fails us, we humans turn to art to soothe our pain.

The fascinating art of origami is comprised of a series of folds.   The precise technique of multiple folds flows toward a rose, an object, a toy, a paper figure, a colorful or plain piece of origami, artistic and perfect.  The final object is the goal of a series of accurate folds following a specific pattern.  Each fold moves the one who folds one step further toward the goal.  Each fold is a task in the motion, a particle on the quantum path toward a paradigm shift or a leap of logic.  Each task is like a leaf folded on a branch.  Budding in the spring.  Falling in autumn.  Folded forms flying high above a castle wall.  If one fold is wrong—if one task is misaligned—the one who folds will fail to achieve the goal.

In the Japanese art of paper folding, the origami book fold and the origami cupboard fold are facets of a gem looking into each other.  They are eyes to all the origami folds.  The book is a task.  The cupboard is a task.  One step to reach the other.  Perhaps a simple task before a more complex task.  A simple fold before more complex folds.  Finally the goal is in sight.  Perhaps it is a rose.  A paper rose, but a delightful rose nonetheless.

When I was a child, we were taught in elementary school a not very sophisticated art form: the cootie catcher.  It was not, of course, intended to catch head lice or bed bugs.  And no one really knows what a cootie is.  But the several folded pieces of paper pointing toward the center of the catcher, and then turned over to repeat the process, soon discovered a game of thrones, a fortune telling machine as child-like as random marbles.  I remember playing with this paper object made up of a series of special but simple folds. A child’s folds.

To fold was the task.  To put one’s fingers in the final slots of the catcher was the goal.   And the resultant gloved assemblage could be opened and closed like a grim-reaper mouth, but fortunes would appear if the correct decorations had been provided during the folding process.  Strange tasks these folds.  Stranger goal this mouthy bird-like hobble.   Origami folds along a spectacular spectrum.  A universe of origami birds and origami fractals and ghosts of origami.  Tasks in the folds.  Folds along the axis of every task targeting the goal.

Many years ago I saw the movie Dune when it first came out.  I went with a friend to a theater in downtown Philadelphia to see Dune.  I hadn’t even read the books yet in this sci fi series.  The idea of “folding space” fascinated the audience in the movie theater.  In the Dune Universe, a compendium of information for Dune fans, the phrase Folding Space describes a “scientific” phenomena practiced powerfully by the Spacing Guild.

We may learn also that a “Holtzman Generator” is used to fold space on a quantum level, thus allowing a distance that would have otherwise been non-traversable in the span of a human life to be traversed instantaneously. The process required, also, that a Guild Navigator, who possessed a degree of prescience, be on board the space vessel to navigate through the foldspace.

The mutated navigator’s vast intelligence and prescience allowed it to overcome the difficulties involved in transit, such as the outrageously complex mathematical procedures to be carried out, which would only be plausibly calculable by a thinking machine.

Folding space in the world of Dune is vastly different from folding paper in the world of origami, or folding a flag by a graveside, or folding back the sheets in a bedroom for a guest at an inn.    Nevertheless, each fold remains essentially a specific task, and like the folds, the tasks also come in a certain order, one after another, one step at a time, one fold at a time, one task at a time, one foldspace equation at a time.

A few years after seeing the movie Dune in downtown Philly, I was visiting with some friends at their house in Chadds Ford PA.  From the sublime to the ridiculous.  The minor event at that particular hour happened to be folding cloth diapers.  Does anyone remember cloth diapers?  They were before Pampers and Depends.

We were all going to have dinner in less than an hour, waiting for a small roast to come out of the oven. The mother of the family and I were talking, and she moved to the dryer next to the kitchen, and began pulling cloth diapers out of the dryer.  The diapers were very clean. First the washing machine had attacked them, then the dryer.  The folding process was preceded by a “snap.”  You pulled the diaper out of the dryer with both hands and you snapped the cloth so it would unfurl all its wrinkles before you folded it.

I liked the sound of the snapping.  Talking, snapping, folding, waiting for the roast, smelling the apple pie that was sitting on the kitchen counter.  It was all part of the folding conversation.  Odd memories one might quip but certainly pleasant ones. Not origami, not foldspace, only snapping.  The snapping task, the folding task, the chatting task, the goal of a stack of clean folded diapers.  And then the laundry task was finished, and the family and I sat down to dinner.  Folded memories.  Folding time into the past.  The space-time continuum unfolding in a dryer.

What about from the ridiculous to the scientific?  Another piece of folding comes to mind.   Folding of amino acids in a functional protein.  Dr. Douglas Axe published a paper about “estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds.”  And here it is.  Consider his extraordinary abstract about to follow.

[See:  Douglas D. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,”  Journal of Molecular Biology (2004) 341, 1295–1315.]

Extraordinary abstract:

Proteins employ a wide variety of folds to perform their biological functions. How are these folds first acquired? An important step toward answering this is to obtain an estimate of the overall prevalence of sequences adopting functional folds. Since tertiary structure is needed for a typical enzyme active site to form, one way to obtain this estimate is to measure the prevalence of sequences supporting a working active site. Although the immense number of sequence combinations makes wholly random sampling unfeasible, two key simplifications may provide a solution. First, given the importance of hydrophobic interactions to protein folding, it seems likely that the sample space can be restricted to sequences carrying the hydropathic signature of a known fold. Second, because folds are stabilized by the cooperative action of many local interactions distributed throughout the structure, the overall problem of fold stabilization may be viewed reasonably as a collection of coupled local problems. This enables the difficulty of the whole problem to be assessed by assessing the difficulty of several smaller problems. Using these simplifications, the difficulty of specifying a working b-lactamase domain is assessed here. An alignment of homologous domain sequences is used to deduce the pattern of hydropathic constraints along chains that form the domain fold. Starting with a weakly functional sequence carrying this signature, clusters of ten side-chains within the fold are replaced randomly, within the boundaries of the signature, and tested for function. The prevalence of low-level function in four such experiments indicates that roughly one in 1064 signature-consistent sequences forms a working domain. Combined with the estimated prevalence of plausible hydropathic patterns (for any fold) and of relevant folds for particular functions, this implies the overall prevalence of sequences performing a specific function by any domain-sized fold may be as low as 1 in 10^77, adding to the body of evidence that functional folds require highly extraordinary sequences.
q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reconsider now this amazing last sentence: Combined with the estimated prevalence of plausible hydropathic patterns (for any fold) and of relevant folds for particular functions, this implies the overall prevalence of sequences performing a specific function by any domain-sized fold may be as low as 1 in 10^77, adding to the body of evidence that functional folds require highly extraordinary sequences.

Having a hard time translating that?  Here is how Dr. Stephen C. Myer explained this experiment by Dr. Axe:

“Axe (2004) has performed site directed mutagenesis experiments on a 150-residue protein-folding domain within a B-lactamase enzyme. His experimental method improves upon earlier mutagenesis techniques and corrects for several sources of possible estimation error inherent in them. On the basis of these experiments, Axe has estimated the ratio of (a) proteins of typical size (150 residues) that perform a specified function via any folded structure to (b) the whole set of possible amino acids sequences of that size. Based on his experiments, Axe has estimated his ratio to be 1 to 10^77. Thus, the probability of finding a functional protein among the possible amino acid sequences corresponding to a 150-residue protein is similarly 1 in 10^77.”

So, proteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and folded into a globular form. In other words, a specific sequence of amino acids, in a chain, forms a protein. Nevertheless, these biological workhorses that carry out vital functions in every cell cannot do so unless the proteins fold into a complex three-dimensional structure.  Unfolded—not a functional protein.  Folded—a functional protein.  The evolution of snapping diapers?  Which comes first, the sublime or the ridiculous.  Or merely awe.

And all this all because someone somewhere is folding.  To fold or not to fold.  That is the quagmire.  Out in space somewhere someone is folding, task upon task.  Down along the corridor of the space-time continuum, someone is folding, envisioning the goal.  The possibility that the folding is an accident may be 1 to 10^77.

T. S. Eliot, in his profound poem, Four Quartets, raises the folding and the origami rose to new levels.  I’m sure Eliot never had origami in mind; however, my thoughts are drawn to those lovely lines in “Little Gidding,” the fourth quartet.  The sublime verse intones:

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Poetry hardly gets any better than that.  Some might say that common art hardly gets any better than origami.  Others might suggest that science does not get any better than “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds.”  And I would not find it difficult to agree with all three affirmations.  It’s all about the fold.  What came first, the folding or the fold?

From snapping diapers to origami’s cupboard to Doug Axe’s 1 in 10 raised to the 77th power to in-foldings of crowned knots of fire, each fold remains a task, each task remains a fold, and each goal follows somewhere not far behind on a sea of possibilities nearing infinite speculations.  The swans fold their wings on the endless sea of time and all our thoughts flow outward across the pond of wonder like ripples in space flowing across the universe toward a great attractor, a beckoning goal.

One last in-folded thought.  Forgive me.  I can’t help myself.

And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

Watch!  History tells us that the folded napkin spoke. In this ancient culture, when a servant set the dinner table for his master, he made sure the table was furnished just as the master wished. Then the servant would wait out of sight until the master had finished eating. Finally the master would rise from the table, wipe his hands and face, and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know he should clear the table.  For in those days, the wadded napkin meant,  “I’m done.”

But if the master got up from the table, and folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, for the folded napkin meant, “I’m coming back!”

And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

“Neatly folded by itself,” says Peterson, in The Message.

Not origami.  Perhaps Rose of Sharon.  My folds are poured out upon this page, magenta petals of the mind . . .

[ To understand more about the in-folding of tasks and goals, see the IamINC website. ]   Thank you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

5 Smooth Stones

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Robert
Email

If G. K. Chesterton is right, all new news is old news told to new people in new ways.  Strange news floats above my head.  At night above my bed, these ideas sing like  winter dreams. They tell me snow is tiny blossoms in the spring; while summer breeze and autumn leaves are sheets of ice crawling up the walls and turning bedroom dreams into royal halls.  They ask me, What is the color of your thoughts?  What is the weight of your feelings?  How many liters of love do we all stretch out to others?  What new news do we trade them for old news?

These are my anchor-stones.  If I believe in them.  Metaphors that sing to me.  Seeds connecting everything through threads of time and space.  Spring seeds trapped in winter’s lace.  Winter seeds spread through autumn leaves and summer colors that drive you to your knees.  Anchor seeds like precious stones.

Is everything connected?  Could the seeds of one failed goal lead to the fractured tasks of another failed goal?   Will the tolling bells of one successful goal lead to the sounding gong of other achieved goals?  In art so many tasks are connected.  People in stories.  Narratives unfolding.  Roads that go forever on.  Anchor stones and portal seeds and roads that echo endlessly.

Like precursors, Parsifal and Lohengrin are connected. One road leads to the other.  Parsifal precursors his knighted son.  The sunny knight sets the stage for a kingdom’s fall and a hope to rise again.  A gem rises.  A jewel falls.  Stones sing.

Lúthien Tinúviel and Bern are precursors to  Arwen and Aragorn.  Though Parsifal is the father of Lohengrin, yet Lohengrin is the knight bearing the winged crown, whose integrity releases the secret of a swan and captures the heart of a kingdom nearly lost.  What awesome archetypes?  Heroes in narratives.  All come alive.  History comes alive, although thousands of years old.  Seeds and stones.  Melody and threads.  Tapestries and harmonies.  Stones are stories.

There is a slingshot effect in these stories.  I am considering five smooth stones.  The story is as old as the hills where it was seeded long ago.  The giant Goliath taunted David. And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail.

And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him.

And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.

And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him.

And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance.

And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.

So Goliath taunted him. And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.

And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.

So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David.

Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.

What a powerful story.  What a powerful archetype for us today.  David knew he could count on those five smooth stones.  They were anchor-safe for him.  They were his anchor-stones.   He could count on them to achieve the goal.

Social networks allow you to create new friends using new media, but how many of those new friends can you count on?   Who are your five smooth stones?  Who are mine?   Which five connect?  Which five go together to help you achieve your goals?  Which five stones are seeds that grow you a dream?

The five smooth stones are a great archetype.  Art and music and poetry are replete with such archetypal patterns.  In fact, Maud Bodkin, many years ago, wrote a book called Archetypal Patterns in Poetry.  She threaded the stones like pearls in a necklace strung around the neck of the Arts.  Harmony and rhythm.

Endless examples in the Arts.  In the literature that I love I ask myself questions: had not Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren achieved their archetypal goals in the earlier age of Middle Earth, would Arwen Undómiel and Aragorn have been able to achieve their goals in the third age of Middle Earth?  What seeds sow jewels?

Is perhaps the anchor-stone of Aragorn’s kingship rooted in the great archetype wrought out of love and hope by Beren and his Lúthien Tinúviel?  If Lúthien had not sacrificed her immortality for Beren might Arwen have been less inclined to surrender her immortality for love of Aragorn and the Hope she held of a new world to come?  Perhaps there is no answer to the question, only seeds and metaphors and jewels and stones and a crowned knight with a flashing sword like a gem in the darkest gloom.  Musical motifs returning.  Melodies repeating.

Had not Parsifal achieved his goal and the resultant redemption of Kundry, would Lohengrin have been able to leave Elsa when she broke her vows, causing Lohengrin to leave her lands?  And yet, in Lohengrin’s leaving, Elsa’s brother, trapped in an enchantment as a swan, is released and returns to restore the kingdom to a brighter hope.  But the Parsifal archetype must be strong enough to father the Lohengrin metaphor for continuity and purpose.  Blossoms open.

Blossoms like connections.  Such strange and profound connections throughout all of literature and the arts, throughout all of human aspiration and dreams, our well-intentioned goals needing to be realized, waiting for five smooth stones, for five connected mentors who will rise up and engender a universe of supportive guidance, direction, encouragement, and hope.   Stones, gems, seeds, jewels.

I see these anchor-stones in multiple archetypes.  I see them in Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren.  I see them a thousand years later in Arwen Undómiel and Aragorn.  I see them in Parsifal who fathers the Knight Lohengrin.  I see them in the sword and the shield, the winged crown, the Swan set free, the faces of friends who connect in social networks and sow a field of five hundred from which five smooth stones bloom in Hope and glory and come to your side to help you achieve that all-important goal that will change your life for the better forever.

I cannot help it.  The archetypal patterns, the memorable metaphors, the salient symbols, the wealth of music and art and literature empower us all to realize, after a thousand ages have come and gone, that our anchor-safe anchor-stones are those few true blue friends who dare to be bold enough to set our spirit free, engage our intellect, challenge our lethargy, and uplift our sights to far more meaningful ways and means that get the vital job done.  Our Mentors are the Silmarils of our Soul.

Find your archetypes now.  Locate your five smooth stones today.  Set your anchor-safe this very moment in the sands of time, to stand the test of ages and make secure your ship in your hopeful harbor.  Let the Goal-Achievement Site guide you along this brightly shining path.  Transform old news into new news shielded from despondency and crowned with discretion.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment