The Latest Crisis

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around what is happening here in this country with regard to the economy. Does anybody out there really get it?

Nobody I know does. And even the “experts” are struggling with their sense-making.

Maybe, if anyone saw this disaster coming, then, perhaps, we might have done a better job of heading it off? Of course, then, well, let me think: Bush is still running the country. So I guess there’s no one really minding the store.

I heard on both NPR and MSNBC this week that we came just this close to plunging into The Great Depression II. And, that we’re not out of this yet…despite the massive $700 billion federal bailout, we’re still looking for more businesses to fail, many more workers to lose their jobs.

I have to admit to being scared. In the post-911 era, it took three years for me to lose the last “permanent” job I had. I’ve struggled with my life, in one way or another, ever since. Then, earlier this year, I lost a double-digit percentage of my AIG-invested retirement funds before I made the move to a more conservative investment strategy. The new approach isn’t really earning me money anymore, but the bleeding, thank god, for the time-being, has been stopped.

What happens to me? ….what happens to us? …if we’re not able to work our way out of this crisis.

There’s a lot to think about here…

Digital Intimacy

I signed up for a Facebook account in July. At the time, I had no idea that I was playing with fire…that I might be embarking upon some kind of transformative path in my life…that this was a journey that would provide me, in very short order, with great highs and ultimate lows.

But I was (doing all those things). And here’s a little bit of the story.

Although I have had for some years a very broad and active online presence (evidence: this blog, my old blog, a personal website, a LinkedIn page, a Match.com profile, and a Flickr photo-sharing site), I had, however naively, neglected an entire universe (millions and millions) of people out there active in social-networking sites (namely MySpace and Facebook). In fact, if I thought about such internet destinations at all, I asked myself: What’s the attraction? What’s the point?

But late last June I did another Google search that led me, yet again, to someone’s Facebook page…which, of course, was unavailable to me since I was, first: not a Facebook member, and second: not that person’s Facebook “friend.”

This was not the first time this had happened. I sighed. Dead end.

However, this time, for whatever reason, I thought about it some more and within a few days, I signed up for a Facebook account. That was the ridiculously easy part. Now what? I thought…am I really going to start a “page?” If I enter some information, what will this mean? Who will I share it with? Am I going to seek Facebook friends? Do I even know one single person here with whom to be friends? And: what, ultimately, does it mean to be a Facebook friend, anyway?

In essence, I was asking: Why am I here?

The eternal, existential, question.

Well, little did I know that I was entering, what Clive Thompson (in the September 7 New York Times Magazine) calls, the “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” In this thoroughly absorbing article, Thompson discusses the attraction of social networking and how the “omnipresent knowledge” of what others are doing is “intriguing and addictive.”

And, indeed, while he tries to explain all of this, Thompson and the individuals he interviews all seem to acknowledge that the phenomena of “ambient awareness” and “digital intimacy” are very difficult to communicate: that you have to actually participate to understand how this all works. His discussion starts out with a story about Facebook, but much of the article is devoted to a description of the so-called microblogging tool available at Twitter.com, which gives individuals the opportunity to broadcast to the world short updates about their lives (in answer to the question: “what are you doing”), in 140 characters or less. The bottom line, for many people (and certainly it’s turned out that way for me), is that the quality of ambient awareness of others created by Facebook and Twitter is a way for a person to “feel less alone.”

So, yes, I have come, slowly, during the last couple of months or so, to feel less alone in the world. This has been a very positive development in my life. And, perhaps, as I said in the first paragraph: transformative. For while my physical being continues to be on a healing path, my emotional self seems to be in a similar recovery…partly attributable, I believe, to more social connection.

The dominant relationship that has been enhanced is with one, dear-to-me person I used to work with in Portland. The emails, instant-messaging, and the “mobile” aspects of Facebook (when I’m away from my computer, I get a text message when she updates her page or sends me an email), have brought us much closer together. She visited me here in person last week.

Of course, nothing good goes unpunished. I had my first real Facebook dilemma last week as well.

Facebook had become the one place in the universe that seemed to be left for me to maintain my relationships with “C”’s (adult) kids. All three of them, two of their spouses, and one significant other, had all befriended me on Facebook. To the extent that any of them logged in and updated their page(s), I was able to keep up with their lives. C did not have a Facebook account.

Until last week, that is. Last Wednesday morning I opened up my page to discover, on my news feed, that “daughter-in-law and C” were now friends.

I was stunned. Aghast. Angry and upset. What is SHE doing here?, I asked. This is MY place!, I exclaimed. (To myself.)

Upon poking around, I found that I had access to C’s page and she to mine (because of the manner in which I had configured my privacy settings). This would not do! Neither would being in the same social online network with her. That very day, I wrote a painful (for me) note to all six kids, indicating that since C was now on Facebook, I was going to have to leave. I sent off the emails and then deleted them from my list of friends.

For me: great angst. Great. Angst.

But, really, the only way.

Facebook: it’s just like real life.

Only not.

(If you need help finding me on Facebook or Twitter, just ask…)

Soundtrack Suggestion

I feel the sorrow,
Oh I feel dreams,
Everything is clear in my heart,
Everything is clear in our world,
I feel the life,
Oh I feel love.

(“Oh My Love” – John Lennon)

Update on October 9, 2008:

An astute reader writes in to remind me to remind you that my latest postings to Twitter (my five most recent “tweets”) are always available here in the right-hand sidebar of this page…in the TechnoMonk’s Tweets section.

A Brief History of Jazzercise

I’m not really sure if you know what “Jazzercise” is. So, for the uninitiated: it’s a physical-fitness program started, back in 1969, by a woman named Judi Sheppard Missett. Who woulda thunk? … back in the Sixties while many of us were trying to find a way to extract this country from an illegal, immoral war, Judi was jazz-dancin’ away and founding a fitness movement. At the time, of course, I had no idea that that was going on. I was trying to stay in college, avoid the draft, protest the war, and basically stay alive.

My personal introduction to Jazzercise was in 1983 when my roommate at the time, Tom, was lured into class by his girlfriend. Then, one day in August, during a period when my life was not working on several levels, I decided to accept his invitation to join him in a class. (I had resisted the invitation for months.) And, once there, I was hooked.

These classes are what most folks know generically as “aerobics,” but Jazzercise is a unique, franchised and controlled entity. You can go almost anywhere, find a Jazzericse class, and know what you’re going to get. In a “regular” Jazzercise class, the entire hour set to music (from today’s pop to classic rock), you’ll experience a warmup portion, a heavier cardio segment, and then a cool-down period (which ends with the use of hand and/or leg weights and at least one or two routines done on a floor mat). The Jazzercise website describes itself as a “workout program, which offers a fusion of jazz dance, resistance training, Pilates, yoga, and kickboxing movements…[with such benefits as] increased cardiovascular endurance, strength, and flexibility, as well as an overall “feel good” factor. The international franchise business hosts a network of 7,300 instructors teaching more than 32,000 classes weekly in 32 countries.”

I was living in Corvallis, Oregon, at the time of my first class. Tom quickly drifted away about the time his relationship ended, but I continued on. Subsequently, I regularly attended classes in Bloomington, Indiana; Eugene, Oregon; and Portland, Oregon. (For most of the classes, most of the time, during all those years, I was typically the only male in the room.) Then finally, after almost 22 years of Jazzercising, in 2005, while living in Portland, I stopped attending class, mostly because of my increasing levels of chronic pain.

Honestly, I didn’t know if I’d ever be healthy enough again to pursue Jazzercise, or any fitness routine other than my daily walk.

Well, things have changed. During the last few months, I have gradually gotten healthier and stronger. I attribute much of this improvement to the work I’ve done with my Feldenkrais practitioner. In fact, at my last visit, given the progress I’ve made, she asked if I’d thought about joining a gym. I said, “no, but I have been seriously thinking about returning to Jazzercise classes again.”

I’m in a period right now of being pretty amazed with myself: I’ve attended Jazzercise class two Saturday mornings in a row. While I’ve been taking it very easy, wisely pacing myself, and enduring a recovery period each time: I seem to be making it OK. I can hardly believe the progress I’ve made.

The “feel-good factor” is real!

Flaunting the Law

On January 1 of this year, I posted an entry enthusiastically endorsing a new California law, slated to go into effect on July 1, making it illegal to drive while talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device (and would prohibit the behavior entirely for anyone under 18 years old). I said way to go California!

Well, folks, things haven’t exactly turned out like I imagined. For what I thought would happen was: people would actually obey the law.

HA! Oh, silly me!

Now, I haven’t seen any data, performed any studies, or done anything “scientific” in preparation for making this report, however, what I believe is: this law hasn’t changed shit.

People here are still driving while talking. And driving while texting. They’re endangering themselves and others to just about the same extent they were prior to July 1.

It pisses me off. I wish I could take down the license plate number of every car I’ve seen whose driver is flaunting this law. And, well: do something with it!

I am unable to do that, obviously. It would be a full-time job.

But, just so you know, I’m not doing nothing. Here’s the email exchange I had yesterday with the local police. (The “Twin Cities” referred to here are the towns of Larkspur and Corte Madera , California.)

Message Number 1 (TechnoMonk)

Greetings,

On Saturday, August 30, 2008, at app. 3:50 p.m., I was traveling west on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. from Hwy 101 to the Bon Air Shopping Center. I was following a Twin Cities police car, license plate #1225302. The driver of this vehicle weaved into the other lane about three times during the very short time I was following him. I believe that he was using a cell phone without a hands-free device.

Distressing. I thought we had a law.

Message Number 2 (Captain McDuffee)

Thank you for your email regarding the unsafe driving you witnessed. It doesn’t appear from your email that you actually observed the officer using a cellphone, is that correct? The unsafe driving may be the result of the officer using the Mobile Data Terminal in the patrol car.

In either case, I will speak to the officer about his driving. Once again, thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Message Number 3 (TechnoMonk)

Captain McDuffee,

Thanks for the quick reply.

It was, of course, the weaving that caught my eye.

At that time of day, going that direction, the sun was somewhat in my eyes. However, the driver’s head was tilted slightly to the right. His right arm was held to position his hand near his ear. I didn’t exactly see the cell phone, but it sure was a cell phone pose. The head, hand (and phone?) were in silhouette. I’d put my certainty level at about 90% that it was a cell phone.

Of course, nothing will ever come of this…it just made me feel good!

Dr. Teller

Teller was born Jacob Adam Teller, named after his two grandfathers. Most everyone, though, calls him, simply, “Teller”…with the notable exceptions being a few students, faculty, and professional colleagues who address him, respectfully, as “Dr. Teller.”

Now, given that he was awarded his Ph.D from a Big Ten school in the mid-90s, the moniker “Dr. Teller” is completely accurate and appropriate. It does, however, have a tendency to make Teller cringe just a little bit. After all, when he thinks of Dr. Teller, it’s the Dr. Teller. Edward Teller. That Dr. Teller wrote his dissertation in physics under the direction of Werner Heisenberg, developer of the Uncertainty Principle. That Dr. Teller is often referred to as the “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb” for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II. That Dr. Teller was, during his time, commonly referred to as “the scientific voice of the military establishment.” And that Dr. Teller was supposedly the real-life person who inspired the Dr. Strangelove character.

What a contrast. As scientists, and as human beings, Teller and Dr. Teller were, and are, quite different.

When he was young, many of Teller’s schoolmates called him Jacob, Jake, or sometimes just “Tell.” But about the time he entered college it seemed there had developed a consensus, for whatever reason, to call him Teller. So, “Teller” it was. It stuck.

But this is not just a story about Teller’s name. Rather, it’s about Teller’s loves. Or, more specifically, one of his loves and how she said his name.

And, so it happened recently, Teller was talking to a new friend, giving her a short history of his significant relationships. When he was speaking about his ten years with Katrina, even he noticed that the tone of his voice changed. So, it was not at all difficult for his perceptive listener to catch on to this person’s place in Teller’s heart. When asked for a bit more detail about his time with Katrina, Teller outlined the on-again off-again nature of that relationship; his frequent feelings of heartbreak and rejection; yet his attachment to, and sense of inclusion and family he felt with, Katrina and her three children.

He found himself saying, “someday I’ll figure how and why it was I let that go on so long.”

For some reason, during that conversation, Teller could not admit, out loud, to the simplicity of the explanations he’d come up with so far. He acknowledges that he frequently ponders the question of how it was that a decade of his life slipped away on him, believing that that relationship would work out when it was so apparent, now in hindsight, that it wouldn’t.

It was some very small things, really…that made Teller’s life oh-so-complicated for oh-so-long. For example, there was that sunny summer day when Teller drove from his apartment over to Katrina’s house to pick her up to go for a hike. He parked in the driveway and was walking to the front door when he saw her face smiling at him from the kitchen window. Teller, simply, will never forget his greeting that day. A smile so open. So genuine. So loving. So unbelievably warm and radiant. So obviously and completely for him.

For Teller, truly, it was the smile of a lifetime. And he wanted that smile, and the quickened-hearbeat he had in response, to last forever. So Teller tried to make it last, to get it back. But somewhere, along the way, the source of the display that day…went away.

And, then there was the way she often said his name: the way it rolled from her lips when they were alone. (Or, occasionally used it in email greetings.) Not using the name that everyone else used, but calling him, whispering to him, “Jacob Adam.” Or, more accurately: jacobadam, all one word, said oh so softly and gently. No one had ever called him by both names before, and surely not in the manner in which her voice delivered it. Soft, deliberate, seductive, intentional. Wholly, totally, overwhelmingly intimate.

So, Teller had stayed. For ten years. Searching for a repeat of that smile. Longing for one more whisper of his name.

Though, at some point, he now admitted, it had all disappeared. The smile, the warmth, the voice, the love.

Gone.

Soundtrack Suggestion

You know my name, look up the number
You know my name, look up the number
You, you know, you know my name
You, you know, you know my name…

(“ You Know My Name ” – Lennon/McCartney )