Warp & Woof

v.1.3

Welcome to Warp & Woof, a blog from William Sundwick. Its purpose is to share with its readers some ways to navigate the philosophical, moral and aesthetic dimensions of life.

It is not a scholarly blog, but the author hopes that his own life experience and reading can inform his readers’ journeys through such realms.

He wants to share some things that he believes matter, not “fake news,” and he will offer frequent enough doses to motivate you to keep checking in. Comments are welcome. While Blogger requires you to identify yourself via your email address, the author will anonymize any comments before publishing them.

Warp & Woof has a structure. There are five departments of thinking (pages) -- but some entries may be cross-posted in more than one department. These five “realms of deliberation” are:

The Present

    … what matters, for sure!

 

                     The Past

                              … what used to matter       

                                                               

                                                                              

                                             The Future

                                                      … what may matter, who knows?

 

                             Totems

                                    … objects that matter (or mattered)  

                        

Beats

    … sounds that matter, since we never get tired of hearing them! 

Author’s Introduction

Switching to the first person now and translating -- readers can expect entries dealing with health and wellness for seniors (that’s me) in The Present, along with musings on bigger psychological/philosophical issues. This includes a fair dose of writing on child development (I spend some time babysitting my grandchildren).  

The Past will be filled with lots of hopefully knowledgeable meanderings around politics, sociology and history. I’m a liberal arts type, undergraduate major in history, and professional librarian for something like 30 years before imperceptibly transitioning to IT professional. I retired from the Library of Congress in 2015, after 42 years at that institution. History and politics are very big topics for me, despite their vague and uncertain impact on the present or future.

Exciting (to me) developments in science and technology will be found in The Future, along with a healthy dose of fear about things like global warming and other planetary or civilizational catastrophe! Perhaps I have an apocalyptic frame of reference -- most of my thinking about economics and anthropology belongs in The Future. Economics covers consumer behavior and marketing, both interesting fields for me. Anthropology deals with primitive roots of tribal life, which I claim will become more apparent in the future, as more complex social arrangements break down, putting sociology in The Past. The Future is not the place for invective about the status of American politics -- that belongs on the page for The Past!

On the page for Totems, you will find lots of apparently senseless, but exciting for me, information about cars, past, present, and future. I’m a “car guy”, by virtue mostly of my upbringing as a General Motors brat in Flint, Michigan during the fifties and sixties. I’m not a car guy mechanic, however. I never open the hood or crawl under my own vehicle (much less anybody else’s!), but a car guy who was raised in, and by, mid-century American “car culture.”

Finally, on the Beats page, another personal obsession gets its due: rock music, from the origins in the Great Migration, through the British Invasion, hard blues, acid rock, punk, metal, techno. If anybody thinks these genres are still alive, please let me know! I’ve “got my ear down to the ground” to paraphrase Jim Morrison, When the Music’s Over. Yes, there is audio here, via YouTube videos.

That’s been the concept. Version 1.0 of Warp & Woof launched on Ground Hog Day, 2017.  I made some changes to the layout and design recently, for v.1.2 (sounds better than v.1.1).  And, true confessions, this v.1.3 is informed by two-and-a-half years in my Arlington, VA Writers Group. These folks may be my only audience – except when I beg my Facebook friends and relatives to read my posts. I hope my mission statement remains unchanged at least through version 2.0; i.e., helping my readers see the “big picture” more clearly, making the complex simple, and having fun while we expand both our peripheral vision and depth perception!                      

         

Me, at Filene Center, Wolf Trap, 2018

                                                        

Staying Anchored and Marking Time

The Meaning of Routines

William Sundwick

About two years ago, I wrote a post for Warp & Woof called “Celebrating Banality.” It was a defense of the banal, quotidian routines in life. They were contrasted with the relatively rare moments of exhilaration from new experiences that our culture tends to equate with creativity or a “meaningful” life.

I’m now two years older, seems like it might be time for an update. Much of my beloved banality has survived. I still eat the same breakfasts and lunches I did two years ago, sleep patterns remain the same, and watching TV late at night with my wife continues to be a hallowed tradition. I still play games by devising alternating patterns on a complexity continuum for executing my routines. I will always do my neighborhood walks in the same order (counterclockwise from my house) for the complete eight-day circuit of my eight different routes, then start over. Gym workouts include back strengthening on nautilus equipment for two of the four sessions each week, but not a third day – unless I anticipate play dates with grandchildren which require lifting and carrying them. Other contingency patterns work for other routines, depending on the number of choices available for any given task.

But there have also been some changes of routines. I am now off the Board of Deacons at my church (3-year terms), hence have fewer regular evening meetings to attend, and fewer joint projects with folks at church. A replacement for that, however, is that I have gone “all-in” with my Daytime Writers Group, making blogging nearly a full-time pursuit. And, the routines around grandfathering have also changed. Parents’ work schedules no longer require frequent afternoon babysitting. Although more independent now, Owen has a new baby sister!

Staying anchored via routines is what others expect of us. They’re our real world. Marking time is what we do when we “recharge” for the next new thing. But those new things often have obstacles in their path – at our age, old routines often die hard. As much as I love my neighborhood walks, losing one of the eight different routes recently due to park maintenance in Falls Church caused real discomfort when I had to reconfigure that route! It’s always easier if routines remain unchanged when you get old.

And, because I am generally slower to react to new stimuli, I may not even recognize when an old routine is no longer working for me. I spend too much time on Facebook. Social media surfing has grown rather than subsided over the past two years, and now consumes much of my day – despite warnings from many pundits about its addictive properties. It’s marking time, but not in a good way.

Physical mobility is even more important to me now than two years ago. My stretching exercises and weights at home, as well as my cardio-intensive gym workouts, have become more critical – at least in my mind. I’ve experienced no decline in mobility but am more afraid of it for the future. Exercise helps me stay anchored.

It’s also possible that the range of future possibilities is greater now than two years ago. At least, I now look forward to developments that were less clear then. Maintaining the status quo of a democratic society has become a greater challenge, seemingly more threatened than even two years ago. I anticipate seeing at least two grandchildren growing up (well, getting bigger). I want them to have as many of the fruits that I was privileged to share as I can provide. Two years ago, I was still enjoying the freedom from the social constraints of my pre-retirement work environment. Today I place social interconnection at the top of my list of desirable traits in society.

My writing for Warp & Woof, as well as micro-blogging in Facebook discussion groups, has taken the form of a meta-analysis of reality. More than any other activity in which I engage, it keeps me anchored. Each post marks time until the next one. And, I think I don’t really care if anybody reads my writing (I do get feedback from Facebook friends and discussion group members, as well as Daytime Writers). At least I’ve put it out there. Anybody can discover it. And, listening to podcasts while on my neighborhood walks helps me explore that meta-analysis for later use in my writing.

Establishing routines, whether writing, exercise, or social interaction, is like a toddler learning to walk. Place one foot in front of the other, while maintaining balance. With practice comes greater confidence. And as you get good at the routines, you can even learn how to fit other people into them. They can support your routines, rather than interfere with them.

What happens when you must stop a routine? If physical difficulty, or danger, requires a replacement for the old routine, then you unlearn the old behavior, as painful as that can be as we age. The replacement therapy may take the form of help from others in your life, or systematic re-education. Ultimately, you will ask yourself the question: why do I need to change?  The answer will likely be you are harming your health, or others are making new demands on you, or that you’re simply missing something in your life, even if you can’t quite identify it. If none of these apply, maybe you don’t need to change!

Will I have another update in reporting my routines? It may depend on other people in my life forcing change on me. Or, it may be because of something I see as a “decline” – I hope not! Change when you’re over 70, not to be taken lightly.

Life on the Internet: No Fear, No Shame

Why All the Fuss?

William Sundwick

Why are so many people so afraid of sharing “personal information” with the world, anyway? Lately, especially with Facebook, it has verged on mass paranoia. Warp and Woof, the blog, was launched on Groundhog Day 2017. It is now 15 months old. And, I have been an active Facebook user for at least four years. Twitter about the same (but less active). Before I retired three years ago from the federal government, I was already well-acquainted with the public nature of the Internet, especially security risks – it was part of my job.

Let’s explore some of the risks of online presence in a cool, rational manner. As always, bad experiences can color a person’s feelings. But, I submit, so can positive experiences!

Fear and resentment of powers unseen manipulating you are a large part of the bad feelings people have. But, the only difference between what advertising and propaganda have always sought to do and what modern data analysis can do is something called “narrowcasting.” The more data that can be harvested about you, personally, the more precisely advertising can be directed at you. The hope of the advertisers is that this targeting will diminish your resistance to the message. The product being sold will appear to be custom-designed for you, even though it may just be the advertising message that is so customized.

The recent revelation about Cambridge Analytica stealing Facebook user data for political advertising reinforces the concept that there is a great conspiracy to manipulate your consumer behavior. There is, but it’s not new. True, social media together with “big data” can potentially be much more effective than the older “broadcast” methods of advertising. But, to think that you are less able to resist a narrowcast message is to admit weakness and defeat. Maybe it’s really all the “other people” and their ability to resist that concerns you? Hence, politics.

Then, there is identity theft – the idea that personal information can be used as a key to enable burglary. It has happened to some people.  But, again, the digital world has plenty of entry points for this kind of intrusion. Point-of-sale equipment has historically been the most common. And, Internet purchases via credit card certainly add to the risk. That’s hacking. Best defense: don’t ever buy anything with a credit card! (And, don’t use online banking or brokerage services.)

Perhaps even more compelling than either the manipulation risk or the identity theft risk, for many, is the fear of hurtful trolling – or, even physical harm. It’s likely because of bad experiences in the past, either online or in some other form of bullying, that many will foreswear social media altogether, and would never consider publishing an open blog. They also would not want to comment on anybody’s open blog, unless they could remain anonymous. Even then, they may let their fears of losing that anonymity consume them.

While most of us claim we want to be respectful of other’s feelings, it seems there are more than enough nasty trolls out there who are looking for an opportunity to demean and bully. What they engage in is a concerted attack on free speech. It can be either selfish (it makes them feel good, like the schoolyard bully), or strategic (they’re trying to suppress dissent). In either case, it seems that resistance is incumbent upon us. It may be that “resistance is futile” for privacy advocates, and we surely should support cybersecurity efforts to protect us from identity theft (businesses have good reasons to protect their customers), but to abandon participation in the digital world is tantamount to surrender to malevolent forces. Living “off the grid” means you have been defeated, no matter how refreshing it may feel as a vacation. Nobody wants to admit defeat!

Of course, it is possible to mitigate the potential harm of online conversations. Regarding social media, choose your Facebook friends wisely, and if discussion groups get abusive, go away for a while. I’ve reduced my Twitter activity for that reason. The other Digital Golden Rule is: don’t be stingy with the good stuff – there can never be too many compliments and validations. They likely will be returned in kind. My Writer’s Group knows this rule well. Congratulations to all, we self-enforce.

And, remember, if you publish online (including micro-blogging in social media) and your readers lose respect for you, it’s on you! The final judge of the value in your posts should be you. It’s helpful to keep your purpose and audience in mind – and write well. Sometimes, ruffling feathers is your objective. Don’t be shy if it fits your larger purpose. Just be deliberate.

To recapitulate, we need to be mindful of scams like phishing schemes, but psychological manipulation and identity theft pre-date the current state of the Internet – i.e., social media -- by many years. A more powerful fear for many seems to involve possible damage to their egos. Not to minimize real physical threats, but reasonable prudence about revealing our location, and being deliberate about what we say online, should alleviate most of those fears. Again, it’s not so different from the way life has always been. There have always been bullies. There have always been haters. And, it’s always better to confront a bully than to run away. You also confront by ignoring the bully.

Clearly, if I allowed myself to be consumed by these fears, I would not have started my blog. While my motivation for the blog is not to sell anything, I will admit to a desire to give something to my readers. Unfortunately, I can’t determine how successful I am unless I get feedback. Blogger stats are available which show me page views by article, by date, by operating system, and break it down geographically. But, page views do not necessarily equate to readers.

I promote Warp & Woof on Facebook, via email, in person to friends, and to my Writers Group. But, the responses, while always favorable, come back to me in the medium I used for the promotion – Facebook comments, email replies, in-person confirmations of reading or “seeing” the blog. Nobody makes comments in Blogger, itself (unless I beg them). That’s no fun. It’s true that the platform doesn’t allow for anonymous comments – but, I can anonymize the comment before I publish it, by making the comment myself, and quoting an anonymous reader. Perhaps that’s something I should promote, separately. Consider it done here. You must trust me, though.

So, consider this an invitation to follow Warp & Woof. Comment freely, I will anonymize before I publish your comments. It’s a blog with only one contributor (so far) – me! It contains my thoughts and expresses my interests. But, I’m interested in your thoughts as well. Help make it a conversation.