A Fulfilling Life

Somedays you just wake up happy.  It's a glorious feeling.

Usually I just accept it and move on.  This morning, though, I reflected on it (on account of the pandemic blues?  on account of my 50 year-old introspective blues?  who knows?).  What I realized is that, in the past few days, I've had several unsolicited comments from people that made it clear I have had a positive impact on their life.

This idea that 'service to others' is the way to a fulfilling life is nothing new of course, but I ran across it most recently listening to a podcast that was otherwise unremarkable:

"You’re not only your brother’s keeper, you’re your brother’s lifter. And now, every time they are around you and every time they see you and experience you, it’s better for them. And I think that the moment that you live for others, value others and intentionally add value to them, I think you’re living a fulfilled life."

-John Maxwell

Reminds me of a previous post about compassion and the Dalai Lama.  I can't say I've been purposefully pursuing 'being of service', but maybe being on this rock for 50 years, teaching for almost 20, and having a family for over 14 has had some impact on this self-absorbed narcissist!

To make it all about me, it has to be all about them! (Love this kind of incompatible dualism)

The Present Moment

Just because we can name something and understand it intuitively doesn't mean it's really a thing out here in the Universe.  Take the present moment.  Now.  The separation between past and future.  "Live in the moment!"  "Don't dwell in the past!" "Don't fret about the future!"

But what is this moment?  Right then as you were reading those words, was that now? Take a look at these action potentials graphs of various neurons:

So just to have one action potential within a single neuron takes over 0.001 seconds.  The synaptic release of neurotransmitters crossing synapse takes an additional 0.0005 seconds.  Any thought worth having involves many thousands of neurons asynchronously signaling each other throughout your brain, spinal cord, and body.  If you consciously react and respond to an external stimulus it takes about 0.3 seconds round trip.

As you are having one 'thought' this moment involving thousands (millions?) of neurons, they are not all firing at the same time... that would be impossible.  Some of the neurons participating in this particular thought are far apart and some are right next to each other. Your thought right now is the integration of many signals over an interval of time, around 1/10 of a second, from all over the place.  As some neurons have already completed their contributions to this ''now' of your cognitive experience, they may be already firing for your next 'now'.  Meanwhile, the latest contributors within this tenth of a second window of time are in the midst of their action potential peak.

So your present "now" moment in time is really an extended, entangled mess of past and future.  But don't dwell on this or fret over it, we all know what I mean when I say "That's all for now!"


 

Proud Moment

I had a proud Rideout-moment at this morning's high school leadership team meeting (yes, I do get invited to those for some reason!).  These twice-a-week 7:30 AM meetings in the era of work-from-home are another opportunity to experience the awkwardness of looking at people you would normally be in the same room with having their faces displayed in rows and columns on your computer screen in your family room.  Lucky for me (and unlucky for them), this particular group of administrators and department heads are people I feel pretty comfortable around.

About 3/4 of the way through the meeting, our principal is discussing some possibilities for doing senior awards (all of our end of year activities have, obviously, been completely wrecked by the pandemic).  When she brings up the possibility of us taking turns coming into the high school theater to present our departmental awards in order to be filmed and then spliced into a longer, virtual awards ceremony, all of the other department heads start contributing and asking question in a professional manner.  I, on the other hand, calmly type into the chat window, "Wait.  Does this mean I will have to put on pants?"

Every single face on my screen burst into laughter.  Oh, savor that victory, Rideout, savor the sweetness of it...

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30-May-2020 Follow up

This is the video I submitted to the goodbye compilation sent to the seniors:

Zoomin' it with the OG Buddies

Triggered by the recent unearthing of Bedtime Stories for Ken, the foursome got together again (remotely)...

We had to coordinate a 2 continent, 4 timezone zoom conference, but we had a blast catching up!  It's amazing how comfortable it is to just chat with these guys even after all these years.  Often my students have asked me why I'm such a happy guy in general.  I usually just shrug and say something like 'that's just how I'm wired'.  But, today, I'm thinking - how much of it is because of the foundational silliness, fun, and love I got from these guys back in the formative years?

These four boys from Alabama are all married, gainfully employed and have six kids among them.  To boot, they look just like they did when they were sixteen, am I right?

Another One from the Vaults

Back in 2006, I read an article that really resonated with me in Physics Today:

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2218554


In it, the author elaborates on her claim "The underrepresentation of women and minorities among recipients of physics degrees is a manifestation of systemic educational problems."

I had just completed by fourth year of teaching and had made a serious of profound discoveries about how not to teach.  (I suppose my present-day students would say they wished I had made a few more! (I would respond that the process of uncovering things you are doing poorly never ends but the rate of discovery does decay over time)).

I wrote back a letter to the editor that was published several months later:

To which the author replied:

It's funny to think that over 10 years ago I articulated something that I still struggle with.  It's one of the joy and downers of the teaching profession:  You will never get it right!

Bedtime Stories

In 1986, four friends were turning sixteen.  We conspired to make each other crazy, creative, fun gifts and the pandemic has given me time to unearth some buried treasure!

I proudly present to you the gift I received then (actual photos glued onto pre-burnt pages along with a cassette tape*!) which I have properly digitized for all time:

Bedtime Stories for Ken 

I put the pics into a powerpoint so I could pace the pictures with the story and I think the new(ish) powerpoint feature of voice to text did some pretty funny things in there!

*Luckily Irene dug up an old boom box of hers that still has a function cassette player!

Alain Mazoyer

I found out that a dear family friend passed away recently.

He was at various times a friend, a boss, a colleague, and a mentor to me.  Alain ran the wine co-op that our family was affiliated with for over 25 years in Corsica.  I have eaten at his house, spent the night on the beach in front of his vacation caravan, traveled to international wine shows with him, learned a lot about wine and about life in general from him.

He would laugh with tears in his eyes when you said something funny.  He was tall, handsome, smart, and sincere.  We lost touch in recent years but know that you touched my life in many ways, Alain Mazoyer.

Alain Mazoyer 1950 - 2020

Build your own Paella

Custom Ordered Mother's Day Paella

Step 1.  Brown the chorizo and chicken pieces

Step 2.  Add onions and garlic

Step 3.  Add peppers and artichoke hearts

Step 4.  Brown the rice a bit

Step 5.  Add the broth and calamari:

Step 6.  Cook to absorb broth:

Step 6.  Time to eat!

Double Take

After some sad news today, I tried to cheer myself up by finding some pictures to add to my timeline.

I found two but, alas, one was already used and the other already had a good picture.

But, then, I had a genius idea:

Does this painting look 46 years older on the right?

Chopping Wood and Manliness

Today I got around to chopping some wood that I had previously sawed into appropriate lengths for our wood stove (in windy weather, our large oak trees will occasionally lose a thick branch).

As I lifted the heavy axe high above my head and (not every time, but often enough!) swung it down straight and true, cleaving the wood into two clean pieces,  I thought to myself, "Is there anything more manly?"  Breaking stuff with an implement of destruction, using almost all of your muscles but letting gravity do the real work.  Lots of stuff to unpack there, huh?

Indeed, the movies agree.  Start to notice the number of gratuitous men-chopping-wood scenes, it has amused me to no end to see how this trope never gets old:

Captains Kirk and Picard

Little House

My personal Fav:  Jean Marais in La Belle et la Bete

(The first two pics were  found without even really trying.  I was so upset that google could not cough up the image of Jean Marais I was looking for, I had to play the movie on my TV and take a snapshot.  You're welcome, internet, for this photo contribution.)

Some More Home Repair

Ever since we moved in, I've been bothered by a bit of rot in our soffit (the material under the eaves near your roof).  In one particularly bad corner, I put a patch to cover up a hole:



I've actually had a friend look at that patch and just laugh.

Today, I finally got around to replacing the rotted portion a bit more thoroughly.  Still not great, but an improvement and I learned a lot by doing it:



(Only about eight more corners to go!)



----- Update (24 hours later) -----------

Only seven more corners to go:

Before

After