Richness of life
To experience the richness of life, you must first survive its sadness.
Diane Schirf
Did I really write this?
Monthly Archives: April 2005
Why I don’t believe in astrology
Why I don’t believe in astrology — aside from the obvious, that is.
| Cancer – Your Love Profile Your positive traits: You’re intuitive enough to know what’s going wrong in a relationship early on A total sweetheart — you’re often the most caring person anyone knows You are a generous and devoted parter [sic] to whoever you fall in love with Your negative traits: Insecurity — you tend to need a huge amount of comforting from your partner You tend to be overly sensitive and easily hurt, which make loving you difficult It’s difficult to predict your moods. One minute you’re up — the next you’re down. Your ideal partner: Someone equally sensitive, who wants to take time to get to know you deeply Dreams of an everlasting love — complete with marriage and a family Loves to take care of you. Being a good cook and masseuse doesn’t hurt! Your dating style: Slow. You enjoy dates that last all day, with plenty of time to talk and get to know one another. Your seduction style: Quite tender and loving, once you are comfortable in your relationship. Coy. You tend to play it cool to drive your lover wild. Orally talented — you’re known as the best kisser in the zodiac. Tips for the future: Be a little less sensitive. Not every little mistake should hurt you. Spend time away from your partner every so often — independence is a good thing. Find ways to take care of yourself. You’ll be happier if you put yourself first. Best place to meet someone online: eHarmony — you’ll be able to take the time to get to know each potential match well Best color to attract mate: Aqua Best day for a date: Wednesday |
Dream: How do we know?
I was with my family (not my real-life one), and it suddenly occurred to me the little girl was me. I told my mother that she and I couldn’t be in the same place at the same time, that something was wrong. My dream mother didn’t understand what I meant, and I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, just that we couldn’t exist in the same place at the same time. The little girl realised I was onto her, though, and fleshy appendages started coming out of her head, including one that was penis-like. For a moment, you could tell there were aliens or beings in there that had taken over and that were mocking and threatening us.
Then she took off. I followed her into what must have been a shopping center. A handsome, friendly blonde man was singing the phrase, “How do we know?” in front of me. I sang it back in a deep voice. He kept repeating it, and I’d repeat back, each time at a slightly higher pitch. (In my dreams, I can sing.) But he kept getting further away, although I wanted to catch up to him since he seemed to know something. Then I was on an escalator that first raced up at an incredible speed, then down. I wondered if I was in a movie and had been filmed at regular speed, then it was made to appear fast. I tried pointing this out to someone. They didn’t seem to understand anything I’d said.
The blonde man was gone. And so was the little girl.
You can’t fool Mother Nature
Like many of their generation (1913, 1919), my parents were fascinated by technology and its lifestyle benefits. No, they weren’t early adopters of an Amiga, Commodore, or even IBM Selectric. They were, however, in thrall to time-saving conveniences and inexpensive fabrications, for example, oleo (margarine) and what they called “store-bought” cookies.
As products of the Great Depression who had grown up poor and who had laboured hard, they must have felt that it was a marvel of life in the 20th century to be able to walk into a store and walk out minutes later with such things as cakes and cookies — without ever turning on an oven, let alone measuring, mixing, and timing. And if commercials promised that margarine is better for you and tastes just as good, and is inexpensive, too, there’s no reason to revert to something as old-fashioned as butter. From their perspective, the love affair with food that kept for weeks or even months and with modern innovations like margarine makes perfect sense.
And so I, like most children of parents my age and later generations, grew up on a diet heavy in trans fatty acids, which we now know raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and reduces high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.
My company recently sent our executive directors, executive chefs, pastry chefs, and dining services directors to the Culinary Institute of America for a series focusing on techniques of healthy cooking that have been inspired by international cuisine (using olive oil, rich in anti-oxidant properties, is an obvious example). The idea is to prepare simple, delicious, nutrient-rich meals.
I imagine these are not unlike what a friend served over Christmas — all fresh, no pre-packaged foods, simple ingredients, simple recipes. As my mother would have said, “Good and good for you.”
According to Weight Watchers, you should never eat food out of a box. They don’t mean this literally, as their own meals come in a box, but the point is that prepared food is often junk food. I used to live on foods out of a box. Now I’m finding that food out of a box (except for Annie’s Organic Macaroni and Cheese) is losing its appeal. Instead of eating cold lunch meat packaged in plastic, I’d rather cook Organic Valley brown eggs. Instead of grazing on junk food that doesn’t satisfy, I’d rather bake butternut squash. Instead of chowing on cookies steeped in preservatives, I’d rather take the time to make my own. And instead of dining on big brand soups filled with tasteless vegetables, I’d rather enjoy organic soups rich in flavour.
I’m not sure what prompted this change in me, given how I’ve eaten all my life. It’s not a result of health concerns. Perhaps it’s a growing sense that simple is better, and there’s satisfaction in cutting up a squash once in a while. And in knowing what you’re putting into your body.
I may be headed in the opposite direction from my mother — not having worked hard, I find that occasionally cooking on a very small scale for now can be fulfilling. And that making cookies is more fun than buying them — and when I think about it, they taste much better when I control the ingredients and their quality, for example, whole wheat pastry flour.
The assistant vice president of food and beverage likes to say that food is medicine. He’s right. A simple meal, prepared from simple ingredients and shared with friends and family, may be the perfect antidote to the stresses of our overly complicated, rushed lives.
And certainly more satisfying to the stomach and soul than a trans fatty acid-laden muffin gulped on the run.
The ad slogan for Promise margarine used to be, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” the premise being that Mother Nature couldn’t tell Promise and her own butter apart.
Why would we want to try to? In the end, as we’ve learned more about the health and wellness benefits of simple, natural, organic food, Mother Nature can’t and won’t be fooled.
Overscheduled child
Years ago during the Yuppie Era, a free Chicago magazine featured a story on “Relief for the Overscheduled Child.” I don’t have children, and my friends with children live far away, so this struck me as amusing, but it didn’t mean anything to me. Later, I would read more about stressed parents taking stressed children from one planned activity to another, filling nearly every waking minute with structure.
While a certain amount of structure is important, this concept in child rearing struck me as rather sad. There’s enough time for structure when you’re an adult, working your 9–5 day or 11–3 shift and having superiors tell you when you’re to work on which projects, when you’re to attend meetings, when you merit a raise or a promotion, and even when you’re free to take a few days off.
School provides a similar structure for kids; why do they require their time to be planned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Especially if they would need “relief” from this hectic schedule? When do these children lie back on the grass and find the dragons among the clouds? When do they empty their minds and let their imaginations inspire their dreams? When are they alone long enough to hear only the voice in their mind that tells them who they are? When do they find their individuality? When do they form meaningful bonds with the members of their own families? In some cases, when do they see members of their families outside of a structured activity? When are they free?
At the same time, a coworker would tell me about her children’s education. Like many parents in Chicago, she didn’t trust the Chicago Public Schools, so she paid money that she couldn’t afford to send her kids to Catholic schools where the academic standards are presumably higher and which graduate more of their students than CPS. As they got older, she told me ruefully, “My kids made the honour roll again. In fact, 80% of the kids at the school made the honour roll.”
To me and to my coworker, this sounded like only truants and kids with behavioural issues missed making the honour roll. Where is the sense of accomplishment, of pride, in being recognized simply for not being a bad student, for being adequate? Where is the motivation to excel? To achieve all that you can, when the reward is apparently the same for all? Part comes from within, but when working hard earns the same reward as getting by, how long can internal motivation last before it burns itself out for lack of external fuel?
These issues are still around in 2005. Recently, the UCLA Center on Everyday Lives of Families, one of six long-term projects sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, examined the intersection between family life and work. Researchers found that children and parents are so wrapped up in their activities that they often do not bother to greet each other. The family life that everyone seems to idealise and work for through all these structured activities is far from ideal. From an MSNBC article: “The American kids spend less time at home and virtually no time in the yard. Play time tends to be organized and supervised by adults.”
What is the result of all this structure, all this family “togetherness”? According to the MSNBC article: “Using computers, scientists mapped the location of each family member throughout the home every 10 minutes. Originally, they planned to conduct this electronic roll call every 20 or 30 minutes. But they found themselves chasing their subjects from room to room as they orbited one another, hardly pausing.
“Ochs says families gathered in the same room just 16 percent of the time. In five homes, the entire family was never in the same room while scientists were observing. Not once.”
60 Minutes recently aired a segment on the Echo Boomers, currently ranging from grade school to college age. They make up one-third of the U.S. population, so they are attracting the interest of marketers and researchers alike. These are the children of the Yuppie Era. These are the “Overscheduled Children” of the magazine article.
As one commentator noted, Echo Boomers have been told what to do, when to do it, and where to go every moment of their lives. It was also pointed out that they have been rewarded for everything they do, e.g., achieving honour roll as a reward for not failing school. One Echo Boomer girl said, “Everyone gets a trophy.” If everyone gets a trophy, what meaning does the trophy have? How is a trophy any different than, say, a sandwich? Everyone gets a sandwich, too.
Asked about Echo Boomers in the workplace, a researcher said that they expect to rise fast. They require praise. At the same time, they are unable to plan for the long term. They cannot think strategically. They also demand instant gratification; they grew up with FedEx and movies-on-demand. The Echo Boomers are heavy consumers as well; when a young man was asked if he has an iPod, he replied, “Isn’t it a law?” One implication is that, “We are all the same, as we should be.”
What does this mean for the future?
Possibly not much. Great minds, those driven by ambition, curiosity, and ideas, will continue to achieve great things, as they always have. The rest of us will continue, as we always have, to produce what our society requires, more or less efficiently.
I suspect, however, that the work performed will be mediocre, produced as it is by consensus, often without vision. What are the implications in a competitive, global marketplace? We used to complain that everything was “Made in Japan.” Then it was made in Taiwan, now China. The U.S. has adopted a service economy, a type well suited to the Echo Boomers, who would rather please than produce or take risks. But they will be a nation of consumers who produce nothing.
How will the Echo Boomers raise their children? The same way in which they were brought up? Or will they rebel against structure and mediocrity — like their flower child parents once did before achieving “maturity”?
How many times has this cycle repeated itself, each time more intensely?
It would be interesting to be around in 50 years.