Limping Heroes

When I was younger, if I saw someone limping, or hunched over, or generally struggling to perform normal functions, I'd feel sympathy. But after a few years of battling an almost amusing cavalcade of maladies, my view is transformed. Now I see triumph.

Their public appearance represents triumphant reemergence, not sad deterioration. To me, they look like champions. Celebrities. The struggle to walk requires the resilient determination of a Michael Jordan twisty layup. Both represent achievement past limitation.

There's no one more celebrated than a "Cancer Survivor", but while it certainly beats the alternative, and getting through that pain, grief, and disruption is certainly an accomplishment, such a person mostly just endured. But a limping, wheezing, drooling, and/or mumbling person walking down the sidewalk is an actual hero. You see losing while I see winning. In fact, there is no greater example of winning in the human experience than someone walking who does not take walking for granted. That's way better than whatever you're doing, even if you're going triple-speed.

Dysfunction can be seen through two lenses: 1. failure to be normal, or 2. refusal to be defeated. The defeated are not seen. They're off the table, out of the spotlight. Anyone you can actually see— even sitting forlorn on a plastic chair with cloudy eyes and walker close at hand — has defied defeat. They're not trying and failing to be normal; they're triumphant heroes.

Not "Aren't You Special!" patronized heros.

Not "Hey, buddy, you just ate that cookie like a champ!" heroes.

Bona fide heroes.

I'm mostly not limping most days, and it's been a while since I've needed to shift, mid-step, from "many errands to perform" to "how can I possibly get home without falling down and making a scene?" But when I spot people bravely making that calculation (you don't notice, but now I do), it's like watching a gifted athlete make an amazing play. Whatever they did to get out that door in the first place—overcoming situations severely impeding that escape—is great. The fact that they are out in the sunlight with the rest of us, is wonderful.

Not sad-wonderful.

Not chin-trembling, curve-graded wonderful.

Not "I guess it's come to this..." wonderful.

It's wonderful like a great symphony or a fantastic plate of lasagna or Willie Mays' iconic 1954 World Series over-the-shoulder catch.

Full-on unqualified wonderful...full stop.


ChatGPT insightfully observes: "Anyone upright and ambulatory is already negotiating entropy. Some are just doing it on expert mode."

The Janitor

Hiya.
I'm the janitor,
just as you suspected.

Not from my uniform,
as I'm dressed unremarkably.
Nor some badge,
because I'm not in your org chart.

See, I know the building,
The whole thing,
Including the crawl space.
So, so much crawl space.

You remain occupied,
with bold dreams,
scarcely registering enclosure
with such boldness to pursue.

The audacity feels real,
The building mundane.
Little stuff.
No match for aspiration and triumph.

Me, I'm earthy.
Simple.
Far less than captivating.
And yet...impertinent.

Not that I'm rude.
Oh, no, never that.
But I lack deference
Toward my betters.

The higher floors are HIGHER floors
While I'm consigned to basement—
Yet am at ease everywhere,
Which seems weird.

I'm never seen sweeping,
Mopping or fixing.
Though my presence
can be oddly reassuring.

Who is this guy,
Simple and floating,
Rolling his eyes in mild amusement,
While you all contain multitudes?

The Puffy Parkas of Portugal

It's 72 degrees and the sun is shining for the first time in weeks (literally), yet all my neighbors are shuffling around in puffy parkas. And I kind of love it.

I'm in polo shirt and cords, and they're all gaping at the crazy foreigner, and I deeply enjoy the whole situation. Let me map it out:

I'm finally warm, which is great.
They're warm, too, so I'm in no position to gloat.
Yet they're in parkas, which tickles me.
Triple win!

Humans are irrational, even more so than they realize. And since sanity is not an option, one must seek the sort of irrationality one finds adorable. It's not that they're still cold. It's that they can't quite let go of the suffering so quickly.

The fact that spring starts here in mid-February is a nice fact to add to the spreadsheet of positive things about (southern) Portugal. And while the parka thing may not strike you as a significant decision factor, tiny stuff like this is what counts, not spreadsheet facts.

What can I say? I'm a devoted practitioner of nano-aesthetics.

Prediction

A prediction for the end of the decade, and I think it's dead-on.

When Democrats take power after the Republicans are trounced and repudiated (if that sounds unlikely, you haven't been watching polling and special elections), they must seek Republican support as they restore institutions, treaties, alliances, norms, etc.

It won't be hard to get, because most of them quietly value that stuff, anyway, and they'll have incentive to try to look reasonable.

Anything not restored in a bipartisan way will be cemented as a partisan juggling ball, and be wiped clear again whenever Republicans return to power. At which point everything will have broken irredeemably, and no American alliance or treaty will ever be taken seriously to the end of Time.

The problem is that the next Democratic administration—likely elected via a very clear mandate—will make the classic mistake of imagining permanent rule. And so progressives will scream their heads off if the administration invites even a whiff of Republican participation.

So we're basically screwed.

Dark Matter

There is nothing in Big Bang theory to rule out the notion of artifacts lingering from before the Big Bang. Cosmologists are in the habit of using the term "everything" here, but that's out of semantic convention rather than scientific necessity.

It is possible, though extremely improbable, that dark matter is an artifact from pre-big bang. There is nothing to support this, but there's nothing (to my knowledge or a chatbot's) to disqualify it, either.

It's impossible to imagine how anything could escape the singularity and the bang. But at this point, whatever dark matter is will be extremely unimaginable, because it doesn't seem to fit at all into anything we know (we've been working hard at it for decades, with literally no advance). Whatever it turns out to be will be highly unlikely and probably tear some big chunk of our understanding.

So if it's not as I suggest (and it almost surely isn't), it will be something equally outrageous. And once you pass a certain point of improbability, strange things happen. I wrote a paper on this (PDF link).

When there are no logical alternatives, moons really might be made of green cheese (to paraphrase the old logician's phrase). Past a certain threshold, it's most logical to ask "cheddar or stilton?"

The Prospect of Autocracy is Not Autocracy

A Portuguese friend called America a stinking hell because we're suffering a couple thousand measles cases per year.

I pointed out that In the 1950s, before vaccine, there were over 500,000 cases per year. And the US at that moment seemed like heaven.

"Yes, but these cases now are needless!" added my friend, helpfully bringing me up to date on the awfulness of RFKJR etc., of which I was well aware.

I noted that that even this awful awfulness is still vastly less awful than the weight of 500,000 cases per year of measles back when the US seemed like heaven. A few thousand cases per year would have made 1955 Americans drop to their knees in gratitude.

But, yes, of course the stupidity and awfulness are deeply galling, and must be fought against. it's a problem to work on. But problem solving requires rationality, and we've lost all perspective. In the recent past, we were blessed to transform into spoiled princesses increasingly vexed by smaller and smaller mattress peas. And in our vexation, we are far more aggrieved and furious than any of our ancestors, who lie in their graves wagging their heads with disdain over our profound lack of appreciation for the impossible utopia in which we live....even with RFK doing horrendous things.

There are always horrendous things, but our demented reaction to them has created a vicious circle. In fact, the route to power for a RFKJR is a constituency of wealthy, comfortable, blessed people driven to dementia by the fury and grievance that inevitably accompany bored privilege. That's what fuels crazy stuff like anti-vax, which, in turn, stokes further rage. And, no, it's not a MAGA thing. My progressive, highly-educated niece refused to vaccinate her kids because she was angry and aggrieved at so-called medical authorities, etc.

Let me dare to utter the obvious truth: the prospect of autocracy is not autocracy. And the sober, non-delightful business of repelling the prospect of autocracy does not make us enslaved tormented ghouls. This push-back is something we should have been engaged in ALL ALONG. We dropped vigilance due to vast complacency from our vast blessings. We figured "participation" meant playing with our damned phones all day. The necessity to look up from those phones is an indignation that makes people frame themselves as storming the beach at Normandy against a hail of machine gun fire.

You are living in paradise. This right now is the safest, funnest, freest, most comfortable and healthy (even with the measles) moment any generation has ever enjoyed on this planet. It is a freaking miracle that we get to live at this peak, even with the lingering suboptimalities so deeply offending our asymptopic sense of entitlement.

The only unpleasantness is coming from everyone dementedly framing themselves in Hell. The only thing we have to rage about is rage itself. That's the dynamic. It's not some certain bad person or group. It's broader than that.

My explanation for the lack of evidence of advanced life in the galaxy is that an idyllic level of wealth, comfort and technological ease makes life forms predisposed to struggle light their hair on fire and go ape shit crazy. Spoiled princesses increasingly vexed by smaller and smaller mattress peas AND WIELDING FLAME-THROWERS. That's how it all ends, pardon the spoiler.

All you need to do is reframe. It starts with you, right here, right now. That's how the center holds.


I didn't move to Portugal to escape the hell. I moved here to escape the priveleged aristocratic ninnies conjuring an imaginary hell by conceiving of themselves as being damned with nothing left to lose.

Shmucky Heroism

Shamelessness is the shmuck version of heroism.

Spending Your Savings

I hesitate to be whimsically anecdotal here, since it might signal that my more serious pieces are for light amusement rather than thoughtful consideration. But I’m hoping I’ve earned the rare indulgence. In fact, this posting itself is about spending hoarded capital.


A month ago I shared the bashful, mild, awkward, thin-sliced prayer I sent out to oblivion and parts unknown, and, weirdly, it actually seems to have worked.

There's been markedly less gratuitous friction and adversity in my life—including, I just realized, an endoscopy revealing a perfect stomach no doctor could have deemed possible. And per my intuition about how my prayer was received ("Oh, sure, ok; I thought you liked it like that!"), things have indeed been a little boring. But that's ok!

Human nature being what it is, I'm back for more after a mere four weeks, and it's embarrassingly puny.

For the past several years, every month or so I get surprisingly severe pain in one or the other nostril. There's inflammation, there's sneezing, and there's pain so intense that it's uncomfortable to touch my forehead or cheek. It always lasts about five days, just long enough to feel baked-in. Two or three day pain is a much easier thing, while a week is an ordeal.

I also have a sensitive tooth that screams from time to time. Like now, by coincidence. And I juggle a host of other issues. It's all manageable, and (if there weren't quite so many of them, and if I were ten years older) might even be chalked up to normal aging. And, once again, my stomach recovery was remarkable. Also: my calcified, arthritic shoulders, which are unanimously considered unmanageable without heavy pain pills or surgery, have been nicely managed without either. Not so much as a Tylenol for 18 months.

So it's all going well! But give a human being a responsive hotline to heaven, and he'll wind up using it for anything and everything. Hence yesterday's prayer:

"Uh, hi again. Me. Sorry. So you've been toning things down, which I appreciate greatly. Belated thanks for that. And I'll try not to pull your coat for every remaining malady, symptom, or karmic play-out. But since you intervened once, I'm wondering if I'm annoying you by popping in again just to say that if my nostril could possible hurt a little less, and for fewer days, I'd be grateful.

If anyone right this moment is requesting relief from, like, cancer pain, please stop listening and go attend to that. Don't ignore misery to work on my nostril. And if I'm using up freebies with these requests, then leave my damned nostril as-is.

But if this is something you can just kind of flick away, and the pain could be relieved without unintended consequences, or depriving anyone, or using up all the remaining freebies I might have stockpiled, I submit the request for your consideration. No hard feelings if not.

Also: I'm not sure how to thank you for reducing my oppression level. I'm already doing everything I can think of to be of service down here. Would a bit of fear feel nice for you? I'm told people fear you, so I can try to muster some of that [dramatic shuddering sound]. Or anything else that occurs to you, just send me a sign. Ok, enough. This is idiotic, ugh."

The nostril problem has never subsided in less than five days. But I woke up today with zero pain at day two. So I'm just sayin'....

It doesn't escape me that I addressed my ghost roomate with this same tone. I suppose this is my stupidly-shouting-into-oblivion-with-just-enough-self-awareness-to-feel-ridiculous voice. Honestly, aside from these three instances (my non-oppression prayer; my ghost roommate welcome statement, and my nostril plea) I never realized I even had this voice.

Anyhoo, this isn't about spooky stuff. It's about spending credit. Two other examples:

1. I once explained how advancing age brings less desire to spend. It's smart to loosen up and have some extra fun about a decade prior to that point. Like I said, "You will absolutely want clean clothes and healthy food and a roof over your head when you're 85, but there will be vastly less interest in gadgets and vacations and fine copper cookware."

I see loads of 60-somethings desperately clutching their savings just out of lifelong habit. They live tight-assed lives to preserve savings at all costs. Then, at 70, they wind up sitting gloomily in a chair, realizing they should have enjoyed while they still had the strength.

Draw-downs—when you really need them—are, after all, what you've been bankrolling for this whole time! Was I wasting my stored cred (I never really asked for anything before) on this stupid nostril thingee? It depends on your perspective. For me, after severe health issues, a bit of fingersnap pain relief feels as gleeful as a junket to Maui.

2. If you find yourself in a group discussion with intimidating people, and have the sense that it would be futile to force in your opinion, the trick is to wait, wait, and wait some more. Choose your battle and only chime in when you have something essential and fresh. Insert it quietly, calmly, confidently, and surgically, and you'll be surprised at the weight you carry by virtue of having stored up your capital.

Tim Cook is a Brazilian Bus Driver

I am not anti-billionaire, anti-capitalist, or anti-business.

I understand preservation of shareholder value, and I know that Donald Trump could break Apple with the stroke of a pen by placing prohibitive tariffs on iPhones.

I don't believe Trump's authoritarianism will be successful, much less enduring, and I think he'll be gone soon, so it is not worth the immense economic and cultural damage of Apple being crushed so its CEO could make a futile statement about how much he hates the politics, when politics is not even his remit.

I understand that Cook is in for a pound after the requisite penny, and there's no easy line to draw. And I may have been the only one to parse that Apple's news about successor arrangement was Cook's hostage statement—and as far as he was able to go. I also recognize it wasn't much, and that his successor will also be forced to preserve shareholder value come what may, and not let his freak flag fly by freely telling some future shit president to go to hell for doing something awful that he's angry about.

So I am an APOLOGIST.

And yet, this statment from Cook was like bleach in my eyes.

The Republicans are broken. I realize I'm supposed to keep my eye squarely on that, but, honestly, I saw all I needed to see with "they're bringing crime; they're rapists" atop the escalator, in combination with his two election victories. I've fully factored in the brokenness of the Right since 2016, so when people come up to me to complain about how *awful* and *racist* Trump is, I stare blankly. It's like "the sun came up today!"

Ever the contrarian, I've been watching the *other* side. And I've seen massive breakage there, too. But something about this greasy, soulless bit of compensatory platitudinous bullshit hit me like a gut punch. Though it goes without saying that Cook is, somewhere in the back of his head, genuinely aggrieved.

This is breakage. It's not that he should have cursed Trump or come out "more strongly against". But cram some iota of soul into the couple dozen vague words which are all that circumstance allows you to say, for christ's sake.

I once wrote about how Brazilian bus drivers, who perpetrate no evil but are forced to merely associate with it, have soulless hollowed-out eyes. Tim Cook sounds like a Brazilian bus driver.

Nothing Happens to “Me”

This will be very entertaining for any jazz musician karma yogis out there. Everyone else can skip it.



Nothing Happens to “Me”

Obviously I'm making no effort to fit the meter. This is more of a Vedic commentary on the lyric.

I make a date for golf,
But who can predict the weather?
I try to throw a party,
8 billion earthlings, all complaining; really, what’s one more?
Who is to say a train is "missed" just because I’m not on it?
Nothing happens to “me”.

I never miss a thing, so I direct my focus with care.
My partner always "Trumps", but we don't talk politics.
If I looked before I jumped that would just make me witness to the fall!
Nothing happens to “me”.

At first, my heart thought you could break this jinx for me
Which means you did! Thanks!
But now I just can't fool this heart that thinks for me
and I'm enormously proud to have managed that cognitive hand-off after years of meditation.
I've mortgaged all my castles in the air,
Which were nothing but absurd drama in the first place.

I've telegraphed and phoned, and sent an air mail special too
Your answer was goodbye, and I wish you a great trip!
I fall in love every three seconds, and was happy to include you.
Nothing happens to “me”.