HinesSight

The Dreaded Christmas Letter is a darkly humorous must-read

Every year I look forward to getting The Dreaded Christmas Letter from Nancy, a long-time friend of my wife,  who ives in the San Francisco Bay area and teaches piano, plus water aerobics.

This year Nancy's appealingly funny letter arrived via Facebook today, where it was easy to copy into a blog post where, hopefully, it will receive the worldwide adulation it deserves. 

Enjoy. Since I stole all of the words from her newsletter, I figured I might as well steal the Facebook photos also.

The Dreaded Christmas Newsletter

What fun we had this year!

Walking through walls, being able to see through floors, exposing ourselves to the outdoors and getting better acquainted with all the little insects and animals that populate this earth. Haz mat tents went up and piano students feared for their lives as the dangers of asbestos, mold and lead were cheerfully brought to their attention in bright red letters.

Our new roommate – Murphy – quickly laid down his law and insured that everything that could go wrong, did.

And in case you’re wondering, no, the house remodel is still not finished. Contractors follow the biblical timetable where a minute is a day, an hour is a week and materials that should arrive in 2 weeks do so only after crossing the interspace date removal line.

Following Greta Thunberg’s lead, I am contemplating giving up air travel. Why pay hundreds of dollars to be scanned, searched, deprived of water, forced to stand in endless lines only to then remain motionless in a narrow seat, fearing the norovirus. I’m getting a yacht!

Our California utility company must be the only one in the nation that aims to serve us best by continually cutting off our power. Blackouts have pitted one neighbor against the other as the no-lights glare across the street at the have-lights. Wisely I have stockpiled scented candles gifted to me over the years and the next blackout will, at least, stink nice.

Did you know that a single person’s road trip to L.A. produces 0.3 tons of carbon dioxide? And that it could be halved if there is another person in the car? Savvy girls that we are, Gina and I now use a chauffeur for the trip.

Gina is back in school now getting another degree. Her job at Savers continues to offer her a selection of strangely-abled old men that make her feel desirable and sought after. She is absolutely fearless zipping about town on her scooter, leaving a wake of panicked pedestrians and startled motorists.

Years of lecturing Johnny about safe sex and birth control have paid off. He and his wife Jenny are not procreating. I’m not sure how involved I should be in all this. Gentle suggestions and intimate queries are all met with the same empty stare. His job at the bank is going well and he continues to climb up the corporate ladder without missing a rung as he crashes through the glass ceiling.

Waldo is happy. We pulled out 8 of his teeth and shaved off all his fur while he was asleep. Now he bounds around the house like a new puppy. I hope he never retaliates in kind.

Squash has been good to me this year. I invented an exo-skeleton that I just drop my body into, play a match and then pull out what’s left of it afterward. Not a pretty sight! But definitely better than me teaching aqua aerobics. I have to wear a cloaking device until I get in the water, which I remove after entry. Gives everyone their first heart rate experience of the day!

In addition to playing piano, I am giving nose flute concerts. They have been especially popular in memory care units, where the ability to quickly forget is a plus.

Wishing you a belated Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

"Salem is a really friendly town." So says a couple considering moving here.

Last Monday my email inbox presented me with an interesting message, which said in part...

Brian Hines:

So, my wife and I are exploring Salem as a place to retire... from crazy, CRAZY Silicon Valley.   Two days before Christmas, just at this moment we're sitting in our AirBNB living room in South Salem, exploring by cyber-means what we've been doing by car and by shamelessly accosting locals on the street, in coffee houses, and at Northern Lights for the past week. After seeing a million prospective houses in West and South Salem, our real estate lady took us to Pringle Creek Community and we're hooked.

They'd found me via my Strange Up Salem Facebook page. Or maybe my blogs. Regardless, they offered to buy me a beer or coffee so they could talk to me about Salem -- an offer I couldn't refuse.

So on Tuesday morning, Christmas Eve, I met up with them at the French Press on south Commercial. When I arrived, they were talking with a couple at the next table, who had moved to Salem fairly recently. 

We covered quite a bit of ground in the 90 minutes or so I spent with the Silicon Valley couple. Early on they told me how impressed they were with the friendliness of people in Salem.

While waiting in line at the Northern Lights movie theatre, they found it easy to strike up conversations with other people. That doesn't happen in Silicon Valley, they told me, theorizing that because people work such long hours there, when they have free time they aren't much interested in chit-chat.

I enjoyed listening to them talk about what they liked about Salem. Those of us who have lived here for a long time (in my case, 42 years) often take the good things about Salem for granted, while focusing on what we don't like. 

Salem really is a friendly town.

Like a fish who fails to notice the water that surrounds them, I'd just become accustomed to the friendliness of the city that I've called home since 1977. The couple noted that people here stop for cars trying to merge into heavy traffic, another sign of friendliness.

Now, I'm not sure whether this couple has made a final decision to move to Salem, though it sounded like they were leaning in that direction. I told them that Pringle Creek Community, the environmentally-friendly development on the old Fairview Training Center property, seemed like it would be a good fit for them.

After all, no matter how friendly a city is, it isn't all that easy for retired people to make new acquaintances. They liked how Pringle Creek Community offered a built-in social network, with various activities offered to both those who live there and the surrounding neighborhood.

Anyway, let's keep Salem friendly. That's good for those of us who already live here, and it's also a good way of attracting people who are thinking of moving here.

Santa Claus must be impeached

My wife and I find no pleasure in sharing four articles of impeachment against Santa Claus in our 2019 Christmas letter. (Well, maybe just a little bit of pleasure.) 

But we couldn't stand by and let the transgressions of Santa go unmentioned.

Here's how we see the case against Santa Claus.
Download 2019 Christmas Letter PDF

Misfits belong in Salem's theatre community (and elsewhere)

Misfits don't fit in. Except where they do. Like, in Salem's theatre community.

There was a lot to like about today's City Club program, "On Stage: Salem's Vibrant Theater Community." But what I'm going to focus on is one thing Lisa Joyce, executive director of Pentacle Theatre, said.

She told us that misfits find a home in theatre, because everyone is welcome there.

I absolutely loved those words. And now, having written that five word sentence, I'm having trouble explaining why. So for the moment I'm going to take a detour around my personal feeling about misfits and return to it later in this blog post.

Elsewhere in her presentation -- Jay Gipson-King of the Chemeketa Community College theatre program and Vincenzo Meduri of Enlightened Theatrics also spoke -- Joyce talked about how Pentacle Theatre had put on some plays that explored LGBTQ themes.

She noted that some audience members had expressed concern about those gay-friendly performances. I was curious about this, so spoke with her after the City Club program concluded.

Joyce told me that it seemed to be a generational thing. Meaning, it was a few older Pentacle Theatre attendees who felt it wasn't right to present homosexuality as acceptable, since they apparently thought this was an unnatural "lifestyle choice." Which, of course, it isn't.

Young people, she said, have a different attitude toward LGBTQ people. And the theatre community, she added, is a haven for gays. So that was one aspect of what she meant by misfits.

Salem, along with American culture in general, has a way to go before all forms of gender and sexual identity are accepted fully. Narrow-minded churches are partly to blame, since gay youth are told that they are sinners bound for hell if they don't change to become god-fearing heterosexuals.

Which is impossible. Even for an accomplished actor. Life isn't a play. We can temporarily embrace a role for a theatrical production. But we can't change the essence of who we are.

So it's fitting that Salem's theatre community embraces misfits. Joyce, Gipson-King, and Meduri all talked about how being part of a theatrical production has so many wonderful benefits. 

Being part of a diverse team. Trusting yourself and others. Being fully present in the moment. Embracing difficult emotions. Understanding that there are no stars, just different people doing a wide variety of essential jobs -- acting, directing, set design, costume design, lighting, sound, makeup, ushering, marketing, and so much more.

But back to misfits.

I don't know what it is about that word, misfits. Every time I've typed it, I've felt something well up inside of me, a strong emotion that defies easy expression.

Well, Lisa Joyce spoke to me about how being part of a theatrical community has helped LGBTQ people come out as who they are, rather than disguising themselves behind a facade of societal normality. So maybe if I simply let words spill out of me right now, they'll say something authentic about my own sense of being a misfit.

Which goes way back, as strong feelings often do. Understand: I'm not equating my life with that of a gay person, or a person of color, or an otherwise marginalized person. I'm an old white heterosexual guy, with all that entails.

However, I was raised by a divorced alcoholic woman, my mother. It was tough, especially in my teenage years, when her alcoholism took a turn for the worse. I felt different inside, like I was a stranger in a strange land of children who had two more-or-less normal parents.

So that was my first taste of feeling like a misfit. I'll skip ahead fifty years or so to right now. 

Where, just as in my high school years, I appear normal on the outside, but feel like a misfit on the inside. Why? Because a bit over two and a half years ago my bladder decided to go on strike, for reasons that aren't exactly clear -- but the result is: having to, as the saying goes, pee in a "differently abled" way.

Namely, by using a catheter, a plastic tube thing that I insert into my urethra five times a day. (I've written about my condition so rarely, I couldn't even spell "urethra" correctly at first.)

This isn't something that I feel comfortable talking to people about.

At first I was clinically depressed, even somewhat suicidal, after learning that I'd have to do the catheter thing for the rest of my life. Since, I've written a few blog posts about my bladder problem, but by and large only my wife knows about the many struggles I've gone through.

So I feel like a misfit, even though my rational mind says things to me like, "Many people have worse medical problems" and "You should feel lucky that you're otherwise healthy."

Still, I feel like I don't fit in the big wide world of people who can go into a restroom at a restaurant, movie theatre, or wherever without it being an adventure (sometimes it is difficult for me to insert a catheter, a problem common to many men who have to use one).

Thus I avoid lengthy meetings, movies, gatherings, and, yes, theatrical productions, where I feel trapped by the uncertainty of not knowing whether a bathroom visit is going to have a happy or disturbing ending.

Anyway, I've explained a bit about why that word "misfit" resonated so deeply with me when I heard it today. I know what it is like to outwardly look like one sort of person, and to inwardly feel like another sort of person. 

Of course, I believe that all of us, at least at one time or another, feel like we don't fit in.

My bladder problem just has given me a much better appreciation of what it is like to have a permanent attribute of one's self that isn't easily shared with other people. So when Joyce spoke about the theatre community welcoming misfits, I immediately resonated with her words.

Misfits of the world, may we all live long and prosper. And look forward to a day when that word falls into disuse, because everyone is viewed as fitting in. 

Why eating at In-N-Out Burger is morally wrong

Today an In-N-Out Burger restaurant has opened in nearby Keizer, Oregon, sending waves of feverish delight through the taste buds of people willing to spend hours in line to buy the main food offering... dead cows.

I consider this to be morally wrong, having been a vegetarian for most of my life. So my objection isn't to In-N-Out Burger itself. What bothers me is that most Americans are so uncaring about the suffering they're producing by eating meat and fish.

Understand: there's a variety of good reasons to be vegetarian or vegan. It's a healthier way to go. It's better for the planet. But my main motivation when I became a vegetarian in college (I'm 71 now) was that I didn't want to kill conscious beings that suffer for no good reason.

If you've read this far, maybe you have at least a slight openness to that argument.

Perhaps you're an animal lover, with a dog and/or cat in your home that you are confident enjoys sensations, feelings, and such just as you do, albeit in different ways. You would feel bad if someone caused the family pet to suffer.

Well, cows have sensations and feelings also. And I'm going to present a scientist's arguments for why it is immoral to cause any living being to suffer or die without a good reason. 

(Since almost everybody in the United States doesn't need meat/fish to survive, killing animals for food isn't a good reason.)

Here's quotations from the final chapter of Christof Koch's book, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness is Widespread but Can't Be Computed. Koch is the president and chief scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, following twenty-seven years as a professor at the California Institute of Technology.

My lifelong quest is to grasp the true nature of being... I now know that I live in a universe in which the inner light of experience is far more widespread than assumed within the standard Western canon. This inner light shines in humans and in the denizens of the animal kingdom, brighter or dimmer, in proportion to the complexity of their nervous system.

Integrated information theory predicts the possibility that all cellular life feels like something. The mental and the physical are closely linked, two aspects of one underlying reality.

...I want to end this book by moving from the descriptive to the prescriptive and proscriptive, to how we should think about good and bad and to a call to action.

Most importantly, we must abandon the idea that humans are at the center of the ethical universe and that we bestow value on the rest of the natural world only insofar as it suits humanity's ends, a belief that is such a large part of Western culture and tradition. We are evolved creatures, one leaf among millions on the tree of life.

...We must cure humanity's narcissism and our deep-seated belief that animals and plants exist solely for our pleasure and benefit. We need to embrace the principle that the moral status of any subject, of any Whole, is rooted in their consciousness, not solely in their humanness.

There are three justifications for being admitted to the privileged rank of subjects. I call them the sentience, experiential, and the cognitive criteria. 

Emotionally, we most easily resonate with sentience in others. We all have a strong instinctual reaction when we see a child or a dog being abused. We feel something of its pain; we empathize with it. Hence the moral intuition that any subject capable of suffering ceases to be a means to an end and becomes an end in itself.

Any creature that has the potential to feel distress has some minimal moral standing -- foremost the desire to be and the desire not to suffer.

...The experiential justification for the idea that species other than humans ought to be considered intrinsically valuable subjects is that any entity with an inner point of view is precious. Phenomenal experience is irreplaceable in a universe devoid of extrinsic purpose.

It is the only thing that really matters. For if something does not feel, it does not exist as a subject. A corpse and a zombie both exist, but not for themselves, only for others.

A third justification for this grounding is cognitive ability, having beliefs and desires, a sense of self, a sense of the future, of being able to imagine counterfactuals ("If I hadn't lost my legs, I could still climb"), the potential to be creative. To the extent that animals have such advanced cognitive abilities, they have rights.

However, I am against justifying moral standing purely on the basis of cognitive skills. First, not all humans possess such abilities -- think of babies, anencephalic children, or patients in a vegetative state or in late-stage dementia. Should they have lesser standing and fewer rights than able adults?

...Of these three justifications, sentience is in my view the most powerful one for why creatures that can suffer deserve special status. Because I can imagine myself being left alone, starved, or beaten, I feel sympathy or empathy with the other.

...The New Testament reminds us in Matthew 25: "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." The Czech writer Milan Kundera in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being generalizes this moral stipulation to all creatures:

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test... consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals.

The Buddhist attitude toward sentience mirrors this view. We should treat all animals as being conscious, as feeling what-it-is-like-to-be. This must inform how we behave toward our fellow travelers through this cosmos, who are defenseless before our fences, cages, blades, and bullets and our relentless drive for Lebensraum. [living space]

One day, humanity may well be judged for how we treated our relatives on the tree of life.

We should extend a universal ethical stance to all creatures, whether they speak, cry, bark, whine, howl, bellow, chirp, shriek, buzz, or are mute. For all experience life, book-ended between two eternities.

Here I am, doing the Compact Tai Chi form in a video

Having trouble falling asleep? Too worked up over present-day politics? Tired of cute cat/dog videos on You Tube?

Here's the answer to your problems -- a decidedly low-key and almost silent video of me doing the Compact form that we've been learning in my Tai Chi class.

This is how I introduced the video in a post on my Church of the Churchless blog.

As the title of a book says, Feel the fear and do it anyway. So I'm taking that advice and sharing a video I made today of me doing a Tai Chi form.

Watching the video was fear-inducing, or at least anxiety-inducing, because I do my best to avoid looking at myself in the lengthy mirror that's on one wall of the room where I've been taking Tai Chi classes.

But since we've been learning the Compact form -- which lives up to its name by not requiring much space to do it in -- I figured it would be a good opportunity to stick my iPhone on a tripod and make a "selfie video."

Maybe this will turn out to be a shortcut to ego-loss and consequent enlightenment, because I found it interesting (and somewhat disturbing) that how I've been visualizing myself doing the Compact form from the inside of my head is rather different from how my iPhone video shows me.

Which is typical, of course. Our self-image may not bear a lot of resemblance to how others see us. 

Anyway, I'm glad that I made the video. After watching my first video attempt, I changed some things in the next attempt. Slowed down some. Corrected a few moves that I got wrong the first time around.

Tai Chi, of course, is founded on Taoist principles such as yin and yang. This is one reason I enjoy Tai Chi so much. It's got a built-in philosophical foundation. But that makes it much more subtle than the hard style (karate, basically) martial arts training I did before Tai Chi.

Yin and yang, soft and hard, alternate throughout a Tai Chi form. This is easier to feel than to see. And it helps explain why, even after 15 years of taking classes three times a week, I still consider myself to be a semi-beginner in Tai Chi. Again, the moves in Tai Chi possess way more subtlety than, say, a karate punch or kick.

And they're performed at a slower pace, which magnifies missteps, stumbles, and such.

I should note that my instructor, Warren Allen, emphasizes the martial/self-defense aspect of Tai Chi to a much greater extent than most Tai Chi teachers, given his extensive background in hard style martial arts before he embraced Tai Chi.

if this video looks less flowing and soft than you'd expect Tai Chi to appear, that's one reason. Another reason is that I have a long ways to go before I'll feel that I've begun to master Tai Chi.

Heck, I'm only 71, a youngster in comparison to the 80 and 90 year-olds who are venerated in the Tai Chi world. (And they started learning Tai Chi at a much earlier age than I did.)

Questions I don't like to get in the checkout line

OK, the title of this post isn't entirely accurate, because I'm talking about questions I get not only in the checkout line, but also other places. 

Like, today this is what I was asked by a bank employee who was handling my deposit slip.

"Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?"

Before answering with a pithy, "Yes," my brain zoomed through a bunch of other responses that had come to mind. 

-- Yes, I'm planning to rob a bank. But you'll be pleased to know, not this one.
-- Yes, but my plans are top secret, so if I told you about them, I'd have to kill you.
-- No, so after you handle my deposit, I'm going to lay down on the floor of the bank and do absolutely nothing until closing time, when bank staff will have to carry me outside, because I have no plans until after midnight and the rest of the day ends.

Only slightly more acceptable to me is this question that I get a lot in a certain grocery store's checkout line.

"Got anything fun planned for the rest of the day?"

I sometimes respond with, "You might be surprised to hear this, but I find grocery shopping to be fun. Of course, my life is pretty boring, so my fun-expectations are quite low."

Philosophically, I'm bothered by the apparent assumption that if I'm not about to do something fun, my day is worthless. The truth is that after I shop at the store where I often get this question, I head to two other grocery stores here in Salem. 

I actually do enjoy grocery shopping, but I'm reluctant to call it fun. It's satisfying. It's interesting. It's something I like to do. But I wonder how someone experiencing a deep depression feels when they hear that question.

Their honest answer might be something like, "Well, life just doesn't seem fun for me right now. What I'm planning to do is just get through the day and hope that tomorrow will be better."

Understand: I like to chat with employees at a checkout line, or wherever. It just seems to me that there's better conversation starters. Such as...

-- How's your day going? (That's open-ended, so I could say horrible, great, or anything in-between.)
-- Hi, hope your day is going well. (Even more open-ended, since it isn't a question.)
-- Hello. (Simple, traditional, probably my favorite greeting.)