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  • A comma, not a period

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Jon Bailey. Detailing my car. Seoah is coming. Casa Bonita. Valentine’s Day. #78. Fitbit. Charlie H. Ruby clean inside. Avocado Toast. Lox and English Muffins. Ruth’s excitement about her new Astronomy class. Gabe. Coming up Saturday to interview Rabbi Jamie. Sue Bradshaw. Josh. Kai. Evergreen Family Medicine.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Marilyn and Irv

    Kavannah 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah this week: Rachamim, compassion.  Practice-listening for the melody of the other.

    One brief shining: Looking about the same except for a moon face, wondered if it was prednisone, my fellow traveler on the ancientrail of cancer sat in his chair, bookcases behind him, his lake out the window, and exhibited compassion, his melody a bit jagged after a year of death and illness, yet still poetic.

     

    First iteration. A recruiting poster syle illustration of Mary Oliver’s quote

    When Charlie H. said he was in remission, his surveillance pushed out to four months from the usual three, a sign of dramatic improvement, I felt an uncharitable son of a bitch why him and not me? I didn’t begrudge him at all the good news. No. Happy for him, but wondering why my cancer has proved so damned intractable.

    Especially wondering today because yesterday I had four vials of blood drawn, one of which goes for testosterone and PSA lab work.

     

    Reminded in that conversation of Paul’s online session with poet Jane Hirschfield. He reported two arresting sentences: Death is not a period, it’s a comma. And. Attention is your life.

    second iteration after asking Chabot to correct the spelling of precious

    A comma. “…a punctuation mark (,) indicating a pause between parts of a sentence.” Oxford Languages. Interesting to wonder about that sentence, the one in which your life this time might be an object or a subject, a life acted upon or a life acting on its own. What is the verb in the sentence? Verbs? Was there an adjective for this life of yours? Strong, passionate, weakened, vulnerable, clever, unusual? What is the cosmic sentence which the universe, in its polyvalent, multivalent way, has written that is yours and yours alone? It may be the work of a hundred lifetimes, learning how to read your own sentence.

    One more thought on the comma. Learning to read each other’s sentence would allow us to glimpse the narrative line running through your time. A series of short stories, linked by the main character of your Self which, when combined, would be a novel in many volumes. Can you imagine the shelves in that Library of Alexandria?

    What does that work require? Attention. To your own melody. To the melody of the other. To the moment, yes, of course. But also to the century, the year, the day, the hour. The millennium. Not different from the work of seeing. And hearing.

    “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”

     

    Just a moment: Welcome to the Year of the Snake. Although the Chinese zodiac correlates the snake as “simultaneously associated with harvest, procreation, spirituality, and good fortune, as well as cunning, evil, threat, and terror”, I can only see the last four in the American year of the snake.

     

     

     

     


  • The Great Game

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Monday gratefuls: MLK Day. Inauguration Day. Cold -9. Senate Navy Bean Soup. Another batch. Catfish fillets. Beets. Peskyfowlatarian. Fish and Seafood and Chicken for protein. Making life easier. The thousand mile journey to Trump’s last day in office starts today.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: This land, our land

    Kavannah 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah for the week: Appreciation of Opposition   Haarecha shel machloket

    One brief shining: Oh, watching football with Lake effect Snow, Bills and Ravens pounding away at each other, two young boys at quarterback who came into the league together in 2018, cold hands and slick footballs, not to the death gladiators leaving it all on the floor of our modern day Coliseums, our American Plaza del Toros.

     

    Here is the vintage movie poster illustration inspired by your description

    We did not invent the spectacle of grown men hurting each other or themselves for our entertainment. Far, far from it. That ball game the Mayan’s played. Sometimes sacrificing the winners. Toreadors. Gladiators. Buzhaski, played with the headless, stuffed body of a goat. Or now. Motor sports. Rugby. Lacrosse. Hockey. Even Basketball. Called games.

    Suppose if you wanted to stretch the definition we could include traders on stock exchanges, commodity exchanges. C-suites. Hedge funds. Anywhere men, almost always men, put themselves at risk for some reward. Always a reward. A super bowl ring. A bull’s ear or tail. Death in order to play with the gods. Living another day. Trophies.

    I’d like to say I have no interest in such things. That men concussing each other didn’t captivate me. But it does. Athleticism, yes. Of course. But the brutality? That, too. A non-evolved part of my brain I suppose.

    Feeling for Mark Andrews, a dependable tight end, who fumbled in the fourth quarter, and most miserably of all, dropped the game tying 2-point conversion with less than 2 minutes left. Glad he’s not a gladiator.

     

    Just a moment: No, I’ve not forgotten. Today is the first day. Only four more years to go. I hope. A lot of excellent material being written about liberalism, Democrats, what’s needed to restart the engine of our democracy after all these would be fascists put sugar in the gas tank.

    I recommend a book Tom Crane sent me: The Storm Before the Calm. George Friedman. Without going into his argument he predicted a transformational presidency after which a new American Way would arise. Along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt’s reaction to the first Gilded Age. May it be so.

     

    When the polar vortex heads back north Vince and his helper will come. They will move the dining table and three of its chairs upstairs to my loft, shift some wire shelving to the weird niche between my window walls and the pony wall, then bring downstairs my treadmill (so, so heavy), three stall mats, weight bench, kettle bells, exercise balls. No more schlepping up the garage stairs to workout.

    They will also move a TV into that room. And they’ll switch out my new Morris Chair, taking it upstairs, while moving my old favorite leather chair downstairs. Finally, they’ll lift my new desktop tower next to my old one so I can start the change over to a new Windows 11 unit. Not sure quite yet when I’ll get the new 32″ curved monitor up and in place.

    In yesteryear these last few things I could have and would have done myself. Not today. Far too weak.

     

     


  • Overburden

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Kristie. Prostate Cancer. Erleada. Orgovyx. Life with cancer. Marilyn and Irv. Cold. 6 last night. Polar Vortex. Samsara. Monkey mind. Inner peace and wholeness. Shleimut. Water. Heat pumps. Keyboards. Microphones. Life. Death. The most ancientrails. Great Sol.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Living

    Kavannah 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah this week: Wholeness and Peace

    One bright shining: Wanting to reveal a part of my cancer journey, not that I’ve kept it secret, rather that I have let it travel along largely unremarked, yet the truth may be important for you or someone you love.

     

    Diagnosed in May 2015. Prostatectomy that July. Radiation 2019. Gold standard treatments. For the cure. Didn’t happen for me. 99% of men diagnosed are alive 5 years later. As I was. In May I pass the ten year post diagnosis trail marker. In 2021 a p.e.t. scan showed metastases, cancer spread into my bones and lymph nodes. At that point I became stage 4. In many cancers stage 4 is an imminent death sentence. Not so in prostate cancer. 34% of men live 5 years past that change. One man lived 22 years with stage 4 prostate cancer.

    This is not about prognosis, which I’ve decided is a red herring. At least for me. The variables are too complex and whenever I’ve had an answer it has pressed down on me. Most important? Gonna die from something anyhow. And nobody can prognose that.

    Here is the illustration in the style of 19th-century photography of the U.S. West, reflecting the somber mood and enduring journey described

    Rather this is about what I call the overburden of prostate cancer. Any cancer, really, that hasn’t killed you. The difference with prostate cancer lies in the capacity to live 10, 15, even 20 years after diagnosis.

    That means waking up each day of those 10 years with the knowledge that I have cancer. No, I don’t turn to that each morning, not even every day, yet the reality of having a part of my body actively trying to kill me never leaves me. I might encounter the thought, as I did yesterday, on learning a friend who also has prostate cancer may be nearing death. Or, on those every three month visits to the phlebotomist, waiting for the results. Then, soon after, a visit to the oncologist. Maybe an article in the newspaper. Or, another friend, like one of the three members of my Thursday mussar group, who have different forms of cancer, speaks up.

    To not let this send me down, down into the darkness of self-pity or melancholy or depression I have taught myself ways of addressing these moments:

    Sometimes. I’m  living one life at a time. Today I’m living my January 14th, 2025 life. I only have today, this life, anyhow.

    Other times the tried and often effective, well, you’re gonna die anyhow. Always true and usually reassuring in its own, odd way.

    Another method relies on a mantra: live until I die. That reminds me to focus on living rather than dying.

    Yet another approach. Lean into the thought of death. View my own corpse. Accept death’s reality as an ever abiding constant over the whole of my life. This can be surprisingly effective.

    Here, though, is the point of all this. Every time I have to use one of these strategies takes mental and emotional energy. Depending on other circumstances in my life either more or less energy. And, there is a certain accumulative effect. Which means I have less resilience for other aspects of my life. Like doing my taxes. (ha)

    This is the overburden. And it never disappears.

     


  • Listen to the Melody of Others

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. CBE. New Dell tower. Warmer. But not too warm. Salmon. Asparagus. Baked Potato. Better. Ann, palliative care nurse. Leaving. New nurse in February. Sore shoulder and left forearm. Arthritis in my right hip? Diane and her shoulder. Mark in Al Kharj. Lodgepoles and Aspens in Winter. Mule Deer and Elk. Fox and Mountain Lions. Bears hibernating. Humans with higher heating bills.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Personal Computers

    Kavannah for 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah for the 7 lifetimes in this January 11th life-January 18th week: Wholeness and Peacefulness – shleimut

    One brief shining: A knock on the door, a young East Indian man in a Federal Express shirt holding up a small screen for my signature, where do you want it, and he carried my new computer upstairs to my home office, solving the first problem I would have had with it.

     

    Here’s the updated illustration showing the stressed physicians in a medieval illuminated manuscript style, now highlighting their anxiety and overwhelming work conditions.

    In the way of the medical world these days. Ann, my palliative care nurse whom I’ve seen four times, resigned her position. Moving on. As did Kristen, my former PCP. And Lisa and Susan, other former PCP’s, and Eigner, my urologist, and Bret, the young ophthalmologist who went back home to North Carolina during Covid. And Charlie Petersen before all of them, moving to Colorado, and Tom Davis after him.

    I had one doctor my whole childhood. Dr. Gaunt. Whose son Mike was in my class. When I left Alexandria, he was still at work in his office, in a converted house; I remember it smelled of alcohol, he had a nurse in white with the little cap, glass jars of cotton bowls and syringes so big.

    Not today’s medicine. Hospitals are understaffed. Physicians find working for corporate entities like Kaiser and Optum and Allina stressful. No longer able to practice medicine, rather having to practice assembly line healing, pushing patients through in shorter and shorter visits. Revenue capture now the main goal, not health.

    I get the churn in this environment. Again, though I am anti-murder-as we all should be-I understand Luigi Mangione’s frustration. He is not alone.

     

    Here is the image in the style of Albrecht Dürer, illustrating the concept of active, caring listening through harmonious interaction and natural surroundings.

    Today we’ll study the last parsha in Genesis: Vayechi, He lived. The story of Jacob’s death and Joseph’s, too. A story full of pathos as Jacob blesses his sons, claims Joseph’s sons as his own, then, “…is gathered to his ancestors.” The last line of the book of Genesis: “Joseph died at the age of 110 years, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.”

    There is no mention in the Joseph story of slavery. This is odd since the next book in the Torah is Exodus. In other words the story goes from saving Jacob and his sons, patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, by a big move to Egypt and then to the story of their enslavement and later liberation that defines the Jewish people down to this day.

    You may recall my practice from the last month, to say, “This too is for the good.” especially in situations I might consider negative or even bad. One way to look at the book of Genesis, from the Garden of Eden and eating from the tree of good and evil, down to Joseph placed in a coffin is as a sequence of this too is for the good moments.

    BTW: my practice for this month is to first listen to the melody of others.


  • Blunted Dagger Rattling

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Rich Levine. Marilyn. Dr. Whited. Tom. Paul. Alan. Cold, single digits. Vince, plowed driveway. Rabbi Jamie. Writing. Kavannahs. Ukraine. Iran. Iraq. Turkey. Israel. Palestinians. Syria. Jordan. Egypt. Yemen. Saudi Arabia. Lebanon. China. Russia. South and North Korea. Japan. Taiwan.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Aortic Artery

    Kavannah for 2025:  Creativity

    Kavannah for this January 8th life: Foresight   (roeh et hanalod)

    One brief shining: Aortic artery aneurysm they say, spreading, mom’s brain aneurysm, a visit today to a cardiac surgeon, the past coming forward to haunt me, not as a synaptic engraved memory, but as a body recapitulating my mother’s, weakened arterial walls threatening to let my blood run free.

     

    Yeah. Keeping the world of doctors, nurses, technicians, phlebotomists, and billing departments in a steady flow of the green blood which runs through their veins. That’s me. Today’s contribution will go to Dr. William Whited, a cardiac surgeon, who will reveal to me the amount of danger I’m in from a slowly thinning aortic artery. A new issue for a new year. Yay.

     

    After about a five hour break from that last paragraph I can write off my aorta as an issue. At my age, Dr. Whited said, most likely will never be a problem. I liked him a lot though I admit I’ll like not seeing him again even better. I’ll need a CT scan in the next few weeks, just to make sure measurements are up to his standards, but he expects no trouble. Would that cancer and my back held such casual futures for me.

     

    From a geopolitical point of view I can see a certain logic in Trump’s desire for Greenland. Warming of the Arctic. The great northern passage opening up. Rare Earth elements. Sure, as a parlor game. Like, say imagining Canada as our 51st state. When we consider a rules base global order, maybe our NATO treaty for example, it’s not only flat out bonkers but a reflection of the Trump doctrine: keep your friends at arms length and your enemies close to the Oval office. Do favors for your enemies and take what you want from your friends.

    Of course, as one commentator noted, this blunted dagger rattling has a bread and  circuses appeal to his followers. Watch me stand up to Denmark and Canada. What a strong guy am I. All the while his real work will be cutting taxes for billionaires, expanding his family’s net wealth, and punishing all who dared to stand against him.

    Gonna be a long four years. And they haven’t even started yet.

     

    Just a moment: Apocalypse Now. I love the smell of wildfires in the morning. I feel for all those whose lives, whose homes, whose work places may have to yield to the fury of a Mother Earth grieving for her finely tuned climate.

    One way to reach the Great Work, a sustainable presence for humans on this Earth, lies in disaster after disaster until a more reasonable population size is left.


  • Men. In their awkwardness. Beautiful.

    Yule and a beautiful crescent of the Quarter Century Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Torah study. Men’s group at CBE. Flat bread with lox and onion. Pescatarians. Ruth skiing. Such joy. Gabe and his puzzles. 9 degrees. New Snow. Driving in the dark. A boost. Diet. Changing. Matt. Rob. Bill. Jamie.  The mesh bag. Neck weakness. January 20th.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Men, struggling with their hearts

    Kavannah for 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah for this January 5th life: Persistence

    One brief shining: Drove back last night from the men’s group at CBE graced by the waxing crescent of the Quarter Century Moon; its soft light radiated by a Mountain Fog illuminating the Arapaho National Forest and the curves of Brook Forest Drive, then Black Mountain Drive until Shadow Mountain Home appeared out of the mist, welcoming me.

     

    Got a boost yesterday. Community working its magic. During Torah study in the morning I still felt pressed down, disengaged. Distant. But Luke came up and gave me a big hug. Ginny smiled to see me. I felt seen. Though. Still coasting at a slow low place when I left.

    Came back and did nothing until 5:30 when I left to go back to CBE for the first meeting of the men’s group. Buzzed the door. Got let in by a guy I didn’t know. Then I let in a  couple of other guys, neither of whom I knew. One of them, Matt, turned to get his nametag. Oh, good idea, I said. I’m usually good for one a day he said.

    Steve brought flat bread with lox and onions. Made by his wife. I brought my go to mandarin Oranges in my new mesh bag. Joe brought miniature rugalach and date bars. Jamie tossed a handful of leftover Hanukkah gelt on the table. Chips and dip appeared. Finger food. Manly interpretations.

    The conversation had that awkward I don’t know you tone, things held back, laughing. I only knew Jamie and Steve. Steve just a little. As we navigated telling bits and pieces of our stories, wondering who resided behind the careful words, I felt myself easing onto familiar ground.

    When it came my turn, the Woolly Mammoths came out naturally. 40 years of learning how to get behind the careful words, the fear of vulnerability, with other men. Men trained by American culture and in this case reinforced by Jewish culture that feelings were at best anti-competitive. At worst they could…well, you know, don’t you?

    Sensing the journey ahead and enjoying the tender feelers put out, an occasional smile, a sad look, a story that told more than intended, my downward emotional Dog began to shift to a Sun Salutation. I didn’t expect that to happen, but it did. Not all the way back to normal, no, not at all, but buoyed up all the same.

     

    Just a moment: Tomorrow some Christians celebrate the Magi’s visit to the lowly manger in which the Son of God was born. And Trump will trumpet the day of love which the bulk of us call insurrection. MAGA or Magi? Even as a Jew I’m going with the Magi.


  • Toxic. What else can you say?

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    New Year’s Day gratefuls: Tara. Ron. Ruth and Gabe. Veronica. 5 degrees this morning. Good sleeping. Snow. A new year. Kinda. The Realm. Von Bek. The Grail. Snowplows. Another Mountain Day, another Mountain life. Ruby in her winter shoes. MVP tonight. Family. Love. A new Zen calendar. Enlightenment. Not hard. Not easy. See what you’re looking at.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The feel of a fresh slate

    Kavannah for 2025: Yetziratiut  Creativity

    For January 1 life: Wonder, Malchut

    One brief shining: Sitting with Tara over sausage patties, home fries, eggs over easy, and sourdough toast, coffee steaming, the noise almost too much, I felt yet again love, again chesed, again the presence of one who sees me as I am and accepts me, as I see her and accept her.

     

    I promised something less abstruse today. Here it is.

    Carried the three largest split Oak logs in with the intention of burning them last night, starting a new tradition, burning Yule logs on New Year’s Eve since I missed the Winter Solstice. As in love with the night as I am, I no longer experience as much of it. I go to bed early, too early I felt for burning the Oak. Or, maybe I’m just too set in my ways. Whatever. I didn’t do it. Again. That’s twice.

    On a related note: I was gonna go upstairs and hit 30 minutes on the treadmill. Thought about it right after I got back from breakfast with Tara. Almost. Knew it was my yetzer hara, my selfish inclination saying nah. You worked out yesterday. You can work out tomorrow. Take a rest already.

    I read instead.

    We make these sort of decisions at bechira points, choice points, and whichever way we decide we reinforce the likelihood of making that same choice again. I had two bechira points yesterday and chose the easy way. The good news here is that the yetzer hatov, the generous inclination, the possibility directed yetzer, will always have a chance to change that decision at the next bechira point, reinforcing the way that nurtures becoming.

    Mussar expresses a medieval psychology, yes. But. Clyde Steckler, professor of pastoral care at United Theological Seminary, said you can explain the workings of the mind using any system of thought you want and still come up with useful, meaningful ways to understand it. Mussar exemplifies this idea.

    I no longer live in a world of bad and good, right and wrong, but in a world of possibilities and potentials reinforced or thwarted. Maybe it’s that field that Rumi talks about. The one out beyond right and wrong. Where we can meet. My practice this month helps reveal this reality: this too is for the good.

     

    Just a moment: Driving a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street. These newer pickups look like weapons to me. Their massive grills. Cabs high above the rest  of us tooling along in our SUV’s and sedans. And aggressive driving? Speeding. Impatience. Road rage. Seems baked into the I’m bigger and stronger than you are toxic masculinity cast in steel and named Ram. About to get stroked by the red tie guy. Who will attempt to make normative an unthinking, insensitive, domineering version of maleness.

     


  • There, there Charlie. You’re ok.

    Yule and the Yule Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat candles burned clean. Joseph and the famine in Egypt. Self-delusion. Seeing the World as it is, neither through dogma nor ideology. Allowing the news to penetrate but not instigate. Living this day, this December 28th, 2024 life, to the fullest. Without worry for tomorrow or regret about yesterday. Patience with my self; perseverance held lightly.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Honest introspection

    Kavannah: Patience (savlanut) and perseverance

    One brief shining: Going from this formerly small household task to the next, let’s say emptying the dish washer or cleaning off the cutting board, making an easy breakfast, filling the coffee maker with water, and often having to stop between them, out of breath, tired, needing to sit down, not dispirited, but pushing myself into an old realm of self-knowledge, a lesson learned again and again, exercise: cardio and resistance. Exercise.

     

    Here’s an oddity. When I went to bed on Thursday night, my head was stuffy. I’d had bouts of feverishness and felt achy. Oh, I said. A cold. So I sent a note to my Friday night Hanukkah visitors saying I might have a cold, might need to cancel. When I got up yesterday morning, I still ached and my nose was stuffy. Wanting to give Ruth, Gabe, Veronica, and Luke plenty of time to make other plans, I sent out a note saying yes I had a cold. That I did not want to share. So Friday night was off.

    Finished up Ancientrails and went downstairs for breakfast. Hmm. My nose was clear. I was not achy. I did not have a cold. Okay. Weird. But, good, right? Well, no. I’d ruined the evening already. So I felt a brief pulse of regret, maybe even a slight wash of shame. False pretenses, eh?

    Result: I spent Friday trying to convince myself I did in fact have a cold. I rested and drank plenty of fluids. Yes, in order to slough off the regret and the shame, I lied to myself for awhile. Finally, I thought, this is stupid. You’re not sick.

    So now I had doubled the problem by misidentifying a cold and then trying to convince myself I hadn’t been wrong. I know. I know. Convoluted, eh? The lengths…

    Sat myself down. You did think you had a cold. You did what you thought was responsible. The only problem here is the regret and the shame. Oh, well, when you put it that way. I took myself off the hook. Said there, there. You’re still a good person.

    This too is for the good. My practice this month. For perceived negative, “bad” things that happen. In the healing rush of honest introspection I also looked at my shortness of breath. Yes, I’ve let things slide, tried to do exercise my way and it’s not working.

    What’s the solution? Back to cardio and resistance. 30 minutes, five days a week. Might move my treadmill downstairs. Gonna measure spaces and the treadmill today.

    This is why my kavannah for the day are patience and perseverance. I need to be patient with myself while persevering in my exercise.


  • Cough and Wheeze

    Yule and the Yule Moon

    Friday gratefuls: This too is for the good. Even this cold. Good sleeping. Third day of Hanukkah. Creativity. Ron. Alan is home. Ruth and Gabe. Veronica and Luke. Handmade Hanukkah candles. Light Snow. Kate, always Kate. Earth. Air. Wind. Fire

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My immune system

    Kavannah:  PATIENCE   Savlanut סַבְלָנוּת  Patience, endurance, holding space; literally to “bear a burden”

    One brief shining: Sometimes your body signals trouble ahead, Kate called it prodrome, an early symptom(s) that catches your attention, and I had one yesterday, stuffiness and a bit of an ache here and there, uh oh, approaching cold, take care, rest and take plenty of fluids, don’t celebrate Hanukkah on Friday night.

     

    No harmonica for Veronica on Friday night’s Hanukkah. Had to cancel. So far a mild cold, but chills and thrills. Lower energy, distracted attention. No buzz. Back to meh, but this time with a physiological referent. Taste thrown off. Not something I want to share with others.

    Good thing I made that batch of Senate navy Bean soup. Gonna have some for breakfast when I get done here. Navy Beans. Ham hock. Carrots. Onion. Celery. A Bay Leaf. Turmeric. Chicken stock.

    Lying low today. Read. Michael Moorcock’s Von Bek. A Grail quest ordered by Lucifer. Yep, you read that right. A little bit of a spoiler, but not much. Probably some TV. Maybe movies from the Criterion Channel.

    What do you do when something gets you down?

     

    Slow writing today. Clogged up neural circuits. Colds do that to me. Mind wanders. I find myself looking at the New York Times instead of hitting the keyboard.

    Talking to Ron yesterday inspired me. Former script writer for TV. Actor. Singer. Entrepreneur. He told me that his brother is the most creative person he knows. And, he’s a physicist. Ron has a company he created that he’d like to sell so he can get back to writing.

    Something about him makes me want to get back to writing myself. He’s a supportive guy, kind. Ron’s in the MVP group and we’ve intended to get together for almost four years but somehow never did it.

    Relationships matter. Alone but not lonely. Wrote about that a couple of days ago. Having folks like Ron in my life is why.

     

    Just a moment: Still having fun with chatbotgpt. Reading a lot about A.I. It’s not a genius, NYT. If you’re a certain sort of knowledge worker, like a business analyst, for example, A.I. might be coming for your job. This Federal Reserve article mentioned the dramatic change in work A.I. will probably introduce. Veering away from the factory floor and into realms once considered untouchable by automation. Maybe radiologists? I wonder about paralegals, even some lawyers.

    I even found, but could never access, an AI Jesus that was created and deployed by a Protestant church in Switzerland. I remember also reading about an AI monk in a Japanese Buddhist Temple.

                                                               


  • Chrismukkah

    Yule and the Yule Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Great Sol beginning to lighten the sky. My fingers and toes. Nose. Ears. Mouth. Eyes. Neurons. Synapses. Occipital Lobe. Frontal Cortex. Amygdala. Medulla Oblongata. Spinal column. Penis. Anus. Liver. Heart. Cancer. Aorta. All organs and fellow creatures riding this body I insist on calling mine.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Microbiome

    Kavannah: Persistence

    One brief shining: Hanukkah comes as late this year as it can ever come, this year on Christmas-Chrismukkah-and extending into the New Gregorian year; Hanukkah presents have begun to pile up in my living room just as all the heavy commercial breathing for Christmas loot reaches its peak.

    Here is a photorealistic depiction of a cozy living room blending Hanukkah and Christmas with humor.

     

    Finally. One I really like. Dalle, chatbotgpt’s image maker often sludges or mashes my prompts. I love this one though. I told chatbot I liked it, too. For some reason I say please and thank you to it and in this case the much abused (by me, to my chagrin) perfect.

    For a guy with a curious bent to his life chatbotgpt outclasses Google search with ease. I use it often, and not as much as I intend to. Still figuring out how to best incorporate my new AI overlord into my life. Can Skynet be far behind?

    Here’s a surprising use. You can upload medical findings and it will give detailed, thoughtful responses. Recommend questions to ask your doctor. Flesh out (ha) diagnoses. I’ve uploaded my prostate cancer notes, my echocardiogram results and gotten back helpful information.

    This was not a random thought but one I took from Hardfork, the New York Times podcast on technology, often focused on AI. They interviewed a doctor who had finished an experiment, published in a JAMA product, that compared AI diagnoses with those of doctors with the same set of facts and using AI. Here’s an NYT article on that experiment, Chatbotgpt defeats Doctors.

    Anyhow, it’s here and I’m enjoying messing around with it. Maybe you will or are, too.

     

    Just a moment: Was gonna focus on the decade gone by, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet. Partly because I’ve made various comments about it in the last few months, anticipating this day, partly because just hitting the highlights could be dismal. How to write about it with honesty, with affection, without reliving the angst. Might not be possible. Anyhow. A task that will wait. Not today.

     

    Seed-Keepers. My friend Janice has suggested I start a podcast, or a blog. Not sure I want to go that far, but maybe I do. The idea has merit. As does focusing on American history, American literature, especially the American Renaissance. Perhaps the two could come together? Not sure how to proceed from this point, or if I want to. Yet, maybe I need to. Rabbi Tarfon: You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.