Depression (3): Do Unto Others

In regard to depression, another possible way to address it, is not to try to address it.  At least, don't be primarily concerned about your own problems.  The way to do this is to help others.  Volunteer.  Do something to, if you can't fix your own mental state, reduce the total suffering of the world, by helping somebody else.

Once again, this is, yes, easier said than done.  You are depressed.  You have low energy.  You have low resources.  Sometimes you feel that it's all that you can do just to keep going yourself.  I get that, I've been there.  It's hard.

But helping others is an effective way to help yourself.

And, even though it seems like you have barely enough energy to keep going and take care of your own needs, you will find that it's actually surprisingly easy to help other people.  It's not that you don't have to think about what you're doing for other people: you do.  It's just that, when you're doing it for somebody else, you can be more objective about it.  You don't have to decide, when you're asking someone else to do something for you, whether you are worth their time and effort.  You're doing this for someone else, so that aspect doesn't come into it.

During depression, your mind often goes into a loop, assessing, over and over, what you have energy for, what you should be doing, whether you have the energy to do it, and all kinds of other similar thoughts.  When you are doing something for somebody else, that doesn't take place.  You have a job to do, and you do it.  And, since you're doing it for somebody else, obviously it's important.  You tend to be able to have the energy to do that, particularly if it's a fairly simple task, and you will find that, quite often, doing a small and simple thing makes a surprising difference to someone else.

Doing something for somebody else also distract you.  Therefore it breaks the cycle of going over the same thoughts over and over again.  That gets your mind off yourself, and on to the task at hand.  So the vicious cycle of pointless thoughts is broken, at least for a while.

There are generally plenty of opportunities for doing something for somebody else.  There's formal volunteer work.  All organizations that use volunteers can always use more.  They've always got boring, relatively simple, repetitive tasks that need to be done.  They can always use more help.

Of course, you don't need a formal organization.  You can pick something yourself.  This might be a bit harder.  An organization has already decided on what jobs it needs to be doing, and usually parcels them into easily achievable tasks.  If you are setting out to do something for somebody yourself, you have to figure out what you are going to do for them.  But even that shouldn't be too hard.  What is it that you wish somebody would do for you?  Well, do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  Do you wish somebody would take the task off your hands of deciding what to have for a meal?  Okay, put together a meal and take it to somebody.  Do you wish somebody would take a task off your hands?  Okay, if it's a task that you can see needs to be done for somebody else, then go and do it.

Again, easier said than done if you haven't got much practice at it.  But I recently joined a gardening crew on a volunteer basis.  I have pretty much zero experience in gardening, and Mom made sure that all of us kids really hated the gardening that she forced us to do for her when we were kids.  So this is not something that really grabs me, or that I desperately want to do.  But, just looking around at what was going on, it was easy enough to see, at various points, that there was an area under some pine trees that regularly collected a whole bunch of pine cones, which people found it difficult to walk on or through.  So, that was always something that I could do, anytime that I was there: just sweep up the pine cones and dump them in the organics bin.  Everybody else knew more about gardening than I did, and pursued specific tasks in their specialized areas of interest.  But all the plants needed to be watered.  So, I learned all there was to know (not all that much, really), about the taps and hoses, and became Rob the watering guy.  Everything needed to be watered, particularly this summer with the drought going on.  Occasionally the others would teach me something new: like how to cover leek sprouts, or how to harvest and cure garlic, or how to pinch off tomato plants.  So, when I wasn't being directed to a specific task I could look to those particular jobs and see if they needed to be done.  There was pretty much always something that needed to be done.

So, just find it and do it.  You'll feel better.  Maybe not immediately, and maybe not every time, but eventually, and overall.

Joy (2)

The last time I can recall really feeling joy, I had just successfully implemented a recursive loop, in a new language, using local variables.  I think it might have been when I was teaching JavaScript, and, if so, it was more than twenty years ago.  (Does JavaScript even *have* local variables?)

Yeah, I know.  You have *no* idea what I'm talking about.  Neither did Gloria.  Which kind of took the edge off the joy, because I had nobody to share it with.  Recursion is incredibly hard to get right, since it is not something that comes naturally to the human brain.  When trying to do recursion, we often just settle for some form of iteration.  So doing it correctly, in a new language, gave me a real sense of accomplishment.  It's difficult to explain why.  What I programmed was not, in any way, important.  I was just trying to see if I could do it (and therefore could, legitimately, assign it as a marking requirement for my students).

But there was the "homework" assignment from the grief group about joy.  And the girls are giving me grief about the amount of effort that I'm putting into finding volunteer work, or a church, or things to do in both Delta and Port Alberni.  And they aren't the only ones.  Yesterday a pastor raised the same issue.  He called it "recharge," but, when I mentioned "joy," he agreed that it was the same thing.  (His advice was rather tainted by the fact that, a few times in the conversation, he demonstrated that he wasn't really listening to my attempts to interact with what he was saying, even though he kept saying that he sees me as a friend, and not a job.)

I'm not sure that joy and recharge are, exactly, the same thing.  I'm with C. S. Lewis on joy: in "Surprised By Joy" he points out that joy is incredibly rare, and trying to go looking for it sets you on a fools errand.  You can't go out and get it.  I definitely get the parable about leaving the ninety-nine sheep, finding the one, and calling all your friends to rejoice with you: joy isn't full unless you can share it.  (And I also get the parable about the wedding banquet, and making sure that there is no room for the originally invited guests: *not* being able the share the joy is incredibly annoying.)  It's terrific when it comes, but it comes to you.  I can remember one other time I experienced it.  I was working a completely mundane job, just to pay the rent, and happened to be walking across a weedy gravel parking lot on a sunny day.  I hadn't done anything special, or accomplished anything of any significance.  And I was just suddenly incredibly joyful.  And thanked God for the nice day.  And went on to the next part of my mundane, boring, unimportant job.

So, the homework assignment from the grief group was probably more about recharge than about joy.  But even "recharge" can be really hard to come by, and it doesn't, in my experience, seem to be something you can go and grab: it's something you are given.  Making some possible progress on the grief guys idea (which may be happening) can be a bit of recharge.  Getting my first client volunteer assignment (even in a simple situation) is, a bit.  Getting some Christmas decorations up (which is *completely* unimportant to me, and I am doing *only* as a kind of memorial to Gloria because it was so important to *her*) is, a bit, although running into a box of Gloria's stuff and having to spend *hours* unpacking it definitely drained the charge, so this recharge stuff is definitely subject to failure modes.

Very often "recharge" is going to be very similar to "positive reinforcement," and some kind of "success" (in the "learned helplessness" sense), and therefore accomplishment.  So I hope *something* starts working out, "successfully," soon.

Pedestrian in PA

I'm walking around Port Alberni.  I'm walking an awful lot around Port Alberni.  I'm one of the only people who is walking around Port Alberni.  The only other people who seem to be on the streets without cars are dog walkers, high school students, and the street people.  Everybody else is driving.

I may be a bit of a problem for the drivers.  I walk down the streets.  I try not to walk right down the middle of the street, but I do walk on the streets.  For one thing, Port Alberni is not overly liberally supplied with street lights.  And, of course, an awful lot of my walking is done at 7:00 a.m., and sometimes even earlier.  Or, these days, as the sun goes down around 4:00 p.m., I may occasionally be walking to evening events, and even walking home from them.  So, I'm walking in the dark.

And, one of the other factors about Port Alberni is, the sidewalks are in absolutely terrible shape.  An awful lot of the sidewalks seem to have been laid down many decades ago.  A lot of the pavement has broken, buckled, and has ridges sticking up that can be dangerous, particularly in the dark, and particularly to an Old Person who is subject to falls anyways.  So, I walk on the road.  The road pavement is in far better shape than the sidewalks.

I try to stick close to the sides of the road.  But, of course, in the morning or the evening when I do most of my walking, there isn't an awful lot of traffic on the road.  (I try not to walk down Johnson.  The sidewalks tend to be in better shape than in much of the rest of the town.  Although there is this four block stretch where the sidewalk disappears completely ...)  So, most of the time I'm not impeding anybody even if I am walking right down the middle of the road.

The residents of Port Alberni do not know what heavy traffic is.  They complain about rush hour.  At rush hour, in Port Alberni, you can count, fairly easily, the number of cars at Gertrude and Johnson.  And that's the only intersection you have to worry about.  And, if you have the slightest idea of the actual layout of the roads around here, there is actually no need to go through the intersection at Gertrude and Johnson at rush hour.  You have a number of options.  And none of them are blocked with any traffic at all.  I am reminded of the fellow who phoned in for the traffic report, on the CBC morning show (which accepted traffic reports from communities around the province, but of course mostly concentrated on the traffic jams in Vancouver).  He called in to say that, in his town, there was heavy traffic, because there were *two* cars at the stop sign.

One of the aspects that contributes to the beauty of the town of Port Alberni, is the incredibly wide streets.  The width of the streets does make it easier to walk on the roads, even when there is traffic, and not impede anybody.  I was going to say not worry anybody, but that's not true.  I'm still learning the rules of the road here in Port Alberni, but there are significant differences to cities that actually have traffic.  For example, in Vancouver, cars will stop for pedestrians, but only if the pedestrians are actually on their side of the road.  If someone is starting to walk across the road, and is still on the side for oncoming traffic, you, as a driver, proceed through the intersection.  Not so here in Port Alberni.  Sometimes it seems that even if I am within six feet of an intersection, and have not, as far as I can tell, indicated my intent to cross the road, cars will stop at the intersection to allow me to cross.  If I intended to turn the corner and keep on walking down the sidewalk in a different direction, I almost feel *required* to cross the street instead.  This morning, I was approaching an intersection, from a good fifteen feet away, against a red light in my direction of travel.  A car was coming down the street towards me, to the intersection, indicating that he was going to make a right turn, which would have crossed the crosswalk in front of me.  But the light was against me, and he could, quite legitimately, have turned right after he came to a stop.  He didn't.  He just sat there at the intersection.  I crossed against the red light, and then, after I had exited the intersection, he made his right turn.  Like I said, I'm still learning the rules of the road around here, and they definitely are different.

Yes, lots of cars will stop for you, here in Port Alberni.  But not everybody.  I've had a number of incidents, crossing intersections, where cars blow through, without indicating that they've even seen me.  It wasn't until I was driving my car, the other day, (I had to go and get a large item from the store), that I realized what was probably happening.  They probably *don't* see me.  Port Alberni drivers are not used to heavy traffic.  They're not used to much in the way of traffic at all.  They have not grown up with the mental, situational, and attentional demands that heavy traffic requires of you.  When you are used to dealing with big city traffic, not just your head is on a swivel, but your attention is constantly on a swivel.  You have to expect the unexpected.  You have to keep on checking, absolutely everything, in every direction.  Eventually you learn this.  You see things out of the corner of your eye, and react, almost without knowing why you are reacting, or what you are reacting to.  If you are not doing this all the time, your brain will use those processing circuits for other things.  I strongly suspect that, possibly in less than a year, my ability to drive in the heavy traffic of Vancouver will be greatly diminished.  Another reason to reduce the number of trips that I make to the mainland.

I've only been in town for five minutes ...

Roomba's commentary on my life?

I have bought a pet.

My kind of pet.

An iRobot Roomba 691 vacuum.

Boy, do you ever have to be careful when you shop at Canadian Tire.  Caveat emptor with a real vengeance.

They advertised the Roomba vacuum cleaner for a Black Friday sale.  Half price.  Great deal, right?  After I bought it, I found out that not only does iRobot not support them any more, but that a later, more advanced, model sells, at regular price, cheaper than what Canadian Tire charged me for the 691!

I have charged the Roomba, rather longer than they suggest, and finally started it up.  (I also went looking for the owner's guide that they promised, only to find that this particular model seems to have been discontinued, and I haven't been able to find anything like an owner's guide on the Roomba site.)  Anyway, almost the first thing that it did, when it started up, after having bumped back and forth, side to side, never getting out of the space that I had put it in, and refusing to go out the open side directly in front of it, for some time, was to bump into the leg of a coffee table.

(Roombas are not the sharpest pencils in the robot appliance box.  It is painful to watch them do their first exploration of a room, with a heavy emphasis on "random walk.")

Have I mentioned that I've put up the Christmas decorations?  Christmas was always a disappointment for me, so, in my adult life, I never did anything about it.  But Gloria did.  Christmas decorations were very important for Gloria.  As she got more of them, she started to specialize.  Priorities were creches, angels, and carolers.  She had different carolers, mostly in pairs.  One particular pair were brown terracotta, a male and female caroler set.

I have, this year, got out a small, representative sample of the Christmas decorations.  As much a memorial to Gloria as anything else.

This particular set was on the coffee table.

Well, when the Roomba bumped into one of the table legs, the woman caroler wobbled, fell over, fell onto the floor, and broke. Leaving the male caroler alone on the coffee table ...

(I have moved the male caroler to one of the China cabinets.)

Tuesday

Tuesday was another bad day.  Not as bad as Meltdown Friday maybe, but it was really disappointing.

Not all of it, of course.  It started out really well.  I'd walked down to the river to check out whether the atmospheric effect was still in effect.  It was.  Maybe not as tall columns as there had been earlier, but then again, maybe I was a bit later in the day.  On the other hand it was colder, so shouldn't have that have increased the effect?  Anyway, it was good to see that it was still working, and I still have some opportunities to observe it, and maybe even get some pictures.  I did take a few pictures with the phone, and tried to post them to Instagram, with less than successful results.  (I tried again today, and, even later, the columns on the water were even lower, but it was kind of interesting to see very small columns, only about a foot high, and I might have been able to get some shots of that.)  (No, they weren't great ...)

The real disappointment was the Bible study.  A number of aspects that I had thought might turn out to be positive, turned out to be a misreading of the situation by me at best, and possibly total delusions on my part.  In addition, it went on far too long.  And, because of trying to raise an issue in the presentation, rather badly, I seem to have forced myself into a position where I may have to continue to attend for a while.  On the other hand, why?  Do I care what any of these people think?  They seem to be a pretty insular group, and it's unlikely that all encounter them in any of the other areas of volunteer work around the town.

But that sort of threw off my plan and schedule.  I didn't get in the walk that I thought I was going to get in.  I did get to the library, and saw C again.  He asked about whether I would like to volunteer for one of his projects.  I had given him a card earlier: apparently the printing is just too small for him to read.  But he asked for my email address, and I gave it to him verbally, and we'll see if we actually get in contact.  Again, nice to be presented with a possible opportunity, but disappointing that I made such a small impression that I wasn't worth the effort to get a hold of.

After that, I had a large block of time free.  However, because of the disappointment of the Bible study, I didn't use it very effectively.  I obviously wasn't working at full capacity.  I did get a few things done, before it was time to head out for the grief group, but I didn't really feel any sense of accomplishment.

Grief group kind of put the capper on the day.  I'm not getting an awful lot out of it.  It may be that I am further along than the people in this particular group.  But, in addition, my contributions don't seem to be contributions.  I don't seem to be helping anybody, any more than I'm getting any help.  And, the homework for this week, is to find something that will bring you joy, or would bring you joy.  Oh, joy.  This is always a difficult one for me.  What does, or will, make me happy?  What do I enjoy?  What would bring me joy?  I've never been any good at that.  Gloria always used to complain about it, usually in terms of what the heck was she going to get me for my birthday/Christmas present?  So, I don't know what to answer.  Well, I did come up with one possible answer: a nice long soak in a hot tub.  But that doesn't seem to be happening very often these days.  A number of the activities that I am getting, or have gotten myself, involved with, are interfering with getting in a bath, and soaking, and possibly reading, and still getting to bed on time.

However, this morning I am feeling a bit better.  I got up early again, and I got through dealing with spam, and reading the basic email, without making too many mistakes in the process.  Even taking into account the games and shenanigans that I have to play in terms of Shaw's Webmail.  And I did manage to come up with at least four blog posting items which I have already dictated by now.  And possibly an idea for another.  We'll see how that goes.  And I'm still got time to do a bit of shopping before I have to get to today's Bible study.  And then L is going to feed me some of her wonderful soup, and that always makes it a good day  :-)

Catechism study

Okay, first off, there was the fact that you doubled the time for the Bible study, without even noticing it.  On a day when, quite frankly, you had absolutely nothing to say about the Bible passage that we were studying. (Even though it's got some major points to make in that chapter.)  So, that's two hours of my life I will never get back again.  And, disappointingly, your group didn't challenge, or even contribute, much to any of the discussion that was going on.  And an interesting discussion that did start, you eventually completely steamrollered, and then went on with your non-content for the study.

But, yes, it was your last major point, that really perturbed me.  Not necessarily that I disagreed with your point, although it's hard to say what your point was, because what you were saying seemed to argue both for, and then against, free will.  Both of your arguments seemed to come from your catechism.  And, as usual, there is to be absolutely no questioning, analysis, discussion, or debate about anything from the catechism.  Unlike passages out of scripture.  So, your catechism is more important than the scripture?

But it was the self-contradiction in your arguments that was the real sticking point.  No, it's not that I disagree with your theology.  No, it's not that I don't understand your theological points.  It's that I don't understand why you can't see that your arguments contradict each other.  So, at one point you seemed to be saying that free will was absolutely necessary.  You seemed to be saying that election, as a doctrine, meant that God was arbitrary and therefore cruel.  But then you turned to another point, and said that we did not choose to have faith in God.  That our faith in God was not our choice, but was imposed on us by God: that we had no choice in that matter.  But then you also said that if we did believe in God, that that was not a matter of our free choice, it was imposed upon us, but that if we did not believe in God, if we did not have faith, then that was our free choice in rejecting God.  So if we decide *for* God, that is because of election; but if we *reject* God, then that is because of our free will.

And you don't see any contradiction in that?

So then I made my joke about, "So what you are saying is that we have to believe in free will: we have no choice."  Not only did you not understand the joke, you didn't even understand that it *was* a joke.  And your one parishioner who did seem to get the joke, quickly stifled himself, possibly under an expectation that agreeing that it was a joke would have violated your catechism?

So this was disappointing in a number of ways.  First of all, it seems that your group isn't too terribly interesting, at least not as interesting as I originally thought.  I did realize that you were hung up on the catechism, but in some previous studies you had shown at least *some* willingness to debate and look at interesting topics.  But this particular study definitely did not show any indications of that, and, not only that, but wasted a great deal more time than usual.  Possibly your time is becoming less valuable, but my calendar is starting to fill up, and I'm disappointed that it seems that I may be kind of trapped, by your offer of books, into continuing to attend what may be a big waste of time.

You asked me to explain what my difficulty was.  Of course, you were on the completely wrong track, since you decided that I didn't understand some theological point, rather than the fact that it was your presentation, and your lack of understanding of the inherent contradiction in your various positions, that was the problem.

But, now that I've had some time to think about it, simply the fact that I have been able to specify, even for myself (even if you never read this), and formulate, relatively accurately, what the problem was, I do feel better.

One of the disappointments is that, having demonstrated a willingness to look at interesting ideas, it's clear that that was only an initial come on, and you're really not prepared to engage in any debate or analysis.  Another reason is that, somehow, you managed to turn the entire group against me, to get them all to attack me, to convince them that I was a heretic in need of instruction.  That was rather disappointing.  Of course, it was my own fault.  I, in the heat of the moment, and under attack, could not fully recollect the specifics of what you had said, and what was so damaged about your arguments.  I should have foreseen this type of strategy, and just kept my mouth shut.

Gloria and Wikipedia

I have never been a huge fan of Wikipedia.  I appreciate the theory of crowdsourcing of information, but the actual implementation leaves much to be desired.  There is, for example, the entry on computer viruses.  It is riddled with errors.  At one point the first paragraph contained more than one factual error per sentence.  As an expert in the field, I did try to correct the errors, only to find that some zealous nut bar in the Wikipedia community would immediately revert my corrections to the error-ridden state.

Somebody did once create a Wikipedia page for me, and it has been oddly useful.  Once, when I was sent out to do a seminar (and was not told that the agency putting on the seminar had already complained about unqualified instructors coming to do the seminars), I contacted the venue beforehand, and got a very cold reception.  I got on the plane, got off the plane and got to the venue.  The reception that I received when I actually got there was considerably different.  The person I had talked to had done a Google search on me, and found my page on Wikipedia.  Simply the fact that there *was* a page on Wikipedia on me changed his attitude completely.  (In a slightly less job related situation, the fellow classmates of my grandchildren always found it the most impressive thing about me: I had a page on Wikipedia.)

The page on Wikipedia originally mentioned Gloria, and the fact that she had a edited all of my books.  When Gloria died, I actually went to the page, and updated it, to reflect the fact that she had died, and that that might have an impact on my ability to write more books, and pointed at her obituary, which also mentioned the fact.  That stayed in place for approximately a month.  But, at some point, some zealous Wikipedia official noted that the obituary was entered on my blog.  Since I had made the edit, and the source material on the Web was an entry on a blog that I controlled, Wikipedia decided that this was self-promotion, and removed every and all mentions of Gloria from my Wikipedia page.  Since this was only a month or so after Gloria died, and I was still in the most intense stages of grief, I found this, personally, incredibly hurtful.  It did not improve my opinion of Wikipedia overall.  Ceterum censeo Wikipedia delendam esse.  Wikipedia may be helpful for unimportant sources of unimportant information, but for any significant information you had better have other sources.  Wikipedia is a source of entertainment at best.

Depression (2): Try something new

Keeping on, keeping going, keeping on going, is not the only technique that can be used to address problems of depression.  Keeping doing the same thing, and expecting a different result, is often referred to as the definition of insanity.  Therefore, it is likely that, in terms of addressing issues of depression, it is important to try something new.

Trying something new, in the midst of depression, is, for those who are not practiced in the procedure, as difficult as keeping going in the face of depression.  Those who are depressed are fixated, and fixation obviously obviates the ability to address or create, or even follow, new ideas.  Therefore, as with the practice of keeping on, this is easy to say, and difficult to implement.  Still, it is one technique to address issues of depression, and create an opportunity for some version of success, and therefore a way to address the learned helplessness aspects of depression.

There are a number of techniques that can be used to attempt to address depression, and to create ideas to generate possible new ideas.  Those who teach creative writing, in various ways, have a number of techniques that they use in this regard.  There is the old standby of taking a break and going for a walk.  Again, in the depths of depression, it is difficult to work up the energy to do anything, so getting up the energy to go for a walk is easier said than done, but it is at least a possible start.  Other options are simply to explore anything.  Chasing through random YouTube videos or websites, may trigger new ideas.  Part of the practice of following something new is to recognize these new ideas, and to at least follow them a certain way, rather than dismissing them immediately.  Therefore, part of the practice is to force yourself to think about new ideas, no matter how unworkable or outrageous they may initially seem.  Pursuing, at least to a certain extent, a new idea, even if it is a ridiculous idea, may trigger a more workable idea.  Therefore, a bit of mental flexibility, which is difficult going in a fixated state, and the pursuit of all ideas, regardless of how outrageous, is part of the practice.  And it is a practice.  For those who are trying it for the first time it is going to be difficult.  However, over time, with additional practice and experience, it will become easier, in the same way that exercise of the body becomes easier with the strengthening of muscles.

Another possibility is simply talking to other people.  Having a conversation.  This is best with people you know, and who are intelligent.  The new ideas that you want are unlikely to be triggered by superficial social conversation.  You are going to have to find your friends who are willing to explore outrageous ideas with you, and it is likely that you were going to want to engage in conversation with your weirder friends for this purpose.

Depression fixates.  Depression also results from the loss of a fixation.  Depression very often results from loss, whether it is the loss of a spouse, a friend, a job, or even a hobby.  Depression is also is often part of grief.  Because of the loss.  Depression is frequently seen in someone who has lost a job after many years.  The job is part of their identity, and the loss results in depression: they don't know what to do anymore, so they do nothing.

This is possibly part of the reason that doing new things can help with depression.  It gives the person some new activity, or even identity.

I have had to change jobs many many times in my life.  In fact, the onset of the first time that I noticed a serious depression in myself corresponded with the loss of an expectation that I would train to be a doctor.  So, it may be that that loss triggered a depression, and possibly created the situation for the cyclic depressions which followed: it's hard to say.  However, it is also true, that the variety of jobs that I have had in my life may be one of the reasons that I am handling depression better at this point in my life.  (For my fiftieth birthday, Gloria threw me a wonderful birthday party, and give a speech listening all the jobs that I had had in my life.  She wanted to get to fifty: in fact she got to fifty-six.  My personal favorite was hovercraft skirt repair technician, wherein I was ably assisted by my niece, assistant hovercraft skirt repair technician Kirsten.)

So, it may be that some new activity can assist in dealing with depression.  Therefore, trying new things, to see what you might enjoy doing, or what might give you a sense of accomplishment, is it a good idea.

Grief, pain, and the rest of the world

I came across an account on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/hernameisgrief/, and I recognize all that pain.  And I certainly understand the anger at the rest of the world that is so profoundly ignorant, uncaring, and unthinking (yes, that includes you) about how painful this is for those of us going through it.  There is no way for you to really understand it without experiencing it, and I don't wish that on anyone.

Gloria is dead, and my life is absolutely and completely changed.  It is changed just because she died.  I don't have that life any more.  It's gone.  I am not rebuilding my life.  It's gone, and it's not coming back, because Gloria is not coming back.  She's dead.  Dead means gone.  And so is my life.  Two things are simultaneously true: Gloria is dead, and I am still ... not dead yet.  I am moving around, but this is not a life.

I am building a new life.  Not completely from scratch: for some reason I still know how to talk, pay bills, and move myself from place to place, so I don't have to learn those things all over again.  But pretty much everything else is different than it was before.

I don't really know why I am building a new life.  But it's either that or just sit and be completely miserable for as long as I have to stay alive until I die, so I might as well.  But I don't particularly like it, and I'm certainly not enjoying it.  I have pretty much nothing to look forward to, at the moment, so I'm just keeping on.  That's all.

This is not just a momentary pity party or bad day.  This is how my so-called-life has been for the past year.  This is what I "live" with all the time.  Constantly.

Men and Grief

I am reading "Men and Grief," by Carol Staudacher, which is referenced by Martin and Doka in their work, and is remarkably useful and helpful despite being written by a mere woman.  (I will be reviewing it shortly.)  I am reading the chapter on "Experiencing Loss as a Husband."  I have found an insightful reference to men scheduling and planning activities "not as a way of *avoiding* his grief, but as a way of *accompanying* his grief."  Good to know.  A few pages later there is the, fairly common, advice not to "make some drastic major change, such as sell your house, quit your job, transfer to another city, buy new property, or completely transform your lifestyle.  It is completely unwise to make any such changes for at least one year following your wife's death."  (Emphasis, as above, is the author's.)

Well, that ship has sailed ...

Made the bed

Why do I feel such a sense of accomplishment that I made the bed?  Millions of people do it every day.  I only do it twice a month, when I wash the sheets.

Maybe it's because I made the bed while the sheets were still in the washer.  Maybe it's because I've faked out the laundry process by buying two sets of sheets so that I can do that.  Anyway, I had a weirdly strong sense of accomplishment, just from making the bed first thing this morning.

Then I added to that by vacuuming the floor.  I vacuumed both the bare floors, and then the carpeted areas in the office and bedroom.  The carpeted areas produced an awful lot more dust.  The clear canister on the Dyson vacuum cleaner makes that fairly obvious.

However, I had kind of promised myself that I'd hike over and get a cup of coffee.  So, as I started to settle in to dealing with spam and email, first thing, I realized that I was in danger of blowing my sense of accomplishment, by thinking that I was late, when I actually had nothing on the calendar this morning.  Of course, there are things to do: there are a few pieces that I've dictated, and still haven't edited.  I need to set up the calendar for the grief group that I'll be leading shortly.  I need to get the Jesus Film Festival material out to the ministers in the area.  Those aren't on the calendar, even though they are things on my to-do list (which I never write down).  And, of course, because they don't have specific deadlines, they aren't on the calendar.

But then, accidentally, and fortunately, I looked out the front window and had a gorgeous site of the sun on top of the mountains to the north of the city.  So I took a picture of that, and posted it, and walked out to get my coffee anyway.  The stuff I need to do will still be there when I get back.

I did spend a bit too much at Dollarama on the way.  There were a couple of things that I intended to get, and, when I couldn't find them immediately, I did start browsing, and picked up more than I strictly needed when I started to process.  But I don't do this very often, and the grand total of my bill was not exactly huge.  So I think I can forgive myself for that one.

Part of what I bought at Dollarama was in aid of actually doing some Christmas decorating this year.  Gloria was always in charge of the Christmas decorations.  The only part that was my job was putting the lights up.  Gloria was big on Christmas, and I never have been.  I didn't bring any lights with me.  I don't know if I am going to invest in any lights, but I do have a strange motivation to do at least some decoration Christmas decoration on the house internally. (Although what I bought has mostly to do with putting a wreath on the door, and securing it.) (And, having said that, I realize that I forgot to buy the sip straps, so I guess the first part of the journey home will be to go back to Dollarama and get them.)  (And that was the beginning of *five* more trips to Dollarama, for a total outlay of well over a hundred dollars, more than fifty bucks of which was for lights.  Yes, I got them.  And they are up.  But I'll have to be careful around Dollarama.)

Anyway, I've had a couple of cups of A&W's coffee, and I've read, on my phone, a couple of the newsletters that I get, that I normally don't have to do anything about anyway.  So I've had a bit of a rest, and I guess it's time to head back, and get to actual work that I'll need to do.

It is a sunny day.  Mind you, first thing when I set out, it was bitterly, bitterly cold.  I had done a bit of a modification on my layers, and I don't think that the CanSecWest hoodie is quite as warm as the BSidesVancouver hoodie.  I also was wondering whether my toes were going to get frostbite, although I think that's highly unlikely.  But the sun has had a bit of a time to warm yet the atmosphere, so the walk back shouldn't be quite as frigid as the walk up.  And it is an absolutely gloriously sunny day, if you can survive the cold!

Beauty, gratitude, and grief

It's a beautiful day, this morning. There is cloud, quite a bit of it, but with lots of breaks, and it counts as a sunny day, in West Coast terms.

So, I was thanking God for the beautiful day, for a walk (even if cold ) in beauty, and then thanking God generally for the existence of beauty, and then, all of a sudden, I was absolutely weeping, walking down the sidewalk.

Grief is weird.

(And then, during the service, I had another grief burst during a hymn, even though it wasn't a hymn that I knew.  It was talking about helping each other during grief.  So I had to abandon the sound board for a bit.  Fortunately, when you are on the sound board, you are at the back of the church, and nobody can see you weeping, or having to leave to get a kleenex and blow your nose ...)

(It's funny how having a grief burst makes it more likely you'll have another ...)

Review of "On Grief and Grieving"

When Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote "On Death and Dying," it was a major work, examining, for many people for the first time, the aspects of life, emotions, and psychology that those faces dying have to deal with.  It is not too much to call the work seminal, although the grief "industry" has subsequently modified their view of the overall process.  Close to the end of her own life, Kubler-Ross worked with David Kessler to create this compendium on grief.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is grieving, or who is dealing with those who are.  It is a comprehensive overview of the emotions and confusion of grief and the grieving process.  I would not say that it provides any earth-shattering insights, and it is not presenting scholarly research, but it provides a solid background which can be both helpful and comforting for those in grief.

There are a number of similar works which try and address the overall range and process of grief, in fewer words and less time.  For me, the slower pace, larger size, and more extensive set of anecdotes of "On Grief and Grieving" is more appropriate.  The reduced works give the feeling, all too common in our society, that grief must be hurried, and is a nuisance.  Grief is a major event in a life where it falls, and will take a long time.

Christmas wish list

Gloria was always annoyed that I could never produce a wish list, for either my birthday or for Christmas.  I did, once produce a Christmas wish list: and then wished that I hadn't.  Some people kept that list, for decades, and I would sometimes receive presents that I had completely forgotten were ever on the list.

Anyway, I am in a new situation now.  I have a new environment, and there are various things which I need in this new life, which I do not have.  I could probably go and get them.  I'm even thinking of getting some of them.  I have looked for some of them, and not found some, or even found them, but not bought them.  But what the heck. 

So, here is my Christmas wish list. 

There is a set of snack tables, as they are now called.  (They used to be called TV tables, because people ate TV dinners off them, watching the TV.)  Jowsey's has a set of four, with a rack to hold them, for $75.  I like the ones in the natural wood colour.  I may go and get them myself.

I thought I would like to get some kind of sling to carry an umbrella.  Something that I can sling over my shoulders and carry one of my umbrellas on days when it's not quite raining, but might rain.  That way I can carry an umbrella, just in case it does rain.  And still be able to walk for miles, without my arthritic hands getting sore from clutching the umbrella.  (I fashioned/kludged together an umbrella sling from three old nametag lanyards from trade shows/vendor meetings.  It's ugly, but it works, and it's even big enough for me to leave it on the umbrella when it's up  :-)

(And I still need to get a digital camera body and adapter for my lenses, but that is *WAY* out of Christmas wish list territory ...)  (Although I do have to wonder why nobody has built a digital sensor plate for old SLR bodies, because the internal form factor was all standardized because of 35 mm film, and it seems it would be an obvious idea ...)

I'm still not reading for fun or relaxation, which is almost getting to be a point of concern for me.  Maybe a complete set of Terry Pratchett might help ...

I have *got* to get  more Copper Sole T-Max Heat Brushed Thermal Crew socks.  Mark's was giving away free samples, and I got one pair, and they are terrific.  (I don't yet know how long they'll last, but they are comfortable, and warm, and stay up, and, if they stand up to how much I walk, they are terrific ...)

Now that I am going out with the trail maintenance crew, I really need to get some heavy duty tools to help out.  Probably the first thing I'd need would be an axe-mattock or cutter mattock, similar to a pulaski.

I'm going for coffee

I don't have anything on the calendar today.  Which is getting to be unusual.  So, I've taken a nice picture, 

(see?)

and it's a nice day, after several days of cloud and fog, I'm going to go over there to the A&W and have a coffee (or two), and maybe tell you about making the bed.

And I'll do the other stuff I need to get done later.

Open House

So, one of the tables, of all the tables showing the various activities, was for quilting.  And I bravely went up to it, and said, "Well, I had a wife who loved quilting, but she died."  And she, brightly, said, "Well, the love of quilting lives on!"

So I had to leave ...

Writing

Although it may seem unlikely, for anyone who is actually reading the blog (all two of you), I am feeling that I am falling behind in my writing.  I have various ideas that I would like to pursue, and I haven't been able to do it so far.  I need to spend some time going back through some of my old email, and finding reminders that I've sent myself, to dictate out as fully fleshed pieces.  I also need to go back and get some of the structure for my memoirs, and other serious writing pieces, particularly the major article/series on the Metaverse.  I need to finish off the series on decentralized finance, for which I've got another two months worth of material pretty much fully dictated, but I haven't yet dictated the final section.  So, I need to do some prep work, and then send myself emails, which I can use as reminders, to do some dictating, possibly while I'm walking.

Although dictating while walking could be problematic, because it is bloody cold these days!  It's really cold, cold enough that I'm not thrilled that the idea of holding the phone in my hands so that I can dictate, while I am walking.  I have been able to figure out a way to bundle up warmly enough while I'm walking, but holding a phone in my bare hand means that my bare hand is going to get really freezing.  I am carrying around some mittens with me, and that may help.  But there's also the fact that, as I am bundling, and layering, up for a walk, I have to remember to put my glasses on at some point, so that I can see what I'm dictating, and see when Gboard stops accepting dictation.  I also may need to get plastic, rather than metal, framed glasses, so that the frames don't suck heat away from my face.

Then again, it's forecast to start raining soon, so that *may* mean the temperature moderates a bit, but it also means juggling an umbrella, as well as the phone ...

First crack at a new church

Allow me to introduce you to Slade's Law of Church Choice and Hospitality: Never attend a church which has the word "friendly" in the name, or in their advertised motto or slogan.  Any church that feels the need to boast about how friendly they are, is definitely not.  I formulated this law many years ago, while searching for a temporary church home while I was taking my Masters degree.  I went to a number of churches.  Eugene, Oregon, has a Friendly Street among its thoroughfares, and it has a Baptist church on it: Friendly Street Baptist Church.  Simply because of the law, I never went there.

The law has already shown its validity in Port Alberni.  I had noticed a church as being near to a place where I frequently was on my visits.  When I noticed a car in the lot I went over, and did manage to talk to the administrator, and the interim pastor of the church.  The interim pastor told me that it was a very friendly church.  So I warned him about Slade's law of church choice.  He got a good chuckle out of it.  I very much doubt that he realized how appropriate it was to the church that he was pastoring.

This is probably the weirdest experience I have had encountering a new church.  And that's saying something, since I have had a lot of experience going to new churches.

In most places, there is a bit of variation in the scheduling of church services, and you can sometimes get to two or three on a Sunday.  Not Port Alberni.  Pretty much all the churches in Port Alberni have their Sunday morning services at 10:30 AM.  Simultaneously.  You get one shot per Sunday.  That's it.

On the first available Sunday, I went to the church I had noted.  I got to the church earlier than the service, since I had had a task to perform nearby.  I managed to find an open door, although it wasn't easy.  (First issue.)  There were some people in the church already.  Who ignored me.

OK, that sounds petty.  Let me be clear: just because I show up somewhere, I don't expect people to fall all over me.  My life history has given ample evidence that, whenever I go anywhere, I can expect to be ignored.  I am unimportant, and easily overlooked.  However, in churches, and particularly in smaller churches, the members tend to know one another, and can be somewhat territorial, even though churches are, to a certain extent, public buildings.  They may challenge you in a friendly sounding way, but they do like to know who the stranger in town is.  It is a bit unusual to go into a church and not have *anyone* ask who you are.

A number of churches will have, in their narthex or foyer outside of the sanctuary, a table which they set up for coffee either before or after the service.  This tends to be the primary socializing time (and place) for the church.  This church has a permanent coffee station, with a single serve coffee machine, signage indicating how it is to be used, signage requesting people to wash up after themselves, coffee whitener and sugar and artificial sweetener, and also tea and hot chocolate as well as a kettle.  This does look promising, as it does seem to indicate a commitment to this socialization within the church itself.

The second oddity was that, seemingly, nobody used the coffee station either before, or after, the service.

As noted, there were people in the church when I arrived.  (Who ignored me.)  Other people arrived later, and I happened to be near the door where they were coming in.  These people also basically ignored me.  (With one single exception, a nice lady who did ask if I was new and queried me as to my presence in Port Alberni and why I was there. But nobody else did.)  In fact the church administrator came in while I was standing there.  She had seen me on three previous occasions.  She gave absolutely no indication that she recognized me at all, and certainly did not greet me.

The service was uninspired and uninspiring.  I'm fairly used to that, and don't have high expectations.

After the service a lady did speak to me, and ask after my presence in Port Alberni, my reason for being there, and various other aspects of my life.  During the course of this, very lengthy, conversation, she proved many times that she was not listening to my answers.  It was as if she had been given instruction on how to greet newcomers, and had memorized the list of questions to ask, but had missed the point about having to actually listen to the answers.  It was a very surreal "conversation."  (It was mostly a bit of a monologue.)  At one point, another person joined the conversation, or at least came and stood nearby.  The lady who had been talking to me turned to him and introduced me--getting pretty much everything wrong.  I said, "That was a really interesting introduction.  It almost completely misrepresented my situation in its entirety."  The person she had introduced me to didn't turn a hair.  She did pause, and say, "What?"  I said, "No, no, you were saying?"  She then carried on as if nothing happened.  I know that I was not behaving too terribly well in saying this.  By this point in the conversation I was almost openly mocking her lack of communication skills.  But the situation was so bizarre and frustrating.  I mentioned that the conversation was lengthy.  She took up so much time that I did not have any chance to encounter anyone else in the church (and I had intended to meet one of the people who had been identified as a church elder).  By the time I could get away from her he had gone and I had lost my chance.  By that time *everyone* had gone, and I had lost my chance to meet anyone else.

The church had advertised a Bible study at 7:00 PM during the announcements showing on the screen at the front of the sanctuary, prior to the start of the morning service.  So I decided to give the church another chance, and came back at 7:00 PM for the Bible study.  Nobody showed up.

I also found it interesting that the church did have guest wifi available.  But only in the building that was their former sanctuary, and is now unused except for overflow capacity, which doesn't seem to be needed at all.

I really don't know.  Is this just a really bad experience, occurring totally at random?  Or is this God's leading and direction to me, pretty clearly saying "this is not your church."  On the advice of a friend, I will be going back some other time.  But I'll probably try out a number of other churches, first.

Canada Post, the washer, and the MBA ...

Well, I thought that, having fought with the telcos for two months, and *finally* getting Internet, and a home phone, and retaining Gloria's phone number (by switching it to a cell phone), that things might be settling down, and I might get to finish unpacking.

Silly me.

First off, Canada Post is not going to forward my mail.  (Although they are still forwarding my mail from North Van to the address that they are not going to forward the mail to me from.)  When I first tired to set up mail forwarding from Delta, it wouldn't accept the address.  The *Delta* address, not the one in Port Alberni that has been giving everyone else fits.  Canada Post shuffled the problem up the chain to IT who said it was a software glitch, and that it would be slow to fix because that came from an outside vendor.  They lied.

A few days back I finally got a call from someone at Canada Post with the news that, no, it wasn't a software glitch, and they had finally identified the problem, and it wasn't going to be fixed.  Apparently, my apartment in Delta is on a list.  The list includes old folks homes.  (The apartment was a "55+" place, but that didn't seem to mean anything except that there were grab bars in the shower enclosures.)  Canada Post seems to assume that if you are living in an old folks home, you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.  Therefore, they won't forward mail from any addresses on that list.  Period.  No recourse.

However, at about the same time, I got mail at the Delta address offering to *extend* the mail forwarding that I had set up when I moved from North Van to Delta.  Which I am now trying to cancel, since there is no point in forwarding mail from North Van to Delta, when they won't forward mail from Delta to anywhere, and it would be better if I cancelled the forwarding to Delta, and forwarded directly any mail that is still coming to North Van, to Port Alberni.

Except that the only guy who seems to be the only one that I can talk to about any of this *IS NEVER IN THE OFFICE!!!!* when I go there.

This is somewhat frustrating.

A couple of weeks ago, I set the new washing machine, in the new house, to do the sanitize cycle.  It never seemed to complete, and threw an error code which, when I looked it up online, seemed to indicate the possibility of an internal leak.  So I passed that up the deficiency chain, and got the word back not to use the washer until someone came to look at it.  Nobody came to look at it.

In the meantime, in old person news, when you get old, sections of your skin, and other membranes, tend to get thin, and easy to tear.  You can cut yourself, simply by pulling on your skin the wrong way.  And, while I was drying myself off, I apparently cut myself this way.  In a portion of the male anatomy liberally supplied with blood vessels, and very hard to examine, dry blood off of, and get a bandaid on.  So, now I had bloody towels, and a more urgent need for the washer.

They have finally decided that this is not a deficiency, it is a warranty issue with the washer.  This, and the fact that I would have to register the washer for warranty service, was communicated with me while I was three miles away from the house, and the plates on the washer that give the model and serial numbers, which, of course, you need for registering a warranty.  [Sigh.]

However, I have been, as the weather gets colder, and is threatening rain, experimenting with layers of various combinations of garments.  Gotta stay warm, gotta stay dry, gotta have something on that you can semi-shed on long trips walking around town as you heat up from the exertion.  I have various jackets that I have used over the years.  One of the most useful has been my (navy) blue fleece jacket, but it has suddenly decided to come apart at the shoulder, and just when I have no talented seamstress at hand to fix it.

So, a couple of days ago I tried out the Mysterious Blue Anorak.  The MBA was left in Number Two Daughter's coat closet at some point in the distant past.  The consensus is, generally, that it must have been left there by one of Number One Granddaughter's friends.  But, nobody knows who, it has never been claimed, and it would probably be too small, now, for whoever left it.  So, one night when I was over there, and it started to rain, I was presented with the MBA to throw over myself on the run home.  At that time it was too small for me to wear.

It hung in my closet.  And, in the fullness of time, I got smaller.  I am now small enough that it can be zipped up, even over a fleece hoodie.  So, it makes a nice combination: the hoodie for warmth, and the MBA for waterproofing.  And the light blue colour is garish enough that it is safer for me walking around town in the dark.

Minor win, to offset Canada Post and the washer?

(Then again, my heat pump seems to have stopped pumping ...)

Review of "Grief is the Thing With Feathers"

It's interesting, to me, that one of the main characters in "Grief is the Thing With Feathers," a classic of grief literature, is a crow.  Or just "Crow."  Gloria liked crows.  She said they were big, and ugly, and they didn't care.  She said they were the bikers of the bird world.

The cover says that "Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is a novel.  I kind of dispute that.  It reads more like an extended freeform poem.  Or possibly a collection of similar poetry.  Part of which is concrete poetry.

"Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is hard to understand.  It's confusing.  But then, so is grief.  To a certain extent, you can say that "Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is a good representation of grief, because it makes you feel the confusion, and disjointedness, that you feel when you are bereaved and grieving.

Since "Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is poetry, it's probably art.  Since it's art, I am poorly equipped to review it.  I don't understand art.  I don't even know what art *is*.

I can see that there is some value in this text.  As noted, it does portray some of the confusion, disjointed mental states, and weirdness, of grief.  In that sense, it represents grief quite well.  As a grieving widower, I can definitely see that, and even appreciate it.

It does tell people who are experiencing grief, and who may feel that they are going crazy, that no, you are not crazy, other people feel this way when they are bereaved.  Grief does feel crazy.  However, I am not sure that it goes beyond that.  It doesn't tell you an awful lot about grief, other than that grief is crazy and weird, and goes on for a long time.

PeopleNet (or PopulistNet)

I suppose that you can blame Telus for this, and, if they go out of business, it's their own fault.  I did tell them: Do not annoy grieving widowers.  They have lots of time to create and detail new ideas that may drive you out of business if you're not providing actual service to your customers.

Ever since I've thought of this, I have felt that it would be a really good idea to drive the telephone and telecommunications companies (generally known as telcos) out of business.  After all, they make tons of money, and make huge profit margins on, what is currently, very little outlay.

The telecommunications companies have a near monopoly.  They use this to ensure that they have large profits, for relatively little effort and expense.  We do not need the telephone companies.  Okay, there is the issue of long distance, but there are ways around that.  Or, we can simply set up new long distance companies, and let them know that provision of service is not actually necessary to most of our communications.

Forty years ago, I was giving seminars to public conferences and trade shows in the, then fairly active, enthusiast consumer space in computers and communications.  At that time, the Internet wasn't yet called the Internet, and those who did do anything with communications with home computers were probably dealing with Fidonet.  Or simply with local bulletin board systems that were connected to Fidonet.  Fidonet was a store and forward system, that allowed local bulletin boards to provide email, and share files fairly widely, by placing short calls at limited times of the day, without having to be constantly connected to a network.  What would become the Internet was operating at some universities and research institutions, and there were some standing connections between machines that provided for this.  Bulletin boards couldn't afford the kind of standing telephone lines dedicated for data communications transfer on a constant basis, and certainly not if it involved long distance.  Even businesses, and smaller research enterprises (probably using Unix systems), were using something called Usenet, which could use standing communications links, but could also operate on the store and forward basis like Fidonet.

At that time cell phones were big and clunky and usually built into cars, often with a handset up front, and possibly four boxes of electronics bolted into the back.  Even the "banana" phones that some might remember were still a ways into the future.  In my lectures and seminars, I would try to explain to the audience the advantages and efficiencies of packet switched networks, and the similarities with store and forward systems.  I would point out the cost advantages of performing communications in this way.  I often said that when you got your bill from the local telephone company, fifty percent of what you were paying the company did not go to the provision of service: it went to the printing of that bill.  In one of my seminars, someone stood up at the back, and said that he worked for the local telephone company, and I had my figures wrong.  Excellent, I said, you have better data: what is the real figure?  Ninety percent, he said.

And time went on, and technology developed.  The Internet spread, and was named, and more people joined it.  Computers got smaller and more powerful.  Cell phones got smaller and more powerful.  Networking developed apace.  And, eventually, we got to the point of voice calls being placed over data channels, because data channels were more efficient, and therefore cheaper.  And now, we are to the point where pretty much all calls are being placed over data channels.  When you get a landline, you may still be able to plug in your old phone connected with twisted pair wiring, within your house.  But the circuit box in your house probably connects that twisted pair wire to some kind of a data channel where dozens, or even hundreds, of phone calls are running through the same circuit, saving the telecommunications carrier an awful lot of money.  But they're still charging you the same amount for a home phone.

So all the calls are just data.  And we have lots of systems that you can use to place phone calls for free.  Internationally, avoiding long distance charges.  Long distance charges are pretty much eliminated on cell phones: cell phone companies usually sell you a package that allows you to place calls anywhere within your country for your monthly subscription rate.  The telephone and telecommunications companies know that it's an awful lot easier and simpler, and cheaper, to place phone calls than they are telling you.  And certainly than they are selling you.

We don't need the telephone companies.  They know this.  They just aren't admitting it.  Telephone companies are providing backbones, and switching services.  But our phones already do an awful lot of switching, and networking.  And they could do more.

Cell phones, these days, are small, and very powerful.  Everyone is carrying around a quite powerful computer, stuffed with a lot of very capable software, and using relatively little of its capabilities.

Currently, if you have a cell phone, it has to connect to, or "see," a cell phone tower or antenna.  There are lots of cell phone antennas around: the cell phone companies make sure of that.  It's a selling point, and point of competition for the various cellular companies.  They make a big deal about how far and widely you can travel, and how well you can connect to their particular network, wherever you are.  But you still have to see one of their towers.  If you are on back roads, or in the wilderness, or in mountainous regions, or in basements, or other places where you can't get a good connection, because you are too far away from a cell phone antenna, then you can't connect.

And cell phone systems, in common with all telephone systems, operate on a contention basis.  Telephone companies sell many more accounts then they can actually support, at any given time.  If everyone picked up their phone at the same time, or tried to place a call on their cell phone at the same time, nobody's call would go through.  We see this every time there's a disaster.  In a disaster you can never place a call on your cell phone.  The cellular service is not necessarily, itself, degraded by the disaster.  It's just that everybody, affected by the disaster, wants to try and place a phone call.  At the same time.  They can't.  The system is not designed to handle all the traffic that is needed to support all the subscribers that the cell phone companies have sold accounts, and phones, to.

The same thing happens with regular telephones.  If everyone tries to pick up the phone, at the same time, they don't all get dial come.  At best, maybe one or two percent of them will get dial tone.  All telephone systems are based on this contention model.  Everything has to go through the central office, everything as to go through the telephone company, and so the central equipment that they have is the limiting factor for how many people get to place phone calls.

But that's not the only model for communications.  Store and forward has been used for centuries.  It's our postal mail system.  It was Fidonet.  It's the way email works, which is why email is one of the most reliable forms of communication even today.  And even packet switched networks, on constantly connected networks, like the Internet, work on a kind of store and forward basis.

So, we can use a version of store and forward, such as a packet switched network, to place what appear to be constantly connected communications, like a phone call.  As previously noted, there are lots of apps that allow you to place free phone calls.  Even video calls.  Generally speaking, for most people, they work just fine.  You can hear the person clearly, and the calls don't drop very often.  And they're free.  Well, somebody is paying something in order to keep the system running, but you, as a user, aren't paying anything.  The cost of actually providing a call is so small that it isn't worth trying to figure out how to charge people for it.

So, we could have a store and forward type of packet switching, on our cell phones, creating a network.  It would be more reliable than our current networks, because you would probably connect with at least half a dozen other cell phones in your vicinity, so that if one of them got turned off, or ran out of battery, or got stolen, or just fried itself to death, it wouldn't matter: your call would continue on the other five channels.  This is what is known as mesh networking, and it's the most reliable form of communications.  When companies set it up it's very expensive.  But it's actually ridiculously simple to get it to set itself up.  The technology underlying the Internet, called TCP/IP, already has provision for mesh networking built into it.  You actually have to dumb it down, and limit it, in order to prevent TCP/IP from connecting to everything around it, and using the channels that it can set up that way, to communicate with anyone and everyone.

So, we can start to set up PeopleNet, or PopulistNet.  These days, pretty much everybody is carrying a cell phone.  The cell phones have networking software and capabilities.  The cell phones all have radio communications channels, to communicate with cell phone towers, wifi connections, and even Bluetooth connections at very short range.  Without the right licenses, we can't use the communications channels the cell phone companies use, but we are free to use the others.

There are an awful lot of people who are already exploring the communications that can be done with cell phones.  There is a set of enthusiasts who work in an area called SDR, or software defined radio.  This means that we can use the computing and data processing capabilities of the computers in the cell phones, and we can make the radios in the cell phones use the channels that they can connect to, in a much wider range of capabilities.  We can change the frequencies of the radios, even if those frequencies are preset in the hardware, by using the preset hardware channels in synchrony with each other to actually broadcast on completely different frequencies.  We can send single data communication streams over multiple different radio channels.  This is not terribly sophisticated networking: it just needs a bit of extra administration.  And the computers are pretty good at keeping track of all of that.  And, over time, they will get much much better.  All we have to do is tell them what we want them to do.  And we already have the knowledge to do that.

So, we have the hardware that we need for PeopleNet.  And the software, to make it work, is either readily available, or in development.  We need to extend the networking capabilities of the phones, at the network layer.  We already know how to do it on the Internet, and we have the software to do it.  It needs only a slight modification to make it work on cell phones.  And then the cell phones can talk to each other, and set up their own networks, without even asking us.  They will just connect to everything they can, find out if the phone that they are connecting to is willing to share in the system, and establish whatever connections can be made.  And then start communicating, sending our email, downloading Mastodon, or setting up our voice over IP calls.  Whatever it is that we want them to do.

Remember how I told you that mesh networking was much more reliable?  And remember that contention model?  Well, the thing with PeopleNet is, it doesn't use the contention model.  You don't have to see a cell tower.  You don't have to be the first one to see the cell tower.  You don't have to fight with other phones to get a connection to the cell tower.  Under the contention model, the more people who have cell phones in a given area, the worse your chance of getting a channel, and the worst the quality of the channel, is.  But with PeopleNet, the more people there are in a given area, the better your reception is.  Because every person, every cell phone that they are carrying, is yet another opportunity to establish a link in the network.  The more links, the more mesh, the more reliability, and the better the quality, as well as the higher the bandwidth that you can use.  You know that fight about 4G and 5G?  The fact that you have to get a 5G phone because 5G gives you more bandwidth and faster access to the Internet?  Well you don't have to worry about that with PeopleNet.  The more people there are in any given area, the more channels you can set up, and the higher the bandwidth that you're going to get, regardless of which particular technology the cell phones want to sell you.

And it's not just cell phones.  Laptops can use, and participate, in this as well.  Older devices; older cell phones and laptops and wifi routers; may not have the power to become part of PeopleNet and still operate as normal, but they can be left plugged in behind desks and under couches, and help form the basic mesh that makes it all work.  As a matter of fact, any network-connected "thing" in the increasingly massive "Internet of Things" can participate and help out.  And a lot of those old devices can help us make the mesh more permanent and durable, and span longer distances.

There is work to be done on PeopleNet.  For one thing, we've probably got to convince some of the open source software people to start developing the necessary pieces that you can download, as apps, and put on your phones, to make it all work.  We've got to have some agreement as to which radio communications frequency bands we're going to use.  We're going to want to avoid flooding wifi networks, and jamming the use of wifi signals, because of what we're doing with PeopleNet.  And, one of the big things, we got to find some way of securing this, since, like the Internet and its inception, it's designed for availability, and not for confidentiality.  But these are areas that we can work on.

Oh, and remember: the Internet was not built by the telcos, as much as they would like you to forget that fact.  The Internet was built by a bunch of grad students who, individually, wanted to do interesting things, and were willing to cooperate and willing to use common protocols and interfaces.  We don't have to build PeopleNet all at once.  We just have to get started in individual areas.

There are other parts of PeopleNet that still need some development.  Certain aspects of networking will have to be extended or refined.  The individual hops are shorter than usual, and timing considerations are unlikely to be of any use.  In addition, the path length is going to be much much longer than is normally the case in networking situations for TCP/IP, and routing tables such as open shortest path first are likely to run into problems in that regard.  Therefore some kind of heuristic will need to be addressed in terms of the path length and routing decisions based on that.  It may be that new types of network decisions will need to be created or implemented.

It may be that a cheat, or compromise, in the form of a connection to the nearest hot spot, and then dumping the data onto the existing Internet, may need to be accomplished in the short term, for early adoption.  However, there is a danger, in pursuing this path, in the case of designing some kind of protocol which will not be able to transfer to a purely PeopleNet networking and routing system.

So, let's get to work.  The sooner we start, the sooner we put the telcos out of business.

Listening (part 2)

Some more on listening. 

One of the ways to learn how to listen, is to teach.  Oh, you find that surprising?  Do you think that a teacher just talks, and doesn't need to listen?  Nonsense.  If you are teaching, you have to keep on checking.  You have to keep on checking, to see if people understand.  And, since nobody in a class wants to be the idiot who doesn't understand, most people in a class aren't going to ask questions, even if there's something they don't understand.

You have to listen, really listen, if they do ask a question.  You've got to listen to the question, and then you've got the parse the question that they ask.  Or, particularly if they don't ask a question, you've got the parse any comments that they make.

You can't just answer the question that they have asked.  You have to think about that question.  Does it result from a simple factual misunderstanding, or ignorance?  Or does it result from a more profound misunderstanding of what you are talking about?  Is it just a missing fact that has prompted this question, or are they completely on the wrong track?  You've got to figure that out.  And to figure that out you really got to listen.

And you really have to listen if they make a comment.  Don't think of this comment as just an ignorant contribution, made by somebody who knows less about this than you do.  Of course they know less about this than you do.  Otherwise why are you the instructor and they are in the audience?  You have to listen to their comments, and critically analyze it.  Is this comment correct?  More to the point, is this comment just a restatement of something that you have already covered?  There's two possible problems if it is: the first is that the commenter is wasting the class's time, the second is, are they really certain that they've got the material?

If they are just restating what you have just said, to affirm, to themselves, that that was what you said, you need to confirm, and affirm, that that point is correct.  You need to affirm it for them, but you also need to affirm it for some of the rest of the class, who may be having the same difficulty.  You also have to think, and make note, that you may have to rework how you are presenting the material for this particular topic or issue.  If this person is having a problem, then maybe others are having the same problem.  And maybe that's your fault.

So you have to listen, not only to the comment that is being made, but to their body language as you affirm it, possibly restate it, and, if it was a question, answer the question.  Are they comfortable with your answer, or are they just as confused as they were before?

Remember the old cliche: you have one mouth and two ears.  When you are teaching, you do more listening than talking.  At least, you do if you are in any way a competent teacher.  You have to listen.  You have to listen all the time.  You have to listen to the nonverbal stuff.  You have to listen to facial expressions.  You have to listen to body language.  Maybe the facial expression is telling you that they are confused.  Then you've got work to do.  Maybe the body language tells you that they have given up and tuned out.  Then you've *really* got work to do.  You have lost that audience member.  And it is much harder to get that person back than it was to get them there in the first place.  So you should have been listening earlier, when their facial expression indicated that they were confused.  By now, they are not only confused, but have concluded that you do not know what you were talking about, and, therefore, there is no point in them listening to you.  You've got a heck of a lot of work to do at that point.  And if one person is sitting in the front with their arms crossed (and maybe their ankles crossed too: then you're *really* in trouble), then there are probably other people, in rows further back, who aren't giving you that feedback, but have given up, and you've lost them, too.

So, listen.  Listen all the time.  And you cannot listen when you are talking.  It's a physiological fact.  When you're thinking about what you're saying you are not listening.  When you are speaking, you are drowning out anything that your ears can hear.  When you are thinking about what you are going to say next, you cannot process an interpret any indications from them.  So, stop talking.

You need to stop talking, and look around the room, and assess how it's going, on a regular basis.  You've got to ask if there are any questions.  That probably won't prompt them to ask questions, but it does give you a few seconds of time (and, some time, count them off to yourself.  Count off ten seconds, before you speak again.  It seems like a long time to you, doesn't it?  But, believe me, they will hardly notice.)  Listen to the body language.  Listen to the facial expressions.  Of course, they are not making any noise.  You are not actually listening with your ears.  But, take that time, and assess the feedback that they are giving you.  Because they are giving you feedback.  And you need that feedback.

Okay, now that we have covered that in a teaching situation, let's think about it in terms of a normal conversation.  Or an *ab*normal conversation, when you think you are helping or counselling someone.  Same cliche: you've got one mouth and two ears.  In fact, that cliche is even more important now.  You are not the teacher.  You do not have a mandated, and, generally, agreed upon, right to speak more than the other person.  In fact, it's entirely possible, that you shouldn't say anything at all.  It might be preferable for you not to say anything at all.  The only thing you need to say, is something that proves that you have heard, and understood, what they have been saying, if they start getting uncomfortable with the fact that you're not saying anything.  (Particularly if they already know that you are the type of person who talks too much.  And we all talk too much.)

So, listen.  Listen as if your life depended on it.  Listen as if *their* life depended on it!  It may very well do so.  Remember all those people, related to, or friends with, someone who committed suicide?  And they all say the same thing: if only there had been some indication!  If only I had known that they felt that way!  Well, have you asked them?  I mean, you can't just flat out ask them are you going to commit suicide.  I'm pretty sure they're going to say no to that.  But ask them how they are.  If they say fine, ask them how they *really* are.  Ask how their day has been so far.  In detail.  And don't be afraid to not talk, when they stop talking.  Silence is very powerful.  Silence is painful, and we are all afraid of it.  So if there is a sudden silence in the conversation, and you don't rush into fill it, they may start talking again.  And this time, they might tell you something interesting.

You have to really listen.  As I've noted before, most of us just listen until we find something that we can say, the next time they stop talking.  And then we stop listening, because it's absolutely vital, for us (not for them), that we remember what we needed to say.

First off, that's insulting.  They already know what they are telling you.  They have already thought about it.  For more than a split second.  If you think that in the split second since they said it, you have come up with some absolutely fantastic insight into their character, personality, and process of depression or grieving or whatever the problem is, you think they're stupid.  And they're not stupid.  Whatever you think you're going to say, they probably already thought of it.  What you are going to say is probably a cliche anyway.

Okay, let's assume it's not a cliche.  Let's assume it actually is important.  And let's assume that it's important enough that you need to tell it to them.  You don't need to talk to them *right now*.  At the beginning of the conversation, ask if you can have a pad and a pencil with you.  Say that they can have whatever you write down while this conversation is going on, at the end of the conversation.  And, when you come up with some blinding insight, that you were smart enough to figure out, and they were too stupid to, you write down a couple of words to remind you of that vital truth.  A vital truth is not going to take more than a couple of words.  And then keep listening.  Because what they are saying is more important than anything you are thinking.  They are the person in pain.  They know the symptoms.  They know the causes.  They know what has been happening in their life.  In detail.  You don't.  Part of what's going on here, with them talking and you listening, is that they are, themselves, clarifying and formulating what they have been feeling.  It is more important that they do this, than that they listen to cliches from you.  Cliches from you are just going to interrupt their train of thought.  You are going to be scrambling, what they need to clarify.

Shaw voicemail

Shaw, when it provides home phone "service," tells you that you can create up to ten voicemail mailboxes.

It doesn't tell you that it has already created one.

And turned it on.

With settings that ensure that your own answering machine (yes, my children.  God created answering machines, before She created voicemail) never gets a chance to take a message.

And with settings that don't give you *any* indication at all that it might have, say, taken a half a dozen messages in the past week, and not told you about any of them.

Shaw also doesn't give you any indication of how you might access voicemail.  I still have no idea how to get at messages by phone, and only discovered all of this when, just now, I thought I might have a go at Shaw's brain-dead Website, and see if it would tell me how to turn on voicemail, only to find that it was turned on, and had been taking messages.  (Including some rather important ones.)  Which I haven't known about until now.

Ceterum censeo Shaw delendam esse.

Joy

As I have said elsewhere (or, as I have written elsewhere, but possibly not posted yet), our homework from grief group this week is to figure out what does, or will, bring us joy.  As noted, this is difficult for me

I'm working on it.  Its possibly going to be a difficult weekend to do this particular piece of homework, because it's Remembrance Day.  This year Remembrance Day falls on a Friday, so that makes it a long weekend.  It's also that weekends have generally been a problem.  Sunday is a particular problem, but weekends in general tend to have fewer activities.  Fewer activities means I don't have a specific reason to get out, and therefore it's sometimes more difficult, just sitting home alone, in the silence.

Remembrance Day used to be of a bit of a big deal, with Gloria.  For twenty-five years, Gloria was the featured soloist at a Remembrance Day service in a particular old folks home.  So, we had some place to go for a Remembrance Day service.  And it was quite meaningful.  We got to know the old veterans, and it was quite touching to have confirmation of what we were losing, as the last First World War veteran died, and then the last Second World War veteran died, and then the last Korean War veteran died.  It made Remembrance Day that much more significant.  Even after the ones who had participated in the wars died, simply the fact that we had known them, and they were now lost to us, made the day, and the ceremony, much more significant.

But that was then.  And this is now, without Gloria.  Remembrance Day is still meaningful for me, but I can't seem to find motivation to participate in any of the services.

So, this weekend is just a long weekend.  And a long weekend is just lonelier.

On the other hand, a weekend, particularly one without too many requirements, gives me an opportunity to get some work done.  There is writing to be done, and research to be explored.  There is unpacking still to do.  There is still some cleanup and organization to do, which I have not been able to do while I've been fighting with the utilities.  So, it's not as if I don't have anything to do.  It's just that all of it is stuff that you do by yourself.

And there still isn't any joy.  I mean, I *could* find joy in bingeing out, but that would kind of wreck the diet, as ridiculous as it is.  It's hard to find joy in bingeing, when the whole time you are stuffing yourself you are also thinking, "I'm going to be paying for this for the next few weeks." Oh, joy.  I suppose having a long weekend, with little to do, does provide more of an opportunity for a long soak in a hot tub, which various events have often prevented, in recent weeks.  (People *will* plan events for evenings.  I have no idea why ...)

I went to the Remembrance Day service today, more to remember Gloria than the actual veterans, because of  doing the services over the years at the Lodge.  And then, even after she couldn't sing for Haro Park's services, I would always record the national service, at the national monument, for her, and we would watch it.

By the time I got there, the place was packed, so I didn't actually stay for the service, because, of course, the local politicians were making their speeches.  But, a while later I went down to the legion, and spoke to a few people there.  So, today was surprisingly triggering.  But generally okay.