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.

McDonald's and health

So, I'm at the McDonald's, ordering coffee.  As previously noted, the staff person has a problem with the amount of sugar.  This time she takes it to a bit of extreme, commenting three times on sugar being that amount of sugar being bad for my health.  It's bad for your health she says.

My immediate reaction, of course, is, "You work at McDonald's, and you're lecturing me about my health?"

Loneliness

I am frustrated, pretty much to the point of tears.  Literally.

It started because my pensions have not come in.  This is not a big deal.  I have money in the bank.  But I wanted to check with the government to see if anything was wrong.  So, I tried to sign in to Service Canada.

First I tried with the bank account.  That didn't work because Scotiabank is somehow not available for whatever needs to go on.

So then I tried with the BC services card.  This is supposed to be one step authentication.  It's not.  Service Canada decided to ask me for a bunch of security questions, some of which I can't even remember answering.  So, of course, I got something wrong somewhere in there and it wouldn't let me in.  But then it said to change my profile.  So I started through that process.  But it wanted a bunch more security questions, this time for me to give answers to be used in the future.  So I did that.  It didn't like some of my answers because none of the answers are supposed to be the same.  So I changed the questions until the answers weren't all the same, and then it decided that something wasn't the same as what was on file.

Of course I can't call anybody because they only answer the phones Monday to Friday.

Later on, I ended up standing outside a church, waiting for someone to show up for an event which I had been told and confirmed was going to happen, and where nobody ever showed up.  And feeling that, if I died right then and there, it would be OK with me.

The fact that I am frustrated to the point of tears by this trivial and stupid process seems to illustrate how little reserves of cope I am running on right now.

* * *

I suspect that my meltdown, a week and a half ago, has primarily to do with loneliness.  Loneliness is a major issue with grief.  It is far stronger than can simply be explained by the loss of one, albeit primary, relationship.  It almost seems to extend to relationship in general.  And those who are bereaved are sometimes desperate to fix it.  It is almost a cliche that dad, having lost mom, gets into an inappropriate relationship with some bimbo, and marries her with an indecent haste.

So loneliness is quite intense, and I have spoken  of it before.  In regard to the hypothesis of grief being a primary driver of the misbehavior in during the pandemic, the loneliness is an explanation for the rise of cults, and the increased followers for conspiracy theories, during that period.

I am lonely.  I am intensely lonely .  This is not an area that I am well equipped to understand.  What little I know of emotions, I learned from Gloria.  I don't think we ever discussed anything in regard to loneliness.  So, it could be that I am badly failing to understand or analyze this properly.

I do not completely understand the needs involved in socialization.  This involves emotion and psychology, two areas where I have limited experience and knowledge.  But we need something.  Cope?  Social energy?  Empathy?  Behaviourists would talk about positive reinforcement.  (It's not just jelly beans.)  Transactional analysts would talk about "warm fuzzies."  Whatever it is, I am running low.  L says that I am frantic, and possibly I am.  I am "putting out" into the community, as I did in Delta, and hoping to get some "return on investment" (which may sounds weird when talking about social or spiritual areas) before I completely run out of ... whatever it is.  And shut down completely.  Never to start up again.

Recent discussions in this area have tended to rely on the differences between introverts and extroverts, and suggests that introverts do not have the same kinds of needs for socialization.  I do not think that this is fully true.  There is a difference in the intensity of the need, or possibly the quantity of the need, in regard to the difference between introverts and extroverts.  Maybe extroverts get what they need from the quantity of socialization, and introverts get it from the quality of socialization.  However, even introverts do have needs in regard to socialization.  I do not know what the needs are, but they are there.  I am, primarily, an introvert.  So was Gloria.  (And, yet again, I first wrote that, "So is Gloria.")  However, we both had certain needs with regard to socialization.

I am lonely.  I am away from my community.  (If I ever had any.)  I have twice been ripped out of any idea of community, and placed in a new location, in the past year.  When I moved to Delta, I realized that I would need something in regard to socialization.  I am not equipped to formalize what that need is.  I find it hard even to describe it.  However, I do know that it is a real need.  I did put a lot of effort into rebuilding some kind of community.  I went church shopping.  I not only looked for a church to attend, but got involved, in a very intense way, in the activities of the churches I attended.  I helped out with community dinners.  I helped out with clean up days.  I helped out with special events.  I know that it is important to be involved in this level of activity, so that, while working with people, you can assess their capabilities and personalities on a much deeper level than is likely to be available for analysis over superficial conversations during a coffee time after the service.  I also know that it is important to volunteer, and to look for opportunities to help, rather than simply demanding that other people address your needs.  For one thing, nobody has any particular motivation to address your needs, if they don't know you.  For another, your needs can, sometimes, be addressed by helping others.  This business of the requirements for, and benefits from, socialization can be complex.

I did not confine my attempts at socialization to churches.  I attended community and arts events.  That did not really result in any particular benefit.  The most successful non-church area, was in volunteering for Deltassist.  I became part of the garden crew, and, although I had very little gardening experience, I did quickly find a place as "Rob the watering guy."  Anybody can do the watering: it just takes time.  So, I did the watering, while those who had experience in gardening did the more sophisticated tasks.  But, watering was important, particularly during the drought this summer, so, I did become an important part of the gardening crew.  I made a contribution, and I had a purpose.

Having a purpose can be part of the importance of socialization.  Victor Frankel's book about "Man's Search for Meaning" raises this issue: we are all looking for meaning, or, to put it another way, purpose.  So it's important to have a purpose, to give meaning to your life.  Without it, we are in danger of depression.  I know this: I have fought depression for over 50 years.

I got a bit of purpose over the past few days.  Sunday, one church asked me to help with the sound board.  Monday, I got to be the narrator for another church's Christmas play.  Maybe it'll be enough for the next few weeks?