We’re all going to be Civilians

A hodgepodge of semi-errant thoughts is what happens when the mind, having a mind of its own, cannot quite slow down to idle.

In the End We’re all going to be Civilians

In a rare moment of humility that’s what a general might say to himself or maybe even loudly to those who served with him, as he contemplates the end of his last assignment. It too could be what a CEO or a once highly driven executive would say at the inevitable twilight of his or her career.  Civilian – a word only associated with “one not in the military” – might as well mean an ordinary folk, a man or woman on the street, a dude, a Joe Blow, a hypothetical average worker, a retiree.

Indeed, that is what life is all about for everyone.  No matter how high up we get our career to soar, how much wealth we’ve accumulated, how much power we’ve attained, we will all get to be civilians in the end.  The power gained is all temporary.  The CEO will soon be an ex-CEO.  The same fate awaits the filing clerk and the forklift operator at the end of their final shift. Ordinarily, we will be led to believe that the CEO will be a far greater civilian than the ones whose earnings were 1/600 of his but we will be wrong. The power to hire and fire secretaries, assistants, high powered VPs and managers that were a red hot symbol of authority and privilege shall become a darkened ember that is now reduced to firing the cook, the gardener and the pool guy.  That is a far greater step down from what authority the CEO used to have compared to someone who could not fire anyone. That is because the latter had not lost any power at all, when there was none to begin with. The CEO had lost far too much but still he will live far more comfortably, his vacations and his homes and his stock portfolio, and all things that indicate wealth will be intact.  Yes indeed, but those are not that shall be measured.  In fact, it will never even count. One day we will all, without exception, step through that threshold, into the other divide, and we will all be assessed as mere civilians, where name, rank and serial number will neither matter nor be required.

There is a yardstick somewhere that will not measure the accumulation of wealth, social honors, plaques and awards. The universe is much too big to be bothered with such trifles because those material things will all turn out to be trivial at best or worse, invisible in the vastness of the cosmos. The whole rigmarole that is the saga of life can simply be divided into three reels of film for those fortunate to get to their golden years: Growing up, earn a livelihood and care for family, then retire into the sunset. The film will be reviewed by the Ultimate Critic. How we chose who will critique us from when we first became aware of our responsibility to the world around us and conducting our life accordingly is what determined “how we lived”.  From The Reviewer’s point of view we will all be treated as civilians.

Is the Goal to Simplicity Complicating Our Lives?

There is no turning back. The train of technology had been and still is speeding faster and faster, hurtling down the winding tracks that endlessly lead to “what will they think of next?” to simplify our lives and make things easier over and over, one new thing after another at an ever increasing pace. The skeptics won’t believe it anymore when told that this or that will simplify things. The question really is whether all things that are supposed to make things better really do, and do they get any easier to use. 

It took a very long time from writing with quill pen and ink to the first manual typewriter, then to the first electric one.  It was decades and decades of copying parchment after parchment to publish or publicize anything till the Gutenberg press. But by comparison, technology wheezed by from the first mimeograph machine to Xerox and then on to Laser printers. The jump to 3D printers is akin to a Rolls Royce Phantom VIII leap-frogging over the horse and buggy.  It took many thousands of years from when communication developed from grunts and hisses and facial expressions to sign and hand gestures to the first repeatable vocalizations that preceded language. Long distances brought the smoke signals and tom-toms and the first telegraph.  By comparison the speed of development from the first telephone call to broadcast radio to satellite phones and TV to GPS to smart phones to Alexa and Echo was a blur. 

It is understandable that knowledge building upon knowledge is responsible for the rapid development of technology so that artificial intelligence (AI) must be engaged to help out. AI’s advantage is that computer chips and every conceivable algorithms that go with them can be added almost ad infinitum to machines and devices, whereas, there is not much we can do to add more mass to our brain or increase the folds and creases on it. Elon Musk mused about the dangers of AI but that train of thought too had already left the station.

Did all these technology that come like rolling waves, one after another, simplify life? No question, some aspects of our lives have gotten better but “simplify” is not exactly the word most folks have in mind. In psychology, “Reactivity is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals alter their performance or behavior due to the awareness that they are being observed.” In the following example we are presented with something totally the opposite of it – a purely modern phenomenon that is the absence of awareness of the world outside of the 3 by 5 inch screen: A young woman about to enter the gym looking down at her phone, tapping at the keys, suddenly stopped right in front of the glass door. Still looking down at the phone, she remained standing there, head hunched over the device, oblivious to people wanting to exit the gym. Fortunately, this one did not end like some of those youtube videos, because someone about to push out the door patiently waited until the woman looked up.  How many such similar cases of unexplained states of oblivion had often been the cause of major traffic accidents, some resulting in fatalities? 

We’ve seen photos of children, people from all walks of life looking down at devices on their laps held by opposable thumbs while sporting events are going on; public speakers are on stage; church services underway, etc.  People don’t talk to each other at waiting areas anymore. Where it used to provide brilliant hues to interpersonal relationships, the art of conversation will seem like a worn out faded canvass; texting is the new writing; spelling and sentence construction a few years ago will in fifty years take on the same distinction of linguistic antiquity as Shakespeare’ language is today, where adverbs and modifiers have become extinct, and grammar shall be less popular than Latin or Sanskrit. One of the things that did become simple is that “so” and “like” are now the go-to words to start a sentence, whole messages not exceeding 140 characters are the driving force behind the inevitable devolution of phrases and full sentences into acronyms.

But for all the capability that these modern conveniences offer, navigating through the functions and features seem to far exceed the average person’s ability to cope.  It is a reasonable bet that the average person utilizes less than half of the capabilities available in every modern device (from smart phones to printers to digital cameras); and by the time that person crosses the threshold of 50%, he or she is buying a newer device with the latest and the greatest features.  Then the learning curve starts all over again.  The bottom line is that if all these modern devices, including the so called plug and play, are that easy to operate, why is there still tech support for every device?  It seems that for every little feature added to any device, the complexity rises with every additional dollar these machines cost over the previous model (which still works just fine).  These complexities have become technological and emotional burdens that face every consumer - cussing and moaning at every frustrating moment towards these uncaring, unsympathetic machines and devices. 

  

Water

We all do take certain things for granted.  And there are quite a number of them but a friend of mine suggested this: Water.  He lives in Florida, the sunshine State, with its famous and highest producing aquifer system, so water should be farthest from every Floridians’ mind but Jim is concerned, should he be?  

Half the world probably does not worry too much about it for as long as water comes out of the faucet. When people from half of the globe go to the grocery store they’d still get their favorite pack or any variety of energy-vitamin-electrolyte laden versions of it. It cannot be said of the other half. I am loosely rounding off the half and half here, guesstimating actually, but we are aware that there are places on earth that are just too parched, where people are too thirsty, where getting clean drinking water is a constant preoccupation, a daily struggle, where tap water is as foreign as indoor plumbing.

Every creature depends on water. We can survive for three weeks without food but only a few days without water. One estimate is 100 hours on good weather but much shorter under a broiling sun.  Without air, 3 minutes and a few seconds are all the average human body can withstand; much shorter under stress.  On the basis of that we know the two things that our lives literally depend on.

 

Water – a simple molecule made up of just two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen – is the universe’s gift to any living creature at the only place we know to harbor life, probability that life exists somewhere else in the universe notwithstanding.  Of course, it may not be such a unique gift since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the entire cosmos, and the simplest, with one proton and one electron; the only element without a neutron in it. Oxygen, the third most abundant in the universe makes up about 20% of our atmosphere but it is one of the most reactive –it will combine with almost every other element to make all kinds of compounds.  The combination that matters to all earth life forms is that of oxygen grabbing two atoms of hydrogen and voila we have water.  It is the most pivotal phenomenon in nature if we were to make one up.  Science fiction aside, it is safe to assume that if there are other life forms in distant planets in alien solar systems, life will have to have evolved just like ours – dependent on water.  Why hydro sulfuric acid for blood, as in the movie “Alien”, when water-based plasma works best?  That’s what makes water the most versatile universal solvent, the wonder material, Creation’s miraculous substance from which all life must originate.

Cosmologists are fond of saying that earth is the goldilocks planet – not too hot, not too cold, where water ordinarily exists as a liquid. What makes it perfectly right is that 75% of its surface is covered with water.  What is even far more astounding is that water, with its hydrogen and oxygen, is the precursor to life, growth and propagation. Throw in carbon to the mix in countless combinations with just a handful of other “minor” elements and we get plants and creatures from protozoa to penguins, anteaters and antelopes, hummingbirds and humans – all carbon based life forms. Amino acids – organic compounds that make up proteins – are essentially compounds of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen linked by atomic bonds in myriad combinations. DNA structures and markers of DNA, popularly labeled G, A, T, C, are each made up of hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (which happens to be 70% of earth’s atmosphere).  Carbohydrates and protein and water are what we are.  “Proteins are polymers made by joining together small molecules called amino acids. Amino acids and proteins are made mainly of the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen”. 

The environment is predominantly water.  We are 60% water. Where water is scarce in desert areas, creatures survive there because morning dew is present.  Water, which can exist as a solid, liquid and vapor, has this one other more miraculous property, not shared by other substances – it actually expands, increasing its volume, under extremely low temperature, i.e. when it turns into ice. Intuitively, substances shrink in volume when subjected to cold temperatures.  That is a critical property for water/ice. Ice therefore will float on water, thus preventing ponds, rivers and lakes from turning entirely into a solid mass. The layer of floating ice turns into a surface barrier, a blanket if you will, on top, so that water underneath will remain liquid so fish and other living things below will survive winter.

Water is a vivid representation of our life.  We’re made mostly of it, we depend on it, we’ve adapted to the environment with it. Our history of survival throughout eons of climate changes we owe to water. Here we are worrying about climate change.  Our ancestors had survived and adapted to several extreme climate events for thousands of years.  There had been several ice ages alternating with extreme global warming.  Survival of all living things depended on water.  Why are we not, therefore, more vocal about conserving water, keeping it clean, protecting its sources, and insuring its worldwide availability for every living thing that needs it. Shouldn’t we be fighting for the protection and conservation of water? 

But no, because so much energy, so much talk, so much money is expected of nations to “fight” climate change instead.