Hyena: "I Have A Few More Questions to Ask Charles Darwin"

It had been weeks since the hyena and the lone male lion spoke.  The lion is still by himself after the banishment from his pride.  The hyena, though a member of a cackle of about a dozen others of his ilk, would take time to be away, partly in search of food and looking to see if he could run into the proud lion once more.  The hyena was actually intrigued by their last conversation and his curiosity made him ask for more enlightenment from the lion whom he now respected more than he was prepared to admit.

Again, the male lion was startled as the hyena, whom he didn't readily recognize, approached from the front in a clear line of his sight - an indication of harmless respect  from the opportunist predator and top scavenger of the savannah. The lion did his obligatory growl that he expected to discourage most creatures he encountered; instead, it was met with a respectful and deferential response from the hyena.

Hyena:  It's me, from a few weeks ago, remember?

Lion: Oh no, not you again! Why can't you just leave me alone?

Hyena: Nice to see you too. I'm glad you're still by your lonesome. Can't find a mate, can you?  Not brave or strong enough to dislodge a leader of another pride?

Lion: What? No! I'm just not that interested in taking over any responsibility at the moment.  I'm young and I  still have plenty of time ahead of me. Not interested whatsoever, not really in any kind of leadership position right now.

Hyena: I see. Well, that's good because the two of us are alike in a way.  I too don't want any leadership role at the moment either.

Lion:  Oh, give me a break. As if I don't know that in your group, what do you call it?

Hyena: A cackle.  We call our group of wonderful hyenas a cackle.

Lion: Your cackle - I hate that description of yourselves - is headed by a female.  You have no chance in purgatory of ever leading other hyenas in a matriarchal organization.  A cackle, yes, that's a great name for one dominant female-led group. Although it's better than a "murder of crows" or "kettle of vultures", your favorite. A cackle, ha!

Hyena: Maybe, I'll be the first male to lead a cackle of my own.  Yes, if I want, I too can be a leader.

Lion: All right, have at it. We'll see if you survive when you try.  Anyway, good to see you again, but perhaps this is the last time if you stay on that ambitious path. Goodbye and good luck.

Hyena: Wait, wait. Since our last meeting, a few more questions to ask Charles Darwin came popping into my head.  I'd like to run them by you.

Lion: Oh, no.  Please, I was on my way to some leftover zebra I hid in the bushes two days ago.

Hyena: Yeah, it was still there this morning.  I had a good fill, really.  But, I don't know.  There were a group of wild dogs - your favorite, I remember - scouting for a free meal just a few miles away.  If they get to it, it will all be gone.  The good news is that you and I can hunt together for another zebra or some other prey.

Lion:  There is no way you and I will hunt together, okay? Aside from that being a huge blot on my reputation, such an event will forever destroy the well ordered system that governs this universe.  It could destroy the entire space-time continuum of creation. No, no, perish that thought, okay?

Hyena: Okay, okay.  But enough with the heavy words. I didn't understand any of what you just said. We're just having a conversation as we walk together.

Lion: We can walk silently, you know.

(Ignoring what the lion just said but still walking along side-by-side, the hyena continued on..) 

Hyena: The one that puzzles me are woodpeckers.  These birds must have the strongest beak in the entire bird kingdom, why do they insist on banging it  against a tree to get to a worm? Why can't they just swoop over a scorpion, a centipede or caterpillar that are out in the open, like most self-respecting birds do.  At the rate they are doing it, don't they get a splitting headache and blurred vision from all the hammering?  Bird brain has not approached quite the level of natural silliness that these woodpeckers have sunk to. 

Lion: Why don't you leave the birds alone.  Last time, you talked about vultures.  Don't you remember what I said? All creatures have a purpose.  They do what they do because that's what they were created to be.

Hyena: There you go again with your creation theory and creator thing.

Lion: As to be expected, you are just one incorrigibly slow learner; perhaps one that will never ever learn, at all!  Like I said, every creature was created with a purpose.  Each created to be good at what it does.  For example, worms that bury themselves into a tree could be harmful to the tree or they use it to hide as they develop to become mature insects that will be even more harmful to other trees or insects.  The woodpecker is the one to get to them by using their beaks to strike against  the tree trunks at twenty times per second. Their entire anatomy - you do know what anatomy means, right?

Hyena: There you go with your condescension again. Yes, I know anatomy, and physiology even.  So, please go on.

Lion: Don't be so sensitive. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I am connecting, okay?  Where was I? Okay, the woodpecker's anatomy is such that their brain is encased by a spongy bone structure that  also acts as a shock absorber and strong neck muscles to provide striking power to their beaks and at the same time acting like a restraining elastic belt on each rebound from the strike.  This all happens at breakneck speed, so to speak.  It is one of the marvels of creation, paved by the wonders of successive improvements that took thousands, even millions of years to achieve.  But in the Creator's eyes, time was merely a blink.  And you know what, woodpeckers have no competition from other birds that can't get to the worms behind the tree bark. You too is a product of those many improvements.  You have one if not the strongest bite in the animal kingdom.  You scare me actually.

Hyena: So, okay I got that. Now, why is it that your creator did not make me more pleasant to look at - your own words by the way?  You're a predator, but why are you pleasing to look at? Muscular and an attractively domineering look, a well proportioned physique and a mane of beauty.  While, in my case, my front legs are longer than my hind legs, which makes me look like a pygmy giraffe from the shoulder down, but with a short neck and one twentieth the height.  Why?

Lion: I see.  Your sensitive nature again. Well, your menacingly unpleasant look only a hyena mother can love has a purpose. 

Hyena: Yeah?

Lion: Look, you are for the most part a scavenger that is very good at it, and not quite the hunter you think you are. Will the other predators be scared away from the prey they fought so hard to catch  when you and your cackle approach if you have the look of a gentle fawn or innocent face of a rabbit?  One quick look at you, with a face like that, and more often than not they are likely to give up rather than defend their dinner, right?  You were the one who described the vulture to have such an ugly head. Well, there you have it. Even us lions are known to give up when ten, twenty of you show up to crash our dinner.

Hyena: Maybe that's true. I defer to your wisdom but is that fair?

Lion: Look, surviving, especially here on the savannah, is not about fairness.  It is all about the last meal.  Who ate yesterday, last night or this morning gets to do it again later and will continue to do so as long as they can, until it is no longer so. Fairness does not have a role in the equation of life where the answer is always zero. Think about that.

Hyena:  Again, that's much too deep for me.  How about snakes?  How do you defend what they do?

Lion: Is that another Darwin question of yours?

Hyena: Snakes have been bugging me too.  They used to have four legs, I'm told. Then they lost them and what's with the long body that slithers.  They are clearly not fast movers.  No arms to hold down their prey, they don't chew, they swallow whole whatever creature they catch. How do they enjoy the eating experience?  They're not likeable.  Not with the flicking fork-tongue.  And what's with the hiss?  Oh, and what's with the rattle on some of them.  It's a puzzle that they still exist at all.  What say you?

Lion: You know ignorance is forgivable, it can be tolerated even.  But questions like that and why snakes exist at all are mightily beyond the pale. And, of course, I forgive you.

Hyena:  The insults again. And why do I ever want to continue to talk with you? I was looking for you for weeks because somehow you seem to know a lot and you have all the right answers for everything and I respect you.  This is what I get.

(That's the hyena's trump card - flattery, and the lion is always softened by it.)

Lion: You knew that I didn't mean to be insulting all the time but here you are.  Well, I apologize.  Okay?

Hyena: I accept.  But you can make the apology more sincere by just answering my question.  You know I can't get Darwin to answer. Be the bigger lion, okay.

(Another hyena trick that works)

Lion: Okay, we can talk about snakes but before I get to that, don't say that you are puzzled that snakes continue to exist at all.  I will have you know that they are one of the most successful species that ever lived, specially for one that you pointed out to not have any hands or feet. Have you heard of a place called Florida?

Hyena: No, but I'm sure you do and you will tell me right about now.

Lion: Burmese pythons, a species of big snakes, not native to Florida, are now the dominant predator in the area. It is threatening to kill off many native species there in such a short time from when it got there.  And it is even threatening the very existence of what used to be the dominant predator there - the alligator.

Hyena: How did the python get there?

Lion: Probably a few humans who had their pet snakes  got too big to keep, and they released them into the Florida swamps or some other wild areas around. The python adapted well, reproduced and preyed on the local wildlife that were defenseless to the invader.  Before people realized it, the snakes had become the top predator.

Hyena: That was irresponsible for humans to do, right?

Lion: Often, it is that.  You see, they are equipped with bigger brains by the Creator to have dominion over everything on this earth.

Hyena: Please, let us not get into that again.  Must everything go back to your creation thing.

Lion: Look.  You and I do not harbor malice towards each other, or towards all others. Humans .. why don't we go back to your question about snakes. 

Hyena:  Forget the snakes.  Keep talking about humans.

Lion: What? You had these questions in your head and now you want to know about humans?

Hyena: Why did your creator make humans?  You were the one who said we, all animals, do not hold malice against one another.  Each one doing what it is meant to do.  But humans that you said have dominion over us get to do something like releasing snakes into their land? 

Lion: Look.  Humans have done a lot of good, okay.  Do you know that humans created this area that they call a nature preserve so as to protect us from the abuses of other humans? This huge area is protected to preserve everything to its natural order.  They did that.  Every now and then, like those few humans in Florida, some of them abandon the use of their brains and common sense to do something like they did with the python. Now, they're doing everything they can to correct the mistake by going after the invading creatures.  But it is a losing battle.  I think.

Hyena: Now, you just made me think of another question to ask Darwin. Actually, a question to ask your creator too, you'll have to agree.

Lion: Look, we're here.  The zebra, or parts of it, is still here.  I'm starving from all the talking.  Let's eat before the scavengers show up. Oh,  one of them is here already.

Hyena: Who?  Where?

Lion: I meant you. You are here, aren't you?

Hyena:  I'm still full from this morning. Wait, you just insulted me again, didn't you? Notice how much of the zebra's good nutritious parts are gone? I've been digesting them for sometime now.  But go ahead, please.

Lion: No more questions, okay?

Hyena: We can talk about  humans.

Lion:  That will be for another time.  Why don't you go and let me eat in peace?  Goodbye.

Hyena:  Promise? 

Lion: Promise what?

Hyena: That we'll talk again. Oh, and I need to know why dragonflies have such a weird lifestyle.

Lion:  Yes, be careful out there.  See you later.

P.S.: Again, I only ask for the reader to extract nothing more than their sense of humor when reading this musing. On the other hand, one may want to read between the lines from the perspective and viewpoints based on one's own philosophical experiences and ideals. Of course, we don't know if animals talk; but then again we don't know that they don't ether.  You see, information is a huge part of any creature's life, including our own.  In fact, the very existence of all creatures depend on how they process and use information.  Who are we to disregard what and how information is exchanged within species or between different species? 

We can ask too how many of you out there - dog and cat owners - who do talk to your pets and claim that your cat or dog actually understands what you're saying? Just something to ponder when "you have a moment or two to spare".

Of Mice and Men & The 1971 "Universe 25" Experiment

My apologies to George Steinbeck who wrote the novella, "Of Mice and Men", in 1937 about two American migrant workers during the depression. Then there was that 1971 bold experiment that involved mice, but except for that, the similarities end abruptly between the storyline of that novella and the famous (or infamous) 1971 laboratory observations.  However, both spoke profoundly to the conditions that did and could describe the trajectory of the human experience on one hand and the fate of civilization on the other.

Bold indeed, but I leave it to the reader's interpretation or criticism. However, one may either agree or disagree with what I write here because the reader will have to admit that there is little room for neutrality on the results of the experiment.

Pictured below (lower left) is a photo of John B. Calhoun who conducted the experiment.  His first experiments were with rats in the 40s and 50s; two decades later he used mice, using the same parameters, more or less.

John Calhoun created a rodent utopia, a perfect environment where the inhabitants were provided everything - plenty and never ending supply of food and water, temperature controlled living conditions that can only be described as heaven in a laboratory.

"Calhoun designed "Universe 25" as the ultimate rodent Eden. It was a 9ft x 4.5ft box, divided into compartments with ramps and tunnels leading to food, water, and nesting areas. Importantly, there was no shortage of resources—plenty of food and water, no predators, no disease. The only real limitation was space and social interaction".

He started with eight carefully selected healthy mice - four males and four females. 

"The mice population doubled approximately every 55 days. They thrived, reproduced rapidly, and for a while, everything looked like a furry utopian dream". 

Then by the 315th day the population reached 620. That was when things started to go wrong.

Everything went wrong indeed but even when viewed independently or applied generally, the conclusions were either indicatively comparable to the human conditions or not at all.  That was and still is the point of debate.

You see, "Despite ample food and water, the sheer density of mice led to a breakdown in social structures. The dominant males became increasingly aggressive, attacking subordinates and failing to protect their territories.

Some male mice, instead of fighting for dominance or territory, withdrew completely. They stopped interacting with others, grooming themselves obsessively, refusing to mate, and basically living the rodent equivalent of a hermit influencer life". 

However, beyond the physical boundaries there was something that caused the mice's behavior to devolve spectacularly downwards.  "Eventually, the entire population died out—not from starvation, not from predators, but from complete social dysfunction".

We can see why critics of the experiment simply attributed the problems to overpopulation.  Among humans, urbanization or increase of population densities, whether it is Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, Manila, or New York city are analogous to the experiment, in that the 40 square feet of area that limited the movement of the mice population is similar to urban centers being restricted to the finite geographic definitions of the cities; however, it is not just attributed to the natural perimeters but are due to the fact that centers of employment or availability of work was the main cause of the concentration of people.

The entire mice population in the experiment perished not from disease or external causes but from their inability to reproduce due to what the researchers identified as maternal breakdown or infant neglect by females "overwhelmed by the constant presence of other mice, abandoned their young. Some became aggressive, even killing their own offspring. Birth rates plummeted, and nurturing behavior broke down completely".

Just recently Elon Musk  said that "overpopulation is the most nihilistic lie ever told", falling birth rate could end civilization. On Oct 3, 2024 according to his earlier concern he declared on social media that declining global fertility rates "will lead to mass extinction of entire nations."

"The Rise and Fall of the Mouse Empire", the experimenters said, has a parallel equivalent in the history of humanity.

Four years ago I wrote, "All The World's A Stage (Apr. 7, 2012) and I quote, "and all the empires of men merely players; they have their exits and their entrances .. referring to the emergence and collapse of empires at various places around the globe in just the last four thousand or so years".

It was a quick look at history where, "the world's a stage for human conquest after conquest, followed by collapse after collapse - disintegrating into ashes in one place, followed by birth and emergence in another".

I quote once more from that musing, "About 2,300 years before Christ's birth was when the first "formally" recognized empire began. The Akkadian Empire arose from the region we know today as Iraq. As trajectories of empires go, that empire collapsed to be followed by others but always from another region.  The Hittite empire came into being in what is now Turkey, in 1600 B.C. The Assyrians from northern Iraq took it all back about three centuries later. Around that time, or maybe two generations later Rome was founded in 750 B.C."

Persia, what is now Iran, had its turn but not for very long, when Alexander The Great put an end to it but the lull lasted only for so long. You see the pattern. "For it was the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome" that summarizes the fate of all that followed.  The sun did finally set on the British empire, Spain had a good run and then here we are today - America. So far, it had far exceeded the average shelf life of all prior empires.  So far, but can it hold on?

Looking back again, we found that every empire that emerged and collapsed not once did one ever came back to regain its power and status.

I am writing this as a cautionary tale, not in any way a dreadful wish or condemnation but a plea for a re-examination of how and where this country used to be and perchance a fervent and hopeful prayer for the restoration of the values that made it great - a serious look at how  to break the curse of the 250-year average shelf life of all preceding empires. 

The good life as we typically define it is always relative to how others measure up. We've come up with the term, "standard of living" as a gauge upon which we measure what  a good life is and what is not but it begs the  question,  "compared to what or with whom?"

A lower middle class life in this country is easily far above the average upper class in many regions of the world where car ownership, a home with indoor plumbing and reliable utilities such as water and electricity are examples of privileges denied the general population. That is the reason that families and individuals are willing to leave their homeland to come here even if it means starting over mid-way through middle age or even older. Indeed, viewed from the lenses of the third world perspective, America is comparably utopian.  

America, not unlike those that preceded it, emerged from the strong values of generations of men and women who strove to free itself as a  colony, to create a nation, and achieved economic and military dominance that twice saved Europe from two world wars, and much of Asia during the Pacific war that ran concurrently with WWII. It was quite a feat.

But today, it faces a challenge not coming from the outside but from within itself. And like all empires that preceded it, it is approaching the "Universe 25" phenomenon that plagued the Roman and Greek empires if we must pick examples.  Italy and Greece used to be the seat of those empires.  We see only traces of their past grandeur in much of the world today but what is left of the original homeland are facsimiles of their power and influence.

Politically, America is now a divided nation.  Socially, it is being challenged from conserving its original ideals by new liberal ideologues who want to fundamentally change the capitalist-based system to a socio-economic equity focused system. It is so perplexing that the new breed of liberal politicians want to change something that had worked for over two centuries into something that is almost anathema to everything that made this country into a benevolent superpower (remember the two world wars it ended).

Empires always failed from within as soon as their population reached the zenith of affluence, overabundance of leisure from the privileges of the haves, followed by a precipitous breakdown in social ethics and behavior. 

What John Calhoun wanted to convey from his experiment was that human societies behaved not far too differently from mice that were provided everything as to have found little else to do with their time that used to be spent foraging for food, building their nests, protecting their territory, raising their young, etc. Socialism as proposed by a few politicians will only exacerbate it.

Calhoun concluded from his observations that mice, as with humans, when the sense of purpose, the activities to attain a goal is lost to the ease with which the basic needs are fulfilled, the mind is left to wander aimlessly.  He used terms to describe mice to have suffered from maternal breakdown, loss of nurturing behavior that led to complete social dysfunction, which seems to describe purely human flaws.

Critics, of course, will be quick to point out that such conclusions are a stretch.  Perhaps.  But we will have to ask, for example, why the rise in teenage hooliganism, blatant crowd-shoplifting only occurs in densely populated major cities like San Francisco, LA, and Washington D.C. but not in urban towns and farm land areas? Clearly these phenomenon do not happen in third world countries where excessive leisure time is absent.

What Calhoun pointed out further was that when overpopulation is not saddled by lack of the basic necessities (as with the mice experiment), coupled with family breakdowns, erosion of moral foundations, societal permissiveness, social media immersion, human behavior will sink to its lowest level.

Again, there is plenty to argue about or debate over.

Well, staying with goal as outlined at the top of every musing I write, I leave a lot of space "between the lines" for the reader, so you can take the time to ponder with me some of the un-ponderable and the whimsical and lightly thought provoking issues you did not have the time to consider but now you may want to look into because you have a moment or two to spare ..

"..It Can Repair Just About Anything".

1. Apology - "An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything". 

Lynn Johnston is a Canadian cartoonist, born on May 28, 1947, in Collingwood, Ontario. That makes her one of the earliest baby boomers, born right after WWII, just like many of the readers of this blog, not based on actual statistics but based on the readership of the subject matters of my musing that are popularly read;  I will have to assume.  So, she is a smart 78 year-old lady, seasoned with wisdom and real life's experiences.

Lynn Johnston is best known for her cartoon series, "For Better or For Worse".

The quote says a lot, perhaps, even says it all. 

The only thing I can add to it is what I wrote on March 28, 2019, "WE Should Know Better - Marriage Primer No. 1" - one advice I highlighted was about pre-emptying any apology before the need for it happens, I quote below what I wrote then:

Anticipation is better than preparation. Preparing for a defensive position after you did something wrong is exactly that - you are being defensive. But anticipating that you will somehow do something wrong and you are found out (and you will be) is being proactive. The best ever strategy ever put out by one honorable man is that of a husband who each morning  before ever doing anything is to look into his wife's beautiful eyes, long before make up and blush-on were applied, and say, "I'm sorry". At the first instance he did that his wife naturally asked, "What for?" And his answer, "For everything I will do wrong today". Since then the ritual worked like clockwork. It was better than clock work. It worked like a charm.

And perhaps, going along with Ms. Johnston's metaphor, like glue, we need to use it while it is still fresh before it begins to dry up. Unapplied glue left to dry loses its utility and so a delayed apology loses its depth and meaning, perhaps even its sincerity.  However, it is still better than none at all.  

2. Opportunity - "If Your Ship Doesn't Come in, Swim Out To It"   

The quote is attributed to comedian Jonathan Winters.  

There is not much we can add to that as an inspiration towards going after a dream that seems out of reach but that when opportunity is within sight, it urges us to swim out to it.  If I may, I would like to add to it this: But first, make sure you know how to swim.

Indeed, one does not go to engineering school without a good grasp of math and physics; or to medical school without a chemistry and biology background and an aptitude towards the nature of physiology; or, aim to become a teacher without love and patience towards children and young people, but you get the picture. That could explain too why sometimes, one may not get to the ship.

That ship represents just about any dream conceivable to man and woman; the water in-between is every conceivable hindrance and roadblock that  is shallow enough for one to wade through, but be mindful that when it gets deeper, one must be prepared to swim.  In school, we recall that among our classmates a handful seemed to have waded through easily or swam capably even as the waters got deep but there are those among us who had to try a lot harder to get through algebra or geometry or history.

I would like to make Jonathan Winters inspiration to say:

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it; just make sure first that you know how to swim".

3. One Wish

One day along the seashore, a young man, named Charlie, found a lamp.  As he cleaned it of the mud and sand with his hands, a blue smoke came out and a genie appeared. He thanked Charlie for freeing him out of the eight-hundred-year old cocoon that was the lamp and offered to grant him one wish (as every genie story goes).

Genie: Well, young man make your wish please. But first, unlike most genie stories you've heard, I am restricted in my ability to grant a wish and it must adhere to the principle of "Zero-sum-game."

Charlie: What?

Genie: I'll explain as we go along. And you notice too that I don't go by the usual three wishes.  Just one, please.

Charlie: Okay, I wish for one trillion dollars.

Genie: Okay, but before you make it your final wish, "Zero-sum-game." means that the one trillion dollars will be taken away from, say, for example, one company that employs a thousand workers. It will go bankrupt in an instant. Families could suffer.  Or, that trillion may come from several big non-profit organizations combined, from whom disaster stricken areas or orphanages for children will lose their funding.  Instantly, as well. Now you know what "Zero-sum-game." means, right?

Charlie: What kind of genie are you?

Genie: You picked my lamp. So, live with it.  And by the way, I have no way of knowing ahead which or what is affected by your wish. 

Charlie: Well, at least give me some parameters, okay?

Genie: That is about as simple as I can make it. You're not showing some kind of compassion, are you?  You want a trillion dollars?  Go ahead and make it your final wish.

Charlie: Okay, I wish for ten more wishes and that is final!

Poof, the genie was sucked back into the lamp which instantly disappeared.  In its place was one page of parchment the size of an ordinary bond paper but made of a leather-like material.

Charlie read the writings:

"Your one wish for ten wishes was granted and they are listed below, arranged alphabetically. Be aware that the list covers your one and only one wish.  Contrary to what you might have thought, it will not cover for the ten wishes to be fulfilled".

Charlie: Wha-a-a-at?

At that point an old man came by.  He said, "What's wrong young man"?

Charlie responded, "I feel cheated.  Look", he showed the parchment to the old man.

Old Man:  Ah, you too got caught in a technicality.

Charlie: "What do you mean?"

Old Man: You see, and I found this out later, the genie can only be freed completely if your wish had abided by the "Zero-sum-game". You see, if you wished for something that was good for you and there was a corresponding bad thing happening somewhere else, the genie will be free.  Your wish to have ten wishes did not call for "Zero-sum-game" to be enforced and that it had no corresponding bad to anyone or anything. Then you made it final.  So the genie went back in.  He has to wait for who knows when. 

Charlie: I don't get it.

Old Man:  Trust me.  I encountered the same genie a long time ago.  Like you, I wanted a wish that had no ill effects on anyone or anything.  I wished to live forever because I did not want anything bad to happen to anyone or anything. As soon as I made it final, the genie went back into the lamp.  Until you found the lamp again.

Charlie: How long ago was that?

Old Man: This month is my eight hundredth anniversary of living. I watched thirty two generations of people come and go - born and died.  So, you see, I should have opted for the "Zero-sum-game" policy. But, like you, I too had a conscience and a dose of compassion.  So, I will live forever.  I will probably see the genie go through it again but happily he failed to be free because of all who'd rather be compassionate.  But you know, I am always rooting for the decent person who finds the lamp so the genie goes back one more time into it.  You are a good man Charlie.

Charlie: Yeah, I guess so.

Old Man:  And don't forget.  You have ten wishes to work on your own, so you have your whole life ahead of you. I know you can do it because you are a decent man. Goodluck and goodbye.  

The old man turned away and walked along the water's edge as the sun was setting over the horizon right about over his right shoulder.  Charlie smiled.  He knew he did the right thing.

P.S.  Many scientists and philosophers will have us believe that we inhabit a "Zero-sum " universe.  Energy to matter, matter to energy, back to energy to matter, light versus darkness, good versus evil in zero sum equivalence on either side of the equation, if, say, light - darkness = 0, energy - matter= 0, etc., because matter can be converted 100% to energy, therefore, when one is subtracted from the other, the answer is zero. Likewise, since total darkness is the absence of light, the equation is the same.

Should we then forget or ignore that a Supreme Being can modify the equation lopsidedly, because where God is the source of infinite goodness, the equation becomes, good - evil = ∞, where good (∞) minus evil (any number, no matter how large) will always be equal to ∞. You see, in math, infinity minus any number (no matter how large you will imagine it to be), the answer is still an infinite number.  We see it around us - there is so much more goodness than bad in human behavior.  That is because God must have willed it to be so.

".. And The Lawn Mower Is Broken"

 

It is a funny quote from James Dent.  Although it can be a  subtle metaphor for life, it can be insightfully profound as well. For instance, it can mean, taking the good with the bad. Although for most husbands, specially those lounging on a hammock under an oak tree, a broken lawn mower in the garage, snoring to "a midsummer night's dream" (apologies to William Shakespeare implied), are all taking good with the good.

Unfortunately, in a case like this, where one "good" is allowed to persist for weeks on end will all be blown away one day by one letter from the homeowners association (HOA) about a violation of the by-laws on yard maintenance. Furthermore, hammocks are prohibited in the front yard. 

HOA, love them or hate them, strikes when least expected. They are the inveterate spoilers of suburban life, the subdivisions' dreadful interrupters of spring and summer. They come armed with phone cameras, plying the streets with eagle's eyes for the slightest irregularity in how the picket fence was repaired, or the driveway is no longer pristinely unblemished as the original concrete, thus requiring the services of a power washer. 

But did you know that HOAs are mostly inactive in the winter time? But not long after the last frosty morning of spring when bees and butterflies come around to pollinate the flowers, HOA marauders too drive around like wasps and hornets armed with an encyclopedic memory of the association's volumes of regulations and by-laws. 

And so it is then when husbands must move the hammock to the backyard and either fix the lawnmower, or risk the hefty fine and the ire of the HOA board. Either  way, it's a choice between hurting one's back or the pocket book. Husbands, given the right financial circumstances later in life, are well advised to outsource  the chore to the professional lawn service providers.  

You take the good with the bad.  The good with HOA, to be fair, is that if not for it, who will prevent homeowners from painting their homes bright-red orange or avocado-green or turn their driveway into a car repair bay, or let their front yard become a natural habitat for creatures great and small, or what started out as a weekend yard sale is extended into a mini flea market? I exaggerate, of course, but HOAs are the necessary guardrails to the proverbial slippery slope.

Now for the serious business of life's perfect summer mixed in with a broken lawnmower.

Life, if we've learned it well enough, is not always layered with perfect circumstances because it comes constantly sprinkled with just the right amount of not-so-perfect ones. The latter is just as significantly important if only to remind us that we do not inhabit a perfect world.

Our lives will always come with hopes of spring and perfect summers but we must expect and be vigilant of the  broken lawn mower. 

For three decades I have enjoyed playing tennis. As to be expected of a sport of stop and sudden go, from side to side, forward and back, coupled with the march of time, I've encountered my share of broken lawn mowers. Injuries to the wrist, elbow and ankle, and other seemingly unrelated visitations by aches and pains. That brought me face to face with the orthopedic doctor one day. I knew he was serious when he said, "Let me ask you this, how much do you really love tennis?".  Although I knew he was leading the conversation one particularly dreadful way, I still replied that I love to keep playing that when my wrist got persistently injured, I switched to playing lefty to which he interrupted with, "Listen, that's the wrong answer, because if I have to do surgery on your Achilles heel and tendon, the next time you see me when it gets re-injured, the surgery I will do is not so you can keep playing but just so you can walk.  I suggest you find something else to stay fit". That was one big broken lawnmower.

I was surprised at myself, however, that by the time I reached home after the thirty minute drive, I got over it. Then I decided to take up swimming, learned the proper way to do it and now I swim  1000 meters freestyle, non-stop in 30 minutes.  (I may have mentioned in my earlier musings that I was doing it in 26 minutes, but now I realized I was swimming in a 25 yard pool and the Garmin wrist watch I started wearing confirmed it. There's a huge difference between a thousand yards and 1000 meters - 40 lengths vs. 44, 20 laps vs. 22.).  But then that motivated me to swim the longer distance; "just because".

That is how I turned  the broken lawn mower into "good" because swimming is something anyone can do almost at any age.  I'm glad I did and my Achilles heel and other troublemakers of physiology never bothered me once.

Now, for the biggest broken lawn mower in our life. My wife was diagnosed with Parkinson's almost three years ago.  As can be expected, not only is it such an overwhelmingly hard and difficult burden for her, it has affected everything around us.   And we're reminded again that the ticket price to living longer is to grow old; but not without the challenges, yet we must realize that whatever is thrown at us, the alternative presents a grimmer picture.  The pain of movement, the slowness of ordinary motion, the frustration and helplessness when and where ordinary chores we took for granted that we could no longer do are enough to show us some imperfections to expect from lives long-lived. 

My wife, like everyone with Parkinson's, was dealt one seriously "broken lawn mower".

But you know what, there is so much good to take with the bad. Just ponder for a moment about the inconveniences of living longer today and how we are able to cope with them, because we live in the 21st century. It must  be the envy of those who dealt with them just fifty years ago. And to be living where we are today, in a country blessed with so much, presents plenty of good with a few bad.  This is not just ebullient optimism, it is about confronting reality head on. For a minimum copay, insurance paid for a motorized scooter, a wheelchair and a four-wheeled walker  for my wife. By just imagining how and what it must have been like fifty years ago, some of the burdens of today are partly assuaged.

Do we miss the travels we've enjoyed and rue all the unrealized plans to travel more?  Yes, but while we missed all future travel plans, we too missed, rationalizing justifiably now, the stresses of the airport experience, the tedium and drudgery of air travel. It all balances out, if we must take the good with the bad, that with the joy of "being there" are matched by the inevitable rigors of "getting there", both ways, going and coming.  Don't get me wrong, we do cherish those experiences but are forever mindful that we were years younger then and the experiences remain in our memory, now a little hazy, but the photo albums are always there to reminisce with total clarity. My wife over the years has kept over twenty photo albums all meticulously chronicled and labeled, neatly arranged at her library. Afterall, all the travels we've had now reside only in our memory and the photo albums. You see, every world traveler, no matter how seasoned or how they fabulously planned their trips, each and every experience is now a memory. We cherish those as best we can. 

We can still travel through YouTube and TV specials, practically anywhere we want to go in the comfort of our living room. TV can bring them and  all those we planned to do  and then some, at the click of the button.  Machu Picchu, Iceland or the Angkor temples in Cambodia to name a few we haven't gone to are available for streaming. What I'm saying is that the mind will overcome  broken lawn mowers of unfulfilled  travel plans - limited only by our desire to explore from our armchair. 

Do we miss going to the movies? Yes.  Do we miss having to drive, the parking, the randomness of where we get to sit, etc.? No. The only thing to miss is the big screen.  The sound, with today's technology, can be replicated by 5.1 stereo surround, tuned to your living room's listening area, if that is truly what one desires to be important; but a 55-inch plasma or LCD screen five feet away from your seat should be close enough for the big screen experience. Set that aside and we find that at home, we can pause the show for a bathroom break or snack. We find that old movies we watched again are better understood because certain parts of the dialog that Marlon Brando used to mumble are all made clear by closed captions.  The broken lawn mower of not being able to go to the movie theater is easily fixed where popcorn and drinks do not cost an arm and a leg.  And  you are no longer at the mercy of the randomness of the availability of vacant seats or hostage to who sits next to you, in front and behind you, because you are in your favorite seat and location of your choice and the bathroom is no more than twelve paces away, the refrigerator even closer.

We miss going to the stage theater too but then again there are choices  at our leisure either through paid subscription or YouTube. And you can walk out anytime the show is not to your taste. That is not easy to do at the live theater, not until intermission, anyway.  And don't forget the bathroom privileges of watching the show at home.

How about going to  restaurants to eat out.  At our age, do we really miss that?  Again, like in traveling, the last restaurant meal you had, no matter how sumptuously prepared and presented, are soon memories the following day you wake up. Depending on one's inclination there are quite a number of ways one can replicate a dish, given time and motivation, through one's own home cooking. That may sound overly ambitious but retirement presents ample opportunity to the adventurous and the willing. And again, YouTube, the cooking channels and recipe books are there to help.

The least I can do today for a household of two is to embrace the chores that my wife used to do thousands of times during her able days. She did it  for four, with two growing boys, when she managed the household with a lot less financial wherewithal than now.  One may look at it as a challenge to be grasped with the enthusiasm of a new hobby or simply a fervent desire to make good, "you promise to be true in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health". My wife had done much of her share in advance when she faced  higher degrees of difficulty and a much lower family budget to work with while I now have the privilege with so much more financial leg room to move about.  

There are obviously more words to express but the reader gets it.  So. I will end with a simple example.

Every now and then my wife and I would go for breakfast at one of the local restaurants nearby.  Almost invariably, she chooses her one favorite - "Yogurt parfait".  Presented in a fancy bowl with all the trimmings, the "Frenchy" sounding  restaurant (so named because the franchise root is New Orleans, Louisiana) is "licensed" to charge what eating out costs.  Restaurant dining, while now a  hustle to do, has become as rare as a double rainbow to us.

One day I researched how yogurt parfait is prepared.  Well .. below, based on what I read  this is how I prepare it for her besides pancake or French toast, pan-de-sal topped with fried egg sunny side up, oat meal - choices from the menu I offer her each morning. And this is exactly what the Frenchy restaurant has, sans the fancy bowl and presentation; at a fraction of the cost. And she gets to choose the yogurt.  She has options on what flakes to put on top. 

There are, of course, many examples that will far exceed the limits of one musing but it is well understood that one must embrace caregiving to a spouse as a simple act. However, it is one to be embraced for the nobility of the partnership and standing by a promise made by both because it is where necessity ends that kindness is profoundly given and felt.

Broken lawn mowers are part of the realities of lives long-lived. We must realize soon enough though that if we view life as a painting, one may have to squint hard to spot the broken lawnmower sitting at the corner of the garage - a tiny part of the landscape. 

The Mamdanization of America?

Yes, Google redlined the word, "Mamdanization". It does not exist even in  Urban dictionaries. Either it will fade away, like so many made-up words or indeed it will become part of our lexicon. The word will vanish with the next ebb tide if U.S. style democracy prevails and retains its capitalist economy. Or America, in fact, turns away from the pages of its storybook success filled with the realized dreams of its founding fathers and the millions upon millions of Americans who followed since, including those who chose to leave their own homeland to come here.

For the benefit of the international readers, the word above comes from NY city mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, a self described socialist whose campaign promises include a lot of "free stuff" - from free bus fares to the public, government-run grocery stores, rent freezes, higher taxes to the rich, $30/hour minimum wage, replacing police with unarmed social workers, no cash bail, decarceration of prison inmates, etc.

Shockingly, during the primary, he bested a seasoned politician and former state governor of New York.  Even more intriguing is that support for the kind of agenda he espouses is spreading to other local politics and the endorsement of a few congressional politicians.  Not quite a national phenomenon yet but the fact that it is gaining traction, albeit slowly, presents a potential to influence the next generation.  A generation, say,  to develop within the next twenty five years which points to the year 2050.  Sounds familiar?  Four years ago, I wrote, "2050: The Ebb of the Tragic Trajectory of a Once Powerful Nation"

I wrote then in discussing the two challenges that confront the nation then and today, "One is about conserving the ideals and belief systems of what brought this country its decisive success for over two centuries.  The other half is about liberally forging and fundamentally changing the country into something else.  Worse is the slow but almost penetrating allure of socialism". I warned about it in 2021, long before Mamdani was even a politician, nor was socialism even considered a worthy subject in U.S. politics.

How serious is socialism?  How bad can it be?

Let us be reminded to juxtapose the American experiment that began in 1776 with another that started in 1917 as the Bolshevik uprising, but more generally known as the Russian Revolution. It was five years after that, in 1922, that the Soviet Union was established. It played a major role during WWII in defeating the Nazis which made it a formidable force during five decades after the war in half of Europe. At which time the Soviet Union aimed to spread its governing doctrine not just in Eastern Europe but in Southeast Asia as well.  It oversaw the division of Germany, the creation of the Warsaw Pact, and in Asia the birth of the CCP (China), North Korea (PRK), North Vietnam and Cambodia, that prompted diplomat John Foster Dulles to coin the phrase, "the domino effect" of nations falling to communism, sometime in the 50's. To the other side of the globe, Cuba's Fidel Castro succeeded in creating the lone Communist country in the Caribbean and efforts to spread it in South America failed to take deep roots with the death of Che Guevarra.

Then in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.  Along with it, the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact.

Let's go back to the idea of Mamdanization.  Zohran Mamdani does not claim to be a Communist, instead he proudly declares that he is a democratic socialist repeatedly each time he is asked the question of his ideological philosophy.  

Well, let us be reminded that the Soviet Union was formally known as the USSR. Lest we forget, the USSR stood for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

What about China? Formally, it is the People's Republic of China (PRC) but the political party behind the government is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  The civil war that precipitated its creation covered the years from 1927 to 1949, which coincidentally followed the Russian revolution in 1917, after which the Soviet Union was born in 1922.

China almost became a failed state between the years 1958-62 when it was estimated that 15 to 55 million perished from widespread famine. The wide range of the estimate was primarily due to  unreliable communication infrastructure across much of the rural population.  Most analysts concluded that the cause was 30% due to natural weather and climate events but 70% was caused by mismanagement of its economic policies and archaic agricultural practices.

The question is why China is economically successful today and a military power to boot while the USSR failed. It made one major pivot. It started operating its economy like a capitalist system while keeping the government's grip on the execution of policies as a communist state. Proof of it is, according to Forbes magazine, that there are 450 billionaires in China, not including 66 in Hong Kong.  That puts China in the No. 2 spot next to the USA's 902. Political control, however, remains ironclad; any sign of dissent is summarily quelled (Tiananmen Square, remember?).

Much of the world cannot begrudge China's standing because there is no arguing with success.  Perhaps, it has found the golden key to open the case for the, "Benevolence of a Socialist System?, which I wrote on Dec. 18, 2020.

In one Mamdani's interview, he made it known that he abhors billionaires, and that they should not exist at all. He told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” “I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality, and ultimately, what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country.”

If New York City elects him as mayor, the repercussions could conceivably lead the country to unprecedented political pathways never once before paved, let alone traveled on. The question is why his campaign is catching on.

It is possible that that portion of  half of the politically divided electorate is latching on to the latest bandwagon of a political movement in place of climate change, social  and environmental activism that appear to have their course run to the ground. Climate change noises have been reduced to a murmur that even Greta Thunberg shifted her attention away from it to  Gaza in the midst of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.  Mamdani may have simply tapped into another radical idealism  in a city under economic stress where a good portion of the young voters and the  disadvantaged can latch onto. The lack of national leadership and absence of  coherent agenda from Mamdani's political party created the kind of partial vacuum his ideas easily seeped into.

November 4, 2025, less than four months from now, will be a consequential day not just for New York politics but for the entire country. New York, clearly a major component, if not the center, of world capitalism can possibly be where the ripple effects will begin and spread throughout the world. That's probably hyperbole in the short term. However, twenty five years will be a long time if Mamdanization is allowed to take hold.  Remember, Marxism started locally too and today it is not exactly dead.

Karl Marx and to a certain extent with the help of Frederic Engels in the mid-1800's started the economic and political theory that became the backbone of the Bolshevik revolution.  That potentially is what could befall New York City.

What New Yorkers need to be mindful of is that 90 miles from the coastline of Florida is a Caribbean country that apparently time forgot, stuck to the 1950's era. By today's standards relative to Florida, Cuba is full of anachronisms.  There we find 1955 Chevy Bel Air sedans still running as private transportation instead of in a car museum or as a collector's prized possession in the U.S.  That's what communist socialism did and continue to do in a country known as the last place to subscribe to the original theory that Karl Marx insisted on.

And that is what Mamdanization will do to New York.

To the international readers, from Argentina and Brazil to Uruguay and Uzbekistan and Vietnam, I beg you all to make note of this. There are a few readers in Russia but I notice Austria and Germany have taken interest as well though not a single one from China.  I urge everyone to remember that the great experiment that began in 1776 is still going on.  Mamdanization will undo what great results that experiment had achieved for countless dreams to be fulfilled - a propellant that had long been used to push people to come to this land. 

Ronald Reagan said it best:

 

Occam's Razor Revisited for 2025

From the JFK assassination to the most recent Epstein case, from UFOs to  Big Foot and to the Bermuda Triangle, and last year's attempted assassination of Pres. Trump conspiracy theories continue to thrive from generation to generation of believers and skeptics; from the sublime academics to armchair speculators, from serious to the un-serious contributors to social media, from named to nameless influencers.

"William of Occam (or Ockham) was an English Friar born in 1285 who lived to his 62nd birthday". Occam’s Razor was named after him but he was not really the originator of the principle; however, he was known to frequently use it in his writings and arguments as a tool to get to the truth if it were obscured by the absence of physical evidence or reliable testimony". In a nutshell, it is summarized as follows:

"Occam’s Razor is a philosophical principle that says that in situations where there are competing explanations, we should prefer the simplest explanation since it’s most likely to be the correct one".

In other words, when one looks for an explanation from among several plausible alternatives, the simplest one is likely the correct one.  However, even when an explanation seems complicated, it could and should still  be expressed as simply as possible for everyone to understand it. 

There is a caveat to that expression. 

In ancient times, in Greek mythology, a lot of natural phenomena such as lightning and thunder were explained as heavenly manifestations of the power of the gods - primarily by the head god, Zeus - to express anger with or warning to ordinary mortals.  Now we know, or at least known to many, what is behind thunder and lightning.  Explaining how it happens in scientific terms, however can be complicated, distilling it in layman's terms is even more challenging without having to go through the fundamental nature of electrons and ionization, how electric fields are built up between the ground and the upper atmosphere, and so on and on.  Suffice it to say that thunder and lightning occur naturally without some god or gods causing them; albeit, one example where Occam's razor is needed to shave off more than several layers before unraveling the truth.

Superstitions are one of the main casualties to the sharp razor of Occam. A while back I wrote about scary witches recalled from my childhood memories, below is one snippet:

Scary Witches, Recast (November, 2024 in time for Halloween)

The "mantiw" was one that no one had ever seen but they were around when it was windy. During the night, of course.  They have long legs because everyone can hear them running over the homes, but not touching any of the structures; but they'd come by so fast  disturbing the air to rush out and back, accompanied by a whistling, sometimes roaring, sound. There could be a herd of these "mantiw" running, especially when it was raining, as if they were either fleeing from or going after something.  But nobody could see them and they were not known to harm anyone.

The home where I grew up as a child was a nipa-thatched-roof in a village near the shores.  The elders would talk about those long legged "mantiw" during the monsoon seasons but later, as a grown up, I realized the "mantiw" running through the village was simply the strong winds that accompanied the rain and the whistling we heard was merely the sound of the wind over our flimsy homes.

Of course, I grew up later realizing that a lot of the childhood superstitions that I and my friends believed in were easily explained as natural phenomena and our imaginations were merely co-conspirators until then.

William of Occam and many philosophers of his time lived about three centuries before the Age of Enlightenment when the likes of Isaac Newton and many notable scientists began their work on the sciences and modern philosophy. Meanwhile Friar William and his contemporaries depended mostly on logical reasoning to get to the truth if it were obscured by the absence of physical evidence or reliable testimony. One must use a razor to shave away the coverings that hid the truth. The razor was not that of experimentation but by pure logical reasoning. The idea was that there should only be a minimal amount of suppositions to explain anything - the lesser the number of suppositions the better. The simpler the explanation the more likely that it is the correct one.

Presently, we have the Epstein file or "client list". Its supposed existence was either oversold that resulted in bated anticipation from the public, politicians and conspiracy theorists  or there was no such file to begin with. However, once anyone and everyone comes up with all kinds of assumptions, conjectures and speculation, as usually presented in cases of conspiracy theories, the less likely it will lead to the truth.  But in this case, it appears that either there was such a file or it was over promised by the Attorney General, or there was no such file to begin with. If there  was some file, it was not what was originally expected. 

Is this a case of Occam's razor's failure?  Actually, this is, first of all, an interesting case where the "truth is obscured by the absence of physical evidence or reliable testimony" that is either intentionally kept away from the public or that there was no such evidence in the first place.  Let's set that aside for now. 

One rather more interesting story that has now been overshadowed by the file is the speculation as to whether Epstein killed himself or he was murdered in his cell while being held in a New York jail. Clearly, speculations started to swirl from there which pushed the existence of the file aside. Conspiracy theorists had a field day that lasted for months up to now, nearly six years later.  

If we go by Occam's Razor, in the midst of all kinds of conspiracy theories - many of them had the complexity of a Robert Ludlum novel - the simple explanation is that he killed himself. In the case of the file or more intriguingly described as the "client list", the simple explanation is that there was no such list. 

If the list existed, is it not likely there was a copy somewhere or held by someone else, i.e. by Epstein's most loyal partner,  Ghislaine Maxwell? The Attorney General took a serious risk in saying that there was no such list if later such a list shows up. At this point, the beginning of another conspiracy theory is inevitably hatched.  As we can see, in the absence of compelling evidence or testimony (Epstein's or Maxwell's and potentially others), the simplest explanation prevails. For the time being, that is.

From the once popular TV series, The X-Files, we quote, "The truth is out there,” says Scully, before following up with “but so are lies”.

We are at this point in a state of unknowing. Is this then the case of Occam's razor's dulling failure? Possibly, until such time, if at all, that compelling evidence is brought up at some future time. In such a case, Occam's Razor is no longer needed.