Free Will - A Bargain, or Way Overpriced?

 A philosophy professor stopped a young man on the street and asked, "Young man, do you believe in free will and do you live by it?"

"Yes, I do", replied the young man.

"Prove it."  The professor ordered the young man, sternly.

The young man put down his gym bag, undid his shoelaces and re​-​tied them again. "There, ​it was out of  free will that I did what I just did and will do again if I want to. Happy?"

The professor, touching his chin, stroking his goatee, said, "What you did was prompted by my asking you a question. In other words, I pre-determined that you were going to do something when I asked you a question.  Would you have done that if I didn't? Causation, young man precedes everything we do or why events occur. Something before anything determines what comes next. Free will is an illusion! Determinism is real".

At which point the young man punched the professor on the chin, knocking him down. Lying on his back on the pavement, shocked and confused, the professor asked his assailant, "What made you do that? You'll go to prison and I'll make sure you'll never find employment anywhere". 

The young man, nonchalantly declared, "I am neither criminally nor morally responsible. You predetermined my action. According to what you just said, causation preceded my action. Determinism is real, my free will was an illusion!  You said so yourself".

First of all, that was just a story I made up and I am not espousing  violence to drive a point. It merely exemplified, outrageously if not utterly badly, this huge debate that had gone on since the first time man started to reason. Since Adam and Eve, since Cain and Abel, if you will. Philosophers and neuro-scientists argue about it, theologians and atheists yell at each other, ordinary people discuss it over dinner or drinks, even physicists and mathematicians spend time dissecting it. I bet you are  debating this in your head right now. Books, symposiums, YouTube, TED Talk have all but exhausted the subject.  But it is still going on.

So, which is it? I've thought about it, as you have just now.  Either free will is real, or an illusion as the professor insisted.  But that can't be right, you say.

Shakespeare's most famous soliloquy, "To be or not to be", was about Hamlet's contemplation of life and death, the decision to end it all or choose life over death or whether to leave it to what fate awaits the undecided. And then it gets convoluted.  

Let's take a look.

(a) Pre-destination and free will are indistinguishable, even interchangeable, from and with each other.

(b) Pre-destination and Free Will are mutually exclusive.  It is either our lives have all been pre-determined from inception to the very end or that our free will shapes everything we do or how we will become. The future is a giant toss up. 

(c) We depend on a mixture of both. For example, a few of the thousands of high school graduates, bright and in excellent physical shape,  are chosen each year to enter the U.S. Military Academies.  Those chosen accepted to do it, and we make an assumption that it was out of their free will. However, once in and after graduation, their lives and career are predetermined for military service for at least six years or longer.  Other high school graduates who choose med school are predetermined towards the Hippocratic oath, and countless others make different choices, etc.

(d) Determinism works in the macro world while free will operates in the micro arena. Example?  The fate of a nation or empire or the trajectory of a society at some point of their development  could end up being predetermined in the large or macro scale. At the micro level of the individual, does one have free will?  Even in a totalitarian state?

Now, you may think, and you're convinced you are allowed to do so, all of the above are hogwash, none of them even makes sense to you, and you say you have the free will to think so and that's it.  Bravo!  Congratulations, you were free to think and so you did.  You're done thinking about it.  You've forgotten about it already.

Honestly now, have you?  Really?  Was the professor right?

Now, you're ready to consider even more free wheeling thoughts.

Is the child born in  middle-class America today predetermined to be many levels better off than the one born in the impoverished neighborhood of Bangladesh, or Tondo in Manila? Is the kid at an English suburb outside of London predetermined to have a better life than the one on the plains of Serengeti, Tanzania, who may never know what a soccer ball is? These kids' fates have been predetermined at birth. 

If you are reading this from your desk top, or laptop or on your phone, whiling away the moments, you belong to just a fraction of the world's population to be able to do so.  There are more people around the globe who are oblivious to even just a fraction of what has been predetermined you will have from the moment you were born.

Think about it. In today's climate of pandemic and other world crisis, we are forced to consider a host of so many things that bombard us daily. You made a decision to get vaccinated, you followed all the rules to keep you and your neighbors safe, there are talks of mandates to do this, to have that, so many it is a plague rather worse than what a plague is really like. On the other hand, the child in a family in the interior of Brazil's rainforest, one of a few villages still undiscovered or isolated from the rest of the world, is oblivious to wearing a mask inside and outside of classrooms as children do in some if not all modern societies, today. Can we still be talking about a better predetermined life of one over the other?  

I think I have enough questions now to cause you to think.  Causation is real, while free will is an illusion?  

Enjoy your day!

Meanwhile, ponder this ..

Anatomy of a Panic Attack .. Your Brain Can't Explain it Either

 

"Panic attacks cause extreme anxiety or fear that lasts a few minutes or as long as an hour or more; the average panic attack lasts 20 to 30 minutes.

These sensations often come on unexpectedly, without an identified cause, though they can also develop in response to certain triggers. In general, a panic attack is not life-threatening, but experts suggest people who regularly experience them learn coping mechanisms and avoid triggers. For an episode to medically qualify as a panic attack, an individual must experience at least four of the numerous physical symptoms the event can produce."

                                           ---FACTY HEALTH, Updated Jan. 18, 2021

I will get back to the above definition in a minute.

September 3, just a little over two weeks ago, was an ordinary day. If there was anything extraordinary at all, it was that my mind was preoccupied with whether to engage the services of a pool maintenance guy to remove and replace a motor pump that was squealing, loud enough for one kindly neighbor to ask  if we had a malfunctioning equipment in our backyard.  I knew it was the  motor because I already ordered a new one which had arrived the day before and I had every intention to do it myself. Not for saving money but because it's a project, just another DIY challenge, a day's time in a retiree's "busy" schedule.  And I've done it before, a while back - meaning at least a decade ago.

Meanwhile that morning I decided to clear some weedy vines away from a sago palm and flowering plants around it. I was reaching up with my right hand when one over protective wasp - a yellow jacket - took issue with my intrusion. It stung me on the arm just below my shoulder. 

For some folks it is just painful. It was my fourth time and pain was the least of my worry. I'm super allergic to wasp venom that I have a prescription epi-pen at home at all times because a few years ago my face puffed up like a Michelin dough boy when on a second episode I was stung on the forehead. The third time, at 6:00 a.m. one morning a nest-building wasp that took exception to my early foray outside our own garage stung me on the back through my shirt.  I drove myself to emergency when I realized the epi-pen I injected myself with was past its expiration date. But I survived.

This fourth time I decided not to use  the epi-pen and went to emergency instead. Apparently there were many others ahead of me with far more serious emergencies that I had to wait for at least two hours. I left and went to my doctor's clinic. He was on vacation and I was a walk-in patient who obviously looked fine to the nurse who told me to wait. After an hour and a half of waiting I left, now believing I was probably okay except for the pink blister that was spreading from the original red pin prick.  It became itchy but I was relieved that that was all it was. No anaphylactic shock for the epi-pen to be unleashed.

I felt fine the rest of the day and afternoon.  After dinner we were watching the U.S. Tennis Open on TV. It was an exciting match but the young player we were rooting for was behind. She was trailing and losing momentum. Then I felt my heartbeat racing and I felt uneasy. I went to check my blood pressure with our home machine.  It was 204/101, my heart rate was 100!  

For the first time ever in my entire life I dialed 911. The first truck with two EMT personnel arrived in four minutes.  A second team of three came shortly thereafter.  They confirmed the elevated vitals - 197/98, HR 95.  They hooked me up to a portable EKG machine and kept my blood pressure readings monitored minute by minute.  To my relief they declared I did not have a heart attack, I did not have a stroke either. My speech was normal, my vision was OK, they told me as I was talking to them the whole time, and short of saying there was nothing wrong with me they did not recommend to take me to the hospital because at that point my vitals returned to normal. The lead EMT told me that it was not likely that my symptoms were from the wasp venom. They typically see in emergency calls that reactions are immediate and had not seen any kind of delayed onset of symptoms, specially after twelve hours. After thirty minutes since they arrived, they left.  But not before I told them that, just out of senseless bravado as if to bolster for my benefit or to simply re-assure them that I was not having a heart attack or stroke, that I swim 1000 meters, non-stop in 24 minutes at the gym. My way of whistling something away.  I can't help it.  Or was I exhibiting denial where it was not asked or required.  Unimpressed, their parting words were, "Just call us if it happens again".

A couple of days later I did remove and replace the new motor. DIY done!

September 14, approximately midnight, I woke up to go to the bathroom. Before going back to bed, after gurgling some water, I noticed blood on my saliva on the sink after spitting. I swished some water in my mouth and the blood was no longer present in my subsequent spit.  At almost that precise moment I felt my heart rate racing again like the last episode. I went to the kitchen to check my blood pressure.  Sure enough it was 169/107, HR 106. The time was 12:40 a.m. I had chills, some tingling in my arms and legs, and I felt light headed.  With the house phone in my hand I went to unlock the front door in case I had to dial 911. I sat down on the sofa to check my blood pressure a few more times. At 12:56 it was 191/102, HR 97.  

With hands trembling I did a Google search on my phone and typed, "elevated blood pressure, heart rate racing, chills and perspiring". 

I read they were four of ten symptoms of a Panic attack!  What?!  

¿Que me entre el pánico? A Spanish caballero might say; or if it were from the nonchalant Frenchman, in two words, "Moi paniquer?

I'm the cool and collected guy, unfazed under fire, I had no fear during job interviews and I had my share of numerous presentations to small and large groups of colleagues and department heads.  I was never bothered by nerves and not once panicked. Once, an orthopedic doctor had to insert a 2-inch long pin through my fractured right thumb (woodworking accident, who hasn't).  I asked if I can watch while he was doing it. He obliged and had a video  monitor set up so I can see what was going on as I was lying down on the operating table. I watched from the time the pin was at its full length to the moment it was way deeply into my thumb, no longer visible. When he took it off three months later, I was sitting down in his office when he took it out with only local anesthesia using an instrument that if it were at my workshop it would have looked like one of my long-nose pliers. I watched the whole time.  So, panic attack? No!  Remember, I drove myself to emergency three times before. Root canal and tooth implants (had a share of them) didn't trigger panic either. "Moi paniquer?

By 1:30 a.m. my blood pressure was 140/92. HR 69. By 6:00 a.m. it was 126/84, HR 62.  My resting heart rate is typically under 60.

In other words, just like that, everything went normal again. No ill effects whatsoever.  So, what about the blood in my spit.  I completely forgot but recalled only later that the night before while eating corn chips I had one with a sharp corner pierce the roof of my mouth as I bit down. Don't deny it, it happened to you too, hasn't it? I felt the pain but ignored it.  The blood that early morning was from that little puncture that must have coagulated and disturbed that early morning by the gurgled water in my mouth.  In fact, I was able to feel with my tongue where the wound was.

Now back to the first two paragraphs above.  Yes, more reading and I am now convinced I did experience two panic attacks. Often, I read, that people on average may experience two episodes of panic attacks in their lifetime under ordinary circumstances.  Often out of the blue, so to speak. Soldiers in combat and first responders under stress experience the same symptoms every time as integral to the body's fight or flight response along with sudden surge of adrenalin.

Apparently, for ordinary people under seemingly ordinary conditions, the panic attack can be triggered for no apparent reason. It is as if the brain acts autonomously though not consciously apparent to the person. Was it subconsciously on my part triggered first by the motor I was worrying about, re-installing it on my own, then followed by the wasp sting and my exasperation with the waiting I did at two clinics?  Was it the blood on the sink that was the culprit the second time around?  

I can't explain it.  Was it my brain acting on its own?  Below is the list of symptoms of panic attack.

1.) Hyperventilation 2.) Dizziness 3.) Tunnel Vision 4.) Chest Pain 5.) Nausea 6.) Hot and Cold Flashes 7.) Sweating 8.) Paresthesia (tingling sensation)  9.) Fight or Flight Response 10.) De-realization

(4.) Chest pain is often mistaken for a heart attack

8.) Paresthesia is a distorted perception or dissociation from the external world or what is going on presently.  There is also a prickling sensation of the skin.

(9.) Fight or flight response is what causes increased heart rate and blood pressure, together with adrenalin, which causes some people to possess more than usual strength or speed, albeit temporarily.

Fear of dying is often felt in a surreal way. I prayed while it was happening during that second episode but I did not wake my wife. I was deeply concerned for her - this is the part where feeling like or fear of dying is also a symptom - that if I were to go before her, she may not cope well.

So, should we be worried?  I meant for this to be a cautionary message to the reader because for some, one or two panic attacks may cause a debilitating effect that can cascade into a lifetime of concern or worry about future onsets.  The worry for future panic attacks has become the trigger instead of only from rare circumstances that normally precede it. Until I had experienced it and read about it, I had no clue what a panic attack is.

That is not to say that we ignore real symptoms of the more serious ailments like a heart attack or stroke.  That is also to say that predisposition to or prior indicators of heart and blood pressure conditions should never be ignored.  It is merely to be mindful that panic can be useful if managed properly.  The extreme opposite of panic response can of course be bad.  Total nonchalance or extreme absence of personal concern or a sustained lack of worry or reasonable apprehension can be just as bad or worse than panic.

Or, if we can, take the edge off a bit with:

My friend Jose suffers from panic attacks. He was recently involved in a car accident.

I don't wanna sound racist, but His panic attacks are getting worse.

I had to give up using the work carpool as I got panic attacks every time we drove through a tunnel.

I have carpool tunnel syndrome.

Y'all take care! Be well, Be good, and don't let the wasps near you!!

The Incredible Number of Miracles to Make You YOU

YOU may have at one time or another referred to someone you regard highly as one in a million. Perhaps, you may also have  ascribed such a state of uniqueness to yourself - setting aside for just one moment your personal outlook of humility.  However, such hubris is actually selling yourself short because you and everyone else for that matter is really one in 70 trillion.  Considering that today's world population is just over 7 billion, it would take ten thousand times the number of people today before the likelihood that there is another one exactly like you.  In other words it is an outright impossibility.  YOU are YOU, and only YOU, and there could never be another one like YOU.

It might seem melodramatic to think in those terms but someone actually did the math. I just finished reading Sean B. Carroll's book, "A Series of Fortunate Events".  In it the author prefaced with what we are already familiar with.  It is that we inherit half of our chromosomes from Mom and Dad, as  they did from their own parents, ad infinitum backwards in time, if you will. We can surmise all the way to when the first chain of cell divisions occurred when life begun but we will not go that far. 

We will skip the detailed processes of how 23 chromosomes from each of our parents combine and recombine.  We will not go through the math either but suffice it to say, if I may condense the thought processes behind the calculation, that since the "number of possible combinations of 23 chromosomes" from one parent to you is 8,388,608 and another 8,388,608 from the other, then 8,388,608 X 8,388,608 = 70,368,744,177,664 "different babies" as potentially probable outcomes. And the odds would be the same even among twins and children from multiple births (triplets, etc.).

As phenomenally mind boggling those numbers are, there is something a lot more incredible.  The conception of you and the path that it took the microorganism from whence you started to its survival in the womb for roughly nine months up to the moment of birth and henceforth from then to where you are now, was and still is fraught with all kinds of danger and assault from untold conditions from within, from outside, from other organisms, even from your own cells, or from any kind of imbalances in your physiological system.  Even as you read this the assault on your system is constantly being waged between your body's defenses and the "bad" elements - living and inanimate - from everywhere to cause harm to your existence. 

Long before we even consider the combination and recombination of the chromosomes from our parents, the path to their pairing is comparable to an epic journey. 

Epic indeed if we consider that in human scale the journey would be comparable to a horde of up to 150 million swimmers crossing the Atlantic Ocean from London to New York.  Only a few thousand will survive the crossing to possibly get a glimpse of the tip of the Statue of Liberty's torch from over the horizon. All will perish before reaching the U.S. international territorial waters except for maybe a hundred or so that will make it to the New York Harbor. Out of these ultra-Olympic-caliber swimmers, only one will be allowed to touch land and entry into Manhattan.  At that precise moment all the rest of the swimmers will be left to tread water where their journey ends into oblivion.  Only one "lucky" swimmer survived.

You might think that is a harsh melodrama but that is actually putting it lightly.  The survival and successful entry of that lone swimmer is by all definition a miracle.  And it doesn't end there because the next nine months will be just as unforgiving for the new organism before it can immerge to meet more challenges. Let us not forget that on the first day of the nine months  a mere molecule was created viewable only through a microscope. 

Even more miraculous is the fact that in that molecule was contained the entire information, the complete blueprint, needed to fashion that organism into a unique individual that is YOU. A one in 70 trillion miracle.

Everyone who is born to take that first gasp of outside air has already gone through the first set of hurdles for nine months that were no less challenging or unforgiving compared to what awaited you to make it through your first helpless year.  You will remain dependently helpless except for the loving care of a mother and from everyone around to help bring you up. Each year that you make it through, birthday after birthday, to where you are today, whether you are seventeen, twenty one, forty seven or seventy, was and still is a yearly miracle.

Your development from a mere fertilized egg, the efforts it took to make it through the Fallopian tube to find a safe haven at a tiny spot along the wall of your mother's uterus was itself a Herculean task. That fertilized egg was unaided and on its own with nothing but a seemingly unconscious will to survive every moment, helped by nothing more than what was printed out of a microscopic parchment co-written by the combined efforts of 46 nearly invisible chromosomes.

Today, whatever your age is, you got up this morning oblivious to what your body's defenses must put up with to ward off every threat from all kinds of bad elements that enter your body with every gulp of air you take, or through countless points through your skin, your eyes and ears, and at every morsel of food or drink you consume.

The struggle continues. Living, or to be alive is a daily calendar of warfare between your body's defenses against anything and everything that will cause you to be ill or suffering, or worse. Worse is when some of these bad actors cause your own cells to stage a coup d'état against your other cells - a self inflicting treason that is cancer.

However, the miracle continues. From the moment you were made YOU, to the moment you woke up this morning, the number of miracles seem endless and enduring.

I mentioned reading Sean B. Carroll's book. He is not to be mistaken for the other Sean Carroll (sans the middle initial), a theoretical physicist, who is also a prolific author and science lecturer. After reading Sean B's book I do have one slight although profound disagreement with his premise.  He believes that the making of you and all living things are merely fortunate events and product of pure chance.  That lone swimmer that made it to fertilize the egg, the survival of the egg, its growth and ultimately its birth and growth to become you were all from random assignments of luck and happenstance.

I believe otherwise. Firmly. Look around you.  Does it look like everything you see came about by chance.  Obviously, or so it seems, you will find many examples of randomness all over.  Now, ask yourself, "Are they really?" That will be for another musing. I think.

I leave you with something about whether life is particularly unique only to this part of the world or is the universe teeming with life of diverse make up and origin?  That will be for another mental provocation.

 Meanwhile, below is a quote from a scientist on SETI - the well funded organization that translates to "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

"Despite all our technological advancements and scientific prowess, we haven't yet found any evidence of life beyond Earth, let alone signs of advanced extra-terrestrial civilizations resembling our own, human breed of intelligent life".

Do you feel lucky or were you a result of an incredible number of miracles?

I am Your Digestive System

Dear You (and You and Anyone who might benefit from reading this),

I am your gut. In your language I can be a noun for the most part, but you've also morphed me into an adjective, a verb, and dare I say, a transitive verb. If the language is in German, that is.

I am writing to acknowledge your compliance for having gone through one of the, if not the most, least liked medical procedure that is yet the most painless of anything you had ever gone through. In fact, you don't even have a memory of the actual procedure itself, do you?  Anyway, thank you for going through it. I am relieved and I must say that although most anyone would rather not talk about it, it is worth going through it.

So, I will do the talking instead. Later, below, we will look at the bad news/good news around the subject.

The truly pragmatic of any of you will say that I am nothing more than a food processor.  I am that, yes.  But unlike any inanimate kitchen appliance that can remain inactive, even unplugged for days and weeks, even months at a time, without having to process anything, I require to be fed and quenched everyday.  You can skip a meal for a day, as you just did for the recent procedure, but you know to never miss a drink. And drink here refers to water.  I know from time to time you'd rather have something other than plain water.  In moderation, you will not likely get any complaints from me. Overdo it and I show my displeasure in many ways that can only be described as regretful.  On your part. For me, I take some, I lose some.  

You've known this drill since you turned 50. Remember when the company you worked for still had a medical department that occupied the entire 7th floor of the 27-floor edifice on Louisiana Avenue?  It had a full medical staff of one chief medical doctor, nurses and full time clerks, a reasonably well equipped medical clinic. Part of what the department did was conduct physical exam for new job applicants while the other part was focused on yearly physical for employees 40-50 years old and older or attend to minor medical and emergency needs of employees working at the downtown facilities. The department also kept medical records for all employees. Since then, even long before you retired, such department was abolished when all of what it did were outsourced due to changes in medical insurance and benefits and federal statutes.

At 50, you had the procedure done for the first time, then ten years after that and three more since at 3-year intervals, including this latest one.  It should have been last year but Covid 19 pushed it a year back. It still begs the question: Why the need to go through it at certain intervals?

Webster's basic definition:

"\ ˈgət  \

DIGESTIVE TRACT

also : part of the digestive tract and especially the intestine or stomach"

As part of your digestive system, after you eat and drink, after each mouthful, past the chewing and the  swallowing, I am where every morsel of food and every drop of liquid goes, to get broken down into nutrients and waste. There are other parts of your body which will claim all kinds of wonders they do for you and I do not begrudge any of them but, modesty aside, it all begins with me. Each one of them will require energy.  I alone can convert the food and drink you consume into useable energy. I am so versatile that I can serve vegetarian and omni dieters and switch hitters without any re-tooling of my system  

From the day you were born, from the moment you were off your mother's umbilical life support system, I was all there was and is, as we speak, to process every piece of food and drink you take.  By now, you should know what the adage meant by "You are what you eat". And drink.

Let me qualify that.  There is heredity, first of all. Culture too, perhaps. The nature of your job, the stresses of the daily grind of life, influences from family and friends in what food you consume and how, all play a role. I can go on and on but in the end you need this procedure once you get past 50 as "preventive screening and health surveillance" of the digestive tract - a euphemism for colorectal cancer screening. It is a mouthful, I know,  no pun intended, but, in  a word - though it would still take five syllables to say it - colonoscopy says it in a nutshell. I remember the first time you heard it said by the company doctor, when you seemed overwhelmed by it but you were told that it was a potential lifesaver if the screening is done at mid-life. Sooner for some, actually, if symptoms materialize that will require it.

People dread it for the "before" and not the "during" nor the "after".  Also, the "prep" drink  is now a far cry from what you used to take which some of you labeled a gallon of pure medical "water torture".  How was it this time? It was a merciful half a gallon at 16-ounce cocktail at split-dosage intervals from early evening before to the early hours prior to the procedure. A lot more forgiving, wasn't it? Restricted diet from three days before remained unchanged from the previous ones. 

The Bad News

Colorectal cancer, based on the chart below, is at the top for mortality rates, second only to lung cancer. While this is from the Finnish Cancer Registry, I realize it is reflective of the world population in relative terms. And this is the best chart I could find. The other bad news is that I am hidden from view 100% of the time, unless through colonoscopy or other internal examination of your body.

The Good News

On the other hand, it has better survival ratio than four other types of cancer.  It is not the best of news but it could be great, if detected early through regular surveillance. 

So, go get it!  It might save your life.

Meanwhile, although I am 100% hidden from view, you have used me in your vocabulary for other non-medical nomenclature, to drive home a point.

I am, from you innermost self, your "gut reaction"; you would only look at the gut issues around a topic or agenda; you've made me part of your instinctual tool, as in, "She knew in her gut that he was lying"; "The fire gutted the building"; "It was gut-wrenching"; "To destroy the essential power of inflation gutting the economy"; to persevere and "Gut it out". And many more.

I am also fully aware of the sad reality that it is for much of the world a very expensive screening procedure that populations at large may not be able to afford.  That is the sad part. The happy part is that for many I am a very formidable fortress.  I can defend myself most of the time. What distresses me though is when those privileged to have the wherewithal to get me checked out with little or no cost and they don't do it.

But I can't leave you with nothing to smile about.  I just heard this:

A kind hearted lady took a wounded duck she found on the side of the road to the local veterinarian.  After a long wait the doctor came out and told her that the duck had died. The lady asked, "Are you sure? I want to see it."  

The doctor brought her inside the examination room. The lady insisted the doc was mistaken, "Are you really, really sure?"

The doctor summoned from the other room a Labrador retriever . The dog sniffed and nudged the duck. With a sad look on its face, the dog shook its head, looked down and walked away. The lady said, "What does it know?"

The doctor called a cat to come in.  The feline went around and looked very closely at the duck from all angles, "meowed" sadly, looked at the lady with those sad eyes and walked away. That convinced the lady and asked how much she owed the clinic.

The doc replied, "That would be $200."

"What? 200 for determining the duck was dead?" 

The doc replied, "It would have been just $20 if you took my word for it early on. But with extra Lab work and a cat scan, that brought the total amount to $200." 

Eat your veggies and fruit and always drink plenty of water.

Sincerely,

Your Gut  

P.S.  Lab analysis of polyps removed during your colonoscopy:

"Polyps are growths in the lining of the colon. The polyp(s) removed from your colon is called a tubular adenoma. This polyp is a benign (non cancerous) growth in your colon. Based on these results, I recommend a repeat colonoscopy in 3years for surveillance. You should receive a letter to remind you of your next colonoscopy". 

Windmills of Your Mind?

People around the world will easily associate windmills or images of it, like the one below, with Holland or anything Dutch, from landscape artwork, photos, postcards, etc.  Readers past high school literature are also reminded of Don Quixote. At one time in Holland's history there were more than 10,000 fully functioning windmills used to pump water, run all kinds of rotary and pulley driven machines and later on as a source to power electric generators. Today, meticulously preserved for posterity and as tourist attractions there are only 1200 of them left and one day each May the Dutch observes National Windmill Day.

It is believed that as early as 2000 BC windmills had been used to pump water and grind grains.

Today, another image is more ubiquitous. It is the tri-bladed wind turbine that is more imposing than the old windmills for sheer size and height. The largest wind turbine in the world can be found in Hawaii. It is 20 stories tall at its hub and each blade is the length of a football field.  Data from 2015 showed that the 114 windmills in Hawaii produced 6.4% of its total electrical energy needs. 

But first, as a way of acknowledgement, let me recognize the French composer Michel Legrand's musical score of "Windmills of Your Mind" and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman and the original vocalist, Noel Harrison, who sang the Oscar winning song from "The Thomas Crown Affair" that starred Steve McQueen. There, I won't feel bad or guilty about borrowing it as a title for this musing.  By the way, Andy Williams was the first choice to sing it but he declined. However, the much beloved crooner who passed away a while back is instead well known for his signature song, "Moon River".

I digressed.

So, wind turbines it is, for the idle mind to ponder. What do we make of the data accumulated thus far?  We will not make this an either/or debate for or against wind turbines. But we owe it to ourselves to know the hub and rotor blades - faces of the same .. 

"As the images unwind, like the circles that you find                                   In the windmills of your mind!"

The Economics of Wind Turbines 

1. The largest turbines built, so far, can harness energy to power 600 homes in England.

2. Wind turbines on average will operate at 35-65% (onshore-offshore, respectively) of their theoretical maximum capacity because wind changes in strength and direction on  a daily basis.

3. MidAmerican Energy announced they were about to build the tallest wind turbine in the US, a 2.3 MW 554 foot tall (with 173 foot blade extended) about the same as the Washington Monument. The Hawaiian turbine will look like its little brother.

4. Money Making Machine

Note to consider only the 35-65 % of capacity. 100% is only theoretical. 

5. "In 2017, wind energy made up about 6.3 percent of the United States’ total electricity generation, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s compared with about 30 percent each for coal and natural gas and 20 percent for nuclear energy. At 7.5 percent, hydropower contributed the most out of any renewable source. Solar energy made up only 1.3 percent".

6. "The general rule-of-thumb for wind farm spacing is that turbines are about 7 rotor diameters away from each other. So an 80-meter (262-foot) rotor would need to be 560 meters -- more than a third of a mile -- from adjacent turbines. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have proposed that twice as much spacing would increase overall efficiency".

So,

What Does It Take To Harness Wind Power In Lieu Of Oil? 

1.  I calculated that each turbine will need 1.5 acres of land based on the above recommendation.  A "grand total of 1,642,000 turbines will be needed to replace oil over the next 50 years". That is assuming that the turbines operate at 100% capacity, which they will not.

Just for grins, I calculated that 1.6 million turbines will require a land area (or water, offshore) of 3,854 square miles.  That will be about the size of the state of Rhode Island. It will be silly, of course, to place all of them in one place because they will need to be spread out across the globe to be close to the consuming household that will need electricity.

2. "A 2 MW (megawatt) wind turbine weighs 1688 tons: 1300 tons concrete, 295 tons steel, 48 tons iron, 24 tons fiberglass, 4 tons copper, .4 tons neodymium, .065 tons dysprosium and more (Guezuraga 2012; USGS 2011).. an average house weighs: from 72 to 104 tons.  So each 2 MW wind turbine weighs as much as 23 homes."

3. Wind power is renewable. Keep in mind though that the wind turbine itself is not because each one has a life span of 25 years maximum based on current estimates although there is not enough data at the moment. Furthermore, maintenance on average is about $45-50,000 annually.

4. "Assuming a normal lifetime of a wind turbine, about 5 pounds of steel, fiberglass, and other materials are needed to generate 1 megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity. If you include the concrete foundation, the weight jumps up to 25 pounds per MWh." It is not a trivial matter to consider, especially that current refineries, pipelines, all peripheral infrastructures are  all "sunk" costs already - producing energy.  Furthermore, to get rid of them will mean abatement costs that are difficult to assess or contemplate at the moment.

5. If people around the world - governments, scientific establishments and financial institutions - will put their mind to it, it is conceivable that fossil fuel sources of energy can be replaced by renewable energy. The question is the will and at what expense.

Things to Consider:

A. An inventory of different kinds of fossil energy source must be maintained because: (1) hospitals and building complexes will permanently need diesel or natural gas powered engines for emergency power in case electricity goes out for any reason; (2) For national defense, tanks, jet engines, all military transports will need fossil fuel (diesel and aviation fuel). Even nuclear submarines have emergency diesel engines in case of reactor failure. (3) For all general services, fire trucks and emergency vehicles  and excavation and mining equipment will need fossil fuel. (4).  For general transportation, intercontinental air travel, container and cruise ships, excavations, heavy rail transport, etc., fossil fuel is still necessary. (5). To maintain that relatively miniscule inventory, a "skeleton" oil extraction and refining infrastructure must be maintained at tremendous cost. 

B. Civic duty and responsibility ought to be tempered with an open mind. There will always be a Greta Thunberg, sincere proponents of every conceivable cause but there must always be a pragmatic view requirement from each of us to make wise decisions toward anything perceived to be harmful to the environment. Drastic, draconian measures must be restrained with real assessments free of emotions and semi-truths.

Facts and information may be consistent but, as always, it is often about the story. Or, who is able to tell the most convincing one.  It is about what can be spun to garner the most credibility. It is always a matter of which tales get the most credit or persuasive power, no pun intended. 

To Be or Not To Be

 "To be, or not to be: that is the question:"

"Now, seriously", the frog complained. "I can never be  but a frog. I wanted to be a prince from a fair lady's warm and lovely kiss but it is not to be. So, my dear old Billy, William is much too formal and too upper lip, let Hamlet's soliloquy, famous or not, remain where it belongs - bound in parchment or let its echoes be heard only by those who really understand it. Or, by the multitude who pretend they do".

"I yearn to be free of flies and slimy worms from my diet, but futility is all I have and, alas, what is there not to be but me ." Poor froggy muttered to himself in utter frustration.

Now, how about ..

Why not?

It is 2:00 a.m. A love-struck young man, stroking his chin was standing on the parking lot of one huge apartment complex.  Not too long earlier he just met the most beautiful young woman at a bar.  After a couple of drinks, they both agree to get to know each other more, somewhere away from the bar.  Since they both had their cars, the lady instructed him to just follow her and told him her address in case they got separated through traffic and  they drove off.

So, there he was, thank goodness she gave him her address because they did get separated.  But then ..

The young man can't seem to remember the apartment number she gave him. 

"2 B, or not 2 B or was it 2 D?", that was the pressing question. The poor young man was saying softly to himself, a lesser form of soliloquy, but clearly no less important as he tries to recollect freshman year, English 1, second semester.

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles"

Indeed, what sea of troubles his night became, now faced only with .. 

No more; and by a sleep to say we end ..

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; .."

Diane Chambers from "Cheers" (reruns anyone?) said it best to explain why that young man forgot the address, "His hormones had staged a coup d'etat on his brain".

Our animal friends make no pretension about Shakespeare's odes or grammar that often borders on anachronism.

A not too hungry lion one  late afternoon as the setting sun was about to bid goodbye to  the denizens of the plains of Serengeti decided to engage in a conversation with an adult wildebeest busy re-chewing half-digested grass.

"Let me ask you something", the lion said, startling the surprised wildebeest.  "I will ask this as delicately as I can. Have you ever considered becoming a meat eater?"

"You want me to be a carnivore, like you? That is the question?", the incredulous wildebeest replied with two questions of its own.

The lion ignored the questions and said, "Well, you could be spending more time, napping, resting, eat only once in a while, sometimes just once in a week, twice at most.  Instead of spending all of your waking hours munching on grass and chewing your cud till into the wee hours. And that's everyday.  What kind of life is that?"

"First of all, I ruminate on my nourishment because I am of the species known to biologists as ruminants. Our food does not run away from us and we never hurry when we eat and least bit concerned about hyenas stealing it from us"..

"Yeah, right, and you trek many hundreds of miles twice a year to find your green pastures across rivers where crocs await and tall fields filled with hyenas and wild dogs and other inferior cats.  You go one way, come back the same way and again go through it again every year of your life", the lion smirked

To which, ignoring the lion's shallow analysis, the wildebeest continued, "Second of all, we get to travel, see the sights, our ladies give birth all at the same time before we head back when the calves are strong enough.  Despite every brute that prey on us we are still millions strong.  While you number  a mere handful in every ten thousand acres of land. You call yourself king? In your life, To be king or not to be king is what, four maybe five years tops till a stronger lion or two of them brothers come along and take your ladies? You're lucky if you can retire".

Both agreed to disagree.  The lion said, "So long for now, maybe next time we see each other we'll have you for dinner".

What a morbid farewell from the lion. The macabre parting shot, was not lost on the wildebeest.  It knew what the lion meant. To be or not to be a lion's meal, that is the question. 

"To be, or .. wait a minute!"

A young lady contemplating something about a book report on English literature 101, was pulling her hair out, figuratively speaking only, of course, and she was confused.  "Why do I have to be, or not to be? Are those my only two options? Why can't I just be like so pretty, so happy and like popular in this or that and a lot more.  To be or not to be is so limiting, so confining and so like depressingly unreal".

Unreal? Not to the chicken that was minding its own business at one side of the road when a car screeched to an abrupt stop.  A tourist got out and approached the chicken. "My wife would like to ask you a question.  She'd like to know, if you don't mind of course, if you'd cross the road, and when you get there, please tell us why you did".

"You want me to be on the other side of the road and answer your question?"

"Right!"

"Would you ask your wife to come out of the car , please?"

"She'd rather not, no. You see we are sightseeing, enjoying the scenery and then we saw you.  What an opportunity to test the  age old theory about, you know, you crossing the road and all that".

The chicken replied, "Let me quote from my favorite English poet because I think if you listen carefully, you will have your answer".

"The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all" ..,

"And I'll tell you why I won't cross the road.  See that nice café over there on the other side of the road? A block or so beyond it is a chicken coop. I escaped from there a few years ago.  I suggest, since you look famished, you go over there to the café and you and the misses have a nice country-style grilled steak dinner. And you'll have the answer to your question there".

The tourists obliged, so the husband maneuvered their car over the other side of the road and went inside.  The tourists can't wait to ask the hostess who met them with a menu and ready to seat them. "Tell me something. Do you know there's a talking chicken from across the road over there", the husband asked.

The young smiling hostess,  said, "Oh, yeah. She is part owner of this restaurant."

The chicken from across the road had another quote she just remembered,

"When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely ..,"

Note: Full disclosure to the readers and literary critics all, the Shakespeare quotes are real, the rest I made them all up.  I quoted the Diane Chamber's quote from memory and she may have said it with more alacrity. And no animals were hurt during the writing of this musing.

The Vigil of the Lonely

It is a hut. A small one. Probably less than forty square meters, which is the entire room that serves as bedroom, dining, kitchen all in one. The bathroom is the size not much larger than the old fashion telephone booth, for those who remember or know what they are. The only luxury is running water.  One faucet in the kitchen, one in the bathroom. Electricity, unpaid for months, had been cut off. The room is also the receiving area and family room.  Neither feature means anything anymore to the eighty nine year old lady sitting on a rickety rocking chair by one of only two windows.  She does not have  a family to speak of  nor is there anyone to visit her except for a middle age postal worker who comes once every two weeks who brings from time to time whatever food, mostly canned goods and week-old bread she can carry in her mail bag, mostly from the local charity chapter of a non-profit organization. The unpaid "social worker"  does it out of her own time and on her dime.  She had seen enough of these elderly people - alone and often unseen - during the last twenty three years while working for the local post office. A young family man who lives half a kilometer down the road heard the story from the postal lady so he comes at regular intervals to cut firewood for the old lady. He also brings kerosene for the one portable lamp. Both good Samaritans wonder how often the old lady gets to eat a warm meal, lately. The wood-fired stove does not look like it has been used much, recently.

                       

It is not an imagined scene nor is it an isolated case. The elderly living alone is a growing phenomenon. The saddest part is that single-person homes were just 10 per cent of total households for most of the 19th century around the world but now, the so-called modern era, it had almost exponentially rose to an alarming rate. In 2012, in Stockholm, Sweden, the number of household consisting of a single person was 60%, almost half of them occupied by old folks.

Would it have been different for that eighty nine year old lady if the little hut were a mansion?  Her life would be a little easier and comfortable, yes; but her loneliness would not be any less.  The mental anguish no less severe, the emotional need no less wanting.

You don't have to understand the entire chart below but be aware that each single dot represents the percentage of single households relative to all households.

I say, the biggest fear among the elderly is not about dying but living. Alone. 

Is it a third world only phenomenon? One might ask.  Far from it, actually. Third world population has a lower single household by far compared to first world countries and most ironically, wealthy nations have more of it.

Direct quote from World Data: "In the US, the share of adults who live alone nearly doubled over the last 50 years. This is not only happening in the US: single-person households have become increasingly common in many countries across the world, from Angola to Japan".

The biggest distress among the elderly from living alone is when no one comes to visit.  The longing for company, even at the briefest amount of time, is on top of their greatest of needs.  More than food itself, if we can believe that. 

Below is one alarming statistics.  Among those below 35 years old, suicide is the No. 2 cause of death. It is fourth in the 35-54 age group. By age 65 and over it is no longer in the top 10.

What does the data tell us? By age 65 and over the will to live and to go on living is well established in that age group. Those who had gotten past that age had gone through the entire natural cycle of life, having survived their youth, midlife, stayed relatively  healthy for the most part to have made it through, so far, and now mostly retired.  Even if not too financially wealthy, we cannot and should not ignore that they have the wealth of information and experience. Yet, by their age, they are ignored. 

The age group 25-35 registered the highest incidence of suicide.  Suicide, as explained by those in the mental health care, is not about killing oneself. It is about killing the pain that brings someone the heavy emotional load no longer bearable.

The elderly had survived all of the travails life had thrown at them.  They made it thus far.  They coped, they prevailed.

The antidote to dying young is to grow old. 

There is only one ticket on the train of life  doled out to each of us.  It is sad that some of the youth would give it up on their own and decide to cut the trip short.  The elderly are those who early on and much later in life decided to make full use of their ticket, not relinquishing their right to reach the utmost of what physically they can muster to reach their final destination.

This musing will not be of much value if it does not lead to the conversation about what  we of a certain age - we know who we are - can do to make the train ride at the later segment of our journey a little more comfortable, less alone, or simply feeling less alone, or find joy even during moments of being alone.  More importantly, what is it we can do for those among us already burdened by the heavy load of loneliness.

There are a lot of "worthy causes" in the world that come barging into our mailboxes, or brought to us on television, full of visual images and melancholic background music, each in need of our support.  Do you recall any TV ad of one non-profit, solely for the elderly, not predicated on the extent of how much their retirement money can afford?  How much do talk shows discuss the plight of the elderly? The elderly, the unseen, the ignored.  We can do more, give more to support their plight.  That is where charity money we can spare should go.  But what of us and what can we do for ourselves? The lady postal worker and middle age man in the first paragraph had done more per capita than what charity work can accomplish.

You are reading this because you live in the modern era that less than a century ago was only the figment of a science fiction writer's most outlandish imagination. We cook without fire in minutes, we reached out and can be reached from halfway around the world at the click of a mouse.  And since when did a mouse adorn our desks.

Via Skype and Zoom, to name just two, we have access to family members and friends willing to share the same electronic conduit to carry audio and video images in real time from anywhere to anywhere. Add to that emails via the internet and we have what little consolation modern society has to offer.  Even when physical hobbies are now beyond us we still have that one last thing where everything actually begins, where our entire being had all started.  That soft tissue not much heavier than three and a half pounds located between our ears is our last refuge. It is our fortress of solitude when solitude is forced upon us.  But that is getting ahead of ourselves.

Nursing homes are  places full of people but where one may feel alone.

It was the late Robin Williams who said,

“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone”.      

-- Robin Williams

The elderly may be ignored but they do not have to ignore what the modern world has to offer. Ride shares like Uber and Lyft are a Godsend to the old and single who no longer want to drive.  Grocery stores now offer free delivery and free curb side service, and more and more restaurants will now deliver, gourmet food or none-to-fancy.  I do not want to over assume here but I am hopeful that soon  much of the world will have realized to focus services to those unfortunate to be living alone.  Governments must respond because the elderly is not only already a voting force and growing  but the latest survey shows that they, on average, have more financial wherewithal than Gen X's and Z's and Y's or whatever alphabetical distinctions young people go by these days.

There is much hope for single home dwellers.  More and more of those living alone are coping much better than their counterparts in nursing homes.  Tragically, many nursing home residents fared worst during the Covid 19 pandemic.  Isolation served the elderly living alone the most protection, extreme social distancing aside.

What follows here is all analogy, a metaphor perhaps.

A TV Western series, "Have Gun Will Travel", that ran from 1957 to 1963, was initially a radio serial turned  TV series that starred Richard Boone as Paladin, the perfect gentleman gunslinger who helped the wronged and the bullied who sought his help and "he was able to circumvent obstacles and achieve victory where it was seemingly beyond the reach of a mere mortal".

I said enough about the show.  The reader may want to read up on it some more and that is where  the reader, I surmise, must begin his or her quest, to embark on a journey, "Have Mind Will Travel".

This much we know.  The brain makes new connections every chance it gets, or rather, every opportunity if it is stimulated enough for its neurons and synapses to remain actively "fired up". 

Direct quotes:

"The dogma for the longest time was that adult brains couldn't generate any new brain cells. You just use what you were born with, says, "Dr. Amar Sahay, a neuroscientist with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. "But the reality is that everyone has the capacity to develop new cells that can help enhance cognitive functions."

"Everyone" in that quote includes everyone - the elderly included.  But there is a catch, apparently.  There are no free lunches.

Just watching TV and just reading passively are not the ticket.  What is it then? We ask. What if we are past the active physical hobbies, even wheelchair bound or just home bound, to take the extreme?

The mind.  Use it or lose it.  Not only that it is easy to use, it is the one that can pry open windows to the world from where we sit, our viewing and search options unlimited. But there's a catch. Use it actively, not passively, we're told, because it has capacity more powerful than the most massive hard drive in any computer.  That is why for the brain to be only 2-3 per cent of our body weight, it demands access to 25 % of  the entire energy we consume and subsequently utilize.

For this to work, we are told to keep our brain curious and stimulated as a child would. We're supposed to get our minds set to curiosity, whatever personally you want to engage in.  In today's day and age, would you like to wonder what it is like to be on the Trans-Siberia railroad, wander through the seaside of Nice, in France, what does the atom really look like, how does the loom work, how does Google work, what number is represented by 1 googol, how do bees and ants communicate, etc.  Just throwing everything out there and all of these are literarily out there - the www.dot world and on YouTube and TED Talk only mouse clicks away. The brain wants new stuff so don't get in the habit of sticking to the routine but to what is new to it, we are admonished.

Hand-eye coordination is something we learned hard to do early on in our infancy.  But did you know that was the age brain stimulation was its most active, ever?. Do handwriting again, if you are not already painting stuff, needle work, crochet or the crossword, etc. Even keystrokes as you compose whatever it is you want to write about are beneficial, and, surprisingly, more so to those who can't do touch-typing. Calligraphy is the ultimate hand eye activity where writing is concerned.

There is much to cover.  But what are you waiting for? Write today's diary, write to somebody, get your mind on an adventure to someplace you haven't been to before, from  your chair, wheeled or not, the kitchen table, because even to the immobile, electrons will still move at the speed of light to get you to places you have not been to or things you know little about but dying to know what or how.  "Dying to know" is the magnitude of intensity your brain wants.  So, do it.

Always remember though, there is more to the insatiable mind.  It is the process of keeping our mind constantly fed and excited, so we must use it or lose it.

There's more.  Its hard drive has more capacity than The Library of Congress.  Like the library we can share some of its contents and in return we must allow it to receive even more from others.  Then it will not be alone.