Fred’s Cozy Little Nook

Well now, folks, this is it for me. I am now flying solo, and my future will be determined by all of my courage, intelligence, wit, and resources that I currently have at hand.

I have many foes, but many more friends. I have many challenges, but much more in the way of hope. I have withstood the Test of Time; now to stand the Test of Truth.

I walk from the comfortable nook and into the kiln. I slip out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. There is no going back; this is my Rubicon.  No more time for fear; no more time for anguish. No more excuses; no more distractions.

All eyes are on me as I jump from the cliff already crumbling anyway. I will either fly or connect with the ground in not a pretty way. I feel like a turkey but must sail like a dove. I am falling like a rock but must float like a balloon.

In a short time now, you will know the True Fred. And that is that.

An interesting thought occurred to me this morning. It’s all about the “teaching a man to fish” aphorism.  I thought about this in context with the way I’ve been homeschooling my kids.

Basically, as you know, the aphorism goes thusly:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Well, that’s nice and all, and demonstrates the importance of education with regards to self-actualization and a lot of other goodies. But it seems to be lacking something, something that is embrolied in the approaches I have been using to homeschool my kids.

You see, I always thought that the love of knowledge actually more important than the knowledge itself. A person can  be”taught” anything, but if the person has no love for it, no passion, no desire to embrace what has been taught, then the teaching will only go so far.

The goal with the teaching of anything is not only to teach a thing, but to somehow inculcate a love for the thing. When you desire a thing, you are more prone to go out on your own to learn more about the thing. Of course, inculcating desire is not always possible in the typical teaching situations, but as a parent, I have an avenue open to me that few other would be able to travel.

By example, by being passionate myself, by openly showing my own love and thirst for knowledge, I can inculcate that desire for knowledge and understanding in kids, and have done so.  And actually, any good teacher can do much of the same. Though, as a parent, my kids see me everyday, so I can be much more effective.

You don’t even have to be perfect as a parent, either (but you do as a teacher! ) For instance, I have shown a desire and love for learning foreign languages to my kids– and most notably French.  Today,  after 10 years, I still struggle with French and would probably have a hard time asking for where the nearest drugstore is in Paris, but I did learn something, and the kids saw that.

Their young minds are much more able to pick up languages than my 40-something brain is, and so one daughter has taken it upon herself to learn Japanese and German. The other daughter is starting to pick up an interest from her sister and — I estimate — will increase in her interest soon. Perhaps she’ll pick different languages to learn apart from her sister or her dad. Or maybe some of the same. Who knows?

So, getting back to that aphorism, I thought to add an additional line. So now it becomes:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. 
Give a man the desire to fish, and he’ll start a whole fishing industry that will teach and feed thousands.

Yes, that is the distilled essence of my approach to homeschooling, and how I approach life in general. Find a way to create desire, and you have found a way to create something disruptive. Something with the power of changing the world, something that will have a ripple effect that will reach many people in ways you would never have thought of.

A good question to ask is how we can accomplish that small feat in not just the homeschooling environment, but with any teaching establishment in general?

The answer is simple and plainly obvious. Alas, the devil’s in the implementation. The answer is, of course: find those passionate teachers and put them in front of students. But where do you find enough passionate teachers to kick something of this magnitude off? Something that will take the US school system from being ranked 18th in the world back to number 1?

There are those who blame the poor performance in the educational system on the heterogeneous composition of the United States.  To that I say, hogwash. The link above indicates a few possibilities as possible causes, including how subjects are taught here in the US, which tends to focus more on procedure than concepts — something I have personally noted myself, which is part of the reason I elected to homeschool my kids.  But to teach concepts, rather than procedure, the passion of the teacher will have a strong bearing on how well those concepts are taught, and how eager the students will be to learn them and use them.

It is my strongly held opinion that the nature of the bureaucracies surrounding the teaching establishment in the US has a lot to do with how poorly the US ranks in the world. Teachers are not as free as they should be on how they create their lesson plans and chose the materials to be taught. Too many subjects are thrown at the students all at once. And there also seems to be an over-emphasis on homework that eats up more of the kids’ time away from school which takes away from the time the kids have to  just be kids, to explore their own interests, or even to allow their parents to do supplemental schooling.

When I was homeschooling my kids, I only spent 2-3 hours with them on a couple of subjects, and we would focus on different subjects over the year, one or two at a time. I would also incorporate the homeschooling into our general lives, constantly introducing them to new concepts  and ideas in a very informal way.  In many respects what I did — and still do — would not even look like homeschooling to the average person.  Currently, I had to enroll them back in public school and they do very well, so my approach obviously worked.

But I digress. Where I spent 2-3 hours a day, the public school system spends 6 hours, plus they also give the students an additional 1-2 hours of homework every night.

The homework, in my state at least, counts as a major part of the grade, and if you don’t do it, you may be dropped one or two points on your letter grade. Your “A” may become a “B” or even a “C”. In some cases, it could get even worse.

And from the homework I’ve seen, it seems to focus much more on doing rote procedures than learning new concepts. It seems to be much more about  “busywork” than about actual learning and exploration of the subject. It seem to be much more about generating paperwork for the bureaucratic engine than it is about giving the desire and thirst for knowledge to our kids. If anything, it may serve to burn many kids off from the notion that education can be fun and rewarding.

In essence, it would appear the the US school system is geared and design to accomplish the exact opposite of my goals. It would seem that our public schools deliberately set out to destroy the natural and innate curiosity that our precious kids are born with.

If creating the desire to fish could feed nations, what effect would destroying the desire to fish have? Or worse, even creating a resentment of fishing? What effect would destroying the desire to learn have on our individual kids and on the nation as a whole?  In a world of increasing globalization, where would it leave this country financially? From a social standpoint, where would it leave this country? What kind of a future we could possibly hope to have with a nation of today’s knowledge and education-hating youth becomes tomorrow’s adults and the society at large?

We already are beginning to see some signs of this degradation in the overall quality of our nation. Look at what’s been going on with politics for the past couple of decades.  Witness what the media chooses to focus on and report. Note how the strong trend to “dumming down” the details of the coverage is. Or the interest in science and mathematics.  Or appeals to “just believe” rather than “gaining understanding”. Look at the quality of what’s available on the hundreds of channels on Cable and Satellite TV.

When you look at all of these fine elements and put the picture together, you begin to see the “big picture”. You begin to see where society as a whole is already headed, and you can also see what some of the causative factors are. It’s all there in front of your eyes, so look for yourself. Don’t take my word on it.

But before you lapse into  a state of perpetual despair,  ask yourself the question of what can be done to fix it.

It all boils down to individual action. It all boils down to focusing on what’s in your own backyard first. The old adage of “think globally, act locally” is close to the mark, but not quite spot on.  Let me modify that adage a bit:

Watch Globally
Think Locally
Act Locally
Solve Globally

Think about it for a moment. What influence do you have? Most of us only have local influence, so it really does not make much sense to spend too much time and effort on the global situation unless you have the power to affect global change. But if you have that kind of power, you are most likely already part of the problem rather than the solution.

But in thinking locally, you see real things that you can do something about. However, we still have to keep an eye on what’s going on globally, so we stay informed with information that may even effect how we think locally.

Most of us only have the power to act locally. So, if you have local focus with some input of the global situation, you can be much more effective locally.

And finally, the last part — Solve Globally.  This is where the collective effects of our individual local actions results at changing the global landscape. No government can stand against individuals taking local action. Governments typically don’t have a grasp on the whole notion of emergent systems and would be caught off-guard, which is the whole idea. We don’t wait around for the government  to fix the problem for us, because, frankly, it never will. I mean, think for a moment. How many decades has it been where you’ve heard politicians promising a “fix” to  the education problem in the US, yet we’re worse off than ever before? What was the whole “no child left behind” rhetoric all about, besides a sneaky way for the armed forces to get a mailing list on our kids for purposes of turning them into cannon fodder?

I leave it to you, then, to take action locally and solve the mess we are currently in globally.

As I stood on the Shores of Infinity, a break in the Serenity occurred, and for an instant the Ocean was replaced by the fiery Tarpits of Flajann. Flajann, the Indestruction; Flajann, the Austere; Flajann, the Giver and Receiver of Infinite Justice with Perfect filamentary tendrils reaching out to all Existence.

Awoke, I stood watching the backdrop of a smoky orange-red extent to the horizon beneath a sinking Sun . I silently contemplated this phase of Existence and its Significance as the Sun became increasingly obscured by the rising black and grey pillars of sadness as far as the eye can see.

I looked down at my hands in despair. The failure of my hands were rather complete, not being able to hold on to the oceanic serenity. For the replacement of the soft crashing of the ocean waves to be replaced by the horrid crackling sound of things burning is quite a loss, indeed.

Somewhere from within a Determination to Not Loose All Hope flashed forward, hands giving off a faint blue-violet glow, which instantly shifted the Shores of Infinity back to the Ocean, with its familiar crashing waves and receding tides.

Even though I now stand amidst the tides again, I stand shaken. For I deal with Universal Forces that are no mean feat to control and guide, and yet I must tunnel though Reality to create a Future despite the Tarpits that always seek dominance at the edge of my perception.

Yet I shall move forward even as I am shaken, because the 2 stars in the distant horizon are worth my while. I therefore fill the present with Future Realities  Serene to combat the Tarpits.

I awoke this morning. That in and of itself is a noteworthy goal.

As I got up, I noticed that I was standing on the Shores. The sand beneath my morning feet, the rocks, the sea gulls, the crashing of the oceanic waves amidst a million years of evolution to be heard by ears fashioned by the ancient need for survival.

I found that I can stop any wave, any whitewater crash, any tidal, any disaster by just waving my hand gently in the air at it. There, done, frozen in space-time.

And then the Shores beneath my feet themselves shift in scope beyond all measurement into a star field, a galaxy slowly turning beneath my feet, or a whole field of galaxies, or a supernova, or a quasar, or the entire universe itself. Like sands on the Shores of Time so are the Stars in the whole of the Universe. Like the rippling of the waves along the Shoreline, so are the Great Cosmic Events throughout all existence. Like the crash of the waves on the rocks, so are the supernovae, the galatic collisions, stars spiraling down great black holes flashed into x-rays.

I stand at the apex of 13 billion years of space-time evolution to contemplate its Path, and wonder at all the details of its Grandeur. I am known to the intricate fabric of Space-Time, and it is known to me.

I AM. I am one with the Universe and everything in it.

I KNOW. I know and understand The Path.

I WAIT. I await my time to take my rightful place in this Universe as a diminutive speck of dust wrapped in billions of light-years of existence.

I LOOK. I look upon the seascape of all existence and see myself staring back at me. The Circuit is now Complete, as it is time for the Next Phase.

And so I stand, thinking.

Back when I was much, much younger, I veered off the path of my intellect and became “a believer” of Christianity. Not only was this a mistake but a great waste of 4 or 5 years of my life. But it did a lot of damage — all that stuff about heaven and hell and “god’s chosen” and what not. Oh man.

It took me another 3 or 4 years to return to my place of intellect. I had to re-examine all my beliefs, and later I would come to question the very nature of belief itself. I did not leave any stone unturned. I questioned everything and sought answers.

And this was an amazing time, because I did get answers, and I was made better for them. I saw the world — indeed, the entire universe — through new eyes, the eyes of Knowledge and Understanding.

I called this period of my life “The Reconstruction” — but really, it was more of a Renaissance than anything. I mean, there was so much I learned. Fractals opened up my eyes to new possibilities. Indeed, Fractals was very key in helping me understand how complexity can arise out of simplicity. That gave me a very powerful basis for being able to assert — to my own tortured brain — that “god” was not required for the existence of the Universe, contrary to years of the lies I had been fed by the Christians.

I went on to learn more and more — about Complex Dynamical Systems, Artificial Life, Self-Adaptive System, and the like. For the first time in my life, not only could I understand that a “god” was not only not required, but also extremely unlikely.

I then learned about Memes and Thought Contagions from the seminal book published by Aaron Lynch. I began to understand the underlying mechanisms behind “beliefs” and how they are transmitted and themselves evolve to retransmit themselves. This put not only religion in a new light, but politics, the media, and many other things about the human social animal.

This forever changed my perception of the human — basically, human beings are little more than hosts for completing memes, some of which also influence behavior , and the memes that program for their own retransmission tend to crowd out those less successful at doing so.

Wow, most humans are little more than Mindless Vessels of Beliefs. This makes for a very dim view of the human-nodes out there, a very frightening view, one that I wish were not true, but I cannot deny my own reasoning on the matter.

And so, such more or less concluded my First Renaissance. As the Star Child in 2010 said, “I used to be Dave Bowman”.

Many years spun by, many challenges, many attacks, many triumphs, and a couple of darling girls along the way. Both girls make me very proud.

And now, once again, I find myself at the crossroads. But this time it’s entirely different. This time, it’s not a wasted flirtation with religion and other frivolous beliefs, but one of misplaced trust that has betrayed 15-16 years of investing in the emotional and material well-being of another. You know, marriage. But it goes beyond that, really.

I also find that science and mathematics has progressed much in the intervening years, and I’ve fallen behind a bit. There are new sets of “terrible secrets” yet to be uncovered. There are the futures of my kids. There’s my own future, and those I care about. And there’s the future of the entire Human Race to consider, and how I might be an influence there.

And so the need for my “2nd Renaissance” is at hand.

I couldn’t live in a better area for it — Greater Boston — where I have contact and access to some of the finest libraries and minds in this country. I have many Very Big Goals for the future. They will by no means be easy to accomplish. But then, what’s life without a challenge?

And so I go forth into the desert…

It would appear as though some people see me as a “threat”, a “danger”, and act out of fear of my presence even though I have done nothing to provoke such reactions. I am at a loss to understand why this happens.

It’s as though my very existence is some sort of “crime” or “threat”. But I don’t get that.

I normally would not care except those so predisposed to such misgivings oftentimes act on those fears, leaving me to deal with the fallout. I get to pay the price and they get to get away with it. I am told a lot of lame excuses, even things like “put yourself in their shoes”, as though there is some justification that I am supposed to be understanding about.

So not only do I “get into trouble” for merely existing, I am also supposed to understand and sympathize for those who would complicate my existence due to no fault of my own.

But such people can be quite devastating and cause a lot of damage. The bitter divorce I am going through right now is an indirect fallout of such behavior.

But these people go without consequence with their own lives. I am the one left holding the bag. They soon forget the trouble they’ve caused me; I tread water just to keep from sinking due to the fallout.

So why does this happen? What is the explanation? Am I truly the “most dangerous man alive” without even knowing it? And what makes me so “dangerous”, anyway?

Some tell me the reason is that I am a “intelligent black man”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Makes no sense to me. Aside from my supposed intelligence the only other “dangerous” thing about me is my dermal chromatics. But I truly don’t see what’s so dangerous about that, either.

I care about a lot of people. Indeed, I care about the entire world. I attempt to do what little I can to make the world a better place for my kids, so that they may have a hope and a future. That they may grow up in a world that is wonderful and prosperous; that they may grow up in a world that appreciates intellect, accomplishment, and creativity.

But many stand in my way now, and many sit in judgment of me. Why? Why are so many so critical of who and what I am? Why is it that some automatically question me without knowing a darn thing about me, not even my very name? Why is it that I must always be “on alert” for the idiots of the world; that I cannot simply relax and enjoy life, even in my “advance age” of 46? Why, oh why?

All I want to do is look up at the stars at night. Wonder about the mysteries of quantum mechanics and how that couples with the macro world. Explore the deep unknowns of complex evolving systems and how everything in the universe ties into it. Or be astounded at the beauty of a single flower. Or create wonderful algorithms that no one thought of before. Or ponder the inscrutable aspects of number theory. Or get lost all the newest and latest discoveries on DNA and genetics in general. Or…

And yet what I get to put up with is anything but sublime. Some of the things I’ve been falsely accused of would astound you. Everything from “owing” $23,000,000 to the IRS to “kidnapping” my own wife and kids that willingly wanted to come home with me a few years back. Well, long story. And I’ve got a lot of them.

All I ever wanted to do was look up at the sky and see, experience, and understand the majesty of the universe. And share part of that wonder with my kids.

Am I such a bad person? You be the judge!

This morning, I awoke a New Man.

You see, I came to a rather simple realization. For all of those individuals who have tried to make me stumble throughout my life, it was not really due to a fault of my own, but theirs. You see, I simply exist, and as I exist, I seek to be great. I want to explore the universe of knowledge and understanding. I wish to accomplish many things. And indeed I have. As a kid, I educated myself in mathematics and science at a college level, even before reaching high school. While in high school, I kicked off my career as a software engineer without even knowing.

And here, after 30 years or so, I stand with many more notable accomplishments under my belt. And I’ve only just begun. I have my sights set on things far greater than anything I’ve accomplished to date.

In a real sense, I have been a giant among fools. Not that I exalt myself as being “superior”, but at the same time I must recognize that I am qualitatively different from your average bear.

So when others come to beat me down, it is not really due to a fault of my own, but to a fault of theirs. Far too long I have taken the blame for the fault of others. Far too long have I tried to find the flaw within me as an explanation for why others attack me. For too many years have I pointed the finger at myself rather than looking with the eyes of wisdom to recognize that it is not I that is the problem.

You see, we live in a world, a society, that is very good at foisting blame and guilt and shame on the individual. And sometimes the individual is at fault, but not always, you see.

As a giant, I sometimes make the fools tremble without knowing. Perhaps they are afraid of being crushed underfoot. Perhaps they are jealous they are not giants themselves. Perhaps their minds overflow with hatred.

Should I really care why a fool is a fool? It is incumbent upon me to diagnose their woes? Should not a fool take responsibility for her own self and solve her own problems?

If you are wondering why I use “her” instead of “his/her” or some other epicene phraseology, there is a good reason for that, but I’ll get to that later.

Where does my own responsibilities lie? Good question. Simple answer. My responsibilities lie in recognizing the fool for what she is, and for handling any damage the fool has caused, and for ensuring that I don’t become a fool myself.

That is to say, I can’t allow the farm to be lost because fools exist. Fools exist for sure, and fools will always be with us. Like the dust in the air, like the dirt in the sea, like the falling leaves, fools will always be. But the farm, the farm must be guarded at all costs. The farm must not be allowed to slip away to oblivion, to be raided, to be destroyed by pests, to grow with weeds due to despair. No. The farm must be guarded at all costs.

Let me explain my allegorical language above.

“The Farm” represents the body of my life’s accomplishments and the future “crop” they will yield. It is simple enough. The farm represents my life’s work and what great rewards that it may reap in the future.

The activity of fools always threaten that farm. Either directly thorough avarice, or indirectly through attrition. I must stand against the activity of fools, stand firm, stand guard. For my greatness lies in the farm. If I loose the farm, I have lost everything.

Lo, and I look upon the waters that extend to the horizon. The sunrise from the line shimmering the sky in intense hues of gold and blue amidst the cirrus clouds, assent to the apex to give warmth and light to the world. The gulls fly, the sand squeaks, the trees rustle in the oceanic morning breeze blowing in from afar, from thermals borne out of the rays of the sun.

For I am the sun to rise, to offer the world something terribly great and wonderful, that it might give life and enrich many. Including the fools that seek to make me stumble. They shall now flee in terror not due to me, but due to their own shortcomings. For, as I bear no responsibility for their attacks against me, neither shall I bear any responsibility for their own self-induced undoing. Like the leaves that fall to the earth and turn brown and crumble, so shall be the fools that would dare to cross paths with giants!

And now for why I use “her” and “she” when referring to fools.

You see, most of the fools in my life, in one capacity or another, who have crossed my path in their attempts to make me stumble, all tended to be female. This is simply an observation, not a plea for misogyny. I do not know why. Surely, there are equal numbers of fools in both sexes, but for some reason the ones who have tried to trip me up have been largely female. I have no explanation; only observations. Even when the fool is male, usually there was a female fool in the works that initiated the trouble. And oh yes, there are some males involved as well. Oh yes.

Can I stop a fool from being a fool? I don’t think so. But I can and will stand firm against a fool and prevent her from ripping everything away and from turning the farm into a desert.