THE STORY SO FAR: PART 302: SUNDAY

ITS QUITE AMAZING HOW MUCH WE ARE TOLD THAT ISN’T TRUE—YOU HAVE TO WONDER ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH A BARRAGE OF LIES

I often wonder whether we are not really living in a higher risk version of  THE TRUMAN SHOW—where much which we regard as real and the truth isn’t a mixture of illusion and deception.

It is not as if  lies are occasional hazards—as we are led to believe when we are very young (a lie in itself). In practice it may well be that the lie is the norm. Certainly, there are very few corporations which tell the truth if it doesn’t serve their interests to do so—and corporate advertising and promotion largely consists of one lie after another.

Do religious organizations tell the truth? Given that so many are run as businesses, it seems highly unlikely—and how do they really know there is a God. The truth is that they don’t—I’m not talking about belief here—but if they admitted that manifest truth, they would find it much harder to obtain a following. 

Well, what about politicians? If I even suggested that politicians told the truth, you’d stone me.

That leads me to the thought that our lives are almost certainly based upon a tissue of lies, self-deception and illusion. It’s not a particularly cheerful thought, but in the interests of intellectual honesty, I feel compelled to state it.

But do I think it is true? Given the thesis that I have just advanced, you would be wise to doubt my answer—whatever it was.

Personally, I have the feeling that the real truth is probably found in fiction—which may be why most of us get through the working day, and then focus on escaping from the real world through TV, or some other distraction where the truth is irrelevant. One of the advantages of being a writer is that I can escape from the real world most of the time.

I was prompted to think about this whole subject when I ran across an article on the STEM (short for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) crisis—the widely propagated notion that the U.S. is suffering from a deadly serious shortage of such people.

The reporter concerned (Robert N. Charette, IEEE Spectrum, 30 August 2013) did some serious digging—as illustrated in the graphic below—and came to the logical conclusion that there are more than enough candidates to fill demand—and that primary purpose of this massive lie is to keep wages and salaries down.

That ever intriguing blog FABIUS MAXIMUS set this finding in a wider context:

Crush unions, cuts taxes on business, fragment work into jobs that require minimal skills, fragment jobs into a largely part-time contingent workforce, expand training so that there is a surplus to demand, increase immigration, outsource work to other nations to create internal competition — and the profits will flow. This is the New America being built by large corporations from McDonald’s to Amazon.

Training too many skilled people is an important part of the game. Tight controls on the supply of doctors shows the effect of too-small supply. The relatively low wages of engineers and scientists shows how corporations run the supply-demand equation for their benefit: “The STEM Crisis Is a Myth“, Robert N. Charette, IEEE Spectrum, 30 August 2013 — “Forget the dire predictions of a looming shortfall of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematician.” A reliable formula for higher profits: training more than there are jobs AND import more workers from other nations.

Robert N. Charette’s conclusion is below:

A Matter of Supply vs. Demand: Every year U.S. schools grant more STEM degrees than there are available jobs. When you factor in H-1B visa holders, existing STEM degree holders, and the like, it’s hard to make a case that there’s a STEM labor shortage.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 301: SATURDAY

BOTH WORDS AND FACTS MEAN WHATEVER I CHOSE THEM TO MEAN

 "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
    "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
    "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
    "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
    "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

I was reminded of the above by a fascinating piece in Salon.   

According to Yale law professor Dan Kahan, it’s easier than we think for reasonable people to trick themselves into reaching unreasonable conclusions. Kahan and his team found that, when it comes to controversial issues, people’s ability to do math is impacted by their political beliefs.

The study pitted over 1,000 participants against a tricky math problem. In one version, the question involved a clinical trial of a skin cream that sometimes helped heal rashes, and sometimes made them worse. Using a set of raw data, the participants had to do some complex calculations to decide whether or not the cream was effective. It was difficult enough that 59 percent of the participants got the problem wrong.

Then things got interesting. The researchers took the same exact question and reframed it. Now, instead of being about skin cream, the numbers in question referred to the effectiveness of concealed carry laws. And this time, whether or not people got the question right depended on their political beliefs — and whether or not the correct answer supported their preconceived notions of gun control.

This chart shows how dramatic the change was. Conservative Republicans were much less likely to correctly interpret data suggesting that a gun ban decreased crime in a city; for liberal Democrats, the exact opposite was true. The people who were normally best at mathematical reasoning, moreover, were the most susceptible to getting the politically charged question wrong.

It’s a tough old world if you prize this thing called ‘intellectual honesty.’

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 299: THURSDAY

DUMBED-DOWN AMERICA—FACT OR FICTION?

Writers—serious writers—make certain assumptions about the intelligence of our readers. We might not consciously write to a specific grade level (though many newspapers and magazines do so) but we do like to think that if we write well, an adequate audience will be capable of appreciating our work.

Are we correct in making such assumptions—or operating under an illusion?

I don’t profess to know the answer. However, I find newspaper articles, like the following, a cause for concern. This is an extract.

Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in Boise, laments 'alarming degree of public ignorance'

• by Katie Terhune
• Sept. 6, 2013

Two-thirds of Americans cannot name a single Supreme Court justice, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told the crowd that packed into a Boise State ballroom to hear her Thursday.

About one-third can name the three branches of government. Fewer than one-fifth of high school seniors can explain how citizen participation benefits democracy.

"Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it's right there in the name," she said.

"The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance," O'Connor said.

That ignorance starts in the earliest years of a child's schooling, she said, but often continues all the way through college and graduate school.

THE STORY SO FAR:PART 300: FRIDAY

FROM BOOKS TO MOVIES—VICTOR THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

Yes, I know I may seem to be wandering behind the scenes at present, but my current focus is writing a screenplay—and it is wringing blood, sweat and tears from my body (metaphorically speaking—I’m not actually sitting in an ever expanding pool of crimson).

Situation entirely normal, you may say—whoever promised writing would be easy—and I would be hard-pressed to disagree in a general sense.

Normal, it is not. Normally, I write books, which are very different things from movie screenplays. The transition from book-writing mindset to movie scribe is akin to walking through Alice’s Looking Glass.

You have, of course, read ALICE IN WONDERLAND and ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS? Of course you have. How else can one get through life without such invaluable manuals about the human condition.

The above illustration, by the way, is of the Jabberwock—a truly wonderful name which fascinated me as a child.

I’m actually not concerned about the amount of effort I’m putting into the screenplay. The aspect that worries me somewhat is time. I feel like the White Rabbit in that regard because while I’m focused on the screenplay, God alone knows what I am neglecting—but when I write, it is full focus.

You know when I was small, I had a white rabbit as a pet. Then, when I went to my grandmother’s farm for the first time, I discovered that rabbits were regularly trapped, skinned, gutted and eaten.

The world, I was to discover, could be a decidedly confusing place.

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 298: WEDNESDAY

BUT WHAT IS ‘CREATIVE ENERGY?’

You know, given the importance I attach to certain concepts—cognition, time, creative energy, focus (and so on) the building blocks of a writing life—you would think I would have researched them to excess. After all, that is what I would normally do if I was writing a book. In fact, subject so some exceptions such as reading and admiring Tony Schwartz’s THE WAY WE’RE WORKING ISN’T WORKING, most of my observations are based on no more than experience—with a little thought thrown in.

Time is essential for creative energy, but creative energy is not the same as time. Instead, time is a facilitator in the relationship.

But is creative energy the same as energy—that feel good physical feeling which makes you feel as if you can conquer the world? I rather think not. True, you need energy as a component of creative energy, but there it ends.

This what Wiki says about ‘energy’ by the way.

In physics, energy is a conserved extensive property of a physical system, which cannot be observed directly but can be calculated from its state. Energy is of central importance in physics. It is impossible to give a comprehensive definition of energy because of the many forms it may take, but the most common definition is that it is the capacity of a system to perform work.

I then tried to look up ‘creative energy’ but found nothing under that heading. Perhaps it is similar to pornography—something you know when you see it, but cannot define. All very well, but you can’t even see ‘creative energy.’ It is both a feeling and a state. In fact, it is a mindset made of the following:

• Experience—a depth of relevant knowledge to draw upon.
• Intellectual curiosity.
• A well trained eye.
• Peace of mind (at least temporarily).
• A disciplined temperament.
• Absolute focus.
• A well rested body.
• A determination to shake up the status quo in some way.
• A willingness to take risks.
• An element of madness.

Robin Williams has said:  “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You must not lose it.”

Do I now feel I have described ‘creative energy’ adequately?

I wish! What I can say is that having it is the kind of a rush you can maintain for hours—and sometimes longer if you don’t skip your sleep. And when you have it, you can do wonderful things.

Sometimes I think one of its key components is magic. Having creative energy is rather like having Seven-League Books for the mind.

 

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 297: TUESDAY

THIS EPHEMERAL THING WE CALL TIME—AND OUR AMAZING ABILITY TO FRITTER IT AWAY BY BEING BUSY, BUSY, BUSY—BUT TO WHAT PURPOSE?

A blog by Tony Schwartz in the New York Times has prompted me to write this particular piece. Tony is the author of THE WAY WE’RE WORKING ISN’T WORKING, a truly fascinating book about questioning our existing rat-race lifestyle. I came to exactly that conclusion decades ago—which is, I suspect, one of the reasons I became a writer. Fundamentally, I rejected the way a normal business day worked. I thought people were crazy to operate this way—and still do. There has to be more to life. 

The section of Tony Schwartz’s blog that really resonated was in the following:

I was feeling tired and overloaded when I left for vacation in early August. I looked forward to relaxing and being with my family, but I equally craved time for quiet reflection. Thinking creatively, strategically and long term is a crucial part of any leader’s job, and I felt frustrated trying to make that happen amid the phone calls, e-mail, texts, meetings and the slew of questions and issues that come up over the course of a working day.

My brain had just gotten too crowded. With so much external distraction and so many issues competing for my attention, I was only able to give small amounts to any one. To make deeper and more meaningful connections between the disparate ideas in my head, I needed to free up both time and internal space.

That isn’t easy, as you surely know. I solved the problem simply: when my wife and I went to visit our daughter and her husband in Amsterdam, I didn’t bring my laptop and I didn’t activate my phone.

We hung out together, biked, walked and lingered in restaurants. But I also took a couple of hours for myself in the afternoons. I sat down with a journal and a pen, and free-associated. At first, it was just a jumble of thoughts about the new direction I believe our company needed to take. As the days went on, though, the thoughts began to sort themselves out, and clarify and cohere.

Time without interruptions and imminent deadlines was an incredible luxury. I didn’t feel rushed to arrive at conclusions or solutions. I could pursue an idea or a direction without worrying about its immediate utility. It allowed me to take a much more long-range view.

For a host of reasons—starting with the fact that it can take years to write a book, and decades to master your craft (not that one ever does completely)—it is highly desirable for a writer to take the long view; and to be prepared to endure setbacks and privation along the way. But you will learn to focus on one thing at a time, and to treat time itself with the respect it deserves. And you’ll be richly rewarded—though probably not with money! Though you may be surprised.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 296: MONDAY

MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES—MAKING SURE THEY COULD ACTUALLY FLY

I have great respect for the early pioneers of aviation, not only because of their ingenuity, but because of their sheer courage. They had the guts to fly in machines which, by definition, were unproven—because they had only just been invented.

I have already commented on Frank Piasecki in that regard. This is Igor Sikorski in action.

In 1939 Sikorsky designed and flew the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300,^[3] the first viable American helicopter, which pioneered the rotor configuration used by most helicopters today.^[4] Sikorsky would modify the design into the Sikorsky R-4, which became the world's first mass-produced helicopter in 1942.

Piasecki pioneered tandem rotor helicopter designs and created the compound helicopter concept of vectored thrust using a ducted propeller. A photo of Piasecki’s tandem (two) rotor design is at the bottom of this article.

By all accounts there was not only rivalry between the two men, but bad blo0d. Well, I guess that should not be surprising. Silorski was a Russian and Piacecki a Pole. In fact, around the time both men were developing the first flying helicopters, Hitler made an agreement with Stalin to divide Poland between them.