jameswharris

How to Flourish and Avoid Languishing in Retirement and Old Age?

by James Wallace Harris, 5/5/21

Languishing and flourishing are two words that have been banging around in my consciousness since reading two essays in The New York Times: “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing” and “The Other Side of Languishing Is Flourishing.”

The first article was geared to people suffering a sense of stagnation, emptiness, and muddling through caused by the pandemic. Adam Grant says languishing is the state of mental health between depression and flourishing and explores the emotion in detail, along with advice on how to beat languishing. The second article, by Dani Blum gives us seven ways to promote flourishing.

I immediately resonated with the word languishing, but not because of pandemic confinement. I realized languishing is a state I have fallen into because of retirement and aging. I am not depressed, but often I am not flourishing either.

What I realized was the confining lifestyle required to avoid Covid-19 was similar to the lifestyle of being retired. Both involve spending most of our time at home. Both involve seeing fewer people. Both involve limiting what we can choose to do. Sheltering at home from Covid-19 was no great effort for me because I was retired. I no longer needed to go to work or school, and my social life shrank drastically after I stopped working. I felt sorry for the millions that had to put their careers, businesses, and education on hold. But what I understood now, being retired had put my future on hold too. That’s where the sense of languishing grabs us.

On the front side of life, when we are young, the future is full possibilities. We flourish by chasing all our wants.

But on the back side of life, possibilities dwindle, and opportunities disappear. After retirement our wants become fewer. As our health fades away, so do the desires that drive us. We begin to languish.

I believe wanting people, places, possessions, and proficiencies make us flourish. But how do we thrive with vanishing vitality and dissipating desires?

I need to think about this. I do know when my health fails, I languish, and when my wellbeing returns, I start flourishing again. Unfortunately, the frequency of poor health episodes are increasing.

The answer to the title question needs two approaches. One for retirement, one for aging. Retirement gives us more time but less of other things. Aging is a diminishing of being, a natural state of not flourishing. Yet, I hope to find ways to flourish right up until I’m dying. Is that even realistic? Or some Pollyannaish belief?

I could speculate now and make this essay much longer, but I believe I need to contemplate the problem deeper before philosophizing further.

JWH

Using an Amazon Echo Dot 4th Generation as a Music Streamer

by James Wallace Harris, May 2, 2021

As I explained earlier, lightning killed my computer and TV, and zapped the ethernet/Wi-Fi circuits on my Yamaha WXA-50 integrated amp/music streamer. The amp portion continues to work with the optical and RCA inputs, just the streaming feature died. The Yamaha WXA-50 was my second favorite source of music, used in my computer room with Bose 301 Series V speakers. I know audiophiles sneer at Bose, but I loved the sound of these 301s in this room. I think they were just right for the room’s acoustics and being required to sit on the top of my bookshelves.

My main music system in the den is a Bluesound Powernode 2i paired with Klipsch RP-5000F speakers. The Yamaha WXA-50/Bose 301 sounded almost as good as the Bluesound/Klipsh system so I mourn its loss.

Instead of buying another Yamaha WXA-50 I thought I’d try getting a low cost streamer to see how it worked with the still functioning Yamaha amp. I had an old first generation Amazon Echo Dot that I tried, but it didn’t sound anything like the Yamaha streamer. I was about to order a Arylic S10 ($80) or a Arylic S50 Pro+ ($220), but Amazon diverted me with an Echo Dot 4th generation on sale for $29.95.

The 4th generation Dot does sound better than the first gen, but it’s still not as good as the Yamaha streamer. It’s pretty good when played loud, and it might be good enough for now. Describing how different music streamers compare is difficult. I don’t envy professional audiophile reviewers. The best I can do is say the Echo Dot 4th gen sounds a bit thinner, less rich, less detailed. The Yamaha often dazzled me. Sometimes I even preferred the Yamaha/Bose over the Bluesound/Klipsh, but it was really a choice between two very good sounds. Actually, it was a matter of mood. The room acoustics also influenced my listening mood too. I’m much too old to claim I can hear audiophile distinctions, it’s down to what I prefer when comparing two systems. I could even be fooling myself about the memories of what I used to hear on my Yamaha.

I’ve watched many John Darko videos about using a Raspberry Pi as a music server. I have an extra Pi which I’ve set it up before with Spotify Connect and already know it sounds crappy. As Darko points out, you need an extra third-party hat to clean up the signal/sound. Such a hat would cost as much as the Arylic S10. Maybe I’ll research Raspberry Pi v. Arylic, but my guess is both gadgets are probably closer to the Echo Dot, than the Yamaha WXA-50. But if anyone reading this knows, leave a comment.

If you’re new to music streaming through your stereo’s amp with a streaming server, it’s different from streaming with AirPlay or Bluetooth from your phone. If you aren’t picky about sound quality, it won’t matter. When you use AirPlay or Bluetooth the music is playing on your phone, but when you use a music streamer that has Spotify Connect or Tidal Connect that device is playing the music and your phone is merely the remote. It can make a big difference in sound quality.

For now, the Amazon Echo Dot 4th generation will allow me to listen to music in my computer room, it just doesn’t thrill me like the Yamaha did. It’s good enough, but not as pleasing. Probably most music fans won’t care. The Amazon Dot Echo 4th generation is a nice low-cost Spotify Connect music streamer, especially if you can get it for $29.95 on sale.

I’ve come to prefer integrated amps with streamers like the Bluesound or Yamaha. I’d probably love speakers with integrated amps and streamers like the Kef LS50 Wireless II speakers, but I’m too tight with my money to spend $2500. I love both the Yamaha WXA-50 and Powernode 2i streamers, but they aren’t perfect either. I’m addicted to Spotify Connect which allows me to use the native Spotify app to control these devices, including the Echo Dot. However, with all three devices, the app sometimes loses access and I have to quickly reload it to automatically reconnect. What I really wanted was Amazon HD music to have a Connect version like Spotify Connect so I could use the Amazon Music HD app to control the devices. It does for it’s own equipment, but not for the Yamaha or Bluesound. Each has their own Amazon Music controls built into their apps and both are pitiful.

I love using my phone to control my music. It’s a remote control for three different music systems in my house. I gave up on Amazon HD and Tidal, so I only use Spotify Connect. I love its simplicity and the Spotify app is near great.

After lightning killed me toys I’m a lot less inclined to spring for more expensive gear. Of course, it was a once-in-70-year-event for me. Still, I’m now surge shy. In the future I think I’ll aim for integrated amp/streamers in the $300-500 range matched with similar priced speakers. I’m just not going to go full audiophile. But if you already have a stereo system adding music streaming with the Amazon Echo Dot is a cheap enough experiment. I wish John Darko and Steven Guttenberg would test and rate it.

I still have a turntable and CD/SACD player but I don’t really care for them anymore. I’ve been spoiled by streaming music. It would be nice to know I was streaming everything in CD quality at a minimum. That’s why I played around with Amazon HD and Tidal. I’ve heard that Spotify will be moving to high definition music soon, so I’ve standardize on Spotify Connect, but like I said, my old ears might not be good enough to discern the extra data.

JWH

Understanding Uncertainty

by James Wallace Harris, 5/1/21

Most people are binary in their thinking. They don’t like juggling shades of gray. We want to know yes or no, it is, or it isn’t, is it good or bad, friend or foe, us versus them, and so on. For several decades now science has been under attack because it confuses people with complicated and even contradictory results.

Reality is not simple. It contains infinite variables working through infinite combinations. Science is about statistics. It looks for patterns, making hunches to test. And the results are never absolute. Last night I came across a film that visually illustrates this better than anything I’ve seen before.

This video is well worth 25 minutes it takes to watch. Actually, it’s worth watching over and over again. Don’t be put off because the film uses climate change as a teaching example if you’re burned out on the topic. Just watch it for how science works.

Digesting the daily news has become a survivalist skill. That skill should be combined with reading, writing, and arithmetic as part of every K-12 curriculum. Even though we’ve all had a lifetime of practice consuming new information, most of us would fail this subject, even the most studious would only be getting Ds and Cs. I’m no exception, failing most tests.

It’s not a matter of knowing the right answers, but learning to live with uncertainty. It’s developing an intuition for data, both numerical and narrative. We need to consume our daily information like Sherlock Holmes, always looking for clues. In the old days, teachers would talk about developing a rule of thumb for rough guessing. Other people talk about bullshit detectors. The trouble is humans aren’t rational, but rationalizing creatures. We constantly fool ourselves with false assumptions. We feel we’re being logical, and sometimes we are, but all too often we’ve started our chain of logic after making a bad initial assumption. If you’ve ever played the game MasterMind, you’ll understand this basic trait.

Learning to think clearly is unnatural for human beings because we tend to make up our minds quickly and stick to our decisions. We decide in childhood, when we’re uneducated, on many beliefs we choose to defend for the rest of our lives. Science is all about constantly reevaluating data, and that goes against common human habits. Humans aren’t Vulcans, but we all need to think like Mr. Spock, but that requires constant effort, constant vigilance. Always learning new insights feels like we’re always swimming against the current, when the urge is to relax and to drift with the current. That’s as natural as entropy. But understanding reality is anti-entropic, it is swimming against the current.

JWH

Sometimes We Really Do Want More Government Regulations

by James Wallace Harris, 4/27/21

Please watch this fifteen minute video from NBC News. It is the most insightful news story I’ve encountered this year because it encapsulates many of the essential issues about the future.

This video illustrates why lack of regulations and resource management leads to ordinary citizens and the environment losing to big business. Corporations and people with money wanting to make more money are searching the globe for places where they can get any kind of competitive edge with their investments. Basically, big business and rich individuals will gentrify every last acre on the planet, pricing ordinary people off their land.

Southeast Arizona has very little surface water and rainfall. For decades homeowners, family owned farms and ranches, and towns have been sipping off the top of their aquifer. As long as rains replenish that aquifer, life in the desert is sustainable. However, global corporations have discovered this Arizona land is essentially unregulated and the water is there for the the price of sinking deeper wells. This makes it profitable for corporations from around the world to exploit this area. Raising hamburgers and cattle feed in the desert seems insane until you realize the real value of water.

Water is the new gold rush, and some locales are trading their water for jobs and investments. However, once that water is gone, that locale, that environment will die. Keep an eye on this trend. You’ll see it everywhere once you start looking.

As the corporations put millions into exploiting this land, drilling ever deeper into the aquifer, they have gained control of the land because ordinary people can’t afford to extend their wells deeper, and are thus force to sell out and move. Local control over land is going to disappear.

A kind of corruption is taking place. Politicians back the corporations because they follow the money. Notice how toady the politician is in this video. People who don’t own land and just want jobs align themselves with the corporations. And even though the corporations claim they are there for the long haul, the reality is they are there as long as they can make a profit. Once they suck the aquifer dry or it becomes too costly to pump that water out of the ground, they will leave.

This is happening all over the world. The long term results is the total land area that is sustainable for life on Earth is shrinking. The dynamics of what’s happening here also reveals various kinds of inequality in action. Ordinary people can’t compete. Neither can nature. Basically, outsiders with money have all the power. If the local government had regulations about land and water use they could preserve their old way of life. They could build a sustainable society. Corporations have played the democratic system to get what they want. Read Dark Money by Jane Meyer or Evil Geniuses by Kurt Anderson for fuller explanations.

Right now we have an exploitation society. The rules are simple. Anything you can do that others can’t stop you from doing, you can do. Individuals can’t compete against corporations. And since corporations are rigging the laws, there’s little people can do – unless people take back their democracy. But it might be too late. There is little demand for sustainability. Corporations want to make money, and individuals want jobs. Unless people can create jobs that coexist with sustainable economies, things won’t change.

When you watch this video think about the two opposing groups. On one hand, you have the global demand for meat and dairy, which includes all of us, and a few individuals who have been living in southeast Arizona for decades. Corporations just fulfill the global demand. But what if the global demand becomes greater for sustainability and the environment? We all have to want it, or it won’t happen.

JWH

Will We Reach Herd Intelligence Before We Crash Our Civilization?

by James Wallace Harris, 4/19/21

Collapsed: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? by Bill McKibben
Seaspiracy – a documentary on Netflix

All indicators point to the collapse of civilization sometimes this century. Despite all the press about this perfect storm of self destruction, few people are willing to worry, and even fewer willing to do anything. Must the conclusion be that failure is our only option?

Most of humanity is either preoccupied with personal problems, or if they contemplate the future at all, assume our species will muddle through as it always has in the past. All the evidence suggests otherwise, that the biosphere cannot absorb the impacts of Homo sapiens without a significant destabilization of its system, which in turn will alter the course of civilization.

Civilizations have always come and gone, and so have species. Nothing lasts forever, not even the Earth or the Sun. It’s rather disheartening to consider what we could have become. We almost had the intelligence to create a global civilization that could have lasted thousands, if not millions of years. Theoretically, we still have a chance, but few people who think about such things give that chance much hope. It would have required everyone pulling together towards a common cause, and we’re just not that kind of species.

However, don’t worry, don’t get depressed or do anything irrational. No need to become a prepper assuming an Armageddon is just around every corner. The collapse of civilization will probably be so slow you might not even notice it. Humans are very adaptable to hard times and excellent at rationalizing things aren’t what they seem. Just take every day one day at a time and enjoy the passing parade of history.

As an individual who reads many books and watch many documentaries like the ones above, I keep thinking we should be doing something. But I realize there’s a problem with that assumption. First, we all need to be doing the same thing, and second, we should all stop what we’ve been doing our whole lives. Now is that going to happen? Is humanity a ship that can be steered or a bullet on a trajectory? It really comes down to the Serenity Prayer,

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

It’s the last line that’s so hard to achieve. What can we change, and what can’t we change? Theoretically we could change everything in society if we could just change ourselves. Is it Pollyannaish to think we could, and fatalistic to think we can’t? I wonder if people have always believed in God just to redirect that burden of responsibility?

If you read the above books maybe you will also ask who is smart enough to understand and solve these problems? If we built giant AI minds that could think their way through these immense challenges, would we take their advice? Aren’t we too egotistical to listen? Or even if a God spoke directly to the world would we obey? I’m not sure that’s in our nature either.

Maybe the only path an individual can take and stay sane is learning to accept and endure. But that doesn’t seem to be the way either because too many people today are angry. Anger means still trying to control. If you watch the news pay attention to anger. Too many hate what’s happening to them. And it’s on both sides of the political spectrum. All the people who fight for freedom and all the people who want rules and regulations are motivated by anger. That’s what I dread about the collapse of civilization, living with all these angry people. And the only solution to that is find a place away from them, but that’s not really possible either, is it?

This is a strange book review. But I find it’s getting harder and harder to review books like these by talking about the issues they cover. I’m down to evaluating their emotional impact. The penultimate question is: Can we do anything? The answer is yes. The ultimate question is: Will we? I used to hope that was a yes too, but my faith is fading.

JWH