Aging

Because of my age, much will be said and pondered about aging in this BLOG, To be an elder in this time is to have challenges backwards and forwards in extreme. As the over-all population gains in elderly percentages we will find all of this to be even more extreme, more mediaized and played upon. At the same time, we will find, as is already the case, more actors, singers and other personalities representing the aging rather than being sent off to nursing homes. Personally it is hard not to take a lot of this personally, sometimes to be on the bottom of the list, so to speak, written off. Grey Panthers are out there somewhere, but I haven't heard about them for awhile. They may be back sooner than later.

Futures

Futurists often avoid messy subjects, there will not be futures without dealing with the nitty gritty. What? Sewer systems ( eg. where your water goes when it leaves you) and other infrastructures which maintain basic life processes: soil, plants, water, etc. Often futurists assume the basics, and that just cannot be done. The same goes for the media, of course, including PBS and Public Radio. In science fiction one seldom finds the remnants of infrastructures, except as backdrops of sorts. Thus when a magazine such as "Time" takes on the challenges to come, most often the same missing elements are found lacking. How long can this continue, this utter unreality?

blog origins

My desire is to share some writings from the past, combined with thoughts from the present. This started when as a child I went from our duplex on Silverlake Drive (Los Angeles) to the corner bus stop. There I engaged my neighbors in talk, the first dialogs beyond my immediate and extended family. From there it was a matter of crossing streets to do the same with the greengrocer at the Silvermart, or Mr. Hoppel at his Mobil Station (and his customers, of course), and at my Father's automotive garage, and at the playground. I later found this to be called the "Socratic method," questions and answers, counter questions, koans to be figured out. The result was an immense curiousity about people, events, history, subjects. I find this curiousity mostly absent in our present life, seemingly taken the place of by huge amounts of information, media and preoccupations; so why shouldn't this BLOG be just a part of the problem? I'm sure it will be to some people. My Don Quixote hope is that it may not be so for everyone.