Dopplewhat?

The other day, in a place and time probably better left undisclosed, I shared a brief conversation with a woman that touched on the subject of twins. As you have been following these missives for some little time now, you have probably guessed that the event prompted me to ponder the nature of twins and write a completely non-authoritative thesis that somehow will fall just short of enriching your life or adding anything to the collective scientific wisdom on the subject. Twins are an interesting biological phenomenon. It seems that in most mammalian species, multiple births are rather common.  In humans, there are two types of natural multiple births; fraternal, wherein multiple ova are present at fertilization and identical; where multiple births is the result of a less common genetic condition that prompts a single fertilized ovum to split early in the development process resulting in two offspring of identical DNA makeup.  None of this has anything to do with the off-ramp of convoluted thought my mind chose for this particular journey into the absurd.

My thoughts turned immediately to the question of good versus evil.  We are all aware of the concept of the evil twin.  Who among us has not made an attempt to assign responsibility for some nefarious deed to an evil twin in hopes of escaping culpability ourselves?  Of course, nobody admits to being the evil twin.  We all claim to be the good twin, hapless victim of the actions of another.

Let’s explore this phenomenon a bit more closely.  Evil acts are common, we witness them every day. But who actually engages in these misdeeds?  Not you and I, certainly. I postulate that no person will commit an act they know to be evil.  We have built-in defense mechanisms that prevent us from bad behavior.  Instead, when we engage in actions held by society to be criminal or immoral, we rationalize them away. It is our tendency to justify what we have done by offering some extenuating circumstance as dispensation from acting counter to natural or statutory law.

Therefore, as we are prevented from committing evil acts, and know that evil acts are indeed committed; the perpetrators must be our evil twins!  Recalling the previous discussion of biologic twins, we can establish that given the rare nature of their incidence, not enough such twins exist to account for all of the evil observed in the world.  So there must be some other explanation.  I offer the doppelganger.

It is a commonly held belief in many cultures that for every individual, there exists an exact duplicate somewhere in the world. No hereditary link exists, just a coincidence of physical attributes. While no scientific data supports these claims, have all of us not been approached by a stranger at one time or another who believes we are someone known to them when in fact we are not.  After some embarrassment and confusion does the stranger not claim to know someone who looks just like us?  Many of these legends prescribe a malevolent nature to the doppelganger.  Clearly this offers a non-verifiable hypothesis for the presence of evil in a population where no individual will admit to actually being evil.

So, now that we have identified the purveyors of evil, what is to be done?  I believe it should be the responsibility of every citizen of the world to seek out their doppelganger and kill them.  Remember, these are evil twins engaging in immoral or criminal behavior.  Their presence is a bane to regulated society.  Caution: I am not encouraging you hunt down and murder your biological twin (put the scissors back in the drawer, Heather); they are not your nemesis. Your target is that evil entity out there committing unspeakable acts for which you are then assigned responsibility.  Whether you have been issued a parking ticket or indicted by an international tribunal for genocide, you know it wasn’t you fault.  They did it, not you!

Think as well of the collateral benefit.  By halving the population we would free up demand for precious natural resources.  The price of goods and commodities would return to affordable levels.  Pressure on the environment caused by over population would be eased.  If you happened to be married to a worthless so-and-so, when the good twin eliminated the evil twin you could enjoy the romance of which you had always dreamed.  You would always be able to find a parking place at the mall during Christmas!

Note: The contents of this missive should not be construed as a legal directive to inflict injury on any other human being actually living.  However, if you have an imaginary friend averring no claims to biological existence…

 

A Sticky Test

I was born an analyst. It is impossible for me to observe anything and not have a question form in my conscious mind.  I don’t care what the question is; I just want to find an answer. Heck, I don’t even care what the answer is as long as I can form one that makes some kind of sense; even better if I can get others to agree with me.

I am intuitive. I form an answer based not on evidence or reason but my own model of the world. This is otherwise known as deductive reasoning. I begin with a theory (of everything, sometimes) and compare my observations against that theory to see if one supports the other.  There is one key personality element necessarily present in the deductive thinker; confidence… some would say overconfidence.

The bastard son of modern psychiatry, Carl Jung, (he must be the bastard son as Freud was the father and was not, as far as we can divine, married to Carl’s mother… although from what we know of Sigmund, he probably schtuped her) theorized that there are four principal psychological functions by which we experience the world: sensation, intuition, feeling and thinking, with one of these being dominant most of the time. If you care to further develop your understanding of this model for how people gather information and make decisions, I refer you to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.  For now, I will skip over the scientific niceties and jump right to the baseless personality test I have developed.

A bit of personal history; I am an only child born of parents who were not overly emotionally demonstrative.  Oh, you women stop cooing in feigned sympathy.  I was not a neglected child.  In fact, I sometimes believe I received too much attention, but I digress. As a youth, I spent much time alone.  That allowed me plenty of space to observe the world and form purely speculative opinions as to its mechanics ranging from the nature of the cosmos to the sinister workings of the human psyche. Yes, I have it all figured out. Get over it!

It occurred to me at some point in my life I cannot pinpoint in memory, probably fueled by a Tequila driven stupor, that there are different personality types.  Having a quick reference personality-type list might certainly be a valuable survival tool.  Of equal value would be a simple, easily performed (or observed) test to classify an individual’s type. It is essential that such a test be conducted in a manner which does not betray its occurrence as awareness by the test subject would likely skew the results due to the subjects’ (as is the case with most people) desire to conform their behavior into a favorable outcome.  I believe this is known as the please-see bow effect.

The first step in developing a personality type list is to observe the population and identify the characteristics to which one can assign traits.  Because we are expecting assessments to be performed in any environment on a real-time basis, we must surrender specificity and detail to assumption and innuendo. The most expedient method is to establish two main types; those like me and those unlike me.

Now I know from experience that I am trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Therefore, my personality opposite would be untrustworthy, disloyal, etc., etc.

The next step is to design an unobtrusive, easily conducted test or observation that speaks to the person-of-interest’s character. I have developed just such a test and successfully deployed it dozens of times with nary an erroneous result. Ask your test subject to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and observe their method closely.

If they go to the cupboard and produce a jar of Skippy brand peanut butter, you know there is some hope they will end up on the correct side of the ledger.  If it is any other brand, be dubious but don’t discount them immediately. Should they claim not to have peanut butter on hand, you may be assured they are not trustworthy and terminate the test. Travel home by a route that will take you past your preferred purveyor of food stuffs and buy an extra jar of Skippy.

Once they have produced their jar, turn your attention to their jelly preference.  Welch’s grape jelly will suggest that they are a stalwart traditionalist. They are probably trustworthy but will likely be dull and tedious company. If, on the other hand, they offer something more exotic, like mango or apricot, while they will build a tasty sandwich, they may be living life in the fast lane; in a manner requiring no small effort on your part to keep up. Proceed with caution.  Be certain to note the locations of exits as a rapid escape may become necessary.

The ideal offering will be Knott’s preserves made from any of the popular berries. Note: I am referring to whole fruit versions; not seedless.  Any man (or woman) who expects some unidentified minion in some secret jelly factory to pick the seeds out of his jam for him will prove to be feckless and of no use in a critical situation. Not only does the presence of seeds guarantee the maximum flavor, it promises you’ll have plenty to do with your tongue for hours to come, bringing fond memories of your recent culinary ecstasy; crunch, crunch, crunch!

Now, if your subject offers you honey or molasses in lieu of jelly, write them off as a reliable friend as they demonstrate total disregard for following directions.  Do stay for lunch however, especially if they suggest sliced bananas, as you are in for an epicurean delight.

And that takes us to the final and most critical phase of the test. Observe the manner and order with which the spreadables are applied to the bread. It must be peanut butter on bread then jelly on peanut butter, topped by clean bread.  This is a must!  If they insist on applying peanut butter to one slice and jelly to the other then joining the two they are the least favorable candidate for friendship and you would be wise to abandon all hope.

Peanut butter one side, jelly the opposite purports a life of excessive order and neatness. They will get caught up in ensuring a smooth even application of peanut butter probably thin to the point of veneer. When they spread the jelly, it will be smooth to the edge of the crust, no variation, no élan. These people apply all of their effort to style over substance. They will never complete anything to their own satisfaction due to their weakness for perfection.  Their anal retentive nature will ensure they always arrive late but impeccably dressed; no jelly stains on their shirts!

On the other hand, the little pools of jelly collected amid the crests and troughs of peanut butter when both are applied to the same slice of bread offer the promise of the occasional squirt of jelly into your cheek. Spontaneity will rule the lives of your new BFFs. You know that they can be counted on to favor chaos over order, the natural state of the universe. Add them to the “A” list of your heart.

There is one last indicator. Suppose they apply peanut butter to both slices of bread and then jelly in the middle.  These people are over compensating; trying too hard to please all tastes.  Such sandwich makers cannot be trusted as their public behavior reflects that of those they are trying to impress.  Look closely, they are probably employing a steak knife or some other combat ready cutlery in the construction of your lunch. You can discern only one thing from this … they are communist subversives and should be reported to authorities immediately!

Note: No top-hat wearing, cane swinging, monocle sporting peanuts were harmed in the making of this missive.

 

 

...and Taxes

As is my wont, on a recent Sunday A.M., I tuned into Fox News Channel to blow the early morning cobwebs from my brain.  As is their wont, the segment airing was a discussion of medical and health news. One of the regular contributors, Dr. Marc Siegel, was speaking to the state of care for Alzheimer’s disease. He stated, and I am paraphrasing here, that Alzheimer’s was being underserved in the research community. Citing reduction in heart disease and cancer related death rates, Dr. Siegel proffered that similar gains could be made in the field of Alzheimer’s care had the funding for research had been brought to bear.

Now there is nothing inimically wrong with that statement but still, it set my intellectual alarm off.  Why? Because it infers that an increase in the effectiveness of treatment for Alzheimer’s would result in a decrease in deaths.  And we know, or at least we should, that this is not true.  If we were successful in eradicating heart disease (touted by medicos to be the single most common cause of death) would we reduce the rate of death? No, because life and death have a one-to-one correlation and causation. Everybody that is born dies; and life is a prerequisite for death.  Let me restate.  If you have life, it will result in death.  And, to complete the cycle, death cannot occur unless there is life.

Tomorrow could bring us a one hundred percent effective cure for cancer.  If we did, would we have saved the lives of those currently stricken or who are future victims of the disease?  No. We would simply shift the cause of their eventual demise to some other morbidity.  As Dr. Benjamin Franklin averred, “The only thing certain in life is death and taxes.”

In discussions of this topic, I have heard the argument that with advances in science and technologies like cloning, the human race may be able to extend life interminably. I don’t buy it. To bolster my position, I introduce the concept of entropy (there’s one for you, Tink).  From the smallest subatomic particle to the entirety of the universe, everything will run out of energy eventually. If creation is slated for a cold, dark destiny, what chance does a fragile glob of bio-molecular flotsam have?

“Oh! Don’t be such a negative Nelly.” you might say.  And at this juncture, I will shift the discussion to economics.  Do you see what I did there; I lured you in with a peek at your own mortality.  You know it’s true that if I had opened this missive with a nod to the dismal science by the second paragraph, you would have abandoned me, trotting off to watch Jersey Shore and I would have only two readers left; one of them being in Germany (Hi, Nicky… miss you).

First, let’s define economics. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, economics is; “the science that deals with the production, distribution and consumption of wealth…”  Webster is wrong.  Economics is a branch of the social sciences (although neither Economics nor the other social sciences, e.g. Psychology, Sociology, et al is eager to admit it); it deals with the study of human behavior in an environment of scarce resources. The best definition I have encountered is from Wikipedia:  http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics .

Economics is, put simply, about people making choices in a world where one cannot have everything.  Yeah, I know, the talking heads would have you believe that greater minds developed masterful methods for predicting global financial trends and prescribing fiscal policies to maximize the welfare of mankind.  But look to their record to date; pretty dismal, huh? Any one of you, allocating moneys from of your periodic paycheck, does a better job of making choices based on predicted outcomes than clowns like John Maynard Keynes or Paul Krugman. And that, finally, brings us to the point of this heretofore seemingly meaningless rambling.

Life, put in Economics terms, is all about making choices.  With the limited resources at our disposal we each, individually and collectively, must decide how to allocate them in the most beneficial manner. This practice of this dismal science at the community level, as seen in the current events of our time, leads to conflict and controversy.  It always has and it always will.  Trust me; the collective wisdom of all the ages will never create the path to universal agreement on what constitutes the ideal existence. Ergo, we will concentrate the remainder of this discussion (if one can properly refer to an individual’s inane ramblings as a discussion) to the person.

Certainly, if you are reading this, you understand the concept of possession and assets.  Assets come in many forms.  There are tangible assets, e.g., money, real estate, automobiles, investment instruments (yes, I know, sometimes it seems like our 401(k)s are more ethereal in nature and evaporate into nothingness at the whim of Chairman Bernanke, but fragile as they are, qualify as tangible), boats and wine.  And there are intangible assets; health, intellect, charisma, intelligence, ambition and peace of mind.   

What is the most precious of resources?  I will give you a hint.  It can be traded away, but once spent, can never be recovered. We all have an abundant supply of it at our disposal with no associated cost but at the same time can never quantify the exact amount we possess.  That’s right; the single most valuable commodity we own is time. And that is the tieback to the opening of this post. Time is limited for all of us, as we know that we must die and cannot predict when time will run out.

Think then, about how you spend your time.  Do you allocate it wisely, ensuring the most value for your life? Or do you fritter it away engaged in panic driven activity chasing one shiny bauble after the next?  Only you can set the path that will result in a life of true satisfaction.

So given that time is the most valuable of all commodities, it behooves us to make the most of it; to wisely consider the value of that for which we trade it.  Once squandered, its balance cannot be rebuilt. Therefore I must ask you,” What are doing sitting there reading this dribble?”  Get off your ass and go do something worthwhile!

Leap Day

                                                                           

            The weather during the last week of February had been brutal.  By that, I mean it had been truly beautiful.  That is to say, the weather had been so beautiful for February as to be brutal to one's state of mind.  Spring fever was running rampant everywhere.  It seemed to affect everyone and by no means did it avoid me.  I truly believe any February day the high temperature exceeds seventy-nine degrees should be a work holiday.  Needless to say, very few employers agree, not excluding my own. 

            I was operating under this state of protracted distress when it suddenly occurred to me that the globe and its community of men were approaching leap day; that extra day occurring but once every four years as a correction to the error of the ancient designers of our modern western calendar.  Bestowed with all the opportunity an extra day might offer, I resolved to spend it engaged in activity that could be construed by no one as remotely constructive, industrious or useful.

            I chose, with the aforementioned goal (or rather non-goal, as a goal implies constructive, industrial or useful intent), to go to the desert and do whatever struck me as being completely without purpose.  Or rather, without any purpose other than being purposeless of other than itself.  Essentially, I was going to do something, so that if a stranger had witnessed me thus engaged would immediately say to himself, "What is he doing?"  And the reply would of course be, "Nothing!”  Rarely has such effort been applied in the name of non-achievement.

            Armed thus with noble non-intent, I struck forth for the desert.  And I arrived at a place, so colorfully inviting on the map, named Painted Gorge.  Now this gorge is quite an interesting geological phenomenon.  My guess would be that it ran about a mile in its serpentine length.  It was a good sixty to seventy feet from floor to cliff top, the walls being quite sheer.  The coloring of the walls was extremely uniform in three distinct layers of earth:  The bottom layer rusty red, indicating a high iron content; the middle layer pale and chalky, suggesting limestone; and finally, the uppermost dark brownish gray, as if laid there by some ancient volcano.  All in all, it gave one the impression he was walking through a trough recently scooped out of a carton of Neapolitan ice cream!

            As I approached the closed end of this image from a dream of the non-committal, I noted that it was shaped unlike most ordinary gorges (or what I in my limited experience purported to be ordinary, for certainly I have not seen every gorge, nor would I believe I have seen a majority of the gorges, quite clearly I am sure that I have seen only a few of the gorges of the world, and this makes my opinion quite unremarkable, but I am the author of this story, so...)  Rather than continually narrowing, as most gorges do (No, we're not going to go through that again!), this Painted Gorge opened into a roughly circular shape of perhaps forty yards in diameter.  And even stranger, is that the closed end of the gorge was of a completely different geological type; this was sandstone and uniformly tan in color (to perfect the analogy, English Toffee ice cream).

            At the southern point of this circle was a waterfall; dry of course.  But this fall was at least sixty feet in height and came from the sandstone side of the terrain.  At the foot of the fall, the seasonal water had created a bowl approximately twelve feet in diameter and five feet deep.  The bottom two thirds of this bowl was still mud from the recent rains.  The water had undercut the cliff that made up the fall so that this bowl (or, if it had been full of water, pool) was half covered by a roof of sandstone.

            As I stood under this roof, I wondered, "What idiot had thrown those large rocks into the mud bowl?", and more importantly," Why?"  After some time, because I like to give questions of such great import abundant consideration, I realized that these rocks had not been thrown into the mud, but had simply been following Sir Isaac's laws regarding the tendency of bodies to attract one another.  It was upon this foundation of thought that I built my second hypothesis considering this phenomenon, "This is not a good place for me, or anyone else had they been present, to stand."  So I moved.

            It then occurred to me that there was not much else to do there in Painted Gorge.  But still I was yearning for adventure, not yet satisfied with the amount of nothing I had thus far achieved.  So I determined, in a rather tentative way, that I would like to see this (dry) waterfall from the top.  Now it happened that there were large boulders arranged on top of each other just to the right of the fall, as I was facing it, which seemed from my vantage to lead to the top of the cliff.  And it appeared to me that a skilled man might climb these boulders until he reached the top.  I decided to try it anyway.

            If you have ever poured butter toffee peanuts from one jar into another, you will have noticed that the smaller peanuts and pieces end up on the bottom, while the larger pieces stay on top.  That is, quite obviously, because the smaller pieces sift through the spaces left when the larger pieces find resting places against one another.  The same is true of boulders, whether in a jar or not.  Therefore, as you climb higher, you begin to note that the distance from the top of one boulder to the next increases proportionately with your distance from the base of the pile.  You also find that the relative steepness of the boulders is increasing as well.  After you have hoisted yourself up several boulders now averaging a diameter greater than your own height, you begin to realize that you will not return to the floor of the gorge by the same route.  Not at a safe and reasonable velocity, anyway.

            I was now standing atop the narrow edge of a boulder, narrow defined as three inches.  The edges of my Vibram soled boots were clinging to the clear desert air no matter which direction I turned my feet.  To one side, the up side was a large rock with a wide flat perpendicular face about four and one-half feet in height.  The top of this rock was broad, flat and extremely inviting.  And I could see from here that the next effort in attaining the top of the cliff would be an easy one from there.  On the other side, the down side was a relatively sheer drop of about fifteen feet.  So sheer that I would hardly have skinned knee or elbow en route my broken back.  I had three choices:  One was scaling that boulder, with no toe holds, on the way to the top; two was retracing my path back to the valley; three was hoping that whoever found my skeleton stuck in one of these crevices would appreciate the .45 pistol I had left them and make up a damned exciting story about my death that would someday become legend.  Not being one to give much countenance to legends, I chose to go up.

            The next issue was how to gain the top of this rock I was leaning against.  I decided the safest approach was to turn my back to it, place my hands on its flat top and hoist my rear up until I was sitting on it.  In the first attempt, my canteen caught against the face of the rock greatly retarding my upward progress.  Now I love roller coasters, but being suspended in mid-air hoping your boots are able to find that narrow foothold again is a totally different thrill.  I determined that it would be necessary to remove my gun belt, thereby eliminating the impedance of the aforementioned canteen to accomplish this feat.  As I laid the belt on the top of this rock I thought, "If I fail at this, the guy who finds my skeleton will probably not find my gun and will never make up a damned exciting story about my death;" so much for legend.

            As I stood on the newly acquired height, I noticed that the view of Painted Gorge below was much more enjoyable from atop a broad flat platform.  Or maybe it was because I was now able to wipe the sweat from eyes and no longer had to fight off the effects of vertigo.  I buckled my gun belt and continued to the top of the cliff.  Life is better (or at least somewhat less anxious) at the top.

            The top of the cliff was much different than the floor of the gorge.  There was quite a bit of vegetation and a good deal of it bore blooming flowers.  The topography was just slightly rolling for several yards to the west and then broke further upward into rocky hills.  On the south side was a wall of approximately eight feet.  I would guess that this wall was carved out of the sandstone by water working its way downhill from the hills to the west.  For some reason the composition of this wall was more resilient than the ground upon which I was standing.  This formation would cause water to be diverted to the east forming the falls and Painted Gorge. I walked over to the top of the falls and looked down.  I determined that I was thankful at not being some flotsam riding a flash flood out of the hills.

            My attention now turned to the task of returning to Painted Gorge (that's where I left my truck... and lunch).  In that I was not going to scale the boulders, I started to search for another route.  I had noticed a trail breaking into the gorge from the north about halfway in.  I decided to move across country in a northerly direction in hopes of intersecting this trail.  To do this I had to zigzag back and forth through washes and ravines.  After about fifteen minutes I found the trail.  It was an easy walk back to the gorge.  I did note some other trails in the hills to my north that would be an interesting trip, in a jeep.

            Having finished lunch, I began examining a map of the area.  It showed an inviting dirt road that led to the north.  This road eventually turned into a jeep trail that continued north to intersect the Overland Stage Route.  I decided, still hoping to do more nothing, to drive up this road until it turned into jeep trail.  The map, however, did not show the myriad of false trails that          broke from this road.  And of course, not knowing which of these trails was true; I had to make a choice at each fork.  What do you think are the odds of choosing the wrong fork every time? Well, this experiment demonstrated a probability of near 100%.

            After an hour of testing road after road, and seeing much interesting scenery, I must have made at least three miles of true progress.  At this point the road (or maybe the jeep trail, for there are no signs to indicate the end of one and the beginning of another) began to switchback up a rather formidable mountain.  I determined that the road was still navigable by a truck like mine and began the climb.  As I negotiated the switchbacks, they became steeper, narrower and sharp to the point that I had to make the turns in two or more moves.  The composition of the road was changing from hard packed dirt to loose gravel.  I was pretty sure I had found the jeep trail.

            With the negotiation of each switchback, I considered the possibility of making the next one my turn around point.  But I had put a lot of effort into the nothing I had accomplished thus far and was determined to continue on.  Finally I reached a switchback so narrow, steep and gravelly that my truck would not continue up the trail.  I got out to examine the situation.  Dying of starvation sitting in the truck might have been the smarter course of action.

            The rear wheels were sitting in ruts nearly to the axle.  Behind the truck was about ten feet of road before a drop of several hundred feet.  The obvious choice was to proceed up the mountain.  My truck not being able to see the logic of the obvious could purchase the traction necessary to advance up the grade.  I was therefore faced with two options.  The first was to get that truck turned around and head back down the mountain.  The second was to walk out and seek help.  The only thing worse than walking out defeated is walking out defeated and then having some asshole laugh at you while negotiating the price for winching your truck out of a situation you should have been smart enough to avoid in the first place.  I guess I was born to the cavalry because I could not bring myself to walk out. 

            The effort involved in turning my truck is more than written words can describe.  You really need hand gestures.  But it involved moving the truck blindly backwards a few feet, shifting rocks around so I could get it going forward, and then repositioning the rocks so I could get it going backwards toward the precipice again.  Each time I moved backward I was aware that the slightest over application of throttle might result in a large insurance benefit... to my parents.  The tires were fighting for traction; sweat was running into my eyes, the smell of burning rubber almost made me forget the dryness of my mouth.  I wondered that great question asked by all pioneers, "Am I gonna get outta this alive?"

            As I stood there leaning against my truck (now pointed safely down the trail) emptying my over taxed bladder, I noticed how beautiful was the sunlit valley below. I was reminded of something I had read by Louis L'Amour, “Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it’s hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place.”  Deciding I had finally accomplished nothing, I climbed into my truck and went home.