Mostly Unsatisfying with Rare and Irregular Rewards

It's winter.

Part of me wants to whine and rant about a few things, but the rest of me is too tired, bored, and apathetic to bother.

I wrote that as a Facebook status a few days ago. One friend replied, "This the pandemic in a nutshell for me."

It's been a dynamic of the pandemic for me, but not constant. Lately, with winter, it's been much more so.

A week or two ago I attempted to capture my mood with the simple Facebook status, "Bleh." A different friend responded with the one-word comment, "Understatement." So I found this poem that was in my feed to post back and continued the dialogue with, "Better?" Four friends gave it the "love" response.

So motivation has been hard lately. It's winter. A new president and a vaccine and other signs of spring abound, but for now it is still winter during the pandemic.

To drive the point home, we've been in the grips of an extreme cold snap the past couple of weeks. Record setting cold. For much of the country, and we're right in the heart of it. Nothing disastrous, but cold enough to interrupt business as usual.

I noticed last week I had nothing on my schedule for Friday, no public service shifts or meetings or other work that required me to be tied to others. I made a plan to do something different to break myself out of my work-from-home rut. I made a reservation at our excellent art museum--which is free but currently requiring timed tickets to control the number of people in the building at once as a pandemic measure--so I could pack my computer, earbuds, and a book and spend the day working there from more inspiring surroundings. I was ready.

Then winter decided to cancel school for the day, so instead I stayed home to juggle work from home with kids. And, since we have virtual school routines established from the pandemic, "snow day" this year doesn't mean no school, it means school from home instead. Not an escape to inspiration after all.

But. I looked at my calendar and realized I could shift my plans to Monday. The museum was happy to change my reservation, so once again I was all set. The cold was just going to get worse, but luckily school was out so I could still take the kids to the daycare business we use on school holidays. No chance of them canceling for weather.

Monday arrived and I enacted the plan. I dropped the kids and had a little time at home before heading to the museum when they opened at 10:00. I settled into a favorite spot and started some work. Then I was interrupted by my phone ringing. It was daycare. They said my seven-year-old wasn't listening; he wouldn't keep his mask on and wouldn't stop wrestling with his brother. She wanted me to talk to him. I did. Then hung up with a lingering sense of dread.

I moved to a new spot and tried again. But the inevitable happened. I'd been at the museum for just over an hour when they called back with the news that both boys refused to stop touching each other and I needed to come pick them up. Just like that, my outing was over.

I managed to get one picture.

So it became another day at home juggling work and kids. That made four days at home with restless kids and outside being so inhospitable going out wasn't a very viable option (and we don't usually let the weather stop us). I wondered whether they'd last at daycare the next day. Then. Then daycare called to say they'd just received news they might be losing power for short periods and were going to be closed the next day. Strange, but okay. And, ugh. I could look forward to yet another day at home juggling work and kids.

Then news of the larger world started trickling in and daycare closing began to make more sense. The cold had been so extreme for so long that heating demands on the power grid had become too much and the energy companies couldn't keep up. They were literally running out of power. To compensate, they were instituting rolling blackouts, turning off the power to neighborhoods for 30-90 minutes at a time, dispersing outages strategically. And everyone needed to cut down on energy use the rest of the time. That evening I got news the library (my work) would be closed on Tuesday as well.

We were just waking and getting our day started on Tuesday when our power went out. Expected. Except two hours later it was still off. After many attempts I managed to get the power company's website to load and found it was an actual outage. We tried to keep entertained and warm, and five-and-a-half hours later it finally came back on. Needless to say, the day was indeed more bleh.

School was canceled for weather again on Wednesday. No, not canceled. Virtual.

Yay pandemic winter.

This isn't to say we've given up on experiencing any joy in life. It's just harder to find. The temperature was less cold on Wednesday, enough so that we got out in the afternoon. We walked to our local park for the rare treat of the lake being completely frozen over. The boys walked out to the floating island in the middle of it.

And, of course, in the big picture "bleh" is nothing to complain about. Being able to feel it is a luxury.

We're two states up from Texas, and our power companies are part of a cooperative with the Texas power companies. We had some rolling blackouts and our houses got a bit cold for a while. Texas has had a disaster. They don't normally get cold like this, so they don't prepare for it, and their power didn't just get low, it ran out completely. Millions of people without power for days. Pipes freezing and no water either. Streets unpassable with no snow plows. Unprecedented damage and needless suffering.

There's a whole rant associated that I will only briefly mention. Unlike the rest of the nation, Texas doesn't regulate its power companies. Unregulated companies cut corners to save money, skipping things like wintering their power plants in case of unusually epic cold snaps. So the same conditions that are normal further north have crippled them. Needless suffering. Thanks, capitalism.

While the weather is not entirely unique, nothing worse than has ever been seen before, it is extreme. Global warming brings weather extremes. Six months ago there were disastrous wildfires in the west. Now there are frozen disasters in the midwest. We need to get used to this new normal. Disasters due to weather extremes.

Rant and perspective over. Back to the bleh.

"I don't remember what I like to do now that Kindle has taken over me."

That was our seven-year-old, unprompted, trying to teach himself moderation with his devices by taking a break from them to do something else for a change. I relate. It is hard to know anymore what to do with free time, we've had so much of it locked away in our home for the past year. So much sameness. And we've become entirely dependent on our screens for diversion. It's a constant for our kids this winter, and we're too defeated by circumstances to motivate ourselves to motivate them to do otherwise.

This passage from Jia Tolentino, in her book Trick Mirror, really hit home with me. I am completely captive to this lab-rat behavior.

On the Internet, this dynamic has been automated and generalized in the form of endlessly varied but somehow monotonous social media feeds--these addictive, numbing fire hoses of information that we aim at our brains for much of the day. In front of the timeline, as many critics have noted, we exhibit classic reward-seeking lab-rat behavior, the sort that's observed when lab rats are put in front of an unpredictable food dispenser. Rats will eventually stop pressing the lever if their device dispenses food regularly or not at all. But if the lever's rewards are rare and irregular, the rats will never stop pressing it. In other words, it is essential that social media is mostly unsatisfying. That is what keeps us scrolling, scrolling, pressing our lever over and over in the hopes of getting some fleeting sensation--some momentary rush of recognition, flattery, or rage.

That's my Facebook habit. That's this winter. Mostly unsatisfying with rare and irregular rewards.

I know, InspiroBot. I need to apologize to the boredom. I do. I should be better than this.

A recent dialogue with my kids:

Me: "Just remember, sometime soon we're going to do some house cleaning."

[Younger]: "Aww. We're the smart brothers, though. The smart brothers do want they want to do."

Me: "I don't know what that means."

[Older]: "We're the smart brothers. That's what we call each other."

Me: "How does being the smart brothers mean you don't have to clean?"

[Younger]: "Because we're working on something smart."

Me: "It's not smart to clean?"

[Younger]: "But we're working really hard on being smart."

They were playing Minecraft.

That was right before the cold snap. As I related on Facebook:

The smart brothers are ecstatic about the pronouncement I just made: they can play unlimited Minecraft today, but it can only be played outside. It's currently 23 degrees, with the rest of the day forecast to get colder and snowy. They just went out, so we shall see.

A bit later I snapped this picture:

"Current status: on the driveway bundled under a thin blanket plugged in to their one charging option."

I don't have any comment on it, but I like this quote from Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario.

Sometimes I wonder what it might be like

to spend a whole day thinking about small,

insignificant things. Like the scratchiness

of the seat fabric or the steady breeze of recycled air.

And this one.

Because, like snowstorms and earthquakes and death,

your future will happen regardless of whether

you planned for it.

They seem somehow relevant.

Of course, the kids are still sources of joy and amusement. Recently I overheard them in the other room.

"I could have killed you many times by now, but I decided not to. For one, I could go to jail. For two, I would get in big trouble. For three, I like having company."

[Older] said it to [Younger]. [Younger] didn't seem particularly concerned. But my wife and I are not entirely joking when we say he has characteristics of evil genius that we try to steer in positive directions.

We made it to the park just as the cold was moving in. Because the beginnings of the snow weren't challenging enough to feel heroic, [Older] spent much of our outing on the ground, pretending to be suffering the effects of a blizzard, waiting for rescue from [Younger].

He has a wonderful imagination and a sometimes-wonderful-sometimes-not flair for the dramatic. I'm hoping it translates into a greater capacity for awe as he matures, as this article explains.

Why Awesome Natural Beauty Drops the Jaw and Lifts the Spirit

People with stronger tendencies to experience awe are rated as more humble by their friends, display more generous behaviour, and are more helpful toward others. When experiences of awe are experimentally induced, such as by having participants stand in a grove of towering trees, they lead people to present a more balanced account of their own strengths and weaknesses, display more helpful and less aggressive behaviour toward others, and be less willing to endure unpleasant experiences in order to gain money.

It might seem striking that awe has these significant social effects. After all, any of us might experience awe on a mountaintop alone, or with only a few others. And while awestruck, we might be paying little mind to those around us, being caught up in the experience itself. The experience of awe needn’t be especially social, yet the effects of the experience seem to be.

The leading account of how awe prompts these social effects concerns the ‘small self’. When we’re awe-struck, we experience ourselves as smaller and the world beyond us as larger. That can be literal: people who experience awe judge their own bodies to be smaller in size. Yet it’s also figurative: the self and its concerns are less salient, while the world beyond the self becomes more significant.

Crucially, in awe, we also see our smaller self as more connected with the larger world. People who experience awe report feeling themselves to be ‘part of a greater entity’. They also report a greater sense of connection to groups they belong to, to their nation, and to their species. Experiences of awe induce a greater sense of oneness with others and friends, and make people feel more integrated into their communities. Astronauts who feel awe in spaceflight report a greater sense of connection both to other people and to the Earth in general. In this sense, awe is referred to as a ‘self-transcendent’ emotion: when we encounter it, we transcend ourselves by experiencing our small selves as connected to larger wholes.

In light of this, it’s unsurprising that awe is intimately intertwined with spirituality. . . . 

There are specific techniques that enhance your chances of having awe-inspiring, self-transforming experiences when you encounter natural phenomena.

Absorption is key here, for people who become more absorbed in their experience are more likely to experience awe. To become absorbed is to become fully immersed in what is happening, so that other practical concerns recede to the background, and your attention focuses on your present experience with minimal distractions. This is familiar from research on ‘flow’ states that occur when people become fully captivated in performing a task. But here the ‘task’ is simply taking in the experience of nature. . . . 

Because practising mindfulness trains you to attend to your current experience, it’s been described as ‘the exercise of choice’ for facilitating absorption and awe.

There’s also evidence that actively using imagination helps with absorption. . . . While meditation can reduce distractions that detract from awe in nature, imagination might enhance active engagement with the experience. In both cases, absorption is amplified and awe is a more likely result.

Finding moments of natural awe has been one of my strategies for staying connected and fighting bleh. I knew it was a good thing, but wasn't fully aware of all the benefits until I read this.

I took a moment to enjoy these tiny "snowdrifts" as the storm was getting started.

Before that I captured this image. For a couple of years now, someone has been leaving this message on sidewalks in our neighborhood. I would guess they add another in a random location every day on their walk, since it is always the same message, same size, same handwriting, but never the same spot. So you never know where you're going to see it, but if you walk the sidewalks near our house you're bound to encounter it at least a time or two. Be nice.

I shared a similar image from the same person at the end of Brought Together by Loneliness on August 30, 2018.

Rare and irregular rewards.

Another area of reward is reading. One advantage to the pandemic is more time to read than normal. Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri was a recent delight. The description from Goodreads:

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much.

But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment he, his mother, and sister fled Iran in the middle of the night, stretching all the way back to family tales set in the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan, the palaces of semi-ancient kings, and even the land of stories.

We bounce between a school bus of kids armed with paper clip missiles and spitballs, to the heroines and heroes of Kosrou's family's past, who ate pastries that made them weep, and touched carpets woven with precious gems.

Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, author Daniel Nayeri weaves a tale of Khosrou trying to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story).

It is Daniel's.

What I wrote:

Magnificent.

I read a lot of books and try to write at least a short review of every one. Some of the reviews are quite lengthy. So I have written a lot of words about books and regularly visit the thesaurus to find the best ones.

I don't think I've ever used the word "magnificent" to describe a book before. It seems the right one for this book.

Nayeri writes this book as his twelve-year-old self sharing his story with his teacher and classmates. It is a memoir of sorts. Both fiction and nonfiction, he writes in his author's note. Most of it is based on memories of his much younger self and things he has been told by his parents and others, so he admits from the start that parts of it are sketchy, distorted, and imagined. "All Persians are liars," the book begins.

All Persians are liars and lying is a sin.

That's what the kids in Mrs. Miller's class think, but I'm the only Persian they've ever met, so I don't know where they get that idea.

My mom says it's true, but only because everyone has sinned and needs God to save them. My dad says it isn't. Persians aren't liars. They're poets, which is worse.

Poets don't even know when they're lying. They're just trying to remember their dreams. They're trying to remember six thousand years of history and all the versions of all the stories ever told.

So Daniel is a poet. A storyteller in the manner of Scheherazade, the tale spinner at the heart of 1,001 Nights. He is not telling a single tale in relating his story, but many. Each fragmentary memory from a child's perspective is its own story, mixed together with the ones he's living as an almost teen and those of his family tree, starting with his ancestors and working on down to him. He jumps around in time and place. He throws in commentary and philosophy. He adorns them with fanciful details. He includes a good measure of humor. He makes them mythic and legendary when he can. Daniel is a poet.

It's not quite right to use the literary term "unreliable narrator" for Daniel because he never aspires to be reliable. Instead he narrates the events as they exist in his heart. All the stories from his early years are larger than life because that's how they seem to the young and get exaggerated in memory. Was his family royalty in Persia or did it just feel that way to him? It's never quite clear. To Daniel they were, and that's what matters. It is true to him. He tells the dramatic, tumultuous stories of his parents and their parents and their parents, wealthy Persians all. Of how, when he was five, his mom converted to Christianity and they had to flee Iran to avoid being killed for it. His father stayed behind. He, his mom, and his older sister lived homeless in Abu Dhabi for a year and in a refugee camp in Italy for a year before winding up in Edmond, Oklahoma when he was eight. And of his experiences trying to figure out Oklahoma as an immigrant refugee student. It is a difficult, often sad journey that Daniel makes epic.

His telling of it is magnificent.

A patchwork story is the shame of a refugee.

-----

At church potlucks they play a secret game of dumping random cans of food in casserole dishes and pretending their grandmothers gave them the recipe. Jell-O is their favorite. Campbell's mushroom Jell-O goes on everything. So does Velveeta, which is a cheese Jell-O that only sort of hardens.

-----

You know what, you're not ready for this.

You kinda have to know the history of Islam--which Sima knew--and compare it to her experience in England as she heard about Christianity. Then you can compare the claims they make about Truth and Reality that we all share but also mostly ignore in different parts. Which is why we can see the same things but come to different conclusions about how to heal all our broken hearts.

Which we all have.

Which is such a big part of our lives that we don't even notice the pain of it. We're completely numb to it, because it's constant.

It's so true it's boring.

Which is really our brains, terrified, hoping to ignore the fact that we have giant holes in our chests.

That's why everyone is distracted with TV shows and no one likes to talk about it.

Our broken hearts problem.

But we're going to have to talk about it soon, so gird your loins, reader.

For now, here's a poop story to make you feel better. Or if not better, then at least distracted.

-----

The thing is that Scheherazade was telling her stories to a king in the language they both spoke as babies. So she never had to explain the demons who believe in God, or what was rude. She just showed it in the story. But the shame of refugees is that we have to constantly explain ourselves. It makes the stories patchworks, not beautiful rugs.

-----

Dear reader, you have to understand the point of all these stories. What they add up to. Scheherazade was trying to make the king human again. She made him love life by showing him all of it, the funny parts about poop, the dangerous parts with demons, even the boring parts about what makes marriages last.

Little by little, he began to feel the joy and sadness of others.

He became less immune, less numb, because of the stories.

And what about you?

You might feel what I felt on the roof that night. I was ashamed of being so weak, angry at Ray for everything he'd done, tired of being poor, and afraid of the thunder and lightning crashing all around me. I thought of my Baba Haji as I braced against the roof of the house.

I prayed to God I would see him again.

It won't be in this life, so it has to be where God puts us.

I prayed that even though I was Christian and he was whatever he was, I prayed that God would still let him hold me once we're both dead.

Reader, I think He heard me.

I think He's a God who listens as if we are his most important children, and I think He speaks to tell us so.

-----

Mrs. Miller says I have "lost the plot," and am now just making lists of things that happened to fill space. But I replied that she is beholden to a Western mode of storytelling that I do not accept and that the 1,001 Nights are basically Scheherazade stalling for time, so I don't see the difference.

-----

Reading is the act of listening and speaking at the same time, with someone you've never met, but love. Even if you hate them, it's a loving thing to do.

You speak someone else's words to yourself, and hear them for the first time.

What you're doing now is listening to me, in the parlor of your mind, but also speaking to yourself, thinking about the parts of me you like or the parts that aren't funny enough. You evaluate, like Mrs. Miller says. You think and wrestle with every word.

I especially love that last quote:

Reading is the act of listening and speaking at the same time, with someone you've never met, but love. Even if you hate them, it's a loving thing to do.

You speak someone else's words to yourself, and hear them for the first time.

What you're doing now is listening to me, in the parlor of your mind, but also speaking to yourself, thinking about the parts of me you like or the parts that aren't funny enough. You evaluate, like Mrs. Miller says. You think and wrestle with every word.

And this one:

Dear reader, you have to understand the point of all these stories. What they add up to. Scheherazade was trying to make the king human again. She made him love life by showing him all of it, the funny parts about poop, the dangerous parts with demons, even the boring parts about what makes marriages last.

Little by little, he began to feel the joy and sadness of others.

He became less immune, less numb, because of the stories.

After all, I'm a librarian.

This was a bit of fun from Facebook . . . 

Ask your kid . . . *word for word, without prompting* 

Starring [Older]

Age 7

1. If you won a million dollars, what would you buy?

Hard choice - there's a lot of things that I like. All the supplies for all the cats in the world. A big house so all my cats could fit in it.

2. How long does it take to get to the beach?

Umm . . . I'm guessing about one hour in a plane.

3. What does Mom always say to you?

Go to your bed.

4. What job would you like to do when you grow up?

A lot of things.

5. Who is the strongest person?

I'm pretty sure that's Dad.

6. Where do babies come from?

Heaven and mommies' tummies.

7. At what age do you become a grownup?

18.

8. What’s the worst rule you have to follow?

No running in the house.

9. What wild animal do you like?

I wish it said biome, then it would be jungle.

10. What would you do if you couldn’t find your underwear?

Just put on pants.

11. If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I'm trying to think of something healthy but delicious . . . cooked broccoli.

12. How much does it cost to buy a house?

Around $5 million. That's like the cheapest house.

13. Who do you hang out with all the time?

iPad.

14. What song makes you want to dance?

I don't know.

15. What are you scared of?

The dark.

 

16. What is your favorite game to play?

Watch the iPad.

17. What's your favorite color?

Yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white.

18. How old is mom?

42.

19. How old is dad?

49.

20. Who is the president of The United States of America?

Joe Biden.

21. What kind of car do you want when you grow up?

A speedy car (one of the things that I want to do is be a race driver).

22. Where do you want to live when you grow up?

In a fancy house on a safe cliff.

23. Who is your best friend?

T____.

24. What’s your favorite activity?

Watching iPad.

25. What year is it?

2021

26. What's your favorite kind of weather?

In the middle.

27. If you went to the grocery store right now what would you buy?

Cakes.

And . . . 

Ask your kid . . . *word for word, without prompting* 

Starring [Younger]

Age 5

1. If you won a million dollars, what would you buy?

Robotic spider.

2. How long does it take to get to the beach?

Two days.

3. What does Mom always say to you?

I love you no matter what.

4. What job would you like to do when you grow up?

Lots of them.

5. Who is the strongest person?

I'm going to go with the strongest kitty: Freckles.

6. Where do babies come from?

Mommy's tummy.

7. At what age do you become a grownup?

18.

8. What’s the worst rule you have to follow?

Following the rules.

9. What wild animal do you like?

Cheetahs.

10. What would you do if you couldn’t find your underwear?

Put on yucky underwear.

11. If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Love.

12. How much does it cost to buy a house?

A trillion dollars.

13. Who do you hang out with all the time?

Mom.

14. What song makes you want to dance?

Rock and roll (vocal guitar riff).

15. What are you scared of?

Nightmares.

 

16. What is your favorite game to play?

Flying Scotsman.

17. What's your favorite color?

Yellow--I mean, not yellow; green.

18. How old is mom?

41.

19. How old is dad?

49.

20. Who is the president of The United States of America?

Joe Biden.

21. What kind of car do you want when you grow up?

The fastest car in the world.

22. Where do you want to live when you grow up?

At my home.

23. Who is your best friend?

Freckles.

24. What’s your favorite activity?

Flying Scotsman.

25. What year is it?

2021

26. What's your favorite kind of weather?

Summer weather.

27. If you went to the grocery store right now what would you buy?

Candy.

I'm guessing many of their answers would have been different had I asked on a different day.

Random. This kept showing up on my feed as part of a collection of images trying to get me to look at FB's marketplace. I didn't pay enough attention to see if it was clothing for a baby or dog, because all I saw every time was a face from Star Wars.

I cropped off the top of the picture to emphasize the effect.

Another random, but I must share as I am a librarian.

The Librarian War Against QAnon

As “Do the research” becomes a rallying cry for conspiracy theorists, classical information literacy is not enough.

Most students in the past 50 years have received instruction under various names: media literacy, digital literacy, news literacy, information literacy, civic literacy, critical thinking, and the umbrella concept of meta-literacy. This curriculum is constantly being reinvented to meet perceived crises of confidence, largely driven by the emergence of new technologies.

But the present moment demands serious inquiry into why decades of trying to make information literacy a universal educational outcome hasn’t prevented a significant portion of the population from embracing disinformation while rejecting credible journalistic institutions. . . . 

Now that conspiracy theories have accelerated into the mainstream and competing notions of reality vie for attention, information-literacy advocates must acknowledge that focusing on how to find and evaluate information is not sufficient and may, if taught ineffectively, actually be harmful. What happens in classrooms under the banner of information literacy has to include an understanding of information systems: the architectures, infrastructures, and fundamental belief systems that shape our information environment, including the fact that these systems are social, influenced by the biases and assumptions of the humans who create and use them. . . . 

It should give advocates of information literacy pause that, similar to the way the phrase fake news has been appropriated to disparage mainstream journalism, the slogan “Do the research”—now ubiquitous in anti-establishment and conspiracy-theory-friendly corners of the web— has become the empowering antidote to elitist expertise.

Those who spend their time in the library of the unreal have an abundance of something that is scarce in college classrooms: information agency. One of the powers they feel elites have tried to withhold from them is the ability to define what constitutes knowledge. They don’t simply distrust what the experts say; they distrust the social systems that create expertise. They take pleasure in claiming expertise for themselves, on their own terms.

Moreover, the internet gives them opportunities to create their own versions of scholarly societies, networked and engaged in building entire circulating libraries containing the fruits of their research. Their superpower is knowing how the internet works, so they can in turn successfully work the internet, nurturing and amplifying their truth by exploiting the attention-seeking tools of social platforms, strategically harnessing their online skills to penetrate real-world systems of power. . . . 

It’s time for a thorough revamping of the purpose of inviting students to engage in inquiry as a civic practice. Educators, including librarians who teach, will need to confront and clarify their own beliefs and assumptions about how they know what is real and what isn’t.

It was one of those rare and irregular rewards from my feed.

That I was able to produce this post is a positive break from the bleh.

Here's to more awe, connection, and stories.