Visit To Troy
Maybe not so topical except in my head. I drove over to Troy NC where I lived in 1953-54. It was my second visit in the past 58 years.
Note: That year in Troy was good. My sister and I had a lot of friends; I lettered in football. My mother and father were involved in things. They belonged to the little Montgomery County country club. One night they went to a party and my mother wore a pretty green dress. That summer things changed, got weird (although to be honest things were weird before Troy). My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and we returned to Shelby so she could die there, which she did two days before Christmas. She was buried in the green dress. All of our lives made a radical turn. I have been told that I got stuck, did not progress properly - that Troy was the last normal time of my life.
But the trip today was nice. I wore my hat and greeted people with grandiosity and humility. I don't know if I learned anything. Time will tell.
Bushes and trees have replaced the little house where we lived. From the`size of bushes the replacement happened a long time ago. My mother was happy here for the first time that I could remember (although being barely sentient I could not have said it). I recall sitting on our porch with my mother and Bookie Kearns the pretty 13 year old who lived across the street. I said something grand and stupid and my mother glanced at Bookie then both of them regarded me with amused pity, tolerance and affection. This has been my pattern with women ever since. I seem to like it. I suspect other guys feel the same way.
Hotel Troy where my father stayed the summer of 1953. The rest of the family came just before school started that fall. Some months after my mother died my father and I returned to Troy and spent the night in the Hotel Troy. I don't remember now why we came. I might not have known then. My father seemed disturbed.
Russel mansion where Charles and Larry lived. I spent one night there. Charles sent the black man out to get some beer. I was invited because people thought I was a little wild. I almost got kicked out of school for supposedly giving the finger to Mrs. Livingston the librarian (I didn't). When I denied it she said, "Mr Weathers the truth is not in you." I was taken to the principal's office and my father was called. Fellow students were impressed. The last time I saw Charles was during my brief stay at NC State (after we came back from West Palm Beach where we moved after my mother died). I was walking up the street and Charles drove by a red Alfa Romeo convertible with a beautiful girl all over him. He grinned and yelled, "Weathers I want to see you."
The mansion is now for sale at a fairly reasonable 500,000. The man at the little restaurant downtown where I got coffee and cherry pie said that Charles and Larry were still alive but the Russel who had been living in the house was dead.
Inside the diner where I talked to older woman who knew people from my era. Oddly most are still alive. My friend Lowell Perry is dead. Maybe he died in Vietnam. Sensitive, existentially troubled, violent, he would have been perfect for getting killed there. My friend Mike Powell had those same traits and would also have been perfect, but he is still alive somewhere in Florida. I don't know about me. I didn't go so I'll never know. .
Although it seems unlikely, this might be the bench were Leanna Harris and I sat in romantic proximity for several hours one night. We walked across town from the house where she were staying. The bench I saw today was in the same little park behind the hospital as the bench I saw 58 years ago. I claimed to love Leanna - which I had never done before - but she returned in a few days to Hamilton Ohio. (I think it was also a few days later when my mother went to the little hospital with a bowel obstruction then went to the Baptist Hospital in Winston Salem.) After my mother died and we moved to West Palm Beach I wrote Leanna an embarrassing rather`desperate letter to which she replied kindly, suggesting that I move on.
Note: That year in Troy was good. My sister and I had a lot of friends; I lettered in football. My mother and father were involved in things. They belonged to the little Montgomery County country club. One night they went to a party and my mother wore a pretty green dress. That summer things changed, got weird (although to be honest things were weird before Troy). My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and we returned to Shelby so she could die there, which she did two days before Christmas. She was buried in the green dress. All of our lives made a radical turn. I have been told that I got stuck, did not progress properly - that Troy was the last normal time of my life.
But the trip today was nice. I wore my hat and greeted people with grandiosity and humility. I don't know if I learned anything. Time will tell.
The mansion is now for sale at a fairly reasonable 500,000. The man at the little restaurant downtown where I got coffee and cherry pie said that Charles and Larry were still alive but the Russel who had been living in the house was dead.
Peed at by ewe, etc
Burke's Garden,
Wytheville VA . Guy on Honda headed for Chicago.
Up gravel road toward Burke's Garden, VA.
Bad place.
Near top.
Looking down into Burke's Garden. An oval depression about 25 miles long and 5 miles wide surrounded by a circle of mountains . Two gravel roads and one paved road in and out. One of gravel roads is bad. No store in valley. Nearest town 10-15 miles over mountain.
At bottom .
House not atypical. All are supported by working farms.
Church established in 1828.
Functional nevertheless.
Small mountain deer hides in woods - part of a group of three. Camouflage makes them nearly invisible. VDOT guy we chatted with on road going up said coyotes kill deer. Bear also roam woods. He thought cougars too - although they are not supposed to be here
Bison.
Tried to get out on another gravel road (to left). It quickly became dirt and went bad and we backed out. VDOT guy had without committing himself advised against it.
Downtown Harlan Kentucky - supposed to meth, marijuana capital of U.S. Looked OK to me, although coming in saw some really bad trailers. Could imagine meth being cooked there. Marijuana grown out back.
Mr. Bob. We are at Cumberland Gap overlook.
Mr. Tom, who, going crazy, bought hat. Also lost lost eye glasses. Bored Mr. Bob with talk of black Lincoln Town car with loud mufflers and big bumper guard up front.
On the Way To Burke's VA
Day 1 - Sunday 3/25/12
Shot Tower from 1800's - where molten lead was dropped to make musket balls and shotgun shot. New River in background. Rained. I was wearing short pants shirt and Crocs.
Max Meadows - note sign beside building.Max Meadows like a number of the little out of the way towns is in decline. Bob said there was furniture manufacturing but it went away. Cattle still a big deal. We saw lots of shacks and trailers surrounded by trash and abandoned vehicles (and parts thereof). We also some huge exotic old mansions - many of them also falling apart. Wonder about story - who built. Lords? Those who wrote in diaries.
Was barked at by mixed collection of mixed dogs in downtown Max Meadow. I said hello dogs but they were not impressed. Man came out and yelled at them - might have yelled at me too if we had not left. I waved at other people who reluctantly waved back.
Shot Tower from 1800's - where molten lead was dropped to make musket balls and shotgun shot. New River in background. Rained. I was wearing short pants shirt and Crocs.
Max Meadows - note sign beside building.Max Meadows like a number of the little out of the way towns is in decline. Bob said there was furniture manufacturing but it went away. Cattle still a big deal. We saw lots of shacks and trailers surrounded by trash and abandoned vehicles (and parts thereof). We also some huge exotic old mansions - many of them also falling apart. Wonder about story - who built. Lords? Those who wrote in diaries.
Was barked at by mixed collection of mixed dogs in downtown Max Meadow. I said hello dogs but they were not impressed. Man came out and yelled at them - might have yelled at me too if we had not left. I waved at other people who reluctantly waved back.
Mr.Bob looking at train.
Valley named after somebody's wife who got taken by Indians and was bought (purchased) back by husband six years later - after which they lived rustically in log cabin until eventual death.
More - Followed Case Knife road along ridge. Gravel there. Fog in valleys on both sides. We were above it. Saw one shack with the words NOT FOR RENT scrawled in angry letters. Front yard of another house (in earlier part of trip) was decorated by three toilets placed on stumps. Worst of trailer houses on Cae Knife road coming down case mountain. Saw a lone white boy in hoodie walking in woods beside road.
More More - Went through Pulaski - saw elegant old courthouse, main street with sad little shops, some abandoned, dead dreams of culture and money - large abandoned furniture plants. Bob said fine furniture was once crafted here. Bob has been everywhere. His company had a loan office here. But we did get turned around when map was wrong about one of back roads.
God stop me before I write again.
(pause)
ok...
Is this gutted, trash-filled Winnebago ordered or disordered?
It seems disordered (possibly disturbed).
It also seems complicated. It requires a particular description (windows broken, door gone, mattress on floor, etc.). It is not like every other Winnebago of the same vintage. They've all aged. A common description no longer works.
But in a previous piece of semi-psychotic rambling I said people become more ordered as they age. Responding to experience and failing parts they (we) become structured and rigid. Set in our ways. Inflexible.
Which is it?
Maybe I confused order and complexity.
Like the Winnebago we lose order. Things fall apart.
And like the Winnebago we become more complicated. Common definitions no longer work for us either. We've got broken windows, sagging mattresses. We each have our own story.
Some of us do become inflexible, set in our ways. But we all become more and more unique. Although neither we nor the Winnebago might generate much new surprise, our existence is a surprise. (How did the Winnebago end up parked in a yard in Delight NC? And what is the story of that mattress? )
We may or may not write lengthy new stories (maybe the Winnebago will get hauled off to suffer the next stage of thermodynamic entropy). But our complete messages - our life stories - well they are something else.
(pause)
ok...
Is this gutted, trash-filled Winnebago ordered or disordered?
It seems disordered (possibly disturbed).
It also seems complicated. It requires a particular description (windows broken, door gone, mattress on floor, etc.). It is not like every other Winnebago of the same vintage. They've all aged. A common description no longer works.
But in a previous piece of semi-psychotic rambling I said people become more ordered as they age. Responding to experience and failing parts they (we) become structured and rigid. Set in our ways. Inflexible.
Which is it?
Maybe I confused order and complexity.
Like the Winnebago we lose order. Things fall apart.
And like the Winnebago we become more complicated. Common definitions no longer work for us either. We've got broken windows, sagging mattresses. We each have our own story.
Some of us do become inflexible, set in our ways. But we all become more and more unique. Although neither we nor the Winnebago might generate much new surprise, our existence is a surprise. (How did the Winnebago end up parked in a yard in Delight NC? And what is the story of that mattress? )
We may or may not write lengthy new stories (maybe the Winnebago will get hauled off to suffer the next stage of thermodynamic entropy). But our complete messages - our life stories - well they are something else.
updating the entropy metaphor
(Claude Shannon, inventor of information entropy)
The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that over time systems go from lower to higher entropy, from order to disorder. The Entropy Metaphor (EM) says that people do the same thing, going from order to disorder, from life to death.
...there is a lady
who lives down the hall
who dances
with her little dogs
like a toy top
spinning alone
beneath the quarter moon
fingers held out
dreaming of her dead husband
a recessional processional
into entropy
But maybe the EM is wrong, or at least incomplete.
What about information entropy (which I understand even less than thermodynamic entropy)? Invented in 1948 by Claude Shannon, it keeps popping up. Information entropy seems to measure randomness, the non-structured content of messages, the part that you could not compress with an algorithm. Getting a little metaphorical, it seems to measure surprise.
How does this jibe with the EM?
Certainly thermodynamic disorder is our ultimate fate. Our atoms will become scattered. Our order as living creatures will cease. And, in my case anyway, there seems to it seems a lot of disorder right now - lost names, hesitant awkward conversations, etc.
However, in some ways aging people seem to become more ordered - more rigid and structured - mentally and physically. In terms of information entropy our "messages" become predictable, tedious. We could be easily represented by an algorithm.
Accommodating ourselves to failing parts and accumulating experience we become complex (not simple - simple people are spontaneous, ready to go one way or the other).We bend, stoop, limp. We develop elaborate theories to explain ourselves, others.
("I am miserable - because I neglect myself to help other people and they don't appreciate me - because the people here are not as interesting/good as the people where I used to live - because the people here are obsessed with their families and ignore me - because my mother resented men and took it out on me and I got stuck, etc etc etc.)
We become set in our ways. We are less able to handle change, less able to surprise and be surprised.
Although I certainly don't know this for sure, maybe the fibrous plaques in an Alzheimer's brain provide too much structure, rendering the brain rigid and incapable of handling new data. Even cancer, which at first seems to be a product of disorder could be viewed as excessive order, cells stuck in the wrong way of doing things.
Maybe until the end we lose entropy, sucking in order until one morning we give it all up.
Maybe we slide into order and on that great getting up morning explode into entropy.
Maybe I am full of shit (it has been suggested).
Anyway, Merry Christmas.
Asides...
OK - it is Christmas.
Some kids are very rigid, becoming less structured as they age (until at some point they become rigid again). Allie likes maybe four foods.
Some old people stay loose and flexible until the end.
In On Being (a discussion of science and religion) , Peter Atkins says that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is his favorite law.
In The Upside of Down, Thomas Homer-Dixon says that societies inevitably tend toward thermodynamic collapse, becoming more complex and rigid, less able to respond to change. There will be a Fall. But we can minimize the effects by developing "prospective minds", moving beyond consumption, embracing change.
In Collapse, Jared Diamond describes society after society that fails to change - ignoring the past, repeating the past - falling apart. But some don't.
Not counting some sociopathic, paranoid tendencies, I like krav maga because it is without rules. The goal is to be flexible - to respond to threats anytime, anywhere. To anticipate everything and nothing.
Complexity and People Plates
excerpts from Upside of Down section of "EDGE of the Apocalypse"...
Complexity
Breakdowns and collapses happen when societies become rigid
and fixed – unable to change. They are unable to respond with complex
solutions.
But after a time - billions of years or seven decades, the energy runs out - or has been so altered by entropic flow to be unusable. The clock quits. The plates stop moving, crack - turn to dust.
Complexity
Wars and social disruptions happen when people are no longer
able to talk. When positions become intractable and people are stuck in simple,
unyielding positions. Until then the answer to stress is increasing
complexity.
We develop increasingly
elaborate solutions.
But at some point the complexity gets too convoluted – it
takes too much energy to follow and maintain. We fall back into the comfort of
simplicity – and we sometimes fight.
The Mad Max post-apocalyptic world is ultimately very
simple. Haiti is simple. So is Somalia. Hitler and Stalin wanted to create simple societies.
But complexity cannot increase forever. It always falls apart.
A gun is very simple. So is death.
Weathers’ Aside - People Plates
Weathers’ Aside - People Plates
Perhaps
people could be regarded as having psychological plates - like the earth has
tectonic plates.
People
plates correspond to likes, dislikes, desires, fears. Everything that makes a
person. Just as tectonic plates slide around in response to pressures - some
from within some from without - people plates move around. When the plates
(either kind) slide past easily the crust remains undisturbed. When there is
friction, pressure builds up until finally released as an earthquake (or a
person quake).
Stretching
the analogy...
Both
types of plates float on a fluid inner layer (mantle, subconscious). Sometimes
the inner layer erupts into the surface (as volcanoes, dreams, fits, blurts,
poems). The inner layer not only supports the plates, it is a source of
destruction and construction. It destroys old plates and creates new ones.
Stretching
the analogy even further...
The
power of the inner layer comes from energy within which comes from energy
without - gravity, dark matter, dark energy, cosmic biology, cosmic history -
who knows. So long as there is energy, the inner layer stays fluid and the
plates continue to move. The inner layer supports, destroys, and rebuilds.
But after a time - billions of years or seven decades, the energy runs out - or has been so altered by entropic flow to be unusable. The clock quits. The plates stop moving, crack - turn to dust.
The
system dies.
Then
the whole thing falls back to a universal center, explodes and does it all
again.
(According to some theories.)
(According to some theories.)
EDGE of the Apocalypse (Preface)
Inspired by …
The Black Swan - Nassim Taleb
The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman
Collapse - Jared Diamond
The Upside of Down - Thomas Homer-Dixon
The Great Disruption - Paul Gilding
Something Is Coming
You can smell it. We are approaching an edge which overlooks an apocalypse. A sulfurous odor comes from below.
If it were just me it would not be a big deal. Old people like to celebrate their own mortality with tales of doom and gloom. We associate our demise with the demise of the world – which from a certain perspective is truth.
However, it is not just me. Jared Diamond, who won a Pulitzer Prize says there might be a societal Collapse. Paul Gilding a respected environmentalist says there will be certainly be a planet-wide Great Disruption and if that is not preceded by a Great Awakening there will be a Great Collapse. Thomas Homer-Dixon another respected environmentalist says a Fall (what he calls a “pulse”) is likely but there will be an upside. Homer-Dixon also says there will be an upside if there is a Great Awakening first.
Diamond, Homer-Dixon and Gelding have written books explaining what will happen. Taleb and Friedman, although it was not their intent, have written books that explain some of the factors behind the disruptions and collapses.
All these books get below the surface of common assumptions, revealing obvious truths that aren't all that obvious. They shift our point of view, forcing us to regard emperors without clothes and unseen elephants in the corners of rooms.
Everybody should read these or similar books (there are a lot).
Of course not everybody does.
Some people just don’t like to think about these things. They are in one of the phases of denial described by Homer-Dixon and paraphrased below…
- Existential Denial – We say the problem does not exist; it has been manufactured by eco extremists and anti-capitalists.
- Consequential Denial – We say the problem has been exaggerated and the problems that do exist (e.g., loss of artic ice) do not really affect us. It’s too bad for the polar bears.
- Fatalistic Denial – We say there is a serious problem but we can’t do anything about it so we might as well live as we have been living all along.
Some people simply don’t care.
Some people simply don’t read.
And some people do care and do read and aren’t in denial but simply don’t have the time.
My book is for the latter group. By distilling the main points of these books, reducing over 1,000 pages of others’ words to 200 or so pages of my words, I hope to appeal to those who don’t have time. Perhaps after reading my book they will find time and go out and buy the other books.
I also hope to promote awareness of the issues.
Book Inspired by Books
Here is a brief summary of the books discussed in this book inspired by books:
Paul Gilding – The Great Disruption. Gilding says that we are about to be seriously disrupted. It won’t be a once-in-a lifetime, or even once-in-a-century event , but something that happens once-in-a-civilization, something that defines an era – like the Renaissance, Enlightenment, or the Dark Ages.
(It might be even bigger, redefining us at the evolutionary level. People with certain propensities might breed more. Those that survive might think and behave differently. )
Why? The earth is running out of room. There are too many people consuming too much stuff. The planet cannot replenish itself. It is like a global Ponzi scheme driven by the momentum of economic activity. It is just a matter of time before the game plays out.
Most people don’t know an end is coming. But soon everyone will. Gilding calls this the Great Awakening.
Jared Diamond – Collapse. Diamond has written a book about societies that have collapsed – ancient and modern – and a few societies that did not collapse. The book notes various factors contributing to collapses, but tends to focus on environmental issues. He lists a “five-point framework of possible contributing factors”:
- Environmental damage caused by people.
- Climate change – today caused by people in the past by natural factors.
- Hostile neighbors who prevail when a society becomes weak – maybe because of one of the other factors.
- Friendly neighbors who become unfriendly or weak and no longer support the society (maybe the formerly friendly society has been weakened by other factors)
- A society’s responds to its problems. Are its people smart, perceptive, honest – or the opposite?
Thomas Homer-Dixon – The Upside of Down. Homer-Dixon says that human societies are threatened by interrelated stresses:
- Population – growth rate is different in rich and poor societies, has peaked in some rich societies – the poor flood into rapidly growing megacities (e.g., Dhaka in Bangladesh)
- Energy – high quality energy (oil) that fuels growth has peaked – we are now scrambling
- Environmental – natural environment is being destroyed
- Climate – atmosphere is changing, planet warming
- Economic –gap between rich and poor is widening, societies becoming unstable – prone to revolution, terrorism
These conditions are like tectonic plates bumping into each other building up pressures which ultimately must be relieved.
Nassim Taleb – The Black Swan. Taleb believes the world is much more unpredictable than we pretend, beset by black swans, and unforeseen (and unforeseeable) events. Tricks for getting by include learning to ignore people to who claim to predict the future and learning to recognize and run with good luck when it happens.
The main words to remember from Black Swan are non-linear and chaos. Environmental changes which bring about a collapse or disruption will not proceed in a regular, straight-line fashion but in a non-linear, chaotic manner.
Thomas Friedman – The World is Flat. Friedman says the world is smaller than we image, flatter. Everybody is connected to everybody else. Barriers between trade and communication have come down (been flattened). The playing field on which people, companies, and countries compete and play has been leveled. The people on the playing field are just as likely to be brown and Eastern as they are to be white and Western.
The main point to remember in the Flat World book is how an event in one place, can, because of globalized connections, rapidly have repercussions across the entire planet. The repercussions feed back into the original event which spreads outward again, then feeds back, then out, then back in a loop, every iteration reinforced and stronger. It is how non-linear chaotic systems develop. How a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa can cause a tornado in Kansas.
Caveat
This is my book. Although inspired by the words of others, these words are mine. Also, in some odd sense the ideas are mine. After all the rewrites and edits I own what I say – even though I am “only” interpreting the ideas of the smart men listed above. Consequently the mistakes and the misinterpretations are mine. If you have a problem with something, bear in mind that you are reading me. That’s who you have an issue with – not with the smart men.
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