I had a great night's sleep. Dorothy still wasn't feeling 100% and was not up for a long talk. Who knew you could do your digestive tract with a rapid change in diet? Dorothy assures me this is normal. She also tells me that she is feeling better every day.
I meditated today. I should do it every day. I got up with a renewed energy and purpose. I started by straightening out the coffee table in front of me. It didn't take much; I threw two pieces of paper away, moved two others to better locations, and straightened out the rest. I changed my bed linens, folded the laundry I had done the other day, and finally sat down to complete my application on the Wyzant site.
I had been intimidated by the quizzes. I thought they were going to be on teaching methods. It wasn't that I thought I wouldn't know enough; I was afraid I would know too much.
I remember an American history professor when I was an undergraduate who somehow had gotten a Ph.D. without ever getting a high school diploma. For some reason, I don't understand, he needed one in the '60s to vote. He had to get a GED certificate. He failed the test on American history. Of course, most of what is on those tests is American myths. The professor has studied the field in depth; he knew too much.
I started with the math test on the Wyzant site; I was the least invested in that subject. It wasn't on teaching methods; it tested my knowledge of basic math. Taking the tests, five of them, became fun. I made mistakes on all the tests. Some were my mistakes; some were badly asked questions.
Dorothy worked for ETS, makers of the SAT, GRE, etc.; they work, rework, field test, and rework all their questions. That's why they charged the big bucks. In most other contexts, like SAT practice tests that are not issued by ETS, it's one person, maybe two, sitting down to write the tests. Mistakes abound.
The test didn't test my knowledge on an elementary school level. I'd say it addresses high school through college students. It left me wondering if I was going to find any students through this site. I can do something in reading and writing at the higher levels, but it's not really my interest.
I heard a flutter of wings while I was sitting on the lanai working. No, not birds- turkeys. Usually, they don't come on our property because we're fenced in. Liner Notes, Yvette's Springer Spaniel, is a hunting dog. Once he was aware of them, they were in serious trouble. Those birds can fly up into trees over one story high. I didn't know that they could fly that well.
Damon had sent me a picture Yvette had taken of me to post on the Wyzant site. I couldn't download it. I have no idea what is going on.
I found my missing chicken- in the garbage. I had carefully put the remaining chicken in a baggie and threw it out instead of putting it in the frig. I hope this isn't the beginning of a pattern.
I invited Darby to join me on my evening walk. She told me the meaning of the name of our street, Nehiwa. It's Hawaiian' pig-Latin.' The syllables are reversed, Wahine, which means woman. I called Yvette immediately to let her know.
I looked forward to seeing more of Red Oaks. I love the characters.
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Musings:
I finally found an answer to a question that has been burning a hole in my mind. Why is a tribal social organization active in many parts of the world but not in most European countries or America?
The article's title is "The Weirdest People in the World: How the Western World became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous." WEIRD is an acronym for Western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic. We are the exceptions in the world. I was raised to see the western lifestyle as superior.
While it certainly has its benefits, I've learned that nothing is ever that clear-cut. It's unlikely at best that any one way is superior to another. Each one has its strengths and weakness.
The author, Joseph Henrich, offers several theories. He says Western societies aren't as kin-based as other cultures because of the Catholic Church's policies on Marriage and Family.
The religion set up prohibitions against marrying cousins, even sixth cousins. In doing so, it dismantled the kin-based systems. Below is a quote from Dennett's summary of Henrich's thesis.
The centerpiece of Henrich's theory is the role played by what he calls The Roman Catholic Church's Marriage and Family Program, featuring prohibitions of polygamy, divorce, marriage to first cousins, and even such distant blood relatives as sixth cousins, while discouraging adoption and arranged marriages and the strict norms of inheritance that prevailed in extended families, clans and tribes. He quotes Henrich, "The accidental genius of Western Christianity was in 'figuring out' how to dismantle kin-based institutions while at the same time catalyzing its own spread."
The genius was accidental, according to Henrich, because the church authorities had no idea what they were setting into motion, aside from noticing that by weakening the traditional bonds of kinship, the church got rich fast.
I would venture a guess that the larger church replaced the kin-based tribe. Now, we had a religion-based tribe. All those who were Catholic were good; those who weren't were bad. The tribal thinking seems to be inescapable. I can see where tribal thinking helped us survive when we were in groups of 150 maximum, but they do not serve us now. At least not when we see those not of our 'tribe' as bad.
Our group veered in a different direction than everyone else. We assume that our way is the best. Well, we certainly have been the most prosperous and the most powerful. We have to ask, is this an unmixed blessing? Isn't there a dead end to our way too? I would say so. Our prosperity is destroying us.
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