Saturday, August 31, 2024

 Saturday, August 31, 2024

        I went to bed exhausted last night.  I had worked hard in the yard, spent several hours trying to buy a new PC, and tutored four kids at Ulu Wini. I was in bed at 9:30 and looked forward to a good night's rest.  I was dragged out of sleep by a sound my mind identified as someone sitting in my living room playing a computer game. Beep, beep, beep.  It took me a while to be roused enough to figure out it was a coqui frog chirping away. It is a mystery why I would confuse that sound when I am so familiar with it.  I fell asleep and finally woke up for the day at 4:30. That was a pretty good night's sleep.

   As usual, my mind started focusing on upsetting thoughts, inconsiderate things others do, and things that leave me feeling overwhelmed or frightened.   I read that the orbital prefrontal cortex is the gatekeeper to the default brain. I could quiet the tormentor by focusing on that part of my brain. This morning, I didn't have to struggle hard to get this part of my brain to work.

   The theory is that blood goes to the part of the brain that is in use.  If I need to use a part of the brain, blood will flow to it. Inversely, if I can get blood to flow to a part of the brain intentionally, it will perform its function.  Therefore, if I focus on the right orbital prefrontal cortex, blood will flow to it, and it will control the activity of the default brain.  This relationship between brain function and blood flow is the basis of my BrainManagementSkills protocols.  

    Joseph came out of his room fully dressed about the same time he usually does.  I was in my old-lady chair doing my morning upper-body yoga routine.  He would only be out for a short time this morning and then be in the house for the rest of the day.

    I ate breakfast, did my morning puzzles,  and went to the bottom of the property to load up more haole koa green waste.  A property covered with those trees is a fire hazard. Now that the lady next door has cleared her property, I'm a significant neighborhood hazard. 

    Thanks to Dean, the job of downing the trees and stripping the leaves went much faster than it had before.  I snapped off branches and stuffed them into the trash barrel without cutting them into bite-sized pieces first.  All I had to do was press down on the branches in the barrel, and the pressure snapped them into smaller pieces.  Any trunk under four inches in diameter I could easily snap myself.

    Both Dean and Darby advocate using 'green waste' in their yards; they call it 'green gold.'   'Cut it and drop it,' Dean says.  you control growth by trimming, but you allow what you cut to serve as ground cover. Darby heard it called sunscreen for the soil.  It will undoubtedly keep it moist.  The sun is intense and dries to the soil quickly.  Their use of 'green gold,' plant waste that has not yet decayed, is unfamiliar, but I like the idea.  I'm on the verge of a conversion but need help applying it to my property.  It's an overgrown mess, and I am overwhelmed. 

    I listened to a book on Audible, Of Boys and Men.  It argues that it was never just women who were in trouble; men were, too.  I have always felt that way.  While men had power over women, their lives were also in trouble.  Power is a narcotic that masks the depth of our dissatisfaction.  

    The book describes the role of men in our lives. Given how slim our need for men is, I see why men used their power to ensure they were on top.  The author says in the animal world,  the 'strongest' males get to inseminate the most females.  In the case of humans, one in every 200 men is a direct descendent of Genghis Khan.  He was a busy boy.  Where polygamy is allowed, the strongest man gets multiple wives, while a weak man might not have any.   We don't need many men to make many babies. A well-stocked sperm bank will do the trick.  

   In addition, women can do most of the work men can do. Men are physically stronger than women, but women can figure out compensations for their physical weakness.  Message: we don't need all those men.  Talk about being in a scary position.  

    Note: it's not always the 'most powerful' man that gets to have the most offspring.  When I worked in an inner-city Catholic School in Trenton, one of my students was a boy who was one of 50 children of one man. He didn't have to go around raping women like Genghis Khan or bullying them into sex like Harvey Weinstein. No, this young man was just a cool dude. The women flocked to him. He could brag about his fertility without concern for consequences. 

    The book argues that men feel their vulnerability. They used to have the role of breadwinner. Now, that has been usurped too.  Women can manage quite nicely on their own, thank you.  Men face an existential crisis.  What is their purpose in life? Take that from any human, and you're asking for trouble.  If we don't have a purpose, we don't have a reason to live.  This isn't some cultural imposition, rendering us 'human doings' instead of 'human beings; it is biologically driven.  I argue for mercy for all. The division between the powerful and the weak is both genuine and arbitrary.  It's not an easy one to solve. But if we don't keep it in mind, the suppressed and denigrated will fight back. They have to; it's a matter of survival. 

   Dean and Nina came over for our Saturday game of Sorry and conversation. I enjoy their company. I can be myself with them. Dean is outspoken and has a tolerance for my outspokenness.  So far, it's all been going well.  We speak more than we play. It's a lovely mix.  I hope Dean will teach me more about gardening.  His idea of gardening is different from my understanding of it with my suburban background. He encourages working with nature, not taming it. His property looks abandoned or badly neglected. It's not. he works in the yard daily. He just has a different idea of what it should be. When I asked his advice today, he said, "Just listen to the plants."  That's a skill I do not have. I was annoyed he thought everyone should have it. he says that partially because he denigrates his skills, some of which are excellent.  He's already taught me a lot.

   I learned that if I break the haole koa branches and trunk, while it will immediately bring out new growth, it will be easier to break the next time. It will take about a year, but the tree will die from repeated breaks.  Dean also told me I could gird the trees, and they would die in months.  Would he show me how to do that?  I am a willing learner, but he talks about the things he does as if they're obvious, and everyone should know them. I don't.

    Today is the 84th birthday of a very old 'friend.'  He's the son of my parents' good friends. My father met this couple on the ship that brought him to the USA. All three were Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.  Billy was born three months before me.  When my mother visited his mother in the hospital after his birth, she said, "Margaret. It's horrible. Don't go through with it." She never did have another child. My mom tried two more times. One she lost in a miscarriage; the second resulted in my sister.