Tag: learning

The Learning Dream

My wife and I were at a pool. I somehow got involved in a swimming class. Others were doing it. There was a white cloth or panel on the pool’s bottom. Our guidance was to take a deep breath, dive to the bottom, get the item, swim to the other side of the pool and surfaced.

My wife laughed. “He’s a really strong swimmer. He’ll do that without trying.”

I did. I’m not a strong swimmer but I’m good at holding my breath.

After doing that on the first attempt, they set me loose in free-practice to keep getting better.

Next, we moved inside. Now I was helping with some kind of television or streaming shopping channel. I was to write on a piece of cardboard and then slid the info forward so some announcer could see it. The info was being given to me by another person, and I was to keep writing the new price as it came in and show it.

Well, I screwed it up the first two times. I did well the third time, and then the people told me to keep practicing. I did for a while and then someone came by and told me I had a new assignment. This involved reading textbooks. The assignment confused me. “I’m just supposed to read them all? Will there be tests?” Yes, I’m to read them all, astounding me. A large range of topics were included. Stacks of books awaited my eyes. And yes, I would be tested.

I began that assignment and was startled about how fast I discovered I could read and learn. After four of five books, I was just fanning the pages. Witnessing this, my wife chastised me. “You’re supposed to be learning this.” I laughed back. “I am. Give me a book. I’ll read it and you can ask me questions, and I’ll answer them.”

She gave me a book. I read it. She asked me three questions, and I answered them all.

Another instructor arrived. I was being taken to a new class. The instructor said, “In this class, you’ll be taught how to use energy to change things.” I asked, “What kind of things will I be able to change?”

She answered, “Wait and see.”

The dream ended as a cat tapped my hand and meowed.

It was a very uplifting and energizing dream.

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Learnin’ to Walk

Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
View all responses

I’m one of those people who believe and practice, you must be willing to take risks and face failure if you want to succeed. The classic example is learning to walk: we all must accept trying to take those first steps and risk falling in order to stay upright and put one foot in front of the other to cross a room and get where we want to go.

In my case, I’ve succeeded many times when I’ve tried. My failures have been as a sales person. I’m talking about goin’ door to door. Selling vacuum cleaners. Knife sets. Cookware. Hey, I was desperate to improve our situation and increase our income.

But I learned that I’m not a person who wants to pressure people into buying things like that. First, the products were overpriced. Second, they weren’t the greatest invention in the world, which was basically the line I was to spin. I didn’t believe it, and I didn’t accept it, and I couldn’t say it. I felt like a hypocrite and a fraud when I did.

I later learned, yes, I can sell things. I’m pretty successful at selling ideas. And I’ve sold tangible products, like coronary angioplasty products. But to succeed in that arena, I had to believe in what I was saying. And to believe, I couldn’t ignore my principles.

Understanding grew from those failures and setbacks. I learned: don’t ignore your principles. And I became known as a dependable person, trustworthy, responsible, reliable. I probably would have learned those lessons without my salesman failures but going through it helped me cement my understanding of who I am, who I’m willing to be, and what I will do to make a dollar.

In the end, I believe I’m a better person because of my failures.

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Sunda’s Wanderin’ Political Thoughts

As observers watch the Trusk Regime’s Great Shitstorm of 2025 and the Great Undoing, we await the Reciprocal Wave. History, economics, science, have all demonstrated again and again that for every action, there are reactions.

This is an era of networks. The age of the old factory plants have faded. What we have now are multiple assembly locations. Subassemplys are built and then shipped into other countries, where they’re added to other subassemblies. Those subassemblies are folded into a final component which is then shipped to an assembly plant for final inclusion into finished goods, such as a car. This is true not just in the automobile and aircraft industries, but in many electronics industries, medical device manufacturing, and pharmacueticals. Wasn’t governments who did this, either; this was the capitalists, although they worked with governments to make it so, often encouraged by tax breaks and subsidies.

Likewise, the farm-to-table model is a simplistic concept for much of the food that reaches our tables. While we do have local economies with organic farms and farm-to-table can happen, nature still commands where some things grow.

The Trusk Regime has issued orders. Broken treaties. Damaged alliances. Withdrawn from marketing and trade agreements. Bullied allies and threatened and launched tariffs.

Tariffs will drive up prices. History has demonstrated it. Higher prices bring inflation. Inflation causes less buying. People just don’t have enough money to buy more.

Less buying equals less retail volume. Lower volume means less income for businesses. Businesses compensate with increased prices to sustain operating and profit margins.

But less sales volume is less business. Less tax revenues at all levels.

Less sales translates to less need for employees. Job layoffs and terminations follow.

To ice the cake, the Trusk Regime has cut Small Business Administration funds. Too much DEI for them. Without those loans and grants, small businesses will close. Unemployment will climb. Fewer businesses means increased scarcity and less competition. Prices rise out of that equation.

That is just the tip of that egregious economic situation. Think of what that does to consumer confidence? Imagine the impact on the stock and commodities markets, and the strength of the dollar.

But you don’t need to imagine that. History is full of these things happening. They have been studied. The cause and effect is well understood. With less tax revenues and less Federal funding coming down, roads and infrastructure fall into disrepair. So history says. Hello, if you were paying attention, you know that was one of the things Trump 45 promised to do and failed to do. And, if you’re paying attention to your history, you know that President Joe Biden delivered on that promise with a bi-partisan infrastructure repair act.

The things you can learn from history.

If you’re willing.

Beyond food scarcity, high prices, and small businesses shuttering, visualize what that does to small towns and cities. Imagine what happens to farmers and their businesses with their markets closed to them in China and elsewhere.

There will be backlash and more reciprocal impacts. Unemployment will rise. Homelessness will increase. Begging on street corners will climb.

The Trusk Regime has already made that situation worse by shuttering the USAID. Through it, charities helped with lunch programs. Religious charities depended on money from the USAID to help communities cope with homelessness, unemployment, and scarce resources.

But Trusk cut that. That now traditional source of help will not be there. Forced into starvation and desperation, violent crimes will rise. That’s a fact right out of history. So will an attitude. What do I care if the world burns down? I have no future in it. Because they can’t afford college. Even if they can get more education, to what end would they put their degrees with businesses terminating employees. They will begin to work as part of an under-the-table gig economy. Take low paying jobs to get a meal.

Imagine the impact of increasing homelessness and growing unemployment will have on new car sales and new home sales. But you don’t have to: history has shown us the impact.

The Trusk Regime has already made that situation worse by terminating hundreds of thousands of Federal employees. You don’t think that’s not going to affect the unemployment numbers, consumer confidence, and the economy? People without jobs don’t spend much money. The Trusk Regime likes to offer a scenario where these hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed individuals go out and get a new job.

Where?

Especially since the Trusk Regime also cut government contracts. Schools, businesses, and communities were depending on those contracts. Some of them were still rebuilding from natural disasters. The money had been allocated by Congress. The Imperial Presidency said, no. So those projects have stopped.

They’re not hiring anyone.

That’s what Project 2025 and the Trusk Regime wholly ignore. We experienced all of this things and built networks of state, local, and Federal government with rules, regulations, and experts to deal with these problems. The Trusk Regime decided it was fraud and waste and took a chain saw to it.

Now we wait. The Great Reciprocal Wave is coming. Its form is uncertain. Could be open warfare. Massive rioting. A military coup. Other factors of the Great Undoing will come into play. Like health crises. Say avian flu. Flu, RSV, and COVID-19. New diseases. So it could be another pandemic.

This is all just a tiny piece of it. Natural disasters will begin. Tornados will tear through towns. Wildfires will start burning. Flooding. Places will be evacuated. Productivity will fail more. Scarcity will increase. Tax revenues will plummet. The economy will sag. The fires will burn on with no to little help from the Trusk Regime. They don’t think those federal agencies were useful.

Hurricane season will begin. Storms will wreck whole areas. Scarcity will increase. So will demand. Inflation will rise. Tax revenues will plummet. Homelessness will increase.

What do you think that will do to the insurance companies? Not sure? Ask the good people of Puerto Rico, Oregon, California, Florida, Texas, and other states affected by natural disasters in recent years. They’ll give you a history lesson.

While you’re talking to them, ask, too, what it did to their health and their healthcare systems. Ask them what it did to their local economy and local inflation. Ask them what it did to their state of mind.

The Trusk Regime thinks that cutting federal agencies like FEMA is a good move. They think local citizens ‘on the ground’ in those locations will be able to ‘make better decisions’.

Yes, because the people of Asheville, NC, for example, have such a deep familiarity with recovering from disasters. *head shake*

Making decisions about how to help communities is only a small element of what FEMA does. They keep stockpiles of emergency food and water supplies on hand. They keep emergency housing on hand in the form of trailers that can be moved in to solve the housing problems for a while.

Those stockpiles will still exist. But with FEMA cut or its personnel cut, who will manage those inventories? Who will ship those supplies?

And we know that this will happen.

Because history taught us. You can learn a lot from history, if you’re willing. Just cast your mind back to 2005, Hurricane Katrina, and New Orleans. Twenty years ago. Pause to remember Michael D. Brown of FEMA fame and the disastrous job he did because he didn’t have experience. “Heckuva job, Brownie,” President Bush told him.

So you can learn from history. But right now, instead, voters decided to fuck around and find out. They were willing to take an ax to all of these programs, agencies, federal employees, alliances, trade agreements, and expertise.

Well, here it comes, brothers and sisters. You’re about to find out.

Here comes the Reciprocal Wave. I’d tell you to brace yourselves but do I need to?

History has already told us.

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Sa’day’s Wandering Thoughts

When I was a child, I asked Mom, “Why are some streets named streets, and some are boulevards, avenues, drives, and roads. What’s the difference?” Mom replied with some vexation, “I don’t know.” Wasn’t my first disappointment with the realization that Mom didn’t know everything.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I heard Steven Wright ask, “Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?”

Yes! Finally, someone is going to explain. He didn’t answer it, though. Bummer.

I’m always hungry to learn something new. I’m fortunate that my wife has a like spirit, athough hers vectors toward learning about women’s rights, social justice, and sex and dating trends. So she keeps me covered in that area. We share responsibility and coverage on politics, literature, and pop culture. I’m on my own regarding STEM and history.

Over the years, I’ve gleaned insights into streets and all the variations. An e-letter I received, Word Smarts, shed more light on the differences between Interstate, freeway, expressway, parkway, highway, turnpike, and frontage road. It’s a start. Meanwhile, here’s some classic deadpan Wright one-liners.

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

I watched a crane fly in my house. You know them? Many people mistakenly call the mosquito eaters because they look like giant mosquitos.

Like many of them that I’ve observed inside, this one was banging against the wall, bouncing off and flying back into it.

I thought, what a life. What a way to spent your time.

Then I realized how many people are like that crane fly, doing the same thing over and over again, never learning, never changing.

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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

I saw it in their body language and shaded eyes: what does this guy want? Can he be trusted?

Three women, three places, three weeks. I was being friendly. Thought I was charming, as I’ve done all my life. Maybe I was wrong all those years. Now, addressing these women in public places, catching their reactions, I have to re-think matters.

First, it’s their right to not be bothered by others, just as it’s mine. I thought that asking what someone was reading was safe and innocuous as we crossed paths at the coffee shop. She’d previously asked me to watch her purse for her. As a writer and reader, I’m often trying to learn what others are reading. It interests me. But asking this sixty-ish woman clearly disturbed her. Haven’t seen her since when she was a coffee shop regular. I hope I haven’t driven her away. I’m sorry.

I sincerely believed I knew the second woman from another place. I judged her to be in her sixties. She indulged me and responded but clearly thought I was up to something, maybe hitting on her. Sorry, ma’am. I won’t do it again.

I’m used to being flirty. I always thought I was charming. My wife and sisters always told me I was charming. Maybe they were being nice. Polite. Maybe I used to be charming but, older now, it’s no longer charming. Perhaps, because I’m older, it’s perceived as creepy.

Could be that it’s not me at all, but other matters, a product of our times. Women have endured unwanted male attention and assumptions and decided, enough. I’ll note, I do the same with males, chatting with them sometimes about what they’re reading, their accent, or talking to them because I think I might know them.

My wife has spoken of being approached by men in public. For example, she’s working out and a man walking by will tell her with a grin, “Smile.” Pisses her off. She’s exercising and sweating. It’s work. She’s focusing. Smiling is not part of her agenda, and she resents him telling her that because men are always saying things like to women.

I thought what I was doing was different. I guess I was rationalizing it as different and okay.

I quit, though. I’ll keep to my private circle, drop a cone of secrecy around it, only speak when addressed, and keep myself to myself.

This all probably reads like self-pitying whining. That’s not my intention but you’ll reach your own conclusion. I like to write to think through my thoughts. Doesn’t mean I need to post it for the public, but I often find that things which confuse me also confuses others. Or maybe I’m fishing for sympathy and just rationalizing that I’m searching for understanding. It’s a challenge for me because this is how I learned to be from Mom and my wife, polite and friendly. It’s inculcated in me.

I guess this is the new world, at least in progressive Ashlandia, for a sixty-seven-year-old white male. I just need to learn, accept, and adjust.

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