Did I answer the question?

I just turned 18, and yet I feel the weight of life fully already. I guess the only question I really have is, what is the meaning to life? 

Wow, what a question to ponder.

I wish I could tell you definitively what your goal in life will be...I think all of us at some time in our lives would have been either grateful or curious to find that out...and your situation where everything seems to be crumbling around you leaves very little room for hope or to catch your breath. Even the support you've counted on from a parent isn't what it appeared to be.  The teenage years are a difficult time already in terms of expectations and demands, not to mention the pace of life speeding up and pulling you along, whether you're ready or not...what to do?

Let me say this.  You may not believe this, but you've already lived long enough to have made a difference in the lives of countless others.  Your parents' lives were changed forever by your birth, and it does not matter if you were the first, last or whatever child...you were an element of change....whether for good or not, no one can really say, because it's difficult to measure something as nebulous as a life's influence or effect until you've reached the end of it.

Life has a way of using people up and then spitting them out like a discarded rind, leaving very little tangible in the way of satisfaction save for obvious financial, material markers.  Your mom went from a bigwig to "nobody"...little wonder why she's feeling exhausted or spent?  What does she have to show for all her efforts? 

What you need to understand is this: life is more than a specific goal or purpose...it needs to be lived in order to be appreciated, it needs to be shared in order to recognize its fullest potential.  Intangibles such as happiness, fulfillment, connecting, belonging, being loved and loving others, patience, perserverance...these all have a place in the picture that each of us is constructing that will at the end of our days comprise a life lived.

There was a old saying in the 1980s: "life's a b***h, and then you die."  I couldn't relate to it then, and I still can't.  It must be terrible to feel that there is no point to living life if all there is to expect will be grief, sorrow, disappointment every single day, every single moment.  I honestly hope that where you find yourself is at a way station, not a crossroads, and that what you're struggling with has to do with wondering what your real qualities and gifts are and how to look for them and recognize them when you do.

If your grades are that low and you need to graduate from high school in order to cope with things, then go ahead and do so, but move on with a different attitude: take some time to figure out why things happened the way they did, what could have been done differently, and what can be done differently now.  There is no shame in looking at community college or online classes as a stepping stone to higher education...there are many young people out there who might experience greater success later in life had they opted out of the typical college track and figured out first what was their best option.

Find out what truly excites or motivates you...don't be satisfied with what other people think about you; take the time to really come to grips with what is important and essential to you. Remember what was said in The Little Prince: "it is only with the heart that one can see clearly."  

Keep a journal and make entries every day, no matter how trivial or minor things may be when you add them...it's amazing what occupies our mind/thoughts when we stop to look back at the past week or month...and you may be surprised to find something in a thread here or there that resonates more with the passage of time.

Take the time to discover how fortunate you might be compared to others.  Volunteer for an organization whose cause you believe in.  Help with the Red Cross.  If you're good at science or math or animals, check out what's available locally in terms of outreach.

Whatever you decide, make a concerted effort to listen more than talk.  Instead of stating your opinion immediately, listen to what others may say...encourage dialog, conversation.  If your mother is truly burnt out, then you might be someone she can confide in and trust during this difficult time for her...you might be someone she needs other than just being a daughter or child...you'll never know if you don't try.

TS Eliot once wrote that "we shall not cease from exploration, and the end of our journeys will be when we return home and see it for the first time."  Sometimes, it's not necessary to know what our purpose is, so long as we remain open, hopeful, thoughtful, aware and caring...for ourselves, others and the world around us.

Give yourself the space and time to clear your thoughts and realize how many lives you touch every single day.  Think about your real blessings and gifts: being financially stable, smart or attractive isn't what I'm looking for, nor should you...I am talking about intangibles, things that cannot be seen but are essentially important to our well-being...this is the quest you find yourself on at this time.

If you give yourself permission to strike out on a path different from everyone else's expectations for you, you may discover what you're looking for...I suspect you're already perceptive enough to know this since you wrote and wanted some feedback. I know you have what you're looking for, inside your heart and mind...give yourself permission to be open, honest, caring and genuine, so that you can see yourself for what you really are.  From what you've shared here, I have no doubt there is a unique, special person who deserves to be discovered and appreciated for who and what she really is, not what others expect her to be.

Remember, look for subtle signs of encouragement and hope all around you...the Japanese view courage as a plum tree blossoming while snow is on the ground.

Hearsay-I

Lately, whenever I hear the most recent lauded composition by some up-and-coming composer that turns out to be yet another variation on the minimalist notion of "music" (repeat a basic motif again and again, ad infinitum), I recall that a major composer like Ravel thought his Bolero essentially an exercise in orchestration and crescendo...when you remove the orchestral fabric there still was left behind a melodic phrase long enough and interesting enough to qualify as compositional, not fragmentary in the way so much of modern music is being written these days.

I think that's what I find lacking so much in contemporary art, whether music, art, ballet or writing: a reliance on minimalism instead of cogent, coherent thought to convey an experience.  It's the reason why in spite of so much technical prowess displayed by younger and younger performers, I still prefer the work of artisans whose work has been tempered/enhanced by experience as well as the spark of that indescribable, elusive element that makes a work of art or performance more than the sum of its individual parts.

Whenever I get frustrated at life, I look to interests like music for a respite, and Ravel has definitely proven to be that for me throughout my life...it is ironic that someone considered as austere and "clinical" as Boulez could have been my principal avenue into this music.  It reminds me of the reason why I loved french in college even though my professor told me my Russian classes "ruined" my pronunciation (but she said it so sweetly and so echt-francais that I found it endlessly charming to this day)...the notion of french music performance has everything to do with understanding the cultural, artistic and stylistic approaches...a reviewer of a recent biography of the composer said it best:

...His capacity for the most beautiful invention distinguishes his work in all these genres: one needs to hear only the first few bars of the Piano Trio, or of the Pavane, or of the Chanson Hébraique, to be drawn in immediately to an intense, beautiful world. 

Ravel’s music evokes an atmosphere that is of the era of Proust, but not Proust’s social context, of somewhat depraved aristocrats and useless young women waiting for someone to marry them. It is a world of the refined bourgeoisie, the people who sought to hold things together during the Third Republic, especially after the war, and to develop further a distinctive French musical culture. Debussy was dead before the Armistice: Saint-Saëns and Widor very old; Les Six still in short trousers, or learning their craft. Ravel was the pre-eminent French composer of that era, and he made a statement not just for French music, but for the whole of French culture, and for France itself. 

Evocation instead of context: I could not have described it better.

One of the most revered pieces of music to me is the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams, and it is no coincidence to me that its unique voice was crafted in that curious alliance between Ravel and RVW where the latter sought the former out for instruction even after he had already begun actively composing.  To me Ravel's compositional style was only one part of his genius...another was his ability to "hear" in orchestration how to best present ideas with as little distraction as possible.

From Today's Quora Postings

What 5 rules would help me become successful if I applied them to my life?

(Jane Chin)

1. Nothing happens until you act. You can be the smartest most incredible reservoir of potential the world has ever known and this potential will die with you unless potential energy becomes kinetic energy.

2. Your ability to heal, to help, and to harm intercalates with the stories you tell yourself about who you are, why you exist, and the nature of the world you believe you live in. [I want to use a different word than intercalating but I am not yet decided on which is cause and which is effect, which is chicken which is egg.]

3. Your true personal power grows not from what you will do once you have arrived, but what you have been doing all the way along the journey, especially the really shitty parts where you imagine everyone's booing you and laughing at you and betting on you to quit or, making this life a perverse game indeed, betting on you to stay until the bitter deadly end instead of quitting while you're ahead.

4. There is a reason why the word "fulfillment" is written as "FULfillment" and not "FILfullment": you must identify what you already hold in full (abundance) and give this away as readily as you exhale your breath. Same goes for why the word "generous/generate" is stitched into the word "regenerate": you become renewed the more you gift of what runs through you, inexhaustible. The more you give to take from others, the more exhausted you become in giving. The more you give that comes from a place of "you cannot help but to give of this, as this is how you express yourself to life", the more you are given in return.

5. There is a critical lesson that the most favored Psalm in the world teaches, regardless of religious affiliation (I posit a similar lesson resonates in other religious texts only I'm not scholarly enough to know them) -- "even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil." notice how the song does not speak of "the valley of death" but instead inserts a seemingly clumsy extra appendage "shadow" as in "valley of the shadow of death". This is because we become afraid more of the shadow, which creates the valley, than of death itself, which we cannot know. But we who live all learn to know fear. Thus my final lesson is, correctly identify the shadow, and please do not mistake the shadow or equate the shadow for death itself. We fear the fear of death more than we can truly fear death.

Ironies

It was almost a month since I made a meaningful entry to this online forum, and while I kept meaning to write but never got around to doing so, it seemed odd that I didn't feel as guilty about not writing as I thought I would have...then this morning the realization hit me: the reason why I didn't feel so bad about not writing here was because I was fulfilling that desire to reach out and communicate through different forums, not just this one.

I joined an online volunteer network late in March that allowed me to respond to anonymous requests for advice.  While I thought it would take awhile to get used to what was being expected in terms of content, focus, etc., it didn't turn out to be as arduous as first thought...and then I discovered that there was a vast number of people out 'there' who wanted advice or at least a different perspective on their situation...so the minimum of two questions answered a week totaled 45 by the end of April...this in addition to the 100+ questions I've replied to on the other volunteer site I've participated in since the start of the year (Good Judgment Project) where a minimum of 25 was requested!

Now it's only been a month for one volunteer function and four months for the other, so it's hardly time to make any blanket assessments other than this:  when I consider what I'm doing in terms of work, add in these two outreach functions, and still feel as if I could be busier, then that says something about the kind of mental stimulation I need to keep from going crazy or feeling bored!

A principal frustration with my work's reporting has been the extent to which the basic content may be fine but the approach/direction gets tweaked to the point where the end result sounds less like me and more the kind of stylized, generic format preferred by banks...depending on whatever else was going on around me, that could either prove to be a minor annoyance or something more major when in fact it never ever really changed that much...what differed was my need to have it belong to me in order to maintain my sense of self-worth.  Whenever wholesale changes needed to be made (especially when recommended by people I did not really like), that would definitely do a number on my self-esteem.

Now though, I am regularly receiving positive feedback from one volunteering effort and not being questioned about my interpretation of world events in another, and it means a much more ongoing, sustaining realization that I may not be as totally clueless or useless as I might have felt in the recent past.

This is where hubris comes in.  Just because I've made some progress in developing a better self-image through outreach, I cannot stand on my laurels or strike out and attempt to do more...what I've needed to develop throughout my life is a sense of consistency; the kind of regular, steady sense of awareness and diversity I've felt in music, ballet, art and science...and this may be one of my last, best chances in which to do so. What I've told more people to follow is something I need to practice myself; namely, small incremental steps, advancing towards some distant goal that I will better understand some day but not now...that in the journey I may better understand something essential about life than I have to this point, and that meaningful growth does not have to scattered all about but can be focused and directed when we have the patience to allow it to be that way.

Coming back to the fold

While I expect to post more later today or at least this week, the following will suffice for now.

Jack Ramsay, coach of the Blazers during their championship 1976-1977 season, died at 89 of cancer.  A consummate coach and teacher, canny observer both off the court and on, someone who handled himself with grace and discretion (traits missing so often these days)...someone whose enthusiasm for the sport of basketball made it all the more fun to experience.  Another remembrance of times past now gone...before game 4 last night, I read of his recent struggles with cancer and wondered how he was faring...Dan Patrick's on-air remembrance today was wonderful because it was heartfelt, eloquent, and personal; qualities we should all wish to be remembered by.

John Houbolt's death at age 95 on April 15 was announced in today's New York Times.  He was the creator of and guiding force behind the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous method of reaching the lunar surface that NASA used for the Apollo program.  While I am unsure how much was fact, the opening to the HBO episode on the Lunar Module ("From the Earth to the Moon") succinctly captured the 'voice in the wilderness' quality of his quest to convince NASA officials that a third approach to landing men on the moon deserved serious consideration (the others: direct landing, earth orbit rendezvous).  For this young enthusiast, it just made sense that LOR was the quickest, most efficient way to achieve the goal of a lunar landing by the end of the decade.  It seems appropriate that someone with as clear a legacy as this engineer should be remembered as clearly and succinctly as he is today.

Last entry for an eventful month

10:15pm in Madison, Wisconsin where it was amazingly warm (over 60 degrees) when I arrived shortly after 6:30pm...one weird sight I won't forget soon: in spite of the warm temperatures and clear skies, all the lakes we flew over on the approach to the airport were still frozen!

Getting to the hotel was a trip since I really didn't know where I was going and the directions given over the phone made some sense but I was so tired I forgot the last half of them and so I called again when I made it to the mall that the hotel is named after, figuring it had to be close...and it was, but I was so glad I was able to drive around before it got dark; THAT would have substantially increased the degree of difficulty.

Going to dinner was made charming by two events:  a huge family leaving the restaurant and marveling at the fact that it was still so warm out (I had packed my coat in my suitcase and decided to leave it there for now; it was that warm!)...everybody had taken no chances and brought along their heavy coats, and the infants were decked out in multiple layers, so much so that they didn't move much, or couldn't.

And then my waitress was a charming young lady named Amy who prefaced every question with 'sir' this or 'sir' that, and when I told her she didn't need to be that formal, she explained it as simply a habit, and not really a bad one these days.  Anyhow, we had a natural banter going that was enhanced by a busboy joining in the fun...we fist bumped (all three of us) and it made the dinner a little happier and a little less lonely than it otherwise would have been.

I am SO ready to have my sinuses behave...I've gone through more kleenex than I've ever used on the road before!

Thank goodness for familiar things: music playing in the background, books on this and the iTouch, my little bronze horse from The Black Stallion, a crystal prism from a long-closed store in Savannah when I helped Nathan settle in that freshman year, already 9 years ago...amazing.

Small steps...my personal Kaizen

It was no surprise to me that I fell asleep around midnight and woke up at 4:45am...that was the way it always used to be whenever I'd travel somewhere far enough away that I wouldn't be able to sleep in my bed that night.  Beginning a journey is in many ways a separate and distinctly different experience than planning one; the reality of what you're about to embark on is something that can only truly be felt once that process begins in actuality. 

There are many who feel their life's steps are preordained, predetermined...it's at such moments that I appreciate the true magnitude of faith; to think that anyone/anything can be so omniscient as to know what is to happen to each and every one of us, at each and every moment, is to find sense within the inherent chaos that permeate our existences and provide us not only with an awareness of past/present/future, but also the ability to believe in the possibility of a continued existence beyond our immediate reckoning...not perhaps in life eternal but in life later today, tomorrow, next month.  To me, the true power of faith is believing in that gossamer link each of us have with God and how that thread remains connected no matter what direction we choose, what path we walk, no matter if we choose to affirm or deny that...in the best spirit of a zen koan, it simply is, and nothing said or done can change its essential quality...denying or affirming it is unimportant really; living up to its potential is what we should strive for.

Little things done to advance the day help tremendously, not perhaps in distance spanned with each effort, but when looking back at the collective result.  For me, relief and joy in remembering to cut a long toenail before it reminded me every day that I hadn't clipped it!  Taking my supplements, drinking some coffee, having some oatmeal, packing phone chargers, remembering my checkbook..taking the time (I actually made the time by waking up early) to stop, think, write and truly begin the day by consciously being in it and being actively involved in shaping it as opposed to feeling that I am a passenger only, unable to do anything to affect the day's flow or anything within it...perhaps I ultimately can not, but at least by being aware of what I can do to make the day ahead a time worth being engaged and involved in, I become less a passenger and more of a partner in the process. 

One of my pet peeves is the phrase "no big deal, it doesn't matter"...unless you are engaged or involved in the process of life, how can you tell whether something is or is not a big deal?  Isn't it better to evaluate and determine the worth of a moment before casting it off as unessential?

In any case, spending a half hour with one's thoughts helps ground oneself, especially before any journey, whether involving thousands of miles or a few short steps.

Preparing for a long journey away

In some ways the day before a long trip is more nerve-wracking than actually starting the trip, in terms of packing, trying to mentally prepare for as many contingencies as humanly possible...and here my background with the space program is not as helpful as one might think because preparing for every contingency usually means overthinking and then forgetting something simple and essential...like an emery board...check! paying rent...check!  paying utilities...check!  packing extra toothpaste and underwear...check!

I've been living with this trip to Wisconsin for several weeks so getting it underway finally tomorrow means closure and a restoring of perspective (friends who are musicians are sometimes on the road for months or at least multiple weeks instead of the mere 11 days here, which amuses me but doesn't drive the point home as much as it will when I am safely back) that will help me view things with at least something of the requisite clarity and balance I like to think I have from time to time but haven't felt for a couple of days now.

After all, I remind myself it is a state I haven't been to for forty (!!!) years and I doubt I'll return to again (unless I get assigned to it again...one never knows, like the inventory report I was switched to at the last minute that called for visits to Albany, Redmond, Klamath Falls and White City...and which turned out better than expected)...but any adventure is worth pursuing once the correct attitude is in place.

I think I'd feel less anxious if I wasn't still battling this nagging minor head cold...it's been around since Tuesday/Wednesday, and it's been serious enough to make me feel somewhat punk and unambitious...this morning, I felt bad enough on waking to take a hot shower, and when that didn't help as much as I hoped it might, I took a sudafed clone and when that didn't help, I took a real sudafed...and that finally helped relieve my symptoms enough to make me move around and start doing useful tasks around the house.

It's funny how when one's day isn't progressing smoothly, it seems like all sorts of things proceed to 'gang' up on you...today is the first time I can remember my printer not working as well as it normally does, and a small software app that allows an iPad to charge off a USB port on my home PC quit working after about an hour, and I have no idea why.  We aren't so technologically advanced not to believe in gremlins when such disparate events happen one after another.

A good day...including new music and a new architect

Whenever I can finish one of my assignments and feel good about the end result, it makes all the effort seem worthwhile.  Today was one of those rare days when everything seemed to work the way I intended them to...the writing of the report was smooth, procedural and careful in terms of attention to detail (something I am not always good at) and making sure numbers and facts were consistently presented throughout the report.  I hoped I would be finished by noon, and when I looked up from the keyboard and saw it was 11:45am, I was pleased but not really surprised.

Then after going to Five Guys again (because CK made me hungry talking about where she and her boys went for lunch after visiting the Knoxville Aquarium) and being relieved that this order took far less time to complete than Saturday's did, I came back and found some letters asking for advice that I could relate to better than some of my other recent attempts...it had been awhile since my writing came out effortlessly in a coherent structure and all I had to do was get it all down and see if everything made sense where I had initially placed them.

This clear seeing was with me the entire day.  I read about the just announced winner (Shigeru Ban) of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture and recalled how his cardboard church in New Zealand seemed not only boldly creative in its use of readily available materials, but that the resulting space felt as spirit-filled as you would want a place of worship to feel.  It truly says something about an artistic vision when the result transcends the materials used to create a meaningful space that anyone that can sense and feel intuitively...and in that intuitiveness there is no limit to what can be felt.

Even picking up my daughter at the Amtrak station in the afternoon was a task made memorable by the clearness of everything happening around me: trains pulling in, each heading for different destinations (Portland and Chicago), young children scampering along the tracks followed closely by parents making sure they didn't wander too far away, planes approaching the distant airport flying low enough overhead to see landing gear deploy and flaps lowered.  Everything was normal and unassumingly 'usual'; most of the time we are barely aware of the life occurring around us...today though, I saw it all, almost as if heeding the lesson in Wilder's Our Town where if only for a moment we may be aware of the specialness of each and every moment of life, not just here or there.

This clarity extended itself to the latest music I downloaded today (seasons 1 and 2 of Person of Interest by Rawin Djawadi).  At this point in my life I find myself drawn to music that is simple in structure but still touched by an element of 'space' that allows the listener's imagination to see not only what was intended but also opening up the mind to allow anything and everything to possibly connect with that setting. 

The older I get, the more I find that I relate to music that depicts solitude, awareness...but also loneliness; colored by loss, perhaps regret, certainly acceptance of fate and with it the approach of death...one's own or that of someone else.  For me, to live long enough to grow out of an understandable fear of death and have it replaced with the peace that comes from quietly accepting it as a natural part of life itself is to better understand the benevolence of God in granting us a finite time here before we continue our journey elsewhere.

It is expected to begin raining sometime overnight, and will continue for most of the week.  I'm not sure if Tuesday or Wednesday will have anything close to the same clarity or easy tapping of resources that I experienced today, but realizing that awareness again is to be linked anew with so many special moments in my life, and that connective thread will not be easily lost in the days to come.

Discovering Thin Places

In the course of today's readings, I came across the following writings from the website for the NPR program "On Being" and found them worth rereading and thinking about...and of course I find the reference to Madison, Wisconsin very intriguing indeed as I will be spending the first ten days of next month there for business.

Thin Places and The Transforming Presence of Beauty

Sarah Blanton 

I have spent the last 20 years trying to portray the sense of place I experience at the lake of my childhood. Located in Upper East Tennessee, South Holston Lake is cradled in the Appalachian Mountains.

Being in the presence of a deep, quiet body of water gently surrounded by this wise mountain range pulls me out of the shallow fray of my frantic life to rest in a centered awareness. It is a threshold — a true “thin place.”

The concept of thin places comes from Celtic mythology. Peter Gomes, a Harvard theologian, writes:

“There is in Celtic mythology the notion of 'thin places' in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good — and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. Mountains and rivers are particularly favored as thin places marking invariably as they do, the horizontal and perpendicular frontiers. But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences people are likely to have as they encounter suffering, joy, and mystery."

South Holston is where I bump up against the truth of my spirituality at its most sincere and humble levels. At this frontier, I see most clearly. Resting by these waters creates an awareness of the moment where I can finally stop the racing thoughts of our world. At this still point of mindfulness, I finally come into remembrance of the transforming presence of beauty.

Spirituality, described as the art of homecoming, is that universal experience of suffering, joy, and mystery. The driving desire behind this ongoing body of work tries to convey feelings of belonging, of homecoming as the soul lies against the threshold of such thin places.

Illustrating the spirit of South Holston through moods of seasons and weather, perspectives and light, I find a growing sense of intimacy and purpose.

My personal journey seemed to mirror my artistic choices, and the images progressively have become more personal. The importance of self-reflection emerges through simple attraction to the reflective properties of the water. Expanding, my attraction moved to objects and structure that underscored this growing introspection.

The role of courage to embrace a sense of separateness surfaces as a strong undercurrent serving to highlight the difficult journey of self-acceptance. Through critical self-reflection, I have become aware of the powerful force of solitude in both my spirituality and my art. Enveloped in that solitude are suffering, joy, and mystery that carry me to that thin place.

 

An Encouragement For Spring And The Writing Life 

Parker J. Palmer
 

For me, writing is a miraculous process. It's as miraculous as Spring itself, when buds arise from frozen ground and greenery leafs out from wood that's hard and unyielding.

For 50 years I've been writing almost daily. I'm driven not by expertise but by my own bafflement about many things — some of them "in here" and some of them "out there." Every time I write, I'm surprised by what I discover about myself and/or the world.

So I no longer wait until I have a clear idea to start putting words on the page. If I did, I'd never write a word! I simply start writing, trusting that the writing itself will help me dig into my bafflement, uncover what I already know, and point me toward what I need to learn next.

And if tomorrow I find out that I got it wrong, I know that none of my words will go to waste. Instead, they become compost for the next round of new growth.

Here's a poem that reflects my experience of the writing life. I offer it partly as an encouragement to those who write for any reason, personal or professional. Trust the process!

I offer it also as an encouragement for Spring to arrive ASAP! As they say, we are so, like,done with winter in Madison, Wisconsin! Totally...

The World Once Green Again

That tree from its dense wooden trunk
surprises into leaf
as my tight-fibered heart leafs out
in unexpected speech.

I know that trunk, so thick, so slow,
its heartwood core so like my own.
Yet here I celebrate that we
can take leave of our density
to dance the wind and sing the sun.

Our words, like leaves, in season spring
and then in season fall,
but at their rise they prove a power
that gentle conquers all.

As shriveled leaves return to earth
to nourish roots of leaves unstrung,
so dry words fall back to the heart
to decompose into their parts
and feed the roots of worlds unsung.

And when speech fails, the dark trunk stands
'til most surprising spring
wells up the voice that ever speaks
the world once green again.

Money well spent...now and for the future

The following was taken from today's Spaceflight Now:

Mission managers are finishing proposals to be submitted to NASA in April for consideration in a senior review, a process every two years in which an independent panel of respected scientists rank the value of continuing funding for each project.

The senior review board's recommendations will be announced in June, according to NASA. All of NASA's science divisions use a similar review to decide which missions most deserve continued funding.

Scarce funding, always a concern for NASA, is aggravated in this year's senior review cycle by the inclusion of the Curiosity Mars rover, which will complete its primary two-year mission this summer and must ask for approval for extended operations.

Seven missions are on the planetary science division's senior review docket this year:

• The Curiosity rover, initially approved for a prime mission lasting one Martian year, is participating in the senior review for the first time this year after arriving on Mars in August 2012. Curiosity is driving toward Mount Sharp, a three-mile-high peak believed to harbor layered clay minerals containing clues about the red planet's ancient past.
  
• The Cassini mission is proposing an extension until late 2017, when the spacecraft will fly inside of Saturn's outermost rings before plunging into the gas giant's atmosphere. Cassini's mission has been extended twice since entering orbit in July 2004. Unlike other projects in the senior review, which are on the hook for two-year extensions, Cassini is seeking a three-year commitment from NASA to operate the spacecraft until the planned conclusion of its mission, supporting flybys of Saturn's moons Titan, Enceladus, Dione and Tethys.
  
• NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, flying in orbit several hundred miles above the red planet, is seeking money for a fourth extended mission phase since it arrived at Mars in March 2006. MRO hosts a sharp-eyed high-resolution camera, a mineral mapping spectrometer and ground-penetrating radar. The orbiter also serves as a communications relay platform for the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers on the Martian surface.
  
• After a remarkable 24-mile journey across Mars, the Opportunity rover is exploring the rim of Endeavour crater, where scientists say they have found evidence of an ancient environmental that was capable of supporting microbial life. Opportunity landed in January 2004 at the start of a planned three-month mission, but the rover is still going and producing science results.
  
• Mars Odyssey is the longest-serving mission to ever visit Mars. The spacecraft entered orbit in late 2001 and still has fuel for nine or 10 years of operations, according to NASA. Odyssey is the primary communications link with NASA's rovers on Mars, and the probe is currently adjusting its orbit to fly over Mars during morning daylight, which scientists say could yield insight into ground composition, warm-season water flows found on steep slopes, and geysers spawned by dry ice during the spring thaw at the Martian poles.
  
• NASA is a junior partner on the European-led Mars Express mission, which has orbited Mars since December 2003. NASA supported development of the Mars Express subsurface radar and an instrument to monitor the interaction between the solar wind and Martian atmosphere to study what happened to the water that was once plentiful on Mars. NASA's limited involvement in Mars Express makes it the least costly mission in the agency's catalog of extended missions.
  
• The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is up for a two-year extension. LRO would be NASA's only spacecraft exploring the moon over the next two years, with instruments to gather high-resolution images, search for ice deposits, map the moon's jagged terrain, and measure radiation in the lunar environment.

NASA's other planetary missions, such as New Horizons, Juno and Dawn, are still in their primary mission phases. And the MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury was already granted an extension to March 2015, when engineers expect it to run out of propellant and impact Mercury.

As a longtime space follower, the first five are of highest significance (particularly Cassini and Opportunity since those (along with Odyssey) are multi-decade missions and the chances for those occurring again are slight with the possible exception of Curiosity), with LRO and Mars Express important but not as essential. 

Of course, when one considers the cost of boondoggle projects like the advanced technical fighter (my contention is that keeping a proven design like the F-15 and improving ordinance/technology is a heckuva cheaper way to go, and the aircraft get built, flown, and maintained operational), it's amazing that anything close to real, meaningful science ever gets accomplished at the governmental level.

Welcome back, Nate

After a busy day, I'm spending the night in Albany, Oregon getting ready to drive over Santiam Pass tomorrow afternoon, returning to Redmond in order to count inventory on Wednesday morning at a location just down the street from where my hotel will be tomorrow evening, I was delighted to learn in my perusal of my usual RSS connections the following snippet:

We hope you’ll gain insight and pleasure from our approach to the news and that you’ll visit us from time to time. We hope to demonstrate the value of data journalism as a practical and sustainable proposition.
 
It’s time for us to start making the news a little nerdier.

It's quite appropriate to have March Madness kick off with the dean of prognosticators once again amongst us: Nate Silver and his colleagues at the newly reintroduced FiveThirtyEight.com.  I've missed his rare combination of attention to detail and witticisms reminiscent of Pogo, The Daily Show, and Colbert Report, only subtler.

It's unfortunate that his honest, objective analysis will be displayed again this election season, this time though chronicling the probable losses of the Democratic Party in November in the same way that the GOP found it self being analyzed two years ago.  If there is any moral to this clarity, it's that objective review without having subjective crap heaped on top of it is the best way to learn and to move on, and in no other field is this kind of clearsighted vision more necessary (and less likely to be found) than in politics.

I was tempted to choose my selections for the field of 67 exclusively based on his site's recommendations...but will probably opt not to just because having reached the lofty position of 170th several years ago in the New York Times and not breaking the top 8,000 since, I find kibitzing and trash talking from the sidelines to be just as satisfying, if not more so because my limitations are not so apparent when they aren't finalized in an entry somewhere.

More bits and pieces

It's always a relief when you finally get to the point where you've collected all the necessary information to work on your taxes and have them turn out the way you thought they might without unnecessary gyration or number crunching.  As it now stands, I will get some money back from Federal while the amount I owe Oregon is around the estimate I gave myself about 6 months ago.  After taking care to save my work, I took a deep breath and then a nice hot shower...and while I probably won't actually file them until next week, just having them done to that point took an enormous load off my mind.

Among the other things I've meant to talk about but haven't yet because of work, travel, or just getting my head around them...

I'm sorry to see Anne Kaneko's Fukushima blog come to an end.  Having discovered it about 6 months about the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, I always liked its candid first-person observance of life in a part of Japan that is still trying to come to grips with the ramifications of what happened there three years ago.  Then too, it also helped to hear a western perspective on events and news that often seemed at odds with what logic or common sense dictated...even though Japan's culture is worlds apart from that of the United States, the political backroom dealing and bureaucracy are, sad to say, not all that different, and the candor with which she viewed things was all the more discouraging for the legacy that part of Japan has not only for the rest of its country, but for the effects it is having on the rest of its Pacific neighbors.

I wish her the very best in her new life closer to Tokyo, and will miss her clean, spare reporting of news and events, accompanied as they often were by wondrously beautiful photography, most of the time focusing on something simple, basic and part of everyday life.

-----

As I write this, the voting in Crimea has ended with over 95% voting for secession and incorporation with Russia.  I continue to wonder if the clandestine methods Russia employed to take over that part of Crimea will continue bit by bit throughout areas of Ukraine, or if Putin will see in the posturing and weakness displayed by the EU and United States an opportunity to move boldly and defy the world to do anything definitive in terms of sanctions after the deed has been done.  While Germany's statements at week's end were sterner than I had expected, I just don't see the kind of coordinated countermove anywhere that would not only give the Russians pause or surprise them.

About the biggest surprise I had over the last several days was downloading Season 21 of Top Gear and realizing with a start that their second episode race involving small high-mileage cars took place in the exact place where all the tension and standoffs are now occurring! (they began at Yalta and ended up north of Kiev in the middle of Chernobyl where Jeremy supposedly succumbed to the radiation, he but still made it to the episode's end)

-----

I wonder how many others have experienced the sheer ecstasy that comes with hearing (or playing?) certain seminal compositions...for me, there will always be a sense of magical wonder whenever I hear the following works and performances:

Bach Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, first movement (Collegium Aureum)
Bach Clavier Concerto no. 5, second movement (my 'Slaughterhouse Five' moment played by Glenn Gould)
Chopin: Piano Concerto no. 2, second movement (Martha Argerich, Charles Dutoit/Montreal Symphony Orchestra)
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe, introduction (Pierre Boulez/New York Philharmonic)
Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings (Robert Irving/New York City Ballet Orchestra)
Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty Ballet, introduction (Gennadi Rozhdestvensky/BBC Symphony Orchestra)
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (Sir Adrian Boult/London Philharmonic with inspired solo violin playing by Rodney Friend)

In the days to come, I will try to describe why these particular pieces have such special significance to me...in some cases, it's because of the music's connection to other special memories (Tchaikovsky Serenade)...in others, it's because the music reminds me of other special irreplaceable moments (Argerich's temperament and poise reminds me of virtuosi I saw in person; Rubinstein, Horowitz, Serkin, Pollini)...but regardless of the reason, they never fail to remind me of all the positive reasons why I fell under the spell of music so long ago and never wanted to leave.

Bits and Pieces

I have been trying to work on my taxes this weekend, and made steady progress until Saturday afternoon brought with it news of all sorts of events, some to share here and others to keep quiet about for awhile longer.

The saddest news was that of my brother-in-law's passing in Hawaii because of a heart attack.  When I spoke with my sister, she was coping as best she could...and in that instant I completely understood where she was coming from.  Memories came flooding back of that day when my Mother died: how time either sped by without my being aware of it, or slowed down to the point where almost every second lasted seemingly forever...how emotions were numbed or exposed, suddenly and without any warning or control.  I can only hope that she has people around her to get her through this difficult time...I suspect she does...one of the things she always liked about Sid's family is that they welcomed her without the kind of difficulty or drama that seemed to accompany ours.

The above title will make more sense once I post the following entry.

Perspective setting and empathy

I will discuss this topic further when I return home on Thursday, but for now, beginning with the wise words of James Fallows (Atlantic Wire):

As the years go by, I am more and more convinced that the immediate, fast-twitch talk-show responses on what we "have" to do about some development are almost always wrong, and the calm, day- or week-after reflections about proportion, response, and national interest are almost always wiser. If I could, I would put all cable-TV discussion of breaking-news crises on a 24-hour delay. Maybe there has been a case in which immediate reflex-response to big news has seemed wise in the long run. Right now I can't think of any.

Listening to a recent podcast this morning of Lynne Rosetto Casper's excellent Splendid Table, one of her guests was a Stanford professor working on a study involving empathy.  As I listened to the intriguing discussion (where among other things, a student suggested using a cow as an avatar), I wondered how much of business is based on the notion that empathy is dangerous because it would provide each employee with potential significance/relevance, and how this could cut into profits because being truly empathetic would call for a reasonable compensation instead of maximizing the return on an investment. 

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study showing the effect on sales and output when profits and employee compensation are reasonably balanced, instead of the former being emphasized to the detriment of the latter.

It's worth pondering: is empathy a human trait that is so instinctive that everyone can do it but many choose not to...is it something that gets in the way of efficient "business" because it's easier to view an employee as a replaceable part?  Certainly the notion of a minimum wage implies that people are entitled to a basic level of compensation...I wonder, would those who argue most strenuously against such a requirement be willing to voluntarily pay people more, or is the notion that most people "out there" are too lazy, unmotivated or don't deserve to be paid more just easier to accept?

When it comes to the nonstop coverage of the missing 777 with more than 230 souls onboard, one wonders if any of the news channels engaged in feverish speculation about their collective fate would be doing that if they knew anyone on that flight...of course they would, because the notion of "stuff" is more important than that of content.  It's sad when restraint and consideration are considered weaknesses.  But then too, empathy has very little place in the modern world, and it's sad that an argument has to be made in order to even justify its place in more of today's interactions.

How reviewing can suck the very life out of an event

As I was reading the review in The New York Times of the recent piano recital by Murray Perahia at Carnegie Hall, I was reminded of the last time I had attended a live piano recital locally.  I do not recall the year, but the featured pianist was Richard Goode, and I believe the program consisted of Beethoven and Schubert.

While I don't have any overtly negative memories of the pianist, I remember very well the person who invited me to the performance, and she remains the lasting memory to this day of why music reviews should be done sparingly or not at all.  Her name escapes me, but she wrote the program notes for the piano series and had posted a Craigslist notice asking anyone who was interested in attending the recital to write her back and explain why they should accompany her, and the winner would be her guest.  Now I would like to think that at least a few people entered the little contest and mine was judged the best of the group, but as time has gone by, I've occasionally wondered if the reason why I was chosen was that I might have been the only applicant.

Regardless of the circumstances, I was delighted to attend, especially since the performance would take place in what used to be called the Intermediate Theater of the Performing Arts Center (now Newmark Theater).  I attended the opening program in 1987 and immediately loved the warm acoustic provided by the cherry veneer paneling that served as a perfect compliment to the brighter reflective sound from the overhead shell.  To my thinking it was (and still is) the best of the auditoriums in Portland, along with the Keller (the Winningstad sounds too strident to me while the Schnitzer requires artificial amplification to such an extent that the aural experience between the main stage and balconies is exhaustingly unpleasant).

But back to the hostess for the evening.  She was not a formally trained musician but had studied in her spare time and considered herself a resource for enlightened, thoughtful reflection when it came to music performance.  She considered her program notes to be well researched, and useful to both the amateur and professional reader.  Needless to say, modesty was not one of her traits that she chose to promote.

After reading the first several paragraphs, I knew it was going to take a major effort on my part not to embarrass one of us (probably me) by pointing out that while the gist of her writing was accurate and informative, it had one major shortcoming, and that was it considered minutia to be a substitute for the love or magic of that composition.  It is one thing to explain sonata form; it something quite different (and much more difficult I might add) to make it resonate with the music being described.  In the hands of someone who is both a skilled musician and writer (Charles Rosen comes to mind; Alfred Brendel and Stephen Hough as well), program notes can be informative and an invitation to enter the world of the music being recreated.  With this person I felt the program notes were her attempt at justifying her presence within this special realm. 

That recital remains the first and only time I ever wished I could sit away from a specific person.  Her desire to analyze the music, the performance, the piano, the tuning/temperament, served only to drain everything of whatever potential magic there was, leaving for me at least the sense that nothing mattered but how the music related to her...without her, nothing in the performance mattered. 

Now there is nothing wrong with her basic point:  music, especially live music, should connect, has to connect with the listener in some visceral, emotional way...but there is something fundamentally wrong or sad when one component of the circle of composer, musician and listener is distorted so much that the other parts do not matter; that the balance is lost, sometimes forever.  I was reminded of how our society's relentless quest to do or have everything done faster and better can so often result in quantity but at the expense of quality...and in the arts, there will always be devotees and performers, but artists...people with talent and the ability to share that with love and grace...will continue to be rare and defy the kind of analytical description she was doing and enjoying.

What kind of listener should be nurtured?  First and foremost of all, someone who can listen and be willing to see beyond the notes and structure of a piece and be touched by the underlying inspiration.  The kind of effortless, simple joy that a child brings to life is something we all had at one time or another and can, if we are able to grasp it again, make everything seem special again.  For sure, having sufficient background in a subject to understand history, context, etc., is always useful but it is not always necessary...as a matter of fact I suggest that in many cases, that can inhibit true enjoyment because of all sorts of peripheral reasons (like elitism, feelings of superiority) can end up stripping art of its spirit.  I suppose at its essential core, the best listener is someone who believes in the magic inherent in hearing something performed live and actively listens because one never knows when that special sense will happen, and the anticipation of that moment possibly happening makes the experience special for both the performer and listener.

I thanked her for letting me attend the performance, left quickly and after coming home played some Debussy performed by Paul Jacobs.  I had purchased these recordings some 25 years earlier and still listened to them rapturously because of the simple, graceful performance; nothing pulled or stretched about, the music being allowed to breathe, ebb and flow.  If the piano or acoustic isn't completely perfect...so what?  What matters most is what the music contains, and here away from the harsh spotlight of that person's mindset, one could sense again some of the subtlety and nuance, much like the delicacy of a butterfly's wings illuminated by the sunlight instead of caught and pinned on a specimen page. 

That is why I don't do many reviews these days.  Analyzing and critiquing is not as much fun as encouraging others to listen in, to attend in person, to participate...all with the joy inherent in witnessing something live, ephemeral and perhaps enduring in the mind afterwards.

HIMYM and the Foundation

As How I Met Your Mother enters the homestretch of its final season, wrapping March 31 on CBS, speculation has been rampant that Ted's titular bride-to-be has been dead the entire time his adult self has been narrating the series. (The most recent, overtly cryptic, episode only fueled the morbid argument.)

Cristin Milioti very politely disagrees. The actress…seemed genuinely put off by the suggestion the series would end on such a dark note.  "That's insane," says Milioti. "There are some crazy conspiracy theories, which really makes me love the fans more... That is so crazy."

Calling the finale "beautiful," she also notes that there weren't any alternate endings written or filmed in an attempt to maintain secrecy. "They've had this vision for nine years, and it's in great hands…They know exactly what they want to do."

Could she be bluffing? Of course. She's had a few convincing performances of late. Milioti also chatted with THR about her turn as Leonardo DiCaprio's on-screen first wife in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street -- and how none of her co-workers noticed she was in it. 

“… It merely required the use of that much-neglected commodity—common sense. You see, there is a branch of human knowledge known as symbolic logic, which can be used to prune away all sorts of clogging deadwood that clutters up human language.”

“What about it?” said Fulham. 

“I applied it. Among other things, I applied it to this document here. I didn’t really need to for myself because I knew what it was all about, but I think I can explain it more easily to five physical scientists by symbols rather than by words.” 

Hardin removed a few sheets of paper from the pad under his arm and spread them out. “I didn’t do this myself, by the way,” he said. “Muller Holk of the Division of Logic has his name signed to the analyses, as you can see.” 

Pirenne leaned over the table to get a better view and Hardin continued: “The message from Anacreon was a simple problem, naturally, for the men who wrote it were men of action rather than men of words. It boils down easily and straightforwardly to the unqualified statement, which in symbols is what you see, and which in words, roughly translated, is, ‘You give us what we want in a week, or we beat the hell out of you and take it anyway.’ ” 

There was silence as the five members of the Board ran down the line of symbols, and then Pirenne sat down and coughed uneasily. Hardin said, “No loophole, is there, Dr. Pirenne?” “Doesn’t seem to be.”

---

 “But then,” interposed Sutt, “how would Mayor Hardin account for Lord Dorwin’s assurances of Empire support? They seemed—” He shrugged. “Well, they seemed satisfactory.” 

Hardin threw himself back in the chair. “You know, that’s the most interesting part of the whole business. I’ll admit I had thought his Lordship a most consummate donkey when I first met him—but it turned out that he was actually an accomplished diplomat and a most clever man. I took the liberty of recording all his statements.” 

There was a flurry, and Pirenne opened his mouth in horror. 

“What of it?” demanded Hardin. “I realize it was a gross breach of hospitality and a thing no so-called gentleman would do. Also, that if his lordship had caught on, things might have been unpleasant; but he didn’t, and I have the record, and that’s that. I took that record, had it copied out and sent that to Holk for analysis, also.” 

Lundin Crast said, “And where is the analysis?” 

“That,” replied Hardin, “is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications—in short, all the goo and dribble—he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out. “Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn’t say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire.”

Asimov, Isaac. Foundation (p. 69-71). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Being careful what you wish for

Like most of us, I subscribe to a number of online newsletters that advance a number of topics, whether subtly/not-so-subtly or overtly/covertly provocative, and I came across this transcribed interview this morning, where the following exchange took place:

http://singularityhub.com/2014/03/06/in-depth-with-jason-silva-brain-games-trance-states-and-the-abomination-of-death/

Will our parents be the last humans to die without having any say in the matter? Or maybe it’s us?
 
That to me is an abomination. I can’t fathom it. The dream would be to save our parents, wouldn’t it? I mean my whole interest in this stuff came from being unable to contemplate the mortality of my parents. Just being unwilling to accept ever having to come to terms with something so horrific. How do we address this horrific imposition by a supposedly meaningless universe? Well, if the universe works through us, and we are it and it is us—then we can change the rules.

Now, I have never been someone who's been able to walk away from a provocative act or statement, though as I've gotten older, I've gotten better at doing so; if for no other reason than the simple fact that reacting impulsively to something has never worked out well for me.

However, something about this exchange rankled me, and I wasn't sure why...I suppose part of it had to do with the audacity, the sheer arrogance implied in the phrase "then we can change the rules".  I've read my share of TED talks, of well-intentioned prose where the utopia of existence can occur if only this or that occurs or is changed, and after the euphoria of that heady pronouncement fades, what is left afterwards is a kind of basic response...namely, 'ok, how?' 

In a way, 'how?' is the easiest one of the core questions to reply...this is where the logician, scientist or enthusiast have equal footing, and whether or not a solution proves plausible or not, realistic or not, this question can always be answered, in many ways.

After this, though, the questions get more complicated...who? what? where? when?  All these can narrow the focus but can also (whether intentionally or not) raise some true moral questions of their own.  As inconvenient as the latter may prove, they are essential because whether or not we like it or not, life...life on this planet; life as we know it...is not based on pure science or pure logic, and that applies to every facet of life, which includes death.

But as challenging as 'how?' is, the most compelling, the most difficult of all, may be: 'why?'

Mortality is a fact of life.  Period.  Everything is born or created; it follows that everything will either die or disappear.  To me, that simple fact can be funny (thank goodness there's a limit to puberty!, thank God there's a finite time to my teens/twenties!), profound (we must recognize every moment we have with appreciation for its uniqueness and evanescence and that applies to our interactions with others), sad (I miss my grandparents and mother and friends who have died), or basic (I will die some day), but whatever the situation, to suggest that death can somehow be dealt with like a minor inconvenience seems to misunderstand the illogic of that claim.  How can one live indefinitely?  And what would be the quality of that life lived in perpetuity?

Judging from the situation of most of the world's current population, ALL countries, governments, municipalities are doing a poor job of caring for their populations, let alone natural resources.  There are people everywhere who are hungry, unwanted, exploited, illiterate...and yet if you looked inside at basic anatomy, there would be no overt difference between a beggar off the streets of Mumbai and a notable literati or tycoon from New York or London.  Every difference, every distinction or prejudice occurs on the surface of our culture/society, and this is what we consider worth continuing forever?

It is entirely possible that the person being interviewed was speaking from an earnest desire to do something altruistic; that the way most people die in the western world is not from old age but from disease...but wouldn't it be more effective to spend the time and energy not only to cure ailments but ease the suffering involved?  Wouldn't it be better to spend the time and resources on preventing certain things from happening in the first place, things that left untreated could lead to disease and pain?  Wouldn't it be better to take the time and effort to have more people care about what life means instead of taking it for granted, being oblivious to everything around us except ourselves and maximizing one's 'share'?

All these things contribute to the quality of a life, not a measurable quantity but something indefinable...intangible.  It seems to me that viewing the universe as supposedly meaningless is inherently sad because it suggests that because we don't understand the why of that, it's completely irrelevant and something to fear or rail against. 

To me, the fact that the universe isn't completely explainable to me is a source of endless relief!  Realizing that I don't need to know every thing in order to understand or appreciate some things lends perspective and depth to my present existence....the fact that every day begins and ends the same way provides a sense of continuity and balance, a zen koan that defies any answer other it simply is.

And I might just simply be wrong, but knowing I have a finite time here makes it possible for me to care more about what I leave behind; in the same way that if I'm going to be somewhere special for only a certain number of days, I will cherish that time much more than if I was there indefinitely.

I think what people in general need to realize is that it's not the quantity of something that counts the most; it's the quality that matters, and it is as true for one's life as it is for everything within life itself...how else can one explain the contradiction between the opulence of the developed world and the number of genuinely unhappy people in it, feeling the way they do while using all manner of drugs, meth, alcohol, tobacco and other stimulants/distractions?  How many of these poor souls could relate to the story of Citizen Kane where true happiness lay in a simple child's sled named "Rosebud?"