“PE” {Facebook post from 01-14-2014]

Most of my life the letters PE meant Physical Education.  I know lots of people lived their school years in dread of the classes, especially in Junior High (we didn’t have Middle School in the Stone Age).  As an educator over the last 40+ years I’ve been privy to the changes in just what Physical Education has meant, from “the ball of season” to life fitness and health education.  Some of the news stories of the last few months (Alex Rodriguez, for example), have me thinking about PE as short for Performance Enhancement, and not with drugs.  What does “performance enhancement” mean to life in general?  I’ve been trying to enhance my life, particularly in the last year, but I think I’ve been working on my performance enhancement all along.

PE still needs to mean physical fitness.  Believe me, the older we get, the more we appreciate life without aches and pains, if we can remember when that was.  I’m beginning to feel as if my generation of Boomers is going to be the first generation of geriatric Robocops!  Every time I open my email I seem to get a new message from a friend who’s had a knee, shoulder, or hip replaced or some other procedure.  Don’t get me started on heart valves and stents or cosmetic surgeries!  By the time we’re in our 80’s and 90’s, airport screeners are really going to hate us!

We can’t rely on modern medicine to keep us fit, however.  We still need to be able to answer the bell if someone says, “Drop and give me 20!”  One of the nice things about retirement is having the time to go to the gym.  You should join me.

Physical activity is just part of the equation of performance enhancement when we’re talking about making your life better…and it’s more than “stop and smell the roses, too.”  What are you doing to live a full life?  What are you learning?  What are you trying that you haven’t done before?  Here are some suggestions for your Bucket List, even if you’re just in your twenties (see if you can spot the trick questions!):

Participate (even in the audience) in the arts.  Have you been to the ballet?  Opera?  Live theatre?  How about a museum, art or otherwise?  How many books have you read recently?  Do you read the newspaper?  What’s going on in the rest of the world?  In how many countries (and which ones) are US military personnel involved in armed conflict?

How many senators does your state have?  Can you name them?  Republican?  Democrat?  Independent?  Male or female?  Who is the mayor of your town?

What is the nearest star to Earth?  How many constellations can you name?  Why are they called by those names?

Can you name a dozen trees?  Flowers?  Snakes?  Architects?  Composers?  World leaders?  Teachers in your local school system?

Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?  Who is considered the smartest person alive today?  What does he/she do?  What is a CFL or LED and why should you care?

Do you know a foreign language?  Even a few words or phrases?

By the way, you didn’t know the answers to some of those questions?  Take the time to look them up!  You’re sitting at your computer.  Go ahead.  We’ll wait.

Come on!  Enhance your performance!!  It isn’t important in the least that you know at what time and on what days half a dozen television programs are aired each week.  When is your next opportunity to vote?  What are the issues?  Who are the candidates?  Where are your gym shoes?

Drop and give me twenty!

Enjoy your life.  Participate in it.

DrDan

01/14/14

"Atomic Structure" [Facebook post from 01-13-2014]

When I first heard about atomic structure (yes, kids, this was very long ago, in a galaxy far, far away), I remember how it sparked my imagination and, at the same time, made such sense out of the world.  I love to see patterns in things—even if I’m terrible at codes and the like—and especially to appreciate how everything is connected.  I took this fascination with systems to all sorts of things: biology, anatomy, astronomy—these are obvious—but this is also one of the reasons I love the English language and its connections to so many other languages.  It is a living thing.  I nodded my head in understanding when I read “The Butterfly Effect,” and when the meteorologists on TV discussed El Nino and the Jet Stream and snowstorms on the other side of the world.

Being able to see the structure at the sub-atomic level that also is expressed cosmologically just blows me away.  Pictures of solar systems are easily an atom with surrounding electrons and other bits and pieces.  Then the solar systems become galaxies swirling in similar gravitational dances that stretch out even farther, into the infinite, like dancers in one big, never-ending ballroom…and the same dance is taking place in my bloodstream and in the petals of a flower and in the air molecules that I am breathing.

You knew I’d come back to poetry, right?  William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” contains some of my favorite lines:

“To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.”

I do not care in the slightest what your belief system might be, but if you have the intelligence and curiosity to take even a moment to consider what this means, you understand the true meaning of awe.  Those moments, for me, confirm that each of us has a place, even in a world of sand; an essence that continues to exist, even in the heaven of a wild flower; an infinite connectedness that can be grasped in the palm of a hand generations from now; and a presence eternal as Time itself.  Make the most of your moment.  Be connected.

May the Force be with you J

DrDan

01/13/14

"Love and Loss" [Facebook post from 01-12-2014]

I've read several posts lately from friends upset in relationships that haven't worked out, or maybe they've given their hearts to those who haven't reciprocated for one reason or another; some have suffered losses--a beloved pet or family member (one and the same, I know). I'd like to pass along something I first read many (many) years ago. Britain's longest-serving poet laureate (and its first), Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote a lengthy ode after the passing of one of his oldest friends...yes, a man who had been a school chum well liked by thousands: Arthur Hallam. You probably know these last lines of one of the final cantos of the poem. The idea applies to all of the situations I mentioned. The point? Love is never lost when it is given. Why would you keep it? If you love someone in any way, say so, whether your deep emotion is returned or not:

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

---Much love from me to you, my friends, old or new.

DrDan

01/12/14

"Winter Solstice" [Facebook post from 12-16-2013]

Saturday, December 21, at 11:11 AM (CST), the sun will be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn (23 degrees, 6 minutes south of the Equator).  At that point the Earth will cease its annual tilt of the northern hemisphere away the sun and begin its progress back to the Tropic of Cancer (23 degrees, 6 minutes north of the Equator) on June 21.  Therefore, in the northern hemisphere, December 21^st is the shortest day of the year (the shortest time between sunrise and sunset) and, officially, the beginning of winter, although it has been more commonly known as Midwinter and the beginning of Deep Winter.

No matter what calendar date name has been used to label the occurrence, for thousands of years this was considered the beginning of the New Year and a time for celebration for many reasons:  Great feasts were held for several days because cattle were usually slaughtered about this time so that they wouldn’t have to be fed through the rest of the winter.  Beer had completed its fermentation and was ready to drink.  Firewood had been cut and stored to last until spring.  Friends and neighbors gathered one last time before the roads became impassable.  Gifts of clothing, food and drink, playthings, etc., were exchanged in preparation for the coming months of isolation.

We may have better transportation and access to the necessities (and trivialities) of life, but we also have a tendency to build on traditions.  In this country of great pluralities of peoples and cultures, our usual method is to incorporate everyone’s ideals into one “culture” that we all share.

So…if you don’t already have a reason, these are just a few more to encourage you to

GO PARTY!!

“Nature abhors a vacuum.” [Facebook post from 12-21-2013]

This is one of the most hotly debated theories/aphorisms in physics, but the idea is applicable in so many ways to life in general.  A vacuum is the ultimate empty space.  This year has driven home to me the realization that life itself abhors a vacuum; “living” is not truly done alone.  Life—not mere existence—requires connections to others.  When our deepest connections are broken, our need to fill the voids left in our hearts, in our lives, sends us looking for new connections.

Personally, I must have music and art and drama and literature and thought; renewed friendships and new friendships; children’s laughter and tears; mountain air, bright sun, full moons.  I need to touch people emotionally and physically.  I shake hands, and I’m known to hug big—both arms.  My grandsons love and fear Grandpa’s hugs, I think, but they come for more, to be enveloped in what I hope they know is my love for them pinning them to my heart.  I feel as if I’m trying to absorb them, and anyone else who gets into that crush, and make them part of me, to fill the spaces, the vacuum in my heart and in my life.

Vacuums in our lives are spaces of loneliness.  We may be solid, corporeal, mass made of flesh and bone and blood, but we are also spirit—soul, if you will—which has no essence other than love.  The losses we naturally endure when those we love move away for a time or pass from our lives more permanently create vacuums of loneliness that can only be filled by love.  Memories keep the way open, but we have to live and create and feel—need, desire, long for, and love, love, love.

The year about to end has brought me vacuums that feel like black holes sucking the light and love from my life.  Fortunately, my family and extended family and friends both old and new have quickly rushed in to keep my heart open.  I have heard the music, seen the beauty in art and the world, and most of all felt the love of those around me.

When I shake your hand (or, better yet, when I wrap you in my arms), I hope you feel the vacuum spaces in your heart filling up, too.  Most of all, I hope you understand that you are part of the reason I live a full life and have a full heart.  Thank you.  I love you.

djc

12/21/13