Three months ago feels like a year ago

  OK, this is my brainstorming...not quoting anyone who has better ideas.

Time really has changed drastically for me in the last, say, six months.

I was having lunch with my friend C, and we had gone with others on a particular outing. We both thought it must have been a year before the last. It definitely was a loooong time ago in both of our memories.

I pulled up my calendar and there it was, early October 2022. I had aready said that was our first trip in my new car, which was purchased sometime last Aug. or early Sept. Not a date I remember right off hand.

So we remembered the first place we went, that we made purchases there, so no difficulty remembering those details. It still felt like forever back in our lives, though by the calendar 3 months ago.

And then I remembered next we had had lunch at the Country Club...which had also slipped our minds. And then, wasn't there one more place we went?

Oh yes, the apple orchard! We had apple pie a la mode, and watched some clog dancers just practicing to a band that was just starting its set. I really don't remember how we came home, though it was along familiar roads about 30 miles away.

But why did it feel so long ago to both of us?

We thought about November. I think it just rolled along at the regular rate of doing things. Nothing special. I was engaged in a couple of interesting committees, had a few Dr. visits for this that and the other. I shrugged off Thanksgiving, and when my minister asked me if I had had a good one, I said "No." But it didn't really bother me.

Then there were the holidays...where time kind of stopped for both of us. We had major anxieties about the holidays (and we're not even related) mainly dealing with families. It was as if we fell into a well, where time went terrribly slowly, while we pushed ourselves to do what we thought we could, and just stopped at other things.

That well of time lasted till sometime in January, but I'm not totally out of it yet. I had my usual fever of no known cause, off and on, which happens every winter these days. It wasn't bad enough that I couldn't go to committee meetings and do blogs. And I did wrangle some antibiotics for the "if it gets worse- take before pneumonia" stage.

But then I lost my appetite a couple of weeks ago. So after 6 pounds lost, I went to my doc (whose office is across the street) and we tried an antidepressant. It didn't get me back into meetings. I keep on the blog, but you all don't know if I'm dressed or not!

I cancelled several medical tests...it was just too hard to drag myself into clothes, driving the 15 miles to Asheville, and dealing with all those people. I did one load of laundry...out of the 4 sitting there. The dishes are all dirty and my maid (me) hasn't done but one sinkfull. But that's one of each of those things, which might be a regular thing to do for other folks.

I also refused about 3 invitations from my friend for lunch. But yesterday I finally said yes, and we have a good habit of catching up with lots of things...deeper than the weather. The wait staff at the restaurant were a bit impatient, but it's not a rush at 3 o'clock. So that's when the trip in Oct. came up and we started looking at our time experiences.

We definitely saw a rush that peaked about the time we collapsed into our respective depressed and time stopping wells. And we see that some things are better for each of us. It's so slow to get out of this well. As C. said, it's like gaining weight is so easy, then it's so hard and tedious to lose weight with the diet you believe will work...but it takes a loooong time. For me the antidepressants have been stopped after reviewing some side effects with the doc. I also did the dishes today so maybe I'm getting better.

Another friend and I were talking about something I did when I retired 15 years ago. She said I definitely shouldn't expect to have that kind of energy now do I? Well, I said, it would be nice to be able to at least do what I did in 2019.

That meant lots of road trips. I won't go into details but I went to New Mexico and Colorado on one trip, to Columbus Ohio on another, and Tampa Florida for Christmas. Oh and there had been a wedding in Flordia in April also the same year, and of course I drove down and back!

I think because so much happened in 2019, my time was expanded to take it all in. It just was full to overflowing.

But the point of this rambling is that my passage of time speeded up, then practically stopped, and so just 3 months ago feels definitely like over a year ago.

And I just found this on FaceBook (what a source!) Can't be denied. So as of today we're moving into spring...don't have to wait till Feb. 1!!

Another approach to climate change

How our perception of time shapes our approach to climate change

January 4, 2023

Rebecca Hersher

Most people are focused on the present: today, tomorrow, maybe next year. Fixing your flat tire is more pressing than figuring out if you should use an electric car. Living by the beach is a lot more fun than figuring out when your house will be underwater because of sea level rise.
That basic human relationship with time makes climate change a tricky problem.
"I consider climate change the policy problem from hell because you almost couldn't design a worse fit for our underlying psychology, or our institutions of decision-making," says Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Our obsession with the present obscures the future
Those institutions — including companies and governments that ultimately have the power to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions — can be even more obsessed with the present than individuals are.
For example, says Leiserowitz, many companies are focused on quarterly earnings and growth. That helps drive short-term behavior, such as leasing new land to drill for fossil fuels, that makes long-term climate change worse.

And there are also big incentives for political leaders to think short-term. "The President gets elected every four years. Members of the Senate get elected every six years. And members of the House get elected every two years," Leiserowitz points out, "so they tend to operate on a much shorter time cycle than this problem, climate change, which is unfolding over decades."

There are deadlines looming for those elected leaders. The Biden administration pledged to cut emissions in half by 2030. By 2050, humans need to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions entirely in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change later this century.

Fortunately, our collective focus on the present also offers hints, psychologists say, about how to harness that hyperfocus on the present to inspire action.

To spur action, speed up the psychological rewards for addressing climate change now

For example, there are ways to highlight the quick payoff for addressing climate change. In the political realm, that could mean that an elected official gets more votes because they support policies that reduce emissions. The promise of a benefit in the next election may be more galvanizing than the goal of protecting future generations, even if the latter has more moral weight.

"The benefits that we get today are more salient, and we want them more than benefits that may be larger, but will accrue in the future," explains Jennifer Jacquet, a researcher and associate professor of environmental studies at New York University who studies the psychology of collective action, including on climate change.

Jacquet says the huge spending bill passed last year by Congress, called the Inflation Reduction Act, is another example of using our focus on the present to drive climate-conscious behavior. The bill includes financial incentives for people who buy electric vehicles or install solar panels.

"They're trying to speed up the benefits," says Jacquet. "That's smart. That's good. That plays into how we think about things."

Extreme weather is starting to catch everyone's attention

In some ways, our focus on the present is less and less of a problem as climate change makes itself more and more obvious today — in our daily lives. Everyone on Earth is experiencing the effects of a hotter planet. That makes it a problem of the present, not of the future.

That immediacy is already showing up in how Americans view climate change, according to Leiserowitz, who has been leading an annual poll on the topic for more than 15 years. As extreme weather is becoming more common, he says support for climate policies is also growing, especially at the local level.

For example, the vast majority of respondents in a September 2021 poll said they support local governments providing money to help make homes more energy efficient, to increase public transportation and to install bike lanes. And the majority of respondents supported investments in renewable energy.

There's no time to waste

Widespread public support for climate policies can help push politicians and corporate leaders to act quickly – which is important, because scientists warn that greenhouse gas emissions need to drop dramatically, and immediately, to avoid runaway warming later this century.

"We have big societal choices to make," says Leiserowitz, and those changes need to happen now. In the present. "People working together to demand action by their leaders is going to be an absolutely critical piece."
This story is part of our periodic science series "Finding Time — taking a journey through the fourth dimension to learn what makes us tick."

SOURCE of article: NPR News

Connecting through time

As I move in my mind away from linear time, where the past is on one end of a charted line, and the future on the other, with this wonderful present just a dot between the two...I try out different ways of feeling and knowing time itself.

It's all relative, as some famous person (Einstein ?) said.

So when I meditate I often have visions of past persons from my life.  And at times I'm open to what they might be bringing me to consider.

What if I were to think of my own self in the past?  Actually I spend a lot of time doing that.

I have no intention to change my life, it's already been the way it is, and though I may have regrets, I am accepting of the mistakes I made.

But what if I were to talk to myself from years gone by? What would I want to say to myself?

Obviously, coming from the Zen outlook of all is Now, I want to explore the past as another now.  I can see myself sitting in a kitchen with 2 little boys in the 60s.  I have several neighbors who are friends, and a husband who goes off to work 5 days a week.  I watch our black and white TV and go to the library to get interesting science fiction to read.  I am not particularly a good housewife.  Where is my joy? I think my children probably.  They have so many needs, their care is my number one focus.  And I don't always know what the best things to do might be.

I know to feed the kids...I'm still breast feeding the youngest.  My 3 year old is another matter.  We watch some of the cartoons and children's programs on morning TV.  We play in the back yard and do the laundry.  Is this the time that I have a puppy? No I think not.

So here comes my future self knocking on the door.  An older me, dressed in simple clothes. I'm not with another partner, like the various religious sects. I'm wearing a dress and black tied shoes.  I smile and offer what? How about magazine subscripions? Somehow I talk myself into the kitchen with my past self.

She is friendly, offers me coffee from her coffee pot which percolates along.  I greet my baby sons...they are so sweet at those ages.  I offer her a brochure about magazines, offering a special price that appeals to her.

I wish I could tell her what may be happening already in her mind, her dreams.  The move from Connecticut to Florida, the divorce that is coming.  But her yearnings are hers to have, mine to remember.

What is the point of my visit to my past self? Not just to satisfy my present feelings that want to connect to the past.  I want to give her a gift.  So I offer her a free magazine, and receive her thanks.  (Of course this magazine will never come, nor will she be billed for it.) My gift? Not the magazine, but the hug I give her as I leave. She's so thin then. I notice her brown hair, compared to my white hair.

I look into her hazel eyes. She looks back to mine, smiling with her goofy smile, and I say..."If you believe there are an infinite number of possible earths happening at the same time, know this."

She smiles at me, somewhat curious.

"This one possible life line that you are on, this one possible earth that exists now, is just one of many possibilities.  And what you choose now, today, gives you the next step for your life going into the greatness of that possible future."

So this wasn't exactly time travel.

My past self was reading a lot of science fiction, as well as Scientific American. I saw the magazines on the coffee table that I made, ceramic tiles in an undersea fish pattern.  That table would travel with me beyond the time when my sons lived with me, and I would let it go about twelve years in the future.

That Barbara fifty years ago was already thinking of all kinds of possibilities. I was happy to nudge her along in her explorations.

If you knew how many more days you would live...

What would you want to do?
Many people say, just do whatever I was doing already...being with family, going on small trips, maybe working on one project or another.

And some people would do the "bucket list" thing...the big things that meant a lot to them that they hadn't had a chance to do yet.

Main St. Deadwood, SD, 1876

Then there are folks like me, dealing with ancestors all the time, so aware of the many people that have given me my own life, and they are all dead.  I look at their headstones through photos on line.  I also read a blog about elders, which some days touches on death, preparation for it, and being those who are around it and are survivors of some loved one's death.  The person who writes that blog is currently dying of pancreatic cancer.  It is a surprisingly rich experience for the blogging readers.

Booth Monument, Stratford, Fairfield Co, CT

So today I toy with a choice about this blog. Quite honestly, nobody seems interested in it.  Almost nobody ever comments, unless I share it over on 52 Ancestors, or Sepia Saturday.  Actually they are few and far between in commenting.  And they aren't really interested in my family trees.

I spend hours before each posting, looking over at Ancestry at the many hints on each person in a family...and trying to determine if this person by this name is the right one, or maybe another one by that name who lived around the same time.  It's incredibly confusing in early Colonial America, and even more so in England.  There were cousins of the same name, and uncles, and grandchildren...not to mention the headaches of women who weren't recorded by anything but a first name often.

So I think of why I'm doing what I'm doing. 

1. To know the truth.  That's a big reason.  Somehow that is a fundamental part of my searches.  To record it as best I can of course, after I figure it out.

2. To make discoveries.  I recently had an "ah ha" moment.  It meant a connection to me.  Nobody else could share the excitement I had however.  But I knew something I hadn't before. Something made sense.

3. To spend my time recording a worthwhile bit of information.  Not just trivia.  Not to give anyone a laugh.

But then, what if nobody ever reads it?  Mmm, that's why I'm thinking of this right now, is it really just a lost cause?  I could be doing something else.  Making the most beautiful piece of sculpture ever.  Writing a wonderful story.  Meditating to become more holy/enlightened. Catching up on things I've put off for years.  Volunteering to help others more. Reading more. Cooking more. Hiking more. Taking photos more. Writing something else...

So the question before me today is...given I have a limited life-span (like we all do, completely ignorant of the actual time limit) should I spend hours a day putting this ancestry information together here?

The answer I first come up with, is it satisfying? Do I get joy from it?

Not so much, I guess.

So I think what I need to do is give myself a set amount of time a day that I will sit down and work on family history.  Then whatever amount of information is sifted through, I can have the sense that my work on it has been fruitful.  No matter what it is, an hour of it will provide some amount of information.  Let's say a quarter of a blog.  So 4 hours might produce a blog posting in total.

And the one hour of work will also produce some information onto my Ancestry pages too.

There's also that goal I set for Christmas last year. To produce a document of the family for my 3 sons, and their descendants (if they have any.)  It is somewhat depressing that they are growing up and not reproducing yet.  I wonder if I'll live long enough to have a great grandchild!  Oh well, just look at all my mother ancestors who saw so many children die before they became adults.  My life has been much longer already, and I've 3 healthy sons at least....the youngest will turn 40 this year!

Walker Sisters, Smoky Mountains National Park

I also tend to look at the birthdays of ancestors as the way I find whether I've written about them or not.  It takes me to most of them several times, and each time I look at their siblings or children a little deeper.  And I find many things that give clues to their own lives.  Elder parents often lived with their children who were grown...and that shows on census records.

OK, time to get away from the laptop for now.

I'll be back to write more about my next ancestor, Elizabeth Ufford Beers, on April 3...not here.  I do those posts on my other blog, Three Family Trees.

Birthdays are just markers on the path of time

This old-style clock was installed just a few years ago, when this corner became a park of interest to tourists.  The Chamber of commerce, and Town of Black Mountain, the Beautification Committee volunteers, and many personal donations of time and energy helped make this happen. 

I'm reminded of another favorite clock, which I've never seen in person.

The Prague astronomical clock, or Prague orloj (Czech: Pražský orloj [praʃskiː orloj]), is a medieval astronomical clock located in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. It is currently undergoing a reconstruction and should be back in place by the end of October 2018.

The Orloj is mounted on the southern wall of Old Town Hall in the Old Town Square. The clock mechanism itself has three main components: the astronomical dial, representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky and displaying various astronomical details; statues of various Catholic saints stand on either side of the clock; "The Walk of the Apostles", a clockwork hourly show of figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures—notably a figure of Death (represented by a skeleton) striking the time; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months

 The oldest part of the Orloj, the mechanical clock and astronomical dial, dates back to 1410 when it was made by clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň and Jan Šindel, then later a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Charles University. The first recorded mention of the clock was on 9 October 1410.^[2] Later, presumably around 1490, the calendar dial was added and the clock facade was decorated with gothic sculptures.

In 1629 or 1659 wooden statues were added, and figures of the Apostles were added after a major repair in 1787–1791. During the next major repair in the years 1865–1866 the golden figure of a crowing rooster was added.

The astronomical dial is a form of mechanical astrolabe, a device used in medieval astronomy. Alternatively, one may consider the Orloj to be a primitive planetarium, displaying the current state of the universe.
The astronomical dial has a background that represents the standing Earth and sky, and surrounding it operate four main moving components: the zodiacal ring, an outer rotating ring, an icon representing the Sun, and an icon representing the Moon.

Stationary background

The background represents the Earth and the local view of the sky. The blue circle directly in the centre represents the Earth, and the upper blue is the portion of the sky which is above the horizon. The red and black areas indicate portions of the sky below the horizon. During the daytime, the Sun sits over the blue part of the background and at night it sits over the black. During dawn or dusk, the mechanical sun is positioned over the red part of the background.
Written on the eastern (left) part of the horizon is aurora (dawn in Latin) and ortus (rising). On the western (right) part is occasus (sunset), and crepusculum (twilight).
Golden Roman numerals at the outer edge of blue circle are the timescale of a normal 24-hour day and indicate time in local Prague time, or Central European Time. Curved golden lines dividing the blue part of dial into 12 parts are marks for unequal "hours". These hours are defined as 1/12 of the time between sunrise and sunset, and vary as the days grow longer or shorter during the year.

The four figures flanking the clock are set in motion on the hour, and represent four things that were despised at the time of the clock's making. From left to right in the photographs, the first is Vanity, represented by a figure admiring himself in a mirror. Next, the miser holding a bag of gold represents greed or usury. Across the clock stands Death, a skeleton that strikes the time upon the hour. Finally there is a figure representing lust and earthly pleasures. On the hour, the skeleton rings the bell and immediately all other figures shake their heads, side to side, signifying their unreadiness "to go."

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_astronomical_clock