A Short But Brief Summary of a Quiet Contemplative Mindset on life

A Short But Brief Summary of a Quiet Contemplative Mindset on life

If we as individuals matter not at all to the evolutionary system, of which we are a part for such a minuscule period of time, then do we matter in any other way?  After all, evolution would go on if any one of us had died at childbirth. The reality seems to be that if Lincoln had not engineered the end of slavery, somebody else would have because better always supersedes worse over time, so evolution moves forward and upward——new species develop which provide new experiences and new capabilities in new environmental situations. The evolutionary system is brilliant just like a glittering exquisite building is so also, even though the individual bricks are unimportant. After all, if any individual brick should happen to break in the wheelbarrow en route to being put in place, a similar brick will end up in it’s place, necessary for the end brilliance of the building, but of no matter itself to the end visual  product . Thus we find ourselves in life. There are now 7.1 billion humans on this planet, alone all together, like lemmings compulsively racing as a species to the edge of the cliff, unable to control our own population growth, unable to effectively establish global livable minimum wages, unable to allow the better angels of our nature to bring peace, prosperity and respect for diversity. By chance alone, each of us came into this brilliant process, not everyone created equal at all, but with but a chance to achieve some contentedness in our life if we, by chance, get a decent genetic hand, a decent environment for our formative years, and we, by chance again, have others help us achieve some goals in our lives. To the extent we treat others as we would have them treat us, they get more contentment in their lives, and we—as a giver—then get rewarded with more contentment in our lives too. Then we die, as surely as anything else we ever know for sure in life is true. The billions of years which came before us has mattered little to us personally, and the endless years ahead for this process will be of no consequence to us at all. Death eliminates any future stress, frustration, or any kind of existence. 

Is this a sad tale of no personal meaning?  A lot of people buy a ticket to the lottery, not because anything they do can help them win the lottery, but if we no play the game, we no can win the lottery. So is life, if we are not born, we have no chance to win the contentment which sometimes happens in life to some, if only a few. Knowing what we all know now about life, even seen through the prism of our own perceptions, most everyone would be willing to take a chance again to start life anew and take our chances.  All we ever get is some hope things will go our way and we have the essence to cope with the challenges we will face. It is not for any species to really understand life, or anyone to be exempt from God's laws which govern the evolutionary process. By the time we begin to understand a few things meaningful about life, we are old enough to die. 

I remember, en route to the train station late one night—sitting on this short stone wall and staring at these two small children in a box just staring at the passer-byes, none of whom were throwing any change in the cup set out by their mother. Would I then, knowing that I could get a chance to live life again, a new afterlife—if I would come back as one of those children, what would I choose to do? Of course we never even get to choose whether we are born or not, let alone under what circumstances and with what cards in our hands, so all these questions here are moot. I wonder where these two little kids are now? What kind of civilized society would let this situation with those two kids exist? We live in a society that just elected Donald Trump as President, someone with not a single personal characteristic that remotely resembles a Jesus Christ, a Buddha, or any other ethical prophet of any sort in history. Does this itself matter at all in the long term of the evolutionary process? Clearly it does not. After the holocaust everyone said 'never again'—and yet today, right in front of our eyes, far more millions are being slaughtered or left homeless than Hitler ever achieved. Whenever some leader says in wild eyed sincerity that they are going to make some nation, or some religion, or some political system, or some group of any ilk, great again——the outcome is never good and will include a lot of bad things—really bad things—happening to a lot of good people —really good people—good people representing all sorts of diverse groups—and when the sun finally sets on all the consequent graves from civilized implosion, the evolutionary process will move on. After all, over 97% of all previous species are now extinct. Time alone moves on, everything else goes with the flow. Change and advancement rule, albeit with some lengthy time setbacks (thousands and millions of years).

I was sitting in a chair and waiting to begin a photo light therapy procedure to remove pre cancerous growths from my face when I motioned to the doctor present: “Look at this” I made a fist and showed him the back of my hand— “I look like I am twenty years old.” Then I opened my fist and tilted my hand back ward a bit, “Now look, I look like I am 90 years old just like that. In a few years I will have another trick and my hand will be a skeleton.”  The Doctor looked puzzled, “Why are you saying that?”  I have no idea. Why do I say or write or do a lot of things?  I just do. It gives me some sort of weird contentment. Well, if everyone else can be oddly weird, why can’t I?”

I bet most everyone can guess at what time of day I wrote this: morning, afternoon, evening, or post midnight. A bit into darkness of night earlier today, I found two doe deers I had been looking for to see if they escaped the deer extermination squad. They were maybe 15 feet away. I raised my cane (walking stick) so they would for sure recognize me.  I talked to them for maybe 15 minutes and neither deer budged, just stared at me mesmerized by my attention. They had no inkling what fate awaited them while I did. Such harmless innocent little creatures. The evolutionary process is a merciless process—I guess necessary, but full of sadness and unfairness. Say good night Gracie. Good night Mrs. Calabash (I guess we all have a Mrs. Calabash of some sort) wherever you are. What kind of day has it been? A day like all days only you were there. “Happy Trails to you, until we meet again” were my last words to my 15 minute friends. Maybe it really is the little things in life that count.  

What Should We Think Of Immigrants?

What Should We Think Of Immigrants?

It seems we need start here by admitting immigrants differ from one another just as much as native born Americans differ from each other. Next, it seems reasonable that every country can control it’s own borders. Now it begins to get complicated. We never really have seriously attempted to control our own borders. We never have seriously attempted to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants. Why? The answer has always been economic in nature. We enjoy having illegal immigrants do the difficult and heavy labor that these immigrants do for sub minimum wages. It’s the American form of slave labor which keeps prices down.  And no citizenry likes a bargain better than Americans. Thus we need rid ourselves of this notion that we have done what we can to keep them out. We never have. 

The vast majority of people in any country do not flee their country for a better life. This is true even in the poorest of countries. We don’t hesitate to accept the cream of the crop from other countries, including doctors, scientists, wealthy business men, sport stars, and so on. So the problem boils down to what kind of immigrants are we willing to accept?  And at what cost are we willing to eliminate most illegal immigrants? Are we willing to accept that our own benefit from slave labor is part of the problem or do we put all the punishment on the victims of our own greed for bargains? 

Most illegal immigrants I have met and known much about at all are few. I don’t have household help or have any substantial conversation with those doing the kind of work immigrants tend to do. If they are part of a crew doing work around my place or at work, they were simply present, but not in any meaningful way. I tend to be against letting the poorest of immigrants into this country because their circumstance is painful for me; they are trying to meaningfully exist with no skills in a different culture with a different language. They can spend their entire life as some sort of outcast living in the cracks of our society. Not good for them. Plus I am against letting any workers in our country be paid less than minimum wage. As T.O. would say, fair is fair. We know that, but like already mentioned, we love bargains. In my mind, bargains obtained on the backs of the poorest amongst us, is simply unethical. I agree with Lincoln—labor comes first and is superior to capital. It is the obligation of every government to protect labor and not let capitalism allow wealth to accumulate for them at the expense of decent wages for workers. When anyone says they are against the minimum wage rising with the cost of living they are anti-labor and are essentially ensuring that the poorest amongst us will get even poorer. 

The point here so far is that we are just as responsible for the large number of existing illegal immigrants in this country as are the brave immigrants who risked everything to try to get a better life. For the vast majority of illegal immigrants already here that better life does not include living any kind of affluent life which many Americans live. There are exceptions. But overall the whole general picture is one of quiet frustration and poverty. Not good.

The rapid and ever increasing acts of terrorism across the globe has generated a lot of fear of letting any enemies gain entrance to our country. And we have a lot of enemies. No country can invade 60 other countries, in one form or another, over the last 60 years, be the chief buyer of goods made by slave labor abroad, and not have a lot of angry enemies abroad. We have never been an innocent non involved country in all these nations where terrorist groups have sprung up—certainly not in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, the Middle East, Libya, Egypt, etc. It really is a long list. I can only think of one country in which we have invaded directly, or through military support of ‘rebels’, which benefitted after our involvement there was over—and that is Vietnam, a war which we lost and should have lost. It was David vs Goliath and David won. 

With all this as background, we can now look at where we are, and what we should do or not do. Trump is claiming he has banned refugees from 7 countries in order to protect the American people from terroristic attacks on our homeland.  While Trump has made clear enough that anything he thinks is a fact—is indeed a fact, even if it is an ‘alternate fact’ (lie). Of course reasonable people will continue to exist that facts are only those things which have sufficient data to justify them as facts. 

Obviously, if we want real facts we must look elsewhere then to our current President. La La land is never a good source for facts.  “In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media rants. But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center. The slaying of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church, with an avowed white supremacist charged with their murders, was a particularly savage case. (NY Times)

In the last decade 280,024 Americans have been killed by guns. On average there are nearly 12,000 gun homicides a year in the U.S.  Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of firearm deaths in the U.S. are suicides. America’s gun homicide rate is more than 25 times the average of other high-income countries. Black men are 14 times more likely than non-hispanic white men to be shot and killed with guns. 

There are 75 million homeless refugees living in tents (if lucky) with no possessions but what they wear on their back. We are not innocent bystanders in the politics of their countries which resulted in civil wars and forced them to flee. 75 million is more than twice the population of the U.S. back in Lincoln’s day. Trump, as is his forte, says that safe zones should be established in their own country. Huh? I thought they fled these countries because they weren’t safe?  And I thought we invaded these countries, in part to make the citizens in these countries have a free and safe country?  He then suggests we invade again to create these safe zones?  Now once we have established a military presence to create safe zones, and built houses for them to live in, and created good jobs for these refugees so they can afford to maintain these homes and have a decent income, I suppose we can then leave. So, by any kind of sane logic, this plan is irrational nonsense. 

I cannot think of any sane country who really wants these refugees. It reminds me of the days when air heads thought busing ghetto kids to good schools would be a solution. Instead, it simply brought the quality of the good schools, by any measures, down.  But before I wander too far here, let’s bring in a important fact: zero fatal attacks were carried out by immigrants from the seven Muslim-majority countries targeted by the ban. Trump’s ban did not include any of the Muslim-majority countries where the Trump Organization — which is now being run by his sons — holds business interests. Those countries reportedly include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the U.A.E. and Azerbaijan. Trump has a long history of never sacrificing his own self interests to in any way to improve the welfare of the least fortunate.

Personally, I am against the slaughter of 280,024 Americans killed in the United States since 9/11. 

And I am totally for every diligence to capture and persecute those directly responsible for the increasingly common terrorist attacks on Americans within this country. But the reality is, and the fact is, that these attacks are being carried out almost entirely by our own citizens raised in our own country. No immigrants, of any nationality, admitted as an act of mercy from the 75 million refugees living in refugee camps, have committed any terrorist attacks against our country. Haven’t these people suffered enough without the richest country in the world accusing them as the source of terrorist attacks within our country? 

In an age of human overpopulation, rare is the country who needs additional people within their own borders. We don’t need these people, they will not easily fit into our culture and language. They will have difficulty getting decent jobs, decent education, decent housing, decent opportunities of any sort. There is no real effort anywhere in the world to enforce responsible human reproduction. We are unable to attack this basic global problem, not even discuss the problem. The Chinese did, but while elevating the economic situation substantially, it is too little, too late even for them. 

Behind all this global terrorism of varied sorts is the dual core problem of human overpopulation and lack of any global minimum wages. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to reduce terrorism in the absence of solving these two basic problems. No, Hitler didn’t make Germany great again, nor will Trump make America great again by exterminating, in one way or another, certain segments of the population. We have our own refugee camps, called urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes. They don’t live in tents, and they are better fed than in the foreign refugee camps, but after that the similarities are strikingly similar. Both populations suffer from chronic stress with the associated high levels of stress hormones. Especially for those in their formative years, this often means they become medically stunted during their formative years. Every system of the body is affected by high levels of stress hormones, and not in a good way, especially the nervous system. Some affects are, to varying degrees, irreversible.  

With this background we are able to better address what we should think about immigrants, especially those from the refugee camps. Personally, I’d rather not think about them at all. 

Nor do I wish to think that much about the huge population who live in our own urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes. It frightens me to suspect that, in the near future, we may face roving riots, coordinated via all the gadgets most everyone has at their possession. That is, a riot starts at point x, then when the police or army arrive at point x, a different riot occurs at point y, and when the police or army arrives at point y, a different riot breaks out at point A——and so it continues. Clearly the police and army can’t be everywhere so no one ends up too safe. This is essentially how all these modern day wars are being carried out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, many South American Countries, many African countries, etc. Of course it can’t happen here in the United States, but then of course there is little reason to think it can’t.

It is intellectually hard to keep talking about solutions to today’s problems when we cannot establish world-wide responsible reproduction and create global reasonable minimum wages in what is a well established global economy. No form of government, no economic class, no religious sect, no ethnic group, no geographical group, can sustain any peace and prosperity much longer without responsible global reproduction and global minimum wages. No one seems to argue otherwise, but practically everyone dismisses this ‘fact’ by saying “Well, these two changes will never happen”. This is just another way of assuring what all agree could happen, will happen. 

In the end, we are ethically bound to do what we can do, under the circumstances. And that is, take our fair share of these 75 million refugees. They are not a terrorist threat to us at all from current data, but are a financial burden and a personal tragedy for those who will end up, through no fault of their own, in a strange land with minimal chance for personal advancement in our modern day society. 

If their country of origin ever regains some economic and peaceful status, then I would halt any foreign aid to them unless they find housing and a job for their refugees living in our country. If some want to stay then they will have to apply through normal channels after they are reabsorbed back into their country of origin. My understanding is that most refugees would jump at the chance to go back ‘home’ if home had an  economic and peaceful status. 

There are so many global problems coming down upon this earth that we are simply overwhelmed and underprepared. We no longer know where to begin to start. We furtively grasp at ‘family values’, circle the wagons, and foolishly delude ourselves into thinking this is some kind of solution. 75 million global refugees! Living as I do, in an ample affluent manner, there is a simmering sadness that, in raw numbers, there are more homeless, helpless, jobless innocent human beings living on this earth than ever before. For the most part we no longer lynch, quarter, burn at the stake, or torture with slow painful death—but then again, how can we use words to describe the misery and hopelessness of these 75 million refugees, or even the 43 million Americans who don’t make enough money to qualify to pay federal income tax, or the odds of a child born in our urban, suburban, or rural ghettoes from suffering chronic stress throughout their formative years?  The consequent hormones present through the formative years, for most victims, spells medical stunting of most body systems, especially the nervous system. We respond almost absurdly—wage emotional battles over abortion and pitifully little emotional battles over what happens to these children after birth. If there is any ethics in this madness, it is hard to detect. 

This is the kind of musing that has a dark and depressing end. So I guess it just stands unresolved. It offers little encouragement for the future. We are, and have been for some time, like lemmings rushing to the edge of the cliff with all the insaneness of real lemmings. God’s evolutionary process has always survived and progressed, with sometimes long thousands or millions of years setbacks, but there is zero reason to conclude evolution is about to end. Time stays, we go. 

The Slippery Slope of Character Assassination

The Slippery Slope of Character Assassination 

Although diversity is a fundamental aspect of God’s Laws which govern the evolutionary process, this diversity is a tad difficult, and for some more than a tad difficult, to appreciate. Difference is often considered bad or even evil, something to fear—and if not fear, then to discredit or punish the object of our dislike. 

The more we depend on our gut feelings to judge others, the less likely we are able to treat the object of our dislike fairly. While these kind of injustices are more common in sports, politics, and religion, the problem is systemic in human societies. Only if we can recognize, and even maybe understand, our prejudices can we hope to be more fair to those diverse from ourselves. 

Certain character traits are clearly fair game—dishonesty, using other people for personal gain, theft, murder, cruelty, laziness, and so on. I suppose some traits may be borderline. As a hobby I tend to be intrigued by people who are different, and yet successful at their endeavors. For me it becomes a constant question as to why some successful people are so hated by so many people. One of the more complex personalities I have followed for years is Terrell Owens. 

Here is a player, who by his stats, is one of the three best wide receivers in NFL history. One might think this would make him a shoo-in for first year of eligibility into the Hall of Fame. It was not, and not even the second year. It was off the field issues which are holding him back, with some voters claiming he was such a bad character that no one wanted him, he hurt the success of the teams he was on, and in fact was a locker room poison. 

It seems fair enough to say that the personality of Terrell Owens is different and is annoying, like very annoying, to a good number of people. For one thing, after he scores a touchdown he should act like he has been there before and not show boat. For another thing, he brags about himself, almost as much as Ali used to do in his hay day. The big difference is that T.O. bragged about himself, and not viciously make fun of his opponents like Ali did—for example, with Frazier.  Add to that was Terrell’s tendency to not be real friendly with others in the locker room, or hang with any teammates off the field. Finally, he was often up in the face of his quarterbacks and coaches, to the extent he was difficult to control, and no one ever knew when he might tip over the whole boat if he felt disrespected or was being dealt an injustice. 

For those who are irritated by the above, it is not surprising that they have strong negative feelings about Terrell and wish to hurt him in any way they can, if they ever get the chance. But now it gets tricky—real tricky. He has been an ideal citizen, to my knowledge never arrested for anything. This alone puts him in some kind of an exclusive club among NFL players. He has never, to my knowledge, verbally or physically assaulted any teammate or interfered with any player’s own training in practice. With little natural talent, he spent high school and most of college just building his body up and listening to coaches teach the first stringers and later, watching closely other great wide receivers. He trained all year round, worked as hard as anyone in practice, focused exclusively on football his entire career, leaving other aspects of his life to be less than stellar. 

What I, or anyone else, thinks about his eccentric personal traits is irrelevant unless others were being hurt by his behavior. When some people become apoplectic at his antics after a touchdown, they are ignorant in the sense “he hasn’t ever been there” (been somebody instead of a nobody) before. He had no normal childhood and was not even allowed to leave his yard except for school and practice. He is an extreme loner and always has been. This is not against the law. He focuses on his own performance, giving little thought to the activities of others on the team. That is not against the law either. In fact, T.O.s amazing stats would surely not exist were it not for his personal genetic willpower and learned self-focus. Were he to have the personality his detractors prefer, he would not have gotten to the top of his field, but still be unremarkable in his life as are most persons raised in a difficult environment.  

“Nobody wanted him” . How silly is that?  He spent 8 years in S.F., left on his own over salary matters, had Hall of Fame numbers the entire stint there, then went to Philly, had Hall of Fame numbers there, had another salary dispute and spent several years in Dallas until he was in his late 30’s—an age when hardly any wide receivers are still in the league, yet still picked up by two teams. So, the reality is that until he was in his late thirties, he never had any problem being picked up by teams. 

“He was a poison in the locker room”. This is even more ridiculous. Every team performed worse after he left. Some poison! His critics have not identified many, if any, former teammates who think he should be held back for entrance into the Hall of Fame because of his demeanor in the locker room. Many teammates have given what is often the typical answer: “I don’t know T.O. too well. He keeps to himself. He rarely speaks to me. He works exceptionally hard and when the game starts we all appreciate having him on our team. He helps us win.” 

“He throws his quarterbacks under the bus.” Huh? Almost without exception all his quarterbacks had their best years and would make Pro Bowl when he was on the team. Every quarterback he had has publicly stated that he belongs in the Hall of Fame the first year of eligibility. Did he put a lot of pressure on them.? Yes he did, but the results speak for themselves. Only one of his quarterbacks is a Hall of Famer, and yet T.O. put up good numbers wherever he played. However strange or different his character, he seemed to bring out the best in his quarterbacks. That qualifies as throwing them under the bus? I don’t think so.

“He was a pain in the ass to have around”. That’s true if we are talking about coaches and owners. For franchises which are run like plantations, Terrell Owens is not a very good step and fetch it. He simply cannot, given his mental state, dance to the tune of others. It was simple to T.O.: If he was going to put up Hall of Fame numbers, he wanted to be paid at that level. Owners found that a problem. Did his coaches hate him? Not at all, but they were frustrated because they, like everyone else, could not penetrate his inner bubble in which he lived. He was difficult to understand. But when the game started, they loved him all over again. Every coach has gone on record to state that he deserves admittance to the Hall of Fame on the first ballet. 

Will he ever get into the Hall of Fame? I don’t think, at the time of this writing, that he really cares anymore. You cannot trash a person’s character year after year, and then be in any position to honor them about anything. The dishonor will easily outweigh any honor. By their own attitude and behavior, some members of the Hall of Fame electors have projected their own character flaw which is far more grievous than any of T.O.’s unique personality traits. They are not judging a player’s athletic performance, but seeking revenge against someone whose personality is just different from their own. 

While it is never smart to predict T.O. about hardly anything, I doubt he cares as much for this Hall of Fame stuff as he did about his level of performance while playing. That his coaches, quarterbacks and teammates have been supportive is reward enough for T.O.’s very private world. They never understood him anymore than others, but they appreciated him and valued having him on their team. Jerry Rice once stated that “It is never smart to cross T.O. He will never forget or let you remotely close to his world again”.  

What the committee did was a cheap shot, a mean spirited prejudicial act that achieved nothing, was pure character assassination, and of course cannot change his remarkable performance as a player for like 16 years in the league. 

How big a deal is all this? By itself it is not a big deal. It certainly doesn’t eliminate his accomplishments. HOWEVER—we all, to varying degrees, too often use our own prejudices against others to put them down, treat them unfairly, discredit them, deny them rights, or titles or honors, or opportunities which is unfair and damaging to their lives. We need to always ask ourselves—has this person really behaved in a way which needs to be punished, or are we treating them badly because they are simply different from ourselves. The nice thing about the Golden Rule, the basis for human ethics, is that it doesn’t let us treat others this way. Had those on the Committee, who disliked T.O. personally, used this rule, no way would they have did what they did. These very same people would squeal like a pig if someone denied them an honor or promotion or whatever because of their personality. Given the nature of a sports writers’s job, they learn quickly that personality assassinations attract readers. Locker rooms are creations of the coaches, the players, and the owners. They have an array of punishments available to punish anyone for poor locker room behavior. It certainly is absurd to think a committee of sport writers would remotely be the best group to judge locker room behavior.  T.O. got it right: “It is a joke”. 

Most former teammates seem to describe T.O. as a rather distant unfriendly dude in a not so much an unfriendly manner as a unique person, off in his own world, a very special athlete with admirable work ethics, extra-ordinary will power, amazing self focus, with the capability of volcanic eruptions which can be unpredictable and uninhibited—albeit the energy generated seemed to push him to new heights of performance. Not easy to coach, not easy to understand, not easy to approach, seemingly self made and aloof from close friendships, he was nevertheless a special teammate who gave it all on the field in every aspect, and helped his team win games. No one will forget him as a teammate.  

To be fair here. Our prejudices are the hardest attitudes to correct. Like smoking, for some smokers nothing seems to break the habit. I used to tell college students the first day of class: “I have no prejudices, I hate everyone.” 

The NFL should intervene here, poll all his former coaches, quarterbacks, and teammates as to the veracity of the above and if the above is mostly true, then should enter T.O. as a first time elected Hall of Fame candidate, pre dated two years ago. It should also should be made clear to those who elect athletes to the NFL Hall of Fame that the locker room is off the table. Punishment for any alleged locker room misbehavior or contract disputes is the jurisdiction of the individual teams. There is no other way to undo the injustice being done to Terrell Owens here. 

The Role of Hobbies in Our Lives

The Role of Hobbies in Our Lives

I will define hobby for the purposes of this musing as something we do simply because we get pleasure from doing it without any responsibility to engage in that hobby. Raising kids is a responsibility, albeit sometimes there is pleasure, even a lot of pleasure. Earning an income is a responsibility albeit sometimes we enjoy our job. 

But as tight as we try to define hobby here, it gets tricky. I could, perhaps, classify my FANAFI Fund as a hobby since it gives me as much pleasure now as anything else I do. HOWEVER, that pleasure is in good part because it frees me from any obligation to have any more direct contact with the least fortunate in our own country or on the planet. In the past this was part of my job responsibility—well I suppose not really, but the recipients of any efforts here became more like family to me. The difference is that ‘family’ kept changing from year to year—fresh faces, fresh problems, fresh solutions, fresh failures, and so on. I only fell in love once to be honest, and being single with the personal space I required also means there needed be something to fill the void of genetic ‘family’. 

Then there are hobbies that are time frame related, or hobbies which have been around for a long time, or hobbies which provided the greatest pleasure regardless of duration. Is sex a hobby? For the most part I don’t know what to do with sex from any angle at all. Maybe it just proves God has a sense of humor. Outside of forced sex or child molestation, it is hard to take sex serious. That is why so many jokes are related to sex. How many sex lives, except to the participants, are not mostly humorous or ‘pathetic’ in one way or another. While pornography is a big industry, watching the average plain people have sex with each other generates zero interest for most people. Not that much sexy about it but the couple manage anyway. Not too many erections generated imaging your parents having sex or watching the vast majority pass by while sitting in an airport. Logic and sex are not a good combination.

I guess, for me, writing my musings must be at the top of the list of hobbies. I think I have been writing musings since college days. I really don’t know anyone else who does that as a hobby. I guess I just have to be different. There are almost 500 musings on my URL, and that’s only the last ten years. 

Walking has been a hobby for a long time. Solo walking that is. It is rare for me to walk with anyone, and if anyone suggests it I invariably decline. Walking is better than theatre or movies to me. It is a chance to observe real life or real nature. It mellows me out, puts me in a very philosophical mood. The more I can understand varied aspects of life, the more contented I tend to feel. How often I am right about my conclusions is another matter and probably irrelevant. 

Some hobbies were time dependent. Like running track, playing softball in a league, playing the horses, playing card or board games, collecting maple syrup, following sport teams or particular sports, planning and developing an outdoor landscape, and of more recent years, planning out an indoor decorative atmosphere. 

Another hobby which has been consistent over the years is spending a lot of time trying to understand unique individuals. I guess diversity intrigues me. Lincoln is my all time favorite figure to study. He is endlessly interesting over endless time. Victoria Woodhull is another one that wears well over time. I guess Terrell Owens is up there, Allen Iverson, Obama, Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, Duke Snider, and others who have faded a bit in interest. Is that a hobby? I guess so. 

Are pets a hobby?  I think so. For someone who needs a lot of personal space, this does not include the absence of pets. A relationship with a pet comes with far less complexities than relationships with other people. The nature of a pet relationship is simple, genuine, and stays the same over time. I can’t ever recall wishing to ‘divorce’ myself from a pet. Human marriages only last half the time, pets really do, for the most part, remain part of us till death do us part. That seems weird. So does the fact that when I wrote about one of my earliest pets, Buff the dog, it ranks up there as one of my most popular musings. Buff would like that if he were capable of comprehending this and were not dead. 

Laughing. Is that a hobby? I laugh a lot. Not always appropriately, but for me, not too much in life has no  humor to it. Is being a recluse a hobby?  I have had many acquaintances and ‘associates’ over time but close friends is another matter. But that’s ok—Lincoln was very much that way, Terrell Owens is that way, and I follow suit. It is a tad hard for anyone to get very close to me since I seldom attend social events, don’t participate in gift exchanges, or twitter, or attend special occasions in other’s lives, or hang with others a lot. One of the guards in the Condo where I live commented to me that “you are the friendliest person in the building with the most people, but always from a safe distance.”I never go to the Board meetings, rarely attend any parties, or restaurant excursions, or celebrate holidays with others. A holiday for me is a chance to get out of everyone’s way and enjoy the solitude of my own place and thoughts.  I much prefer to stay out of everyone’s way and just relax with a carefully prepared meal of my favorite foods, and just listen to music, write a musing, maybe watch a netflix movie, and let my mind wander wherever it tends to wander. I absolutely refuse to spend any holiday chatting with other people’s relatives whom I will seldom or never see again. That is real agony to me, and to me a total waste of time. Holidays are family days and I have no immediate family. Are all these hobbies?  I guess so. 

One of my most rewarding hobbies is my almost daily watching a DVD lecture from The Great Courses. These Professors are the most knowledgeable and engaging lecturers to be found in the U.S. I just ordered some more but I already have a DVD library of 2,136 lectures in 80 courses. There I can be found most evenings glued to the TV learning something new even though in a relatively short number of years I will cease to exist. That is almost like having another college degree with a major in whatever.

Is constantly googling a hobby?  Probably so. Years ago I would have to spend a half day at a library to track down a stat. Now stats can be obtained at the push of a button. We can all be much more informed now on any topic if we so wish. 

I read a lot. When I moved to a condo I threw out around 1200 books and am forced to get rid of several hundred books a year. I also get a half dozen monthly medical news letters from major medical institutions. My favorite is Mayo Clinic. They share their knowledge far more than any other major medical center. They also have the best approach. They will give you an appointment day and time, but when you can go back home depends on the nature of the problem and how many different specialties end up involved.  A patient does not meet with one doctor and then another in many cases, but all doctors from disciplines that might have a bearing on the problem meet with the patient at one time, tests are run as required one after the other until a final consensus is obtained. 

Are phone conversations a hobby?  There are a few people I often converse with on the phone for an extended length of time. I guess that’s a hobby or in my case a good part of my social life if I can use the term loosely. 

This didn’t turn out as I expected. In my case I guess I have a zillion hobbies and retirement is nothing more than fully engaging myself in all these hobbies. I reckon many people might wonder “What does Reid do all day?”  I suspect it is difficult for many to imagine how one is doing anything if others are not involved. In my productive years most of my hours were involved with others as it was the nature of my job, but once retirement hit, others were out of the equation. Excitement is almost an annoyance these days. Contentment reigns in my retirement years, and I have been retired now for 20 years. Not really believing in a Heaven thereafter, retirement suffices for my Heavenly years. 

I suspect people with families have less hobbies than I do, they are busy sharing experiences with family. Some families do practically everything together and some families rarely do that much together apart from meeting obligations to their children. Maybe if one has family, too many individual hobbies is selfish. 

Some hobbies are unethical in that while they may bring pleasure, others are negatively affected by the hobby. Gambling may be a hobby, but if it denies economic stability to a family it is unethical. Sex may be a hobby, but if it breaks marital vows and is not an open marriage, then that kind of sex is unethical. Some ‘experts’ claim having sex outside of marriage can save the marriage (like maybe one spouse doesn’t care for sex too much, i.e Jack and Jackie Kennedy). 

A lot of marriages seem to break up when the hobbies of each spouse start to diverge. Most people gravitate to particular hobbies at particular ages. It is probably more remarkable that so many marriages last, given the vast number of different paths we can take over our lifetime. With marriages becoming less frequent and lasting less time, it does make one wonder whether marriage as the current institution for spousal arrangement will not be drastically different in the future. It already is for a rapidly increasing number of couples. Coupling has become very couple self created in nature. 

Even raising children in the future may change. Instead of having the perfect mother and father maybe it will be the best computer disk program that will play the major role. Then, when some method doesn’t work I guess a parent just changes the computer program. We already have ‘Dear Abby’ and other such advice columns which aid others to find answers to their personal problems. Maybe an 8 year old kid will be able to go on his computer and tell the computer what is on his mind. Will it become the computer which ’knows best’ and not necessarily mom and dad? The rate of change in human lives and societies is certainly in high gear—so much so that we need hang on to our hat. 

If I counted correctly I have at least 11 hobbies. This is probably overkill in the sense I can never find enough time to spend on 11 hobbies. However, the significance here is that all these things I do can be done without the need of others to amuse me in the process. I reckon there are many people with such a strong need for social interaction that they can’t be happy on their own. There are downsides to being a loner, but when it comes to the terminational years, to be able to amuse ourselves sure makes these years far more enjoyable to both ourselves and others we might otherwise be pestering for attention. 

For some reason the word tiddlywinks jumped into my mind. So I googled to see what the hell tiddlywinks actually was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-pdglP7J8Y  Well, I don’t think I will adopt tiddylwinks as a hobby.  According to the World Sports Encyclopedia (2003), there are 8,000 ...games. Wow. 

I reckon we all need our hobbies to maximize our contentment. Since we all have different genetics and environments, hobbies will be all over the place. Perhaps people who are work-a-holics don’t have time for hobbies, but then maybe they pay a price for this. What is more evident is that everyone needs to develop the insight to know when enough is enough of just about anything in life. When a hobby becomes compulsive, our contentedness diminishes.  I always remember the old Ferlin Husky song, “When I have learned enough to really live, I am old enough to die”. That’s a tad scary. We know the routine——TIME stays, WE GO. At some point we probably should just say goodbye instead of hello to everyone we meet. I think proper etiquette is to always say goodbye when we leave. 

Goodbye!  There, I can check that off my list of to-do’s. Hold the party balloons, just have them on hand. I plan a huge funeral. Half of the crowd will be there since if you give the people what they want, they will come in droves. The other half will come just to make sure I am dead. Fair enough.  Actually, I plan no funeral. What’s the point of being the center of attention if we are not even there? I am not big on attending funerals. If I currently am active with the whole family I will attend to support the surviving family. Otherwise I am realistic enough to understand my presence will do very little for anyone and distance is often rather far. I am  much more likely to attend a memorial service in which those who knew the deceased speak instead of some clergy person who babbles away a canned eulogy. Plus a memorial service often gives one time to plan ahead. I also prefer to remember the person as I once knew them, not have a mental image of them in a casket. Finally, it just seems odd to be in a group after the funeral and it becomes essentially another social event. I realize there is nothing really wrong with this but I feel strange partying away right after a funeral service. Maybe it is the nature of my hermit-like personality but I prefer to grieve the loss by myself. The loss is kind of permanent and sad and takes a toll on our own life. We don’t suddenly die, we die a death more often of a thousand cuts. Father Time is a stalker.

Post Midnight Hours

Post Midnight Hours

For some time in my life, post midnight hours seem unique, uneasy, mellow, out of body experiences which affect every conceivable emotional state. Sleep naturally follows at some point. It is postulated that sleep helps clean up clutter in our brain, a sort of tune up before the next day (sort of like those programs which clean your computer of clutter). Cities are different after midnight, nature is different after midnight, civilization seems different after midnight, we ourselves feel different after midnight, unless we are simply too tired to do anything but go to sleep. 

Sometimes after watching a netflix movie I feel like I can’t possibly generate the energy to rise from the chair and make it to the bed. But by the time I have cleaned out the cat litter box, changed out of my clothes, brushed and flossed, take my vitamins/pills, checked my email box and the news, I may suddenly be wide awake with my mind eager to ponder everything about life. Before I realize it hours have gone by and I force myself to go to bed lest I feel tired most of the next day. Much of what I might be thinking about matters little to me personally.  Maybe it will be the 75 million refugees crammed in tents, hungry most of the time, surrounded by little children and older adults, and all ages in between, dying every day right before their eyes. Other times I think of varied people in my past and wonder about their situation now or try to remember them as they were years ago. Lot of interesting and good people can be found most anywhere.

It is in the post midnight hours when I sense most clearly that I am but a bit player in the evolutionary process. Feeling personally important seems reserved for day time hours when we dutifully play our roles in life as if we were awfully important to ourselves, to others, and to God. It seems those with busy family lives are too worn out to have post midnight, out of body experiences involving matters that are esoteric and elusive. In cities, post midnight hours are heavily youth oriented. It is in youth when it seems our emotional states are at their peak, whether it be love or excitement or music appreciation, or searches for the meaning of life. Of course I am way past the age when I can ever regain the kind of energetic excitement of city life after midnight. Change is the only constant in our lives.

I don’t think age dulls the senses, but life experiences have tempered the arrogant boastfulness and certainties of life that once attempted to dominate our lives. It is strange to finally comprehend that what team wins a sport contest does nothing to change our own lives, that love or sex driven by blind hormonal fantasy and desire was an age related phenomenon which will never be played out in the same manner again, that so much in life, at the time, which felt so important and cherished—with time, will become sullied or no longer have the same power over us as it once did. In youth it was all about ourselves. Now more mature, it seems little about life was ever about ourselves. It becomes incomprehensible how some can have so much and others so little in life, and 75 million refugees becomes an incomprehensible level of depravity and cruelness.  It seems beyond the pale that someone could rape and murder a young child or an old woman or actually any other human being. What kind of world are we living in?  Whatever God’s role in all of this it can not be any direct involvement. How could we pray to any God who is directly responsible for all this? There is no real comfort in the idiotic answer that ‘God acts in mysterious ways’. Too many people create a God tailored to their own self interests. At the top is the notion that God desperately needs us to worship Him. I suspect that must be news to Him.  

It is natural to seek out a special personal relationship with God, and to often believe that all the good things that happened to us came as a gift from God as a reward for doing God’s will here on earth.Diversity may be a key factor in driving the evolutionary process forward, but it also leaves a lot of sad carnage in it’s wake. Of course we are not all born equal, and of course not in America or anywhere else can any of us become whatever we wish to be. Most people are dependent on environmental/genetic situations and help from others to achieve much of anything in life. Look, we can’t in reality, almost all of us, just marry whomever we want. The other person has to be willing also, and so we really end up trying to love someone in our own attractiveness range. Imagine Plain Jane walking up to the Prom King and announcing “I have decided that you are the one I could love with the most intensity forever. Congratulations, we will marry next week.”  We actually spend most of our life simply trying to find our place to fit in with a modest degree of success. The reality seems to be that if you really can marry anyone you want, then any marriage won’t last too long. The ‘flavor’ of the day is available whenever the mood hits.

Nature is the only real reality and we can only connect to nature in the vaguest way. Today there are estimated to be 8.7 million species on our earth. There are 7 Billion humans on the earth today. 97+ percent of species that once existed have become extinct.  The earth is 5 billion years old. How does one take these figures and manage to feel important to the evolutionary process? It is pretty humbling. There is no way any of us can prove Heaven exists or doesn’t exist. A lot of people, mostly to protect their sanity, feel strongly that there is a Heaven. But they never talk much about the specifics of Heaven because that would be impossible. They don’t even fool themselves. No group wails louder at funerals than the ‘true believers’. If there truly is a Heaven for those who sin the least, then we would kill our kids in infancy before they could screw up and not get selected to go to Heaven. And every religious sect has a forgiveness clause, so no matter how much we screw up, we can always be saved by a merciful God. Of course if we killed or ruined several people’s lives earlier in our life, before being ‘saved’, well we get to go to Heaven by the mercy of God after we are saved. And those we harmed before we were saved, go to hell unless they were already saved before they might have later on have been “saved”. We always make God out to be so cruel and unfair. Why would I pray that God nullify His laws which govern the evolutionary process on my behalf, to make my life better in this or that way while he would ignore the prayers of the 75 million homeless refugees?  We can bet our asses that most of them pray a lot harder and a lot more often than we might. Then we have the audacity to feel that God likes us better. Humans, to a great extent, are extremely self serving when it comes to religion or ethics. Would Jesus really say “I don’t want any of those 75 million homeless refugees living on my block or in my neighborhood, or in my state, or in my country. Build a wall.”

What God did give the human species, via His evolutionary process, is the ability to help others. There is ample evidence now from scientific studies that those who help others are the most contented humans on earth regardless of their wealth, titles, ethnic group, religious group, culture and so on. Instead, it is much more likely that we will chase compulsive behaviors of varied sorts to achieve temporary pleasures which then traps us into the mentality that enough is never enough.  

We might ask, “well, what do these post-midnight hour feelings and thoughts do for those of us who have them? “  They are probably like sleep in that they better prepare us to be more contented in daylight hours when reality rules. The less understanding we have about the realities of life, the less likely we can enjoy our terminational years. I think for me, if I cannot continue, on a daily basis, to understand more about the different aspects of life and evolution and the laws of nature, and the diverse nature of the human species, then I do not feel more contented. We could spend a day chit chatting, but at the end of the day what has this done to our mindset? Of course, conclusions reached today may well have to be altered in future tomorrows. Change is a good sign since we do not reach final conclusions on major aspects of life after one day of pondering. The percentage of the time we ever end up right about any aspect of life before we croak is really not important at all. If we cannot come to understand that it is God’s laws which govern the evolutionary process, not us or any bunch of us—if we cannot understand this—then we will be frustrated most of our life. 

It seems, and maybe this is just personal, that the post-midnight hours are when we are most likely to line up clarity of thought with the greatest depth of feelings on most matters. The quietude of such post midnight hours is almost a necessity for us to concentrate on such lofty matters. Most large gatherings of people are just disingenuous acting charades in which everyone projects an image of how they wish us to think of them at that moment in time.  How many times do we get annoyed that someone acts in a manner which does not fit our perception of them? Why do we even bother to watch political speeches, since so often now a political party may have more than a dozen debates scattered over many months. Most politicians don’t even write their own speeches anymore, how the hell could they when their daily schedules include several public speeches. With all the sophisticated gadgets available to successfully be disingenuous with the voters, coupled with the complexity of the major issues, most voters vote more like they were contestants on the dating game: “I like this candidate best”. If we ever watch the comments by ‘undecided’ voters after a debate it was all about their feelings about candidate personalities. Democracy is failing us and we, including myself, are puzzled how to solve the problem.

Having said all this about the post-midnight hours, it must be admitted that all this pondering about deep esoteric aspects of life is probably just a reflection of personality and genes. We all know people who live a very orderly life, watch TV all day, spend most waking hours tweeting snippets of mundane matters to others, play computer games, and never really have any deep or knowledgeable thoughts about the weighty aspects of life. There is no way to engage them in any depth about any complicated political or philosophical aspects of life. It is painful to watch them struggle to say anything noteworthy on many topics. Is there any significance to this?  If there is, it escapes me. I have written nearly 500 lengthy musings on endless aspects of life. None of this, regardless of the percentage of the time any of the verbiage is true, affects the evolutionary process. What is best in whatever the environment of the time will survive. The laws which govern the process of evolutions determine the direction of evolution, not any of us. We are all pawns in the process. All we ever get is a chance to achieve some contentment in our lives over a minuscule period of evolutionary time. The cards we get in our hand at birth are by chance, God isn’t slipping any select cards into our genetic hand, or the environment in which we are born, or the historical time we are born, or who our parents are and so on. To achieve maximum contentment we must have help from others, and this depends a lot on the ethical nature of the society in which we live, and the the particular people who cross our path and impact on us. Whole lot of luck floating around our entire life. For the maximum number of people in any society to achieve some contentment in their lives requires the Golden Rule, in which both the giver and the receiver reach a higher level of personal contentment. 

The post- midnight hours are a special time of day for me. Suppertime might be a special time of day for a particular person or family. Church service might be a special time of day for others. This is just another example of diversity. Without an appreciation of diversity we could become another Trumpish caricature of anger, revenge, always seeking to give others the short end of the stick in any interactions, and be unable to sleep well at night from all the compulsive combativeness during daylight hours. Without the Golden Rule as a way of life, our way of life becomes mired in frustration. For me, it seems there is a need to mellow out during periods of the day in order to keep my understanding at a peak and my emotional state more contented. Post-midnight plays an important role in my well being. 

I finish here what always seems so appropriate for most of my musings:

“There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of behaving towards other men and your fellow creatures, towards all living things, towards the whole earth and the sky and the sun that is based on love, on compassion, on respect, on cherishing everything there is around you because it is wonderful, unique, it’s natural and good and it evolved that way by itself, it’s got to be cherished and if we think like that, and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness, we can all feel the sun and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation.” (Unknown) 

Terrell Owens and His Retirement Years

Terrell Owens and His Retirement Years

Some people are just intriguing personalities. Lincoln is my favorite. One never tires of studying Lincoln. It is sort of a hobby of mine to try to understand complex personalities who excel, but in differing ways. 

Terrell has always been a towering force for anyone who encounters him in life. His background is a story in itself, his amazing reservoir of genetic willpower along with his learned ability to self- focus exclusively on a career goal, coupled with an ingrained belief from his grandmother that no one, no one, can be trusted and that others, given the chance will take you down, have been features of his entire life. He did accomplish his career goal, to be one of the best wide receivers in football, and did this by jumping over, running around or running right through any hurdles in his way. If anyone ever did, he did it his way. 

But his life in other areas was neglected, never developed or matured, and left him vulnerable off the football field. Life is that a way, and it is hard to properly address all the aspects of life. Terrell Owens never even pretended to try. His social life was nonexistent, his business acumen non existent, and his sexual life that of a dumb fool. 

So, the burning question naturally was, what will Terrell Owens do when he is too old for football? The charge that no body wanted him on their team was a strange one since he lasted far longer than the vast majority of wide receivers in football. He was almost 40 before no team wanted him. 

At any rate, the questions were many about his life after retirement. Would he get depressed or turn reckless, get into drugs, be penniless like so many former NFL players, maybe even commit suicide, etc. Nothing is easily predictable about Terrell Owens. Fortunately, without football Terrell messed around with a lot of ventures including acting, bowling, swimming, clothes lines, and the list goes on and on. In the last two years he has been embroiled in a lot of public debate about his rejection into the NFL Football Hall of Fame. Stat-wise he is in the top three all time. But those who vote are mostly small time sport editors across the nation. AT one time these were important positions and attracted some really talented writers. But today, newspapers are almost irrelevant and are disappearing at a rapid rate. Of the 48 selectors I have only heard of a couple. 

Anyway their dislike of Terrell Owens is strong and personal. It was not just his personality, but the total distance he kept from them, as he did most others, including his teammates—especially the first half of his career. When he was finally pushed to be more social with teammates he ended up being accused of being a locker room distraction—even to the point where in Dallas it was felt that Romo could not be a team leader with T.O. around. Thus, T.O. was better left to himself in terms of locker room dynamics. It is not always a good idea to take those comfortable with social distance and force them to be more social. 

At any rate this Hall of Fame controversy has had unintended but good consequences for T.O. His former coaches, teammates, current members of the Hall of Fame, his fans, and even many of his non fans, have rallied to his side and for the first time Terrell is feeling a warmth in his relations with others. Terrell Owens is the kind of person who, if you are on a team with him, you don’t dislike him, you just don’t understand him, or are able to get close to him personally. T.O. never had a normal childhood and a lot of his antics were sophomoric but typical adolescent effervescence. If he celebrated by himself, well—he was in fact a one man band. There was no ‘posse’ around T.O., no close associates. When his grandmother developed Alzheimers and passed away he was on  his own. But as the clip at the end of this treatise illustrates, T.O. is finally developing some genuine social interactions and is now in closer in communication with former coaches, teammates, fans, and other football players. These are the unintended consequences of the personal vendetta some of the members of the Hall of Fame Selection Committer possess. Now, every year when they apply their vengeance on him, he gets to have his achievements debated again in public for a month. Many of his most vocal defenders are players who say, “I don’t know T.O. very well, but I played against him it seemed forever, and why are they so against him? He was really good, had no off the field issues, and was entertaining. For a long time he was a dominant force in the game. If anyone belongs in the Hall of Fame it is T.O.”  

In this sense the controversy has been therapeutic for T.O. He seems more relaxed and open around others now. The internal pressure he put on himself is over, and because the people he played with for years are so supportive of him now, I think he really doesn’t care much anymore about how long they keep him out of the Hall of Fame. He has gotten the validation he so wanted from those who were teammates or coaches for so many years, and what these ‘pencil pushers’ (his term) think probably doesn’t matter to him at all. He would rather have the controversy continue, year after year. 

Most fans have long forgotten who got into the Hall of Fame but most people, fans or not, know well what football player is being held out. No surprise who that player might be. God’s laws which govern the evolutionary process produce brilliant results, but make life tough for individuals in any species. 

A lot of time situations are balanced out. Like those satisfied with little are far more content than those who have a lot of wealth, titles, etc but have a compulsive need for more. And in this case, these ‘pencil pushers’ (T.O.’s term) or individual nothing burgers in the actual sport of football seeking to gain some importance or significance in their lives (my term), get to act out their personal feelings about star players and turn the selection process into some sort of ‘Dating Game’ show, while, in this case, the subject of their hatred, finds the situation such that he is able to connect with his former coaches, opponents, teammates, fans, and non fans in a way which brings him much contentment and personal growth in social skills. So, in that sense it is win-win.

While nothing can ever be sure with Terrell Owens, I sense he is adjusting well to retirement and like the kid he is destined to always be, he is comfortable with his new interests and for the first time, some genuine friends. The tape is below. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/terrell-owens-second-all-time-in-receiving-yards-somehow-denied-entry-to-hall-of-fame-again-000556573.html

P.S.: Another talented athletic star, Allen Iverson also had a unique childhood (much different from Terrell Owens) and also has a unique personality, was faced with a difficult retirement and it has not been kind to him. Unlike T.O., he was a total social being with compulsive social behaviors which were extremely self destructive. Both Terrell Owens and Allen Iverson have big hearts and a decent, good ethical mantra. Both have lived a life on the edge of self destruction. Terrell seems to be in a safe place now and Allen too, for the time being, seems to be in a safe, but more tenuous place. His acceptance speech to the Hall of Fame in Basketball was an interesting soul bearing speech which was one of a kind. His retirement life is another story, another musing, another day. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x67RQKknl-g