Ageless in Spirit: Discussions and interests for our times

 October 18, 2021 Saturdays and Wednesdays are my hiking days with a small group of adventurers in the mountains, valleys, streams, and sometimes top of the mountains traverses. This Saturday we took some offshoot trails off of the main Ohana Trail on windward Oahu. The ascent was a good workout on an uncleared but very navitagable trial to our usual lunch spot at the crest of the main Ohana trail. Since I was the organizer of today's hike we went down Iron Maiden a mostly steep winding bike route off the mountain. Just as we started along the narrower but not steeper part it poured (Mauka shower) so the bike dirt packed narrow trail was now slick and muddy. We all had spikes on our boots but quickly they became ineffective so sliding and imbalance down the steeper switchbacks led some of us to just sit down and mud slide to more level areas. Slowly we descended with some of us squealing with delight and trepidation whenever we did our mudslide maneuver. I know one our group was ve...

 October 7, 2021 I've been busy with my usual activities but recently concentrating on understanding quantum physics (the physics of the very very very tiny) by reading articles (esp.  Suskind wormhole theory of black hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER_%3D_EPR ), Katie Mack's The End Of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), Lee Smolin  and loop gravity theory in Einstein's Unfinished Revolution The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum, and finally Sabine Hossenfelder's Lost in Math book rant on theory making, math beauty, quantum theory, and the scientific communities problems in getting stuck in outdated unproven theories and the short changing of progress in new research and  new theories.  For example, in quantum mechanics once you measure something very very very small (i.e. position or momentum) you have by your measurement found one or the other measurements (decoherence) and influenced the particles characteristics to influence the other paired pa...

 September 21, 2021 Our lives have changed! December 31, 2019 reports from Wuhan, China heralded COVID-19. So one and three quarter years later we continue to live in this changed world in which infections continue to seriously disable and kill us. So mask wearing, vaccine prevention, and avoiding crowds and enclosed spaces with many people remain. Daily reminders of the danger of the virus abound. Ruth, my sister living in assisted living environment and vaccinated, was in the hospital for COVID for over one week near death, on oxygen. Luckily she rallied and now is back in her safe assisted living complex. We noticed paint peeling from our home and contacted our handiman  who was ready to start but he was not vaccinated. He was not objecting to the vaccine but this was low on his priority list. Rebecca contacted him and was ready to assist him in getting his vaccine if he permitted but he told her he had his first shot a few days before so he is now on the second week of rep...

 September 2, 2021 A good friend called last week. She was on the Island of Hawai'i at her hotel when a visitor remarked that she was leaning to one side and when she stood up she continued to lean to this side. She was unaware of the odd stance but wound up in an ambulance to the local hospital in Waimea, air evacuated to Queen's Hospital and had a subdural hematoma evacuated with her being home again in Honokaa three days later seemingly no worse for wear -amazing! We discussed the inadequate health care system on the island and her interest that day in moving back to Oahu. She is coping with being the caregiver to my friend who is now impaired with cognitive decline while she is handicapped with congestive heart condition. After our discussion of the decline of the hotel business and her decision not to rent to people who are not vaccinated or have young children we commiserate with each other on the state of our countries disunion.   About this time, my friend who has...

 August 17, 2021 I wake up in the morning, do my morning absolutions in the bathroom with this morning using my electric shaver, take my ARED2 pill and amble down the stairs to the kitchen greeting Rebecca. She and I give each other a peck kiss and I persuade her to use my electric shaver to get the stray hairs I missed under my jaw and bye my neck. My breakfast routine includes taking a very ripe banana, some Activa, two teaspoons of bran flakes and some granola. Coffee grinding into the receptacle to a point for these beans so when I tamp the very finely grounded coffee the espresso machines pressure bars are correct (or else too full and the water seeps through the beans too slowly). I remember to take my morning pills of blood thinner and artery health. Then outside where I have a table and chairs in the shade I turn over the cushion for the chair so its dry (it rained last night). I then open my iPhone and read the news. That's where all this material for this blog begins. Fir...

 August 10, 2021 Do you have physical boundaries to yourself? A curious question I know since the contextual descriptors are missing. Let's try this. Do you feel uncomfortable when someone is too close to you, maybe touches you purposely or not, gives you  some feelings of fear or even loathing? Now there we're more in the meat of the matter. What if their touching your car steering wheel or your door knob of your house? How about if they have their fingers on your toothbrush or just used your toilet to urinate standing up with some possible splash residue? Creepy feelings inside can be aroused with adjectives of fear or disgust being there almost immediately. Our boundaries of our physical space may be defined by our past experiences including violations in which someone has crossed into our body spaces without permission. We feel creepy, fearful, maybe disgusted and we behave like we're violated with these emotions and sometimes anger. Boundary violations of our physical ...

 August 3, 2021 I'm  curious person interested in learning both new skills such as piano playing and new information that enhances my knowledge and allows me to see and comprehend more about myself, others, groups, social issues, and even cosmology and basic science. My chosen vocation of psychiatry has been a great journey into these realms though this journey has had its very boring times and frustrations with bureaucracy and ethical lapses of colleagues (which maybe one day I'll write about). Understanding and reasoning has always been a search of mine sometimes with clarity but also sometimes leading into murky nether worlds of confusion and doubt. For example, I tried to understand Kurt Godel who is famous for proving that in mathematics though its a very logical science can never be a complete discipline with full understanding of theorems and functions that all come together it will always be incomplete. Though this sentence seems to provide a conclusion of understandi...