Groundhog Day 2017: Thriving in both chaos and order

It's been ten years since I wrote my first Groundhog Day article and even longer since I made the day something of a personal holiday. Here I am again noting the prognostications of various groundhogs, playing the film Groundhog Day [IMDB] on continuous repeat, reflecting on my journey in life over the past year, and revisiting the thoughts and writings of past Groundhog Days. These traditions are, for the most part, invented for myself by myself. That said, I also appreciate the company of others who choose to celebrate the day that has become uniquely special for me. It's a day that is oddly balanced as a visitation to both the repetitively routine and the excitingly evolving.

This past year has been tumultuous for many. Things have shifted in unexpected directions locally, socially, globally, politically, and environmentally. For better or worse, chaos is upon us. And yet, I find myself unafraid in the face of the unknown. I don't mean apathetic when I say unafraid; I mean that I feel ready and energized to experience new challenges. I have grown as a person thanks to the challenges I've experienced in life. Every new mountaintop -- whether literal or metaphorical -- has given me a new perspective. Sure, climbing each mountain was an arduous journey, but the experience has made me better able to climb the next mountain. Every challenge to my resolve has strengthened my willpower, every sadness has taught me new depths, and every smile has brought me new light. My journeys through chaos has become my new order.

In the ten years since I started writing each Groundhog Day, a lot has happened in my life. I have had more than a few perspective changing experiences coupled with more than a handful of "significant life events". I've learned well to embrace adventure and to seek challenge for myself both in my mind and the world around me. And yet, every year, I still circle back to a day of familiar routine and tradition.

Last year, I wrote about the value of perseverance and action. I expanded on those thoughts in a reflection on time. No matter how you choose to spend the time you have, be present in it. This year, I find myself thinking about the way that chaos has formed me into who I am, but how a personal foundation of meaning has given me purpose.

If life feels like a never-ending repetition, as it was for Phil in Groundhog Day, I invite you to find a way to create a little bit of chaos to stimulate fresh perspective. If instead you find yourself surrounded by chaos and turmoil, find a way to stay in the moment. If you panic, you allow the chaos which surrounds you to become a chaos within you. I invite you to thrive in the external storm of chaos while creating meaning and purpose within.

My life has been an amazing journey these past ten years; amazing in both its unexpected challenges and unanticipated growth. I expect that life will always present the unexpected and I know the future is unknown.
Life is a beautiful mix of chaos and order, routine and the unexpected. To live is to embrace that beauty and to heed the words of Douglas Adams in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" [Goodreads]... Don't Panic.

Role Models of Defiance

Today, it is again the fifth of November. A day during which I like to consider my place in society and society's place within myself. In previous years, I've used this day to prompt discussions regarding privacy, surveillance, control, and even a bit about setting boundaries. This year, I'd like to discuss the importance of questioning established systems.

I've written before about the costs and concepts of tradition and complacency before, emphasizing the benefits of critical thinking and asking "Why?".

You would not devour a meal before minimally evaluating its edibility, therefore I also encourage you to carefully consider what intellectually digest before you risk poisoning your reason and wisdom.

The same sentiments can be applied toward establishments of authority and organization. In fact, a number of psychological studies imply the challenges encountered when one does not have a healthy counter-balance for authority. One particularly famous (or infamous) study is the Milgram experiment [Wikipedia]. In these studies, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram measured an individual's willingness to obey the orders of an external authority and inflict perceived harm upon another person, even as inflicted that harm was contrary to their personal ethic. (Hank Green does a great job of summarizing this experiment in "Social Influence: Crash Course Psychology #38" [YouTube])

Of the results summarized by Hank, one significantly caught my attention: "Subjects are more likely to comply with orders if they didn't see anyone else disobeying, no role models of defiance." (You'll notice that it was Hank's words within that video which inspired this article's title and prompted its contents.) When I first heard those words a couple years ago, the gears began turning in my mind. What does it mean to be a "role model of defiance"? Do we have any or many in our society which stand in such a role?


(Please read footnote ¹ regarding this image.)

Privacy and Social Media

Remember, remember the fifth of November.

Three years ago, I wrote about "Privacy and Control", discussing topics of privacy in a world driven by data-collection and how "our gadgets have or will be taking on qualities commonly associated with gods: omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence". Today, I'd like to remember and reflect on those topics and check-in with how privacy is holding up under the current surveillance of our technology, most especially social media.

Photo: GETTY IMAGES, found here.

The maelstrom of data and information has grown in strength as technology develops. New venues for self-promotional social media pop-up everywhere; we have networks for where you go, what you're doing, what you're reading, what you're watching, who you're with, who might be nearby that you might want to meet, there are even services that enable you view and share the "as-it-happens" actions and location of your pets. For some, this is an exciting exploration of new territory. For others, it's a decent into terror.

The relentless march of technology presents society with an unending series of thin red lines, boundaries beyond which the future of our familiar comforts are uncertain. We seem well aware that data is being gathered. Since publishing my initial article on this subject, there have been a number of controversies, revelations, and even revolutions having to do with privacy and data (e.g. PRISM, Vodafone report, RSA encryption backdoor). Have these events changed our view of technology and privacy? I think the events have certainly made more people aware of a long-existent situation. That awareness has sparked a new surge in privacy-positive actions and services, but I posit that the arms-race of information and privacy is nothing new. The previous surge, on the opposite side, was made in 2001 when the public feared terrorism more than surveillance (e.g. PATRIOT Act, TSA).

The digital and physical worlds continue to blend. New "smart technology" brings more convenience to our households. Some people shy away from these new developments, preferring the safety of familiarity. Personally, I enjoy the forward progress of technology. In fact, my opinion about privacy and technology remains much the same as it was three years ago:

I am unafraid of the omnipresence of technology because I am more than the facts and data amassed. I choose not to attempt to hide the cataloging of my data because I try to never act without intention. Let me be entirely clear about another opinion I have of data and surveillance as it relates to freedom. There are those who would choose to use the gathering of data as a way to prevent others from having the freedom to act of their own will. This is never OK. In my opinion, a person should be allowed to act however they choose; as long as those actions do not prevent another person from making their own -- possibly opposing -- choice.

Social media presents us all with a challenges to our current paradigms. Where do we draw our own personal lines? How much is too much information? Each of us must establish the boundaries of our individual comfort zones [INDY Blog: "Experience the Challenge"]. Much like the differing opinions on personal space within societies around the world, communities may find themselves interacting with individuals with differing social media "personal bubbles". While I often find myself comfortable with a very large social media bubble, you might be inclined to be more private.

Today is the day that you define your boundaries and understand the lines which you are uncomfortable having others cross, whether governmental or social. Once you find those lines, stand up for them firmly. I respect your right to make your own choices. My choices might be different than yours, but I will still advocate for yours as long as they don't impede on the rights of others. Remember, remember the fifth of November.

Review: Inferno

Inferno by Dan Brown

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Dan Brown has done it again; with Inferno, he has taken his readers on a whirlwind adventure through symbology, mystery, and history. This time, though, there was an added twist; the story invites us to assess our own action as part of the human community and world.

I'll avoid spoilers and just leave my thoughts at what's written above, but I easily give this novel 5 stars and invite you to also descend into the "Inferno".



View all my reviews

The Wolf Festival

What's black, white, and red all over?

If it's two goats and a dog, then the answer is "The Wolf Festival", the ancient tradition which gave way to Valentine's Day. ["Lupercalia" - Wikipedia]

Mid-February is Lupercalia, the Wolf Festival, an ancient Roman festival of purification and fertility. During the festival, the Luperci -- the "brothers of the wolf" -- would sacrifice two male goats and a dog. They would then smear the blood of that sacrifice on the faces of new initiates into the Luperci. The initiates would then cut lashes of goat flesh and run through the city. Young women would present themselves along their route in order to be whipped by these lashes, which tradition held would ensure fertility.

Eventually, Lupercalia was banned (along with other out-of-fashion rituals) by Pope Gelasius, but we'll come back to that. Before we move forward into what Lupercalia became (spoiler: Valentine's Day), let's learn about where it may have had its origins.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:She-wolf_suckles_Romulus_and_Remus.jpg

Legend has it that Rome was founded by the twins Romulus and Remus, suckled as infants by a she-wolf. Much of Roman culture was of Greek origin, Lupercalia is no exception. The Luperci formed in honor of this she-wolf (lupa) and Lupercalia was born atop the rituals of a Greek festival of wolf lore called "Lykaia" [Wikipedia]¹.

Back to the future, Christianity eventually became the popular religion, so public displays of the old religions were banned. Many of the festivals and holidays of antiquity were replaced with new Christian equivalents. Winter solstice became Christmas. Spring equinox was replaced by Easter. Harvest festivals, celebrated with the cornucopia of Zeus or the wheat of Ceres, gave way to All Saints Day (and its All Saints Eve, aka Halloween).

When you're supplanting traditions with a multitude of deities and demigods with monotheistic beliefs, it is -- by definition -- easy to get out-numbered. That is, until you throw in your own versions of the divine on Earth: saints. So, Gelasius replaced Lupercalia with St. Valentine's Day, in recognition of a few early Christians (name Valentine) who were martyred for their then-unpopular beliefs.

Valentine's Day (and the other "new" holidays) anchored well into society and was largely untouched for almost a thousand years, at least until Chaucer put the spin of chivalry and courtly romance into it.

"For this was Seynt Valentyne's Day. When every foul cometh ther to choose his mate."

The popularity of this idea spread faster than the brief second it actually takes for avian insemination, Valentine's Day became a day of courting and affection.

Over the centuries to follow, Valentine's Day went through a slow metamorphosis into something "new": a ritual of fertility. Now, at the least, I hope that ritual doesn't involve the bloody flesh of a goat. Please let me remain blissfully ignorant, if that is not the case.

---

¹ The Lykaia festival of ancient Greece is part of the legendary heritage of the origin of werewolves. I'm sure it was no coincidence that Anne Rice released her newest novel "The Wolf Gift" yesterday during Lupercalia.

Silly Superstition

It is now 11:11 on Friday the 13th. Does that mean good luck or bad luck?

"Superstition" has existed since humans began asking questions about the Universe. Wikipedia defines superstition as "a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events" ["Superstition" - Wikipedia]. I'll give the word a more blunt definition: A superstition is something someone chooses to fabricate when they don't actually know a real explanation.

One can imagine some distraught ancient farmer approaching the local sage to ask the sage about the failure of his crops. The sage is familiar with some successful local farmers and knows that they all have beards. So, the sage -- knowing nothing of farming -- tells the distraught farmer that it is his lack of facial hair causing the crops to fail.

The sage's explanation is, of course, a fallacy [Wikipedia]. "Correlation does not imply causation", however his answer is still accepted because the distraught farmer either has trust in the sage or knows no other explanation. The story (and our growth as a society) would have gone a completely different direction had the sage simply told the farmer, "I don't know. Ask one of the successful farmers."

Remember the warning in my article on "A Hierarchy to Understanding"?

If Wisdom is the culmination of experiential Knowledge, then finding the sources of that knowledge becomes an important exercise in understanding. All too often people will spread information without considering its source, truth, or purpose. In such a networked world, that is a very dangerous thing. If we wish to consume so much information, then I suggest that we become connoisseurs of it; carefully sampling each tidbit and weighing its value for further consumption.

Most people are able to overrule superstition with the proper application of rational thought, but some superstitions have become culturally ingrained crutches, making them emotionally addictive for the naïve and/or vulnerable. When some people find themselves asking questions with explanations still unknown or -- perhaps due to difficult life circumstances -- receive answers they are unwilling to accept, they choose to hold to the superstition and not acknowledge the alternative. Like drug addicts of the irrational, only through caring support can the most ardent of the superstitious be guided into a life of free thought.

It can be humorous to ominously joke about "knocking on wood". Even I enjoy the foolishness of something as silly as Groundhog Day. So long as we recognize a superstition as silliness and not seriousness, we can continue on a path toward understanding. However, it is important to also acknowledge that the fear felt by those who hold tightly to superstition is very real and it might be rooted in very delicate emotional states. Finding humor is a good way to positively influence society to see the silliness of superstition, but critical thinking (asking "Why?") is the best way to stop superstitions before they start.

So, back to my original question. Is it good luck or bad luck that this post was published at 11:11 on Friday the 13th? I choose to see it like this: it's almost midday on a Friday; that is a happy thought for me and superstition has nothing to do with it.