Author Archives: David Truss

Limits of time, space, and intelligence

“The Fermi paradox, named after Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations and various high estimates for their probability.” Wikipedia

We are not alone in the universe. Our insignificant planet, in an insignificant solar system, in an insignificant galaxy, in an insignificant part of the universe, can’t be the only place intelligent life exists. So where are the aliens? Why haven’t we discovered them or why haven’t they discovered us?

The universe is incredibly large to a scale we can’t really comprehend. Beyond our galaxy, stars that we see are so far away that it takes hundreds of thousands to millions to billions of light years for light from them to reach us. Think about that… that means that any of those stars that have planets with intelligent life, who might be looking at the light from our sun, is seeing that light from a time when humans were prehistoric or non-existent. They can’t look through a telescope and see our human satellite encircled earth, they can only see a planet that might have water, in the Goldilocks zone where life as we know it might exist.

It is hard to conceive of the distance and relationships between time and space that make our discovery of other life so unlikely, even if their existence is very likely. Our earth is 4.5 billion years old and the first satellite, Sputnik 1, was only launched 64 years ago.

What I also wonder about is the limits of intelligence. None of our great civilizations lasted very long. Maybe the intellect and intelligence of our species, and any intelligent alien species, has a very small window of time to find other intelligent life. Maybe the same holds true for all other intelligent life that might be looking for us.

In the short time that we have been able to leave the gravitational pull of earth, we have gone through a Cold War where we were on the brink of destroying ourselves, and we have harmed our environment to a level where we have altered the climate. Maybe from the time we can look to the stars through telescopes until we destroy ourselves, will only span a time of a few hundred years?

Think about this: in less than a hundred years a high school aged kid could have the technology and access to resources to create a weapon that involves splitting atoms… or create a deadly virus that’s 1,000 times as deadly as Covid-19. That’s in their basement, with easily acquired resources, and no university degree. With the advancement of science and knowledge, comes easy access to dangerous knowledge.

Maybe there are hundreds or thousands of intelligent species out in the universe but from the time they are intelligent enough to look beyond their universe for life, until they destroy themselves, is so small that most of them are already extinct. Or they exist now, but the light we see from their solar system is coming from so far away, we are literally only able to see their prehistoric past.

It’s a bit of a depressing thought, but maybe we will never find aliens and they will never find us, because as intelligent as we and they may become, a world-ending knowledge will undermine our/their abilities to keep searching long enough.

(And I didn’t even factor in Artificial Intelligence taking over and not having the same inquisitive nature to explore the heavens.)

Balancing fitness and wellness

On January 19th my brother-in-law and I bet that we would be able to do a couple fitness challenges by February 19th. The first one is 60 push-ups, and the second one is 30 pull-ups.

I began at a point where I was regularly doing 25-30 push-ups and 10-12 pull-ups, and felt that 60 consecutive push-ups was easy to get to, but the pull-ups would be a challenge. I was right, and while a week ago I was able to do 60 push-ups (the last 15 very slowly and more vocal than I would have liked), I was only at 18 pull-ups and knew I would struggle to hit my goal by the 19th.

Then my upper back started to tighten up. I have always had to take special care of my back, dealing with issues since I grew 7.5 inches in a year as a teenager. I have mild scoliosis, and deal with discomfort daily, and pain when I’m not caring for myself, or when I do something silly or accidental. This upper back pain wasn’t an injury feeling, just an overall tightness that wouldn’t go away.

So, last week Wednesday I had a very deep massage that was one of the more uncomfortable ones I’ve had in ages, and came home had a hot tub after dinner. In the hot tub, finally feeling normal, I decided I needed to give my shoulders a break and I paused my push-up and pull-up regimen. I’ve kept up my cardio, I took Saturday off, I took it easy yesterday, and will do so again today when I head down to my home gym after writing this.

The reality is that I’m stubborn and I plan on meeting the pull-up challenge eventually. I’m fitter than I’ve been in a couple decades. I’m lighter than I’ve been in a couple decades. And half a life ago I used to do 3 sets of 28 chin-ups with a 25lb weight hanging off of me. I know 30 pull-ups is something I’ll be able to ‘pull off’. The challenge is that I can’t live my life trying to meet unrealistic fitness goals, and feeling like my back is in a constant state of flexing too hard. I can’t sacrifice my wellness for a fitness goal.

I’ve been on a 2-year healthy living path. My back has been better than it has been in years, but I would still be lying to myself if I said my back didn’t give me issues. Stretching and very deep massage help a lot. Staying fit helps a lot. But over-exertion and pushing myself doesn’t help. I can progress and improve slowly, but I can’t race.

At 53, I don’t plan on slowing down and taking it easy. I plan on reaching new fitness goals… but I need to be the tortoise and not the hare. Slow and steady progress is what will benefit me, while pretending I’m youthful and invincible will cause avoidable injury. This will hurt both my overall wellness and my ability to not just improve but also maintain my fitness. I won’t be doing 30 pull-ups any time soon, but I will work to get there, and I believe it’s achievable… without sacrificing the well-being of my back.

Reflections from a 2-week social media vacation

No big aha moments. I had a few moments where I read something and my instinct was to share it on Twitter. I missed a chance to do a podcast with some friends I haven’t connected with in a while. And a former students and a few current students took some time to welcome me back with some ‘doctored’ images of me. (I’ve been uwuify’d.)

https://twitter.com/laefk/status/1358230779302580224

I think if I did this social media vacation 5 or 6 years ago, I would have missed it a lot more, but I don’t engage on social media nearly as much as I used to. Also, my school days tend to be long and I’m very rarely on social media at school, unless it’s for the school, or maybe while eating lunch. So, this self-imposed break really just stopped me from vegging out on TikTok when I’m tired, (I find it far more entertaining than TV and have a time limit on it so that it’s like watching a half-hour show).

I’m not sure if I’ll take a break like this again any time soon, but I also think that I might come back slowly. I’d also like to experiment and play a bit more with ClubHouse. I’m a huge fan of audio and I can see some real value in this new platform. If you haven’t heard of it yet… you will.

Welcome to Clubhouse

Well, I kind of broke my social media vacation a day early. I was invited into Clubhouse by Mike Slinger. For those of you that don’t know what Clubhouse is, it is a voice/conversation based social media platform where people create rooms where anyone can join and chat or listen. Moderators can run the room like a live podcast or as a room where they invite anyone in to join the conversation.

Very early this morning I joined a room, Connect EDU. The host, Giancarlo Brotto, quickly invited newcomers into the conversation to share their background.

I really see potential here. The sharing of voice is powerful. I can imagine people having some really great conversations ‘out loud and in the open’ but live with an audience who can raise their hand and contribute. I also see the potential for some strong community-building.

I had an idea for a text-based environment similar to this a few years ago. I imagined a private chat that is publicly viewable, and a side chat for the audience. Imagine two to five people having an in-depth Facebook-style text conversation but if you were reading from the outside, you couldn’t comment directly… the conversation is theirs, but that there was also a side panel for the audience. Then the people having the conversation could invite the audience in, if they see and like something in the audience chat.

Clubhouse does this with voice rather than text, and I think this new social media platform is going to explode! I’m reminded of radio call-in shows, and I can foresee some incredible communities being built. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it yet, but I’m pretty sure Clubhouse is going to be a platform you hear more and more about in the coming months.

Flossing your teeth

Flossing is something that is extremely good for you, you know it, it doesn’t take long… and you don’t do it.

“You can exercise, eat well, and be emotionally healthy, but if you don’t floss, cavities could be just the beginning of your problems. 

Flossing every day is so crucial to health that it’s one of the questions included in the Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator.” ~BusinessInsider.com

I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who feels guilty going to get my teeth cleaned, because I know that the dental assistant is going to make me feel bad for not flossing. I’m not the only one who remembers to floss for 2-3 days before that cleaning, then promptly forgets to floss until just before the next cleaning. Or I floss when I can feel something stuck between my teeth.

For over half a century that has been my flossing story, until a month ago. I seem to have developed a bit of a gap between two of my lower back left molars and food gets stuck in there very easily. I learned this when I had to floss a few days in a row because I could feel food between these teeth. After that, I was in the bathroom the following night without the feeling of something stuck and decided to floss anyway, after brushing my teeth. Sure enough there was food stuck between those same molars even though I didn’t feel it.

I was a bit grossed out thinking that every night I go to bed with decaying food between my teeth, even though I always brush my teeth. I realized that I’m probably going to get a cavity if I don’t do this daily. And just like that a new habit was finally formed!

So here are is my public service announce: You will increase your life expectancy by flossing every day; it’s a small, easy habit that doesn’t take long in your day; and if you don’t do it, you probably go to sleep every night with decaying food in you mouth.

Want to start this healthy, life-extending habit? Do a 3-night experiment: Brush your teeth like you usually do for three nights in a row… then floss your teeth.

See what you leave behind in your mouth every night, despite your good habit of brushing.

Writing out loud

For 4 days in a row, I’ve been up before my alarm. This morning it was before 4:30 am. In addition to a bit more writing time, I might also get a bit of email time in… along with my meditation and workout before heading to my school. But also for the 4th day in a row, I started writing a blog post, and more than 1/2 way through decided to erase it and start again. This isn’t a journal that I tuck under my bed, for my eyes only… it’s public. That changes the dynamic of what I want to say.

Monday when I wrote, We are all in the same lifeboat, the original, deleted post was on a similar topic but it was very negative and scathing towards people I call in the post above ‘vaccine hesitant’. It was a full on rant against people who selectively choose the science they want to pay attention to on the fringes. With 7.8 billion people on earth, and social media designed to share attention seeking information, you can find an expert somewhere that disagrees with convention and spreads misinformation. You can find a quotation out of context. You can find data to manipulate in a way that makes it look worse than it is, or use data n a way not intended by the research.

I was listening to a podcast recently that spoke of how much we love the Galileo story. We want to find that story, about the person who sees the world differently than convention… and is right. But while science is dependent on this for progress, these stories are far more infrequent than conventional science being right.

Two days ago I wrote, Thinking Time and Space, and I wasn’t fully honest when I said, “I’m not ready to share the drawing yet, ideas are still being put together. But I can share a couple parts I’ve already written about”. I would have shared the image in progress, or more of it, if it had time to discuss the image, but I wasted too much time writing about an issue that I realized I shouldn’t share. It was some thoughtful writing that took time, but I had no way of masking who I was talking about as I navigated a challenging situation at work… again, some writing that should only be written in a private journal.

Yesterday’s The gift of giving almost didn’t get published, because after writing it I thought, ‘after making the point that giving has a selfish aspect, am I not also emphasizing this in a really negative way by somewhat bragging about giving?‘ But I’d already erased a post I didn’t want to share, and needed to schedule my post and get on with my day.

Today I started to write about a really sensitive topic, and realized that I wasn’t doing it justice. I was trivializing a challenging issue in a way that was disrespectful, to make a point that was completely undermined by my aloofness towards the topic. So I erased it and here I am giving a summary of how hard it is to write publicly sometimes.

I find myself struggling to write openly, while also being respectful to others; Trying to not disclose information about the lives of other people that should stay private; Trying not to rant when something is bothering me; Trying to be personal, but not over sharing.

Some mornings the writing flows, sometimes I stare at the blinking curser and my mind is more blank than when I try to meditate. But the hardest part of writing a daily, public journal is going through phases like this where I actually invest time in writing something, then delete it. For 4 days now, I’ve woken up early only to write and erase something and start over again. I’m not trying to be thoughtful, poignant, meaningful, and/or interesting every single day. I’m trying to be honest. But writing out loud every day can be challenging to do because not everything that comes to mind, and gets written, should be published.

The gift of giving

Recently my family was able to help out another family. It wasn’t something we did ourselves, a community of people stepped up to help, we simply coordinated the support and did our part to contribute.

There is both a selfless and a selfish aspect of giving. The selfless part is that you do something kind without wanting anything in return. The selfish part is that you feel really good doing it. That is the gift you get, when you give.

A while back I worked in a very needy community and I was always surprised to learn that some of the needy families were the same families that volunteered in soup kitchens or in the community regularly. They were happy to give their time to help others. I realized that they often received charity, understood how much it was valued, and wanted to do the same for others.

They understood the value of getting gifts and wanted to do the same for others. Not having money, they gave their time. Interestingly, I think that when you give your time, rather than just money, the gift you receive as the giver is greater.

It’s weird to talk about giving as a selfish act, perhaps the better word is rewarding. So I’ll end by saying that giving to others in need is a rewarding act, it feels good, and nourishes you as much as it does those in need.

Find ways to reward yourself by giving to others.

Thinking time and space

The last few weeks have been busy. That is a statement I could probably say at any given point in the school year, but specifically I’ve been task busy recently. What I mean is that my day disappears with me doing what I need to do and not at all what I want to do. I haven’t had much thinking time.

So at the end of last week I started a drawing on my office whiteboard. It a hero’s journey metaphor for our school. I’m not ready to share the drawing yet, ideas are still being put together. But I can share a couple parts I’ve already written about:

Teacher as Compass

And,

Learning and Failure

I’ve probably only spent about an hour and a half over 4 days on this, not too much time… But this time has allowed me to think… It has given my brain permission to go beyond the tasks at hand… It has excited me about the journey ahead.

It’s easy to get caught in the hamster wheel, racing to nowhere, but getting there quickly. It takes intentional effort to step off the wheel and to pause long enough to think, to be creative. My whiteboard has become that space.

Yesterday after lunch, I was working on a section of the board where my secretary could see me making notes and she said, “You are having so much fun on that board.” For about 15-20 minutes I was! I’ve created some thinking time and space in my day. It’s not only time well spent, it’s time that charges my batteries and help me see value in all the other things I must do. It reminds my of why everything else matters, because our personal journey matters… if we make time for it.

We are all in the same lifeboat

A few days ago I wrote about the state of limbo we are in, dealing with the coronavirus. I said,

My thoughts: If everything goes well, it could be September before we get close to vaccinating enough of the population to truly ease up on our personal restrictions. More likely, we are looking at January 2022. That’s another year away. I think things will get much better, but the path will be slower than everyone wants.

However I made an assumption that I’m starting to question. More and more I’m realizing that there are going to be too many ‘free riders‘, too many people not taking the vaccine. Too many people believing that the vaccine will cause more issues than the virus. Too many that think the virus isn’t serous enough in their age bracket. Too many people that misunderstand what a vaccine is and what it does.

Without enough of a herd immunity, the virus will continue to spread in a way that means our lifestyle pre-pandemic are not likely to return for years. Virus mutations can and will spread, and each mutation has the potential to spread more easily and/or mutate enough to make vaccines less effective.

It’s like we are all in the same lifeboat and it has tiny little holes in it. Vaccinated people plug the holes, non-vaccinated people don’t think the holes are a serious enough problem. These free riders aren’t doing their job plugging the holes in the boat. And because of that, the boat keeps getting wetter.

I’m shocked every time I hear someone say that they won’t get vaccinated. I know there are ‘anti-Vaxers’ who link vaccines to false claims and negative propaganda, but I can’t say I’ve met or know too many people I’d put in this category. What I am seeing is vaccine hesitant people who think that vaccines for Covid-19 are unreliable, or not significantly tested, or even dangerous. It is this group that scares me. The crackpot anti-vaxer community is a fringe group, too large for my liking but not larger enough to endanger heard immunity from happening… however the vaccine hesitant group is way bigger than I thought, and this group will undermine the ability to reach herd immunity; to keep our lifeboat dry enough not to be concerned.

Only a few days ago I was feeling like I was being pessimistic saying the earliest rerun to ‘normal’ was January 2022, but now I’m thinking that’s terribly optimistic. We could be stuck in this leaky lifeboat for a very long time.

The secret to happiness

It always seems to be one or the other, (read the parable below). This truly is the secret to happiness. I read The Alchemist a half a life ago, but this parable has never really left my thoughts. I’m going to listen to the audio version again this year, in fact, I have an Audible credit and think I’ll get it after posting this.

Also, if you read the parable below and want to read the book, I’ll buy it for the first 3 people that contact me. It will be my pleasure to share this book with you.

The two drops of oil

By Paulo Coelho

A merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of men. The young man wandered through the desert for forty days until he reached a beautiful castle at the top of a mountain. There lived the sage that the young man was looking for.

However, instead of finding a holy man, our hero entered a room and saw a great deal of activity; merchants coming and going, people chatting in the corners, a small orchestra playing sweet melodies, and there was a table laden with the most delectable dishes of that part of the world.

The wise man talked to everybody, and the young man had to wait for two hours until it was time for his audience.

The Sage listened attentively to the reason for the boy’s visit, but told him that at that moment he did not have the time to explain to him the Secret of Happiness.

He suggested that the young man take a stroll around his palace and come back in two hours’ time.

“However, I want to ask you a favor,” he added, handling the boy a teaspoon, in which he poured two drops of oil. “While you walk, carry this spoon and don’t let the oil spill.”

The young man began to climb up and down the palace staircases, always keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. At the end of two hours he returned to the presence of the wise man.

“So,” asked the sage, “did you see the Persian tapestries hanging in my dining room? Did you see the garden that the Master of Gardeners took ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

Embarrassed, the young man confessed that he had seen nothing. His only concern was not to spill the drops of oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“So, go back and see the wonders of my world,” said the wise man. “You can’t trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Now more at ease, the young man took the spoon and strolled again through the palace, this time paying attention to all the works of art that hung from the ceiling and walls.
He saw the gardens, the mountains all around the palace, the delicacy of the flowers, the taste with which each work of art was placed in its niche. Returning to the sage, he reported in detail all that he had seen.

“But where are the two drops of oil that I entrusted to you?” asked the sage.

Looking down at the spoon, the young man realized that he had spilled the oil.

“Well, that is the only advice I have to give you,” said the sage of sages.
“The Secret of Happiness lies in looking at all the wonders of the world and never forgetting the two drops of oil in the spoon.”
~ from the book “The Alchemist”