How to measure signal to noise ratio (SNR)

The world feels loud these days, too damn loud for me!  It is the sorta loud where everything starts blending together.  The anger.  The misinformation.  The constant outrage cycles.  The hot takes.  The factions all yelling at this, that, and the other things, each dead certain they’re right.  After a sustained bombardment of noise, a sort of positive feedback loop kicks in.  For the non techies, that is like when you yell into a bad microphone and it just keeps winding itself up, shriller and the louder the shrill, the louder it makes itself.  The thing about the noise is that if you are exposed to it long enough you can start forgetting what the actual signal sounds like, you become acclimated to the noise.  When we hit that point, we can easily forget that truth has tone, dignity has tone, humanity has tone and right now those tones are being drowned out by all this damn noise.

Working in technology for my entire adult life, especially my experience with high power transmitters, situates me to understand and think about signal to noise ratios more than most folks.  Not in some abstract way, in a way that only 40 years of experience with signal to noise can give a person.  I see everyone contributing to the feedback loop, in ways we may not even recognize.  Some of it big, like what we share with others, how fast we react, whether we read past the headline, whether we treat people like avatars or people from the protection of distance and the buffer of our devices. 

Then there is the small consistent actions we take, noticing when a coworker is off and handing them a pack of lifesavers or texting that friend back right away vs leaving it unread, or even taking a breath before we ad one more opinion or hot take to the already burning pile.  Being a helper is signal amplification work, not noise amplification work.  The small stuff may seem small but it is what changes the room.  Choose to be steady when everything around you is trying wind you up.  I got this tattoo to be my constant reminder to pause,  think and check in with my values, which I hold in my heart, and then determine if I am feeding the signal or the noise. 

 
The more I think about this the more it actually feels like we are living in world with bad filters.  When stray harmonics are introduced into things they contribute to the feedback loop as noise and we install filters specifically to remove those frequencies, for example if you are old enough to remember the 60hz hum in your fancy wood sided Kenwood receiver when the caps started dying, you understand what I mean.  When filters go bad, or drift off frequency, the downstream signal chain gets fuzzy or distorted. 

The signal is still there but what comes out sounds like hot garbage.  In today’s world the filters are no longer mechanical and inert.  Todays filters are the algorithmic automatons running our feeds, they are far from inert and designed to keep us scrolling.    This is evident when half baked headlines of outrage of one sort or the other out runs the truth of things and it seems the collective we have the attention span of a Bolivian fruit fly, and the algorithms know it.   We can see how easily distortion becomes our reality, the algorithmic engagement engines work hard at that.

Some days it feels like we are compressing our humanity just to fit into the feed.  In audio, and video when you compress too aggressively it strips out the warmth, the nuance and all the things that makes audio feel alive and full and the things that make video so dynamic.  The compression on the old analog TV is a good example, that looked washed out and lifeless.  I feel like our habits now drive us to do that to each other.  We flatten folks to their worst moment, their loudest mistake and pretend that actually describes the original signal.  The world and those who live in it are not binary, we are magnificently complex and quirky individuals who all have something to add to the greater good, foibles, skeletons and all.  Humans are not MP3 files, we are not meant to be reduced until all the good frequencies get lost in the noise.

And then there is interference.  Every engineer has dealt with that as some point, some spurious source bleeding into the wires, some device screaming on the same frequency or that blasted 5^th harmonic or some trash noise signal bouncing around inside the chassis.  We got the same damn thing happening in almost every aspect of our lives.   Everyone broadcasting all the time, the damn ground is floating and the power supply hash is  wreaking havoc.  Half the time we are reacting to cross talk from folks we don’t know, will never meet in places we will not go, and this is on issues that both of us barely understand in the first place.  No wonder clarity feels so scarce.  We need a faraday cage to block out the interference.  

While this almost sounds like me waxing philosophical, I want to be clear, I am no Saint in this.  I am not walking the noble eight fold path with the discipline of a monk.  I’m stumbling along like a drunken sailor, who just won’t stop trying.  I very much contribute to the noise, I recognize this posting is part of that noise.  Sometimes I react to quickly, sometimes I let my frustration lead instead of my better self.  But the older I get, the more I realize my noise footprint matters, no more cranking it up to 11.  All of us contribute, we have obligation to each other to file the STA, that is Smitty speak getting permission to crank that transmitter down to low power.  Reducing the power does not mean shutting it down. Cranking it down is a choice, and intentional act to ensure our better selves lead, in all situations.  Asking ourselves is what Im about to feed into my transmitter adding signal clarity or am I injecting noise.  That little pause, that check in, that is signal work too.

Over my life I have noticed a constant, every helper I’ve ever known or seen is basically a walking signal amplifier.  It’s a special amplifier, it allows to spin off more positive and good into the universe than we do negative and bad.  They always seem to show up calm when things get chaotic.  They offer presence instead of gas for the fire.  They tune in the quiet stuff that everyone else misses.  They say the hard truth in a way that folks can actually hear it.  Helpers don’t crank up the volume or the power, they improve the fidelity.  They help everyone in the room hear the parts that matter. 

Look Y’all, at the end of the day measuring signal to noise is simple, we measure what comes through clean vs what just adds static. You look at what you’re putting out into the universe and you ask yourself, does this make the signal clearer or just louder.  If its noise, crank that shit down.  If its signal, power it up because truth, dignity and humanity still cut through when we the stop feeding the freaking feedback loop.  If ya wanna remember what the signal sounds like, find a helper or better yet, be one.

Then again, at the end of the day I am not trying to win the internet.  I am just trying to stay human in a world that has gotten really loud.  Measuring SNR is not a fancy thing, it’s a gut check, is  what I am spooling into the universe going to help someone hear the truth, or is it just more static?   So here is what I am choosing.  I am choosing the pause.  I am choosing the small acts of kindness.  I am choosing to be the kind of person who improves the fidelity in the room instead of creating a feedback loop that does nothing but screech at us.  I am going to keep checking that tattoo like its my own SNR meter, and keep trying to make the music cleaner instead of louder.  It’s a reminder, pause, check the meter, and don’t feed the noise.  Maybe, just maybe the most radical thing we can do is to be steady in the turbulence.  Send the strongest signal you can with the simple message, they are not alone and that you are here for them.   

When my Mind Is Full but my Mouth Freezes

I have this habit that seems weird to me, I watch myself in real time.  But not in a mystical out of body sort of way.  More like I’m living in the moment and narrating it simultaneously.  Almost as if there’s a second version of me standing a few moments of time behind my little universe with a notepad taking notes on my facial expression, timing and tone of my voice.  It’s sorta like self reflection, but sometimes feels more like an annoying surveillance van whose inhabitants are passing judgment.  As for what that looks like.  I’m in a meeting, someone asks a question I’ve actually thought about deeply and I can feel the fullness of the answer in my head.  Up there my answer is complete, layered with nuance and connections to dozens of other ideas that matter, it’s all there, sharp, alive and crystal clear.

Then the uneducated hillbilly in me kicks in and what tumbles out seems more like a bad sketch of what was a detailed blueprint, “as builts” included.  I hear myself speaking in partial sentences, safe sentences, watered down sentences that don’t match the architecture I’m carrying in my head.   So, there I am, blathering and I get to watch myself do it, which somehow makes it even worse.  It’s a punishing dichotomy, the tension between struggling to say that thing in my head, and the harsh judgment I place on myself for not being able to effectively articulate the thing – even though people say I did.   

That looks a bit like this

As I’m sure everyone has done, I replay the conversation afterwards.  And then thought, that is not what I meant, not really, you know that feeling.  Your mind writes the director’s cut later, with better wording and pacing, better clarity, better courage.  But in the moment, you get the theatrical release, supposedly edited for safety, rated PG, and sometimes missing the best scenes.  The frustrating part isn’t that I am short on thoughts, I am drowning in them, about everything.  Sometimes I have nothing to say, and sometimes I have too much to say, and I can’t always translate it fast enough into a language that makes sense.  Sometimes I think my CPU is underpowered and my RAM is gummed up with memory leaks.  And yes, the more I examine it, the more it stacks, exponentially.

The torturous part is, intellectually I see it so clearly and my emotional self doesn’t give a shit.  And of course I know what that battle between Id, Superego, and Ego is called, intrapsychic conflict.  In less clinical terms the Id is instincts, impulses and desires.  The Superego represents rules, morals, should/should not, and guilt.  And there right smack in the middle is the Ego, trying to keep the peace between these competing factions, the referee if you will.  My ref is old and worn out, but still stands back up every day.  I think he has started taking supplements because I feel he is doing a better job as I get older.

I’m not sure where in my journey I started to notice that perfection wasn’t helping me, it was choking me.  I saw this more clearly in my work life but it was present in my personal life too.  My overthinking brain kept trying to craft fully formed thoughts in moments when all that was needed was honesty and forward motion.  In all of that I realized the struggle wasn’t communicating, the struggle was with my own expectations of myself.  Somehow I expected my words to arrive clean, properly ordered, debugged and ready for prime time.  What in the hell kind of standard was that, especially when the best conversations are the ones that are simple and free flowing. 

The kind you have at dining room table, or in a hallway at work with that trusted coworker, or even under an old Jalopy while you’re changing the transmission with your best friend.  The places where nobody expects a perfect sentence, from me or anyone else for that matter.  And yet there I was, drafting white papers and developing formulas when all the people or person really needed was the Smitty version delivered with honesty and compassion.  Perfection isn’t a virtue, it’s a fucking traffic jam the likes of what we see on the 5 in LA at rush hour.  It just sucks!

Learning to speak without fear has been less like flipping a switch and more like walking a long arduous path to the top of a high perch.  While at the trail head the path looks flat and easy but once ya get going you realize it is full of hidden obstacles and blind corners.  My intellectual self keeps trying to sprint ahead, convinced the faster I move the faster I’ll get to perfect.  Meanwhile my emotional self is chugging along at a much slower pace and less worried about beating the time but learning to be OK with wandering aimlessly and enjoying myself. 

I used to try to outthink the journey, engineer it into a straight line.  I was missing the point, its about the journey, not the destination.  That’s where the learning happens, the acceptance of what is happens.  That’s where the texture of our lives is created.  And  somewhere along that winding path, I realized the journey wasn’t about finding my words at all, I already have those in my head.  It was about finding a different way of treating myself.

Talking, it turns out, isn’t a performance, it’s a draft and we need to give ourselves permission to speak in drafts.  It’s supposed to be rough the first time, and it gets worn smooth over time with practice and patience with ourselves.  When the words are messy, wrinkled and sometimes without a flow, I have found people understand me better, not because I polished it but because it was real.  I am still learning the little narrator in my head does not always have to be a real time critic.  He can be a partner, someone who can learn to say, good start instead of you blew it.  And I want him to learn how to say the only way you fail is if you stop trying so, please follow Mr. Rogers three keys to success - be kind, be kind and be kind, only ensure you are being that to yourself too.

Maybe the words will never arrive fully formed and polished.  Maybe for me they’re meant to meet me halfway, there between Superego and Id firmly in my Ego.  Maybe that’s the work now, letting the three parts of me sit at the table without trying to outshout each other.  Letting the words come when they are ready, asking all three to be human and kind with each other. I guess that conversation is also part of the ride.  And maybe this is why I so much more like typing, when I’m doing that, it feels like all three of us are finally in concert with each other.

 

What do we do with all of this??

I was inspired by a friend and the tune “Momma said there’d be days like this”, which I am listening to at this very moment, to type some of my feelings out.   For me, there are days lately when the world feels heavier than it oughta, heavier than I want it to and heavier than the Shirelles ever imagined when they sang that song.  Days when sadness settles into my bones, when fear and anxiety invade all of my other thoughts, when anger sparks and makes itself impossible to ignore.  While these days are inevitable along our journey, I wish they weren’t.

I am Alex Pretti in many ways, I exercise my second amendment right, as he did.  I am wired to step up when I see someone being mistreated, not with force but with presence, as he did.  I would have been the one standing nearby, recording what I saw and making sure she knew she was not alone, as he did.  Protection in some cases simply means making sure the truth can’t be buried, as he did.  That is what being a helper means to me, not confrontation but compassion and empathy combined with accountability.

Regardless the noise and picking a side I am terrified because for the first time, me just doing my thang in that abnormal Smitty fashion, the way I usually move through the world, curious, joking around and just a bit chaotic just does not feel entirely safe anymore. I have lived my whole life NEVER once being othered by a single way that I identify, a white, CIS gendered, heterosexual, American born, English speaker who holds a position of power.  I also recognize, and acknowledge, that I am in the very singular group who can say that.  Because of that privilege, I have never been scared, at traffic stops, in protests, in any setting really.  Uncomfortable at times, sure but NEVER scared let alone terrified.

Like a lot of folks in this moment I am trying to navigate what it really means to be an American in these complicated times.  I am a person who believes deeply in constitutional rights, and civic responsibility, I have never once even tried to get out of Jury duty.  I am someone who follows Mr. Rogers three keys to success, because in a world this loud, kindness is the only thing with enough force to cut through the static.  I also believe deeply in the basic dignity owed to every human, regardless of any differences that may be used to separate us. 

I am sure by this time most of you have seen versions of the videos, probably what will be defined as exhibit A when this goes to trial.  I don’t want to rehash the particulars of the tragedy here.  I do want to tell you what hit me when I watched it from what seemed like an insane number of angles and clarity.  I felt a surge of protectiveness, my instinct to step between power and the defenseless person on the receiving end of that power.  Again, not with violence, not with confrontation and not with anger but with the simple conviction that folks deserve, at a bare minimum, to be treated as people not as threats.

And then the harder to process feeling started to seep in and that feeling was powerlessness.  And the truth of that, it rattled me.  It made me ask questions I have never thought I would have to ask, questions that jest felt wrong all the way to my core.  That lead to the terrible question, what can I actually do?  How can I make a difference?  How can I have an impact?  How can I answer those questions with a path that is both safe and productive.  Supporting causes matters.  Supporting candidates whose values reflect mine, compassion and justice matters.  But this moment feels like it requires more from me.  This moment asks for presence.  It asks us to find a little back bone and a clear hear.  To be productive this moment also calls for restraint, the strength to use my anger for something useful instead of letting it turn me into someone I don’t want to be – this moment needs my best self.

The first thing I have done is try to take care of those around me, making space for friends, family and coworkers when they are struggling.  Not to problem solve but to just be present for them.  That requires us to slow down a bit so we can notice when someone is out of kilter, we know what that looks like for each of those folks we love and care about.  I keep a box of Lifesavers on my desk, literally and when I notice someone off, I give them a pack and send them a link to that 70s commercial about it’s going to be ok.   I know that sounds corny, but it works.  Most folks respond to a little kindness, and sometimes the smallest gestures can make the biggest difference in someones day.  https://youtu.be/d8BqUf7E-Cw?si=9cMr7DZdtGAzuiXa.  This is why showing up cannot be a slogan, it has to be a habit.

We can also support fact based journalism, the importance of which in this moment cannot be underestimated.  Donate when ya can.  Defend the work when folks try to label it just an opinion because it makes them uncomfortable.  Hold it accountable too, trust is earned not demanded.  Journalism is kinda like roads and powerlines, core infrastructure to power our world.  And you don’t really notice it until its gone, and then everything falls apart - it feels a bit like we are closer than I’d like us to be.  I have worked with true journalists for nearly 30 years.  Most of what we see on the mainstream is simply pitting one against the other and never really doing the hard work of investigative journalism. 

We can also make sure we are practicing solidarity/   Solidarity isn’t big or flashy.  It’s the small stuff, the stuff nobody cheers but everyone remembers.  As Maya Angelou reminded us, people may forget what you said and even what you did, but they remember how you made them feel.  Solidarity not a hash tag, not a bumper sticker or tee shirt but solidarity at the human level.  That looks like bearing witness, as Alex was, checking on your friends and neighbors who might be getting targeted for some perceived difference.  Maybe offering to walk someone to their car when they look nervous, as I did a couple of days ago at the grocery store.  It is showing up and being present when its inconvenient and being there even when ya don’t know quite what to say.  It is the small consistent action of making sure people aren’t alone when the world is hell bent on isolating them.

And to be honest, some days Im just tired boss.  But then inevitably somebody pings me with something, I see something on the FB that fills my heart, somebody smiles, or someone tells a truth out loud.  Those are the things that make me stand up anyway.    

And the last thing, we can hopeful, in spite of our current situation.  Not as a mood or a situational thing, we can adopt hope as a habit, hope has to be something we do on purpose, not something we wait for, regardless how loud the noise.   Hope as a habit, even on those days when sadness is settling in our bones.  Even when fear and anxiety threaten our well being and even when anger sparks off a firestorm of emotions.  And ya know why hope as a habit is important?  Let me start by saying American has survived many a things that in hindsight might not seem as dire as today but they were.  And to not keep hope as habit, is to admit they won.  I for one ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to admit that, to allow that or to condone that. 

There is a moment in Shawshank Redemption when Red realizes that hope is good thing, it isn’t a lie or a trap.  He realized that hope is the force stubborn enough to survive even the darkest moments and the darkest institutions.  That is the kind of hope I am talking about, the gritty resilient kind that refuses to back down or look away or shut up or give in.  That kind of hope keeps a person riding a bus towards a horizon they’ve never seen but somehow still trust is waiting for them, like Andy was for Red.  It is civic hope, human hope, the keep going even when you’re scared shitless hope.  That kind of hope whispers to us, Zihuatanejo awaits you.  And when we get there and see our friends, we can exhale and set to rebuilding what this moment tried to take away from us and we can remember who we were always meant to be.  Hope is the one thing they cannot take from us, so pack your bag, take a breath, roll your shoulders back and get on that fucking bus because Zihuatanejo is waiting and we have rebuilding to do!!

This is a betrayal of what we say we believe in as Americans

 I have recently been pondering on the quote penned by Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton in 1887 that highlighting the moral dangers of unchecked authority, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  I heard my Mom say that quote no less that 8.7 million times growing up.  I don’t think I ever fully understood it, until just recently when its meaning shifted from the words in my head and dropped like a rock into my gut. 

When power decides it does not have to answer questions, when it closes ranks and doors after its use of force, when it tells a tale that is in direct conflict with what we all saw with our own eyes, there is a cancer present.  It is no longer just theoretical, it is here, now and evident in the way our federal officials are behaving.   It is here now in the way communities are told to accept their narrative instead of demonstrating transparency and collaboration with local law enforcement.    

Our countries’ creed is not complicated, it’s really simply actually.  The power bestowed on our elected officials is on loan, on loan from we the people, the same people who hold these truths to be self-evident, ya know from the Declaration of Independence.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  With two dead American citizens we ain't doing very godo on that front.  

Our government was literally created to protect those rights, we declared it so in a loud and in your face fashion to King George III back on July 4^th of 1776.  A big part of what makes this experiment that is the United States work is based on trust.  When government forces, of any kind, block transparency and accountability, trust erodes.  And that particular slippery slope is one that is not good for our country. 

When I wore the uniform, the oath I swore was not to a person, a party or a department.  I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic.   Day in and day out the work required discipline, restraint, and accountability.  We learned quickly that real strength does not come from how loud ya bark orders, it comes from carefully you wielded authority.  Facts were laid out, orders explained and expectations set, those are the bedrock of military order.  When shit went sideways, and it sometimes did, we did not get to barricade doors, obfuscate the truth, or tell tales of woe, we took responsibility for our actions and we course corrected.  There was not some obscure reason for that, we were literally putting our lives in the hands of our shipmates, and they were putting theirs lives in ours.  That is not something one fucks about with.  .

 I learned that honor is not the ribbons we had to meticulously maintain for display purposes, honor is a habit.  Choosing to do the right thing, even when it is hard, even when it is seemingly impossible and even when it comes at a personal cost shows ones true character.  that character shows up in the quiet consistent choices we make, day in and day out.  Choosing transparency over convenience, humility over spin, the really hard right over the really easy wrong ain't easy and has tested me more in my life than any other thing. 

I have had sign in my office for years, “Do the right things, and do those things right”.  Hardest thing to do, regardless of what it is.  While we are free to make decisions in this county, any of them we want – that is what freedom is.  We are not however free from the consequences of those decisions.  That means accepting responsibility for our actions, doing that is true courage.

And when things do go sideways, we must have the moral courage to not only accept responsibility but also to invite scrutiny.  To let independent eyes check our work, provide an independent accounting of our actions.  Those values are not disposable when thing get uncomfortable, that is when we learn who we truly are and we can only hope we don’t come up lacking.  Those values are exactly for the moment when things get hard.  The truth is simple, it needs no spin, it needs no embellishment and it needs no permission. 

The same standards that kept all my shipmates safe should be used to keep our communities safe.  If squids, mostly kids, can log every evolution, submit to inspection after inspection and answer for their action because lives are at stake, then any officials who exercise lethal authority on our streets must do the same, we must hold them to the same standard.  That is not too much to ask, at all.  Fact-o-business, that is the fucking barest of minimums a free people should demand!!

American values are not abstract to me, for the most part they have become muscle memory.  Human dignity first.  Truth in the open.  Power on a short lease because it belong us, not those we chose to represent us.  I was taught that my words matter, that I must own my mistakes and that I was responsible for making any wrongs I made right.  The government does not get a different rulebook, no sir!  If anything it should be held to even higher bar.  Liberty is not a license to do whatever you want behind a badge.  Liberty is the rulebook that provides the authority in a way that we the people can trust is fair and just and in alignment with our values.

the bar is not terrible high on this.  Open the scenes. Honor the warrants.  Share the evidence.  Let independent hands do the work here, and let the public see what that those hands find.  If we truly believe the words we recite, equality, liberty, and justice for all,  then let us practice them even when its inconvenient.   We all know in it in our bones, and the Mandalorians say, this is the way!  If our institutions have drifted, as I feel they have, then we have a responsibility to pull them back, with the kind of stubborn integrity this country still claims as our own. 

I am angry, viscerally so.  I am heartsick.  And I am done pretending that what we are watching is anything other than what it is, a betrayal of what we say we believe in as Americans.  Power used in the dark is not public service.  It is cowardice and it is theft of the public trust.  Steals trust from the very people who granted that power in the first place.  It steals dignity from the families who deserve the truth, not some ridiculous narrative.  It steals the future from a country that can only govern itself when the truth is out in the open and acknowledged.  You cannot protect a community, as we are being told they are doing, while at the same time blocking that community form the truth – period all stop.  

To our federal government, hear this clearly.  You are NOT intitled to your own story, you earn that by opening the scene, honoring the warrant, sharing the records, and letting independent hands to their work where the public can see it.  You earn it by submitting your actions to the same scrutiny that you would demand of us.  You earn it by admitting error when error exists, not spinning stories moments after two people were killed.   To do otherwise is a sure sign that something else is happening here besides the narrative you are attempting to persuade us of.   

I did not spend 10 years in service to this great country to watch the Constitution be treated like a prop in a shitty movie.  It is a set of values that either bind us in moments like these, or it reveals us to be frauds.  If we still believe in human dignity, say so by proving it with an open process.  If we still believe in liberty, say so by refusing secrecy when force is used against us, in our name.  if we still believe in justice, say so by letting neutral eyes test the story against the evidence.  Anything less is just a demonstration of moral bankruptcy dressed up on federal letterhead.

So here is where I stand, I absolutely refuse to allow this to be normalized.  I refuse to soften my language or lower the bar.  I refuse to trade my values fro someone else’s comfort, and I will not hand the next generation of Americans a country that confuses control with accountability.  In my bones and every fiber of my being I know this is not right, and in your bones, you damn well know it too.  I am sad if your hatred of whatever it is has so clouded your judgement that you feel any bit of this is OK. 

The truth will set you free. Lets open this up to scrutiny.  Let the evidence be evaluated.  And as Mando says, this is the way.

What happened to me on my 22,251st sunrise

I was inspired to share this story by a friend of mine, I will call her C. who recently shared a brutally honest, and heart felt post on the FB about aging.  She talked about mammograms that bruise, colonoscopies that somehow rate higher on the comfort scale and the betrayal of vision for folks in their 40’s.  She shared about perimenopause being on easy mode, and that she is knocking on wood it stays that way and about the body she’s living in now will no doubt one day feel like a luxury suite compared to the one her future self will inherit.   

What struck me was not the catalog of indignities, but way she was looking at them, frustration on one hand, gratitude on the other hand and a reluctant appreciation.  The kind of appreciation that, at least to me, tells part of her story, that she understands the alternative to that is not being here, no longer riding the ride.  I have in past typed about getting older and all that one can only understand having endured it.  So, thanks C. for inspiring me to type a bit about my own journey.

So, I have been alive now 22,257 days, and yes that counts leap years for those who always ask when I count days.  In that time, computers became faster, thanks Gordon Moore, they became smaller, thanks Jack Kilby, and they became smarter, thanks Geoffrey Hinton.  In that same time frame, I have become slower, thanks younger dumbass Smitty, I have become creakier, thanks again younger stupid Smitty, and I am more likely to mutter, what the hell was I doing, while I am actually doing that very thing, thanks universe for providing the absolute fucking hilarity in that.

Somewhere along the journey, my metabolism deprecated half of its features, the better half of course so thanks again for the hilarity universe.  My joints, not the ones smoked, started issuing bug reports, with an alarming and continuously increasing cadence.  And food I once inhaled due to its magnificence, without consequences I might add, now require full diplomatic negotiations with my digestive system, which I never seem to be on the right side of.  I remember Granny loved pork chops and they hated her, she ate them anyway because she loved them.  My younger self did not understand that, I do now.

Aging feels a lot trying to run modern software on windows 3.1 machine, disk space too fragmented, not enough ram and not anywhere near enough CPU cycles.  My knees click, my joints buffer and the whole system throw warnings like a drunken Sailor running up a bar tab, and I was one of those so I know of what I type.  Somewhere in the middle of all that noise clarity shows up, or at least it did for me.   That means a bit more grace for myself, a little less ego, and the quiet realization that half the worries I used to worry about don’t matter at all.  One benefit of those realizations is that it is easier to uninstall the stuff that is actually irrelevant in my life.

As you know I have old cars and they as they get older start to require more and more preventative, and corrective maintenance.  I have been fortunate in that regard, only taking two medications, one for blood pressure due to being a bit tubby, and one I will talk about later.  Other than that, there are a few vitamins each morning.   Of course, at 40 was the first prostate exam, which after my long time doctor performed, I tried to lighten the mood my asking if he and I could go out back and have a smoke together, I smoked by then.  After bit of awkward silence, he laughed and it became our annual joke.

On year 49 we are finishing up my annual physical, and the prostate probe, and he starts with this sort of evil laugh.  I was not sure what that meant but immediately got nervous.  I asked anyway, what’s up doc, and yes that was in bugs bunnies voice.  He says, and I shit you not, I get to violate you in a whole new way next year.  To which I said, what??  He wanted to get a baseline colonoscopy for me to reference later in life.  Being a tech nerd I understood the importance of a baseline but could not help blurting out, that is not right Doc, to which he again provided me his evil little laugh.      

So I say all that to lead into what I experienced on day 22,251 of my journey.  Somehow I made it that far without ever having a “medical procedure” that required anesthetic, just 29 days before my 61^st Birthentines day.  Broken bones, sure, chainsaw incident, sadly yes, and other stitches and what not, yep but never anything that rose to the "procedure" level.  This corrective maintenance was addressing the other medication I took each day, and that is called tamsulosin, or more generically Flomax.  That is a medication to address issues with being able to pee like I could when I was young, due to aging and enlarged prostate.    

When I first spoke to a urologist they presented 4 options, with Flomax being the least invasive.  The other three were medical procedures that actually could address the issue, thereby eliminating the need for a pill to treat the symptoms.  The first was a steaming process, yikes but OK.  The second was a sort of stapling back affair and the third was basically a mechanical roto-routering, which was most invasive according to her.  After a few minutes of allowing myself to digest all of that I asked if they were all like Lasic surgery. 

She got a confused look on her face and said, this has nothing to do with your eyes.  I clarified and asked is this a moment in time procedure?  She asked me to say more, I said with Lasic you are correcting the eye to a moment in time.  As we continue to age, the eye will continue to degrade, she got it then.  Any of these procedures are moment in time fixes and as your prostate continues to grow, this problem will come back.  My next question was which one has the longest time before additional corrective actions are required.  And of course, it was the most invasive of the three, the roto-routering, medically referred to as a Transuretheral Resection of the Prostate, TURP for short.  I had that procedure scheduled in Oregon and then decided to upend our lives and move on out to Nebraska, so it got delayed.

While I did not have many, I did have come nerves about getting put under, more than I did about the procedure.  I asked every nurse, doctor and bystander up until they knocked me out if they had been partying last night, if they felt ready to go and were properly caffeinated.  The smiles and laughs helped ease my nerves.  The doctor did the deed, inserted the catheter and sent me to room to spend the day, the night and most of the next day.  Having a catheter was more just uncomfortable than painful and Tylenol worked.  When the nurse took it out 4 days later, she seemed unaffected but for me that was a bit of indignity and it was VERY uncomfortable, she said take a deep breath and she just yanked that fucking thing out, I lost my breath and was thankful I was sitting down as surely I would have toppled over and broke something.

I am on day six of recovery now and everything seems ahead of schedule, fingers crossed for that to continue.   Out of an adult diaper after 2 days, needed for what the doc called “potential leakage” and now i am using a feminine hygiene product as the “leakage” has slowed to nearly a stop.  I picked randomly the Always brand Infinity flex-foam in size #2 and it works magnificently, yeah that is something you now know about me.

So, here I am on day 22,257, patched, prodded, roto-routered, cathetered, padded and somehow still laughing at the absurdity of it all.  Aging keeps throwing new maintenance cycles at me, and I keep showing up for the updates, even when the release notes include things like, temporary leakage and catheter yanks.  But ya know what, underneath all the jokes, indignities and windows 3.1 era operating limitations, there is still a profound gratitude for being alive long enough to complain about any of it.  Gratitude for modern medicine and the brilliant band of doctors that keep me running as best I can.  And gratitude for friends like C, and the rest of Y’all who tell the truth about their journey with humor and courage.  That is my reminder that this whole messy and complicated ride is worth EVERY SINGLE MOMENT!!!

Love Y’all

Reflections on music, memory, and the power of gratitude – a BIG ole thank you Old Dominion, Eric Church, and Kenny Chesney

 

There have been so many moments in my life when music is more than just a gentle backdrop of white noise, that's pretty much all my moments if I am being honest.  It has often become the lens through which I look at myself, my past, and the intricate dance of connections that have shaped who I am.  Lately, I have found myself in such a moment. Three songs that scrolled by one after the other in a playlist, one from Old Dominion, one from Eric Church, and the last from Kenny Chesney, did more than act as background noise.  They illuminated my life’s journey, casting both shadows and light on the faces and memories that define my story.

It began with Old Dominion’s “I Miss Ya Man,” a song that opened the door to memories I carry, loved ones lost along my six decades long journey. Each verse was a quiet invitation to revisit those Brothers and Sisters from other Mothers who are no longer with us.  The childhood laughter with Alison Bodey, and later, the years we dated, we rode along for 44 years. The steadfast friendship of Lyndon Boyer, one of the best human beings I have ever known, we shared the road for 45 years.  I realized, as the melody played, that certain stories now live only in my heart. The laughter, the exaggerations, the moments that once belonged to “us,” now rest in my memory alone. There was sorrow in that realization, and unexpected gratitude, too, for having shared such precious chapters with each of them.

The song reminded me, grief is a companion on the ride of life.  It’s there in the missed goodbyes to friends like Debbie, whose recent passing I’m still processing.  It lingers in the memories of those, like Eric, Grady, and Cary, who found the world too heavy to bear.  In recalling them, I’m reminded not only of loss, but also of the enduring bonds that even death cannot sever. Their stories and love continue to shape who I am and who I am becoming.

Eric Church’s “Those I’ve Loved” followed, and with it, a wave of gratitude. The song’s quiet truths, lessons from a grandfather, the strength of those who’ve walked beside us echoed my own life.  Some important people in my young life helped me like a grandfather would’ve if I’d had one.  Alva, Don, and Rodney were instrumental in shaping who I am today and it was a reminder that none of us arrives at our present alone.  We’re molded by the kindness, patience, and generosity of countless souls along the way.  Some of whom remain and others who’ve moved on.  In being reminded of what I already knew, I feel compelled to offer thanks to all who’ve walked with me. Life is too fleeting for appreciation to go unsaid.

Kenny Chesney’s “When I See This Bar” completed the musical trilogy, painting a portrait of memory and belonging. The bar became a symbol, not just of time spent with friends but of those suspended moments when we stand between who we were and who we’re becoming.  Faces change, stories evolve, but the longing to connect remains constant, a universal chord that reverberates through every one of our lives.

The cumulative impact of these songs was profound. They’ve offered me a renewed sense of purpose, to cherish those beside me, literally and figuratively, honor those who are no longer with us, and savor the transient beauty of every gathering, every conversation, every shared silence. They remind me the ride is unpredictable and finite but made immeasurably better by the company that travel along with us and the love we share with them.

With each loop of the playlist, the meaning deepened for me.  I see my own journey with greater clarity, not just for myself, but for everyone who’s traveled alongside me, even those who were there for a short stretch.  Music, in this way, is both salve and guide, helping me embrace the fullness of my story and a reminder to always lead with gratitude into whatever chapters I have remaining.  

So, to those I’ve loved along the way, thank you for your presence, laughter, and your light. Thank you for helping me become, in ways small and profound, a better human.  May we all find the courage to say “I love you” freely, honor our memories, our stories and make the most of the time we share on this wild, beautiful ride of life.

Beginning a new chapter in a place we’ve never been is equal parts exhilarating and disorienting at the same time.  I often find myself longing for the closeness and physical presence of friends who know the rhythm of my life, my past, the shorthand conversations, the inside jokes, and quiet companionship that only years together can forge. As Dolly and Kenny sang, “You Can’t Make New Old Friends.”

Feelings of isolation don’t knock loudly, sometimes they hum faintly in the background like the white noise of life.  In those moments, I will remember these three songs. “I Miss Ya Man” reminds me that love and grief share space. “Those I’ve Loved” nudges me toward gratitude and the roots of who I am.  And “When I See This Bar” reminds me that memory can turn any place into sacred ground, wherever I am and whenever I reflect.

So yes, I feel isolated at times. But I also know these feelings are transient and are part of the reshaping that comes with writing a spanking new chapter.  I carry y’all with me in the details, in the music, in how I greet strangers with warmth, wondering if a micro-relationship might blossom into something more.  And I know this season, like all others, will eventually bloom.  The ache of loss of the familiar will soften, the streets will start to feel like mine own, and I’ll find my new tribes - and I know they’ll add to the amazing tapestry that is my life.

Thanks for being my friend and joining me on this journey.

I cherish what I call micro relationships

So to start with that term is one I created and defined, if you google that, it has other meanings that are FAR from what I am talking about when I use that term.  When I use that term I am speaking of those relationships that start out super topical and grow at the pace of a great redwood tree.  They mostly get started through some transactional interaction, for example the teller at the bank that you prefer or the checker at the grocery store or maybe someone you meet while watching a sunrise from a amazing spot.

While these relationships are often taken for granted, they are so important – at least to me.  They fill in the gaps between our close friends and strangers we have yet to be acquainted with.  They bring a certainty to our lives, a comfort in knowing a bit about the Dude or Dudette selling ya a car battery or cutting your hair or selling ya a lotto ticket.

I make a deliberate effort to cultivate micro-relationships whenever possible. They often times start with a few words to a person, saying thank you Randy to the man who checks you out at the Safeway grocery store, and you know his name is Randy initially because his name tag says Randy.  That eventually leads you to going to his line to get checked out, even if that line is longer than the other lines.  This can happen anywhere, even at the car wash or the landfill.

I have seen so many service folks like Randy abused by “Karens” (sorry Karen B and Karen F as you are not Karens in the way I am using that word here).  I have seen folks like Randy completely ignored while some Kevin (male version of a Karen I just learned from Google).

Everyone of us is just trying to do our thing and every single one of us should be given every bit as much respect as everyone else in the world!  NO ONE should look down on, ignore or be an asshat to someone just doing the gig they have to support their lives.  ESPECIALLY when it is so easy to share a smile, a kind word or just an simple acknowledgement of their existence.

While I have many friends who mean the absolute world to me, I have an equal amount of relationships that fall into the micro relationship category.  Funny thing is that for me, they both hold equal value in my heart, absolutely different but absolutely equal.  Equal because they fill a gap, we don’t always get to see our friends every day, and yet we do see and interact with all sorts of folks all the time, and each is an opportunity to spool a bit of positive out into the inverse.

I am absolutely convinced that most of the positive fortune I have had in my life came back to me because I have been deliberate about spooling positive out.  Basically many of the eastern religions call that Karma, not being religious in any way I prefer spooling positive out, I learned today that there’s some science backing that up.   At least on the good Karma side, which is very different than the Karma the Karens and Kevins of the world spool out.

SO… you might be wondering why I am even typing about this??  Well, with our recent move, in addition to missing my Brothers and Sisters from other Mothers, I also acutely feel the loss of the myriad micro-relationships I had formed in the 10 and half years I spent in Oregon.  I know that I will rebuild those here in Lincoln, but I feel the loss and look forward to getting those back in my life, and I have started.

These are long game relationships that build slowly over time, as you only have minutes at time with these folks.  It also starts for me with a simple smile and asking how they are doing and then some little joke or smart aleck answer to how I am doing.  For those who know me you have hundreds of them.  They range from “living the dream” to “if I were any better I’d be twins of you” to “it’s too early to tell”. 

As you can imagine those get any range of responses, but it also indicates to me if a micro-relationship is worth pursuing.  I only recall a couple of times that I thought, nope, nope and NOPE.  I have found after a couple of interactions they start to recognize me and initiate the conversation, ya know with how ya doing today?

Over time, a few tiny nuggets at a time, you learn about who they are, what they are about, what pets they have or what their kids are doing and other little mundane factoids, and they learn those things about you as well.  Over time you start to look forward to the check in with them at the check out line and if ya haven’t seen them for a while you wonder and hope they are ok.

This can happen with many folks, like Samantha, who went by Sam, who cut my hair for a number of years before she had a kiddo and became a stay-at-home Mom.  Or Smitty who was the guru over at Advanced Auto Parts, who eventually learned each vehicle I owned, and he had a kick ass 32 Ford.   That relationship was easy to get started, as we were both Smitty. 

It was also Chuck, who delivered firewood to Smithlandia, who was a super interesting dude who spent a few years building his own house, and it was amazing – yes he took me over to check it out.  Or Bobby, the first dude we had in Oregon taking care of our yard.  He was in previous life a pot farmer and eventually helped me grow a bumper crop one year, just to see if I could do it.  I remember him being pissed that my harvest came out better then his, hahaha, all I did was exactly what he told me to.

It could be Roy, who I met on the beach watching the sunrise in Jacksonville and became very close friends.  I took him to both his cataract surgeries and eventually he came to our home every year for Thanksgiving.  He also took me to his country club for lunch, which he really enjoyed doing.  A lasting and meaningful relationship that started with us at sunrise one morning at the beach.  Here is a story I wrote about him when he passed.  Mr. Oatmeal's Oratories

I am sure I am not alone in having these kinds of micro-relationships and I am probably not alone in how important they are in my life.  Anyway, I wanted to tell you about and encourage you to slow down long enough to make a difference in someone’s life, no matter how small. 

Which leads to me Ariel, my first micro-relationship here in Nebraska.  Well, I feel it is the beginning of one anyway.  Bride and I went out to breakfast a couple of weekends ago and I noticed one waitress doting over an elderly gentleman at a table near us.  To the point of sitting with him for a few minutes two or three times. 

The bits of the conversation that I overheard were just the day to day of life events but there was a connection between them for sure.  I recall thinking how awesome is that that she took a few minutes out of her day to brighten his day, spooling the positive into the universe.

So we were there a few days later and she ended up being our server on this visit.  I told her that I had noticed her spending time chatting with an older gentleman the last time we were in.  Her face lit up and she said yeah, that was Glenn, he is 97, a veteran, and drives here every day for breakfast.  She went on to tell us more about him and it was just beautiful. 

I told her how much I appreciated her spending those minutes with him and that I enjoyed watching her spool positive into the universe, and that it was clear that she meant a great deal to Glenn.  She touched her heart, holding back a tear and said “you have just filled my heart up, thank you”.   That interaction touched my soul and led me to reflecting on the power and importance of micro relationships.

Go spool some positive into the universe Y’all – it will come back multiplied!!