[Thinkpad] misc rants longer longish

[Andre' Blanchard]

JIC:  The non-pendantic, non loquacious version: Sleep is good!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: thinkpad-bounces at stderr.org [mailto:thinkpad-bounces at stderr.org]On
> Behalf Of bruce edwards
> Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 2:41 PM
> To: Thinkpad at stderr.org
> Subject: [Thinkpad] misc rants longer longish
>
>
> Hope you are feeling better . . . At any age the body requires
> sleep . . . I
> am sure you are aware of this, and while at 20 it is actually an
> aphrodisiac
> to both sides of the gender equation to be able to endure large periods
> without sleep you are functionally past the age (pheromonally speaking)
> where that attribute will lead to real status or deference
> (while not the
> only reason, even if they were conscious of it, that is one
> reason why some
> of your advisors would have discouraged you from pursuing DO/MD
> program past
> 40 (even if 40 is the new 30).  Sleep strategy is not taught in HS or
> college (and it should be). Of course no single strategy is effective for
> more then, maybe, two widely displaced individuals . . . Which means any
> 'strategy' has to start with the psycho-social assessment (that after
> Darwinian evolution is the next most reviled tool in US).  I
> lived most of
> my adult life on 4 hr. contiguous sleep per day.  But almost
> always I also
> caught one or two twenty min naps (requiring about a half hour each . . .
> Too long to be accomplished during a work place coffee break but one was
> possible if I was actually allowed a min. Of a half hour for lunch.)  I
> didn't 'intuit' the strategy then implement it . . . Fortunately, or
> unfortunately, I seem to naturally be a night person (another
> reason Lamoni
> is hell on earth) . . . I can force REM sleep into other zones but it
> defaults naturally to between 6-8 AM, and I tend to most alert
> between 11 PM
> and 2 AM . . . One reason why even though my music and social skills
> (coupled with intense stage freight that has never relented
> (except when I'm
> actually on stage) did not suggest performance playing music
> became one of
> the few socially acceptable quasi legal endeavor's I could pursue.
>
> Reason for above is not that I'm suggesting you should have
> adopted or could
> adopt anything resembling my sleep/waking cycles . . . But you're
> old enough
> that not sleeping is not something to brag about (one of items I got for
> when John comes home is a home wrist mount blood pressure gauge .
> . . Been
> playing with it: pre coffee, post coffee, immediately after a
> bike ride, a
> half hour after ride after five minutes meditation pre coffee AM,
> etc.  The
> numbers are interesting . . . And higher then I'd hoped (when measured
> following instructions, five minutes rest, seated with arm
> supported but not
> 'pinched' at heart level, etc. They nudge the 135 in merc.. . . Which I'm
> interpreting as OK but higher then last 'resting' unstressed
> measurements of
> a decade ago . . . About the same time, post coffee, that my allergic
> reaction to corn dust eases the BP as a little spike going to
> about 140 then
> falling, in a half hour, to a safer range . . . ) Not using numbers
> diagnostically (calibration?) But for anecdotal bench mark . . .
> More like
> dB then SPL
>
> Anyway if the John past three months demonstrates anything . . . Well two
> things actually . . . If 'reality' exists it can be correlated
> directly with
> entropy and entropy will kick ideological ass . . . Self denial might let
> one complete a marathon on a broken ankle but it is illustrative
> to remember
> the first marathon.  Even knowing that sleep deprivation led/leads to bad
> decision making it was deliberately used by AMA as a brain
> washing tool . .
> .  To alter allegiance you do not need electrodes to the genitals: sleep
> deprivation, low protein diet and demanding, exhausting physical labor
> (coupled with complete separation from 'base' society and gradual
> integration with target society . . . Success of this strategy is
> never 100%
> but under any circumstances (even when subject and target groups do not
> share a common language) starts at about 75%)   The deliberate embrace of
> brain washing, sleep deprivation (and subsequent self medication of
> practitioners . . . By the way one of Lamoni's most notable maintenance
> junkies Dr. Swanson just passed away . . . No longer lived in
> Lamoni), has
> led inevitably to decline of AMA as an institution in a far
> shorter period
> then successes of modern medicine seemed in late 40's & early 50's to
> suggest . . . Even you paper on disaster mediation tends to support my
> analysis by the way
>
> And reason for this is not that I think you don't know the basics
> . . . But
> in truth we tend to not interpret our own actions correctly.
> Unmediated by
> alcohol I'm solitary in the extreme.  And I have few daily
> 'yearnings' to be
> less solitary (roughly four days a month, from adolescence to date I am
> capable of sustaining social impulses)  It will be an issue (for me) when
> John returns.  And alcohol was frequently, if not always, linked to by 30
> miles outside of Lamoni women would talk to me . . . But alcohol
> was not a
> solution to social ineptness.  It was in fact self medication that masked
> nature of predicament while suggesting short term benefits.  I
> say this even
> now when more then a handful of women whose company I enjoy
> (greatly in many
> cases) claim verbally and behaviorally to enjoy my company more
> post 11 PM
> after I've had one or two doses of Jack Daniels or Single Malt out of a
> clear bottle (cost of such bottles starting above $150 has
> something to do
> with their response, which is not to imply women are shallow anymore then
> men are shallow because they notice a woman's architecture long
> before they
> notice whether she can walk or not).  To this day any success with women
> rests of three elements: cigarettes (for communication), whisky
> (for what I
> can only assume to contribute some necessary phremonal element) and
> familiars (non human frequently four legged and furred) . . .the
> most useful
> has always been the familiar.  But like all adaptations whisky was social
> compromise that masked my ability (i.e. It was both cause and
> agent of self
> deception) to analyze both health and social integration
> accurately.  While
> my long held belief can be challenged I have tended to belief,
> for most of
> my adult life, that all private social self medications are
> primarily self
> deceptive.  Evolution suggests that individuals are most successfully
> convincing when they 'believe' their presentation (even the most dogmatic
> evangelical orator accepts this evolutionary position behaviorally).
>
> The tiny upside is that while response can never be linear humans do not
> have to remain behaviorally rooted to ideological self deception . . . I
> still 'believe' that straight whisky (as opposed to frau frau sugary rum
> drinks) tilts, thermodynamically, the gender equation resolution
> in my favor
> I have learned to not drink and drive  (which is not entirely
> true but while
> one drink impairs judgment I have learned to constrain by driving
> drinking
> to two in four hours (more or less and am willing to lurk by the side of
> road for hours if necessary) . . . And that is about as mature as
> I'll ever
> get on this question . . . Even when I know that alcohol is not
> 'good' for
> me (in excess . . . On glass three times a week of something
> might actually
> have minor benefits . . . I think the jury is out) . . . But even this
> adaptation exceeds what most humans obtain . . . You can take the
> cure but
> if you don't change your life (style) the cure doesn't last
>
> Unfortunately I now eat salty crisp snack foods . . . Usually
> while watching
> alpha wave accentuating Video that does not even interest let
> alone amuse me
> . . . Instead of drinking a couple of beers (Guinness), losing a
> couple of
> rounds of nine ball at the local pub
>
> Oh, the other thing . . . By far the more obvious, learned from the John
> event is that age magnifies the consequences of physical carelessness:
> water, sleep, diet, exercise.  For years the functional metric (with no
> suggestion as to correlation) for a 'frailty' diagnosis was inability to
> walk a quarter mile in under six minutes . . . . I walk a bunch and have
> always budgeted 20 min for a mile . . . The five minute quarter
> mile is not
> something even supposedly healthy people in their 30's can necessarily
> accomplish . . . . But the point here is that older you get carelessness
> about entropy ('reality') magnifies outcomes: after a certain
> inability to
> cover a quarter mile in six minutes becomes predictive in a way
> that @ 30 it
> is not (it might be suggestive)
>
> Roughly a year a go (school board elections) I got John to walk
> to the town
> hall to vote . . . He was not able to make it home unassisted.  While the
> main conversation concerning his leaving Lamoni had occurred in September
> (less then a month after being back I was seriously stir crazy,
> barn sour .
> . . Took one final trip to NYC (rained every day)) I made one more pass
> after that walk . . . Then settled in to wait for the 'episode'.  What
> occurred was not, of course, what was anticipated, and the fact that his
> under lying health is still remarkable 'good'/'strong' suggests
> (though not
> definitively) that he does not have to 'live' like he does.  But the two
> principle diagnostic items for my belief that I could no longer
> continue the
> pattern of the previous three years were his performance on the
> 'walk' and
> his inability to regulate effective hydration.  Even with that I
> would not,
> did not anticipate the speed with which 'tipped' end of July:
> Friday was a
> much milder day and I had thought it was a 'good' sign that he
> was able to
> drive, shop, take care of chores out and about after being
> sequestered for a
> half dozen 'very' hot days.  Even knowing that 'weakness' and
> hydration were
> principle areas of concern I missed the 'moment' . . . And was willing to
> spend a lot of time and effort on alternative theories (none of
> which can be
> discounted yet).
>
> So I'm not attempting to pedantic hear merely additionally
> cautionary: the
> short term (years) and long term (decade) cost of ignoring 'reality'
> (entropy) can be devastating (and age is a magnifier) . .. Nor
> will we, as
> individuals (generically speaking) ever be the best arbiters of what
> individual entropy is . . . Evolutionary constraints preclude individual
> awareness of just those issues age 'magnifies' . . . All of which
> is why a I
> became a fan of a 'real' psycho-social assessment (not a typical
> MD psyche
> consult . .. Something less esoteric and more rigorous, but
> that's a story
> for a different day and outside of CA & NY the concept was never
> adequately
> (nor rigorous defined)
>
> So get some sleep . . . And while it is probably not a strategy you can
> implement in a hospital I actually found the unsharpened hunk of sward
> shaped  metal (which I never even took to a machine shop to see if it
> 'could' hold an edge (which had been my original intention)) you gave me
> years ago (and partially because it was a 'gift') to be greatly
> beneficial
> for short meditation cycles . . . Not quite a teddy bear (and
> even original
> infant teddy bears no longer served as well) but still an aid in clearing
> and integrating brain function . . . But as I said stilling cross
> legged in
> the green room, or what ever the hospital equivalent might be, for twenty
> minutes (if the buzzer does not sound) with a sword would
> probably be looked
> upon askance.  Unfortunately there is a high probability that the
> majority
> of your supervisors, from now on, will view any individual behavior with
> suspicion . . . And this will not be limited solely to the
> incompetent ones
> . . . In fact outside of the very small pool of individuals who actually
> know how to manage teams (and I no longer include myself in that number,
> though I get closer then most) the greater the skill set of the
> manager the
> more initial difficulty you are likely to have . . . .
>
> Sleep diet hydration (for which no sport beverage I'm researched is a
> sufficient substitute to H2O) . . . . If the labor pool is
> unending and if
> management is unconcerned about risk management (i.e. Cheaper to
> pay off the
> claims then support 'safe' workplaces) then pushing individuals to the
> breaking point helps with salary and benefit packages, humans being who
> humans are, evolutionarily speaking . . . But it is always
> strategy that has
> unanticipated outcomes: organic reaction to stress is always
> non-linear, by
> definition . . . Whale beaching, the new problem (and it is a problem) of
> HEC (or for that matter the corollary problem of elephants raping and
> murdering rhinos) being some not so subtle indications that all corporate
> risk management strategies are genuinely wrong headed (even the media
> stories about the 'spinach' problem last month refused, universally, to
> mention let alone address the primary problem: 1. Feeding grain
> to domestic
> live stock that evolved as 'forage' animals 2. Followed by rearing them
> industrially which has 3. created a situation where fecal material is
> filtered for undigested grain which is reused . . . It is not so
> much that
> we have 'created' a 'new' species (evolution does not quite work
> that way)
> but have concentrated an acid resistant variant in just those conditions
> that, predictably, will cause society the greatest problems.  (Just as
> spinach is 'safe' 'organic' carrot juice with botulina toxin has been
> discovered)
>
> And you though you could rant!  Principally doing this one because it is
> precisely those elements of John's behavior that granted him the most
> success (in his mind) that have become most deleterious to his prolonged
> quality of life.  This is coupled by a realization that I am
> constitutionally incapable of adequately analyzing and/or
> modifying my own
> behavior to mitigate the same type of deleterious delusions . . .
> But we do
> now where to start: get the oxygen mask on ourselves prior to assisting
> anyone else: sleep, hydration, diet, exercise . . . Non linearly
> intertwined.   Not, ever, implying the homeopathy is sufficient . . . But
> I've watched a lot of 'kids' start with arrogant assumptions
> about what they
> will be able to continue to do at 30, now at 40 and even 50.  One
> of the few
> consistent rewards of aging is knowing what, even the least arrogant ones
> will be feeling with a few added years.  This has been with horsemen,
> dancers and musicians.  Age magnifies the consequences of not
> acknowledging
> entropy.
>
> Oh well, blah, blah, blah . . .
>
> Take care
>
>
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