Search Me

Carrie Fisher in her one-woman show Wishful Drinking warned about the dangers of Googling yourself “without a lubricant.” (I suggest a high proof bourbon for the lubricant.) Business oriented publications commonly recommend self-Googling for a variety of reasons including security and branding. It was an article in Forbes urging just this that prompted this blog. The article argues that it is good to know if something online is harmful to your reputation, whether it was posted by others or oneself (e.g. some ill-considered Mardi Gras photos). It is sometimes (though only sometimes) advisable to get those links removed if possible. This is not always possible if, for example, they are public records, but at least if we are aware of what a Google search reveals we’ll be prepared for questions that might arise at job interviews. Interviews are a major reason that self-Googling isn’t merely vanity: 80% of employers will use the search engine to check on you before making a hire. The first page results are key. Most casual searchers look no further. Very few look beyond page 5. If you have a common name it might be hard to tease out your own data from the results, which has both advantages and disadvantages. If you have an unusual name (such as mine) almost everything will be about you.
 
I took Forbes’ advice and peeked. These days (surprisingly) my first 5 pages are pretty innocuous. Most of the search results are links to my blog sites and books. There are a few links to relatives with the same last name. In the remainder there is substantial misinformation, but none that is worth getting in a snit about. Besides, clicking on a link increases the likelihood of it appearing higher on the next search, so sometimes it’s best to ignore misinformation or even besmirching references (letting them fade to the back pages over time) provided they aren’t doing serious damage to your current credit. A thick skin might not be fashionable in the 21^st century but it is still commendable.
 

Yet one’s Google footprint has an impact in more ways than money and employment. 71% of surveyed single Americans say they use the search engine to investigate a prospective date. Back in 1987 the movie Amazon Women on the Moon contained a collection of comedic skits held together by a parody of 1950s sci-fi movies. In one of the skits Rosanna Arquette before going out the door on a blind date asks the young man for two forms of ID; she runs them through an electronic device that gives her a readout on his dating history and all his faults. In 1987 this was a joke. In 2021 it’s expected. Whether or not any red flags that pop up in such a search are deserved, anyone in the dating market might want to self-check to see what others see (there’s a Robert Burns echo in there somewhere) and be ready to answer any obvious questions likely thereby to arise.
 
It accomplishes little and is probably not good for one’s psyche to search your online footprint obsessively however. Many people do. According to a Bank of America survey 5% of Baby Boomers, 9% of Millennials, and 11% of Gen Z Google themselves every day. Those might not seem like large percentages but the numbers jump when “every day” is replaced by “frequently.” 48% of Gen Z, 57% of Millennials, 45% of Gen Xers, and 37% of Baby Boomers answer Yes to “I Google myself frequently.” What is “frequently”? That is subjective, of course, but I suspect it’s a lot. Even in fully anonymous surveys people tend to understate how much they engage in activities that embarrass them, and frequent self-searches smack of narcissism. We know from alcohol tax receipts, for example, that Americans drink 50% more than they report on surveys. The statement “I like to have a couple of beers” is not likely literally to mean two. “Frequently” is not likely to mean quarterly or monthly.
 
Unless the results are directly affecting your finances and social life (the in-person kind, not the cyber kind) perhaps it’s best not to worry about them. Like worrying about what the neighbors think, there is not much profit in it. I’m no more free of vanity than the average person, however, so I understand why many folks do – especially young people who don’t remember a time before the internet and who spend more of their lives on it. I wouldn’t wish away the net had I the power to do so, but I’m glad the bulk of my life (the youthful part at that) was lived without it – and therefore with a presumption of privacy and anonymity.
 
"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes," said Andy Warhol. (Like so many famous quotes, the authenticity of this one is disputed, but it has appeared in print since 1968 when he easily could have disowned it.) We are in Andy’s future, and (at least in well cyber-connected regions) everyone is indeed at least famous enough to have a worldwide presence on the net. It’s for more than 15 minutes though. Records of past missteps as well as successes live on stubbornly online for all to see. Google eyes are upon us for life – and beyond.

 

The Andrews Sisters - Barney Google

Being Ordinary

I read myself to sleep most nights. Anytime from 5 minutes to 2 hours after opening the book (yes, an old-fashioned paper-and-ink one) I zone out and it falls out of my hand. That wakes me up just enough to turn out the light, and that is that until morning. The nighttime reads vary in metaphorical heaviness. A few are weighty but there are lots of lightweight detective novels and sci-fi in the mix as well. Oddly, the lighter reads sometimes provoke more afterthoughts. Such was the case with one recent airy sci-fi novel.
 
Fata Morgana (Italian for Morgan le Fay) is a term for a kind of mirage that hovers over the horizon. It is also the name of a B17 bomber in the 2018 novel Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney. Boyett and Mitchroney are experienced screenwriters, and it shows in the structure and dialogue of the book. The premise: in 1943 a damaged B17 returning from a bombing mission over Germany passes through a dimensional portal into a post-apocalyptic future world. The concept is far from original, but that isn’t a serious negative. Very few sci-fi premises are entirely original anymore. What matters is how the author(s) build stories on them. This particular story is no Pulitzer candidate but it is entertaining enough. What piqued my curiosity from the beginning, however, was why the authors chose a bomber crew from 1943 as protagonists. Couldn’t they just as easily have been a 737 crew from 2018? Or a B2, to stick with the military? The authors don’t overtly explain their reasoning in any introduction or afterward, but the text itself tempts some conjectures. For one, setting the initial chapters in WW2 allows the crew (fans of the Captain Midnight sci-fi radio show) to be modern enough in their thinking to quickly grasp what has happened to them without them also saying (as a 21st century crew would), “Wait, I’ve seen this movie.” Perhaps more important, though, is the character of the men themselves.

Not only is the World War 2 generation all but gone, but their kids (Baby Boomers, mostly) are aging out as well, so the number of people with firsthand experience of it grows smaller each year. The generation that grew up in the Depression and then lived through the war was deeply flawed – as Boomers were all too quick to point out two decades later. There was little or no political correctness to them. Yet, they had a competence and style that I miss. They were more natural than most people are today. That’s a broad generalization, of course. Individuals are… well… individual. There are all types of people in all times and places, but the centerline of the bell curve (of the many bell curves) for cultural characteristics really does shift from one generation to the next due (presumably) to historical circumstances. There really are fashions in behaviors and attitudes. In the novel, there is one denizen of the fictional future world whose inculcated suppositions are almost as contrary to fundamental human nature as those typical of fashionable posturers in the real Western world of 2021. She evaluates the B17 crew thus:
 
“They were loud and rude and blunt, but they were highly trained and highly skilled, disciplined when the need arose, and admirable fighters. There was a kind of benign arrogance about them that managed to be charming and off-putting at the same time. If you were on their side they would help you, simple as that. There was also something very alive about them. They were spontaneous, emotional, sentimental. They told stupid jokes and played childish gags… Her own people seemed so deadly dull beside them.”
 
Back in the real world, I and my fellow Boomers in our youth commonly were unfair to the GI Generation on one point (on several points actually, but one that is relevant here): unlike the young lady in the novel, we thought they were dull. By and large they were when we knew them, but this was on purpose and it was in a good way. They had had enough excitement in their youths and weren’t seeking any more of it. After the war they were happy (eager even) to live ordinary lives. Of course they had high ambitions as people always do, but not high expectations. They weren’t disappointed with how their lives turned out if they didn’t move into a mansion on a hill; if they earned enough eventually to acquire a modest Cape Cod on a quarter-acre and a Ford in the driveway in a modest suburb, they figured they had scored plenty big – and not just financially. They were right.
 
This contrasts so much with their grandchildren and great grandchildren. I don’t mean to youth-bash. Boomers undeniably have a special awfulness all their own, but on this one point the contrast is greater with younger folk. There is a well-known formula in social psychology: happiness = reality/expectations. Members of the GI generation in the ‘50s and ‘60s commonly calculated a happiness answer over 1. Members of Generations Y and Z in the 2020s commonly do not. Contrary to modern myth, this is not because they are poorer. (They just might be poorer on average than GenX at comparable ages, depending on how one weights debt and the value of college, but not by much.) By every measure average living standards are higher than for their counterparts in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s; in addition, Gens Y and Z have received far more schooling (if not necessarily more education) than anyone ever before them. Reality isn’t so bad. Yet Millennials (Gen Y) and Gen Z report themselves as unhappier than their predecessors – a self-judgment substantiated by record rates of clinical depression. The problem seems to be with the expectations denominator. The 2019 Deloitte Millennial Survey listed their top five ambitions: travel (57%), being rich (52%), buying a home (49%), making a positive difference in society (46%), and starting a family (39%). Without commenting on the order of the list, one may note that all of those are hard – harder perhaps than expected after a childhood of being told in modern fashion “You can be anything you want to be.” Add to that a fear so commonplace it has an acronym: fear of being ordinary (FOBO). (One acquaintance recently said to me with genuine concern, “I don’t want to be bourgeois!”) Someone experiencing FOBO would consider that Cape Cod a failure.
 
It’s not a failure, of course. By historical standards it is fabulous wealth. If it seems ordinary compared to the dazzling lifestyle displays of Instagram stars, so what? My GI Gen parents in their admirably dull way always said that what matters at bottom is what kind of person you are. (They meant personally, of course, not having the “right” political views – a point they wouldn’t even have thought to clarify.) It’s a choke-inducingly hokey sentiment, but they were right about that too. “Ordinary decency” (also “common sense,” though that is off-topic) is a term once heard more often than today, but it hasn’t vanished from the lexicon. Perhaps it should be a sixth ambition for all of us.
 
 

Joe Walsh – Ordinary Average Guy

Stop and Smell the Asphalt

A friend of mine has a very nice sound system in her Mercedes. I won’t comment on what was playing on it other than to say we have different tastes, but the sound quality was excellent… and loud.
 
“You must think my car is awfully quiet,” I said.
 
“I have to admit, I do,” she responded.
 
90% of the time I drive with the radio off and no MP3s synced by any hard or Wi-Fi connection. It’s not a hardline rule. It’s not a rule of any kind. On long trips or when stuck in traffic or just on random whims I do sometimes turn on the radio for the talk or tuneage. When cars still had CD players (neither of my current vehicles do) there was often a recently acquired CD in my glove compartment; it was sometimes more convenient to listen to it for the first time in my car than elsewhere, but it still remained in the glove compartment for 90% of my outings.
 
From the first day I was licensed I’ve found something Zen about driving. This doesn’t make my driving better. (According to AAA 73% of Americans rate themselves as above average drivers, which suggests that self-judgment in this matter should be regarded cautiously in any event.) I simply mean that there is something about driving that encourages being in the moment: feeling the acceleration and deceleration, smelling aromas from within and without the vehicle, seeing the flickering shadows of leaves on the hood, sensing the wind stream (when the window is open) in every one of the five possible ways (yes, it even has a taste), and of course hearing the cranked up radios in other cars as they pass. I generally prefer all that to the distraction of my own car’s sound system – not always but generally.
 
I am not alone in this response. A book title caught my eye the other day: Learning to Drive into the Now: PRND by Solan McClean. It was a quick read. I’m not typically one for self-help books and this one didn’t convert me to the genre, but he says some things I always have felt (along with some things I haven’t and don’t). “Now is the only reality we have,” he writes. “Everything else is just our mind creating a future that doesn’t yet exist or remembering a past that no longer exists… When people talk about stopping to smell the flowers, they are talking about taking the time to stop and be fully present in the now.” Like myself, he finds being behind the wheel a prime location to experience now. PRND, by the way, is his mnemonic (taken from the settings of an automatic transmission) for helping people for whom it doesn’t come naturally to get into the groove of “conscious driving” (so much better than the other kind): Practice, Relax, Now, and Drive. He expands on each. For transmissions that have an L setting he adds Let Go. (Um… yeah… As I said, he hasn’t converted me to the self-help guru genre of literature.) While I don’t find his PRND thing particularly useful, I do share his propensity for being in the moment on the road.

I’m a fan of contemplating futures that don’t yet exist and remembering pasts that no longer do. Planning ahead has not always worked out well for me. In fact, it usually doesn’t, but a lack of planning would be worse. My worst mistakes have come from not thinking ahead. As for the past, I have a degree in history, after all. Besides, some of my favorite people reside in the past. Past and future deserve attention. But they deserve attention so we can experience some time in something other than crisis-mode: some time when we can forget past and future… and not just for a few moments on a drive to the supermarket. Those are fine for a quick refresher but a whole day is better yet. Living just for today is mentally reinvigorating – not wise as long-term lifestyle but great for an occasional reset. Tomorrow we can go back to worrying about the day after tomorrow.

The Grass Roots - Let's Live For Today (1967)

On Not Being 18

The dumpster mentioned in last week’s blog arrived on schedule on Tuesday. It was full by yesterday afternoon with everything from old doors and windows to broken masonry. Meantime, as part of a program to retire older energy-inefficient appliances, JCP&L hauled away a refrigerator and full size freezer, leftovers from an earlier home.  I had wrestled them out of the basement walkout door, onto the back of my truck, and off again into the garage where the company’s van could back up to them easily. “How do you feel today?” asked a friend on the phone this morning. “Well, I’m not 18 anymore,” I answered. Indeed. Nothing actually hurts (much) but I’m glad there is not a second dumpster to fill today. I’m happy to still be able to do (if somewhat slower, less flexibly, and with more pauses) the things I did at 18 (like lifting refrigerators), but would be happier if I could do them two days in a row without aches as I did then without a thought.
 

Dumpster by the barn

Outside of a black hole (and jumping into one of them would have a downside) clocks continue to tick. So, in a masochistic moment I checked on a few respected medical sites (e.g. Harvard Health Publishing) to see what is in store as 18 recedes ever further in the rear view mirror. The good news is that we always (absent a major medical condition) can improve our muscle strength, endurance, bone density, and so on from whatever it is right now through better diet and exercise. The not so good news is the “whatever it is right now” caveat; it’s not “whatever it was 20 years ago.” The same regimen will not produce the same results at 50 as at 30, or at 70 as at 50. There are people who were flabby couch potatoes at 40 but who muscled up at 60, true enough, but they would have gotten better results at 40 for the same effort.

 
There is nothing very surprising about this in general terms, but some of the numbers might raise an eyebrow. According to a 2013 study (Strength and Muscle Mass Loss with Aging Process. Age and Strength Loss) published by the NIH, “Between 30th to 50th life year the reported changes in muscle mass, power and strength are small. Pronounced changes with aging process occur after 50th life year with more than 15% strength loss per decade.” Once again, one can work to counteract much of that, but the point is that doing so requires extra work when before 50 it didn’t. Also some things can’t be reversed such as a decline in our bodies’ capacity to utilize oxygen effectively, thereby diminishing endurance. A study (Exercise, Ageing and the Lung) published in The European Respiratory Journal says, “Deterioration in function occurs in many of these systems in healthy ageing. Between the ages of 25 and 80 years pulmonary function and aerobic capacity each decline by ∼40%. While the predominant factor limiting exercise in the elderly likely resides within the function of the muscles of ambulation, muscle function is (at least partially) rescued by exercise training. The age-associated decline in pulmonary function, however, is not recovered by training.” Hence those aforementioned pauses I didn’t need at 18. There is a similar tale of irrecoverableness regarding stiffening ligaments (especially spinal ligaments) and flexibility.
 
So, we can’t stop the clock but we can slow it down some. Hippocrates (c. 400 BCE) had it right: "That which is used develops; that which is not wastes away." Or, in modern parlance, “Use it or lose it.” Physical activity increases longevity as well. I’ve never been one to work out at the gym. (All respect to anyone who is, but I’m not.) Fortunately, I’m cheap. That means I do whatever physical labor on my property that needs doing (from mowing the lawn to rebuilding steps to reroofing the barn) that is within my skill set rather than pay someone else to do it. There is always a lot: my home and outbuildings seem to be aging even faster than I am. This keeps me active and sore most days of the week: enough perhaps to satisfy Hippocrates. Perhaps not. I guess we’ll find out when my current refrigerator wears out and needs to be moved.
 
We all live on borrowed time but a successful negotiation (with the lazy side of oneself) might extend the term and reduce the interest. I’m up against a hard bargainer, but I’ll give it a try.

John Lennon - Borrowed Time