In The Zeitgeist

Very Excited About Our Tulips This Year

May 6, 2023 Steve Comments 1 comment

In front of our house there is a little round planter area which is full of tulip bulbs. They’ve done really well this year, as you can see from the picture to the right. They’ve created this lovely riot of pink blooms, with some red thrown in for highlight, which you can admire every time you step out front.

They reminded me of this book I read a while back, called Tulipomania, about the infamous tulip bulb market bubble in the Netherlands in the 17th century. The book starts with a history of the tulip, which originated in the steppes of Central Asia, coming to Europe via the Ottoman Empire. It’s a very hardy plant, able to tolerate extreme cold and dry weather. We certainly don’t put any effort into caring for ours; it’s like they just obligingly come up every spring to give us a show.

As for the tulip mania of the 1630s, well, it’s possibly the best known example of a market bubble in economic history, though there have certainly been others. As the book explains, a market bubble occurs when a good is artificially priced much higher than its actual worth. Supposedly, according to economic theorists, markets will naturally adjust prices based on supply and demand. These theorists are assuming that people behave rationally, and pay for stuff based on its worth to them, relative to other options. However, it might not be correct to assume that people are always rational, as a survey of history will reveal.

*A rare tulip of the sort that set off tulip mania.*

The story of tulip mania is an interesting one. It seems that before the bubble, and after it as well, there was a market for rare bulbs that produce exquisitely beautiful, multicolored tulips. The variegated patterns on these flowers are the result of a virus, which can be preserved in a bulb when it is propagated by division. So it was possible, though very difficult, to breed these rare tulips, and tulip connoisseurs were very interested in acquiring these bulbs; hence their high prices. They were like luxury tulips.

Somehow, when the general public got wind of how much these bulbs were selling for, they decided they wanted in on the racket. Of course, they couldn’t all buy these rare bulbs, since by definition there aren’t many of a rare thing, so they just bid up the prices of the common tulip bulbs. You know, the boring red and yellow and purple ones that you can see filling fields in the Netherlands if you do a quick image search. These shouldn’t be worth a whole lot of money; they’re a basic commodity, like potatoes. But somehow the Dutch masses convinced themselves they were all tulip bulb brokers and these common items soared in price. It was a classic case of “irrational exuberance.”

The bubble didn’t last too long, because the fundamental value of the ordinary tulip varieties simply did not justify the high prices. That’s what makes an asset price bubble a bubble; sooner or later the exuberance wears off, and the holders of the asset who bought it for its inflated price can’t offload it for a profit. Demand for the asset drops sharply, and pop! goes the bubble. The asset owners are stuck “holding the bag,” as they say. They get wiped out.

What stands out about tulip mania is how plainly it is an example of a price bubble, since it involves a basic commodity, and the price inflation was so disproportionate to what one would think was a rational expectation. I mean, surely the farmers who were selling their bulbs at these inflated prices knew they were ripping off the speculators, right? Were they being immoral? Arguably, they were being rational – any given farmer would know that if they didn’t sell their bulbs to someone willing to pay so much, some other farmer would. Any given speculator knew that if they didn’t buy and flip some bulbs, some other speculator would, and reap the profits. It was a case of herd psychology, everyone just playing along with the madness.

A similar herd psychology is at work in the kinds of bubbles that most commonly affect our lives, which are in the stock market, such as the dot-com bubble, or in real estate, such as the 2000s housing bubble. When credit is easy and exuberance is high, everyone just kind of goes along with the trend of rising valuations and carefree spending. No one wants to spoil the party. If you’ve seen the movie The Big Short, you know that the guys who saw that the housing bubble was going to burst were going against conventional thought. When the bubble did burst, it was hard to pin the blame on anyone. I mean, you could single out obvious actors, like the credit rating agencies in the case of the 2000s housing bubble, but can you prove they were guilty of fraud, and not just of herd mentality? No, you can’t.

I think this kind of mania is possible because, ultimately, money and the value of stuff is a fiction in our collective heads. If we all agree that a digital coin is worth ten thousand bucks, that’s what it’s worth. If later on we all agree that it’s worth a hundred bucks, it becomes worth that much, and too bad for you if that’s all you’re invested in. We could even all agree that the tulip bulbs in our front yard are worth ten thousand bucks apiece! Just venmo me and they’re yours.

The Time of Our Lives

April 29, 2023 Steve Comments 0 Comment

One of our patterns at home is that later in the evening, the rest of the family has retired and it’s just Aileen and I in the living area, and we would like to watch a little more TV before bedtime. As I explained in another post years ago, when you are watching streaming video with your family, you need different shows for different subsets of people, since you can’t continue watching any particular show without everyone you started watching it with being around. The latest show that we’ve picked for when it’s just Aileen and I has been Downton Abbey. This is a show which Aileen had watched some of in the past, but I had never seen. I am typically about ten years behind pop culture trends, but that’s OK because everything is conveniently saved on the Internet now.

This show is a delightful historical drama, set in a country estate in the 1910s and 1920s, and depicts the lives of both the aristocratic family that lives there, and of their domestic servants. There was a similar show in the 1970s (remade in the 2010s) called Upstairs, Downstairs that was set in London in the same time period, but we haven’t watched that one.

Period elegance on the set of *Downton Abbey*.

Downton Abbey, as far as I can tell, is historically accurate, and I enjoy recognizing historical moments and trends as they come up. I absolutely love the period costumes, especially the 1920s dresses – and, oh my, the automobiles – which are just gorgeous. The show is also quite sentimental, rather a bit of a soap opera, but that suits our late night viewing needs just fine. We’ve become very invested in the characters and their stories as we’ve blazed through the episodes (we’ve finished the last season already – good thing there are two movies to watch, too).

The show gives equal time to the aristocrats and to their servants, and focuses a lot on daily life. Yes, there are big differences in how characters live, depending on their economic class, but since we are binging the show so fast, I can’t help but notice how everyone, well – they just have their routines. Whatever their station in life, everyone just repeats the same behavioral patterns from episode to episode, only shifting into a new pattern if they experience a major life change, like a new position or a marriage.

Kind of like me, I think, as I go through my own routines. In my head I can hear the show’s opening theme, a stirring symphonic piece titled “Did I Make the Most of Loving You?” I’m not a servant getting breakfast ready for the household, or a countess being dressed properly by a lady’s maid before emerging from my chambers, but nonetheless I have my allotted role to play. Work from home computer guy, starts the day with coffee and the daily Quordle. Since the pandemic began, I am very much in the same pattern day to day, week to week. Not even switching jobs meant much of a change for me. Each week repeats the same cycle, another sweep of the second hand on the clock of life, ticking away to the last midnight.

It’s hard to believe it, but we’re already a third of the way through 2023. Did we binge the year too fast? Should we have tried to pace it better? The summer is almost upon us, though you wouldn’t know it from the cold rainy weather. I know it from the way some of our work is winding down. High school theater season has come to an end; there’s nothing left for the Philadelphia Independence Awards except for the awards ceremony itself. My work on Neil’s book is done. We need to get our garden planted – it’s a bit late, even for us. Did you know the kitchen gardens at Downton Abbey are quite impressive?

Our sweet sunshine kitty is holding on. Aileen is proud of her for staying with us, though it’s so hard for her to eat. We just keep giving her as much of the soft, pureed food as we can find. It’s clear that she wants to be with us, that she’s staying for love, and that we must make the most of it. What else is there to life? We’re just pushing through time, from one moment to the next, each inflection point marking out our story, until we get to the finale. How many seasons are left, and will we make the most of them?

The Rise and Fall of Drinking Culture

April 14, 2023 Steve Comments 0 Comment

We’ve recently been watching Mad Men (available on Amazon Prime with our AMC+ subscription), a TV show about New Yorkers in the advertising business in the 1960s. It clearly is attempting to paint a portrait of what life was like in that bygone era, and how social mores were so much different back then. For example, everyone is constantly lighting up cigarettes, in any context, even in front of kids. The men unabashedly treat women like sex objects, and the women just accept it and learn to navigate what today would be considered a hostile work environment.

I know that a major premise of the TV show is to highlight these social differences between then and now. How accurate this portrayal of the period is, I can’t be sure, since I wasn’t there, but it seems plausibly realistic to me. And the show certainly has high production values, beautiful art design, and fine performances, making it a delight to watch.

What truly amazes me about the lifestyle of these advertising guys (as depicted on this TV show) is their capacity for consuming alcoholic beverages. They keep liquor in their offices, and take any opportunity to have a finger or two of scotch. If one of your coworkers comes into your office at, say, 10:30AM, well – it would be rude not to offer them a drink! It’s a much different experience than I’ve had in my work life, which has occurred since our society moved on from the casual alcoholism of these Madison Avenue men.

For the duration of my young adult life, it would have been unthinkable to have alcohol in the workplace, or even to have a drink during the work day. It’s possible that this is because I spent those years living in the South of the United States, which while certainly known for its hard-drinkers, is also known for puritanical restrictions on public life. Maybe up in the big cities in the North, people were still having three martini lunches. But I suspect the real reason my work life was so different is my generational placement in history.

I do recall one early work experience which was like a glimpse of the last vestiges of the older generation’s casual work drinking. When I was a college student in the mid-1980s, I was in a work-study program, and worked at a major government agency in the DC area. The director of our department had an office suite that was behind a frosted glass window, so I never saw inside. One holiday season he opened up his suite for a company party, and lo and behold, he had a fully stocked dry bar in there. I even had a glass or two of something strong (I was 19 at the time, so I believe this was technically illegal), feeling a little bit guilty since I had to drive home afterwards. I was already internalizing the safety messages about drinking alcohol that were becoming predominant in the culture.

Logically, the director who presided over this dry bar would have been from the same generation as the “mad men” on the TV show, just twenty years older (since it was the 80s instead of the 60s). The way generations work, a cohort of people born about the same time tends to retain the same attitudes and behavioral patterns throughout the lives, bringing those patterns with them to older and older age brackets as time passes. This old timey office executive wasn’t going to give up his liquor, unless they pried it from his trembling fingers.

By the 90s and 00s, the tenor of public life had changed. America was in a social era in which the Baby Boomer generation – a profoundly moralistic generation – was entering midlife; while my generation, Generation X – an opportunistic but disorganized generation – was entering adulthood. Society became safety-obsessed and health-obsessed, and drinking on the job was counter to this new values focus. While my generation may have chafed under the emerging neo-Puritanical values regime, we weren’t about to collectively do anything about it. We would just deal with it.

A similar dynamic occurred in an earlier era: the Roaring ’20s, when Prohibition under the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment was in place. In that time the midlife generation was the moralistic Missionary generation, while the young adults were the free-wheeling Lost generation. Prohibition didn’t exactly stop drinking, but it did drive it underground.

The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed around the same time that the Great Depression started. In the new social era that emerged, the generation that came of age – the Greatest Generation – developed a reputation for collegial drinking and smoking. These behaviors became associated with recreational pleasure in a context of sociability and solidarity, never mind all the health problems they were destined to lead to down the road.

This pattern of casual drinking and smoking in public continued into the postwar era in which the Mad Men live(d), until further generational change led to a more health-conscious society, and those habits fell out of favor. So the cycle goes. The era of the executive with a ready a supply of liquor at the office came to an end.

During my young adulthood, drinking on the job became an underground activity, as during the Prohibition era. I say that because I do recall having a boss who was a bit emotionally unstable, in my opinion, and heard through the grapevine that he drank during the day. One time I found an empty bottle in a staircase, and took it at as sign that the rumors were true.

At a different job I had, there was a programmer who reputedly came to work drunk. His fate was to be sent to rehab; the company actually gave him a month off to clean up his act. I think they might have even paid for the rehab. He was really good at programming so I guess they couldn’t let him go. It just goes to show how much attitudes had shifted, and how drinking alcohol had become understood to be more of a pathology than a pastime.

Time has continued to pass, and I am no longer a young adult. Our society has recently gone through a financial crisis which can be likened to the 1929 stock market crash that was followed by the Great Depression. Has there also been a shift in attitudes towards drinking alcohol in the workplace, where it is now more acceptable as a social lubricant and source of conviviality, rather than being perceived as a personal moral failing?

I think so, at least to a limited degree, based on my experience in the workplace. In my recent positions, it has been common for the company to host parties where alcohol is served, sometimes but not always with a cap on the number of drinks per person. I’m not sure if age limits are enforced; it’s not impossible that an intern under the age of 21 has been able to sneak some drinks in. It isn’t exactly Mad Men, but it is an acceptance of drinking in the workplace, at least under controlled circumstances.

Media reports from the past decade or so have also suggested that this is happening, with the emergence a new kind of startup culture where drinks are a perk, available in the break room. Not that I’ve ever had the luck to work at a place like that, but then my startup days were during the dot com era, long ago.

That drinking at work may be on the rise makes sense in this social era. Instead of having moralizing Boomers in middle age, we now have practical Gen Xers, who will do whatever it takes to boost productivity and retain employees. Instead of having lone wolf Gen Xers in young adulthood, we now have sociable Millennials, who favor group activities, for which alcohol – since it lowers inhibitions and elevates mood, albeit temporarily – is a natural fit.

It must be noted, though, that the long term trend is that younger generations are drinking less than us oldsters did at the same age. The party days of my Gen X youth are in the past, and today’s youth are more cautious, and more conscious of their future. In fact, it’s those crazy Boomers who are drinking the most these days. That is the real story behind the controversy over the “woke” marketing campaign by Anheuser-Busch: a major corporation is desperately trying to generate sales among the young demographic, and finding that their only customers are uptight old farts. “Anti-woke” alcoholism is for a generation that is currently in its sunset years.

It’s probably for the best that, in the long term, we are drinking less as a society. The harmful effects of alcohol, such as the health problems it creates, and its contribution to car accidents and to domestic violence, outweigh its benefits. Prohibition might not have worked (no one likes to be told what and what not to do), but behavior can still change with time as beliefs and priorities change from generation to generation.

The question is, will this trend eventually reverse for future generations, in a future social era in which living for the present and taking chances with one’s health become fashionable once more? It’s hard to envision a completely alcohol-free future, given humanity’s long relationship with the pleasures and perils of consuming fermented beverages.

And Just Like That, He Was Overemployed Again

March 22, 2023 Steve Comments 0 Comment

I hope the dear reader will excuse me for bragging, but I have to say that I am proud of myself for finding work again so quickly. My last day at my previous company was February 28th; I had an interview with my new company on March 1st, during which they made an offer. I accepted the position, which is 100% remote, with a start date of March 20.

There was a little tension as I waited for the background check to clear, as well as the drug test (!), which I haven’t had to take for a job in a long time. Meanwhile, I was “funemployed” for a couple of weeks, including a week which coincided with Aileen’s spring break from her University job. You would think I would have gotten a lot done, been super chill and relaxed all the time, but it didn’t seem to turn out that way. Aileen says I was a very cranky bear! All play and no work makes Steve a dull boy, I guess.

Once I was cleared and they shipped my equipment, it felt more like a sure thing, and I think my mood improved. It was kind of exciting to be doing a 100% remote onboarding, as this is my first time. I was feeling like I had mastered this new mode of remote work that has come with the 2020s, by proving I was able to switch jobs and stay remote. I was told to expect an email (to my personal account) early on Monday morning with login instructions for the work laptop. All I could do was set it up and wait over the weekend, which was filled with shows for the Independence Awards anyway.

Aileen made sure I got up early on Monday (thank you!) and sure enough, an email came just before 8 AM. I was able to log in, get oriented, and start meeting my colleagues and learning about the project(s) I will be on. In some ways, it’s the same as it ever was; it’s much the same kind of work, just with a different organization. This org, I will say, has embraced the remote work paradigm (as was explained to me during the interview), which partly explains how this all come together.

So now my days are filled with work once more, and then again my evenings, as high school theatre season is in full swing. When will I have time for books, games, and TV? (Aileen is laughing right now, because she knows how much of all those pastimes I squeeze into my waking moments). I’m very lucky, of course, that I have an email laptop job, which makes 100% remote work possible, and that I am able to work at this stage of my life, when I most need to be saving for retirement. Overemployed I may be, but life treats me well.

PS: Sashimi the cat is doing OK, eating well but she is very drooly.

2023 Update

March 7, 2023 Steve Comments 0 Comment

The cat is eating much better, presumably thanks to the anti-inflammatory medicine she is taking. It must reduce the pain and irritation in her mouth. She still is eating mostly mushy food, though we have found that she has a fondness for ham, so she sometimes gets pieces of that to eat. She really likes ham, reminding me of Ponyo the way she tears into it.

Thanks to eating more, Sashimi has gained weight. But she still drools a lot, meaning she must still have that growth on her tongue. It is comforting, at least, to know she is not in danger of starvation.

Nor, it seems, are we in danger of income starvation, as I have been offered, and accepted, a new position. It is the same kind of work I always do (software testing), and it is a 100% remote position with a company in Minneapolis. Pretty excited to be onboarding 100% remote; that will be a new experience for me. Right now I feel like a remote till COVID champion.

Sweet Sunshine Kitty

February 26, 2023 Steve Comments 0 Comment

Our sweet kitty, Princess Sashimi, pictured here basking in the sunshine, has been diagnosed with cancer. She had been drooling a lot, and having difficulty eating, and when we took her to the vet we found out she had something on her tongue. Antibiotics didn’t take care of it, and a biopsy revealed that it was indeed cancerous. 🙁

The vet says it’s just a matter of time, and we are giving her all the love we have. She has an anti-inflammatory which seems to be helping a lot, as she has been able to eat. We’ve been giving her baby food (chicken is her fav) and also pureeing meats that we prepare for ourselves. For example, she ate an entire fish stick once it was stripped of its breading and mashed up real good. She’s been regaining her appetite and her energy, which are good signs.

It’s just a matter of time for all of us, of course, but this sweet girl is pure love and we want to keep her with us for as long she’ll allow. So we keep sending her the good reiki energy and letting her know how much we love her. She really is the center of our domestic bliss.

Our new cat care routine, plus the fact that I am now jobless (I fell off the “overemployed” wagon pretty hard), means a big shift in 2023. Since things always happen in threes, and it’s still early in the year, I can’t help but wonder what new shock is coming. Best to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

Sufjan Stevens’ Songs of Gen X Neglect

February 17, 2023 Steve Comments 0 Comment

One of my favorite indie singer/songwriters is Sufjan Stevens (b. 1975). He is a multi-instrumentalist who often plays multiple parts in his recordings, as well as vocals. His style ranges from acoustic folk to symphonic to electronic, often blended in one piece. It’s very unique and creative, and I love most of his albums and have listened to them over and over. His songs tend to be very downtempo, often sad and depressing (as another singer put it, sad songs say so much), but also lyrically brilliant, each song a miniature story rich with historical, cultural and spiritual references.

Stevens was born in Detroit, and grew up in Michigan, raised by his father and stepmother. His mother moved to Oregon and remarried when he was very young, though he still kept in touch and eventually ended up working with his stepfather. Now I don’t know him, and can’t speak for him, but I have noticed that he has written quite a few songs about growing up with divorce and about children feeling abandoned by their parents. It’s hard not to conclude that he has some resentments about his mother leaving, and has expressed those resentments through his music.

A childhood raised in neglect is a hallmark of the Generation X experience, which is why I gave this post its title. I wanted to showcase some of my favorite Sufjan Stevens songs which have this neglected childrearing theme.

The first song is “Romulus,” off of the 2003 album “Michigan,” presumably named after the Detroit suburb of Romulus, Michigan. In this song, children who are being raised by their grandfather are eager for the rare moments of interaction they have with their mother, who has moved away to Oregon. Notably, the narrator is ashamed of her. This song has a memorable line about kids being raised by being left alone to watch TV all night. A plaintive banjo melody runs through it.

Here are the full lyrics to “Romulus”:

Once when our mother called
She had a voice of last year’s cough
We passed around the phone
Sharing a word about Oregon
When my turn came, I was ashamed
When my turn came, I was ashamed

Once when we moved away
She came to Romulus for a day
Her Chevrolet broke down
We prayed it’d never be fixed or be found
We touched her hair, we touched her hair
We touched her hair, we touched her hair

When she had her last child
Once when she had some boyfriends, some wild
She moved away, quite far
Our grandpa bought us a new VCR
We watched it all night, we grew up in spite of it
We watched it all night, we grew up in spite of it

We saw her once last fall
Our grandpa died in a hospital gown
She didn’t seem to care
She smoked in her room and colored her hair

I was ashamed, I was ashamed of her
I was ashamed, I was ashamed of her
I was ashamed, I was ashamed of her
I was ashamed, I was ashamed of her

The next two songs are from the album “Avalanche,” which features outtakes from what is probably Stevens’ most famous work, “Illinois.” The first song has the unwieldy title “The Mistress Witch from McClure (or, the Mind That knows itself).” In it, a family’s children are exposed to their father’s affair with a woman who is apparently a convicted criminal (“the ankle brace she wore”). When one of them has a seizure and the others come to his aid, they are made painfully and shockingly aware that no one is looking out for them. Interwoven voices sing these haunting lyrics:

(Oh my God)
A mind that knows itself is a mind that knows much more
(No one came to our side)
So we run back, scrambling for cover
(To carry us away from danger)

The next song, “Pittsfield,” is less melancholy and more defiant. Alright, it’s still pretty melancholy, but also defiant. The lyrics invoke a story of children learning to take care of themselves while their parent works all the time. It’s not clear, though, if the parent has to work to make ends meet and so is actually sacrificing on behalf of the children. It’s not explicitly stated in the lyrics, but to me it sounds like the parent is probably a single mother. The child from whose perspective these lyrics are sung might not be aware of the constraints of keeping a house. Instead, they are aware of being put down (“Stand there, tell me that I’m of no use”). They are afraid of their parent, and becoming self-sufficient is how they respond, how they learn to free themself from this fear. To me, this strikes me as a particularly Gen X childhood experience, though it could conceivably happen to a child of any generation. Life is always hard for working class single moms, assuming that’s who the parent in this song is.

Here are the full lyrics to “Pittsfield”:

I’m not afraid of you now, I know
So I climbed down from the bunk beds this low

I can talk back to you now, I know
From a few things that I learned from this TV show

You can work late till midnight, we don’t care
We can fix our own meals, we can wash our own hair

I go to school before sunrise, in the cold
And I pulled the alarm, and I kicked up the salad bowls

Since the time we meant to say much more
Unsaid things begin to take their toll
After school we shovel through the snow
Drive upstate in silence in the cold

You can remind me of it
That I was lazy and tired
You can work all your life as
I’m not afraid of you anymore

If I loved you a long time, I don’t know
If I can’t recall the last time you told me so

Here in this house in Pittsfield
The ghost of our grandmother works at the sewing machine post
Hiding the bills in the kitchen on the floor
And my sister lost her best friend in the Persian Gulf War
There was a flood in the bathroom last May
And you kicked at the pipes when it rattled oh the river it made

Stand there, tell me that I’m of no use
Things unspoken break us if we share
There’s still time to wash the kitchen floor
On your knees, at the sink once more
You can remind me that I was tired
You can work late and give yourself up
Now that I’m older, wiser, and working less
I don’t regret having left the place a mess

You can remind me that I was lazy and tired
You can recall your life as
I’m not afraid of you, anymore
Anymore

In 2012, Stevens’ mother died from cancer. In the next few years he worked on an album to help with grieving and to process his relationship with his mother. It was released in 2015, titled “Carrie and Lowell” after his mother and stepfather. It is quite possibly the most depressing album you will ever hear. Stevens combines melancholy songs about death with childhood reminiscences which speak to many of the same themes discussed previously. Did his mother really leave him at a video store? Maybe so based on these lyrics from the second song on the album.

When I was three, three maybe four
She left us at that video store
Oh, be my rest, be my fantasy
Oh, be my rest, be my fantasy

I’ve linked to the entire album below (on the artist’s official channel) and you can judge it for yourself. We can’t know exactly how Stevens was able to reconcile his feelings regarding his mother, but from his repertoire of sad songs about childhood neglect we must surmise that her abandonment of him left deep scars. I know many Gen Xers for whom something like this is the case.

If you’ve listened to the songs and perused the lyrics I posted here, I hope you appreciate Stevens as much as I do, and how wistfully and painfully his music portrays Generation X in childhood. We were tough, we were resilient, but the feeling of being left on our own haunts us to this day. Through his music – introspective, maudlin, often resentful – Sufjan Stevens perfectly captures this generational experience.

Thrown Off Balance

January 23, 2023 Steve Comments 2 comments

Last week I received somewhat shocking news when I logged into work on Tuesday (Monday was a holiday so this was the start of the week). Apparently, for cost cutting purposes, some positions had to be eliminated, and unfortunately mine was one of them. I was told that my last day would be January 27. In other words, I was given two weeks notice.

This was unexpected as I recalled having been assured at the end of 2022 that my contract was extended for 2023. I guess they just meant for the start of 2023. What a raw deal. Now I am faced with the prospect of looking for work, always a challenge and ever more so as I grow older.

I might have known something like this was coming, since the amount of work the team was doing had been declining. But I guess I thought it would happen to someone else, not to me. Apparently there’s been a trend of tech layoffs, and I got caught up in it. I wonder if it’s a sign of more widespread economic troubles to come.

The manager on my project says he wants to hire me back, once they have the funds. It’s just a question of if there is anywhere they could move me to in the meantime; they say they are looking, but I’m not sure how much faith I have. A sneaky paranoid feeling makes me think they’re just blowing smoke in my eyes and are glad to be rid of me.

I went for a walk later in the week, and on my walk I stumbled on the uneven sidewalk and took a spill. I couldn’t catch my fall and hit the ground hard, luckily onto my side so I didn’t hurt myself badly, except I did skin my knee. It is still raw and red and painful, and I have a little limp from avoiding bending my leg. Was it clumsiness that caused my fall? My failing vision? It feels like this unexpected news threw me off balance, and so I literally lost my balance and fell, and now I bear this painful limp like a mark of my misfortune.

I’m sure it will heal quickly, and I’m sure I’ll get back on my feet again and be stable soon, one way or the other. It’s just getting wearying trying to stay on the path.

My 2022 Retrospective

December 31, 2022 Steve Comments 0 Comment

In world events, the two big stories of 2022 were clearly the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the confluence of the Jan 6th committee hearings and midterm election results, which I will call the slow death of MAGA. I thought it was impressive that the Biden administration was able to rally the West in support of Ukraine, and also dodge the expected “red wave” repudiation of the executive term. Is this inching towards a “blue wave” consolidation, and a revitalization of the Western alliance, after the setbacks of the previous administration? Or is it just pulling the partisan tension ever tauter, in anticipation of a reckoning still to come? Either way, I would like to take this opportunity to extend a middle finger to all of the MAGAts in the Putin/TFG camp, and heartily wish them more failure and humiliation in the new year.

In my own life, the best new thing to happen to me was being hired to work on the end notes for the sequel to The Fourth Turning. I’ve been a fan of Strauss & Howe generations theory for 25 years now, nearly half of my life, and it’s an honor to be included in Neil Howe’s process of writing the much anticipated sequel to their 1997 book (Bill Strauss passed away in 2007, sadly). It has been a lot of hard work, and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute and to prove myself (I’m pretty good at methodical information organization).

I say this is the best new thing to happen to me, because there is much to be grateful for in 2022 that is a continuation of past trends. I really am one of the luckiest people in the world. I get to work from home in a time of plague, and while the Covid-19 pandemic is about to reach its three year anniversary, my extended family and network has for the most part mercifully been spared the worst outcomes from the disease (though enough of us have caught it, Lordy). Our family is financially stable, even while our national economy is not. And though I have Boomer parents and Millennial children, I am not really “Sandwich Generation” in the sense of being responsible for caring for family both above and below me on the age ladder. My parents, thankfully, have retirement savings.

I’m also very lucky and grateful to be with my partner, Aileen, after almost ten years since we reunited at our 30th year high school reunion in 2013. We started off visiting each other frequently from our respective homes 400 miles apart, and ended up living together under one roof. Being in lockdown together tested our relationship – could we stand continuous contact for months on end? Turns out we could. Pandemic lockdown and moving in together have only strengthened our partnership, and I look forward to many decades together to come.

My big hope for 2023 is more opportunity for creative work, for myself and everyone else in the household. I know, it might seem crazy to wish for work. Didn’t I just enjoy a week off from that? But we Gen Xers are in our peak earning years, so it’s very good for us to keep that going at this point in our lives. I for one will be hitting the ground running next week, rereading Neil’s book while also swamped with work at my computer job. Aileen has had her contract at West Chester University extended, which is great because it means she will get one full year there to put on her resume. As for the young Millennials in our family, I hope for more opportunity to learn and grow, and figure out where they want to go in life. We will, of course, be there to support them.

To my readers, I say thank you for checking out my blog, and I invite you to keep visiting as I continue to chronicle these challenging times. We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we can be sure there is significant change coming. I hope you have a foundation in your life like mine, because that will so helpful for getting through this crisis era. All the generations will need one another for a safe and prosperous New Year.

Please Don’t Stick That in My Brain: Some Thoughts on the Past and Future of Cyberpunk

December 21, 2022 Steve Comments 0 Comment

I’ve recently enjoyed a little foray into cyberpunk fiction. I watched the Netflix anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and also read the book on which it is ultimately based. Technically, the TV series is based on the video game Cyberpunk 2077, which is itself based on the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk. But the creator of the RPG has acknowledged that he was heavily influenced by the book Hardwired, by Walter Carlos Williams, which is the book I read. I could definitely see the influence, traced all the way back through this pop culture pedigree – in concepts, style, and even a little bit in content.

Typically, a story in this genre features protagonists who are marginalized outcasts, and also stylish and cool (that’s the “punk” part). They make a living as outlaws, and probably party hard in their free time (that’s the “edge” part). They have expertise with advanced technology, and interface with it using direct neural connections (that’s the “cyber” and “hardwired” parts). Their adversaries are powerful corporate conspiracies in a futuristic setting where multinational (or even multiplanetary) corporations have eclipsed governments. Think Blade Runner. It’s something about the zeitgeist of the time period when cyberpunk began (the dawn of the Reagan era) to imagine corporations replacing governments as the rulers of Earth. You might even think of it as sci-fi authors being characteristically prescient.

The anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has all these genre features, in a slick, stylized package with a kind of pastel-colored 1980s aesthetic. To me watching it felt very much like sitting in on RPG sessions where a motley crew of adventurers go on missions, collect loot, and buy ever more powerful upgrades to their fancy cybernetic enhancements. In that sense it’s a fitting adaptation of the tabletop game and video game that are its ultimate source material. That’s not to say there’s no bigger picture or meaningful plot; there is an over-arching story and there is depth to the show. It’s very well executed, making it both an artful and an entertaining series. I should warn you, though, if you plan to watch it, that it depicts extremely graphic violence, as one would only expect from a roleplaying game (I’ve RPG’d a lot, and trust me, gamers love to live out their violent fantasies around the gaming table).

The signature element of the cyberpunk genre is undoubtedly the cybernetic implant – some sort of machine enhancement of the human body. Maybe it’s a weaponized appendage. Maybe it’s enhanced senses, like eyes that can see infrared. Or maybe it’s a chip in the brain that let’s you interface directly with computer systems, hacking into them in a virtual reality mode where you become a digital avatar travelling through cyberspace. In the original cyberpunk tradition, you typically have ports, in your skull or perhaps at the base of your neck, where you jack in to cyberspace by plugging in wires. These stories were all dreamed up before there was ubiquitous wifi, so it makes sense that writers would assume that was how to connect to a network. It’s like how in 1970s sci-fi people in the far future are using computers with monochrome CRT monitors. You could always argue that a direct wired connection would be faster and more reliable than a wifi connection, so it would still be desirable to have a USB port in your head, even in a cyberpunk future saturated with wifi networks.

In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners you have all these kinds of cybernetics. The specific ones that a character uses define a sort of character class for them; whether they are combat oriented – which could mean being strong and fast for hand-to-hand combat, or just very accurate with long range weapons – or a computer hacker, sneaking into the corporate networks while the combat characters watch over them or create a distraction. Sometimes drugs are needed to work with these cybernetics; specifically, in this anime, a character has to take immunosuppressants to prevent his body from rejecting his implants. In the book Hardwired, the characters took a stimulant drug which helped their nervous systems to interact with their hardware.

This sort of transhumanist idea of replacement cyborg parts has been around for decades now, but how close are we to neural implants in real life? We really only have implants which provide minor electrical stimulation for medical rehabilitation purposes; they sort of help an organ by giving it a little kickstarting jolt. Implants directly into the brain have been used to treat neurological or mood disorders, but all they are doing is alleviating symptoms with a tickle of electricity. They are a far cry from science fiction human-machine interfaces that link the mind to digital space. For that, we still have to rely on our old-fashioned senses, and put on a set of VR goggles. As for cybernetic body parts, well, the closest we have is myoelectric prostheses, which can pick up electric signals from the muscles, thus enabling the user to control the prosthetic. But this signal is picked up from the surface; no implant is needed.

The idea of direct neural connection to electronics, merging human consciousness with machines, remains a far-fetched sci-fi fantasy, like sentient androids or colonies on other planets. But it’s one which science fiction keeps revisiting. You may have encountered it recently in episodes of the anthology series Black Mirror, where people have devices in their brains or eyes which record everything that happens to them, or interface them with an augmented reality social network. These are simply used as vehicles for plots involving crime, troubled relationships, or people struggling for social acceptance. These stories could have been told without including imaginary technology, but the point is to look at modern life by extrapolating from current trends.

Today we engage with social media platforms on our pocket computer devices; will we someday be doing it via chips implanted into our brains, with a thought and a flick of the eye instead of a swipe of a finger? I’m going to say no, no we will not. But I guess it’s not impossible. Just not going to happen in our lifetimes, if ever. And if something like that did become available in our lifetimes, I would have to say nope, no thank you. I do not want a chip in my brain.

I do think it’s interesting how cyberpunk dystopias in the Blade Runner style – where edgy, marginalized protagonists use their cybernetic implants for leverage in high stakes, high risk adventure stories – have evolved into a style more like Minority Report, where boring dystopia participants meander through garish commercial hellscapes, desperate to find meaning in their existence. The awesome short video Hyper-Reality, reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode, captures this milieu perfectly:

This isn’t the dystopia I signed up for.

I see this new kind of cyber-setting as a reflection of the overall shift in the zeitgeist – away from the free-wheeling times of my Gen X youth and toward the Millennial era, with its emphasis on group participation and consensus-seeking networks. It’s a friendlier, if more banal, kind of cyberspace. The stories are no longer the picaresque adventures of original cyberpunk, but instead Kafkaesque social commentaries, where the individual is stripped of all agency, and the audience is invited to gaze in horror at the bland nightmare that modern society has become.

The setting of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners could be seen as a holdover from the early days of cyberpunk, a place where some kind of individual achievement is still possible, like the video game worlds that are increasingly the domain of older generations. If only in our imaginations, technology can make us better. But even this anime has a warning about technological hubris, about which I won’t elaborate lest I spoil the show. I’ll just make this statement, though it is a cliché: if we rely too much on technology to enhance our capabilities, we risk losing touch with our true selves.