wellseasoned

[wellseasoned]

My experience from 86 trips around the sun:

The most beautiful things in life are not things. They are experiences, relationships, music, art, and memories of same.

[wellseasoned]

Hey, bankers, investors, landlords, developers, etc. cities need to stop growing to be sustainable.

Now, to make cities work, we are robbing future generations of clean air and water, fertile soil, livable weather, healthy forests and grasslands, flourishing wetlands and oceans, awesome species diversity and splendid natural beauty. Shouldn’t this be considered obscene and immoral?

[wellseasoned]

A poem from 86 trips around the sun:

If making money’s  

your big game,

then you and I

   don’t think the same.

It’s friends and nature,

   time and health,

that constitute

   the greatest wealth.

Jerry Nathan

[wellseasoned]

Notes from 86 trips around the sun:

In the 18th century the United States of America was founded and ongoingly settled by immigrants pushing back the natives. In the 21st century their descendants are the natives pushing back immigrants. What keeps getting missed in this story is that the majority of immigrants leave their native countries because there are too many people for the ecological systems, social systems and economic systems in their birth habitats to provide them with a life of mostly health and peace. I recently heard a university professor say there are more civil wars going on now than at any time in history. Is the U.S. about to have another? Maybe more important to nations than the tools for war are the tools for family planning starting with science-based universal sex education that includes the consequences of overpopulating human habitats.

[wellseasoned]

For health and peace we all need to know the difference.

There are conservatives who knowingly maintain lifestyles that go easy on the ecosystems we all need for sustainable civilization and there are conservatives that unknowingly support the far right wing of the Republican Party with its billionaire leadership bent on making federal power into an autocracy for sustaining their own self-interests.

[wellseasoned]

Notes from 86 trips around the sun: Ability to dissent is essential to democracy; ability to question is essential to science.. This makes them self-correcting over time in our march toward our highest values. My highest values are optimal physical health and optimal peace of mind, which, I’ve learned, is a whole lot easier if shared by people everywhere and if done on a healthy-enough planet. Wow, I’d better not give up. How about you? Where do you stand?

[wellseasoned]

Thoughts from 86 trips around the sun:

Hitler had Mussolini and radios when he created villains as an excuse to take over the world. Trump has a host of billionaires, Fox News, and AI.

[wellseasoned]

I don't mean to demean the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi with my previous joke.

[wellseasoned]

I've been reading about Mahatma Gandhi and it's really interesting. He walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. You might say he was a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

[wellseasoned]

Memo to Younger Generations: I am sorry to say it is up to you to undo the mess older generations have made of this planet. Fortunately, you get to use knowledge and tools only possible because of older generations.

[wellseasoned]

WWF reports that counts of some 5500 species of amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, and mammals have declined in numbers by 73% since 1970, due to human activity, which is accelerating. The Best Legacy: Love all your children and create no more or one or two if none.

[wellseasoned]

Thoughts from 86 trips around the sun: There's technology that enhances humanity and there's technology that diminishes humanity and we need the social sciences and the creative arts to tell the difference.

[wellseasoned]

So, I'm thinking, insufficient knowledge and faulty beliefs begets overpopulation of human habitats and overpopulation of human habitats begets unethical quests for power to outcompete and unethical quests for power to outcompete begets dysfunctional societies and dysfunctional societies begets authoritarian leadership to get things done and authoritarian leadership to get things done begets priorities going to the leaders to keep themselves in power. Welcome to 2025.

[wellseasoned]

There you have it, folks. Thanks to the Far Right political movement, especially cutting taxes for the rich, it is now possible to become more powerful than the laws of this nation. Shorting the budgets of public education also helps.

[wellseasoned]

In my 86 trips around the sun, I have passed through 345 seasons. I've learned so much, I can't remember it all. I have, however, long ago concluded that the leadership of the United States has us, most of the time, on the wrong road. Most Democratic leadership doesn't get it and most Republican leadership gets it wrong.

[wellseasoned]

Wellseasoned has to do with my age, not cooking. I have made 86 trips around the sun and have had a lucky life. I probably have had more opportunities to learn about human nature than most people by having been alive longer than most people. I also hold a Ph.D. in psychology and made my living in a private practice for 28 years. I believe I have accumulated enough "wisdom" to want to regularly share bits and pieces on this media platform (if that's what this is - I was born in the age of the telegraph). All for now.

[wellseasoned]

I’d like to think the pandemic reawakened the value of attachment to family, friends, neighbors, and community. We are social creatures, born with DNA to trust, to help, to share, and enjoy one another. Unfortunately, this genetic endowment is overridden in habitats too populated for the natural resources and learning opportunities available. Then, pursuing power to outcompete becomes necessary. Our national economy is now designed to determine who gets the most, who gets less, and who gets left out. This includes real food, adequate shelter, medical care, educational opportunity, and equal justice. The worst of it is the superiority and deservedness that winners are prone to feel, proclaiming their status with bigger and faster and more, leaving less for the rest, also weakening democracy, wanting to keep control, promoting racism and authoritarianism.