The acts of conversation

Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the only way of conducting a conversation was face to face. Maybe over tea and dainty snacks in the drawing room discussing art, or over beer in a pub discussing more down to earth topics.

There were rules, perhaps informal ones, but rules none the less. Don't interrupt those of superior status. Take turns (mostly). Don't hog the floor time. Respect the conventions about which topics could not be brought up in the current context.

The only other means of conversing was by letter, which by definition meant it was restricted to those people who could read and write, and knew people that didn't live nearby, and could afford to actually send or receive the letter. (Used to be the receiver paid.) When you read old letters you'll note they always include the date it was sent, and usually noted other attempts at communication. They often include lots of information on various topics, such as the actual topic, news of prominent deaths, family news such as births, deaths, marriages, and whatever else might come to mind that might interest your correspondent. The actual letter could take a widely variable length of time to get there, and you often never knew for sure that it would actually get there, although during the late 1800's in London, mail could arrive up to 12 times a day. One could write to invite a friend to tea that afternoon, and receive a reply indicating acceptance. At that particular time and place, brevity was the soul of communication.

Letters aren't much used anymore, in the sense of a piece of paper with writing on it, put in an envelope, and sent by post to someone. My granny used to send me actual handwritten letters full of news about people I didn't know. I often corresponded back, though the letters were typed, and later, printed. She was mostly happy to get them, only because she complained about my abysmal handwriting when I did that. Other than from Granny, and excepting mail like Christmas or birthday cards, I can't think of the last time I got an actual letter from someone.

But now people complain about the lost art of conversation. Except I think it's changing, and we haven't sorted out the rules and expectations yet. Consider that there are two parts of conversation. One is the exchange of information. For example, "Such and such happened." The other is more subtle, and it's a validation of the other person's importance in your life, a recognition of the relationships. "You are worth taking the time to talk to."

We have more ways of exchanging news with other people than I'm willing to list here. E-mail is now considered almost as outdated as letter writing, texting, phone calls, video phone calls, more social media channels than I know about, and probably lots more. The problem here is that important news (your loved family member is getting married), ranks equally to some trivial bit of gossip from someone you've never met. (Damn you Facebook algorithm!) Staying on top of it depends on how many contacts you have, how active they are, and how willing you are to put in the time.

It can be a tenuous web of communication, and we might not know if someone has seen that photo, or read that post. Unless, of course, if they respond with a comment or with a 'like' icon.

But that gets us to the validation thing, and this is where we get into trouble. Is that like button, or heart, or other icon response an actual response? Does it mean they actually like what you posted? Is it just a 'yes I've seen what you said' and nothing more? Does an actual comment get you more points than a 'like' response? Does the importance of the news drive the degree of the expected response?

It seems that we've woven ourselves a fragile web of connections, a post here, a selfie photo there, a quick text, a like button or thumbs up icon response, a promise to get together for coffee or lunch sometime. I'm amazed at some of my social butterfly friends, as I think of them, managing a huge web of connections. I suppose some people think I'm such a person,  what with the blog, facebook, instagram, texting, and emails to/with various people, though I think of myself as an un-social recluse.

In one sense this web helps us maintain connections, and maybe makes it easier to renew connections should you actually meet unexpectedly. If the people on each end of a connection are both good with it, then life is fine. But what if the expectations are different? What if one person posts something of actual content, hoping to spark a conversation, and gets only a like response? Or worse, if they find out the person on the other end has decided even a loose connection is too much and they hit the unfriend button? Or maybe they still want to be friends but a creepy stalker ex is driving them from social media and the loss of a connection to a friend is an unfortunate consequence. Except the hurt friend doesn't know that.

What with COVID, actual face to face conversations are problematic. Somehow a video call isn't quite the same. A voice only phone call seems kind of distant now. For fun I just scrolled back through the recent calls on my phone. Some work calls. Some appointment confirmations and followup. Some community association stuff. A few junk robo-calls. Most important were several video chats with friends. But no actual phone calls to or from friends. It's all other channels.

So where do we go? We yearn for connection, and some might say we are overly connected in numbers, and loosely connected in meaning. Maybe our solution is to develop our connections and make them richer. Actually put a comment on that Facebook post. Or send a text that is more than some emojis strung together. Or (gasp) an actual chatty email.

Or maybe part of the solution is to drop some of those distant connections where really, there is no connection.

Now, those waves coming out of my head, are they attempts at communication?

Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis lounging. I've never seen him in this pose.

Flowers
Phacelia

White Peony July 1

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek

The red lilies are opening!

The orange and yellow lilies are lovely, and they are the exactly right colour. I love that deep rich pure colour. It's funny, the red peony never comes out on camera they way it looks in real life, but the red lilies are exactly as seen.

Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis
His, 'what's so hard about now' look.

Flowers

White Peony

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek

Perspective

This is one of the posts I've been struggling with for a while, writing myself into a tangent and then realizing it wasn't what I wanted to say. Back up and start over. Several times.

So this post might be a bit of a downer, but maybe it will help place things in perspective. These are all American deaths and dates, somewhat rounded. Do you see a pattern there?

Vietnam    58,300  over 20 years, with peak death rates in the 70's so a low deaths per month rate overall. First real time graphic media coverage of a war, so that might be part of the impact.
Korea           36,500     36 months    1,000/month
WWI           116,000    19 months    6,100/month
WWII           417,000   45 months   9,200/month
Civil War     750,000   48 months  15,600/month
COVID     140,000    5 months   28,000/month (so far, and the number of cases is growing daily. The death rate cannot but rise along with it.)
Spanish Flu  675,000  12 months   56,000/month

A couple further thoughts. Towards the low end of that scale the ordinary flu kills people every year, but it's hard to pin down the exact number. Let's say 2 to 3 thousand a month with some months worse than others, and say we're in the rough ball park. At the high end, Black Death during the Middle Ages killed many millions of people over decades. Somewhere on the list is the number of Native Americans who died from infectious disease over the last 500 years. That number and the causes of it are hotly debated and I don't want to get into it here.

All of these events have had an impact on society. Some are only in the history books, being beyond living memory. Many of us were alive to watch the impact of the Vietnam War on American society.  We have only just begun to see the impact of COVID, and it appears that some of our political leadership isn't taking it seriously. In turn that drives some ordinary people from taking it seriously.

Which is getting those ordinary people killed at an extraordinary rate in the USA. Look at the deaths per month numbers again. Americans are dying from COVID at a rate higher than any other event in American history except another viral infection 100 years ago. Hospitals in many areas are at capacity. The morgues are beyond capacity with bodies being stored in refrigerator trucks. If the virus goes a year, at the same death rate, which I think is optimistic given current cases, they end up with just under 350,000 deaths.

That's in what calls itself a first world country, with what claims to be best medical system in the world. There might be other countries doing worse, but we don't know because there isn't a rigorous way of counting. Then there are all the other deaths from normally preventable causes that will happen because the required hospital bed is already full. Or because the required medical staff are passed out from exhaustion, or are sick themselves. A hospital in Texas is triaging the patients to make space for ones they can help, sending the most sick home to die with their families, and probably infecting other people along the way.

Except if you're of a particular political persuasion, this is all fake news. Not a real thing. The number of nut bar conspiracy theories floating around to 'explain' this event is mind-numbing. The latest I saw is that the vaccine contains a microchip so 'they' can track you. As if the phone in your pocket and all the info about yourself that you give to every corporation and government under the sun in your daily life isn't enough tracking, and lets not even bring up what they know about you that you didn't give them.

As a brief digression, let me remind you of the test a conspiracy theory has to pass. Ask, how many people have to be involved to make that theory true, and how many have to keep the secret? If that number is bigger than three, the person trying to convince you of the theory is breathing air with special additives you don't want in your lungs or brain. They might well own a tin foil helmet, even if they aren't wearing it at the moment.

There are lots of people from that camp who say the economy must be opened up, full steam ahead. They don't think the deaths and illness are real, or they don't care. In either case they are vampires preying on us, and ought to be treated as such. Closely related are those who say the same thing, while making some provision for public safety, though they get excited by wearing a mask. Their priority is the economy, not the people, though they would say by opening the economy they are helping people. Keep in mind these people want the economy back to 'normal' so they can continue making money by siphoning it from your pockets.

The latest bit of opening the economy is to open the schools. The thinking is that gets the kid's education going again, and frees up the parents (mainly women) to get back to productive work. Somehow, while it isn't yet ok to mingle in bars and other indoor spaces, it's safe to send our children back to school. Kids that have no sense of social distance and are mobile germ factories at the best of times.

But kids don't get it, they say. Which isn't quite true. They can, and even worse, they can pass it on to their adult teachers, teaching aides, and custodial staff. From there it can go anywhere. We know there is a long period where people who are not apparently sick, but have been in contact with people who were not apparently sick, who were in contact with someone who is now apparently sick with it, can pass it on. And that's a simple chain of contact.

It isn't just deaths, bad as that is. All the ill people need some degree of care and there is evidence that many are never back to normal after. We're still in the middle of this, and we're still figuring it out. Better safe than sorry seems to be a good rule these days. Let's hope Alberta's political leadership figures that out.

But the economy, they say. Rhythms with 'But Hillary'. The economy as a measured global thing hasn't been around that long, and measuring it's activity is mainly of benefit to the very wealthy and is mainly measuring discretionary spending. Lets take care of people and the essentials to human lives first, and leave the economic money shuffling to take care of itself for a while.

The ending of the Spanish Flu had a huge impact on society. We started taking public health seriously. Starting dealing with the issues that were known to cause the spread of infectious diseases. Yet now many people think disease has been conquered, or it will only affect some other group. Them. You know, the poor, the elderly, the already ill, the immigrants. Someone else. Not us. Taking precautions would admit that it's a real problem, and since we're in charge, we could be blamed for not doing something about it.

I'm pretty sure that COVID is going to have a major impact on society. Every other big event does. Wait, let me get this straight. You still think this is just the seasonal flu? No big deal? Scroll back up and read those numbers again. It's killing people faster than any other event in American history. America has passed the WWI death total. The total from WWII looks like a long way off, but consider at the current rate will take only 15 months to get there. Not 15 more months, 15 months in total, less than a year from now. Less, if the death rate goes up like the infection rate has gone up recently. Is anyone going to bet that the USA will get it's shit together faster than that?

I don't know what the impact will be, once we can look back and say, 'thank goodness that's over, mostly.' With any luck we will keep firmly in mind the next virus pandemic is coming. Next year, next decade, next century. Sometime. It's safe to bet there will be a worse one coming because we're stamping out the easy ones.

Working from home will be a thing for many people, and those who have homes with an office, or a bedroom to convert to an office, plus fast wifi, will be right there. I'm doing that and loving it. So much for all those middle managers who said it wasn't possible to work from home. When the corporate rice counters figure out they don't need to rent as much expensive downtown office space, you can bet the office towers will be hollowed out even more. I feel for the people that depend on foot traffic through the +15 system.

How much will a vaccine change things? I don't know, and neither does anyone else. Considering some people think that proven vaccines for preventable diseases are somehow worse than the disease, we can fully expect the anti-vaxxers to be in full cry. I'll probably get it, just like I got the shingles vaccine, but I won't be pushing to be at the front of the line. Neither do I think it will be a panacea and we can go back to the way things were. There's no vaccine against the common cold, and the current yearly flu vaccine is a bit of a hit and miss thing. There's some evidence that getting it once does not prevent you from getting it again.

So I'd say get used to this. Get used to limited social gatherings. Figure out an income (and I have thoughts on a UBI that is the other troubled blog coming soon I hope) that relates to what people now think is actually essential. Figure out how to work on line, or in a socially safe way. Lots of other people are. If we're still lining up outside buildings in January, someone will have figured out a way to make money providing shelters for the line up. Or a quick easy app that lets people check in at some random store, and the app manages the line up while we wait in the car. We're smart people, we can figure it out.

My last, unvarnished thing to say. If you have the internet at home, and you still say you're bored, that means either you are stupid, or you need to grow up. Get with the program.

This was taken March 20, the day before we flew home. The virus was much on our minds at times, given what we didn't know at the time. But we still enjoyed the beach day. Now we wonder if we'll see a New Zealand beach again.

Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis
Christmas 2016. He is still an optimist about being let out to hunt his hot buttered bunny. Or better humans...

Flowers
The first dahlia from seed.

White Peony
A bit of red in the heart.

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek

Flowery Friday 9

Running late. I'd hoped to have this up this morning, but what with a quick trip to cheat on our cats, I mean visit a friend's house to feed their cats, pre coffee even, and a some complicated but tedious xl stuff, it was a busy day. Let's not even talk about the brief hail storm.

This is from May 28 with a tulip glowing in the sun, to May 31, with a pair of tulips glowing in the sun. In between is mostly tulips, with some iris, begonias, and something else, just to keep you on your toes or from getting bored.

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This was a surprise. When we were cleaning out the lodge this spring we found this growing up between the floorboards near the wall. Considering underneath is machine tamped gravel, we were a bit surprised. No idea what it is, of course, but it has to be tough. It might be a frozen then dried left over from last year.

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Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis

Flowers
Downward facing pink peony.

White Peony
June 30, starting to open.

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek

Skies

Those other two blogs are being very difficult, and my brain is full of data comparisons. It's really hot out. I want to nap.

The weather people say to watch for a severe thunderstorm this afternoon, but there is nothing special in the clouds. This is from a couple days ago when they said watch for a severe thunderstorm, but nothing came of it.

A few days before that, there was a watch published, but there were no clouds announcing it. This is what rumbled through on the 17th.

So today? Who knows? Maybe there will be photos. It seems like we've had a lot of storms this year so far. It can be good for dramatic photos, but there's the risk of the storm doing something unexpected and you zig when you should have zagged. I saw one storm chaser's car beaten half to death by hail. Maybe that's ok if you have a beater you drive for such occasions, but I don't.

I'm going to sneak in a bee photo, even though those don't seem to be popular. I'll bet you've never seen a bee 6 pack.

And a micro landscape because why not.

Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis

Flowers

White Peony
June 30, almost.

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek