Appreciation

‘Liking what you already have’ goes much deeper than simply being satisfied with your particular stage in life. It’s more than just ‘taking time to smell the roses or a blanket appreciation. So, what exactly is it?  A book I recently read brought that question to mind. This particular book’s premise asked the question: ‘Does the city that you live in make you happy or sad?’

In his book ‘Happy City,’ Montgomery explains that: “What really makes a good place to live? Journeying around the world from Copenhagen to Bogota,’ Charles Montgomery shows that living in densely populated cities can actually make us healthier, saner and happier.” In the book, Montgomery has some fascinating examples centered in California that got my attention. More on that later.

It’s an intriguing question and one that goes far beyond trying to encapsulate one’s life in general. As another cliché goes: ‘It’s the little things that count.’ Let me explain:

My morning ritual is quite simple: Coffee, some kind of sweet and my Amazon tablet. I relish those mornings when it’s just me listening to the birds awakening to the first light of day. It’s my ‘quiet time’ when I peruse multiple news feeds, select web sites, and my Facebook newsfeed. It’s time to think about current and future writing projects, the day’s activities and (always) some-thing to be grateful for. In today’s hip jargon, it’s my little moment of mindfulness.

At another level, it’s gratitude in its purest form. The sun painting deep shade against a mountainside. Dew on the early morning grass. Time to enjoy the moment. The list of those free, always present gifts of life is all around us. We/I just have to take the time to recognize them.

Montgomery had several examples that caught my attention. He talked about a young couple, who after the 2008 real estate debacle, bought a foreclosed house in a new development outside of Stockton, California. They got the house at a great price but very quickly learned the real price to pay was in their long distance commute each day to work in the Bay Area. It didn’t take them long to realize that their hour and a half daily drive was a high price to pay for ‘living the good life.’

Beyond work and commuting, they had no real life. They didn’t know their neighbors. They were too tired to get involved in local community events and their life had become a daily grind. So much for the often-admired ‘California lifestyle.’ I’m guessing, that in my own backyard, there are a lot of folks traveling up 35 North or down 35 South to the Cities who are experiencing much the same commuting nightmare.

One of Montgomery’s research questions was to ask people: which would make you happier – living in California or the Midwest? He went on to explain: ‘If you chose California, you are like most people – including Midwesterners, who told surveyors they were sure that Californians were happier. Californians agreed. They were all wrong. Californians and Midwesterners report pretty much the same level of life satisfaction.

I could blame that perception on Frankie Avalon or Annette Funicello and their mid-Sixties surfing movies. The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean were part of that lot too. In truth, California is as much a mindset as anything else. But true happiness can be found in the most out-of-way places.

I’m not sure if I came to that realization one morning after a long mountain hike or in the dusk of another well-spent day. Collectively, it was all those little things around me that didn’t cost a dime and brought immense comfort and satisfaction. For example, it wasn’t the cars in my garage. A 1999 Buick LaSabre and 2009 Toyota wouldn’t fit alongside my neighbor’s stable of classics. It wasn’t any of the material things that brought satisfaction but could be discarded without a hint of regret.

Over and over again, it all comes down to those simple little things, all around us, that bring the most satisfaction of living one’s life. Best of all, it doesn’t cost a dime; except for the coffee and treat.

Self-Made, Not Quite

I used to think of myself as a self-made man. I had pulled myself up by my own accord. From starting a paper route in seventh grade to being one of the first in my extended family to get a college degree. I had traveled abroad when no one else had ventured very far. Lived as an ex-Pat in Denmark. Ended up with my own business, real estate investments and then entered the last chapter of my life as a published author.

That was me or so I thought. Raised by a single mother, no male role model in my life, no guidance, no direction, no lucky breaks, just some poor schlep trying to make it on his own. I saw that analysis, not as some congratulatory tour of self, but rather an honest appraisal of my upbringing. Problem was, I had left out the people, places and things that molded me into the person I am today.

Yes, I had done all of those things and I still hunger for success. But it wasn’t just my work ethic, ambition or chance encounters that got me to where I am today. Nor was it some serendipitous turn of events that helped me along the way. Who knew what really happened to me growing up? Turns out that Malcolm Gladwell did and it was truly eye-opening.

In his best seller, ‘Outliers,’ Malcolm Gladwell makes a very convincing argument that “In understanding successful people, we have come to focus far too much on their intelligence and ambition and personality traits. Instead, Malcolm argues in ‘Outliers’, we should look at the world that surrounds the successful – their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.”

It's a fascinating concept and he uses some very convincing examples of successful people like Bill Gates and groups like the Beatles to prove his point. So, it got me to thinking. Were there events, encounters or timelines that helped me along the way? If so, it probably began with a small two-bedroom bungalow my mother built by herself in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The house itself was of less importance than the fact that it gave me stability and a base from which to explore my world. It was a nest I could always retreat back to where I felt safe. More remarkable is that it was built by a woman with a sixth-grade education and a job as a short-order cook. Her brother worked on the house during the day and my mother at night.

Starting a paper route in 7^th grade because my mother needed financial help seemed like a no-brainer to me. It was my first introduction to compound savings, resisting the temptation to waste money on frivolous things and the real possibility of building a nest egg for college.

Of my three Aunts, Coletta was the most successful of the four sisters. Her three sons were always held up within family circles as icons of success. Milton, the insurance executive, Jerry, the Hamm’s Beer supervisor and Ronald (Buzz), the doctor.

In my mother’s rural German Catholic culture, nuns, priests and doctors were considered ‘blessed people’ and above the rest of us. Without a word spoken, the message was very clear. Buzz, the doctor, was the pinacol of success. He went to Cretin High School and St. Thomas College. He was one of the cool kids. I knew I wanted to follow in his footsteps.

Only 265 young boys out of 650 were chosen to enter Cretin High School. Someone dropping out and cousin Milton’s influence with the Christian Brothers got me in as a freshman. Un-denounced to me, I was placed in the non-college track of studies. I was expected to, hopefully, graduate and get a job or enter the service. College was definitely not in my future by their standard of the times.

Yet it was, more than anything else, the environment of an all-boys military school that reinforced my own self-image and desire for more. I certainly knew I wasn’t one of the chosen elites, the best of the best in our class. I wasn’t even in the same classroom with them. But I did become an ROTC officer, joined a couple of after school activities and started to believe in myself.

My savings ran out after two years at St. Thomas College so I transferred to the University of Minnesota and promptly flunked out after two quarters. Uncle Sam gave me a job for two years and St. Thomas welcomed me back, curtesy of the GI Bill. Living in Denmark introduced me to an entirely different world outside of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It also heightened my interest in a myriad of subjects from urban housing to the universality of music. Once back on home soil, I began my real life.

An ad in the Minnesota Daily, student newspaper of the University of Minnesota, caught my eye. It was for a writer at the Minnesota Department of Public Health. Having no other options and apartment and car payment due soon, I took the job. Then a desire for more writing opportunities carried me to public television and my future career in video production and distribution.

When Sharon decided to marry me, I became locked into a lifestyle that has done us both very well. Starting my own business, Sharden Productions, while still working in public Television, gave me the capitol to invest in real estate. Sharon’s mastery of the maternal skills as well her own work ethic reinforced our success as a family entity.

Malcolm’s book ‘Outliers’ helped me see a much bigger picture called my life. Reflecting back on a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice, I now understand it was also a lucky confluence of many different factors that added to that equation. My dysfunctional yet lean upbringing fueled a desire for more. Education played a pivotal role in quenching a lifetime thirst for knowledge. Controlling my own financial future brought a comfortable lifestyle.

Most importantly, Sharon, as my life partner, conscience, advisor, critic and guiding light gave me the normal family life I never had growing up.  In the end, that’s about as good as it gets.

Snap, Chat, Bingo

It’s a whole new world out there with artificial intelligence. When I used ChatGPT to ask about AI’s effect on transforming key areas of society, the answer was expansive and profound. It mentioned areas such as Work and the Economy, Healthcare, Education, Transportation, Creativity and Media, Security and Surveillance, Environment and Sustainability, Ethics, Privacy, and Society. Not to mention Scientific Discovery and finally, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence.)

My particular area of interest is with creativity and the media. So, let’s put it into proper focus. No, I don’t think artificial intelligence is going to destroy the creative world as we know it. It certainly will change it in different ways; many of which we don’t see or understand at this point in the game. But the world isn’t going to end for us if we have driverless cars and software that thinks faster than we can process information. It’s simply another step in the evolution of mankind.

Actually, it’s a repeat of trends that happen down through the ages. Remember when television was going to destroy the movies? Beta was better than VHS. Video was going to eliminate the need to go to the movies or watch the ‘same old thing’ on television. The Kindle was going to destroy print. Libraries were a thing of the past. Gold and Silver were the answer to an unstable financial world. They aren’t making any more land. Everybody’s getting rich in real estate. An ARM is the way to go verses a conventional mortgage.

If you live long enough, you come to realize that what goes around comes around. If you don’t pay attention, it can also bite you on the ass the second time around and cause undue stress and alarm.

Music producer extraordinaire, Rick Rubin, probably said it best. He said there are really just about five AI companies worldwide that dominate the scene right now. And they get all their information from the same source (much as we do) and that is Google. So, the pot of information is the same; it just comes down to how each AI entity chooses to form, formulate, digest, and spit out their collective treasure trove of information.

The catch is that ‘point of view’ is the missing link here. Rubin’s example is a good one. If you give ten directors a movie script, each will come up with a different movie in their mind. It reinforces my argument that ultimately, in most cases there is one creator of a song, novel, play, movie. Certainly, collaboration is often a key here. But ultimately the core idea was (probably) the result of one person’s thought process, imagination, etc. AI can help or hinder here depending on how it is used or misused.

So, no, I don’t think artificial intelligence is going to destroy creativity. It will certainly change it ‘big time’ in ways we can’t even imagine right now. But like Kindle verses print and streaming killing cable, there will probably be a middle ground that most of us can carve out to co-exist with artificial intelligence.

AI gets personal when it helps or hinders me as a creative person to evolve with my art. Case in point; ‘Agnes.’ This was my story about a love affair between a younger man and middle-aged woman. It was part of an Amazon Vella experiment. The novella was uploaded to the Amazon Vella platform last year. Readers could read the first couple of chapters for free and then had to use tokens (from Amazon) to continue reading more chapters.

The book was doing well until Amazon decided to discontinue the program last Fall. The ‘Agnes’ galleys were returned to me and my editor transferred them to the Kindle format. Amazon insisted on also creating a print version. That is where, I believe, AI came into play. While I can’t prove it definitively, I do believe that Amazon used AI for format the book to print.

While there were no glaring errors on their part, I felt the heart of the story had been missed. The biggest distraction for the reader was the improper placement of spacing between segments in each chapter. This running of segments together caused confusion in following the timeline and sequence of events. It was a small thing but significant if you’re trying to tell a story and want it to flow smoothly.

‘Agnes’ was also a perfect example of a product that looked great on paper but then once created, revealed its shortcomings in many different ways. The illustration on the front cover no longer seemed relevant, the text wasn’t shadow blocked and thus was flat and not inspirational. The subtitle was wrong. The text on the back cover revealed little to nothing about the content of the book.

AI had produced the book but I thought it could also help me create a better version. Previously, I had asked ChatGPT for some ideas about a press release and book club discussion points. It came back with some great lines that I decided to use in promoting the book jacket itself. I think of it as a three-step process.

Chat is when you ask ChatGPT questions. I needed a good subtitle to explain in as few words as possible that this was a story of a younger man falling in love with a middle-aged woman.

Snap are the almost instantaneous answers you get. I do believe it was a combination of sub-titles from Chat GDP and my own imagination that finally helped me come up with several good sub-titles.

Bingo is for you to decide if that answer is right, close, spot on, or incorrect for your particular needs. AI is a digital tool and like most software, the more precise you are with your questions, the better (or more relevant) the answer given. What I had in ‘Memories of first Love’ didn’t capture the essence of the love affair. I had to come up with my own ideas here.

Some of the suggested sub-titles I came up with were:

She was too old for first love

Bittersweet First Love that is Ageless

First Love is ageless

Young love with an older woman

Middle age first love

Love most vulnerable at middle age

Forbidden first love for an older woman

The heart feels love that is ageless

Middle age first love most vulnerable

Sharon had suggested a better cover illustration in place of the wind chime. While the chime did play a connecting role in my storyline, it wasn’t relevant enough to be on the cover. I needed an illustration that showed a couple in love. Vida, my editor, pointed me toward a royalty-free web site with thousands of images to peruse.

As part of the revision of the jacket, I transferred the wind chime to the back cover along with new text material borrowed from AI. Those two paragraphs read:

‘Told with warmth and emotional depth, ‘Agnes’ captures the story of a young man looking back on the one woman who changed everything - a summer romance that shaped his life in unexpected ways. As he revisits those sun-soaked days of youth, readers are transported into a world of innocence, longing, and the universal ache of first love.’

‘Blending nostalgic storytelling with emotional honesty, ‘Agnes’ appeals to readers who have experienced the beauty - and the ache - of a love that never quite faded. Perfect for anyone who still remembers that first, unforgettable someone.’

AI had done a good job of capturing what I was trying to say in ‘Agnes’ and I wanted to use it. So, with the help of AI, Vida, and my own thought processes, I was able to recreate a better book jacket, text that flowed more evenly and a final product that better reflected the story I was trying to tell.

There are still a couple of wrinkles to be smoothed out before we produce this second version of ‘Agnes.’ AI helped and hindered the first attempt. Better use of it as a tool of suggestion made it very valuable the second time around. Lesson learned. More on ‘Agnes’ soon.

Dying Rich

It strikes me as curious and absurd that two of the richest men in the world haven’t attached their names to any kind of charitable, philanthropic agency/foundation/effort. It would certainly seem their only agenda is to accumulate more wealth than anyone else on the planet. Way back when, wealth came in the form of railroads and oil. Today, it takes on a myriad of forms.

We’ve all read about these billionaire’s 500-million-dollar yachts, various homes around the globe, foolish expenditure of money for any number of frivolous toys. But helping other human beings doesn’t seem to be on any of their radar screens. We now celebrate billionaires instead of mere millionaires. What the hell is going on here?

Considering their collective wisdom to attain such a fortune, how did they all seem to miss the bigger picture? We remember John D. Rockefeller as being the richest man in America at the turn of the century because he owned all the oil wells in the country. But we celebrate Andrew Carnegie because he built several thousand libraries around the country with his money. Both made the history books, both were pillars in their own community but only one left an indelible mark on the American landscape.

Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple Computer, for whom I have a great deal of respect, didn’t seem to ‘get it’ until the end of his life. His comments made to the 2005 Stanford Commencement address seemed to sum it all up:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Why is it that so many people admire the rich and famous but can’t see the emptiness of their lives and accomplishments? That’s certainly not always the case but, it seems, so often the good gets pushed aside for the glitz and glamor and gold. Worshipping at the altar of wealth seems so foolish.

While I believe in the American Dream, I fear there is something missing in that fable of happiness ever after if wealth accumulation is the only symbol of happiness. I’m not talking about mandatory tithing or annual charity drives or fund-raisers of every form and fashion. It’s the idea that sharing one’s good fortune doesn’t have to break your bank or throw you into poverty. It’s simply lending a helping hand where and when you can. It’s giving a little of what you have to someone or something else that doesn’t have as much.

In this country and around the world, one’s level of wealth is often the social, economic standard that most Americans use to categorize other folks. It’s often how we judge other people even though we lie and say we don’t.

In my other hometown, there have been a number of world-famous figures from the world of entertainment who have made their mark on this community. Many have stood out for their philanthropic endeavors, some more than others. One was incredibly generous with his time, talent and money. His reputation was a sterling example of what a ‘classy’ person should be like.

The other, just as wealthy, was known within his circle as the most money-grubbing cheap skate on the planet. It was so bad, he was a joke even to his ‘closest’ friends. Years later, the old timers still talk about the two of them. Two towering icons of entertainment. Both died very rich, one with a legacy of generosity; the other, a skinflint. Go figure?

As I’ve tried to postulate in past blogs, I’ve read enough obituaries to understand what most folks want to remember about someone else after they’ve passed. It’s seldom their fancy cars or house on a lake. More often than not, it’s family, friends, faith and the ‘little things’ most remembered by others.

The true legacy of a person’s time here on earth isn’t counted in dollars and cents and cybercurrency, it’s about how they spent their time and if they were a benefit to mankind. The pursuit of success doesn’t have to exclude others less fortunate. We can all be a benefit to and learn from other generations.

Just sayin.