Tag Archives: family

10 April 2023

Testing The Waters

By Rick Ladd

I have been working (read “struggling”) on my memoirs/autobiography for longer than I care to think about. I’ve managed to write close to 90,000 words and am sure I need to write another 90,000 (at least) in order to feel I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. Some of what I’m including comes from blog posts I’ve authored over the past decade and a half. Now I’ve decided to take a slightly different tack and publish some of my work here in my blog, in the hope I can get some feedback—at least from my friends who sometimes read what I write here. What follows is the first draft of my Preface to what I’m tentatively entitling “A Stunning Display of Intelligence”, the meaning of which is contained therein. If you read this, and have a mind to, I would greatly appreciate your thoughts, suggestions, etc. Thank you.

I’ve not been one to toot my own horn, preferring to let my actions speak for themselves. This is, in part, because I suffer from impostor syndrome, or something similar to it. My particular iteration of this syndrome isn’t a cause of great anxiety. It’s more like I’ve always felt everyone knew everything I did and what I knew or was capable of wasn’t all that special. It’s only in the last decade I’ve come to understand how this affected me and began to throw off whatever constraints it placed on my progress and enjoyment of life.

It was the blog of an online friend, someone I have never met in person but, because of our mutual interest in the advent of what was called Web 2.0, as well as social media and its application to the enterprise, that brought me my first glimmer of a deeper understanding. He named his blog “The Obvious” and, when I asked him why that was so he told me it was because his impostor syndrome led him to believe the things he wrote about were “obvious” to others; hence the name.

This work of mine is my way of not necessarily showing off, or displaying my accomplishments, but of sharing my experiences, many of which for numerous reasons I have been reluctant to talk about at all with nearly anyone save for those who were with me when they happened and who helped me plan or plot to accomplish. Some of the things I’ve done, especially when I was young and impetuous, not to mention bullet-proof and invincible, were illegal. My virtue is never having been caught, not necessarily being a good citizen. Although, in my defense I will argue much of those activities might have been illegal, but they were hardly wrong. Enjoying the pleasures of Cannabis is one of them. I will discuss this in greater detail a bit later.

My life, while reasonably normal, has not been all that conventional. By that I mean I’ve done most of the things normal people do, I just haven’t done them in the same order others normally have. I have long suggested I’ve lived a great deal of my life in reverse and I believe I am accurately depicting how I’ve done it. For instance, although I did not attend undergraduate school, I was admitted to law school eight years after I graduated high school, graduating with a Juris Doctorate three years later. Many years after that experience (33 to be exact) I earned a Master’s Degree in Knowledge Management. It was shorty after my 62nd birthday. I have considered getting a Bachelor’s Degree just to complete the backward educational hat trick, but at this stage of my life it’s unlikely. I did some undergrad work at the University of Phoenix and Cal Lutheran when I was working on the Space Shuttle Maine Engine (SSME) program at Rocketdyne. I think I finished a semester at the University of Phoenix and a year or more of work in an adult evening degree program at Cal Lu, but it was difficult to reconcile taking classes designed primarily for 18 – 22 year olds still wet behind the ears. The knowledge I could have taught some of those classes was a bit aggravating too. I will discuss these efforts a little later.

I didn’t become a father until I was 55 years old, when my wife and I, after trying to get pregnant, traveled to the People’s Republic of China to adopt our oldest child. It was a two-year, difficult, and amazing adventure. A few years later, in what I’ve often thought of sarcastically as a stunning display of intelligence, we adopted another child from China. Hence the title of this memoir. Later on I will introduce you to my girls, Fooshie and Typhoon Girl.

A word of caution. As I am writing down my recollections I am also researching dates and locations to ensure my memories are as accurate as one can expect from a seventy-five year old man. I have never been one to exaggerate my experiences, but I know that time can play tricks on one’s memory. I am making every attempt to be accurate, but I realize a few of these memories may be slightly distorted. For instance, I know I was five years old when I had surgery to correct my clubbed left foot, but I’m pretty certain (based on my research of when he played for the Los Angeles Angels) I was five years old when I picked up a foul ball during batting practice and, at his request, returned it to Chuck Connors. I’m not sure I can reconcile being mobile enough to get that ball with having some fairly major surgery done to my foot and ankle. Nevertheless, I have managed to slog through what remains of my mind and am presenting what I remember as best I can.

It is also nigh on to impossible to refer to many of the organizations I worked for or the places I visited and which meant something to me and my development or experience back then, because some of these memories are from a long time ago. As an example, one of the companies I worked for and which played a bit of a role in making my visit to Cuba somewhat strange was purchased long ago and, in fact, was re-branded sometime after that purchase-and that was a long time ago.

A substantial portion of this memoir was written over the past 10 – 15 years and posted on one of the two blogs I’ve maintained since early 2006, when I published my first post at The Cranky Curmudgeon (http://crankycur.blogspot.com/). I posted there for a few years until 2014. I did not publish very often the last few years because I had started another blog with WordPress, which I call Systems Savvy (https://rickladd.com/). My first publication there was at the beginning of 2008. I have since published there sporadically and continue to do so; currently a bit over 700 times, not including saved drafts. Some of those posts were simple, short, and sweet while others were somewhat lengthy and more complex and nuanced. Several of them recount experiences of mine, while other reflect on lessons I believe I’ve learned from work or life.

Long ago I came to the conclusion the only thing that mattered for me, in terms of what I accomplish in my life, was that I gained wisdom. When I first began to feel that way I was only in my thirties and I knew that you can’t just hang out a shingle and declare oneself a wise person. I also knew that wisdom comes with time and experience; some would say after a great deal of false starts and failures too. Whether or not I’ve reached that particular plateau will be for others to decide and I am hopeful you will find a nugget or two buried in my remembrances, especially those that are from the more seminal experiences of my now fairly long life.
I’ve struggled to find my voice for, well, pretty much forever and I’m not sure I’ve managed to do a good job with this memoir.

However, I don’t think it’s hyperbole to believe I can at times sense the hot breath of the grim reaper on my neck and I feel a strong need to get this done before it’s too late. As well, I want to leave some coherent (ha!) record of who—and why—I am for my daughters. They lost two fathers before they were old enough to understand what was happening to them and I want them to have something to hang on to after I’m gone. I am, for the most part, the only father they can remember.

For years I considered writing memoirs about certain parts of my life and experience; mostly my political and counter-culture activities and my becoming a first-time adoptive father so late in life. However, various circumstances militated against my doing so, not the least of which was my inability to just sit down and write, as well as organize my thoughts and memories. In this work I have decided to go through my life and get as much of it down as possible. As I began outlining and organizing my thoughts I found it increasingly easier to link various parts, the sum of which can be confusing when taken all at once.

I have therefore attempted to organize my thoughts in such a way the reader can get a sense of what I have learned from a particular part of my life without having to understand the entirety of it, the gestalt if you will. I think you will find it easy to skip over portions that aren’t terribly interesting to you and still get something of value. At least I hope that is the case. I know my life has been unconventional. Not all of it, but substantial chunks of time and experience. I’ve tried to convey what I’ve learned from those periods, as well as the more normal everyday experiences we all seem to go through. I hope you’ll find it of interest, if not enlightening.

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17 October 2022

Gobsmacked!

By Rick Ladd

I am absolutely blown away. In writing my autobiography, or a couple of memoirs, whatever-the-hell-it-is I’m doing, I’ve found it necessary to do some research to confirm things like locations, relationships, personal history, even a little genealogy.

I’ve never been big on family history, but I’ve been told or have heard things throughout my life that fill in a few blanks. For instance, as far as I know my paternal grandfather was an orphan from Poland who settled in (what I grew up knowing as) “The Ukraine.” His last name, as my father spelled it, was Wladofsky. My mother’s maiden name was Moldofsky and, since the suffix “sky” means “from”, I’m pretty sure that means her family was from Moldova, which borders Ukraine to the southwest. There is also a town in the far east of Poland, right on the border of Ukraine, called Wlodowa. It’s conceivable that’s where Wladowsky (Wladofsky, Wladovsky) comes from.

Regardless, as I’ve said I haven’t really been terribly interested in discovering much of this. However, I have on occasion attempted to search the database of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation to see if I could find anything. I’ve not been successful, until today.

The real irony here is that I haven’t found anything about my paternal grandparents or my maternal great grandparents (my maternal grandparents where born in the U.S.) but I finally found a listing of someone. It’s not an immigration record, though. It’s a record of my father returning to New York, via Dublin, Ireland from a Murmansk Run during WWII. He was born in Chicago, but quite high school to join the U.S. Navy and was deployed aboard the U.S.S. William H. Webb.

All these years I thought he was aboard a United States Navy vessel, but I know now he was part of the Navy referred to as the Navy Armed Guard. These were small detachments of sailors who manned the guns on merchant ships. I believe the William H. Webb was a merchant ship outfitted with guns that were manned by the 29 sailors aboard a vessel which also included 41 merchant seamen. My father was the lone radioman.

Here’s what is said about the Navy Armed Guard: “The U.S. Navy Armed Guard was a service branch of the United States Navy that was responsible for defending U.S. and Allied merchant ships from attack by enemy aircraft, submarines and surface ships during World War II. The men of the Armed Guard served primarily as gunners, signal men and radio operators on cargo ships, tankers, troop ships and other merchant vessels. Disbanded following the end of the war, the Armed Guard is today little known or remembered by the general public, or even within the Navy. But without the courage and sacrifice of the men of the Armed Guard, victory in World War II would have been much more difficult and taken much longer.” https://www.armed-guard.com/.

He seldom talked about it, but when I was a child I learned early not to be near his arms when waking him up for dinner. He came out of sleep ready for action. I always “knew” the reason, but never felt it quite as clearly as I do now. I’m attaching a portion of the document that’s the very first thing I’ve ever encountered about his service, other than a certificate he received on February 23, 1944 upon their vessel crossing above the Arctic Circle which I’ve had since his death in 1984. I had to fight back tears. I’m still getting goose bumps.

I don’t expect to suddenly go off in a full-blown genealogical search for my roots, but I have found a few other threads I’d like to pull on. I must, however, ensure it all serves my greater purpose, which is finishing this book (whatever) of mine fairly soon. Certainly before the end of next year.

PS – His name before he and my mother changed it when they got married, was Isadore Edward Wladofsky and he was a Radioman 3rd Class aboard the William H. Webb, all of which is included in the full document of which I’m sharing only a part.

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16 September 2022

Twenty Years Today

By Rick Ladd
Me and Aimee
The First Day of the Rest of my Life

It has come to my attention that exactly 20 years have passed since the day our oldest daughter was placed into our loving arms. It was in the evening in a small conference room at the Majestic Hotel, located in the City of Nanning, People’s Republic of China.

One week before we had spent 15 hours in the air from LAX to Guangzhou, where we had a three hour layover before flying to Beijing. After six days of sight-seeing (and some interesting adventures) we flew back to Guangzhou where, after one day, we flew to Nanning. That evening there were about eleven families whose lives changed dramatically as their newly adopted children were handed over to them. We were the last to have that jarring, emotional, and life-changing experience.

As you might be able to tell from the photo, Aimee was none too happy to be ripped from her foster family, who clearly loved her, and given to these two strangers (one of whom—that would be me—had a face the likes of which she’d never seen before.) It would be several days before she would have anything to do with us.

At the time many of us referred to the day as “Gotcha Day”, but in the intervening years we have come to believe the term is parent-centric and ignores the real trauma our experience represents. We are actually our child’s third set of parents. We now refer to it as “Family Day”, as it is the day on which we became a family, one that has now lasted for two decades. Aimee has grown into a beautiful young woman and I am so proud of her and her achievements. She has made my life far richer than it otherwise might have been.

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4 September 2022

Transference

By Rick Ladd

What follows is an attempt at writing a short story from something like ten years ago. It’s based on an actual experience of mine that was both enlightening and humbling.

James had been napping for at least an hour. His lunch with Daniel proved a little too much for him, as the salt content of the food made him uncomfortable and a little uneasy. Jewish soul food sure was comforting and tasty, but it would never be mistaken for health food. This was especially true if one had hypertension, like James, accompanied by a deep love of Matzo Ball soup and kosher pickles. He was pretty sure, now that he had no choice but to think about it, he’d ingested at least three or four teaspoons of salt. Although it was now the middle of the afternoon and there remained things to do, the sensations he was experiencing were unsettling and he felt he had no choice but to nap, even if somewhat fitfully. He lay in bed, drifting between different states of consciousness, at times dreaming comfortably and at others becoming keenly aware of what was happening elsewhere in the house. 

His wife, Doreen, had come into the room earlier and asked if he wanted to get up for dinner, but James declined, choosing to allow himself a few more precious minutes of rest and relaxation prior to assuming the chores he had no choice but to perform. After all, the trash and recycle containers weren’t going to take themselves out to the curb and, since the kids were off from school the next day, he wanted to get it out that evening rather than arising early to make sure they weren’t passed up by the trash trucks that always came at daybreak. 

Unfortunately, things weren’t working out quite as he hoped they would. He could hear his children arguing at the dinner table . . . and the volume seemed to be increasing dramatically. Suddenly, he heard angry footsteps approaching the girls’ bedroom across the hall, followed by a triple slamming of the door and loud screaming. He tried to ignore it. This, of course, was impossible and he was shortly fully awake. And upset. 

He forced himself out of bed and popped his head into the girls’ bedroom. His oldest, Angela, was sitting propped up in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably. He wasn’t feeling sympathetic and fixed her with as menacing a glare as he could muster.  

“How many times have I asked you not to slam doors? I’m not feeling well and you woke me up.” 

He continued his glare. She seemed not to care, merely staring back at him with sad, tear-filled eyes. Of course, this infuriated him more. Fortunately, he managed to summon up his nurturing side; at least enough to realize he wasn’t going to help by getting angry with her. With a heavy sigh, he withdrew and moved into the family room. He sat down and instead trained his glare on the television which, to his surprise, also showed no sign of caring. 

Doreen, seeing him now awake, began to recount—step-by-step—the events leading up to this latest drama. He didn’t want to hear it. Most of the conversation, arguing, and yelling between the kids had made it into his consciousness while he was struggling to ignore it and remain asleep; he had no desire to relive it all from her viewpoint, thank you very much. If he had been feeling better, he would have listened better. He wasn’t. 

Ten minutes later, he could still hear Angela sobbing heavily in her room. James was finally convinced he wasn’t having a heart attack and now was becoming concerned for his oldest daughter’s anguish. He felt a little pang of guilt for having scolded her. Feeling a bit selfish and narcissistic, he wanted to do something about it. 

Softly, he knocked on the bedroom door. There was no response. He knocked again and heard a quiet, somewhat surly “What is it?” He now had permission to enter the room and state his business. 

James walked slowly over to the bed. Angela was still sobbing, not even looking up to acknowledge his presence. He gently sat on the bed and looked at his oldest. Her sadness washed over him and his guilt was replaced with warmth and the love he felt for this wonderful child he felt so privileged to have in his life. He took her hand. She looked up, somewhat surprised, and he stared directly into her eyes. 

“Sweetheart, I’m very sorry I yelled at you for waking me up. I know you had a fight with your sister and you’re very upset.” She continued to stare at him, softening slightly from the stone-faced, hurt child he’d seen when he entered the room. 

“I can’t stay mad at you, and it hurts me to see you like this. Is there anything I can do to help?” Her face again softened almost imperceptibly as he continued, “I’ll talk to Annie about teasing you and being so annoying. Would you like that?” The mention of her little sister brought Angela back to the feelings she had before he entered the room. Again she began to sob. James took a deep breath, wondering how he could make this better. 

Seeing one of the great loves of his life this miserable was overwhelming and, as he looked into her eyes, he felt tears beginning to fill his own. He could not look away from her and, therefore, could not hide the fact he was crying. As she saw the tears in his eyes, the corners of her mouth began to turn up ever so slightly, and her eyes took on a slight twinkle. 

“You know how much I love you, baby. Can you forgive me for getting angry with you? I really, really am sorry.” As he spoke, a tear slowly flowed from one eye and began running down his cheek. Angela’s eyes widened and she smiled at him with a look of both wonder and appreciation. 

“Would you like to come out of the room with me and see what Mommy’s fixing for dinner?” he asked. She nodded, and continued to look lovingly into his eyes. James was filled with a sense of deep relief and not a little wonder at what had just happened. He’d entered the room hoping to merely calm his daughter down a little. Now he had unwittingly achieved something far greater and more enduring. 

Somehow, his display of emotion had managed to suck the anguish out of Angela. Since he was much older than her, it was easy for him to deal with the depth of feeling he experienced and, in fact, once he saw her reaction he was filled with a profound sense of satisfaction. 

He arose and held out his hand. Angela took it and stood up beside him. “Feeling better?” he asked. She nodded. He turned and led her out of the room—this magical room where something special had just happened. Mommy was making dinner and Annie was still Annie, lying in wait out in the family room. This moment, though, was very special and he savored it. He knew there would be more—perhaps even greater—battles fought between the two of them but, for now he was content to soak up the intense connection he had found in his short conversation with Angela. Life would, indeed, go on. 

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7 February 2022

My Dad The Bowler

By Rick Ladd

Just found this in the garage, covered by dust. I resurrected it, meaning I cleaned it off and hit it with some Howard Feed-N-Wax. hard to believe it’s been nearly 58 years.

No Lucky Strikes Here

That series works out to an average of 247 per game. The old man was a good bowler, and a scratch golfer. He never rolled a 300; I think his best game was 279.

I used to keep score for his team back then. I was finishing my Junior year of high school when he did this. I don’t recall if I used to sneak sips of beer when no one was looking.

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29 March 2021

My Girls (and Me)

By Rick Ladd

I was going through some photos the other day and came across a couple I wanted to share with my friends on Facebook. I still post quite a bit there and I get a fair amount of feedback, but the one of my girls and me at a Wedding Vows renewal ceremony got 125 likes and a lot of favorable comments, so I decided to share it on Twitter. I don’t have nearly as many “followers” as I have “friends,” mostly because I was a bad boy last year and, after 14 years, Twitter suspended my account. I believe it was because, in an answer to someone else’s tweet, I suggested the former guy might benefit from a heart attack. Oh, well!

Since these are two of my favorite pics of my girls and, since they’re about ten years old, I figured I would memorialize them here. After all, this is probably the most accurate historical record I’m going to leave and these girls are such a huge, profound portion of my life, it’s probably where they belong. So … in addition to continuing to share my Photoshop efforts on occasion, I’m going to put up more pictures of the girls … especially now that they’re both approaching adulthood.

The photo on the right received a nice welcome as well, though not quite like the “dressier” photo. It was taken after we’d eaten dinner at Toluca Lake Bob’s Big Boy. We had finished a long day of entertainment at Griffith Park, including a miniature train ride, horseback riding, a stopover at the Observatory, and a stop at Travel Town on our way out. I really miss these girls. They’re teenagers now (my oldest, Aimee, will be 20 in three months) and you can probably figure out what that means. <Sigh!>

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28 March 2021

We Were Kings!

By Rick Ladd

I made two shopping trips yesterday. Well … actually, it was one trip to two places – Trader Joe’s and Vons grocery store. During most of the pandemic I’ve been shopping every Wednesday and Sunday morning, when TJ’s designates the first hour they’re open (0800 – 0900) to us old farts, as well as immunocompromised individuals and pregnant women. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass not to be able to just run out and get something I forgot or just discovered I need for a recipe, but I’ve gotten used to it … and I do run out on occasion.

I bring this up because when I checked out at Vons I was given a handful of these game tickets for their newest gimmick to bring people in. I didn’t buy much there—Trader Joe’s gets the bulk of our business, but they don’t carry lots of things we do fancy—but it was enough for the cashier to hand me about eight of these “tokens.” So … despite my being a bit averse to these side shows, they were offering lots of “free” things, so I downloaded the app and scanned in the bar codes to see if I could win anything. When my wife, Linda, saw what I was doing, she gave me a bunch of tokens she had received when she stopped at Vons the other day.

One of the things I “won” (I’m still not entirely certain how I can claim it without spending more on shipping, handling, etc. than I care to) was a 5 x 8 notebook from Shutterfly. In order to claim it, one must go to Shutterfly’s website and enter the code, etc. Truth to tell, I had forgotten I was a member of Shutterfly, but LastPass (my password memory hole) remembered for me and I soon discovered I had a bunch of pictures uploaded there. When I say forgotten, the last time I uploaded a photo to their site was in late October of 2009, well over 11 years ago; that’s quite a span, IMO.

One of the photos I found I am sharing here, but the thrust of this post (the title might be a bit of a giveaway, but probably not until you’ve read what I’m about to write) has nothing to do specifically with the photo; it merely reminded me of something I’ve noticed over the years and gave me a bit of an “aha!” experience. Let me explain.

Arthur, Harold, Samuel, and Richard

This picture was taken sometime around 1980 and, I believe, was at Gulliver’s Restaurant in Marina del Rey, California. My wife at the time was a waitress there. My father’s oldest brother, Sam, was in town from Chicago and we were getting together for the first time in quite a long while.

A little family background from my father’s side: My father is the fourth of five children; the first born in the United States, and the third boy of four. My Aunt Sophie, who was in Chicago, her home, when this happened, was the only girl and the oldest as well. She, Sam, and Al (not pictured here) were all born in the Ukraine. My grandfather who, by the way, I have no recollection of, had come to the U.S. and it took him eight years to save up enough money to send for my bubbie, my aunt, and my two uncles to book passage to the states. They settled in Chicago, where my father was born a bit later.

Although I never heard much detail, I do believe they were escaping the pogroms taking place in Russia targeting Jews and they were lucky to get out intact. My zayde, his name was Max Wladofsky, came here (if my info is correct and I remember it correctly) around 1915, my bubbie and my aunt and uncles came around 1923, and my father was born in 1924.

So, as I’m looking at this picture I’m reminded of how many members of my family are named after English or Anglo-Saxon royalty. My father’s name was Edward, my name is Richard, and my brother’s name is Stephen. My mother’s name was Annette and, although I can find no Annette in a list of English monarchs, there is an Anne. It goes further. Note my one cousin in this photo was named Harold and his father, my uncle, was named Albert (no kings with that name, but there’s a famous Prince Consort named Albert – Prince Albert “in a can”) who was married to Queen Victoria. Harold’s older brother is named William.

Unfortunately, both of my parents are long gone and I can’t ask them about this somewhat strange number of people named after British royalty, but I can speculate it had something to do with a desire to not be discriminated against and to “blend” in to the new country they now called home. Having been born shortly after the end of WWII, I’m well aware of what I refer to as Jewish angst, the feeling that one is waiting for another shoe to drop, another insult or slight based on being Jewish, or that something bad might happen at any moment.

It’s worthwhile to note the two oldest siblings of my father were named Sophie and Samuel (more something like Schusa and Schmuel in Yiddish, which my paternal grandparents spoke fluently, as did my father.) Why the middle child was named Albert, though, I can’t figure; maybe it was in anticipation of their new home, despite the length of time it took to realize that dream. After that, it was Edward and Arthur.

At any rate, I’ve likely spent far too much time blathering on about my family but, hey, this is my blog and I’m allowed to sink or swim … or totally make a fool of myself. I started this blog in part as a way to record my thoughts, regardless of how valuable they might be or whether or not they resonate with anyone else. My interests tend toward the eclectic and I sometimes write as a sort of stream-of-consciousness activity to sort out my thoughts on a given subject. I’ve thought about this subject before; I’ve just never written about it, so here ’tis.

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18 December 2020

Understanding Empathy

By Rick Ladd

One of the ways I’ve been working on upping my writing game is by paying attention to what people are reading here on my blog so I might get an idea of what moves my readers. I have now posted well over six hundred times and about 90% of these posts are essentially essays regarding my thoughts about various things, e.g. politics, religion, life, the universe, and everything. The other 10% are tests and sharing things I’ve come across but have little to say about. I also occasionally have reason to look back myself, even if no one has recently read a particular post of mine I find interesting.

Suspension of Disbelief
To Open Up And Believe

Because there have been many highly emotional news stories lately, and emotions are high to begin with, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the role of emotions and, especially, how they relate to empathy. Turns out I had written about empathy over eight years ago, long before Donald Trump’s presidency. Since the reality has hit us that he is entirely without empathy, I would like to share a concatenation of the two posts I wrote in late September of 2012. It’s my hope these two are as pertinent today as they were when I wrote them; perhaps more so because I was only writing then about my feelings and now what I wrote seems so pertinent to what we’re all experiencing in the waning days of this disastrous presidency.

The willing suspension of disbelief. What a powerful, magical, and exceedingly frightening thing it can be – at least for me. Not always, though. It’s been quite a while since my last venture into the genre but, a long time ago – in a galaxy far, far away – I read a lot of Science Fiction. Reading it can’t possibly be enjoyable if you aren’t able to suspend your ability to think critically. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the hell out of what many an author hated being called Sci-Fi.

I’m normally somewhat cynical and am a fairly skeptical person, so I’m continuously surprised at how easily I can get sucked into a compelling story, especially if the characters are even moderately complex. I think it actually frightens me to realize how deeply I have disappeared into many a television drama.

This tendency has no doubt been exacerbated by my becoming a father at the ripe old age of 55, when my wife and I culminated a decision we had made a couple of years earlier and traveled to the People’s Republic of China to adopt our first child. We repeated the process four years later and, at the tender age of 59, I once again became a new father.

I now find myself immersed in shows where children are involved (it happens far more often than one might think) and I can’t help but identify with the parents, which sometimes brings me to tears – occasionally racking sobs of grief.

It has always been this way. I’ve been told the men in my family – many of them – were blubberers. Though I couldn’t have been older than five or six at the time, I recall the first time I saw my father cry. He had just received news that my Bubbie Jennie, his mother, had died. He hadn’t seen much of her since moving to Southern California. She had remained in Chicago, where both my parents were born. It was eerie, and not a little unsettling to see my father, a young boy’s tower of strength and resolve, break down like that.

It was made more difficult because I had only met her once, when she came to visit for a week, and she was unfamiliar to me. On the other hand, my maternal grandparents lived with us and I felt a strong emotional tie to them I could not summon up for her. She was by Bubbie, though. My mother’s mother was just Grandma.

I frequently ask myself, however, why I am so deeply and painfully drawn into these stories. I’m not entirely certain I have the answer, but I’m pretty sure it’s not so much the story itself as it is the relationship those stories bear to my own life.

Dictionary.com defines empathy as follows: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. That seems pretty straight-forward, yes? I am a fairly empathetic person and I tend toward the second part of that definition, i.e. I feel the pain of others vicariously. However, I don’t think this captures the essence of what is happening when I am fully immersed in a story.

Perhaps it’s too fine a point and the distinction isn’t all that great, but it seems to me what’s really happening is I’m overlaying the experience in the story onto my own life. I’m not so much experiencing the feelings of another as I’m experiencing the feelings I would have were I to be in that situation. I don’t think they’re the same. Then again, maybe that’s the mechanism that actually facilitates empathy.

This is a minor conundrum that comes to me most every time it happens and, usually, I forget about it within a minute or two. Lately I decided to try and get a descriptive handle on it and this is my first attempt.

Empathy is a valuable and deeply human trait. It is one of the five traits listed as characteristic of emotional intelligence which, in turn, is seen by many as a valuable business and leadership skill. It’s important to understand and to cultivate in order that we may better understand the people in our lives, whether at work, play, or home.

I want to understand what is moving me when this happens. On some levels it seems patently ridiculous to get so emotionally involved in a fiction story. On the other hand, perhaps it is really what makes us human. I’m wondering if someone with a more classical education than I have knows more of the thinking humans have brought to the subject. I’m sure some in the Arts (especially the Theater Arts) have tackled it. I’ll have to do more research. In the meantime, I’m glad there’s plenty of tissue in the house.

As it turns out, thanks to a friend I discovered an interesting answer through a wonderful TED talk by VS Ramachandran, a Neuroscientist who has studied the functions of mirror neurons. It would seem there is overwhelming evidence we humans are more closely connected than I was hinting at.

In his talk he says, “There is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are, in fact, connected not just via Facebook and Internet, you’re actually quite literally connected by your neurons.” I find this resonates in many ways with my understanding of Systems Dynamics, Quantum Theory, and Zen and goes a long way toward answering my question. Frankly I find it a meaningful addition to my understanding, but still find myself wondering why it manifests itself so powerfully in some . . . and not at all in others. After all, the world is filled with people who are anti-social in varying degrees of severity from mild conduct disorders to outright sociopathy or APSD.

Regardless, there is much value in this talk. He speaks of the wonders of the human brain and, with respect to the issues I raised yesterday, uses words like imitation and emulation, ultimately winding his way to empathy. Rather than repeat any of his talk, I urge you to listen to it. There’s at least one very cool surprise a little more than halfway through. At less than eight minutes, it’s really engaging. Here’s the video. I’d love to hear what others think of this:

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12 August 2020

Dan Mirrors My Feelings

By Rick Ladd

I have to share these few paragraphs written by Dan Rather. They mirror my feelings well. I would like to add that staying home during this time has exacerbated the difficulties we’re experiencing with (mostly) our younger daughter. Things were tough enough when she was actually attending school. Now that she’s home all the time, it’s increased the friction and made my life far more stressful than, perhaps, it’s every been. Now for some Dan:

Dan Rather

I sit locked in a self-imposed isolation as a deadly virus surges outside. Time frames for returning to any hope of a faint echo of normalcy stretch into the many months or years. This distant horizon strikes particularly deep for those of us at a certain age and stage of life. Our nation is adrift amidst rocky shoals with cruel incompetence as our captain and enabling cravenness as the first mate.

What a perilous time to live.

I know I am extremely fortunate. Neither the roof over my head nor the food on my table are in doubt. I have the privilege of protecting myself and my loved ones more than many. We don’t work in meat processing plants, or distribution warehouses, or even in hospitals. I strive to keep habits and schedules, but hours bleed and to-do lists go unchecked.
What a moment to contemplate the future.

The basic tenets of decency, truthfulness, and compassion are torn across our political divide. We see scientists denigrated and charlatans exalted. We see the rule of law and the norms of our democracy debased for personal gain. We see our allies bullied and our adversaries coddled.

What a time to be an American.

But that’s just it. It is a time to be an American, to contemplate our future, and to live. We have had very dark days in the past. We have had deep, systemic injustices. We have faced daunting odds. And women and men of courage, of ingenuity, of resolve have stood up time and time again. They have said some version of, “we will not abide.” It is our duty to not abide either.

From the streets, to newsrooms, to online social and political activism, I see countless millions of Americans who are not abiding. We are living through damage, loss, and sadness that could have been avoided. Much trauma lies ahead. But I know most of my fellow citizens agree that this shall not be us.

I desperately wished this was not our lot. I wish so many things. I wish the hospital wards were empty. I wish kids were having a summer and could go to school safely. I wish small businesses weren’t closing. Heck, I wish I was at a baseball game trying to not have the mustard drip on my pants. That’s not where we are.

We must be true to ourselves to recognize that much of what we are seeing now was not only the product of the last few months or even the last three-plus years. We have big problems, wherever we look. But we see them now. And we must do the hard work to fix them, not only through the ballot box but through the energy of our hearts and power of our imaginations. Whatever despair I might feel is tempered with a hope that is growing within me. I will not abide, and I believe most Americans will not abide either. Courage.

Dan Rather

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18 May 2020

Gloomy

By Rick Ladd
A Little Spring Backtrack

I didn’t really realize until Linda pointed it out, but helping my youngest with her classes is forcing me to relive High School . . . and I hated it! I cut so frequently, it took me an extra semester and two excruciating terms of Summer school to graduate. And she’s only a sophomore!

Concurrently, time is beginning to exert itself. I had no trouble keeping up with my kids through my sixties, but my energy level is waning, probably exacerbated by the need to stay put, which results in lack of exercise and eating a little too much . . . of some of the “wrong” things.

Oh, well. It’s raining (actually, mostly drizzling) outside, so gloomy seems to fit the moment.

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