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We make up all the words

My daughter says, “We make up all the words.” Authentic is the word of the year, but what does it mean to you and what does it mean to me? I am reading a book about the brain, The Neuroscience of You, by Chantel Prat PhD, brand new last year and from the library. She talks about nemotodes. A certain species has 302 neurons in the brain. Humans have 86 billion neurons in each brain. The nemotodes have been studied so that each neuron is mapped, but we still cannot predict exactly what an individual nemotode will do when presented with a new situation. Humans, obviously, are worse. She is writing about the wiring we are born with and then how experiences shape and change the wiring. I am very much enjoying this book. I am a science nerd and love fiction and poetry as well. Word nerd. When my daughter and I disagree about what something means, or what words mean, she reminds me: “We make up all the words.” Many diagnoses in medicine are really lists of symptoms and the more things on the list, the more likely it is that diagnosis. However, there is still a “number needed to treat” which tells me how many people have to be on a medicine to help one. That number always makes me a bit gloomy because I don’t think it is ever one. Some illness are pretty clear: a broken bone, a sick appendix. Others are mysterious, we don’t know what causes them and they can take years to diagnose, like multiple sclerosis. And then the behavioral lists, the latest version being the DSM-V. The diagnoses of behavioral health illnesses CHANGED. Well, some did, some didn’t. Words change their meanings, AI listens in, my phone wants me to tell everyone I am at a restaurant (why would you care?) and we pay lip service to authenticity, people being themselves, except then sometimes, no, we don’t like it after all.

And that is my authentic feeling as much as I can put it in to words this minute.

I like this photograph. What will the photographer do? Go out? Jump in? Fall in? Go home for tea? I can be most authentic out in nature when I often am not thinking in words so much as sensory impressions. Wind, cold, water sounds, light, the sunrise, clouds, birds, deer, and what do I see in the water?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: authentic.

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Wild

Mount Baker, seen from Marrowstone Island this week.

The tide was not out very far and was coming in, but an agate showed up anyhow.

A closer look.

Conferences in the wild.

Sections of cliff melting into the beach stones.

Gifts from the sea.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: wilderness.

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Side by side

I went downtown yesterday morning to pay a bill and a ship was coming right in on its way to Indian Island. It felt like it was right there, by the crane, which was already working. I grabbed my camera and hurried out.

A second side by side, the boats accompanying it.

And lastly two grebes, side by side in a mass float. They look pretty unconcerned about people and ships.

May we peace each other today and every day.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: side by side.

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Messy

Everyone I get to know and really become friends with, has a messy life with difficulties. I think we are terribly afraid to admit it, with the curated lives on the place that is not a book but has lots of Faces. I write that all of my patients are smart and they are. I had my own rural family practice for eleven years. My goals were more time with patients and to do good medicine. I succeeded at both. With more time, I could learn a little more about my peoples’ lives. People that I would never suspect of having very messy lives still have them. Does everyone in our culture have estrangements, family that they don’t talk to, parents that they find difficult, friends that they have gotten upset at and abandoned?

In high school my daughter says, “Most of the fights are stupid. Usually someone says something without thinking, even in passing. Person B takes it personally, gets upset, talks about it to others and then person C or D says something back to person A or shuns them. Person A has no idea what is going on and is hurt and upset. It is stupid.”

Adults do this too. I had a friend where I would think about something for a week and then go back to him. “You said this. What did you mean?” Usually he didn’t mean anything or meant something very far from what I was thinking. At least I went to him and did not add person C or D or E to the mix. He said, “You think about it for a WEEK.” Well, that was his own fault, actually, because he can’t tolerate anger. Even if I was upset or hurt, it was still interpreted as anger. Raised in an alcohol household and trained by medicine, I can hide feelings. After a while he could tell when I was chewing on something.

We grow up physically by our mid twenties, but often we don’t grow up emotionally. Especially if relationships are interrupted and colored by drugs and/or alcohol. People miss developmental stages. Everyone is trying to cope as best they can, but I do wish our culture celebrated mature calmness and quiet adulthood, rather than just the wild youth. Wouldn’t that be a change?

If you were to curate your life for something like the site that is not a book and has Faces, what would your ideal be? What do you aspire to? Kindness? Emotional maturity? Peace? My feed has friends, insects, birds, rocks, fossils, funny animal videos and music. I get almost no politics in it. I have not blocked anyone or anything. I try not to friend people I do not know. It is peaceful and a celebration of nature and yes, that is what I would like to curate.

Blessings.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: curate.