Salon Des Geeks

One of the many NPR programs that I enjoy is “This I Believe.” The program, which is based on the original series started by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950’s, invites people to share their deeply-held beliefs in the form of essays of 350-500 words. Selected essays are read aloud on the air by the authors.

Recently I found myself in the emergency situation of running out of reading material in the airport on a business trip to Kentucky. Since this violates one of my core beliefs (”Never be in Kentucky without a book”), I was lucky to run across the book version of “This I Believe” in the airport book store. The book includes essays by such famous lights as Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Leonard Bernstein, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as many by ordinary folk. A concentrated shot of the thought-provoking material I normally hear in three-minute increments once a week on NPR, the book inspired me to work on my own belief essay.

I wondered if anyone on the salon might be interested in reading this book with me and discussing it. If there is a lot of interest, perhaps we might take it up as a topic at our next meeting. If only a few are interested, I would love to chat about it over e-mail.

Are we getting the best value for our time?

This is a question more typically asked about money. You want to expend money in places and situations that will produce the best value for you. Sometimes this manifests as comparison shopping, if you want to acquire a specific item. Sometimes it’s a matter of weighing questions such as “Should I buy that new gadget or put the money into my retirement fund?” You want to decide where the money is best spent.

But increasingly, I’ve been thinking about where my time is spent. Consider this thought experiment:

Alice works as a cashier at the local 7-11. She earns minimum wage for her trouble, which is currently $5.85 per hour. Her gross income per 40-hour workweek is $234.00.

Betty has collected a college degree or two and now commands a higher wage in her position as a phlebotomist with the Red Cross. The median rate for this position in California is $15.02. Betty therefore has a gross weekly income of $600.80.

Assume that Alice and Betty have the same life situations. To keep it simple, they both are single and childless; they live in the same city; Betty does not have any debt from her college studies left. Effectively, their base living costs are the same.

Betty actually has an interesting choice here:

1. Work 40 hours per week and enjoy the use of an extra $366.80 in disposable income.
2. Reduce her hours to 16 per week and enjoy the use of three extra days of “disposable time”.

Everyone I personally know has chosen option 1. Why? Inertia? Habit? Cultural norm? Why is it that the investment in degrees and credentials is most often seen as paying off in terms of dollars, not time?

It is so easy to let your base living costs creep upward to match whatever your salary currently is. But then you’re running and running but not getting anywhere in terms of a better living experience; you’re still working 40 hours a week and you’re still making ends meet at about the same level that you were.

Leaving grad school and getting a “real” job was one time that this really hit me. One year, I was subsisting on a microscopic annual income (just above minimum wage); the next year, my income had more than quintupled. Did I have 5x the financial needs? No. Grad school had forced me to keep my living expenses gratingly low, so I did. With the additional income, I began to live much more comfortably, and even save for what ultimately became the down payment for my house. But at some point — at this point — I’m starting to wonder: would I be willing to trade income for time? “Disposable time” would permit me to do volunteer work or travel or hike or make crafts or do anything I wanted that didn’t require that I be earning money. I’m starting to lean in this direction more and more strongly. After all, do I live to work? Or do I live to live?

I’d love to hear the Salon’s thoughts on this.

For your delectation, here’s a (big) snippet about flavors I sent a friend who’s just starting to cook. It’s a summary of the section on building flavor from Wayne Gisslen’s “Professional Cooking,” 6th edition. I find it to be a fascinating way to think about flavor: his heuristics are useful, but the part I find most exciting is his attempt to convey an almost literary view of culinary narrative. (Is it time to plug The Table Is Laid: The Oxford Anthology of South Asian Food Writing again? *grin*)

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Since many of my news sources provide book reviews, I inevitable end up hearing many interviews of the same author, discussing the same book. Recently, that book has been The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo.

Dr. Zimbardo interviews well. Part of what makes him a good subject is the variety of his discourse. Each interview I have heard has given me different, and intriguing information. This morning what caught my ear was the way he talked about heroism. He was discussing how we shield ourselves from difficult situations. We live every day as yesterday. And when confronted with a new day, heroism is inherently difficult. The approach he would like to see for children is to prepare them for that heroism, by asking them to be ready: to realize one must act in the moment.

At that point, he recalled a recent incident where a man had a seizure waiting for a train, and fell onto the tracks in the subway. Of the 75 people on the platform, one of them acted. He left his two daughters and jumped onto the tracks to save his fellow traveller. The hard question is why one acted. Dr. Zimbardo emphasized how we ought to care about others. And how we need to attempt to be ready for the singular moment, and resolve to act. Because if paralyzed, the inaction results in evil.

I found these words challenging. Caring about others is not my forte. Inaction is. Moreover, I can never know how I will react in that moment. The second chance may never come, neither for hero, nor those who watched.

The Salon is fast approaching (this weekend!) and there are a couple of fun things to discuss regarding it. First, who is coming? We’ve got confirmations from Elizabeth, The Groom, Iain, Natarajan, Donna, and me. I hear that Brett is a “maybe”. Kim and Martial, lamentably, cannot make it; Kim is chained to her veterinary desk. Trey, any news from your neck of the woods?

Second, we must identify what pressing moral, ethical, intellectual, political, and/or artistic subjects should be up for discussion at the Salon. What’s on your mind? What crises of conscience have you recently encountered? Me, I’ve been putting some thought over the past few months into weighty topics like the meaning and direction of my life and consequent choices of career. I have no doubt that you all have experiences and opinions to share on your own version of that one. What else might we chew over as we partake of some divine culinary offerings?

The roses are blooming, the hibiscus is nodding, the tangerines are ripening… it’s sunny and warm down here in southern California. All that’s missing from this idyllic picture is your presence. I hereby officially suggest convening a Salon in the West, hosted by yours truly! Who’s in?

I’m thinking that March-ish might be nice, providing sufficient time to work out schedules and get good plane ticket deals for those of you who would be traveling from afar. But earlier is good, too, since that makes the lovely weather all the more savory. What say you?

Happy New Year, one and all!

I noticed Admiral Stockdale’s obituary in the New York Times. Since obituaries give you more history than a newspaper should on any other page, they are often refreshing.

This one was surprisingly so. Stockdale was as far as I knew nothing more than the sad, confused butt of jokes. He was mercilessly mocked for his performance in the Vice Presidential debates in 1992. The reason that his obituary goes under the category of Philosophy is that it discusses his love of stoicism, and specifically the works of Epictetus. This led me to a google search, and this site:
Epictetus. Cool. It is hard for me now not to think that I owe my knowledge of this information to the Admiral.

I found the description of Stoicism to be very appealing, and reminded me of the ideals of my youth, sans Christianity. This made me think of Wes. Hey Wes, you out there? Further, it made me think that perhaps it appeals in the same manner as Objectivism, because it preys on the weaknesses in the character of the believer. Objectivism preys on logic, and this seems to prey on lack of passions(apatheia?). Perhaps I should resolve to use the word appealing, in reference to Philosophy only in a derogatory way?

Just further testing the interface. This post will eventually be deleted.