Do you have any of these symptoms?

A century ago, we acquiesced to popular preferences and divided our attention between the newly-named 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow' content categories for our entertainment.

Meaningful literature gave way to pulp fiction, and the nay-sayers faded away into the intellectual void.

Today we have Honey Booboo, the Kardashians, and an absolute deluge of internet drivel.  That's our cultural target for mass consumption.  If our trend over time is a descent from highbrow to lowbrow (with not even a pause at middlebrow), then what might we call today's drivel?

Underbrow?
Nobrow?
Chin?

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Oh, good grief.

I do love the internet.  It's better than a good library and Saturday morning TV put together.  There are parts of it though that are absolutely mind-boggling.  Somebody is actually reading this stuff, and what's worse, somebody else is making money off of them doing so.

Growth vs XGrowth

For a fun addition to our perspective,
let's watch grass grow!

A handful of seeds in a good patch of soil will do well.  In just one or two growing seasons, the area will fill nicely, and you'll perhaps need a goat.

The goat is a nice solution, since it will give back by keeping the grass trimmed and fertilized.

A goat and pasture make a nice illustration of simple balance.  There's more needed like rain and sunshine, good soil and drainage, but still, it's a nice picture of balance.

Over the years, the goat grows and the grass grows.  Simple, probably easy to manage.  It gets a bit more complicated with a breeding pair.

Two goats, in our simple illustration, will of course become four and then eight.  Not a problem at first, since we have a large and fertile pasture for our example.

For our example, lets say that after 30 generations, the goats are consuming half of the pasture's production. How long do we have before the capacity is exceeded?
One more generation.  Just one.

So, if it took a thousand years to go from 200 million to 300 million people in the world, that means it will take another thousand years (or maybe ten thousand) to go from 2 billion to 3 billion, right?  Hardly; it took 30 years.  Then it took less than half that time for the next billion.

Population grows exponentially. Despite our intellectual preference for linearity and a steady pace forward, exponential growth is the norm, right up to the point where you have to expand the pasture or get rid of some goats. If unmanaged, the die-off can be massive.

For those who hope that perhaps
    the many concerns are exaggerated,
           here are a few thoughts that might be worth a moment.
                 The interesting part for all of us is figuring out what comes next.

Note:  Feral goats, to clarify a bit, have an actual fertility rate of between 10% and 35% under favorable circumstances.  Populations tend to retreat in line with unfavorable conditions; high juvenile mortality accounts for most of the decline.  A generation varies; females begin reproduction at a year or so and will continue fertile for perhaps 8 breeding seasons.

Childhood's End

   Things our teens deserve to know

... conform, non-conform

1. You don't have to live the way your friends expect you to. 

2. You choose your path, or circumstance will choose for you.

The cultural tension between conformity and nonconformity surfaces in every generation as young people labor to establish their own identities and prioritize their own values. 

There is substance on both sides of the discussion regarding conformity, of course.  Teens must learn how to hold on to the good parts, challenge the pointless parts, establish a larger perspective, reach higher, take risks, dig for truth.  They'll learn from us.

The important element, as Kipling suggests, is not the challenging of established norms but the informed choice involved. If we haven't thoughtfully labored through that foundation laying, the structure we build will be lightly reinforced and unable to endure the first strong wind.

It's difficult to encourage a teen in the midst of that particular developmental upheaval, but it is among the critical change points that will establish who they will be.  If we're wise, we'll help them lay a foundation long before that particular wind blows.

Historical Note:  From the Old Testament, the encouragement to instruct our children should perhaps be understood in the context in which it was given.  A child's transition to adult responsibility is understood to have begun around age 12.  Might that affect our thinking and practise?

~ Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  (How old?)

~ And you who are younger, listen those older than you. And all of you, leaders and followers alike, are to be down to earth with each other. (God has had it with the proud, but he really enjoys plain, genuine people.)

Western culture tends to hold on to teens and control them ever more stringently until suddenly turning them loose around 18, as though everything were complete at that point.  

Does it help if we view a child's progress as periods of transition and continuous change, like:

Age 0-6:  we do everything for them, make all the choices, and they do everything our way.

Age 6-12:  they do everything as they're taught; we teach them how and why ... and how to choose.

Age 12- ? :  they do everything and we mostly coach from the sidelines.  They participate in our decisions.

'Continuous change' describes the passing years best, perhaps.

If we encourage them along the way, compliment their thinking when they grasp the whys of choice, back them up while they labor through their list of important things, include them in our discussions and decisions ....

By the way, where was that transition to adulthood?  It's probably continuous, beginning in the preteen years.

Interestingly, on the development of adult thinking and choosing, we now know those processes continue for decades.  

Shall we go?

There's is another way, another opportunity, another chance, is there not?  Shall we go, then, while we can?


At some point, we might find ourselves on a path moving away from our goal.  Whether career or relationship or life, it's not uncommon to be overwhelmed by details, by demands, and the daily drudgery.  You look around, and all you see is the rut in which you find yourself.

Time for change!  Grab your partner's hand and run for your life.  

Everything will consume your life and years unless you choose otherwise.  Work will. Culture will. Media will. The expectations of others will. Even every narrow rabbit trail will.  That's just the way it works, unless you choose otherwise.

Do you remember your goals?  
   Are they good ones?  
      Time to go?

Pretty much everybody loves change and hates changing,
      just in case you were wondering if anybody besides you
             was stuck in a rut.

Ponzi Population

Exponential growth, often expressed in terms of "doubling time", is what we see the bacteria doing in the petri dish pictured here.

On a chessboard, if you put a grain of rice on the first square, doubling to two on the second, four on the third, and so on until you completed the 64 squares, you'd have piled up all the rice in the world and then some. Doubling.  Pretty impressive.


'Linear growth' is perhaps like a tree that grows at a semi-steady rate, year after year.

'Exponential growth' can describe things like population growth and the associated consumption trends.

Microorganisms increase in number exponentially. The first will split into two, then two into four, and so on until some essential survival element is exhausted. Maybe it's food or perhaps the size of the environment.

Ponzi schemes (and pyramid schemes) show this kind of growth, providing good returns for a few early on, and losses for the rest down the timeline.

Meroe, between the Nile and Atbara rivers, was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, a major
power for a thousand years beginning in the 8th century B.C.  Meroe was the seat of rulers 
who occupied Egypt.  They built pyramids, temples and major installations for water 
management. Their empire extended from the Mediterranean to central Africa.  Meroe
was magnificent until the forests were gone, harvested for charcoal and the iron smelting
industry.  Erosion and agricultural failure followed.

Human population grows exponentially. With occasional variations caused by large-impact factors like famine and disease, we follow the accelerating curve.

Some informative failures do occur such as in the Kingdom of Kush and it's capital, Meroë. The kingdom grew and thrived for 1000 years, then disappeared, having exhausted the local resources of land and wood. No forests, no charcoal, no smelting, no trade, no economy.  No arable land, no food, no cattle, no people.  No kidding.






Here's what human population growth looks like on a timeline.  When a bacterium does that, it increases in number until some tip over point; then it dies in its own waste and decay.

That's the one of the many difficulties we face but not necessarily the result we'll get, provided we do something other than just mindlessly consuming everything we can.  Like the bacteria.


Plenty of options still available, right?

Thanks and a hat tip (for being a thought-provoking fellow) to Dr. Bob Cahalan, Chief of NASA-Goddard’s Climate and Radiation Laboratory, Director of the Sun-Earth Research Center at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and President of the International Radiation Commission, and Co-Grandfather to Her Royal Highness Princess Ruby Marie, our precious granddaughter.
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What does food cost?

If you have tomatoes and beans in your backyard garden, you probably don't care about the calories in vs. calories out numbers. You'll spend perhaps a calorie or two for 10 calories in return, but nobody is really keeping score.

Historically, early farmers spent about 1 calorie for every 10 they harvested, more or less.

ONE IN >>> TEN OUT.  That's approximately where we started with the early crop cultivation.  Not a bad return for manual labor.

Since then, of course, we've made dramatic advances in science and technology.  You'd expect maybe ONE IN >>> ONE THOUSAND OUT????  Waaaay wrong.  How about TEN THOUSAND????  Nope, still way off.

Today we spend about 10 calories for every 1 calorie we harvest, and that's just for fuel.  It costs more to farm these days than we get in return.

That's TEN IN >>> ONE OUT.

The 10 calorie input is just the fuel we use.  Fuel for the tractors and trucks.

It doesn't count the cost of fertilizers, of irrigation, of seeds, and of labor.
Then there's the impact of soil leaching, forest area loss and impact on water management, chemical runoff, ground water contamination.  Then add the post-harvest processing that virtually all our products suffer, and transportation to the store, all of which adds to the ratio.

It's not news.  We've known for awhile that the real cost for our food was going up. We're getting away with it for now.

We're consuming resources that are becoming progressively more expensive and that won't be replaced, and we're fostering a consumption rate that's increasing exponentially. It's not the first time it has happened, of course.

A disturbing illustration of how it works is the classic bacteria and petri dish.  The bacteria will multiply because there's room and food, right up to the point where they poison themselves in their own deadly waste and die.

Tree huggers have warned us about this stuff.

Now there are dirt huggers doing the same.

Time for change?