loving art, science and creative kids
9/9/2023 6:30:27 PM
Clarity
Our mind tells us we exist. What of it?
Cogito, Ergo Sum or "I think, therefore I am" is René Descartes' defining statement on existence. Considered the father of modern philosophy, the 17th-century Frenchman was noted for a mind-body philosophical theory based on scientific observation grounded in experimentation. Skeptical of the dogma spouted by religious authorities and earlier philosophers, his quest was to find truth. As a scientist and mathematician, he searched for "perfect knowledge." That meant finding answers that would leave no room for doubt.
Most of us view the human body as flesh, bones, organs, nerves, muscles, and blood. If you walk into a wall and bang your head, you feel the pain of hitting a solid, unmoving object. When scientists think of human cells, however, they imagine water and protein molecules that are a collection of vibrating atoms under an electron microscope. Since atoms also make up the wall you hit, theoretically, you should be able to pass between them.
Though Descartes could doubt the existence of a physical body, he couldn't doubt that he could think. He is credited for inspiring The Enlightenment, an era that embraced the belief that people could be improved by rational change.
He relied on reason to test the truth of what people say.
Does this mean anything more than knowing your brain confirms your existence? Or does it make you wonder what type of existence the brain will conjure for you next? Thoughts pigeonhole us and can render us helpless. It is easier to be classified, eliminating the worry of finding a Mr. Hyde beneath the surface instead of the Dr. Jekyll we profess to know. We trap ourselves into thinking a single trait or activity is the essence of our personality. Examining and sharing your complex inner nature with the outside world takes courage.
Not questioning the labels attached to you by yourself or others can handicap you. He's a gay teacher; watch the kids. She's an assembly-line worker and never thinks for herself. He's smart because he's Asian. Of course, she has a bad temper; she's a redhead. He's a millionaire, so he must know the best person to vote for.
It's also common to define people by their profession. For some, that becomes such an important definition they don't develop other interests. I've met many people like that who face difficulties when retired. Feeling unappreciated, they become bored and go about their days without purpose. Young adults feel at loose ends when they can't find work in their chosen field of study. A football athlete, I knew, had to give up the sport due to an injury. With his dream of turning pro shattered, the twenty-one-year-old shot himself on the field behind his dorm.
During a recent commencement talk, a College president in China advised the graduating class: "You must not aim too high or be picky about work." With one-fifth of China's youth out of work, he spouted China's economic and political policy to young people, telling them to"suck it up." In our country where job loss is increasing due to AI and robotics, it is time to stop defining people by what they do for a living. We are not in the Middle Ages, where men with Carpenter for a last name worked with wood.
"I think, therefore I am." I read more into the phrase than my existence when acknowledging that it's my mind that defines what I think about myself and my environment. It's thought processes, not employment, that turn us into who we are. It is possible to do a routine job yet find meaning in bird watching, cooking, hiking, or teaching a child to swim. It is your mind, with its thoughts, emotions, and values, that makes you unique. It can make you energetic and able to glean beauty and pleasure from your surroundings or push you to depression, where you are bored and mired in ugliness.
Take a moment to think about how you define yourself. Is it a true representation? The certainty of the truth depends on how you think about it, Descartes reminds us. When you believe in your multiple abilities, you can plow through foot-deep mud and keep going as some attendees did at last week's Burning Man event in the Nevada Playa. For them, it was an awesome, though challenging experience. Their thoughts looked for meaning in the generosity of their neighbors and the creative way they entertained each other in the rain. Other minds focused on how miserable it was. Their fear and anger made their existence torturous. It is difficult to adapt if your thoughts turn sour.
Last week, I was engrossed in a Netflix Korean mini-series about a seventy-year-old retired postal worker who, to his family's horror, wanted to be a ballet dancer. It was a dream put on hold since he was eight. Though his family frowned at his ambition, he went for it, thinking, "What am I waiting for? I'll only live once." Believing he could do it, the elder practiced ballet moves and observed younger dancers preparing for performances. He existed. Spurred by passion, his days were filled with pleasure. By acting on his thoughts, he showed an unknown part of himself to the rest of the world--and it was good.
Do comment on my website at www.eichingerfineart.com/blog
Art is always for sale. Clarity is a framed, 48” x 36” acrylic on canvas painting available for $795. Shipped free in the continental U.S. For information, contact me at [email protected]
References:
Hu, R (2023) The jobs data China doesn’t want people to see. Opinion Today. retrieved from https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGtwznFlMFZLtGpJJnbghFMJPlg
Asshcroft, R. (2022) What Does “ I Think, Therefore I Am” Really Mean? The Collector. retrieved from https://www.thecollector.com/what-does-i-think-therefore-i-am-mean/
5/19/2018 2:53:48 PM
In Transition
Into the John Day Fossil Beds
24” x 30” / Acrylic on deep canvas/ $ 599.
Dig It -Try Something New
Summer is a time to inspire youth and renew your craving for adventure. For mystery lovers, it does not get much better than going on a big dig! Paleontology and archaeology sites around the world provide unusual ways to satisfy curious minds. So put on that pith helmet and take off for the experience of a lifetime.
You are never too old. Last week I drove to Fossil, Oregon with my eldest son. We went behind the High School with shovels and pails and dug for treasures, finding 30 million year plant fossils. A nearby trail through the John Day National Monument pointed out environmental changes over a 50 million year period. The above painting was my way of documenting what we saw.
Imagine how exciting it would be to find a dinosaur bone sticking out of the earth in Texas, Montana or even China? You will immediately be transported back 65 million years to when these colossal creatures walked the earth. If you participate in the painstaking job of exposing these heavy fossilized bones, you will have plenty of time to wonder how huge creatures managed to forage for food and raise their young. You might question why they went extinct and which mammals, birds or amphibians today are distant relatives. Fossil digs take perseverance and careful adherence to strict research rules often in uncomfortable environments. But it is heartening to be part of a team which is why so many families sign up to go on volunteer expeditions.
Museums are great places to go for inspiration. The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History has an outdoor dino-pit so children can get the feel of a dig. The Science Museum of Minnesota and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, installed labs where visitors can watch scientists work uncovering and assembling fossils. There may even have a fossil for you to excavate. In front of the world famous Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the La Brea Tar Pits bubbles with animals trapped thousands of years ago. The museum has a display of many of their discoveries.
If you don’t have the time to go on a dig, you certainly can live vicariously through videos and movies. Dr. Stefano Piccini was inspired as a youngster and went on to study Geological and Paleontological Science from the University of Bologna. He now travels the world uncovering fossil and mineral deposits and employing the latest techniques to restore and display them. He shares his excitement with the public through television presentations, lectures and installations of geological and paleontological specimens in museums and private collections.
What gives a child the impetus to seek a career in geology or paleontology? It often starts with a gift by a relative. An dinosaur dig toy, a visit to a museum, a book or exposure to a fossilized tooth may be enough to ignite the spark to ignite curiosity. Small beginnings can lead to large discoveries. It worked for me. As a child I visited museums in Philadelphia with my parents. The Franklin Institute, with its hands-on approach to learning, and the Natural History Museum inspired me to pursue a career as a museum executive.
It is a good time to have a job as a paleontologist. New imaging devices and global warming have exposed an unprecedented number of fossils. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, geoscientists, which include paleontologists, earn an average of $106,390 annually. Though universities and museums are experiencing difficulty getting funding for research projects, industry jobs are expanding. Infrastructure laws for highways, gas and oil drilling and pipelines, electric and phone lines have become more restrictive when it comes to collecting and preserving fossils. This has led to the expanding field of environmental consulting.
But industry is not the only place vertebrate paleontologists are found. It may surprise you to know that medical and dental universities use them because of their knowledge at the cellular level. Science journalism, artists and special effects workers are also in demand as are governmental jobs with the Bureau of Land Management, The National Park and Monuments, and the National Forest Service..
Whether seeking a career or a volunteer position it is key opening to take off blinders and open yourself to previously unimagined opportunities. The world is a intriguing planet to explore above and below the surface.
Art is always for sale. Contact me at [email protected].
7/31/2015 9:23:26 PM
First Fight
acrylic painting: 26” x 25” $ 425
Parents occasionally fight, but when violence, exacerbated by drugs and alcohol, is the norm, children are bound to suffer.
An Adrenalin Rush
Ray and I have been mentoring a youth who between the age of 16 and 19 had lived on the streets. Though his journey was wrought with a great many highs and lows, over the past four years he transformed himself into an industrial painter with a career that promises a good life. His experiences made me curious about why some homeless youth metamorphose while most do not. To learn more I read a great many studies and interviewed numerous adults engaged with this population. I am now drawing conclusions that I would like to share with the hope that you will provide me with your experiences and thoughts.
Youth leave their homes for a myriad of ugly reasons, most often involving poverty. Their living quarters might be violent, unsafe places with parents addicted to drugs, alcohol or illegal ventures. Or… they may have been kicked out due to their sexual orientation or their own involvement with prostitution, drugs robbery, gangs or truancy. Over forty percent have severe mental problems. Whatever the cause, once they leave school they are on a downward slope that continues to snowball in hopelessness. Each year, Portland agencies provide intervention to1000 children. Nationally according to Safe Horizons there are over 1.7 million on the streets.
My biggest surprise was discovering that life on the streets can be a lot of fun. Homelessness is often a relief from stressful situations and presents interesting experiences. I am reminded of ancient Indian rites of passage that sent youth into the wilderness on a vision quest, to hunt and discover that they can subsist on their own.
Modern day wanderers learn very quickly how easy it is to survive. They discover where to get three meals a day and how to find shelter for the night. They couch-surf or visit crisis centers in bad weather. There are known hang-out parks where 40-50 youth gather to smoke, play a brutal form of dodge-ball, competitive chess and to skate board. In the wee hours of the morning, one of the older kids might shout to the others, “You can crash at my place for the night.” Ten to fifteen teens might follow, listening to music and partaking in drugs before drifting to sleep on chairs, sofas and floor. Unfocused on consequences, the apartment dweller will often get evicted due to complaints.
To live on the streets takes constant vigilance and awareness of danger. Yet it is intriguing to watch illicit money change hands and to figure out how to avoid becoming the target of violence. Street life certainly beats going to boring school lectures while sitting still for hours at a time. And no homework . . . ah, the taste of freedom is addictive. There is no one to tell you to clean your room, when to be home and with whom to hang.
Gang Leader for a Day, is a book about the HUD housing projects of Chicago. The author, Sudhir Venkatesh, described how men joined gangs when young, rising in rank to become wealthy drug lords. Many of these bosses had the resources to move their mothers out of their decrepit buildings and into suburbia only to find that their moms preferred living in their old apartments. The women felt isolated in their new homes and missed the friendships that were formed with others who shared similar adversity. Families helped each other with food and babysitting, providing shelter when needed along with a listening ear. They bartered, threatened, bribed, hid drugs, paid protection money, strong armed and prostituted officials in order to survive. When there was a shooting, gang families in each housing unit formed a closely knit cocoon to fight their enemy. There was never a dull moment. Adrenaline ran high.
Homeless youth often become part of street families that protect their members from threats. From them they learn how to steal, beg and acquire drugs. Young girls are lured by pimps with the promise of love and become controlled through drug addiction. Attractive women can earn over $1000 a day being paired with well heeled businessmen or politicians. Why would these girls want to return to school or minimum wage jobs?
Street kids rarely understand that actions have consequences. Their role models were parents who lived from one pay or SSI check to the next with no thought of the future. Their families avoided banking, preferring to hide cash under mattresses or in holes dug in walls. On July 4th, in one of the poorest parts of Kelso, Washington I watched residents explode thousands of dollars in fireworks.
Middle class youth are monitored and continuously coached by caring adults. They are offered adventures through hiking and camping excursions, and given opportunities for thrills by rock climbing, horseback riding, snow boarding, water skiing and taking dune buggy rides.
Runaways seek similar excitement and quickly become addicted to street life. They too crave adrenaline producing ventures that test their survival skills. Though they are dropouts without a safety valve, they still want to participate in dramatic exploits. To entice them back into the classroom, educators need to provide adrenaline producing, hands-on training programs. These experiences need to be administered with a tough love approach that gives frequent rewards (food treats, housing, clothing, electronics) for progress and non-violent punishments (pushups, jogging, cleaning) for mishaps.
Why do some kids graduate from this addictive lifestyle to become contributing tax payers? The more intelligent youth get bored with standing in lines to eat and sleep. The minute they recognize that their life is floundering is the moment that intervention has a chance to work. Job Corps, Outside In, New Avenues for Youth and Janus Youth Services have programs in Portland that reach out to kids before they are indoctrinated in street behavior. These agencies place them in transitional housing and work to get them back in school. Unfortunately, funding is limited for the long term counseling required for indoctrination into a middle class values.
These children need to learn basic lessons in self-care. They must to be taught how to purchase food, set a table, clean an apartment, study for exams, manage their money, and get along with others. They have to learn about bank accounts, personal hygiene, who to trust, how to complete applications, what job opportunities are possible and where to get training. They need to be taught to drive a car, how to dress for work, and what type of body piercings and tattoos are inappropriate. These, skills routinely taught by middle class parents are alien to those who have not had parental guidance.
The child Ray and I befriended is successful in part because we recognized that he was not afraid of heights. He was fearless when asked to help clean the roof. A career as an industrial painter was the perfect solution for him. High bridges and water towers keep his adrenaline flowing. No longer is life boring, nor is there a need to escape with drugs.
I believe that children who experienced parental love when young have a better chance of surviving a crisis during their teens. Even if they experienced violence or addiction they still feel valued by their parents. An insight came from a friend of mine who at one time lived next door to a dysfunctional household. My friend had a large garden and invited his neighbor-children to help plant and weed in the spring and harvest vegetables to take home in the fall. . . . Fast forward eleven years when of the girls was heard talking to her brother. “Do you remember when Dad had that garden and we all worked in it together?” Her sibling laughed in response by reminding her that their father was an alcoholic. “Don’t you remember that it was the neighbor’s garden?” he asked. The girl had wanted so much to believe that her father was a loving family man that she transferred her neighbor’s actions to her own parent. Children cling to good childhood memories and creatively make up new ones when needed, expanding them to fill voids. According to Kevin Donegan from Janus Youth Services, “Every youth wants to believe that he or she is desired. During holidays they all wish they could go home.”
The topic of youth homelessness is huge and I have only skirted a few issues. Drugs, alcohol, transgender and mental difficulties present their own challenges that need to be dealt with in individualized ways. Government statistics skim the surface and do not tell how to treat the problem. I am writing a book on the subject which is why I look forward to your comments.
Please post comment below.
Art Work is always for sale. Contact me at [email protected].
References:
http://www.safehorizon.org/page/homeless-youth-statistics--facts-69.html - Homeless Youth Statistics.
Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh : About the Chicago housing projects and gang life.
Information gained from my own experiences as well as interviews with Keven Donegon, from Janus Youth Services, Kathy Oliver from Outside Inn, and Dewey Taylor a Job Corps trainer.
3/13/2015 2:37:16 PM
White Rhino by Marilynne Eichinger
Today's Rhinoceros are relatively new animals in the evolutionary chain of events but similar to those that lived during the Miocene era 14.2 million years ago. Though old, they are more related to human being than dinosaurs. Dinosaur's lived over 167,000 million years ago. There is a great deal of research being conducted about them today. Mounting evidence shows that dinosaurs are ancestors of today's birds rather than mammals.
Wouldn’t it have been exciting to be the teenager who found a Duck-billed Hadrosaur mummy in North Dakota in 2007? Imagine discovering a dinosaur with skin so that scientists don’t have to guess about the outer covering of this great extinct mammal.
Dinosaur explorations often change our view of history. I always imagined myself on a dig-team, becoming famous for finding a missing link. When my children were young I thought it would be fun to take them on a dig to the Dakotas or Texas as part of our family’s vacation. I never followed through though, so now I have to be satisfied by visiting museums and reading about interesting discoveries.
When my granddaughters were still in elementary school I once took them on an excursion to the Burke Museum in Seattle. The girls were excited by the prospect, grabbing notebooks and pencils along with a small reference book for the trip. Once in the museum they traveled from display to display, writing down information and drawing a pictures just as their research father might have done. This visit made me realize how fearless, curious and participatory young children are when given a chance to explore. They often lead the way to learning.
Pre-history is interesting for young and old alike. A while ago I learned of a fossil mammal found in Europe that is connected to South Dakota suggesting that there was a trans-Atlantic route about 66 million or so years ago. The keen eyes of paleontologist Frans Smet of St. Mary’s College in California discovered a tiny marsupial mammal tooth embedded in rock in Maastricht, Netherlands. When it was scanned in an electron microscope, the connection was made to North America and the historical timeline as the world knew it changed by 50+ million years.
Paleontologists now believe that T-Rex was a lean, mean, warm-blooded hunter who only attacked large prey and was not a scavenger as previously thought. He was agile and used a lot of energy, meaning that he needed a lot of food. Other research shows that most dinosaurs were vegetarian rather than meat-eaters and my oh my… they were sexy. It is thought that flying dinosaurs actually had more elaborate mating displays than modern-day peacocks. The fin-backed Pterosaurs and Pelycosaurs developed elaborate headrests and sails in order to attract a mate.
Did dinosaurs die 65 million years ago because of an asteroid impact? New research suggests that a bad climate caused by a series of volcanic eruptions was slowly killing off the mammals. "The [asteroid] impact was the coup de grace," Paul Renne, a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement for National Geographic. USC earth scientist David Bottjer confirms that the earth “just got sick” during the Triassic-Jurassic extinction and food became scarce. By looking at rare development of aragonite crystals on the ocean floor, he postulates that the slow dying period had something to do with the ocean’s chemistry. The coral reefs of that period are related to those in our oceans today and by understanding why they died we might learn more about the death that is now occurring in reef populations around the world. Is our earth getting “sick”? Will mankind die out as did the dinosaurs?
There are several dinosaur extinction theories but the most prevalent speaks of five major mass extinctions, the largest occurring 250 million years ago in the Permian-Triassic era. Almost 95% of all species were eradicated at that time. Some scientists say a comet or asteroid collided with earth, others postulate that a flood volcano causing oxygen loss in the seas was the reason. Some investigators have had theories about thinning atmospheric oxygen levels and now even this theory is questioned. Such are the twists of science where each discovery causes a new hypothesis to be made.
Can understanding geology and paleontology help us with current issues of global warming? Scientists look at these ancient creatures and how they lived, at changes in land mass and atmospheric and oceanic conditions for clues that can help in predicting the fate of the earth over the next millennium.
According to Peter Dodson at the University of Pennsylvania, there are great times ahead for dinosaur hunters. He claims that paleontology will be a good career because new discoveries are increasing by 10-20% a year. So…if those visits to museums, digging for dino-bones in toys, and reading books spark an interest in your child or grandchild, you may want to fan the flame. With summer quickly approaching, participating in a excavation might be the perfect vacation.
Art work is always for sale. Go to eichingerfineart.com for more information.
Want to know more? Go to:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/dinosaurs/ - for the latest research about dinosaurs.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/miocene.php -Miocene era.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130212--chicxulub-asteroid-dinosaurs-volcano-mass-extinction-environment-science/ - about dinosaur extinction.
https://www.museumofwesternco.com/dino-digs/ - for family expeditions in Colorado.
http://www.paleoadventures.com/dinosaur-dig-site-tours.html - for family expeditions in South Dakota.
http://www.wyodino.org/dig-site-tours/ - for family expeditions in Wyoming.
