mental-health

Life is Easy if You have the Updated Operating System

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Sometimes in life things change and we just don’t even notice. It is like when an old building that has been sitting tucked off the street for years gets pulled down; or that store on the corner that has been there forever goes out of business. And then one day you drive by and say to yourself “when did that happen.? When did they go out of business?” “Things” like that happen everyday. 

For instance, I have had a certain bank app on my iPhone for several years now. The reason I put the app on my phone was because I was moving to a state where that bank did not have any branches. So the app was a logical next step in the new electronically internet connected world we live in.

Now, I know I am aging myself because for the longest time in my life communication devices were connected to a landline to the home. The big upgrade was a cordless phone and answering machine. The mobile phone, soon to become a smart phone, changed all of that with voice mail. And I will admit, it is much easier now than back then. 

When it came to doing banking I would sit down on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and begin the task of writing out any bills that had arrived in the mail that week, put a stamp on an envelope and I was good to go. And with the advent of direct deposit I no longer had to stand in line, or wait in the drive through window at the bank on Friday to cash my check.  Things are starting to get easier.

Gone are the days when you would have to fill out a deposit slip indicating how much of your paycheck went into the checking account and how much cash you wanted back. The ATM soon became the go to place to get cash. You could go into just about any store and get  cash with a newly issued debit card. Today, the banking industry with its cash back bonuses has weened us away from carrying any cash at all—what’s in your wallet: no folding money. 

There were weeks when I would guard that last one or two dollars in my wallet as if it were the Dresden Green Diamond—waiting for Friday, Pay Day! Things seem to be getting easier.

But I have digressed from the banking app. I really did not use the app that much. Most of my banking is done remotely now. Now my bills either go directly to my bank to be paid or to an email account, no trip to the mailbox and no stamps needed. It was like when radio music went from AM to FM: “No static at all…”

Occasionally, however, there is the need to cash a check. That’s where the app comes in. It was awkward at first logging in, fumbling around with user names and passwords—which I never remember—and now getting an authentication code texted to me. Then there is taking a picture of the front and back of the check. I feel like an Olan Mills photographer cajoling a toddler to sit still. Here I am trying to get a check to smile at me while instructions pop on the screen demanding me to get closer, center the check or use a darker background. It was the modern version of fumbling in the bank with pen on a chain and trying to remember your account number for the deposit slip–if you did not have a slip that came with the checkbook. It keeps getting easier.

I never thought about the app beyond trying to log in until the other day when I went to cash a check. I went to the app and logged in, which I finally could do without having to fumble around for my user name and password. My phone remembered that for me. Life just keeps getting easier.

However, a slight glitched popped up. Before I could do my banking I needed to update the app. No problem I thought. I would just hit update, which then took me to another screen to get the new updated app. I hit “get” but I got nothing but a return to the previous screen that said update app. I thought I just did that. So I demonstrated one of two lesser desired qualities of human life, either stupidity, insanity or both, and I tried again to update. It sent me back to the app screen to get the app. I hit “get” again and was promptly sent back to update. I was putting myself into a human controlled flow loop, the proverbial dog chasing his tail. I thought things were supposed to be getting easier.

As in most cases it is me, as the user, who is lost in the tangle of internet webs that connect us to the cyber universe. It was now that I examined the screen closer. In the upper portion of the screen in small writing next to a triangle with an exclamation point was a small message.

I want to shuffle off a side street here for a moment because one, I have fat fingers and any typing I do on my iPhone ends up with numerous typos. Secondly, it takes more than my reading-glass cheaters set at 1.5 magnification to read something that small. Those little messages are treated like a Yield Sign in Dade County Florida, a strong suggestion to the other guy to look out for you because you are coming through. I just thought if they wanted me to stop or slow down the message would have been a bit bigger with a Stop Sign symbol: Please read before continuing.

The message said I needed IOS 17 on my Apple iPhone to download the new app. I went to Settings to see what my operating system was. I and fumbled around some more only to learn that my iPhone was operating on some version of IOS 16. Getting the app for my iPhone now  required an additional update—to my operating system. Further research on the internet reveled that my phone cannot be updated to IOS 17. I would need to buy a new phone to get the banking app to run.

I was dumbstruck. In my mind this would be like having to buy new shoes because you have a broken shoelace.  Why do I feel like I am being scammed? Maybe because I am; or we are. 

But, there is a happy ending to the story. I went to my iPad, which did have IOS 17. I uploaded the banking app and was able to cash the check–for $11.49.

However, I have to wonder is this like the old house tucked back on the street or the business that just closed. How many other of my seldom used apps are just sitting on the home screen waiting to be pulled down or sign placed in the front window that simply says “closing.”

Life is getting easier if you have the updated app.

A “Baby’s Brain and an Old Man’s Heart”

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Political pundits are trying to make sense of what was supposed to be a Presidential Debate. I am not sure what we witnessed. The one thing we did see was two old men suffering from some sort of cognitive brain dysfunctions. I don’t think you have to be a brain surgeon, or a rocket scientist, to see there was a serious lack of gray matter being utilized in both debaters.

From the first Egyptians who used crude tools to bore through the skull to cure brain disorders, to MRis, scientists have been trying to map out the functions of the brain and its various parts. I am not neuroscientist, and far be it for me to analyze two old man banding about their golf handicap; but from where I sat, it was sad sight to see the cognitive dysfunctions of both debaters, one of whom will be the leader of the free world.

According to the Cleveland Clinic the gray matter in the brain “is where information processing happens. The grey matter is the seat of a human’s unique ability to think and reason. The grey matter is the place where the processing of sensation, perception, voluntary movement, learning, speech and cognition takes place.”

It was obvious there was some sort of cognitive disconnect sparking back and forth in the debat. Biden’s debate performance was much like an aging quarterback struggling to avoid being gang tackled. Our brain controls different signals that control different processes, It is how our brains interpret what we want to call the real world.

Biden appeared to be two steps too slow throughout the debate. Most of the time he looked like a duck who just got hit on the head. It was a Looney Toon moment: “Dah, which way did he go…” It was obvious that he lost his train of thought. It appeared he was confused on his own talking points, which for a politician is like a life preserver for a drowning man. Sure, he got a few good quacks in, like when he told Trump that he had the morality of an alley cat.

On the other side of the debate stage Trump was the surfer masterfully riding the wave of lies he has been surfing for eight years. His strategy was “go with what got you there.” It was the “Home of the Whopper”–super size the lies. And during the debate those lies were flying off the debate stage like Blow Flies heading for a shit house. It is really too bad that this debate leads the way to the White House.

Today, researchers have more tools than the sharply honed rocks the Egyptians used to look into the skull. Researchers believe that the various regions of the brain serve different functions from processing information and transmitting information to other parts of the brain and various parts of the nervous system. It would appear, to me, that each debater was using different parts of their brain to make their points. And to be honest, I don’t think they were making any good connections within their own brains because whatever was coming out of their mouths made no sense at all.

For instance, according to mindful.com, the amygdala is “the brain hub for emotional and arousal processing, often associated with the fight-or-flight response.”This is the area of the brain that shows the highest level of activity when the very first self-serving lie (is) told.” The level of activity in this area of the brain can possibly predict how big the next lie will be.

According to a recent Nature Neuroscience study by Tali Sharot and her team at University College London, “the more we lie for our own benefit, the more desensitized we become to the negative emotions associated with lying, and the easier it becomes to tell even bigger lies. She says, “part of the emotional arousal we see when people lie is because of the conflict between how people see themselves and their actions.”

The psychology of dishonesty, be it a child stealing marshmallows or politicians covering up large economic scams, stems from a deep primitive mechanism for self preservation, both physically and mentally. The protection of the ego, the need for others’ approval, the strong urge to escape negative and uncomfortable feelings, are all motivations for self-deception–mindful.com

It seems obvious that the GOP has no problem with this strategy. After all, it was Trump’s administration that introduced us to “alternative facts.” We have bee desentized to their alternative facts. Alternative facts are like Fashion Fidget Dolls : “they can go wherever you go! Fashion Fidgets combine the stress release & focusing benefits of a traditional fidget toy, with the imaginative pretend play: you can collect them, and trade for them, you can even mix and match them.”

If this election were a football game, Trump is GOP signal caller. The Supreme Court seems to be his offensive line with various federal judges throwing downfield blocks to keep their man on the field. There are plenty of Congressmen and Senators coming into the game, too. They all want to run that trick play that can possibly give them a shot at owning the libs.

On the other sideline, the question Democrats are asking is do you send the veteran Joe Biden back in? Do you send him out for the second half? Does he have one more inning left in him? They are mulling does one bad outing signal its time to bench the starter, bring up somebody from the bench or just retire a player that as literally been a major player for the Dems for 50 years. Eventually Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron called it quits. But if this was the second half of the Super Bowl or Game Seven who do you want with the ball? The aging crafty veteran or younger, stronger more agile signal caller lacking game time.

The question I ask is how as a nation did we get in this position of having to decide between a convicted liar and Grandpa. It was “a long time ago” maybe “in a galaxy far, far way” that we thought Richard Nixon was a crook and Reagan was to old be president. Boy, we were not even close.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/anatomy-of-the-brain

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24831-grey-matter

https://www.mindful.org/this-is-your-brain-on-lies/#:~:text=Our%20Lying%20Brain&text=The%20amygdala—the%20brain%20hub,in%20the%20amygdala%20would%20drop.

Liars’ Brains Wired Differently