Secret Message De-coder

My grumble of the week:  tiny text on mobile devices. Despite my age, I don’t think this is just a senior-citizen-with-failing-sight issue, even though it is a bigger problem for us.  What would motivate a website designer or creator to actually choose to use tiny and, to make matters worse, light gray text? I was under the impression that minimum font sizes were about 10 or maybe as small as 8. (I think is 8.) But no way, grasshopper. Oh no.  They've found a font that's even smaller.  And I haven't even started to grumble about the light gray font color.

I don’t want to start a conspiracy theory here, but maybe, just maybe, it’s intentional and designed to keep old-timers from knowing what’s going on with generations X, Y, or Z - or whatever they’re called these days. Just like dogs are the only ones that can hear a dog whistle, Kid-adults are the only ones that can read the latest news out of the rapper world or the gamer world.  And that’s not to mention their secretive plotting to get rid of us just as soon as they able to get our money. Oh Woe!… I fear it’s just a matter of time.

But you can’t keep a crafty senior in the dark forever. I’ve found something called “reader mode” on my Android phone.  (Yes, Android as many of us don’t want to shell out a thousand bucks for just a phone…)  Google has this feature built into the Android System.  Once enabled, there’s a little man icon on the bottom right of the screen. Then, whenever I get to a web page or article designed to keep us from reading it, I punch the little man and (Ta-Da!) the page or article appears magically in glorious large black text. It’s a secret message decoder for seniors. I'm now spying on their secret messages.  I'll let you know when I discover something of importance.

But please!  Don’t tell anyone from Gens X or Y or Z.  This is our secret.

Purpose

I’ve been thinking more about what I want to read these days. I’m the holder of a notion that I “should” be reading non-fiction… especially about current events, political stuff, and treatises on culture. Isn’t that the serious type of reading that all thinking people should be reading?  The problem is that I don’t really care about those things anymore. And I don’t care as much as I used to for other people’s ideas about what I should be doing. As a young man, I had more skin in the game about the future. With kids and what seemed like many, many years ahead, I had the future in my hands.  I had the deceptive idea that by being informed on these topics, I could have some impact on them… could make a difference.

I no longer have that belief. I don’t think I can make a difference anymore. I’ve become more of an observer… no longer a player. I’m just an average senior, and average seniors have no impact on politics or the culture, apart from voting.  I do vote.

Thus, after the results of my thought process became more clear, lets move on to what I want to read. Experience has shown that I really do enjoy well crafted fiction. And, I’d add to that, historical fiction. And throw in a sprinkling of science fiction, especially stories that explore science based discoveries that have big effects on the culture of the time.  I do also enjoy re-reading a few pieces that I’ve particularly enjoyed in the past, like some of the classics… Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Douglas Adams among them.

Besides increasing my enjoyment of the abundant reading time I have at my disposal, it reduces the tension and anxiety that can come from those non-fiction, cultural current events subjects. And I’m all over tension and anxiety reduction.

On the reverse side of my reading passion, I’ve always dabbled in writing. Thus this piece, and my other projects. For example the blog I maintained during our heavy travel years, “The RV Sabbatical Journal” contains over 1,000 posts. For a span of 7 or 8 years, that’s about a consistent 3 posts per week. The blog gave me purpose during those years.

And as I think about, and plan for, a future away from our heavy involvement with the community here at Timber Valley, it’s clear to me that I’ll need a purpose. Thus, my renewed interest in maintaining a writing project of some kind to fill the flip-side of my reading life.

Don’t we all need a purpose? 

Signs of Life

 It’s been a hard winter. With the abnormally heavy rains of November and December, and the abnormally cold January and February, I'm ready for a change. Hope remains for March. We love to complain about the weather. But it’s one of those things we can’t do anything about.

Our time here at Timber Valley in Sutherlin Oregon is growing short. Especially considering how fast the years fly by. Dar and I have been thinking, talking, and investigating our next step, the next chapter. We've watched as others in our community have died and left major problems for their heirs. Despite the feelings we have toward our "stuff", the reality is that the kids don't want it. And neither does anyone else. And we really don't have that much "stuff". So call Goodwill, back up the truck, and take it away.

Being 3 hours south of our closest offspring, there's another issue to consider. If (or probably When) one of us falls ill and the other isn't able to provide full care, the 3-hour barrier is a significant obstacle. And our kids have their own lives and jobs... and neither of us wants to be a burden to them.

It's been a dream of mine to live in a walk-able community. Park the car and forget about it. The ideal is to have all the basic services and necessities within an easy walk of our home. During the last couple years it's become clear to us that the town where our daughter lives could be just that. Within a 6 or 8 block circle there's a full-size Safeway grocery store, an awesome hardware store, the community library, an active downtown area with coffee shops, restaurants, bars, night-life, an artsy-vibe and access to walking trails. It's an easy drive to Portland's international airport PDX (scratch the travel-itch), excellent medical resources, and an even wider array of many other big town features.

Since we've already adapted to living small, a move to even a small apartment will double our living space and it could feel downright luxurious.

In the next 6 or 8 (or 10?) months, we'll be getting more serious about this. A lot has to fall into place, and we're looking for the stars to align just right, but that's the rough bones of a plan.

A Minimalist

I've recently been involved with helping to clear out the living spaces of someone who died. These are a few of my observations: 

 Humans just like stuff. Usually, the more stuff the better.

Very little of this stuff has much objective value.

Often we keep stuff because it has some sentimental value… or we just don’t want to confront the reality that we won’t ever use something given to us as a gift. And disposing of it would be disrespecting the person who gave it to us.

We have so many places to put stuff that we don’t really know how much stuff we actually have. And so many of those places keep the stuff from being visible, hide the stuff from our view.  Cabinets, drawers, boxes under a bed, more boxes on shelves out in the garage, up in the attic, out in the shed… it’s all tucked away out of site. We always seem to find enough space for new stuff. Sometimes we even rent more space from a storage company. 

If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. Where have I heard that before?

There’s probably an evolutionary reason why so many of us are so attracted to having more of anything. If there is, I don’t know what that would be. , but it seems logical that one exists. You would think, historically speaking, nomadic peoples would want less as more would become a barrier to moving around. So the whole subject is confusing and it really doesn’t make much sense.

We buy and accumulate stuff, we put it where we won’t see it, we forget about it, we pay for the space to keep it. We sometimes try to find something and get frustrated when we can’t find it. After a while, the piles of stuff become like background noise… unnoticeable and part of “just the way it is”.  Not really realizing that someone is eventually going to have to deal with it all, we decide that the future will take care of itself. And, if questioned about it, we spritely say “The kids can take care of it”.