Dendrochronology and Minor Immortality

Dendrochronology is the fascinating science of dating past events by studying tree rings.   Everything that went on in the life of the tree can be studied in the concentric circles visible in cross-section. Oh what stories those tall sequoias and redwoods could tell.

When I think of Facebook (it could apply to Twitter as well but I don't think of Twitter much) I see each year of our presence on this social network as another annual ring.  Every status update recorded, every picture and video uploaded, every link to a song, to an article is stored on Facebook forever.

Our pictures will show us growing older, the thoughts we express at 20 or 30 years of age will be there for us to review when we are 50 or 60, giving us a chance to wonder if we really looked like that or if we really said what we said.  Each year brings a new layer.   We capture each moment on a digital camera and even as we're taking the picture we think about how it will appear to the people who will see it in their news feeds after we upload it.  So much of everything we do is now Facebook driven in some way.  We are out there creating and embellishing our virtual facsimiles, some of us more than others.

A few years ago I read Milan Kundera's - Immortality.  The concepts that stayed with me after reading this book were the ones he explored at length, of minor and major immortality.  A few of us achieve major immortality - Gandhi, Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Lennon, Michael Jackson, Einstein, Elvis and so many others.  Whether Elvis has left the building or not, he is immortal in a major way.  These people are unshakable from our collective consciousness.  Some of them are in fact so immortal that they have earned the tag "Delebs".  There is an agent in Hollywood, who was talked about on CBS's Sunday evening show - 60 Minutes, who represents these "delebs" or dead celebrity.  Michael Jackson's estate has earned more than a billion dollars since he died.  His extreme indebtedness in the years leading up to his death, forgotten.  Einstein is the top billed deleb of this agency, showing up in several commercials the world over.  James Dean, who would have been 77 now, had he lived, and Steve McQueen are the others who get top billing at these agencies.  These folks have certainly achieved major immortality.

Then there's the concept of minor immortality.  The kind of immortality the rest of us desire.  We want to be remembered by our loved ones, at the very least.  We want to leave some sort of a legacy.  We want to find that one tiny raft that would somehow keep us from sinking into the sea of oblivion.    A couple of years ago I remember going through every family album I could lay my hands on.  I took on the role of family archivist.  I was thrilled to learn that there's a family tree that documents my roots on my father's side to the 12th century, going back about 26 generations.  I had names from back then but no pictures.

As the tree spread down the generations some early 20th century black and white photographs started making an appearance.  I studied each feature, each expression on these faces, wondering what they were really like, what thoughts were predominant in their consciousness, what were their aspirations, what brought them joy.   All these interesting names from earlier centuries, what did they look like?

They were all in eastern India, in the state of Bihar, did they care about the various invasions that the land, which wasn't yet India as it is now, witnessed?  Did they see anyone that didn't speak like them or look like them until the late 19th century when the British decided to exploit their lands for indigo farming?

In the black and white pictures I searched the faces of the women.  How was it like for them? They never appeared too happy with their existence (and not much has changed now).  The ones who got photographed were lucky.  There were so many women whose names future generations didn't care to remember.  The people who have kept the male names, going back 26 generations, documented and duly recorded didn't think women were important or relevant enough to remember.  Such were the times.  So many unremembered souls who were truly mortal in every sense.

In the late sixties, or seventies perhaps, some folks got interested in cryonics.  They asked that upon their death their bodies be frozen and kept intact for however many years it took for technology to catch up in ways that their thawing, revival and restoration to life became possible.   This was yet another stab at immortality by some.  Some such bodies are still in cold storage in various places in the world.

It's important for us all, it seems, to greater and lesser degrees, to achieve some sort of immortality.  This is where Facebook comes in.  It captures our very essence, it captures our banalities, our trivialities,  our intelligence, our style of banter, our weaknesses, our strengths in steadily accumulating cyber layers.  Cryonics, for those who believed in it, is suddenly redundant.  Who needs a physical presence when our cyber-essence is expected to prevail in perpetuity? Forget minor immortality we are all as immortal now as we care to be.

I also read about a business idea (NYT Sunday magazine) that is now taking hold.  There are companies and companies with iPhone Apps who want you to think about what will happen if you suddenly don't wake up one morning...they want to manage your digital afterlife.  They urge you to "will" your "digital estate" to your bewildered and aggrieved survivors because those of us who are active on the Internet will always have the unique distinction of rattling around in cyber space long after we're gone; literally the ghosts in the machine.

The brave new world is already here, courtesy Facebook and Twitter, and we are all well on our way to being A, B, C or D listed "delebrities".

More thoughts on the Tucson Tragedy

Rest in peace -Christina Green, Dorwan Stoddard, John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, Dorothy Murray, Phyllis Scheck - they were all gathered at the Safeway in Tucson, just to listen to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and they lost their lives at the hands of a 22 year old madman - Jared Lee Loughner.

Today I learnt from Gail Collins piece in the NYT, A Right to Bear Glocks, that even at a gathering being addressed by Gabrielle Giffords in 2009, a concealed weapon had fallen out of the armpit of another maniacal gun-toting person.  Anyone can walk around anywhere in that state, carrying a concealed weapon.  A friend just tells me that they are allowed to carry a gun to school in Arizona and that anyone over 18 can carry a gun and a permit isn't required by someone over 21.  

How is it that none of the powers that be, in these gun loving states, see anything wrong with this picture? The gun folks love telling people that guns don't kill people, people kill people.  Do these people believe that mental illness has been eradicated and uprooted from this country?  Do they really believe guns are necessary for school? Would they see nothing wrong with school bullies taking potshots at other kids or at teachers? Would the NRA defend the sale of guns to these "PEOPLE" who can and will KILL PEOPLE using a GUN?

Many people have expressed an opinion about the vitriol in public discourse these days.  I feel it's likely and equally unlikely that Jared Loughner was impressed by the ugly words coming out of his television or computer screen.  Maybe he was entranced by such rhetoric or maybe he was marching to his own drummer.  Either way he is insane.  If he is so easily influenced by the purveyors of vitriol he is insane, if his inner voices and fractured selves are telling him to assassinate a congresswoman and several other innocents, he is insane.  

Insane people should not be allowed near guns!  The states that are so fond of their gun laws cannot possibly defend a position that lets guns get into the hands of such people!

Or can they?

Will they continue to throw millions of NRA dollars at ensuring that every child, every psychotic, every sociopath in this country was given glocks?

The rhetoric needs to be toned down, no doubt.  It should have been toned down before any of this happened, before any idiotic politicians placed congressional districts under the image of the cross-hairs of a gun.  But why aren't enough people talking about lethal guns being in the hands of lethal people?

When I was 21...

When I was 21 I was still fascinated with Ayn Rand; objectivism, rational self-interest were all seductive ideas.  I agreed with every theory she espoused and wanted to fashion the rest of my life as a Dagny Taggart wannabe.

I came to the US at this age.  The people who worked with me then called me a sponge.  They were impressed at my rate of absorption of all things American.  I remember a colleague from those times – Rick Lennett.  He was an older gentleman, probably in his late sixties, and his water cooler conversation often centered around his weekend hunting sprees; bear hunts, deer hunts, venison preparation, etc.  I used to listen to his stories.  I was an engaged member of his audience.  He walked in one day with a petition that he was having people sign.  It was a petition that was opposed to any form of gun control.   My colleagues were adding their names to this piece of paper and as a consequence I didn’t think twice about signing it.  I was one of them, eager to emulate, be like them.

How did I feel about the 2nd Amendment then? Did I have any opinions about the NRA? I had no opinions, no thoughts on the subject.  Did I want to appear as though I was one of them? I most certainly did.  The incidents at Columbine and Virginia Tech hadn’t shaken us up back then.  If Rick Lennett, my new American colleague, was selling the notion that we had the right to bear arms, then I was buying it without reservations.  That was my 21 year old mind.

My boss at the time, my very first boss, was just an year older than me.  He used to go around talking and dressing like someone whose ancestors hailed from Sicily because the people who he reported to were from Sicily or from other parts of Italy.  He told me he was from Puerto Rico but if anyone asked me I was to say he was Italian.  He thought it would make a better impression on his bosses and result in a swifter ascent up the company ladder.

Yes, 21 and 22 year old people, most of them, are just that shallow.  I acknowledge and respect the ones who are wise beyond their years and amaze the rest of us by their unfathomable depth.  But such stellar young people are more an exception than a norm.  That’s what my experience has shown me.  I haven’t been pro-gun, anti-choice, pro-capital punishment or anti-immigration for most of my adult life.  I went from being sans opinion to having these opinions.  My personal evolution led me to this point.  But at 21, I was shallow as they come.  People just don’t know who they are, who they have the potential to be at these first bewildered steps into adulthood.

Some are worse than the others.  Jared Lee Loughner, 21, falls in that category.  He has come of age in these vitriolic times. He has been baptized in the toxicity that permeates public rhetoric these days.  Perhaps he visited Sarah Palin’s website and saw various congressional districts around the country represented under the cross-hairs of a gun, as targets, on a map on her website -a map that has been removed after the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  Gabrielle Giffords’ district was on that map.  She was shot in the head at point blank range.   A federal judge and a nine year old girl born on 9/11 were killed during this shooting and several others critically injured.

One only needs to read the placards carried at Tea Party gatherings, or catch whiffs of elevator or water cooler conversation to realize how toxic we have become as a society, to see how a crowdsourced herd of delusional people are amplifying every manic notion and idea, to hear of people who are sold on the idea of taking up arms against the government.

There are so many shows on television these days encouraging people to free their bathrooms, kitchens and pantries of toxic, carcinogenic elements – encouraging the usage of BPA free plastic containers, organic foods, vinegar-based household cleaning – discouraging the use of anything that could be potentially toxic or carcinogenic.   We want our homes to be as full of goodness and health as we can make it.  The movement is strong and gaining strength.  Who wouldn’t want to be aboard?

Why then are our personal interactions, our politics, our public discourse so awash in harshness, in verbal toxins?

I have often heard that driving, being able to use the roads and highways, is a privilege, not a right.  Why then must bearing arms be a right? Why isn’t it treated like a privilege? Why are we averse to ensuring that guns don’t end up in the hands of dangerously half-baked individuals like Jared Lee Loughner? Why was someone like him in possession of a legally acquired weapon?

When have we ever heard of guns making the news in a good way?