The Blog I'm Not Writing

Department Of The Universe Is Telling Me I Should Stop Writing And
Run For The Border Take The Next Shuttle To Mars

Moiself  just found out that this is a thing: Taco Bell Quarterly.  A new “literary” journal.

 

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Department Of Why Does This Question Need To Be Answered, Let Alone Asked?  [1]

“Is it morbid to take selfies with the deceased in their casket at a funeral?”
(from a letter to advice columnist Dear Abby, The Oregonian, 6-3-23 )

 

 

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Department Of A Question Worth Answering, Or At Least Pondering.

As posed by the No Stupid Questions podcast:

Do you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset?

Some parameters might be useful. As per the NSQ website:

“…a scarcity mentality refers to people who see life as a finite pie – a zero-sum game. If you have something, I can’t have it…. people with a scarcity mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit, whereas someone with an abundance mentality has the idea that there’s plenty out there for everyone. The rising tide lifts all boats. Let’s not just give me a bigger piece of the pie; let’s make the pie bigger….”

My bet is that every person is  a combination of the two, and that some folks will definitely skew one way or the other. Scarcity and abundance not just in terms of economics, but in regard to relationships, time management and perceptions, emotional self-regulation, creative endeavors….

 

 

The No Stupid Questions podcast on the scarcity/abundance mindset took me on Lyft ride down memory lane.  In particular, this happened when NSQ  co-hosts Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth were discussing research addressing the origins of the scarcity mindset concept:

NSQ cohost Stephen Dubner:
“…Shankar Vedantam, (host of the Hidden Brain podcast, speaking in a piece he made for an NPR show)…says: ‘When you’re hungry, it’s hard to think of anything other than food. When you’re desperately poor, you constantly worry about making ends meet. Scarcity produces a kind of tunnel vision, and it explains why, when we’re in a hole, we often lose sight of long-term priorities and dig ourselves even deeper….’
So he’s making the argument that scarcity — real scarcity, not a scarcity mindset — can impose an even additional burden because it forces you to spend a lot of your attention and resources on just getting enough.”

NSQ cohost Angela Duckworth:
“…I’m going to read you the end of the first paragraph [of the research paper, Some Consequences of Having Too Little ]: ‘Resource scarcity creates its own mindset, changing how people look at problems and make decisions.’

The first line [of the paper] is, ‘The poor often behave in ways that reinforce poverty…. For instance, low-income individuals often play lotteries, fail to enroll in assistance programs, save too little, and borrow too much…. But we suggest a more general view. Resource scarcity creates its own mindset, changing how people look at problems and make decisions.’ “

SD:
“…there’s a lot to untangle here….low-income people often compound their low-income-ness by making choices that contribute to a furthering of that pattern…. So, there are people who say, ‘Well, there you go. Poor people are poor because they make bad decisions.’ And what this line of research is saying, if I’m understanding correctly, is that poor people are poor for any number of reasons. And then it’s easy for poverty itself, for scarcity itself, if we want to call it that, to essentially compound on itself.”

AD:
“…I think it would be easiest to actually explain some of the research…a summary of a series of laboratory experiments…to basically create a fake [game] world where [researchers] could randomly assign people to be rich or poor and experimentally figure out what the heck is going on with decision-making that is different for those who are rich and poor…”

SD:
“…the idea is to measure how good or bad a decision is when you’re under different stressors?”

AD:|
“…you want to see if you randomly assign people to be poor in these games, do they accumulate more debt than people who are randomly assigned to be rich?….what [the study did] is create a microcosm of society, except they get to choose who’s rich or poor….they can show that you can take people who have…nothing wrong with their decision-making faculties, assign them to have fewer resources in a game, and show that they’ll accumulate more debt than rich people…

…the key insight is that there seems to be a shift in attention. When you are assigned to be in the poor condition and you have fewer resources…your attention is going to these urgent problems that are right in front of you, and you’re not making decisions that are good for you in the long term. Whatever you want to call it, that focus of attention on the urgent [is] the landmark finding. And immediately, you can change the way somebody’s brain is functioning just by putting them into a situation where they have scarce resources.”

SD:
“So there’s this snowball effect, which is when you’re dealt a bad hand, there are a number of cards within that hand that will lead to further bad cards, essentially.”

AD:
“That’s the vicious cycle that would logically ensue…. you’ve got fewer resources and more stress and less time, and you’re making even worse decisions with each round of life.”

( excerpts, my emphases, from “Do You Have a Scarcity Mindset
or an Abundance Mindset?”  NSQ, 5-7-2023 )

 

 

 

When I was in college I took a class   [2]  on The Sociology of Poverty.  Decades later, when I first heard the term “scarcity mindset” (coined by academics, so hey, it’s a thing!) my mind immediately flashed back to one of the required books for the class.  The book consisted of chapters presenting studies of the roots and realities of poverty alternating with chapters telling the story of a woman and her family (her husband and four children) who lived in New York City.    [3]    The wife and husband were each born into and continued to live below what was called the poverty line.  Both adults were marginally educated; the wife raised the children and tended their home (a rental apartment); the husband was sporadically employed in a series of low skill/low wage jobs.

While I was taking that class I was cobbling together different jobs to put moiself  through college, and was well acquainted with stretching a dollar until it tore in half. Which is perhaps why moiself  found it depressing and frustrating to read the family’s story, to see how they seemed to defeat themselves on a day-by-day basis.  The woman (the main focus of the story) and her husband were functionally passive, drifting through life, like human flotsam at the mercy of the tides of fate (and the whims of their capricious deity, which the woman mentioned several times, ala, “God will provide”…except, of course, he didn’t).

 

 

She lived for the day, instead of planning not only for today but for the tomorrows which would, inevitably, become the todays.  One of many examples: instead of getting her family to walk with her further in (or out of) her immidiate neighborhood, just once a week, to a larger, discount grocery store where they could buy rice and beans and other staples in bulk to last an entire week’s worth of meals, each afternoon the woman would go to the (expensive) corner bodega, getting the ingredients for whatever she’d decided to make for dinner that night, spending two or three times the amount for items that would last one meal, at a cost that would have lasted for six meals if she’d purchased the same items at another store.  

When I finished the book I realized there was something else going on; something I didn’t have a word for until I heard the term, scarcity mindset.  When I was growing up my family, although not below the poverty line, had to be quite careful (read: things were “tight”) with money.  However, unlike the adults in the book, the parents around me (both mine and those of *most* of my peers    [4]  ) set a good example with regard to planning, budgeting, and spending.  From day to day the Book Woman ®  didn’t know for certain if her husband would bring home enough money to buy a half-pound box of rice and a can of beans and some vegetables, and she was surrounded by people living the same way – people who had developed and/or were born into the same mindset.  On a day when there was money, they ate a little better.  On a day when they had little money (and/or the rent was due), they ate a little worse.

 

 

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Department Of A Word To Stop Over Using

Seems like moiself  can’t spit without hitting   [5]   a news app or story wherein someone, in a letter to an advice columnist or in a first-person essay, writes about their “toxic“

* in-law
* parent
*sibling
* extended family
* friend
* next door neighbor
* spouse
* children
* coworker
* barista…

Speaking of spitting, what’s the name of that reptile which can gob its venom?  Ah, yes, that would be the aptly dubbed, spitting cobra.

 

 

“A ‘spitting’ cobra is any of several species of cobra that can intentionally, defensively shoot their venom directly from their fangs….
Most spitting cobras’ venom/toxungen is significantly cytotoxic, apart from the neurotoxic and cardiotoxic effects typical of other cobra species….”
(excerpts from Wikipedia entry on the spitting cobra )

Note the repeated usage of the word toxic, as per its original/primary definition,    [6]  referring to a substance being poisonous and capable of causing death or serious debilitation, or that which exhibits symptoms of a deadly condition caused by a toxin.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know – language evolves.  I moiself  enjoy many a repurposed or expanded usage of an old term; still, IMO, the widespread and often hyperbolic application of toxic (or any adjective) lessens its potency.

Sure, there are people who behave nastily and/or whose (intentional or incidental) malice seems to be a part of their very essence.  But you and your sister strongly disagreeing about politics and religion and memories of who did what to whom in childhood – does that mean your relationship is comparable to a paralytic venom?   [7]    The guy in the cubicle next to yours who rummages through the break room refrigerator, pilfers and consumes half of your avocado hummus sandwich, then blames your disappearing lunch on the new HR intern –  is that guy really “creating a toxic work environment,” or is he merely (and effectively) acting like an immature, entitled, inconsiderate asshat?

 

 

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Department Of Veggiepalooza

Dateline: a couple of weeks ago, outside my neighborhood’s cluster unit mailboxes.  Exchanging what-have-you-been-up-to?s  with a neighbor, and when I mentioned I’d just returned from picking up my CSA share,    [8]   he said that he and his wife are trying to eat healthier (“more vegetables and all that”).  Of course, I had to put in a plug.

Even before MH and moiself  joined our first CSA (over a dozen years ago) I was already more than halfway toward a whole foods plant-based eating life.  But the introduction to foods I’d never or rarely seen in the local markets was a special benefit of CSA membership. Before that, how would I know that I would have liked, for example, shishito peppers, Chinese broccoli, celeriac, and kohlrabi so much?

 

 

Speaking of kohlrabi, I came up with this recipe many years ago, when moiself  was craving Indian-spiced food and had leftover tomatoes & kohlrabi from our CSA share.  I told my father about my creation, and he said that he looked forward to me cooking it for him the next time he and Mom came up for a visit..  Alas, I never got to make this one for him (he died a few months after that foodie conversation of ours). Here’s to you, Chet. And here’s the recipe for Kohlrabi Dal.

KohlRabi Dal (Serves 4)
The recipe name is a play on words for the root veggie, and dal (in Indian cuisine, dal are dried, split legumes),
and honors my father, whose nickname for me was Robbie Doll.

Ingredients:
– ½ t  each of whole brown mustard seeds and cumin seeds|
-1T neutral oil
– 1 medium yellow onion, diced
– 2 garlic cloves, minced
– ½ T minced ginger root
– 1 large green jalapeno, stemmed & seeded & finely chopped
– 1½  T pomegranate molasses (or tamarind paste –  you want a tart, tangy taste)
– 1 packed t dark brown or coconut sugar
– scant 1 t chili powder (New Mexico, if possible)
– ¼ t ground turmeric
– ½ c masoor dal (red lentils), picked through   [9]  and rinsed
– 2 medium tomatoes, chopped (or canned, to equal ~ 6 oz/170g)
-3-4 med-large Kohlrabi (~675 g or 1 ½ lb) – peeled & diced small
-Salt to taste
-Chopped fresh cilantro and cooked brown or white rice
-Drained unsweetened soy/other plant-based yogurt OR soft silken tofu, to equal 1 c,
blended with 1/8 t salt and 2T lime juice

Instructions:
– Heat oil in a Dutch oven or other high-sided pan. Add the seeds; sauté until the seeds pop (30 sec to 1 m).  Add the onions and sauté for 5m.
– Add garlic & jalapeno & ginger; sauté until fragrant (30 s – 1m).  Add the molasses and the remaining spices; stir for 15 sec.
– add dal to the pan.  Sauté for 1-2 m stirring, until dal is covered w/oil & spices.
– Add tomatoes and 1 ¾ c water, bring to boil; turn heat to low, cover pan & simmer 20 m.
– Meanwhile, prep kohlrabi: steam or nuke the pieces 5-6 m or until tender.
– Add steamed kohlrabi to pan, continue to simmer, uncovered ~ 10 m or until lentils are cooked through and sauce thickens.  Add more water if necessary for desired consistency.
– Add salt to taste.
-Serve: atop rice of choice, with dollops of lime/yogurt sauce and sprinkles of chopped cilantro.

 

 

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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week    [10]

 

 

 Ali Rizvi is a Pakistani-born, Canadian, atheist ex-Muslim
and secular humanist writer and scientist (oncologic pathologist)
who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith.

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Of all the selfies you may be tempted to take, may none of them be at a funeral;
May you maintain a healthy disance from actual toxins;
May you discover (if you haven’t already) the joys of kohlrabi;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

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[1] I didn’t read Abby’s advice.  Didn’t need to; the question itself was so grotesquely entertaining that I couldn’t imagine any answer which would top it.

[2] A class which eas required for my major.

[3] I cannot recall which borough, but it was one of the B’s – Brooklyn, or the Bronx.

[4] Except the wealthy ones, who just did and bought whatever the hell they wanted to.

[5] I’m not sure if I’m mixing metaphors here or just misusing or abusing one. Would that make me a toxic metaphor-ist?

[6] ( see Merriam Webster online dictionary )

[7] And I’m not casually dismissive of the label, nor do I think it has no legitimate application.  I know more than one person whose close family member(s) have poisoned their relationships with continual, malicious, soul-crushing words and deeds.

[8] Community Shared Agriculture, or CSA, is a farming model built on fairness and transparency for both the farmer and the consumer. Traditionally, a consumer buys a share of a farm up-front, which provides financial security to the farmer for that season. In return, the consumer receives a regular box of fresh produce. ( What Is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?, The Spruce Eats )

[9] Any dal or dried beans can sometimes include small bits of chaff or even pebbles.

[10] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org