Musings of Old Man Joe

There and back again!

Joe

My wife is going to be published!

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things my mother left behind book promo
Things My Mother Left Behind

I am so excited to be saying “My wife is going to be published.”
This has been on the cards for years, ever since I have known Susan her passion has been Poetry, she has a way with words. Even the fiction she has written (not published as of yet), stories based on experiences she has had and the fact she feels it’s necessary to edit my blog posts (not this one though) HAHA!

Susan constantly surprises me with new Poetry and check out her interview with Wombwell Rainbow Series. Susan has her website FloweringInk.com where you can keep up with her new book and recently published work.
And please check out her blog Stories From the Edge of Blindness.

Frozen Shoulder

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frozen plant
Photo by Alex Holyoake on Unsplash

For the last two months my wife has been in great pain in her right shoulder. During the stay at home scene it’s been difficult to see a doctor as they had stopped seeing patients, this is changing slowly.
We went through many scenarios trying to figure out what was wrong, torn muscle, pinched nerve, but it was really hard to get a definite answer.

This last week my wife saw a physiotherapist who had herself recently gone through Frozen Shoulder. She was able due to her recent bout diagnose my wife’s condition very accurately. She said even though she is a physical therapist she had to get help to diagnose her own condition. I can’t say it was good news but it’s great to know what is going on even if there really isn’t a treatment that can help, you just have to manage the condition.

Now is the hard part, physical therapy through the pain to regain range of motion. My understanding if left alone it could take a year or longer to heal by itself. My hope is that with therapy it can be reduced to a few months. Up until last Thursday I had never heard of frozen shoulder. I personally think it was brought on by bad posture while my wife is writing. We are working to change that so this does not recur.

Peace!

Removal of a Pole

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January 1st 2020

It was literally the beginning of the year, January 1st when some chap decided the place to hang his hammock was outside my apartment building. After he had a great nights sleep there was a pole now hanging down that any unsuspecting person could get quite a slap if they weren’t paying attention.

I reported it to the City and wrote about the incident and the response.
I wondered how long it would actually be before somebody came to fix the pole or would this be this way until somebody got hurt!

This was before we had a Pandemic to contend with and I suppose the pole got lost in the drama of the staying at home wearing masks stuff. So after four months I decided nobody was going to fix this pole hanging in the street. I decided to act to finally do what the city of Los Angeles failed to do.

May 14th 2020

I am actually surprised how easily the pole came out of the fitting, there was only one bolt holding the pole in place, and it weighed about eight pounds when removed. It could have really hurt someone had it fallen out. I placed the now free pole on the ground and of course being Hollywood it was taken by the next day. No doubt I will learn of a transient threatening passers by with a pole on sunset boulevard some day soon.

Staying Safe at Home or Trying Too

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Apartment life

I have lived where I am now for the past fifteen years, and all in all it’s been great. The building has eight units and unlike many building in Los Angeles we know each other and look out for each other.

That was until the owners of the building who are family of the original owner decided it’s time to sell the building. Great news during the pandemic and the staying home safe time. I suppose it was inevitable given the building was built in 1957 and is in a great location.

During the stay at home people who are interested in looking at the property cannot enter occupied apartments and have to wait until the order is done. Empty apartments and houses can be viewed as long as it’s only two people and they practice safe distancing.

The Management company have tried three times in the last month to get access without any regards for the safe at home order and the safety or feelings of the tenants. It does make me sad after fifteen years that in the end it’s always just about the money, I get that but it wasn’t always that way. Apartments are being built on the site of older buildings in massive numbers, and they can’t fill them because people can’t afford to pay the crazy rents they are charging. So will Los Angeles in a few years be a city full of expensive empty apartments?

I shall probably be here for one more year, I shall leave as so many have over the years. It is too expensive and there is too much homelessness. After the vaccine for the virus has been produced we will start to go back to our new normal, what ever that will look like.
Peace People!

The Future of Creativity

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Creativity is a wonderful thing.  It gives us art, music, poetry, photography, gardening, and the list goes on. Creative people come in all shapes and sizes and in all temperaments.  They can be rude, humble, obnoxious, or shy.  They can be also be depressives who will go without shelter and food, simply to be able to express themselves creatively.  It gives their lives meaning.  I am not saying that all creative people suffer from depression.  I am saying that a lot of the artists I know do have a dark side, and this is reflected in their work.  

Does it help to have some level of depression to be creative?  Does the function of creativity lead a person to depression, or to depressive thoughts? Are we, as humans, attracted to the chaos and drama that can come with social non-conformity?  Is it the dark side of existence that we wander toward, to feed our creative minds?  

It’s part of our wiring as humans to have good days and bad days, and how that looks can depend on external factors, such as, where we live, how we look and our status in society.  Does the way we are raised provide us with different tools when dealing with depression?  When we as a society get to the stage where we can change our DNA, eradicate things like depression, are we not only changing the chemistry of our brains, but also altering the parts of our mind where creativity resides?  

What could be the function of depression as it exists with so many of us?  Does it have a function or is it just a chemical imbalance, a mind fuck, if you will?  And if, in the future, we can remove the genes that gives us these dark feelings, should we do it?  Will it create a happier society?  Is it moral to allow people in the future to be afflicted with depression if they don’t have to be?  When our genes are changed, and people have a bad day, how will they react when sadness should be the resulting emotion?  Will we be like the Eloi from H.G. Wells, “The Time Machine” (spoiler alert), devoid of emotion with a certain apathy, as they are in fact really just a food source? 

In the future, when we can gene sequence humans to be whatever we need them to be, what will creativity look like?  What is the future of creativity in a world without depression? And even scarier, will it be humans or AI that are the creatives?  

I am writing this in a café, drinking a coffee.  How long will it be before the first blog post written by an AI is posted?  Will it be about what it is like to work and live with humans?  Will it be funny?  Sad? Will it feel like a threat to other bloggers?  Will the AI truly appreciate all of the likes and comments?  

In the future, will creativity be considered an emotional plus or an impediment?  Will the darker side of creativity be considered an abnormal way of thinking and be judged as detrimental to society?  I personally think that, as people, we would find Utopia boring and probably start killing each other, taking drugs or just staying drunk all of the time, even more than we already do.  

Some of the greatest people I have met are often quite “off”, not what would be considered normal.  They have an edge that makes them interesting and fun to be with.  Some may call them crazy, but that is just personal interpretation.  Different people have different normals; that is what makes interesting conversations and relationships.  

So, what is the future of creativity?  We shall know quite soon.