The Collapse CLXXX: Judgment

13 October 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

For reasons unknown to anyone but God, the sunrise was gloriously clear and cloud free this morning. Perfect weather for everyone to be able to make a trip into town for a judgment.

I can seldom think of a time that a breakfast has been less welcome to me. Pompeia Paulina did her best to dress it up with huckleberries in the oatmeal and even a precious cup of coffee (which was, to be fair delicious – how I miss the stuff), but darkness of the day overhung the meal.

I dressed in a formality I had likely not dressed in for over a decade; if I was to render a judgment, best to look as good as I could. Besides, after I rendered judgment, who knew what would happen after that.

It is best to dress for any occasion, even your own funeral.

Young Xerxes was there with his escort, seemingly beefed up from the previous two days before. The weapons were readily apparent this time, with no hint of hiding or concealing them. They made the walk from The Cabin to the makeshift courtroom as much ceremonial as they did protective.

The courtroom was packed, even more so than the previous two days. This was a big doing, likely the biggest in some time and I would swear to you that even outlying farms and ranches had sent a representative to watch. Not surprising I suppose; what happened here – like it or not – would define what we understood justice to be for the coming time.

The courtroom was packed with more guards as well – and to my surprise, I saw The Colonel and The Leftenant and Ox and half a dozen I knew by face only. How Young Xerxes had managed to pull this off was beyond me (although he did wear a smug smile when he realized I had seen them).

A great many things might happen just now. But wholesale murder now seemed much less likely.

“All Rise for the Honourable Judge Seneca” boomed Ox in a voice that defied restraint, pulling people out of their seats by its sheer force and rumble. They stood, all of them – the crowd in the back, Terentia and The Fashionable Woman and Cataline and The Advocate in front, as I passed with Pompeia Paulina on one side and Young Xerxes on the other – through them to the chair and table that served as my bench. Pompeia Paulina gave my hand a squeeze as she peeled off to her chair while Young Xerxes came behind me.

The gavel dropped twice. “Be seated” I spoke in a word almost two thirds less the volume of Ox.

The alacrity with which everyone dropped into their seat alarmed me.

“We are here today” I started “to determine the judgment of Cataline, accused of murder. I remind both sides that it was agreed to that this would be the format and venue agreeable to both; the expectation is that this judgment stands. To be clear, given the circumstances there is no appeal, no second judgment, no further actions. And certainly” I said, looking carefully from one side to the other, “no retribution”.

I shifted a bit in my seat – formal clothes, while looking nice, were never quite as comfortable as jeans. “I will start with the facts of the case. There was a killing. Cataline confesses to it. However, the facts reveal is that the killing was done in response to prevent a killing, that of Cataline by husband of Terentia. Had that happened, we would still be here to discuss a killing. Which seemingly is a problem in and of itself: no matter what, there apparently would have been a death.

We hold that a person has the right to protect themselves from act of being killed – Good Heavens, four months ago people in this room, myself included, walked out to prevent this very thing by people who were quite intent on stealing our things and taking our lives. No-one protested this, no-one said this was wrong. The intent to kill then by those that invaded was quite clear.

And in this case, the need to defend was not even the fault of the defendant: the intent to kill him – by Terentia’s husband – was to cover a self perceived loose end, a link to an self-embarrassing episode that was rooted in his own power and evil deeds. If an invader were to force us to surrender food or body for survival we would be offended and angry; it is even worse when it is done by one’s neighbor simply because that neighbor has the power to do so.”

I shifted again in my seat. “And yet, we have the fact of a death and the fact that now, every death has impact. Terentia’s husband, no matter his moral stature” – here I got an angry look from Terentia – “had value as a contributing member of this town, this social unit. His family has suffered a loss – ultimately self-inflicted by him, but impacting them as well.”

I sat up, ramrod straight. This was the moment I had been both dreading and preparing for.

“It is my judgment that in the case of the killing of Terentia’s husband by Cataline, it is determined to be self defense and there will be no further punishment. It is clear the man is punished enough by himself, and I cannot overlook the facts that brought him to the defense of his own life and that of his wife. I have never rewarded the exercise of power of the strong over the weak before and will not do so now.” The sob from the room could have only come from Cataline’s wife.

“But I recognize there is harm in the loss of Terentia’s husband” I continued. “It is therefore my judgment that beyond returning any and all goods that they may have given to them by Terentia’s husband, there be a payment on the value of his life. Given the circumstances that we live in and the acknowledged reason for the initial “gifts” given by Terentia’s husband was food, the assessment is 5 lbs of wheat.”

I slightly cleared my throat. “As the defendant likely cannot offer up this payment, I offer it up in his stead.” With that, I slammed the gavel down.

The room froze for a moment, then erupted into noise.

I cannot clearly tell you what happened next. The noise – angry shouting, the sound of Terentia’s voice rising above all – was in my ears. My view as blocked by Young Xerxes and a cordon of guards he had thrown around me as soon as the gavel hit. I tried to get up but he pushed me back in my chair. The circle only parted to allow Pompeia Paulina in, who simply grabbed my hand and hugged me in place.

I had, obviously, not discussed any of this with her. “It will be fine” she said in my ear in a voice that was strangely audible despite the shouting. “We can make do”.

By the time I was finally allowed to stand up, the courtroom had largely cleared. The Colonel and The Leftenant were gone along with the faces I had recognized – “to escort Cataline home” as Ox told me. Terentia and The Fashionable Woman were gone, having apparently stormed off. A few stragglers were there, perhaps hoping for some kind of last minute climax which was not to come.

I started to leave, then picked up the gavel and took it with me. Likely given this experience, no-one was going to ever ask me to adjudicate anything again, but one never knows.

I must confess, Lucilius, that the walk home was far different than I expected. I had thought I would be weighed down with sorrow. Instead, I felt a certain lightness in my soul. I had done the best I could, given the circumstances.

That is all that can really be asked of us.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2024 Turkey: Food Catch-Up

 I will be honest that - especially with my more recent travel - I had not really thought about the role that cuisine plays in my travels.  But in every trip, even in my most recent ones to Japan and Europe, I find that I am taking a picture at almost every meal.  Whether it is because of the novelty or the true differences I find (probably both), the food (and the pictures) have become a strong part of my memories.

As I mentioned before, most of the places we ate were buffets connected with the hotels we stopped at. On the whole they quite good (I cannot think of one that was not) and almost every one featured local specialties.

Dinner, with the ever present baklava:

Breakfast.  I have to admit greens and cheese was very easy to adjust to:

Cheesy mushrooms (it sounds better in Turkish):

More desserts:

I am guessing breakfast based on the coffee?

Gummy bears in Turkish.  A universal food.

Lunch:

2024 Turkey: From Kapadokya to Ankara

 After our time in Kapadokya (the second longest place we "stayed" after Istanbul), it was time to head out to our next destination, Ankara.  

A final rest stop with what I have come to associate with typical Kapadokyan rocks and views:

Once we left the region, the area turned to the flat plains surrounded by mountains we had seen on our trip to Kapadokya:

Not many scenic stops, but plenty of great scenery.

Snow Day

 This past Thursday and Friday we had snow.

The concern about snow was a bit of a real issue for me; my flight from Chicago to New Home 2.0 was delayed due to snow in Chicago by almost three hours.  The inclement weather was scheduled to hit around 0400 on Thursday; as the flight delay continued I became more and more concerned.  As it turned out, I made it home at 0100, almost 3 hours before the storm was scheduled to hit.

My experience with snow, even at my age, remains that of a child.  Having never had to live in the constant doldrums of feet of snow (and the associated snow removal), I continue to enjoy the sort of relationship that I had when I was younger:  sitting by the radio in the early morning, patiently waiting for the local AM station to call out a school closure so that I could run out and play in it.

That has not really changed in all these years. Instead of waiting for an announcement on the radio I now carefully watch the flickering screen of my computer for the e-mail announcing "all but critical personnel" should remain at home.  I remain shocked at the fact that, no matter what weather regularly happens in a place, people still forget how to drive from year to year.

A pair of different tire tracks in the snow; the second round fell Thursday night leaving an unspoiled (or almost so) world to explore Friday morning.

There is something about a world in fresh snowfall, something that drives me out in the early morning before anyone else can get to it.  There is a softness, a quiet, that remains unique to snow and post-snow weather.  It is rare - and given where I have lived in the past, rare enough that I will seek it out whenever I get the chance.

Even being the first one out, there are still places that I will not walk.  Other people should enjoy the right to be the first to make a trail as much as I do.

To those that toil in the regular grip of snow,  in the feet and feet that require regular management, my fascination likely seems quaint and child-like.  I get that; a couple of inches does not compare with feet, nor does my one or two day slight interruption compare with living with snow for weeks at a time.  In this, perhaps, snow reflects much of my own life: skating over the harsh realities with a sort of naïve joy.

I can live with that, I suppose: So often now we seem called - indeed, almost herded - by the modern world to only see the grimness and suffering in everything.  That strikes me as a bit odd:  we fail to seek out the beauty before us in life and then are surprised when the world bemoans the fact that there is no more beauty.  Given that choice, I will walk in the snow, taking joy in the simple fact that such a thing exists no matter the coldness of my feet or the inconvenience of my day.

There is a story here, one that I could not fully discern:  A sled?  A cardboard box being dragged?  It happened after the previous car drove through; snow leaves ephemeral mysteries that disappear with the sun.

By the end of the weekend, of course, the snow was largely gone, a victim of rising temperatures and rain that melted it.  In this, too, there remains a certain beauty, even as I bemoan the mud that now appears everywhere.  After all, without such moisture, how could this are be so green?

Magic still exists; we need only open our eyes to find it.

A Year Of Humility (VII): Thinking Highly Of One's Self

 "For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him." - Romans 12: 3

Among the many less than desirable virtues that I hold, one of the biggest remains my self-opinion.

I have the rather annoying (and embarrassing) tendency of considering myself one of the better people in  a room.  If you had to ask me why I came to believe this (especially in lieu of any actual accomplishments or data), I would likely tell you this derives from a combination of growing up in a small community where I was on the better end of educational success and a rather crazy belief that somehow I can make any circumstances work out to my advantage no matter what they are.  

What this results in is a smug sort of silent superiority (I finally learned long ago that actually verbalizing this was a good way to look like an idiot; that much of a lesson at least took).  Entering most situations, I will tend to over emphasize my experience and intellect and thoughts just on the basis of who I think (or rather, past tense) thought myself to be.

As you might imagine from this being a meditation on humility, it has not gone as well as I might have wished it.

The reality - as I have been reminded time and time again over the years, as I was reminded again on my most recent trip - is this is simply not true.

Pride - or in this sense, thinking too highly of one's self - convinces us that we have more to offer than we might and that correspondingly others have less.  We emphasize ourselves and our experiences/thoughts/beliefs as being deeper or more relevant or just plain "better" than others.  Even if, as I have learned, they are not.

I am, if left to my own devices, a fairly judgmental person in that I can make quick decisions on people based on a minimum of information.  Fortunately for me, as noted above, I have at least learned to not be verbal about them.  Or as the saying goes, the best way to prevent people from thinking you are an idiot is opening your mouth and removing any doubt.  

But just because I do not open my mouth does not mean that the arrogance, the pride, is not there.

Paul, in this passage in Romans, is encouraging the believer to not think too highly of themselves. This comes just after the well known verses in Romans 12: 1-2, where he commands the believer not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, that we can understand what the will of God truly is - good, acceptable, and perfect.

If we are transformed by the renewal of minds, coming to know and understand the will of God, we almost by default will not think too highly of ourselves - after all, what is our will and assessment of ourselves compared to that of God?  When putting our feeble efforts -  our intellect, our plans, our education, our efforts, our "knowing better" - against the God of the Universe, we rightly come up as having nothing at all.  

It is this thought that I need to carry with me into every encounter that I am in.  Not that I do not have something to bring to every situation, but not to think that I am somehow inherently better when I bring it.  Not thinking highly of myself means I realize that while I may have something to offer, it is not inherently because I am somehow better in any category; it is that I might have something of value to bring irrespective of who I am.

A servant, especially a servant representing the God of the Universe, does best by reflecting their Master, not themselves.

There and Back And Back Again

 I am back.

The trip was good, successful both from a professional sense of meeting people and learning things and a personal level of getting to see more places that I have not been.  I am bit tired still and sincerely wondering which day it is and which continent I am on - in the 22 days I have been on three of them - but a couple days of sleeping in my own bed have worked wonders.

I have even more travel material as grist for the mill (I will be writing of travel forever, it seems), but below are a few snapshots of places I went.

In Basel, looking East towards Switzerland

The Rhine

Roman Theater - Augusta Raurica (Kaiseraugust, Switzerland)

Temple - Augusta Raurica (Kaiseraugust, Switzerland)

St. Elizabeth's Church - Basel, Switzerland

Basel Town Hall - Built 1508-1521

Fountain - Basel, Switzerland

Basel Münster - Built 1091-1500

Stained glass window - Basel Münster

Butter Pretzel (It was delicious!)

Countryside - Bavaria

Essentialism (VI): A Brief Application

 Before we launch into the core of what Greg McKeown recommends in his book Essentialism, I thought it might be useful to show a brief application that I made in my own life.

As you may have gathered from some of my recent updates, I have effectively been on the road (whether for Iaijutsu training or business) for 3.5 weeks.  One of the challenges this presented (just beyond the complete disruption of my sleep schedule) was the fact that I wanted to keep up on my posting on this blog.

Why?  Well, one could state it is just "a goal" that I set for myself (it is), but there is another potential outcome:  The application of Essentialism.

Using the three buckets that McKeown suggests:

1)  Am I passionate about it?  Yes, I am passionate about writing and words (and languages and reading, which are extensions of words.

2)  Am I good at it?  I would say "the jury is still out on that", but I will choose to believe that people commenting and people reading my posts indicate some level of talent.

3)  Does it meet a pressing need?  Again, I could argue "To Be Determined".  But at least for me, it meets a pressing need to work through my issues and communicate, if nothing else.

If it meets those three, then how do I get to the Essentialism portion?

The first was easy enough:  I simply made writing a priority in the weeks leading up to my original departure.

The second - making performance of the Essentials as easy as possible - was something I had started on, but made better.

As I referenced at the beginning of the year, I have developed a writing "schedule" that guides me as to what I will write on any given day.  That was the first part.  The second part was developing a writing blog.

For each type of writing, I created a sheet within a larger spreadsheet - Open Postings, Travel, The Collapse, Essentialism, A Year of Humility, and an Administrative tab for those postings that I know I will do ever year (holidays and so on).  Within each sheet I entered the days that that writing would have to be published along with "Title" and "Complete" columns  Then, I started plugging in titles and color coding posts for my departure:  Green for completed (along with an x in the "Complete" column), yellow for have to write before I go, and Orange that I have to plan upon my return.

As I started to focus my writing on these particular periods of time, other things made themselves apparent for "automating" the process.  For example, uploading pictures for travel writing takes a long time; if I can upload multiple posts of photos focusing my next period on writing is easier.  Also, writing multiple entries in a similar type of posting can go more quickly than going and coming back:  the bulk of The Collapse Trial was written in a single 1.5 hour period.

As a result, by the Wednesday before my departure everything was complete; I only had to recheck things for spelling and editing (ever my downfall), but I could "go away" with the sense that I had met a commitment to my readers and myself to post something every day.

(If you are wondering, this is the last of those posts.  Tomorrow will be a post-trip one.)

Is this precisely the application of Essentialism? I am truly not sure - after all, that "Meets a real need" portion makes me wonder.  But deciding it was important, eliminating what was less important, and then finding ways to reduce barriers as much as possible certainly left me with one less thing to worry about on my travels.

Now, if I could only find a way to translate this into longer prose...