Looking For The Long Ride

In my dream, which I recently realized I have had more than once, I am running in a neighborhood, at night, on the sidewalk, in my bare feet. My strides are long and evenly paced and the feeling is that my feet barely touch the ground. I am amazed that the more I push, the less  I feel physically tired and the lighter I seem in spirit.

I think that I have a destination in mind: something that I am running towards, but that seems to be the least of my concern.

All I am really aware of is the joy that I feel and the sense of freedom that this joy brings me.

I recently discovered a song on Steffany Gretzinger’s latest album called “Forever Amen” that maybe puts my running into perspective. The verse goes: “Let me hear the sound of Your voice and I’ll come running”.

Something worth thinking about!

My life at almost seventy seems to be an endless stream of thoughts and memories that appear on the horizon of my mind’s eye and then fade to the credits without so much as a ripple in the ocean of my existence. The days and weeks skim and skip over hill and dale and more often than not, I have to wonder what is real and what is not.

And if we are not making new memories are we destined to live in the blurry past and as T. S. Eliot said, “…measure out our lives in coffee spoons.”

As most of you know, I have worked for an art supply company for the past 30 years. During that time my wife has taught art and written 4 books for children about making art in its various forms. We started our family in 1980 (first of four kids) and have utilized our refrigerator as an art gallery for most of the past 37 plus years.

I have had periods during my life where I have painted, drawn and collaged and am surprised by the many sketch books I have filled.

Sandi and I have been to the Metropolitan Museum, the MOMA and the Guggenheim  during our frequent visits to NYC. In other words, art has been and  continues to be an important part of our lives.

As to what prompted this missive is some research that I did last week about the stages of artistic development. Since we sponsor at least 25 art workshops per year at work I get to talk with many of the participants about their art journey. I am always interested in what motivates people to take classes and spend money in order to develop their skills when in comes to drawing and painting. And I believe that art has the power to transform a persons life in a positive way.

Several years ago a researcher named Viktor Lowenfeld compiled a study on the stages of artistic development and not unlike Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, has become the industry standard on this area of investigation.

Like most developmental studies, there is a little wiggle room around each category and age, but by and large, what I have read, seems to resonate true.

The first stage (2-4 years) is called “Scribbling”. It is Pre-Representational  and mark making and includes mandalas, slash marks, bang dots and open shapes. And not to be funny, but on point as to the nature of this post and the conclusions I have arrived at, we probably know some adults who never went past this stage. But more on that later.

The period for 4-7 years of age is the Pre-Schematic stage or first visual symbols and includes nature, filling the paper, floating shapes and transitions into tadpole people.

During the 7-9 year period, art is used for communication and includes facial features and improved representation of figures.

Dawning Realism is the title for the 9-11 year olds and art is a creative outlet and includes details, clothing to identity, receding space and world making.

11 to 13 years is the Age of Reason or ideas in search of forms and this artwork includes proportions and three-dimensional space and realistic colors.

Art motivated by meaning is the 14-17 years or Period of Decision. This art will include inspiration by emotion, social issues and improved skill level.

And lastly, 17 years and up, the Adult phase which includes a focus on individual goals and a continuous improvement upon prior knowledge.

I have purposely simplified this to at least present the graphical nature of artistic development in order to make a few observations.

In another blog that I read while researching, it was mentioned that children 11- to 13 years of age are becoming more critical of their success or lack and need encouragement.

But it is the next level that resonated most within me.

The Decision Stage (13-16 years old) when a person will decide to continue drawing or will quit based on perception that they lack the necessary skill. There is a high level of self criticism at this point which leads to this decision. Some will decide to continue making art and will continue to grow and it appears this stage is the most critical in the development of an artist.

As a youngster I was an avid fan of comics and would draw the characters that I liked most. I got pretty good at copying stuff from them and the funny papers that came with the Sunday paper. I guess it was at this point that my mother enrolled me in a Saturday morning art class because of my interest in drawing.

As I remember (it’s been a long time) the class was held in a classroom and was full of future artists. Though things are a little fuzzy at this point, I think we drew shapes and learned to create 3-dimensional stuff using shading, etc. I sat next to a boy who I think was a little older than me and when we moved on to still life’s and portraits, his ability to make life-like representations was amazing. In other words, he was so much better than anyone in the class and, I thought, especially me, that I grew frustrated in my ability and quit going to class. After that, I don’t remember drawing again until I was in high school and art was an easy class to take for credit.

All this was before I had read in the bible (Galatians 6:4) that it is unwise to compare yourselves to one another. We need to find happiness in what we have created, irregardless of what others have accomplished.

As I mentioned earlier, I am surprised by the amount of sketchbooks and portfolios that I have filled over the years. Looking back at some of this stuff (art) I am surprised at the quality of some of it and have to wonder why I didn’t follow through with this or that inspiration. One of the points here is that I have created art not to be shown to others, but rather, to fulfill a longing within myself. I approach playing music in much the same way. I like getting together with others and jamming but am mostly content to just sit in my living room and fill that space with whatever sound seems pleasing at the time.

As Sandi and I were wondering through Central Park this past September, we came across many entertainers doing their thing. Most of them, if not all, were doing what they did in order to be seen by others and, according to the open guitar cases and hats full of money, had a desire to be rewarded for their effort. Nothing wrong in this scenario except for the fact that it brought to my mind the idea of wanting to be seen, be famous, be recognized for something outside of myself.

I realized that within the desire to be known as an artist or a musician or actor, etc. there is an implied set of rules as to how this ideal is to be accomplished. And therein lies the rub to my sensibility: I have always chosen to participate in many areas of interest rather than confine myself to becoming famous or well known in one. To become good at anything we must be single-minded about that pursuit and, like the horse with blinders on, stay focused in order to excel.

The conclusion that I came to, while walking in the park with my wife, is that even though the thought of being famous as an artist, writer or musician is indeed intriguing, I was just not wired in that direction and have no regrets in the fact that I am only a bit above average in many of the “arts” that I have pursued.

And that ride, for me, is about as good as it gets.

Hi. My name is Terry Henry and I am an information junkie!

I can almost see myself at some Information Anonymous meeting, in the basement of some small church, in a poorly lit neighborhood, acknowledging my addiction.

And now, looking back on my senior year in high school and my class schedule of American lit, English lit and World lit (3 separate classes), I can see a pattern begin to emerge.

I have always loved to read. So much so in fact that when I was in grade school, I burned through so many Hardy Boys mysteries that my mother told me, in no uncertain terms, that I either had to slow down or she would not buy me anymore books to read. One of my biggest pleasures was slowly eating a box of good and plenty candies while I read.

What started me thinking this way today is perhaps because I am in the process of devouring Malcolm Gladwell’s newest book entitled, Talking to Strangers.

And talk about information overload.

The inside panel of the book says: “Talking to Strangers is all about what happens when we encounter people we don’t know, why it often goes awry, and what it says about us.

How do we make sense of the unfamiliar? Why are we so bad at judging someone, reading a face, or detecting a lie? Why do we so often fail to ‘get’ other people?

Through a series of puzzles, encounters and misunderstandings, from little-known stories to infamous legal cases, Gladwell takes us on a journey through the unexpected. You will read about the spy who spent years undetected at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the man who saw through the fraudster Bernie Madoff, the suicide of the poet Sylvia Plath and the false conviction of Amanda Knox. You will discover that strangers are never simple.”

However, this post is not a review of the book but an acknowledgement that this book has brought some of my latest/latent thoughts to the surface.

One thought at the front of my mind is this: what haven’t we developed a cure for cancer? One would think, with all the research and money spent, that a cure would have been developed by now.

I am aware of the fact that the human immune system and abnormal cellular development is like a big area to search and quantify; but come on now, this is the 21st century not the dark ages.

An internet search reveals that during the past 40 years, when the war on cancer began, the National Cancer Institute has spent 90 billion on research. This is in addition to all the other research done on a world-wide basis that is also in the billions of dollars spent. As a perspective, on the opposite side of the fence, spending on cancer medicines totaled $107 billion worldwide in 2015 and is projected to exceed $150 billion by 2020. Perhaps that is why conspiracy theories abound about why a cure has not been found: big pharma makes lots of money on cancer, etc.

Bear in mind that this is just an observation and not an invitation to start a long discussion surrounding the ins and outs of this subject which could possibly fill a library.

PS: As a side note I thought it interesting that the Wall Street Journal ran an article in this past weekend’s edition which spoke to this very thing. The writers assessment was that we are still using cancer treatment techniques developed in the 70’s that are still more harmful than beneficial. Her estimate is that the focus of most research is on end stage cancer, which by that time is almost impossible to turn around without destroying lots of healthy cells along the way. And that the quality of life is not that great for most chemo patients. Something to think about for sure.

A second thought which is not even in the same solar system is about traffic signals and what I perceive to be a very inefficient system of how they function.

We have all been at some intersection and waited for the light to turn green and noticed that there is no good reason why we are still in a holding pattern. No traffic from the left and no traffic from the right and yet the light remains red until a set time that has been programed in by some employee of the Department of Transportation that lives 200 miles away from the town in which we live. On the side of the road by every traffic signal is a big stainless steel box that evidently contains the hardware/software that activates the signal based on some programming activated by cables underneath the asphalt our cars sit on top of. All well and good when it works and a pain when it doesn’t seem to realize the actual traffic patterns in whatever area we find ourselves in.

The thought that I had the other day is a simple one: why can’t we retrofit all those boxes with some sort of artificial intelligence that when hooked up to the roadway sensors or a camera would actually program the lights to the actual flow of traffic and not just some time based algorithm that has been determined by some engineer who lives somewhere else.

Remember you heard it here first.

Lastly I will say that Sandi and I had a great time in NYC the first several days of the first weekend in September. As any of you who have walked the streets of this fantastic city already know, NYC is a people watching place. If you don’t like to walk, watch people and eat, you will not enjoy the big apple.

There are people of all races, colors, creeds and sizes on the streets, in the subways and restaurants; many of which are, at least to me, attractive in some very interesting ways.

I realized when I returned to Boone, NC that I tend to de-construct people that I see during my daily walk through life. A part of one day I focused on noses and the many shapes and sizes and whether or not I thought they fit the persons face and/or defined the culture I imagined they were from. Then I looked at shoes and again at hair cuts and again listened to what language they were speaking to one another in. All in all, it was a revelation to me that this was how I digested the world around me and the strangers that inhabited it with me.

And last but not least, a snippet of what Gladwell was talking about in his book.

He related the fact that almost everything we take in from the world and the people around us is filtered through a filter called “bias”.

Websters defines bias as: prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Or as Wikipedia defines it: Bias is disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, or a belief. In science and engineering, a bias is a systematic error.

Politicians play to our biases as do health professionals, climate scientists, televangelists, and the list is perhaps endless.

So in ending, I would hope that we start to listen to one another in a new way and really attempt to understand what is being said rather than jump to conclusions before all the facts have been laid on the table.

And I can’t help but wonder if the writer of Ecclesiastes was on to something when he said:

(Ecclesiastes 1:18) Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.

I recently finished reading for perhaps the 2nd or 3rd time Richard Brautigan’s 1967 collection of stories entitled “Trout Fishing In America”. In the book, Brautigan would tell a story and would then assume the persona of the book’s title and would reply to the story as “Trout Fishing In America”. What this has to do with the aging process I am not quite sure, but as I started to write, this title popped into my soggy mountain brain. Perhaps it is because 1967 was a magical year for me and many other teens as we began our search for meaning and the purpose of life.

Perhaps the 50th high school class reunion that I attended in 2017 fits into the larger picture of aging in America somehow. And from what I have seen so far, it is not a picture that you would frame and hang up for all to see on your living room wall.

One of the first things that you notice about getting older is that time seems to pass by very quickly and one season follows another in a fast-forward sort of way. If you have been fortunate enough to have children, they have left the nest and have kids of their own and it seems like overnight you have become a grandparent.

Memories seem to fade or become so blurry as to be hardly recognizable. People have come into your life and people have left and sometimes it is hard to even remember their names.

The thought that started this train was my memory of asking my mother where my dad might be found. Her sometimes reply was that he was “in the library”. And as our collective consciousness will recall, the library was a metaphor for the bathroom. It seemed like most older people would take some reading matter with them to the library in order to facilitate the bodily processes that had apparently slowed down over time.

What was once a two minute hike up a well worn trail had/has become a meandering of sorts through hill and dale. As our metabolism slows, other things follow and that is only part of the aging process.

I have noticed that my skin is not as smooth as it once was. There are lines and scrapes and spots and light and dark areas that populate mostly my arms and legs.

Several years ago, I could work in the garden for most of the day without resting. I now do about an hours worth of work in order to take a fifteen or twenty minute break. All the work gets done but in a far longer time frame. Not a big problem, just another adjustment that needs to be made as we age in order to make it through the day.

I guess I could go on and on about all the subtle changes that take place as we journey down life’s pathway. What we will always find is that it is better to let go than it is to hold onto the way things used to be. As we make adjustments, we can move forward with a confidence that only comes with maturity. And remembering that you are only as old as that inner picture of yourself, which today may be thirty rather than the 69 or 70 calendar years your body tells you it is.