Disability from an optimist's point of view

 

 "Don't seek comfort and conformity in your world. Seek to engage  the world."

Most people spend a fair bit of time and indeed their life, trying to differentiate themselves from what they perceive as "The Rest of Us". Sometimes this effort works out and sometimes it does not.

Now if you're born "disabled", and feel free to insert whatever terminology you want to put in there for whatever condition or situation you are in. We are different from the get go. "A limited run", "A one-of-a-kind… The descriptions and labels could go on and on.

But for me, and I really mean this,  disability is an opportunity in disguise. I look at the normal world and I see most people not taking advantage of the great options that are right there in front of them. I speculate, and this is only my speculation, that they never had to think outside of the box. They never had to become good problem solvers. Whereas being different, and having challenges forces you to engage with the world as it is. The world is not going to adjust to me for being different. So one must be very creative, and stretch whatever boundaries exist.

As I have grown older I have become very aware of the benefits inherent in challenges.

I don't want things simple and I don't want things easy. However I despise meaningless effort. If something is going to be difficult and it darn well better be difficult with a good goal. This is an important point because as long is there is a positive goal inherent in the challenge then the individual will be given an opportunity to grow. Whether they take advantage of that opportunity is another matter entirely and probably an additional article on the blog at some point.

Now, I know there's an infinite range in regards to disability, from the minor to the utterly devastating. I don't want to reduce any condition or state of life to an overly simplified point of view. But that being said, if you are different or see yourself as disenfranchised in any way, rather than falling down the stereotypical black hole of disadvantage and/or despair. 

Take your differences and work with them. This is where ideas truly come from and thereby so does opportunity.

At almost 65 years of age, I can say unequivocally that I would never want to be normal and that is especially true in the 21st century. People who are born now, may not have the early exposure to the effort needed to expand their horizons. Young minds who simply go online to find a predigested answer to a question. They may never get a chance to really explore and find out why something is the way it is. That puts them at a great disadvantage because a person must learn to think at a fairly early age in order to really take advantage of life. Yes, one can do it at any age but it is so much more effective the earlier one undertakes these challenges. Same goes for the amount of time invested in some undertaking. I myself have to fight my own shrinking attention span. Yet look back less than 100 years and you find people undertaking complex disciplines and working of the answers using only their minds and paper. That means that they truly understood the concepts they were evolving and in that process they gained resilience and depth in their understanding.

Use the gift of technology and the coming artificial intelligence revolution in the best way possible. If automation has make your life easier then use that freedom to continue to explore other avenues. Do not just stay a consumer of technology and or the environment. Seek a little difficulty. Make it something slightly uncomfortable, so that you have to work at it. This will help keep you alive on so many levels...

In short:

"Don't seek comfort and conformity in your world. Seek to engage  the world."

One of the things that really surprised me when I moved into my assisted living facility was the lack of motivation of all the tenants. I on the other hand treated as a godsend, rather than being tied down with the various energy sapping necessities which are required to make it through the day, the staff greatly reduce my physical strain. Leaving me with a lot of free time to explore all sorts of avenues. Which is what I've done and will continue to do till the very last day of my life. So apparently I'm a bit of an outlier because I thought that everyone who has their burdens of life reduced would naturally explore what ever interested them. However are stuck in a rut of their own making. Bizarrely they use their own intellect to maintain the status quo. This is something I really do not understand…

Well I will keep trying to motivate everyone around me because life is just too short to waste. Hopefully the articles that I now post will leave some of my audience thinking and the other us smiling. I would like to publish more articles however time and energy just do not permit at this moment of my life. My ultimate goal is to increase the quality of these articles a great deal. That however takes time which is why I am not publishing is much as I used to compared to early last year.

There will be a video with this post but I can't tell you exactly what it will be because I am just about created it and at this very moment there are lots of ideas along the vein of "Disability from an Optimistic Point of View." So let's see if I can surprise myself.

Thank you for stopping by my blog. And come back to this article in the next day or two because I will be adding or reediting parts. It's just that kind of weekend. (In other words I'm running out of time.)

Take care Patrick

** NOTE: Some of pictures in this article were generated by Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

The Smart Phone Market Is the Definition of Insanity

It's the 21st century and people are beginning to take recycling and conservation very seriously. So why do we allow and indeed participate in the throwaway mentality of current smart phones?

They should be built to last not expire in two or three years. People behave like they're involved in an arms race; constantly upgrading for the latest and best technology. Think about the number of resources that go into the short life cycle of a phone. Rare materials many of which are toxic and some almost impossible to recycle.

So what's going on here and why are people buying into this? My phone is barely 3 years old and has begun to fall apart. I investigated and found that the entire phone is glued together. I don't think there's a screw or a clip in the whole thing. $600 is what it cost me when it was new because I bought it out right, wanting to avoid getting locked into a plan because one never knows what my income is going to be in the years moving forward. In other words I was looking to keep my life simple.

My needs in regards to this technology are very straightforward:

1. A clean un-bloated operating system android like operating system.
2. I'm willing to pay extra for good hardware as I do use quite a few apps for work.
3. I couldn't care less about the camera as long as it is sufficient to grab the occasional QR code.

Sounds like a pretty simple shopping list doesn't? Yet the way phones are marketed makes finding out that information rather challenging. As a matter of fact the last online at will I checked out for a phone spoke about everything except those basic points. The entire 10 page manual was more of an advertisement and the last thing we talked about was the actual phone functionality. In other words it was a camera first and the phone was almost an afterthought.

The other issue that really gets me going is updates to the software, or lack thereof, two years in and you're pretty much out of luck as far as patches go from some suppliers. Can we at least begin to turn this around by insisting that the batteries are replaceable and recyclable?

TVs are now beginning to go this way as well. My first Smart TV it took two years to get all the bugs out of the OS and then the manufacturer started shutting features down. Boy I was not impressed.

The thinking should be the other way around and go something like this:

1. If the hardware and software are capable of keeping the device secure and safe, then in order to maximize its useful life manufacturers must maintain it. They can offer new products but the consumer must be able to use their device to the fullest extent. This keeps things out of the recycling and saves the new amount in energy and resources.
   
   
2. The idea of building something to last is a concept that I think many people would welcome back. True there would be a reeducation going on because many people have never thought in that way.
   
   
3. This would have the effect of freeing people up to choose when to upgrade.
   
   
4. If the consumer new that the device was created to last and be serviceable in its lifetime then it is likely they would see the price as an investment. This would build loyalty which is something that every manufacturer needs.

Okay gang that's the end of my rant. What do you think. Let me know in the comments or by sending a note.

Take care Patrick

Honey, the cell phone provider shrunk the kid's (photos)!

My family at Christmas 2019.

Over the Christmas holidays many people send photos to and from each other via text messages.

While this seems like a great idea, especially considering the resolution most modern phones have in their cameras, what is not so widely known is that most carriers (cell phone providers) have very restrictive limits on the size of picture they actually send.They will not stop you from sending the photos, but will greatly reduce them in size on the other end. What looks to you as a beautiful, priceless snapshot, can get reduced to something resembling an old time television picture.

I saw this last week when a relative of mine sent six pictures in one text, the cell phone company reduced them in size to such an extent that they were a blurry mess. Even if one changes the settings in their camera there is no guarantee the picture will not be heavily shrunk. Making it impossible to ever get a nice printout. This photo started out as a 4 megapixel image. When I received it on my phone it was 33K. That's reduction of 51 times  (approximately). This is the untouched photoas it was received on my phone

Two rules of thumb to follow:

1. If you are sending pictures via text, send only one per text. The more you send in a single text the more they become compressed.

2. If you really want to make sure that your photo stays intact, use one of the many online storage options and upload your photos to the cloud and then distribute a link to them in your text.

A cautionary note. If you are using one of these cloud-based download services to store and retrieve your photos frequently. It is best to do it while the phone is hooked up to your Wi-Fi at home to avoid exceeding your cell phone plan "data" limit.

Patrick