Dave Williams, Author at The Aging of Aquarius : Page 2 of 31

Why do we compete?

(This piece was originally self-published at LinkedIn.com)

by Dave Williams
June 3, 2023

When I was a kid I lived to play baseball.

If our team lost, too bad. I really didn’t care much.

When our high school team lost, while the other kids were cursing and slamming bats, I was laughing and chattering about the exciting moments of the game. This annoyed my coaches and my teammates thought I was a loser.

Why are humans so competitive? Why do we fight to win everything from board games with the family to business deals and meaningless arguments with our friends? As it was with baseball, my attitude has always been you try to win because that’s the point of the game – but it’s just a game. If it’s time well spent and you did your best, good enough. Shrug it off and move on.

Why are people self-centered to the point of defensive bragging? What is it about the ego that frequently overrides our desire to learn from each other by our desperate need to insist we know best, even as we know we’re wrong?

I’ve always wondered about this stuff. Now, social media have brought these questions front and center.

Perfectly nice people in real life become brutal monsters on Twitter. They say things with their keyboards they would never say with their eyes.

Quiet people who “always kept to themselves ” suddenly walk into a grade school armed to the teeth and commit unimaginable atrocities.

As my Dallas radio partner, Amy Chodroff, often wonders aloud, “What’s wrong with people?”

What’s wrong, indeed?

I’m almost 72. I suppose I could go back to school and pursue the psychology degree I considered 55 years ago. Maybe I will but most likely I won’t. For now, I took my search for answers to our new technological Wizard of Oz, ChatGPT.

Why are people ego-centric and competitive?I asked.

Here’s the A.I. Big Brain Answer:

The ego-centric and competitive tendencies observed in people can be attributed to a combination of various factors, including evolutionary biology, socialization, cultural influences, and individual psychology. Here are some key reasons why people may exhibit ego-centric and competitive behaviors:

Evolutionary Biology: From an evolutionary perspective, competition has played a significant role in the survival and reproduction of our species. Throughout history, individuals who were more competitive and focused on their own needs and resources had a higher chance of passing on their genes. This has led to the development of certain ego-centric and competitive tendencies in humans.
Socialization and Upbringing: The way individuals are raised and socialized within their families, communities, and societies can significantly shape their behaviors and attitudes. In many cultures, competition is encouraged and valued as a means of achieving success, recognition, and status. This socialization can foster ego-centric and competitive mindsets.
Cultural Influences: Cultural factors play a significant role in shaping people’s values, beliefs, and behaviors. In some cultures, individualism and self-interest are highly valued, which can contribute to ego-centric tendencies. Similarly, cultures that emphasize competition and achievement may foster a more competitive mindset among individuals.
Psychological Factors: At the individual level, certain psychological factors can contribute to ego-centric and competitive behaviors. For example, some individuals may have a strong need for validation, recognition, or power, leading them to prioritize their own interests over others. Additionally, factors like low self-esteem, fear of failure, or a scarcity mindset can drive individuals to compete intensely for resources or success.
Societal Structures and Incentives: Societal structures, such as economic systems or organizational hierarchies, can create environments that foster competition. When individuals are rewarded based on their individual achievements or when resources are perceived as limited, it can fuel ego-centric and competitive behaviors as people vie for success, promotions, or other rewards.

It’s important to note that while ego-centric and competitive tendencies are common, they are not universal to all individuals. People vary in their levels of competitiveness, and factors like empathy, cooperation, and altruism are also part of the human experience. Additionally, socialization and cultural shifts can influence the prevalence and manifestation of these behaviors over time.

The answer to my lifelong question spewed forth in less than ten seconds and it makes perfect sense. I always figured that an inherent competitive drive is what enabled primordial life to crawl out of the prehistoric swamp goo, grow feet and hands, grab a stick, and then whack its neighbor.

Game on.

What it doesn’t explain is why our egos impel the most driven of us to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill to win.

I suspect something went haywire in our evolutionary process. Morality got short-circuited because it would have just confused our ancestors while they were battling saber-toothed tigers and, later, the Huns for mere survival.

Or, maybe we just haven’t finished figuring it out. Now that we have tigers and Huns out of the way, maybe morality can come off the back burner.

Maybe respect and decency are relatively new ideas and those of us living in our blink-of-a-cosmic-eye lifetime are just starting to integrate them into our nature and the DNA that will eventually confirm our descendants’ progress.

If we can keep from destroying ourselves humanity may have a better, less aggressive, distant future.

But I hope they still play baseball or something like it.

Retirement makes me love being stupid

by Dave Williams

June 29, 2024 –

People like to ask what I do every day now that I’m retired. It’s a hard question to answer because I do a lot of things that fascinate me but would sound like a complete waste of time for nearly everyone else.

I do stuff around the house, I write, I watch a little TV, and I nearly always take a nap with the dogs. But you know what I love most? Thinking. It’s something I haven’t had time to enjoy for most of my adult life. It’s the ultimate indulgence.

“Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.” – A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh)

What amazes me about getting old is the constant revelations of things I never gave much thought to.

Sometimes those revelations only create more and much bigger questions. Physics, for example: the construction and meaning of life. I’ve always been as curious as everyone but shrugged it off as unknowable, and what the hell, let’s order another drink. But recently, as I approach what we all assume will be the end of our existence, it has become a fascinating focus of my curiosity.

Who am/was I and why?

I want to soak up as much information as I can before it all becomes irrelevant.

The last couple of days I’ve been listening to a Lex Fridman podcast in which he talks with astrobiologist and theoretical physicist, Sara Walker. She’s one of those people with an IQ that’s off the charts. People who make the charts don’t know what to do with her. Lex keeps up with her pretty well but I get lost in nearly every exchange.

My progress is slow, the podcast is long. I feel stupid. I don’t know what I’ll take from it when I’ve reached the end but I do know it fascinates me.

I would be content to live retired without much mental stimulation. I love my wife, our dogs, our home, and our family and friends. I enjoy old movies and TV shows as much as the next old fat guy. But thinking about things I don’t understand excites me. It sends me down rabbit holes far more entertaining than the old Star Trek episodes I’ve been binging lately.

I think Sara Walker would agree without having a good handle on it herself.

I believe that excites her.

She’s hella smart but she’s still young.

She’s home!

Amelia is home!

I’ve loved many dogs in my life and they’ve all loved me back even more. It’s easy for them. They’re not conflicted by human distractions. They’re dogs, pure of spirit, and if you treat them well they will wiggle inside your heart like no person possibly can because, unlike people, to a dog, you’re all that matters.

She ran from me when a much bigger dog shocked her at the entrance to the veterinarian’s office. She’s always nervous about going to the vet and her fear lunged at her at the door. She slipped her collar and bolted. I chased her down a dangerously trafficked four-lane highway. When she darted across the road I swallowed my heart and followed, terrified that she would be hit, never thinking for a moment that I might be hit.

Amelia’s a lot faster than me and though she stopped a couple of times to look back to see that I was following, she continued her instinctive flight from what she perceived as a predator. In my panic and fear, I yelled at her and that didn’t unconfuse the situation; she didn’t stop, my yelling just assured her Daddy was coming.

Then she was gone, into a wooded area, a muddy bog along a creek, presumably infested with bugs and vermin and quite likely coyotes and bobcats. I sunk up to my knees in the mud, literally, and couldn’t follow.

CarolAnn and I spent the next two days walking the area calling Amelia’s name. We reported her missing to all of the appropriate authorities and veterinary hospitals. We posted signs on the streets and social media. Over and over we kept going back to where we last saw her, calling her name knowing it was useless.

We got a few crank calls from people who had nothing to gain by lying to us, telling us that they had her; nothing except their sick satisfaction. Dogs are pure. Some people are deranged assholes.

CarolAnn and I worried terribly for two nights. The miracle came in a phone call on Saturday while she was at work.

“Did you lose a dog?”

“Did you find one?”

“I think I have her. I was jogging past the creek and saw your flyer.”

She sounded honest. I prayed that this was no crackpot. I asked questions and she gave me great answers.

Stunningly, she was our next-door neighbor.

Reunited within minutes Amelia and I were both physically and emotionally drained.

CarolAnn was in tears when I sent her the picture of us together, hot and haggard.

For the last three nights, four of us have all slept together in our tiny double bed, CarolAnn and me with our pure-of-spirit babies, Amelia and Cricket, who love us unconditionally and without the fear of imagination.

Look, I know this isn’t a big deal story in the grand scheme of things but in the small scheme of hearts, where life really matters, it has changed us all.

For my kids and theirs

Saturday, March30, 2024

The big tree at Big Tree Park, Glendora, CA. CarolAnn and I lived half a block away. Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

I wish I knew more about the lives of my parents and theirs. My dad, born in 1929, was of a generation that believed children should be seen and not heard. It sounds mean but it was common sense at the time. Dad just figured if I were going to be in the room with adults it would be better for all of us if I sat quietly and just listened. I could learn and they wouldn’t be bothered by my childish interruptions. That probably makes some sense but it didn’t allow me to ask questions.

The attitude extended to what amounted to an information blackout. The grownups wouldn’t tell me much about their younger lives. They’d drop a little nugget here and there but if I asked a follow-up question or two we soon got to the point where I was told, “That was a long time ago. Go outside and play.”

My childhood was a long time ago and I still want to know more about the people who gave me life, loved, and taught me. That’s why I write these essays so that my kids and theirs can know me better than conversation ever allowed.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could learn about our ancestors back many generations if our grandparents could introduce us to theirs and so on over the decades and centuries past? If we could get an idea of who we are and why we belong here, wouldn’t we take ourselves a bit more seriously? Maybe we’d try a little harder to be worthy of the chain that binds the family to humanity.

We are all the sum of many; we are each the result of thousands of loves.

Dry Beans & Lifelong Friends

Shortly after graduating from Highlands High School in 1969, I started working at a radio station and making a ridiculously high salary of $400 per month. It was a union job and in 1969 that was an insane amount of money for a 17-year-old kid who had never gotten more than a one-dollar weekly allowance. I went wild and rented an apartment for $120 per month. It was a lot of money for a one-bedroom apartment but at 17 the world was my oyster, as people apparently used to say (though I’ve never heard anyone actually say it).

Having never lived anywhere except with my parents I was still a child, nervous about living alone so I invited my buddy, Ray Hunter to move in with me.

I don’t remember how we came up with furniture, but I think the exorbitant monthly rent was because the place came furnished. I can only remember that there was a cheap couch and a cheaper dining room table. I do know Ray and I each brought our mattresses from home and tossed them on the floor in the bedroom. That was all the comfort we required.

To celebrate our official graduation into adult-adjacency we went grocery shopping so we could stock the kitchen like real grownups. It was weird. Neither of us had ever been grocery shopping for anything more than an RC Cola and some junk snacks. Now we were pushing a cart up and down aisles we had never visited. Should we buy baking supplies? What kind of soap did our moms buy? Do we even have a laundry room?

When we got home we put away the groceries like a couple of excited kids opening Christmas gifts under the tree. It involved animated discussions about where things should go to be easily accessible for convenience. To open a can of soup, for example, we should put soup near the can opener. Or the other way around. (Do we even have a can opener?)

On that first night, we celebrated with home-cooked steak. Neither of us had ever cooked a steak or anything else of course, so we did what seemed obvious: we got out a frying pan and tossed the meat onto a gas burner.

As good as they looked and smelled we didn’t understand why fried chuck steak was so tough to chew.

It wasn’t long before Ray and I settled into a steady diet of Fritos and bean dip.

But here’s what started me down this lovely memory path: dry beans.

Weird as memories are, buying dry beans is the strongest recollection I have of that first-ever grocery shopping adventure in our neighborhood Albertsons supermarket. As we wandered down the aisles we snatched up stuff we had seen in our moms’ kitchens without considering whether we needed or had any idea how to use them. Ray grabbed a large bag of dry beans. His mom was a school cafeteria cook and always had dried beans in the pantry, though neither of us had ever eaten any that way, as if dry beans were just poured into a bowl like cereal. We had no idea what to do with them but if they were important to Norma Hunter we knew they were crucial to our nest.

Now, 55 years later I have finally learned how to prepare dry beans for consumption. I spent 12 hours on a batch yesterday and Ray, old friend, I can finally tell you it’s not worth the effort. Canned beans weren’t that expensive even 55 years ago when we were flush with cash.

Dave’s Daycare

by Dave Williams

Cora won’t sit still for a selfie. She’s whining insistently as she does every day. God only knows why. It sounds like whining to me, anyway. It’s probably just how she talks. She talks a lot.

After CarolAnn goes off to work my mornings in the early days of retirement feel a bit like I’m running a preschool. Besides the cat, there are my other two girls, Amelia and Cricket II, our precious Yorkies. Precious, they are, but Yorkies are yappers.

Whining and yapping: It’s another noisy, busy morning here at Dave’s Daycare.

Amelia has a bed on a footstool next to me. She can see out the window from there, but her view is limited. A little while ago her ears perked up and she jumped to the back of my chair to get a better view of whatever had caught her attention. She started barking. Cricket, lying on the floor next to Mommy’s chair, started yapping just because her big sister was, though both settled down quickly.

Cricket and I never figured it out. Amelia probably just saw a bird or a squirrel.

Spring comes early to North Texas. A mockingbird is singing its entire repertoire. It’s the state bird and I love its joyous medley.

Amelia is scared by thunder. This morning in the dark she had to join Mom in bed for comfort but she’s next to me and quiet now.

The rain has just ended. The skies are clearing and the mockingbird sings to us.

The dogs want out. Excuse me while I play doorman and follow them.

I’ve decided that ageism is okay

March 1, 2024 – Prosper, TX

Now that I’m retired from radio I’ve kept busy writing a weekly online column about radio. I get to sleep four hours longer than I used to and I work at home in my sweats but I’m still focused on radio, just from a different perspective. Nothing wrong with that but I want to expand my world so I’ve been exploring some options.

I have been thinking about going back to school. I never graduated college, maybe I should go back and be the one old fart in every class. Still mulling that over.

Writing fiction is my passion and though I can string words together nicely I don’t know anything about the craft. I wish I had gotten a writing degree when I was young but I didn’t. Now I’m looking into some online classes but they’re expensive. And what I do know from my experience is that in the end you still have to be willing to do the work. I’ve been mulling that over for decades.

The other thing I would love to do is act. I did plays onstage for 20+ years when I was much younger. At the time, when castmates of my age were trying to get professional acting careers started I said, “I’m going to wait until I’m old. You see the same old people in movies and on TV all the time. There aren’t many of them. I’ll wait until the competition is dying. ”

TV character actor Bert Mustin, 1884-1977. We saw him everywhere.

I have arrived. No, not as a professional actor, I have arrived at old.

I signed up for a free subscription to a casting call website for actors. Some of the jobs are unpaid, and some claim to pay very well. They all describe the actors they’re looking for, mostly young people. Over 50 is rare and calls for actors over 70 are nonexistent. That’s fine, I never expected to burst into Hollywood in a leading role at 72. I figured background acting (still referred to as “extras” if we’re honest) and maybe a sentence or two here and there would be great fun.

But here’s what dawned on me this morning as I was looking at the casting notices and writing courses:

Creativity is imagined to be a young person’s ability. All the websites I’ve looked at for writing courses feature pictures of happy young college types. Casting notices are the same. For some reason, our society assumes brains wither as bodies age.

Years ago in my 40s and 50s, I entered some playwriting competitions and was incensed to find contest entries restricted to “young playwrights”. Some actually specified “under 30”, or words to that effect. It pissed me off, and rightly so. I just lied about my age. It’s none of their business, right? I don’t have an expiration date.

Not incidentally, I won four of the half-dozen playwriting contests I entered.

(Paul McCartney, now 81, was asked ten years ago if he shouldn’t consider getting off the stage and letting younger performers have their place in the spotlight. “Fuck ’em,” he replied. “Let them work their way up like I did.”)

Here’s my point, and I think this may surprise you because I’ve written several ageism rants in this blog over the years. That, in itself, makes the point: I’m still learning and so will you.

I have gotten to an age where I don’t think ageism is a big deal. It’s a state of mind based on the perspective of the observer. It’s normal and natural, and sometimes it is reasonable and warranted.

I can’t portray a man in his 40s no matter how much time I spend in makeup. I’ve talked about this recently on the radio, about radio. You can’t hire a 60-year-old on-air personality for a Hot AC music station, you just can’t. 30 years is a lifetime. Inevitably the old guy is going to impart some of his life’s lessons into his shtick. Just as inevitably, the young audience will roll their eyes and say, “Okay, Boomer.”

This is how life works. When we’re young we think old people are stupid because they’re old. Old people think young people are stupid because they’re too young to know what they’re talking about.

They’re both right.

I understand the need for laws banning hiring discrimination of all kinds but you can’t legislate reality. Life experience and perspective can’t be ignored. It’s the result of personal growth through aging. It’s what keeps us fascinated by learning and passionate about life.

I’m a fat old fart looking for a TV or movie walk-on. Hell, I can even deliver lines believably.

But don’t tell me I’m too old to write. I’ll kick your young playwriting ass.

Son of my son

February 11, 1977 – When my son, Jeremy, was born I phoned my father from the hospital to give him the news. The baby was his first grandchild and my dad said something unintentionally funny.

“A boy, great! Our name will continue.”

“Dad,” I replied, “Williams is the third most common name in the English language. The name is safe.” We both laughed. It was one of those special moments between a father and son that I knew I would remember forever.

28 years and ten days later my son had a son and today is his 19th birthday. It’s a big day for him, bigger than he realizes.

I’ve always thought moms deserve the annual birthday celebrations for having done the physical and emotional work. Creating a human inside of yourself is quite literally an unimaginable miracle.

Fathers are bound to their children, too, but physically less so. We have to work a little harder at finding our way into the spiritual connection mothers create naturally.

“My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” – Clarence Budington Kelland

Parents and grandparents talk a lot about how quickly time passes. It’s true but what we don’t acknowledge often enough is that the time we’ve spent with our children and grandchildren, fast as it seems to pass, is also infinite.

I’m 72 and I think often of my grandfathers, though I wish I knew them better. I marvel at the similarities between us. I appreciate the lessons they taught me through their sons and daughters.

My father died 22 years ago but I think of him daily. He is still my hero but I couldn’t tell you why. We just have that bond.

“A father’s love is like your shadow, though he is dead or alive, he will live with your shadow” – P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

Tyler Goold Williams, I love you for your birth, for who you’ve become since, and for who you will yet be. I celebrate each day of your existence. I wish I could hug and laugh with you more often. I hope we’ll spend more time getting to know each other but I assure you this: you are the result of thousands of generations of mothers and fathers who loved one another deeply. You belong in the chain of families whose love created you.

Through all of that, through all of time past and future, you are the only Tyler Goold Williams who has or will ever exist.

That’s why we celebrate birthdays.

Be happy, stay healthy. Live your life as you wish it to be.

Love, Grandpa

PS. Call us sometime. The phone works both ways, ya know.

This ‘n that

A chilly and sunny Sunday morning north of Dallas…

I haven’t written here in a while but just saw a link to one of my blogging partner Anita’s recent posts and it inspired me to mention a few things for this weblog, which has become something of a 20-year journal.

July 6, 2023 Bushmills, Ireland — Me, pensive: Giants Causeway, Bushmills, Northern Ireland, July 6, 2023.

The past seven months have been notable. I went to work at KLIF as usual dark and early Monday morning, July 31, having no idea it would be the last day of my 54-year career. After work, I drove CarolAnn to her cataract surgery appointment. From there we decided to have lunch at Mooyah Burgers in Stonebriar Mall. Enjoyed our burgers, sweet potato fries, and shakes. Walked outside to the car and I collapsed in the parking lot where I remained unconscious for a few minutes. I didn’t feel it coming, felt great in fact, and when I started to awaken I was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. After several hours in the emergency and a night in a private room at Medical City Frisco, several doctors shrugged and sent me home with no diagnosis.

Texas law makes it illegal to drive for three months after blacking out so I took a limited disability leave. Over those three months, I had every heart and brain scan that exists; still no explanation for my passing out. It surprised me to learn that this sort of thing is fairly common and usually leaves more questions than answers. Somebody commented that it must be very frustrating not knowing what happened. Actually, I’m pretty good at letting the unknowable pass without pointless wondering. What the doctors were able to tell me is that I didn’t have a heart attack or stroke and I don’t have any brain damage or tumor. Good enough for me.

By the time my waiting period ended and I was able to drive again CarolAnn and I decided I didn’t need to drive into Dallas at 3 AM anymore. I retired and am happily-ever-aftering with my beloved wife and pets. I love it. I’m doing a podcast called Conversations.buzz and writing a weekly column for the Barrett News Media national publication. Otherwise, I do the occasional chore at home, fix CarolAnn’s dinner, talk to the dogs and cat, and I usually work in a nap.

I loved my radio career and don’t miss it a bit.

Some people talk as if retirement is a death sentence. For me, it’s an endless string of Saturdays.

I have also retired from worrying about the world. These are troubled times and I’ve been studying and reporting them daily for 45 years. After five hours of news five days a week, I’m taking a long break. I haven’t read or listened to any news since that last July morning at KLIF. Ignorance really can be bliss. I expect to get over that and go back to keeping up on current events but I’ll be regularly skipping the political wars and daily tragedies that make the headlines. I guess that makes me selfish. I do care. In my own way, I’ve tried to make the world a little better by bringing daily smiles to morning commuters in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Dallas. I try to be kind to everyone I meet and keep my attitude well-adjusted. I think I’ve earned a break from stress that isn’t all mine.

There is also a great deal of joy to be found in the world if you just look for it.

“Welcome to Texas, now move your ass!”

I’ve been a proud resident of the Lone Star State for nearly a dozen years. CarolAnn and I love it here. Most of all we love the people, the lifelong Texans who grew up with a neighborly live-and-let-live attitude. Unfailingly polite and respectful, always smiling, they’ll invite you to supper and let you bunk down on the sofa before you’ve swapped names.

Texans are a prideful bunch and rightly so. They’ll tip their hat to you as they hold open a door. (Everybody here holds open doors for everybody else.) Kids still call grownups sir and ma’am. Store clerks will joke with you. Strangers smile and wave as they pass.

But…

(You knew that was coming, didn’t you?)

When Texans get behind the wheel of their cars and pickups they’re fixin’ to dance with the devil.

Texas drivers are the most aggressive I’ve ever known. Not all, of course, but enough that it makes an impression worthy of stereotyping.

Here’s just one example: This morning CarolAnn phoned me (hands free, of course) while on her way to work to tell me about a driver who got so pissed off at having to slow down for her in the morning commute traffic that she passed my wife in the suicide (center turn) lane, lurched into CarolAnn’s lane and slammed on the brakes, intentionally inviting an accident. When the accident didn’t happen the angry woman slowed to a crawl and turned on her emergency flashers.

We see this kind of thing more frequently as time goes on. And, as more Californians are transplanted here. Just sayin’…

Still, it could have been a Texan, who knows?

Big-city Texans honk their horns incessantly. If you’re at the front of a line of vehicles stopped at a light the person behind you will honk like crazy when the light turns green before you can move your foot from the brake to the gas.

And yet…

In Texas, you rarely hear about road rage shootings or fights. They don’t want to kill or pummel you, they just want you to move your ass.

Everything I’ve just said is observational. My conclusions are just mine but here’s what I think:

Texans aren’t rude and aggressive by nature, quite the opposite. But they are fiercely independent which they expect of you as well.

“I got places to go and no time for lolly-gaggin’. Step on it or get out of the way.”

These are the same people, by the way, who will stop and change a tire for you. I’ve had that happen twice.

When I had only been in Dallas for a couple of weeks I was getting my hair cut by a sweet young woman with a lovely Texas drawl. I was telling her how nice people are, so friendly and cheerful. She gave me a double-wide country grin and said, “That’s true!…”

“…We’ll give y’all a hot meal and a warm bed if you need it. But if you step off that curb while I’m drivin’, I WILL run you over!”

We both laughed about that.

She meant it.