AI Tries To Help Mitch

Mitch had an advanced AI programme on his computer.  He worried he kept missing cues—nonverbal cues from colleagues and family, friends and even strangers.  Sometimes he understood what they hinted at–but too late; other times, he was simply confused.  Mitch needed to change that.  He naturally sought solutions by consulting his AI programme.  He asked how he could understand and react to nonverbal cues. 

Late one night, over an hour, it produced the result: a fifteen-page script for tomorrow.  It addressed whatever could be said to him the next day, explained what the nonverbal cues could mean and what his possible responses could be.  Mitch went to sleep that night relieved: he would miss unspoken messages no longer!  Thank goodness for AI!

He reread the script before getting out of bed, memorizing key issues.  Then he showered, dressed, walked into the kitchen.  His wife was preoccupied–he knew to ask about her work.  She smiled and talked about her supervisor.  Their two teens ate breakfast, the boys sullen—he asked about bullies and when they told him, he discussed solutions and what he could do.  He went off to work energized.  The script worked!  AI ruled! 

Work was more stressful—more people, more options.  He concentrated on his supervisor and immediate colleagues.  One had relationship problems, as the AI predicted.  Another was insecure about her work performance.  His Supervisor was vague about Mitch’s promotion.  The AI script said he probably was waiting for upper management to confirm his decision to promote Mitch.  Mitch offered to put in overtime to help complete a report the supervisor needed. 

Mitch went home with unexpected demands and, that evening, asked for more AI help.  The second AI script was seventy pages.  He had opened up avenues with is wife and children which had to be followed up, with multiple possibilities.  At work, he spent a lot of the day helping colleagues, then worked overtime to finish the report.

The AI script for the third day was one hundred and twenty pages. 

The fourth was almost one hundred and fifty pages.  After a week, the AI advised Mitch his life had become like a game of chess with almost infinite possibilities.  It told him to either retreat to a desert island or hope for the best. 

It  also told him not to ask for help again as he was overheating his computer’s CPU.    

Arguments About What To Watch On TV

Once upon a time, people argued about what to listen to on the radio.  Later, what to watch on TV.  With only set in their homes, only one programme could be on at a time.  There were heated arguments over what to listen to and, later, watch.  Counter programing created more arguments.  A western versus a comedy variety show, romance versus horror.  Compromises became necessary–in bitter families, they scraped up the money for another TV.  Two TVs in one home was considered a luxury, but increasingly more families felt the need.    

Today families watch TV while also on their computers or cell phones.  Sitting together in the living room, they watch or read or listen to their own programmes, often with ear buds.  Choices are no longer limited to three TV networks, all with similar shows.  Randall lived in such a family, with his wife and three children spending their evenings, when at home, watching or texting or listening, in the living room, at times their own rooms.  He was uncomfortable with such evenings—apart from pleasantries, no one said anything relevant.  

Randall believed families should talk, disclose concerns, share lives.  His asked to send them texts. 

It is not an age of quiet reflection, as when folks read books and newspapers.  It is an age of multi-tasking–nothing gets its due attention, nothing is done quite right.  The obvious solution? Cut off the electronics.  But Randall knew the electronics were addictive (and had positive aspects.) 

No one would give up their cell phone or computer or even TV voluntarily.  Also: Randall pondered if they started talking, would not arguments follow?  He knew arguing was important but certainly did not look forward to it.  It was a price to pay. 

Randall’s solution was that each evening, taking turns, one of his family chose a podcast or something on their computer or the TV–and they all had to watch it together.  After the first, they returned to their phones and computers, but by the third week, they started to talk the podcast or TV show, then about what happened to them that day.

Randall was pleased.  Even with the occasional…debate.    

Getting Back On The Horse

Angel never owned a horse but certainly knew the expression–if he had a horse, he would get back on it.  Even when thrown.  Angel saw mistakes as reasons to get back on the horse—to try again.  Any time he erred, he got back on the horse to try a new approach.  Most times it worked, although improving on past mistakes often led to creating new ones.  He knew life was complicated.    

After long consideration, Angel built, in his second bedroom, a time machine.  The best way to deal with mistakes?  Go back in time and avoid them.  In his first use Angel set the machine back five years–the evening of his first date with his future wife.  Angel did not go, never met her, and went on to look for someone else.  That worked just fine. 

Second, Angel thought about his career.  Being a chartered accountant paid well but, in hindsight, was excruciatingly boring.  Angel went back in time and instead of enrolling in accounting courses became a police officer.  He was very good at it, catching people in their own mistakes, ensuring they paid. 

He never told anyone about his time machine.  He had told one person–she then tried to create her own machine.  Angel had to go back and send her in the wrong direction.  He never used his machine to harm, to go into the past and hurt someone.  There was no one he considered an enemy.  His changes were all about himself.  Societal changes, influencing or even eliminating bad people–not Angel’s horse.  

Eventually, Angel came to realize he was selfish–clearly always had been.  He used his time machine one last time, to travel back to when he was thirteen and still idealistic, less focussed on himself.  He grew up well and, in his thirties, tired of always getting back on the horse, invented a dimensional displacement device, using it to enter alternate dimensions as a way of avoiding mistakes. 

Angel realized he could not ever stop making mistakes.  And, oddly, not only did he continually discover in other dimensions new mistakes he could make, no other dimension had horses.   

Movies

Commercial movies started with documentaries: a steam train pulling into a station.  Movies quickly advanced to longer films with plots.  In those early days that meant westerns and gangsters and romance.  Those films steadily grew longer, to about 90 minutes, that was what audiences could take.  For a full evening at the theatre, trailers, cartoons and short subjects wer4e introduced.  Then sound on film was added, complete with dialogue and music.  The films still focussed on the wild west and gangsters and romance, with horror added. 

In the forties there were many films about war.  In the fifties, the wild west continued but in the sixties moved into outer space.  Musicals, popular in the early decades of sound, began to vanish, tastes changed.  TV provided significant competition.  Movies experimented with 3D, but its popularity came and went (the effect was great, the glasses annoying.)  Widescreen was far more successful, offering more picture in each frame.  Technology improved the quality of visual effects.  The audience was still offered versions of the wild west, gangster films and love stories, many now containing all three.  Men’s movies featured guns.  Women’s films featured romance. 

There was a shift in the next century.  Movies often included superheroes, horror and action, with special effects which were, at the time, new.  People left theatres after the pandemic and began watching movies at home on TV, and on small computer screens.  Movies shrank, but the number of them vastly increased with new streaming services.  Today’s films emphasize action and horror.  Posters of men with guns and women screaming.  Westerns are set after an apocalypse, romances in outer space, porn everywhere. 

What is the future of movies?  What is in their next century? 

Certainly not VR headsets.  Never will be comfortable enough, ditto 3D TV.  Theatres will continue, but in far fewer numbers–cheaper and easier to watch at home.  Most new movies will know they will be seen on small screens.  Expect more close-ups, films with limited sets and budgets.  Horror films will be steady–small budgets and big shocks.  Most films will feature men and women with guns.  Romance is always added, and most films remain westerns in different realities.  The biggest genre will be porn.

The future of film is in computer chips inserted into the brain, so a person can watch—and participate in—movies in their heads.  The next step is to be in the movie, in about ten years,  will be called BrainoVision, once the issue with seizures is resolved, particularly with porn.       

Fences

Harold needed fences–so did everyone else, he believed.  Good fences make good neighbours, no matter who your neighbours are.  Although he felt a bit lonely. 

Harold had a physical fence around his house—wood-appearing plastic pickets—but he also had a metaphorical fence around himself.  At work he was polite but few intruded—they sensed his invisible fence.  Same with family, even his wife.   Fences kept Harold himself, he believed.  Although he felt lonely.    

He had no problem with fences, despite what the hints of people around him.  The problem was other folks had not sufficiently built their own fences.  He had to help them.  Loneliness was natural.  Fences were a gold standard.  He urged friends with houses to build larger fences, perhaps tall green hedges no one could see through.  For those in apartments, he suggested a police-crossing roadblock protecting their front doors–on the inside, so the doors could be opened, say, for a pizza delivery. 

Occasionally, Harold felt more than lonely–isolated.  Even with his wife and two children.  He did not understand–his life was close to perfect.  Yet they complained his distanced himself from them, and everyone.  He could not believe fences were somehow injuring him.  So, one morning, Harold tore down his personal fences, kissed his wife, hugged his two children, and walked past his white picket plastic fence, excited at creating a new life for himself. 

At work, for the first time, he invited colleagues to talk about their personal lives.  He learned many lived in soap operas.  Others had dogs and fish tanks.  He even had lunch with two of them.  Harold got little work done that day, at least the official kind.  However, he left refreshed.  Tired but refreshed.  They saw him as he was—even if some were disturbed at his aggressive nature. 

All that connectivity left him worrying about others–a new feeling.  He wondered what he could do to help them.  When at home he opened himself up and showed his wife who he really was  In a week, she left him.  The kids left with her. 

He built hedges around his house, avoided talking with colleagues, had learned fences make lousy neighbours–but too late not to feel very alone.  Sometimes what you learn ain’t what you want to get.

I Am The Strait Of Hormuz

Ever think what life is like for me, The Strait Of Hormuz?  I’ve certainly been in the news.  You never heard of me before then.  20% of the world’s oil and liquified gas pass through my waters.  You’d think my life is easy–and you’d be right, could be again.  My water flows, never stops, for thousands of years, peace and boats and flowing water from the Persian Gulf to the ocean.  

Never minded fish pooping in me.  Loved those times.  My water flowed so peacefully.  Rarely do I have storms, even waves.  At one point, warships were not allowed in my waters.  I should have realized what that meant.  Human politics was coming. 

It was abrupt.  Suddenly mines poisoned my waters.  Warships hovered.  Planes dropped explosives into me.  Drones and missiles fired back.  Few boats now sail my waters.  I feel alone, threatened.   

My waters had been clean.  Now the occasional oil slick coats my surface.  Fish remain though  many have fled to safer waters.  All would be normal–if not for humans.  Not to make you humans feel guilty.  You are what you are.  Humans have fought over water but never involving me.  I hear of dams, never involving me.  I have flowed freely for eons, very rarely carrying dead bodies. 

My waters should be for everyone.  It is my destiny and pleasure to help those who flow on and in me.  I feed the ocean, cargo crossing through me feeds the world.  I have a purpose but now within me are streams, undercurrents, tides I cannot wash clean.

Civilization Is Worth It

The war in the Middle East had stretched into three years.  The President who started it had retired, but the war continued.  The politicians who supported the President were not re-elected, but the war continued.  Wars take on lives of their own from the lives they destroy.  Everyone believed civilization was worth it.  

The war was costly.  Health and Social Services were cut.  Many consumer products were no longer produced, oil prices remained high, people had to cut back on their lives, including heat for their homes.  Only the nation’s flags were cheap.    

Invading and occupying parts of the other nation had taken a devastating toll.  In a war dominated by electronics, ground troops have few buttons to push.  They were there to gold until they died.  The military needed  replacements–more than replacements, to continue the war.  Everyone believed civilization was worth it.   

The government needed to start a draft.  It knew many in its key recruits—people in their twenties—hated the war.  They would fight a draft, possibly flee to an adjacent country.  So when the government initiated the draft, it concentrated on the elderly with dementia and children 15-17.  The children often welcomed leaving school (teenagers!) and the elderly were simply shipped off from retirement homes.  Training was brief, mostly to uniform them and show them where the safeties were on their weapons.  The airplane seats on the troop carriers were comfy. 

None returned home. 

Everyone believed civilization was worth it, except for the drafted.   

You Feel Unsettled

You know there were many ways you felt unsettled–and what they are.  Extreme politics unsettle you.  Approaching storms unsettle you.  Death from the sky unsettles you.  War unsettles you.

For Martin, most unsettling in his life was chicken fried rice. 

Waking with a vague feeling of something wrong, worse as the morning progressed–until he realized it was his bloated gut.  It was probably what he ate, but what?  At first he thought it was gluten–nope.  Perhaps it was the quick intake of sugars from white rice.  Perhaps the food itself did not matter, it could be anything he ate.  He never knew until the next morning. 

He  spent enough time on the throne he got a wooden, brown one that felt better than plastic. 

Everything in your body is interconnected.  You may not realize your eyes are bothering you but you feel it somewhere else, disorientation.  You know something is off when you wake in the morning, an unsettled feeling, something inside you not right.  It grows worse until it declares itself.  You may think you know your body.  Do you listen to it?  You hear aches and pains—what about the rest? 

Do you hear the alarm clock?  

Disconnect

Norman, 26, felt disconnected.  He worked in an office where he did not often speak with colleagues, even then it was company-speak, unreal in itself.  Much of his work was online, he communicated through emails and texts.  Zoom calls where he saw faces felt too personal.  He lived in a studio apartment in a nice high rise, the best he could afford.  He cooked for himself, exercised on the stationary bike in his living room while listening to podcasts, slept on a heated mattress. 

He had a cat.  It ignored him. 

He was in therapy for years, never helping, and now on Zoom.  In playbacks, he saw his therapist yawn occasionally.  His parents lived in another city, he saw them once a year.  His brother also lived in another city, and his sister lived close by but rarely spoke with him, too much history.  Norman felt lonely.  The cat was little help.  He needed to feel a connection to a distant world. 

His therapist suggested implants—tiny devices implanted into his brain.  Many people used them, Norman had heard of it, it was covered by his medical insurance, many doctors performed the operation–he booked time with the company doctor.  The implant took all of five minutes and was painless.  He returned to his office.  When his supervisor walked in, Norman felt a blush of warmth.  When a secretary came by, his attention on her was focussed.  When a colleague asked for help solving a problem, pleasure.   Norman felt more connected to everyone around him. 

After an enjoyable week, where he had lunches with colleagues and even a dinner, Norman returned to the company doctor and asked about the chip in his head.  The doctor confirmed what Norman suspected–the chip included a company programme designed especially for workers in Norman’s position, who mostly connected through the web.  It could not be removed as Norman’s brain had already absorbed it. 

At the end of a month, Norman received a plaque–This Month’s Company Employee. 

Norman enjoyed his new life—but it was a struggle.  At work, all was good.  After work, desolation.  He ate frozen dinners, gained weight and his cat left him, leaping off the balcony.  It fell to the balcony below, where a woman lived who always wanted a cat.   

Dan Lacks Drive

His life was quiet, never loud.  Dan was comfortable but knew life could be better.  He knew, sitting at his kitchen table eating leftover pasta, he lacked drive.  Successful people were driven—empowered by a compulsion to succeed, to ignore anything not on point.  Comfortable and compulsion do not mesh. 

He painted–was good–but lacked the drive to market his work: find a gallery, start a  website, cultivate influencers.  Dan especially enjoyed painting portraits, getting faces, expressions, clothing right.  He spent  weeks on a painting.  In that, he was obsessive.  But obsession ended there.  His walls were full of his work, as was his garage.  Friends and relatives had some. 

Dan wanted fame.  He wanted his work recognized.  But the effort to get there was strangely uninvolving.  It was for his own good but he did not care.  Dan was not lazy, just not ambitious.  Or greedy.  He would give his paintings away if it would gain him acknowledgement.  Indeed, he tried giving them away, people wanted them, but it never went past that. 

Dan sat in his living room, watching a movie he’d seen before.  Was he a failure?  Was living comfortably not success?  Would fame make him a better person?  Happier?  Frustrated, he chose the classic North American solution: he hired someone.  The man had drive aplenty.  He  created a website, put copies of the paintings on Amazon, encouraged influencers to blog about them.  Dan grew famous–the subject of incisive articles, posters of his paintings everywhere, also on calendars and coffee mugs, on a postage stamp. 

Dan found fame a pain. 

His inbox was full of messages from strangers, people wanted his signature on their posters, his doorbell rang into the night.  His life was no longer quiet. 

Dan went to another city under another name.  No photograph had been taken of him, he could disappear.  He purchased a nice condo, invested his income, kept painting and regularly watched movies he had already seen.  He left fame to those who needed it.

Spring And New Politicians

Spring was coming and Harold decided to plant politicians in his garden.  He was unhappy with the current crop of politicians—he wanted to grow better ones.    He had new seed packets: conservative and liberal.  As he planted the seeds, each in their own row, he was impressed with how they looked like little brains. 

They would grow only in soil rich with manure.  They preferred human manure but that was not easily available, so Harold relied on cows.  Instead of water, they needed urine, so he drank a lot of water.  Direct sunlight depressed them, so he covered the area overhead with a very large copy  of his nation’s flag.    

Sprouts soon appeared, pushing through the manure, spreading roots.  Their stalks grow, then branches, and, after a month, Harold saw tiny hands develop at the ends of the branches, and tiny heads appear at the tops of the stalks.  The little fingers spread, reaching out into the air, grasping.  Harold then began playing political podcasts for his plants.  He played liberal podcasts to the conservative plants, conservative podcasts to the liberals.  Their tiny faces had confused looks.

Within three months, Harold’s politicians were mostly five feet tall.  They now had faces, hair, arms and legs, their feet still rooted in the manure.  Their eyes followed Harold, and they listened carefully as he spoke to them.  He spoke about how extreme views were confusing, that compromise was needed.  He harvested them after six months.  Midterm elections were coming up.  Harold sent them out on the campaign trail. 

Voters like their look, and how instead of political doublespeak they spoke honestly about how confusing they found current politics, and that central ground had to be sought.  They were all elected.  Harold watched as the Government was plunged into confusion, extremes wavering, his plants leading a push towards compromise.  Soon Government shutdowns were history and politicians were not calling each other schoolyard names. 

Harold looked forward to next Spring. 

Vacationing Ain’t Easy

It was overnight at a resort by a large lake.  The hotel was luxurious, featuring indoor and outdoor pools heated by hot underground springs.  A tourist destination, plentiful with restaurants and shops.  It would be cool–it was early April and the lake was in the north, by the mountains.  He looked forward to this overnight mini-vacation—and not. 

Arnold was 80 and had created a nest in his apartment with his wife.  It had whatever he needed—food, meds, wireless.  A toilet with a lovely wooden seat.  Leaving his apartment was hardly a big deal yet felt unsettling. 

He had a routine, built around writing.  He wrote flash fiction these days, posting it on websites.  5,000 hits and they kept increasing if he kept posting.  Tiny numbers by normal standards but for Arnold a wonder.  And he needed to be alone to write, and he would not be alone for the weekend.  He would be surrounded by people who loved him.  He felt guilt.

And he would no longer take the lead, drive.  He always drove.  But not now.  Not after getting distracted once too often and shattering a tire on a curb.  So he tried to be good about sitting in the back seat and his son-in-law driving.  He slept through some of the drive (he had sleep apnea and, despite using a nightly breathing machine, was always tired.  B-12 helped.)  No one minded, they expected it.  That was embarrassing. 

Leaving the car for the hotel was like wading through mud.  Everyone was cheerful, he tried to be.  There was reason to be.  They ate in a local restaurant which featured schnitzels, his favourite dish (not veal.)  He ate half, they returned to the hotel and he slept through the night, troubled at feeling distanced. 

He felt better the next morning (he would be going home?)  He ate better, was talkative, tried to stay connected.  They visited a small statue of the Budda in the middle of a forest, drank from its mountain stream.  He felt better, then they were home and his wife asleep and he could write this. 

The Presidential Cabinet’s Makeover

The Presidents’ Cabinet members were deeply concerned.  The President had abruptly fired one a month ago, a few days ago he abruptly fired a second.  Heads were on the line. 

They had slavishly followed his orders, desperately tried to meet his needs.  As the President increasingly absorbed power, the Constitution was irrelevant.  He expected his Cabinet to be ruthless and obedient and good-looking.  The remaining Cabinet members scrambled, like eggs in a searing fry pan.  When they would be eaten?  Who was next?   

They met around a large table, without the President, secretly, to plan, to preserve their careers.  Their careers were why they were Cabinet members.  They had sacrificed much (that did not matter to them)—integrity was high on the list.  “We can’t pucker up more than we already have,” one complained.  “My lips are sore.”

“My knees are sore,” complained another.  “Why kneel if tomorrow he’ll cut me off at the knees?”

“Because that is only tomorrow,” Maurice told them.  “Being a sycophant these days is sliding down a slippery slope which has been greased.  Get a grip.  We have to convince him we are both loyal and effective.” 

“But following his orders, we are not effective,” another told the group. 

“I have an idea,” Maurice told them.  “It will require surgery.” 

They all underwent plastic surgery and, two days later, appeared at the next Cabinet meeting as Mini Presidents.  They all now looked like him, including the women.  When he spoke to them, he looked back.  They sounded like him, supported him, and now, when the Mini Presidents fired staff, it would be as if the President himself was the terminator.  They smiled at him, hoping this was the solution, given the President’s self-absorption.        

The President was pleased and only fired one of them—Maurice, who looked a bit too much like him. 

Belinda And Compromise

Belinda knew what she smelled affected her.  Aromas created joy or alarm, energized or exhausted.  She thought of moving but there was nowhere to go–everywhere had aromas she had to avoid because they degraded her, wearied her, repulsed her.  She could not avoid breathing.  She avoided smelling the unpleasant, masking aromas she found difficult. 

She loved the smell of cookies baking, so she made chocolate chip delights regularly from frozen batter, despite its unsavoury food dyes and chemicals.  She loved the smell of a rain forest, so she plugged a device creating something like that aroma into her bathroom socket, despite knowing the chemicals might be carcinogenic.  She loved the smell of fresh leather, so she polished her vinyl couch with an aromatic leather polish–she was allergic to the chemicals. 

She used perfume she loved.  And deodorant. 

Her difficulty was the aromas but she found revolting.  Walking through a park, she avoided dog poop.  On the street, because of the car exhaust, she used nose plugs.  Dinners with relatives or colleagues were challenging–their aromas and the food’s.  Visiting someone depended on how they and their home smelled.  Belinda offered deodorizers to friends and relatives, a suggestion poorly received–some sniffed, telling her she smelled of chemicals and looked vaguely plastic.  Belinda rarely saw those people again, except for her sister, who she could not avoid.  (When visiting her sister, Belinda chewed mints.) 

In a world of unrelenting compromise, Belinda decided on a solution: a simple operation which would eliminate her ability to smell.  She went into a hospital, and the operation, woke and immediately regretted it.  She could smell nothing. 

She quickly returned to the hospital for an operation to restore her sense of smell.  She woke up, had a whiff of the hospital lunch and immediately asked to have her sense of smell unrestored.  This happened several times until the doctors told her they would operate only once more.  Belinda wrestled with the momentous decision.  She knew she had to find a compromise if she was to live in the world and enjoy it. 

She decided to retain her sense of smell.  Life was about smelling the good and the bad, and living with it.  Belinda dumped the chemicals, tried to eat organic and, when truly challenged, savoured roses.