PIANO'S AND CRITICAL THINKING
Now that I'm retired I've considered several activities to engage in. Engage in at my leisure and in a way that suits me. Hmmm. That sounded kinda selfish, but there it is and I can't really change the statement substantially and still say what I wanted to. So, one of the things I would enjoy would be to teach begginner guitar and mandolin to those who have a desire to learn how to play them. When teaching these instruments I try to include some music theory, (as much as I feel the student can stand), because music theory is applicable to any instrument they may care to learn in the future and will help them be a more complete musician. As it happens, the piano is the best way, in my opinion, to teach music theory. It's kind of like a physical representation of music theory and can open up a deep and effective understanding of music in general. What I've leaned in my music theory classes, and piano lessons has been invaluable in my advancement on other instruments I have learned to play.
Critical thinking is similar in another area of our lives. If we learn to analyze things systematically we can apply that process to situations as they present themselves in our lives. We cannot use this process to make decisions, but we would be silly not to use the process to HELP us make good decisions. If I may offer a quick example. We may not have delt with new car salesmen before but even on our first encounter we can benefit from analyzing the process. When a salesman says your used trade-in car is worth 3 times more than your friend was willing to pay you you may think your friend isn't as good a friend as you first thought. But if you are appropriately skeptical of the amount of money the salesman is offering you you will likely learn that your car's value is actually more in line with your friends offer. A new car price often includes a significant markup to allow the salesman the chance to offer you the excessive amount of money for your car to give the illussion that they are being very generous to make the sale more likely. They may offer you 3,000 for a car that they will wholesale out for 1,000 while still making a nice profit on the deal. These facts are there for the learning but are seldom discovered. If we know the value of our car before the negotiation we become skeptical of the process and can learn how the new car selling game is played. Then we can negotiate from a position of strength. Strength provided by our knowledge of the process we are engaged in.
This ability to reason is something our schools use to focus on. Unfortunately we have entered a time when colleges are more interested in advancing a particular ideology rather than teaching the ability to form an opinion based on the logical analysis of the available facts. Just like music theory can help us with our endeavor to learn any instrument, so, too, does critical thinking help us in all aspects of decision making.
So then, if the three of you haven't figured it our yet, I'm a bit of an odd duck. For further proof please keep reading.
I don't order items off the "Senior Menu" in restaurants, not because I'm pretending not to be old when I am, but because I don't want others subsidizing my purchases. If I get a break, someone else gets a "non-break" as it were. Maybe when I'm on a fixed income and things are truly tight financially, but not now while I'm gainfully employed and can afford to buy my own lunch. While trying to figure out a way to retire ASAP I noticed that, on a retirement income, my wife and I could get insurance for $33 a month. That's thirty three dollars. not $330.00. This would make retirement close to doable but it ain't gonna happen. There is a movement afoot to grab all the freebies you can and just play the system for all it's worth. Why keep fighting when giving up is so easy and so lucrative. Just relax and let the government take care of you like so many of our countrymen have done. The problem is I'm smart enough to see that letting the government take care of me means asking them to take money from others and give it to me. In the case of health care it's pretty much milking the young folks to subsidize the older. A tempting proposition if one isn't particularly concerned about the loss of individual freedoms and liberty in general. As it turns out, I am interested in these things and I refuse to hand the government more power than it already has by playing along with their power grabbing ways. Sure, I could let others pay for my insurance and use that "extra income" to buy nicer cars and bigger TV sets. A kind of personal bait and switch if you will. Get help with the insurance from other hard-working Americans, then shift the money that I would have had to spend on health care over to a miscellaneous fund to buy electronic gadgets and such. What a deal. Except for the ones paying for my insurance. But then they don't really have a choice since the Supreme Court decided the government can force you to play the game. This is a game I refuse to participate in. I can afford health insurance if I sacrifice certain other luxuries. And that will lighten the tax load on the younger generation which, it appears, will be drowning in their elders' debts as they try to build their futures. There are better ways to improve the health care situation than single payer socialized approaches. And for a moment let's pretend there aren't; still, our Constitution is too valuable to the survival of our free and prosperous nation to trample it underfoot for the sake of someone's idea of what's fair. If someone who is driving a beater and only has one 32" flat screen in their house, a house that is sufficient but not exorbitant, and who is not refusing to work when they are capable, needs some help with their insurance premiums then, by all means, society should have a mechanism to help them. But offering someone with sufficient means a subsidized plan for $33 dollars a month by way of taking money from other people is simply stupid and self-destructive. Self-destructive to a free nation, but empowering to the ruling class.
Just sitting here at 3:45 am wondering when we will, as a nation, be able to have a meaningful discussion about abortion. (by the way, my wife is away for a few days so this entry will have more grammatical and spelling issues than usual) I know it's anecdotal but my efforts to have a meaningful discussion on the issue usually ends up focusing on something other than the actual issue of abortion. A recent effort landed us at the predictable "if you're against abortion but aren't a foster parent then you are a hypocrite". This is a comment given during a dialogue supposedly about abortion. While it's way off the subject lets waste a little more time and follow the logic for just a moment. If in order to be legitimately against something you must be personally involved in an effort to repair the damage then it would appear that we live in a society that is OK with child abuse. If you're against child abuse but aren't volunteering 40 hours a week, which is actually less time than a foster parent gives, at a children's home then you're a hypocrite. If you "say" you think it's wrong that Priest's have molested young boys but haven't offered to man phone's at a hot-line for young people abused by Priest's then you're a hypocrite. If you are against animal cruelty but haven't had an endless string of abused pets in your home then you are obviously a hypocrite. For cryin' out loud, all you have to do to show how much you care about wiping out breast cancer is to wear something pink. All you have to do about young boys being molested by adults is to gossip about it at work. But abortion, well, if you're not a foster parent then you obviously don't give a rip about unborn children. Gossiping and wearing ugly clothes will land you precisely in the center of the "I care" target on virtually any issue except abortion. But to answer one idiotic position is to ask for an endless string of them. Once you start down that road there's no end in sight. If you are going to offer a meaningful opinion on abortion then there is a never ending list of prerequisites that must be met. If, however, you are going to move a whole nation down the bloodiest path it has ever embarked on, all you need is a black robe. Oh, and an apparent indifference to our constitution. Gee, I think it would be easier to be a supreme court justice than to hold a meaningful conversation on the street about abortion. Maybe I should look into that as a good retirement activity.
