A thought haunted me the other day. I kept trying to remember the meaning of a German word that I had heard but couldn't remember what it meant. The word was "Zeitgeist". After going online and "Googling" the word, I found out that the meaning of zeitgeist is "the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time". In fact, the word is derived from two German words; "zeit" which means "time", and "geist" meaning "spirit".  After thinking about it, I realized that while the reason I began collecting old photos was not to get a feel for the zeitgeist of various periods of time but that had originally conceived of a website based around the idea of creating an "imaginary family" - one that I had always wanted and never had.  I think that most people have dreamed of how their life might have been different if they had only grown up in a family of people who were more attractive, interesting, more wealthy, more creative, or perhaps with people who hold more traditional values and tastes than their own.  I not only had this wild thought, but began buying old vintage photos from various sources with the hope of creating an entire photo album along these lines as a creative endeavor. This was why I started collecting photos strictly of people.
I also like to collect photographic images of people because they remind me that a good photograph invoke memories, and that the best memories in life are not centered around things such as art, cars, architecture, monuments, animals or even panoramic vistas but the people in our lives.
It was only after I had built this website and then began categorizing my collection of old photos into specific time periods in order to add some organization the collection that I realized that what I was creating was indeed a sense of zeitgeist.  While I am aware that this and any creation of a sense of zeitgeist that comes from my old photos collection also comes with my own stereotypes and ideas, I think that I have learned more about what people actually looked like and even how they acted than I ever expected to before I started.
I have stated in my website that I think that old photos like these are more than amusing images of people posing for their family and friends and are actually like artifacts that can show what life was actually like for past generations. While these photos no longer represent personal momentos for anyone, they can represent the past by creating a sense of zeitgeist of their time for future generations.
In the end, I have to say that more than ever I appreciate my own family's photo collections as a way for me to remember stories of important people and events in my family's history and a reminder of how important mnemonic devices such as a photo actually are to me.

As I look back on this summer I have to admit that I have learned a lot about getting along with other people during that time.  I realize now that I am not, and cannot be, totally self sufficient. I also realize  that I am someone who really needs human interaction.  I now understand that people can make me feel empowered by my relationships with them however they can also make me feel vulnerable because people can turn their backs in less time than it takes to shake hands. I found by testing myself that I have greater resolve than I ever thought I had and I have achieved a new sense of self worth by recognizing my own weaknesses and needs then altering the direction of my life in order to achieve greater power.  I have chosen for myself a path of least resistance in which I can be more like the person I want to be and that I've always wanted to be.  I have had to face myself, and my fears, and look into the shadowy recesses of my mind and now I know much better what it takes to make me happy.

This is not about mind games but instead about putting away, and leaving behind the games of childhood. ​Looking back to childhood, one often sees only reflections of the jealousy and frustrations of youth. However, this does not stop many if not most people from trying to relive their childhoods or try to regain the creative magic that they lost when they grew up by holding onto things from their past.  I find that for me life has lost none of the magic that we grow out of when we become adults even though I got rid of all of the mementos from my childhood. Those items kept as pneumonic devices of the past that we have lived through and know so well also keep us from remembering our current needs, such as to enjoy  being with other people.  It is really only through others that we gain new perspectives and this reawakens our own inner creativity.  That same creativity energy that people often crave just to remember is what often brings people to begin collecting things that they do not need.  In the end, life is not about how many or even the quality of the things accumulated in ones life, but about the emotional impact and the bonds enjoyed between people that matters most.

I went to college in a town that could easily be remembered by anyone who ever visited it by the iconic Main Street sign showing a hunter wearing a plaid shirt, with dogs at his feet, and whose neon rifle is continually rising upward to shoot at birds in the sky. I was living in that small desert town for the school season but I soon found that an intense conservative attitude pervaded the community the way that the sun fills a desert sky at mid-day.

One day I found myself standing in the hot sun, taking in the quiet street scene in front of the Greyhound bus station of that small town in the desert. I was well-travelled and dressed like it, wearing colorful shorts and a polo-style shirt and I probably stood out like a tourist or some sort of strange anomaly amongst the bleak and dusty small town landscape. 

As I stood there alone in the hot sun, looking up and down the vacant streets, a leather-faced older gentleman hiding beneath a large cowboy hat came slowly walking up the sidewalk towards me.  As the steely eye gentleman approached, I noticed that he was wearing cowboy boots, faded blue jeans, a pin-striped white shirt, and a belt buckle with a rodeo scene on it.  As he walked towards me in a slow bowlegged gait, I felt compelled to see what he wanted.  From beneath the brim of his large white hat, the older cowboy caught my gaze and then grinned at me.  As his steely eyes met mine, he slowly raised a finger to the brim of his hat and tipped it upwards. I wasn’t sure why this leather-faced older cowboy with a steely eye grin was bothering to inquire how I was doing, however I felt relatively safe in the vicinity of the greyhound bus station.

We quickly struck up a simple but amiable conversation about the weather, and soon I felt more welcome in that small town than I had felt since I had moved there several months prior. Then, the old cowboy asked me to go out and have a beer with him later in the evening.  I felt so comfortable having a conversation with this local gentleman that I was accepted his offer to pick me up later that evening and go out for beers.  I gave him the address of the apartment building where I was living and he told me that he’d stop by around seven to pick me up.  

This seemed to be a sign that things were changing for me.  That an old cowboy of that small conservative desert town was willing to take an awkward college student out to go drinking had seemed like an impossibility just hours before.  It was as if I had finally stumbled upon a warm and friendly side of that usually cold, collected, town in Eastern Washington.

Just after the sun had gone down the older cowboy arrived at my apartment building, just as planned.  I had imagined that he might show up driving an old 1950’s red pickup truck, but instead he was driving a 1970’s square four-door sedan that was a soft beige. The old cowboy was still wearing the same outfit he had on when I met him earlier that afternoon, on that downtown street, however he looked more comfortable in the cool evening air.  When I came out to I meet him in the parking lot of my apartment, I was still wearing the light-blue polo-style shirt that I had on that afternoon only now I had on a pair of blue jeans. I asked the old cowboy where we were going to drink beer that evening and with a smile, the he explained in his slow and steady voice not to worry about that since he had brought a twelve-pack of beer that he had in his trunk.  He then walked around to the back of the car to open the trunk and show me a cooler filled with beer.

The sun was setting and darkness was slowly pushing back the colorful sunset that still rested on the horizon as we drove away from the large parking lot of my apartment complex. As light brown dust from the road blew across the headlights, a cool evening breeze entered the car though open windows, pushing away the heat that rose off the pavement. The old cowboy drove through the small town as though he had lived there his entire life and knew every turn in every road. Yet, as we drove farther from the college where I was living at that time, everything I saw and everywhere we went seemed new and interesting.  

 Then, with both of us quietly sitting in the car enjoying the ride, I noticed that I had not seen any other cars on the road in some time. I suddenly realized that road we were on was also not lit by street lights and in fact I had not seen a ranch house along the sides of the rural road in some time, either. We were now surrounded by rolling hills covered by rows of fruit trees.  I began to looking more closely and noticed that on the green trees closest to the road, I were large green apples.  I glanced around and saw in the distance an apple processing plant that was undoubtedly working its machinery and employees around the clock since it was Spring, and harvest time.   


An uncomfortable quiet fell upon the car and it was on that dark and remote road that the old cowboy began to slow the car and pull to the side of road.  We were so far from town now that when he turned off the car’s headlights, the only light to see by was cast by the bright stars and the full moon now high in the sky.

I began to become suspicious about the intentions of the old cowboy, so I asked him again what he had planned for us to do.  I wondered, were we there to enjoy the scenery? Or pick apples, maybe?
The old cowboy sat motionless behind the wheel of the car, his hands still gripping it, and then looked over at me with a smile and exclaimed, “Let’s have a beer!”
The night air was still warm and yet a slight breeze blew amongst the rows of apple trees that spread out in all directions.  The sky was now filled with stars that pieced the darkness of the night sky as well as a moon so bright that it had a hallow around it.  As both of us got quietly and slowly out the car and began to walk toward the trunk of his car, out shadows were cast across the road by the intense moonlight.  On the nearest trees among the endless landscape of rolling hills covered with large ripe green apples, I could see that their branches hung low to the ground under the weight of the fruit on them.
            
“So? What are we doing out here, anyway? Are we going to pick apples?”, I asked.
          
“…That an goin’ streaking!”, the cowboy exclaimed.

This kind old gentleman, who was a stranger to me until that afternoon, was now asking me to take off all of my clothes and go running among the apple orchards with him.  I was naturally taken aback by this comment, as I had expected that this local cowboy had simply been offering to take me out for an evening of drinking.  Now, I had forgotten about the beer in the trunk and was instead thinking of a desperate way to divert the conversation away from our original plans.  He was now leaning back against the trunk of his car and smiling at me with that steely eyed look and I began to hope that the leather faced old cowboy would be satisfied with just picking apples with me.
​
Standing there on the side of that dark road next to his car I looked up and realized that the fruit in the trees of the orchard were close enough that I could pick the apples easily and without having to climb.  So, I reached upwards and quietly began picking apples.  Quietly, I went from tree to tree grabbing apples as I walked along the roadside near the car.  Soon I had more apples in my hands than I could carry.  So, I pulled my polo-style shirt out of my pants and began using it to support the ripe apples that I had.
               
Reluctantly, the old cowboy shrugged and also began reaching up to pick the large green apples from the low-hanging branches.  Slowly, he walked over to me in his bowlegged way, and deposited the few apples that he had picked into my shirt that now curved downward in front of my chest to cradle the fruit that I had so far collected.
       
Then he looked at me, smiled, and asked me, “You got enough now?”

I shrugged and told him that I really like green apples and that I could use as many as I could carry.  Before long, however, the brink breeze that had been blowing through the orchards was cold enough that we both had goosebumps on our arms.  Eventually, we both looked at each other and silently agreed that it was time to return to town.  As I got into the car, still holding a couple dozen large green apples in my shirt with both arms, the cowboy leaned over and asked me one more time, “Ya’ sure you don’t want to go streaking in them orchards with me?”
             
I smiled back and then politely declined.

               Have you ever wanted to live longer, be smarter, or have a healthier body?  I have discovered that the answer to how to achieve better health cannot be found in a bottle of vitamins, from any dose of an herbal concoction, or from listening to health gurus.  My personal battles with trying to become healthier than I am has left me confused and confounded more than once as to why being healthy isn’t all that simple.  I have found that trying to be healthy can even cause a person to become more unhealthy, and the only alternative to trying to be healthier than you are is acceptance. Let me explain…
                I once imagined that I could live without ingesting any food.  I thought that all I needed to sustain my health and vitality was a strict regimen of vitamins and supplement capsules.  I had been given or had bought over my several years at college, many large containers of various multi-vitamins and supplements that had always sat dormant in my closet, forsaken by me as the means to a healthy lifestyle.  One day, I decided not only that I should start eating those vitamins regularly but that I probably had enough vitamins in my closet to give my body the sustenance it needed without needing to eat food for at least a week, or so.  I decided that perhaps science had progressed to the point of allowing the human body to get all the nutrients and vitamins it needed from capsules such as these, and that no one had yet considered this a reality.  I jumped at the idea of using my body as a testing ground for my theory in advanced nutritional science.  My hope was that I might prove, at least to myself, that I could indeed live for at least a week eating only a strict regimen of vitamins and supplement capsules.  Yet, as fate would have it, within only a few days of my the commencement of my experiment in nutritional intake, I found myself in a bathroom down the hall from a class that I was supposed to be attending, retching lots bitter, dry powdery stuff that tasted just like those vitamin and mineral capsules taste in your mouth before you actually swallow them.
                From that moment on I decided that nutrition and dieting was a subject to be taken more seriously.  And you might think that I’d learned my lesson regarding vitamins and nutritional supplements, or would have at least done a little research at college regarding nutrition to find out more about the subject.   However, my major in college had nothing to do with nutrition and just a few years later I found myself with vitamin supplements on my mind again.  
                Despite having been dealt pretty good genes, I was attracted to the notion that I might be able to somehow cheat at Mother Nature’s game of life. This time I was attracted to the idea that I might be able to bringing up my IQ by way of an herbal concoction.  While at the supermarket checkout stand, I picked up a tabloid magazine that had an article about an herbal concoction that was supposed to make you smarter and improve IQ scores when taken on a daily basis.  I was never a great student, so I was terribly interested in trying this concoction, if only because I was attending a new college that quarter and needed good grades.  So, I decided that I really had nothing to lose trying this herbal concoction to see if it might be able to raise my mental capacity and intelligence.  In my haste to raise my IQ, however, I decided that I might become even smarter than what was advertised was possible in that magazine if I took twice the prescribed amount of that herbal concoction.  In fact, I decided that if the stuff worked at all, it would be twice as effective and the effects would show up even sooner the more I took.  Within hours after taking the first batch of this concoction I began to feel the effects coming on in quite a noticeable, but unsatisfactory way.  I was a little queasy at first and within a few more hours I was doubled over holding my gut. I wished that I had never tried a drop of that stuff, and that was about all that I learned from the whole ordeal.  That experiment only bruised my ego and if anything the whole ordeal lowered my self-esteem a little.  
                I decided that greater knowledge of nutrition and health should not come from magazines that you get at the check-out stands at supermarkets.  Yet, did I learn?
                According to the health gurus on TV, scientists can now apparently prove statistically that anyone who diets and behaves in certain ways can be assured to add longevity to their present given lifespan.  I used to think that my given lifespan would be somewhere around what my parent’s lifespan was however health experts I was listening to on afternoon television shows were promoting the idea that we can all expect to live to be very old if only we alter out diets and behave in prescribed ways.  For example, I was glad to hear health guru Sanjay Gupta explain that men who enjoy chocolate will live on average four years longer than men who avoid confectioneries.  I still cast a happy and healthy smile every time someone offers me chocolate knowing that eating that it is going to lead me down the path to a longer life. The work of those health gurus and their scientific research and statistics compiled about diet and behavior patterns and life spans enlightened me, and I decided that if they were correct that I might easily live to be 125 years of age or more through a few behavioral changes. The idea of selective consumption and behavioral modification in the hopes of achieving extended longevity was a now reality that I was ready to explore.
                First, I learned that if I stayed away from cigarettes and caffeine and eat mostly fruit and nuts that I could expect to tack on maybe thirty years to the age that I have decided that I would reached when I eventually succumb to old age.  However, I didn’t smoke to being with and I eat lots of nuts and only a little caffeine, so I went on. Next, I learned that I can add another ten years onto my life span if I only walk a few miles every day. So, I got a pedometer to help assure myself that I could add another 10 years to my life and get past the age of one hundred years old. When my feel started to hurt I began investigating sensible shoes since I could not stand the idea of my feet hurting for another 50 years or more.
                In fact, I found that there is only so much kale and quinoa that a person can eat without having a natural Pavlovian response to salivate when viewing TV commercials for steak houses, burgers, and fried chicken.  Besides, I had already taken on so many healthy lifestyle changes that I decided if there is any credence to the work of those statisticians and researchers then I should live to be around 200 years, or so.  You might think that I would be content with the satisfaction that I could make myself so healthy, but I was not.
​                Living my life within the parameters set by the physicians who have proven what behaviors statistically lead to greater longevity, I found that a living a healthy lifestyle got a little boring.  Thanks to the work of researchers in France, however, I learned that a glass of red wine every day is good for the heart and thus will increase my longevity.  So, I decided that I would not only add red wine to my diet but I decided that if one glass of red wine every day is supposed to be good for the body, well then a bottle day should be even better.  Of course, drinking lots of red wine did liven up the behavior modification program that I was trying to keep to as a means to achieving longevity. However, my new regiment of a bottle of red wine a day also led me to the good old behavior modification system known as the Twelve Step program at the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous.  I can now say that I am a recovering alcoholic thanks in part to the advice of the health gurus and to my wild aspirations to do whatever it takes to live longer.
                It was in my first Twelve Step program that I learned about a healthy alternative to my ongoing quest for health and happiness. It is a simple saying to think about whenever I need help accepting who I really am.  And it goes like this; “May I have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.”​

As I think of my religious orientation I find that I must consider myself to be "non-denominationally confused". There are many different religions that have been created based on many different gods, yet underlying each and every one there seems to be a belief in a humanist desire for love, respect, and compassion.  I am not confused as to why there have been so many interpretations of these humanist beliefs or why there are so many religions since there are so many kinds of people and ecosystems around the planet. What bothers me is when religions try to make an exclusive claim of being the best or only way of achieving those humanist goals.  I think that all religions do this in some way, and that while I believe that each and every religion has something of beauty to offer humanity, often they have had followers who have practiced intolerance that contradicts the basic humanist beliefs that I think all religions are made from.  I find myself wanting to appreciate all religions with the understanding that each is an expression of those humanist beliefs, however most if not all religions, seem to have "dark side" that starts with them being exclusive of all others.

For this reason I consider myself "confused", and my confusion is "non-denominational".

It has been a long strange summer and now people are actually talking about climate change as if its going to be a crisis for the nation and perhaps the planet. I guess that our personal lives actually take a back seat to the idea of the end of the world as we have become accustomed. As the weather got too hot to enjoy this last summer there were other problems as well such as severe droughts, irregular crop harvests, and an excessive number of forest fires. All of this doom and gloom concerning climate change only seems to make my personal issues seem slightly less significant and here's why.

From an archeological point of view, we know that there have been civilizations that have arisen, only to parish from the climate changes. One example of this is the Fremont Culture that existed almost 2,000 years ago in North America's southwest region, whose eventual outcome was favored by a climactic shift that occurred around 800 CE.  As the weather changed due to this climactic shift, the staple crops that were grown for food became more abundant. This abundance was brought on by the number of crops that actually survived becoming greater creating higher yields, due to a change in the weather patterns. From a greater abundance in food, brought on by greater harvests, the Fremont people were able to become more sedentary. There was a rise in population and population density among the people who lived by the Fremont way of life. As the climate changed, the culture changed as well. The Fremont people, whose way of life had gone on for centuries, became a precursor to the great Anasazi Culture, that produced what could be the finest examples of ancient Native American architecture and fine art ever known in North America. Yet, sadly, after only several hundreds of years of progress brought on by a favorable climate, their culture declined due to another climactic shift, one that returned the weather patterns to what they had been during the era when the Fremont Culture existed. As the dry and arid lands yielded less, populations declined and the political stability among the Anasazi's dense population centers might have fallen apart.  As food became more scarce, the competition for resources probably also brought attacks from outside groups trying to seize the resources of the people who lived in those larger population centers. With the weather slowly changing back to being hot and inhospitable, we know from the architecture that remains that locations of cities and towns shift toward environments that are more safe and secure as well ones that favor greater crop abundance or have a continual source of water.

Will we as a planetary culture, be able to manage the resources available to us as climate change becomes a crisis for us all? Will the world civilization that we know today fail to achieve success and survive the new climate change that we are seeing? All of these question and more pop up as I think of the climate crisis and the long strange summer it's been. However, with summer over in North America, I for one cannot wait to see what the winter holds for us.  Is there any greater crisis in our lives than the climate crisis? We'll just have to wait and see what the future holds.