My Marriage Toast to Seth and Carrie Elizabeth Bowen (2001)

 

My Marriage Toast To Seth and Carrie Elizabeth Bowen

2001 and 2020 (19^th Wedding Anniversary)

I toast you with a wish, above all other wishes, that your marriage may be inspired by and learned from what has worked best in my own.

May you be inspired to:

 

Be honest and open, and say what’s on your mind, but say it kindly and with respect.  Make your spouse your best friend, the one you can always talk to without fear of being judged too quickly, dismissed for your stupidity, or given a quick fix.

 

Be a great listener, a sounding board.  This often means being silent, and knowing when to keep your mouth shut.

 

Encourage your mate to grow, take risks; see their potential, give them self-confidence.  Become your mate’s cheerleader. Be proud of what they accomplish.

 

Pay attention to the small things, those little symbolic gestures that are best when unexpected and really meant from the heart.  Those are romantic gestures, and they make all the difference in a relationship, especially when they are spontaneous.

 

Look for ways to create times and places for you to share excitement and peace.  Make your life together exciting, try new things, but make you home a peaceful heaven.

 

Bend with the circumstances, be flexible, because marriage depends above all else in being able to give and take, and go patiently with the flow.

 

Remember that love grows and changes as your marriage rolls into the future.

Peering into the Future Is a Fascinating Business

 

Peering into the Future Is a Fascinating Business

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Peering into the future is a fascinating business.  Humans seem uniquely suited for the task because, among all species, we are the only ones who actually contemplate the future.  Those who attempt to do this reside on a continuum.  At one end are planners who build pyramids of data-based assumptions.  At the other end are soothsayers and fortune tellers whose talents involve intuitive guesswork.  Somewhere in between live weather forecasters, poll takers, marketers, scientists, religious gurus, astrologers, science fiction writers, and most definitely politicians.       

  Taken together all these types extrapolate our minds and hearts into the unknown by building from what is known about the past and present.  A lot depends on what we want to do with the results.  My curious question is this:  When the past and future talk to each other, what do they really say?  

  Science fiction provides one entertaining answer.  The best writers of this genre have insisted that their work provides essential training for anyone who wants to peer at least a decade ahead.  I believe their creative freedom is the mother of invention.  For instance, more than 150 years ago, the French novelist Jules Verne built stories around electric submarines, helicopters, lunar modules, spoken newscasts, solar sails, tasers, and videoconferencing.  The basic technology for all of these existed back then, but Verne turned them into shocking possibilities long before inventors took out patents. 

 Another way to change the future is to rescript the past.  Historians and politicians, among others, share this strategy.  Historians revise their interpretations when they find new artifacts.  Politicians change past practices legislatively to gain power and control.  Thus heroes turn into villains.  Most recently, old statues become catalysts for protest as generational awareness and political agendas shift.      

My favorite strategy for tapping into the future is called futuring.  Unlike predictions which are usually calculated from statistical odds, and forecasts which are tied to specific time frames, futuring develops a bigger picture of broad possibilities.  It paints likelihoods that may change depending on the angle of view and the evolution of trends or changing events.  Originally conceived in the late 1940s as a Cold War gaming strategy, futuring has since become a popular planning strategy in the business world. Portraits of what may happen are enriched by technology. Different scenarios produce a composite of probabilities.

 I was introduced to futuring 50 years ago in a graduate course. Our group project was to describe what elementary and secondary education would be like today – that is, in 2020.    

We treaded through some familiar territory based on our awareness of developing issues such as nontraditional schooling beyond the classroom walls, better support for the disabled, and more responsive counseling services   Our foray into the future was more like short-term predictions extended from the status quo, and limited by the statutory mandates of the day.    

 In contrast, today’s fearless futurists think their way out of the box, and into worlds of internet-enhanced information and data, looking for curious trends, alternative scenarios, and trigger events.  They act more like generalists who scan different disciplines seeking connections among ideas that are novel and unusual.  Futuristic thinkers ask “what if” while remembering that the most specific predictions are probably the ones most likely to be wrong.

 The biggest challenge is to escape the past. When we plan into the future, psychologists tell us that much of our thinking stems from memories of our past.  Yet we gloss over the details in that past, so we may deceive ourselves and fail to learn what not to do in the future.  We also make that past much more predictable than it really was. Finally, survey research also confirms that, regardless of age, we believe that we have changed a great deal over the past 10 years, but that we will probably change very little over the next 10 years.  So we often rationalize the past and have real difficulty seeing ourselves in the long-range future.

Does this mean our attempts to fathom the future are wasted?  Not entirely, because, we benefit from certain advantages.  First, we are overwhelmingly social animals.  When we lack information about a future event, we become what psychologist Daniel Gilbert calls “surragators”.   We become much more willing to listen to and endorse the personal experience of others.  Indeed, futuring calls for collaborative thinking. 

A second advantage is that we are emotional beings.  The prospects of our future provoke strong reactions.  Psychologist Martin Seligman labels humans as homo prospectus because his research has confirmed that we spend enormous amounts of time recombining and retouching our past to imagine the future.  This helps us cope with novel situations, and deal with the unexpected.  The instant answers we get are much closer to gut feelings than to thoughtful analysis.

On balance, we spend much more time thinking about the future than about the past. This makes us uniquely human, and probably much happier.  From science fiction to strategic visioning, we never really leave the past behind, nor are we very good at “prospection”.  Still, the effort is worthwhile because the future lies not in what we learn about our surroundings, but in what we learn about ourselves.  

 

 

Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of a Unique Home for Health Services

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

Anniversaries give us wonderful opportunities to remember and celebrate beginnings, and to think about the many decision points that continue to shape our  future.  This is truly the case for the Healthy Community Alliance, headquartered in Gowanda, New York.  This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Alliance’s rock-solid foundation.

 

Figuratively and literally, that foundation is known both as Community Place and Academy Place.  The distinction gets a bit technical, but in actual fact the sturdy and spacious brick-and-granite structure at One School Street is a home to many purposes.

 

Within the walls of this vintage elementary school facility, you can find an amazing array of health, medical, counseling, nutritional, and educational services all designed to improve the quality of life in rural communities across our region.  Mission success derives from broad, inclusive partnerships that support wellness and prevention.  Here I am talking about a community focal point for programs and services. Community Place is a subsidiary of the Healthy Community Alliance, which has its own executive director, Ann Battaglia, and a board of directors on which I served for many years. 

 

Yet One School Street encompasses much more than a preeminent rural health network.  Also named Academy Place, this location serves as a living and dining space for 32 senior apartments.  The Place is directed by a locally focused housing development fund company, resourced by a combination of federal and state tax credits linked to household income guidelines.  The apartments are managed in partnership with People, Incorporated.

 

The Healthy Community Alliance has been thriving since the mid 1990’s when I came on board as a founding member of its board of directors.  It took the organization about a decade to gain inspiration from a massive closed-up former school facility in Gowanda.    At first it was thought that the old school, if refurnished, could serve as a practical headquarters for the growing Alliance capacity.

 

Thanks to the foresight and persistence of HCA executive director Sharon Mathe, guided by local consultants and attorneys, One School Street soon became a conceptual testing ground for potential uses involving wellness, community planning and services.  Many opportunities for Gowanda community input enriched the discussion.

 

 

 

 What followed was a decade of stressful, complicated funding negotiations with the Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  Once funding was reasonably assured, with loans and payments arranged, a Buffalo-based commercial contractor took on the project that finally produced today’s beautiful facility.

 

I share quite a rewarding personal history with Community Place.  As a member of the Alliance’s board of directors, I remember many meetings where sorting out bureaucratic challenges and legal technicalities tested everyone’s patience.  At times it seemed as though Community Place would become our single agenda item.  Ultimately, our investment of time and resources continues to yield growing dividends throughout the entire region.  

 

Please see what I mean for yourself.  Virtually or in person, visit the impressive facility known as Community Place, Academy Place, and One School Street in Gowanda.  It is not just a terrific architectural asset, but the symbol of a regional and statewide commitment to health promotion, disease prevention, wellness, and building quality of life.  

 

Dr. Jeffrey Bowen

Past President

Healthy Community Alliance

 

PO. Box 36

Delevan, N.Y. 14042

716-777-2383

Jeffreybowen7@gmail.com

Experience A World of Enjoyment in Photography

 

Experience A World of Enjoyment in Photography

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

Years ago I was lying flat on my back in the middle of Yosemite National Park while attempting to photograph a picturesque pine cone hanging from a nearby branch.  I heard voices nearby and glanced over to see a group of individuals with cameras being led along by an elderly white-bearded man.  He stopped the group, and asked them, “What the heck do you suppose that guy is trying to do?”  I heard a bit of laughter, but did not mind because I knew who the old man was:  the world-famous nature photographer Ansel Adams!  Quite often, I had been told, he led workshops in the park.  Apparently I inspired curiosity.

 

I think photography should be artful and inspiring.  It helps us express ourselves differently.   For me it is a journey.    I have taken thousands of photos and learned from just as many mistakes.  I started with a box camera and black and white snapshots back in the 50’s.  Over the years, I graduated to color slides and carousel projectors, then to color snapshot film processed by the local drugstore, and finally, in the 1990s, to digital photography with results processed via Lightroom and Photoshop and posted on the internet.  These days I find that my smart phone often produces fine results.  Although I have and use them, you really don’t need a fancy 35 mm camera with multiple lenses.

 

What you do need is some forethought.  What story do you want to tell? What do you want your viewer to think or feel?  Key is to frame a setting and position your subject within it.  My facebook friends call this composition.  They advise not to aim into the sun.  Maybe, but not always, because backlighted shots can be dramatically effective as long as they don’t wash out altogether. Typically, the best results come from positioning your subject sideways to the main source of light.  Also, I advocate leading lines.  In other words, guide the viewer’s eye from foreground into the background by encouraging curiosity about what lies just beyond. 

 

 Imagine a grid of four evenly spaced lines, two vertical and two horizonal, over the scene you want to shoot.  Consider placing your key subject near one of the four quarterly intersections of those lines.  Don’t always aim directly at the middle.  Another imaginary grid is called the golden spiral.  Arrange your setting so the eye is drawn first to the foreground, then circling around to the top of your scene, then spiraling back around to the middle.  If possible, have something you want people to see at all three locations—foreground, top or background, and finally in the middle.  Really, it can be dramatic!    

 

As for positioning yourself to take a photo, go low.  Get on your knees if necessary (probably not your back), but try to shoot at the same level as your subject.  It tends to capture the viewer’s interest from foreground to background, and it reduces the distortion that comes from aiming downward or upward.  Second, try to move closer to your subject than you first thought possible.  The more detail, the more expression you can capture, the better.  But be a cautious about getting too close to your subject because it can cause an unappealing fisheye effect.  Finally, before you shoot, stop and look behind you.  Maybe that beautiful scene you are ignoring is right behind you.  One more thing:  focus clearly on your subject, and decide beforehand if you want to blur part of the photo to deemphasize the background.  Camera controls called the lens aperture and shutter speed can be used to accomplish this manually or automatically.   

 

Let’s say you are considering a scenic landscape shot, but it needs to be livened up.  Put something alive into it.  It can be a person or an animal.  It need not be your main subject and can be set off to the side.  Yet it draws the viewer’s eye, creates purpose and adds interest.

 

 What if your idea is just to create the memory of a person?   In that case make them your main subject, but encourage them to smile or look happy, and ask them remove anything that may shade or obscure their face.  Reflections on glasses can be really frustrating. Avoid having them squint into the sun.  Rely on indirect light, or have them look off to the side.  Remind them stand up straight and do something with their hands.  If the photo is a selfie, hold the smart phone slightly up above you, and look up to the camera.  This compliments the face and shows the background too.

 

I advocate color in my photos.  The capability of digital cameras to differentiate colors is astounding, and post processing can add richness and nuances.  I never hesitate to manipulate or refine shades of color in my final products.  Sometimes we hesitate to shoot on cloudy days, but we should not.  Cloud variations are always intriguing. Some of the most beautiful shades derive from the color absorption experienced on overcast days.  But be cautious about too much saturation.  My facebook friends definitely prefer colors and scenes that look natural and real.

 

Whether it is about technology or technique, photography should be fun – and something you can spend your whole life learning.  One of the interesting ways to improve is to view video tutorials on You Tube.  No need to emulate Ansel Adams, just enjoy your triumphs, learn from your mistakes, share results with friends and family, and cherish the memories they create.    

 

 

We Are All Creatures of Habit

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

Every day at 3 p.m. on the dot our black lab named Goose appears in the doorway expectantly, ears cocked, tail wagging, vigorously panting, all for one purpose – dinner!  He has trained us to respond rather early to these signals.  A wave of our hand and he races to the kitchen and waits impatiently to down his bowl in about 15 seconds flat.  Then he insists on going out to defend his territory.

Why does this particular pattern repeat so regularly?  Not really because of instinct; not all dogs do this.  Goose seems to have an internal alarm clock.  He is faithfully well fed, and surely, he could wait a bit.   Instead this happens because he is a steadfast creature of habit.  We are too, because we respond habitually to his habit.

This serves as a preface to my message that all sentient beings are governed by habits.  These may be good or bad, but they are always strangely powerful.  Volumes of anecdotal advice give us ways to break or create habits.  Understanding and using them calls for more scientific scrutiny.

When situations repeat themselves during our daily activities, research tells us that, on average, 45 percent of the time we react the same way not as an actual decision, but almost automatically.   Up to 88 percent of our morning hygiene is subconsciously routine, as is about 55 percent of activity at work.  If you live to 80, according to another estimate, about 36 years of your life is spent on autopilot!   

Sometimes we think of these happenings as positive learning when the steps produce good results.  Extended habits yield comfort and stability, even when no obvious rewards are involved.  We call them rituals or traditions.  In contrast, habituation may produce a physical or psychological dependency and become an addiction.   Habits are mostly convenient; no need to think much about them.  No executive decision or concentrated self-control is required.  A cue leads to a routine, which then leads to an anticipated reward. 

Changing a habit is quite another story.  My own experience, and probably yours, confirms that habits can be very stubborn creatures.  An area in the prefrontal cortex of our brains sort of scripts out a memory to ensure that a given context will cue the same behavior each time.  With each repetition, less thought is given to the rational intention or goal, and more is given to the contextual cue.  Our subconscious mind seems to declare, “Do what you’ve always done, so you’ll get what you’ve always gotten!” 

What’s wrong with that?   No problem, unless we decide, or are pressed by circumstances, to change intentions quickly, or to give what we do a lot of forethought.  Remember those cartoons where Donald Duck faces a fiendish choice and realizes two little ducks are sitting on either shoulder.  The one with a halo says “stop” while the other one, holding a pitchfork, whispers, “Oh go ahead.”  The guardian angel is our rational mind, the source of conscious willpower, and typically he wins when a single decision is to be made.   The devilish duck is our nonconscious mentality, and if the pitchfork is applied repeatedly, he morphs into a habit. 

 Most purposes can become almost intuitive preferences when repeated often enough.  Psychologist Wendy Wood, after decades applying neuroscience to the issues, concludes that habits are almost like a second self.  Without realizing it, we reconcile ourselves to choices we have already made, cave in to the repetitive settings or context in which previous decisions were made, and perpetuate automatic steps even after taking a break from the situation or getting only an infrequent reward from doing so.

I have always praised those who exercise great self-control or self-denial since they seem to accomplish great things by means of grit.   It turns out that most self-controllers are just better at automating their patterns of behavior.  They meet goals without serious struggles because they have acquired the right habits.  Beneficial actions become their default choices.  Repetition and efficiency reinforce those choices.

Environmental changes have a dominant effect on both good and bad habits.   The current COVID pandemic provides a case in point.  For all kinds of safety or economic reasons, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, about one in five adults say they either changed their residence because of the pandemic, or they know someone who did.  Like it or not, such moves produce a change of scenery that can declutter your habitual landscape and provide fertile ground for new and hopefully better habits.  Meanwhile, when confined to our current home environments, daily routines may be altered drastically.  Everything from hygiene to technology, and from home-school connections to organizing closets is changed.  As a result, the virus may be moving us toward new habits that no reforms could ever mandate.  

Unfortunately, there is ample data to suggest that old habits die hard.   When change is forced upon us, we may revert to thinking without thinking.  Feelings of vulnerability, depression, and poor assessments of risk begin to distort our perspective.

Habits can be curse or a benefit, but they are not a fixed destiny.  Simply put, they are embedded in a loop that begins with a cue and ends with a reward.  In between lie routines.  The best route is to examine the routine, develop a plan to shake it up with a new goal in mind, and you will start to like your life a lot better. Soon you won’t even have to think about it.   

 

 

The Universe in a Spider’s Web

By Jeffrey Bowen

 

Yesterday I discovered the universe

In a spider’s web,

Perfectly constructed to give but hold.

With constellations in the center,

Every strand holds a drop of dew,

Lighting the route to imagination,

A black hole in my back yard

From which nothing will escape,

And time can disappear.

 

JMB

915/2020

The Power of Nonverbal Communication

 

The Power of Nonverbal Communication

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 

 Recently I was chatting with a young Vietnamese woman whose English-speaking ability was limited.  A face mask muffled her voice.  As she struggled with words, I concentrated on what she was trying to say.  Suddenly I realized I was reacting as much to her eyes as to her words, while watching her posture and gestures for clues.

 

I noticed her eyebrows furrowed when she was puzzled, and the corners of her eyes crinkled and narrowed when was smiling.  Surprise widened her eyes at certain points.  Her thumbs turned up with approval when she liked my praise.  She looked up and to the side when confounded by an unfamiliar word.  Her whole package of nonverbal expression helped me react despite never seeing her lips or hearing clearly what she actually said.    

 

In fact, research suggests that we judge people almost instantly by their whole visual package.   Upwards of 93 percent of all interpersonal communication is said to be nonverbal.  Much of it depends on the face, which is key to our grasping impressions that may last only a blink.  

 

Our ability to discern facial emotions quickly is amazing.  Thought to be innate, and proven to be culturally universal, the emotion of happiness is the easiest to spot, followed with increasing difficulty by sadness, anger, disgust, and fear.  It is easy to believe that eyes are windows to the soul because they have great capacity to give as well as receive emotions.

 

The corona pandemic challenges us to communicate with body language.  Social isolation has rapidly improved video technology.  Zoom meetings or the equivalent on the internet set the stage for awesome networking.  But certain nonverbal concerns may be missed during a meeting.  Posture, hand gestures, facial expressions, and definitely direct eye contact may complement or interfere with your Zoom partner’s heard message.  

Many years of trial and error in social relationships have enabled me to develop a stock of reliable nonverbal practices.  Most are aimed at encouraging and sympathizing with individuals instead of rejecting or criticizing what they have to say.  Teachers and parents should try these out in either live or video situations:  (1)  don’t blink too much and maintain consistent, but not overtly constant, eye contact with your subject; (2) stand up straight, face your subject directly, and lean slightly forward when engaging; (3) nod a lot because it shows you are attentive and listening; (4) smile plenty but remember there are 17 different kinds of smiles, and only six communicate happiness (you should rehearse which ones); (5) appear thoughtful by holding your chin and tilting your head; (6) keep your arms open because this welcomes ideas and indicates acceptance; (7) use a variety of attention-getting gestures.

 On the other hand, I avoid folding my arms, shrugging, and shaking my head.  There are dozens of vocal techniques to keep your subject’s attention.  One of the best is to expressively vary your voice.  Remember, monotones and monotony go together.  

At the beginning I mentioned face masks.  These need not hinder communication.  Their main purpose is protection from disease.  However, masks also have a varied and colorful history, one well worth investigating. It is reassuring that up to 80 percent of us can detect emotions like happy, sad, or angry even when someone is wearing a mask. All by itself a mask sends a telling nonverbal message.  In the throes of a worldwide pandemic, a protective mask demonstrates our mutual commitment.  Think of it as a personal billboard saying we stick together and care about each other.