Rachet effect of comfort. Eddie the scholar

20221130

Doing without on account of power outages and the war has made me reflect on the ratchet effect of comfort. We get so accustomed to our conveniences that it is hard to live without them. Conveniences the twentieth century brought to American life include the automobile, air-conditioning, washing machines, dishwashers, and the like.

The last couple of months we are living with intermittent electricity. It's out perhaps eight hours a day. A week ago it was worse – it was only on four or five hours a day. So we are ratcheting backwards. Let me count the ways.

We do not have the computer or the Internet all the time. Actually, we have batteries on our laptops which last a few hours, enough to get through most of the blackouts. We have an uninterrupted power supply, which keeps the Internet on through most of the them. It is amazing how dependent we have become on that. We survived just fine until we bought the UPS, but now that we have it, it has become indispensable. I could say the same for the gas stove. I bought it just in case before the Russians attacked our infrastructure, and I'm very glad that I did. When the pressure reducer broke and we were without it for two days it was a great hardship. If we hadn't had it in the first place, we wouldn't have noticed.

Everybody likes a hot shower. These days after my workout I splash myself with cold water and dry off. I’m sure it does not sound very appealing, but it works.  One thing for sure – I’m not too sweaty getting back into my clothes.

The books I read on health and sleep would suggest to me that we are perhaps doing ourselves no favors becoming so dependent on automobile transportation and electricity. Since we have the ability to stay up all night, we do, to the detriment of our health. Since we have the alternative of driving everywhere, we do. I can anecdotally compare the health of my three young children who walk and bicycle because they have no choice, with that of my three grown children who grew up strapped in car seats being ferried everywhere. The advantages of modern life I believe were disadvantages in their case.

On a sweeping, global scale, the warm period of the Roman Empire was a time when people became rather dissolute. It was followed by the by the Late Antiquity Little Ice Age. Human populations shrank and people became tougher. Natural selection worked harder to shape our species.

It was followed by the medieval warm period. Which was then followed by another cold spell, the Little Ice Age, which again exerted evolutionary pressure on us. Between climate and our inventiveness, since the Industrial Revolution we have been experiencing the easiest period in human history.

My sense is that many of the benefits that characterized the Industrial Revolution are winding down and we will have another difficult period. It may be that my children will benefit by having lived through a bit of hardship early in their lives.  They will be toughened and able to survive whatever comes their way.

For what it’s worth, we have had snow on the ground and sub-freezing nights for the last two weeks. It is the first time I recall having more than a dusting of snow in November.  There may be some substance to that hypothesis about the volcano in Tonga. Historians report that the cold period following the fall of Rome coincided with major volcanic activity.

About a month ago I wrote that Eddie was in the habit of asking me every day for his next assignment. I told him there is always a next assignment – the next chapter in the book.

He took me seriously. He has zipped ahead 10 chapters in the biology book, now having finished two thirds of the material that the school would take until June to complete. More than that, he is interested in it. He reads all the sections entitled "for the curious." He chides me for not having kept up with him so he can talk about it. When I do sort of catch up, I find that he has absorbed the material at least as well as I have.

I mentioned that he got a book on bees, which he read cover to cover in two days. He brings up what he learned there every now and again. I am delighted. At the age of 11 he is doing what scholars do. Find an interesting topic, pursue it until his curiosity is sated, and then go to another.

I am confident that we will be able to go through the math and geography books the same way, pushing our way through, covering an entire year's work in a couple or three months with better retention than if it had been chopped up into hour-long segments in the school day.

Eddie's one regret is that he doesn't have school friends to socialize with. Best buddy Artem moved back to his city apartment.  Long-time best friend Yarema, who now lives in Uzhgorod, close to the Slovakian border, invited him to spend a week in January. I told him, by all means! Bring some books to read on the train, but otherwise just enjoy yourself.

My bet is that he is getting for more out of school this year than kids in other schools whose learning is interrupted by electrical outages and so on. Last year he was not affected by Covid. If he were achieving no better than the average learning pace of the average school over the past decade, he would be miles ahead this year and last. But as I note above, the real gain has been that he is taking charge of his life and he takes an interest in what he is studying. That is something that few schools achieve.

That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the good-looking woman has taken both Eddie and Zoriana swimming. I am home alone with Marianna and grandma, who has made a traditional Ukrainian cabbage dish for dinner. Just what I need on a cold night.

Graham