Simple As: 0123456789 ...

The Fireplace Records, Chapter 25

Simple As: 0123456789...

In 2000, a young mother was teaching her 4 year old daughter every day about counting and numbers.  The little girl could count to 10 using number songs/ditties, and knew the correct order from memory.  She used numbered blocks and her fingers for counting and displaying quantities.  If asked by her mother to pick out seven cookies from a jar she could do so accurately; and, knew that no cookies in the jar had something to do with zero.  She could count backwards from 20, and upwards to over 100.  She could sort quantities with a high degree of accuracy.  She was learning to read and write numbers.  She was, obviously, a bright four year old, and liked matters orderly.   

In 2020, that same girl was studying mathematics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.  Her learning at the age of four is not forgotten, just buried deep in the Mind Matrix of brain-language-skills-habits.  She is now ready for "Mastery!" 

Step by step, little by little, one by one, day by day, year by year our bodies work and play with things, and our minds play with languages and concepts.  There is an order for learning, just like an order for numbers.  Skills and habits develop and improve with long orderly sequences of practice.

Some sequences and patterns in our lives are rigid, fixed, set, established, formally ordered, and, as it were, "set in stone."  Mathematics is like that.  Orderly!  Formal!  Done just one correct way!  Only one ordering: 0123456789 ...

Time is like mathematical order.  The Past before the Future; 6 before 9.  The Future after the Present; 6 after 0.  The Present between the Past and Future; -34 before 0 and 8 after 0.  April precedes May, and October follows September.  These Nature-socially established patterns and sequences never change.  We visually represent these ideas on a numbered clock or calendar.

We can interpret and organize our experiences via mathematics, one of the key foundations of modern science.  

A Student's Considerations:

Some aspects and patterns in life are formally ordered and fixed.  Learn them well to cope with your challenges in living with others.
Arithmetic is an essential skill in our lives in 2020.
Find the best "order" for your learning of some new skill or body of knowledge.
Reflect occasionally on your childhood experiences and upbringing.
Music, writing, and math all have components of fixed orders for optimal functioning; however, we can also be creative and think outside the box in most fields, but failures are more frequent when doing so.  Staying inside the box is safer for people and cats.
Choose yourself, on practical grounds, when not to change some established order or rule, sticking to the tried and true; and, when to abandon old fixed views.
Some aspects of our lives rarely change, they are ordered and fixed (e.g., the need for sleep each day).  Deal with the facts and move forward!
We don't need supernatural beings to bolster our insights as to the orders of our universe.  The devil is not in bed with numbers.
Try to keep things Simple!
You will benefit from keeping a very orderly lifestyle of your actions each day!
On Your Marks, Get Set, Go (Bang!)!!!  Simple as 1, 2, 3.  


"Lord I'm One, Lord I'm Two, Lord I'm Three, Lord I'm Four, Lord I'm Five Hundred Miles From my Home" - Peter, Paul and Mary 1966

Related Links, Resources, References

Koans: TFR 24

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Dialogues.

The Daodejing by Laozi  

Pulling Onions  Over 1,043 One-line Sayings by Mike Garofalo

Subject Index to 1,001 Zen Buddhist Koans

Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans

Taoism

Buddhism

Fireplaces, Stoves, Campfires, Kitchens, Pots, Firewood

Chinese Art

Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong

Meditation Methods

Zen Koan Books I Use

Koan Database Project

Brief Spiritual Lessons Database Project: Subject Indexes

Sparks: Brief Spiritual Lessons and Stories

Matches to Start a Kindling of Insight
May the Light from Your Inner Fireplace Help All Beings
Taoist, Chan Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, Philosophers
Catching Phrases, Inspiring Verses, Koans, Meditations
Indexing, Bibliography, Quotations, Notes, Resources
Research by Michael P. Garofalo

The Fireplace Records
By Michael P. Garofalo

Subject Index to 1,001 Zen Buddhist Koans

Home Again, Home Again

Wedding Anniversary

Karen and I are celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary this month.  We were married in 1967.  A good and productive friendship.  We raised two children.  We share positive feelings, loyalty, and love.  We support and help each other.  

Orchard Work:

We have been busy taking care of our south field orchard.  We pruned all the trees in the south orchard, sprayed the trees with oil, painted all the tree trunks white, fertilized all the trees, installed or repaired all the drip irrigation lines, and thoroughly watered all the trees.  We now have 65 trees in the south orchard on our property.  There are apple, apricot, cherry, fig, peach, persimmon, plum, and walnut trees in our south orchard.  We share fresh fruit with friends and co-workers in season; and we dry and can fruit.  In the north orchard on our our five acre parcel, there are apples, cherries, figs, grapes, lemons, oranges, pecans, persimmons, and plums. 

Like everyone in California, we are worried about the effects of the severe drought.  We have two wells on our property, each 125 feet deep.  In normal rainfall years our water table is at 50 feet.  One well feeds our home, and that well pump runs on 220 volts.  The second well is used for watering and for keeping two small ponds topped, and the second well pump runs off of solar panels.  


Current Reading: 

Botany for Gardeners  By Brian Capon.  Portland, Oregon, Timber Press, 1990.  Glossary, Bibliography, Index, 220 pages.  ISBN: 0881922587.  VSCL.  

Complexity: A Guided Tour. By Melanie Mitchell.  New York, Oxford University Press, 2009.  Index, bibliography, notes, 349 pages.  ISBN:  9780199798100.  VSCL.  

The Ethics of Creativity: Beauty, Morality, and Nature in a Processive Cosmos  By Brian G. Henning.  Pennsylvania, Pittsburg University Press, 2005.  Index, bibliography, notes, 250 pages.  ISBN: 0822942713.  VSCL. 


Calculator Fun:

I am learning to use my new Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus programmable calculator.  A good calculator is an indispensable instrument for anyone studying mathematics and science.  I used a Hewlett Packard programmable calculator when I was a library administrator for the County of Los Angeles. 

Lately, I have been studying statistics and botany. I have always enjoyed being a amateur naturalist and a science enthusiast. 

The calculator was a recent birthday present from Karen.  I turned 68 years of age this month.  


Blue Room Setup

I have been setting up one room in our home for more active usage.  It has been kind of a storage room the past year.  I moved in the rooms items and instruments needed for natural history studies and specimen storage.  I improved the lighting and put a table in the room.  I rearranged the book shelving in this room. 


My Personal Fitness and Exercise Program

Rodger Andresen and I have been training partners.  We lift weights 5 days each week.  He can pump some heavy iron.  Roger and Jennifer also attend my yoga classes in the evening.  Here is my weight training and exercise program for 2014.   


Fractal Art


Check out some of the free or shareware Fractal Art programs.  I like the Chaos Fractals program.