At the core

Sometimes you have to wonder what keeps people going.  I have often wondered that of others who have undergone hardships in life.  The other day someone mentioned something to that effect and referred to recent events that had happened to me.  Although the question was not asked, I know what keeps me going.

I just close my eyes... thoughts flood my mind of the period of life when joy was as rampant as swiftly rushing water in a mountain river -

lots of laughter, lots of getting up in the morning to meet a joyful day, lots of glia overproduced in the brain as a result of happiness...  visuals appear of days when extraordianry events happened as exhilirating as soft snow in contrast to a blue or gray sky overhead -

 lots of soft strains of the voice you cherish most in all the world, lots of pleasant feelings, lots of anticipation of potential.

No question has to ever be asked for me to know what keeps me going or for me to want to keep those events ever fresh by simply closing my eyes.

Early week symmetry

My brother's wife's mother died over the weekend, so I flew to Dallas to the funeral.  On the way to the airport from my town, however, I drove by a place that represents what is sacred to me.  It's a little known place very near the airport, and passing by it always takes me to my mind's innermost sanctum because something beautiful and meaningful hallowed the ground there.

I think of this place, not just now and then, but often.  And, coming back into town from Dallas today I passed this place again. 

I closed my eyes... to see the happening and the three faces again and to honor such an affectionate, memorable event. 

I thought the symmetry was perfect.  To help honor the events happening with my brother and his wife, I needed to honor the beauty and truth of my own event both before traveling to Dallas and after.

I opened my eyes, looked in the direction where the sun sets, and said aloud, "I am eternally grateful!"

Words and their derivation

It's a proverb in our language that actions speak louder than words.  Maybe.  But, I know it to be true that actions can be or "say" one thing and words, coming from the treasure of the heart, can say something different.  That allows someone to do one thing, but think something totally different from the axiomatic loudness of the actions.

Masks can be put on either words or actions, I realize.  But, if one wants to judge between the two, (s)he should go with the words.  I do not find it more often true that  actions speak louder.  A person's heart shows up in words.

Actions matching words, now, are a different animal because they make a strong statement.  Absent that, however, I would want someone to know where my heart is.  They would find that in my words.

Strong mettle

The word mettle (as in "We'll see what kind of mettle he has now.") hasn't always been spelled that way.  In fact, in the 1500s and 1600s, it was just another way to spell metal.  That's a whole story of its own with applications.  But, tonight I want to say I have seen a great amount of metal or mettle.  With either spelling you get the fabric people are made of.  And I have seen very strong metal/mettle today.  I am proud to have seen it.  It's a beautiful sight, a brightly shining light, allowing others to walk a path when they can't see so well.

On fortune and trademarks

Tom Brady is a work of art to watch as he quarterbacks a team.  He is pure perfection.  I enjoy watching him for that reason.  I have been a Patriots fan for a number of years starting back when Tom was back-up to Drew Bledsoe. Boy did fortune strike.  Bledsoe went down with an injury and thus appeared the best quarterback the game has ever seen.  Last Sunday Brady showed once again why he is the elite quarterback of the league.  He passed for 516 yards.  Who does that?  Of course, it has been done.  Brady was the 11th quarterback to do that in NFL history.  But, put with other stats, he comes out better than others.

I think I like his story so much because it represents what I would like to have happen to me - fortune to strike and then perfection to be my trademark.  I like to think that I am good at what I do, but perfection it isn't.  And fortune (not money) has not struck yet.  I'm hoping that it will... and should it strike, I will have the beauty in life I need... then perfection will be my trademark.

When the slipper fits

My niece ate lunch with me today.  She has a true Cinderella story.  She was a single mother raising her child in a small east Texas town working herself to the bone and starving as is the case with so many single moms.  One day Prince Charming found her, slipped a sparkling heel on her foot, and it fit perfectly.  They were married soon after.  He was well off, so she never had to work another day in her life, and they have lived happily ever after (so far, because the events are recent).  Good for her.

The early part of my niece's story is not so pretty.  She lost a brother to suicide, married three times to people who were taken to prison for various reasons, and struggled to gain sole custody of her son since his dad was a molester type.  Then... she had the Cinderella story.  Really, good for her.

I guess the reason the Cinderella story has been around so long is that it has universal themes like being rewarded for overcoming hardship, finding your one true love, finding joy amidst adversity, and hanging on to hope when there seemed to be no reason for doing so.  Long live the story of the prince who found the maiden whose foot fit the glass slipper perfectly!

Delayed justice

It seems that evil is winning the day in the case of Hailey Dunn of Colorado City.  Since the disappearance of the teenager, things have really changed in the lives of the those in the town who were the main characters.  Hailey's mother has moved completely out of the county, to the Lake Travis area near Austin.   Her boyfriend is apparently still the boyfriend even though he is the only real suspect in the case.  Hailey's father who started out valiantly trying to canvas the towns in a 3 county area to find his daughter has grown bitter with the handling of the case and completely given up and lost hope.  The school counselor who tried so hard to organize the searches for Hailey week after week is not even listed as working at the school any more.  The police chief who started the investigation is no longer police chief.  The lawyer who represented Hailey's mother in the first arrest, had to bow out temporarily because he crossed the law himself and got into trouble. 

I have to believe that justice will be done.  It's just waiting in the wings at the moment.  All four quarters of this game have not been played.  I do believe that two people in Colorado City know what's going on.  I hope it is a matter of time before they will face the consequences of their actions.

This whole incident is a movie waiting for a script writer.

Contrived is not worth a flip

I follow an internet group called Critical Discourse Analysis.  They begin dialogs on various topics.  Sometimes I comment, but mainly I don't.  I just see what others have to say mainly.  One of the topics started the other day began on deception in general, which I did comment on, but then it turned to lying in political speeches.  Now that topic I have read literature about, but mainly I leave that to the experts who actually enjoy it.

One of the people in the group decided to comment on my comment.  But, it was really an answer that seemed intuitively right, but ended up being rather irrelevant.  It was about the use of irony in testimony.  The comment used contrived speech from a Shakespearean play to prove its point.  I shake my head when people used contrived speech as examples.  It's not the same.  Real speech can be captured in writing and analyzed, but to use contrived speech as an example of spontaneous, real speech is a fault that braggarts and novices make.


I read an article last week about experts who tried to use contrived, experimental data or contrived examples of speech to prove a point about lying on the stand in a courtroom.  The author ripped the people to shreds on a number of counts.  Rightly so.  The experts were proud of their new-found, theoretical, psychologically based knowledge and didn't have any experience in analyzing real speech.  They also used language indicators that only work in experiments using contrived data.  There is a saying these people should pay more attention to.  "Get real, people."

It's all in the dialect

I think some people forget that the word "fortuitous" has a semantic domain (implicit meaning) other than the meaning of something happening to one's advantage.  Nearly always the first meaning is that an event occurs randomly, by chance, or at the very least, not planned.  Nonetheless, some just use the word to mean that good things happen to them.

I would have to say the good things that have happened to me have been fortuitous.  Then again, I have heard people talk of the things that were planned for their lives as fortuitous incidents, which flies in the face of the two semantic domains of the word.  I think they meant fortunate, but when told that, they say they don't believe in fortune.  Things happen for a reason.

 Words truly are arbitrary in that speakers of a language have to agree on their meanings.  If there is disagreement, which happens more than traditional grammarians want to admit, then dialectal usage occurs.  Then there are two or more meanings in the dictionary for a word.

Trying to interpret the semantic domains for life is rather arbitrary as well.  Some people opt for one interpretation, others for a different interpretation.  So there pops up interpretations on what's best to do in life based on how people interpret events.  Take these two sayings, "Carpe diem," and "Good things come to those who wait."  Or these two, "The early bird catches the worm," and "Stop and smell the roses."  That leads to a dialectal difference in semantic domains in life interpretations.  That makes it as hard to understand someone else as trying to use the same semantic domain for the word fortuitous.

It's always interesting to see how people connect dots or interpret dialectal differences.

Unexpected excitement

It's always exciting when a golden business opportunity happens that you didn't know about but that included you.  And then, after discussing it, it promises to be a springboard into new horizons and much benefit.  So exciting.  It's just that... I'm not whole.  But for the half of me that goes on down the road singing, I'm very excited.

Wash and wear cycles

We can see life through any lens we want to. That's why we have words like optimism and pessimism, cynicism and reality, ecstasy and agony, and denial and defiance.

Life puts us through washer cycles at time - soap, rinse, spin, drain - to get us ready for the dryer where we come out ready for wear.

The lens we see life through we can control. The cycles we get put through we cannot control. It's a nice blend. Striving for upbeat consistency throughout the cycles is not the only way to make us ready to wear, but it is the one that allows people to live longer and be happier than those who choose otherwise.