Supreme status

In ancient, classical Hebrew there is an expression that indicates something has the highest value.  That expression was used in naming a book of poetry found in the Jewish collection of sacred writings.  The book contains the story of two young people who fall deeply in love and live to show this love in a number of different ways.  All kinds of metaphors are sprinkled in the lines of this beautiful love poem.  Thus, it is called the song (because it was at one time thought to have been sung to music) above all other love songs...  The expression is: Song of songs.

In Koine Greek, an  expression exists that shows the supreme place something has in one's view of status for things in life.  That expression was used in a very simple, but beautifully symbolic, book of a deity who came to live among a people before rising to his position of importance in presiding over them.  The Roman rulers of the time used the title translated lord.  The Greek rulers from times past used the title translated king.  So, when this new group of people wanted to say that their deity presided over them in a way superior to the current Roman rulers or superior to the glorious rulers of their native past, they called him confidently: Lord of lords, their king of kings.

 In modern English, someone can use a particular expression to signal that a thought is so meaningful, so special and superior that other thoughts pale by comparison.  That expression is said to originate in the heart.  So, to let another person know of the special importance (s)he holds in someone's heart, one uses the expression: heart of hearts.

If I choose to express myself to the one in my life of highest value, of supreme importance, of greatest meaning, I use this ancient but very modern expression...  that my affections come from the depths of my being... with all my heart... from my heart of hearts!

Pondering

Interpreting what people say is a mechanism of the brain that automatically works in all human beings regardless of language.  People understand the nuances of others' words without any problem.  Especially during the socialization process, when children turn into teenagers and continue through adolescence, do people learn to "read" what people are saying with their words and their intentions.

Adolescents learn that words can take on all kinds of meanings.  So, they experiment with fad language with all kinds of words.  Cool is no longer about the weather, but is uttered when something beneficial happens or when something trendy surfaces.  Bad becomes the opposite in meaning, but good doesn't change at all.  Sarcasm is a staple of the teenager's language currency because it allows them to say what they mean and then change to the literal meaning from the opposite meaning if someone questions their intentions.  During socialization, people learn to be ambiguous so the use of the auxiliary verbs may and might, should and would increases.

One of the last things to be learned about nuances usually comes in the mid to late twenties.  People learn to respond to one part of a statement but not to another portion of the same statement.  Doing so makes the listeners think that the person is giving assent or acknowledgment to the rest of the statement because no comment was made about it.

However, a person has to be a really astute observer of language to know how to interpret what is not said.  Learning that aspect of language prepares one for the final step in learning nuances.  What do silences mean?  Like the rest of language, silence is heavily context-dependent for full meaning.  Some silences are  easy to interpret.  If someone doesn't want to do something, he will be silent, hoping you will move on to something else and not probe the silence.  Or, if someone doesn't want to be negative, "it is better to say nothing at all than to say something negative," a very common saying across the U.S.

Dislike and disagreement cover about 50% of the territory for silence, but that leaves a lot of uncovered ground for the other meanings for silence.  So, it's not exactly a necessary life skill to learn to interpret the range of meanings for silence, but excellent observers learn to make appropriate responses to silences and navigate more easily in human relationships.

Other reasons for silence are ineptness, indifference, highlighting a point of conversation, proving a point, inattention, uncertainty, formulating thought, comparison, groping for a frame of reference, disbelief, or deception.  Other reasons abound, so context becomes supremely important.

Many people don't probe the array of meanings for silence because they don't like silence for themselves.  They create distractions like having the radio or television constantly playing in the background to take their minds from observing the meanings of silence.  But, silence works for me.  I like it because it causes me to ponder situations.  One of the semantic domains of ponder is silence (or at the very least, focus and concentration).  Pondering is a revelatory experience for me.  During the process of pondering I review conversations for both what is not said about about something in general and in particular.

I'm not 100% in navigating smoothly from interpreting silences accurately, but I try hard to understand both what people don't say and why they are silent.  It helps.  And, I depend on forgiveness for those inept moments when I misinterpret silence.

Outstanding

It's been 10 years!  Happy Birthday to a young man who is a star in the making.  This young man has such tenacity and determination, he puts most adults to shame.  He is a sportsman royale who practices and plays with precision.  In other areas he is a standout too.  He is modest on top of all of his talent in both the sports and academic arenas.

He has worked extremely hard to get where he is, but I also know that he has the support and love of an amazing mom who has blazed the way before him, excelling in all she does.  What a great model to follow.

No, not biting

Sometimes I just can't believe my ears.  I guess people think they can get out of what they say as easy as changing clothes and then lying about what they had just worn.

I was being told about a woman who had gone into great detail about an incident that had occurred in her life 44 years ago.  She was in a setting where there were 3 other people in the conversation, all of them her immediate family.  Each one was relating a story about an event that was his or her greatest regret.  This was not a Truth or Dare game, it was not even an agreed upon activity.  It was just one person relating an incident, then the next person deciding to do the same, then the next, until all 4 had expressed some regret.

The kicker was that the woman was soon after alone with her sister, who was a participant in the conversation, and the two were rehashing parts of what had been said.  She told her sister that she was sorry for telling her story, that she had made peace with the whole incident, and that she had not intended to speak of the incident.

I had to forcibly keep my eyebrows from being raised when the person relating the story to me said this last part.  She had not INTENDED to speak of the incident? Who was the woman kidding?  She had spent a lengthy amount of time (for a casual conversation) giving details and commentary of the incident.  This was way beyond the Freudian slip.  Freud knew that people speak intentionally.  Later attempts to cover their tracks wouldn't erase the tracks.  The whole premise of communication is still that humans want to speak what is on their minds even in the post-Freud world.  People mean what they say.

Two of the three people listening to the woman tell her story actually could have averted the disaster that had happened to the woman all those years ago.  But, they hadn't and she had allowed the circumstance to emotionally scar her for the last 44 years.  It was her way of signaling to them that they had hurt her and no amount of  time or number of apologies would rectify what happened.  She was still harboring bitterness even if she tried afterward to say that she had made peace with herself.  She had spoken to punish the two who could have helped her, using the third as a witness.

She had not intended to bring up the incident?  HA.  Conversation operates according to certain principles.  She can backtrack and be polite about what was spoken.  She can gloss her words and paint a picture of having moved on to higher ground.  She can SAY anything she wants.  But, her original words were clearly spoken.  And words reflect thoughts as surely as mirrors reflect the images they are facing.

Subsequent words of explanation are also a reflection of thoughts.  Posturing to save face or create false impressions was the intention of this woman's later statements rather than proving how unaffected or unflappable she had been since the incident.  She can change clothes and lie about what she wore before the change, but her word choices tell a whole different story.

Enjoyment mainly

As cognitive science makes its strides as a discipline, researchers will come closer and closer to the workings of the mind.  One area of particular interest to me is the relationship between thinking and speaking.  A number of articles and several books have been dedicated to the topic.  The question started in the 1920s with Vygotsky asking "Do we think in words or in thoughts that become words?"  His conclusion was rather indefinite although he preferred the idea that thoughts become words.

Now the field is much more sophisticated because we know so much more about the workings of the brain itself and how, when, and where thought is transmitted.  Scans of the brain's waves and impulses have accelerated us far down the road to a more exact relationship between words and thoughts.  Now we can track a thought's representation via electronic impulse down a dendrite to a synapse, and if the impulse continues traveling, we can see it split down three or more dendrites to other and related synapses.  (Some have hypothesized that deceptive thoughts spring from certain areas of the brain, truthful thoughts from another.  That house of cards is feeble at best and will probably fall with the next experiment done in this area.)

The particular impulse that spawns words hasn't been tracked yet, so it is still an enigma as to whether the electronic impulse coming through the synapses forms the words we want to use for the thought or contains the words a speaker's language already uses for the thought.  What exactly causes a person to say, "Oui, si, yes, ya" or one of many sets of sounds for acknowledgment if a speaker wants to simply say yes?  How does a person receive the information that will use words in a particular grammatical order to carry the semantic meaning intended?  (When that information is forthcoming, then the deception deer will be an easy animal to kill.)  The researcher Pinker hypothesizes that the electronic impulse interacts with  chemicals that change information to words in a speaker's language.

In the meantime, speech will (enigmatically) continue to function according to its many splendored purposes... for encouragement, for inspiration, for command, for guidance, for sarcasm, for deception, for truth, for emphasis, for negative connotation, for nurture, and for signaling feelings.  But, I want to use my speech for expressing enjoyment mainly... for the impulses carrying the idea of a particular laugh, a distinctive touch, a specific scent, and a special, sacred scene to yield words of beauty, a smile, and the most pleasant of sentient thoughts.

Driving adjustments

The NFL channel runs a series called A Football Life.  An outstanding coach or player's career is highlighted showing some of the off-the-field parts of a the great one's life that were a driving force behind the great career.  Vince Lombardi was one of the first lives selected for the show.

Another of the episodes depicted Bill Bellicek, the New England Patriots coach, who is next to Lombardi in the amount of success he has had.  The episode was in two parts, so it was the lengthiest episode of the series.  But, out of the two hours presented, it came down to the last 5-minute segment.  The television camera was in the car with Bill as he drove in the pre-dawn hours to his office at Gillette Stadium.  He was commenting on the nature of the job.  He mentioned the satisfaction he derived from his satisfying career, but ended with musing, "You give up a lot of things to be coach - family, kids, missing ball games and part of their lives.  Life passes you by."

I have mixed feelings about that ending.  I am glad that Bill told the truth and that the program was true to Bill in not editing the comment out.  But, I am sad that Bill has gained the phenomenal success that every coach starts out to gain but doesn't, and finds that the pot at the end of the rainbow contains tarnished gold.

I want very much to achieve success, but I have not been willing to let life pass me by.  I have wanted to participate with my children and extended family in visiting places of interest, relaxation, and beauty.  I have wanted to find a person I could trust, respect, and enjoy.  I have wanted to travel in my job.  I have wanted to experience an exotic place or two.  I have wanted to rise as high as possible on the professional food chain without compromising any of the above. 

In the last 5-minute episode of my life, I don't want to say, "It's been a great ride, but the important things in life passed me by."  Nearly everything I have wished for has happened.  For the main desire of my life that has not materialized to this point, I have faith.  Life happens pretty fast, so it is easy to understand how a person can let life become a blur in the day-to-day routines.  But we all have rear view mirrors in order to make adjustments on the road for seeing when life is about to pass us.

Of course, some of life inevitably does and will pass me by.  Still, though, I have faith that the important part will not.

Paradise... nightly

In discourse analysis, focus is another word for topic.  The way a sentence is worded shows which part of the sentence is being emphasized for importance.  In English class one learns that the subject of a sentence is the topic of the sentence.  That is sometimes true for simple, declarative sentences. 

But thoughts are usually complex, not simple, and the subject is not always the emphasized idea.  Primary importance is given to what is emphasized first in a sentence.  In the case of complex sentences, the subordinate clause can come first.  What is first is the focus.  Interruptive relative clauses are primary in importance because they separate the main clause's subject from its verb.  And, contrary to what is taught in some English classes, compound sentences still have a primary idea rather than two equal ideas.  The topic of the first independent clause is primary because the two clauses would have been switched if the second clause's topic was more important. 

It sounds like common sense.  Except that the ideas lower in a paragraph or mentioned after several other thoughts in an utterance are usually ignored since they come closer to the end of one's thinking process for lengthy ideas.  But they, too have a focus which might or might not be the same as the focus in sentences or utterances closer to the top.

Topics in one's journey through the mind act in much the same way.  Intensity and significance replace primacy of order and emphasis.  A person thinks and mulls the important events in life.  The events that recur in the mind are selected for memory.  What is remembered often forms synapses with many ideas, and these many synapses continue to form with even more thoughts.  The more synapses a single thought combines with, the more significance it has.  The more intensity a thought has when formed, the the more synapses are formed as well, and thus, the more significance it has.  So, when remembering, what thought or picture comes up often?  What routes in the mind's thinking end up with the same idea, place, time, or visual?

For me, I end up every night thinking about the same time, place, and visual before drifting off.  It is my main focus in life.  Nearly every thought is routed to the synapses containing these particularly important times, places, and visuals, so I know they are the focus. And when I write or speak about this collection of memories, the focus surfaces every time first in importance.

I am fortunate.  I am in paradise every night.

Not many

I am... I said
To no one there.
And no one heard
At all
Not even the chair.

Some days are certainly like this.  Some periods of time are like this.  It haunts a person's mind when in this state because one has to ask, "Is this really true?"

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Did you ever hear
Of a frog who dreamed
Of being a king
And then became one.

Some days are like this... not many... but some.  The allusion in this verse is probably to the fairytale of the frog prince.  But it took a princess to kiss him for him to become the king.

There are days like this... not many... but some!

Appreciating the unusual

This morning I set out to change the battery in my Sebring since it was dead.  I found that out because I was needing to take the car to get it inspected yesterday.  I turned the key and heard not a sound.  So, I wanted to change the battery this morning and inspect the car. 

Three things, of course, took priority for the morning hours, so at 1:30 in the afternoon, I went to take the battery out and go to the parts store, exchange it, and buy a new one.  I happened to forget (because it has been two years since I last changed the battery) that the battery is not visible by raising the hood and looking into the engine.  It is somewhere hidden under the engine. 

So, I looked up on You Tube a video to show how to replace this particular battery.  It took 8 minutes to explain and show where the battery was and how to dismantle everything to get to the battery (take the front wheel off, remove the tire well cover, unscrew the tightening bar, etc. ad infinitum).  I could see that this was about a 3-day project for me because the car expert was going to take about an hour to do it.  At this point, I knew I would take it somewhere to have it changed and inspected. 

So, when I went to hook up jumper cables to the car I had parked next to the Sebring, I discovered that the battery on it was hidden beneath the engine as well.  So, I had to get my third car, pull it next to the Sebring and jump it off.  Finally, mission accomplished. 

The place I took the car to was efficient and within 30 minutes, they had the old battery out and the new one in.  Four hours had elapsed since I began the task of wanting to get my battery changed to get my car inspected. 

I asked if they were going to inspect it next.  "No," was the answer... of course... It seems that there is a new rule that if the computer running the systems of the car is disconnected before inspection, then a person has to drive roughly 80 miles for the computer to fully reset all the car's systems.  "See you Monday," the service manager waved. 

And that is how life goes usually.

I have come to appreciate the unusual days whenever they randomly happen.

Mellow moments

Outside, a true rain event is going on.  It rained off and on from about noon to six, but since then, it has rained softly for about 5 straight hours.  The clouds have decided to stay and according to radar and weather conditions, it should be raining softly for the next 8 hours.

Around noon tomorrow the skies should start to clear.  But I love to sit and listen to the tapping and thudding on the windows of the house.  I love to smell the fresh air blowing gently, hear the distant thunder echoing, and watch the lightning flash brilliantly.  The sound and flashing allows me to think, reflect, and consider in the mellow atmosphere.  I am so totally relaxed.

These are some of my favorite moments, so naturally, I can slip in and out of visions of my favorite moments in time with the idea that those moments will recur even if that happens in momentary, dreamlike, imaginative bubbles of thought.

I should be so fortunate as to be stuck in moments of contentment.

Beneath the complexity

Personality is a very hard entity to define or to recognize in its entirety.  As psychologists have studied it over the years (at least 150), they have tried to give its characteristics.  At first they explored it as a philosophy behind a person's actions. Then, some of them took the reductionist approach.  These psychologists classified major traits and saw that these traits formed basic groups.  A particular psychometric company even administered a test that allowed people to see their patterns of thinking and behavior based on 4 main traits that they seemed to act on.  Disastrous.  There really is no such thing as a Type A personality.

Some psychologists have decided to find patterns in what people are interested in.  These interests help define a person because they manifest themselves in jobs, hobbies, and philosophical persuasions.  Tests were developed to let people see how their interests could drive them in major areas of life.  People answer a series of questions that cater to the manifestations of their interests.  Again disastrous.  People's interests and values are derivatives of personality, but they don't tell what underlies them.  The real nemesis for this view is that people change, or at least become more experienced, and thus, interests can follow a different path than their philosophy at the time they took the test.  Does personality change?  Of course not.

Personality is a hard deer to hunt.  It is more than interest, behavior, talents, and aptitude.  It is also more than the sum of those.  It depends on interactions between people and events.  It is dependent in part on priorities assigned to various values delicately balanced between what is experienced and what is inherited.  A part of the formula has to include patterns that emerge and the search for what underlies those patterns.  But another part of the formula must include reasons for acting and finding what contributes to forming those reasons.

It's complicated.  But here's the final result.  People relate to each other because of personality.  Hatred and disdain are driving forces for personality.  So are attraction and admiration on the other end of the spectrum.  Personality alignment is the game people play when hiring, forming friendships, developing routines such as timeliness, turn-taking in conversation, showing interest, avoidance, and hundreds of automatic and deliberate actions and reactions.

But, even though personality is a complex issue to discuss, define, and classify, people find it beautiful when personalities harmonize.  It gives life  more quality.  When personalities don't match so well, quality is sacrificed.  And the decision to act on being with people of complementary personalities is also a function of personality because it governs priority assigned to values such as change, tradition, perception of (or by) others, approval of third parties.

I do know one thing is very true about personality.  When two personalities harmonize, enjoyment rises to its highest level making life worth living, and the absence of harmony makes life less navigable, certainly much less enjoyable. 

Twists and turns

The word wonder  has been in our language for a long time - in fact, since its inception.  The Angles and Saxons brought it with them when they settled England.  Every culture has to have a word for "surprise."  That's because life is rather uneven and ragged.  So people can predict all they want to, but life has a way of sending twists our way.

It's the twist that wreaks havoc on our psyches because we have expectations, some of which are based on how predictable we think people are or events are.  In the early days, the Vikings would raid the shores of the countries around them.  They would attack without warning, so wonder was used on such occasions.

Life weaves its sometimes beautiful, sometimes sordid events into our lives, and as we look back we can see that it has anomalies and events that don't seem attached to other events in our lives.  They're there nonetheless.  And it would be foolish to think that what is in store would be something to expect or predict based on what has happened.  But, I do often sit and wonder.  Some surprises are wonder-ful!

Considering the new shape

Tonight I consider the stretch of time in front of me known as the new year.  There are a number of things that I want to happen, some of them possible, some of them unlikely.  Nonetheless, I know that next year at this time, I will look backward for a moment to assess how the year went and how the new year must go, as I am doing tonight.

Each year has its own character, so I don't know at this point what shape the year will have.  I have an agenda for the year to help it keep on track, but the #1 item on the agenda is not a happening that I have control over.  I'm not sure I can even contribute to its happening or not happening, but maybe.  It's not an occurrence that is on the same plane as a professional athlete practicing hard and long and making some desire of his or hers happen from sheer will.

So, I will watch the year take shape - participating where I can, planning where it is prudent, enjoying moments where they present themselves - believing that something good, something more than I deserve, something with happiness, something that I don't control necessarily but that comes to me will fill the stretch of time in front of me called a year with raw, undiluted, unmistakable, soul-rattling contentment - believing that life will say, as Captain Picard said so often on Star Trek as he gave a command: Make it so.