One of the great reasons that earthquakes occur is that the Earth has faults in it. When the stress becomes too great at the fault zone, quakes happen. Some are minor quakes, but larger ones occur on a regular basis. It's just a fact. Where there are faults, stress causes quakes.
One of the great reasons in life that people radically change is that people are made with faults. When the stress becomes great in the places where people's faults lie, change happens. Sometimes, the changes are minor, but radical changes happen too. It's just a fact. Where there are faults, stress changes people.
Rather recently, I learned from my mother that she had one regret in life. She had asked my dad to quit doing the job he most loved to do. He was never the same after that. As I pieced together the events that took my dad's life, I was able to see what had happened more easily after hearing my mother's news. He had returned to college to get further training so that he could change careers. Then he changed, but he worked part time at the job he loved. Eventually, he had a heart attack. Although he recovered, he changed some in his personality and in his stamina. He had a series of TIAs over the next 15 years that caused mild cognitive dementia to set in. It cost him probably 10 years of his life and certainly limited his quality of life in his last 3 years.
It's not only in health that people change, though. It's in values and beliefs too. I have learned I need to take notice of the fault zones I have. If I'm not careful, they'll show stress lines. I really don't need an earthquake to occur.
The lost island of Hybrasil is a modern enigma. It was a circular island off the coast of Ireland that appeared on maps as far back as 1325. Today it doesn't exist as an island although shallow waters exist in the ocean where its location is supposed to have been.
It was reported to have been a beautiful island, one that contained magical inhabitants and a lot of gold. One explorer who visited said that he received gold from the inhabitants to take home with him. It's a myth today since no one has been able to find the island, but it presents the idea of trusting people who have been to a place moderns only hear about.
Experience is much like Hybrasil. We go through things often creating memories of them, but when we move on with life, the memories get discarded or fade. That's a science all its own, and loss of memory of experiences is quite common. But, it's those memories like Hybrasil that create the interest in our lives. We have pictures of them, we remember the facts about them, but they have ceased to exist in our present lives.
We still have the maps drawn by the people who visited Hybrasil. We still have their writings and stories. But we have no islands today. I like this myth because I like good mysteries of the past. But, I also know that I share this experience. My most magical memories of particular places with a particular face are mapped into my mind's wiring for recall whenever I wish. But, in my current world, I can't see or touch what then existed.
I believe in the majestic tales of this enchanted, once beautiful island because I believe in my own enchanted, once beautiful time and place. The island was reportedly the center of an advanced civilization that made life around it so wonderful. And that is my true story as well of an advanced time in my life that touched me wonderfully. Long live enchanted isles.
It's really amazing the lengths that people go to in order to make themselves feel better. I heard some remarks made yesterday in a family setting that showed a high degree of haughtiness. A sister and her husband were staying a couple of nights with another sister and her husband. The husband of the sister who was a guest at her sister's house wanted to say something complimentary to his brother-in-law and sister-in-law who were hosting him.
"You have a nice, little house here. It's got 4 bedrooms and a nice living area. You don't have any formal rooms. I like it; it's comfortable."
On the surface that sounds like a compliment. Except that the brother-in-law is a man of means and the host brother-in-law is not. "A nice, little house" emphasizes the word little and the word nice is used before it to mask or distract from true intent. The words "not formal, and comfortable" were to signify that his house was better than a mere informal place to live. The brother-in-law of means condescended to his host sister-in-law and brother-in-law merely to bolster his ego and to establish power in case he needed to rely on it. It also was to have it out on the table in case there was a reverse area of inequality in status. He wanted to warn the other couple not to go there since he had an area of inequality leveraged against them. Not that the topic would arise - he just wanted to have said something in advance that indicated he could play that card.
It's really amazing the lengths people go to in order to make themselves feel better.
Competence takes a long time to develop. It usually is crafted after many times of developing this part or that. It is born of fire. It becomes talent when the level of competence is wholly manipulated.
I find that many people opt out to early when trying to develop their crafts. They plateau at a lower level because of trade-offs they make in life. Some people try very hard to work only 6-8 hours a day, not longer. Some people decide not to continue their training or their education. They are satisfied with a particular level and call it done. And still others follow their mini-ambitions. They follow a path of desire, but bail out when things turn bad for them.
Competence at its highest level is a thing of splendor to see whether it is financial, knowledge, service, or art. I made some trade-offs in life in order to reach a level a little higher than what I had originally considered coming out of high school. I wanted people to see my craft and see how a thing can be manipulated easily. I wanted them to see me and have total trust in what I had to offer.
I don't think I have achieved that level from my enemies. But, some people trust my work. Others respect it. I do wish my enemies would have the same level of trust and respect, but that is something that I have left to accomplish. If I die today, I am satisfied. If I die tomorrow, I have something yet to achieve. I like it like that. It keeps me honest and on my toes. It keeps me in good company and keeps me living in the current world. It mainly lets me die peacefully when that time unexpectedly occurs.
I saw something tonight that takes the word beautiful to a whole different level. At halftime of the Green Bay/Chicago football game, the home team Packers were retiring Brett Favre's number 4. The stadium was full. As Brett was introduced the whole stadium erupted into applause that lasted for longer than a full minute. Brett spoke a few words, his jersey was retired, and I was expecting nothing else.
The weather was cold. A TV viewer could see the people's breath hanging in the air. All were bundled in coats. Rain was falling; umbrellas were out; people's faces were glistening from wet drops that had reached their cheeks. It was a nice, short, but meaningful ceremony.
Then the camera panned around the center of the stadium where all of the names and numbers were of other people who had had their jerseys retired. The lens came to rest on the number 15, Bart Starr. Simultaneously, from the entry tunnel to the field rolled in a cart carrying two people. Bart Starr and his wife. He was not in the best of health, but he came rolling out to the roar of the crowd.
That was beautiful. Then the next level happened. Bart thought so much of Brett that the cart came to midfield where Brett was standing, and on this rainy, cold night in ill health, Bart got out of his cart into the rain to hug #4 to give him due tribute. The camera froze on the scene as did everyone else's eyes. Two of the greatest quarterbacks in the NFL's storied history, from different eras embracing on the field in the midst of rain and blowing cold air. It struck me that Brett should be honoring the great Bart Starr, but here was a legend in bad health and in bad weather showing honor to the youngster.
Touching. Honor to whom honor is due. I want to be so gracious. Bart Starr was an unexpected model of the spirit of Thanksgiving. I thank him for that.
This song is beautiful in its construction. The beginning verse starts with love hurting us. Who hasn't been there?! And verse two changes the image to love healing us. Hopefully, everyone has experienced that too. The contrasts show the two sides of love well enough, but the balance is not even. The memories were made by two people and the photograph shows the two people never closing their eyes, never breaking the other's heart, and staying in love forever. Beautiful.
The rhythm is very steady. The drumbeat is a continuous beating of the toms, so by the time the main line comes, everyone is expecting it - Wait for me to come home. That's a contrast in itself - continuous beating, then the word "Wait." And without a doubt the drum beat represents the heart beat. Explicitly the song states that the photograph should be kept next to the heartbeat where it (the beat of hearts and the emotional connection of one heart to another) resonates deep within the soul of the person.
And then there's the icing on the cake. There is the promise never to let go accompanied by a remembered kiss, a whisper through the phone, and the words, "Wait for me to come home" accentuated by the silence that follows. The silence is for effect. It symbolizes that there is an eternity afterwards. But, it is an eternity where love is, where the heartbeat is, where the soul is. The eternity is with the person whose voice was on the phone.
I have this photograph. On this Thanksgiving, I am grateful... into eternity.
This morning my granddaughter was insistent on taking a walk in the neighborhood. She's three, so she doesn't really have timetables in her mind nor the exact plan on what she wants to do when she takes walks. Many times she likes to go to the creek that runs through the neighborhood in the natural area about 50 yards from our house. But, not today.
Today, she wanted to walk on the streets and sidewalks. It's a quiet neighborhood on a cul-de-sac street, so passing cars are not a problem. She had a small plastic bucket with her. She collects rocks and acorns usually, but not today. At first, she wasn't collecting anything, so I suggested she collect the different colored leaves lying on the ground. She started collecting all sorts of colored leaves, all sizes and shapes of leaves too. She would fill her bucket, then dump out the leaves and collect more leaves. We probably went through 4 buckets full of leaves.
Finally, we came inside to get out of the cold. She had to show her mother and grandmother her leaf collection. Her grandmother made a little, temporary Thanksgiving scene on the kitchen table so that my granddaughter could be proud of what she did on her morning walk.
I contemplated our actions of the morning. She didn't set out to collect leaves when we left the house. She had no plan. But, she took my suggestion and had a lot of fun doing something a little different from the norm. Someone else took what she collected and made a really nice seasonal design for all of us to enjoy over the next several days.
And that meditation this morning was a comforting and warm thought this cold day. There are periods in the season of our lives in which there is no plan. We're comfortable where we are and don't want to necessarily do anything different. Either circumstances or a person suggest(s) that we do something a little different with our days. When we try that, it turns out that someone else can take what we have done and make something really enjoyable and nice from it. These are good moments in life. And we enjoying seeing smiles all around in our world.
I asked 8 people to make a list of the three individuals that inspired them and rank the list in order of importance. For the first of three follow-up activities, the same people were asked to explain why the person ranked number one was in that ranking. The results were interesting.
The group consisted of 3 women and 5 men. The three women responded with remarks showing that they had to overcome hardships stacked against them. The men responded with answers about succeeding in the world. These were the general themes, but their stories were different.
Woman 1 admired the life of a woman who taught her to be strong against the turbulent circumstances of life. The woman had many problems with her husband and supervisors at work. Both groups demanded more from her than she was able/willing to give. So, she taught woman 1 how to survive the storms that come against a person. Woman 2 admired a doctor she bonded with who taught her to always be prepared. Preparing herself in this case meant education and training, even abroad. Woman 3 was inspired by a woman who taught her to recognize her abilities so that she could use those to leverage her ambitions into a successful life.
The men fell into two groups. The 3 men of Group 1 pointed to a mentor in their lives who showed them how to develop a craft or what to expect from life given certain behaviors. They all admired the advice they received from these male mentors. The 2 men of Group 2 followed the philosophy of marching to the beat of one's own drummer. However, both of them mentioned that they had had someone, briefly in both cases, who believed in them. This was the catalyst they had needed to believe in themselves.
All the individuals were adults ranging in age from 20 to 42. The mean was 27. The participants were explicitly prohibited from using parents in an attempt to eliminate sentimentalism that could have clouded the picture. Parents are influential without a doubt, but children feel obligated to mention parents many times in place of influential others that had actually set the participant on their paths through adulthood. Psychologically, people choose someone to listen to or be inspired by due to a need in their lives. I have known, but ever so much more now, that youth need a voice in their heads as a source for their actions. People, of course, move beyond the voices of mentors as they grow older and flourish in their fields of interest. But, the seed for what young people end up flourishing in is a voice instilled in youth.
There is a great lesson here for parents. Children no doubt hear parents' voices. But, societies exist because individuals don't have enough impact within their own power. There is strength in numbers. Personalities between parents and children are many times too different to allow for influence, only support. So, the best support a parent can give to their children is to expose their children to voices that serve as mentors or catalysts. An adult working contentedly, competently in the field of her or his choice is a beautiful thing to see and be around.
Many of the sayings in American society center around hard work, such as "Hard work pays dividends." While that is true to a great extent and is a safeguard against laziness, "Allow children to hear voices," is a much better saying and subsumes the idea of hard work. I watch my daughter and granddaughter closely so that I can put them in places to hear the voices, specifically tailored to their needs and personalities, that will set them on a path to flourish the further down the adult path they travel.
Myopia is a mental condition. A synonym for the term is short-sightedness. It is the condition of not being able to see ramifications resulting from one's actions. I'm certainly guilty of having myopia. I have looked at many a situation when all I could see was a close-up of the circumstance. My actions showed that I really only had the next step in mind, not the end game.
If only I had had the sense to step back, I could have seen that the rock I was looking at was not the only rock on the ground, that that rock was among others even if it was the biggest rock around. I could have seen that the rock had a use by using it as a stepping stone to another rock. If I moved this one rock, I wouldn't have solved the problem since all of the rocks together had a purpose. Sometimes, I actually do see a pattern in my actions and reactions to events that are related in some manner to other actions around me. But, even then, I feel paralyzed and I feel compelled to retain focus on my own very large problem. I'm still too close to the situation.
If I had been able to look up a little more, I could have seen that there was a whole trail of rocks leading down to a creek. Trees and other rocks were strategically and beautifully placed. The rocks were there to disperse the water so it wouldn't flood into one spot on the creek or gather too much strength as it flowed in as a tributary. I might have seen that there was at least one other rock bigger than the one I had been concentrating on. I could have seen the purpose of the rocks as a natural enhancement to the scene, a part of a bigger picture. Surely the creek would have taken center stage if only I had looked.
And, if I had looked down the trail of rocks to see a creek, I probably would have seen that the creek was bigger than a small ribbon of water running beside a tree. There was a pool of water that the creek was feeding as it ran through a grove of trees in a linear park. The rocks would have merely been one small part of a scene that also included water, trees, sloping hill, island, and a far bank sloping upward again. Wow, who would have thought that the situation I was so focused on in the first place could have been seen from a different angle, and actually been trivialized because of the beauty of the rest of the objects in the scene. Yep, it was myopia that kept me from having true focus.
And if I ever forget what the true picture is all about, then someone should take a brick to my head to wake me from a great fog. The most important thing about the picture is that the reason for any situation is not about the things in the picture but about the people who are enjoying the scene or who will be affected by my narrow view.
Oh yeah, the people who are the most important people to you on the face of the Earth. How could any situation be so important that it can't be linked to something bigger and ultimately impact the lives around you? The next time I think that I face a situation requiring my full attention, it won't get my entire focus. The people around me will remain the significant feature of the situation rather than the tiny spot that ignores the bigger picture. Myopia is a condition of foolishness. It kills good judgment.
I read an online discussion not long ago in which linguists from non-English speaking countries were trying to verify information about their teaching of English modal auxiliary verbs. A number of English speaking linguists responded to help with both methods and discussion of some details. Several respondents thought they needed to discuss at length modal auxiliary use in English. As you can imagine, it was a tedious and laborious exchange of writings.
This online discussion represented a lack of awareness of what was being asked. Some of the contributors merely wanted to show their prowess in using a field's jargon, presumably to show that they had mastered their subject. They didn't stop at the end of their answer to the question, but continued to pontificate as if people wanted to hear their wisdom in a plethora of examples as if fellow linguists might not understand their own jargon.
Linguists of all people should be aware of what a question entails. In fact, entailment is part of the linguistic jargon. The discussion very clearly showed the need for some people to feed their egos in some way by writing twice the amount of information it takes to answer the question asked. I can usually tell just by looking at the Q&A format when someone wants to talk. I see a short question (as opposed to a longer, more complex question) and a lengthy answer. I used to hear the saying, "He just likes to hear himself talk." It applies to writing as well.
As I reviewed the answers, these profs were so eager to show off their knowledge that they left out two of the most common uses. Six of the answers basically repeated the information being given, but no one touched on two common, though not frequent, uses of the modal auxiliaries. There were also no definitions of terms being used in order to be able to tell if the reason that the two common uses were not fitting the definition of "modal" in some way, or if there was merely an oversight on the part of these scholars.
The discussion lacked enrichment and organization. I hope it doesn't represent the caliber of scholars coming up who substituted haste in answering for competence in deliberation. I'm not sure ego problems can be fixed, but a healthy dose of competence in a situation usually smokes out the incompetence. I'm sure that occasion will arise for those so eager to respond in this forum.
Some people confuse the idea of unorthodox with illegal or unethical. That's too bad. That group of people hear unorthodox and think of practices that would be taboo for them. They certainly miss out on many things that are good, innovative, futuristic, and otherwise right and true.
One of my favorite very early movies is The Music Man. A man who had no training as a music director comes to a town and innately knows how to help people pull together and make sweet music. Finally, the socialites of the town find out that he has no training and force him to leave town even though the music man had done more than any other director to help these people make good music together. In particular, what the socialites didn't like was the man's unorthodox way of directing everyone. He encouraged people to be better than they were and to be independent.
In sociological terms, you could say that people with influence didn't like individuals to rock their boats of established networks. And, that scared people in the established social circles because it made people unpredictable.
Jack Nicholson starred in a later film called Anger Management. He played the part of a psychologist who used the most unorthodox methods to help his clients deal with anger. The film depicts Nicholson's character as eccentric, so people tended not to take him seriously. But, his methods were based on true life experiences rather than talk therapy to edge clients away from the anger issues they were having. Regular people viewed the psychologist as crazy, but it turned out that his method worked really well.
The message of the film was pretty clear. What people do in a society of following the status quo is to label people different from them with some term to show the degree of difference they are from the norm. People in the established social networks call others a little crazy, crazy, insane, insanely crazy, or absolutely insane, sometimes off-the-chart insane when others stray from established norms.
The word orthodox itself cropped up in the Greek world during Greece's Golden Age, 5th century BCE. Athenians wanted everyone to have correct opinions or to have the proper things to make them prestigious in other people's eyes. So, they coined the word orthodox. Our society took in the word without making any changes to its meaning.
From what I have seen of society, the ones who make a difference in other people's lives are not the ones living by all of the norms established by socialites, politicians, and schools. People stand out due to their departure from the norms. It is those who innately know what is good, right, and true and develop methods to instill in others the same who are true to their personalities rather than true to straightjacketed norms others want them to perpetuate.
I give tribute to all the music men and looney psychologists who make a difference in their zany way to this very orthodox world. My hat is off to unorthodox people.
And kudos to Bill Murray, for sure, for portraying a long list of unorthodox characters starting with the movie Stripes and including his last two movies, St. Vincent and Rock the Kabash . I hope the world fills up with people who don't take beaten paths.
