Wonder and savor

I'm always fascinated with what is in the Earth's past.  Not too far back (11,000 BCE) is an ice age.  Humanity's advancement has only come since the ice melted and the climate around the Earth warmed.  Humanity was around a long time before that, however.  One has to assume humans weren't idle. Then, there was the explosion of a volcano 75,000 years ago that created such a tremendous volume of ash that a cloud covered the Earth for 10 years.  The human race nearly went extinct.  Fortunately, 10,000 people survived.  Before the eruption, at least 9 different types of humans existed (like the characteristics today that Caucasion, Negroid, and Asian races have, but 9 of them).  All those differences would have been fun to see.  Then there was the fire that covered all of Siberia, the asteroid that annihilated every dinosaur, and the period in which the Atlantic Ocean didn't exist.  All of it so fascinating.

We all have events that change us, destroy us for a time, and restore us in a different form.  We don't look at all of the events happening to us as fascinating so much.  But, maybe we should.  Perhaps we should stand in wonder at what we have been through and savor each change, each destruction, each new form that emerges.  If we did, maybe life would seem more breathtaking.  Even at that, though, I still know which event represents the most scenic part of my life.  And, perhaps, there is something breathtaking up the way a bit that I don't know about yet.  If the past is a sign of the future, then I'm pretty sure there is.

The great enhancer

Where is the luster?  Some say you have to work at having luster.  It's the polish on silverware that requires elbow grease often for the silverware to shine.  Some say you have to find something like a diamond in its rough form and remove layers to get to the diamond and spend a lot of time cutting and polishing it.  Some you have to simply take a cloth and rub off the dust from something like ceramic.  Some say its like shoes that get scuffed and you have to polish over and over to restore the shine.

To me, luster is automatically apparent and attractive.  You might shine something from time to time to enhance its distinction, but luster is always apparent.  When an object has luster, everything else in the background is faded, blurred, or otherwise insignificant.  So, when luster is absent, you know instantly what's missing because it enhances everything else around it in the picture.

I've tried the elbow grease, cutting, and adding polish.  My, how I miss the luster in my life...

Preparation

I have a linguist friend who is on holiday in this country after spending two years in Nigeria.  I love it when he gets furloughs.  We always set aside time to talk about the cultural and language differences between the two countries.  I find his work fascinating.  He works with the Nigerian people in a translation school and has story after story of how these people learn language from him.

He hasn't always done this.  It's new for him.  He's been a linguist for a long time, but going to Nigeria was recent.  For about half of his life he worked either preaching or working in a warehouse.  Then, he got his formal training in languages and discourse analysis.  The second half of his life he taught at a university.  Finally, after many years and two halves of his life working jobs to prepare him, he is finally getting to a job that he has always wanted to do - field linguistics.

I admire him for doing this because I know that I couldn't.  But he has taught me a lesson or two about life.  Most of life is the warm-up for the main event.  And, when you get to the main event of your life, enjoy it second by second.  I know that's true.

Neil Diamond wrote a song a long time ago talking about the same thing.  I liked the song then, and I still enjoy hearing it.  It's about the main event.

Did you ever read of a frog
Who dreamed of being a king - 
And then became one.
Well, except for the names
and few other changes,
If you talk about me,
The story's the same one.
(I am I said)

And, how do I know it's true?  I went through the first half of my life working hard like everyone else.  Then, the second half, I got to do work that included what I had formally trained for.  Finally, I got to a place for a main event to happen.  It did.  Every second of it was a memory worth waiting for.

What about those outliers?

Scattergrams are useful for showing trends, progressions sometimes, norms sometimes, and continuous attempts at trying to replicate results.  If given a large sample, most points lie on the predictable course.  But, then there are those points that don't.  They lie far away from the trend or norm.  They can show a disruption of a pattern.  They're called outliers.

A person has a choice about outliers - discount them as just the exception to a much broader rule of behavior or find out what causes the point to be off the beaten path.  Sometimes, there are nice little surprises when one goes to the trouble to find the reason for the outlier's position off out of the norm.  They tell their own story.  And if lucky, one can see a separate pattern emerge from the outliers.

Our lives have a scattergram pattern to them.  Most events lie along a trend line as time passes.  That's because we mainly stay the same.  Our values don't change all that much.  Our location doesn't change all that much.  Our jobs, at least in type, don't change all that much.  But, now the outlying events off the trend line have interesting stories to tell as to why they are there.

One of my outliers is the blackest dot on the page because something unnatural happened - the death of a child.  Another of my outliers is the brightest, most colorful dot on the page because the loveliest of all things happened.  Both dots changed the direction of the trend line although they were opposite in nature.  I'm very glad my story didn't end after the blackest dot happened because the bright, colorful dot happened in time after the blackest dot.  But, if my story should end now, I am satisfied that I have seen the best life has to offer.

There may be more outliers on my chart, but I seriously doubt they could top either of the two events that have changed my life.  Only one event that I could think of would top the two that have happened.  It would be a progression changing outlier if it were to happen.  Perhaps...

Night dances

My daughter told me about a dream she had.  It was not one she liked, and it stuck in her mind for about a day.  After she told me what she dreamed, I understood why she dreamed it.  Our minds take our conscious thoughts from the day and randomizes them into possible scenarios no matter how crazy.  Her dream was one of the implausible scenarios that had come from jumbled plausible threads.

Dreams are like that.  They can go the other way too.  They can take thoughts of scenarios from real life that didn't work out so well, randomize them, and get them to work out in our dreams.  I'm sure we smile during such episodes.  Dreams can mix present and past, make up settings for real people or put unlikely people in real settings.  They can play out the possibilities for us, so that we don't have to be timid in real life because we have seen it eerily before in our dreams, which makes us stronger in the real world.

What does our will have to do with them?  Can we drive our dreams to certain outcomes?  Do they represent what we wish would happen, really?  Yes to all.  It's still our minds.  Alien thoughts don't come into play.  Real thoughts from real scenes play out according to the way we want them or allow them to be randomized.

I had this dream last night...  I felt a smile on my face this morning...  I'm hoping for a repeat tonight...  same time, same place...  what are the chances, right?

Equivalence shouldn't suffice

Language has a phenomenon that has a great parallel to life.  In language, when people hear words that they don't know or have heard very few times, they guess at the sounds of the words.  And, when people hear sounds that are not in their own tongue, they assign equivalent sounds.  It is almost hilarious to see the written differences (although there are legitimate phonetic processes at work) between ancient Hebrew and ancient Persian.  For example, King Ahasuerus is mentioned in the Old Testament as a king of Persia.  The Greek form of that word is Artaxerxes.  Persian for the word is Artakhshatra.  (Some scholars go with the word Xerxes to be the equivalent of Ahasuerus).

Another example from modern times, and using English, is the last name of a number of immigrants from Vietnam, Nguyen.  English doesn't ever begin a word with the combination ng.  It can end a word with that sound, but never start one even though the sound is the same combination of nasal and gutteral.  The Vietnamese don't have a problem with starting a word with that sound, and English could too, but its speakers have a tradition of not doing it.  Also, most varieties of English in the United States use a blend of i and u (like the pronunciation for yu) for the second sound of the Vietnamese name, the long vowel u.  The Vietnamese would pronounce the letter like Americans pronounce the sound oo.  So, the ng + u + y to an English speaker sounds just like some slightly distorted sound of w.  Thus, Ngyuen becomes Winn to the American ear.  That's as hilarious as the Persian to Greek and Hebrew example.

There are a huge number of examples of changed sounds when going between languages because language speakers resist learning a foreign way to say a word.  They merely select some close sounds in their native tongue and call it good.  That has a great parallel to life's events.  When we experience them, we compare them to what has happened to us before.  Or, we compare the event  to some model we have seen before.  That's dangerous.  We try to have equivalent experiences, then, instead of letting the authentic experience speak for itself.  I had a number of experiences in my 20s and 30s that I tried to fit into some teenage model of mine or that I tried to fit to some prior experience (mine or my friends' or family's).  That didn't get me very far in life.  I missed a lot of authentic experiences.

Not anymore.  It is the highest compliment to someone in Vietnam to take the time to learn to pronounce their names as they would.  And, it is the highest compliment to ourselves to take the time to follow an experience for all it is worth on its own merits.  It makes us more well-rounded people, better people.  Some experiences in life are comparable to other experiences.  But, when I start with an event that has no precedent, I no longer try to make it fit some category that I recognize.  I am certainly better for that.  I understand the human experience a whole lot better... and much more joyfully.

A splendid speck

There was something outstanding tonight about watching a speck pass in front of the sun.  The speck was Venus.  For 6 hours and  40 minutes Venus' speck of a shadow crossed the face of the sun where people in countries facing the sun would be able to watch.  It will be another 105 years before that happens again.  It is grand to be a part of a generation that gets to see the transit of Venus because not just everyone who has lived on Earth has gotten to see it.  Pictures of the transit were very clear.  I enjoyed it in pictures since I didn't buy any of the glare glasses to watch the sun directly.

Life's events intersect us sometimes full force like a meteorite hitting the Earth's surface.  But, sometimes they are distant enough for us to see the whole thing taking place, knowing full well that it is a once-in-a-lifetime intersection and that one can enjoy the whole spectacle from start to finish in a short span of time.  Viva la life's transits... enjoying the splendid events that are simply outstanding for the entire length of time they last!

The idea is to be without pain

Healed is an interesting word in that it has different meanings to different people.  Some people merely use it to mean what makes them feel better than they did before, as in going to a spa for "healing therapy."  Some people mean that sickness is cured, it goes away either by medical treatment or it merely goes away because of what the body normally does with its immune system.  Still others use the term for a supernatural miracle cure that earthly medicine couldn't handle.

I've had holes in my heart before.  Those have healed.  Some of the holes were created years ago.  Time has certainly overlaid them with events to eclipse the previous ones.  Some have been created by family because of the kind of treatment received from someone close that shouldn't be shooting arrows.  I have learned to get past those through lowering my expectations.  Some are created by a spouse.  Those disappear by redefining love, kindness, intimacy,  or whatever idea caused the hole in the heart, to a definition different from what I held first.  Two people rarely have the same definition or even agree on a common definition for emotional terms like the three above.  So, that's generally how I have experienced healing.

In the ancient Hebrew way of thinking, there was a season for every activity under heaven - a time to love and a time to hate, a time to make war and a time to enjoy peace... and a time to see  injury inflicted and a time to see healing occurring.  I love the latter and try to be part of that process.  I don't see the supernatural kind.  I am not a doctor of medicine to help the medical kind happen either.  But, as far as making a wound (usually emotional) get better or go away, I can help with that or at least express happiness to someone when I see it happen.

For the walking wounded...  I'm with you all the way, whether or not you deal with healing like I do or like someone else.  I am working on a couple of wounds right now myself.  I know how you feel.

I watch the sky

Sometimes I just want to sit outside, watch the sky, and imagine.   I play out different scenarios to their logical conclusions.  So, if something happens as I had imagined it, I can say, "It worked out just like I thought it would."  But, often, something happens differently from the way I had imagined it.  I usually don't comment on that.   I still think, though, that if it had worked out, then... and I have various paths to go down in my mind.

There are a number of recent developments that I have imagined.  They haven't all come to finality yet.  So, when they do, I will either be shaking my head, wishing for a different conclusion, or saying, "It worked out just like I thought I would."  If I could do anything to tip the scales in favor of the latter, I would sure do it.  However, I don't think I have much control over the outcomes this time.  Much of what happens is in the hands of someone else.

I have faith, however.  So, I am not practicing ahead of time moving my head from side to side.  I am watching the sky, imagining, reimagining, imaging, and reimaging, so that I can say, "It worked out..."

Tops determine margins

The Titanic accident is the perfect example of what happens when people navigate the waters they're in by sight only.  Yeah, they see the tops of icebergs all right.  But, they don't leave any margin for error for what is beneath the water.

So like the waters of life we navigate.  It's not that we don't know that more than half the iceberg is out of our view.  It's that we operate with no margin for error. 

My boat has been sunk before.  So, I know to leave that margin.  It still saddens my heart beyond belief when my boat sinks even though the margin was allowed.  But, speaking of belief - I have it.

Too many are content

The poetry of Stephan Crane is like an old, leather shoe to me.  His poems are form-fitted to my foot.  I have read, reread, memorized, used as illustration, and recited the short, pithy lines he created because they speak volumes.  I am an admirer of ideas succinctly stated.  Crane is the best.

From time to time, when I get frustrated, I call up a Crane poem.  It comforts me.  It lets me know that my frustration is not new, that the behavior I get frustrated about is the behavior that frustrated him and hundreds of thousands before him.  So, I pull out his poem from my collection or from my mind and recite.

A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
He, scowling through the thickets,
And dagger poised quivering,
Rushed upon the youth.
"Sir," said this latter,
"I am enchanted, believe me,
To die, thus,
In this medieval fashion,
According to the best legends;
Ah, what joy!"
Then took he the wound, smiling,
And died, content. 

On this weekend, through the week, and next weekend as well, institutions in grim forests cloaked in medieval garb, scowl with drawn daggers at youths who look at them, thank them for the legendary knowledge and skills they learned, shake a hand, and cry "What joy!" for the sheepskin that will wound them and kill them, its value drawn from the 19th and 20th centuries.  But they will die content.


Crane is right, at least for another decade.  I am fortunate to live in the days of another poet who speaks of everyday matters, Bruce Springsteen.  My hope is the same as his.  I may be deluded, though, because hope springs eternal...

Beauty... smiles

Not often, but certainly more than in the past, I get to soak in the beauty of surroundings that are either the result of nature's forming hand or of humanity's ostentatious craft.  Today was such a day.  I found myself staring at a 15-story, shaved, marble-like stone edifice with dark glass panes.  It was in the heart of the city and belonged to a sequestered, nestled boulevard 1 block long.  Manicured shrubs, grass, trees, and flowers surrounded the building.  It was complete with valet parking for the hotel of the same height and stone look on the other side of the boulevard from the place where I had business.  After finishing what I had come to do in the miniature sky-skyscraper, I meandered over to the Starbucks that adjoined the hotel to enjoy a drink and a morsel of food.

When I get to sit in grandiose places, my mind takes a journey to its own realms.  Today it was to some of the beautiful events that have happened to me and delightful words that people have said to me in years gone by.  It  seemed like just yesterday those events happened or words were spoken.  I finished my drink and food with my lips bowed in a smile.  I sighed thinking how different a road I travel now than the one that carried the events and words bringing the smile to my face.  At least, though, I have the beauty of delightful memories to bring to the beautiful places I get to sit in now.  At least that.

The picture comes clear

The scientific method makes so much sense.  You start with a question: What is the truth about... ? or What if... ?  Then, you try answers that both fit what you think is true or what could be a counter-argument with evidence.  Finally, you pick out the patterns that emerge and explain those patterns.  How beautiful.

But, it took a while to get to that point in civilization.  The first people had to make observations.  They tried explaining those observations but didn't have time to worry so much about the truth of them.  The next wave of humans decided to put the observations into myths to perpetuate them or implemented the observations into laws to abide by.  Inevitably, the farther away from the observation people grew, the more it gave room to question its truth or its old patterns for a current world with new observations.  So, new observations were made.  This went on for a long while.  Finally, people wanted to know what would be true over time, what would be constant and what would be variable.  They developed rules for following hypotheses and calculations to measure the patterns.  How brilliant.

Now we're trying to apply those rules and calculations to the exploration of space.  It might work.  It's likely that a new way of thinking about what is true will be discovered.  And, there will certainly be new questions to ask on the stem of "What if... ?" with a plethora of new answers and observations.

That is so much like our own lives.  When we were young, we made some pretty good observations and tried to live by them and perpetuate them.  Then we experienced that what we had come up with didn't apply across the board even if we wanted them to.  So we were able to ask "What if... ?" and find patterns that were constant and variable.  Then we saw ahead of us that the method might have to be applied in unknown territory because people are living longer than ever on average, new territory.  How contemplative.

Scientific reasoning brought civilization from darkness to light over time.  Our journeys from immaturity to maturity are much the same way.  We go through the beautiful stage, usually arrogantly.  Then, we face reality and get to the brilliant stage, confidently.  Eventually, we get to the contemplative stage, humbly.

It feels like 1816 around here

No one knew on New Year's Day in 1815 that the world was about to change.  The year started as it normally did any other year.  Winter ended, spring started, the world was spinning around as if nothing special was going to happen.  But, the Earth had an opinion about what should happen next.  Too bad the people of Indonesia didn't know that.  They went to bed on April 13th as if the world would continue as it had. But the next day, they heard the Earth's complaint very loudly.

Mount Tambora had a magma chamber beneath it that had been building a long time.  It began to smoke, voicing its complaint that the Earth had built up too much pressure through early warning signs.  The people then didn't know too much about volcanic activity, so they missed the sign.  12,000 people regretted that since they were the casualties of the first round of eruptions and tsunamis.  Mount Tambora exploded on April 14th, 1815, with such ferocity that agriculture around the Polynesian Islands came to a halt.  Plants were rained on with all kinds of lava, hot rocks from the air, pyroclastic flow, and soot. Another 60,000 couldn't find anything to eat and tasted their last meals about a week after the eruption.  Recorded history had never seen an eruption of this magnitude.

That was just the immediate effect on the Earth. The summer and the fall passed while people around Mount Tambora were struggling to get back on their feet. The rest of the world hadn't even heard of the eruption, but they were about to experience its effect.  The winter started, and as it deepened in the early months of 1816, it became really harsh.  Spring was supposed to come, but it was bypassed.  Temperatures were really cool.  Summer was next.  Well, normally it would have been next.  This is the year that was named The Year Without a Summer.  No summer... no crops... famine... cold temps in summer... People died worldwide because of the famine of 1816.  Plants struggled to live without too much light.  Clouds from the volcano were still in place in the atmosphere making photosynthesis difficult.  Volcanic Winter had occurred.

Eventually, the Earth warmed up and had seasons again.  But not in 1816, The Year Without a Summer, the year of Volcanic Winter.  The people of Earth had to endure the effects of Earth's fury whether or not they had heard on April 14, 1815, of the worst eruption in human experience since the Ice Age ended.  That makes me a bit wary as I go through life.  I don't always hear of the matters that affect me, some of them in the greatest way.

I haven't really heard anything lately that might affect me.  But, I see some ash in the sky and it's been a cool spring.  I'm thinking that...

(X)

A Tale of Two Cities portrays two characters opposite in nature and station of life but identical in purpose for living.  The protagonist of the novel is noble in his ambition but not admirable in character.  The other character (at times a true antagonist, but mostly a minor protagonist) ignoble in ambition (because he was born into status, so he really only has to maintain what he has) but admirable in character.  The story is written so that the two characters get a crossover effect in character development.  By the end of the story, a person cannot believe that, when Carton takes such great pains to get into prison and try to force Darnay to switch places with him, Darnay actually does switch.  What a scoundrel to let someone else take his place for execution.  There is nothing admirable about that - just selfishness.

A number of stories studied in literature have the dynamic of the crossover effect between two characters.  A character starts one way in a story, but through a series of circumstances beyond what the character can control, (s)he makes an about face from the way (s)he was originally portrayed.

Not everyone has the experience of the crossover effect in his/her life.  Most people operate under the belief that consistency is the best policy (and many times it is for image's sake).  But, I have found myself to have undergone the crossover in the matter of politics, religion, and philosophy of the heart.  I was with a high school friend not long ago, and in the three matters just mentioned we have changed places.  Another way to achieve crossover is to measure it against someone who has remained consistent over time.  I have a lifelong friend who fits this mold.  One of his admirable traits is that I can count on his steadiness of purpose, which we share.  But when I measure myself against him, I can see how much I have changed because we used to be much alike.

In stories, a person doesn't have to worry so much about whether the crossover is moral, costly, advantageous, or unnatural.  But in life, I have to evaluate all four of those.  I only live once, so the stakes are really high to cross over in the three matters of life mentioned.  Tonight, though, I can sleep well.  Sydney Carton and I have crossed over in much the same way.  And, if Carton and Darnay are but representations of the dual nature that lives inside each one of us, I hope people don't view me in disbelief, shaking their heads at my selfishness because I have let the Carton side of the dual nature switch with Darnay's side

It's all in the rub

I guess I am a counter-culturist at heart.  But, there have been others, and they have been very famous and influential: Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson (at the top of the list).  Every poet probably qualifies as a counter-culturist, particularly so, though, Gwendolyn Brooks, e.e. cummings, and Walt Whitman.  And there have been those standouts through time like Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Leonardo Di Vinci, Herodotus, ad infinitum.  So, I love it when the status quo gets challenged.

People get comfortable in their routines, which is why routines exist.  But, when routines that work for a few are made into routines that become law for everyone, I get disgusted because precious little is a one-size-fits-all shirt for all to wear. Certainly business in the world knows the beauty of custom design.  Something simple like a pen has so many variations that it is hard to describe their appearance anymore.  The clothing industry for sure knows not to make clothes look alike.  Ask someone about what (s)he likes in a car, and you would get many different answers.  The car industry knows that.

Then there are the social sciences.  They seem to be shielded from the reality of the colors that exist in life.  Psychologists, for the most part, have tried to reduce the study of personality to 4 or 5 traits and put those traits in a test for people to take and match to.  Educators want to reduce everything to a 4-core curriculum and create tests to compare everyone to.  Politicians want to reduce society to blocks of voters and make laws that benefit those blocks.  Athletes get reduced to skill sets and traded as a commodity to teams needing those skill sets.

So I applaud people like Freud and Piaget who refused to have their thinking reduced to match some known model.  I laud educators like Dewey, Montessori, and the founders of the University of Phoenix who know that education cannot be done in a cookie-cutter factory.  I support people like Noam Chomsky, Ted Kennedy, and Ron Paul who try to get people to see that routines need to shaken up once in a while so that progress doesn't pass us by.  And I love to follow teams whose owners know to stick with a player and not abandon him if he gets hurt or goes through a slump like Robert Kraft's Patriots, Nolan Ryan's Rangers, and Jerry Buss' Lakers.

In order to get a spark to start a fire, a person has to rub two sticks together or two flint rocks against each other.  Progress depends on the rub, not the straightjacket.

NO to control through language

Recently I was in a discussion group whose members were expert grammarians of the English language.  It was an international group, so several spoke varieties of English from a region other than North America.  The discussion was about someone's phrasing of ideas with expressions that many thought were either ungrammatical or non-standard.  There were several ideas expressed, some rather vehemently, that the person's phrasing needed "fixing."  So, I brought up the viewpoint that all kinds of dialects existed within a language and that some dialects achieve wider acceptance than others.

The idea of a "standard" English doesn't exist really.  There are some conventions for writing that people agree on for professional standing in the larger English speaking communities of the world, but in a context other than professional writing, people rely on their spoken dialect to think in and express themselves with.  Thus, their spoken dialect will surface in contexts other than the professional writing community, and should have equal footing in that context.  A couple of others in the group were of this persuasion too.

One would have thought that a bomb hit.  The notion that a "standard" English didn't exist certainly went against the grain of most of the contributors' training.  I only vaguely remember hearing in the class in which I learned about the variationist approach to categorizing English that it was a minority viewpoint.  But, with the venom that some of the group struck back for dismissing the idea that the conventions of written English should carry over into one's daily speech and be called a prestige dialect (many call it a power dialect), I quickly gathered how much of a minority the point of view really was.  And these were the experts talking.

I am so glad to have had the course in sociolinguistics which taught the viewpoint of prestige English.  It has helped me understand human thinking and communication so much better.  Life doesn't get communicated in "standard" terms except in a professional world.  Those who communicate otherwise have backgrounds in certain families, who have roots in certain regions, who have identities in certain countries, who all express themselves according to their marked phrasings.  One good example is that I would never say, "God gave me you."  It is ungrammatical to me.  But when the smash hit song came out using those exact words, who was I to say, "I can't believe people are listening to a song that uses an ungrammatical sentence in it."   Blake Shelton would just laugh all the way to the bank because a huge number of people didn't know or care about the song's grammatical properties.

So why is the notion of a "standard" English taught to every student in the schools across the world?  Why should all students learn the discipline's written form used by its professionals and be taught that they also should try to speak this written version of professional English?  It's not the truth about reality.  Learning the prestige dialect for financial gain might be taught in schools.  Even if students understand the correlation between hiring practices, amount of salary, and prestige dialect, it should still be left to them as to whether they want to learn such prestigious governance of a language (or power dialect).  If they would rather take their chances using their home-grown dialect in the oilfields or the coal mines or the lumberjack industries, that's their business.  Those industries have their own jargon anyway, very separate from the prestigious written dialect scribbled on a few papers in a course that would never apply to their way of making a living.

But, the world is full of people who want to control others through every means possible.  Language is just one more way to exercise that control.  Keeping people on a notch below them is a game people seem to want to play.  Don't play that game with me, though.  I will decide when I want to adopt the rules of the prestige dialect and when I want to express myself in the flavorful dialect of the region of the English speaking world I grew up in (a region, incidentally, that ends sentences in prepositions and uses "that" freely in substitution for "which")!  I reserve the right to communicate with the audience who I know about (or about whom I know, if that is my audience) in the language they will understand best.

And the person who understands God Gave Me You will understand it whether or not its prestigious form is God Gave You to Me...

Digging for grandeur

Atlantis is one of those mythical, bigger-than-life, legends perpetuated into eternity because the people there were so advanced for their time that when it disappeared, the world lapsed back into darkness.  Something like that happened when the Roman Empire disappeared and the "Dark Ages" followed.  But the Roman Empire, as large and influential as it was, was not the stupendous, advanced place that Atlantis was.  It had knowledge of the universe that the Romans never gained.  But, myths are made of such stuff.

Troy also was a legendary city that hosted the fight of the millennium for an entire decade, then was burned to make it disappear for all time.  That was the myth anyway.  But Heinrich Schliemann found the Troy written about by Homer, and myth turned to reality in a heartbeat.  All the fictional characters suddenly became real.  Myth was founded on truth and reality.

Archaeologists have been digging around for years for the lost city of Atlantis.  Plato is the ancient philosopher who has perpetuated the myth.  He wrote, as Homer did, about a city that had been lost to history but that lived through literature.  What if Atlantis could share the same luck as Troy and "get discovered?"  Enter Richard Freund of the University of Hartford.  One day while viewing satellite photos of the coast off of Spain in 2009, he found anomalies in shapes that reminded him of the description of Atlantis in Plato's writings.  Could it be?

Over the last three years, Freund and others whom he asked to join his team have uncovered a number of indications that Atlantis had really been discovered.  The last word is not in, but how exciting it will be to find the city of the legend and myth.  And who knows but that some of the world's secrets, known so early on, will be revealed.  Exciting, exciting!

Tapping our oft-buried attributes of grandeur is hard.  It takes work... and faith that those attributes will surface... and hope that those attributes will illuminate what is possible for us.

Passing the test

 Signs

And the sign said long-haired, freaky people need not apply,
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why,
He said, "You look like a fine, upstanding young man, I think you'll do."
So, I took off my hat.  "I said imagine that.  Huh, me working for you."

Chorus:
Signs, Signs, everywhere signs.
Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind.
Do this, don't do that. Can't you read the sign?

The sign said, "Anybody caught trespassing will be shot on sight."
So, I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, "Hey what gives you the right
to put up a fence to keep me out or to keep Mother Nature in.
If God was here, he'd tell it to your face, 'Man you're some kind of sinner.'"

Chorus

Now, hey you mister, can't you read? You've got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat.
You can't even watch, you can't even... You ain't supposed to be here.
The sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside...  uumph!

And the sign said, "Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down, and pray."
Then they passed around the plate at the end of it all.  I didn't have a penny to pay.
So I got me a pen and a paper, and I made out my own little sign.
I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinking about me.  I'm alive and doing fine."

Chorus

It was in 1971 that young people became tired of being told what to wear, how to think, what to make of themselves, or who to associate with.  So, the song Signs was a big hit.

Here it is 2012.  Deja Vu.   It seems as if so many people want to tell me what to do, what not to do, or how to do the simplest things.

I was told...
I should not have a patty melt to eat because it wasn't healthy.
I was driving too fast in a 40 MPH zone.  I was driving 45.
Not to drive 75 MPH even though that was the speed limit.  The person didn't like going that fast.
I should leave at least a car length between cars at a stop light.  I was too close to the car ahead of me.
I made too many out-of-town trips.
I don't make good business decisions.
I made too many allowances for my daughter.
I needed to lose weight.
I needed to go to the cardiologist.
I needed to be more religious.
There was a certain way to change a baby's diaper (& I wasn't doing it the right way).
That my choice of music wasn't satisfactory.
That I looked shaggy in a beard.
That my hair was too long.
That I had made a poor career choice.
That I need not try to fix a toy train for a niece because I'm not handy.

Blah, blah, blah.
All of this in a two-week period of time.
Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind.

It's a test.  No, I have more character than to succumb to the many voices that say, "Can't you read the sign?"

A disruption in conversational acquisition

I did a study a number of years ago that featured women's speech and their pattern in turn-taking.  It was interesting enough,  but there was a by-product of the study that was a surprise.  The women in the study were of different, graduated ages from 16 to 76, representing increments about a decade apart.  It was very clear from the tapes that the older women were accomplished at conversation building and the younger women were not.  In fact, the younger the woman, the less engaging she was.  A particular conversation typified the principle, one between a teenager and her grandmother.  The teen was at a loss for topics or elaboration a number of times.  The grandmother provided the extra elaboration or a timely topic switch every time.

That little surprise tucked away inside the larger study was what many would consider common sense because people have believed in the "art" of conversation for a long time.  But the "art" turns out to be linked to the socialization process, and it is that process that can be and has been studied for better understanding.

Some people have believed that conversation is something a person is either good at doing or they are not.  If that is true, then language in general is not developed evenly from birth.  But, every human's ability to learn language, manipulate it for her or his benefit, and communicate with it no matter what language it happens to be, seems to mitigate against that notion.  So, something else must be in play, and that would be socialization.  The true test for this is about to be seen.  Today's youth have opted for texting as their mode for conversation rather than face-to-face.  That should change the socialization process.  At the very least it will disrupt the process for "learning" to have a conversation.  Texting operates by different rules from face-to-face conversation.  Already I have heard the loud laments of those 60 and older of the dying art of conversation or the anger they feel when "all they get" is a text once in a while from a grandchild.

I look forward to reading a study someday about the new socialization process as it affects conversation, if that is what the texting mode is still called.  It might be titled to illustrate the quantum leap in efficiency the process has taken since machine delivery of a message is involved.  Or it might take the tenor of today's 60-year-olds and try to prove the denigration of the benefits of face-to-face conversation.  It doesn't matter to me.  I live in both worlds.  It will be easy to side with the winner.

Not this or that, but this or this or this

Every time the gate is open is one of those phrases that comes from the old days when people built fences  to keep livestock from roaming into their neighbor's fields.  The gates let people and horses and wagons through but were to be shut after coming through them in order to keep the livestock in.  If the gate was left open, the animals got out, had to be rounded up and put back in their rightful place.  This happened frequently.

Once in a blue moon is a phrase that comes from a couple of hundred years ago when sailing the high seas was a major mode of transportation and exploration.  The moon had a blue cast to it every so often when it was full and there was a great amount of humidity in the atmosphere.  The phrase meant something happens infrequently.

When pigs fly is a phrase that comes from about the same time period.  It was coined when someone was certain that an event wouldn't happen.  Pigs aren't designed to fly anatomically, so it wouldn't just be rare that something would happen when pigs fly, it would be impossible.

Language is colorful and can be used for all kinds of reasons including taking a phrase and changing it from its literal meaning to something figurative.  These figures become well known and become embedded in language as idioms.  Idioms can also take on syntactic ideas.  In this case, all the idioms deal with time and are, thus, adverbial in nature.  And anytime a person deals with adverbs, (s)he can have gradations and comparisons - gradations in this case, from frequent to never and in between.

Life is not a dichotomy.  It is not black and white.  It is not always just right and wrong.  People don't have to decide something is either this or that.  Life has beauty to it and richness and spectrums and continuums and depth and height and flavors of sweetness and a thousand reasons for change.  Even our practice of language bears this out.  It is our pleasure to see that multivariate nature of life and not our narrowness to reduce life to right and wrong, black and white, this or that.

What gets done

Today 2 items on my planned list actually happened.  The list contained 6 items.  4 remain to be accomplished.  Maybe tomorrow?  Well, maybe, but tomorrow has a list of its own with timing of its own.  So of the 4 remaining 2 might be accomplished.  And what happens to tomorrow's list if its items do not get accomplished?  They get pushed back too.  At some point, though, the items get pushed off the list for good and never happen.  The list tomorrow contained 4 items, but now has 8 items.  I don't see all of that happening.  I know for sure that one of the items had a shelf life of one day.  Well, that's off the list.  I am down to 7, but still don't see that happening.  One of the items can be done at any time in the future.  I doubt it gets done tomorrow, then.  Now, I'm down to 6.  5 of the items all depend on the length of time it takes to accomplish the first two items on the list.  One of those two items is very time sensitive, one is not.  So, I'm thinking that I will be at 50% max tomorrow on getting things done.  That might be high.

Oh, my. How does anything ever get done around my place?  No wonder civilization hasn't advanced to its maximum potential.

A myth disappears, fortunately

Intelligence is a much debated subject.  The spectrum of beliefs out there contain a good number of followers for each.  Personally, I follow the end of the spectrum that contains the null set - there is no such thing as intelligence.

That, to many, is a contradiction in what I have done all my life.  But, I see no contradiction at all.  Once a person understands about personality, the power of interest, the allure of prestige, the drive of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and the need for utility, then intelligence becomes blended into the 6 above forces for learning and intelligence disappears.  So, why does education in this country gear everything to levels of intelligence?  That has a clear answer if you study the history of education in this country, but clearly education was never meant for the masses.  Since the 1960s, when the United States began experimenting with mass education, educators here had to buy into the intelligence belief system so that grading could be correlated with it and begin the charade of intelligence measurement..  Several measuring systems have been drawn up and justified because the masses who have gone through the 50-year-old experiment now believe it and will perpetuate it in their own and their subsequent generations.

Sad, since it doesn't really exist.  On one hand you have the general populace who try to believe that they can do anything they set their minds to and the same populace who have been educated to think that they are smart in music, art, math, language, history, or literature and dumb in one of the same list of disciplines.  They can't discern between the truth of one over the other since their education has failed them.  By 2100 A.C.E., history will refer to the current period as the time of the failed American mass education experiment.  But, they don't see it that way.  They still think that somehow both of the above principles are true.  They cannot see that the two are mutually exclusive.  Maybe after the next generation is over 30, technology will be in such a state that it will become abundantly clear that people can concentrate on something of interest or something they are driven to accomplish, let others (or machines/software) around them help them accomplish their goals, and forget this talk of levels of intelligence.

Even software is not built that way.  And eventually software will be very intertwined with the way people think.  For the moment, though, I'm stuck in a deluded world, and I await the maturing of those who are not quite in school yet to run the world a bit more practically (rather than intelligently).

Worst general manager ever

Jerry Jones deserves what he gets.  He had a chance to pick someone of great value, someone he had talked to and known from the passion in his rhetoric, the determined look in his eye, the steel in his tone of voice that this is a pick for an impact player.

Oh, no. Not Jerry Jones.  He is under the mistaken impression that money buys success.  He's tried that already.  He sticks with a highly paid quarterback who has impressive personal success - but can't win first-round playoff games.  If one listens to Romo talk, (s)he doesn't hear the passion in the rhetoric, just cliches like, "We need to watch more film."  (S)he doesn't see the merest hint of determination in his eyes, just resignation.  (S)he doesn't feel the strength of steel in his almost apologetic tone of voice.

so go ahead Jerry, pick someone as the #1 draft pick you think you can buy without even talking to him, be yourself, have one more lackluster year without any fanfare for winning a championship

Yeah, he stuttered

On tonight's news was an investigative report on a compound of families in Waco who seem to have a problem with sex abuse of young girls by some of the men in the compound.  Such a travesty!  I was watching the interview of one of the men involved in the abuse.  He had undergone counseling by the compound's "elders" for two years before the girl the abuse happened to reported the tragedy.  Evidently, in the counseling session, he had been told that the compound, or "church" as he called it, pointed out that it was against scripture to take a matter to the courts.  When he was asked by reporters why he thought the he was shielded by his church, he stuttered, "It was God's...  It was God's will... It was God's will  that these matters be kept within the church."

Yeah, I would have started that sentence three times myself.  Those pauses allow the mind to do a little reflecting on what might come out.  If you don't like the possible answer, you just have to start the sentence again.  The second rehearsal of an answer evidently didn't  yield any better results that made sense in his mind.  Finally, he just decided to tell the answer he had been coached to give.  Context determines how to interpret pauses, but in this case, he knew that the reporter was hostile, non-cultic (my words, of course), and not gentle in his presentation to the public he wrote for.  So, the pauses appear to be the man's testing in his mind how his words might sound to an outsider.

Sex abuse of young girls and God's will seem like opposites to me.  They do not seem like they could ever be two terms of a paradox or oxymoron.  EVER!  But the man who only stuttered  about why he almost got off scot free for such a heinous act should pay for all the therapy his daughter will need due to her watching elders administer counseling to the perpetrator and then asking her to forgive him.  Not my idea of God's will. 

I guess I should be grateful the man stuttered to show that he at least was considering how this might play with the non-cultic crowd who would be listening to the report.  But I also think that the stuttering revealed that he was hiding behind someone's misbegotten idea of God's will.  I don't have words strong enough to condemn this man's behavior. 

It might be that God's will for this man is to deconstruct his thinking and reconstruct what is right, good, and true in his soul.  He wouldn't find himself stuttering if he were to do this.

Needing the authentic

Carnation instant breakfast isn't food.  It tastes all right as far as substitute food drinks go, especially the chocolate version of it.  I hadn't drunk any in a long stretch of time until I started getting hungry again in the early morning hours.  So, recently, I have begun to start the work day with a little nutrition.  It worked.  It lasts for about 2-3 hours before it plays out, and it is a quick way of getting a few nutrients without cooking or eating out and spending much money.  Usually a person gets what he pays for.  But, in this case, it may just be a bargain.  My health is better.

Small fixes in life are many times just what the doctor ordered.  Those redirections of behavior toward one individual or two during the day can many times make the quality of  a day better.  Sometimes, finding a time during the day to make sure a little nagging task is getting accomplished gives just the right nudge to put the task behind and get on with a more enjoyable task.

Instant breakfast is not food, however, anymore than small daily adjustments in behavior are not going to cover the need to hear a laugh, see a smile, enjoy someone's company, sip a drink knowing that all is well with the world.

 I will have a glass of instant breakfast in the morning, but I know it is not authentic food.

Where the heart is...

There is a saying about the heart that is true 100% of the time.  Where your heart is, there your treasure lies also.  I like this saying for a number of reasons.  But the main reason is that it uses the word treasure.  I like that word a lot because it shows the supreme value a person puts on something or someone.  Having someone of supreme value in your heart is a repetition of double value because matters of the heart also make something supremely special.  A treasure in a heart, then, is a reiteration of how supremely, extremely valuable and special something or someone is.  As the tip of my tongue flattens against the alveolar ridge to form the voiced fricative that marks the sound warming my whole being because of the treasured name that follows, every chamber of my heart resonates.

Hint of the majestic

Tonight the moon is but a sliver of itself in all of its beauty when it is full.  It is a reminder that life in all of its beauty is masked by darkness sometimes, causing it not to be seen.  There is that tiny sliver of hope that the moon in its brightness will again be seen.  But faith takes over because you have seen the splendor of the moon in its fullness before.  You have to wait for its return.  That is so very hard to do, but faith looks through the present invisibility to see the beauty of the full moon.  When the full moon actually does appear... how majestic... well worth the wait.

Set notes

In math, one can have sets.  There are sets for sequences  {1, 2, 3, ...}, sets for patterns {1, 3, 5, ...}, sets for operations {10(5), 5(5), 2.5(5), ...}, and the list goes on.  Sets isolate from the larger system the numbers a person wants to work with.  Then, of course, there's the empty set {   }.  Nothing is in it.  Not the value "nothing," but the absence of numbers to work with.

I look at events and people in my life.  I can pull at will the sets of events and persons I want to work with from the total number of events and people in my life.  I like to do this and have written about different sets on a number of occasions.  So many events occur in life that sometimes sets turn into empty sets because the brain cannot remember the events.  Something becomes nothing so to speak.

Tonight I am thinking of a fixed set in my mind of a series of special events. . If somehow that series 3 springtimes ago would lead to a second and similar series of special events, and if that series could lead to a lifetime of special events...

-3 years{special events }+ present{special events}-->{0, 1, 2, 3 ... n years (infinity) pure joy}

{   } --> {heaven forbid}

Over (again) whelmed

Whelm is a word from Old English.  Today it only exists in literature because it has given way to a supraform, overwhelm in regular usage.  Whelm means to be completely immersed or submerged.  It can mean to be hit by something and bowled over by it.  It can mean covered, its original Old English meaning. 

I have learned over the years what to expect in life so as not to be whelmed by too much anymore.  One gets better at anticipating what might be surprising at a earlier age.  Peoplewatching is like that too.  One gets to be a pretty good judge of character, just based on a few words or actions, so much so that, really,  only one person in all of life whelms me now, and I am whelmed over and over every time I think about or am near this person.  It's ok.  Life is really not worth living without this one's whelming presence over and over.  I don't use the word overwhelm right here because even though overwhelm has taken the place of whelm, for who knows what historical reason, it has an added semantic that takes it away from meaning the same as whelming over and over.

I am lying down tonight, completely whelmed with thoughts of that one... again and again... over and over.

Sacred path

I allow my mind to go down a sacred path pretty often these days.  The path is sacred because its scenes are the most special ones that have occurred in my lifetime .  Nothing else in my experience compares to these happenings, their places and sounds, the conversations that warm my heart.  They are so special, only the word sacred expresses how my heart and soul have been affected by them.  They give me the greatest pleasure a person can have.  They filled my life when they happened, and they fill my thoughts even now.  Without them I would wither.  If I I could go back in time and choose again which path to travel, I would choose the same path every single time.  If I could travel the path now, I would choose it without even hesitating because it would lead to the greatest enjoyment a person could ask for.

More is less

English has a saying: When all is said and done, there's always more said than done.

I know that the saying is aimed at how people say that things will get done and then they fall through on what needs getting done.  But, there is also an upside to the saying.  When people get peeved, they threaten with all kinds of epithets.  They don't really mean it though.  They threaten to sue, but they don't and won't.  Anyone in his/her right mind would not spend the money it takes to litigate an issue during the course of the 18-24 months it takes to go from start to finish with an attorney.  People say they will file complaints, and they might.  But by the time a complaint takes its course, much of the sting has been taken out of it.

Anymore, when I hear venomous speech, I will listen and acknowledge on the outside.  But on the inside I am yawning.  There's always more said than done.

Swish - a story of faith

Kobe Bryant is undoubtedly one of the best basketball players ever to play in the NBA.  He practices longer, plays harder, and extends himself more than most to win when the situation calls for it.  He is in the same company with Jordan, Johnson, Bird, Russell, and all the other greats who have played the game.

It was not just a really bad day today for Kobe as the Lakers hosted New Orleans; it was his worst day ever.  It had been since 2004 that he had gone a whole first half without scoring - this from a player that has led or has been close to leading the whole league in scoring over the last 13 years.  And it wasn't for lack of shooting that Kobe was scoreless.  He had tried two-footers and thirty-two-footers, but nothing had fallen.  The third quarter was not any better.  Finally, by the time the last two minutes of the game came around, Kobe had scored 2 baskets making him something like 2 for 20 attempts.

What a horrible, no-good day for Kobe.  But, that will not be how this game will be remembered.  This game will go down in the books as Kobe winning the game for the Lakers in the fading seconds of the game - like Jordan, Bird and all the greats did for their teams.  With 20 seconds to go in the game, and for the lead in the game, Kobe had the ball thrown to him with the possession clock winding down to 0.  He shot with great concentration as he had done on days when he was the game's leading scorer.  No hesitation and no doubting even though to this point he was having the worst shooting day of his NBA career.  The ball swished down the cords of the net - 3 points and the lead.  New Orleans had two subsequent shots to try to win, but failed.

There is no telling how many shots over the course of all his practices and all his games Kobe has taken.  But, even on his worst day, he felt comfortable in his shooting skin.   All the shots he had taken to that point paid off.  Without hesitation he took the jumper.  The mechanics of 30,000 shots kicked in.  It was automatic and perfect.  There was no strain, no adjustment, just comfortable, confident mechanics.  The game went in the books as Kobe winning the game with a last-second basket.

The last two years plus a little have been to me much like Kobe's game today.  They have had something huge missing from them.  I don't think time has run out yet for this period in my life.  I hope not, anyway.  I still go through the motions of shooting, that is, going to work and performing other duties as needed.  I reread a blog today that I had read a few months ago.  It ended with the word Faith.  That's certainly what I have, what I hold on to.  And it will be the empowering force behind the shot that puts life and happiness back into my soul before time expires.

A picture for my heart

Today I stood in the back yard.  It was late in the evening, just about dusk.  The scene was picturesque with the two rose bushes by the back stone fence showing their beauty of red velvet blooms.  The freshly budded trees around the yard and in the neighbors' yards showed a bare breeze, their leaves flickering ever so slightly.  It was quiet, serene, and reflective.  The grass was verdant green from the more than average rainfall that it has received.

That was also the picture in my heart.  I was in need of some warm thoughts.  So I brought to mind the scenes that gave me the effect of the sweet aroma filling my sense of smell from the roses, of the pleasing sight of the green leaves moving spirited by the breeze, of the grass sprigs thickening with the rising heat of spring.  Those scenes calmed me because of the refreshment they brought.  They planted anew the sounds of laughter and cheer, a glimpse once again of a smiling, welcome face, and the essence of the most life-giving spirit I have ever met.

I reentered the house after those moments in the back yard, but the scene, both the physical and the remembered, lasted on into the evening and night.

Showing proper regard

At least two languages in the world sport a female and male version of the language.  One of the languages is in northwestern South America, the other on a Polynesian island.  The male and female versions of these languages share some of the function words such as prepositions, articles, and semantic organization, but they have different content words carried by nouns and verbs.

We don't really have that in the United States, but there are some analogs.  Some words in English are spoken primarily by women.  Rarely would a male say, "wonderful, sweet, marvelous, cute, (although men less than 50 are more prone to say this word than men over 50), and lavender." In this latter case, men seem to stick to mainstream colors and shy from colors such as magenta and peaches and cream.  Women, on the other hand, steer clear of words like "slugged, smashed, pus, snuffed, and fecal" in favor of ameliorated terms.

Growing up male, then, or female partially determines which set of words are learned to be used and which are learned merely to understand.  Cross-gender conversations happen more often in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, more than likely, just because of the values held in our culture.  As a result, frustration from cross-gender conversations abound.  Men and women have distinct, negative impressions of the other gender's speech.  A number of factors contribute to this idea, but having "male" and "female" words is certainly one contributor.  Savvy women and men know this and make adjustments in their speech when carrying on a cross-gender conversation.  At least they appear to "understand" rather than "condescend" to the way ideas are expressed.  They are usually richly rewarded for doing so.

Noticing underground activity

The Earth, like every living organism has all kinds of systems built into it that keep it changing.  The Earth's surface may look like it doesn't change much, but it is constantly changing, just at a speed that is slower than the life span of humans.  In fact, it would take about 30,000 years of humans to see quite a good number of the changes Earth undergoes.  No one saw the Mid-Atlantic Ridge form, and it's likely our species will be extinguished before we see it disappear.  But, the ridge is there now for us to see in all of its glory.  We can imagine what will happen and what has happened by watching the Ethiopian rift and Greenland rift on the surface.
 
We know from Tsunamis that plates on the Earth's surface on the ocean floor drop a foot or two.  We know from  caving what the forces of water and heat cause under the Earth.  We know from volcanic explosions of the pressurized plumes beneath the surface blasting molten rock over calderas.  We can see layers of rock jutting above ground to investigate what happened before it came to the surface.  We can see fern leaves and crocodile bones inside the Arctic Circle and understand that at some point that piece of land used to be located elsewhere.

National Geographic put together a documentary called Journey to the Center of the Earth in which its photographers and script writers logged what occurs between the surface and the core.  The documentary ended with the words, "It's what happens underground that ultimately causes what happens on the surface."  I think the Journey to the Center of the Earth is also the Journey to the Center of Human Beings.  What a great metaphor for the forces that are at work inside each of us.  And, it is so true that what happens at our core and other invisible points under our skin, like our mind, ultimately affects the emotions we have, the words we speak, and the actions we take.

So I watch for people's tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic explosions (or even minor seismic activity) to know how to react to it.  It helps in staying alive a lot of times.

Escaping the big quid pro quo

When I was in managerial positions, I used to hear "I owe you," frequently.  Most of the time people were asking for help that didn't take long or that fell within the purview of some talent someone had that (s)he didn't mind performing.  Those were petty (but meaningful to others) tasks for the most part.

But, I knew instantly when someone meant, because they rarely voiced it, that I would owe them something rather magnanimous if I continued with a request for their help.  The quid pro quo was more than usual.  I would rather do it myself incompletely than to get into those kinds of tit for tats.  And even though I have been able to avoid those kinds of exchanges, I continue to see the more than usual tradeoffs exchanged.  It ranges from finding and giving information that is not known (and shouldn't be known) to sexual favors for fulfillment of ambition.

I don't know why betrayal ranks as number 1 for me on the unforgivable sin list, but it does.  Unusual quid pro quos, that is, the ones that go beyond gladly getting somebody out of a small fix or gladly giving up time to help with a task, bother me severely because they are a form of betrayal.  I find myself actually despising the ones who get caught up in them, thinking that I need to be a part of exposing them and causing them to move on or at least lose their grip on those who have succumbed to such exploitation.  When someone lies in a situation that causes harm, I like to bring any forensic ability I have to bear on exposing and causing equivalent harm on them.  But, quid pro quos are different.  I see them, but am most of the time left without any means to cause a change or to expose.  I am left to loathe. 

I will work on turning the energy I give to loathing those who continue their quid pro quos for exploitation into more productive actions... not easy for me, but I will work on it.  I need to take myself from the arena where it happens and focus on what I can productively do.

Time to add

One of my favorite movies of all time is Contact.  That's because I am fascinated with receiving communication from a world other than Earth.  It actually happens in the movie.  Tonight I am watching a Science channel documentary on what would happen if scientists at the SETI Institute received messages from "out there."  It is very interesting to see the reactions of people to the idea that we have been communicated with.  I hope the follow-up episode will be about the actual communication.  In the meantime it doesn't hurt to speculate.

When it does happen, I can't wait to add a new language to my repertoire.

Comfort, calm

I have been in a few storms that blow through strongly, toss things around, then bluster their way into the distance.  I have been through some rain events as well, rain that settles in and stays for a couple of days.

But, the rain tonight is wave-like and has lasted 6 solid hours already with at least 5 more hours on the way according to radar.  It's not a blustery storm, not a stalled front, and not one of those dreaded electric storms with streak lightning filling the sky.  Along with the steady rain, the lightning has also been steadily illuminating the clouds that rumble in the wake of  quickly disappearing lightning.  Not the streak lightning, but the nightlight flashes that cast light across sky behind the clouds.  This is the kind of rain I remember well from my adolescent years.

This kind of a rain event is so comforting.  It makes me feel as if all is well with the world.  I guess the interaction of heaven and earth in this way makes me feel that the wold is as it should be.  I know otherwise.  I have a very good friend that is living through rough times at the moment.  I, myself, am waiting on dawn to began to break up the darkness.  I have another friend suffering from the cancer that is taking a toll on her entire body.  Even another friend is living across the ocean right now in the middle of feuding tribes trying to sort out whether Islam or Christianity should be the religion of the country.

But for this small moment in time, surrounded by such a duration of comforting, familiar splashes on the window pane, iterations of gentle rumbling in the sky, and flashes of quilted light brilliantly showing the ground below, I am comforted and given additional energy to make it through till dawn.  And for my very good friend, and other friends who face their own black enemies, I wish the same momentary comfort in the middle of their dark fights and the energy to make it till those storms subside and calm is restored.

A lament

The joke goes:
Two people were engaged in conversation.  They were exchanging information about each other: where each had gone to school, who the family members were, etc.  To end the conversation, one asked the other "Where are you from."  The second person snidely remarked, "I'm from a place where they don't end sentences with a preposition."

Well, who's wrong here?  You could say that a Latinate rule exists in English not to end a sentence in a preposition.  But that was Latin.  The grass roots of English syntax are from Anglo-Saxon.  Rules are a little different in that source.  Or you could say that historical linguistics doesn't matter.  The acceptable threshold of English usage of ending a sentence with a preposition is very clearly over 75% (closer to 98%).  What dictates a rule - history or usage?  Obviously usage.  So, the first person could have ended the conversation with "Sorry, you  must be speaking of that non-standard, Latin-based, 2% dialect called 'proper' English. Would you like to learn American English?"

Yesterday I was around a person who decided to join a religious denomination which required a covenant to be taken to be a member of that church in addition to the normal Christian creed so that he could be held accountable.  I don't even have words for such a surrender of personal freedom because he doesn't have the discipline to trust himself to be a good person.

What I wouldn't give to be around a creative, efficient, giving, cheerful, free-spirited, consistent, tender-hearted, strong, smart, and open soul...  instead of those who keep this rule and that rule and a hundred thousand other rules...  who stifle others from thinking on their own...  who joylessly move through life robotically, emotionlessly...  who wear ankle-length skirts with tennis shoes...  What I wouldn't give.

Waiting on dawn

Every day ends in darkness.  Every night ends in light.  In life they are not exactly as equally measured  as units of time are.  But the cycle actually gives hope.  Good times are marked because we know they don't last forever.  On the other hand, horrors are somewhat mitigated because we know they will end.

I want to remind myself of this since tonight it is midnight, no matter what the time on the clock reads.  I will certainly be ready for the first rays of light signaling the end of this particular night and the hope that lies ahead.

A very young heart

I saw a billboard today advertising heart care.  It showed a man with a gray beard smiling and enjoying himself with his adult children.  Across the middle of the sign in very large letters was the question, "How old is your heart?"  I suppose your heart could age more quickly or less quickly than other parts of your body or your body as a whole.  If it pumps harder for a longer period of time, such as the heart of a high blood pressure patient or one of a person on the way to having a stroke, then it is older.  If it pumps with no back pressure built up in it, then it would be a younger heart.  I get the sign.

But there may be a second way the heart ages.  Life is long for those who are alone or for those who don't experience the sheer enjoyment of meeting the love of their lifetime.  People sometimes opt for going the journey through life alone.  A few are quite adjusted to life alone and seem to manage life with joy and aplomb, but many more don't adjust and wither away joylessly.  For those who decide to choose a companion, life can still age them because they pick companions for all kinds of reasons.  One of the reasons is because (s)he has met his/her one true love.  But, there are many reasons, some for convenience, some for money, some for mere companionship or out of arrangement, some for partial compatibility.  There is probably a continuum for these reasons to fall across, but the one that keeps the heart the youngest has to be the one in which the heart enjoys the pure moments of just being with one who makes her/him happy, just because of who the companion is.

That means, then, that there are several different answers to the question on the billboard, "How old is your heart?"  One answer would be to measure blood pressure or cholesterol levels frequently.  Another is to see if you're living life alone or with someone who only gives a partial amount of enjoyment.  But for someone whose heart has been with the one who gives sheer enjoyment of life, the answer is that her/his heart is young.

After I passed the sign, I smiled, knowing my heart would last a long, long time because it was so very young.

Heart rain

Tonight the weather forecast predicted that there would be 100% coverage of rain on Thursday evening.  That's rare.  A person usually sees the percentage of the area that could be hit by rain storms at less than 100 because rain is spotty.  Some pockets of air are less dense than others even along a front.

Life's events are weather events.   Attitudes, mores, cultural values, educational levels, religious views, and a sundry amount of other influences make any one prediction of how people will act less than 100%.  It's rare to get people's actions to be 100% behind any one belief or event.

But, I do know that when one's heart has been touched by someone, coverage of refreshing thoughts and enraptured moments is 100%.  They are rain full of vitality, happening every day.

Don't jump in until/unless

I was watching a young scholar over the last 2 weeks.  He decided to enter an arena that he clearly didn't have much of an idea what was being discussed.  He didn't have the breadth of knowledge he needed in order to understand the argument.  As a result, he said some things that he couldn't substantiate and that he couldn't seem to get a handle on.  The people in the discussion were nice at first to him, but then ended up ignoring him altogether since he had nothing to contribute, even continuing to respond.  At one point, he could have easily acceded to someone's comments who gave him the perfect out.  But, he was too foolish to even take that generous gesture.

The saying, "You have to pay to play" came into full effect in the conversation.  If you have paid your dues, it shows, usually in the level of argument you bring to the discussion.  If you haven't paid your dues, you usually find an unkind audience.  This guy hopefully learned the pay to play principle and will wait until he has a something substantive to offer before entering another discussion.

I've been a couple of times in this man's place, but I learned my lesson.  It gave me the caution I needed to speak when I have something to say and not to speak in places where my knowledge is limited.  Seeing this man's faux pas only makes my awareness of this kind of ambush that much keener.