Look at the smoke in the distance!

Semiotics is the study of symbols that communicate as loudly as any words.  Sometimes they are gestures or icons, such as the international symbol for no smoking, but sometimes they are colors, a general topic, or an unusual acronym.  When someone deals in semiotics, words are distracters to the real message being communicated.

Consider the president's speech last night.  The first element to notice was the reason he was giving the speech.  He was assuring the people he was president for that everything was under control.  In order to make that believable, he would have to have a certain amount of energy when delivering the statement.  If the delivery is devoid of emotion, which was the case last night, the signal is different, subliminal, encrypted.  It's a contraindicator of some other message.  It could be something simple like he was forced to give the people some kind of sign that the government cared about what had happened in a terrorist attack, don't make the Democrats look bad in an election year, or it could be something deliberate and dark like whoever the message was for could discern from the lack of energy that the message was opposite from the words being delivered.  In this case, the opposite would be to notify the terrorists that the incident at San Bernadino and the rhetoric of the speech were for the American people only, not business as usual regarding his mid-eastern policy.

The second element to consider was the acronym the president used to refer to the main terrorist group.  The modern reference continues to be Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  However, the word translated Syria is al Sham (still an S for the acronym), a reference to an area of Islamic control used before the advent of all the modern states divided into their current idiosyncratic ideologies for running their separate countries.  So under the guise of giving a better translation for al Sham, the president has translated the words as the Levant, also an older term used for the mid-eastern region before Israel was in the after World War II.  On the surface, it would appear that one is just a better literal translation than the other.  But if semiotic analysis is used, the Levant is used to assure the Islamic states that Israel is not being recognized and, perhaps, to continue with their plans of harassment in the area.

The third element for analysis is found in the objects of the setting.  Behind the president, on either side of him was a flag.  On the left side, as a viewer would see the president speak was the American flag.  That would be expected.  He is giving a speech for Americans to rally around.  On the left side was the president's official flag.  The flag has an official design which would include the colors to be used for it.  The color blue is supposed to be the color of the field upon which the president's emblem superimposed.  Last night the color of the flag's field was a dark blue, but the lighting was so dark many times the field looked black.  Considering other elements of the speech, the lighting was significant.  Black (perceived or real) would match the color of the field of the flag that I.S.I.S. uses.  In addition, black is one of the featured stripes in the flags of Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Afhanistan, and Iraq.  It would be a show of solidarity to match an American flag to the Islamic state(s).

Finally, the topic the president used to gain a platform for a speech on national television was one of comfort to the families of the fallen and assurance to Americans of unfailing vigilance against terrorism.  However, in the midst of such a topic, the president decided to give a defense of Islam as a peaceful religion.  That is so far afield from comfort and reassurance that to insert that defense in such a speech would have no other purpose than to fan the flame of hostility within his country and to assure the Islamic countries that nothing is really changing even though the rhetoric was different in other portions of the speech.  The defense wasn't a mere mentioning of Islam in general, it was placed in two different parts of the speech to be a contraindicator in those two sections.

It doesn't go without notice that the speech was delivered the day before Pearl Harbor Day.  How much more reassuring could a president be than to talk of the San Bernadino massacre in the context of attacks by America's enemies.  It was not an error that the president didn't want to categorize this shooting in that context since he didn't want any mid-eastern states to construe his remarks to mean that they were Amercia's enemies.  So, separate the two speeches he was to give - one for America's enemies on Pearl Harbor Day and one for the "workplace attack" in San Bernadino.  Careful scheduling matches all the other elements about the message conveyed on television last night.

Smoke and mirrors.  It was the ole trick, "Hey, look over there!" while I steal your valuables right under your nose.  It's a common ruse.  That's why semiotic communication has invaluable use.  And it's why semiotic analysis exists at all.  The speech contained comfort and assurance, but for more than the American people.  I'm thinking people know all of this about the president already.  This is not the first time he has played his hand.  But, it certainly corroborates what people are thinking.

Fault zones

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.

Hybrasils in life

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.

Height of haughtiness

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.

Level of craft

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.

Great embracing great

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.

On this Thanksgiving

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.

Simple offerings

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.

Finding our paths

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.

Where's the focus?

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.

More... and more... and more

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.

Off the norm

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.

Let's talk about virtue

Patience is a virtue.  I've heard that all my life.  It's true a lot of the time.  Of course, the opposite is true sometimes.  The saying "Strike while the brand is hot," is an example that applies to certain instances in life.  But for many opportunities, patience is the the virtue that gets a person what he or she wants.

In 1984, Steve Jobs decided to switch from a very productive Apple II computer to a different model with a different idea for what happens on a screen.  It was the beginning of all the things we do now with a mouse.  Jobs is definitely the father of the non-keyboard capabilities of the mouse we have today, but not at first.  Apple's board didn't see the value of the new product.  They wanted to stick with the old Apple II because it brought in 70% of the company's revenue.  Jobs didn't budge on wanting to take revenue from Apple II to finish the Macintosh computer and stop production of Apple II.  So, the board fired Jobs.  His dreams were dashed.

Steve Jobs' determination was intact, however, so he started a new company, which had a couple of start-up failures in some innovations for computers.  But, not all was failure.  He teamed with George Lucas, who also had begun a new movie company, Pixar, to create the first computer animated movie, Toy Story, a smash box office hit.  A little later, Apple's stock tanked on the stock market because of advances by Microsoft and lack of new products by Apple.  How fortunate for Steve Jobs.

Apple forced out its CEO, asked Jobs to return to give them new vision, and gave him free reign in guiding the company back to profitability.  This happened in 1997.  Jobs had waited from 1985 when he was forced out to 1997, 12 long, long years (100 years in computer years), before he could once again enact his vision for the Mac computer.  In 1998 he launched his very profitable iMac line.  That was followed by the iPod, complete with iTunes and Apple Store (a virtual store), iPhone, App store, and finally his iPad tablet in 2010.  He revolutionized the computer industry, the music industry, the telephone industry, the virtual store industry, and actually led the computer industry into its next phase of computing with a tablet to replace nearly all of what desktops and laptops do, and not with a keyboard and mouse, but with a touch screen.

It's an incredible story of genius.  But, it would never have happened if Jobs had been an impatient man.  Or, if his story of invention had happened due to impatience, it might have been on a more scattered timetable or without the complete list of all his devices. Instead, his story is one of genius and revolution.  It's a story of having to wait from 1985 to 1998.  It's an example of patience as a virtue.

We could all use that.  Since we can't see around the next corner due to time constraints, we have to trust and hope that waiting is a good thing and prepare ourselves for the next time opportunity that comes knocking at our doors.  Then we're ready to go through that door and make a difference in the sphere we live in.

Whan in aprille

This picture is definitely worth a thousand words.  It is so symbolic of how people allow themselves to petrify as they travel their paths from birth to death.

The book by Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, is a poignant depiction of this picture.  The Nigerian society of the book's main character is something that he understood well and became a leader.  But, as England colonized his area, all his values were changed because England sent their people to modernize the culture.  The book ends with his total inability to accept change.  He hanged himself in the last scene to show his disdain for British culture and to accentuate how humans can live without thinking about other ways to view traditions and progress.  The story is the perfect complement to the sign.

As I have observed people's use of language over the years, I have noticed the same reluctance.  A language application of the picture is also a good representation of Achebe's literary piece.  Between 1380 and 1590, that is between Chaucer and Shakespeare, the English used by people in England changed radically.  Chaucer's English was unintelligible by the time of Shakespeare's speakers.  And Shakespeare's plays, if performed, cannot be understood by modern speakers without practice in reading his plays before they attend.  Modern speakers absolutely don't recognize Chaucer's language as English, Also, the King James Bible of 1611, is not understood by modern English speakers because of its spelling, vocabulary, and sentence structure.

Things change not only on a macro scale, but also on a micro scale.  Just in my lifetime three irregular past participles have morphed into regular forms.  Pled has changed to pleaded, shown has changed to showed, dove has changed to dived.  Three unique past participles have converted to the more common pattern of  irregular past tense forms.  Stricken has been replaced with struck, swum with swam, drunken with drunk.  The auxiliary verb shall has dropped from use, the auxiliary modal verb may has been relegated to a mere polite form used in requests in a business setting, as in "may I ask your name."  The auxiliary modal verb might has replaced may on most other occasions. And, the auxiliary modal verb ought has been dropped in favor of should except in rural areas.  All of this in a short half of a century.

But I look at some people and they are so rigid.  Sometimes I see that the things they believe are the same as before they went to college, or before they experienced cancer, or before they had any of  life's experience.  Sometimes, I see people not using technology that has been around for a long time or driving the same way to a destination even though quicker routes exist because new roads have been built.  I see people's Facebook posts that tout the good ol' days as if the new days are not better, more improved, more advanced, speedier, or sounder.

Yessirree.  There's a burn ban in effect.  Don't bore me with the details of rain falling from the
 sky and a torrent of water moving along that covers half my sign.  That can't possibly make a difference!

Image - a bit changed these days

Watching CSI: Cyber makes one soberingly aware of how transparent a life we really live.  In many ways I like the transparency.  People in the past have always had the choice to live a transparent life or not.  Most people opted to have a transparent life to an extent.  They had a public image and a private life.

While that is still true, the extent of a private life is smaller these days.  But, that's a good thing.  The parts that are truly private stays with the individuals involved to keep the information private.  But, things like debit card purchases, withdrawals, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Dig, Flikr entries (which include tracking status to places of post entries, pictures, and checkins, breadcrumbs for websites visited, files stored on hard drives or any other kind of external drives, including the cloud, type of music listened to, and many other things are traceable now, if someone wants to actually know your information.  Public image is now a different matter.

Of c ourse, police detectives are not the people you love.  They may look at situations a little differently than I do.  For them, they want you to know that they can see for miles and miles.  They want you to know that they can choke you from afar if you are trying to deceive them.  Their theme song works well.

It's all good.  The people I love sometimes need to know information.  Sometimes I want the people I love to know information even if they are not asking.  I tell them I have nothing to hide.  They can trace me if they want.  Or they can ask me if they want.  I'll tell them.  The information in the two places is the same.  They don't have to see for miles and miles.  Simple as that.

Every weather change

Broke my toe recently.  In 6 weeks it felt better.  In 9 weeks the swelling had begun to go down.  Still, every time the weather dramatically changes, it aches.

How like life.  You break your toe, so to speak.  A glitch happens in your established routines.  A little while later, things are beginning to somewhat regain normalcy, but the effect of the glitch isn't gone.  A short time later, routines almost are back to the same, but compensations are still being made.  But you know your routine will not be exactly as before.  Then you come upon those natural changes, but you never plan for the timing of the changes due to kids being in a different phase of life, the necessity of a new car, house, job, then a glitch comes again.

Happens every time.  True story.

Mountaintops and valleys

I watch a show on the NFL channel called the Aftermath.  It has 3 analysts that break down the reasons for teams who have won and lost on any given week.  One of the three men has been doing the job for about 4 years.  The other two have been talk show analysts who have shared their opinions with other hosts, but they have not been on a show that supplies evidence for their opinions.  The experienced analyst is a pleasure to listen to.

Baldinger, Wyche, and Jones are the three analysts' names.  They have all played in the NFL and they have been out of the league for at least 5 years now.  But, Baldinger is the one to listen to.  He sits at the table with his computer ready.  When he speaks, he shows examples from the game of the point he is trying to make.  The others just talk.  A person can actually see the reason for the point Baldinger is making.  One has to trust that Jones' and Wyche's summary statements are true since they don't give evidence.

Even at the professional commentator level there is competence and incompetence.  I really hate incompetence.  I see it everywhere.  It represents the unwillingness to be good at what one does.  It is laziness on the part of the person delivering a service to you.  People reach a pre-set maximum for themselves and don't push much beyond that boundary.

Here are some things that have been said lately that show a level of incompetence.

Can you tell me why "happy" is not a verb, in the sentence, "I am happy?"

A teacher answering a student's question with, "It's not important."

A  person giving an order at a drive-thru for "a hamburger with cheese, with everything but oninons  and a Coke."  The order-taker answers back with "You want a hamburger with onions and did you ask if we have Coke?"

A mother telling her child that if his behavior is repeated she'll spank him.  Three actions later the mother speaks again to the child, "Do you want me to spank you?"

The secretary in charge of payroll handing a check to an employee on a Monday afternoon saying, "I forgot to give this to you last Friday."

The list is endless.  People show all the time they have set the bar pretty low in life.  They don't want to be good or they want to be lazy.  And they're not embarrassed.  This kind of behavior makes me know that the Bell Curve applies to everyday life.  Then, again, how can you see the mountain tops if your have no valleys.

Advance us

Thought generation is a very tricky subject.  Cognitive scientists and psychologists know a lot about thinking after the fact.  Medical doctors and anatomical researchers know a lot about the electrical stimuli that happens in the brain and how the brain looks.  But thought generation is a secret yet to be unlocked.

To be sure, cognitive scientists and doctors know how the brain makes connections and associations between thoughts.  It's the generation of thought in the first place that escapes description.  Vygotsky in the 1920s was one of the first to try to formulate theories about the subject.  His theories are a bit like reading a very circular argument using his own set of defined terms as of how thought occurs.  Many others have tried since that time rather unsuccessfully.

If a person has a new thought, what exactly happens?  If we knew, we could unlock the secrets of the universe.  We wouldn't have to wait on the Isaac Newtons of life to happen along some decade.  If we knew, we wouldn't have to honor those Edisons and Teslas among us to experiment endlessly trying desperately to discover something never created before.  If we knew, we wouldn't be having to reverse engineer UFOs that have fallen from the sky.

But we don't know.  So, there is much yet to learn about everything around us.  It makes life exciting and worth the thrill of discovery.  With 6 1/2 billion brains on the Earth, it's a little mathematically difficult to have a thought that is new.  But, it's still possible.  If you find yourself in the fabulous position of having one of those unique thoughts, please do something about it.  The world needs it.  We advance as a civilization because you had it.  But, it does have to be presented.  Advance us all, please.

The real lab

I know it is really hard for people, but imagine this - that people want to be taught how to speak a second language and they have no formal training using or developing their native tongues.  That may not sound like it should be a huge obstacle, but consider how most schools teach language.  That's right, through grammar and written language.  Grammar and written language, of course, are an exercise in formal training and these second language learners have none.  So, to develop it after a child's learning window has closed for acquiring it naturally, is to learn it by repetition and being in many hundreds of different circumstances over time.  Right again, that's impossible.

So, what a challenge it is to learn a second language without being able to rely on the formality of grammatical nomenclature, written expression, or a sense of what is native expression.  There is a way, of course, to learn a language without the three methods just mentioned, but many educators don't know how to do this since they were taught formally, and they tend to teach in  the way they learned.  Many of them will tell you it's impossible to teach a second language without describing what happens in grammatical terms.

If people would think how they learned science, (in the lab, right?), then they can better understand how to learn a foreign language.  There is an axiom that has to be followed.  To the extent that grammatical description is not used, then to that extent people have to be in the lab.  And by lab, a classroom environment is not meant.  A real world environment is meant. So, the successful formula is GD-n=L+n (Grammatical Description - the amount of ability from understanding grammatical description  =  use of the Lab of the real world + the amount of ability from hearing, practicing, and experiencing real world language) 
Public, private, and business schools who don't discover this don't really teach for fluency, they teach to say they have taught.  The proof of any method is always in the success of the students who become bilingual as a result of the method. That measure alone would condemn most of the language learning methods used.  Roughly, and without regard to a person's determination to learn, 1000 hours of actual practice of language are necessary to achieve a measure of fluency.  That excludes any instruction by a teacher.

As the world becomes more globally networked, the need for a second language is likely to be more in demand.  Those who pay attention to what is on the horizon for higher paying jobs should begin looking at the field of second language development to include on their lists.  And ABSOLUTELY, method is important.

But then...

The above scene from the movie Contact, starring Jodie Foster, is my favorite of all time for what it symbolizes about Life.  No one truly prepares for all that (s)he encounters.  We prepare for a baseline in Life, but not for the individual encounters.

In the movie clip, Jodie Foster has prepared all of her life for what might come her way in the form of planetary science.  She even made the arrays ready to receive signals from other life in space.  She thought she was ready, but it proved to be a confluence of failures for her even though eventually she was very satisfied.  She prepared all of her life for the one moment she thought she was prepared to hear.  When it came, she swung into immediate action as she trained herself to do.  Then everything changed on her.  Numerous unexpected events tested her mettle in ways she had not prepared for even though the initial event happened according to her plan.

This clip captures the moments her entire life was centered around and prepared for.  It is the moment her life changes in very unexpected ways, none of them to her liking.  Eventually, all those changes worked out for her, but only after a whirlwind of unplanned situations.

I have supremely prepared for the encounters I wanted to happen in Life.  I've had more than a few of those eye-opening moments when I swung into action according to my plan.  But then...

Replacement time now

Over the course of the next two years, until the end of 2017, more and more developments will happen to indelibly change the status quo from the world of print and reading to the world of the visual arts and graphic presentation.  The digitization of the world around us and the world outside of our own has fundamentally changed the way people think.  It is painful to see people try to read anymore.  It is also becoming slower in its development in children because the world they live in develops their brain connections (synapses) around entirely new stimuli.  The following two app developments for phones serve as sterling examples of things to follow fast and furiously.

MasterCard today announced a pilot for a new way to "sign" a charge to their cards.  According to a poll MasterCard had conducted, 83% of Millennials  use their phones to purchase online.  So, now there is an app to take a selfie, by simply blinking into your phone's camera.  That verifies your purchase, and the picture is translated into 1s and 0s and sent as your code to complete the purchase.  What a masterful approach! Note there are no typed passwords using this method.

Also an advertising campaign started today on TV to download the app called LetGo.  A person simply snaps a picture, sends it to the LetGo app and it is immediately put on the LetGo network for people to buy.  People can sell their own pictures now instantly.  What a fantastic innovation in entrepreneurship!  Note the need for picture production is greater than the need to write an ad to sell anymore.

Over the next two years, smart educators will make writing code a part of their math curriculum rather than their optional technology curriculum.  Algorithms and programming for digitization of everything will absolutely take over what is going to be produced in this world.  And because the realm of the visual presentation will assuredly replace the fading need to store and transmit the alphabet, these same smart educators will make video storyboards and video transmission a part of their English curriculum rather than their 6th grade, 5-hour introduction in technology.

Assuredly... Absolutely... Now!

Turning thoughts

I'm here tonight on my patio watching the sun disappear below the horizon and the skies gradually change from bright blue to dark blue to gray to star-lit black.  Gazing at the transformation is not mystical.  It happens everyday in the same way.   But, it is thought-provoking.

Watching the change allows me to ponder the type of day it was as it disappears.  Was it a productive day?  Did I accomplish something of note today?  Did I make the day work in my favor?  Was someone else better today because I was in their day?

It also reminds me of the process of the daily phenomenon that is so much larger than I am.   A planet turns on its axis in the middle of nowhere in space as it rotates around the sun and spins away from the sun so that it faces only the darkness and coldness of nothingness.  I am but a speck on the planet peering out into the vastness.

On one hand, my life is meaningful because it makes a difference to me how I live.  On the other hand, my life is completely swallowed and overshadowed by the insignificance of life on one planet among hundreds of billions of them.  It's good for me to contemplate both the importance and insignificance together I think.  That perspective keeps me from arrogance, but allows me to make a mark in the world in some manner or another.

Subtle flattery

A psychological study done about 3 years ago reported that if someone (speaker A) stands or sits in a position similar to the person one is talking to, then the other conversant (speaker B) is more likely to identify with the speaker A.  That is an important principle for those in sales.

In addition, if speaker A were to use a couple of the same words carrying the main idea of the topic (content words), then the identification of speaker B with speaker A was formed.  The measure of both words and body position gave an enhanced strength of identification.

A common saying in English is that flattery will get you nowhere.  But, a subtle form of flattery seemingly gets a person places.  Even if one is not trying to sell someone on some product or idea, showing solidarity with someone else is appreciated.  A number of sociolinguistic studies have been conducted to explore the idea of identification.  People identify with others using a variety of methods with speech.  The father of sociolinguistics, William Labov, conducted one of the first studies showing that the presence of final "r" or lack of final "r" in words like park, car, and floor was connected to social status (which is linked to solidarity).  The Milroys in Dublin, Ireland, two decades later showed the strength of the solidarity in speech with the idea of covertly using slang forms when working with others of the same status even if a person didn't speak that way at home.  Other studies with populations from other countries are numerous.

One of the traits of the so-called woman's intuition is to somehow know when people are connected or not.  But, showing loyalty or bondedness is part of the socialization process for girls as they learn to converse with each other as teenagers.

Call it socialization, covert solidarity, or (non)prestige status, the result is the same whenever it is studied.  I know I've had "better luck" with people when I follow the suggested features for identification with someone.

And what would happen if I applied this principle to software in advertising?  Watch below.

Showing contempt in (not) conversing

I was eating a barbeque place for lunch the other day.  I was by myself, so I sat by a monitor on the wall to watch the NFL channel.  About five tables away three men were engaged in a conversation they were really enjoying.  They were telling stories about the people they worked with.

I like to hear samples of conversations because it reveals a lot about the individuals engaged in those conversations.  One of the really noticeable, very predictable behaviors of language is that it follows one of the world's oldest observations: familiarity breeds contempt.  A number of societies have seen this to be true, even making it into Aesop's fables, The Lion and the Fox.  Shakespeare uses it in The Merry Wives.  Mark Twain is famous for saying it and adding "children" to the quote.  Latin works have it.  It's a time-tested saying.

So the men "talked up a storm" we might say.  What about others in the restaurant who were eating around me.  Well, it was almost 2:00 in the afternoon, so there were not many people in the place.  However, after I had been there about 15 minutes, two couples came in separately.  One was a couple in their mid-20s it appeared, the other a couple in their mid-60s.

If I follow the line of thought used in the age-old observation, the younger couple would have not been together long enough to have contempt for each other.  But, the older couple would show contempt.  As I listened to the younger couple's snippets that were loud enough to hear, I could hear laughter, animated stories, a number of questions, a lot of short answers, but very little silence.  The older couple came in sat down, began eating, looked around at the empty tables, watched TV, but did not talk to each other.  In the 25 minutes they were there, they spoke twice to each other, that I was aware of, and then only a one turn exchange.

I see this pattern again and again.  It's an amazing pattern.  The very reason conversation exists is to share and ask for information.  When a person gets to the point that the reason for conversation's existence is not enough, then (s)he should not waste another person's time.  (S)He should exit before the point of contempt.  Society has a lot of people wasting others' time.  I would rather be around people I want to share with or want to ask questions of.  I can be by myself the other times.

Enjoying trails of foorptints

I caught up with a friend last week that I had gone to school with starting in 6th grade.  We have known each other for a very long time, but we haven't kept in touch through the years.  We were on the same football team when we were 11 years old, in school together during junior high and on the football team there too.  When we went to high school we began to travel in different circles, and we branched out from our junior high spheres, becoming involved in different activities and with the friends of those activities.  But certainly we still passed in the halls and had a few classes together.

After high school I didn't see him again.  Many years passed and our lives took us to places very far from our hometowns, so the intersection of our paths didn't happen again until last week.  We spent about an hour rehashing our journeys.  I never would have guessed where his journey took him.  I was really surprised he had landed in the banking business and eventually training bank managers for one of the largest banks in the country.  Coming out of high school I would never have figured that for him because he was a rather reserved guy with good grades, slightly better than average, and had very conservative values.  He mentioned that he would never have guessed my journey either.

We had a calm, interesting conversation because that's what old friends do.  The two of you go so far back, you knew the other before he was impressive to everyone else.  You don't tell your journey to impress, he knew you back at your roots.  So, you might not want to exaggerate your story in any way.  When you have one of these conversations, there are two trademarks for them.  A sense of calm or ease pervades your words, and an element of genuine interest in the other person's events lightens the spirit.  I had a conversation with a high school friend and teammate earlier this month, and the same two trademarks surfaced.

Old friends do a heart good in this world of deceit, ambition, and ego-centrism.

Trailblazing

The thing about a supermoon is that it is enlarged enough for a person to imagine what it would be like to live there.  That's about to be a reality since NASA has decided to tell the world that they have found water on Mars.  They have known this for quite some time, but I am glad that they have decided to release the news.

Of course there is the group that believes the secret military of this country already has colonized both the moon and Mars, but for the rest of us who don't get to see much evidence of living on an extraterrestrial body, the supermoon represents the awe and wonder of space travel and space living.  It's a good thing that the possibilities are opening up since our world will be at 7 million occupants in the not-so-distant future.  Food and water will be at a premium.

I will probably not live long enough to do any space living or traveling, but I wish I could sit in a spaceship soaking in the splendor of looking back at Earth, anticipating the trip to the new planet, and gazing at the majesty of its first glimpse as it would draw closer to our landing.  I would love the feeling of being some of the first to ever do this and that a crowd would probably follow.  I am just a trailblazer at heart.

(Un)real things

I am always amazed at how people respond to symbols and traditions.  They are two sides of the same coin.  They both represent the values people have.  People forget the two are not the values themselves.  Flags and flowers are the usual examples given.  A flag is not the same as the country.  It stands for the country.  Flowers are not the same as a person's loving actions.  They stand for loving actions.

A really good other example is the language people speak.  When that first happened, there was no writing.  That was invented later.  Language was just language in the beginning.  But, at some point people invented symbols for language so that they could store the language and transmit it to others.  Thus, people in civilization centers around the globe invented symbols for the languages they spoke.  Some invented letters for separate sounds, such as t and d and n to show where the tip of the tongue is placed and whether one wanted to use the vocal cords, use air only, or use the nasal passage.  Others made symbols for ideas.  Still others would put sounds together and show a word by circling it with an oval.  These inventions were not the languages themselves, but representations of the language.

I have a friend who puts pictures from a website called Traces of Texas on his Facebook.  The site contains many, many pictures of Texas during the period of the 1930s and 1940s.  He is a nostalgic friend and muses about the good values of the early days of his life.  So, he puts symbols up for the values he cherished that are different from today.  Since the values today are so different, he gets stuck in a time warp and responds to symbols from the past.

I have another friend who is really caught up in the idea of family.  It's really a facade, however, because the family she came from and the family she raised are dysfunctional, more than average.  So, she has adopted the symbols for family - pictures of everyone, singly and in groups, on walls all around her house - to help her realize the ideals that family represent.

Don't get me wrong.  I like the occasional symbol.  They can be very meaningful.  But, as a way of life, I want to deal in the real events, real values, real relationships, and real jobs.

Revising the base

I grew up in a humble little home many years ago.  I was taught that religion and education made the world a better place.  I supposedly needed copious amounts of both in my life to be successful and moral.

Now I find myself in a world where religious people fight among themselves and denigrate those outside their beliefs. I hear people who go to church saying the most awful things about the people they work with and religion and democracy often get confused.  I look around at the successful people and see truck drivers with little education making $150,000 a year, plumbers charging $80 an hour and earning $40 of that for themselves.  I get my hair done by a stylist who brings home more than most people with college degrees.  A felon I know makes 80K running a landscape business, and an illegal immigrant I know runs his own pool service business that employs others and provides for the families of the two brothers who own it.

It's a little hard to believe anymore in what I needed copious amounts of to be successful and moral.  So, I have retreated into a different view of things in lieu of the puzzle that life presents for making sense of one's experience.  This new world consists of doing good for the ones who need it, loving the events that each moment presents, and following my heart in matters of sharing love.  I find this yields a much, much more satisfying life.  Val's art diary is a good visual for my current state of affairs.

Being handed lemons

Recently ? has been in the news.  Here is a case of one of my favorite principles in life.  "When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade."  Watch below.

So, Ahmed spent a little time in jail.  I would like to have recorded what went through his mind those first 30 minutes in jail.  Maybe he thought about prejudice against his nationality.  His father certainly did in an interview about the arrest.  Maybe he thought about how life was tougher than he bargained for and he would give up making things.  Maybe he was bitter at the school, especially his English teacher who turned  him in, and thought that he wouldn't be able to finish school and accomplish his dreams.  Maybe.

All of us are handed such circumstances in life.  And we can't see past the dimension of momentary time walls to the next move in Life's game called "our lives."  But we can make lemonade from the lemons if we will have patience to let things develop on their own.  If left to his own and his family's logic, a discrimination lawsuit would have been filed, publicity about national bias against Islam would have ensued.  Ahmed would have served a suspension from the Irving school district.  People would have taken sides.  All of that was in the works.  Instead, what happened was that the white house offered him to visit the president.  MIT offered him a scholarship.  Twitter and Microsoft both reached out to him.  And soon he will enroll in a technology-oriented school where he can further his interests.

That's beautiful, isn't it?  With a little patience and time, our paths turn from being sprinkled with lemon juice to being mixed with a little sugar and water.  The transformation is amazing.

From thin air

I used to hear the expression, "You can't just make something out of thin air."  I knew that saying would disappear once holographics came on the scene.  Already it is a saying that young people don't use because they're the virtual generation.  Air is not a dimension of separation for them.  Their world is seamless between reality and virtual reality.

But, I'm not going to have to wait for the holographic realm.  Something else has been invented.  It's in the real world, not the virtual, but it allows you to make something from thin air.  Watch the video below.

I know a really artistic girl who would enjoy this invention.  It would help her go to the next level that paper can't take her to.  It would allow her and her generation to imagine things AND draw them to make them come alive.  I look forward to the time when she and others become adults and put their ideas into place in a society where reality can come from thin air.

More in the tea leaves

I saw a Facebook post of a photograph of a someone's second grader's homework.  On the line for the name the child had written her name "Alyssa."  The name was in cursive handwriting.  The teacher had written a comment by the child's name, "Do not write in cursive.  I have already warned you twice about this."

This is really unusual, but it illustrates where literacy is headed.  Reading and writing are definitely on their way out the door.  Even in traditional circles at least one person is thinking that printing is the only legitimate kind of handwriting.  That could just be the effect of the computer on a generation of young people, but I see it as a signal that even the traditionalists are moving toward a different definition of literacy.  Cursive handwriting has effectively been greatly diminished in use for a decade now.  One teacher is waging a campaign to keep it that way.

But in the larger picture, printing is on the way out too.  A recent Reuters News Agency ad in a Google banner read, "Read less, know more."  Included in the ad was a video of a news story.  The dots have been put in place over the last 9 years since the advent of the iphone.  Now the dots are being connected.  It's amazing to me that people continue to want literacy to be writing/reading-based rather than opting to embrace what is on the horizon now and soon to be mainstream.

I promised myself I would chart this change from 2007 to 2017.  I have, but it's hard to see so many unbelievers.  Well, one day...

A horrid selfishness

I would have thought that one of the parts of given to Meryl Streep in Ricki and the Flash was an error on the part of the script writer if I hadn't seen it for myself.  Streep's character is one of a divorcee who has not lived with her children.  Apparently, the children had sided with their father in the divorce.  Nothing was ever explicitly stated, but one gets the idea that Ricki (Streep) had not been stable or present enough in the kids' lives for them to respect her.

During the course of the movie her adult children definitely didn't want her to be a part of their lives.  The script writer here doesn't show a callousness in Ricki's character but a willingness to support her children with the awareness that they didn't want her around.  That's reality in the case of many broken marriages.  That part of the story is plausible.

But, without reason, there is a scene in which Ricki's boyfriend from the band she plays in tries to encourage her to go to her grown son's wedding.  She had actually been invited.  But she was going to miss it since she was aware of the son's animosity toward her.  So her boyfriend goads her to go, saying, "It doesn't matter if they don't love you.  It's not their job to love you.  It's your job to love them,"  (1:44-1:48).

My first reaction to that line was one of artificiality.  What parent doesn't know that?  Children are fickle.  Anyone who has raised teenagers knows this.  Anyone who has raised a child to age 25 knows how egocentric he or she is.  It's no mystery you have to love your kids through certain stages before they achieve an adult understanding of life.  I thought the script writer had  made a glaring error in his writing.

But, I have seen this first hand in at least three different women.  They bore resentments toward their daughters in their cases.  They castigated them, put them off, and treated them horridly saying that their children didn't show them the proper love and respect.  They didn't know it was their job to love their children, rather than waiting for their adult children to show them the respect they thought they deserved.  It's not pretty, but it is reality.  I appreciated the script writer for showing how real the situation was and for having a character try to coax a selfish mother into a better way of thinking.  Kudos for the psychological fight for good this writer built into his movie.  He was trying to rid his viewers of an evil among us.

Gracious, but true to herself

Meryl Streep puts in another very good performance.  The movie is not a complex movie of weaving the lives of many characters to form a mosaic like her movie August: Osage County, nor does she depict a character that spans a number of years to show dynamic change in a person's life like Sophie's Choice and The Devil Wears Prada.  However, she delivers in a movie that shows the strength of a static character, a mom who is needed to help her daughter in a particular situation.

She depicts a divorcee who has found her own truth in life apart from what her wealthy husband could live with.  Her interaction with each of the story's characters, mainly her biological children, shows the trials she has to face as an "outsider" to her own children.  Her children have had a hard time accepting their mother's life and dreams, so they portray their disdain for her during the entire movie except at the very end.

It is this part of the story that carries the clear and poingnant message of the movie.  In the trailer above,that message is found at 2:12-2:18.  She is at her son's wedding in the midst of a very wealthy crowd.  She lives a rather hand to mouth lifestyle, so she knows she can't participate to any monetary level worthy of this crowd.  So, she takes her participation in the wedding to an arena the others can't participate in.  She gracefully says, "I have never been a traditional mother.  But I am a musician. And I'd like to give all I have to you."

It is that last comment, "And I'd like to give all I have to you," that moves me.  I am motivated to be that gracious and giving to those I have in my circle of contact every day.  Years of practicing music made Meryl Streep very good at music.  That is what she had to offer, so she offered it.  I hope those around me see me constantly doing the same.

Just a little thought about literacy

An acquaintance put a post on her Facebook today encouraging teachers to "fight the good fight."  By that she meant to keep fighting for literacy.  She included a link to a Mississippi newspaper article talking about a literacy program that had helped literacy test scores in that state.

I'm all for literacy, but my definition of that term is very different from anything that would show up on a test score.  The acquaintance went on to say that she knew that cursive writing, sentence structure, and diagramming "had gone by the wayside."   It's good she noticed that they've been gone for a while now.

Newsflash!  Those three things are not returning.  They're gone into infinity.  Fight that fight all you want to.  Literacy has changed direction and meaning.  It's just one more sign for those who want to remain in denial that even the die-hards like my acquaintance are noticing that reading and writing are about to hit a hiatus.  I'm serious.  They will be pretty much gone by the end of 2017.

The commercial on the radio today pretty much sums up where young people's heads are these days.  There's a new app out for your phone.  It connects everything you do on your phone to a screen in your car so that you can do everything "hands-free".  Texting is done by voice command.  Touching icons for app activation is a thing of the past. Icons are voice activated too.  Search is by voice command.  Call directory is by voice command.  And more.  All via bluetooth to a screen in your car.

Yep.  Writing is pretty much out the window, down the toilet, and otherwise gone with the wind with this new app.  Mississippi better start preparing students in a different way or it will really be a sinkhole of a state to grow up in.  That would be true for any state that tests reading and writing literacy skills.  I'm thinking that video and voice presentation has more than adequately shown it is the new literacy.  It's past time to swallow that pill.

Words as a glimpse

It's hard to say sometimes how much of a person's behavior is due to personality given by genetics, and to conditioning of our training given by others, and to experience given to us through life's situations.  From observing people I have known a long time, I can see the merit of the saying, "You can't change the stripes on a zebra."  Genetics play a large part of our behavior.  But the idea that "clothes make the man" lends itself to the environment and its influence on our behavior.  And, Janet Fitch's words, "The phoenix must burn to emerge," cannot be counted out of any formula for dealing with people.

Psychologists have been working for years on what shapes a person's behavior.  Studies include changes in behavior due to hormones and medication, changes in one's environment, manipulating routines, and changes to one's preferences in established routines.  Still there are no definitive answers.Since the science of the mind can't really produce the ultimate answer on why people act the way the do, I don't mull that question too much.

Personality to me drives behavior, so understanding personality is the path to enlightenment on this issue.  But personality is a tricky thing.  It has facets to it.  It seems to be related to genetic makeup more than any other factor.  In a lot of cases, knowing the pattern of the stripes on one side of the zebra allows for one to predict what the other sides of the zebra look like.  Personality is not divided into four quadrants showing primary and secondary traits as major companies have presented this idea.  Personality has a blend of traits that react to all kinds of circumstances, even to elements in a circumstance that may seem minor to an onlooker.  The trigger that activates anger in one setting is allowed to pass without reaction in a different setting by the same person.  Why?

One way to find out is by analyzing the words people use.  Words can serve as the windows to see into the mind.  Patterns develop with words that indicate the patterns developing in the mind.  That allows one to see behaviors such as lying, risk, preoccupation, depression, nurturing, and love.  To a great extent, patterning the words of someone, reveals the patterning of a person's mind.  So, knowing how to listen is a real virtue these days.