Over and over

This is the season for giving gifts.  I have given my fair share over the years.  I have given to people I love like my children and to people I have not known because they could not afford the gifts.  I have given when it was anticipated and unanticipated.  I have given presents that caused surprise and given presents that were deliberated upon ahead of time.  But, the gift I enjoyed giving the most was one not expected.  I knew one of the person's favorite stores and searched that store for just the right gift, going four times before deciding.  I flew halfway across the U.S. with the gift, at one point being searched by airport security because the glass in it contained lead.  But it was pure pleasure to give that gift.  So, when people speak of gift-giving during this season, I remember most the one that gave me the greatest pleasure, and I still smile just thinking about it, wishing I could give that gift over and over.

Treasures in thought too

This morning started out cold.  I don't drink coffee, and I was out of tea which I sometimes drink hot, so I had to just let the cold shroud me.  Tonight was pretty cold, too.  I have a coat, and that helped.  But it's having a warm heart that makes the body warm all over.  Then it could be sub-freezing weather and it wouldn't matter.

Every day this week is supposed to be cold.  But, my brain sends my heart sensations of a cherub's voice and an angel's eyes, and tender scenes of unparalleled joy and beauty that I have stored and treasured there.  So, I know I won't feel the cold... The scenes make my heart warm... Nothing else matters.

Confluence

10,000 years ago a tsunami crashed into the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.  At least that was the theory of an Italian archaeologist.  No one believed him.  So, he set out to find his evidence to prove his case.  He found villages on the eastern side of the sea that are underwater now, but that had been above water at some point.  He found artifacts at those settlements and dated them - no surprise - to the 9th century BCE.  He also found that the water of the Mediterranean had been at lower levels during the 9th century BCE that would allow the settlements to be above water.  He found evidence off the coast of Italy in the ocean floor that a plate in the crust had moved about the same time.  He found a confluence of evidence all pointing to the truth of his case.

One can look at my life and draw some conclusions.  One is that in my 20s I was certainly a different person than I am now.  A quick interview of some my friends then would certainly tell that tale.  One could also ask me about impact people in my life.  They could hear their names and see the trails of their influence in my life and work.  My Greek professor in college was one of those people.  And a person can see his influence in every decade of my vocation and avocation.  But there was a tsunami that left its mark on everything I think and do now.  I doubt that people would see it and believe it at the moment.  It takes a while for evidence to mount.  However, a day will come when people will have a confluence of evidence that my Earth's floor suddenly moved a couple of years back, setting a wave in motion that crashed the shore on the other side of the sea.

I am not sad about it.  It was a beautiful event.  The life I have after is so much better.  In fact, I bask in the hope of a splash to come.

Sacred scroll

Tucked away in the deserts of Israel were some scrolls that had great value to many people.  Jews regarded them highly because they were lost Jewish writings of a sect that had disappeared about the turn of the 1st century ACE.  Christians liked them because they corroborated some of the books of the Bible and shed additional light on the culture of the 1st century in which Jesus lived.  They were sacred because they were regarded highly because of what they contained.

I regard those same scrolls highly, maybe for different reasons, but there are some other writings that have a very special place with me and are esteemed more highly than anything I possess of a personal nature.  On this day of giving thanks, I am most thankful for this other writing.  It is a poster rolled up like a scroll, lying in a place much like the caves around the Dead Sea.  Last week, I decided to take in its contents again since it had been a while.  I could not take my eyes from the pictures of the three most special people in the world standing there talking at a festive occasion.  When finally I did, I read the poem associated with the pictures, then scanned the meaningful songs and places next to the poem.  I spent quite a bit of time, sacred moments, letting my mind once again soak in all that was there. Finally, I rolled the poster and returned the scroll to its container, but it refreshed my day.  My mind was caught up in this moment, caught up in the smile of those in the picture, full of thought, full of reconstitution, full of sheer happiness.

Some consider these two types of scrolls to be on different levels.  Maybe.  I do know that the effect on me was exactly the same with the second type as with the first.  And if the effect is the same, then any difference that may exist is gone.  Sacred scroll... sacred moments... sacred feelings!

Yes, I have seen this one

In 1986, one could look to the sky and see a beautiful, bright star with a tail as long as from the Earth to the moon.  It would not be the first time that celestial body would have been seen by humans.  There are tales of this "star" showing up on a regular basis since 240 BCE.  Other and older reports also exist, but it is unknown whether or not they pertain to this beautiful, bright, long-tailed star.

It was the good fortune of Isaac Newton's friend, not Newton himself, who calculated the periodic return of this fiery but majestic celestial body every 76 years.  Edmond Halley gets the credit for predicting this comet after years of scientific study of its phenomenon.

A person is lucky to see it once in her/his lifetime.  When the average mortality age was 65, one would just have to be born strategically to view the comet's appearance.  Now, with an average mortality age of 80, one has the chance to see it twice.  Still, though, that's a very small class of people.  Once is what most people will see this splendid comet.  Human lives are short, no doubt.  And many people do not see this comet at all in their lifetimes. 

It is my experience that people meet just the right person, their Halley's Comet, once in a lifetime.  Some get that lucky chance early in life, some later.  But, a person always knows when (s)he has met the one.  His/her lips cannot stop smiling.  The joy of living is unmistakable.  The buoyancy of meeting the routines and other mundane matters in life with zest cause life to suddenly be an adventure worth living out.  Having someone to believe in and be believed by is the rare, once-in-a-lifetime pass-by of someone beautiful, bright, and full of vibrance and inspiration.  And, yes, I have seen the one celestial, beautiful, bright Halley's Comet!

Even that is telling

Recently, I got to carry on an extended conversation with a man who was keenly interested in the idea that the way someone says something, that is, the choice of words and phrasing a person uses to word an utterance, can have significance.  He dabbles in language, but it is limited to phonetics because he works on reducing foreigner's accents.  He had not been exposed to the study of semantics, pragmatics, grammar theory, or forensic linguistics.  I love having those conversations.

How people word their sentences does reveal volumes about them. Syntax, word choices, and phrasing all work together to expose one's personality, perspective, orientation, and emotional attachment or detachment.  It also reveals their maturity with articulation.  Piaget pointed out that adults can develop in their cognition to a concrete stage and then plateau.  I think the same is true with language.  Adults can reach a plateau in their ability to manipulate it.  But, even that is telling.  The point at which articulation is arrested says something about the person's personality and perspective. 

I listen to people talk.  It has helped me understand what they are really about.  That has saved me a lot of time and breath.

Let it go

"Let it go."  I hear this phrase a lot in life.  It's good advice from time to time.  I most often hear it said about matters that are minor irritants.  But, I also hear it from professional counselors on television when they advise people to move on with their lives.  They are told to let go of abuse, neglect, kidnapping, verbal lashings, submission, and other behaviors.  It is hard for people to let things go of such a major nature.  It takes time and the willingness to move on without allowing the matter to influence their futures.

So much happens in life that it is easy to let most matters go.  Experience allows a person to learn which battles are the important battles, the matters that one shouldn't let go.  This experience also helps a person build a priority list, values in ascending order.  The higher up the priority list a matter is, the less likely it is for someone to let that matter go.  If  a matter is at the top of the list, a person is not going to let that matter go.

Sometimes, the top priority is a hope someone has; it will remain intact. 

 The person won't let that hope go... ever.  I know this first-hand.  It is the hill worth dying on.

Sentiments for deep sleep

I really, really like the group Sugarland because they blend their voices so well, and their choice of songs to sing are on the themes I identify with.  So I was listening to the CMA awards tonight and heard them sing with Matt Nathanson the song Run.   Love that song for several reasons, but two reasons above all others.

My son used to play the drums for a band.  He was very, very good at them.  In particular, he would play songs using the toms.  The song Run highlights both bass guitar and tom drums all the way through the song.  That sound is so pleasing, and it reminds me of my son's ability on the drums.  For that reason alone I could listen to the song all night long.

The song has tremendous words to it, among them, "When you're beside me, I am so much more," a theme of several of my blogs.  The words occur in the middle of the song, the bridge between the chorus and the verses.  Although subtly placed, the words are not subliminal, but significant.  They speak volumes because I know the person I am when I stand alone.

So, tonight I sleep, savoring two of the closest sentiments of my heart.  It will be a deep 5 hours of sleep before rising again.

Star scenes

Franz Mesmer lived at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th.  He developed a new theory for the world called animal magnetism.  His great test case came when he tried to heal a blind woman, a young musician.  Many thought he was a charlatan for so doing.  But he was merely trying to direct the body's energy to one area in order to heal that area.  To do so, he asked her to concentrate, trance style, on the area needing healing.

This method came to bear his name in English as a verb when people wanted to mesmerize someone.  However, the term hypnotize became more popular in the late 1800s, so mesmerize took on a new meaning - to hold someone spellbound.

Tonight, a glance at the night sky holds my eyes there.  It engages my thought.  It directs my body's energy to my fascination of space, and by association, the fascination of those times that have given my life its happiness.  I have been mesmerized.  Reality returns, but not before the stars have bathed my thoughts with spellbinding, healing visuals of the one who inspires me.

Treasures in thought

Treasures come in two varieties - those that you can hold and touch, buy and sell, and those that you can think of and memorize, mull and replay.  I know that a lot of people put stock in the physical type.  Their value can bring an appraised price, something tangible.  But I put stock in the cognitive type.  Their value is personally appraised, something in the deep recesses of the mind.

Treasures of this second type are always available and their replay seems, like wine, to taste more robust with every swish across the palate.  I have a very special set of them that are placed in vintage bottles.  I bring them out for tasting when life needs more vitality.  They're not just empty scenes that flash across the monitor of the mind.  They have life, sounds, laughter, silences, touches, and vibrance.  They derive from a voice, a face, a time of day. They immediately bring a spring to each step, a reason for living.

Their value cannot be appraised for there is not currency enough to buy, sell, or trade even one of these treasures.  They can be embodied in songs or captured in movies.  Books and poems can represent the feelings created by them.  They provide the flames I want to live beside in life, as in Dierks Bentley's song Feel That Fire and the inspiration I need to live fully as in Blind Side, the movie.

These treasures in thought cast a more radiant glow on life than the brilliance of the sun on Earth!

Choosing from a spectrum

Proverbs reflect the values of people and are good to follow many times.  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush is a saying worth understanding and valuable when it comes to negotiating a deal involving money.   But, proverbs are only as good as the people's experience that make them up.  When experiences differ, then proverbs differ.  And those proverbs seem to reflect the rub in life.  Some things in life derive from spontaneity, passion, love for the moment, and fire in the soul.  Other things are driven by planning, implementation, and determination.  Thus, Plan your work, work your plan is in diametric opposition to Stop and smell the roses.  So are the phrases, Stay on the beaten path and The beautiful things in life are off the beaten path.  The proverb The best way to project the future is to look at the past ignores completely the idea that The only constant in life is change.  Some people see decision making as choosing between two colors, black and white.  Others approach decision making as choosing from a whole spectrum of colors, each color rendering scenes having their own distinct and particular beauty. 

I lived a rather principled life early on, but in doing so I suppressed much of the input given to me by my heart.  I was wrong.  That led to a Spartan life.  While hedonism is probably the opposite extreme, guided only by desire, there is something to be said for allowing passion and beauty to balance the austere principles.  Every life should enjoy the beauty and hope of springtime, not merely the winter of despair, the dropping leaves of autumn, or the dog days of summer.  Listening to the heart permits us to drink from the wellspring of life.

Comfortable sleep in due time

At the end of last month, it was two years ago that I walked away from the comfortable and routine and ambled toward a rainbow of possiblities.  There was one aspect, however, that I didn't want to leave. :(  Since then, I have been able to accomplish some of the possibilities afforded in that rainbow.  The sweetness of the potential of most of the rest of the color array isn't complete, but will be realized I am pretty sure... except one aspect.

Life cycles around, sometimes slower, sometimes faster.  I just have to remember... Everything in its due time.  Until then, I will only somewhat sleep at night.

At the root of language learning

It's very interesting to hear scholars speak about how language (in all of its aspects) is learned because most of them assume an evolutionary origin for it.  If one follows the logic of evolution, then the reason for its development in the beginning  was to give an edge to the human species for survival purposes.  This it has done because humans now dominate all of the other species.  Through language, humans could hunt, know where to go to get the best kill, make the best tools, and migrate at just the right times.  That stage was followed by knowing what plants would grow, when they would grow, how long and in what regions.  Then came civilization along the river valleys.  At that point, language took a bent it had not had before.  People learned to control others through language.  Other facets for having language surfaced, such as to provide posterity with a record and to serve as a medium for perpetuation of progress.  There are a few other facets as well.

 So, when I hear about learning language (in any or all of its aspects) and the origin for language is excluded, then I have to wonder about the accuracy of such a learning.  At the root, language is learned to survive.  After that need is insured, then other reasons come into play; however, one has to still ask the question of what need is being fulfilled for learning language.  One learns the language of utility in order to survive. Then, there has to be an external and internal motivation involved in learning or nothing would get perpetuated.  The external motivation can be either negatively or positively reinforced.  Beyond that a person might just have an interest in something or a respect for someone or something which creates a need to learn. 

These five governing principles interact with the plethora of inherent personality traits and that dictates how much of a language a person will learn and which dialects/registers one will learn, and everything else about learning a language.  Techniques for learning a language play into language learning very little, maybe not at all.

Even if a person were to negate evolution as the origin for language, there would still be the need to answer the question of why people learned language to begin with and why they still need to learn language.  Answering why keeps one from straying onto the path of trying to straightjacket young people into learning sets of words that are meaningless outside of the context of language learning principles and personality.

Behind the username

I saw this email address today: empty_perspective@____.com.  I don't know what the person had in mind; I could only guess.  At first, besides thinking the address odd, I thought the address was sad.  It looked like someone had nothing to offer.  Then again, the person might have thought (s)he was a blank slate, tabula rasa, waiting to be filled.  Or maybe the person wanted to claim neutrality and didn't want to side with any particular perspective.  I have no idea.  I have chosen usernames before for email accounts.  That is not one I would ever adopt.   I am left to wonder about what kind of person wants to be known by empty_perspective.

Email addresses usually indicate some trait about a person that the person wants to tout or be known by. Some monikers people choose are not traits but just something meaningful.   Some fit the attitudes of the people making them up.  Some monikers are memorable for one reason or another.  And then there are special ones for the people they represent, among them, THEspec1@___.com.  That one never gets lost in cyberspace.

Matrix matching

E-Harmony came at a time when people were exploring a new way to "hook up" with others.  It worked well because it asked its users to fill out a several-hundred question survey about themselves.  Then it placed the information in a matrix and made compatible matches between people.  It was one of the few places to use a matrix for personality traits and connect the dots between people.

Picking up a language, its vocabulary, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics is much the same.  It in great part is due to  personality.  Other factors enter in, such as exposure, but to know what words a person knows or what native nuances a person will use (like the appearance or absence of an s at the end of backward/s, anyway/s, or toward/s) depends not on schooling but on all the blanks that have been filled in on a 20 X 20 square matrix with personality traits.  Someone who is gregarious, for example, might have an eye out for the syntax or phrasing of something that would make her/him desire prestige in someone else's eyes.  Someone who is extremely studious doesn't worry about prestige much, but would want a choice word or semantic meaning that would make him/her look educated or "smart" in someone's eyes.  Response to language learning is dependent on what traits fill those 400 squares.  Get someone to fill that out, then you might have a clue as to the type of language (s)he might use or the type of words (maybe even number of words) (s)he might know.

Personalities that match make people compatible.  Compatibility between people is something I will leave for another day although I believe in it and have experienced it to my good fortune.  Personalites make for a match with language markers, including style and  vocabulary, as well.  Try it sometime. Fill out a matrix, then match it to your vocabulary, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.  It's a match made in Heaven.

Slice of life mirrors

The reality show Jerseylicious has some interesting characters.  It probably shows a fairly accurate picture of people in their early 20s in their relationships with each other.  You have all the different personalities all in the milieu trying to get along with each other and  still coexist at some level of civility.  Olivia seems to have the most going for her.  She seems to have direction and a degree of diplomacy with others.  Anthony seems to have the most moral outlook in that he has a sense of right and wrong and tries to live by his code as much as he can.  One of my least favorite characters is Gigi.  She is definitely still in the late adolescent stage of finding herself even if she is in her 20s.  Her boyfriend is not much better or different. 

You wouldn't think much profundity would come from such a show, but it is such a good slice of life that a person can see something of great value in each episode.  The episode in which Olivia faced up to kicking Tracy in the head was one such episode because it took great character to admit to a not-so-good friend that she was responsible for something that the friend knew nothing about.  Or the episode with Anthony trying his hardest not take employees from his friend and sometimes partner, Gail, was one because he tried so hard to take a stand for what he thought was right.  Then there was one in which Gigi, who had  been away from  Frankie for quite a little while realized she could not live without him.  When she did get together again with Frankie, she told Frankie a person knows when someone is right (Absolutely true!) and she was glad to be together again.

I've learned a few other lessons from watching this reality show.  As complicated as life gets sometimes, there's nothing that replaces the hope one has of things in life that could  really turn out well.  I am happy for the characters on the show when their hopes become realized, and I struggle with them when their hopes go unrealized.  It's a reflection on the lake that I peer into.

Shaking my head

There is an ongoing discussion on the Language Expert group I am a member of right now.  Someone posed the question about how the best way to learn vocabulary was.  I have been amazed at the experts' answers in the group.  It reinforces my already shaded view about vocabulary after a great number of courses in language acquisition (both first and second), after 5 years experience teaching a native language vocabulary course to 17 and 18 year-olds, after raising two children as they acquired language in all its various forms, and after doing first-hand field research in the area.  The experts prefer methods that will only work to get a very basic number of words learned, which is probably why public schools have circulated some very soft research concerning the importance of vocabulary learning for its secondary students (elementary too, for that matter, but the angle is usually a little different).

For the record, it's really, really simple.  Stephen Krashen captured the idea in an eloquent equation on the same order that Eistein captured the eloquent equation to base his theory of relativity on.  V=i+1.  Learning vocabulary is a matter of input +1 more word (or phrase or term or semantic domain).

It's really that simple, but for those who want complex, the second phase of  learning vocabulary is that there are 5 reasons for learning vocabulary.  These reasons govern the entire vocabularies of people whether you talk about reading, writing (typing nowadays), or speaking.  The reason for the soft research is that very few true field tests exist for those learning words above the age of 6.  And there's a great reason for that.  After age 4 really, the backgrounds of children are so different and the personalities of children mixing with those backgrounds are so different, that there is no uniform way to know the true extent of people's vocabularies.  Tests cannot be constructed that fathom the number of words children know, much less know which words they have in common above the 8,000 word level.  So, getting children to learn vocabulary according to a particular method or with an established regimen of lists is ludicrous.  That is simply not how people learn words!!!

Cognitive and memory studies have contributed some to how people learn words, and language acquisition has contributed as well.  These are two areas unknown to most educators.  So, the researching arm of educaton is left to guess basically how words are learned.  They have turned to one of the softest and most recent areas of education to be developed - reading.  Heaven forbid that reading should inform vocabulary learning.  Most of those studies ignore completely how children come to the task of learning to read.  Most reading teachers and scholars ignore Krashen and Richard Gentry (himself a reading expert) and pursue some sort of universal way of reading acquisition model, following Marie Clay usually and Louisa Moates.

I guess I shouldn't care so much.  Reading will be dead in the water in 10 years or less anyway.  It's just that I have friends in education and I hate seeing them bang their heads against the wall.  People's judgments are only as good as their information.  I wish my friends could see the information I have seen, but they are going to have to go outside what is being fed to them by the school systems to get it.  School systems perpetuate circular reasoning,  ideas that feed their preconceived notions.  That's really not a good educational model, but it is an absolutely abhorrent model for word development and the associated subjects using words.

The sorting aid

It's amazing to me how many people want to be your friend, but then not really.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs addresses the need of people to belong, but according to him, it happens before self-actualization.  Of course, Maslow's is just one hierarchy of needs.  There are others.  But, I like his because I think it is accurate of human behavior or at least human development on the path to self-actualization.

My simple test for those who really want to be my friend is how many of their sentences start with "well" when speaking to them.  "Well" can be considered a hesitation at best or a hostile marker at worst.  Its meaning ranges from trying to sort for common ground to being a prelude to a disagreement about a point.  It's not a hedge per se because it is not a filler or because it is not hiding anything.  It is straightforward and people don't hesitate to use it for what it is intended to show - that two people are not on the same page.

So, when people begin a statement with "Well," I know to beware.  They may seem friendly, but they're wolves in sheep's clothing.  Besides that, they will either get stuck in the need for belonging category or move on to self-actualization.  Either way, insincerity is the trademark, and people leave you high and dry, for the group they're stuck in or in realizing they can accomplish goals without you.  I love the word "well."  It sorts out my friends for me.

Horizons yet again

I decided to stroll the beach on the north end of the Boston Harbor about 9 AM on a Monday morning.  Not too far in the distance was a paddle boarder already plying his craft.  A few others walked the beach, but very few.  In the distance where the peninsula intruded somewhat across the bay were the wealthy houses.  They had the money to escape Boston and enjoy the quiet of the waters.

On the other side of the peninsula, 11 miles further, was the skyline of the city.  It would take an hour to travel around the bay by road to the city, but only 20 minutes by ferry from the tip of the peninsula around the harbor's lighthouse.

I could hear the gulls above me, but the small breeze was the only other noticeable sound in my ears.  I had never been to any beach in mid-autumn, much less a Massachusetts beach.  It stretched my horizons yet again.

I generally don't stretch my horizons or let others stretch them for me.  But it happens once in a while.  Sometimes the scene is in the right place.  Sometimes you're with the perfect person.  Sometimes both.  Then it's a beautiful thing, I allow it and willingly say, "Stretch on!"

Course change

Over the years, rivers change courses.  The river supplying the water to Niagra Falls has changed several times.  The river flowing through the Grand Canyon has majorly changed its course at least once.  Fortunately so.  Otherwise we would have the Grand Valley.  And, the Yellowstone River is not even close to the place it started. 

The changes are not geared to human life spans, however.  They operate on a span of their own.  Humans will never live long enough to see a river change.  We just see the evidence it leaves behind.  They are the results of tectonic plate shift, glatiation, wind erosion, meteorite impact, and other forces.

I have a few course changes in my life as well.  You'd have to know me from a time before now or talk to me about the past in order to see the evidences of those course changes.  They happened over time.  They are the result of forces like experience, sudden tragedies, idealism without basis, and other forces. 

Like river changes, the force of change is not pleasant to endure, but once the cracking, moaning, and melting is over, oh what a beautiful landscape is created!  It's true about the landscape of my life, too. And I am due a couple more, probably, just because life is not static.  And if I could pick that course change...






Oh how full of splendor life would be!