Giving ourselves destiny

Who's writing history textbooks these days?  Not just these days, but in my lifetime too.  Abraham Lincoln gets treated incredibly well in the books I have ever been exposed to.  It's not easy to figure out why this is so.  The U.S. had a slavery issue at the time.  Lincoln's solution was a decisive one and the fastest solution to accomplish.  The political establishment after the war campaigned long and hard (and rather brutally) to ensure that the issue of slavery would not reappear.  Part of doing this meant that they needed to treat the leader of the war to free slaves in the best light possible.  So they did.  Lincoln was a hero, a decisive man who pushed for right to be done.  He was wise and led the country out of a dark chapter in its history.

The other side of the coin is not bright and shiny like history books tell it.  Lincoln was an on again, off again politician, losing in as many races as he gained office.  He was elected with less than 40% of the popular vote.  He wasn't even on the ballot in 10 of the 15 states that formed the southern slave states.  In his own Republican convention before the election, Lincoln obtained the Republican party nomination on the third round of balloting.  In the main election, Lincoln's position on slavery was the most divisive, stating that if war was necessary to end slavery, then he would wage it.  The other three candidates had more diplomatic stances, such as allowing each new state in the Union decide its status of slave or free, having an alternating pattern of free-slave-free-slave status as they entered the Union, or trying to bring pressure on the South through economic modifications.  When Lincoln won, the Southern states wasted no time in seceding, nine of them before Lincoln was inaugurated.

The most divisive president in U.S. history is remembered kindly.  He has books published about him touting how he lingered long on his decision for war, concerned about the great lines of division that would be caused.  He has movies made of how he labored with Congress to win their support for getting Black Americans to have the right of citizenship.  Modern books contain the wit and wisdom of Lincoln.  It's one of the greatest sell jobs ever.

We all have a choice on which voices we choose to hear.  We all decide how we want to interpret the world around us.  We all select which details to remember and drop from memory.  And we all elect to act and react in ways we deem consistent with all the details.  That's what gives us individuality.  Even those we love choose, decide, select, and act according to a little different line of thinking than we have.  It's what gives us our destinies.

Hanging around

I hear NFL commentators use a phrase nearly every Sunday as they narrate a game that is close.  The phrase is used when a team is ahead most of the game and in the fourth quarter, the other team is still within striking distance to win.  That's when I hear, "if you let someone hang around long enough, they will beat you."

I have seen that principle happen in life more times than not.  That has made me adopt the philosophy of hanging around.  Even if I didn't think I could actually get a job or get a job I wanted, I would try to hang around to see what would happen.  That philosophy has not worked for me in the two things in life I wanted the most, but it has worked out in many other arenas of life.

The NFL has other philosophies of life worth adopting.  Another one I have adopted is that from time to time, you will lose even if you are winning more than losing or if you have a winning streak going.  Losing is part of the game, but it doesn't have to keep you from having a winning record.  But the main thing to remember in every game that is played is that if you can hang around long enough, you can beat the opposition.  I love that that is true.

Dying satisfied

I watched a number of Science channel episodes on the universe yesterday.  They were all quite enlightening.  Not all the information was new.  However, the information turned my mind to how majestic the universe is all over again.  Several of the pictures delivered to us from the Hubble telescope amaze with their clarity of many of the nearby galaxies and galaxy networks.  The number of stars represented in the skies outside the Milky Way is boggling.  The number of planets circling those stars make the mind spin with calculations.

So, when I look up at night from my humble home on Earth and peer through a haze of an atmosphere, my mind goes wild with imagination.  What life is peering back at us outside our galaxy?  Where is that life?  What form does it have?  Have they been around longer than humans?  Are religions the same on all planets?  Does intelligent life have governments like Earth's?  Is there love and marriage and sex on those planets?  Can others exist outside of the three dimensions humans exist in?  What do they know that we don't know?

I feel a little trapped, being here on Earth.  But one day, before I die, I hope to see at least the planets up close and personal in our solar system in all of their holographic beauty.  I would love to simulate walking on Neptune or flying past Pluto.  I can die satisfied whenever that happens.

Flags we see

Life many times unfurls like a flag.  We have been told by those older than we are what the flag looks like, but we are only able to see the flag for the first time as it unfurls.  We make our plans based on what we have been told that the flag looks like, but really, we shouldn't.  The flags are sometimes similar, but at least half of the time, the flags are unique.  And, we don't know during which unfurling the flag will be the same or different.

I say this because I had counted on the flag being the same as I was told when I embarked on adulthood.  As it stands now, my flag has only been similar in some instances as my former generation's flags.  It also has been true that the older I get, or the more the flag unfurls, the more different it appears from what was told to me or what I had expected.

I have noticed that some people hate their flags as they see it for the first time, seeing what they expected.  They were hoping to see something they didn't expect.  I also have noticed that many think they can predict accurately what they will see as the flags new portions appear to them.  Satisfaction in life is based on reactions to the flags they see.  I am working on my reactions.  I have been sorely mistaken at times.  I know I can't predict accurately, so I am left with molding an attitude of satisfaction as I learn to react with a beautiful spirit.

Spending money

I'm one of those that doesn't spend my leisure moments performing manual labor if I have made the money to pay for a service.  I would rather spend leisure time doing hobbies I like or going places that give me pleasure.  One of those jobs I freely entrust to other hands is mowing my lawn.

Each Saturday I count out the money for my lawn mowing person and put it into an envelope with his name on it.  My granddaughter, who spends most Saturdays with me,  either watches or helps me fill the envelope.  When it comes time to pay the person, I let her hand the envelope to him.  She takes great pride in helping to pay for the lawn.

A week ago, I was about to go for groceries at the store.  I was rounding up my money from wallet and the place I empty my pockets.  My granddaughter saw me and wanted to help pay for the groceries.  she went to the place we had envelopes, then to her little money box that she keeps because she is learning how to save and how to count money.  She put a fair amount of change of different denominations, which she thought was a lot of money, and handed it to me.  "Use this."

I smiled really big, told her thanks.  It took me a couple of minutes more to round up my keys and get ready to go, and as I was leaving, she said, "Don't forget to spend my money."  I thanked her prolifically.

My granddaughter is 4 years old.  I was humbled at what a child works hard at contributing to a larger cause.  Somewhere up the path of life that principle gets reversed.  I love her purity of heart, singleness of purpose, and all-for-one attitude.   Life taints I know.  But what a crystal clear memory I have of a time when her heart was pure beyond belief!

Options

I spoke with a young man from Nepal today.  He received his education there, and was in the U.S. to try to start studying at a university here.  My job was to ask him a question to help him practice his English.  So, I asked him, "Do you believe there is life on other planets?"

The answer was simply an opinion question.  Mainly I was listening for grammatical structure of his utterances to check for his understanding of ideas from the question.  In the course of his answer, he said that the sun was the only light in the universe, and that other stars were not suns with light and heat of their own, but reflections from the Earth's sun.  Therefore, there was no life elsewhere, only here with our sun.

Grammatically speaking, everything was fine.  Semantically speaking, there was a great amount of entanglement with his answer.  I didn't question what he was saying.  I listened only, which was my job.

However, if the young man learned this kind of science in his country, I know he is not ready for an education in the U.S.  I did ask as my last question to him if it would matter to him that other explanations of the universe existed.  He said, "No."

Education is a wonderful thing in that it expands one's horizons.  This young man will find that is true if he really does continue with his education.  I'm not overly concerned with his answer.  People either opt in or out of an education.  He will get to choose if he will allow evidence to develop his future thought.  If he opts out, of course, he will fit in better with the world he left behind, and will probably rejoin them.  If he opts in, he will love what enlightenment has to offer in this and a thousand other matters.  He will be in for the trip of his life.  I hope he opts in.

On the canvas of darkness

Night has fallen.  It's a little earlier than it has been falling because summer is in its death throes.  The readout on the clock is still approaching 8:00.  It's a sign that my time of day, the cover of dark, is kicking in for 6 months.  The night soothes my mind, allowing it clarity to see my path clearly, and invites me to imagine what lies ahead so I can save steps during the day.  Darkness is the canvas on which I can produce pictures of possible outcomes given certain scenarios.  Night is my close friend.

Life's colors

Our kitchen is filled with pictures drawn by our little granddaughter.  She colors everything, always trying to color a picture in rainbow colors.  I think she has a robust enough personality that she herself will have a colorful life when she learns how to start coloring life.

And it is that principle that allows me to admire people who know how to turn their environments into bursts of their colorful personalities.  There aren't many who can do this, but I know a few.  They fill the room around them with rainbow colors, no matter what is happening in their worlds.

This is not a standard personality type with standard types of jobs.  It is any job with people who want to add a touch of laughter, a talent of art, a background of music, a picture of serenity, a record of steadiness, or a well of knowledge to their other amenable habits.  These kind of people usually don't flag in their energy or their gift to the setting.  It's a pleasure to work with people like this.  I tip my hat to the color-filled people who have touched my life.

Seriously different advice

Life is funny like that.

A woman I have known a long time got married right out of high school.  Her marriage lasted 2 years and ended.  She didn't waste too much time getting a second husband.  She married again within 6 months.  She had two children, then when they were 2 and 3 respectively, her husband walked away and divorced her.  She spent a 3 year period of time wandering, so to speak.  In this time, she lived with one man, left him, went to bars every Thursday for a year carousing.  Finally she moved to a different city, found a man to marry and raise her children with, and 28 years later she is still married to him.

Now my daughter is dealing with single mom issues.  Who wanted to enter the picture as advisor?  You guessed it.  The above mentioned woman.  Even if the woman finally settled down, I can't imagine the type of advice she will give.  I would bet my life that it will be different from mine - seriously!

An even older path

I was raised in a way very different from the ways that I have adopted now.  I didn't know how I would exactly react when  I went this weekend to a place that I knew had kept those time-honored ways of the all the restricted forms of discipline I had kept in my very young years.  I anticipated that I would have some nostalgia, and then be appreciative of my current lifestyle and move on.

But my mind couldn't really comprehend what I saw.  It was so far removed from my current ways that I had no nostalgia whatsoever.  I  actually found myself pitying the ones who were still engaging in these retroactive habits.  I felt nothing for myself because I had escaped the slavery of such a lifestyle.

It was dream-like.  I could see what was happening, but could not engage.  I found myself as a spectator only.  At the end of two timeless hours, I was finally able to get in my host's vehicle and leave the scene.  When asked what I thought about the experience, I used the word that normally I use for thoughts that have to be masked.  "It was nice," I said.  But nice and numb have the same feeling to them (really a lack of feeling).

I am writing from a comfortable distance from the scene of that window to the remote past place in my life.  I am only thinking thoughts like that of the old Pink Floyd song.

Jump right in

I have learned both in classes and in experience that for every collapse of some business, there is a golden opportunity waiting in the wings for someone to discover what it is and turn a golden opportunity into gold.

I have just encountered such conditions.  A particular business that had been operating for a decade or so has collapsed through gross mismanagement.  The golden opportunity hasn't appeared yet, but it is there waiting to be discovered. 

It always takes time to develop something, but the currency at this point is ideas.  That's my longsuit.  The second part, negotiating the deal, I'm not quite as efficient in, but it is the last part, turning the idea into a lucrative business, that I don't do well in at all.  I am hoping this turns out different.   But, I have to try it.  It's entrepreneurship 101.  Get in on a groundfloor opportunity, build it, reap the benefits.  I will be working diligently this time to make it as easy as entrepreneurship 101 makes it sound.

An old path

I had been acquainted with the town for a really, really long time.  Today, I had an occasion to visit it.  I stayed in a modern hotel, but when I stepped out its doors, the town's old, old way of conducting business hit me in the face.

I went to watch a movie.  I drove into the parking lot to park, and the cars were jammed into parking spots that had been striped for cars of the 1950s.  They were not wide and the slant of the lines reminded me of the way striping had been done in small towns right after WWII.  But, I found one of those narrow spaces and parked.

I got out and joined a line in front of a ticket office, box-office style.  The line had about 50-60 people in it.  Only one person was issuing tickets at the box office window, so it was going to take about 15 minutes before I was going to be served.  I had not seen that arrangement since I went on a date in my high school years.

After the line to get tickets, I went inside.  Yep, another single-file line.  I snaked by the popcorn counter, the drink counter (where a person took my order and filled my drinks for me - now how many years ago was self-service phased in?).  It went by the candy stand and finally ended up at the cash register.  I paid, went in to the show.  At least it had stadium seating.  But the seats were the two-piece kind where the seat part was separate from the back part and folded down by sitting on its edge to get it to move.

The show I was seeing fit the decor.  It was a movie set in the 1970s but many of the buildings were in the architectural style of the 1950s.  On the way out, I stopped into the bathrooms.   I flushed my own toilet used a push button soap dispenser and crank down towels from a front loaded lever.

I had experienced a time trap.  I really had not been ready for it.  I certainly didn't appreciate it.  And it reminded me of times that were not some of my best days.  I guess I needed that reminder.  Life is still not easy, but it is so much better now than it had been then, that I actually felt kicked and bruised from having visited the theater.  I made note that I didn't need such a visit to appreciate what I have now.  The visit had certainly been a stark reminder of some rugged days passed and to which I hope never to return.

Strong vision

The moment had a solemnity to it.  I was visiting one of the places where my life had been rooted.  I spent about an hour there.  But, I found myself looking around the place, and unpleasant memories filled my mind.  So much so that tears welled up in my eyes, then trickled onto my cheeks.  I wiped them away only to have second round of the same.

After those moments, tears came and went in the bottom lids of my eyes but did not leave my eyelids to stain my cheeks.  The strong vision of my son in a place that couldn't help him, that should have helped him, flooded my mind and triggered the sad wetness.  Imagining the procession to his casket caused me to short-circuit at that point.  What remained was just the feeling of sadness.

Moments like that don't happen, but then again, I was visiting one of the places where my life had been rooted.  I should have left, but I would have to have brought attention to myself by excusing myself and climbing over 4 others seated next to me.  So, I brought out my phone and begin reading from it something that I had been concentrating on earlier that day.  It helped and soon returned me to normalcy.

I didn't think I was vulnerable to that train of thinking anymore.  But, I found that I was.  I don't like working through the depths of death again.  But for a moment in time, I felt again the same chilling, hopeless feeling that I had had 13 years ago.  I'm good to go now.  My flashback moments have taught me something about myself.  I'm ready to move forward now.

In a moment's notice

Recently, I observed a man about 35 in a role playing game who didn't like the way the game went.  The value of his cards changed from one round to the next and he went from successful to struggling in one fell swoop.  He argued how unlike life that was.

Well... maybe his life hasn't had that experience yet... but I doubt it.  Life has more than a few twists in it where it is different from before in the flash of a moment.  This weekend I received just such an email.  Life was rocking along like I wanted it to, but now, I am going to have to make some adjustments.  And it happened in the length of time it took me to read a short email.

When I play the currency market, money is lost or gained in a one second time span.  About two years ago, I had to completely rearrange my life for a two-month time period because my mother fell, broke her kneecap, and had to have 'round-the-clock care.  Her fall happened in less than a second.

I have had people people decide things for me that I didn't like and wouldn't have done.  I have had friends to tell me things or not tell me things in a short conversation or email that affected where I lived and worked and what my productivity level would be.

Yes, all the above and many, many other very important occurrences have happened to me in one fell swoop, without notice, without my approval, with indifference and insensitivity, with not a second thought about what would change for me.  In one fell swoop!

So, to the man who made the statement about life and immediate changes, "Hang on because one day the floor below your feet will disappear in a moment's notice and you won't be ready."

Life's contents

I watched the War Dogs movie today and heard a really true line from it.  The setting was a funeral in the movie.  The priest conducting the funeral began the graveside speech with "Life does not come with a table of contents.  Each new chapter is a gift."  The priest went on to describe the man's chapters of life.

Well said whoever the script writer was.  I didn't stay to see the credits, so I don't know who to give credit to.  I like the analogy because some changes in our lives are abrupt, so the chapters come to an end in the same manner, and it is easy to see the next chapter.  Other parts of our lives blend more naturally into each other, but still chapters are discernible because some of the characteristics of the chapters change only slightly.

And the part about each new chapter being a gift is really true because the events in our lives define us.  They become who we are, how we identify ourselves.  Those changes are gifts to us, and we impart that gift as we see fit to the people in our worlds.

And how true is it that Life doesn't come with a table of contents?  Absolutely right.  I haven't ever thought to do it, but I might someday.  I should sit down and write the chapter titles to the chapters of my life and create a table of contents.  It just might help me see the gifts that have been delivered to me by life.

Good performance

Finding a good plumber and a good car mechanic are two of the very hardest searches you can make.  They have a less than decent reputation.  There's a reason for that.

Over the last 5 years I have had to locate a mechanic and plumber because I lost the ones I had been using.  I have been to 6 mechanics and finally I have found one, two actually, but one is farther from my house than the other.  I have this rule when I take a car in.  If I have a mechanical problem that I didn't have before taking the car in, I will not return.  Even if the problem that surfaces is related to the one I took the car in for, I still don't return.

I have had less luck with plumbers.  My rule is the same, so the fact that I still am looking for one tells me that that profession my have fewer honest souls working in it.

I think there are several factors that make the people in professions the way they are, but one is the level of incentive to work.  Plumbers seem to be in a perpetual state of "just passing through" and they need their jobs just to eat for the time being.  I haven't ever met one who really liked what he was doing.  Even the plumbers who have their own business seem to have resigned themselves to doing what they know to do rather than enjoying what they do.

I appreciate more and more the people who do what they both know and enjoy.  People are good at what they do when they enjoy solving all the problems that crop up while they are performing their profession.  I truly hope that people see in my work both the knowledge it takes to perform it and the enjoyment I get from sharing that service with those who need it.

Cutting out paths

What do most people really choose?  Paths that lead to success?  Hardly.  That is because there is challenge, hardship, long hours, inconvenience, sacrifice, and willingness to trade off important times and events.  Most people will go only so far down the road to success.   At some point they turn back since they follow the path of least resistance, not the growth characteristics listed above.

People who do choose success know the path by heart.  They spent night hours to accomplish some of the tasks along the way.  They gave up a weekend or two of leisure to make the next goal.  They traded off some of their children's activities for a time to totally enjoy them at a future point.  They didn't shrink back from chores that were more than difficult in order to learn how to clear the next hurdle.  They know how to lead because they can tell you where the mines are along the path that can kill you.  They also know that you can't get where they are because you are unwilling to go very far down the path.

My admiration goes out to people who know the way.  Frauds and wannabes are easy to spot.  They turn from inconvenience and sacrifice at the drop of a hat.  Those who have been halfway can only rise to half of the challenges.  And conversations with the uninitiated to provide insight, get put off because the foundation for such insight is lacking.  I will walk with those who glide ahead providing light for my path.

Raging storm

I don't think that anyone expects to hear a grown child angrily yell at his or her parents that they are responsible for the messed up life they live or hear specific charges in the crassest terms available that the parents failed at some of the basic duties in his/her upbringing.

The scene was a storm of words by the child - total outrage.  The father tried to speak to say that the memories presented didn't represent his own memory of the particular situations.  The mother was taken completely off-guard, but managed to say she was sorry the child felt so strongly about her bad memories and apologized for the less than 20/20 vision in raising her child.

Storms pass, most of the time without damage, and usually come again from predictable directions.  But it's still a shame that a child would vent such venom against those who so lovingly cared for her during the time when a child has little memory.

I still play it

Growing up, I heard the word ain't very little because it was stigmatized speech.  English teachers actively taught against its use, even saying that it wasn't listed as a word in the dictionary.  Twenty years later I began hearing it more often.  I think there were two reasons for that, one of them not being that English teachers had destigmatized it.  First, my circle widened greatly, and I was exposed to a greater diversity of people.  Second, there was a movement among linguists against the prescriptive nature of language and in favor of describing the varieties of language found.  Sociolinguists in particular began referring to standard English as presitge English.  The war was on.

I still don't hear it that often so when I do hear it, ain't is noticed.  I take note of the people who use it and the situations in which it is heard.  As far as memory goes, the amount of use and the situations of use are the same as when I was growing up.  I also understand a language principle much better.  Whatever our speech was as a youth tends to return after age 40, after one's ambition in the workplace has begun to subside.  The term "linguistic marketplace" was coined in the 1970s to speak of the effect of marketplace on one's economic situation in society.  By the time the next decade arrives there is a comfort level in life that one has achieved about all that is going to be achieved in a person's economic circumstances.  It is then, when people regress to using ain't if they used it as a child and teenager.

I never used it in my youth, so I still don't.  It's not a part of my psyche of being comfortable, and I never had to fight against it during my most ambitious years to get ahead with my money.   So, when I hear it from adults, I know it marked them in their youths, and it helps identify them as being from certain areas and educational levels.  Language is still a game, you know.  And I still play it.

"Place" for learning

There is so much available on the internet that it has become a virtual world log of everything that happens (and that has happened).  It has much to offer for any profession that to ignore it would be certain death of the profession.

And if I were a student in this modern world, I would seriously consider the handicap that a schoolroom represents.  I can find anything I could possibly want to learn in the virtual world.  Some might say schoolrooms offer the teacher/student relationship as a way of providing guidance and discipline.  I would like to see a study on that because I think it is not true.  They might say that schoolrooms offer the core body of knowledge by way of a textbook as a base for progressively learning what lies at the heart of being a good American citizen.  That statement is false on its face since textbooks are the most restrictive way to learn the basics, and the discipline of the student is relied upon to read it.  And some might say schoolrooms put in place the social development necessary to relate well to others in the world.  Given the fact that the wealthy don't follow this advice, that the poor don't follow this advice, that immigrant children don't follow this advice and that military "brats" don't follow this advice, it seems narrowly applicable to middle class families who live in one place mostly.

I would seriously consider, and probably would follow a path of meaning to me so that I could accomplish my desired goals.  The internet would provide unrestricted access to my desired goals, would change as I change or as my goals would change, and would allow access to many who want the same for themselves from any country in the world.

Really, what is a schoolroom for?