Category: Uncategorized

Miscellaneous topics and topics that cross categories

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A Round Tuit

This is for you. It is a Round Tuit. Guard it with your life. A Tuit is hard to come by, especially the round ones. It is an indispensable item that will help you become a better person. For years we have heard people say, “I’ll do it as soon as I get a round Tuit.” Now that you have a round Tuit of your very own, get to it.

There is something you know you must do. Yet you’re worried that it won’t be perfect, that it will be difficult, uncomfortable and maybe even painful. You wonder what others will think of you, whether they might silently disapprove, openly taunt you or even oppose you. You worry that it could be more challenging and more demanding than you anticipate. Go ahead and do it anyway. The sooner you get started, the more confident and effective you’ll be.

Yes, there will be problems. And with solid commitment, you will find a way through every one of them. Of course, there will be challenges. And from each one you’ll build the strength to take on the next one. Accomplishment is never easy and rarely perfect, yet it beats sitting around worrying about how powerless you are. When you know you must, then get up, get a Round Tuit and get it done.

Plans often go awry in our hectic, raucous, and confusing lives where irritation mounts and anxieties assail you. It is easier to stretch out on the couch, commandeer the remote and wash down a handful of salted peanuts with a cold Abita and let the moment’s troubles fade away. Trouble is it is often a fleeting respite.

Put in perspective, even the most daunting problems are relatively minor when compared to the big picture. Because we tend to see what we want to see, changing perspectives can change us. Aldous Huxley said “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”

A pristine brook babbling across a peaceful country trail seen in a framed snapshot, leads nowhere. Without perspective, it is merely an enjoyable two-dimensional shape on a flat surface caught in a moment of time that tells us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes. Oh! How little our eyes permit us to see.

Shoes off. Yipes! as the icy stream awakens our senses and we charge up the bank to recover, take a deep breath and plunge back into the brook up to our knees. We will be changed by that perspective.

To change ourselves effectively, we must first change our perceptions.

Everything depends on what we are looking for and the tint of the glass through which it is viewed. John Lubbock (The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live in) notes that in a single field, the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the coloring, sportsmen the cover for the game. While we may all look at the same things, it does not follow that we should see them.

When you dance to the music you hear, you seem ridiculous to those who don’t hear the music.

One being’s insanity is an other’s reality. Keep in mind that you, like the rest of us, are absolutely unique.

If you let others, mom and dad, teacher, priest, or television-know-it-all, tell you how to live your life you will forfeit your uniqueness. Life’s mission is “to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees. “(Erwin Schrödinger)

If you believe that your work is the most important thing you do, you may know the lonely feeling that there is no one around you who cares. Try to see things in the correct proportions and understand that great things are indeed great and small things merely small.

If you are convinced that your way is the only and best way, you may labor under false assumptions. It is healthy to post a question mark on the suppositions you take for granted and challenge yourself to go beyond them. Consider that many of us explain events in ways that validate our version of reality.

Where to start?

Distance yourself in space or time when you are troubled. Distance creates a new perspective. Acknowledge that we live in chaos and that chaos can be defined as order waiting to be decoded, untangled and interpreted. Don’t be afraid to go slowly; be terrified of stopping. “Do, or do not. There is no try.” (Yoda)

Root out the obvious. The obvious, like a rare orchid, is often tangled in the briar patch with exotic plants like Bull Thistle and invasive plants like kudzu. To a botanist, the orchid is as plain as the nose on your face. I don’t know about you but I can’t see much of the nose on my face without looking in a mirror. We all need to look honestly into a mirror at some point.

Some people seem to possess a mental roadmap of their tomorrows. Often, something stops them from starting the journey. Possibly they wait for circumstances or imagined problems to improve or change. They may convince themselves that they are comfortable and feel secure with the status quo.

Change is a risky proposition, so they bury their dreams and never venture into the world of opportunities, feeling unfulfilled at the journey’s end. In truth, you risk nothing for the pursuit of your passion; you risk more by not taking the first step.

Cast-off the fictitious self you flaunt to the world.

Find the courageous moments when you feel strong and energized and stop trying to live the lives you are not living. You cannot be all things to all people. Find the courage to be the person your heart knows you to be and rise to a much higher level. Own the profound blessings and treasured dreams that truly matter and you will not only overcome obstacles you will go the whole way.

Look beyond need.

Need focus your attention on absence and limitation. See instead the opportunities that need reveals. Free your intellect to soar like a skyrocket to reach the loftiest and most productive, positive possibilities.

Today is an excellent day. Open your eyes wide and see how lush and rich it is. Open your heart and embrace the splendor and peerless wonder of all that surrounds you. Welcome it just as it is. Whatever it brings, marvel that you are privileged to experience it. Look for the blessings in every moment and store them in your soul to be revealed when you need them the most.

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The Sounds of Silence

Sweet menacing silence.

Silence is often a momentary revelation of your deepest self, your true self and perhaps a self that you do not yet know. We claim to long for quiet time, but many of us have become addicted to noise. We fill in conversational lulls with awkward, meaningless chatter about the weather or the price of gasoline. Anything other than suffer silence.

Take a look in the mirror. Are there long dangling cords swirling around your neck and shoulders that are bonded to bulbous buds jammed semi-permanently into your inner ears? Are your hands welded to an electronic gizmo of some sort – phone, tablet, video console that is either screeching, laughing hideously, booming or snuffing out life? If so, you are a solid citizen of the plugged-in generation and tethered to social media. Membership criteria include thriving on constant background noise, signs of bereavement without a cell phone and cringing at the sounds of silence.

Forgive my naivete, but what is so social about dedicating hours to scrolling through photos, posts or Tweets from virtual strangers that proffer no consequential or beneficial communication and are void of interaction with others about the subject matter? Where is the deeper, more emotional connection among “friends” as defined in sites such as Facebook? It is often difficult, if not impossible, on social media to reveal the qualities that define deep, meaningful relationships. While our social media friends offer us a great deal, they are not a true substitute or even supplement for real-life interactions with others.

Done right, Social Media dismisses the barrier between real life and Internet life. The Internet lays the world before your fingertips. A few clicks and you can connect with anyone, anywhere and at any time. Nurturing and deepening real-life relationships and the freedom to speak candidly may be unrecognized costs. We live in a hypersensitive society where people are poised to pounce, take offense, and make a big deal about nothing. In today’s society, insecurity and relationship anxiety is just a link away.

Ideally, social media should improve life, not become life. Does it?

Research tells us that human beings innately crave social approval from others. Engaging in social media may be a means to measure self-worth and invent a persona defined by popularity metrics such as the number of accrued likes or the number of enticed followers.

Craving recognition emboldens many users to manipulate their profile to posture as the ideal “friend”; hopefully someone that renders all others totally inadequate and dreary by comparison. In truth, every user controls the facets of the life and personality they broadcast on social media. Consequently, many social media sites are founded on quicksand that will suck down those who feel they are less popular or worthy than others, or more devastating, those feeling rejected by their peers. Ironically, we depend on technology and social media so much that it can actually tear real relationships farther apart.

As such, social media is a frame of mind and a state of being. Consider how easy it is to tune in to the Internet and tune out the real world.

Video games, for one, offer comfort by camouflaging reality with mind numbing music, repetitive moves and fantasy worlds that accumulate points, raise your avatar to higher, more prestigious levels and validate your prowess with the top ranking on a list of competitors. Plugged into music, games, or movies, you are in charge and can fixate on anything but the task at hand. It is a socially sanctioned reason to escape work that challenges us on a deeper level. It becomes seductively magnetic.

Many individuals get their news from social media, favorite sites, friends and colleagues that share their political and cultural views. Because of the selectivity of social media, we can deftly avoid contrary and alternative views. We are content that search engines, including Google search, personalize our exploration of the internet, enabling us to see only what we want to see. We obtusely ignore the fact that various algorithms behind the scenes map customized search corridors that selectively filter information.

Such filters are not necessarily bad, given the overload of meaningless noise and information clogging the internet. However, a valid informational network must provide representative coverage of all the relevant information to be effective and open.

Nothing creates trust issues like social media. As Elijah Millgram argues in The Great Endarkenment (2015), modern knowledge depends on trusting long chains of experts. It is impossible for one single person to check up on the reliability of every member of that chain. Instead, we depend on a vastly complicated social structure of trust. The prime tenet for success is that we must trust each other.

Social media can extort the inherent vulnerability in trust. Networks designed for social reasons have metamorphosed into information and even propaganda feeds. New websites promote links to their self-serving stories on social media in order to drive traffic to them. Many users have no idea that the content is fake to begin with.

Social media has become an easy target for both real people and bot spammers to assault users with information. Children and teenagers are vulnerable to cyber-bullying because they do not fully comprehend the consequences and risks when they post on social media. The increased use of mobile phones for social media interactions can pinpoint a location, making us targets for cyber-stalkers. Smartphones are actually killing us. Pedestrian deaths have risen steeply because pedestrians and drivers have evolved into Texting Androids.

A new trend referred to as “text neck” describes the neck pain or headaches people experience from prolonged periods of time tilting their heads at unnatural angles to stare down at their smartphone or tablet.

With all this, it was inevitable that the phrase “social media anxiety disorder” would surface. The term defines a feeling of stress or discomfort related to the use of social media, often due to an intense focus on the level of popularity someone thinks they have achieved – or failed to achieve – on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. There is not an official medical designation for social media anxiety disorder. While it is merely a description of a cluster of behaviors associated with heavy or excessive use of social media, it has become the subject of discussion and research.

Researchers at Chicago University intent on measuring how well people could resist their desires, concluded that Tweeting or checking emails may be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol. Various surveys find people more willing to give up food, sleep and sex than to lose their Internet connections. And at Harvard University, researchers found that self-disclosure communication stimulates the brain’s pleasure centers much like sex and food do.
One recent study found that half of us would rather have a broken bone than a broken phone.

If such studies are correct, the pleasure we derive from sharing morsels of our lives on social networks may help explain the phenomenon of social media addiction – expending so much time on Facebook that it interferes with the rest of our lives.

But, is all this truly an addiction or an emerging form of social interaction?

Like other addictions, we get a titanic kick from dopamine, a brain chemical released every time we receive a message on our phones that literally makes us happy. So, we keep checking our phones, hoping to get another hit.

If an addiction, recovery necessitates retreating from the cacophony of a chaotic world, closing your mouth and opening your mind. Ignore the ding that signifies “you have a new message!!” and silence reigns. Respond to it and you slide down the rabbit hole.

If an emerging form of social interaction, it is not yet ready for consumption. There is no clear definition or consensus of what social media is, can be or will be. Part of the offending noise is babble over the consequences, significance and impact of living online and rarely looking into the eyes of a friend. Is it a slip and slide into fantasy where falsehoods reign and truths are feared? Or is it a two-way street that offers the ability to freely communicate our insights and ideas that lead to problem solving?

As with anything, balance seems to be the key.

When you realize that your life purpose lies buried beneath confusion, complexities, demands and distractions, pull off that headset and be still. Let thoughts of glory, benefits or the impression you make slither away and realize that your purpose for existence remains, always ready to be lived and fulfilled. Life is a gift more precious, powerful and tenuous than any gamer can imagine or reproduce.

It has been said that what you do today gets done and what you put off until later gets neglected. Tomorrow is a handy excuse because it never arrives. Today is the moment to take action, to live your dream and work your magic. We live in a world where barriers are blurred and our physical independence is no longer the only thing we have to protect. Our minds are in conflict and our brains need a respite from this self-imposed digital drug that keeps us doing things just so we can tell others that we did them.

Instead, try watching kids spinning on a merry-go-round or listen to the rain splattering on the ground. Trace the erratic flight of a humming bird or gaze at the sun as it fades into night. Don’t fly through each day and when you ask ‘How are you?’ hear the reply.

“Don’t lose what is real, chasing what only appears to be.” Anonymous

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Diversity

The Agatha Christie detective Hercules Poirot boasts remarkable deductive skills because he can only see the world as it is supposed to be. He is immediately drawn to anything that deviates from the expected. The wonder of our ordinary minds is that we can see the world as it isn’t. Although we live in the present, we can remember the past and imagine the future. We are able to visualize being someone different living in an alien place. Imagination offers a chance for enlightenment.

However, many of us stubbornly continue to describe the world advancing around us as if we gazed through unmarred, unbiased, transparent lenses with 20/20 vision. In truth, deeply rooted bias and prejudices shape our perceptions and responses. Words, assumptions, images, opinions and fantasies seep unfiltered into our conscience tumbling into each other, bouncing off our memory cells and settling into the crevices of our sensibilities.

Our particular biases filter new information, ideas and experiences based on what we already know. Thus, we don’t need to start anew on everything that we do and can assume that something is true without proof. Over time, we develop an understanding of right and wrong.

A bias becomes dangerous if it unreasonably shades our perceptions and causes us to prejudge others.

It goes awry when we fear we are wrong. Being wrong hints there may be something wrong with us. The antidote is to always be right so we can feel smart, accountable, and secure. But be wary of your highly prized internal sense of rightness. It isn’t a trustworthy guide to the tangible real time world. We only pretend it is. This little white lie allows us suppress the chance that we could be wrong and encourages us to commit mindless and senseless acts of conceit.

The catch is that not everybody agrees with our brilliant perceptions. That can be quite a conundrum. How can you be right if others disagree?

Well, perhaps they don’t have access to all the information. Magnanimously, we share what we know with them, shining a light into the darkness so they can find their way to the truth. And if they still miss the point and continue to argue, we conclude they don’t have the brain capacity to understand. Idiots all.

If it turns out that their IQ is higher than ours yet they still dispute that we are correct, we might assume they have a hidden agenda and are purposefully misrepresenting the truth – a conspiracy is afoot. This connection to our own rightness thwarts our ability to correct mistakes, right injustices or reverse inequities.

“Of course, I may be wrong. But I don’t think so,” is probably the best concession we allow ourself.

We reject the innate capacity of humans to mess up. We forget that those who tell us only what we want to hear, do so for their benefit, not ours. Those who always agree with our every utterance, cannot provide us with anything of real value. Those who give us everything we want without expecting anything in return, can end up making us powerless and overly dependent.

Conversely, those who challenge us, help us to grow stronger. Those who respect us enough to give their true opinion, provide valuable feedback.

If we choose to reject others because we do not know or understand their inner worth, we miss out on the possibility of finding a friend, companion, colleague or perhaps a soul mate. And we in turn may become bitter, angry and cynical. We lose our joy and zest for life.

Better to seek out the honor, courage, beauty, dignity and the love others embody. These traits are sometimes expressed openly but more often are hidden, tightly bound and protectively held, sometimes simply out of shyness, uncertainty, indecision, or anxiety.

It takes commitment and sacrifices to move forward, forgive ourselves and reconcile with others that may have hurt or offended us. This may be our shakiest step since that first baby step. Although that endeavor often landed us on our butt, perseverance and encouragement got us up and moving.

Tomorrow is a concept but we stand eye to eye with today. Choose today to reevaluate perspectives, shake off clinging prejudices and take meaningful action. Accepting each other’s uniqueness, taking time to understand and value the differences in every person builds relationships. That is a gift without equal that will keep showering us with amazing possibilities.

As we age, the time to bring meaning to our life grows shorter. Don’t wait too long to reject the fictitious self you wear like a beloved frock for all to see. Loose the lives you have been afraid to live. Let go of envy, anger and despair. Focus, not with being right, but with how you can make it better.

There are times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time we fail to protest. (Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate.)

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How does Your Garden Grow?

A feisty yellow flower bloomed bravely from a crack in a stucco wall. Her roots clinging only to bits of dirt, she drank in the humid air and nodded playfully to the rhythm of the scarce breeze. Courageous? Defiant? Resourceful?

Resolute, I think. Cradled inside a papery seed that the wind dropped into a hostile, intimidating environment, she bloomed where she was planted. That little flower appeared content to accept each moment as if she had chosen it, gracing those who bothered to notice, with fragrance, color and delicate beauty, sowing seeds captured by the wind and carried to new quests.

Our thoughts are like seeds, matchless and new. Each one is packed with possibilities, threads of dreams, kernels of change and glimmers of the future. You decide how your garden grows. Which seed will you cultivate until it sprouts, roots and grows and which will lay in fallow ground to wither and fade?

Do you nurture a garden that is small and carefully pruned to keep out the weeds and marked by a perfectly square Keep Out warning sign? Perhaps it is expansive, roaming over hills, across bridges and around streams, its flora left to nature and chance.

Does it tantalize with beauty in rainbow shades, welcome with exotic scents and speak in rustling leaves and petals? It may be unkempt, clogged with tangled creepers that conceal the path, and gnarly vines with thorny fingers that hinder your progress. Is it your clone or your antithesis?

The best garden is not static. New seeds of thought when they arrive can replace outmoded ones or inspire new ideas. They can stimulate you to whack away at the flourishing forest of dilemmas created by faulty concepts and mindsets and repopulate with positive positions that move you forward.

Some thoughts may give you a purpose that will energize and inspire you to take on new challenges, to reach out to new people and places. They bring out your creativity and spark innovation.

There are some intangible thoughts that tap deep into the conscience anchoring beliefs that shape values and reveal who a person really is. Each thought transformed into a decision is a value honored or a value betrayed. If you make value-based choices your garden is alight with humming birds and butterflies. When your values do not align, you toil in the shadows of the sun.

Our values shape our goals but not always the process. High achievers often exhaust themselves scaling the garden wall and gaze around in awed confusion when the gate swings open and deposits them in the fertilizer. It slowly dawns that they have reached their goal but it was not what they hoped.

Invested only in the goal, an individual may find another wall, repeat the process or set new goals. The disconnect is that many go-getters do not discriminate among the countless projects to find those that are worthwhile and meaningful. They pluck wildflowers and clovers to make a flower arrangement for the table while the orchids wilt.

It is not necessary to change your expectations when you can change your approach. Suppose you focused on the process itself? Rather than chasing a goal like a carrot on a stick, seek meaning in activities and accomplishments that are always there for you to experience and enjoy. Free yourself to live in the present, rebuffing deferred gratification.

The very best moments are, more often than not, the ordinary moments. Spending time with family and friends, reading a good book, playing with your grandchildren, pursuing a hobby or listening to music are some that come to mind. You can stop doing these whenever you want but they will always be waiting to fill in the empty spaces.

When you value most those things you cannot lose you’ll find the courage to risk planting new gardens despite nature’s challenges. Your integrity, compassion, faith, your love for others, your desire to encourage change for the better are the powers to survive whatever difficulties you may face.

If I could I would send you the gifts of Wisdom and Knowledge to plant in your garden with the wish that they would grow like Jack’s beanstalk, lifting you to wondrous places and magical worlds.

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know all there is to know. ~ Winnie the Pooh

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Take a Right at Jupiter

I’m navigationally challenged.

I get lost. A lot. But I am a reliable compass. If I say with all sincerity to take a right at the next stop light, my son tells me he is absolutely sure he should go left. It works every time. Clearly, I have frequently saved him from ending up sunk in the Seventeenth Street Canal.

I theorize that I was born without a navigation gene, often referred to as the Magellan sense. Furthermore, I believe it is a gender linked component. I know this because 90% of woman get lost and 10% of those women are still circling the globe. It is possible that this orientation phenomenon is a result of the female’s exquisite sensitivity to the magnetic poles shifting. Just a thought.

At this moment, I visualize the smirk exchanged among the male gender as they spread their hands in a “that’s news?” gesture.

Women however are empathetically reliving the top 10 times they found themselves trying to back out of a dead end at night fall with eerie animal whispers and snapping twigs distracting their concentration.

Pre-GPS, directions were based on the location of gas stations, the picture show or the local post office. Everyone knew how to find those familiar land-marks. They weren’t relocated or replaced by parking lots overnight. They rarely got repainted.

Today, every journey seems to begin with an USB port, a password to enter the cryptic world of GPS. Here you will find both nervana (a new class of hardware, software, and cloud products built for artificial intelligence) and nirvana (the final beatitude that transcends suffering, karma, and samsara.) This whimsical pairing of retro and technology addiction is symbolized by an assertive but poised, disembodied voice that lures you out of the driveway into heavy traffic, through tunnels, across intersections and around hairpin turns, finally announcing happily that in 4 meters you will arrive at Grandma’s house on the right. Occasionally.

The directions with which I am more familiar are “Make a U turn at the next block.” That can result in a minimum of 3 or more U turns ending in a desperate maneuver onto a busy boulevard that looks like it could lead to an Interstate on-ramp in the same city I began.

At such times, debased by Miss Smarty-Pants’ unrelenting taunts, I pull the plug. Fear fills the quiet as I worry that sooner or later I will take a wrong turn into a wormhole that will deposit me on Europa, one of the 63 moons of Jupiter, during rush-eon traffic. I hope they are nice to immigrants.

My family, encouraged by my Granddaughters, gave me a Garmin GPS for Christmas. I attribute that wise decision to the time they found themselves in the back seat of the car when my daughter-in-law and I drove around a traffic cone straight into freshly poured cement. The sight of 4 workers waving hoes and shovels sprinting toward us shouting indecipherable Spanish words is traumatically etched into their memory. Sorry girls.

There is, however, a lot to be said for losing your way. Sometimes you have just found a new path in more peaceful surroundings traveled by new souls you have yet to meet. You may cross a bridge and stumble onto a road under construction that stirs your imagination, teases your sense of adventure and inspires visions of the destinations and resolve of those who will pass this way. Perhaps you will do like the characters in the tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead “We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered.” I hope not.

It is possible that you will blunder onto a road strewn with rocks and branches that cause you to stumble and fall. Don’t assume you have taken the wrong path and turn back. Something grand may be just around the next pothole. It really isn’t the where of a journey as much as it is the how and the why.

Whatever your journey’s intentions, take it all in and keep moving forward. Your speed doesn’t matter. Experience what life is laying out before you and find in it something to value. Whatever you find, make the most of it.

The measure of a successful journey is that you do not return as the same person. At each journey’s end, a new opportunity to make a new ending surely awaits. Each of us have traveled paths others have yet to walk. I know I didn’t come this far only to have come this far. There are so many miracles yet to marvel.

There is one sure and steady direction I can always count on to guide me safely home that you might try. Follow the Star that stood over Bethlehem.

If you should see me on the highways and byways, say hello and throw out a stream of bread crumbs. Keep going… it will all make sense soon.

A funny for the New Year:
I think Santa has riverfront property in Brazil. All our presents came from Amazon this year.

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