Home » Rambles (Page 21)

Category Archives: Rambles

Homework – to help, or not to help.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I’ve never understood why parents will worry over their children’s homework. So many parents seem to think that “helping” their child with their homework means actually doing the work. The more that parents do for their children, the less the child is doing for himself. The less he does for himself, the less he is learning.

At what point is helping your child with homework just assisting, and at what point is it enabling? At what point is it flat out cheating?

Sure, you want your child to do well. Who doesn’t? But if you do the work for your child you are teaching him that he doesn’t have to do any work at all. The “A” that he gets isn’t really his “A”.

When your child comes up to you the night before an assignment is due and asks for your help, don’t. He got that assignment way before today. He has had time to work on it and has chosen not to. If you rescue him and do a lot of the work for him you are teaching him that waiting until the last minute is OK. You will teach him that failure to plan is fine. You will teach him that it is ok to make his procrastination other people’s problems.

Whatever behavior you want to see in your child when he is an adult, you should encourage it now. Waiting until the last minute to do your work, whether it is for school or for salary, is a bad idea and will result in less than perfect work. Expecting others to drop everything they are doing to help you with your assignments is bad too.

Expect better of your children. Encourage them to do their own work. If they get a low grade, at least it is their grade. Hopefully it will inspire them to get motivated sooner on their assignments.

Sure, help them with their homework. Take them to the library. But let them choose the books. Instead of answering a question, show them how to look up the answer. If you do all the work then they aren’t learning anything.

It isn’t about the grades. It is about what the child learns.

Plenty of parents feel pride if their child gets good grades in school. Why feel proud of your child’s grades if you have done the majority of the work?

Plenty of parents will say that “we have all this homework to do” It isn’t “we”. It is the child’s assignment. Let them do it. Teach them how to be responsible for themselves by making them be responsible for themselves.

Scary people.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I have a theory about people who try to look scary. It is the same with animals who have a lot of armor. Perhaps they aren’t really scary at all. Perhaps they are simply hiding how they really are.

Animals put up a pretty good show to be left alone. Hedgehogs have sharp spines to protect their soft bellies. It keeps them from being eaten. Skunks release a terrible smell for the same reason.

How many people put up a show of being scary because deep down they feel that is who they are? Perhaps they feel they are unworthy of love, so they put up barriers to make sure their theory isn’t proven wrong. Or perhaps secretly they are very shy.

They will go out of their way to make themselves ugly to keep people away. Deep down they are quite beautiful but they can’t see it yet. The eyes may be the window to the soul, but the hairstyle is a pretty good tipoff too, along with the clothing.

I think that some people see themselves as dangerous, so they make themselves look dangerous. In reality they aren’t dangerous at all, but they just want to keep you away. It is all a show.

But then there are alligators and sharks. They aren’t putting on a show. They really are dangerous. So maybe my theory means nothing. But, it is probably a good idea to give scary looking people a second (and third) chance. Otherwise you may miss out on a diamond in the rough.

List – on grocery lists and dating my husband.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I just sent an email to my husband. Please pick up bananas, organic instant oatmeal, Amy’s frozen dinners, and some “Naked” fruit juice. I send him a lot of emails like this. Publix is on his way home, and today he will get out of work three hours before I do. By the time I get off there is just enough time to drive home, eat, and then it is time to get ready for bed.

Then I thought this is not healthy. If all I send him are grocery lists, I’m not going to see him as anything other than a grocery list getter. I didn’t send him grocery lists when we were dating. What about being married for almost ten years has made me change my message to him from sweet little love notes to shopping lists?

I think it is important to remember to date my husband. All the things I did to get him should be all the things I do to keep him.

Recently I’ve decided to have a special dinner with him once a week. Usually he cooks. Usually I get home so late that it isn’t feasible for me to cook. I also wasn’t taught how to cook when I was growing up so a lot about cooking frustrates me. It always feels like I’m hurtling down the hill on my bike and the brakes don’t work. I always feel like things are cooking at different rates and nothing is going to come out on time at the right temperature. Who cares if the salmon is hot if the mashed potatoes are cold?

But I’ve decided it is time to learn. I’m not going to get better at cooking unless I try. So I’m starting with things I know. So once a week, on Fridays, (my day off) I go to the grocery store and pick fresh vegetables and some seafood. Nothing frozen, nothing packaged. I cook it, and we use the nice plates. We light candles. We turn off the lights. More importantly we turn off the TV. Just my husband and me, at the dinner table, enjoying a meal and each other’s company.

It is great. I don’t know why we haven’t done this before now. I know I’ve thought about it. I’ve always managed to come up with an excuse. I’m tired. It is raining. My back hurts. I’m overwhelmed. They are just different ways of saying I don’t want to, not really. You’ll either find a way or you’ll find an excuse, they say.

It all started on Thanksgiving. There was too much drama going on with the in-laws so it made more sense to stay home. We used the dinner table for the first time in years for something other than a desk.

I decided now was the time to keep this going. No backing out now. Any tradition has to start somewhere, and now was as good a time as any. So something good is going to come out of something not so great. But there are always snags on the way to happiness.

Last Friday it was raining. It was cold. Going to the grocery store was the last thing I wanted to do. But I did. I did because I love him. I did it to show that I love him. I can say it all the time but it doesn’t mean anything unless I make it real.

Maybe something as easy as taking the time to take the time is the secret. Maybe slogging out in the cold rain to make a hot meal is really the secret to everything.

Christmas, and bottled up feelings.

Posted on by | 3 Comments

I hate Christmas. I don’t hate the idea of it. I hate the execution of it. So painful. So hard. So tedious. Many Christmases I’ve washed down with a bucket of tears and a side of regret.

One was with my boyfriend, now husband. We met with his brother and then wife at a Mexican restaurant. Jeff gave him presents. Scott gave both of them presents, some of which were from me. I got nothing. Not even a token something. I wanted to go sit in the car and cry. I wanted to remove myself from all of it. I wanted to just leave, because it was obvious that I didn’t matter, I didn’t count.

I didn’t leave. I sat there, being ignored. I ate my chicken enchilada and chalupa in silence. I drank my sweet tea. I held in my hurt and my anger and my sadness.

I cried all the way home, wee wee wee, just like a little pig.

Sadness and anger are the same thing. They are signs that expectations aren’t being met. They are a sign that what you think should happen isn’t happening.

Perhaps I need to lower my expectations. Perhaps I need to not care so much.

Life was a lot easier when I was stoned. Things didn’t hurt as much. Feelings were further down. Pain didn’t last as long.

Last year was another painful Christmas with that family. I’m married now, and I’ve known them for ten years. The years previous were awkward. I kept feeling like nobody knew what to get for me, and that I didn’t know what to get for them. Since there was a new member added to the family I decided to go to the effort of getting each person to fill out a gift list. I asked each person what they liked and didn’t like. What is a good present, and what is a terrible present? I figured it would make it easier. I gathered the lists from each person and made sure each one got a copy of all the others. There. Done. Everybody knows what everybody likes.

When Christmas Day came, I made sure that each person had at least two presents from me. Some were handmade by me. All were picked with that person’s wants and personality in mind. Somewhere in the middle of the opening of presents I realized that I had gotten two presents. Two. For me. That is all. And one of them was a blanket. My sister in law got a similar blanket, but hers was in the color I liked.

Why did I go to the bother of that list?

Why do I go to the bother of caring?

Why do I keep allowing myself to be hurt by these people that I did not choose?

When I commented on my Facebook page how hurtful that Christmas was, my sister in law insisted that I take it down. She’s a therapist. You’d think she’d know something about pain and hurt, and how dangerous it is to suppress it. She cared more about her husband’s feelings than mine. That is her right. I should have taken it as a sign of who she really is.

Once again, I don’t count. I don’t matter. I’m ignored, and forgotten, and left out. I’ve asked my husband to tell his family that it would be easier if nobody bought presents for each other this year. That way, everybody would save money. That way, no feelings would be hurt. He hasn’t taken the time to do this. It would be really embarrassing to show up at that house with no presents and they actually, for once, got me something.

Perhaps I shouldn’t go. Perhaps I shouldn’t care. His mom has had cancer all this year. She should be dead by now, according to the doctors. It is a big deal that she is even still alive. Perhaps I’m just not caring. We are all dying, and it doesn’t make anybody special. She announced that she had cancer before Christmas of last year and it was super difficult – people pretended like everything was fine.

I’m sick of pretending.

Being emotional and getting upset is embarrassing. It is right up there with vomiting or defecating in public. People can’t handle it when your insides come outside. They want you to take it to a private place and do it all by yourself and clean up the mess. Don’t show. Don’t let anybody see that things aren’t fine.

But sometimes you’ve bottled it up for so long that it doesn’t come out in a clean way. Sometimes it doesn’t come out when you want it to. Sometimes it bubbles up and out and over and it leaves a big mess right there, all over you, standing there, right in the middle of the room.

Sick of being hurt.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I keep getting hurt. I keep getting left out, ignored, forgotten. Christmas just reminds me of this. But it happens all the time.

There are friends who say “How come we never see you?” And then they post about the great time they had with friends at their house, at the pub, at a class that they know I would like. How can I be seen if I’m not invited? How can I be a part of the group if I’m not included?

It hurts, sure, when people I thought were my friends exclude me. They have that choice. They can invite whoever they want. If they had to invite me it would take away the meaning of the invitation. But when they then say that they miss me, and it is their fault, then I’m confused. How could I know there was something to attend if I’m not told?

It hurts to find out that I’ve missed out on a gathering.

Social media is great for pulling people together. It is also great for breaking them apart. It is proof that you are missing out. Look at all those pictures of people having fun without you.

Nobody thinks about feelings anymore.

We all know more about the goings on of the Kardashian’s and the Duck Commander than we do about our own friends and family.

Crazy house – work, weight, and wasting your life.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

When you are in the crazy house, all the crazy people know when you are one of them. When you start to get normal again, they leave you alone.

I’ve noticed that dysfunctional people tend to hang out with each other. Birds of a feather, you know. They don’t want to hang out with people who have gotten better. They don’t want to get better. Misery loves company, you know.

People say that they want to get healthy, they want to get well, but they don’t really. They want to talk about it and complain about it and whine about it, but they don’t want to do anything about it. And people who have been in that pit don’t want to listen to them whine and complain. They want them to walk with them or write or eat the same things they are eating.

They don’t want to get dragged back into that pit.

I spent so much time trying to come up with workarounds for the people at work. They would notice that I’d lost weight and they’d say that they wish they could. They can. They won’t.

Come walk at lunch, I said. “But I like to read at lunch” they said.
Get an audiobook, I said. “I can’t do that” they said.

It is only 20 minutes for walking, that isn’t a lot of time to miss the book. “It is too much.”

Round and round it goes.

Their choice.

I wish they would just be honest and say that they want to be healthy, but they don’t want to do the work. Who does, really? It isn’t easy. It isn’t fun. But nothing worth having is easily obtained.

I have a coworker who says that she needs to get exercise, but everything makes her hot and her knees hurt.

Go to water aerobics, I said. That is the perfect answer. Her responses started with “I can’t find a swimsuit my size” (I found a website that has all ranges of sizes). Then “I would be embarrassed to wear a swimsuit” “Everybody at the gym is in shape, I’ll stick out.”

None of that is true. People go to the gym to get healthy. They aren’t in shape. There are plenty of people who are huge who are there.

Then she came up with the “fact” that she has to cover for us at work. She doesn’t. We’ve got it. The schedule is fine. And ultimately, what is more important, work or life? If you have to sacrifice your health for your work, you are giving up the wrong thing. The job doesn’t care if you kill yourself at it. We aren’t saving the world here. We are running a library.

Use the recumbent bike at home, I said. It doesn’t need special clothes, it is easy on the knees. Her husband bought it for himself. She doesn’t have to worry about other people seeing her. It can be used any time.

Finally she admitted that she just doesn’t want to. That would have been so much easier if she had started with that.

I don’t have time for them anymore. I don’t cheer them on. If they want to come walk with me, great. If they want to see how I eat, great. But I’m not coaching, I’m not cheering, I don’t care. Not anymore.

Nobody holds me accountable. Nobody found workarounds for me. Nobody cheers me on to exercise every day.

I can’t be the reason they take care of themselves. They have to want to. They have to care about themselves.

This has to be a lot like what it is to be part of a relationship with an alcoholic. They have to want to get better. You can’t do it for them. You just have to make sure their madness doesn’t get you down.

(more) Thoughts on mental health.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Let us not confuse mentally ill with homicidal.

I think we can agree that all people who are homicidal are mentally ill. The fact that some people feel it is necessary to express their frustrations with life by killing others is most certainly proof that they are not well adjusted. Being well adjusted is a hallmark of mental health. How much do you fit in? How well can you take care of yourself? If you can get along with others, you are well adjusted.

I’ve never understood the idea of trying to determine if a murderer is sane or not. If you kill anyone for any reason other than self-defense, you aren’t sane, it would seem to me.

Now, let’s shift gears for a moment. This is important. All people who are mentally ill are not homicidal. To have a mental health diagnosis does not mean that you are a murderer. It does not mean that you have to live in a group home. It does not mean that you are a danger to anybody.

It is the same as having a diagnosis of diabetes or of high cholesterol. It is something you live with and deal with.

The media must stop bandying about the phrase “mentally ill” every time someone does something horrific enough to warrant being on the news. They might be mentally ill. One in four people are. But the media is the media – not trained mental health professionals. They are not qualified to make an assessment on the mental state of anyone.

How much of the bad press that mentally ill people are getting is why there are so many mentally ill people who are not well adjusted? Who would want to go get help with their mental health problems if they are going to immediately tagged as being homicidal? There is a huge stigma to being mentally ill, already. It is often seen as a lack of willpower or a character flaw. Add the mistaken idea of homicidal in the mix and no wonder people won’t take care of this problem.

Mental health is treatable. You can live a long and productive and happy life and have a mental illness. Exercise helps. Eating well helps. Actually, I can’t think of anything that isn’t helped by exercise and eating well, but mental health is high on the list. If you want to start feeling bad, lay around all day eating junk food. Multiply that by a month and you’ll really be in a funk. Start taking care of yourself and you’ll see a difference not only in your body but in your mood.

How much of our mental health issues in this country are from people not being taught that it is OK for them to speak up for themselves? And if one in four people really are mentally ill, as the saying goes, then it really isn’t that unusual at all. Perhaps “mentally ill” is the new normal.

Quotes from my phone

Posted on by | 2 Comments

There is nothing original here. These are quotes that I’d saved as screen captures on my phone. I realized recently that I had way too many pictures so I’ve been culling them. I’ve gone through and typed up all the quotes/ideas/words that I had saved, so here they are.

“People are often unreasonable and self centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world your best and it may not be enough. Give your best anyway. In the end it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” – Mother Teresa

The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.

“Salvation is not about what happens after we die, but what begins whenever we realize God Loves us.” – from “If God is Love” – by Philip Gulley

“The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.” – Thich Nhat Han

The Jewish notion of the Lamed Vavnik – that there are always 36 people standing up for justice.

The word “afflatus” – it is used in the literal form of inspiration. It is the “staggering and sudden blow of a new idea, and idea that the recipient may be unable to explain.”

“Take a moment before a meal to reflect on the work and the wonder, involve in the process that brings food from the earth to your table in order to eat it with both more pleasure and more consciousness. Whether you actually say grace out loud or simply reflect in silence on this everyday miracle, the practice fosters more mindful eating. And mindfulness helps us to eat more slowly and more sanely. “This meal is the labor of countless beings,” goes one Zen blessing offered before eating. “Let us remember their toil.” – – unknown book of blessings.

“There’s force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.” – Gandhi.

“Everybody talks about leaving a better planet for the children. Why does nobody try to leave better children for the planet?” – Facebook meme.

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.” – Lao Tzu

“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Every day is a good day to celebrate.” – seen on a reusable shopping bag from Publix

“When you give Gratitude for everything that comes in life, even trouble – magic opens up.” – Amma

“We all have different faces, characters and names. If God wanted us to be all the same, He would have done it. Not to respect the differences, to accuse the others for our faults is not to respect God.” – Shams Tabrizi

“Rastas say that Jah, in the form of the Holy Spirit (incarnate) lives within the human, and for this reason they often refer to themselves as “I and I”. Furthermore, “I and I” is used instead of “We”, and is used in this way to emphasize the equality between all people, in the belief that the Holy Spirit within all people makes the essentially one and the same.” – Wikipedia article on Rastafarianism, and the word “Jah” as a name for God.

“What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.” – Rumi

“Whatever happens to you, don’t fall in despair. Even if all the doors are closed, a secret path will be there for you that no one knows. You can’t see it yet but so many paradises are at the end of this path. Be grateful! It is easy to thank after obtaining what you want, thank before having what you want.” – Shams Tabrizi
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God!” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.” –Rumi

“Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity” – seen on a FB meme.

“We are all connected; to each other biologically. To the earth chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

“There are more fake guides, teachers in the world than stars. The real guide is the one who makes you see your inner beauty, not the one who wants to be admired and followed.” – Shams Tabrizi

“Countless paths / lead to the mountain’s summit / yet from it / the same moon shines / over the land.” – Ikkyu

“All God’s angels come to us disguised.” – James Russell Lowell

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“…the total combined weight of human beings on Earth now exceeds 287 million tons. A third of that global human biomass exists in North America, although we account for only 6 percent of the world’s population.” – from the New York Times Well Blog (the blog used the term “voluntary physical inactivity” to explain why North Americans are so huge)

“The best time to plant a tree was always 20 years ago. The second best time is always today.” – Old Chinese Saying.

“I free myself from hatred through forgiveness and love. I understand that suffering, when it cannot be avoided, is here to help me on my way to glory. I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea.” – Paulo Coelho (from “Aleph”)

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin

“Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.” – Rumi

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

“I said – what about my eyes? God said Keep them on the road. I said –what about my passion? God said Keep it burning. I said –what about my heart? God said Tell me what do you hold inside it? I said –pain and sorrow? He said…Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” – Rumi.

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.” – Matsuo Basho

“There is a simple way to become buddha: when you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no desiring thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.” – Dogen Zenji

“Water which is too pure has no fish.” – Ts’ai Ken T’an

Phrases to use with people who are recovering. – I love you. I’m here for you. Is there anything I can do?
Phrases to use with caution (may be not taken well) – Everything is going to be OK. I know how you’re feeling. You’re in my prayers.
Phrases to never use – I know someone who died of that same health condition. How did this happen?

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.” – Rumi

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lifves are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” – Rainer Maria Rilke.

“I am grateful for all my problems. After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties.” – James Cash (J.C.) Penney

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” – C.S. Lewis

“Know then that the body is merely a garment. Go see the wearer, not the cloak.” – Rumi

“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” – Mark Twain

“To change the world is not your mission. To change yourself Is not your duty. To awaken to your true nature is your opportunity.” – Mooji

“Watch over those who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends on each other’s toil” – BCP

“No one wishes to be ‘rescued’ with someone else’s beliefs. Remember your task is not to convert anyone to anything, but to help the person in front of you get in touch with his or her own strength, confidence, faith, and spirituality, whatever that might be.” – The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Kintsukuroi – “to repair with gold” – the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver laquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

“To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of bullshit.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Keep silence, be mute; if you have not yet become the tongue of God, be an ear.” – Rumi

“Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” – Eckhart Tolle

Fane – from the Latin “fanum” – temple, place dedicated to a deity.

“When superior people hear of the Way, they travel it diligently. When mediocre people hear of the Way, they seem aware, yet are as if oblivious. When lesser people here of the Way, they laugh at it out loud. What they don’t laugh at couldn’t be the Way.” – Lao Tzu

“The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.” – Dalai Lama

“The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.” – from Sherwood Anderson’s letter of advice on art and life to his teenage son.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasure of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave that you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave that was so dreaded has become the center.” – Joseph Campbell

“Happiness follows sorrow, sorrow follows happiness, but when one no longer discriminates happiness and sorrow, a good deed and a bad deed, one is able to realize freedom.” – Buddha

“When I say ‘Be yourself,” I mean the spiritual freedom fighter who’s scrambling and finagling and conspiring to relieve your fellow messiahs from their suffering and shower them with rowdy blessings of laughter.” – Bob Brezny

“Hekau is the Medu Neter (Ancient Egyptian) term meaning “words of power”. It comes from the idea of creation by words.” – from a blog called Hekau

“The way other people practiced a sport, learned a dance, I sat with feelings to learn who I am.” – S. Kelley Harrell, Gift of the Dreamtime: Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma

Namaste – (Sanskrit) – my soul recognizes your soul, I honor the light, love, beauty, truth and kindness within you because it is also within me. In sharing these things there is not distance and no difference between us, we are the same, we are one.

“The arets are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” – Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Reexamine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.” – Walt Whitman

When is a Frog?

Posted on by | Leave a comment

At what point is a frog a frog? When does it stop being a tadpole and become a frog? When it breathes air? When it no longer has a tail? When it has all four legs?

frog
(unknown photo credit)

I tell you, the frog was always a frog. Even before it was a tadpole. Even before then.

It is we who give it names, that limit when it is one thing and another. It doesn’t have names for itself. It just swims. It hops when it can. It breathes water, then air. It just is.

We have rules about what is and what is not, we humans. We are male, or female – until we aren’t. When a child is born that isn’t of one particular gender, the child is “intersexed” or “of ambiguous gender”. We don’t know what to call such a child – She? He? We don’t have a word for both and neither, yet the reality is there.

It doesn’t matter that we don’t have a word for that particular reality. The reality is still just as real. It is like a platypus. Is it a mammal, because it has fur? Or is it a bird, because it lays eggs? It is both. And neither. And something else.

Our words don’t shape reality. Reality shapes our words. Reality keeps on being, and we keep on trying to describe it, and we keep failing.

There is a Zen saying – “What did your face look like before your parents were born?”

Words are the same. What would a frog be if we weren’t there to call it a frog?

Birthday week

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I’ve heard that there is a time when you should stop making a fuss about your birthday. That time is when you are five. I think that idea comes from someone who just doesn’t get it.

I celebrate my birthday for a week. If you think about it, every day is a good reason to celebrate. Just being alive is pretty amazing. A birthday just adds more flavor to it.

The grumps would think so what that you have managed to stay alive long enough for the planet to make another trip around the sun? Who cares? I say ignore them. They are just trying to bring you down. The world is full of these people. Ignore them. They aren’t right.

Now, nobody is going to make a special fuss about your birthday, sure. They get busy. They forget. So it is up to you to make it special.

I take my birthday off every year. This guarantees that nobody will yell at me that I can’t yell back at. In general we’ve weeded out most of the cranky patrons at work. In general. Working a customer service job means the customer is always right, even when she is wrong. It means suppressing your natural reaction and desire to defend yourself.

I’m not taking any chances.

So to guarantee that the day will go well, I take it off and I stretch it out over a week. This year it has turned out pretty good.

There was almost a full stop in the middle because of some rather adolescent unpleasantness, but I managed to pull the car back onto the road. And I learned that all the yoga and study and writing I’ve been doing actually works to keep me well when I need it most. That alone was a useful lesson. I’d rather have learned this another week, but you don’t get to choose when you get your lessons.