This world of ours

Sometimes I think (and the suggested "sometimes I don't think must be also true") that my lifetime endeavors are fruitless. I write, but sometimes I don't get that big pat on the back that we all look for: recognition. Let's face it, if you write you are writing for someone else to read. Writing is communication, and communication is always (no exceptions at all) an effort to communicate a thought or idea to someone else. Even darned artistic poets like Emily Dickenson who holed themselves up inside their homes wrote for someone. And that's the whole truth of it. We want our thoughts and feelings and ideas to garner some form of recognition. We want our spouse, kid, brother, grandpa, neighbor, or proverbial neighbor to read our writing and say, "Ahh", "that's right", "Ha ha ha", or even "This makes me so mad I want to rip it up." To each writer there is a sought after response. Even if they don't know it.

Now, in our society the most acceptable form of recognition is money. We write and so someone gives us money. It seems like a suitable relationship. However we'll often settle for less.

But in this day and age we have computers so that anyone, like me, can write and be published to the world. It is wonderful. But because we have such unlimited expression, we get the dregs of the human animal along with the pinnacle of expression. That's just what we get for our liberal allowances. The same is true for every other form of expression: advertising, painting, performance art, politics. We've always had the lowest forms of expression in the world, now they just feel like they have a right to foist their opinions on us. But here's the kicker...we don't have to read it, watch it, listen to it, or smell it. That's right, we can ignore it. And until their existance becomes dangerous to my eternal salvation that's what I'll do.

I like to think that I may be in the upper 50% of that little group. But I'm probably not, so you may ignore me too (I won't tell if you don't). But I will continue to enjoy this little glimpse into the anima/animus of our culture.

And now I will type something in German.

Ich habe gedacht daß ich werde ein Autor sein. Aber es ist eine Schwierigkeit daß ich sie für ein Wunsch haben. Weil ich habe keine Bücher geschreiben. Ach, so ist es. Ich tue es eines Tages.

There's a bug in my pocket

I have an opinion on very few subjects. I try to keep myself open for persuasion and manipulation whenever possible. But there are a few things that I do form my own personal convictions about. And you people of the invisible web that I write this blog for (because we are all really writing blogs because we think that someone will read them and we all secretly hold the desire to become well known because of the style and voice we create through our writing...it's the way for todays everyman/woman to get published only when we're all published, no one is (read "When everyone's special, no one is." from pixar's The Incredibles)) get to hear it.

When we do something wrong habitually we apologize for what we're doing. We apologize again and again. Well, to keep the apologizing to a minimum, only apologize for the things that you actually have no control over.

"I'm sorry that I can't go running with you this morning. My feet were amputated last night and I doubt I'd be able to keep up." That's a valid apology.

"I'm sorry that I can't go swimming with you today, my skin is made of a compound that turns into an acid when I touch water and I would die." Okay, I can respect your decision.

However, "I'm sorry that I was late today for the fiftieth time, I just can't seem to get myself motivated to be here on time." is not a valid apology. It is an attempt to excuse a changeable trait.

So, let's save the excuses for the unchangeable and change the things that we can.

(Editor's note (read "writer's note") the author of this document is fully aware of the hypocrisy evident in these writings and hopes that all of you enjoy it.)

Basic Training

I think that we've missed the point. Or at least a lot of us have missed the point. Or at the very least, some of missed the point. Or just me, but I feel much more comfortable discussing my shortcomings if I lump some other people in with me, and since we have what, say six billion people on this planet, I'm fairly positive that there is at least one small group of people that fit into the category that I'm describing. So, even though I am lumping myself in with a completely different category of people who don't want to take the blame, I am also lumping myself in with another imaginary albeit plausible group of people who have missed the point. And now you may ask the question, "What is the point?"

The point is this. Training somebody to do something is hard, or it is work, and it is even (very possibly) hard work. This is as true of training children as it is of training adults. People talk about how hard it is for a new military recruit to go through basic training, but they never talk about how hard it is to train. Let me divert myself by using an example that may or may not relate to this previous example but probably relates well to the topic at hand.

Children.

When you potty train a kid it's not easy. For the first part of the program you are constantly reminding the child that they need to go to the bathroom in a furious attempt to get them onto the toilet when they actually do need to use it. (I just found out that the word utilize is only appropriate when you are using something for a purpose other than what it was intended for, for all other cases use the word use.) And when they finally do sit on the pot and a tinkling sound comes from the depths below their bottom we have to pretend to be ultimately more excited than we actually are. High fives and streamers mix with "huzzahs!" and "Big Girl/Boy!" that we don't really mean. We are excited, but we generally don't ever show that amount of enthusiasm for any accomplishment except maybe when a large boulder falls from the sky and crushes our car and we barely manage to pull everyone to safety when lightning strikes the tree next to us and lightning creatures emerge and we all work together on a plan to defeat the lightning creatures and save the world. And even then we are just as likely to cry as to laugh and cheer (unless of course we are in a sit com, then we all have a good laugh to lighten the mood and cut to the credits or commercial (more likely the commercial because the network wants us to be in a good mood to buy whatever it is they're advertising so that the advertiser will continue to buy more time on their network until we all stop watching television and only buy the season dvds for television shows that we actually want to watch and producers start advertising madly a-la "The Truman Show") but we're not in a sitcom). And it is far less likely to encourage our children to go potty in the toilet again if we burst into tears, even tears of joy, every time they make pee pee in the potty. And we do this for weeks, and months even only to have them relapse and pee on themselves all over again two months after we think they're finished.

However, we put ourselves through this ordeal because we don't want to keep changing diapers until they turn eighteen and they're old enough to change their own diapers.

And that's why we train. But it's not easy on either party. The military trainer has to put up a front of being the meanest SOB ever to walk this earth until the new recruits finally measure up and then trainer can shake their hands one time before going off to face a new group of noobs who don't have any idea how to do things the right way. Over and over again we put ourselves through training because we see the end goal as desirable.

But we have to choose what habits we want to cultivate. I have a friend who washes their son's hands with a cloth after every meal. When that son comes over to our house he has no idea how to wash his own hands, but he wants them clean. The parents just decided that it wasn't yet worth the effort to have their son wash his own hands (which makes sense because most kids end up not washing their hands so you have wet mess and dirty fingerprints all over for a week which brings up the point of proper training). But this kid eats his dinner. No matter what mom and dad put in front of him, he eats all of it. My kids wash their own hands, but if you put something green in front of them they act as if a boulder had just crushed their car and etc.

So, training is hard. Pick the right things to train your children in (like reading, respecting other people, telling the truth, etc.) and figure out how to train them correctly and all of our problems are solved.

Really.

All of them.

Every single one.

Even problems with rhyme schemes and internal plot structure and coherence in poetry and movies respectively.

No more problems.

You're welcome.