Saturday, January 10, 2004
A plea to all parents of young children
I hate to say it, but it HAS to be said; we, the members of the human race who are NOT close relatives of yours, do NOT love your kids.
When you take them out in public, we do NOT think that their running around like wild animals, climbing all over everything and handling everything, is cute... especially those of us who are among the poorly-paid employees (of the store, library, doctor's office, etc) who'll get stuck picking up after them after you FINALLY take them away. If you don't have enough control over them to make them walk along beside you keeping their hands to themselves, how about you hold them by the hand so they can't turn other people's places of business into a playground?
Furthermore, we are NOT, alas, deaf to their screaming, crying and endless chattering, nor are we charmed by it; in fact, it annoys us so much that we want to STRANGLE them, and YOU, so how about you shut them up, or put a hand over their mouth, or march them out to the parking lot so that you don't aggravate everyone within hearing distance?
If we are your friends, we WANT to love your little monsters, but, if you're "modern parents," in other words if you allow them to misbehave nonstop, keep in mind that we don't have your hormonal imperative to love your offspring, and all WE see when we go to your house is spoiled brats that we secretly hope you'll lock into their rooms. Yeah, you can run things the way you want to in your own homes, but try to remember that torturing guests is sort of a bad idea, so don't let your kids swarm over your friends, demanding attention; we don't want to give it, as we are there to see YOU, not THEM (and yes, this means that we don't want to hug them, kiss them, hold them, or have them sit on our laps). Remember also that torturing your friends on BEHALF of your kids is bad, too; no matter HOW wonderful and talented you think your kids are, we who share no DNA with them don't want to have to ooh and ahh over their trophies, artwork, or book reports, and do not, not, NOT want to see photos of them, or videos, or watch them dance, sing, play an instrument, twirl a baton, do cartwheels, or whatever else it is that you're wasting $ to teach them how to do. We also don't want to be obligated to go somewhere else to watch them do these things, even if it's a "special recital," and thus we don't want to have to go watch them in the school play, or to their soccer or t-ball games, or to go anywhere else or do anything else that revolves around them... and that includes their birthday parties, which should be for kids only (if you want to socialize with adults, have a dedicated get-together for adults, rather than cheating and trying to combine the occasions).
We REALLY dislike it when you bring the kids along on outings you have planned with us; we don't get to go out as often as we'd like, and when we do we want to relax and socialize with adults, not spend the time looking for the ten billionth bathroom because your kid's bladder is the size of a walnut, or standing around while you buy them endless snacks, argue with them over endless toys, spend half an hour battling with them over what they will and won't eat in a restaurant, struggle to get them into and out of car seats, jackets, etc... spend $5 and get a sitter, for heaven's sake!!
And speaking of sitters; just because we continue to be your friend after you procreate does NOT mean that we are willing to babysit for you, not even in "emergencies"; we have NOT volunteered to be part of your childcare plan, and it's unfair and downright MEAN to corner us with pleas that you HAVE to make YOUR kid OUR responsibility because you didn't set up your childcare network properly. We have full and busy lives, without empty hours available for your progeny to fill up, and this is true even if we have no kids of our own... and frankly, if we ARE childless, the fact that we have chosen to NOT have kids should clue you in as to how we feel about taking care of them even if we DO have spare time. Yes, we understand that it might be inconvenient for you to drag your kids along on some occasions, but it's not HALF as inconvenient as it is for US to take care of them, and if anyone should be inconvenienced by YOUR kids, it's YOU. In the truly rare case that you have to miss out on something because they won't allow kids or whatever, that's unfortunate, but it's part of being a parent; you knew things like this would come up before you had 'em, and now it's time for you to pay the piper... YOU, not US.
The thing we hate the most is when you bring your kids into our homes; we have nice things, and we'd like them to STAY that way, not be decorated with grape jelly handprints, thrown to the floor, or used as toys. You're free to let your kids treat YOUR home like the monkey house at the zoo, but we'd appreciate it if, when you're too cheap to get a sitter and so take them with you on visits, you'd make them sit quietly and play with a toy; the new experience will do them a world of good. If they need to use the restroom, ESCORT them, so they can't wander around getting into our things. PLEASE don't bring food or beverages for them to consume over our furniture and carpets (they can eat before or after the visit, in YOUR home or car); if you absolutely MUST feed them on our time, take them into the kitchen or sit them at the table, hand them non-messy food that they'll eat quickly and without fuss, and when they're done, clean them and the eating area up. Oh, and speaking of clean; don't show up on our doorstep with a kid who has food (or anything else) all over their hands, face and clothes... it's disgusting, and we know that it's going to end up smeared over OUR stuff.
Last but far from least; as your friends, we're willing to listen to you rattle on to a certain extent about the people in your life, whether we know or like them or not, just as you do for us; just keep in mind that your tendency when the people you're talking about are your kids is to go on and on and ON, and we are NOT entertained by the minutia of their lives-save that stuff for their grandparents.
We love you, and we WANT to love your offspring; we probably WILL love them once they're old enough to stop being endless sources of noise, destruction, mess, filth and revolting excretory functions and start being pleasant human beings. In the meantime, show some mercy on us; accept that part of your responsibility as a parent is to CONTROL your kids, and not allow them be a nuisance to others, and that no one wants to be a captive audience to other people's children... we'll show YOU the same courtesy if and when WE have small kids. Deal?
When you take them out in public, we do NOT think that their running around like wild animals, climbing all over everything and handling everything, is cute... especially those of us who are among the poorly-paid employees (of the store, library, doctor's office, etc) who'll get stuck picking up after them after you FINALLY take them away. If you don't have enough control over them to make them walk along beside you keeping their hands to themselves, how about you hold them by the hand so they can't turn other people's places of business into a playground?
Furthermore, we are NOT, alas, deaf to their screaming, crying and endless chattering, nor are we charmed by it; in fact, it annoys us so much that we want to STRANGLE them, and YOU, so how about you shut them up, or put a hand over their mouth, or march them out to the parking lot so that you don't aggravate everyone within hearing distance?
If we are your friends, we WANT to love your little monsters, but, if you're "modern parents," in other words if you allow them to misbehave nonstop, keep in mind that we don't have your hormonal imperative to love your offspring, and all WE see when we go to your house is spoiled brats that we secretly hope you'll lock into their rooms. Yeah, you can run things the way you want to in your own homes, but try to remember that torturing guests is sort of a bad idea, so don't let your kids swarm over your friends, demanding attention; we don't want to give it, as we are there to see YOU, not THEM (and yes, this means that we don't want to hug them, kiss them, hold them, or have them sit on our laps). Remember also that torturing your friends on BEHALF of your kids is bad, too; no matter HOW wonderful and talented you think your kids are, we who share no DNA with them don't want to have to ooh and ahh over their trophies, artwork, or book reports, and do not, not, NOT want to see photos of them, or videos, or watch them dance, sing, play an instrument, twirl a baton, do cartwheels, or whatever else it is that you're wasting $ to teach them how to do. We also don't want to be obligated to go somewhere else to watch them do these things, even if it's a "special recital," and thus we don't want to have to go watch them in the school play, or to their soccer or t-ball games, or to go anywhere else or do anything else that revolves around them... and that includes their birthday parties, which should be for kids only (if you want to socialize with adults, have a dedicated get-together for adults, rather than cheating and trying to combine the occasions).
We REALLY dislike it when you bring the kids along on outings you have planned with us; we don't get to go out as often as we'd like, and when we do we want to relax and socialize with adults, not spend the time looking for the ten billionth bathroom because your kid's bladder is the size of a walnut, or standing around while you buy them endless snacks, argue with them over endless toys, spend half an hour battling with them over what they will and won't eat in a restaurant, struggle to get them into and out of car seats, jackets, etc... spend $5 and get a sitter, for heaven's sake!!
And speaking of sitters; just because we continue to be your friend after you procreate does NOT mean that we are willing to babysit for you, not even in "emergencies"; we have NOT volunteered to be part of your childcare plan, and it's unfair and downright MEAN to corner us with pleas that you HAVE to make YOUR kid OUR responsibility because you didn't set up your childcare network properly. We have full and busy lives, without empty hours available for your progeny to fill up, and this is true even if we have no kids of our own... and frankly, if we ARE childless, the fact that we have chosen to NOT have kids should clue you in as to how we feel about taking care of them even if we DO have spare time. Yes, we understand that it might be inconvenient for you to drag your kids along on some occasions, but it's not HALF as inconvenient as it is for US to take care of them, and if anyone should be inconvenienced by YOUR kids, it's YOU. In the truly rare case that you have to miss out on something because they won't allow kids or whatever, that's unfortunate, but it's part of being a parent; you knew things like this would come up before you had 'em, and now it's time for you to pay the piper... YOU, not US.
The thing we hate the most is when you bring your kids into our homes; we have nice things, and we'd like them to STAY that way, not be decorated with grape jelly handprints, thrown to the floor, or used as toys. You're free to let your kids treat YOUR home like the monkey house at the zoo, but we'd appreciate it if, when you're too cheap to get a sitter and so take them with you on visits, you'd make them sit quietly and play with a toy; the new experience will do them a world of good. If they need to use the restroom, ESCORT them, so they can't wander around getting into our things. PLEASE don't bring food or beverages for them to consume over our furniture and carpets (they can eat before or after the visit, in YOUR home or car); if you absolutely MUST feed them on our time, take them into the kitchen or sit them at the table, hand them non-messy food that they'll eat quickly and without fuss, and when they're done, clean them and the eating area up. Oh, and speaking of clean; don't show up on our doorstep with a kid who has food (or anything else) all over their hands, face and clothes... it's disgusting, and we know that it's going to end up smeared over OUR stuff.
Last but far from least; as your friends, we're willing to listen to you rattle on to a certain extent about the people in your life, whether we know or like them or not, just as you do for us; just keep in mind that your tendency when the people you're talking about are your kids is to go on and on and ON, and we are NOT entertained by the minutia of their lives-save that stuff for their grandparents.
We love you, and we WANT to love your offspring; we probably WILL love them once they're old enough to stop being endless sources of noise, destruction, mess, filth and revolting excretory functions and start being pleasant human beings. In the meantime, show some mercy on us; accept that part of your responsibility as a parent is to CONTROL your kids, and not allow them be a nuisance to others, and that no one wants to be a captive audience to other people's children... we'll show YOU the same courtesy if and when WE have small kids. Deal?
Friday, January 09, 2004
Dreeeeeeeam, dream dream dream...
I was thinking about writing about dreams today, and as I was waiting for a page to load I picked up the mostly-unread Sunday comics, opened to a new page... and there was a strip with Beetle Bailey telling his friends about a dream of HIS, so, dreams it is.
I have vivid, weird and elaborate dreams, and remember quite a few each night; since I have lots of nightmares, that's sort of a mixed blessing. I also have LUCID dreams, which is when you know during the dream that you ARE dreaming, and can take control of the dream to do what you want; for me, this usually involves doing a little "magic" and creating a particular sexual partner, but I've also done things like become aware during a dream about a past boss who lied to the higher-ups and got me fired, and knocked her FLAT (that was pretty darned satisfying, even if it wasn't "real").
A high % of my nightmares have been what I call "pursuit dreams," which are just what they sound like; me being endlessly pursued, and, if caught, attacked, by... usually no one I can identify, or even remember the appearance of when I wake up. There's one glaring exception, and that's the dreams I've had of pursuit by Freddy from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies; I've had a bunch of those throughout the years. In one of them, the chase went on and on until I was utterly exhausted, and, unable to go on, I walked up to him and announced that he would have to just kill me, as I couldn't run any more; I leaned right up against him... and he turned into my father. The pursuit dreams have, I now believe, primarily been about my parents, my desire to get out from under their excessive scrutiny, rules and haranguing; I've noticed that the longer I'm married and out of their home, the fewer of these dreams I have.
I've foretold the future in dreams, even about things that I had no way to predict through analysis of the facts I had; this, and other examples of seeing the future, make me wonder if time is in fact an "illusion," if in other words it's just another dimension we move along, with all points of it already existing, the way the entire surface of the Earth exists whether you've gotten to it or not... if we can see the future, ANY of it at ANY time, it must EXIST, right? Another possibility is that karma can "analyze" all the current data about reality and do something like a weather report, projecting what WILL be based on what IS, with reduced accuracy as time goes on, and it's these "projections" that we sometimes gain access to... and the dreaming mind, unfettered by conscious thought and more "open" than during waking hours, would likely more easily "read" this sort of thing.
It's commonplace to see the solutions to problems in dreams, and receive revelations about people and events in our lives, but we often miss seeing them because the subconscious speaks to us in symbols. A recent example I read about came from Isaac Mizrahi, who described a dream in which he was pedaling like mad on a bike, then stopped pedaling but the bike kept going; he didn't need to pedal, and he saw that that was trying to tell him that he didn't have to PEDDLE, that he could stop trying to SELL and go back to creating, which he did with great relief. Your brain will send you all sorts of messages, but it's up to your waking mind to pay attention and figure them out; you'll often get repeating dreams if you're missing the point, and the dreams usually stop once you've understood them.
Your dream symbols can be very personal to you, which is why dream "dictionaries" only offer limited help in dream analysis; I HAVE gotten useful input from them about dreams that turn out to be common, like teeth falling out, but some of my biggest symbols have been unique to me. The weirdest example of this is the endlessly recurring dreams about my locker (the one I had in high school 20 years ago, usually, although sometimes it's a fictitious college locker), in which the focus is on seeing what's in there, and often seeing unexpected things and NOT seeing what WAS expected; the lock's often open or missing, showing that someone had been in there, apparently swapping my school stuff for all sorts of things (but sometimes leaving me with an empty locker). I never knew what it meant until I had one of the dreams in which my locker had been filled with unfamiliar books, of all different sizes and colors; I pulled one out and read the title; "Rage." I looked at the title of another one; "Rage." EVERY book had that title, and of course the dream occurred at a time when I WAS angry at someone, so the connection was clear; the locker represents my emotional state, and what's there, what's missing, what's been PUT there, and the condition of the lock are all symbolic (or sometimes flat-out declarations) of what I'm feeling. Weird, huh?
Lucid dreams are my faves, and I'm going to make a belated New Year's resolution to go back to asking myself throughout the day "am I asleep or awake?" so that I'll be more likely to ask myself that in my dreams and have more lucid ones; try it, it DOES work, and lucid dreams can be well worth the effort.
I have vivid, weird and elaborate dreams, and remember quite a few each night; since I have lots of nightmares, that's sort of a mixed blessing. I also have LUCID dreams, which is when you know during the dream that you ARE dreaming, and can take control of the dream to do what you want; for me, this usually involves doing a little "magic" and creating a particular sexual partner, but I've also done things like become aware during a dream about a past boss who lied to the higher-ups and got me fired, and knocked her FLAT (that was pretty darned satisfying, even if it wasn't "real").
A high % of my nightmares have been what I call "pursuit dreams," which are just what they sound like; me being endlessly pursued, and, if caught, attacked, by... usually no one I can identify, or even remember the appearance of when I wake up. There's one glaring exception, and that's the dreams I've had of pursuit by Freddy from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies; I've had a bunch of those throughout the years. In one of them, the chase went on and on until I was utterly exhausted, and, unable to go on, I walked up to him and announced that he would have to just kill me, as I couldn't run any more; I leaned right up against him... and he turned into my father. The pursuit dreams have, I now believe, primarily been about my parents, my desire to get out from under their excessive scrutiny, rules and haranguing; I've noticed that the longer I'm married and out of their home, the fewer of these dreams I have.
I've foretold the future in dreams, even about things that I had no way to predict through analysis of the facts I had; this, and other examples of seeing the future, make me wonder if time is in fact an "illusion," if in other words it's just another dimension we move along, with all points of it already existing, the way the entire surface of the Earth exists whether you've gotten to it or not... if we can see the future, ANY of it at ANY time, it must EXIST, right? Another possibility is that karma can "analyze" all the current data about reality and do something like a weather report, projecting what WILL be based on what IS, with reduced accuracy as time goes on, and it's these "projections" that we sometimes gain access to... and the dreaming mind, unfettered by conscious thought and more "open" than during waking hours, would likely more easily "read" this sort of thing.
It's commonplace to see the solutions to problems in dreams, and receive revelations about people and events in our lives, but we often miss seeing them because the subconscious speaks to us in symbols. A recent example I read about came from Isaac Mizrahi, who described a dream in which he was pedaling like mad on a bike, then stopped pedaling but the bike kept going; he didn't need to pedal, and he saw that that was trying to tell him that he didn't have to PEDDLE, that he could stop trying to SELL and go back to creating, which he did with great relief. Your brain will send you all sorts of messages, but it's up to your waking mind to pay attention and figure them out; you'll often get repeating dreams if you're missing the point, and the dreams usually stop once you've understood them.
Your dream symbols can be very personal to you, which is why dream "dictionaries" only offer limited help in dream analysis; I HAVE gotten useful input from them about dreams that turn out to be common, like teeth falling out, but some of my biggest symbols have been unique to me. The weirdest example of this is the endlessly recurring dreams about my locker (the one I had in high school 20 years ago, usually, although sometimes it's a fictitious college locker), in which the focus is on seeing what's in there, and often seeing unexpected things and NOT seeing what WAS expected; the lock's often open or missing, showing that someone had been in there, apparently swapping my school stuff for all sorts of things (but sometimes leaving me with an empty locker). I never knew what it meant until I had one of the dreams in which my locker had been filled with unfamiliar books, of all different sizes and colors; I pulled one out and read the title; "Rage." I looked at the title of another one; "Rage." EVERY book had that title, and of course the dream occurred at a time when I WAS angry at someone, so the connection was clear; the locker represents my emotional state, and what's there, what's missing, what's been PUT there, and the condition of the lock are all symbolic (or sometimes flat-out declarations) of what I'm feeling. Weird, huh?
Lucid dreams are my faves, and I'm going to make a belated New Year's resolution to go back to asking myself throughout the day "am I asleep or awake?" so that I'll be more likely to ask myself that in my dreams and have more lucid ones; try it, it DOES work, and lucid dreams can be well worth the effort.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Speak of the devil...
That phrase originally just referred to being careful to not "call up" the devil by speaking his name, but nowadays is used when ANY person, or even thing, shows up right after it's mentioned... when an episode of synchronicity occurs, in other words.
Part of the process of karma is to provide us with things when we need them (it's OUR job to keep our eyes open and be ready to GRAB), and what *I* needed was a striking example of synchronicity in my recent life, both for illustrative purposes and to keep me grounded in the magic of it all while I'm pouring out words on the topic... and I got one of the most stunning examples of my life yesterday.
The weirdness started on Monday, when a total stranger (whose name, eerily enough, describes a recurring symbol in my dreams for new opportunities arising), sent me an email that included a mention of synchronicity; I hadn't thought about that term for some time, because I'm used to thinking of "karma" as covering all those bases, but given the freaky timing (as I had just recently started this blog, which is dedicated to that sort of idea) I figured I should review my Jung and include a post on the topic, which I did on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday...
I need to include a bit of background here: I have several novels that I've "written in my head" for my own amusement, and spend some time every day recreating scenes from them in my mind; I've done this since I was a kid, so this has been a daily ritual for about a quarter century thus far. The main character in each novel is based on me, and there is another female character in most of the novels who is one of the few not based on a real-life person; she is of an unusual physical type (so much so that I'd never met a woman of that type), is always given a name that's one of the variants of one particular name (also unusual), and is often described as being from a outlying, backwater-type planet (yes, I always have the scifi/fantasy thing in my stories, lol)... I'll be unimaginative and call her "Jane Doe."
Ok, so, on Wednesday I was at a meeting, and a woman of THAT physical type walked in, opened her mouth, and in the accent of a somewhat "obscure" country announced her name to be... you guessed it, one of the variations of the name used for "Jane"!! It was so surreal that the first clear thought in my head was something that one of the characters based on me would think upon meeting "Jane" for the fist time, and that surreal feeling intensified when I saw her up close, verifying that even in most of the little details of her appearance she matched "Jane" (it's not just a "surface resemblance"), and then intensified even further when I got home, looked her name up online, and discovered that she's a SCIENTIST, one prominent enough to have a BUNCH of listings for her name... more than that, to the best I can determine (from papers I can't make heads or tails of), she's a PHYSICIST (no, not quantum physics, which would have given me a heart attack, but STILL).
I hope I can get to know her well enough to bounce some ideas off of her, as she is just the sort of person I can benefit from talking to right now; we have already exchanged emails, and she seems friendly enough, so keep your fingers crossed for me.
As if yesterday wasn't already bizarre enough, there was one more major thing; while I had the search engine up, I had the urge to do a search on synchronicity (I dunno why-it was VERY late, and I was getting punchy), and I found a mindblowing reference to...
Gotta do the background thing again, sorry; several years ago, my readings about quantum physics, and my studies of karma, led me to conclude that there was some sort of connection between the unknown "forces" that govern these things, that they might be points along something analogous to the electromagnetic spectrum, or even the SAME force, and that the numerous inexplicable things that happen, PROVABLY, at the quantum level are some of the best indirect proofs of other inexplicable but very consistent things going on in the universe. I've babbled about this to many people, and mostly get blank stares or polite comments in reply, with the best responses being fleeting sparks of interest; it's a little disheartening, let me tell you.
So, my search on synchronicity led me to a site that not only described it in depth, but gave some more background on Jung... including the astounding fact that HE had looked at quantum physics and synchronicity (which is included in my philosophy of karma) and seen a connection too!! This is the first evidence I've had that ANY other person has seen it, and, more than that, DERIVED it independently.
No, it's not proof of anything, as it's as easy for 2 people to be wrong, or crazy, as it is for 1 to be, but discovering the existence (prior existence, technically, since he's long dead) of a highly intelligent, educated person who studied the areas of the unknown that I do and made the connection to science that I did gave me an indescribable feeling of relief; my ideas MUST make SOME sort of sense, and there must be other people who have read Jung and agree with these ideas (and are still alive)... I'm not totally alone in what I see.
AHHHHHHHHHH.......
Part of the process of karma is to provide us with things when we need them (it's OUR job to keep our eyes open and be ready to GRAB), and what *I* needed was a striking example of synchronicity in my recent life, both for illustrative purposes and to keep me grounded in the magic of it all while I'm pouring out words on the topic... and I got one of the most stunning examples of my life yesterday.
The weirdness started on Monday, when a total stranger (whose name, eerily enough, describes a recurring symbol in my dreams for new opportunities arising), sent me an email that included a mention of synchronicity; I hadn't thought about that term for some time, because I'm used to thinking of "karma" as covering all those bases, but given the freaky timing (as I had just recently started this blog, which is dedicated to that sort of idea) I figured I should review my Jung and include a post on the topic, which I did on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday...
I need to include a bit of background here: I have several novels that I've "written in my head" for my own amusement, and spend some time every day recreating scenes from them in my mind; I've done this since I was a kid, so this has been a daily ritual for about a quarter century thus far. The main character in each novel is based on me, and there is another female character in most of the novels who is one of the few not based on a real-life person; she is of an unusual physical type (so much so that I'd never met a woman of that type), is always given a name that's one of the variants of one particular name (also unusual), and is often described as being from a outlying, backwater-type planet (yes, I always have the scifi/fantasy thing in my stories, lol)... I'll be unimaginative and call her "Jane Doe."
Ok, so, on Wednesday I was at a meeting, and a woman of THAT physical type walked in, opened her mouth, and in the accent of a somewhat "obscure" country announced her name to be... you guessed it, one of the variations of the name used for "Jane"!! It was so surreal that the first clear thought in my head was something that one of the characters based on me would think upon meeting "Jane" for the fist time, and that surreal feeling intensified when I saw her up close, verifying that even in most of the little details of her appearance she matched "Jane" (it's not just a "surface resemblance"), and then intensified even further when I got home, looked her name up online, and discovered that she's a SCIENTIST, one prominent enough to have a BUNCH of listings for her name... more than that, to the best I can determine (from papers I can't make heads or tails of), she's a PHYSICIST (no, not quantum physics, which would have given me a heart attack, but STILL).
I hope I can get to know her well enough to bounce some ideas off of her, as she is just the sort of person I can benefit from talking to right now; we have already exchanged emails, and she seems friendly enough, so keep your fingers crossed for me.
As if yesterday wasn't already bizarre enough, there was one more major thing; while I had the search engine up, I had the urge to do a search on synchronicity (I dunno why-it was VERY late, and I was getting punchy), and I found a mindblowing reference to...
Gotta do the background thing again, sorry; several years ago, my readings about quantum physics, and my studies of karma, led me to conclude that there was some sort of connection between the unknown "forces" that govern these things, that they might be points along something analogous to the electromagnetic spectrum, or even the SAME force, and that the numerous inexplicable things that happen, PROVABLY, at the quantum level are some of the best indirect proofs of other inexplicable but very consistent things going on in the universe. I've babbled about this to many people, and mostly get blank stares or polite comments in reply, with the best responses being fleeting sparks of interest; it's a little disheartening, let me tell you.
So, my search on synchronicity led me to a site that not only described it in depth, but gave some more background on Jung... including the astounding fact that HE had looked at quantum physics and synchronicity (which is included in my philosophy of karma) and seen a connection too!! This is the first evidence I've had that ANY other person has seen it, and, more than that, DERIVED it independently.
No, it's not proof of anything, as it's as easy for 2 people to be wrong, or crazy, as it is for 1 to be, but discovering the existence (prior existence, technically, since he's long dead) of a highly intelligent, educated person who studied the areas of the unknown that I do and made the connection to science that I did gave me an indescribable feeling of relief; my ideas MUST make SOME sort of sense, and there must be other people who have read Jung and agree with these ideas (and are still alive)... I'm not totally alone in what I see.
AHHHHHHHHHH.......
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
Do we have too many choices?
Throughout most of human history, we had few choices, if any, and that was often grim, but now we have endless choices for just about everything, with more being added every day; is that making us any happier? A FEW choices are undeniably a good thing, but...
When you want to watch something at 8PM, and it takes you until 8:10PM just to read through all the available shows, 99% of which you've never heard of and would never want to watch, are you GLAD to have 200 channels available?
When you're grocery shopping, and you go to the snacks aisle looking for potato chips, does it make you happy to have to look through 50 sorts of chips before you find what you want?
Do you like going to the drug store for a bottle of shampoo and being confronted with a WALL of choices, not just the different brands and maybe a few choices of fragrances, which was what we had just a few years ago, but multiple "formulas" for each brand?
Beyond a certain point, more choices stops meaning that you have a better chance of getting what you want, and starts meaning that you have to invest steadily more time and thought into picking an option without getting anything that is better significantly, or at ALL, than was available when there were just a handful of choices.
Scarily, having more choices in food has actually been shown to lead to obesity; the more kinds of food we have available, the more we eat. Given the popularity of gigantic buffet restaurants, the ever-growing list of menu options in what used to be "hamburger joints" (and at all other eateries as well), the existence in malls of as many places to eat as to shop, there being more types of food in the grocery store than you could eat in a decade, and the ever-increasing size of the average American, I don't think we even NEEDED studies on this issue to prove it.
An interesting article in Parade of all places (no, I do NOT normally read it, lol) points out that the wild increase in the # of choices for everything has led to a decrease in the "happiness" quotient, an INcrease in depression, an increase in our expectations that causes a DEcrease in satisfaction, and the creeping sense that, whatever we choose, we're missing out because there might have been a "better" choice.
An odd aspect of the choices issue is that the rush by every company to give more choices often eliminates the products and services that were what we liked in the first place. In MY experience, for example: The long-distance carriers each have an insane list of elaborate calling plans, but you can no longer get a plan with no monthly fee from most of them, so I'm left with an ancient plan that they keep raising the rates on because it's STILL cheaper than any of the currently available plans (based on my calling pattern). If I'm stuck trying to find food from limited choices, like in an airport waiting area or from vending machines, I'll be unable to find anything familiar because there are so many new choices that are given priority for the available space. I couldn't count the # of products, from lotion to foundation to hair color, where the variety I loved got eliminated because they just HAD to make one product into a LINE of products, or make the old line BIGGER, and for some reason NEVER keep any of the old varieties in the new line. There are a zillion colors of nail polish available, but if I want just the right shade of pink I'm out of luck, because the addition of the blues and greens and such means that there are far fewer traditional colors on display, so my actual # of "real choices" has been REDUCED.
Americans LOVE novelty, so new choices are generally money-makers; that's why we have so many. We can expect the # of choices to continue to escalate, and some of that will undeniably be good (in health care, for example), but much of the rest of it will just be a pain in the butt.
When you want to watch something at 8PM, and it takes you until 8:10PM just to read through all the available shows, 99% of which you've never heard of and would never want to watch, are you GLAD to have 200 channels available?
When you're grocery shopping, and you go to the snacks aisle looking for potato chips, does it make you happy to have to look through 50 sorts of chips before you find what you want?
Do you like going to the drug store for a bottle of shampoo and being confronted with a WALL of choices, not just the different brands and maybe a few choices of fragrances, which was what we had just a few years ago, but multiple "formulas" for each brand?
Beyond a certain point, more choices stops meaning that you have a better chance of getting what you want, and starts meaning that you have to invest steadily more time and thought into picking an option without getting anything that is better significantly, or at ALL, than was available when there were just a handful of choices.
Scarily, having more choices in food has actually been shown to lead to obesity; the more kinds of food we have available, the more we eat. Given the popularity of gigantic buffet restaurants, the ever-growing list of menu options in what used to be "hamburger joints" (and at all other eateries as well), the existence in malls of as many places to eat as to shop, there being more types of food in the grocery store than you could eat in a decade, and the ever-increasing size of the average American, I don't think we even NEEDED studies on this issue to prove it.
An interesting article in Parade of all places (no, I do NOT normally read it, lol) points out that the wild increase in the # of choices for everything has led to a decrease in the "happiness" quotient, an INcrease in depression, an increase in our expectations that causes a DEcrease in satisfaction, and the creeping sense that, whatever we choose, we're missing out because there might have been a "better" choice.
An odd aspect of the choices issue is that the rush by every company to give more choices often eliminates the products and services that were what we liked in the first place. In MY experience, for example: The long-distance carriers each have an insane list of elaborate calling plans, but you can no longer get a plan with no monthly fee from most of them, so I'm left with an ancient plan that they keep raising the rates on because it's STILL cheaper than any of the currently available plans (based on my calling pattern). If I'm stuck trying to find food from limited choices, like in an airport waiting area or from vending machines, I'll be unable to find anything familiar because there are so many new choices that are given priority for the available space. I couldn't count the # of products, from lotion to foundation to hair color, where the variety I loved got eliminated because they just HAD to make one product into a LINE of products, or make the old line BIGGER, and for some reason NEVER keep any of the old varieties in the new line. There are a zillion colors of nail polish available, but if I want just the right shade of pink I'm out of luck, because the addition of the blues and greens and such means that there are far fewer traditional colors on display, so my actual # of "real choices" has been REDUCED.
Americans LOVE novelty, so new choices are generally money-makers; that's why we have so many. We can expect the # of choices to continue to escalate, and some of that will undeniably be good (in health care, for example), but much of the rest of it will just be a pain in the butt.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Synchronicity
The first time I ever heard that word was in the Police song of the same name; I first heard what it meant when one of the MTV VJ's defined it. It seemed silly to my teenaged mind; why should things be connected somehow just because they happened at the same time?
Jung is the creator of this concept, and an example he gives of it in action is a patient telling him about a dream that had a scarab beetle in it, and at that same instant a beetle just like it flying into the window of his office. Coincidence? As an adult, I find that I have very limited belief in coincidences, whether claimed by people trying to avoid blame for wrongdoing or seen in events like thinking of someone you haven't spoken to in ages and having the phone ring and it's them.
I don't subscribe to the full Jungian concept of ALL "similar" things that happen at the same time being connected (in circumstances where there are a limited # of choices, you'll have events "match up" periodically as a matter of course), but part of how the universe works, I think, is sort of like a coin-sorter; in the same way that coins roll along and fall into the slots that are designed for them, possible events tend to end up in the "slots" that fit THEM... and by your actions, words and thoughts you can "create slots" into which events might "fall." You can also "fall" into the slots created by OTHER people, of course, as happens when you are the one making the call to the person who just thought about you for the first time in 2 years.
It seems most likely to me that the slots are created by psychic energy (by which I mean "the projected energy of thoughts," not ESP per se, although it COULD certainly be related to telepathy), although they could also be a result of something like your thoughts being able to alter the underlying structures of the universe (in a way analogous to the way that gravity warps the fabric of space)... or maybe it's a little of both. It's entirely possible that our thoughts do more than create the slots (which after all are just passive receptacles for things to happen in); we may be able to set events in motion this way as well. Quantum physics shows us that we can alter events just by witnessing them, so it's not too big of a stretch to visualize our being able to alter events by just thinking about them withOUT seeing them (it's got to be our brains that make things happen, not our eyeballs), and if we can alter events, how big of a leap is it think that perhaps we can also alter reality to CREATE events that wouldn't otherwise have happened?
In my personal philosophy, this ties in with the workings of karma; that's gonna take quite a bit of explaining, though, and won't be dealt with until I have more time to post.
Jung is the creator of this concept, and an example he gives of it in action is a patient telling him about a dream that had a scarab beetle in it, and at that same instant a beetle just like it flying into the window of his office. Coincidence? As an adult, I find that I have very limited belief in coincidences, whether claimed by people trying to avoid blame for wrongdoing or seen in events like thinking of someone you haven't spoken to in ages and having the phone ring and it's them.
I don't subscribe to the full Jungian concept of ALL "similar" things that happen at the same time being connected (in circumstances where there are a limited # of choices, you'll have events "match up" periodically as a matter of course), but part of how the universe works, I think, is sort of like a coin-sorter; in the same way that coins roll along and fall into the slots that are designed for them, possible events tend to end up in the "slots" that fit THEM... and by your actions, words and thoughts you can "create slots" into which events might "fall." You can also "fall" into the slots created by OTHER people, of course, as happens when you are the one making the call to the person who just thought about you for the first time in 2 years.
It seems most likely to me that the slots are created by psychic energy (by which I mean "the projected energy of thoughts," not ESP per se, although it COULD certainly be related to telepathy), although they could also be a result of something like your thoughts being able to alter the underlying structures of the universe (in a way analogous to the way that gravity warps the fabric of space)... or maybe it's a little of both. It's entirely possible that our thoughts do more than create the slots (which after all are just passive receptacles for things to happen in); we may be able to set events in motion this way as well. Quantum physics shows us that we can alter events just by witnessing them, so it's not too big of a stretch to visualize our being able to alter events by just thinking about them withOUT seeing them (it's got to be our brains that make things happen, not our eyeballs), and if we can alter events, how big of a leap is it think that perhaps we can also alter reality to CREATE events that wouldn't otherwise have happened?
In my personal philosophy, this ties in with the workings of karma; that's gonna take quite a bit of explaining, though, and won't be dealt with until I have more time to post.
Monday, January 05, 2004
Past history in our present lives
It's more than just evil that repeats itself, of course-all sorts of things in our lives follow repeating patterns. People tend to not notice the patterns, much less USE them to make intelligent analyses, but they ARE there.
A man forgets his anniversary with his woman, her birthday, Christmas, and Valentine's Day (or at least forgets to do anything about them until 12 hours before the "deadline") with total consistency; she is shocked and upset every single time. A woman is always late leaving the house; her man is stressed and belligerent every time. Sound familiar? People will go through these sorts of dramas literally hundreds or THOUSANDS of times, treating each time as a fresh offense, and, worse, an offense that they can do nothing about.
Firstly, you need to accept that the personality of every adult in your life is pretty much set in stone, so whatever they're doing now they can be expected to do on every similar occasion FOREVER. There's no need to be surprised or stressed each time; you KNOW it's going to happen, because no matter what you say, or what they promise, they're still the same person and will act according to the same patterns (yes, I know that people CAN change their behavior, but they're very rarely motivated to even TRY, much less succeed and resist relapsing).
Secondly, there ARE things you can do: you can prompt a person who doesn't remember about gifts (and cards and making plans in advance) every day for weeks if necessary, so that it's not POSSIBLE for them to be empty-handed when the magic moment arrives, and you can give the always-late person a faked departure time and/or stand over them and insist that they get ready well before the time they think they need to (and yes, these things ARE doable and work pretty well-I have to do them all the time). If it's not worth this sort of effort to avoid the unpleasant consequences, admit it to yourself, accept that these things really aren't so bad, resign yourself to the certain knowledge that you will be enduring them forever, and that they won't kill you, and DON'T freak out every time or act as if you're being personally insulted each time a human being acts according to their normal pattern.
What about the patterns in your OWN life? How many times do you have to be wrongly convinced that someone being late coming home means that they're dead in the gutter before you accept that all it means is that they just run late alot (because they're careless, thoughtless, easily distracted, etc)? How many times do you have to meet a new person and declare them to be "the ONE" within a week and have them head for the hills within a month before you realize that you can NOT tell about something so important so soon, AND that maybe your unrealistic analyses are DRIVING them away?
How many times have you thought you knew someone, then found out something totally unexpected, and thought "Now, I REALLY know them," and then you find out something else, and think "Now I really, REALLY know them," etc? You need to accept that, much as you like the idea of knowing all about someone, it takes a LONG time to achieve that, and that final bit of knowledge may only come when they have dissed you and are dumping you... it's best to see getting to know a person as a permanent learning process, and QUIT closing your eyes to the red flags that show up after you convince yourself you know all about them. No matter how wonderful you think someone is, if you see red flags, get ready to RUN; they're virtually ALWAYS a sign that you've been fooled.
This finally brings me to the observation that inspired these last 2 posts; the tendency of people in the fields of science and medicine to believe that whatever facts they have now, and whatever theories they have to explain them, are IT, the full truth... despite the fact that they can look back 50 years, 20 years, 10, even FIVE, and remember that they and their comrades believed just as vehemently in the PREVIOUS theories (which have now been disproven). Why is it so impossible for these ultra-intelligent people to grasp that what they believe now is no more the ultimate truth than what they believed in years past was? It's like Rita Rudner says; when you're really intelligent, sometimes it goes around in a little circle and you're stupid again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that these folks know more facts, and have a greater % of "the truth," than laypeople can even dream of... they just need to internalize that the sum total of knowledge is increasing in leaps and bounds, FAR faster than theories can keep up with, and that current theories are often based on incomplete or obsolete data. I'll be a really happy camper the day they stop saying "the explanation is" and start saying "our best current analysis is."
I'm not packing my tent up quite yet, though... ;-)
A man forgets his anniversary with his woman, her birthday, Christmas, and Valentine's Day (or at least forgets to do anything about them until 12 hours before the "deadline") with total consistency; she is shocked and upset every single time. A woman is always late leaving the house; her man is stressed and belligerent every time. Sound familiar? People will go through these sorts of dramas literally hundreds or THOUSANDS of times, treating each time as a fresh offense, and, worse, an offense that they can do nothing about.
Firstly, you need to accept that the personality of every adult in your life is pretty much set in stone, so whatever they're doing now they can be expected to do on every similar occasion FOREVER. There's no need to be surprised or stressed each time; you KNOW it's going to happen, because no matter what you say, or what they promise, they're still the same person and will act according to the same patterns (yes, I know that people CAN change their behavior, but they're very rarely motivated to even TRY, much less succeed and resist relapsing).
Secondly, there ARE things you can do: you can prompt a person who doesn't remember about gifts (and cards and making plans in advance) every day for weeks if necessary, so that it's not POSSIBLE for them to be empty-handed when the magic moment arrives, and you can give the always-late person a faked departure time and/or stand over them and insist that they get ready well before the time they think they need to (and yes, these things ARE doable and work pretty well-I have to do them all the time). If it's not worth this sort of effort to avoid the unpleasant consequences, admit it to yourself, accept that these things really aren't so bad, resign yourself to the certain knowledge that you will be enduring them forever, and that they won't kill you, and DON'T freak out every time or act as if you're being personally insulted each time a human being acts according to their normal pattern.
What about the patterns in your OWN life? How many times do you have to be wrongly convinced that someone being late coming home means that they're dead in the gutter before you accept that all it means is that they just run late alot (because they're careless, thoughtless, easily distracted, etc)? How many times do you have to meet a new person and declare them to be "the ONE" within a week and have them head for the hills within a month before you realize that you can NOT tell about something so important so soon, AND that maybe your unrealistic analyses are DRIVING them away?
How many times have you thought you knew someone, then found out something totally unexpected, and thought "Now, I REALLY know them," and then you find out something else, and think "Now I really, REALLY know them," etc? You need to accept that, much as you like the idea of knowing all about someone, it takes a LONG time to achieve that, and that final bit of knowledge may only come when they have dissed you and are dumping you... it's best to see getting to know a person as a permanent learning process, and QUIT closing your eyes to the red flags that show up after you convince yourself you know all about them. No matter how wonderful you think someone is, if you see red flags, get ready to RUN; they're virtually ALWAYS a sign that you've been fooled.
This finally brings me to the observation that inspired these last 2 posts; the tendency of people in the fields of science and medicine to believe that whatever facts they have now, and whatever theories they have to explain them, are IT, the full truth... despite the fact that they can look back 50 years, 20 years, 10, even FIVE, and remember that they and their comrades believed just as vehemently in the PREVIOUS theories (which have now been disproven). Why is it so impossible for these ultra-intelligent people to grasp that what they believe now is no more the ultimate truth than what they believed in years past was? It's like Rita Rudner says; when you're really intelligent, sometimes it goes around in a little circle and you're stupid again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that these folks know more facts, and have a greater % of "the truth," than laypeople can even dream of... they just need to internalize that the sum total of knowledge is increasing in leaps and bounds, FAR faster than theories can keep up with, and that current theories are often based on incomplete or obsolete data. I'll be a really happy camper the day they stop saying "the explanation is" and start saying "our best current analysis is."
I'm not packing my tent up quite yet, though... ;-)
Sunday, January 04, 2004
History repeats itself, and those who will not learn from history...
My favorite example of this is how Hitler failed to grasp the significance of what happened when Napoleon tried to invade Russia in the winter; it's lucky for the world that evil is at its base stupid, or at least plagued with blind spots in crucial areas due to the arrogance and/or psychosis of the evildoers, or Hitler would have been able to commit far more atrocities than he actually did.
Much of the suffering in the world is caused by evil (or amoral) people doing the same, or escalating, evil things over and over, almost always enabled by authorities who see no need to try to UNmotivate the wrongdoer from misbehaving again, by observers who don't want to get involved, and by victims who willfully ignore reality and so stay in the line of fire (and, no, this does NOT mean that victims are to blame, just that through their own foolishness they often make it easier for baddies to victimize them).
Most criminals have a long history of unacceptable behavior, much of which was dismissed in their youth as "boys will be boys" (and that's just when things got REPORTED, which so often doesn't happen because of young people not wanting to be "tattletales"), and most of which is unaddressed when they're adults because of witnesses not wanting to invest the time to do what's right or risk incurring the wrath of the wrongdoers, and victims being too ashamed to report what has been done to them, or telling themselves that it's not worth the effort to try to get the wrongdoers in trouble... and, sadly, the "don't be a tattletale" nonsense still exists in adulthood, keeping the mouths of victims sealed when the offender is someone they know.
Authorities tend to ignore, or only give a slap on the wrist for, the earlier misdeeds of criminal types, which then allows them to do worse and worse things until they HAVE to be prosecuted... for crimes that could have been prevented if those in charge paid attention to the pattern and kicked some butt BEFORE a major crime occurred. (The passing of anti-stalking laws is a rare exception to all this, implemented because the evidence that a stalker, if not stopped, will often commit a violent crime against the stalkee, got so huge, and public outrage over the stalkees not getting help BEFORE they were attacked or even killed got so intense, that elected officials were FORCED to act.)
The sorts of bad behaviors that get kids suspended from school, and employees fired, are usually the culmination of a LONG list of misdeeds, with all sorts of trouble caused and people abused that could easily have been prevented with a logical procedure in place... but, authorities are nearly always hesitant to USE their authority, and prefer to let disruptive, harmful acts go on and on rather than face the perpetrator for 30 seconds and say "Knock it off or you're OUT." When finally FORCED to take action, the authority is likely to STILL not do what's necessary; instead, they'll implement new rules that apply to everyone, or lecture everyone, or impose restrictions on everyone, rather than just dealing with the ONE person who is a problem. If they DO talk to the troublemaker, either they get so touchy-feely and New Age-y that it's more like a lovefest than a butt-kicking, or they'll allow themselves to be sidetracked by the wild excuses and fingerpointing that the troublemaker responds with, leading to no disciplinary action being taken, or, worse, all sorts of innocent people being called on the carpet while the troublemaker laughs up his sleeve... and gets away with it again, and goes on to do it again, and then some.
Even online, where the authority never needs to look anyone in the eye, you see in nearly every forum, message board, club, etc, rules about not flaming and attacking others... and people, often in a group, doing exactly THAT, and the admin(s) taking no action unless is gets REALLY bad and drags on and on, at which point they'll take EVERYONE to task, including the VICTIM(S), such that the troublemakers still come out way ahead, having gotten away with endless PUBLIC ugly behavior AND gotten the victim(s) in trouble-and they'll remember that the next time a prospective victim shows up.
In all these cases, the wrongdoer does as they please, gets away with it, and goes on to do it again, or something even worse... and then people wonder "How was something this awful allowed to happen?" and "How was this dreadful person allowed to run around free doing things like this?"
This sort of stuff occurs within relationships as well; people tell themselves "So (s)he lied to, cheated on, stole from, beat up past romantic partners-that doesn't mean (s)he'll do it to ME," and "So, (s)he did dirt to a friend-that's no reason for them not to still be MY friend," and "So, (s)he has done some terrible things-there's no need to kick them out of MY life for that, they've been nice to ME." This eventually turns into, "OK, so (s)he lied to, cheated on, betrayed, mistreated, beat up on ME once (twice, 3 times, 10 times, 100 times)... that doesn't mean (s)he'll do it again, much less do anything worse, or that I should end the relationship."
OH YES IT ***DOES***!!
One of the things I most wish I could drill into the heads of every person on the planet is: Past behavior DOES indicate what future behavior will be; people who show that they are capable of bad behavior have PROVEN that they'll behave badly in the future, not just in that way but usually in other, worse ways as well. If you see that someone has done ANYTHING ugly, deliberately and for which they do not show SINCERE remorse AND get busy making up for, this is a WARNING-you need to get this person out of your life before that ugliness gets turned on YOU... because it ALWAYS will be in the end.
If you fail to kick that person out of your life, as MOST people sadly fail in this area, you have given that person tacit permission to target YOU, and are thus not worthy of much sympathy when it's YOUR turn to get abused... and no, excuses like "He's my friend," "We've known each other for years," "She did so much for me" and, the battered woman's classic, "I LOVE him," do NOT excuse you from using common sense in choosing who gets to be in your life. The wrongdoer is of course ALWAYS fully responsible for their own behavior, but if you knowingly allow them to be in your life AFTER you know what they're capable of, it's YOUR fault that YOU were the chosen victim.
If you're someone who's in authority somewhere, whether it's at a school, a workplace, or just an online forum, save yourself, and everyone you're responsible for, ALOT of grief; the FIRST time you see someone act up, take the wrongdoer and ONLY the wrongdoer aside (do NOT penalize the victim(s)), and tell them "This is NOT acceptable behavior, and if I see you step out of line again in ANY way, you're OUT"... and then ENFORCE that if necessary. Ethically, morally, and in many instances LEGALLY, you are seen as responsible for what goes on under your control, so take action BEFORE it gets out of hand.
If you're a parent, and discover that your child has done something that could get them in trouble, do NOT brush it off as "high spirits" or "harmless pranks" or "boys will be boys"; kick some butt!! At no age, and under no circumstances, is bad behavior acceptable, and if your kid gets kicked out of school, fired from their job, or faces legal action as a result or someone reporting them for behavior YOU knew about, or as a result of you letting them see that some sorts of bad behavior are ok, YOU are at fault; you're supposed to be the adult, so ACT like it and set and enforce proper rules. Kids WANT you to set limits, and their misbehavior will continue, and escalate, until SOMEONE makes them stop... better YOU than a judge, right?
A final note, a PLEA, to women; if a man raises his hand to you, even ONCE, that has GOT to be the END. Even if he makes the $, even if there are kids (ESPECIALLY if there are kids-most men (about 85%) who abuse a woman will eventually abuse the kids too), you have to get away from him, because he WILL do it again, and worse, if you stay. It doesn't matter what sort of melodramatic tears, promises and gifts he comes up with-LEAVE. It doesn't matter if he's the rare one who will go into therapy, because even professionals have found it impossible to "fix" a man that hits; get out while you still can, PLEASE!! It doesn't matter how much you "love" him, history WILL repeat, and you have to love YOURSELF enough to learn that before it's too late.
Much of the suffering in the world is caused by evil (or amoral) people doing the same, or escalating, evil things over and over, almost always enabled by authorities who see no need to try to UNmotivate the wrongdoer from misbehaving again, by observers who don't want to get involved, and by victims who willfully ignore reality and so stay in the line of fire (and, no, this does NOT mean that victims are to blame, just that through their own foolishness they often make it easier for baddies to victimize them).
Most criminals have a long history of unacceptable behavior, much of which was dismissed in their youth as "boys will be boys" (and that's just when things got REPORTED, which so often doesn't happen because of young people not wanting to be "tattletales"), and most of which is unaddressed when they're adults because of witnesses not wanting to invest the time to do what's right or risk incurring the wrath of the wrongdoers, and victims being too ashamed to report what has been done to them, or telling themselves that it's not worth the effort to try to get the wrongdoers in trouble... and, sadly, the "don't be a tattletale" nonsense still exists in adulthood, keeping the mouths of victims sealed when the offender is someone they know.
Authorities tend to ignore, or only give a slap on the wrist for, the earlier misdeeds of criminal types, which then allows them to do worse and worse things until they HAVE to be prosecuted... for crimes that could have been prevented if those in charge paid attention to the pattern and kicked some butt BEFORE a major crime occurred. (The passing of anti-stalking laws is a rare exception to all this, implemented because the evidence that a stalker, if not stopped, will often commit a violent crime against the stalkee, got so huge, and public outrage over the stalkees not getting help BEFORE they were attacked or even killed got so intense, that elected officials were FORCED to act.)
The sorts of bad behaviors that get kids suspended from school, and employees fired, are usually the culmination of a LONG list of misdeeds, with all sorts of trouble caused and people abused that could easily have been prevented with a logical procedure in place... but, authorities are nearly always hesitant to USE their authority, and prefer to let disruptive, harmful acts go on and on rather than face the perpetrator for 30 seconds and say "Knock it off or you're OUT." When finally FORCED to take action, the authority is likely to STILL not do what's necessary; instead, they'll implement new rules that apply to everyone, or lecture everyone, or impose restrictions on everyone, rather than just dealing with the ONE person who is a problem. If they DO talk to the troublemaker, either they get so touchy-feely and New Age-y that it's more like a lovefest than a butt-kicking, or they'll allow themselves to be sidetracked by the wild excuses and fingerpointing that the troublemaker responds with, leading to no disciplinary action being taken, or, worse, all sorts of innocent people being called on the carpet while the troublemaker laughs up his sleeve... and gets away with it again, and goes on to do it again, and then some.
Even online, where the authority never needs to look anyone in the eye, you see in nearly every forum, message board, club, etc, rules about not flaming and attacking others... and people, often in a group, doing exactly THAT, and the admin(s) taking no action unless is gets REALLY bad and drags on and on, at which point they'll take EVERYONE to task, including the VICTIM(S), such that the troublemakers still come out way ahead, having gotten away with endless PUBLIC ugly behavior AND gotten the victim(s) in trouble-and they'll remember that the next time a prospective victim shows up.
In all these cases, the wrongdoer does as they please, gets away with it, and goes on to do it again, or something even worse... and then people wonder "How was something this awful allowed to happen?" and "How was this dreadful person allowed to run around free doing things like this?"
This sort of stuff occurs within relationships as well; people tell themselves "So (s)he lied to, cheated on, stole from, beat up past romantic partners-that doesn't mean (s)he'll do it to ME," and "So, (s)he did dirt to a friend-that's no reason for them not to still be MY friend," and "So, (s)he has done some terrible things-there's no need to kick them out of MY life for that, they've been nice to ME." This eventually turns into, "OK, so (s)he lied to, cheated on, betrayed, mistreated, beat up on ME once (twice, 3 times, 10 times, 100 times)... that doesn't mean (s)he'll do it again, much less do anything worse, or that I should end the relationship."
OH YES IT ***DOES***!!
One of the things I most wish I could drill into the heads of every person on the planet is: Past behavior DOES indicate what future behavior will be; people who show that they are capable of bad behavior have PROVEN that they'll behave badly in the future, not just in that way but usually in other, worse ways as well. If you see that someone has done ANYTHING ugly, deliberately and for which they do not show SINCERE remorse AND get busy making up for, this is a WARNING-you need to get this person out of your life before that ugliness gets turned on YOU... because it ALWAYS will be in the end.
If you fail to kick that person out of your life, as MOST people sadly fail in this area, you have given that person tacit permission to target YOU, and are thus not worthy of much sympathy when it's YOUR turn to get abused... and no, excuses like "He's my friend," "We've known each other for years," "She did so much for me" and, the battered woman's classic, "I LOVE him," do NOT excuse you from using common sense in choosing who gets to be in your life. The wrongdoer is of course ALWAYS fully responsible for their own behavior, but if you knowingly allow them to be in your life AFTER you know what they're capable of, it's YOUR fault that YOU were the chosen victim.
If you're someone who's in authority somewhere, whether it's at a school, a workplace, or just an online forum, save yourself, and everyone you're responsible for, ALOT of grief; the FIRST time you see someone act up, take the wrongdoer and ONLY the wrongdoer aside (do NOT penalize the victim(s)), and tell them "This is NOT acceptable behavior, and if I see you step out of line again in ANY way, you're OUT"... and then ENFORCE that if necessary. Ethically, morally, and in many instances LEGALLY, you are seen as responsible for what goes on under your control, so take action BEFORE it gets out of hand.
If you're a parent, and discover that your child has done something that could get them in trouble, do NOT brush it off as "high spirits" or "harmless pranks" or "boys will be boys"; kick some butt!! At no age, and under no circumstances, is bad behavior acceptable, and if your kid gets kicked out of school, fired from their job, or faces legal action as a result or someone reporting them for behavior YOU knew about, or as a result of you letting them see that some sorts of bad behavior are ok, YOU are at fault; you're supposed to be the adult, so ACT like it and set and enforce proper rules. Kids WANT you to set limits, and their misbehavior will continue, and escalate, until SOMEONE makes them stop... better YOU than a judge, right?
A final note, a PLEA, to women; if a man raises his hand to you, even ONCE, that has GOT to be the END. Even if he makes the $, even if there are kids (ESPECIALLY if there are kids-most men (about 85%) who abuse a woman will eventually abuse the kids too), you have to get away from him, because he WILL do it again, and worse, if you stay. It doesn't matter what sort of melodramatic tears, promises and gifts he comes up with-LEAVE. It doesn't matter if he's the rare one who will go into therapy, because even professionals have found it impossible to "fix" a man that hits; get out while you still can, PLEASE!! It doesn't matter how much you "love" him, history WILL repeat, and you have to love YOURSELF enough to learn that before it's too late.
