Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Financial advantages to being good-looking
From CNN comes an article called "Do pretty people earn more?"
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/Careers/07/08/looks/index.html
which starts out with this eye-opener
"Studies show attractive students get more attention and higher evaluations from their teachers, good-looking patients get more personalized care from their doctors, and handsome criminals receive lighter sentences than less attractive convicts."
I'd heard the 1st one many times, but to think that something as important as medical care hinges even in part on how hot you are is terrifying, and cuter criminals getting shorter sentences is an absolute disgrace.
And now on to looksism in the workplace:
"The ugly truth, according to economics professors Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, is that plain people earn 5 percent to 10 percent less than people of average looks, who in turn earn 3 percent to 8 percent less than those deemed good-looking.
These findings concur with other research that shows the penalty for being homely exceeds the premium for beauty and that across all occupations, the effects are greater for men than women."
So, not only do attractive people get a bonus, but there's a "penalty" for ugliness? How grim is THAT?
"A London Guildhall University survey of 11,000 33-year-olds found that unattractive men earned 15 percent less than those deemed attractive, while plain women earned 11 percent less than their prettier counterparts."
As harshly as women's looks are judged, MEN suffer more for being homely? That surprises me.
"In their report 'Beauty, Productivity and Discrimination: Lawyers', Looks and Lucre,' Hamermesh and Biddle found that the probability of a male attorney attaining early partnership directly correlates with how handsome he is."
It's usually other men who are the senior partners making those decisions; you can see them promoting pretty women, but handsomer men, too?
Height is also a factor in earnings:
"A study released last year by two professors at the University of Florida and University of North Carolina found that tall people earn considerably more money throughout their careers than their shorter co-workers, with each inch adding about $789 a year in pay.
A survey of male graduates of the University of Pittsburgh found that the tallest students' average starting salary was 12 percent higher than their shorter colleagues'."
I'd be interested to see what the #'s are for women from that 1st study, since the favoring of tall men for everything from mate selection to election winning is well-known, but I've never heard of height in women being of benefit for anything unless they're prospective runway models or showgirls.
Not surprisingly, weight is also a factor... but apparently only for women:
"The London Guildhall study showed that overweight women are more likely to be unemployed and that those who are working earn on average 5 percent less than their trimmer peers."
Just what plus-size women need, another kick in the head; I'd be interested to see if those #'s held up in countries that don't worship thinness.
The favoring of beauty apparently happens because:
"According to Dr. Gordon Patzer, who has spent more than three decades studying and writing about physical attractiveness, human beings are hard-wired to respond more favorably to attractive people. Even studies of babies show they will look more intently and longer at prettier faces."
Sigh.
"'Good-looking men and women are generally judged to be more talented, kind, honest and intelligent than their less attractive counterparts,' Patzer says."
I've written about this before, and I still don't get why external appearance should be thought to have ANY connection to finer inner qualities... especially when the opposite is so often true, because the beautiful don't need to develop inner virtue, and they get away with murder.
"Controlled studies show people go out of their way to help attractive people -- of the same and opposite sex -- because they want to be liked and accepted by good-looking people."
I can see being extra-nice to hotties of the opposite sex, but why would we have that urge for those of the same sex? Is our overall biological preference for beauty really that strong?
Now here's where CNN gets clueless:
"Despite what the research says, some of the world's most successful people have been ordinary looking at best, and you would never mistake the faces in Fortune for those in Esquire or Entertainment Weekly. Business legends are often of average height (Bill Gates at 5 feet 9 inches) or even diminutive (Jack Welch, 5 feet 8 inches, and Ross Perot, 5 feet 7 inches)."
That's comparing apples to oranges for the most part, because mega-successful people generally aren't getting their paychecks handed to them by other folks who'd be judging them on their looks and height, since people of that sort are usually their own bosses, but the bigger issue is that these men have gigantic talents that make them stand out from others so much that their looks don't enter into it.
And here's a laugh:
"many folks who are lovely to look at complain that they lose out on jobs because people assume they are vacuous or lightweights"
So, endless benefits and 1 little stereotype working against them, poor babies? Or, is it that they assume they're the best qualified because they've always been seen as better than they are, and don't grasp that they're less impressive than they think and didn't get hired because others were more qualified?
"Hiring managers say it is the appearance of confidence they find attractive, not the presence of physical beauty. And they contend that attractiveness has more to do with how you carry yourself and the energy you exude -- rather than having perfect features or a great physique."
So, if Brad Pitt was having a bad day, where he didn't exude confidence or energy, an average-looking guy who WAS feeling confident would win out over him? Not in this universe.
However, tangential attributes DO help out:
"According to Gordon Wainright, author of 'Teach Yourself Body Language,' anyone can increase their attractiveness to others if they maintain good eye contact, act upbeat, dress well (with a dash of color to their wardrobe) and listen well."
We all already knew there were enormous benefits to being good-looking, and, dismaying as it is, we need to realize that those benefits extend into every area of life... and keep that in mind when we want to let ourselves go appearancewise, or be sloppy in how we dress and groom ourselves, especially in the workplace.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/Careers/07/08/looks/index.html
which starts out with this eye-opener
"Studies show attractive students get more attention and higher evaluations from their teachers, good-looking patients get more personalized care from their doctors, and handsome criminals receive lighter sentences than less attractive convicts."
I'd heard the 1st one many times, but to think that something as important as medical care hinges even in part on how hot you are is terrifying, and cuter criminals getting shorter sentences is an absolute disgrace.
And now on to looksism in the workplace:
"The ugly truth, according to economics professors Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, is that plain people earn 5 percent to 10 percent less than people of average looks, who in turn earn 3 percent to 8 percent less than those deemed good-looking.
These findings concur with other research that shows the penalty for being homely exceeds the premium for beauty and that across all occupations, the effects are greater for men than women."
So, not only do attractive people get a bonus, but there's a "penalty" for ugliness? How grim is THAT?
"A London Guildhall University survey of 11,000 33-year-olds found that unattractive men earned 15 percent less than those deemed attractive, while plain women earned 11 percent less than their prettier counterparts."
As harshly as women's looks are judged, MEN suffer more for being homely? That surprises me.
"In their report 'Beauty, Productivity and Discrimination: Lawyers', Looks and Lucre,' Hamermesh and Biddle found that the probability of a male attorney attaining early partnership directly correlates with how handsome he is."
It's usually other men who are the senior partners making those decisions; you can see them promoting pretty women, but handsomer men, too?
Height is also a factor in earnings:
"A study released last year by two professors at the University of Florida and University of North Carolina found that tall people earn considerably more money throughout their careers than their shorter co-workers, with each inch adding about $789 a year in pay.
A survey of male graduates of the University of Pittsburgh found that the tallest students' average starting salary was 12 percent higher than their shorter colleagues'."
I'd be interested to see what the #'s are for women from that 1st study, since the favoring of tall men for everything from mate selection to election winning is well-known, but I've never heard of height in women being of benefit for anything unless they're prospective runway models or showgirls.
Not surprisingly, weight is also a factor... but apparently only for women:
"The London Guildhall study showed that overweight women are more likely to be unemployed and that those who are working earn on average 5 percent less than their trimmer peers."
Just what plus-size women need, another kick in the head; I'd be interested to see if those #'s held up in countries that don't worship thinness.
The favoring of beauty apparently happens because:
"According to Dr. Gordon Patzer, who has spent more than three decades studying and writing about physical attractiveness, human beings are hard-wired to respond more favorably to attractive people. Even studies of babies show they will look more intently and longer at prettier faces."
Sigh.
"'Good-looking men and women are generally judged to be more talented, kind, honest and intelligent than their less attractive counterparts,' Patzer says."
I've written about this before, and I still don't get why external appearance should be thought to have ANY connection to finer inner qualities... especially when the opposite is so often true, because the beautiful don't need to develop inner virtue, and they get away with murder.
"Controlled studies show people go out of their way to help attractive people -- of the same and opposite sex -- because they want to be liked and accepted by good-looking people."
I can see being extra-nice to hotties of the opposite sex, but why would we have that urge for those of the same sex? Is our overall biological preference for beauty really that strong?
Now here's where CNN gets clueless:
"Despite what the research says, some of the world's most successful people have been ordinary looking at best, and you would never mistake the faces in Fortune for those in Esquire or Entertainment Weekly. Business legends are often of average height (Bill Gates at 5 feet 9 inches) or even diminutive (Jack Welch, 5 feet 8 inches, and Ross Perot, 5 feet 7 inches)."
That's comparing apples to oranges for the most part, because mega-successful people generally aren't getting their paychecks handed to them by other folks who'd be judging them on their looks and height, since people of that sort are usually their own bosses, but the bigger issue is that these men have gigantic talents that make them stand out from others so much that their looks don't enter into it.
And here's a laugh:
"many folks who are lovely to look at complain that they lose out on jobs because people assume they are vacuous or lightweights"
So, endless benefits and 1 little stereotype working against them, poor babies? Or, is it that they assume they're the best qualified because they've always been seen as better than they are, and don't grasp that they're less impressive than they think and didn't get hired because others were more qualified?
"Hiring managers say it is the appearance of confidence they find attractive, not the presence of physical beauty. And they contend that attractiveness has more to do with how you carry yourself and the energy you exude -- rather than having perfect features or a great physique."
So, if Brad Pitt was having a bad day, where he didn't exude confidence or energy, an average-looking guy who WAS feeling confident would win out over him? Not in this universe.
However, tangential attributes DO help out:
"According to Gordon Wainright, author of 'Teach Yourself Body Language,' anyone can increase their attractiveness to others if they maintain good eye contact, act upbeat, dress well (with a dash of color to their wardrobe) and listen well."
We all already knew there were enormous benefits to being good-looking, and, dismaying as it is, we need to realize that those benefits extend into every area of life... and keep that in mind when we want to let ourselves go appearancewise, or be sloppy in how we dress and groom ourselves, especially in the workplace.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Joel Osteen and a possum report
Before I get into the topics of today's post, I want to point out some exceptionally classy behavior on the part of one of my blog buddies, Guy, whose excellent blog is here
http://www.rooksrant.com/
When he read my post of a couple of days ago, he obviously felt the same pleasure I did in the phrase "blogito ergo sum" (I blog, therefore I am) that I described putting on my blog, because he put it right at the top of HIS blog... and even though he knows I didn't invent the phrase, because he read it here he put a link to my post "under" that phrase-a fine example of the highest standards of blogging, don't you agree?
In tonight's sermon, Joel Osteen said that we should forgive those that hurt us, and give up the victim mentality created by dwelling on past injuries, so that God can give us good things; he explained that it has to be an exchange, that you have to give up shattered dreams and bitterness as your part of the exchange, and then God will do HIS part. Lastly, he said that you have to be grateful for what you have, and then God will reward you with more than you ever imagined... all of which boils down to stopping the generation of negative energy so that positive things can get to you, and focusing on a positive emotion to draw the positive to you, which is both his consistent message and the basic rule of karma.
His most interesting thought tonight was that "the Enemy" wants you to "sit in the ashes" (dwell on past hurts), but God will give you beauty for those ashes if you're willing to make the swap... and that "the Enemy" fights the hardest to keep you down when he knows God has something good waiting for you, so stay positive even when things seem the worst.
And now for the possum report: The little girl possum was eating, and the male showed up; we held our breaths, not knowing what he'd do to her this time around... and to our astonishment and delight, the same possum who'd run her right off the 1st time he saw her slowly edged in on the other side of the food pile and began to eat, without making a single aggressive move!! My husband, who as a point of manhood resists talking to the critters, joined me in crooning, "Good boy!! What a good boy!! Good possum, letting her stay and eat!!"; possums are supposedly smarter than dogs, and dogs understand "good boy/girl," so I bet he knew what we meant. They've eaten together a few more times, and once he even let her snatch the cold cuts right out from under his nose; that he's apparently given her the run of his territory proves, to my mind, that's she IS female (not that I'd ever doubted it, as tiny and pretty as she is), and has got visions of possum babies dancing in my head again... I hope they're still together in the spring!!
http://www.rooksrant.com/
When he read my post of a couple of days ago, he obviously felt the same pleasure I did in the phrase "blogito ergo sum" (I blog, therefore I am) that I described putting on my blog, because he put it right at the top of HIS blog... and even though he knows I didn't invent the phrase, because he read it here he put a link to my post "under" that phrase-a fine example of the highest standards of blogging, don't you agree?
In tonight's sermon, Joel Osteen said that we should forgive those that hurt us, and give up the victim mentality created by dwelling on past injuries, so that God can give us good things; he explained that it has to be an exchange, that you have to give up shattered dreams and bitterness as your part of the exchange, and then God will do HIS part. Lastly, he said that you have to be grateful for what you have, and then God will reward you with more than you ever imagined... all of which boils down to stopping the generation of negative energy so that positive things can get to you, and focusing on a positive emotion to draw the positive to you, which is both his consistent message and the basic rule of karma.
His most interesting thought tonight was that "the Enemy" wants you to "sit in the ashes" (dwell on past hurts), but God will give you beauty for those ashes if you're willing to make the swap... and that "the Enemy" fights the hardest to keep you down when he knows God has something good waiting for you, so stay positive even when things seem the worst.
And now for the possum report: The little girl possum was eating, and the male showed up; we held our breaths, not knowing what he'd do to her this time around... and to our astonishment and delight, the same possum who'd run her right off the 1st time he saw her slowly edged in on the other side of the food pile and began to eat, without making a single aggressive move!! My husband, who as a point of manhood resists talking to the critters, joined me in crooning, "Good boy!! What a good boy!! Good possum, letting her stay and eat!!"; possums are supposedly smarter than dogs, and dogs understand "good boy/girl," so I bet he knew what we meant. They've eaten together a few more times, and once he even let her snatch the cold cuts right out from under his nose; that he's apparently given her the run of his territory proves, to my mind, that's she IS female (not that I'd ever doubted it, as tiny and pretty as she is), and has got visions of possum babies dancing in my head again... I hope they're still together in the spring!!
Sunday, September 25, 2005
A few more blog tweaks
It never rains without pouring, does it? As you might have noticed, there are some significant changes to my sidebar again today; I hit the jackpot in my blog surfing.
The 1st change is the addition of the "Stop Internet Censorship" banner; I don't normally post cause-related graphics, but the site the gif links to has loads of information on this and related topics that I think is valuable to the blogging community... especially since we're hearing more and more about people getting in trouble because their school, workplace, or even country thinks they shouldn't be allowed to blog about whatever they choose.
The next change is one I've thought about since my husband told me that my Flash clock/calendar used up so much of the CPU of whatever computer it was being viewed on that it might make older, slower computers sluggish, or freeze them up entirely (!!!); there were supposedly some ways to ameliorate the problem, but he was dragging his feet (as usual) with helping me with them, so I was contemplating going clockless... until I found the one I've got in the sidebar now on a blog I visited, courtesy of my old friends at ClockLink.com, who provided my original Flash clock from way back. It looks really slick, and has the date on it too, so I had to have it; I swapped the new code for the old, tinkered with the size and positioning, and now my blog loads faster as well as being kinder on older computers.
The 3rd change is the most fun, and technically neat as well; the hairy green guy holding the sign that tells you your IP#, your ISP, the sort of computer you're on and what browser you're using... followed by a random choice from a list of custom messages I came up with, the funniest of which is the one where he says he's my ("Omni's") husband, lol, which my husband thought was hilarious. I had problems registering the darned thing, and in fact I still haven't gotten the email with the secret password that'll allow me to edit it, but it works just fine; it's wide enough that I may move it so that it's not sticking out so noticeably, but I'm going to see how I like it over the next few days before I decide about that.
So, my passion for novelty sidebar doodads continues unabated; I'm sure that says something about my psychological profile, but I'll spare myself the analysis as to what that might be. ;-)
The 1st change is the addition of the "Stop Internet Censorship" banner; I don't normally post cause-related graphics, but the site the gif links to has loads of information on this and related topics that I think is valuable to the blogging community... especially since we're hearing more and more about people getting in trouble because their school, workplace, or even country thinks they shouldn't be allowed to blog about whatever they choose.
The next change is one I've thought about since my husband told me that my Flash clock/calendar used up so much of the CPU of whatever computer it was being viewed on that it might make older, slower computers sluggish, or freeze them up entirely (!!!); there were supposedly some ways to ameliorate the problem, but he was dragging his feet (as usual) with helping me with them, so I was contemplating going clockless... until I found the one I've got in the sidebar now on a blog I visited, courtesy of my old friends at ClockLink.com, who provided my original Flash clock from way back. It looks really slick, and has the date on it too, so I had to have it; I swapped the new code for the old, tinkered with the size and positioning, and now my blog loads faster as well as being kinder on older computers.
The 3rd change is the most fun, and technically neat as well; the hairy green guy holding the sign that tells you your IP#, your ISP, the sort of computer you're on and what browser you're using... followed by a random choice from a list of custom messages I came up with, the funniest of which is the one where he says he's my ("Omni's") husband, lol, which my husband thought was hilarious. I had problems registering the darned thing, and in fact I still haven't gotten the email with the secret password that'll allow me to edit it, but it works just fine; it's wide enough that I may move it so that it's not sticking out so noticeably, but I'm going to see how I like it over the next few days before I decide about that.
So, my passion for novelty sidebar doodads continues unabated; I'm sure that says something about my psychological profile, but I'll spare myself the analysis as to what that might be. ;-)
Saturday, September 24, 2005
A couple of blog tweaks
I was reading yesterday when I came across the familiar quote "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am); for whatever reason, I instantly thought "BLOGito ergo sum," "I blog therefore I am," and was dazzled by my brilliance... for about a nanosecond, after which I realized that such an obvious turn of phrase must have been thought of and used a billion times (I checked, and yes it has-there are even shirts that have that phrase on them). I still loved it, so I decided to put it on my blog; the only problem was that I didn't know how to insert plain text (as opposed to text that's part of a link) anywhere outside of a post. I started going through the blogs I read in my mind, trying to think of who might have text that wasn't part of a post or a profile, and wasn't coming up with anything (not surprising, as there's not much reason for people to stick random bits of text in their margins); in that half-aware state of "internal thought," I followed an urge and brought up a page with a long list of unfamiliar blogs on it, picked one, clicked on it... and it had exactly what I was looking for (and I was amazed to have another psychic event so hard on the heels of the recent 2-WOW). It turns out that the "p" command does more than paragraphs and alignments, because that's what I found to insert text with; I played around with the quote and the code, to see where I wanted to put it (I had it at the bottom of the page for a while), and how to best format it... the result's in the sidebar.
Also in the sidebar's an addition to the translator that's been there since the early days of my blog; it's always bothered me that there were far fewer languages available than the # spoken in the countries I have visitors from, but I hadn't found any sites that did full-site translations that had more languages available (and I'd LOOKED), so I was stuck with just 8; today, though, I found a site that had many more translation options, and that led me to the site that produced the translations... but there didn't seem to be any way to get free translations there. After too long spent floundering around the site, I followed a hunch and did a Google search; I found a site with a page with an impressive range of translation options... including access to the previous translation site. If English is your 2nd language, and you'd rather read my ramblings in Croatian, Czech, Danish, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish or Welsh, click on where it says "LOTS more languages" right under the Babel Fish translator; on the page that takes you to, go to the 2nd translation box from the top in the right-hand column, where it says "InterTran -- Translate a Web Page," and stick my URL where it says to. As a bonus, if you speak Bulgarian, Dutch, or Tagalog, there's a little translator at the upper right, above the rest, with those languages available; it's still far from ALL languages (the lack of an English/Arabic translator is especially unfortunate, although more because I'd like to be able to read THEIR blogs than because I think they're that interested in mine), but hopefully it'll make a significant # of foreign visitors feel more welcome, and more able to figure out what I'm babbling about (although even a native English speaker probably has some difficulty with that sometimes, lol).
While I'm on the subject; I'm always pleased to see how many bloggers have some sort of translator on their blogs, as I think that enhances our sense of unity as a community... and always sad to find blogs that look cool that I can't read because I don't know of any translators that handle the languages they're written in (that'll be less of an issue now, but still significant). Given that, and that many blog readers won't know where to go to get translations, I'd like to suggest to everyone who doesn't have any kind of translator, and that absolutely includes people blogging in English, that you put some sort of translator and/or link to one on your site so that more of the blogging community can read what you have to say... because I don't think we can over-state the importance of people from all over the world reading about each other's lives and thoughts.
Also in the sidebar's an addition to the translator that's been there since the early days of my blog; it's always bothered me that there were far fewer languages available than the # spoken in the countries I have visitors from, but I hadn't found any sites that did full-site translations that had more languages available (and I'd LOOKED), so I was stuck with just 8; today, though, I found a site that had many more translation options, and that led me to the site that produced the translations... but there didn't seem to be any way to get free translations there. After too long spent floundering around the site, I followed a hunch and did a Google search; I found a site with a page with an impressive range of translation options... including access to the previous translation site. If English is your 2nd language, and you'd rather read my ramblings in Croatian, Czech, Danish, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish or Welsh, click on where it says "LOTS more languages" right under the Babel Fish translator; on the page that takes you to, go to the 2nd translation box from the top in the right-hand column, where it says "InterTran -- Translate a Web Page," and stick my URL where it says to. As a bonus, if you speak Bulgarian, Dutch, or Tagalog, there's a little translator at the upper right, above the rest, with those languages available; it's still far from ALL languages (the lack of an English/Arabic translator is especially unfortunate, although more because I'd like to be able to read THEIR blogs than because I think they're that interested in mine), but hopefully it'll make a significant # of foreign visitors feel more welcome, and more able to figure out what I'm babbling about (although even a native English speaker probably has some difficulty with that sometimes, lol).
While I'm on the subject; I'm always pleased to see how many bloggers have some sort of translator on their blogs, as I think that enhances our sense of unity as a community... and always sad to find blogs that look cool that I can't read because I don't know of any translators that handle the languages they're written in (that'll be less of an issue now, but still significant). Given that, and that many blog readers won't know where to go to get translations, I'd like to suggest to everyone who doesn't have any kind of translator, and that absolutely includes people blogging in English, that you put some sort of translator and/or link to one on your site so that more of the blogging community can read what you have to say... because I don't think we can over-state the importance of people from all over the world reading about each other's lives and thoughts.
Friday, September 23, 2005
A psychotic pizza memory
If you guessed that the memory's psychotic because my mother's involved... you're right!!
Back in my distant, pre-marital past, if my mother had to work late she'd sometimes call me at some point during the day and ask me to phone in a pizza order that'd be timed to be ready when she'd be reaching the restaurant, so she could pick it up with it still reasonably hot and bring it home; you wouldn't think there'd be any way to make something so simple into a battle, but she's unusually talented in that area, so she found a way... she'd play games with what time I was supposed to ask them to have the pizza ready by, in a attempt to trick me into picking an improper time so that she could then complain that the pizza was cold, or not ready, and then hammer me about it for the next month. Not being a fool, I'd dig my heels in and insist that she give a specific time, not a group of times, not a range of times, but ONE specific time, and after a few rounds of guessing games she'd normally give in... but one memorable time she didn't:
Her: I'm not sure what time I'll get out, and then I'm not sure what the traffic will be like, so I can't give an exact time.
Me: Nevertheless, you have to give me an exact time to give the pizza place.
Her: I might miss the worst of the traffic, but then again I might not, so I can't give an exact time.
Me: You still have to choose an exact time for me to give the pizza place.
Her: I might have to stay a little longer to help close up, but I won't know until after we're closed, so I can't give you a exact time.
Me: I'm not inventing a time that's guaranteed to be wrong, and then it's MY fault that the pizza's not done when you want it to be; YOU come up with a time, and then if it's wrong it can't be blamed on me.
Her: Fine, then we just won't HAVE pizza!! {smashes the phone down}
And that's not even the psycho part; several hours later, I was at home, reading in my room, when the phone rang:
Her: So where's the pizza?
Me: What pizza?
Her: Did you screw up and order it at the wrong place?
Me: No, the last thing I heard from you was that we weren't HAVING pizza.
Her: No, I called and told you to order pizza!!
Me: No, you called about pizza, refused to give me a time, declared that there would be NO pizza, slammed the phone down, and never called back to tell me anything different.
Her: {smashes the phone down}
When she arrived home, she was frothing at the mouth about my not having ordered the pizza that she'd said we weren't having, going on about how she'd told everyone at the pizza place how stupid *I* was for not placing an order I'd never been given permission and the information to place, and she repeated her nonsense over and over, never admitting that she'd retracted the offer of pizza and never countermanded that final decree, no matter how many times she was reminded... and for MONTHS afterwards, there was an additional battle about what for everyone else in the world is a trivially simple task; she'd make nasty comments about my not "forgetting" to place the order, and I'd respond with reminders of what actually happened before, and tell her that if she pulled a similar stunt there'd be no pizza AGAIN.
For all her bluster at me about the incident, she NEVER used that degree of game-playing with ordering pizza again; at least on some level, she DID know that she'd been the one at fault, and felt it necessary to be endlessly belligerent about it to try to steamroller me into forgetting the facts... which never worked, but that didn't stop her from trying.
That memory came back to me this evening as I was cheerfully slurping up pizza that my husband had brought home; it amazes me how normal dealing with my mother's psychoses used to feel... and how much better my life is without her as a regular part of it.
Back in my distant, pre-marital past, if my mother had to work late she'd sometimes call me at some point during the day and ask me to phone in a pizza order that'd be timed to be ready when she'd be reaching the restaurant, so she could pick it up with it still reasonably hot and bring it home; you wouldn't think there'd be any way to make something so simple into a battle, but she's unusually talented in that area, so she found a way... she'd play games with what time I was supposed to ask them to have the pizza ready by, in a attempt to trick me into picking an improper time so that she could then complain that the pizza was cold, or not ready, and then hammer me about it for the next month. Not being a fool, I'd dig my heels in and insist that she give a specific time, not a group of times, not a range of times, but ONE specific time, and after a few rounds of guessing games she'd normally give in... but one memorable time she didn't:
Her: I'm not sure what time I'll get out, and then I'm not sure what the traffic will be like, so I can't give an exact time.
Me: Nevertheless, you have to give me an exact time to give the pizza place.
Her: I might miss the worst of the traffic, but then again I might not, so I can't give an exact time.
Me: You still have to choose an exact time for me to give the pizza place.
Her: I might have to stay a little longer to help close up, but I won't know until after we're closed, so I can't give you a exact time.
Me: I'm not inventing a time that's guaranteed to be wrong, and then it's MY fault that the pizza's not done when you want it to be; YOU come up with a time, and then if it's wrong it can't be blamed on me.
Her: Fine, then we just won't HAVE pizza!! {smashes the phone down}
And that's not even the psycho part; several hours later, I was at home, reading in my room, when the phone rang:
Her: So where's the pizza?
Me: What pizza?
Her: Did you screw up and order it at the wrong place?
Me: No, the last thing I heard from you was that we weren't HAVING pizza.
Her: No, I called and told you to order pizza!!
Me: No, you called about pizza, refused to give me a time, declared that there would be NO pizza, slammed the phone down, and never called back to tell me anything different.
Her: {smashes the phone down}
When she arrived home, she was frothing at the mouth about my not having ordered the pizza that she'd said we weren't having, going on about how she'd told everyone at the pizza place how stupid *I* was for not placing an order I'd never been given permission and the information to place, and she repeated her nonsense over and over, never admitting that she'd retracted the offer of pizza and never countermanded that final decree, no matter how many times she was reminded... and for MONTHS afterwards, there was an additional battle about what for everyone else in the world is a trivially simple task; she'd make nasty comments about my not "forgetting" to place the order, and I'd respond with reminders of what actually happened before, and tell her that if she pulled a similar stunt there'd be no pizza AGAIN.
For all her bluster at me about the incident, she NEVER used that degree of game-playing with ordering pizza again; at least on some level, she DID know that she'd been the one at fault, and felt it necessary to be endlessly belligerent about it to try to steamroller me into forgetting the facts... which never worked, but that didn't stop her from trying.
That memory came back to me this evening as I was cheerfully slurping up pizza that my husband had brought home; it amazes me how normal dealing with my mother's psychoses used to feel... and how much better my life is without her as a regular part of it.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
How far would you go...
... to discover the unknown?
On the DVD for "The Ring 2" is a short called "Rings," which is a preface to the movie; it shows how groups of people, calling themselves "rings," have obtained the tape that leads to your gruesome death 7 days after you watch it unless you copy it and show it to someone else, and are watching it 1 by 1, recording in detail all their increasingly intense experiences with the paranormal, and seeing how long they can withstand the fear before they pass the tape along to the next person in the ring.
If the situation were real, would YOU watch the tape?
If you answered "yes," consider:
What if the next person in the ring chickened out? What if you couldn't find a replacement in time? What if you were in a car wreck, and the 7 days ran out as you lay in a hospital bed?
What if the person after you in the ring had some similar problem, leading to THEIR death... could you live with that? What if the problem befell the person after that, or the one after that... how far would your moral responsibility extend?
I don't suppose too many people would take those sorts of risks even to know the unimaginable, so let's remove death from the equation; let's say instead that you could stop the paranormal events at any time by destroying the tape, and that at the end of 7 days, if you lasted that long, there'd be nothing beyond the most terrifying event of them all, after which your life would go on as before... then would you watch the tape?
What if what you experienced drove you crazy? What if it gave you screaming nightmares for the rest of your life? What if it left you so shaken that you'd never be able to regain a cheerful, ordinary existence? What if knowing what lay just under the skin of reality left you so afraid that you could never be in the dark, or be alone, or look into a mirror and see what might be behind you, for as long as you lived without being paralyzed by terror?
Would the knowledge still be worth it?
There are plenty of thrill-seekers who'd still go for it, because they're used to not letting the possible consequences bother them, and there are those so desperate to know it all, even the scariest aspects of the unknown, that they'd dive right in. And those who are self-destructive, or nuts, might embrace the possibility of being swallowed up by interior darkness and be eager to do it. Heck, my husband said he'd do it, just for the adventure of it... sometimes I wonder if we're even the same species.
And finally, let's say that none of the entities you'd encounter would be threatening, none of the things you'd experience would be intrinsically scary... then would you watch the tape? I think MOST people would go for it now, don't you? You'd see some wild stuff, learn about what else is out there, none of which is "bad," and nothing would harm you; why not go for it?
Some people would refuse, of course, for religious reasons, or because their lives can't be interrupted by random paranormal occurrences (surgeons, for example, can't afford to be startled in mid-operation), etc, but I'd refuse for a reason few would think of; because I've always had the gut feeling that focusing on "other beings" of any sort draws their attention to you, which could easily end up with you wishing you hadn't contemplated them... and just imagine what the result could be if you essentially invited them to come into your life in various intrusive ways-what makes you think they'd ever just forget about you and leave you be for the rest of your life?
Or that other, perhaps less benign, things might not follow them to you, and start hanging around as well?
Exploring the unknown is a 2-edged sword, because it'd be the height of arrogance to think that there are no other sentient beings in all the universes except us, or that none of those other beings are more powerful than we are, and it'd be the height of foolishness to believe that none of them would be curious and/or belligerent enough to be interested in messing with humans like little boys poking ant hills with sticks; by learning too much about the tapestry of karma, one runs the risk of becoming TOO perceptive, and seeing things best left unseen... things that can see you back.
I want to know "The Truth," but I want to have a happy life and sleep well at night, too; I wouldn't TOUCH that hypothetical tape, or do anything else that'd put me closer to whatever might exist that needs to STAY unknown, not even if you paid me. Is it possible to know everything about the unknown EXCEPT that stuff? Perhaps not; it's going to be food for thought as my spiritual path progresses, count on it.
On the DVD for "The Ring 2" is a short called "Rings," which is a preface to the movie; it shows how groups of people, calling themselves "rings," have obtained the tape that leads to your gruesome death 7 days after you watch it unless you copy it and show it to someone else, and are watching it 1 by 1, recording in detail all their increasingly intense experiences with the paranormal, and seeing how long they can withstand the fear before they pass the tape along to the next person in the ring.
If the situation were real, would YOU watch the tape?
If you answered "yes," consider:
What if the next person in the ring chickened out? What if you couldn't find a replacement in time? What if you were in a car wreck, and the 7 days ran out as you lay in a hospital bed?
What if the person after you in the ring had some similar problem, leading to THEIR death... could you live with that? What if the problem befell the person after that, or the one after that... how far would your moral responsibility extend?
I don't suppose too many people would take those sorts of risks even to know the unimaginable, so let's remove death from the equation; let's say instead that you could stop the paranormal events at any time by destroying the tape, and that at the end of 7 days, if you lasted that long, there'd be nothing beyond the most terrifying event of them all, after which your life would go on as before... then would you watch the tape?
What if what you experienced drove you crazy? What if it gave you screaming nightmares for the rest of your life? What if it left you so shaken that you'd never be able to regain a cheerful, ordinary existence? What if knowing what lay just under the skin of reality left you so afraid that you could never be in the dark, or be alone, or look into a mirror and see what might be behind you, for as long as you lived without being paralyzed by terror?
Would the knowledge still be worth it?
There are plenty of thrill-seekers who'd still go for it, because they're used to not letting the possible consequences bother them, and there are those so desperate to know it all, even the scariest aspects of the unknown, that they'd dive right in. And those who are self-destructive, or nuts, might embrace the possibility of being swallowed up by interior darkness and be eager to do it. Heck, my husband said he'd do it, just for the adventure of it... sometimes I wonder if we're even the same species.
And finally, let's say that none of the entities you'd encounter would be threatening, none of the things you'd experience would be intrinsically scary... then would you watch the tape? I think MOST people would go for it now, don't you? You'd see some wild stuff, learn about what else is out there, none of which is "bad," and nothing would harm you; why not go for it?
Some people would refuse, of course, for religious reasons, or because their lives can't be interrupted by random paranormal occurrences (surgeons, for example, can't afford to be startled in mid-operation), etc, but I'd refuse for a reason few would think of; because I've always had the gut feeling that focusing on "other beings" of any sort draws their attention to you, which could easily end up with you wishing you hadn't contemplated them... and just imagine what the result could be if you essentially invited them to come into your life in various intrusive ways-what makes you think they'd ever just forget about you and leave you be for the rest of your life?
Or that other, perhaps less benign, things might not follow them to you, and start hanging around as well?
Exploring the unknown is a 2-edged sword, because it'd be the height of arrogance to think that there are no other sentient beings in all the universes except us, or that none of those other beings are more powerful than we are, and it'd be the height of foolishness to believe that none of them would be curious and/or belligerent enough to be interested in messing with humans like little boys poking ant hills with sticks; by learning too much about the tapestry of karma, one runs the risk of becoming TOO perceptive, and seeing things best left unseen... things that can see you back.
I want to know "The Truth," but I want to have a happy life and sleep well at night, too; I wouldn't TOUCH that hypothetical tape, or do anything else that'd put me closer to whatever might exist that needs to STAY unknown, not even if you paid me. Is it possible to know everything about the unknown EXCEPT that stuff? Perhaps not; it's going to be food for thought as my spiritual path progresses, count on it.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
What does working harder get you?
I could have left this post blank to answer the question symbolically, to mean that working harder gets you NOTHING... but that wouldn't be totally accurate, as obviously sometimes working hard DOES get rewarded... as long as the hard work is of the sort that whoever's in authority over you cares about, and they like you well enough to reward you for it, and there isn't someone else who worked harder or more skillfully or is liked better by those in authority... and then we're back to how working harder usually doesn't lead to getting anything extra.
What got me thinking about this was a Dilbert cartoon
http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20050917.html
in which a disheveled Dilbert, who got stuck doing all of Ted's work as well as his own, says to the boss, "I didn't think it was possible, but for the past month I've done my own job plus Ted's, and done them well. I know that you're marveling at my accomplishment and wondering how you can reward me. I'll bet we're thinking of the same bonus amount!" And what's the boss thinking in response to all this? "Maybe I can fire Carl and make this idiot do his job too."
The strip is funny because:
1) We've all gotten the idea somehow that doing more work will get us benefits, when in reality we KNOW it hardly ever does.
2) Despite what we ourselves believe, we see that belief in others as naive and amusing.
3) We've nearly all experienced situations where people judge those who exert more effort than necessary in an unflattering light, either as foolish, or as brown-nosers, or as trying to make others look bad (try to think of any times that your fellow students, siblings, co-workers or other peer group saw that you'd done extra work and viewed that as praiseworthy, and you'll see what I mean.)
4) We've also nearly all experienced doing extra work in the expectation that an authority (parent, teacher or boss) would find it laudatory, only to discover that they:
a) Didn't notice.
b) Didn't care.
c) Decided that this demonstration of our ability to do more work meant that we should:
(i) Continue to do that level of work as our normal workload.
(ii) As in the Dilbert strip, be given even MORE work, since we've apparently got so much free time to do other tasks.
d) In the case of my parents and other psychos, see the work done, the initiative taken, as opportunities for criticism... and this is often part of the military mentality as well, wherein you're supposed to not vary from your assigned tasks and the exact orders you were given (and yes, my father was a military man).
5) We understand in general that we get rewarded based on the esteem in which authority figures hold us, which is virtually NEVER based on how much work we do (although it IS sometimes based on the skill or speed with which we accomplish our work).
In school, the highest grades, and the awards, scholarships, etc, went to those kids who were the smartest or most athletic, NOT those who worked the hardest (with the teachers' pets always having an extra edge, which also wasn't gained from hard work), and in the workplace the $ and promotions go to those that the higher-ups like best, to those with the ability to best produce measurable sorts of achievements like the most sales or accounts (which usually DO involve hard work, but generally go to those with the best people skills and connections rather than to the hardest workers), and even to those with seniority... but NEVER as a reward for just working hard, or for working harder than required or expected.
I used to knock myself out for people, and, not only did I never get anything in return, not even gratitude or recognition, but they expected me to ALWAYS make that effort for them with them doing nothing to compensate me for it; it was a ridiculous setup, and I've spent years gradually backing away from it, so that now what I do for others closely matches what they've demonstrated a willingness to do for ME... and no one can complain about getting less, because they know it'd make them hypocrites. If someone wants more from me, they have to ASK, which means they have to make a case to me AND THEMSELVES that the extra effort is important, and thus provide compensation, or at least overt gratitude, when it's done. I've learned that amazingly few things are valuable enough to others to make it worth even so little from them as making a request, and therefore not remotely worth me doing them on my own initiative, and that by making a request necessary I've taught them to view me as someone whose time is valuable, and to whom tasks do NOT just get casually tossed, but who needs to be approached with respect to obtain my efforts.
But I used to be like Dilbert, so thank you Scott Adams for a big laugh... at my former self.
What got me thinking about this was a Dilbert cartoon
http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20050917.html
in which a disheveled Dilbert, who got stuck doing all of Ted's work as well as his own, says to the boss, "I didn't think it was possible, but for the past month I've done my own job plus Ted's, and done them well. I know that you're marveling at my accomplishment and wondering how you can reward me. I'll bet we're thinking of the same bonus amount!" And what's the boss thinking in response to all this? "Maybe I can fire Carl and make this idiot do his job too."
The strip is funny because:
1) We've all gotten the idea somehow that doing more work will get us benefits, when in reality we KNOW it hardly ever does.
2) Despite what we ourselves believe, we see that belief in others as naive and amusing.
3) We've nearly all experienced situations where people judge those who exert more effort than necessary in an unflattering light, either as foolish, or as brown-nosers, or as trying to make others look bad (try to think of any times that your fellow students, siblings, co-workers or other peer group saw that you'd done extra work and viewed that as praiseworthy, and you'll see what I mean.)
4) We've also nearly all experienced doing extra work in the expectation that an authority (parent, teacher or boss) would find it laudatory, only to discover that they:
a) Didn't notice.
b) Didn't care.
c) Decided that this demonstration of our ability to do more work meant that we should:
(i) Continue to do that level of work as our normal workload.
(ii) As in the Dilbert strip, be given even MORE work, since we've apparently got so much free time to do other tasks.
d) In the case of my parents and other psychos, see the work done, the initiative taken, as opportunities for criticism... and this is often part of the military mentality as well, wherein you're supposed to not vary from your assigned tasks and the exact orders you were given (and yes, my father was a military man).
5) We understand in general that we get rewarded based on the esteem in which authority figures hold us, which is virtually NEVER based on how much work we do (although it IS sometimes based on the skill or speed with which we accomplish our work).
In school, the highest grades, and the awards, scholarships, etc, went to those kids who were the smartest or most athletic, NOT those who worked the hardest (with the teachers' pets always having an extra edge, which also wasn't gained from hard work), and in the workplace the $ and promotions go to those that the higher-ups like best, to those with the ability to best produce measurable sorts of achievements like the most sales or accounts (which usually DO involve hard work, but generally go to those with the best people skills and connections rather than to the hardest workers), and even to those with seniority... but NEVER as a reward for just working hard, or for working harder than required or expected.
I used to knock myself out for people, and, not only did I never get anything in return, not even gratitude or recognition, but they expected me to ALWAYS make that effort for them with them doing nothing to compensate me for it; it was a ridiculous setup, and I've spent years gradually backing away from it, so that now what I do for others closely matches what they've demonstrated a willingness to do for ME... and no one can complain about getting less, because they know it'd make them hypocrites. If someone wants more from me, they have to ASK, which means they have to make a case to me AND THEMSELVES that the extra effort is important, and thus provide compensation, or at least overt gratitude, when it's done. I've learned that amazingly few things are valuable enough to others to make it worth even so little from them as making a request, and therefore not remotely worth me doing them on my own initiative, and that by making a request necessary I've taught them to view me as someone whose time is valuable, and to whom tasks do NOT just get casually tossed, but who needs to be approached with respect to obtain my efforts.
But I used to be like Dilbert, so thank you Scott Adams for a big laugh... at my former self.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Psychic flash and a scare
I got 10 hours of sleep last night; I'm wondering if being more rested increases telepathic sensitivity, because I had a powerful psychic urge today, which is noteworthy since I just had a precognitive insight yesterday... pretty much every other mental function is adversely affected by tiredness and improved by getting enough sleep, so why not this one, right? (If so, that'd mean that these perceptions DO come via the brain, rather than the soul as some suggest... unless the soul gets tired too? hmmmmmmmmmmmm)
I was about to place a bid on eBay, and as usual had decided long in advance how much I was going to bid; $10. As I went to enter that amount, which was well above the current tiny bid amount, my inner voice (it's not actually a voice per se, it's more like a wordless certainty, but the latter makes no sense to those who haven't experienced it, so it's easier to call it my IV) spoke up:
IV: $12
Me: $10
IV: $12
Me: I only bid in round #'s; $10.
IV: $12
Me: Why does it have to be $12?
IV: Because SHE bid $12.
Me: The current bid's only $3, and I can't imagine many people would think this is worth...
IV: She bid $12.
This is why we're so unable to be certain, as a species, about the validity of psychic phenomena; even those of us who know better will STILL try to argue away the insights we receive, because we're so saturated with the idea of "if science can't see it then it doesn't exist" that we can't accept the gifts of karma. Luckily, I caught myself at it, and decided to listen to the inner voice; if the other bidder had bid $12, then *I* had to bid $12... plus the 1¢ extra that I add to every bid, to make sure I go over any bids of the same amount, of course. I placed the bid... and eBay showed my bid as $12.01.
She HAD bid $12.
No matter how many times it happens, it still amazes me.
And now for the scare: My husband and I were settling in for dinner, and I grabbed for a napkin, and inexplicably got 2; I separated them, and saw that the bottom one had...
... a LARVA squirming on it!! AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
While I shrieked in disgust, my husband fumbled for something to kill it with, then realized that it was on a NAPKIN, and wadded it up and crushed the filthy thing. I flung the other napkin, that the larva had been stuck to, at him (and he USED it without a qualm, GAG), and extracted a new one... which I naturally examined VERY carefully before using. All we can figure is that the larva had been crawling on the ceiling, and decided to break with the standard larval plan of dropping onto my keyboard and jump into the napkins instead.
What I really need is the psychic ability to ferret out all vermin BEFORE they try to get on me; sadly, I don't think that one exists... but who knows what I might accomplish if I keep sleeping this much? ;-)
I was about to place a bid on eBay, and as usual had decided long in advance how much I was going to bid; $10. As I went to enter that amount, which was well above the current tiny bid amount, my inner voice (it's not actually a voice per se, it's more like a wordless certainty, but the latter makes no sense to those who haven't experienced it, so it's easier to call it my IV) spoke up:
IV: $12
Me: $10
IV: $12
Me: I only bid in round #'s; $10.
IV: $12
Me: Why does it have to be $12?
IV: Because SHE bid $12.
Me: The current bid's only $3, and I can't imagine many people would think this is worth...
IV: She bid $12.
This is why we're so unable to be certain, as a species, about the validity of psychic phenomena; even those of us who know better will STILL try to argue away the insights we receive, because we're so saturated with the idea of "if science can't see it then it doesn't exist" that we can't accept the gifts of karma. Luckily, I caught myself at it, and decided to listen to the inner voice; if the other bidder had bid $12, then *I* had to bid $12... plus the 1¢ extra that I add to every bid, to make sure I go over any bids of the same amount, of course. I placed the bid... and eBay showed my bid as $12.01.
She HAD bid $12.
No matter how many times it happens, it still amazes me.
And now for the scare: My husband and I were settling in for dinner, and I grabbed for a napkin, and inexplicably got 2; I separated them, and saw that the bottom one had...
... a LARVA squirming on it!! AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
While I shrieked in disgust, my husband fumbled for something to kill it with, then realized that it was on a NAPKIN, and wadded it up and crushed the filthy thing. I flung the other napkin, that the larva had been stuck to, at him (and he USED it without a qualm, GAG), and extracted a new one... which I naturally examined VERY carefully before using. All we can figure is that the larva had been crawling on the ceiling, and decided to break with the standard larval plan of dropping onto my keyboard and jump into the napkins instead.
What I really need is the psychic ability to ferret out all vermin BEFORE they try to get on me; sadly, I don't think that one exists... but who knows what I might accomplish if I keep sleeping this much? ;-)
Monday, September 19, 2005
A precognitive possum dream
The Joel Osteen sermon tonight was a repeat again, so he must be on vacation; the message was still a good one, about how we should wake up every day with a blank slate emotionally, having forgiven and forgotten all the hurts of the previous day to "allow" God to give us the even better stuff that He has in store for us... or, from a karmic viewpoint, clear out all the negative thoughts and emotions so that they don't generate negative karma and prevent good things from getting to us.
Last night I slept for 11 hours, and 1 of my dreams was that there were TWO possums on the patio instead of just the 1 who's been coming several times a night for the past couple of months (see my post of 9-15-05), despite the fact that we've NEVER seen any other possums in our area, much less on our property; I woke up with a surge of hope that maybe we WOULD be getting a new visitor, but as is so often the case with precognition, it seemed so unlikely that the tendency was to dismiss it as wishful thinking... but I'm pleased to say that I was RIGHT. I heard possumish chomping as I was typing away on my laptop, and looked up already crooning hellos to the possum... only to stop in mid-croon as I realized that this was NOT our possum, but one far smaller, with darker fur and strikingly different facial markings. I immediately assumed that this one was female, although it could just as easily be a younger male; fantasies of possum courtship and a pouchful of tiny possumettes come spring began surging through my besotted brain. As the night progressed, the possums alternated feeding times, until, at a point when the female was here, I wondered why they weren't on the patio at the same time as in the dream... at which point the male showed up.
And chased her away!! :-(
We were VERY dismayed at his behavior, and can only hope that she'll hang around anyways to maintain access to the bountiful food supply available here, and that he'll eventually become more accepting of her; we'll always love him the best, but 2 possums would be twice the fun... and if she's still around when mating season arrives, there's a good chance he'll see her in a new light, and then maybe we could still have possumettes.
Is there any reasonable chance that it's a coincidence that I dreamed of 2 possums on the same day that we 1st GOT 2 possums? Of course not... and this is the most thrilling precognitive event I've had in ages.
Last night I slept for 11 hours, and 1 of my dreams was that there were TWO possums on the patio instead of just the 1 who's been coming several times a night for the past couple of months (see my post of 9-15-05), despite the fact that we've NEVER seen any other possums in our area, much less on our property; I woke up with a surge of hope that maybe we WOULD be getting a new visitor, but as is so often the case with precognition, it seemed so unlikely that the tendency was to dismiss it as wishful thinking... but I'm pleased to say that I was RIGHT. I heard possumish chomping as I was typing away on my laptop, and looked up already crooning hellos to the possum... only to stop in mid-croon as I realized that this was NOT our possum, but one far smaller, with darker fur and strikingly different facial markings. I immediately assumed that this one was female, although it could just as easily be a younger male; fantasies of possum courtship and a pouchful of tiny possumettes come spring began surging through my besotted brain. As the night progressed, the possums alternated feeding times, until, at a point when the female was here, I wondered why they weren't on the patio at the same time as in the dream... at which point the male showed up.
And chased her away!! :-(
We were VERY dismayed at his behavior, and can only hope that she'll hang around anyways to maintain access to the bountiful food supply available here, and that he'll eventually become more accepting of her; we'll always love him the best, but 2 possums would be twice the fun... and if she's still around when mating season arrives, there's a good chance he'll see her in a new light, and then maybe we could still have possumettes.
Is there any reasonable chance that it's a coincidence that I dreamed of 2 possums on the same day that we 1st GOT 2 possums? Of course not... and this is the most thrilling precognitive event I've had in ages.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
The oddest "religious" dream yet
I didn't quite manage 12 hours of sleep, as I woke up after 11.5, but I still feel like a whole new person today; as a bonus, I had one of the occasional "religious" dreams that baffle my NON-religious waking mind... and this time there was some pretty blatant symbolism in it:
The 1st thing I remember isn't really clear, but for some reason I was involved in some sort of search with legendary pop psychologist Dr. Phil; I don't know what we were looking for, and I didn't recognize where we were-it was sort of surreal, as dreamscapes often are. Eventually, we were in a big building, with me up on an interior balcony or ledge of some kind, and him in a large room adjacent to the room the balcony was in; there was a huge pile of dark stuff on the floor, dirt and sticks and unidentifiable chunks, and he was trying to... do something with or to it, I couldn't tell what. He apparently failed, gave up, and walked away; once he was out of sight, from out of the wall appeared a gigantic hand, easily 20 feet long, made of something with a yellow-orange glow like a hot coal... my immediate thought was, "that's the hand of God." The hand motioned over the pile, and a glowing figure began to form, also about 20 feet long, and as it was taking shape I thought, "Jesus." It gets bizarre here; once it was completed, the outline of the figure reminded me of Dopey, one of the 7 dwarves from "Snow White."
The glowing figure came under the balcony and looked up at me, asking if I wanted to come down; I did, but there was no stairway or other way to get there... so he extended a finger, which grew until it was all the way up with me, and thick enough to look like it'd support my weight, and I grabbed onto it (it felt vaguely insubstantial), and was gently transported to the ground at his feet (yes, I'm aware of the potentially sexual symbolism of a long, growing cylindrical thing coming from a male figure, but sometimes a cigar is jut a cigar). I was standing leaning slightly against his legs (I felt a little disoriented), looking up at him, with him about as tall compared to me as an adult would be to a small child, and he asked me if I wanted him to change forms; I said I did, and the glow dimmed but didn't vanish as he shifted to a fairly standard Jesus image, except with blonde hair... I thought that he should be brunette, as he's usually pictured, but figured that the light he emitted might make the darker color impossible somehow.
All I have after that is the faint recollection that we were going to go somewhere, do something together... I wish I could remember what.
So, we have Dr. Phil, representing the intellectual, rational and analytical, failing to use "analytical power" to do something with a jumble of "stuff," and God showing up and succeeding at "creating order out of chaos," physically and presumably spiritually speaking, which fairly screams the message "Analyzing the unknown won't give you the answer, because God is the answer"; I'd really like to know what part of my mind THAT idea came from, and if it's trying to get through to me or is just reflecting some primitive part of my brain that likes the idea of a deity (??!!). We have Jesus starting out looking like "Dopey," but then "rescuing" me, "bringing me to him," and then taking his familiar form (which was no more his true form than the other, because that glowing stuff could have taken any shape); the entire Christianity thing certainly looked "dopey" to me for most of my life... and now? I expect my Christian friends to tell me that the dream means that I know the truth somewhere deep down, but that can't be it...
... could it?
The 1st thing I remember isn't really clear, but for some reason I was involved in some sort of search with legendary pop psychologist Dr. Phil; I don't know what we were looking for, and I didn't recognize where we were-it was sort of surreal, as dreamscapes often are. Eventually, we were in a big building, with me up on an interior balcony or ledge of some kind, and him in a large room adjacent to the room the balcony was in; there was a huge pile of dark stuff on the floor, dirt and sticks and unidentifiable chunks, and he was trying to... do something with or to it, I couldn't tell what. He apparently failed, gave up, and walked away; once he was out of sight, from out of the wall appeared a gigantic hand, easily 20 feet long, made of something with a yellow-orange glow like a hot coal... my immediate thought was, "that's the hand of God." The hand motioned over the pile, and a glowing figure began to form, also about 20 feet long, and as it was taking shape I thought, "Jesus." It gets bizarre here; once it was completed, the outline of the figure reminded me of Dopey, one of the 7 dwarves from "Snow White."
The glowing figure came under the balcony and looked up at me, asking if I wanted to come down; I did, but there was no stairway or other way to get there... so he extended a finger, which grew until it was all the way up with me, and thick enough to look like it'd support my weight, and I grabbed onto it (it felt vaguely insubstantial), and was gently transported to the ground at his feet (yes, I'm aware of the potentially sexual symbolism of a long, growing cylindrical thing coming from a male figure, but sometimes a cigar is jut a cigar). I was standing leaning slightly against his legs (I felt a little disoriented), looking up at him, with him about as tall compared to me as an adult would be to a small child, and he asked me if I wanted him to change forms; I said I did, and the glow dimmed but didn't vanish as he shifted to a fairly standard Jesus image, except with blonde hair... I thought that he should be brunette, as he's usually pictured, but figured that the light he emitted might make the darker color impossible somehow.
All I have after that is the faint recollection that we were going to go somewhere, do something together... I wish I could remember what.
So, we have Dr. Phil, representing the intellectual, rational and analytical, failing to use "analytical power" to do something with a jumble of "stuff," and God showing up and succeeding at "creating order out of chaos," physically and presumably spiritually speaking, which fairly screams the message "Analyzing the unknown won't give you the answer, because God is the answer"; I'd really like to know what part of my mind THAT idea came from, and if it's trying to get through to me or is just reflecting some primitive part of my brain that likes the idea of a deity (??!!). We have Jesus starting out looking like "Dopey," but then "rescuing" me, "bringing me to him," and then taking his familiar form (which was no more his true form than the other, because that glowing stuff could have taken any shape); the entire Christianity thing certainly looked "dopey" to me for most of my life... and now? I expect my Christian friends to tell me that the dream means that I know the truth somewhere deep down, but that can't be it...
... could it?
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Tonight, my biggest fantasy for the past year or so will come true; I'm going to get 12 hours of sleep.
I've been so tired for so long that I honestly don't remember what it feels like to be truly rested; my life is so full, and so frenzied, that the only way I can keep getting even the most essential stuff handled is to sleep less... and less... and less. And yes, part of what keeps me busy is my daily blog entries, which take up nearly all my "me time" (I still make time to exercise a few hours each week, but that's about it), and some of my sleep time, each day; I've made it a priority to do this daily mental exercise, because if I don't stick to my commitment to stretching my mind every day I'll end up with brain-lock like people I know who're either at work or vegging out, and thus haven't had a new, original, interesting, creative or spiritual thought in 20 years.
Still, my priorities take a toll on me; I'm months behind with my magazines, I barely remember what a book looks like, I have CD's I haven't listened to in YEARS, blah blah blah. When I get tired enough, if I DO manage some spare time I'm too spaced out to concentrate on anything without the adrenaline of "this HAS to get done" pushing me along; I don't think that 1 night of solid sleep, however long, will get me caught up, but hopefully it'll allow me to get my weekend tasks done quickly and be clear-headed enough to read a few articles in Discover.
It takes some work to have a 12-hour sleep session; I've taken some Advil to quiet my lower back, I'm holding as still as possible so that I can wind down and have my muscles get slack (all the physical tasks will wait until tomorrow), I've got an innocuous article to read to clear my mind, and I'm going to take a double dose of melatonin to make sure that my weary body and mind will sink into sleep when I lay down rather than ratcheting back up as they all too often do, especially when I get to bed early.
I can't describe the bliss of getting into bed knowing that I'm going to get REAL sleep... and that goes double tonight, when I'm too groggy to form any illuminating sentences, lol. If I can just get rested enough, I can accomplish more during the day, finish it up faster and thus get to sleep earlier each night, and then eventually, theoretically, get back to the point where I'm NOT tired most of the time, can focus my mind on getting things done, and...
Ah, to heck with it; even if I don't get beneficial side effects, I'm bone tired, I'm getting to bed really early, and I'm going to sleep like the dead for half a day. Life is good.
I've been so tired for so long that I honestly don't remember what it feels like to be truly rested; my life is so full, and so frenzied, that the only way I can keep getting even the most essential stuff handled is to sleep less... and less... and less. And yes, part of what keeps me busy is my daily blog entries, which take up nearly all my "me time" (I still make time to exercise a few hours each week, but that's about it), and some of my sleep time, each day; I've made it a priority to do this daily mental exercise, because if I don't stick to my commitment to stretching my mind every day I'll end up with brain-lock like people I know who're either at work or vegging out, and thus haven't had a new, original, interesting, creative or spiritual thought in 20 years.
Still, my priorities take a toll on me; I'm months behind with my magazines, I barely remember what a book looks like, I have CD's I haven't listened to in YEARS, blah blah blah. When I get tired enough, if I DO manage some spare time I'm too spaced out to concentrate on anything without the adrenaline of "this HAS to get done" pushing me along; I don't think that 1 night of solid sleep, however long, will get me caught up, but hopefully it'll allow me to get my weekend tasks done quickly and be clear-headed enough to read a few articles in Discover.
It takes some work to have a 12-hour sleep session; I've taken some Advil to quiet my lower back, I'm holding as still as possible so that I can wind down and have my muscles get slack (all the physical tasks will wait until tomorrow), I've got an innocuous article to read to clear my mind, and I'm going to take a double dose of melatonin to make sure that my weary body and mind will sink into sleep when I lay down rather than ratcheting back up as they all too often do, especially when I get to bed early.
I can't describe the bliss of getting into bed knowing that I'm going to get REAL sleep... and that goes double tonight, when I'm too groggy to form any illuminating sentences, lol. If I can just get rested enough, I can accomplish more during the day, finish it up faster and thus get to sleep earlier each night, and then eventually, theoretically, get back to the point where I'm NOT tired most of the time, can focus my mind on getting things done, and...
Ah, to heck with it; even if I don't get beneficial side effects, I'm bone tired, I'm getting to bed really early, and I'm going to sleep like the dead for half a day. Life is good.
Friday, September 16, 2005
What do we do about kids being teased?
If you were a regular target for teasing as a kid (as opposed to being the recipient of the occasional comment, which is VERY different), and your parents told you things to do that would allegedly stop the teasing, ask yourself this; did any of their advice actually WORK? The answer is almost certainly "no," as I've never had anyone tell me of a successful parent-supplied strategy that stopped THEM from being teased or harassed as kids... but why would that be? What's so hard about figuring out how a kid should be handling the misbehavior of other kids, that no adult seems to have any idea of what to tell a kid to do about it that will work? Why is it that parents tell kids abysmally stupid things to do instead, as if they don't have the brains to figure out what the ACTUAL response of the teasers will be to those things?
I know about this from experience; because I came from a sick, warped household, I was a weird kid, with the standard result... I was endlessly picked on. The one thing I managed to avoid was getting beaten up, in part because it was well known that I'd report anyone who got physical with me or my possessions to the nearest adult, and in part because of one of the few things my parents ever told me about dealing with people that's actually useful; "If someone hits you, you hit back twice as hard, and twice as many times, so that they THINK twice before daring to raise a hand to you again"... I still know it by heart nearly 3 decades after the last time it was said to me, and, despite the claims that violence never solves anything, it DOES make people disinclined to make you a target for THEIR violence. You can't tell a kid to hit whoever teases them, though, and I understood that I wasn't being given de facto permission to do that, so that useful tidbit didn't help me with the main problem.
One of my parents' ideas was for me to tell an adult if I was being teased; this is usually a waste of time to suggest to a kid because most of them won't do it, and if they DO, as I did, they find that it doesn't help, because, unlike with physical transgressions, adults don't see teasing as something to take action against... enough bullied kids have brought guns to school in recent years that teachers are FINALLY taking teasing, the precursor to bullying, seriously in at least some areas, but there was no shred of that attitude when I was a kid, and that's the way it is in many schools to this day.
My parents' glib advice to "just ignore them" was also a failure, because this led to the teasers escalating their behavior until it HAD to be reacted to in self defense, such as with things like screaming in my face or grabbing at me that didn't quite cross over into what the teachers were willing to take action against; I don't suppose that modern-day teasers are any less persistent, and even those who won't take it that far still aren't stopped by being ignored, because they KNOW that the victim hears them and is being hurt and humiliated by it even if they're stone-faced and unresponsive. When the teasing reaches the point that comments are being called out to the child wherever he is, if he doesn't respond he looks like a helpless victim, a safe and easy target... and a kid that everyone knows can't walk down the halls of the school without being followed by a steady stream of put-downs will tend to become totally socially isolated and friendless (as children fear drawing the attention of teasers and other bullies by being around a known target). This is probably the worst result of teasing, and one that adults consistently fail to take into account when judging the seriousness of those situations; if you don't take effective action about teasing before it reaches this point, there may be literally nothing you can do to get your child accepted back into "society" again... kids are loath to give up a familiar victim, and certainly aren't interested in befriending one
My mother was big on giving me speeches to memorize that she somehow convinced herself would have a magical effect on the teasers; you might remember an episode of "The Brady Bunch" where the youngest boy (I think) is subjected to the same sort of "assistance," thereby making the bully more contemptuous and determined, with it going on and on until a fight finally ends it... to the dismay of the parents, who honestly thought they could have their son TALK the bully into submission. I'm here to tell you that speeches don't work any better on teasers in real life, any more than they have a salutary effect on ADULTS by anyone who isn't in authority over them... they just make the teasers go from "cheerful" teasing to ticked-off teasing.
Sometimes what my mother told me to say was only a line or 2, but that didn't fare any better; arguing with the teasers prolongs the teasing session, risks ticking them off, and makes more of a spectacle of the thing, making it more likely that others will join in. I learned the hard way that the most counter-productive thing you can have a child tell a teaser is that they're being immature; my use of that word caused increased problems every time, and led to me being targeted by a group of popular 8th graders for most of my 7th grade year (but in that case I managed to turn it totally around through quick thinking, see my post of 10-19-04).
Probably the stupidest advice my mother ever gave me was in reference to a boy in the 6th grade who'd taken to escalating his teasing to include poking or pushing me in a way not severe enough to get him in trouble, and then running away; when asked why I wasn't running after him to poke/push him back, I pointed out what should have been wildly obvious, that he was a much faster runner, and I had no chance of catching him. In reply, my mother told me, a bookish and unathletic girl, that when he next did this I should run after him, and keep running, because "he can't run forever," and when he stopped I could then get him back. I'm sure that you, unlike her, are bright enough to see the inevitable result; he poked me and ran, with me slogging along after him... until *I* stopped from exhaustion, long before he was even winded, while he harangued me from a safe distance until I got moving again, at which point he sprinted effortlessly away again... and this went on until I was too wiped out to continue, giving him a victory beyond his wildest dreams. When I reported this back to my mother, she didn't have the grace to admit that she'd been stupid, of course; she chalked up my inability to chase and catch an athletic BOY as evidence of some sort of character failing on my part.
Why, you might ask, did my mother not just speak to whatever teachers and other adults were responsible for monitoring my class and demand that the teasers be dealt with? It's not like she had any hesitancy about calling them and raking them over the coals when they incurred her disapproval, such as when a gym teacher was telling me to NOT hit back, and wasn't punishing those that hit 1st (as nasty as she was with him, he still shot his mouth off a 2nd time to me on the subject, and her 2nd call to him probably left him scarred for life, lol), but she shared the standard adult mindset in those days before kids started shooting up their schools that teasing wasn't important enough for adult intervention (and never lost her non-facts-based belief that there was some sort of procedure that I could be trained in that would fix things, sigh).
We're more enlightened these days; we know that being habitually teased causes all sorts of mental health problems, and often leads to unacceptable varieties of acting out as well... but we still don't have any better advice to give kids on how to handle it, especially when there are a bunch of teasers rather than just 1 bully who might be avoidable. WHY? Why is there nothing you can tell a kid that works against teasers?
I've wondered vaguely about that for many years, but the answer just occurred to me today:
We as adults can rarely, if ever, stop people who are teasing US... so why should we think we can tell a CHILD how to do it, especially when teasing is so much a part of childhood culture, and there isn't even the tiny bit of leverage offered by potential social disapproval? The scary reality is that, unless there's an authority figure (or someone tough and intimidating) willing to intercede on the victim's behalf, there's simply NO WAY to stop ANYONE from teasing.
For the sort of sporadic teasing that most kids deal with, it IS fine to tell them to ignore it, roll their eyes and walk away, or toss out a one-liner, but if a kid has become the focus for even ONE constant teaser, much less a group, that causes equally-constant stress and upset, and can quickly lead to the victim becoming an outcast, so it's up to all associated adults to take action; whether you're a parent, teacher, the lunchroom monitor, the parent of a classmate, or whatever your connection is with a kid that you find out has become a target, DO something about it, and I don't mean give stupid advice... talk to whoever has authority over the teaser at the location the teasing is taking place, and demand that action be taken to stop the teaser(s), not just for a day but for good. Make clear that you're going to be following up, and DO it, so that the cycle of teasing is permanently broken... BEFORE the victim gets a gun, or starts cutting themselves, abusing drugs, or doing whatever else they can think of to stop the pain.
I know about this from experience; because I came from a sick, warped household, I was a weird kid, with the standard result... I was endlessly picked on. The one thing I managed to avoid was getting beaten up, in part because it was well known that I'd report anyone who got physical with me or my possessions to the nearest adult, and in part because of one of the few things my parents ever told me about dealing with people that's actually useful; "If someone hits you, you hit back twice as hard, and twice as many times, so that they THINK twice before daring to raise a hand to you again"... I still know it by heart nearly 3 decades after the last time it was said to me, and, despite the claims that violence never solves anything, it DOES make people disinclined to make you a target for THEIR violence. You can't tell a kid to hit whoever teases them, though, and I understood that I wasn't being given de facto permission to do that, so that useful tidbit didn't help me with the main problem.
One of my parents' ideas was for me to tell an adult if I was being teased; this is usually a waste of time to suggest to a kid because most of them won't do it, and if they DO, as I did, they find that it doesn't help, because, unlike with physical transgressions, adults don't see teasing as something to take action against... enough bullied kids have brought guns to school in recent years that teachers are FINALLY taking teasing, the precursor to bullying, seriously in at least some areas, but there was no shred of that attitude when I was a kid, and that's the way it is in many schools to this day.
My parents' glib advice to "just ignore them" was also a failure, because this led to the teasers escalating their behavior until it HAD to be reacted to in self defense, such as with things like screaming in my face or grabbing at me that didn't quite cross over into what the teachers were willing to take action against; I don't suppose that modern-day teasers are any less persistent, and even those who won't take it that far still aren't stopped by being ignored, because they KNOW that the victim hears them and is being hurt and humiliated by it even if they're stone-faced and unresponsive. When the teasing reaches the point that comments are being called out to the child wherever he is, if he doesn't respond he looks like a helpless victim, a safe and easy target... and a kid that everyone knows can't walk down the halls of the school without being followed by a steady stream of put-downs will tend to become totally socially isolated and friendless (as children fear drawing the attention of teasers and other bullies by being around a known target). This is probably the worst result of teasing, and one that adults consistently fail to take into account when judging the seriousness of those situations; if you don't take effective action about teasing before it reaches this point, there may be literally nothing you can do to get your child accepted back into "society" again... kids are loath to give up a familiar victim, and certainly aren't interested in befriending one
My mother was big on giving me speeches to memorize that she somehow convinced herself would have a magical effect on the teasers; you might remember an episode of "The Brady Bunch" where the youngest boy (I think) is subjected to the same sort of "assistance," thereby making the bully more contemptuous and determined, with it going on and on until a fight finally ends it... to the dismay of the parents, who honestly thought they could have their son TALK the bully into submission. I'm here to tell you that speeches don't work any better on teasers in real life, any more than they have a salutary effect on ADULTS by anyone who isn't in authority over them... they just make the teasers go from "cheerful" teasing to ticked-off teasing.
Sometimes what my mother told me to say was only a line or 2, but that didn't fare any better; arguing with the teasers prolongs the teasing session, risks ticking them off, and makes more of a spectacle of the thing, making it more likely that others will join in. I learned the hard way that the most counter-productive thing you can have a child tell a teaser is that they're being immature; my use of that word caused increased problems every time, and led to me being targeted by a group of popular 8th graders for most of my 7th grade year (but in that case I managed to turn it totally around through quick thinking, see my post of 10-19-04).
Probably the stupidest advice my mother ever gave me was in reference to a boy in the 6th grade who'd taken to escalating his teasing to include poking or pushing me in a way not severe enough to get him in trouble, and then running away; when asked why I wasn't running after him to poke/push him back, I pointed out what should have been wildly obvious, that he was a much faster runner, and I had no chance of catching him. In reply, my mother told me, a bookish and unathletic girl, that when he next did this I should run after him, and keep running, because "he can't run forever," and when he stopped I could then get him back. I'm sure that you, unlike her, are bright enough to see the inevitable result; he poked me and ran, with me slogging along after him... until *I* stopped from exhaustion, long before he was even winded, while he harangued me from a safe distance until I got moving again, at which point he sprinted effortlessly away again... and this went on until I was too wiped out to continue, giving him a victory beyond his wildest dreams. When I reported this back to my mother, she didn't have the grace to admit that she'd been stupid, of course; she chalked up my inability to chase and catch an athletic BOY as evidence of some sort of character failing on my part.
Why, you might ask, did my mother not just speak to whatever teachers and other adults were responsible for monitoring my class and demand that the teasers be dealt with? It's not like she had any hesitancy about calling them and raking them over the coals when they incurred her disapproval, such as when a gym teacher was telling me to NOT hit back, and wasn't punishing those that hit 1st (as nasty as she was with him, he still shot his mouth off a 2nd time to me on the subject, and her 2nd call to him probably left him scarred for life, lol), but she shared the standard adult mindset in those days before kids started shooting up their schools that teasing wasn't important enough for adult intervention (and never lost her non-facts-based belief that there was some sort of procedure that I could be trained in that would fix things, sigh).
We're more enlightened these days; we know that being habitually teased causes all sorts of mental health problems, and often leads to unacceptable varieties of acting out as well... but we still don't have any better advice to give kids on how to handle it, especially when there are a bunch of teasers rather than just 1 bully who might be avoidable. WHY? Why is there nothing you can tell a kid that works against teasers?
I've wondered vaguely about that for many years, but the answer just occurred to me today:
We as adults can rarely, if ever, stop people who are teasing US... so why should we think we can tell a CHILD how to do it, especially when teasing is so much a part of childhood culture, and there isn't even the tiny bit of leverage offered by potential social disapproval? The scary reality is that, unless there's an authority figure (or someone tough and intimidating) willing to intercede on the victim's behalf, there's simply NO WAY to stop ANYONE from teasing.
For the sort of sporadic teasing that most kids deal with, it IS fine to tell them to ignore it, roll their eyes and walk away, or toss out a one-liner, but if a kid has become the focus for even ONE constant teaser, much less a group, that causes equally-constant stress and upset, and can quickly lead to the victim becoming an outcast, so it's up to all associated adults to take action; whether you're a parent, teacher, the lunchroom monitor, the parent of a classmate, or whatever your connection is with a kid that you find out has become a target, DO something about it, and I don't mean give stupid advice... talk to whoever has authority over the teaser at the location the teasing is taking place, and demand that action be taken to stop the teaser(s), not just for a day but for good. Make clear that you're going to be following up, and DO it, so that the cycle of teasing is permanently broken... BEFORE the victim gets a gun, or starts cutting themselves, abusing drugs, or doing whatever else they can think of to stop the pain.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
The possum on my patio
I mentioned recently that a possum had started visiting me, and promised to post about him; here, at last, is the promised post.
For the benefit of my foreign visitors, here are a couple of pics of possums as normally seen
http://users.ev1.net/~katagi/possum.jpg
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/recipes/possum.jpg
and, because it's so cute, here's a pic of 5 possum babies
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/images/opsinbarrel.jpg
I haven't seen babies yet, but I'm hoping... although we're pretty sure that our possum is male. (I know, we've been fooled before, but he periodically walks around with his tail up, and his little male parts have a different color of fur, so they're hard to miss.) The possum is a marsupial, it has a prehensile tail (it can't hang from it past babyhood, though, as it's not strong enough), it's an omnivore, and it's known to faint from fear and thus make predators lose interest... which doesn't help them against cars, of course, which is why you'll periodically see roadkill possums in any area where they live around people.
The 1st time I saw the possum out on the patio, my 1st, panicked reaction was that he was a giant rat; he's small, and the rats infesting my yard are huge, and he does have a rattish sort of face and a naked pink tail. Once I realized what he actually was, I yelled for my husband, and we looked out the window at our new visitor; possums are homely, scrawny, their fur looks moth-eaten, and they have sort of a blank look about them, in addition to their resemblance to rats, so we agreed that our marsupial friend wasn't much to look at, but we were still excited to have a new species of critter hanging around.
We quickly discovered that the typical pics of possums, which show them with their heads hanging down, don't do them justice; when our boy started eating some food put out for the skunks, he tilted his head back, shot his little pink tongue in and out, and SMILED... I know, we're probably anthropomorphizing him, but it really DOES look like he's got a huge toothy grin of enjoyment while he chews, and this made us adore him despite his homeliness, because it was so CUTE. Heck, we even thought it was cute when food fell out of mouth while he ate, and when we realized that he was spitting out the skins of all the grapes he consumed (although the latter is sorta gross to clean up after); we were hooked.
When we got lazy one night and put out grapes still on the stem rather than pulling them off before setting them out, he picked up each bunch and held it in the air in his paw while eating from it, which was REALLY cute; he also figured out that he could grab a whole bunch and run into the bushes where we can't see him to eat it, which was smart of him but dismaying for us, so we stopped giving him grapes on the stems. Possums are supposed to be smarter than dogs, but aside from seeing that grapes in a bunch can be transported together, I've seen no evidence of this; he's too skittish to interact with thus far, so maybe he'll do something clever later on... not that it matters, because he's a sweet and charming creature, and we love him even if he's stupid.
It was my husband's idea to give him some meat, and he really enjoyed it, so we got some bland cold cuts (spices might be bad for him) and tried those, and that's his favorite so far; we tried Spam, too, but he turned up his nose at it, so maybe he's smarter than we think. He'll often eat the cold cuts while holding them in the air with one paw, like with the bunches of grapes, and will also grab a piece and run off into the bushes to eat it if he's nervous. It turns out that a species of tiny ant loves cold cuts too, and apparently also loves to climb onto the possum's hairless pink toes; the 1st time I saw him shaking his paw over and over, I was afraid he was injured, but it was just ants getting on him... and oddly, although he's supposed to eat insects, he doesn't lick them up-he's particular about his food. We also give him periodic chunks of cheese, since my husband read that possums are prone to calcium deficiency; it's a little harder for him to eat, but he gobbles it up eventually.
The possum is pretty much used to me, and doesn't object to my being very close to the sliding glass door, even when it's open, and even when he's right up to it himself and thus as little as a foot away from me. I don't think he sees very well, and unless I make a sudden move he isn't concerned; if I don't see him looking in at me, and stand up or walk around, that'll scare him, although not as much as it used to, but if I move slowly he's ok with it. I talk to him constantly, and I can see his little ears swiveling around to hear me, so he's paying attention; this helps when he's been frightened, as my voice is familiar, and associated with eating in his mind, and so reassures him. When the door's open, I can hear HIM, too; he makes an astonishing amount of noise when he eats, and the CHOMP CHOMP SMACK is often what alerts me to his presence... and I'll look out to see him smiling in at me as he chews.
He doesn't do much besides eat; he sometimes slurps up some water, or wanders around sniffing and eating the occasional bug, and he even checked out the shed once, presumably curious about the rat sounds from within (possums eat rats, but we've seen no evidence that he's killed any of ours, more's the pity). His only other cute behavior is that he sits down and washes his face when he's done with his meal about half of the time, which might not be accomplishing much when his paws are muddy but is still fun to watch; generally, he just eats, saunters over to the tree that he uses to get into and out of our yard, and then either takes off, or, less often, climbs up it and then onto our patio cover, where his tail can be seen hanging down, curling and uncurling... I thought it was a snake the 1st time he did that, but once my eyes adjusted to the dim light and I saw it was pink I knew it was him.
The possum comes around 3 times a night, and we pile plenty of food near the door for him so he'll hang around as long as possible; we never tire of watching him eat, so I suppose we're easily amused, lol. We've gotten better about being careful when we move around the room he can see into, so we don't run him off inadvertently; I check around for his pale triangular face before I chase the rats away, too, because once I caught him cowering in fear at the edge of the patio during a tirade against the evil rodents, and it was an hour or so before he dared come and get his food.
We've gotten some video of him doing his thing, although with the door open now we're stymied by the screen; I did manage to catch him out there when a skunk was here too, which made us plenty nervous, but they ignored each other and stayed on opposite ends of the patio, with the possum claiming the feeding area as his, which was either very brave or very stupid... luckily, the skunk was happy to snarfle around the landscaping, eating bugs and snails.
Even though possums have long and sharp-looking teeth, I'm of course eager to pet our little friend; I guess the next step is to try to get him to take food from me, but I'm concerned that his lack of understanding of where the food ends and the hand begins might work out badly for me... it's not like with the squirrel that couldn't have hurt us if she'd tried, or with a more courageous animal that'd be less likely to make a frantic grab and run. I know I shouldn't try to interact with a wild animal, that I shouldn't get attached, blah blah blah, but I miss my little squirrel girl (who hasn't been seen since she came to, I now believe, say good-bye, at least until the weather turns cold again and she gets hungrier), and the skunk that was hanging around alot got trapped and relocated, as happens regularly, so I missed my chance to try to pet her (probably just as well, considering the risk), and... and I love our little possum, so how can I not try?
Stay tuned.
For the benefit of my foreign visitors, here are a couple of pics of possums as normally seen
http://users.ev1.net/~katagi/possum.jpg
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/recipes/possum.jpg
and, because it's so cute, here's a pic of 5 possum babies
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/images/opsinbarrel.jpg
I haven't seen babies yet, but I'm hoping... although we're pretty sure that our possum is male. (I know, we've been fooled before, but he periodically walks around with his tail up, and his little male parts have a different color of fur, so they're hard to miss.) The possum is a marsupial, it has a prehensile tail (it can't hang from it past babyhood, though, as it's not strong enough), it's an omnivore, and it's known to faint from fear and thus make predators lose interest... which doesn't help them against cars, of course, which is why you'll periodically see roadkill possums in any area where they live around people.
The 1st time I saw the possum out on the patio, my 1st, panicked reaction was that he was a giant rat; he's small, and the rats infesting my yard are huge, and he does have a rattish sort of face and a naked pink tail. Once I realized what he actually was, I yelled for my husband, and we looked out the window at our new visitor; possums are homely, scrawny, their fur looks moth-eaten, and they have sort of a blank look about them, in addition to their resemblance to rats, so we agreed that our marsupial friend wasn't much to look at, but we were still excited to have a new species of critter hanging around.
We quickly discovered that the typical pics of possums, which show them with their heads hanging down, don't do them justice; when our boy started eating some food put out for the skunks, he tilted his head back, shot his little pink tongue in and out, and SMILED... I know, we're probably anthropomorphizing him, but it really DOES look like he's got a huge toothy grin of enjoyment while he chews, and this made us adore him despite his homeliness, because it was so CUTE. Heck, we even thought it was cute when food fell out of mouth while he ate, and when we realized that he was spitting out the skins of all the grapes he consumed (although the latter is sorta gross to clean up after); we were hooked.
When we got lazy one night and put out grapes still on the stem rather than pulling them off before setting them out, he picked up each bunch and held it in the air in his paw while eating from it, which was REALLY cute; he also figured out that he could grab a whole bunch and run into the bushes where we can't see him to eat it, which was smart of him but dismaying for us, so we stopped giving him grapes on the stems. Possums are supposed to be smarter than dogs, but aside from seeing that grapes in a bunch can be transported together, I've seen no evidence of this; he's too skittish to interact with thus far, so maybe he'll do something clever later on... not that it matters, because he's a sweet and charming creature, and we love him even if he's stupid.
It was my husband's idea to give him some meat, and he really enjoyed it, so we got some bland cold cuts (spices might be bad for him) and tried those, and that's his favorite so far; we tried Spam, too, but he turned up his nose at it, so maybe he's smarter than we think. He'll often eat the cold cuts while holding them in the air with one paw, like with the bunches of grapes, and will also grab a piece and run off into the bushes to eat it if he's nervous. It turns out that a species of tiny ant loves cold cuts too, and apparently also loves to climb onto the possum's hairless pink toes; the 1st time I saw him shaking his paw over and over, I was afraid he was injured, but it was just ants getting on him... and oddly, although he's supposed to eat insects, he doesn't lick them up-he's particular about his food. We also give him periodic chunks of cheese, since my husband read that possums are prone to calcium deficiency; it's a little harder for him to eat, but he gobbles it up eventually.
The possum is pretty much used to me, and doesn't object to my being very close to the sliding glass door, even when it's open, and even when he's right up to it himself and thus as little as a foot away from me. I don't think he sees very well, and unless I make a sudden move he isn't concerned; if I don't see him looking in at me, and stand up or walk around, that'll scare him, although not as much as it used to, but if I move slowly he's ok with it. I talk to him constantly, and I can see his little ears swiveling around to hear me, so he's paying attention; this helps when he's been frightened, as my voice is familiar, and associated with eating in his mind, and so reassures him. When the door's open, I can hear HIM, too; he makes an astonishing amount of noise when he eats, and the CHOMP CHOMP SMACK is often what alerts me to his presence... and I'll look out to see him smiling in at me as he chews.
He doesn't do much besides eat; he sometimes slurps up some water, or wanders around sniffing and eating the occasional bug, and he even checked out the shed once, presumably curious about the rat sounds from within (possums eat rats, but we've seen no evidence that he's killed any of ours, more's the pity). His only other cute behavior is that he sits down and washes his face when he's done with his meal about half of the time, which might not be accomplishing much when his paws are muddy but is still fun to watch; generally, he just eats, saunters over to the tree that he uses to get into and out of our yard, and then either takes off, or, less often, climbs up it and then onto our patio cover, where his tail can be seen hanging down, curling and uncurling... I thought it was a snake the 1st time he did that, but once my eyes adjusted to the dim light and I saw it was pink I knew it was him.
The possum comes around 3 times a night, and we pile plenty of food near the door for him so he'll hang around as long as possible; we never tire of watching him eat, so I suppose we're easily amused, lol. We've gotten better about being careful when we move around the room he can see into, so we don't run him off inadvertently; I check around for his pale triangular face before I chase the rats away, too, because once I caught him cowering in fear at the edge of the patio during a tirade against the evil rodents, and it was an hour or so before he dared come and get his food.
We've gotten some video of him doing his thing, although with the door open now we're stymied by the screen; I did manage to catch him out there when a skunk was here too, which made us plenty nervous, but they ignored each other and stayed on opposite ends of the patio, with the possum claiming the feeding area as his, which was either very brave or very stupid... luckily, the skunk was happy to snarfle around the landscaping, eating bugs and snails.
Even though possums have long and sharp-looking teeth, I'm of course eager to pet our little friend; I guess the next step is to try to get him to take food from me, but I'm concerned that his lack of understanding of where the food ends and the hand begins might work out badly for me... it's not like with the squirrel that couldn't have hurt us if she'd tried, or with a more courageous animal that'd be less likely to make a frantic grab and run. I know I shouldn't try to interact with a wild animal, that I shouldn't get attached, blah blah blah, but I miss my little squirrel girl (who hasn't been seen since she came to, I now believe, say good-bye, at least until the weather turns cold again and she gets hungrier), and the skunk that was hanging around alot got trapped and relocated, as happens regularly, so I missed my chance to try to pet her (probably just as well, considering the risk), and... and I love our little possum, so how can I not try?
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
An interesting realization
If you've been reading here for a while, you've grasped that my father was a sick, evil person, which makes him fairly unusual. There's another, even more unusual thing about him, though; he's been impotent his entire life. Today, for the 1st time, I started wondering if there's a connection between those 2 things.
If you're wondering how I know about him being impotent, it's because my mother inexplicably felt it necessary to tell me; he'd just turned 22 when they got married, and should have been bursting with hormones like every other man of that age, but instead... my mother's line is that she was a virgin on her wedding night, and for several nights thereafter. He never improved his level of performance, and in fact it declined steadily; in the latter years with my mother, he never managed to complete the act at all. His lack of male functionality extended all the way down to the cellular level; he had such low sperm count and poor sperm motility that it's amazing that any of his sporadic encounters with my mother ever resulted in a pregnancy (it took them nearly a decade)... and yes, my mother told me that too, and yes, I found it icky.
Is it a coincidence that he became such a warped, belligerent person, so determined to exert his power by making and enforcing endless, ridiculous rules, and behaving in an unrestrainedly ugly way because he COULD? Can all, or even most, of the blame for the despicable creature he became be assigned to his near-total inability to perform his 2 most basic manly functions (sex and reproduction), and his inability to deal with that? Was the nightmare of my childhood and early adulthood due to something as simple as my father trying endlessly to prove his manhood?
Words fail me.
If you're wondering how I know about him being impotent, it's because my mother inexplicably felt it necessary to tell me; he'd just turned 22 when they got married, and should have been bursting with hormones like every other man of that age, but instead... my mother's line is that she was a virgin on her wedding night, and for several nights thereafter. He never improved his level of performance, and in fact it declined steadily; in the latter years with my mother, he never managed to complete the act at all. His lack of male functionality extended all the way down to the cellular level; he had such low sperm count and poor sperm motility that it's amazing that any of his sporadic encounters with my mother ever resulted in a pregnancy (it took them nearly a decade)... and yes, my mother told me that too, and yes, I found it icky.
Is it a coincidence that he became such a warped, belligerent person, so determined to exert his power by making and enforcing endless, ridiculous rules, and behaving in an unrestrainedly ugly way because he COULD? Can all, or even most, of the blame for the despicable creature he became be assigned to his near-total inability to perform his 2 most basic manly functions (sex and reproduction), and his inability to deal with that? Was the nightmare of my childhood and early adulthood due to something as simple as my father trying endlessly to prove his manhood?
Words fail me.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Odds and ends
I was opening up the mail today, not really paying attention to what was on the envelopes, and looked down to see a pic of a cute teddy bear wearing a t-shirt that said "Home Sweet Home"... and "Habitat For Humanity." Regular readers will know that I can't resist sending $ to any charity that offers me a cute stuffie (which is why I'm on the list for every charity in the Western hemisphere, lol), and I'd already been thinking about what a good charity this would be to donate to because of all the volunteer work, and donations of goods such as appliances, that get added in along with the $, giving major bang for the buck; strangely, there was no mention of Katrina in the letter they sent me, but they ARE going to be doing a huge amount of home-building once it's possible for them to get started, so if you get a request from them for a donation do be generous... I'm going to be.
As I was typing the above, an ad came on with Bush Senior and Clinton asking people to donate $ for the Katrina victims; bravo to them both for doing this together, sending the message that people of all political parties need to work as one in this time of crisis.
Last night I saw an amazing program about chimps that're being taught to communicate via computer; the thing that totally blew me away, though, was the story of how one of the chimps was being asked to hand over trash to get a treat, and he brought it over... but when he saw the woman tear the piece of licorice she'd been holding in half and only offer him one piece, he tore the paper bag he was holding in half and held out just one piece!!!!!!!!! How SMART was that? Heck, plenty of humans wouldn't work it out that well, so I was astounded that even so bright of an animal had instantly figured out how to ideally handle the situation.
And finally, the moth and larvae report; we continue to endure a plague of Biblical proportions of these disgusting creatures, with dozens of moths being visible at any given time no matter how fast we kill them, and larvae squirming across the walls and ceilings, and clinging to food packages (sometimes in cocoons). I yanked all the food off of the shelves I can reach without climbing on anything, and discovered that they'd gotten into a sealed Ziploc bag, and then into sealed individual wrappers, to reach fortune cookies; some of the cookies had a big hole in them, some were so chewed up that they looked like lace... and some of the little wrappers had nothing but dust in them, I kid you not. I gathered up all the stray fortune cookies too, just in case, and had my husband take it all out to the trash.
Later, as I was typing away, I saw a faint flash of something light passing right in front of my eye, flinched back, looked down... and there was a larva, having just missed landing on my FACE in its fall to the floor. I picked it up with a napkin, beat it to a pulp, and screamed to my husband to clear out that upper shelf with his food on it NOW, despite his claims that he was SURE that they weren't into anything up there (with said claims, as always, being based on nothing more than his desire to avoid a task). He reluctantly started doing it, and quickly found the craziest thing imaginable for them to be into; a huge container of pepper flakes, all solid plastic with no visible way for them to be getting in or out, with the flakes all globbed together and covered in larvae and moths... it was so gross that he ran outside with it before I could examine it further, which is probably just as well, given my tendency towards nightmares. He also found some open food packages on his shelf, including the favorite of moths, chocolate, that he didn't even have the heart to look into to verify if they had vermin in them; he just threw it all out.
Are we FINALLY rid of them now? I wish I could believe that we were...
As I was typing the above, an ad came on with Bush Senior and Clinton asking people to donate $ for the Katrina victims; bravo to them both for doing this together, sending the message that people of all political parties need to work as one in this time of crisis.
Last night I saw an amazing program about chimps that're being taught to communicate via computer; the thing that totally blew me away, though, was the story of how one of the chimps was being asked to hand over trash to get a treat, and he brought it over... but when he saw the woman tear the piece of licorice she'd been holding in half and only offer him one piece, he tore the paper bag he was holding in half and held out just one piece!!!!!!!!! How SMART was that? Heck, plenty of humans wouldn't work it out that well, so I was astounded that even so bright of an animal had instantly figured out how to ideally handle the situation.
And finally, the moth and larvae report; we continue to endure a plague of Biblical proportions of these disgusting creatures, with dozens of moths being visible at any given time no matter how fast we kill them, and larvae squirming across the walls and ceilings, and clinging to food packages (sometimes in cocoons). I yanked all the food off of the shelves I can reach without climbing on anything, and discovered that they'd gotten into a sealed Ziploc bag, and then into sealed individual wrappers, to reach fortune cookies; some of the cookies had a big hole in them, some were so chewed up that they looked like lace... and some of the little wrappers had nothing but dust in them, I kid you not. I gathered up all the stray fortune cookies too, just in case, and had my husband take it all out to the trash.
Later, as I was typing away, I saw a faint flash of something light passing right in front of my eye, flinched back, looked down... and there was a larva, having just missed landing on my FACE in its fall to the floor. I picked it up with a napkin, beat it to a pulp, and screamed to my husband to clear out that upper shelf with his food on it NOW, despite his claims that he was SURE that they weren't into anything up there (with said claims, as always, being based on nothing more than his desire to avoid a task). He reluctantly started doing it, and quickly found the craziest thing imaginable for them to be into; a huge container of pepper flakes, all solid plastic with no visible way for them to be getting in or out, with the flakes all globbed together and covered in larvae and moths... it was so gross that he ran outside with it before I could examine it further, which is probably just as well, given my tendency towards nightmares. He also found some open food packages on his shelf, including the favorite of moths, chocolate, that he didn't even have the heart to look into to verify if they had vermin in them; he just threw it all out.
Are we FINALLY rid of them now? I wish I could believe that we were...
Monday, September 12, 2005
9-11 and Katrina
With the 4 year anniversary of 9-11 on the one hand, and the continuing grim saga of Katrina on the other, it was a sober and reflective day for many Americans... some of whom undoubtedly shared my emotional turmoil as to how to apportion my grief, especially since the full extent of the destruction of Katrina is still unknown. My buddy Smedley, whose excellent blog is here
http://thesmedleylog.com/
posted a photo of the New York city skyline at night that shows the twin lights symbolizing the Twin Towers, and the sight of it choked me up as it probably does most Americans... and also like most Americans, I've been choking up every time I've encountered news over the past couple of weeks, as the horror rolls on and on.
As if the memories of 9-11 and the disaster area that a part of this nation the size of Great Britain has become aren't enough, there's sadness from a 3rd source; that for every person online I see who reports what they personally have done to help the Katrina victims, there are 100 people eagerly using the tiny % of the total information about how relief efforts were handled that currently exists to point fingers and make melodramatic claims as to the evil intentions of everyone involved. I'm not saying that we don't need to figure out what went wrong, or that we shouldn't talk about it and demand that answers be provided (AFTER those in need have been helped), just that I'm dismayed that the political aspect of things is getting so much more "web space" overall than the humanitarian aspect in the sites I've visited in my endless surfing via the "next blog" button... and I hardly dare contemplate what that looks like to people from other countries. Since nearly all of those people blogging about who did what wrong HAVE most likely donated $, or clothes (etc), or their time for the Katrina victims, because Americans are always quick to give to everyone in need, I hope that they'll eventually tell us about it, and encourage us to keep giving for as long as it takes to make things right for those who've lost so much. I hope they'll take a break from their anger and share their sadness... and, eventually, their hope, the hope that we need to keep alive to allow us to take on the enormous task of putting all the affected areas to rights.
And there's a 4th source of sadness; that we're so deeply immersed in the Katrina issues that we didn't really give 9-11 and its victims the space in our minds and hearts that we should have today; I know that it wasn't really possible, and the survivors and loved ones of the fallen most likely understand, but... it just doesn't seem right that we weren't able to focus on it as a nation as we did the past 3 years on this day.
If you suffered a loss on 9-11, my heart goes out to you, and the pain you're suffering as you relive those awful memories; to the heroes of 9-11, my gratitude to you is undimmed by the passing of the time.
If you've suffered a loss because of Katrina, I know that your pain is too raw and recent to allow much comfort, but be aware that this nation grieves with you.
To the heroes who continue to emerge in the aftermath of Katrina, many of whom are ordinary citizens who've come forward to do amazing things; I salute you.
Joel Osteen's sermon today was a re-run, I think, because I recognized one of the stories he told, but his message was timely; that you may have lost much, or everything, through no fault of your own, but God will compensate you double if you simply have faith in his willingness to do so. I can't verify that God exists or will do any particular thing, but I hope that all the survivors of our nation's greatest tragedies will be buoyed up by our caring and generosity to the point where they at least feel like they've gotten the chance at a decent life again... and that we as a nation will be pulled more closely together by all of this, rather than broken apart by blame and recriminations.
http://thesmedleylog.com/
posted a photo of the New York city skyline at night that shows the twin lights symbolizing the Twin Towers, and the sight of it choked me up as it probably does most Americans... and also like most Americans, I've been choking up every time I've encountered news over the past couple of weeks, as the horror rolls on and on.
As if the memories of 9-11 and the disaster area that a part of this nation the size of Great Britain has become aren't enough, there's sadness from a 3rd source; that for every person online I see who reports what they personally have done to help the Katrina victims, there are 100 people eagerly using the tiny % of the total information about how relief efforts were handled that currently exists to point fingers and make melodramatic claims as to the evil intentions of everyone involved. I'm not saying that we don't need to figure out what went wrong, or that we shouldn't talk about it and demand that answers be provided (AFTER those in need have been helped), just that I'm dismayed that the political aspect of things is getting so much more "web space" overall than the humanitarian aspect in the sites I've visited in my endless surfing via the "next blog" button... and I hardly dare contemplate what that looks like to people from other countries. Since nearly all of those people blogging about who did what wrong HAVE most likely donated $, or clothes (etc), or their time for the Katrina victims, because Americans are always quick to give to everyone in need, I hope that they'll eventually tell us about it, and encourage us to keep giving for as long as it takes to make things right for those who've lost so much. I hope they'll take a break from their anger and share their sadness... and, eventually, their hope, the hope that we need to keep alive to allow us to take on the enormous task of putting all the affected areas to rights.
And there's a 4th source of sadness; that we're so deeply immersed in the Katrina issues that we didn't really give 9-11 and its victims the space in our minds and hearts that we should have today; I know that it wasn't really possible, and the survivors and loved ones of the fallen most likely understand, but... it just doesn't seem right that we weren't able to focus on it as a nation as we did the past 3 years on this day.
If you suffered a loss on 9-11, my heart goes out to you, and the pain you're suffering as you relive those awful memories; to the heroes of 9-11, my gratitude to you is undimmed by the passing of the time.
If you've suffered a loss because of Katrina, I know that your pain is too raw and recent to allow much comfort, but be aware that this nation grieves with you.
To the heroes who continue to emerge in the aftermath of Katrina, many of whom are ordinary citizens who've come forward to do amazing things; I salute you.
Joel Osteen's sermon today was a re-run, I think, because I recognized one of the stories he told, but his message was timely; that you may have lost much, or everything, through no fault of your own, but God will compensate you double if you simply have faith in his willingness to do so. I can't verify that God exists or will do any particular thing, but I hope that all the survivors of our nation's greatest tragedies will be buoyed up by our caring and generosity to the point where they at least feel like they've gotten the chance at a decent life again... and that we as a nation will be pulled more closely together by all of this, rather than broken apart by blame and recriminations.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
What's behind alleged alien abductions?
And sightings of at least MOST demons, angels and ghosts that occur when people wake up, feel paralyzed, and see... something? (I'm not quite willing to dismiss 100% of such experiences as being caused by one thing without proof.) "Paralyzed" is the big clue, because the cause is called "sleep paralysis," and it provides yet another biological explanation for experiences seen as spiritual or supernatural in nature.
From Stanford's website
http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html
comes this list of symptoms:
"A complaint of inability to move the trunk or limbs at sleep onset or upon awakening
Presence of brief episodes of partial or complete skeletal muscle paralysis
Episodes can be associated with hypnagogic hallucinations or dream-like mentation (act or use of the brain)"
It's also possible to have realistic physical sensations:
"In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the 'Hag Phenomena' and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm."
If that happened to ME, there'd sure be physical harm... from when I regained my ability to move and jumped out of my skin.
An excerpt from a paper on the subject, found here
http://www.angelfire.com/co/SleepParalysisLucid/moreInfoPar.html
shows a wider range of possible perceptions during sleep paralysis:
"Waves, vibrations and earthquake-like tremors.
Crackling, snapping, high-pitched, ringing (hours preceding and/or during SP) and booming noises.
Luminous blobs, auras, perception of objects and details of wall crevices and bed lining fabric.
Rotation of the body (pivot: the belly area), twisting of the body, rolling into oneself. Also, pressure on different parts of the body, but most commonly the belly area; floating, flying and being squeezed through tunnels.
Microsomatognosia: Shrinking in size.
Dissociation: Out-of-the-body experiences.
Hypnagogic hallucinations; Nightmare
Presence in the room, benign or maleficent; sense of suffocation; sense of entity sitting on one's chest; sense of entity pulling ones feet (more common than incubus).
Bolt of lightening exploding at the base of the neck, pain in the midsection."
It doesn't take a medical degree to see how this adds up to even so "physical" of paranormal claims as alien abductions, does it?
The website for "Science News" has a recent article on this topic
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050709/bob9.asp
in which an anthropologist describes an incident that he experienced, which shows just how detailed and realistic this can be:
"... he awoke with a start to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open-the same door he had locked and bolted before going to bed. Hufford then heard footsteps moving toward his bed and felt an evil presence. Terror gripped the young man, who couldn't move a muscle, his eyes plastered open in fright.
Without warning, the malevolent entity, whatever it was, jumped onto Hufford's chest. An oppressive weight compressed his rib cage. Breathing became difficult, and Hufford felt a pair of hands encircle his neck and start to squeeze. 'I thought I was going to die,' he says.
At that point, the lock on Hufford's muscles gave way. He bolted up and sprinted several blocks to take shelter in the student union."
YIKES!! I can certainly see how it's easy to believe that something like that was a real experience... but it's biological in nature, and found in cultures all over the world, as Hufford himself discovered:
"... in Newfoundland, and he heard from some of the region's inhabitants about their eerily similar nighttime encounters. Locals called the threatening entity the 'old hag.' Most cases unfold as follows: A person wakes up paralyzed and perceives an evil presence. A hag or witch then climbs on top of the petrified victim, creating a crushing sensation on his or her chest."
And we can score a point for so-called "primitive" peoples:
"Although widely acknowledged among traditional cultures, sleep paralysis is one of the most prevalent yet least recognized mental phenomena for people in industrialized societies, Hufford says."
If you share my love of words, you'll like this:
"Curiously, although the word nightmare originally described sleep paralysis, it now refers to a fearful or disturbing dream, says Hufford, now at the Penn State Medical Center in Hershey, Pa. Several hundred years ago, the English referred to nighttime sensations of chest pressure from witches or other supernatural beings as the 'mare,' from the Anglo-Saxon merran, meaning to crush. The term eventually morphed into nightmare-the crusher who comes in the night."
This shows that the sleep paralysis phenomenon USED to be recognized in Western civilization... how did we "forget"?
On to the connection with "the unknown":
"Sleep paralysis embodies a universal, biologically based explanation for pervasive beliefs in spirits and supernatural beings, even in the United States, Hufford argues. The experience thrusts mentally healthy people into a bizarre, alternative world that they frequently find difficult to chalk up to a temporary brain glitch.
Hufford doesn't believe that an invisible force attacked him in his college room or during several sleep paralysis episodes that have occurred since then, but he sees the appeal of such an interpretation. 'We need to deeply question 2 centuries of assumptions about the nonempirical and nonrational nature of spirit belief,' he says."
As I always say, there's plenty of biology behind what many people believe to be spiritual or other paranormal events, and it's vital that we face up to that and separate these things from those that truly defy scientific explanation.
Not everyone views the sleep paralysis experience with dismay, oddly enough:
"Many who experience sleep paralysis also report sensations of floating, flying, falling, or leaving one's body. The condition's primary emotion, terror, sometimes yields to feelings of excitement, exhilaration, rapture, or ecstasy. 'A small number of people, while acknowledging fear during initial episodes of sleep paralysis, come to enjoy the experience,' Cheyne says."
It's surprisingly common:
"In surveys that he has conducted with large numbers of college students and other volunteers, about 30 percent report having experienced at least one incident of sleep paralysis."
and has been studied in Japan:
"In a sleep laboratory, the Japanese team monitored the volunteers, whom they roused at various times during the night to trigger the phenomenon. The researchers found that during sleep paralysis, the brain, suddenly awake, nonetheless displays electrical responses typical of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement (REM)."
That makes sense, as dreams can include all the sense and seem very real... and of course can be terrifying. But:
"Hufford, however, regards the intrusion of REM activity into awake moments as inadequate to explain sleep paralysis. Dream content during REM sleep varies greatly from one person to another, but descriptions of sleep paralysis are remarkably consistent. 'I don't have a good explanation for these experiences,' he says."
That consistency is used on some paranormal websites as "proof" that these are true experiences with other sorts of beings, but my $ is still on this being biological, just not pinned down fully yet.
Here's a story from a Cambodian woman:
"... events of a type known among her fellow Cambodians as 'the ghost pushes you down.' At these times, the woman said, she awakens from sleep unable to move. Three ghastly demons stalk into her room, each covered in fur and displaying long fangs. One of the creatures then leans close to her head; the second holds down her legs; and the third pins down her arms. She told Hinton that when these terrors befall her, she knows that the demons want to scare her to death and she feels that they might succeed."
I'd be afraid to sleep if I were going through that!!
Some of the possible causes of sleep paralysis are:
"Panic attacks, PTSD, and other mental disorders may indirectly promote sleep paralysis by disrupting the sleep cycle and yanking people out of REM sleep during the night, he adds. Other factors that disturb sleep, such as jet lag and shift work, have also been linked to sleep paralysis."
"Sexual abuse may also make a person susceptible to sleep paralysis. Harvard University psychologists Richard J. McNally and Susan A. Clancy have found that, among adults who report having been sexually abused during childhood, nearly half describe at least one past episode of sleep paralysis. In their study, only 13 percent of participants who hadn't been sexually abused reported sleep paralysis."
As to the connection to perceptions of alien abductions:
"Accounts of space-alien encounters typically begin with the abductee waking in the night while lying face up, McNally says. The person can't move but senses electric vibrations. A feeling of terror makes breathing difficult. Alien beings advance to the foot of the bed or climb on top of the person, who then experiences a sense of floating or of being transported to an alien craft."
Sounds pretty much like cause and effect, doesn't it? Still, they SEEM real to those that go through it, and are genuinely terrifying:
"McNally and Clancy linked the claims of 10 alien abductees to episodes of sleep paralysis. Memories of the scary incidents sparked heart-rate increases and other physiological stress reactions that exceeded those previously reported for Vietnam veterans with PTSD as they recalled distressing combat events."
Hoo-boy, I REALLY hope I never experience this; the nightmares and night terrors I've already had are more than enough.
It's easy to brush off those who claim to have been abducted by aliens or encountered demonic beings (or angelic ones) as being liars or crazy, or at the very least unable to tell if they're asleep or awake; while there are undoubtedly people who DO fall into all of those categories, it's important to note that some are also describing actual perceptions they had, that truly seem to them to have been real.
As to spiritual or paranormal experiences that did NOT occur at the point of waking, or with any of the attributes of sleep paralysis... those are still part of "the unknown."
From Stanford's website
http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html
comes this list of symptoms:
"A complaint of inability to move the trunk or limbs at sleep onset or upon awakening
Presence of brief episodes of partial or complete skeletal muscle paralysis
Episodes can be associated with hypnagogic hallucinations or dream-like mentation (act or use of the brain)"
It's also possible to have realistic physical sensations:
"In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the 'Hag Phenomena' and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm."
If that happened to ME, there'd sure be physical harm... from when I regained my ability to move and jumped out of my skin.
An excerpt from a paper on the subject, found here
http://www.angelfire.com/co/SleepParalysisLucid/moreInfoPar.html
shows a wider range of possible perceptions during sleep paralysis:
"Waves, vibrations and earthquake-like tremors.
Crackling, snapping, high-pitched, ringing (hours preceding and/or during SP) and booming noises.
Luminous blobs, auras, perception of objects and details of wall crevices and bed lining fabric.
Rotation of the body (pivot: the belly area), twisting of the body, rolling into oneself. Also, pressure on different parts of the body, but most commonly the belly area; floating, flying and being squeezed through tunnels.
Microsomatognosia: Shrinking in size.
Dissociation: Out-of-the-body experiences.
Hypnagogic hallucinations; Nightmare
Presence in the room, benign or maleficent; sense of suffocation; sense of entity sitting on one's chest; sense of entity pulling ones feet (more common than incubus).
Bolt of lightening exploding at the base of the neck, pain in the midsection."
It doesn't take a medical degree to see how this adds up to even so "physical" of paranormal claims as alien abductions, does it?
The website for "Science News" has a recent article on this topic
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050709/bob9.asp
in which an anthropologist describes an incident that he experienced, which shows just how detailed and realistic this can be:
"... he awoke with a start to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open-the same door he had locked and bolted before going to bed. Hufford then heard footsteps moving toward his bed and felt an evil presence. Terror gripped the young man, who couldn't move a muscle, his eyes plastered open in fright.
Without warning, the malevolent entity, whatever it was, jumped onto Hufford's chest. An oppressive weight compressed his rib cage. Breathing became difficult, and Hufford felt a pair of hands encircle his neck and start to squeeze. 'I thought I was going to die,' he says.
At that point, the lock on Hufford's muscles gave way. He bolted up and sprinted several blocks to take shelter in the student union."
YIKES!! I can certainly see how it's easy to believe that something like that was a real experience... but it's biological in nature, and found in cultures all over the world, as Hufford himself discovered:
"... in Newfoundland, and he heard from some of the region's inhabitants about their eerily similar nighttime encounters. Locals called the threatening entity the 'old hag.' Most cases unfold as follows: A person wakes up paralyzed and perceives an evil presence. A hag or witch then climbs on top of the petrified victim, creating a crushing sensation on his or her chest."
And we can score a point for so-called "primitive" peoples:
"Although widely acknowledged among traditional cultures, sleep paralysis is one of the most prevalent yet least recognized mental phenomena for people in industrialized societies, Hufford says."
If you share my love of words, you'll like this:
"Curiously, although the word nightmare originally described sleep paralysis, it now refers to a fearful or disturbing dream, says Hufford, now at the Penn State Medical Center in Hershey, Pa. Several hundred years ago, the English referred to nighttime sensations of chest pressure from witches or other supernatural beings as the 'mare,' from the Anglo-Saxon merran, meaning to crush. The term eventually morphed into nightmare-the crusher who comes in the night."
This shows that the sleep paralysis phenomenon USED to be recognized in Western civilization... how did we "forget"?
On to the connection with "the unknown":
"Sleep paralysis embodies a universal, biologically based explanation for pervasive beliefs in spirits and supernatural beings, even in the United States, Hufford argues. The experience thrusts mentally healthy people into a bizarre, alternative world that they frequently find difficult to chalk up to a temporary brain glitch.
Hufford doesn't believe that an invisible force attacked him in his college room or during several sleep paralysis episodes that have occurred since then, but he sees the appeal of such an interpretation. 'We need to deeply question 2 centuries of assumptions about the nonempirical and nonrational nature of spirit belief,' he says."
As I always say, there's plenty of biology behind what many people believe to be spiritual or other paranormal events, and it's vital that we face up to that and separate these things from those that truly defy scientific explanation.
Not everyone views the sleep paralysis experience with dismay, oddly enough:
"Many who experience sleep paralysis also report sensations of floating, flying, falling, or leaving one's body. The condition's primary emotion, terror, sometimes yields to feelings of excitement, exhilaration, rapture, or ecstasy. 'A small number of people, while acknowledging fear during initial episodes of sleep paralysis, come to enjoy the experience,' Cheyne says."
It's surprisingly common:
"In surveys that he has conducted with large numbers of college students and other volunteers, about 30 percent report having experienced at least one incident of sleep paralysis."
and has been studied in Japan:
"In a sleep laboratory, the Japanese team monitored the volunteers, whom they roused at various times during the night to trigger the phenomenon. The researchers found that during sleep paralysis, the brain, suddenly awake, nonetheless displays electrical responses typical of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement (REM)."
That makes sense, as dreams can include all the sense and seem very real... and of course can be terrifying. But:
"Hufford, however, regards the intrusion of REM activity into awake moments as inadequate to explain sleep paralysis. Dream content during REM sleep varies greatly from one person to another, but descriptions of sleep paralysis are remarkably consistent. 'I don't have a good explanation for these experiences,' he says."
That consistency is used on some paranormal websites as "proof" that these are true experiences with other sorts of beings, but my $ is still on this being biological, just not pinned down fully yet.
Here's a story from a Cambodian woman:
"... events of a type known among her fellow Cambodians as 'the ghost pushes you down.' At these times, the woman said, she awakens from sleep unable to move. Three ghastly demons stalk into her room, each covered in fur and displaying long fangs. One of the creatures then leans close to her head; the second holds down her legs; and the third pins down her arms. She told Hinton that when these terrors befall her, she knows that the demons want to scare her to death and she feels that they might succeed."
I'd be afraid to sleep if I were going through that!!
Some of the possible causes of sleep paralysis are:
"Panic attacks, PTSD, and other mental disorders may indirectly promote sleep paralysis by disrupting the sleep cycle and yanking people out of REM sleep during the night, he adds. Other factors that disturb sleep, such as jet lag and shift work, have also been linked to sleep paralysis."
"Sexual abuse may also make a person susceptible to sleep paralysis. Harvard University psychologists Richard J. McNally and Susan A. Clancy have found that, among adults who report having been sexually abused during childhood, nearly half describe at least one past episode of sleep paralysis. In their study, only 13 percent of participants who hadn't been sexually abused reported sleep paralysis."
As to the connection to perceptions of alien abductions:
"Accounts of space-alien encounters typically begin with the abductee waking in the night while lying face up, McNally says. The person can't move but senses electric vibrations. A feeling of terror makes breathing difficult. Alien beings advance to the foot of the bed or climb on top of the person, who then experiences a sense of floating or of being transported to an alien craft."
Sounds pretty much like cause and effect, doesn't it? Still, they SEEM real to those that go through it, and are genuinely terrifying:
"McNally and Clancy linked the claims of 10 alien abductees to episodes of sleep paralysis. Memories of the scary incidents sparked heart-rate increases and other physiological stress reactions that exceeded those previously reported for Vietnam veterans with PTSD as they recalled distressing combat events."
Hoo-boy, I REALLY hope I never experience this; the nightmares and night terrors I've already had are more than enough.
It's easy to brush off those who claim to have been abducted by aliens or encountered demonic beings (or angelic ones) as being liars or crazy, or at the very least unable to tell if they're asleep or awake; while there are undoubtedly people who DO fall into all of those categories, it's important to note that some are also describing actual perceptions they had, that truly seem to them to have been real.
As to spiritual or paranormal experiences that did NOT occur at the point of waking, or with any of the attributes of sleep paralysis... those are still part of "the unknown."
Saturday, September 10, 2005
A lesson in courtesy from the Maasai
No, I didn't misspell the name of that familiar African culture, although the spellchecker thinks I did; according to this wonderful site
http://www.maasai-infoline.org/
"Maasai is the correct spelling not Masai. Masai with one 'A' is incorect. In the future please spell Maasai with two AAs. We prefer Maasai, not Masai. The title Maasai derives from the word Maa. Maa-sai means my people."
How did we end up with the wrong spelling? Gee, I wonder... it couldn't be that whatever arrogant, condescending white person introduced the Western world to the Maasai decided that they didn't need the double "a," could it?
There's a great deal of valuable and interesting info on that site, which is run by a Maasai man, Kakuta ole Maimai, and therefore should actually reflect the views of their culture, as opposed to the subjective views of them put forth by white people who've studied them; the most interesting, and disturbing, section is the one called "Photo Raiders," which provides a long-overdue description of how at least some so-called "primitive" people view the eagerness of Westerners to exploit their "colorful" culture:
"Photographers are invading our culture
The Maasai people are among the indigenous people hunted by photographers..."
Invading... hunted. You can already see how they view camera-bearing white people.
"... who found free access into a land filled with exoticism, wildlife and tribal people, where the law to protect indigenous people remains scarce."
When you see documentaries about tribal cultures, or read about them in National Geographic, do you ever wonder what laws, if any, protect the people under observation, to keep them from being exploited or even mistreated? I'M going to think about that from now on, I guarantee it.
"Some western photographers are stepping over boundaries; they are not being sensitive to our culture and way of life. They are invading and exploiting our people and culture for profit purposes."
Well, there you have it; there's no reason to have ever thought that tribal peoples are thrilled to have white men charging around self-importantly in their midst, but this is truly shameful.
"Here are some questions to ask yourself, when looking at a portrait book with Maasai images:
Who is this person in the picture? What is her name? How does she feel being in a portrait book? Does she know that her picture is being sold in the western world? Did she receive anything in return? Has the photographer obtain a letter of consent from this person or from the community?"
I'm terribly afraid that I know the answers to those questions.
"Now look at a portrait book, or magazine, with images of western people. Repeat the same questions stated above."
I'm embarrassed to say that I never thought about these issues before, but everyone SHOULD think about them, because what good is our love of human rights, and the laws that protect those rights, if we're still acting like it's ok for us to treat indigenous cultures as if they don't deserve the same consideration as "civilized" (there's a laugh) people?
"It appeared that a wild animal is given a better recognition than a Maasai person.
When you visit a zoo, for example, you'll find that every animal, whether a lion, giraffe, gorilla, zebra, hippo, etc., has a name. If you talk to the keeper s/he will present that animal to you by its name. Why can't a photographer name a Maasai if s/he can name a wild animal? A Maasai is not less of a human being."
Did you cringe when you read that? How many times have you seen zoo animals in magazines or on TV where their names were given... and how many times have you seen images of tribal people with no names given for them?
"We have discovered disturbing images of our people in the western world
Recently, we came across images of a circumcision event, a sacred rite of passage that is not intended for the public. This discovery was shocking, sad, and disappointing to us, as this is a personal and sacred rite of passage that should have not been photographed, published, and sold to the public."
Shame, SHAME on whoever thought it was ok to take and publish those photos without the consent of those involved!!
"The photographers must stop invading the privacy of the Maasai people, community, and culture. There are other ways to take images of the people without humiliating, invading, and exploiting the culture. Photographers can make profits without disrespecting the culture."
Damn straight.
"We are different from wild animals and are not running naked like monkeys, as the photographers depicted us. Each Maasai person has a name and disserves a respectful recognition and representation just as a westerner would do."
So, they've been mis-portrayed to make a buck? There's a shocker.
"On the other hand, the reader/viewer can learn about Maasai culture without supporting a disrespectful photographer. The reader has the power to change this behavior of a misbehaving photographer."
I truly hope that enough people can be persuaded to make the effort, because we SHOULD.
"We are appealing for assistance from people from all walks of life to help us protect Maasai culture from disrespectful photographers.
How you can help?
Do not buy books with nude images of indigenous people
Encourage your bookseller to buy books that are culturally sensitive to indigenous cultures
Let the bookseller and photographer know that you care about the source where images came from
Ask the photographer to show names of the persons s/he photographed
Ask the photographer to respect the privacy of the individual, community, and culture
Ask the photographer to respect the customs of indigenous people
Write to the photographer and encourage her/him to give something back to the community in which s/he photographed
We are confidence that your voice can make a difference."
Will you do it?
"It is important to make clear that we are not opposed to ordinary and respectful photographers. A tourist, for example, is free to take family pictures, as s/he wish, so long as s/he has obtained a consent from the individual.
Also, we are not opposed to learners who wish to understand the Maasai culture. In fact, we are glad to learn that people from all corners of the world are willing to learn about our culture."
They're not saying "you screwed us, so get lost," which is what WE would say under similar circumstances; they only ask to be treated with simple human dignity.
"What we are opposed to is commercial photography obtained without consent.
We have a problem when our culture is inaccurately and irrespectively documented and represented. We are not animalistic-like, and we do not run around without cloths. This is not how we live and see ourselves.
We respect other cultures and their way of life. As such, we expect the outside world to respect us in return. What might be accepted in your culture, might not be accepted in our culture. Cultural boundaries must be obeyed. Our culture must be represented in a respectful manner."
This is so basic, but I might have gone my entire life without ever seeing this sort of plea, or realizing just how hurtful and ugly our portrayal of them all too often is; maybe it's just too easy to assume that they'll never know, but whether they know or not, we should still NOT use images of them in improper ways.
"How do photographers raid for Maasai Images?
In many cases the photographers came in to the Maasai region accompanied by corrupt persons, officials, drivers, and tour guides, who received bribes from the photographers.
Upon their arrival to our community, we'd welcome them with open arms, and offer them the best accommodation available in our capacity.
At the end of his/ her visit, the photographer would turn around and spear us from the back.
It is unfortunate to see photographers misusing our noble generosity."
Taking advantage of the innocent kindness of a less devious, less "using" culture; they must be so PROUD. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The essay doesn't specify, but you know darned well that there have been plenty of scientists among the offenders; yet another example of arrogant white men being blinded by their contempt of people with brown faces and tribal cultures and thus veering sharply from anything like a scientific analysis of those cultures.
Regular readers are aware of my interest in indigenous peoples, for their spiritual perceptions and in general, because of which I watch alot of educational programming about them; I'll never look at those programs the same way again, and I'm going to take what they say about those cultures with a far bigger grain of salt than I did previously.
Let's show that not everyone thinks it's ok to take advantage of tribal cultures; pass the word about this issue.
http://www.maasai-infoline.org/
"Maasai is the correct spelling not Masai. Masai with one 'A' is incorect. In the future please spell Maasai with two AAs. We prefer Maasai, not Masai. The title Maasai derives from the word Maa. Maa-sai means my people."
How did we end up with the wrong spelling? Gee, I wonder... it couldn't be that whatever arrogant, condescending white person introduced the Western world to the Maasai decided that they didn't need the double "a," could it?
There's a great deal of valuable and interesting info on that site, which is run by a Maasai man, Kakuta ole Maimai, and therefore should actually reflect the views of their culture, as opposed to the subjective views of them put forth by white people who've studied them; the most interesting, and disturbing, section is the one called "Photo Raiders," which provides a long-overdue description of how at least some so-called "primitive" people view the eagerness of Westerners to exploit their "colorful" culture:
"Photographers are invading our culture
The Maasai people are among the indigenous people hunted by photographers..."
Invading... hunted. You can already see how they view camera-bearing white people.
"... who found free access into a land filled with exoticism, wildlife and tribal people, where the law to protect indigenous people remains scarce."
When you see documentaries about tribal cultures, or read about them in National Geographic, do you ever wonder what laws, if any, protect the people under observation, to keep them from being exploited or even mistreated? I'M going to think about that from now on, I guarantee it.
"Some western photographers are stepping over boundaries; they are not being sensitive to our culture and way of life. They are invading and exploiting our people and culture for profit purposes."
Well, there you have it; there's no reason to have ever thought that tribal peoples are thrilled to have white men charging around self-importantly in their midst, but this is truly shameful.
"Here are some questions to ask yourself, when looking at a portrait book with Maasai images:
Who is this person in the picture? What is her name? How does she feel being in a portrait book? Does she know that her picture is being sold in the western world? Did she receive anything in return? Has the photographer obtain a letter of consent from this person or from the community?"
I'm terribly afraid that I know the answers to those questions.
"Now look at a portrait book, or magazine, with images of western people. Repeat the same questions stated above."
I'm embarrassed to say that I never thought about these issues before, but everyone SHOULD think about them, because what good is our love of human rights, and the laws that protect those rights, if we're still acting like it's ok for us to treat indigenous cultures as if they don't deserve the same consideration as "civilized" (there's a laugh) people?
"It appeared that a wild animal is given a better recognition than a Maasai person.
When you visit a zoo, for example, you'll find that every animal, whether a lion, giraffe, gorilla, zebra, hippo, etc., has a name. If you talk to the keeper s/he will present that animal to you by its name. Why can't a photographer name a Maasai if s/he can name a wild animal? A Maasai is not less of a human being."
Did you cringe when you read that? How many times have you seen zoo animals in magazines or on TV where their names were given... and how many times have you seen images of tribal people with no names given for them?
"We have discovered disturbing images of our people in the western world
Recently, we came across images of a circumcision event, a sacred rite of passage that is not intended for the public. This discovery was shocking, sad, and disappointing to us, as this is a personal and sacred rite of passage that should have not been photographed, published, and sold to the public."
Shame, SHAME on whoever thought it was ok to take and publish those photos without the consent of those involved!!
"The photographers must stop invading the privacy of the Maasai people, community, and culture. There are other ways to take images of the people without humiliating, invading, and exploiting the culture. Photographers can make profits without disrespecting the culture."
Damn straight.
"We are different from wild animals and are not running naked like monkeys, as the photographers depicted us. Each Maasai person has a name and disserves a respectful recognition and representation just as a westerner would do."
So, they've been mis-portrayed to make a buck? There's a shocker.
"On the other hand, the reader/viewer can learn about Maasai culture without supporting a disrespectful photographer. The reader has the power to change this behavior of a misbehaving photographer."
I truly hope that enough people can be persuaded to make the effort, because we SHOULD.
"We are appealing for assistance from people from all walks of life to help us protect Maasai culture from disrespectful photographers.
How you can help?
Do not buy books with nude images of indigenous people
Encourage your bookseller to buy books that are culturally sensitive to indigenous cultures
Let the bookseller and photographer know that you care about the source where images came from
Ask the photographer to show names of the persons s/he photographed
Ask the photographer to respect the privacy of the individual, community, and culture
Ask the photographer to respect the customs of indigenous people
Write to the photographer and encourage her/him to give something back to the community in which s/he photographed
We are confidence that your voice can make a difference."
Will you do it?
"It is important to make clear that we are not opposed to ordinary and respectful photographers. A tourist, for example, is free to take family pictures, as s/he wish, so long as s/he has obtained a consent from the individual.
Also, we are not opposed to learners who wish to understand the Maasai culture. In fact, we are glad to learn that people from all corners of the world are willing to learn about our culture."
They're not saying "you screwed us, so get lost," which is what WE would say under similar circumstances; they only ask to be treated with simple human dignity.
"What we are opposed to is commercial photography obtained without consent.
We have a problem when our culture is inaccurately and irrespectively documented and represented. We are not animalistic-like, and we do not run around without cloths. This is not how we live and see ourselves.
We respect other cultures and their way of life. As such, we expect the outside world to respect us in return. What might be accepted in your culture, might not be accepted in our culture. Cultural boundaries must be obeyed. Our culture must be represented in a respectful manner."
This is so basic, but I might have gone my entire life without ever seeing this sort of plea, or realizing just how hurtful and ugly our portrayal of them all too often is; maybe it's just too easy to assume that they'll never know, but whether they know or not, we should still NOT use images of them in improper ways.
"How do photographers raid for Maasai Images?
In many cases the photographers came in to the Maasai region accompanied by corrupt persons, officials, drivers, and tour guides, who received bribes from the photographers.
Upon their arrival to our community, we'd welcome them with open arms, and offer them the best accommodation available in our capacity.
At the end of his/ her visit, the photographer would turn around and spear us from the back.
It is unfortunate to see photographers misusing our noble generosity."
Taking advantage of the innocent kindness of a less devious, less "using" culture; they must be so PROUD. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The essay doesn't specify, but you know darned well that there have been plenty of scientists among the offenders; yet another example of arrogant white men being blinded by their contempt of people with brown faces and tribal cultures and thus veering sharply from anything like a scientific analysis of those cultures.
Regular readers are aware of my interest in indigenous peoples, for their spiritual perceptions and in general, because of which I watch alot of educational programming about them; I'll never look at those programs the same way again, and I'm going to take what they say about those cultures with a far bigger grain of salt than I did previously.
Let's show that not everyone thinks it's ok to take advantage of tribal cultures; pass the word about this issue.
Friday, September 09, 2005
2-dimensional realities
"The Ring" was one of the scariest movies ever made; "The Ring Two" should never have BEEN made. I watched the latter tonight, and it got me thinking about one of our many odd tendencies as a species; to see the 2-dimensional images in mirrors, photos, paintings, movie and TV screens as windows into other kinds of realities, or doorways through which who knows what might be seen, or emerge, or through which we might be able to pass, voluntarily or by the will of some nameless force, and perhaps later return... or not. Think how many instances there are of horror or fantasy stories in every medium demonstrating this idea; the scariest example in anything I've ever read was in a short story by, who else, Stephen King, called "The Sun Dog," in which a "possessed" Polaroid camera spits out photos, not of our reality, but of... read it and see, you'll be glad you did.
What makes this sort of thing believable to us? Is it that our minds don't fully accept the existence of 2-dimensional images, which are the product of human creation or technology rather than nature, and thus at some level we believe that every such image is actually a real thing, that can be touched, and touch US, as is usually the case with real things... given the right (or wrong) circumstances? Whatever it is, something about 2-dimensional images, especially in mirrors, makes us uneasy; that's why the horror genre uses the concept so often.
Weirdly, though, when I used to have dreams incorporating this idea, it was always a positive and exciting thing; I had posters of a musician that I idolized, and in most of the dreams I'd reach my hand "into" one of the posters, take his hand, and bring him out to, er, hang around with me. Occasionally, he'd reach a hand out of the poster; one such time, as our hands met, a wave of "him-ness" flowed over me, and I BECAME him... which is a whole 'nother essay. Once, when I was deep into one of the grisliest nightmares I've ever had, I encountered him completely out of the poster (which was still there, but showing only the background he'd been posing in front of), leaning against my bureau and waiting for me; he looked down at me, crouched on the floor and covered in blood (don't ask), said "Come on, you've had enough," held out his hand, and, when I took it, instantly the blood, the pain, and the oozing cleft in the back of my skull where the ax had been buried (I said not to ask for a reason) were all gone, and I was able to stand up and... um, the dream got much better after that.
The more I think about this, the more interesting it becomes to me, especially since I'm aware that reality is NOT what it seems to be; when something makes us instinctively uneasy, it makes me wonder if our senses are picking up more about the true nature of reality than they usually do. In any case, I'll certainly never look at the classic plot of the Coyote painting a fake tunnel onto a rock wall, the Roadrunner running through it, a train coming out of it and flattening the Coyote, and then him inevitably trying to pass through it and getting flattened, the same way again... this thing is so much a part of us that even little kids "get it," or the cartoon wouldn't make sense to them.
Here's my final thought; some of the primates have been proven able to recognize 2-dimensional images... do they have the same innate uneasiness about them that we do?
What makes this sort of thing believable to us? Is it that our minds don't fully accept the existence of 2-dimensional images, which are the product of human creation or technology rather than nature, and thus at some level we believe that every such image is actually a real thing, that can be touched, and touch US, as is usually the case with real things... given the right (or wrong) circumstances? Whatever it is, something about 2-dimensional images, especially in mirrors, makes us uneasy; that's why the horror genre uses the concept so often.
Weirdly, though, when I used to have dreams incorporating this idea, it was always a positive and exciting thing; I had posters of a musician that I idolized, and in most of the dreams I'd reach my hand "into" one of the posters, take his hand, and bring him out to, er, hang around with me. Occasionally, he'd reach a hand out of the poster; one such time, as our hands met, a wave of "him-ness" flowed over me, and I BECAME him... which is a whole 'nother essay. Once, when I was deep into one of the grisliest nightmares I've ever had, I encountered him completely out of the poster (which was still there, but showing only the background he'd been posing in front of), leaning against my bureau and waiting for me; he looked down at me, crouched on the floor and covered in blood (don't ask), said "Come on, you've had enough," held out his hand, and, when I took it, instantly the blood, the pain, and the oozing cleft in the back of my skull where the ax had been buried (I said not to ask for a reason) were all gone, and I was able to stand up and... um, the dream got much better after that.
The more I think about this, the more interesting it becomes to me, especially since I'm aware that reality is NOT what it seems to be; when something makes us instinctively uneasy, it makes me wonder if our senses are picking up more about the true nature of reality than they usually do. In any case, I'll certainly never look at the classic plot of the Coyote painting a fake tunnel onto a rock wall, the Roadrunner running through it, a train coming out of it and flattening the Coyote, and then him inevitably trying to pass through it and getting flattened, the same way again... this thing is so much a part of us that even little kids "get it," or the cartoon wouldn't make sense to them.
Here's my final thought; some of the primates have been proven able to recognize 2-dimensional images... do they have the same innate uneasiness about them that we do?
Thursday, September 08, 2005
So, I ate some parsnips
There's a line I never thought I'd say in all of my supertasting, veggie-hating life, lol. As I posted on 8-7-05, I've discovered to my dismay that fructose consumption has been shown to lead to an astounding amount of weight gain even withOUT an increase in calorie consumption (at least in mice); since fruit is the only healthy thing I like that isn't also high in fat, I've been making it the bulk of my one small meal a day... and wondering why it was still such a struggle to keep my weight down. I declared my intention to start substituting rice and couscous (which I semi-like) for fruit, and I've been doing that; although I don't like the idea of wasting calories on foods that I can barely tolerate, I've also decided to start trying to eat root vegetables (and sadly, French fries do NOT count), as unlike grain, which was NOT a significant part of the diet of our early ancestors and thus should NOT be a big part of our modern diet no matter what the so-called experts say, roots were nearly the only thing early humans ate year-round, so they've gotta be one of the best things to eat, healthwise... and that's how I ended up peering mistrustfully at the anemic-looking parsnips on my plate this evening. As always with new foods, I had my husband try it 1st, and, since he showed no signs of dropping dead from parsnipitis, I gave it a shot; it wasn't bad, sort of carrotish but milder... and a little fibrous, but not as bad as celery, so it was ok.
I'd heard that carrots are "high sugar" veggies, and wondered if parsnips, which taste similar, are too; I did some research, and discovered that parsnips and carrots have about as much sugar as the berries that've made up the majority of my fruit consumption... I was eating a far larger portion of berries than I would of parsnips or carrots, though, so I'll stick with the roots, and eat far smaller amounts of berries from now on as well. Other fruits that I've also been eating have a great deal more sugar than berries, although since I was eating less huge portions of them it wasn't too much worse overall; I clearly need to cut back on ALL my fruit portions, and I may have to have a little rice when I have fruit, to give me enough food without too much fructose.
Now here's the scary thing; in the past few months, I've been having a little tummy discomfort and borderline nausea from eating fruit, which I'd attributed to its acidity and my being so thoroughly tired of eating it... but I got the exact same thing from the parsnips, and it was even stronger-I actually had to eat some pretzels to settle everything down. All I can deduce from this is that produce in general doesn't agree with me, although I've never heard of such a thing; this is going to make my attempts to keep my weight down and eat more healthily even more of a struggle than they already are, and may leave me in the ridiculous position of having to have pretzels for "dessert" in order to keep my dinner down, and not end every meal with digestive distress.
Along with my reduced tolerance for many plant foods, I've been an having ever-increasing inability to eat protein foods without eating carbs along with them (I get very nauseous), and some fatty foods, such as cheese and fast food, make me feel steadily more like I've eaten lead if I don't "cut" them with dry salties... in 10 years, what am I still going to be able to eat, just pretzels and nutritional supplements?
There are some days when I watch my husband eating 20 times a day, with a nearly infinite choice of foods, all of which he enjoys, and none of which cause any sort of problematic after-effects (except to the air quality of whatever room he's in), and it's hard to believe we're the same species; is it too much to ask for me to at least be able to eat 3 meals a day, with a quantity and variety of foods comparable to what a normal, healthy adult eats, with all of them tasting good to me, and none of them making me sorry for having eaten them?
Apparently so, sigh...
I'd heard that carrots are "high sugar" veggies, and wondered if parsnips, which taste similar, are too; I did some research, and discovered that parsnips and carrots have about as much sugar as the berries that've made up the majority of my fruit consumption... I was eating a far larger portion of berries than I would of parsnips or carrots, though, so I'll stick with the roots, and eat far smaller amounts of berries from now on as well. Other fruits that I've also been eating have a great deal more sugar than berries, although since I was eating less huge portions of them it wasn't too much worse overall; I clearly need to cut back on ALL my fruit portions, and I may have to have a little rice when I have fruit, to give me enough food without too much fructose.
Now here's the scary thing; in the past few months, I've been having a little tummy discomfort and borderline nausea from eating fruit, which I'd attributed to its acidity and my being so thoroughly tired of eating it... but I got the exact same thing from the parsnips, and it was even stronger-I actually had to eat some pretzels to settle everything down. All I can deduce from this is that produce in general doesn't agree with me, although I've never heard of such a thing; this is going to make my attempts to keep my weight down and eat more healthily even more of a struggle than they already are, and may leave me in the ridiculous position of having to have pretzels for "dessert" in order to keep my dinner down, and not end every meal with digestive distress.
Along with my reduced tolerance for many plant foods, I've been an having ever-increasing inability to eat protein foods without eating carbs along with them (I get very nauseous), and some fatty foods, such as cheese and fast food, make me feel steadily more like I've eaten lead if I don't "cut" them with dry salties... in 10 years, what am I still going to be able to eat, just pretzels and nutritional supplements?
There are some days when I watch my husband eating 20 times a day, with a nearly infinite choice of foods, all of which he enjoys, and none of which cause any sort of problematic after-effects (except to the air quality of whatever room he's in), and it's hard to believe we're the same species; is it too much to ask for me to at least be able to eat 3 meals a day, with a quantity and variety of foods comparable to what a normal, healthy adult eats, with all of them tasting good to me, and none of them making me sorry for having eaten them?
Apparently so, sigh...
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Digging out from under
My husband is a packrat; the only thing that keeps our home from being like that of the infamous sort of packrat with ceiling-high towers of newspapers is that he dumps everything in boxes and stacks THEM. It's not just newspapers, but magazines, catalogs for things he'll never buy, statements of various financial types (unopened, scarily enough) from his entire adult life, clothes his ever-expanding waistline will never let him fit into again (which is just as well for most of them), every piece of technical equipment he's ever owned over a quarter-century of geekhood, and mountains of other bits and pieces of little or no value that he can't bear to part with. He had some shred of restraint before we got married, since he was living in just one room in someone else's home, but once we moved into this house, with its many empty rooms (neither of us owned more than a piece or 2 of pre-marital furniture, so we had nothing to fix the rooms up with at first), attic and shed, his stuff began to increase exponentially, filling every room, every closet, every nook and cranny, such that we literally still haven't furnished most of our house after all our years of marriage because there's nowhere to PUT furniture (when I said we were geeks, I wasn't kidding). I've naturally tried many times over the years to get him to clear his junk out of all the rooms but the one assigned for just his use (plus the shed and attic), and either re-do the attic to hold it all or get a storage unit, and he always yeah-yeah-yeahed me without doing anything... and we were always so wildly busy, with so many emergencies and near-emergencies to deal with, that there was never any time to arm-twist him into such a huge project.
A couple of days ago, it hit me; middle age is looming ever nearer, and I'm living in what's essentially a warehouse with a handful of furnishings, 95% of my stuff is still at my mother's because there's nowhere to put it in my own frigging home, there are 2 of us here but he's using 99.99% of the floor area and storage space for HIS worthless old junk, I've never been able to invite a friend to stay here because there's literally nowhere for them to sleep unless they want to lay down in the middle of the hallway (we don't even have a COUCH), which I've long since run out of excuses to explain why he refuses to make any effort to fix (although people don't get the hint, and unfortunately keep asking what year they might be able to come for a visit, sigh), when we have company over we have to pile things into the narrow walking paths in the bedrooms, and onto the bed, and close all the doors, to be able to clear floorspace, counters, and table for people to be able to use (and to hide the fact that we live in what's essentially a giant trash heap), and, with our lives not quite half over, it's already become nearly impossible to get anything new because there isn't anywhere to store it... what are we supposed to do when the point of 100% saturation comes, as it will very soon?
I pointed all that out to my husband at full volume (imagine the ceiling cracking) while we were having our 10 billionth screaming battle about what he's going to do with his stuff... and suddenly, so undramatically that I didn't absorb it at 1st, he said that I was right, that we were almost out of room but not slowing down on acquiring new things, so he was going to get a big storage unit and start the lengthy process of moving all non-essential boxes of his stuff (which means nearly all of them) out of the house, and that the end goal would be FINALLY being able to bring all my stuff into my home, furnish and decorate all the rooms (except his study, where he'll still surround himself with boxes), and have guests come to stay like any nearly middle aged couple should have been able to do for 15 years or so.
I'm not holding my breath for the end goal to happen anytime soon, as clearing the house out will take quite a while, especially since it's not like my husband is going to take a bunch of vacation time to do it and so will have to do it gradually, but I can't over-state the importance of the process having begun, of my many years of living in a way that no one can believe 2 adults with our financial resources have lived all this time finally reaching an end. I was already past 30 when I married, and expected to be able to dive right in and create an established, comfortable home like my friends had right away, since we had a nice house and the $ to do it with; it didn't work out that way, but maybe, just maybe, by the time the big 4-0 rolls around, we'll have finally caught up with our peers and stopped living like college kids in their 1st apartment when we're almost old enough to be the PARENTS of those kids.
I hope they don't kick us out of the Geek Association for this...
A couple of days ago, it hit me; middle age is looming ever nearer, and I'm living in what's essentially a warehouse with a handful of furnishings, 95% of my stuff is still at my mother's because there's nowhere to put it in my own frigging home, there are 2 of us here but he's using 99.99% of the floor area and storage space for HIS worthless old junk, I've never been able to invite a friend to stay here because there's literally nowhere for them to sleep unless they want to lay down in the middle of the hallway (we don't even have a COUCH), which I've long since run out of excuses to explain why he refuses to make any effort to fix (although people don't get the hint, and unfortunately keep asking what year they might be able to come for a visit, sigh), when we have company over we have to pile things into the narrow walking paths in the bedrooms, and onto the bed, and close all the doors, to be able to clear floorspace, counters, and table for people to be able to use (and to hide the fact that we live in what's essentially a giant trash heap), and, with our lives not quite half over, it's already become nearly impossible to get anything new because there isn't anywhere to store it... what are we supposed to do when the point of 100% saturation comes, as it will very soon?
I pointed all that out to my husband at full volume (imagine the ceiling cracking) while we were having our 10 billionth screaming battle about what he's going to do with his stuff... and suddenly, so undramatically that I didn't absorb it at 1st, he said that I was right, that we were almost out of room but not slowing down on acquiring new things, so he was going to get a big storage unit and start the lengthy process of moving all non-essential boxes of his stuff (which means nearly all of them) out of the house, and that the end goal would be FINALLY being able to bring all my stuff into my home, furnish and decorate all the rooms (except his study, where he'll still surround himself with boxes), and have guests come to stay like any nearly middle aged couple should have been able to do for 15 years or so.
I'm not holding my breath for the end goal to happen anytime soon, as clearing the house out will take quite a while, especially since it's not like my husband is going to take a bunch of vacation time to do it and so will have to do it gradually, but I can't over-state the importance of the process having begun, of my many years of living in a way that no one can believe 2 adults with our financial resources have lived all this time finally reaching an end. I was already past 30 when I married, and expected to be able to dive right in and create an established, comfortable home like my friends had right away, since we had a nice house and the $ to do it with; it didn't work out that way, but maybe, just maybe, by the time the big 4-0 rolls around, we'll have finally caught up with our peers and stopped living like college kids in their 1st apartment when we're almost old enough to be the PARENTS of those kids.
I hope they don't kick us out of the Geek Association for this...
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
When is a pet not a pet?
Granted that any critter you own and feel affectionate towards can technically be seen as a pet, but what's the POINT of paying for food, supplies (cat litter, fish tank, bird cage) and medical bills for, cleaning up after the excretory functions (including vomit, drool and hairballs) of, dealing with the hair all over, and damage to, your possessions from, and the noise and other forms of disturbance of, a creature with which you don't have the affectionate interaction that's supposed to be the entire REASON for having a pet in the 1st place? There are several kinds of animal ownership in this gray area:
First, there's the so-called outdoor pet; isn't that a contradiction in terms? How can a creature whose apparent sole purpose is for you to see them out in the yard (wouldn't a statue do just as well, and cost less over time?), and that's rarely anywhere near you except of course when you've got food to give them, earn your love, much less be giving BACK enough love to make them worth the time, trouble and $ of owning them? Even if the outdoor pet is better than most, and can be called over to interact with you when you're outside, most people are too busy to stand around outdoors much anymore, so what's the benefit of an outdoor pet over, say, the neighbor's pet that will come to you to be petted when you're in the mood for animal contact, and that you don't have to scoop the poop of and pay to maintain? Why bother to obtain an animal just to have something running around your property, much less call it a pet?
(A couple of special points for "outside cat" owners, that you won't like but need to know; it's been shown that outdoor cats only live HALF as long on the average as indoor cats (with indoor/outdoor types falling in between), and many organizations that try to protect endangered birds plead with people to not let their cats roam outside, for the obvious reasons... so why not keep kitty inside where it'll live twice as long, and can only harm your stuff rather than irreplaceable wild creatures?)
Then, there's the "phantom pet," which is where the owner says something like: "She hasn't come out from under the couch in the 3 years since we got her, but her food gets eaten and she's using the litter box, so I know she's ok," or "He's very shy, and doesn't really like to be petted-I did touch him once for 2 seconds in 1999, though" or "She hates me, hates my family, hates all people, and hides in the closet when we're home, but loves to shred the couch and the curtains when we're at work"... any circumstance where there's allegedly an animal in the house but you can't be sure because no one ever sees, much less interacts with, it. This seems like an even worse deal for the owners than the outdoor pet, as the animal's hair and smell are in the house, as are their excretory functions, which will NOT always be in the litter box or on the papers, in addition to the potential damage they might cause; why not just get a stuffie and stick it in the closet or under the couch, which will look pretty much like the animal that's hiding there, and not cost you any time or $? Why bother with a creature that doesn't LIKE you, and is utterly uninterested in interacting with you, when there are so many sweet, loving animals getting put to sleep every single day that need good homes? If you don't care about having all the aggravations of pet ownership but none of the joys, think of the poor animal; why should it live its entire life with people it can't bear to be around? Give up the endless battle to win it over, give it to someone else or to a shelter (one where they DON'T put the animals down, of course) that can place it where it'll be happy, and rescue an animal from the Humane Society that'll be thrilled to live in your home with you.
Last but not least is the pet that's untouchable and/or incapable of loving you; fish, amphibians, reptiles (including poisonous ones, how's that for insanity?), tarantulas and sometimes birds fall into this category. Some of these creatures are attractive or interesting to look at, but pictures would be cheaper and less trouble... and realistically, few people that own this sort of pet spend much time looking at them, at least not that I've seen. Fish are calming to watch swim around, and some birds make nice tweeting sounds, but is that really enough reason to keep animals trapped in tiny enclosures for their entire lives, much less for you to have to care for them? While birds ARE capable of seeking and giving affection, some do not, and of course all the other, lower sorts of creatures in this category aren't capable of love, no matter how much their eagerly approaching their food-providers in the hopes of food, or happily laying on their warm owners to heat their little bodies up, may appear otherwise to owners inexplicably eager to believe that creatures so far down the evolutionary ladder care about them. Even assuming there's some thrill to, say, having a tank with a lizard in it that sits motionless on a branch for 23 hours and 55 minutes a day, one which makes it worth the expense, the tank-cleaning, and often the handling of live bugs to feed it, why call such a thing a pet?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's fine for people to have whatever critters they want, as long as there's no cruelty, law-breaking, or endangerment of people, animals or the property of others involved, and they can feel any way they want about those creatures, and see them as pets, as children, or whatever makes them happy... I just want to point out that to those of us looking in from the outside, it plain doesn't make sense how much people are willing to expend or endure for animals that don't give anything back, and why they feel the need to call every living thing on their property other than plants "pets."
What do *I* think qualifies a creature to be a pet for my own life? When I say that someday my husband and I would like to have pets, I mean animals that will live in our home with us, hang out with us just for the pleasure of being with us (as opposed to in the hope of being fed), demonstrate love for us, and seek our love and attention in return. I want animals that will sit on my lap or at my heel, follow me around the house, and be waiting eagerly at the door when I get home. An animal who gives its loyalty and its heart is worthy of a great deal of time and expense to give it what it needs, because such a creature possesses as pure of a kind of goodness as exists in the world, the sort of unswerving, unselfish devotion that we humans can't match. An animal like that DESERVES the most special label we can give it; pet.
First, there's the so-called outdoor pet; isn't that a contradiction in terms? How can a creature whose apparent sole purpose is for you to see them out in the yard (wouldn't a statue do just as well, and cost less over time?), and that's rarely anywhere near you except of course when you've got food to give them, earn your love, much less be giving BACK enough love to make them worth the time, trouble and $ of owning them? Even if the outdoor pet is better than most, and can be called over to interact with you when you're outside, most people are too busy to stand around outdoors much anymore, so what's the benefit of an outdoor pet over, say, the neighbor's pet that will come to you to be petted when you're in the mood for animal contact, and that you don't have to scoop the poop of and pay to maintain? Why bother to obtain an animal just to have something running around your property, much less call it a pet?
(A couple of special points for "outside cat" owners, that you won't like but need to know; it's been shown that outdoor cats only live HALF as long on the average as indoor cats (with indoor/outdoor types falling in between), and many organizations that try to protect endangered birds plead with people to not let their cats roam outside, for the obvious reasons... so why not keep kitty inside where it'll live twice as long, and can only harm your stuff rather than irreplaceable wild creatures?)
Then, there's the "phantom pet," which is where the owner says something like: "She hasn't come out from under the couch in the 3 years since we got her, but her food gets eaten and she's using the litter box, so I know she's ok," or "He's very shy, and doesn't really like to be petted-I did touch him once for 2 seconds in 1999, though" or "She hates me, hates my family, hates all people, and hides in the closet when we're home, but loves to shred the couch and the curtains when we're at work"... any circumstance where there's allegedly an animal in the house but you can't be sure because no one ever sees, much less interacts with, it. This seems like an even worse deal for the owners than the outdoor pet, as the animal's hair and smell are in the house, as are their excretory functions, which will NOT always be in the litter box or on the papers, in addition to the potential damage they might cause; why not just get a stuffie and stick it in the closet or under the couch, which will look pretty much like the animal that's hiding there, and not cost you any time or $? Why bother with a creature that doesn't LIKE you, and is utterly uninterested in interacting with you, when there are so many sweet, loving animals getting put to sleep every single day that need good homes? If you don't care about having all the aggravations of pet ownership but none of the joys, think of the poor animal; why should it live its entire life with people it can't bear to be around? Give up the endless battle to win it over, give it to someone else or to a shelter (one where they DON'T put the animals down, of course) that can place it where it'll be happy, and rescue an animal from the Humane Society that'll be thrilled to live in your home with you.
Last but not least is the pet that's untouchable and/or incapable of loving you; fish, amphibians, reptiles (including poisonous ones, how's that for insanity?), tarantulas and sometimes birds fall into this category. Some of these creatures are attractive or interesting to look at, but pictures would be cheaper and less trouble... and realistically, few people that own this sort of pet spend much time looking at them, at least not that I've seen. Fish are calming to watch swim around, and some birds make nice tweeting sounds, but is that really enough reason to keep animals trapped in tiny enclosures for their entire lives, much less for you to have to care for them? While birds ARE capable of seeking and giving affection, some do not, and of course all the other, lower sorts of creatures in this category aren't capable of love, no matter how much their eagerly approaching their food-providers in the hopes of food, or happily laying on their warm owners to heat their little bodies up, may appear otherwise to owners inexplicably eager to believe that creatures so far down the evolutionary ladder care about them. Even assuming there's some thrill to, say, having a tank with a lizard in it that sits motionless on a branch for 23 hours and 55 minutes a day, one which makes it worth the expense, the tank-cleaning, and often the handling of live bugs to feed it, why call such a thing a pet?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's fine for people to have whatever critters they want, as long as there's no cruelty, law-breaking, or endangerment of people, animals or the property of others involved, and they can feel any way they want about those creatures, and see them as pets, as children, or whatever makes them happy... I just want to point out that to those of us looking in from the outside, it plain doesn't make sense how much people are willing to expend or endure for animals that don't give anything back, and why they feel the need to call every living thing on their property other than plants "pets."
What do *I* think qualifies a creature to be a pet for my own life? When I say that someday my husband and I would like to have pets, I mean animals that will live in our home with us, hang out with us just for the pleasure of being with us (as opposed to in the hope of being fed), demonstrate love for us, and seek our love and attention in return. I want animals that will sit on my lap or at my heel, follow me around the house, and be waiting eagerly at the door when I get home. An animal who gives its loyalty and its heart is worthy of a great deal of time and expense to give it what it needs, because such a creature possesses as pure of a kind of goodness as exists in the world, the sort of unswerving, unselfish devotion that we humans can't match. An animal like that DESERVES the most special label we can give it; pet.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Joel Osteen got laid tonight
Osteen begins his sermons with a joke, which is a clever way to set an upbeat tone and start everyone off with a positive mindset. Tonight's joke really demonstrated his sly humor: A Hindu priest, a rabbi and a televangelist were traveling together, and when night came they asked a farmer if they could stay with him. The farmer was willing, but pointed out that he only had room for 2 of them to sleep in the house, so the 3rd would have to sleep in the barn; the men agreed, and the Hindu priest announced that he'd be the one to sleep in the barn. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, and it was him, saying that there was a cow in the barn, which was a sacred animal to him, so he couldn't sleep there; the rabbi said that he'd go out there instead. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, and it was him, saying that there was a pig in the barn, so he couldn't sleep there, as it wouldn't be kosher; the televangelist said that he'd go sleep in the barn, and off he went. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door... and it was the cow and the pig. lol
The central theme of tonight's sermon was the idea of choosing to be happy, no matter what your situation is. For example, you might hate your job, but instead of feeling that way, you could choose to be grateful that you're not standing in the unemployment line, and if you're cranky about having to do the dishes, you could instead choose to be grateful that you have a place to live and something to eat. He asserts that you can retrain yourself to enjoy rather than endure, by finding the positive aspects of every situation and focusing on them rather than on the negatives, even when the negatives are substantial; he's right for the most part, although I'D assert that when things are really bad, few people are able to still see them in a positive light... in general, though, we cry far too much about far too little, even when we have far more than 99% of the people on this planet could ever dream of having, and we'll be healthier and happier if we think of it that way.
Osteen tells us that it's not enough to enjoy SOME of what we do each day; don't dread part of your life and enjoy the other, but find a way to make EVERY part of the day feel good. He warns against getting caught up with little negatives too, because they can bog you down and make your whole day seem bad, and aren't remotely worth it; a negative day is a wasted day, so the smart thing to do is to try to make every day a good day. Considering the power of our thoughts and feelings, that's excellent advice, but I suspect that those of us who can't assure ourselves that a loving God is going to fix everything if we use force of will to be positive even when our lives objectively aren't will have a harder time managing it.
Perhaps the most important point of the sermon was that if you take on a false sense of responsibility for creating the right choices of others, you'll almost surely fail, and will make yourself unhappy; he wasn't referring to small children, who need adult guidance, but to other adults, each of whom bears 100% responsibility for their own choices and their outcomes, and whom psychologists keep telling us are impossible to force to change... which isn't totally true, as any wife who's made her husband start putting the toilet seat back down can attest, but is generally true, and so we have to just shrug and let go of most of our attempts to improve those around us.
In summary, almost every day we can find an excuse to not be happy, but we don't have to use it; don't wait for everything to get better before you start enjoying life, choose to start enjoying it right now, and things will start to FEEL better, and eventually you'll perceive them to BE better. We're such a complaining, whiny culture that most people won't even want to try this... but imagine if any significant # of us succeeded.
What does any of that have to do with Joel Osteen getting laid? No disrespect is intended towards him by my saying that, in fact I admire how he worked the following into his sermon; while he was talking about how we should feel about our marital partners, he described how terrific his own marriage and wife were, which could easily be glib and thus not mean much... but then he said that if he had the choice between spending time with a bunch guys or with her, he'd choose her (even though that meant he'd have to go to the mall, lol), and that comment about the woman he's been married to for 18 years, so contrary to how most women at least think their own men would react to that choice, was guaranteed to get Osteen some appreciation that night.
Atta boy, Joel!! :-)
The central theme of tonight's sermon was the idea of choosing to be happy, no matter what your situation is. For example, you might hate your job, but instead of feeling that way, you could choose to be grateful that you're not standing in the unemployment line, and if you're cranky about having to do the dishes, you could instead choose to be grateful that you have a place to live and something to eat. He asserts that you can retrain yourself to enjoy rather than endure, by finding the positive aspects of every situation and focusing on them rather than on the negatives, even when the negatives are substantial; he's right for the most part, although I'D assert that when things are really bad, few people are able to still see them in a positive light... in general, though, we cry far too much about far too little, even when we have far more than 99% of the people on this planet could ever dream of having, and we'll be healthier and happier if we think of it that way.
Osteen tells us that it's not enough to enjoy SOME of what we do each day; don't dread part of your life and enjoy the other, but find a way to make EVERY part of the day feel good. He warns against getting caught up with little negatives too, because they can bog you down and make your whole day seem bad, and aren't remotely worth it; a negative day is a wasted day, so the smart thing to do is to try to make every day a good day. Considering the power of our thoughts and feelings, that's excellent advice, but I suspect that those of us who can't assure ourselves that a loving God is going to fix everything if we use force of will to be positive even when our lives objectively aren't will have a harder time managing it.
Perhaps the most important point of the sermon was that if you take on a false sense of responsibility for creating the right choices of others, you'll almost surely fail, and will make yourself unhappy; he wasn't referring to small children, who need adult guidance, but to other adults, each of whom bears 100% responsibility for their own choices and their outcomes, and whom psychologists keep telling us are impossible to force to change... which isn't totally true, as any wife who's made her husband start putting the toilet seat back down can attest, but is generally true, and so we have to just shrug and let go of most of our attempts to improve those around us.
In summary, almost every day we can find an excuse to not be happy, but we don't have to use it; don't wait for everything to get better before you start enjoying life, choose to start enjoying it right now, and things will start to FEEL better, and eventually you'll perceive them to BE better. We're such a complaining, whiny culture that most people won't even want to try this... but imagine if any significant # of us succeeded.
What does any of that have to do with Joel Osteen getting laid? No disrespect is intended towards him by my saying that, in fact I admire how he worked the following into his sermon; while he was talking about how we should feel about our marital partners, he described how terrific his own marriage and wife were, which could easily be glib and thus not mean much... but then he said that if he had the choice between spending time with a bunch guys or with her, he'd choose her (even though that meant he'd have to go to the mall, lol), and that comment about the woman he's been married to for 18 years, so contrary to how most women at least think their own men would react to that choice, was guaranteed to get Osteen some appreciation that night.
Atta boy, Joel!! :-)
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Not all nudity is the same
One of the saddest aspects of American culture is our inability to deal with nudity; we legislate against it on the one hand, and then pursue it ardently on the other hand... and wonder why other cultures see us as childish.
We all know what the "dirty parts" are; breasts (but NOT the male chest, doesn't that seem odd when looked at objectively?), butt and genitals... but these parts aren't ALWAYS dirty:
A woman can legally show her bare breasts, nipples included, in public if it's part of the process of breastfeeding... but otherwise, it's indecent exposure.
Depending on where you live, a thong bathing suit, which fully reveals the buttocks, might or might not be legal at the beach... and is very likely ILlegal away from the beach.
It's legal for a baby or small child to be totally nude in public, but NOT for an adult to be nude in public (I wonder at what age it switches from legal to illegal); child nudity in photos, TV shows and movies, however, might be illegal depending on how it's handled and what city you're in (laws about photography are particularly inconsistent), while an adult can appear nude in any media they choose.
It's illegal to put photos of nude or semi-nude people in most public places, including schools and gov't buildings, but ART depicting full-frontal nudity IS ok. Most states forbid even the mildest cheesecake photos in the workplace, as they count as "sexual harassment," but, again, ART showing even complete nudity would be totally ok.
We've got lots of statues depicting females with bare breasts, and everyone thinks that's alright (except for John Ashcroft, lol), but if a woman stood next to one of those statues with her real-life breasts bared, that'd be indecent exposure.
TV channels that have advertising pretty much follow the traditional standards about nudity, but there are a couple of major exceptions:
Educational programs about tribal cultures have created the term "indigenous nudity" to refer to anything from bare butts to genitals that got captured on film... and I don't mean "Gee, what's that 50 feet away, is that a bare penis?", I mean tight body shots that are meant to show them doing something like making spears, but are also showcasing, er, other things the men take pride in, and in prime time no less. A program with a white man showing HIS genitals, on the other hand, even if he were also making spears, would be so illegal that they'd never DARE try it.
The other exception is when showing childbirth, and it's that type of show that got me thinking about all this; I was watching an interesting program about the development of a baby in the womb, and upon hearing a shriek I looked up from my keyboard to see a FULL-SCREEN closeup of the mother's genitals with the baby's head starting to emerge... normally, you'd have to look at hard-core porn to see that sort of extreme pudendal image, but this show came on at 7PM on the National Geographic channel. They had a couple more shots of that type, and, much as I admire mothers and think that childbirth is miraculous and all that... I just don't think anyone needs to see genital images of that size unless they're, um, doing something private at the same time. It goes without saying that under ANY other circumstances you can NOT show that sort of thing on non-porn channels; I'm all for greater acceptance of nudity, but I think that's just as well... the human body is beautiful, but few anatomical parts look good THAT close up.
Now that we've broken down some of the taboos about nudity on TV, it'll be interesting to see what other stuff they'll be trying to show; there's already some envelope-pushing occurring with a show on the Discovery channel called "Going Tribal," in which British cutie Bruce Parry lives with various isolated tribes, adopting their ways and trying to be accepted by them... and showing his bare and quite-attractive butt in most episodes, which I assume is deemed ok because the "tribal men" are showing theirs, and there's no reasonable way to allow one but not the other. (I highly recommend the show, by the way, and NOT just because of Bruce's butt.) My best guess for what'll come next is that they're going to try to start showing nudity on some of the grittier reality shows... what do you think?
We all know what the "dirty parts" are; breasts (but NOT the male chest, doesn't that seem odd when looked at objectively?), butt and genitals... but these parts aren't ALWAYS dirty:
A woman can legally show her bare breasts, nipples included, in public if it's part of the process of breastfeeding... but otherwise, it's indecent exposure.
Depending on where you live, a thong bathing suit, which fully reveals the buttocks, might or might not be legal at the beach... and is very likely ILlegal away from the beach.
It's legal for a baby or small child to be totally nude in public, but NOT for an adult to be nude in public (I wonder at what age it switches from legal to illegal); child nudity in photos, TV shows and movies, however, might be illegal depending on how it's handled and what city you're in (laws about photography are particularly inconsistent), while an adult can appear nude in any media they choose.
It's illegal to put photos of nude or semi-nude people in most public places, including schools and gov't buildings, but ART depicting full-frontal nudity IS ok. Most states forbid even the mildest cheesecake photos in the workplace, as they count as "sexual harassment," but, again, ART showing even complete nudity would be totally ok.
We've got lots of statues depicting females with bare breasts, and everyone thinks that's alright (except for John Ashcroft, lol), but if a woman stood next to one of those statues with her real-life breasts bared, that'd be indecent exposure.
TV channels that have advertising pretty much follow the traditional standards about nudity, but there are a couple of major exceptions:
Educational programs about tribal cultures have created the term "indigenous nudity" to refer to anything from bare butts to genitals that got captured on film... and I don't mean "Gee, what's that 50 feet away, is that a bare penis?", I mean tight body shots that are meant to show them doing something like making spears, but are also showcasing, er, other things the men take pride in, and in prime time no less. A program with a white man showing HIS genitals, on the other hand, even if he were also making spears, would be so illegal that they'd never DARE try it.
The other exception is when showing childbirth, and it's that type of show that got me thinking about all this; I was watching an interesting program about the development of a baby in the womb, and upon hearing a shriek I looked up from my keyboard to see a FULL-SCREEN closeup of the mother's genitals with the baby's head starting to emerge... normally, you'd have to look at hard-core porn to see that sort of extreme pudendal image, but this show came on at 7PM on the National Geographic channel. They had a couple more shots of that type, and, much as I admire mothers and think that childbirth is miraculous and all that... I just don't think anyone needs to see genital images of that size unless they're, um, doing something private at the same time. It goes without saying that under ANY other circumstances you can NOT show that sort of thing on non-porn channels; I'm all for greater acceptance of nudity, but I think that's just as well... the human body is beautiful, but few anatomical parts look good THAT close up.
Now that we've broken down some of the taboos about nudity on TV, it'll be interesting to see what other stuff they'll be trying to show; there's already some envelope-pushing occurring with a show on the Discovery channel called "Going Tribal," in which British cutie Bruce Parry lives with various isolated tribes, adopting their ways and trying to be accepted by them... and showing his bare and quite-attractive butt in most episodes, which I assume is deemed ok because the "tribal men" are showing theirs, and there's no reasonable way to allow one but not the other. (I highly recommend the show, by the way, and NOT just because of Bruce's butt.) My best guess for what'll come next is that they're going to try to start showing nudity on some of the grittier reality shows... what do you think?
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Why don't wishes always come true?
No, that's not meant to be the equivalent of when small children ask why they can't have everything they want, I mean why can't we say a few days, or weeks, or even months, of affirmations (I describe how to do them in my post of 1-12-04) and make anything we wish come to pass, knowing that our thoughts DO have the power to shape reality?
1) This should go without saying, but some people feel it necessary to make an issue of it; we can't do magic, or otherwise violate the laws of physics, no matter how many times we do affirmations asking for it, because you can't use the power of karma to overcome the structure of karma.
2) Some things are just too big for us to influence meaningfully; as much as we'd like to prevent natural disasters from occurring, the forces behind them are so enormous that we can't make a dent in them.
3) We can't change human nature; if you're a minority in the area you live, for example, you can't make people stop viewing you as "other" just by wishing it to be so.
4) We can't change an individual person's nature; if you're in love with someone whose sexual orientation isn't towards your gender, there's no point in trying to alter that.
5) In circumstances where many people are hoping for contradictory outcomes, it's silly to think that your extra bit of hoping will tip the balance; you can't do affirmations to control the scores of sporting events, or who wins the Miss Universe pageant, for example.
6) a) If your karma's not clean, you can't expect to have much of ANY effect... and remember that things like fear and sadness, although not "bad" in the sense of being wrongdoings, lead to negative karma. If necessary, re-build your karma through good deeds and positive thoughts/feelings before attempting to do affirmations.
b) In most circumstances, the bad karma of people closely associated with you can block you from drawing in what you want, as their negative energy surrounds you even though you didn't generate it; unless you can distance yourself from those people long enough to do the affirmations and receive what you asked for, you're unfortunately just stuck with that.
7) It's crucial to be VERY specific about what you ask for, and to be sure that it reflects EXACTLY what you want; if you want to lose 50 lbs, and just do an affirmation to lose weight, once you've lost 1 lb, or even 1 oz, your request has been fulfilled, and all that effort has been wasted.
8) It's equally important to NOT be specific as to HOW karma is to deliver what you want, as that closes off some of the pathways it could use, including maybe 1 that'll make or break your results; if you wish for wealth, don't specify that it has to be from winning the lottery, or that inheritance your great aunt has to pass along might go to a different relative, one who's less picky.
9) You have to truly focus and project your thoughts, which is the entire point of doing affirmations; you can't just have a wistful daydream about a thing every so often and expect to be significantly altering your chances of getting it.
10) You have to keep at it, even after the novelty wears off; after a few days, writing out those 15 sentences can seem like a gigantic task that you've got no time for, believe me I know, but to get even the simplest things done takes TIME, and if you don't persist you can't expect to triumph... just like with anything else.
With that said, I owe you a couple of warnings, too:
1) The saying "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it" applies; before you ask for that promotion, think long and hard if all it really is is a few dollars more for working twice as many hours. Even if the thing you want doesn't have a catch, it still might not be the best thing for YOU; don't ask for a doctor for a husband if you can't handle being alone alot of the time, and rarely being the center of his thoughts when he IS with you.
2) Be very, VERY cautious about wishing for something that does harm; various belief systems warn that whatever you send out will come back to you threefold, or even TENfold, and when you're wishing harm you're virtually guaranteed to be sending out anger, hate, jealousy, resentment or other negative feelings with your thoughts, and negative feelings bring negativity into your life... so unless you possess the ability to have ice-cold detachment, it's better to handle problematic people in less metaphysical ways.
Our thoughts DO shape reality... what sort of reality are YOU creating?
1) This should go without saying, but some people feel it necessary to make an issue of it; we can't do magic, or otherwise violate the laws of physics, no matter how many times we do affirmations asking for it, because you can't use the power of karma to overcome the structure of karma.
2) Some things are just too big for us to influence meaningfully; as much as we'd like to prevent natural disasters from occurring, the forces behind them are so enormous that we can't make a dent in them.
3) We can't change human nature; if you're a minority in the area you live, for example, you can't make people stop viewing you as "other" just by wishing it to be so.
4) We can't change an individual person's nature; if you're in love with someone whose sexual orientation isn't towards your gender, there's no point in trying to alter that.
5) In circumstances where many people are hoping for contradictory outcomes, it's silly to think that your extra bit of hoping will tip the balance; you can't do affirmations to control the scores of sporting events, or who wins the Miss Universe pageant, for example.
6) a) If your karma's not clean, you can't expect to have much of ANY effect... and remember that things like fear and sadness, although not "bad" in the sense of being wrongdoings, lead to negative karma. If necessary, re-build your karma through good deeds and positive thoughts/feelings before attempting to do affirmations.
b) In most circumstances, the bad karma of people closely associated with you can block you from drawing in what you want, as their negative energy surrounds you even though you didn't generate it; unless you can distance yourself from those people long enough to do the affirmations and receive what you asked for, you're unfortunately just stuck with that.
7) It's crucial to be VERY specific about what you ask for, and to be sure that it reflects EXACTLY what you want; if you want to lose 50 lbs, and just do an affirmation to lose weight, once you've lost 1 lb, or even 1 oz, your request has been fulfilled, and all that effort has been wasted.
8) It's equally important to NOT be specific as to HOW karma is to deliver what you want, as that closes off some of the pathways it could use, including maybe 1 that'll make or break your results; if you wish for wealth, don't specify that it has to be from winning the lottery, or that inheritance your great aunt has to pass along might go to a different relative, one who's less picky.
9) You have to truly focus and project your thoughts, which is the entire point of doing affirmations; you can't just have a wistful daydream about a thing every so often and expect to be significantly altering your chances of getting it.
10) You have to keep at it, even after the novelty wears off; after a few days, writing out those 15 sentences can seem like a gigantic task that you've got no time for, believe me I know, but to get even the simplest things done takes TIME, and if you don't persist you can't expect to triumph... just like with anything else.
With that said, I owe you a couple of warnings, too:
1) The saying "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it" applies; before you ask for that promotion, think long and hard if all it really is is a few dollars more for working twice as many hours. Even if the thing you want doesn't have a catch, it still might not be the best thing for YOU; don't ask for a doctor for a husband if you can't handle being alone alot of the time, and rarely being the center of his thoughts when he IS with you.
2) Be very, VERY cautious about wishing for something that does harm; various belief systems warn that whatever you send out will come back to you threefold, or even TENfold, and when you're wishing harm you're virtually guaranteed to be sending out anger, hate, jealousy, resentment or other negative feelings with your thoughts, and negative feelings bring negativity into your life... so unless you possess the ability to have ice-cold detachment, it's better to handle problematic people in less metaphysical ways.
Our thoughts DO shape reality... what sort of reality are YOU creating?
Friday, September 02, 2005
Brown shoes and the larva
Women are supposed to love shoes, but I've never had much interest in them; part of it's that I have big feet, and most cute shoes don't look good on me, part of it's that I didn't have much $ most of my life, and didn't want to waste any on shoes that could be spent on shirts or earrings, and part of it's that I've got narrow heels, and most shoes cut into me there, making them unwearable.
I CAN wear pumps easily, even very high ones, as then the pressure is on the balls of my feet rather than on the backs of my heels, so I have some business and formal pairs that I haven't needed to wear in years, sitting in my closet in boxes. Boots are also fine, but they're a little fancy for my jeans and t-shirts, and I've found them to be insufficiently padded for me to walk more than a token amount in, although perhaps their cheapness is a factor too (I'm just not willing to buy expensive things to wear of any kind, even though I can afford them now-it seems like such a waste of $)... thinking about which made me realize something recently:
Haven't you ever wondered why ugly, clunky shoes with filthy laces to struggle with have become our official footwear? I think I finally understand why; athletic shoes have to be cushiony on all the surfaces of your feet to be usable, and, unlike most other shoes, that have hard, unpadded soles, uppers and of course that edge that digs into the back of your heel, they're COMFORTABLE, even with all the standing and walking we do on cement... all these years of having my feet hurt came from my disliking athletic shoes so much that I was wearing shoes that weren't meant to be walked around in, sigh.
I hadn't had comfortable footwear since I graduated college and started wearing "adult" shoes; when I didn't need to wear pumps anymore, I switched to boots, which looked cool but led to real pain if I had to walk far. I didn't even remember that my feet didn't feel like that when I'd worn athletic shoes, and it never occurred to me that I could do real walking without pain until, having decided that boots were a little much with my geekwear, I started looking around for new shoes, and the only pair I could find that didn't gouge my heels turned out to have such springy padding that I felt like I was walking on bubble wrap... it was a revelation. Not only were they blissful with every step, they allowed me to shop an entire mall without limping and having my feet swell up to twice their size; it was a whole new world.
A few months later, I realized that I only had that ONE pair of shoes, and that wasn't enough, so I went back to the store where I'd gotten them... and they had every single style by that brand still EXCEPT the ones that fit me. That was 5 YEARS ago, and I never found another pair to fit me until now; what I finally realized was that I needed that high, padded thing on the back of the heel, like athletic shoes have, to not have that cutting pain, but you don't often see that in any other sort of shoe... finally, a sporting goods store got some, and, although they have the minor drawback that the elastic insets in the upper let my foot lift up and out slightly when I take a certain angle of step, they're cushy and comfy, and have a bonus attribute as well.
They're BROWN.
Why does that matter? Because all my boots are black, and the 1 pair of shoes I've been wearing are black, and even the most clueless MEN know you can't just have black shoes, you need brown ones too; it was hard, but I've been able to overcome my deeply-entrenched ideas of "black goes with everything, so that's all I need" and "if they're not black they'll show every speck of dirt" enough to have brown shoes even though I don't much like that color... although probably only because it was the only color they came in, lol, and I'd have gotten them in literally ANY color just to have a 2nd pair of shoes.
And now on to the larva; I found one oozing along the wall in the hallway this evening, and was a little nervous because there's never just ONE when they show up. A couple of hours later, I was typing along, tap-tap-tap-tap (or rather, since I'm a very slow typist, more like tap... tap... tap... tap...), when suddenly, horrifyingly, it became tap-tap-tap-SQUISH. I looked down, and saw to my utter revulsion that one of the loathsome things was writhing on the key I'd just tried to hit; shrieking piercingly enough to put a car alarm to shame, I grabbed a napkin, snatched it up before it could crawl off my laptop, squashed it, and was still screaming when my husband came charging in. Horribly aware that I'd TOUCHED a larva, I began frantically scrubbing my finger on the only thing handy; my husband's shirt. He waited patiently for me to finish, agreeing with my howled declarations as to the filthiness and evil of the larva; then, following my panicked instructions, he dragged in the step-stool and checked the ceiling to see if any more of them were up there waiting to jump down on my keyboard (or my HEAD)... there weren't any, but my skin has been crawling ever since.
I swear, between the swarms of vermin and my husband's offensive emissions (don't ask), I'm going to need to get full-on hazmat gear and seal myself in... and won't it look slick with my new brown shoes?
I CAN wear pumps easily, even very high ones, as then the pressure is on the balls of my feet rather than on the backs of my heels, so I have some business and formal pairs that I haven't needed to wear in years, sitting in my closet in boxes. Boots are also fine, but they're a little fancy for my jeans and t-shirts, and I've found them to be insufficiently padded for me to walk more than a token amount in, although perhaps their cheapness is a factor too (I'm just not willing to buy expensive things to wear of any kind, even though I can afford them now-it seems like such a waste of $)... thinking about which made me realize something recently:
Haven't you ever wondered why ugly, clunky shoes with filthy laces to struggle with have become our official footwear? I think I finally understand why; athletic shoes have to be cushiony on all the surfaces of your feet to be usable, and, unlike most other shoes, that have hard, unpadded soles, uppers and of course that edge that digs into the back of your heel, they're COMFORTABLE, even with all the standing and walking we do on cement... all these years of having my feet hurt came from my disliking athletic shoes so much that I was wearing shoes that weren't meant to be walked around in, sigh.
I hadn't had comfortable footwear since I graduated college and started wearing "adult" shoes; when I didn't need to wear pumps anymore, I switched to boots, which looked cool but led to real pain if I had to walk far. I didn't even remember that my feet didn't feel like that when I'd worn athletic shoes, and it never occurred to me that I could do real walking without pain until, having decided that boots were a little much with my geekwear, I started looking around for new shoes, and the only pair I could find that didn't gouge my heels turned out to have such springy padding that I felt like I was walking on bubble wrap... it was a revelation. Not only were they blissful with every step, they allowed me to shop an entire mall without limping and having my feet swell up to twice their size; it was a whole new world.
A few months later, I realized that I only had that ONE pair of shoes, and that wasn't enough, so I went back to the store where I'd gotten them... and they had every single style by that brand still EXCEPT the ones that fit me. That was 5 YEARS ago, and I never found another pair to fit me until now; what I finally realized was that I needed that high, padded thing on the back of the heel, like athletic shoes have, to not have that cutting pain, but you don't often see that in any other sort of shoe... finally, a sporting goods store got some, and, although they have the minor drawback that the elastic insets in the upper let my foot lift up and out slightly when I take a certain angle of step, they're cushy and comfy, and have a bonus attribute as well.
They're BROWN.
Why does that matter? Because all my boots are black, and the 1 pair of shoes I've been wearing are black, and even the most clueless MEN know you can't just have black shoes, you need brown ones too; it was hard, but I've been able to overcome my deeply-entrenched ideas of "black goes with everything, so that's all I need" and "if they're not black they'll show every speck of dirt" enough to have brown shoes even though I don't much like that color... although probably only because it was the only color they came in, lol, and I'd have gotten them in literally ANY color just to have a 2nd pair of shoes.
And now on to the larva; I found one oozing along the wall in the hallway this evening, and was a little nervous because there's never just ONE when they show up. A couple of hours later, I was typing along, tap-tap-tap-tap (or rather, since I'm a very slow typist, more like tap... tap... tap... tap...), when suddenly, horrifyingly, it became tap-tap-tap-SQUISH. I looked down, and saw to my utter revulsion that one of the loathsome things was writhing on the key I'd just tried to hit; shrieking piercingly enough to put a car alarm to shame, I grabbed a napkin, snatched it up before it could crawl off my laptop, squashed it, and was still screaming when my husband came charging in. Horribly aware that I'd TOUCHED a larva, I began frantically scrubbing my finger on the only thing handy; my husband's shirt. He waited patiently for me to finish, agreeing with my howled declarations as to the filthiness and evil of the larva; then, following my panicked instructions, he dragged in the step-stool and checked the ceiling to see if any more of them were up there waiting to jump down on my keyboard (or my HEAD)... there weren't any, but my skin has been crawling ever since.
I swear, between the swarms of vermin and my husband's offensive emissions (don't ask), I'm going to need to get full-on hazmat gear and seal myself in... and won't it look slick with my new brown shoes?
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Interesting spiritual ideas from an odd source
To capitalize on the remake of "The Amityville Horror," earlier this year they released a DVD set with the original movie, 2 sequels, and a bonus disc
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?BB=true&movieID=139210&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Full
which contains "a pair of documentaries produced for The History Channel on the real-life events that inspired the first film, as well as a look at the production of the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror and more"... and that's the one I got in the mail today.
I got my 1st look at the people who actually lived through the events that inspired the book and movie... well, they SAY they lived through the events, which isn't the same thing, but since they gave no indication of being dishonest, "slick" types, they did verifiably abandon their home and everything they owned when they fled (they gave the house back to the bank, and their belongings were auctioned off for a pittance), and I know from personal experience with ghosts, particularly poltergeists, that entities of various sorts exist and interact with humans, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I also saw a bewildering array of contradictory claims from several people who'd involved themselves in the case in various ways... none of which means anything, because it either happened or it didn't, and only the Lutz family knows for sure.
There was one intriguing thing revealed; the Catholic priest who had come to bless the house, Father Ralph Pecoraro, testified in court that he DID hear that deep voice saying "get out," and he also supposed felt a slap to the face... no sane person sees priests as paragons of virtue anymore, but why would he have opened himself up to ridicule and censure by giving that testimony if the incident hadn't happened?
Now here's the spiritual part; the Lutzes said something that would be illogical if they were trying to persuade people of the validity of a false story... that it was typical in that house for 1 person to experience something that no one else perceived, or for everyone to be seeing/hearing something, but not the same thing. If YOU were going to try to perpetrate a fraud about supernatural happenings, wouldn't you have everyone telling the SAME story for each incident, to add credence to it by backing each other up? One of the supposed experts in paranormal phenomena that appeared in the documentaries gave an explanation for each person having different perceptions; that these perceptions were telepathic in nature, and thus each person experienced whatever was projected at them, or nothing if they weren't being targeted. If spirits and such WERE plugging into our brains rather than creating visible and audible apparitions, that'd make them easier to understand, because they wouldn't have to be able to manipulate light and sound waves... but it wouldn't explain their ability to move things around, so they've gotta have more to them than psychic ability.
The other spiritual thing is the explanation Kathy Lutz gave for why they had those terrifying experiences when no one else who's lived in that house (yes, other people are willing to live somewhere where, at the very least, 6 people, 4 of which were children, were brutally murdered) has reported anything; she revealed that they'd gotten into transcendental meditation before moving there, and that she thought that it opened their minds to... other things. I can certainly see how this could be, although just because you can see a logical way something COULD happen doesn't mean it DID; just to be safe, though, if I ever get the urge to dabble in TM, I'm going to suppress it.
So, now I have a new facet of "the unknown" to ponder; what is the interface between humans and non-corporeal entities, how does it work, and can we "fine-tune" it? hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?BB=true&movieID=139210&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Full
which contains "a pair of documentaries produced for The History Channel on the real-life events that inspired the first film, as well as a look at the production of the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror and more"... and that's the one I got in the mail today.
I got my 1st look at the people who actually lived through the events that inspired the book and movie... well, they SAY they lived through the events, which isn't the same thing, but since they gave no indication of being dishonest, "slick" types, they did verifiably abandon their home and everything they owned when they fled (they gave the house back to the bank, and their belongings were auctioned off for a pittance), and I know from personal experience with ghosts, particularly poltergeists, that entities of various sorts exist and interact with humans, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I also saw a bewildering array of contradictory claims from several people who'd involved themselves in the case in various ways... none of which means anything, because it either happened or it didn't, and only the Lutz family knows for sure.
There was one intriguing thing revealed; the Catholic priest who had come to bless the house, Father Ralph Pecoraro, testified in court that he DID hear that deep voice saying "get out," and he also supposed felt a slap to the face... no sane person sees priests as paragons of virtue anymore, but why would he have opened himself up to ridicule and censure by giving that testimony if the incident hadn't happened?
Now here's the spiritual part; the Lutzes said something that would be illogical if they were trying to persuade people of the validity of a false story... that it was typical in that house for 1 person to experience something that no one else perceived, or for everyone to be seeing/hearing something, but not the same thing. If YOU were going to try to perpetrate a fraud about supernatural happenings, wouldn't you have everyone telling the SAME story for each incident, to add credence to it by backing each other up? One of the supposed experts in paranormal phenomena that appeared in the documentaries gave an explanation for each person having different perceptions; that these perceptions were telepathic in nature, and thus each person experienced whatever was projected at them, or nothing if they weren't being targeted. If spirits and such WERE plugging into our brains rather than creating visible and audible apparitions, that'd make them easier to understand, because they wouldn't have to be able to manipulate light and sound waves... but it wouldn't explain their ability to move things around, so they've gotta have more to them than psychic ability.
The other spiritual thing is the explanation Kathy Lutz gave for why they had those terrifying experiences when no one else who's lived in that house (yes, other people are willing to live somewhere where, at the very least, 6 people, 4 of which were children, were brutally murdered) has reported anything; she revealed that they'd gotten into transcendental meditation before moving there, and that she thought that it opened their minds to... other things. I can certainly see how this could be, although just because you can see a logical way something COULD happen doesn't mean it DID; just to be safe, though, if I ever get the urge to dabble in TM, I'm going to suppress it.
So, now I have a new facet of "the unknown" to ponder; what is the interface between humans and non-corporeal entities, how does it work, and can we "fine-tune" it? hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The effect of climate on religion
In the August 2005 issue of Discover magazine is an article called "Are the Desert People Winning?", which reveals that there's yet another unexpected thing influencing spiritual belief systems; the climate that a culture develops in. While nothing in the article even hints at the concept of "You believe in what you believe in because of the conditions of the area that your ancestors came from, not because your people just happen to have the truth," as such a thing wouldn't be appropriate in a science article, since my blog is largely dedicated to spiritual exploration I wanted to bring it up, because to get at the truth we have to be willing to separate factors that are biological, chemical, environmental, etc from those that are actually indicative of "the unknown" in action.
With that said, let's jump right in:
"A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods. Polytheism is prevalent among tribes in the Amazon basin (the Sherenti, Mundurucu, and Tapirape) and in the rain forests of Africa (the Ndorobo), New Guinea (the Keraki and Ulawans), and Southeast Asia (the Iban of Borneo and the Mnong Gar and Lolo of Vietnam). But desert dwellers-the bedouin of Arabia, the Berbers of the western Sahara, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Nuer and Turkana of the Kenyan/Sudanese desert-are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One."
WOW!! There are so many cultures in the world, so many belief systems... and here's this basic underlying principle for why different peoples believe in one category vs another. The reason they think it works out this way is:
"This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people's business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans."
That just made my knees go weak; I love it when basic cause and effect de-mystifies things so thoroughly. Culture in general is involved in this too:
"Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism: military trophies as stepping stones to societal status, death in battle as a guarantee of a glorious afterlife, slavery. And these cultures are more likely to be stratified, with centralized authority. A cosmology in which an omnipotent god dominates a host of minor deities finds a natural parallel in a rigid earthly hierarchy."
Human nature is a very powerful thing, and it applies to ALL humans wherever they live, so it shouldn't be surprising that similar circumstances breed similar cultural elements, but this is still amazing stuff. There are other cultural things unrelated to religion that are affected that are too interesting to leave out:
"Purchasing or indenturing wives is far less prevalent among rain forest peoples. And in rain forest cultures, related women tend to form the core of a community for a lifetime, rather than being shipped off to serve the expediency of marriage making. In desert cultures, women typically have the difficult tasks of building shelters and wandering in search of water and firewood, while the men contemplate the majesty of their herds and envision their next raid. Among rain forest cultures, it's the men who are more likely to do the heavy lifting. Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won't be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female, as is the case in at least one notable desert-derived religion. Finally, desert cultures tend to teach their children to be modest about nudity at an earlier age than in rain forest cultures and have more severe strictures against premarital sex."
That should make people who turn their noses up at the so-called "primitive" cultures they see on TV think twice. Although there isn't any need to point out which sort of climate the ancestors of Western peoples came from, as I'm sure we've all recognized which behavior patterns are ours, here it is:
"desert cultures, with their militarism, stratification, mistreatment of women, uptightness about child rearing and sexuality, seem unappealing. And yet ours happens to be a planet dominated by the cultural descendants of the desert dwellers. At various points, the desert dwellers have poured out of the Middle East, defining large parts of Eurasia. Such cultures, in turn, have passed the last 500 years subjugating the native populations of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. As a result, ours is a Judeo-Christian/Muslim world, not a Mbuti-Carib/Trobriand one."
Pause a moment and try to imagine what our lives would be like if we were all rain forest dweller descendants instead; it boggles the mind, doesn't it? It's not likely to ever happen, though:
"Unfortunately, the rain forest mind-set appears not only less likely to spread than its desert counterpart but also less hardy when uprooted, more of a hothouse attribute."
So, what makes a culture strong and successful is all these traits we don't like the sound of? Very grim, if true; I hope that in the modern world we'll be able to find ways to be those things without all those drawbacks.
I'd like to see more articles on this topic in the future, as I think they're really onto something. In case you're wondering why it took them so long to get started with this, it's yet another case of the traditional arrogant view of white scientists of non-white peoples, especially tribal ones, keeping us from objective study and learning anything:
"Attempts to link culture with climate and ecology have an old history... Early efforts were often howlers of dead-white-male racism; every study seemed to generate irrefutable scientific proof that northern European ecosystems produced superior cultures, more advanced morals, technologies, and intellects, and better schnitzel. Much of contemporary social anthropology represents a traumatized retreat from the sins of those intellectual fathers. One solution was to resolutely avoid cultural comparisons, thereby ushering in an era wherein an anthropologist could spend an entire career documenting the puberty rite of one clan of farmers in northeastern Cameroon."
Hopefully, the pendulum is swinging back now, and we can truly delve into what makes us who we are, both spiritually and in general; in the meantime, it's up to each of us to ask ourselves, "Why do I REALLY believe what I believe?".
With that said, let's jump right in:
"A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods. Polytheism is prevalent among tribes in the Amazon basin (the Sherenti, Mundurucu, and Tapirape) and in the rain forests of Africa (the Ndorobo), New Guinea (the Keraki and Ulawans), and Southeast Asia (the Iban of Borneo and the Mnong Gar and Lolo of Vietnam). But desert dwellers-the bedouin of Arabia, the Berbers of the western Sahara, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Nuer and Turkana of the Kenyan/Sudanese desert-are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One."
WOW!! There are so many cultures in the world, so many belief systems... and here's this basic underlying principle for why different peoples believe in one category vs another. The reason they think it works out this way is:
"This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people's business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans."
That just made my knees go weak; I love it when basic cause and effect de-mystifies things so thoroughly. Culture in general is involved in this too:
"Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism: military trophies as stepping stones to societal status, death in battle as a guarantee of a glorious afterlife, slavery. And these cultures are more likely to be stratified, with centralized authority. A cosmology in which an omnipotent god dominates a host of minor deities finds a natural parallel in a rigid earthly hierarchy."
Human nature is a very powerful thing, and it applies to ALL humans wherever they live, so it shouldn't be surprising that similar circumstances breed similar cultural elements, but this is still amazing stuff. There are other cultural things unrelated to religion that are affected that are too interesting to leave out:
"Purchasing or indenturing wives is far less prevalent among rain forest peoples. And in rain forest cultures, related women tend to form the core of a community for a lifetime, rather than being shipped off to serve the expediency of marriage making. In desert cultures, women typically have the difficult tasks of building shelters and wandering in search of water and firewood, while the men contemplate the majesty of their herds and envision their next raid. Among rain forest cultures, it's the men who are more likely to do the heavy lifting. Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won't be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female, as is the case in at least one notable desert-derived religion. Finally, desert cultures tend to teach their children to be modest about nudity at an earlier age than in rain forest cultures and have more severe strictures against premarital sex."
That should make people who turn their noses up at the so-called "primitive" cultures they see on TV think twice. Although there isn't any need to point out which sort of climate the ancestors of Western peoples came from, as I'm sure we've all recognized which behavior patterns are ours, here it is:
"desert cultures, with their militarism, stratification, mistreatment of women, uptightness about child rearing and sexuality, seem unappealing. And yet ours happens to be a planet dominated by the cultural descendants of the desert dwellers. At various points, the desert dwellers have poured out of the Middle East, defining large parts of Eurasia. Such cultures, in turn, have passed the last 500 years subjugating the native populations of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. As a result, ours is a Judeo-Christian/Muslim world, not a Mbuti-Carib/Trobriand one."
Pause a moment and try to imagine what our lives would be like if we were all rain forest dweller descendants instead; it boggles the mind, doesn't it? It's not likely to ever happen, though:
"Unfortunately, the rain forest mind-set appears not only less likely to spread than its desert counterpart but also less hardy when uprooted, more of a hothouse attribute."
So, what makes a culture strong and successful is all these traits we don't like the sound of? Very grim, if true; I hope that in the modern world we'll be able to find ways to be those things without all those drawbacks.
I'd like to see more articles on this topic in the future, as I think they're really onto something. In case you're wondering why it took them so long to get started with this, it's yet another case of the traditional arrogant view of white scientists of non-white peoples, especially tribal ones, keeping us from objective study and learning anything:
"Attempts to link culture with climate and ecology have an old history... Early efforts were often howlers of dead-white-male racism; every study seemed to generate irrefutable scientific proof that northern European ecosystems produced superior cultures, more advanced morals, technologies, and intellects, and better schnitzel. Much of contemporary social anthropology represents a traumatized retreat from the sins of those intellectual fathers. One solution was to resolutely avoid cultural comparisons, thereby ushering in an era wherein an anthropologist could spend an entire career documenting the puberty rite of one clan of farmers in northeastern Cameroon."
Hopefully, the pendulum is swinging back now, and we can truly delve into what makes us who we are, both spiritually and in general; in the meantime, it's up to each of us to ask ourselves, "Why do I REALLY believe what I believe?".
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
What are they THINKING?!!
Every so often, you encounter someone who possesses the astonishing ability to present people with the most outrageous situations without a qualm, as if they believe that everyone around them is so clueless that they'll never notice that something's wildly wrong; they certainly react with astonishment when called on the insanity of their pronouncements... or perhaps that reaction's just part of how they hope to manipulate their intended targets?
I encountered one of these infinite-gall situations today, when a Canadian company that I'd literally been trying all year to buy a European item that only they carried in North America from finally, FINALLY got their shipment in and were ready to be paid in full by those of us who'd reserved one by paying half the price some months ago; the manager I'd been in email contact with all this time sent the full bill, and I saw to my absolute horror that the shipping, which my extensive experience with getting eBay stuff from Canadian sellers told me should have been about $10, was over *$30*... and mind you, the item itself is $40, so the shipping nearly doubled the price. I sent an email politely suggesting that perhaps they'd made a mistake, and they haven't bothered to reply yet; if and when they do, I can only assume that they'll try to make it sound as if the 5 seconds it takes to slap an address label on the shipping box justifies the tripling of the shipping charge, and we'll be taking back our deposit and losing out on an item that, although cool, is far from being worth what they want for it... and THEY lose all the profit they could have had from us. What are they thinking, charging such a ridiculous amount for shipping that no American would buy from them?
You'd think it'd be harder for folks to pull this sort of thing face to face, but it sure doesn't seem to be; I remember back when I was in sales, and the office I'd been working out of was moved so far away that it was no longer reasonable for me to go there, and the moronic corporate policy was that if you wanted to report to a different office you had to go there and beg to be taken on, as opposed to just making a transfer automatic upon request, so I went to the closest office to talk to their manager... and she looked me right in the eye and said, "I think that what's best for you is for you to find some other company to handle your clients." I looked HER right in the eye and said, "No, what's best for me is for YOUR office of THIS company to handle my clients, rather than my having to waste time going to other companies and trying to get one of them to take me on when I'm not trained in their procedures"... you should have seen her face. She didn't have the grace to admit that I was right, just snippily altered her pronouncement to be that she'd decided I wasn't going to be in that office and that was that; if she didn't want me in her office, fine, but what was she thinking trying to make out like she was doing what was best for ME?
Probably the most astounding example of this sort of thing came when my husband and I were making the arrangements for our wedding. The folks that provide wedding services in general seem to make it a point of pride to try to push anything BUT what you ask them for on you, so there must be some sort of odd psychology going on with those who're about to be married that makes them infinitely suggestible, but one of the people we encountered in our search for a venue was in a whole other universe of trying to push ridiculous suggestions; she told us that she had a terrific room to show us, and dragged us across an entire complex, unlocked a door, and opened it with a flourish, saying "How about THIS for your wedding?"... and the room she revealed was a tiny, bare, dingy conference room. I'm not exaggerating; this woman, and it was made worse that this WAS a woman, rather than a man who might have no clue about what a wedding should be like, honestly thought she had a shot at getting us to agree to have our WEDDING in a room so unattractive that I can't imagine it being rented out for ANY purpose (and yes, I made the reality of the situation clear to her)... what was she thinking?
I'll never understand people like this, who are either utterly incapable of analyzing what a reasonable person's reaction will be to what they're doing, or don't care, because all they want to do is blither anything that comes into their heads, or see it as some sort of twisted game... all I can do is know that whatever the reasons are for the behavior, it's indicative of the doer not being a good bet to be in my life in any way.
I encountered one of these infinite-gall situations today, when a Canadian company that I'd literally been trying all year to buy a European item that only they carried in North America from finally, FINALLY got their shipment in and were ready to be paid in full by those of us who'd reserved one by paying half the price some months ago; the manager I'd been in email contact with all this time sent the full bill, and I saw to my absolute horror that the shipping, which my extensive experience with getting eBay stuff from Canadian sellers told me should have been about $10, was over *$30*... and mind you, the item itself is $40, so the shipping nearly doubled the price. I sent an email politely suggesting that perhaps they'd made a mistake, and they haven't bothered to reply yet; if and when they do, I can only assume that they'll try to make it sound as if the 5 seconds it takes to slap an address label on the shipping box justifies the tripling of the shipping charge, and we'll be taking back our deposit and losing out on an item that, although cool, is far from being worth what they want for it... and THEY lose all the profit they could have had from us. What are they thinking, charging such a ridiculous amount for shipping that no American would buy from them?
You'd think it'd be harder for folks to pull this sort of thing face to face, but it sure doesn't seem to be; I remember back when I was in sales, and the office I'd been working out of was moved so far away that it was no longer reasonable for me to go there, and the moronic corporate policy was that if you wanted to report to a different office you had to go there and beg to be taken on, as opposed to just making a transfer automatic upon request, so I went to the closest office to talk to their manager... and she looked me right in the eye and said, "I think that what's best for you is for you to find some other company to handle your clients." I looked HER right in the eye and said, "No, what's best for me is for YOUR office of THIS company to handle my clients, rather than my having to waste time going to other companies and trying to get one of them to take me on when I'm not trained in their procedures"... you should have seen her face. She didn't have the grace to admit that I was right, just snippily altered her pronouncement to be that she'd decided I wasn't going to be in that office and that was that; if she didn't want me in her office, fine, but what was she thinking trying to make out like she was doing what was best for ME?
Probably the most astounding example of this sort of thing came when my husband and I were making the arrangements for our wedding. The folks that provide wedding services in general seem to make it a point of pride to try to push anything BUT what you ask them for on you, so there must be some sort of odd psychology going on with those who're about to be married that makes them infinitely suggestible, but one of the people we encountered in our search for a venue was in a whole other universe of trying to push ridiculous suggestions; she told us that she had a terrific room to show us, and dragged us across an entire complex, unlocked a door, and opened it with a flourish, saying "How about THIS for your wedding?"... and the room she revealed was a tiny, bare, dingy conference room. I'm not exaggerating; this woman, and it was made worse that this WAS a woman, rather than a man who might have no clue about what a wedding should be like, honestly thought she had a shot at getting us to agree to have our WEDDING in a room so unattractive that I can't imagine it being rented out for ANY purpose (and yes, I made the reality of the situation clear to her)... what was she thinking?
I'll never understand people like this, who are either utterly incapable of analyzing what a reasonable person's reaction will be to what they're doing, or don't care, because all they want to do is blither anything that comes into their heads, or see it as some sort of twisted game... all I can do is know that whatever the reasons are for the behavior, it's indicative of the doer not being a good bet to be in my life in any way.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Joel Osteen's latest, and being a "prisoner of hope"
Osteen said some interesting things in tonight's sermon, as always:
He waxed poetic with "hope is called the anchor of our souls"; it might even contain a grain of truth, if my idea about positive thoughts and feelings "building" our souls is true.
A central theme, again, was that we have to know there are good days ahead, get up every morning expecting good things to happen, expecting unpleasant things in our lives to change, saying to ourselves "I know this too shall pass" when a bad thing lasts a long time... because God will fix it eventually, he'd add, but I just look at is as change being inevitable, and change for the better being overwhelmingly likely when you keep your karma clean.
He warned not to believe "never and forever lies," such as "I'll never get a promotion" and "I'll be alone forever," because "the Enemy" is the one telling you those things, and they're untrue because God can fix things for you at any time... the trick is to "enable" him to do so by your expectations. I don't know if everything is fixable, but certainly many things are, and changing your mindset is a big step in the right direction whether you think God or karma will use the change in your energy to bring you the things you want.
Osteen said, as he did last week, that you've got to stay full of hope and expectancy; the new "layer" this week is that you should look at the things that are not seen, because they are eternal, while the things that are seen are subject to change... and if a thing can change, it's not so terrible if it's bad, because you're not necessarily stuck with it, so it makes sense to have hope.
The he gave me some real food for thought; he'd already covered in past sermons how negative emotions, such as anger and fear, can cause bad things to happen, and prevent the good ones, but tonight he said that even doubt and low self esteem can keep good things from happening. On brief analysis, I'd say he's probably right; low self esteem would certainly lead to negative energy indirectly because of the countless negative thoughts and feelings that accompany it, and it's also entirely possible that a negative frame of mind produces undesirable energy as well, and doubt is often accompanied by fear/anxiety, which is intensely negative... whether uncertainty is itself a negative thing will require some more pondering to come to a conclusion about.
He sort of lost me when he started hammering at the idea of being a "prisoner of hope," because I'm unfamiliar with the term, but I looked it up and found a site with a sermon that explains it, and it's actually pretty slick, in a vaguely convoluted kinda way (the asterisks are mine):
http://www.smlc-elca.org/Sunday_sermons/july_7_2002_sermon.html
"Prisoners of hope. These are words spoken by Zechariah this morning. It is a strange combination of words - prisoners and hope. Prison and hope seem to come from different vocabularies. Nevertheless, 'prisoners of hope' is the phrase that Zechariah uses to address the people of Jerusalem even as they witness the victorious entry of the divine king, and 'prisoners of hope' is an apt and appropriate and absolutely needful description of God's people today. We must learn what it means to be prisoners of hope.
Prison would seem to inhibit hope. A prisoner may wish he weren't in prison, but the walls and bars that surround him diminish that hope. Hope seems to presuppose a certain amount of freedom, and the lack of freedom dims that hope. I cannot hope to fly because I am a prisoner to my body. I cannot hope to retire to Hawaii because I am a prisoner to my specific economic circumstances. I cannot hope to practice surgery because I am a prisoner to limited mental and physical abilities. I cannot hope to walk into a bank and take all of its money because I am a prisoner to laws that prohibit that activity. No one is absolutely free. Everyone lives in some kind of prison, under some kinds of limitations that limit hope.
On the other hand, within the walls of prison are certain and specific freedoms. Just as prison prohibits some things, it permits others. The prison of my body may prevent me from flying, but it permits me to walk and run. The prison of my specific economic circumstances may prevent me from retiring in Hawaii, but it permits me to live in Estes Park. The prison of my unique mental and physical abilities may prevent me from being a surgeon, but it permits me to be a pastor. The prison of laws that prevent me from taking money from a bank permits me to borrow money from that bank. And even in those walled fortresses we call prisons where men and women serve time for breaking society's laws, there is freedom from want as the prisoners' physical needs are cared for and freedom of, say, thought.
In the broadest sense, then, a prison is simply a set of conditions that defines and determines one's behavior and future expectations. Prison does not take away all freedoms; it simply defines them. To say, then, that you and I as people of God are prisoners of hope is to name the condition within which our behavior and expectations are shaped and operate. ***As prisoners of hope everything we do and everything we expect are determined by hope.***
Hope, in the Bible, is fundamentally different from wish. Hope, in the Bible, is not the longing of the ten-year-old who says, 'I hope I get a bicycle for Christmas' or of the forty-year old who says, 'I hope I win the lottery.' Hope, in the Bible, is the confident expectation of good, the basis of ultimate confidence, and is always grounded in God. It is summarized in the sentence; 'My hope is in God.'"
This would appear to be a Biblical way of saying that we should fully expect good results from everything... which is just another way of saying that positive thoughts and feelings lead to positive results, which is a basic tenet of karma.
Have I ever mentioned how astonishing it is, to me and everyone who knows me, that I'm studying aspects of Christianity so closely?
Anyways, Osteen's next intriguing idea was that being a "prisoner of hope" allows God to repay you double for whatever you lost or lack, and that you have to be careful to not limit God by assuming that you'll get less, or nothing, because God can make a way for anything to happen, and will do more than you can ask or think if given the chance... and if you replace God with karma, that's pretty much what I've said about how you can make karma work for you, often in extreme and extraordinary ways, and how you have to be careful how you "project" what you want so that all the possible avenues for karma to deliver it remain open.
Another thing I've said is that karma isn't like a magic wand, wildly and instantly altering the universe to give you what you want, but has to gradually reshape reality to accommodate you, and Osteen said basically the same thing when referring to something in a person's life that's been bad for a long time and doesn't seem to be responding to prayers to God to fix it... that God's changing things behind the scenes, and then eventually it'll seem like He came out of nowhere to handle it, that it changed all of a sudden. You have to wonder why God, who unlike the engine of karma DOES supposedly have the power to act as a magic wand, would need or want to do things this gradual, "hidden" way rather than just imposing His will and moving on to other problems; it makes far more sense when I analyze how things happen the way they do when I leave out the omnipotent being who inexplicably chooses not to use his omnipotence.
It was an excellent sermon, as always... and I can't wait to dazzle my Christian friends with my understanding of this "prisoner of hope" thing.
He waxed poetic with "hope is called the anchor of our souls"; it might even contain a grain of truth, if my idea about positive thoughts and feelings "building" our souls is true.
A central theme, again, was that we have to know there are good days ahead, get up every morning expecting good things to happen, expecting unpleasant things in our lives to change, saying to ourselves "I know this too shall pass" when a bad thing lasts a long time... because God will fix it eventually, he'd add, but I just look at is as change being inevitable, and change for the better being overwhelmingly likely when you keep your karma clean.
He warned not to believe "never and forever lies," such as "I'll never get a promotion" and "I'll be alone forever," because "the Enemy" is the one telling you those things, and they're untrue because God can fix things for you at any time... the trick is to "enable" him to do so by your expectations. I don't know if everything is fixable, but certainly many things are, and changing your mindset is a big step in the right direction whether you think God or karma will use the change in your energy to bring you the things you want.
Osteen said, as he did last week, that you've got to stay full of hope and expectancy; the new "layer" this week is that you should look at the things that are not seen, because they are eternal, while the things that are seen are subject to change... and if a thing can change, it's not so terrible if it's bad, because you're not necessarily stuck with it, so it makes sense to have hope.
The he gave me some real food for thought; he'd already covered in past sermons how negative emotions, such as anger and fear, can cause bad things to happen, and prevent the good ones, but tonight he said that even doubt and low self esteem can keep good things from happening. On brief analysis, I'd say he's probably right; low self esteem would certainly lead to negative energy indirectly because of the countless negative thoughts and feelings that accompany it, and it's also entirely possible that a negative frame of mind produces undesirable energy as well, and doubt is often accompanied by fear/anxiety, which is intensely negative... whether uncertainty is itself a negative thing will require some more pondering to come to a conclusion about.
He sort of lost me when he started hammering at the idea of being a "prisoner of hope," because I'm unfamiliar with the term, but I looked it up and found a site with a sermon that explains it, and it's actually pretty slick, in a vaguely convoluted kinda way (the asterisks are mine):
http://www.smlc-elca.org/Sunday_sermons/july_7_2002_sermon.html
"Prisoners of hope. These are words spoken by Zechariah this morning. It is a strange combination of words - prisoners and hope. Prison and hope seem to come from different vocabularies. Nevertheless, 'prisoners of hope' is the phrase that Zechariah uses to address the people of Jerusalem even as they witness the victorious entry of the divine king, and 'prisoners of hope' is an apt and appropriate and absolutely needful description of God's people today. We must learn what it means to be prisoners of hope.
Prison would seem to inhibit hope. A prisoner may wish he weren't in prison, but the walls and bars that surround him diminish that hope. Hope seems to presuppose a certain amount of freedom, and the lack of freedom dims that hope. I cannot hope to fly because I am a prisoner to my body. I cannot hope to retire to Hawaii because I am a prisoner to my specific economic circumstances. I cannot hope to practice surgery because I am a prisoner to limited mental and physical abilities. I cannot hope to walk into a bank and take all of its money because I am a prisoner to laws that prohibit that activity. No one is absolutely free. Everyone lives in some kind of prison, under some kinds of limitations that limit hope.
On the other hand, within the walls of prison are certain and specific freedoms. Just as prison prohibits some things, it permits others. The prison of my body may prevent me from flying, but it permits me to walk and run. The prison of my specific economic circumstances may prevent me from retiring in Hawaii, but it permits me to live in Estes Park. The prison of my unique mental and physical abilities may prevent me from being a surgeon, but it permits me to be a pastor. The prison of laws that prevent me from taking money from a bank permits me to borrow money from that bank. And even in those walled fortresses we call prisons where men and women serve time for breaking society's laws, there is freedom from want as the prisoners' physical needs are cared for and freedom of, say, thought.
In the broadest sense, then, a prison is simply a set of conditions that defines and determines one's behavior and future expectations. Prison does not take away all freedoms; it simply defines them. To say, then, that you and I as people of God are prisoners of hope is to name the condition within which our behavior and expectations are shaped and operate. ***As prisoners of hope everything we do and everything we expect are determined by hope.***
Hope, in the Bible, is fundamentally different from wish. Hope, in the Bible, is not the longing of the ten-year-old who says, 'I hope I get a bicycle for Christmas' or of the forty-year old who says, 'I hope I win the lottery.' Hope, in the Bible, is the confident expectation of good, the basis of ultimate confidence, and is always grounded in God. It is summarized in the sentence; 'My hope is in God.'"
This would appear to be a Biblical way of saying that we should fully expect good results from everything... which is just another way of saying that positive thoughts and feelings lead to positive results, which is a basic tenet of karma.
Have I ever mentioned how astonishing it is, to me and everyone who knows me, that I'm studying aspects of Christianity so closely?
Anyways, Osteen's next intriguing idea was that being a "prisoner of hope" allows God to repay you double for whatever you lost or lack, and that you have to be careful to not limit God by assuming that you'll get less, or nothing, because God can make a way for anything to happen, and will do more than you can ask or think if given the chance... and if you replace God with karma, that's pretty much what I've said about how you can make karma work for you, often in extreme and extraordinary ways, and how you have to be careful how you "project" what you want so that all the possible avenues for karma to deliver it remain open.
Another thing I've said is that karma isn't like a magic wand, wildly and instantly altering the universe to give you what you want, but has to gradually reshape reality to accommodate you, and Osteen said basically the same thing when referring to something in a person's life that's been bad for a long time and doesn't seem to be responding to prayers to God to fix it... that God's changing things behind the scenes, and then eventually it'll seem like He came out of nowhere to handle it, that it changed all of a sudden. You have to wonder why God, who unlike the engine of karma DOES supposedly have the power to act as a magic wand, would need or want to do things this gradual, "hidden" way rather than just imposing His will and moving on to other problems; it makes far more sense when I analyze how things happen the way they do when I leave out the omnipotent being who inexplicably chooses not to use his omnipotence.
It was an excellent sermon, as always... and I can't wait to dazzle my Christian friends with my understanding of this "prisoner of hope" thing.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
"If only he'd notice..."
How many times have you heard a woman say that about her romantic partner? When a woman gets a new haircut, new shoes, new fingernail polish, whatever, she expects her man to notice as some sort of proof of devotion... which any man can tell you is just ridiculous, because men simply aren't aware of trivial stuff like that. I've seen this described as a biological thing, that the male brain has to be taking in the big picture because primitive men were in charge of spotting potential prey or predatory animals that could be anywhere in the visible landscape; women, meanwhile, according to this theory, had to be able to notice a few berries within the foliage of a bush, or the leaves of a plant with an edible tuber among the leaves of many other plants growing around it, etc, and so needed to be noticing tiny details. That all makes perfect sense; I've never heard that they studied people in current tribal cultures to see if this pattern holds true for them, or that they've got any other proof that this is anything but a slick way of explaining what our culture trains men and women to notice, though, so I don't know how much credence we can give those claims... and it doesn't really matter, because either way the reality is that straight American men tend not to notice minor elements of the appearance of things.
As the wife of a man who's worse than most in this area, I certainly get aggravated that he can't find anything without my help, even if it's sitting right out in the open, and fails to notice when he doesn't close a door all the way (despite the rats swarming just a few feet away), or that he's left perishable food out on the counter, but there's a significant upside to this, which every woman should be aware of; a man who doesn't notice stuff like the new pillows you put on the couch or that you're wearing your new earrings will ALSO not notice the things you agonize over about your appearance. You can have dark roots, stubble, or acne, you can have gained some weight, sprouted new spider veins or stretch marks, and he'll be blissfully unaware... at least, he will be until you TELL him, so quit wailing about trivial physical flaws and let him maintain the rosy airbrushed image that he sees when he looks at you.
So, ladies, if you're bemoaning that your partner didn't notice your new highlights or new jacket, ask yourself whether you REALLY want him to notice them when it means that he'd notice those new cellulite dimples on your butt and the bags under your eyes too... or if maybe you should just count your blessings.
As the wife of a man who's worse than most in this area, I certainly get aggravated that he can't find anything without my help, even if it's sitting right out in the open, and fails to notice when he doesn't close a door all the way (despite the rats swarming just a few feet away), or that he's left perishable food out on the counter, but there's a significant upside to this, which every woman should be aware of; a man who doesn't notice stuff like the new pillows you put on the couch or that you're wearing your new earrings will ALSO not notice the things you agonize over about your appearance. You can have dark roots, stubble, or acne, you can have gained some weight, sprouted new spider veins or stretch marks, and he'll be blissfully unaware... at least, he will be until you TELL him, so quit wailing about trivial physical flaws and let him maintain the rosy airbrushed image that he sees when he looks at you.
So, ladies, if you're bemoaning that your partner didn't notice your new highlights or new jacket, ask yourself whether you REALLY want him to notice them when it means that he'd notice those new cellulite dimples on your butt and the bags under your eyes too... or if maybe you should just count your blessings.
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