One common definition of a baseline average is this:
A baseline is a fixed point of reference that is used for comparison purposes. A baseline signifies a normal, expected value and makes changes from the norm obvious and calculable. Baselines can be used for anything from health concerns such as heart rate, cholesterol or weight, to financial matters such as income and expenses. Essentially, a baseline calculates as an average taken when conditions are normal and not influenced by unusual events.
That is not what America has had since January 20th, 2017. To repeat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech to Congress Dec. 8, 1941, it is now “January 6th, 2021, a date that will live in infamy…” for the rest of America’s history and darkest hours. A reality baseline became so elusive to half the nation for 3-years. It ramped up more starting in March 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic, then the November-December Presidential election with non-stop propaganda lies from inside the White House, finally culminating to the January 6th, 2021 scenes of what a cult leader and his cult are capable of doing. All reputable, licensed psychotherapists would describe this escalation from Trump as clinical Narcissistic personality disorder with delusional disorder.
This has become the image of the U.S.’s Constitutional baseline for the last four years
After the events that took place at the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday, January 6, 2021, that lead to five pointless deaths and the vandalism of the two chambers of Congress, any semblance of an American baseline has disappeared. Weapons were brought by the Trump-incited mob, including pipe-bombs and Molotov cocktails, as well as many USA chanting terrorists armed with their own riot shields, battering rams and baseball bats, and replaced what was remaining of American normalcy. Many of the Trump-incited mob were in full military combat gear. This is the image of violent anarchy, the antithesis of peaceful, law-based democracy:
Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they push barricades to storm the US Capitol in Washington D.C on January 6, 2021. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
It goes without saying, many Americans have completely lost sight of our Constitutional democracy’s baseline, the designed function of its supporting institutions, e.g. the Electoral College certification process, and its due legal, civil processes built into our three-branched government.
Our arrival to this unprecedented, disgraceful, globally embarrassing, beyond indecent, hate-driven insurrection and desecration of the citadel of democracy by our sitting President is so outside the parameters and spirit of a Republic and its Constitution’s guidelines of governing. Governing not by one narcissistic megalomaniac, but by a law-based, “trias politica” or equally impowered three-branched democracy. Nowhere in these two-centuries old basic principals is there mentioned or implied that one man or one office dictates his or its personal desires or seize total control of a nation ruled by laws, not ruled by men or one man. Why is that so often forgotten by American political (militant) extremists and armed protesters?
I have drafted this blog-post a number of times, but the insanity is now occurring so frequently and so fast that I have decided to give up and just publish this. Just an hour or two ago the news broke that Twitter banned President Trump permanently, finally! Finally a social-media platform/company is getting a clue about the serious legal ramifications of what is called criminal accessory. History has repeated and repeated multiple times how egocentric dictators gain control of their 88-million viewing cult members, i.e. gain control of the dissemination (platform) of information—as Joseph Goebbels did in 1939–1945 Nazi Germany—and/or in this case, starting a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol for a MAGA “show of strength.”
And then there are all the enablers of this insanely dangerous man FINALLY seeing what their cult leader is truly capable of and in which they supported blindly in denial. Either impeachment or January 20, 2021 cannot get here fast enough!
What do these four men have in common and what is uncommon between them?
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All four of them live(d) in the United States of America as legal citizens. That is one common denominator, but that is essentially where any similarities end other than genetics. What are the contrasts of these four men?
Three of the men play or have played in the NFL, one is no longer allowed to play in the NFL, and another was a fan of the NFL. Two are black men and two are white men, all from very different backgrounds inside the U.S. Three of the men are still living. Two of the men enjoy an extremely lavish lifestyle provided to them by their zip code births and family, the NFL, their respective team-owners, and brand-endorsements. One no longer has a career in the NFL and those rewards for simply going down to one knee during the imposed National Anthem before games to peacefully protest “police violence” on African-Americans and non-whites—a right provided by and protected by our U.S. Constitution and First Amendment for ALL U.S. citizens. One man was restrained by police officers and then suffocated to death by one officer, confirmed by two separate autopsies. The victim was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby market. Finally, two of these four men enjoy very different American lifestyles, legal protections and privileges under our laws and Constitution DESPITE the fact that all four men are/were legal U.S. citizens.
There must be another fact remembered here. According to our federal and state laws, all of us deserve equally certain and specific protections by these laws, even when “suspected” of a crime, before and during legal “Due Process” by our justice system. A popular catch-phrase for this is “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” Every single American citizen is provided these inalienable rights regardless of race, religion, color, creed, and sexual-orientation by the laws of the land, that is in theory. Economic or financial status SHOULD also be included and defined in these rights, but that’s another debate for another time and likely for a balanced, equitable U.S. Supreme Court.
Here is why I have gathered these four American men into a group. They currently represent citizens of the United States and the laws that are supposed to protect them. Perhaps I should have included Officer Derek Chauvin as well, but I chose not to in order to keep this post and topic somewhat brief and time-considerate. I will assume that most of my readers understand the purpose of American law-enforcement leading to arrests and probable cause (not sentencing!) for any police detainments and arrests, and followed by “due process” within our civil and criminal justice code and our U.S. Constitution.
George Floyd was suspected of passing counterfeit money. Did he deserve to die for this BEFORE getting legal representation in a court of law (due process)?
Colin Kaepernick was a star quarterback in the NFL who chose to peacefully protest police violence, a right provided to him by our U.S. Constitution. Yet, after his 2016 season and still incredibly talented, but released by the 49’ers, and then no other NFL team (31 other teams!) wanted to sign him, not even as a backup quarterback.
Jake Fromm is extremely outspoken about his personal religious beliefs giving him privileged success in football: “I want to represent Christ the best I can,” Fromm said. He later reemphasized his personal mission of proselytizing saying “I hope I can reach and influence as many people as possible. Let’s try to go and influence others, lead people to Jesus, and hopefully do the best we can with influencing them and hopefully shed a little light in their lives.” In 2019 during a Twitter conversation with a friend about gun-ownership Fromm tweeted “But no guns are good. They need to let me get suppressors,” then he added, “Just make them very expensive so only elite white people can get them haha.” Fromm has never experienced any trials or tribulations his entire life.
Drew Brees made comments during a June 3rd, 2020 Yahoo Finance interview about American symbols in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s murder and Kaepernick’s PEACEFUL protest against police violence. He said “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.[…]I think what you do by standing there[upright on your feet]and showing respect for the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity.” Brees is also recorded as stating his top four priorities in life in order of most importance. They are 4) philanthropy via Christian organizations, 3) football, 2) family, and 1) faith in Jesus Christ as he interprets it. The only trials and tribulations Brees has ever faced in his entire life are football injuries or team adversities.
What are your thoughts about my grouping and their bullet-points? I am curious to know, from any perspective. If possible, include your thoughts about social-media or freedom of expression today on social-media and how it is properly or improperly used by celebrities.
Late addition: An interview by ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter June 4th, 2020 is quite telling from a celebrity white-man’s perspective. Watch the entire 6-minute interview. It is very revealing what Dale Earnhardt, Jr., a popular American NASCAR driver—a sport dominated by the Old South or Confederate States, white culture, and most popular in the South—says about the murder of George Floyd, racism and police violence today in the U.S.
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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
With utter fascination last Wednesday night Nov. 20th, I watched one of my favorite PBS shows, NOVA. The title of the show was The Violence Paradox. The one hour show investigated how over the last 200,000 years Homo sapiens as a whole are living and dying less violently. In other words, comparatively speaking in the 21st century by the compiled numbers most human beings are living and dying more peacefully than in our past.
In his two published books The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) and its sequel Enlightenment Now:The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018), cognitive psychologist, linguist, and Harvard Professor Steven A. Pinker states on the show:
We’ve done something right. Let’s figure out what it is and keep doing it. The reality is that we may be living in one of the most peaceful eras in human existence. Violence has been in decline, but that just doesn’t count as news. You just never see a journalist saying, “I’m reporting live, from a country that’s at peace,” or “a school that hasn’t been shot up.” Once I stumbled upon this graph, I mentioned it in a blog post, and then I received correspondence from scholars in a variety of fields, telling me that I could’ve made an even stronger case. I saw data-set after data-set, all of which showed declines in violence, in different parts of the world, with different kinds of violence. And I realized there was a story that needed to be told.
However, Pinker wants to be clear about the explicit and implicit meaning of his findings so as not to be painted as a deluded optimist.
To point out that things were worse in the past is not to say we should relax, our problems are all solved, quite the contrary. It’s by understanding how our predecessors were able to drive down rates of violence that we can be emboldened to try to drive them down even further.
And this is where I was personally intrigued! How. How has this downward trend of violence, on the global scale, been achieved? What various factors and events have contributed to humanity’s gradual increase to more peaceful existences with each other?
I found the entire 1-hour 53-minute documentary to be powerful and yes, hopeful with tangible solutions and methods offered and that are in fact tried and tested for success, offering more reasons to keep this peaceful trend rising. What I found especially intriguing from the scientific and statistical findings was of the many factors scientists have connected to violence or peace, seven modern societal conditions and their related sub-conditions which guided humans either toward, hate, prejudice, and violence, or on a path of peace, collaboration, and prosperity. They were:
Government or State — the rule of law kept better peace
The Civilizing Process — economic order went hand in hand with social norms and manners, etiquette, self-control, etc.
Equality — learning about others with the same experiences (with empathy below)
Literacy — not just reading, but how much could be read about from a diverse continent or around our diverse world (e.g. Uncle Tom’s Cabin)
Empathy — feeling deeply about someone else’s plight and/or prosperity (linked with equality)
Biggest World Powers — the top major powers/armies are not fighting, at the moment
Testosterone Levels — today violence is no longer an effective tool to get something done or achieve conquest as it was before. Non-violent movements are 2-3 times as successful as violent movements
However, without these seven conditions above or just two to four of them or one or more in fragile existence, the whole of a civilization could collapse, returning it/us right back to Medieval societal hardships when one ruler or small group of “Lords” could easily become sadistic tyrants willing, forcing their subordinates into heinous acts or genocide. From the show:
NARRATOR: At SWPS University, in Poland, Tomasz Grzyb and Dariusz Doliński are revisiting a famous experiment first conducted in the 1960s by the American psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the aftermath of the holocaust, Milgram wanted to understand how seemingly good people could follow terrible orders.
Just as Milgram did, the experiment starts by setting up a fake study.
TOMASZ GRZYB (SWPS University): There are two participants, and there is a guy who presents himself as a professor of psychology, and he says that, “Well, you are a participant in an experiment which is devoted to find out how memory’s working.”
NARRATOR: Grzyb is masquerading as a participant, the so-called “learner.” The other participant is the “teacher.” Grzyb pretends to memorize sets of letters, but his responses are scripted. The teacher is told that the student is hooked up to the machine, and they must administer a shock, if he answers incorrectly.
Because the experiment is highly stressful for the real subject, the so-called teacher, it’s controversial. So, it will be stopped at 150 volts, the 10th switch on the panel, which, if real, would be an extremely painful shock.
Will anyone go so high?
This experiment showed that with a powerful authority figure or figures ordering the “teacher” to commit this violence—by fear, coercion, or perhaps blackmail—of the 220 participants, about 90% of them obeyed the orders. Many of us think we would never commit such heinous crimes on another, a baby, child, or adult, but this test and others like it suggest otherwise. Similar to the soldiers of Genghis Khan or the Nazi SS of World War II, all of us have the capacity to commit heinous acts given our personal circumstances and surroundings. Peace and non-violence are not a forgone conclusion.
There were two other fascinating facts the show presented: 1) the Availability Heuristic, and 2) strong Gun Regulations, particularly on assault weapons, cut in half or more, crimes of homicide and mass killings.
Availability heuristic says that a diet of news stories will fool us into thinking that violence is much more prevalent than it really is. This is very much the case with social-media bombardments of a specific (viral?) topic. On the contrary, this very narrow propaganda or sensationalism (for revenues) does not factually represent the overall global or continental trends.
Gun regulations that are widespread and strong, e.g. in 1996 Australia, contribute to significant reductions in suicide, homicide, and mass-killing rates according to these studies, click here.
Finally, an international program called Cure Violence, ranked #9 in top 500 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) in the world, stops the spread of violence by using the methods associated with disease control. And cities around the world have turned to Cure Violence to prevent violence—from the United States to Latin America to the Middle East. One method utilized in Iraq (based upon Contact Theory) is through a football/soccer league where teams must have players of various ethnicities, religious beliefs, and/or social classes, even if historically opposed, in order to enroll and play the season. In football/soccer their are no national, ethnic or religious boundaries. Players and their families are also encouraged to socialize off the soccer pitch in restaurants and home-gatherings. The soccer league and additional off-field activities have been a huge success! How about that Ark! 😉
If you ever have the chance to watch this outstanding documentary, The Violence Paradox by PBS NOVA, I highly recommend you do it! It is well worth 2-hours of your time and undivided attention. Most of all, it shows us clearly how to understand our lesser nature for violence, but more importantly it gives us proven solutions and methods of stopping the spread of the violence disease and it becoming a repetitive epidemic.
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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
Just like as in a nest of boxes round, Degrees of sizes in each box are found: So, in this world, may many others be Thinner and less, and less still by degree: Although they are not subject to our sense, A world may be no bigger than two-pence. Nature is curious, and such works may shape, Which our dull senses easily escape: For creatures, small as atoms, may there be, If every one a creature’s figure bear. If atoms four, a world can make, then see What several worlds might in an ear-ring be: For, millions of those atoms may be in The head of one small, little, single pin. And if thus small, then ladies may well wear A world of worlds, as pendents in each ear.
—— Margaret Cavendish, “Of Many Worlds in This World“
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Music: “Ocean” by Azam Ali & Loga Ramin Torkian from the album, Lamentation of Swans: A Journey Towards Silence
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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
My Mom and I have a chronic skit. Recently they are centered around the operation of her newest cell phone. The year before it was the operation of her new Dell desktop computer, the modem, router, printer, and the cosmic-concept of wifi communication. Before that, the new HD television and the list goes on. In a repeating rhetorical exercise over the years, one of my first questions to her is usually, “Have you read the manual yet?” She knows it’s coming at some point, so she intentionally tries to sound smart, using big techy words (that are a bit outdated), to divert the inevitable question. Numerous quippy comical jabs at each other follow, always ending in laughter. I’ve become comfortable and overly entertained with this predictable cycle. It’s always provided us several big smiles.
But that’s my mother. It doesn’t always go so well in the real world, does it? (line break)
* * * * * * * * * *
Understanding the mechanics has so many applications in life. One common and popular application would be with your automobile(s) and driving. To get from point A to point B it is important to understand the operation of your vehicle and traffic tips and laws. Many might say it’s critical, myself included. When instructing me on the extra tips, knowledge, and nuances of driving — the stuff the nearby DMV does not cover — my father would often preempt our lesson saying “a vehicle is a lethal weapon.” Stark perspective gained Dad, thank you. He used the same type of instruction about guns, rifles, firing them, and storing them.
Like myself, most of us men grew up learning and doing the outdoor chores: mowing, edging, trimming, etc. In one particular instance when I was 13-14 years old, my father saw the perfect opportunity to teach me about the love-hate marriage between me and forces bigger than me; unseen misunderstood forces that can really hurt. I posted about this lesson (Click here) if you care to read about it in more detail. To earn a little cash I would sometimes do our next-door neighbor’s yard while they were out-of-town. I had to use their lawn equipment unless I wanted to pay rent to use Dad’s. No way! Profit, profit, maximize profits was my youthful M.O.! Cha-ching!
Their grass-edger was mechanical, a 1-cylinder driven blade on the side, as opposed to our edger, a half-moon blade I’d have to step on every 8-12 inches in the gap between concrete and grass. Starting the neighbor’s mechanical edger was a breeze, as I imagined all the dollar bills being stacked in my hand. You pull the string just like our lawn mower. Turning it off, however, was a mystery to me. I went and got Dad to show me how. With their edger you had to push this L-shaped piece of metal onto the spark-plug to short out the electric current to the cylinder. Pffft, easy. I reached down to that piece of metal, pushed it firmly onto the spark-plug…WHAAM! I was nearly knocked to my ass! With the biggest white-eyes I looked up at Dad, bewildered. “What happened!?” I had done exactly what he told me! Dad pointed at the still running edger, “Turn it off.” I thought to myself, maybe I didn’t hold it on the spark-plug long enough. WHAAM! Once again I was nearly knocked off my feet. Now with tears in my eyes I looked up at Dad’s unphased expression… “Turn it off son.” The third time I tried to hold the metal-breaker down even longer — only making the pain worse and my muscles begin to quiver. I was on the verge of bawling when I looked at Dad’s unchanged expression.
I could not bring myself to try a fourth time. When Dad realized I couldn’t, he calmly pointed to my other hand holding the metal handle-bar. “Move that hand to the rubber-grip,” he explained “then turn it off.” The damn beast died immediately.
Forces unseen, misunderstood, and bigger than me. Check. (line break)
Medical doctors and EMT’s must understand the mechanics of the human body to prolong lives. Marriage, love, relationships are no different. In order to communicate well with our loved ones, not only must we learn the basics of language to be understood, equally we must understand the mechanics of how others use it. Honestly, we should want to be experts at it, both parts, and not just to get by and leave it in the grey! The mechanics of parenting and raising children are perhaps even more important and more demanding than communicating and understanding adults, do you agree? Dad was a hardened cattle-hand and rice farmer, degreed in mechanical engineering from U.T. in Austin, former U.S. Marine, and well versed in precise communication. In his own way, correct or not, my father also knew how to use non-verbal mechanics to teach me one invaluable (life-saving?) lesson about electricity that I can never forget. There are times when simple words will not convey the magnitude.
So why, in the settings of community, conversation, love, family, SOCIAL-MEDIA, or government and politics, are we ever content with just the bare basic mechanics of dialogue which often fall into the fog of ambiguity?
A recent example…
A good friend of mine posted on a popular social-media website (FB) a picture I felt, and obviously he did to, conveyed the absence or ineptitude of federal legislation to stay on top of Wall Street and the activity of billion-dollar interest-earning corporations. The image is above.
The message resonates deeply with me because I am and have been an educator — 5th thru 8th grade Generalist and passionate about Social Studies and Science. Our young students, primary, secondary, and certainly college, are our nation’s hope and future. They are the potential leaders for our own children and grandchildren! The image has a lot of truth to it. This was my comment about it to my friend:
“Many a wise man have stated correctly that you give a man too much power or money, sooner or later both WILL corrupt him. History has proven the same in organizations or empires, particularly those who grow obese and disengaged from the very hands who fed them. Perhaps it is time to promote the eternal value of collective virtues rather than beguiled individual “success” or wealth. Foolish is the CEO and 1-percent who believe their ivory tower was built solely by their hands alone. Everyone enters this world from the womb of need and then one day leaves it in hospice. Never forget your REAL place in this world.
That’s my version, the short one.“
Then a complete stranger to me chimed in… from here forward named Cymbal:
Cymbal: “So people aren’t successful because of their own efforts. Spoken like a true Marxist.”
Myself:“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” — Albert Einstein
Myself:“The difference between “success” and “value” is an ocean. Wouldn’t you agree Kelly?”
Cymbal: “Lol.. project much?”
Jax Jacqueline: “Most of the ppl now would be way better off going to one of the countries that now offers free college for Americans.”
Myself: “Jax, which not surprisingly explains why many nations, particularly the northern European countries, are ranked ABOVE the U.S. in a plethora of educational and quality-of-life tables. For example: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/“
Cymbal: “Yea I’m sure life is so much better in Poland than in the US. Or by quality of life do you mean tax payer provided services?”
Cymbal continued his snippy semi-rude remarks despite my words. For the complete debate-dialogue (if it can be called that), click here. Click the image to enlarge.
Whether someone had the more convincing argument or position is not my concern here. My point is the minefield created between foreign parties or people, including on social-media, when lazy content basic dialogue and mechanics exist. Furthermore, what vibrates and disturbs that minefield, making it more volatile, occurs when one or both parties fail to rebalance their talking with listening, or in this case reading the entirety. It follows that the level beneath a statement(s) on the conversation-blueprint if you will, is understanding the mechanics and dynamics of the whole machine to appropriately operate it. Or in my painful childhood case, knowing How To Operate A Mechanized Electrical Edger!
I could write several posts about the enormous importance of civil debate or dialogue. Its use carries over into a long list of daily, human interactions, and the acute awareness of self. But I will spare all of you the laborious hours (laughing permitted) and skip the list. I do, however, want to share some film clips from two Directors who more eloquently express what it is I am trying to communicate. First, Stephen Spielberg. The dramatic scene is in two separate YouTube clips, in the following order. I beg you, watch both fully…
Without a doubt, Thaddeus Stevens’ 1865 speech to the House regarding slavery is today a foregone conclusion: the majority of Americans prohibit it. Yet, almost 150 years later Americans and our judicial courts are still dealing with various forms of racism, e.g. Ferguson, MO., modern-day George Pendletons in the Lincoln clips. Representative Stevens might well exclaim today, “How can I hold that all men are created equal when here before me stands…the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Creator with dim wits…” but in the end, even Pendletons deserve some dignity and respect (before the law) if one must rip it from the deepest abyss of their human decency… it must be done! Right there, THAT is why professional, refined dialogue and the fortitude to understand ALL the mechanics and dynamics of a message or issue, are paramount to the survival and civility of a species… a species which is expected to be superior on this planet. Verbal abuse, violence, or war can never breach that sacred articulation.
In colonial America there was never a more charged, igniting relationship between statesmen which evolved into an endearing lifelong friendship than between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. How did these two highly intelligent juxtaposed men coexist? By superb discourse and acute listening; skills requiring great effort, time, and exposure to diversity. Who is the other Director who so eloquently portrays this point? This is a scene from Tom Hooper of the HBO Mini-series and the Pulitzer Prize book, John Adams. Ben Franklin is played by Tom Wilkinson, John Adams by Paul Giamatti, and Thomas Jefferson by Stephen Dillane:
Adams and Jefferson were two gifted communicators and more gifted debaters, each giving deserved respect to the other.
When I happily watch this seven-part mini-series over and over, I sometimes ask myself, who else can I note with such remarkable oratory and writing talent? The late Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi come to mind. Another is former four-star General and Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Perhaps a no-brainer would be the 16th U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln. And not to forget great women, Eleanor Roosevelt and Marie Colvin, to name just two, stand out to me as superb speakers. How much more peaceful and enriched would our earthly experience be if 50, 60, or 80% of a population earned and acquired the same skills? Would more embarrassment or conflict be averted? I should think laughing would be more common, even epidemic, if human discourse were an art en masse and not an anomaly. (line break)
It has become my impression since the dawn of the internet, especially now with social-media addicts and a world fast becoming more Wifi connected, that an increasing number of people (at least in Texas and parts of America where I’m exposed) are lazily content with quick elementary dialogue and mechanics. For some time now I have been one of those nauseated with my speaking and writing skills, and trying to advance them in earnest. There is still much room for improvement. And what of acronyms? Unless mankind has mastered infallible telepathy or they are the codes of action used in live military combat where half-seconds count, acronyms are the epitome of lethargy anywhere else. I would be thrilled if proven wrong!
In a routine of convenience, impatience, and fundamentalism, mastering advanced language mechanics cannot be understated. Why? One noble reason is to have the ability of recognizing immoral and/or unethical rhetoric and manipulation — remind you of anyone or group in a particular field(?) — then protecting the greatest good for the greatest number. With each passing decade it is not enough to simply be free.
Two quotes I am fond of apply this idea…
“Patterning your life around other’s opinions is nothing more than slavery.” – Lawana Blackwell
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” – Adlai Stevenson
Whether it’s good or not, we are inextricably tied to our fellows, our countrymen, our colleagues, our bosses, our coworkers, on many levels. Obviously we are inextricably tied to our spouses, our parents, our children, our siblings, even extended family. But it goes further. Modern genetics and DNA research has all but proven this: globally there is less than a one-percent difference in all of us; every living human being. In many contexts we are all connected. What we choose to do with those vast similarities and their interactions hinges on how well or how poorly we express ourselves and strive to understand what we hear or read. We will either be progressive and ingenious with dignity given and received, or we will be digressing, destructive, divisive, and impatiently ignorant, subtly devoid of common decency. No matter how annoyed I might get with a “Cymbal,” I must strive to find the strength and patience to coexist with them, and the respectful (eloquent) dialogue vital in the temporary struggle, always.
What sort of world do you live for, fight for, are willing to die for? Is your World Operator’s Manual small and unchanging, or perpetually growing? Let me put a different lens on the question: Is your Family Operator’s Manual small and unchanging, or perpetually growing? Do you have a library of manuals? Is the library designed to expand or remain stagnate collecting dust? The word for today is Impermanence! Actually, is it not 365 days a year? Maybe the question should be “Are you and I keeping up?”
I have on my bathroom mirror this sticky note: WOMS? It means World Operator’s Manual Status. I pronounce it “WHUM-s”; what’s my WHUM-s status, to remind me daily to find more strength, energy, and patience to understand the mechanics. Do I want to be slammed to the ground in tears by a motorized-edger, or would I rather learn how to wisely operate it and create a beautiful lawn and garden?
Can you use an upgrade in your oral and writing skills, beyond the high school level? Name one or two specific areas and the context below.
(paragraph break)
Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it
In his two published books The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) and its sequel Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018), cognitive psychologist, linguist, and Harvard Professor Steven A. Pinker states on the show:
However, Pinker wants to be clear about the explicit and implicit meaning of his findings so as not to be painted as a deluded optimist.
This experiment showed that with a powerful authority figure or figures ordering the “teacher” to commit this violence—by fear, coercion, or perhaps blackmail—of the 220 participants, about 90% of them obeyed the orders. Many of us think we would never commit such heinous crimes on another, a baby, child, or adult, but this test and others like it suggest otherwise. Similar to the soldiers of Genghis Khan or the Nazi SS of World War II, all of us have the capacity to commit heinous acts given our personal circumstances and surroundings. Peace and non-violence are not a forgone conclusion.
The Professor's Convatorium 