Category Archives: Social Rules

Life Q & A

08/02/2014 X Teri

We should all be required at about age 18 to sit down and do a Q & A about our views on life, religion, children, or education. If not 18, then whatever age we stop going to school or actively learning. Most people disengage from active learning at the end of school, so that’s a great benchmark. (Although I know many who mentally left school at a much earlier age, even though their bodies still went to and from school for several more years.) Possibly, we could do one Q & A after high school and another after college, with followups every 20 years.

The Q & A should be filmed so that we not only get to see our words, but also hear our voices, see our bodies and clothing, and get an idea of the our “vibe” from the past.

Anytime as adults that we forget our previous ignorance, we should be forced to watch the Q & A. If the stupidity in our lives is large enough, the Q & A should be posted on the internet for a varying circle of people to watch. Humility and forgiveness would be much more likely in our hearts, as we observe people who are the age we once were – and as they do incredibly stupid things, we would be less likely to jump in and judge them. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I did and said some ridiculous and stupid things. Some of them seemed smart at the time. Only time and looking at things differently convinced me otherwise. No amount of ridicule or shame back then would have been able to show me the truth of that.

We should give today’s younger generation the same leeway to run off the rails so to speak. Did we quit school? (Or do poorly when we had such great opportunities?) Did we make horrendous decisions about love? Did we drink, smoke or joyride at the expense of other priorities? Did we turn our backs on friends and family due to our own selfishness? Did we ever steal or take advantage of someone? Did we use or threaten violence instead of just rolling our eyes and ignoring our own self-importance?

One immediate advantage of this type of “life Q & A” is that it will prove to us (once we’ve forgotten) that we are constantly wrong about things, or at least that our beliefs have changed. If they’ve changed, that means we weren’t as smart as we thought we were at the time. Being able to go back and compare our thoughts along a timeline will also allow us to see that our opinions can and do morph as we see more of the world. Many of us unwittingly go through life falsely thinking that we’ve been steadfast in our beliefs and opinions. (Which I think is dumb. Unlike most, I think changing one’s mind is a great sign of learning. It’s not wishy-washy or flip-flopping.)

A record of our words also might make us shriek in bewilderment at some of the things we once thought were important.

If we die, we then have a video record of how we feel abut the world. Would people be honest on these or would they be cautious with their words? I’m a huge proponent of letting our daily lives be our eulogy. If we’ve done it right, each of us has already left our legacy imprinted in the way we would have liked.

Death, Social Rules

Living Wills or Healthcare Power of Attorney

08/02/2014 X Teri

It’s that time again, the time when I ask everyone if they have a living will or power of attorney in the event of a tragedy or emergency.

Almost without fail, the answer is ‘no.’

Without one, you are going to be at the whim of whomever is around at the time. It probably won’t be the person you trust the most, the doctor you like, or your best friend. It will likely be the sister you loathe, or the mother who abandoned you fifteen years ago in another violent fit of rage.

(Sidenote: In a society which incorporates organ donation with the ability to drive, I would like to know why we don’t have a default system in place for living wills and all similar tools to help us live and die as we wish.)

Seeing families argue, sometimes with great abandon and anger, over the guilt-filled issue of whether someone should be put on life support, be administered CPR or any other critical question has only hardened my opinion further.

Here’s the secret: most people want NO extraordinary efforts to save them if they are older or if they are so physically damaged that they will never live a normal life. Our fear of death or disability is so entrenched that it clouds our ability to make decisions in advance of the need. While most people don’t wish to be put on life support with almost no hope of recovery, their guilt almost universally makes them unable to say so when they are deciding for their loved ones.

We prolong our loved ones lives, praying and hoping for a miracle, most of time while knowing that they would prefer to be let go. In many cases, some of us would rather be ‘medicated’ into a relaxed death, even though we might survive in the strictest sense of the word.

There is no shame in letting a person die as they wish.

The shame is that so many of us haven’t taken a moment to ensure than no one has to stress about what to do with us as medical emergencies happen. If my head is smashed in and I’m in a coma or brain dead, doctors might be able to save me. But at what cost? I’m just one human being among billions. People will miss me. But I would rather them miss me at the end of a normal run of life, not at the long, torturous end of a medially-prolonged trauma.

Diuturnal, Family, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules, Writing

A List of Warnings About Writing Anything (Previous Post From Very First Blog)

08/02/2014 X Teri 2 Comments

This post will be edited and reposted infrequently, both as a reminder to anyone reading and as a warning to myself. Especially for those of you who might have family, friends, or enemies. (These three categories are often fluid.)

We are all subject to fatigue, brain farts (medical terminology – sorry), inattention, sloppy thinking, etc. Mistakes will happen, words will escape our grasp, and meanings will be implied that weren’t supposed to be.

Sometimes, even when you are willing to write perfectly, you lose the initiative and get lazy. This type of writing often turns out to be the simplest possible method of expressing yourself, but you won’t recognize lazy writing until you start to revise it.

Even the best writers sometimes fail at adequately expressing ideas.
Everything written can and will be taken out of context. And when you least expect it. And in the worst possible way of interpreting it. If you write a few words about why you dislike licorice, your words will be later applied to indicate that you hate small children and drink your own urine.

Sometimes, what we write is used in context and still wrongly interpreted either through the reader’s malice or through lousy writing.

Every reader has active filters, affecting the meaning of words. Not all such filters can be avoided by stellar writing. (A crazy person can pick up your words and falsely believe that you are threatening their lives. An argument to the contrary doesn’t appease the crazy person – it only serves to amplify the belief.)

Continuing to explain an idea after a reader or listener has expressed hostility or less-than-gentlemanly response is a waste of time. You can’t “win” once this occurs. Stop trying.

Being right is an illusion. When you were younger, you falsely believed your ideas and actions to be correct; you aged and discovered that many of your thoughts, actions, and beliefs were probably just dumb. This process is still going on – but you can’t see it. That’s part of the human condition.

Even on a particular subject, people who have studied the subject exclusively their entire lives cannot agree. This is true with hard sciences, and it is doubly true for “soft” or subjective ideas. Someone is wrong – and usually, everyone is wrong to a certain degree, including me. And you, too.

Since everyone knows that I preach that it’s okay to change your mind if you’ve learned something new or experience something honest or new in your life, be prepared for the infinite shelf life of the modern written word. You might have espoused horrible ideas when young and later recognized the error of your ways. However, when you’re 35, don’t be surprised when a self-serving revisionist uses what you once believed as current evidence of your stupidity, vileness, etc. They’ll quote you at your worst possible moment. That you no longer think it will be irrelevant.

Waiting until you are perfectly able to express yourself usually means you’ll never get around to it.

Death, Social Rules

Dealing With Our Mortality

08/02/2014 X Teri

While etiquette and courtesy demand an all-inclusive list of “thank yous” to each every person who has brought food, flowers or favor, I would ask that we throw that convention out the window. Most people I know who go through the death of a loved one are trying to avoid drowning in life. Factor in the supposed requirement of “thank yous” and the potential for stress, guilt and ruined future relationships increases dramatically. If someone has forgotten to thank you for something you have done, especially following a death, please consider yourself lucky that you aren’t the one who experienced the loss. If you care about the person grieving at all, you will ‘forgive’ them immediately with no further thought or comment about the supposed injustice done to you by the lack of an appropriate thank you. If you help a person following a death, please consider your act, gift, or assistance to be reward and acknowledgement enough. While it is true that a grieving person should lean on family for assistance with mundane details, I ask that you step back and assume that grief is almost killing the person who is suffering. The family and friends should be more focused on keeping grief from overwhelming their loves ones. The endless tasks and details of life have their place and I would hope that everyone could try to keep these things in proper perspective. We are all just renting space on the face of this planet. It will one day be our passing keeping our friends and family from moving joyously forward. Let the non-essentials fade to the background and allow shared moments with family and friends take precedence.

This post isn’t about the philosophical meanderings of what ‘it means,’ or even what is important.

Most of our lives are spent with the mundane, trivial aspects of life. More so than the epic moments, the quiet moments experienced minute to minute tend to become our lives and define us. It’s not the shouts; rather, it is the whispers which fill our lives with love, hope, and meaning. A quiet “I love you” when you make eye contact while washing the dishes, the smile of a child laughing at someone ridiculous, or even a shared eye roll at some minor stupidity constantly witnessed in our modern lives: these things are the bulk of our lives, not the proud majestic Kodak moments.

For those who haven’t experienced horrible loss or the incremental loss of someone you love due to illness, it is hard to imagine what it is like on the other side of the fence. Words as always don’t encapsulate either the agony or the ecstasy of being pushed toward coming to terms with the end.

When news reaches our ears of the passing or impending passing of someone once dear to us, our heart swells, as we don’t like the reminder that life proceeds whether we are here to mock it or not. One day, it will soon be upon us to face it, without opportunity to veto or delay its arrival.

While the temptation to overload someone who is dying is almost insurmountable, each of us needs to stop for a moment and ponder what it must be like for not only the person dying but for those who are closest to them. The urge is to immediately reach out, flood the phones with emails, texts, and calls.

Please give those who are caring for the dying the benefit of the doubt if they try to slow down the barrage of visitors, phone calls, texts, and social media. If you are a friend or family member, try to devise a strategy so that those closest aren’t being sucked into an infinite loop of information texts, phone calls, emails, and social media. Two or three key people can more adequately manage the flood of people contacting the family.

While we know that we are overloading those involved, we can’t help ourselves. But we must try. If a person has 100 friends and family, you should stop and think of how long it would take to talk to each and every one of them for even thirty minutes. Upon hearing of someone’s passing, please think about how difficult it must be to carry on. While we need to hear and see words of well-being from those we love after losing someone, we also need quiet time.

I ask anyone who is losing someone close to constantly think of the balance we all need. We all want to see expressions of love and care, but also desperately want long moments of silence and interruptions, moments where we can choose to come out of the shell and be involved with people-when we are ready.

Instead of offering to help when needed, take pro-active steps immediately. Whether it is money to help with bills, funerals and expenses, gift cards for groceries. taking someone’s laundry to ease that household burden, doing errands: focus on “I’m helping” instead of “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” The person suffering with illness and death almost has no ability to prioritize. Let your compassion lead you to decide how best to step in and help without being asked. Most of us still feel guilty about asking for any assistance, even when we truly need it and even when we are drowning in sadness and life.

Politics, Social Rules

Not Voting Does Not Equal Required Silence

08/02/2014 X Teri 1 Comment

By way of introduction, I have never been one to criticize those who choose to not vote. A decision to not vote is not necessarily a dumb one and anyone who criticizes those who don’t vote is guilty of a horrible intellectual mistake.

Then again, even a cursory examination of my choices in life proves that I don’t have a clue about what in blazes I’m doing.

We have all heard the refrain all of our lives: “If you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to your opinion.” Please add this to the list of goofy things people say because they don’t have a better or more logical argument for you. Other than it is a factually goofy thing to say, it violates the very idea of our republic. Each of us has the option to choose our level of participation in all aspects of the governance of our society.

I admit that having a cynical attitude is a terrible justification for failing to vote. However, many people have legitimate reasons for arriving at their opinions about voting and the political process.

I vote. You won’t hear me disparaging those who choose not to, though, even when it is easy or glibly done.

Who has the biggest impact: someone who votes but can’t effectively voice their opinions and influence those around them OR non-voters who are very articulate and convincing? A motivated non-voter can do more damage to a political cause by using his intelligence to negate the appeal of a candidate or ideal.I concede that most non-voters tend to be apolitical and apathetic. But some non-voters are adept at making some interesting appeals to people who do vote.

Since I am rambling, I have noticed in my personal experience that the ones who grumble most at non-voters tend to be conservatives rather than liberal. It might be a bias in my mind, but I am careful about listening when I hear someone berating a non-voter trying to voice an opinion.

I try to remind people that registering to vote is a good thing, if only so that you can sign petitions and participate in other aspects of the system. If you aren’t a registered voter, you lose your voice in the petition process. It’s an important one these days.

When I was younger, I was caught up way too much in the political machinations and stupidity of it. My personal opinions about any specific thing weren’t that important in the scheme of things. I realized that getting irritated or worrying or arguing about politics was nothing more than a means to literally waste my life. Now, I enjoy watching other people stress and go grey-headed over things that they have very little ability to affect. I still admire people who can get out and try to get their opinions across, though.

If you can’t or don’t vote, don’t let people attempt to silence you. You do have the ability to keep talking, writing and participating. Voting is a small part of participating in our society’s system of politics.

Truthfully, I’m not sure that your money donated toward the political cause of your choice doesn’t have more impact than your vote.

P.S. Up to 2.5% of our adult population can’t vote simply because their states have stripped them of the right to vote under the ‘rules’ of criminal voter disenfranchisement. (Even if they’ve done their time, made amends, and are productive members of society.)

Religion, Social Rules

01292013 Polygamy

08/02/2014 X Teri

While polygamy is not something I would every personally endorse or participate in, I don’t see how it is our business if everyone involved is consenting. Likewise, if a woman wishes to have more than one husband, it is not my business to dictate to the consenting parties that it not happen. Except for a marriage license, multiple people can already live as man and wives or wife and husbands – by cohabitation, pooling resources and living together. And it’s legal, except for the “license.”

Again, going to the most-cited moral authority, polygamy was favored in the bible and still practiced when the new testament was written. I won’t bore you with the countless citations. If you disagree that the bible did condone it, stop reading – there’s no point trying to get into your head.

Are there legal issues with having more than one spouse? Yes. Does it make it difficult to navigate with multiple spouses? Yes, of course. Given that our society is rife with failed marriages, open marriages, etc, how is it more reprehensible to have multiple spouses than to have an open marriage when 1 or both parties have active sex lives outside of the marriage. There are already people in your community with a wife and husband and mistresses. There are plural marriages, even if they are so defined in the spirit of the word rather than the legality of its implication.

Why do Americans think that we have the ability to allow or regulate polygamy when it is between consenting adults? Because that is what is beaten into our heads. We didn’t reach this state through logic and understanding.

We reached it because it is too different from the expected norm of society.

We routinely tolerate or idolize those who have multiple partners, whether through marriage or mistress, as the saying goes.

The hypocrisy is on our part for condemning it, especially those whose roots branch from traditional Christianity.

Politics, Social Rules

08052012 The Drug War

08/02/2014 X Teri

In case I skip this topic, I am almost entirely against “the drug war,” as understood generally.

Before further comment, I’d like to point out that I have never even smoked marijuana, much less injected anything or snorted. I don’t have to worry about someone coming out of the woodwork alleging that I secretly used drugs – it’s never happened. In the interest of fairness, I had wanted to try marijuana, but couldn’t find the right circumstances. The potential risk of being tested after trying it were too great for me. I doubt that my employer would believe that I had done it just once to see what all the fuss was about. While it would be true, people who use drugs once are lumped together with hardcore users.

Many of our freedoms have been eroded by pushing them under the banner of drug eradication. Asset forfeiture is a great example of this type of lunacy. Imprisoning such a large potion of our population is another.

For addicts, focus and money should be on treatment, not punitive consequences, including jail.

Jailing someone for no “crime” other than using a banned substance serves no societal good, other than to condition the criminal mindset, build more jails, etc. Again, I am NOT advocating no consequences for drug-related crimes, just not for the drugs themselves. I’ve got the same mentality for gun-related crime, terror-related crime, etc – they are all crimes, regardless of their associations. Crimes should be judged based on their harm to other people.

Yes, we should pay for the treatment. All of it. To argue that we can’t or shouldn’t denies the cost we are supporting now. It’s ridiculous.

If a person is using an illegal substance (whatever that is) and there are no substantial consequences to other people, we need to stay out of their business. However, if you are driving and impaired, the legal consequences should be equal to those of alcohol, which I’m not too sympathetic toward.

I can understand the need for many people to want to punish drug users. But it serves no greater good. Not everyone who wants punishment for drug users is motivated out of self-righteous – but some are.

If your drug habit is leading you to further crime, yes you should be held accountable for the crime independently of the drugs. And treated. But drug use shouldn’t be permitted as a method to reduce your accountability.

And I can be quite often wrong.

Personal, Social Rules

11252014 Likes and Dislikes

08/02/2014 X Teri

It is tough to admit to a “dislike.” especially when it’s something you once “liked.” It’s like character assassination upon yourself. All your friends and family know you by your likes and dislikes. By changing them, you’ve changed who you are. People don’t respond well to change, especially when you’ve pulled the rug out from under their understanding of the world. It’s one of the reason people get antsy when you lose a lot of weight, stop drinking, start going to church, or just do anything differently.

Try giving up on a TV show! Whether you’ve watched 2 shows or 2 seasons, it is almost impossible to stop watching. More accurately, it’s impossible to ADMIT you’ve stopped. If you’ve seen the first 3 installments of the horrible Harry Potter movies, it is basically a federal law that you must watch all of them into infinity. Are you tired to the same stupid plot and antics in “Warehouse 13?” Too bad – you are doomed to watch every single barking episode or until the planet explodes.

Are you tired of eating your “favorite” pizza? Does the idea of eating another slice make you look around for shards of glass with which to exsanguinate yourself? Better start grabbing the broken glass, as suicide would be easier to explain than detailing WHY you dislike your once-favorite food.

In a similar vein, do you find yourself enjoying things you once didn’t? For example, you might have thought that country music or opera was akin to listening to retarded cats fight. Now, without even a head injury to explain your sudden bad taste, you would rather listen to opera or Brad Paisley butcher otherwise good melodies. Where looking at horseradish once evoked an intense physical need to vomit, now you feel euphoric and joyous and the chance to eat yet more of this stuff.

Advice: if you don’t like something anymore, stop: stop eating it, watching it, doing it. Like a band-aid, rip it off, so to speak. Be honest, the sooner the better. If your tastes have changed and you like something that was previously hideous, start eating it, watching it, doing it. Without apology – unless it’s illegal or stupid. If unsure, you can ask me. : )

If your wife likes opera and you honestly hate it, go every great once in a while to show your wife that you love her – but don’t pretend to like any aspect of opera just because your wife does. If Seinfeld is like a show about vomit to you, don’t pretend it’s funny. Your friends will be buying you boxed sets for Xmas. Don’t like family members buying you clothes? Tell them nicely to stop. If they persist, set them on fire – the clothes, not the family members – unless they don’t understand the subtle hint of burning clothes.

So, pay attention to your real likes and dislikes. And be prepared to change them as your tastes do.