Personal

“Life Was Indeed Simpler.” But Not Better

Link to original image is on bottom-right corner of photo.

The temptation to drown in the “good ole’ days” is deceptively appealing. I miss my grandma something fierce when I remember her or think about some of my childhood. But then I remember that those chapters in life contained a lot of burned and ripped pages, too. Life is immensely better these days, surrounded by the few great people I need, with the world’s knowledge at my disposal. But grandma? She’d be shaking her head in bewilderment at the pace and complexity of our daily lives.

Social Rules, Writing

11292014 To Offend None Is To Delight Few

Bull Abstract Silhouette

Almost every joke can offend someone. No matter how innocuous its content or noble your motive, it is possible that your humor or words can cause pain.

This isn’t an excuse to deliberately go forth and start spouting hurtful things.

But it is a reminder to use your internal filter to acknowledge that someone, somewhere, might take your words or jokes in a manner unintended. You can’t censor everything you say out of fear.

Doing so weakens your ability to communicate.

Social Rules

11292014 We Are All Children of a Lesser God

Lying Sheep(1)
http://goo.gl/6o5zXV  link to original image

Recently, someone got very angry at me because I posted a comment consisting entirely of a snopes.com link. Whether you want to argue about whether snopes is always legitimate or not, the larger issue is one of denial of any opposing or contradictory information. That’s a real problem in society and much of the reason why we have difficulty interacting.

(But, let’s be honest, isn’t it a fabulous feeling when someone posts something inflammatory and crazy on social media and you find the snopes article from 3 years ago, debunking it entirely?)

One of my goals as a person and as a liberal is to remember to be willing to change my opinion with new information. I need to strive to keep an open mind – but not all ideas and ideology are predicated on the precept of learning and adaption to information and circumstances. All too often people have a “one-answer-fits-all” solution – and it is invariably wrong. As I look back on my life, I know that I’ve been spectacularly wrong about some things. This means that I’m probably wrong about some things today and I’ll be wrong tomorrow.

I don’t always need to be right.

We are all in some ways children of a lesser god, even if it doesn’t seem obvious to others.

But first and foremost, we have to open to learning instead of using our ideology to beat the same old drum.

Let’s play a new song.

(“Children of a lesser god” refers to the original idea implied by Tennyson, rather than a religious concept per se. I only mention this to avoid some people from reading some bizarre connotations into it.)

Social Rules

11292014 Angry Bigots Have Us Surrounded

Tree In The Bulb(1)(http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=79916&picture=tree-in-the-bulb   Link to original…)

 

A couple of days ago, I was reminded again how angry some people can be. It doesn’t matter what you say, what you do, or how carefully you treat them. When they are confronted or think they are being questioned, out come the fangs of anger, accusation, and humorless righteousness.

If you think your words of encouragement or soft-handed attempts to push them toward the light are going to be rewarded, don’t be surprised when you pull back your hand and discover that you are missing a few fingers.

I’m sure it won’t be the last I hear from this person, even though there’s no legitimate reason to interact again. But that’s how those with prejudices work – they simmer and get angrier that they can’t spew their anger openly.

As always, I hope it doesn’t make me fail to give the next person a fair chance.

Whimsical

It’s Just a Scratch!

“Sometimes the delete key is your greatest friend.”   – Steve Martin, “Pure Drivel”

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This certainly true for me. I’m constantly aware of my tendency to add too much extraneous detail. But in a quest to avoid perfectionism, it is a requirement to avoid over-editing, even when it might make the post or point much more interesting.

“Bonus level Jesus people.” I saw this phrase last week and it struck a chord with me immediately. I’m assuming you can imagine the inherent mockery in the context of the first time I read it? It’s one thing to meet a very personable person, someone with enthusiasm and charm, another to be kidnapped by a sudden verbal left turn into over-the-top religious nutjobbery.  I’m sorry, but no thanks, I don’t want to hear about how Noah’s ark is in modern day Iran. Please have pity on me!

“Just because someone blows smoke at me doesn’t mean I have to inhale it.” I apologize for not having the original source. In my defense, I saw it somewhere that I know for a fact wasn’t the source. I enjoyed the potential usefulness of this trite saying tremendously and can’t wait for the perfect opportunity to unwrap this zinger and mash it into someone’s nostrils.

“Life doesn’t make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy’s job is to point out that it doesn’t make sense, and that it doesn’t make much difference anyway.”
― Eric Idle

Gift, Whimsical

111242014 Creative Wrapping and Decoration

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Each of these packets is actually individually wrapped layers of envelopes, with each containing cash and pictures, bundled together into two separate packs.

I wish I had done a better of keeping pictures of all the hundreds of crazy wrapping and decoration jobs I’ve done over the years.

“The Dirty Sanchez.” My friend Chris got a surprise, using a funny picture I had drawn on the table at a mexican place where we had shared a meal. His wife asked me to quickly wrap it to conceal what it was, so naturally, I dragged out my picture of my on-the-fly artwork.

An example of a personalized letter envelope I made. I have made 100s of these over the years, usually in bright colors. For some reason, I liked this one in negative colors. When I was much younger, I once made weekly payments for a used car by making a different decorated envelope for each week’s payment. The lot manager had a display in his office with my payment envelopes on it.

A holding/storage box. Probably 2,000 strips of tape, a few hundred stickers, paper slivers, etc. The inside was completed decorated, too. One time, while working at Cargill, I had made one of these for someone’s son. As hard as it is to believe now, it took me about 60 hours of work, had several compartments, 2 of which weren’t visible and wouldn’t work if you didn’t know to press the inside corner to drop the extra compartments open. I don’t have pictures of it anymore.

Simple newspaper wrapping paper, shrouded in 4 8X11 color pictures of the recipient.

I wrapped this box with special photo art paper, then used a couple of dozen personalized pictures to cover the box on all 6 sides. Inside the top paper, there was an entire layer of about 60 wallet-size individual pictures, too.

From a few years ago. I used pictures after making them appear as pencil outline drawings. He loved the box!

This present is wrapped in special red paper, then covered with 200+ bandaids as a decoration. (She used to be a nurse, but the real reason I used them is because it’s cool and no matter how you apply the bandaids, it looks interesting.

From a few years ago. You can see that I used both color photos and outline pictures on colored paper to wrap many of the presents.