Category Archives: A words

Affiliate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAffliction: (n) something that causes pain or suffering

Sometimes Webster is so conventional and bound by society that he (or she?) speaks words in the definition as synonyms which are not necessarily meant to be.

For instance, pain and suffering.

Even though it is a legal term, it is certainly possible to have pain without turning it into suffering. Matter of fact, most of the quality people I have known in my life do deal with some sort of affliction which causes them pain, but they refuse to succumb to the drain of suffering.

Is pain necessary? Let’s rephrase that. Is affliction necessary?

I think there are three things that go into making a good human being:

  1. Talent
  2. Perseverance
  3. Humility

I do not know if it is possible for us to gain the humility to display our persevered talent without overcoming a bit of affliction. After all, we admire the person who wins the race much more after we understand that the course was run while overcoming a sprained ankle.

Maybe it’s sick. Perhaps it’s a penchant we all have for the macabre or the bizarre. But affliction is what proves our mettle and confirms that we have overcome pain without languishing in our suffering.

Because on the other hand, if someone is in pain, and we know they’re anguish is real, after a while we grow impatient if they continually remind us of their suffering.

Affliction is what life gives us to determine our level of passion for our pursuits. It is the badge of honor we wear when taking our place on the victor’s stand. It is the proof that we were not only trained to achieve our goal, but worthy … because we endured to the end.

 

Affirmative

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAffirmative: (adj) agreeing with a statement or to a request.

I used to have a friend who was retired from the Air Force who continued to use military lingo even though he was no longer in uniform or toting a rifle. So if you asked him a question, instead of saying “yes” he would reply, “Affirmative.”

The first couple of times it was kind of interesting. Then, like most things which are repeated for no reason whatsoever, it was downright annoying.

First of all, I don’t know if “yes” really IS affirmative. I have said yes to many things in my life because they were needed, and had NO sense of affirming them.

For instance, even though I am not a political animal, I have always referred to whoever has held the Presidency of the United States as “President” instead of just using the person’s last name or some slang or derogatory term. In that way I was able to affirm their position without ever saying yes to the politics.

I do believe there are things we need to affirm even though we don’t necessarily agree.

This is at the heart of every fight in our system today: you can’t grant liberty and justice for all and start redefining liberty, justice and all.

There are things I would never say yes to personally but as a good American I do affirm them, because they are good for our common cause.

So affirmative, sometimes, is admitting it is none of my business. I sheath my sword and stop slashing with my opinions.

I have turned “yes” is a holy word–it’s when I add my heart and soul to my affirmations and I am willing to see these dreams through to a conclusion.

So for my dear friend who was grounded from the Air Force through retirement, I must tell you that I do not think “affirmative” is the same as “yes.”

For I do affirm your right, as an American, to pursue your happiness, but it does not mean I agree with all your choices.

Affinity

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Affinity: (n) a spontaneous or natural liking or sympathy for someone or something

I think it has a meter–yes, an “affinity meter.”

When I was younger I was more intolerant. My affinity for others was based on three criteria:

  1. Do I like them?
  2. Do they have enough money to contribute to a pizza?
  3. Will they be fun?

Anyone who didn’t fall into all three categories was pretty well nixed from my holy circle of friends. I felt fully justified. After all, who wants to be around someone you don’t like, has no cash flow and is a buzz kill?

I don’t know when this transition occurred, but one day it crossed my mind that people have bad days, bad seasons, bad histories, bad relationships, bad luck and bad karma. Sometimes we catch ’em during one of these “sunken” places on their journey instead of at the top of the mountain. And if you start throwing all the heavy boxes overboard, you will eventually get rid of some excellent treasure.

So as I’ve aged, I have changed my “affinity meter.”

  1. Do I like them?
  2. Do I understand why I don’t like them?
  3. Can I hang around long enough to find out if it would be possible for me to like them?

As you can see, the need for pizza money is gone.

Affinity is the awareness that because nothing is perfect and nobody has it all, we gradually take many people into our lives–to piece together the whole experience of fellowship.

 

Affiliate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Affiliate: 1.(v) to officially attach or connect to an organization 2. (n) a person or organization attached to a larger body

“Who are you affiliated with?”

“With whom are you affiliated?”

Whenever I hear either of these questions, I realize I am encountering someone who is discovering that I am not qualified to do what I do and is out to expose me or at least discredit my efforts.

It fascinates me that we live in a nation of freedom, liberty and supposedly independent thinkers, but we all scurry to the corners like cockroaches when the lights come on, making sure we have our little nest of individuals who agree with us, as proof of our credibility.

I don’t mind affiliating. I love to be around people. I enjoy folks. But I’ve always been a person who follows common sense with a side of spirituality and heartfelt emotion for dessert. Honestly, sometimes it’s difficult to sign on the dotted line with the causes made available to me because they don’t necessarily agree with that criteria.

  • I don’t make a good atheist–mainly because I believe in God.
  • I’m a horrible agnostic because I have actually seen faith work.
  • Republicans sniff me out and know I’m not part of the flock because of my generosity to people in need, and I am not totally convinced in the doctrine of “every man for himself.”
  • Democrats walk away shaking their heads sadly because I support the value of personal responsibility and don’t think that the taking of human life in any form, including abortion, possesses viability.
  • I’m a horrible Muslim. Bad knees. Can’t kneel on a carpet.
  • I can’t be Jewish. Too much ritual. Like my bread leavened.
  • Honestly, I don’t make a very good Christian because I like my life to be sparked by ideas instead of traditions.
  • I suppose in some ways I don’t make a great American male because I’ve never found pleasure in making fun of women when they’re not around.
  • Yet the females don’t accept me because … well, I guess that one is obvious.

I don’t have anything against affiliation. It’s just when I start following the butt of the person in front of you without seeing clearly where the crowd is heading, well … it makes me a little nervous.

So I have decided to try to get along with everybody the best I can, and in my private house of thought and worship, to allow the wisdom that trickles my way to rule the day instead of polling the masses.

So who am I affiliated with?

I guess anybody who’s willing to take me as I am.

Affectionate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Affectionate: (adj.) readily feeling or showing fondness or tenderness: e.g. a happy and affectionate family.

You gotta BE there.

It’s true, you know. There are some things in life that cannot be viewed, read, perused, discussed, debated or downloaded.

Affection is one of them.

In a climate where “lukewarm” has begun to feel “heated,” we lack such closeness and intimacy that it has caused us to become defensive with one another because we privately feel cheated of the tenderness we need to satisfy our souls, yet at the same time we push away personal overtures from those who try to get too close too quickly.

A lady warned me the other day, saying, “Watch out! I’m a hugger.”

I do remember attending a rock concert many years ago where complete strangers–thousands of them–came up to each other, hugging in groups of five and ten without explanation or apology. Yet to promote such an idea in our day and age would be cynically mocked as a “hippie philosophy,” a throw-back to olden times or impractical due to the spread of disease.

This culminated for me when I saw churches offering hand sanitizer to folks after they had the “passing of the peace.” I wish I had a profanity to express how upsetting that is to me. And please, spare me the explanation on why it is needed. I am fed up with the notion of what is needful and anxious for the pursuit of what is helpful.

  • I need affection.
  • I need to be affectionate.

Now, it doesn’t have to always be demonstrative, but it does have to be spontaneous and real. It can be reaching across a table and cutting up the banana of a friend who is making you coffee, or coring an apple for another friend so she doesn’t have to deal with stems and seeds.

When you lose affection in a society, you promote the idea of isolation. Once humans are isolated, there’s only one thing that takes hold–survival.

Is it possible that in the next decade we will begin to treat each other–all the time–like we do when we’re in a traffic jam?

Affectation

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Affectation: (n) behavior, speech or writing that is artificial and designed to impress: e.g. the affectation of a man who measures every word for effect

Carlotti loved women with a burning passion that seared his soul with a fire of desire over the fabulous feminine flowers that paraded before him. It was a concoction of tenderness mingled with a ferocity of energy that at times made him feel as if he would be of danger to a young maiden, yet greatly relieved when only pleasure came her way.

Although he felt this bursting exuberance for all the daughters of Eve, it was Darnella, the Lovely, who was the center of his attention, and a fuel to his consuming fire.

Complicating his drive and vigorous vitality was the fact that he was a vampire, so blended with his gentle touch was the uncontrollable desire to not only smell, feel and embrace the object of his affection, but also … to taste it.

But an additional grumbling and growling deep within the confines of his inner being was the awareness that because of an inter-marriage generations back in his family, he was also a werewolf.

How could he take the fragile Darnella and possess her with the entire magnitude of his virility without endangering her with the violence of the wolf?

Carlotti was a man possessed and obsessed at the same time. Nothing could keep him away from his Darnella. He desired to absorb her–not just for now, but for all eternity.

Ladies and gentlemen: affectation.

Or better phrased, a sampling of 21st Century American Literature.

Affair

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAffair: (n) (1) an event or sequence of events of a specified kind: e.g. the board admitted responsibility for the affair. (2) a love affair: e.g. his wife is having an affair.

There are three human emotions that collide to form what we shall call pleasure.

  • Excitement
  • Uncertainty
  • And a bit of danger

I will say that people who become involved in affairs are merely attempting to bring that trio of experiences back into their lives, since the humdrum and mundane is suffocating them.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to counsel people who have come through the ordeal of one or the other of them having an affair, trying to restore the relationship. Most of those conversations revolved around guilt and resentment. Let me tell you–there is nothing that is more of a turn-off to the human spirit than guilt and resentment. So in a voracious attempt to restore normalcy and intimacy, people forget what caused the problem in the first place: lack of excitement, absence of uncertainty and removal of a little danger.

We just expect sex to do too much. After all, it is really only fleshly friction brought about by stimulation in the brain. If the gray matter is excited, uncertain and feels a little danger, it takes care of all the foreplay and places us on an erotic journey.

What eliminates that sensation is guilt and resentment.

So in the process of trying to overcome an affair, the three main questions that are frequently asked end up being counterproductive to solving the dilemma.

  1. Why did you do it?
  2. How could you have done this to me?
  3. 3. How do you expect me to forget this?

If the perpetrator could be honest, he or she would say, “I got excited, I was intrigued by the uncertainty and I was tempted by the danger.”

After that, it was all making arrangements and mechanics.

In many ways I think we put too much emphasis on human sexuality, and in other ways our lack of understanding of what stimulates it renders us silly, if not insipid.

Here’s the truth: if your brain is not being stimulated at four o’clock in the afternoon by intelligent conversation, flirting and admiration of your lover, don’t expect any “skyrockets in flight” at ten o’clock that evening.

And if you happen to work with someone who excites you, generates uncertainty and danger, don’t be shocked if you’re grabbed by the nose hairs and pulled toward unfaithfulness.

The best counsel I ever gave people was to let them know that the affair was not due to an absence in their relationship, but a presence that appeared, bringing excitement, uncertainty and a bit of danger, which had dissipated from their experience.

We are people who need to be excited, feel some uncertainty and tingle with a bit of danger.

Without this, we start trying to schedule our sexual escapades on a calendar … right next to “Buy Groceries.”

Affable

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAffable: (adj) friendly, good-natured or easy to talk to e.g. an affable and agreeable companion.

The most important mission for any human being at this hour in history is to fight off, with great ferocity every inclination to join the vast ranks of the perniciously cynical.

To do this, we must begin to believe that it is possible for someone to be affable, joyous, friendly and open, without setting us up to gain a handout or manipulate us into buying something from them that is broken.

What we have begun to call “street wise” or even “prudent” is chock-full of sarcasm or even indifference, which is gradually smothering a dying breed of affable souls.

Getting into an elevator two days ago, I told the gentleman next to me that I was having a good day and hoped that he was, too. What thrust forth from every pore in his being was a combination of fear, sneering, anxiety and resentment towards my overture.

Probably three years ago I would have become angry at being rebuffed for simply being outgoing. But instead, I just became quiet. There is no way to argue with coldness. In so doing, you become frigid yourself.

I will continue to cast my pearls into the marketplace of life, but will certainly follow the advice of to avoid the presence of those who “oink” instead of returning with a “How do you do?”

It is well worth the effort.

“Affable” may be the only way we have to overcome the anger that lies beneath the surface of all the frustrated dreamers.

Afar

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAfar: (adv.) at or to a distance: e.g. our hero traveled afar

Here is a word that exists just so we can truly appreciate the value of being near. After all, anything we would really want “afar” is not really worthy of being discussed, is it? And if we’re actually going to travel, clarifying it by using a medieval term like “afar” seems a bit pretentious, if not culturally gross.

Yes, it’s another one of those words which, if we actually utter it, when it comes out of our mouth, it sounds like we’re posing for a painting, hopefully being admired by onlookers for our continental use of the King’s speak.

I feel sorry for “afar.”

Maybe it deserves better. Maybe it should be admired for having four letters and balancing two vowels and two consonants. (Yet how often would such an award of appreciation be available?)

I’m afraid “afar” suffers from what most of us do: it is too old and when it tries to insert itself into contemporary situations, looks a trifle ridiculous.

So here’s to the word “afar,” which quite honestly, from this point on … will need to follow its own obvious advice.

 

Aesthetics

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAesthetics: (plural n.) a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.

I will never forget attending my first film festival.

I had written two movies which had been honored for consideration. I arrived at the event thinking I would be sitting around, munching on bagels and cream cheese, drinking coffee and discussing the soul of my flicks. I thought we would get into plot lines, character evolution and maybe even get a little emotional over the impact of the material.

Imagine my dismay when the dialogue among the filmmakers turned to the aesthetics of camera angles, lighting and focus. Yes, the focus of the entire three days of celebrating film was what we saw through the lens instead of what we felt in our hearts.

It left me cold.

It left me hungry for an appreciation of emotion over the general worship of decor.

I am often uncomfortable living in a society which turns the Academy Awards into a fashion show instead of a study of theatrical application. We seem to be more concerned about how our lives are furnished than with furnishing the next generation with a vivid description of our lives.

I know aesthetics can be meaningful–maybe even deep. But the greatest moments I’ve ever shared were heart-felt, usually in a simple environment with people I loved, who were undistracted and unwilling to do anything but drink in the moment.

May we always be cognizant of the beauty, the quality and the expansion of our efforts, and may we never forget that what truly lasts … is what comes from the heart.