Category Archives: A words

Adage

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Adage: (n) a proverb or short statement expressing a general truth: e.g. the old adage is “out of sight, out of mind.“

Perhaps a better adage would be, “If you’re out of your mind, we’d like you to be out of sight.

Of course, that’s not really an adage, is it? Just a piece of wisdom.

When I think of adage, I always think of “the boy who cried wolf.”

I remember hearing the story as a young fellow and it put a chill down my spine. I’m not sure why–maybe because it combined a boy, a wolf, and due to the boy’s lies and deceit, he ends up being chomped by the creature.

But today I am wondering if the adage ever prevented me from deceiving. It certainly didn’t stop me from embellishing. And God knows, it did nothing to inhibit my spoofing.

I guess I just think that if an adage doesn’t scare some sense into you, it’s just a story that no one would make into a movie because … you couldn’t get the funding.

Don’t get me wrong–I like adages. I wish that parables and cautionary tales still had the impact they once did. Or maybe they never did, but we all needed some tiny piece of ourselves to pass along, so we told these little fables to create connection. I’m not sure.

But the essence of “the boy who cried wolf” was that if you continue to try to get attention by lying to people about the seriousness of your condition, when your peril does arrive, people will be less likely to believe you and come to your aid.

Obviously, this particular adage has not yet landed in the spectrum of the thinking of the average politician. Newscasters would never be able to put together thirty minutes of copy if they weren’t trying to alarm us into believing that the wolf is at the door.

And what preacher would be able to hold the attention of a congregation without the flames of some hellfire and the sniff of some brimstone?

But human beings are a pretty intelligent lot. We are more intrigued with taking things to the limit than we are with limiting how we take things. So I think we can continue to tell “adages,” but whether they will be applied into everyday life is rather doubtful.

It’s not that we insist on suffering the slings and arrows of our own stupidity, it’s just that often stupidity seems very intelligent to us, and we fail to notice that the slings and arrows … are already shot in our direction.

Ad

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

Ad: (n) an advertisement

dictionary with letter A

Sometimes it’s the way people choose to insult you.

If you’re promoting an idea, a product, or some particular outgrowth of your own efforts, they will accuse you of “advertising.”

Matter of fact, even though we are all basically slaves to the system, we simultaneously insist that we HATE ads. We’ll even try to edit them out of our television programs, and therefore insist upon our independence from such interference. But if we were really all that turned off by ads, Madison Avenue would certainly pick up on our distaste and stop making them.

Are there things that are worth advertising? Because quite honestly, I will put an ad out to the world if I believe in something. I’m not tight-lipped about it at all.

I only require three contingencies to stimulate my passion:

1. It needs to work. I would never want to promote something that was intermittent or just flat-out fails to deliver its promises. That’s the danger of both religion and politics–their adherents have secretly become unbelievers. So the followers are like an old rocker, traveling around from one concert to another in an old beat-up van, peddling t-shirts, who no longer believes in his own slogans.

2. It should make things easier, not harder. Even though I do not think laziness is a virtue, I think over-working is a much worse vice. If you want to improve the world, make a better mouse that doesn’t need to be trapped.

3. It needs to include everybody. I know there are products, ideas and even philosophies which seem to focus on a particular age group. Maybe this is necessary. But I find the greatest value of an idea is how well it can be applied across the board–to all races, genders, ages, creeds, and orientations.

There you go. What is worthy of writing an ad? Anything that fits the criteria listed above.

In other words, an ad should … add.

Everything else is just an imitation and derivation of the hula-hoop.

Anno Domini — AD

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Anno Domini A.D. (Abbr.) :In a specified year of the Christian era; “in the year of Our Lord”

I think the closest I ever came was when the town council of my little burg where I was born considered having a day designated to me because the musical I had written was going to be premiering in the capital city.

Unfortunately, the measure was voted down because one of the members of the board was an old rival from high school who always thought I had cheated him out of something or other.

So I, who was unable to get a single day of honor in my city of kin, am greatly enamored–and baffled–by how a rejected carpenter from a tiny village in Mesopotamia, who ended up executed for crimes against the state, managed to get the date of his birth marked as the beginning of modern time.

You have to be honest–there is either something magical about that or this guy hired the best damn Jewish agent around. Am I right here? Even when his name is spoken out loud in anger, it’s still great advertising: Jesus Christ!

I know there are those who cannot believe in a SON of God because they don’t believe in God in the first place–very similar to not wanting to see the movie, Son of Flubber because you were disappointed with the first Flub.

But in thirty-three years of human life, he did something right. Maybe we shouldn’t try to study him so much theologically, but rather, analyzing the chemical reaction of human experience. What did he set off that caused such notice and took him from the tiny, fragmented vision of the Jewish people, to dominate the Greeks, Romans, Angles, Saxons and even the Afrikaans and the Chinese?

His message was simple. That was smart. Even though he never had a car, he realized that anything you want people to remember should fit on a bumper sticker.

  • “Love your neighbor”
  • “Love your enemies”
  • “Blessed are the pure in heart”
  • “You must be born again”
  • “Do unto others”

The list goes on and on. Matter of fact, his famous Sermon on the Mount is merely a hodge-podge of many, many sound bites and slogans, glued together by a devotion to mankind and God. The message was so simple that even those who were considered foolish could grasp it, even if they didn’t embrace it.

And for some reason, a hundred and twenty of the remaining followers of this teacher, who survived the horror of his crucifixion, were not only willing to dedicate the rest of their lives to spreading the message, but sacrificed their lives in a belief about his resurrection.

In other words, I think it’s safe to say that most human beings might pursue a hoax if all it meant was that you had to travel and stay in cheap hotels. But when you’re standing in front of a judge and he offers you clemency, if you deny the message and then you choose death, it’s difficult to believe that there is not some credence to the original experience.

So I shall not lament the failure of my local city council–to grant me a day of recognition in my home town. But I will use the awareness of that slight to be in awe–that as I mark my calendar today, I honor the person with the message of love … who got the ball rolling.

 

Acute

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acute: (adj.) relating to a bad, difficult or unwelcome situation present or experienced to a severe degree: e.g. an acute housing shortage

Even though as a chauvinist nation, we refer to them as “drama queens,” there are certainly plenty of kings to go around, not to mention princes and princesses.

It seems to be fashionable–yes, that’s the word I would use–almost a cloak we wear, of feeling that we become more important by overstating our difficulties and over-emphasizing our struggles.

By no means am I suggesting that we should walk around in pain without seeking solace. I am not trying to insinuate that becoming a “John Wayne” type of character, with a bullet lodged in your shoulder as you continue to fight the Indians, is what is required in order to fall into the category of brave.

I just don’t think that everything that happens to us is cataclysmic or even necessarily worthy of a posting on Facebook.

In my own life, I fear that lamentation is a sad seeking in my soul–feeling sorry for myself instead of searching for resolution. For there are many problems people consider to be acute, which to me, sound not only solvable, but really, not even that difficult.

But if you play down somebody’s dilemma or try to eliminate their suffering with a quick fix, you will often be met with great resentment and anger.

So what is the best way to survive trials and tribulations without becoming whiny? There you go. There’s the quandary.

Because as much as we WANT to empathize with other human beings, we also want them to prove that they are part of our species by displaying a backbone and walking upright. See what I mean?

So I’ve come up with a little three-step process, which I think helps to keep me from becoming Billy Brat, who believes he’s being bullied by the earth around him.

1. Don’t think about your problems too long before you speak them out loud. I’ve never had a difficulty that lived in my brain which didn’t double in size every hour.

2. Be aware that there’s nothing new which hasn’t been experienced by somebody, so the solution may be embarrassingly easy. Of course we want to contend that our particular cross is unbearable, but usually it’s just a couple of sticks of wood.

3. Be prepared to have good cheer. Whether you end up laughing at your problem, giggling at the simplicity of the solution, or just LOL-ing at yourself for being so worried–humor is the only door of escape from stupidity.

I don’t think any of our problems are as acute as we think they are.

Maybe it’s because none of us are as cute as we think we are.

Acupuncture

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acupuncture: (n.) a system of complementary medicine that involves pricking the skin or tissues with needles, used to alleviate pain or treat various physical, mental and emotional conditions. Originating in ancient China, it is now a widely-accepted practice all over the world. 

“Widely accepted practice.” What does that mean?

Sometimes I think books like the dictionary or magazines—or even newscasts—want to appear hip and cool by portraying that oddities are actually not quite as odd as we might first think.

Recently I watched a report on television about how over half the world considers eating grasshoppers to be a great source of nutrition. Grasshoppers, they reported, have even more protein than steak. I must be candid. I had absolutely no inkling to go out, fire up the grill and barbecue myself twelve ounces of locusts.

It’s the same way I feel about acupuncture. I realize that I risk coming across ignorant—maybe inflexible.

About three years ago my daughter-in-law suggested that I go to one of those locations where they perform acupuncture, to alleviate some of the pain in my knee. She had a coupon.

That’s the first thing that struck me as humorous. How does one acquire an acupuncture coupon? But I digress…

She explained that really normal people have begun to have needles stuck into their skin at very intricate places, so as to stimulate healing and relief of pain. Here’s what I think: I think one of the most uncomfortable things in the world is anxiety, and the idea of having someone from China putting needles in my skin makes me a bit anxious. So through my fits of terror, how would I know if I was any better??

Now, I realize this is not a very enlightened view, and I’m sure as time goes on, we will discover that acupuncture has great benefit.

But in the barnyard of life, I would rather cower in the stables or chicken out in the coop than be one of the initial guinea pigs.

See what I mean? I’m going to wait for all the recommendations to come in, and probably for them to come up with an ACME Home Acupuncture kit before I participate.

I think I hurt my daughter-in-law’s feelings. She probably thinks I’m a stubborn old man. But make that a stubborn old man MINUS needles in his skin.

Acumen

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

 

Acumen: (n.) the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions, typically in a particular domain: e.g. business acumen

We have convinced ourselves that ability is best achieved through training—and by training, we usually mean some sort of educational process granting us a degree or license to pursue an activity.

Here’s the problem: I have been to many doctor’s offices, where there were all sorts of awards hanging on the wall, and the technician standing before me has the personality of a beleaguered slug climbing a eucalyptus tree on a very hot day.

I have been in the presence of clergymen who have a doctorate in Biblical studies or Christian counseling, who have an interest in books but more or less deplore the sight of human beings.

Acumen, in our society, is permission to pursue a profession because you have adequately written down the correct answers on a piece of paper in an allotted amount of time to demonstrate your present level of knowledge on a given subject.

  • It does not mean you care.
  • It does not mean you’re evolving toward greater understanding.
  • And it certainly doesn’t mean that you even comprehend the “damn” that the tinker is supposed to pursue.

To me, acumen has to be measured in a much different way. Matter of fact, if you’ll allow me a little piece of silliness, I think the word should be broken down to “act like you mean it.”

That’s how I determine if I’m going to put my trust in another human being’s abilities. Just as grace covers a multitude of sins, passion certainly can disguise some levels of lessons yet unlearned.

Would I rather have someone convinced they’ve already achieved the right to pursue their craft, or would I prefer someone who is feverishly interested in the task and wants to learn how to do it more proficiently?

To me, that’s a no brainer

I’m tired of looking into the eyes of Congressmen and even into those of our President, and seeing weariness and boredom instead of light and intensity.

I am fed up with individuals who labor behind the desk in Customer Service, who obviously would rather shoot people with a gun than address their complaints.

And I am never going to be amiable to the notion of attending a church worship service where some monotone, anemic declaration of faith in God is revered simply because it has descended to a level of adequate somberness.

We will become a much better country when we stop touting our history, pointing to the achievements of our past, and instead, build a fire under our young people to hunger and thirst for righteous conclusions.

Acumen is not a one-time arrival at acceptability. It is a driving force inside us that tells us there is more to come if we will just act like we mean it.

Acuity

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acuity: (n) sharpness or keenness of thought, vision or hearing. e.g.: intellectual acuity, visual acuity.

This was interesting to me.

I have always associated the word “acuity” with some sort of sight. As I’ve gotten older, my eyes still function quite well except for a little dimness. Perhaps it’s the punishment for longevity–a general darkening of the corners of eyesight, earshot–and dare I say, flexibility of thinking.

I would suggest a much better way to ward off the woes and worries of aging, rather than tummy tucks, wrinkle creams, Botox and face lifts.

Just stay sharp. Exercise the brain.

Find the kind of glasses, magnifiers and various tools available to make sure you see the best you possibly can.

Sit closer to people so you can hear better. Rather than distancing yourself and secluding from the world around you, close the gap between the generations and remain current to the affairs.

Acuity is something that we can FAKE. Isn’t that GREAT? I know that sometimes faking is viewed as a vice, perhaps coming across as phony. But acuity merely requests that we take in what’s available instead of pretending that we didn’t notice or aren’t interested.

Start with your eyes. Yes–the light of the body is the eye. I can always tell by looking in someone’s peepers whether he or she is still with us, or if behind that glazed expression is the whimsy of reminiscence instead of hope for the present.

I love my children and grandchildren but they are not my life. I have a life, I include them in that life and they’re welcome to keep up with me if they can. None of them would ever call me “old Grandpa.”

Even as my body starts to betray me, insisting on some token measure of “decrepit” in order to fulfill my years, my mind, spirit and emotions remain youthful and alive.

There’s not much we can give to one another which will be universally accepted as generous. Staying alert and using our acuity, free of judgment, is the best way to give the whole world a hug.

 

Actuary

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

 

Actuary: (n.) a person who compiles and analyzes statistics and uses them to calculate insurance risks and  premiums.

It looked like it was gonna be fun.

It was put out by one of those famous insurance companies as a kind of test balloon to help people understand their situation with life insurance, and also their own personal well-being and health. It was a quiz with twenty-five questions which you were supposed to answer truthfully, and after you submitted your answers, they would send you, within a very short time via email, the proposed date of your death, based on the information you provided.

It was probably quite ridiculous, but still seemed like a good way to kill an hour while I was waiting for the next piece of excitement to leap into my life. So I started answering the questions, being painfully honest, and within about fifteen minutes, I completed the quiz.

I followed the instructions carefully, submitted my conclusions, and about thirty minutes later, I received an automated-response email from the website, with my day and year of death.

Now, when I finished the test, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But what came back to me was a real surprise. Dare I say—a shocker?Because according to the results of my quiz and the actuary tables of this particular insurance company, I had been dead already for two years, three months and four days.

Thinking there had been some sort of error made in the transfer of material, I persisted by filling out the quiz one more time—with a little less candor. But this time I was nervous and hovered around my computer, waiting for the ding to ring my ongoing faith in some sort of longevity.

True to form, half an hour later, there was my response.

I had acquired five extra months through my lying.

This was several years ago. So I don’t put much faith in actuary tables or predictions on human lifespan. I guess it works this way: you keep taking deep breaths and moving forward until you’re not able to breathe anymore. At that point you will get the actual day and time of your death.

So in closing, I would not recommend that you take one of these tests unless you want to insert the data of an Olympic athlete.

For me, I will just wait and see if my eyes open in the morning, smile if they do—and realize that I cheated the computer out of one more day.

Actual

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

 

Actual: (adj.) existing in fact, typically contrasted with what was expected: e.g. the estimate was much less than the actual cost.

 We were unmerciful.

A friend and I were listening to my wife talk on the phone as she was explaining her intentions. We began to count on our fingers the number of times she said, “actually.”

It was a giggle fest.

I think we ticked her off a bit. As we all know, it’s difficult enough to communicate your ideas without having to contend with receiving a grade card.

I sensed her frustration. She was desperately trying to explain to the person on the other end of the phone that her words were factual. In a day and age when lying is the national pastime and a series of reality shows are some of the most unrealistic situations available, we find ourselves feeling the need to corral the truth into an area where we can “pony up” our ideas, punctuating them by pledging their accuracy.

I do it sometimes by inserting the word “honestly.” I so want people to understand that I’m sincere that I feel the need to have my words notarized by some stamp of authenticity.

Maybe that’s the whole point of our journey. Perhaps we’re trying to get to the juncture that what is “actual” doesn’t frighten us anymore, we don’t need to embellish on it, and therefore don’t need to keep insisting it’s true.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Wouldn’t it be terrific if we took seven days of our lives—oh, forget that. Let’s try for one.

Yes, a single twenty-four-hour period where we attempt to present the actual. Let the chips fall where they may. Let the criticism come in if it’s needful. And let the praise for truthfulness be our reward.

Maybe I should practice. Here I go. What is my actual today?

  • I feel ok, but I’m not walking very well.
  • I am a blessed man in the fact that I get to write to you every day via this medium.
  • But who knows how many people read it? So keep a lid on my vanity.
  • As far as being a father, I have successfully raised a nice little peck of children, providing a bushel of love, but the harvest will be up to them.
  • I wouldn’t call myself a great husband. Maybe it’s because no one ever explained the job very well. Matter of fact, we spend our entire adolescence around people of the same sex, when the rest of our lives will be primarily spent with someone of the opposite.
  • I still have prejudice, I’ve just decided to stop being fussy about it or follow through on its insistence.
  • I like to laugh much more than cry, but in the process of laughing I do discover things that are worthy of my tears.
  • I find that the more I deal with my actual feelings, the purer my heart becomes and the more optimistic I become about life.

So even though we had a little bit of a cruel streak when we laughed at my wife about her overuse of the word “actually,” all of us could benefit from just ceasing to be afraid of what truly is and realize that the only way to change it is to start out … with the truth.

 

Acts (Book of)

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

 

Acts:  a New Testament book immediately following the Gospels and relating the history of the early Church.

During the several times in my life when I have read the Bible from cover to cover—and let me candidly admit that even though there IS a blessing in the perusing, I would also have to deem it a chore—I discovered that the Bible has so much arcane language which does not fall into my purview and ideas which can be interpreted so many different ways, that it certainly demands a gentle spirit for consumption.

This is definitely true of the Book of Acts. While some people critique the Gospels which have the accounts of the life of Jesus, in being abbreviated in detail, focused on a particular audience of the day, the Book of Acts is really like a corporate press release.

First of all, you have to consider that the time span covered in the entire work is between sixty and seventy years. Once it’s condensed and crushed together into its twenty-eight chapters, you feel like it’s a description of a couple of weekends’ vacationing in Jerusalem. The huge transitions in plot, miraculous achievements and even the struggles seem monumental rather than the typical day-to-day inch-worm progress which is actually accomplished by human beings.

But there IS one thing we certainly learn from the Book of Acts: when Christians and Jews tried to combine their theologies, it fails miserably.

I’m not saying that Christians and Jews can’t get along as folks and friends, but the faith that was established by Jesus of Nazareth was not exactly complementary to the Law of Moses.

When these early Jewish boys who were followers of Jesus tried to incorporate their Mom and Dad’s religion into the new movement, it just didn’t work out very well.

So because of that, a Pharisee named Saul took the journey to become Paul the Apostle, and translated the message to a whole world of non-circumcised individuals. So faith in God went from being an issue of whether your penis was trimmed or not to whether your heart was open.

It was an arduous task, which as I previously stated, took many decades. With the Book of Acts, we basically get the Reader’s Digest version, written by a physician named Luke.

Even though I appreciate te account and the inclusion of the struggle, I do think we miss the magnitude of human folly in the pursuit of better understanding.

Christianity wouldn’t have moved out of the Upper Room in Jerusalem had it not been for a guy named Paul.

And mankind would never have departed from the superstitions of Mesopotamia had it not been for the teachings … of Jesus.