Category Archives: B words

Bed

Bed: (n) a piece of furniture for sleep or restDictionary B

As an itinerant so-and-so with an inkling to go-go, I do not have the opportunity of referring to the word “bed” by prefacing it with “my.” In the course of a normal month, I will stay in motels and sleep in as many as ten beds.

They make a difference.

In the motel industry, they fall into three major categories–and that’s without considering the Goldilocks Syndrome of “too soft, too hard and just right.”

  • Some are too low.
  • Some are just tall enough but are lumpy.
  • And some are way too high.

I do not like to get up out of a bed like I’m sleeping in the wilderness on an air mattress.

I am also not favorable to locating the correct mountaintop or valley within the landscape of the mattress, where I might be able to settle my bones, free of ache.

And finally, I also do not like to fall out of bed from a dizzying height.

Yet it is amazing how well we can adjust to circumstances if we avoid the craggy chasm of bitching and climb the exhilarating mountain of good cheer.

After all, if I get a good bed, it is temporary.

But also, if I get a bad one … the road calls.

 

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Becoming

Becoming: (n) the process of coming to be somethingDictionary B

She was pretty sure of herself. Matter of fact, she stated it as a fact: “Young people get more conservative as they get older.”

I guess this can be stacked up with other definitive phrases like, women belong in the kitchen, Asians can’t drive and baked beans create farts.

We certainly do love our categories.

But if I were to stop and think about it for a moment, I would have to contend that the true power of longevity and surviving near-disaster is to come out of the experience more compliant, less sure of oneself and granting grace to others.

My life has not made me more conservative or more liberal. But it has taught me to be more merciful.

I have only one function left to me in breathing air, moving about and meeting others: Becoming merciful.

It is the only becoming that truly makes me becoming to others.

Without it, I am a cranky plant, growing without flowers and sprouting ever-increasing, ugly leaves.

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Beckon

Beckon: (v) to make a gesture that summons or bidsDictionary B

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

In the pursuit of granting independence and free will to every person in our society, we may have accidentally created millions and millions of autonomous assholes.

In a season when it seems more important to have made our own decisions rather than to be enlightened and invited to a better conclusion, we are breeding a nursery of bastard ideas.

Here’s reality:

If there are 100 things to know in life–and 100 only–then I am probably acquainted with 15. (Probably true for you, too.)

Of the remaining 85 possibilities, I might have some affinity with 35 others. That leaves 50. With those, I am novice and alien.

So, if 50 percent of the time, I am going to risk my success on my gut “guess,” I am greatly limiting my possibilities for the sake of pride and provincialism.

Sometimes I need to listen to that which beckons me.

  • Maybe it’s a warning sign.
  • It could be overhearing the conversation of someone who’s obviously smarter than me.
  • Or it could be sage wisdom from the ages, written down by a concerned thinker.

But I will guarantee you, my success–and dare I say, yours–is contingent on how well we tune our ears … to the beckoning.

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Because

Because: (conj) for the reason that; since.Dictionary B

Because is not a reason.

Yet I will tell you–it is the beginning for a good reason.

Because can be misleading.

A child asking a parent why a certain rule has been put in place will become impudent and rebellious if the answer is, “Because I said so.”

Because is the roadway that takes us to either great thought or immense stubbornness.

Sometimes people ask me why I believe in God. Here are three answers I don’t use:

1. Because I believe in the Bible.

Lots of folks think it’s just a book and you will not impress them with the fact that you contend it’s holy.

2. Because I grew up believing.

That would also include the Tooth Fairy and Jolly Old St. Nick.

3. Because Nature is so intricate and beautiful, there has to be a Creator.

Who says? If you gave me a billion years, I might be able to become beautiful.

My because has to have a great follow-up. Otherwise it becomes opinionated, or dare I say, flirting with ignorance.

So when people ask me why I believe in God, my answer probably is shocking:

“Because I discovered I needed one and drew up a prototype in my brain, which ended up coinciding with some existing themes.”

That’s the truth.

Because must be followed by something that is personally convincing and shares a piece of our heart instead of just our traditions.

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Became

Became: (v) past tense of begin to beDictionary B

5:52 A. M.

Groggy, but awake.

In no particular hurry to start the day nor motivated to grab my pillow and embrace additional slumber.

So I think.

I think about what I became.

Because if we don’t stop every once in a while and review the journey, we will fail to acknowledge the value of the miles.

There was never anything special about me. Growing up in a very small town, quality was measured in tiny increments so as to give everybody a chance to be honored.

But especially when I found myself moving into larger villages and then cities, my talent was often weighed in the balances and found wanting.

At that point I had a choice: I could give up, or I could give out.

Giving up was finding a perch suitably small enough to make my offering seem valuable.

Giving out, on the other hand, was admitting lack and trying to find how much grit and mortar I had inside, to build a better possibility.

On those mornings when I awake early, without need of leaping into action, I like to look at what I became:

  • Overweight
  • Under-educated
  • Moderately attractive
  • And sufficiently disguised

Still, I have mustered a life complete with family, fundamentals and a future.

It’s pretty remarkable.

So if any young person would ask me what the key is to success, I would reply very simply, “Stop looking for it. Start doing a daily evaluation … and celebrate what you became.”

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Beaver

Beaver: (n) a large semiaquatic broad-tailed rodentDictionary B

The word “beaver” torments me–mainly because I have no personal experience with the creature. But it has entered my life through story, myth and even double-entendre.

It is so unfair.

Truthfully, I can’t hear the word “beaver” without considering the sexual implication, which has been placed upon it by a generation of goofballs.

I do feel I would have great empathy with the beaver (if I actually knew one) because I, too, would occasionally like to “dam it all.”

Yes–rumor has it that beavers build dams.

I don’t know if these structures are required, and I’m not quite sure why the beaver wants to do so, and certainly totally unmotivated to find out–even for the purpose of adding some credence and intelligence to this essay.

I know there’s a football team in Oregon called the Beavers.

If memory serves, beavers have large, protruding front teeth (I assume for gnawing wood in the process of building their dams.)

And of course, I have memories of a television show called “Leave It To Beaver,” which had nothing at all to do with building anything and had no purposeful double entendres.

So if I happened to run across a forest agent who identified himself as a “beaver inspector,” I’m afraid it would be difficult for me to carry on a conversation…without giggling. 

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Beautiful

Beautiful: (adj) pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically.Dictionary B

  • Manipulate the language and you control the discourse.
  • Controlling the discourse dictates the policy.
  • Policy in place, objection is often futile.

I’m not trying to be overly dramatic, yet I tell you that “beautiful” is one of the more cantankerous words in the language.

First of all, it has no real definition.

It is not only “in the eye of the beholder,” it is enforced by the prejudice of the viewing mob. Somehow or another, people have decided through marketing what beautiful is, and we now accept it as the common understanding.

Looking at Facebook the other day, I saw some pictures of my granddaughters. The comments that people selected to place in responding to the pictures were universally shallow.

“Pretty.”

“Gorgeous.”

And of course, “beautiful.”

Moving down the page, I discovered the picture of a young man. The responding words in the comment section were “strong, manly and handsome.”

I am really not trying to be a nudge about this. Being a plain-looking man, I am not offended by those who are attractive, nor do I wish them to have more limited appreciation.

I just feel that the word “beautiful” needs to be used more often to describe a fulfilling experience which radiates joy in the human heart rather than the perfect construction of eye sockets, cheek bones and noses.

I have been around people who are comely. And yes–I was struck with their features. But within five minutes, when it became necessary for them to perform some function other than iridescence, I saw that many of them were so dependent on their countenance to carry them that they had failed to hook up their brain with their tongue.

They were lost.

Yes, in a blind audition, they would be rendered dumb.

So under my granddaughters’ pictures on Facebook, I wrote, “Let’s get off the ‘pretty’ thing and realize that these are intelligent, intuitive and talented people.”

I was scoffed.

After all, these “complimenters” were just trying to be nice.

How could “beautiful” be considered anything but positive?

Even though it succeeds in leaving out most of the rest of us.

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Beau

Beau: (n) a boyfriend or male admirer.Dictionary B

Although I don’t want to be considered a curmudgeon, there are certain words that rile me up.

One of them is “boyfriend.” And honestly, I am not any more enamored with the use of “beau.”

It is my discovery that to be a friend to a female, the last thing I need to be is a boy. Equally disappointing to the average woman is when we don the persona of man.

The reason we contend there’s a battle of the sexes is because we posture in our gender and insist on our uniqueness, making us a goddam threat. We don’t tolerate such an exclusive approach in other situations:

We don’t allow butchers to cut up our pets because they’re off work and miss the job.

We don’t permit teenagers to insist they don’t need to be part of the social structure because they’re too busy dealing with the angst of their acne.

Yet for some reason, it appears to be acceptable to hide behind the “guise of the guys” and the “mystique of the feminine.”

It’s hilarious–especially when you get around people in their senior years, who find themselves ingloriously dating, introducing their male partner as a “boyfriend.”

I have just found that the best way to get along with a woman is to make it clear that you do not consider her an acquisition, but rather, a confidante.

Adding the word “boy” inserts way to much testosterone.

And if you insist on being called “beau” in order to avoid boyfriend… then you add too much grits and gravy.

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Beat-up

Beat-up: (adj) a thing worn out by overuse; in a state of disrepair.Dictionary B

I found myself sharing a message that didn’t match my lifestyle.

I was moved to proclaim the idea “Life With Style” while I, myself, was somewhat impoverished.

It introduced the possibility of hypocrisy.

In an attempt to advertise my slogan, “Life With Style,” I had purchased magnetic signs, which I placed on the side of my old, beat-up car, towing a trailer which short months earlier had been rotting in a corn field.

It was what I could legitimately afford, and I did my best to bolster it with repair and frequent cleanings, but to the average onlooker who saw my vehicle and trailer pass by, the advertisement, “Life With Style,” was an enigma, if not a farce.

I became convicted that I was misrepresenting my own cause with my beat-up situation, bannered by such a positive, exuberant concept.

Because let’s be honest–we’re human.We can’t envision a life with style without a decent paint job. Life doesn’t have style unless we are visually passable.

So I learned that you can call people hypocritical, judgmental or mean-spirited for the conclusions they draw upon eyeballing your circumstance, or you can realize that since they are susceptible to hypocrisy, judgmentalism and a mean-spirited nature, it might be a good idea to give them as little evidence as possible … for a case against you.

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Beatnik

Beatnik: (n) a young person in the 1950s and early 1960s belonging to a subculture associated with the beat generation.Dictionary B

Trends and fads have one thing in common: they have a commencement with no graduation, also having a beginning minus destination. For that reason, it’s difficult to assess their genesis, or comprehend their exodus.

But if you take a moment and think about it, every movement goes through three stages:

  1. Purity
  2. Parity
  3. Paltry

Our new ideas often begin with purity.

Like beatniks.

I believe the purpose of such a social awakening was to become more introspective and discover our inner selves and how we relate to the world around us.

Quite noble.

But for an idea to become popular, you have to be able to market it without promoting its more cerebral aspects. So eventually the beatnik generation sought parity by wearing black berets and turtlenecks. It was an easy way to identify a fellow beatnik.

Yes, often our greatest movements are shrunken to a simple fashion statement.

Then, once they became tired of wearing their costumes, they decided to just maintain the angst. Thus, the 1960s and 1970s.

We ended up with a paltry representation of self-realization–actually merely an adolescent temper tantrum to anything our parents did.

After all, there would have been no objection to the war in Vietnam if there weren’t a draft blowing young men into military service.

So how is it possible to keep the purity without insisting on parity and ending up with paltry?

I don’t know.

But I think it is the job of writers, who detour their material through the brain, to insist on considering such idealism.

 

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