Circular

Circular: (n) a letter or advertisement that is distributed to a large number of people.

“Shrink to think.”

If you want to get your brain functioning in the realm of creativity instead of repetition, this is better achieved by shrinking what you’re
 doing down to its simplest forms.

There is no evil in technology.

There is no sinister nature to the Internet.

But sometimes if life is not simplified, the complication confuses us into believing that we are not responsible for our actions, but instead, victims of a mass plot.

When I was younger, much younger than today, I sat and read circulars. They were little reports, newspapers or flyers put out by people who wanted to communicate what they were doing, how they were doing it and even the way in which they wished others to become involved.

Usually laid out with a typewriter, they were poor quality–carelessly paragraphed and overworded.

But reading them demanded that I do something I did not want to do: stop.

The main reason we don’t start is because we can’t stop. We spend most of our time skidding into the next project with no idea about whether our passions will sustain it.

Please don’t mistake me for some old codger who yearns for the “good ole’ days.” There was so much bad that it deserves to be quarantined for all time.

But there was the introduction of pieces of paper called circulars, which made you stop long enough to think about what somebody else was doing instead of browsing the Internet, bouncing off subjects like a rubber ball.

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Circuitous

Circuitous: (adj) of a route or journey which is longer than the most direct way.

Five minutes. Three hundred seconds.

It is the best time you’ll ever spend–because:

Only the people who don’t know how to parallel park think it’s hard.

Only the folks who never took the time to learn how to put together their dining room table by following the instructions insist it’s
impossible.

Only the rogue souls who are totally convinced that anything outside their own thinking is intrusion will ever benefit from the beauty of counsel.

I don’t care how sure you are.

I don’t care how pure you are.

I don’t care if you think you have the cure.

Take five minutes.

Go over your plan.

Use your three hundred seconds wisely so you don’t end up in the middle of a disaster because you forgot to bring the right parts.

Then you can avoid a circuitous route–where you spend way too much quality Earth time trying to explain why going around in circles was better.

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Circle

Circle: (n) a round plane figure

Draw a circle.

The circle of the Earth.

A reading circle.

The Knights of the Round (circle) table.

Circle the wagons.

For you see, the circle is a symbol of unity.

A football team huddles in a circle.

We possess a circle of friends.

Will the circle be unbroken? (We pray not.)

What is the power of a circle? It is the symbol of equality because each person in a circle has an unobstructed view of everyone else.

Oh, if that were so.

What is your circle?

What is your sphere of influence?

Can we change our circle?

The circle–sometimes five circles interlock to promote an Olympic effort.

 

 

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Circa

Circa: (prep) approximately (often preceding a date)

Circa the time that humans discovered fire, they started cooking their meat.

Circa the arrival of iron, swords and plowshares were made. (Unfortunately, our species preferred the weapon.)

Circa the revelation that knowledge could be transferred into manuscripts and eventually books, libraries were built to confirm the power of
our more docile wisdom.

Circa the season when souls from Africa were considered slaves and only two-fifths of a person, the “Abraham of America” came and made us all a great nation.

Circa the arrival of instruments came music.

Circa the introduction of music came soul-washing.

Circa the introduction of a madman, the atom was split.

Circa the dropping of a bomb, we discovered the power we have to destroy ourselves.

Circa one war after another, young men and women have learned to protest the insanity of blood-letting.

Circa the arrival of the Internet with the ability for international communication, there is a scream for moderation and a prayer for personal contact.

Circa this moment, we are in search of our heart.

Here’s hoping we find it.

 

 

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Cipher

Cipher: (n). a secret or disguised way of writing; a code.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that everything is a cipher.

Literally everything.

Although some people put their confidence in Holy Books, those volumes themselves borrow so much from each other that one has to realize that the mortals who gathered the information and bound them were fully aware of the cipher that lay within.

If the words found in the Book of Genesis are as important as the words found in the Book of Revelation, then someone didn’t develop the story very well.

A certain amount of religious rhetoric, political punditry and “business blowhard” cries for the purity of the original idea.

But let’s be honest–Kentucky Fried Chicken no longer insists that it’s “finger-lickin’ good,” because most people don’t lick their fingers anymore.

More enlightened believers don’t demand that homosexuals be stoned because deeper ciphers within the Book warn us of the greater dangers of judging and throwing rocks.

And truthfully, believing that a bunch of people should get together sometime in December every four years to pick a President, who has already been voted on by the masses, must very soon be ridiculed back into the history books.

Life is a cipher.

Normally what may appear to be obvious at first needs to have additional information and time to reveal the richer hidden meaning.

 

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Cinnamon

Cinnamon: (n) an aromatic spice

Neil Young, in a burst of creative brilliance, wrote a song entitled “Cinnamon Girl.”

Many of you will not know who Neil Young is, but you certainly know what “cinnamon” and “girl” are. Let’s deal with that.

When he wrote this song, I was so impressed, because envisioning a woman as food is just divinely inspired.

Matter of fact, every time I hear the tune I imagine a lovely lass who looks and tastes like cinnamon toast–and if I lick her, I will get the sensation of great pleasure and oodles of flavor.

Genius.

Not in the sense that Neil is a genius–but anytime we can connect human appetites with human feelings, to create human understanding, we are on the Road to Glory.

I’ve never had the courage to ask a woman if I could smear her with butter, cinnamon and sugar, to fulfill Neil Young’s recipe.

But believe you me, if I ever do run across a cinnamon girl, and it’s obvious that the tastiness awaits, I may not be responsible for my actions.

 

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Cinema

Cinema: (n) the production of movies as an art or industry.

“To date, I have written thirteen screenplays which have been produced into independent movies, receiving recognition at twenty-eight film festivals.”

This is a blurb.

It’s the kind of thing you stuff into an advertisement or resumé  to let people know you have credentials.

Once it is stated or read, the person who has received the input immediately asks, “What movies? Would I know one?”

The answer is no–because I am not famous, rich, nor do I wield any power.

I do not say that with misgiving. I am so grateful being able to make my living doing what I like while also having the freedom to drive down to the local department store and move around in total anonymity.

But can I tell you? From my personal experience, the world of cinema is locked up tighter than a nun’s vagina.

It is filled with nepotism, red tape and a self-righteousness about art which often contends that the more bizarre the story line, the more realistic it becomes.

The budgets are overblown, the plot lines as thin as a Parisian model, and the resolutions are not geared for the edification of humankind.

So comically, the movies that make the most money in the world of cinema are G-rated–but the movies that are touted are usually R.

I have nothing against either genre. I have written in both.

But historically it has been the job of theater–in this case, cinema–to lift us as a people from our depression and make us believe in the higher good of the human race, which began as dust inhabited by the image of God.

 

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Cinder

Cinder: (n) a small piece of partly burned coal or wood that has stopped giving off flames

I really did not want to complain, even though I was quite capable of doing so.

After all, I was just a kid. If you tell a kid he’s complaining, he’ll explain that you never listen to him, and he’s “sharing his feelings” as you snuff them.

Here’s my story:

One day at church camp one of the more energetic counselors decided we should take a hike through the woods. He had sought out a trail and measured it at 1.2
 miles. His contention was that “anybody should be able to do that.”

I apparently had not joined the “anybody family”–not even related. I had chubby legs that moved slower, reluctant to leave space between my sole and the ground.

On top of that, we could not have been more than twenty yards into the trip when my right foot started to hurt. I apparently was grimacing in some pain, because the zealous counselor came back and told me I needed to step up the pace–otherwise there was a danger the other kids would start making fun of me, and even though he would hate for me to be bullied, he did not know what would happen once the lights went out in the cabins.

Not knowing what that meant but sufficiently alarmed, I soldiered on. Every step hurt.

When we finally arrived at camp after the 1.2 miles, I had broken out in a sweat, was ready to pee my pants and fell to the ground like a sack of rotten potatoes.

I reached down, took off my sneaker (which is what we called them back then) and a tiny pebble-like substance fell out of my shoe. Apparently the night before, when we were sitting around the campfire and I removed my shoes to warm my feet by the flames, I had acquired a cinder in my footwear.

I had walked 1.2 miles on that cinder, leaving a sore spot which upon further inspection, was bleeding.

I did not try to make anyone feel bad, but the counselor did that all on his own.

All I remember is that I was required to put my foot up on a pillow during Vespers and the counselor, who was dwelling in a wilderness of guilt, toasted all my marshmallows and brought them to me. (He got a little grumpy when I complained they were not cooked all the way through, but got over it.)

Even today I have to remind myself that people who have a crooked walk, or have difficulty being what I would consider “righteous,” may be overcoming cinders of burnt-out experiences that I can’t even imagine.

 

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Cinch

Cinch: (n) an extremely easy task

What are the factors?

I’m talking about the issues that go into making something work or drizzle away in failure.

I wish I could say it was all based upon the value of a good idea or merely the implementation of it.

Not so.

I can think of five things right off the bat that have to be crawled over to get to the finish line.

First, if you want something to be a cinch, it has to work out on paper. If it doesn’t, then you’re hoping for grace (if you’re spiritual) or a mutation (if you’re scientific.)

A bad start.

The second thing is resource. In other words, simply knowing what to get doesn’t get it. Can you locate what you need and once located, can you acquire it?

Third, luck. Many people do not believe in it, but there is a chaotic aspect to nature that cannot be denied. After all, the same thing we try today often doesn’t work tomorrow for no explicable reason.

How about nerves? Oh, yes–the football team was ready for the game, and then became unnerved. What causes it? When do we look at the challenge and visualize the victory, and when are our eyes affixed nervously on the adversary?

Of course, there is the fifth and final hurdle. It’s called performance.

Everyone reading this has had an occasion in their lives when everything was perfect except for one thing–and that single unit blew everything apart.

The reason most people spend their lives in lamentation is that they are burdened with the need–shall we say, expectation?–for something to be a cinch.

This writer will tell you, the only thing he has found to be a cinch–a guarantee–is that there will always be a surprise waiting for those who dare to brag about being prepared.

 

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Cigarette

Cigarette: (n) a thin cylinder of finely cut tobacco rolled in paper for smoking.

If you live long enough you will see nearly everything in your life go through the natural Earth cycle.

It begins with “interesting.”

Then it becomes “cool.”

It passes through a phase of being “plagued with some difficulty.”

Following that comes “seems dangerous.”

And of course, the final step is “lethal.”

It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about. Why don’t we take something that would seem unlikely to apply to this category–like politics?

When the idea of starting a democracy in the New World was tossed on the table for discussion, it was deemed very interesting–so much so that we wrote several documents and put together a club.

After the club got together for a few meetings over some “brews and snuff,” we were enamored with the possibility–just jazzed with its coolness.

So we started political parties. The consensus was there should be at least two so there could be discussion. But immediately each party desired to be the predominant one, which led to some nasty exchanges, false accusations, and the introduction of cheating. Election after election began to prove out that winning was more important than truth, justice and the American Way. Difficulty arrived like a “plague of congress.”

So laws had to be passed because we were in danger of losing the freedom we had hoped to achieve because we allowed the politics to steer policy.

And then, all at once, with one cracky voice, the people proclaimed, “Politics is damn lethal.”

I bring this up because the same thing happened in my lifetime–and yours–with cigarettes.

At first they were interesting. Then cool. Next, plagued with some difficulty, proclaimed dangerous, and now seen as a nasty piece of our social sappiness, murdering people with tar and nicotine.

I often wonder if it’s possible to stop, while musing over something being interesting–and jump ahead to find out if it’s deadly.

 

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