Tag Archives: books

Curate

Curate: (v) to take charge, organize or select content for presentation or publication

You don’t have to wait for spring cleaning.

Any good sunny afternoon will do.

Drive down a residential street and you will find things that people have pushed, shoved and even carried from their houses, sitting next to the road—as trash, ready to be toted away.

Some of it has earned its relegation to the Kingdom of Trash. But other items are just portions of the household that aren’t used anymore—discarded as junk.

You can pick up some treasures. I have found myself doing that.

I curate.

It doesn’t make me a curator, but in this throw-away generation, I find myself cruising the neighborhoods of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and the like, finding huge piles of values and ideas that used to be regarded as beautiful, or at least workable, sitting in the Out Box, declared spam.

Civility used to be applauded. But now it seems anemic in the presence of the onslaught of aggressive accusation.

You can go anywhere on Facebook and find a trashed version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—and find that it still polishes up quite nicely.

One by one, we have taken institutions and ideas that have lasted for millennia and made sure they were gone from memory—by next Tuesday.

Things like sympathy, empathy, poetry, sentiment, reflection, journaling.

Even record albums and CDs are disappearing.

Books look like dinosaurs marching to the mark-down bins.

Part of this is being done in ignorance, but most of it is the influence of negativity, wishing to wipe out sensitivity by deeming it weak and stupid.

I suppose you can join the crowd and stack your shit for flushing.

Or you might want to take a second to wonder if simply enjoying something for its feeling–which has existed since Eden and now is considered passé on Instagram—would be worth tucking it away like an old sweater that is ready to give warmth on the next very chilly morning.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

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.

 

 

Donate Button

 

Bum

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Bum: (n) a vagrant.

Yesterday, I once again heard the word.

It sent a chill down my spine.

I was situated next to a lady on the curb, and a gentleman walked by who obviously was not on his best streak of luck. As he disappeared in the distance, she turned to me and said, in her meanest, most nefarious tone, “Bum.”

I paused.

Actually, I found myself in the middle of a flash-back–because in the early years of my life, when I aspired to be a writer, musician, singer, or something of that sort, I ferociously ran away from the workaday world, having a great fear in my soul that once I got my first paycheck, I would never be able to wiggle myself out of the commitment.

In the process of trying to be something that nobody else thought I had the right to be, I got called “bum” a lot–even by family members. It never ceased to sting.

I pretended it didn’t bother me–but there was something really coarse and evil about having other human beings judge me solely on whether I was solvent by their standards.

So even though I should have responded more quickly to the lady, at length I said, “You never know. Maybe someday that young man you just called a bum will write fourteen books, have three daily blogs, thirteen screenplays and travel all across the United States, trying to bring common sense and love to the world.”

She stared at me with a quizzical look and then replied, “Ain’t no way.”

I just smiled.

Way.

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

 

 

Ascendant

Ascendant: (adj) rising in power or influencedictionary with letter A

I sit patiently watching.

I am not given to the frantic profile of becoming too encouraged by any particular fleeting moment, or discouraged by threatening trends.

I have an abiding truth deep within my soul. I know for a fact that “love your neighbor as yourself” is not an inspiration, nor is it an aspiration, but actually the respiration for human life.

So from my position of review, I wait until I see anything that comes along which confirms the value of including others’ feelings and success in the quest for our own. Whenever I see it, I interrupt my solitude by bursting into applause.

Yet if a new book, song, movie or pundit comes out proposing that we shut others out, or only think about our own well-being, I simply disagree, step into the shadows and await the downfall of such idiocy.

There is only one principle which is ascendant to human life. When we fail to follow it, everything begins to fall apart. To a certain degree, it is the confirmation of the paradigm which states, “If a butterfly dies in the rain forest of Brazil, it snows in Minnesota.”

Even though this idea seems a bit abstract, whenever we take the time to consider the feelings of others as much as we consider our own, that mercy trickles down to nature … and even the longevity of the butterfly controlling the snowfall in Minneapolis.

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Angry

dictionary with letter A

Angry: (adj) having a strong feeling or showing annoyance, displeasure or hostility; full of anger.

I’m sure many books have been written on this subject, but for the life of me I can’t think of one right off the top of my head.

The subject of which I speak is fighting dirty.

We all do it.

We have all decided what aspects of human behavior are distasteful and we attribute them to the people we’re fighting with, in order to make them appear out of control or mean-spirited.

For instance, I’ve been in counseling sessions when one of the individuals accused the other of “being angry.” Honestly, I didn’t think the other party was angry at all–maybe a little intense as they made their point, or perhaps energetic in their honesty. But as soon as they were accused of being angry, the immediate response was to become angry.

Thus the other person achieved the goal of portraying them as irrational simply by accusing them ahead of time of being in that condition.

I like to believe that people are not angry with me unless they finally speak aloud: “I am angry.”

In the process of refusing to be offended simply because someone is bluntly sharing opinions, I have on occasion heard truths which ended up being a great input to my soul.

But if I think everybody in the world is angry simply because they’re displeased with me, I am warning the surrounding community of human beings that they should be careful not to say anything in my direction which is not sweet or affirming.

If you want to know when people are angry, look for this simple sign: angry people can’t stay on the subject, but revert to the past.

Anyone who does not bring up your past, but stays on the subject, is not angry. Actually, they are making sure their opinions can be heard instead of rejected. But the minute they bring up the past in an argument, they are angry.

So here’s my conclusion:

I will listen to anyone share feelings about what I am presently doing, as long as they don’t travel back to my childhood, my personal choices in the past or my heritage.

At that point they’re just angry, and as a human being I find it difficult to discover a place to push off toward repentance when all I’m hearing  … is hopeless chatter.

 

 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Abridge

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abridge: (v.): 1. to shorten (a book, movie, text or speech) without losing the sense. 2. curtail: Even the right to free speech can be abridged.

This happened to me several months ago.

I realized that my essays, speeches, and even books were getting too long. They needed to be abridged. But you see, the only problem with making something shorter is that the evidence of truth is often hidden in the longer discourse.

But our entire world is abridged, via texting, tweeting and even an instinct to summarize deep concepts into brief sound bytes. So I was thinking about famous thoughts or virtues that were once spoken in some length that now would be abridged in our society for the sake of convenience and ease of comprehension:

The Sermon on the Mount — It probably would be summarized via a tweet, to four words: Be good to people. Much would be lost in the translation,k but the tweeter would certainly insist that the summary was sufficient and specifics, unnecessary.

The Gettysburg Address: “Lots of dead people. Let’s honor them.” Even though Abraham Lincoln thought he WAS being brief, his words would still not fit into a tweet.

The Declaration of Independence: “We’re all the same, so chill out.” Thomas Jefferson’s eloquence might be lost in this rendition, but you cannot really tweet multi-syllabic words without abbreviating them anyway.

And of course, there’s The Bible, which would basically be tweeted out: “There is a God. Act accordingly.”

Even though I see the value of an occasional Reader’s Digest abridging of certain aspects of human communication, there are thoughts that require the beauty of language and the interlacing of the fabric of phrases.

So brevity is the soul of wit–but sometimes being witty is not nearly as pretty.

Ablaze

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Ablaze: adj. 1. burning fiercely: his clothes were ablaze 2. brightly colored or lighted: New  England is ablaze with color. 3. made bright by strong emotion: His eyes were ablaze with anger.
“Let me stand next to your fire.”
That’s what Jimmi Hendrix sang in an attempt to seduce a woman.

But let me tell you–if you have ever stood next to a building ablaze, you won’t soon be requesting to return. Fire is one of those entities that cannot be captured on film, written into books or even viewed at a distance to determine its magnitude and intensity.

I’ve only been involved in one fire in my life. It was at a motel and I realized that if I moved in closer than a hundred feet, the combination of the burning air, smoke choking my lungs and the ferocity of the flames would drive me back, keeping me from the searing danger.

You can certainly understand why Biblical writers used the intimidation of “the fires of hell” to frighten people into good behavior. The next morning after this fire that I witnessed, even though I did stand way back from the peril, I still ended up with what appeared to be a sunburn from the heat. So I have great respect for ablaze.

And even those people who decide to be ablaze with personality can certainly burn you–or choke the life out of you.