Tag Archives: culture

Chronic

Chronic: (adj) (of a problem) long-lasting and difficult to eradicate.

There are several maturity banners that are displayed on our human journey. These are truths which are not always comfortable, but if denied, can put us in a chronic state of misery.

For instance:

  1. Nobody is going to do what you want them to do.

People imitate, they steal, they deny that they got what they have from you–but no one wants to admit that they are not autonomous and require assistance..

  1. The fewer categories you put people in, the better off you are.

When you start delineating by culture, color, sexual orientation and even gender, you get yourself in a horrible, tangled mess of misconceptions.

  1. And a third one is the realization that sometimes the solution is more painful than the problem.

Although we extol the value of solving dilemmas, we can often end up in more red tape, difficulty, struggle and misunderstanding than if we just learn to adjust our temperament and approach to the problem.

For instance, it is rather doubtful that poverty will go away. The more we complain about it and compare our levels of indifference, the less people get fed.

Go someplace where they offer two sandwiches for a decent price. Buy two. Eat one yourself and give one to a hungry person on the street.

You didn’t solve the problem–but you also didn’t trap yourself in a chronic search for an unattainable solution.

 

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Chasm

Chasm: (n) a deep fissure in the earth, rock, or another surface

The three-step process is as follows:

  1. It’s a problem.
  2. It seems unfixable.
  3. Therefore it’s normal.

This is the present way our society handles difficulties. In doing this, we’ve opened the door of our home to many a stray racoon, thinking the creature is not that
different from our domesticated pets. When the racoon ends up being wild, untamed and unwilling to accept human domination of the household, we have to make a decision.

Do we shoo it out the door? Do we kill it? Or do we find a way to live in the home with a racoon, pretending we’re equals?

I know it sounds silly. Thus the point.

Nearly fifty years ago, our country was concerned about a generation gap–a chasm that existed between parents and teenagers, causing conflict and a lack of communication.

Move ahead fifty years and the same chasm still exists. We have just decided it’s normal. In deciding it’s normal, the racoon of rebellion wanders the hallways, throwing its attitude and therefore dominating the climate of our American Dream.

We defend the racoon by saying it has a right to free speech.

Or to own a gun.

Or to be anything it wants to be.

Or to interfere in the lives of others as long as it doesn’t totally destroy.

We’re afraid of chasms, but instead of admitting there’s a gap in understanding, we pretend it’s a cultural difference, an ethnic preference, a doctrinal dispute or a political stumping point.

Somewhere along the line we will have to agree on the three things that will allow the human race to survive:

  • Creativity
  • Tolerance
  • A challenge

We will have to stop being afraid of the chasm, and instead, be prepared to make some giant leaps for mankind.

 

 

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Cabaret

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Cabaret: (n) a nightclub or restaurant where entertainment is performed.

Even though life is not a cabaret, it also is not a church service.

It’s not a funeral.

It’s not a long wait at the DMV.

It’s not sitting in a doctor’s office.

It is not watching a second television show because you have nothing else to do.

It is not reading a book and thinking it’s just as good as traveling.

It is not a night out with the boys or one out with the girls.

It is not a political party.

It is not intolerance.

It is not going to your job and being miserable.

It is not going to your job and offering a lackluster performance.

It is not favoring your culture over another.

It is not thinking that you’re better than other people.

It is not owning anything (but a winning smile).

It is not selfishness.

It is not well-advertised bigotry.

It is not…

Well, I could go on. Let me change my original thought:

Life is a cabaret.

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Bye

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Bye: (n) the transfer of a competitor directly to the next round of a competition in the absence of an assigned opponent

I’m going to take a bye on some things:

  • False praise
  • Political arrogance
  • Religious inflexibility
  • Self-pity
  • Pseudo-intellectualism
  • Pop atheism
  • Self-satisfaction
  • Culture pursuit
  • Racial pride
  • Nationalism
  • Stinginess
  • Gender bashing
  • Nosiness
  • Conservative
  • Liberal
  • Fantasy
  • Destiny
  • Self-gratification
  • Critique
  • Meditation
  • Maturity
  • Selfishness
  • Selfies
  • Self-righteousness
  • Self-almost-anything

I’m taking a bye.

Good-bye.

 

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Bunting

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Bunting: (n) patriotic and festive decorations made from cloth or paper, usually in the form of draperies,

I was only eighteen years old, and I drove to Columbus, Ohio, to see President Nixon. He was passing through town.

I wasn’t a particularly political teen, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity–to see a President of the United States. It also gave me a chance to get off school so I decided to go.

The atmosphere was festive. They had a band from some high school, a female singer to do the national anthem, and hundreds and hundreds of feet of bunting–red, white and blue as far as the eye could see, draped over everything in sight.

From a distance it was very impressive. But being the curious type, I inched my way forward.

As I got closer, I realized that since it was a hot day, the band members had unlatched the top buttons of their uniforms and unfastened their hats, losing some of the magnificence of the visual.

So I moved a little closer.

In no time at all, I wiggled my way within twenty-five feet of the girl in the prom dress and the tiara, who was about to sing the national anthem. She was dripping with sweat–I assume from a combination of heat and nerves. She didn’t look nearly as lovely.

Somehow or another, perhaps because of my honest-looking face, they let me get all the way up to the stage, standing two feet away from the colorful bunting. I inspected it carefully and saw that it was held on by staples, scotch tape and was wrinkled in many places due to being put up in haste. It was not very attractive.

The backstage area, where the President was to come through to give his speech, smelled like sweat with a hint of alcohol. And because there were two or three dogs wagging their tails nearby, there was a whiff of the woof.

I thought to myself, the closer I got to the experience, the less impressive it was. I registered that deep in my soul.

For perhaps the whole secret to our journey on Earth is realizing that the closer people get to us, the more real and genuine it should be.

The bunting was put up in minutes to last for a few hours, to be ripped down and thrown away.

It is frighteningly symbolistic of our political system, and the way we sometimes regard the important values of our culture.

 

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Bundle

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Bundle: (n) a collection of things, or a quantity of material, tied or wrapped up together.

I only lasted one day on the job. I got confused on what to do, so ended up quitting.

It was a lumber company.

Since I was the newbie, the manager asked me to go out back and find pieces of scrap wood which were about the same length, and bundle them together, tie them off and place them in a pile near the wood shop.

I understood the assignment–at least, I thought I did. But when he returned and I was ready for praise, he immediately began to un-bundle my pieces of wood, explaining that I had put pine in with oak and press board with walnut.

I bungled my bundling.

He had another rule–one which he understood and I didn’t, because after all, it was my first day. He was a little disgusted that I couldn’t tell the difference by texture and color. I thought the only distinction was supposed to be length.

I was wrong.

Truthfully, I run across the same problem every day as I am instructed by society to bundle up people into groups. At first, I thought the only way I was supposed to set them apart was, “These are the nice ones that can be treated nicely and respond well, and these are the meaner ones which require being treated even nicer.”

But they keep changing the rules.

They’ve introduced culture, color, sexual preference, gender, age, political persuasion and religion.

So there’s never really any way to get things bundled. There are too many considerations to adequately discern what should go together and what should be separated.

Bundling is the way we try to put things that are similar into one unit.

But of course, if we don’t accept the fact that similarity is possible, we will just end up being scattered wood.

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Boycott

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Boycott: (v) to withdraw from commercial or social relations

“Don’t make waves.”

I heard this all the time as a young person. Since I was raised in land-locked Ohio, it was very simple to comply.

It was also made easier by the fact that anyone who stepped beyond the boundaries of acceptability was quickly ostracized from the general flow. Yet issues always arrived which demanded immediate attention, consideration, deliberation and action.

Sometimes we must boycott stupidity. Otherwise, it grows faster than weeds.Dictionary B

Growing up in my town, prejudice was accepted, gossip was honored, chauvinism was the household norm and music was deemed raucous and evil until it gained a great respectability through financial solvency.

I had to make decisions:

What did I think about civil rights?

What did I think about the war in Viet Nam?

What did I think about the notion that “a woman’s place was in the home?”

These were dangerous questions. If they were posed in public, you were viewed as a troublemaker. If you offered an opinion other than the standard fare, you were basically dubbed “anti-American.”

It took me many years to learn how to boycott the inhibiting doctrines and platitudes which permeated my little town.

Today it’s easier for me. Matter of fact, I can suggest several things we should boycott immediately:

  • The word “bitch”
  • “Baby Mama”
  • Disinformation
  • Racial stubbornness
  • Too much violence
  • Chauvinism in all its forms
  • Gender wars
  • Talk of “culture”

For after all, culture is just another way to introduce stereotypes, which invite prejudice.

I wish I had been more brave when I was a “Buckeye Boy.”

But I guess I can do my penance … by learning what to boycott around me today.

 

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Boob

Boob: (n) a foolish or stupid person.

If there was ever any doubt that male chauvinism is ensconced in the culture of the American public, one need go no further than to consider the word “boob.”Dictionary B

It has two meanings, which should not necessarily coincide or even ever bump up against each other in the night.

After all, a boob is someone who is completely disconnected with reality, and is intoxicated on the fumes of idealism.

It is also a common, though crude, reference to the female breast.

It is not much of a drive on the highway of reason to realize that we believe that most pernicious air-headedness is contained in the female of our species.

This is one of those subtle clues which lets us know that even though we muster the faith and energy to tolerate one another for sexual purposes, procreation or even mutual responsibility for a mortgage, privately the war between men and women is conducted with jabs, often disguised as innocence.

 

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Blind

Blind: (adj) unable to see; sightlessDictionary B　

Visiting the Grand Canyon. Bad time to be blind.

A fireworks display. Be prepared to enjoy the bangs. Not a positive if you’re blind.

Running across some race situation, culture or individual where your prejudice is still rubbed a little raw by your ignorance. Blindness can be a plus.

A great teacher once said, “The blind cannot lead the blind or they’ll fall into the ditch.”

But the truth of the matter is, if the blind have already walked the path, then they are better ushers for other blind people than those with sight, trying to explain what lies ahead.

I’ve been blind.

  • I’ve been blinded by my bigotry.
  • I’ve been blinded by my sense of inadequacy.
  • I’ve been blinded by my greed.
  • I’ve certainly been blinded by my lust.

My blindness helps me understand my fellow-sightless-brothers and sisters.

Matter of fact, I’m not so sure that you can ever see unless you go through a season of being blind.

Certainly you’ll never appreciate it as much.

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Billiards

Billiards:(n) a game usually for two people, played on a billiard table

Dictionary B

I grew up in a small village that was close enough to a nearby larger town to make all of the young folks feel out-of-step and inadequate.

We had to go to the bigger city to be entertained or to absorb any available culture that might accidentally trip through mid-state.

So when we drove our cars in the direction of the nearby metropolis, we felt a combination of empowerment mingled with humiliation. We certainly were convinced that everyone in the larger burg was aware that we came from smaller digs and therefore lacked the social graces to be able to hold our own with the natives.

But we went anyway. It was the nearest bowling alley.

Bowling was very important. It gave you a safe, cheap way to go on a date, where conversation could be channeled into laughter over the lack of ability to roll a ball down an alley.

Now, in the back of this bowling alley was a small pool hall. It was a new addition, and some of the young folk from our town were a little bit afraid of going to play this game of billiards because it was associated with lower-class or “hoodlum elements.”

So I had great trepidation the first time I went into the billiard section of the bowling alley, picked up a stick and tried to hit the cue ball.

Yet I quickly became addicted.

Matter of fact, almost every weekend I went to play billiards, which we called pool, with my friends, until we thought we had become so good that we believed we could actually compete with other “stickers.” (That’s what we called them, even though I’m sure no one else did.)

One night five guys from the big town came in, saw us playing, and challenged us to a tournament, the winner to take ten dollars.

We were gambling. We felt so grown-up. And ten dollars was all any of us would have for the next two weeks.

But we were confident. After all, we had already played two months worth of Saturday nights.

We lost.

Miserably, horribly and ferociously, as balls banged into each other, going in all directions, causing our heads to spin, eventually exposing our choke factor.

We left.

We were ten dollars poorer and more certain than ever before that “small-town Johnnies” need to be careful when playing with big-town bullies.

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