Tag Archives: Democrat

Adamant

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Adamant: (adj.) refusing to be persuaded or refusing to change one’s mind.

I’m not.

Adamant, that is.

I used to be. Adamant seems to be a “wrong of passage” by all young folks, who think that clinging to their opinions is the best way to be grown-up. Such foolishness is perpetuated by political parties which refuse to abandon arcane concepts for fear of coming across as flip-floppers. By the way–I AM a flip-flopper, and damn proud of it.

  • Flip-flopping has prevented me from doing ridiculous things–twice.
  • Flip-flopping has allowed me to include other members of the human race that I once disdained.
  • Flip-flopping has nurtured a sense of humor in me about my own attributes instead of turning me into  a tape recorder announcing my abilities.
  • Flip-flopping keeps me from being adamant.

There may be those who think there are cases when we need to be adamant in the attempt to preserve liberty, righteousness or independence. But since I don’t fear that liberty, righteousness or independence are ever in great danger, it is not required for me to pick up a gun, hurl an insult or even “stand fast for my cause” while ignoring the pursuit of truth.

It’s why I can’t be a Republican or a Democrat. They are both sure. I am not.

It’s why I have trouble sometimes being a Christian. They are convinced that Muslims, Jews and all the other believing sorts are erred, and therefore dangerously teetering on damnation.

This has certainly kept me from being a suicide bomber–too many of my own ideas have blown up in my face for me to blow up for any of my ideas.

I am not adamant.

Actually, I don’t even know why the word exists–and any time I hear someone use it, I quietly slip away, knowing deep in my heart that those who choose that profile must suffer the punishment for their inflexibility. And what is the punishment?

You end up stuck with what you are, with no reinforcements of wisdom coming your way.

Adamant is what our society calls “conviction.”

To me, it’s floating along on the Titanic in the middle of a chilly sea … oblivious to the icebergs.

Adamant

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Adamant: (adj.) refusing to be persuaded or refusing to change one’s mind.

I’m not.

Adamant, that is.

I used to be. Adamant seems to be a “wrong of passage” by all young folks, who think that clinging to their opinions is the best way to be grown-up. Such foolishness is perpetuated by political parties which refuse to abandon arcane concepts for fear of coming across as flip-floppers. By the way–I AM a flip-flopper, and damn proud of it.

  • Flip-flopping has prevented me from doing ridiculous things–twice.
  • Flip-flopping has allowed me to include other members of the human race that I once disdained.
  • Flip-flopping has nurtured a sense of humor in me about my own attributes instead of turning me into  a tape recorder announcing my abilities.
  • Flip-flopping keeps me from being adamant.

There may be those who think there are cases when we need to be adamant in the attempt to preserve liberty, righteousness or independence. But since I don’t fear that liberty, righteousness or independence are ever in great danger, it is not required for me to pick up a gun, hurl an insult or even “stand fast for my cause” while ignoring the pursuit of truth.

It’s why I can’t be a Republican or a Democrat. They are both sure. I am not.

It’s why I have trouble sometimes being a Christian. They are convinced that Muslims, Jews and all the other believing sorts are erred, and therefore dangerously teetering on damnation.

This has certainly kept me from being a suicide bomber–too many of my own ideas have blown up in my face for me to blow up for anything.

I am not adamant.

Actually, I don’t even know why the word exists–and any time I hear someone use it, I quietly slip away, knowing deep in my heart that those who choose that profile must suffer the punishment for their inflexibility. And what is the punishment?

You end up stuck with what you are, with no reinforcements of wisdom coming your way.

Adamant is what our society calls “conviction.”

To me, it’s floating along on the Titanic in the middle of a chilly sea … oblivious to the icebergs.

 

Acrimonious

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAcrimonious: (adj.) typically in reference to speech or debate, angry and bitter: e.g. an acrimonious debate about wages.

About a mile-and-a-half outside our little town of fifteen hundred souls, there was a location set aside, commonly referred to as “the city dump.”

I’m not so sure those places exist anymore–whether small towns have them. I think we now use landfills, which are similar but much larger.

But about once every three or four months, our family would load up a small trailer and head out to the city dump to get rid of everything that had somehow become displeasing to us.

My mother was always concerned about taking us children out there because we might step on a nail, get lockjaw and die. But I always pleaded to go on the journey because it was a fascinating destination. There was always just a little bit of fire burning close by, with some of the dumped materials ablaze.

And it was remarkable how we could back up our trailer, disconnect it, tip it up, and dump our useless bullcrap into the pile, then re-hook the trailer and drive away with no fear or burden. The trip to the dump was always bumpy, and the car would pull, tugging the rejected items behind us. But the trip back was so much lighter.

That’s the way I feel about “acrimonious.”

Do we ever know if our discussions with one another are truly pure and on point? We may just have failed to go to the garbage heap before we began to discuss.

After all, there’s so much crap that builds up inside us in the process of one day:

  • So many disappointments covered up with a smile.
  • So many dreams we had that we now sidestep because they failed to bear evidence.
  • So much frustration about being told to wait, when patience seems so useless.

And therefore, the least little thing can set us off, and rather than dumping our trash where it belongs, we do it right in the middle of the town square–to the alarm and disdain of the citizens.

I’m not so sure that any Republican or Democrat really knows what they think on ANY issue. They are too busy being acrimonious over old battles.

So even though I was sometimes sad when we threw things away at the city dump because I had developed a fondness for them in their decaying state, I can’t tell you that I missed them or felt any absence whatsoever.

Sometimes we just need to dump before we come back and interact.

If we don’t, we end up scraping our garbage onto somebody else’s plate.

Acajou

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acajou: {n.} 1. the wood of certain tropical timber-yielding trees, esp. mahogany 2. another term for cashew.

I’m not so sure I could identify mahogany if I saw it. Some sort of dark wood, normally associated with affluence. I don’t know why.

I DO know what cashews are.

Now most people would not think that cashews and mahogany have a whole lot in common, although I must admit, it would be wonderful to have a coffee table made out of cashews, offering a practical snack on the spot. But I don’t think it would be possible to break mahogany into little chunks, placing it into tin cans to offer as a part of a meal which began with soup and ended with nuts.

But since they share a common name the message that rings through to me is that we are much better off in life looking for similarities than we are focusing on differences.

In other words, if I stand in front of a group of people and say, “Mahogany and cashews are really different, aren’t they?” everybody would agree and soon we would be onto other topics with very little enlightenment, and also with me not coming across as very creative or intuitive.

But if’ I am able to find union between mahogany and cashews, then I have done something of quality, linking my world together instead of emphasizing the chasms between ideas.

  • How is a Republican like a Democrat?
  • How is a liberal like a conservative?
  • How is a Christian like a worldly person?
  • How is a woman like a man?

These are the kinds of questions that bring us together instead of tearing us apart.

Mahogany is considered to be a very expensive and durable wood. Cashews are the King of the Nuts, and even though the title does not sound particularly honorable, it does carry its own weight and flavor. So as I discover that mahogany and cashews do share the same name in this particular dictionary definition, I feel juiced up by the project of finding the similarities in their characters.

You can feel free to divide your world into smaller and smaller boxes until you’ve littered your closet with a whole series of unmarked packages.

Not me. I want to throw away the boxes and see if this thing we call human passage isn’t just a puzzle, trying to fit the pieces together … instead of tearing them apart.