Tag Archives: fantasy

Avarice

Avarice: (n) extreme greed for wealth or material gain.dictionary with letter A

It often leaves me baffled that we humans are completely aware of a truth which eludes us as we pursue our present fantasy.

Even though every mortal breathing air is fully aware that they won’t be able to take wealth and possessions with them. they still pursue it with such ferocity that they often become a cartoon version of themselves.

Maybe this humble writer can offer a 4-step process which might aid us all in discovering a more rational path:

  1. Once you have covered what you need, what you’re left with is what you want. And since our whim is so fickle, it’s probably a good idea to wait twenty-four hours before acquiring the present desire of our hearts. After that period has passed, we normally find that we don’t really want it quite as much, and certainly don’t need it.
  2. Even if you accumulate enough cash flow to get what you want, then you will be tempted to try to acquire what other people think you should want. If you become foolish enough to pursue this path, you will find that other people are actually spending your money for you. What a horrible sensation.
  3. So you should pause at this juncture, take a deep breath and realize that lobster costs more than chicken, therefore never meant to be eaten at all three square meals.
  4. Which leads to:
  • Meet your need
  • Plant a seed
  • Avoid greed

We should have what we need.

Maybe a little extra to invest in good ideas.

But never buy something because somebody thinks you should or to maintain the appearance of your status. 

Donate Button

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

*******************

NEW BOOK RELEASE BY JONATHAN RICHARD CRING

WITHIN

A meeting place for folks who know they’re human

 $3.99 plus $2.00 S&H

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

Buy Now Button

 

Allegory

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Allegory: (n) a story, poem or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one: e.g. Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey.

I am not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line, the word “reality” became synonymous with “truth.”

Reality is not truth. Rather, it is our present fallen position.

Often we have to escape reality to climb a little higher to see over the mounds of our own stupidity. Yet in the past thirty or forty years, entertainment, education and even our politics have boasted their “open-mindedness” and intellectual pursuits by taking a snapshot of ongoing human behavior, insisting that it is a tableau of our destiny.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

So when I think about the allegory, I realize that it is almost a lost art–because allegory does exactly the opposite of reality movies and TV. The allegory says there are principles, feelings and ideas which are eternal and lasting–which only need to be passed through the prism of our present understanding in order to enlighten us.

Just because people are going through a season when they think God is mean, or doesn’t exist at all, does not mean that’s what they will feel in five years.

What is the consensus of human need on the issue? Find that–then draw an allegory, using the language of our times to present everlasting truth.

  • I don’t want society deciding what is valuable.
  • I don’t want to have a conversation with someone about television shows which extol violence, crime, graft, greed and incest and have him look at me with pity because I don’t understand that it’s “a true story.”
  • I don’t want to watch vampires suck the blood out of werewolves as witches place curses on hobbits who are out to pursue rings by killing dragons and believe that I am out of step because it is just necessary escapist fantasy. Maybe Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are attempts at allegory, but they are so cluttered with the inclusion of destiny that they lose the passion of free will.

I admire allegory.

I appreciate the way Jesus used allegory in parables, explaining the kingdom of God to people by referencing fish, coins, bread yeast and mustard seeds instead of merely bitching about the Romans and complaining about the boring Pharisees.

Reality is not truth.

Truth is finding a way to share what has blessed our species for thousands of years … in a contemporary fashion.

 

Aghast

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAghast: (adj.) filled with horror or shock: e.g. when the news came out they were aghast

I was trying to figure out what horrifies me.

Like most human beings, I think I’m horrified by violence, destruction, death and mayhem. That’s good. (I mean, it’s bad. But it’s good that I think it’s bad.)

But there are other things that horrify me. I’m talking about that shock that startles your heart and makes your bowels tingle.

  • As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become horrified by the notion of performing activities I am not presently suited for in any way, shape or form.
  • I’m a little bit horrified when I watch television and realize that we have sunk to an era of fantasy, presumption, silliness and self-involvement.
  • I’m horrified by killing. I think I already said that.
  • I’m horrified by pornography. I think what horrifies me about that subject is the notion that women, who consist of half of the population on the planet, can so easily be trivialized and brutalized through a medium which is gaining more acceptance every day.
  • I’m aghast at prejudice–so much so that I’m willing to root it out in myself.
  • I’m aghast when I get around people who are overly confident in their abilities because it shows that improvement is so far from their minds.
  • I don’t think I’ve ever been horrified by a horror movie. That’s rather bizarre.
  • Yet I am truly horrified by death–my own in particular. I know as a person of faith, I should welcome the experience, or at least not be terrified of the journey, but that isn’t really my sensation. I enjoy life and I’m just not relishing the idea of seeing it end, especially since I am fully cognizant that things will be able to continue without me.

I guess what leaves me aghast is the notion of how easy it would be for us to be kinder to one another, yet we make the more difficult choice to conjure evil.

The thing I know above all else is that human beings don’t need any help from the dark regions of hell in order to come up with a way to destroy one another. Yes, I guess that makes me aghast.

For the truly horrifying part of life is realizing how easy it would be to create peace … as we blithely purchase more weapons for war.

Ad nauseum

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ad nauseum: (adv.) referring to something that has been done or repeated so often that it has become annoying or tiresome.

Perhaps it is overstated to say there are things which cause me to want to throw up. It IS a bit dramatic. But still, everyone reading this is aware of the sensation of feeling nauseous, and actually desiring to regurgitate to get it over with. There is a point when you’re sick, when getting the illness OUT of your being seems rather pleasant.

I, for one, have found several facets of our everyday life and social structure to be worthy of such expulsion. Might I give you a list?

1. Religion that is more concerned about religion than it is people. (Urp.)

2. Politicians who tout the importance of debate and never pass legislation to help anyone. (See me quickly run to the bathroom.)

3. Those people who preach the beauty of capitalism only because they’re getting richer and salting it away in a Cayman Island bank account. (Pepto-Bismol will not help.)

4. Individuals who insist they are no longer prejudiced as they perpetuate the bigotry of their parents into their everyday lives, only masking it slightly, as a subtle choice. (Where’s my bowl?)

5. Movies that are chock-full of fantasy or remakes of subjects that have been done so many times that the plots are threadbare. (Please shoot me and put me out of my misery.)

6. Piety in all of its forms–be it Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Scientology, Amish or Republican and Democrat. (Please just bring me some cold 7-Up and soda crackers)

I could make a longer list, but I think you get my point. What creates ad nauseum is when we continue to espouse ideas, beliefs or even platforms that offer no proof whatsoever as to their viability in human life. For some reason, we’re just supposed to bow our heads and mumble some words of consecration in honor of what is really a dead, stinky idea.

When you smell something rotten, it makes you sick. If you decide to hang around until the smell either becomes acceptable or you get used to it, it doesn’t mean that it stinks any less or that you’re not just as sick.

The best way to handle anything that upsets your stomach … is to stay away from it.

Abyss

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abyss: (n.) a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm.

For some reason, this particular scene really got inside me and registered.

Honestly, I watch a lot of things in movies that don’t impact me at all.  This is why I’m not fond of fantasy. I’m not looking for a way to escape reality–I’m looking for a way to make my present situation fantastic.

But when I watched the movie, The Abyss, and I saw the two characters trapped at the bottom of the ocean, needing to cross a large breadth of water to get to safety, knowing that one of them would not be able to achieve the task and would have to be carried, and that the best way to perform that and give the other one the chance was to have that one individual propelled literally as dead weight–it put a chill down my spine.

Obviously, there was great acting. But just the THOUGHT of being willing to die, placing my trust in another person to revive me on the other side, was absolutely horrifying to my spirit. And as I watched the flick, I found myself needing to turn away because the suspense and danger of it rattled me so.

I realized that I could never trust anyone quite that much. First of all, we would have to agree that the worst part of dying is being there for it. What happens after death is beyond our meager comprehension, and before death is just what we call Tuesday.

But to allow yourself to die, hoping that someone has the power to resurrect you, is probably the essence of what we deem faith.

After all, maybe to the angels in heaven, the earth appears to BE an abyss–a deep, dark chasm of misunderstanding. And I guess in some strange way we’re all supposed to die to this life in order to gain new discovery about ourselves and even eternity. But it doesn’t make it any less scary. It doesn’t make it easier to suck your last–trusting that everything’s going to be okay.

People tell me all the time that they’re not afraid to die and they’re “ready to meet Jesus.” I don’t know whether I believe them or not.

I guess I’m ready to meet Jesus, too.  I just wish it was at Starbucks.

Abaxial

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbaxial: (adj.) {botany) facing away from the stem of a plant, especially denoting the lower surface of a leaf. The opposite of adaxial.

Being raised in a Germanic household in the Midwest, where the mention of sex only required a simple pronouncement of “male” or “female” and nothing more, I have not made a practice of looking at the undergarments of plants.

So I’m a little uncomfortable with abaxial.

It sounds kind of sneaky–maneuvering your way behind the hapless greenery to peek under one of its stems and examine the full hidden foliage …

Am I the only one who’s nervous about this?

It’s not a plant’s fault that it has to be so … well, so exposed. That’s the only way it can get sunshine–similar to a voluptuous blonde laying out next to the pool and unfastening her top to gain the rays of the sun to promote her particular brand of growth.

it is not good for me to ogle either one.

Now, it’s not that I’m a prude–it’s more that the wisdom of precautionary action in the realm of the sexual experience will often keep you from the embarrassment of backing up claims in the real world which you have made with your fantasy statements In other words, if you have not talked about your sexual prowess, when the actual moment arrives with your partner, you can always plead inexperience, insufficiency or the classic–“a cold breeze must have blown by.” If you’ve been bragging, then there’s always a season when “pay-up or shut up” unveils all of your shortcomings.

So it’s not so much that I believe in being a prude as that I fear false advertising, and therefore a disappointed consumer.

Yes, sometimes it’s a good idea NOT to sneak behind the plant and look up at it from the backside–in an abaxial mode.

I guess it’s just like real life with real girls. You just wait for them to invite you … to de-petal them.