Tag Archives: history

Avid

Avid: (adj) having or showing a keen interest in or enthusiasm for something.

Confusing times increase the sales of antacids. (Forgive me–I was looking for an up-side.)dictionary with letter A

So after you run out and invest in Tums, International, please consider this: it will be necessary for you and I to become avid about certain causes and issues.

There are two reasons for this:

  1. Without having some sort of conviction, we come across very dull, therefore decreasing our sexuality and monetary possibilities.
  2. Important causes will survive persecution and have a victory party, which we probably would like to attend.

How can you determine, in this crazy era of over-promotion, what purposes deserve your passion? Here’s a four-step process

A. Is it going to benefit me?

I understand it’s considered noble to appear selfless, but perhaps in doing so, we commit the most selfish act. None of us are selfless, so considering our own feelings will certainly occur. Therefore budgeting that in as a factor is only realistic

B. Will it come back to haunt me because of those I’ve mistreated?

Most of the time I don’t judge other people simply because I don’t want them looking into my business. It’s annoying to have people take inventory of your faults just because they’re trying to get even over a critical slip of your tongue

C. What is the history on the issue?

  • For instance, has slavery been successful throughout the ages?
  • How about forbidding rights to people?
  • Have individuals who hold “witch trials” ended up being considered innovative and generous?

Be smart. After all, history is just today with two weeks of vacation.

D. Will my involvement help?

There is a power in using what you have to do good. No doubt about that. There’s also a power in knowing when your personal contribution is worthless.

So there you go.

I know I have to be avid. Otherwise I will lull myself into an emotional sleep from which I will only be stirred with the warning signs of my heart attack. 

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Autism

Autism: (n) a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships

I sit here this morning wondering if it is worse to be ignorant or stupid.dictionary with letter A

For I will tell you of a certainty that history is not a book. It is a look.

History is the expression on the face of the future generation peering back on our actions, wondering why we were either so ignorant, or pursued such stupidity.

With that in mind I approach the subject of autism.

Let’s start with a question: do I believe there are more autistic children today than when I was growing up?

I would have to say no. What would be the basis for it? Why would there be more autism today than in my youth?

So why didn’t I hear about autism as a kid? Why was it handled differently? And was the way it was handled in the past better than how we handle it today?

I’m happy to report, I don’t have any answers. But I will tell you this–merely having information about a problem and elaborating on it in great detail rarely solves the situation.

Likewise, ignoring a dilemma and pretending it doesn’t exist certainly does not cause it to vanish.

My contention would be that most things in our present health-conscious society are over-diagnosed. I do not know if the average American, if he or she were given a blood panel once a month, would be considered healthy when the work was analyzed, or whether they would be put on so much medication that they would get sick from the treatment.

Somewhere along the line you have to deal with the word “manageable.”

When I read the definition and the symptoms of autism, I can certainly remember kids in my class who would have fallen within the spectrum of this malady.

  • But we did not call them autistic.
  • We did not medicate them.
  • Instead, we attempted to draw them out of their shells and include them–and rebuke those who ridiculed them for being dead-heads.

I’m not saying this was a good practice. I’m just saying that continuing to diagnose more people with autism does not give us the solution to autism.

Somewhere along the line we have to come up with a way of dealing with this problem that is manageable–which has enough science to be helpful, but also enough human commonsense to be practical.

Otherwise, future generations will deem us ignorant because we refused to deal with the problem, or stupid because we made too much of it.

Where’s the balance?

I think the balance is always achieved by giving our fellow human beings as much room to feel normal as possible. In doing so, we open the door to a more enriching life … instead of having our comrades identified by their ailment.

 

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WITHIN

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Asinine

Asinine: (adj) extremely stupid or foolish.dictionary with letter A

I’ve even see an “ass-i-eight.”

I’ve seen it go down as low as “ass-i-one.”

The ability to make an ass out of oneself, or to do it as a congregation, group or club, is not only common but fairly simple. To achieve this asinine condition, all one has to do is ignore the following concepts:

1. What I’m saying has to have truth, viability, history, science and awareness.

Once you ignore that idea, you can pretty much guarantee that the next thing out of your mouth, or your next action, will be asinine.

2. I should be concerned about how my actions and words will affect others.

If you can eschew this logic, you can dismantle powerful ideas and people’s emotions without ever worrying about it arriving safe and sound–at asinine.

3. There probably will be a tomorrow, so I should be a little concerned about today’s activities, because they will carry over.

Yes, once you’ve conditioned yourself to believe that “tomorrow will take care of itself,” what you do today can be haphazard and careless–and undoubtedly provide you with the embrace of the asinine.

Being asinine is the abandonment of any notion of caution or concern. After all, “it’s my life.”

Why should I involve you or any particular code in my consideration?

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Apprise

dictionary with letter A

Apprise (v): to inform or tell someone.

So the girl you just met–who is very attractive–also has a large piece of broccoli stuck in her tooth.

  • Do you tell her?
  • Do you risk losing romantic possibilities?

You’re sitting in front of your potential boss at a job interview and he has horrible breath.

  • Do you offer him a mint?

Or you have made a severe error in calculating the family budget and have accidentally misled your wife to think that all the bills are paid.

  • Do you share with her so that she’s aware of the situation?

Ninety percent of the lying we do in life is caused by being deathly afraid and insecure about what would happen if we told the truth. Our conclusions don’t have to be realistic. After all, that is the definition for fear–an often-unmotivated sense of dread.

All we have to do is convince ourselves that the truth will not make us free, but instead, leave us stupid. At this point, we start the ugly process of elaboration.

Nobody has a situation in their past when if they had simply told the truth, a tragedy could have been averted.

So why are we afraid to apprise one another of the actual situation? It’s because we are all uncertain that anyone truly loves us.

Adam and Eve lied to God because they were unclear of the true depths of His love. That is sad.

I may not be able to have a totally clean relationship with everybody I know, but I certainly should practice candor with those who I am content love me.

  • Would I tell the girl that she had broccoli in her teeth? Probably not–unless I was willing to lose a dating possibility.
  • Would I tell my potential future boss that he had bad breath? Probably not, but shamefully, I would gossip about him later.
  • Would I tell my wife about the mistake in the budget? Absolutely–or the relationship is a joke.

I would hope that eventually I would apprise the broccoli girl of her tooth obstruction with a bit of flair.

I also would like to learn to offer the mint to my superior without feeling intimidated.

And I think the best way to achieve this status is to begin to apprise those I love of our true heart instead of making up fake emotion, and desperately trying to pretend it’s authentic. 

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Apogee

dictionary with letter A

Apogee (n.) 1. The point in the orbit of the moon or a satellite at which it is furthest from the earth. 2. The highest point: (e.g.: his creative activity reached its apogee in 1910.)

We live our lives looking through binoculars, unaware that history will view us under a microscope.

We keep hoping that something will come along and stimulate our sensibilities and promote our ideas to greater influence and gain. The flaw of all humanity is the notion that we deserve a break, so we will sit here and wait for it.

Yet history will peer back on our deeds and reflect on where we messed up our GPS, missed a U-turn or put the brakes on.

So therefore, we can all become guilty of claiming our apogee long before we have actually achieved our highest point.

Life is a mysterious collision of confidence and insecurity.

Confidence says, “Given the opportunity, I can do this.” But it must be accompanied by a mistrust that such an advantage will come our way without us hustling for it.

When I study greatness, I find two components. People who achieve their goals do the following:

  1. Work on their gifts until they are prepared for the moment.
  2. Create the moment.

I am not a believer in destiny. I am certain that the acquisition of my dreams will be executed by the energy of my effort.

What will be my apogee? I am not there yet.

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Apartheid

dictionary with letter A

Apartheid: (n) in South Africa, a policy and system of segregation or discrimination based on the grounds of race.

If you’re an American citizen, you had little to no chance of having an understanding of Apartheid unless you allowed yourself the blessing of reading up on it and discovering all the subtleties.

In the 1980’s, when the issue was inflamed with turmoil, the communique in our country was to stay out of it or to side with the South African government by offering some sort of lame excuse for the existence of such prejudice.

Matter of fact, there were religious leaders in this country who insisted that Apartheid was necessary because without it, the natives (who just happened to be black) would tear one another apart because of their tribal conflicts. There were actually people who accepted this reasoning as being reasonable.

It is similar to those in the North and South during the Civil War, who feared that freeing the slaves would unleash an unholy terror of massacre and mayhem on the white population.

Matter of fact, throughout history we have decided to keep a bad system in place rather than risk bettering it. Of course, every time we’ve done this, the proponents of such foolishness have ended up looking like idiots–as those religious leaders of the 1980’s do today with regard to Apartheid.

I do not really care what tenets of philosophy and religion you adhere to, as long as you will agree with me that even though progress often takes time, the energy of the universe is always moving towards freedom.

There are countries in the world today which subjugate their population and terrorize their brothers and sisters with all sorts of rules and regulations, which will soon be as extinct as the dinosaurs and viewed by history as oppressive lunacy.

You can’t take freedom away from people without being viewed a tyrant.

So when I heard about Apartheid in the 1980’s and listened to both sides of the issue, I realized that it is a God-given right (of course, by God) for people to be as foolish or intelligent as they want to be, as long as they are free to do so.

We cannot control the actions of human beings. What we can do is provide the liberty, without question, for them to play out their philosophy quickly.

Anything written on paper that proclaims a truth will surely need to be amended … by the spirit of liberty.

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Antietam

dictionary with letter AAntietam: historic site in northwestern Maryland, known as Antietam Creek, the scene of a major Civil War battle in September of 1862.

It was a lost cause.

Unless you’re a careful student of history, you may fail to realize that Abraham Lincoln was probably the most hated man in America.

Not only had he been elected President, causing the South to secede from the Union, but he had also made a decision to surround himself, in his cabinet, with competitors and critics.

When the war began, it was a fiasco. At the First Battle of Bull Run, the South nearly ended the entire conflict with one day’s murder and mayhem. But Lincoln continued, searching for a means to keep the country together, and possibly in the process, heal some old wounds and atone for the sins of slavery.

The problem was, the North couldn’t win a battle. Not even close.

So rather than being considered a great leader or a man of vision, he was viewed by his contemporaries as a clumsy goofball, ill-prepared for the challenge of repairing the breach.

He kept replacing generals in charge of the Army of the Potomac, hoping that someone might grow a backbone or at least field an army.

Lincoln had two goals:

Primary was to keep the Union together, for a reason which he almost singularly held within his breast. Everyone else had varying degrees of indifference on the issue.

But secondly, he realized that emancipating the slaves was not only an important step of contrition, but also would keep England and France out of the war,siding with the Confederacy. But it was certainly difficult to issue any kind of Proclamation in the midst of defeat.

The Battle of Antietam was a standoff, with more soldiers killed on the field than in any war in history, and Lincoln seized on that result, deeming it a moral victory, and set in motion to free the slaves.

Even though the Union became more proficient at war and eventually wore down their Southern brothers, it was the Battle of Antietam that gave Lincoln the doorway to make the Civil War about something other than states’ rights. In doing so, he robbed the countrymen clad in gray of the possibility of gaining international acceptance, therefore stifling their resources to those found within their own borders.

It was enough.

It’s why we still honor Abraham Lincoln today instead of shaking our heads in sadness over another failed Presidency.

Antietam was a bloodbath which ended with no conclusion–except permission for a President to change the rules and certainly, change the world. 

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Anthropogeny

dictionary with letter A

 

Anthropogeny: (n)  the study of the origin of humankind.

I guess it doesn’t matter much whether you believe in Darwinian evolution, all the way up through the human, or if you believe in a Creator who spoke everything into existence in seven God-ordained days.

Still, somewhere along the line, if it’s evolution, some monkey looked around the jungle and said, “Enough of this banana farm! I’m launchin’ on my own.”

Or some Adam, in a Garden with Eve, said, “Enough of the rules. I’m gonna eat what I want.”

For at the core of humanity, there is a willingness to learn and a strong unwillingness to apply the knowledge.

This has caused many people to be self-loathing, with disparaging thoughts such as, “I’m only human” or “human beings are crap” or “people are no damn good.”

But I think the true essence of the history and the progression of the human race is found in the simple statement, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

And those who focus on their flesh often find that they gain only temporary pleasure because there’s no spirit, and those who tighten the spiritual belt become critical of other folks because they’re jealous over unattained pleasure.

So what’s the best way to be a human being?

Clean–unafraid to admit who you are, what you’re feeling and what you desire, realizing that tomorrow it may change. So since you know that it may change tomorrow, you aren’t intent on stealing, killing and destroying to acquire the moment’s whim.

In the process you can try to become a bit more effective at taking what you’ve learned and using it to improve your situation.

So as it pertains to the raging debate between the evolutionist and the creationist, we still end up with today, in which we’re human beings in need of some direction … and are desperately required to be more honest.

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Antagonist

dictionary with letter A

Antagonist: (n.) a person who opposes someone or something; an adversary.

I guess I should rate this particular column PG-13.

I am not the type who likes to use colloquial or street language just to be colorful, yet sometimes there is no word that communicates quite as clearly as one that threatens to dribble off into the gutter.

Here are the facts, at least as far as I know them:

Some people are antagonists for a good reason, and some folks are just assholes.

The difficulty lies in knowing the difference.

Because certainly, to over half of the U. S. in 1861, Abraham Lincoln was an asshole. He was making a stand against an institution that had cemented itself into the Southern culture, and even into the minds of many Northern politicians. It seemed like he was urinating on apple pie and had slapped Mom and America in the face.

Yet by the same token, in the 1960’s, Dr. Timothy Leary introduced LSD to our culture, insisting that it was equally as mind-expanding as the Emancipation Proclamation. But really, he ended up just being a weirdo and bringing grief to a lot of unfortunate, gullible souls.

There are many antagonists in our world today. With whom should we side?

  • Supposedly if you take into consideration the feelings of the Palestinians, you’re against Israel.
  • If you express your empathy for the state of Israel, you become a Zionist pig.
  • If you have misgivings about the gay lifestyle, you’re a homophobe.
  • Yet if you promote an entirely liberal, open-minded agenda, history may place you in the “leary” category.

Is there any way of knowing what is truly being motivated by an asshole and what is the necessary work of an antagonist, who’s come along to prophetically shake up our world and better mankind?

I have three ideas. (They are no better than yours, but since I have you reading, I guess you’re stuck with me for the time being:)

1. Great ideas don’t make us more dependent. They cause us to declare our independence from things that are not necessary.

2. Great ideas have a sense of the common good without making fun or humiliating the adversary.

3. Great ideas have appeared in history before. Even if they’ve been shoved to the rear, they still have a lineage in truth.

For instance, slaves being freed has always been a positive throughout mankind’s journey.

Drugs actually expanding our minds and making us more intensely involved have not proven to be such.

I believe this: we must question everything with gentleness, allowing the truth to come to the forefront, instead of just reading aloud, in unison, the press release.

I, myself, am an antagonist.

Will history find me on the right side–or a mental dinosaur?

We shall see.

Of course, I won’t really care … because I won’t be here.

 

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Annals

dictionary with letter A

Annals: (pl. n.) a record of events, year by year.

Baffled.

I like that word.

Because when I admit I’m baffled, I’m not saying I’m angry, frustrated, or out to get anyone. I’m just literally confused by the information that’s been provided to me.

I think it’s necessary to become baffled; otherwise, you start accepting what’s around you as normal, rather than looking back in the annals of history, the annals of intelligence and the annals of progress, to remind yourself that this present fad will pass away, lending itself to the possibility of sanity.

Yes, I recently became baffled when I realized that most of my friends whom I’ve known over the years have become more stodgy as they’ve become older instead of pursuing the path of wisdom–garnering the very best of what we’ve learned and bringing that package to the new possibilities before us.

Let me ask you:

  • Why do we line up to imitate the parents we used to rebel against?
  • Why do we suddenly become the gossipers we used to despise and make fun of because of their nasty tongues and bitter faces?
  • Why do we insist that those who are younger than us are somehow stupid or are pursuing destruction, when that is exactly what we were accused of by the stick-in-the-mud adults around us when we were coming of age?

I know we extol the value of mathematics, technology, reading and science, but somewhere along the line we need to hire some good history teachers to remind each and every generation of the ridiculous trends that nearly took us into the pits of hell, burning away our opportunities.

The annals of history are not the memories of old people who have now died and are decaying in graves, but rather, the memories of fresh, young faces who believed they could live forever, and made some poor choices along with their good ones, and found out much too late that life is short.

So I would say to all my friends:

Ease up. The greatest thing you can acquire as you get older is an open mind. Maybe all the extra oxygen coming into that wider space could prevent some dementia.

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