Tag Archives: insanity

Cud

Cud: (n) the portion of food that a ruminant returns from the first stomach to the mouth to chew a second time.

I am susceptible.

I don’t like to admit it.

Often, it’s why I refuse to watch medical shows or even programs of itinerant travelers who share experiences of strange lands, animals and diseases.

I buy in too easily.

Such a thing happened to me short years ago. In my ongoing pursuit to remove the mythology of my obesity and supposedly create the human-flesh-muddle that I’m meant to be, I listened to a young, slender woman (my first mistake) expound upon the importance of chewing your food at least twenty times before swallowing.

She explained that this not only made digestion easier, but also that chewing at for such an extended period of time caused us to eat less, and therefore promoted weight loss.

In that moment–in my flurry of passion and with her apt representation– she was able to convince me to try. She closed off her discourse by highlighting that animals like the cow chew their cud over and over again until it is just a mushy mess of drippy liquid, which they then gulp.

Surviving her vivid description, I sat down to my dinner that night and decided to pursue my own cud chewing.

I quickly realized that my normal number of chews for consumption was four or five.

I was still comfortable with eight chews.

At twelve I had to take my mind to a faraway place to keep insanity from ensuing.

When I finally reached twenty and tried to swallow, nothing happened. (All the little gushy, mushy pieces had already snuck down my throat to the stomach to the awaiting stomach).

Yet faithful pilgrim that I am, I continued this practice for an entire meal.

It was exhausting—so tiring it was that at the end of the feast, I found myself needing energy—starved.

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

 

Crutch

Crutch: (n) a staff to assist a lame person in walking

Granted sexual energy, stamina and maybe the best physical appearance one ever sports…

The age of sixteen might seem to be the highlight of one’s life.

That is, if it were not accompanied by such stupidity.

I liked Kevin. I think Kevin liked me. We had been friends since elementary school.

But when he was sixteen years old, he broke his leg.

He was out with a bunch of friends, sledding on a snowy day, and failed to notice that his sleigh was going particularly fast and he was unable to stop from crashing into a wall.

It was a clean break.

Matter of fact, he went right to the doctor and had a cast put on (back in the day when such contraptions were humongous, resembling modern art).

Kevin was not part of the very popular crowd–but on any Friday night when a party was being planned, he was also not on the “don’t invite at any cost” list.

Then something strange happened.

His accident occurred on a Saturday, so he showed up at school on Monday, his leg in a cast, on crutches.

At first there was an outpouring of sympathy.

But then, a strange anthropology sprouted in our herd. All the other sixteen-year-old kids began acting aloof to Kevin. Maybe it was because he was always trailing us, hopping along on his crutches. (Or because we grew up in a small, provincial community and the kids thought the broken leg might be contagious.)

Whatever the cause, by the time Kevin completed his seven-week rehabilitation and returned to us wearing two shoes, he had become an outcast.

He tried desperately to return to his normal acceptable position, but invitations to parties went away.

I tried to befriend him–but suffering in the throes of adolescent insanity myself, I also retreated.

It didn’t get better when he was seventeen and it didn’t get better when he was eighteen.

That seven-week period when our comrade had a broken leg, giving us a visual of himself on crutches, sealed his image for the balance of high school.

It was so bizarre.

Kevin tried everything possible to re-establish himself. He tried out for the football team, chorus and the school play. It didn’t make any difference.

Yet I thought it was a phenomenon of being a shortsighted teenager until I grew up and realized that expressing weakness or needing a crutch of any type in the presence of your fellow-humans traps you in a box that is very difficult to escape.

So what is the best advice?

Stay away from a crutch.

Which probably means you should stop breaking your legs.

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

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Critical

Critical: (adj) judging

Two sentences:

  1. I am so good.
  2. I am no good.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Just changing one word in that phrase—from “so” to “no” or from “no” to “so”—renders a completely different conclusion.

It’s where the human race bounces.

Somewhere between so and no, we’re always on a journey to over-exaggerate our value or else proclaim ourselves wormlike.

Matter of fact, if I were to capsulize—perhaps even in a nutshell—what prevents us from becoming nutty is realizing that both profiles are stimulated by a flash-bang of insanity somewhere in the deep regions of our cranium.

No one is SO good.

Even in the midst of excellence, there is error that challenges to increase effort.

And no one is NO good.

Even within those souls we consider worthless, one can find value, even if that one only refers to God.

This is why a nation, or dare I say, a world of critical souls saying critical things to make their critical nature produce critical cynicism, causes the planet to teeter on a critical cliff of danger.

A critical condition.

I don’t agree with the axiom, “if you can’t say something good don’t say anything at all.”

Nor do I assert that everyone who is critical offers something to the “great conversation.”

I have developed a simple procedure in dealing with my fellow humans:

If I view something, hear something, watch something or read something that they have produced and there is nothing at all that I like about it or understand or appreciate or concur with, I remain silent.

Because to be honest, a critical contribution is only valuable if it follows a positive encouragement. If there’s nothing positive to say, being critical places the burden of guilt onto the judge.

In this case, that would be me. I can’t afford the guilt.

If they pursue, and say, “You didn’t have any opinion on the material?” I quickly grab the beauty of the lower seat and reply:

“Sometimes things go over my head.”

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

 

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Coupon

Coupon: (n) a discount

There is a certain madness I maintain so as not to become superior to those around me.

Without it—or minus the awareness of it—I might begin to believe that my form of insanity is preferred to the mental mayhem offered daily by others. I realize that many of the things I think, believe or prefer can be quite distasteful to my fellow-travelers.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Yet truthfully, realizing this does not prevent me from believing that I have captured some greater sense of balance than those around me.

I offer this preface because I do not want you to believe for one second that what I am about to share is factual, but rather, the experience of my heart.

I hate coupons.

Do not try to explain to me how beneficial they can be or how much money you can save by using them.

On occasion, I find myself at a grocery store, in line behind some man or woman who clips coupons so as to save on groceries. They rarely bring one or two—it is a stack.

So once all the prices have been tallied, the cashier has to patiently stand there, and one by one register the coupons on the machine, to deduct them from the subtotal.

And it’s not just being robbed of my personal time that brings aggravation—it is also the look of pride cast in my direction by the “couponer” which curdles my milk of human-kindness. He or she is convinced that they have found the secret to life, and they pity me, who stands there coupon-less, failing to understand the alpha and omega of shopping.

I can’t argue with their results.

I have observed people who have saved over a hundred dollars by using those little boogers.

But I always ask myself, how many hours are spent poring over circulars and newspapers in order to acquire the discount—and have they factored this in as a labor cost?

I think not.

Even though the cashier always asks me if I have coupons, I never feel intimidated, or any sense of necessity to explain why I remain a hold-out from the hold-up.

I will shop.

I will look for deals.

I will even consider something on sale that I’ve never tried before simply because it is cheap.

But when I was six years old, I stopped using scissors to cut out little pieces of paper.


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Control Freak

Control freak: (n) a person having a strong need for control over people or situations.

I have devised five questions I periodically ask myself, to make sure I haven’t gone completely nuts.

It’s very easy to go insane since there are no obvious fences or walls built at the border. So, without inquiring from time to time, I can become dangerous to myself and others. I thought you might find them interesting:

  1. Does everything have to go according to plan, or is “close” good enough sometimes?funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
  2. Am I happy while I plan, while I do and while I finish?
  3. Do I expect too much from other people?
  4. Do I feel the need to give orders, or can I also take them?
  5. Do I understand the value of humility and the power of gratitude?

I have found that when I don’t ask these questions, I can easily turn into a control freak.

And keep this in mind—there is a reason it’s referred to as a “freak” instead of a genius.

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Compos Mentis

Compos mentis: (adj) having full control of one’s mind; sane.

In an attempt to control the populace, the forces of manipulation withhold wisdom from the people so they can force them to wallow in ignorance–but also call them stupid if they get out of control.

It is a very sad but true situation that those who should have our best intentions at heart are often overcome by greed and the pursuit of funny wisdom on words that begin with a Cabsolute power.

So it falls the responsibility of those who are deemed incompetent and worthless to meter their own activities, and maintain their own compos mentis.

Here are some things to look out for:

  1. You are insane if you think you’re better than anyone else.
  2. Your compos mentis is in question if you pursue revenge.
  3. Insanity is quickly proven by the practice of gossip instead of honest dialogue between offended parties
  4. You’re totally insane if you think men and women are so different that they cannot share the same space, position and equality
  5. You have lost your compos mentis if you think more about heaven than you do Earth
  6. Insanity is truly in place if you contend that lying is sometimes necessary to avoid conflict
  7. You want to make more than you’re able to work for–truly insane.

Keep these seven things in mind as you move forward into the murky, sticky environment created by those who wish to slow things down in order to establish their will.

 

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Compliant

Compliant: (adj) inclined to agree with others or obey rules

Historically, it’s been proven that the rule is golden.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

You can actually judge the sanity of our planet and the people who inhabit it by whether they consider this rule to be essential and have chosen to be compliant to it; or if they have concluded that it’s a whimsical idea of a Nazarene poet who didn’t live in dangerous times, and therefore could postulate on peaceful coexistence.

Yes–when you see society begin to ignore, set aside or even mock the Golden Rule and take a non-compliant position, you realize how desperately we’ve slipped from the only strand of rope that can save us from stumbling off the cliff of common sense into our own free fall to insanity.

 

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Colloquialism

Colloquialism: (n) a word or phrase that is not formal, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.

When did “fuck” become a colloquialism?

I apparently was out to dinner, and came back and there it was–all over my answering machine, Internet and television.

Was there a meeting?

Did anyone consider that trivializing such a powerful word was taking away the ability to use it when describing murders, mayhem, evil wars and genocide?

If everything is fucked then nothing is truly fucked, am I right?

If you discover that your hard-boiled egg is really soft-boiled, “fucking” that situation removes the potency to rail against some dictator who murders children.

Some words should not be colloquial. They should be saved up for special occasions when we need to rally with just the right word to rattle the room.

And it’s not just the word “fuck.”

I don’t like it when “sensitivity” is overused. Sensitivity is special. It shouldn’t be used when somebody brings you a second napkin.

And how about love? Yes, the word “love” has become a two-bit whore giving a blow job in an alley, or people explaining that even though they beat their children, they really do “love them.”

What? Did I take a really long nap? Am I Rip-van-Something-or-Other, waking up to the world going insane for no particular reason?

If I say “I love you” I want it to mean something.

If I discuss sensitivity, I want you to sense my heart and deep-rooted commitment.

And if I say “fuck,” I damn well want it to be fucked.

 

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Choir

Choir: (n) an organized group of singers

I found that being in a choir squashed my desire to be heard. Yes, you have to be willing to blend.

Matter of fact, they talk about “the blend”–that particular sound that a group of singers makes which is supposedly unique unto them.

It is fairly restrictive. Even the names are:

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: “To sing, I have to be Mormon, get directions to the tabernacle, and then hide my voice among other song birds. I am en-caged.”

I felt this in high school.

When I quit the football team because I discovered they made fat boys run, I realized that my second-greatest interest other than tackling running backs was singing. It seemed logical to join the choir, since that was the avenue afforded to me on the thoroughfare of musical expression.

I hated choir. Nobody could hear me sing. They commented on “the blend,” or applauded the musical director, or noted how the robes looked so good.

It drove me nuts.

So in rehearsal one day, in a fit of rebellion and pending insanity, I just started singing another song from my standing position in the choir, while the rest of the parakeets tweeted out the prepared number.

My voice was strong, but certainly not powerful enough to overcome the mass musical. But it was annoying enough that the director kept tilting her head, leaning in with squinting eyes, trying to determine what was disrupting her “blend.” I just kept singing a different song–a little quieter, but with enough volume to create frustration on the face of the conductor.

After a few moments, she took her baton and tapped it violently against the music stand, stopping the proceedings.

“Is everybody singing the same song?” she bellowed to the gathered.

Those standing closest to me, who heard my little interpretation, turned in unison and gazed in my direction.

I was caught. The director peered at me intensely and said, “Were you singing a different song?”

I paused–not so much to make it seem like I was making up a story, but just to express my alarm. Then I replied, “I thought we were doing Number Eight in the program.”

I don’t think she believed me, but she played along.

“No,” she said. “It’s Number Seven. I’m sorry if I did not make that clear.”

“You’re forgiven,” I replied in my snootiest voice.

She nearly lost all sensibility. Glaring at me, she said tersely, “Thank you.”

We resumed singing, and I couldn’t help myself. Once we had gotten a chorus of the song in, I reverted back to my former tune, which was completely alternative to “the blend.”

This time she stopped and used her baton to point toward the door as she screamed, “Get outta here!”

There were giggles and whispers as I made my way out, escaping the class. Fortunately for me, she was not specific about where I should get–so since I was told to be punished, I just went early to have a leisurely lunch.

 

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Chapped

Chapped: (adj) when lips become cracked, rough, or sore

There was a seventeen-day period back when I was a sophomore in high school, totally possessed by the demon of obsession, when I was
completely insane about my lips.

I don’t know what caused it.

Early in the year, I had nearly driven myself crazy, fearing that while I was sleeping I would swallow my tongue because I overheard a conversation on the subject. But I was finally convinced that my tongue was attached, and would be unwilling to slither down my throat.

During this seventeen day period, I caught a glimpse of my lips in the mirror–and they seemed huge. They weren’t. But my perception had temporarily taken a vacation and left behind a neurosis to care for my brain.

I was convinced that my lips were too large–and since I was raised in a prejudiced Midwest community, I asked my mother if we “had any Negro in our family.” (That’s what we called people of color at the time–Negroes.)

My mother was not only shocked at the question, but sent me to my room until I could come out and “be a decent fellow.”

While I was in my room, I decided to stare at my lips some more. This second viewing caused me to realize that they were not only huge, but they were chapped. I was positive I saw little white flakes trying to surface and take over my mouth.

What was I going to do?

Now please understand–it’s not like I was in some relationship with a girl and my lips were in constant demand. But optimist that I was, I thought it could happen soon, or that some young lady might just take a dare and kiss me. In doing so, would she comment on the acreage of my pucker–how dry and cracked it was?

It was the only thing I thought about. I flunked a pop quiz in chemistry class because I sat there the whole time looking at the beakers of fluid displayed against the wall, wondering if there was something in there that would shrink and smooth out my smooch.

As I don’t know how it began, I also do not know what ceased this madness.

But after seventeen days, I transferred my strange pursuit of lip shrinkage and mouth softening over to a stretch mark. You see, I found one right underneath my left armpit, barely able to be covered by me squeezing my shoulder tightly against my body.

 

 

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