Tag Archives: mindset

Community

Community: (n) a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

Our little village was filled with community pride.

It was cute–a little bigger than a postage stamp, yet you could walk around the entire downtown area in less than ten minutes.

Growing up there, I was taught that community is not so much sharing a location, but rather, absorbing a basic ideology.

I’m not sure who came up with the standards or the principles which were passed down among the locals and inhaled like air, but generally speaking, you could do well in my community if you understood the mindset and the dress code.

If for some reason, you wanted to vary from the common universal brain, or clothe yourself in such a way as to gain too much attention, then you were initially viewed as comical.

If you persisted, you went from comical to being deemed confused.

And if confusion was maintained, then you would be considered dangerous and need to be dealt with by the negative approaches established by our community.

It was a very successful system.

We were able, through this system, to keep all blacks, Hispanics, gays, lesbians and long-haired rock and rollers far from our borders–without ever firing a shot.

The teeny tiny handful of those who remained were simply ostracized–or maybe just received really poor mail service.

None of the people in our community considered themselves prejudiced–just enamored by a preference. After all, if you wanted varying behaviors, you could drive twenty miles down the road to the Big City, where there were all sorts of options available, complete with rape, murder and a variety of other crimes. We were thoroughly frightened of the outside world, without ever being officially indoctrinated into a cult.

But our community was a cult.

I found this out when I wanted to stray from the daily routine and pursue my own ideas. No one struck me, no one physically attacked me, and no one even openly rebuked me. They just left me out of everything.

The system works to this day. All across America little towns have a network of gossipers who warn of suspicious arrivals, allowing the community a chance to provide the inconsideration to drive good folks away.

 

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Bizarre

Bizarre: (adj) very strange or unusual

Dictionary B

The pursuit of normal has grown to abnormal proportions.

It is more than a mindset–it is a deep, ingrained fear that the slightest step from the prepared pathway will bring ridicule or destruction.

This has brought our society to an unnecessary impasse. We’ve divided into two unseemly camps–unseemly in the sense that neither gathering has acquired the high road.

There are those who believe that anything that cannot be lifted up in righteous glory from the King James Version needs to be extracted from our country, out of a fear of heavenly judgment.

Then there are those who are so uncertain where to place the lines that they’ve removed all the grid and assumed that everything is all right as long as it makes someone happy.

So we have no definition for right and wrong, just a judgment of what is wrong and a free pass on what is right.

What is bizarre?

I think anything that kills human beings is bizarre.

I would venture to say that stealing our life force and joy is also bizarre.

And certainly, it is bizarre when we set about to destroy ourselves or other people through gossip and vapid hatred.

If we could determine what is truly bizarre and agree upon the parameters, we could begin to progress and surprise ourselves at how happy we actually can be.

But until then, there will be two camps warmed by two very different fires.

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Bell

Bell: (n) a hollow object, typically made of metal, that sounds a clear musical note when struck by means of a clapper inside.

Dictionary B

I was sitting in my car on a hot, summer’s day, becoming more frustrated with each moment of sizzling waiting. I can’t recall what was keeping me from progress, but I was totally disgusted.

All of a sudden, there were bells.

Apparently a church in the middle of town had a ritual of ringing bells at noonday from its belfry.

I was suddenly translated to a simpler mindset.

I had the feeling that I was in the middle of a Normal Rockwell painting, sucking in a bit of Americana through my nostrils and allowing my eyeballs to be transformed to see something other than my aggravation.

The bells did it.

They harkened to a better part of me which remembered, from somewhere in my youth, such clanging–to stimulate a sense of celebration or an inkling of hope.

I don’t know who came up with the idea of putting bells in a church and what committee decided to ring them to inform the community of the presence of a house of worship, but damn…it works.

There’s no doubt about it.

A religious system that is beleaguered by too much tradition and obtuse theology is actually much better represented by the chiming of the bells … than the rhetoric of its ding-dongs.

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Autocrat

Autocrat: (n) a ruler who has absolute power.dictionary with letter A

I enjoy attempting to understand, even though unfortunately, I feel the possibility for comprehension is sometimes snatched away from me by the ambiguity of our times.

Let’s see if I can piece this together:

  • It’s good to have friends. Am I right?
  • Friends are supposed to be friendly. Got it.
  • Friends should encourage us.
  • But friends are also intended to awaken us to our mistakes.

Yet we live in a time when friends dare not contradict us, or they become classified as “haters.”

For you see, in a quest to make everyone more self-confident, we’ve actually succeeded in insulating ourselves from any form of criticism or input that might improve our status. We therefore find ourselves on a bumpy road, incapable of achieving comfort or ease because we’re always bouncing up and down or tossing from side to side.

Yes, the word autocrat used to refer to some sort of dictator who lorded over an entire province of helpless victims. But now I must extend the definition to a mindset which causes too many of us to contend that we rule a domain which needs to be revered, but never scrutinized.

That domain is our personal ego.

So what has transpired in politics, with nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, is now equally being acted out in individuals–building personal little forts of protection for their idiosyncracies, refusing to let anyone offer a counter-view.

Here’s a question I must ask myself: am I prepared to make choices which can be challenged, both for authenticity and practicality? In other words, am I truly sincere and do I understand the end results of my actions?

Without this kind of submission to the common good, we will end up with a planet of billions of little dictators declaring war on the latest person to cross their border without permission.

There are three things necessary to maintain a quality human life:

  1. I find what I want to do.
  2. I do it.
  3. I learn from the blow-back.

If there is no learning from what we do, merely a stubborn determination to continue to do that which is ridiculous, we will bring our earth to a crumbling mass of rubble … by simply refusing to admit our need for repentance.

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Anorexia

dictionary with letter A

Anorexia: (n) a loss of appetite for food which becomes a medical condition.

I am ill-suited to speak on this subject, similar to a cannibal discussing recipes with Martha Stewart.

I have never abstained from food. I don’t over-eat–it’s just that the idea of food is very pleasant to me, even though sometimes in the middle of chewing it, I realize that I’m getting little pleasure and positive reinforcement out of an experience that has the ability to levy great difficulty to my well-being.

I don’t know what causes anorexia. I’ve read about it. I’ve talked to people who suffer under the condition.

Matter of fact, there are times that I feel embarrassed to be in the presence of someone afflicted with the condition, because my heft might accidentally confirm their fears just through my visuals.

Unlike the anorexic, I am always looking for a mirror that favors me rather than one that points out a little “dab of flab.” I am always justifying the calorie count on some food I desire, to make it seem that it is either healthy or within the spectrum for acceptable consumption.

But I do know this–I do not grow impatient with those who find themselves oppressed by this mindset.

Because I have been around individuals who cannot fathom why I don’t “just eat less” or do something to lose weight, I understand that intolerance is unbearable. It makes me want to run and smooch with the nearest bratwurst.

Even though we do not have the cure for all diseases, and do not comprehend the whys and wherefores of every human foible, we can have the first fruits of compassion.

Anorexia is difficult for me because I find the gaunt boniness frightening and anti-human. But I must realize that the anorexic finds my obesity equally as obtuse and ugly.

Perhaps that’s the secret: to refuse to allow oneself the oversimplification of believing that what one thinks is really the truth … but always allowing for love and tenderness to surpass mere reasoning.

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