Tag Archives: problem

Aground

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAground: (adj & adv) in reference to a ship running on or onto the bottom in shallow water.

Shallow.

There you go. Thus the problem.

We used to believe that “still waters run deep,” until we realized that the adage doesn’t apply to a generation of people who refuse to speak because of the vacuous nature of their thoughts.

I am not cynical of our time or particularly gloomy about our future. Yet I do not think it is the job of people who write articles or who are creatively bent toward sharing wisdom to always kiss the rear end of the person in front of them.

We just need to realize that we have created so much shallowness that we have run aground–and as you well know, when a boat runs aground, it can neither float nor can it sail from its perch.

So where have we run aground?

  1. By telling everybody they’re great, we’ve eliminated the word “great.”
  2. By electronically connecting ourselves to the world, we have emotionally disconnected ourselves from one another.
  3. We have replaced actions with speeches, thinking that merely stating our intentions is sufficient to prove our willingness.
  4. We foster the present bigotry as intelligent study, even though historically, every rejected piece of prejudice took a similar profile.
  5. We promote a war between men and women while simultaneously using sex to sell everything.
  6. We foolishly think there is a permanent solution to problems rather than a gradual revelation in our everyday reality.
  7. We value critique–one of the more useless human endeavors.
  8. We accept mediocrity, hoping that others will accept our rendition.
  9. We want to believe we are exceptional, even though every nationality that has pursued that particular philosophy has ended up being declared tyrants.
  10.  We think that problems can be solved corporately, when nothing ever happens in the human family without individuals repenting.

It’s really quite simple. When you take away personal responsibility, the need for humility and you add in the arrogance of uniqueness, you get people who have a common spiel–which they use to promote a nasty disdain.

Here’s the good news: for each one of these ten that we address and change, we can double our potential.

God is good because He doesn’t demand much change from human beings … for mountains to move.

Acclaim

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acclaim: (n) praise enthusiastically and publicly.

You know what the problem is with “acclaim?” To achieve it you really need to make a claim on something and follow through to completion–and probably even excellence.

After all, when we begin to acclaim EVERYTHING as great, NOTHING is great. And if we acclaim things that are actually poor, trying to convince the public they are adequate, we end up with a very sarcastic populace.

So to a certain degree, acclaim is unnecessary, because if you’ve already made a claim and followed through, you are reaping the benefits and don’t need any other stamp of approval.

So there is a certain amount of dishonesty that goes into requiring acclaim. This is personified by the actor or actress at the Academy Awards who insists that it’s an “honor to be nominated by my peers.”

Supposedly it is a great boost to one’s ego to receive acclaim from those in the same profession or who possess similar motivations. But honestly, when you get to the end of a movie and you’ve played your part, if you have half a brain you pretty well know if you did your job, and the opinion you have of your own performance is much more accurate and important.

So in the pursuit of acclaim, we have made some people famous in this country who should never have left the print of their local, small-town Register.

And nowadays, of course, it’s very possible to achieve acclaim by being notorious instead of glorious.

I am suspicious of acclaim. I will go further. I am aggravated by what our society touts as worthy of “honorable mention.”

If you don’t mind, I just think I will make my own personal claims, follow through on them, discover the rewards included and enjoy a reward ceremony of my OWN making–with the trophy being a sense of satisfaction.