Tag Archives: purpose

Decisive

Decisive: (adj) characterized by displaying no hesitation; resolute

Did you ever notice that we never characterize someone as being decisive if they end up being wrong?

Somewhere in the process of mulling over choices, enough time needs to be taken to increase the possibility of a successful conclusion. On the other hand, if too much time is taken, the juncture of greatest possibility may pass, and the person who failed to step into the historical hook-up ends up not being decisive.

It all depends on three words:

  • Power
  • Purpose
  • Pounce

First, you have to have the power to make the decision.

If you don’t, it’s called an opinion. If you’re not allowed to have an opinion, it’s viewed as an annoyance.

The purpose is the rational common sense that makes the insight viable and necessary for this time.

Without the purpose, we are not just purposeless—we actually end up merely “less.”

And finally, pounce.

The pounce is the exact moment to move on an idea—when to step out and make things happen, doing it with such enthusiasm that there’s no doubt that you and all your teammates have full confidence in the determination.

Without these three working in harmony—like an aging women’s trio from a Southern Baptist choir—the destiny of any project is going to be flawed, leaving the participants wondering why they were so enthusiastic and what in the hell happened.

So don’t favor your power if you can’t generate a purpose.

And don’t over-talk your purpose unless you’re prepared to pounce.

Death Wish

Death wish: (n) having a desire for one’s own death

Life is the opportunity to live.

More life is what we get for solving our problems.

But I have to be honest with you—continued life is not very interesting if it doesn’t possess purpose.

I’d rather be dead than bitchy.

I’d rather be dead than bigoted.

I’d rather be dead than poked and probed for the rest of my days by young doctors who are trying to make their reputation by discovering something wrong with me.

I’d rather be dead than harm a little one.

I’d rather be dead than remain silent as the world flirts with annihilation—simply lacking the common sense of cordiality.

I’d rather be dead than live without knowing if another human being finds me hopelessly attractive.

I’d rather be dead than be religious.

I’d rather be dead than be an atheist—although that’s problematic.

I’d rather be dead than continue to curse after I’m blessed.

I’d rather be dead than live in a country whose people believe they’re better than everyone else.

I’d rather be dead than find myself buying into the idea that lying is just a human thing we do.

I’d rather be dead than sit around all the time, wondering how and when I’m going to die.

Dying doesn’t look very complicated.

But once its accomplished, it does alter your social calendar.

So having a death wish is really wanting a decent burial for what is already dying inside.

Cycle

Cycle: (n) any long period of years; age. 

I am not sure if I am offering an observation or a musing.

Just so you’ll know the difference—at least in my mind—an observation is something that has occurred enough times that it causes me to believe there is a trend.

A musing is an action which may have only happened once but foretells a cycle of change.

All that being said (and offering way too much information) I want to put forth the observation (or the musing) that even though we contend that “everything old is new again,” I have begun to notice that fads and tendencies may return, but seem to possess less vigorous authenticity.

In this way, I think the human race is threatening its own demise.

It is not because we fall into repetition, but rather, because each generation loses a degree of passion in chasing the possibility.

I see people wearing bell-bottoms and tie-dye shirts much like the apparel of my friends from my comin’-up years. But rather than holding up signs against war or speaking up for love and peace, they are staring at their phones, perusing a fresh vein of distraction.

When I was a young human, we recycled jazz and blues into rock and roll—but the steaminess, pain and earthy quality of the Bayou and the Delta were translated into “Hang On, Sloopy.”

I think, in our pursuit of originality without duplication of our parents, we must keep a pulse on our hearts, to ensure that we are a purposed people instead of mud-puddles reflecting a murky past.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Culpable

Culpable: (adj) deserving blame or censure; blameworthy.

I was born in a hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Honestly, the single incident didn’t do a whole lot for me except provide me life.

I was born again in a little church and got baptized.

It felt good for a while, but then I discovered that I had to keep going and scrounge out some purpose.

When I was eighteen years of age, I wrote my first musical number.

It felt mighty good to be creative. It was rewarding on that first composition and continues to be so. But it’s not the highlight of my life.

I saw sons born into my household and sons who came through my front door.

They were all amazing, but they didn’t provide the backbone and meaning for my journey.

I really became a human being the day I allowed myself to be culpable for my actions and I was not afraid to admit the wrongs I engineered.

Before that day, I avoided confrontations—even lied, cheated and rewrote history to prove I was not at fault.

This dodging of responsibility occasionally made me the “Bad Dad,” a mediocre workman, an insufficient artist, an unpredictable lover and a horrible Christian.

My life began when I was prepared to admit where I screwed up.

Any human who is not willing to be culpable for his or her own actions is not only obnoxious but dangerous to the whole tribe.

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Contrarian

Contrarian: (n) a person who takes an opposing view

The contrarians of one generation are the high school teachers of the next.

It was a contrarian who stood up in 1847 and said slavery was wrong. Move ahead forty or fifty years and the whole country has fought a great war (if such a thing as a “great” war is possible) to confirm the point of the contrarian.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Contrarians are people like you and me who affix themselves to a notion they believe is universal or perhaps even divinely inspired, and rather than giving into the pressure to be average or common, they persist in pursuing their train of thought.

I have spent most of my life being a contrarian and have dwelt on this planet long enough to see many of the things that troubled me get worked out, discussed and now everyone assumes they were never issues.

I lived through the civil rights movement, and though I grew up in a white-bread-mayonnaise community, I decided to support equality.

While people were screaming about patriotism and Viet Nam, I listened carefully and gradually decided I agreed with the contrarian position—that the skirmish in Indochina was ill-conceived.

I was there to remind those from the Moral Majority that they were neither moral nor really a majority.

I have been a blessed man.

There’s nothing special about me except for the fact that I am not afraid to be a contrarian.

I am not terrified when the plurality of my society frowns at my outlandish contentions.

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Contraption

Contraption: (n) a mechanical contrivance; gadget; device.

Getting older changes my opinion on many things.

When I was much younger, I viewed myself as a discovery—a unique human being placed on Earth for some divine cause or mission. Such an idea was immature, short-sighted and arrogant simultaneously.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Getting a little more experience under my belt, I thought I might be an invention. In other words, the creative forces in the universe stumbled upon my attributes and decided to use me to make something else.

Yet as time marched on, I realized that although I was happy and did possess some ability, the combination was not unique to my person.

Pressing on, I now realize I’m a contraption, and like any such device, I’m about as usable as I am willing to be flexible.

For instance, a tire iron is a contraption. It can function to work on tires. You can use it to get something from underneath a couch. Or if an attacker decided to bother you, you might be able to scare him or her away with by brandishing it.

Yes—I am a contraption. I’m just about as functional as I’m willing to evolve myself to be.

I used to be prideful and say I would never do certain things. Once I abandoned the pride, I suddenly discovered there were many more inventive things I could do.

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Combine

Combine: (v) to unite; merge.

Earth is not a recipe.

Although we often consider it to be some sort of careful, articulate blending of ingredients, forming a broth or stew, it actually is nothing like that.

I think we’re a little frightened by how chaotic life actually is.

When you have a recipe, you gather your ingredients and you put in just the right amount of each one, to create something tasteful.

That’s not life. All life does is combine.

It doesn’t care if things agree and is indifferent to whether the enjoining of elements will end up being palatable.

It throws everything together, provides resources and stands back to see what will happen.

Those who pursue the comical belief that “everything has a purpose” and “God has a wonderful plan,”should go into the jungle, stand there, and just stare in every direction.

Thousands and thousands of forms of life, not to mention vegetation, combine to form what appears to be a huge single view with no apparent connection. Often the most intimacy in the jungle is burping after eating someone.

Although it frustrates the conservatives with how openly things combine, and it enrages the liberals about the inequity of the plan, favoring the fittest, the Universe doesn’t seem to care.

Matter of fact, on the day you’re born, the cosmos peers at you curiously and says, “So you’re here. Good luck. Please understand, it’s nothing personal. But we must get rid of you.”

 

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Cob

Cob: (n) the center of the ear of corn

What do you do when the job you were given, which grants you purpose and function, is no longer needed?

It is a sobering thought.

But that is the yearly reality of the cob.

Once the corn is removed, the cob remaining seems to have no purpose. Yet without the corncob, how would we ever have figured out corn?

Was corn supposed to grow, kernel by kernel, on plants?

No, you can store a hundred or more kernels of corn on a single cob and carry it right out the door. But once you dislodge the corn from the cob, the holder no longer has value.

People used to use cobs for biofuel, to heat homes and such, but they burned so quickly that it was fairly impractical. In other words, nobody could eat enough corn to stay warm.

Every once in a while, it’s ground up, placed inside mattresses, or added to furniture polish to give some roughness to the mixture.

But basically, if you’re a cob, your job is done when the corn is eaten.

How would that feel? (Of course, the point could be made that corn cobs don’t actually have sensation.)

The design is so perfect–two little points at each end, where you place your fingers so you don’t burn them on the hot kernels as you chomp away.

I don’t know. Maybe we’re all corn cobs. Just skeletons, holding our parts together for a season, until our corny lives are done. And then we’re looking for some place to discard the cob.

God. This is dismal.

I think I shall stop writing now.

But it did make me hungry for corn…

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Business

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Business: (n) the practice of commerce.

“Business as usual.”

Maybe if we clarified what “usual” is, we might have a better idea of the true nature of business.

If by business we mean simply finding a way to create commerce without any real concern except profit margin, then we unleash an unruly effort on the world that doesn’t seem to answer to any higher guideline.

But if we know what the “usual” is of business, and that “usual” has productive roots, then business can be a good thing–matter of fact, the heart of every endeavor.

For even the Good Book tells us not to be slothful in business. What is slothful in business?

Anyone who starts a storefront or an Internet escapade should ask two questions:

  1. Is this needed?
  2. Can I maintain quality?

Because if it’s not needed, it not only will have a short life, but it continues to increase the cynicism about true ingenuity in the marketplace.

And if the essence of quality if sacrified to manufacturing costs, then people will cynically hold a broken piece of junk in their hands that makes them further suspicious of the world as a whole.

Slothful in business is when we’re more concerned with producing than we are with being productive.

Not every corporation needs to have a noble cause–but everyone who decides to market a product needs to be able to give a quick explanation of its purpose and value, and also a guarantee that it was put together with tender, loving care.

Anyone who thinks that’s unrealistic will probably find him or herself in a slothful profile. And anyone who asks the two magic questions–is it needed and can I maintain quality?–is helping to build the trust among humans that is necessary to keep us from self-destruction.

 

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Birthday

Birthday: (n) the anniversary of the day on which a person was born

Find the reason.Dictionary B

There are too many things we do in life that are either absent purpose or have lost direction, but continue to be honored in some awkward way.

Because we do not understand the true value of a birthday, we come up with cakes, cards, silly gifts, and nervous congratulatory statements to cruise through the twenty-four hours, relieved that it only happens once a year.

The reason for a birthday is to establish how well we have used the blessing of 365 days.

If you find yourself discontented or embarrassed to look back on the activities of the previous year, then you know the greatest gift you can be given on your birthday is a gentle kick in the “assaroni” to do better.

Our lives should mean something.

They should not be apologies for the activity level we have selected, based upon our circumstances.

They should not be a listing of the people who love us because we have decided to love them.

A birthday is a celebration of growth in the passing of a year, instead of passing a year with no growth.

There are three things I want to hear on my birthday:

1. We’re glad you’re here.

2. You make our lives better and easier.

3. We are astounded at how many of the things you wanted to do this year that you were able to accomplish.

Now, that is a Happy Birthday.

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