Tag Archives: satisfaction

Crooner

Crooner: (n) someone who utilizes smooth but exaggerated singing

Late one night, as a friend and I drove across the expanses of the American prairie, where it was so lonesome and dark that even the prairie dogs had turned in for the night, we quickly discovered that we were getting sleepy.

We tried eating.

We tried listening to the radio.

We tried talking. (I think we confessed all the sins and indiscretions from our youth at least three times over.)

While flipping around the radio, we discovered a channel set aside exclusively for old-time singers like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.

We were deeply surprised at how much production was put into each and every song, and how these crooners took every single tune and made it sound the same as the others—simply by homogenizing the words and blending the tones together to develop the same consistency on every ballad.

We got tickled.

We decided to take great rock and roll songs and sing them to one another as if we were crooners. From “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, to “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues, to “Hang On Sloopy,” by the McCoys, to “Get Back” by the Beatles—each rendition was funnier than the last.

After all, rock and roll is known for separating words and lyrics, almost in a syncopated style. When you smear it all together, it not only loses its beat, but certainly threatens to remove all meaning.

Crooners are interesting vocalists.

They took a time in our history, when we wanted our background music to be nearly symphonic, and then they added cottage cheese vocals, to make everything resound with romance.

Still, I don’t think anything else could have kept us awake that night, as we drove across Americana.

It was especially funny when we decided to do our “crooner rendition” of the Kiss song, “I’m Gonna Rock and Roll All Night and Party Every Day.”

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Boast

Boast: (v) to talk with excessive pride and self-satisfaction

Dictionary B

If doing it doesn’t give you an adequate boost of joyful satisfaction, then stop.

If you believe you need recognition, appreciation, applause or even space to perform your due diligence, you are destined to a life of sour despair.

There has to be joy in the doing, or the doing will become the burdensome chore of the malcontent.

I find that I’m only tempted to boast when I’m doing a job that really does not suit my taste and therefore needs to be bolstered by the admiration of others.

For instance, I was a writer long before I was read.

If I didn’t enjoy being a writer, I would have been absolutely miserable and would have made everyone around me fidgety as I complained about the arduous task of putting words on a screen.

I enjoyed it so I continued. If others end up finding purpose or pleasure in my phrasing and placement of notions, it’s just a magnificent manifestation.

If you find a boastful human, you will discover a soul who is not only insecure, but fearful that what they’re doing is a heap of meaningless.

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Being

Being: (n) the nature or essence of a person.

Dictionary B

The question is misleading.

We often ask younger people, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

It’s not what we want to know. What we want to know is what they want to do when they grow up. Unfortunately, we teach our younger generation to do without ever having them search their souls for who they want to be.

The end result is that many people arrive at a certain status, where they have achieved obvious success in what they’re doing, while totally dissatisfied with who they are being.

The more important question is, “Who do I want to be?”

After all, I have to live with that entity as I go about doing.

Without this, we convince ourselves that achievement produces satisfaction rather than satisfaction promoting achievement.

We start talking about things like:

  • Bottom line
  • End results.
  • Keeping it real

You don’t have to keep it real if you are real. It just naturally oozes out.

I became a better person when I paused “doing” and perused “being.” It led me to three conclusions:

  1. I am not alone.
  2. You aren’t either.
  3. We should consider each other.

It makes all the difference in the world.

It actually turns you into a human who is worthy of being.

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Bash

Bash: (n) a heavy blow.Dictionary B

I have given it much consideration.

I have finally come to the conclusion that my level of contentment, joy and satisfaction is exactly paralleled by my amount of criticism, frustration and jealousy towards others.

In other words, if I like my life, why in the hell do I care about yours?

I’m not recommending indifference to need, but certainly, if I find myself rejoicing in my pursuits, why is it necessary for me to bash yours?

I contend that most people who pursue religion are angry at the unbeliever because they fear these heretics are having more fun.

I think Democrats secretly know that Republicans make some good points, and Republicans are certainly aware of the value of ideas within the Democratic Party.

We bash because we are discontented.

We attack because we want people to be as miserable as we are, and it appears that they have sidestepped our little rendition of purity without suffering consequences.

I have found that it is much easier to be excited and encouraging to the world around me as I find my place in this time.

Bashing is an arrow pointed at the misgiving and doubt that is in our own hearts.

Since I don’t want to be a ballerina, it therefore becomes unnecessary for me to make fun of them dancing on their toes.

Since I have no desire to be gay, I also have no inclination to mock their situation.

And since my faith is based on compassion and the pursuit of regeneration, I don’t necessarily feel compelled to sarcastically mock traditions I consider to be meaningless.

Yes, the only way to stop bashing is to ask yourself one single, valuable question:

Do I really like what I’m doing, or am I faking it?

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Baby Boom

Baby boom: (n) a temporary marked increase in the birth rate, especially the one following World War II.

I am a baby boomer.Dictionary B

As with many other titles that have been thrust upon me, I have no idea in hell what that means.

I will say this–I often smile when people say the young people today are growing up in “much more perilous, dangerous and tempting times.” Honestly, there was no place crazier than the United States of America circa 1959 through 1972.

We were killing off leaders like we were part of a drug cartel from Columbia, and drugs were surfacing everywhere, which people experimented with in order to do their part in assisting the FDA.

We were also periodically threatened with atomic bomb annihilation, just to make sure we didn’t get too comfortable in our new hush puppies.

The music was turbulent. If you were a young man you were constantly threatened with being drafted and sent over to bleed in a rice paddy, and the sexual revolution, which was on the drawing boards, required a rotation of guinea pigs.

We were angry, frustrated, disconsolate, overjoyed and unrepresented.

I spent my teen years in that period, and even though I was a church-going boy and not a member of the SDS, when I look back on it, my life was surrounded by dying principles which were tumbling down around me like the walls of Jericho.

I remember one day, my father was in the middle of a speech about personal responsibility and how I needed to take more of it, when suddenly he stopped speaking, stared off in the distance and never continued. I don’t know what crossed his mind–but I think that even though he was an old guy, he realized that everything he was sharing was being disemboweled in his lifetime, and he did not yet understand what the New Order would require.

The travesty of the baby boomers is that they remained babies.

  • So we never got the boom.
  • We never got the sense of accomplishment.
  • We all just eventually learned to sign on the dotted line, and started attending financial conferences on better mortgage rates.

But I am an oddball.

I have maintained a spark of revival, revolution and rejuvenation.

It causes me to be adequately dissatisfied … while on my way to find some moments of satisfaction.

 

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Analgesic

dictionary with letter A

Analgesic: (n) a drug which acts to relieve pain.

Quite honestly, I have a cave man’s philosophy concerning pain and pleasure.

“Pleasure. Much good.”

“Pain. Me no like.”

Although I do try to move away from this darkened cave of understanding, sometimes I feel silly being philosophical about a pain I can only discuss intelligently when it is not inflicting me.

Yes, it seems noble to put forth the theory that pain assists us in our journey to greater understanding of ourselves, both physically and spiritually, but since I believe in reaching for an analgesic whenever pain even peeks over the horizon, I do feel a little bit hypocritical trying to turn Socratic when discussing it in the abstract.

Here’s the truth. Pain means there’s something wrong.

Even in the case of childbirth, the baby is trying to make it clear that further occupancy is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. Not all pleasure lends itself to improvement.There is pleasure that is so temporary and brings such lasting pain that it is well worth avoiding the temporary jolt of satisfaction.

So is life about:

  • avoiding pain?
  • learning from pain?
  • healing pain?
  • or defining pain?

I don’t have the foggiest idea.

But I feel no shame in reaching for my favorite off-brand analgesic any time one of these aching situations pops into my life.

If pain is a teacher … it probably needs to find a better approach.

 

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Al dente

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Al dente: (adj) cooked so as to be still firm when bitten.

Even though I am not the type of individual to pursue conspiracy theories, I have to admit that occasionally there is great evidence of a conspiracy at work.

For you see, the minute I find something I deeply enjoy in life, it is only a short passage in time before it is revealed to me that this particular delight is going to kill me.

Perhaps it’s the only way God could ever get human beings off the earth–by creating pleasures that provide temporary satisfaction with terminal results leading to eternal life. Otherwise, we would hang around, indulging forever, and never be good dinosaurs, making our way to the tar pits of … in this case, carbohydrates. Yes:.

  • Spaghetti.
  • Fettucine.
  • And noodles of all types …

Are best eaten al dente.

Otherwise, they look and even taste like they’re waterlogged little swimmers, cast onto the side of the pool, gasping for air, requiring resuscitation.

Yet, as you probably know, the more you cook spaghetti, the healthier it is–and the less you cook it, the better it tastes, but the more insidious killer carbs remain.

It’s hard to believe this is not a conspiracy.

I sometimes wonder if the Creative Genius would have made sugars, salts and flours healthy if the end result would have been happier people, more contented, willing to sit down and listen to truth until sleep overtook them from their sugar high.

But it is a fact of life–a reality of our existence. So here’s what I do.

I don’t eat spaghetti very often, but when I do, I walk on the wild side: al dente.

Alcott, Louisa May

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alcott, Louisa May (1832-1888): U. S. novelist. Her novel, Little Women, was based on her New England childhood and written for adolescent girls. She was involved in women’s sufferage and served as a nurse during the Civil War.

Little Women.

Sounds like an episode on Law and Order: SVU. Matter of fact, a grown man such as myself might be held in great suspicion if I said I was interested in Little Women, since Ms. Alcott is not on the top of most people’s Google searches.

There is something significant about her work. Without embarrassment, I will tell you that as a boy I read it, thinking I might find some salacious details or insights into the female mind. What I discovered was a simplicity and purity that probably would be ridiculed by today’s jaded thinking. Yet it offered the hope that it is completely possible to live a life of pursuing excellence and discovery rejecting selfishness and despair.

For after all, these little ladies did not have lives free of difficulty, but fell back on principles and friendships to guide them through the difficult times.

I think it is dangerous to equate the term “old-fashioned” to certain attitudes and attributes, leaving no alternative to the particular precepts, just a vacancy brought about by cynicism.

Some values gain virtue because they bring victory. They never go out of style. They are never without obvious power–but they do require that we escape coldness, fear and disdain, in respect to a passion for a bit of goodness.

To me, goodness is not as complicated as it is often proclaimed to be:

  1. Find out how you love yourself, and love everybody else the same way.
  2. Lying is anti-human instead of natural.
  3. Don’t give up simply because you haven’t gotten your way.
  4. Don’t look on everybody around you as competition, but instead, as examples and friends.

Some people would consider this to be old-fashioned, but until some new fashion comes along that provides equal satisfaction and excitement, I will cling to many of the attributes and attitudes given to us by Louisa May Alcott in Little Women.

 

Accomplish

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accomplish: (v.) to achieve or complete successfully.

Is it permissible for me to slightly disagree with a definition?

Because I have to be honest with you–I feel like I have accomplished things in my life without being successful. I think placing the term “success,” tying that word to every endeavor, is a great way of discouraging people from launching into activities that might fall short of expectation.

Sometimes I accomplish what I am able to do, but I don’t think anybody would brand it a success. When you take away my sense of accomplishment because I don’t meet our culture’s definition of achievement, you not only rob me of personal satisfaction, but you also greatly tempt me to avoid taking on anything that is risky enough to fall short of the “glory road.”

Sometimes we accomplish without ever seeing success.

Every once in a while, we find ourselves in a garden of despair, praying alone, fully cognizant that we are exactly where we need to be, even though it seems that running away would be a better alternative.

Every once in a while, the criticism nails us to the cross, as it were, where we declare that our work is finished, even though it looks like we are on our last legs.

Not everything is as simple as people make it, or even as Webster dictates. There is a season when ideas must be pursued, even when the prejudice and anger of the world around us dooms them to obscurity. There is a certain amount of bravery necessary to accomplish your mission, without receiving any badge of merit.

No, in this case I have to disagree with the dictionary. It is very possible to accomplish an intricate and essential task without ever being rewarded.

  • It is completely plausible to be a good parent and have lousy children.
  • It is possible to take care of your car and accomplish all maintenance requirements and still break down,
  • And it is certainly in the realm of reasonability to be a good husband or wife and end up in a divorced situation.

If we’re going to use superficial qualifications to have joy in our lives, or if we’re only truly happy when accolades are sent our way, we will eventually steer our ship toward safe, still waters.

Maybe that’s why mediocrity is now accepted as normal–and our world suffers in the malaise.

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.