Tag Archives: suspicion

Crash

Crash: (n) noisily breaking into pieces

 Each and every one of us is the survivor of a crash.

Ironically, most of us don’t exactly remember the point of impact. It is not the horror of the event that strikes terror in us. It is the aftermath that haunts our souls.

The treatment.

The recovery.

The lingering, chronic pain.

The unanswered questions.

The insecurity that such a disappointment could happen again.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

We become protective. We look on ourselves as foolish because we were gliding along, believing everything was just fine, when we were speeding our way to a disaster.

So we slow down. Caution becomes our nature.

But worst of all, suspicion makes a home in our hearts. We are no longer free to love without having a questionnaire in our minds, needing to be filled out by those who would apply to be our friends.

We are damaged.

We’ve been given insurance—maybe even a measure of assurance. But the crash has left us leery, frightened to freely embrace, interact, experiment or give of ourselves quite as easily again.

So we not only miss opportunities, we turn our blessings—which have been with us for many years—yes, we turn them away at the door in anxiety that they might bring in dangers.

Once the crash has occurred, once the human being has been startled—whether emotional, spiritual, mental or physical—the rest of the journey is about regaining the childlike heart that allowed us to run breathlessly, without intimidation, before we were so rudely interrupted. 

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Beloved

Beloved: (adj) dearly loved.

Dictionary B

I didn’t like the script so I’ve written my own play.

The script provided for me by the American culture says I should really love those people who love me, who are attached to me, or who were spawned from my seed. The rest of the world is supposed to be viewed with various contortions of suspicion.

I found the premise for this theatrical presentation of “Life on Earth” to be boring, short-sighted, and lacking in plot twists to grant a thrill.

Somewhere along the line, mankind, humankind, or whatever-kind needs to become beloved to me.

This does not mean that everyone I meet will curry my favor, but it does promote the idea that if I start off viewing all women as my sisters, all men as my brothers and all children as my immediate kin, I have a much better chance of being valuable to the world than if I close off membership in my circle to the tiny ring I call friends.

Then, if I do run across those who are not very brotherly, sisterly or childlike, I can give myself a great gift: avoid them.

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Anthropology

dictionary with letter A

Anthropology: (n) the comparative study of human societies and cultures

There is an abiding, if not persistent, inclination to believe that intelligence invokes individuality.

In other words, because the human race possesses greater brain power than, let’s say, the duck, we are segregated into a multitude of clumps that not only differentiate us from one another, creating chasms of separation, sprouting suspicion.

Anthropology would do a great service to humankind if it pursued the premise that we are much more like the duck. No one sits around and discusses how ducks from the south are different from ducks from the north. (Maybe it’s because they fly south for the winter and north for the summer. Of course, most of our aging human population has similar travel plans.)

It is ironic to me that a scientific community which fastidiously places us within the animal kingdom as brother and sister to our jungle family suddenly decides to separate us from that kingdom when it comes to matters of race and culture.

Is it possible that we would be better off if we punctuated our similarities instead of showcasing our differences?

  • For instance, does someone born in Siberia who is transplanted right after birth to Southern California still prefer to wear parkas?
  • Would a native of Africa, born in the Serengeti, if translated to London-town, constantly find him or herself pining to hunt with a spear?

Can we really continue to take the attributes that are engrained and nearly beaten into us by our families and pretend that they’re a part of our natural desire?

Very few people ever consider the personality profile of an individual chimpanzee. Yet in some sort of “Homo sapien silliness,” we think that each and every one of us is a snowflake falling from the heavens, with our own particular jagged edges.

Yes, I believe anthropology would provide a salvation to humans if the science explained how much we share in common.

We would certainly be more like the duck, and realize that our particular quack … is not that special. 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

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.