Debris

Debris: (n) the remains of anything left over

It’s a matter of getting the right mind-set. If you don’t, you may find yourself going through life feeling cheated—angered at being passed over.

The bottom line is that ninety percent of us never get a chance to work with something that’s brand new.

The folks who handle the new shit have to have so much money that you and I could never achieve such garish amounts.

What we end up with are left-overs.

  • Abandoned projects.
  • Broken pieces.
  • And ideas that have already been deemed worthless.

Yet it is completely possible to get rich off of poor results—to have money because someone else failed to see a way to turn the material into something viable.

This is why a carpenter once mused that “the meek will inherit the Earth.”

In other words, once the rich people get bored or can’t remember why they bought something in the first place or have broken it just a little bit and don’t want to mess with it anymore—well, these spoiled-rotten humans will walk away and leave it behind, making it, shall we say, public domain.

I, myself, am a piece of debris.

I probably am not handsome enough for a fancy woman.

I’m not slender enough for an athletic one.

My talent is obvious but diversified and might confuse those who are looking for the strait and narrow.

I don’t have enough money to impress you.

And I don’t have the desire to overwhelm you with my silver tongue.

I pick up what’s usable and make it better. In making it better, I end up with the full usage of the discarded, and the possibility that someone might just want my little piece of renovated debris.

What is the old saying?

One man’s treasure is another man’s junk?

Also, one man’s junk, if treasured, can delight the world.

 

Critical

Critical: (adj) judging

Two sentences:

  1. I am so good.
  2. I am no good.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Just changing one word in that phrase—from “so” to “no” or from “no” to “so”—renders a completely different conclusion.

It’s where the human race bounces.

Somewhere between so and no, we’re always on a journey to over-exaggerate our value or else proclaim ourselves wormlike.

Matter of fact, if I were to capsulize—perhaps even in a nutshell—what prevents us from becoming nutty is realizing that both profiles are stimulated by a flash-bang of insanity somewhere in the deep regions of our cranium.

No one is SO good.

Even in the midst of excellence, there is error that challenges to increase effort.

And no one is NO good.

Even within those souls we consider worthless, one can find value, even if that one only refers to God.

This is why a nation, or dare I say, a world of critical souls saying critical things to make their critical nature produce critical cynicism, causes the planet to teeter on a critical cliff of danger.

A critical condition.

I don’t agree with the axiom, “if you can’t say something good don’t say anything at all.”

Nor do I assert that everyone who is critical offers something to the “great conversation.”

I have developed a simple procedure in dealing with my fellow humans:

If I view something, hear something, watch something or read something that they have produced and there is nothing at all that I like about it or understand or appreciate or concur with, I remain silent.

Because to be honest, a critical contribution is only valuable if it follows a positive encouragement. If there’s nothing positive to say, being critical places the burden of guilt onto the judge.

In this case, that would be me. I can’t afford the guilt.

If they pursue, and say, “You didn’t have any opinion on the material?” I quickly grab the beauty of the lower seat and reply:

“Sometimes things go over my head.”

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

 


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Contagious

Contagious: (adj) ability to spread from one person or organism to another by direct or indirect contact.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands. It’s flu season.”

“I don’t know if I want to go to church–so many sick people.”funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

“Seems like everybody’s got the bug.”

“Wash down those counters.”

“Clean off that toilet sink.”

“Don’t forget to pick up some more hand sanitizer–maybe we should start buying it by the case.”

All of these statements seem rational to the average consumer, because we feel it is our right to be the sole individual who does not get sick–never aware that we will be more susceptible to that sickness if we’re never exposed to it, developing the protective antibodies within us.

I personally do not see anything wrong with trying to keep oneself healthy. But once we begin to think that human beings are germ carriers, it is a slippery slope to proclaiming them dangerous, infected, criminal, rapists or even worthless.

If you are afraid of the flu, that is absolutely fine with me. If you’re using your fear of the flu to establish your superiority over other people because you are so important that you shouldn’t ever get sick, then I begin to have a problem.

I see no case in the Good Book when Jesus embraced a leper to prove he was not afraid of the contagion. But I do see that when that leper wanted to be healed, Jesus risked touching him.

 

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Mr. Kringle's Tales...26 Stories 'Til Christmas

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Complain

Complain: (v) to express dissatisfaction or annoyance

To make it better.

To make it different.

To make it go away.

These are the three options we have if we’re going to be productive citizens of the Planet Earth.

If we can’t make it better, different, or make it go away, all the objections we lodge are just added on to the impact that the nasty thing is generating.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

After all, complaining does not achieve anything but great advertisement for the evil which we wish were not there.

Yet when people complain to me, and I suggest something better, different, or a way to make it go away, they often become disappointed to lose the rock they were kicking across the playground because they didn’t want to join into the game.

That’s what complaining is.

It’s arriving on Earth, discovering how things work, and deciding to object to the process, refrain from participating and simply act aggravated that you find yourself inconvenienced.

Complaining kills learning, frightens friends, creates acid reflux and makes the corners of your mouth turn down so that you look like the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

So if you can’t make something better, different or chase it away, don’t choose to complain.

Because all that does is make you appear worthless.

 

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Animosity

dictionary with letter A

Animosity: (n.) strong hostility

When does what I don’t like become that which I ignore, which ultimately is deemed by me to be something worthless?

Although I think we believe that animosity is a visceral emotion, shown forth by our actions, the real danger of animosity is the nasty dislike in our soul that causes us to disdain the possibility of anything good coming out of what we have decided is crap.

It’s not just that bigotry fills our hearts and that we were taught that certain people, events, talents, attitudes and beliefs are meaningless. It is a disregard for things we disagree with, considering them foolish.

But after all, we are all atheists in the sense that we don’t believe in everyone else’s gods.

  • We sneer at them.
  • We laugh at them.
  • We call them ludicrous.

Think of this: in the Christian faith, we look with horror on some sub-culture which throws a young virgin into a volcano as a sacrifice to a molten god, while simultaneously worshipping a Savior who died on a cross for our sins as an equally innocent victim of sacrifice.

Therefore animosity is when we fail to notice our own hypocrisy, and attribute stupidity only to the other guy.

It is why prejudice still exists in this country. With that prejudice comes a brattiness and self-righteousness that lends itself to insults instead of introspection about why we feel the way we do about others.

Even though I have worked on my soul diligently, to prune away all the branches of dead-head ideas and superstitious beliefs, I still occasionally come across a patch of withered vines entwined with my brain, sprouting the “grapes of wrath.”

Yet as long as I am aware that I am a work in progress and that I will need to continue to chop all the animosity out of my life which is based on my piety … I have a chance at becoming a decent human being.

 

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