Cahoots, and other places

Back to work after a few days with good friends in a distant, quiet place.  Peaceful, but too brief.

Conformed

Or not, perhaps.  

We've been carried along for quite a distance. Any chance of recovery?

Choosing to go counter-common is high-risk and a guarantee of difficulty.  Should we even make the attempt?

None of us are normal, centered, or balanced in our understanding. Each is bent by culture and circumstance, by self and others, even after a lifetime of thoughtful growth and refined thinking.

The very best we might hope for is continued instruction and breaking change where we're the part that gets broken.  How many things could be profitably broken out of our thinking?

• self things that shouldn't come first
• status things that shouldn't matter
• winning ... when coming alongside is the better choice
• judging ... when understanding might make a difference
• looking down on others as though we were above, somehow
• reaching for more ... when giving would be so much better

Even at our best, we don't get it right every time.  Each still has room for more change, and getting it right, even just occasionally, is such a joy.

Preaching to myself again.

Short attention span

Competition for our attention often leaves us with information overload.

How do we solve the problem?         

There are things that deserve more thought than others, we know.  Our environment can pile on distractions, however, from short story sequences on the news to interruptions on top of interruptions at school or the office.

Have you noticed?

Advertisers don't do long commercials any more.  Now you get five or ten commercials in what used to be a short break with just one.


If you're still reading this and haven't wandered off, you're unusually focused.

Does such a torrent of distraction and information derail our lives?  Of course it does.  Much like interrupting a language course interferes with our desired mastery, our cultural norm of continual subject change interrupts the productivity of a dedicated life. Chances are, years may pass with little progress where it's needed.  (This is an actual simulation of the modern distraction model.)

Change the outcome.  Know your goals, invest significantly and practically in the values you've chosen.  Deliberately get up and do instead of sitting and talking.  And forgetting.

  Schedule it and follow through.

We have to fight a bit to get above the distraction, don't we.


(He said, preaching yet again to himself)

A world without fashion

Imagine life with just two kinds of clothes, work and play.  Two pairs of shoes, two belts, maybe two kinds of socks ... kind of like when we were children.

Everyone could wear pretty much the same kinds of clothes for work and travel and socializing regardless of the occasion.  It could be really simple and much less troublesome.

Early feminists spoke against the fashion culture. “It was associated with triviality, and blamed for confining women to frilly subjects instead of loftier matters. An interest in fashion was perceived as pandering to the male gaze.”

Women are still criticized for the time they spend on fashion and wardrobe.  It's suggested that women would come into their own in society if they quit focusing on being attractive.  Studies reveal that some women do indeed spend much of each day deciding what to wear and thinking wishfully about the couture they might accumulate.  Some women, but not all.

Why would a woman force herself to endure high-heeled shoes? Painful, harmful, and expensive, they deform the bone structure over time, yet she chooses to play the game.  And why would she allow a size zero model on the runway to set the standard for her own self image?  Is it just women?

Of course not. Men are aware of such things but perhaps they respond in more subtle ways.  'Dress for success' has its own set of rules from cuff and collar to manicure and accessory brand.

On the up-side, a portion of the adult population gives but little attention to fashion and style issues.  Their lives are full enough of things that actually deserve their attention. Somewhere along the way, they realized that their clothing had absolutely nothing to do with their worth or their benefit to others.

A successful businesswoman explained her choice of apparel as, "It needs only to not distract."  Another said a bit more firmly, "If they need me to dress to impress them, they don't get my attention."

A world without fashion ... "Would you find it liberating? Finally - never having to wonder what to wear because no one will care. People would see you for the person that you are and not dismiss you because they didn't like your shoes." 

An interesting note; we respect and admire people for their skill, their intellect, their courage and grace, their willingness and ability to serve. We don't admire them for their appearance.  At most, we're entertained or perhaps envious, but there's neither respect nor admiration involved.

We shouldn't expect the fashion/advertising industry to help us or our children think clearly or live a worthwhile life.  It should receive but little attention and no respect at all.  

From another perspective, the way we dress is a form

of nonverbal communication. We choose a particular message

we intend to convey, perhaps. But that's another subject entirely.

Scream

Many of us have yelled at our child.  Or partner.   We can say we haven't, perhaps, because our memory of it is only that we spoke with controlled force, with repressed anger.  The truth, however, is that the damage is done unless it's caught and corrected quickly.

Yelling and finger pointing -- all it conveys is an attempt to subordinate and reshape another, to put them in their place and force them to behave as though they submit to us.  That's all.  That's all the information and memory carried away from the encounter.  Whatever the issue was that triggered the encounter remains unaddressed and unresolved.

UNADDRESSED AND UNRESOLVED

Issues around which such tension might commonly rise include finance, schedule, and the kids.  It can spread to expectations, chores, to-do lists, promises made and forgotten, ad infinitum.  The common element in all is your anger.

There are some words that should never be spoken in anger, of course.  Beyond that simple constraint, there are also some things that should never be done.  Screaming at another in anger and perhaps frustration is equally if not more significant.  It conveys the willingness to do harm, to injure.

Escalation -- conversations and confrontations begin and ramp up.  That's the failure point.  Early on, the participants begin to add volume, facial expression, and gesture.  At this point, the relationship begins to weaken, to fracture.  And our target is wounded, much like in a fist fight.

If we immediately stop and apologize, genuinely confessing our error, we may be able to undo the harm.

If not, we build a wall behind which our target barricades their heart and soul.

We all have difficulty admitting our wrong thinking and actions, of course.  If there are issues, they should be resolved.  Confrontation is occasionally necessary whether problems are moral, ethical, or preferential.  It should in every case be gracious, bi-directionally open and informative, and reasonable.

And remember, the kids see and hear everything.  They read our non-verbal expression and body language as well.  That's how they learn.

Finding Purpose

Here's an enjoyable look at life and purpose that actually makes some practical sense.  If you have the luxury of choices along the way, here's what it might look like.

Some hard questions.
Am I doing what in my heart I love?
If not, am I close?  Are adjustments available?
Time for some changes?
Short term and long term, do I see some goals?

Thanks and a hat tip to Kenny Smith for pointing this one out.  He's a farmer/rancher sort of fellow.