I wonder if i’ve ever learned any lessons now that i’ve had time to reflect from my last post.
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i remember when
recently i saw and heard an elderly woman on a very new looking macbook air listening without headphones to something or someone screeching. perhaps a video of a grandchild. i was thinking that the elderly of that generation usually talk about manners and the way things were and wondered where her headphones were. but i also hear about the idea that they have lived long enough so they can do and get away with almost any damn thing they want. betty white’s new show, assuming it is still on, plays on this idea at times. grandma and her eccentricities.
Naivety. Not to be confused with nativity.
I only throw that last part in there because someone did confuse it. I felt it was well placed will the original idea so I included it.
Life constantly throws things at us, sometimes directly into our face so fast we can’t avoid it, and probably for the best once we realize it.
Naive/Naivety. I’ve heard it being used to classify someone who lacked awareness as well as someone just because of their innocence.
Home
Is it truly where the heart is?
I thought it was simply a four (or less) chambered organ to pump blood around my body. who knew things were otherwise. Perhaps if the organ is removed and placed separately the home changes. Eww. Thinking about a heart transplant with something mechanical. If your old heart is somewhere else are you then never able to have a home again?
Some people take the time to make a home with someone else. Do the old ones become obsolete? Are they destroyed? Did they even exist to begin with?
People ask me, “Where is home?” Do we have to have one? If I’m “homeless” by choice or circumstances what then do I answer? “Nowhere?”
I have lived in a house for many years but I wouldn’t call it the home that I am referring to. I still have things in boxes from when I moved in. I never felt the want to set them out. Am I homeless inside a house? My mind is reeling. Ok not really from this but I did take some cough medicine last week and I’ll use that as the simulated analogy of my head spinning.
Perhaps I’m just a free spirit with loans and a mortgage, ready at a moments notice (and several months of cleaning and packing) to pick up and go to a new great adventure. A home, a thing for others to indulge in.
This intangible home thing/idea is so elusive. If you are with someone and still don’t feel at home, does that portend ill things for the future of the relationship?
Ah the late writings of a tired mind as I reflect on my life, where it was, where I think it is and where it could be.
In the end I think home is when you go somewhere and don’t want to be there anymore and long to be in that other place. The one where you feel more comfortable and relaxed. Hopefully it’s also the same place where you usually live and with the people you may be living with.
-Santa’s Fallen Angel
the inbetween
there is that interesting (and sometimes scary) moment in the rare nap of mine. that time and place where upon waking you notice the light creeping around the window shades. not too bright like later morning or afternoon. not too dark like night or very early morning. somewhat of a goldilocks zone of light where i’m not sure what time it is. did i just fall asleep for a few hours and i’m headed into the evening or has the body taken command and kept me down until the morning and i will have to go to work soon? the slight pause as i think about the ramifications. i was tired enough that i actually took a nap. was i exhausted that i slept until the next day? the lingering thoughts of what wasn’t accomplished in the evening and the time now gone. the notion that the phone is a short reach away and it can solve the dilemma. i lean over from the couch and the answer is revealed on the glowing screen…
-Santa’s Fallen Angel
the art of… art
the creative process is interesting as i find many things in life.
sitting, pondering, doing, erasing, doing over, trying, retrying. scrapping it and starting all over.
writing, painting, sculpting, creation of any kind.
for myself i’ve tried many types.
pottery making is fun even if messy. getting the right speed of the wheel, the right pressure on the clay outside and inside. big, small, tall, squat. plate, bowl, cup. glazed, unglazed. if you mess up, chuck it (gently) back into the pile of clay and start over. i signed up for a single 2-3 hour class and made four different things. i like three of the four only because i messed up on the fourth and ran out of time before i could fix it.
painting/drawing i seem to suck at. in middle school the teacher told me that i had a lot of imagination but no talent. that’s the only reason i got a ‘d’ instead of an ‘f’ i think. maybe i should try a lesson. every so often i tried and pencil sketch something usually something right in front of my like my hand. some of the doodles aren’t that bad. but it isn’t something i can reproduce easily.
writing, somewhat rhetorically obvious, is what i enjoy. even in high school i enjoyed it. unfortunately i was told often i shouldn’t be wasting my time on it by teachers, family and friends. i even tried to submit a piece to a writing contest. the way i remember it, i spent quite a lot of countless nights awake working on it. i then gave it to my ap english teacher to review and submit. one day i asked if she had heard anything. again unfortunately she never got around to looking at it. i don’t remember an apology or anything. i still don’t think she even liked me since i was never as good as my sibs had been. i do remember the feeling of being crushed and i did give it up for a while. i took some classes in college but it wasn’t the same.
so now i’m making another run just a little differently this time and maybe i will even take another chance in the future at something a little longer than a blog.
to anyone that creates, keep it up. don’t let them tell you it’s not good enough. let your heart and head decide. beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
-Santa’s Fallen Angel
anecdotal evidence
i want to call that an oxymoron.
these days we think of evidence as hard facts.
in science there is the scientific method. an idea possible until it is proven or disproven and even then it may not be 100%, just really really close.
as i understand this in medicine there is the idea of evidence based medicine. you do a study and follow it forward and see what happens. not looking back in time as this is subject to other factors and things you didn’t have in control.
how much of what we know about anything in life is from what we’ve learned or were taught?where did that knowledge come from? you buy a textbook of history and learn about what happened during the year XXXX (or YYYY to be gender equal). then you go to trivia and use this new, hard won information to dazzle and amaze and maybe get a point or two.
was the information accurate? i haven’t looked at a textbook from k-12 in a while but i don’t rememeber if they have any references to where the information came from. someone somewhere says they did some research with musty and dusty tomes and documents and have brought to us this boon. it might actually be factual too. but how truthful is it? by that i mean, did the author present an unbiased view of his research or is that chapter colored with what they thought was the more correct version.
we go through life with a sponge for a brain, constantly soaking up knowledge through all our senses. we make judgements based on this learning. the car in front has a brake light on. that probably means they are slowing down or trying to avoid something. our brains of course try and integrate the speed and other cars and a varied amount of information to know should i swerve out of the lane, brake hard myself or wonder what the next car is i would like if i survive this encounter.
you walk down the street late at night and a group of young looking kids are walking with their hoods pulled over their heads. most people would probably not be wondering what those fine upstanding citizens are doing out late. yes it’s profiling. we profile on a constant basis with constant pre judging but not necessarily in a bad way. if they pass by without incident my heart will start to come back down to normal and eventually i’ll stop looking behind me. if something does happen that is negative, it just adds to the anectdoal life experience and will continue to reinforce the profile in my mind to avoid that situation again.
in the anecdotal evidence, we use our life experiences to make decisions about what we will do or think in a situation.
there is more and more of a push for evidence to prove something. at what point can i tell myself that what i’ve experienced is good enough or maybe even better than something tested. i’ve learned to trust my gut instinct quite often. even the ‘something doesn’t seem right’ sensation gets me out of trouble when some other part of my brain was thinking something else. maybe i find the problem, maybe i don’t but i trust that something felt off and i take the time to slow down and at least take a look at what i was doing.
i hope that my gut stays true and the plethora of life experiences filters through as my own continous prospective study, fine tuning itself hopefully to better and better decisions. some might say i am blinded or double blinded at times but i plan to keep at least one eye open.
-Santa’s Fallen Angel
bonds
don’t forget how strong you, how many things you are doing, how you have improved yourself mentally and physically and continue to do so. it’s ok to write down positive things and post them on the mirror or door or steering wheel. we are humans, not machines. we also have negative things we need to work on too. we have emotions and we have self doubt.
you have family, old friends, and new friends. acquaintances are great for those times you just want to catch a movie or dinner or a show. friends do those things too but are also there when you need someone to talk to. that’s the price of friendship.
-Santa’s Fallen Angel
greed and philanthropy
i’ve learned something interesting about myself. i don’t mind giving back to the community but i’m just greedy enough to want something in return.
for instance.
at the local co-op they sell nice healthy local fruits and veggies, organic and maybe not organic. i guess i haven’t looked that closely at the selections. the point is that i’m trying to eat healthier and local and they have it. you can just go and buy your groceries and walk out the door. they also have memberships.
for some small amount each month you can be a member of the co-op and get special deals and discounts and a refund percent from your purchases. as well they make loans out to farmers and organizations and help people. here’s the kicker. they have a lifetime membership as well. i’m all for the idea of helping out with a membership especially since i don’t really shop there very much. it’s almost like giving them money. but just in case i do shop i can get something back as well. so yes. i bought a lifetime membership. it does give me a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that i am helping the local community and promoting healthier eating/growing practices and it also strokes and stoakes the inner demon knowing that i am getting something back in return, even if i’m not really shopping there. i’ve only shopped there twice so far but plan to do more.
i was forced into this thinking when i saw that the history and science museum was offering for a not small sum of money, a perment seat i the theater to help generate funds for renovations. my first instinct was “great! they need to keep that place up and running. i love science!!” a friend and i just went recently and it felt like being a kid again. lots of ooos and aaahs from me as i learned more information and seeing my friend’s curiosity being piqued and that hunger for information.
but then i started wondering if a permanent seat meant i could catch every show they have forever and ever. (envision evil grin and the wringing of the hands.) alas, it just means a name placard on the seat. i have a long name, i wonder if they would be able to fit the whole thing. how pissed would i be to see only part of my name if i went down that route. who would even recognize my name? in the dark they probably wouldn’t even see it. just a rough shirt to slowly wear away at my name until it is dull and letters are missing. the warm fuzzy hasn’t caught up to me yet on this one.
the warm fuzzy part of me would like to think that i could just give and not get something in return. maybe the demon has tricked me into thinking that even the warm fuzzy is a good thing but that by itself is something that i am getting as a benefit even if it is not material in nature. now as devil’s advocate if we end up getting a non material return on doing good, is it really that much difference from getting a material return as well? is there really a demon inside or just perception of one? is it a matter of which angle you’re coming at it from? the true philanthropist gives and secondarily gets the warm fuzzy but the greedy heartless bastard that i am gives knowing that he gets a warm fuzzy in return.
in the end, warm fuzzies are had and philanthropy occured. i should look up the definition of philanthropy just in case i have the idea wrong but that might make me feel bad so i’ll ignore it.
from my namesake, what does the big red guy get out of his gig? does he have sponsors funding his endevours? these are questions best left unasked or maybe best left unanswered. finding out he’s using it as a cover and is secretly an international drug runner dropping packages across the world might explain how he funds his operation but this might ruin an entire capitalistic system of milking every cent as well as ruining all the greed and guilt people might feel during the holidays…errr.. christmas season mulling over what they did or did not get and how easy will it be to return, exchange or regift it. perhaps this will be another blog to be called greed from philanthropy but i’ve done the holiday post already in a different incarnation.
-Santa’s Fallen Angel
hoping for karma
without going into details i’ve realized that i accept that there are people who are or have been in my life that are just plain scum (sorry to any good scum out there) and might just deserve everything bad that happens to them not because of the way they told me (and my bleeding heart bought) how others cause them problems but because i finally realized that they do this to themselves and keep making the same mistakes over and over again including using drugs as a crutch to avoid dealing with reality and life. it’s an interesting feeling when pride and anger over their actions turns into pity and how pathetic they truly are. i truly hope the things that went missing when they were around were just missing and not taken but seeing this other side of them it’s hard to know and it makes me feel more pity toward them.
may i forget they exist
may others not encounter their deceit
may i be better in picking people to call friend
and while i would like to say that there is no more anger… may karma come and give them a good lesson
post update: from merriam webster:
pa·thet·ic adjective pə-ˈthe-tik
Definition of PATHETIC
1: having a capacity to move one to either compassionate or contemptuous pity
2: marked by sorrow or melancholy : sad
3: pitifully inferior or inadequate <the restaurant’s patheticservice>
-Santa’s Fallen Angel