Dear Children:
There has been no shortage of opportunities recently to speak of regret. Maybe it’s the advancing age of my circle. Who knows?
Regret can be recognition that we did something wrong or could have done something better. That sort of regret is healthy and recommended. When we backtrack over our day as its ending, we can assess what went right, what went wrong, what we could have done; what we should have done. Wrongs, after a fashion, can be righted the next day. Right actions are a source of comfort and cheer. Are you with me so far? Just to be clear: there will never come a time when the acknowledgement of the weight of our actions cannot be expressed for the betterment of ourselves and the ease of others.
Just so, there will never come a time when past actions can be changed. We never get a do-over on anything -- never ever. Even when you get to try again – golfers call it a mulligan – that first try is in the books forever and permanently established even if you are the only one who knows. Your future has been affected and your unconscious mind never forgets. That is the case for all actions whether for good or ill. We hear it every day. “If only I had done that thing differently, I wouldn’t be in this pickle.” “When I was nine I had a chance to take piano lessons. Something happened. Now I can barely play the radio.” “If only I hadn’t taken that dare, I wouldn’t be gimping up these stairs.”
I’m here to tell you cuties that those statements are true and serious. See? It’s not about one particular dare. Laser in on whether taking dares at all is a good idea. Accept that actions taken today will play out tomorrow with a certainty reserved for death and taxes.
Here’s the problem: Memories of our actions can morph into a corrosive effect called regret. We get so worked up over mistakes, the memory of them blocks positive action. We come to believe that we are somehow diminished or, worse yet, destined to repeat our errors. The differences are subtle. Please stick with me.
Never express an error by using “if only” as in “I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I wouldn’t be cooling my heels in detention”. While the statement is true on its face, it is more likely to produce an ugly regret. Instead, express it in a positive way: “I am here because I shot my mouth off”. Can you appreciate the difference? When we acknowledge that we did something and accept that the action is immutable, reform is possible. A wish is not useful. The “if only” statements are what’s known in the movie trade as a MacGuffin – a way to misdirect the viewer from the real action of the plot. A MacGuffin does not explain what is happening. Exposition of the plot swamps the MacGuffin to the point of nothingness.
That goes for the close calls as well. Sometimes rotten things happen around us. We get caught up in them and the consequences are painful. It is never constructive to focus on the negative. Something unfair may have happened. Yet we are still obliged to acknowledge our part in the incident. Yes, even if our part was trifling, we need to make positive concession to the facts. That way we can dwell less on unfairness and more on learning to be sensitive to our surroundings.
There is promise in this. I promise that if you learn to own up to your part in everything that goes on around you, regrets – especially the longstanding ones – become MacGuffin. Regrets lose their power to explain when the facts play out and the story unfolds naturally.
Much Love,
Poppy
P.S. Mulligan and MacGuffin sound like they could be racial or ethnic slurs like the description of a hammer as an Irish screwdriver. They probably are. Irish screwdriver certainly is. The word handicap began its life to describe a beggar as one whose cap is handy to receive alms. The Shakers, the Quakers and the Puritans all accepted names that were, at first, meant to be unflattering. Our language is chock-a-block with such terminology. Don’t worry about it. The truly crude racial and ethnic smears are well known and should be avoided. Beyond that … you needn’t worry.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Carpenter Rant
Dear Children:
At a certain age, life invites a measure of predictability. Life is never predictable, of course. Life has its own agenda quite apart from individual aspiration. It’s just that the interior gets familiar.
You don’t have this problem. There is nothing especially settled among your emotions. There is little about which you’re confident. Most of your feelings are, at once, resolute and alien.
The golden years are different. Resolute must be summoned and alien is mostly shunned. Do not be in any hurry to reach that state. Hang on to the intensity you feel. Welcome the exotic and outlandish. These are gifts for you from a Providence that provides abundant hours to pay out in wonder and awe. In fact, the only real requirement of youth is to discover how much wonder you can handle and how awestruck you are prepared to be.
Open yourself up to idle curiosity. Fill yourself with silly questions that have no practical answers. Accept that our universe and her mechanisms will forever be beyond measuring. Appreciate the endless complications of conflict and cooperation. Know that every thing in creation is different from every other thing in creation. Constancy in change and changeless in openness obviates discontent.
I’ve taken up woodworking after a long hiatus. I’m attracted, in part, by its timelessness. Noah, Jesus and Geppetto come to mind. The tools we use – hammer, saw, ax and drill -- were invented so long ago we have no idea who contributed so profoundly to our lives. For millennia humankind has struggled to shape wood into things useful and beautiful.
Since then, the tools for shaping wood have changed only to make the struggle more precise and more forgiving. We now have very sharp, very exacting, very fast; very responsive tools that contribute in no way to the satisfaction one feels at completion. Epeius and Joseph of Nazareth felt exactly what all woodworkers feel.
The privilege of the child is joined with the need of the older adult. The wood in its stock form is freighted with potential. No amount of planning and no anal regard for the diagram produces a finished product identical to its conception. The wood completes no destiny as Michelangelo suggests. Instead, the wood is consequential along with the tools and the artisan. The process is breathtaking.
Clearly, it’s not predictable.
Much Love,
Poppy
At a certain age, life invites a measure of predictability. Life is never predictable, of course. Life has its own agenda quite apart from individual aspiration. It’s just that the interior gets familiar.
You don’t have this problem. There is nothing especially settled among your emotions. There is little about which you’re confident. Most of your feelings are, at once, resolute and alien.
The golden years are different. Resolute must be summoned and alien is mostly shunned. Do not be in any hurry to reach that state. Hang on to the intensity you feel. Welcome the exotic and outlandish. These are gifts for you from a Providence that provides abundant hours to pay out in wonder and awe. In fact, the only real requirement of youth is to discover how much wonder you can handle and how awestruck you are prepared to be.
Open yourself up to idle curiosity. Fill yourself with silly questions that have no practical answers. Accept that our universe and her mechanisms will forever be beyond measuring. Appreciate the endless complications of conflict and cooperation. Know that every thing in creation is different from every other thing in creation. Constancy in change and changeless in openness obviates discontent.
I’ve taken up woodworking after a long hiatus. I’m attracted, in part, by its timelessness. Noah, Jesus and Geppetto come to mind. The tools we use – hammer, saw, ax and drill -- were invented so long ago we have no idea who contributed so profoundly to our lives. For millennia humankind has struggled to shape wood into things useful and beautiful.
Since then, the tools for shaping wood have changed only to make the struggle more precise and more forgiving. We now have very sharp, very exacting, very fast; very responsive tools that contribute in no way to the satisfaction one feels at completion. Epeius and Joseph of Nazareth felt exactly what all woodworkers feel.
The privilege of the child is joined with the need of the older adult. The wood in its stock form is freighted with potential. No amount of planning and no anal regard for the diagram produces a finished product identical to its conception. The wood completes no destiny as Michelangelo suggests. Instead, the wood is consequential along with the tools and the artisan. The process is breathtaking.
Clearly, it’s not predictable.
Much Love,
Poppy
Saturday, January 31, 2009
A Place Called Nope
Dear Children:
Everybody has an opinion about the Middle East and its troubles. One hopes that you too will take an informed view of the history and present goings on there as well. Maybe you will be the one that finds the right formula that satisfies the dizzying buffet of competing interests in that region and disconnects them from the dizzying variety of competing forces across the globe that complicate and harden those interests. The death, the destruction, the wasted resources, the wonton hatreds, the deferred progress, the misdirected innovation, the slavish cult of revenge, the petty tit for tat, the fresh quarrels and manufactured slights that crop up with each new generation multiply and flourish. There is little optimism and less hope.
As you are thinking and learning about this region, keep a few practical considerations in mind.
1.) Innocent people are difficult to find. Once someone joins a political party, writes a letter to the editor, paints a slogan on a wall, lobs a stone, teaches conjecture as truth, contributes money for propaganda or weaponry, harbors a criminal or shuts his eyes to wrong-doing … all of them have taken a side. Truly innocent people, by extension, are invisible and unrepresented. To be sure, there are lots of innocent people. They just don’t seem to matter.
2.) There is plenty of guilt to go around. Every faction has its own version of history, its own ethnic and religious mythology, its own justifications, its own thugs, its own warmongers, its own blinders and its own simmering suspicions. There is no shortage of factions. If this region is rich in anything, it is rich in factions.
3.) Strife is normative. In our country, we have succeeded lately and in some minimal way in settling our differences peaceably. Peaceable resolution of dispute is thin and fragile. We could lose it at any moment. Nevertheless, it has made us smug and superior toward those who don’t settle grievances in court or through the ballot box. Violence is the resort of choice for a largish fraction of the world’s leadership. For them, it works.
4.) Motives are impossible to assess with certainty. No one knows the mind of another. As such, it is dangerous to act on the basis of perceived motivation. The manifest actions of others are tricky enough. Whatever you do, though, beware of those who claim unique, didactic or exceptional knowledge.
5.) The Socratic method lets us down as well. In the Middle East we insist that our interlocutor agree to a specific set of facts or circumstances as a condition of civil discourse. This is, to be sure, a cultural locution that works well in tribal settings and is not meant as a criticism. Far from a trope, it allows all parties to be right all the time. To us it looks like the parties are not engaged at all. Rather, they seem to be talking past each other with no particular ambition for agreement. This is, indeed, the case.
Does all this mean the peoples of the Middle East face utterly intractable problems? Yes it does. So far, the only stable regimes in that part of the world have had to rely on either oppressive police-state rule or other forms of fear. Bugbears are as numerous as the factions that animate them.
So, what do you think: More cops or more bogeymen?
I’ve decided what I’m doing. My prayers are with Senator Mitchell and his mission to the Middle East. I hope President Obama will be serious and courageous about peace. A new model is required. The cycle of violence must be broken.
Much Love,
Poppy
Everybody has an opinion about the Middle East and its troubles. One hopes that you too will take an informed view of the history and present goings on there as well. Maybe you will be the one that finds the right formula that satisfies the dizzying buffet of competing interests in that region and disconnects them from the dizzying variety of competing forces across the globe that complicate and harden those interests. The death, the destruction, the wasted resources, the wonton hatreds, the deferred progress, the misdirected innovation, the slavish cult of revenge, the petty tit for tat, the fresh quarrels and manufactured slights that crop up with each new generation multiply and flourish. There is little optimism and less hope.
As you are thinking and learning about this region, keep a few practical considerations in mind.
1.) Innocent people are difficult to find. Once someone joins a political party, writes a letter to the editor, paints a slogan on a wall, lobs a stone, teaches conjecture as truth, contributes money for propaganda or weaponry, harbors a criminal or shuts his eyes to wrong-doing … all of them have taken a side. Truly innocent people, by extension, are invisible and unrepresented. To be sure, there are lots of innocent people. They just don’t seem to matter.
2.) There is plenty of guilt to go around. Every faction has its own version of history, its own ethnic and religious mythology, its own justifications, its own thugs, its own warmongers, its own blinders and its own simmering suspicions. There is no shortage of factions. If this region is rich in anything, it is rich in factions.
3.) Strife is normative. In our country, we have succeeded lately and in some minimal way in settling our differences peaceably. Peaceable resolution of dispute is thin and fragile. We could lose it at any moment. Nevertheless, it has made us smug and superior toward those who don’t settle grievances in court or through the ballot box. Violence is the resort of choice for a largish fraction of the world’s leadership. For them, it works.
4.) Motives are impossible to assess with certainty. No one knows the mind of another. As such, it is dangerous to act on the basis of perceived motivation. The manifest actions of others are tricky enough. Whatever you do, though, beware of those who claim unique, didactic or exceptional knowledge.
5.) The Socratic method lets us down as well. In the Middle East we insist that our interlocutor agree to a specific set of facts or circumstances as a condition of civil discourse. This is, to be sure, a cultural locution that works well in tribal settings and is not meant as a criticism. Far from a trope, it allows all parties to be right all the time. To us it looks like the parties are not engaged at all. Rather, they seem to be talking past each other with no particular ambition for agreement. This is, indeed, the case.
Does all this mean the peoples of the Middle East face utterly intractable problems? Yes it does. So far, the only stable regimes in that part of the world have had to rely on either oppressive police-state rule or other forms of fear. Bugbears are as numerous as the factions that animate them.
So, what do you think: More cops or more bogeymen?
I’ve decided what I’m doing. My prayers are with Senator Mitchell and his mission to the Middle East. I hope President Obama will be serious and courageous about peace. A new model is required. The cycle of violence must be broken.
Much Love,
Poppy
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Not My Job, Man
Dear Children:
By now everybody knows Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois shot his mouth off about profiting from his power to fill a vacant senate seat. It remains to be seen if narcissism over a tapped ‘phone line is a crime. We’ll see if prosecutors can convict someone of being a bully. All that is for the future. For now, the governor’s reputation has taken a hit from which it will never recover.
How does something like this happen?
Well, my dears, one answer is that the governor was always a braggart. He was always a bully who hid his pettiness and mendacity from the electorate through four elections – twice for Governor and twice for Congress. True enough. Who knew the guy was like that?
The answer to that question should be on all our minds. Who knew?
Lots of people knew. Lots of people helped him pull the wool over the eyes of voters. Lots of people sat around watching him browbeat donors. Everyone on his staff, everyone who was intimidated by his antics, everyone who signed off on the fruits of his extortion and everyone who heard informed whispers knew all about it. There must have been thousands who knew. That’s who knew: Thousands.
Which begs a question or two about the ethical duty of those who knew: At the very least shouldn’t someone who knows about notorious and barefaced criminality turn on her heels and run in the opposite direction? Shouldn’t someone victimized by unlawful persuasion pick up his iPhone to tell the cops? What about those who had a fiduciary, judicial and friendship duty to the governor? Did they try to correct his behavior?
If everyone who knew discharged his lawful and ethical duty toward the governor, he would not be twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.
There is nothing new about this problem. It has ever been thus. It is possible to be responsible but not guilty. The enabler is far more difficult to prosecute than the ganef. The wives, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, landladies, tailors, waiters, dog groomers and clergymen who know they’re getting a slice of pelf all have a stake in the misdeed. Those who knowingly benefit share culpability to some lesser or greater extents yet are granted a smug chuckle at the expense of the exposed felon.
See, in the end, we are responsible. We are responsible to recognize those situations where harm is forming. We are responsible to correct the behavior of those who would do harm. Failing correction, we are to hop the first stagecoach out of Dodge. When all else fails and the wrong done sufficient, we are obliged to snitch.
Making these decisions will haunt your whole life. By now you have seen situations such as these and struggled with your conscience. School is a petri dish for moral ambivalence. Anyone who tells you that your duty is always clear is obviously unclear on the meaning of duty. Doing the right thing is messy business.
Much Love,
Poppy
By now everybody knows Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois shot his mouth off about profiting from his power to fill a vacant senate seat. It remains to be seen if narcissism over a tapped ‘phone line is a crime. We’ll see if prosecutors can convict someone of being a bully. All that is for the future. For now, the governor’s reputation has taken a hit from which it will never recover.
How does something like this happen?
Well, my dears, one answer is that the governor was always a braggart. He was always a bully who hid his pettiness and mendacity from the electorate through four elections – twice for Governor and twice for Congress. True enough. Who knew the guy was like that?
The answer to that question should be on all our minds. Who knew?
Lots of people knew. Lots of people helped him pull the wool over the eyes of voters. Lots of people sat around watching him browbeat donors. Everyone on his staff, everyone who was intimidated by his antics, everyone who signed off on the fruits of his extortion and everyone who heard informed whispers knew all about it. There must have been thousands who knew. That’s who knew: Thousands.
Which begs a question or two about the ethical duty of those who knew: At the very least shouldn’t someone who knows about notorious and barefaced criminality turn on her heels and run in the opposite direction? Shouldn’t someone victimized by unlawful persuasion pick up his iPhone to tell the cops? What about those who had a fiduciary, judicial and friendship duty to the governor? Did they try to correct his behavior?
If everyone who knew discharged his lawful and ethical duty toward the governor, he would not be twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.
There is nothing new about this problem. It has ever been thus. It is possible to be responsible but not guilty. The enabler is far more difficult to prosecute than the ganef. The wives, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, landladies, tailors, waiters, dog groomers and clergymen who know they’re getting a slice of pelf all have a stake in the misdeed. Those who knowingly benefit share culpability to some lesser or greater extents yet are granted a smug chuckle at the expense of the exposed felon.
See, in the end, we are responsible. We are responsible to recognize those situations where harm is forming. We are responsible to correct the behavior of those who would do harm. Failing correction, we are to hop the first stagecoach out of Dodge. When all else fails and the wrong done sufficient, we are obliged to snitch.
Making these decisions will haunt your whole life. By now you have seen situations such as these and struggled with your conscience. School is a petri dish for moral ambivalence. Anyone who tells you that your duty is always clear is obviously unclear on the meaning of duty. Doing the right thing is messy business.
Much Love,
Poppy
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Rationing Rationalization
Dear Children:
The dearth of recent posts comes about for a reason. In the same way as events respond to causality, the absence of events is rooted in causality. We hold this to be true intuitively. More important, it’s evidenced by the way language works, especially English. Our received logic is anchored by “if/ then” and “if not/ then” constructions. Our scriptures are expressed using this device. It works well most of the time and is most useful in the doing of business. The Law of Contracts depends on it. Every action or inaction has a consequence. Culture is anchored by an adherence to the proposition that action and inaction have consequences that affect us all.
Mathematicians are beginning to find ways of expressing this idea in a purer form than classical logic. They call it Game Theory. In its crudest expression, Game Theory offers the promise of finding a way to get over on another by locating the vulnerability of the other – usually identifying greed – and capitalizing. It turns out that “right action” and “wrong action” are not mutually exclusive. The games theorists, rather, express it as cooperative and uncooperative action. In their models it makes a difference when one decides to be cooperative or uncooperative not just whether one is cooperative or uncooperative. As its evolving, Game Theory offers the hope that we will be able to recognize and predict optimal mixes of cooperation and tension.
These guys are on to something important. In fact, they’ve opened up the tiniest hole in the mystery of causality. While it’s given we operate intuitively with the notion of causality, we have not the smallest understanding of the thing that is causality – the why of things. The need to know why something is the way it appears to be is so fixed in us that we cannot appear to abide that it is unknown.
That fixation compels us make stuff up. The scientists call it hypothesis, the rest of us engage in rationalization.
My Dears, the urge to hypothesize is a good and noble one. To try something on for size, to experiment, and to probe is in the service of maturity and education.
The shortcut of rationalization is profoundly bad for you. To make something up for the purpose of avoidance, evasion or short-term gain is, on its face, immature and destructive. Nothing good will ever come from it. This I know from bitter experience that has manifestly chastened me.
Try this on for size: Submit everything you say and do to the rationalization test. Did I say that thing to evade responsibility? Did I do that thing because the alternative is too painful for me to face? Did I tell the whole truth? Did I answer the question directly? Did I parse my answer to give a false impression? Are my questions asked respectfully, honestly and directly? Like that.
For now, don’t do anything with the honest and private answers you get back from the test. Merely collect them. You will find that rationalizations are everywhere and everyday. Soon you will recognize them for the toxins they are. You will recognize them in others.
That’s what you should care about. You should care that you recognize and own-up to shortcuts, shuckin’, jivin’, dissembling, lying and insincerity. You need only to admit these things to yourself for now. It’s difficult but important work. It will help you learn what is right and the importance of timing. Armed with this knowledge, you will learn the futility of pretense and the peace that comes from simple, honest, humane expression.
If you’ve gotten this far, you may ask what this has to do with all those missing months of posts.
I don’t know. The simple truth has eluded me. That could be the subject of another post.
Poppy
The dearth of recent posts comes about for a reason. In the same way as events respond to causality, the absence of events is rooted in causality. We hold this to be true intuitively. More important, it’s evidenced by the way language works, especially English. Our received logic is anchored by “if/ then” and “if not/ then” constructions. Our scriptures are expressed using this device. It works well most of the time and is most useful in the doing of business. The Law of Contracts depends on it. Every action or inaction has a consequence. Culture is anchored by an adherence to the proposition that action and inaction have consequences that affect us all.
Mathematicians are beginning to find ways of expressing this idea in a purer form than classical logic. They call it Game Theory. In its crudest expression, Game Theory offers the promise of finding a way to get over on another by locating the vulnerability of the other – usually identifying greed – and capitalizing. It turns out that “right action” and “wrong action” are not mutually exclusive. The games theorists, rather, express it as cooperative and uncooperative action. In their models it makes a difference when one decides to be cooperative or uncooperative not just whether one is cooperative or uncooperative. As its evolving, Game Theory offers the hope that we will be able to recognize and predict optimal mixes of cooperation and tension.
These guys are on to something important. In fact, they’ve opened up the tiniest hole in the mystery of causality. While it’s given we operate intuitively with the notion of causality, we have not the smallest understanding of the thing that is causality – the why of things. The need to know why something is the way it appears to be is so fixed in us that we cannot appear to abide that it is unknown.
That fixation compels us make stuff up. The scientists call it hypothesis, the rest of us engage in rationalization.
My Dears, the urge to hypothesize is a good and noble one. To try something on for size, to experiment, and to probe is in the service of maturity and education.
The shortcut of rationalization is profoundly bad for you. To make something up for the purpose of avoidance, evasion or short-term gain is, on its face, immature and destructive. Nothing good will ever come from it. This I know from bitter experience that has manifestly chastened me.
Try this on for size: Submit everything you say and do to the rationalization test. Did I say that thing to evade responsibility? Did I do that thing because the alternative is too painful for me to face? Did I tell the whole truth? Did I answer the question directly? Did I parse my answer to give a false impression? Are my questions asked respectfully, honestly and directly? Like that.
For now, don’t do anything with the honest and private answers you get back from the test. Merely collect them. You will find that rationalizations are everywhere and everyday. Soon you will recognize them for the toxins they are. You will recognize them in others.
That’s what you should care about. You should care that you recognize and own-up to shortcuts, shuckin’, jivin’, dissembling, lying and insincerity. You need only to admit these things to yourself for now. It’s difficult but important work. It will help you learn what is right and the importance of timing. Armed with this knowledge, you will learn the futility of pretense and the peace that comes from simple, honest, humane expression.
If you’ve gotten this far, you may ask what this has to do with all those missing months of posts.
I don’t know. The simple truth has eluded me. That could be the subject of another post.
Poppy
Monday, May 19, 2008
Tuesdays With Sorry
Dear Children:
This blog has been way too much fun. Even though some of our more waggish readers have dubbed the submissions “Poor Poppy’s Almanac”, it’s been fun. Now, as I’m confident that we’ll really get to 160lbs, it looks like the character (if not the content) of the diary will have to change. When I do get to the magic One Six Oh, I’ll be sure to crow loud and long. No one will miss that event if shameless self-promotion still works. It will be a great day if for no other reason than the decibel level of the personally blown horn.
Just so you know, the 170lbs weigh-in occurred last Tuesday. I always weigh the least on Tuesdays. Go figure. Saturday I weighed in at 170.5.
So, as we cast about for a compelling conceit for the blog, some themes come to mind. They all have the charm of being sufficiently self-absorbed to keep me on task, but lack a high-minded way of enlisting the wider world to a noble goal. After all, obesity is quite a toney subject these days and matches the drumbeat of every do-gooder in sight. Fat is bad. Lean is good. Health is splendid. Dissipation is flagrant. Discipline is laudable. Negligence is willful.
There is one thing we all share. Not everyone can scratch that common itch, but because we all have it, there may be a way of spinning some themes it suggests. That impulse is art.
Think about it. You have heard people say that they wished they could play the piano or draw from life. Hordes show up at concerts to sop up the talent of others. We buy CDs, movies and pictures. We read for the delight of it. Which of us hasn’t craved a talent or a unique ability. It truly is universal to create yet we sell ourselves short with the pretext that we were not blessed with a gift that is valued.
Therefore, if we accept the idea that a creation urge is universal, we are obliged to gratify that urge. We need not be concerned for whether the product is valued. Who cares if you have the urge to sing and the song you choose isn’t fashionable. You have done your job, a job for which God has fitted you. We make far too little of longings and far too much of praise.
I love houseplants and I love to plant them in unusual containers. Terrariums are a particular favorite. I love the feel of wood and the shapes it can take. So far, there has not been a path beaten to my door for the want of the objects that result, but the satisfaction in their creation has been uplifting.
Maybe I can share some of the stirrings of satisfaction with you. While there is no wish for you to replicate or admire my work, there might be a way for you to replicate the joy I feel as you are encouraged to create for yourself.
On the Ipod Saturday was The Jordonairs, a Gospel group. It features an anchoring bass by the name of J. D. Salman. He’s dead now, but I bet you’ve heard his voice. Elvis Presley on the most popular Gospel album of all time records him. Elvis used a back up group called The Stamps. And, as luck would have it, I met a classmate from nearly five decades ago who knew JD and sang on the same stage. I’m looking forward to learning more about the history of Gospel music from him.
Much Love,
Poppy
This blog has been way too much fun. Even though some of our more waggish readers have dubbed the submissions “Poor Poppy’s Almanac”, it’s been fun. Now, as I’m confident that we’ll really get to 160lbs, it looks like the character (if not the content) of the diary will have to change. When I do get to the magic One Six Oh, I’ll be sure to crow loud and long. No one will miss that event if shameless self-promotion still works. It will be a great day if for no other reason than the decibel level of the personally blown horn.
Just so you know, the 170lbs weigh-in occurred last Tuesday. I always weigh the least on Tuesdays. Go figure. Saturday I weighed in at 170.5.
So, as we cast about for a compelling conceit for the blog, some themes come to mind. They all have the charm of being sufficiently self-absorbed to keep me on task, but lack a high-minded way of enlisting the wider world to a noble goal. After all, obesity is quite a toney subject these days and matches the drumbeat of every do-gooder in sight. Fat is bad. Lean is good. Health is splendid. Dissipation is flagrant. Discipline is laudable. Negligence is willful.
There is one thing we all share. Not everyone can scratch that common itch, but because we all have it, there may be a way of spinning some themes it suggests. That impulse is art.
Think about it. You have heard people say that they wished they could play the piano or draw from life. Hordes show up at concerts to sop up the talent of others. We buy CDs, movies and pictures. We read for the delight of it. Which of us hasn’t craved a talent or a unique ability. It truly is universal to create yet we sell ourselves short with the pretext that we were not blessed with a gift that is valued.
Therefore, if we accept the idea that a creation urge is universal, we are obliged to gratify that urge. We need not be concerned for whether the product is valued. Who cares if you have the urge to sing and the song you choose isn’t fashionable. You have done your job, a job for which God has fitted you. We make far too little of longings and far too much of praise.
I love houseplants and I love to plant them in unusual containers. Terrariums are a particular favorite. I love the feel of wood and the shapes it can take. So far, there has not been a path beaten to my door for the want of the objects that result, but the satisfaction in their creation has been uplifting.
Maybe I can share some of the stirrings of satisfaction with you. While there is no wish for you to replicate or admire my work, there might be a way for you to replicate the joy I feel as you are encouraged to create for yourself.
On the Ipod Saturday was The Jordonairs, a Gospel group. It features an anchoring bass by the name of J. D. Salman. He’s dead now, but I bet you’ve heard his voice. Elvis Presley on the most popular Gospel album of all time records him. Elvis used a back up group called The Stamps. And, as luck would have it, I met a classmate from nearly five decades ago who knew JD and sang on the same stage. I’m looking forward to learning more about the history of Gospel music from him.
Much Love,
Poppy
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Within A Stone's Throw
Dear Children:
The previous post – the one called John Phillip Snooza – has generated a lot of comment outside the blog. Mostly people are exploring the difference between quality decision-making and the idea of virtue. Let me explain:
We don’t talk much about virtue these days. The expression of a virtue, say thrift, lends itself to belittling, silly logical extensions and cliché. We don’t talk about thrift because it’s easy to substitute the word cheap. We don’t talk about industry for fear of being thought a plugger. Chastity has become another word for prudish. Humility is short for wimpy. Only suckers are charitable. You get the idea.
What we have these days are core values. Each of us has a set of core values. My core values are just as genuine and justifiable as yours. Your core values, in turn, may be wildly different from each of your acquaintances. It’s bad form to question anyone’s right to his or her core values. That’s the difference between virtues and core values. Virtues are shared definable ideals and core values are individual and needn’t be expressed.
This is the point at which persons of an older certain age begin to sigh and those of a younger certain age shrug. I don’t care.
Decisions, the helpful kind and the destructive kind, issue from bedrock belief. You can be confident that a person who treats you shabbily is likely to treat others the same. Expressions of generosity are almost never a hit-or-miss proposition. Caution is hardly accidental. Intemperance is predictable.
Ask yourself: when it comes to things that count, what counts with you? We all have beliefs even if we don’t want them. We cannot hold beliefs secretly because decisions reflect beliefs clearly and consistently.
Oh, on the off chance you were wondering about people who appear inconsistent, don’t be fooled. Those are people who believe in moral plasticity. If you see one, make the sharpest turn possible and run for your life.
It’s also time to report on weight loss. This morning I weighed 170 lbs. That’s thirty pounds since the first week in February and the lightest I’ve been since Lent 1984. We may be within striking distance of the 160 lbs goal.
The next post will discuss what will happen should I ever get to One Sixty as well as other stuff I’ve been pursuing lately. See the picture clue.
Much Love,
Poppy
The previous post – the one called John Phillip Snooza – has generated a lot of comment outside the blog. Mostly people are exploring the difference between quality decision-making and the idea of virtue. Let me explain:
We don’t talk much about virtue these days. The expression of a virtue, say thrift, lends itself to belittling, silly logical extensions and cliché. We don’t talk about thrift because it’s easy to substitute the word cheap. We don’t talk about industry for fear of being thought a plugger. Chastity has become another word for prudish. Humility is short for wimpy. Only suckers are charitable. You get the idea.
What we have these days are core values. Each of us has a set of core values. My core values are just as genuine and justifiable as yours. Your core values, in turn, may be wildly different from each of your acquaintances. It’s bad form to question anyone’s right to his or her core values. That’s the difference between virtues and core values. Virtues are shared definable ideals and core values are individual and needn’t be expressed.
This is the point at which persons of an older certain age begin to sigh and those of a younger certain age shrug. I don’t care.
Decisions, the helpful kind and the destructive kind, issue from bedrock belief. You can be confident that a person who treats you shabbily is likely to treat others the same. Expressions of generosity are almost never a hit-or-miss proposition. Caution is hardly accidental. Intemperance is predictable.
Ask yourself: when it comes to things that count, what counts with you? We all have beliefs even if we don’t want them. We cannot hold beliefs secretly because decisions reflect beliefs clearly and consistently.
Oh, on the off chance you were wondering about people who appear inconsistent, don’t be fooled. Those are people who believe in moral plasticity. If you see one, make the sharpest turn possible and run for your life.
It’s also time to report on weight loss. This morning I weighed 170 lbs. That’s thirty pounds since the first week in February and the lightest I’ve been since Lent 1984. We may be within striking distance of the 160 lbs goal.
The next post will discuss what will happen should I ever get to One Sixty as well as other stuff I’ve been pursuing lately. See the picture clue.
Much Love,
Poppy
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