Posts Tagged ‘contrarian’
Relatively Damp
Am I prone to understatement? Not always. Sometimes I go to the other extreme. My natural inclination is to be contrarian, so instead of titling this post, “Soaking !#@$ Wet,” I settled on a genteel descriptor for current conditions. The ground around here is actually wetter than an entirely saturated sponge this morning.
I’m sure the trees are soaking this up with glee. Buds are sprouting from every stem and branch and noticeably increasing the hues of green emerging by the day.
Yesterday’s World Labyrinth Day event brought ten visitors to Wintervale, six of whom are family, four friends, plus a small dog. After some stutter-starts at the meeting of dogs, Asher settled into a wonderful acceptance of all the activity, people, and the one pet unfamiliar to him in his new home. All signs continue to hint that we will find success soon in Asher developing into the pet we are hoping he will become for us.
As long as he refrains from putting his nose on the kitchen counter, then his paws, and reaching for an unfinished scone on a plate, or shredding the cover of the pad in his crate, or getting back up on the living room couch again, or failing to recognize we are speaking to him and directing commands his way for compliance.
He appears to be relatively willing to suppress his natural instincts and behave exactly as we desire at all times.
Hah!
Yeah, we got this.
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Thinking Contrarily
The coronavirus variants are causing the pandemic to not go away as much as people wished it would. When not worried about a wildfire or flash floods ravaging homes, the threat of COVID continues to linger large in people’s minds. Some folks have decided to think contrarily about protecting themselves from the virus. Instead of accepting a free vaccine that is the prevailing solution for the pandemic, they decide to pay someone for a livestock dewormer.
Instead of thinking about how to protect their children from a threatening contagious illness by wearing a mask indoors, they choose to focus on how oppressive it is to be told to wear a mask and begin imagining that wearing a mask is actually harmful to their kids.
I get it. I have contrarian tendencies, myself. I choose to wear my belt so the buckle is on my side instead of front and center. Because, why not?
I’m wondering if the concept of virus variants prolonging the pandemic couldn’t contrarily be applied to variants of love that can improve the health and well-being of the human race.
What if oppressive regimes the world over were to become influenced by a new variation of love that morphed into one that overwhelmed their pillars of greed, power, and control?
What if a new mutation of common sense were to evolve and imbue the minds of people who have difficulty thinking for themselves or find it hard to recognize when a grifter is fleecing them?
What if domestic house cats overcame their urge to bother sleeping humans during the wee hours of darkness when sleep is so precious? Okay, that one is really a stretch, but there could be some variation of that tendency that is less crazy-making, couldn’t there? Please?
If thinking contrarily about controversial subjects can lead to some insane results, it seems only logical, being a contrarian, that thinking contrarily about non-controversial subjects could lead to some increasingly sensible and practical results.
A contrary decision to something good doesn’t have to be bad. It could contrarily be better than good!
Let’s put our contrarian tendencies to good use and find new ways to morph love into a continually more effective influence on the world at large.
Let love be the world religion. No dogma. No doctrine. Just L. O. V. E.
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I want to hear about variants of love that are more contagious than any previous love we experienced before.
Let it command the lead story of newscasts and fill front-page headlines.
Unstoppable spread of unbelievably contagious love!
Contrary to the norm, let it be that people grow to respond with more fascination and interest to headlines like these than to the negative stories of old.
Can you say, “enlightenment?”
Oh, you contrarian, you.
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Say Something
Have you received a lot of unexpected emails from businesses recently? There is a common format you may begin to recognize. A communication professional, Karen G. Anderson, offers tips for organizations that want to email their primary audience with assurances in the face of the ongoing pandemic.
- Say Something
- Talk About Customers (Not the Organization)
- Send Links
- Make Sure People Can Contact You
- Message Should Come From Individual
This morning I received this very message from a business I made one online purchase from years ago for a replacement bowl to match a long-discontinued tableware pattern. It struck me for it’s classic adherence to the recommended guidelines for prudent good practice in times of a national emergency.
It was the 5th or 6th such message to show up in my inbox in the last few days. Being a natural contrarian, my mind quickly jumps to concern about all the entities that haven’t contacted me yet. Why haven’t I heard from them? Are they not all on the same side when it comes to taking all the precautions to keep everyone safe?
Well, let me just assure you, my dear readers, I am fully aware of the risks and ramifications that have materialized from the worldwide spread of the coronavirus COVID-19 and I am taking specific steps to control the spread. Before I started writing this post, I sanitized my keyboard and made certain to maintain plenty of space between myself and Cyndie, Delilah, and Pequenita.
To be doubly cautious, you might consider wiping the surfaces of your devices before you read my posts.
There is a discussion conference in my online community where members write their life stories. Yesterday, I posted this:
I was alive during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. At first, it was a news story about an illness that was spreading in China. At that initial phase, the impact on my life was zero. At work, we wisecracked about the possibility of our supply chain experiencing some future delays.
After the spread of the illness reached other countries of the world and increased at alarming rates in some of them, the reality set in that eventually we would be impacted more directly.
When the financial industry started to fall at a record pace, the idea set in that we were at risk of suffering from not just our health but from economic pressure, too.
Then, billion-dollar professional sports leagues canceled their seasons and shit got real. Just as quick, concerts and plays were canceled, schools closed and life fell apart before anyone I knew had been positively identified as having the virus.
By the middle of March that year, I was in a waiting game for the moment when I might feel the first sensation of having a fever. Each morning when I woke up, one of the first thoughts I had was to assess how I felt.
Since the belief at the time was that the incubation period was between 5-days and some undefined larger span of time, I never knew if I might have it and be contagious, or not, let alone whether those around me were.
Cyndie’s brother wasn’t able to take advantage of the tickets his brother finally scored for them to go to a major golf tournament for his 60th birthday celebration. Our friends had to cancel their long-awaited family trip to one of the Disney resorts in the last year before their daughters grew out of their prime childhood fascination with the idea.
At that point in March, it wasn’t the fear of illness that burdened our minds, it was the disruption of life as we knew it and the complete uncertainty over how much worse it could possibly get and whether or not there was any hope of it all being just a temporary disruption.
I remember the time as feeling like a moment of historic milestone, but without any ability to measure it adequately against some comparable reference.
I didn’t think about it while originally writing those words, but just now it gave me the impression I might have been composing that now in case I wouldn’t have a chance to do it later. That was not my intention. I just thought it would be interesting to mess with the time frame and write about the present moment as it might be perceived in a distant future.
Maybe that came from my recent writing about what my parents’ lives were like 75 years ago.
I’m not just social distancing myself, apparently, I’m time-distancing, too.
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Idea Buffet
There are often times when I will share a thought or a comment with Cyndie and she will respond that I should make a blog post about it. A comment does not a blog post make.
Maybe if I string together a few of them, I’ll have something.
Yesterday, I was cleaning the paddocks while the horses were out grazing. In the morning, I had opened the gate to the area just outside the paddock, but left the arena closed until after I had given them their late-afternoon feed. Suddenly, Legacy came from the arena into the paddock, alone, and approached me. I paused for a moment to acknowledge him, and then returned to scooping up manure. He closed the gap and stood real close. I silently received his intimate presence.
After I again returned to my task, he deposited a pile of fresh manure for me, lingered a moment, then walked back out to graze. I told Cyndie that it felt to me as if he had come specifically to thank me for opening up the arena for them. The fresh pile was a secondary gift.
I am a regular Google news headline reader. I rarely bother with the links to full articles in avoidance of the frustrating ad windows and register-to-read situations that too often result. Some of the headlines can be real groaners, a few too many scream out, “Be AFRAID! All is Lost! Doom and Gloom!” Then there are those that shamelessly tease, leading on, but cutting short with an ellipsis, ending before giving…
Being a contrarian and an occasional optimist, I told Cyndie I created a game where I strike out key words of the gloomy, fear-inducing headlines and replace them with something more inspiring.
“U.S. officials fear radicalized citizens will carry out lone-wolf terror plots” becomes, “U.S. officials fear hope radicalized everyday citizens will carry out lone-wolf individual terror peace plots initiatives.” Film at 11:00.
Recently, I have been listening to Leon and Mary Russell’s “Wedding Album” and in particular, the song, Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly). Their interpretation of this song includes the lyrics: “The longer we live —dilly dilly— the more love we know.” That really resonates for me, because each time I encounter new love, it feels fresh, invigorating, unique.
From that, the thought occurred to me that ‘hate’ never feels new. It is the same damn hate, over and over —from the time I was the target of hate as a little kid, spewed from a teenager who I was surprised even noticed I existed, to the homophobic/racist/misogynistic/religious zealot extremists making headlines today. Hate may spread, but it is never new. It’s the same stale hatred that it has always been.
Thank you. Now go forth and spread some new love with a bit of contrarian optimism yourselves. See if you can get people to…
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Relative Something 