Posts Tagged ‘Perceptions’
Out of Mind
Ever stop to consider how many things in life have become, “out of sight, out of mind” for you? I would become completely overwhelmed if I opened the Pandora’s Box of everything I have allowed to match that phrase. I think that allowing things to transition out of sight is one of my primary coping mechanisms.
It’s not always a good thing to have parts of your life become invisible and subsequently nonexistent. I don’t know why the VCR, buried on my dresser under years worth of accumulation, caught my eye the other day. It triggered my questioning the status of videos we recorded during the years our children were growing up. Those are at high risk of deteriorating beyond viability. That led to a recollection of the significant number of photos I have in slide format. I bet I haven’t seen those for over 20 years. Are they even in that closet where I last parked them? Being so out of sight and for so long, renders those slide images way out of mind.
Some things evade that trick of getting out of sight. They sit in my garage, in plain view, for years on end. It can be wonderfully invigorating to discover someone you know is a perfect fit for items that you have had no use for in years.
I accomplished just such an exchange yesterday. Now, even though the items will finally be out of my sight, I’ll probably never forget about them due to the knowledge of the people who were so excited to receive my donation.
You know, if someone asked me if I had a VCR a couple of days ago, I wouldn’t have had an inkling there was one on my dresser. It’s mostly out of sight.
Drip Dreams
We got a little rain over night Wednesday and into early Thursday morning. It wasn’t heavy enough to rouse me from my slumber, even though we had the window open wide, but it was enough to create a constant drip, drip, drip from the roof. It was the dripping that disrupted my pleasant night’s sleep.
In my mostly unconscious mind that ardently intended to stay asleep, the sound triggered a memory of when my gutter would fill up with debris in the past. That problem was supposed to be solved. The second story eave just above our bedroom window is near the spot where the plugged gutter would begin to overflow and drip on the deck and furniture below. That sound was drummed into my procrastinating mind whenever it would rain during the period I continued to neglect the chore of risking life and limb to clean that back gutter. The way I finally solved that dilemma was to pay for the installation of gutter covers that guaranteed I would never need to clean my gutters again.
As I desperately tried to remain sleeping, my mind took the bait of that memory and began working over the disaster that appeared to have occurred which would allow my gutter to be dripping over the side, regardless the cover installed. If the system was plugged again, then the whole cover as solution turns out to be a waste. That would also mean I needed to either get up there to investigate and maybe remedy the situation, at significant risk, or convince the company that installed them to get back out here and live up to that guarantee. I don’t know which is the worse option.
By now I expect you are getting a feel for what kind of gentle, restful sleep I was enjoying in the pre-dawn hours yesterday morning. Those thoughts I was having morphed into some classic dream struggles where situations changed constantly and whatever it was I was trying to accomplish continually evaded my grasp.
When the alarm triggered to signal the end of my allotted slumber, I was prepared to start the day in a dreary gloom for the torture I’d been forced to endure with the drip, drip, …drip. That, and the frustrating dreaming which had launched off my concern over our gutter problem.
Cyndie spoke first. “That drip off the neighbor’s roof sure is irritating,” she moaned while trying to stretch toward the state of being awake.
The neighbor’s roof! Why didn’t I think of that!? Obviously, it was irritating, either way. But I spent a lot more negative energy over that drip than Cyndie did. At least the morning no longer appeared near as gloomy for me as it had initially.
Abundance Awareness
I watched the movie Hurt Locker a couple of nights ago. Among the many scenes that pack a punch, there was one in particular, completely removed from the military battle zones, that really made an impression. In an attempt to avoid spoiling the movie for anyone reading who hasn’t seen it yet, I’ll make reference to a generic situation that happens all the time for combat soldiers. Those that survive and return home find their old life so entirely out of context it is near impossible to function.
Anyone returning from an extended absence, especially if they have been living in a foreign culture, will recognize a mild version of that same feeling of alienation from what was once the comfort of home. I can’t imagine how a soldier is able to accomplish returning from living a life of combat terror in a bleak and primitive setting, to the comforts of frivolous overindulgence found in our society. I’ve struggled with returning from simple camping trips from time to time. It is interesting that what were once the “comforts of home” can conversely appear as undesirable, or even to the extreme of being objectionable.
What is maybe even more fascinating to me, in the long run, is how I have pretty much always found that the disdain for the excesses that come across as annoying, fades away under the relentless onslaught of the return to a daily routine. All too soon I have re-acclimated myself to a state of dull obliviousness for the overabundance of self-indulgences present in our convenient lives. The contempt never lasts. However, if I found myself suddenly in the company of someone suffering a life of scarcity, I would quickly become aware again of the embarrassment of riches we tend to take for granted.
I guess it is kind of like that frog in a pan of water being heated. If you throw him in when it is already hot, he jumps right back out. If you put him in when it is cool and heat it over time, he adjusts and stays in even after it becomes too hot. When everyone I find myself surrounded by tends to take our lifestyle for granted, I tend to fall into a similar pattern.
Those Who Make Rules
And you thought I was worked up yesterday! Last evening I found the census form had arrived in the mail and made sure to pull it from the abyss of untended household piles and opened it up to be filled out right away. More and more in the 5th and 6th decades of life I am finding myself uncomfortable being counted as a member of a larger group that includes vocal members whose beliefs and behaviors I find offensive. Sometimes it is as extreme as the group called human beings. We are all human, but the behaviors of some can be so despicable that I find myself preferring something from the animal kingdom. There are even a few versions of tree that would suit me more.
I have also found discomfort with being grouped in categories for spiritual belief and for being male. Now the census has me feeling distinctly uncomfortable declaring my race as white. When they can claim that for the purposes of this census, hispanic or latino is not a race, and then on the following question ask what race a person is, it seems to me to reveal how ridiculously made up the social construct of race really is. Maybe it’s a way to manipulate statistics to the number of non-white races so they won’t officially outnumber the white population in the eyes of those with the power of making the rules.
Since race is defined by law, the definition can be changed to suit whatever purposes are desired. What percentage of African heritage would define me as “black”? Is it the same percentage of Anglo heritage would define an Africa American person as “white”? The history of the American legal system would reveal that it hasn’t been a balanced formula. If the court was petitioned by an individual desiring to be classified as “white,” the definition was allowed to be morphed to continue to exclude whomever those in power chose, and white people were always the ones in power.
Logic would have it that the collection of racial data is justified, and for righteous reasons. How can we help people of non-white races if we don’t know how many people that is and where they are located? One example of the folly of that logic is the results achieved by affirmative action to level the playing field for women and people of color seeking employment. It hasn’t equitably increased the number of people of color getting hired. There was some increase in white women entering the workforce, but they have yet to earn equal pay.
I posit that there is no need to even ask the question about identity of race. It is unnecessary. You don’t need to ask. We are all members of the human race and have the same needs for food, shelter, transportation, education, and health care. Count us, and then serve the public.
I don’t like the simple fact that there is a comparison between white and non-white races. The distinction is racist in the first place. It is all so stupid. I’d rather be a tree.
Time Shifting
Big deal, move the clocks. I’m not a fan of shifting the clocks, but it’s not so significant to me that it causes me to have health problems. I saw one report that indicated an increase in heart attacks in the three days following changing the clocks. This morning was dictated to be the time for moving the clocks ahead one hour to Daylight Saving Time. Imagine dying from this time change. Wow. That’s extreme.
I would expect more heart attacks this time of year to come from trying to follow your hockey team or your basketball team in the post-season tournaments. I join my good friend, Rhonda, in having a weakness for the drama of Minnesota Gopher basketball games. Even as much as we love the team and the sport, it’s hard to endure the rough parts of their performance. They made it easy on us yesterday, (although past experience as a fan leaves one weary that any lead can be lost) as they overwhelmingly dominated Purdue to advance to the championship game of the Big 10 tournament today. This is the first time in the history of the event, which began in 1998, that Minnesota has made it to the championship game.
The Gopher hockey team squeaked out a victory last night against North Dakota to force a third and deciding game today in their playoff for access to the Final Five of the WCHA tournament. So, today I run a much higher risk of succumbing to anxiety as a local college sports fan than from the adjustment of the clock.
At least there will be more sunlight later in the day to console me if the sports outcomes are dreary for me.
Just move the clocks, and suddenly there is more sunlight in the day! It’s a miracle!
Humans. Aren’t we just so silly?
Slow But Real
Something that I have always wanted to be able to do is move in slow motion, in real time. As a kid, when we tried to reenact outstanding achievements that we’d seen our athlete-heroes perform in slow motion replays on television, the best moves always reached a point where gravity would overcome our ultimate maneuver and wreck the timing with a fast fall.
It occurred to me, when watching Olympic figure skating the last couple of weeks, that we can’t even judge what the athletes are doing anymore without using slow motion video. They spin so fast that judges need to review a slowed replay to discern the actual positioning of the skater’s blades. I don’t think a play goes by, in sports I watch on television, that I don’t wish to view each previous move from the perspective of the slow motion replay. Even video games provide slow motion replay of what just occurred prior.
I say, let’s just take it to the obvious extreme that we seem to be inevitably headed toward anyway and devise a way to slow everything down (anti-gravity?) in real time. But it has to be EVERYTHING, or it won’t work properly. If you are in slow mode and something looks amiss, you can’t just speed your reaction to avert calamity. You must suffer seeing it all play out as you remain synchronized with the slow speed and unable to alternatively influence the outcome. Ya gotta take the good with the bad.
Why, in slow motion, real time, I could have made that move to get open and release that quick shot to win the men’s hockey gold medal game.
Marching out of Winter
Boy, oh boy, does March sunshine ever feel powerful compared to just a month ago! It is always fascinating, regardless how many times in our lives we experience it, to discover how comfortable 35°F feels this time of year, compared to the same temperature in October or November. I had the bedroom window open wide on Sunday and the fresh air was invigorating, but it didn’t feel cold at all. Time to get the bicycle prepared for a new season!
Now, given a choice between shoveling snow and mowing grass, I would pick shoveling, for sure. But with the hints of the end of snow season becoming more blatant every day, I am noticing an increasing urge to get on to the green season. That is uncharacteristic for me. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the local Major League Baseball team, the Minnesota Twins, will be playing in a brand new outdoor ballpark this year? I hate to admit it, but for some reason, part of me is hoping there is a classic April snowstorm on opening day, just to give everyone an immediate reality check. I am all for getting baseball out of that dome, but doing so without planning some way to account for our potential for weather that is distinctly un-baseball is ill-fated. Regardless, I will be very pleased to watch them play in the true light of day or under the stars of a summer night sky, albeit by way of local television broadcasts.
Even though much of my yard, as well as the deck and the roof of the house, are still under a couple of feet of snow, I am already seeing it like this in my mind’s eye…
Mirrorless World?
Sometimes, I just can’t help myself thinking about strange ways the world might be different, if only…
What if there were no mirrors in the world?
In my opinion, the less time spent in front of a mirror, the less one becomes inclined to feel a need to spend time in front of a mirror. I don’t expect this to be something that will change anyone’s opinion about the subject. There’s no reason to believe that someone already accustomed to tending to their appearance in front of the mirror would find any reason within a silly mental exercise like mine here, to accept there exists any possible alternative in the civilized world to the tasks they perform daily before the looking glass.
First off, in a world without mirrors, think of all the time people would be able to reclaim from their daily routine of preparation. Second, spend a moment calculating how much money you could save in cosmetics and care products.
You would appear to others as the person you were born to become. What I can’t visualize is, how personalities might differ in the absence of our usual attention to appearance. Have you noticed how much better you feel when you think you look good? Would we lose that edge, or would we just always feel okay with ourselves, since we’d have no visual reason to think otherwise? People who don’t currently match the latest trends in the beauty and fashion world wouldn’t have any way to judge that they might not fit the mold and that may just prove more valuable than can be measured.
This gives you something to think about next time you find yourself doing what it is you do during all that time you spend in front of the mirror.
If only…
Consider This
There is hardly enough time to fully grasp the depth of each and every subtle nuance that forms the ultimate substance of all that we experience in our lives every day. What little time there is for such an extraordinary accomplishment is fractured into a seemingly infinite variety of supernatural moments that curiously become dulled by our distinctly finite ability to parse what is not only right before our eyes, but actually within our very being. Whether or not a person pauses in attempt to consider more than what meets the eye, the moments pass by in what appears to us as an ever-increasing pace. There is dust that collects on every surface available, a bright red color of a cereal box, sounds from a television that was never shut off, a rainbow spectrum refracting through icicles dangling from eves, someone is dying and babies are born. Life does not depend on our willingness to contemplate. At any given point in time the people of the world operate from a dramatically broad range of attention to detail for things less than obvious and what is obvious to one person is far from guaranteed to be remotely apparent to another. It is really a profound accomplishment that we are able to successfully communicate with even our own extended family, let alone the number of strangers we interact with as we navigate our way in the world. Most people rarely notice the miracles they are living every moment of each and every boring, regular day.
Speaking of Punishment
Well, well, well. I’m enduring ongoing punishment here. It seems that for some strange reason, one of the muscles in my leg wasn’t up to full speed soccer yesterday morning, after 5 days straight of the intense stress of shoveling. Looks like I’m out of athletic activity for about 6 weeks. Could the fatigue from shoveling, and my injury playing soccer, be related?
I take it as a sign of progress that neither of my calf muscles failed me. No, this time it was a hamstring. Or, more precisely, the biceps femoris long head. I felt the “pop” on the back of my leg, just above the knee, the same as it feels to get hit by a raquetball. I have never injured a hamstring to this degree before, and never down near the knee. I didn’t know what to think. I hopped off the court, afraid to put any weight on it, and began to assess what the heck I had just done. It felt like, if I moved at all, it would cramp up. Eventually, with the encouragement of my soccer mates, I determined I could move the knee joint fully and stand to put weight on the leg without specific pain. The pain is when I try to move in any way that requires strength from that muscle. It is a soft-tissue injury that will get ice, rest, compression, and elevation for treatment. And long term, it will get massage to break up any scar tissue that forms. I learned about the benefits of that the hard way, with my calf.
All I needed to do was drive home from the club. Then I remembered I drive a manual transmission vehicle. Working that clutch is a real treat with a muscle injury. I figured I could take it slow and do as little shifting as possible. As if the driving situations are going to be sensitive to my plight. I felt like such an invalid, trying to maneuver this car with my injury, and I wanted everyone in the vicinity to realize that I was injured and might need an allowance to navigate home safely. From outside my vehicle, I looked perfectly capable to others. It struck me that the normal reaction I have to other vehicles I see every day is that the drivers would be fully prepared and equipped to drive. Why would I consider it to be any other way?
Well, now I’m here to report that I have a new insight. Even though a vehicle might look just fine, the driver could be on their way home from injuring themselves while playing sports and deserve a little extra patience. For every car we have to deal with in the rush hour on the way to or from work, which we assume is being driven by someone just as capable and aware as ourselves, we could actually have someone who just learned some terrible news, or were just involved in an intense argument with someone they love, causing them to experience a psychological injury, or even recently suffered a physical injury, and now they must try to get themselves home or somewhere safe or where they can get help. Don’t just assume people driving around you aren’t dealing with some dramatic problem of their own, just because you can’t see it.
Of course, it is still equally possible that they are driving erratically because they are eating while texting as they read the paper and fiddle with the radio. You may still be inclined to curse them, but keep in mind that other possibility as you lay on the horn to let them know of your dissatisfaction with their driving performance.
Relative Something 