It is not because of the lack of effort exerted that I have learned that I have received several gifts that I will never take for granted, nor will I be ungrateful that I have received them. No earthly being handed me these gifts, but I believe I have received them in a 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens sort of fashion. One of the gifts that I have to immediately divulge is honesty and openness, One would be inclined to think that I am related to the singing family, The Judds! The difference between myself and members of my family is that my aim is deadly accurate. I will mention them frequently in this blog, because indirectly they are responsible for (not purposefully!) forming the person that I have become today. It seems like I learn everything the hard way. I have learned that these gifts cannot be bought, sold, taught, thrust upon anyone or given away freely. The gifts that I have been fortunate to receive are:
1) The mental flexibility of a child
Several years ago, I had the privilege of meeting John Foppe. He is a motivational speaker that was born without arms. He doesn't even have stubs. For more info on John:
http://johnfoppe.com/
or this YouTube search:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+foppe&aq=0
The last time I spoke with him, John lives alone, in a completely unassisted house. The only assistive device he has in the entire house is a small hook on the back of his bedroom door that he can use to help him put his pants on, but he can do the task without the hook (such as when he is staying in a hotel during his travels). He drives a completely unaltered car, combs his hair, eats, handles a coffee cup - and every other function that you and I can do - without arms / hands. I asked him the obvious question: "How CAN you do it?" Dear reader, if you have ever tried to brush your teeth or shave our face with your teeth, you would understand my inquiry. For a moment, let yourself think of a small baby sitting in a baby carrier. I think it is a favorite pastime of every baby to suck on their toes. Now...let me see you do it. We MIGHT be able to do it, but it is not going to be easy, or an enjoyable experience. The difference? Flexibility. John told me that as soon as other babies learned how to use their hands more effectively, they soon forgot to keep the lower half of their body flexible. He told me that if he ever lost that flexibility, he would loose his entire level of independence. In summary, his answer was, "I never lost the flexibility that I had as a baby."
Let's go lateral with that thought. I can't tell you how many times I see a small, innocent child in a public place just being a tiny, innocent human being. They are safely and unassumingly exploring their world. THEN.... I see a parent step into the scene. I glance at the parent, and mumble, "Oh, baby! Do the scene in 'Look Who's Talking, learn to walk and get the hell out of there!" I just have to give the parent(s) a quick glance, and the vision of this child's future in the crystal ball of the future becomes amazingly clear. They are going to develop into a narrow minded, miserable and often bigoted human being. This experiment has been done many times. Place these children, all about 13 months old, in the same play enclosure, and watch them: A physically challenged child...an Asian child...a black child...a Hispanic child...a White child.... THEN WATCH THEM. They will play with each other, and be quite content. Ten years later, place the SAME children in a play area....and watch them! Notice a difference? You will, indeed. You have often heard the phrase, "Children can be so cruel!" Have you ever wondered how they children became so cruel? I will be the first person to acknowledge the fact that a 10 yr. old child has a very advanced brain, and they are quite capable of forming their own thoughts and beliefs, completely independent of outside pressures. I will also be the first person to point out that these children were taught their belief systems by their parents. Had they kept their social beliefs when pertaining to other individuals, you should see no difference in the interactions between the babies and the pre-teens.
We can apply the same thought process to things we make, and how we see and otherwise explore the world. Small children do things purely to explore their world. When they draw a picture, for example, they don't know that "Lucy can't be in the sky with diamonds!" If he wants her there, he draws her there! He has no bad filters that tell him that he can't do it. Picasso once said, "When I was a child, I could paint like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.” You will be a much happier, adventuresome person if you explore your world with less filters, and you maintain the curiosity and flexibility of a child!
2) Self-esteem
Like many of the gifts I am going to list, most folks without self-esteem really don't know they have become victim of a low self image. Did you do something bad in your past, or are you currently active in not being a good human being? If you have wronged individuals, you need to make it right with them. After righting wrongs, proceed forward being a better person. A low self esteem is usually the result of one of two things:
A) Somebody unjustly told you that you were worthless, would never 'amount to anything', you have no talent or abilities, or you are not a good person - and you believed them! or B) You truly are a bad person, you have no intent to leave this world better than you found it, and you are doing nothing to improve yourself.
One of my many mentors, Judge Judy, said, "You should always stick by your family - unless they bring you down. Then dump them!" 'Nuff said! My mother, older brother, and other members of my immediate family would openly mock my talents. They would literally cackle at anything I ever attempted to make, and when I played the piano, it was not uncommon for my mother and brother to each pull up a chair - one on each side of the bench - and LOUDLY jeer at me as I tried to play my instrument. For the record, neither one of them can play anything...ever. They chastised me for being who I am, and for the talents that I have worked so hard to develop. What did I do? I dropped them like a hot rock. Please let it be known that you have absolutely no obligation to anyone on the planet because you were born into a particular family. You are held accountable only for the CHOICES you make. You (and I!) were not given a choice when we were plopped in the middle of a family. The only option I had was to correct the incident that at first seems to be a mistake made by Mother Nature. The silver lining to this cloud is the fact that even though I am blind in one eye, it was not a difficult task for me to take one quick glance at my family, and realize very early on (from the time of my birth!) that these people are genuinely screwed up. I made a pact with myself that went something like this: "Whatever they are doing, I need to be doing the opposite thing! How can I possibly go wrong?" In 42 years, that philosophy hasn't let me down once.
3) The desire to learn as much as I can, every chance I get - about everything I can!
Many people that plod aimlessly about the planet have never given so much as a thought about the function of the gray matter in their skulls, or how to improve and maintain those brain cells.
There are countless sources that will prove to you that "if you don't use it, you will lose it." No, the brain is not a muscle - could you imagine that? However, every thought you have ever had (including dreams) is the result of chemical reactions between the cells in your brain.
Cutting to the chase: If you do not regularly (daily!) to some sort of concentrated brain-building exercise, you can and WILL get 'dumber'. The proportions are predictable. The less time someone spends on trying to improve their brain function, the more they think they can rule some small part of their world, and those people around them. In other words, the smaller the brain, the bigger the mouth, if ya know what I mean.
Learn a new language. Why? Because when you learn a new language, you are doing several things simultaneously. It is virtually impossible to learn a new language as an adult and *not* learn more about your own native language. Another bonus is the fact that we learn of other cultures, and we expand our taste and our minds. A Mark Twain quote that absolute love:
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Innocents Abroad (Mark Twain)
I can report that I have played keyboard instruments since I was 6 yrs old by ear. I could not read music any more difficult than a child's one-note-at-a-time primer. You know - the huge single staffs with brightly colored notes! Two years ago, I decided that I was going to teach myself how to read music. While I doubt that I will ever be able to sight-read complicated Mozart pieces, I have found that there is no music that I cannot read if I set my mind to it, and practice...practice... practice! I am now reading pieces such as Scott Joplin's 'Maple Leaf Rag' and 'The Entertainer' and Freddy Mercury's (Queen) 'Bohemian Rhapsody" - and 20 other songs EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE! I play certain songs for specific reasons. Two of those reasons are because I like the song and because there are notes in there or other techniques that I know I need to practice. I have come a very long way in 2 years time! I view Music and other brain work like an exercise program. If I have played through my daily practice pieces, and I still feel that I have not accomplished enough on a particular day, I will open one of my 100 lbs (honestly!) of music books, and find a song that I haven't played before - then I will play it through. I am not satisfied until I have struggled with a piece a bit. Then, I know I have sufficiently worked my brain. I hear people make excuses, "I don't have that much time!" But I bet you a dime to a Dixie Doughnut that they will be sitting night after night staring blankly at a TV, eh? I have 3 TVs in my home, and I can record television on one of our 5 home computers. I do my fair share of TV watching, however, I absolutely will not just sit and stare at a TV. I never have in my life! I am *always* doing something else while the TV is on. In the past 2 years, I have also taken up knitting. My Dr. suggested that I take up crochet or knitting because the arthritis getting worse in my hands. I tried to crochet. I think I would rather die than wield a crochet hook. In a matter of months, I went from not knowing how to knit a stitch to an advanced level knitter. I have followed one preprinted pattern out of all the patterns that I have knit, and that was for my first pair of gloves. I wrote the patterns for the other 4 sweaters, 2 scarves and 6 hats from scratch. Now chant with me, "We must, we must...we must increase the BRAIN!"
Have I told you about my dreams? I will go into detail in a later blog, but in short, I have at least 3 - 5 dreams every night of my life. Now, because my poor little brain has nothing better to do when I sleep, I have been going back over the past several years and dreaming re-runs. Re-run dreams are not at all new to me, but the way I am dreaming them IS new to me. I go back and pick up an old dream, but this time, there is exponentially more detail in each dream! I am now redecorating dreams! People that were once shadows, for example, how have faces and names. If something in a dream was plain concrete, it is now beautiful green marble, and the dream remodeling list continues! I am here to tell you that if you work that brain DAILY and beyond your normal living skills and activities, your brain WILL grow. If you do not do so, our brain WILL shrink, and you are no exception to this rule.
4) A sense of humor
You're either born with a sense of humor - or you're not. Souls around you will be miserable if you were born without it. Making folks miserable and controlling them, in itself is fodder for some.
5) PASSION!
Again - you're either born with it, or you are born without it.
To live life without passion is to live life without a purpose! "Lackluster" is no way to live, people!
Then again, there are those who are jealous of anybody passionate - and that is a desperate shame. They usually employ techniques which involve 'lowering' the passionate individual. Lowering is used to bring the vivacious person down to the lackluster person's level. I have a much needed news bulletin for those folks:
There is absolutely nothing you can do to me that will ever reduce me to your level - so don't even try it.
6) Paying attention to detail.
I have learned by (the lack of) family influences to pay close attention to detail. It shows in my music, my knitting, my personal appearance, and anything that I do. My motto is: "If I can't do it right, and if I can't do an impeccable job when I am doing it, I won't do it at all!" People want results, but they don't want to put the effort into learning how to do the task correctly. You will never end with good results if you don't invest the time and effort in refining a skill (Interpreted: Do not try to cook a new dish for your family get-together if it is the first time you've attempted the dish! Practice FIRST.) I guarantee you the first item you knit will not be the best thing you will ever knit. With some practice, studying and hard work, your knitting will be perfect - for example.
7) The complete lack of jealousy.
When my family would leave church - yes church, my mother and sisters would cackle openly at the dress that somebody was wearing, how a member of the church was dressed, of how somebody sang a special song. They weren't laughing with them - they were laughing AT them. I lived with that crap for 17 years, until I had my fill, and I had to get the hell out of there! From the time I was an absolute infant, I learned that jealousy is a disease that eats it's willing victims from the inside out, spewing crap on whoever is unfortunate enough to be near them.
I knew that if I wanted a certain item that I could save my money to get it. I also knew that if I wanted to learn a skill (read music, play by ear, knit, and the list goes ON and ON), I had to work hard, and I, too, could do those things.
Jealousy is not alone in her endeavor. She has 7 other sisters (the 7 deadly sins):
While it is true that it is better to be delivered from these things than to wallow in the foul stew that these things secrete for the rest of your life, the true gift is to be spared these debilitating obstacles to being a good, productive human.
Those are the gifts I have been given, in exchange for the things that were taken from me. Was it a fair trade? You bet - and I would do it all over again if I could!
- Michael
1) The mental flexibility of a child
Several years ago, I had the privilege of meeting John Foppe. He is a motivational speaker that was born without arms. He doesn't even have stubs. For more info on John:
http://johnfoppe.com/
or this YouTube search:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+foppe&aq=0
The last time I spoke with him, John lives alone, in a completely unassisted house. The only assistive device he has in the entire house is a small hook on the back of his bedroom door that he can use to help him put his pants on, but he can do the task without the hook (such as when he is staying in a hotel during his travels). He drives a completely unaltered car, combs his hair, eats, handles a coffee cup - and every other function that you and I can do - without arms / hands. I asked him the obvious question: "How CAN you do it?" Dear reader, if you have ever tried to brush your teeth or shave our face with your teeth, you would understand my inquiry. For a moment, let yourself think of a small baby sitting in a baby carrier. I think it is a favorite pastime of every baby to suck on their toes. Now...let me see you do it. We MIGHT be able to do it, but it is not going to be easy, or an enjoyable experience. The difference? Flexibility. John told me that as soon as other babies learned how to use their hands more effectively, they soon forgot to keep the lower half of their body flexible. He told me that if he ever lost that flexibility, he would loose his entire level of independence. In summary, his answer was, "I never lost the flexibility that I had as a baby."
Let's go lateral with that thought. I can't tell you how many times I see a small, innocent child in a public place just being a tiny, innocent human being. They are safely and unassumingly exploring their world. THEN.... I see a parent step into the scene. I glance at the parent, and mumble, "Oh, baby! Do the scene in 'Look Who's Talking, learn to walk and get the hell out of there!" I just have to give the parent(s) a quick glance, and the vision of this child's future in the crystal ball of the future becomes amazingly clear. They are going to develop into a narrow minded, miserable and often bigoted human being. This experiment has been done many times. Place these children, all about 13 months old, in the same play enclosure, and watch them: A physically challenged child...an Asian child...a black child...a Hispanic child...a White child.... THEN WATCH THEM. They will play with each other, and be quite content. Ten years later, place the SAME children in a play area....and watch them! Notice a difference? You will, indeed. You have often heard the phrase, "Children can be so cruel!" Have you ever wondered how they children became so cruel? I will be the first person to acknowledge the fact that a 10 yr. old child has a very advanced brain, and they are quite capable of forming their own thoughts and beliefs, completely independent of outside pressures. I will also be the first person to point out that these children were taught their belief systems by their parents. Had they kept their social beliefs when pertaining to other individuals, you should see no difference in the interactions between the babies and the pre-teens.
We can apply the same thought process to things we make, and how we see and otherwise explore the world. Small children do things purely to explore their world. When they draw a picture, for example, they don't know that "Lucy can't be in the sky with diamonds!" If he wants her there, he draws her there! He has no bad filters that tell him that he can't do it. Picasso once said, "When I was a child, I could paint like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.” You will be a much happier, adventuresome person if you explore your world with less filters, and you maintain the curiosity and flexibility of a child!
2) Self-esteem
Like many of the gifts I am going to list, most folks without self-esteem really don't know they have become victim of a low self image. Did you do something bad in your past, or are you currently active in not being a good human being? If you have wronged individuals, you need to make it right with them. After righting wrongs, proceed forward being a better person. A low self esteem is usually the result of one of two things:
A) Somebody unjustly told you that you were worthless, would never 'amount to anything', you have no talent or abilities, or you are not a good person - and you believed them! or B) You truly are a bad person, you have no intent to leave this world better than you found it, and you are doing nothing to improve yourself.
One of my many mentors, Judge Judy, said, "You should always stick by your family - unless they bring you down. Then dump them!" 'Nuff said! My mother, older brother, and other members of my immediate family would openly mock my talents. They would literally cackle at anything I ever attempted to make, and when I played the piano, it was not uncommon for my mother and brother to each pull up a chair - one on each side of the bench - and LOUDLY jeer at me as I tried to play my instrument. For the record, neither one of them can play anything...ever. They chastised me for being who I am, and for the talents that I have worked so hard to develop. What did I do? I dropped them like a hot rock. Please let it be known that you have absolutely no obligation to anyone on the planet because you were born into a particular family. You are held accountable only for the CHOICES you make. You (and I!) were not given a choice when we were plopped in the middle of a family. The only option I had was to correct the incident that at first seems to be a mistake made by Mother Nature. The silver lining to this cloud is the fact that even though I am blind in one eye, it was not a difficult task for me to take one quick glance at my family, and realize very early on (from the time of my birth!) that these people are genuinely screwed up. I made a pact with myself that went something like this: "Whatever they are doing, I need to be doing the opposite thing! How can I possibly go wrong?" In 42 years, that philosophy hasn't let me down once.
3) The desire to learn as much as I can, every chance I get - about everything I can!
Many people that plod aimlessly about the planet have never given so much as a thought about the function of the gray matter in their skulls, or how to improve and maintain those brain cells.
There are countless sources that will prove to you that "if you don't use it, you will lose it." No, the brain is not a muscle - could you imagine that? However, every thought you have ever had (including dreams) is the result of chemical reactions between the cells in your brain.
Cutting to the chase: If you do not regularly (daily!) to some sort of concentrated brain-building exercise, you can and WILL get 'dumber'. The proportions are predictable. The less time someone spends on trying to improve their brain function, the more they think they can rule some small part of their world, and those people around them. In other words, the smaller the brain, the bigger the mouth, if ya know what I mean.
Learn a new language. Why? Because when you learn a new language, you are doing several things simultaneously. It is virtually impossible to learn a new language as an adult and *not* learn more about your own native language. Another bonus is the fact that we learn of other cultures, and we expand our taste and our minds. A Mark Twain quote that absolute love:
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Innocents Abroad (Mark Twain)
I can report that I have played keyboard instruments since I was 6 yrs old by ear. I could not read music any more difficult than a child's one-note-at-a-time primer. You know - the huge single staffs with brightly colored notes! Two years ago, I decided that I was going to teach myself how to read music. While I doubt that I will ever be able to sight-read complicated Mozart pieces, I have found that there is no music that I cannot read if I set my mind to it, and practice...practice... practice! I am now reading pieces such as Scott Joplin's 'Maple Leaf Rag' and 'The Entertainer' and Freddy Mercury's (Queen) 'Bohemian Rhapsody" - and 20 other songs EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE! I play certain songs for specific reasons. Two of those reasons are because I like the song and because there are notes in there or other techniques that I know I need to practice. I have come a very long way in 2 years time! I view Music and other brain work like an exercise program. If I have played through my daily practice pieces, and I still feel that I have not accomplished enough on a particular day, I will open one of my 100 lbs (honestly!) of music books, and find a song that I haven't played before - then I will play it through. I am not satisfied until I have struggled with a piece a bit. Then, I know I have sufficiently worked my brain. I hear people make excuses, "I don't have that much time!" But I bet you a dime to a Dixie Doughnut that they will be sitting night after night staring blankly at a TV, eh? I have 3 TVs in my home, and I can record television on one of our 5 home computers. I do my fair share of TV watching, however, I absolutely will not just sit and stare at a TV. I never have in my life! I am *always* doing something else while the TV is on. In the past 2 years, I have also taken up knitting. My Dr. suggested that I take up crochet or knitting because the arthritis getting worse in my hands. I tried to crochet. I think I would rather die than wield a crochet hook. In a matter of months, I went from not knowing how to knit a stitch to an advanced level knitter. I have followed one preprinted pattern out of all the patterns that I have knit, and that was for my first pair of gloves. I wrote the patterns for the other 4 sweaters, 2 scarves and 6 hats from scratch. Now chant with me, "We must, we must...we must increase the BRAIN!"
Have I told you about my dreams? I will go into detail in a later blog, but in short, I have at least 3 - 5 dreams every night of my life. Now, because my poor little brain has nothing better to do when I sleep, I have been going back over the past several years and dreaming re-runs. Re-run dreams are not at all new to me, but the way I am dreaming them IS new to me. I go back and pick up an old dream, but this time, there is exponentially more detail in each dream! I am now redecorating dreams! People that were once shadows, for example, how have faces and names. If something in a dream was plain concrete, it is now beautiful green marble, and the dream remodeling list continues! I am here to tell you that if you work that brain DAILY and beyond your normal living skills and activities, your brain WILL grow. If you do not do so, our brain WILL shrink, and you are no exception to this rule.
4) A sense of humor
You're either born with a sense of humor - or you're not. Souls around you will be miserable if you were born without it. Making folks miserable and controlling them, in itself is fodder for some.
5) PASSION!
Again - you're either born with it, or you are born without it.
To live life without passion is to live life without a purpose! "Lackluster" is no way to live, people!
Then again, there are those who are jealous of anybody passionate - and that is a desperate shame. They usually employ techniques which involve 'lowering' the passionate individual. Lowering is used to bring the vivacious person down to the lackluster person's level. I have a much needed news bulletin for those folks:
There is absolutely nothing you can do to me that will ever reduce me to your level - so don't even try it.
6) Paying attention to detail.
I have learned by (the lack of) family influences to pay close attention to detail. It shows in my music, my knitting, my personal appearance, and anything that I do. My motto is: "If I can't do it right, and if I can't do an impeccable job when I am doing it, I won't do it at all!" People want results, but they don't want to put the effort into learning how to do the task correctly. You will never end with good results if you don't invest the time and effort in refining a skill (Interpreted: Do not try to cook a new dish for your family get-together if it is the first time you've attempted the dish! Practice FIRST.) I guarantee you the first item you knit will not be the best thing you will ever knit. With some practice, studying and hard work, your knitting will be perfect - for example.
7) The complete lack of jealousy.
When my family would leave church - yes church, my mother and sisters would cackle openly at the dress that somebody was wearing, how a member of the church was dressed, of how somebody sang a special song. They weren't laughing with them - they were laughing AT them. I lived with that crap for 17 years, until I had my fill, and I had to get the hell out of there! From the time I was an absolute infant, I learned that jealousy is a disease that eats it's willing victims from the inside out, spewing crap on whoever is unfortunate enough to be near them.
I knew that if I wanted a certain item that I could save my money to get it. I also knew that if I wanted to learn a skill (read music, play by ear, knit, and the list goes ON and ON), I had to work hard, and I, too, could do those things.
Jealousy is not alone in her endeavor. She has 7 other sisters (the 7 deadly sins):
- luxuria (extravagance)
- gula (gluttony)
- avaritia (avarice/greed)
- acedia (acedia/discouragement or listness)
- ira (wrath)
- invidia (envy)
- superbia (pride)
While it is true that it is better to be delivered from these things than to wallow in the foul stew that these things secrete for the rest of your life, the true gift is to be spared these debilitating obstacles to being a good, productive human.
Those are the gifts I have been given, in exchange for the things that were taken from me. Was it a fair trade? You bet - and I would do it all over again if I could!
- Michael
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