shalanna

For The Real LJ IDOL: IN SOMEONE ELSE'S SHOES

"These are NOT my shoes," announced Blinky. She toed the heels of the muddy blue Grasshoppers until they fell off her feet. "See that blister? These are definitely not mine."

"Well, don't look at me. I can't wear nothin' except these backless slides." Pinky sank back on the garden bench, pulling off her muddy gloves and tossing them into the birdbath. (I quickly retrieved them and hung them over the side of a nearby bucket. My birds deserved better than to have to wade in her potting soil with Perlite and WonderGro.)

[Yes, once again Mama's "Stitch-and-Bitch" Gin Rummy Occasional Players were meeting at MY house. Today we were in my garden on the stone patio. Blinky took a seat at the umbrella table, Stinky and Pinky sharing the porch swing--the metal 1950s kind with its own base that goes back and forth, so no worries about them pulling out the eyehooks overhead, since there are none--and Nod hopping into our hammock in the shade.)

"I'd know if I got on the wrong shoes right away. I got custom foot-doctor insoles. Cost a small fortune." Stinky moved to pull off her steel-toed boots, but Mama quickly stopped her. Probably recalling the last time Stinky took off her shoes in public. (Patients with lung disorders suffered immediate attacks. The general area had to be evacuated. Homeland Security was notified.)

"How could you get the wrong shoes on?" Mama inquired, reasonably enough, I thought.

"Took 'em off when you were sprayin' that hose at 'Full Power' instead of 'Gentle Mist' setting. Whole side yard is a loblolly of mud now. Wanted to keep from ruinin' another pair of good shoes. I washed my feet in that there wadin' pond." Blinky gestured towards my Pomeranian's little sunflower-shaped wading pool, which we'd used earlier to cool him off. "Get that at Dollar General?"

"Yeah, last year. Isn't it a shame that Wal-Mart bought 'em and is closin' 'em down?" Mama sighed.

"You're kidding!" Stinky's cigarette fell out of her mouth.

Blinky whammed her fist on the table. The umbrella shuddered. "Nope. That woman, richest in the world, she ain't happy bein' one of the biggest stores. Has to be the ONLY one. I hate that. Why'n't they leave some of the business for somebody else? They got enough."

Pinky, finished examining her blood-red oxfords, raised a finger. "It's not Wal-Mart buyin' them. It's those people bought Safeway."

"No, it's not. I read it in the Morning Snooze."

To head off an endless "Yes, it is,"/"NO, it ain't" match, I said, "I hope that isn't true at all. I love Dollar General."

"Well, the manager of the big new one over on Coit--you know, where Colberts used to be--told me they'd been bought and he was losing his good insurance. So take that as you will."

"Damn!" Stinky shook her head. "They ruin everything good."

"Can't blame the guy for selling. Probably got a lot of money and now he can retire."

"I wish I was in HIS shoes," Blinky said. "I'd fix things right up."

"No, you wouldn't. You'd be true to your original mission of creating a national Dime Store. Now that Woolworth's, T G & Y, and the other greats are no more." Mama looked out over the meadow wistfully. The pond splashed at her elbow, and she took the last seat on the old metal chair off of Auntie's 1950s front porch. Nearly all of its original green enamel finish was missing, but we still used it. "One of these days I'm going to paint this," she added, rubbing her thumb along the curve of its arm.

"I just can't understand why somebody would give up the store, though. It was doing so good."

My Pomeranian frolicked over to me and jumped into my lap, exhausted from barking back at the squirrels. A strip of blue canvas dangled from the corner of his mouth, and I suspected I knew who had found Blinky's actual shoes. I thought better of saying so and blathered forth in illustrative literature instead. "In 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Atticus explains to Scout that 'You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.'"

Blinky sent me a withering look. "In somebody's skin? That's just creepy."

"But it isn't literal. It's about gaining a new perspective. We are all prisoners of our own points of view. To escape that for a few minutes and really experience life as it might be for someone on the Other Side of whatever divides us . . . it's a gift from the Universe."

"I'd rather win the lottery, if the Universe is inclined to gift me."

I sighed. But I'm stubborn. "Remember the old song, 'Walk a Mile In My Shoes'? Think of it that way."

Nod woke up long enough to murmur, "Walk A Mile In My Shoes"--recorded by Joe South and The Believers, written by Joe South, peaked at # 12 in 1970." She's kind of a walking jukebox like that about popular music of that era.

Stinky frowned. "Wasn't there a similar song eventually done by Elvis?"

"Whatever." Pinky waved it aside. "Before you pass judgment on me, first walk a mile in my moccasins." She was getting it.

"I hate moccasins. They're like having your feet in cantaloupes--that raw suede." Stinky shuddered. "That's creepy, too."

Pinky stuck out her tongue. "That's not the point. To walk a mile in my shoes means learn to have empathy, not just sympathy, for others. I want to feel what they feel. Not just parrot, 'I feel sorry for them. That situation must be terrible.' All while I'm a-sittin' in the catbird seat."

My Pom perked up and started looking for the cat/bird. I scratched behind his ears.

Blinky considered. "Well . . . maybe it's not ALL terrible to be on the Other Side. There must be merit even in being a Republican, or God wouldn't have created them."

Stinky scowled. "God didn't create Republicans." She glowered.

Nod popped awake again. "What--the Devil can create stuff?"

"No! That's not what I meant. I meant, somebody else made up being a Republican. You can be one because God gave us free will, but He sure didn't intend anybody to really Become one."

"Must be some good ones out there," Blinky mused. "I liked President Reagan. And Abraham Lincoln, there's you another one."

"That was my POINT . . . that if you were in their position, you might act exactly that way."

"'Cause I wouldn't know any better." Stinky stubbed out her cigarette in my strawberry pot. I made a note to cruise around getting those things out as soon as they left.

Blinky inclined her head, as if to allow that this could be one of the explanations. "Or you sincerely believe in what they're saying."

"If they sincerely believe all of that rot, then bosh. They need to walk a mile in THESE." Stinky offered her feet up. Her surplus-store Army boots teetered. Everyone covered their noses. "Quit that. I'm not gonna take 'em off."

"It's not that politicians actually believe all that stuff they say," said Blinky. "I think some of 'em just hate Hillary Clinton so much that they'll vote opposite of anything she says."

"Well, maybe if they saw ol' Hilly through my eyes, they'd see her differently, shallow Hal." Stinky fired up a new Tareyton.

"Everything's a matter of perspective. Frames of reference. . . ." I trailed off because I knew better than to get into Einsteinian relativity. "As I told someone the other day, I like to see someone's paradigm shift and then hear them go 'Ah!' as they suddenly step into those other moccasins. Some people have never realized they COULD go into another POV like that and understand it. After the first time, they figure out how to do it for themselves. Sometimes. Sometimes they don't."

Mama was studying her feet, having slipped them out of my jeweled slides (she didn't ask before borrowing them, and now they'd be all stretched out of shape.) "I have duck feet. They're splayed out and EE wide. I wish I could wear those high heels, but I never could." My shoes teetered on the edge of the pond. The koi eased halfway out of the water to sniff them in case they were food. "My feet are fat like my daughter's."

"Your feet are fine. So are mine." I snatched my shoes away before they could fall into the pond. "I enjoy walking in my own shoes, down my own path. I believe that the universe is unfolding as it should. Difficult as that might make my path seem. It's still my path, and that's my destiny."

Blinky slammed the pack of cards down on the umbrella table. "Oh, shut up and deal."

[Poll #978112]

(If you enjoyed this entry, you can VOTE FOR ME HERE.)
# # #
"I'm descended from a very long line my mother once foolishly listened to."--Phyllis Diller

"It's like magic. When you live by yourself, all your annoying habits are gone."--Merrill Markoe

"After you've dated someone, it should be legal to stamp them with what's wrong with them so the next person doesn't have to start from scratch."--Rita Rudner

(After reading the early entries for this round, I figured we needed a little humor.)

This post is a flash fiction for The Real LiveJournal Idol, round something-or-another. Not to be taken seriously. Do not expose to open ridicule. Close cover before striking.

My Metamorphosis
(with apologies to Franz Kafka)

The other morning, I awoke from a restless sleep bookended by unsettling dreams to discover that I had turned into an iPod.

A Fifth Generation 30 GB, shiny silver, personalized video iPod engraved on the back with "Klaatu barada nikto, Gort," loaded with music and fully charged, but still.

At first I lay motionless under the heavy covers, the sunlight through the window blinds glinting off my huge screen--through which I had the power of vision as well as hearing--and speculated on who might've slipped the hallucinogens into my pizza last night. I knew I shouldn't have ordered the Ultimate Supreme Deep-Dish--it masked the psychedelic taste of mind-bending drugs too well.

A podcast of "Weird Al" Yankovic singing "Don't Download This Song," with video of Al bouncing wildly around the stage, flickered helplessly on my color screen.

"What the frell?" I said aloud. Only it came out as a song.

There happened to be a song in my catalog with precisely that title, by the Texas HeckRaisers, and it was as though I had moused over and selected it. It began blaring from both speakers.

Speakers? I appeared to be plugged into the clock radio on the nightstand by a Y-cord.

"This is bullshit. . . ." I attempted to say, but ran straight into an ERROR that knocked me out for a moment. ***ACCESS VIOLATION*** My 2.5-inch (diagonal) color LCD screen went dark, but after a moment of sheer panic at the thought of the abyss, it lightened.

Apparently, I was rebooting.

As Kafka writes in "The Trial," “Waking up is the riskiest moment of the day.” We tend to take it for granted that what we were the night before, we will be the next morning. *bzzzt* Fooled ya!

But anyhow, this was like some kind of nightmare. Daymare. I hadn't dropped any tabs of LSD or smoked pot or taken mushrooms . . . well, I did have mushrooms on my pizza the previous night, but they weren't THAT kind of 'shrooms.

No, I had to be in some kind of waking dream.

Perhaps it was some kind of Phildickian alternative reality. Things were not as they seemed. I was having a schizophrenic break/interlude.

"Crazy," I muttered.

Naturally, the strains of Patsy Cline's rendition of Willie Nelson's genius song came through the speakers. I couldn't help but sing along, as I *was* the music.

Now how in the hell was I supposed to get to work and teach middle school math to my classroom of shiftless slackers?

Bobby Darin's song "Multiplication" began playing as I stewed and turned the problem over in my mind. Or was it actually in my random access memory . . . my available virtual memory . . . whatever.

I couldn't be fully awake. This was one of those waking dreams like the ones in which you're paralyzed or move in slow motion through the quicksand as the jackals gain on you.

I decided to go back to sleep, and then when I woke up, maybe I'd wake up for real. But I can't fall asleep unless I'm on my left side. I couldn't get myself to stay "on edge." No matter how hard I threw myself onto my side, I always flopped right back down onto my back. Chrome is really slippery.

It was chilling to realize that I could've just as well toppled over on my face--on my screen--and maybe even onto the hardwood floor. Then I really would've been in trouble. And I'm so easily scratched.

"Help!" I cried.

The Beatles' "Help!" began to play. Rather loudly, but I needed more volume in order to attract someone.

The dog started to bark from the foot of the bed. Apparently I no longer emitted that comforting mammalian smell. And I was noisy. My click wheel hurt. Don't get me started on that itchy center button. I couldn't bear my ports one more minute.

Hubby strolled in. "What's the trouble, boy?" he asked the dog. Puppy isn't even a pointer, but he pointed right at me. Hubby looked at the bed, then did a double-take.

He scratched his head. "Where is your mama, dog, and what is this huge overgrown iPod doing here?"

"It's me!" The song "It's Pat" came on, from that old SNL feature about the androgynous actress. Well, close enough.

"I don't know a Pat," he mumbled in confusion.

I never realized that "Weird Al" had recorded a song titled "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" until I started playing it.

He looked at me, then at the dog. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

A rap song, titled "@$#!@@&%^$" with several lightning bolts implied, blasted from the speakers. I found a directory with still photos and displayed a recent shot of me raising both fists in the air and baring my teeth.

"What?" He stared at the image. "You've gotta be kidding."

"No Kidding, Vern, It's For Real" by Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys came through the clock radio.

"Okay, let me think. Calm down. Take a chill pill." He reached over and selected "Sailing" by Christopher Cross from my playlist. It was really off-putting for someone else to be handling my controls without even asking. "There, now. Don't you feel better?"

While I was searching for songs with the lyric "NO NO NO NO NO," he unplugged the speakers. "Now it's quiet," he remarked to the dog. "Now I can think."

I found my "Video Playlists" menu and started scrolling through. I settled on a protest march from the 1960s, for lack of a more specific image to show. Although it was silent, he got the message. He plugged my cable back into the radio just as I segued into Engelbert Humperdinck's classic, "Please Release Me."

"So you've turned into an iPod." He shook his head. "I told you not to spend so much time playing with electronics. What do you want me to do about it?"

I played "Save Me" by Queen off their Greatest Hits album.

"Well, I don't know how."

Janis Joplin's "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" came on without my even trying.

"Let's figure out why this might have happened. Maybe it's what you were worrying about. What were you supposed to do today?"

I showed a still photo of the school and played a few bars of "Hot for Teacher." It was the best I could do.

"How are you going to teach? Do you have appropriate podcasts?"

I couldn't very well do it, unless I could find appropriate podcasts. And how was I supposed to locomote?

"I don't know why this happened, but try to enjoy the experience. It's all fodder for the writer's mill, as Hossie always said. Maybe at midnight, you'll turn back."
* * *
It has been a few days now, and we don't try to guess when or whether I'll turn back. He carries me around and listens to music and podcasts, and I get to see where he goes during the day. It's interesting, in a passive sort of way.

I suppose this is all part of the great Learning Experience of life.

And it could be worse. I certainly wouldn't want to be a white video iPod playing Green Day, unless it were March 17th. And I could've been loaded with all hip-hop . . . or with all the podcast episodes of "Prairie Home Companion." Talk about a nightmare!

But why would this happen? I suppose it's all a metaphor for society's treatment of those who are different. Or it's about the loneliness of being isolated. About alienation and the fear of failure of a life's mission. Maybe just the absurdity of existence in general.

But frankly, it's difficult to say who has experienced more of a metamorphosis. Other people now reach for me . . . they like me. They talk about what a great invention I am. It's pretty different from when I was a people.

Still, hubby takes me for granted even MORE now. If I get dropped--there goes the disk--so I've noticed he's a little more careful. But it's pretty stifling inside his jacket pocket.

It has been a few hours now since he took the jacket off, in fact, and I think he has forgotten I'm in here. I feel strange. Light-headed. Uh-oh; I'm totally discharged--my screen is fading. Plug me into a USB port, dummy!

I'm trying to shout, but my output isn't connected to anything.

Fading . . . hello? Is there anybody out there?

The music spirals into the Grateful Dead's "'Til the Morning Comes," and the song and I spiral on down endlessly in a parade of colorful teddy bears, forever and ever, amen.

LJ Idol Entry: "The Hard Truths That I Have Learned, During My Time On Livejournal, About Myself and How I Interact With People"

YET ANOTHER POST ABOUT MY COMMUNICATION STYLE
Ah, yes. The Writer navel-gazing about how her words come across to others. Aren't you tired of that schtick here on this journal yet? ("Aren't you dead yet?"--Bette Midler's character in "Outrageous Fortune" to Shelley Long's character)

But this is the assigned topic, and it's interesting, so you're stuck (or press PAGE DOWN to read the next journal.)

What Have We Learned after nearly four years of standing on this soapbox preaching, musing, lecturing, or just shouting out loud in every direction?

We already know that some topics are best avoided for the most part, such as politics, which religion is the One True Way, and whether "chili" that has beans in it can still be called chili. (Not in Texas, it can't. But I digress.) However, the larger picture shows us that far smaller details can get us into hot water with our readers. And we do NOT want to be boiled by the readership. They look like they'd enjoy a tough, fatty, stringy old broad boiled up for dessert, and so we want to keep them happy.

I have found that I must be careful with humor and with my tendency to generalize from the specific. People read too much into whatever you say and take it too literally *if* you happen to hit upon one of their pet topics, hot buttons, or favorite subjects (especially if it's something they're sort of an expert on--sometimes they will miss the sardonic tone completely and post a long response to set the record straight as to whether Chaucer wore knickers or bloomers.)

It tends to piss people off--generalizing. But it is a valuable and useful tool. We used to generalize all the time in school, and it's part of the scientific method. There's deduction and induction . . . both leading to generalizations that often are useful for classifying and categorizing, but which drive some people crazy because they're often stated as Rules of Thumb (and the bad ones stick out like a sore thumb.)

The occasional generalization is useful. Some aren't. Some are just plain wrong. Most of them apply "some of the time" or illuminate some other aspect of whatever-it-is. For example, if I say, "Shakespeare's plays always have something in every few scenes for the groundlings," I get it from every direction. "Groundlings are people too!" "In scene such-and-such, there's nothing for the groundlings." "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare!" And so forth. I mean, you can't win, any more than when you ask, "Do I look fat in this?"* so why not laugh?

* [You don't want them to LIE to you and then have you parade all over town in that outfit looking like you are wearing grandma's muumuu, but on the other hand you don't really want to hear that when you walk in those jeans your butt looks like two pit bulls rasslin' in a pillowcase, do you? So the person who is asked the question, "Do I look fat in Grandma's muumuu?" is always screwed, no matter what answer (s)he gives. The best route is to begin choking, turn purple, and pass out on the floor. By the time the paramedics arrive and carry you to safety, you will have distracted the questioner sufficiently that you won't have to answer, even if she's so fat that she has to iron her jeans on the driveway.]

People have their own issues and bring them to the table, so when they read your writing, they sometimes read stuff into it. It seems that a small number of people always want to play "NIGYSOB." That's an old Transactional Analysis game out of _Games People Play_ by Eric Berne. The initials stand for, "Now I've Got You, You SOB." It's all about some detail that you made an error on, and now you're going to get it with both barrels, you ignorant slob who is trying to spread misinformation! Or some people just love "Let's You and Him Fight." They'll write to person A to tell him or her all about your latest entry that simply SMEARS him or his work, and person A comes blazing over and fires the torpedoes and explains how he/she is Hopelessly Offended, because Helpful Type poisoned the well, and when A reads what you wrote, it'll be SO APPARENT that you were absolutely libeling him or out to get him. (And it could be that you only mentioned him in passing.) Others prefer the game of "Uproar," which in general gets fulfilled any time they start any kind of uproar. Thus LJ Drama in full flower.

You also have to be careful about little insider jokes or things that might sound insulting or bigoted if the humor doesn't come across. Some people hate indicators such as *grin* and smileys; they say these are fourth-wall-breakers and shouldn't be needed. They believe you should be Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry and just be able to signal that it's humor through your tone, but you can't always please 'em all. After all, a huge contingent of middle school stoners still believe that Jonathan Swift seriously advocated eating Irish babies in "A Modest Proposal."

You just never know what's going to light somebody's fire.

When people assumed that I was a bad person because of some generalization that I mused about or tossed off, it used to cause Major Drama and copious weeping and wailing on this side of the screen. But eventually I figured out . . . I'm not perfect. As much as I strive for clarity, I'm going to be misunderstood or misinterpreted sometimes. I'm not always going to be able to get across the proper tone or signal that I'm trying to pull a Dave Barry. Now and then, I'll end up clarifying or apologizing. It's just the cost of doing business by text (or any other way, for that matter, except that when we're not face-to-face, there's no worry about belching or farting out of turn, now, is there?)

People are going to bring their own baggage. They have their own "hot buttons" or sensitive words/topics, and if you happen to step on that sore toe, you will get the blast. It doesn't mean you offended all the world, but just that you picked the magic word and Groucho's duck zipped down from the ceiling.

Some people are going to read into what you say whatever they want to hear . . . or if they're playing NIGYSOB, they'll say, "Gotcha!" So you have to proofread with an eye towards that. The occasional troll who deliberately pretends to misunderstand so they can go on the attack with their agenda will come along--or somebody will just hit a word that is their hot button and go crazy.

This isn't just happening to ME; it's endemic. Look what happened to Garrison Keillor--ol' Dan Savage savaged him because he didn't "get" the gentle winking tongue-in-cheek type of humor being used in the passages that he chose to go crazy over. Again, I think this was a case of pushing the fellow's hot buttons. It wasn't Keillor really saying any of those insults.

This kind of knee-jerk reaction may be fun to watch, but isn't fun for the recipient; after posting one of these, you usually realize that you've overreacted, but then you think that the venting was good and that you DID make many good points, so you don't go back and delete it. However, it just shows you don't share the same sense of humor as the person who understood the piece to be satirical or funny. The comment threads are usually pretty evenly divided for and against you.

(I don't want to be a Keillor apologist . . . I think sometimes his show is positively lame, and he featured a woman who COULD NOT SING on St. Paddy's Day, doing a medley of three "songs usually reserved for Irish tenors." She then made the reason for this obvious, and PLEASE LADY TURN DOWN THE VIBRATO/TREMOLO. However, I didn't think that piece said what the offended fellow thought it did.)

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."--_Cool Hand Luke_, Strother Martin's character

You'd think that we'd all stay away from LiveJournal and other forums because of these minor glitches.

But on the other tentacle, I get so many points of view. My friends list points to MANY fiction writers, memoirists, et alia, but also to people of diverse religions--in diverse locations where there are different holidays and vacation areas. I belong to a few communities that specialize in particular topics: recipes for crock pot cooking, long hair care and nurturing, fat girls who love fashion, cranky editors, copy editors, and belly dancing. There are people who'll teach you about horses, some who are scientists, and many who review interesting books and films. It's a lot of fun to read bits and jots from here and there. . . and illuminating.

Besides, where else would I find a soapbox to stand up on? It's fun. I always learn something from reading various journals. We're learning every day how to improve our communication skills. It's win-win.

And I always do learn something about myself. They say that's one of the benefits of journaling--self-awareness and realization. So we must be doing *something* right.

Carry on!

[NOTE: What IS "LJ Idol," you ask? It's a competition here on LiveJournal, similar to the "American Idol" game, intended to find the star of LiveJournal essay writing. There's a community devoted to it. Every week we are given a topic, we each write an essay, and then everybody votes. You can go vote for me in this week's poll, too, if you feel like it. But if you don't, that's fine, too. I hope you enjoy the essays, anyhow.]

This week's topic comes from imafarmgirl:
What one thing do you wish all children knew or were being taught?
Etiquette.

No, wait a minute. Let me explain.

Aw, man, ONE thing . . . if you know me, you know how tough it is for me to sort out the NUMBER ONE THING from a group of related items. I love the semicolon because it plays balance-beam and allows ideas to be linked, even when they're in separate sentences. How can I choose one thing so straightforwardly, especially without giving a definition?

I've been debating--actually, dithering--as to whether I wanted to say "etiquette," "awareness of self and others," or "the traditional school/life similes and narratives."

It's easiest to address school narratives first. In the Olden Days of Yore, when I was in school, there were "narratives" (as Neil Postman calls them) that structured schooling, that gave it a larger purpose.

Nowadays, those narratives have apparently/obviously changed. For one thing, we no longer subscribe to the "America is a melting pot" model. Now multiculturalism has taken it over, to the extent where we have people saying that teachers MUST teach in Spanish and that we have a double standard for credit card acquisition between those who ARE citizens of the USA and those who are not. To quote Kermit the Frog, "Sheesh!" Stuff like that has seriously eroded our image of America as one country, united in a new culture that is co-created. Now, instead of all being in the same arena cheering the USA on, we're a dormitory of divided groups holding up protest signs and pointing fingers in anger. No wonder everyone who runs for office says he's a "uniter," but really ends up being an enabler for whichever group is best at lobbying and getting media attention.

Way back when, we had a consensus Middlebrow Culture. Most Americans agreed that certain parables/lifescripts were worthy of being believed in and passed on to the next generation, and this path was followed in public school, private school, church, Scouts, and so forth. These narratives gave guidance and inspiration to the learners, and lent a common purpose to schooling/Scouting/et alia (other than "keep these kids out of our hair and off the streets for eight hours a day.") The narratives were aimed at instilling the values of "family honor, restraint, social responsibility, humilty and empathy for the outcast," according to the late Professor Postman. They included the multiple narratives of democracy and the Founding Fathers' fight to get it for us (as well as the WWI/WWII "making the world safe for democracy" sacrifices of previous generations), of "the great melting-pot-story" (how our ancestors came here from the Old Country and learned English and adapted to the new common culture instead of insisting on being a separate group and continuing to make others speak THEIR language), and "the Protestant-ethic-story" (working as hard as you can is virtuous and brings contentment, will make you happy, earn your keep, etc.)--and, in most cases, the "what would Jesus do/living the moral life/adhering to Judeo-Christian traditional values" rules.

In the late twentieth century, Postman laments, education has suffered greatly. "Engineering of learning" or an emphasis on developing better teaching methods has diverted attention away from the metaphysical issues with which many of us feel educators should be more concerned (in addition to actually getting students to retain what's useful out of the stuff they're being taught).

"Economic utility, Consumership, Technology as God instead of Tool, and Multiculturalism" are the terms coined by Postman to describe the new gods, the "gods that fail". Economic utility tells students, "If you will pay attention in school, and do your homework, and score well on tests, and behave yourself, you will be rewarded with a well-paying job at the end." What kind of motivation is that for an eight-year-old? What kind of sense does that make for someone who is going to be an artist, a missionary, or what-have-you that may not be the best-paying job? Consumership tells them that "whoever finishes with the most toys wins." The false god of Technology "tricks" people into believing that all people have equal access to information, and that technology will equalize learning opportunities for the rich and the poor. Finally, there is the god of Multiculturalism, otherwise known as the god of Tribalism or Separatism. Postman cautions us not to confuse the notion of cultural pluralism with that of multiculturalism. The former "celebrates the struggles and achievements of nonwhite people as part of the story of humankind." The narrative of Multiculturalism, on the other hand, tells another story entirely, one of separatism and anger because of the inequalities of the past. It demands a level playing field, but the way it goes about this--insisting that a meritocracy is not the way to go, that "merit" cannot be quantized, and that there have to be "get out of jail free" chips issued to make up for the unjust things of the past--doesn't really accomplish its ends. It leads to more alienation and a lack of national unity/spirit of cooperation.

I think Postman and his colleagues have a point. I know that my cohorts and I were taught the Puritan work ethic--although since that was in the hippie 1970s, it didn't completely "take"--and the melting pot stuff, and it worked fairly well in explaining to us what was great about the USA. Now what students hear is that the USA is wrong, hated around the world, is divided on important social issues, and that both political parties are not serving people's needs. There isn't any hope. America's glory days and best days seem to be in her past, not in her future. It's a really depressing situation. And this vibe is passed along to students. If they are told that all they have to look forward to is years of struggle working for someone else in exchange for filthy lucre . . . and they are not told that knowing stuff is fun, that education does NOT mean "getting this right on the exam" but is a lifelong process of accumulating your knowledge base and experience and skill set so that you'll eventually have wisdom . . . no wonder they act up in school and see it as a playground.

They have no respect for their teachers because the entire approach is screwed up by now. Classrooms are impossible. People don't seem to know how to act in public any more, do they? I was at my niece's graduation last year, and it was like being at a Roman coliseum, people screaming for their favorite chariots. I was pretty taken aback that no one knew how to act.

This relates back to "awareness of self and others." Our society now seems to be teaching people how to be narcissistic and materialistic. Instead of "walk a mile in their moccasins," it's "shove them aside, because it's all about MEEEE." Look at the newest Oprah-driven craze, the book/DVD "The Secret." (I have just ranted about this abomination in this post.) In brief, this outfit tells people that they can be as materialistic and narcissistic as they like, and the Universe will still reward them with whatever they think about. As great-uncle Boo would've said, "Ma-LARKEY!"

Much of our consumerist society is based on increasing the corporations' and the advertising people's gain: "Buy this and you'll be happy." "Keep up and get ahead by getting this stuff!" "If you don't have this great car, you're nothing." "Why don't you have the clothes that these people have, you loser?" We've lost a basic touchstone, the awareness of our true selves and the proper way to behave towards others. Whether you subscribe to any organized religion or not, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" still serves us and society better than "do unto others before they do unto you." "He who has the gold makes the rules" does NOT have to be today's watchword. We're ALLOWING this to happen. Pretty soon, if something is not done to take America back, it'll be too late.

But anyway, let's return to etiquette. I'm not talkng about Emily Post and the white gloves and going to dancing school and setting the table with the best china. I'm talking about basic politeness, the way to handle debate, argumentation with friendliness, treating others as you would like to be treated . . . you know, all that stuff that's not like flaming on the 'net.

(The New York Times just ran an essay/op-ed on this: "Flame First, Think Later." And here's a piece about people feeling free to insult others because of assumed anonymity--drive-by hate-ins. Awk!)

People have abandoned the old social conventions and agreements. Now there is no censure for unwed mothers who choose to keep their children, and that's an improvement. But also now there is no censure for those who violate OTHER parts of the abandoned social conventions, such as being a "Devil Wears Prada" boss or being someone who undercuts others constantly, whenever possible, just because he or she can. The smaller niceties are important. Making every day happy, as though it were to be our last, is important. Let's do something about it, each of us, here, today.

Let's try to be nice today. Let's forgive someone who has slighted us. Reply with a soft answer, even if it doesn't seem to turneth away wrath; do it so that YOU will be a better person by rising above the petty disagreements. When you disagree, do it with friendliness and offer to agree to disagree and find a common ground. Smile at somebody who looks harried. Perform random acts of kindness and appreciate the senseless beauty all around. Love and smile at your enemies--it'll drive them CRAZY.

Remember those old books, _Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten_? Yeah, they became a cottage industry, but the FIRST one was good. "Play nice. We all share the same sandbox." _Jonathan Livingston Seagull_ had a good message, even if the package was a bit cheesy. (Be yourself, find your individuality, celebrate life, learn to soar, and don't sweat the small stuff . . . it's recycled at least once every few years.)

If everybody taught the children this . . . the world would be a better place.

Wait . . . you know what? The children already KNOW this. It's the grown-ups who need to relearn it. We need to stop taking this OUT of the children. How can we do that? I don't know.

All I know is that I'd like the world to be a better place. Again. Wouldn't you?

For The Real LJ Idol, Round Three:: Topic: "My Biggest Mistake and What I Hope I Have Learned From It"

*gag*

What a horribly cliched and overwrought topic this can be. Did you know that tutorials about how to make a corporate newsletter successful often suggest that you start a regular guest column called "My Worst Mistake--and What I Learned From It," and ask for submissions from readers/clients? That makes them invested in your newsletter and gets them feeling part of your "team." Manipulation wins the square again.

But anyhow, we're not going to do a newsletter with these. I've read a few of y'all's entries, and may I say how depressing and upsetting some of the life experiences described were (although the entries themselves were great). I'm trying to be LESS self-revealing, so I'm not going to try to think of some awful fell-down-went-boom scenario from my past (though I could probably fill a book with them.) But I'm not really up to writing a funny response to the topic, either.*

* [Oops, I lied on both counts. See second half of post.]

A few points:

* Unless you believe in free will, you can't believe in mistakes

* Look at the word: sometimes all it may be is a mis-*take* on the situation. Other times it's a major malfunction.

* Perhaps nothing can really qualify as a mistake, seen from a distance; it was a separate path on which you have learned something valuable that you might otherwise have missed [Please, Lord, not another Learning Experience!]

* I wish I could say with Timmy Tyler, "No regrets, so no mistakes." But regrets I gots by the bucketful. However, which will it be: "forgive and forget," or "resent and remember"?

* Given enough time (so that the pain and humiliation recede and you have time to stand back up), you can usually see that what we perceive as mistakes turn out to be life lessons. All those so-called mistakes contribute to who we are. The only lasting mistake is to refuse to "learn" the lesson, and therefore we're doomed to continue making the same "mistake." The film "Groundhog Day" hammers this point home.

* The Butthole Surfers said it best: "It's better to regret something you HAVE done than to regret something you HAVEN'T done." I can live with the "dang, I wish I hadn't done that," a LOT better than the, "If only I HAD done that!"

* Learning something is ALWAYS good, even (and especially) when it hurts. At least that's what Sister Mary Discipline always said.

"I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes--it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold onto the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you, when a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thick or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach."--Dr. Maya Angelou, past Poet Laureate of the United States

All right, all right, I'll toss you a tidbit about one of my past mistRakes. Some years ago when I was in my senior year of college, I got dumped by this guy I was crazy about and had been going with for about a year. The way I met him was, he was stalking my best friend/worshiping the ground upon which she walked. She saw him as a neat way to get her homework in Assembly Language class double-checked. She took me along as a "beard" when he had her meet him to go over an assignment, because otherwise he kept trying to scoot over close to her and so forth. Of course she didn't tell me this--she merely said, "I'm going to exchange homework with Sir BuckTeeth. Wanna come along?"

He started calling me for advice about how to interest her, and then used that as a pretext to start coming to my place to "talk" and actually do homework. He (seemingly) fell in love for the first time--I was the first girl he'd ever gone out with (I told you this guy was . . . um, un-pretty, though not disfigured or anything.) He said, "I love you," first.

We became an item. I fell really hard. For a while, so did he. But over the next year, I became more and more emotional and all nutty-like, and probably somewhat tough to deal with. I hated having to major in subjects I didn't have a passion for (whereas those were the passions of his life, and he was the star of every class.) My mother and I had Issues, and she was even nuttier then than she is now. I didn't lose that fifteen pounds that he kept trying to starve off of me. I sometimes threw fits when things didn't go right (such as he kept beating me at Go and chess). The doctors later told me that this era probably marked the beginning of my endocrine malfunction, so that had something to do with my turning into* an irrational crazy be-yotch. Anyway, it wasn't something I had conscious control over.

* [Shut up--I mean an even WORSE crazy be-yotch than my baseline personality. Trust me, this was PMS Woman Every Day.]

So eventually, he decided I just wasn't good enough, and he deserved better. He said so. (Being a borderline Aspie, he often said stuff like that.) I told him fine, just go out there and see if you can find someone better. Bad move on my part, because after a couple of false tries he ran across a girl who wanted to hook up with a guy who had a good income potential and who wore a size smaller than I did. Bingo!

So what was my mistake? Well, he used to break up with me regularly (every few weeks) and then come back (within a couple of days), and I always welcomed him back. (Wait, that's not the mistake I was talking about, though it's arguable that I'm focusing on the wrong segment of this worm.) So I kept hearing he was going out with her and they'd been seen together here or there, and I finally decided I would find out if this was a platonic thing or if he was Truly In Lurrrve. So I called her, asked if I could come by her place (she still lived with her parents) to talk, and then did so. I just wanted to ask if they were serious and I had lost him 4Ever.

Yeah, I know. I was only asking because all my friends thought he was a troll, and they said, "We can't believe he found someone else willing to go out with him." They certainly wouldn't have. But then they didn't admire his mind. And I was hung up on smart guys/geniuses because of having lost my dad so recently. But it did seem unlikely that she would take up with him. I stand by my statement.

Nobody else would be as stupid as I was then.

"Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled." - William Blake

So. She said they were so serious, and they were in love, and she felt like she'd known him forever, yadda yadda. Okay, I asked for that. Then I asked if she would do me the courtesy of not telling him about this . . . she said they kept no secrets from one another. Okay, I was their little running joke for who knows how long. But anyway, at least I knew for sure. I ended up leaving the church we all three attended (a church I loved and where I made a bigger contribution in terms of participation than he did, by the way) because I couldn't stand to think of the laughter that had to be going on behind my back, and I didn't want to have to see him escorting her around the place all kissy-kissy. Ugh.

So what did I learn . . . don't have anything to do with people, because they suck.

[EDIT: I made misjudgments similar to those made by riayn (taking a degree in subjects that OTHER PEOPLE want you to do, not in the subjects you're great at and that are your passion--although it was family pressure that caused me to do it) and nuhism (about letting things go when it's their time to go--actually, the story about the blouse is the SAME mistake I made about the guy above.) And wow, autumn-lyric chose the SAME quotation from Maya Angelou that I had pulled out of my vast "quotations" files--cosmic, but logical, because the sentiments apply so strongly to this topic.]

At least this chick lived nearby. No, I didn't wear a diaper and drive 900 miles like the crazy astronaut wench. I didn't even have my Mace on me. And for years, I sincerely did wish them well and hoped he had a good life. Only recently have I come around to the realization that he deserves to have an eternal earworm of the song he most hates in the world, and the itch to boot.

Wasn't that astro-nut deal something, though? (In case you haven't seen this story--and how did you NOT?--"CNN Breaking News: NASA reviews psych tests after love triangle scandal." A day late and $4 billion short.)
* * *
"General Turgidson, when you instituted the human reliability tests, you assured me there was no chance of such a thing happening!"

"Uh, Mr. President, I don't think it's fair to condemn an entire program because of a single slip-up."

--Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
* * *
Life is certainly like . . . an analogy.

I'd better win the damn lottery tonight. And I need chocolate.

Next time, pick a topic that doesn't enrage half of us and send the other half into the abyss to visit the Black Dog, all right? *gloom*