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An old country girl now in her 80s reflected the other day on how much life has changed since she was a kid. It wasn’t the usual story of colorless television and walking to school with a lunch pail. There was no TV in her small town.
Baths were on Saturdays. They filled “the number 3 bathtub” with water heated on a fire stove. They stitched their own clothes together from feed sacks. “Burlap?” I asked. No, the sacks were softer cotton then. So many Americans made their own clothes from feed sacks that feed makers produced the sacks in a variety of colors and patterns. Attractive patterns improved sales.
Her family had two horses and two mules. When they visited the nearest significant market 18 miles away, her dad hauled the kids in a wagon behind the horses. The mules he used to plow.
They had no electricity and no running water. The latter was drawn from a well. Of course, air conditioning was non-existent.
Today, average American children bathe every day in endlessly flowing water heated or cooled to need. They relax and frolic within five degrees of a controlled temperature. They play on handheld supercomputers with other kids literally on the other side of the world. Their parents drive them 18 miles on a whim to retail playgrounds, like Chuck E. Cheese. A small pizza stain might prompt a mother to fetch one of a little girl’s dozen other soft outfits.
We live in an advanced stage of history. Like a living cell divides into two, then four, then eight, then 16 — until the body contains billions of cells, so technologies and discoveries exponentially offshoot from each other until the rate of change rockets to a thrilling, alarming pace.
We do not live in the end stage, God willing. The scale of difference my octogenarian neighbor recalls is likely to be repeated in the next century.
This article by Spencer Jakab at the Wall Street Journal leaves me unsure of whether to laugh or rant. I agree with Jakab that the regular burning of unprofitable natural gas at some oil wells is a problem, but for different reasons. First, an introduction:
Even as more and more gas gets supercooled and shipped around the world in expensive, liquefied form, an estimated 5.1 trillion cubic feet of gas was flared world-wide in 2018, according to The World Bank—equivalent to the combined consumption of France, Germany and Belgium.
Why waste so much valuable fuel? Because it is often an unwanted byproduct of an oil well, and it isn’t worth enough to sell.
The article goes on to explain how capturing and transporting natural gas from some locations can be unprofitable, even while similar gas remains very profitable elsewhere. I appreciate that Jakab proposes finding ways to make that unsought gas profitable, rather than immediately turning to government to ban flaring.
But his concerns about a greenhouse gas effect are unwarranted, like all fears regarding global warming. The real problem is that geologic theory still posits that fossil fuels require rare conditions and millions of years to develop. Ergo, Earth has a limited supply, even if that supply is sufficient to last many generations of increasing use. If waste of irreplaceable resources can be avoided, it should be.
Much could change regarding energy production and use in the next century or two. I can’t imagine batteries requiring even rarer resources, like lithium, as a practical substitute for most power supplies now dependent on fossil fuels. But there will, of course, be further advancements in research and technology, especially when and where need is greater.
For all we know, we won’t need fossil fuels a century from now. Or we will develop more cost-efficient means of artificially producing oil and gas. But assuming that is the case would be grossly irresponsible and cruel to future generations. It’s one thing to temporarily bury resources we cannot yet efficiently recycle, like plastics (oil derivatives) and old batteries. It’s another to disintegrate resources entirely, preventing later use.
Can any Ricochet members offer insights into the challenges of preserving this natural gas or other factors in the situation? Are there already solutions that could be applied?
The demand for cow milk in the US has been decreasing since the 1970s. Europe and Australia are similarly affected by the popularity of milk substitutes, like almond milk and soy (for people who prefer to drink their beans). Consequently, milk prices have dropped to attract customers. Producers have yet to replicate their successful “Got Milk?” campaign from the 1990s.
At the same time, Borden, a major dairy producer, claims raw milk costs have risen along with transportation costs and other expenses. Employee pensions are due, though at least not all workers are unionized.
On top of that, major retailers could be moving toward operating their own facilities, cutting out companies like Borden and Dean entirely. In June 2018, Walmart opened its own milk processing plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it will produce Great Value-brand plain and chocolate milk for roughly 500 Walmart stores in five states. -Food and Wine
Still, their prices don’t match their costs. Can milk producers raise prices sufficiently without scaring away customers? Is it too late to instill American Europhiles with cheese envy?
In many ways, the current supply/demand conditions in the global dairy market, at least in developed countries, seem to represent an example of the “treadmill theory of technology adoption” in agriculture, posited by Dr. Willard Cochran (University of Minnesota) in the 1950s. Farmers adopt new technologies to reduce their costs, but if most farmers do the same thing, it often leads to over-production of that commodity. Prices drop, so they end up generating less revenue.
Of course, this is a subsidized industry. Congress adjusted insurance for dairy producers as recently as 2018.
Despite the departures, U.S. dairy output continues to increase. In many instances, larger, mostly more efficient producers are obtaining the resources of the exiting farmers. [….]
Why is Borden, a company with over $1 billion in annual sales, filing for bankruptcy? Is such refinancing from the balance sheets of lenders an example of minimizing unavoidable losses or letting a favored industry off the hook for mismanagement?
Must these market disruptions be addressed by the government? Or is politics prolonging and aggravating necessary transitions?
I’m tired but can’t sleep; an experience everyone has at some point. But not everyone fears to close one’s eyes for what thoughts and dreams will rush into the void of sensation. Not everyone screams and mutters without making a sound in a familiar internal battle to “just shut up and go to sleep.”
Mental illnesses are as varied as personalities. We speak of symptoms and causes generally, as with diseases and purely physical ailments, because there is a utility in generalizations and playing the odds. But depression, crippling anxiety, compulsions, hallucinations, and other psychological oddities are not like a rash that looks the same on anyone.
After half a lifetime with various challenges, I usually avoid considering my problems in relation to medical diagnoses. Those frameworks are designed to facilitate understanding and plans of action. When they don’t help, forget them. Thankfully, unlike many fine folks, my difficulties don’t require medication so much as efforts to improve mental habits and daily routines. My schizophrenic cousin and bipolar sister can’t say the same.
What prompted this post is reflecting for the nth time, and failing as always, to explain why mental illness is so often hidden.
One sees infantilizing ads and media comments these days decrying the “shaming” of depression, as if many depressed people remain “in the closet” for fear of ridicule or something. Real situations are often more complicated.
For example, there is no way to share suicidal thoughts without permanently altering your relationship with someone. Democrats might enjoy living in a public status of victimhood, but not everybody does. Men especially hate to appear weak; especially when they are. And if you reveal to a loved one that you regularly suffer in any way, the loved one will fret about that suffering even when you show no sign of it. Commiseration is fine occasionally but can grow burdensome with repetition.
Thoughts of self-harm are even harder to share. Suicidal thoughts shock many people, but at least they can vaguely understand that someone in pain might want to end that pain however he or she can. But why would a person carve up his own arm (as I once saw a teenager do with a ruler’s metal strip) or repeatedly imagine running a knife across the back of one’s neck?
Even psychiatrists struggle to understand how particular misfires in a brain and a rush of the body’s own chemicals can elicit such impulses. But basically it’s like wanting to punch someone you hate or someone who infuriates you, only that someone is yourself. It’s a desire for action when one feels helpless.
An odder but milder quirk of mine is neologisms (“new words”). People often curse in frustration. I rarely do around other people. But when alone I have an inexplicable habit of uttering phrases which would more accurately be called gibberish if they were not so consistent. It’s like cursing in a language that doesn’t exist. I can’t even remember the words when I am not so frustrated, but they are the same every time.
Why such “creative language” is a common symptom of Asperger’s Syndrome (no longer in the APA’s diagnostic manual) is beyond me. But the reason I only do it when alone is probably no different than the reason many people who speak their thoughts aloud when alone are embarrassed when caught talking to themselves.
The most unusual symptoms I ever experienced were paranoia and hallucinations. The latter are hard to hide.
When as a young teenager I told my mom I preferred the backpack with roses by pointing to it, I couldn’t understand why she looked at me funny and asked if I was sure. I couldn’t well explain later that my brain had temporarily distorted the images into an abstract Aztec-like design. By the time my brain figured it out, the backpack had been purchased and I just had to live with it. So I painted over the strip of flowers with a black marker and made up some fiction about “black roses” as a rock music aesthetic.
Likewise, when I saw a butterfly ornament — up close, for several seconds — and ran inside to tell people about the giant butterfly that was in the garden (“Go and see!”), there was no way to hide that mental hiccup.
At least then, when I was more excitable, my hallucinations (seeing what isn’t there) were more interpretive than creative. In my schizophrenic cousin’s case, such misinterpretations could mean he thought his parents were angrily yelling at him when they were actually just trying to calm him down.
I don’t have that problem anymore because I learned to slow down when my excitement starts to drift into mania (apologies to the childhood friends I got into trouble with insane ideas).
Paranoia is a milder but more persistent symptom. Essentially, I can’t help but feel as if my every sound is heard and every movement or expression watched by everyone in the same room or space. Logically, I know it’s a silly notion. But it’s an itch I can’t fully ignore, like a phantom limb.
The feeling has become less powerful and less problematic with years of self-correction. During college, I gradually shifted from always sitting in a back corner (where fewer eyes could see me) to forcing myself into the middle of a classroom. These days, it’s mainly a problem when I try to perform my music… and feel as if I’m being critiqued even when completely alone. Sometimes I even hear someone calling me away from my music because the hyper-vigilance is so great.
You would never know about the paranoia if I didn’t tell you. My family doesn’t know. My oldest friend doesn’t know. I don’t tell them because I don’t see a strong reason to do so. One should ask for help when one needs help. But sometimes knowledge is a needless burden.
This old symbol of theater drama and comedy reminds some of actors like Robin Williams. We are told he suffered from depression, though we usually saw him smiling and making us smile. That has been the situation with many artists and innovators.
People with depression do sometimes put on a brave face like we expect of all people at times. They do sometimes hide their true feelings, as all people do (well, not some people, to others’ frustration and amusement). But if a person has a habit of cheerfulness in good company, it does not suggest cheerfulness apart from such company. In solitude, in moments apart from external challenges and distractions, some people implode… until they are brought out again into society and activity.
As I said, generalizations are useful but can mislead. Different people exhibit such dichotomy between public and private life, social life and solitude, for different reasons. But it can help to better understand some cases, at least.
If someone you know does something wild or hurtful when apart, it does not mean that you didn’t really know that person. It doesn’t mean that person was putting on a show. It might just mean that there are aspects of that personality that are drawn out in other conditions or were never relevant to your particular relationship.
That’s an especially difficult lesson when people commit suicide. It is often a shock to loved ones. And often the depressed person had opportunities to seek help. But people are different when alone. We are different among some people than with others, because of how personalities and circumstances combine to draw out particular traits and ideas.
Human beings are endlessly complicated.
Though there is much I didn’t see after two full weeks in Ireland long ago, I don’t feel cheated. What I didn’t see and don’t know doesn’t cheapen what I did enjoy and still remember. People are the same. Appreciate what you know. Accept that there will always be mysteries. But, of course, never cease to explore.
NASA released a video outlining their plan to prepare for a lunar colony and to establish an orbital docking station.
Maybe 20 or 30 years from now, we will have a base on the moon. I’m surprised they are still relying on a rocket that burns and dumps 80% of its mass to get a crew and supplies into space. Will we see alternatives in the next century?
I suppose NASA has managed the current space station over Earth well enough. If any accidents or incidents disrupt the lunar space station, it would take three days minimum to send help … even if someone on Earth had another rocket immediately to spare. People can’t be constantly perfect. They need to establish some breathing room for mishaps. Are we ready for a lunar orbital station?
Of course, mention of a “very diverse (and highly qualified)” crew of astronauts in a strategic outline was no surprise. Earth’s spacefarers are betting on perfection with strange priorities.
Consumer tech companies’ surveillance programs might be more sophisticated than I realized.
While watching The Witcher on Netflix, a mention of “the Law of Surprise” prompted me to look it up, without pausing the show. I had typed only “law” into Google’s search utility before its top recommendation was correct.
Maybe the Netflix show is extremely popular right now and that is the top search of anything related to law. I doubt it. Even with the impeachment hubbub going on?
Or maybe Google knows exactly what I’m streaming on a separate device. I have a YouTube app on the smart TV, by which I am signed into Google. Perhaps that app gives Google access to everything I do via other apps on the TV.
Or perhaps Google now adjusts search results according to each particular user’s habits. “This guy’s a high fantasy nerd and Netflix subscriber. He hasn’t listened to the Law Talk podcast in ages. Let’s give him The Witcher results.”
As I’ve argued before, such surveillance of consumer habits does not greatly concern me because (1) software rather than people is actually looking at the data and (2) the data has thus far been used only for pitching consumers other products and services. If any company or its employee uses such data to publicize a customer’s habits or otherwise abuse the data, it would be catastrophic to the company’s public relations. Company profits depend on trust.
Even so, this experience struck me as a little creepy.
Are tech companies finally getting better not just at collecting data but at applying it?
Some years ago, a friend of my family named Jerry Parr died. No, it was not Secret Service agent Jerry Parr who helped save Ronald Reagan’s life after an assassination attempt. The Jerry I knew was a Houston painter who had lost his sight and became friends with my father, who visited weekly to read books aloud and to chat.
Jerry had worked in sign painting prior to his blindness. Privately, he exercised great creative talent. Shortly before he died, he gifted this print of one of his paintings to my dad.
It is a depiction of the Biblical “Woman at the Well” story. The woman is a Samaritan. Her people were at odds with Jews like Jesus. She is also a publicly reviled sinner. She comes alone to the well because adulterers were not welcome to draw water at the usual time, when all the town’s women would gather there.
Jesus speaks to her as He would to a fellow Jew in good standing. He does not avoid mention of her adultery. Nor does He focus on it. He simply speaks truth and shows interest in her, offering her what He can.
The painting reminds me that anger and revulsion, though often justified, are insufficient responses to people who flaunt our differences and openly live in defiance of what we know to be good and true. All people matter. The most wayward of sheep require the most attention; not for merit but for hope of reunion.
We Christians are called to love our enemies. Love begins as interest. Before we can know someone, we must want to know that person and make an effort.
There is much these days to antagonize us; many reasons for anger and dismay. Take a breath. Pray. Be patient. Hope for harmony begins with conversation. If someone isn’t ready to listen, move on. But conversations with the lost, the blind, and the broken are how we restore society.
Sometimes the best thing that can happen to an inventor is for him to be ignored.
Take for example German archery enthusiast Jörg Sprave. He pitched his bow designs to manufacturers for years. None purchased his plans. But Sprave did not idly wait for broader success. He continued to iterate until building something he wished he had thought of years ago.
There are many examples of engineers, artists, and other creators who benefited from a period of obscurity. Rather than share their first ideas, they could share their best ideas.
Which innovators or inventions spring to your mind?
Conservatives have responded poorly to Chic-Fil-A’s abandonment of The Salvation Army. The problem is not that the company has arguably joined the Left’s zeitgeist with its corporate donations. The problem is that companies make donations at all.
A corporation is just individuals working as a team for business purposes. Whatever money donated by the company is taken from the same revenue that supports wages/salaries and can be invested in the company for the good of all employees.
Nor is it really “the company” as a whole choosing donation recipients, but rather one or a handful of managers. A corporate donation is effectively a company tax on employees for management’s own non-business interests. Managers can donate from their salaries like anybody else. But by this method they can double-dip at indirect expense to others.
IRS incentives for corporate donations only serve the interests of CEOs, who generally happen to lean Left (or cave to the Left’s bullying). Republicans should repeal those incentives so that more of company profits enrich individuals to choose donation recipients for themselves, rather than worry if one’s employer is directing the fruit of one’s labor to evil organizations and idiotic money pits.
Individuals can choose to join other organizations, like churches or local clubs, to give collectively if they care to. But one does not typically join a business to work for someone else’s choice of charitable projects.
Halloween is not immutable. Common American traditions today bear only the slightest resemblance to druidic rituals and superstitious people casting frightened glances over dimly lit turnips. Trick-or-treating today isn’t even the same today as it was just 30 or 40 years ago. Heck, some families meet in parking lots to distribute candy from car trunks, because walking a neighborhood at sundown is apparently too dangerous for attended kids.
Few today believe in whatever these traditions once stood for. Halloween is not connected to All Hallows’ Day in most minds. It is not about dodging ghosts or nodding to ancestors.
Halloween is simply an occasion for fun. Americans don’t have many holidays; fewer still not initiated by government. Halloween is about candy and silly costumes and pumpkin carving, and all those things that can get little children excited.
Or, rather, that is what’s good about Halloween. As with many good things, the celebration is accompanied by less benign customs. But it doesn’t have to be. We can be discerning without chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
Evil is real. If a Nazi uniform would be poor taste, why don a devil costume? Why gorge on the dark and ugly and disturbing every October, as entertainers hope you will? As healthy bodies are rewards of disciplined intake and exercise, so are healthy minds and souls.
I understand all manners of dark attractions that become more prominent this time of year. I sympathize. The consequences of indulgence are not always clear. Like so many people are surprised when they put on a few pounds or they lack energy or their backs begin to ache, the damage we do to ourselves by increments is often invisible until something finally breaks or we have need of what has been lost. Minor problems become more significant if ignored.
Enjoy Halloween, but give some thought to how. Modern American culture encourages all sorts of binging, from guzzling alcohol and gobbling sweets to TV marathons and sports that lock viewers down for entire days. There is no part of life, from work to entertainment, that does not shape us. If you dwell in darkness, it will seep in.
The rise of socialism and nanny state ideologies in the West demands a response, but a cheerful and hopeful one. Too often conservatives are caught in anger explaining why the Left’s ideas won’t work instead of happily explaining why our ideas have succeeded and could succeed again.
It all reminds me of a child learning to ride a bike.
Picture a dad teaching his kid independence by letting go of the moving bicycle. Perhaps the kid crashes. A compassionate bystander yells “You monster!” … obviously a Democrat. The kid never trusts his dad or his own capabilities again and lives with training wheels. The kid grows up to be a Democrat.
Or the kid falls off the bike and bleeds. Mom and Dad commiserate, but encourage him to try to ride again without safety wheels as soon as possible. The kid does and becomes a free cyclist, perhaps even venturing beyond beaten paths and demonstrating an aptitude for exceptionalism. “You monster!” the kid yells at the Democrat.
For the kid to thrive, he must endure hardships and the parents must instill hope and confidence in him. Hope is not a critique of poor choices. It is a vision of what could be; usually a vision of what has been achieved by daring people before us.
Without government safety nets and assistance, families and neighbors have helped each other voluntarily. Human kindness did not begin with the nanny state. Problems such as poverty and sickness will always be with us. But they can and should be moderated by charitable assistance in face-to-face care wise to each person’s circumstances, rather than by bureaucratic accounting which must seize resources before doling assistance by general and careless formulas.
A good parent can seem awfully harsh, and even tyrannical, to a fearful kid who has not yet dared to live more fully. But it is the parent’s job to cut short all pessimism and to keep insisting that a grand adventure awaits.
Autumn hit like a hammer this year. In little more than a week, coastal Texas dropped from blistering 100-degree days to chilly 50-degree nights. In the middle there, if only for a day or two, is perfection.
I took the opportunity to wander the barely beaten trails of a small nature reserve recently secured within Houston’s ravenous outreach. Though my area is not technically part of the big city, most stretches of forest have been cleared as the population bubbles endlessly. Returning to the creeks and wilderness of my youth was a fine October treat.
The larger trails require less care stepping over tangled roots. During the summer, our many snakes (some venomous) might bask in such small pools of unbroken sun. But the cool weather seems to have coaxed them to more open areas.
I saw only two couples on the trails, but thankfully a few critters. This little guy hid among some leaves until I took a step back and crouched. That made him curious.
This one seemed to follow me for half-a-mile before finally landing. I prefer to believe I was followed than that a vast network of butterflies keeps me under constant surveillance.
The Gulf Coast’s subtropical climate ensures we are never short of colorful insects. I left only my hands and face untouched by mosquito repellent, so of course, that is where they targeted. None got me good, at least.
Trails eventually opened to the creek bank, where dozens of plant species compete in untrod sunshine. The branches of a willow-like bush dangled gracefully in a glitter of white seed pods. Beautyberries were ripe for the picking. My family picked blackberries and honeysuckle when I was young.
A moth fanned its wings on a small patch of sand. Many more flitted about.
Bees busied themselves among a wealth of bright daisies. Texas hosts many wildflowers throughout the warm months.
Our own creek did not have such a wide beach when I was young. Otherwise, there might have been a campfire rather than a rope swing. Alas, the water is not as clean as it once was.
For clean water, one must circle back to the small lake. A few families were fishing for bluegill and bass.
A grebe was also fishing. I had hoped to find herons and egrets to photograph, but only saw them upstream while driving past. Only a week ago, I spotted a bald eagle passing overhead. They generally prefer larger lakes than my town can offer, but there are some to the north.
Finally, a red-eared terrapin, such as my brother and I caught as kids. About a dozen basked upon a log. Had our grandpa been around, he might have requested turtle stew.
Spring is still a woodland area with deer and plenty of other wildlife. But the big city rapidly gobbles up all it can, pushing nature lovers farther out. Thankfully, this 25-acre Peckinpaugh Preserve has kept a small taste of the good life for future generations.
Are there any pleasant parks or trails near you?
This post is part of October’s Group Writing series. If you can think of a Trick or Treat to write about, I hear Clifford is offering candy.
No Greater Love is a documentary by a 101st Airborne chaplain interviewing his fellow soldiers about their time in Afghanistan. It is currently included with Amazon Prime for streaming. It’s the best insight into modern soldier experience as I’ve seen.
No dramatizations. Just the soldiers’ own accounts punctuated by pictures and the chaplain’s video camera footage. From combat and strategy to difficult recoveries and processing memories, it is brutal (though no violence or injury is shown) but worthwhile.
Being fired on by invisible insurgents from all directions… until it feels “normal” and can be temporarily ignored. Falling 300 feet down a mountain and returning, months later, to fight again. Rules of engagement preventing one from shooting a suspicious 14-year-old girl before she explodes just yards away. Being engulfed in fire by a misplaced incendiary bomb; then having to painfully scrub the skin every day back at the hospital. Medically treating enemies. Horror, miracles, heroism, fraternity.
The documentary ends with discussion of PTSD and soldier suicides. One soldier proposed that a reason for the frequency is that modern American gear and medical treatments have advanced so much our soldiers survive many horrific events that would have killed them decades ago. The film has plenty of anecdotes to verify that claim. Injured soldiers can also be evacuated by helicopter before a battle has even subsided.
We are blessed to live in a country where relatively few people are needed on battlefields. Veterans are not often comfortable confiding in non-combatants. No Greater Love is a good source of insight for civilians.
Is there a limit to how long the global warming / climate change scam can be kept alive? Is there certainly a point at which predictions of global climate catastrophe must be admitted incorrect?
Honestly, I thought the fear mongering would have lost some traction by now. But every other day I read about some new marketing tie-in.
I wonder how the fashion will be regarded in histories a century or two from now.
While conversing with an old friend from Mexico, she mentioned that travel is more dangerous than it was when she first made the (legal) border crossing. “Men with guns” now ride the bus with her.
Of course, a conservative Texan wouldn’t be uneasy around “men with guns” so long as they were good responsible men with guns. It is generally easy to distinguish someone who carries for protection versus a gangster thug who wants everyone around him to feel threatened. But such a distinction between lawful gun carriers and dangerous criminals doesn’t occur to someone living where only criminals carry weapons.
Where weapons are always criminal, they always seem dangerous. Ideas are like that.
Under totalitarian governments, “men with ideas” is another loaded phrase. Men with ideas cause trouble. They attract the attention of dangerous officials and can get anyone who tolerates them brought under suspicion. Like one tries to ignore a criminal with a gun, one tries to avoid a criminal with unsanctioned politics.
As with the freedom to carry weapons, the key to freedom of expression is normality. “Why is he dangerous? He is just like everybody else.” Common ideas typically do not frighten. The rarer a significant idea or other expression becomes, the more one must risk to share it.
Per the old curse, we live in interesting times. Ideas and words used frequently by half of the people in Western countries and most people worldwide despite this frequency attract accusations of “homophobia,” “Islamaphobia,” racism, sexism, and whatnot. There are concerted efforts to bully majority beliefs into silence, at which point speaking them requires ever more courage. Media refuse to include such beliefs and thereby warp perceptions of frequency and normality.
Be bold. Continue to express your true beliefs, using whatever words and references you think appropriate. Because to accept silence increases the burden of resistance on yourself and others… until one day you too might fear men with ideas.
Doubtless, you have often wondered about the etymology of the word “ricochet.” Wonder no more.
ricochet(n.) 1769, from ricochet(v.) or French ricochet “the skipping of a shot or of a flat stone on water,” but in earliest French use (15c.) “verbal to-and-fro,” and only in the phrase fable du ricochet, an entertainment in which the teller of a tale skillfully evades questions, and chanson du ricochet, a kind of repetitious song; of uncertain origin.
Verbal to-and-fro … like a conversation?
Skillfully evading questions … like a podcast guest or a distracted host?
A kind of repetitious song … like Peter’s final question or Rob’s segueway interruption?
Oh, how I hated those words! Nothing so annoys a young kid in a fit of anger or sadness as being told “Don’t smile!” by one’s mom. It ranks right up there with “Now shake hands” or “Hug it out.”
Dag nabbit, no, I want to pout! I want to hold a grudge. I want to cry or complain. Maybe I could even get revenge! Maybe I could languish or indulge. Hey, I’m hurt, so the world owes me a bit of selfish time!
Of course, it doesn’t. The goading reverse psychology of “Don’t smile!” might seem just a cheap trick to coax a child out of a dark mood. But it is actually an important step in the process of civilization.
Like gratitude, deliberate cheerfulness and letting go of disturbances are habits which benefit not only oneself, but society. Choosing to prioritize joy and harmony helps us to endure disputes and overcome cultural differences. To “smile though your heart is aching” is an act of charity and humility. Returning focus to hope and humor, though with difficulty, returns us to productive action. Loving when one doesn’t want to love reveals love’s true nature and worth.
Plus, it’s fun poking irritable kids.
This is for the Quote Of the Day writing prompt for August 2019. There are still many slots available.
Some photographers enjoy storm chasing. They track tornadoes, ambush the lightning and rolling supercells, or fortify a hurricane post. I photograph dripping branches.
People usually take shelter indoors during rain, except to move between interiors. Birds are more tolerant of the wet.
Water is unkind to electronics. A cameraman can be forgiven for preferring the morning after.
Or one might step out at night, for soft glows and glimmers.
A photographer might even get muddy.
But sometimes it pays to attend the little things.
This post is part of the Group Writing series for August 2019 on the theme Raining Cats and Dogs. Many slots remain open.
Proceeding from Gary’s revolution (let’s be sure to pin it all on him and Titus, if there’s trouble), this should be a fun and hopefully productive prompt. What is a film or TV show premise that you had high hopes for but was spoiled by leftism or by any heavy-handed propaganda?
As you know, no challenge is so daunting as a blank slate. “Hey, you should make a conservative film!” Well, that’s … not helpful. We can’t all be script writers. But let’s at least attempt to get the ball rolling with some ideas.
The goal is not to come up with overtly political stories. Rather, it’s to present familiar tales in ways more amenable to the Right’s values.
For example, maybe you enjoy grandiose disaster movies and you just want one without the theme of climate change.
Perhaps you would like a spacefaring story that doesn’t claim we had to leave Earth because humanity stinks and we ruin everything. Maybe curiosity and ambition are reasons enough to search the stars.
Or you might want a romance in which characters don’t jump into bed just because they enjoyed a day together.
The more specific you can be, the better. Name a film or two that had great but wasted potential. Name a show that started out well but fell apart when the usual bunch took over in later seasons. What stories are worth retelling … only without the nonsense this time?
Too much attention is paid to Shakespeare’s talent and too little to his outstanding work ethic.
It is not the number of works which testifies most strongly to his careful determination; it is his originality. His innovations are too regular to be accidental. When I Googled “words and phrases coined by”, Shakespeare’s name was, of course, suggested first by the search algorithm. The breadth of his legacy in this regard is widely known, though most of us are content with snippets.
Like many writers and artists, I am lazy. There is a constant temptation to settle for the first pleasing idea. Time and attention are limited, so “sufficient” can be acceptable. And sometimes great ideas do burst into being suddenly, well-formed. But our most precious gifts tend to be stolen from the refiner’s fire, once or repeatedly.
Editing non-fiction is, in my experience, a simpler exercise. An essay must be refined more for clarity and pace than for originality. The central argument must be new — or else reconstructed in a fresh delivery — to interest readers. But the purpose of altering grammar or words is, foremost, precision.
Fiction is more artful. And art is a damnable wisp of an idea. The thinker is not studying a fixed reality while recasting it in deductive arguments. The idea in focus is rather a thing yet unborn.
A dream sputters in the dreamer’s mind like ever-shifting clouds while he desperately tries to capture it, whole and in fine detail. A hiccup in recording leaves the artist fumbling to recall what the last bit was he saw or heard while miserably correcting the earlier part. Editing while dreaming, often as not, means losing some of the dreams; if not its characters, then its colors.
Beethoven said it best:
The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.
Art is a chase. Legendary artists like Shakespeare and Beethoven were its most dogged pursuers. They were not extraordinary because they alone could hear the angels singing. They were extraordinary because they kept listening when the body tired when distractions knocked, and when companions praised their first attempts. They fought hard to perfect every detail, returning to old battles and discarding easy victories.
Maybe I’m wrong. We can’t watch them at work. We can’t speak to them. Only centuries-old letters and hearsay inform their biographies today.
But as regularly as modern writers rely on such inheritance as common words and phrases without substantially building upon the great works we have received, it seems to me that Shakespeare made a deliberate effort to sidestep obvious expressions so to paint the human heart as no one had before.
We should not aspire to be mere professionals. We should aspire to touch Heaven and here deliver those stolen treats.
If we desire better art, better fiction, better music, then a terrible price must be paid. We have to work at it!
An old country girl now in her 80s reflected the other day on how much life has changed since she was a kid. It wasn’t the usual story of colorless television and walking to school with a lunch pail. There was no TV in her small town.
Halloween is not immutable. Common American traditions today bear only the slightest resemblance to druidic rituals and superstitious people casting frightened glances over dimly lit turnips. Trick-or-treating today isn’t even the same today as it was just 30 or 40 years ago. Heck, some families meet in parking lots to distribute candy from car trunks, because walking a neighborhood at sundown is apparently too dangerous for attended kids.
