===

“And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

<Beyond Good and Evil> Friedrich Nietzsche

===

Well. This is mostly about being different.

Well. Actually. Maybe this is just about being yourself.

I say this because everyone is different. Sometimes discernible to the naked eye and sometimes not, but different nonetheless.

Now, unfortunately, discernible or not, sometimes being different seems to put you in some hole where you appear to live where no one else lives.

Oddly enough if you can actually get out of the hole you would simply see that almost everyone has their own hole that Life makes you climb in and out of on occasion.

But inevitably, at some point, Life puts you in your hole and leaves you there … alone … with your thoughts, These are thoughts of how different you are or how different you think or simply how different your life is from every one else … and Life doesn’t help you get out of the hole. Because it is yours. And it is yours to figure out how to get out of.

Stay in the hole long enough and, yes, it begins to look like an abyss. A never ending abyss leading to some sort of personal hell.

Which leads me to being yourself is extremely different in your tween & teen years than in your adult years.

In other words, not all holes and abysses are created equal.

We may like to think so but they aren’t.

An adult abyss is significantly different than a teen abyss.

I am certainly not suggesting that at any age you can find your way into a variety of different holes just that the experience of being in a hole is different.

In fact this hole thing, or the abyss if you get stuck in the hole, or when this abyss looks back at you it means that when you begin to know something that is fundamentally different from yourself and you take a piece of it with you and it changes you and vice versa well, all that I just said ? Yeah. That much is pretty much the same at any age.

But that assumes you get out of the frickin’ abyss.

And the truth is that ability can only come from Life experience.

Young people just don’t know how to get out of the hole. They just don’t have the experience.

And even as we know some adults need help getting out of the hole, young people DEFINITELY need help getting out of the hole.

The adult example?

I will use a wonderful West Wing tv show episode, Noël, scene where Leo tells Josh the following story:

“This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.

“A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

    “Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on

“Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.'”

<West Wing Hole scene>

These are smart adults.

Well.

Kids need the same help.

And I say this unequivocally just in case you look around and see they are shrugging off the help or adamantly opposing the help or any other type of typical tween/teen independent ‘fuck you I don’t need your help’ attitude you will get.

Kids need help getting out of holes.

That’s it. No ifs, ands or buts.

They may not like asking for help … but they need it.

Look.

We encourage young people to embrace their individuality.

And we should.

But with that encouragement also comes a responsibility. For if they do embrace their individuality they will also be embracing the fact that they are in some form or fashion … different.

We don’t want our kids to be alike.

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

The Dawn

Self esteem really isn’t about ‘being alike’ or similarities or being part of the crowd. Sure. It can play a role. But real self esteem comes from embracing the individuality, the ‘true to thineself’ aspect, that lies within everyone if they seek it.

And in that path to a strong self esteem there are potholes and sometimes some really big deep frickin’ holes.

I can almost guarantee every kid will either slip into a hole or go crashing into a hole at some point in their young Life. I can guarantee that because there are so many holes, real ones and created ones <the worries that inevitably follow a young person through their teen years>, that it is simply not possible to miss them all.

I will share a teen truth just to remind all of us adults:

Teen life and high school is not really a melting pot but more a jungle, run along crude and arbitrary lines of popularity. The kids <today as was yesterday> face the onslaught full spectrum of adolescent anxiety … worrying what your peers will think … secret crushes <and finding the courage to tell the object of what is sometimes simply a fantasy> … worrying you’re too poor <or too rich>, worrying about your parents … worrying if you are good enough … even worrying if haven’t rolled the cuff of your jeans  up just high enough to be right.

Some of that sound silly? You bet.

But we should take it all seriously.

Teen life is the worst and the best of Life.

It has dark, brutal undercurrents and the glittery sparkles of Hollywood all tempered by the disturbing ongoing clash of the dream and the reality.

Which leads me to say that they will need help getting out of whatever hole they fall in. And I am talking about active help, not simply insuring they now they have some intangible support system to lean on or reach out to. I say that because we are often quite flippant with regard to the belief that we are ‘there for them’ and the reality is that sometimes when they fall in one of their holes … they not only lose sight of you <and everything else> but the abyss steals their voice.

For any number of reasons <fear, insecurity, embarrassment, esteem, misplaced courage, independence, rebellion> they will not speak up … or out from the hole.

You have to be active. You cannot simply say ‘here is a rope and I can pull you up if you need help and take it.’ More often we have to jump in the hole yourself and join them.

Why? Because if you permit them to linger too long in the hole … well … the abyss will gaze into them. And inevitably that abyss will find some dark corner in the mind and will find a place to live, eat and breathe for years and years to come.

Look.

Holes are fine in Life.

They are part of Life.

You just have to make sure you know how to get out of them.

Just make sure you teach kids around you to get out of them.

Make sure you do not simply offer a lifeline out of a hole, but jump in with them and show them the way out.

It will be a Life lesson they will never forget.

Ponder.

============

“Community is the fact that we work toward the same goal, that we accept our respective roles in order to reach it.

Values is the fact we trust each other.

And, culture?

Culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. That matters because most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”

Fredrick Backman

===============

“You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.”

Colin Powell

=================

Well. The relationship between secrets and culture and community is one which is fraught with contradictions, conflict and humanness.

I imagine this conflict is driven by the natural chafing between self-interest and community <I have called this community individualism & Enlightened Individualism in the past>.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We talk a lot about community and team and all of that good stuff. And we talk about it with good intentions. The problem is that true community demands some sacrifice.

Therein lies our big secrets.

On occasion we decide self-interest is more important than sacrifice.

Uhm.

This is a version of ‘what you can get away with.’

That phrase sounds horribly horrible. It suggests nefarious type behavior. But the truth of it is most of us see what we can get away with on some very personal day-to-day less-than-nefarious type stuff.

• We cut some corners.

• We maybe don’t tell people how we truly feel <or who we truly are>.

• We steal some post-it notes.

These are our little secrets.

We may even have some bigger personal secrets that we decide are just not things we want to share <these are not nefarious … just personal>.

Regardless.

For many of us our behavior arcs toward what we can get away with. That doesn’t mean it is completely unethical, or some abhorrent behavior, just that while norms set a ‘median’ standard guideline Life is constantly suggesting ‘but this one time you can get away with doing this.”

Which leads me back to the real issue.

The issue resides with the friction between culture and community and self. What I mean by that is the stronger & more powerful the cultural community norm is the bigger your secret becomes if you avoid the norms. This secret takes on exponential size if you start believing that the norms that are good for you are good and the ones that don’t match up with what you believe is your self-interest are bad.

You only accept the existence of the formal and informal cultural norm structure that constitutes accepted community construct, uhm, only as long as that suits your purposes.

Your big secret, therefore, doesn’t have to do with your own behavior, but rather in your non-belief ,if not overall disdain, for the community norms.

Which leads me to hate.

Why hate?

When you decide to see what you can get away with, you have to mentally divide community into “we” and “they.” And in doing so you make ‘we’ good <which suggests what you can get away with is on the side of good> and, conversely, you make ‘they’ bad.

This is a simplistic tactic for attempting to carry the burden of a big secret.

Hate is simple and hate can be an incredibly powerful empowering emotion.

Why?

In this scenario, using hate, the world becomes much easier to understand and less confusing, in the scheme of things, if you divide everything into friends & enemies, good & evil, right & wrong and a basic we & they.

This helps us because the world is strewn with conflict. Not just physical war, but of ideas, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes. Cultures, communities and classes are bombarded with conflict after conflict. And maybe because of the sheer amount of conflict one of the first things we do is pick sides. We choose a side to stand on because … well … it is easier. It is easier than thinking or, even more difficult, trying to hold parts of two ideas which appear in conflict in our heads at the same time. And once we have chosen a side we then go out and seek some information, or ‘facts’, to confirm not only what we believe but the side we have chosen – this permits us to maintain the status quo and chug along with Life as ‘normal.’

Oh. Yeah.

And then we proceed to do is demonize, or dehumanize, the other side. We diminish them. Make them, their thoughts & ideas, lesser than.

……. making “they” smaller ……..

I would suggest this all just makes you smaller as a person <carrying around a big secret>.

Which leads me to say that big secrets make small people.

Yeah. Unfortunately all of us become smaller with a big secret.

And this smallness is compounded by the unfortunate fact that you become even smaller when ‘we’ are the people who others HAVE to keep big secrets from because they believe, and know, we cannot handle them <or don’t believe in them>.

All secrets carry a weight to them.

===

“To agree to keep a secret is to assume a burden.”

Sam Harris

===

In fact I could argue that all knowledge is a burden. It carries a weight of responsibility with regard to what you do with it, how you act because you have it, as well as how you think about you, and others, with it. Oh. Secrets ARE knowledge.

Having accepted knowledge you have made an agreement with it. I tend to believe we don’t think about this. We accept knowledge as … well … maybe like income earned – disposable income in fact. We worked for it, we earned it and it is now ours to spend as we choose.

But knowledge is actually more like freedom. It is an unalienable right, but it is also a privilege and therefore one assumes a responsibility to it.

Uhm.

And with responsibility comes burden. Which almost sounds odd in that something with ‘free’ in it also carries such a heavy burden. Maybe I should just suggest that nothing really comes for free, i.e., everything has something attached to it.

Knowledge?

Responsibility. The burden of responsibility. And that is a weight you carry. One which can be as light or as heavy as you make it. But. It is a weight nonetheless. One which you learn to carry well or carry poorly.

Knowledge tests our ability and our character with regard to how well we can carry this weight. It tests how strong we are .. once again … in ability and in character.

Having said that <and most likely having a number of people feeling a little uncomfortable thinking about knowledge that way>.

Secrets are a completely different level of a knowledge burden.

And secrets are tricky.

• Some are thrust upon you — unwanted but yet yours nonetheless.
• Some are gifted you — carefully shared by someone who believes the weight it carries is too much for themselves … alone.
• Some are just yours — built by you and carried by you.

But regardless of how you assume the responsibility of a secret; it is also knowledge. And therefore it also carries a burden, a responsibility, and a weight.

I don’t have the scale to weigh them, but my guess is that a knowledge secret exponentially weighs more than a traditional knowledge.

I also don’t have any research, but I also tend to believe, just like extra physical weight, as soon as we start feeling the extra weight of a secret … we seek to shed it.

Therein lies the true test of character.

Therein lies how big secrets can make small people.

All knowledge tests you. Secrets test you even more.

Knowledge, and secrets, take a strength of self to carry its weight.

The weight of responsibility of having the knowledge, the weight of freedom knowledge typically gives us and the weight of character that knowledge either makes you bigger or makes you smaller.

Whew.

That is a lot of extra weight we have accepted by taking on these secrets.

Which leads me to good.

As in good people doing good things. And as in good versus almost good.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that sometimes very thin line between good and almost-good can make a massive difference in life. That sometimes very thin line can decide whether your secret makes you bigger or smaller.

Look.

If you are clever enough, even if you embrace community, you can get away with a shitload of stuff. But cleverness does not eliminate the fact you gain a bigger secret burden with every action.

And you know what?

The “community” knows we struggle with this a individuals. In fact it has even created some ‘auxiliary precautions’ to help us avoid unnecessary secrets.

Huh?

This is James Madison’s Federalist Paper #51 or “if men were angels” argument:

===========

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

=================

We are no angels as people.

Secrets bear that truth out.

And … well … we all carry secrets.

And … the bigger the secrets the smaller we become.

Ponder.

=========

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

Stephen Crane

============

“Nature uses as little as possible of anything.”

Johannes Kepler

==============

The universe has no real obligation to us. Period.

Yup. That actually means we are on our own. We have no rights, no privileges, no nothing to support or comfort our existence except what we choose to provide each other.

That said.

Let me make sure we are all on the same page with regard to ”rights” which means you need to ponder rights, freedom, liberty, prerogative and privilege. All of these are words which refer to the fundamental claims a person can properly make or his unfettered ability to choose <Use The Right Word: S.I. Hayakawa>.

• Right suggests a concrete claim established by legal, ethical or religious sanctions <e.g., right to equality before the law>. Although … someone claiming a right tends to argue it is inherent, a person’s rights are differently spelled out in different cultures & countries.
• Liberty is a more abstract and general notion suggesting the opportunity to choose among alternatives. A document such as the Bill of Rights spells out these conditions a citizen may construe as his rights. However … these liberties may sometimes in fact refer to an unwarranted breach of someone else’s right to consideration <we do not enjoy unbridled liberty without regard for the rights of others>.
• Civil liberty is understood to refer to all the rights enumerated in the US Constitution and its amendments.
• Freedom is close to liberty in its abstract generality but stresses a total lack of constraint more than the opportunity for choice.
• Prerogative and privilege are much more specific in their meanings than the other words here. Prerogative refers to a right that one has by virtue of age, sex or position. Privilege suggests advantages given as favors or added luxuries rather than necessary rights.

I share all that to point out that while we may complicate our lives by confusing all these dynamics we also complicate our lives unnecessarily.

Anyway. We tend to complicate our lives in a number of ways.

Sometimes it is we feel like Life, or the universe, should be a little more helpful.

Sometimes we confuse privileges and rights.

Sometimes we seek an easier path because the way we are going seems a little too hard.

Sometimes we abuse rights in the pursuit of bad things.

Sometimes we assume privileges with regard to desire of good things.

============

“People tend to complicate their lives, as if living weren’t already complicated enough.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

=============

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

Søren Kierkegaard

===========

Far too often we view freedoms as freedom to be stupid, idiotic or thoughtless.

Specifically, far too often we view freedom of speech as a way to shared well-articulated insightful thoughts to better the world around them simply because, well, we were fortunate enough to be nearby when speech, freely given, was shared.

Well. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to say only smart things. It also means freedom to be stupid, idiotic and thoughtless.

Yeah.

Freedom is a sticky wicket. It permits freedom to say stupid things, factual things and nonfactual things.

And, yet, as John Stuart Mill argued in “On Liberty,” freedom of expression is the freedom on which all other civic rights are based.

Now. Two things.

First. I do believe those who speak have a responsibility to be responsible. Freedom of speech, and expression, is a privilege not to be abused. But that is my opinion.

Just mine.

However, stupidity aside, I would rather someone speak, regardless of what is said opinion wise, than for there to be silence. In a world in which we complicate our lives and confuse liberties and freedoms and privileges … we shouldn’t shut up. And we shouldn’t simply shut off someone because they confuse all these things. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t shut down lies <because we should> but, generally speaking, if someone wants to say something stupid, we should let them because of this universal truth:

“Idiocy thrives in the dark, not in dialogue.”

Jen Floyd Engel columnist

I have had this debate, sometimes argument, with several people.

I want neo-Nazis speaking on campuses.

I want feminists raging through megaphones on stand at street corners.

I want pro Life & pro Choice advocates debating on stages throughout America.

I want the most extreme of all sides and dimensions and directions to publicly have the opportunity to speak out.

First of all.

We should all want that.

We, here in the USA, actually live in a country where unless you shout “fire” in some movie theater or seriously offer harmful threats you actually have the privilege & right to speak your mind. This is a gift that USA gives its citizens — a gift many of the 192 countries around the world are not so quick to give their citizens.

Second.

We should abhor silence.

It seems to me that we are quickly  heading down a path where the only opinions safe to say out loud  are the benign most milquetoast ‘safe havens’ of speech — Hitler was bad,  genocide is bad, beets are bad <oops, that last one was just a personal benign opinion>.

We say we want honesty.

We say we want to hear the truth.

We say we want free speech.

And yet we are relentless in chastising those who choose to speak and the words they choose to speak are wrong, maybe even stupid and possibly ignorant.

Uhm. This makes me say …

“I have met the enemy and the enemy is us.”

I do believe we are in the midst of a crisis of truth, ignorance and enlightenment … and freedoms, rights & privileges.

And it is an odd crisis in that we may actually speak up and out, but constantly get trapped in some simplistic dualisms/binaries — liberalism versus authoritarianism, Islam versus … well … Christianity/America/constitution/etc., white versus non white,  intellectual versus nonintellectual, urban versus rural and any other dualism thing you want to add.

But our issues seem to be more complex than ‘if this or maybe that.’

Our issues get compounded by the natural ebb & flow of “rights” <speech, religion, press, etc.> and what we believe is ‘right’ all combined with the unfortunate situation that the everyday person struggles to discerns fact from fiction <I would be remiss if i didn’t point out that 5+ years of Trump where he created his own fictional alternative universe in which his ‘facts’ exist and he wanted to manage the narrative as ‘his universe depicting reality’ didn’t help any of this>.

We complicate our lives needlessly.

And while Alexis de Tocqueville suggested in the 1830s that the American promise of meritocracy, its uniformity of culture and manners, and “equality of conditions” would make for immoderate ambition, corrosive envy and chronic dissatisfaction and could swell “to the height of fury” and lead many to acquiesce in a curtailment of their liberties all leading to a longing for the rule of a strongman … I do not agree.

No matter how divisive we may get and no matter how much we complicate our own lives and how much we may confuse what we deserve and what we earn, what is a privilege and what is a right, all of our freedoms & rights are grounded in the one unchangeable thing we have … the constitution.

That said. I am reminded of some words written by William Martin in his fabulous book “The Lost Constitution”:

=======

“A real American will tell you that our Constitution is not a tool for politicians hoping to make points, whether it is a cynical Republican pushing flag burning amendments because their poll numbers are down or a do-gooding Democrat who decides to protect ourselves by banning guns. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they made the Constitution difficult to amend, so let’s think hard before we mess with it. 

What it says is what t said two hundred years ago. I think the men who set their thoughts down here were men who cared about America. Some of them believed in a strong central government, some believed that government governs best which governs least, but all of them believed in the ability of thinking Americans to get up in the morning and resolve their differences and solve their problems. And we have lost that in this country.

The framers created a means of changing this document because they understood that the world would change. But they didn’t want to make it easy. So it up to you, the people, pick up your newspaper and read them, and think about what you read, and don’t always believe what you hear just because it is what you want to hear,. And don’t listen to what you want to hear because you hear it from somebody who shouts it loud or makes you laugh. The constitution demands more. Don’t believe the people who vote straight democrat any more than you believe the people who befoul the airwaves with rightist rhetoric every day. The theme, on every night, is that we are all American. “

==========

All that said, I circle back to where i began by saying I wanted to say two things. The first had to do with individual rights and choices, the second has to do with amplification <the megaphones of the world – tv networks, podcasts, social media>.

While I believe any individual has the right to be an idiot I think we would all be idiots if we didn’t acknowledge we are in a universe in which the amplification universe is not indifferent. In addition the amplification universe has the ability to exponentially share idiocy – not additively or even multiplicatively. Therein lies the accountability and responsivbility issue. While it sounds nice to say every platform can say whatever it wants to say <kind of a misplaced freedom of speech play> the reality is it isn’t about saying iodiotic things or lies or disinformation, its about teh amplification. So without any rules on how things get amplified <usually this comes down to algorithms> we inevitably have to talk about the source of the things that are getting shared. I, personally, think twitter, Facebook, instragram, whoever, should clamp down on disinformation and lies. Will they always get it right? Nope. Will in most cases , even in their errors, benefit society? Yup. Anything at this point which slows down amplification, or mutes what may take some time to be proven, is good. we do not need to “know everything” immediately. Give some time to vet everything. Let idiots speak but maybe limit how far and wide their idiocy spreads <at least initially>. That actually seems to protect the privileges and freedoms of citizenry more than it limits it.

Which leads me to end with the thought that it is an odd place we are in today.

It seems like never have so many free individuals felt so helpless and in their helpless feeling many people seem almost desperate to wrest control from anyone, and institutions in particular, they can blame for their feeling ‘lostness’ <however you would like to define lost>.

As I finish up this piece today it seems important to remind everyone that freedom of speech is just that … freedom of speech – and that freedom of speech is the foundation upon which all civil liberties reside.

I would rather idiocy, our confusion about what we deserve and do not deserve, be discussed rather than have to thrive in the darkness of silent strength.

Because all speech does is to start a dialogue.

It forces people to talk.

Personally, I don’t want to read, or watch, only whatever validates my beliefs.

I want to challenge my assumptions.

Personally, I know I get confused about what is a right, what is a freedom and, sometimes, what is a privilege.

The only thing I am 100% clear on is that I am privileged to exist in a country in which I can be confused on all those things and still be able to speak out.

And, lastly, I am absolutely clear that the universe has no real obligation to me … or us.

We have no rights, no privileges, no nothing to support or comfort our existence except what we choose to provide each other.

What this means is that only we can complicate our lives and/or uncomplicate it.

Let’s be a little bit easier on each other.

Let’s listen a little bit better with each other.

Let’s become the universe in which we become obligated to each other rather than worrying about where my freedom begins and yours ends. Ponder.

===================

“Its much more important to be interested than to be interesting“

Jane Fonda.

=============

Let me begin by saying Jane Fonda has been irrelevant to me my entire life. Okay.  Maybe better said she has been on the periphery of what I truly care about.

Let me begin by saying I have bashed celebrities as much and as often as anyone for semi-stupid involvement in things they do not seem particularly knowledgeable about.

That said.

I read this quote and all of a sudden she became relevant to me.  She said something that not only made sense, but was also thought provoking. And that was big in my relationship with good ole Jane. Shit. It was big in my relationship with celebrities overall.

To be clear.

Have I always agreed with what she has said or done throughout her life? Nope.

Have I always agreed with what anyone has said or done throughout their Life? Nope.

But when Jane Fonda says something like this, well, I admit I think about what I think about celebrities who get involved. And rethink her actions. And rethink her words. And absolutely sit back and rethink, in general, about anyone in the public <celebrity like> and their actions & words.

Because I admit.

It typically drives me a little nuts when some celebrity makes a big stink about something – and it feels naïve and slightly out of touch. But with this quote from Jane it really made me rethink a lot of things. And a lot of thoughts I have had about celebrities and maybe all of the seemingly naïve things I have heard and just shook my head over.

Why do I invest any energy rethinking?

Well … they were interested.

Take a moment and ponder that <and even compare it to your own life and involvement>. They took time out of their wacky world and paid attention to something and said something.

Does it sometimes seem misdirected and maybe slightly out of touch to every day people and our lives?  Absolutely.

But. Maybe it shouldn’t be judged that way. Maybe it should be better judged in that they were interested.

That is Jane’s point. And it is a fucking good point.

For, like it or not, they said or did something.  It may have been odd or good or misdirected or right on target, but it doesn’t really matter in the end as I think about it because they chose to do something.

They have a podium <I believe all celebrities in their heart of hearts know that>. They stood up. They spoke out. And they chose to get involved. Shit. They were interested. And they did so knowing full well a shitload of people will scoff, a shitload of people will give them shit and a shitload of people would disregard what they said as “out of touch.”

That said. Jane really made me think. Really think.

“They were interested.”

You know something?.

It makes me begin thinking maybe I was the naïve one. That I was the one who had the wrong perspective. That maybe I have been missing the real point all along.

Why do I say that?

Well.

Don’t I continuously suggest people should step up for what they care about? <Yup>. So why should I think differently about this simply because some person does something for a living? <I shouldn’t>.

It is better to be interested than interesting.

That, my friends, is a big thought. And, yeah, I have elected to ignore the whole listening and selflessness aspect of that quote to focus on “stepping up” because that is the truly enlightening part. Because in the end it comes down to several things.

Jane has always been a lightning rod for issues.

And, admittedly, some people are more so than others and some of them are more comfortable being so than others.

And we may disagree with them.

And we may think they are misguided idiots.

But <and this is a BIG but>.

We should all recognize that no matter what … that they are interested.

Interested in ‘whatever.’

And you know what? That counts for something.

And, in fact, I think it counts for a lot.

Ponder.

===============

“The world’s thy ship and not thy home.”

Thérèse de Lisieux

==============

“All of life is a coming home.

Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us.  All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home.”

Patch Adams 

====================

Well. I had all these quotes and I didn’t know what to do with them until I saw the image at the opening of this post: “They say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I’m not leaving maybe I’m going home.”

I have often wondered why many of us are so restless. We seek things, and travel places looking for ‘something’ and dream dreams. This doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy what we have nor does it mean we don’t accept reality. It just means that there is always an undercurrent of change or “what ifs” or “what could be’s” underneath the surface of our Life. At the same time we are sailing through Life seeking some place we can land which we can not only call home, but actually feels like home.

And maybe that is where the line “home is where you hang your hat’ comes into play. In its simplicity it is actually suggesting that it really isn’t your hat that matters it is when you accept that you can be who you are and that ‘who’ is all you can be that you have found home. And while Thérèse was really suggesting that the material world was simply your journey and heaven, or God, is your destination, the overall thought is truer than true.

Whether you believe in something bigger than you or simply believe there is something bigger within you, you should seek the stars within you to guide you to it all — not some external place or location which may appear to fulfill some aspect of ‘home.’

Your dreams, wishes and … yes … the starlight to guide you in the darkness of not knowing what to do, where to go and how to get thru whatever it is you are going thru is all within you.

Your home resides within you.

You are simply looking for a place to, well, place your home that feels right and true.

That place is unseen.

That place is not really one place <it can actually be many places>.

Here comes the hard part.

Life will not give you any signposts and most of Life will constantly change your direction unseen in the undercurrents of Life.

============

“In the short voyage of a lifetime, we can see the eddies and ripples on the surface, but not the undercurrents changing the main channel of the stream. “

Thomas Mellon

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This all suggests you are in control and you are not in control.

Just ponder the fact we often stand upon the deck of our ship admiring the horizon and enjoying the travel & journey only to have some Life undercurrent disrupt our complacency and some version of ‘living Life laziness’ <i.e., if you’re not careful and become actively involved in Life, Life will actively involve itself in your Life>.

This simply reminds us that circumstances beyond our control often disrupt the illusion of what we have, who we are and where we are.

The unseen undercurrent constantly nudges our mind with questions:

What is our purpose?

How can we take control of so many things out of our control?

How do we reconcile the vastness Life offers us … reconcile the bigness that can often appear within reach … and reconcile our desire to be worthy of Life … reconcile it all against the smallness that is us in the roiling sea on which our ship sails?

Will we ever satisfy our dreams for what could be & what we could be?

Meaningful or meaningless?

We struggle with these questions. And all the while we avoid the questions under the guise of “seeking home.’

Ah. Shit.

Suffice it to say, home is not anything physical, it actually resides in the infinite. As a corollary, this would presume if you accept its infiniteness you should be able to see it also has the potential to be infinitely good.

I believe we inherently know this and inherently know that only ‘home’ will truly satisfy us. And that search, that journey, is the satisfaction. I imagine the unfortunate, uncomfortable, truth is the odds are we will never truly find some ‘home’ in which we can live our entire lives.

The world is our ship.

Life is our ship.

Our home, our stars, reside within us.

Ponder.

 ===

“It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.”

David Levithan

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Whew. When I saw this quote I had to, well, sit back.

Think a little.

I wanted to write about Life like “maybe something personal?” I thought, but surely this is applicable to business.

Well.

It is about everything.

I will begin personally <or about people and Life>.

I have always disliked the whole ‘love yourself first & foremost’ advice. I worry that it is a trite soundbite solution to people living in a Life where self identity, success, esteem and happiness is significantly more complex.

Look.

I think ‘be yourself’ is important.

I think ‘true to thineself’ may be the single most important Life compass one can follow.

But. I do not believe this means you can ignore context.

Making yourself visible by being yourself and, yet, end up being invisible and ignored in the world … well … that sucks.

It sucks on so many levels I am not even sure where to start. But I am sure it sucks enough that it is unhealthy and not particularly good for self esteem and confidence.

 And before anyone wants to debate the whole ‘external validation versus internal driven’ importance let me share a credible source:

“For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that “unless you love yourself, no one else will love you.”… The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.”

Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.

 Effective and positive visibility is a combination, or maybe better said: an alignment between ‘being yourself’ and ‘not being ignored’ socially.

I say that because invisibility is isolation <or maybe call it ‘visible but ignored’>.

I am not sure anything can really be built in isolation.

Created? Possibly.

Built? Yikes. I don’t think so.

Even more importantly I am fairly sure you cannot create or build if you are isolated by being visible; yet ignored <because you have created but have received no affirmation of value>.

So. I believe one person, an individual, can rarely build something without help. Help as in tangible <doing help> or intangible <emotional support>.

All that said. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we all like to be noticed. On a wide spectrum of visibility, we all like to be visible and not ignored. To be clear. This doesn’t have to be awards or accolades or any significantly vocal ‘notice’ … it can be a slight acknowledgement.

Me, personally, I have always struggled receiving compliments.  That is not my ‘being visible’ thing. Mine is more subtle. All I care about is, well, not being ignored. Visible, but ignored <which implies ‘no value’> is where I get my affirmation or non-affirmation. This doesn’t mean I will not avoid the spotlight it is just that I do not turn the spotlight on nor do I seek it. I simply stand my ground if it happens to turn on me. That is what I mean by some subtle differences in ‘not being ignored.’

Which leads me to discuss this thought in business.

Whew.

The whole spotlight thing I wrote earlier.

The business world has made us think about being visible and not being ignored to an absurd level.

Huh? Things like “you have to be your own cheerleader!” or ‘you have to promote your accomplishments’ or ‘shine a spotlight on your accomplishments so they get noticed’, things like that.

The implication is that the only way to not be ignored is to make sure you are not ignored. Theoretically this is okay, but in practice what this mean is a lot of noise and spotlights endlessly waving across the sky from people who are doing & saying things just to be visible and the things they are actually doing should be ignored.

I think, at least in business, we are missing an opportunity <if not make the business environment a little less painful>.

In business being visible, but ignored is a lesson. A lesson in ‘are you really doing anything of value.’ Far too often we judge our own value differently than how others do. Research shows that generally we overestimate our value and contributions and ability. By promoting ourselves to insure we are not ignored we miss out on, uhm, truth.

Truth as in ‘should we <or our accomplishments> truly be ignored’ <because they truly have no or little value>.

Anyway.

This quote made me think.

Made me think about being visible and ignored versus thinking you are invisible.

In the end.

I wonder how often we confuse thinking we are invisible when the truth is we are actually quite visible … but ignored.

Ponder.

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“The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness.”

Paul Valéry

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“The moment you decide an event is impossible and therefore stop directing your attention to it is the moment when it will take place.”

General Petro Grigorenko

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“This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: ‘At the time, no one knew what was coming.”

Haruki Murakami

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Well. I have lots of discussions about the future with people and it continuously surprises me on how confident people are with regard to what will, or will not, happen. In fact, I find it slightly incomprehensible until I remember that the incomprehensible, in all its forms, has a certain allure.

The incomprehensible has a certain freshness of inevitable believability that some people are addicted to <and blind to the possibility it will never happen>.

Uh oh.

The incomprehensible has a certain inevitable un-believability that some people are married to (and blind to the possibility it could actually occur>. The incomprehensible appeals to both those convinced it will never happen and to those who are convince it will happen.

Now. That said. We attack the incomprehensible in a variety of ways trying to comprehend it.

Research/experimenting

Innovation methodology: stage gating as an example

Pick your “assessing likelihood of incomprehensible” methodology but, well, 90% of new businesses fail, over 60% of new products fail and The Law of Unintended Consequences guarantees the unforeseen is almost more likely to happen than the foreseen. Yet. Even all that knowledge doesn’t slow us down one bit with our love/hate relationship with the unknown, i.e., the incomprehensible. We love the thought of finding something that seemed incomprehensible. We love that ‘holy shit’ feeling.

Here is the weird thing. Despite our love of the incomprehensible we plan our days to the minute, plan projects and tasks in excruciating detail and ‘plan out’ to eliminate any risk and uncertainty and, well, incomprehensible we can feasibly plan out. I would point out that all this really does is foster the timeless tradition of second guessing and seeking blame as soon as the incomprehensible occurs.

Regardless.

The incomprehensible always remains fresh because, as a Life truth, it consistently confirms to us that at no time no one knew what was coming.

Yup.

You can be pessimistic <and be proven right … or wrong>.

You can be optimistic <and be proven right … or wrong>.

But, in general, before being proven anything, you are guessing. Sure. You can make an educated guess, and the odds may be higher or lower based on what you decide to do, but someone is lying if they say “I knew it was going to end up that way” or “we should have seen that coming.”

That’s bullshit. We do not know. We often guess <sometimes well, sometimes not so well> under the guise of planning. Maybe worse is we often guess under the guise of ‘scrutinizing history.’

Uh oh. A fact.

‘History teaches by analogy, not identity.’

Henry Kissinger

People tend to mistake a study of history, or a historical moment, for proof of what is to come and, in fact, it sure does look like a frickin’ smart thing to do when going backwards in time and connecting dots <even when the connection is tenuous at best>. But, just a reminder about what Hank said: History teaches by analogy, not identity. This means that the lessons of history are never automatic or formulas for the future. The truth is that they can be apprehended only by admitting a range of multidimensional factors <unique context matters>, assessing the significance of each factor <individually and in combinations – I believe that is called “complimentarity”> and that the answers we obtain will never be better than the questions we pose.

————————–

“From this, one can make a deduction which is quite certainly the ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzlemaker has made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other.”

Georges Perec, Life A User’s Manual

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Like it or not situations exist in time more than in space. At any given moment a moment is but a collection of individuals and things bringing to bear all their collective experiences and things. Reassembling that multi-dimension of ‘collective’ is next to impossible. What this means is that when viewing the past incomprehensible, trying to make it comprehensible, you will find it is contingent to a unique set of factors.

===============

“For the lessons of historical experience, as of personal experience, are contingent.

They teach the consequences of certain actions, but they cannot force recognition of comparable situations.

Henry Kissinger

==============

Uhm. Cannot force recognition of comparable situations.  This is why I scratch my head when some people are so sure on the future. If the incomprehensible is contingent upon a unique set of factors than you would have to be able to look into some crystal ball which unravels what will BE unique (that is impossible isn’t it?) to see what the future configuration of contingent factors is.

Well. That’s nuts. No one can do that.

In the end.

I believe all of us would probably like to have a better sense of how to plan for the future and to better understand the best and proper actions to take to maximize the future in some form or fashion.

Therefore we do the best we can, most often that means examining the past to assess actions affecting the future, trying to understand consequences for our decisions yet to be made. The intent is good and true.

However. We should never confuse honest intent with ‘what is right.’

We simply hear the echoes of footsteps but never meet their owners until they actually enter our lives. And, frankly, you cannot control all that ‘are coming by and by into our lives.’ At each point in time no one knew what was coming, therefore, no one can truly know what is coming. I imagine it is helpful for us to remind ourselves on occasion that just when we are absolutely positively 100% sure that something is impossible or incomprehensible — it occurs.

Just remember this about the incomprehensible. We don’t know what we don’t know AND we don’t know half of what we really do know. It is difficult to accept the fact that today, in the moment, in the middle of change, no one … let me repeat … NO ONE has the right answer. We are simply asking the right questions at the moment and doing our best to adapt as we learn.

And therein maybe lies the greatest lesson about the incomprehensible – change is about adapting.

Sure. Having a vision is good and there are multiple ways to reach the ‘end game. But, in the end, change is change and the incomprehensible is the incomprehensible. Plus. If we knew exactly what the change was and what was needed and what was truly incomprehensible and what wasn’t, well, we would be really smart sonuvabitches, wouldn’t we ? Almost incomprehensible to think that though. Ponder.

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Prouver que j’ai raison serait accorder que je puis avoir tort. -Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

“Proving that I am right would be admitting that I could be wrong.”

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“No enterprise can exist for itself alone.

It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others…or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.”

Calvin Coolidge

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“Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.”

Bob Parsons

=========================

Originally posted in 2017

Let me take a minute and discuss “fraternite” in business.

Just a reminder but “fraternite” is one of the  French values of Liberté, Fraternité and Egalité (“liberty, equality, fraternity/brotherhood” the national motto of France).

Anyway. Business. Inevitably a great organization exhibits both efficient AND effective progress. What typically creates that combination is part discipline, part structure (systems), part leadership, all glued together by “fraternité”. That ‘glue’ is most often discussed in the American business world as ‘a vision’ or maybe ‘a purpose’ or even ‘culture.’ We do so because we Americans hate any kind of lack of specificity. But the truth is that the most common bond of a great organization is a more nebulous concept, i.e., one of “fraternité”.

Or.

“Any man aspires to liberty, to equality, but he cannot achieve it without the assistance of other men, without fraternity.”

Napoleon

Oddly enough, while this sounds like relatively common sense, I kind of feel like business itself needs a revolution to overturn the current thinking to accommodate what should be common sense.

What do I mean? Current business is kind of in a wacky spot. It talks a lot about vision and purpose and culture as if they are “things” — like maybe a lighthouse anyone can see as they bob around the chaotic sea of business life to find a way home. By the way, I would argue that is a very individualistic thought — “I can find my way home” type thought – and not really a team thought <but that could quite easily be debated>.

Regardless. Fraternity is more like “everyone not only knowing what they need to do to keep the ship afloat but actually pitching in whether needed or not because they love the ship itself.” That may sound like some wacky nuance, but I have to warn people that revolutions can kind of gain some momentum off of some fairly wacky things on occasion. By the way, this thought is a more nebulous “I feel this way” aspect of organizational culture and, as noted many times, if it cannot be measured or indexed or scored.

** note: most older leaders into today’s business just don’t like that kind of shit – things they cannot measure or score.

Anyway. Not to beat this metaphor to death, but I do believe we need a semi-revolution in the way business organizations are created and run and managed. I think we may need that revolution because “fraternité” as a core principle just ain’t the way business is run today. And, yes, it should be viewed as a “core” principle because … uhm … when discipline falls apart, when structure falls apart, when leadership falls apart what keeps you on the battlefield and fighting is … yeah … “fraternité.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people talk about a “community” or “company team” or some other nice sounding platitude which sounds a lot like “fraternité”, but its mostly lip service. Its lip service because fraternité is a ‘collective’ thought and most businesses reward and incentivize individuals.

Anyway. On a bigger organizational level I worry about how an idea like this is getting suffocated by generational issues <younger people desire something and older people think they know the best> and maybe an outcome-is-the-only-thing-that-matters worldview versus a belief business should incorporate altruistic aspects. Both of those conflicts are HUGE issues. I have written about in 1200+ word thought pieces on both of these but, on the former, the best piece I can share is from Corporate Rebels “Cut The Crap: The Made-Up Nonsense About Generations At Work” which states all people want meaning at work (regardless of age or generational label).

I actually believe we need some revolutionary thinking on the latter. To me we have a bunch of people who look at business and turn away to non-profit because … well … I fear that they only believe they can change the world through more altruistic pursuits and not traditional business. And, yes, they are important and good pursuits but, from a larger perspective, business drives the world. Business makes shit that makes lives easier and healthier and impacts the home and life in ways that it is difficult to imagine let alone outline in a few words <and the business office/working groups creates behavioral cues which ripple out into culture>.

Somehow … someway … we need to insert the ‘believers of principles and principled behavior’ into the business world with all of their ambition and hope and remind them, empower them and enable them that they can change the world.

That they can make the world a better place. They can make society and people and lives better. And they can do it in and through business, not just altruistic career opportunities. If we do that, and do that well, I tend to believe we will build more organizations driven at its core by a sense of “fraternité” rather than a bunch of documents setting out some guiding or shared values, vision and purpose which everyone says “okay … let’s do that.”

What I do know is that … well … read the following quote:

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“I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.”

Alan Greenspan

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I do believe we need to be drawing some lines in business. And I don’t mean company handbook type lines or even some well-crafted ‘lines’ in “how we conduct our business” or “who we are” but maybe they are more lines with regard to some unwritten principles.

I say that because when you can gather a group of people together who share a strong set of principles they will walk straight into a hail of bullets to not only survive, but to get good shit done.

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“Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

Oscar Wilde

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Now. Business absolutely makes dealing with your principles a constant struggle. It can kind of suffocate your principles in between the pragmatic aspects of getting shit done <discipline & structure> and how that shit is designed to meet specific objectives/results and the faux burden of some vision or grander purpose which “you know is important to us therefore it should be important to you”, i.e., extrinsic importance not intrinsic importance. Frankly, when suffocated by these bookends you don’t have a lot of elbow room for any type of true, intangible, unsolicited camaraderie.

The fraternité is more forced than natural. Obviously, when it is not natural it is not as strong.

In the end.

Fraternité in business. I believe we have forgotten this. And while I do believe many of us have forgotten how to draw lines with regard to our principles I tend to believe business, in general, has simply decided to just draw lines <in a box in fact> and say “there you go”, i.e., there are your principles and rules for camaraderie.

That is kind of whack.

Look. I can honestly tell you that being a senior leader in a business and organization you like <you do not have to love> may be one of the greatest experiences anyone can ever have. What makes that experience truly great is when you are fortunate enough to foster something intangible, something that really cannot be measured, and something which doesn’t earn you some performance bonus at the end of the year … it is when you stumble upon the sense of fraternité.

I am sure some organizational guru will send me a link to “steps to build a fraternité organization” and … well … good for them. I tend to believe this is one of those intangible things that is created less by some “how to” guide or some formula and more by simple good intentions combined with some good discipline, construct and leadership. To steal another word from the motto, by creating a fraternité organization you inevitably create liberté for the organization to be the best version of what it can be.

This is what I thought about today and “liberty, equality, fraternity <brotherhood>”. With that I imagine I should end with where I began … no enterprise can exist for itself alone. That is the foundation for a fraternité organization. Ponder.

=========================

“Besides, it doesn’t matter if it’s real.  It never does with dreams.

They aren’t anything anyway but lifesavers to cling to so you don’t drown.  Life is an ocean, and most everyone’s hanging on to some kind of dream to keep afloat.”

Tim Tharp

======================

Well. Today is for the dreamers.

Let me begin by saying it’s kind of a tough world out there today for dreamers and dreaming living in a world where pragmatism, outcomes and measurement are put on the pedestal of Life.

In fact.

I could argue that today’s world not only discourages thinking about dreams, but it screws up how we do think about dreams when we actually think about them. Dreams used to be … well … dreams. Ok. Bear with me because sometimes it is difficult for me to find the right words on this.

Dreams, in the past, seemed to be more about wishes and desires and imagining what could be in some intangible sense. I don’t mean unicorns or rainbows type stuff and it also wasn’t always pot of gold at the end of some rainbow, but it had a sense of something better.

Today?

In today’s world dreams are more often about something tangible.

I dream of winning something.

I dream about having gobs of money.

I dream about some outcome or something received.

I dream of an award.

I dream of achieving something (specific).

It is no longer dreaming something intangible.

Like.

I dream of being an Olympian <not winning something>.

I dream of being on the front cover of Time magazine <not gobs of money>.

I dream about being the best I can be <no reward or award attached>.

Look. I actually believe I am on to something <for once>. I believe this is a “thing”. That said I started thinking about dreams and dreaming and went out and I researched exactly what a dream is:

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Dreams (imaginings, desires) are the potentials that are too intense to be imperceptible. Having intensified to the objective reduction threshold, a desire collapses into an action.

The nobler an individual, the higher the objective reduction threshold and the more organizedly complex the imagination.

Wikiquotes

========

Step one:

‘potentials too intense to be imperceptible.’

Step two:

‘a desire collapses into an action.”

I point that out because in our outcome driven world inevitably a dream is pushed into a corner being bludgeoned with “what are you going to do to attain that dream !!??!!”

Look. I am all for taking steps to attain your dream, but the definition suggests that the intense dreams <think the ones that are truly worth paying attention to> inevitably collapse into an action.

In other words.

I don’t make a plan, the dream begets a plan.

In other words.

Reality is shaped by a dream <we don’t shape reality to ‘force’ a dream into being>.

=======

“That’s the problem with dreams” he said, “Reality just can’t compete.”

e.m.b

============

Life, and reality, pushes and pulls us in many directions.

And, more often than not, Life, and reality, places more stop signs in front of us then ‘this way to your dream’ signs. That means to have a dream that is big enough to reshape reality is … well … uhm … means that the potentials that are too intense to be imperceptible.

It isn’t about money.

It isn’t about some sating some ego driven idea.

It is about having intensified to the objective reduction threshold, a desire collapses into an action.

And that is where dreamers know something that non dreamers do <part 1> … nowhere in this definition or Life equation is ‘fear.’

Far too many times dreams get attached to thoughts like ‘not pursued due to fear …”

And that is where dreamers know something that non dreamers do <part 2> … nowhere in this definition or Life equation is ‘courage.’

Far too many times dreams get attached to “people who had the courage to pursue …”

Dreams have nothing to do with fear or courage. In fact dreams, the real meaningful ones, are out of our conscious control. They are a force in and of themselves. They beget the action by sheer force of intensity. Big, small or in between dreams, the meaningful ones, may have more power than anything else in the world. And while much of the world looks at dreamers as wistfully delusional … it is more likely than not purposeful willfully delusional.

We dreamers dream with purpose. Not for outcome, but of what can be. And when we get a dream right, or maybe better said, when the dream is right for us … well … there is no obstacle too big, no fear too great and no courage is needed, because the dream itself is the energy forward.

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“Well, maybe it started that way. As a dream, but doesn’t everything. Those buildings. These lights. This whole city.

Somebody had to dream about it first. And maybe that is what I did. I dreamed about coming here, but then I did it.”

James and the Giant Peach

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This is really hard to explain to non-dreamers. But. It doesn’t really matter <it never really does with dreams>.

======

The dreamer dies, but never dies the dream,

Though Death shall call the whirlwind to his aid,

Enlist men’s passions, trick their hearts with hate,

Still shall the Vision live! Say never more

That dreams are fragile things. What else endures

Of all this broken world save only dreams!

Dana Burnet

—

“Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows’ Eve.”

Ray Bradbury

===

Happy Halloween.

I have a love – hate relationship with Halloween.

Love. Love the chocolate and the ‘pomp and circumstance’ of one of the goofiest nights in the world as ghosts and spirits of loved ones <and I assume some not-so-loved ones> wander the world being as persnickety <I just wanted to type that word> and aggravating as they were when they stood near you in their flesh & blood, and children can wander the neighborhood unattended dressed up as whatever they want trick-or-treating <begging/demanding as much sugar as they can possibly consume> or, in general, simply wreaking havoc as young people do <just not in cars – that comes later in the teen years>.

Hate? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … the cats.

Cats are probably the most useless animals and pets in the world. I am sure they have some redeeming value it is just that I have yet to find any <if but one>.

Oh. Please note here … I am a dog guy.

Anyway.

Cats. Halloween has too strong an association with cats for my liking.

We seem to be able to blame this association on European pagan religions which were tightly associated with the animals of nature, including the cat, in the good ole <dark ages> days.

Then Christianity put the kibosh on all that pagan stuff — kind of decided that witchcraft was a bad thing — and since everyone associated cats with witches, well, there you go. Cats were deemed evil by association.

Aside from the old Popes <who apparently were dog lovers too> there are a bunch of old myths that attribute bad luck to cats:

–          King Charles I of England owned a black cat and the day it died he was arrested.

–          An old sailor’s legend said that meeting cats in the shipyard meant an unpleasant voyage of storms or other bad luck.

–          In Babylonian folklore a curled up cat on the hearth is seen as similar to evil serpent.

There you go.

Hopefully I have covered my butt with all the crazy cat ladies who want to throw used kitty litter at me for saying I hate cats by noting that my cat concerns are rooted in some historical, if not mythical, thoughts.

Regardless.

Some things you should be aware of that you may not know <albeit I doubt is very useful> about Halloween:

–          There’s a $1,000 fine for using or selling Silly String in Hollywood on Halloween.

The prank product has been banned in Hollywood since 2004 after thousands of bored people would buy it on the streets of Hollywood from illegal vendors and “vandalize” the streets. The city ordinance calls for a maximum $1,000 fine and/or six months in jail for “use, possession, sale or distribution of Silly String in Hollywood from 12:01 AM on October 31 to 12:00 PM on November 1.”

–          Dressing up on Halloween comes from the Celts <no, not the Boston Celtics, the Celts in great Britain history>.

Celts believed their version of a Halloween date was a time when the wall between our world and the paranormal world was porous and spirits could get through. Because of this belief, it was common for the Celts to wear costumes and masks during the festival to ward off or befuddle any evil spirits.

–          Ah. Celts were pagans, but the name “Halloween” comes from the Catholics.

Hallowmas is a three-day Catholic holiday where saints are honored and people pray for the recently deceased. At the start of the 11th century, it was decreed by the pope that it would last from Oct. 31 (All Hallow’s Eve) until Nov. 2,

<speculation on my part: we should note that the dog loving Popes were smart enough to place this holiday at this time most likely because that was when the cat loving pagans celebrated and the church was trying to convert them – into dog lovers>.

“All Hallow’s Eve” then evolved into “All Hallow’s Even” and by the 18th century it was commonly referred to as “Hallowe’en.”

–          Turnips

Pumpkins are a fraud. We should probably blame Hallmark, but instead we can just blame America for this too. Halloween originally had nothing to do with pumpkins … it was turnips.

The origin of Jack-O-Lanterns comes from a Celtic folk tale of a stingy farmer named Jack who would constantly play tricks on the devil. The devil responded by forcing him to wander purgatory with only a burning lump of coal from hell. Jack took the coal and made a lantern from a turnip using it to guide his lost soul. The myth was brought over by Irish families fleeing the potato famine in the 1800s, and since turnips were hard to come by in the U.S., America’s pumpkins were used as a substitute to guide lost souls and keep evil spirits like “Jack of the Lantern” away.

–          Media is part of the horror story of Halloween.

Media is made up of witches and warlocks. Well. They must be. Because fears of poisoned Halloween candy are unfounded but a constant story on media.

One of our biggest fears is a child’s Halloween candy is poisoned or contains razor blades.

The truth?

This fear is almost entirely unfounded.

There are only two known cases of poisoning, and both involved relatives, according to LiveScience. In 1970, a boy died of a heroin overdose. The investigators found it on his candy, but in a twist they later discovered the boy had accidentally consumed some of his uncle’s heroin stash, and the family had sprinkled some on the candy to cover up the incident. Even worse, in 1974 Timothy O’Bryan died after eating a Pixy Stix his father had laced with cyanide to collect on the insurance money <according to Smithsonian Magazine>.

Besides that the razor blade in apple story is a myth <unproven or simply staged>.

The real point of sharing this is that your kid has less to fear from some unknown random neighbor than he/she does from someone they already know <that is an extremely unfortunate  Life truth in general … sigh>.

–          I hate Candy Corn. Oh. And it was originally known as chicken feed.

Invented by some guy at the Wunderle Candy Company in Philadelphia in the 1880s, Candy Corn was originally called “butter cream candies” and “chicken feed.” Ah. There was a reason. Back then corn was commonly used as food for livestock <they even had a rooster on the candy boxes>.

At that time candy corn had no association with Halloween or fall and was sold seasonally from March to November.

After World War II, advertisers began marketing it as a special Halloween treat due to its colors and ties to the fall harvest <the bastards … who the heck actually eats that stuff?>.

–          A full moon on Halloween is extremely rare.

Although almost every Halloween decoration seen is with witches flying across the full moon … just another marketing lie. The next full moon on Halloween won’t occur until 2020. The last was in 2001. Before that it was in 1955. Brilliant marketing … but it is just another lie <sigh>.

–          Trick-or-treating has been around for a long time <so America or capitalism cannot be blamed for this greedy little maneuver>.

Versions of trick-or-treating have existed since medieval times.

It was known as ‘guising’ where children and poor adults went around in costumes during this time begging for food and money in exchange for songs or prayers. It was also called “souling.”

–          thank you Great Pumpkin and Charlie Brown.

Trick-or-treating as we know it was re-popularized by cartoons.

Trick-or-treating was brought to America by the Irish and became popular during the early 20th century, but died out during WWII when sugar was rationed. After the rationing ended in 1947, children’s magazine “Jack and Jill,” radio program “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” and the “Peanuts” comic strip all helped to re-popularize the tradition of dressing up in costumes and asking for candy from door-to-door. By 1952, trick-or-treating was hugely popular again <thank you Charlie Brown and Linus and the Great Pumpkin>.

There you go.

Today in America we will share or consume something like 90 million pounds of chocolate.

Awesome <and we wonder about a national obesity issue … sorry … different post, by the way, I blame cats for that too by the way>.

Americans will also spend about $6 billion on Halloween including candy, costumes, and decorations <note: that does not include the wacky cat costumes crazy cat people make their cats wear>.

Happy Halloween.