Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

I think…therefore I’m dangerous.

What Is Truth?

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I thought I knew, but now I’m not so sure.

One of the things I value most in life is truth.

Maybe I’m old fashioned. Maybe I’m idealistic. Maybe I’m a dreamer.

Maybe I’m just an idiot.

But throughout my life — especially as I got older and began understanding the world around me — truth became a guiding principle. When I ask a question, I expect an honest reply. When I watch the news, I expect to see and hear what really happened. When I look at a photograph, I expect it to be an accurate representation of what was in front of the camera lens when the image was captured.

To me, it’s impossible to function effectively and make the best decisions unless the information you have is the truth.

Lies waste time. They build distrust. They lead to bad decisions. They destroy relationships.

And there’s a funny thing about lies: they’re usually discovered and the liar is revealed as a liar.

Lying is stupid.

Truth in Today’s World

Sadly, truth seems to have little value in today’s world. The most recent political campaigns really brought that home. There were numerous advertisements that misrepresented the facts to the point of actually spreading lies. The most notorious examples were Mitt Romney’s Jeep ads which played in Ohio and elsewhere, and claimed that Chrysler was sending Jeep manufacturing jobs to China (among other things). This had already been proven false after Romney made the same claim in a speech just days before. But they aired the ad anyway, purposely spreading lies.

And no, Romney wasn’t the only liar out there this past campaign season. There were plenty of other liars on all points of the political spectrum. It got so bad that numerous fact-checker websites and news site features popped up to share the burden with established sites such as Politifact.com.

But this post isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. And lies.

The public these days seems to have little regard for the truth. They hear various versions of something that interests them. Rather than take the time or effort to determine which is most accurate, they choose the story that best matches what they want to hear — the version that supports their belief or their decision. Everything else is disregarded — either forgotten or categorized as untrue.

Anyone with an email inbox and a second cousin or uncle knows the kind of crap that floats around the Internet. Crazy stories, conspiracy theories, links to articles that anyone with a skeptical eye would cringe at. The problem is, that second cousin or uncle believes what he’s sent you is true. And he got it from someone else who also believes it. And so on and so on. It supports their beliefs or decisions and that’s all they really care about. They want you to know the “truth” so you can share their belief or decision.

As you might imagine, this drives me — a person who values real truth, no matter what it might lead to — bonkers. Life’s too short to waste it with lies. And some decisions are too important to make them based on lies.

Am I the only person to understand this?

Is it Okay to Lie?

In an effort to replace my soon-to-be ex-husband with a suitable partner, I’ve resorted to online dating services. (A big mistake; I’ll blog about it in detail when my experiment is over, hopefully soon.) The topic of truth vs. lies applies to these sites in a number of different ways.

When you sign up for these sites, they ask you a series of questions about yourself and your ideal mate. Some sites have very rudimentary questionnaires. Others have extremely lengthy questionnaires. Indeed, one of the sites I’ve tried offers more than 10,000 questions for you to answer.

One of the multiple choice questions on one of the sites went something like this:

Is it okay to lie?

• Yes.
• White lies are okay.
• Not usually.
• Never.

This question reminds me of the old puzzler, the Liar Paradox, which is sometimes expressed with the single statement, “This sentence is false.” Is it false? It can’t be true or false, hence the paradox.

Similarly, if a person responds that it’s Never okay to lie but he’s lying, how much else is a lie? But, as usual, I digress.

Side Note: My unwillingness to lie got me into serious trouble years ago at a family gathering. It’s a kind of funny story, so I’ll tell it here. I can use a good laugh. The trick is to tell it without names so I don’t get in trouble again. Here goes.

My soon-to-be ex-husband’s Brother was married to Wife. Wife absolutely hated Girlfriend who was the girlfriend of Brother’s Cousin. Got that? Two couples: Brother and Wife, Cousin and Girlfriend.

At a huge Thanksgiving dinner at our old house in New Jersey that Brother and Wife attended but Cousin and Girlfriend did not, Wife asked me, “Would you rather have Cousin and Girlfriend here than us?” Not knowing how to answer that loaded question without lying — because I honestly liked Cousin and Girlfriend much better — I simply didn’t answer. Wife exploded in anger. “You rather have them here than us?!”

Needless to say, things between me and Wife went downhill from there. No great loss, fortunately. I have no patience for that kind of petty bullshit.

I had a problem with this question. In general, I don’t believe in lying — and I don’t generally lie. When asked a question I’m not comfortable with being 100% truthful, I’ll avoid answering the question or I’ll dance around the truth or I’ll make factual statements that might not answer the question or I’ll answer part of the question that I have no problem with. In other words, I’ll do everything within my power to avoid lying.

But then I started thinking about white lies. To me, a white lie is something you tell to spare another person’s feelings. It’s not true, but it’s also not harmful.

Every man should know, for example, that the answer to his wife’s question, “Does this dress make me look fat?” is “No,” no matter what the truth is.

But even a white lie like that could cause harm. Suppose the wife is going to her 20th high school reunion. Suppose that throughout high school she was teased mercilessly about being overweight. She wants to look her best — indeed, it’s important to her that she look great. And suppose the dress doesn’t really make her look that good at all. Wouldn’t it be better for the husband to recommend another outfit or even suggest going shopping for one? Isn’t it better for his wife to make the decision for this important event based on factual information?

So what’s the answer to the dating site question above? I think I might have chosen “Not Usually” — and that’s because I wanted to be truthful with my answer. But, as you might expect, most of the “matches” for me that answered this question said “Never” — leading me to wonder how truthful they were being.

I’ll save my rant about honesty on dating sites for another post.

Lies and My Life

Because I don’t lie and I don’t believe in lying, when someone else lies, it really bothers me — probably a lot more than it bothers most people, given my earlier discussion about truth in today’s world. And when those lies are about me and they’re presented in a place where truth is vitally important — I’m shattered.

That’s what happened to me last week. Without getting so detailed that I get myself in trouble, I’ll just say that court-submitted documents accused me of performing several acts that I not only did not do, but I would never do. These documents also lied about the ownership of a specific asset that was mine.

Reading these documents was like being stabbed in the heart — especially when I considered where the lies had come from. Listening in on a phone call with the judge who might be making decisions regarding my financial future and hearing these same lies repeated was like getting that knife twisted. Someone was lying about me to a judge and I was unable to defend myself properly. To me, there’s nothing worse than being in this situation.

I realize that I’m not the only person on the planet to be a victim of lies submitted in court. It’s just nightmarish to find myself in this situation.

The FugitiveThink of all the movies you’ve ever seen, all the books you’ve ever read, all the news stories you’ve heard about, where the protagonist — a “good guy” — is victimized by lies told about him to make him seem, to everyone else, like a bad guy. You watch or read or hear what he’s going through and you squirm, feeling for him, rooting for him, glad that you’re not in his shoes.

Right now, I have a pretty good feeling of what it’s like to be in those shoes. And trust me: it sucks. There’s nothing worse than the thought that a decision about your future might be based on lies presented by other people who will benefit from your downfall. And that’s what I’m dealing with now.

After the phone call, I went to my regularly scheduled appointment with my grief therapist. And I spent the entire hour crying. There was simply nothing else I could do.

It wasn’t just the situation I was in — hopefully, the falsehood of the claims (established on Saturday) and my lawyers will be able to fix some of the damage done to my character. It was the simple fact that someone I used to trust had lied about me. Lied extensively. Lied cruelly and hurtfully. Lied for a selfish, hateful purpose.

As someone who doesn’t lie, it was hard for me to accept that this other person would — even though events of the past eight months have revealed more lies than I can count. It’s just so hard for me to accept.

Black and White

I’ll admit that one of my big problems with truth is that I’m always trying to categorize something as true or false. This caused a lot of trouble between me and my soon-to-be ex-husband throughout the later years of our relationship — and it continues to do so today.

You see, the problem is that he saw shades of gray where I saw black and white. He’d say that he couldn’t make a conclusion about something because there was no yes or no answer (shades of gray) and I’d clearly see a yes or a no answer (black and white).

Don’t get the idea that I never saw shades of gray — I certainly did in many instances and still do. But often, when I saw black and white, he saw shades of gray. That would cause arguments that often went unresolved. I couldn’t convince him of my point and he couldn’t convince me of his.

Sometimes, this would frustrate me to no end. I understand that not everyone sees things the same way. I understand that not everyone has the same knowledge or experience on which to base a conclusion. But in many of the instances where we argued, I simply could not understand why he couldn’t see the situation the same way I did. And near the end of our relationship, I began to suspect that he was arguing with me over it because he didn’t want to admit that I might be right. Or just for the sake of arguing.

(In the 20-20 vision of hindsight, this should have raised red flags with me. But I had too much invested emotionally in our relationship to admit that there was a problem. I thought he was an honest person. I didn’t realize that his personality would allow pride to trump truth.)

I saw my soon-to-be ex-husband on Saturday and was able, for the first time since July, to speak to him privately. It was an eye-opening experience. Either he’s the best actor in the world and should be given an Oscar for his performance, or he is not the evil monster I thought he had become. I’m left confused, unsure of what is the truth. Is this black and white or gray? I don’t know.

Or is it a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? A lot of friends and family members have been talking about this being “midlife crisis” and I think there’s a distinct possibility that some physiological factors — perhaps even andropause (discussed in this WebMD video) — may have triggered his seemingly irrational actions over the past year or so. I’ve certainly seen him present himself as two different people, depending on circumstances. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These days, I just don’t know who I’m dealing with.

But to be fair to him — which many of my friends and family members will argue is a waste of my time — I’ve tried to think about some of the things that led to the downfall of our relationship. I’m not talking about how he ended it — that’s black and white to me. I’m talking about the points where we disagreed.

He said on Saturday, for example, that I wanted a business partner instead of a husband or lover. (I can’t remember his exact words, but I know he said “business partner.”) I never thought of our problems this way. I certainly wanted a loving husband: someone to do things with, cuddle with, make love with. Someone to plan and share a life with. And I think we did have that kind of relationship for most of our 29 years together. But I admit that I also hoped he could be part of my business life.

There were two reasons for this:

  • For the past 8 years or so, he’d been bouncing from one unsatisfying job to another, never really finding a job that was a good fit for him. Throughout that time, I offered him options to work with me part time in my business endeavors — real estate, FBO management, and helicopter charters — hoping it would help me grow the businesses enough to support both of us. But he never seemed interested in fully committing to the work I needed him to do. More often than not, he’d let me down and I’d give up. The last regular job he had before we split was making him absolutely miserable and I wanted so badly to help him — even going so far as to offer to relieve him of the debt he had from a property he’d bought that had gone underwater with the housing crisis. But he simply wouldn’t let me help.
  • Around the time we got married in 2006, he promised that he’d join me in my business when he turned 55. Since then, I’ve been planning and working hard to make this transition not only easy for him but financially feasible for both of us. Although he broke this promise — he turned 56 in May — I always had hope that he’d still fulfill it. I saw a great future for us, migrating north in the summer for work, goofing off wherever we wanted to for the rest of the year. A sort of semi-retirement. I thought we were on the same page with this goal. He never told me we weren’t. He only said he wasn’t ready “yet.”

I’m trying to think back on these things, trying hard to see them from his point of view. But it’s difficult, probably because he wasn’t honest with me when they happened. Was he just agreeing to things I suggested and pretending they weren’t a problem for him the same way we tell “white lies” to spare people’s feelings? I don’t know. I hope not. I value truth — I want my life partner to always be truthful to me, no matter how much it hurts. (“Yes, that dress makes you look fat.”)

But he waited until our relationship was over — and he’d replaced me with another woman — before telling me the truth in a long overdue conversation at the edge of a parking lot.

And that hurts.

It also makes me wonder just how many of those 29 years was spent living with lies.

Why did he keep putting off the conversation the marriage counsellor said we should have? Had he already planned his escape from me? That’s what I’m left wondering. Is he evil after all? What is the truth?

Twisting the Truth

But even the truth can be twisted into something that’s not quite true. Something black and white can be turned into something gray.

That’s what I’m facing now. Certain facts — truths — are being used as “evidence” of something that really didn’t happen as described. This is being done primarily by exaggerating the importance of these facts, blowing them out of proportion, and neglecting to present other facts that reveal their true significance.

Here’s a purely hypothetical example. Suppose you bought a small house as a rental property. You chose the building, you made the downpayment, you got the mortgage in your name, you were making all the payments. You were the property owner and solely financially responsible for it. Now suppose you needed to move some furniture and do some repair work. You ask a friend of yours for help and he says yes. You move the furniture together. He fixes a leaky faucet while you scrub the toilets. There’s no talk of payment for his services; he seems happy enough just to let you buy him lunch or spend the rest of the day doing something else with him. Meanwhile, throughout your friendship, he asks for similar favors to help him with things he needs done and you’re more than willing to help. This goes on occasionally over the course of a few years. Eventually, you get tired of being a landlord and sell the property at a profit.

Now, years later, imagine that friend stepping forward and saying, “Hey, you owe me a piece of that profit because I helped you manage the property and you never paid me.” He doesn’t mention any of the things you did to help him out over the years.

The truth is, he did help you with some of your management chores. The truth is, you didn’t pay him with cash for his time or efforts. But can he twist these truths to prove that he had a financial interest in the property? I guess he could try.

Is it right? Well, I could launch into yet another long discussion of right vs. wrong, but it would likely read very much like my truth vs. lies discussion here.

Everyone seems to have their own idea of what’s right and what’s wrong. Personal ethics apparently vary from one person to the next.

Even when someone knows deep down inside that a path he’s going down is morally or ethically wrong, he can convince himself that it’s justified, often by reminding himself of the truths that support his path. It’s easier to look at something with a sort of “tunnel vision” that only shows the facts you want to see than to see the big picture and all the facts and make an ethical conclusion.

It all depends on your conscience — and whether you have one.

Deep Thoughts Indeed

This blog has only a few categories or blog topics. “Deep Thoughts” is one of them. I created the topic to categorize posts that explored issues that were more philosophical than anything else. In this topic, you’ll find posts about politics and religion, as well as thoughts I have about life, relationships, injustices, emotions, communication, and, of course, divorce.

This is where I bare my soul to readers, where I let them into not just my life, but my head. This is where I share what I think and why I think it.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me about these things. All I expect is for readers who read these posts to think about what I’m saying. Maybe my point of view isn’t the same as yours, but maybe reading what I think can help you understand how others might think.

At the same time, I welcome non-abusive comments from readers. What you have to say about my blogs posts can help me better understand the way you and others think.

This discussion of truth was difficult for me to write — mostly because I had to draw on recent experiences to illustrate the points I was trying to make. Those recent experiences have been extremely painful to me. Every day brings more confusion, more disappointment, and often more pain.

Although I have such strong feelings for the idea of truth and want to see it throughout my world and life, I know that’s not much more than a pipe dream. Truth is hard to come by — which is what probably makes it so precious to me. Lies can and do hurt. And truth can be twisted so far that it could become a lie.

But is it too much to hope for truth and honor and ethics in our everyday life?

I hope not. Because when we get to the point where truth, honor, and ethics are no more than old-fashioned concepts defined in a dictionary, I don’t think life would be worth living.

A Bit More about the Republican Party

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It’s the science, stupid.

The 2012 Presidential campaign — and its aftermath — continues to weigh heavily on my mind. The other day, I finally got around to blogging my thoughts on the Republican Party, aided, in part, by yet another excellent blog post by Jim Wright on Stonekettle Station. I thought that would be enough to get it off my mind. But no, I still had some more mulling over to do.

You see, it bothered me that I really didn’t clearly indicate why I have such bad feelings about the GOP. I mentioned that I thought certain elected representatives and senators were “batshit crazy” and gave some examples. But I didn’t really connect the dots to explain exactly what bothered me personally about these people.

Thinking a little harder about Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s comments about the age of the earth helped me better understand what was going on in my subconscious about this. From the GQ interview, “All Eyez On Him,” where they were first made:

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?

Marco Rubio: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

This is, of course, outrageous. Scientists have accumulated enough evidence to estimate the earth’s age at 4.54 million billion years old. There are not “multiple theories” that dispute this. There’s only science and religion. Science is based on research, facts, and analysis. Religion does not have “theories” about anything. All it has are sacred texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago. Sacred text that believers, by definition, must believe.

So when I read about this, I used it as an example in my post of the craziness of certain Republicans.

And then an article by Daniel Engber in Slate Magazine, “Rubio and Obama and the age of Earth: Politicians hedge about whether universe was created,” suggested that Obama had made a similar statement in an interview back in 2008, when he was running for president. The quote:

Q: Senator, if one of your daughters asked you—and maybe they already have—“Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?

A: What I’ve said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that’s what I believe. I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and I think it’s a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don’t presume to know.

The article goes on to compare the quotes from these two men, claiming that they’re not very different. The argument is compelling — at first. But bloggers at the Maddow Blog had no trouble picking it apart and zeroing in on what made the comparison fail. In “Those Who Celebrate Science (and Those Who Don’t),” Steve Benen says:

Rubio was asked a scientific question in a secular setting, offered an ambiguous response as to whether he believes the planet is billions or thousands of years old, and suggested an objective, scientific truth may be unknowable, though reality shows otherwise.

On the other hand, Obama was asked a theological question in a religious setting, offered a response that rejected young-earth pseudo-science, and suggested spiritual, philosophical truths may be unknowable.

That blog post then went on to give good examples of how Obama embraces science.

Paul Krugman’s article in The New York Times, “Grand Old Planet,” takes this news tidbit to the next level:

By the way, that question didn’t come out of the blue. As speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Mr. Rubio provided powerful aid to creationists trying to water down science education. In one interview, he compared the teaching of evolution to Communist indoctrination tactics — although he graciously added that “I’m not equating the evolution people with Fidel Castro.” Gee, thanks.

What was Mr. Rubio’s complaint about science teaching? That it might undermine children’s faith in what their parents told them to believe. And right there you have the modern G.O.P.’s attitude, not just toward biology, but toward everything: If evidence seems to contradict faith, suppress the evidence. (emphasis added)

Mr. Krugman goes on to point out several other examples where Republicans have suppressed hard facts that challenge their faith-based preconceptions. I won’t repeat them all here; go read the article. It’s short and very worthwhile.

Republican War on Science(By the way, Mr. Krugman also mentions Chris Mooney’s book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science–and Reality. He doesn’t mention Mr. Mooney’s earlier book, The Republican War on Science, “the New York Times bestseller that exposes the conservative agenda to put politics ahead of scientific truth.” I think both are worth a read if you care about science and how politics can affect our future.)

And this is why I’m so opposed to the Republican way of thinking. These people are, for the most part, putting their religion before science and everything else. They’re trying to force a faith-based educational and political agenda on everyone in this country — no matter what everyone else believes. They seem to forget the doctrine of separation of church and state. They’re willing to sacrifice our ability to lead the world in science and technology so as not to offend a god that their fellow Americans may or may not believe in.

Personally, I’m horrified at the suggestion that creation (or “intelligent design”) be taught in public schools alongside evolution. I think it’s tragic that people are still trying to deny that climate change is real and likely caused by man. And it pisses me off to no end that public proceedings such as Town Council meetings often begin with a prayer and that I’m asked to “swear to God” in court. As if nothing can be done in the legal world without acknowledging a supreme being that has the power to guide or punish us.

(Let’s not forget that the original Pledge of Allegiance did not include the phrase “under God” until 1954.)

And don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of a political party that’s constantly whining about how our freedoms are being compromised wanting to regulate what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes.

Anyway, I think this post finishes the thought I started in my previous blog post. I think it connects the dots to clearly state what bothers me most about the Republican way of thinking.

I’m willing to bet that this way of thinking is turning off a lot of otherwise conservative people. I think that if the GOP would stop its faith-based crazy-talk and get back to reality, it will likely attract a lot more voters in the future.

Again, I’ll leave comments open until moderation becomes a chore. If you want your comment to appear, keep it civil.

The Problem with the Republican Party

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Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station said it best.

This post is a bit late…it should have been written and posted at least a week ago when we were still pumped up by post-election euphoria or misery. But I don’t want to skip the topic — it needs to be addressed in this blog so I have a record of it in years to come.

Although I might be considered a fiscal conservative, I cannot wear a “conservative” label. I lean more to the left in social policies and I’m libertarian as far as government involvement in our private lives goes. Without going into detail about my specific beliefs — because they just don’t matter as far as this post is concerned — it’s pretty safe to say that I identify more with the Democrats than the Republicans in this country.

As a thinking person who values true freedom and wants very badly to love her country, I have a serious problem with the way this country has become divided along party lines. To be fair, there’s always been a certain split, but it’s only recently — perhaps since Clinton’s presidency? — that the split has become wide with a lot of hate on both sides. The result: a governing body that spends more time obstructing the other side than getting anything done for the country as a whole.

“Freedom,” by the way, isn’t some idealistic concept that means flag waving and invokes images of Revolutionary War battles and heroes. Freedom means the ability to do as you please, within certain widely accepted social limitations. You might be free to stand on a street corner and lecture passers by about your religious beliefs, but you can’t grab people and take them, against their will, to church with you. You might be free to carry a gun, but you’re not free to shoot your next door neighbor with it because his dog barked all night. You might be free to have sex with a consenting adult, but you can’t have sex with a child (consenting or otherwise). Silly that we need laws to limit our freedoms, but some people don’t quite understand what’s socially or morally acceptable.

No matter which side you’re on, it’s easy to find fault with the other side. Maybe because I lean left, I find a lot of problems with the right. They claim they want small government, yet they want laws to prohibit many too many things that affect our private lives — abortion and same-sex marriage come to mind. And although this country was founded by deists who were in favor of religious freedom, the right wing has somehow twisted that to mean that Christians should have preferential treatment and be able to push their beliefs on the rest of us. They’re pushing hard to include non-scientific, faith-based information — such as creationism (often poorly disguised as something called “intelligent design”) in public school curriculums.

And to me, some of the things elected Republican politicians are saying in public are just plain batshit crazy. Want some examples? Try these from just the past few months:

And that’s what really hits home with me. These people don’t just have a different point of view. I think they’re off-the-wall crazy, showing an amazing amount of ignorance or simple denial of what science has already told us. And for what reason? Do they really believe this stuff or are they pandering to an ultra-conservative base?

And what has happened to the Republican Party? They weren’t always this crazy, were they?

Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station blogs regularly about politics. His November 7, 2012 post titled “Hemlock With A Small Side of Schadenfreude” is typically long and rambling, but he brings my point home near the end. I’ve gotten his permission to reproduce the key paragraphs here:

Once upon a time the faces of the Republican Party were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, and, hell, Ronald Reagan. 

Today the public face of the GOP is Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the Koch Brothers, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and a silly old man shouting at an empty chair. 

Once upon a time, the Republican Party stood for freedom, the end of slavery, the extension of rights to all Americans, the reasonable  regulation of business and monopolies and the protection of the little man from the same.  The first president to call for pluralism, i.e. multiculturalism, was a Republican, William McKinley.  The republican who followed, one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen, Teddy Roosevelt, believed in science, in reason, in the conservation of nature and the husbanding of our natural resources, the protection of our lands, in equality for all, and in peace. Republicans once upon a time believed In freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

Today the GOP would make businesses into citizens and make citizens into property. They squint suspiciously at any non-Christian and seem hell bent on denying others their just and due rights as Americans based on those self-same religious beliefs. Science, natural resources, and the environment seem to share equal contempt among conservatives nowadays. They are the party of drill, Baby, drill and legitimate rape. They’ve got abortion on the brain and are obsessively concerned with what other people might be doing in the privacy of their own bedrooms. The GOP has become the very military-industrial complex  another great Republican once warned us about. The GOP has given up science and become the party of Birthers and creationists and conspiracy nuts – and rather than distance themselves from such crazies, the modern Republican Party embraced them. One has only to look at the 2012 GOP Platform to see just how far they’ve drifted from the once great party of Lincoln.

Once upon a time, there was room in the Republican party. Room for competing ideas, room for reasoned debate and differences of opinion, room for all Americans.

Today, the Republican Party has grown very small – small in mind, small in ideas, small in tolerance.  They’ve become the party of loyalty oaths, purity balls, and secret handshakes.

Once upon a time, the Grand Old Party faced the world with the courage of Roosevelt, of Eisenhower, of Lincoln.

Today, this morning, these last four years, the Republican Party is shrouded in the rank stench of hysteria and fear. They face the future with the false bravado of the coward and the blustering shallow patriotism epitomized by the likes of Ted Nugent.  They cower under their beds, clutching their guns and their bibles, deathly afraid of the future.

And this is exactly what I see.

Jim finishes up by adding:

The GOP is dying a slow death, poisoned by their own bitter tea. They are now firmly on the wrong side of history and unless something changes, they’ll wear that confused expression into oblivion without ever understanding why.

I don’t hate Republicans. I think they’re misguided. I think they’re missing the point. I think they’re not being open-minded and understanding enough to realize that not everyone thinks exactly the way they do.

If they want to move forward into the 21st century with the rest of us, the party needs to change. It needs to get smart and get real. Its pundits need to stop pushing hatred of anything different. It needs to become a bigger party, embracing a wider range of beliefs.

And it needs to remember that we’re all in the same boat — we need to work together to stay afloat, plot a course, move in a direction that’ll help all of us.

June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

I’ll leave comments open on this post — at least for a while. Remember our comment policy — no personal attacks on me or other commenters will be tolerated. If moderation becomes a chore for this post, I’ll simply shut the comments down.

Life Lessons

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How many have you learned?

The other day, one of my Twitter or Facebook friends linked to a blog post titled “10 Life Lessons People Learn Too Late.” I clicked over to it and gave it a quick read. And I realized two things:

  • I had already learned many of these life lessons.
  • The lessons I’d learned defined who I am and how I conduct my life.

(I also realized that while I’d already learned most of these lessons, my soon-to-be ex-husband had not. In thinking this over, I realize that this was part of the reason we’d grown apart over the past few years. I was motivated by many of the the lessons I’d learned in life; he was not. (Actually, I’m not sure if he was motivated by anything.) But since there’s nothing to be done to help him, enough said.)

In this post, I’d like to explore these ten life lessons, how I learned them, and how they affect my life. Maybe it can provide some insight for people who still need to learn. I won’t duplicate that blog post here; you should read the original either before or after you read what follows here to fully understand what the author was talking about. I’ll just list the first line of each bullet point as a discussion heading.

1. This moment is your life.

Carpe diem. This reminds me that I really need to re-watch The Dead Poets Society. Seeing that movie might have been when I first became familiar with the concept of “seizing the day” and making every moment count.

What does this mean to me? It means not wasting time with meaningless crap when you can be doing something better. The opening lines of one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs, Time, comes to mind:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t make the most of every moment of my life. I don’t think anyone can. Life is too full of the piddly bullshit that we need to do just to get by. Not every moment can be perfect, something worth remembering forever.

But understanding that each moment of your life is your life is the first step to having a better life. And if you approach each moment with that in mind, each moment will be better.

2. A lifetime isn’t very long.

Time
Ticking away the moments
That make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours
In an off-hand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground
In your home town
Waiting for someone or something
To show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today

And then the one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run and you run
To catch up with the sun
But it’s sinking

Racing around
To come up behind you again
The sun is the same
In a relative way
But you’re older

Shorter of breath
And one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way

The time is gone
The song is over
Thought I’d something more to say

Time lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., T.R.O. INC.

I always knew this, but the knowledge of it didn’t become a driving force in my life until 2008. That’s when my friend Erik, at age 56, was diagnosed with cancer. Erik had everything going for him — a family, financial security, and a helicopter business he really enjoyed. But a year later, Erik was dead.

What did this teach me — in no uncertain terms? Not only is life short, but it can be taken from you at any time. Why would anyone put off life goals to some later date — or retirement? Erik never had the opportunity to retire. If he’d put off any life goals until then, they were goals he’d never achieve.

If I had to make a list of the top 10 things that affected my life, Erik’s illness and death would be on it. That’s how profound it was to me. From that point forward, I began thinking about how I wanted to enjoy the rest of my life instead of working my ass off to save money for a future I might never see. I turned down book projects that I didn’t want to work on. I got my spending under control so I wouldn’t need to work so hard. And I started planning a future that included plenty of leisure time to travel and just have fun.

As for “bucket lists” — well, I don’t believe in them. Although it’s nice to have an idea of the things you want to do, building a long list of “things to do/see before you die” so they’re stored for some vague time in the future is pretty silly. Want to go skydiving? Do it this weekend. Want to see the pyramids? Plan your trip for your next vacation. Keep your list short by crossing off things on it as soon as you can.

3. The sacrifices you make today will pay dividends in the future.

Wow. Does this one ever hit home. I learned pretty early on that in order to move forward, you had to pay dues — or make sacrifices. Just coasting along wasn’t going to help you get ahead in life.

Sacrifices come in many forms, but for me they usually come in the form of time or money. I’ve made many investments in my personal life that have paid off for me.

I bought my first decent computer in 1989 for a whopping $8K and spent hour after hour teaching myself to use it. That, combined communication skills I already had (through time spent reading and writing) made it possible for me to make a good living teaching others to use computers — in classrooms and in books and even in video training material.

I spent thousands of dollars and many, many weeks of my life learning to fly helicopters. I took a low-paying tour job in 2004 to build experience — when I could have stayed home and worked on various book projects that paid out fast. The experience I built made me a better, more confident pilot and helped me get the skills I needed to build my own charter business.

And over the past five summers, I lived in a trailer, parked on the dirt so I could be close to my cherry drying clients and their orchards — when I could have stayed in a more comfortable condo or even stayed home, satisfied with the occasional hot summer charter. The good service I provided to my clients earned me their respect — and more business.

These are just three examples. I think my life is full of sacrifices — along with their eventual benefits.

4. When you procrastinate, you become a slave to yesterday.

Although I’m often guilty of procrastination, I understand how completely idiotic it is. If you have something to do, do it. As soon as possible. You’ll be glad you did when it’s done.

Maybe I’m being dense, but I don’t exactly get the “slave to yesterday” concept. When you procrastinate, you simply add more things to your to-do list. It’s only by doing things — not procrastinating — that you get things done. So my lesson in procrastination is that you can get a lot more done when you don’t procrastinate.

5. Failures are only lessons.

This is another really good lesson that a lot of people just don’t get.

Too many people — and I can name a few that have touched my life — are too afraid of failure to attempt some things that can take them forward in life. I am not like that. In fact, I’m the opposite — sometimes I simply try to do too many things.

My record speaks for itself. I’ve succeeded at many of the things I’ve tried to do: building three successful careers, getting published (back when that actually meant something), investing in real estate, building a helicopter charter business, learning to ride motorcycles and ride horses and fly helicopters. I can list dozens of things I’ve tried and succeeded at.

But I can also list plenty of things I tried and did not succeed at. Being a landlord is one example — it was probably the most grueling and unrewarding thing I ever tried. Failing to do as well as I wanted to was quite a learning experience. I learned that residential real estate is a bitch to rent, that good tenants are few and far between, and that certain tenants need you looking over their shoulder all the time just to make sure they don’t trash your place. I also learned that it simply wasn’t worth the headaches to me.

There’s no reward without risk. In other words, if you don’t try to do something, you can’t succeed. I live by this creed. And I’ve learned that sometimes success has all kinds of great rewards.

But the main point is this: even when you fail, you learn something that you can use to guide you in the future. Failures are lessons.

6. You are your most important relationship.

This particular point refers to feeling good about yourself and not needing anyone else’s approval. I learned part of this lesson — I’ve been my own person for a long time and don’t really care too much what my peers think of me. I have a lot of confidence in my capabilities and, with confidence, comes self-esteem.

Unfortunately, however, I did care what my spouse thought. And since he apparently didn’t think very highly of me in the final days of our relationship, my personal self-esteem took a bit of a beating which, in turn, began to affect my health. Once I was away from him at my summer job, I was able to recover. (And now I obviously don’t give a damn what he thinks of me.)

Still, this is a lesson I need to remember on a go-forward basis. Living a relatively isolated existence — as I am now, waiting for my life “reboot” to finish so I can start the next chapter — makes it easy to forget my self worth.

7. A person’s actions speak the truth.

Sad to say, this isn’t something I learned until recently. I can thank my soon-to-be ex-husband for teaching me this one.

For most of my life, I’m afraid I was very trusting. No — I was too trusting. Silly me — I thought that when someone told me something, it was the truth or that they actually meant it. And when it was someone I’d been living with for 29 years — well, how could I possibly not believe that what he was telling me was true?

But the actions did speak the truth. When I discovered the betrayals, I learned the real truth. Needless to say, this was a valuable — although painful — lesson. I’m a lot more careful about who I trust now. And there’s one person I will never trust again.

8. Small acts of kindness can make the world a better place.

How can someone not know this lesson?

You’re walking up to the post office door, arms laden with packages to be mailed. Someone walking by — not even walking into or out of the post office! — changes course to open the door for you. A small act of kindness. Doesn’t it make you feel good? And don’t you think it makes the other person feel good when you say thanks?

Or you’re in the supermarket and a vertically challenged woman is having trouble reaching something on the top shelf of the aisle you’re walking down. You offer to get it down for her, she accepts, and you hand it to her. A small act of kindness. Don’t you think it makes both of you feel good?

These are tiny things. But they really make a difference. Do ten of these things a day and you’ll feel great — while making others feel good, too. The world can be a better place.

9. Behind every beautiful life, there has been some kind of pain.

Until recently, I felt “blessed.” Mind you, I don’t mean that in the religious sense. I just mean that throughout most of my life, things have gone very well for me. It wasn’t luck — I worked at it and made a lot of good decisions. But it mostly worked out and things were good. You could argue that I had (and still have, for that matter) a beautiful life.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected the run of good fortune to last forever. Things are different now. Losing the man I loved was a huge heartbreak for me, one that I’m still struggling (with professional help) to deal with. There’s a lot of pain in my life right now.

There’s also been some pain in the past. Losing loved ones, including cherished pets, leaving behind parts of my life that I wished I could retain.

But pain is part of life. If you’re fortunate, the good times far outweigh the bad.

10. Time and experience heals pain.

This is something else I’m just learning now. My grief counselor would argue this point — she’s given me a “workbook” full of exercises to help me deal with my loss and resulting pain. But I do believe that time and experience are the primary healers — as long as you’re open to be healed. I’m getting there.

What Do You Think?

Which of these lessons have you already learned? How did you learn them? How do they affect your life? Share your thoughts in the comments for this post. It would be interesting to get a good discussion started.

“Internet” is Not in this Class’s Dictionary

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Help me fix this problem.

Note: I’ve been purposely vague about my friend’s identity and details about her school. In all honesty, she’s a tiny bit concerned about her job and would prefer to remain anonymous.

A good friend of mine is a teacher in a local elementary school. The school has several hundred students and is located in a low-income, rural area just outside Phoenix. My friend has a class of about 23 students and is constantly struggling to keep their interest and teach them with the tools she is provided by the school district. More than a few times, she’s dipped into her own pockets to buy things her students need that aren’t provided by the school.

My friend doesn’t make much money. Although she loves to teach, she finds her job frustrating. She wants to help the kids learn, she wants to help them break the cycle of poverty and make better lives for themselves. But there isn’t enough money in the school district to buy the tools the kids need to learn. She’s considered leaving her job, but doesn’t want to let the kids down — their class has already lost two teachers mid-term in previous years. She thinks it’s important for them to have continuity throughout the year.

Meanwhile, the school district superintendent, who only has two schools to manage, is reportedly pulling in a six-digit salary and gets a $750 per month clothing/car allowance. His bonus last year was more than my friend earns as a salary.

Internet Not in the Dictionary?

Internet is not in this dictionaryThe other day, she and I were talking about how kids have access to things we didn’t have at their age. Referring to her class, she said, “When I tell my kids that we didn’t have the Internet when I was a kid, they don’t believe me. So I had them look it up in the dictionary. Our dictionaries are so old, they don’t include the word ‘Internet.'”

I was floored. Her class was using dictionaries that were that old? The word Internet came into general usage in the 1990s — her dictionaries was older than that?

Old DictionaryWe talked more about it and I discovered that not only were the dictionaries old, but there was a mix of them and not enough for all the kids. And although she was required to teach the kids about synonyms, they didn’t have any thesauruses.

I whipped out my iPad to see what an appropriate dictionary would cost. A decent paperback was available for only $5.99. It would cost less than $150 to buy 25 of them for her class. Or about $300 to buy enough for both classes in that grade. A fraction of the school superintendent’s monthly clothing/car allowance. Yet the superintendent got his check every month while the kids went without decent reference materials.

Can you imagine how much that annoyed me — a writer?

What Can I — or We — Do to Help?

It also got me thinking…what could I do to help?

Yes, I’m willing to spend $150 to buy 25 dictionaries for my friend’s class. But I could do better. With the help of my blog readers and social networking friends, maybe I could raise enough money to get all the kids in that grade a better, more durable hardcover dictionary and a thesaurus.

DictionaryI did more research on Amazon.com and found Merriam-Webster’s Intermediate Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Intermediate Thesaurus. The books were recently published, so they were up-to-date. They were designed for the right grade level. I could get both books for $24.77 with free shipping from Amazon prime. 50 copies would cost about $1,238.50.

I thought about The Oatmeal raising a ton of money for the Tesla Museum. I know that $1,238.50 is a lot less than the $1.37 million the Oatmeal raised. Yes, I have a lot less influence. But even if I got 100 people to donate $13 each, I’d have enough. And if I came up a little short, I could make up the difference.

No, I’m Not Nuts

At this point, you’re probably thinking I’m nuts. After all, what do I care about these kids? I’ve never met them and I’m never likely to meet them. And will having a decent dictionary really make a difference in their lives?

I’ll admit that for the vast majority of the kids, it probably won’t make a difference at all. But imagine it making a difference in just one kid’s life. Maybe he or she develops an interest in reading or writing or just using words to communicate better. Maybe browsing through the pictures in the book leads him or her to a word that sparks an interest in science or geology or history. Maybe just having a good reference book to learn from might help him or her score better on an exam down the road. Any of these things could change his or her future. It could break the cycle and open doors to a better life. Isn’t that enough to make it worth helping?

And these books would be around for years. Imagine making a difference on one kid’s life every year for the next 20 years. Isn’t that enough to make it worth helping?

I know it would make my friend’s job easier and a tiny bit less frustrating.

And yes, it’s a damned shame that tax dollars are funneled to superintendent compensation before educational materials for students — or even teacher pay. But I’ve tried fighting in the political arena before and got nowhere. I’d rather spend a few dollars to solve the problem from the outside than years of my life trying to fix it from the inside.

Will You Help?

With all this in mind, I set up a campaign on Indiegogo to raise $1,500 to cover the cost of the books, the rewards for big donors, and the campaign fees. I’m hoping you’ll click over there now and donate a few dollars to help me reach this goal.

If we come up short, I’ll try to make up the difference.

If we go over, I’d like to buy the younger kids copies of the Merriam-Webster Elementary Dictionary, which is designed for grades 3-5. I’d get as many copies as I could — hopefully enough to outfit at least one classroom. Those books are $11.66 each with free shipping.

And maybe you can also spread the word about this campaign? Tweet or share this blog post or the link to the campaign.

Thanks.