Life and Other Passions
Some advice to the young, which they don’t want, but here it is.
Develop as many skills and learn as much as you can about a lot of diverse topics, while you can.
Because no matter what you do in your life, either your job will become obsolete, or you will.
The more skills and education and experience you have in all manner of things, the greater your chances of being employed and earning money all your life.
You’ll also have more joy.
Keep yourself open to life.
NO.
Don’t equate a degree with employment potential.
It often does not match.
What counts is what you learned while getting your degree. Not what the degree is.
In my day, experience counted for a lot more than education. It was your education.
Now I would say, a good combination of both experience and education will make your life better. Not just for the money.
I had a lot of growing up to do when I quit my very secure, very well paying government job to pursue a Biology degree. To say I suffered a shock at that transition is an understatement. But it was the shakeup I needed. I was an emotional mess when I started university at the advanced age of 25. That experience matured me quite a bit and boy, did I need that.
It didn’t solve all my problems, but it set me on a better path in many ways.
And I NEVER made the money, nor had the security I had in that government job ever again.
I always had a lot less.
But what I gained mentally can never be equated with money.
I confess, when I was young it was not only OKAY to read books, but they were part of our school studies. We were encouraged to read everything.
Imagine that, we could read whatever we wanted.
And we did.
I remember books and the subsequent classroom discussions of them that had a huge impact on me. That made me THINK.
That is what the written word does. Makes you think.
Some of those books would never be in schools today. In Cold Blood. Catcher in the Rye. To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. Flowers for Algernon. Twelve Angry Men. Romeo and Juliet (Our teacher even took us to the theatre to watch Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, where, gasp, there was brief nudity).
The list is extensive. I was fortunate to have teachers not only present us with these, but discuss them as well, and let us decide for ourselves what we like or don’t like.
My parents had a huge library of books and none were off limits to me, from the day I could read. I read Benton’s Row. A Clockwork Orange. Valley of the Dolls. There were also lots of non-fiction in my house, Time Life Books, Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, and a plethora of physics, mechanics, biology.
At lunch time at school I used to read automotive mechanics. Can you imagine me doing that today?
One thing I have learned about the justice system is that it has very little to do with justice.
That statement is probably obvious to a lot of you already.
However, the depth of the above observation is unfathomable.
I took a course on Environmental Law, what an eye opener. It had little to do with the fate of the environment until the EPA was developed. Even then a lot of greed and ignorance reigned.
I read a book recently about what it will take to convict trump and it has nothing to do with accountability, obeying laws or righting wrongs. It made me sick.
I contemplate the Lady Justice statue and see how correct her depiction of justice is.
It ain’t pretty.
Why is it everything man touches is so complicated?
When I was young we had, what probably no one has heard of today, debating societies.
In school we would have contests to see which side could give the most convincing argument either for or against a certain topic or idea.
It gave us a chance to see important points on both sides of the street, as it were. These debates never, as far as I knew, caused trouble.
There were no murders or personal or cultural cancellations. It gave young people a chance to explore other opinions and ideas without fear. It made people think about issues and formulate their own opinions.
The debates never involved personal attack. No one was belittled or condemned for a point of view. It was all about facts and presentation. You might not be swayed by one point of view, but it made you think more clearly about issues.
To shake things up, a teacher would assign you, regardless of your personal opinions, to present a case often against what you believed in. This forced you to use your brain, to do research, and to see that often things are not as black and white as you previously thought.
This is what a good education is suppose to do – give you critical thinking and expand your mind.
Sadly missing today. Today, everything is about emotion. Just react to everything without a thought. It’s all about ME ME ME.
I’ve had all the emotion I can handle for a life time, thank you. Can we please just have interesting debates instead of out and out fury?
MONOCHROME
Coming soon, my latest tale, with the usual mix of weirdness.
Hope to publish April or May 2024.
Stay tuned!
To believe your life is no longer worth living is one of the saddest things.
Life will throw a lot of things at you, but if you chose to give up the fight, you have lost an important truth.
Life is a gift. It is precious.
I know this appears to be a trite statement. But I have found that these words are on a much higher level than I realized.
You don’t need to have a purpose, or meaning to your life, I certainly don’t.
You don’t even have to make a significant contribution, or have much realized impact on the world around you. I never have.
It is not about your title or position or what people say and think about you. I’ve found no matter how hard I strive, most of my efforts are ignored. I’ve spent most of my life feeling unworthy of any good thing.
Yet. I. LOVE. LIFE.
It seems like a contradiction to write that, but it is true.
I don’t love all of it, there are things that I hate, detest and make me very angry.
But I consider it ALL to be a process of my life. The good, the bad and the ugly are what makes me, me. This is what life is. You are not special because you suffer, we all suffer. Grant it some more than others. Life is NOT fair, ever. Count your blessings when it is fair to you.
Being alive is a blessing given to you.
This sounds yawn worthy, but there is a deeper message in that. Take your nose out of your navel and look around. See the big picture instead of your own navel fuzz.
Before you become bitter about life, consider what is worth staying around for.
You’ll find it has nothing to do with you at all.
Mystery of the universe.
How is it that hours after I have washed and dried my towels and bedding, they are still warm?
It is a delightful mystery!
I read an article that addressed the mental load that women carry in addition to the physical demands they cope with as mothers and wives.
But it is true of all women, not just those with children and husbands.
We are the ones expected to do not just the physical chores of maintaining our household, cleaning, laundry, cooking, dishes, etc. but the mental work too.
We are the ones who maintain relationships. We are the ones who provide the emotional support for others. We are caretakers, we nurture, provide sympathy, advice, help. We find the right medical help. Buy and administer the medicine, make sure of the right dosage at the right time.
We organize social events, parties, get togethers, dinners. We make sure we have household supplies, food. We prepare checklists, schedules. We make sure things are done on time. Appointments are made and kept. Arrange transportation. Plan vacations and make reservations and all that goes with it. Keep track of bills and payments, bank accounts and credit cards. Check on emails. Write letters. Make invitations. Prepare paper work and fill out forms.
We are also expected to be concerned about the world. Up to date on current events. Maybe even volunteering to help clean up pollution, fight poverty, take care of the elderly, rescue abandoned pets.
And then we do all the physical work too!
We also have to do all this at our jobs!
No wonder we are exhausted.
(A nod to my Mother – if only I had of realized how much you did when I was growing up. I am truly sorry I did not. I am so grateful Mom. Forgive me.)
I recently watched the first Star Wars movie and was sorely disappointed.
The story is great and timeless.
So why, Mr. Lucas did you muck with it?
Countless fans have already bemoaned the changed scenes, so I don’t need to rehash that. Especially the who shot first scene of Han Solo. But I also was unhappy with the stupid looking creatures added and the times the words did not match peoples mouths (the words had been changed).
As a writer, I know the temptation to go back and improve something created a long while ago, believing I know better now.
But I look at my old work as standing on their own and being the best I could do at that stage in my life. And what was true decades ago may no longer be true, may even be offensive today. How could I know that then?
But if someone loves my past work I am not ever going to change it. If they hate it and it is out of synch with the current times, I’ll delete it completely.
I have watched movies that have so many deleted scenes the story no longer makes sense. Why do they do that? Even the Muppet movie, of all things, deleted an entire scene from their version of the Christmas Carol. How crazy is that? And The World According to Garp removed the beginning scene, that although yes, some might find offensive, was the defining thing to the whole story. There were other parts removed from that movie that also made things a bit weird. Erik the Viking is another movie that got hacked up. But gee whiz. Modern movies are so full of graphic violence and sex and foul language that I find are a thousand times more offensive than any old movie or book.
I don’t care if the special effects of an old movie are dated, are not state of the art CGI. What matters is the story. If the story is terrific I can overlook the rest. You need to consider the time when things were produced. In the time period something was created there may be things that are politically and otherwise incorrect or offensive today. A Hitchcock movie made in the 1950’s is still very good. A book written decades ago is still thrilling. You can’t update them, they lose their magic. I think people are smart enough to realize that it is a product of the times, or if something is deliberately being offensive.
So please, give us the originals and let us decide for ourselves if we like it or not.