Greg Proffit Writing

Category: Words and Phrases

  • R-E-S-P-E-C-T: It’s Multi-Faceted Meanings & How Knowing The Variations Can Save Your Life

    R-E-S-P-E-C-T: It’s Multi-Faceted Meanings & How Knowing The Variations Can Save Your Life

    this essay is about respect
    Photo by Tiago Felipe Ferreira on Unsplash

    # 92 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: You should, respect a person (or not) based on 1- who they show themselves to be. But, you should respect authorities based on 2- what they can do to you. None can require you to respect the person in the uniform or office, refer to “1” for that.

    I could not write this essay about respect without hearing Aretha belt out the spelling in that inimitable, soulful way of hers. I hope you’ll enjoy that earworm. If you belong to my generation, you will. If not, you’re already thinking, “huh?”

    This is an essay about respect; its various meanings, its contextual application, and how knowing how to show respect appropriately can save your life.

    Words are idea containers 

    We need to think for a minute about what respect is and what it isn’t. Like Aretha, we spell it only one way. But we use it to mean many things. I won’t bore you with definitions except to say this about words: Words are idea containers.

    When my firstborn was young — precocious, verbal child that she was — if she saw something she didn’t have the vocabulary for, she used a catch-all container, the word “pumen” (rhymes with lumen). Her word box contained everything from blackberries to motorcycles, from horses to Santa Claus. It was a large container. We grew used to her pointing at something and asking, “What’s that pumen?”

    “Respect” tries too hard to contain too much

    My story has a point. Which is that some words contain ideas so numerous and varied the containment stretches and tests the adequacy of the word to hold and convey them all.

    The word “love” is a prime example. We use it to describe our feeling for bananas, baseball, and best friends.

    With words such as love, like, hate, we come to understand that context plays a role helping the hearer or reader infer the speaker or writer’s intent. There is a broad range of meaning in these “over packed” words.

    Respect is such a word. It is an over-packed, “try-hard” of a word attempting to do overmuch. It is the “pumen” of social lubricants and niceties. This gives it a wide spectrum of meaning. But not all the meanings are apropos for every usage. 

    A variety of meanings to fit the contextual and cultural pendulum

    There is a contextual and cultural pendulum when selecting the applicable meaning of respect. In my lifetime, the meaning of respect has swung from — “to acknowledge the right of,” or, “to regard” — to the current meaning (as used by my kid’s generation) in which it reflects an amalgamation of “esteem, high regard, acceptance, and approbation” (though my kids never use that actual word). So, the meaning of respect is rapidly accelerating to its farthest and highest meaning which is “deep admiration” and “the highest regard”.

    And in some cultures respect has always meant “deep veneration” and “honor”, such as that respect shown to one’s elders, something we’ve never been good at in the U.S..

    We see then, that the single word respect conveys a variety of meanings. It doesn’t mean the same thing to all people, even to those who speak the same language and share the same cultural heritage.

    The Advice Reframed

    I laid that groundwork in an essay about respect to serve as a footing upon which to discuss the advice I offered at the outset. 

    When you read it again, notice how the meaning shifts. The ideas contained in the word respect change as the context changes.

    Below, for clarity’s sake, I’ve reframed the advice offered in my tip.

    Respect a person (or don’t respect them) based on:

    1- Who they are in words and deeds.

    2- The power they have (because of the office or job they fill) to mess with or take your life.

    As stated, Respect is an interesting idea-container of a word. It includes variations of meanings which have shifted in one generation. In my youth, showing respect was simply to act with the deference of courtesy and politeness. It was akin to good manners. Respect had little to do with agreement or acceptance or esteem, except at the very highest levels where only the most deserving received it. In such cases, we substituted a better, more specialized word, more descriptive of feelings of esteem, admiration, and acclaim.

    For example, I’ve never heard a fan say, “I really respect Jerry Garcia’s soloing.” Or, “I respect Mark Twain as a writer of short stories.” And no one would say, “I respect the way Mother Teresa cared for Calcutta’s poor.”

    Because Respect and Admiration are different

    To respect you is to offer you the opportunity to be heard, to voice your own opinion, to state your view and stake out a position. This fundamental level of respect comes with the territory inherent in the idea that we are equals. You are as entitled to your opinions as I am entitled to mine. I regard your right to speak for yourself and live the way you choose as valid rights. But… I am not required to admire the things you say or the lifestyle choices you make. I am not required to look to you as a role model. I may totally disrespect your choices, and you mine, while simultaneously respecting your right to make them.

    So, I can respect your right to your opinions without respecting your opinions. I can listen to you and still not agree with you. Respect doesn’t mean I shelve my discernment, logic, learning, or personal biases and views and adopt yours. Respect is not acquiescence, or agreement, or approbation.

    The Respect of 2 Ideological Opponents

    The story is told of the friendship of the late Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. These two were figurehead iconoclasts of vastly different political and judicial ideologies, yet remained friends until Scalia’s death. Before his passing, someone once asked Scalia, the strict constructionist conservative, about his friendship with Ginsberg, the vaunted liberal feminist. The questioner expressed incredulity about the basis of such a cordial relationship when their political and judicial views were so diametrically opposed.

    Scalia quipped, “I attack ideas, not people.”

    If I could write that into my next thousand stories, I would.

    We do well to remember and practice those sage words. Respect for the other person is the contextual framework that allows that to happen. Scalia respected Ginsberg. She respected him. I respect them both, nay; I admire them both, for showing each other such deferential respect for the right to their own views and opinions, even when they didn’t share or admire the views expressed.

    How the meaning has shifted

    In my kid’s generation, the so called Gen X through Z, the meaning of respect has steadily swung towards the esteem side of the pendulum. If I disagree with the viewpoint of my youngest kids, they will often accuse me of being “disrespectful”, or worse, “rude” (which seems to be one of the worst character flaws you can display to members of the generations at the end of the alphabet).

    I’m sure the shift in meaning is because of mistaken ideas of Self-Esteem propagated in public educational environments. We commonly treat self-esteem as an entitlement to be granted to all as a participation trophy, rather than as the internal esteem one earns and holds for oneself because of one’s character (virtue). The word “self” in the phrase “self-esteem” is a dead giveaway that this esteem must come from within. No one can give it to you. Esteem conferred from without we should call by some other name.

    I can respect the right of a student to come to class, or to skip class. I can respect their right to learn up to their ability, or to shun the effort required to learn. But I do not esteem anyone who skips class or who does not better themselves when granted a free opportunity to do so. What is estimable about that?

    Thus, respect is not esteem, though the highest end of the respect-definition-spectrum does include the concept.

    Numbers 1 and 2 unpacked — This could save your life

    My advice in #1 above relates to this higher end of the spectrum. Admirable character, words, and deeds must earn the highest meaning of the word respect. To none but the worthy do we entitle this usage. We reserve it for the deserving because it conveys the sense of appreciation, approval, acknowledgement of worthiness, etc.. We don’t grant it lightly, denigrating and trivializing it into a meaningless entitlement to all comers, regardless of character, expertise, or worthiness.

    The admonition in number 2 of my advice, if heeded, can save you a lot of needless heartache, and possibly even save your life.

    I have in mind here those persons acting in an official capacity who have both authority and power to interfere with your personal freedom or life, in extremis. They can take either, or both. In an essay about respect, I would be remiss not to warn you to respect that power. Together we can pray and work to see the end of that power being abused and mis-used. Regrettably, that day remains in the future.

    We have all seen the horrifying and gut-wrenching examples of unscrupulous, even murderous, thugs (for there is no better idea container for them), dressed in uniforms and armed with badges, batons, billy clubs, and guns, who deserve no more esteem, admiration, acclaim, approval, or acceptance than a sociopathic criminal deserves. Their lack of character, lack of ethical behavior, lack of morality, lack of humanity all stand as accusers at the bar of justice, and we all want them to receive the just recompense of the crimes they’ve committed while clothed in the uniform and trappings of state authority.

    When in doubt, focus on the uniform, not the person

    Still, if a uniformed authority figure accosts you, you do well to respect the uniform for the power the wearer has to alter forever, or even to end, your life. It is shamefully true that some have shown this basic deference and respect for the uniform, if not for the person wearing it, and still had their lives taken away by a uniform wearing murderer. But it is wise to respect the power behind that uniform. It is wise to acknowledge the authority that created that position. It is important to remember that the authority that created the position also armed them with a weapon that if used, whether in righteousness or murder, can make you just as dead either way.

    So while, because of unworthiness of moral character, we may feel utter contempt, disdain, and disgust for the politician, or judge, or cop, or soldier who wields social or political or judicial power, we’d best respect the power. We can reach in the container of respect and at least come up with the sense of acknowledgement, understanding, and regard for what the uniform or office represents, even if we wouldn’t waste saliva to spit on the person occupying it. For the person wearing the uniform or occupying the office to receive more than base level respect, they will have to do so by earning it.

    The Takeaway — A Respectable Purpose

    But let’s turn away from uniformed persons, or officeholders, and other authority figures and end this essay about respect thinking about ourselves. If you want my respect, I stand ready to give it to you. I want nothing more than to have a role model to admire, a mind I can glean from, an example to be inspired by. Go for it. I will respect you to the fullest meaning. But I won’t hand you that just for sitting there breathing. Nor do I expect it from you. I aim to earn your respect. I want to earn it first as a person. No rotten tree can bear good fruit. 

    So, first I strive to be a person whose life and character are respectable. From that kind of life, I hope will flow opinions and ideas that will induce more respect. Do I hope to win your admiration and acclaim? Yes, yes I do. I hope that my presence on this planet enriches you and creates good things in your life. And I hope that your life will create good things for me. There’s no more respectable purpose, is there?

  • The Right Word?

    Fireflies in, and outside of, a bottle

    One of the worst things about writing is striving to capture with words the ineffable ephemera of a truly good life. There are times when naming a thing destroys it. Being familiar with both the phrase ”le mot juste,” and the tradition it represents, I nonetheless find myself swayed by the concept of linguistic relativism, which makes me doubt whether any two people actually hear the same word the same way, especially when phenomena or ideas don’t yield to a simple definition.

    I also recognize the cultural fiction which allows verbal fluency to masquerade as intelligence. Language skill makes one a good labeler. It is to words and concepts what a young child’s mason jars with hole-punched-lids is to insects and reptiles. Our cultural institutions promote the idea that a thing is real only if it can be placed in a jar of words. We kid ourselves into thinking the better the description, the more real. But a bug in a jar isn’t the same as a bug in the wild, no matter how much grass you pack in.

    So what if it is the other way around? What if the more bounded a thing becomes by the straight-jacket of having been defined and classified, the less the thing IS, in its real essence?

    I’ve found the surest way to defile the most precious experiences of life is with hyper-verbal attempts to describe and label them. Saying too much is as bad as saying too little. It is sandpaper that dulls the shine of the truly sublime. Then you’re left only with the memories of what you called it, how you described it, the stories you tell about it, and not the thing itself. This is a kind of curse.

    Our certainties, clothed in words, are the worst of us, not the best of us. It were much better for us to leave some things undefined, pure, whole, unencumbered by the clumsiness and inadequacies of language. This is an inconvenient, uncomfortable truth.

    Sometimes, a smile, and an ”Aaaahhhhh,” is the best that can be said.

  • Heteronomy or Autonomy, You Choose

    If you are regularly (perhaps even daily), buffeted by contrary winds, whether they be social, cultural, religious, or political, can you say of yourself that you are free? If your emotional state is impacted every time you turn on the News, every time you read an article, every time you see a Twitter or Facebook post, are you not voluntarily giving power, real power to forces outside yourself?

    These voices aren’t making me happy! Can’t they just leave me alone?

    Each of us faces opposition to our preferences. When the opposition is internal, we recognize the working of reason putting up a bulwark or providing reinforcements so that we don’t succumb to baser desires. But when the opposition to personal preference is external, and beyond direct control, how then do we deal?

    Friend, exactly what is happening when you get upset over opinions that are different than yours? Why does a different viewpoint elicit irrational behavior? Are we not each entitled to our own opinions. To what degree does a complete stranger’s beliefs have an existential impact on you? What is the cause so dear, that results in you slinging zingers at the opposition? Do you suppose that deriding or defeating political opponents will create lasting happiness within you?

    This you???

    Does everything in your external world, things over which you have no control, have to be perfected aligned with your preferences in order for you to experience internal peace? Do you feel it your duty to verbally hack away at every perceived threat to your personal perspective? That does not make you smarter. It reveals your ignorance. It reveals the contradictions in the things you claim to believe.

    If your state of mind as an individual human is impacted over and over again by the willful statements and actions of politicians, celebrities, the group to which you claim membership, or social media strangers (regardless of whether their names are on your ”friends” or ”followers” lists), then you are living under the domination of a form of heteronomy.

    Who has you surrounded? Who is controlling you? Who gets to determine the “real” you?

    Your mental and emotional states are shaped, dominated, and ruled by outside factors that are non-responsive to your own will. And you may well be deceiving yourself that you are autonomous, self-directed, free, and impacted in life only by the things you will and choose. In Reality, you are just a bi-pedal version of Pavlov’s dog, and just about as free.

    As they say, “If the collar fits…”

    You have allowed yourself to be classically conditioned to respond to all sorts of stimuli that you have No. Power. To. Change. Instead, those external things are changing you.

    For me, not a single thing either Donald Trump or Joe Biden or Kim Kardashian or Matt Gaetz or Bob Weir or Mitch McConnell or Major League Baseball says or does today will add or detract from my actual life. My hunch is that is equally true for you, Dear Reader, if you would allow yourself to take off your ”Angry glasses” or your ”Victim glasses” or your ”Righteous glasses” and just look with your own eyes and reason, at the measurable impact on your life these people (you either feel so allied with or so opposed to) actually have on your day.

    You can reclaim your autonomy. You can.

  • A Narrative About Narratives

    Narratives are everywhere! Pssst! You’re living one, right now!

    The word narrative is a noun meaning: a spoken or written account of connected events, a story.

    That’s it. That’s the whole definition. There is no lurking subterfuge. There is no attempted brain-washing. There is nothing nefarious about the word. 

    Are there some narratives that do those things? Undoubtedly. The purpose of some narratives is persuasion. The objective of others is merely revelation. But those who use the word narrative as a pejorative are doing a disservice to the language which is the coin of the realm when it comes to attempted communication.

    We all listen to narratives, if only the one in our heads that assigns reasons and meaning to the things that happen in our lives. Some of those inner narratives are devoid of rationale, betraying our own neuroses and biases and fears. 

    External narratives are all around us. They make up the lyrics of your favorite song. They are buried in visual ads that tell the story of how much sex appeal you will instantly invoke if you buy this brand of deodorant or shampoo. Certainly, they are present in media ”stories”. How could they not be. A narrative is, after all, nothing but a ”story”.

    The trick is to recognize both the point of view of a story (narrative), and its object. Is the narrator attempting to show you something, or trying to get you to believe something? If you hear a story presented in the format, People like us, believe X,Y, and Z, I advise that you proceed with caution, someone is selling something.

    All stories fall apart unless they are told from a point of view, and unless they have a point to make (Even when the point is entertainment). Objectivity is impossible for a storyteller. The best storytellers can even change points of view so skillfully you don’t know it’s happening. (For a sample, try reading the excellent, Sometimes A Great Notion, by Ken Kesey. He’ll put you right inside the head of Canada Goose dropping through fog to land on a wind-tossed Oregon river.)

    I find the following lines from a song to be insightful regarding the role of storytellers. 

    ”The storyteller makes no choice

    soon you will not hear his voice.

    His job is to shed light

    Not to master.”

    ~ Grateful Dead, Terrapin Station

    Narratives are only scary if:

    1. You’re unskilled at determining the perspective of the storyteller, 
    2. you find it difficult to differentiate between statements of opinion and statements of fact,
    3. you struggle with recognizing what the story is meant to do, and finally,
    4. you believe everything you’re told.

    If that describes you, perhaps earmuffs and blinders are a solution while you learn to do so.

    In case you have followed along to this point and missed the clues I’ve dropped:

    This essay is a narrative told from the perspective of me. It is my opinion. (Except for the definition above, which is a provable fact). The point is to rescue the word ‘narrative’ from disrepute, so that we may disarm both it, and those who misuse the word against us. Finally, I could be wrong, so evaluate my statements carefully and appropriate them at your own risk.

    You have no doubt heard the wise and oft-repeated maxim, ”Consider the source.” Which we should all do, all the time. Even when, or perhaps especially when, evaluating the narrative playing in our own heads.

    So the next time someone tries to bludgeon you with the claim that you are just listening to ”So-and-So’s Narrative” about a particular topic, you can smile, nod, and know that they are listening to someone else’s narrative, too. 

    Thus endeth the story…er, narrative.

    That wasn’t so scary was it?

  • Karma

    picture of toppling dominoes in a circle shows that karma is sowing and reaping. What goes around, comes around.
    What goes around, comes around…

    “Karma.”

    “Sowing and Reaping.”

    Call it what you will, there is a universal acknowledgment that not only our actions, but our intentions will have repercussions that in the unfolding and endless cycle (circle) of life will find their way back to us.

    A quick look at the etymology of Karma shows that it derives from a Sanskrit word meaning simply, ”action”. There is no ethical implication attached until much later.

    When it comes, it connotes the familiar western idea, found in the laws of Isaac Newton, father of Physics, that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The idea of causality mingled with that of reciprocity.

    This is the basic idea hidden in the simple word Karma, but the meaning transcends the merely physical world of Newton’s laws, and suggests that it is an all-encompassing truth, affecting not just bodies at rest, or in motion, but everything, in all worlds, everywhere, in all time (whatever that is).

    The biblical metaphors of sowing and reaping are not talking about agriculture, but about one’s life. The Christian disciple is warned about the inescapability and inevitability of this principle when he is instructed, ”Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap.”

    A couple of Grateful Dead lyrics posit the same idea. This from the song, Deal

    Since it costs a lot to win

    And even more to lose

    You and me better spend some time

    Wonderin’ what to choose.

    Goes to show you don’t ever know.

    Watch each card you play and, play it slow.

    Grateful Dead: Deal

    or this from Franklin’s Tower

    “Some come to laugh their past away

    Some come to make it just one more day

    Whichever way your pleasure tends

    If you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind.”

    Grateful Dead: Franklin’s Tower

    Truth is not limited to be found only in the Bhagavad Gita, or in the Bible, or any other sacred text, or even in Grateful Dead lyrics.

    Truth is found when the seedling erupts from the soil, then it doesn’t matter if you thought you were planting corn. If you planted tomatoes, tomatoes grow for harvest. The truth of what was planted becomes evident.

    In life, it doesn’t matter what you tell yourself to justify the seeds you sow and the actions you take, the harvest, when it comes, will show plainly what you actually planted.

  • The Availability Heuristic

     I recently bumped into a fascinating term with which I was quite familiar by practice, but not by name. It is called the Availability Heuristic. The link will go to a wiki page with a more precise definition and some examples of how the phenomenon applies in various categories of life. 

    In short, the availability heuristic is a mental phenomenon in which a person relies upon the recall of  information that can be brought easily to mind to form the basis for opinions and decisions. (The word heuristic is a fancy term for ”problem-solving” or ”decision-making”.)

    If something can be easily recalled, it is available to the mind to serve for ”facts”, and there is a tendency (bias) to give it more weight and credence. 

    If you spend a week watching Shark Week on television and then are invited to swim in the ocean, your exposure to all of the gruesome shark attacks during the past week will be readily available when you decide whether or not to venture into the water. 

    Nah, there’s nothing to see here.

    The availability heuristic predicts that you will feel a higher probability of a shark encounter than had you not watched all those shows. The actual statistical probability of being attacked does not change a fraction based upon your television habits or your ability to recall the frightening scenes. Meanwhile, you remain blissfully ignorant of the much higher statistical probability of being involved in a serious car accident on the way to the beach.

    Immersion in any pool of information makes it seem more true and more predominant than it may actually be. 

    This bias is exactly what gives rise to social media ”Echo Chambers” regarding political, social, and cultural views. 

    Exposure shapes opinion. Opinion shapes worldview. Be careful out there.

  • Authenticity

    Authenticity.

    There is a fine word. And with much urging telling us to find and be true to our authentic selves, I thought I’d take a crack at it. To get there, let’s think on a few things.

    How many people have inputs into your outputs?

    Asked another way, how many people do you feel beholden to act, or speak, or dress, or function in a certain way for?

    Put in the negative, how many elicit constraints upon you, causing you to refrain from acting, speaking, dressing, or functioning in ways you may privately prefer?

    Or this, to whom do you feel obligated to make these accommodations?

    And to whom is this obligation legitimately owed?

    When people live and work in close proximity to one another, they modify themselves accordingly.

    A couple remains a couple so long as they conform themselves the one to the other.

    ’Tis true, the best relationships require the least remodeling to achieve conformity, but all require some. And in the best relationships, the conforming of partner to partner is what gives each the greatest pleasure and fulfillment.

    Families sharing the same dwelling and utilizing the same resources find an equilibrium conferring membership privileges to those who are least able to provide for the resources needed for the family’s well being. Parents and siblings reconfigure their lives outwardly and inwardly to conform to the needs of a new baby. They continue to do so as the child advances in years, feeling themselves obligated to conform the patterns of their own existences to provide the necessities of smaller, shorter, younger persons, unable yet to secure the necessaries of life for themselves. Good parents do this for some eighteen years, not of compulsion, but voluntarily. 

    And is it not true that at all stages of a baby’s life, save in the first mewling months, that child is shaped, and taught, and fashioned to learn to temper the authenticity of its innocent selfishness to the needs and desires of others? Meaning; as soon as is practicable in most households, training begins to teach and shape the baby for accommodation to the needs of the people on whom it depends for survival. Bed time and nap times are employed. An interval of feeding is established. A rhythm develops. A pattern emerges. Some kind of symbiosis evolves that allows the caretaking parents and older siblings to meet the baby’s needs and appetites without killing themselves in the effort. 

    It is only during infancy, and quite early infancy at that, that the person is authentic in his unconcern for conforming to the needs of those around him. (The possible exception of this is the extreme advance of old-age.) Unaware of, and unconcerned for, others except as means to his own satisfaction, the infant is a living consumer of the attentions, energies, and efforts of those positioned to give him what he wants and needs. This is tolerably cute at one month, but is a veritable nightmare by age two.

    So, when we speak of adults rediscovering their authentic selves, and assign any connotation of selfish indulgence as that, and only that, which is truly genuine, we are speaking of that phase of our lives which existed for perhaps three to six months at most, then vanished, as it should have.

    Why then, the desire for authenticity? Especially that described as adhering to one’s true self? 

    No human, save Adam, was created as a reclusive hermit to live out his days consulting only his own whims and wishes. 

    If cooperation and adaptability are the hallmarks of enlightened humanity, it is no surprise that Eve was formed out of Adam’s rib. She has no being apart from Adam. And it had already been determined by God Himself, and not Adam, that it was not good for man to be alone. Therefore, he lay down and slept, voluntarily giving, quite literally, of his own substance, to provide the materiel necessary for a life other than his own, he having no being worth having apart from her.

    And thus, from the earliest story of our race, we can learn that it is others, and our relationships and adaptability to them that gives rise to our lives. And is therefore that which gives both meaning and richness to our lives. If this is not authenticity, what is?

    No one is required to yield to the childish, selfish demands of those who have aged out of infancy and who therefore ought to know better. The law of love is naught but an appeal and reminder to humans to love others As we love ourselves. 

    The interests of every other person are as important and valuable to them as yours are to you. They are not greater in value and have no greater claim. One may voluntarily choose to love another More than oneself, or act in another’s interests, more than one’s own, but if that person is of similar age and situation in life, it is not obligatory, and it is no part of human authenticity requiring that degree of conformity and accommodation. 

    But let’s consider that it is the very nature of authentic, genuine human-ness to adapt our lives to those around us. Had not our mothers literally accommodated us in their own bodies, we’d have no selves at all, authentic, or otherwise, right? It is accepting, yielding, and adapting to the life of another that makes life possible at all.

    This is a dance in which we sometimes lead and sometimes follow. We sometimes give and sometimes receive, This is human authenticity. He who practices these adaptations best is most authentic and most human.

  • What is A…?

    If posed with the question, ‘what is a Christian?’ would you have a ready answer?

    How about, ‘what is a Muslim’?

    And if asked, ‘what is a Republican?’ do you know what the answer is?

    Now, the million dollar question, ‘what is an American’?

    Your brain has already provided you with immediate conceptions as you read them. You may not have been ready to articulate your answers, but you have general ideas, nonetheless. Did you notice whether you thought first of what is (the positive, inclusive attributes), or what isn’t (those attributes that exclude). That may be revelatory to you. 

    With regard to at least one of them, perhaps your instinctive response is ”I don’t know.” 

    Kudos to you, if you’re that honest.

    Upon reflection, you will no doubt consult your experiences and familiarity with each of the designations. You may have definitions in mind for each of them that are accurate and factual, gleaned from study, observation, and participation. You may have answers that are based on hearsay, or bias. Your opinions may be entirely formed by what you’ve heard others say about Christians, Muslims, and Republicans, and Americans, and you’ve adopted those views as your own.

    Regardless of what your answers are, can you be confident that your answer would be agreed upon by any member of each of the groups in question? 

    In other words, when you answer ‘what is a Christian?’, can you be certain that all persons who identify as Christians would agree with you? If not, does that reveal anything about:

    A) the accuracy of your answer? and, 

    B) the definability of the terms?

    What about your answer regarding Muslims? Republicans? Americans?

    It is very conceivable that there are no objectively correct answers for any of the three questions you’re asked to consider in this brief essay. You no doubt have an answer. It may differ wildly from someone else’s. And even if you self-identify as a member of one or more of the groups above, others within that same group may have drastically different ideas and answers for what a member of the group is.

    Generalities differ from specific cases, as Greatest Common Factors differ from Least Common Denominators, by being more inclusive. 

    Are there any objective facts about the groups that can be established and agreed upon? Not once we go too granular.

    We are living in an age of heightened and aggravated political and cultural tribalism. We seek the emotional comfort of ideological kin. Even if it is the false-comfort of lies. We are willing to factor out one another based on least common denominators, creating such a climate of disinformation, distrust and division, that objectivity may be ready for the grave.

    If you believe it’s important to think about things; if it’s important to have reasons as a basis for your beliefs; if it’s important to abandon ”Absolutism” to God alone, with everyone else, including yourself, being prone to error and ignorance, then you and I are agreed.

  • Form Follows Function

    Form follows Function in Nature…almost as if it were designed that way, right?

    ”Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.

    It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”

    The above quote is from Louis Sullivan, an American architect of the late 19th-century, best known for his protegé, Frank Lloyd Wright, and for developing the shape of the tall steel skyscraper in 19th-century Chicago.

    His quote above, taken from an article about the artistic design of tall office buildings, has been condensed to one perhaps more familiar to most readers which is:

    Form follows function

    How something looks, its form, should reflect what it does, its function. 

    I really like the 21st-century rise of ”Lifestyle Design”. Tim Ferris, author of books including The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and Tribe of Mentors, would be one of the leading proponents of this school.

    I find that most of the people I’ve met don’t think much about designing their lives. Their lives are designed to serve a function created by someone else.

    Perhaps this is inherent in what Thoreau meant when he said,

    The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…

    Does the form of your life follow a function you chose? Or did someone else choose it for you?

    If you’re living a life that looks the way it does out of necessity to fulfill a function that is more useful for someone else than it is for you, stop and think what you can do to re-design it so that it functions first for you. 

    If there is anything essential and exceptional about American Freedom, it’s to be found in the answer to that question.

  • Happy Place

    “Daddy, how much longer ’til we get there???”

    Henry David Thoreau famously said, 

    “That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.”

    Thoreau had economics in mind, but I think his aphorism is equally applicable to emotional riches.

    Consider the common phrase, ”Happy Place”.

    As in, I’m going to my happy place, or I’m at my happy place.

    I looked it up. This phrase first appeared in the 1990’s in the Ottawa Citizen. But it really didn’t become part of the vernacular until the mid-2000’s.

    Now, this phrase permeates the jargon of even those who fancy themselves to be ”mindful”, or see themselves as ”aware”, or as practicing ”zen”.

    I have a question for you. If you claim to have a happy place, or there’s only one place where you can feel happy, what does that make all other places?

    I understand and agree with the idea of having a ”mental” or ”psychic” happy place as a state of mind in which one practices reflective gratitude and meditative calm. A mental sanctuary that can calm the nerves, and that feels restorative is a healthy mental space to carve out.

    Even the Urban Dictionary definition of ”Happy Place” is ”a place in your mind that is all happy.”

    But if someone needs a physical place to go in order to feel these things, they’re missing the point, right?

    In that case, I’m calling bullshit.

    Now, granted, there are places you can visit that come with beauty and other amenities that aren’t the norm. But most of those places ain’t cheap. So, I’ll refer you back to Henry above.