When I was 13 or 14 I took a spiral notebook and spent a Saturday printing my own newspaper. Two columns per page, I reported on a crash I saw on the highway and about riding my bicycle. Then I wrote a couple of made up stories as if they were real. I had to keep sharpening my pencil, printed as neatly as I could, even sketched a couple of wannabe photos. It took all afternoon. On the header I printed; The Neighborhood Watch. My mother read it when I finished and told me I should become a writer. She was always telling me I should become something or other but duh! Who would have thought! I kept that five page spiral news paper for a long time, never shared it with anybody else. Not a stellar student, quite the opposite; I thought a C- was great and a D was good enough. I didn’t want to be made fun of so I kept it to myself.
Nobody knew about ADD then. I was not a trouble maker, just another underachieving blue-eyed little boy with high energy and a short attention span. They told my parents I was capable but lazy.
So here I am writing. I use commas and semicolons more than I should but chalk that up to creative license. When I feel a pause in my train of thought I leave a comma. I can always move or remove it later. Nothing I write goes to bed without several reviews, edits and rewrites to satisfy my second thoughts. This is just my opinion but I think people who say they can’t write just don’t want to write. Framing language takes too much time and they are too busy to throw words at the page. I’m a little biased I know. But if you would rather trust everything to memory or memorize every long or complex argument, good luck.
We all start out with 23 pairs of chromosomes but variations within that format make us all unique and I marvel at the way personalities develop. No guarantee that kids who share the same experience will perceive them the same way (fear vs excitement, good vs bad). Adults tend to lean on values and expectations they acquired in their youth but changing one’s mind on religion or politics or how to raise children is common as dirt. We all begin as selfish creatures, ignorant, intolerant and (in the philosophical sense) conservative. Babies are consumed with ‘Self’, all they care about is; keep warm, eat, sleep and their mother’s scent. But they learn, beginning with the first eye contact, the first smile; they see others showing affection and sharing food. Heredity sets the stage but the way we attribute meaning to those experiences gets the last word. By the time we reach the age of accountability that blueprint for belief and behavior is pretty well mapped out. It can be altered inwardly to benefit the self or outward to embrace the greater culture, depending on millions of minute but repetitive details or a single significant, life changing event.
A mother’s nurture and affection are the first acquired influences to shape a person’s personality. In most mother-child relationships we see tolerance, generosity, affection and even cooperation. Growing up, siblings, peers and adults within our sphere also model behavior and it can be forgiving, affectionate, cooperative and value diversity as well. But not everybody gets the compassionate stuff. Some never get past the Me-me-me stage that values either competition or stealth (whatever you can get away with) to get whatever you want. Nobody is off limits to the selfish narcissist. There you have the two extreme stereotypes, Mother Theresa and Donald Trump. Most of us fall in between the extremes.
Along with old age I’ve acquired a trove of experience and the writing habit. It doesn’t have to be about anything in particular but the human mystique is hard to resist. The writing process requires at least a shred of authenticity and expertise and in return it is therapeutic, I feel better when I finish. Obviously I prefer the carrot to the stick. Wealth and power come with two handles. The balanced person understands that we are all in this together and a collective responsibility is necessary. For the self obsessed the other handle has only one beneficiary, Self. Across time and with me unaware, a primary value that is deeply rooted in my psyche is that of fairness (fair play). In the pledge of allegiance the last line is clear; “. . . with Liberty and Justice for All.” A political activist on a local radio program put it in context; “We’ve got the liberty and justice part down pat but have trouble with the ‘All’ part.” I thought then and still do, great quote; so much content in just 16 words. That puts me at odds with my counterparts who behave and believe as if there are only two kinds of people; Winners and Losers and in order to win you do whatever it takes; anything.!
This dichotomy of values and resulting behavior has been shaping the human experience since the birth of civilization some 10,000 years ago. The Selfish and the Generous will never be comfortable or trusting in the company of the other. I cannot fix the problem and neither will I point the finger of blame. I am lucky to live in an affluent country, unworthy but lucky to have white male privilege. I read and write; never gone to bed hungry in all of my life. I don’t deserve anything other than the good karma I keep trying to put back in the system. The big difference between then and now is I swapped my pencil and spiral notebook for a good laptop computer.
Nobody knew about ADD then. I was not a trouble maker, just another underachieving blue-eyed little boy with high energy and a short attention span. They told my parents I was capable but lazy.
So here I am writing. I use commas and semicolons more than I should but chalk that up to creative license. When I feel a pause in my train of thought I leave a comma. I can always move or remove it later. Nothing I write goes to bed without several reviews, edits and rewrites to satisfy my second thoughts. This is just my opinion but I think people who say they can’t write just don’t want to write. Framing language takes too much time and they are too busy to throw words at the page. I’m a little biased I know. But if you would rather trust everything to memory or memorize every long or complex argument, good luck.
We all start out with 23 pairs of chromosomes but variations within that format make us all unique and I marvel at the way personalities develop. No guarantee that kids who share the same experience will perceive them the same way (fear vs excitement, good vs bad). Adults tend to lean on values and expectations they acquired in their youth but changing one’s mind on religion or politics or how to raise children is common as dirt. We all begin as selfish creatures, ignorant, intolerant and (in the philosophical sense) conservative. Babies are consumed with ‘Self’, all they care about is; keep warm, eat, sleep and their mother’s scent. But they learn, beginning with the first eye contact, the first smile; they see others showing affection and sharing food. Heredity sets the stage but the way we attribute meaning to those experiences gets the last word. By the time we reach the age of accountability that blueprint for belief and behavior is pretty well mapped out. It can be altered inwardly to benefit the self or outward to embrace the greater culture, depending on millions of minute but repetitive details or a single significant, life changing event.
A mother’s nurture and affection are the first acquired influences to shape a person’s personality. In most mother-child relationships we see tolerance, generosity, affection and even cooperation. Growing up, siblings, peers and adults within our sphere also model behavior and it can be forgiving, affectionate, cooperative and value diversity as well. But not everybody gets the compassionate stuff. Some never get past the Me-me-me stage that values either competition or stealth (whatever you can get away with) to get whatever you want. Nobody is off limits to the selfish narcissist. There you have the two extreme stereotypes, Mother Theresa and Donald Trump. Most of us fall in between the extremes.
Along with old age I’ve acquired a trove of experience and the writing habit. It doesn’t have to be about anything in particular but the human mystique is hard to resist. The writing process requires at least a shred of authenticity and expertise and in return it is therapeutic, I feel better when I finish. Obviously I prefer the carrot to the stick. Wealth and power come with two handles. The balanced person understands that we are all in this together and a collective responsibility is necessary. For the self obsessed the other handle has only one beneficiary, Self. Across time and with me unaware, a primary value that is deeply rooted in my psyche is that of fairness (fair play). In the pledge of allegiance the last line is clear; “. . . with Liberty and Justice for All.” A political activist on a local radio program put it in context; “We’ve got the liberty and justice part down pat but have trouble with the ‘All’ part.” I thought then and still do, great quote; so much content in just 16 words. That puts me at odds with my counterparts who behave and believe as if there are only two kinds of people; Winners and Losers and in order to win you do whatever it takes; anything.!
This dichotomy of values and resulting behavior has been shaping the human experience since the birth of civilization some 10,000 years ago. The Selfish and the Generous will never be comfortable or trusting in the company of the other. I cannot fix the problem and neither will I point the finger of blame. I am lucky to live in an affluent country, unworthy but lucky to have white male privilege. I read and write; never gone to bed hungry in all of my life. I don’t deserve anything other than the good karma I keep trying to put back in the system. The big difference between then and now is I swapped my pencil and spiral notebook for a good laptop computer.
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