Positive and Negative Perspectives

Satire on false perspective, showing all of the common mistakes artists make in perspective, by Hogarth, 1753 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People talk about attitudes every day. The subject is always revealing. This morning I came up against it yet again, but in a different way. Let me explain.

I was brushing my teeth a while ago when I heard the toilet flush. Ours is a split bath with the lavatory separate from tub and toilet. I was startled because I’d not noticed Sister moving past me, either going or coming back.

I immediately inquired if she’d done so, to which she said, “Of course!”

Color me surprised. I replied, “I must have been really focused, since I didn’t notice you walking past me.”

Her response was, “Oblivious would be a good choice of word, too.”

I’ll tell you what I told her. “I choose to take a positive stance on this one, rather than see it as negative.”

This whole exchange may sound silly, but it addresses an everyday choice we make as humans. I prefer to think of the episode as “being focused.” The opposite take is “being oblivious.” I was focused on what I was doing and what I was thinking at the time; which just happened to be what I was going to write for this blog post today.

Sister considered it as less aware. One the one hand, she’s correct. I was unaware of her presence behind me and of her proximate activity. From her perspective, what I was doing took little thought and, therefore, I should have noticed her movements.

At the same time, my perspective informs me of my concentrative ability to screen out irrelevant activity while working on the mental plane. This does not happen when I’m in unfamiliar terrain or in uncertain situations. I see it as indicative of how safe and secure I feel in my own home.

Different perspectives? Certainly. Different attitudes? Again, yes, though those attitudes are informed by expectations as well. My expectation was of safety in my home. Hers revolved around momentary awareness of my surroundings.

When we move around our world, we carry expectations, and perspectives based on them, with us and draw conclusions from those factors. Whether those conclusions are viewed as correct are, for wont of another explanation, dependent on how other individuals interpret those conclusions.

The behavior of the world’s populace is based on these factors. Until consensus of perspective arises, there can be little hope for consensus of behavior. At least, that’s how I see it.

If one small action—my brushing my teeth and not noticing someone move behind me—creates a schism between positive and negative interpretation, how much more dramatic are divisions surrounding vast actions?

Give me your thoughts on this question. How do you see perspective and its role in the daily behavior of those two-legged creatures called humans? Leave a comment below and join the discussion.

Until then, a bientot,

Claudsy

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• https://claudsy.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/writing-for-definition-and-enjoyment/

Holiday Enjoyment

Happiness mind-map (Photo credit: EEPaul)

This will be a short posting today. It is, after all the day before a large holiday weekend. To that end, I’m going to take most of today off to enjoy nature and see something besides the four walls of what I laughingly call my office.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who stops by this site. You read my words, and many take the chance to leave your own behind. The exchange is good for me, and I hope, for you as well.

Many of you are new to this neck of the woods. I’m glad you’ve decided to make this station a regular stop on your weekly sojourn around the cyber world. I’m also happy that I’ve provided material which has stirred conversation, discussion, debate and, for some, pleasure enough to click the “LIKE” button. In my book, you all deserve a medal.

THANK YOU, all of you.

Here’s hoping you all have a fantastic weekend of fun and family joys. I may take today off, but the rest of the weekend is a working holiday for me. Enjoy yourselves out there at the park, the lake, the beach and stay safe to return next week.

I’ll see you then. A bientot,

Claudsy

 

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Discouraged and Disjointed

maths (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

While I was on Facebook this morning, I read a short conversation that took place yesterday between two of my closer friends; one from years past and close to my heart, the other newly formed and also close enough to hear my heartbeat.

What struck me as interesting was the subject of their discussion. They talked about poetry. Not just any poetry, but about well-known Sufi poets, both those of many decades or more past, as well as those of more contemporary times.

That subject isn’t one you can find lying around the average library when seeking good reading material. It struck me as relevant, too, that my older friend hasn’t been reading from these poets for very long. He’d discovered them after taking a recommendation from a newer acquaintance. An early morning discussion of Sufi philosophy isn’t usual FB fare, but it happens sometimes between educated people.

I realize that this doesn’t seem significant to the average reader. What makes it significant is that it came on the heels of a report I read this past week on the Illiteracy Reality that was released recently. The numbers on that report would make anyone stand up and protest or sit down in total discouragement.

According to the latest and greatest research, the current number of American adults, classified as functionally illiterate increases by 2.25 million each year.

Stop and think about that for just one second. It equates to having an equivalent population to the city of St. Louis joining the ranks of those who’re reading below a 5^th grade level. The number of people who are able to do routine math is even more dismal.

Here’s another factoid for you. When I worked corporate, albeit many years ago for one of the Fortune 500, I was asked to simplify my internal memos. Why? Because, my informant replied, the language structure accepted by upper echelon never exceeds 8^th grade reading level. Everyone else, used 5^th grade level to communicate.

I was stunned, to say the least. I suppose it comes from jargon needs. Jargon? Oh yeah. Every industry as its own jargon/language. Even fast food joints. This verbal shorthand makes communicating between employees faster, easier, and less likely to confuse the employees.

My question is this: if top level executives at some of the largest corporations in the world need to have internal memos at such a low level of reading competency, can we expect our school children to perform any better?

For long years now, a controversy has been slowly gaining momentum regarding the dumbing down of our school children and our overall population. Here are some numbers that were in this recent report. Once you’ve read them, think about the impact of those numbers on the future. Then go back to the top of this post and think about that conversation between my two friends.

The report cited these numbers:

• 42 million Americans can’t read at all
• 50 million read below the 5^th grade level
• 20% of graduating HS seniors are classified as illiterate
• Only 42% of Americans can order two items on a menu, add them up, and calculate the tip
• Only 1 in 5 can calculate mortgage interest
• 1 in 5 can’t calculate weekly salary when given an hourly pay rate
• Only 13% are “proficient” in math: 1 in 10 women, 1 in 25 Hispanics, 1 in 15 African Americans made the grade
• 20 million Americans pay someone else to fill out a 1040EZ tax form w/10 blanks to fill in
• US is ranked 25^th in the world of industrialized nations in Math, while US students believe their scores are the highest in the world.
• One half of all 17 yr. olds don’t have the math skills to work in an auto plant

If these numbers are a mere 50% accurate, we’re worse off than anticipated, dreamt, or feared. I suppose that’s why I had such a strong reaction to reading the FB discussion yesterday. Below, you’ll find the links to find the raw numbers that produced the report I found. Try them on for yourself.

If you come to different conclusions, please bring them here and air them out. I’d like to think that this isn’t true.

Resources:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/illiteracy-in-america-infographic_b51032

http://www.nrrf.org/research.htm

http://nces.ed.gov/naal

 

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Food: Taking Poetry by the Throat

When Robert Lee Brewer handed out his challenge assignment this morning on Poetic Asides, I imagine his grin and his thoughts. “They’re gonna be all over this one. I can see it now.”

He was right, you know. We did stomp all over this prompt-of-the-day. Food is right up my alley, as my backside can attest. He wanted us to write about regional cuisine—either the food itself or some aspect pertaining to it. This was my response.

Granny’s Guarded Secret

It sits, having conquered gravity

To reign over table and diners.

Six layers of diabetes, waiting

For consumption by the sliver.

Who’d’ve expected one pie

To feed twenty sugar addicts?

We wait, breathe held, for slicing

To begin so that we can let

Our portion melt, slither, find

Our centers to give that rush

To bodies needing Pilates more

Than three kinds of caramel in

Six stacked shells of doughy goodness.

© Claudette J. Young 2012

Meanwhile, over at Poetic Bloomings. I found In-Form Poet proceedings for the day. Poet Jan Turner invented a new form not long ago, which puts limits on some areas of form, while leaving others untouched. It goes like this.

Write a Tri-Fall poem:

• Three stanzas of six lines each
• Rhyme scheme of a,b,c,a,b,c
• Syllable count for each stanza: 6-3-8-6-3-8
• No specific meter
• Little to no punctuation
• Any subject will do

Since I was already subject oriented from the Poetic Asides prompt, I stayed on the subject of regional food, parked myself at Granny’s table, and wrote about what had been placed before me. My goal was to write a story in this poem. I’m hoping to capture a memory. You’ll have to tell me if I succeeded in telling the story.

Sunday Lunch

Table long, groaning now

under weight

of platters, dishes, and elbows.

Ham, chops, eggs galore vow

to stay late

just to erase dieter’s woes.

 

Clasping hands for prayer

waiting now

‘til men get theirs and kids do too.

Smells so good this home fare

“Where’s the cow?”

Utters late-comer with “moo.”

 

“Stayed outside,” replies Gran

“Sit and eat.”

all bowls cleaned, platters empty too.

Belt loose on a lone man

children sleep

in laps of soft-talking moms.

© Claudette J. Young 2012

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Winding Down Only to Gear Up

 

February’s blog challenge has come to an end here at the last hour. Tomorrow, March issues its own challenge. The prompt for March is “Whether.” This looks to be a marvelous opportunity to try all sorts of new topics.

Whether I take to this challenge as eagerly as the last, I intend to give it my best shot. I plan to make this a writer’s month of technique aspects, personal challenges, and thoughts on what other writers have to say about the business and the markets.

I encourage everyone who has been kind enough to stop by Claudsy’s Blog this month to continue to drop in to see what’s on the conversational board during March. Come in and give your two cents’ worth.

Until then, a bientot,

Claudsy

Pursuits and Family Understanding

 

Before I finish out this month’s blog challenge, I’d like to take a few moments to talk about something to which most of us can relate.

When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, my parents and grandparents taught us lessons. Some of those lessons came at the end of a parent’s arm, in the form of a solid hand landing on a padded behind. That was before the days when self-expression was encouraged and corporal punishment was banned as being barbaric and cruel.

I’m just making a point about the differences in society between then and now.

One of the big lessons taught in our household, and in many other homes as well, was that there were places in the world where people went hungry on a daily basis, and that we should be grateful for what was placed before us on the table.

I think everyone between the ages of 45 and 100 has echoing voices in your heads right now that testify to that piece of instruction.

My family was considered slightly poor by the standards of children raised in town, whose folks worked in a shop, for IBM, or the university. My dad was blue-collar, and we lived in the country. Those were big considerations back then, too. I didn’t know any of that until high school.

We didn’t go without food, clothing, shelter, fun, a good car, or the rest of the material things that “mattered.” Most of those living in the country had as many or, in come cases, more of their needs taken care of, than those in town, without our mothers having to work outside the home.

We knew we had it good. It was understood. We learned by example when Mom took the time and effort to feed those who came to the door and asked for food and something to drink. Hobos were common in those days.

Our country culture demanded that we provide sustenance to those in need. It never occurred to her to turn someone away without at least a meal and clean, cold water to drink. Usually she gave them iced tea and whatever was leftover from dinner the evening before.

All of which brings us back to the question of that hunger lesson. I know that there are thousands of children all over the U.S. who go to bed knowing real hunger. I was never one of them, thank God, but I’ve known my share of them over the years.

I got to thinking about that this afternoon, and the admonition drilled into children to this day at the dinner table. Children cannot relate to something they’ve never experienced or seen first-hand. Unless the child who lives in the well-kept house, with all the toys scattered unthinkingly throughout, actually sees the consequences of hunger, it’s impossible to get the lesson across.

I’m tempted to wager that the majority middle-class and upper-lower-class citizens have never known hunger in this country. They haven’t gone a few days without something to eat and decent water to drink. If they had experienced real hunger on a regular basis, I doubt it would not exist in the country for long.

The realization of this difference between my generation and those coming up blazed across my mind. My generation was taught how food got to the table. Kids worked in the garden to help with the family harvest. They felt the soil with their own hands, pulled tomatoes off the vine and ate them while the red beauties still held sun’s kiss. They also knew the price of having a vegetable crop fail to thrive due to drought or too much rain.

We lived closer to the earth in those days and were thankful for that. Buying groceries—staples—in a store was a family outing experience. We saw and appreciated how much money crossed palms across the counter to purchase flour, coffee, tea, baking soda, or laundry detergent.

When neighbors knew that a family was in need, they pitched in to help that family over the rough patch. A neighbor might stop by the house with a dozen fresh eggs, a couple of gallons of milk, and several ears of fresh corn. A discussion would ensue; the neighbor would ask if someone in the household would take these food items in trade for a couple of hours helping to herd sheep or to can jams and jellies for the winter pantry.

Negotiations were done in a way that left everyone’s pride intact and still got a job done and a family fed. Many in today’s city-oriented world don’t have that option or will ever know the joy of helping each other over the trouble spots of life. People fall through the cracks, and some go hungry within shouting distance of a grocery store that tosses vegetables into a dumpster at the end of the day’s business.

I wonder what it would take for us to see all of the hungry in our country. How much of a personal burden would it be to feed all of those people? Would it do any good if those with well-fed children required them to see those who aren’t? Would the lesson stick in the mind a bit better from the experience?

I’d like to think that families could return to those values and personal economies that taught us the cost of another’s hunger and the price we pay for ignoring it. Whether we can rediscover the country culture that required us to care for each other as we would ourselves remains to be seen.

Perhaps we can all take a look at the problems we can help relieve in our pursuit of happiness and come to a family understanding that teaches all its members.

A Matter of Geography

Yesterday’s prompt urged me to talk about whether I live close to my family or not. How can I answer that truthfully? No and Yes.

My nuclear family is in the Midwest. Extended family lives in the South. Then there are all of those individuals and couples who live in many places and whom I adopted and think of as family.

I’m an equal opportunity adopter. I often adopt blood family members of those I’ve added to my family album. My adopted sister Jo, known to many as BJ (I have no blood sister,) has a slew of family members whom I’ve included as family. I know many of them. Friends who’ve become family over the years bring their biological extensions along for the journey of friendship, and I prefer it that way.

I’ve lived hundreds or thousands of miles from my blood kin for most of my adult life, for no other reason than I like living in the West and they prefer to live where they’ve always been. Their roots are there, in the soil of the Midwest and the South. I don’t have roots into the soil anywhere.

Some might call me a free spirit, but I don’t know that I really fit that definition, either. I’m not a true non-conformist. I simply find no need to stay in one place for longer than is required to accomplish whatever task I have there.

I could no more work an entire lifetime at one job than I could breathe fire and survive unscathed. I have too many interests, too many questions, to remain tied to one place, one job, or one residence.

Hmm, that does sort of sound like a free spirit, though, doesn’t it? But, I’m still not a non-conformist.

I carry and conform to many of my parents’ morals. I may not believe the same way they did, but the framework of those beliefs is intact and holding up well. How I choose to act on those beliefs is entirely the result of my own perspective and experience.

None could call me the “black sheep,” either. I like to think of myself as being well received and loved within the family. I might raise the occasional eyebrow, but I haven’t been banned from family functions.

Closeness isn’t measured by miles. That’s my belief. I talk to my father every day before he goes to bed. My brother and I text each other on an infrequent basis. I communicate with extended family by phone and online semi-regularly and get reports often on family doings and personal conditions.

I’m as close to them as I would be in the same town, except that it’s not face-to-face. Our mobile society and the advent of computer technology have made all of this possible. I don’t have to think of myself any longer as the dreamer who left the family and wandered out west to seek my fortune and whom they’ll never see again.

What I find interesting is that it took everyone so long to accept the fact that I don’t belong where they are, but that I have a need to live closer to the Pacific than the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve always been a sunset kinda gal rather than one for sunrise. Maybe that’s why I live here and they live there.

Measuring Time—the Real Purpose of a Clock

Writers measure time a bit differently than most people. At least that’s what I’ve found.

For instance, ask writers how long they worked that day and you might hear something like this—

“Let’s see. Well, I got those last three poems for my book done first thing this morning even before going to my inbox or Facebook. Then I finished doing the rewrite on a short story for one of the online literary mags. That was just before I grabbed some toast for breakfast. Once I got my stomach to quit growling, I worked on both blogs and the website for a couple of hours or so.

“Lunch was a quick cup of soup and a sandwich. I think that’s what I had. I don’t pay a lot of attention to food when my mind is working on an outline for a new storyline. Sometime in the afternoon I had to field a couple of calls from editors and then got back to the real work; social networking.

“I got a handle on the promotional announcements about the new book and a couple of speaking engagements so that I can send those out tomorrow. I also sent a couple of queries out and three submissions.”

Notice that there’s no mention of a real estimate of when the writer began work for the day or whether the work day was actually finished. Many times such considerations aren’t relevant to the profession. Deadlines, expectations, appointments make the grade for mental significance, but time spend working is just that—time spent. It doesn’t need to be counted or regulated.

This isn’t a nine to five career choice. It isn’t something that a writer quits thinking about at the end of the day. Something as simple as a new commercial on TV can trigger a flurry of creative activity. The writer’s mind is seldom quiet.

Perhaps that’s why clocks have importance to writers. It’s not to see how much time we’ve spent on a project that day. Instead, a clock tells us how little time we have left that day to work on what was planned for the docket.

And how do you measure time in a day’s schedule?

Until later, a bientot,

Claudsy

Navigating The South-Personal History Counts

The cultural differences between far North frontier country and Southern deep roots would throw anybody into shock.

The precipitator of this condition of shock may lie in the fact that many in the North tend to categorize the South. Some dismiss those of the South as the eccentric cousins who aren’t discussed in polite society all that often. After all, they say, Southerners are the ones who brought about that wicked Civil War and all, don’t you know.

Believe it or not, there are those that still think that way. Aside from that, according to others, Southerners are known to be just a hair short on the mental acuity scale. Otherwise they would be out in the world far more and be recognized for their entrepreneurial acumen and social hipness.

Sarcastic? Me? Never!

Reality Check

I can tell you two things for certain sure. I grew up with half my family from the South where I spent as much time as possible, and I lived in the western part of the South for more years than I care to count.

‘Course, living there cured me of one thing–smoking. Couldn’t do it anymore. Didn’t need to be doing it in the first place. Found a way to get rid of the habit for good, and I’ve never been more glad about anything in my life.

Childhood Memories

Because of  my age I remember how the older South used to function. I remember the time before the Civil Rights Movement. I remember watching an older black gentleman step off the sidewalk so that my mother, grandmother, and I could walk past him as he tipped his hat to us. I also remember crying because I thought I’d done something wrong that made him not want to be on the same street as me.

My mother, of course, explained the situation to me right there on the sidewalk. I got indignant (I was very good then at doing indignant) and demanded my grandmother explain why her people would ever do such a thing. All of which upset her no end, as you can imagine. I was very young at the time, challenging an elder about social etiquette. And I did apologize later.

Things settled down a bit during the rest of the visit, but I’ve always been able to close my eyes and see that episode behind the lids anytime I wanted. It was a great social leveler for me.

Farm Living

What else do I remember? I remember catching Grandaddy and my little brother one afternoon, down feeding the hogs (my grandparents were farmers–what were known as sharecroppers, actually.) Indignation swarmed up my backside that afternoon, too.

They were sitting in the back of the big cargo wagon that was heaped with little bitty watermelons about the size of half a soccer ball. Grandaddy would cut a melon in half, hand one half to my brother while keeping one for himself. Each of them would scoop out the heart of the melon, eat it, and then throw the rest to the hogs across the fence before moving on to the next melon.

Now, I knew how those little melons tasted. They were like watermelon flavored honey in a bowl, and I wanted my fair share. Well, wouldn’t you know that the good-old-boys party was just wrapping up when I arrived. I only got the one little melon. –Not that I could have stuffed more than one down my gullet anyway.–

Ever Ride A Cow?

There was a neighbor boy named Hunter who lived down the lane. He used a big Black Angus bull for a horse and rode that animal everywhere. My brother wanted to be just like Hunter, running through the woods barefoot, shooting his .22 and generally running wild.

To that end little bro decided one day, while we were helping my aunt milk the cows, that he wanted to ride one of them. Now, my aunt was raised on a farm and knew how a farm and its animals operated. And she had a really good suspicion what would happen if bro rode milk cow.

She couldn’t talk him out of it, though, so when all the milk was secured and the cows were ready to go back out into the pasture, she asked him which cow he fancied. Being the adventurer that he was, he chose the big Guernsey. Well, my aunt got the cow out into the barn’s center, made sure of  the halter rope, and told him to hop right up there on the cow.

I have to admit, he did pretty good. He managed to last almost the entire 8 seconds before hitting the ground with a whoosh. He was a bit stunned. After all, Hunter made it look so easy. But then, Hunter wasn’t trying to ride a milk cow that had never held a rider before. Hurt? Nah, bro wasn’t hurt, except for his pride.

I confess. I laughed my tail off. My good aunt didn’t, bless her heart. That was the last I ever saw of that cow, though.

High Times

I remember an ice storm at Thanksgiving one year, which forced us to drive home in it on less-than-new tires and seeing my dad white-knuckled at the wheel, knowing he was silently praying that we made it home one state away before we got killed. I do believe Mom was praying just as hard as Dad.

Personally, I was enjoying the fairy castle quality the ice gave all the trees and undergrowth. I’d never seen the effects of an ice storms before. All these years later, I’ve seen too many years of destruction from Nature’s Ice Queen.

There were so many times back then when fun was had by simply playing Red Rover in my grandparents front yard. Or standing in the stripping shed during our autumn visits, stripping tobacco to put in the drying barns. That time was filled with country music blaring from the radio, listening to my grandmother and aunts relate family history and community news in soft twang that amuses so many not of the South, and just spending time together.

The one thing that the south will never be short of is family solidarity. A family member might bring the wrath of the family down on his/her head by shaming the family name, but before that any member will fight to the death for any other member of that family.

The South is hot, sticky, contrary sometimes, and solidly itself. It doesn’t claim to be anything else and never will. If you want proof of that, go down to South America and into Brazil’s interior and visit the city that our South built from the ashes of the Civil War. They still Fly the Confederate flag as their own. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,965976,00.html

Betcha didn’t know that, huh?

‘Til next time, have a great day, y’all. Catch the last of those lightning bugs and enjoy the homemade ice cream. I’ll have the peach, please.

A bientot,

Claudsy