Tag: commentary

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Diatribe

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Quit looking at me!

I have a wooden duck in my living room. No, seriously. It sits on the high shelf and looks down on me while I’m watching television. And I can’t help but feel like it’s judging my actions, that it’s telling me I should be out in nature doing something active instead of sitting here watching what my father always referred to as the “idiot box.” But I shut out his stare and focus on my programs instead, telling myself I’ll exercise later. Of course you and I both know I won’t, but maybe the duck will be easily fooled.

Being sedentary is a problem in our society, isn’t it? With all the screens around, our culture is geared toward sitting around, or standing around, and watching one thing or another. Sometimes it’s the laptop while we read and compose blog entries, and other times we’re staring at the TV. Still other times it’s our phones (yeah, it’s mostly our phones anymore, isn’t it?), or our tablets, or our iPod Touches. That sounded weird to me, iPod Touches, but I guess that’s the plural. Anyway, my point stands.

We don’t even talk anymore. In work just the other day during lunch, there were seven of us in the break room, and every single one was on a cell phone messaging, or texting, or trolling on Facebook, or tweeting, or Snapchatting, or any other variation of application available or popular to the masses right now. For a solid 20 minutes there was absolute silence in the room. I know, I counted. A room that used to have sound booming off its walls was absolutely silent for 20 minutes. That’s crazy.

But we do exercise, don’t we? At least sometimes we do. For about a month straight I was totally religious about it… in 2011. Every morning like clockwork I got up early and did my various routines. It got my heart pumping, I sweated out some toxins, and it made me feel better the whole rest of the day. But I stopped for whatever reason, and one of the worst things you can do when you’re on a regimen like that is stopping for a day. Because it’s so easy once you’ve stopped to stay stopped, to go back to being a sedentary creature. If I only liked nature, it would be easier. Continue reading “Diatribe”

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Words

Words can get us into some serious trouble, can’t they? Have you ever been in a situation where a misunderstanding involving the words you used (or didn’t use) caused a major rift between you and someone else? And all you wanted to do was SCREAM what you were really trying to say, but they weren’t … Continue reading Words

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Sleep Deprived

I fell asleep in the library again, and I think I know the culprit. I’m lucky no one stole any of my personal possessions while I was passed out. Perhaps it was because I was propped up in the seat with a book open on my lap so I appeared like I would awaken if … Continue reading Sleep Deprived

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So This is Global Warming?

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Bundle up.

Remember global warming? It was a hot-button term at the beginning of the 21st century. As our illustrious former vice president said, “It’s a certain truth. But it’s an inconvenient truth.” And yet since then we’ve recorded some of the harshest, coldest temperatures in this world’s history. In fact, today my children were home from school for a “snow” day, even though it wasn’t snowing. It was really a “frigid temperature” day, which was funny because yesterday it got up to 45 here in upstate New York. And isn’t that really the gist of the whole “global warming” issue, the idea of a global shifting of climate. Climate change, now that’s a phrase I can get on board with, but is it new?

When I was a kid growing up in Philadelphia I clearly recall a rough winter when it snowed more days than it didn’t, and during one stretch of time it didn’t stop snowing for three days straight, at the end of which we had over six feet of snow. And like good neighbors we made sure to dig out, at least to the sidewalk. There were these six foot walls of snow on either side, like we were rats in a huge, white maze. I was fascinated by it, sticking my hand out at one point while following my father, who was digging with the shovel, and touching one of the walls. My hand sunk in a little bit and was quickly covered in snow. I screamed and my dad turned around to laugh at me. I yanked my hand out of the snow and some of the wall crumbled at my feet. That was the end of that exploration.

Then, about fifteen years later, I went to New York City with a few friends of mine in order to party with another friend who lived in a dorm at NYU. We took the train in like we always did, but it was the time before instant notices ahead of time about weather situations. We knew a storm was supposed to come, but we didn’t realize it would be the blizzard of the decade, which it turned out to be. Continue reading “So This is Global Warming?”

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Flawless

4362daf57fa21b78372d3b8f1183b595“We are, at our essence, inherently flawed beings who nevertheless consistently insist upon denigrating others for being just as flawed as we suppose we are not.” -Theodicus, 1896

Why do we have an overwhelming tendency to judge others? What is it in our makeup that makes us believe we are better than other people when we are all the same? Everyone has made some stupid decisions in their lives. Some were lucky enough to live through them, while others went completely under. But for everyone who has survived a stupid decision, have they truly survived or are they paying for it through the rumor mill for the rest of their lives? Wow, there are a lot of questions in this paragraph, but it honestly makes me think about the world we live in and why anyone would want to be honest when they’re just going to be judged one way or another in perpetuity.

I’m not saying I’m immune to it either, but at least I think about it. And I am grateful to those people who also think about it before judging others because nobody’s perfect. My father used to always say that the only difference between us and people in jail is that they got caught, and I honestly think he’s right on that one. So many of us have deep, dark secrets that we hope never come to light, even if just for the embarrassment factor, but what we really worry about is the judgment of others. We spend so much time trying to be what others imagine we are that we forget who we really are. And if people are truly your friends they won’t judge you for the stupid mistakes you’ve made.

Hmmm. But wait. Continue reading “Flawless”

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Why the Duck is an Ass

Too many people make the mistake of thinking that children’s books are all the same, that they preach a common theme and align themselves perfectly with what’s true and right, teaching kids the value of human nature and the beauty of our world. But our world is oftentimes not beautiful, and human nature is frequently negative and judgmental. So often we shield our children from these realities in favor of the cookie cutter “perfect world” we ourselves would desperately like to live in, hiding the rough spots as much as we can with spit and polish, not thinking about how shocking it will be to our kids when the truth comes out. And believe me, it will come out. Now, I’m not saying tell your kids everything about the cruel world and cruel people, but just having a heads up would suffice sometimes instead of a brick over the head. Some children’s books give that heads up while also teaching a lesson. Those are the kind I get for my kids.

IMG_0553Duck in the Truck is a children’s book written by Jez Alborough that I bought when I was in London. It appealed to me because of the cute picture of the duck driving a truck on the cover, but it proved itself to be a true compass for human nature as I sat in the huge comfy chair and read it over several times. Now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea of using cute, cuddly animals to sell something. Hell, Disney was founded on it and still thrives to this day because of a mouse, a bear, and a sheer cadre of other wildlife. But what I found in this book wasn’t a straight morality tale like Disney is so fond of, but a story plainly told and illustrated that makes its adult readers think and might just confuse or amuse the younger readers.

It’s a tale of a duck who drives a truck down a lane, plain and simple. However, this duck loses control of his vehicle and it becomes stuck in a pretty nasty muck. Look at the duck’s face in the page pictured. Does he look like one of those pleasant animals I talked about above? No. In fact, he’s pretty pissed off, in my opinion, and probably ticked off mostly at himself for driving so recklessly. With the angle of the vehicle in the muck, it’s really a surprise to me that he didn’t fall out and do some serious damage to himself, so he should actually be thanking his lucky stars instead of being angry at the vehicle. Luckily for him he has some random strangers come by to try and help him get unstuck from the muck. Continue reading “Why the Duck is an Ass”