Happy EASTER

Today is Easter Sunday, a sacred holiday for Christians all over the world.  Just as Christmas is not about Santa Claus but about the birth of Jesus Christ, Easter is not about fuzzy pink bunnies.  Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus.  Not only is it politically incorrect to say Merry Christmas in American schools today because of a convenient misinterpretation of the First Amendment to the U S Constitution, even the secular symbols of Christian holidays are being banned along with the Ten Commandments.  Apparently, someone somewhere might be offended by the mention of God, and even the presence of evergreens, or bunnies.

Worse than the banning of any reference to a supreme being from our schools is the secularization of our entire country where "In God We Trust" is on all our money and God and Creator  permeate our founding documents. Our  50th world-ranked education system glosses over this.  The founding fathers tried to protect us from an official state religion like they had in the countries we fled to form the USA not religion all together.  Maybe they don't teach about God in school because there is no time between  "Heather has two Mommies" and "25 ways to put a condom on a banana".

I actually started this tirade because the playing field is not level and Christians are not blameless.  We have allowed the commercialized Santa and the Easter Bunny to bury the true significance of these sacred holidays.  You never heard of the Ramadan Camel who brings falafel to all the good little girls and boys, have you?  Or the Hanukah Horse that rides from house to house delivering latkes?  No, I did not think you had, those religions would not stand for it.  But Christians are perfectly content to have secular America abscond with the holiest of holy days and morph them into play dates for kids and paydays for merchants.  Christians could learn a lot from our partners in the Judao-Christian tradition upon which America was founded.  American Christians might also consider  the American Islamic community's strong defense of their religious principles and resistance to secularization.

Lastly, the Sarasota Herald Tribune, our local newspaper, had articles about Easter on page 2.  The feature article on page one was about the SUPER tourist season we have had.  Along side it was an article about the legislative session in Tallahassee. Merchants and politicians win again.

ZUMBA

ZUMBA is a very popular fitness method that is sweeping the country. There are studios everywhere including the little New England town of Kennebunk.  In the news this week, apparently a very attractive young lady, a fitness instructor and proprietor of a studio, was accused of prostitution, based out of that very same fitness studio.  I don't know if the accusations are true but it does conjure up many thoughts in my slightly off-kilter mind.

I am reminded of the Bill Clinton scandal and the appearance of a new word in the English lexicon... based upon the name of a young intern.  From then until the end of time, in certain circles, a specific form of carnal entertainment has become known as a "Lewinski."  I imagine, that, if all the juicy details of this latest scandal come out, including the names of the 100 "johns" who are prominent men in the community, that Zumba will enter the vernacular as a word that means more than exercise.  Catching some ZZZZs will take on a whole new meaning.

I also see myself as a "fly on the wall" of the typical Kennebunk kitchen, listening to the conversations surrounding this subject. "I was always suspicious since my husband has been taking Zumba lessons three nights per week for a year and he still wears the same size portly clothes." and "Who knew fitness sessions cost so much?" and finally "I thought Down Dog was only a position in Yoga."

Anyway,  I wonder if I looked up Zumba online the definition would be something racy in a romance language.  Sounds sexy anyway.

The FINISH Line

When I was a young man, I didn't even ponder whether life was a finite thing, and the thought that it had a beginning and an end was never on my mind.  I did things, as many testosterone-driven youth did, that pushed the limits of mortality "for the fun of it." In middle age I began to understand that sooner or later I, as all other humans, would "shuffle off this mortal coil." The death of parents and in-laws brought the metaphysical concept of death to the realm of reality.  The same goes today when I have lived my biblical three score and ten and outlasted friends and colleagues, some of whom have died at a younger age that I am today. The FINISH line is not only closer, actuarially speaking, but I can see it from here.  You may see it to from where you are standing.

When I write and speak of my own mortality, my loving wife says "You are afraid of death."  I reply that I am not afraid of death itself but I AM AFRAID of dying, as Wayne Dyer would say "With my music still inside me."  Many of us "professionals" spent the first third of our lives being educated to do something; law, medicine, engineering, accounting, or business and finance. The second third, or more, being that professional, 24 hours a day, with all it entails.  The third 3rd (sounds like Mahi Mahi) is supposed to be time to do all those things we had no time to do because we had to compete academically and professionally and an army of people depended on us.   There were homes to buy, kids to raise and tuitions to pay. Now, as in most formulae (a third for parts, a third for labor, a third for profit for example) is is supposed to be the time for self actualization, significance, and spending the accumulated dross, aka  gelt, dinero, plata, or sheckels. I don't think a fishing rod or a golf club is enough.

Even though I have no "need" to conquer another mountain, I listen to and read some of the motivational gurus like Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, and the folks in Success magazine.  There is a common message that says "Find your passion, your mission in life, something that makes you get up in the morning and work unaware of time.  Something that even if you didn't get paid to do it, you love it so much, you would do it for free. Do what you love and you never work a day in your life, and the money will follow."  I don't think I did that with my prior career but regardless, that is the past, this is the present and I am now faced with some finite time to express my passion, whatever it is.  By the way, no matter what your age, so are you.  The "music" inside me is as yet undiscovered.  I know it is not a potpourri of activities, travel, dinners with family and friends, and TV, though those are and have always been an important part of my life.  There is something else with my name on it and I have from now 'til the time I reach the FINISH line to express it.  If I love it so much I would do it for free, and it is something about which I am passionate, and when I do it I lose track of time and am in "flow" then I will have found that music, and though the finish line is still there, I will be too focused on my passion to see it, or at least dwell on it.

We can regret the choices we made in life.  Did we spend too much time in school, in the wrong subject, in the office, in the wrong profession?  That does us no good since the past cannot be changed. If a visible finish line, in the distance but drawing closer, does not move me, or us, to do that thing we always wanted to do but did not have the time or the money to do, then there is no hope.  It is a decision to be made, a passion to be discovered ("What did we love to do as kids before the responsibilities of life were thrust upon us?" might be a place to start. ) and an action step to be taken.  As Henry David Thoreau said..."Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you've imagined." It's not too late.

The TOOLBOX of the Mind

MYSTERY TO LIVE

(Soren Kierkegaard)

Life is a mystery to live, not a problem to be solved.

The first time I heard this expression was in 1976 in rural Alabama from an unlikely source, an old retired army sergeant.  At that time I had just completed the last of nine years of post college education and passed a huge competitive exam that certified that “I knew it all.”  I had no reason to disagree with this profound sentiment other than my well-educated intellect, which thought it could reason its way through anything.  Medical education takes as long as it does because it takes 10,000 hours to become a master of anything.  What they don’t tell you in any educational environment is that reason, logic, and the intellect are wonderful tools, but they are not the only tools, and for many situations they are not even the best tools.  Living life to its fullest, is one of those situations in which no amount of “thinking” will ensure success.  It has been 40 years since I first heard those words and I still wear the golden handcuffs of the belief that I can use a superior intellect to power through everything. No matter how high quality a hammer I possess, it still is not the best tool to tighten a nut onto a bolt.   In fact, that “when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” truism has the potential to make a mess of whatever you are working on.

Einstein was as much a philosopher as he was a scientist. One of his favorite topics was everyday life and how we interpret it.  He gave us the definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”  Known for being a genius he of course opined on that…”The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” And his most important belief when it comes to the subject at hand… “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”  Now that we have the internet in general and Wikipedia in particular, there is no shortage of knowledge at out fingertips, on our smart-phones, any hour of the day. The three super-faculties of the mind; Imagination, intuition, and insight, cannot be found online.  They come from within and are hidden by the power of reason, suppressed by the value that the world places on “book-learning” professional education, and all those enculturated and learned values that the rock group Supertramp railed against in “The logical Song” partially excerpted as follows:

 When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, it was beautiful, magical

And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully, watching me

But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical

And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world's asleep

The questions run too deep for such a simple man

Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned

I know it sounds absurd but please tell me who I am

When life throws you a curve or two that you find difficult to handle, the inability to “solve” it is not because you are not smart enough, it may be because you reached for the wrong tool in the great toolbox of the mind.  You needed insight, or imagination, and you pulled out reasoning.

  

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT....

Anybody who watches TV crime shows has heard about the Miranda Warning.  It's something that the police say to you in CUSTODIAL SITUATIONS that lets you know several things about your constitutional rights to respond to questions.  You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you cay can and will be used against you in a court of law.  You have the right to have an attorney present before and during questioning.  If you can not afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.  If you are standing on the street mouthing off to your homeys about how you robbed the First national Bank and have buried the money in your backyard and an officer hears you because he is walking his beat, the Miranda Warning does not apply. If you get pulled over for speeding and nervously blurt out, unsolicited,  that you were involved in the kidnapping of the Lindberg baby, your statements are admissible.  By the way, the name Miranda does not come from the famous latina singer-dancer, Carmen Miranda, but rather some guy in Arizona decades ago who got arrested and had a good lawyer.  One definition of a good lawyer is an attorney who can get a case of sodomy reduced to "following too closely from behind" a vehicular offense, but I digress.

Anyhow, I am doing a post on this subject because it is fun to watch TV and see this warning done wrong.  It is not as egregious as watching "Cleopatra" and seeing some spear carrier in the crowd wearing  Oakley Sunglasses and a Timex watch, or a plane flying overhead in a Civil War movie but it's fun all the same. Sometimes, if you know cars or guns you can see a 55 Chevy parked on the street in a movie that is a period piece from the 40s, or a 20th Century weapon in a 19th century cowboy movie.  You would think that with a multi-million dollar budget, historical accuracy might be helpful.  Then again, when I watch the Jay Leno show segment called "Jay Walking" where he interviews people on the street and asks them questions like "How many people on the Supreme Court?" and the answer given includes something about Diana Ross, that perhaps movie producers are right to save their money on fact checking because the average viewer won't notice. Just a thought.  

EVERYBODY'S GOT A COUSIN IN.....

Jimmy Buffet wrote a song called "Everybody's Got a Cousin in Miami"about the Latin-American influx to that region of Florida.  I may have mentioned it before in a previous blog (I don't remember because I have not posted for a long time) but I could write a song called " I've Got a Cousin Who's a Cossack."  About 8 months ago I was contacted by some guy out of the blue who claimed to be related to me somehow.  In this age of Phishing and internet scams at first I was suspicious, then skeptical, then intrigued, and now excited about the prospect of a whole branch of my family I never knew existed until now.  It seems that Cuz Fred has had a life that had quite a few similarities to my own.  His grandfather and my grandfather were brothers, which is a pretty solid start to a common thread.  He is highly educated and had an interesting career in science as did I.  We shared many childhood memories of folks we both knew but yet with all that,  we did not know one another.  My grandfather died before I was born.  But, I still wonder why my father did not hook up the two branches of the family when both lived in the New York-Jersey metropolitan area.  Maybe it was something someone said, once.  That's the way things sometimes happen... just a guess.  There was that pesky ethnicity-hiding thing that happened back then were folks named Cohen changed their names to Coggan, or Wincheski became Wilson.

Getting back to the Cossack thing.  This guy on horseback above is not my cousin, but it could be one of my ancestors.  Some of them were from what is now known as Belarus, previously known as White Russia.  Relatives were definitely Cossacks and in the Czar's Guard.  I always suspected I came from a warrior archetype especially considering my military and police experiences.  Well, I have not met Cousin Fred yet but we correspond on the phone and via email. Perhaps we can stop by to visit on our way through Charleston later this year.  I bought a copy of Family Tree Maker software and have migrated Fred's data into it.  Surprisingly, my kids are interested in family history.  When I was a kid, I was interested too but I always got shut down since in those days, immigrants tried to be American and avoid hyphenization of their ethnicities. They tried to learn the English language too and discouraged the children from learning the tongue of their parent's native land. That was both good and bad.  Today, my grandkids will all be bilingual at least, and trilingual if Mandarin is made available  I am reminded of the cartoon I saw a while back.  These two bearded men, islamic terrorists, were talking.  One said to the other..."Achmed, you are in America, speak spanish."  More to come.....