Encouragement

Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Encouragement...  To cause a state of courage.  I don't know if we always think about the fact that we are inspiring people to be brave and courageous when we encourage them.  We are just motivating them to finish something.  We are supporting them in doing something scary or intimidating.  We are letting them to know we are with them as they move forward in bravery.

If we need to be encouraged it is because we are scared of something.  And it's okay to be scared.  And it helps when people are with us.

Like if we wanted to create a new community.  I mean, all the states had to go through it.  EnIowament.  EnPennsylvaniament.  EnMainement.  To cause a state of Iowa.  To cause a state of Pennsylvania.  To cause a state of Maine.

Granted, none of those are as scary as EnDCment.  I know a lot of people are still not very brave when it comes to enDCment exposure.

Run

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

~ William Shakespeare

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I got Elizabeth a book on running for Christmas this year.  I couldn't really remember much about it.  I thought it was about runners in South America.  I was talking to Leslie about it.  She asked the name of it.

Me:  I forget.  It's a bunch of people who run... maybe in the rainforest in South America?  I can't remember the name of it."

LL:  Is it "Run, Rainforest, Run?"

It was not.  She is not always helpful.  She is usually amusing though.  At least to herself. 

Guess

If your happiness depends on what someone else does,

I guess you do have a problem.

~ Richard Bach

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Sometimes I like to play with Web MD.  I had a game when I was a kid that was a lot like Web MD.  I think it was called Doctor, Doctor.  Yes.  It was.  Apparently it now sells on eBay for $42.

Anyway, you would get a list of the patient's symptoms and run tests on the patient and then eventually diagnose the patient.  And if you got it right you won the game.  

Well, the other night when I was playing with Web MD, I was answering questions and one of them asked if the symptoms were "made worse by swallowing irritating chemicals or poison."

I didn't choose that as an option, but I'm guessing that if you said that yes the symptoms were made worse by swallowing irritating chemicals or poison that the medical recommendation you got was, "Let natural selection take its course."

Fortune

I believe in censorship.  I made a fortune out of it.

~ Mae West

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I think we make our own good fortune.  If we look for good things, we find good things.  If we focus on negative things, we find negative things.  We have a lot more control over our experiences than we sometimes realize.  Like if I want to win the lottery, I just have to go out and win the lottery and then I will win it.

No, wait.  I was thinking of soup.  

I think we make our own soup.

Change

Change is the end result of all true learning.

~ Leo Buscaglia

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We do learn through change.  As a kid I remember getting lots of worksheets with pennies and nickels and dimes on them.  We had to figure out how to count change. 

 

I guess my elementary school was preparing me for a job as a cashier.  Or a wishing well fabricator.  I'd like to be the latter.  I like the idea of making people's wishes come true.

 

Or maybe they were preparing me for a job as Santa Claus.  He makes wishes come true.  Sometimes.  If you're good.

 

But being good is sometimes overrated.  You probably ought to focus on just making your own wishes come true.

Rooms

I've seen how you can't learn anything if you're trying to look like the smartest person in the room.

~ Barbara Kingsolver

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Different rooms carry different stories in our lives.  Some rooms are novels or even a series of novels.  Lots of chapters.  Lots of anecdotes.  Lots of people moving in and out and through those rooms.

Other rooms are rooms of a singular incident.  Tragic.  Comic.  Ironic.  Romantic.  Stoic.  Epic.  Acerbic.  But a room and a memory and a moment that stays with us.  However we choose to capture it - whether accurate or not.

And other rooms are filled with quiet.  Places of reflection.  Private places where we can collect our thoughts.  Places of isolation where we can recuperate and get ready to move ahead.  Where we need a moment.  Time.  Time to breathe before going to what is next or what is waiting or the unknown. 

Those are the rest rooms. 
 

Learning

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

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I went on a hike a few months ago and found this.  It was at the top of a hill in the woods.  It was in a county park.  The trail was called "Cabin Loop" or "Old Cabin Loop."  Something like that.

It was not called "Cult Get Together Loop."  If it had been, I probably wouldn't have gone on that trail.

(pause)

Who am I kidding?  I DEFINTELY would have gone on that loop.  I'm always saying I don't have enough arts and cults in my life.  Wait, maybe that's not what I always say.  Or maybe my spelling is wrong. 

Sometimes I have to learn the hard way.

Work

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

~ Thomas Edison

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Leslie is a very hard worker.  She pays a lot of attention to detail.  She gets frustrated with people who are willing to settle for less than their best.  It just doesn't make sense to her.  If you are going to do something, why would you ever not do the best you can?

She is always working on something.  Sometimes it is rewarding like writing or creating something.  Sometimes it is something tedious like paying bills.  Sometimes it's something helpful like running an errand for a friend or going through every cabinet in the house to try and scrounge up some chocolate for Granny.

Other times what she is doing is work-related.  Sometimes that is rewarding to her.  Sometimes it is tedious.  Sometimes it is  helpful.  Maybe all of our jobs are like that.

And sometimes she does stuff at work just confuses me.  Like the other day when I asked her what she was doing and she responded, "Right now I'm trying to get the curriculum center to order me a female sailor puppet."

Librarian work is a mystery.

Bridge

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over 

which they invite their students to cross; then, having 

facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging 

[students] to create their own.

~ Nikos Kazantzakis

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Are teachers bridges or tunnels?  Do they help us cross over gaps in knowledge?  Do they get us over chasms?  Or maybe do they help us through things - through mountains of ideas and information.  Through good research and bad?

Or are they people?  I think mostly they are people.

Leaf

Only with a leaf can I talk of the forest.

~ Visa Zhiti

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Leaves are like people.  When they are on a tree, when they look like all the other leaves and blend in... you don't notice them.  It's only when they forego the safe anonymity of the leaves on the tree that you see them as individuals.  When they burst into color - red, brown, yellow, orange - you see them as something distinct from the green branches.

 

And people are the same way.  If they huddle together, safe in the group, painted green so they all blend in with each other, you don't notice them. 

 

Who am I kidding?  You would totally notice a swarm of people painted green hanging around your neighborhood.

 

People are not like leaves.



World

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

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Or, as I like to say, it's a man's world.  And you know how they keep house.

You might think this post is sexist.  Or you might think it's sexiest.  Depends on your spelling.

Wagon

A hundred wagon loads of thoughts will not pay a single ounce of debt.
~ Italian Proverb

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I don't like it when people jump on the wagon just because everyone else is.  I mean - addiction clichés aside.  I mean bandwagons.  You don't need to be jumping on those.  Well, unless you are the driver of the bandwagon.

Even she or he shouldn't probably jump on the wagon.  It's not good for the springs.

Learning

There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

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Babies learn a lot.  And they learn a lot in a short period of time.  And their learning is mostly the responsibility of their parents. 

But I don't think we should put ourselves down because as adults it might take us longer to learn things.  Our brains are more full.  We have already learned all that baby stuff.

And we could totally still defeat babies in a game of Trivial Pursuit.  And isn't that the ultimate test of learning and knowledge?

(That's not a rhetorical question.  It's an essay question.  So get to work.)

 

Books

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

~ Stephen King

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This is the bookshelf in my office.  Well, how it looked at one stage when I was moving in.  

 

As you can see, I arrange my books by color.  This is terribly aggravating for some people.  Say...  librarians for example.  Or at least one specific librarian I know.

But it's okay.  I don't know that this would work on a larger scale, but for my books, it works.  I think I may have written this before, but I know my books well enough to know what color they are.

 

That isn't the point I'm trying to make, though.

 

My point is that I was on Amazon the other day and under "Inspired by your browsing history" the first book listed was, The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance: And Other Real Laws That Human Beings Actually Dreamed Up.  

 

Yep.  That seems about right in terms of how I am inspirational.  At least to myself.

Youth

Youth is wasted on the young.

~ George Bernard Shaw

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I think I know why people went searching for the fountain of youth.  I think that they hoped to stay young physically and mentally, but with the experience and memories of age.  I don't think they wanted to regress or forget things.  Even the painful things make us who we are.  Being young and healthy and experienced enough to know better than to ruin your health...  maybe that's ideal.

I also think I know why people don't go searching for the fountain of euthanasia.  Because you can use any fountain for that.

Arise

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

~ Marcus Aurelius

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Arise.  It is important.  It is about beginning and persisting and being.  It can be the start or the continuation.  Certainly you can wait for a moment to arise, or you can play a role in making things arise.  And getting beat down might only be preparing you for greater things.

Like bread.  Getting beat down is the yeast of your worries.  It isn't something to loaf about, but you butter arise again and again and again even on the crumby days.  As I'm sure you've bread, the bun also arises.

Fences

Love recognizes no barriers.  It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

~ Maya Angelou

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When I was driving from Iowa to Pennsylvania on the first leg of my move to South Carolina (I know it's not a direct route geographically, but it was a direct route emotionally and organizationally), I listened to a lot of music.  

A little kid once asked me why almost all songs are love songs.  I thought that was pretty profound.  I hadn't really considered it before.  It's true, they are.

With that in mind, I got to thinking about how almost any love song, if sung to you by someone who makes you uncomfortable or who creeps you out, does not sound like a love song.  It sounds like a pretty scary song.

Try it next time you listen to music.

Or don't.  It kind of ruins music for you if you do it too much. 

Memories

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.  I think I've forgotten this before.

~ Steven Wright.

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When I went back to Athens to visit, Maddie and Elizabeth and I toured town.  I commented on things that were the same and things that had changed since I was there.  We drove past a lot of things and I said, "That wasn't here when I was here."  Then we drove past a restaurant - "Lam's Garden."  I said, "That restaurant was here when I was here."

Elizabeth said she went to school with the kid whose family owns it.  I said, "Really?  Does he have a sister named 'Mary Hattalyttle'?"

She paused.  And then - with a confused expression she said, "Mary Hattalyttle..?"

Maddie laughed.

Elizabeth, looking disgusted, said, "Ha ha.  Very funny."

I said, "Elizabeth, it was worth driving seven hours just for that."

Truck

Always remember the last words of my grandfather who said, "A truck!"

~ Emo Phillips

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I talk to Leslie often when she is driving home from work.  In addition to getting a rundown of her workday, I also get a play-by-play of the traffic.  Commentary is a little more heated if there is a Penguins or a Pirates game.  She isn't often driving home from work during a Stillerz game or I imagine I'd get that info, too.

The other day she was driving and talking (hands-free, of course) to me.  Suddenly, she said, "AAAAHH!  That truck scared me!"

Worried about her safety, I responded immediately, "Was it a MONSTER truck?  Bwaaa ha ha ha!!"

"You're such a butt," she said.

I think that is code for, "Thanks for being so concerned about my safety.  I really appreciate you."  I'm pretty sure I'm right because I'm good at deciphering codes.

Yuck

There are only two mantras, yum and yuck.  Mine is yum.

~ Tom Robbins

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I would not buy these.  Well, I might buy them and send them to Kirk or Maddie as a joke.  But I did not buy them when I saw them.  I thought, "Yuck."  Then I thought, "I wonder if the Target people get mad if you take photos of their products."  Then I thought, "No one is around right now."  Then I thought, "Good.  I got that photo."

I do a LOT of thinking.  I'm a thinker.

I think someone should make Fruit and Veggie Blend Veggie Flavored Snacks.  Instead of strawberry, raspberry, orange and peach, they could have celery, peas, kohlrabi, and eggplant flavors.  

I would DEFINITELY buy those.  And give them to people - people I do not like and people I like to harass.  That covers most all people.