C.G.Ayling

Category: General

General Topics

  • Texting.

    ~ Don’t ~

    Never walk and text.
    Walk, and breathe.
    Walk, and see.
    Walk, and talk.
    Walk, and listen.
    Walk, and touch.
    But walk and text?
    It stops all
    the above.

  • Feelings.

    Is it even possible to feel, let alone love, the same way toward two separate people? Both intuitively and logically, I don’t think it is. No two people are the same. Nor are any two relationships the same.  So believing we can feel the exact same way toward any two individuals really doesn’t make sense.

    Perhaps part of the problem is how we humans are so intent on measuring things?

    Why do we try and quantify our feelings?

    Though they sometimes feel burdensome, do feelings actually have weight? Though we assign feelings depth, is depth a measure by which we should compare our feelings for any two people?

    We know the ones we love.  However measurements begin to fail when we attempt to determine those we love the most, and even worse, those we love the least.

    Perhaps the truth is that love truly is incomparable?

  • Blind Dates.

    With virtually everyone we meet, we follow a certain path. In this blog post, I’m going to consider that path, which too often leads us nowhere.

    First, our eyes scan. That takes a fraction of a second, sometimes it happens so fast our eyes don’t even need to move, a single retinal image is all that’s required for the instinctive processes to run. Within the next instant, or perhaps within the same moment, we have already cataloged and made our first judgment.

    Interesting / Not Interesting / Perhaps / Definitely / WOW! / Yuck! / etc. etc. etc…

    {This is a major reason I believe there will never be “artificial intelligence”. Computers have an option of two possibilities, thinking beings have options unrestricted by numbers.}

    Once we’ve made that initial multifaceted categorization, it is very difficult for us to change it. We seldom even consider approaching, further investigating, or paying real attention to anyone who falls beneath a certain perceptive level. Likewise, for those who pass sight’s first momentary muster, we’re unwilling to discard them even when they prove themselves to hold no qualities we value, besides their looks.

    Personally speaking, I have always been very strongly attracted to short, dark haired women. I’ve spent many hours wondering why and never been able to come up with any satisfactory reason. My mother is taller than average and has pale hair.  So much for Freud! {Who I have always considered to be a complete fraud. :)} Since I can’t explain this powerful physical preference logically, I think it might be somehow encoded into my psyche. However, there are self-taught exceptions to my encoded preferences. I’m fairly certain if you examine yours closely you’ll find you have similar exceptions. Here is an example. In high school I developed an enormous crush on my English Literature Teacher, who did not fit into my mysterious encoding for “should be short and dark haired”. As a student I had no choice but to spend time listening closely to everything she said.  This gave me a chance to learn what an amazing person she was. Ever since then, if a woman has a resemblance to Miss Earl I find them attractive. They get an instant pass.

    Read back and you’ll see a lot of things have been visually processed, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of how our choices are made.  Anyway, all of this visual determination and categorization happens long before we’ve said a single word. Long before.

    How sad is that?

    How many wonderful relationships never even get a chance to start because one or the other person has already made a start / stop determination before a single word has been shared? Before a single pheromone has been delivered? Before a single lip has curled, either up or down? Before we actually know anything about their character, values, religious beliefs, or individual preferences – which are probably just as limiting as our own?

    Love at first sight truly exists.

    I know that for an absolute, unquestionable fact because it happened to me with my wife Suzanne. The key concept up until this point, is “sight”. Marketers know this, as evidenced by their use of attractive people in commercial advertising. {I wonder how many physically ugly politicians have ever been democratically elected?  Conversely, I wonder how many pretty people with horribly flawed characters have?}

    I’m guessing the first criteria on-line dating sites use to narrow choices to potential dates, is a picture. Before on-line dating, many people met via something called “blind-dates”. I set up and went on a few of those myself. I can tell you the first real question asked was always “What do they look like?” Sure, we try might try and couch ourselves as not so shallow by leading in with something else, but the real make or break question was always about looks.

    Humans are visual beings. Think about it logically and you have to agree this is simply undeniable. Now let me ask you something. Where does that leave people who are without the benefit of sight? I imagine that with the first enormous hurdle removed, of an image permitting or preventing further interaction, blind people are far more open to diversity. However I don’t know that, I’m just imagining it.

    Have people without the gift of sight been given other gifts? I think so. Perhaps not limiting their friendships based on something as illusory as sight is one such gift?

    When next we meet someone, let us all try to be blind. Let us impose an image we love over their visual form, then listen and let them reveal who they truly are inside – we might well be surprised.

  • Destiny

    The world, and everything within it moves in cycles. Every cycle impacts every other. We’ve just forgotten that truth.

    Makers of our own destinies? Walkers on the preset paths of destiny might be more true.

    Does the path of destiny meander? Who knows, but where it leads, there do I surely go.

  • Who writes?

    The answer, is very, very few. In our time of instant gratification, instant messages, poor grammar, shortcuts to shortcuts, and attention spans measured in milliseconds very few take the time to actually write.

    That my favorite youngest daughter, Julia, is one of those who do somewhat redeems my flagging faith in humanity. How has it come to be that we “don’t have the time” to do the things that matter, yet we have the time to focus our eyes downward onto a little device and completely believe the little alerts it constantly bombards us with are a measure of our worth?

    Ting! {A text message!  Someone cares about me!}

    Here is a heads-up. If they really cared they would visit you.  Failing visiting, they would call and talk to you.  Failing talking, they would write you.  Write, as in actually put pen to paper. Failing pen to paper, they would put fingers to keyboard and email you.  There is one thing all these things that people who really care about you have in common. Every one of them results in a conversation. A conversation… You know, where a couple of people actually talk to each other?

    The following is not a conversation.

    how r u
    gud u
    cool thx
    gtg bi

    Sure, texting can be used as a way to let someone know you might be thinking about them. Yes, texting can reinforce a relationship, provided it adds another dimension to an existing one. However, if texting is the basis  of your relationship, well you don’t have a relationship.

    This is a draft copy of a Letter Julia spent hours writing to her Grandma, I deftly snagged it before it ended up in the waste paper bin. Notice her name at the bottom? She spent hours more teaching herself how to write cursive in order to make her signature look nicer.  {Cursive is a skill our schools now deem of insufficient importance to teach.}

    Julia cares about her Gran, and here is the evidence.

    Who Writes?The next time you think about texting a cryptic message to someone you really care about, think about what your partial line message says about your caring.  Think about this post. Then key in their number and call them. Or write them, even if they never know you do, you know you do.

  • Pinpricks of light

    I’ve been in a miserable mood lately. For various reasons. Editing on “The Pilgrimage” has ground to a halt as my editor recovers from illness. I’ve recently recovered from a nasty cold. {What a redundant statement – who ever heard of a pleasant cold?} My wife resigned from her work due to some co-worker who took it upon himself to make her life miserable, the direct result being that our children and I also felt miserable. However, my woes aren’t what this post is about.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to hit you up to buy my book with the old sympathy ploy.

    In fact, I’m feeling a little better today.  Interestingly enough the thing that made me feel better was a radio commercial. {Though I think laughter is the best medicine, it wasn’t a humorous commercial. In fact, it was a very serious commercial about a very serious problem.}

    The commercial began by describing how I could get a free diabetes test. The skeptic side of me immediately leapt into the fray in anticipation of the usual, “just give us your firstborn, your social security number, mailing address, email address, cell phone, and of course you credit card information to pay the so small it is barely worth mentioning shipping and handling fee.” However the usual caveat-emptor laden disclaimer murmured at high speed in a barely intelligible rush at the end of the commercial never happened. You see, the advertisement was for the American Diabetes Association, and the radio station ran it as a free public service.

    I don’t need a diabetes test. Yes, I had type-2 diabetes, and yes, I was prescribed oral medication, but I eventually resolved my condition by modifying my diet. {Okay, so I might need a diabetes test, however that is a moot point!}

    The real point of this post is this.

    Tens of millions of Americans, particularly the poor, and specifically African-Americans, are afflicted by this treatable disease. They need all the help they can get, and there actually are non-profit organizations out there that not only can help them, but will. We live in a dark world. Non-profit organizations such as the American Diabetes Association are pinpricks of light that pierce the darkness. I encourage you to seek their aid if you might need it, and if you don’t… well. then please lend them your aid instead.

    For your convenience, here is a link directly to the American Diabetes Association’s donations page.

  • Nightmares.

    Very early this morning I had a nightmare.

    In this bizarre dream I was working on resolving a physical wiring mess that involved getting to a wiring closet in another building. To get to the other building we had to run down a deserted road and cross over a blind intersection. As we crossed the intersection a police car raced into view with its lights flashing. This invoked a fear we’d be ticketed for jay-walking. The police car stopped and two officers got out, inexplicably one officer was laboring to push the other in what looked like a four-wheeled cart. They ignored us, however as they went past I noticed that the officer in the cart had a badge that proclaimed him to be the Chief. As soon as they passed us, they vanished. Our next obstacle was to get into the wiring room, which was on the second floor of the building, a long flight of metal stairs lead up to the doorway, unfortunately the doorway had been concreted over.
    At this, the person who was accompanying me, and who I didn’t know said he knew a way through the inside. Suddenly we were inside, however it was filled with booby-traps. To further complicate matters the floor was sprinkled with Nitrogen tri-iodide, a substance we used to manufacture as teenage children and deploy in our ongoing war with our neighbors, the Meshas. Sight of the Nitrogen tri-iodide sparked a memory of my brother Chris, who lost the top knuckle of his middle finger as a result of a mishap with a carefully made packet of the volatile substance, which we had encased in a worn out stocking to let dry.

    In the way of dreams, Chris was suddenly and unquestioningly part of the team as the three of us negotiated our way through the traps.

    In turn, seeing Chris appear in the dream sparked a memory of his death in real life. In the dream this manifested as him being entwined into a scene I recently saw from a snippet of a Breaking Bad episode in which the brother of some bad guy is executed. In the nightmare Chris was killed by one of the booby-traps shooting him through the head. I pressed on alone. Somehow the wiring problem seemed more important than Chris’s death, and the unknown person who had been accompanying me had vanished. He just wasn’t there anymore.

    When I reached the actual problem it manifested as an intricate tangle of tiny electrical wires. I looked into the clump and immediately saw the problem, which was that the white-green and green wire pair had mysteriously come loose. I reached into the tangle, touched the wires and the entire tangle unraveled. This broke hundreds of connections between wires that should never have been connected, and for which I had no map to reconnect.

    Seeing all those connections broken induced panic, which awoke me. I immediately reached over, pressed the button on my cell phone, and noted the time. It was 11 minutes past midnight.

    Looking back on this horribly unpleasant dream I wonder if my subconscious is talking to me…

    Is my running down a deserted road a reflection of the travel I too often must undertake for my job? Are the booby-traps and seemingly harmless, yet dangerously explosive Nitrogen tri-iodide patches blocking my path indications I am being set up to fail, or am setting myself up to fail? Am I being distracted into thinking that work, symbolized by the tangle of wires, is more important than those I love, symbolized by my brother Chris’ death within the dream?  Am I the bad guy for surviving the accident in which my brother died, symbolized by my realizing, while still experiencing the dream, that the bad guy’s brother was executed?

    Is my subconscious warning me that what I achieve in my work-life is utterly pointless, as symbolized by the myriad connections at the end of an arduous path unraveling and all my efforts amounting to naught? Is it letting me know nothing I accomplish work-wise will ever make things better and will actually make things a lot worse for my family, symbolized by my brother’s death in the dream?

    Is my nightmare reinforcing my unshakable understanding that time taken from the ones we love in order to work can never be replaced, and might indeed directly result in the death of our most valuable relationships?  Is this unshakable belief based on partly recollected dreams?  Are dreams worth basing our beliefs on?

    Are dreams merely dreams?

    Sometimes dreams hold pleasure, and sometimes they hold pain. Regardless of what emotions dreams unveil, they always bring insights into who we might one day be.

    Dreams are very important to me. I believe we seldom pay them the close attention they deserve. What are dreams or their frightening siblings, nightmares? To me, they are the manifest language of my soul talking to my physical body. With that thought in mind, I’d like to share a related snippet of my work, Beltamar’s War with you. It appears below and encompasses a conversation between Zunesan and two of her daughters, Liaju, and Ryntam. In Malmaxa, a “cincture” is an all-encompassing investigation, which Liaju is in the process of completing as this conversation takes place.

    The following text is from Chapter 13, Section V, it is titled “Reunions, and Cinctures”.

    Daring to breathe again, Liaju slowly relaxed, only then realizing how rigid her body had been.
    Pride evident in her voice, Zunesan said, “You treat the cincture with the care it warrants. Considering the nature of your dreams, this is especially pleasing.”
    Ryntam sat straighter when she overheard her mother’s words. Overcome by curiosity, and unable to stay her tongue, she repeated them, “The nature of your dreams?”
    Realizing Ryntam had no knowledge of Liaju’s dreams, which had begun in the early spring after Ryntam had left from the winter stay, Zunesan turned to face her oldest daughter, “Liaju is plagued by riddles and portends hidden within dreams. But this is not the time, we will speak of them later.”
    With a quick nod, Ryntam looked back to her sister, eyes bright and intent as she considered this new knowledge.
    Self-doubt had completely replaced Liaju’s earlier confidence. Voice unsure, she muttered, “I placed greater value on those dreams than they deserved. Sometimes dreams are merely dreams.”
    Zunesan snorted dismissively, “Dreams are always dreams, child. Yet portends are seldom granted, and still more rarely are they clear or intelligible. Back to work. I don’t want to be here all night.”

  • Forgiveness.

    Some ancient wisdom strikes at the very root of truth. Which is probably why we consider it so wise. Take this modern English version of a line from a lengthy poem by Alexander Pope, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.”

    Succinct and simple at first glance. Now let us delve into the wisdom buried within.

    First a little background. I was browsing the timeline of a simply complex man who walks alongside me on Twitter’s path. That path can be painful at times, studded as it is with uncut gems. @DaveGrigger posted a link to a post regarding forgiveness that you may choose to read.

    My subsequent reading of the post referred to caused my own reflection on the nature of forgiveness.  I responded with my own version of the truth:

    The only way we humans ever truly forgive, is when we forget.

    Do I wish I could forgive? Of course, as forgiveness strikes me as a most worthy thing to do. Unfortunately, there is a caveat that renders forgiveness impossible for any human save a simpleton.

    Outrageous!

    No, simply the truth as I see it. You see, for forgiveness to be real requires that there be no exceptions to it. True forgiveness must be absolutely unconditional. We can’t partially forgive someone. We can’t conditionally forgive someone. We can’t forgive them, with reservations and exceptions. Thus the only way we can ever truly forgive someone who has wronged us, is to completely forget they did. That requires us to be a simpleton who is completely incapable of remembering. I don’t believe such simple humans exist.

    Let me use an example to try and clarify my meaning along with my understanding of what I think Alexander Pope meant. I’m unlikely to succeed, but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

    Someone deliberately deceives us in order to win a contest.

    We forgive them.

    We enter another contest. They deceive us again, and win again.

    If we are truly capable of forgiving, then there is no limit to the number of times they can repeat the wrong they do us. Do you know anyone who is capable of such forgiveness, other than a complete simpleton?

    If we truly forgave them the first time they deceived us, then forgiving them again is easy. However that is not the nature of humans anywhere. Though we forgave them the first time, when they repeat their deceit we remember the first occurrence. Since we remember their treachery, we have not truly forgiven it. The most we have done is grant the wrongdoer leniency, while retaining the right to withdraw such leniency.

    That is not forgiveness. Not at all.

    Forgiveness is far beyond the realm of human behavior. So far beyond that it can only be in the behavior of the divine.

    I’ll leave you with one last thought. Forgiving someone who has not wronged us really isn’t forgiveness at all, it is arrogance. It makes countless assumptions about whatever deed we deem worthy of forgiveness, it makes further assumptions about the person or people who were wronged, and it attempts to place us in judgment over the actions of others. What is that, save arrogance?

    To forgive requires two things. First, that we are personally wronged. Second, that we completely forget.  I don’t wish either of those on anyone.

    Now look back on the number of words in this post.  Compare them to the number of words in Alexander Pope’s poetic line, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.”  Honestly, I think Alexander Pope said all I have said and more, in barely a single line…

    Ancient wisdom, indeed.

  • Gonzo

    Back in the mid to late 1970s, my brother-in-law, Desmond, though I don’t think he had yet married my sister, Elizabeth, when this happened, was managing a farm. Desmond rescued a baby bushpig from his farm laborers, who had managed to capture it.

    A female bushpig - females have no tusks.
    A female bushpig – females have no tusks.

    {The image above is borrowed, under their creative commons license, from this post on Wikipedia. Take a few minutes and read a little more about these fascinating creatures. *Note 1.}

    Using a piece of twisted wire, the laborers had hung the piglet up by it’s snout and one of it’s front legs. They intended to eat it for dinner later in the day.  Desmond bought the baby pig, paying substantially more per pound than the cost of the meager amount of pork on the piglet’s frame. Desmond cleaned up the open wound on it’s right-front leg left by the wire, then brought it to our house. We named the tiny little pig “Gonzo”, which is Shona for “Rat”. Why?  Because Gonzo was about the size of a cane-rat, and the same coloring too.

    Gonzo attached himself to my youngest brother, Nick, and would follow him everywhere. It was quite a sight to see Gonzo hobbling after Nick, trying to hold his bandaged front leg up off the ground where it would remain unspoiled. Contrary to common belief, pigs are quite fastidious in their grooming habits.

    Along with all of us, Nick took great delight in waiting until Gonzo was distracted, then hiding from him. When Gonzo realized his adopted “mother” had vanished he would squeal and dash all over the place until he found Nick. Gonzo’s behavior was completely uncharacteristic, since most baby wild animals instinctively freeze at any danger. I know for a fact baby bushpigs do.  How? Because we once captured another who “froze” right in the middle on the road on the way down to the Zambezi River on a fishing trip. We stopped, walked up to the little pig, picked it up, moved it over to the side of the road to which its mother had run, and put it down. {We were pretty stupid back then… wild animals generally don’t take to people interfering with their young so don’t do it!}

    Looking back, I realize how cruel our behavior toward Gonzo was. The poor little animal must have thought he was about to be captured, forcibly removed from his mother, strung up, and wired to a pole all over again. Since Gonzo’s fear overcame his instincts, he would literally run wild until he found his adopted mom.

    Back to the story…

    Though he was quite clean {I’m talking about Gonzo, not my brother Nick} he had a problem many babies have.  In order to feel secure, he needed to sleep with someone. Unfortunately, also like many little babies, Gonzo had another, more serious problem…

    Each evening as bedtime for the pig approached Nick would get up, walk into the bedroom he shared with my brother Chris, sit on Chris’s bed, pat it, and whisper, “Here Gonzo, here boy!” Like a well trained dog, Gonzo would leap onto the bed and burrow in. About ten minutes later Chris would get up, casually stroll into the bedroom, sit on Nick’s bed, and repeat the process.

    Gonzo loved playing this game.

    Unfortunately for Chris, he would usually lose the Battle of the Pig. How do I know this? Because pretty much like clockwork when Chris went to bed a loud cry would echo through the house as Chris yelled, “That bloody pig has peed in my bed!! Again!”

    You see, the other serious problem Gonzo had, is that he would wet the bed. {At least this is what Nick claimed…}

    Of all the wild animals we rescued and temporarily kept as pets, and we had many, from bushpigs to Nag Apies, I think Gonzo might well have been the one with the most character.  I may post other memories of him on this blog, so stay tuned.

    {Note 1. The image above could almost be of Gonzo. The only difference is that Gonzo was a male, and male bushpigs grow substantial tusks – which is how I know the image is of a female bushpig.}

  • Colors

    ~ Colors ~
    ~
    Black, white, indigo and grey.
    They’re all just pigments
    at the end of the day.
    Brown, red, yellow, and white.
    They’re all just skin tones,
    what do they matter,
    when we turn out the lights.
    ~

    My youngest daughter, Julia, wrote this. It was on a page of, “they aren’t any good”…