... stop diggin' an' start climbing ...

Okay Februrary, you win ..! It is QUITE cold out there!  I put in an application for another position with the library and at the Meijer's up the road.  Fingers crossed on both counts.  I start back to doing volunteer work at the downtown branch Friday, but it would be nice to get a paid position.

THOSE NY-QUIL NIGHTS ...

State lost on television tonight to Purdue.  Steve Lavin, former coach at UCLA did the game.  He mixes sports metaphors pretty good and I like when he calls a game.  Tonight, he used part of a phrase I took from an interview of his ... 'those ny-quil nights where you lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.'

I am interested in how people deal with their 'nights', not because I don't have my own way to deal, but because the cruelty of such nights are examinations of the soul, are they not?  Lying on your back staring at the ceiling with the moon light breaking thru a bedroom window, wondering 'why me?' and 'when is it gonna happen'.

1984

I haven't read it in YEARS but it is one of my favorite stories.  Not going to get into how it relates to anything other than what I picked it out for tonight.  In the book, Orwell shows the power of language and how it is used to manipulate thought.  It was then I chose to stop cursing.  I will drop an f-bomb or some other word on THE RAREST of occasion -- some people just won't respond to anything else.  But I have read too many books to limit my expressiveness to vulgarities.

As to words, which I adore, I was brought up to believe that if you can correctly use a word in a sentence three times, it is yours, yours, yours!  The key is 'correctly', which is harder than it sounds.  There is a fine line from 'increasing your vocabulary' and 'becoming they Yogi Berra of the multisyllable words!

If I had a language all of my own, I wonder if there would be a word for 'fear' in it.  I try hard not to use it -- fear is after all, a four letter word.  Some people don't understand it, and misuse it frequently.  That and its sister 'scared'.  I say them to give others something to relate to, but within myself, I don't believe in the concept.

Chicken on a String

When I entered the service, I scored really high on the ASFAB test, which is the exam they give to make sure you can at least spell your own name!  It isn't that easy, but for me, it wasn't that hard.  Scoring as high as I did, let me pick certain things out for my enlistment contract.  Which is how an admin soldier got to be Air Assault qualified.  But before I started to slide down rope from helicopters, if you had asked me, I would have told you that I was afraid of heights.  Not just 'afraid' but scared.

The stuff that scares me have always held a strange fascination for me.  It acts as a magnet, pulling me closer until I am staring it right up close.  I did not like that I was 'scared' of heights.  I knew that in school, I wouldn't have time to be anything but a soldier jumping out of a perfectly operational helicopter, sliding down a rope that is setting my hands on fire!

Now, I say that I don't like heights.  You AREN'T going to get me on a roller coaster.  But I will hang glide with you ... which I have never done!

It isn't just a pity saying on a tee shirt!

Yeah, I repeat it like a mantra, because that is what it is, 'Face Your Fears, Live Your Dreams'.  How many of us can say that they did that?  See, I have to pull this trump out, because my race is halfway run.  What can I tell my little girls who are teens and pre-teens?  That I played it safe, and still couldn't hang with the milquetoasters?  Naw, that isn't me.  Failed, sure I have, SPECTACULARLY so.  Going out west to meet with Nebraska and vist my sister could have been fraught with danger ... real danger.  I hadn't been 'out' in quite a while, a couple of years.  New environments sort of throw me off my mark.  I was traveling to a place where I had no idea of what was going to be waiting on me.  But hey, I was going to see my sister AND I was getting a chance to meet someone who was special in my mind.  So I had a choice, tragedy or fulfillment?  I chose the latter, and that is what I got.

I do believe in the control of your thoughts begin with the language you use in those thoughts.  That is why I try not to swear ... but some people won't 'understand the words that are coming out of my mouth' if I don't.  Even then, I will just go around them if at all possible.  Read too many books to stoop to such base and common language. So I am now back to the f-bomb ... FEAR.

See, it is just like this-- when I say that 'I am not afraid', that is exactly what I mean.  Being afraid will get you hurt, will get people killed.  I won't let myself be afraid, PARTICULARLY when there is a clear objective involved.  People talk about that concept, and of being scared without knowing themselves what they are saying.

Patience and Prudence

As I re-evaluate myself (yes, another re-engineering ..!), I am not expecting to be like Gregor Samsa and wake up in the morning radically different.  On the show 'The Biggest Loser', the contrast between what they were and what they have become seem sudden and great ... the reality is that it has come after a slow and steady building of effort.  What did Teddy Atlas said about Mike Tyson when it was asked if he was a natural fighter?  'Well', said Teddy, 'he didn't walk into the gym that way!'  Sure, there are savants at things, high achievers and rapid risers.  Then there are those who just plug and plug.  Either way, what ever is won by work and effort is worthy of note. 

Work and effort proving worth.  What a freakin' concept!  I think I could do a show like Dr. Phil (who I like as he too has devolved into a caricature of himself) where I say things like, 'If life hits you in the nose, whadda ya gonna do?  Stand there and bleed?'  Even if you DON'T know what you are going to do, as long as you act, I think you are going in the right direction!