Category: The Internet

Leaving Oz

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

wizard-of-ozI decided to give up politics for Lent. It seemed a very worthy goal since I was becoming more and more overwrought by the pronouncements coming from the various factions these days. I had become so distracted by the continual chatter that I was losing track of what is most important and feeling a level of stress that I have not experienced since I retired from work. In the spirit of being more contemplative and aware of my fellow man I felt that eschewing controversial Facebook posts, news programs and television channels that focus on twenty four seven updates of the latest and greatest battles in our nation’s capitol would make me a better and more reasoned person and clear my brain enough to allow for spiritual reflection.

I was doing quite well until my eye caught a political opinion discussion on one of my friend’s social media wall and I fell into the trap of reading all of the commentaries. Since I had been out of the loop for quite some time I had to do a bit of research in order to determine my own thoughts on the matter. It didn’t take long for me to become irritated by what I learned and thoughts of the morass in Washington occupied my mind for hours regardless of how hard I tried to set them aside.

I attempted to distract myself with a shopping trip and even purchased a new pair of shoes, the universal panacea for all depressing moments. Nonetheless I found myself wandering somewhat aimlessly around the stores with a growing feeling of dread that ultimately led to a full blown anxiety attack of the kind that I used to get when I was student and a big exam was looming in my future. Somehow I could not shake the feeling that the people whom we selected to lead us are mostly bumbling fools who may not be much help if a real crisis were to arise. This filled me with a kind of foreboding premonition that some vague but terrible event was going to happen. It made my chest tighten and my head hurt.

Realizing that not even the power of retail therapy was going to lift my spirits I drove back home with my shoes, a birthday gift for a nephew and a carton of eggs while breaking my dietary fast with a bag of Sour Patch Kids. (When I fall off of the wagon I do it in a big way.) There I found an empty house that only made my senses even more attuned to the crazy thoughts that were buzzing in my head. A feeling of old school guilt rushed over me for having broken my Lenten promise. My regret in having failed to keep my promise only seemed to compound the funk that was overtaking me.

When my husband Mike finally returned from an excursion to Harbor Freight I confessed to him that I had broken my political fast and it had sent me into a tailspin. He suggested that I join him outside on the patio in our backyard. At first I was like a nervous cat jumping from one conversation to another, making little sense in my effort to avoid the one topic that I had promised to eliminate for forty days and nights. Eventually I simply sat quietly and as I listened to the sounds of the neighborhood I slowly began to relax.

The children next door were taking advantage of the warm sunny day by swimming in their pool. Their laughter was contagious and I found myself joking about my transgression. I watched birds swooping through the yard as though they were involved in a game of aviary quidditch. I took a walking tour of my garden enjoying the colors and aromas of the roses, hibiscus, amaryllis, impatiens and flowering vines. I felt my optimism slowly returning and suggested that we grill some salmon and vegetables then dine outside.

We feasted on the bounty from the sea and farmers’ fields while sipping on a lovely Chardonnay. I could feel my pulse slowing and my mind regaining its footing. I forgave myself for being weak and silently promised not to engage in political thoughts or discussions for the remainder of the lenten season. I found a calmness that allowed me to later slumber in peace and to laugh at my own ridiculousness.

I suppose that I will not be able to avoid thoughts of politics forever. I realize that I have a citizen’s duty to stay informed. There will be battles that I must fight to keep our nation free and moving in the right direction. I can’t take a permanent vacation from responsibility and yet it is admittedly nice to avoid the furor that is so commonplace. I have come to believe that I must be careful to take my fact finding in small doses and from reliable sources. If I encounter contentious discussions in which there is only babble rather than honest attempts to present all points of view I intend to remove myself as quickly as possible. I am quite done with emotional outbursts and news presented more as an editorial than a repository of information. I neither want nor need interpretations of evidence from people who claim to be without bias. I am perfectly capable of determining reality without the push and pull of pundits. I don’t need to read the thoughts of others on twitter, not even those of the POTUS. In fact, I think we would all do well to abstain from the banter and the bickering.

Ours is a nation that responds to our wants and needs. If the vast majority of citizens were suddenly to tune out the blather it would eventually stop. The truth is that all of those people who seem to be shouting at us are in the game to advance careers and their own sense of power and wealth. If they realize that they have lost us as an audience they will change or go away. As long as we feed on their rabble rousing they will continue to annoy us. It is up to each of us to let them know that we are no longer interested.

I intend to slim down my political musings. I will find new sources that provide primary facts rather than secondary interpretations. If there is a law or a budget proposal I will read the details for myself and sort out my concerns with my own research into the issues. When I see a smoke screen I will assume that there is a fire and I will douse the flames without emotion. If my lenten sacrifice has taught me anything it is to avoid the propaganda and focus on the better nature of mankind.

I’m feeling better now. I will admit that there is much happening in Washington D.C. that both bothers and infuriates me but I also realize that working myself into a dither will help no one, least of all myself. My more meditative spirit has revitalized my willingness to seek truth, not from those who would distort reality but from the quiet souls who still insist on simply shining a light on the words and actions of our leaders. We don’t need third party interpretations. All we need do is watch and listen and then follow the dictates of our hearts. We will all be better for taking a different approach than the Oz-like fantasy that has defined politics for far too long. I’m gong back to reality. It feels much better there.

Generations

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

leadership-generationsWe have a tendency to name and classify entire generations of people. I’m not sure whether this trend was started by social scientists or journalists but at least during the twentieth century and beyond we have created artificial designations meant to describe the general characteristics of groups of people born within certain eras. Thus we have the men and women born and raised during the twenties and thirties who became “the greatest generation” due mostly to the contributions that they made during World War II. Then came my group, often known as the baby boomers, because “the greatest generation” lacked effective birth control methods and had one child after another, creating one of the largest increases in population in the history of the world. Of course modern medicine allowed more of us to stay healthy after we were born as well so we have tended to hang around longer than our ancestors. We boomers have gotten a bad rap for most of our lives. We annoyed our parents with our rebellious spirits and our own children who became Generation X often struggle to understand what makes us tick. Currently we are in the age of the millennials who are vastly different from any group that has come before them. They are idealistic even beyond the dreams of those of us who once ran with the hippies and anti-war crowd.

Of course anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that it is all but impossible to paint an entire generation with a broad stroke and be entirely accurate. Each of us is a product of our genetics, our home environment and the happenings of the wider world. Had there been no World War II “the greatest generation” might never have earned that designation. They were hard working men and women for sure and mostly had good hearts and pure intentions but they were often unconcerned with injustices that did not directly affect them. They tended to go about the business of daily living without much notice of problems with race or poverty. It was the role of their children to challenge their thinking and ask them to consider questions of fairness, race and feminism. Their rowdy kids demanded that they begin to question the status quo.

To be fair my parents’ generation somehow raised me and my contemporaries to be openly critical and defiant. We didn’t just suddenly hatch out of an egg with our revolutionary ideas. Our elders had insisted that we be educated far better than they had been. We were exposed to ideas that demanded creative thinking and it was our parents who encouraged us to take full advantage of the knowledge that we acquired. The result was that we were a bold generation that drew upon the theories of intellectuals and realized that we had voices that deserved to be heard. In some cases our youthful enthusiasm was chaotic but on the whole it began to change the world in ways that were sometimes frightening and confusing to many of the old guard who saw our impertinence as a slap in the face.

Still we did not march in unison as a group. Some among us maintained a more conservative approach to life just as some of our parents were even more liberal than we were. While changes were affected there were still tendencies to pick and choose past traditions that needed to be cherished. Each of us was a bit different while we clung to our individual identities.

I never liked the label of Generation X that was attributed to our children. It seemed so nondescript, as though this group had little to distinguish them other than the dates within which they were born. They enjoyed fairly peaceful childhoods filled with the creation of one innovation after another that we now take for granted. There was a kind of happiness and rainbows feeling during their era. They did not worry about the possibility of being sent to a war. The world appeared to be calm but that was little more than an illusion. Already there were stirrings in the Middle East that would come to haunt all of us. The economy had a tendency to slide up and down at inopportune times that sometimes left them without work. They were a bright and well educated generation, more progressive even than the boomers. They attended church less frequently and had fairly liberal ideas about sexuality and the role of women. Their children became known as the millennials.

Most millennials have little understanding of the impact of events in the twentieth century other than what they have learned in history books. The grainy black and white photos of mid-century America seem ancient and quaint to them. They can’t quite fathom what it was like to watch the civil rights movement unfold or participate in the Cold War with Russia. They have lived with a twenty four hour news cycle that brings stories of war and terrorism into their living rooms on a continual basis. They are one of the best educated groups in history but often have difficulty finding jobs. Unlike the boomers who were usually out on their own by the time they were twenty one years old, the millennials often stay within the family unit well past the middle of their twenties, sometimes out of necessity because they have been unable to secure work. They are less likely to marry at a young age if at all. They earnestly crusade for justice and equality, often spending time working in non-profits for free before launching careers. Many of them are more dedicated to the pursuit of science than religion. They often view the world from a very different vantage point than their grandparents and great grandparents whom they see as being out of touch with the realities of the new age.

The truth is that we tend to progress and change with each new generation mostly in concert with events and inventions that define how we see the world. Our perceptions are determined by the totality of our experiences. We show general characteristics based on the things that we endure as a society and our individuality comes from the less public aspects of our personal relationships. Truth be told it is our very humanity that affects our worldview. Television and social media have the power to impact numbers of us in ways that were unimaginable before the dawn of the twentieth century but we still react to more regional influences as well. Someone born in the nineteen forties in rural Texas will be different from someone who lived in a large eastern city at the same time. It is the amalgam of all that we see and hear and do that ultimately defines each of us, not a particular label. It is the nature of mankind to slowly evolve but often that process is an erratic curve rather than a smooth line.

Perhaps it would be best if we were to engage in conversations between the generations. Our table needs to be round and inclusive and open to a place for everyone. We need to eschew labels and stereotypes and learn to honor and respect the power of the journeys that each of us have taken. We are who we are not so much because we were born in a certain time frame but because we have lived. It is impossible to move from one day to the next over a lifetime without growing and changing in some way. Whether we accept it or not age and group memberships matter less than our common desire to improve our society with each passing generation. Our hope is to leave the world a bit better than it was when we first entered it. That is a worthy goal and one which we all can support.

Dear Sir

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

dear-sir-business-letter-4616080Dear President Trump,

By now you are no doubt getting to work in earnest. I suppose that I never dreamed that you would one day be our nation’s leader and I sometimes wonder if deep down inside you are just as surprised by your new title as I am. Anyway, many months ago I also wrote a letter to my friend, Hillary Clinton, giving her some well intentioned advice for her campaign. I feel comfortable calling her my friend even though I have never actually met her because she sent me a very nice letter in which she addressed me as her “dear friend.” She even sent me a bumper sticker which I saved in a special place with my treasured George McGovern buttons, so naturally I truly wanted to help her in her quest for the presidency. Sadly she had other advisors and didn’t take my well intentioned ideas seriously. Now I am offering you some unsolicited comments in the hopes that you will find a new voice that will speak to all of us as you guide our country.

I must be transparent in admitting to you that I did not vote for you. In fact, I wrote a number of blogs, tweets and Facebook posts in opposition to your candidacy. Nonetheless I am an imminently practical person and I understand all too well that if your term as president is unsuccessful we will all suffer. Since you claim to only be concerned about the well being of our nation and not your own personal gain herewith are some ideas that I think might help you to transition into your role and become the patriot that you say you are.

First and foremost you must rise to the seriousness and nobility of your new job with the example of our very first president, George Washington, in mind. That means that you must remember that you are here to serve the people of the United States of America. It is not about you, it is about us. Nothing else matters but upholding the oath that you made on Friday. Keep those thirty five words in a place where you can see them at all times. Think about what they mean anytime that you choose to speak or make a decision. Focus on the real issues and not the pettiness. Don’t allow yourself to go off on meaningless tangents that bait you into sounding small and selfish. So what if members of media post photographs claiming to show that the crowd for your inauguration was smaller than that of your predecessor. Nobody really cares about such things. Learn to ignore the ridiculous and definitely do not make yourself appear to be a bad sport by twisting the truth into a contortion of silly explanations. Let it go. Learn to smile and say, “It was a beautiful day that I truly enjoyed and I am excited about working for the American people. That is all that matters to me.”

The most beautiful and reassuring moment of inauguration day came when your beautiful wife and Mrs. Obama stood on the steps of the White House holding hands. That is the image that you should continue to display, one of generosity and reconciliation. The campaign is over. It is no longer about winning, it is about rolling up your sleeves and working with every citizen of this country, not just those who are your adoring fans. You have the opportunity to win over dubious souls like me but it won’t happen if you continue to be aggressive and petulant. Be willing to genuinely listen even to your detractors. Note to yourself that you missed an amazing opportunity to demonstrate your leadership when you neglected to compliment the women who marched around the world on Saturday. You might have reveled in the sight of democracy at work and reassured them that you have every intention of working for and with them. How great would it have been if you or your wife or one of your daughters had gone to speak with them and learn what was in their hearts. Taking that first step toward understanding one another would have been extraordinarily powerful and you missed it. Instead you chose instead to insult the CIA on the day of the march when you visited their home base. That is such bad form. We no longer need to hear what you think is wrong with America. We need to see you fixing the problems by working with the agencies and people that are experiencing difficulties. Start by noting what they are doing right and then asking them how you can help them fix what is wrong.

You have surrounded yourself with mostly incredibly loyal individuals who echo your beliefs. That is a natural thing to do but I would suggest that you also include people who are unafraid to tell you when they believe that you are making a mistake. You will fail if you live in a bubble of agreeable drones. You need to have a strong confidante who will face you with facts and not simply concur when it is patently obvious that you are wrong. Your press secretary really made of fool of you and himself this weekend when he argued about the size of the crowd at your inauguration. It was a really bad start to your administration. Find someone right now who will help you to turn things around. Don’t begin your tenure with a situation that is far too similar to the storytelling about a video causing a spontaneous attack in Benghazi. The people who voted for you surely expect better. Try to remember that the truth will set you free and as long as you are always honest you never have to worry about being caught in a lie. The American people will admire you more if you are willing to demonstrate enough humility to admit to missteps and show a genuine intent to set things right.

Quit complaining about the press. Nobody likes a whiner. Do what you need to do to keep our country moving and let the people decide how well you are executing your job. We are smart enough to determine whether or not our journalists are reporting the facts or editorializing. We don’t need your constant bashing of their efforts. Be better than that. It is unbecoming of the office for you to be so combative. State your case and then let it go, which also means controlling those tendencies that you have to dash off insulting tweets. You need to lock your phone inside your desk and pay more attention to your job and less to those who troll and taunt you.

I can tell that you want people to like you. That is a natural tendency that we all have. The truth is that no matter who you are there will always be detractors. Even Mother Theresa was the subject of crushing critiques. Show that you are genuinely concerned about all of the American people and you will begin to win more hearts. When you are aware of the needs of others and not just your own people will notice. You don’t need to brag and boast, in fact it is an unbecoming trait. Be the kind and charming person that many who know you insist that you are. Let us all see that side of your personality which so far has been missing. In other words quit being so mean spirited. It is off putting and embarrassing. I know that there will be times when you have to be forceful but don’t make a habit of always humiliating anyone who disagrees with you.

Be willing to change course when needed. No idea is so sacred that it should be protected even when it is shown to be flawed. That even goes for your initial selections of individuals for your cabinet. It doesn’t take a great deal of observation to see for example that Betsy Devos is not suited to be the Secretary of Education. She has no real life experience in classrooms and her ideas are far too simplistic for the complexities of the problems that she will face. Surely there are people who are far better suited for the job. Thank Ms. Devos for her willingness to help but find someone who has the gravitas to actually make a difference. God knows that we need to shore up our educational systems. After forty years of working directly with children and teachers I know all too well that there is still much needed work and improvement to be done.

I don’t want to rattle on for too long. You have so much to think about and a letter that is too lengthy will surely be ignored. Once again I wish you the best. I love this country and thank God every single day that I was lucky enough to be born here. Please know that like you I have many ideas about how to keep our nation as great as it has always been. I believe that we have the capacity to be better but that will require all of us to work together with a willingness to consider multiple points of view. Nobody should be exiled from a seat at the table. Please at least consider some of my suggestions. They were presented with an earnest desire to help you to achieve the greatness to which you seem to aspire. I would like nothing better than to watch you evolve into a man for all of the people.

Yours truly,

Sharron Little Burnett

A Better World With Simple Hacks

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Grant's jeans 2.JPGWhen I was first married my mother-in-law gave me a book entitled Hints from Heloise. I learned so much from the pages of that modest text. I don’t know what eventually happened to it. I moved it from one apartment to another and then to my first home where I resided for well over thirty years. I eventually became confident and adept enough at cleaning and repairing things that I no longer needed to refer to the dogeared tome and eventually the Internet provided me with all of the answers that I needed to take care of everyday household problems so I wasn’t too worried when I was unable to find it.

I’m a firm believer in keeping my appliances and purchases in good order so that they last longer. I seriously want to get the last possible dime out of every investment that I make and so I’m always puttering about attempting to prolong the life of all of the items that occupy my home. I learned all of the basics from Heloise but I find that there is always something that I did not know. Luckily I have friends who seem to be experts in the trivia of home maintenance.

I recently purchased one of those shower caddies that hold shampoo, soap and such. It kept falling onto the floor of the stall and I assumed that I had just made a bad purchase. I had used it a few too many weeks to return it but not enough to make it worth the money that I had invested in it. It wasn’t particularly expensive to begin with so I wasn’t too worried about having to purchase a new one, just a bit annoyed. I happened to mention to a friend during a phone conversation that I was irritated at having to find another style that would hang more securely when she suggested that I wrap a rubber band around the shower head to create enough friction to keep the hanging shelf from slipping off. Since I had nothing to lose I tried her idea as soon as I finished our call. It’s been four months now and my shower caddy is still in the exact spot in which I placed it on that day. My problem was so easily solved and I felt as though I had won some kind of lottery by being so clever.

I have often suggested that my friend who provided me with the successful hack should  write a book outlining the many ideas that she has. She is the type of person who is able to take a seeming pile of junk and turn it into useable items. She operates on a strict budget and somehow appears to live like a queen because of her uncanny knowledge about how to use virtually everything in unusual ways. She has shown me how to use lemon juice to get rust out of an antique tablecloth and peanut butter to remove gum from my daughter’s hair. She has memorized hundreds of healthy recipes and is like an encyclopedia when it comes to using everyday items in ways that nobody ever thought of doing. I find her insights to be quite interesting and hope that she one day finds the time to write a blog to share her ideas.

Just after Christmas my automatic ice maker simply quit making ice. I drink lots of cold water during the day and I was gravely missing the convenience of having those lovely cubes proliferating in a bin for my use. I was thinking of calling a repairman but chose instead to enter the world of YouTube videos that seem to run the gamut from music to relationship advice. I found a plethora of guides to troubleshooting an ice maker. Mike and I followed the instructions that I found by first turning off the water supply and unplugging the refrigerator. We then checked the water tubes for signs of blockage. When those appeared to be operating properly we focused on the ice making mechanism. We found frozen ice cubes stuck in the mold. It appeared that the little arm that determines whether or not ice is dropped or not was bent and in the wrong holes. We adjusted it a bit and reset the entire mechanism. I guess we will know in a few hours whether or not we have fixed the problem or need to purchase a new ice maker. Since we now know how easy the installation process is we will come out ahead either way.

I can’t really explain why I get a kick out of knowing how to perform such simple repairs. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel as though I am doing my part to keep our planet from becoming a gigantic junkyard. I find that as people we tend to be a throwaway society. We would rather just go get something new than take care of what we already have.

It hasn’t always been that way. People would live in the same house for most of their lives. They would drive their cars until the wheels fell off. Most folks ate dinner at home every night and used every scrap of food for something useful, even creating compost heaps with the less edible parts of food. Which brings me back to my friend who is so creative in her habits. She told me recently that she saves all of the peelings from her vegetables in the freezer until she has a bag full of such items. Then she simmers them in water to make a lovely broth that she uses for making soups. I think we might all learn from her frugal and planet conscious habits. After recycling and using things to the maximum she has very little garbage and less expense that most of us.

Our ancestors made quilts from the fabric of feed sacks and old articles of clothing. Everything was used and reused. Tin cans held nails and screws. Paper bags wrapped gifts, covered books and sometimes even became makeshift suitcases. Cardboard was a special gift that covered windows or lined shoes that had holes in the bottom. Every woman had a grease jar to hold fat from bacon that might be used in recipes. Tea bags were used multiple times. Baking soda was a household miracle cure for a multitude of problems. My friend has studied all such things and created many more ideas for household maintenance from her own experiences.

I think that we all enjoy learning about ways to save money and our planet all at the same time. We really should think twice before simply tossing our refuse on the curb. There are so many ways that we might give our items new life or even new homes. I think that if we were all to consider such saves before rushing out to purchase the next new thing we might soon find that many of our planets’ environmental problems would begin to dwindle. If we think of ways to keep those trash bins as empty as possible we will all be better for the efforts. We might also learn a thing or two about saving our hard earned money in a world that seems to be on the verge of bankruptcy.

Find yourself a copy of Hints from Heloise or locate a friend who is already an expert at such things. You will declutter your life and have fun at the same time. There is nothing quite as rewarding as repairing a problem that may have seemed impossible to fix. We humans like doing that but haven’t been as skilled as we once were. Perhaps its time for all of us to learn how to do such things again.

Facade

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

1902474be6161ed7fa088914cd72e4b7We all enjoy the world of make believe. As children we listen intently to stories from the imagination and we never quite lose our thirst for enchanting tales. In the adult world tales of dragons and dead people who reanimate excite us even as we understand that they are not real. We humans enjoy flights of fancy and we have become expert at creating visions so detailed and true to life that we are able to suspend our disbelief and fully immerse ourselves in fictions that distract us from the grind of daily living. We build theme parks where we escape for hours into fantastic worlds with rides that both thrill and frighten us. Somehow we need entertainment that is part unbelievable and part akin to our own lives. It is as though the comedy and tragedy of existence is not enough to stimulate our thinking. We humans are extraordinary in our thirst for creative genius.

Mankind began artistry rather simply. People decorated their bodies with colors from the earth and festooned themselves with feathers, shells, horns and animal skins. Some extended their inventive urges to paintings on the walls of caves and the oral traditions of tales that recorded history or taught important ideas. We thought to develop alphabets and refined ways of scrawling notations onto surfaces that we might carry from one place to another. We improved our tools and even while we eked out survival we paused for moments of entertainment. There is no other earthly creature that does such things. Our history is one of wars and violence and humane progress. We enshrine heroes both true and make believe. We speak of man’s fatal flaws in stories so universal that they ring true even centuries after they were written. We face down our tragedies at the same time that we cloak them in facades.

The truth is often so horrific and difficult to face that we deal with it much better if it is presented in metaphors. We are able to think and react to a movie when we might turn away from what is real. A sympathetic hero or heroine allows us to suspend our prejudices and judgements for a moment so that our minds are free to consider new possibilities. We forget that the view that we see in a play or a film is usually made of cardboard and the technology of computers. We sometimes believe a well crafted story with a cast of brilliant actors more than we do the evidence that exists right before our eyes. Sometimes we have to escape from what is real to find the truths that we need to hear.

Shakespeare said that we are all actors on a stage. We prepare our faces and our lines before we emerge from our homes each day to interact with the audiences who expect certain behaviors from us. We think before we speak. We dress in accordance with fashion and the dictates of our jobs. We strut and compete to win the best roles. We aim to please so that we might earn the accolades and goodies that allow us to survive. Few of us have the courage to fully be our true selves wherever we go. We wait to reveal who we really are to those in whom we trust. We have learned that it is risky to be any other way but we secretly admire those among us who shoot the finger to conventions. It is difficult to keep up a facade.

Social media sites provide us with a forum for truth. They appear to provide us with freedom, power and anonymity. It is easy to type in the words that are struggling to leave our minds and then walk away. There is nobody standing in front of us when we hit the send or post buttons. We do not feel the fears of confrontation and yet our spontaneous actions are not without repercussions. Others feel just as daring and verbal jousts often ensue. As we tear down our facades of politeness the world becomes littered with commentaries and insults that hover forever as evidence of our frustrations. We want to be able to own our thoughts but experience has taught us that to do so is fraught with dangers. After we are burned we replace the masks that we wear for protection. We feign ignorance of our mistakes and sometimes even turn away from the discussions that gave us a false courage. We learn that nobody really wants to know our ideas nor do they value our opinions. We only make others angry when we speak the truth and most of us dislike the battles that follow

We instinctively know that much of what we see and hear is as unreal as the fiction that entertains us. We desire good news and so there are those who manipulate us into believing that they are the bearers of good tidings when all they really want is power over our thoughts and feelings. Only the very confident and strong are willing to stand their ground and take the abuse that comes from nobly shouting the truths that we find uncomfortable to hear. They are the stuff of legend. They often suffer for their honor. We see their like both in fictional heroes and reality. They are King Lear and Martin Luther King, Jr., Kaleesi and Rosa Parks.

We humans are a funny lot. We are truth seekers who live behind our protective facades. We are brave and cautious. We risk speaking honestly and we lie. We walk into danger and we run away. Our very natures and physiology prompt us to take chances and to protect ourselves. There is a constant tug of war between good and bad, bravery and cowardice. Like Batman we are one person in the light of day and another in the dark of night. We hate our facades but understand the need to couch our words and actions in acceptable forms of behavior. All of us are prisoners in some ways and free in others. The facades that we build protect us from misunderstandings and judgements. They give us an illusion of strength and security but we always know that they are not real. It is only when we are with the people who allow us to remove our masks and the fake fronts that we feel the liberation that each of us seek. It is called unconditional love and we crave it.

It would be glorious if we were to one day find that tolerance had become universal. How invigorating it would feel to know that each person might fully embrace his/her uniqueness without fear of being misunderstood or ostracized. We are working on reaching that point but still have a long way to go. Sadly our facades will have stay in place for now.