Categories...

Humans categorize. Everything. We like to be able to describe, to organize, to put everything neatly into a category.

And that’s okay. This world is a really big place and it’s full of a whole lot of different things. Categorizing all of that makes the world a little easier to navigate. It makes it easier to deal with the amount of input, of data, that our brains must take in from the time we open our eyes in the morning until we close them at night. Taking everything in in one big chunk is impossible, just as impossible as taking every single thing in separately. Categories let us chunk the world up in a way that’ll actually let us function.

Sometimes people forget that categories are just about organizing the data of the world into smaller, sizable pieces. That’s when the problems start. Because that’s when people start applying meaning to the categories. That’s when people become so rigid in their sorting that nothing and no one is ever allowed to change categories. That’s when people start ranking the different categories. That’s when people start applying morality to the categories. That’s when people start hating the people who have been sorted into certain categories. That’s when the lynchings start. When the hate crimes start. When the beatings start. When the bullying starts. When the suicides start.

It’s beyond me how people can hate so much. How they hate not just strangers, but their own flesh and blood. And all because of a label that, at the end of the day, just does not matter. What matters is what’s in a person’s heart, what’s in their head.

Because really, what difference does it make to you who your neighbor is having sex with, as long as he or she is a consenting adult? What difference could it possibly make to you if the man you parked next to at the grocery store is married to a woman or a man? How does it impact your world in any way whatsoever if the kid who delivers your newspaper goes by Jill and wears dresses… and has a penis?

If the only answer you can come up with is “it’s just wrong,” then can you really say that compounding that with hate and with pain is really worth it? It’s really quite exhausting to hate all the time. Is that really how you want to spend your energy?

If the only answer you can come up with is “it’s against God” or “the Bible says,” then you failed to read the whole book and you failed to take in the whole message. Because I’m quite certain that such judgement is not up to you. And I’m quite certain that you are supposed to be loving your neighbor as one of God’s creatures, not hating him because he’s not like you. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be trying to be the best you possible. And I’m pretty sure that superficial hate, ignorance, judgement, and false feelings of superiority are not the road to a better you.

To any of my friends who don’t fit in the category into which our society has placed them, I hope I have never made you feel that way. I hope you know that whether or not you feel free, comfortable, safe to tell me, it’s okay. I already support you. You are my friend. You, the person, not the category you’ve been placed in. I don’t care if you’re straight or gay or crooked or all of the above. I don’t care if you’re male or female or neither or both. I don’t care if you’re tall or short, thin or fat, blond or brunette. I don’t care if you’re rich or poor, educated or a drop out. I don’t care if you’re a dog person or a cat person.

I care if you’re kind and loving. If you’re true to yourself. If you’re honest in your life. I care if you’re okay. I care if you’re happy. I care if life is treating you well. I care if you are treating you well.

You see, the category into which I’ve placed you is one that isn’t affected by any of those meaningless labels, that isn’t changed by any of that. As your friend, my wish for you is that you can be the happiest you possible. Whatever that means.

The category you’re in for me is that of friend.

Caring for Kari | Medical Expenses - YouCaring.com

Caring for Kari | Medical Expenses - YouCaring.com

Things people say...

"We can't stop it. So how can we cause it?"

I will get to the part about who said it and what it was about. But first, what kind of logic is that?! I mean, seriously, does this make some sense that I'm missing?

Forest fires are difficult to fight. Some are impossible and all we can do is to wait for them to burn out. So using the logic above, since it can't be fought, then clearly the fault does not belong to the person who carelessly left their campfire smouldering. Because hey, we can't stop it so clearly we didn't cause it. 

I can think of so many other examples. So many results of actions that, once set into motion, just cannot be stopped. That doesn't change the cause, doesn't take away fault or blame. 

So back to the origin of the quote. Noted scholar and scientist* Rush Limbaugh had this to say about climate change. 

*Where's the sarcasm font when you really need it??

Time for a timeout...

Okay, children, it's time to stop reacting. Time to stop holding grudges. Time to stop peeing in the sandbox. Time to stop worrying about who looks strong and who looks weak. Time to stop thinking we're better than everyone else. Time to stop having hissy fits and feeling like we're going to vomit whenever someone takes offense at us telling them that we're better than them.

It's time to put on our big boy/girl pants and think before we speak. Time to talk to each other. Time to realize that when Putin's is the calmest, most reasonable voice in the room, perhaps we need to stop and consider that. Time to not dismiss everything else he said just because he (like everyone else on the planet) does not like being told that we're better.

If you need to sit on the step by yourself for a minute to calm down, do feel free to do that. Come back when you're feeling a little more reasonable and can actually add something constructive to the conversation.

Love, love, love...

I'm neither a poet nor a songwriter. I don't claim to know all that much about love. But I do know a couple of things.

Being loved should not be something you need to defend against. If being told that you are loved causes you to firmly slam your walls of defense into place, you really need to think about that.

It shouldn't hurt to be loved. Loving someone else can hurt. But being loved? That shouldn't hurt. If someone loving you hurts you, then, again, you really need to think about that.

Love isn't a threat or a sentence. If it feels that way, then you need to give it a good hard look.

Nothing is required of you when someone loves you. Just keep being you. Clearly that really is enough.

Love shouldn't come with conditions or expectations. If it does, it probably isn't love.

When someone opens their heart to you and lets you in, recognize the honor of that. You do not have to love the person back. You don't even have to understand why the person loves you. Just accept it for what it is.

Being loved is a gift.

1/2 + 1/2 + 1/4 = uuhhhh...

A recent article in Education Week discussed the hows of teaching math in elementary school. More specifically, the discussion was about the teaching of fractions. The content of the article itself is not what I'm here to comment on. Rather, it was one of the comments (yeah, I know, big surprise):

I'd like to point out that the amount of times I've needed to add or subtract or multiply or do ANYTHING with fractions in my adult life is absolutely zero. Never. Never, ever.

I'll ignore the fact that the woman who wrote this post needs a grammar refresher and stick to her overall message.

Never? She's never used fractions in her adult life? So she doesn't cook? Doesn't shop sales? Doesn't tip in restaurants? Doesn't ever use cash (because what are coins but fractions of a dollar)?

This brought to mind an actual conversation I had with an actual person I actually know regarding algebra. The person was attempting to point out to me the folly of having to learn algebra, the ridiculousness of learning to solve for x. According to this person, this is simply not a skill that regular people ever need.

My response: seriously? You're kidding me, right? You've never figured out how much gas you can get with your last $20? Never figured out how many slices of pizza each person in your family gets? Never needed to figure out how many pizzas to buy for your super bowl party? Never calculated how long it will take to get from your house to your grandma's house based on number of miles and approximate speed? Or how much gas you'll need to get to grandma's house?

Every day. Every frickin’ day. And that you don't get that you are essentially solving for x for all of these routine tasks makes me very sad. Because clearly, you missed the actual point of learning it! You missed the actual, overall lesson. And I’m guessing you didn’t do that well in algebra either, because when you miss the point, you kind of suck at those story problems.

And now you go around telling kids in school that algebra is stupid and there’s no reason to ever learn it, and those kids listen to you and so they don’t pay attention and learn the point either and so… and on and on and on it goes…

I need feminism because...

"I need feminism because..." is a very interesting campaign by students at the University of Cambridge. In short, they gave people a white poster that said "I need feminism because..." and then the people would fill something in and a picture would be taken. There's a Facebook page that includes many of the pictures. Some are funny, others are very much not, and all of them are meaningful.

I first learned of this project via an article (a blurb, really) on msn.com. As usual, I made the mistake of reading through some of the comments. It's somewhat amazing to me that in the year 2013, so many are still so clueless about what feminism is. Take the author of this comment, for instance: I need feminism so my wife will mow the yard, change the oil, wash the car, etc.... Oh the ignorance.

Here is my response to those people:

Feminists don't want to be like men; we don't want to be men. We want to be treated as though men and women are, on balance, equal. Like we're worthwhile human beings. We do not want to be treated like property or like second class citizens. We want equal pay for equal work. We want to have opportunities available to us that are outside of the traditional female opportunities. If we want to work outside of the home as, say, an engineer, we want that to be an okay choice. If we want to stay home and raise the kids, we want that to be an okay choice, too. How husbands and wives divvy up the household chores is up to them. If the two decide between them that the husband is on trash, lawn, and car duty while the wife is on kitchen, laundry, and shopping duty, that's up to them. If they decide that the wife is on kitchen, car, and lawn duty while the husband is on laundry, shopping, and trash duty, that's up to them. Feminism doesn't mean a woman has to do her share of the traditional male duties around the house while a man has to do his share of the traditional female duties around the house. Feminism means that the wife is not obligated to be barefoot in the kitchen while her man is hunting. If wife and husband want that arrangement, that's cool. But if they don't, that's cool, too. That's feminism.

So, sorry, but having feminism in the world does not necessarily get you out of changing the oil in your car.

Where are we going...

Just ran across an article in The Columbus Dispatch that some of you may find interesting. Seems the head of our waterways at the Ohio EPA (George Elmaraghy) is resigning. And the story on the street is that he is pretty much being forced out by Kasich & His Cronies. Why, you may ask? (Or perhaps not as we've all heard this tune before.) Elmaraghy does not just roll over and let the coal industry have their way, and of course coal has a lot of money, a decent chunk of which it has shared with K&C. Now mind you, there are all kinds of problems with the water in this state. Don't think that Elmaraghy is some kind of aging hippie. Again, see the water in this state.

But even more interesting -- and the reason I'm actually posting -- was one of the comments to the article. I won't copy over the whole thing here. If you want to read it all, follow the link to the article and read it for yourself. This person's entire comment was quite thoughtful, but this is the part that really stuck with me:

We must abandon the "corporate ethic" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) of immediate gratification/what's going on this quarter and start planning for our future, or we will join the other societies of the Earth who vanished- the Mayans, Romans, etc.- all very smart, very powerful people who lost sight of their future. -- Pete Myer

That, in a nutshell, is the source of so many of our problems today: we don't look to the future. We are concerned only with the now. Granted, the live every day as though it were your last notion is a good one. On an individual level. On a societal level it spells disaster. On a societal level it is complete suicide. Societies are supposed to want to continue long into the future. Societies are supposed to want to grow and improve. Societies are supposed to want to leave the world a better place for future generations.

We as a society are not very good at that. We have gotten greedy and lazy and we have stopped caring about each other. Unless and until that changes, I see doom and destruction in our future. Humans as a collective are frickin' brilliant. There is nothing we cannot achieve. There is no problem we cannot solve.

The key, though, is that we have to listen to each other. We have to work together. We have to acknowledge/admit the problem before we can make real progress on the solutions. And as long as we continue to bicker and fight and point fingers, we continue down this path of destruction. The farther down that path we go, the more difficult it will be to turn back. Eventually, it will be too late.

As individuals there are things we can do. And one of them is to vote. Voter turnout is abysmal, even in years when a president is being elected. That has to change. We have to take our responsibilities seriously and turn out at the polls. And when we are deciding who will get our votes, we need to look beyond the commercials. Advertising, we should all know by now, is not about spreading truth. Rather, it is about selling a product. When it comes to political commercials, the point is to buy your vote. Don't let yourself be bought and paid for. Pay attention and learn something and vote from your heart and your brain.

Also remember that your responsibility as a citizen and a society member does not end when you cast your ballot. Whether your guy/gal wins or loses, stay on top of them. When they do things you don't like, when they submit or support bills that you think just aren't right, tell them. These days it is incredibly easy to contact our elected officials and give them feedback. You may be surprised at the number of personal responses you'll receive. Yes, there will be many form letter responses. But mixed in with those, you really will find thoughtful responses from the man himself (or woman herself… I hate "gender equality" in writing!).

How this turned into a lecture on voting, I do not know. But there you have it. It's not hard to stay informed and it doesn't actually take all that much time. So do the future a favor and become an active citizen.