Already Known

Just when you think you know what people think of you, you don't.

I've always told people "...if you want to be seen as nice, be nice." I still believe that and I follow my own advice -- mostly. I don't worry about what people think of me because I'm nice (almost all the time). Saves me explanations and worrying about what people say and think about me. After all. I write about what I think and say ... just not worried about what people think. 

Then again, when I stop worrying about what people think, someone will pop up to remind me how I acted and what I did wrong. Oh, well, that's life.

Good thing I learned to listen without jumping in to explain myself and mend my fences.

Mostly.

Just when I think I've been polite and nice, I get slapped in the face with my own shortcomings. Oh, well, that's life. C'est la vie.

I wonder if that happens to you. Probably. Happens all the time.

It happened to me and I kept my mouth and my fingers silent. I listened.

That is the real problem -- staying silent and really listening. Same for reading -- I stay silent and read what has been put before me. Good plan.

I don't think people really listen and keep their mouths shut. Not only their mouths but their thoughts. If your thoughts are tumbling all over each other, you can't listen. Really listen ... and be nice.

I have worked hard to be pleasant so I don't have to explain myself.

Then again, sometimes I get waked up and struggle to remain polite, a fact that was the heart of the dressing down I endured when a friend tongue lashed me because I was ungracious and not as polite as I think I am (or was)  

I have news for you. You are not seen as nice as you think you are. Maybe you were awakened unceremoniously and thrown into the midst of a difficult situation. You don't have the same excuse, especially if you are out in the world in the middle of the day. You have no excuse. You are at that point who you always are -- an ungracious, rude, terse asshole. You have always appeared so to me, but I thought you probably watched your Ps and Qs among others. Guess not.

A new man came to fill the spot left by the maintenance man who left for a job with the state of Ohio, a better paycheck, and a future that he had gone to college (technical school) to obtain. We all wish him well, but I like this new maintenance man as well. The surprise for me was that he knew you and had had dealings with you. I didn't gloat and I did not do the Snoopy Happy Dance. Clint told me he knew you and that his opinion of you was exactly the same as mine. He could deal with you and knew you from his own dealings with you -- an uppity snob who looks down on everyone else.

That is my experience of you and I have sixty-two years of experience. He isn't adopted and he isn't trying to fit in. He is a man and has had to deal with you in various circumstances so he knows you very well and he is not impressed. Like me (or rather not like me) he has learned to keep his head down, maintain a neutral attitude so as not to startle you or awaken your negative attitudes or snobbishness and get away from the encounter intact and unharmed.

Unlike me, he is not related to you as I am and he does not have to deal with you with any frequency. He just wants to get out of the way and not awaken the snobbish dragon. I don't care. I am who and what I have always been and I don't worry about arousing the snobbish dragon. Clint has to get away intact and unscathed. I don't care. I have been disowned and you have never worried much about how I see you. You know I see you as you are. So does Clint. He sees you as you are and have always been. After all, you don't want to sleep with him and don't worry about how he sees you. You don't. You never have and never will worry.

C'est la vie.

I am no longer friends with my tongue lashing one-time friend. She has severed our relationship when I called her in the hospital to see how she is -- or was. I have made and lost friends over the years and she is another one, born of ruminating and polishing the worry stone that she had cast at me while I listened with my full attention.

Yes, I actually did listen -- really listen -- and I paid heed. Does not make a difference. She had been polishing that worry stone for a very long time. Nothing I did or said could or would have any effect.  I have to let it go, just like I let go the empty promise of being taken to Stow, Ohio. It happens, especially when empty promises take effect in the snobbish dragon. I don't worry about how it will turn out because what I worried about has happened and will not come again or be rectified. That time is past (has already passed by) and nothing will change because you will not change. You will be as you have always been and will always be; nothing will change because you cannot or will not change. I have been kicked out and nothing will be the same because the authors of this particular issue are long dead.

C'est la vie.

That is all. Disperse.

We are all Prejudiced

Photo by Stephen Melkithesian

I often think while I'm playing a mindless game and I realized that prejudice isn't about black or white, it is about the face we see in the mirror. We think that people that are different from us is the problem. That's wrong. The problem begins and ends with us. We are the problem. Prejudice and racism begin with the mirror, begins with us.

The face that looks back at us from the mirror makes it okay pretend for others like us to make mistakes as long as they are willing to say it out loud. I think that is why my father's hidden prejudice was so devastating to me because I grew up thinking he was not prejudiced and he was a fair man. After all, he accepted all people as they came and judged them on what they presented to us. That is why I was behind my Uncle Bob's open prejudice. He spoke up and told you to your face he was a racist. But that was not the problem, nor was it a problem that my father was racist. The problem was that he hid in plain sight, that he spoke the words of moderation and equality; he was actually a racist like my grandfather and every other Archie Bunker type racist I realized that I had been prejudiced all along.

I said the words. I espoused equality. I opened my arms and what I thought was my heart when I was as prejudiced as my Uncle Bob who said the words and would admit no black people into his home (like Mom) or into his heart. I realize that I am as closeted as my dad and every other racist person who pretends not to be racist. We are all in the closet and we say the words and we make the motions, but we are not free of the taint of prejudice. We are all racist in our heart of hearts, just like I am racist in my heart of hearts. Racism goes bone deep. Always has and always will be.

We will make allowances for those who are not like us, those who do not realize that racism is as endemic as the color of our blood, tissue, and ... ultimately sin color... because we haven't faced up to the facts.

Maybe racism began as a survival instinct. By that reasoning, that is why Islam and Mohammed have reached so far into the heart of this planet, this world. Islam is as closeted, and hence Mohammed, as a homosexual pretending to be straight. Of course, Mohammed was a twisted dwarf who fashioned his god to look as twisted and deformed as he was. That is a twisted and deformed way of thinking ... and believing.  We are all twisted and deformed when looking out of the eyes of Mohammed as he looks from the mirror of his soul and sees himself (or at least as he sees himself) to be. No wonder Islam forbids the believer to deviate from Mohammed's words as written down in the holy book, the Quran. That is why believers must say the words exactly as he inscribed them without deviation. How else could Islam have crawled from the depths of his deformed and twisted mind in the Middle Ages (1400+ years ago) into the modern world in the 21st century? Mohammed's twisted and deformed thoughts are squirming and deforming out modern minds because Mohammed decreed (as a commandment from the universe's GOD, Allah) it.

In Allah's words of course.

The problem lies with the mirror, the image that we see and that we believe is right above all others -- our own reflected image.

Photo by Stephen Melkithesian

We are not dealing with a rational mind -- especially in the case of Mohammed. We are dealing with the twisted and deformed utterings of an epileptic who had seizures and wrote his twisted and deformed thoughts into the Quran. The Quran is a holy book given to use through the medium of a twisted and deformed dwarf whose mother died when he was six and from out of the covering shadow of his mother's untimely death when he was tossed into the world grieving, twisted, and deformed. He was intelligent enough to figure out that a moon god in the pantheon where he had his brilliant epiphany that a forgotten moon god was the Ruler of the Universe, a GOD for all that he saw and codified in his holy book and thus GOD's utterances as he wrote them down while patterning his religion after the only religion in the world -- Judaism.

When Mohammed didn't get the seal of approval from the GOD OF THE JEWS, he decided to cover his backside by declaring that all believers in the GOD OF THE JEWS (Jews) had to be destroyed, annihilated, wiped out of existence because they had the effrontery to deny HIM (Mohammed) the stamp of approval he should have had because he was Allah's anointed prophet. How dare they? They must die. They could not be allowed to taint his holy visions with their ignorance and refusal to grant him the seal of approval he so desperately wanted -- and needed. How dare they?!

Much like Hans Christian Anderson's tale of the foul mirror that the demons carried up to place in front of God's throne to show him the foul warped mirror image dreamed up by Satan in his noxious dreams before they broke the mirror, the shattered foul mirror Satan devised broke into a billion pieces and warped that lodged in Kay's eyes and heart sending him into the Snow Queen's clutches to while away the endless hours in the freezing cold of her ice palace attempting to place the ice shards into the word eternity. Eternity is what Mohammed has damned the ardent followers of his warped and twisted religion, just like Mohammed damned his followers to fashion out of ice shards the word eternity. 

Eternity is what the Muslims will serve as they follow their prophet, Mohammed, into hell.

I would have followed Mohammed's warped followers into hell as well if I had not realized that racism begins and ends with the mirror -- a normal mirror not warped by the nefarious design of Satan. I am warped by my own imagination and my own closeted beliefs and feelings, not the warped design of my own fashioning. I am a racist.

There. I said it -- or at least wrote it for all to see and realize that I have finally admitted the truth, the truth that was denied by my father's own hidden truth -- he was a racist -- just as I am a racist.

Uncle Bob said it out loud. Dad refused to admit it out loud -- even to his own children -- he was a racist just as I am a racist. I am imperfect. I have always been imperfect and I am still imperfect -- at least to this point where I put it out into the world that I am a racist. 

I realize now that the only reason I tolerated my Uncle Bob's racism (just as I accepted Archie Bunker's racism because it was delivered in the form of comedy) is because Uncle Bob, like me, was white. He looked like the image I saw reflected in the mirror of my soul. That image accepts all things, even the warped and deformed, because he looked like me: he was white.

That is why I accept all things, because they look like me or are white.

That is also why I accepted the warped and deformed utterances of my mother because she was white. 

I fought her tooth and nail even though she was white because she was a racist. I accepted Dad's perfidy because he never said a thing. He said all the right things. He did all the right things. He was kind and generous and accepted all people; he couldn't be a racist.

Well, that is wrong. He was a racist just as I am a racist -- or was until I realized from where I was coming. All things are acceptable as long as the mirror reflects what you see as being just like you. That means the same is true, not only of me, but for all people. The mirror image you see makes everything acceptable.
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If you are black, you will accept all things because you see black in your mirror. That makes all things acceptable as far as you are concerned. Everything else is all right for you because it is black -- or red -- or yellow -- or purple with green polka dots -- because the image you see in the mirror is the same as the one looking back at you.

I apologize to all the wrong-headed people I criticized before I realized that I was a racist, too. I was wrong. I hope I am putting that wrongness right at last.

I was wrong.

I realize that now.

I apologize to all people (red, yellow, black, and white) for seeing you as wrong. I was wrong.

We all are wrong ... just not as wrong as a twisted and deformed dwarf like Mohammed. 

That is why I reject Allah and God and all forms of gods and why I am an atheist. I realize that we are all wrong because we cannot see or comprehend the reality of the universal being at the heart of all things. We can see and imagine a being at the center of all things, but we cannot really comprehend such a being because we are finite beings and, though we have a creative and vast imagination, we are not THE UNIVERSE'S GOD.

We are finite. We are human. We are wrong.

We are OH SO WRONG.

Here's hoping that we will finally realize that fact and not push our warped and deformed religious utterances on others.

I recently saw a documentary on how China deals with Muslims and Mohammed's followers -- they indoctrinate the Muslims and teach them  (brainwash them). I deplore using such methods on people, but hasn't Mohammed been indoctrinating his followers with their five times daily prayers? Where Mohammed succeeded with his CYA methods, warped and wrong-headed as they were and are, they and he has succeeded. He has demonized the Jews. He has brainwashed children and millions of believers in Allah. He has warped and deformed the mentality of the populace for over fourteen hundred years. He has obliterated and annihilated common sense and thinking/evolving for yourselves. He has set the course for Satan in his warped and deformed imagination for all eternity. He has placed the planet on course for destruction.

And he (or at least Allah in Mohammed's diseased imagination) has set our feet on the wide road into HELL for eternity (where we will remain for all time).

We will have no chance to free ourselves from ultimate destruction and will end up in Paradise or hell unless we examine our hearts and turn away from the abyss.

And yet we cannot because Allah declares it so (as Mohammed has writ).

That is all. Disperse.

Compliments Can Be Honest and Heartfelt

The way she looked at me, looking deeply into my eyes, I had a flicker of thought that maybe she had lived in California so long she had become Californicated and she was hitting on me.

No, the flicker passed and I got back into my own head. Sally was not hitting on me. She was looking deeply into my eyes because she was actually complimenting me and being surprised. She could not tell whether my eyes were green or blue or grey. I told Sally that I had always considered my eyes grey and that is what I put on my state ID, but my eyes are actually turquoise -- blue and green. I have changeable eyes -- always have. I come from a family of blue-eyed people, but I do actually have turquoise eyes, that striking combination of blue and green that is far prettier than the turquoise stones that make up squash blossom necklaces or armlets, bracelets, etc. made of turquoise.

Sally was serious and so am I. Elizabeth Taylor had lavender eyes and I have turquoise eyes. There are such beautiful, arresting, and noticeable eye colors. I am one of them and I appreciate the people who notice, marvel, and mention their surprise and delight to me. It is not always about sex or lust or even sexual in nature. It is nice to be noticed and complimented -- and not just 'you have such a pretty face,' the way my Mom complimented me. Mom always coupled her compliments ('such a pretty face") with the slap in the fact.

Sally's compliment was not that kind of compliment because there was no slap. She was offering to do me a favor and hours later appeared at my door with the favor done and her surprise patently evident. Her compliment was very nice to see and hear and I was flattered. I am usually flattered when someone does something nice for me -- like Jim or Ken buying me a meal because they were buying meals for themselves and wanted to treat me. I had already mentioned that I could not pay them back because I was out of money, but they also knew that Meals On Wheels (MOW) had not shown up that day and they did not completely understand that I was comfortable with intermittent fasting. I accepted their kindness and let them know how much I appreciate their kindness. I always pay them back with a meal when I have food in the house and with keto because they do not understand or are knowledgeable about nutritional ketogenic lifestyles. It is also nice to serve them a fat bomb or a treat made without sugar and made with coconut or alternative flour.

I want to help people understand that there are many ways to live one's life and not all of them will make them sick or leave them with cancer or nearer death because they are fasting. I think of "A Chorus Line" where the auditioning actor is keeping his mother from eating cat food when he does not feed her and she cannot afford to feed herself. Sometimes, intermittent fasting is beneficial and healthful -- with moderation.

Or as my new friend says, Balanceology is also acceptable. Balance in all things -- especially food and dealing with other people -- is beneficial and healthy. Check it out at Balanceology by Al William Johnson. From what I have read so far, the introduction is well written and right on target. I have hopes for the rest of the book and believe it will be a good book.

I do not want to queer my review, but I do know what is good (to me) and what I like and will recommend, hence my surprise, delight, and appreciation of Sally's compliment to me.

Once upon a time, I wished I had eyes like Elizabeth Taylor, but turquoise-colored eyes are just as remarkable as lavender. I will take them since that is what I ended up with.

Anyway, I appreciate it when another person looks up and looks into another person's eyes, really sees them, and compliments them. I think most people compliment another out of some feeling of noticing and not knowing what else to say except "Your eyes are remarkable." I will take it and I will offer a compliment in return.

For me, of late, the best compliment other than thank you is not noticing their average eyes are more than average and saying so. How many people have lavender or turquoise eyes? If you happen to notice that someone else's eyes are remarkable and memorable, tell them. You do not have to be in love or lust or anything other than complimentary and looking deeply into the other's eyes. You do not have to have sex or romance on your mind. You obviously care enough to look up and look into another's eyes because you want to be noticed and that you are noticing that you share this life with the other person. It pays to notice and compliment another, but be sincere -- very sincere. Do not fake it and do not take advantage of the other person because you noticed them and looked into their eyes -- or their souls. You are present. They are present. Be glad and share the fact that you are glad to be in their presence and appreciate them -- and their remarkable eyes.

Do not follow your compliment with a slap in the face like my Mom.  Be truthful and open and honest. You would be surprised how often a civil response will stay an angry hand and maybe even a slap in the face, especially if you do not pinch their bottoms or have wrong thoughts.

Compliments also do not have to be followed with a slap in the face or a proposition. You decide if you would rather be nice and honest or abusive or want to get into the other person's pants -- or pocketbook.

That is all. Disperse.