Category Archives: Mindsets

June 27, 2020 · 5:07 pm

Make The Super Colony Great Again?

“Our supercolony has expanded to 24 miles said the largest Lepisiota canescens, named Ralph. “We are the now the greatest Lepisiota ant colony on earth.”

“We can go further east,” said the queen. I know we can.”

“Problem,” said Ralph . “Sand Puppies.”

“Explain, said the queen.

“Better known as naked mole-rats,” said Ralph. “They have set out a large colony within our eastern quadrant.. I’m not sure how they got in, but they are here in our domain. They impeded progress.”

“Criminals and drug dealers,” said the queen.

“We stop them on the paths as much as possible,” said Ralph. “We shot some, but now they’re complaining about discrimination.”

“They have hairs between their toes,” said the queen. Expel them and their followers. That is the best way to deal with bad creatures. Ground dwelling immigrant scum!”

“But we live underground, and we came from somewhere else,” said a worker ant positioned off to the side.

“Are you suggesting we have something in common?” said the queen.

“Well, yes, “said the worker ant. “Like everything! We both do all we can to survive, propagate, thrive. We can both contribute. And we can test for that. Use science.”

“Lock her up,” said the ant. “She’ll spread fake news. Too much testing going on as it is. We don’t need science. We just need me. I’ve never read a book through but I know everything. I am the smartest ant that ever lived. Take her away. Ship out the trouble makers. Make the super colony great again!”

“Hooray!” shouted the ants as they carried the worker off to prison.”

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October 19, 2015 · 9:09 pm

1 and 0

It was 1.

She just knew it! It  was different than what she grew up with, but It felt right to her. As she thought more about it, she felt that she had always leaned this direction anyway. She heard a TED’s talk on 1.

1 was in the news. The last three books she had read were either for 1 or acknowledged 1. The last four friends she had met for coffee had all favored 1.

1 was interesting. 1 was inspiring. 1 was trending,

So she sat and reflected on 1. 1 solved a lot of philosophical issues. It gave her a solid mental stance. Being for 1 made her feel like she belonged, was protected, had hope. She embraced 1, she promoted 1, she fought for 1.

That lasted for about six months. Then in a conversation with a fellow worker, she was introduced to 0.

“Wow, 0! Who would have thought?” 1 was so different from 0.

0 was the other side of the river, the contrasting position, the alternative viewpoint. At first 0 rattled her, then it intrigued her, then she went for it. 1 was old school. 1 was extreme. 1 was inadequate to explain things. She heard a talk on 0. She picked up a book on it. She brought 0 up with her friends and found that they also were intrigued with it. 0 was radical. 0 was inspiring. 0 just made sense. She joined an 0 group, she gave to the cause, she lobbied for 0’s inclusion.

Then the leaders of 0 went off the deep end and began to require 0, to demand 0, to fight for 0 and to kill for 0. This shook her. This rattled her mental cage. This was too much, and she began to become disillusioned with 0. 0 had become too narrow, to authoritarian, to extreme.

She didn’t know what to believe. She was distraught. She felt like giving up. She was lost. She remained that way a good while, until one day, early in the morning, as she drank her coffee and sat quietly reflecting on her experiences, her reading, her mentors, her friends and her beliefs, she calmed and realized what it was.

It was 1 and 0. It was both, twinned, paired, teamed. You needed 1 to balance 0, and you needed 0 to balance 1. In some situations  you went with 1, in others with 0. If you made it all 1, you lost your way; if you made it all 0 you also lost your way. 0 and 1 could be combined, in an infinite number of ways, and processed in an infinite manner and they could carry all knowledge and truth as long as you had both.

It was 1, and it was 0 and within the mix of both lay what she had always wanted — wisdom.

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September 8, 2014 · 4:06 pm

The Girl Who Put Her Hand in the Fire

She put out her hand, he took it and said, “What happened?”

She looked up, eyes watering, and said, “I burned my hand.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“I put it in the fire,” she said.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“I didn’t think it was a fire,” she said.

“How many times have you done this?” he asked.

“I’ve done it everyday for about a year,” she said. “I thought it would warm me.”

“What do you think now?” he asked.

“I don’t know” she said, “I keep hoping things will change, and that maybe if we both change …”

She began to sob. He held her hand and turned it over. It was terribly burned.

“What should I do?” she cried, “I don’t know what to do? What do you think I should do?”

“Stop putting your hand in the fire,” he said.

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August 12, 2014 · 4:25 am

Our Heroes!

The batter stepped to the plate and swatted the first pitch, a fast ball, out of the ballpark.

It sailed through the air and over the fence and kept going and going until it came to another baseball park where it also passed over the home run wall, and still traveling it soared on to every baseball park in the world and cleared every outfield wall for a home run in every park and every field at every baseball venue on earth.

And all the runners who were on base at every field ran for home and crossed every plate and scored and scored and scored.

And all the people in the parks cheered and cheered and cheered and cheered, all across the earth they cheered.

And then the hitter basked and glowed and tipped his hat to all the cheering fans and then he went home to practice and practice and practice, and he practiced every waking hour until he came up to bat again, a rich and storied hero, and he swung as hard as he could, and he hit the ball out of the park, and it landed in the bay, and he threw up his hands in disgust, and ran around the bases and the people cheered but not like they did before.

And the great striker went home and fell into a funk and committed suicide the next day.

And in another city, another man addressed a golf ball, and slashed at it hard, driving it into a long arc through the air. It landed on the green and rolled straight into the hole. It was a hole in one. The gallery went wild.

Then the golf ball hopped out of the hole and rolled down the fairway into the next hole and then on to every hole on the golf course, and then it flew into the air and rushing on to the next golf course, it rolled into every hole there and then flew into the air and shot throughout the world, entering and exiting every golf course hole on the planet.

And up went the great golfer’s name, at the head of every leader board in the world.

And all the people cheered and cheered and cheered and cheered and cheered.

And the golfer went home and studied the video of his great feat and studied and studied it some more so that he could be sure to swing just like that again.

And back to the golf course he went for the next tournament and all the people came out to see him swing and swing he did and he hit the ball straight into the hole again, with one swing, a hole in one, but this time it didn’t come out and go in the other holes, and all the people groaned and the golfer threw up his hands and went to his caddie talking seriously about what might be done.

And he went home to bad press, and then it came out that he had failed a drug test, and all his titles were taken from him, and all his money and then he fell into a terrible funk and he shot his wife in the night.

He said he thought she was an intruder, but he went to jail anyway for the crime.

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October 23, 2013 · 8:27 pm

Click-a-Clique

Once upon a time there was a fin-a-kin. People joined. It wealthified. It shotted high into the sky-a-thon.

But, as things went along, the onlookers, the friends and the families of the devotathons developed concernifications, and eventually, as people are wank to do, they got together to mussify about it.

“What is this bunk-a-bank,” the concernicated asked each other.

“It’s a cult-a-bolt,” wanked one concernicant.

“No, it’s a clan-a-fan?” wuzzled another.

“I’ve seen this before,” another wombatted, “It’s a sect-a-fek.”

“Stuff-enough-unlike-us,” glocked another.

“What do we do?” someone funked.

A loud voice yezzled from the back, “Let’s get all the clique-a-miks to join it!”

“How will that help?” someone wonkered.

A fuzzle in the back yonked, “They’ll ruin it!”

“Holy shebang!’ snoozled the whole grock, “Click-a-clique!”

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September 26, 2013 · 4:49 pm

She’s Green!

“It as I’ve said before,” he said again,” she’s yellow.”

“That’s what you always say,” she said, “but I don’t think you know what you are taking about.”

“Then why does she go around acting like everything is fine when it’s not,’ he said. “She’s living in some kind of yellow-yellow land.”

“You forget where she came from,” she replied. “Her father had a lot of blue in him. She’s from that.”

“So, what are you saying?” he asked.

“Well, she doesn’t talk badly about people. Maybe she has some little yellow in her, but she also has a lot of blue in her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, just because you think you know what color she is doesn’t mean you really do.”

“I don’t?”

“No, what you see as yellow is mixed with blue, and really, she’s a beautiful shade of green!”

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August 29, 2013 · 4:17 pm

Hierarchy Malarkey

Once there was a hierarchy who lived a life of malarkey.

The essence of the malarkey was found in his conviction that all people were either in or out; saved or damned; chosen or not; called or snot; loved or rot. It was a lot of woe and foe, and because of that, he couldn’t just put it out there.

He knew that it wouldn’t work to say what you really thought when you thought so many people were below you.

So he lived in his own upper layer with care, and he kept quite mum about his in-or-out, either-or, odd-or-like- me, rich-or-poor.

Instead, he was so nice he’d greet you twice, if you looked good or had the lice.

Everyone was his best friend.

He loved the kids and their jokes and especially loved a freakin’ hoax.

He’d publicly agree with what he privately hated, that people said, not in red, but in his head, in bed — later.

It was a snarky, larky, malarkey hierarchy.

When he picked a wife — he picked one less accomplished than himself.

When he hired a partner — he hired one less qualified than himself.

When he met a wealthy man, he made him his best friend.

When he met a poor men, he made him his project.

It looked good, went well, for a while, crocodile — his woman, his compliment; his people, his success; his workers, his underlings; his rich and poor men, his rank-makers, his world, two-part, sweet and secretly tart.

And then it blew up.

His partner proved to be more competent than expected, his family less happy than required, his poor men less needy, his rich men too greedy, his saved too damned, his out, too freakin’ unacceptably in.

Things simply wouldn’t stay on the shelves he’d put them on. People got off of their leashes.They stopped minding. They exited their stations; they left their boxes. They rebelled!

So, he pulled rank.

It stank.

He wrote it down.

It left the ground, and sailed — away.

In the end, even amends couldn’t save his long tossed friends that always were, his hidden ends.

Hier-arcing-ly, with lock-and-key, and you and me, snorklingly, he proved basically, just to be — a bunch of mal-lark-eeeeee!

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