de sic transit gloria mundi

How amazing is it that we lose all sense of what is important while we run blindly after all of the crap we think we need–cars, houses, electronics, entertainment, gold, the list is endless. Not that I mind living in a world filled with all of these interesting trappings, but they are a distraction. Before we know it, however, we have lost ourselves in a sea of desire, lusting after the newest and latest gizmo, toy, or must have thing or service. This desire to have it all is neither new nor surprising. Since people have been people, we have been lusting after the next great thing–fire, the wheel, writing. Yet as the spinners spin and our lives play out before us, we are completely blind to the finite nature of our own existence, the fact that man-made things a perishable and temporal, and that there is absolutely nothing under the sun that will change those first two assertions. The Brinks truck will not come to the cemetery as you molder in your coffin and dump in your money before they close the lid. The physical, in spite of outward appearances, is temporal and will eventually pass away in spite of our intentions. We might erect monuments, put up plaques and statues, construct buildings of brick and mortar, but time will eventually tear it all down, and everything will eventually return to the dust from which it came. What will last, you ask? Sic transit gloria mundi How doth the busy bee, Dum vivimus vivamus, I stay my enemy! Emily Dickinson

de sic transit gloria mundi

How amazing is it that we lose all sense of what is important while we run blindly after all of the crap we think we need–cars, houses, electronics, entertainment, gold, the list is endless. Not that I mind living in a world filled with all of these interesting trappings, but they are a distraction. Before we know it, however, we have lost ourselves in a sea of desire, lusting after the newest and latest gizmo, toy, or must have thing or service. This desire to have it all is neither new nor surprising. Since people have been people, we have been lusting after the next great thing–fire, the wheel, writing. Yet as the spinners spin and our lives play out before us, we are completely blind to the finite nature of our own existence, the fact that man-made things a perishable and temporal, and that there is absolutely nothing under the sun that will change those first two assertions. The Brinks truck will not come to the cemetery as you molder in your coffin and dump in your money before they close the lid. The physical, in spite of outward appearances, is temporal and will eventually pass away in spite of our intentions. We might erect monuments, put up plaques and statues, construct buildings of brick and mortar, but time will eventually tear it all down, and everything will eventually return to the dust from which it came. What will last, you ask? Sic transit gloria mundi How doth the busy bee, Dum vivimus vivamus, I stay my enemy! Emily Dickinson

On waiting

Waiting is a very odd experience that is filled with both anticipation and frustration. Waiting in line is the ultimate human frustration because one never knows if one’s petition will be fulfilled or if one will be sent to the end of the line, again. Waiting in line at the grocery store to check out and pay doesn’t seem to bother most people, but if I only have a handful of items, why is the person ahead of me trying to go through the express line with an entire cartload of items? Getting in and getting out of the grocery store in a timely fashion is almost impossible because no one wants to wait. Waiting in line at the airport to do almost anything–check in, get re-booked, get on the plane, get off the plane–is a complete fiasco given the complexity of the tasks at hand, especially trying to get re-booked after a cancellation or delay or missed flight. Yet, waiting with anticipation for a package to arrive is an interesting state of mind, giddy almost. Waiting for the weekend can be both exciting and frustrating, especially if you are standing in line to get re-booked because your flight was canceled. Some people have an enormous capacity for waiting, or they have given up hope and are resigned to their fate in life–to wait eternally. Others are waiting for the end of times, which they see right around the corner, but of course, they are still waiting. Personally, I hate waiting at stop lights especially when I am the only car at the intersection and it’s 2 a.m. Waiting for the commercials to end and the television program to begin again is like waiting for Godot, and when the program comes back on I have frequently forgotten what it was that I was watching in the first place. Waiting for the bread to bake or the cookies to come out of the oven is definitely worth it–they taste that much better. Waiting for the bus on a cold winter’s day is no fun no matter how you slice it. Waiting for your date to show up and you are all alone and the whole world knows it is an empty feeling which needs no explanation. Do you wait for the mail with anticipation or dread. Can you wait to collect your first social security check. I’ll probably get my first one while I’m waiting at an empty stoplight in the middle of the night somewhere. Apparently, waiting in line at large amusement parks is not fun, and if you have no morals or scruples, you can cut the line. Waiting in a traffic jam, especially when you are late already, is liable to cause a complete breakdown. If you are waiting for someone to call you back about a job, stop waiting because they aren’t calling. I have a personal loathing for waiting rooms, especially if it is a doctor’s waiting room. I think we should be able to bill doctors if we have to wait more than fifteen minutes after our scheduled appointment time. Waiting to get your car back from the shop is nightmarish. Some people wait all alone in the dark, as Billy Joel once sang. I suppose heaven can wait. I am not a patient man, do not bear fool’s lightly, and I hate to wait especially when I’m not the problem. Yet, there are those people who wait patiently, smile, bear up, stay in good humor, and kindly wait until it is there turn. This is either an enormous virtue or a miracle, but I can’t decide which.

On waiting

Waiting is a very odd experience that is filled with both anticipation and frustration. Waiting in line is the ultimate human frustration because one never knows if one’s petition will be fulfilled or if one will be sent to the end of the line, again. Waiting in line at the grocery store to check out and pay doesn’t seem to bother most people, but if I only have a handful of items, why is the person ahead of me trying to go through the express line with an entire cartload of items? Getting in and getting out of the grocery store in a timely fashion is almost impossible because no one wants to wait. Waiting in line at the airport to do almost anything–check in, get re-booked, get on the plane, get off the plane–is a complete fiasco given the complexity of the tasks at hand, especially trying to get re-booked after a cancellation or delay or missed flight. Yet, waiting with anticipation for a package to arrive is an interesting state of mind, giddy almost. Waiting for the weekend can be both exciting and frustrating, especially if you are standing in line to get re-booked because your flight was canceled. Some people have an enormous capacity for waiting, or they have given up hope and are resigned to their fate in life–to wait eternally. Others are waiting for the end of times, which they see right around the corner, but of course, they are still waiting. Personally, I hate waiting at stop lights especially when I am the only car at the intersection and it’s 2 a.m. Waiting for the commercials to end and the television program to begin again is like waiting for Godot, and when the program comes back on I have frequently forgotten what it was that I was watching in the first place. Waiting for the bread to bake or the cookies to come out of the oven is definitely worth it–they taste that much better. Waiting for the bus on a cold winter’s day is no fun no matter how you slice it. Waiting for your date to show up and you are all alone and the whole world knows it is an empty feeling which needs no explanation. Do you wait for the mail with anticipation or dread. Can you wait to collect your first social security check. I’ll probably get my first one while I’m waiting at an empty stoplight in the middle of the night somewhere. Apparently, waiting in line at large amusement parks is not fun, and if you have no morals or scruples, you can cut the line. Waiting in a traffic jam, especially when you are late already, is liable to cause a complete breakdown. If you are waiting for someone to call you back about a job, stop waiting because they aren’t calling. I have a personal loathing for waiting rooms, especially if it is a doctor’s waiting room. I think we should be able to bill doctors if we have to wait more than fifteen minutes after our scheduled appointment time. Waiting to get your car back from the shop is nightmarish. Some people wait all alone in the dark, as Billy Joel once sang. I suppose heaven can wait. I am not a patient man, do not bear fool’s lightly, and I hate to wait especially when I’m not the problem. Yet, there are those people who wait patiently, smile, bear up, stay in good humor, and kindly wait until it is there turn. This is either an enormous virtue or a miracle, but I can’t decide which.

On complaining

I must admit a major failing in my character: I complain way too much. In an ideal world, all machines would work, everything would occur on time, there would always be an empty parking spot, the food would be hot and tasty, the drinks cold and refreshing. People would not text and drive. Drivers would pay attention to what they are doing, and waiters would always get their orders right. Yet, I don’t live in an ideal world: potholes are real, delays are common, waiting in line is the order of the day, so I complain. I complain about slow service, high prices, a lack of time. I complain about complainers. I got caught in a huge traffic jam on I-35 this afternoon through no fault of my own–seven cars had suffered a chain-reaction collision and the wreckage was blocking two lanes of the highway. My biggest complaint in life has to be a lack of time to do the things I really like to do, such as eat and sleep. Being both hungry and sleepy at the same time is depressing. I love to complain about the endless lines at check-outs in big box retailers, who don’t care at all about making me waist my time waiting to by a pizza. I have the same complaint about some doctor’s offices–not all are horrible, but some are just unbearable. We should be able to bill them for wasting our time. I endlessly complain about the weather. Bugs, enough said. Rude people everywhere. Students who cut class, don’t do their homework, fail exams, and then contact me because they are worried about their grade. I complain about the airlines, but I realize that airlines are complex and prone to scheduling disasters. I complain about the prices that certain professions charge: plumbers, mechanics, doctors, lawyers. Why should they have all the fun separating hard-working people from their cash? I complain about bumpy, pot-hole filled roads. I hate stoplights with a pure passion and have an endless series of complaints about how stupidly they are programmed–by people who never drive through them. All parking lots need to be complained about. I complain about how loud television commercials are, how stupid most of the ads are, how idiotic their arguments are for buying their products. Do the commercial makers think we are all cretins? Sometimes I complain about how fat the rest of the world seems to be getting, but that seems like a rather useless complaint when you look at all the food opportunities we have everyday. I hate the aggressive driving I encounter everywhere. Photocopiers are often the object of my ire. It bugs me when people cannot answer their cell phones. I complain about people talking and texting while they drive. I think it’s very thoughtless when a dog owner leaves the dog’s gifts where someone might step in them. I complain about politics, but no one wants to hear what I have to say. But does complaining actually help? I often complain without thinking about the pointless nature of my complaints, the fact that no one cares, that I am just making myself more unhappy by articulating, lustily, my disagreement with the world. I’m sure this is a short list–there are more things I can complain about–but by complaining, I can get my cares off of my chest, and maybe put some of it behind me. The problem is this: my complaints are often well-deserved but the wrong people are hearing them, which makes them irked and me sad. Yet, unless we complain will we ever change the world? Sometimes complaining can make a difference, and passive indifference will only make a bad problem, worse.

On complaining

I must admit a major failing in my character: I complain way too much. In an ideal world, all machines would work, everything would occur on time, there would always be an empty parking spot, the food would be hot and tasty, the drinks cold and refreshing. People would not text and drive. Drivers would pay attention to what they are doing, and waiters would always get their orders right. Yet, I don’t live in an ideal world: potholes are real, delays are common, waiting in line is the order of the day, so I complain. I complain about slow service, high prices, a lack of time. I complain about complainers. I got caught in a huge traffic jam on I-35 this afternoon through no fault of my own–seven cars had suffered a chain-reaction collision and the wreckage was blocking two lanes of the highway. My biggest complaint in life has to be a lack of time to do the things I really like to do, such as eat and sleep. Being both hungry and sleepy at the same time is depressing. I love to complain about the endless lines at check-outs in big box retailers, who don’t care at all about making me waist my time waiting to by a pizza. I have the same complaint about some doctor’s offices–not all are horrible, but some are just unbearable. We should be able to bill them for wasting our time. I endlessly complain about the weather. Bugs, enough said. Rude people everywhere. Students who cut class, don’t do their homework, fail exams, and then contact me because they are worried about their grade. I complain about the airlines, but I realize that airlines are complex and prone to scheduling disasters. I complain about the prices that certain professions charge: plumbers, mechanics, doctors, lawyers. Why should they have all the fun separating hard-working people from their cash? I complain about bumpy, pot-hole filled roads. I hate stoplights with a pure passion and have an endless series of complaints about how stupidly they are programmed–by people who never drive through them. All parking lots need to be complained about. I complain about how loud television commercials are, how stupid most of the ads are, how idiotic their arguments are for buying their products. Do the commercial makers think we are all cretins? Sometimes I complain about how fat the rest of the world seems to be getting, but that seems like a rather useless complaint when you look at all the food opportunities we have everyday. I hate the aggressive driving I encounter everywhere. Photocopiers are often the object of my ire. It bugs me when people cannot answer their cell phones. I complain about people talking and texting while they drive. I think it’s very thoughtless when a dog owner leaves the dog’s gifts where someone might step in them. I complain about politics, but no one wants to hear what I have to say. But does complaining actually help? I often complain without thinking about the pointless nature of my complaints, the fact that no one cares, that I am just making myself more unhappy by articulating, lustily, my disagreement with the world. I’m sure this is a short list–there are more things I can complain about–but by complaining, I can get my cares off of my chest, and maybe put some of it behind me. The problem is this: my complaints are often well-deserved but the wrong people are hearing them, which makes them irked and me sad. Yet, unless we complain will we ever change the world? Sometimes complaining can make a difference, and passive indifference will only make a bad problem, worse.

On blood pressure

My blood pressure was normal this morning, which is what I want it to be. My grandfather, a lovely, kind-hearted generous man, died of a stroke at the young age of 62 years. I can’t help but think that he had uncontrolled high blood pressure and that it was also uncontrolled. There were probably other factors that contributed to his death at a young age, but the blood pressure thing haunts me to this day. So when I was going through a courtesy screening process for high blood pressure at my church a few years ago, I took heed when the nurse told me I should get my high blood pressure checked out. I needed medication. I had inherited high blood pressure, and I needed to do something about it. Beside medication, I have changed my eating habits, lost some weight, and made exercise a daily part of my life. I don’t smoke, and although I occasionally have a few non-standard beverages, drinking is not a part of my life. I was pleased that this morning, in spite of driving in crappy traffic conditions on I35, my blood pressure was well within the normal range. This is encouraging. Our modern life style of over-commitment, jammed schedules, poor sleep habits, questionable eating habits and choices, and stress does not lend itself to having naturally normal blood pressure. The heart, lungs, veins, and arteries all work in tandem to keep us upright and moving in a consistent manner, but even the slightest problem can cause the blood pressure to go up which increases everyone’s chances of having some other vital system fail: kidneys, liver, brain. I suffered from headaches as a child, and today I am headache free unless the headache is a synecdoche for something or someone else—especially if it involves putting furniture together. Sometimes I would like to blame our fast-paced consumer society that puts a huge emphasis on buying and consuming to the detriment of all of considerations and factors. Black Friday, a real blood pressure buster, is looming on the horizon and will whip people into a lathered frenzy of hysterical consumers and blind irrational spending. At other times I’d like to blame our bizarre addiction to digital communication—email, texts, social networks, blogs, television, movie services, and eight other things yet to be imagined. Desire, to be liked, to want, to covet, to envy, drives a lot of things that make us have high blood pressure. Schedules, bookings, travel, meetings, deadlines don’t help either. I’m not sure that the instant communication networks to which millions subscribe really help anyone at all. We like hectic lives, shrouded in quiet desperation as we wait for the weekend or the next vacation. And, of course, we suffer and our collective blood pressure goes up, and frankly, I don’t see any relief in site.

On blood pressure

My blood pressure was normal this morning, which is what I want it to be. My grandfather, a lovely, kind-hearted generous man, died of a stroke at the young age of 62 years. I can’t help but think that he had uncontrolled high blood pressure and that it was also uncontrolled. There were probably other factors that contributed to his death at a young age, but the blood pressure thing haunts me to this day. So when I was going through a courtesy screening process for high blood pressure at my church a few years ago, I took heed when the nurse told me I should get my high blood pressure checked out. I needed medication. I had inherited high blood pressure, and I needed to do something about it. Beside medication, I have changed my eating habits, lost some weight, and made exercise a daily part of my life. I don’t smoke, and although I occasionally have a few non-standard beverages, drinking is not a part of my life. I was pleased that this morning, in spite of driving in crappy traffic conditions on I35, my blood pressure was well within the normal range. This is encouraging. Our modern life style of over-commitment, jammed schedules, poor sleep habits, questionable eating habits and choices, and stress does not lend itself to having naturally normal blood pressure. The heart, lungs, veins, and arteries all work in tandem to keep us upright and moving in a consistent manner, but even the slightest problem can cause the blood pressure to go up which increases everyone’s chances of having some other vital system fail: kidneys, liver, brain. I suffered from headaches as a child, and today I am headache free unless the headache is a synecdoche for something or someone else—especially if it involves putting furniture together. Sometimes I would like to blame our fast-paced consumer society that puts a huge emphasis on buying and consuming to the detriment of all of considerations and factors. Black Friday, a real blood pressure buster, is looming on the horizon and will whip people into a lathered frenzy of hysterical consumers and blind irrational spending. At other times I’d like to blame our bizarre addiction to digital communication—email, texts, social networks, blogs, television, movie services, and eight other things yet to be imagined. Desire, to be liked, to want, to covet, to envy, drives a lot of things that make us have high blood pressure. Schedules, bookings, travel, meetings, deadlines don’t help either. I’m not sure that the instant communication networks to which millions subscribe really help anyone at all. We like hectic lives, shrouded in quiet desperation as we wait for the weekend or the next vacation. And, of course, we suffer and our collective blood pressure goes up, and frankly, I don’t see any relief in site.

De uoluminibus trianulibus

All of the noise being made about three-ring binders is just silly–It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It’s just office supplies, or is it? Imagine, presidential candidates discussing office supplies, or were they discussing women? I’ve had three-ring binders for years, and they have proved ever so useful. Yet, I can’t but help think they are both a bit quaint and old-fashioned. When I was five, I didn’t have any binders, but by the time I was in the seventh grade, I had several and kept my English/Spanish notes in a three-ring binder. I keep my choir music in a three-ring binder–very orderly. Most of our tenure notebooks are three-ring binders. I have never, however, had women in three-ring binders, and I’m not really sure how that would work. Even if we invoke the use of the poetic trope, synecdoche, where a part of a thing stands in to represent the whole (“All hands on deck!”), why don’t we just say that we keep information about women in three-ring binders instead of we have women in binders. Yet, I’m not sure which sounds worse, information about women in binders or women in binders. The whole mess sounds dirty at best, and at worst it sounds like someone with a fancy for S/M is offering up their phone list of participants. If we take the “women in binders” remark seriously, it points to both shoddy thinking and careless rhetoric, not to mention completely slighting all women who have been reduced to collections and lists that have been filed in three-ring binders. By definition the binders of women are exclusionary and speak to the reality of the glass ceiling in American business, education, religion, and politics. The binders, themselves, are just mindless objects with a quasi-utilitarian organizational slant that some people use to keep track of paper or papers which they need to preserve. The binders act as temporary book covers for the perishable material inside. Most people have binders, and most people don’t give them a second thought until they need them. I’ve suggested that students use them while writing a thesis to keep their pages from getting mixed up or lost. I’ve received scripts that have been held together in three-ring fashion. In and of themselves, three-ring binders are antique, anachronistic, and clumsy in our digital age of binary information storage. Any tablet could conceivably hold the information from thousands of binders, so the contemporary use of binders, unless it’s for music, a thesis in progress, or tenure notebooks speaks to unprogressive thinking, old habits dying hard, and out-of-date analogue storage. This is the digital age and except for a few old-fashioned applications, binders are passé and junk, speaking to a mind that is not only not contemporary, it is not moving forward at all, anchored in a past of paper, outmoded thinking, obsolete platforms, archaic structures, and worn-out ideas. Information via the digital highway has long since passed many of us by, speed limits are up, and the new generation of thinkers, men and women who don’t use binders, are leaving us all behind.

De uoluminibus trianulibus

All of the noise being made about three-ring binders is just silly–It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It’s just office supplies, or is it? Imagine, presidential candidates discussing office supplies, or were they discussing women? I’ve had three-ring binders for years, and they have proved ever so useful. Yet, I can’t but help think they are both a bit quaint and old-fashioned. When I was five, I didn’t have any binders, but by the time I was in the seventh grade, I had several and kept my English/Spanish notes in a three-ring binder. I keep my choir music in a three-ring binder–very orderly. Most of our tenure notebooks are three-ring binders. I have never, however, had women in three-ring binders, and I’m not really sure how that would work. Even if we invoke the use of the poetic trope, synecdoche, where a part of a thing stands in to represent the whole (“All hands on deck!”), why don’t we just say that we keep information about women in three-ring binders instead of we have women in binders. Yet, I’m not sure which sounds worse, information about women in binders or women in binders. The whole mess sounds dirty at best, and at worst it sounds like someone with a fancy for S/M is offering up their phone list of participants. If we take the “women in binders” remark seriously, it points to both shoddy thinking and careless rhetoric, not to mention completely slighting all women who have been reduced to collections and lists that have been filed in three-ring binders. By definition the binders of women are exclusionary and speak to the reality of the glass ceiling in American business, education, religion, and politics. The binders, themselves, are just mindless objects with a quasi-utilitarian organizational slant that some people use to keep track of paper or papers which they need to preserve. The binders act as temporary book covers for the perishable material inside. Most people have binders, and most people don’t give them a second thought until they need them. I’ve suggested that students use them while writing a thesis to keep their pages from getting mixed up or lost. I’ve received scripts that have been held together in three-ring fashion. In and of themselves, three-ring binders are antique, anachronistic, and clumsy in our digital age of binary information storage. Any tablet could conceivably hold the information from thousands of binders, so the contemporary use of binders, unless it’s for music, a thesis in progress, or tenure notebooks speaks to unprogressive thinking, old habits dying hard, and out-of-date analogue storage. This is the digital age and except for a few old-fashioned applications, binders are passé and junk, speaking to a mind that is not only not contemporary, it is not moving forward at all, anchored in a past of paper, outmoded thinking, obsolete platforms, archaic structures, and worn-out ideas. Information via the digital highway has long since passed many of us by, speed limits are up, and the new generation of thinkers, men and women who don’t use binders, are leaving us all behind.