Now Almost Everyone Has Allergies
"They’re just allergies."- quote from a Reactine allergy medication commercial
The point of the commercial is that they are not "just allergies." But what are allergies?
Our bodies are set up to fight invasions by foreign bodies that could do them harm. Our immune system does most of the work fighting invaders, though billions of bacteria that live symbiotically with us (primarily on our skin and in our gut) help out considerably.
Generally speaking those good bacteria (we could not live without them) don’t cause us much trouble. They depend on us, we depend on them, and we all get along splendidly. Our own immune systems cause the problems. (Antibiotics kill these good bacteria, by the way.)
Allergies are mostly an affliction of the modern era. In my classroom career teaching young children, which ended a generation ago, I came across only two kids with severe allergies. Both had problems learning because their allergies prevented them from thinking clearly.
One child, that I knew was of at least average intelligence, went through a battery of tests by a psychologist twice in the school year, then was sent the following year to a special education class for children with learning disabilities. I objected strenuously to my principal, but was overruled. I insisted that the tests had been given when the boy suffered most from his allergies, not when he was clear headed. I was not included in the decision. He joined a special class for children who mostly had low intelligence.
The other child, no doubt destined for the same fate, moved out of the community in February. His mother had tears in her eyes when she told me that they had to move, because her son had done so well in my care, but circumstances dictated. I could foresee a similar school track for him.
In those days, severe allergies were rare. A few kids had allergic reactions to pollen, in season, but only a few. One child suffered from asthma--the only student I had who did, and I only discovered it when the class went on an outing that required hiking in a wilderness area.
Today allergies in the classroom are so common that teachers expect them and classmates expect to be inconvenienced by those who require special treatment. Some teachers today need emergency medical training and training in the dispensing of medication for their kids.
Allergies are the body’s overreaction to a stimulus it doesn’t like. Asthma is, fundamentally, an extreme version of an allergy. Something gets into the body and the body reacts violently to get rid of it.
Just over a decade ago I developed an allergy. After extensive tests, my doctor declared that I had a "mild environmental allergy." Nothing that could be identified, thus avoided. I could either begin taking allergy shots or continue using profound quantities of tissues daily. I chose the latter.
Over the past year, my wife has developed the same allergy. To what? We don’t drink city water, so we do not subject our bodies to the 300,000 chemical pollutants that city water treatment plants don’t remove. But we can’t do anything about the half million pollutants factories put in the air that everyone breathes. All things considered, we decided to avoid wearing chemical gas masks all day long.
I also have an allergy to breathing very cold air. When I walk outside in winter, my sinuses go to work and my nose runs. Inconvenient. But, in doing so, the mucus may continue to warm my breathing passage, preventing them from freezing. This might be an adaptation by body has made to protect itself. In this case, is an allergy an adaptation to the environment?
As well, I begin to sneeze when my body senses a temperature change of two degrees or more. This "allergy" likely has the same cause, but is a side effect of the adaptation. It’s an overreaction by natural functions of my body, as all true allergies are.
These days, asthma is common. Allergies are so ubiquitous that almost everyone has one or more. Some have an allergy that is so common to them and that affects them year round that they don’t even know they have it. To them, it’s "just life as I am getting older."
Science and archeology writer Jeff D. Leach believes, as do many people, including health professionals, that kids and adults develop allergies because their homes are so clean that their immune systems have not been challenged enough. He wrote in the New York Times "the alarming rise in allergic and autoimmune disorders during the past few decades is at least partly attributable to our lack of exposure to microorganisms that once covered our food and us."
He quotes research that suggests we reintroduce some dirt into our lives to see a reduction in diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, several allergies and other diseases. Our immune systems were built to fight hard and constantly, and if they don’t they redirect their efforts and work against us.
If this has you scratching your head and doubting, more reading on the subject of allergies will relieve that doubt.
One allergy you likely were not aware of has been shown to cause obesity. It’s not the only cause, but it is one that has been identified through scientific tests.
Here are a few other facts you likely don’t know about allergies.
Thanks to advertisers who want us to live in a "clean" environment, our immune system has fewer enemies to fight. In desperation, it fires on relatively innocent targets such as peanuts and cat dander. Our immune system is designed to fight for our survival throughout our life. When it doesn’t have an enemy, it invents one. Allergy symptoms are the results of a one-sided war.
The National Institutes of Health in the USA estimates that over half of Americans have at least one testable allergy. One of them is an allergy to penicillin, which can cause fatal anaphylaxis. Penicillin, when it first became public, was considered a great saviour against disease.
Food allergies are usually to a protein. A team at Trinity College Dublin, in 2004, injected mice with parasites of the kind that mouse immune systems would fight in the wild. It worked. The mice with previously weak immune systems developed healthy ones.
British entrepreneur Jasper Lawrence walked barefoot near some latrines in Cameroon, in 2007, to get infected by hookworms he believed would defeat asthma and seasonal allergies. It worked. For $3000 a person can receive up to 35 hookworm larvae which they put on a bandage and apply to their skin. Mr. Lawrence has not publicly reported the success rate for his business. (NOTE: this therapy is not legal in the USA.)
Between 150 and 200 Americans die each year from allergies to shellfish, nuts, fish, milk, eggs and other foods. They are serious allergies.
Tick bites you could get from walking barefoot in grass could cause your immune system to produce antibodies to alpha-gal, a carbohydrate commonly found in beef, pork and lamb. Resulting allergies to these meats could be fatal.
As many as 40,000 American women may be affected by an allergic sensitivity to male ejaculate (specifically seminal plasma hypersensitivity) which could result in symptoms from local swelling to systemic shock. Another reason for them to insist on the man using a condom.
An allergy to sex seems unfair. However, some women are allergic to their own progesterone, a sex hormone, developing anything from a rash to full shock.
Yes, pets can be allergic to human dander (cast off skin) as well as people can be allergic to pet dander.
Yes, some people are allergic to the sun. And some couples have to separate because they are allergic to each other.
But wait! A few rare individuals can develop aquagenic urticaria, a rash caused when they come in contact with water. Apparently they do not react to the 70 percent of their own body weight that is composed of water.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers.
Learn more about the book at http://billallin.com
[Primary source: Discover, May 2012]
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Is Freedom Really Worth Fighting For?
Here lives a free man. Nobody serves him.
- Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)
The concept of freedom has as many interpretations as there are people who use the word.
We fight wars in the name of freedom. We insist that people who have been wrongly convicted and incarcerated be freed because freedom is a basic human right. What the concept of freedom means is confusing.
Politicians manipulate our thinking on various subjects by hinting or clearly stating that our freedom will be reduced or confined if we do not support the action they advocate. It motivates fear, which is what gets them elected.
Freedom is a great political football because nobody is clear about what it means. Most times the word is used, it means whatever the user wants it to mean.
Whatever freedom is, the concept exists between the ears.
Is it worth fighting for? If you can't think for yourself and tend to take your view of the world and your opinions of the parts of it that affect you from others, it's not worth fighting for. You have given up your freedom voluntarily already.
Freedom as a tool of political persuasion is only used--can only be used--with people who have already given up their right and ability to think for themselves. When we see how many wars are fought in the cause of freedom, we can see how many people don't think for themselves. Many people don't think at all, they just follow.
People such as The Mahatma, Mohandas Gandhi, who was jailed many times for annoying the British with his peaceful insistence (resistance) that the UK free India, and democracy leader and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Ki, of Burma, under house arrest for years, did not consider their freedom to have been removed. No matter where they were (or are) they could think for themselves.
Their freedom to move around from place to place was restricted, but their freedom of mind was not--could not--be taken from them.
Are you free? Because you read, because you choose to seek out information and opinions on various subjects, you certainly are free. Or you have greater potential to be free, whether you adopt it or not.
You may listen to input from a variety of sources, but you don't make up your mind on any subject until and unless you have learned more than enough on which to base a sound decision.
If freedom is based on the unfettered ability to think, isn't everyone free, almost by definition?
By definition, yes. By choice, no. Too many people allow their minds to be manipulated by others who have something to gain by having them as allies or supporters. Look at the effectiveness of most advertising and religions as examples of how propaganda can be used to have people voluntarily give up their freedom.
Follwers listen to one line of thought and adopt it as if it were inherently good and right and the only possible choice. It's like two siblings fighting over something and mom supporting the first one to explain their case to her. The first one to make a good case get the most supporters.
No one can take away your freedom of thought. The only way you can lose that is to give it away.
Why do so many people give away that right? They aren't taught it at school. At home, kids have to follow the ways of the family, at least when they are younger. At school, kids are taught that the teacher's way is the right way. Even at the college level students learn that it's risky to take a position on a paper that is contrary to that of the teacher because a low mark may result.
People who enjoy true freedom of thought generally do not voluntarily go to war. Some may take leadership roles and send others into battle. They don't go themselves because they value their own freedom.
The freedom to think.
We can teach this. The world won't fall apart or be bombed out of existence if we teach freedom of thought and support freedom of expression. It's not just a clause in a constitution. Freedom can be a way of life.
It's only a risk when too many people allow themselves to be persuaded that it's a dangerous thing to allow others to express their opinions.
Freedom of thought and expression is embedded in the constitutions of many countries. Yet people in those countries give away that freedom when they accept the fear mongering by leaders who want opinions that differ from their own to be suppressed.
We have nothing to fear from differences. We only allow ourselves to be afraid when we don't have exposure to all sides or positions of an argument or issue.
Those who limit our exposure to differences of opinion or forms of art or anything else want to remove our freedom of thought, our freedom to make our own choices. The more we restrict our learning of information about differences, the more we sacrifice our freedom.
When we imprison our own minds, all that's left is our bodies. And they are no more sophisticated than the bodies of other animals or plants. Bodies aren't intelligent, they just are.
We can teach the freedom to think. We can teach it in schools. We simply need to teach boundaries with it, such as when freedom of thought becomes licence or anarchy that impinges on the rights of others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach children how to think for themselves.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)
The concept of freedom has as many interpretations as there are people who use the word.
We fight wars in the name of freedom. We insist that people who have been wrongly convicted and incarcerated be freed because freedom is a basic human right. What the concept of freedom means is confusing.
Politicians manipulate our thinking on various subjects by hinting or clearly stating that our freedom will be reduced or confined if we do not support the action they advocate. It motivates fear, which is what gets them elected.
Freedom is a great political football because nobody is clear about what it means. Most times the word is used, it means whatever the user wants it to mean.
Whatever freedom is, the concept exists between the ears.
Is it worth fighting for? If you can't think for yourself and tend to take your view of the world and your opinions of the parts of it that affect you from others, it's not worth fighting for. You have given up your freedom voluntarily already.
Freedom as a tool of political persuasion is only used--can only be used--with people who have already given up their right and ability to think for themselves. When we see how many wars are fought in the cause of freedom, we can see how many people don't think for themselves. Many people don't think at all, they just follow.
People such as The Mahatma, Mohandas Gandhi, who was jailed many times for annoying the British with his peaceful insistence (resistance) that the UK free India, and democracy leader and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Ki, of Burma, under house arrest for years, did not consider their freedom to have been removed. No matter where they were (or are) they could think for themselves.
Their freedom to move around from place to place was restricted, but their freedom of mind was not--could not--be taken from them.
Are you free? Because you read, because you choose to seek out information and opinions on various subjects, you certainly are free. Or you have greater potential to be free, whether you adopt it or not.
You may listen to input from a variety of sources, but you don't make up your mind on any subject until and unless you have learned more than enough on which to base a sound decision.
If freedom is based on the unfettered ability to think, isn't everyone free, almost by definition?
By definition, yes. By choice, no. Too many people allow their minds to be manipulated by others who have something to gain by having them as allies or supporters. Look at the effectiveness of most advertising and religions as examples of how propaganda can be used to have people voluntarily give up their freedom.
Follwers listen to one line of thought and adopt it as if it were inherently good and right and the only possible choice. It's like two siblings fighting over something and mom supporting the first one to explain their case to her. The first one to make a good case get the most supporters.
No one can take away your freedom of thought. The only way you can lose that is to give it away.
Why do so many people give away that right? They aren't taught it at school. At home, kids have to follow the ways of the family, at least when they are younger. At school, kids are taught that the teacher's way is the right way. Even at the college level students learn that it's risky to take a position on a paper that is contrary to that of the teacher because a low mark may result.
People who enjoy true freedom of thought generally do not voluntarily go to war. Some may take leadership roles and send others into battle. They don't go themselves because they value their own freedom.
The freedom to think.
We can teach this. The world won't fall apart or be bombed out of existence if we teach freedom of thought and support freedom of expression. It's not just a clause in a constitution. Freedom can be a way of life.
It's only a risk when too many people allow themselves to be persuaded that it's a dangerous thing to allow others to express their opinions.
Freedom of thought and expression is embedded in the constitutions of many countries. Yet people in those countries give away that freedom when they accept the fear mongering by leaders who want opinions that differ from their own to be suppressed.
We have nothing to fear from differences. We only allow ourselves to be afraid when we don't have exposure to all sides or positions of an argument or issue.
Those who limit our exposure to differences of opinion or forms of art or anything else want to remove our freedom of thought, our freedom to make our own choices. The more we restrict our learning of information about differences, the more we sacrifice our freedom.
When we imprison our own minds, all that's left is our bodies. And they are no more sophisticated than the bodies of other animals or plants. Bodies aren't intelligent, they just are.
We can teach the freedom to think. We can teach it in schools. We simply need to teach boundaries with it, such as when freedom of thought becomes licence or anarchy that impinges on the rights of others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach children how to think for themselves.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, July 28, 2008
We Need Better Lightning Bolts
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
- Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (1958- ), in his comic strip Calvin & Hobbes
If only...
Those who claim that organized religion is on the wane may be correct. A few key reasons come to mind.
First, religion is supposed to benefit the individual believer, yet it more often benefits the leaders of the various segments within each religion. Religion benefits the leaders more than the individual followers.
Second, historically as well as at the present time clerics have been widely known to be among the worst violators of the sins their religions speak against in commandments.
Third, the massive expansion of media coverage of violations of the law among religious leaders among religious leaders has made following some of them like belonging to an organized crime family.
We must be suspicious of any religious leader who claims that what we do on earth is supposed to be solely to please God. While most of us want to be cooperative and follow religious and moral rules, we must question what kind of God had to create humans to be his servants and slaves. Does this sound like the beautiful and beneficent God our clerics tell us about?
Why did God give us free choice so that we could violate what he wanted of us? Isn't that like a master-slave relationship where the master gives the slaves free reign to do what they want, then punishes them with eternal damnation if they do anything other than what they have been commanded to do? That doesn't even make sense.
Clerics have over the centuries attributed every bit of misfortune to breaking of God's commandments, resulting in everything from fires and floods to AIDS, bankruptcies and divorce. Enough people believe this nonsense that the rumour mill keeps churning behind the scenes even when the real causes and sources for natural disasters and personal misfortune can be proven.
It's God's way of paying people back for their sins, say some. But isn't that what the hell they threaten us with is for? Either we should be punished here on earth so that we can all go to heaven cleansed or we should have free reign here and pay for our sins eternally after we die. If we get punished both here on earth and in hell, isn't that double jeopardy?
If the strongly religious people truly believe that their God is all-powerful and will punish sinners accordingly after they die, why do the self-righteous want to punish people here on earth? Are they concerned that God might miss a sinner? Or do they have God-envy?
Let's look at the self-designated upright pillars of society in a different light. If we examine their behaviour carefully, ignoring their message while focussing on what they do, they are really closet bigots. In fact, the self-righteous may be the most prejudiced people we have in our communities. They ignore that part of their holy book that says "Judge not that ye be not judged." They tend to be the most judgmental people we have in our societies. Yet prejudice, they claim, is a sin. One for which they personally have no intention of paying any penalty.
On the surface, every religion is designed to help guide an individual through a complex and confusing life. In practice, most organized religions are tax collecting agencies who want to control the behaviour of their taxpayers so that they will give more.
If God is ashamed of anyone in our society, he could find no better objectives than the highly religious.
Every religion has good at its core. Every religion goes corrupt over time. Every religion has people who profit from donations and who know how to maximize them for their own benefit. Every religion has people whose prime objective is to bend the minds of the followers to do their will.
That's what religions do. Not what they say they do, which is quite different, often quite the opposite.
Attendance at religious services is declining in most parts of the world where people are well educated. Not because the core of religion is at fault--because it isn't--but because educated people understand fraud and choose to avoid it.
This doesn't mean that belief in any doctrine is disappearing. I suspect the opposite. I think that we have more people who believe in what the core of the religion they were born into teaches while attendance at places of worship declines. Of course there will always be places where charismatic speakers can charm large audiences. We also have advertising that sells product well and politicians who can get themselves elected by making all kinds of promises they have no intention of fulfilling once elected. It's hype. It works. It brings in money.
I find it ironic that I have never met an atheist who is anything other than a good person who tries to do his or her best for their family and their community. What they don't believe in is the false gods that organized religions use to manipulate the minds of their followers. Most haven't yet figured out how to find the real God.
The more self-righteous among us rail against false gods. Maybe they should look into a mirror.
Where are those lightning bolts when we need them?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can tell truth from fiction, what is worthy from what is deceptive, what is real from what is devised by the greedy for their fraudulent purposes.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (1958- ), in his comic strip Calvin & Hobbes
If only...
Those who claim that organized religion is on the wane may be correct. A few key reasons come to mind.
First, religion is supposed to benefit the individual believer, yet it more often benefits the leaders of the various segments within each religion. Religion benefits the leaders more than the individual followers.
Second, historically as well as at the present time clerics have been widely known to be among the worst violators of the sins their religions speak against in commandments.
Third, the massive expansion of media coverage of violations of the law among religious leaders among religious leaders has made following some of them like belonging to an organized crime family.
We must be suspicious of any religious leader who claims that what we do on earth is supposed to be solely to please God. While most of us want to be cooperative and follow religious and moral rules, we must question what kind of God had to create humans to be his servants and slaves. Does this sound like the beautiful and beneficent God our clerics tell us about?
Why did God give us free choice so that we could violate what he wanted of us? Isn't that like a master-slave relationship where the master gives the slaves free reign to do what they want, then punishes them with eternal damnation if they do anything other than what they have been commanded to do? That doesn't even make sense.
Clerics have over the centuries attributed every bit of misfortune to breaking of God's commandments, resulting in everything from fires and floods to AIDS, bankruptcies and divorce. Enough people believe this nonsense that the rumour mill keeps churning behind the scenes even when the real causes and sources for natural disasters and personal misfortune can be proven.
It's God's way of paying people back for their sins, say some. But isn't that what the hell they threaten us with is for? Either we should be punished here on earth so that we can all go to heaven cleansed or we should have free reign here and pay for our sins eternally after we die. If we get punished both here on earth and in hell, isn't that double jeopardy?
If the strongly religious people truly believe that their God is all-powerful and will punish sinners accordingly after they die, why do the self-righteous want to punish people here on earth? Are they concerned that God might miss a sinner? Or do they have God-envy?
Let's look at the self-designated upright pillars of society in a different light. If we examine their behaviour carefully, ignoring their message while focussing on what they do, they are really closet bigots. In fact, the self-righteous may be the most prejudiced people we have in our communities. They ignore that part of their holy book that says "Judge not that ye be not judged." They tend to be the most judgmental people we have in our societies. Yet prejudice, they claim, is a sin. One for which they personally have no intention of paying any penalty.
On the surface, every religion is designed to help guide an individual through a complex and confusing life. In practice, most organized religions are tax collecting agencies who want to control the behaviour of their taxpayers so that they will give more.
If God is ashamed of anyone in our society, he could find no better objectives than the highly religious.
Every religion has good at its core. Every religion goes corrupt over time. Every religion has people who profit from donations and who know how to maximize them for their own benefit. Every religion has people whose prime objective is to bend the minds of the followers to do their will.
That's what religions do. Not what they say they do, which is quite different, often quite the opposite.
Attendance at religious services is declining in most parts of the world where people are well educated. Not because the core of religion is at fault--because it isn't--but because educated people understand fraud and choose to avoid it.
This doesn't mean that belief in any doctrine is disappearing. I suspect the opposite. I think that we have more people who believe in what the core of the religion they were born into teaches while attendance at places of worship declines. Of course there will always be places where charismatic speakers can charm large audiences. We also have advertising that sells product well and politicians who can get themselves elected by making all kinds of promises they have no intention of fulfilling once elected. It's hype. It works. It brings in money.
I find it ironic that I have never met an atheist who is anything other than a good person who tries to do his or her best for their family and their community. What they don't believe in is the false gods that organized religions use to manipulate the minds of their followers. Most haven't yet figured out how to find the real God.
The more self-righteous among us rail against false gods. Maybe they should look into a mirror.
Where are those lightning bolts when we need them?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can tell truth from fiction, what is worthy from what is deceptive, what is real from what is devised by the greedy for their fraudulent purposes.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, March 28, 2008
Your First Step To Success
Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity. Successful men/women act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.
- Dupree Jordan, American biologist, educator (1851-1931)
Lack of self confidence, of self assurance, of belief that you are worthy of the admiration of others if they only knew your qualities and talents, your skills and knowledge, shows on your face, in the expression on your face (facial language), in the way you carry your body (body language), in the position in which you place yourself in relation to someone you are speaking with, in the manner in which you speak.
Belief in yourself as lacking success and self worth shows on you as much looking successful and confident does on someone who feels successful and worthy of admiration. Others will treat you accordingly.
Part of the skill of exuding self confidence can be learned, such as what you need to do to give the perception of success and confidence. The other part, perhaps the more important part, is attitude. That's what you believe about yourself.
Despite what some guides to success will tell you, how you dress has little to do with the perception of you by others of success. Bill Gates, of Microsoft, for example, dresses casually--more correctly like a geek--all the time, though few would ever say he lacks confidence. If your footwear doesn't fit with the rest of your attire, that is apt to tell more about you than whether you are dressed formally, casually or in grubbies.
One of the main reasons that people lack confidence in their abilities is that they don't have sufficient knowledge, skills and abilities to feel confident about. That's a simple matter of filling in gaps in your knowledge or skill sets.
In a casual discussion you must know at least enough to keep the conversation going so that you can come across as a good listener. If the discussion is more like a debate, then you must know more than the others involved or your lack of information will be revealed.
Knowledge and skills do not gift themselves to you within your genetic code. You earn them with hard work. Something you learn today may do you no good for another 30 years, but when you can bring it up in a discuss then it shows you to have both a good memory and a deep base of knowledge.
Read, observe, listen and learn. There's no such thing as knowing too much. Where a problem arises is when you know a great deal about one subject but next to nothing about most others. You can't carry a good conversation if you don't have enough knowledge to participation in a broad range of subjects. If you know only one subject well, you may try to dominate conversations about that subject to show yourself well, but that could turn people away too.
Bill Gates began his adult life as a computer geek. But he learned a huge amount about business, about public speaking, about personnel management. Now he's learning about what it's like to be a benefactor as he gives away billions of dollars each year, computers and software to schools, and dollars for research into cures for disease, especially AIDS. He didn't stop learning when he had expertise in one subject area.
Acting with confidence while having little to back it up with may not be wise either. Most of us have met people who seem confident to the max, but you can't get them to do much or to say much of value because they don't have the stuff to fill their self-inflated balloon of confidence.
You don't have to be an expert to be confident in yourself. Most pretty people are confident, yet airheads if you get them into a serious conversation. They are so used to gaining attention for their beauty that they have to keep the conversation light so their basic ignorance of most subjects isn't revealed.
How can you become recognized for your knowledge long before you know a huge amount about a subject? Learn something then talk about it. Watch a documentary, then include information about that subject in a conversation the next day. Read the newspaper daily, then include facts about a story in your water cooler chats. Read a good book, then be prepared to recommend it to others. Cumulatively, these all add to your aura of being a knowledgeable person.
Act confident and successful, but keep your mouth shut when you don't know much. That's when your skill of being a good listener comes to advantage. A good listener will hear something, then ask a question which the speaker will appreciate because it indicates that the listener has been paying attention and thinking about what he or she has heard. And you will learn in the process.
You can act confident and successful when you don't know much about the topic of conversation but you look confident and ask relevant questions so that your participation is recognized and appreciated.
Nobody knows everything. You only have to know enough when it's your turn to speak and to keep quiet when you don't have relevant information at hand. In between you can smile knowingly and nod at the right times.
Bill AllinTurning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, an incomparable manual for parents and teachers who want to have knowledge about how to respond best at the right times to the developmental stages of children.Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Dupree Jordan, American biologist, educator (1851-1931)
Lack of self confidence, of self assurance, of belief that you are worthy of the admiration of others if they only knew your qualities and talents, your skills and knowledge, shows on your face, in the expression on your face (facial language), in the way you carry your body (body language), in the position in which you place yourself in relation to someone you are speaking with, in the manner in which you speak.
Belief in yourself as lacking success and self worth shows on you as much looking successful and confident does on someone who feels successful and worthy of admiration. Others will treat you accordingly.
Part of the skill of exuding self confidence can be learned, such as what you need to do to give the perception of success and confidence. The other part, perhaps the more important part, is attitude. That's what you believe about yourself.
Despite what some guides to success will tell you, how you dress has little to do with the perception of you by others of success. Bill Gates, of Microsoft, for example, dresses casually--more correctly like a geek--all the time, though few would ever say he lacks confidence. If your footwear doesn't fit with the rest of your attire, that is apt to tell more about you than whether you are dressed formally, casually or in grubbies.
One of the main reasons that people lack confidence in their abilities is that they don't have sufficient knowledge, skills and abilities to feel confident about. That's a simple matter of filling in gaps in your knowledge or skill sets.
In a casual discussion you must know at least enough to keep the conversation going so that you can come across as a good listener. If the discussion is more like a debate, then you must know more than the others involved or your lack of information will be revealed.
Knowledge and skills do not gift themselves to you within your genetic code. You earn them with hard work. Something you learn today may do you no good for another 30 years, but when you can bring it up in a discuss then it shows you to have both a good memory and a deep base of knowledge.
Read, observe, listen and learn. There's no such thing as knowing too much. Where a problem arises is when you know a great deal about one subject but next to nothing about most others. You can't carry a good conversation if you don't have enough knowledge to participation in a broad range of subjects. If you know only one subject well, you may try to dominate conversations about that subject to show yourself well, but that could turn people away too.
Bill Gates began his adult life as a computer geek. But he learned a huge amount about business, about public speaking, about personnel management. Now he's learning about what it's like to be a benefactor as he gives away billions of dollars each year, computers and software to schools, and dollars for research into cures for disease, especially AIDS. He didn't stop learning when he had expertise in one subject area.
Acting with confidence while having little to back it up with may not be wise either. Most of us have met people who seem confident to the max, but you can't get them to do much or to say much of value because they don't have the stuff to fill their self-inflated balloon of confidence.
You don't have to be an expert to be confident in yourself. Most pretty people are confident, yet airheads if you get them into a serious conversation. They are so used to gaining attention for their beauty that they have to keep the conversation light so their basic ignorance of most subjects isn't revealed.
How can you become recognized for your knowledge long before you know a huge amount about a subject? Learn something then talk about it. Watch a documentary, then include information about that subject in a conversation the next day. Read the newspaper daily, then include facts about a story in your water cooler chats. Read a good book, then be prepared to recommend it to others. Cumulatively, these all add to your aura of being a knowledgeable person.
Act confident and successful, but keep your mouth shut when you don't know much. That's when your skill of being a good listener comes to advantage. A good listener will hear something, then ask a question which the speaker will appreciate because it indicates that the listener has been paying attention and thinking about what he or she has heard. And you will learn in the process.
You can act confident and successful when you don't know much about the topic of conversation but you look confident and ask relevant questions so that your participation is recognized and appreciated.
Nobody knows everything. You only have to know enough when it's your turn to speak and to keep quiet when you don't have relevant information at hand. In between you can smile knowingly and nod at the right times.
Bill AllinTurning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, an incomparable manual for parents and teachers who want to have knowledge about how to respond best at the right times to the developmental stages of children.Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, February 02, 2008
We Complain, But...
Better to light a candle than to rant against darkness.
- Confucius, Chinese philosopher (circa 551-478 BC)
Yet we do rant against darkness. Often while refusing to let others provide a light.
We complain that many parents do a poor job of bringing up and tending to the needs of their kids. But, although you can find birthing classes in every city and town, classes to teach young adults the knowledge and skills of parenting are almost nowhere to be found.
We complain that teachers don't do a good enough job teaching what kids need. But we also complain that education taxes that go to hire more and better teachers, to outfit classrooms with usable up-to-date resources and to build curriculum that addresses social and psychological needs of children rather than "the basics" are much too high.
We complain about the evils of consumerism, about how Christ is no longer more than a few letters in the word Christmas and Santa Claus has become the real hero of the spending season. But we spend more time buying more useless gifts for more ungrateful people with each passing year.
We complain that we must buy more locks and pay for security services for our homes because of rising crime rates. But we continue to give people with severe problems more reason to need to turn to theft to satisfy their needs.
We complain that drugs have become a part of daily life for so many people. But we withhold information about the effects drugs have on the wrecked lives of addicts from children before they are exposed to drugs on the streets where their schools are located because we desperately want to keep them "innocent" for as long as possible.
We complain about the regimented lifestyle that has us following the same routine every working day. But we join the crowd with uniform suits, shoes, coats, accessories and vehicles so that we fit in with the "business ethic" of our employers.
We complain that we find it necessary to embark on exercise programs just to get enough physical activity to stay fit and reduce the anxiety associated with constant stress. Then we drive several times around the parking aisles of shopping malls just to get a parking space that's as close to the entry door as possible.
We complain about the corruption of politicians. But we continue to elect the warriors who frighten us that foreigners want to harm us or that the economy will tank if the other party is elected.
We complain that it's almost impossible to find real meaning in life. But we attach ourselves to religions or political parties whose primary purpose for existing is to give power to a few people who get well paid to feed us dogma that wouldn't make sense to a ten year old child.
We complain that there is so little that is worthwhile on television. But statistics show that televisions are on in most homes for several hours each day, presumably spewing useless pap to people desperate to feel that they know what's going on.
Light a candle. See what you're missing. Get a real life. Help your kids grow into healthy, well balanced adults. Spend the emotional energy you now spend on complaining on investing in effective measures that will correct the problems.
Go to the TIA web site and join the people who want to make a difference.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children what they need to know so that they can avoid leading sheep-like lives as consumer lackeys as adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Confucius, Chinese philosopher (circa 551-478 BC)
Yet we do rant against darkness. Often while refusing to let others provide a light.
We complain that many parents do a poor job of bringing up and tending to the needs of their kids. But, although you can find birthing classes in every city and town, classes to teach young adults the knowledge and skills of parenting are almost nowhere to be found.
We complain that teachers don't do a good enough job teaching what kids need. But we also complain that education taxes that go to hire more and better teachers, to outfit classrooms with usable up-to-date resources and to build curriculum that addresses social and psychological needs of children rather than "the basics" are much too high.
We complain about the evils of consumerism, about how Christ is no longer more than a few letters in the word Christmas and Santa Claus has become the real hero of the spending season. But we spend more time buying more useless gifts for more ungrateful people with each passing year.
We complain that we must buy more locks and pay for security services for our homes because of rising crime rates. But we continue to give people with severe problems more reason to need to turn to theft to satisfy their needs.
We complain that drugs have become a part of daily life for so many people. But we withhold information about the effects drugs have on the wrecked lives of addicts from children before they are exposed to drugs on the streets where their schools are located because we desperately want to keep them "innocent" for as long as possible.
We complain about the regimented lifestyle that has us following the same routine every working day. But we join the crowd with uniform suits, shoes, coats, accessories and vehicles so that we fit in with the "business ethic" of our employers.
We complain that we find it necessary to embark on exercise programs just to get enough physical activity to stay fit and reduce the anxiety associated with constant stress. Then we drive several times around the parking aisles of shopping malls just to get a parking space that's as close to the entry door as possible.
We complain about the corruption of politicians. But we continue to elect the warriors who frighten us that foreigners want to harm us or that the economy will tank if the other party is elected.
We complain that it's almost impossible to find real meaning in life. But we attach ourselves to religions or political parties whose primary purpose for existing is to give power to a few people who get well paid to feed us dogma that wouldn't make sense to a ten year old child.
We complain that there is so little that is worthwhile on television. But statistics show that televisions are on in most homes for several hours each day, presumably spewing useless pap to people desperate to feel that they know what's going on.
Light a candle. See what you're missing. Get a real life. Help your kids grow into healthy, well balanced adults. Spend the emotional energy you now spend on complaining on investing in effective measures that will correct the problems.
Go to the TIA web site and join the people who want to make a difference.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children what they need to know so that they can avoid leading sheep-like lives as consumer lackeys as adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Where Has All The Nature Gone?
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity ... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
- William Blake, English poet, painter, printmaker (1757-1827)
Living as I do in a forest, beside a lake, I have the opportunity to see nature at its finest and its most agitated. Just today, for example, our electrical service returned after being off for two days due to a storm that caused so much damage and brought so many trees down over so many electrical wires that the repairmen had to travel each line looking for problem after problem.
Yet each morning my wife and I sit in our living room, with our morning coffee and a little "morning cake" and look out over the lake to a scene which has never been identical for any two days we have been viewing it for the past 12 years. City people who own cottages in the area would say that the scene changes only from dark to light and from season to season. We see differently.
As of this year, for the first time in human history, more people will live in cities than in rural settings. What does it mean? If greenhouse gases really are responsible for global warming, the problem begins in cities where people have very little to do with nature on a regular basis. Our atmosphere, our oceans, our disappearing forests, our desertifying drylands, our increasingly liquid Arctic, on the other hand, are almost completely devoid of people. People don't care much about what they can't see.
My wife and I struggle to live in harmony with our trees and the rest of nature. They destroy our roof shingles in half the expected lifespan the manufacturers suggest. They prevent flowers and other plants from growing in some places, with the pines even making the soil alkaline (toxic to some plants) by dropping needles all year long. Raccoons, birds and other assorted animals mess up our compose as they chow down on food matter we couldn't eat. That's just for starters.
The city folks at their cottages don't have such problems. They cut down most of the trees ("to let in more light"), forgetting that trees provide natural cooling in summer by keeping sunlight off the roofs, as well as creating oxygen. They plant their denuded properties with grass, in an effort to make them look more like the aristocratic mansions of England (which they envy).
Then they build the mansions themselves, most of which exceed 2000 square feet--some up to 10,000 square feet--far more space than they can possibly use or keep clean on thier weekend visits (they hire cleaners). But the properties impress visitors (also from the cities) who Ooooo! and Aaaaaa!, make noises of praise and drink up all the offered alcohol and drugs.
Meanwhile the wilderness transforms into ghettoes of nature as the cottagers turn long term walking and hiking trails into paths for their all-terrain vehicles, their snowmobiles and their 4 x 4 SUVs (aka "Jeeps") unfit for human walkers and places to avoid for deer, bears, foxes, coyotes, moose and heaven only knows what else.
Cities, despite the efforts in recent years by planners to provide some semblance of nature for their un-natural (sometimes nature-phobic) denizens to enjoy, have become sterile places where nature is treated like zoo specimens, something to be viewed in small doses on rare occasions.
Does the dearth of real nature in cities cause people to lose their imaginations, as we might use as a corollary to Blake's quote? Not necessarily. But if you want to demonstrate your imagination in the city, you had better have money to support yourself, be prepared to endure the hostility of others toward your efforts (or create in silence) and possibly endure the odd visit to a courtroom (as defendant).
Is there a solution to this dissociation or alienation of city dwellers from nature? Yes. We need to teach children about nature so they know that everything they eat comes from it and every excess they enjoy will have a negative impact on it.
When children have the opportunity to be close to nature, to appreciate it and learn from and about it, they gain a treasure and a spirit toward nature that they will not lose for a lifetime. Without that early contact with nature, the most involved that many people will get is to grieve over the warming of our planet. But not while they drive their SUVs to the cottage.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children the lessons and skills they need to live healthy, well balanced and well adjusted adult lives so they know they are part of nature not separate from it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- William Blake, English poet, painter, printmaker (1757-1827)
Living as I do in a forest, beside a lake, I have the opportunity to see nature at its finest and its most agitated. Just today, for example, our electrical service returned after being off for two days due to a storm that caused so much damage and brought so many trees down over so many electrical wires that the repairmen had to travel each line looking for problem after problem.
Yet each morning my wife and I sit in our living room, with our morning coffee and a little "morning cake" and look out over the lake to a scene which has never been identical for any two days we have been viewing it for the past 12 years. City people who own cottages in the area would say that the scene changes only from dark to light and from season to season. We see differently.
As of this year, for the first time in human history, more people will live in cities than in rural settings. What does it mean? If greenhouse gases really are responsible for global warming, the problem begins in cities where people have very little to do with nature on a regular basis. Our atmosphere, our oceans, our disappearing forests, our desertifying drylands, our increasingly liquid Arctic, on the other hand, are almost completely devoid of people. People don't care much about what they can't see.
My wife and I struggle to live in harmony with our trees and the rest of nature. They destroy our roof shingles in half the expected lifespan the manufacturers suggest. They prevent flowers and other plants from growing in some places, with the pines even making the soil alkaline (toxic to some plants) by dropping needles all year long. Raccoons, birds and other assorted animals mess up our compose as they chow down on food matter we couldn't eat. That's just for starters.
The city folks at their cottages don't have such problems. They cut down most of the trees ("to let in more light"), forgetting that trees provide natural cooling in summer by keeping sunlight off the roofs, as well as creating oxygen. They plant their denuded properties with grass, in an effort to make them look more like the aristocratic mansions of England (which they envy).
Then they build the mansions themselves, most of which exceed 2000 square feet--some up to 10,000 square feet--far more space than they can possibly use or keep clean on thier weekend visits (they hire cleaners). But the properties impress visitors (also from the cities) who Ooooo! and Aaaaaa!, make noises of praise and drink up all the offered alcohol and drugs.
Meanwhile the wilderness transforms into ghettoes of nature as the cottagers turn long term walking and hiking trails into paths for their all-terrain vehicles, their snowmobiles and their 4 x 4 SUVs (aka "Jeeps") unfit for human walkers and places to avoid for deer, bears, foxes, coyotes, moose and heaven only knows what else.
Cities, despite the efforts in recent years by planners to provide some semblance of nature for their un-natural (sometimes nature-phobic) denizens to enjoy, have become sterile places where nature is treated like zoo specimens, something to be viewed in small doses on rare occasions.
Does the dearth of real nature in cities cause people to lose their imaginations, as we might use as a corollary to Blake's quote? Not necessarily. But if you want to demonstrate your imagination in the city, you had better have money to support yourself, be prepared to endure the hostility of others toward your efforts (or create in silence) and possibly endure the odd visit to a courtroom (as defendant).
Is there a solution to this dissociation or alienation of city dwellers from nature? Yes. We need to teach children about nature so they know that everything they eat comes from it and every excess they enjoy will have a negative impact on it.
When children have the opportunity to be close to nature, to appreciate it and learn from and about it, they gain a treasure and a spirit toward nature that they will not lose for a lifetime. Without that early contact with nature, the most involved that many people will get is to grieve over the warming of our planet. But not while they drive their SUVs to the cottage.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children the lessons and skills they need to live healthy, well balanced and well adjusted adult lives so they know they are part of nature not separate from it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, April 09, 2007
Help! Let Me Out Of This Damned City
If only I could so live and so serve the world that after me there should never again be birds in cages.
- Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (1885-1962)
Is she really concerned about birds in cages or is this a metaphor for something much larger? Both could be true at once.
Birds are kept in cages because people want to be able to see birds daily. These are the only wild animals that are permitted in city residences.
If birds were no longer allowed to be caged and people still wanted to be able to see them, they would have to create natural environments in urban areas where birds other than pigeons and gulls could safely live and propagate.
That would mean planting many more trees than presently exist in many cities, building more parks that are larger than will hold a playground for small children and perhaps creating some bird-friendly locations for nesting.
Ironically, the kinds of wild animals that live in cities today tend to be those that we don't want, such as rats, raccoons and some skunks. Many large cities have more rats than people and about one raccoon for every four people. Most of the time these are out of sight, so city dwellers are not aware of their presence unless they become a problem.
Why would anyone care as much about birds as Karen Blixen does? Big city environments, especially those with a great number of living units above ground level, have created a disconnect between humans and nature. Children grow up believing that meat and produce must be manufactured in the back rooms at supermarkets. That there is never enough room for cars on the streets or in parking areas.
That people should naturally secure their doors with multiple locks because anyone could break in with only a couple of security measures. That many people will be mean to you, even bully you, no matter what you do unless you are as hard-hearted as they are. That no one cares about you or loves you except a precious few in your family, if you are lucky.
Many studies have shown that people who live most of their lives above ground--such as in apartment buildings and office towers--feel less connection with nature than those who have regular contact with the ground and who can see ground when they look out their windows.
Today in North America, though people live in all parts of the USA and Canada, 85 percent of the populations of those countries live in urban environments. Few people have regular contact with what those who live outside of the city would call nature. Those who live in cottage areas can testify how very little city people know about nature and the countryside and its inhabitants when they escape the city to their cottages. They abuse nature by trying to turn a natural environment into a suburban type property.
The Iraq war pits military personnel who have lived most of their lives in cities and who have been trained by superiors who dictate high tech and sophisticated ways to fighting the enemy against people who are mostly "of the land," even those who live in a big city like Baghdad. In a guerilla war where terrorism is the main weapon of one participant, the side that knows the land and its features will present a challenge that foreign city-soldiers can never overcome.
How can a city be made more countrified? For one thing, the need to conserve energy has resulted in many large city buildings with flat roofs turning these into gardens with flowers, trees and birds, and people who love every minute they spend in these rooftop Shangri-las.
We can develop more ideas about how people can engage in activities that are outdoors, such as devoting some parts of parks to garden plots where people can have permits to plant real flowers and real vegetables. These can also be built on the roofs of buildings with flat tops, resulting in a cooling effect in summer and a warming effect in the minds of those who use them. (They clean the air as an added benefit.)
Just like their ancestors did. Those ancestors didn't need birds in cages to feel a part of nature. They lived on the ground and felt part of it every day.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to bring us all down to earth, for real.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (1885-1962)
Is she really concerned about birds in cages or is this a metaphor for something much larger? Both could be true at once.
Birds are kept in cages because people want to be able to see birds daily. These are the only wild animals that are permitted in city residences.
If birds were no longer allowed to be caged and people still wanted to be able to see them, they would have to create natural environments in urban areas where birds other than pigeons and gulls could safely live and propagate.
That would mean planting many more trees than presently exist in many cities, building more parks that are larger than will hold a playground for small children and perhaps creating some bird-friendly locations for nesting.
Ironically, the kinds of wild animals that live in cities today tend to be those that we don't want, such as rats, raccoons and some skunks. Many large cities have more rats than people and about one raccoon for every four people. Most of the time these are out of sight, so city dwellers are not aware of their presence unless they become a problem.
Why would anyone care as much about birds as Karen Blixen does? Big city environments, especially those with a great number of living units above ground level, have created a disconnect between humans and nature. Children grow up believing that meat and produce must be manufactured in the back rooms at supermarkets. That there is never enough room for cars on the streets or in parking areas.
That people should naturally secure their doors with multiple locks because anyone could break in with only a couple of security measures. That many people will be mean to you, even bully you, no matter what you do unless you are as hard-hearted as they are. That no one cares about you or loves you except a precious few in your family, if you are lucky.
Many studies have shown that people who live most of their lives above ground--such as in apartment buildings and office towers--feel less connection with nature than those who have regular contact with the ground and who can see ground when they look out their windows.
Today in North America, though people live in all parts of the USA and Canada, 85 percent of the populations of those countries live in urban environments. Few people have regular contact with what those who live outside of the city would call nature. Those who live in cottage areas can testify how very little city people know about nature and the countryside and its inhabitants when they escape the city to their cottages. They abuse nature by trying to turn a natural environment into a suburban type property.
The Iraq war pits military personnel who have lived most of their lives in cities and who have been trained by superiors who dictate high tech and sophisticated ways to fighting the enemy against people who are mostly "of the land," even those who live in a big city like Baghdad. In a guerilla war where terrorism is the main weapon of one participant, the side that knows the land and its features will present a challenge that foreign city-soldiers can never overcome.
How can a city be made more countrified? For one thing, the need to conserve energy has resulted in many large city buildings with flat roofs turning these into gardens with flowers, trees and birds, and people who love every minute they spend in these rooftop Shangri-las.
We can develop more ideas about how people can engage in activities that are outdoors, such as devoting some parts of parks to garden plots where people can have permits to plant real flowers and real vegetables. These can also be built on the roofs of buildings with flat tops, resulting in a cooling effect in summer and a warming effect in the minds of those who use them. (They clean the air as an added benefit.)
Just like their ancestors did. Those ancestors didn't need birds in cages to feel a part of nature. They lived on the ground and felt part of it every day.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to bring us all down to earth, for real.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
When The Suffering We Know Is Better Than The Unknown
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Of the many peculiarities of human nature that are difficult to explain, this ranks near the top of the list.
We have people (men and women both) who are afraid to leave an abusive relationship because they don't want to live alone, because they are afraid that their lover will find them and harm them, because they don't know what to do to get away and can't bring themselves to make plans. Or, perhaps, these are mere excuses offered to those who know about the abuse they suffer and urge the victim to leave.
Many people work jobs they hate because they are afraid to leave. Their excuses include the risk of not finding a better job, of getting a new job and finding it worse, of needing the stability of an old job they know well during this "difficult time" of their lives, of the current job market being slim. In fact, most of them refuse to even look for a new job.
Many people attend the services of the religion they grew up with, regularly, because they fear the consequences of leaving.
Their minds are often made up so steadfastly that they can't be knocked off their position by reason. They don't feel the need to expalin to anyone else because their minds are so solid on the subject. But they will sometimes confide in others, leaving that small opening for change.
There are other examples of the fear that many people have of leaving the suffering they are familiar with, but they all have one common factor. The issue that is the problem is a very important parts of their life. Whatever the relationship they fear severing, it has constituted a major factor and commitment of their lives, an undeniable portion of their lives they invested in who they are today.
Of the several people I have personally helped over a major hurdle in their lives, they all wanted to know that they had someone behind them to support them if they faltered. They needed to know that it was alright for them to take the big step and fail, that they would not be failures in life if they did, that other opportunities would present themselves that would be better if they made a mistake with thier first choice.
They wanted to know that they were not alone when they changed their lives.
In the final analysis, we are each alone when we make major life decisions. Few of us have one friend so close and dependable that we can be absolutely certain they will be there for us if we try and fail.
What each person in a position of making such a life-altering decision needs to know is that no matter what happens, the sun will rise the next day and they will rise with it. Somehow, those of us who survive the night manage to find a way to build better lives if we dare take the big chance.
And there is always someone who will help if we look hard enough and ask people we believe we can trust.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the real opportunities for a better future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Of the many peculiarities of human nature that are difficult to explain, this ranks near the top of the list.
We have people (men and women both) who are afraid to leave an abusive relationship because they don't want to live alone, because they are afraid that their lover will find them and harm them, because they don't know what to do to get away and can't bring themselves to make plans. Or, perhaps, these are mere excuses offered to those who know about the abuse they suffer and urge the victim to leave.
Many people work jobs they hate because they are afraid to leave. Their excuses include the risk of not finding a better job, of getting a new job and finding it worse, of needing the stability of an old job they know well during this "difficult time" of their lives, of the current job market being slim. In fact, most of them refuse to even look for a new job.
Many people attend the services of the religion they grew up with, regularly, because they fear the consequences of leaving.
Their minds are often made up so steadfastly that they can't be knocked off their position by reason. They don't feel the need to expalin to anyone else because their minds are so solid on the subject. But they will sometimes confide in others, leaving that small opening for change.
There are other examples of the fear that many people have of leaving the suffering they are familiar with, but they all have one common factor. The issue that is the problem is a very important parts of their life. Whatever the relationship they fear severing, it has constituted a major factor and commitment of their lives, an undeniable portion of their lives they invested in who they are today.
Of the several people I have personally helped over a major hurdle in their lives, they all wanted to know that they had someone behind them to support them if they faltered. They needed to know that it was alright for them to take the big step and fail, that they would not be failures in life if they did, that other opportunities would present themselves that would be better if they made a mistake with thier first choice.
They wanted to know that they were not alone when they changed their lives.
In the final analysis, we are each alone when we make major life decisions. Few of us have one friend so close and dependable that we can be absolutely certain they will be there for us if we try and fail.
What each person in a position of making such a life-altering decision needs to know is that no matter what happens, the sun will rise the next day and they will rise with it. Somehow, those of us who survive the night manage to find a way to build better lives if we dare take the big chance.
And there is always someone who will help if we look hard enough and ask people we believe we can trust.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the real opportunities for a better future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
One Tactic of Successful Liars
Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
It's an odd characteristic of human nature that we tend to accept one excuse that someone gives for not doing something or for doing something incorrectly or late, but the more excuses that person offers the less likely we are to believe him.
Mostly likely that tendency is based on our own experience. We have, in most cases, one reason for doing something. At any given moment, we may be able to think of one good reason why we didn't do what we promised to do or did incorrectly or late what we were supposed to do.
Our experience tells us that some people have the ability to think up a steady stream of excuses just as a lawyer in court can think quickly on his feet. However, we may feel that a person with a string of excuses is simply fishing for one that will work, whereas a simple excuse, though lame, might be passable. We accept from others what we might give ourselves in similar circimstances.
When someone offers us one excuse for doing something or for not doing something he should have done or for doing it incorrectly or late, we are quite capable of finding justification that will fit around that one excuse to make it plausible. At that point, though reluctant, we may be prepared to move on and forget or ignore the offence.
The most effective excuse that someone convicted of murder has ever given to elicit sympathy and assistance from others on the "outside" to free him is "No matter what the evidence given in court says, I didn't do it." That one simple yet inadequate (for legal purposes) explanation tends to gather support from others who believe the legal system may have failed an innocent man.
Give one excuse, stick with it and don't embellish.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to give a break to those who don't know how the system of human nature works.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
It's an odd characteristic of human nature that we tend to accept one excuse that someone gives for not doing something or for doing something incorrectly or late, but the more excuses that person offers the less likely we are to believe him.
Mostly likely that tendency is based on our own experience. We have, in most cases, one reason for doing something. At any given moment, we may be able to think of one good reason why we didn't do what we promised to do or did incorrectly or late what we were supposed to do.
Our experience tells us that some people have the ability to think up a steady stream of excuses just as a lawyer in court can think quickly on his feet. However, we may feel that a person with a string of excuses is simply fishing for one that will work, whereas a simple excuse, though lame, might be passable. We accept from others what we might give ourselves in similar circimstances.
When someone offers us one excuse for doing something or for not doing something he should have done or for doing it incorrectly or late, we are quite capable of finding justification that will fit around that one excuse to make it plausible. At that point, though reluctant, we may be prepared to move on and forget or ignore the offence.
The most effective excuse that someone convicted of murder has ever given to elicit sympathy and assistance from others on the "outside" to free him is "No matter what the evidence given in court says, I didn't do it." That one simple yet inadequate (for legal purposes) explanation tends to gather support from others who believe the legal system may have failed an innocent man.
Give one excuse, stick with it and don't embellish.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to give a break to those who don't know how the system of human nature works.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, March 15, 2007
If You Are Extreme, You Don't Matter
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
- Susan Sontag, author and critic (1933-2004)
(or, what I see is not what you painted)
This applies as much to writing or any other art as it does to painting or sculpture.
Sometimes it shocks me how a reader can find the least important part of something I have written, misinterpret it in such a way that in seems to mean the opposite of what I intended, then assail me for being such an idiot.
Name-calling aside, it is nearly impossible to write something that someone with malicious intent can't misinterpret and use against the writer. It's like tearing off someone's leg, then beating him to death with it.
When I write something of the length of this article, my overarching objective is to get readers to think about the topic and the overall effect the article has had on them. However, some people can't see big pictures. They can only see small pictures, like watching a movie by viewing only a few frames at a time.
Recent research suggests that the brain changes as we age so that older people are able to see the big picture of some situation, whereas younger people are more inclined to only be able to see individual parts of it. These are generalities, not absolutes. But they are part of human nature. Some people can't ever see big pictures, so things like wars, the United Nations, the AIDS pandemic and global warming mystify them.
If writing can be misinterpreted when every part of it should be laid out and clear, then individual actions and ill-considered words can easily be misinterpreted as well. A close friendship of many years might disappear when one friend does something the other doesn't understand, then misinterprets the motives of the first and makes the split.
What is the overall message of this article? Ignore the extremes of what people do, say or write and examine the vast majority of words and acts that comprise the middle section of their behaviours. If all behaviours were put onto a bell curve, we could look at the high parts in the middle and ignore the extremes at either end that might not be valid or typical anyway.
Each of us exhibits extreme behaviour once in a while. We deserve to be forgiven for it if we have been moderate most of the time.
I will ignore the cranks who hate this piece as well as those who want me to contribute to a sperm bank because of it to save something so special. I'm just an average person trying to get you to think about the mysterious world of human nature.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the mysteries of life a bit easier to understand.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Susan Sontag, author and critic (1933-2004)
(or, what I see is not what you painted)
This applies as much to writing or any other art as it does to painting or sculpture.
Sometimes it shocks me how a reader can find the least important part of something I have written, misinterpret it in such a way that in seems to mean the opposite of what I intended, then assail me for being such an idiot.
Name-calling aside, it is nearly impossible to write something that someone with malicious intent can't misinterpret and use against the writer. It's like tearing off someone's leg, then beating him to death with it.
When I write something of the length of this article, my overarching objective is to get readers to think about the topic and the overall effect the article has had on them. However, some people can't see big pictures. They can only see small pictures, like watching a movie by viewing only a few frames at a time.
Recent research suggests that the brain changes as we age so that older people are able to see the big picture of some situation, whereas younger people are more inclined to only be able to see individual parts of it. These are generalities, not absolutes. But they are part of human nature. Some people can't ever see big pictures, so things like wars, the United Nations, the AIDS pandemic and global warming mystify them.
If writing can be misinterpreted when every part of it should be laid out and clear, then individual actions and ill-considered words can easily be misinterpreted as well. A close friendship of many years might disappear when one friend does something the other doesn't understand, then misinterprets the motives of the first and makes the split.
What is the overall message of this article? Ignore the extremes of what people do, say or write and examine the vast majority of words and acts that comprise the middle section of their behaviours. If all behaviours were put onto a bell curve, we could look at the high parts in the middle and ignore the extremes at either end that might not be valid or typical anyway.
Each of us exhibits extreme behaviour once in a while. We deserve to be forgiven for it if we have been moderate most of the time.
I will ignore the cranks who hate this piece as well as those who want me to contribute to a sperm bank because of it to save something so special. I'm just an average person trying to get you to think about the mysterious world of human nature.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the mysteries of life a bit easier to understand.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, February 08, 2007
How To Make Big Problems Seem Small
"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt."
- Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk (1915–1968)
Everyone has problems they consider to be severe. They may or may not be constant stressors, but when they come along they are as severe for one person as for another.
It doesn't really matter how important or significant a problem is. If a small problem exists in isolation of others problems, it becomes the most important problem and has the same effect on one person as a critical problem has on another person.
Everyone suffers from problems. Whether the problem would be forgotten within a month or would continue (even in memory) indefinitely, the bearer of the problem sees it as severe. Future resolutions of problems seem unimportant to a person who is suffering from and worrying about today's problems.
Those who try to hide from problems close themselves off from situations that might aggravate their emotions. Emotions are the part of us where we suffer, so shielding the emotions is thought by some to prevent suffering. But by shutting themselves off from the potential consequences of problems, people also shut themselves off from the realities around them. They lose their grasp of realities of life.
They come to believe that the tiny world they live in is the same as (or should be the same as) the one others live in. They want others ourside of their tiny protected world to live by the same set of rules and understandings as they live by.
Rather than hiding from problems, we need to face them down and feel the accomplishment of conquering them. We can keep in mind that every problem we have will be solved eventually. Every one. Persistent problems such as physical disabilities we can work around so that they no longer become disabilities but instead become opportunities to better ourselves in other ways.
How can we lessen the effects of our problems? By helping others with theirs. Most of us don't have to go far from our own homes to find others with problems far more severe than our own.
First of all, finding others with problems far worse than our own makes ours seem less severe to us. Second, helping others with their problems causes us to neglect the emotional stress that our own problems cause us.
That one-two combination may be found in most or all of the people you know who never seem to suffer from their problems the way others do. They have problems, like everyone, but all they have time for is solving them, not worrying about them. They are too busy offering help to others with more important problems to worry about themselves.
Unless a problem persists because another person with emotional instability or a legal or phsysical disability themselves, most of us forget our most severe problems a few months after they cease to be stressors for us. Can you remember the problems you worried about a year ago?
Little problems seem big if we have no big problems to worry us. Big problems seem insignificant if we busy ourselves helping those with problems more severe than our own.
That leaves helping others as the solution to finding relief to our problems. That may not be intuitive, but it's true. It's one of the mysteries of human nature. It's works.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make our little problems that seem big into little problems that we don't worry about.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk (1915–1968)
Everyone has problems they consider to be severe. They may or may not be constant stressors, but when they come along they are as severe for one person as for another.
It doesn't really matter how important or significant a problem is. If a small problem exists in isolation of others problems, it becomes the most important problem and has the same effect on one person as a critical problem has on another person.
Everyone suffers from problems. Whether the problem would be forgotten within a month or would continue (even in memory) indefinitely, the bearer of the problem sees it as severe. Future resolutions of problems seem unimportant to a person who is suffering from and worrying about today's problems.
Those who try to hide from problems close themselves off from situations that might aggravate their emotions. Emotions are the part of us where we suffer, so shielding the emotions is thought by some to prevent suffering. But by shutting themselves off from the potential consequences of problems, people also shut themselves off from the realities around them. They lose their grasp of realities of life.
They come to believe that the tiny world they live in is the same as (or should be the same as) the one others live in. They want others ourside of their tiny protected world to live by the same set of rules and understandings as they live by.
Rather than hiding from problems, we need to face them down and feel the accomplishment of conquering them. We can keep in mind that every problem we have will be solved eventually. Every one. Persistent problems such as physical disabilities we can work around so that they no longer become disabilities but instead become opportunities to better ourselves in other ways.
How can we lessen the effects of our problems? By helping others with theirs. Most of us don't have to go far from our own homes to find others with problems far more severe than our own.
First of all, finding others with problems far worse than our own makes ours seem less severe to us. Second, helping others with their problems causes us to neglect the emotional stress that our own problems cause us.
That one-two combination may be found in most or all of the people you know who never seem to suffer from their problems the way others do. They have problems, like everyone, but all they have time for is solving them, not worrying about them. They are too busy offering help to others with more important problems to worry about themselves.
Unless a problem persists because another person with emotional instability or a legal or phsysical disability themselves, most of us forget our most severe problems a few months after they cease to be stressors for us. Can you remember the problems you worried about a year ago?
Little problems seem big if we have no big problems to worry us. Big problems seem insignificant if we busy ourselves helping those with problems more severe than our own.
That leaves helping others as the solution to finding relief to our problems. That may not be intuitive, but it's true. It's one of the mysteries of human nature. It's works.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make our little problems that seem big into little problems that we don't worry about.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, February 02, 2007
Squeeze Out The Thinkers: It's Our Way
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
- John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)
This observation is similar to saying that we all dislike change. All things considered, new ideas and opinions often represent the leading edge of change.
What reason do we have to fear change? Human nature tells us that the status quo equals security. What is may not be perfect, but it's what we know. More importantly, what we have been told by our leaders must be true because we depend on our leaders to steer us along the right path as cultural communities.
In the final analysis, we are groups of followers, not self-sustaining islands of independence. Most of us don't produce our own food, build our own homes, make our own clothing or in more than minimal ways contribute directly to our own welfare. We depend on others to assist with these.
When our prehistoric ancestors gave up their independence in order to gather together into social groups, we also gave up some of our rights to freedom of thought and action. Those who thought differently from the group were forced to conform to the rules of the group, thus refraining from speaking things which went against the perceived welfare of the group and especially from acting on them.
Conformity meant security. Peer pressure ensured that conformity was the rule. Thus our leaders kept cohesion within the group and maintained their own status as leaders by making conformity a way of life, not just a rule designed for mutual security and prosperity.
We became the sheep that are referred to in the Bible stories, with our leaders the shepherds.
When the Church of Rome declared that the world was flat and the flat plane a square in medieval times, people believed that the world was flat and square. When the church changed its tune and later described the perimeter of the plane as round, people believed in a flat earth with a round exterior (an explanation which satisfied those who observed the arc of the horizon when they sailed the oceans).
Proving that earth was not the centre of the solar system and our solar system not the centre of the universe came at great personal cost. Proving that the planet was not flat--in those parts of the world that believed that dictum, as most of the world never subscribed to it--also came at great expense to those who put forward the proof.
History conformed around the myth so that even into the 20th century people believed that Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas, thus proving that the world was a sphere. In fact, Columbus (a mapmaker) placed what today we know as Cape Breton Island, on the east coast of Canada, on a map he made in 1490, two years before his 1492 first trip to the Caribbean. Other maps of the period included Antartica and parts of the Americas, geographical realities that supposedly were not "discovered" until decades or even centuries later.
As many factors as possible are brought to bear for the purpose of ensuring that the status quo is maintained as much as possible. New ideas and opinions are treated as heresy.
But they grow anyway. The good ones often take until well after the original thinker has died before they are generally accepted. Original thinkers may be islands in a sea of conformity and mediocrity, but they are not secure islands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put it all into perspective, especially human nature.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)
This observation is similar to saying that we all dislike change. All things considered, new ideas and opinions often represent the leading edge of change.
What reason do we have to fear change? Human nature tells us that the status quo equals security. What is may not be perfect, but it's what we know. More importantly, what we have been told by our leaders must be true because we depend on our leaders to steer us along the right path as cultural communities.
In the final analysis, we are groups of followers, not self-sustaining islands of independence. Most of us don't produce our own food, build our own homes, make our own clothing or in more than minimal ways contribute directly to our own welfare. We depend on others to assist with these.
When our prehistoric ancestors gave up their independence in order to gather together into social groups, we also gave up some of our rights to freedom of thought and action. Those who thought differently from the group were forced to conform to the rules of the group, thus refraining from speaking things which went against the perceived welfare of the group and especially from acting on them.
Conformity meant security. Peer pressure ensured that conformity was the rule. Thus our leaders kept cohesion within the group and maintained their own status as leaders by making conformity a way of life, not just a rule designed for mutual security and prosperity.
We became the sheep that are referred to in the Bible stories, with our leaders the shepherds.
When the Church of Rome declared that the world was flat and the flat plane a square in medieval times, people believed that the world was flat and square. When the church changed its tune and later described the perimeter of the plane as round, people believed in a flat earth with a round exterior (an explanation which satisfied those who observed the arc of the horizon when they sailed the oceans).
Proving that earth was not the centre of the solar system and our solar system not the centre of the universe came at great personal cost. Proving that the planet was not flat--in those parts of the world that believed that dictum, as most of the world never subscribed to it--also came at great expense to those who put forward the proof.
History conformed around the myth so that even into the 20th century people believed that Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas, thus proving that the world was a sphere. In fact, Columbus (a mapmaker) placed what today we know as Cape Breton Island, on the east coast of Canada, on a map he made in 1490, two years before his 1492 first trip to the Caribbean. Other maps of the period included Antartica and parts of the Americas, geographical realities that supposedly were not "discovered" until decades or even centuries later.
As many factors as possible are brought to bear for the purpose of ensuring that the status quo is maintained as much as possible. New ideas and opinions are treated as heresy.
But they grow anyway. The good ones often take until well after the original thinker has died before they are generally accepted. Original thinkers may be islands in a sea of conformity and mediocrity, but they are not secure islands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put it all into perspective, especially human nature.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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