My ex wife and that Life Decision

I was just sitting here, watching a movie on TV that gave me a thought. The film was titled, "The Good Heart". A strange little film that DirecTV gave 2.5 stars. But there was something gritty about it that I was attracted to.

Suddenly while watching it, it hit me. I had a thought that brought me back to my ex wife and I realized something about her. About us. I realized the moment, the defining moment at which our life together began to decline. Until finally, after ten years together, we divorced.

I usually put in some interesting photos in these blogs, but I'm not going to this time. This is not one of those kinds of articles. This is a pure and important few words and one of the hardest to write pieces I've ever done here. So, I think I'm just going to state the facts, and see how it goes.

I wish you the best of luck in your life and I'll say that again, later. I've made my decision, regardless how much I may not now regret it. I want to, but I can't. And maybe I shouldn't regret it. Maybe we both made the right decision those, now many years ago. Maybe it doesn't feel like it, because I don't want it to have been right. Either way....

If you ever have a situation with a loved one, where you feel you have to make a decision between the two of you going on with your lives together, or making a major change between you that could end things, then you should read the rest of this. It will meander a little but I need to give enough background so it really sinks in.

I've been divorced now since about September 2002. We were married about 1994. When I met my lovely ex-wife, she was twenty-two, thin, in incredible shape and very attractive. She was living at a horse farm. A sixty-five stall horse farm, modern, with offices in the front of the barn containing the stalls, with two modern apartments above the offices; inside, a round pen next to the sizable arena.

You could feed the horses from upstairs, walking along with a wheelbarrow and dumping grain and/or alfalfa or timothy, or whatever, down a chute; all according to the card on each chute, for what each horse required individually. I ended up moving in with her once we realized that I was spending the night more often than not. It was a drive back to my own apartment, so I would stay over and go to work in the morning from there. It was just easier, and we truly enjoyed one another. It was a very good love affair.

She worked hard, herself, got up before dawn, working till late into the night.

Since she would get off so late, I got used to cooking her dinner. She would drag her cute butt in the door and I would let her wash up, then hand her a plate and she would watch a TV show with me while she ate. That was hard for me, because I had sworn off TV for some years and was pretty antiTV. If I could, I would wait and eat with her. Then she would eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Even then, she was in incredible condition. She rode horses pregnant, up almost until she delivered. Then delivery was pretty fast and painless, much of it I'm sure, because of all the exercise. She would be so tired, that within the hour or so of getting off work, coming upstairs, eating dinner and okay, only half a pint of Ben and Jerry's because she loved feeding me half. Of course, then I had to try hard to burn it off at the UW Huskies' gym the next day, during my lunch time at work.

I worked at the UW at the time and she lived and worked in what was to me, the middle of nowhere. After the ice cream, she would inevitably fall asleep, so I would inevitably have to pick her up and carry her to bed. What was no big deal, she was light, I was strong, but the way into the bedroom was tight and I'd have to be very careful not to crack her head, or my elbows and get her to bed without either waking her, or the baby in the next room over.

Her female friends "hated" her for her being able to eat ice cream every night of the week and stay so thin and attractive. Isn't that always the way of it? But honestly, everyone loved her. Women were just envious that she could eat ice cream and get away with it. But she got away with nothing. She rode and worked the  horses sixteen hours a day, five, six days a week sometimes, seven. I used to warn her she needed to have less ice cream and coffee, it just wasn't healthy. But she had that "cowgirl up" attitude which gets a lot done but can be rather destructive, especially for a workaholic. She lived on the caffeine and sugar in her multiple mocha a day habit.

On Sundays, I would get up on my day off, and before the sun came up feed all of the horses in the barn for her. Even in the dead cold of Winter, in only my bathrobe and slippers (so cold too), I would get the wheelbarrow and feed the horses, then climb back into bed, frozen. She would wake enough to realize what I'd done, and move over to warm me (which I always felt was amazing as I was so cold), and we'd fall back asleep for another couple of hours.

When I first started going out to visit her at work, before I moved in with her, her clients would bring her an extra large Orange Mocha, with pentuple (5) shots. They just wanted to do something nice for her. So did I, so I would stop on the way in, and bring her one when I went to see her. It was a twenty mile drive from Seattle for me which was why I ended up spending the night sometimes, and then when we realized I was there all the time, I just moved officially in. Since the owner was Catholic, we finally broached the subject with her and she had me pay rent, but at $250 / mo. it wasn't bad, more a token payment. What was irritating though was that after we got married, she never told me I could stop paying that.

The first day that I got her that orange mocha, I stopped in the small town at the coffee cart that she frequented, the one just before exiting the town to go up the dead end road, at the end of which, was the farm. When I ordered the drink the woman looked at me and said, "I know who this is for." I said, "How? She said, "Only one girl orders this in this town. No one orders an orange mocha, just her." She laughed. I laughed, but was a little confused.

When I got into the arena inside the barn, she was very closely watching a young girl riding around her in circles as she shouted corrections and constructive advice to the her. She was giving a riding lesson. That's what she did, gave riding lessons, and trained Arabian horses for horse shows. She had been working with horses since she was about four. She had earned or won enough money when she was younger, to afford to go to a live-in at riding and boarding school in England for a year to get certified for teaching equitation (English style riding) and jumping (up to five feet).

She laughed a little when she saw me standing there, off to the side, with the drink. I said, "What's so funny." She nodded with her head and there off to the side of the arena, were three other drinks her clients had brought her that she had yet to get to, and probably wouldn't; and those were along with the giant ugly black and pink thermal container she always had full of her special mocha. She got through the day, drinking that damn cold drink all day long.

I felt at first a bit dejected, having gone through all that trouble and money. I was incredibly broke at this point in my life, having recently been divorced and paying child support; it had taken me nine months to move out from where I was renting a room in a house, to a studio apartment and driving out to her farm was eating up my extra money. But then I realized that she was someone special and that people saw that in her.

I have always seemed to be rather good at finding women for long term relationships, who are very special individuals, typically reflected in the attitudes of all who have known them. And she too was someone very special. She was one of those people whom you only wanted to bask in the warmth of her attention. Something I later found, after our divorce, was wonderful when you were in her good graces, but a nightmare when you weren't, or worse, in her bad graces.

After I'd been living there with her for a while, she came to me one day and said she had been given the opportunity to do horse shows with the main trainer who lived next door to us. It was an opportunity to do what she had been building up to all her life. She said she told them she didn't think she could, having an infant to raise. But she'd think about it. In asking my opinion, I thought about it for a moment, then said, "Of course, do it. This is your chance." She told me that I didn't know what I was getting into (people kept saying that to me about her, and about the horse show industry, it wasn't till a few years later, that I realized how correct they were).

So, I told her that if that were the case, then I would support her all I could, and when I couldn't deal with it anymore, I would continue to try to support her, but when I really couldn't do it any longer, I would tell her. But that was my issue. And if that was who she was, I wasn't going to stop her from living and being who she was. On the other hand, I needed to be allowed to be who I was too. So, if I really got to a point where I couldn't take it anymore, I could tell her, and leave, if I had to at that time.

What I hadn't counted on, was that it wasn't so much myself who couldn't handle it, though I did find it nearly impossibly miserable at times; but, it was her who couldn't emotionally maintain that lifestyle. Though honestly, that was mostly because their clients weren't rich. If she'd had well off clients, rather than clients who wanted to feel like they were really well off, things would have gone much better. At some point, you simply have to recognize that you have to pull the plug if you can't make enough money, or you can't get the quality of client you need, or you are destroying yourself, or your family. Here is where that "cowgirl up' attitude was destructive to her, and us. She simply couldn't recognize failure and the biggest gift in business is to recognize that and make appropriate adjustments, or when to end things.

She went on her first out of town horse show. Four days into her being gone, I started to have my doubts.

Did I forget to mention that when I met her she had an eight month old baby? To be fair, I had a five year old boy myself. But he lived with his mother most the time. That was interesting in itself.

My dating history had been rough since I had gotten divorced. I got divorced because I found my wife having a secret lover, which made the institution of marriage a little crowded for me. I had decided years before, I wouldn't hide things from potential dating partners. And that decision had come back to bite me on several occasions.

Let me explain that. I met the most beautiful girl in the world, just after I broke up with my girlfriend after college; we'd been together for six years, four of those years during our university life. After college, we moved back to our home town, and went to an apartment finding company together. Then we broke up. We still had our subscription available to me. She used it and quickly found a place. Then once our lease was up on our house, I needed to use it to find myself a place to live. I got to talking to the secretary who I had gotten to know there and asked her out. She asked what happened to my girlfriend, being a little leery of my invitation, and so I told her what had happened. So we went out.

I told her the truth while we were having drinks at a bar that night. I wanted this girl something fierce. But I was honest. She was honest back and told me, that considering I had no money, no real job (I had a job but not a good one yet), some bills to pay off (but not a college loan, my G.I. bill paid for my college), and she had guys who were giving her free cars and jewelry. She said she liked me a lot but....

Later I met a girl that worked at Elaine Powers aerobics, a business next door to where I worked. She was very cute, very tall and thin. We had drinks and I found that she was ex military, had several houses and was building something for herself. I was honest with her about my financial status. Again, it just wasn't right. It was right for me, but not for her.

Years later, after getting divorced, I had trouble dating again because of this type of thing. Women were quite interested, but once I said I had a young child, they were not so interested. Which I didn't understand, because I thought women found that endearing. Uh, no. Even though he wasn't living with me full time. In fact, one night, I was dancing on the dance floor at a bar with this very cute girl I had just met, actually, she came up to me. We were talking as we danced. I don't remember what she said, but the natural response was to admit I had a young son. I thought about it, thinking, I could easily be sleeping with her in short order, but I should get it all out in the open. So I did. She stopped, looked up at me. And simply walked away. End of story.

So when I met my ex, and she said she had a child, I a bit got excited about that. I said that I too had a child. She got excited about it. From that point on, everything seemed to click.

Eventually, we got married. We bought a house and moved out from the farm. She kept doing horse shows and training horses and riders, although she switched affiliations a few times. I'm getting to the point now.

Doing horse shows was tough. It was tough on her. It was tough on me. It was tough on the kids. She had to be away from home, and worked very hard. But being a workaholic, she loved hard work, working till you were exhausted, then hitting the bed and passing out. I had to take care of both kids, go to bed alone every night, missing my wife, wondering how faithful she really was being (I never had a girl break up with me until I was thirty, then two major relationships in a row had affairs on me, so give me a break here), and I had to deal with our daughter crying herself to sleep asking where mommy was and why she wasn't there. I had to lie and tell her reasons I didn't really believe in, but I did my best to put on a good face, until I got out of her bedroom. Then I had to go to sleep wondering the same things.

After a few years of that, my wife got home from yet another horse show that had left her distraught, stressed out, not very happy. This had been an ongoing cycle with her. Something obviously wasn't working out. It was the guy she worked with, in my opinion. He was the boss, the farm / brand owner. A pompous kind of guy I wasn't very fond of. Anyway, it seems her clients had not been paying for her room and board as they were supposed to as part of the training package they were buying. She was bouncing checks sometimes just to eat. For her to have dinner, it was the cost of the meal, plus a $25 bank fee for not enough money in the bank account, one or two of those a day, for a week long horse show, well, it adds up. And she's only eat maybe one meal a day. When you work that physically hard, you need three square a day.

I told her she needed to tell her clients to pay the hell up. Pay what you agreed to. But she was just too sweet, too nice. It melted my heart. She was disintegrating. I could see this "career" was ripping her apart. What she had lived her whole life working toward, was disintegrating all around her, and her right along with it. And she was bringing us down with her.

But I had told her that I would support her, as long as I could.

So I had to tell her, "You have to tell your clients to do what is right." I told her she had to make them pay up. But she was too immature, business-wise. She actually had a two year business degree, but putting it into practice, well, that just isn't something they teach you in college. So finally, I told her that either she needed to quit her career, or she needed to grow a thicker skin.

This was the moment. This was the defining event that became the turning point in our marriage.

Because after this, she had to either quit, or get toughened up. I wanted her to quit. But I said, I would support her. And I did. She tried, she really tried to handle things. She did grow a "thicker skin". She grew up more. But eventually, it just wasn't enough.

For one trip, she went away to her longest show. Three weeks long, in the southwest US. Albuquerque, I think. When she returned, it was obvious to me she was very near a nervous breakdown. I could feel it, the air in the room felt tense even. She was trying hard to make it, but it was an unwinnable situation for her. She simply had the wrong clients. It is a hard career field and few can really make it. So finally I realized that there was only one thing left for me to do. I put it off for a few days, but finally I had to say something, regardless how it made me look. This wasn't any longer about me, it was about her.

So I did. I told her, she either had to quit her "career" or, I was leaving. Of course, I wasn't leaving, but I had to make my point. It was me or horses. I tried to tell her it was because she was very near a nervous breakdown, it couldn't be more obvious to me. My degree was in psychology and I knew what I was talking about. So I made the decision, I would either ruin my life, end our marriage, but I would save the one I loved, from herself, if that were the case. I knew I might end up with her hating me, even, but this was literally killing her.

So, in the end, one night she went to dinner with the guy that owned the "Farm" brand that they worked under. At that dinner, she told him she was quitting. His response, which neither of us saw coming, was that if she was quitting, then he was quitting. What the hell did that mean? Well, that kind of told me, it really wasn't working for either of them. But from that day forward, she blamed me for ending her "career", just as I knew might happen. Now I say "career" and not career, because a "career" is more a hobby and doesn't make you money. And she wasn't making money, in fact I was subsidizing things for her. And we needed more money coming into the family, not my paying out so she could have a job.

So I suppose both of them owe me for their moving on in life. He went on to become a network engineer or something, making more money than he ever had and within a few months, was making as much as I was in the IT industry, and I had been doing it by that time, for some years. She went on to turn her attention to raising the kids and volunteering at the school. She became the Guardian Angel of teachers at whatever school the kids were going to. She tried a few jobs but even with her two year business degree, she wasn't really, or didn't think she was really, trained to do much other than horses.

In the end, I lost my marriage. I lost my one true love in my life. I know that, because when I look back now over my life, she is the one that really pulls at my heartstrings. She would argue with that, but she wouldn't go back to the point in time that I would, when it all began to crumble. Back to the day that I told her, "You need to either quit, or grow a thicker skin."

See, what I'm trying to get to here, is that we don't always see in time, we don't always see what it is, we don't always understand what is happening, in order to make that right decision, to save both people, to save the relationship. Too many relationships end in a split up or divorce.

In looking back on it now, I see two things. One, I needed to be more argumentative with her about things. She liked that. Some people need a solid wall to push off of. That wall can make it feel wrong, to feel it is abusive, to the one acting as the sounding board, the other person's outer voice, to give their inner voice a place to work things out. The one acting as the sounding board, needs to understand that it is not meant to be abusive to them. The other thing is, I needed to tell her that she needed to quit that destructive career path, sooner. Much sooner.

She was one of those types of people who do not know when it's good to stop, to quit, to give up. Give up, or fail, were not in her vocabulary, unless it was regarding a marriage, apparently. She lived her life with the "cowgirl up" attitude. Which is good and admirable, up to a point, from which it then becomes completely destructive. I needed to see that point, and say, "stop". To beg her not to grow that "thicker skin", perhaps. To no matter what, not grow that thick skin because that would kill who she was and all too possibly end whatever we had together.

There were other issues at hand, surely; she was the child of an alcoholic, she was herself a workaholic; having come from a family that found close personal relationships difficult to manage and so work and distance gave them the buffer they needed. I came from a more close family who tended to work things out openly (okay, my parents used to have horrible fights when I was a child, which is why I refuse to argue and bicker in a relationship; but remember, argumentation is good, bickering, is bad).

And then being quite human, I had my other, my own issues to deal with. Life just does that to us.

In the end, sometimes, instead of growing a thicker skin so that we can deal with life, we really just need to adjust our life, so that we can continue to be the beautiful person that we had been. So, when you come upon that moment in life, where you have to make that decision, or push it upon another, really think about it, first.

Don't get me wrong. You may hear regret and a touch of heartache in my "voice" here, but were she to walk back in my door right now, I wouldn't, well I won't say, "take her back", but I wouldn't try to go back. We've changed, she's not the same woman I was once in love with. And that is part of my point in all this. That lovely person began to disappear the day I told her she needed to grow a thicker skin. That was me, putting a nail in the coffin of that awesome person that I so dearly loved .

But don't get me wrong. I'm not so egoistic as to think what I told her that she needed to do, is what made her become an entirely different person, which she did. I know that she made the decision to do it herself. Yes, she heard what I said, but she knew already that was the case, it just took someone saying it for her to really pay attention and begin to do something about it. It took someone she cared deeply for, who she looked up to, not to let her down, but to give her the answer to help her make the right decision.

Now, whether we admit it or not, the other person in our life, frequently, is that person. Yes, we are adults and all, but also, we are vulnerable and that is in part, why we have relationships. So if you don't know that, wake up. This is most especially hard for macho, or independent types (which she was and always will be).

What I'm trying to make clear here, is that rather than say what needed to be done, to stop her destructive career, that it wasn't working and she needed to put an end to it; we should have just ended it. But I chickened out because of her reaction to quitting. She could throw a fit and make you want to back off. Beware that tactic and don't let it rule your life, whatever happens.

And so I just said the facts, "quit, or have a nervous breakdown". She simply couldn't hear the "have a nervous breakdown" part, to her, that wasn't an option, but to reality, it was possibly the only option. Either way, I would have been blamed for her career ending. But had she stopped right then, we would have still walked away with her as she was, before she got toughened up, perhaps bitter, frustrated, and pretty much angry at the world for her life not turning out how she had always imagined it. Yes, it's the princess syndrome all over again, but that is not the few and far between, many of us are raised with that nonsense. And it's even tougher on those who work hard, and don't expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.

One final comment... you can pick apart what I'm saying here and try to attribute it to this or that thing, or me, for that matter, but if you do that, you'll simply miss the point I'm trying to make. This isn't about me. Or, my ex for that matter. This was simply a way to make a point in a way that is raw and personal to me. My point was my point that I hope I have made.

Simply put, if you may ever have to make a decision in your own life, such as I have shared here, understand that it may turn out to have ramifications that far exceeds whatever you think it will do. In the end, it may turn out to be the exact thing that you are trying not to do. I knew I could ruin how my ex saw me from that point on, but I had to ask myself, who is more important in this situation? Should I choose my desire for my wife to continue to see me as she always had and for our marriage to continue as it was; or, if I truly loved her, should I choose my desire to save her from literally killing herself? I knew that it was a lose/lose situation, for me. But I wasn't what was important at that time, as I was seeing it then.

Sometimes you may need to make or force a change in life. It's just that sometimes, you may need to make an even bigger change than you plan, or sooner than you think you need to. The change that you plan for, may appear to be "massive" to you at the time, but possibly, you simply cannot see it (yet) for what it really is. I guess the thing to do then is, when you are considering a big change, a painful change, certainly consider, as we all do, if you can make less of a change than you may think you need to. But also look the other direction. Try to see if you may not need to make an ever bigger change, one that may need to be such a big change, you simply cannot see it, or imagine it. Try, to imagine it.

Remember that sometimes, with only a little extra thought, you can find a far greater benefit. And with all that having been said now, I wish you all the best in life, my friend.

A tall blonde model crosses the street

I had a dream. No, I mean, last night, I had a real dream.

It was a nice sunny, warm day. I was in Manhattan walking along, crossing a street on the crosswalk that was full of people going both directions. There was another guy with me, but we weren't talking, and two more guys I knew, behind us. In hindsight, I think we were headed to a street side cafe for lunch and drinks.

As I approached midway crossing the street, I noticed two women walking toward me, completely oblivious of me, of everyone, deep in a conversation.

The one closest to me, was carrying nothing but articulating with her hands, her companion, perhaps a sister, was carrying something I can no longer remember, what it was.

They were both tall, platinum blondes with very long beautifully cut, straight hair, both model-like in look and bearing, but the one closest to me was very much more so, thinner than her companion, strikingly beautiful. She was wearing all white, with a gossamer thin shirt, open to her diaphragm.

As we approached one another, the one closest to me was saying something passionately to her companion and as she was moving he hands a slight breeze caught her shirt and billowed it slightly, clearly displaying to me her right bra-less breast, her nipple floating, there for only me to see. As I passed by her, so near to me that we almost touched, it nearly took my breath away. I took a breath, and a word fel out of my mouth.

"Damn," I said, in revery and awe of how beautiful that girl was. Immediately, behind the two women, were two other women, wearing darker, more business like clothes, the mass of people continued to move to the sidewalk of their original intent. Suddenly, those two women, who were behind the model like women, lost their conversation and stopped there, mid-street.

The woman closest to me, looked me directly in the face, people crossing with us, simply made their way around us, like a stream of water in a river, flowing around a boulder or two, allowing nothing to impede progress. Her companion looked at her, annoyed by the hindrance. She gave her a look of, "Let it go!". But the women didn't let it go.

"What was that?" she asked, "Why did you say that?"

"Excuse me?" I said.

"That word, what did you say? Why did you say that?"

"What?" I said, thinking about what she could mean, pulling my mind away from the model and her incredible visual that had burned into my mind. My friends were no innocuously huddled nearby, wondering what the issue was. "I said, 'Damn'," I said to her, confused, then realizing what might be happening.

I had offended a woman, but remarking at the beauty of another woman, directly in front of her, on the streets of New York. I had a premonition, I was about to get berated. But instead, she looked at the woman next to her and shared a look of, "I told you so." She looked back at me, her companion slightly, just barely, rolled her eyes, then looked at me, like she was embarrassed.

"And why, did you say,'Damn'?" she asked. About now, I could feel my friends enjoying my wriggling under scrutiny.

"Why?" I said, "Well, her nipple just jumped right out at me, her breast was just there for me to see. And, and--" I stammered.

"See?" she said, looking disconcertedly at me, then at her companion. "I told you so." And with that, they walked off. I looked at my friends and we got out of the street before the light changed.

Then, I was sitting in a booth with them, having drinks along the sidewalk, where we could still see that crosswalk. I tried not to think about the woman who had spoken to me, and instead about the blondes. I looked across at two of my friends, all wearing business suits, ties loosened, looking comfortable.

"But, that wasn't right," I said, "The nipple, yeah, her entire right breast, her torso, an inside look at her form, beautiful, definitely beautiful. But that wasn't what actually sticks in my mind, you know?" I was seated on the outside, a step away from standing up, and my friend on the other side, nearest to the street, looked at me and spoke.

"Her hair," he said, "what I remember now mostly, is how striking her hair was."

"Exactly," I replied, "Me, too. I was about to say that, when those women walked off, thinking, I suppose, that I was being a douchebag."

"Well, you were, right? I mean, we were." The guy directly across from me said. Then the guy seated next to me spoke up.

"So, what we all remember, is the women's hair, not so much their body, their sexual organs."

"Right," someone said.

"So," I spoke up, "That woman, he thought she was so right, was wrong, but only we have the end of this story. What we were really focused on, and even we didn't realize it till later.

"Ex-actly." The guy next to me said. The guy across from me picked up his drink and toasted, we all lifted out drinks to toast, waiting to hear what he would say.

"F*ck her," he said, "To beautiful women." We all acknowledged his toast and knocked glasses, smiling, drinking and then... the phone rang.

I mean, in the real world, my phone in the bedroom rang, waking me up. It was my friend, John, calling to thank me for the Christmas card I had sent him. Waking me up on the first day off of my two weeks vacation, the morning after I had watched some Johnny Depp pirate movie, and drank a growler of Hood Canal Brewery ale. Good stuff, but my head throbbed slightly and my dog wanted to go out, as I had slept in. The world was conspiring against my sleeping in, in peace and comfort.

I sat up, and could still see that beautiful, striking, blonde woman, as she crossed the street. Again I saw her shirt billow out from her torso and again, I saw her in her rarest form, and I noticed her hair as she drifted past me, and that beautiful hair, reflecting the sunlight, slowly faded from my mind.

Merry Christmas! Okay? Well, deal with it!

First, let me say, "Merry Christmas" to you and your loved ones! [And FYI, I'm on vacation and many people have Monday the 26th off, so I'm counting it as part of the holiday weekend and so, next new blog, tomorrow.]

"Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!"
 - Charles Dicken 

That, is so true, if, you grew up with Christmas as a tradition. For many in America now, that is not true, unless it is from seeing it from afar. But for myself, I grew up with it. Even though I have dropped my belief in Western religions, I still celebrate it and have a warm feeling in my heart every year as it rolls around.

There has been a lot of controversy in recent times about the Christian, or secular, versions of, Christmas.

They have tried to remove the religious element from it ("Happy Holidays!"), leading to scrubbing the name of "Christ". But everyone is so used to calling it, "Christmas" that they grew up with it and it's burned into our collective consciousness; no one really wants to change that. But America now has such a multicultural diaspora that I'm sure, it is noticeable to those people who aren't Christians, or didn't grow up here with this in their childhood, or if they did, found it to be in some way, distasteful, so that they now want it changed since there is an open discussion of it.

TV has cut it out, and this year, they seem to be bringing it back. When I now hear, "Merry Christmas!" I almost cringe. And I find that annoying. Because it has moved along past its religious origins into a secular holiday of good cheer, warmth, and gift giving. The gift giving can and does get out of hand, but the basic premise, to give someone you care about, a gift, a free, no holds barred, no recompense expected, gift, something you would like them to have, perhaps, that they would never buy for themselves, is an excellent idea. I love it.

But really, you know there is nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas. I know some hard cord religious types want to push the original purpose ("To celebrate our Savior's birth") and all that, but really? If you're not Christian? Why would you have to remember that? I mean, you don't have to celebrate that, or even remember or think about it. After all, it's only really going to offend Christians if you are celebrating for other reasons and if others want to take on that Holiday and make it something universal, I think even Jesus, the misnamed individual who's birthday it was originally (kind of) set up to celebrate. And that's okay.

If you aren't a Christian and want to celebrate it for a completely other reason, I do think Jesus would be good with that. I'm not so sure of his followers after he died. I mean, just look how they have cocked it all up for two thousand years. I could go into things about this, how Jesus wasn't necessarily, "The Christ" in the purest intent of the original meaning, so I tend to call him Jesus, not Christ.

If it helps, try to imagine Jesus how he would look if he lived in modern times, rather than in the sandled, robed ancient Galilee region. I'm not even sure, were he to pop up right here, right now, that he would even appreciate having been giving that title of, "The Christ" for all its meaning and historical significance in Jesus' time, which is different than how modern Christians see it. He kept sidestepping that kind of stuff his entire life, until they started torturing him, which will mess up anyone's mind, son of God or not. And December 25, is a pagan holiday, and has nothing to do with Jesus birth.

That is, I believe, his actual name was "Yeshua", and not "Jesus", anyway. But you know how it is, the more well known and popular one wins. Because that is what is most important, not actuality, what was, but reality, what we conceive it to be, right? And he wasn't blonde haired, and blue-eyed, by the way, that doesn't even make any sense if you even, slightly think about it. He must have been somewhat easy on the eyes (you never hear about a homunculus being a prophet), he must have had some knowledge, which begets his being raised in ignorance or low birth, and he must have had some charisma, otherwise, no one would listen to, or follow him.

So no, I really don't see the issue with Christmas being celebrated, just sans the Jesus motif. Santa, is a pretty good stand in, if you ask me, and again, I'm not so sure Jesus would object. I don't see it as any kind of competition between the two. And you really do have to consider that. They already did that, after Jesus died. That is, to allow others, out side of their religion of Judaism or what was later called, Christianity, to join in, be involved, even if from some outside form. And it was a long and ugly battle within the Following.

You see, to become Christian, just after Jesus died, in those next hundred years or so, you had to become a Jew first, then you could be a Christian. That meant, you had to be circumcised, and eat by the Hebrew laws, and with the right people. And a Bris Milah, is not exactly an exciting consideration for any adult male. Paul helped to change all that, somewhat, with Peter's okay, but it was a hard fight to pull off. To allow those outside of the Hebrew faith, to even become Christians.

Again, a misnomer, as in the beginning, Christians were known as "Jesus Followers", that "Christ" related name came later. There is a new movement to be called a "Follower of Jesus" in order to relinquish some of the baggage associated with being called a "Christian". They're on the right track, namewise, anyway. Not to mention, when Jesus died, and "The End" didn't after all happen, the leaders of the Jesus Followers, had to scramble to find meaning in the old Hebrew texts, to explain what had happened, or more precisely, hadn't happened.

That was when they found the idea of all that we now hear about. The original Jesus Followers and later, Christians, were a sect developed from a building of considered, plotted out and manipulated concepts. But now in hindsight, no one sees that, no one educates themselves to know that, no one cares. These more modern followers, just want to "Have Faith". Kind of scary really. Strength in Ignorance, someone called it.

When I asked my Catholic mother years ago what she believed in and she told me what she thought her faith was about, I had to ask here, where she got that misguided concept from and she said, "My parents." When I pointed out that her lovely, but uneducated parents were markedly wrong, she just replied that her parents had taught her and she "believed." Talk about confused. But I see a lot of this with religious type people. They believe in what they believe in by what they were taught as children and that's the end of it. How much has been carried down to our times over 2,000 years, like this?

A couple of weeks later, when she had the parish Priest over for lunch and he heard this, he was shocked and told her directly that, "That is not what our religion teaches or is about." Do you have any idea how often that is a primary element in people's "Faith"? Think about that for a moment. I mean, my mother had it mostly correct, in general, but beyond that, she was clueless.

So, for Santa to take over for Jesus on Christmas Day, to bring goodness and happiness, cheer, and goodwill to men, and women, to give people a brief respite from their daily troubles, when otherwise they would never celebrate a Christian holiday, I mean, what's really wrong with that?

We have celebrated for a long time, on multiple continents with a Christmas tree. A symbol some have told me, is a nod to Jesus being born in a manger, more outside than in, as in a hotel, or someone's home. I've also heard it is a descendant of the "Paradise Tree" and the ornaments are replacements, originally as red balls, for the "Apple" that Eve picked and made some bad choice with in some way.

Wikipedia says: "The tradition still persists that Christmas trees should not be decorated until Christmas Eve, which is the day of Adam and Eve. Legends attribute the invention of the Christmas tree instead to Saint Boniface (c. 680 - 755), the Apostle of the Germans, and to Martin Luther." So, who knows, who really cares? It's fun, beautiful, warm and comforting, okay?

But really there is so much of the Paganistic involved here, absorbed by the Catholics and Christians in general, just as they absorbed December 25th to eradicate the Pagan Winter holiday and replace it with the other most potent day they could come up with, that of their Savior's alleged birthday. "It says in the Bible that Jesus was born before the sheep were sent out to pasture; no one sends their sheep out to graze in the winter." - Anonymous.

And so it goes on and on like this. But people simply prefer to have "Faith" than to understand what really happened way back when or how that affects them and the reality of their beliefs now. Okay, whatever, it's your prerogative but for myself, I would prefer to believe in and have faith in, what is true and right, than simply made up along the way. You know?

I have searched long and hard, through many religions over my lifetime, searching for knowledge, wisdom, and a religion that made any kind of sense to me at all. I have found that Buddha Dharma, the Buddha's Teachings, makes the most sense, to me. But there too, there has been much ritual and fantastic nonsense put to music in that belief system, as with any other out there. You can try to pick apart my Buddhist beliefs, but the difference is, as I gain more insight, it makes more sense, but as most all other religions go through that same process, they being quickly to fall apart. But that is neither here or there, for this discussion.

Buddha had said that if someone tells you something about the Buddha Dharma that makes no sense to you, you don't have to believe it; it is a way to keep His teachings more pure. As he obviously knew from observing Human behavior, over time people will take control of it for their own purposes, or expand on the truth to make more of it than there was, or was meant to be, or should be. He said to think for yourself. As opposed to Christian dynamics through the millennia of "listen and believe whatever you are told because it's so holy, you cannot disagree". To disagree is to burn in Hell for all eternity. And et cetera. That has led to so many atrocities I cannot count.

And so the Zen saying, "If you see the Buddha on the path of Life (Tao), kill him." It doesn't mean to actually kill him, but to not revere him so much that you lose sight of the Truth. Jesus' many followers have been patently doing that since the beginning.

Brief aside: Famous Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, had this Buddhist perspective to say on Christmas Eve Day:

No not this, the quote below....

 "In the Christian tradition, we learn that Jesus is the Son of God. It means that through Jesus you can touch the ultimate dimension, the ultimate reality, the ground of being, the almighty. We also learn that Jesus is the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, he belongs to the historical dimension where there is being and non-being, birth and death, sameness and otherness, good and evil. Notions that make us suffer. These can the foundation of our fear, anxiety, and suffering. But Jesus is not only the Son of Man, he is also the Son of God. If we get in touch with Jesus deeply enough, then we can see this ultimate dimension. We have to see Jesus as both. In the Buddhist tradition, it is very clear that everyone belongs to the historical dimension and we also belong to the ultimate dimension. This is our nature and we can learn to transcend our notions."

There is more to life than simply following what you think, are the right rules, and being closed minded. If ignorance and fear are the root causes of intolerance, there is obviously a lot of both around the world, and far too much in America.

Anyway, yes it might be nice to call the Christmas Holiday something else, as the phrase has so much baggage associated with it and Christians get so defensive about it. Though I'll grant you, not as bad as Muslims do with images of Mohammed, which are ludicrous. I mean really, if Mohammed heard you were killing people over a cartoon of him, do you really think he'd buy you a drink (okay, doesn't have to be alcohol, right?), yet alone, give you seventy-two virgins? And if that were the case, then basically, arguably by definition, that would make him quite the jerk.

Repeat after me, "We don't kill people, unless it is to stop them from trying to kill us." So, can we first get that one straight? Drawing a cartoon, is not, a killing offense. Nor are religious indiscretions, of any type (blasphemy, adultery, homosexuality, and so on).

The labarum, often called the Chi-Rho, is a Christian symbol representing Christ.

Christians have seen things like the spelling of "Christmas", as "Xmas" in being simply offensive. There is nothing wrong with being offended, there is with stepping over the line about it. It's been claimed that the "X" in "Xmas" was "crossing out", Christ. It's been said that in modern times "Wall Street", or the shop owners in the 1800s, are responsible for that secular attempt. But it's all quite untrue, and abbreviations like this have gone back as far as 1021AD, and by Christians themselves.

So, I would say to the "true believers" in Jesus, "come on, lighten up kids". Really, there is simply too much seriousness attributed to religious beliefs. Get out of the God of the Old Testament and into the newer one (that would be your Jesus, seriously, check out things he said, and not so much what everyone else has said down through the ages, be they his followers or leaders or not). Secular celebrations of Christmas, does do one thing, it brings the word, "Christmas", into the households and consciousness of many unbelievers and the worst thing ti really does, is to give people a momentary relief from life and a feeling of community, love and caring for one another.

Which is why, even as a kind of Buddhist, in the Western parlance, I have no problem with saying to you:

"Merry Christmas!" And may your life and the best of your wishes all come true for you, and your loved ones.

"Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you ... to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old ... Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world ... stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death... Then you can keep Christmas! But you can never keep it alone." - Henry van Dyke

Weekend Wise Words

Be Smart! Be Brilliant!

Since this is the Christmas weekend, maybe something on that order would be called for. A Merry Christmas eve day to you all!

Christmas makes me happy no matter what time of year it comes around.
 - Bryan White

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
 - George Carlin

There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.
 - Robert Lynd

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
 - Shirley Temple

Merry Christmas, Nearly Everybody!
 - Ogden Nash

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.
 - Jay Leno

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'"
 - Dave Barry

Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven."
 - W. C. Fields

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
 - Charles Dickens

Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.
 - Ralph Sockman

To everyone, I wish you all a very happy and merry Christmas, to you and your loved ones, and especially, to those who are bitter of heart and ignoble of spirit; may a lightness, heavily befall you and bring happiness to you in a way that suffers not those in your realm of influence.

Does it matter if infidelity is physical?

I've had this article sitting here in draft mode for nearly a month now, a little tentative to try and finish it. I wasn't sure I could pull it off. Last month I watched a very good movie with one of my favorite actors. I won't say who, or what film, as I want to speak without fear of spoilers. But I do want to try to explain this. I just find it hard to make my point on it. It can be a very intense subject for many, especially for those who have experienced these kinds of things and they can tend to have a very visceral reaction to something like what I'm about to say. But I'll give it a good shot.

There is seminal scene in the film where something drastic happens. The protagonist's wife has just about had it with her husband. She loves him but he can be annoying. So she goes to visit their son at college. She simply needs some time, a week maybe, away from him.

During a phone call with his wife, he asks if he can come up and join them. But she turns him down, saying that it kind of defeats the purpose of her getting time away. Then he finds that the man she works for just happens to be in that same town and now they going about to go to lunch with him, so she needs to get off the phone. She is open about it, to suggest she sees nothing wrong with her actions, which is a little (a little) bit reassuring. She even points out that her husband was the one to have suggested the man go to that town for some business. It all seems rather innocent.

But that man happens to be someone who has been, at least in our protagonist's mind, a threat to him, just because he is so much more than him in many ways; he is handsome, he is clever, and his wife likes him and works for him. All mostly things that had made him uneasy from the moment he saw them first meet. Obviously he is pretty annoyed about all this. And she is annoyed with him about it, after all, she's not doing anything wrong, just lunch with a friend and coworker with their son there. She is firm and says there is nothing to worry about, that she will see him in a few days.

But, this rips his heart apart. He asks her to come home but she refuses, saying she loves him. So she goes  and supposedly has lunch. But he is devastated. He goes to his favorite bar to have a drink and drown his sorrows and missing his wife. While he is sitting there, having his drink, drinks, an attractive women next to him starts talking to him because she recognizes him. As it turns out, she used to work for him some time ago, on his soap opera type TV show. She has an obvious attraction, and after all, he's a guy, so he finds that attractive.

At this point, he believes, according to how he feels from what happened with his wife, that had she left for that town, where she just happens to find "the guy" who just "happens" to show up, all during a point in their life where she is unhappy with him and he is feeling very low. Because she left for a week for the soul purpose of being away from him, because she won't come home, because she was meeting with the one guy that seriously threatens his security in himself and his marriage, because she wouldn't cancel the lunch and run home to him right at that moment, he feels that his heart has been shredded in his chest.

He is feeling great pain, and partially because his wife is off with another man. He is intelligent, creative, and hurting, not a good combination; and his wife will not do anything to sooth his pain, to make it stop, to make it go away. So, she has in some way, seemingly abandoned him, and replaced him with another in order to feel good, to enjoy herself with; even if their son is there with them. And, after all, what about after lunch, or the next day, or night? Since there is some distance between himself and his son, would his son hide any indiscretions?

So he ends up on the floor at home, having sex with the girl from the bar. And he feels better afterward. He can make it through the rest of the day now. But after a little time passes, he starts to think about it. Having not used protection, he panics. By the next morning, he asks his friend and doctor to give him a test to find if he is infected with a social disease, and run it, really fast. You see, he realizes, now that he can breathe easy again, and has calmed down some, can be sane again, that he shouldn't have done what he did. It was wrong.

But he was just a little bit insane for a while and it took someone being intimate with him in the most intimate way possible, to show him he was worth the attention, in order to find his sanity again. Now this is not making excuses for his behavior, and he knew that; it's simply explaining the order of things and how it happened.

His wife then finally returns home, having stayed until the end of the week as she had said she would. As it turns out it was good for her, it was just what she needed. Once she gets home she is happy to see him again, she feels rejuvenated. She just needed to get away to clear her head, just like she had said. Nothing had happened with the man, after all; they were just friends, coworkers.

The phone rings and he says he has to take it. She wants him to hang up, for him to take her to bed. He is rather happy about this, but pretty panicky, but tries to be calm and simply says he has to take the phone call. So she tell him that she is going to the bedroom and he knows what will happen if he simply joins her.

He takes the call and finds out that no, he is clean, no STDs. He is so happy now, he can finally put this horrible mistake behind him and never do it again. After all he loves his wife and she is an incredible wife and person, and he just wants to forget what an idiot he was. This has reaffirmed his belief in life and his wife.

So he goes to her, just in time to see her setting down the phone, with a shocked look on her face. She apologizes, and has a good reason for having listened. But she didn't really hear anything, other than it was the doctor. She is concerned. Is he dying? She asks him to just tell her, whatever it is, just tell the truth.

Foolishly, and since he has been traumatized and is so happy to be back with his wife, he makes a very poor choice in judgement; he tells her the truth. Of course she is devastated. And sadly it ends their marriage. She can put up with anything, with his grumpy old character all these years but she cannot put up with this, he has broken a trust with her and she simply cannot get back to before. Ironically, she ends up with the coworker. So in a sense, he was right to have been worried except, she wouldn't have done anything, had he not ruined things.

But he has ruined things. But why?

She didn't have sex with the friend and coworker. But he acted like she had. It wasn't that he thought she did, he knew she hadn't, but he "felt" like she had. By her having left him, rejected him, even for that short time, leaving him vulnerable when he needed her most, by then rejecting him again when she refused to come home, or to allow him to come up to visit with her and their son; then rejecting him yet again in the most intense way at that moment by going to lunch, seeing that particular other man, by acknowledging that man over that of her husband, buy sharing her "wonderfulness" with another man, when she was so in the process of taking herself away from her husband; she had damaged him so badly by all that, that it was like he had experienced the situation of his wife having actually been adulterous with that other man and that man in particular.

It was at that moment on the phone with her, that he was experiencing that she had indeed been adulterous.
And he had acted accordingly. Not in a mature fashion, to be sure. But in a way to stop the pain and anguish. So that when he tells her the truth, that he was tested not for a life threatening condition, but for the possibility of having acquired a social disease by being adulterous in her absence; her reaction to him, as one of the cuckolded spouse, was almost mean spirited. Ironic, to say the least, that is from her husband's point of view.

Did he know this? No, he may not have recognized it at all and his argument at that time, was weak because he didn't understand himself all I have just explained. He too was at a loss as to how to explain why he did what he did. And it's not to say that he thought she had committed adultery and so it cancelled out what he had done. He knew something was wrong and so he got angry and argued back about it, about how she was off in another town with that man.

Of course, she asked if he thought that had any comparison to what he had done, and of course, he had to reply to the negative. Of course her having lunch, with their son there with them, in no way compared with his act of infidelity.

He knew he was in the wrong. He was devastated. He had ruined their marriage. But he was not fully culpable, was he. She did have a hand in his actions. She had lived with him for years, she knew him better than he knew himself. She knew how he saw things, even on the night they first met. But she would never see that now. Their marriage was over, and it was his fault.

You cannot claim that she was at fault, he was the one who acted on the actual, act. But she broke trust with him first. She didn't see it, because she was hurting, because she needed time to herself, she couldn't see that she needed to be there for him, that to leave him like that, was devastating to him, and was taking their marriage to a precipice where it could easily be knocked over and destroyed; and so it was.

Should she have stayed with him? Should she have come back when he asked on the phone? No, probably, most likely, not. That would have been the optimal thing, for him, and in the end, for their marriage. But she deserved her need for privacy, for alone time (and there is part of the problem, she was welcome to her "alone" time, but not with another man, especially, that man).

Of course she needed her time away, and no doubt, he needed her to return. Her going was probably actually good for their marriage. Maybe too, even her staying. But throwing that other guy into the mix was the toxic element to topple things over that edge.

The point here is this, sometimes, there is simply nothing to be done. You may very well both need what you both need and sometimes, only one of you can get what it is you need, for things to continue all well and good. But sometimes, if one of you can recognize that single element, that one thing you can do, that you may even not want to do, if you can find your way to move on that, you may just save the rest of your life, or at least, your marriage.

Sometimes undoubtedly, it is best that a marriage end. But many times, I think people give up too easily. It can take a while for a marriage to smooth out and get back on track. It is when the love is truly dead, when you are completely miserable and it will never go away; or even more so, if it becomes destructive, that it's truly the time to end it.

So, that was what I wanted to share. I just thought it was interesting, intriguing and bittersweet. It was a very moving part of the film and I found it both sad and enlightening. I've been through a few relationships, all of them interesting, all rewarding in some way. And all of them have had moments like the one I have described. Perhaps not so large and intense, as I've never gone out on someone like that, though I've had it done to me a couple of times. The first time it happened, it was devastating. But whether it has actually been done to you, or it only feels like it has been done, it can still be intensely painful.

If we can just see when these times happen and try to avoid doing those kinds of things to the ones we love and care deeply about, I think the world would simply have to be a better place. Even if just a little bit. Because sometimes, that's all it takes, a little bit of effort, to avoid a devastating life event.

The Auteur Director

Why is a film directed by an Auteur Director supposed to be better? For me, it's because in order to be considered "Auteur" as a Director, you have to have a grasp of all aspects of film and Cinema, but to a very high degree. You have to fully "Get It". You have to rise above the solidly capable, and venture into that scary land of the Artiste. It takes understanding of the form, genius, fusion, clear focus even when it appears to be unclear.

I grew up watching PBS, Channel 9 in Tacoma, Washington in the 1960s. I don't know who was responsible at that station, but they did a bang up job. 

I saw a lot of films with the Janus Films logo.

A logo I find as evocative then as I do the Criterion brand now. PBS showed Kurosawa films, Truffaut, Bergman, and many others. As a kid, I was fascinated. These were no American type films, they had something more, texture, substance, depth, unlike anything I was used to. They left me stunned, curious, blown away.

I had no idea what I was seeing but in comparing it to most of the American films I was seeing, there was something special going on there. I grew up going to the Drive-In Theater every Friday night as our Step-Dad was an Asst Manager. It was his night job, the job he enjoyed. Having been a big band leader, it was his chance to get out of the warehouse he worked in during the day, put on a suit and meet the public; even if it was only to sell them tickets. Later I too worked there at night all through High School. So I grew up seeing a lot of films.

On top of all that, my mother saw Hollywood actors as our American Royalty and so we celebrated when we watched the Oscars. Film, is kind of in my blood. And so it makes sense that I would lean toward the top end of filmmaking, the Auteur films.

So, what exactly is "Auteur"? The technical definition of the term "Auteur" (French for author) describes film directors (or, more rarely, producers, or writers) who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable style, because they:

(a) repeatedly return to the same subject matter,
(b) habitually address a particular psychological or moral theme,
(c) employ a recurring visual and aesthetic style, or
(d) demonstrate any combination of the above.

In theory, an Auteur's films are identifiable regardless of their genre. The term was first applied in its cinematic sense in François Truffaut's 1954 essay "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema" - Wikipedia

Using a list of Auteur Directors, I picked the ones that were influential starting from before I was a teenager to adulthood and after I had spent some time studying Film Theory and Cinema at my  University.

I would argue that some of directors on the list I was looking at, I really wouldn't consider Auteur, but well known, proflific, or highly competent. I have a more stringent definition for Auteur, similar to my differentiation between Artist and Artiste. I have always tried to differentiate between those highly competent and prolific Artists and Genius Artists, or those individuals who took their craft or art to a much higher degree. Thus I see Director and Auteur Director, Artist and Artiste, for wont of a better term for either one.

Here is my personal, mostly complete list, not in any order. I may have left some off, but I think I got most of them, those who have touched my life in some way. I may have included some perhaps through emotionalism, and who could arguably be removed, but not many I think.

Michelangelo Antonioni
John Boorman
Frank Capra
Jean Cocteau
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Jim Jarmusch
Fritz Lang
Louis Malle
Georges Melies [500 films to his name, he destroyed them all]
Alan Parker
Roman Polanski
Jean Renoir
Ken Russell
John Sayles
Steven Soderbergh
Martin Scorsese
Paul Schrader
Bob Rafelson
Nicholas Roeg
Quentin Terantino
Jacques Tati
Guillermo del Toro
Francois Truffaut
Paul Verhoeven (mostly for his preHollywood films)
Luchino Visconti
Orson Welles
Wim Wenders
Chris Marker
Henri Langlois
Terry Gilliam
Alfred Hitchcock
Woody Allen
James Cameron
Stanley Kubrick
Lina Wertmüller
Ingmar Bergman
Jean Luc Goddard
John Carpenter
David Cronenberg
David Lynch
Pedro Amodovar
Alain Resnais
Sir David Lean
Louis Lumiere
Ridley Scott
Francois Truffaut
Werner Herzog
Akira Kurosawa
Andrei Tarkovsky
Sergei M. Eisenstein
Federico Fellini
Luis Buñuel
Peter Greenaway
Buster Keaton
Harold Lloyd
Charlie Chaplan
Tim Burton

Non Verbal Thought

This article was accidentally published before it was ready or meant to be. I do apologize for that. Now, here we go....

Peter Chatterton wrote an article I found very interesting article.

He talks about Non-Verbal Thought (NVT). What is NVT? Hmmm... well, let me paint you a picture....

Have you ever read a book and heard the words in your head? Okay, that's verbal thought. When I was in Eighth Grade, Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics came to our classroom and taught us Washington State History over several months, using their methods.

Sadly, and you'll understand the irony of this even more in a minute, when I got into High School, they wouldn't count the credit for this class for some reason, and I had to take it all over again. Their comment was, "Well, if you did take it before, then it will be a breeze for you this time." What a jerk. Well, it was a breeze. But I learned it better the first time, than any of the kids did in this new class, this time.

Evelyn Wood had taught Pres. Kennedy herself, as I heard it, and many others, to use this method to read quickly and increase your comprehension. They wanted to find if teaching in a classroom setting was workable. Turns out it was. I've seen many other "speed reading" courses over the years, and most of them aren't worth the money, if you ask me. Some teach you better reading skills than you have now, to be sure. But I guess I see Wood as the gold standard.

The first thing they told us, and taught us, was to stop thinking words in your mind. After all, your mind can move much faster than your words, when spoken. When you "hear" the words in your mind, you slow your mind down to the rate at which the muscles in your mouth and face will allow you, to talk and articulate. Well, don't do that in your mind and you immediately speed up the rate at which you read, and think.

I went from 60% comprehension at around 280 words per minute, to within several months, by the time this class was over, to 80% comprehension and 10,000 words per minute. Honest. I was reading a novel in an hour. And I was understanding and retaining more by 20%.

One thing this told me was that in all the years previous, where I thought I was slow and stupid, I found that I was simply bored. There was actually more to it than just that, but that was a lot of it, actually.

When my teachers, who were usually going too slow for how my mind worked (or could work), whenever they sped up their teaching, I found I was then able to understand them better. But usually someone in the class would complain and they would slow down and typically start going over it all again, which just made me even more bored and on top of it, frustrated.

Of course there are other elements involved, emotions, nutrition, etc., but let's skip those for the purposes of this discussion.

Then when it came to tests, it looked like I was just stupid as the other kids would get better scores. But that was because they got to learn at their speed and (this will sound funny), I couldn't keep up at their slower speed of assimilation. I would get quickly bored and start looking around and not pay attention.

But that wasn't inherent in my attitude. I was interested, actually, fascinated, but my thoughts were going so fast, I simply couldn't pay attention. It was like watching a movie, only they play the first scene at half speed and repeat it three times, so that by time the next scene comes up, your now reading a book or something.

Getting back to the Speed Reading, I kept it up for a while, but doing the "push up" drills gave me headaches. Your eyes have to get accustomed to the zipping back and forth across the pages, at first. Then once you get beyond that, you're smoothly slipping down a page; in the time it takes to look from top to bottom of the page, you have read it and can answer questions about it. You also can't read dense material that way, as it simply slows you way down.

So I eventually quit reading that fast. But the real reason I quit was that I had read a few really good novels using that technique. They took me an hour or two to read. It was actually pretty cool, like watching a movie in your head while you read. Except for one thing.

When I read a really good novel I want to savor it, enjoy it, let it last for a few days, a week, maybe as long as I can stretch it out. But with this fast reading style, it was zip, over. Also, to really learn a book, they expected you to read it possibly three times. But then you would have learned it far better than using normal reading methods. Of course, even reading it three times, you were still done far faster than ever before possible.

Now you might ask, could I really do that? Well many years later I asked myself the very same thing. I was in the USAF in my early twenties. I had a letter from Evelyn Wood stating that should I ever want to take their classes again, for the rest of my life, I can take them for free. So when I was about twenty-two, I saw they had classes starting at a local downtown hotel conference room. So, I signed up for free.

I knew I had done this before. But even having done it before, I had trouble understanding by then, how that was possible. How does anyone read 10,000 words per minute? So I took the class again. And once again, I got up to those speeds. And once again, I found the same issue. I liked taking time reading so that the experience lasts longer.

But that is neither here nor there.

So I was bored as a child in my classes. I did have ADHD as a kid which explains some of that. Or is ADD a natural evolutionary development for us to help our race pick up the pace to that of modern times?

The point here is speed. That is one element in this NVT thing. Remember that? We naturally, purposely slow our minds down, without even knowing it. Parents will tell kids sometimes, "you're going to fast" (yeah, for the slow adult). They tell you to slow down. Sometimes of course, kids are going too fast, but if they can handle it, let them go at their own pace. If it seems not to be working, consider if you are trying to teach them using a method too slow for a kid with a fast processor.

What makes you think that a car that runs at fuel injector speeds, can run in a healthy manner using a carburetor? Well, you see what I'm saying anyway, right?

Getting back to Peter's article, in it he says:

"To me, the idea that mathematicians, artists and chess players think in words while they are working productively is preposterous."

Interesting. He goes on to say:

"I’ve found that I can reduce unnecessary sub-vocalization in daily life just by making a point of not thinking in words. It is my impression that anyone can improve their NVT, but it takes time and effort; on the other hand, presumably, anyone can lose NVT by sloppy thinking."

Interesting article. He has a good point. How many years were humans non verbal? Language has developed our brains in a certain way, certainly, but the basis was non verbal. So, if we allow that to work, now, what happens?

I like the concept on a TED video I saw about our minds using a kind of photo indexing system, or even video, or more so, perhaps, 3D image indexing inter relationships, rather than a FAT (File Allocation Table) type format to allocate and track our compartmentalization of data. A FAT type table tracks the beginning and end of a file on your hard drive, and if it's fragmented, spread all over the disk, it tracks where all parts of it are, so you can access the entire file without having to realize it's in pieces all over the place.

As for 3D indexing, think holographic indexing, perhaps. It's on the order of what I'm talking about, anyway. Still, it's too simplistic, but you get the idea.

Computer memory hardware "bit", 0 or 1, on or off

If every image in your mind is 3D, or "video" in nature, or video 3D, a streaming one second slice of that stored moment, then every element possible to consider is stored in relation to that "experience". So, you are indexing not just by word, image, temporal slice, but the overall consideration of  that, EAT "Experience Allocation Table". Then by "lighting up" different matrices in your brain, you can access these, which lends itself to this kind of thing; in a computer, it uses more basic indexing as a grouping of various hardwired junctions using "on or off" bits, 1's and 0's. The difference between the two concepts is light years apart in complexity.

If, rather than using words to categorize our thoughts, to store and access data, what if we use a rich image related to the event, then each element within that frame becomes a search element. Think of the depth of storage and retrieval we must be capable of.

I've always had trouble with retrieval in my own thought indexing. It is slow. Why? Well there may be many reasons, and many of those may be physical. But I wonder.

We have two basic ways to access memory: retrieval and recognition. But I discovered early on that I am incredibly good at recognition and creation, but not so good at retrieval and association. So it can take me a while to fully remember something.

When, let's say, I see a face I've seen before, I recognize it instantly. But attributing it to its history in my memory, and extracting that data, takes me a while. So I've learned how to make that work for me in life. Basically, I'm very good at creating but not so good at regurgitating information. I'm just very good at generating as I go. And so I'm good at writing, composing articles and stories. The funny thing about that is that as I'm creating, I'm drawing indirectly, vast amounts of information, but more in an image index than a word index. If you follow what I'm saying.

If you want to learn something, learn it in those two formats. When I started college, one of my first classes was Physics / Chemistry, as they are basically the same in their beginnings, I had to learn the entire periodic table. So I wrote two programs. One to help me recognize, another to help me recall or retrieve.

Basically, one program showed me an element and I had to recognize it and recall what its properties were. The other program, required me to type in, to recall the properties, to retrieve information, which I find more difficult. But with time and repetition, it's doable; see that is usually the issue. I can do it, it just takes me a long time to remember, which appears as dysfunctional.

So, I learned it all in a week, far faster than anyone else in class, and with better memorization. One of the students said I cheated by using a computer, but all we had to do was learn it, so I don't know how it was cheating. Then someone pointed out, my lab partner, very cute girl (after getting together, getting a college degree, then breaking up), she pointed out that I had first had to design and write a computer program to be able to "cheat". The others thought about that and then all agreed they had to give me that much. This was back when few people anywhere had a PC at home.

Now, Peter ends his article with this:

"I would like to see more awareness of NVT to save other people the learning curve and to improve the overall level of cognition and reasoning (wow!)."

What he's saying is that this all sounds rather intimidating, high level functioning, genius level stuff. But, it's not. Anyone can do this. You just have to understand what you are doing. Though it helps to understand how your own personal brain works, how your mind best functions, for you.

Once you realize you don't have to "hear" words in your head, you're way ahead of the game. It takes a little effort, but I believe almost anyone can do it, if they really want to.

When I started college, the first class I took, was study skills. I never took a more important class. I came to realize that my understanding of how to study was wrong and  for the first time, learned how I could learn and retain information in a way useful to me in an academic environment. Since college throws things at you faster than you need it, that was no longer at issue. Learning was still difficult, in a classical type or academic environment, but you learn to adapt.

Sometimes, all it takes is being given the right information for the task at hand. We just need to have the information about how to do what we need to do and, they simply don't tend to teach that to you in school.

But in this information, that I'm giving to you today, gives you enough information so that you can go look it up yourself, and change your life. If you want to.

And if you do, let 'er rip!