Insidious Adaptation

My body may be sick, but my soul, she is weary. It is the man inside that has been sick my entire life, My. Entire. Life. The word MY cannot be acknowledged there enough, for it is my life right? Me! The problem with sickness isn't the sickness itself, for whether it is a cold, flue, stomach bug, depression, anxiety, these reactions and ways we interpret them are neither good nor bad, but just are, yet, we submit. WE submit to the flu and gather around those who have it, comforting, loving them, "say prayers," and all rightly so, for the, "flu" as we know it to be does have the potential to hospitalize or kill a person as the media likes to give their annual account of flu-related deaths. The, "flu" or a, "cold" seem to be these underlying spirits that promote fear and hyper-cleansing. Yet, then there are "superbugs" that evolve from such hyper-sanitary areas making us sicker than ever, maybe by resistant strains of the sickne...

On a September day in 1985, a joker was born. A humorous attempt at being liked, not to serve others with his humor, however to receive their admiration for it.  jest·er ˈjestər/ noun HISTORICAL a professional joker or “fool” at a medieval court, typically wearing a cap with bells on it and carrying a mock scepter. synonyms: fool , court fool, court jester,  clown ,  harlequin ,  pantaloon ;  More a person who habitually plays the fool. It is the intent of man to which we can measure their success. If a man wants to be rich to hoard riches, then that is who he is. If a man's wants a business to grow a business and provide for many employees in a work environment he influences, then that is who HE is. A person who makes themselves a fool for another to laugh, noble. Where as I, at my most-selfish, most ignorant to the needs of those around me, wanted you to laugh at me, for that showed you notice...

A rhetorical question for the ages, a fear not often addressed. What a selfish motive must we have to overlook the very possibility that our children outgrow us. Like a pair of pants on the basement, bathroom floor.  A reminder that they were too small, as well as the shower this morning unable to hold two people, her overused pants, unable to hold two buttcheeks. If you stare long enough at a pile of laundry, it becomes something. Mine became a realization that my time is expiring, if I let it. Not in terms of time because none of us know when that ends, but without a comparative measure could we know if our time is any more expired than anyone else, as in percentage complete. This thought was much more devastating than that. This thought was about her. My daughter, close enough to three to tell people, yet lacking the full development that three year olds have. Certain characteristics, balance, physical and mental, ability to notice certain things, as gifted as we, and all pa...

"So then you are choosing to suffer?" "No, I am not choosing to suffer, but I do suffer." "Well, that is a choice is it not? Suffering is about how we interpret, through choice, our environment and the circumstances instances we experience." "I guess" "So then, the suffering you experience is based on choice." "Maybe..." Double-click for suffering.  On an unexpectedly warm autumn day, the air conditioning inside my office is particularly frigid, thus the interaction between extreme heat and extreme cool condenses on any surface flexible with the temperature, my client looks at me with a blank stare. "So, how's your week been?" "Good." He does this. He comes to see me, yet, refuses to willingly give up information. Sometimes I feel like some kind of private investigator, having to snoop around the obvious to get client to subconsciously tell me something to grab on to. "Yea, t...

Infidel- as a noun, a person who does not believe in religion or who adheres to a religion other than one's own. I don't get it.  As I sat in the court room, looking at the judge, prosecutor, county attorney. I couldn't understand the "vibe" I was feeling in relation to the well being, of a convicted man. When one gets a taste of the privilege, of a situation they think ought to be more prestigious, more enlightened than their own, there is no place left to go with expectations, but a crashing downward spiral as reality rears its ugly head. "Well, we could discuss the instance where the guy said...." I cannot give details, for these conversations were something, "privileged" however, the depth of text was lacking. The feast turned into a Country Buffet line of which there was no meat, only a plethora of cheap breads, followed by frozen, sweetened-milk, (definitely not ice-cream) for dessert. I expected to come into this back court...

Chameleons, are in fact, Chameleons. Not in what they are but in how they are a point of reference, an oftentimes derogatory one at that. "I was a chameleon." - A client in reference to mimicking behaviors. The same ones that interfered with his ability to grow as his own person. Chameleons are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of Old World lizards with 202 species described as of June 2015. These species come in a range of colors, and many species have the ability to change color.- Wikipedia circa 2018 What happens when what was originally meant to be an adaptive behavior, for we all adapt, turns into loss of self? When exactly is the threshold where a man, loses himself, takes on the qualities of the environment, and then suffers due to inauthenticity? If we all adapt and grow, then wouldn't being a chameleon, be a natural thing, like a good natural thing? There is a line that we all cross sometimes where an efficient behavior turns into a troubled one...

The  flatter  lands outside of the Black Hills are full of culture. A culture that from my perspective and one that was made aware to me by a client I had years ago, is  ultimately  broken. It wasn’t just the free street dance a family of three eastern Nebraskaners wandered into, it wasn’t just the varying Casinos as soon as we entered the South Dakota border, it wasn’t just the faulty, cardboard cutout front of shiny buildings and what was sold as progress in varying areas, or the large BlackHills Gas building that made me take away something important. I wish I could isolate feelings to a single event. It would be great if life worked that way, just wish for one thing to be undone, and then the isolated problem would go away. Like Marty McFly undoing one thing to result in a happy ending. Only, that isn’t life, that isn’t, how does Drake put it, “God’s Plan?”    Life is more intricate than an isolated event, and even though there is typically a peak out a...

It was in second grade, Mrs. French had the class line up to go to lunch. The school days seemed longer then, the feel pre-lunch was like a different day compared to after lunch. A problem one may have at 10 AM, a distant memory at 1PM. The lunch line and one's place in it also carried a stress. It wasn't that there was a shortage of food, or that we would receive, "good" or, "bad" seating at lunch, as much as it was simply about placement in the line.  Everyone wanted to be first. Boys were more physical, posturing and pushing to get there. Girls were more scheming. They used friendships and pleasantries to get what what they wanted. Each class in my small-town school had no more than 20 kids, yet, in the tussle, there might as well have been 50. This was not a lengthy line where a position determined when you got your food, for we all went through the line from start to finish in a matter of five minutes. It was the walking down in the order we fought t...

hyphen noun   [   C   ]   US   ​   / ˈhɑɪ·fən / ​ the  mark  (-) used in writing to  join  two words together, or between the  syllables  of a word when it is  divided  at the end of a  line  of  text An amateur writer with so much to learn. So many aspects of writing, of speech, that I am so enamored with that I just want to use them all the time. The hyphen (-) for instance, a continuation of the previous word or thought. To be, like something, the same as something-like.  In the words of Plato: If I put a quote and a picture, am I too considered wise?  "Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."  Too easy is it these days to simply say something for a large group of people. Too simple is the task to  present behind a keyboard and a screen, when at one time, what we said online would have had us a...

Never have I ever sat in my house, listening to the latest beats, raised my hands, and start jumping around the living room, repeating the words that I knew of the chorus. Never, have I felt the need to get intoxicated to the point of not remembering anything while sitting at my kitchen table, eating stale popcorn from the day before. Never have I contemplated breaking a guys face while laying in bed at night prior to sleep. Never have I done these things, for they are absurd. Absurd only in context however. Absurd because there is nobody there. In all instances the thought never even crossed my mind to do any of those things, because by oneself, they make absolutely no sense. Even a few evenings in the early 20's I recall looking up to see myself reflected back from the mirrors on the dance floor of a local bar. I recall thinking, even in whatever state of mind I was in at the time, this is weird . Now, I can only imagine those same abrupt moves in my living room, sober, at 11AM...