FPQ #159: Love Is All You Need

March 2, 2022 / amoralegria / 6 Comments

Fandango’s Provocative Question this week is as follows:

If there are only three things in life that truly matter, what do you think they are and why did you choose those three?

My answers are all about love, which leads to all else that truly matter.

Self-love. If you don’t love yourself, you will not have the capacity to truly and selflessly love others, and you will probably have a miserable life. Self-love (or self-esteem) involves self-care: taking care of your physical and mental health and seeking help when needed; searching for work that really suits you and that you like; it brings out loving characteristics, such as kindness, respect, honesty, gratitude, and the ability to smile every day. Self-love allows you to feel gratitude for things great and small that you have or that happen to you. Self-love also is genuinely accepting love from others.
Love for others: friends and family. I am lucky to have a wonderful extended family that loves and supports each other, and we are also financially secure. I am blessed for that! But even without actual kin, you can create a family of sorts with the people that love and care for you, perhaps a group/organization you belong to, or people who share your residence, or just your friends in general. Love for others, though, goes beyond these relationships. It is also caring for people you don’t even know, people who live in other countries, compassion for those who are suffering, nearby and far away. There is too much hate in our world today. Love for others means being kind toward others, showing respect, being honest, helping and showing interest in others. Love for others is non-judgmental; it’s about showing gratitude for others’ gifts, support, love, and care. If more people spent their time loving others, instead of hating or putting people down, this world would be a much better place! We might even have peace all over the world – imagine no more war!
Love for Earth or the natural world. I am reading a very good book right now, called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The author is a Native American (Potawatomi) woman who writes about loving and showing gratitude for the gifts we receive from others, especially from the land. She shows how the natural world gives us gifts every day, which we would appreciate if we just stopped and looked around: every living thing, as well as non-living things, is here for a purpose and each has its own work to do to provide gifts to other living things, including ourselves. We are part of the web of life of this planet and we should not take it for granted.

Love for Earth means taking care of it – this is the home of everyone and every thing we know, and it’s the only one we have – as of 2022, we cannot move anywhere else! Climate scientists are issuing dire warnings that we must curb our reliance on fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gases. Already the planet has heated up to the point where we are seeing more natural disasters: flooding on coastlines as the sea level rises, wildfires that destroy everything in their path in areas with prolonged drought, hurricanes which have increased in number and intensity due to the warming of the oceans, avalanches where excessive rainfall causes the eroding of the soil, and many others. It will soon affect us all, especially our children, grandchildren, and successive generations who will continue to live here. And scientists warn that eventually it will be an unpleasant place to live.

To love the Earth, we must stop polluting air, land, and bodies of water. Increasingly, medical scientists are finding that many forms of cancer are caused by breathing polluted air or drinking polluted water. Also, the land is home for many animals who share this planet with us and we are trashing their homes! A sixth massive extinction is taking place right now, and it is being caused by human activities. Even if you are a person who really doesn’t care about people outside your circle of family and friends, every creature on this planet has a purpose – plants and animals that feed us, species that provide medicines which can cure many diseases (and we haven’t found them all, so some may become extinct without being able to provide us with its gift of healing medicines), and the removal of which disrupts the food chain, either in minor or major ways – we can make predictions but cannot say for sure how serious the impact of altering any particular food chain will be.

People who show love for the natural world work, if they can, to advocate for cleaner ways of living, for finding solutions to problems such as how to provide fuel to heat people’s homes, provide energy for cars, machinery, etc. A great lover of the Earth is the Swedish young woman Greta Thunberg, who has turned her local protest at her high school into a worldwide movement. But there are many ways to love and show gratitude toward the natural world, including recycling, reducing what we use (such as single use plastics), and reusing what we can. It includes walking outside on a pleasant day and appreciating the beauty of the flowers (if they are blooming where you are) or the cycle of life, in which each season has its purpose to perpetuate future seasons. It includes having gratitude for the (hopefully) fresh air we breathe, for the coolness of a stream we dabble our toes in, for the sun that warms us and the moon and stars which cheer us.

CBWC: Plastics

February 4, 2022February 4, 2022 / amoralegria / 3 Comments

The topic of Cee’s Black & White Challenge this week is plastic. So many things are made of plastic these days that one could probably find something plastic in almost any photo taken in human-made situations! Plastic takes up to 500 years to decompose and even then, it is reduced to microscopic pellets that enter the digestive systems of fish, birds, mammals, and eventually, humans. So here are some photos of plastic things, which eventually will be discarded, end up in a landfill somewhere or the ocean and…well, you know.

This is the top of a bottle with a hole for the straw that comes with it. The top without a hole was lost!

I am pretty sure that the dinosaurs on display at the Brookfield Zoo were (at least in part) made of plastic!

My niece turned 50 and this was put on her cake.

Alzheimer’s Awareness at The Moorings. The fitness instructor (she’s under the arch!) blew
up all these purple balloons herself! I’m pretty sure she had a machine.

A plastic container with rolls of licorice inside.

Please, when possible, RECYCLE (look for the numbers 1-5 in the recycling triangle symbol & check your community’s recycling program to find out which numbers they’ll take), REUSE whenever you can, and REDUCE the plastic items you buy or acquire (difficult to do, I know) – one way to do this is bring your own cloth or woven plastic reusable bags to the store when you shop so you don’t use the plastic bags supermarkets tend to put your groceries in.

SYW: Least Favorite Day, Energy, and Other Musings

January 24, 2022 / amoralegria / 1 Comment

Monday, Monday…I can trust that day
Monday, Monday…to find Melanie’s Share Your World today!

This is a good segue into Melanie’s first question, which is…

“What’s the worst day of the week for you?” Why?

It’s not Monday, as it probably is for many in the working world – but I’m retired so Monday is just fine, and so are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! I have a different schedule every day. Monday is mostly free of scheduled activities and commitments, but it’s the day I have to do our weekly calendar, fill my pill cases, and usually do laundry and/or run the dishwasher (i.e. clean up the kitchen, thus filling the dishwasher). But it’s pretty laid back. Sunday, I guess I would have to say, is my least favorite, because it’s the only day I have to get up early to go to church! But really, I can’t think of a “worst day” of the week. I have random “bad days” but they don’t fall on the same day of the week.

With the recent energy crisis here in the UK, would you prefer electric, gas, oil or some other means of heating your home?

Downloaded image from Google, courtesy of https://www.insideindianabusiness.com/articles/iea-awarded-illinois-wind-farm-project

I would prefer to have solar panels and a system for storing solar energy at my house, but I cannot do that, because I live in a senior community and our house is rented. We have all electric, except water & heat, which are gas. That said, when we were living in our own home before we moved here, I was some years ago given the opportunity by our energy provider to choose wind energy. I signed up for 100% wind energy – there are extensive wind farms in southern Illinois. I hope my instructions were followed, but I have no way of verifying that all of our household’s our energy was in fact generated by wind turbines. More and more people in this area are signing up for solar power – they have the panels installed on the roof and a system for collecting and storing that energy. It requires an initial large financial commitment, but in the long run, it saves money. You can get energy credits and “sell” your energy back to the company. I wish this community would go solar!

In your household, who takes care of the bills, taxes, and other financial stuff? Is one person responsible or is it a shared chore?

We share financial matters, but I do more of it in terms of the amount of time spent on it. I pay the bills, keep track of medical/drug/charitable expenses by putting them all on spread sheets, and then when we are compiling our tax information, I print out the spread sheets and give them to my husband. I also keep spread sheets of our trip expenses and our children’s debts to us. Dale takes care of getting financial documents together, compiling all the things we have put into our yearly tax folder, and getting them over to our tax preparer. We also have investments, and managing these is a shared responsibility.

If you can have any one job (real or fiction) in the galaxy (yes, the galaxy, I’m widening the search radius, imagining relocation to other planets possible), what is that job?

galactic explorer and journalist/travel writer; also perhaps being an interplanetary travel agent, helping people plan trips to wherever. I would expect perks from this job – free or almost free travel credits on flights aboard space ships!

Who are you grateful for?

My husband, Dale. He does so much to take care of me and does all kinds of tasks that I get frustrated doing or my ADHD interferes with me doing, as well as a lot of household chores. He has been having some more health issues lately, and I feel as though I should learn to do the things he customarily does. I think I take him for granted too often! Living in a senior community, we find out when someone in independent living passes away, often leaving a husband or wife behind. Sometimes it happens suddenly, and sometimes after a long illness. But it’s always hard, and there are a lot of widows and widowers here! This may sound morbid but it’s just part of getting older.

SYW: The Best & Worst of Our Society and The Holiday Season

December 11, 2021December 11, 2021 / amoralegria / 2 Comments

Melanie’s Share Your World for this first week in December has some interesting questions.

What really turns your stomach? (politicians aside)
Cockroaches. They are the most disgusting species on Earth!

(Although I am in complete agreement with Fandango’s response to this question, I’m not going to write the same thing. I made a comment on his post.)

What would YOU do with the immense amount of ‘garbage’ in the world, if there weren’t dumps or barges (Sorry New York/New Jersey) where it was taken to be processed?
This is a relevant question about an urgent problem worldwide! It’s also a difficult dilemma. They used to ship plastic for recycling to China, but China isn’t accepting it anymore. I have heard that only 15% of recyclables actually get recycled. So is it worth doing it? Yes, because there are innovations happening all the time that might lead to more of it being truly recyclable. And it makes me feel good. Our society is moving inexorably toward a “green” society in spite of delay and resistance, and while a few people might invent something or lead the way, all of us can do our own little part.

Meanwhile, I recycle whatever this city’s recycling service allows. I don’t compost now because I don’t really have a place to do it since we moved to a senior community, although some residents do. I take reusable bags to the supermarket and do not accept those flimsy plastic bags most of them use. (If I forget my bags, I insist they use paper.)
I also take mesh bags for vegetables and fruits and try to stay away from single-use plastics. I cut any discarded plastic rings so animals don’t get caught in them. I could do a lot more, and I’m working on it (and working on my husband to do it too!)

What’s the oddest container you’ve ever gotten a gift in?
I don’t remember if I ever did – I guess it didn’t make a big impression on me if I did. However, a few days ago, I got a large, bulky FedEx envelope (the recyclable kind! 🙂 ) which turned out to contain two duffel bags on wheels and two water bottles from our tour company to use on a safari I booked!

Do people behave differently during Christmas (insert your own holiday or festive season)?
Do they try to be better?
Do you donate something (money, clothes…) to charities?
Do you give something to homeless people?
Some people are more generous during the holiday season – it seems to be a time when we think about giving donations to our favorite charities. One year I actually made three kinds of Christmas cookies – that is not my normal behavior at all!! So I guess that to the first question, I say yes, but with reservation, because the same sh** is still going on in this polarized country.

I do have a few favorite charities, and I send a donation to them at this time of year, but not only at this time of year. But I can’t give to even 1% of the charities that solicit money in my mail every day. So I say a definite “yes” to charity-giving.

I don’t do anything for homeless people currently. I was/am the coordinator at my church to get volunteers to work at our local homeless shelter, but since Covid arrived, those shelters are closed (and with the stimulus money they got, they are putting people up in hotels). People have given me interesting suggestions for giving to people that approach my car when I’m at a stoplight, such as buy a bunch of McDonald’s gift cards to keep in my car or carry with me and give them to homeless people, so I know they will use it for food. I haven’t done this, though!

GRATITUDE SECTION (As always, optional)
This is an allegedly joyful time of year. How do you, personally, FEEL?
Lazy! My husband is Jewish, so during Hanukkah, we light the candles each night and since it was earlier than usual this year, I refrained from any kind of decorating for Christmas until it was over. Well, it’s been over for almost a week and still I haven’t taken my new Christmas tree out of the box, set up my creches, or addressed holiday cards. It’s Saturday so I should probably make some time for some of these things today, but here I am blogging on my computer. But I’ve been so busy lately that blogging is a rare treat!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ONE AND ALL!!

SYW: Short Answers Looking Back & Looking Ahead

September 15, 2021 / amoralegria / 1 Comment

The week is half over and I am catching up with Share Your World!

QUESTIONS

When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
Yes, I’ve already said more than enough.

What does the world need less of?
ignorance

Do you feel older or younger than your age?
Younger in my mind, about my age physically

What is a cause you’ll always passionately support?
There are several but the most important is Sustainability (Environmental responsibility) & Climate Change and everything connected with that: reducing waste, cleaning up the oceans, pollution, renewable energy, recycling, conservation of public lands, saving species from extinction, etc.

Others include economic and racial justice, women’s reproductive health, gun control, voting rights, improving education. I am passionate about a lot of things!!

GRATITUDE SECTION (as always, optional)

What is your personal affirmation if you have one? (for this instance “affirmation means emotional support or encouragement.” )

Positive affirmations - why do they work & how to use them?– Bold Tuesday

SYW: On the Evils of Plastic & Incivility, and the Joy of Hugging

May 17, 2021 / amoralegria / 2 Comments

Melanie’s back with more & interesting questions for Share Your World!*

QUESTIONS

What inanimate object do you wish you could eliminate from existence?
plastic bags – actually a lot of things made of plastic…
However, I’m not sure I can call plastic bags “inanimate” – they fly through the air, roll down streets, get caught in trees…and end up suffocating unsuspecting marine animals when they drift into lakes and oceans. One of our most serious pollution problems is the proliferation of discarded plastics. Most end up in landfills, either in this country or abroad, such as in Indonesia, where the plastic trash problem is becoming severe.

One of our community’s photographers took this photo of our swans attempting to ingest a plastic bag! Wisely, they ended up leaving the bag alone, but this photo shocked everyone who saw it!

Although we think we are doing our part in diligently recycling all the #1, 2, 4, and 5 plastics (which is what most municipal recycling programs allow), the fact is that only about 15% of all that supposedly recyclable plastic actually gets recycled! Actually, grocery plastic bags and any other plastic bag labeled #4 can be collected and taken back to the supermarket – most supermarkets have deposit bins for plastic bags just inside the front entrance to the store. Although I will continue to recycle (because I don’t know which items are really being recycled), I now believe that “reduce” and “reuse” are the better ways to go until cost-efficient recycling becomes widespread.

Some cities and states have banned plastic bags and I think many European countries have also. Next time you shop, take your own reusable bags – if the cashier says they can’t take them because of Covid, you can offer to pack the bags yourself. If you buy produce, don’t put it in the plastic bags provided; either put it into your cart loose, or bring mesh bags from home to put it in. We have to change our wasteful habits if we want future generations to be able to continue living on this planet!

I recommend watching the PBS program Frontline‘s documentary Plastic Wars. If this link doesn’t work, try finding it on YouTube.

What tells you the most about a person?
A person’s actions determine one’s values and character. People who are generous and kind show this in their concern for others and always offering to help. There are many people who claim they are kind or caring, yet they never actually demonstrate this trait. There are also lots of hypocrites, people who say one thing and do another, or expect others to follow certain rules, but when a situation affects them, to hell with the rules! (I’m thinking of many politicians, particularly many in the GOP.) Often our leaders don’t realize that what they do influences society at large. I think that since the 1980s, and particularly during the last four years, the values and civility of our society have greatly eroded. People have become greedy and rude, and are no longer afraid to show blatantly racist attitudes and behavior, and there seems to be a direct correlation of this lack of civility with the growing inequality in our society.

What is something you thought would be easy until you tried it?
Ziplining. My one experience with it was rather frightening and I will never be persuaded to do it again!

What ridiculous and untrue, yet slightly plausible, theories can you come up with for the cause of common ailments like headaches or cavities?
Chocolate: this tempting and delicious substance is actually evil in disguise! It is so easy to get addicted to this “food of the gods” and yet, it insidiously poisons your body systems, causing headaches, toothaches due to cavities, and even the common cold! Even if you are diligent with your dental hygiene, including daily flossing, and balancing sweets with healthy foods like broccoli, it is too late – once the chocolate is in your body, you can never get rid of its devilish effects unless you go through a thorough cleansing regimen and commit to abstaining from chocolate forever! If you do these things, you will be much healthier!

(Ah, the heck with it! I’ll take the headaches and cavities rather than give up chocolate! After all, we only live once!!)

GRATITUDE SECTION (always optional)

What are you grateful for since they ‘cured’ Covid? (yeah, I realize it’s not cured. But at least the vaccine is available and restrictions have eased up in many places. If that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen I suppose).

Being able to walk around outside without a mask! It is great to breathe the air directly instead of through the filter of a mask! People can now see each other’s smiles again, and it is much easier to understand what people are saying when they don’t have to wear a mask.

Also, it is great to be able to hug again!!

COVID-19: Is it safe to hug a friend or loved one? | CTV News

Have you hugged today? | All media content | DW | 21.01.2020

*Note: As I wrote my responses, I tended to get very serious and possibly self-righteous, so please forgive me. I don’t mean to lecture anybody, but I think we as a society or as a species need to consider more carefully the things we do and take for granted.

SYW: Binge-Watching, the Value of What’s Important, & Earth Day

April 23, 2021 / amoralegria / 2 Comments

I haven’t been on my blog for a few days – I’ve been busy! Which is why I’m late this week for Melanie’s Share Your World. Better late than never, though!

So here are the questions and my responses:

What was the last TV show you binge-watched? If you don’t watch TV (congratulations by the way) what’s the last thing you binged ON?
We don’t “binge watch” the way some people do. If we watch more than three shows in a row, it’s probably things we recorded and want to delete from our DVR (to make space for MORE shows!).
So I guess I will have to say MSNBC on a weekday! When there is “big news,” we have been known to watch several MSNBC shows in a row. Sometimes we are only half paying attention and then realize we’ve watched every show from Nicole Wallace to Lawrence O’Donnell! (For those unfamiliar with these programs, Nicole Wallace comes on at 3 pm CT and Lawrence O’Donnell ends at 10 pm!
We are trying to cut back on this, though – confine ourselves usually just to Rachel Maddow and then watch something else.

That said, our biggest “binge” with recorded programs is either Call the Midwife on PBS or Anne With an E on Netflix. And I have to say, when we finished all of those, we felt lost…what will we get hooked on next??

What’s your most prized possession and why?
This is a tough one. But it would have to be something connecting my hobbies with travel, so I will say my photo albums/photo files and my camera. (I know this isn’t all one thing, but they are interconnected.) Some time before digital photography, someone said that the cheapest and most important thing you can bring home with you is your photos. What better way to make memories of an amazing trip?! For as long as I can remember, I have loved making photo albums. I took after my mother in this regard – she always made albums of her trips and of each year, at least after her grandchildren were born. I have done the same thing, but got woefully behind and so some “photo albums” are just pocket pages in a binder with the photos stuck in the pockets.

Some of my albums, however, I am very proud of – pre-digital book of my trip to Cuba in 2001 and 2 volumes of my month-long stay in Costa Rica come to mind. To do these books, I spent countless hours at scrapbooking workshops or carved out a little space for myself at home picking out the best background papers, stickers and other embellishments for each page. I spent hundreds of dollars on books and supplies. (The time and money were worth it!) The best albums I made were with the company Creative Memories – their photo books are high quality and relatively easy to add extra and mix types of pages.

I haven’t done many photo books digitally – only 3 so far, and I’m working on a 4th. I only got started about a year and a half ago with Shutterfly on my trip to Israel. That book came out pretty well, but there were a few mistakes – it was a learning experience, and as a result, my 2-volume trip to Egypt came out much better. I’m now working on France.

Since I generally don’t get around to starting and finishing these books until well after the trip is over, I have to rely on my memory, aided by the photos in my files, to put them together coherently. Besides the photos, I usually go to web sites about places I went to where either I didn’t take notes, couldn’t hear the guide very well, didn’t remember what the guide said, or didn’t even remember exactly what the subject of the photographs was! But that is OK, even advantageous, because a lot is lost whenever you go on a guided tour, and refreshing my mind about a particular site we saw using information from the Internet is a great way to fix it in my mind and immortalize it in the photo book! I learn even more about and appreciate those places than I had before!

And finally, my camera is part of all this. I often snap photos with my cellphone camera, which is light and easy, but I do endure the hassle of carrying around my Sony camera and lenses, because the quality of the photos taken with that are in general much better – plus I can take photos of details close-up that are too far away for a cellphone to capture a good image of. It was especially helpful on safari in Tanzania – which is why I bought a camera with a good telephoto lens initially.

If you had the time and inclination, what would you volunteer for?
Habitat for Humanity or projects in poor countries – such as teaching literacy or modern hygiene to people in a village, building a school, or something else they need. I have a friend whose travel itinerary was most often with Earth Watch – she would participate in projects in different countries, as well as take time for sightseeing. I wish I had done that. One of my cousins was in the Peace Corps, another great program where you are really immersed in a culture and people.

Also, I would love to participate in an archaeological dig. In southern Illinois, there is an ancient site called Cahokia, where people belonging to the Mississippi culture built mounds and henges as part of their communities. Cahokia accepts volunteers of all ages. I saw an elderly man there whose task was to sift through dirt for pot shards, etc.

Do you think that humans will ever be able to live together in harmony?
Being an optimist and an idealist, I still have that hope. I think it can happen if all the countries of the world join in a effort to solve a global problem that affects us all – dealing with climate change. This is an urgent issue that needs addressing, but its components are so vast and diverse that people in different areas are affected in different ways, all of which could be part of the global project. There is a lot of politics involved on every level and in every country, social and economic disparities and needs, scientific knowledge, business considerations, and understanding why saving a particular species, say, benefits us all. All creatures need to be respected and considered, and included in the plan to solve the overall plight of our planet.

Gratitute section:
Share something uplifting with everyone. It can be some writing or an image or photo you like!

Yesterday was Earth Day, so I’d like to share a few inspirational quotes – “food for thought.”

concept photo of earth on green nature ,Earth map by courtesy of visibleearth.nasa.gov

FPQ: Self-Control in an Out of Control World

September 24, 2020September 24, 2020 / amoralegria / 1 Comment

Fandango’s provocative question #88 is this:

To what degree have you been able to control the course that your life has taken? Or is being in control of your life just an illusion?

I watched a science program the other day that discussed unanswered questions posed by quantum physics, such as the possibility that everything that happens in the universe was predestined at the time of the Big Bang. Other people see it in religious terms, that God has control over us and sees our past, present and future, that God can decide whether to make something happen or not. I don’t believe God controls my life and quantum physics is too confusing for me.

We as human beings don’t have total control over our lives. We might be born in a wealthy, powerful country or in a poor, underprivileged country. Within that country, we are born into a particular race and class, both of which have repercussions in a society – culturally, politically, socially, economically. Within that race and class, we are born into a family that is loving and supportive, one in which there is abuse and violence, one which values education, or one that does not. Then there are individual limitations: inherited or nurtured. We have talent for something but our limitations hold us back. Within all these parameters, we have choice, or a modicum of control. Will we choose to develop our natural talent or pursue a more difficult course? Will we let our physical or mental limitations hold us back or will we overcome them or at least find coping mechanisms?

So yes, I do believe I have had SOME control over my life but a lot has been given to me by being born white, upper middle class, in the United States of America, which in spite of its faults, has provided me with privileges unavailable elsewhere. My parents had the money for me and my siblings to go to college and in our family we never fought over money because we had enough (not an excessive amount, but enough). I have been able to travel due to this. My parents encouraged all of us to pursue careers: whether we were girls or boys, they had the same expectations for us. They did what they could in terms of love and support to make us happy. I was also given intelligence, which is probably largely inherited, although it took motivation to develop and use it to my advantage, something I have not always done. I am lucky to be reasonably healthy, and I can control whether I stay that way – by eating healthy and staying fit – but I can’t control the fact that I have a heart problem inherited from my father. However, having the knowledge of this problem gives me control over how I deal with it. The more education we have, the more knowledge we acquire, the more we can control our lives. I was able to get a master’s degree in teaching and also have acquired knowledge in the ways of the world.

BUT, I did have limitations and caused disappointment for my parents because some of the choices I made were because I was afraid to challenge those limitations. I have often been afraid of decision-making because I have trouble making decisions, so sometimes I made NO decision (which was a decision in itself). I didn’t have to marry my first husband, for example, I shouldn’t have – that was a disappointment; but the second time around I chose a much better match. I chose to have a child with that first husband, who inherited mental illness as well as abuse from his father, which has greatly impeded his life. I chose to change careers in my late 40s, and decided to go into teaching, which in the end was probably not the wisest choice but I did the best I could. Many of the hurdles were beyond my control – discovering I have ADHD, trying to complete as a 50-year-old woman with a master’s degree with 25-year-olds with a undergraduate degree, the emphasis on high stakes testing, bad administrators who weren’t held accountable, the low esteem that our society seems to hold in general for teachers, the negative view of bilingual education (which was my field), etc.

Besides choices, there is attitude. I have always been a more or less optimistic person, believing in positive outcomes, but I am also skeptical by nature because I analyze everything. I try to figure out the “why” of mistakes I’ve made. Not everyone can or will do this. I want to fix problems but within the limitations of my own life, I do control what I choose to do about problems that plague a wider world. I try to get people in my community here to recycle, for example. I can’t control if they actually do it, but I can make myself heard to encourage it. I write letters to people to encourage them to vote. I may be demonstrating in the streets if Trump tries to undermine the results of the election. But I could choose to do none of those things and just live my life doing the things I prefer doing – reading, writing, drawing, etc. Within my own patch of the world, I do have some control.

All alternative paths in life I could have chosen maybe play out somewhere in the universe. But here in 3 dimensions on planet Earth, I look back on my life with some disappointment but mostly with gratitude.

Right now we are living in a very scary time – in the middle of a pandemic with a president who is threatening to overthrow democratic norms in order to make himself dictator or king, as well as all the other things happening – strained race relations, climate change as evidenced by out of control wildfires out west and hurricanes down south (I am fortunate, I guess, to live in the Midwest where neither of these things are happening or are likely to happen), the numbers of people dying from Covid-19 increasing at an alarming rate, etc. It’s easy to think we have very little control over our lives right now. Yet I admit I am pretty secure in my life. But I don’t kid myself that I have total control – it’s only a matter of attitude and choice in how I respond to things that are beyond my control that I have control. Self-control, that’s about it.

12 Bloggerz August 2020: On the State of Our World, Our Nation and Ourselves

August 13, 2020 / amoralegria / Leave a comment

Rory at A Guy Called Bloke has a monthly 12 question challenge, called 12 Bloggerz August 2020.

Meet the Bloggerz Directory

We live in a questioning world so it’s hardly surprising that there are so many questions that are asked by people every day, week and month is it? This feature will ask you all sorts of questions – but will only ever ask you 12 questions per month. You can answer them in the comments section below or create a post on your own blog should you wish to – that’s your choice.

In many ways this feature will be a no holds barred styled questions arena – covering many topical areas, controversial, opinionated – taboo orientated and just general and light hearted – just questions about people and things from all walks of life!

Additionally should any of the readership wish to pose a question to be featured within 12 Bloggerz in the future episodes – please drop me an email to aguycalledbloke63@gmail.com

Cheers Rory

Your answers to these questions are down to your individual interpretation of each question.

So here goes:

As a society are we really that social anymore – like it used to be?
We are social in a different way – today it’s all about social media, online meetings, Zooming, etc. But I don’t think we are as likely to take a nice leisurely lunch with a friend, for the pleasure of simply chatting. Do we really care about the person we’re socializing with? A lot of social media seem to be a forum for people to tell their own story and hope that other people will read their posts. And I find that it’s easier to just scroll and hit “like” when I feel I should. But I’m not knocking social media – nowadays it’s the way to keep in touch with people I care about but rarely get to see. I’ve blogged about this before, such as here.

If only l was twenty years younger l would … ?
Twenty years ago, when I was in my 40s, I was antsy to find a more meaningful profession. If I were to go back with 20/20 hindsight, I would not have chosen teaching. I was preoccupied (although somewhat justifiably) with the wrong things. I should have been asking, Will I be happy doing this? Can I really be good at it? Do I want it just for salary and benefits (because believe it or not, teaching had better pay and benefits than what I was doing before)? If I could, I would have done more research on professions that would suit me better.

Is society ruder more now than it used to be back in the day?
Yes, most definitely. People put themselves first. They talk about their “rights” but rarely about the responsibilities that go with those rights. Our current federal government (USA) has encouraged, aided and abetted this attitude. We do not have good role models in leadership roles.

Emperor Trump: Tattoo'd, rude and in an impeachable mood - al.com — Trump: Leader of lies, rudeness and hype

Is our world hyper-focusing progression on the wrong things or in the wrong direction?
If you mean, do I think humanity is trending toward the wrong direction, I would say yes, but not everybody and not everywhere. I think our planet and our ability to continue living on it and respecting other creatures we share it with should be top priority for everyone right now. There are so many other problems connected with climate change – the biggest polluters are not the ones who will suffer most from the results. Greta Thunberg has the right priorities!

Do you think there is any truth what so ever to any current conspiracy theories?
No, and I don’t think it deserves any more of an answer than this.

Are you more confused about the shape of our world today more so than when younger?
Confused, no – I think I understand our world a whole lot better than I did when I was young(er). Concerned, yes, as everyone should be.

Do we as a society simply have too many labels and too many label hunters?
Yes, but at the same time, sometimes “labels” are helpful – not to stereotype, but to provide help to those who need it. So if a kid is diagnosed with ADHD, don’t just dismiss it by saying, “It’s just a label.” It’s not, and neither are a myriad of other disorders and disabilities. “Being depressed” isn’t just being sad. It’s a very serious, and debilitating mental illness that can lead to addiction or worse.

Are you more or less family orientated?
Yes, I am family oriented, because my family is my greatest blessing. I grew up in a mostly loving home and I love getting together with my siblings’ families. Family is my top priority. I think it is the source of most people’s happiness.

Do you dress up ‘smart’ to go out or is your style more casual all day every day?
I like casual, but I also like to dress up a little. Right now, I lament the fact that I bought a lot of new clothes to wear at our senior community’s dining room and events, and now none of those things are taking place so I’m not wearing all the new clothes I bought.

But in general, I wear what is comfortable and what best hides my aging bulges!

With the current ‘pandemic’ do you miss ‘Yesterday’s way of life or not?
Of course, doesn’t everyone? But I am so angry with selfish people who won’t do what medical professionals are telling us and as a result, the pandemic and its restrictions are dragging on longer than necessary. No one really likes to wear a mask, but if that is what we need to do to protect others as well as ourselves, I am willing to do so. If everyone were willing to be on board with this, we would be able to get back to “yesterday’s” way of life again.

What I miss most is being able to travel.

What do you class as adventurous?
Anything that takes guts or involves taking risks. That said, I am not particularly adventurous, but I do like “adventures” – as in “travel adventures. “

Are you more conventional brick and mortar shopper or online and Internet buyer styled?
I do both, because it depends on what I’m buying. I won’t buy shoes online, for example – I have to try them on to see if they are comfortable. In one style, I may wear a size 8, whereas in another style, I wear 8 1/2. Shoes are too important to take chances.

But right now, I love buying things online, because then I get packages in the mail – something to look forward to! I’ve been buying a lot of books, getting them cheap on Amazon. Also art supplies, and a variety of other miscellaneous things.

Sorry for Amazon plug. That’s a whole other subject for discussion!

FPQ: Rediscovering My Joys

July 29, 2020 / amoralegria / 9 Comments

Fandango’s Provocative Question this week encourages us to look inward, at ourselves. Fandango writes: I saw this question on a site that offers up a bunch of “deep, philosophical” questions and this one intrigued me. It’s about evolution, but not in the context of Darwin’s evolution of the species. It’s more about evolution of the individual and about who you are and how you change over time. Here’s this week’s question, which is essentially about you. I hope you’ll have fun with it.

Is the concept of “you” continuous or does the past “you” continually fade into the present and future “you”? (Yes, it’s both.) Considering that your body, your mind, and your memories are changing over time, what part of “you” sticks around? (My essence, my soul, my identity).

Now that I’ve answered both questions in brief, I will expand, as I am wont to do!

I once had a revelation about myself that I told my daughter: You may have changed a great deal since childhood, but whatever you were good at and interested in when you were 10 will come back around when you are an adult. Cee’s On the Hunt for Joy challenge has a theme related to this: rediscovering your childhood joys.

For me, it was art (I drew and doodled incessantly) , languages (I fell in love with Spanish in 5th grade), cultures (I was fascinated by the pictures in my parents’ National Geographic magazines), cats (I have always had one as a pet, except when my son had allergies growing up), and writing (I wrote many stories and even a short novel when I was a kid).

This is one of my more recent drawings – it’s a combination of drawing and watercolor. First, I chose a photograph I had taken. Then I drew it freehand with black pigment liner. Then I used watercolor pencils for the color and background.

Another of my obsessions – cats. This is the best cat drawing I have done, but not the only or most recent one!

Another art form I love is photography, as any reader of my blog knows. I first started taking pictures with a Brownie black & white camera when I was about 10.

I took these photos of my friends with my Brownie camera in 1966!

In high school, I bought an Olympus SLR and got “serious” about photography. It helped that I had a boyfriend who was a photographer, and he taught me how to develop my black and white pictures. Later I installed my own mini darkroom in the second bathroom of an apartment I lived in in college.

Three photos of dogs I took in high school and developed myself.

In my late teens and early adulthood, for years I tried to become something that I couldn’t become – a musician (I’m not very talented in music, much as I love it), a best-selling author (I don’t have the discipline), a counselor (I have trouble giving advice on the spot) – and then I dreamed of being something that I could become, but didn’t: a linguist, an anthropologist, a translator at the United Nations – and finally became something I’d thought about in childhood but never thought I could become: a teacher. One of my sisters was a great teacher and she was very patient. I have never been patient.

I wasn’t actually a great teacher. I was, in fact, mediocre as a classroom teacher, and kept losing classroom teaching jobs. I was better at being a “pull-out” resource teacher (teaching ESL and bilingual literacy to smaller groups of students who came to me during their classroom’s literacy time). I was better at this because I didn’t have to worry about 10 things at once and didn’t have to keep track of 20+ kids at the same time. I also love languages and was very passionate about language acquisition and a strong advocate for bilingual education. So that job (where I spent more years and was happy) utilized more of my strengths: using Spanish every day, teaching English as a second language, enthusiasm about learning, working with students, doing creative holiday projects and writing projects with them.

I started a paper recycling club at my school one year, and this is me receiving an award worth $200 for the paper recycling we did. The money was used for the school’s club fund. I have always been passionate about environmental issues.

On the other hand, classroom teaching emphasized my weaknesses – midway through my teaching career, I found out I have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder). This is not a good thing to have if you are a teacher but at least I knew it wasn’t because I was a failure – at discipline, executive functioning, at remembering to send in my attendance every morning, at trying but never succeeding at being organized. This diagnosis helped me become more accepting of who I am and not ashamed of what I am not.

Now I’m happily retired and doing the things I used to spend hours doing when I was a kid: drawing, writing, learning foreign languages, pursuing intellectual interests such as politics, international affairs, and traveling (I didn’t do these last few much as a kid, although I have fond memories of family trips and I never avoided controversial topics with my parents, which didn’t always work out very well). I love other cultures and seeing new things.

Here I am with my cousins in Tanzania in 2018 (that’s me in the light colored shirt) – we are about to learn a traditional dance in a Maasai village.

These interests have always been a part of me, even though I have evolved a great deal in my journey of self-discovery. I’m not so hard on myself as I used to be. Finding out about having ADHD was a revelation about my entire life – why it was hard for me to make new friends, why I daydreamed so much, why I talked out of turn in school, why I was a “slow reader” (I wasn’t slow – I just got distracted so that by the time I had finished a page, I couldn’t remember what I’d read and had to go back and read it again), and why I was constantly losing things.

Besides the self-discovery that comes with maturity, I look back at my life and sometimes feel I really haven’t changed that much. I’m still me. I sometimes think I’m still that girl I was in high school. I still have the same soul, which I will have until my dying day. I carry buried memories and emotions of the last 68 years in my brain, but I can’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, because that doesn’t matter. I have a good life – everything I need and much of what I want. I’ve been lucky, I know that and I am grateful.

Wanderlust & Wonderment

My writing and photo journey of inspiration and discovery

environmentalism

FPQ #159: Love Is All You Need

CBWC: Plastics

FPQ: Rediscovering My Joys