The truth is, it would be an insult for you not to read day #1 of ‘The Illustrated Insult’.
The Truth
Do you know people who do everything in their power to avoid the truth? It might be the truth about themselves, about their failed relationships, their job woes, their looks, their spouses, or something else. I have known some people like that in my life. Actually, I have BEEN one of those people. A perfect example is someone who drinks heavily and makes excuse after excuse about why their drinking isn’t that big a deal. I did that. I finally realized that the problem was never going to go away via the avenue of blaming others or finding rationalizations. It would only go away if I recognized what was tripping me up was me and that I had to something about it.
It’s You
That is the hard part, realizing the solution to the truth you are stumbling over is you. The stone in the road may not be self-inflicted. It may be your spouse or your job or your drinking or worse yet a civil war or a natural disaster. it can be any number of things. But solving it always starts with you. You have control over you. Not complete control of course, but certainly more control than over someone else or many outer circumstances.
Even When it’s Not You, It’s You
But what if it is outer circumstances? What if your job sucks? What if you are being abused by your husband or wife? What if you spouse put you in terrible debt? You can blame all those people and circumstances if you want, and it is good to properly evaluate who is doing what wrong. But once you realize that, you still need to make your choice as to how to respond. It’s still you that needs to take action, recognizing the truth and doing something about it.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Politician. The quote was originally about a specific male, using He and Himself, in the quote. I changed it, as I sometimes do, to bring attention to the all to common linguistic assumption that everything is about men, not women.
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She occasionally stumbled over the truth but hastily picked herself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened
It might be folly, but today is day 4 of The Ideal Series!
The Intolerant Idea l
That is not a hyphenation mistake at the end of the quote. You can’t be idealistic without an idea. When a person is so persuaded that his or her idea is worth hurting others, worth cutting them down, or worth castigating them as less than they are, then the idea, no matter how positive it is in the abstract, becomes dangerous and deadly. If you have any doubts think of the history of ideas and ideals.
The Religious Idea l
Although bathed in the teachings of love over the centuries, religions and their ideas of exclusivity have led to wars, persecutions, terrorism, hatred, condemnation, assassinations, and destruction of whole societies and cities, all because the ideas included having no tolerance for those who believe differently.
The Political Idea l
State Communism and State Socialism, supposedly started with the idea of ‘brotherhood of man’ and equality for all, led instead to the oppression, incarceration and murder of close to 100 million people under Stalin and Mao alone.
The Personal Idea l
Who do you dislike and why? Who do you make fun of? Who do you declare unworthy of consideration and respect? Who do you hate? Maybe someone fat? Maybe a cyclops? How about a prostitute? What about a Muslim? Perhaps a bigamist Mormon? What about a slut? Possibly a thief? What about a rich movie star? Maybe an atheist? How about a Democrat? Or a Republican?
The Power Idea l
Now give yourself unlimited power to do anything you want to those people. What would you do? That is how the damage of the religious and the political examples I mentioned above came about. They didn’t start after the person got in power. The hatred was there first, then the power gave them the capability to do the damage.
The Ideal Idea l
Jesus taught that the sin was not in the murder alone, but that it was the hatred that led to the murder that was also a sin. Now, I am not a big believer in ‘sin’ in the classic definition, but it really doesn’t matter what you call it. It starts in your heart. If you don’t practice tolerance and understanding when you are without power, you will never have it when you do.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who believes that in the end, only kindness matters.
You know what would be perfect? If I did a series on Perfectionism.
First, a disclaimer. I am not a perfectionist nor do I play one on TV.
A regular reader and commenter on my blog, Agnes, said I should do a series on perfectionism. it was perfect timing for her to say so because I had just finished giving a presentation at the 2nd annual Social Media Tulsa Conference on ‘The Six Stop Signs on Creativity Road’ and one of the stop signs is about perfectionism. As I gave the presentation I wished I had more time to spend on that topic. Now I do.
Let’s start Perfectionism week out with 2 questions to set the stage and get our definitions out there.
What is your definition of perfect?
What, within humankind’s thought and creation, can be, or is, perfect?
I will give my answers in the comments after a while.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who thinks Oreos are perfect.
Quote by Winston Churchill, who liked a good cigar.
Vintage napkin from 2004, drawn for my daughter and put in her lunch.
Since this has been ‘rights week’ I thought a vintage napkin that was on that same theme would be appropriate. Idealism is a good thing. Intolerance in the name of idealism isn’t idealism at all. It’s prejudice and ignorance, bigotry and fear, stupidity and hate disguised as idealism.
Those who practice that version of idealism are to be avoided, as should their brand.
I know a lot of people who say politicians are all crooks, the system corrupts them even if they start out with good intentions. They think they are different than the rest of us. They have sold out, they are open to the highest bidder, they have no conscience of their own. They are all controlled by special interests, etc.
For the most part I don’t believe this to be the case. I think they are driven by the same things most anyone else is driven by:
Self-preservation
Gathering some degree of wealth and security
Having people like them
Having a good reputation
Wanting to do something good in the world
Not wanting to be misunderstood
Wanting to be given credit for hard work
Within those desires people make all sorts of choices. Some are governed by fear of losing an election, fear of losing power. Others are governed by gaining security and wealth more than other elements on that list. Depending on their ethics and courage to withstand pressure, they may or may not be open to being corrupted. They might even search it out. But honestly I do not think most politicians are like that. They are just like you and me, they fear dying, whether in their political career or their life. Sometimes they mistake one for the other.
“Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.” – Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955
Intolerant idealism is the sin of both the extreme left and the extreme right.
Our Associate Pastor gave a sermon titled ‘Are You Expecting’ about advent and the season of expecting the divine to arrive.
She talked about her mother choosing to always love her in spite of some very unexpected directions she took in life. She used that as an example of how to have expectations but also keep a loose hold on them, since you can never be in control of enough of live to be assured of one particular outcome.
She closed her sermon with the announcement that she is expecting, she is pregnant. She then gestured for her partner, Jill, to stand so people would know who she is.
I don’t know what her mother’s religion or belief system was or is. But if she was like most parents it likely came as a surprise to know her daughter was lesbian. If you are a parent it would probably turn a couple of your beliefs upside down. But what would you do? Would you condemn, thinking that the condemnation is the only way to remain true to your beliefs, or would you accept and embrace, finding a way to be true to your beliefs while still showing love to them?
I can tell you this, if you chose the intolerant idealism route you would lose your daughter. You would have your self-righteousness intact, but you would not have her with you. You wouldn’t have that granddaughter. You wouldn’t have those birthdays and holidays and events with them. And for what? For an idealism that you disproved with your actions. That is a good definition of folly to be sure.
“Success is going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
Churchill understood that what is seared in our memory, what we remember when contemplating a new endeavor, is not our prior successes, but our failures. We can even look back on past successes and say ‘Who accomplished that? It couldn’t have been me, I don’t know how to do that!’
Then you remember that you did do it and you can do it again, but not before having to traipse through a mind field of doubt IN SPITE of evidence to the contrary. It is our perceived failures that are out to kill enthusiasm and we must be defensive in protecting it. We do that by being realistic. By looking at what we REALLY are capable of.
We all know that there are some people who don’t have this problem. They are overconfident and have an ungrounded enthusiasm that can be very dangerous to become entangled in. Avoid those people.
But my experience has shown me that many more people are in the self-doubting camp and need encouragement to look at themselves honestly and see that they are MORE capable than their self-judgment is telling them.
