In my kitchen, there's a rather modern microwave, the kind where you press a single button for just about everything you'd want to put into it. There's also an oven only a few years old, and a refrigerator just a bit older than that. Both appliances offer all of the modern conveniences people would expect. Between the refrigerator and the oven, amidst semi-recently purchased plastic containers with "aroma-sealing" or what-have-you lids is a Tupperware container that is used to hold flour. It was likely bought at a Tupperware party, also likely back when the concept was still new and novel. Inside of that container, resting on the flour, is what most people would call a spade around the same age as the container, and they'd wonder why a garden tool was being used in the kitchen. It is not, however, a spade. "Back in the day", it was a rather common kitchen tool, used to dig powdery substances--such as flour, as a matter of fact.
I like using that container and "spade". I have other containers and devices I can use, but I prefer those two items, in conjunction with the sifter that's likely even older than the "spade" and the container. Every time I use them, I think to myself how, sometimes, the old ways really weren't so bad at all. Sure, if you want to get into the heavy stuff, no one can deny that the equality issue, for example, is better across the board now than it was half a decade ago; we're also now better educated on medical issues, leading to longer lives that also stay productive. I think, however, that most people see the heavy issues and disregard all of the things done and knew a generation or three ago; baby and the bath water, as it were. I don't know why that is, but I find it disheartening.
Sometimes I think it's a case of too much convenience. Consider the automat. Now we have pre-packaged foods that you can grab and eat on the go, for any meal, and most places even offer microwaves to heat food up before you go. It's convenient, yes, but I think it's a bit too convenient. When we do that, we don't really see or talk to anyone but the person behind the counter where we purchase the food. Automats, however, were similar to cafeterias in that there were tables to sit at. This restaurant-esque atmosphere engendered meant that after you purchased your food from the slots, you would sit with other people. Even if you didn't necessarily speak directly with people at neighboring tables, they were still there. You would overhear their conversations, hear people speaking of their hopes and dreams, their fears and failings, and--consciously or not--you'd remember that these are real people, working no less hard for no more money than you.
We've forgotten what that's like, I think--being around other people for most of our day. These days, most people ride alone (whether literally or metaphorically) to work, where they work alone, then they ride home alone. If they live with someone who stays at home, then that person has been home alone all day, taking care of household tasks. Perhaps they go out to a grocery store or to a laundromat, but they are still at least metaphorically alone. At least a good eight hours spent in solitude. This causes feelings of isolation, and we have a harder time sympathizing with others, especially those outside our Monkeysphere. These days, we get most of our news from televisions and newspapers rather than neighbors--and most of us don't even know our neighbors' names. Neighborhood backyard barbeques have given way to solitary or near-solitary entertainment with a television.
Walking around my city, I can always tell the general age of cement sidewalks. The cement laid decades ago is still unbroken (save for obvious external things like a growing tree, an accident, or some similar). The cement laid comparably recently typically has cracks--hairline fractures all the way to deep gashes. Makes me think about the conveniences around us. Culturally, we're different now than we were even merely decades ago, in some ways drastically. As such, we divide, we put up these huge chasms between "us" and "everyone else". A few generations ago--yes, you had problems like equality issues, but we're laying that aside for the moment--people tended to stick together, they tended to keep larger Monkeyspheres.
I have to wonder about future generations. Will the ever-growing desire for convenience make them even less capable of dealing with others on a personal level? Will they see others solely as a means to garner more convenience? I hope they remember that when we walk through life, we leave footprints behind us. More and more, people's footprints are in solitary paths, only lightly touching on another person's footprints. I hope they remember, so walk with as many people as they can. A new automat has opened in New York. Hopefully a lot of footprints will lead there, and more will be opened across the world. Maybe then there will be fewer solitary paths.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song
When most people think of Donna Reed, they think of "The Donna Reed Show", where she played Donna Stone, a woman devoted to her family, and to being a housewife that didn't just stand back and smile while the husband took care of everything. For the time, it was rather atypical--not only did Donna Stone actively help the children solve their problems, especially when her husband--a pediatrician--had to see patients, but she also worked as a nurse at a time when almost, if not, all women her age were (or were thought to be nothing more than) housewives.
I mention her because she was, in a way, a really good role-model for me and especially my present situation. Like many women on television of the era, she kept up the house and looked good doing it. While I now realize that the looking-good-doing-it part is rather impractical, it had a good impact on me. Also, watching my grandmother do that sort of set of tasks with such dedication helped immensely. Through watching real-life applications of what I saw on television (not that I was around for the initial run of the show; it was watched in syndication by my grandparents, so that's what I watched; my choice was either that or nothing), I learned the value of keeping up a home, and just what they mean when they say that home-making is truly a job, yet without being paid.
Most people either dismiss Reed's show as a fine enough situation comedy, or some similar, but I think it was a good example of television having a positive impact. It wasn't the sole cause, of course, but it was at least a cause. I learned a lot of old-fashioned values, also, and really think that if more people held to similar values, the world in general would be a better place. Oh, I'm not talking about the "values" spouted by the left-wing or right-wing zealots; their values try to pin people down, one way or another, without giving room for individuality and differing paradigms. An example of what I'm talking about would be not caring which person stays home and which person works. Whomever is best suited should do what is needed. If, in a heterosexual relationship, the woman enjoys working and the man enjoys staying home, I don't see why they shouldn't do just that. If both want the same thing, I think they should talk about it and arrive at whatever decision suits them best. What, really, is so wrong with such a blend of old-fashioned and new-fashioned?
Sooner or later, maybe I'll have an answer to that. Right now, it seems that people lean too far one way or another, and that right there is, I think, a big ause of such a schism in the world. It's fine enough to set roles, for whatever needs to be done--in any aspect of life, within the home or without it--but too many people either try to pin people down into pre-defined roles, whether or not they're even well-suited for those roles. Or, people try to have no roles whatsoever, and say that things will "work themselves out". Maybe so, but such a devil-may-care attitude about it surely can't be helping, either.
Maybe one day I'll have a better solution than "respect people without trying to make them into what you think they should be", but then--I have to admit to not thinking there should be a better solution than that.
I mention her because she was, in a way, a really good role-model for me and especially my present situation. Like many women on television of the era, she kept up the house and looked good doing it. While I now realize that the looking-good-doing-it part is rather impractical, it had a good impact on me. Also, watching my grandmother do that sort of set of tasks with such dedication helped immensely. Through watching real-life applications of what I saw on television (not that I was around for the initial run of the show; it was watched in syndication by my grandparents, so that's what I watched; my choice was either that or nothing), I learned the value of keeping up a home, and just what they mean when they say that home-making is truly a job, yet without being paid.
Most people either dismiss Reed's show as a fine enough situation comedy, or some similar, but I think it was a good example of television having a positive impact. It wasn't the sole cause, of course, but it was at least a cause. I learned a lot of old-fashioned values, also, and really think that if more people held to similar values, the world in general would be a better place. Oh, I'm not talking about the "values" spouted by the left-wing or right-wing zealots; their values try to pin people down, one way or another, without giving room for individuality and differing paradigms. An example of what I'm talking about would be not caring which person stays home and which person works. Whomever is best suited should do what is needed. If, in a heterosexual relationship, the woman enjoys working and the man enjoys staying home, I don't see why they shouldn't do just that. If both want the same thing, I think they should talk about it and arrive at whatever decision suits them best. What, really, is so wrong with such a blend of old-fashioned and new-fashioned?
Sooner or later, maybe I'll have an answer to that. Right now, it seems that people lean too far one way or another, and that right there is, I think, a big ause of such a schism in the world. It's fine enough to set roles, for whatever needs to be done--in any aspect of life, within the home or without it--but too many people either try to pin people down into pre-defined roles, whether or not they're even well-suited for those roles. Or, people try to have no roles whatsoever, and say that things will "work themselves out". Maybe so, but such a devil-may-care attitude about it surely can't be helping, either.
Maybe one day I'll have a better solution than "respect people without trying to make them into what you think they should be", but then--I have to admit to not thinking there should be a better solution than that.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Cold Wars
I know I've not posted in a while, even though the ten business days was up a while ago, but--settling into the new place, new responsibilities, et cetera. Hopefully I can be forgiven. ;)
Anyway. For the purposes of this topic, we'll use Merriam-Webster's second definition of "Cold War": a condition of rivalry, mistrust, and often open hostility short of violence [...]. Funny thing about cold wars--two (or more, but we'll stick to two) sides of a conflict, each believing that they are Right (yes, with a capital R). A line is drawn, sides are taken, with those who abstain from officially taking a side considered to be unofficially siding with "the enemy".
Really, personal cold wars aren't all that much different from national ones. There's a conflict, say over money, a love interest, a perceived lack of duty/loyalty/honor/what-have-you. Sure, the scale is different, but the basics are rather similar. For one thing, lives can be irrevocably altered by personal cold wars; someone you thought was your best friend becomes your most hated rival, families torn apart over ideological differences, one's very outlook on life altered and shaken. If you're the introspective type, it makes you wonder what it's all "for". Is all of that barely-contained hatred really worth holding onto? The problem is that in some cases, it might just be justified.
Of course, there's such a thing as going too far, also. For instance, let's say that a personal cold war gets started over money. One who feels "burned" by the whole affair may be a good deal more cautious with their finances in the future, not quite as ready to help others who claim to need it, yet still at least open to the possibility. On the other, extreme, hand, one may become so much of a miser that they no longer feel anything but scorn and even hatred for those who claim to need money. Or, say, a personal cold war started over a love interest. The one who feels "burned" may become more cautious about whom they give their heart to, in any form of relationship, though still keeping their heart open enough for the possibility of friendship or even love. On the extreme hand, one might become so hard-hearted that everyone is viewed with mistrust and open suspicion. Lamentably, such "extreme" cases are hard to look down upon.
The real problem with cold wars on any scale is how to end them. Some simply cannot be ended, merely put on the proverbial back-burner, set aside for other pursuits. In my experience, personal cold wars are hard indeed to end. Truces can rarely if ever be called; both parties find it difficult nearly to impossibility to trust one another again, even to simply the point of ending hostilities. I wish I had some easy, step-by-step advice on how to do just that, but alas, I do not. Many people have been involved in personal cold wars, and I would be surprised indeed if any have any concrete advice--though, of course, on such an issue as this, advice in indeed welcome.
The lamentable thing about it all is that personal cold wars destroy personal relationships--while not on the scale of national ones, such endings feel so much more brutal. You cannot look at a spot that, say, you and your once-best friend enjoyed going to regularly without at the least feeling some sort of negative, intense emotion. Often, such emotions are disgust, anger, or even hatred. It's a shame, really.
I suppose that if I had advice, it would be this: Keep your eyes open, learn from everything that happens to and around you, and never lose sight of the good times once shared. Even if the relationship is severed brutally, there still must be good memories there. One cannot feel intense anger over a betrayal if one was not emotionally invested in the relationship in the first place. Never forget the cause of the severance, but never either forget the laughter shared, the infectious happiness. That might just make enduring the severance a bit more easily gone through. Good luck to anyone going through just that.
Anyway. For the purposes of this topic, we'll use Merriam-Webster's second definition of "Cold War": a condition of rivalry, mistrust, and often open hostility short of violence [...]. Funny thing about cold wars--two (or more, but we'll stick to two) sides of a conflict, each believing that they are Right (yes, with a capital R). A line is drawn, sides are taken, with those who abstain from officially taking a side considered to be unofficially siding with "the enemy".
Really, personal cold wars aren't all that much different from national ones. There's a conflict, say over money, a love interest, a perceived lack of duty/loyalty/honor/what-have-you. Sure, the scale is different, but the basics are rather similar. For one thing, lives can be irrevocably altered by personal cold wars; someone you thought was your best friend becomes your most hated rival, families torn apart over ideological differences, one's very outlook on life altered and shaken. If you're the introspective type, it makes you wonder what it's all "for". Is all of that barely-contained hatred really worth holding onto? The problem is that in some cases, it might just be justified.
Of course, there's such a thing as going too far, also. For instance, let's say that a personal cold war gets started over money. One who feels "burned" by the whole affair may be a good deal more cautious with their finances in the future, not quite as ready to help others who claim to need it, yet still at least open to the possibility. On the other, extreme, hand, one may become so much of a miser that they no longer feel anything but scorn and even hatred for those who claim to need money. Or, say, a personal cold war started over a love interest. The one who feels "burned" may become more cautious about whom they give their heart to, in any form of relationship, though still keeping their heart open enough for the possibility of friendship or even love. On the extreme hand, one might become so hard-hearted that everyone is viewed with mistrust and open suspicion. Lamentably, such "extreme" cases are hard to look down upon.
The real problem with cold wars on any scale is how to end them. Some simply cannot be ended, merely put on the proverbial back-burner, set aside for other pursuits. In my experience, personal cold wars are hard indeed to end. Truces can rarely if ever be called; both parties find it difficult nearly to impossibility to trust one another again, even to simply the point of ending hostilities. I wish I had some easy, step-by-step advice on how to do just that, but alas, I do not. Many people have been involved in personal cold wars, and I would be surprised indeed if any have any concrete advice--though, of course, on such an issue as this, advice in indeed welcome.
The lamentable thing about it all is that personal cold wars destroy personal relationships--while not on the scale of national ones, such endings feel so much more brutal. You cannot look at a spot that, say, you and your once-best friend enjoyed going to regularly without at the least feeling some sort of negative, intense emotion. Often, such emotions are disgust, anger, or even hatred. It's a shame, really.
I suppose that if I had advice, it would be this: Keep your eyes open, learn from everything that happens to and around you, and never lose sight of the good times once shared. Even if the relationship is severed brutally, there still must be good memories there. One cannot feel intense anger over a betrayal if one was not emotionally invested in the relationship in the first place. Never forget the cause of the severance, but never either forget the laughter shared, the infectious happiness. That might just make enduring the severance a bit more easily gone through. Good luck to anyone going through just that.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Moving
Yep, that's what I'm doing. On Wednesday the seventeenth, phone service is going to be shut off here and reconnected where I'm moving to. Re-establishing an internet connection may take up to ten business days, though, so if there's not a post for a while, that's why.
I hate having a hiatus when the blog is so relatively new, but--them's the breaks, as they say.
I hate having a hiatus when the blog is so relatively new, but--them's the breaks, as they say.
Tipping Really Isn't Just a City in China
I don't understand the notion of tipping servers/deliverers. By that I mean that I understand the process, but not the concept. "Waiters need to eat, too!" people say. Well, true. The thing is, I don't tip my dentist after he roots around my mouth with his iron hook; neither do I give the kid behind the counter at Del Taco money for giving me my soft tacos. The job description for waiters or food deliverers is pretty simple, simpler still in the case of food deliverers. When hired on as a waiter, you are hired to take orders and bring the food to the customer. As a deliverer, you're hired to drive the food to the customer's house. Why does that deserve a tip? To answer my own question, and to oh-so-subtly segue into another thing I don't get, it's because they're paid rather badly. Payment is factored with the probability of tipping--they get paid badly because they should be tipped.
Think about that for a few moments. You'll see that it's the scam of the century, and totally legal. Let's say that minimum wage, across the board, was seven dollars an hour. A restaurant can get away with paying a waiter, say, two dollars an hour because he's supposed to get tips. While, yes, many places operate under a policy of "averaging" out--that is, a "target" is seven dollars, the restaurant pays two dollars, and at the end of the night, if the tips don't equal out to seven dollars an hour or more the restaurant chips in the difference--many don't.
Also interesting is that no one really knows for sure where it came from. The most likely explanation is that it was a gift. Put in today's terms, "Here, have some random money." Some say that if there was no tipping, customers would have to pay higher bills, but I don't think that's necessarily true. From what I can tell, having been a sort of "student of humanity", it seems more likely that it's a scheme. I think that if there was no tipping, the restaurants et al. would have to pay their employees what amounts to minimum wage. Though tips is a bit of a crap shoot in terms of how much one takes in at the end of the shift, it seems that the good days outnumber the bad. As such, not many people employed in such jobs would change the situation if they could, and quite honestly I don't blame them.
I'm not saying that such people shouldn't be tipped. Well--actually, I suppose I am. I fall back on the analogy of tipping the kid behind the counter at Sonic Burger. His job is to take your order and give you your food. His employers don't jack him around and pay him terribly, so why do restaurants do it? Tipping people who go out of their way, sure, I can see that--but I don't see the point of tipping someone who is doing their job. Some people say that tipping is also a form of expressing how much one liked the service. Well, I think that's bunk. Most people I've heard of--not just people I "know", but just random people--tip flatly. Whether a percentage or just adding a certain denomination bill and saying to keep the change, most people don't really try to factor anything into the tip. "Here, have some money."
Now, having said all of that, I don't know how to change it. I can't make employers pay better wages, and if I did I couldn't get them to pay better than minimum wage (which makes me wonder why an official "waiter" should get paid better than the kid at Taco Bell, but that's another tangent), so what should be done about it? Heck if I know. So, having said all of that, I still tip. I am among the many who don't try to figure out tips; if the bill comes out to, say, thirty dollars and random cents, I'll toss out forty or forty-five dollars and be done with it. Still, I am forced to wonder why such an obvious scam is perpetuated. It just doesn't help that, in one fashion or another, I'm helping to perpetuate it. Hmm.
Think about that for a few moments. You'll see that it's the scam of the century, and totally legal. Let's say that minimum wage, across the board, was seven dollars an hour. A restaurant can get away with paying a waiter, say, two dollars an hour because he's supposed to get tips. While, yes, many places operate under a policy of "averaging" out--that is, a "target" is seven dollars, the restaurant pays two dollars, and at the end of the night, if the tips don't equal out to seven dollars an hour or more the restaurant chips in the difference--many don't.
Also interesting is that no one really knows for sure where it came from. The most likely explanation is that it was a gift. Put in today's terms, "Here, have some random money." Some say that if there was no tipping, customers would have to pay higher bills, but I don't think that's necessarily true. From what I can tell, having been a sort of "student of humanity", it seems more likely that it's a scheme. I think that if there was no tipping, the restaurants et al. would have to pay their employees what amounts to minimum wage. Though tips is a bit of a crap shoot in terms of how much one takes in at the end of the shift, it seems that the good days outnumber the bad. As such, not many people employed in such jobs would change the situation if they could, and quite honestly I don't blame them.
I'm not saying that such people shouldn't be tipped. Well--actually, I suppose I am. I fall back on the analogy of tipping the kid behind the counter at Sonic Burger. His job is to take your order and give you your food. His employers don't jack him around and pay him terribly, so why do restaurants do it? Tipping people who go out of their way, sure, I can see that--but I don't see the point of tipping someone who is doing their job. Some people say that tipping is also a form of expressing how much one liked the service. Well, I think that's bunk. Most people I've heard of--not just people I "know", but just random people--tip flatly. Whether a percentage or just adding a certain denomination bill and saying to keep the change, most people don't really try to factor anything into the tip. "Here, have some money."
Now, having said all of that, I don't know how to change it. I can't make employers pay better wages, and if I did I couldn't get them to pay better than minimum wage (which makes me wonder why an official "waiter" should get paid better than the kid at Taco Bell, but that's another tangent), so what should be done about it? Heck if I know. So, having said all of that, I still tip. I am among the many who don't try to figure out tips; if the bill comes out to, say, thirty dollars and random cents, I'll toss out forty or forty-five dollars and be done with it. Still, I am forced to wonder why such an obvious scam is perpetuated. It just doesn't help that, in one fashion or another, I'm helping to perpetuate it. Hmm.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Destinations, Simple Joys, and Discoveries
In the hey-day of Route Sixty-Six, the average family vacation would, in modern terms, be more likely dubbed a "road trip". No destination in mind, just the open road and seeing the sights, as it were. I miss that, and wish I had gotten in earlier on it. A phenomenon I've noticed in my generation and the younger generations is this preoccupation with the destination, and I am somewhat saddened by it. To be sure, my generation didn't start this trend, but we and those after us certainly continued and propagated it.
I wish to see a return to such a mentality of the journey mattering more than the destination. Myself, I barely remember things from destinations, such as to a theme park, but I remember the journey itself with some clarity. On a trip to Texas, I passed through the desert, and saw things I'd never even thought of. Small things, mostly, but wondrous things to me nonetheless. I'd never seen, for instance, mailboxes as art pieces before, but there they were. I'd seen mailboxes set into designs, of course, like the animal whose mouth or rear end must be opened to deposit or retrieve mail, but some of the ones I saw on that trip--well, they defy easy explanation that would preserve the sense of amusement I felt just by seeing them.
Small things, as I said, but good things, exciting things. I think that if more people were to simply go-- a vehicle or their feet, some money or working as they go, or something; just get out there and go--that they'd rediscover their culture in the most surprising and fascinating of ways. Did you know that in Weiser, Idaho, there's a fiddle contest open to people around the world? For a few days each summer, people from around the world gather and forget about everything--race, religion, politics, and everything else--and just play. Imagine just happening upon something like that. Spend a day or two listening to people pay the fiddle, then head back onto the open road.
What I'd like to do is, granted, nothing new. Just get some friends and go along Route Sixty-Six, seeing the things it decides to show us, partaking of the world around me without bogging myself down with unnecessary details about where we're going. I think more people should do that. You do that, you travel without a destination, allowing yourself to remain open to whatever experiences your travels bring you, and you learn more about the world you live in. You come across many microcosm symbolic of the different paradigms that can be found throughout the world. You come across cities with Little Italy or Little Havana or some similar in them, where there are foods, people, customs, ideologies that you can only find in the "home" countries.
You go, you just go, and you see wonders that you might never see if you stuck to the quickest routes that get you to a specific destination. You meet people of all walks of life, of all faiths and paradigms, on "road trips", and your own life is enriched by it. You will see things that you never even conceived of, and even if you disagree with these things, your knowledge of the world is enlarged. If nothing else, if nothing else, you will have stories to tell friends and family for years to come. Imagine telling your children and grandchildren about the time you stopped in a diner you saw just because it looked "neat", while passing through a town you never knew existed even though it was in your state. Those are the kinds of stories, memories, that build more good memories for years to come.
I wish to see a return to such a mentality of the journey mattering more than the destination. Myself, I barely remember things from destinations, such as to a theme park, but I remember the journey itself with some clarity. On a trip to Texas, I passed through the desert, and saw things I'd never even thought of. Small things, mostly, but wondrous things to me nonetheless. I'd never seen, for instance, mailboxes as art pieces before, but there they were. I'd seen mailboxes set into designs, of course, like the animal whose mouth or rear end must be opened to deposit or retrieve mail, but some of the ones I saw on that trip--well, they defy easy explanation that would preserve the sense of amusement I felt just by seeing them.
Small things, as I said, but good things, exciting things. I think that if more people were to simply go-- a vehicle or their feet, some money or working as they go, or something; just get out there and go--that they'd rediscover their culture in the most surprising and fascinating of ways. Did you know that in Weiser, Idaho, there's a fiddle contest open to people around the world? For a few days each summer, people from around the world gather and forget about everything--race, religion, politics, and everything else--and just play. Imagine just happening upon something like that. Spend a day or two listening to people pay the fiddle, then head back onto the open road.
What I'd like to do is, granted, nothing new. Just get some friends and go along Route Sixty-Six, seeing the things it decides to show us, partaking of the world around me without bogging myself down with unnecessary details about where we're going. I think more people should do that. You do that, you travel without a destination, allowing yourself to remain open to whatever experiences your travels bring you, and you learn more about the world you live in. You come across many microcosm symbolic of the different paradigms that can be found throughout the world. You come across cities with Little Italy or Little Havana or some similar in them, where there are foods, people, customs, ideologies that you can only find in the "home" countries.
You go, you just go, and you see wonders that you might never see if you stuck to the quickest routes that get you to a specific destination. You meet people of all walks of life, of all faiths and paradigms, on "road trips", and your own life is enriched by it. You will see things that you never even conceived of, and even if you disagree with these things, your knowledge of the world is enlarged. If nothing else, if nothing else, you will have stories to tell friends and family for years to come. Imagine telling your children and grandchildren about the time you stopped in a diner you saw just because it looked "neat", while passing through a town you never knew existed even though it was in your state. Those are the kinds of stories, memories, that build more good memories for years to come.
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