June 28, 2007
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Stop Cuddling the Wildlife!
I was listening to NPR’s This I Believe during my archiving at work on Monday. If you’ve never caught that show on Weekend Edition, it’s a rip off of an Edward R Murrow show from the 1950’s that features one person each week, be it an everyday person or a celebrity, reading out an essay that reflects one of their great beliefs.
Recently on the show, a woman read out her essay about why “settling” wasn’t a bad thing. She asserted that settling only meant that: “a bird in the hand beats two in the bush.” She believed that a passionate life, a passionate marriage, a passionate career were all fairy tale goals put forth by the media to make you want to be better, slimmer, smarter, sexier.
While I wholeheartedly agree that a person is rarely made happy by basing a life around the “shoulds” that the sales-happy media vomits up, I don’t think that excuses a person from living their life with passion. It’s possible to be media literate enough to understand media manipulation, ignore it, and move past it. There are many people in this world who are creative enough and smart enough to invent their own ideals and goals. And they NEVER settle. If they choose a home, choose a lifelong partner, choose a family, choose a career, choose a life: they are planting roots. Unlike “settling,” roots are never stagnant. Strong roots generate expansion and growth, creating networks and canopies that stretch to encompass the whole of the land. They take and they give and they nurture and they grow strong.
I’ve always thought that “a bird in the hand beats two in the bush” is rancid advice. Why would you advise someone to hold fast to something when curiosity is buzzing and alive in them? Why would you clutch a measly bird in your sweaty fist when you could have an amazing adventure, exploring the bird-wild bush? Those who tromp and tramp off the beaten path are rich in the way the wealthy envy: they are rich in story and life.
Words like “settle” and sayings that equate your dreams, career, or partner with a tiny bird that you are desperately clinging to out of fear are outdated, dangerous models of thinking.
I believe that my generation can bring with it a new way of thinking, one that puts faith in the planting of organic, natural roots, and one that believes that fortune favors the brave.
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What would your “This I Believe” topic be?::SHINGLES update::
Day 5 of SHINGLES. The boredom is more painful than the angry cluster of pox gnawing at my leg nodes. Movies consumed: 3. Books consumed: 1 1/2. Newspapers rifled through: 3. Blogs read: lots. Sketches made: 1. Journal entries: 2. Creative writing done: ha! Glasses of water/tea drank: countless.Tomorrow, my step dad is still in town and going to be nearby (a quick, 1-hour train ride into Edinburgh). I think I’ll just saw my leg off and make sure I’m there to see him no matter what. I’m so bored at this point that I’ll need a lobotomy if I stay cooped up in the house any longer, and that is more painful than shingles, I hear. Plus, I am getting better. I don’t feel flu-like anymore. Just annoyed with clothes touching my intolerable leg. If only I lived in a nudist colony, life with my itchy leg would be better. Except a nudist colony in Scotland would be about the most hideous thing you can imagine: pale, potato-fed, gooseflesh. I think I’ll just stick to loose-fitting skirts, painkillers, and pajama pants.
Comments (9)
I hope I never get shingles. I had chicken pox as an adult and that was bad enough.RYC: here’s the scoop: It turns out the Obama girl is just some incredibly dumb video on YouTube. Just do a search. I already commented on how ridiculous it is. Some girl is sticking out her chest, showing off well-endowed Obama t-shirts and singing about how she’s in love with him. God, there’s even a scene where some woman rubs her tits all over a picture of Obama on the wall. Can you say “embarrassing!”He has not been fooling around with anyone. It’s just more Internet stupidity. The guy is married to a wonderful woman, for heaven’s sake. Let’s not Clinton-ize this guy.Lynn
That woman’s first paragraph is a nightmare. HOLY CRAP! The best we are to expect from our males is that they not behave like complete jackholes and treat us as less than themselves?I do have some faith that there are males out there who are not a complete self-absorbed idiots and that the day and age of women tolerating such entitled bullshit is coming to an end.I can see why the reaction. It’s not the settling she does that makes me mad it is the selling out she does. No wonder she doesn’t believe in passionate living if she did, she might understand that life should be respected a bit more than her craptastic example. PTA president too. Well, public schools aren’t effed up only from the inside.Sorry, I read that first paragraph and I believe I said those exact words about a man who took all I had to give and gave me nothing but negatives, he doesn’t hit me, he doesn’t run around etc. in consideration. He did not respect me. He was too insecure to acknowledge me. He lost me.The thing I don’t understand is that if and once a male does give of himself he understands something new and wonderful but so many are not given that opportunity and so many are just stingy when honest and passionate interaction is required outside of the bedroom. I agree one should not view people as if they are game if real connections are to be made. It is inherently disrespectful to do so. But with things like poker, I’ll take a bird in the hand. I am glad the pain is abating and that you are adamant about seeing him!Hey, I have not been able to come up with a good idea about how to mark the age levels of those short. I thought at first in sizes like 4t and 6x and 11r but then that sucked. Then I thought, mites, lasses, ladies, women and then that blew. So if you have time and want to be creative, I will take what you come up with! I started thinking about what one does at certain ages, like driving, and haven’t taken that one out for a logical stroll yet. Eh, not a big thing, jsut though if you wanted a puzzle to solve. This I believe? I’d have to think about that when I am less irritated.
Sounds to me like the woman who wrote the “settling” piece settled and regrets every minute of it.
This I believe: if I were ever lucky enough to have the chance to read one of my essays out loud on NPR, I would NOT choose one that employed not just one but TWO cliches to express my point, because I believe in the value of creativity and in my own ability to arrange words into unique patterns. I believe there always a better and more interesting way of saying things than to rely on tired idioms.
I think Robert Frost’s poem about the road less traveled or Edgar Lee Masters’ epitaph for Fiddler Jones, whose fields went fallow while he fiddled yet he had not a single regret, are much better signposts by which to guide one’s life.As for a This I Believe essay … wow, so hard to narrow it down to a matter of minutes. It would probably have something to do about how ill-served we are by the media that parades out Paris Hilton to distract us from the real problems of the world. But that just doesn’t sound very original.
I think my “This I Believe” would be about the need to cultivate a healthy (physical and mental) self-image in our youth, and about how as adults we need to consistently affirm our own self-image in order to baracade against news and media pressures. Who am I? Why am I me? I like who I am. That kind of thing.
that is a great question and i’ve heard those snippets on NPR and thought of what i might say. one that i heard disturbed me; it was a woman talking about how she believes that ritual will get her through hard times. it isn’t the concept of that that bothered, but more how she was in denial of change in a conscious way. it’s hard to explain. anywho – i believe the only way out is through and that everything occurs exactly when it is supposed to. (among other things .)
Since I heard of the attack on the Glasgow airport, it has been buggin’ me “Who did I know that was over there?” Yes, finally made the connection. When one of these acts of violence happens in one’s own “backyard,” it has an added connection. The old WTC was about 30 miles away and one could climb to the top of our mountain and see its tiny form on a clear day; on 9/11 we could see the smoke in the sky. It was personal. Hope you and your friends are OK and that the five or so injured inside the terminal recover quickly.
Your words about roots and growth are so true, I wish I had said them myself in so few, well chosen words when I wrote a much longer post on why I chose to remain living here a while back.
Hope your leg is less painful now.
Oh, NPR and “This I Believe.” Well, NPR has bugged me a bit since I spent some time years ago being interviewed for a segment on “All Things Considered” on the completion of the Interstate Highway System (we were an obstacle and ours was one of the last parts done). Unfortunately I never heard the segment, but heard it was good. When we called the producer for a tape, (and even pay for it), all we received was excuses and brush offs. I have always believed in the press and made myself available 24/7, as I believe that is one obligation of every public servant and official, but what “I Believe” is that if I am ever again in a position when both NPR and a commercial network affiliate call for my time, I might return the network affiliate’s call first. They have always been foremost professional and courteous.