A Day in the Life of Chaos

I can speak English, Spanish some Thai and a little Italian and German.  My wife speaks English, Tagalog, Illongo a little Cebuano and some Spanish.  Language is the most curious thing.  It is the illustration of our thoughts, emotions, feelings and desires.  It is the instrument of expression and without it we would be as limited as my loving dog.  I might be able to understand happiness, sadness, pleasure or pain, hunger and when one needs to poop.  Beyond that things start to break down. I have a lot of friends who I communicate with in English but English is not their first language.  This dynamic can frequently create misunderstandings.  Limited knowledge of a language often creates communication without nuance.  Stronger words chosen for convenience can often convey a message that was not intended.  There is always a danger of a misunderstanding, something blowing up that shouldn’t be.  In the face of such catastrophic consequence I maintain the policy of not getting piss

There is something that happens inside a parent as their child grows and they realize they don’t need them as much anymore.    In truth it should be seen as success.  “Spread your wings little one… fly!”, is the refrain I thought would echo in my brain.  My son is growing older.  He is nearly 21 now.  Sure he needs my money to survive but aside from that the dependent ties of a child are becoming thinner.   As a parent I must shift from the role of ruler to advisor.  The wise council that may or may not be followed and honestly may or may not be wise.  Every parent has a different way of confronting this issue and some never do.  My grandfather never stoped calling my mother “Baby Sally.”  I think in her parents minds she was always a little girl and never transitioned to adulthood.  My wife’s parents seemed to have accepted her growth yet every time she returned home she was still their girl and they took her under their parental wings as they had always done.  Despite bei ng of

Everyone and every culture has a different way of communicating.  Some do it through actions, some gestures.  Some people have to say what they feel, some can never find the words.  For myself, I have always communicated best with the written word.  To me there is something magical intertwined between the letters and that can reflect sentiment far better than I can in voice.  Language is the essence of humanity and the written word is far more complex than the spoken one. When speaking, 2,000 English words cover 96% of the average person's vocabulary.  The passive vocabulary that a person understands is far higher, perhaps 10,000 words.   Writing rather then speaking gives me an opportunity to think and reflect.  Often the spoken word only reflects a momentary emotion yet is void of contemplation.  It is ironic in a way, I was trained years ago in speech and debate.  In high school it was my passion and I was highly decorated for my ability.  However, as life progressed something

Incoming Message: August 29, 2010 4:41pm 810-941-XXXX >>Hey boo its desmine (Creepy crawlyy Who was this this desmine in Michigan and why was he sending me a text on my phone?  I scanned my brain, Creepy crawlyy, Creepy crawlyy... With so many messages flying around the world it is only natural some deviate from their intended course.  I guess it is the modern equivalent of a letter miss-sent.  The kind that shows up in your mail box and you are immediately consumed with guilt.  Should you: return to sender, try to find the right person or trash it?  It seems somehow computer communication has intensified the problem.  Now the single miss-key of a digit or a letter can make all the difference. I remember once sitting in the office in a base camp in Trinidad, Bolivia.  I was stationed with an agent and earlier in the day another agent had sent me a highly critical email concerning him.  I can't remember why I copied it but I did and pasted it in another location.  A

Well today we enter the blogging world. No, there are no followers, it is simply an attempt to be. Isn't that what we all want anyway? Just to be. There is something beautiful about the written word that is often lost in the text based communication of this age. We have been on a slippery slope traveling downward at an ever increasing rate. Sometimes from a distance I look at the life of my 93 year old grandmother. I think of the change she has seen in America and the world. The changes seem so dramatic, so historic. She has witnessed world wars and amazing developments in technology. Her living memory touches the memory of those who knew the nation when it was still young. When I compare her life to my own I feel as if I am standing still. While this may be the result of my myopic vision perhaps one of the biggest changes of my life, a little less than half of hers, is the written word itself. When I was young we wrote letters. We waited for a response to come. I re