The Writer's Poke

  So how often do you lie? And what do you lie about? 1.       “How are you today?” “I’m fine, thanks.” Maybe you’re not fine at all, but the social convention is to say that you are. It’s a friendly gesture, and it’s almost the equivalent of shaking hands and saying “hello.” But if you say you’re fine when you’re not, are you lying?   2.       “Do I look good in this dress?” or “How do you like the meal?” “You look good” or “It tastes good.” If these responses are not true, what is the benefit to telling the person the truth? Is it worth hurting someone’s feelings? Sometimes we lie to protect people we love from being hurt. Is this really a bad thing? After all, we know when the people we love want to know the truth, and we also recognize when they don’t want to know the truth, don’t we? The above questions may be examples of when people don’t want to know the truth, or at least don’t mind if w...

Sometimes change is thrust upon us, yes, but I'm much more interested in the changes we initiate ourselves.   Why do we initiate change in our lives? We can walk in the same direction for years, but then all of a sudden, we decide to walk in a different direction. It’s likely that there’s a build-up leading up to the moment we make the decision, but the moment itself “clicks” us in. After the clicking moment occurs, it will take another series of events to ever cause us to change direction again. Sometimes the clicking moment occurs because we’ve experienced a significant event. For example, I stopped biting my fingers this year; that wasn’t one of my planned goals, but after getting a bad infection and having to visit the ER at 2 a.m., I discovered it wasn’t all that difficult to stop. Most clicking moments don’t include a visit to the ER in the middle of the night; most changes we make originate from more subtle origins, and sometimes the reasons behi...

The Chinese have a saying, “May you live in interesting times.” It’s supposed to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, I suppose, because at least you’ll never be bored. A curse, perhaps, because you will always need to be alert to both dangers as well as change – no matter how positive those changes might be. I heard another saying on the radio yesterday, but I didn’t catch where it originated. Maybe Russia. Anyway, it goes something like this: “May you get the life you want.” Again, the idea behind the saying is that it can be both a blessing and a curse. If we are in charge of our lives, then we need to be careful, very careful about what we want. For as the world-famous philosophers The Pussycat Dolls remind us, “Be careful what you want ‘cause you just might get it.” This reminds me of one final saying, which I’ve always assumed to be taken solely as a blessing: “My cup runs over.” That’s from Psalms 23:5, and yes, it’s about definitely about blessings. ...

If you visit Jamaica, you might end up at Dunn’s River Falls. And if you do, I won’t think any less of you. The idea behind this attraction is neat enough: Start at the bottom and climb your way to the top. Is it worth $50 a person for the experience? I’ll leave that up to you and your budget to decide; keep in mind that the cost includes the ride there and back, which can be a fun adventure in itself. However, it doesn’t include a lot of “hidden” costs… Other than the high price of admission, the problems with Dunn’s River Falls are many. First, prepare for it to be insanely overcrowded. On days when cruise ships are in port, as many as 7,000 tourists will be trying to make their way to the top with you that same day. In other words, you will be holding hands with strangers from top to bottom, and you’ll probably be more preoccupied with people than you will be with the “amazing experience” you would be having if you were by yourself or with a small, intimate group. As long...

Serendipity, by definition, implies “happy little accidents,” and no one plans for accidents, right? Accidents, by definition, just happen. The serendipity of success, however, isn’t quite as accidental as it may seem. Success may be serendipitous, but if it is, most of the time there’s an underlying element of planning involved.   Successful people, in other words, work to be successful. They plan to be successful; they are motivated to be successful. Could someone accidently trip over success? Perhaps, but how likely is it that such success is long-lasting? Not very likely, I would say. So how did the painter Bob Ross have so many “happy little accidents?” He had them by actively painting. He wasn’t seeking mistakes, but if he made them, he turned them into opportunities. Some people might immediately stop painting and start over with a new canvas. Ross didn’t. He simply incorporated the mistake into the painting, and the painting was inevitably all the be...

I used to have a simplistic view of what it meant to be smart. If you knew a lot of stuff, I thought, then that probably meant you were smart. Then I started to understand that knowing a lot stuff didn’t mean much. To be smart, you had to know what to do with that knowledge. You had to be able to apply it in useful ways. Knowing stuff, and knowing what to do with what you know – that’s what makes someone smart.  What if you know a lot of stuff, but you can’t express that you know it? Or, maybe you can even apply your knowledge in unique ways, but not in ways normally acknowledged by standard measures. Can you still qualify as being “smart”? When we’re in school, how smart we are is generally measured through our ability to test well. Tests are generally in written form, and so as long as you are able to translate your knowledge into standard responses, you’ll be able to demonstrate just how smart you are.  Actually, I don’t have a problem with this. For...

In Disc Golf, a player throws a disc at a goal. Sounds simple enough, but often times, the person throwing the disc must avoid trees and other obstacles. Avoiding a big tree should be easy enough, but when the focus becomes the tree and not the goal, “ironic effect” error can come into play – much to the detriment of the poor tree. Why is it so easy to focus on the obstacle or the problem rather than the goal or the solution? Well, in the case of the tree in the above example, it sometimes becomes the most obvious place to focus. It may, in fact, literally hide the goal from view. The goal is there, but it’s out-of-sight. When I first started playing Disc Golf, one person taught me to turn my back to the goal. Visual the goal in your mind, he said, and approach the shot mentally. Know where the obstacles are, yes, but don’t make the obstacles the focus. Make the goal the focus. Blind people play Disc Golf, and some do really well. I’ve often thought that the blind might...

Who are more dangerous: A) people who know quite a bit, and feel confident in what they know, or B) people who know quite a bit, but who also recognize the limitations of their knowledge? Confidence. It’s a good thing, right, but confidence can lead to arrogance. Arrogance is not such a good thing, is it? Is it possible to determine when someone, maybe even yourself, has crossed over the line from confidence to arrogance? Maybe, but not always. Now, think of what it means to be skeptical. Skepticism may develop through expertise, or it may develop through ignorance. Either way, skeptics should know what drives their skepticism, but how many think of doubting in those terms? One more point to consider: Assumed expertise might be the most crippling form of ignorance. Unfortunately, since many people trust the views of those they assume to be experts, assumed experts have the ability to spread ignorance to the confidently unenlightened. What’s the solution? Be awar...

I like that science can demonstrate limits. For example, physics can show that the farthest a batter could ever hit a baseball is 748 feet. Keep in mind that no major league player has ever hit a ball farther than 565 feet, and that record has stood for 60 years. Nevertheless, science knows that an ideal pitcher could throw a ball 111 miles per hour, and a 6 foot 8 inch, 247 pound batter could hit a ball 748 feet. That’s cool. Many times in life, we don’t know the limitations. Fact: many of us don’t realize that the limitations don’t apply to us. They might exist, but they should have nothing to do with us striving to maximize our potential. In other words, we are often our own worst limitation in life. Why don’t more people try to achieve their dreams? Why is “I can’t” such a common phrase? To a certain extent, “I can’t” is something learned from the experience of immediate failure –   it’s something, immediate failure, that little kids pick up on quite quickly. Why?...

If you go into your favorite restaurant, do you have a good idea what you’ll order before you look at the menu? Even so, you still look at the menu, right? Why? Social convention? Or, is it actually possible that you might order the Spam and peanut butter sandwich? If you’re at home and need to go to the store to pick up some household items, where do you go? If you normally go to Target for these items, how likely is it that you will, on a whim, decide to go some place different? Have you ever ended up at Shopko if you always shop at Target? What about when you wake up in the morning, and you need to get ready to go to work? Is it pretty likely that you have a developed routine that you more or less follow? I bet you even know how much time you need to complete this routine. And if you drive to work, you have a designated route, don’t you? How often do you try different routes? For that matter, how often do you think to carpool or walk or bike or take the bus? In other wo...

I’ve been thinking about two ideas: “Honeymoon period” and “Lame duck.” Strange concepts, both, but both quite psychologically real. Take the position of the Pope, for example. The new Pope is in a honeymoon period. Almost every day, it seems, a new story comes out about the Pope, and most people seem to like what this new guy’s about. He makes his own telephone calls, he pays his own hotel bills, and he washes the feet of inmates at a youth prison. He says he wants to be the “People’s Pope.” Anyway, people love this guy. Catholics and non-Catholics alike think he’s great. Some call him a “step in the right direction,” and others call him “a breath of fresh air.” Question: Are his policies all that much different from the old Pope? It doesn’t seem to matter if they are or not. He is, after all, in the Honeymoon phase of his reign, and people aren’t focused on his policies. They certainly aren’t concerned about his “legacy.” The lame duck, however, does have a legacy to wo...

  People can drive whatever they want; I understand that. But why do so many people feel the need to drive oversized vehicles? If I’m correct, most people only need a small car for day-to-day trips. Small cars can be surprisingly roomy and comfortable for one or two people, too. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve been sometimes tempted to buy a SUV; after all, I am an American. If I ever succumb to the temptation, though, I hope someone will quickly put me out of my misery. I drive a dinky little VW Beetle; most Americans these days seem to drive SUVs, big trucks, and minivans. Americans like space and comfort, and it’s exhibited in the vehicles they drive. I watch the users of these vehicles, and most of the time, they seem to use their vehicles in the same exact way I use mine; that is, we’re all just driving from point A to point B. As far as I can tell, most of them aren’t transporting baseball teams to games; nor are they hauling new furniture home from the store; in other words,...