If you are choosing to read this blog, please pay close attention to my next sentence.

I AM A NON-PARTISAN MODERATE INDEPENDENT in my politics, in my religion, in my lifestyle.  Should I repeat that ?  I AM A NON-PARTISAN MODERATE INDEPENDENT.

I have voted Libertarian, Green Party, Republican, and Democratic throughout some 60+ years.  My favorite vote is often a write-in.  And, yes, I am aware that it has been said that if we write in, we are throwing away our vote.  Maybe so, but I am keeping my integrity, and that’s pretty important to me.  If you read my NO POLITICS blog, you will remember that I drove my mother-in-law from Winder to Carnesville to cancel my vote.  That pretty well states how I feel about the process.

So, please take off your partisan hats, leave your labels and loyalties behind, and read this in the sense that it is written……..no stones being tossed .

I am uncomfortable with extremes.

Let’s start with language.  Facts rarely support  such over-riding words as never, best, always, etc.  The ” est ” words often put a question mark in my mind.  Says who, in other words ?  There are descriptive words, adjectives and adverbs, which modify but still send the message.  But they help to eliminate  the assumptions that everyone agrees and this word is final.  For example, saying “rarely ” instead of  “never ” sends the same message without the finality.  The same is true for  ” almost always ” as opposed to “always “.   Language is powerful and abuse is dangerous.

I am uncomfortable with extremes.

And then there are current news sources.  Information is power, and we all know that.  We see it at every level and not just in the profession itself.  I can recall during my tenure as a high school administrator that there were many incidences of misinformation being handed down simply because of  internal power struggles.  And then the demand for instant communication  ( following our culture of instant gratification ) tends to create an environment of  over-stepping.  Breaking news is a gauntlet, thrown down, enticing other sources to follow——-and to add—–and to enhance——and, ultimately , to editorialize.  And then add to that, the fact that the internet has handed us social media, which offers so many an opportunity to give opinions without facts and so many others, to believe any and everything.

I am uncomfortable with extremes.

I worry, too , that we are living in a world of negatives.  It saddens me that too many people are looking for, pointing out, passing around only what is wrong even when they are successful in their jobs, happy in their relationships, financially comfortable, and pretty much living the good life.  There’s a profound culture of ONLY BEING HAPPY WHEN WE’RE UNHAPPY.  I am no Pollyanna.  I’ve been around the block a time or two, and I realize that we have plenty to worry about : a pandemic, turmoil in our government, joblessness, riots, and on and on.  I even did a blog on things that make me grumpy !  But it’s more than that.  It’s some kind of insidious trend of looking for the negative rather than a healthy balance of recognizing that when a single coin is flipped, it shows two different pictures.

I am uncomfortable with extremes.

 

No more “heavies” for awhile.  Just had to get it out of my head and writing does that for me.  Back to the stories, observations , and anecdotes………