Pleonasm Prevention Society

I have made this letter a rather long one, only because

I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter.

~Blaise Pascal-1623-1662
French mathematician, physicist and philosopher

Totidem verbis, this post inaugurates the Pleonasm Prevention Society. The organization is open to all the redundant speakers out there; those of you who tend to use far too many words when writing or speaking.

If you are a reader who has been the recipient of any one of my wordy e-mails, you understand why I have signed on as the first member of this society.

Membership in the Pleonasm Prevention Society will be granted when you acknowledge your prolix ways and determine to pare your verbosity. It’s possible I will be the only member of PPS. It’s also possible I’ll never be able to live up to its stated membership criteria.

Of the many friends with whom I communicate via e-mail, there are only three or four who even come close to matching the length of my notes. Not surprisingly, those three (or four) all tell me they enjoy my extensive blathering, and I certainly savor reading the mail they send.

Lately I’ve been practicing a bit of verbal apery. Meaning, I attempt to truncate my written responses so that they more closely match any short, staccato notes received.

A few of the one or two line e-mails I’ve been receiving come from those who previously wrote much longer communications. It finally dawned on me: these are friends who are now using their smartphones—typing away on that minuscule keyboard, FYI-ing, OMG-ing, BTW-ing and LOL-ing, seldom do I receive TMI.   

More Thoughtfulness, Less Volume

A Portland attorney wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal commenting on an article titled, "When the Boss Is a Screamer.” He makes a distinction between those who yell due to being emotionally unstable and those who yell to make a point.

As an example, he recalls when his commanding officer in the Navy screamed at him and he immediately “…got the message and it worked.”

The message might have also gotten through to him if it had been delivered with more thoughtfulness and less volume.

In my opinion, there are only a few valid reasons to yell: to warn others of impending danger, call for a wandering child or scream for help.

I have been on the receiving end of a screamer’s rant—it effectively closed my ears and my mind. In fact, when this has happened the result has been that I feel more empowered and consider the one yelling to be almost nullified.

The attorney ends his letter by stating, “There were many effective screamers when [he] started practicing law. However, the increase in female lawyers changed everything. Men yelled at each other and got over it. Women wouldn’t take it, wouldn’t forget it, and yelling proved so ineffective with them that male lawyers had to change their ways.”

I wonder if he knows just how telling these last words are. Because they are the final comments in his letter, we have no idea what he thinks of this turnaround. However, from his previous statement regarding his reaction to the commanding officer, my sense is he wishes the advent of more women in the profession had not forced the male lawyers “…to change their ways.”  

Most women will listen to calm reasoning and logical, back and forth discussion. We will not yield to someone whose only “weapon” is a thundering voice.

After reading this letter, I thought of the massive amount of political vitriol we’re bombarded with—the hateful and often untrue or taken-out-of-context broadcasts and broadsides which literally, and figuratively, scream at us.

Because facts are skewed and lies are strewn, I close my mind and my ears to all of this, no matter which “side” is doing the hollering. 

Instead, using some well-honed critical thinking skills, I listen to and read deftly and factually worded pieces regarding political issues. Admittedly, this process is more difficult than if I were simply a Gobemouche, believing whoever hollers the loudest. 

When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts.

When you have the law on your side, argue the law.

When you have neither, holler. 

~Al Gore

Words' Worth

A writer friend and I had dinner together Sunday evening—a mellow, slow, relaxing dinner, albeit in a busy, bustling restaurant. In the process of easy and light conversation, my friend said one of her old and dear acquaintances didn’t care to engage in small talk and refused to participate in such. As a result, once the deemed “important stuff” receives its coverage, long, uncomfortable silences always ensue. 

That comment sent us on a round of discussion about just what constituted “small talk,” and whether it had a place in otherwise intelligent conversations. Our conclusion: yes, small talk is an imperative part of civilized communication.

A casual nod of acknowledgment to those we meet as we move through the day, a “Hi, how are you doing?” or a few minutes of light conversation with a neighbor connect us to our world. That “small talk” is not small-minded talk.

Good friends certainly have every reason to engage in a smattering of small talk; catching up on the latest news in their lives and even a bit of that old “talk about the weather.” In congenial conversations, this talk is interspersed with other, deeper communication.

As with the comfortable satiation my friend and I received from our dinner, a minimal helping of small talk often serves to enhance meatier conversation.

All words are pegs to hang ideas on.

~Henry Ward Beecher-1813-1887 – American politician








http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

Precious Old Growth *

searching through acres of saplings,
willowy second growth
his heart holding desire
blade-sharp
wanting the nubile the supple, the fresh
he trod tirelessly, steeper and farther

desperate with longing
he raised his voice
its timbre a thunder, a resounding wail,
an earthquake of emotion
echoing, reverberating,
disturbing the quiet.

her roots trembled and loosened
she fell, splitting her skin, her shield, her protection,
became vulnerable, unarmored
precious heartwood revealed
she shook from the chill of it
afraid of discovery

hearing the fall, heeding his heart
he ascended still higher
raced to her side, knelt tenderly
touching her quaking branches
his eyes softened,
revelation unfolded

in the core of her being,
inner strength,
wisdom gained from storms long past
he gently caressed her and now understood
the true, durable beauty of her soul
his wandering ended, his healing began

in solid depths
he labored with love
carving new forms
of giving and taking
holding her open, holding her close
savoring the heartwood

[*or "In praise of the older woman"]

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

Okay, okay, so maybe I’m a bit over the edge about this issue.

Twenty-three years of managing the front office of a very successful dental practice taught me many extremely valuable life lessons.

Of course, I learned some specifics relating solely to how to react to a patient’s understandable nervousness about being in the dental chair.

Maybe even more important, I learned the best ways in which to communicate with the person on the other side of that counter—the one who will be paying for whatever services he is there to receive. Essentially, I practiced and perfected the golden rule of customer service: I treat others as I would like to be treated.   

Here’s a situation which applies to all business when calling to speak to a patient, client or customer. Nowadays most people have caller ID on their phones, but we can’t assume everyone does.

In the dental practice, a front office employee called each patient to confirm an appointment.

Early on, we intuited a few wives of patients were jarred to hear a sweet and friendly female voice popping right out and asking some iteration of, “Is [male person] there?” as soon as the phone was answered. The wife often hesitated and then, with more than a modicum of pique, inquired as to just WHO was calling!?

Eventually, those who called to confirm patients always, always identified the office and themselves first, before asking to speak to the patient.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Telephone_offices#mediaviewer/File:AFDCM-02-021.jpg

Considering & Pondering

Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?  

~Winnie the Pooh

 1. When reflecting on human psychology, physicist and electronics engineer Derek Abbott, observes that “…[p]eople who are … hypersensitive about certain things tend to be very sensitive to other peoples' feelings in those same areas. This is understandable.

"However, notice that they can be very insensitive to other people on issues that don’t happen to worry them specifically.” Abbot wonders if there is there a name for this phenomenon and a hypothesis to explain it.

No, I don’t have a name for what Abbott calls a “phenomenon.” However, seems to me this kind of person has a lack of empathy as well as a (usually unwitting) disregard for feelings of others—perhaps coupled with a superior sense of self.

These people seem to be so wrapped up in their own lives they are unable to genuinely care about the feelings of others. Oh, these folks will seem to care, yet somehow the conversation always segues back to talk about their feelings and their sensitivities.  

2. Several years ago I knew a person who would open a conversation by saying, with great enthusiasm and glee, “You were on my mind so much yesterday …" Of course, that effusive comment usually garnered my full attention! Yet, after this intro, he related an event in his own life which, in the main, had absolutely nothing to do with me. But, of course, I was in rapt attention (ego being what it is!), waiting for whatever it was in that story which reminded him of me. Nope, never happened.

3. Check out this website, “TED,” an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design. TED’s site has “Ideas Worth Spreading.” For the most part the comments attendant to each video are thoughtful and coherent (some seem a bit nutty!).

4. Another Derek Abbott thought: “Given that the atoms in your body get replaced over each seven-year period and that your mind both develops and forgets old data, how can you define identity? Are you really the same person, you were yesterday?”

My very unscientific answer to that pondering would be “No, I’m not the same person; not the same person I was yesterday, or the day before or the years before that. I am, as we all are, an olio of every past moment of experience and every experience of the present moment.

The tricky thing is, I want to save the helpful life lessons I learned yesterday and the days before, add them to what I’m beginning to understand today and toss out the fluff of inconsequential data which seems to continually swirl through my brain.

As for the atoms in my physical body being replaced every seven years, there’s no trick to understanding that. All I have to do is look in the mirror or walk up the three flights of stairs to my office. My body’s “atom rearrangement (derangement?),” which has occurred ten times—if Abbott’s calculations are correct—is obvious.

5. Stochastic resonance is observed when noise added to a system changes the system's behavior in some fashion.

Hmmm, such as how my “system” reacts when I’m in grocery or department stores where caterwauling noise disguised as music blasts into my already frazzled mind!!!??

I’ve spoken to managers of these stores and usually receive blank stares of incomprehension. In fact a few store personnel said adding this music is believed to enhance customers’ shopping experience (read: entice us to buy more!).

Okay, so the CEOs have determined their bottom line is increased when they pummel the shoppers’ “system” with this dissonance. This shopper's “bottom line”: I stay away from those stores as much and as often as possible. That resonates with me!

The Swirl and Swing of Words*

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

~Kahlil Gibran

I’m looking at three disparate, undated pieces of paper—different colors, different sizes, each holding three words written in different colors of ink.

These are the things I know: At various times in the last eight months, I scribbled the words on the papers, stuffed them in the large folder I take back and forth to work—and forgot about them. There they stayed until this morning—two, a bit crumpled, one with a torn edge.

I often jot down ideas for subjects I may want to write about in my blog, yet at first I could not recall why I put down these particular words, or what was going through my mind at the three different times. 

The first paper has these words: Peaceful, Calm, Tranquil; the second: Pain, Illness, Process; the third: Revelation, Transformation, Acceptance.

***

Thinking about it now, I believe the first words, “Peaceful, Calm, Tranquil,” were written at a time when I was dwelling on how often friends have commented that I usually seem settled and composed and how they often feel less tense or upset when around me. I try, I try. 

My journey to inner peace, calmness and tranquility has been rocky and rife with missteps—missteps which have taken me to emotional and financial precipices. I know it does no good to chastise myself for what now present as poor decisions, or rue the day when those decisions seemed exactly the right thing to do.   

I have always “owned” the way my adult life has unfolded and I take ownership for the way in which I handle the bumps cropping up along the path. 

It's not always easy to project a positive attitude and yet, giving in to the opposite does me no good (I've experimented!), and so I keep smilin'. 

***

“Pain, illness and process.” Words written inside scribbles that look like river eddies, jagged lightning bolts emanating from the centers. It’s easy to know why I jotted down these three words. During the past four years, two of my dearest friends have been experiencing dire health issues, often bringing severe, intractable pain and an inability to physically function in their usual go-getter fashion. My heart aches for them.

I’ve known excruciating physical pain—a kind of pain that could never be assuaged with any drugs. Thankfully, gratefully, years after surgeries and physical therapy I'm in a "so far, so good" state of physical health. 

My friends who are in pain? As of now, it doesn’t appear that they will ever again know pain free days without medication. They use a daunting regimen of painkillers and those often work well enough to give them a few hours of relief. Neither one wants to take the medication but their lives are massively diminished when there is such overwhelming pain.

The process of pain management can be a mentally overwhelming task. Many sufferers don’t know when the pain will crop up. When it does, a day that might have begun with hope, with sunshine and flowers, with joy in a good, hot cup of coffee or a call from a loved one quickly turns into a struggle to find the steel resolve to cope, once again…to just make it through another day.

Serious illness can strike overnight and quickly rearrange every aspect of life.

I read Floyd Skloot's 1996 book, The Night-Side, when it first came out and agree with the reviewer who wrote, "Rarely has so painful a subject—being sick—produced so exhilarating a book. His writing is full of wisdom and panache. He manages to turn physical affliction into literary gold. A series of moving, often hilarious meditations on chronic illness that remind us, in prose that mesmerizes, of the remarkable tenacity of the human spirit." Below are the last lines of Skloot's poem, "Music Appreciation":

  …I may never know what brilliant cell rewrites the entire score my body has followed for life, throwing its symphony into chaos.

It’s somber, but I’m learning to appreciate this new tone, the discordant sound that accompanies vital change.

I was thinking vivace, but find that recovery runs at its own tempo and settle back simply to hear the way my being achieves its harmonies. …

***

“Revelation, transformation and acceptance,” are the words on a piece of paper torn out of a small notebook I once carried in my purse. The entire 4x6 slip of paper, right out to the edges, is covered with happy faces and twirling doodles. No artistic presence there!

I tried to recall what it was that spurred me to write those words, to embellish that small slip of paper with such childish scrawls. Then I remembered!

Two months before, a friend and I had been together for dinner and then to the theater. We’ve been friends for over three decades and we easily share our thoughts and feelings.

I recall we’d been talking about a myriad of things (as we usually do when we are together). Heading toward her home on this evening, our conversation ended up focusing not on our families or friends, not on the dinner we just enjoyed or the play we’d laughed out way through, but on how we felt about where we were in our lives.

Almost as one, we said we’d recently had a sort of epiphany, or revelation, having to do with the ways in which we’d changed and evolved over the previous many years. We both felt more confident and sure of ourselves even though we acknowledged our physical stamina was not what it had been even five years previous.

As we wove our way through the dark, wet city streets, we spoke of the transformations that had begun taking place in our lives two months prior. 

My friend said she was just now beginning to know for certain that she'd made the right decisions about her marriage and her living situation.  

After leaving a 45-year marriage, my friend and her adult daughter, along with two teenage grandchildren, now share a large, old Craftsman-style home with a lush garden and enough room for the three legally allowed city-chickens. She is on the path to having her second novel published, taking yoga classes and beginning a book club.

Decisions made by the corporate owners of the apartment complex where I've lived for a total of 14 years have forced me to do something I probably should have done years ago and that is to move into a small, less expensive apartment. It has just been so easy to go on year after year, cutting back as necessary in order to keep up with the ever-rising rental rates.  

Of course, I'll keep my part-time job and I will concentrate a bit more on growing my freelance editing business. 

These changes have not come easily for either one of us, but after realizing and accepting that we needed to make some adjustments, we have both transformed our lives.

She called me the morning after our time together to tell me how much she enjoyed the evening. Her voice was calm and soothing and as I listened to her I picked up the piece of paper and a blue marker, eventually writing, “Revelation, Transformation, Acceptance” in florid, curling letters, grinning faces bobbing on the margins.

Dante Alighieri said, “He listens well who takes notes.” I listened and I heard friendship.

*I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

~James Michener