It’s Tuesday, Put on Your Rose-Colored Glasses

Usually, the term “Looking through Rose-Colored glasses” is meant as an insult, meaning that you are avoiding looking at reality.

I’m using it to say let’s see hope for the future.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve.” “You are too sensitive. “Wake up and smell the coffee.” “Famous last words.”

 (Famous last words came from John Sedgwick, a Civil War general, who sarcastically said: “They couldn’t hit an elephant from this distance.”

That was right before he was shot and killed by a sniper.

 “Our beliefs are like colored glasses through which we view the world.”

My grandson asked me the other day if I thought he was cynical.”

I asked him his definition of cynical. He said, “It is seeing the negative, thinking that things will not change and that there is no hope for the future.” Great definition. I should keep him in my office for reference.

"According to your definition,” I said, “No, you are not cynical. You like to find the negative, but you believe in hope for the future.”

I like his definition better than the one in the dictionary:

“a: contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives.”

… those cynical men who say that democracy cannot be honest and efficient.—

Franklin D. Roosevelt

b: based on or reflecting a belief that human conduct is motivated primarily by self-interest.”

This time of our lives has given us an excellent opportunity to look into human nature and to ask questions about why we believe, think, and behave a certain way. And how self-serving individuals like wielding power.

Why are we so polarized? Why do many see either/or black/white?

Have we always been this way?

Tricia Ross Stone, a Life Coach, wrote about Rose Colored Glasses and said that Deepak Chopra said we receive our view of the world at about 7 or 8 years old.

Would that mean that our life optometrist writes a prescription for our lenses at that age? Does he also give us colored lenses?

Yet, we also know that we add layers to our lenses throughout our lives. Those layers are placed by the energy of our thoughts, insecurities, doubts, fears, excitements, and views of the future.

So, does that explain the positive and negative, the half-full/half-empty people? Do the lenses determine conservative or liberal tendencies?

Or are those traits genetic or learned?

One side might say, “Holy cow, I could have been born to a red-necked, holy roller person who carries a shotgun or an assault weapon, who believes might makes right, and who believes in lynching or somehow annihilating the opponent.

Others: “There is no way I could have been born to a granola-eating, tree-hugging liberal who thinks that negotiating is good policy, spirituality is a form of worship, and doesn’t believe in a hell.

“People are distressed not by events, but by their opinion of events.”

--Epictetus

(Modern-day Psychological research has confirmed that our beliefs shape our emotions more than we usually think.)

For example, if we like someone, we believe the good said about them, and the bad has little or no effect.

 If we don’t like the person, we enjoy the bad, and virtually no amount of good changes our view.

“You become what you put your attention to.”

 –Epictetus.

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher from c50-c150 AD. He was born in slavery, had a leg broken by his master a freedman named Eaphroditus, and thus became a cripple. His master allowed him to study philosophy and later freed him. 

 

Epictetus with a crutch:

 

Toward the end of the first century, when the Emperor banished philosophers from Rome, Epictetus moved to Nicopolis, founded a school of philosophy, and taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline.

Later in life, he adopted a boy from a friend who would have died without his care, and with the help of a woman, the two raised the child.

As a Stoic philosopher, Epictetus argued that while external events are beyond our control, how we respond to them is within our control, which can be learned through discipline.

One could see that Epictetus’ life events, slavery, being crippled, and banished, would place layers on his lenses. there were events out of his control. However, HOW he responded to events was within his power.

We usually use the word stoic as a passive teeth-gritting acceptance of life.

The dictionary defines Stoicism as a noun

    1. a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing feelings or complaining.

     2. a member of the ancient philosophical school of Stoicism.

The ancient school of Stoicism was a Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece. Ancient Rome believed that virtue was enough to achieve eudaimonia: a well-lived life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it by practicing the four cardinal virtues in everyday life — prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice — and living according to nature.

 

A foal is God’s way of saying the Universe should continue.

 

 

Happy Ground Hog's Day

That’s tomorrow.

Right now, I’m writing this the evening before. Amazon notified me today that my little book HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR VISION, A Personal Account of Art and Science of Vision Training Using the Bates Method was released today.

I wanted you to know it was available FREE today for Kindle Unlimited Subscribers so you could Grab it while it’s hot. 

 

 

Look below for more information:

I'm off to celebrate Ground Hog's Day--the day my Grandson choose for a Birthday, so, see, we get to celebrate twice, or over and over. Is that the way it works?

 

 

The Muse Newsletter

 Expect the second free issue here on March 1, 2025

Why do I Keep Writing About This? Politics I Mean.

 

I'm just a little writer, a five-foot nine writer, sitting behind my computer punching keys. I didn’t come over on the boat, but my ancestors did.

I write, not because a ton of people read me, but with writing perhaps I will gain some understanding. For as Isaac Asimov said “Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

After the Republican nominee was selected in 2024, I went into mourning for a month. My daughter and I were railing against the possibility that that nominee could be elected.

Then, when Kamala Harris spoke at the Democratic Convention, I leaped for joy. For a moment the heaviness lifted. I believed in possibilities. Joy could again ring throughout our land.

I was wrong.

I thought women would rise up in mass, "No way." They would say. "You are not disrespecting us again. You are not taking away our rights to medical help in times of need. You are not allowing our little girls to be impregnated and then allow them no choice. How many of those pro-lifers have had teenage sex? How many single mothers raised their children alone? How many old farts have gone to sex parties where they were served underage girls?"

I was wrong. Not enough women said that.

After the election, I figured I wouldn't read about what was happening or write about it.

I was wrong about that, too.

But the rattling sounds came to me from the Midwest to the West Coast—it was of democracy being attacked, of freedoms being dismantled, of people being frightened and shipped off. Like a train wreck, it was impossible to ignore.

And then a lady Bishop, like David standing up to Goliath, spoke out to the giant to be merciful to vulnerable people.

That took courage.

Now she is being attacked for disrespect, for speaking from the pulpit, her turf, the church.

If she had called out the President in private, it would not have caused a ripple.

Yes, we have separation of Church and state, but this was a person-to-person comment and having an assemblage of governmental people waltz into a church under the guise of tradition certainly brings the image of the state into the church.

And the complainers probably don't know that in 2022, this Bishop, while ministering to a group of protestors—bringing masks and such, were dispersed, (security brought Billy clubs and tear gas), so that the nominee could walk safely to the front of the church, the very church where Bishop Budde officiates, and hype his Bible for sale.

Didn't the Christ of the Christian Bible throw the money changers out of the synagogue?

I understand that many thought politics was corrupt, money was running the government, our administration was funding the wars, that the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer. They saw that the middle class was melting away.

We were told we were living in garbage cans, our cities were insulted, lies were flying, data couldn't be believed, people were being demonized, science couldn't be trusted, and there were differences of opinion regarding Earth Warming. Yet, probably lurking in the backs of many minds was the probability that the earth would not survive, and thus, neither would they.

We Homo sapiens can handle fear and stress in small doses, but when it is continual, it wears down the spirit.

Without HOPE, the spirit dies.

Our still small voice, our intuition, our spirituality was drowned out by the blooming of rhetoric.

Time was ripe for a despot to step in and tell us he could "Make America Great Again.”

Americas didn't see that America was great already.

Our country is like a living individual; it makes us ashamed sometimes, does wonders other times, it grows, evolves, and sometimes takes one step back while taking two ahead. But underneath it all, we know it beats with a proud heart, and that it is step by step, inch by inch, moving forward.

But Americans wanted a quick fix.

We, the people, were peddling as fast as possible to keep our family together, raise our kids properly, keep them safe, manage our finances, make ends meet, and worry about the media's effect on us personally and the country in general. It was bombarding us at every turn.

When a pandemic hit, it brought on an entirely new set of problems—deaths in our family, fear for our lives, our elders at risk, and when inoculations came, many railed against them saying they were not safe that they would damage us, they weren't tested sufficiently. We were sick because of additives in our food, we didn't eat properly, and we needed someone to save us.

We lost jobs. We lost businesses. We lost our support systems. There was a rift between friends, spouses, and lovers. All the while, the media kept fear in front of us.

We knew that Russia had influenced the earlier election, but I guess not many believed that they would do it again. Keep those Americans off-kilter, and they are easily manipulated.

One side said we were being lied to. The other side said the same. We knew we were being lied to. One man was clear with it. We could see lies coming directly from his mouth. At least we knew what he was about.

Was it an entropy (a gradual decline into disorder) that happened? Was our system wearing down? Did we allow our morals, truth-telling, and respect for our fellow man to be eroded? Didn't we hear the bashers coming and didn't stop them? Did we feel powerless and, therefore, needed someone to save us? Couldn't we tell the difference between a despot and a Messiah? Did our belief systems totally blind us to other ways of thinking?

Did we not see that opposing forces were beating on our doors while we were allowing the media to tell us what to think?

Looking at it, it's no wonder we are in a mess.

It's time to put on our big girl panties and get to work.

Will we let a group of big-money people tell us what to do? We are Americans. We built this country with our bare hands. We tilled the soil, moved west, championed women's rights, and put Unions in place so people would be paid a living wage, and be treated properly. We freed the slaves, brought about Civil Rights, and had our lives saved by the black, white, red, and yellow physicians, chemists, and researchers.

We've been inspired by all races and sexual persuasions —writers, songwriters, entertainers, motivational speakers, ministers. We gave women the right of choice with their bodies, we saved cancer patients, we eradicated Polio, and we gave new body parts to people who had faulty ones. We have seen children born with defects live their lives through science, research, and innovation. I once held a little baby with leukemia. They knew he would soon die, and he did. Now, children with leukemia are being saved, living out their lives through the advances in medicine. My sister-in-law died of breast cancer in her 40s, and now women are living beyond it. I lost my mother to cancer when she was 48. Now, although not eradicated, there are many cancer survivors—my husband being one. The present administration is attacking cancer research, too.

Don't tell me America isn't great. We brought water to people who needed it. We brought food to those who were starving. We are Americans. It's time we looked at what's good instead of what we don't like. We have the power to change and to advance; we've done it before. We will do it again.

Remember Grassroots?

They changed our culture, our medical field, and our nutrition.

We were all immigrants at one time. We came here to be FREE.

We ought War Bonds, we gave pots and pans to help defeat Hitler. We protested wars we felt were wrong. We won't be brought down by someone who does not understand all this—a man who has no empathy and has never walked in our shoes. We have mercy. We care for our neighbors. What in the heck are we doing folks? We forgot for a moment, but now we remember.

We're Americans.

And we were once smart enough to chase the fox out of the hen house and to fortify that structure, so he never got in again.