What Makes Your Eyes Shine?

"Classical Music is for EVERYONE!" - Benjamin Zander

Benjamin Zander has a viewpoint: Everyone loves Classical Music, they just don't know it yet. If you don't believe me, click the link above. 

I have to admit that I'm wandering a bit, freely associating with what pops into my mind and trying to get a handle on why I am not very focused at the tasks at hand. 

Along the way, I tripped over the Ted talk that kicked off this post, which reminded me of Tommy Shaw and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra as well. And that rounded me back to shining eyes.

Shining eyes. 

Why were my eyes were shining? 

There are days that I cannot keep up with the simple job of troubleshooting the technology that allows our customers to access the website to do the things they wish to do. My eyes shine when I can help someone solve a problem that has troubled them for some time. My eyes also shine when I cannot.

And sometimes they shine when I cannot help the customer at all, and they take out their dissatisfaction on me. It's part of the job, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant.

Sometimes my eyes shine when I think of someone who is no longer living. That list grows longer, sometimes on a monthly basis.

One of these days my name will be on that list. I'm guessing that my eyes will be closed, not shining,  so it will be something of a moot point. While I regret any sorrow I add to the world, I hope someone's eyes will shine when they think of me. 

Come to think of it, I hope people when think of me now, their eyes shine. Why wait until later?

I should get down to something a little less morbid and a little more encouraging. 

What say about this Covid stuff? I hope you are alive and moving around, as much as people will let you all things considered.

If you've caught the bug, and you are reading this, I happy that you are alive. If you haven't caught the bug, by all means get vaccinated to prevent catching the bug. Y'know, kinda like we do for flu, or measles or chicken-pox when we were young. 

But I have heard some strange stuff: vaccinated people can get the bug from unvaccinated people. That's flat wrong; the whole point of the vaccination is that you wouldn't get the disease that you have been vaccinated for. 

Otherwise, what is the point of the vaccine?

The point of the vaccine is NOT to beat people up (sometimes literally) about whether or not you've gotten the vaccination in the first place.

A lot of nonsense has, what, brewed? appeared? been carried on the breeze? I don't know. All I know is that people have been saying things like what I mentioned above ("Non-vaccinated people give vaccinated people Covid"). 

I wish people would get it straight. Families have been split up over such nonsense.

The purpose of ANY vaccine is to prevent the disease the vaccine was cultured for. In other words, the flu vaccine doesn't cover you for Covid. All vaccines need the occasional booster to bring back full effective immunity levels (apparently, Covid need a booster more often than most diseases). Unless you have had the disease, you should get the vaccine. This goes for measles, chicken-pox, Covid, what-have-you.

All this noise about you being this kind of [fill in your favorite epithet here], if you do/don't get the vaccine should just stop.

And before you ask, I didn't get mumps, small-pox, polio, lockjaw, and a few other unpleasant diseases BECAUSE I was vaccinated. Even though I had little say in the matter at the time; my parents made that choice for me, I am very happy they decided for, and not against the vaccine. Small-pox can kill you outright, infantile paralysis (polio) can kill or cripple you. Nuff said.

I believe in vaccines.

Covid is dangerous. Being vaccinated against it is good. Berating people about their choice of vaccine, or whether to be vaccinated, is polarizing, pushing us apart as a society, not bringing us together. There is enough of this pushing us apart as it is.

The one thing that can potentially get us all on the same page is learning/education. And by education I am NOT meaning propaganda by one faction or another. 

The WHO, the CDC, and other such institutions have ended up being suspect by the way they've allowed governments with axes to grind fund/pull funding, dictate to, allowing themselves to be influenced. Whether they can be trusted, many people do not trust these medical oversight bodies to speak the straight truth (not naming names).

Rather than depend on these official bodies, my wife and I have chosen to fall back on what I have learned in my youth, as well as her nurse's training The both of us have kept up with the literature, and I mean before all the stuff bandied about by the media after Covid struck.

I will not recommend a vaccine type, or even insist that you get vaccinated. As I say, however, I believe in the benefit of vaccines.

Enough of this. Back to what kicked off this post in the first place: Shining Eyes.

As Benjamin Zander, and I after him, everybody loves classical music. Most people just don't know it yet. If you don't believe me, then click this LINK.

You may not agree with me, and that is fine. Just give it a chance ...

... A chance to make your eyes shine. 

Then see about making someone else's eyes shine. You can do it.

Yes, You Can!

What Do You Say When You Don't Have Anything To Say?

Garrison Keillor described it as 'The ability to say things while you're thinking of something to say."

Some people do this better than I do, Mr. Keillor, notably.

I was going to write about personal tragedies, but certain folk would prefer that
I don't share 'family business' ( I suppose even saying that much is saying 'too much'). So, let me just say that it's been a tough couple of years, and let it go at that.

Now that that is done, how are all of you folks? Keeping on? Still keeping the New Years' Resolutions?

I have only one this year: 

"Survive" 

That one will be tough enough, I expect. If that word is a contract, then there are a lot of subordinate clauses that will need to be met as well.

Like:

'Stay healthy'
'Make more money'
'Have more fun'
'Keep loving the family'

And:

"Non Illegitimi Carborundum"*

And, if I can, you can, too.

Yes, You Can!


* You'd best 'Google' it

Is Poverty an idol?

And do we take pride in being poor?

I have an acquaintance that I run into every now and then, that kind of exemplifies this. I won't mention her name. She claims to be of the Franciscan Brotherhood, and, since I've known her to be trustworthy, I trust her.

Yet, when she visited me some time ago, I got the idea that she was proud of her hand-to-mouth existence, thinking herself holy because of it.

While I understand the Franciscans do take a vow of poverty, I believe they do also believe in working for their bread, or providing some sort of service or labor.

My wife and I tried to counsel her along the lines of finding some sort of work, but we didn't get very far. I asked her, "What can you do, what skills do you have?" Her reply was, "I might be a ____, if I go back to school for it, or I might be..." going on to list the different possibilities, never once truly addressing my question. These answers, I felt, might have been all right twenty years before, when I knew her in college, but I felt, that at this point, they were the answers of a drifter, one who lets life happen to them.

We all can fall into that. For some of us, it's called the rat race.

There's two ways, money-wise, if you're going to trust God implicitly, and both require you to talk it over with God first, and remembering to listen.

A) you can be like my Franciscan friend. No, that's wrong. You can be like George Mueller. He's the person who provided homes and shelter for 500 orphans (as his ministry grew), and his needs, and the needs of the children were fulfilled entirely by God through prayer.

I'm not that brave, by the way.

or,

B) you can strive to make the money, tithe and be generous, be wise in your investments of your money, time and talents, and be productive. That way, you can help the George Muellers of the world.

I'm learning to be that brave.

Both methods require you (and me) to turn our hands to some productive endeavor. I don't think God blesses idleness. If someone can point this out to me, I'll be glad to stand corrected.

And both require you to get it straight what you're supposed to do.

God doesn't care if you're rich or poor, as far as what you do. He just wants to be first in your life, whatever you do.

That's the heavy topic of today. It's time for something lighter.

I should have warned you, this post is going to be all over the map, since it's been so long since the last posting.

Encouraging words: there was a scene from Good Will Hunting (never saw it, so I'm trusting other eyes) that referred to a college student who came in late to a statistics class and hurriedly copied down two formula on the blackboard, thinking that they were an assignment. He didn't know that they were supposed to have been impossible, so he worked on them and solved them.

Some weeks later, his professor congratulated him on solving the insoluble, and made sure he got proper acknowledgement for his work. True story. That man was George Dantzig. Feel free to click his name to bring up the Wikipedia article.

One more, just for fun, is at www.cowboyfun.com/cantbedone/ Just click it, and you'll see. remember it when people say it can't be done. And grin.

Yes, You Can!

(By the way, Happy New Year!)