Really, now... if everyone is special, then no one is special.

That thought occurred to me recently when I happened upon this "old" saying --

Someone had brought it up in reference to one of the flame wars underway on Xanga.  It's politically incorrect, possibly offensive in several different ways, and I disagree with it strongly because I think argument and debate are essential in any society, perhaps especially on the internet.  But that's beside the point... my current point.

I got to thinking about "special" things.  When I was a kid in kindergarten, my teacher would stick stars on our foreheads for special achievements.  Gold stars were for answering questions correctly and following directions.  Red stars were for misbehaving:  getting out of your seat, talking out of turn, etc.  Green stars... well, it was never really clear to me back then what one had to do to earn a green star. 

My friend Donald got a green star one day when he cried because I got a gold star.  I remember getting lots of gold stars and some red stars, but I don't think I ever got a green one.  That bothered me, because green was my favorite color.  I tried once to trade in my gold for green, but the teacher said that was against the rules.  Maybe if kindergarten had lasted longer, or if I had paid closer attention, I would have figured it out and gotten some green stars, too.

In higher grades, stars came in either gold or silver, and there were no "consolation prize" stars.  But that was back around the middle of the previous century.  At some point after I got out of school, somebody noticed that not getting awards for excellence could be hard on some people's self esteem.  Around that same time, we started hearing terms such as "differently abled."

Just so you'll know, I'm a crip.  I was gimpy as a child, and age hasn't made it any easier to get around and do things.  I'm not proud of being disabled, but I'm not ashamed of it, either.  That my disability is not immediately obvious does complicate matters.  If I'm asked to do things that are beyond my ability, I explain why I'm refusing.  I may sometimes feel a bit frustrated and left out, but it doesn't hurt my self esteem.  I compensate for my limitations by trying to excel at the things I can do.

That's what Special Olympians do, too.  I've met a few of them, and I have watched some of that competition.  One reason it is such fun to watch is that most of them are obviously having fun doing it.  I don't know how much importance the Olympians themselves attach to that "Special" label, but it does annoy me sometimes to see and hear the condescension from some organizers and able "helpers."

I also feel a little creepy thinking about the origins of that brand of '"special."  For at least 35 years, the term "special needs children" has been used as an umbrella label in the education, adoption, and social services fields, for children with disabilities.  Somewhere along the line, especially in the adoption field, they began being called simply, "specials,"  like the special of the day, 50% off, closeout special.

As Dana Carvey says, "Well isn't that special?!

Today is the third day that the photo above has been a featured photo on Xanga's front page.  Last summer, the photo below had that status for a while.

It seems odd to me that my wet grass photos are the only ones to gain recognition.  If this marks a trend, my fame is at its end because there's nowhere to go beyond just a single drop on one blade of grass.  If it is just a general pattern and not a developing trend, think how famous I could be if I had a lawn and running water.

To be fair, these are not the only shots of mine to be featured on Xanga.  There was one of a spider, but that was shot down quickly, by someone who fears arachnids, with a comment of, "eeeeewww," and a one-star score.  I'm staying alert for an opportunity to capture a dewy spider web, with or without its attendant arachnid.

UPDATE:  Tuesday, June 3, 2008 -- The One Drop shot spent four days on Xanga's front page and as of this morning had been viewed 1125 times.

Have you been on Xanga long enough to remember when our comment boxes carried the advice to, "be nice?"  It said something about not wanting to "start a flame war on your own site."  I always thought it would be more considerate to start one on my own site than on someone else's.  The farthest I've ever gone with it, however, was just a brief flame skirmish or two.  [WARNING:  Don't click that link if you don't like strong language, lousy spelling,  bad grammar and general stupidity.]  I tend sometimes to lob a round or two back at the flaming assholes before I block them.

Recently, Xanga John identified himself as a "recovering nice guy."  I can appreciate that, both from the perspective of  someone who doesn't like to be nice, and as a woman who would rather converse with an honest guy than with a nice one.  I have several less complimentary alternate terms for "nice," such as mealy-mouthed, weaseling... you get the picture, don't you?  Don't make me use the nasty words here, or I'd have to rate this post a C for caution.

Some people have accused me of going out of my way to be cruel.  Anyone who believes that is deluded.  The only facets of communication for which I will "go out of my way," are matters concerning accuracy, honesty, integrity, and such.  I go out of my way to avoid being influenced by thoughts of how others might react to my writing.  Even if I cared, it's too hard to predict.  You can't please everyone. 

If someone reacts angrily to what I say, I might remind him that anger is a manifestation of fear.  If someone gets her feelings hurt by my words, I might try to counsel her about taking control of and responsibility for her own emotions.  Those who accuse me of being mean or evil might or might not receive some semantic or philosophical largess from my generosity of spirit, out of the goodness of my heart.  It all depends on the mood I'm in and on whether I have anything better to blog about at the time.  If I ignore bullshit, it is never because I want to shy away from a confrontation.

In my random wanderings on Xanga recently, I have encountered a couple of flame wars.  I came in on each of them well after the beginning and don't know how either one started, nor do I care.  They mean nothing to me beyond their entertainment value, and that statement alone, I know, could be enough to stimulate one party or another who is involved in one fracas or another, to flame me.  I suppose that the current astrological confustion, dysfuction, mistaction... whatever-- has had something to do with those emotional storms and verbal battles.  If Mercury retrograde didn't start it all, it surely has contributed to the rebounding and ricocheting misunderstandings that have ensued.  Bravo everybody!  Keep the invective flying.

Woman pleads guilty to robbing trick-or-treaters.

You could have been following the saga of the Halloween Bandits with me from the start last fall, if I hadn't been under the weather at the time.  Greyfox shared stories with me that he read in the papers and saw on TV news.

On Halloween night, in Talkeetna, a group of seven children, all ten and eleven years old, was walking on Main Street, trick-or-treating.  According to the Anchorage Daily News:

In the days and weeks following the arrest of the two men, the story developed in local media.  Amber Martin, 20, wasn't much of a challenge to apprehend, but troopers had to squeeze into the crawl space under a house to nab 18 year old Kendra Butts. 

Troopers' investigation turned up about $70,000 worth of stolen property, and the two men, who were originally held on outstanding warrants and charges of hindering prosecution and providing false information, eventually were charged with burglary for a series of thefts that had occurred in recent months.

At their arraignment in November, 2007, the two young women went to great efforts to hide their faces from cameras.  Ms. Butts, behind the papers at right, was evidently not happy with the media coverage of her daring exploit.

The Halloween Bandits have been back in the news this month as the two young women plead guilty to armed robbery, a charge that can bring a sentence of up to 11 years.  Their attorneys have agreed as part of the plea bargain not to ask for sentences of less than seven years.  They are due to be sentenced in August.  The two men go on trial in July.

And that's life on the last frontier, where men are men and women hold up little kids at gunpoint for their Halloween candy.
 

I didn't know where I was going with this trust topic when I started.  That is probably why the first entry started out so cerebral and then turned visceral on me midway.  Anyone who thought that I wrote the first paragraphs as a lead-in to what followed gave me too much credit for coherency.  I simply had a sudden insight that derailed my train of thought.

Part 2 dealt more with what trust is not than with what it is.  Lending money you can easily afford to lose, to someone who needs it,
and thinking of it as a gift, or at the very least as a risky
investment, is not what I mean here by trust.  In many instances it is
easy to treat people as if  we trusted them without risking
disappointment if they prove untrustworthy.  Some people pretend to trust people they don't trust, just for the opportunity to play gotcha!  when their negative expectations are fulfilled.  I enjoy surprising such people by doing what I say I'll do.

One sense of the word that I emphatically do not call "trust" is the hope or wishful thinking
often expressed as, "I trust that you will..." or "...that he will...."  I
read this as some sort of affirmation by a positive-thinking person afraid or unwilling to express
doubt about something strongly desired.

I refer here only to the trust that expects fulfillment and risks significant
loss or serious disappointment.  What I mean by trust is confidence, "the trait of believing in the honesty and reliability of others."  There is no such thing as unconditional trust in the sense that there is unconditional love.  Trust denotes expectation and requires something in return if it is going to endure.  Only a seriously demented person would or could continue to trust others who had time after time betrayed that trust. 

One might transfer trust to another person when betrayed by one, but the general human tendency is, after being betrayed a number of times by various people, to learn to withhold trust from everyone.  That kind of traumatic learning can, when sufficiently traumatic, create psychological issues severe enough to require therapy to enable a person to get by in society and relate healthily with others.

Many people believe that one cannot love someone that one does not trust, and think that one must be trusted in return for love.  I hear that a lot, and I find it mentioned frequently in personal blogs.  I do not doubt the honesty or sincerity of those who say this.  It is their wisdom I question.  I think their attitude reflects a basic misunderstanding about the nature of love.  One can love anyone or anything that one chooses to love, if one chooses to love unconditionally.  Unconditional love demands nothing in return and risks no disappointment, because it has no expectations.  In that sense, it is the antithesis of trust.

There is no intrinsic risk in unconditional love.  Its reward comes in the giving, in knowing love, doing love, and being loving.   If one needs something in return for one's love, then there are other words besides "love" for that kind of attachment.   Demanding trust or expecting trustworthiness of others is more an expression of fear than of love.  It seems perfectly reasonable to me, for example, to refuse to lend money to, and to decline to move in with or have sex with, someone who has not demonstrated trustworthiness.  On the other hand, I cannot think of a single good reason to refuse to love anyone.  As long as no risk is involved, what's the problem?

This, I know, is all very pretty in theory, but can be pretty hard to put into practice.  I think I demonstrated my own difficulties with trust, forgiveness and universal unconditional love, in the first of these three essays.  As I said then:  mea culpa.  I know some people too well to trust them.   I have one friend I'd trust with my life, meaning that I'd rely on him to back me up in an armed confrontation or come to my rescue if needed, but I wouldn't repeat any story he told me without a disclaimer.  The guy just isn't generally truthful.  Most of the people I know, I can trust to act in their own perceived best interests even if that means letting me down or breaking their word to me.  In other words, I wouldn't trust them in anything of vital importance to me.

I tend to be fairly trusting of anyone unless or until that person demonstrates untrustworthiness.  I've gone through maybe seven or eight local wood sellers because when one of them doesn't deliver what I paid for, I find another one.  I say that I am "fairly trusting," because there are some risks I'll take and others I won't.  I don't lock my house (can't lock it, and trust my dog to guard it when I'm out), and I don't leave my keys in my car.  I sometimes hitchhike, but I don't get into a car if I smell alcohol on the driver's breath or if the hair on the back of my neck stands up when he looks at me.  I don't trust anyone with my secrets, and I trust everyone, including you, with all my innermost thoughts and feelings.  If I have any secrets, I have forgotten what they are, which is a prudent course of action because that way I cannot inadvertently reveal them. 

I don't ask for trust, but I have noticed that I tend to get annoyed if someone assumes I'm lying, so I must be expecting to be trusted.  I shouldn't let it bother me if someone doesn't trust me.  It's their problem, and I'd be better off just making note that this person expects to be lied to, meaning that he probably lies.  In general, my experience suggests that those who make the biggest fuss about trust are those least deserving of being trusted.

I started this whole thing with these words:  "Trust is an expectation . . . unless it isn't.  There is a state of
mind beyond expectations, where we are not invested in the actions or
reactions of others, that is practically indistinguishable from trust."  That's my position, most of the time.  I'm more into observing, seeing what happens, than into forming expectations or setting up needs that I feel must be met.  My lack of surprise when things don't go the way I thought they might, and my lack of disappointment when people surprise me, indicate that I'm doing okay.

I thought I was ready to leave my youth behind and take up my story where I left off in the 'seventies, but that's not where the memory strays these days.

A night or two ago, between putting out the light and falling asleep, I had a vivid mental image of an incident or series of similar incidents in kindergarten.  I know I have written a bit about the beginning of school, probably in one of those discontinuous entries I produced after I'd gotten my first scanner, as I went through the tins of old photos.  This morning, I didn't find any entries mentioning Mrs. Mendelowitz or kindergarten at Jefferson Elementary School, so this one might cover some things already said.

The school was old, and had been expanded by at least one addition since it was originally built.  The older building was a single story, but the number of steps up to the entrance suggested a basement, probably where the furnace and boiler were, for the place had steam heat, the first radiators I'd ever seen or heard in my young life.  The towering height of the building also suggested an attic, which was probably used for storage.  Only the one floor was used by students, and only the kindergarten and first grade classes were in that building, along with administrative offices.

There were worn wooden floors in our classroom, and little wooden chairs, eight to each low table.  One wall perpendicular to the windows held old black slate blackboards.  At the end of the room opposite that wall, was our "art room," an alcove with child sized easels holding pads of newsprint.  The smell of tempera paint from that area permeated the entire building.  We mixed powdered colors from big jars with water for painting with brushes, and with boiled flour and water paste for finger painting.

Across a central courtyard, a two story addition with lower-ceilinged classrooms and new green "blackboards" sprawled back from the street, with our taller old building on the corner.  The ceiling in our classroom was high, over twice the height of our teacher, and tall windows rose from about chin height to a kindergartener, almost to the ceiling.  Every afternoon following lunch recess, we were expected to take a nap.  To create an ambiance more conducive to napping, Mrs. Mendelowitz would draw the blinds.

They were old dark green roller blinds, with cracks and pinholes that let in light in interesting patterns that I used to scan from slitted eyes with my head on the desk, doing my best impression of sleep.  To pull them down, Mrs, Mendelowitz had to use a long pole with a hook on the end to snag a loop of string on each blind and pull it far enough so that she could reach it to draw it the rest of the way down.

At the end of nap time, Mrs. Mendelowitz would give each blind a tug to disengage the ratchet restraining the spring, and the blinds would roll up to within a foot or two of the top, where they formed an uneven line across the tops of the windows.  Once in a while, a blind would retract too far, wrap itself completely around its roller, leaving no loop of string for the teacher to hook and pull it down.  This was a double treat for the class.  First was the zip, whoosh, flap, flap, flap of the blind's mad flight, which was always greeted with laughter, and later came the janitor with his tall stepladder to retrieve the tail of the blind for the teacher, providing amusement and distraction for the class.

The bottom two images from this post I did earlier in the week, are my entry for the new weekly_photo_challenge.  Just scroll on past the first one and ignore the sprinkling of frost on that new green leaf.

This week's subject, suggested by Gitarezan, is Round and Round.

I was awake before sunrise today.  We're now getting more than 18 1/2 hours of sun a day, and nights grow dim but not entirely dark.  That doesn't keep it from getting cold, however.  When I went out around 5 AM, there was still ice on puddles of standing water, and frost in places that hadn't been in direct sun long enough to melt it.

I captured two views of this frosty leaf.

Dewdrops are among my favorite photo subjects.  My camera and I are reflected and distorted in this one.

These entwined trees are favorites, too.

It is apparent that things are greening up here.  It happens fast on these days of long daylight.  I'm ready for it to warm up, too.  On that early morning  walk, I felt colder than I have at times when the temperature was far below freezing.  Maybe it's the moisture in the air, or maybe it's me.  I'm weak, lots of tremor in hands and legs.  I hope we had an earthquake this morning.  If not, my body tremor is more severe than I thought.

Later, I have a memoir to post.

PS:  Footprint Fun

About the time I was going out today to take pictures of the morning light, somebody in Saudi Arabia using Google found my old post about my Ex-Uncle Jack, with these search terms:  "groped+my+butt".  I wonder what else he found.
 

. . . in which I find out if I can say what I was trying to say yesterday.

I thought about that post a lot through the afternoon and evening yesterday, while Doug was using the computer.  I couldn't remember exactly what I had said, but I was almost sure I hadn't made the point I meant to make.  When I read it again this morning, I was sure.

Trust is another of those words, like "love," that is overused and poorly understood.  I have often heard people say they would trust someone to do something, when by the context and their voice and body language it was apparent that they meant just the opposite.  Parents pull that on their kids a lot. 

Suppose a young woman has fairly consistently broken her parents' curfew, and taken the family car farther than permitted or to places the parents have forbidden her to go.  She asks for the keys again, and instead of a flat refusal backed up by reminders of past infractions of the rules, she is given a lecture about doing as she is told, and handed the car keys with a reluctant, "I'll trust you this time."

Oh, yeah, she is being entrusted with responsibility for the car, most likely because the parent doesn't want to play chauffeur and the kid has demonstrated her driving ability.  The parent believes she is unlikely to wreck the car, but the kid is not trusted.  The parent expects her to go where she pleases and come home when she is ready, because that is the expectation the kid has created by her prior performance.  If she shows up before curfew, it will come as a surprise.

Suppose a woman leaves her abusive alcoholic husband and then allows him to talk her into coming back to him, not because she believes his promises to "never do it again," but because she is codependent and believes that her marriage is more important than the people in it.  He begs her to trust him, she holds out for a little while, but not so long that he will give up and quit asking her to come back, and then she tells him she will trust him "one more time," and comes back.

In this case, that "one more time," is a dead giveaway.  She is saying that she knows he is going to do it again.  No trust is involved there, except that she is trusting that he will perform true to form and she will get to give him even more "one more" chances, and will have more and more guilt points to hold against him.  At AA meetings, you can hear many guys guiltily confessing to having betrayed their saintly wives' trust.  At Al-Anon, their wives confess to being addicted to the men, and admit that they expect them to "go out" again and get drunk.  Where's the trust?

Or take infidelity . . . .  In a novel I read recently, the author, Randy Wayne White, has his characters repeatedly bringing up the idea that for most things a woman doesn't need to ask forgiveness, and for two things, infidelity and aging, she can't be forgiven.  There is probably a lot of truth in that.  When a man leaves his wife, it is often for one of those reasons:  either she has aged into something no longer attractive to him, or one or the other of them has found another sexual partner. 

Learning that a spouse was unfaithful is often a deal breaker for a man, more often than it is for a woman.  Women are more likely to forgive, or at least to say they forgive infidelity.  A wife might say she trusts him not to do it again, but even if he is faithful for the rest of their lives, she might keep checking the laundry for signs or scents of other women.  That isn't trust, nor is it really forgiveness.  Think about the level of anxiety involved there, the fear of betrayal . . . but how can one be betrayed when one is not investing any trust?  The bond in such a relationship is more one of insecurity than of love.

These are examples of head games, of emotional blackmail, of one person setting another one up for a round of, "AHA!  I got you again!"  Genuine trust, the expectation of honesty, benevolence and fidelity, is relatively rare.  It is most often the possession of young people whose loving parents earned their trust, and it is often extinguished in them during early adulthood when the trust they place in friends and strangers is betrayed.  Trust that can survive repeated betrayal is an act of Will, and one that few people will risk.  We might give people the benefit of the doubt, or cut them some slack and treat them as if we trusted them, but few adults are truly trusting.

I'm still not sure I have said what I intended to say on this subject.  I may be back around with part 3.  Who knows?  I am easily distracted, lately.  My mind has been sidetracked by a news story that Greyfox relayed to me by phone a few minutes ago.

Trust is an expectation . . . unless it isn't.  There is a state of mind beyond expectations, where we are not invested in the actions or reactions of others, that is practically indistinguishable from trust.  Most of us don't live in that state, so trust is still an issue for many of us.  We rely on others to behave in a certain way, or else we don't:  we trust, or we don't trust.

Trust connotes reliance or dependence.  If no risk or need is involved, trust isn't at issue.  Without trust, there can be no betrayal.  One who gives trust forms expectations, and sets himself up to be betrayed as much as he is setting the other up to be branded a betrayer.  Unless there is a specific contract to which both parties assent and agree, it is unfair to expect anything from someone, and certainly both unfair and self-defeating to be disappointed or feel betrayed if one's expectations are not met.

Even when something is promised, it may be unwise to trust that it will be delivered.  In some cases, trust is absurd, and even hope might be misplaced.  If someone makes a promise to me that seems "too good to be true," I have no right to expect the fulfillment of that promise, and no grounds for resentment if he fails to deliver.  I knew better all along.  If I make a promise I know I cannot keep, that makes me a lying manipulator, but it does not make me responsible for the disappointment felt by the other party, who chose to form an expectation.

In my own life, I do a pretty good job of not laying my expectations on others and of taking responsibility for my own feelings.   I try to avoid making promises, and usually when I say I will do something, if I am not doing it immediately, I specify that I don't know when I'll get it done.  That's a sloppy practice that often leaves people impatiently expecting something from me (such as psychic readings), that I might not get around to delivering for a long time. 

The FAQs at my professional site, KaiOaty, explain that sometimes delays happen and that I'm capricious and inconsistent in that area of my business, but that doesn't keep people from forming unreasonable expectations.  "Unreasonable?" you may ask.  "Yeah," I say, "it's not as if they're actually paying me."  When I accept payment for work and a contractual obligation, I deliver in full measure and on time.  That is one reason I like handling the psychic business with "new anarcho-capitalistic" practices, to relieve myself of those obligations.  I prefer living without deadlines as much as possible.

But I digress . . .  that is not where I was going with this.  As I was saying, I manage fairly well not to get disappointed when my family or friends spring surprises on me, although I usually notice and remark upon the odd behavior.  You might even say that experience has led me to expect people to behave oddly and surprise me sometimes, but I don't like admitting to any expectations at all.  Whether I like it or not, however, I do form expectations.  I suspect it's part of the normal function of the mammalian brain.  Pushing button A brings reward B most of the time, so I jump and yelp when pushing button A gets me an electric shock instead.  Enough of those shocks, and I'm less quick to push the button, or I won't push it at all unless I'm craving a B badly enough to risk the shock, and I brace myself before I push.

I find it easy enough to forgive my family and friends for even the nastiest surprises, and most of the time I even understand how and why these things happen.  Where I do not seem to have made any evolutionary spiritual progress at all is in the realm of politics, and also, to a lesser extent, the area of commerce.  Products that injure people and/or don't live up to makers' claims, medical malpractice, and the gross political malfeasance of the shrub administration piss me off to a degree that causes temporo-mandibular discomfort and loss of tooth enamel.  I have tried the forgiveness exercise from A Course in Miracles on dubya, and failed!   I look at pictures of him and his co-conspirators and see in them not my fellow beings but ugly alien presences.  Mea culpa.

When we discuss politics and other human foibles around here, each of the three of us habitually sees them from a different perspective.  Doug has a mostly neutral stance, and since he's almost never surprised at anything, he is seldom disappointed or appalled, either.  Greyfox tends to ascribe most of the crap that happens to human error or stupidity, while I tend to think that there are hidden agendas, nefarious purposes, and ulterior motives involved. 

I think that Greyfox is too pessimistic in his view of people as idiots unable to foresee the disastrous consequences of their actions.  I give them the benefit of the doubt and suppose that they are getting some sort of short-term payoff for despoiling the planet, committing atrocities upon their fellowman, and making enemies out of former allies.  Just call me a cockeyed optimist, but I cannot believe that people are that stupid.

But seriously, this is a complicated matter.  My view sometimes causes some people to call me paranoid.  I will admit to suspiciousness, but not to paranoia.  Paranoia is "characterized by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion."  "Simple suspiciousness is not
paranoia--not if it is based on past experience or expectations
learned from the experience of others."  My experience has taught me that when people say things that are obviously not true, usually they are lying, and that when people lie they usually have something to hide.

I don't condemn people for hiding shit or lying about it, but it does sorta diminish their stature and tarnish their image in my eyes, especially when they tapdance and resort to weasel words when confronted with their crap.  I spent enough of my youth feigning a "bumbling idiot" persona to evade responsibility and gain sympathy, that I tend to think that every bumbling idiot is feigning.  When the behavior in question is accompanied by a mischievous twinkle in the eye and a self-satisfied smirk or self-righteous tone, I consider my suspicions confirmed.

It has sometimes been fun making amends for pretending stupidity, going to someone and saying, "I'm not as stupid as I seem.  I know you were lying to me and I lied to you when I pretended to believe your lies."  In some cases, I have omitted making these amends except in the privacy of my own mind, when it seems certain that the person involved is just not ready for the truth, not ready to abandon the lies and get a good laugh our of our mutual manipulation. 

Aw, geez!  I just had a giddy thought.  Imagine dubya, maybe in a farewell address, saying publicly, "I'm not as stupid as I seem."  Is Amerika ready for the truth?

Challenge #2008-10 from Kween_of_the_Queens is going to be my first essay for this blogring.  The theme is:

Recently, as I often do, I was consulting Greyfox on an editorial matter.  I was seeking a way to express how I feel about racism.  I knew that calling it "evil" would not serve my purpose, nor would it  be entirely correct to say that I "hate" it.  I was going for some succinct yet accurate expression, and Greyfox came up with one that does the job even better than I had envisioned: