The Perfect Mom

True Story #1- Nashville: In the news today is a story about the Mom indicted by a grand jury for hiring a stripper for her son’s 16th birthday. What, did she forget to ask the other minors to bring a note from their parents? Most 16 year olds have seen pictures of a woman’s naked body thanks to the internet and local video store. But, still...

True Story #2- Knoxville: "Cool parents" have keg party for high school student and his friends- with disastrous consequences. “We thought if they were going to sneak and drink they may as well do it at home where they won’t have to drink and drive.”

True Story # 3- Oak Ridge: “I was the perfect Mom. I bought him Playboys, his first bottle of wine, and I got him a dirt bike. Now he’s at Brushy Mountain Penitentiary for selling cocaine.”

The process of losing innocence is like going down hill on a one way street. You can apply the brake but there is no going back. Mostly things snowball once the genie is out of the bottle. The bar of experience moves only in one direction. We need internal self controls that are learned gradually while someone else administers external stucture.

There has always been the dyad of the one in charge (who is the rule maker, interpreter, or enforcer) and the one who would be taught, raised up, or cared for. Tech support is not available for the fork in the road. Some of us approach the task of guiding others with the simple rule of "try to turn frowns into smiles… and avoid causing frustration". While it may be popular- that rule can be unwise, unhealthy, or un-therapeutic. Repeat the following phrase when you find your self feeling guilty for denying permission, causing someone to pout, or not being a "friend" to someone in your charge....”Being a ______ is not a popularity contest”. (Fill in the blank with your role: doctor, nurse, teacher, mom, dad, etc.) --James
www.flight-of-ideas.com

A war of wills

To sell successfully you have to sell yourself and be able to risk rejection. Have “I will win” as your only option. It helps to be a bit anti-social or at least pseudo-sociopathic… so that you can tolerate the discomfort felt by the victim/ loser/ buyer.

In war as well as in sales, isn't it helpful to know just how hard to push your opponent? In poker does it help to know your opponent’s hand? After WWII the Russian Ambassador, Molotov, knew Truman and Churchill’s exact bargaining positions when it came time for them to negotiate for the freedom of Eastern Europe. The KGB had intercepted communications before the showdown. It wasn’t a fair fight. Truman blinked. Communism got 12 new “republics”.

I thought I was a trained salesman. From Fuller Brush sales in high school 1969 , to selling radio ads for WOKI 1974, selling free vacations to Fairfield Glade in 1973, and selling books to help children with their home work 1971 door-to-door in Gary, Indiana. I went to an intense week of sales school in Nashville 1971 learning the high-pressure skills taught by the SouthWestern Book Company. Why, oh why, could our team not have been sent to Mississippi selling Bibles? We thought we got the short straw going to Gary.

When I graduated University in 1974 I was going nowhere. My friend, Chris, had signed on with New York Life Insurance. An insurance salesman-trainee position came with a draw of $700 per month, a fortune in those days. I thought I was a shoo-in with my experience and Chris for a reference. One of the luckiest things that ever happened to me was when Chris gave me a subtle black ball, “I hear he was interested in post-graduate school at one time”.
I was turned down and felt devastated. I went inward for a year... then got back into grad school in zoology.
Thank you, Chris. I was too co-dependent to do any good at sales, any way.-- James www.flight-of-ideas.com

Lost in translation

To the man letting his early primary school age kids play in Third Creek at Tyson Park: The white metal sign with black letters that says: Warning! This Water Fails Bacteriologic Standards for Human Contact means do-not-let-your-kids-play-in-water-due-to-toilet germs. --Just in case you didn't know.
www.flight-of-ideas.com

Flight of mind

Light blue wrapping paper fills the sky slit by the silvery point of a stiletto jet drawing a straight white puffy line.. An exclamation point 7 miles up. Entrails of contrails exhausting aft. Comet, can you see me seeing you?

Flight is visceral. You stuck your flattened hand out mom’s car window at speed and felt the lift and slice of air rudders. In your mind's eye you move your arm-wings. Lean to turn. Dive and feel the G’s. Eyes see life in miniature below. Escape velocity levitates me now soaring. I am a bird... above the burdens for a while.

According to Jung, our Dreams are archetypal libraries of our collective past experiences, therefore we have flown before. I love flying dreams... the view from above…skimming over the trees reaching up with branches like outstretched arms inviting me to rest. Watching the clouds flow by like water... suspended in atmospheric soup. Must climb higher. --James
www.flight-of-ideas.com

House of cards

Just how stable is modern society? Is my chosen profession recession proof? Would it be considered disaster proof? While the skills of many people are valued in today’s post-modern society what good would the rest of us be in a society transformed by war or calamity? I can’t ride a horse, build a house, hunt for wild game, or succeed at hand-to-hand combat. If I was transported back in time to frontier days I’d probably starve. My survival skills even in Boy Scouts circa 1968 were not much more than an hours drive in the station wagon, aluminum foil wrapped suppers and tent camping.

Was Chicken Little right? What if you predicted collapse and no one listened? The inhabitable part of Earth is only a couple of miles thick and 10,000 miles in diameter- like a coat of paint on a basketball. Perhaps Mother Nature has provided an ecological steady state that will be unperturbed by acid rain, ozone depletion, or any of a number of other threats- at least until the next big asteroid.

60 Minutes did a story on the Housing bubble in California. Seems like those in a position to benefit (read, profit) from rosy predictions see nothing but blue skies and unlimited potential for permanent growth. Reminds me of the big Stock market swoon in slow motion which began in 2000. Recall “DOW 36,000!!! ?” Ouch. It did leave a mark, a wound which may not heal for years. That may not be the worst of it. How many other Achilles Heels are out there?

Energy supplies are finite, logistically fragile, and not controlled by our best friends. A modern plague could stymie commerce as well as overwhelm healthcare. Two of my favorite books read in the 60’s were On the Beach, and Alas, Babylon. Both were of the post-nuclear Armageddon genre in which society crumbles and everyday people are confronted with unimaginable challenges. Dollars would be no more than compost. What would the best exchange commodity be? cans of spam? shotgun shells? bottled water? Even my physical labor would be suspect. I could be a professional... worrier. -James www.flight-of-ideas.com