Real Talk!

I guess I’m officially a fogey. Last night, I attended the high school Arts Night and essentially- well; my own mother told me that I was a fogey.

I can’t help it. Look, I know I’m not perfect… not by a long stretch… but everywhere I go, I find horrendous spelling errors and last evening, well… there was a plethora.

& Frankly, I was shocked.

Captured in calligraphy, on film and cartoons, the errors astounded me. I guess the arts department has other things to focus upon. However, one would think that the study of language and literature would be somehow connected to the arts. At least this one would.

I could rant volumes about things that are missing in our educational system… but let me clarify something first: I know many dedicated teachers who do a superb job and there are plenty of fine students who exemplify this.

All right, so they’re teenagers. And? … Hmmmm… you know, I’m pretty sure that my spelling was better when I was a teen than it is now. Especially on school projects!

Why aren’t we teaching basic life skills to our children?

We all know that in many cases “the family” has become a different creature than it once was. It used to be that family taught things like manners, simple hygiene, basic banking and account balancing, simple cooking and economical meal planning… and the use and care of common appliances (i.e./ washing machines)… or how to use a Laundromat… things of that nature….

Some people think that spelling is unimportant… that conveying the message is what matters… okay, I get that...obviously spelling means something to me- possible remnants from my youth.

It seems to me that there’s a glitch and some families are forgetting or too busy or too stressed or too new to the culture or unaware or too lazy to teach their children this stuff… and it really isn’t fair to those kids… so perhaps it’s time to bring it in to the classroom.

Less focus on intellect (state of mind) and more on consciousness...

& While I’m on the subject… how about we recognize the aging population and teach our children what to do in an emergency, CPR, bereavement skills, & the social, medical and ethical dimensions of elder care? Oh I could go on.

What about: how to wash dishes, basic automobile maintenance, budgeting, home cleaning skills, how to safely shovel snow or sew on a button and how about a little mending?

Maybe it’s all too practical?

It strikes me that nobody teaches the laws that we live beneath… and yet ignorance of the law is not a defense. Some would argue that laws are simply a matter of common sense… I don’t see a lot of that anymore, either.

People cross legal lines all the time without knowing- & I wonder if that is somehow connected to the ever-increasing signs that we are becoming a very litigious society-

Are we depending on the courts to teach ethics and morality? Or should I say, legislate ethics and morality? Sounds like a waste of the taxpayers’ money to some… and probably justice to others… while it seems to me that it’s more a matter of responsibility and priority.

Maybe I’m just in a grouchy mood? Maybe it’s the current level of technology? Just imagine where we are, considering the exponential growth of electronic assault and control technology that had its start in the 50s?

All of the cell phone calls, radio waves, television and other stuff, micro waving and rambling through our atmosphere unseen…. Get the tinfoil!

Perhaps it’s global warming… alien experimentation… let’s blame the Bilderbergs and Rosicrucians.

Look, I’m not trying to minimize any of these possibilities… I know that anything is possible… and some things are quite likely… however, the one thing of which I am certain is….

It’s time to take responsibility for making good choices and for being the change.

Admittedly, spelling isn’t everything- provided the message is conveyed and interpreted as intended. I look at the short-formed language of text messaging and c that u can b 2 busy 4 typing and still u can b understood. LOL.

I’ve watched people from all over the world effectively communicate with one another this way.

So, perhaps because of stress from a fast paced or for some other reason... whatever it is, the techno-world appears to be morphing our language into some kind of Nuevo-shorthand version of English that our children are already speaking.

I think that our children rank among our best resources.

Many believe that we now have a generation or two of what they call “indigo children” in our midst… and it’s not that these kids are some kind of elite being… it’s more like some dormant faculties and abilities appear to be re-emerging- as evidenced by the accelerated psycho-spiritual-biological orientation of recent generations.

Still, these children are- as we must remember- children… and they need gentle guidance and a light-touch of support in their development.

& really there's nothing new about it... there have been many, many, many re-alignments in social morality… and there will be more…

I believe that what is happening is that we have arrived (some without recognizing the travel) at the pinnacle of awareness… and ready to that we really are a global community…

And we have noticed the not-so-subtle manipulations of some media, politics, and religion…

We strive for social freedom, social ecology, integrated moral epistemological models and ethics…

AND

We are connected, more closely than ever and able to communicate more rapidly by the moment… or nano-moment…

Marshall McLuhan (in The Gutenberg Galaxy) said “Is it not obvious that there are always enough moral problems without also taking a moral stand on technological grounds? …Yet even witlessness is not a moral issue. It is a problem, but not a moral problem, and it would be nice to clear away some of the moral fogs that surround our technologies. It would be good for morality.”

In this same work, some thirty years prior to the advent of Internet, McLuhan practically invented the term “surfing”. He was referring to the way he imagined people would move through documents and knowledge in a wired world... a prophetic image,
“Heidegger surf-boards along the electronic wave as triumphantly as Descartes rode the mechanical wave.”

Heidegger, a German philosopher exerted controversial influence on the humanities, theology and the philosophies of hermeneutics, deconstruction and existentialism. Reminding us that all we understand (from our notions of common sense, to our interpretations on the very nature of being) are vulnerable to error.

To heal these misinterpretations, Heidegger believed there was a need to retrace the history of philosophy. He believed that historical misconceptions from the history of philosophy had been filtered into terms through which “being” is articulated, for example: logic, reality, consciousness, presence and God.

In his later works, Heidegger argued that these very glitches had immense affect on the way in which people relate to modern technology.

Personally, I don’t think we need to describe these as errors or re-write interpretations of the past… it’s all just a manifestation of the ever-changing ideologies of society and we just need move forward, making the best choices possible.

Then again, I’m a fogey and I realize that there’s nothing new… except maybe the packaging. It’s simple Superstring Theory… incidentally quantum theories date back to the early 1800’s.

Sometimes change is a long while coming.

We have to believe.