It's Okay

I realize I'm a few weeks late in recognizing the birthday of this word, one which has been called the most enduring word of American descent. It is the word okay. Yes, okay; or OK. It is now 175 years old.

One of my favorite journalists, Mo Rocca, reporting on my favorite network news-magazine, CBS Sunday Morning, did a wonderful story on the history of the word. You can find the video here.

But why am I bringing it up now? Well, while Mo does acknowledge that in the history of the word OK is the story that it comes from the Choctaw word "Okeh" which means, "it is so," he doesn't talk about its significance for us who live in Oklahoma.

from the daily artifact project

Saturday, my Amazing-Missus and I were at a local nursery. We decide to replace some of the high-maintenance stuff in our landscape with not-high-maintenance stuff. A young horticulturist named Zack was assisting us. In the conversation we learned that Zack was born and raised in Southern California. As he was recommending trees and shrubs for us to consider, Zack said something about Oklahoma's very varied weather. I explained to him that these patterns are called "seasons". You have to explain these kinds of things to southern Californians.

We chose nandinas, a crepe myrtle, and a red bud tree. Zack said, "Those are very Okie selections." What he meant was these are things that know how to live and thrive in Oklahoma.

It struck me that what applies to plants also works for other living things--like people. Will Zack ever make it here? He'll probably survive, but he may not thrive. You don't seen many palm trees in these parts. And if you do, they're probably made of sheet metal.

Even among us Okies, different "species" thrive. We are a diverse group, a colorful tapestry. It's OKAY. Did you know that Oklahoma has more eco-regions than any other state? And we are as different as our ecology, our politics, our theology and cultural leanings. And I'm OK with that. 

We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand
And when we say
Yeow! A-YIP-I-O-EE-AY
Were only say-in "you're doing fine Oklahoma,
Oklahoma OK!
--Rodgers & Hammerstein

The Prom & Taxes

"March Madness" is near completion. Judging from the wailing and gnashing of teeth from people carrying their "brackets" through the halls at work, "mad" is apt.

The Scream. Edvard Munch

Does March mind being Mad? What if every month had an emotion, feeling or sentiment attached to it. The little month of February certainly does.

If I were King for a day, or the Pope, or Oprah... I would proclaim: ANGST APRIL!

The thought first hit me as my Amazing-Missus and I strolled the huckster-lined aisles of the OKC Home & Garden Show. I tried to make the occasion more romantic than it could ever be by imagining it is an old street market, but instead of vendors at their carts selling fruit, flowers or fish, they were proclaiming the virtues of vinyl siding, waterless cookware and something called a "Sham-Wow."

They were using marketing tricks older than Freud's "Pleasure Principle. I mentioned it a few blog posts back. The thought is, that for us mortals it all comes down to instinctively seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Jeremy Bentham agreed, "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure".

Few places can you see it side-by-side better than at this show. Littered throughout were displays of hot tubs and spas with posters depicting a viagra-gorged guy with at least two former Miss-Somethings, lounging joyously with glasses of wine sitting in built in cup holders. And then, in the very next display, storm shelters with large posters of bedraggled people combing through the wreckage of the Moore and El Reno tornados.

Few things motivate like the promise of pleasure and the potential in fear. Remember the videos of car wrecks they made us watch in Driver's Ed. I still have nightmares about the pictures that were in the textbook for the scuba diving class I took in college. And who can forget revival time at church when we were kids. They would entice us all to come for "Children's Night" with all-you-can-eat hot dogs. Then they would march us to the service where the evangelist would scare us into submission by "holding us over hell like one of those weenies on a stick."

So what is angst? From www.urbandictionary.com:

Angst, often confused with anxiety, is a transcendent emotion in that it combines the unbearable anguish of life with the hopes of overcoming this seemingly impossible situation. Without the important element of hope, the emotion is anxiety, not angst. Angst denotes the constant struggle one has with the burdens of life that weighs on the dispossessed and not knowing when the salvation will appear.

To me, April brings more angst than any other month. I'll prove it with two words: April Fifteenth! Angst is right for April because, in the eye of it's threatening storm, is the hopeful promise of new buds and fresh starts.

April has always been ominous. Seriously; what life event packs more angst (and we're talking teen angst now; the worst kind) than the high school prom. The whole thing: finding a date, that corsage, the expense, the tux, the picking her up, the dancing, did I mention the expense? Then there's the whole angst-filled after-prom thing. It's all sweaty pits and palms and potential-where does the relationship go from here.

How powerful is angst? just think how much of our music is dedicated to it. Here's a sample. And while this is not a prom scenario per se; well you get the point.

IT'S MY PARTY
By Lesley Gore

Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone
Judy left the same time
Why was he holding her hand
When he's supposed to be mine

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you

Playin' my records, keep dancin' all night
Leave me alone for a while
'Till Johnny's dancin' with me
I've got no reason to smile

Judy and Johnny just walked through the door
Like a queen with her king
Oh what a birthday surprise
Judy's wearin' his ring

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you 

HAPPY ANGST APRIL EVERYONE!

Feeling Pretty Self-Actualized If I Do Say So Myself

I'LL ADMIT IT. One of the scariest aspects of being a "man of a certain age" is the fear that I've reached THE END. Not the physical end, but that place old guys seem to come to where they stop growing; again, not in a physical sense, but as a person. You know what I mean: they think they've seen it all, heard it all and know it all. They "arrived"!

Maybe what's so scary about that for me is thinking that if I have arrived, then this is all I have to offer--that I've become all I can become except a cranky, old, dogmatic, Fox-News watching, horses's a-double-s.

When I was first introduced to the idea of "self-actualization" (especially Abraham Maslow's take on it) back in college, it rang very true for me. Without going in to the whole concept, let's overly narrow it down to this: Think of a continuous line, like a ruler. On one end is our Potential. On the other is our Actual. So, if I become a healthy self-actualized adult, it means, very simply, that I've moved along the scale from potential to actual. By the way, Maslow speculated that less than 1% of the population ever becomes fully self-actualized.

I hope, I HOPE, that during this era that I like to call my "second-coming of age", I will realize brand new, deeper and more significant potentials I can pursue.

But wait. Let me get my horse and cart in the right order. There are a couple of issues I need to clarify.

One: for those of you who are saying to yourself (as if anyone is still reading this), "I knew this guy was a 'secular humanist' all along. Just listen to this drivel," you're not the first.

Back in the day, I had a job as a teacher/consultant of sorts for people who worked with adolescents in churches. I would frequently use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to talk about what can happen as a teen develops. One time I was leading a conference for youth leaders in southeastern Oklahoma. A man came in to the conference wearing a snappy pair of white patent leather loafers and matching belt (think: Cousin Eddie) and introduced himself as "Pastor Roy Somethingorother." When I asked Pastor Roy why he had chosen to come to a conference for youth leaders he told me that he was only there to monitor what I had to say, to make sure I was not a "humanist."

All during the meeting I noticed him making notes in a miniature stenographers notebook like a reporter at a Whitehouse briefing. I expected at any moment for him to jump to his feet and shout, "Bingo, we've got ourselves a heretic!" He never did, and I never heard anything from Roy or whomever he was representing. Maybe he was just taking notes for his next sermon.

I do believe that we are created in the image of a creative God to be fully human. If that makes me a humanist, so be it.

Next: there is the big question of knowing what our potential is. Remember that line, our continuum, with POTENTIAL on one end and ACTUAL on the other? Before we can actually reach our POTENTIAL we need to know what it is. But where do we find that out?

Back when I was a kid, our report cards from school had a place for the teacher to record, in her opinion, whether or not we were "performing up to our potential." There was a consensus among my teachers that I was "NOT." There may have been one exception to that, my fourth grade teacher, even though she did check the "needs to improve" box.

Recently around our house, we've been going through some old stuff: treasures, photos, heirlooms, etc. In one of the boxes I ran across old report cards my mother had saved; although I'm not sure why unless she wanted to show them to parents of troubled kids to demonstrate there's always something to hope for.

Attached to my final fourth grade report card was a note from my teacher to my parents.

[If you can't read the letter in this image, I've included the text of it below.]

---

I'm glad that I didn't see this letter until 50-plus years later. It could have become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts had I seen it at the time. Instead, I like to imagine it as some sort of destiny.

I take heart that I helped make my teacher's career more pleasant. I like that she picked up on and commended my "gay outlook to everything," (I'm taking that to mean the 1960 definition of the word. Not that there's anything wrong with a more 2000s definition.) I am also relieved to note that my teacher apparently only owned a red ink pen and it wasn't just that all of my papers were graded in red. I liked the way she pretended to struggle with the proper use of  the are/is  verb form and its agreement with "Boys" or "David" just to make the rest of us feel good.

But I am most proud that Mrs. Burchette noticed, early on, a POTENTIAL for a sense of humor and that even THAT could take me "far in life." And, although I'm sure my parents had rather read something like, "He has the intellect of a rocket scientist", I feel SO self-actualized.

So, when my Grand-Girls say, "You're funny Pops," I think to myself, "Yes! Yes I am!" Thank you Mrs. Burchette, wherever you are.

---

Text of the letter:

The Fullers,

It was a pleasure having David in my room this year. Boys like David are what make a teacher's career pleasant. He always seems to have a gay outlook to everything.

It was also nice meeting and talking with you. I want to thank you for all the help you gave me in working with David.

He is a boy to be proud of and with his sense of humor he will go far in life.

Mrs. Burchette

Pops Flicks Picks Part 3. For Coloreds Only.

"Well we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley." Big Bob.

Remember Psych 101? Freud and the "Pleasure Principle"? That, for us mortals, it all comes down to instinctively seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Jeremy Bentham agreed, "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure".

I've been working on a project called Storyline (by Donald Miller). Recently, in the project there was discussion about Freud's theory and the contrast with the work of psychologist, Viktor Frankl, who took Freud on: "When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasures." -- Viktor Frankl

It's been awhile since I made an installment in the series, POPS' FLICK PICKS. The first two were my take on The Graduate and Finding Forrester.

For the third of the series I want to suggest the movie Pleasantville.

First, the movie is worth watching because it is funny, entertaining and has a great cast that does a wonderful job with the concept--a setting of a B&W 50s TV Family, think Ozzie & Harriet, Father Knows Best, The Cleavers, etc.

But it is also worth it because it is challenging and will provoke thought if you let it (in other words: are you "colored"?)

The film uses color as a metaphor. A lot of the reviews and commentary say that it is a metaphor for enlightenment. I think that's one aspect (in a small e enlightenment way). But I think it goes way beyond Enlightenment (big E) worldview to Romanticism (big R), and beyond.

A few questions to ponder as you watch:
Is Pleasantville "pleasant" in a way that is characterized by the kinds of "pleasures" Freud had in mind? It seems like the good folks of Pleasantville wanted to preserve their utopia but maybe not necessarily in an epicurean way. Agree? But they seem so happy with a shallow, colorless pleasantness, fearing dystopia without even knowing what it might look like.

I am so afraid of doing that--being a party to allowing the creation of a stark, grayscale, false sense of security kind of existence. The older I get the harder it is to say, "bring on the color" knowing we risk dystopia. But I believe we risk it either way.

I think maybe Pleasantville sort of helps make Frankl's case: there is something beyond "pleasure." There is the possibility of "finding a deep sense of meaning." I know. I've had glimpses of it. I've seen it in others.

To me, that's what the "colored" metaphor is about. Watch the movie and you'll see that people become colored for a number of reasons: passion, discovery, beauty, honesty (even honest anger), all stuff that makes us fully human. Is there the risk of hurt, harm, heartbreak? Yes. Is it worth it?

Last Saturday we went to an art show. We've been friends of the family of this young artist for several years. Her name is Sterling Smith and she is wonderful. Currently she is doing some pieces in watercolor with pen & ink. I love the mix of these two mediums (or is it media) and apparently she does too. I asked Sterling what she liked about the mix. I'm paraphrasing what I heard her say:

I think the two (watercolor and ink) are like life. The watercolor spectrum is unlimited, on wet paper the color flows where it wants to, there are gradients and loose edges. The ink though is monochromatic, and constricted. It is defined and definite.

I guess sometimes we need both.

If you've seen Pleasantville, maybe what I've written here makes some sense. If not, watch it. I hope I haven't given too much away. I hope by the end of the movie you will be "colored" even if you're outlined with ink.

At least watch the trailer...

Pleasantville Movie Trailer