I AM A BLESSED MAN ....

 

I AM A BLESSED MAN…

This week a couple of students from UCLA were posting about the things we take for granted. They had been moved into a dorm which had a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean. They marveled at their luck to be able to open their blinds and see something so beautiful. After a few weeks, it became unnoticeable and they were shutting the blinds to reduce the glare on their computer screens. Then several weeks later they were complaining about the brightness and how it made watching television so hard. They complained so much, the dorm administrators moved them to another room. This one has a view of a parking lot. After a week or so, they realized what they had lost.

A week or so ago, our water was turned off for a few hours due to a water main break somewhere close to us. No water to bathe, wash clothing, flush toilets, water plants seemed like a major event for a few hours. Suppose it was off for weeks or months at a time?

Like you, we probably read or view daily reports of someone lamenting their problems with their job, their rent, housing, their cars, prices or whatever. The internet is full of posts of folks sitting in some $150,000 auto sipping a $7.00 cup of whatever and complaining about their current ‘impoverished’ life. Boo-Hoo…can you hear me crying for them? I’m not…

Personally, I think the problem lies with the difference between what we want versus what we need. Do you want a career or need a job? They are very different you know…

We all like really nice cars but let’s be honest. If you want to get from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’, does it really make any difference if it’s in a Porsche or a Ford Fiesta? As long as they run well and aren’t dangerous, then the only difference is comfort. But they get you there just the same.

The same with a job. I suggest that anyone can get a ‘job’ but it may not be the one you want or in a career you spent 5 years in college studying for. The point is, will a job, even if you don’t like it, pay for your existence? Can you get by until you find some alternative that will make you happier?

Now, we get to the crux of the matter, what is your level of existence? If you want to drink coffee lattes at Starbucks for $5 and have your nails done each week, you may have to change your way of living. Housing is expensive, everyone knows this, but you may not be able to afford living in a high rise with lots of amenities and then move to a smaller apartment or have a roommate. There are options that can be explored.

Living in the country has given me a new perspective on needs vs wants. In the city, you went to a hair stylist with an appointment. Here you go to a barber and you walk in. the same thing applies to something like tennis shoes. Kids today want the latest style tennis shoes which can retail for hundreds or thousands of dollars when you can buy a pair on Amazon starting at $35 or so. Certainly not the same as the expensive ones but will it get the job done? Well about the same as the Ford Fiesta and the Porsche. They will suffice for a season.

So, I’m a blessed man with a house, a drivable automobile and a cheap haircut and I’m good to go.

Maybe you are not working in a job you like. Maybe you can’t afford a house or the apartment you are living at right now. But, look at this, if you are reading this, then you are alive and breathing. There are a lot of folks that did not make it through the night, last night.

I’ve never been afraid of work and I have always had plenty to do. It may not have been what I liked or enjoyed, but it certainly has allowed me to survive.

I’m not complaining, I’m thankful for what I have, not what I don’t have. I have all I need, not necessarily all I want.

Perhaps at my elderly, mature, ancient, OLD age, I have become more tolerant of what I can now do as opposed to what I could do. I have no need to travel around the country, I eat simply and well, I sleep well and have enough clothes for each season.

My final blessing point is that I have a wonderful wife who has put up with me for 56 years. She has the patience of Job and why she has been around this long is a continual mystery to me.

I am indeed a very blessed man. I hope you can find your peace in this crazy world we are living in.

See you next week. Peary Perry  

 

MADNESS...

 

MADNESS….     It sems to me that the more ‘inventive’ we get with the gadgets we develop…the more we complicate our lives. Bear with me here. Twenty years ago, you had to memorize phone numbers if you wanted to call someone. You had a ‘phone’ book where you stored all of the numbers you used the most. From time to time, you had to update this book and more than likely you called old friends to check up on them as you went through the updating process. This was especially noticeable during the holiday season when you were making out your Christmas card list as well. Not only would you get someone’s current address, but you’d play catch up on their lives over the past year. You also found out which one of your friends had died since your last call. All of that has gone by the wayside. Now you store all of your numbers on your cell phone or whatever you happen to use, and you scroll down to choose a name to be called, or you simply say … ‘home’ and your phone makes the call for you. In most cases you don’t even recall the numbers of your kids or best friends. If you lose your cell phone it becomes the equivalent of being stranded on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific. In fact, when we are out of ‘cell tower coverage areas’ we often feel like we are on some desert island or remote part of the earth. We cannot seem to be without some form of communication device at all times. I know people who get so paranoid if their phone doesn’t ring that they call themselves to see if the thing is working or not. Recently a friend of mine misplaced his phone and couldn’t retrieve it until the following Monday. You would think his world was over simply because he could not get calls in or out for about 72 hours. Madness. All this new technology over the past 50 or so years is great and all that, but what happens when we leave out the human element? What’s going to happen if we stop socializing in person and only communicate via some form of electronic media? Look around you when you pull up to a stop sign or a red light, everyone in the cars around you has their cell phones out and are totally concentrated upon getting their message of the moment out before the light changes and they must start moving again. Sometimes they are actually texting someone who is riding in the car with them. I’ve been in restaurants and observed 2 people ignoring each other and perhaps texting to each other across a space at arm’s length away. It’s almost as if our society has become afraid to talk to someone in person. Back in the early fifties everyone thought television would be the death of all of us. We were warned not to watch too many hours a week or sit too close to the set. Then we were cautioned about going blind unless we had a television lamp sitting on top of the set itself. I can’t recall hearing about anyone ever being a victim of too much television or being blinded because they didn’t have a television lamp. I will say everyone had one. There was no need to take a chance. Today we have children in our society who never venture outside of their rooms. They only come out at night and avoid direct sunlight. Nearly every new television show has something to do with vampires or zombies. I suppose it must be some sort of cultural thing, not my generation. The youth of today can live entirely online without any need for actual verbal conversation or human contact. Besides texting, you can throw in Facebook, Instagram, ‘X’, Snapchat and you are good to go. Unlock the bedroom door, drop in a pizza every so many hours and you might not see your child until they need a car or money for college. They will surface when these events occur, trust me. Then again, perhaps not. I’ve got friends who haven’t seen their kids for years. They know they are alive since the food tray sitting outside their room is always empty.    When I was a kid, we could not wait to get our driver’s license. Having our own car was a dream come true. Who wouldn’t want to have their own car. It was freedom. Today, these kids seem to choose to use Uber everywhere.   There seems to be this mad rush to collect as many ‘online’ friends as humanly possible. So, you see folks with thousands of ‘friends’ on their web pages, most of these people do not know, or will ever meet but they seem perfectly happy to share every detail of their lives with perfect strangers. Personally, I could not care less about someone I don’t know telling me about what kind of bagel they are eating. Much less their medical history or why they hate their fathers. Who cares? No one, much less me, can deny the fact that computers have enhanced our lives in so many positive ways. It’s just that I think we should slow down and turn the things off at some point in our day and sit on the porch or in the living room with a cold beer or cup of coffee and actually converse with someone, face to face before we lose the ability to do so. So, stop reading this, turn off your computer, turn off that cell phone and walk into your kid’s room or next door and start talking about the weather or politics. You can always get a conversation started if you just try. Face to face conversations are the ones you will remember.     Hit the ‘subscribe’ button….see you next week…Peary Perry

BEAR WITH ME ...

 

BEAR WITH ME…

Bear with me on this theory..but I believe daily newspapers kept us as a society from completely going insane…

Now, here is where I got this idea.

First off, most of the readers (thank you) of my pithy remarks probably remember newspapers that were delivered to our homes in the mornings or in the afternoons. These covered yesterday’s news, not hourly news since the internet did not exist.

Secondly, they were limited in size and content by the number of pages and the amount of advertisements they could print on a daily basis. Advertisements were sold to support the cost of the newspaper itself. There was only so much room to print all of the daily events, the sports, weather and the ads for the Labor Day sale at Sears.

Today of course all of that has changed and we are bombarded by events and opinions moments or seconds after they occur. Each and every hour of each and every day. We get opinions, viewpoints, lectures, pleas, guilt statements without stop. Whether we want them or not.

Some of these are real, some are not, some are deliberate misinformation, some are clickbait and now we have some that are Ai generated. No one knows what to believe any longer. There is simply too much thrown at us each 24 hours. We cannot begin to filter everything, absorb everything and get a simple answer to any given situation.

We are subjected to the opinions, viewpoints, hates, and biases of the persons giving their opinion. For example, the news de jure would have us believing that most children want to have their sex changed, or that all white folks hate black folks and vice versa. The same would have you believe that every person owning a firearm is actively looking for someone to shoot. I have owned firearms ever since I was about 14 years old and not once have, I felt compelled to go out into a crowd of people and just hurt someone.

Folks, I hate to tell you this, but there are lots of looney people on both sides of the spectrum. All republicans don’t hate all the democrats and all of the democrats don’t hate all of the republicans. But what do we see and hear from these so called ‘experts’ and ‘influencers’ that flood us with snippets of our country devolving into utter chaos and despair?

I question these reports as either being generated for profit (clicks?) or for significance. Do so called ‘influencers’ really think that people are 100% moved by what they discuss or recommend? Or are people following them just out of curiosity? I can never think of any advertisement I have seen in my life that prompted me to get dressed, get in the car or go on line and buy something because Kim what’s her name suggested it.

 

 

Look folks, we are all trying to stay alive in an ever-changing world. Trying to keep a job, raise kids, be a good husband or wife, pay bills, staying healthy…. is definitely not easy.

Our information comes at us fast and furious and from too many unsubstantiated sources.

Is coffee really bad or good for you?

Is it ok to take aspirin?

Carbs or no carbs?

Democrat or Republican?

Gas or electric?

Vaccine or no vaccine?

There is not enough time in the day or the ability to sift through what is the real story behind each and every fact that is tossed to us by the hour. Once you find out (or think you have found out) the truth behind every news item, it is time to start all over again.

Our parents and certainly our grandparents lived at a much slower pace. The news came to them via 1 or maybe 3 television stations, maybe a couple of decent AM radio stations and printed on perhaps 50 or more newspaper pages. There was zero ‘on the spot’ reporting to view time and time again. You found out about it the next day or hours later.

I once asked my favorite aunt what happened to her on December 7^th, 1941. I knew she was in nurses’ school, but I wanted her rendition of that day.

She told me… “I went to church”

I thought the poor old girls mind was beginning to lose it and I tried to jog her memory without being snarky or cruel.

“Now Aunt Margaret, think back …. something really, really big happened in our history on that day…try to remember, if you can.”

She stared at me with a like I was an idiot and said…

“Of course, I knew it was the attack on Pearl Harbor, but we didn’t hear about it until Monday…we didn’t have a radio.”

It is said that ‘what we don’t know ….won’t hurt you’.

Perhaps we could all do with a little less information each and every day.

See you next week…Peary Perry