Wisdom - our Only Remaining Taboo

     Situation comedies have for decades featured ridiculously immature adults - males and females. Reality shows are the same, but these supposedly "real" people in addition tend to have nasty attitudes. "Nuke them back into the stone age" movies make the most money. CNN drools over every violent incident. In a recent stand-up routine on TV, Chris Rock observed how women are just as happy as men to dance to outrageously misogynistic rap music - women and men in the audience laughed heartily. At the recent 72nd annual Golden Globe Awards, hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler asked a series of actors "Who would you rather?", giving them two choices of actors of the opposite sex. Every actor, without a moment's hesitation, picked one on live television.
     Media saturate our consciousness with good-looking, sexy, obscenely rich "role-models", most of whom act like 2-year-old sociopaths. People start watching violent, sexually-explicit music videos and other pornography from early childhood.
     Clearly, "anything goes" today. But no, not quite! Mention the word "wisdom", and people run away as fast as they can.

     Wisdom: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2015/01/620-what-is-wisdom.html
     and: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/04/psychospiritual-technologies.html

Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Rapid-fire Words - Hilarious OR Hurtful

     An infinite number & variety of thoughts pass through our minds at a rapid pace - like a wind storm blowing dust particles through an open archway. Relatively rarely, we instantly verbalize one of these dust particles. Being unformulated, extemporaneous statements are "out of character" for the speaker, and can have surprising, unpredictable effects. Words, after all, can be powerful.
     At best, such spontaneous verbalizations can be hilariously funny, helped enormously by the rapidity with which they comment on an event. And precisely for the same reason, these can be devastatingly hurtful. In either case, there's no time to actually examine & filter what's being said - to consider it's effects.
     Unfortunately, once something hurtful is verbalized, those hurt by it may assume that the hurtful statement was intentional and encapsulates who the speaker is, what that speaker is "all about". But this is rarely so.
     Only after we ourselves commit such blunders AND actually realize it, do we start forgiving others, and realize that these usually are truly "out of character." People are far more complex, & far more decent than we tend to assume immediately after we're hurt by - OR we ourselves hurt others with - a few random words.

Earnestly Spinning our Wheels, Comedy, Perspective, Wisdom

     A key ingredient of comedy is the earnestness and fervent energy with which the comic pursues a ridiculous goal eg Clark Griswold setting up the "perfect" Christmas lighting on his house in "Christmas Vacation". To engage the audience, comedy must also reflect aspects of our own lives - we must be able to see ourselves, to some degree, in these same situations.
      Each of us, as I understand, always does his/her best at any given moment. Later, with 20:20 hindsight, we may be appalled at our behavior, yet it seemed reasonable at the time. Our earnest misguided efforts are often somewhat Griswoldian. So comedy helps us laugh at ourselves instead of crying.  
     Many of us live our whole lives, doing our best, and yet be filled with regret as we reflect back. Could we put some time and effort into deep silent self-reflection & meditation throughout life, to intentionally & wisely orient the trajectory of our lives?

Suezan Aikins RCA   http://www.suezan-aikins.com