Maybe you have heard this: Sets low standards. Achieves same. Or this: Good enough for government work. I find both phrases tediously trite and possibly insulting. But, I’ve cheerfully used both. How about, practice makes perfect? I later heard it as, perfect practice makes perfect.
As that quality assurance guy for government contracts, I was very busy, never bored, and often unloved by contractors. They did not have to be perfect, but they did have agreed to, measurable standards to meet. Nobody likes it when “shit don’t work like it’s supposed to.”
As I write this, I’m sitting in the Tap Room of my local microbrewery sipping an excellent porter. I shall have another. It’s good and reasonably priced, but it’s not perfect. Perfect beer cannot be improved upon.
Perfection, by definition, cannot be made better.
Rarely do I say the word or identify something as perfect. When I do, I’m lying. Perfect works best when it’s said sarcastically and implying the exact opposite: FUBAR (definition below).
My strained relationship with the word perfect started with software – Word Perfect. It was not. Later, the word and the connotation it held annoyed me. Years ago, I decided that perfection was not a realistic or achievable standard. I developed a skeptical dislike for the word. When I heard someone say progress, not perfection, I liked that. Who does not want things to improve?
As part of my prep to write about this, I watched a couple of TED talks that only served to piss me off. With apologies to all her fans, Elizabeth Gilbert has a talent for making me want to bang my head on the nearest wall. Her following is vastly larger than mine, but I still think she’s out there. I like and admire her, but I strongly disagree on many levels with her views on creativity and writing. She makes me feel guilty, and I’m not sure why.
The other TED talk was by a man named Jon Bowers. Jon was (I assume he is) the lead on UPS training. Indeed, he does good work and as a professional trainer myself, I can relate to the challenges his company faces. The title of his talk was, We should aim for perfection – and stop fearing failure.
I interpret that title as, Attempt the impossible and guarantee failure. While Bowers gave many truthful and accurate statistical examples where high standards are critical, he ruined it when he implied that for us to not accept his position equated to accepting lower standards. He is wrong. I agree that excessive fear of failure prevents much good from happening. But, it is also motivation to succeed.
I think we need to set high, achievable standards commensurate with risk. My training background was in aviation. Our stated standard was in the 80 to 85 percentage area. Yet, our trainees (pilots) normally performed in the high 90s, many at the 100% level. Aviation is one of many human, high-risk endeavors labeled inherently dangerous. Fly safe and thank training.
For years the response to many statements (esp. by Brits) was “brilliant.” Another word where sarcasm works better than reality while good or excellent would suffice. But, when I answer a question and the response is “perfect,” I want to ask, “how so?”; or to simply say, “No. It is not perfect. It simply is.” And, thank you, but it’s also not brilliant.
I was on the phone with an otherwise charming and competent millennial when she asked for my address and phone number as part of a business transaction. After I told her my address, she responded with “perfect.” Her reaction to my phone number was again, “perfect.” If my address was One Penny Lane, Liverpool, it would be cool or, in a stretch, excellent. Yet, still not perfect. Same for a phone number of three sixes followed by the digits one through seven. Yet, the young lady declared my responses to every one of her questions perfect.
A friend asked if I was available to meetup next Thursday. When I responded “for lunch at noon” she could have said okay, or see you then, or great. But she said, “perfect.” I assume all times before noon would have been satisfactory and later would have been acceptable. But noon was fucking perfection without peer.
My friend, Jack, once described wine to me as drinkable. If you have ever tasted undrinkable wine, you know exactly what he meant. Jack served mighty fine wine — not perfect, but perfectly drinkable.
When people ask me about something and I answer with good, fine, or (god forbid) okay, it’s common for them to follow by asking me what was wrong or what I didn’t like. Perfect.
Look both ways crossing streets.
The perfectly trained UPS driver may not be having a perfect day.
Mind the gap lest you fall and ruin an otherwise perfect trip.
Note: FUBAR is an acronym for fucked up beyond all reason.
It’s everything what’s bad
You want me to believe
that man is god? Seriously?
Reality is human nature. Dark.
The only safe way to be is against,
against everybody and everything.
‘tis neither fit nor rot.
Is this the reality of real life?
Or is it all just a dream of
A dream within a fantasy?
Open your eyes.
Look to the skies.
Look around and see reality.
Truth is for all to see.
Every form of refuge has its price
Reality is our god. The only god,
The god of universe, birth, death
no tribute or prayer brings change.
We all have dues to pay, the rich,
the poor, the good, the bad.
We deem it reality.
Save the worthless praise. Just be.
Find the truth in this reality
without offer or any sacrifice.
See the light but thank the darkness.
Be the proof of true existence.
Seek out verity in what is.
Last Monday evening, I attended a community forum panel discussion about “does god answer prayers?” I wanted to hear what the atheist member of the panel said.
Panel members included:
1. A retired Presbyterian minister,
2. A female Jewish Rabbi (this lady),
3. A Messianic Jewish Rabbi/pastor (this guy), [Note: Messianic Jews are Jews for Jesus and are not recognized as Jewish.]
4. I didn’t hear the word atheist said all evening, even during the moderator’s intro of him. He authored this.
I would say the panel was a representation of the religious minorities in this community. Most people in this county are Nones in that they claim no specific religious group, but few are atheist. Other than that, most others are Christians: Evangelical Protestants, Catholics, and Baptists.
The atheist, retired minister, and moderator were all board members of the Community Forum which sponsored the event. That explains the atheist’s presence on the panel.
It would have been a better panel if it had included a Baptist or Evangelical Protestant, a Catholic, and no atheist or ‘Jews for Jesus’. I think that would have better represented the religious demographic of the overall community.
The three panel members who were religious ministers agreed that god answers prayers. If there were 100 of them, they would all have agreed.
However, having an atheist on the panel may have contributed to attendance. He was why I attended. People enjoy controversy, which was obviously avoided at the cost of quality.
The moderator said that this was the best-attended of the forums thus far. I counted slightly more than 100 attendees.
I felt disappointed with the atheist, an older PhD dude, who said, “God does not answer prayers.” Said like that left too much wiggle room for existence. Gods don’t answer prayers if gods don’t exist.
He offered empirical research evidence, which he said proved that god did not answer prayers. He did a good job of staying on topic and not offending anyone, but that should not have been his goal. The research evidence he mentioned proved nothing, much less the negative (not answer prayer) he proposed.
The Messianic Jewish Rabbi spoke in typical bible-belt, fundamentalist rhetoric. At one point he said that he would make a poor Southern Baptist because he occasionally enjoyed alcohol. I thought that if he removed his little cap and told me he was Baptist, I’d believe him.
His evidence of god answering prayers was that someone with stage IV cancer was cured with prayer. The pastor did not give a name or say if any medical intervention occurred. He also cited Chick-fil-A as further evidence. He said it was the top selling fast food business despite being closed on Sundays, but he was wrong.
The eat mor chickin business is currently reported as 7th in the fast food store sales behind Micky D’s (#1), Starbucks (#2) and four others. While Starbucks is a lightning rod for religious criticism of everything from their holiday coffee cup designs to the occasional idiot store manager, they are doing ok. Number 8 is currently Dunkin’ Donuts, another coffee empire.
The Presbyterian could cure insomnia. He said the amount of faith one has contributes to the likelihood of a prayer being answered. This idea of needing strong faith to be good enough for god translates to god plays favorites.
When the real Jewish Rabbi and Cantor stood up, she did the best of the four, despite (or maybe because of) frequently wandering off topic. Once she had to ask the moderator to repeat the question she was answering.
She wore a stiff, black, sequined, kippah or yarmulke that stood-out in her abundant bright blonde hair. Her floor length, straight, black dress with long sleeves was attractive, but in good taste and appropriate for a person of her position.
Bar none and by far, she was the most attractive Rabbi, or Cantor, I have ever seen. Her focus was more on style of, and reason for, prayer. She did not present arguments about whether god answers prayers, which she seemed to take for granted.
She favored chanting or singing of prayers in the original language (Hebrew in her case), a proposal I support over the random, impromptu wanderings of many long-winded lapses of reality proffered by Evangelicals and Baptists.
While there was potential for interest, the vanilla, shallow, and predictable comments of panel members were disappointing. Maybe the community forum should pray for enlightenment and better clerical participation in similar future endeavors.
I don’t know what he is praying for, but I want the answer to be Hell No.
Look both ways and reflect on what is real. Mind the gap.
After leaving Mary’s Country Café in Colorado City, I was feeling bloated and wondering how and why I packed away so much of their chicken-fried steak. I was driving down a depressingly hot and joyless west-Texas country road, 20 miles east of nowhere special.
The desperation of the settlers who first moved there is unimaginable for me. They didn’t even have a/c in movie houses, movies at all, or a/c for that matter. The middle of nowhere may be overused and trite, but this place is there.
My excuse for being here is that I married a native. Her family and what is now our tribe live around there. I reckon they don’t know any better, but I’m here cuz they are.
After a while, I spied one of them plug-in jobs on the roadside. Casually leaning against the car was a hot (in both senses of the word) little number lookin’ plumb distressed in her flipflops, cutoff jeans, and a sweaty, thin tanktop. She was on the highway side with her arms folded looking at her cell phone like she might get service. Not out there.
See the blue dot on curve, right side?
I forget which rule it is that says no honorable man shall pass such a sight without rendering aid, so I just pulled on over after slowly driving past. It was a hot dry day, too miserable to be stuck in a fix of any kind. But that sweet little pumpkin-head was dressed fer it.
“Howdy ma’am. I’m Billy Don Russel from o’r West Bumbfuch. Y’all doin’ a’right?
That little girl acted plumb excited to see me. “Oh-Em-Gee. Thank God!”
Did I mention she had long black hair pulled tight into a quarterhorse tail that was sitckin’ out the back of a ball cap, like they do? The cap said Daisy Riding Service.
I managed to keep my eyes on hers and my eyebrows down. Men in them parts follow a strict role or can’t be trusted. And women like that are usually packin’ small caliber. Texas, ya know. We got critters, some are human.
With a neighborly smile I asked her, “What seems to be the problem, young lady?”
She held up her key FOB and screeched through her bright white teeth for the world to hear, “My clicker thingy won’t unlock my effing door and I can’t get into my gee-dee car.”
“Would you like me to try, Ma’am?”
She handed me her keys. I quickly glanced around expecting to see if a candid cell phone was recording all this. First, I tried to open the door with the handle. Sure ‘nuff, locked. Pressing the unlock button changed nothing.
I looked closer at the metal portion of the key and then back at the distressed damsel. She gave me a “told ya’” expression and shrugged her hot, sweaty, bare shoulders.
I gently slid the metal portion of the key into the little hole near the door handle and twisted slightly to an audible click. Handing her the key, I suggested she drive off first to be sure everything else is ok. She got in her car and rolled down the window.
“Thanks, Grandpa. I’m so embarrassed.”
“You drive careful, young lady. It’s dangerous country out there.”
“Please don’t tell Mom or Dad. They already think I’m a brainless twit. Tell Gramma I said hi.”
I managed to get back into my pickup with a straight face. My wife asked, “What was that all about?”
I looked at her and smiled, “Jessica said to tell you howdy. I’ll tell ya the rest over dinner, but she was having some technological issues.”
“She didn’t know how to use it?”
“More like didn’t know how not to use it.”
Look both ways on them deserted roads.
Tumble weed and roadrunners will get cha if ya don’t mind the gaps.
Recently, I saw a book for sale in the local library. The title was God’s Plan for Church Leadership. I don’t recall the author’s name, nor did I think any more about it until the title came back to me while driving home. I haven’t read the book, but apparently the author was sharing this information about God’s Plan in a book.
All I needed to do was buy the book and read it. Then, I too would have the wisdom and insight of this plan, whatever benefit that would have. I suppose part of the plan was for the book’s author to get the messages telepathically, or however that works, so that the book could be written, published, and sold. It must follow that I would see the book, not buy it, and write about it. It’s all part of the big plan.
It strikes me as special when people say things like “God’s Plan” because it stakes the claim that they have factual inside-information from a deity. In this case, it’s specifically Christian, but that concept is by no means unique to the 75% of Americans who claim membership in that group.
The other two groups of the Abrahamic tradition (Jewish and Muslim) have similar claimants. But this author was Christian. I have always been baffled by folks who can tell me precisely what the plan is, other than what may be specifically spelled-out in scripture. I don’t agree with much scripture, but at least I know it to be the source.
If there is a plan for us, it is coded in our blood, bones, and brain – our DNA – what capabilities and limitations we have are pretty much set from day one. We are all the same in many aspects, yet very different in many observable ways. I’m not saying there is any plan, but the blueprint for my life was of my own making, given certain realities, realizations, limitations, and abilities. There are also coincidences.
I’ve seen no other evidence of planning. We are quite on our own. We can make the best of it. Conversely, we may under-perform to phenomenally low, yet undiscovered, levels. Failure in life is an option, even when disguised as success.
I find it frighteningly bizarre that since Armageddon is apparently a religious end times prophesy (I’m not looking it up, but I think it’s in Revelation) of God’s plan, many Christian people work hard to rush that event to fruition, thus ending human life on earth. And in their mind, sending people like me straight to Hell to their everlasting joy. An eternity of “I told you so.” For Muslims, it’s Al-Malhama Al-Kubra – but it’s all the same to me.
You can buy these and give them to your heathen friends.
Now, for the person who claims personal and privileged information regarding the specifics of a deific plan for church leadership. I would cheerfully bet a six-pack of any brewery’s finest amber ale that the same preacher/follower-man or woman (it was guy, but I’m feeling inclusive) would call down fire and brimstone into the after-death fortunes of anyone who would aspire to fortune-telling – as either practitioner or consumer. Yet, that is exactly what this self-proclaimed, religiously acceptable prophet is claiming to do.
It seems that in this case, and in so many others, God apparently needs this human’s help to pull-off the Big Plan. God is omnipotent but likes to entice His or Her enslaved underlings to do this bidding, just because.
I can say from experience that God’s plan is very clear to some of us, until others of us start asking questions. The brand of answer for the prior ilk is too often a version of God works in mysterious ways. The honest answer might sound like I don’t know.
I am not picking on all believers (at least not here). I know many religiously devout people who do not claim to know the plan (thus, so many books for them to buy), and do not believe this mumbo-jumbo any more than I do. They may even proffer that making such a claim would be heresy.
Waiving my bullshit flag has brought trouble into my life. It would be fair to wonder why I don’t stop. I can assure you that I will continue objecting to such ludicrous nonsense until the day the king puts on his clothes.
My plan and wish for us both is to have a wonderful day. Allahu akbar (not to me).
Always look both ways.
You don’t know what Allah’s plan is, or if she will protect you.
So, mind the gaps like you mean it.
Postscript: I returned to the library but could not find the book again anywhere, nor could I locate anything like it in the catalogue system (likewise in cyberspace). During my search, I did notice several similar titles. There are many people who seem to know God’s plan. As I searched graphics for this post, I noticed more literature about God’s Plan.
This is the last of my four-part neighbor-knocking recall from our time on the Redneck Riviera (Florida Panhandle).
Part 4 of 4: Meet Dangerous Dixie
Directly across the street lived an inspirational hero named Dixie. I met her when she was 97 or 98 years of age. I went to the 99th Birthday bash at Dixie’s home, the same house she and her late hubby moved into 50 years prior, in 1964, when the houses and the neighborhood were all new.
A wee bit bent over, Dixie walked unassisted and talked bitingly sharper than many folk decades younger. If I had a favorite people list, Dixie would be in the top five. I don’t know what it was about the little bull dog that we found so compelling, but Dixie was a treat to behold. A pill, but one you must love.
Meeting and making new friends when they are in their late 90s (Dixie was 30 years my senior) is like no other relationship. There were many things special or unique about her (not all of them sweetness and love), but at that point in life, attitude is more important than ever. One of Dixie’s last great adventures had been an excursion to the Galapagos Islands ten years earlier. She told me all about the trip, remembering many specific details and saying that she got around much better back then, at age 88.
Dixie was convinced that a local lawn guy had dumped a pile of yard-waste at her curb. He hadn’t, but that was not the point. She refused to permit me to dispose of the waste. My wife talked to the guy and offered to pay him to clean it up. He said, “I know she thinks I did that, but I did not. However, I will clean it up without charge.” He did. In Dixie’s mind, he was guilty, and she had won because she had waited him out. We let her go with that.
I have attended exactly one 99th Birthday Party in my life: Dixie’s. She wore two-inch heels and personally greeted each of the many guests. As she would introduce them around the room, naming each guest, she accurately told a little story about each person or couple.
That went on for more than an hour before Dixie finally sat down and took her shoes off. Dixie looked at my wife and asked if she still drove. Dixie’s Mercedes was parked in her driveway, but she had only recently stopped driving. When Yolonda said that she did drive, Dixie said, “Good. Because we need to get out and do some running around and have some fun.”
I don’t know what doctor thought a cardiac pacemaker would be good for Dixie at 99, but a few months following the party she had that surgery. Some weeks later, Dixie was found dead in her split-level home, ostensibly from some form of cardiac failure. Dixie’s 100th Birthday Party was combined with a memorial of her passing as well as celebrating her life. I knew Dixie for less than two years of her long life, but I will not forget her.
In many ways, I would like to be like Dixie. However, I could never measure up to her spark, enthusiasm for life, or love of nature.
Look both ways in life, even when there is a lot more was than will be. Mind your gaps.
I have always liked the Diamond Rio song, Norma Jean Riley, so it follows this dribble for no other reason than I like it.
Part 3 of 4: Norma Jean (not Riley) and Mac
I met Norma Jean and her hubby, but I recall little about either of them. He was quiet; she was not. I had no judgmental opinion, but my wife seemed to like them. That means they are “fine.” They were longtime residents of the neighborhood and had raised their kids there and all of that. But, we all have our foibles, right? So, I will set this up for you.
We rented the house on the cul-de-sac we lived in for three years. When we announced we planned to move, the owner put it on the market and sold it. The couple who bought the house had children, were of some middle eastern ethnicity or nationality, and of the Islamic faith. I never met them, but I may have seen them when they looked at the house, since it was being shown while we lived in it.
As I understand, after we moved (bless her heart) sweet ol’ Norma Jean, who is of the Southern Baptist tradition, went to meet and welcome her new neighbors. It’s what we do. Being neighborly, right? In classic, southern, Bible Belt fashion, she invited her new neighbors to attend church and especially invited the children to Vacation Bible School.
The father of the children explained to sweet Norma Jean that he and his family were Muslims. He added that while his family would be following their own religious tradition, Norma Jean and her hubby were invited to a sit-down discussion of religion so that they might understand Islam better.
I don’t know what Islamic sect or part of that tradition the family followed. The conversation ended there. I’m sure Norma Jean sweetly declined the invitation. But then, bless her heart, Norma Jean shared the experience and her take on it all with my wife.
Apparently, Norma Jean was quite upset (shocked?) by the invitation for a chit-chat on the topics of Jesus and Mohammed. In righteous indignation she contacted my wife and shared her venomous opinion of such a request. “I have never been so insulted,” is how she felt about it.
I asked my wife how Norma Jean could in good conscience invite a Muslim family to a Southern Baptist church and to Vacation Bible School, but be offended by an offer to compare notes, quid pro quo, especially about two of the three Abrahamic religions of the world.
Some things I will never understand. Most people I will never understand. Southern Baptists and Muslims are two groups that fit both categories. But, that is fine since it is unlikely that they understand me either.
Look both ways in comparing notes with others. Turnabout is fair play but mind the gaps.
Our Literary Journey 