Am sitting here in LaLa Land with my feet up. Not planned. Broke my ankle last Friday and had surgery yesterday. On limited duty for next 6-8 weeks. Kathy is filing for divorce. Can you blame her?

I have been on crutches this last week and your perspective changes. You have to be aware of your surroundings and especially people around you.You are needy and for me that sucks.  Some are of immense help and others not so. The other day a woman slammed the door in my face as I was trying to go through. Probably didn’t like my bald head or something. Hellooooo!

A wonderful friend stopped by the other day to keep me company. It took us about fifteen seconds to discuss the weather and then we got down to the nitty gritty. This guy is as bad as me with meandering thoughts. In the first fifteen minutes we went down about nine dark alleys. One struck in my mind. 

It centered around the fact that we all look at things differently. I happen to like contrary thought and isms. Reductio ad absurdum, we should all live in 7 billion worlds. Yet we crave definition. I am liberal. I am conservative. I am from the North. I am from the South. I am white. I am black. I belong to this club. Is that inclusion or separation?Is this an integral part of our rancorous nature today? 

The trend seems to be taking sides. To say we are going to extremes is not an exaggeration. We are setting more and more rules and if you don’t adhere, you are not one of us. Whatever club we are in we want the members to be pure. Elitism can be the gang at the country club or the gang in the hood. We hate whatever we ain’t. We want to be in this hermetically sealed room of conformity to our ideas. 

Sitting in a waiting room for a preop exam you look around at all types. This one is pleasant. That one is disgusting. Why? Because they either do or do not adhere to my standards. I gravitate towards the ones that are like me. I shun the others. Natural? Probably, but the thought occurs to me that I don’t even give them a chance. 

I am open to all sides. I didn’t say I agree but it is fascinating to hear other lines of thinking. Do I feel threatened? No. It is my way to reach out to others. I want to know and I guess I want to help. The young woman who took my blood told me she had been at this job since June. Doris went to school after 12 years in retail. She was so proud to be dong what she was doing. I told her what a great job she had done and thanked her. I could tell she felt good and so did I. What if I sat there placidly and never asked?. 

My buddy and I continued down the road and thought about this thing called “Do Unto Others”. Simple, but I hope not trite. He expressed it as just love for one another. He felt perhaps “Giving” best describe it. No, the anesthesia has not made me delirious but just think about it. We all want everyone to be just like us. Have we ever thought about being like them? Have we looked at life from their perspective? Beyond tough but really provocative and satisfying.

Every so oftenI have tried doing nothing but give for an entire day. I probably get through the first hour at best but at least I give it a try. Walk down the street or into a store and worry about that other person and not me. Say, How are you dong? And mean it. Have a conversation and elicit response. As an old friend said, hit the receive button and not transmit on your radio. 

We try to build ourselves up. We say we want to be better people but aren’t we in some way saying I just want to be better than you? I want to be richer, skinnier and a better golfer than you. The more exclusive I am the more in control of the situation. I can dictate rather than be subservient to outside influences. I am moved by a song or a movie but then I go back into my cocoon. My own gated community with my own gated thoughts. On either side of the tracks.

Well gang, so much for my reverie. I will go back to my reading and yes, probably do more writing. My world looks a little different right now and that is cool. I will let you know how I am doing. Most of all. I wonder about all of you and your lives. I hope they are different too. Come on in, the water is fine.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

In a two hour out patient surgery yesterday I had contact with fifteen human beings I never met before. At our club for a dinner meal there are at least 30 servers, bussers, cooks and dishwashers that go to make my meal. Never thought of that before. 

A Cigna report stated:Only around half of Americans (53%) say they have meaningful, daily face-to-face social interactions, including an extended conversation with a friend or spending quality time with family.

Additionally, the survey found that younger American are hit harder by loneliness. The generation born between the mid-1990s and early 2000s especially

Ted Talks as a non profit began in 1984. There are over 93,000 Ted Talk videos. They are all by rule 18 minutes or less. Think of all the topics we can discover that present different ideas. In your own home and no one will ever know.