It wasn't really that hard to love and honor the people closest to me. I could look in their eyes, hug them, laugh with them, cry with them, and easily see them, see in whose image they were made.
It was sometimes tougher to do that with others-- neighbors, co-workers, strangers, my nemesis. But not really all that tough once I started trying. I could still look them in the eyes.
But bad drivers... That one's been tougher. Not impossible, but tougher.
For years, my main transportation was a motorcycle. Motorcyclists refer to cars as boxes. Many car drivers are so trapped in their little box they have no clue what is going on around them. This is especially perturbing when you are exposed on a motorcycle. Several years in a Miata weren't that much different. Even now, in a Mazda 3, dwelling in the Land of Pickups and SUVs, it can be unnerving on a daily basis (think MoPac).
I learned to loathe certain types of boxers-- the clueless, the uncaring, the inattentive, the aggressive, the downright vicious. A while back I decided to love and honor these people, too. Some days it's *really* hard. Why is that?
It's for the same reason, I think, that motorcyclists labeled them as box drivers to begin with. There's a wall there, and some drivers can't or won't see through it, and I can't easily see through it, either. I can't look them in the eye. It's hard to see the human being in there. I certainly can't know them well. I can't even engage them in discussion.
But I do my best. Despite their driving habits and skills or lack thereof, they're moms, dads, children, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, grand-kids, friends, coaches, and so forth. They matter, too. We have the same Daddy. So I pray for their peace as well as mine.
Oddly enough, the more I'm able to do this, the happier and less stressed I am when I get wherever I'm going. If only I could get this message across. But while driving, hand gestures are about all that's available, and somehow they don't do the job.
So I bless them, and pray for them, and love them.
Occasionally I still flash my brights at them when they pull over a car length in front of me on the interstate, but most days it's more an attempt to communicate how foolish they're being rather than what I used to try to communicate, which was more along the lines of "I wish these were blasters fired by Chewbacca to wipe your foolish driving habits off the map!"
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Saturday, April 02, 2011
I'm still on CST (Centex Spring Time)
Early March to mid March were what we think of as spring in most of the country. Coming on the heels of something similar called "fall" in October of last year felt almost surreal. This is, after all, central Texas, where I have long said we have only two seasons-- summer and not-summer. Not summer can vary from not sweltering to below freezing, but even in December or January you might have days in the 80s. An actual spring or fall, at least more than a few days worth, is rare.
On the other hand, the old adage, "Texas: If ya don't like the weather, wait a few minutes; it'll change", is fairly true (except when the summer is hot and dry; then it's likely to stay that way for days on end, perhaps months). That works on a macro scale as well, as evidenced by our having an actual spring and fall within a single year's time.
Late March cooled a bit; it was more like a lot of early Marches I recall from years in the southeast. Yesterday, perhaps as an April fools prank, we hit 91 or so for several hours in the afternoon. Today should be close to that, but in a few days the highs should be in the high 70s. Spring again.
I lived through the Global Cooling days (official motto: The Ice Age Draweth Nigh! Prepare to Die!" I lived through the Global Warming Daze (Ted Turner's motto: "Only the cannibals will survive.") Now I'm living in the "Global Climate Change Daze (official motto: "It's all your fault, but we can't prove how or why."
Torrential rains in the southeast-- no surprise there. Lots of cold and snow up north-- no surprise there. Variable with warmth in central Texas-- no surprise there. While at the extreme end of the bell curve in some cases, it's pretty much what I learned in geography class back in the stone age (the 60s).
So far, while many people claim it's a proven fact that we're on the verge of a cataclysm, and that it's All Our Fault, I'm enjoying the weather here. Frankly, so long as my house wasn't washing away, I'd mostly enjoy the rain. So long as I weren't starving or freezing to death, I'd enjoy the snow (my wife wouldn't, but she just hates the cold unless it's really dry, like in the Colorado mountains).
I suppose I could be fretting about the weather. There are several reasons I don't.
1) I can't tell that anyone has proven anything. There's more than reasonable doubt on some of the work; some of it was as unscientific as it could be. Much of it is politically tainted. And nobody can actually explain to me what's really happening. They just wave statistics and call theories facts, proofs, and results.
2) As I noted, the actual theory and name keep changing. "Global Climate Change" is so broad a term as to be meaningless.
3) The usual mantras to solve the alleged problem (less gas, less coal, etc) are to be replaced by alternatives that-- at best-- postpone it. What will billions of acres of giant wind turbines do to the weather, never mind bird and insect populations and patterns? What will geothermal heating and cooling do to the Earth itself? Nobody really knows. Too often, government mandated cures are as bad as, or worse than, whatever is to be cured-- especially when rushed through.
We seem to forget that much of early civilization was migratory, precisely because of weather patterns such as we are seeing today. There are indications the climate has simply been calmer for some time but the data relating to that tend to be ignored.
Hmmm. I started out just wanting to talk about spring time in Texas. And that's really what It I'd rather do. I miss the Miata, but at least I have windows and a sun roof. We have a back porch. We have a great neighborhood for walking, with trails, a creek (of sorts), and parks nearby. When traffic is moving, I even enjoy the commute to work just because of the weather.
If you aren't enjoying yours, perhaps you should consider a migratory lifestyle. We can always put you up here for a bit. Swimming, anyone?
On the other hand, the old adage, "Texas: If ya don't like the weather, wait a few minutes; it'll change", is fairly true (except when the summer is hot and dry; then it's likely to stay that way for days on end, perhaps months). That works on a macro scale as well, as evidenced by our having an actual spring and fall within a single year's time.
Late March cooled a bit; it was more like a lot of early Marches I recall from years in the southeast. Yesterday, perhaps as an April fools prank, we hit 91 or so for several hours in the afternoon. Today should be close to that, but in a few days the highs should be in the high 70s. Spring again.
I lived through the Global Cooling days (official motto: The Ice Age Draweth Nigh! Prepare to Die!" I lived through the Global Warming Daze (Ted Turner's motto: "Only the cannibals will survive.") Now I'm living in the "Global Climate Change Daze (official motto: "It's all your fault, but we can't prove how or why."
Torrential rains in the southeast-- no surprise there. Lots of cold and snow up north-- no surprise there. Variable with warmth in central Texas-- no surprise there. While at the extreme end of the bell curve in some cases, it's pretty much what I learned in geography class back in the stone age (the 60s).
So far, while many people claim it's a proven fact that we're on the verge of a cataclysm, and that it's All Our Fault, I'm enjoying the weather here. Frankly, so long as my house wasn't washing away, I'd mostly enjoy the rain. So long as I weren't starving or freezing to death, I'd enjoy the snow (my wife wouldn't, but she just hates the cold unless it's really dry, like in the Colorado mountains).
I suppose I could be fretting about the weather. There are several reasons I don't.
1) I can't tell that anyone has proven anything. There's more than reasonable doubt on some of the work; some of it was as unscientific as it could be. Much of it is politically tainted. And nobody can actually explain to me what's really happening. They just wave statistics and call theories facts, proofs, and results.
2) As I noted, the actual theory and name keep changing. "Global Climate Change" is so broad a term as to be meaningless.
3) The usual mantras to solve the alleged problem (less gas, less coal, etc) are to be replaced by alternatives that-- at best-- postpone it. What will billions of acres of giant wind turbines do to the weather, never mind bird and insect populations and patterns? What will geothermal heating and cooling do to the Earth itself? Nobody really knows. Too often, government mandated cures are as bad as, or worse than, whatever is to be cured-- especially when rushed through.
We seem to forget that much of early civilization was migratory, precisely because of weather patterns such as we are seeing today. There are indications the climate has simply been calmer for some time but the data relating to that tend to be ignored.
Hmmm. I started out just wanting to talk about spring time in Texas. And that's really what It I'd rather do. I miss the Miata, but at least I have windows and a sun roof. We have a back porch. We have a great neighborhood for walking, with trails, a creek (of sorts), and parks nearby. When traffic is moving, I even enjoy the commute to work just because of the weather.
If you aren't enjoying yours, perhaps you should consider a migratory lifestyle. We can always put you up here for a bit. Swimming, anyone?
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