Boys will boys

First I went into the free private school to pick up my older boy from school. Both his current teacher and his first grade teacher stopped me to tell me how great he is. Something nobody can get get too much of. His is smart kind etcetera.
  Then he got in the truck and we went to pick up Soren. They proceeded to fight and whine for 20 minutes till I threatened their sugar  supply. So we get home and Ben is very proud of his latest accomplishment. "Hey guess what! I barfed on the trampoline!!" Great! Now they get to play with the hose 

competition? Well more like stream of consciousness

So there seems to be this idea in the schools again that competition is the only way to motivate people.
   Every day at the unconstitutional (under god) pledge of allegiance the principal reminds us that we are behind Acequia and Tesuque in our after school first in math. the winner each month gets a pizza party. The loser? Well I guess they go on welfare.
   Now I am not one to speak out against competition because my focus on Track and Soccer kept me sane during my high school years. Of course I do not remember wanting to beat or humiliate others on my way to victory . It was very clear to me in track that I was running from fear and running towards. joy or life or something positive. I remember liking (too weak a word) being goalie because I knew I was the last line of defense. Anyway as usual I have gotten off track and started 3 subjects when I could have stuck to one, At least I am no longer using one word when ten will do.... I always complain the The New Yorker uses ten when one will do. However when people who do not know try to read stuff I have written, it is often made clear that one must use at least enough words to make sense without psychic interpretation.
  Alright, so it is not the competition that bothers me so what is it?
  It seems too come back to some sort of puritan idea that children do not naturally learn. That we adults must force their recalcitrant lazy ignorant minds and spirits to learn. This also ties into the do everything parents(Who are GREAT, by the way) who keep trying to figure out how to motivate the parents who won'n(can't) help out at the school. I don't say it out loud, but my thought is the ones who can are here doing what needs to be done. There may be some parent sitting around full of energy with nothing to do not at the meeting but not many. Most of those absent parents have issues, whether financial or otherwise that keep them from coming. Although The CPA did laugh when everybody was wondering what word(s) we could use to get more parents to volunteer when I recommended IRS. So maybe it is just as simple is telling parents. You volunteer X hours a week spend the weekend in the pokey.
   Hmm..... way off subject... again... Anyway(A word I seem to way overuse) IO tink that younsters thirsty for knowledge and that the schools forget that.

To make a long story short. Ben is very happy because he came in 3rd on the best boat competition(with veery little help from dad, and both Ben and Soren are totally uninterested in winning the first in math and they both love compass learning which does not beat the snot out of other schools and does not win any pizza contests.

  So now I am concerned that they will not be outer directed enough to succeed financially ion our society that rewards amoral workaholic dehumanizing effort of goodness and cooperation.

Good? Evil?

There is a quote from some famous yogi or guru or whatever, " Out beyond good and evil there is a meadow,I will meet you there."

  Being raised in a society that is all about winners(good) and losers(bad) and in a family that was all about good(losers,poor) and bad(winners,rich) I really cannot wrap my mind around this concept.

  There is a state of being in which things just are.?? Interesting. 

  In my family's estate hassling over the last six years we had a mediator who told us about an old Indian story where the young brave tells the wise man about a dream where there are two wolves in his house. An angry slavering mad wolf and a kind caring wolf. The old man tells him these are the two aspects of your spirit battling. The young man says "Which will win?" The old man asks him"Which one will you feed?" This obviously is not an American story. We new Americans seem to feed off anger and violence. 

  Our stories are Dirty Harry and Rambo. I remember a classic John Wayne movie, where his character convinces the peace loving Quakers to take up arms and kill the bad guys Thus they are saved.

   I somehow grew up with this seemingly unpopular idea that morality trumps all. It seems to me that we live in a society, like the Calvinists, that worships success at the expense of all morals. This bothers me but it seems that there is so much pressure from our society that it becomes easier and easier to just give in and be like all the gamblers who created the most recent economic boom and bust. 

  I don't make the rules I just take advantage of them

  Winning isn't everything it is the only thing

  Everybody else is doing it.

  As my Grandfather said."those Indians ought to go back where they came from." His daughter "But Daddy,they were here first.!" 

"Humph, well they should be good losers and go away!"

   So I am very confused about how to get along in a world that rewards on an amoral, if not actually immoral, basis. I know what I think should be rewarded. Altruism moral courage kindness justice etc. I know that in the world none of that matters. Actually I think that is overreaching. there is a strong desire in humans for fairness justice and integrity. Of course some, if not most people see fairness through their own eyes. This means that what is fair to one person or group seems patently unfair to another.
  Property is theft I stole it therefore it is mine. We should all share equally. Two opposite and equal ideas.

 So back to good and evil. I have a feeling (theory) That humans created this ideas. Evil is that which harms us (humans, nations, tribes) Good is that which helps these groups. Then of course there is long term vs short term.

   

Two bads equals okay??

I am a member of a goat milking coop. Every week I go milk goats and do the goat chores and then drive around town with the goat milk in the car for a while.
 Yesterday I forgot the milk in the car. I went put this morning and found the bottle upside down and empty in the back. An absolute disaster! How on Earth am I going to clean up a gallon of milk!?!?
    Luckily there is a whole in the bottom of the car! a little work with a towel and one damp carpet. 

Fatness

The last 6 years of my life have been very stressful. Or should I say interesting. Stress can be a subjective experience as we all pretend to know.
  I come from a smart and intellectual family, which of course made me a strong anti-intellectual. Anyway I have figured out that there are different kinds of knowing(I know I know, there are probably a billion treatises on this very subject).
   By the way I love word processors er...computers. When I was a wee little bairn there were these things called typewriters and they were horrible. One little mistake and you had to throw the whole page away until of course somebody invented white out or liquid paper. Which turned out to be a drug but that is a whole different story. Now carbon paper... that was cool stuff...
   Where was I? Oh yea stress. Well since my external living experience has settled down. End of estate battles moving three times divorce etc. Friends have been telling me that I have lost weight("You look good ,have you lost weight?") I still weigh the same so this started my thinking on the ubiquitous First world issue of fatness and goodness. What is that saying? "You can never be too thin too young or too rich."
   So I am no longer all stressed out I look... not happy not healthy.... I look thin. Interesting. A person who is thin is good a person who is fat is bad? unhealthy? lacks willpower?
   The funny thing is that in the "good old days" a fat person was known to be rich. The theory is that before food was plentiful a fat person was someone who had access to vast resources. A  thin person was a person who lacked the ability to obtain enough calories.
  With the advent of processed food the whole world is turned upside downside. Fatness is called obesity and is the property of the poor who " do not have the moral fibre to get rich" or the"self control" to avoid food that cause obesity. Foods that the human body has adapted to with low caloric value high fiber and vitamin and mineral content are now expensive and hard to find. So poor and or overworked people tend to eat high calorie low fiber foods to fill up on. Of course stress reactions caused the "munchies" and cortisol release which both cause weight gain. So in first world countries the poor are fat and fat is judged as morally inferior and has actual health side affects such as heart disease and diabetes.
  So what happens when I feel less stressed? I have lost weight!
  

School daze?

So kindergartner and 2d grader are supposed to make valentines at home for school. Ben comes home with some sort of stuff for supplies. We buy some paper for Soren to cut out and make Valentines.
   Monday night we remember  the valentines . We start making them and Soren will not let me help cut the paper. Ben is on his own and makes a couple with glue sticks and such. Soren is busy slicing up paper with peace signs on it and writing in the same color ink so the names are invisible. Suddenly Soren needs help. Trex (on the back of peace signs ) needs his teeth cut out. I help him thinking that it is a special valentine. Nope "I just wanted to draw him. Now Soren is doing some crazy art project and Ben wants to buy pre-made valentines. 

Father son.

Pickup the kids at school, head out to look at lame horse go to buy the kids shoes(Again?!). Get home tired and sleepy,eat some c**p from my stupid food allergy diet cook noodle and ramen (Plasticated noodle with freeze dried soy sauce). Cold and tired. Go outside to cut and split wood for fire. Ben wants to come and help. He does one cut with the chainsaw and then disappears to work with horrible new puppies(more on that later) Finish cutting tree and start splitting with huge axe Ben (7) comes back and wants to split . Spend 40 minutes putting logs back on block while Ben with no impatience or frustration swings away with Daddy sized axe.                                                    


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