Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board The Moaning, Groaning, I just want to Vent thread

Quis for the win in a classy way, natch.

For me, I guess it's the fact that every day I work with a fellow that is effed in the head after too many redneck years of smokin' "perk" and other abuses.

In many ways, he's a stand up guy. You mistreat a kid around him, he'll take your head off and not give a damn about it.

In other ways, he's the worst stereotype of jerk, he was taught construction by others, one of whom was my grandfather. And one of ole' Alfonso's stories that he taught this guy, and tried to teach me, was to treat "ladies like a whore and whore's like a lady". He has one thing and basically one thing only on his mind for twenty two hours a day, the other two involve smokin weed or fishin, or comibinin' the two.

I love my family and friends and would almost anything for them, but this guy is the reason I'm gettin into heaven. I haven't killed him yet.

He means no harm, but he never. ..ever.. .ever. ..ever shuts up.

Sometimes, I need quiet. Peace. A few minutes to get my diabeties meds mind in gear. Never happens. I finally had enough the other day and lowered the boom on him and about five other people. Since then, it's been marginally better, but not a lot.

Ahhh, but one day... one day I will have my small one man boat, and I will have my truck, and a lake... and the cell phone will be shut off.

Course, that's when pop will be rushed to the hospital, my step father in law will crash out, mom will be frantic, and the wife will be in tears. I'll feel like such an ass I wont even be able to enjoy five hours of quiet on the lake.

And that's my moanin and groanin for the year.

I remember a line by Superman in JLA Heaven's Ladder. Superman's idea of heaven was "going to sleep with the feeling that anything that I had to do... could wait."

Hope ya get your little slice of "heaven" soon rick!

Aw, matlock.

Yeah, honestly. After being fired with zero warning and crapped on by my last "permanent" employer, then four years on the temp merry-go-round, my sympathy reserves for these people are beyond exhausted. I don't feel bad for them, I don't go the extra mile for them, and I don't waste valuable time/energy considering any of them my friends. It's remarkably freeing, all told.

The current job market has given most of them a hugely inflated sense of importance, and my usual coping mechanism when dealing with them is an inner chuckle and the thought that one day the hammer will fall on them, too. Then they'll finally learn something.

[snip]

So far as I can tell, "Think outside the box" is just code for higher-ups who want to screw everyone underneath them and get a fat golden parachute for doing it.

IRL, the majority of people who endeavor to work for themselves without first earning the good graces of authority figures mostly find themselves ruthlessly crushed by authority. It's to the credit of some people that they don't give up, but honestly: if I ever succeeded in figuring out a way to work effectively around the people in charge, the last thing I'd do is bring it to their attention by crowing to the press or on the internet about it.

And I've already gone on record about my utter disgust with President Hope and his healthcare bailo-- er, "reform." So I'll spare everyone that for today. <span style="font-size: 11px;">Except to say once again how happy I am that I never voted for the jerk, and I won't be doing so this time out, either.</span>

Well, cle, I'm in no way a "higher up" and I don't want to screw anybody out of anything. Yet I do believe it's not up to employers or the government to take care of us or do what we think is fair. It would be nice if life worked that way, but it doesn't.

So, what are we left with? A cynical outlook that nothing we do matters and those in power just want to get us? I'm not sure if that's what you're saying, but that's how it comes across. I reject that notion. Buying into that philosophy leaves me nowhere else to go except the bottle or suicide.

In some ways, where I am now is the result of thinking outside the box. You see, I was supposed to grow up, get married, get a good-paying job (it didn't matter what kind of job--any good-paying job is the only kind of job that matters, I was told), have kids, etc. College was a means to a specific end (good-paying job, again), nothing more.

For various reasons, I never fit into the mold of what I was supposed to do. I wasn't good at sports. I wasn't popular with other kids. Heck, I was such a social misfit, I couldn't finish high school in the traditional way. In other words, I lacked the "foundation" for doing what I was supposed to do: you know, get a good-paying job, get married, have kids, etc.

So it's really quite surprising to me that I'm where I am: teaching at the college level, writing a book, keeping a blog, etc. None of this fits into the "box" I was given.

It's not a perfect outcome. It doesn't mean all my problems are solved. But I do think I'm a lot happier than I would have been had I struggled to conform to the mindset I was taught.

(Oh, and by the way, the "box" would have required me to outgrow comics at some point, probably during my adolescence when other kids started making fun of me for continuing to read them. Yet, here I am, three decades-plus later, chatting about the Legion and similar topics on the Internet with like-minded individuals who also didn't "outgrow" comics. Take that, box!)

Thinking outside the box is not a cure-all for anything. Nor is it an empty catch-phrase. To me, it expresses the idea that life is never what we expect but it is what we make it.

[snip]

I wasn't referring to you as a "higher up," HWW. It's just that in my memory, the phrase "Think outside the box" showed up in the public consciousness during the era of massive downsizing and internet bubbles-- from high-paid tastemakers and corporate marketers. I don't recall it growing organically at the ground level, or being particularly popular with people I knew doing local activist/community work. I've always bristled especially at the "we." Those who first popularized the phrase pretended to think collectively by using it, but generally it's a cover for them doing the opposite of collective thinking: To act on their own behalf first and to hell with everyone else.

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Yet I do believe it's not up to employers or the government to take care of us or do what we think is fair. It would be nice if life worked that way, but it doesn't.

Well, in that case, I'd have to say the people who are living the furthest "out of the box" would be War Tax Resisters or those who practice civil disobedience. Unfortunately, the same government and business barons who want all the onus for decent/responsible behavior to be on our end don't react well at all to that kind of thinking.

And I don't call that observation "cynicism." I call it realism.

For the record, I think you should feel proud of your accomplishments and for the chances you took. But not everyone who stepped off the familiar path ended up managing so well. There are just too many variables involved, many of them completely outside the individual's control, for me to say that "Thinking outside the box" is going to fix what's wrong with the country.

I also don't want it to be a continuous get-out-free card for people (elected or not) to grab whatever they want and to hell with who their greed hurts. I don't want it to be a continuous excuse for people who want the perks and ego gratification of authority (elected or not) without any of the attendant responsibility that comes with it.

But, again, I wasn't referring to you personally when I started grumbling about it. Sorry.

I don't know when "thinking outside the box" became a popular catchphrase. You could be right about its origins. I've adopted it more or less as a personal slogan, something that describes what I said: acknowledging that life isn't what we expect but we can still make the best of it.

If the phrase itself is a stumbling block, let's look beyond it and get at the heart of what we're saying (or at least what I'm trying to say).

I'm finishing up a book called "How Do We Know When It's God?" by Dan Wakefield. A novelist and former TV writer (he created the TV series "James at 15"), Wakefield describes his return to Christianity after several years of atheism. The book, I stress, is not an indictment of atheism but merely an account of one person's journey and grappling with the persistent question, how do you know what God wants you to do (or, if you don't believe in God, how do you know what the right course of action is in any given situation)?

What stands out to me is that, even after his return to Christianity, Wakefield made choices he knew were not in his best interest--including his third marriage, which lasted approximately six months. Sometimes, discernment is the problem. We do what we think is "right" or "best," and we look for signs from God (or the universe or whatever) to support the choice we've already made.

Late in the book, Wakefield writes, "Trusting in a God we do not understand is where faith comes in. And that's why it's so hard. I suspect we make it harder than it has to be, though. I know I do. As I look back I see that in the struggle to 'know when it's God,' the simplest rule of discernment is probably best, and is probably all we need. . . . Whenever I feel shaken in terms of a crisis, when a decision I'm about to make or the struggle to make it brings mental and physical rumblings (thoughts in chaos, pulse rising), it is 'wrong' or not the will of God" (199-200).

Again, this is one man's interpretation of how to discern what is right for him. Later in the book, he describes several positive life changes he's made (moving from Boston to NY, from NY to Florida, etc.) that felt right, even though they came out of the blue and were choices he wouldn't have made a few years earlier or were choices frowned upon by some Christians (e.g., taking Zoloft for depression and anxiety).

Wakefield expresses what I think of when I use the term "thinking outside the box." This term does not equate with working for oneself or civil disobedience, though, for some individuals, it might involve those actions. Rather, the term means being open experiences and opportunities that fall outside the norm of what we've been led to believe is acceptable or even possible.

The Wright Brothers were thinking outside the box when they invented the airplane.

Bill Gates thought outside the box when he revolutionized how we use computers.

But one doesn't have to make widespread changes to the world in order to improve one's own life. Sometimes, the hardest changes to make are personal ones because they involve our own private risks. They invoke challenges to our cherished beliefs or conceptions of ourselves, including our limitations. They involve looking beyond the limitations imposed on us by politics and our present jobs (which is not to say we shouldn't work to improve those things).

So, for me, the phrase takes on a much more personal dimension than it appears to do for you. This may be because I see the hand of God in many of the events of my life. (I'm going to go out on a limb and say believing in a higher power is the most radical form of thinking outside the box--it flies in the face of much of what our contemporary culture teaches about faith.)

The term "thinking outside the box" is ultimately meaningless (though I still like it). What really matters is discerning the best course of action for us (individually or collectively) to take.

Oh, and by the way, I didn't think you were referring to me personally in your previous post, though, since you were responding to something I wrote, it seemed that I should attempt to clarify where I was coming from.

Not a huge earth-shattering vent here or anything, but just... ugh.


I just read an article referring to the "Indiana Jones Quadrilogy".

I freaking hate that word. I first saw it about ten years ago on a DVD set for the "Alien Quadrilogy," and I wanted to scream.

It is a completely made-up word based on nothing but sheer laziness on the part of Marketing people. The correct word for a series of four works is a "Tetralogy" - "logia" being a Greek word that should be preceded by a Greek prefix, not the Latin equivalent.


- We don't call the Department of Defense Headquarters the "Quintagon".

- We don't use web colors based on "Sextadecimal Code".

- We don't call smooth jazz guys from the 1940's "Sep Cats".


OK... fine... that last one doesn't make any sense... but, seriously, "Quadrilogy"?

Ugh.

That reminds me of the United Negro College Fund's slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." It annoyed one of my professors, who said a mind is never a terrible thing.

True . . . but language is flexible, constantly changing and adapting to the needs of the people who use it. I don't think marketers are necessarily lazy when they use "quadrilogy". They probably know most of their audience has no idea what a tetralogy is. On the other hand, most people can figure out "quad."

Marketers are not in the business of educating people (unfortunately). They are in the business of selling products to people who don't know better.

That said, my pet grammar peeve is when people use "whenever" instead of "when": "Whenever I went to the store last night . . ."

Ugh and ugh some more.

It's funny... about an hour after I wrote my little vent, I started thinking that - particularly as a Legion fan - I might be being a bit hypocritical. Somewhere out there, there is probably a grammar minded comic fan who dies a little every time he hears a Legion fan say, "3-boot".


On a completely different note, I have decided that the phrase "Hep Cat" does indeed contain the prefix for 7.

Follow my logic:

- The jazz slang for somebody out of touch with the current trends was "square".
- Another way of saying that was to say they were an "L 7", basically making a square out of the two shapes.
- But why "square" at all? Well... because the number "7" is the number traditionally associated with perfection... but if you were to reflect that back on itself you'd get the opposite... ergo the "L".
- So those who weren't square were "7" or - using the prefix - "Hep".


If anyone plans on telling me that the prefix is actually "Hept" and not "Hep"... I will not stand for having my beautiful hypothesis slain by your ugly facts.

It makes just as much sense as "Quadrilogy," and more thought went into it.

But they are not saying that a mind is a terrible thing. Wasting it is a terrible thing. Your professor is annoying me now.

Just move the last two words to the front.
"To waste a mind is a terrible thing."

It's my day off. I left the house this morning planning to stop at the bank and then meet a friend for lunch. I'm about 3 minutes on the road when the car's temperature gauge rises to the red zone. I call my friend to cancel lunch and drive to the mechanic.

They're busy and can't check it till late this afternoon. So I call my boss, he picks me up and takes me to our office, where I stay the rest of the afternoon. (So much for the day's plans.)

A call at 5:10 says my car is ready. It was a leak in the coolant hose. $240. But the fan isn't working either, and I'll have to bring it back Monday.

I pick up the car. The mechanic wants me to drive it over the weekend to be sure the head gasket isn't blown (he doubts it) before he works on the fan. So my mind is not at ease as I drive away.

I stop to get gas. After filling up, I drive toward the station's exit to get onto the highway. There are 3 cars waiting in line. Now, I'm facing straight toward the exit, while car #3 has come from my right and is angled from that direction. A big gray truck slides in behind him.

As the first two cars pull onto the road, I pull in behind car #3, since it's "my turn" as next in line. But big gray truck doesn't think so. He apparently thinks he's in the "official" line and I'm a usurper...plus I'm just a little Honda. So he keeps pulling toward my car as if he's going to hit me. I can't see the driver, but I can see a kid in the passenger seat, about 11 years old, looking at me as if he's scared to death. The truck keeps coming...there's already nowhere else I can go...so I put out my arm in a stop signal. The truck is inches from my car. Just then the car in front of me moves, and I pull out onto the road.

The truck follows me half a mile until we get onto the interstate ramp. There are two lanes on the ramp. I take the right one, he flies up on my left. The lanes merge on the ramp, and although I have the right of way, he keeps barreling beside me as the lanes merge until he's no more than 5 inches or so from my car. I hit the brakes and fall back.

Once we get on the interstate -- 4 westbound lanes -- he gets in the far right lane and seems to be in no hurry. In order to keep up with traffic flow, I get in the next lane and glide past him. We look at each other for the first time, and I just shake my head.

I wonder if he feels like a big man in front of his kid.

At what point does this connect with Kevin Bacon?

Sorry you had such a bad day, LT. At least no one was hurt due to the truck driver's irresponsibility.

Actually, it would be correct to say "It is a terrible thing to waste a mind."

Correct, but not as catchy.

But the point remains that how they worded it gets the point across and is not confusing in any way.

Was this professor an English (language, not nationality) professor?

I believe so. I'm trying to remember who said it, but it was years ago.

You're right that the meaning is clear, which goes back to my point about language being flexible.

Yes, but waste is a terrible thing to mind.

Leave it to Rick to put it all in perspective.

So one of my Facebook friends posts that she had just bought some kettle bell weights and that she did not know how to use them. I went on Google and started typing "Kettle Bell exercises" got an automatic fill in of "kettle nell exercises for women". I copied the url and pasted it on to her Facebook entry.


Google is your friend!

Does it annoy you that people don't seem to know how to do their own Google searches? It annoys me.

Yes, especially when they post things on Facebook about stuff they heard from reliable sources like talk radio.

Also annoying: we've joined the broken a/c club. It's a bajillion degrees in here. I'm trying to eat some sherbert but it's evaporating.