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Bill Engvall is a gifted comedian. I ‘bust a gut’ every time I watch one of his routines!
But, He’s much more than all that funny… he’s genuine. I’m personally very fond of this man.
Bill is a devout Christian and all ’round good guy.
I watch his Facebook Sunday ‘off the cuff’ sermons weekly and find much comfort and hope in them.
He’s a treasure and I wanted to share today’s with y’all.
https://fb.watch/3Xx87T57ta/
Human psychology is so very curious.
On Facebook, there’s a game circulating which asks people to list some unknown facts about themselves. Immediately, I was struck by the different types of answers and that, some “private” people, just didn’t want to play.
As a person who shares her ideas and opinions (more often than many would care to hear), I find “private” people curious from the “get go”. This is not a judgement, at all. I just wonder what they are feeling and thinking? Since they aren’t inclined to share…I may never know.
That said, the answers, from those who wanted to play, fell into several categories.
1. Things that have happened to them.
2. Their personal tastes and preferences.
3. Accomplishments and choices they’ve made.
4. Ideas/philosophies
THIS is absolutely interesting to me.
While some, chose to reach into their childhood for tidbits, others stayed in a “real time” frame of reference… this also, was interesting.
I’m not a psychologist and we cannot be sure that “how?” people answered isn’t influenced by their own environment in that moment BUT it must, on some level, say a lot about their self-image.
Now, don’t expect me to draw conclusions. This blog post is just about pointing out something that I found curious and wanted to share ‘cuz sharing is what I do! LOL 😉
I find myself shaking my head in disbelief after many (mostly political) conversations that I often initiate on Facebook.
It comes from a received comment that is totally unrelated to my initially expressed idea… which leads to other unrelated comments and so on. Such is life on social media but I’ve been perplexed by why it happens so often?
Then I realized that my comments are from a philosophical consideration, while others, want to deal in “facts” and polls and, sometimes, rumors.
No one way is superior to the other but, put them together, and no one gets anywhere but confused…sometimes angry.
Those who deal in philosophical terms are dealing with concepts and beliefs. They realize that they simply don’t know everything, and, also believe, neither does anyone else. So, to the philosophical person, data is not a part of the discussion. It may be worthy of a power point presentation but simply offers nothing when discussing principles and reasoning itself.
I admit that I am numerically impaired. I try to remember exact numbers and statistics but I cannot.(besides, I don’t trust them)
Because of my impairment, I’m really not interested in that kind of discussion, anyway.
There seems to be folks who are my opposite. I call them Fact-focused. I’d say they are, sometimes, quite philosophically impaired. You can recognize them immediately. They have “facts” and stats and find their truth somewhere among them. I’d want those people doing my taxes but I get frustrated with them in any philosophical argument because they are not speaking a language germane to my subject.
Furthermore, a philosophical person primarily asks only one question… Why?
A Fact-focused person asks many…Where, When, and How many?
To cement my self-labeling as a philosophical thinker, a fact-focused person would not have needed to understand “Why, am I not being understood?” as I just have … but I suspect they are searching, at this same moment, through data and sharpening their information for their next battle of wits. Problem is, we won’t be on the same planet when it occurs. Ugh!
As we get further from human contact with busy lives and social media, how will we get the valuable “first impressions” of people? Whether we like the idea or not, it is essential to have some kind of filter. Certainly, everyone doesn’t qualify for friendship, to be a trusted tenant or employee. It has become politically incorrect to judge other human beings on appearance, behavior, or even skills( Affirmative Action), but we have always needed to judge each other for many things. We do it and it is valuable.
At least, in the past, a sparkle in someone’s eyes and clean appearance gave them a chance. Nowadays, our society has chosen numerical scores to apply values to people.
It wasn’t very long ago that grading and testing were considered unfair and unclear. We have forgotten that many of our greatest entrepreneurs and inventors, dropped out of school, and off of that grid, yet we continue to weigh numbers so heavily. Why?
When it comes down to it, numbers cannot ever measure human value to each other and society. We all know, as well, how often numbers can be manipulated. Most of us, forget that fact, and wave them around as “proofs”.
The urban legends of “Numbers don’t lie” and “Everything in print is true.” are alive and well, my friends. Try making a “tongue in cheek” remark on Facebook if you doubt me.
My most recent pet peeve is the BMI (body mass index) applied to people in an effort, for some, to calculate health risks. The greater hidden agenda is about health care costs, period. In a doctor’s office these stats may be useful. In the public domain, they will discriminate and foster feelings of inadequacies rather than help. Our schools are about to apply a value (their explanation is , to teach.) on our kids. It’s surprising that in our modern information age, anyone who cares, could possibly remain uninformed about diet and exercise but the schools believe we are not informed. I think they consider us dumb. Furthermore, I believe the healthcare industry is scrambling to get health care stats out in the open. One way would be to allow schools to start collecting data. Hmmmm…tricky?
With my argument voiced, I could not help but find some humor in the revolution of numerical stats as a measure of human worth. I have a few ads we may see soon:
“You could be my sweetie-pie if not for your BMI.”
“I think that I would love you more, if you improved your credit score.”
“You may think outside the box but I hate your choice in stocks.”
“Popularity begins and ends, with your number of Facebook friends.”
Numbers are no way to measure the worth of anyone, yet, we are beginning to use them that way. Let’s not allow them to carry too much “weight”.
This is for you guys out there. Something that you may not have considered.
This was inspired by my Facebook connection to my High School graduating class of 1974, since, the women are much harder to identify. It reminded me of something.
The social convention of women taking their husband’s last name is common and seems quite mundane, especially to the husband.
It wasn’t really easy for me, and I suspect, it hasn’t been easy for many women. We create an individuality, a reputation and a persona as we grow up then our “identity” is renamed, changed, in one day.
At first, my biggest fear was accidentally misspelling this name but it felt like I was hiding my true identity for years. Soon, came the ordinary questions from locals about this family, which I really had no history with. Few asked about my “maiden” family because it was hidden but I had been THAT former person all of my life. There was a brand new persona that was in its infancy and I felt a little lost.
In my case, we lived (and still do) in a small city where our families had an equal recognizability. I was not as much an alien, as a bipolar person. For years, I was introduced with two names, by folks who were “in the know”. The old person and this new one…I hadn’t changed a bit though. Creepy when you really get down to it.
I realized that this was a sore point for years, when I uncharacteristically made a snipe at friend of my husband’s family. About two years into our marriage, our first child was born. My husband’s family friend was admiring our beautiful daughter and commented, in jest, “You should had named her Edwina after her father.”
I felt flushed for a moment, then said, “Why would I? She already has HIS last name!”
The rush of resentful emotion startled me, as much as, the poor woman.
Now, I’ve been married for 34 years and I’m no longer the “maiden”. I have built one fine new reputation and persona and I’m comfortable. But when I try to relate to friends who knew me by an ancient name, there’s still a pinch…a moment of mourning, about that not so mundane name change long ago.
Happy Valentine’s Day… whomever you are?
Okay…I’m a bit embarrassed today. I posted a comment, made by my husband, as my Facebook status. I had overlooked a sexual innuendo though. Yes, I can be quite naive. I think my profession as a day care provider for children is partly to blame. My mind rarely entertains what many people call “dirty” thoughts.
My husband loves to make me laugh with his clever ability to play with words. This was my status:
During last weekend’s football playoffs, an ad from Subway announced that they were the official sandwich of the NFL. With out a pause, Ed turned to me and asked, “Now who in the world would want an athlete’s foot long?”
Well now, what I had found funny was the idea of a sub flavored by the athlete’s foot fungus. I think my husband was intending the same meaning but will be questioning his intent when he comes home.
By now, unless you are more naive than I, you can imagine the received meaning of my status by a few Facebook friends. Yikes!
Since drawing more attention to my mistake is not my goal, I’m letting the matter go. This all has been a great lesson and has inspired the subject of this post.
Humor takes many forms and I am not above a chuckle at an “adult” joke, on occasion. But for me, there is nothing that compares with a “good”, “clean” funny.
I’ve attached a clip from a Canadian TV program that exemplifies my case. I hope you enjoy it and if there is any sexual meaning in it, please keep me happily uninformed! Being naive makes me happy. 🙂
My vacation at camp was mostly miserable. We were daunted by heat and humidity to the point of sitting in the shade and not daring to move. It felt like horribly wasted time.
BUT, There was one curiosity that we experienced on a nightly basis. This mystery gave me one bright interest in the midst of all the misery and sulking. At dusk, and through the wee hours, we were visited by an odd crying in the night. It was creepy. It seemed to move freely around the perimeter of our camp. The considered explanations were a new bug, a fox lamenting the loss of a young one or a tree frog we hadn’t before known.
As the week went on, my curiosity outweighed my fear of the unknown. There was not a rustle in the bushes when the sound jumped locations. The thought of a bird being the culprit was all that was left. But what kind of bird?
This has been a year of raptors. My backyard in Massachusetts has had daily sightings of hawks, young and old. Other reports of hawks in greater numbers have flooded the Facebook posts of my friends too.
My last late evening brought out the daring in me. I recorded the sound on my camera and pursued it while the twilight still afforded me a view. Suddenly, I raised my hand in victory and followed the path of an owl silhouetted in brief flight above my head. AHA! The owl landed and reproduced his squeaking lament. We finally had an answer. But why didn’t it hoot like an owl? Why did it carry on and on giving away its position?
My son-in-law was able to access the web from his phone and searched for more answers. He found a site which offered immature owl sounds and found that our old friend, the barred owl, must have had young. One of which was squealing in our area. (Gee, I so wish that I had been able to see them in daylight.) I believe there is more than one. Now, as the days grow delightfully cooler, I have an interest in finding and photographing our new neighbors.
The first video below shows you the immature barred owl making the squeal that we have been hearing. It doesn’t seem like much until you consider it as a foreign forest sound from the dark.
The second video shows you what we will be hearing in greater frequency soon.
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