play pretend

There is a great scene in “Alice in Wonderland” where Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?”  The cat replies, “That depends a good deal on where you want to go from here?”

Warning! This “It’s Saturday” might be a lot of hoopla! We are constantly bombarded with a lot of thoughts and dreams that end up in our hearts and heads. SusieQ says—That is why I’m who I am. For sure! Folks are constantly messing with my subconscious!  And I don’t even know it.

During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic it appeared folks felt helpless, and many turned to panic buying. That maybe seems a long time ago, but it wasn’t.  Why did you folks do that anyway?  Aren’t we something else.  We for sure were going to have enough toilet paper.  By constantly talking about it, the news media made the scarcity of some items even worse a.k.a. play pretend. Humans are very easily manipulated. C’mon, that’s funny isn’t it. What will be the next thing?  Oh, it will happen I bet. Something as crazy as holla hops maybe!

My time in The Valley of the Sun has been very interesting for me in many ways.  It has.  Ellen Hopkins, whose novels are particularly popular with teenagers and young adults, said, “For short-term relaxation, I take a hot tub.  It’s my best way to unblock writers’ block, too.  For a bit longer relaxation, I enjoy camping.  Just being in the wilderness, with no phones or computers or anything I have to do really refreshes my spirit."  I didn’t have to play pretend as my winter was the real deal for me.  I made many conclusions.

What do you believe and stand for?  Are you a mugrumper (i.e. sit on the fence with your mug on one side and your rump on the other and whichever way the wind blows, that is what you stand for).  Now that is play pretending alright.  Some folks are really good at it.  Oh ya!  Abraham Lincoln said—"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.” I needed some muscle and had to have a friend come over who has the muscle I was looking for to take the gun off my yard hose.  I couldn’t get it and another friend couldn’t either (i.e. neither could his wife).  MyMuscleFriend, who has Popeye arms, really had to work at it also but did get it.  I thanked him and he said—Life is about family and friends (i.e. and he is smart toooo and also has a good heart—my kind of person). I was told by another smart person that the reason why it was soooo tight is that the water is hard and the corrosion is almost welded by the heat of the AZ sun.

When I was a kid growing up a mile and a fourth south of Roseland, MN, my big sister, only in age, would make my play school and house. She even dressed me up like a girl.  That didn’t last tooooo long let me tell ya.  Then I got my kid sister to play “win the world series” with me, play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians and that toooo didn’t last long either.  It was play pretending at its best.  What good memories.

AvergeJosie says--My dream was to be a Miss America but then I woke up! We play pretend to be a lot of stuff, but reality is we are not.  Some things are pretty much impossible (e.g. I will be the star running back of the Super Bowl Champs, The MN Vikings--now that is double play pretend.  It ain’t going ta happen).  A friend was telling me that he was part of a leadership team of a large dynamic church.  The team fall apart as most of the folks had problems of their past that were never addressed (i.e. they were play pretenders).  They looked pretty but weren’t the real deal (e.g. one person always looked like a big shot but reality was he was way over extended financially and eventually his world crashed—wore a big cowboy hat but owned no cattle—just play pretending). He was a regular DuaneTheWorm a.k.a. one big fake who did most everything to self-glorify himself: a real phony.  Some call that play pretending or acting or fooling folks. Flip the pancake. There are folks that are the big time show but no one knows it and those folks don’t want them to know it. Don’t need to be in the spotlight.

Several friends recently told me that they had friends who were powerful for the Lord.  Then one day, they just made a 180 degree turn and denounced God and everything that they have been living their life for (i.e. went in the dark).  They said it seemed that some ruined their lives it seemed. Why I asked. They had no idea.  I don’t understand that.  I asked if they returned to their thinking.  Some they lost touch with and didn’t know, and others just became a mess. Soooo were they just play pretending and now aren’t or are they just play pretending now.  Maybe 30 years ago, a friend lost their daughter. He seemed to be a strong believer but after her death, he just fell apart to a point of claiming he didn’t believe in God.  I don’t know if he did or didn’t.  That always amazed me. Maybe folks become mentally ill, or something happens. Could be.

Flip the pancake! What is your “Red Sea experience” when something happened to you (i.e. possibly a miracle) that just turned your life to the positive.  Something that is just amazing (i.e. totally unexplainable).  Something beyond believe; something that was seemingly impossible. Made your life way different. Soooo great and crazy that you are almost scared to tell anyone about it; feels like play pretend. 

Our friend TheMI-Engineer is in our golf foursome.  We kid him constantly that for $10 he could have been a scratch golfer and he didn’t do it.  Ya, when with GM, they had a hypnotist come in and hypnotized engineers to make them more productive.  It worked.  As an extra bounce the hypnotist would offer for $10 other help.  One was to quit smoking.  He tried to quit smoking but never could get it done soooo he paid his $10 and bingo, he had no urge to smoke any more.  For another $10 the hypnotist said he could make him a scratch golfer.  He didn’t do it; he was tooooo cheap! Now he is never happy with his golf game, 50 years of misery. Sooooo now he has sciatic nerve problems and went to a massage therapist for a treatment for $40 (i.e. it’s inflation).  God only knows what that consists of! We really didn’t ask!  

CoachB says—"There is a constant war, a constant battle for your mind, for your spirit and even for your money. If you don’t understand the tactics of war you will lose to the enemy every time.” Soooo from your experience or from watching others, what are the tactics of war that are just powerful and successful that wins the war in our minds?  There is an old story that I really like and try to use in my life—there is a white dog and a black dog in my heart; the one that wins is the one I feed the most. My application is, I got to get around good folks, read good stuff and listen to good stuff.  That is my opinion folks, yours might be different. You want whine with your cheese? Suck it up cupcake and let’s get going! 

William Hazlitt claimed that when great thoughts are reduced to practice, they become great acts.  I have been in groups that study what we should do and talk about what we should do but never do anything.  Then another time we talk about it again and again and again never do anything.  Have you been such groups in many different settings? Well folks, here is an application that I suggest you do.  Send a note or postcard to 5 folks who would not ever expect getting something from you.  Sooooo out of the blue they get a note from you that says—I’m praying for you or I’m thinking of you or I care about you.  Pretty powerful and it just takes such little effort (i.e. quit talking and do something). I got a text from an acquaintance recently who explained their situation and the end asked for me to pray for them.  I texted them back and asked I could meet with them on their deck for a little while.  They accepted and we had a great talk.  It took courage by that person to do that.  I’m guessing that this person is a great person.

Are we instable folks (i.e. like how we think Russia is in that it has a malevolent personality)? Do folks play pretend?  I read this while eating my oatmeal with half a banana on it written by Chris, anyone can be a Chris—“We live under an illusion that our lives are at the mercy of others—the people we are indebted to, those who govern us, the bureaucracies and massive institutions, and more. You can’t fight city hall, and you can’t buck the status quo. When powerful people tell us what to do, we must either do it or come up with the funds to go to court. Since that isn’t an option for most of us, we’re left to swim downstream with the rest of the world. We feel bound by its ways.” Chris goes on to say—"We are not obligated to fit ourselves into the value system of money and power if we believe in God and his spiritual world of eternal life which is forever.”  Now that can be hard to comprehend and believe.  Most folks who are educated in “the world facts” can’t do it because they have to believe and have faith, and those folks can’t do that. I have said many times that I wish I was smarter but now I don’t know about that (i.e. maybe those folks aren’t smarter; they are just play pretending). ScienceProfessorWally says—erv, go fly a kite; I’m smart and that stuff is just hog wash thinking; you have no proof! ScienceProfessorWally believes he will die just like a pig.  Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, “Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control/These three along lead life to sovereign power.”

If someone asked you to do a public promo of yourself, would you do it or not?  Why do folks do public promos of themselves (i.e. what is their purpose)? What do they say about themselves? You know all the answers, c’mon, you know, and you know what you would say about yourself if you would do one.  You do.  Some of you would brag about yourself and some of you would use it as an opportunity to sell something (i.e. many different things) and some of you would promote someone else and some of you would say very little about yourself (i.e. treat it as an opportunity).  C’mon, PeggySue, you know what you would say.  You sure do. You know yourself better than anyone. WorldClassLarry says—What’s down in the well will come up in the bucket.

Do you believe in make believe like in fairies?  Do you believe in angles?  Sooooo if we don’t believe in fairies then why do some parents read fairy tales to their kids (i.e. play pretend)?  Are they teaching them to play pretend?  An acquaintance recently told me about their spouse who was dying.  He saw angles by his side before he died to take him to heaven.  Soooo you believe that?  I personally have not seen an angel although maybe I have in human form; I’m not certain about that.  Folks call some folks angles. I asked my neighbor about this.  She said—I don’t believe in fairies but I believe that I have a Guardian Angel with me all the time. Soooo I saw this yard ornament while walking in our park.  It made me smile.  I didn’t know how to interpret it. How do you interpret it?  ItchieBitchie says—We all like soft landings. Sooooo I read this while eating my oatmeal with half a banana on it—Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.

I like this guy as he agrees with my thinking (i.e. we always like folks who agree with us). haha ANYWAY, this is what Robert J. Tamasy says--A song from years ago complained, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” These days, we could make a similar observation that if it wasn’t for bad news, we wouldn’t have any news at all…The old news mantra, “If it bleeds, it leads,” has taken center stage…The temptation is great to plunge into great despair, with the constant barrage of bad news causing us to believe that all hope is gone. But this temptation offers no positive outcome. So, how can we avoid it? Leadership consultant Tim Knight says, “If you dwell on the negative, you simply feed your frustration or fear, which leads to bad decisions, which causes you to be even more anxious, angry, or afraid. It is a ‘doom loop.’ Press pause and interrupt the doom loop. Redirect your focus from the negative to the productive.” Now that is his opinion. Yours might be different. You might think it’s better to wallow in the muck.

Have a FUN day my friends unless you have other plans. (-:

erv

MyFriendJean said—A life without a cause is a life without effect.

PS  “It is more fitting for a [hu]man to laugh at life than to lament over it.” – Seneca     Is that a bit tooooo stoic for some of you?