ClydeStyle

Tag: Truth

  • Convenience is killing us

    What is the cost of convenience these days? It seems like the better we are technologically, the worse off we get.

    Artificial Intelligence says the phrase “convenience is killing us” means that our constant pursuit of easy and readily available options, often in the form of processed foods, fast services, and readily accessible technology, is negatively impacting our health, environment, and overall well-being by encouraging laziness, poor dietary choices, and a lack of meaningful engagement with our surroundings; essentially, prioritizing immediate comfort over long-term health and sustainability.

    It has always been this way. For example, in the 1700s, we would have a wood-burning stove and a fireplace, and between the two, the family would be gathered together in one room to stay warm. The kids would be lying on the floor near the fireplace. Mama would be in her rocking chair knitting, and Papa would be smoking his pipe and reading to the family from the “good book,” and there would be good, stimulating discussion and togetherness.

    In 1830, a Scottish inventor created the thermostat, and with it, heat could be dispersed throughout all the rooms in the house with a controlled temperature and there was no need to gather together at the end of the day. By the 1900s, everyone was separated in their own rooms doing their own things. So much for togetherness.

    If you ask a person in their 90s about the way things were, you would discover that to them, it seems like we as a country are in one big hurry for nothing. Everything is fast and in a hurray. We want things now. No waiting! Patience is gone.

    And in our haste, we settled for less quality. In addition, we have sacrificed our health, created social isolation, lacked physical activity, created a negative environmental impact, and created mental health concerns. Is it really worth it?

  • History is who we are and why we are the way we are

    Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He said it as more of a war cry to call activists and those who care to a sense of urgency regarding injustices. The idea is that if it is allowed in one place, it can be in all places. So then, let us rise up against injustice when we see it because it’s only a matter of time before injustice affects you!

    Injustices have been fluent in America since 1865. That date should sound familiar because it was the year President Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, which freed the slaves in the south. Shortly after this, Lincoln tried to establish a bank for former slaves, but its white board of directors took the money and lost it on bad investments. There was no accountability.

    With the end of slavery in the south, accountability was emancipated completely. Treating a black person wrong was always acceptable as punishment for ending slavery. The time immediately after slavery was very telling because lynching immediately became popular once slavery ended.

    Bastard children, often called mulatto back then, were the result when white men raped very young black girls and impregnated them. These kids were often made orphans because the former slaves owner did not want the child and they would not allow for the victim to have the baby. This injustice became widespread.

    Everyone talks about the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, OK but that, of course, was not the only time that happened. Time Magazine, in 2021, published an article on the subject and listed other “Black Wall Street” scenarios that many were unaware of because there was never any accountability.

    The article states: “Now, 100 years after the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, awareness of this American tragedy has grown thanks to the work of activists and descendants of victims, local political support, and depictions in the HBO series Watchman and Lovecraft Country. But Tulsa’s was not the only Black Wall Street. The history of other such districts nationwide is still not widely known beyond their home cities, though they were many: Bronzeville in Chicago; Hayti in Durham, N.C.; Sweet Auburn in Atlanta; West Ninth Street in Little Rock, Ark.; and Farish Street in Jackson, Miss.”

    Police brutality toward minorities has been around as long as policing has existed. There are too many cases to name of unarmed Black people being murdered by police because they claimed they feared for their lives.

    The bottom line is that because we violate the famous MLK Jr. quote, we are paying for the widespread lack of accountability because if the injustice didn’t happen to me, why do I care.

    I believe that this lack of accountability negatively affects the reparations’ conversation because many black and whites are ignorant of history. People treat many of the injustices like isolated incidents. Then, the fact that it is widespread means that if we award damages form one incident, we are libel for all the others. This means that justice can never truly be served because America’s history is full of injustices, and to reward them all would be an end to America as we know it.

    Happy Black history month!

  • We need to stop the hand out, for a hand up

    Tis the season to be jolly! And in our jolliness we have been know during this time of the year to give hand outs.

    This does happen throughout the year, but definitely, during this time, there are hands out for whatever you can give. There is a segment of our population that really needs the handout. There are some in that population that expect a handout. Some are even living for the handout!

    This needs to change. We do so much during g this time of the year because somewhere, someone came up with the idea that in America, everyone should have Thanksgiving dinner. You need a good meal on that day – never mind the rest of the year – that day is special and it would be a shame for anyone who doesn’t sit down with a formidable feast on that day.

    Well, I believe no one should starve at any time in America. We have too much, we give too much, we help too much, and we have an unemployment rate under 4 percent.

    I guess even if you offered opportunity instead of a handout, there would be some who would not take advantage. The truth is that we have created a culture of people who are lazy, depressed, hurting, grieving, and full of expectations.

    Whether folks realize it or not, opportunity is what they need. The true ability to pull yourself out of a whole is always better than waiting on someone to build you an elevator.

    This country should be the land of opportunity. The American Dream should be for everyone. And it should be known and available to everyone. That is how to make this country great and how we put real “thanks” into Thanksgiving!

  • Knowledge really is power

    The older I get, the more I learn what I didn’t know. So much information that was originally given to me is turning out to be false.

    The level of trust we give our original source is huge when they have not been vetted. Why would we trust like that? We trust as if no one has a reason to lead us astray.

    It seems that in America, our original history is so bad that we would be appalled if we knew the truth. That beautiful story about how the early settlers came over here seeking a better way of life, wrote the constitution, and started America didn’t quite happen like that. In fact, it was nothing like that. I won’t spoil the research for you, but you need to challenge everything.

    The most interesting part of all of this is that the truth is out there. It’s contained in resource books and professional journals. I read a professional journal that had an interview with Fredrick Douglas, and he was discussing the character of the man we know as Abe Lincoln. The title of the article says of Lincoln that he is a man, but not a brother.

    We were told he was this great emancipator who freed the slaves and strived to create an America where everyone was free. False! Not even close!

    Lincoln freed the slaves to win the Civil War and wanted to deport the slaves back to their homeland, knowing that they would never truly be free. He was always for the advancement of his race. He believed in reparations, and he made sure that every slave owner received $300 per slave for their troubles. That $300 in 1865 is the equivalent of $5626.21 today. Image how much that is if you had 50 slaves. Then, instead of taking your reparations and purchasing more land, these slaveowners kept the money and took the land the slaves had, and of course, the slaves couldn’t report this to authorities.

    Surely you have heard about the 40 acres and a mule phrase? Well, that was a reality for a few slaves until the white man showed up, seized the land and shot the mule, and burned your house down. No government intervention at all – thanks, Abe!

    So if knowledge is power, it is up to us to pick up a book, learn the truth, and act accordingly.

  • Lies create new memories. Believe me?

    So I used to believe that there were people who had selective hearing, meaning that they knew the truth but only decided to remember parts of it.

    Our brains are incredible instruments and wonderful tools of learning. We are not even using the power nor have reached the full potential of our brains. But we have found ways to full it.

    A recent study out of Brandeis University holds that we believe the lies we tell are the truth in as little as 45 minutes. Now, before you dismiss this study and start talking about flaws in the research you don’t know about, hear me out.

    Researchers used this thing called an electroencephalogrphy (EEG) to monitor the brain activities of both older and younger study subjects while they gave truthful and false answers to questions. The study found that the older ages (60 to 90) were way more likely to accept a lie they told as the truth than the younger ages 18 to 24.

    Psychology professor Laura Paige said of the findings: “Once they’ve committed to a lie, it’s going to alter whether they remember doing something.”

    The EEG data revealed that a lie disrupts the brain processes responsible for working memory and embeds itself in memory and comes to feel as real as the truth.

    “Lying alters memory … it creates a new memory for something that didn’t happen,” said Paige.

    I guess this may be the reason the Bible condemns lying.

  • December already?

    It seems as though 11 months went by in a flash. I’m not sure if it is because Covid – 19 conditions got better or we started caring less about it, but things feel like it’s back to normal.

    But what was normal? Well, I can vividly remember when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. And I can remember seeing Trump impeached twice. I remember Joe Biden winning the election in 2020 and then things get a little blurry there. I always think about other countries whose elections produce results that the majority didn’t want — is that even possible?

    Like for me being a Christian it is difficult to adjust to a “Christian nation” that would allow LGBTQ openly. But America has and I believe that is a majority. Now I could be upset, curse and scream about it. I can choose to be outspoken, act like a jerk or treat “those people” wrong, but none of that defines a Christian.

    The only true alternative is to live my life my way and allow others the same. But what are we calling the thing inside of us that makes us want a victory by any means necessary? Is cheating in any way possible really an option for a person of integrity? Do we still have people of integrity?

    When did we start believing things without proof? When did empirical data become a thing of the past? When we look back at 2022, what will this year be known for? It’s not the year that we came together as a country.

    It’s not the year we passed laws to make our nation safer. It’s not the year that we did anything about criminal justice reform. And it won’t be the year where we stopped inflation. For me, this year will be remembered for all the deaths that happened. Deaths of loved ones, death of democracy, death of love one for another and the death of respect.

    December is going to be a very cold month.

  • Shame on the media

    My first professional job when I graduated from Western Michigan University was an editor position with a bi-weekly newspaper in Dearborn, MI. I loved being a part of the media. I was dubbed “the next Bryant Gumball” in my undergraduate years. Journalism still had integrity and a sense of responsibility to the public.

    Ben Franklin and his brother coined the process years ago for media to be more of a watchdog and informer to the public and they were even arrested for telling the truth about government policies that were not helpful to the public.

    Back during the Vietnam War the media played a major role informing the public about what was really happening. They showed the horror of war, the coffins and casualties and exposed the lies from the government which led to mass protests and the eventually end to that foolishness.

    When the Watergate scandal happened the New York Times and the Washington Post among other outlets were like a hungry dog going after a bone to expose the lies and attempts to cover up wrongdoing.

    Walter Cronkite worked for CBS for 19 years and was named the most trusted man in America. Character, integrity, truthful, honest and compassionate were the adjectives to describe him. Today, we have lost sight of these words. Like all things with Capitalism someone decided to begin doing the news for profit and literally killed all credibility.

    What does the resource section of the library do when the non-fiction books become fiction in order to gain more readers? This is what has happened to our media system. Now, there is no filter and anything can be said at anytime without proof. Truth is now a perspective and the absolute part of it has been executed.

    America no longer wants truth. It wants an opinion that it agrees with and truth does not have to take part in it.

    The media has done the unthinkable: To go from being an informative advocate for the communities to bringing fears, opinions and falsehoods to mainstream for the purposes of engaging the emotions of the communities for profit.

    The media has become the greatest threat to American democracy.

  • Getting your God complex under control

    We all have this inner God complex. It’s where we get some of our best ideas, it’s where our compassion grows, it’s where forgiveness begins and it’s where our unconditional love comes from. With this complex, when things are going well, we achieve and flourish in various areas. We create, lead, influence, edify and develop ideas. When things are at their worst, we tend to lack forgiveness for ourselves.

    We being to accept blame, sometimes too much blame because in our complex we think we should have known, seen, anticipated, figured out or controlled people, places and things — and that’s impossible.

    The feeling is amplified when other people are injured by our actions. It happens. What should take place is that we should release all negativity, deal with the facts and be reflective about moving forward. Learn the lessons and forgive yourself. We need to begin to see the truth about these ill- feelings.

    God doesn’t want us punishing ourselves because something fell through the cracks or we proved that we are not perfect. I started out calling it a God complex because when something happens some of us will take full responsibility as if we were God and could control everything.

    Nobody is perfect. Most people who dare to lead want to do their best. It doesn’t always happen like that and you need to forgive yourself. Now! And move forward a better person!

  • The myth of making up lost time

    There are some folks who believe that they can make up time. They kick up a lot of dirt to make it look like something is happening and then there is nothing.

    You cannot make up time, all you can do is try to let it get lost. How does it happen? Neglect, poor planning, ignorance, slothfulness and anger are a few habitual contributors to the lost of time. Human error is always the problem and the fix for it does not occur in the midst of more time. It comes in post production where the time correction is discovered and made known to all who are involved.

    What needs to happen is the one who is responsible for losing the time needs to acknowledge such and make preparations to never allow it to happen for the same reason again.

    You cannot make up time no more than you can unsee a tragedy. We attempt to try and make it up because we all see and can relate to the unfairness of it all. It’s a permanent action that leaves a permanent scare. There are children who are struggling because they were cheated out of time. There are people stuck in relationships that have been nothing but a big waste of time. There are people who have gotten divorced and the circumstances were not favorable to all parties so someone has been purged of time. Companies have tons of lazy employees that such the business dry of time. There are teachers who are tired and disgruntled who are stealing quality time from our kids.

    People have died too early or too late. So called friends have wasted our time as well. Pastors are wasting time and social media is a waste of time. When we die, it would be a shamed to look back at your life and realize that if you had back all the time you wasted you would be alive for another decade. A recent university study confirmed that humans waste 21.8 hours a week. This seems like a really bad waste of life. So instead of trying to redeem the time, we need to focus on the present and what is to come instead of what’s lost in the past.

  • What does the Resurrection mean to you?

    This is one of two times of the year where people are willing to engage in conversation about religion (Christmas time is the other one). There is much history and liturgy surrounding this time of the year and millions are comfortable practicing their faith. But outside of these two times of the year, what effect does the resurrection really have on those who believe?

    In America we have created in recent years cancel culture. This is the time where we use social media to shut people down when we don’t agree with them or we don’t like what they say or an action they did. In the this culture no one gets a second chance. In this culture, the majority get to play God and judge the actions of others as if they have no sin.

    It just seems that if we believe and practice the celebration of the resurrection because it actually means that our God has made a way for us through belief in his son which also means we get another chance. God extends his grace to us and we extend cancel culture to others — something is really wrong with that.

    So this brings the question of what does the resurrection really mean to us? In response to the resurrection shouldn’t we be will to offer the best version of ourselves for Godly things? Shouldn’t we want to give the best of our gifts for God’s cause? Because of the resurrection and the power that comes with it, shouldn’t we be changing the world for the better? Maybe that last question is not fair because for centuries we have controlled our use of God. Meaning that our constitution was written with a biblical backdrop. But if that’s true, how could slavery ever exist? If we really understood God’s economy then we would have created opportunity for all and would have made sure no families were left in poverty.

    I could go on but the point is clear: God has to mean more to the believer than two quick acknowledgements throughout the year and begin living in the resurrection– that means your personal life will add meaning to it. We know what the authors of the Bible wrote about it and we know how the Holy Spirit feels about it. Now what does your life show that you believe?