Hey Dakota, this is that blog I said I would write for you. This is not really intended for anyone else, so if you are not Dakota you probably should stop reading, because you won’t get this, but read on if you’d like… just no complaining.
Bear… I know you are only 13 right now, and much of this stuff is wisdom most adults will never be smart enough to understand, but please stay with me here hunny. You know I love you tons and tons and I am a very good teacher. Don’t worry if much of this doesn’t make sense now, put these seeds in your brain and later in life they will start to flourish.
This is actually a gift to you baby….
Bear I am going to give you a bunch of pieces… I will write them in small sections, so take each parable on its own and hold it inside, at the end we will add them together and see what we find.
Bear you know how life is pretty complicated sometimes…? And you know how people really do not make much sense most of the time…? Remember how I am way crazy book smart genius but I am kind of socially retarded, like Sheldon Cooper. I wonder how much of this you will inherit… I wonder how confusing it will be for you to negotiate social things with people. I know I have a very hard time understanding people. I want to try and help you… if you will let me?
please follow…
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Lexi’s 3 Laws of Communication
1/ Never speak to people who are not listening
2/ Never tell people things they do not want to hear
3/ Never tell people things they will not understand
…. because it never works out well for you …
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The Car Accident
Hey Bear… imagine you are standing along the side of a road with 9 other people. Imagine your own street. Then imagine a car drives past and hits a tree. Gets all wrecked. Then a police officer comes and asks each person what happened… How many different stories do you think he will get…?
Well… he will actually get like 10 different stories from 10 different people. Well why…?
Now which one of these stories will be the “TRUTH”…? The truth that is absolutely right and any story that differs is therefore wrong…?
If all of these stories are the Truth (for that person) should we ever argue that our “Truth” is more right than someone else’s…? Is there any point in convincing other people they are wrong…?
Let’s move on kid…
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Post Modernism
Pre-modernism… (Pre means before) before the modern times it was like a thousand years ago. Imagine like a thousand years ago what was life like…? Well… you were born and raised in a town or village somewhere. You spent your whole life never traveling more than a hundred kilometers from your home town (they didn’t have cars or planes or trains so people didn’t generally go further than they could walk).
So the people all around you basically believed the same things, because they could talk to each other and fight and argue until everyone saw the world the same way. “TRUTH” was easy because it was only what everyone else believed. There was no “OTHER” way to see things.
Modernism… (meaning modern times) was really like from about 500 years ago until about 40 years ago (with a big ish). In modern times people still knew the “TRUTH” from their own small worlds but they also began to travel and discovered that other people far away have some other weird ideas about the world…. they have different (wrong) beliefs. Modern people still know the “Truth” but they are also aware that other people have beliefs.
Post-Modernism… (Meaning after the modern times) is the confusing world you are being raised in. See… in the world of Academia (Universities and the book smart people) in the 1970’s and the 1980’s the book people began to figure out something called deconstructionism (I know big fancy word… don’t worry) it just means that they figured out that all “Truths” can be torn apart and proven to be not true.
So they killed all “Truth”. They found out that all “Truth” is really just a belief. That a thousand years from now people will take what we believe is “The Truth” and laugh at how dumb we are, just as we laugh at the dumb things people believed a thousand years before us.
So Bear… to be a post-modernist… to live in the post-modern world… is to try to live knowing that there is no such thing as “ultimate Truth” .. there is no truth … there is only beliefs about beliefs.
This can be very hard to deal with…
so on to the next thing hunny…
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Paradigm… (It sounds like para dime)
This is another fancy word the book people (Academics) invented about 40 years ago. People who want to sound smart use it all the time and never really know what it means. So here.. its easy… let me show you.
Paradigm really only means way of seeing things… or frame of reference…
Bear I could go all fancy here with books and books that I have read on the subject and the many different little versions of the word but who cares… really?
Let’s keep this easy…. think about it like this hun…
The medical paradigm in Canada is that when you are sick.. you go to the doctor.. and he prescribes some pills or treatment. It is so obvious to everyone in your world that it goes invisible and doesn’t matter… until…. someone from maybe the other side of the planet comes by (maybe from China let’s say) and they do not have the same paradigm you do. Maybe the Chinese guy says… oh you are sick… no worries… we just stick you with pins to align your earth and water spirits…
… and we go like…. ummm… dude you are way crazy… obviously I need a doctor and pills.
So this means we have a different Paradigm. Now it matters.
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So hey Bear… you know how I spent like 10 years studying Psychology… well I also spent a lot of time studying Neurology… (which used to be called psycho biology) which means like how the brain physically works.
And there are some interesting things for you yet to learn about your big squishy beautiful brain. But here are two things in particular I want to tell you about.
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Soft and Hard Clay (Neural plasticity)
did you know that when you are born you have the most amount of brain cells you will ever have? And they are all like octopus little cells… with a center body and squiggly little arms going off all over the place.
We never make more brain cells for as long as we live…! Yep its true. In fact as we age we lose brain cells… they actually die off. Old people think they are so smart but really they have less brains than young people.
Well… see the thing is … when we learn… or make a new memory or new idea or new experience… one of those octopus arms goes over and touches another octopus cell thingy and BAM… we get a new connection in our brain… we learn something. YAY.
But the thing is… When we are young our brains are like soft clay… they are empty and it is easy to write on them… We have many many nerve cells with many many free arms to find and touch another cell…
but as we get older our brains become more like hard clay… they get full of other writing and they resist getting new things written on them…. they have less nerve cells and all the nerve arms are already busy touching other cells… so there are not many free arms left to learn new things…
Some people get hard clay maybe when they are 30 or 40 years old… they stop learning… some people still have soft clay even when they are 70…
Try to keep your clay soft kid…
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The illusion Maker
In your brain there is literally another part that gives meaning to the stimulus it receives. It creates… invents.. meaning for everything you see and hear and touch and taste and smell… This part of your brain can be scooped out. Doctors know exactly where it is and exactly how to destroy it.
So if there is a part of your brain literally biologically designed to invent meaning for everything you experience… how can you ever really know the “Truth” of what is outside your body…? You cannot turn off this sneaky illusion maker in your brain. And if we all have him in our brains doesn’t that mean we are all crazy..?
Hmmmm….
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Hedonism
This is another fancy word but it is important to know Bear. Don’t worry I will make it easy for you….
Lets think about it this way… very simply…
Scientists playing around with rats and pigeons in cages in the 1940’s to the 1960’s kind of learned that animals (and humans are also animals) are kind of motivated by 2 basic systems in their brains…
Either…
We want to seek pleasure… (Reward stimulus) which means we do things that feel good for our brains and bodies… like eating ice cream tastes delicious… and playing videos games is fun… so we figure out ways to get more good feeling things in our lives…
OR…
We want to avoid pain… (punishment stimulus) which means we do things so that we can avoid having bad things happen to us… Like if we do not go to bed when mom says to she will be angry and yell at us (and that does not feel good).
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Okay Bear…. now I know I have given you like 7 things here and that’s a lot… but I know you are smart and I know you can remember all this stuff… but I needed you to have these ideas so we could talk about the interesting things hunny…
Here we go…
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Sometimes you will have to deal with people in life who are terrible listeners… they usually have very hard clay (they already think they know everything) and they might want to argue with you all the time… They are not post-modern yet… they still believe they have the “Truth” … what do you do with these people…? How can you handle them or deal with them… what do you do when they are around you… ?
This is complicated and took me a long time to figure out… but rule number 1… do not talk… let them talk until they get tired… do not argue with them… agree with them until they feel better. Do not get lost in the words… but remember you are supposed to be loving and kind towards people… if telling them they are right makes them feel better… then why not just do it.
Sometimes we talk to people because we want to share… and that’s a great thing to do… sometimes other people want to share and we should learn to be good listeners… Because we can never say anything we do not already know… so to learn new things… we have to listen… since people are important… the only way we can learn about people is to listen to them openly…. this helps us to better show love and kindness towards them later.
Sometimes people approach us with a Paradigm that is very different from ours… and that’s ok… we should not attack it… but we do not have to agree with it… it is totally cool for 2 people to see the car accident differently… this is the way civilized and educated people understand the world.
What will be hard… is what do you do when you are talking with someone who does not yet know that there can be 10 different versions of the car accident story and all ten versions can also be right…. how do we handle people who are not yet post-modern…? How do we deal with people who are certain their way of seeing things is the correct way… and they are sure you are wrong (for seeing things differently)… and they need to attack you for it… these people are not yet civilized and they are still acting like uneducated animals.
hmmm… this is really hard to deal with hunny… and I still have a lot of trouble with it…. to be honest… maybe someday you will be able to give me a better answer… because all I have is just do not be around these people…
Bear… if people around you are mean and angry and hurtful the best thing to do is simply stay away from them hunny… you cannot fix them… you cannot help them… they are still young souls and they are not yet wise enough to understand more… and remember rule #3… they are not yet ready to understand these more complicated things you already know… so do not try to tell them… they will only attack you for it.
Sometimes you will find people in life who live only to do things that feel good… they smoke and drink and gamble and gossip and they tend to be lazy and useless in life. They are hedonists… be careful around them… they will pull you down onto the path to nowhere with them.
I know the drug POT is now legal in Canada… and kids around you in high school next year are going to be doing it… Bear just stay away from it please hunny. It does literally kill off your brain cells like crazy and it destroys your motivation to work and do things… it makes you lazy forever…. hedonists love this because it feels good… but Bear the cost is not worth it. Keep your clay soft and squishy… your life will be better.
What do we do with all the many different types of people that we are going to meet in life…? How do we deal with so many billions and billions of different illusions of reality bumping into us thru our whole long lives…?
Bear remember all those Christian values I took you to church to learn…? please lean on that approach… it really is the better way.
When we search for and find the good in others we develop and improve the good in us. We become better people.
If in doubt show love kindness patience and forgiveness to God’s children because someday when you die God is going to judge you on exactly that.
When the nasty people want to hurt you.. attack you… walk away and forgive… let it go… but do not return to them for more punishment or abuse… you do not deserve it. It is their crime and God will judge them for it later. Stay away from the bad people.
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Cyber Bullies
There is a new type of badness coming out of people in your new computer world hunny. For some reason there are some people who grow Keyboard Cohones (Balls) when they are in the safety of their home. They will type the most deplorable awful bad stupid mean things to you online. They will be amazingly hurtful online and text things they would never dare say to your face. Do not read it.. just delete it and block them.
They are actually hedonists. The scientists are finding out it actually stimulates the reward part of their brain when they act like that… it makes them feel better… to hurt others online. So they get better at being mean… better at being viscous. Bear I do not ever want you to turn out like this.
Remember I taught you the Christian saying…
Never do in the darkness that which you would not do in the light.
Texting mean things from the secrecy of a keyboard that you would never say to someones face… is exactly that. Darkness is where evil things grow. Always imagine your moms are watching you all the time… if you are doing something that you know your moms would be mad about… then you know it is wrong… then you know you are letting evil come inside you.
Don’t do it then Bear.
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Hey Kotabear… you are a really good kid… and I have total faith you are going to grow up into a wonderful person.
Next year you go to high school and you will be around lotsa different people with lotsa different ideas… and lotsa different ways of acting… Stay good… and stay away from the bad and stupid people. Mean is always stupid.
Okay Bear… I know this was long…
If you made it this far… you did great hunny…
We will talk on the phone about it later
I love you tons and tons kid…
Love Lexi