He's a Picasso

It's been raining the past few days here, with snow dusting the tops of the mountains and the clouds sitting low and looking like ballet tutus, and the wind blowing just enough to make you regret wearing your light jacket instead of the wool pea coat. In other words, it's Man Weather. The type of weather where you need a man to offer his sweatshirt and ever so slyly place his arm around your shoulders to "keep you warm". Teeheehee.

The problem, however, is finding a man that you actually want touching you. It's fairly easy to weed out the Absolutely-Under-No-Circumstances-Ever-Will-That-Weirdo-Ever-Come-Near-Me types. The second step is far more fun: sorting out the Potentials and the Picassos.

It recently came to my attention that, although girls understand the concept, they've never had a name for the Picassos. The purpose of today's post is to elaborate-mostly because I'm bored and couldn't think of anything better to do.

When the rest of the world thinks of "A Picasso" they think of something like this:

"A Picasso" for the purposes of this blog looks something more like this:

When I look at an actual Picasso painting, I can enjoy the aesthetic beauty of the art, but never would I actually want it hanging in my house. Too much drama, too much maintenance, too much risk.

Same with men. Some are fun to look at. You can enjoy the aesthetic beauty of a work of art, but you don't want it in your life. Too much drama, too much maintenance, too much risk.

I find this concept comes in quite handy when I happen to mention in the presence of other women that a particular person is "good looking". They invariably assume I mean "I'm in love". But if I can say he's "an enjoyable Picasso", they will nod in agreement....and the best part is men will all be wondering what the heck we're talking about.

Found these quotations and thought they were so fan-ta-bulous I just had to share:

“Sadly, the signals that allow men and women to find the partners who most please them are scrambled by...insecurity...A woman who is self-conscious can't relax to let her sensuality come into play. If she is hungry she will be tense. If she is "done up" she will be on the alert for her reflection in his eyes. If she is ashamed of her body, its movement will be stilled. If she does not feel entitled to claim attention, she will not demand that airspace to shine in. If his field of vision has been boxed in by "beauty"--a box continually shrinking--he simply will not see her, his real love, standing right before him.” 
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women

“If the difference between guys and men is still unclear, here are a few examples that apply to dating:

A guy uses women to build his self-esteem. A man already has it.
A guy likes to "hang out" with a woman he's interested in. A man asks her out.
A guy doesn't make a move until he's sure there's no risk. A man is bold and clear with his intentions.
A guy plays games with a woman. A man has no time for games because they keep him from getting to know the woman.
A guy will become bitter and angry with a woman when she denies him. A man accepts that dating involves risk.
A guy fears and worships women. A man respects and adores them but fears and worships only God.
Guys are cool and indifferent. Men are hot and passionate.” 
― Stephen W. Simpson, What Women Wish You Knew about Dating: A Single Guy's Guide to Romantic Relationships

The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.” 
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

I'm sure I don't need to explain which depot my train of thought was currently stationed at when I stumbled across these and thought to myself, 'These are fantastic.' Always nice to discover that the problem does not lie with you, that the problem is that you are (apparently) surrounded by guys who are spineless cowards. ;) 

Organic, Home-Grown Snobbery

My sister shared an article from Forbes.com on her Facebook about organic/non-GMO crops. I've never really had an opinion on the whole pro-GMO/anti-GMO-organic issue, although I think I lean towards the pro side. I'm all for people wanting to eat foods that are as healthy as possible, but I also understand the need to be efficient and feed people who need to be fed. Mostly what tips me in one direction is the fact that I hate the condescending attitude almost all of the organic camp takes towards those who don't follow their tenets.

I took a Food and Politics class in Bozeman back in the day and the only thing I remember about it is the gripe fest about poor people, how they spend money on unhealthy foods, and how they personally were better than "them" because they shopped at the organic Co-op. One girl shared a story about how she spent $20 on ingredients for lasagna  how it lasted her three days and isn't she such a great person for eating something healthier than the McDonald's Dollar Menu.

I was livid.

It took everything I had not to raise my hand and ask these people looking down their nose at the poor if they've ever experienced poverty. Have they ever had $50 for food money for an entire month? Have they ever lived on a PB&J sandwich a day? Yes there are people who eat at McD's often because they are legitimately too lazy to cook, but there are also people who have budgets so tight that $1 is ALL they can spend on an entire meal. For those people, the fast food dollar menus may be unhealthy, but they're also a god-send. Part of me is glad I didn't rail on the class for their narrow minded affluence, because undoubtedly my opinion would've gotten me run out on a rail, but a part of me regrets it. I would've loved to point out that not everyone is blessed to travel the world, have plenty of food, and the ability to attend school and have daddy and mommy pay for it.

Which brings me back to the non-organic/organic, GMO issues. So many of the people I know who are firmly in the non-GMO camp come off as bitter and antagonistic to anyone who disagrees or who lives a lifestyle contrary to their own. At the risk of offending anyone, (and if I do I'm really sorry) I've even known someone who said you aren't truly following the Word of Wisdom unless you were eating organic.

I guess I'm a big, fat sinner because I fall among those in the world who have an incredibly hard time affording the supposedly toxic, pesticide ridden fruits and vegetables. For me, eating healthy is a rare occurrence and organic is so far out of the realm of possibility I have a better chance of spontaneous combustion.

I'm glad people have lifestyles that are so comfortable they can afford to get bigger and better things. But they have no right to look down on me, and others like me, and imply (explicitly or implicitly) that because I don't eat what they eat I am ruining the planet or increasing the spread of cancers. When you're on top of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, don't criticize those of us struggling with the foundation. We're doing the best we can with what we've been given.

Pilgrims and Patriots

It’s independence day soon and stars and stripes are everywhere. But the shows of patriotism aren't just found in the bunting and banners, it’s seen all over the social media websites as well. A friend of mine has posted a quotation on Facebook recently that read, "We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. -Robert J. McCracken.” I stated that the first settlers actually came looking for wealth. She replied “I don’t count Columbus as the first settler of the USA. This quote is in reference to the pilgrims who were indeed looking for religious freedom.”

I gave a long reply and no doubt she will wonder why such a seemingly innocuous quotation resulted in such a strong opinion, and no doubt this opinion will anger those brought up on the Shiny Picture of the Beginning of American History that we've all been fed since Kindergarten. My opinion touches such sore nerves, not because it’s anti-American or unpatriotic, but because it’s informed and doesn't fit the Shiny Picture everyone believes is incontrovertible truth.

Before I delve into my opinion, what does this Shiny Picture consist of? 1) the Puritans, also known as the Pilgrims, were the victims of the evil King of England and came to America in a last ditch effort to live their lives in religious and political freedom. 2) The Pilgrims were God-fearing people who threw a big “thanksgiving” feast and invited their Indian neighbors to share in their bounty. (The pictures we’re shown as children, if you remember, the ones that form the foundation of our understanding of this era, depict happy, smiling Pilgrims and Indians sitting at a long table, eating, laughing, and getting along marvelously.) 3) The Pilgrims minded their own business, but just as the settlers were getting used to their new-found freedom, the greedy King of England decides to tighten his choke-hold, leading to the skirmishes between the most powerful army in the world and a bunch of poor, abused Americans just struggling to make a living under a heavy burden of taxes.

This, in a nutshell, is the Shiny Picture of the Beginning of American History. Starting in junior high, your education in history repeats this Shiny Picture, spends months on the Revolution era, and progresses in rapid brevity to end right before the Civil War and summer vacation. This pattern continues throughout high school. (In fact, I hardly knew anything about history during and after the Civil War because no class ever seemed to get that far. I was in college before I’d heard of Lincoln’s attack on habeas corpus, McCarthism, Henry Kissinger blunders in Cambodia, or Julius and Ethel Rosenburg.)

But I digress. In regards to my comment on the aforementioned quotation, about the first settlers, I wasn’t talking about Columbus, as my friend supposed. Columbus, after all, wasn’t a settler but an adventurer/explorer. The central reasons the first settlers in what is now known as the United States of America migrated was for wealth and power. The Puritans weren't as politically/religiously oppressed in England as everyone thinks they were. The Puritan ideology had a LOT of political power in England. (Who do you think financed the migrations and finagled the charters?) In fact, one of the reasons for shipping Puritan settlers over here was to spread Puritan power to this new, resource-rich land to continue to threaten the strength of the King and Company. (And the King's followers shipped over their own settlers to threaten the power of the Puritans. It was a chess game.)

To gain this foothold, however, willing bodies were needed to venture into a virtually unknown and alien territory full of cannibalistic savages. To counter this widespread idea of a dangerous place full of death and far from the reach of all that is civilized, the idea of ‘freedom from the King’s oppression’ was sold to the lower classes to get them shipped over here.* It took a while for the ill-prepared Pilgrims to stop starving long enough to prosper, but once they did, they built up their base of power, and the wealth they derived from it, with a grisly vengeance. With the support of the Puritan power base in Mother England, the American contingent was able to become an almost unstoppable force, so blood- and land-thirsty, non-Puritan settlements took on the attitude of ‘stay far away and try not to piss them off too badly and maybe they’ll leave us alone’. (They didn't.)

 The pitiful story of shamefully abused and innocent Christians in search of respite, however, has stuck. The full details of the initial settling of America don't give people warm fuzzies and a sense of righteous superiority. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  So we hold up this vague idea of ‘freedom from tyrants’ and skip over the details that make us face the uncomfortable truth that doesn't mesh with our Shiny Picture.

Instead, we focus on the Revolution era, where we take the justifications for treasonously rebelling against the government and use it to gloss over the reasons we set foot on the continent in the first place, as well as the things that happened once our feet touched soil. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the political ideology of the Revolution era and can get just as much caught up in the excitement of David kicking Goliath's trash as the next person. England was too comfortable in its own Shiny Picture and paid the price. However, I don't much care for the use of borderline jingoistic platitudes that, whether in ignorance or not, completely dismiss or purposely manipulate the facts of history.

Eighteenth Century America, the Articles of Confederation, and later the Constitution and Bill of Rights, were based on divinely inspired ideas, but this doesn't mean we can overlook the greedy, blood soaked foundation they were built upon. Looking back, we can see how the Puritan personality of ‘I’m right and everyone else will burn in hell especially you Kingy’ was watered down, mixed with other influences, and morphed into the spirit that fed Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, but this in no way excuses the Puritan’s secular reasons for building their little empire, nor the evils they perpetrated to achieve their ends.

In fact, understanding the sordid and wonderful history of the country is one of the points of an Independence Day celebration. Being reminded of exactly where this country started, where it’s been and what it’s done is supposed to give us not only pride in our history, but a renewed determination to build on the past and become better than our forefathers. Not more powerful, not more wealthy, but genuinely better. To rephrase something Dinesh O’Souza said, the shape of the future is most affected by the debts and actions, both good and bad, of the past. If we don’t truly understand the good, bad, and ugly of our history and instead continue to uphold an incomplete Shiny Picture, we will be little better than Icarus, glorying in our fragile strength and freedom and killing ourselves in the process.

*I acknowledge the fact that there were individual Puritan settlers who truly believed in moving to the New World to worship as they pleased. I speak more on the widespread belief that this was the only and pure reason for Puritan migration and that therefore we ought to hold them up as some sort of holy paradigm. I also note that the settlements of Maryland, Virginia, New York and Maine had quite a different sort of settler and history. These other settlers really did ‘cross the Atlantic to find soil for their ploughs’. Liberty for the soul had little, if nothing, to do with it.

The (necessary) Fall of Adam and Eve and Our Ability to Choose

A few weeks ago, I purchased the book Christ and the New Covenant by Jeffrey R. Holland and I've been loving it! As I was reading in his chapter on the Atonement, I came across some stuff I thought I should share. I added the "bolding" myself (if that's even a word). For a great explanation on the plan of salvation, see http://www.lds.org/topics/plan-of-salvation?lang=eng

"God's premortal children could not become like him and enjoy his breadth of blessings unless they obtained both a physical body and temporal experience in an arena where both good and evil were present [and] such a temporal experience must be predicated upon moral agency...If choice is to exist and agency is to have any meaning, alternatives must be presented...Righteousness has no meaning without the possibility of wickedness. Holiness would hold no delight unless we realized the pain of misery. Good could have no moral meaning if nothing could be considered bad. Even life-the nature and eternal possibilities of which are the subject of the plan of salvation...-would have no meaning if we knew nothing of the nature and limitations of death. In short, without opposites and alternatives, "there would have been no purpose in the...creation of [human life]."...[Adam and Eve] were willing to transgress knowingly and consciously (the only way they could "fall" into the consequences of mortality, inasmuch as Elohim certainly could not force innocent parties out of the garden and still be a just God) only because they had a full knowledge of the plan of salvation, which would provide for them a way back from their struggle with death and hell...Adam and Eve answered forever the plaintive question that is so often heard: "If there is a God, why is there so much suffering in the world?" The answer to that is we now live in a fallen world filled with opposites, a world in which God is the most powerful but decidedly not the only spiritual influence. As part of the doctrine of opposition, Satan is also at work in the world, and we knew before we came here that he would bring grief and anguish with him. Nevertheless, we (through Adam and Eve) made the conscious choice to live in and endure this mortal sphere of opposition in all things, for only through such an experience was godly progress possible...We wanted the chance to become like our heavenly parents, to face suffering and overcome it, to endure sorrow and still live rejoicingly, to confront good and evil and be strong enough to choose the good...But Adam and Eve made their choice for an even more generous reason than those of godly knowledge and personal progress. They did it for the one overriding and commanding reason basic to the entire plan of salvation and all the discussions ever held in all the councils of heaven. They did it "that men might be." Had Adam and Eve never left the garden..."they would have had no children."...The privilege of mortality granted to the rest of us is the principal gift given by the fall of Adam and Eve...That doctrine, fully understood and thoroughly taught only in the restored gospel is as important as any taught in the entire Book of Mormon. Without it the world would be ignorant of the true nature of the fall of Adam and Eve, ignorant of their life-giving decision, and ignorant of the unspeakable love they demonstrated for all of God's sons and daughters."---Jeffery R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, published by Deseret Book in 1997

I'm baaaaaaaaack!

All hail the resurrection of the almighty blog, where average citizens, such as myself, can post their mental or verbal vomit into the void of the world wide web in the vain belief their witticisms will be adored by all. Or in my case, where I post because it's 1 pm and I've nothing better to do at work. But as I've decided to resurrect this probably pointless endeavor, for reasons I don't understand, without actually having anything to blog about, it seems this brilliant ideas is...not so brilliant.

Since my boss's wife is at girl's camp this week, he's working from home so he can referee his two boys. Consequently, there has not been a whole lot for me to do (hence this foray into my blogging past) and I've spent a great deal of time looking out the window wishing I was somewhere eating something. Unfortunately, there is a bowl of Dove chocolates sitting in a bowl on my desk, ostensibly for clients, but the mint and cookies and cream flavors seem to mysteriously find their way into the stomachs of the employees. You tell yourself every morning that you're only going to have one, but by the end of the day your trash can is littered with the foil skins of a multitude of your chocolate victims. And you feel no guilt. In fact, all you can think is, "Hmmm, the bowl is getting low. Better get some more." And we employees all tell each other the clients must really like these chocolates. Yes, the clients, riiiiiigggghhhhtttt. A nod, a wink, a nudge-nudge. They never tell you that the shadiest things that happen in the law is over the candy bowl.