Lighting Up Their Lives by Torching Yours

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Administrator

So how many Micros have you encountered in your life? Maybe you are a Micro yourself or possess Micro traits. Micromanaging, the outstanding characteristic of the control freak, is not a flaw in and of itself, but, as noted in my previous essay, it is an essential component of a potentially destructive character type. I used the name Micro to describe the composite controller I have encountered through a life that has included an all-American childhood in small-town America, college, military service in an unpopular war (Vietnam) and more than four decades as a newspaper reporter and editor.

I suppose I had an authority figure or two growing up who were controllers, but I didn’t recognize them as such at the time. During my first stint in college—the one where wrestling and partying were a higher priority than classroom attendance—I didn’t have enough contact with authority figures to fall under anyone’s control. If there was a time in my life I needed controlling, that was it.

It was in the U.S. Army, in which I enlisted thinking I needed some direction in my life (and because I would have been drafted anyway), where I encountered a number of Micros. The military is the perfect environment for Micros, because it is all about giving and obeying orders and following rules and regulations which are easy for Micros to manipulate. In basic training I had no interest in being a platoon leader when they asked those of us with a year or more of college to step forward. So I gladly submitted to the dominance of one of four selected for our company—a ROTC (pronounced rot-sy) anal retentive who quickly decided he would make life miserable for me and two or three others in his platoon. My problem, in his eyes, was that I was not taking this whole indoctrination process seriously enough—training us to kill, if we had to, should we end up in Vietnam— because I wasn’t averse to an occasional quip to ease tension and elicit a few laughs.

A control freak's evil intentions are often disguised by claims of doing good.

Fortunately, our drill instructor, a black block of granite with a southern drawl, Sgt. James E. James (honest), didn’t seem to mind my lack of spit-and-polish because I was pretty good at all the other stuff, from the rifle range to physical training.  I don’t know if I ever made it through a foot-locker inspection unscathed. He took special delight in pointing out that the single-blade razor displayed in my locker was accompanied by double-edged blades. And the test of bouncing the quarter off your tight bedding? On my bunk the coin ended up mired in a wrinkle or fold. But the Sarge never seemed to take it personally, and the twinkle in his eyes told me that he appreciated my comic relief, intentional or not.

Continue reading →

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Here’s to All the Micros in Mission Control

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Administrator

I must say that during my many years as a newspaper reporter, editor and denizen of small-town America I have had to deal with all types. I’ve interviewed a few celebrities and national news figures along the way, but the most intriguing are those among us who are relegated to ordinariness and normality. I refrain from using the word normalcy, because, as any English major knows, that was a word invented by a politician yearning for a return to a simple life no longer attainable.

Targets of Micro, the control freak, may feel they can't take up arms because their hands are tied.

Famous folks are committed to living up to perceived images and they seldom let those probing for innermost feelings and candor inside the walls of privacy they have so cautiously constructed. Then there are those out there crying for attention, which is why there will always be fodder for reality shows no matter what levels of abasement are demanded. They, as we have come to learn, are despairingly remote from reality and allow us scant insight into life and being human.

We sit through hour-long docudramas on hoarding not to understand the hoarder inside all of us but to make us feel superior to those who seem out of control

That’s why I have had to learn my lessons from those around me—those whose actions have touched me by making me glad, sad, angry, aggressive or passive. I will occasionally bring up characters in this essay who have taught me lessons, though they will likely be composites made up of more than one who have influenced me.

The one personality type with whom I am very familiar is the control freak, a.k.a. the micromanager. You have probably experienced the negativism of this kind of person—and it may be a parent, a teacher, a sibling, a co-worker or an employer. The most dangerous of this personality type, whom I’ll call Micro, is the authority figure or peer who wants to take care of you. That means not just in the workplace if it’s a boss, let’s say, but all aspects of your life. Micro takes comfort in taking care of those who will serve as allies. This makes it easier to get rid of those who are more independent and less willing, even adamantly opposed, to being taken care of. When it comes time for the coup, removing the uncooperative sheep from the flock, you don’t want the rest of the sheep following.

The Micros I’ve encountered usually start out as admirers, especially if you have gained significant respect or admiration from peers and underlings. They need to get close to try to understand you, particularly what flaws you may possess that might be exploited. But you are the enemy if you are seen as an obstacle in their realm of control—even if you created the realm and deserve the credit for doing so. There will be a period of amity, perhaps even an attempt to build a friendship, but I’ve found that targets of Micros often sense something is not quite right and a bond is seldom formed. This only makes Micro more resolute in plotting your demise. Continue reading →

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Walk Like a Man; It’s in Your Genes

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Administrator

Women walk faster than men. It’s true. I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately, thanks to a pair of cartilage-depreciated knees earned from years of jogging with an oversized load. Walking and other forms of exercise are helping melt off some of that accumulated corpulence, and walking is why I have become so aware of other walkers.

Guys, as a rule, don’t stride purposefully or move with urgent gaits. We tend to saunter, amble and mosey along, confident we’ll be able to spring into action at a moment’s notice. That’s what the male of the species has done since living in caves and being the one responsible for bringing home the bacon. Well, maybe it wasn’t bacon way back them. More like brontosaurus chops or pterodactyl wings, I suppose. Women seem to hump along (no offense intended) much faster, and it comes naturally to them. It may be that they spent so much time in the cave waiting for Oog and the boys to return from the hunt that this is some kind of genetic compensation for their prehistoric sedentary ways.

Mary, my wife, walks faster than I do. We walk together every day—at least a couple of miles—and I have to hurry my step a bit to keep up with her. That’s good, because we move along at what seems to be a rapid pace. We walk as fast as some old guys jog, but apparently our pace is inadequate for the walking women I’ve encountered out there. Our walking started with laps around the high school track, and I remember after a week or so of this exercise that I was feeling less fat and more fit. I thought I was moving at warp speed. Apparently, the only thing warped was my impressions of my own walking prowess.

One late afternoon, we were doing our laps when I heard voices behind us. They kept getting closer and a glance over my shoulder revealed someone moving up on the lanes inside. My first assumption was joggers, maybe members of the school cross-country team doing winter laps. Instead, what overtook us in the next few seconds was a pair of women, perhaps in their late thirties or early forties, walking along quite casually while engaged in an animated conversation. There seemed to be no exertion at all on their part while I was engaged in spirited breathing and premature perspiring. They pulled away from us quite easily, and had gained more than a hundred yards on us by the end of the lap.

Since then I have walked—usually with Mary but sometimes solo—on other public walkways and have noticed I am no match for women when it comes to speed. Other men, in the meantime, are more my pace and a good many of them slower. Continue reading →

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Bit of Technology Means Weight and See

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Administrator

I am on a diet. Dieting is not losing weight, although modern definitions have come to include that as a meaning. A diet is simply the food you eat. So dieting literally means eating stuff. That does not include eating your words, a diet of humility that is nonfattening to the ego. Therefore, you might say, I have always been on a diet. Even abstinence from food is considered a diet, as is any eating, or non-eating, regimen that is done for health purposes or to add or shed weight. That’s right, even eating stuff to gain weight is by definition dieting.

Technology may have turned us into couch potatoes, but it may be our greatest hope for achieving fitness.

Keeping my weight down has been a life-long battle, but, through it all I have never been a calorie counter, an advocate of the energy-in, energy-out approach to losing weight. It’s not that I don’t believe in it, but I have had success with other approaches based on what you eat, supplementing it with exercise. Despite my successes in losing weight, I have had even greater success gaining it back.  I’ve gained back hundreds of pounds over three-plus decades.

I believe in moderation, even if I don’t always practice it, and there is no question that if you eat modest portions of good stuff, you’ll take off pounds. The more dramatic the change in your eating habits in terms of how much you eat, the more weight you are likely to lose. I say likely because some people can literally starve themselves and not lose weight. My mother was like that, and she always blamed it on her metabolism or some kind of supreme test by God.

I doubt God wanted my mother to be obese for most of her adult life—the birthing of multiple children transforming her from a sylph-like figure to what we might describe as rotund. I, too, have endured my share of rotundity, but I never suffered that curse of not being able to lose weight. I have lost 60 pounds or more several times over the years. On even more occasions, I have dropped 20 or 30 pounds and seemed on my way to the ultimate goal, only to falter.

As I was saying, I have changed my diet and become a calorie counter, with remarkable success, I might add, since Christmas. A Christmas gift called a Fitbit has made the difference.  It’s only about two-and-a-half inches long and I put it in my pocket. You can also hook it on your belt, but it essentially keeps track of your activity—the number of steps you take, the flights of steps you conquer and an running tally of calories expended. I have to do 10,000 steps a day for my daily goal, and I’ve become committed, if not obsessed, in its achievement. Since the start of my new diet on Dec. 27, I only came up short of that 10,000-step goal one time. I had a colonoscopy that day, by the way, and was discouraged from anything beyond light exercise. Continue reading →

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How Your Brain May Be Your Own Worst Enemy

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Administrator

As previously noted in this space, the prefrontal cortex has been identified as the culprit that coerces us into doing things we are not supposed to do. I’m not talking about murder, mayhem and madness, though lack of self-control surely plays a huge role in antisocial and criminal behavior.

The tantalizing aroma of coffee triggers the pursuit of rewards—good and bad. It may motivate you to start the day off right or to put off doing what needs to be done.

It’s the bad stuff we do to ourselves when we should know better. That includes my weakness—eating too much —despite ample evidence on my waistline that it will shorten my life along with my breath. Then there’s all that other self-destructive stuff like spending money we don’t have, wanton consumption of alcohol, smoking, snorting, shooting up, sexual trysting outside cohabitation and unnatural preoccupation with technology.

They are all things which promise rewards—the reason we are drawn to them in the first place—but are more likely to prove unsatisfactory, even disappointing when the acts are consummated.

Yet, though our rational mind may tell us that chocolate gorging, excessive mall shopping and obsessive smart phoning never deliver the rewards they promise, we keep going back for more.  This is instant gratification, and because it doesn’t last very long, it puts an ominous slant on the old Lays Potato Chips taunt, “Bet you can’t eat just one.”  You eat one, maybe because you are genuinely hungry, and then another and another until it goes beyond what you need to what you crave.

You are craving it, not because the body needs it for nourishment, but because the brain is telling you, “Go ahead, have another and good things will happen.” We know potato chips have no nutritional value and are essentially comfort food, but we lose all reason when the dopamine kicks in.

It is the release of dopamine, a chemical neurotransmitter, in our brains that psychologists and brain scientists are saying attract us to both good and bad stuff. It may be the aroma of coffee or photo layouts in catalogues, but it triggers something in us that catapults us into shopping sprees when we are already in debt or ordering a piece of pie in a diner when we aren’t even hungry. In short, dopamine makes dopes of all of us. Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising, Attention Span, Brain, Commercial Slogans, Extremes, Health, Losing Weight, Self-Control, Social Issues, Willpower | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Let’s Hear an N; Let’s Hear an F; Let’s Hear an L

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Administrator

Sports aren’t what they used to be for me.  Make that sports isn’t what it used to be for me, because my interests over the year have dwindled to a single sport— the National Football League. Oh, I follow local high school sports, rooting on some of the kids I know, but I’m talking about sports at the national level.

Sports on television has become a real bore—with the exception of the National Football League and, most notably, its postseason.

Take college basketball. I don’t pay much attention to it until March Madness arrives and, even then, only a handful of games interest me. My limited attention span includes the Sweet 16 through the championship game. Winners and losers pass with little notice. By May I couldn’t tell you two of the Final Four teams.

Then there is professional basketball, the NBA. I used to watch it a lot during the regular season, and I followed the playoffs closely. Whether it was the Knicks with Willis Reed and Walt “Clyde” Frasier, the Lakers going against the Celtics—through the Magic-versus-Bird years— and even, to a lesser extent, the Michael Jordan era. Now I seldom watch an NBA game—not even the playoffs—and I paid only nominal attention to the championship clash between the Mavs and Heat last year. I only remember who played because of all the negative stuff about LeBron and Dwyane. By the way, I think too many pro basketball players were named by parents who couldn’t spell. Dwyane for Duane? Shades of Isiah (Just Call Him Isaiah) Thomas.

Forget about the NHL. I‘m not into hockey at all, and if I want to see punching, missing teeth and bloodied faces, there is boxing. Come to think of it, I don’t watch boxing anymore either. I think I stopped paying attention to that sometime around the downfall of Mike Tyson.

Oh, yes, I do pay occasional attention to college football, but I don’t really pledge allegiance to any particular team. The closest would be Penn State, which is only a couple of hours’ drive from me, but there are so many rabid Nittany Lions fans in these parts that the bright side of losing is the pleasure of them shutting up. Recent events and transgressions have turned the once rosy image of Happy Valley into a sober, if not menacing, one. It has made rooting for Penn State akin to confessing you were once a Hitler Youth. Continue reading →

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No Self-Control? Put the Blame on Your Brain

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Administrator

Such a lot of talk about willpower/ Such a lot of talk about willpower/ Ooh talkin’, talkin’, talkin’ willpower/ Desire, talkin’, talkin’, talkin’, talkin’ talkin’ willpower. —“Willpower” by Jack Bruce (2001)

There is something to be said for willpower, and that is, to be succinct, none of us thinks we have enough of it. People who are overweight, smoke, drink too much and, yes, commit heinous criminal acts believe they didn’t get their fair share. Is it something you are born with, like athletic ability or brainpower, or a virtue you have adopted like piety or selflessness.

Patience may be a virtue, but the power to wield it may rely on a small part of your brain.

If you have failed to succeed professionally or to have earned enough money to plop yourself in the lap of luxury, you may feel cursed with a shortfall of willpower.  This is generally regarded as a weakness and those severely lacking are deemed losers.

If a wealth of willpower is seen as a virtue, its dearth, contrarily, is viewed as a horrendous failing or frailty requiring tremendous self-control to overcome. Actually, self-control is pretty much the same thing as willpower. You kick it in when you want to resist something that is bad for you or when you really should be doing something you don’t want to do. As important as willpower has become to most of us, few of our great writers, philosophers, artists and musicians have addressed it in memorable prose or verse

In music, I recall a schmaltzy song by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap called “Lady Willpower,” which was less about willpower than some guy stalking a girl who wants no part of him: “… and I would gladly teach you if I could only reach you and get your lovin’ in return…” Hey, would you want to spend your adult life as Mrs. Puckett? That’s the real willpower.

My life has been a continuous testing of willpower. I didn’t want to be born, but somehow I exited the womb, only to find myself bawling like a baby, which I was, and despising myself for not being able to stop. I don’t remember any of this, of course, but, judging by my devastating losses to willpower the rest of my life, it must have happened that way. There was nothing in my childhood that should have alerted me to the willpower deficit I would discover as an adult. I was a decent student, but I didn’t have to study to be one, though I endured several lectures between the ages of 12 and 18 about how I needed to apply myself and how I was an underachiever. Continue reading →

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Dying to Write This? Not Exactly

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Administrator

Death may seem an odd subject as I write this between Christmas and New Year’s Day—a season of birth and renewal— but in remembering we keep those alive who have passed on. My father, on March 28, was among the departed of 2011. The parade of the deceased has marched steadily by since then—most of them from my Dad’s generation. What better time of the year to remember the dead, because by mourning we celebrate their lives and refrain from forgetting them too soon.

Why so grim, Mr. Reaper? If people weren't dying to meet you, you wouldn't have a job.

We prefer to laugh at death, keeping it at a distance for fear it rubs against us. Diminishing the last cold grasp we will ever feel before shuffling off this mortal coil is accomplished through dark humor and euphemisms. You may have noticed I have already used a number of those cushioned words and phrases that have become substitutes for death and dying—passed on, departed and shuffling off this mortal coil.

There is no word more euphemized than death. Make that euthanized, because we are striving to put that word, signifying stark finality, out of its misery. As a community newspaper editor I scratched my head at the outrageous avoidances of the word in obituaries. It’s as if by not saying death, died and dead that we have somehow defeated it. If I bother to leave my own obituary behind, I shall say I died on such and such a date and hope that whatever else is mentioned is brief and to the point. Maybe by that time I will have accomplished something deserving of a paragraph before launching into my survivors and funeral arrangements.

But I am getting ahead of myself here—way ahead of myself, I’d like to think—because I wanted to tell you some things I hope won’t be stated in my obituary to describe my passing: Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Deadlines, Euphemisms, Extremes, Health, Humor, death | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Revisiting the Lyrics of Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Administrator

I don’t have to tell you that Christmas isn’t the same as it used to be. For example, nowadays urging someone to “don our gay apparel” would not necessarily be construed as a yuletide exultation. It might have more to do with high heels than high spirits, and it could get pretty confusing at the old office party.

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas Rocks as a Gift Giver.

And you can forget about the 12 days of Christmas. With Christmas shopping officially launched on Black Friday, we’re talking a good 30 days of Christmas in ye olde contemporary times. Let’s see: “…29 halfbacks running, 30 nuns a nunning and a partridge in a pear tree.” As for those 12 days, as stated in the Christmas carol, it would appear there was a great affinity for birds in those days, what with the partridge and assorted swans, geese, turtle doves, calling birds and French hens. I might be able to put up with a parakeet as a present, but no way am I going to be cleaning up after such a fowl menagerie, true love or not. Having a troupe of leaping lords might be tolerated for a few days. After all it is a gift, but I draw the line at a dozen drummers drumming, even if for only one day.

Many Christmas carols and songs place a great reliance on snow. For some reason we all want snow falling on Christmas Eve and into Christmas morning. Then, of course, we want it gone—am-scray— with highways and biways magically clear of slippery obstruction so we can all get back home for the bowl games. We all fall under the spell of dreaming for a white Christmas, but beware of what you wish for with bold demands like “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…” That would lead to the obvious response from your nearest Triple A garage: Let us tow, let us tow, let us tow…

I’ll be candid here and tell you that, as much as I enjoy Christmas, I am not a big fan of all the songs of the season. Those 12 days of Christmas do tend to go on a bit long. Furthermore, I will confess that the Little Drummer Boy gets on my nerves. It’s depressing and way too repetitive with it all of its pa rum pum pum pums. And why would a percussionist— an underaged one at that— be showing up at the manger scene? I suppose it would be a lot quieter than 12 drummers drumming, but you’d be hard pressed to hear yourself think, let alone the cattle lowing. Continue reading →

Posted in Baby Boomers, Christmas, Family, Giving, Jesus, Religion, Santa, Social Issues, Taxes | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Still Writing after All These Years

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Administrator

I usually post something new in this space at the beginning of the week—generally Sunday or Monday—and I apologize for my tardiness. Got tied down with deadline projects on the copywriting front, and that’s where I collect my meager earnings. However, I have a commitment to some 200 subscribers now, with a steady trickling of registrations each week, and the old newspaper columnist in me doesn’t want to let my readers down.

How's retirement? Let's just say it's nothing like this.

I see myself as among the generation of young retirees who have bowed out of one career and moved on to another venture that has transformed me into a small business. I am the CEO of this business, as well as its board of directors. I am the gopher for myself when I need a cup of coffee. I work at home, with only my dog as  company weekdays. I am his gopher, too, feeding him and letting him out to take care of his business. I am in charge of supper, because my wife, Mary, spends her days teaching learning disabled kids and I’m closer to the kitchen.

I would like to say I am my own boss, but the truth is that I have more bosses now than I ever did as a newspaper editor and reporter. I am juggling a handful of copywriting clients, including several businesses and a public agency. Additionally, I am in the process of researching and writing a book about a young man who destroyed 40 percent of his brain in a fall about 18 years ago. I have relegated about one day a week to working on this project. I am also editing a manuscript for a children’s book, a lovingly crafted story, yet to be published, written some 60 years ago by a mother for her daughter, who is a grandmother herself now.

The latter two projects are more creative than most of my copywriting, which is mostly website content. I get paid more than twice as much for doing this stuff as I did writing and editing on my last newspaper job, which claimed almost 25 years of my life. I wrote some good stuff as a newspaper guy and collected a dozen state awards from the Associated Press and Pennsylvania Newspaper Association for news articles, features and commentary. They garnered some plaques and meals which I or my employer had to pay for to claim my prizes and smatterings of applause in various hotel banquet rooms. Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Baby Boomers, Career Change, Copywriting, Journalism and Writing, Newspapers, Technology, Uncategorized, Wyalusing Life | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment