A wise man said, “Most people do not feel bad because they lack wisdom; they feel bad because people say they lack wisdom.”
The honor-seeker does not study wisdom to become wiser. Rather, his goal is to show off how wise he is. This is an attribute of a fool (Proverbs 18:2). A truly wise person’s goal is to gain more wisdom whether or not he gains honor.
(Sources: Chayai Hamussar, vol.1, p.72 ; Kol Tzofayich, vol.1, pp.345-6; Rabbi Pliskin’s “Gateway to Happiness,” p.280
I’ve written about the modern state of mainstream comic books before (DC, Marvel) including how at least some of them aren’t safe for children, and the whole comicsgate vs. social justice comic books drama. Some of this still pops up in my twitter stream, though I don’t respond because, why bother? Still, I do consider the state of the industry as it relates to some of the movies I watch (I caught Deadpool 2 on DVD the other day). And that takes me back to the comic books I used to read, many years…okay, decades ago.
I’ve read some things about the upcoming Captain Marvel movie, which seems interesting, and maps to the original Ms. Marvel comic book of the 1970s, based on a non-superpowered Carol Danvers who appeared in 1968 in this comic book:
Here, Captain Marvel was an alien spy, obeying the commands of his Kree overlords in a spaceship orbiting the Earth, but eventually, he used his space suit’s powers to help human beings, bringing his loyalty into question. Not long afterward, he got a make over and turned into this:
Depiction of the effects of a nuclear winter” – Found at the New York Times
“Abracadabra,” enchanted fourteen-year-old Elazaro Motyka as he sat under an almond tree overlooking the Port of Haifa, but the sea breeze blowing into the park overlooking the old University was still too cold. Even the magic word his American neighbor taught him didn’t work against the last vestige of nuclear winter, but he hadn’t expected it to.
It had been thirty years since the last war. He managed to avoid most of the stories his zayde told him of whether it was India or Pakistan that fired the nukes first and then pulled in the Chinese, Europeans, and Americans, blah, blah, blah. It was bad enough that they taught about it in school. The present worried him a lot more than the past.
That made him rather atypical among his classmates, since most of them loved to listen to any of the people who were alive during the Third World War. It was a reminder of the last time that even in stupidly killing millions, humanity had been free.
“Hey, Elazaro!”
He looked down to see Inaya making the arduous climb up the hill to his lookout. She was a grade behind him but liked to brag that she was more mature than he was, as if that made her better than him.
“Hey, Inaya. Did you bring lunch?” On days when they didn’t have school, they met in the park to eat and talk.
The more mentally prepared you are for challenges to your being in a serene state, the greater your ability to maintain this state. The goal to strive for is to be able to remain in a serene state even when other people say and do things that could potentially cause distress. Mentally practice remaining serene regardless of what anyone says. Knowing that you can do this in your imagination will free you from worrying about what anyone may say in the future.
-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s book, Serenity, p.78
Handgun image from freeart
Chapter 4: “We’re ready.” Steve was another member of the resistance, and like Landon, not only was his control collar inoperable, but he could use elemental magic. Steve looked human, a lot of the other soldiers didn’t, not quite, but the seventeen-year-old had never been aware of him back on Earth. Landon had been able to sense a lot of magic users by the time he was sixteen, but somehow, Steve had managed to elude him.
“When do we strike?” They were walking on the parade grounds. Landon’s limp was almost gone and Dr. Swanson, also a member of the rebellion, would have to declare him fit for duty in another few days. It was the same with Steve whose arm had been broken in a medieval combat simulation. He was slightly taller than Landon and a few years older, dark hair and eyes, medium complexion. He said his Mom was from Mexico and his Dad was from “someplace else,” which probably meant another dimension.
“Tomorrow at dawn. All of the magic users have been alerted. We’ll be the first wave, taking out the Master and the top echelon. Once we disable the control mechanisms, the rest will be easy. We must outnumber them a hundred to one.”
“Dawn.” Landon and Steve stopped at the flagpole and saluted. On the flag was a representation of the ancient Roman god Janus, the two-faced god who represented beginnings, gates, transitions, passages, and time. It was a curious symbol for a group of extra-dimensional players, who used intelligent life forms as pieces in their bloody war games. “What about the people in play? There will still be thousands in the different simulations.”
Frequently people worry about the possibility that others might fail to show them respect and approval. While details differ for each person, the underlying factor is fear of disapproval — people might think you lack intelligence, or other virtues and abilities.
Realize that the pain you suffer from worrying about this is much greater than that of actual disapproval.
Try to accept the worst. Imagine that every person who sees you will have a low opinion of you. Emotionally accept this. Once you’ve accepted this, although you might not like it, you will no longer need to worry about lack of approval.
-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s “Gateway to Happiness,” p.163
On the web and especially in the world of social media opinion, it’s easy to get caught up in everyone’s approval or disapproval, depending on who you are or where you stand on certain issues. In the end though, the Rabbi is right. Whether someone approves or disapproves of you is hardly relevant compared to how you let it affect you. No one can tell you who you are or that you are unworthy unless you let them. Don’t let them.
© James Pyles
I’ve been thinking about what is and isn’t important lately. Yes, there are a lot of arguments on the web positing this cause or that as important, and the authors declaring anyone who isn’t wildly enthusiastic, embracing, and endorsing of their project as horrible, terrible human beings.
Oh well.
I admit to being caught up in all that from time to time…okay, most of the time, but then I stop and realize that for the sake of my emotional and mental health, I can’t let other people or groups wind me up like I’m their toy doll. For instance, occasionally, I’ll get a troll in my one of my social media feeds attempting to rile me, but when I confront him, he denies it, saying he was just trying to understand my position more.
So it goes. Most of the time, I don’t even respond to him. His presence is almost always one where I can predict what he’ll say and even on which of my posts he’ll respond. A few others like him who used to do something similar, while remaining my Facebook “friends” or following me on twitter, otherwise are absent, but I must admit, I have also “muted” them as well, again because I don’t need the aggravation (and now that I’ve satisfied the requirements of Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie’s Opposing Forces challenge, on with the show).
So what is important? Lots of things, but I’m going to focus on my three-year-old granddaughter. My son and his ex are divorced and one week the kids stay with their Mom, while the opposing week they stay with their Dad (and with us much of the time).
A baobab tree in northern Ghana.
Brian Fletcher was startled when the lithe, green-eyed Ghanan woman stepped out from behind the baobab tree.
“I wouldn’t pick the flowers. The gods cursed the baobab. Picking even a single white flower is bad luck.”
The hunter defiantly plucked one, then two more flowers, and then held out his arm. She took a step backward, and he laughed. “Stupid superstition.”
“You will meet your fate, Mr. Fletcher as you have sent many elephants to theirs…poacher.”
“How did you…?”
The dark woman dashed back around the tree’s large, twisted trunk.
“Wait a minute.” The muscular, middle-aged man threw the flowers to the ground and ran after, but it wasn’t a woman he found on the other side.
He only had time to notice that the lioness possessed the same green eyes before she tore him apart. The gods had again wrought terrible justice against one who would desecrate their lands.
I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to use a Google maps image/location as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 150.
Today, the Pegman takes us to Bamboi, Northern Region, Ghana. I couldn’t find anything on Bamboi in a casual Google search, since it kept trying to redirect me to “bamboo.” I did look up Northern Region (Ghana), and there I found the Baobab Tree, and more importantly, the legends and myths about it. There are numerous myths, so I chose one, leveraging information about poaching in Ghana.
To read other tales based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
A person who tries to force himself to change his character in an extremely short time is apt to become depressed and will not be successful. Set reasonable goals for yourself. Work on your faults little by little.
If you make impossible demands on yourself, you will feel frustrated and miserable.
-from Cheshbon Hanefesh #17; Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s Gateway to Happiness, p.177
Found at ComicVine.com
Spider silk clung at the doors, over the windows, across everything she had left behind. It was the one place she had allowed to remain, had not purged with fire, the first home she had ever known with Mommy and Daddy.
But that was over twenty years ago. She and Daddy had abandoned their small mountain retreat after Mommy died of cancer. It, along with everything else Daddy owned, had passed down to her in trust when he died. She had only been five at the time, and Daddy’s boss, billionaire Keyne Harlan, took care of everything for her, adopted her, provided her with the finest of everything, home, clothes, education, everything a little girl needed to grow up. Everything except love.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this.” Twenty-five year old inventor and heiress Alise Egan was standing on the front porch of the new dilapidated cottage in the High Sierras, thirty miles from Yosemite National Park. Keyne and his usual entourage used to rent several suites at the Yosemite Valley Lodge twice a year as she was growing up, Spring and Autumn, taking her to the park for their biannual bicycle and music festival, but it was the closest she ever got to the Egan’s vacation home up until now.
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