Aimless Deliberation

Micro… interesting prompt.  Micro, extremely small or very small in relation to others.  The only thing that comes to mind is words.  I think about the small (or micro) amount of words that I use in life compared to the number of words I know and that exist in life.  Words drive everyday interactions at work at home, everywhere.  With the exorbitant number of active words, you would think that expressing ideas, thoughts, and feelings might not be that difficult.  Turns out, it is. At an early age, you start to learn several words every week; building your vocabulary.  As you progress in education, your word use is analyzed tested.  Yet, as we get older, we form a small subset of words that we use to communicate with each other in conversation or writing.  We even go so far as to shorten the few words we use commonly.  Maybe this happens when you aren’t in school anymore or when you stop reading?  Though I have noticed whe...

This post has been started several times over the past year; mainly from trying to determine the right approach. About a year ago, some of our family members referred to us as the ‘New Negro’.   The situation: we talked about having gouda mac and cheese and brisket for Thanksgiving.  We also discussed wanting to go hiking.   While we took no offense, we did find it to be a very interesting and telling description of how we are perceived by others (for simply doing something that interested us).  You must understand it before you can react.   In our community, there is a long history of conformance to family expectation, religious thoughts, community influence, and societal acceptance.   The ‘New Negro’ can mean different things to different people based on mentality and need for acceptance.   For us, it was a welcomed comment; we understood the sentiment and appreciated the regard. Consider this, the ‘New Negro’ is synonymous with the Harlem...