Tip What, Pt 2

Tip What, Pt 2
(view Part 1)
Virtues: Social Customs, service, ethics

As the Christmas holiday season approaches I'm hearing a lot of talk on tipping. For instance, people give tips to their mailman or mechanic - which I find interesting. I mean, I would love to work in a service industry where I am tipped just for performing my job duties, shit, maybe being a waiter is my calling as I purposely hang around your table after the bill has been served to ensure that I receive my tip. Or better yet, I should work in a hotel as a bellhop and conduct the same behavior. It would be sweet - I mean, I would get a regular salary (not much), but then I would base my service to customers on how well they have tipped me. Its interesting that this social customary called 'tipping' is almost mandatory in the service industry, however essentially it is almost a bribe - I mean, if one were to give a service contract or even a government employee a 'lil extra', society as a whole and I'm sure most courts of laws would consider that bribery. You know, 'Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' type of logic.

I may sound a bit, ah, um ... real, but we have reached a pivotal time in our society where we want to be rewarded more for simply doing our jobs. I don't know what generation this has spawned out of, but this creates a climate where we don't necessarily tip for 'exceptional service', but we tip to ensure service. Meaning, you are not going to tip your mechanic because he does such great work, but more or less, you're tipping him for the hope he doesn't screw you over in the coming year. Same with the mailman, I don't know exactly how the mailman can provide 'exceptional' mail service (please share if you do), but if you tip him, you are doing so with the intentions that he performs his job by giving you regular mail service.

Now, maybe - correction, I know that people do actually tip these people during these seasons just based out of the goodness from their heart, and that is truly a beautiful thing. BUT, if you are planning on tipping just to procure services or to pretty much BRIBE, then you your f*cked.

Happy Holidays

(P.S. I rarely tip, only for exceptional above & beyond service. I don't do any percentage calculations of the bill, I dont give a ______ < insert word here)

Procrastinating Nature & inaction

Procrastinating Nature & Inaction

An account of reciprocal effects (questionnable) for inaction

Many times I have heard that procrastination is the 'thief of time', but more so I was thought that too procrastinate was to waste an opportunity. However, there is one incident that happened which I learned that procrastination, which is 'inaction' can cause an undesired 'action.

I had a good girl friend named Samantha, we had just recently met through an acquaintance, and we vibed well with each other, cracked jokes, chilled, you know how it starts. However, I was attached to someone else, but that relationship was on the rocks, and was on & off as she had 'issues', again, you know how 'that' is. Anyhow, Samantha was also seeing someone else, but she told me about him and she had concerns about him. For example, she was much older than her, and felt that his intentions were suspicious. So thus, it was kind a like, she was talking to me about her problems, I was talking to her about my problems - a sort of double counselling interaction.

Moving forward to a warm August evening where my so-called girlfriend had run-off to Jamaica with her ex (whole another blog, would probably be a series) and as I was coming home, I got a call from Samantha. She was calling me from her guy's place (mentioned above, let's call him 'Bob'). I was kinda thrown-aback as to why she was calling me; Bob was in the vicinity of her, she sounded very distant and peculiar. I was kinda jealous in a sense that she was calling me from his place, because I had grown feelings for Samantha, but I never could muster the words to tell her how I feel; regardless if she would have accepted or rejected it, the days leading up to that, I wanted to tell her that I grown an affinity to her. Thus, this phone call could have been the prime opportunity to do such a task - especially when it felt that she was calling not to say 'I'm with Bob', but calling for me to convince her about something. You ever get that feeling? When someone calls you, expecting you to say something, hoping that you will say something?

It got to the point that she was purposely dragging on the conversation, after a considerable amount of time, I ended the conversation, but she quickly told me, numerious times to call her back in like 1 hour. I told her that I would. However, I didn't, I don't recall if it was deliberate or I just plain forgot.

I come to find out that Samantha called me after Bob made some advances that she wasn't 'totally' comfortable with; I'll use the word 'totally' as she was borderline engaged with Bob's pressing behavior. When she called moi, it was her trying to convince herself to leave - thus, she wanted me to say something to make her leave. Maybe if I had said what was truly on my mind, that would have given her the strength & rationale to leave Bob's place, but she didn't leave, and further she did not receive my phone call that I had promised - which may have intervened in an inevitable event because ultimately, Bob sexually assaulted her.

Now, I know that I am not responsible for this; so this piece is not a guilt trip or I am not placing blame on myself for the horrific act. However, I will say that my inaction may have caused Samantha not to follow her intuitions, I think that I could have said something that would have made her do something - would have made her not to endure such a life-altering event.

I know it is very speculative in nature, and from time to time it bothers me, but I have learned that procrastination/inaction is truly an action - thus, it does have reciprocal effects.

Think about it, the next time you want to say something, but you stop yourself.

Peace,
D.B

The conditioning of Frederick Douglas

Frederick Douglas
"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong"

Some background information on Frederick Douglass, excerpt from wikipedia.com:

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, near Hillsboro. He was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was still an infant. She died when Douglass was about seven. The identity of Douglass' father is obscure: Douglass originally stated that his father was a white man, perhaps his owner, Aaron Anthony; but he later said he knew nothing of his father's identity. At the age of six, Douglass was separated from his grandmother and moved to the Wye House plantation, where Anthony worked as overseer.[1] When Anthony died, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld. Mrs. Auld sent Douglass to Baltimore to serve Thomas' brother, Hugh Auld.
When Douglass was about twelve, Hugh Auld's wife, Sophia, broke the law by teaching him some letters of the alphabet. Thereafter, as detailed in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (published in 1845), Douglass succeeded in learning to read from white children in the neighborhood in which he lived, and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked. When Hugh Auld discovered this, he strongly disapproved, saying that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom; Douglass later referred to this as the first anti-abolitionist speech he had ever heard.
As he learned and began to read newspapers, political materials, and books of every description, the young Douglass was exposed to a new realm of thought and experience that led him first to question and then to condemn the institution of slavery itself. In later years, Douglass would credit The Columbian Orator, which he discovered when he was around twelve years old, with clarifying and defining his views of freedom and human rights.
When he was hired out to a Mr. Freeman, Douglass taught slaves how to read the New Testament at a Sabbath school on the plantation. As word spread, the interest among slaves in the local community was extensive enough that on any given week over forty slaves would attend lessons. For about six months, their work went relatively unnoticed. While Freeman himself remained complacent about their activities, other plantation owners became incensed that their slaves had been offered such instruction and burst in one Sunday armed with clubs and stones to disperse the congregation permanently.

___________

I just finished reading the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and it was a very good read, very sad at times with Douglass' personal recollections of the horrid nature of slavery, but it was very informative. First off, Douglass is a Black History figure that doesn't really get too much spotlight/coverage in 'Black History Month'; for example, I was first aware of the man from a T-Shirt. After research, and then reading his book, Douglass was an extraordinary man (not just 'Black man') for his time. From teaching himself as a youngster to read and write (which was prohibited for black people) by secretly learning from white kids, and deceiving them to give him any reading/educational materials, to taking his literary knowledge and secretly holding classes for other black people (young & old), Douglass was a modern day renaissance as he knew that knowledge is power. Society in the south, and especially the slaveholders knew this, and would torment and violently whip any black slave who was trying to educate themselves. Mentally, slaveholders and the white racist society of that time, pulled the ultimate mind-f*ck on black people. I always knew this, didn't really know to what extent and the details involved, but let me showcase some:

• Slaveholders would actually be 'generous' enough to give slaves the holidays off until the New Year; so in a sense, slaves were literally 'free' during this time. However, the slaveholders would purposely intoxicate the slaves with cheap liquor, so much to the point that their little 'freedom' was heavily engulfed in a staggering/hangover state - which was supposed to convey that 'freedom' isn't something that should be desired


• Barbaric sports such as wrestling and boxing were encouraged by slaveholders


• Reading was prohibited, as the belief was that an educated 'slave' can not handle education and will not know what is good for him, the master only knows what is good for a slave
  
  
• Slaveholders never starved their slaves; actually they made it known that they always gave their slaves plenty of food, the food was equivalent to slop, but it was in mass abundance
  
  
• When black women gave birth, the slaveholders separated the child from its mother from a young age so that the child can not develop attachment and affection to its mother, but rather develop attachment to the slave owner

Some of the things that were done to black people were not just dehumanizing, but it was conditioning; in the sense of it altered the way people behaved, think, and responded. This happened all from the 1700's to mid-late 1800's, this conditioning was passed down with each black generation. Even after slavery was abolished, this conditioning, and more importantly, the society, was still segregated and there was a hatred/inferiority complex that existed by certain populations.

Fast forward to the current state of black people in America, and the question must be asked, when/if will the conditioning that black people have succumbed to, will subside? How much generations will it take? I mean, we have definitely made progressed, we are doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, politicians, but there are huge numbers that still have that 'slave' mentality that end up in jail, commit crimes, are against the 'system', don't educate themselves, and so on.

How long will this 'spell' last????

Share your thoughts .....

Peace,
d.b
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Yes, I'm wrong, but i'm justified, wtf?

Yes I'm WRONG, but I'm justified

Virtues: meism, biased, playground mentality

I'm sure that you have heard it all before; it something that we used to do habitually as a kid. You know, "I took Tommy's toy because he was mean to me", and so on. We did it then because there was a sense of justification - somebody did me wrong, so it must only be natural to return the favor, right? Well, our teachers and parents sharply criticized for such behavior, I know I've heard it before "Two wrongs don't make a right", "you should know better than that", "don't stoop to their level", and so on. But as we grow and evolve into the person we are destined to be, naturally it would be wise to think that we abandon such behavior, but I think it only gets worse and complex - complex in the sense that we will justify our 'wrongs' based on the situation, and will try to justify our 'wrong' actions as a measured response to something completely unrelated.

For example, my good friend borrowed my classic Nintendo system a couple of years ago and never gave it back, and claims that his nephew has it - which I know is false. My measured response to this is that sometimes he will ask for a ride to go somewhere, I will agree, but I will show up late on purpose ... I don't know why I do this, but I get some sort of satisfaction out of it, even though I know it is wrong. Or, I'm sure that we have all done this at some point, a boss has pissed us off, thus we take solace in taking office supplies or other company items - of course, I have never done this ..... shame on y'all that have!

Its all good when you are the culprit or the person being 'wrong', but when someone is 'wronging' (is that a word?) you, and when they get caught red-handed, it is interesting how deflections start coming up like a blocked shot. For instance, my girl was very rude and feisty in a telephone exchange, when confronted later on about the situation, she knew that she was wrong, but attempted to justify her actions as a response to how I was rude to her, in the past though. I laughed, chuckled, and realized that our playground mentality will always be with us, its really a part of who we are - the only thing that will change, if anything, is that we will find more eloquent ways to justify our behaviors, and provide more psychological/social context to a simple principle:

"Nah nah boo boo, I'm going to get you!"

(to get the pronunciation, say it like you would have said it when you were 7), lol.

Peace,
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Created Nostalgia

Image source: tru-thoughts


Created Nostalgia
Virtues: homesick, condition, feelings

Nostalgia is defined as the state of being homesick; a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or or irrecoverable condition. Well, that is what is defined in the Webster dictionary, and we all have feelings of nostalgia when we hear a certain song, watch a movie, or read a certain magazine or article. I was talking recently with an older lady at my workplace in her 50's/60's about seafood or something; something dealing about cooking (don't ask why we were talking about that) and that conversation triggered nostalgia for her and took her back to a time of racial/social injustice in 1960/1970's U.S.A. (don't be shocked), specifically to the coastline towns of Massachusets. I won't get into the socio-racism part, because it is nothing new, but what triggered the memory for her was a diner in this coastal town that served up all kinds of seafood and delicacies - which actually was a positive memory for her as she recalled her friends and all of the good times she had there, but it seemed that she was looking at the 'optimistic side' of her memory as she didn't get into it deeply, but she recalled the overt and non-overt racism that was still fresh in the air. Looking at her face, she was deeply affected by this instance of nostalgia as she was a little emotional and overwhelmed - but she was trying to focus on the 'good', even though the 'bad' was much more emotionally moving.

After this event, I asked myself if it is possible that people try to create their own nostalgia - especially from negative and tormenting experiences. I imagine that they're a whole generation of peoples that have created their own nostalgia that focuses on the positivity - that is wrapped in a cocoon of hate, discrimination, and prejudice. I guess this is a coping mechanism for us to deal with the deep pain, hurt and suffering that some have experienced during this thing called life - I can't recall that I have done such thing, consciously speaking, but maybe I will know when I hear that classic song or read a certain book. I want to see if I will create my nostalgia; or if I will allow my nostalgia to embody its true form.

Enter cliche; I guess time will tell.

Peace.

Negative World

Took a little hiatus, but hi-hate-us, I am back



Negative World
Virtues: debt, loans, outlook

No matter how bleak the outlook on life may be, you gotta remember something - the Negative World. What is this 'negative world'? Doesn't necessarily relate to negativity, but more so correlates to one's financial status. A good friend told me about this world where 'minuses' become a way of life, below 'zero' is a constant theme. However, even though my friend was living in this negative world, he acted like he didn't; actually acted quite the opposite, which shocked me, but I guess we can't let our financial level affect our morale - to an extent I guess. I recalled being in this negative world, as a young college student, and many college students across the world exist in this world where debt is synonymous with being a student - yet credit cards still want to shower you with 'no annual fees' and a 'low interest rate'.

I guess my point is, if you are in the negative world, don't let your debt lead you to a negative life - that ain't positive.

DotCity Project

Dot City

Check out some fire lyrics from DotCityProject. Let me know what y'all think. Peace