Tag Archives: adolescence

The Road to Diamond, Day 341: On Cocooning

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 3, 2025- I revisited a small regular gathering today. One usually consistent attendee was conspicuously absent. It was explained to me that this person is on an inward journey and does not wish to be with anyone, for the time being. While this news is a bit disconcerting, I have to wish friend well.

I have rarely, if ever, ensconced myself in seclusion for very long. There was a period of time, after Penny passed (2011), when I kept a lot to myself, but there were always other people in the house and I never really felt like I was cocooning. In truth, though, old habits and ways of viewing the world, some of which I had held since adolescence, were being shed. Wrapped up in contemplation, I came out of that period, towards the end of 2014. During those three years, there were a few adventures and a couple of colossal missteps, that might have wrecked my life, and those of a few other people, but for the Grace of the Almighty.

We are each ever in a state of flux, with changing circumstances that could either propel us forward, or upend everything we know and cherish. Sometimes, life brings us a little of both. I see that this might be happening to said friend, and can only be a well-wisher. My own life, in the next six weeks, will see the conclusion of one great chapter and the beginning of another, perhaps grander. I will not be cocooning, though.

The Road to Diamond, Day 269: Nomenclature

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, distraction issues, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

August 24, 2025- Someone has alternately pronounced me “mentor” and a short time later, announced that they were MY “mentor’. The situation is that we have bounced ideas back and forth, period. I do not consider anyone currently alive as a mentor. My father, father-in-law and a long ago athletic coach filled that role for me, in earlier times. My mother taught me a lot, also. I still hold all the lessons those fine people sometimes pulled their hair out, trying to impart to me. The rest of us just support one another the best we can, back and forth.

Other words tend to get overgeneralized, and over used. “Vacation” is one such. There are people here in Home Base I, who insist that any time spent not working and/or away from Prescott is vacation. They want to know why I am going to be out of the country, for an extended period of time, when I could be working here. I can say this: There will not be a whole lot of resting, relaxing and idling. I can do all those things right here. The tasks ahead of me are labours of love, in which I also engage here-but there are friends in the countries to which I will be heading. I have the opportunities to connect with them in real time.

“Girlfriend” (and its male counterpart) is tossed around well beyond adolescence. The woman I care for deeply is my dearest friend, and that is where it stands. She stopped being a girl, many years ago-probably maturing well before I did, though she is a decade younger than I. Maybe the oblique reference to childhood is a wish by those who use such terms, for their own continuous adolescence. As for me, I rather like being an older adult, albeit one who is in good health.

Finally, “omnipotent” is being tossed around these days, by those on various ends of the spectrum who see their personal heroes emerging and gathering power. Be careful: “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”-Proverbs 16:18 I am willing to bet that each of the adulated ones is well aware of the above verse, and has many moments when wishing that admirers would calm down.

Misogyny

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 17, 2024- I watched the first episode of “Lioness” this evening. It is a spy thriller, centered on women secret agents and fighters, in a Middle Eastern backdrop. Each of the women has a male advocate, if not a lover. They just don’t really need those men, day to day. One of the central characters comes to the Lioness program by way of escaping from a gang of disaffected, misogynistic men.

I thought back to how I was raised-to be a gentleman (by my father), countered by male peers who were alternately respectful of our mothers, sisters, grandmothers and aunts, while carrying a veneer of seeing other girls and women as means to an end. It was the stuff of adolescence, certainly, but subliminally was carried forward into our group psyches.

My wife became my equal, my partner, by dint of her sheer intellect and tough personality. Penny grew to become nobody’s fool. I became someone who did not need a fool. As the first true love of my maturity grew into a fully independent woman, so I began to grow into a fully independent man. From there, we both became interdependent.

In the years immediately following her passing, I found the sticky residue of my adolescence clinging to my psyche. As sheer will power and prayer had helped me shed alcohol dependency, thirty years earlier, so did they help me shed the stench of misogyny that was trying to get out. I let it out, along with the lack of self-esteem that is behind all such negative dust. True maturity had been reached.

Young men, around the world, face challenges to their self-concept that have historically been faced by posturing, adopting a dominant position towards their female peers and subscribing to a false sense of entitlement. This is the ethos of The Pack. There is an alpha male, but his “true strength” is only evident when the rest of the peer group is present, for reinforcement. The public face of misogyny is the Incel (“involuntary celibate”), who takes the stance that abstinence from sex is being forced on him by a conspiracy of women and other men.

In truth, though, focusing on one’s sexuality is dealing with only the outer trappings of insecurity. Procreation has an important place in the order of society, but it is only a place. A person, male or female, who has been raised to truly value self, who is focused on his/her totality: Intellect, variety of interests, physical stamina, dreams and goals, social skills, spirituality-will be more likely to know success, to be resilient in the face of challenges and less likely to blame others when things go wrong.

These are things I have come to fully realize, over the past fourteen years.

Thirteeners

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 13, 2023- The usually rough and tumble boys were a lot more subdued and looking towards the mostly female staff for guidance today. The roughest of the bunch was a lot more sensitive. The sassiest of the girls were very quiet all day. This all made more sense to me, when contemplating the feminine energy of Friday, combined with the number thirteen. Friday is named for the German goddess Freya. Thirteen is said to have a feminine flow, according to numerologists, because of the thirteen phases of the Moon.

The day itself has been transmogrified into some sort of a culturally freakish day of misfortune. I, personally, have never had a bad day on Friday the 13th. Those few that I’ve heard of who have wished they had spent the day in bed are no more likely to suffer on this combination of weekday and day of the month, than on any other day.

Nor are people in their first full year of teenage necessarily more difficult to get along with than those who are at other stages of adolescence, or at any other time of change. For me, twelve was probably the hard adolescent year, with twenty-five and fifty-nine the other rough personal years of change. Thirteen, though I was going through the heart of puberty, was a year of emergence from awkwardness.

The contrived bad luck associated with the thirteenth floor of a multistory building seems to be just that, contrived. I have not heard of any such particular association, in reality. Some people feel the whole bad luck association with the number-and the numerodiurnal combination, was a ploy to curb feminine power. I’m not sure it’s all that organized, but it makes as much sense as anything else.

In any case, any day when energy is nurturing and healing is a good day, in my book-and so it was.

The Summer of the Rising Tides, Day 80: As Decades Have Passed

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 19, 2020-

I have been pondering, since early this morning, as to the nature of my decades, lived thus far.

Young mother, anticipation, rough birth.

World still aflame, born under the element of Fire

Walking alone at age of three; hairbrush to the backside

Loved pictures and songs; pile of 45s in a memorized order

Family in a ramshackle house, which soon became a decent home

Three became four, then five.

First grade, morning bell rung by teacher

Second grade, more families in the neighbourhood

Third grade, began reading like a pro; teacher was like an angel

Fourth grade- Sometime tyranny, worn-out, angry Reading Instructor, Long Division

1950-59 was the decade of inception.

Fifth grade- Hypersensitive, wary of the Principal, death of Grandma

Sixth grade-Attention Deficit Disorder, hospitalized for colon issues

Junior High School- Mischief, girls mattered, one fire followed another,

High School- Best years ever, I-the Individual, clueless about attire, scattered work habits

Post-Graduate- Flubbed first semester, Demon Alcohol, lack of coordination, Army Basic Training, Postal Clerk at Fort Myer, Saw Moon Landing, Missed Woodstock

1960-1969 was the decade of formation.

Army Years- Lost buddies in VietNam, protest marches and intel duty, personal investigation of combat theater, clueless in Sydney

Community College- Series of dates, series of flubs, community involvement, living away from home, living back at home, Quebec-Ville and Montreal, hitchhiking across the continent

University- Dorm year, rooming house, apartment life, incompetent as editor, successful as student, so/so as teaching intern, summer hotel work, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology

Maine years- Staying distant when asked, substitute teaching, tutoring, Teacher Aide, more Demon Alcohol, visits with extended family, two siblings married, all over the state and the Maritimes

Villa School- Saved by the West, attempted Math instruction, dormitory watch, all over the West and the country, San Diego and Disneyland

1970-1979 was the decade of instruction.

Graduate School years- Town House in a quiet neighbourhood, Zuni, Baha’i Faith, first real adult love, Master of Arts in Education (Counseling)

Tuba City Years- School Counselor, Newlywed, Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, London and Canterbury, death of Nana, death of a dentist friend, deaths of children, Guyana, wedding of Glenn & Barbie, Pine Ridge, Omaha Nation, Columbus Youth Conference, death of my father

Jeju Island- House husband for a semester, Work Visa wait time, grappling with cultural baggage, Baha’is of Korea, troubled expatriates, Visiting Professor of English, training teachers, birth of a son, back and forth across the Pacific, Baha’i International Pioneer

1980-89 was the decade of maturation.

Jeju 2.0- Facing the culture of sexual harassment, empowering women students, enjoying life with a toddler, standing at the Demarcation Line, honouring our elders

Navajo-Hopi 2.0- More School Counseling, active child protection, rescuing two girls, saving our son, losing youngest brother, addressing ambition, Lady the Dachshund, Baha’i homefront pioneer, Principal in two schools, Keams Canyon, Jeddito, Chilchinbeto, Salome

1990-99 was the decade of professional success.

The Active Urban years- Y2K, Mingus Mountain Academy, Kingswood Estates, Mesa Community College, substitute teaching, El Mirage Elementary, Fuhr chiropractic, Phoenix Baha’i newsletter, Sierra Pines Apartments, the house on Solar Drive

The Caretaker Years- Penny’s two falls, my fall into despair, more substitute teaching, WIS International, Southwest Network, Ironwood Elementary, Palo Verde Middle School, poor career choices, ASU West, President Obama at Penny’s graduation, two wrecked cars, Dr. Yau, hyperbaric oxygen, Stem Cell Therapy, six family weddings, Aram graduates High School

2000-09 was the decade of reckoning

Caretaking and Losing- Trillium Specialty Hospital, renovating and painting the house, MRSA, Dr. Desvignes, Chapter 7, John C. Lincoln Hospital, facing my demons, Odyssey Hospice, turning sixty, Durant’s Steak House, Penny’s transition

Feeling My Way- Aram in the Navy, Kim & Stu, short-selling house, Louhelen Baha’i School, meandering across the country, helping in-laws, moving to Prescott, Willow Creek Gardens, Pacific Coast and interior Northwest, Texas Circle, wayward Vision Quest, emotional overkill, death of father-in-law, D-Day Anniversary, Berga, World Cup celebrations, Rouen landmarks, Paris by day and night, Luxembourg National Day, Iolani Palace, Waikiki, Tiger Cruise

Settling in My Space- Arizona Avenue, Prescott Circle Trail, Black Canyon National Recreation Trail, southeast Alaska, BRIDGES Program, RISE Program, Prescott High School, southern California beach towns, Aram to Korea, Carson City-Reno family, Gulf Coast journey, cross-continental journeys, loss of two cars, break-in to a third, Red Cross, death of mother-in-law, semi-retirement, Do Terra Essential Oils, Aram & Yunhee, return to Korea

2010-19 was the decade of resilience

2020- 29 is the decade of endurance

Knighthood and Benighthood

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Posted by on in Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 18, 2017, Prescott-

Depending on who you ask,

Charles Manson is dead,

or “not dead, it’s a liberal hoax”.

Depending on who you ask,

Bill Clinton was a good President,

or a ravenous cad,

or maybe both.

Depending on who you ask,

Woody Allen was a fine filmmaker,

or a disgusting rake,

or, again, one and the same.

Both, and.

How many of us,

have transgressed,

against someone,

or many someones,

in the days of adolescence,

in times of emotional stress,

or of moral drift.

Is it a matter of degree,

or a matter of having

overcome and transcended,

the lower nature.

We all have duality.

Some refer to that

as Original Sin.

Others brush it off,

as “his peccadilloes”.

The fact remains,

when one transgresses

the bounds of good behaviour,

of kindness,

of respect,

of dignity,

someone else is hurt,

and often, grievously.

There are no free passes,

no pats on the head,

or “It’s okay, I’ll get over it.”

I’ve felt shame before,

and made amends,

the best I could.

It made no difference,

that they were words,

or mild gestures.

Hurt is hurt,

and I was/am

deeply sorry.

What about the others?

Are they sorry?

Have they,

will they,

make amends?

Has so and so,

who trolled young girls,

in the 1970’s and ’80’s,

been a chaste and loyal husband,

these past 30 years?

Has a man who dabbled in porn,

when his “beloved”

was asleep,

faced and overcome

his afflictive addiction?

Has a woman who preached

Faith, by day,

and romped with men,

by night,

at last chosen her Lord

over her lust?

Many famous names

have been bandied about,

of late.

Fame sheds light

on darkness,

but where are

those of us,

who live

lives that are

not public?

Are we knighted,

or benighted?