People

Peebles and Grains of Sand

/ James Browning

Every day I change the world. We all do. Not often in big ways, but constantly in small, at first glance relatively unmeaning ways.

If in traffic on my way to work someone cuts me off, I can honk making sure they see while I shake my fist and show my displeasure with a hand gesture. Or I can just let it go with a thought about the apparent emptiness in a person’s life who can so easily mistreat another. What did I send into the world? In refraining from not making a thoughtless person even more so at least I did not make matters worse for all he/she comes in contact with!

Riding the elevator up to my office I can choose to stand in the corner silently while the other passenger stands solemn and seemingly lost in thought. I can leave him/her to arrive at work with that apathetic guise to exhibit to co-workers. Or I can smile, say some innocuous like “good morning, sure is hot out isn’t it?”. Maybe they will smile or maybe they won’t, but will go into their day knowing a stranger at least noticed their existence.

During my lunch break I can take the time to call a friend who is having a difficult time and by showing I care lighten their load a little. Their day will be a little better and quite possibly so will anyone’s who comes in contact with them.

I know such thoughts may sound a little “namby pamby” at first, but everything I do (everything you do) sends a tiny wave into the world like pebbles dropped into a lake. Collectively a million pebbles dropped near the same time can create a tidal wave.

A smile, a kind word, a thoughtful expression, a caring act are each one nothing earth-shattering, but such things do matter. Am I being hokey, simplistic and naive?  Possibly and if so that’s just fine.  The world could use a little more of that and a bit less grit and reality!  In small ways separately and collectively we ALL affect the world around us every day.

What is considerably more meaningful is that I witness everything I do or say. How do my actions make me feel? When I do the right thing, when I exercise restraint, thoughtfulness or consideration I feel good. When the lessons learned well from past mistakes show themselves positively I am proud of myself. Those little positive bits and pieces are gifts I give myself specifically and to the world generally. 

I am grateful for starting my morning with the thought that more than any other factor how I act today will determine how I feel at the end of it. There’s a real opportunity to make a positive contribution to the world, although admittedly small, but meaningful just the same. Little things we all do, good or bad, accumulate to total something significant much like grains of sand can create a beach.

“All ye Poets of the Age!
All ye Witlings of the Stage!
Learn your Jingles to reform!
Crop your Numbers and Conform:
Let your little Verses flow
Gently, Sweetly, Row by Row:
Let the Verse the Subject fit;
Little Subject, Little Wit.
From “Namby Pamby” by Henry Carey

I’m Living Proof!

/ James Browning

It’s a shame modern society trains to hold our emotions in and not express them fully, including gratitude. Most of us robotically say “thank you” and “I appreciate it” a good bit of the time, but words alone are not an expression of feeling. We’re frequently taught that emotion plus words equals expressed feeling and its our feelings that make us vulnerable. I suppose that’s true, but hiding our feelings always insulates us from enjoying the full richness and fullness of life. Being happy takes risks!

All relationships to be functional must contain a level of mutual duty and loyalty. Gratitude is a step past being such moral obligations and gratefulness generally falls under the heading of “altruism”. Altruism is a motivation to provide something of value to a party who must be anyone but the self with no expectation of any compensation or benefits, either direct, or indirect. In other words, expressing true gratitude is giving purely for the sake of giving.

A study by James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard, stated when one person behaves generously, it inspires observers to behave generously later, toward different people. In fact, the researchers found that altruism could spread by three degrees—from person to person to person to person. “As a result,” they write, “each person in a network can influence dozens or even hundreds of people, some of whom he or she does not know and has not met. In other words, the ‘giving’ of gratefulness breeds gratefulness.

Giving (such as expressing gratefulness) has been linked to the release of a hormone released during sex and breast-feeding that induces feelings of warmth, euphoria, and connection to others. In laboratory studies, Paul Zak, the director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, found that a dose of the hormone (oxytocin) will cause people to give more generously and to feel more empathy towards others, with “symptoms” lasting up to two hours. And those people on an “oxytocin high” can potentially jumpstart a “virtuous circle, where one person’s generous behavior triggers another’s”.

That’s boomerang effect of giving gratitude. Plainly and simply, what you give comes back to you. Maybe not in the quantity or frequency you give it, but more gratefulness expressed will cause you to get back more. Further, telling others of your gratitude for them is it’s a gift you give yourself. Expressed regularly, thankfulness can change the world and your perception of it. Author Mary Angela wrote, If you were to stop and feel the thank you each time you gave it, you would be living in gratitude. True gratitude is spiritual and fills the heart with warmth and joy!

Genuine gratitude, given or received, accumulates over time and softens a hard heart and opens a closed one. I am living proof!

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
Mary Anne Radmacher

Much Remains the Same

/ James Browning

Stumbling across a site of early 20th century vintage glamour photography, I became mesmerized looking back through time. Letting it soak in that the image was captured about ninety-two years ago was a bit mind-boggling.   The twenty something woman glamorized in the photograph above taken around 1920 would be a hundred and ten years plus if she was still among us.  Much has changed.  Many things remain the same. 

The appearance of photographic images was different a hundred years ago. The quality of equipment and techniques in practice then gave most images a dreamy, misty and somewhat surreal look. The sense of seeing through to another time is enhanced by clothing, props and styles that appear rarely antique in an appealingly beautiful way. All together the methods and attributes of a hundred years ago cause the photographs to appear characteristically artful, much like a painting of long ago.

There’s something about seeing an image of someone who lived long ago that conjures intrigue.  Questions come to mind such as “who were you”; “what was your life like?”; “were you happy?”; “what were you thinking when the photo was taken?”; “what did your voice sound like?”.

Of course, there was plenty of ‘naughty French postcard” type photography of women taken in the early 20th century era that was exploitive. It was nudity simply for the sake of the nakedness done without any artistic bent. At the same time that sort of unappealing photography was being done in Paris, there were people like Man Ray who was making inventive and original works of art with a camera featuring the female form. His photographic work has been copied for a hundred years, but like that of his contemporaries like Dali, in their day the work was completely original, inspired and quite controversial. A good example is Man Ray’s ‘cello back woman’:

It’s interesting how today’s fashion appears contemporary while that of just forty years ago frequently appears old and out of style. However, go back a hundred years and old fashion and style appears “classic”. Clara Bow and her contemporaries emerge from photographs to have had their own unique class when viewed today.

Modern snobbery often gives the impression that fashionable beauty comes only from “now”. For hundreds of years every age has had its fashion of the day, current perceptions of beauty, preferred types of entertainment and ways of perceiving things. Ranging from what now appears elegant and classy to the laughable and near ridiculous, all ages of the past have their own “thing”.

All I have to do is see old photographs of myself in a 70’s wide lapel, baby blue tux with platform shoes on to have a good laugh on my self.  I wonder if in a hundred such a photo will be consider that of a classic gentleman. I am grateful for the smile remembering ‘my time’ brings. I am thankful for the slant of perspective that allows me to see into the past and respect what long ago was.  

Clocks slay time…
time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels;
only when the clock stops does time come to life.
William Faulkner

Two Ears and One Mouth

/ James Browning

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vibration as in twanging them to bring out their music.

My translation: it’s just as important to stop talking as it is to talk. I already know what I think and there’s little new going to come to me by talking about it. Different perspectives from others will often benefit me but is only possible by being a good listener.

I say all that to say, I am not a particularly good listener. I’m working on that though. Awareness helps and by keeping it forefront mentally growth is noticeable, but doesn’t come rapidly. Ingrained habits change slowly.

A question each person silently asks when meeting someone else is “Do you care about me”.  There are few things that show I care like paying attention to what someone else has to say. At that moment I am making that person one of the most important elements of my life and giving a meaningful gift that rarely goes appreciated.

An old axiom says if you spend a half hour with someone you’ve just met and let them talk for 25 minutes of the time, their impression will be you are an amusing and interesting person to talk to; someone they hope to see again soon.

To listen fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the ‘music,’ but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for what someone knows, but for what he or she is. Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can slow your mind’s hearing to your ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning. (Peter Senge)

A personal big step forward came when I began to stop myself from thinking about I am going to say next while another was talking. When my attention is inside my own head focused on my own thoughts while another talks I always miss a fair amount of what was being said.  I am grateful for the reminder that listening is one of the most valuable gifts I can grant to another.

We have two ears and one mouth
so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Epictetus

If You Are Able

/ James Browning

Flags are flapping in an Oklahoma breeze out front of many houses in my neighborhood today. As I drove by a cemetery this morning small versions of the Stars and Stripes seemed to cover the landscape. 

It’s Memorial Day when we remember and honor all soldiers and their service, especially those who lost their lives defending our country. As I sat here in front of my computer browsing, reading and being emotionally touched, I was moved to offer a sense of my reverence and gratitude here.

What hit me most was when I began to read about particular individuals.  Many of those stories touched my heart.   I picked one to share about a man who died in the war my generation fought: Vietnam.

“If You Are Able” by Captain/Major O’Donnell
(written before his death in battle).

Save for them a place
Inside of you,
And save one backward glance
When you are leaving,
For the places they can no longer go,
Be not ashamed to say
You loved them,
Though you may or
May not always have,
Take what they have left
And what they have taught you
With their dying
And keep it with your own,
And in that time
When men decide, and feel safe,
To call the war insane,
Take one moment to embrace
Those gentle heroes
You left behind.

Michael Davis O’Donnel Captain, Pilot, whose last known activity was March 24, 1970 was from Springfield, Illinois. He was promoted to Major once considered MIA. A reconnaissance team engaged an enemy force in Cambodia for three days and asked for extraction. Captain O’Donnel and his crew flew to the rescue. The pilot, ignoring his own safety, was attempting a rescue when his helicopter was hit by enemy fire then crashed and burned.

Had the drawing for draft numbers come up differently I could easily been one in the 70’s who served but did not come home to see family and friends again. Never will I think war is a good thing, but always I will greatly appreciate, respect and honor our warriors. With humble gratitude to Capt. O’Donnel and all who have severed (and the families who endure loss and all the grief of war) I say “thank you”: small words but expressed with deep conviction and gratitude.

We come,
not to mourn our dead soldiers,
but to praise them.
Francis A. Walker

I would appreciate it if you could help me honor our soldiers
by forwarding today’s blog to others. Thank you! 

If You Could Only Love Enough

/ James Browning

Love is…..? Actually I can’t explain it, but I feel in my mind, body and soul. I can’t prove it exists, but know without doubt it does. Love is a thousand things and more.  Without it life loses much of its meaning. There is nothing else in the universe like it.

Love is enigma.
Love is divine.
Love is the cure.
Love is pure.
Love is undefined.
Love is beyond just a feeling.
Love is many heart beats.
Love is the light on dark streets.
Love is bright.
Love is light.
Love is just.
Love is life.
Love helps the weak.
Love contains the spirit.
Love embellishes the person.
Love is coherent.
Love is the problem.
Love is the solution.
Love is confusing.
Love is illusive.
Love is a traitor.
Love is addiction.
Love is a dream.
Love is pain.
Love is bliss.
Love is the acceptance.
Love is to see imperfection
And treat it perfect.
Love exists beyond time and measurement.
Without love, we are astoundingly weak.
Love is the foundation.
Love is necessary for internal and external peace.
Taken from “Spirit Of Love” by Sullee J.

I don’t understand love, but I no longer need to. I have given up completely on arriving at some rational explanation for it. Knowing I love and am loved is enough. I am grateful for the peace that simple, but difficult to learn insight has brought me.

If you could only love enough,
you could be the most powerful person in the world.
Emmet Fox

Of Beauty and Youth and Grace

/ James Browning

Yesterday morning brought am early morning appointment at the dentist to check out some minor tooth discomfort I have been having intermittently. Luckily it turned out to be no real concern and the appointment was short and routine. As I was checking out I could see into the lobby as a woman probably somewhere in the 85-90 year old range was signing in. Most of her hair was gone and her skin was blotched and showed marks where things had been removed numerous time. In spite of her appearance, she seemed to have arrived on her own and get around well with the help of a cane.

With my checkout business done, I came around the counter to the exit into the lobby. As I walked through the doorway the aged woman and I made direct eye contact that lasted for a second or two. I said “good morning” to her in a way she knew I meant it. The instant I spoke her eyes sparkled and on her face came a smile that was warm and kind. Driving into work after the appointment I realized how special that little moment she and I shared really was.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to notice old people more and let them know I see them. Sometimes it is just a smile, giving them my place in line, opening a door or a simple verbal greeting, but I go out of my way to do it. Our culture has a bad habit of treating the old as if they didn’t exist. I read once what elders want most from the rest of us is to acknowledge their existence and still see value in them. I have never forgotten that.

If I was 30 years older the woman with the bright smile and sparkling eyes at my dentist’s office might have been my girlfriend, wife, friend or peer. What we shared was ever so brief but in my memory she will be recorded as a temporary friend of the shortest duration so far. I will not forget her and will be grateful always for the moment’s grace we shared.

From “The Old Stage Queen” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Back in the box by the curtains shaded,
She sits alone by the house unseen;
Her eye is dim, her cheek is faded,
She who was once the people’s queen.

The curtain rolls up, and she sees before her
A vision of beauty and youth and grace.
Ah! no wonder all hearts adore her,
Silver-throated and fair of face.

Out of her box she leans and listens;
Oh, is it with pleasure or despair
That her thin cheek pales and her dim eye glistens,
While that fresh young voice sings the grand old air?

She is back again in the Past’s bright splendor–
When life seemed worth living, and love a truth,
Ere Time had told her she must surrender
Her double dower of fame and youth.

It is she herself who stands there singing
To that sea of faces that shines and stirs;
And the cheers on cheers that go up ringing
And rousing the echoes–are hers–all hers.

Words of the Unknown Many

/ James Browning

I have feelings.
I overreact.
I underestimate.
I overestimate.
I over think everything.
I look too deep into everything’s meaning.
I dream big.
My expectations are high.
So I’m going out there.
And I’m going to do the best I can.
People are going to get in my way.
Things are going to bring me down.
But I’m going to keep going.
I’m going to reach as far as I can,
for every thing I’ve ever wanted.
And I’m not giving up.
Because that’s what you do
when your dreams are more important than your fears.
You go out there and ignore the odds.
You focus on one thing:  
that your dreams come true.

Today my gratitude is for the words of others. The two anonymous pieces above I selected bits of and knitted together are the words my soul is speaking to me today, but I did not write them. They were written by kindred spirits unknown to me.

I am never completely alone. There are thousands of well-intended souls who, like me, earnestly search for wisdom and work to improve them self. On days when my words do not come or take form as I wish they would, there is inspiration in knowing others walk a similar path. I am grateful for the words of the unknown many that have been cast into the world for me to discover.

The first step towards getting somewhere
is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
Anonymous

Crazy Ones, Misfits, Rebels and Troublemakers

/ James Browning

Whenever I feel like an outcast or my uniqueness is a vulnerability I go read what Steve Jobs said in a PBS interview in 1994. What sometimes feels like a curse of too much individuality feels like a blessing in the context he expressed.

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is – everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Whether Steve Jobs or my neighbor next door, no one is more than I am. Nor is anyone any less.  It has taken decades of living to begin to accept myself as the human being I am. This complete package that is “me” is filled with a way of being that has not been before and will not come again. 

Asset and weakness;
Strength and flaw;
Talent and fault;
Belief and doubt;
Honor and disgrace;
In all ways
I am uniquely myself

Here in my 58th year I am grateful to no longer wish to otherwise than the way I am. Finding a healthy level of self acceptance is one of the most comforting and amazing discoveries of my life.  Vive la différence!

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent.
They imagine.
They heal.
They explore.
They create.
They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Taken from an Apple, Inc 1997 television commercial

As Young As Your Faith

/ James Browning

My life has been rich in many ways and one I become more grateful for as I age is all the people I have met along the way. Most I have had contact with would be nameless and faceless to just about anyone reading this, but some are names known by many.  My profession has allowed me to spend a little time with quite a few of the famous and notable.

A fair number of celebrities I am thankful for the opportunity to meet were outside the music business like Muhammad Ali, Sigourney Weaver and Norman Rockwell.  However, the majority of my ‘brushes with fame” have been associated with my profession related to the music business. The majority were rock luminaries (such as Steve Tyler, Phil Collins, Bob Seger) alternative rock stars (like Scott Weiland, Moby, Gavin Rossdale) and country recording artists (such as Reba McEntire, Ronnie Milsap, Tracy Lawrence).  The music celebrities I have met run ran the full gamut like people from all walks of life I have come in contact with: some were very nice, some were assholes and others left me feeling ambivalent about them.

I regret the opportunity to meet Dick Clark never came along.

There are two things which are constant reminders of my own mortality: watching children grow up and seeing the famous age and pass on. Yesterday, the death of Dick Clark hit me harder than I would have guessed ahead of time. It pained me to see him in recent years struggle after his stroke, yet I admire him for his courage to keep going.  To me he will always be that smiling, handsome guy on American Bandstand who also brought me into each New Year for most of my life.

One of my dearest friends did spend a good amount of time with Dick Clark and says he was just as nice and genuine in person as he appeared to be on TV. My time will come one day like it did yesterday for Dick Clark, but for all my days I will be grateful for his presence in my life down to being one of the influences for my chosing the profession that has been so good to me.

Thanks Mr. Clark!  I will not forget you!

You are as young as your faith,
as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence,
as old as your fear;
as young as your hope,
as old as your despair.
Douglas MacArthur