Tag Archives: millennial

A Good List

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It has been four weeks today, since Attila announced the end of our marriage, the emotional aspect of our marriage, but not the legal, not yet, that is in a holding pattern.

What a ride.

So far a fairly workable holding pattern has been established, where we live separate lives, interacting with increasingly few of our old routines. Civility and consideration prevail. This has its pros and cons. There is no good choice as to how this marriage deconstructs, so I am making a series of small controlled decisions, choosing among the hard and sad choices as they come up. They are coming up a lot, life is hard.

I cycle through all the stages of grief, to varying degrees, in various orders, depending on the particular circumstance of a given day.

I am getting through this.

Next week I have two of my own activities planned, and one outing with Attila planned. I am an outsider everywhere, in this place of small towns and tiny cities, and it takes a long time for an outsider to be inside anything, so patience and fortitude are required. Eventually something will take root, somewhere, probably in an unexpected circumstance. I have to keep going so that I run into that unexpected circumstance.

So that is the state of my life at present.

I had some kind of bug, and my gastrointestinal system was in rebellion. It was an uncomfortable night, but I did manage to get about five hours sleep, so really it wasn’t so bad. I am feeling better this morning.

Terra stopped by with Sunny and Sky for a short but delightful visit yesterday evening. Her pregnancy appears to be going well, the Grandbaby is due in July. Luna called this morning for a chat while en route to Elf’s diving lessons, Tink’s gymnastics lessons, all three, Imp, Elf, and Tink, in the car chatting up a storm on speaker phone. All six Grandbabies are well and happy.

Today I washed and dried a set of sheets, after having changed out the bedding. I’ve read a bit, crocheted a bit, puttered a bit around the house. Attila and I went grocery shopping.

This afternoon I will work on genealogy, my web site update, read for a bit, and write in my paper journal. This evening Attila and I will watch a movie over dinner. Attila has begun cooking a weekly Saturday feast for himself, foods I cannot and/or would not eat, full of sodium and sugar and cholesterol, although he continues to avoid my allergen. I treat myself to a slice of pizza, and plan the whole day’s menu around it, reducing sodium, sugar and cholesterol, so that I can eat my slice without concern for having overdone things.

The vacant house next door has sold. We saw two vehicles in the driveway last night, and observed a millennial couple arrive back in one of the vehicles this morning, Tim Hortons paper coffee cups in hand. Attila says that where he works many people show up in the morning with two paper cups of Tim Hortons coffee, around $4 worth, that is $20 a week for morning coffee, and about $1000 a year. The last millennial couple who lived next door and who lost the house to the bank, there have been two such couples since we bought Mist Cottage, didn’t make their mortgage payments, but they did find the funds for Tim Hortons coffee, daily. Their priorities are much different than mine. I find it odd what some people regard as a necessity of life. Coffee above shelter… something is wrong there.

What cheerful note can I end my visit here with? I am healthy. I have food, and shelter. I am loved. I am making fewer spelling mistakes as I write these entries. A good list!

Worldly Distractions

Weather

3°C
Date: 11:00 AM EST Saturday 27 January 2018
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.9 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 3.4°C
Dew point: -1.6°C
Humidity: 70%
Wind: SSW 20 gust 29 km/h
Visibility: 24 km

Quote

“When one can hear people moving, one does not so much mind, about one’s fears.”
Ann Radcliffe
1764 – 1823

It’s a Miss Piggy World

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I’ve no work for the next few days, which means I can let down my guard for a few days and feel my emotions. Emotions put me at risk of expressing myself. I do not dare say what I think when I am at work, that is not what they pay me to do. As you might imagine, it is hard work for me to remain completely emotionally detached during most of my waking hours. I manage it though!

There are a few blogs I read regularly. The people writing the blogs are different ages, live in different areas and do not know one another. They are modest, balanced people who focus on sharing who they are, what they know and what interests them. They describe lives that include the young and the old and everyone in between. I find their approaches to life varied and balanced. But is very hard to find a balanced blog!

How do I perceive balance in a blog: focus beyond self and self-promotion.

Most blogs I bump into are clearly written by the Millennial types, see below. Of course such a category based on age is a gross generalization and merely leads to agist finger pointing. There are living people born in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that are every bit as focused on money, image and fame as those born after January 1, 1982. What I have observed is that the MEDIA has been increasingly promoting money, image and fame, and is reaching further into the socialization of children with biased communication modes; first Radio, then Television and Telephone, Computers, and beyond into the mind shaping technologies of FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter and the like.

Still, some of the most unbalanced blogs I bump into are written by young mothers born after 1982, not all of them, but a lot of them. None of these young women seem to have parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or any kind of community beyond their own few friends of “other mothers” and nuclear family. Most of them are selling their “expertise” via classes, self-published books or “consulting”; they are trying to sell “expertise” that is plain old, every-day common sense for a lot of people. Frankly, I doubt there is much money, image or fame coming their way. However, “fake it till you make it” seems to be the order of the day. It is painful to watch, boring to read.

“Millennials—those born after Jan. 1, 1982—are much more likely than Baby Boomers (now aged 50+) to value money, image and [I would say OR not AND, all equally odious] fame than things like self-acceptance, community and the environment, suggests an extensive new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.”
Source: http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/03/19/study-confirms-millennials-are-generation-me/

Here are a list of what I consider to be the red flags of social imbalance on personal blogs:

1. Reference to offering expertise by means of “teaching”, “courses”, “counselling”, “consulting”, “instructional self-authored and published books” and the like. This is not the same as “show and tell” which I regard as healthy “sharing”. I do read some blogs where the blogger is selling self-authoured, self-published book(s), but these are people with years of experience, a balanced approach to life and a lot of humility.

2. Re-presenting information/misinformation from other sources, without references, as factual or even original material. It is an “urban myth” nightmare out there!!! Health and nutrition are particularly infected topics.

3. The blog title sports a popular buzz word, like “homestead”.

4. Representation of “family” as consisting only of the author, spouse and children. This is mediated when the author actually has no parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles…

If you would like to add to this list, please submit a comment for consideration.

Worldly Distractions

Weather

-1 °C
Condition:Snow
Pressure:102.2 kPa
Visibility:16 km
Temperature:-0.7°C
Dewpoint:-3.6°C
Humidity:81 %
Wind:NW 9 km/h

Quote

“There is the satisfaction of providing your public with a vision of true beautology, true sytlisity, – how can I put it? – true glamorositude.”
Miss Piggy the Muppet