Kansas City Freelance Writer Liz Craig

“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.”
-Oscar Wilde

To realize one’s nature perfectly. What does that mean, really?

If you are active in the business world, you may wonder at times (or many times) whether this is really “you,” or who you had hoped you would be, sitting in the meeting playing Boardroom Bingo to pass the time. Or hanging out with people you really don’t like very much.

What is self-development? Is it achieved by winning awards, climbing the ladder to higher echelons in your company? Coming in first in your Corporate Challenge event? Climbing Mount Everest? Getting a tummy-tuck? Knowing the right people? Driving the cool car?

In my opinion, none of those things is going to help you develop your true self. To me, finding one’s true nature is an inside job. How could it not be?

If you are focused outward, looking for symbols of success or things to make you happy in the world, it seems to me you never will be happy. Isn’t it true that once you get that shiny new thing you had been after, thinking it would make you happy, it quickly loses its luster, and you have to think of something else to go after?

I heard an author the other day say, “The more things you have, the more things you have to take care of, and the more tension it causes.” Having had a house full of stuff for 12 years, which I then pared down to move into an apartment, I can tell you it’s true. The stuff accumulates, and it becomes a burden. This author said, “The things you own, own you.” True, true.

But self-knowledge is something that never piles up and becomes a burden. Instead, it makes you feel lighter and lighter. Because you can let go of all the stuff that really doesn’t serve you and really doesn’t matter.

Why should you devote yourself to doing the real work of self-development? Let me ask you this: Do you think you know yourself? Or are you too busy to notice who you are?

That seems like a strange question, I imagine. A lot of us are extremely busy because we have jobs, families, hobbies, friends, and whatever other things we’re required to spend time on. Who has time for self-development?? But even in an extremely harried life, I contend that if you can’t take five minutes to simply BE, you are short-changing yourself by neglecting to at least form a friendly acquaintance with yourself.

Years ago, I took the Silva Method of Meditation, which is a terrific course. In fact, I took it twice. Once you’ve taken it, as long as you keep your card proving you are a graduate, you can take it as many times as you like. The course teaches you how to enter the alpha state of awareness, then to go one rung deeper, to a place where you find the answers your inner self has to the questions you ask.

In the Silva course, our instructor (a Franciscan monk who was a hoot) reminded us to practice for at least a few minutes daily. “Five minutes is good; ten minutes is very good; fifteen minutes is excellent.” And then, “Once a day is good, twice a day is very good, and three times is excellent.”

I’m afraid I’ve let myself slip a bit since I first took the course. But when things get hairy, or when I’m experiencing negative emotions like worry, anger, or depression, nothing helps calm me like meditating the way I was taught.

You don’t have to take the Silva course to know how to meditate. There are a lot of books out there, and a lot of classes, on how to do it. But you don’t need any of those. All you need is five minutes and a quiet place with dim lighting. Get comfortable, preferably sitting (so you don’t doze off), keep your hands open and relaxed, close your eyes, and either focus on the breath coming in and exiting your nose or focus on a word, like “peace.” Just keep breathing in and out and try to maintain your focus. Your monkey-mind will be jumping all over the place, and when you notice you’re thinking about dinner or a book you’re reading, or an itch on your neck, you gently bring your mind back to your breathing or your word.

Five minutes at work is doable, isn’t it? At home, you may find more time. And for something that’s free and easy, it eventually yields great results: calmness, less being caught up in the crisis of the moment, more insight into who you truly are, and more compassion for others in your world. Honest!

I don’t know if Oscar Wilde meditated, but it’s clear he understood there is a real self we all have, and when we learn who we are and live as we truly are, instead of living up to someone else’s idea of who or what we should be, then we can be truly free.

Try five minutes of simple meditation, and even if it’s hard to keep focused at first, you’ll get better at it, and then you’ll not only feel better, but you’ll know who you are. And you’ll probably like you!

“There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
-Francis Bacon

That’s a tweet I posted this morning. It’s a strange one that I didn’t quite “grok” right away. But when I thought of a project that required screening beautiful women for work as a principal in a TV commercial, I got it.

Casting for a TV commercial usually begins with looking at lots and lots of photo “head shots” of models and actors. Out of those, you choose the ones you think have potential to fit your need, and if they’re local, you invite them in, so you can see them in person. Heck, they might be photoshopped to look beautiful. You’d want to know that before hiring them.

We selected three or four women to come in for personal interviews, all of whom were beautiful in their pictures. But in person, what a surprise! Were these the same women we’d selected?

One model’s face actually looked a bit misshapen. The two sides didn’t match. Another one’s nose seemed a size too large for her face. The third looked just plain homely.

These models didn’t come in without makeup, looking as if they had just fallen out of bed. They were made up to look as pretty as they could — in person. And they certainly didn’t look like candidates for Miss America. But soon, I was to learn something valuable.

When we did video auditions with our candidates, these women revealed their true beauty. In a magical way, it is true that the camera loves some faces. These rather ordinary-looking (or even peculiar-looking) women became lovely and engaging, even fascinating, in the eye of the camera.

So I understand what Bacon meant in that quote. Now I try to look at every person through the eye of a transforming camera. You’d be amazed how much more beautiful they all look!

Do you really need an old-fashioned landline phone? Lots of people have ditched theirs in favor of cell phones. But is that the right way for you to go? It depends. Here are a few things to consider when making that decision.

• If you have older people or kids in your home, they may not know how to use a cell phone (or, in the case of older people, may not wish to learn). Also, if you have babysitters or others around who don’t have their own phones, you might want to keep the landline.

• Another point in favor of a landline phone is that in an emergency, if you call 911, the operator will quickly be able to determine your address. Seconds can make a big difference in the case of a health emergency or a break-in.

• With a landline, you can have extension phones throughout the house. And let’s face it: you’re more likely to lose a call with a cell phone when you forget to turn it on or turn off “silent” mode, or leave it in the car.

• If all your friends, family, and clients or other contacts have known your home phone number for years, it’s risky to shift to cell phone only. You might lose touch with people you don’t talk to often, distant relatives, long-lost friends, or people looking to hire you for a project (a concern of mine, as a freelancer).

So what’ll it be, cell phone, landline, or both? Maybe there’s another choice for you. I just learned about Verizon Wireless Home Phone Connect, a wireless device you plug your home phone into, which is an extension of your wireless package. I’m not pushing Verizon, but I always am looking for a cheap phone deal, and with this, your phone service could be a little as $9.99 a month. It may be worth looking into. Especially if you’re the kind of person who wants to have your cupcake and eat it, too.

He was one of “Twelve Angry Men,” a visitor to “The Twilight Zone,” a slob in “The Odd Couple,” and a doctor in “Quincy, M.E.” And before that, a Broadway star in “Gypsy.” But to me, he’ll always be the guy who couldn’t pronounce “Ak-Sar-Ben” to save his life. I’m talking about Jack Klugman. He died the other day, and when I saw the notice, a shock ran through me, because I knew Jack.

Let me backtrack a little. As a horseman, Jack was a perfect spokesman for Ak-Sar-Ben racetrack, a client of the advertising agency where I worked as a writer/producer at the time. Amazingly, he agreed to do a set of TV spots for us for a reasonable fee. It must have been the horse connection that sealed the deal.

Before Jack arrived, we were instructed that he must have an excellent toupee stylist available on the set at all times. Wow, I thought. Was this guy going to be a handful? I was a little scared to meet him. He was a big star, and I was an Omaha writer/producer charged with keeping him content and doing his best job for what was probably a fraction of his normal fee.

The first day of shooting, I brought bagels to the set. Poor Jack, who had arisen at 6 a.m. (4 a.m. California time), was greeted on Day One by fruit-flavored bagels (the only kind I could find the night before at Albertson’s). “Blueberry! Strawberry! These aren’t bagels!” First the demand for the toupee stylist, now the dissatisfaction with our Midwestern bagels. How difficult was our Hollywood star going to be?

But my fears were quickly dispelled once we started shooting. Jack took direction without a fuss, and he was open and easy to talk to, particularly when a couple of attractive young women from the agency came to visit him on the set. He enjoyed joking and chatting with his star-struck fans until we called him for the next scene.

During the shoot, the one thing that bugged him was something rather important: the name of the client. Take after take, he struggled unsuccessfully to pronounce it. “ARK-si-bin!” “Come on out to As-KIB-In!” “Awk-SER-ban!” Frustrated after a series of blown takes, he turned to me and pleaded, “Aw, honey, we don’t have to keep saying the name, do we?” Unhelpfully, I told him it was “Nebraska” spelled backward. Eventually, he got the name right, and in the finished spots, Jack’s personality and enthusiasm shone through every scene.

One day, while the crew set up for the next scene, Jack decided to bet on a race or two. I thought, “Wow, Jack knows the horses. I’ll bet with him.” So I bet the same horses he did (with one-tenth the money). We both lost, but what the hey. I got to bet with Jack Klugman.

When I read accounts of his death, I learned he had agreed to do “Quincy, M.E.” because he hoped to do stories that focused on issues like preventing child abuse and rape. His social conscience put him at odds with his producer, who didn’t think viewers wanted to see shows about those subjects. But Jack was right. “Quincy, M.E.” was the first of a new genre of popular crime-detection shows focusing on those and other social issues, among them “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

In the 1980s, Jack pushed hard to get the Orphan Drug Act passed. In fact, he had his brother, Maurice, write two episodes of “Quincy, M.E.” about the problem that pharmaceutical companies weren’t inclined to spend money developing drugs for rare diseases like ALS and cystic fibrosis. The first episode acquainted the audience with the problem. The second dramatized the real-life battle Jack was having with Washington. A senator was holding up the bill, and after the episode, the bill finally passed. Jack used the power of his own convictions and the power of the media to help people with rare diseases. For more about his crusade, read this.

Most people don’t know about Jack’s dedication to social issues. In fact, many people think Jack was Oscar Madison of “The Odd Couple,” a shambling, sloppy loudmouth with green meat and brown cheese rotting in his fridge. That’s a tribute to his ability to make a bizarre character seem real. Jack was not Oscar. He was smart, talented, dedicated and socially conscious. But okay, he was a little disheveled-looking. Rreferring to Tony Randall, his “Odd Couple” co-star, he told me, “Tony has suits that are 30 years old. He brushes them, hangs them up, and they look like new. Me, I wear a new suit for two minutes, and it looks like it’s 30 years old.” He was funny, self-deprecating, and someone you wished you could keep on being friends with after the shoot was over.

I’ve worked with other well-known actors. But the one I remember most fondly is Jack Klugman. The natural everyman. The socially conscious actor. And the guy who couldn’t pronounce “Ak-Sar-Ben” to save his life.

Local newspapers are an endangered species, so I choose to subscribe to the KC Star and read it most mornings while I munch Rice Chex and sip coffee. But I’m beginning to wonder if reading it is such a keen idea.

This bright, sunny Sunday morning, I got a double whammy of depressing input. As I was reading the first section of the paper, I was listening to an episode of “This American Life” about how the settlers and Indians in Mankato, Michigan had attacked, murdered, and hanged thousands of each other in the 19th century.

In the paper, here are a few of the stories from this morning:

On the first page, there was a wonderful story about a family that had taken in homeless people, including a black student and a young family, and were helping them over the hump to a better life.

So much for the good news. Here’s the rest:

• Article about how KC Art Institute donors had reneged on a $7 million pledge because they now claim to be broke. KCAI is suing, since they’ve already built the building.
• Article about things breast cancer patients don’t know. I don’t even want to hear the words “breast cancer.” How about you?

Page A2:
• State Department headquarters blaze seriously injures three maintenance workers.
• Drug-seeking man arrested in Aurora, CO on Black Friday for shooting a hole in the ceiling of a Target store.

A4:
• Article about a couple who tortured a 16-year-old “sex slave”

A6:
• 17-year-old dies in car accident

You get the idea.

After all that news and information, I was ready to crawl back into bed and pull a pillow over my head.

The news is not going to start you out for the day with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart. And I’m not just talking about print news. Or even just the morning. The evening TV news is designed to give you nightmares all night long. The newscast starts with a tragedy (a baby injured in a rolling gun battle or a horrendous car accident), and then you see a reporter standing at the crime scene by a length of crime tape hours later, when the scene is obscured by darkness. And even if it weren’t, there’s NOTHING TO SEE! Well, there’s the crime tape.

“You Are There” was an old TV show from the 50s. It appears TV news operations are trying to bring you There, even when there’s no THERE there.

I recall Walt Bodine telling of an experience in the early days on the WDAF-TV news staff. He had been doing human interest stories, and his boss called him on the carpet and said, “What’s all this human interest stuff? I want BANG! BODIES!”

Why do we humans slow down to see a car accident? Why is the bad and the ugly considered “good news?” Why are human interest stories that lift the soul considered boring, and must-not-see TV, except maybe around the holidays? I imagine evolutionary lessons learned in millennia past make us study frightful things closely to make sure similar things don’t happen to us. We take the usual good or neutral news as the norm, so there’s no threat and no reason to take notice.

Maybe someday, bad news won’t be considered “good news.” In the meantime, if you read a newspaper or watch TV news, expect to see “BANG! BODIES!”

Nine times out of ten these days, when you say “Thank you,” you’ll get “No problem” in response, rather than “You’re welcome.” I think that is just plain wrong. Not because I’m a wannabe Miss Manners. But because of the connotation of “No problem.”

Let’s say I did something for you, like oh, what? Since I’m just making this up, let’s say I had you over for a home-cooked dinner. The food was delicious, and you could tell I cleaned up the house before you arrived (because there was no cat hair on your plate). Doing all that is kind of a big deal for me. It took hours of dusting, vacuuming, hiding piles of books and newspapers, not to mention the shopping for ingredients and cooking the dinner. As you leave, you convey your appreciation by saying, “Hey, thank you! That was delicious.” In return, what if I say, “No problem?”

I never would say that because to me, it sounds like, “Meh. I was planning to cook and vacuum anyway. ” Which sounds like both you and the thing I did for you have little value. Whereas “You’re welcome” acknowledges that I did put in some effort to please you, and you are worthy of my caring and hospitality.

There are other situations where “No problem” would be okay, I suppose. For instance, if you dropped a coupon at the grocery store for 15¢ off a package of Knorr’s soup mix, and I picked it up and gave it back to you. You’d probably say, “Thanks.” And maybe I’d say, “No problem.” It really was no problem, or not much of one. I was right behind you, I saw you drop it, and I decided to be helpful to a fellow earth-dweller. Just a little positive encounter that makes me feel good, and maybe you, too.

What I’m suggesting is that we all be aware of the difference between “You’re welcome” and “No problem.” The idea behind the two phrases is similar, but the connotations, in my mind, are way different.

Say, while searching for an image for this post, I came across another blogger’s take on “You’re welcome,” which you can read here. (Okay, you’ll see I snagged the image from someone else’s blog. Guilty as charged, but the blog has some interesting info-bits in it.) Oh, you’re welcome!

Only thing is, how do I make it bigger, so it’s readable? Oh, okay. Try this link: AdAlaCarteTackk

If you are a cubicle critter, I empathize. Nothing to look at but your three and one-half, neck-high “walls” every day. Not even a door to close for privacy. In a previous life, I was a cubicle-bound writer. Now I’m allergic to those things. Not writers, cubicles.

I well remember how boring it got being cooped up in my 40 square feet. It got so bad, even a required staff meeting sounded like fun. If there was no meeting, I would take a trek to the restroom, coffeepot, soda machine, kitchen, or someone else’s cubicle, where I would try to strike up a conversation. I think I annoyed some people who were trying to get work done. Could those “Go away” signs have been meant for me?

Well, I did go away, and today, I work in my own home office. I still take those walks during the day, but in addition, I set a timer for 30 minutes, and when it dings, I jog 500 steps around the apartment, waving my arms around, bobbling my head around, doing the twist, anything at all to get the blood flowing and my mind ticking.

That’s all for good health, because they say if you sit for more than three hours a day, you’re shortening your life by two years. Can you choose the two years? Probably not.

For mental health, you need some stimulation, too. Fortunately, I have pets. Mousie Cat isn’t much help in that department, since he sleeps all day, starting right after breakfast. But my two parakeets, Buster and Alice, are a riot to watch.

Alice, the baby, is a daring acrobat. I’ve seen her do a 360 on the perch. How, I don’t know, it happened so fast. Like most babies, she chews on everything. The cage bars, the mineral block, the seed cups, even occasionally on the toy made of stringy things and beads I bought for her to chew on. She and Buster, the senior bird, chortle and chatter all day long, feed and preen each other, chase each other around, and put on a constant variety show. They don’t keep plates spinning on long sticks or anything, but I’d say singing, dancing, doing acrobatics, and being clowns makes for a pretty good show.

If you’re a freelance writer or designer, and you get bored working by yourself, I suggest a couple of parakeets. They’re inexpensive to maintain, and they’re a live zoo exhibit right in your office.

When you’re writing an ad, some website copy, a brochure, or even a letter to a friend, and you’re stuck for a creative idea, all you have to do is bird-watch for a few minutes. Those birdies will keep you sane, believe me!

Back in the cubicle days, I had a cockatiel. I brought him (Jou-Jou was his name) to work, and everyone in the agency came by to look at him, talk to him, and hear him peep. He loved people, too. Personally, I think every office space should have birds. It’s become a fad for ad agencies or design studios to have dogs, but I say birds are 100 times better. You don’t have to take them out for a walk or scoop their poo, they don’t drool on your computer or hump your leg, and if you are able to spend some quality time with them, you can teach them tricks that are every bit as cute as dog tricks. Even cuter. And when they vocalize, it’s music, not barks.

Yes, I say. Writer, designer, or other freelancer, get thee to a pettery, and get thee some birds! But in the meantime, tell me how you stay sane at work. What do you do to relax, re-energize, and keep from either going to sleep or going postal?

There’s a new CD out that contains the real sound of Shakespearean English. Surprisingly, it sounds more American than Henry Higgins-style British. Here’s an excerpt:

Q: I tuned in late to the discussion on WNYC about Elizabethan English, but did Pat really say Shakespeare spoke like an American? How does she know what he sounded like? I didn’t realize Francis Bacon had invented the tape recorder.

A: The short answer is that Shakespeare didn’t sound just like an American, but his accent was probably more NBC than BBC.

The interesting thing is that language, like species, evolves in different directions in two populations of critters that are split up (in this case, Brits and emigrating Brits, separated by the Atlantic Ocean). In post-Shakespearean times, the British adopted what is called Received Pronunciation. Think of the upstairs residents in “Upstairs Downstairs.” Meanwhile, the Brits who had emigrated to America retained the Original Pronunciation, which was more like modern American English, with a hint of other accents thrown in. So ironically, American English may be more authentic British English than what’s spoken by today’s Brits!

Read more here. http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/07/original-pronunciation.html.

If you’re interested in the evolution of language globally, please check out “Tower of Babel” by Rob Pennock. Fascinating!

And brush up your Shakespeare!

When an older style comes back into fashion, it’s generally made new by some twist or touch that makes it fresh and welcome. Hats are back in now, perhaps for the first time since everyone sent their hats to Goodwill when Kennedy made them “old hat,” so to speak. But the new twist this time is that people don’t know when to wear or not wear hats.

Hats for men and hats for women are in, and even more so these searing days of late June, when the sun can bake your brain and leave you standing, zombiefied, at a Price Chopper cart corral, fit only to be carted away like a burned sacrifice.

It’s nice to see hats on men again, and the selection of styles is improving. Still, though, men have a hard time choosing a proper chapeau.

A guy wearing a flap-cap in this weather is plainly nuts. I don’t care if they are the height of fashion at the Art Institute.

A guy who wears a cowboy hat should also wear some other Western acccoutrements. You can’t just jam a Stetson on your head when you’re wearing cutoff shorts and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. Commit! Go whole-hog or not at all, or look like a tourist in town for the rodeo.

Caps are the tofu of the hat world. Like tofu, they have no real taste, but they absorb whatever flavor their emblem has. Be careful which cap you choose to wear where, guys. Don’t wear a CAT hat to a cocktail party. Don’t wear a Ralph Lauren cap to a pig roast, unless it’s at a country club.

But here’s the the important rule about hats, and it applies to women, as well as men:

Take off your gol-danged hat indoors. Especially when you’re in a movie theater or at a public event, where people have either paid or pushed and shoved to see a play, a world-famous pianist, or a renowned speaker who is saying something important.

In the silent-movie days, you would see “Ladies, please remove your hats” projected on the screen. Today, since people have forgotten the hat rules, I vote that custom be resurrected and applied to men as well as women.

As a certified Short Person, I fear sitting behind the World’s Tallest Man, Big-Haired Woman. Tall men and big-haired women can’t be blamed. But hat wearers at indoor events are just plain inconsiderate.

Now, to ask people to doff their hats indoors is nothing prissy and old-fashioned like, “A gentlemen must doff his hat when meeting a lady.” No, I don’t ask that, though a return to the respectful gestures of yesteryear (or respect in general) would be most refreshing. I simply ask that people remove their hats indoors. Let’s recall the main purpose of a hat or cap: to protect the head from the elements. It seldom rains, snows or hails indoors. Nor does cruel Mr. Sun beat down upon our pates.

So take it from one who has seen everything from flap caps to cowboy hats to seed caps to bowlers, Easter bonnets, and Russian fur hats (Yes!) worn indoors: Take ‘em off, or you look like a goofball, especially in a dark movie theater, where nobody can see you anyhow. And the Certified Short Person behind you can’t see at all. If you decide to ignore the hat rule when sitting in front of a Certified Short Person, don’t be surprised if Drastic Measures are taken to relieve you of your sightline-blocking headgear.

You have been warned.