The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

A VILLAGE

By Leave a Comment

Yes. . .
A Village it does take
To Be
Joy to the weary
Music to the heart
Health to the sick
Wealth to the poor
Food to the hungry
Home to the wanderer
Jubilation to the jaded
A Piece of Peace
A Village it does take
and sometimes it does take
THAT VILLAGE
One in All to ALL
. . .If you a Village
will be
Join me
my Caring Catalyst
V I L L A G E R

MASKERS

By Leave a Comment

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it might be
March 1 but
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
WITH OR WITHOUT A MASK
we still might well be masquerading around
with who we think we are
but know we aren’t.     .     .
Isn’t that what the Pandemic did to us
just about three years ago
and even now we’re still
TO MASK
or not
TO MASK
asking around and wondering.     .     .
but now there may be a whole other
m      e      a      n      i      n      g

People Who Think They’re Attractive

Are Less Likely to Wear Masks,

Study Says

People wearing masks in Bordeaux, France on Aug. 15, 2020.
Mehdi Fedouach/AFP—Getty Images
Jamie Ducharme, from Time Magazine recently reported, there are plenty of factors that determine whether someone chooses to wear a mask at this stage of the pandemic: their health, their risk tolerance, where they are, who’s around them—and, according to a recent study, how attractive they think they are.The study, which was published in January in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, found that people who think they’re attractive tend to be disinclined to wear masks. That seems to be because people who think they’re good-looking don’t believe masks enhance their appearance, while the opposite may be true for people who don’t think they’re as attractive, the researchers concluded. (Several cultures even have slang terms for people who wear masks to look better or conceal their full faces, the authors note. In the U.S., it’s known as “mask fishing.”)

For the study, a team of researchers in South Korea recruited U.S. adults to take several surveys. In the first, 244 people answered questions about their self-perceived attractiveness and how they thought wearing a mask affected their appearance. Then, researchers told the participants to imagine they had a job interview and asked whether they would wear a mask in the interview if they didn’t have to.

“Individuals with higher self-perceived attractiveness were less likely to endorse the belief that mask-wearing enhances their perceived attractiveness, which further dampened their mask-wearing intention in job interviews,” the authors write. In other words, people who thought they were good-looking didn’t want to detract from their appearance by covering their face.

In another experiment, the researchers posed similar questions about masks and appearance to 442 people. They asked half the group to imagine they had a job interview (a relatively high-stakes situation) while the other half imagined they were walking a dog (a more mundane activity). Both groups were then asked if they would choose to wear a mask in their given scenario.

They found that people were more likely to say they’d wear a mask if they thought it would make them look better, and that trend was more apparent in the high-stakes job interview scenario. This finding, the authors write, suggests that people’s masking decisions are at least partially based on how much they care about looking good in a given situation.

The desire to appear attractive may even be as influential as the desire to stay healthy. In their surveys, the authors also asked people how much they feared COVID-19. People who thought masks made them look better were roughly as likely to cover up as those who were fearful of the virus.

With COVID-19 mask mandates largely a thing of the past in the U.S., it’s important for researchers and public-health authorities to know why people are—or are not—continuing to wear them. Preventing disease is, of course, a major motivator. But so, it appears, is looking good.

SURPRISED.          .           .          ?
And maybe the biggest question
and you can answer honestly
because we are not holding or posting a poll here
(unless you want to reply this blog post)
IS HOW DO YOU ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THE SURVEYS ASKED.     .     .

S       E       E
HALLOWEEN
EVERY
DAY
(maybe with more tricks than treats)

 

NEIGHBOR

By Leave a Comment

Neighbor By JJ Heller, David Heller, and Andy Gullahorn

Sometimes it’s easier to jump to conclusions Than walk across the street It’s like I’d rather fill the blanks with illusions Than take the time to see

You are trying to close the back door of your car You are balancing the groceries and a baby in your arms You are more than just a sign in your front yard You are my neighbor

I can get so lost in the mission Of defending what I think I’ve been surfing on a sea of opinions But just behind the screen

You are grateful that the work day’s finally done You are stuck in miles of traffic, looking at your phone You are tryin’ to feel a little less alone You are my neighbor

When the chasm between us feels so wide That it’s hard to imagine the other side But we don’t have to see things eye to eye For me to love you like you are my neighbor My neighbor

Oh, to fear the unfamiliar Is the easy way to go But I believe we are connected more than we might ever know

There’s a light that shines on both the rich and poor Looks beyond where we came from and who we voted for ‘Till I can’t see a stranger anymore I see my neighbor May my heart be an open door to my neighbor You are my neighbor

S O M E T I M E S
Music is more than MUSIC
and Words are more than
W          O           R           D          S

From the beginning of time the question has rung out,
sometimes louder than softer:
JUST WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?
No matter what you say, You
SHOW THE ANSWER,
Person by Person,
Neighbor by Neighbor…
with this certainty:
It  just isn’t the person next door or across the street…
SO JUST WHO IS
YOUR NEIGHBOR.          .          .          ?

MORE THAN A SPECK

By 2 Comments

Bits of grit
the Wind
scatters us
where it will
as we travel
to destinations
not yet GPSable
but have waited
an Eternity
to welcome every
irritating speck
of us
Home
(however we define it)
(wherever we find it)
or it unearths
UsOUR STRENGTH
OUR POWER
IS FOUND 
BY RECOGNIZING 
THAT AS MERE SPECKS 
WE ARE NOT A PART OF A MOUNTAIN
BUT THE MOUNTAIN IS A PART OF
U S

 

YOUR SONG

By Leave a Comment

It’s one thing to take a song
and make it your song;
It’s even better
if you make it ANOTHER’S.     .     .
yea.     .     .
Please make Your Song
ANOTHER’S song.        .        .
The Sharing will be the Caring. . .
Make your life,
your living
SING OUT LOUD
especially for all those
who have forgotten
they have their own Song
to SHARE, too.       .       .

THE NON-VISIBLE ART MUSEUM

By Leave a Comment

Back in the 90’s SEINFELD was the hottest TV show around with the tag line, “IT’S A SHOW ABOUT NOTHING.”  It’s backdrop was the city of New York and now it seems like there’s a Museum in the heart of New York that’s mimicking a little bit of the SEINFELD show; It’s a Museum with NO ART–ZERO but truly a place where IDEAS ALONE ARE HUNG ON THE WALLS

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?  What, indeed.  When my friend John shared this with me a little over a week ago, I was beyond fascinated and confused.  And part of what unites all of us, reminds us, that at our best and worst, we are all living creatures who are often FASCINATED AND CONFUSED at the same time.  In that state, we not only operate, we COOPERATE at a very high level, most of the time without notice.

THE MUSEUM OF NON-VISIBLE ART

Composed entirely of ideas, the work that the

Museum of Non-Visible Art showcases remains unseen.

Although the artworks themselves are not visible,

the descriptions are readable, and open our eyes to

a parallel world built of images and words.

This world is not visible, but it exists, as surely as thought itself exists.

The Manifesto of MONA explains everything else about the why and how.

And what a Manifesto:

RULES FOR THE CREATION OF THE NON-VISIBLE

You shall not add to the banal. (You shall not build.)

You shall not litter the world with art. (You shall not make.)
What you have not made must be beautiful.
What you have not made must have value.
You must bring what you have not made to market.
(The market will give it value.)
You must give to the market absence.
(Money is banal until spent.)
You must offer the market anguish.
(What is spent is painful.)
You must make the market beautiful.
(Nothing beautiful without pain.)
You must increase the world behind the eyes.
The wreck of the Medusa.
It left us with phosphenes.
You must conjure them and sell them.
Only when you have done this are you one of us.
————————————–
By Douglas Anthony Cooper
In accordance with Praxis
(Brainard and Delia Carey)

FASCINATED AND CONFUSED.          .          .          ?

Have you heard the story of the architect from Shiraz who designed the world’s most beautiful mosque? No one had ever conjured up such a design. It was breathtakingly daring yet well-proportioned, divinely sophisticated, yet radiating a distinctly human warmth. Those who saw the plans were awe-struck.

Famous builders begged the architect to allow them to erect the mosque; wealthy people came from afar to buy the plans; thieves devised schemes to steal them; powerful rulers considered taking them by force. Yet the architect locked himself in his study, and after staring at the plans for three days and three nights, burned them all.

The architect couldn’t stand the thought that the realized building would have been subject to the forces of degradation and decay, eventual collapse or destruction by barbarian hordes. During those days and nights in his study he saw his creation profaned and reduced to dust, and was terribly unsettled by the sight.

Better that it remain perfect. Better that it was never built.

The story is a fable, but its main idea — that a thing’s ideal state is before it comes into existence, that it is better to not be born — is equal parts terrifying and uncanny. – C.B.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.         .          .
STRANGE
ODD
SURREAL
STUPID
BRILLIANT
Maybe the TRICK is the TREAT
and whatever is beyond the
.            .             .

Well before you decide, how about you take a closer gander yourself and WONDER as you WANDER 

DARE beyond a smidgen of DARING and

I              M              A              G              I              N              E

https://museumofnonvisibleart.com/

(Be fascinated and confused as you forgo perfection and go full throttle for PROGRESS)

L O V I N G

By Leave a Comment

An Australian sheep farmer has paid his own unique tribute to his beloved aunt. Ben Jackson was unable to attend his Aunt Deb’s funeral due to pandemic restrictions. So, he laid barley out in a field in the shape of a love heart and let his pregnant ewes show how much he cared.          .         .

Q      U      E      S      T      I      O      N :

HOW DO YOU SHOW YOUR LOVE
If you wait to celebrate
VALENTINE’S DAY
on February 14.   .    .
YOU’VE WAITED TOO LONG

 

GONE FISHING

By Leave a Comment

Sometimes the greatest
F I S H
caught are the ones
you never put a line in the water
to catch.          .          .
In fact,
those fish swim everywhere
in, out, through your imagination
for the greatest tales ever.  .   .
When this not-not-so-small-minnow
jumped into my boat
I wasn’t ‘fishing’ for it but
it caught me way before I even thought of reeling it in.       .      .
It birthed
almost immediately these
poetic thoughts:

FIRST TIMES

I don’t remember
the first time
I sucked a lemon
but I’m sure it
prepared me for the
second time
I knowingly wouldn’t
suck up to pucker up
again.  .  .
Candle flame burns
Electrical outlet shocks
Black ice falls
Hit the thumb instead of the nail hammerings
Hot pans on hotter stoves
Stumbles off of shaky branches
All First Times
that make a 
Second Time
not so much a lesson learned
as one to be remembered
to ever be taught
again.   .   .

IT’S IN EVERYONE OF US

By Leave a Comment

This great David Pomeranz song first came out in the early 90’s and the video was stunning as it morphed from face to face to illustrate that IT IS IN EVERY ONE OF US and now this is a new version that tries to tell us what we know, what we know that we know, what we bet our lives that we know and yet.    .    .for the life of us, don’t act like we KNOW at all.      .       . or maybe even more importantly KNOW:

The Way of Love

To love without conditions,
when others withhold love.
To refrain from judgment,
when others are judging.
To speak kindly, when
others speak with hostility.

To be open and trusting,
when others are fearful.
To be generous and giving,
when others are selfish.
To share joy and gratitude,
when others are sharing anger.

To be as simple as a child,
at peace with the Universe.

This is the way of love.

image.png

IT’S IN EVERY ONE OF US
and it’s long past time
to
S  H  O  W
I  T

LEVEL UP

By Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/5048ewoxZlQ

N O
I didn’t lose my mind; this is the the video I posted on this past Monday’s blog and as A Caring Catalyst but also a real, live CHANGE MAKER.     .     .

This hairstylist had a job he was paid to do.        .        .

Beyond the job, he had the same options every other cause-driven compassionate human being has for comforting someone who is struggling.

Maybe think of these options as “Levels of Sacrificial Giving.” Each level requires a bit more sacrifice on the part of the giver, thereby imbuing the act with an increasing measure of beauty.

LEVEL 1: WORDS
Saying something genuine to affirm the sufferer’s enduring worth.

LEVEL 2: UTILITY
Supplying helpful goods, services, or money for the sufferer’s use.

LEVEL 3: TOUCH
A tender gesture to inhabit the same physical space as the sufferer.

LEVEL 4: TRANSFER
A permanent exchange from giver to sufferer (e.g., organ donation).

LEVEL 5: CO-SUFFERING
Voluntarily joining the sufferer to share the experience of their pain.

This hairstylist is a Level 5 Giver.

It begs the simple question:
ARE YOU A LEVEL FIVE GIVER

I’ve come to learn that no ironclad argument exists for convincing someone that Level 5 Giving is worthwhile or even rational.

The beauty of an act of Level 5 Giving either pierces you in a life-changing way or it doesn’t.

My hope for you and me is that this act, or another like it, so pierces us that we level up our giving in a world that is groaning louder and louder for it every day.      .     .

JOIN ME
Lets LEVEL UP
always to a better way.     .     .

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man