P.J. Colando's Blog, page 3

Personality Particulars

What’s in a personality? Confidence, kindness, irritability, impulsiveness, moxie and spunk — hundreds of traits may come to mind. But psychologists believe it can actually be boiled down to just five:

openness to new experiences,conscientiousness,extroversion,agreeableness,and neuroticism.
These are referred to as the Big Five, and your character is largely determined by how much or how little you possess of each attribute.

But your score on the Big Five isn’t set in stone. New research suggests that although 40% to 60% of our personalities are inherited, so it’s key to select good parents (wink-wink). The rest is shaped by our experiences and relationships, so it’s vital to immerse yourself in the best situations and milieus you can. That is, being born middle class in America.

Psychologists agree we can reshape ourselves, if we make the effort to do so.

Would you if you needed to, now that you know it can be done? Or, have you, would you, will you procrastinate rather than pursue productive change?

I can align myself, without an ounce of egotism, with the first four listed traits, but I negate any notion of neuroticism in my personality. Individuals with high scores on neuroticism are more likely than average to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness.  All adverse and anethemna to good health and happiness.

If you’ve met me, you know that few of those feelings clutter my daily life. I often state that my nickname, PJ, stand for peace and joy, which are key to me.

Seriously, I believe that envy is the root of all evil – and God may agree because half of the Ten Commandments condemn coveting.

P.S. I’m just going to stick this here, an interesting article I want to save. You might find it fascinating, too, so give it a read. https://nautil.us/why-we-procrastinate-234733/

 

“I’m fine…”

“I wish I could fix you,” is my husband’s frequent lament. The ache in his heart is palpable. There’s nothing nonchalant about his fervent wish or desire to heal me, end my pain. He extends his hand and his heart fully.

I wish it, too.

Sometimes I remain silent rather than amp his concern for my aches and pains. If the multiple physicians I’ve seen can’t diagnose and fix the myoclonus that plagues my daily living, why should he be able to? But logic doesn’t rule his head – his heart filled with love does.

Sometimes I say “I’m fine” to his quizzical look though I inwardly wince as I raise or lower myself from a chair.

Perhaps I’ll convince my body to cooperate with that sentiment. Perhaps I’ll convince myself and/or convince him. Perhaps our combined thoughts, prayers, and wishes will convince the magic of the universe to intervene.

Do you say, “I’m fine,” when people ask, “How are you?” when in public?

I don’t. Not since the pandemic and our lengthy period of nationwide quarantine. Since that over-arching episode, my response has been, “As well as can be expected.”

Midwesterners have this problem. Hauled to the gallows to be hanged for a crime we didn’t commit, asked by the hangman if the noose is too tight, we’d say, “It’s just fine. Very comfortable.” Self-advocacy was not taught in public schools when I was a child of the ’50s.

Nor was it modeled by my humble, self-effacing parents.

We were taught to be grateful for what we had. After all, children in China were starving, so eat those carrots and peas. Further, those children likely sleep on the floor or straw-filled mattresses, so just go the f*ck to sleep. You’re fine.

Enjoy this tune while you contemplate, Constant Reader: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4V3Mo61fJM

Everyday Essentials Lost

We’ve all acclimated to the phenomen of one sock of a pair vanishing while tumbling in the dryer, never to be seen again. Right, Constant Reader?

While a matched set of socks are required for public wear, such as while jogging, I don’t jog, so it’s all good. I wear socks to sleep comfortably at night when mismatches don’t matter much. Fashion rules affect neither my dreams nor the involuntary muscle spasms that still plague me. Oh well, at least my toes aren’t icicles.

One sock of a pair, lost in the bowels of the dryer, we know not how., we’re accustomed to. Sacrified to the malevolent gods of grime, curmudgeons who value neither cleanliness nor godliness in middle class households such as ours. A private dungeon in San Salvador? I hope not.

The same malady befell Tupperware container lids back in the day. While the home party hostesses promised that any lid melted in the microwave (don’t ask) and/or lost would be replaced at no cost, I was never able to connect with the company to deliver on that promise. Nor could I catch up with the home party hostess because most of my Tupperware items were gifts.

Now a comparable calamity has occurred in our house.

To-go cup caps have been lost in the bowels of the dishwasher while all the contents were being washed  – I kid you not, it’s happened twice! Not torched on the heat coils or lurking in the bottom, the lids vanished in thin air.

If it happened to you, what would/did you do? Share in the comments, please and thanks

P.S. While many people can blame their dog for mauling and misplacing socks or Tupperware lids (especially if they resemble a Frisbee) or to-go cup lids, I’d never defame my dog, Sparky, in this way. He’s a good boy.

Fear and Insecurity

May 7 question – Some common fears writers share are rejection, failure, success, and lack of talent or ability. What are your greatest fears as a writer? How do you manage them?

As I composed a title for my blog post, Hunter S. Thomson’s famous title, “Fear and Loathing” resounded in my head.

However, allow me to disavow any possibility of convoluted self-loathing taking up residence in my head or heart. Writing is an avocation, a creative outlet for me, so I can not let it sink my spirits. I could jettison this elegant hobby at any moment if I chose, which I won’t. It’s not a career – let alone something to fear. While criticism might rattle my cage – especially if it becomes a barrage – I don’t allow it to rock my self-esteem or cause me to quit.

Critique is another writer’s opinion and not to be taken personally.

That said, I’ve read my work aloud in a critique group or two and felt immense trepidation – especially when it’s the first time with the group. Especially in the beginning, when I was mightily cowed to not have achieved an MFA. Writing mentors consistently came to my aid, helping me to absorb the input and then re-write with purpose. Liittle by little, fostered by my willinging to attend every writing event I could and strong internal drive to achieve, I overcame (mostly) my fear of failure. Again, the endeavor was/is a hobby, and not my sole source of income and/or self-esteem.

I’m also married to “the best man alive” who loves me not matter what.

And so I sally forth, laying down words and learning to clues to unlock the inclination to write deathless prose. Lifelong learning is an ethic. Additionally, I am an avowed word nerd, so writing suits my skill set.

Other sources of validation that have reduced my fear and insecurity are the numerous awards that my books have achieved and the fact that my short stories have been anthologized many times! Yippee!

Plus, the hero’s journey is no longer jibberish to me.

 

The American Dream Gone Awry

“The Great Gatsby”, published 100 years ago, is regarded as my favorite author, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. It’s been analyzed and idealized by many writers, including me. It’s agreed that the novel was written when F. Scott was at the top of his game, a status I’d love to achieve. It shows

a confident mastery of his materiala fascinating, sensational plota charismatic cast of charactersthe nuanced moods and feelings of the abovea broadly romantic sense of placeIt’s a satire of the American dream gone awry.

As stated earlier, this is my favorite book by my favorite author so I’ve written about it before https://www.pjcolando.com/hope-the-light/ nearly eight years ago.

The outsider narrator, Tom Carraway, keeps us removed from the blight of the vacuous, wealthy, and self-destructive main players, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, But he’s not able to save his friend, Jay Gatsby, whose delusional love for Daisy,  causes him to take the fall for her – literally. One wonders if Scott Fitzgerald knew people like the main players – perhaps he’s immolating himself and his ultimately crazy wife Zelda, his muse and undoing. A parody of personalities he was uniquely qualified to write.

It’s said that “The Great Gatsby” expresses multiple themes of American literature

the idealistic values of the Midwes (where the characters are from) vs the delusioned corruption of the East (where the Novel takes place)the ultimate American myth of the selfmade manthe predatory power of rich and beautiful women (not me)torpedoing the ideal that ‘love saves all’attempts to recapture an innocent past by escaping the materialism of the presentas well the doomed attempt to sustain the illusions and recapture the American dream“The Great Gatsby” is a brilliant book.

While I don’t have the literary talent and technical skill to write such a momentous book, I can bask in my adoration of the writer and his opus.

I’m not alone in my veneration. The book has inspired at least four feature films, several TV episodes, an opera, two musicals, and more

 

 

Laughter is the Best Medicine

What can cause you to double over with laughter? What incites a snicker or a full-throated guffaw? What evokes repeated chuckles, signaling happiness for all who can hear you – and if they can’t hear you, your body language reveals all?

Bust-a-gut laughter can be cathartic, better than a good cry.I have several types of laugh:a harsh bark (that I’ve been admonished to abandon by a renowned voice specialist)a musical glide through the scalesa teehee, perhaps anxious titter, in which I often cover my moutha giggle that reaches down to my toes

I’d forgotten what it felt like to laugh in recent months. The vagaries of politics and complicated health have undermined my natural light-heartedness.and deep-rooted sense of humor. Many have commented that the sparkle in my eye had been snuffed by a general heaviness. So mired I was – and my dear husband along for the ride – that neither of us noticed that we’d lost the benefit of daily humor hits that marked our nice life.

So, when a chance to attend a local comedy show arrived, I snagged two tickets pronto.

Good idea # 22. It was a full throttle laughter night!

I’d forgotten the extra jolt of endorphins that comes when you’re laughing along with a crowd of other people. I’d forgotten what a laughter work-out feels like. I’d lost touch with my inner giggling child, the one who didn’t take life seriously… and benefitted from that daily point of view.

Nearly a week later, as I write these words, I’m still okay. The world hasn’t changed, but the part of me that is sick of being sick and tired has. I’m a little braver, a little more limber of thought, less fragile as I hear sensitive news.

Funny is not about looking on the bright side, right? The best humor causes a pinch of pain, recognition, or both. As I laughed last Saturday, I was laughing at the things that scared me. I was laughing, sometimes uncomfortably, at myself.

I’m a better person for the renewal. Feel free to remind me not to let this state of being collapse.

The First Writer: Moses

The first forms of writing, reportedly, were invoices and accounting statements, such as, “this guy owes this other person so much wheat” and “this person didn’t pay their taxes.”  Bookkeeping is primordial.

My inclination to research this topic was prompted by tax time (today is the day and we owe a bunch) as well as the need for a topic for my habitual weekly blog post.

Instantly, i thought of Moses, who as overseer of Pharoah’s graneries, gained prowess and notoriety in Egypt for his meticulous bookkeeping. Later, the Lord tapped him to write the first five books of the Bible, after bringing the Ten Commandments to the namdic tribes of Israel. Known to Pharoah as escapees.

Penultimate claims to fame, despite reportedly have a stutter.Researchers have uncovered links between the precursor to the world’s oldest writing system and the mysterious, intricate designs left behind by engraved cylindrical seals that were rolled across clay tablets, such as the Lord’s Ten Commandments.

Scholars consider cuneiform the first writing system, emerging around 3400 BC. Before cuneiform, there was an archaic script using abstract pictographic signs called proto-cuneiform, appear around 3350 to 3000 BC in the city of Uruk, in modern southern Iraq. The Egyptians also wrote in pictograhpic symbols and invented paper from papyrus.

Archaeologists have been busy through the millennia.

Researchers conducting a careful analysis of proto-cuneiform symbols were surprised to uncover similarities when they studied the engravings of cylinder seals invented in Uruk, an ancient city (in what is modern day Iraq) in 4400 BC and used to imprint motifs on soft clay. Not only do some of the symbols match exactly, but they also appear to convey the same meanings in relation to ancient transactions and trade.

Archaeologist unearthed multiple 3500-year-old tablets, the size of a thumb, following a recent earthquake in Iraq. Knowledge emerging from the bowels of the earth after a violent upheaval is a good thing, but it doesn’t balance out the human death toll.

Death and taxes never end.P.S. Like Moses, I am a writer. Here’s something I wrote, a limerick (at which I excel):  https://www.pjcolando.com/a-limerick-about-death-and-taxes/

Music as Medicine

As a music lover who could have been doing productive things my entire life rather than playing albums and going to concerts, I revel in my avocation. Whether it’s the simple and sweet lilt of “Happy Birthday” or the powerful, uplifting strains of the “Hallelujah Chorus,” music makes me smile.

And I don’t feel one scintilla of guilt for devoting hours to such bliss.

[image error]Music therapy to foster recovery of speech and language post-stroke is well documented in the literature, so this is fact and not the fiction of a music lover who was a speech-language pathologist. Gabby Gifford famously recovered her skills in this manner after a gunman tried to kill her.

Additionally, I have personally used my favorite records played at maximum volume as a means to surmount depression. Our music concerts, including deep dives into our four-hundred CD collection (forget the hundreds of records – they’re too scratched from party play) helped my husband and I make it through the lengthy stay-cation we experienced as a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Music boosts mood, reduces anxiety, and countermands mental negativity. It might be used to soothe grief, although the memories evoked by certain songs might deepen grief.

Thank goodness I haven’t experienced the need to test that hypothesis yet.

Besides mood elevation, music is played during surgery for the surgeon and his team for cohesion and focus on team skills. Nursing teams promote music played before and after procedures as if to charm homeostasis into being, It has been used to salvage and soothe as ancillary to procedures and pills. Soothing to the spirit and the body, I favor music in my medical arsenal.

Active music-making truly engages your entire brain. This creates the most potential for distraction, pain reduction, cognition, fine and gross motor development, and expression. Some instruments, like the ukulele, are designed for easier access to free expression or learning. And, while a banjo isn’t an easy instrument to learn, every sound produced by its strings is spritely and merry! Everyone has a personal instrument, too – their voice – though some are more melodious than others.

Here’s the latest scientific discovery to deepen, hone, and solidify your knowledge of the power of music over pain: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-music-alleviate-pain-tempo.html?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter&user_id=675b44b6013a24e0310a7b18#google_vignette

I’m pleased to present symptoms of melomania: an inordinate enthusiasm for music.

 

 

With whom I’d like to dine

IWSG Blog Hop April 2 question – What fantasy character would you like to fight, go on a quest with, or have a beer/glass of wine with? The obvious answer for me is Paul McCartney, my main musical crush since my teens. His song catalog, baby-faced good looks, his charisma, his ready wit, and cheekiness all suit my style. Of course, I’d likely swoon and be unable to speak in his presence. I guess this yearning will remain a fantasy – I’ll have to exist with my memories of the many concerts we attended, always with particularly great seats.

I would like to converse with Leonardo da Vinci and, perhaps, discuss the origins of his ideas: how he found the inspiration to explore the world and how he created so many things that still fascinate today. I’d inquire about his early influences that made him so curious and, maybe, how it was to work with a moneybags Medici. My husband and I learned a lot by watching the recent televised documentary by Ken Burns, but Leonardo’s a man of immense breadth and width, so I want more.

I belatedly admire Shakespeare, the great language innovator and I’d like to ask him if he is the writer of all the famed plays…

I also have an enduring fangirl fascination with Ben Franklin and, again, a recent televised bio-pic reminded me of my longtime interest. An inventor and the original American self-made man, he evokes my deep admiration for his role is making our democracy work via his depth of wisdom and extraordinary diplomatic skills.

He’s one of the faces on our money – quick, which coin or bill?

.I crave an audience with Marcus Aurelius. Every time I read one of his quotes, I am astonished by his contemplative wisdom, as well as how relevant it is to current life. His Meditations are on my bookshelf, and, now that I think of it, I should pull my book and peruse it. How much better would this world be if folks lived by these words: “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.”

Because we’re midway through the Lenten season, time with flesh-and-blood Jesus comes to mind… Wait, not that! Because then I’d be dead, I think I’ll stick with my daily prayers.

BTW, I’ve written on this topic recently. Read it here: https://www.pjcolando.com/dining-with-excellence-and-flair/

The Warm Blanket of Low Expectations

How many of these trite slices of advice have you heard, Constant Reader:

“Think Positive”Visualize Your Success”“Believe in Yourself”“Just Do it!”

I’ve heard my share, especially during periods of extreme challenges. People may be well-meaning when they offer these words, but the phrases are empty, rendering them meaningless. They are hollow and devoid of empathy, too.

What if these well-intentioned mantras set you up for failure?

Recent research on mindset, intentions – and the downside of positive thinking – indicates that self-confidence can be undermined. I can relate because when I was amidst an extreme health crisis twenty years ago, I heard “Be Positive” repeatedly, and I felt put down. I finally replied with complete exasperation to one guy, “Have you met me?” in self defense.

Feelings are the truth.

One of the most highly regarded theories of success was formulated by Edwin Lock and Gary Latham. It’s name is Goal Setting Theory, which is, of course, known by its acronym GST. Their research indicates that the best approach to maximize success involves

consider the posibility and prepare for obstacles and setbacks… thus, you’re not blindsided when the inevitable happens and you don’t feel inclined to abandon your goals.harness negative emotions like anger and envy… especially envy because, as you know, I regard envy as the source of all evil. Frustration, however, can be a powerful motivator if channeled correctlydiligently avoid daydreaming via a vision board you crafted for your longed-for goaletting, Fantasy-thinking is not a viable strategy for getting anything accomplished..

A better set of strategies might

begin with brainstorming about how to achieve one;s goalnext, utilize the power of relationships to achieve that goalbe honest about the money, time, and energy you’ll need to help yourself avoid hitting the skidscultivate persistence balanced with flexibility (fostered by that brainstorming you did first)finally, and likely more important than you’ve ever considered: monitor your progress toward the goal and pat yourself on the back as you move through the process.

Applause!