The HEALING of BEING HEARD

"Nothing I say this day 

will teach me anything. 

So if I’m going to learn, 

I must do it by listening.” 

- Larry King

In this #MeFirst culture, people speak a lot ...

about themselves.

Folks may listen,

but they often are merely waiting 

for us to pause for breath 

so they can jump into the conversation to speak about what concerns them most ...

themselves.

This is an isolated society, 

hemmed in by brick walls of 

"Can you hear me?"

If everyone is texting, 

then no one is reading to pause for reflection 

to what has just been written 

and what it meant to the person sending.

When you truly listen, 

you tell the other person, 

"This is important to me.  

YOU are important to me."

When people feel heard, they feel validated ... 

feel as if they are of worth to someone other than to just themselves. 

You don't have to solve the problem, just wince at the impact of the blow to another.

You don't have to agree with the person. 

Merely acknowledge their viewpoint.

Truly hearing someone 

is not a multi-task experience.  

If you are not focused on the person, 

you are missing the point of 

their speaking.

HAVE YOU TRULY LISTENED

TO SOMEONE TODAY?

C. Lee McKenzie at the O.K. Corral

On this day in 1881 the Earp brothers faced off against 

the Clanton-McLaury gang in the legendary O.K. Corral.

AMAZON:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZJNNDRD/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1

Now, Today Marshal AMAZON is gunning for

C. Lee McKenzie and her gang of those who love her new book and want to review it.

 

Marshall AMAZON has laid down the law ... 

a whole slew of new laws actually.

WHAT NEW LAWS YOU ASK

DO NOT use the phrase “Free copy in EXCHANGE for an honest review”
 

DO NOT use the phrase “I was given a free copy of this book by the Author”
 

DO NOT use the phrase “I love this Author or this is one of my favorite Authors.”
 

 DO NOT use the Author’s name in the review.
 

Do so 

 and 

AMAZON WILL DELETE 

YOUR REVIEWS

 according to their new Rules.

Rally to Lee's side.

Buy a copy of her new book

AND

 REVIEW it 

by these strange new rules.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THEM?

Ghost of Mark Twain: LET ME HELP ROLAND

"Everything I needed to know about Life

I learned from those danged horror movies."

- Ghost of Mark Twain

"You do not how right you have things
until you handle them all wrong."
- Mark Twain.
 
Just a heartbeat ago, I eased into Roland's apartment to swap tall tales 

when I came upon him dozing in front of his electronic newspaper,

Blog he calls it. 

Sounds like one of those tar pits in California those poor dinosaurs critters got stuck in.

I leaned over his shoulder and read what he wrote.

Why, what was wrong with the boy? His post depressed the beejesus out of me, and I'm dead.

What he needed was a little help from his good friend, the beloved, yet humble, genius of literature ... me

What was needed here was ... I stroked my chin. Of course, what was needed here was ... me. 

I would save Roland from his depressing folly.

I started to ruminate on all of life's follies when it came to me how much help those terrible horror movies Roland watches truly are.

Why there are some golden lessons to be found in those flickering frames,

especially for you folks not blessed to be ghosts like myself:

1) When it appears that you have killed the monster, ALWAYS get the loud-mouthed neighbor to check to see if it's really dead.

The bliss of silence in the neighborhood will be your reward.

2) Even if it seems to be the funniest thing in all creation, never read a book of demon summoning aloud. 

Your mother-in-law is demon enough, thank you.

3) When the power goes out, gals in flimsy undies will ALWAYS take a fancy to search the basement -- 

and they NEVER change their flashlight batteries.

4) If your young 'uns suddenly start to speak to you in Latin or any other language which they should not know, shoot them immediately.
 
It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. For such eventualities,

ALWAYS buy automatic handguns, since it will probably take several rounds to kill them.

A loving parent is a sure-kill parent.
 
This also applies to any tiny waifs who suddenly start to speak as if they have been gargling with lye.

They are either possessed or have been raiding Father's liquor cabinet.

Either way they deserve what they get.

5) As a general rule of thumb, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.

6) If appliances start operating by themselves, send your spouse to check for short-circuits, then get the hell out of the house.

Ignore the subsequent screaming -- or enjoy it, 

depending upon just how "sweet" your bitter half has been to you lately.

7) If you are offered a "steal of a deal" on a house that has been

a) built on the site of an Injun massacre,

b) the home of a family whose members had taken to dismembering one another, or

c) been an asylum whose inmates took to munching on the help --

take the real estate agent lovingly, kindly and gently by the arm --

and shove her into the basement, locking the door behind you. 

Unnatural beasties get hungry. And better they make human jerky out of her than you.

Don't mind about the body. 

It won't be there when the police arrive. 

The police won't be around long either -- if they stay.

WHY HORROR?

Only 99 cents

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HM8ZS5Q

Why are we drawn to horror? Why are good girls drawn to bad boys?

 
1.) The allure of the forbidden.
 
That is one of the reasons horror beckons to us from out of the shadows.

Why is that boy, that deserted mansion, forbidden?

It is as old as the blood which pulsed cold and tingling through Eve's veins as she reached for that forbidden fruit on that hauntingly lovely tree.

 
2.) Curiosity.

It is human nature to want to know what lies over the horizon. It's what drove the pioneers across wild, hostile lands.

What does that locked door conceal? That chained chest. Why those heavy links, that rusted lock?

Is this all there is? Or is there more beyond mere line of sight? We know there is more.

Science tells of us of dark matter piercing the cosmos with light-years long strands of matter invisible to the human eye. 

We are likewise blind to the world of germs. What other worlds are we blind to?

Give a nugget of uranium, a tiny stone really, to an aborigine. Tell him it is a good luck charm. Tell him to drop it in the village well.

What harm could one tiny stone do? 

Visit his village two months later. View the many corpses laying strewn like dead dreams all across the ground.

3.) Identification.
 
We watch and imagine what we would do in like situations. 

The world dissolves into chaos as random individuals descend slowly into madness.

You are picked up by the local sheriff as you are doing your morning walk with your dog. 

He orders you and your dog into the back of the car. 

He presses his gun to your dog's head and rambles on about brains looking like wet oysters. Do you want to see?

What would you do? What could you do?

Life is frightening: 

Global warming. Diseases that eat the very flesh of your body. 

We watch horor on the screen to encapsulate the horror of real life. It is not us up there.

We would be smarter, faster, more in control of our emotions.

We like the adrenaline rush sudden scares give us. 

Safer than driving fast, dating inappropriate guys or gals, and with the thrill of saying mentally, "It's not real; I'm still safe."

 
4.) The Darkness Within.

Terror versus Horror. 

Is one more physical; the other more mental? 

Does revulsion and squriming terror pierce through our mental barriers to stab deep into our unconscious fears ... and desires?

(Take the public fascination with the trilogy of the girl with the dragon tattoo:

she is repeatedly brutalized, raped, shot, and beaten. 

The books and movies are bestsellers. 

Is there a darkness in us that wants to roll around in sadism like a cat does catnip?)

You are horrified by the news of the floods in Pakistan. 

You are terrorized when you wake up one New Orleans morning to the news that the dams have burst, 

and you look out your front door to see rushing waters swallow your neighbor's home ... then your very own.    

Horror is realizing the monsters are real and are out there to get you. 

Terror is looking into the mirror, seeing yourself becoming one -- but still enough you to scream silently at the sight.

  
Stephen King said horror literature is a means for us to take out the monster, play with it for a while, and put it back.

But who is the monster?

Is he some squirming presence waiting on the other side of the dimensional wall waiting for a crack to appear? 

Is he the beloved president whose wife is slowly going insane at the awful reality of who he truly is?

Or does his/her eyes stare back at you from the mirror?

Carl Jung:
"Everyone carries a shadow, 

and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. 

At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions."

Why do you think we read horror? 

Why are we so drawn to dressing up as monsters or as our secret identities? 

Why do you write the genres you do? 

And what role does "control" or "lack of control" play in horror/scary movies and literature?

WHY DOES HALLOWEEN STAY POPULAR?

The National Retail Federation reckons that Americans will pay

a record $3 billion-plus this season on hairy spiders, blowup Draculas and plastic maggots that glow in the dark.

Millennials are characterized by a desire for a prolonged adolescence so it is no surprise that they cling to the idea of dressing up.

In fact, two in three adults feel Halloween is a holiday for them and not just kids.

But I think it goes deeper:

The books and then movies in the 50's of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and WHO GOES THERE? (THE THING)

did not just tap into the paranoia of the Cold War

but also the paranoia of adulthood when aging children realized that their parents, 

their leaders, and those around them were not who they posed as being:

In essence those children lost their innocence in that they realized they were surrounded by people wearing masks ...

and that the real monsters lay BENEATH those masks.

Especially since September 11, 2001, the Boston Marathon Bombing, and endless school shootings,

it seems all too easy to imagine a murderer sitting in the aisle next to you.

Sociologists tell us if you want to understand a culture, look at its holidays.  

 Christmas gift-giving rituals shed light on how we manage social relationships. 

Thanksgiving feasts depend on shared understandings of family and national origin stories.

 Halloween, with its emphasis on identity, horror and transgression, can tell us about who we want to be and what we fear becoming.


Of course, that is not the only reason for the surging popularity of Halloween --

Young adults I’ve spoken with often identify this as their favorite part of the holiday – the chance to be, at least for a night, whatever they wish to be.

There’s no stress to it.

 You don’t have to travel or deal with relatives. There’s not the holiday pressure to find a date if you are single.

You can wear whatever you want and not be judged. There’s the fantasy, role-play element.

 If you think about it, it’s not surprising that 70% of people feel it’s their favorite holiday.


My friend, Darren Comeaux,

tells me that Halloween is quite an event in Japan, a country from which he has just returned.

In Japan, Halloween is not simply an end-of October event.

1.)  It is celebrated more in the form of masquerade parties and parades for adults.


2.) Halloween season in Japan runs for quite a long time.

 In amusement parks like Disneyland, Halloween-themed performances start from early September.

In schools and offices, Halloween parties and related events fill up their calendars for two months.


(While in American Politics, Trick or Treat lasts all year!)


3.) Halloween is still a growing market in Japan.

DEVIL'S NIGHT

Devil's Night is a name associated with October 30, the night before HALLOWEEN in Detroit, Michigan

(a city that both Victor Standish and I have highly violent memories of)

Devil's Night dates from as early as the 1930's.

Traditionally, city youths engaged in a night of mischievous or petty criminal behavior, usually consisting of minor pranks.

However, in the early 1970s, the vandalism escalated to more destructive acts such as arson.

The crimes became more destructive in Detroit's inner-city neighborhoods, and included hundreds of acts of arson and vandalism every year.

The destruction reached a peak in the mid- to late-1980s,

with more than 800 fires set in 1984, and 500 to 800 fires in the three days and nights before Halloween in a typical year.

ANGEL'S NIGHT

Let us resolve to counter-act the darkness a bit and make of Halloween season a time of Angel Nights where we do random acts of kindness.

Now, that's a real treat to a night of tricks, right?

Look for my collections of Halloween tales 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF

only 99 cents

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HM8ZS5Q

only 99 cents