Bird Droppings September 20, 2023
Seeing all is connected and intertwined.

As I thought about the Sydney J. Harris passage below and walked out to my car, I thought of my quiet spot on my back porch where I meditated, and something hit me. I generally sit facing east towards the rising sun; daily, the gossamer threads of life are interconnected with everything. Spiders busy the night before spin threads of silk across the terrain. They are always iridescent and softly moving with the wind. Occasionally, one thread would disconnect and float effortlessly upwards, sparkling and dancing as it went ever so slowly into the clouds. Each twig, plant, and leaf seemed to be connected. Each rock and branch is a tiny thread weaving through the entire visage before me.

I sat on my back porch for a few minutes, watched a Joro spider working on her web, and decided to go for a walk. I followed the strands of silk, finding several orb weavers and more writing spiders. I am always amazed at the simplest of things catching my attention. My brief walk uncovered fifteen flowers and seven spiders before I sat down and lit some white sage. As the smoke spiraled and my mind cleared, all interconnectedness hit me hard. Thinking back on my former students as I communicated with one in college to teach special education, hopefully, I provided a piece of the puzzle for them.

“When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” John Muir

Most people would read this and scoff, yet in the early morning, as the sun rises and moves across the skies, spiders have been at work all night, moving between plants and rocks, trees and leaves, leaving silk threads. If you were standing in the midst of them, they would be invisible, yet with the sun behind sparkling in the light; it was a beautiful scene as I sat pondering as to an older man sitting looking towards the east in the early morning many years ago and coming in to tell his grandchildren as I started the passage. On the back of my t-shirt, it reads all things are connected, and rightly so, by a thin gossamer strand of silk. So many thoughts today as I sit and ponder. In my case, how we interact with our children and grandchildren is of the utmost importance.

“Our task is to make our children into disciples of the good life by our own actions toward them and toward other people. This is the only effective discipline in the long run. But it is more arduous and takes longer than simply “laying down the law.” Before a child (or a nation) can accept the law, it has to learn why the law has been created for its own welfare.” Sydney J. Harris

Today, I am faced with accomplishing all that needs to be finished by Friday: testing twenty to thirty students, editing notes from my editor for my dissertation, and cleaning up before my wife gets home Saturday. I was reading and discussing how procrastination is a form of anxiety. My nephew is a clinical psychologist, and he and I compared notes on autism and discussed anxiety. I would have never considered myself anxious, but as I researched, I am manifesting through procrastination.

“What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.” Aristotle

“Self-command is the main discipline.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I spent six months counseling in a psychiatric unit in a state mental facility many years ago. There was never a question about why something happened, as they were considered combative psychotic adolescents, which was the term used to describe the unit. When someone got upset, it was solitary confinement, rather large doses of drugs, and a few strait jackets were employed. Little was occurring to change the behavior, rationalize those behaviors, and or find why that behavior occurred. Deal with the moment.

“Anybody who gets away with something will come back to get away with a little bit more.” Harold Schoenberg

“Better to be pruned to grow than cut up to burn.” John Trapp

Often, as I find a quote, the person behind those words has more to offer, as if the situation with Schoenberg is a music scholar, and he is also a very prolific writer about great musicians and their music. John Trapp was a bible scholar with several biblical commentaries to his credit. Both men were writers who themselves were very self-disciplined.

“THE STUDY OF WORDS is useless unless it leads to the study of the ideas that the words stand for. When I am concerned about the proper use of words it is not because of snobbism or superiority but because their improper use leads to poor ways of thinking. Take the word ‘discipline’ that we hear so much about nowadays in connection with the rearing of children. If know something about word derivations, you know that ‘discipline’ and ‘disciple’ come from the same Latin root discipulus, which means ‘to learn, to follow.’” Sydney J. Harris, Strictly speaking

Sitting here looking up references and quotes related to behavior and ending up with the example, to learn and to follow this is semantics as we go. To operate a public school, we have standards to operate by, so we have rules. From a behaviorist standpoint, it is easy to say ABC, Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence. First, you have an antecedent that stimulus is what causes the behavior. Then you have the behavior, the event or action we see, feel, or hear about. Finally, we have consequences, such as what we do in response or what the students or person issuing the behavior receives for eliciting that behavior.

“What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?” Leonard Cohen

“Act the way you’d like to be, and soon you’ll be the way you act.” George W. Crane

“To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.” Rene Descartes

It is always about what we do. Over the past few days, I have been discussing perception with several teachers and friends, which is how we see events and happenings. One of the categories in writing a behavioral plan for a student is planning to ignore, often simply tuning out a behavior. Often, a behavior will disappear with no stimulus to keep it going. So often, it is getting the attention that is the desired consequence.

“People don’t change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so.” Fran Tarkenton

“Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies, and no science of behavior can change the essential nature of man, even though both sciences yield technologies with a vast power to manipulate the subject matters.” B. F. Skinner

These lines from a football hall of fame quarterback and the father of behaviorism are intriguing as these two men from distinctly different arenas have come to remarkably similar conclusions in their thoughts. Tarkenton has built an internationally known management consulting firm based on his thoughts. It must make a difference to the person for them to change. Skinner sees we can manipulate the subject matters as we can offer alternative consequences to hopefully change the behaviors to ones we can accept. A Sydney J. Harris line caught my attention as I started on discipline and prepared for several IEPs later this week, some related to behavior.

“…by our own actions toward them and toward other people.” Sydney J. Harris

So often, it is not the consequences that deter or change a behavior but our actions towards the person and those around them. It is the example we set and not what we say that matters. As we venture out today, keep all in harm’s way on your mind and heart, and always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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