NOTE

As I continue to work on things away from this blog (which is a collection of Free-Time/Casual Online Writing, Remarks, And Notes By ME Whelan) and continue to figure out what goes and what stays of my existing online-writing, the de-emphasizing of one or another continues as well....

Thursday, February 25, 2016

"The OK-Ness Of People" - Another Blog I Forgot About



As part of the cleaning-out, trimming down, consolidating, etc. etc. etc. process, I found yet another forgotten blog.  It is "The OK-Ness Of People".  Maybe I'll delete it.  Maybe I'll re-think it (or at least the subject/theme).  In the meantime,I hate to waste what I found (and wrote) on that particular blog.

I'm posting the words from that blog below.



"The OK-Ness Of People"
 
People - they come in different shapes and sizes, ages, and colors; and each one of them has his or her own story. When it comes to a lot of things about people, though, a good part of the time a whole lot of them are very much the same. One thing all people have in common is that they are, in fact, individuals.

Over the last couple of decades, it seems as if our society has increasingly forgotten that people are usually, for the most part, "OK". Sure, there are people who are damaged and/or evil. Sure, there are people with physical and or mental conditions (sometimes serious and farm from "OK", at least when it comes to whether or not someone is physically or mentally healthy). Sure, there are people who are unhappy, even downright miserable. There are also people who are insecure or else more sure of themselves than they really ought to be. In spite of all that, though, are generally OK when it comes to "being a person".

What I mean by "OK" is whether or not someone is a good person who cares about others, cares about being a responsible person, wants a good life for himself and his children or future children; and is, for the most part, a capable individual who does, or strives to, manage himself and his own life with an average, or better than average, degree of competence.

In the early 1970's Thomas A Harris, MD, wrote the popular self-help book, "I'm OK. You're OK." Although that book has nothing to do with this site, when I was getting ready to make the statement I'm about to make about society, I looked up the book (not only was it popular, but I read it when it was "big", because I wanted to make a reference just to the title of the book and need to look up the author's name and the date the book was out.

The statement I was about to make about today's society, and that prompted me to look up the author and date for that book was this: "In the early 70's, a popular self-help book was 'I'm OK. You're OK.' Aimed at helping people solve their problems by using a Transactional Analysis approach, the book seemed to be one with which anyone who was reader of the latest books, and/or a reader of the latest self-help books at the time, was familiar. The words, "I'm OK. You're OK," became kind of a cliche. In any case, my plan, before looking up the book, was to say that while "I'm OK. You're OK," sometimes seemed to be a "big theme" in 1970's American culture. The point I'd planned to make after making the statement that prompted looking up the book, was that it seems as if the "big theme" in today's culture is, "I'm OK. You're Not OK," or else "I'm not OK. You're Not OK. Nobody is OK."

What I discovered when I looked up the book is that the author actually made a reference to "I'm OK. You're Not Ok." I thought it would reasonable and appropriate here to mention that, even though; I've long forgotten what was in the back and certainly didn't even have the book in mind when I decided to name this site.

In any case, the point is that it, to me, has become increasingly disturbing that our society/culture has gotten to the point where it seems rare to run into someone who sees the "OK-ness" of most people. Whether that's a matter of believing that most people have a mental health condition, that most physical conditions can't/won't improve, that people with plenty of money lack character or integrity, that people with little money lack intelligence or willingness to work hard; or whether it means that people who, without intending to, "mess up" or fail in one way or another either brought it on through their own inferiority or even malicious intent - it all amounts to the same thing, which is assuming the worst about who/what people are.

Being "OK", most of us want to see an end of all the problems in our society. Being "OK", most of us want to solve our own, individual, problems. To me, one of the biggest obstacles to solving any number of problems insufficient understanding of the people who have and/or create those problems. What's particularly disturbing to me, as I think about whether or not some problems can ever be solved, is that it looks to me as if our culture has moved farther and farther away from truly understanding people, and continues to move in the same direction. It just seems to me that someone has to start putting on the brakes to the run-away train that has picked up steam over the last few decades. I know I'm not alone in my observations (although I often feel very much alone with those observations.) Alone or not (and again, I really don't think I'm alone), I just think it's time for anyone who noticed that the run-away train continues to pick up steam to start saying/writing something new, maybe something old, something different, something "common sense" - just something that's right and that makes some solid sense to anyone who goes through this life as person; and that is, of course, everyone.

Making sense to everyone" is, of course, a very tall order that's unlikely to be fulfilled. Making sense to more people, rather than not making sense to most people, is, however, not that unrealistic an aim. Realistic or not, that's the aim of this site.


(transfer post)

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