July: What a Month it Was

Here it is almost 11 p.m. and it's still 86 degrees.  We're looking for the first week of August to run well over 100 degrees every day. I'm wilting!  I guess I'll just have to stay inside and blog.

Here's my list of frequent visitors and highlights of July...






Frequent Visitors

• Untreatable's Blog
• First Door on the Left
• Monkey Fables and Tales
• Diet Pulpit
• SmallWorld Reads
• Stir the Cauldron

July Highlights

A Bumpy Path celebrated a year of blogging existence, and I talked about the growing pains, the struggles and what did and didn't work in Milestones of a Year of Blogging.

Sharpen Your Thinking looks at the power of thought and thinking and offers ways to improve your clarity.

I talked about a childhood memory, an excursion into adventure with my cousin John in A Lesson in Fear.  I sure do miss that boy.

Camera in hand, I was able to capture a little story in photos in A Tail in the Sky.  I love this Canon!

There's nothing more misleading and troubling than to run into illnesses or conditions that just don't exist. It's all a scam! Someone is looking to cash in on convincing you of a condition that you don't have. I talk about the pseudo Internet Addiction Disorder in You May Be Crazy If... 

Rounding out the month is an article about understanding the simplicity and complexity of a common human behavior in What's Behind the Lies.

I 'met' a fellow Arkansan this month, and he invited me to join the All Arkie Army. This a blog of all Arkansas writers in one place, and a way to keep in touch with everyone in the state. Come take a look!

Many thanks and mountainous appreciation to my frequent flying readers and visitors and commentators. You are the life of this Bumpy Path!

OK, off and running to stumble and trip over a few more things in August! You're coming along, aren't you?

What's Behind the Lies

Hi! How are you?"
"I'm fine. How about you?"
"I'm doing alright."

Nothing new here; it's a common, every-day greeting exchange. It's good manners. But, let's see what happens when I inject some thoughts behind the words:

"Hi," oh, that's a grump if I ever saw one. "How are you?" but don't answer because I don't really want to know the sob story. Just keep walking by.

"I'm fine," but not really. I'm tired, my feet hurt, I hate this freaking gigantic, packed store and I know you really don't want to know. "How about you?" like I want to know how you are any more than you want to know how I am. You just want me to get away from you as quick as I can, and that's fine by me.

"I'm doing alright," and much better than you by the looks of it! Good. That grump's gone. Here's another one already. "Hi! How are you?" ...

White Lies

A Wal-mart door greeter is a thankless job, no doubt about it. If there was ever a job for a door mat, that's it. If my injected thoughts are what happens behind the words of a door greeter, then I don't really think it's intentional, do you? I think it's just self defense!

These are the kind of little lies that happen in the context of the situation, and are, for the most part unintentional. The truth in the situation of a door greeter would be difficult, so the truth is avoided by deception. Let's explore another situation:

It's Friday, and out of the blue, a call comes in from a good friend who had moved away last year. This friend is in town and wants to go out and hit all the old haunts. You already have plans with another friend who really doesn't like the visiting friend and you know the sparks will fly if you mention anything about it. So, you call with a quick "Sorry, can't do tonight because my boss has me staying late. We'll get together next weekend."

That white lie will hold - unless you're caught out instead of at work. And, through deception, an argument with hurt feelings that telling the truth would have caused is avoided. Now, if that visiting friend wasn't someone you wanted to see, your plans wouldn't have been canceled and no lie told.

When Expectations Lead to Lies

Men tend to lie to make themselves look better, and women are more likely to lie to make the other person feel better. Extroverts lie more than introverts too, according to researchers. And, we tend to hold people to different standards. For example, we expect "less honesty from politicians than from scientists."

In general, we all have a basic need to be understood, to have someone know us and understand us, and to accept us for who we are. The more we get to know someone, the more important truth becomes. And, it's more difficult because so much of the relationship depends on trust and closeness. For instance, it's much easier to tell a car salesman, a complete stranger, how much you would love that red sports car when you are alone than if you had a spouse or family member with you.

Most people lie when they are afraid of the consequences of telling the truth. If telling the truth most often leads to anger and judgment, then lying may become a part of the relationship. If a husband pulled that red sports car into the driveway when his wife thought he'd be buying a mini van, what would happen? It's difficult to handle and deal with another's anger and judgment and punishment, and the husband might resort to all sorts of fabrications if he felt that that's what he would get by telling the truth. If his wife wasn't controlling and instead intended to understand and learn about her husband, the lies wouldn't be necessary.

When Lying Becomes Pathological

In psychology, when a particular behavior is habitual, maladaptive or beyond control, it is pathological in that it is thought of more as a disease or something that needs or can be treated. Because of how disruptive and damaging lying can be, when it becomes more than the occasional white lie, more than a few red flags can fly.

There are many reasons behind pathological lying. It could be a form of control, rewarded by the rush from manipulating others with lies. It could be that they learned during an abusive childhood to cover up because they are afraid of severe punishment. It could be immaturity in that they are afraid of the world in general. It could be a lack of self-esteem and will make up stories to look better to others. Or, they may want sympathy or attention that they are not getting. And the list can go on and on.

Though lying can be a symptom of an anxiety disorder like Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, it is one of the common and major symptoms of such complex disorders as antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders.

"Personality disorders are typically some of the most challenging mental disorders to treat, since they are, by definition, an integral part of what defines an individual and their self-perceptions. Treatment most often focuses on increasing coping skills and interpersonal relationship skills through psychotherapy." (MentalHelpNet)

Antisocial Personality Disorder has a marked level of deceitfulness. A person with APD will repeatedly lie, without consideration or remorse. This person could use an alias or many of them, and they will con for personal gain or pleasure. A person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder will act with an inflated, exaggerated grandiosity that serves to hide a very insecure person. This person is afraid that others will find out that he or she has weaknesses and faults just like everyone else.

Responsibility

Whether a lie is spawned by fear, intimidation or an extreme disregard for others, what it covers is a lack of personal responsibility. The energy it takes to fabricate stories is enormous, and diverted from introspection and personal growth. In personality disorders, lying is learned during childhood and persists through adulthood with all lies growing more complex and extensive as time goes on. It is a way of being, and the only way a person with a personality disorder knows how to exist.

Take it Home

It seems that every time I research and summarize human behavior, I am less likely to be upset by those behaviors that have gotten under my skin. I'm really thankful it no longer takes reading 30 books and writing a thesis paper to tolerate some people!

I've worked hard at becoming and being an honest person, and some would even say it was at the expense of sensitivity or diplomacy. I've done my best at honesty, but I would be lying if I said I have never lied. You may ask if I'm hungry, but, even if I'm famished and you plan on putting a plate of liver in front of me, I will tell you that I am not hungry. That's much easier to say than to tell you that I hate liver, no matter how much effort you put into making it. I'm grateful for the offer, but, um, no thanks.

You know, I enjoyed being a Wal-mart door greeter. Instead of the "Hi, how are you" line, I would try to meet everyone's eye and guess what they came for before they said a word. I spooked more than a few people guessing correctly, and if I was wrong, it was the beginning of an honest conversation where I could truly be of help. A little effort goes a long way.

Milestones of a Year of Blogging

A Bumpy Path is a year old!

I've learned a lot this past year; a lot about blogging, and in the process, a lot about myself. Tonight's sunset is a good representation of this past year too. How fitting that nature supplied me with an illustration to my birthday post! Anyway, here's my trip down Memory Lane...

Finding the Focus

When I started this blog, my mind had been pretty unused for several years. It was difficult to come up with a focus, a point, a book cover, so to speak, for writing about. Life circumstances supplied the time to truly invest in writing, so I pulled out all my psychology books that I had from my student years and the ones I used to teach from and reread them all. All you have to do is teach a few courses and book publishers send you complimentary copies of new books that they'd like you to use, so I have quite a collection.

You'd be surprised how much a lot of that material felt brand new. It's like practicing it, working in the field knocked a lot of the theory and knowledge right down the drain. Writing about it, about all the things I relearned, was the way to transform all that information into something useful and helpful and relevant all over again.

The focus of A Bumpy Path became making that useful, helpful, relevant stuff useful, helpful and relevant to you, my reader, more than just to myself. At first, it took a lot of imagination because there weren't many of you readers or commentors, and I could only hope that what I wrote touched home somewhere along the way.

Spreading the Word

I've always believed in the power of writing. The pen is mightier than the sword sort of thing. To write, you have to process, think things through, really get it in your head to get it into written form, and that's what makes it valuable. It certainly has done wonders for kicking my brain back in gear. In turn, that applies to everyone that chooses to put the effort into writing. If it's written, it's powerful and valuable.

My second task was to evaluate what I was writing. It may have been great for me, but was it good for you too? I took the chance and set out to increase the number of you reading what I wrote.

It was one of those very personal, sort of spiritual push-me-pull-you dilemmas. Knowledge is free, and build it and they will come. But, that wasn't really working. How can I help, be of help, if no one knows I'm here?

Social Networking to the Rescue

I signed up for Technorati and couldn't make heads or tails of it. I signed up for StumbleUpon with the same result. And then I found Entrecard on a site I randomly ran into and signed up. By it's design, I doubled my readership, then tripled and then quadrupled and ....

It took awhile of reading all the blogs within the Entrecard network to produce content that appealed enough for comments. It has taken me a long time, but hopefully, I've found the 'right track.' I have met and become friends with some very wonderful, delightful people in the process.

No Choice But to Monetize

That same life circumstance that gave me the time to grow this blog has become too much time of not making a living, and I had no choice but to look into alternate income streams. It became another personal, ethical dilemma for me to have to turn to my blog as an income source, but it is something I love to do and I put a lot of time and energy into it. Knowledge and true helping is free! No problem there, my knowledge is always shared with no strings attached. Always.

Marketer, I am not. Obviously. I bent my ethics a bit and went ahead and signed up for AdSense, Amazon, dabbled in Widget Bucks a little (and scrapped it pretty quickly) and I still wasn't making much more than pennies. Sorry Charlie, but that's not enough to change my "no income" status.

Then, I found PepperJam. PepperJam is an affiliate network, and the advertisers are those with high quality and appealing products, and there are quite a few of them within the network. You earn for clicks and leads and commissions. Click on my ad in the sidebar and see for yourself what PepperJam is all about. And no, this isn't a paid endorsement. Shoot, for a review, it's not very well written! I'm not paying any bills yet, but I have made more than a few pennies.

The Down Side

The bad thing about getting into the social networking and building up an income stream is that it is too easy to get lost in it all and forget about writing the content that is the value of the whole purpose of blogging. I've seen this talked about in many, many places, knew I had to be aware and careful, and still fell into that trap.

To pull myself back to the value I can actually contribute to the "blogosphere," I took a leap of faith and signed up as a contributing writer at BlogCritics This is an online magazine with a very large number of contributing writers, and it's a popular, high-traffic site. It is formal, you have to submit samples to be accepted, and when you do submit an article, it is edited per formal guidelines. I was accepted and my first article was published Thursday.

The purpose of writing for other venues besides your own blog is to get your name out there, establish your credibility and by proxy, increase the readers of your blog. It works. It works well, as a matter of fact.

Full Circle

Content is King. I taught that to my Web design students. Actually, I harped on it. A design is only a good one if it stays out of the way of the content. Anything that gets in the way of the content has to be invited to leave, don't let the screen door hit on the way out, and that's all there is to it. A reminder to you, and a reminder to myself is...

Write! Write! Write!

Well, that's my story of blogging. I'm certainly no expert! I sure do hope you can get something out of all my trials and struggles. Is any of this of value to you? Are there other things to do to become successful in blogging?

Thank you for reading!

Share Your Photos With Wordless Wednesday

I've been having so much fun with my camera lately that I fear I could go nuts posting them all. I've seen a lot of great photos on everyone's blogs too. I thought that it would be great if we got together and created a list of our best and favorite photos. But, I'm a day late and a dollar short... This is already done and effectively so at Wordless Wednesdays.

There are benefits to this idea. First, since you're commenting, your ratings go up. This is an "I follow" blog, as are most, so the linkluv will benefit us all.

Here's my favorite photo! I love this flower and love when they bloom in early summer. They are everywhere here, but not for very long. (I'm not much for keeping my mouth shut. A-hem.)

You May Be Crazy If...

Yep, you may be crazy. No, I can't read your mind, or see you drooling through your computer screen, but I still insist you may be crazy. Do you want to know how I know? It's simple: You're reading this! Besides me pulling your leg, some people - maybe it's your parents or your spouse or even some scientists and researchers - want you to think that you are crazy if you spend too much time on the Internet. Do you think you're crazy?

For the sake of argument, let me rephrase that question: Do I think I'm crazy? (Notice I didn't ask if you think I'm crazy. That would be too easy. I just ask the tough questions.)

Maybe you can help me answer that question. The first thing I do when my feet hit the floor in the morning is head to the bathroom. First thing's first. I let the dogs out, hopefully before they relieve themselves on the carpeting, get the coffee brewing, then head right in here to fire up the computer. I'll grab a cup of coffee and settle in front of the computer. (I won't tell you what I do on the computer; that would take all day.) Sooner or later, nature calls or my coffee cup is empty, whichever comes first, that'll get taken care of, then I'm right back here in front of the computer. Nature/coffee call #2 is when I notice hours have gone by, guilt sets in and I go feed my animals. Then, back inside to my computer, and I always remember to bring another cup of coffee with me.

Just to give you a little perspective, I've had this desk chair for years. It has holes wore in the seat of it. The stuffing is flattened. It has no back support. My butt bones sit on board. But, the wheels still roll, and if I lean back, it reclines. Sort of. Put it this way, I'm not sitting in luxury here.

Sooner or later, some time in the afternoon, it gets too hot, my eyes start drooping and I have some reading to do or not, and I go take a nap. Admittedly, my naps have been getting longer as the summer days get hotter. Ahem. When I get up, I'm right back here in front of the computer, only this time I have iced tea to drink, and the same things happen that happened in the morning. Compute, drink, pee, feed the animals, compute, drink… And here I sit until the wee hours of the next morning. Every day. Without fail.

So, do you think I think I'm crazy? Well, I suppose I am a bit crazy, but it's not because of the time I spend on the Internet. "No" is the correct response, ok? (Just humor me if you would.)

Here, let me help you answer your question: do you think you're crazy?

A good place to start is to define the word "crazy." The dictionary uses fun words like mentally deranged, demented, insane, unpredictable and nonconforming to help you grasp its meaning. None of those fall into any mental illness category. It's all slang. It's not science. No prescriptions required. In fact, "crazy" isn't such a bad thing.

The next thing to look at is "too much time." Many people sit in front of a computer all day at work. Some work from home in front of a computer all day. Those people spend a lot more time in front of the computer than others who's jobs are not computer related. Is it pathological? Would you say the same thing about reading a book or working or watching TV too much?

I have no doubt that some parents become concerned about their kids. (I also have no doubt that some of that concern stems from sitting in front of a video game or violent TV.) This concern is real, as would be the concern you would have about your own time reading, working, watching TV or using the Internet. The real question is whether your time on the Internet is at the cost of family, friends and social activities. Even if you determine that yes, you are neglecting other important aspects of your life, it is not the same as an addiction or any legitimate mental disorder like depression or schizophrenia.

What most people online ... are probably suffering from is the desire to not want to deal with other problems in their lives. Those problems may be a mental disorder (depression, anxiety, etc.), a serious health problem or disability, or a relationship problem. It is no different than turning on the TV so you won't have to talk to your spouse, or going "out with the boys" for a few drinks so you don't have to spend time at home. Nothing is different except the modality. (John M. Grohol, Psy.D)

In essence, the use of the Internet is not the cause of disruptions in your life; it's just the way it manifests. It does not mean that you have a mental illness.

The Internet is a good thing.

The global Internet is interactive, it's a wealth of information, and it includes social activities throughout. Most of the time spent online, and why it seems like it is addictive, is that it revolves around socialization. You hang out with and talk to other people online. I'd say it's even better than hanging out in person or talking on a telephone because of all the information available online that you can tap into to include in your online conversations. Where else can you talk to someone in England, Japan, Manila, Texas and Wyoming without it costing you an arm and a leg for a conference call?

Until voice recognition and VoIP technology becomes useful enough to be commonly used, most everyone has to read and write and think to communicate online. This practice improves spelling and grammar, and construction and articulation of thoughts and ideas. Sure, you'll see a lot of horrific spelling and grammar, and you'll also see it improve over time. Research skills develop, and so does the ability to discriminate between useful and worthless information.

Crazy nerds unite!

Yes we do. And we're all crazy in a good way. It's a good thing, this time we spend on the Internet - because we're spending the time together. For me, it's making it possible to live way out in the middle of nowhere and still talk and hang out with a lot of wonderful people.

Ok, my animals are fed, my iced tea is luke warm, and my eyes are droopy. I'll give you three guesses what I'm going to do next...

A Tail in the Sky

It was a quiet evening after a long, hot, humid day. The sky was crystal clear and huge in its grandeur. Once in awhile, a bird would chirp or a fly buzz, but it was peaceful all the same. It was perfect for taking photos of the little story that unfolded before my eyes. Come along with me and see for yourself... the story of A Tail in the Sky... (Click any photo to see it in a larger size to enjoy the details.)

Deafening, loud and "out of the blue," an Air Force C130 roared into view. As always, I wave, hoping the men see my tiny wave and feel my appreciation for what they do. As always, the tail of the plane fades away without notice.


"What was that?" said Ethel in dismay. "I'm frightened, Ed. You have to do something!" "Huh? Do what?" replied Ed.


"Well, now. That is mighty interesting. Big, loud, obnoxious and high in the sky," said Odin in his deep voice. "I wonder how it swats flies with that tail."


"What?" said Hiro, his tail wagging in anticipation. "Let me at 'em! Where is it? Where is it?"


"Who cares?" replied Munchkin with a yawn. "Just let me know if those birds come closer, ok? The one with the short tail, by the way. I have no use for those long tail feathers on the other one."


"Oh, Ed, where did you get to? Where are you? I sure hope that big, nasty thing didn't eat him alive! Just look at the flames coming out of its tail. Maybe he got too close to that lazy cat down there and..."


"A-hem. I do think I scared the big, bad, loud and nasty dragon off, Ethel. I just huffed and puffed at its rather large, strange tail and it kept right on going. Just wait until I tell everyone about this. Ah, yes, I did it," said Ed, puffing his chest, fluffing his tail feathers and with a noticeable lilt to his voice.


"Wow, do you hear that crap? That bird thinks he ran the dragon off! Did you hear that?" Saki couldn't believe his ears. "Hey, Munchkin; if you don't want the one with the long tail feathers, I'll take him. He thinks he's a rooster!"


"Ed, if you think I'm going to sit here and listen to you going on and on about some fiery dragon in the sky, you have another thing coming! Just look at you, why it's shameful. Why, I never in my life heard such ridiculousness....."