CHAPTER 21

Kickin’ The Bull
Outta Tradition

   Though “Tradition” is a marvelous song from Fiddler On The Roof, as a concept I'd like to sight the bullet and shoot it off our specie's Top Ten List of Classical Wrongs.

   Funk & Wagnall defines Tradition as: “A custom so long continued that it almost has the force of a law.” What?

   Is that akin to chauvinism, racism and women being paid less than men? Does the AGE of a custom make it honorable or acceptable?

   Personally, I side more with Latka from TAXI: “It is the senseless traditions and mindless rituals that separate us humans from the animals.”

   Through the centuries, Tradition has been questioned, not with general approval, but with outrage by creative spirits.

   Friedrich Engels (1820‑1895) called Tradition: “A great retarding force, the inertia of history.”

   Henry Ford (1863‑1947) said: “I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world. History is more or less bunk. It is tradition. We want to live in the present. The only history worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.”

   Andre Gide (1869‑1951) said: “No progress of humanity is possible unless it shakes off the yoke of tradition.”

   John Milton (1608‑1674) said: “Truth is a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary sins at home.”

   And George Bernard Shaw (1856‑1950) gave this thought on Tradition: “Most great truths begin as blasphemies.”

   Though I've often been tagged as blasphemous, I don't believe that I, nor anyone, has the exclusive on THE Truth.

   We each simply have our perception of it, which others may agree with, or not… much as witnesses to a crash or viewing a movie. We all leave with our own interpretation of the event.

   What we have, though few take advantage of the liberty, is the ability to tap into our own hot line to Truth. It's centered at the crossroad between our heart, conscience and GUT. It works best when ego, guilt and the Fear Fleas are not on the extensions.

   We all have the intuitive ability to sense when things are wrong in our actions, our lives, our families, our relationships, our global society, as well as within our own thought structure, actions and reactions.

   So too, we all have the talent to rewrite whatever script Tradition has programmed into our thoughts especially when they are contrary to our true selves, our conscience. Programs that have become obsolete circuit breakers to our Going For Life's Gusto.

   Programs that have become invisible warriors to our peace of mind.

   Complacency, or the old I'm‑too‑busy‑denial, is usually the handiest Escape of Choice to avoid acknowledging and/or righting inappropriate Traditions that have been dumped onto our lives like costly unwanted inheritances.

   Though apathy seems to be the easiest road to ramble, it tends to subtly transport us smack into the stress filled halls in the seminar we thought we could bypass. Even in denial there are messages to be gleaned. Clues to issues we need to address.

   Clues to how our kidhood programming still governs our adulthood choice of attitudes.

EXAMPLE:

It may seem easy to Turn the other cheek when scuffling in a battering setup. No pain no gain! But hanging onto the frail Hope Thread that all will eventually be in Donna Reed Land can cause mega-watts of stress making a Three Mile Island peril seem like a soda pop fizzie.

   For many people, sacrificing love and happiness was the only available game in town to survive kidhoods dominated by tyrannizing and loveless families. So, while carrying that life‑limiting expertise into our adulthood relationships may cause us undue hell, it is a familiar hell.

   Venues of familiar hell can be easy to re‑rent when you have invested many years in perfecting the art of cowering, excusing abuse, ducking punches, tolerating other's arbitrary tempers, capriciousness and desire to control our lives, as well as suppressing an ever‑growing hurt chest within.

   It becomes easier to robotly seize all the blame for whatever abuse may be dished out, rather than confront a tyrant and righteous controller… or risk further rage.

   Yet, it's an easiness that does not serve us any ease.

   No pain no gain may be OK when flexing physical muscles. But, when applied to emotions, the gain ain't worth the strain.

   I now say: No Pain? Yo! Cool!

   The dictionary defines Martyr as: “One who submits to death, who dies, suffers or sacrifices everything for a cause.”

   While that sounds righteously brave, it gets distorted when the cause for becoming an abused martyr is fear.

   Fear of confronting an abuser with their injurious actions and risking life yelling back our most horrifying dread: “But, it's exactly what you deserve for being bad!”

   Fear of there being no escape from adulthood tyranny because there was none during the confines of kidhood.

   It may seem easier to not confront abusive situations or people, but the energy we spend repelling outside stress and negativity to avoid challenging what we know in our heart as unfair, merely heats up the pressure cooker in which we're scorching our spirits.

   We spend a lot of energy when we ignore our conscience, especially when it knows we're furthering self‑abuse by pretending that wrongful situations don't exist, or they're what we deserve, or there's nothing we can do about them.

   It may seem easy not to make waves. But the alternative means we can end up emotionally capsized. Or haphazardly bobbing in stagnant Yes!‑pools while Tradition stirs the gruel. As in the YES!-Pool of:

   Yes! I hate my life but what choice do I have?

   Yes! A bird in the hand's worth two in the bush.

   But, what if the bird in hand is a mad vulture clawing our spirit into fright size pieces? Or tyrannizing us into blaring silence?

   Yes! I hate the abuse my mate serves in place of love and comfort. But I'm afraid to admit I made another mistake; to get a divorce; to be on my own. What if I fail? What if I am as worthless as I'm told? What if I leave and there's nothing to replace the void but greater abuse? Besides, misery may be my fate.

   Whoaah!

   Is the old bird in the hand, once again, caging this terror in the nest. Supported by Don't rock the boat! But, why not rock it when we shanghai ourselves on the Ship of Fools? What better reason to jump shit?

   Or: “ Yes! I hear it's wrong to hit my kids, to shackle them into a fear riddled homelife, but that's how I was raised. To admit my actions are wrong means I might have to question the way my parents raised me. I'm not ready to waken that pain. Besides, Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

   OK. But no one ever mentions what hacking the rod over a kid's body spoils. Spinal cords? Spirits? The sense of trust? The hope for noble communication and for clarity on what genuine love really means, and the idea that there are finer ways to resolve differences other than violence?

   Or: “Yes! There's an abundance of wrongful garbage in the world in need of cleaning up, but what can I do about it? I'm only one person. Who am I to upset the Grapple Cart?”

   Or: “Yes! I know the gossip being spread about my friend reeks of malicious lies. But I'm not spreading it. I'm only listening to be social. Why should I speak up and risk being the next target? Lord knows I've got enough skeletons they could crap up in ribbons and low blows.”

   Or: “Yes! I strongly suspect our neighbors abuse their kids, but it's not my job to butt in. What if I'm wrong? I'd look like the fool. Sure, when I weigh the idea of helping a helpless kid whose being abused versus seeming a fool — well, I know what I ought to logically do, still...”

   Tradition supports a "Do Not Get Involved, Concept, Even If Life Forces... The‑Showdown" by advising: Stay out of your neighbor's backyard!

   But what if the neighbor is trapped and unaware that their backyard is surrounded by mad gardeners sowing toxins? Or hovering with voracious vultures?

   Due to the winds of chance, sooner or later, those toxins tend to get swept from neighboring yards into our territory of conscience. Whatever message is being offered might as well be investigated as life tends to toss those significant issues at our front doors to be opened.

   Tradition mandates endless cliches that push the rule: Adults are to be revered; arbitrarily “honored”.

   Tradition, as written by adults, has set up adults as semi‑Gods by reason of being a kid's sole provider of survival necessities.

   Tradition sets up adults as the Untouchables, off limits to any unmasking, dethroning or disagreement with them by kids, which is a mega‑handicap for any kid confronted by a kidnapper, an incestual adult or even a retardingly abusive school teacher, authority figure or priest.

EXAMPLE:

What are the options for a kid who's been told by his, or her, family that you have to be nice to Uncle Bart because he's family and you must respect your elders.

   What are the kid's options if Uncle Bart's hugs turn to molestation? If a kid is too young to know what the sex act involves, how will the kid know when Uncle Bart's seeming likableness (to his family peers) has become lecherous (to the family kids)?

POSSIBLE SOLUTION:

   I now see it as: Encouraging a kid's GUT instinct because the GUT never lies. For me, the G.U.T. is the finest God U Trust Guide in the cosmos - available to all.

   Possibly, by a parent encouraging a kid's GUT feeling about a potential victimizer, be they stranger or family, the encouragement might cause the parent to listen intently to their GUT messages in life.

   I often wonder: If a parent's ego wasn't so caught up in their kid appearing cute and perfect to strangers, possibly this cutsie agreeableness‑to‑be‑accepted, to be liked, might not cause so many kids to sweetly accept advances that their GUT tells them is wrong. Possibly.

BOTTOM LINE:

For a kid who's been abused, unmasking has been socially disavowed via the primo intimidator of: Your family is all you've got so you better not rat on a parent or any family member, no matter how abusively they treat you. After all is said and done: Blood is thicker than water!

   Technically true. But no one ever says what's so great about thick, emotionally or spiritually. It's even odder when we consider the fact that thick is slang for dull, doltish and stupid.

   Personally, I see thick as density covering up reality; quicksand drowning sanity; crazy glue keeping mismatched spirits on collision courses; clots against venting inner pain.

   I don't buy that we're born to be sucked into histories created by angry others. If we're not born to quest beyond what greets us at birth, the Salemites would still be staking intuitive people as guests of dishonor at dewitching Bar‑ B‑Ques.

   We are born to crusade into the unknown no matter how many lethargic Traditions we may disturb and delete as obsolete; no matter how deeply ingrained the myths and mysteries may be that we've held on to as the bored directors of our behavior.

   We're born to quest, whether we crusade into the global dominion or the ultra‑potent domain of our private thinking.

   It's natural to feel great anxiety eruptions when caught in the turmoil between how we've been programmed to believe versus what our heart and GUT urge us to explore.

   We're born to wonder. To explore the possible as well as the impossible. And spiritual freedom is only possible when we dig in and do some conscious carehouse cleaning.

   If Questing is the Father of Evolution, then possibly, “Assumption is the Bad Brother of Fuck Up”.

   Possibly we’re meant to consciously evaluate whether what has governed our specie and us has a right to be questioned on the grounds of its seniority despite the centurial detrimental effects of its rulership.

   Curious. Society has turned the matter of age into such a divesting issue when it deals with humanity, as when it ushers 65‑plusers out onto ineffectual pasture grounds. As if seniority in people is a leprous liability.

   Yet, inanimate tenets of aged Tradition get freely passed from one generation to the next like sacred primers, spotless scriptures of verity, without examination for impurities.

   Unilateral abuse of the people by the people has been an integral component of the Earthian specie for eons, and Tradition has kept its smoke screen consistently obscuring the violations.

   As history has shown, the only way Tradition's butt ever gets constructively kicked has been through those who risk all in order to provoke us into waking up to wrong doings.

   Yet, society has often labeled the Waker‑Uppers as Blasphemous Boat Rockers, such as: Gandhi with his peaceful revolt against heartless political ignorance; the original promoters of women's rights; Martin Luther King who shared his equality dream; even Walt who faced a tidal wave of skepticism when he envisioned his dream of Disneyland; and so on and so on.

   Though massive turnarounds in our culture cannot occur via one person's efforts, they can begin with one person's vision whose time has come; a vision that activates others' pipeline to the Truth, to the peace path; a vision that causes its supporters to risk all so as to turn it from a loving dream into reality.

   Though RISK is often viewed as a bad 4‑letter word, I see it as an integral component of LIFE. RISK begins at birth when we pop out of our Womb With a View, and energizes whenever we confront the unknown and social fortresses of manmade Tradition woven from superstition, bigotry, and Fear. Society dreads change. But, as I see it:

    RISK = Reactivating Internal Soular Knowledge.

   The more I RISK, the more I explore the talents, abilities and strengths that were packed in my Cosmic Tool Kit. So too for all of us.

   Without butt-kicking RISK we might never unlatch our Tool Kit! Yet, Tradition stunts that opening with: “Don't wake sleeping dogs!”

   BUT! What if the dog is a potential Lassie full of love, talent and richness?

   Examining my past program showed me that my genre of kidhood (and early marriages) was far more common than I nightmared.

   Indifferent family ambience is customary for many. The segregation wall dividing parents and children, Earthian elders and newcomers, has been defended and strengthened by Tradition, as in the famous divider: “Children are to be seen and not heard!”

   Though no one ever explains Why. Possibly, because the observations of the newly arrived are so spontaneous and candid, they ruffle the Traditional elders by not playing the expected game of Censored Small Talk.

   Kid‑clarity often targets straight into the nitty‑gritty while many adults prefer to sweep the gritty under the scam rugs of nutty subterfuge.

   Often, society prefers believing kids are brain dead, not worthy of a voice until they've been properly programmed.

   As said: “Kids will be kids” while believing it's dangerous to allow kids to be kids in polite society. As if kids must be muted until they're prepared to fit‑in, whatever that means.

   Possibly, because many adults were stifled as kids, they feel it appropriate to stifle in return.

   Possibly, because adulthood, to kids, is promoted as an almighty age of wisdom, adult egos often get in the way of their relationships with kids.

   They're afraid of letting their spontaneous self come out and play as it may never have been allowed to play in the past. Possibly they fear being de-masked by the perceptive, see‑through eyes of kids, who have not yet been taught, that in polite society, it's rude to be honest.

   For many grown‑ups, the Adult Supremacy Deception, which they equally disliked when they were kids, comes in handy to manipulate the silence of their kids, the “Silence of the Lambs” — and all approved of by Tradition.

   The Might is Right Adult Fraternity merely continues the scam just so the Wizard of Odds won't be found out to be just as insecure, lost, confused and fearful as are many kids.

   All souls are born frank — the descriptive not the name. Without current programming, they call life as they see it, which may account for why Tradition cuts off their mikes - though Art Linkletter kept them open and made a small fortune with his program and books: “Kids Say the Darndest Things!”.

   Curiosity of newcomers is so infinitely probing. It tends to ask questions and offer comments many residents would never ask for based on fear of rejection. Though often, their questions are dismissed as pointless, rude or embarrassing by those who fear admitting they don't have all the answers.

   It takes a heap of humility and honesty to confess that one doesn't have all the answers, let alone confess to a kid who has been programmed to believe adults are all-knowing. Especially, when kids are in the midst of being programmed to unequivocally revere adults with awe and respect.

   After all, adults get to be seen and heard!

   The Silencer falsely promotes the idea that there's no way possible for a kid to have worthy thoughts, which to me is a self‑stroking arrogant assumption; a con which, at its darkest, turns into: Be hurt and not tell.

   Then again, it IS the Traditional way adults have intimidated abused kids from seeking help to escape homemade anxiety arenas.

   When kids are programmed to assume they can't speak out, what encourages them to hope they'd be believed if they had the GUTs to speak up?

   Society has forced kids to bottle up their hurts, inner thoughts, observations and communications. So, when they become adults, they automatically censor their heart and become as intimidated as their programmers and thereby carry on the senseless Kids‑Are‑Not‑To‑Banter Tradition.

   What a waste of insight in the Blame of Tradition.

   Possibly, if this mindless ritual had not been so strictly enforced in the past, as it still is by many, there'd be fewer adult patients lining shrinks' couches and pouches.

   Hey! That old Tradition of Pecking Order just expanded in my mind. As Kids have Traditionally been thought “better when seen and not heard”, so too were women once. As were Blacks.

   That idea is still relished by males who fear women's power, insight and ability to emotionally communicate — as they, the guys, were never encouraged to communicate. So many will not allow another to be, do or say what they were denied doing, being and saying.

   Possibly, that past muzzle on public communication and power may have spurred many moms to focus their desire to control SOMEONE onto their kids. Not being able to pick on someone their own size and age, they chose to peck on someone who was socially programmed not to protest.

   If kids (and women in the past) were not so socially forced to retreat within, to keep to themselves, less shock waves might hit adults when their kids reach the vocal stage. The stage when so many controllers are baffled by who their weak family strangers are.

   Surprise parties are inevitable for parents when kids are forced to develop speechlessly behind the Seens and away from the Heards, when kids are shuttled off to communicate with their peer group based on age, and not based on their philosophical, intellectual and spiritual growth, nor on their ability to observe or quest for soular knowledge.

   Society boxes kids into age crates as if all 8 or 12 year olds are alike. Tradition enforces this crating whenever a kid dares to excel beyond the standard age restraints.

   Ever hear the threats of disaster when a kid earns a grade skip? It's as though holding back their brain potential and risking their dropping-out due to boredom is the honorable thing to do; as though their intellect might not also require the brain stimulation of older associates; or as though their personalities could not also have matured and craved more challenge.

   Besides, what is maturity? I've met adults, who by no stretch of fantasy are considered mature, even though they played by society's age plan of Keep To Your Own Kind and Mind.

   It is curious that Tradition forces kids to interact with kids their age. However, try forcing adults to socialize only with others their age and they'd scream: No way! Forget it. That's insane segregation.

   Yet, Tradition says exclusion-by-age is the proper protocol for kids, forcing them to be one another's main please.

   What's interesting about this socially‑approved shutout is that while it temporarily ousts kids from adult scenes, it normally backfires when kid peer group pressure transforms their kids into mortal aliens.

   I see no grounds for complaint. If you send your car off to a psychedelic paint shop how can you complain when it comes back looking like a Timothy Leary Barf Mobile.

   Cut your kids off from participating in your world, and no doubt they will return as strangers with foreign lingo, dress codes, rituals, principles and morals.

   Kids are taught by Tradition that the primo goal is to fit‑in to whatever their social club OKs at the moment. Ergo! Teens who seem to be the greatest rebels‑to‑normalcy are simply being loyal to the society they were ostracized into by their parents' Traditional idea of parenting.

   By virtue of exclusion, kids are forced to figure out the World According to Crap; how to pilot maturity flights taught solely by fellow neophytes and trickle‑down theories from adulterated programs.

   No matter how crazy kids may seem to adults, they're just working as best they can with the limited resources they're given in line with what society regulates for their age group.

   It's fascinating to hear adults who are outraged with kids' behavior getting soothed with the old saw of: “They'll grow out of it. Wait 'til they're our age then they'll find out what life's really all about!”

   WAIT? Why?

   If more kids were given better input on life before their creativity was adulterated, they could develop better ideas to grow on; better venues to focus their energies toward. Even formulate new cures for age old disorders upon our globe.

   Possibly.

   But, at least, there would be a finer setup for understanding the route that each child personally chooses when they reach the stage of lifal selection.

   For years kids were simply expected to wait until they were granted entry into the main programming data banks where success or failure, according to Tradition, depended on their willingness and ability to be reformatted, based on input formally denied.

   So!

   Do they or do they not choose this new group to fit in with?

   Do they assume Tradition's gauntlets and play the Maturity Game?

   Do they become their parents' clones, or dream their parents' dreams so as to gain approval? Are they so thrilled with their new club membership that they'll willingly continue the ritual by enrolling their kids in the Seldom‑Seen‑Never‑Heard Schools of Traditional Thought? Or flip to the extreme of unlimited freedom and no social limitations?

   Only Time tells if they buy or sell… or sell out.

   Another handicap of Traditional sequestering is that by kids not knowing they've landed on a master programming center, they tend to take full responsibility for prior scripts playing on their family stage, setups of abuse, of anger, of separating hearts. For some this means taking inequitable lifelong blame for their kidhood home strife, for how their parents acted, or didn't act, because it's so natural for kids, no matter how old they grow, to overlook a simple fact:

    There was life before their birth.

   Hence, they tend to deny that they weren't the cause for their parents' unhappiness, just the captured audience and scapegoats for parents' underlying angers, frustrations or fears that were not addressed or resolved.

   Kids become handy excuses for adults who deny their own sense of feeling under‑&‑overwhelmed with life; handy walls to literally bounce disillusionment off. Tradition lets parents imply: “I gave you your life, so I get to screw it up if I want. For as long as I want.”

   Kids are susceptible to manipulation by parents getting milage from pouring old gripes through new spirits.

   I knew a woman who reran and intensified her difficult delivery scenario whenever her son mentioned postponing college until he knew what career he wanted to pursue.

   And, a dad who elongated his list of sacrifices and struggles to create his shoe business solely for his kids' future whenever they dared mention their desire to pursue a career and lifestyle differing from dad's pre‑selection for them.

   Hey! Retroactive griping, or never being pleased enough, is a common gambit for many parents seeking to keep their kids obeying‑out‑of‑guilt when they've become too old to spank into fearful submission.

   Amazing. We live in a world that requires driver's training to pilot a car, yet has no criteria for parents who can drive kids into loving adults, lunatics or needless repenting clones.

   As with the religious clubs, fear is a handy method for many parents to raise kids. And it's easy to see why:

   Fear mutes a kid's desire to connect on levels parents may dread relating on. Fear keeps kids in line. But in line for what? Racing to the Exit Door before, or after, legal age? Racing to the Shrink Shop to get unscrewed?

   For centuries, Tradition has rationalized physical and emotional abuse as a standard part of proper parenting. Yet when we deny the value of questioning Traditions that have governed the care-raising we may have experienced, we are prone to pass down the Legacies of Lunacy rather than seeking and creating new Wills for Life.

   Possibly, due to jealousy or lethargy, many adults avoid exploring and creating new ways to nurture their kids, and themselves, other than according to Tradition.

   I've noticed that when people's ability to explore their highest potential was denied, they often denied this same liberty to their kids. Possibly, fearing that by admitting they can royally screw up, they are admitting they were screwed up by theories they're too screwed up by fear to unscrew.

   The best approach I know to clean out care-houses of damaged goods is by honestly reviewing what's worth keeping for our journey into the future. Reassessing not just our parents' past actions, or who or whatever caused us pain, but reviewing our role in past Anger Arenas. Tapping the best and dumping the rest.

   Maybe our past wasn't always what we wanted because our options were limited. But, if burdensome, the past might better be seen as having been exactly what we needed so as to learn how not to raise our kids. How not to live and love. To discover which Traditions not to inherit.

   Siphoning off what's worth holding or unloading is simple:

   It helps to be nice to ourselves when we house clean our memories. To remember that when we were kids facing all we endured, we did the best we could under the circumstances.

   Regretting and holding onto bitterness doesn't heal scars, it prolongs pain.

     Drawing on the constructive messages and detaching from whatever pain our learning may have required, can quickly clean out our burdensome warehouses of useless trashings.

   By recycling the junk, we let it serve us.

   By not doing abuse unto others as was done unto us, we free ourselves to celebrate the life we can cater to ourselves, our kids and our world.

   We free ourselves when we give up our desire to control others and when we release the desire to cross-collateralize or make the future pay for our regrets of the past.

EXAMPLE:

Ever resort to grounding a kid as punishment, as we may have been grounded? If so, take a look at who also gets grounded to enforce the grounding punishment.

   Not to suggest all kids are mini-sages meriting absolute exaltation. But neither are all adults maxi‑sages.

   I feel when we offer kids a non-judgmental forum to share observations on life and living before they're programmed by Tradition, everyone benefits. Even if the child's soul carries an intense desire to rebel and battle, at least the parent knows they tried.

   Even if the child chooses anti-social behavior, clarity of early honest communication by a parent might lessen the hellacious drain of later regret. It might subdue the devilish surprise party via knowing in their heart that they tried to converse over fear-generated denial.

   Often discovering the extent of a kid's individuality can unlock the doors for adults to explore themselves more fully. Encouraging a kid's problem solving ability can widen our lateral thinking, our facility to create beyond what we, and society, have defined as conventionally feasible.

   A point to ponder: I've observed the topics which kids' honesty embarrasses us most often deals directly with issues we need to face ourselves, but avoid.

EXAMPLE:

Ever see a kid innocently say that Aunt Gertie is fat only to have a sticky silence coat the air? Then hear the parents admonish the kid's “bad manners” when the truth is that Gertie is over-weight and the kid only thought that by overhearing the parents back-stabbing comments about her?

   Sure, it's handy to tell a kid the old standby of “Mind your manners!” Unfortunately, that often means: Stick to the program! Keep Gertie beguiled. Don't be honest. Say what we want you to say, but only when we want you to say it, and never repeat what we say!

PROBLEM:

That message instills a false rider that it's okay to place arbitrary conditions upon honesty.

   The simplest way to bolster integrity without selling out one's honesty might be accomplished via two thoughts:

1. When we cast our judgments on others, we open the door for judgment to be laid us. So, we better be prepared to look within before appraising without thinking.

2. When others don't ask for our advice, it's best not to spin our reels in trying to hook others into our belief boats. This then frees up our energy to fish out the only catch that is within our control — our own attitude.

   I've also seen that many ideas parents instill their kids with, for their own good, are often the ones adults want to rationalize in their own personas. Some positive, others not.

EXAMPLE:

I heard a true story about a rich, powerful Beverly Hills lawyer renowned for being the “meanest son of a bitch” on the attorney block. Seems one day, he played a “harmless game” with his 6 year old son of: Who can tap the other on the shoulder the softest.

The kid did his best to gently tap his dad. When the dad's turn came, he whacked his son, knocking him off a chair. He then proudly offered this moral to his sobbing youngster: “There! That will teach you to never trust anyone.”

   Unsurprising, the dad was known for his rough, distrusting and untrustworthy disposition in the law community. What a dubious legacy to will his kid considering the emotional codicil on the lesson.

   To further highlight the many drivel tales of wisdom, quite understandably issued by nameless old wives or anonymous authors, we have:

“Never air your dirty laundry in public.”

And

“What goes on in the home stays in the home.”

   Little wonder so many closets are bursting at the schemes of social propriety. Closets holding abused kids, battered wives, destructive families, thwarted marriages, stunted dreamers and frustrated dampers.

   Tradition encourages negation, cover‑up and denial.

   Let's face it, Campers, abuse has always existed. It's not a New Age discovery. It's an age old dis-ease of our specie. Only now, it's beginning to be publicly recognized as:

• Not the moral way to care for our kids, mates or others.

• Not the healthy way to vent hostility.

• Not the healthy vent for frustration or fear.

• Not the way to hug kids into loving adulthood.

   Taking abuse can never reform an offensive mate into a loving partner. It is not a helpless role Fate incarcerates us within. It is not what we deserve if we were abused as kids. It is not THE END.

   Recognition of abuse is a growing issue. Yet many adults choose to never outgrow their living memories by believing they cannot talk about it. This belief only further enforces its permanent position in their private program.

   Sure, speaking out, if only to a mirror so as to purge our memory banks, is risky because Risk upsets Tradition. Many think it's easier to let monsters sleep, but life isn't the joy it can be when the monsters, sleeping or not, rule our lives, minds, and hearts.

   To think, to question, to contribute to growth, and evolve by creative exploration is our spiritual birthright. Our mutual soular goal. There is no getting away from the verity that:

Risk = Life = Risk... ad infinitum.

   Yet, paradoxically, when we Risk our egos to shed Light on injustice, life always rewards us with the chance to learn more about our selves, our soul, our potential and our purpose for having been born.

   With every positive contribution we make, universal and personal, we upgrade our beingness, our capacity to love without conditional kickbacks. And ultimately, we breathe life into that 100th monkey so as to contribute to the global upgrade our specie speaks of desiring.

   True. We may not see immediate social results from our in‑heart contributions. Still, when we brighten our personal portion in our specie's patchwork quilt of life, we ultimately add wattage to the enlightenment of our globe.

   One person can not delete all the Traditional garbage that has polluted our specie's centurial existence. One can only abort, archive, or save for one's self, as it takes only one to clean up one's own act. To start a plausible wave for others to accept or reject.

   Whatever happens, at least it results in one person's light becoming brighter and clearer. A beginning.

   Pondering the many thorns of Tradition that have pierced humanity, I wonder why that other Traditional chestnut of: “Pick on somebody your own size!” never got tied on the old family spree.

   Spiritually, I wonder if abusers ever stop to contemplate the greatest karma kickers to our life and conscience:

and...

...eventually.