The Thoughts of Cory LaViska

I used to hate when people would call my phone and leave a voicemail message telling me to call them. First off, I know you called. It said so when I pressed ‘ignore’. Second, it’s kind of a no-brainer that, when someone calls, you call them back. Lastly, I really don’t care anymore anyways because I have Visual Voicemail, which means I can delete your message without even having to hear it. So go ahead, leave a message. It’s not my time you’re wasting. (Note: rant does not apply to informative, interesting, or otherwise useful messages.)

Not to argue something trivial, but I’ve always personally used the spelling advisor.  Since adviser looked awkward, I decided to investigate.  My research indicates that the two terms are interchangeable and neither can actually be deemed incorrect.  See the web definitions of advisor and adviser.

Merriam Webster says the words are synonymous, as does the American Heritage Dictionary, the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus, and Princeton’s WordNet.  The Purdue Marketing Communications Editorial Style Guide insists on the spelling advisor over adviser.  The Columbia Guide to Standard American English states that “both spellings are standard”.  It does not appear that the agentive ending –er or –or has any semantic meaning in the case of either term.

Furthermore,  a Google search for advisor returns 85,100,000 pages, while a Google search for adviser only returns 21,500,000 pages.  This indicates that, at least in common usage, advisor is dominant at a ratio of four-to-one over adviser.  It is also argued that the –or version is aesthetically pleasing in comparison to the –er version.

While neither are technically correct nor incorrect, I prefer to use advisor.  *shrug*

There are a lot of people that I enjoy interacting with on a daily basis.  Some are friends, some are family, some are random strangers who I’ve never met before and may never meet again.  Others are ones that I’ve only met through text in an IM window or messages through an online community.

Communication is an essential part of human intelligence.  Most of us can communicate in one way or another, if not by speech then by signal, sound, or feeling.  We subconsciously measure people’s reactions to the things we do and say and we adjust our tone, our sincerity, and sometimes our entire message accordingly.

If we feel that the other person isn’t going to receive the message the way we want them to, we wait for a more appropriate time to tell them.  Based on their mood and our knowledge of their beliefs and feelings, we wait for the right moment to sneak in and present the message in a way that we think the receiver will accept it.

This happens all the time to everybody, whether we think about it or not.  It’s the way we communicate based entirely on our instinct.  Other animals do it, as well.  The way I see it, if something is smart enough to interact with other living things then it’s subject to the same concept I’m describing here.

The problem is that when we interfere with what we want to say exactly when we want to say it we give in to fear, selfishness, and dishonesty.  We fear that our thoughts, opinions, and ideas will be rejected.  We become selfish because, instead of laying all the cards on the table, we strategically wait for the right moment to express our thoughts in an effort to maximize our personal gain.  We sacrifice honesty by ignoring the way we feel, or at least by not expressing those feelings when we probably should.

Some may argue that, by expressing ourselves so openly, we are still being selfish because we neglect to consider others’ feelings.  This is a catch-22 at best, but wouldn’t it be more effective for everyone to know what other people really thought?  With nothing to hide, no communication breakdown, people would know when to help others, when to hurt others, and when to worry about things and when to leave them alone.

Think government.  Think relationships.  Think your own family.  Everyone I know has at least one thing that they can tell me but can’t tell someone in their own family.  Why hide things and live in secrecy when you could just as easily shove it in the world’s face and live contently with who you are and how you feel?

But expressing ourselves so readily and honestly can put us in a bad position because we may offend somebody.  We may introduce one of our own weaknesses to someone else.  We may open up the door to controversy.  For some reason, these are bad things.

In essence, we are all individual players in the largest battle that mankind has ever faced.  We are at war with ourselves and everyone around us, simply because we can’t communicate with each other.  We can’t accept what other people have to say for what it’s worth.

Fundamentally, there is no solution to our inability to communicate effectively.  Even if there were, with hundreds of languages and billions of people in the world we could never apply it effectively.  It’s really kind of sad if you think about it.

We will never be able to say what we want to say when we want to say it.  In truth, it’s not always appropriate.  You would never tell your girlfriend that she looks terrible when she’s already crying.  Of course it would add insult to injury, but we shelter people for the time being whenever we feel like they can’t handle the truth.  Essentially, we soften ourselves up that way and it becomes an expectation.  And maybe thats alright.

There really isn’t a point that I’m trying to get at.  This is my analysis of human communication from one person to another and the problems it creates throughout our global society.  I believe that communication is the root of most of the world’s problems and, if used intelligently, could solve a lot of the pandemonium it creates.

Maybe it’s as simple as a few fundamental concepts.  If everyone told at least one other person something positive everyday, maybe we wouldn’t be so negative all the time.  Then again, maybe we would.  But if I could tell every person in the world a few of the very basic things that I’ve learned in life, I think I would start here:

• Money isn’t everything, so being greedy is a pretty dumb idea.
• What goes around comes around.  It’s not Karma, it just happens.
• Every tear leads to a smile.
• Love changes us forever.  So does hate.
• Words are powerful, but only if you use them intelligently.
• Life is an opportunity, not a punishment.
• Talking to people doesn’t work.  Try talking with them.
• If you need help with anything, just ask for it.  People generally care when you show them you’re sincere.
• Religion is your belief.  Your belief.
• Accepting responsiblity for your actions makes you a better person and, once you get used to it, it’s easy to do.
• Learn from your mistakes and, when possible, from the mistakes of others.
• You’re not better than me…just different, and variety is the spice of life.
• When things really start to suck, smile.  Maybe even laugh a bit.  Seriously.  It works.

Don’t send these to anyone.  In fact, I’d much rather you say nothing at all until someone you care about really needs it.  Not randomly, but at a time when they will actually understand the message and see the power and meaning behind it.  This doesn’t belong in a chain email or on a cubicle wall.  It belongs in our hearts.

If we live with a few of these basic principles in mind, we’ll all understand each other a little bit better—and isn’t that the whole point of communication?

I originally posted this on Florida Today’s forum, in response to the “kids-in-car” bill that the Florida House of Representative were considering. I kinda liked it, so I wanted it to live forever here, too:

Laws are made to “protect” us. Well, what this really means is that laws are made to control people and tell them what they can and can’t do. “You can do this, but not this, this, or this. And if you do that, then you will get fined for it. And if you do this, then you’ll go to jail.”

Some fundamental laws are necessary to maintain a functioning society. Things like murder, rape, and thievery, for example, should all be valid laws. The problem we have here is that there are too many rules custom-tailored to fit specific instances of human stupidity. This defeats the entire purpose of a “free” country. Almost every freedom we have has been taken away because some idiot decided that he wanted to do something stupid. When stupid people break the law, the system is so soft on them that they’re right back out there doing the same stupid things again, causing more frustration, wasting more resources, and harming more people. Rather than solve the problem at the source, we choose to create little “laws” that will “prevent” these things from happening in the future. In reality, what happens here, is the crime rate actually goes up.

Why? Because I can’t seem to find a copy of a “law book” that my government mailed to me, informing me of all the great new “laws” they created to protect me. And without my handy lil’ law book, I’m not sure how many of the day-to-day things that I’ve been doing for the last 10 years are now considered “illegal”. Of course, this information is all publicly available, but how many people spend their weekends researching new laws at the courthouse? Case in point.

Our government is controlling the populace by fear. “Don’t do that or you’ll go to jail” and “you’ll be fined for that”. We’re so consumed by countless laws and regulations that we’re bound to break one or more of them sooner or later…probably unknowingly. How many people have ever heard of these ridiculous “laws”:

• In Florida, Women may be fined for falling asleep under a hair dryer, as can the salon owner.
• In Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle.
• It is illegal to transport an ice cream cone in your pocket in Kentucky.
• In Los Angeles, customers in meat markets are prohibited from poking a turkey to see how tender it is.
• Violators can be fined, arrested or jailed for making ugly faces at a dog in Oklahoma.
• In California, community leaders passed an ordinance that makes it illegal for anyone to try and stop a child from playfully jumping over puddles of water.
• In Chicago, it is against the law to eat in an establishment that is on fire.
• In Florida, a special law prohibits unmarried women from parachuting on Sunday or she shall risk arrest, fine, and/or jailing.
• In Florida, any form of sexual contact other than missionary position is a misdemeanor. (This one is still an active law at the time of this writing)

Granted, a lot of these laws have been repealed and are no longer valid, but it raises the question “How did these ‘laws’ ever get approved?”

I think I can explain. Take the making-faces-at-dogs law in Oklahoma. Some idiot probably decided that it would be a fun experience to taunt his neighbor’s rottweiler by making faces at it. The dog got pissed off, bit the hell out of him, and voila! It’s in the newspapers. It’s on TV. Animal control comes out and puts the dog down. Pretty soon we have animal rights activists out there protesting. Next thing you know, some idiot congressman writes up a new law preventing this from ever happening again. Problem solved, right? Well, let’s pretend that everyone in Oklahoma did get a fresh copy of the lil’ law book we talked about. We no longer have people making faces at dogs anywhere in the entire state of Oklahoma. A week later, some moron comes by and decides to yank on another dog’s tail. He gets malled. Dammit! Our new law didn’t cover that situation.

But rather then educate people — and I don’t mean college, but perhaps something more along the lines of common sense — our government chooses to write more and more laws in an effort to prevent future occurrences of the same situations from happening. Think about how senseless this is. How many times can you patch a tire before it finally bursts? The solution here is to teach people to not drive over broken glass.

Maybe one day we’ll have a leader in government that can come to terms with how ridiculous this whole process is and put forth an effort to change it for the better. Until then, should we consider creating a new law to ban stupid laws?

You know how you can tell whether or not you’re talking to an idiot? One way to know for sure is if they ask you nonsensical questions over and over again, taking baby steps to clarify what they actually need. Then, once you finally understand the nature of their inquiry, it has absolutely nothing to do with you at all and is probably something they could have easily figured out on their own with minimal effort.

People like this deserve the highest level of demeaning aggression available.  That’s right, they should all be fwapped.  No!  Not that definition, I mean #4:

To smack incessantly with a fish; the highest form of physical insultation;

Yeah, that’s the one. They all deserve to be smacked with a fish over and over again until they have scales and fish guts embedded in their skin, causing rotting, infectious diseases that eats them alive from the inside out.  Aw, who am I kidding?  A good fwap never hurt anyone…but it would be funny as hell.