Page Text: Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Alright. Time to acknowledge a very important truth.
The truth is that no matter what is going on, you can either get busy living or get busy dying. That line came from Shawshank Redemption. I believe it was Morgan Freeman’s line.
I live in the United States of America.
Yes, I have the television on. Yes, I have been following world politics closely, including the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. I watched President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech the other night.
People around the world are busy living. It isn’t time to take a break from that. Living may mean pointing a gun at an enemy and pulling the trigger. Living may mean fleeing to another country with small children. Living may mean making donuts at a bakery. Living may mean volunteering to feed the hungry.
Today, for me, living means muting the television and working on my taxes.
It also means something else.
It means recognizing a simple truth.
The truth is that I learned in life to give up too easily.
I had given up too easily on the idea of helping people learn English.
People need that.
People want to learn a lot of different languages.
I still want to expand above my bilingual English/Spanish skill and embrace German and perhaps Mandarin Chinese.
It is time to get busy living.
I wasn’t trying to be an astronaut or a rock star.
Just help people learn English.
I do not have some fancy degree in education.
But my skills are excellent.
And many of the people I can help come from backgrounds and walks of life that involve overcoming unbelievable odds that I can only imagine.
I can be here for them.
I have begun to discover that I am here for a lot of people.
I thought for a long time that no one really needed me.
Mental illness will tell you that.
But language is important.
I want to help people tell their own story in their own words.
There is no way to get busy living quite like that.
For help with English, visit the following link:
Nate’s Notes en español
miércoles, 2 de marzo de 2022
Muy bien. Es hora de reconocer algo verdadero importante.
La verdad es que no importa lo que pase, tienes la opción de ocuparte en empezar a vivir la vida o de ocuparte en empezar a morirte. Eso se dijo en la película Shawshank Redemption. Fue algo dicho por Morgan Freeman si la memoria me sirve.
Vivo yo en los estados unidos.
Sí, tengo prendido el televisor. Sí, he estado estudiando muy de cerca los acontecimientos políticos mundiales, incluyendo la invasión de Ucrania por las fuerzas Rusos. Vi la oración del Presidente Biden del Estado de la Unión Americana.
La gente alrededor del mundo está ocupada viviendo la vida. No es hora de tomar un descanso de eso. El vivir actualmente puede querer decir apuntar un arma a otro ser humano y jalar el gato. El vivir puede involucrar huirse a otro país con niños pequeños. El vivir aún puede querer decir hacer rosquillas en una panadería. El vivir puede involucrar trabajar voluntariamente para darle de comer a los desamparados.
Hoy, para mí, el vivir es apagar la tele y ocuparme con los impuestos.
También quiere decir otra cosa.
Quiere decir reconocer una verdad simple.
La verdad es que aprendí en la vida el hábito de darme por vencido muy, pero que, muy fácilmente.
Había dejado muy fácilmente la meta de ayudar a aprender el inglés a la gente que lo necesitaba.
La gente lo necesita.
La gente quiere aprender muchos distintos idiomas.
Todavía quiero expandir mi destreza con los idiomas por abrazar el alemán o tal vez el mandarín.
Es hora de ocuparse en vivir la vida.
No estaba intentando convertirme en astronauta o estrella de música rock.
Simplemente quería ayudar a aprender el inglés a la gente.
No tengo ningún diploma famoso en estudios educativos.
Pero mis habilidades son excelentes.
Y muchas de las personas a quienes puedo ayudar han vivido a través de tiempos en los cuales han superado retos increíbles que no puedo ni imaginar.
Puedo estar presente para ellos.
He empezado a descubrir que estoy aquí para muchas personas.
Pensé por mucho tiempo que nadie de verdad me necesitaba.
Los trastornos mentales te engañan así.
Pero el estudio de la lengua es importante.
Quiero ayudar a la gente a contar sus historias en sus propias palabras.
No hay manera de vivir bien la vida como esa.
Para comunicarse con Natán para aprender inlés o para otras preguntas, favor de comuncarse aquí:
NathanHTutor@gmail.com
This Is NOT a World War…yet
by Nate Hyatt
This is a world conflict. Don’t call it World War 3. I certainly do not want to. Article 5 has not yet been invoked. YET. Calling it World War 3 smacks of hyperbole and does not help anything. It only causes excitability and makes tempers flare. It’s movie-script, Hollywood, video game talk. Let historians figure that out.
The important thing is not whether or not to call it World War 3. That does not help mothers and children onto trains. That does not bandage wounds. That does not help troops on either side who are trying to surrender to have the insurance that war crimes are not committed against them. Calling it World War 3 does not calm fears of a nuclear strike.
We are currently trying to find the balance between Pollyanna optimism and sober reality.
But this is a world conflict.
Germany has broken post-World War 2 tradition and committed military hardware to cross a border with another country to be used in an armed conflict ongoing.
Switzerland has chosen to break its tradition of neutrality and non-involvement for the first time historically, taking financial action to sanction Russia.
Belarus is committing to the conflict and actively joining Russia against Ukraine, stepping up rhetoric and going all-in.
Neutrality is not popular right now.
Non-involvement and avoidance of taking sides is an option of decreasing attraction.
The West is praying and hoping for the best.
The President of the United States is promising to keep our troops out of harm’s way. I personally believe he will stay out of this militarily until he is forced to do otherwise.
We are used to hearing about the ineffectiveness of sanctions and how that they do not affect the right people historically speaking.
But these are the most severe and hard-hitting sanctions that have been levied in a long time.
Some oligarchs are asking for Putin to change course.
This is an opinion piece as part of my blog. Like my take or don’t.
I believe that the thing to focus on right now is the resolve of the Ukrainian people.
So much of the world shares their resolve.
The answer is not peace at any cost.
But the question is:
What price war?
Is Vladimir Putin going to be allowed to sit back comfortably in a far-away command center and be able to wage war against civilians and children with impunity?
I say that the greater the global involvement now while measures can be taken thoughtfully and deliberately the better.
Let us not wait until it is time to panic and swing wildly.
Let us stop this madness and stop this madman by responding to his senseless insanity with firm, sensible boundaries and let us not play games.
He is playing games.
He has been rightfully compared to the abusive lover who will not leave his former partner alone.
He is using all of the tactics that worked in the past.
This time, we are pressing charges.
It is painful to watch war unfold on television or in one’s back yard or in one’s own home.
There can be no complete justice for that which is already lost.
Vladimir Putin has miscalculated.
The world must press the advantage before he plays his trump cards. Make no mistake. He has them.
When and where he plays them will determine whether or not this is, indeed the beginning of the war we would rather not name.
Reach Nate Hyatt here: ConsAndNons@gmail.com
Do Not Trust Your Cousin
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Years ago, back in the 80’s, Dennis Miller on Saturday Night Live would say, “It’s the weekend and what can I tell ya…?”
Well, it’s Sunday and what can I tell you?
I can tell you a thing or two about something that worried me and my friends and family back in the 80’s on a regular basis when we weren’t jamming out to Michael Jackson’s music and moonwalking or watching Michael J. Fox’ acting and dreaming of time machines that would take us back to the still-popular 1950’s.
I can tell you about a world where the threat that Russia poses to Democracy is not just potential, but kinetic.
What can you tell me?
You can tell me about Ukrainians who, when threatened and attacked and invaded do not reach for a beer to drink it.
Perhaps they drink it.
But then they make a Molotov cocktail.
A petrol bomb as the British call it.
A crude device meant to help them not just go down swinging, but to make war hell for the Russians as more help and sanctions arrive.
They also reach for guns, which still, sadly seem to serve a purpose of some kind in this world.
Thank God I do not have to reach for a gun.
My privilege may continue in such a way that I do not ever have to consider reaching for a gun or accept one that is handed to me.
I would rather be a medic, applying bandages.
But my true calling is most likely in journalism, even if I am still just starting out.
But this war has not come to our shores.
It is early and I pray it does not.
But the Ukrainians.
They are fighting like cornered wolverines.
There is talk of negotiation.
There is doubt that Putin can be trusted at the negotiating table.
He cannot.
It was once said by Suzanne Massie to Ronald Reagan to “Trust but verify.”
How can there be trust?
How can there be verification?
How can the Ukrainians be expected to accept anything other than the unconditional expulsion of Russian troops from their homeland?
Ukrainian males between the ages of 18 and 60 have been told not to leave the country.
They have been handed Molotov cocktails and guns.
Fathers, grandfathers and grandsons.
That should send a chill up every spine.
There is something less “foreign” about this war.
There is something less “over there” about this war.
I think it is a small world after all.
I think Zoom meetings with Australians and TikTok livestreams with people in Turkey have taught us that.
I think that what I really want to say is that we hopefully all understand that we are all part of a human family on this small planet.
And our neighbors are shooting at each other.
Again.
And we should not get used to it.
And we should not accept it.
We should act like a family, goddammit.
Unfortunately, we are and that’s what hurts.
Do not trust cousin Vladimir Putin.
He is underhanded and unpredictable.
If you would like to contact Nate Hyatt you may reach him at ConsAndNons@gmail.com
Twitter/Instagram/Facebook/TikTok/YouTube: @ConsAndNons
by Nate Hyatt
Friday, February 25, 2022
I never really thought of keeping up with a blog as something that might feel like a responsibility. It just seemed like a way to pass the time and so I neglected it. There were other ways to pass the time.
Pick up the guitar.
Listen to music on streaming.
Watch a movie on streaming.
Help Mom cook.
Take a walk.
But it is quickly becoming abundantly clear to me that I need to start writing again.
I have a voice and I need to use it.
I love doing comic strips a lot. A LOT. It has gotten quicker and easier since I have started using a computer, even though I don’t know how to make great digital art like other digital artists.
The comics are not going away.
I have expanded my offerings with something called “Cheese Messages” (a name my marketing guru friend flatly told me sounded like a Wisconsin dairy organization or farm newsletter). Cheese messages has, ironically enough, helped me realize that I have concentrated too much lately on two things:
Trying to beat the dead horse of becoming a Spanish tutor, when that is not my calling, no matter how authentic my accent or how full my fluency.
Drawing and writing funny things.
Cheese Messages was created as an alternative comic to “Conscience And Nonsense” that I could use elsewhere for purposes unrelated to a little devil, a little angel and a mentally ill man who is perpetually 27.
I figured out that I need to use my talents and my platform to keep suing for change publicly.
If the citizens of Moscow can risk being loaded into vans by Russian police not sworn to uphold a Constitution featuring civil rights including freedom of speech, then I can certainly use my voice to join the chorus.
Do not get me wrong. Humor is not going anywhere. Funny silliness and making faces, be they real, 2 dimensional, 3D or the kind you have to wear virtual reality goggles to see, make the world go around.
But the world, as you can see and hear for yourself, is doing something that we have been frankly worried about since 1948.
The bear is biting someone.
It is doing like a poorly-raised pit bull and it is biting hard and shaking.
A democratic country.
An ally of ours.
Unprovoked.
As I write this, we are being informed that Russia has vetoed a U.N. resolution censuring its own invasion of Ukraine. The United Nations is in a defensive condition they have never invoked before. NATO has activated its Response Force for the first time in history.
I am not going to litigate things here that you can easily source somewhere else.
Based on what I do here, it is not lost on me that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was once a standup comedian.
No matter what life calls on us to do, we have to summon courage. It may be getting up in front of a crowd and telling dirty jokes to drunks.
Or it may be telling your country’s men not to leave Ukraine if they are between 18 and 60 years of age.
It may be handing out thousands of firearms to men you know will die, be captured or secure their nation’s freedom by killing their more heavily-armed neighbors.
Those periods of peace and prosperity that make us feel that happy days are finally here were made to be ripped away.
Unnecessarily and pointlessly. By evil people with sick motives.
I am 46 years old.
I have seen life played out on television for people to look at and shake their heads and say “Wow. What a shame!” ever since my earliest memory of wall-to-wall TV coverage of a tragedy when Elvis Presley died. I was 2 years old.
Today there are children that young and a little older who simply cannot understand until perhaps years later and perhaps never.
I do not believe I will ever understand what is going on right now.
But as a mental-health advocate, it is my job to cope in a healthy manner and encourage others to do the same.
I HAVE to take a break from the TV.
I have to groom and eat and speak with family.
Yes, I have to draw comics and post on social media.
And now, more than ever, I have to write.
Not everything I write will be meant to post here for people to see.
But I have seen in myself the temptation to become overwhelmed, depressed, excitable, anxious, etc.
I do not want to trigger you, but you can expand your own list if that is a healthy self-assessment exercise for you right now.
I am not a mental-health professional.
Take everything I say and write with a grain of salt.
I am a wannabe cartoonist, journalist, psychologist, whatever.
But I am here.
And I want ConscienceAndNonsense.com to be a safe place where we care for each other and don’t have to worry about being bullied the way we do in so much of the world.
I do not mean to ramble here, but the bullying on social media is a topic I could easily engage in an entire series of researched writing.
Published along with this blog post on a separate place in the magazine, you will see an opinion piece by our friend, Selys Rivera, which reveals her deep insight into personal responsibility as it relates to religious belief during a pandemic. I invite you to read it in its entirety.
My promise to you, at the risk of not being able to keep it due to acts of God or loss of my personal sanity, is that I will be here. We will be here. We will be here to create, produce and curate content explicitly for the Advocacy Community.
If you have any original writing you would like for us to consider publishing on this website, please contact us at:
In the meantime, please practice self-care, validate your feelings even if you cannot validate your thoughts, try to stay rational and do something for someone you care about.
-Sincerely,
Nate Hyatt, editor and creator, ConscienceAndNonsense.com
Tocar la Guitarra
Por Nathan Hyatt
(English translation to follow.)
Me encanta el tocar la guitarra. No la toco para el público, pero tal vez algún día pueda hacerlo. Voy aprendiendo. Hace años, cuando era todavía un varón, la tocaba, por supuesto, con la idea de ser famoso algún día. Intentaba aprender “los temas clásicos”. Estos eran, y todavía son, las canciones de AC/DC y Led Zeppelin. Pasé mucho tiempo en mi recámara practicando las introducciones de los temas y enloqueciendo al resto de mi familia y probablemente a muchos del vecindario.
Años han pasado y había dejado la práctica de la música por mucho tiempo. Pero un antiguo amigo me había dado su guitarra, y todavía la tengo.
Y la toco. Y es uno de los regalos preferidos que he recibido en la vida. Acabo de ponerle cuerdas nuevas. Fue una aventura lograr afinarlas.
Pasé mucho, pero que muchísimo tiempo en la obra.
Pero al final, llegué a tener aquel sonido que tanto me encantaba durante los primeros años de los noventa. La música que escuchaba en la secundaria. Tengo ya el sonido de rock ‘n’ roll en una guitarra acústica. Puedo tocar partes de canciones como “Hells Bells” y “Heartbreaker”.
La clave es en las cuerdas.
He tenido solo una guitarra eléctrica en la vida. La compré por $700 y la tenía cuando vivía en un remolque en un parque lleno de crimen y drogas. Sabia bien que alguien iba a llevársela, así que la vendí barato para recibir algo por ella antes de que otra persona pudiera quebrar y entrar y llevar mi guitarra eléctrica.
Al fin y al cabo, sí que alguien entró y varias cosas desaparecieron mientras no estábamos. Pero había recibido $100 por mi guitarra.
Intenté comprarla por más dinero de la persona a quien le había vendido tan barato, pero ya la había vendido por una ganancia conveniente.
No fue un malgasto total.
Pero todavía duele.
Hay algo en una guitarra o, de verdad, en cualquier instrumento musical. Hay una historia que no puede contarse con certeza. Hay varias personas y fantasmas quienes saben la verdad. Pero solamente la guitarra o el piano o lo que sea sabe la historia verdadera. La historia completa.
Y no está hablando.
Solamente cantando.
Y canta la verdad.
Y ahora tengo que volver a la historia que estaba contando yo. Así somos los músicos.
Le puse las cuerdas indicadas a la guitarra que tengo hoy en día.
Pero tener las cuerdas indicadas no sirve para nada si no sabes tocar. Empecé a practicar de nuevo hace como alrededor de año y medio. Estoy enfocándome en las técnicas y cosas fundamentales que son importantes para aprender a tocar bien.
Y probablemente estoy enloqueciendo al vecindario y a mi familia. Intentando tocar música rock sin guitarra eléctrica, batería, ni destreza, ni talento.
Pero algo ha cambiado.
Estoy enfocando en aprender de las bellas partes de la música simple. Estoy permitiendo que el instrumento haga la tarea y que yo lo vaya entiendo mejor como parte funcional de ello y no al revés. No soy el dueño mandón instando en que mi guitarra funcione como me gustara.
La voy descubriendo.
La quiero como fiel amiga.
La veo como algo que me ayuda a desarrollar la paciencia.
Me ayuda a crear algo bello.
Me enseña a meditar y aún a orar.
Orar que no enloqueciera a los demás mientras trabajo no solo en mejorar mi habilidad de tocar, sino en mi habilidad de considerar la hermosura y belleza en lo simple.
Actualmente no toco la guitarra pensando en mí mismo como héroe de guitarra rico y famoso en la farándula animando a todo el mundo con mis manos furiosas.
La toco como hombre simple quien sabe disfrutar de un regalo bonito.
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Playing the Guitar
By Nathan Hyatt
I love to play the guitar. I don’t play it in public, but one day, maybe I might. I am learning. Years ago, when I was still a teenager, I played it, of course, with the idea of being famous one day. I tried to learn the “All-Time Classics”. These were, and still are, songs by AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. I spent a lot of time in my bedroom practicing the intros of the songs and driving the rest of my family and the neighborhood crazy.
Years have passed and I had stopped practicing music for a long time. But an old friend gave me his guitar and I still have it.
And I play it. And it is one of my favorite gifts that I have ever been given in my life. I just put new strings on it. It was an adventure getting it in tune.
I spent a lot, but let me tell you, a lot of time on that.
But I finally, finally got that sound that I loved so much during the early nineties. The music I listened to in high school. I got that rock ‘n’ roll sound on an acoustic guitar. I can play parts of songs like “Hells Bells” and “Heartbreaker”.
The key is in the strings.
I have only owned one electric guitar in life. I bought it for $700 and I had it while I lived in a travel-trailer in a park full of crime and drugs. I knew someone was going to steal it, so I sold it cheap to at least get something out of it before someone else could break and enter and take my electric guitar.
Before all was said and done, someone did break and enter and a number of things disappeared while we were gone. But at least I got $100 for my guitar.
I tried to buy it back for a tidy profit for the person I sold it to, but he had already flipped it to someone else.
It was not a total loss.
But it still hurts.
There is something about a guitar, or truly, about any musical instrument. There is a history that cannot be told truthfully and completely. There are various persons and ghosts that know the truth. But only the guitar or the piano or what have you knows the true story. The complete history.
And it is not talking.
Only singing.
And it sings the truth.
And now I have to return to the story I was telling. That is how we musicians are.
I put new strings on the guitar I have now.
But the right strings do not do any good if you don’t know how to play. I began practicing again about a year and a half ago. I am concentrating on technique and the fundamental things that are so important for learning to play well.
And I am probably driving the neighborhood and my family crazy again. Trying to play rock ‘n’ roll music without an electric guitar, a drummer or skill or talent.
But something has changed.
I am focusing on learning about the simple and beautiful parts of music. I am letting the instrument do the work and I am understanding myself better as a functional part of it and not the other way around. I am not some sort of boss insisting that my guitar function the way I want.
I am discovering her.
I love her like a friend.
I see her as someone who helps me develop patience.
Helps me create something beautiful.
Teaches me to meditate and to pray.
Pray that I am not driving everyone else too crazy working not only on my ability to play, but on my ability to think on things lovely, beautiful and simple.
Today I do not play picturing myself as some sort of rich and famous guitar hero on stage amping up the whole world with my fast hands.
I play as a simple man who knows how to enjoy a beautiful gift.
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Perfectionism and Learning Language
by Nathan Hyatt
(Spanish translation to follow)
It was the late 90s when I decided I wanted to learn Spanish. I was at a theme-park in Tampa, Florida and someone from Argentina noticed my tee-shirt and introduced herself. I wanted badly to say something in Spanish, but stage-fright took over and she politely told me to enjoy the rest of my day in English.
I blew an opportunity to make a new friend, communicate and enjoy a real human interaction with a person visiting my country from another hemisphere. Not because of my fumbling around with a foreign language, but because of my unwillingness to let go of control of a situation that should be and was new and exciting and full of fun possibility.
I like to tell that story because that is the day that I decided I was going to learn fluent Spanish as I long-since have. But I also tell that story now because I have finally made the choice to take on a third language. I have once again begun learning German.
I hope to practice with my nephew, Liam, who has chosen to pursue this beautiful and useful language. Engineers, philosophers, psychologists and European businesspeople highly recommend investing the time and money to become conversational as an important beginning. German teachers can be very playful, joking that they are not going to give you the answers and even coming up with verbal pranks to help reinforce the concepts that are important for grammar and practice.
So, my perfectionism will no more serve me now than it did back in the 1990s.
When one learns a new language, they have to overcome the desire to clam up and shy away. They have to overcome what are called in Spanish “el pavor” and “el miedo”.
Dread and fear.
Whatever it is you are using to beat yourself up, put it down.
Do not put yourself down.
A brand-new language is a whole world of exciting experiences and possibilities from career to self-discovery and personal achievement. It means taking those scary risks of being misunderstood. It means opening one’s mouth to speak and having it immediately go dry. It means being misunderstood and being the object of (usually lighthearted and harmless) derision and laughter.
Learning a language is rewarding for so many reasons. Not only the opportunity to prepare to travel to other countries and make better money, but the ability to forge new connections and to see that look in someone’s eye when you are truly understood and appreciated.
Human interaction. Human warmth. Human growth.
My favorite thing about learning a language and being bilingual (and now beginning the journey to become a polyglot) is not any of these things I have talked about. It is not any of the things that I had associated with learning a language to the point of mastery back when I was in high school and college. At that point, I could not seem to escape the mindset that I would only learn a language so that I could go on to teach it to make a living.
No. My favorite thing about learning a language and studying and practicing on a daily basis is that I am quite certain that it has helped cure my depression.
That is a very personal note here, and one that I do not make lightly. But I wanted to share that when I took over responsibility for my success as someone who spoke, understood, read and could write in any language besides English, it seemed to give me a go-to activity that just pulled me out of a funk, no matter how big.
Even at times when all I could do was lie down and listen to “la radio” or “la tele”.
And I never had to be an advanced student in order for the approach to work. I just knew that I was taking some kind of action, however passive it might be, to work on myself and that there was something in that. There was victory in that.
Cumplí para mí mismo la promesa que hice aquel día. Aprendí un nuevo idioma. Y eso ha cambiado mi vida. Tú puedes también.
(I kept the promise I made myself that day. I learned a new language. And that has changed my life. You can do it too.)
You may contact Nathan Hyatt here: NateZenHyatt@natezenhyatt
Twitter: @ConAndNon
El perfeccionismo y el Aprender Nuevo Idioma.
por Nathan Hyatt
(Traducido de inglés al español por el autor.)
Eran los noventa cuando decidí que quería aprender el español. Estaba yo en un parque de diversiones en Tampa, Florida y alguien de Argentina señaló mi camiseta e hizo una introducción porque quería hablar conmigo. Quería pensar en algo para decir en español y me daba vergüenza el hecho de que no pude. El pavor se apoderó de mí y ella se despidió y se fue, diciendo algo acerca de su deseo que disfrutara yo de lo que quedaba de mi día.
Malgasté una oportunidad para hacer amistad, comunicar y disfrutar de una verdadera interacción con alguien que visitaba a mi país de otro hemisferio. No simplemente por lidiar con mis habilidades con lengua ajena, sino por mi deshabilidad de soltar el control y permitirme a mi mismo a equivocarme en una situación nueva, llena de posibilidades y posibles diversiones.
Me gusta contar esa historia porque aquel día era el en el cual decidí que iba a aprender el español, lo cual he hecho hace años. Pero, decidí contar esa historia hoy día porque finalmente decidí empezar a aprender tercer idioma: el alemán. Estoy estudiando el alemán de nuevo después de un descanso de varios años.
Espero practicar con mi sobrino, Liam, quien ha elegido perseguir aprender este idioma bonito y útil. Ingenieros, filósofos, psicólogos y negociantes europeos recomiendan invertir el tiempo y dinero para aprender a usar de forma conversacional esta lengua para empezar. Los maestros de alemán son juguetones haciendo bromas y diciendo que no te van a dar las respuestas correctas cuando las necesitas y aun pensando en trucos verbales para reforzar los conceptos del idioma, que son importantes para la gramática y práctica.
Así que el perfeccionismo no sirve para nada, ni en los noventa, ni hoy en la actualidad.
Cuando alguien aprende nuevo idioma, tiene la persona que superar la tentación de dejarse apoderar por el pavor y el miedo. “Dread” y “fear” como se llaman en inglés.
El pavor y el miedo.
Cualquiera que sea la razón por la cual te juzgues al intentar aprender idioma ajeno, déjala.
No te castigues.
Un nuevo idioma es un mundo nuevo de experiencias excitantes y posibilidades que van desde tu carrera hasta el autodescubrimiento y cumplimiento personal. Quiere decir tomar esos riesgos espantosos de ser malentendido/a. Quiere decir el abrir la boca y darte cuenta que se te ha secado ella. Quiere decir experimentar ocasiones en las cuales alguien no entiende bien y resultas ser el objeto de risa y burla. (Usualmente la risa no es tan cruel como parezca.)
El aprender nuevo idioma es gratificante y sirve por tantas razones. No solo ofrece la oportunidad de prepararse para irse a país ajeno y ganarse más dinero, sino también la habilidad de formar nuevas amistades y ver los ojos de otra persona cuando se entiende que hay verdadero conexión y apreciación.
La interacción humana. La calidez humana. El crecimiento humano.
Mi cosa favorita de aprender otra lengua y ser bilingüe (y ahora el empezar la jornada a llegar a ser polígloto) no es ninguna de las cosas las cuales he mencionado. No se trata de nada que pensaba cuando era estudiante en la secundaria ni en la universidad. En aquel entonces no podía quitarme de la cabeza la idea de aprender solamente para enseñar a otra persona para ganarme la vida como maestro.
No. Mi cosa preferida de aprender a usar lenguaje ajeno y el estudiar y practicar diariamente es que estoy convencido que me ha curado la depresión.
Eso es algo bien personal para mencionar aquí, y no algo que tome a la ligera. Pero necesito compartir que cuando tomé responsabilidad para mi propio crecimiento como persona bilingüe, pareció darme una actividad que podía usar para sacarme de la depresión, no importaba cuan profundo que fuera.
Aun en ocasiones cuando todo lo que podía era yacerme y escuchar “the radio” o ver “the television”.
Y no era necesario que fuera estudiante avanzado para que funcionara el método. Solo sabía que tomaba acción tan pasiva como fuera para hacer algo para mi mismo y mi bienestar y salud. Para mí, fue una victoria.
I kept the promise I made myself that day. I learned a new language. And that has changed my life. You can too.
Cumplí para mí mismo la promesa que hice aquel día. Aprendí un nuevo idioma. Y eso ha cambiado mi vida. Tú puedes también.
Puede Ud. comunicarse con Nathan Hyatt aquí: NateZenHyatt@natezenhyatt
Twitter: @ConAndNon
Stop Bullying the Mentally Ill, Diagnosed and Disabled
Monday, September 27, 2021
Bullying is going on in 2021 and it has not slowed down and it looks like it is not going to stop any time soon.
The bravest victims are the ones who are targeted the most. They seem to me to be those who are like myself: mentally ill and with a diagnosis and disabled.
Other disabled individuals are being targeted as well.
I am not going to go into specifics and identities here because I want to avoid aggravating the problem for innocent victims of bullying who have their plates rather full right now.
A big part of the problem is a source you might not expect.
You see, bullies are not just trolls leaving rude comments on the pages of underage trans users of Big Social Media outlets like TikTok and Instagram.
The bullies are the social media giants themselves.
Pages are constantly and mercilessly “under review” or “banned for not meeting community standards.” Differently-abled users wind up in hot water for not following the user agreement.
Whose standards?
Whose agreement written by whose attorneys?
All so the user’s data can be mined and sold.
In return for free content created by the user as long as it meets those “standards.”
Wow. What a deal. Sign me up. Sounds like work though. I hope I can still collect disability. Is there health insurance offered? I mean, you do already know all about my health profile based on all the data you mined from my phone, right?
Multi-billion-dollar corporations backed by the full faith and credit of nations such as the United States and China are crushing teenage trans patients with Tourette syndrome.
Yes. Yes, that is happening.
It is happening and I am deeply disturbed by it.
A young person who cannot stop themselves (pronouns: they/them) from whistling and clicking their tongue in the roof of their mouth and giving the camera the double middle finger and saying “fuck off” is being bullied for it.
What’s that?
They shouldn’t be putting those videos up?
We don’t need to see or hear that?
Says who?
Says the person who thinks they have it all under control and that life will go smoothly for everyone if only they do the right thing and worship the right God.
Says the person without a diagnosis of a severe mental illness who doesn’t struggle to find acceptance or normalcy?
Says the person who has no suicide attempts?
Yeah. I went there.
We mentally ill deal with that all the time.
We are complicated people and they have been trying to throw us into a glorified closet ever since we had closets.
They have been trying to hide us away where no one can see us for thousands of years.
They have been trying to lock us up and shut us up and seal us safely away from everyone else for a long, long time.
For our own good or for society’s or somebody’s.
I do not know if mental illness and disability are the last frontier in civil rights.
I do know that trans lives matter and gay lives matter and black lives matter and BIPOC lives matter and that my life matters too.
I am mentally ill and diagnosed with a disability and I am medicated and I am not normal and I have rights and I deserve and need consideration.
We have a Bill of Rights in the United States of America.
The First Amendment guarantees us the right to speak freely and to express ourselves.
The Second Amendment basically says that we can grab a gun and shoot the people who threaten that first right, since it happens to be extremely important.
I see memes all the time that remind me that millions of proud American gun-owners reserve the right to shoot people who want to violate their right to do whatever they feel at basically any given time for any given reason.
I have also seen NRA commercials on television and I think the message is pretty clear.
Mentally ill people are not allowed to own guns in the United States of America.
I guess we need someone else to defend us.
That needs to be you.
And if you don’t feel like defending your mentally ill countrymen, women, non-binary and trans he/she/they/them from bullies who would violate their civil rights, well, then…
WOOT WOOT CLICK BOOP FUCK OFF!
And no. We can’t help it.
p.s. Please don’t shoot anyone. I am trying to make a point.
-Nathan Hyatt
if you want to communicate with Nathan, you may write him here: ConAndNon@gmail.com
Not Worried About What to Write About
by Nathan Hyatt
I really don’t have to worry about what to write about. I used to. I used to think really hard about everything. But for some reason, over time, I began to just do and just think about whatever came into my mind that I was comfortable thinking about. If I began to have an unwelcome thought, I simply greeted it and understood that it was there for a reason. If it wasn’t helpful, I just chose to be thankful that my thoughts did not and do not have to rule me in a negative way today.
Everything in God’s time. It really is better not having to worry. I cannot possibly think about all of the things I ever worried about. I do know that worrying about them did not prepare me for life or help me go about my day.
I had to stop worrying. I had to start acting in Faith that God had me in the palm of Her hand. I had to start believing that things really had been okay all along.
I was the one who had chosen not to be okay. I was the one who had chosen to suffer. I had decided that life was not good enough. I was the one who had decided that the phone was ringing too many times and that I could not stand it. I was the one who had decided that other people were too mean and too cruel. I was the one who had decided that I just had to HAD TO drink and use drugs.
I was the one who had chosen to live in pain and always wish things could be different.
But things could be different. Things could have been different because I could be different.
My attitude could be different.
I could love myself and other people and let God help me to understand that I am an eternal being in a world with other eternal beings who are made of light and love.
But I forget. We forget.
I forget and I get caught up in worldly clamors. I get caught up in notions of fairness and unfairness. I lose myself in life in a bad way. I lose my connection with the God of my understanding.
But I can lose myself in a good way today.
I can lose myself and die to myself so that I might find myself. To die to worldly clamors and to the flesh and to come alive to the Truth and Enlightenment offered by the Buddha and the Christ and to understand that suffering is optional is the choice that I make today. (John 12:24-26)
And I do not have to be dramatic about it.
I just get to get up and go about my day knowing that God loves me, that other people love me and that I love myself.
Yay.
I know I have not said much, but the Truth as I have it in my heart is enough today.
-Nathan Hyatt.