By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-495583.mp3
Dallas, TX –
I once had a boss who was fond of saying, "Perception is fact". How many times I wanted to say, "Try telling that to the man on Jerry Springer who found out on his wedding night that his bride was a man!" But she was the CEO so I simply nodded. However, this made me think of the myriad maxims we say and hear that in fact leave ample room for debate.
Take for instance the one we have heard all our lives, that "a leopard can't change his spots". Meaning, according to Dr. Phil, that "the best indicator of future performance is past behavior". In other words, we can't change? Whatever happened to "Turn over a new leaf"?
If people could not markedly change, our president would still be tripping over empties with a long neck in his hand. Married with four children later, Warren Beatty wrapped four decades as a Rolodex Romeo.
Truth is, there's nothing more exciting than learning to reverse what we perceived to have been ingrained DNA behavior. My Aunt Blanche, even at 80, would explain that she was "shy". I asked her why she never overcame that. Such questions were alien to her. My feelings were, freckles are lifetime permanent, whereas shyness is a transitional condition. Trust me. One can learn to be fearless.
When people say, "Well, that's the way I was raised", I wince. There may be ongoing debate about the impact of heredity vs. environment, but no one discounts either. And the one thing that makes us human is our ability to make choices and make changes.
"Changing with the times" can connote someone who has "sold out" or describe one who mastered the art of reason. Late 70s, as National Endowment Poet-in-Residence in Alabama, I met the notorious segregationist Governor George Wallace. He told me that fighting integration was his biggest regret, proving that evolutionary theory is not restricted to amoebae and apes.
Watergate mastermind Chuck Colson and junk bond bombardier Michael Milken reinvented their post-prison personae. Others simply repackage themselves: Maven Martha Stewart or Madame Heidi Fleiss. We've lived to see Jimmy Carter convert Jane Fonda into an evangelical Christian. Who's to say Karl Rove might not someday become a Buddhist monk? The true American model is: Never become an aging version of your former self!
When President Bush boasted he knew Harriet Meier's heart, emoting "for a fact" that, "over 20 years, she" would "not change", I thought, "Is Harriet in a coma"? Are we supposed to admire any mind described as being closed? Who can be comfortable hearing such perverse "praise"; confusing wizened maturity with intransient rigidity? What keeps us young is open minded wiggle room.
It's nice that our leaders talk with God. I'm just concerned when Jimmy Carter and President Bush hear two different messages. Jesus isn't likely playing politics, but pious partisans envision a war of the world's religion in His name.
Funny, I always heard that's the way the OTHER side was raised!
Rawlins Gilliland is a writer from Dallas.
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