kyyote

We See What We Choose To See

Have you ever seen the picture that asks you which you see first, the ugly old woman or the beautiful young lady? The reactions are varied, of course. Some see both, some see the ugly old woman and not the other while others see only the beautiful young lady and not the old woman, and there are those who see neither. I guess there would be the group that saw others things like in an ink blot test and then there could be those who saw it as impressionistic art. In a way this is my point. Looking at the same thing people can see a lot of different things. When people see those things in different ways they think differently about them. They feel differently about them! And, most important of all, they work back and forth on each other. If you see things that make you feel good you see good in the things you see, and if you see things that make you feel bad you see more bad in the things you see. If I show you the picture for the first time you have ever seen it and tell you to look for the Ugly Old Woman I can guide what you see, think, feel, and do. If I show you ten different pictures and guide you to see things one way, you will begin to look at pictures in a different way.

When I first moved to El Paso, having grown up in the Bay Area of California, I saw the surrounding landscape to be desolate and barren. There was an abundance of brown where there should be green. It was like the heat that came with it, something to be endured. It wasn’t until I began spending countless hours sitting silently out in it that I slowly changed my thinking, my feeling, and how I saw this beautiful desert. It is rugged. Part of its beauty is in it ruggedness. Not a lot of fancy frills or make up here. It doesn’t need it, it will tell you, if you listen. You learn that she dares you. She makes it clear that you probably aren’t tough enough for her. You grew up with Kim and here is Rhonda checking your ass out! She knows she can kick yours and you know it too. That is a whole different kind of woman. Kim was Kim, but Rhonda sits right up in the front seat, too. Things can change. Things can change you and you can change things. And you can change you. You can change yourself and you can be changed. Let me change that to You will change yourself and you will be changed as change is the one constant in life.

So, let’s move to a more down to Earth part of this. In every aspect of your life you are presented with a three dimensional video instead of the picture of the ladies. But, the same rules apply. You see what you see and what you see can be seen differently by others, and what is seen by you and others can be changed. Remember that what you see affects the way you look at things, feel about things, everything. And vice versa. If you chose to look for the ugly you will find it everywhere. Look for beauty. After you have found it, look for the ugly to get a balanced view, but look for beauty as your default position. Look for good. They are both there but seeing the good will help take away the energy of the bad. They are there in equal amounts, but the choice is yours to make on which one you look for first. You see, it doesn’t diminish your ability to examine closely when needed. What is does do is allow you to see, think, feel, and be positive, good, seeing beauty when you aren’t having to do critical examination. That beats the Hell out of the opposite, seeing, thinking, feeling and being negative, bad, and seeing ugly as your default way of living.

Beware of guides who want badly to have you join them in their search for ugly. Misery loves company. I am as serious as a heart attack about this one. Guides will ruin you if you let them. And the thing is, they are in a world of ugly so the way they see things allows them a lot of latitude when it comes to providing guidance. They are needy. That is a side affect of that life. Misery needs company.

So, if you are looking for the beauty, help others if they need guidance. If they are seeing nothing start them off with looking for beauty. If they see ugly as their default position you have to ask yourself if they want to change. If they do, and just need help it is one thing. If they want to drag you into the abyss that is another.

I have a plan. It is a very simple plan and easy to follow and teach others. It is what I used on a few occasions when I taught school and as the Foreman of a production plant. It starts at the beginning. Make the choice to start with the good. That is not where you stop, but it is where you start. Do the best you can with the understanding that some times you best will be better than at other times. Now, I always needed a plan for them to follow. Boxes that could be checked off, signifying accomplishment. It always started off incredibly easy. We set goals that couldn’t be not achieved. Because in order to build a foundation for success it has to be built on and with success. I found that once a person is on the right track and has a little momentum built up, they continue to stay on track, want to stay on track, resist going off track and can be a mighty example for others to follow who need it and can relate. In this case, we start with looking for beauty for the day. You can not fail this! You can only do the best you can, today. If you have to shorten the time to be successful, do it. When you are sure you can lengthen the time, do it. Start counting and setting records. If you go eight days without having an ugly day. Get back on track and start a new run at the record. Do the best you can. You can not fail! YOU CAN NOT FAIL AT THIS IF YOU TRY AND STICK TO THE PLAN! The absolute worst that can happen is that you can avoid being in the ugly world perhaps not a long enough amount of time.

I don’t expect this to cure the world. But, if it changes one person from being a miserable human being seeing ugly and bad into a happy person who sees beauty and good I have accomplished wish to not only see it but help others if they can’t. Most people don’t need this, but this is to tell them that they too can influence others. Go see, and look for good. Be an example. Be the light. See the good, be the good and if needed help someone else to see the good.

More Grist For the Mill

As a public service, I am posting some of the information I find regarding UTEP Miners football and the Preseason Prediction Challenge (read more here) http://www.kyyotesden.com/preseaon-prediction-challenge-championship/ and enter here http://kyyotesden.com/den/index.php?topic=5.0 to better prepare you for the Challenge. We have talked before about lies, damned lies, and statistics so each of us can use the information as they see fit.

This time I looked at offense. In particular, I looked at three areas, total offense, passing offense and scoring offense all over the past 4 seasons. Some of you will immediately notice the missing rushing offense. So, let me tell you why I chose the areas I did. Total offense tells me how steady Kugler’s offense has been overall. The scoring offense is where the rubber meets the road. The passing offense will tell me if the passing has changed much as I believe the passing offense is a key factor. It tells me the rushing offense at the same time, but I already know Kugler is going to run on every down he can.

Let’s start with total offense. The Miners have been amazingly consistent in this area over he past 4 years. In the 2013-14 season the Miners averaged 347.9 yards a game, ranking them 103rd in the nation. The next two seasons saw the team ranked 105 and 107 giving up 350.7 and 342.3 respectively. Last year UTEP battled back up to the 102nd ranked spot. But, as we saw when looking at the defensive side in my prior analysis, it isn’t how many yards that determines wins and losses.

The passing offense is a bit of a mixed bag once you get past the fact that it is ranked very much toward the low end of yards per game average and yards per pass. This is no surprise to Miners fans familiar with Kuglers offensive philosophy. In the 13-14 season UTEP was ranked 110. The next year it changed to 118. The 2015-16 season saw it change somewhat dramatically to 94th ranked, 24 point difference. The 2016-17 season saw the team return to the triple digits with a ranking of 103. Now, I want to point out that this area also has little to do win wins and losses. A team could certainly win every game without ever completing a forward pass-in theory.

So, here comes what I said is where the rubber meets the road. It doesn’t determine wins and losses, either, but it may get a little closer. I have to say that scoring offense is where we might get some clues. The 2013 campaign ranked the Miners scoring offense at 101., scoring 21.8 points a game. The next season it moved to 81 scoring 26.6 points per game. The 2015=16 season saw it move right back the other way to a 112th ranking, scoring 20.7 points per game. The, last season it was back 82nd rank, scoring 26.3 points a game. Keep in mind that when you look at wins and losses, this doesn’t guarantee anything. What it does tell me is that during the past four seasons the scoring offense is perhaps the most subject to change. For what it is worth.

So, there you have just a touch more information to help you as you think about the upcoming football season.

Emerald Cut Apache Tear Ring

Emerald cut Apache Tear collected in El Paso set into a brushed Sterling silver ring. Size 10 $60

This is cut from an Apache Tear collected here in El Paso, Texas by my son Brian. An Apache Tear is lava glass, obsidian that didn’t flow. It blew up into the air in splatters the formed somewhat rounded droplets that cooled in the air before returning to the Earth. So, this ring reflects on part of El Paso’s rich geologic history. It was cut be me in an Emerald cut. I have mounted it a bit high in order to allow light to pass through it. The ring is a size 10 and made of Sterling silver. $60

Freedom

Freedom has always been kind of a point of emphasis for me. I mean that as a kid I was given lots of freedom but I never felt like I had as much as I should have had. I am very hard headed and stubborn. So, I always wanted to do what I wanted to do. I liked that way. If I was right, I was rewarded and if I was wrong I understood that there could be negative consequences. That was a perfectly reasonable deal I felt. Of course, my parents did what they could to mitigate the negative consequences of my way of doing things. Now, when the problem is wanting to do things my way, my parents were in a double bind. Do nothing and I was free to do as I pleased or try to control me and restrict my freedom which went against the grain for me. I guess you could say I wasn’t into being guided. I tell you this to try and give you an idea of the depth of my passion about freedom. Let me do what I want to do. Mind your own business unless what I am doing is in a way your business. If what I am doing is violating your freedom, please let me know because I damned sure respect your right not to be bothered by me, and vice versa. So, I start there. I should be free to do what I want to do as long as the exercise of that freedom runs into someone else’s freedom.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to live your life. The way you see fit. That’s where that Liberty comes in. That’s the part where you get to chose how you live your life. That is just the basis idea, but in the case of government it has a special meaning. Living out in the woods you may not have to worry too much about the government part of the meaning, but if you live in a society, a collective group of people all of whom have agreed to give up some freedoms in exchange for other considerations societal living provides. Different societies have different needs and different restrictions of freedoms are very much a part of that.

Late Eighteenth Century colonies in North America were a group of societies, and they were very different in their ways of governing their societies. But, they all lived under the umbrella of a bigger society. That society was governed by a king. By then, the King of England had had some limits imposed upon him by the people over whom he governed on the home island of England, but he had enormous power of the freedoms of those far off societies in the New World. That was the world of the time. Kings and queens ruled the people in their kingdoms. Kingdoms provided a measure of protection from other kingdoms, and other groups of people who believed only in the right of power to take from those without power. They had the right to take and you had the right to try and keep them from taking. The king’s government might bee of help and also, family, friends, and neighbors could help.

In the colonies, the reliance on the government of the King in England and the family, friends, and neighbors to protect a became very different that the society of England. The entire idea of governance changed. The people of the colonies had learned that the King was way too far away to be of much help in providing what they needed-protection and rules of how they would decide things to replace the decision making that had been the king’s. They got so good at this that they decided that there was a different way of doing things. The people of the colonies had had the freedom to do much as their individual societies had determined was allowable, the same societies had figured out ways to make those determinations, and those things could be changed by them. They had that freedom. They finally, gathering strength from each of their diverse societies made the decision to let the king know that he was no longer needed or wanted, and therefore they would no longer be taking orders from him. They laid it all on the line and against all odds, along with the help of another very foolish and shortsighted king, they prevailed. The king of France in his determination to stick it to the King of England assisted in the birth of a whole new kind of way to determine freedom and restrictions on them and who makes those decisions. The French people saw what the people in North America had done and they were so starved for a change that they went off the rails!

As we prepare to celebrate our country’s Declaration of Independence and our beginnings as a country each of us should take some time to reflect on just where we stand as individuals and as a society on the delicate balance of freedom and governance. Ask if you have more freedom, less freedom, or the same as always. Each of us will have our own answers to that question. Then ask yourself if you think that the balance is just right or not. Those two answers to those two questions will impact the next question. That is this, are you doing what you can to ensure that the perfect balance is kept or correct any imbalance. By the way, I am not asking anyone to enlist, not that that is a bad thing. What I am asking you to do is actively resist incursions on your precious freedom as there are tyrants all around, large and small who wish to impose their wishes upon you at the expense of your freedom, your right. They have the ever popular excuse to use that it is for the public good. This allows unlimited demolition of your rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you stand up for your individual rights they will accuse you of the always popular and effective with those simple minded folks easily persuaded, “You’re just being selfish and thinking only of yourself!” Try to argue the history of your freedom against this kind of attack. First, you have to realize that some will not want to even debate it or try to learn. They are flat out tyrants. Your wishes are of no concern. Then there are the people that think life should be fair. They too, are hopeless. There’s no such thing as fair but there is such a thing as people who believe they can force fairness. Tyrants, if you allow them to be or if they get enough power. So, you have pared down the number of possible people with whom you can really have a chance with in answering the attack above. You have to know that you are right, though. You have to know that what you have is that precious thing men have given their lives for forever and those who do not recognize it, or cherish it have always been in the minority. You have to be brave to be able to keep your freedom. There is no rest. It is attacked 24 hours a day but a countless number of enemies. It always will be. It is the few who cherish freedom who are willing to fight for it that allow the many to reap the rewards, often in spite of themselves.

Please honor those who gave all, those who didn’t but were willing to, and those who fight the daily battles to keep our freedoms from fading away. Do that, do some fighting yourself for freedom, and I hope that you can do it with family, friends, strangers or by yourself this Fourth of July. Be a hero.