Hope You Had a Good April Fool's Day

And a good Easter if you celebrate that.

The US condition makes it difficult to create an April Fool's post that wouldn't seem very plausible to many.  Our president's acts would have qualified as April Fool's jokes in any prior presidency.

Today it's more important to practice kindness.

With those people who engage me in conversation, I try to assume I'm talking to a genius, a future Nobel Prize winner, or a great musician, a dedicated teacher.  I try to believe they may actually be those things.

It's hard to pull that off and I fail regularly.  But I ask people with whom I disagree, why they believe what they believe.  What studies have they undertaken?  What books and articles have they read so I can learn the facts that underlie their argument.  And if they have none to offer, I ask them why it's important for them to believe it.

It's not something I do every day - I don't get into those situations every day.  And it's much easier to react poorly.  And acting poorly isn't reserved for any political persuasion.  I try to ignore physical characteristics.  I try to assume a person's body - whether attractive or unattractive to me - is just a costume that does not reflect the human being wearing it.  And if the person inside isn't very attractive either, I get curious how the once perfectly beautiful little child came to become the disagreeable person talking to me?  Who or what blocked that child's path and warped their humanity?  Might they talk to me about it?  Might that hep or not?

I can't keep this up all the time, but that's my goal.

And humor amongst intimates is a great way to get release.  Jokes that take on the powerful are probably the most permissible.  But jokes at other people's expense are always a risky strategy, particularly with people who have a shaky self image.  Jokes at one's own expense are the most socially acceptable, but not if they hurt the jokester.

Maybe you can guess that my granddaughter and daughter got to town very early this morning and they make me a better person.  We played in the snow.  It turns out our backyard snow has a hard crust on it that makes it great for sliding down.  This snow is very different from the very occasional snowfall she gets at home, that melts in a few days.   I got to hook up the trailer bike to mine and we pedaled to the playground and back.  The world is such a big adventure for my sweetie.  I wish you all a good month.  May you smile more, yet keep resisting evil or being evil.