Hu-mil-i-a-tion, Noun, 1. To Disgrace or Ridicule the Dignity of Another

01/06/2013 ~ Harlan Didrickson

Humiliation comes in many flavors: decline, disgrace, resignation, ridicule, shame, stigma, and upset.

HUMILIATION BY DISGRACE OR RIDICULE:

During nine years of my corporate career I was employed by a prestigious and globally recognized design firm where I held the esteemed position of Director of Executive Service. One of my fundamental responsibilities was to manage the execution of, or, if requested, provide service personally to guarantee the success, without fail, of any kind of celebration that a partner requested or attended. For example, one client favored Scotch Whisky so I was asked to produce a Scotch Whisky tasting of 35-year old Scotches: Bowmore, Tamnavalin, Berriach, The Macallan, and Laphroaig and pairing them with: smoked salmon, black bread, Roquefort cheese, venison, smoked duck, and Dagoba organic dark chocolates. Another wanted me to hire handsome male and beautiful female models clothed in Hugo Boss black suits and Adrianna Papell cocktail dresses so that his guests were surrounded by classic beauty and modern design. Yet another wanted a nine foot by nine foot parcel of the reception area to display five hundred forced Paper Whites in full bloom during one of the harshest winters on record, so he could capitalize on his design theme, Fresh Air, and subtly reinforce his theme and that we’re capable of just about anything, including any ideas they may entertain. Paper Whites naturally bloom in spring, so we had to force them to bloom (by replicating a spring-like environment) early. But there are no guarantees when forcing bulbs to bloom. But lo’ and behold all five hundred bulbs bloomed creating an intoxicating fragrance throughout the hot house, or so I was told by the gardener downstate moments after he informed me that their truck carrying my Paper Whites was caught in a white out, spun off the road, and landed chassis deep in fresh snow where my lovely Paper Whites shivered as they slowly froze. But as luck would have it, the potential client canceled their appointment. Rumor has it that they’d all ready selected a firm, and we were just a curiosity. But my all-time favorite: Four hundred and ten Shamrock Shakes delivered precisely at 12:00 noon on St. Patrick’s day.

The occasion at which I was disgraced and ridiculed by friends and colleagues was a simple party thrown by a partner who wished to celebrate the winning of a new commission in China with his design and marketing team. The celebration started after work hours which required me to stay late as my supervision was requested by the partner. As team members began to leave and the last partner to depart for the day was the host of this party. On his way out he bellowed, “give them anything they want! Anything!” A senior designer approached me to ask if I might open the partner’s private stash. (When I was promoted the Managing Partner said to me, “Your job is quite simple: First, make all the partners happy; Second, never question or deny a partner’s request no matter how preposterous it may seem.)” So began my study of each partner from alcohol to zany; I interrogated their assistants to drill down to expectations, tolerance for substitution, and the senior assistant’s castigation should he/she book an airline ticket in the unbearable and reprehensible middle seat in coach. I stockpiled their favorite liquors, pop, snacks, and wine as a precaution. Most employees and partners were aware of the liquor cabinet but didn’t know its location, yet knew that I possessed the only key. I followed my instructions and wheeled out a trolley cart filled with the nonpareil of spirits and wines that ever passed their lips.

And then the fateful question: “Hey, I hear you’ve got top-shelf snacks! Like those thumb-sized cashews for Adriel,” (at $28.00 per pound, you bet they’re for the senior partner I thought to myself.) We want some of those to go with the liquor. By now it was close to eight o’clock and I was beginning to tire as I unlocked the file drawer directly beneath the partner’s private fax machine. I removed a two pound sack of cashews, opened it, and delivered it to Lacy, the marketing rep for the project. Lacy and I had always been friends, the tit-for-tat type of friend. She, like several others, based their success and traded in information. My success was based on character, trust, and top-level confidentiality. She failed to pluck any morsel of intel from me.

By the time Lacy stuck her petite paw into the bag of cashews, a small crowd gathered round. At almost the same moment they all realized that the cashews were very warm (from sitting in a file drawer directly beneath the partner’s private fax machine. And then Lacy said it first followed by taunting laughter; then another said it; then a small group in unison; and the wave of ridicule and disgrace rose higher and higher then tumbled, crushing me with its demeaning vitriol. I grabbed my briefcase and left the office quickly hearing slowed apologies backed by more laughter. The firm boasts about a zero-tolerance policy for harassment so when I filed my formal complaint against Lacy I was told by the HR manager that she’d already heard about the incident and that Lacy will face her comeuppance. Oh yes, and that I should forget she said:

Hey everyone! Hey look! Warm nuts! He serves them warm nuts. He warms the Partner’s nuts! You get that? He warms the Partner’s nuts!

Glenmorangie Named “World’s Best Distiller” (sacbee.com)
Scotch Whisky employees ‘more productive than City of London’, says new research (thedrinksbusiness.com)
10 Wilder Ways to Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (bellasugar.com)
Company says it is owed $7M (toledoblade.com)

Hard Truths Abolish Life’s Peripheral Pleasures (for Jean)

12/30/201212/30/2012 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 3 Comments

amaculardegeneration

Living with mental illness reminds me of the perpetual tightening of sight associated with macular degeneration. A close friend’s mother is facing a destiny of dusk, the light of day dimming earlier and earlier like the cold and snowy late months of fall. She’s waiting for disease to throw the switch as though she hadn’t paid her utility bill. She asked me one afternoon during a summer visit, how dark is dark; how blind is blind; once it’s dark and I’m blind will I continue farther into the cave and deeper into its darkness; or is my blindness an unmarked dead-end?

I sat in front of her incapable of producing some quip of levity to lighten the despair. I didn’t know how to answer. Or, what to say. The absence of chit-chat hung between us like humidity. Finally I answered the only way I knew how: honest and awestruck.

I said, I’m not living with an insensitive eventuality; my conditions (serious mental health and cardio-pulmonary compromise) are likely to flatten me, like being crushed by an immense breaking ocean wave, or belly flopping into the speeding approach of pasture, absent of any canopy of resistance my last minutes hopelessly free-falling like aimless snowflakes. Then it happened. Stopped. Quiet and conscious while the tiniest pieces of life clung to daylight, right before it too, daylight, stopped.

acandystore You and I are the little boy and little girl whose noses are pressed flat against the confectionary store window. Our yearning is painfully apparent to the plumply indulgent chocolatiers who’s moving each bit of life with the careful determination of a chess master to capitalize on each enticing, heavenly, and scrumptious creation. We’re accustomed to forfeiting the peripheral pleasures which adorn life for those unscathed by physical mutiny. We’re weary of the world’s pace, gaining speed to get anyplace but right here on this bench. And we’re disinterested in watching a generation plow through a banal life ignoring its dangers and instead pursuing schedules chock full of unwieldily opportunities and difficult-to-deny distractions, especially those who’ve never stared into the intense and stoic countenance of a doctor about to tell you the most incomprehensible truth.

To wonder and inquire about your predetermination is natural and reserved for the courageous. To have courage in light of the truth you must’ve stopped pursuing distractions, stopped running away from things, and stopped denying your mortality. And life’s hard truths can only be understood by the courageous.

What Causes Blindness? (everydayhealth.com)
Macular degeneration: new hope for elderly victims of disease that causes blindness (telegraph.co.uk)
Is Mental Illness becoming mainstream? (summersolsticemusings.wordpress.com)

2012 in review

12/29/201212/30/2012 ~ Harlan Didrickson

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 12 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

This Christmas, He Gave Me A Look From Outside, Inside.

12/29/2012 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 3 Comments

present

“Surprise!” is what I used to say, years ago, early on in our twenty-eight year relationship. Back when we hadn’t really yet learned each other’s tastes (or better, tolerances). Fifteen years ago I’d stand there, his gift balanced by my sweaty hands, my nerves knotted and twisted like the Strangler Fig tree, praying for his hullabaloo upon opening the gift, followed by a tight embrace, further followed by his quick kisses like a woodpecker atop some pine. A decade ago I’d pluck the gift from beneath the tree with little ceremony, hand it to him, then sit back and watch as he tested-then-tore layer by layer of packaging, similar to a child tasting her way through a box of chocolates. The past few years like a couple of archaeologists, the dig was more fun than the discovery! At last he found the gift and I present-modern waited for the inconclusive and rudimentary sentiment followed by a brief embrace and a kiss as light as a hummingbird. Three years ago I’d started to hear “How’d you know I wanted this?” his amazement falling to the side of curiosity rather than tickling admiration, and my answer, diluted through the years like cheap gin, “I thought you could use this,” at which he cocked his head like our dog’s misunderstanding, and then I presented the real gift, “There’s a gift receipt taped to the lid should you choose to exchange it for a color more to your liking than orange.” I’ve learned over the course of twenty-eight years that we buy lovers/partners/spouses clothing we’d like to see them wear, and definitely not the clothing they like to wear. So after two decades of my repeated attempts to upgrade his personal style year after year by giving him exquisite gifts (which he surreptitiously found ghastly) I learned that a gift receipt, like the “get out of jail card,” nullifies my responsibility for his disinterest in modern style, and ensures that he can exchange the atrocious article for an object of his liking.

But this Christmas his gift to me was different than the previous twenty-seven. Very, very different. Absent was the gift receipt. He handed me the gift without fanfare, explanation, or apology. He simply said, “Merry Christmas.”

Hidden beneath wrapping paper we’ve had for twenty years was a book. But not some book he’d like to read. No, this was a book I’d already read and reread; I had a greater degree of familiarity with the final pages, but the earlier pages popped once more like bubble gum. The book he gave me was “Becoming not Became: The First 100 Posts,” by T.M. Mulligan.

I was dumbfounded then speechless then crying. I was flabbergasted to hold Mr. Mulligan’s first 100 posts printed on heavy, magazine-grade paper and hardbound. It’s rare indeed, to hold yourself up to yourself, to be reflected, to permit yourself to be tickled, concerned, angry, interested, and entertained. I suppose narcissism might come to mind; but if you’re beautiful or handsome why not enjoy a modicum of self-appreciation. Or, like me, those 100 posts represented dear friends, young and old, whom I haven’t visited, but whom all came together under the same roof for me. I shall take my time reading these posts and thoroughly enjoy each one’s company greater than before.

Thank you so much, Nick.

What to do with Unwanted Christmas Presents by Simon (fromadaughter.com)
Merry Christmas! (boston.cbslocal.com)
A Favorite Christmas Gift… (feedyardfoodie.wordpress.com)

We Can’t, We Simply Can’t Forget Those Kids

12/19/2012 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 2 Comments

It was similar to forcing yourself to perform a task you loathe and delay as long as possible. But the timeliness of memory forced me to remain seated and prepare a list (found below) of the children and adults slain in Newtown. But what caused unrelenting heartache was recognizing their ages, or, recognizing their lack of ages. These students had barely rounded their first turn of life. Life, as we all know much too well, is plump with memories, old jokes but new laughter, an eternity of firsts: love, kiss, bike, pirouette, strike out, airline, stitches, lipstick, heartbreak, failure, beer, hangover, diamond ring, varsity letter, loss, win, marriage, house, flat tire, hook line and sinker, kids, grand kids. Yet these moments shaped us like a sculptor’s tools; these moments pop up like toast reminding us that life is really what we’ve learned by living. Those children and adults abruptly had their lives erased like lessons on a chalkboard.

So I’m making a bold request of everyone that follows, reads, discovers, trips upon; all my social networks like Facebook, twitter, tumbler, stumble upon; bloggers, other bloggers and anyone else that has access to e-communication to perform the following:

Once a week write a post, tweet, tumble, message, or group email selecting one victim from the list, entitle the post, etc. something like “For Charlotte Bacon, Age 6, Newtown” and write one of your many life experiences as though you were saying it to Charlotte. Then end it with “I promise to remember Charlotte, age 6, Newtown and what her life might’ve been.”

Because your magnanimity and writing and the far reaches of the internet together we can keep their memory alive. To forget even one of these children is a profound example of selfishness. Instead, we should add them to the list of precious things we hold closest to our heart.