I never realized how much I am like my Dad’s Mom, my Grandma Lippe, from Texas until I read this book. Once again, I had not heard of the author before this book made it’s way into my hands yesterday. It was a quick read to say the least. I stayed up reading last night to finish it. This revelation also explains why I prefer the South. They are just more my kind of people.
“We live in a world where, if we’re honest, we have to admit that people sometimes know more about the Kardashians than they do about the folks who are sleeping right down the hall.” This still weirds me out. I didn’t know anything about them until my family kept showing me their videos on Youtube. Even my social media is turned into a Truman show. Heaven forbid I see something someone created who is not controlled by my family. But apparently you all get to see a lot of people my family controls, too. And you all love them, but do you even know why? Because I sure don’t.
“And listen. I’m not saying that the reason we need to actively remember what God has done is so we can all have a big, touchy-feely, emotional moment that makes us feel better for a day or two before we jump right back into the worry again. I’m not saying that at all. But I am saying that when we take time to see God’s intentions as He acts, His deliberate nature as He unfolds His plan, and His faithfulness as He watches after every detail of our lives, we’re reminded of His character. We are reminded of his love for us.”
You all know I am not a big religious person. But I do believe in gratitude, because it changes the way our brains work. The computer of your brain cannot run the program for anxiety and gratitude at the same time. So when you practice gratitude you are prohibiting anxiety. It is physically impossible to feel anxious and grateful at the same time. Your brain is just not capable of running in this fashion. So I practice gratitude because it is good for my brain. Plus, it feels good. It literally makes me feel better.
However, until this revolution I would have never thought that there was a blue print of some sort for my life that I did not design. But I have to tell you all, I would have never chosen to be the creator of a revolution. I would have chosen a normal ordinary life. Someone chose this for me. And it was not my family. So, it has to be someone or something larger than human.
For you all that have been tuned in awhile, you know I believe in divine order. There are so many things in the universe that are so perfect, like scientifically perfect. Gravity is my favorite example. You cannot talk your way out of gravity. Everyday gravity is perfect. There is never a day when gravity is not perfect. I don’t need to know the formulas or the specifics about gravity to understand that everyday of my life I can count on gravity. If it was a little bit stronger it would squish us like bugs. If it was a little bit weaker we would fly off Earth into space. Gravity being perfect is apart of divine order. At least that is how I explain it. It turns out our lives may have more divine order in them than I expected. Because I would never have chosen most of the things in my life. A lot of the good and the bad, I would have never chosen. I suppose that may be why our subconscious is in charge 95% of the time. So, it directs us towards divine order? That is my best guess.
So, I can relate to what Sophie says in this passage about being grateful for what God does for us. I would switch out God for divine order. But to each their own, right? My Grandma Lippe was a Southern Baptist. So I am pretty sure she would have called it God. But I like science so I call it Divine Order. But potato/potatoe right?
“And then I KID YOU NOT: “I’m just so happy to be here! I’m having a perfectly wonderful time!”
Well, sure she was. After all, what could be more fun than being awakened in the middle of the night by your daughter-in-law asking where she can find your keys? That’s a fail-proof formula for some scrapbook-worthy moments, my friends.”
Sophie talks about her Husband’s Mom, Martha, and it reminds me so much of my Grandma Lippe. Even if you woke her up in the middle of the night when she was visiting to get her car keys because she left the light in her car on, she would have reminded you how happy she was to be visiting.
I don’t know if you all know me or not, but I get excited about everything. I am this annoying person to most people. I am just happy. It is my default setting. And I never realized that my Grandma Lippe had this setting too. I mean I knew she said, “Bless your heart” all the time and things like that. But she wasn’t the kind of lady who said those things and it felt creepy because you knew something was off. Her Mom was like that, Mrs. Hitler. But my Grandma Lippe was like me in that her default setting was happy. I never heard her yell once. I saw her get flustered, but I never heard her yell or even raise her voice. She lived in Texas my whole life, so I did not get to spend much time with her. But it is funny, I am more like her in my demeanor than any of my Grandparents. I love to use manners and be polite. I try not to yell and remain calm. I do yell sometimes when people trying to attack and kill me gets frustrating. But generally I try to just be calm, peaceful, and happy. I have both Mr. and Mrs. Hitler’s birthrights because my Dad’s older sister never had kids. But I was rarely around them. This is proof of epigenetics. My Mom and Dad used a lot of Austrian poisons on me the most. Which determined how my genes were turned on and off. And wah lah here I am like the Hitlers. It is not conditioning because my parents never wanted me to be happy about anything. This is proof of epigenetic triggers via the poisons we are exposed to. Genetically, I am more Communist than Nazi. 75%(3 out of 4) of my Grandparents were Communist. Yet, I hate Communism.
Let me tell you a story about being raised Communist. My Mom’s Mom, my Grandma Kudearoff, would get all of us grandkids the same gift for Christmas. The boys would get one gift and the girls would get another gift. We were all very different, but we all got the same gifts. Seems petty that I bring this up, right? But do you know what it is like to get the same gift as everyone else? It feels very generic and impersonal. Christmas is supposed to be about family and it is intended to be personal. How would you feel if you got the same gift as your cousins who were nothing like you? I was the odd man out in countless ways, even back then. And the gifts Grandma Kudearoff got us were good gifts and she spent a fair amount of money on them. One year we got black patent leather skirts and Atari’s. This was the 1980s, you got to remember. I did like the gifts. But they felt very impersonal.
This is communism. You get what everyone else gets. Granted my Grandma Lippe sent me a lot of weird sweaters that were nothing like the people here in Oregon wore. But she also would go shopping for second hand books for me and send them to me in the mail. She even knew that I loved Nancy Drew books and would send them when she found them. Her gifts were not as expensive, but they were more personal. Granted, I did not always like the sweaters. But my Grandma Kudearoff would knit us blankets that I absolutely hated. I think Grandma’s in the 1980s felt like they had to get their grandkids more handmade things. The times were different for sure.
I do not think that everyone should get the same thing. I read a parenting book on this revolution. It said that we should not focus on being fair because then kids will look around to other children to see what they need and deserve. We should instead focus on fulfilling individual needs. Communism means you get what everyone else has, even if it does not meet your individual needs. I don’t have the same needs as everyone else. And I guess I knew this even as a kid.
I am a snowflake damnit. I want to be treated like the snowflake I am. And I know a lot of you all are like get over yourself, right? How dare you think you need different things than everyone else? How dare you think you are a snowflake? Well, it is science. Are you ready for this?
The human body has about 20,000 different genes. You get half of your genes from your Mom and half from your Dad. This means your specific combination of genes is one of a kind. Even your brothers and sisters will have different genes. Yes, you will have similarities. And yes they are the closest genetic matches to you. But you are a snowflake genetically.
And then epigenetics means that for every gene you have there are 30,000 different epigenetic outcomes. So your genes are like light switches, but it is not just a on and off switch. It is a dimmer switch with 30,000 different epigenetic outcomes. So genetically you are a snowflake. And epigenetically you are an even more unique snowflake. Granted you will have some epigenetic patterns that are similar to your family, your race, your religion, your sex, your gender, your class, etc. Epigenetic patterns are determined by how you live your life. Even your beliefs determine epigenetic outcomes and patterns. You have heard of the placebo effect right? Well, when you believe that something will happen, it has an epigenetic effect. Have you heard of nocebo? When you believe that something negative will happen, it is more likely to happen. This is epigenetic. So positive beliefs that lead to positive epigenetic outcomes are placebo effects. Negative beliefs that lead to negative epigenetic outcomes are nocebo effects.
Covid was the perfect example of a nocebo effect. It was literally a flu, but everyone was so freaked out by the media and the propaganda put out about the pandemic that more people died, because they were freaked out with negative beliefs. It was literally the flu. People die from the flu every year. We just don’t talk about it. When someone is chronically ill and/or old and they get the flu, it is always a big deal.
You can change the epigenetics of like 400 or 500 genes in just 3 or 4 days of meditation. How many epigenetic options in your body do you think months of negative news coverage during Covid effected? If it only takes 3 or 4 days of meditation to change epigenetic options positively, how does living in a world with such negative media and propaganda change who you are on a gene and cellular level? A lot. I can’t quantify it with science. But I can tell you it is not good.
“Football is a great game, but it’s an awful god.”
Football is serious business in the south, but church and God are even more serious. Priorities, right? Did you all know in the South they still have church? In case you all forgot my family are not Gods. They are mentally ill humans. Just in case you got your priorities mixed up.
“But that’s family. They’re the people who make you willing–eager even– to drive four and a half hours so you can spend three days in the kitchen and fry eight pounds of bacon…. Because that’s family. That’s what you do. That’s how you love.
And you know what? It is a gift. Every single bit of it.”
The search for family has been what my family has used to destroy me my whole life. I love this idea of family. In theory it sounds perfect, but in practice for me this has been an equation for destroying and killing me. I no longer look for family. I stopped many years ago. Thank God because people sign up to destroy and kill me enough from an arm’s distance. Up close and personal is just too painful. What do you all think about family? I never got to know my Dad’s family much because they were in Texas. But I would like to believe that families do exit. Ones that do not try to kill each other. My Grandma Lippe did not kill her parents. So, I suppose this fuels my hope that there are real families out there.
Maybe they are just a fairy story though? I am willing to entertain this as well.
I liked this book and I would recommend it to anyone looking to understand life in the South. It is a different world down there. And it is so much more my world. Living in Las Vegas and Southern Arizona was not the same as the South where my Dad’s family is from. But it is where I belong. I belong more in the South than I do the North. They have manners down there, y’all! Seriously manners, like they say please and thank you all the time. I am so tired of being surrounded by hoodlums from the North without manners.