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Hmmm, can I afford to be a skeptic?

My brain hurts. But no need to worry. I am not having a brain aneurysm. Not in the literal sense at least, although the case could be made that a virtual aneurysm is occurring.

My brain hurts because it is working overtime trying to reprogram itself to keep pace with the new logic and language of digital technology. If you will pardon the pun, it does not compute and causes my brain to spin its wheels.

Most recently I have been grappling with the new concept of virtual trade shows and virtual exhibits. They are product of COVID-19 protocols which puts limits on gatherings of people. Conference and trade show organizers are frantically reconfiguring their events into virtual formats to survive.

My 62 year old, Baby Boomer brain is having difficulty wrapping itself around the concept. The raison d’etre of trade shows has always been face-to-face contact. Now I have to come to terms with the idea of virtual face-to-face contact which is the very definition of an oxymoron.

Will they work? I am pessimistic, but for the sake of my job I have to consider the possibility which means accepting the twist in the language associated with it. My brain is disgruntled and holding out against the transition.

It occurs to me that this has happened before in the history of mankind. Let’s start a few hundred years ago with the Industrial Revolution. Imagine a skeptic’s first encounter with a manufacturing machine.

“It runs by itself? How does you start it?”

“You just push this button.”

“Button? This thing on my shirt is a button.”

“This is a new kind of button that you push.”

“It’s just silly. You’re wasting your time. It will never catch on.”

Jump forward a couple of hundred years when the Information Age arrives. Imagine a skeptic’s first encounter with a computer.

“It’s a thinking machine? How does it work?”

“You just click this button.”

“You push a button. Not click.”

“This is a new kind of button that you click.”

“It’s just silly. You’re wasting your time. It will never catch on.”

Those leaps forward, and the changes forced on us by COVID-19 protocols, are what is known as a paradigm shift – a fundamental shift in approach or underlying assumptions. My brain is not taking kindly to the shift. In fact, it is staging a revolt. Drawing a line in the metaphorical sand, while being dragged kicking and screaming in the Trade Show 2.0 world.

A virtual exhibit? It’s just silly. You’re wasting my time. It will never catch on…

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   COVID-19 · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · paradigm shift · virtual exhibit · Virtual trade showNo Comments.

Hmmm, did the Buckeye arrive this far north by chance or by hallowed design?

Butterfly watching is a summer preoccupation. By the time September rolls around, the number of species available to be seen drops to single digits. Fortunately, there are a few species that spent most of the season south of the border but wander north during late summer.

Common Buckeyes are one of these late season explorers. They do not always make it to Southern Ontario, but this year some have. Buckeyes are always a pleasure to spot with their exotic markings – gaudy eyespots on a field of warm brown with dashes of white and orange.

The specimen at the top of this post was enjoying the flower gardens at Humber Arboretum in Etobicoke last Sunday under sunny skies. It may have regretted its decision to venture this far north given the unseasonably cool weather and gray skies that rolled in for the week.

But then again, perhaps it was not there solely of its own accord.

Being the sort of person who is prone to flights of fancy and to digging below the surface for hidden meaning, I cannot help but wonder if Mother Nature had a hand in the visit. Perhaps she whispered to this lovely little creature and sent it forth.

Little Buckeye, my pride and joy, I’m sending you north on a mission. Human beings are rather lost this year because of this phenomenon they call a pandemic. Many are sticking close to home, fearful and uncertain, and are missing out on so much of what I have to offer.

So, my child, wing your way north over the Great Lakes and past the sprawling metropolis of Toronto. I promise I will watch over and protect you on this rather perilous journey. No harm will come to you as you obey my calling.

The destination of your journey is a beautiful plot of flower gardens. You will know it when you see it and will be quite at home there for a week or two. Human beings are congregating in this spot more than usual this year as their souls yearn for me.

Some of those humans will be wearing face masks. This will seem strange to you as it does to me. But do not let it deter you. Your appearance there will bring a smile to their faces, calm their fear stricken hearts and perhaps inspire them to step out from behind the mask.

Human beings are not coming to us this year, so we must come to them where we find them. Little Buckeye, my child, this is a sacred mission and I have chosen you for it.

You will be a winged metaphor, infused with my heart, to remind humans that living in fear is futile, that time does not pause while they quiver in doubt and that lost days can never be reclaimed.

So go forth, my child, and let your beauty open their hearts again. My blessings go with you.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   butterfly · Common Buckeye · COVID-19 · Humber Arboretum · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Mother NatureNo Comments.

Flowers are red, young man

Green leaves are green

There’s no need to see flowers any other way

Than the way they always have been seen

Hmmm, do you bristle when you heard the words “Repeat after Me”?

My mind has a tendency to go off on its own now and then on tangents that seem unrelated to what I am doing. I have learned that there is always a good reason for these mental diversions. If I give my mind permission to wander, the reason eventually reveals itself.

This morning the Harry Chapin song “Flowers are Red” popped into my mind. For younger generations who may not have heard of him, Chapin was one of the most successful singer/songwriters in the 1970’s known for his story songs.

“Flowers are Red” tells the story of a young boy’s first day at school. He grabs a crayon and starts drawing. The teacher chastises him for drawing without permission and, after determining that he was drawing multi-coloured flowers, delivers the lines at the top of this post. The young below replies:

There are so many colours in the rainbow

So many colours in the morning sun

So many colours in the flowers and I see every one

The teacher calls him sassy, instructs him that There’s way that things should be done and puts him in a corner with the admonition:

It’s for your own good

And you won’t come out ‘til you get it right

And all responding like you should

The young boy feels frightened and conforms to the teacher’s demand. Some years later, the boy goes to another school with a more progressive teacher who encourages him to express himself in his drawing. But he replies with the words that have been drilled into him.

Flowers are red young man

Green leaves are green

There’s no need to see flowers any other way

Than the way they always have been seen

“Flowers are Red” warns us what can happen if we supress a child’s spirit. It is also an anthem for those of us who are driven to go their own way even if it is not what is expected of us. And also, it now occurs to me, a metaphor to encourage us in these times when our lives are squeezed into narrow confines that our spirit rebels against.

Our life is a blank canvas that we paint as we find our way. But it is not a paint-by-the numbers exercise. There are parameters we need to operate within. But our flowers can and should be any colour we choose – and we should be able to draw them whenever we feel the urge.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   be true to yourself · Flowers are Red · Harry Chapin · independance · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet2 Comments

Hmmm, did I just get lapped by change?

It is the mantra of the times we live in: Adapt, Adapt and Adapt again. Change comes at us with a vengeance and does not allow for the “I would rather not” option. COVID-19, or more specifically the response to it, has doubled down on that requirement.

You do not have to look far to see examples of that trend. Each has the good and the bad associated with it. Let’s explore a few.

Trend: Working at Home

The Good: No commute through rush hour traffic. Two weeks on a tank of gas. An extra hour of sleep in the morning. A whole new meaning to business casual attire from the neck down.

The Bad: E-mails. An avalanche of @&%!@ e-mails arriving at the rate of one every 2 to 5 minutes. Using my full repertoire of four letter words to express my frustration. If I had a quarter for every four letter word I utter, I could retire tomorrow.

Trend: Online Shopping

The Good: No waiting in line. No @&%!@ face mask. No roaming the aisles to find where the thing you need has been moved to since the last time you shopped. Thank God for Amazon! They have everything. Literally everything. I defy you: Name something they do not have.

The Bad: The growing pile of cardboard boxes in my garage that I have not had time to break down and recycle. There is barely room for my car in there now.

Trend: Online meetings. I even had a virtual appointment with my Naturopath today. At least I think it was him. It could have been has avatar. How would I know?

The Good: See above.

The Bad: More time spent staring at my laptop screen. I am practically attached at the hip to the damn thing now. And don’t get my started on the @&%!@ internet connection that drops for no reason. I have a whole separate category of four letter words for that situation.

Trend: 24 Hour News. The media mega-machine never sleeps.

The Good: Nothing comes to mind.

The Bad: Where do I begin? Only the details that are the most alarming are reported. The angle calculated to raise our blood pressure and keep us glued to the TV. The truth? Good luck. We surrendered that value some time ago. We just never found the time to write its epitaph.

Trend: Political correctness gone wild.

The Good: Empowerment of the individual. Anyone can bring the world to halt because they are offended. Wait, I’m confused. Is that in the good or the bad category?

The Bad: Everyone now has a personalized Stop the World button at their disposal.

Where am I going with all of this? Hell, I don’t know! It seemed like a good idea a half hour ago. But I got off track and couldn’t stop myself. Now I’m up to my knees and sinking fast.

That’s a metaphor, by the way. If you don’t get it, don’t worry. It will already be irrelevant by the time you read this post.

Change – adapt. Change – adapt again. And again. Too late. You’re too slow. Changed passed you by. You’re irrelevant now. So am I.

I’m offended. I’m calling a halt to it all right now. Tomorrow is cancelled. Maybe Monday as well. Everyone hates Mondays anyway.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   change · fake news · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · political correctness · stop the worldNo Comments.

Hmmm, how far has it wandered and what curiosities has it seen?

I was on a Saturday hike. Not really in the right frame of mind for butterfly and dragonfly hunting. Rather tired after a hectic week of work and pushing myself to get out for a few hours since the weather was nice. I stayed close to home at a conservation area only twenty minutes away.

I was circling back to the parking lot after realizing I did not have the energy for the full route I usually follow. I decided to take a trail I was not familiar with for a bit of variety, getting half-lost in the process, and was just trying to get back to the main road.

As sometimes happens in life, I found myself in the right place at the right time for the wrong reasons. A large dragonfly glided across the path ahead of me, turned and retraced its path. Gliding. That was the telltale sign.

I managed to track its path to a small tree where it perched and got my binoculars focused on it. My fatigued brain clicked into gear. Wandering Glider. An unexpected reward for the effort on a day when I was uninspired.

There are only two Gliders that occur in this area and both are considered uncommon. In 15+ years of dragonfly sleuthing, this was only the third one I had seen. I managed to slog through waist high grass and over a couple of rotting logs to get close enough to snap the photo at the head of this post.

Gliders are one of a few species of dragonflies that are migratory. They are known to fly out over the ocean during their migratory flights. In addition, they are the only dragonfly known to exist on all continents. Wanderers, indeed.

I wonder now how far this particular specimen has wandered in its short lifespan. What exotic southern climes has it visited? Has it paused to admire pods of whales during its migration? Perhaps looked down in puzzlement at the battlefields of the wars of mankind. How much if any of those memories has it retained?

I wish I could somehow have a conversation with this world traveler. Be regaled by the sights and sounds, wonders and oddities, inspirations and disappointments it has experienced. Doubtless it has found its way to places I will never see and happened upon curiosities I will never encounter.

Alas, it was only the briefest of encounters. I returned to my comparatively mundane life and it continued on its instinctual wanderings. But I will remember it as a moment of convergence – two diverse creatures crossing paths for a few moments in time.

A metaphor for the inexplicable whims of fate and the fair winds on which it glides.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Tags:   convergence · dragonfly · fate · Wandering GliderComments Off on Wandering Glider: The Inexplicable Whims of Fate

Hmmm, what if we opted out of waiting and just put one foot in front of the other?

For many years earlier in my life, around this time in August, my mind would respond to preprogramming and start preparing for a new cycle. Nineteen years framed by the school year – grade school, secondary school, college and university – imprinted on my psyche. It was a comforting rhythm aided by the fact that I am an academic at heart.

The preprogramming faded as the years passed, but never quite let go. September remained at some level as the official turning of the calendar – New Year’s Day and all the hoopla associated with it notwithstanding. September 1^st was the reboot date, to put it in modern terms.

Until now. 2020 is different. That, of course, is an understatement given how the world has been turned upside down since COVID-19 arrived. In a way, it is like time has been standing still. So much of our lives put on hold that the passage of time feels interrupted.

It is entirely an illusion – a trick of the mind. Time is marching on. The seasons are unfolding as they always do. Birds are beginning to feel that ancient and instinctive imperative to fatten up and began the long trek south to wintering grounds. We age day by day even as we do our utmost to stave off becoming a senior citizen.

So what is it really that has stopped?

Someone pushed the pause button on the universal remote that regulates life across the globe. We are collectively holding our breath, literally and figuratively, in an artificially induced waiting state. Waiting for the danger to pass so we can resume living, or stop worrying or start being optimistic again.

The self-proclaimed experts tell us things are never going to be the same. That we have to prepare for the new normal. Except that no one really knows what the new normal will look like.

Oh, lots of experts believe they do know and are making a name for themselves mapping out what will happen and how we should prepare for it. But their prognostications are educated guesses at best and often coloured by their own preferences and biases.

And so we wait, because it seems that is all we can do. Follow the rules, stay the course and try to be patient. Taking baby steps forward as we move into another phase of reopening. Hoping that the predicted second wave does not come and slam the door again.

But what are we really waiting for? For permission, it would seem, once again literally and figuratively. But many are uncertain and uncomfortable about what form that permission will take in the new normal. We sense that it could have new parameters around it that fence us in, and restrict our autonomy, which none of us want.

What are we waiting for? We are waiting for the other shoe to drop. But every moment we wait, holding our breath in fear, is a lost moment we cannot get back. We have to play by the rules, albeit reluctantly, but that does not mean we cannot go on living.

So breathe, let go out fear, take that first step, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   COVID-19 · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · one foot in front of the other · the new normal · waitingComments Off on Are You Waiting for “the New Normal”?

Hmmm, should we think more and listen less in this perplexing time of information overload?

One of the advantages of blogging is the window it affords me to look back and reflect. In the spirit of hindsight, and looking for context to make sense of this unsettling year, I looked back three years to my mid-summer posts.

Three years ago, I was in the hospital suffering the misery of a twisted colon and preparing for surgery. Three and a half weeks later, recuperating at home, I wrote about Knockdown Fastballs – The Myth of Invincibility Deconstructed:

We are gifted in our youth with the belief that we are invincible – possessed of a preternatural ability to dodge the numerous knockdown fastballs that life throws at us as an inevitable consequence of living. This belief is, of course, an illusion. The natural laws of life eventually catch up with us and claim their pound of flesh.

So, with due humility, I confess: I am not invincible or immune. Nor am I a superhero with special powers of overnight recovery. Where the world of metaphor meets the real feet-on-the-ground world, knockdown fastballs have my number and I cannot always evade them. It is a sobering reality.

On the plus side, I learned many valuable lessons from this unpleasant experience. I have emerged on the other side a bit wiser and with a more realistic outlook on life.

Two years ago, I wrote about The 200 Million Year Wisdom of the Turtle:

Turtles are traditionally seen as the embodiment of the notion that slow and steady wins the race. But they also remind us of the wisdom of taking life as it comes. They do not react to and resist the forces around them, but rather simply accept what is and move on with their life with fortitude and tolerance.

A Painted Turtle regarding me with is prehistoric countenance and nonjudgmental attitude – a random act of metaphor to remind me that wisdom is born of patience and that contentment comes from taking life one day at a time

One year back, I reflected on The Life Fully Lived: Colouring Outside the Lines:

As we mature and grow into adulthood, we learn that there are rules to the game of life and often penalties for noncompliance. We develop an inner voice of reason that warns us when we are treading close to the line and steers us back onto the acceptable path.

But part of maturing is recognizing that a life fully lived occasionally means breaking the rules. Some of life’s special moments happen when we step outside the lines.

Life has rules for valid reasons. Most often the best course of action is to follow them. But now and then, life calls us to break the rules, leave the beaten path and go where we are not supposed to go. It is often when, exercising our best judgment, we colour outside the lines that we experience those memorable moments that make life truly worth living.

The common theme in these posts is wisdom – how it is sometimes painfully earned, often arises from unexpected sources and occasionally calls upon us to break the rules. I came across an African proverb which elegantly summarizes these truths:

Knowledge is like a garden, if it cannot be cultivated, it cannot be harvested.

In a year when life has been turned upside down and it is hard to separate fact from fiction, we should chose to cultivate our own garden – nurturing the flowers and yanking out the weeds.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Tags:   COVID-19 · knowledge is like a garden · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · truthComments Off on Cultivating Our Own Garden Where Truth Blooms

Hmmm, this post is going to make me some enemies, but so be it.

I read this week that the Canadian smartphone app, meant to warn users if they have been in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19, is now in beta testing by the federal Canadian Digital Service agency.

The testing is designed to look for bugs and other problems. “We’re testing the app, not you”, the agency’s notice reportedly advises. The distinction is lost on me.

I am more than a little uncomfortable with this development. It is the tip of a very large ethical iceberg that its developers would rather not talk about. There are undoubtedly those who will say it is a great use of technology. I am inclined to substitute abuse for use.

As I understand it, the “COVID Alert” app will track phones’ locations relative to each other using digital identifications unique to each phone. Users would receive an alert on their phone if they have recently been near a person who volunteers that they have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Note: The agency says the app will send false alerts just to make sure the system work. Does anyone see the flaw in that plan?

The fact that the success of the app depends on people volunteering to be flagged as having tested positive may well be its undoing. I find it hard to imagine that many people will do so.

Setting aside that factor for the moment, the bigger issue here is the intersection and collision of individual civil rights with the proverbial greater good. I fear we are about to open a door that can never again be closed.

The precedent we are setting here is a dangerous one. A legal exception is being made to our fundamental right to privacy. You may argue that extraordinary circumstances apply that make it worthwhile. But that is just the old the end justifies the means rationale.

You may also argue that this is all done on a strictly voluntary basis so we should not be worried. However, once that door is edged open even an inch, there will be a crowd of tech companies lining up behind it to pry it further open every day.

Once you bend a civil right, you can never straighten it out again. But it does become much easier – for the private or the public sector – to justify bending it a bit further the next time a perceived threat comes along. Eventually the civil right becomes a phantom that exists in principle but not in practice.

I have been mixing my metaphors in this post. But here is the important one. The COVID-19 alert app is potentially the Pandora’s Box of our times from a civil rights perspective. If you know the myth, you know that once the contents of the box are released, the results are irreversible.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week

Tags:   Civil rights · COVID-19 · COVID-19 Alert App · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Pandora's Box · right to privacyComments Off on COVID-19: Should There Really Be an App for That?

Hmmm, how much do we overlook because we do not pause to ask the uncomfortable questions?

I took this photograph yesterday on my weekend outing in search of the winged wonders that continue to entrance me. It struck me as symbolic in a number of ways.

The tiny Bluet perched on the much larger Lily reminds me how small each of us really are in the grand scheme of things. We often act like we are the center of our own universe. But that it is purely hubris.

As a study the photo, the damselfly seems to be contemplating the waves of white, and the forest of yellow stamens at the center of the Lily, for no other reason than the beauty of it and the safe harbour it offers. A moment of reverence we would all be well advised to mimic.

Then there is the observation that the one inch long Bluet is a representative of the miniscule world of creatures we easily overlook as we scurry about the hectic business of living. We need to slow down, take a breath and catch all that we have been missing.

And on the same line of thinking, we are called to look more closely at life, especially in these turbulent times, to perceive and unravel the often unseen forces that are at play for purposes that may not be in the best interests of us all.

A Skimming Bluet making itself at home on a Pond Lily – a random act of metaphor to remind me that there is so much more to life than meets the eye when we skim over the surface of it without pausing to wonder… Why?

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Tags:   COVID-19 · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Pond Lily · Skimming BluetComments Off on Random Act of Metaphor: A Skiming Bluet at Home on Pond Lily

Hmmm, is there a cure for tech turmoil syndrome?

The association I work for recently carried out a major update to our systems. That pretty much guarantees that tech turmoil will ensue. On Thursday my connection to the network dropped and refused to be resurrected. Bad news when you are working from home.

It became one of those forget about getting anything done because you’ll be on the line with tech support for hours kind of day. It involved the tech guy uploading files to a cloud site, me downloading the files to my personal laptop, saving them on a USB drive and being talked through the arduous process of installing and running them on my work laptop.

In times of like these, my coping mechanism is to fantasize about how I would really like to interact with tech support.

Michael: Before you ask, I did the idiot reboot three times. It didn’t help one damn bit.

Tech Guy: Okay, let me take a look. I can access your laptop remotely.

Michael: Would it help if I smack it with a hammer?

Tech Guy: No, don’t do that. It won’t help.

Michael: But it would help me. It would make me feel so much better.

Tech Guy: Ha, ha. Seriously, don’t do that. Put the hammer down.

Michael: What if I Frisbee it out the window?

Tech Guy: Definitely not. Don’t do that.

Michael: That was really more of a rhetorical question. Hold on a minute, I need to go outside and pick it up… Okay, I’m back.”

Tech Guy: You’re kidding, right? You didn’t really do that.

Michael: Don’t worry. It still seems to be in one piece, more or less.

Tech Guy: More or less?

Michael: Should it be making a loud buzzing noise like a rabid cicada?

Tech Guy: Um, no.

Michael: Hold on. Let me Frisbee it out the window again… Wow, it bounced real high this time! Hold on a minute… Okay, I’m back. Good news. The buzzing stopped.

Tech Guy: This is not the way it’s supposed to go.

Michael: Okay, no more Frisbee. I’ll punt it this time…Oh neat! Sparks flew out of it. A real fireworks display. Hold on a minute… Okay, I’m back. I got most of it.

Tech Guy: Most of it?

Michael: Yeah, most of the pieces. A dog ran off with the rest. I think I need a new unit.

Tech Guy: … I’m closing your support ticket now.

Michael: Roger that. When will my new laptop arrive?

Laptop Frisbee, it’s more than just a metaphor. It works!

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

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Tags:   Frisbee · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · tech turmoilComments Off on Tech Turmoil, Hammer Therapy and Laptop Frisbee