Dear Man/Dear Woman: A Noteworthy Conversation … March 26th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2885)

Dear Man Dear Woman

Dear Man: Cooperate.

Dear Woman: Is that an order?

Dear Man: No, I was just thinking about the word. Co, meaning the two of us, and operate … well, I guess that implies working together.

Dear Woman: The two of us working together. That’s cool.

Dear Man: Well, the trouble is, it’s not cool. We are taught to be independent. Self-sufficient. We’re working on our own biographies instead of a human story. Somehow we feel diminished if all the praise doesn’t come our way but instead is given to a cooperative effort.

Dear Woman: I see what you mean. Yet that’s always been my problem with collaboration. Rather than everybody standing back and rejoicing over the end result, each person has a tendency to point out his or her part in the process.

Dear Man: We can’t help it. Society tells us if we don’t toot our own horn it won’t get tooted.

Dear Woman: It is possible for somebody to blow your horn. After all, it is a horn.

Dear Man: That’s funny. And oh, so true. I guess we need to remember that we were created to be in a garden. It’s a co-op. No person is sufficient unto themselves without a common humanity and a common good.

Dear Woman: I have to be honest. I’m resistant to that concept. I mean, I understand it but it’s like I feel I need to have autonomy. Otherwise I don’t have my own thing.

Dear Man: I’m the same way. I would like to include you, but I really don’t want you to feel like you’re necessary.

Dear Woman: But it’s all over nature. If you don’t mind me bringing it up, even sexuality is kind of comical. The male and female parts are not competely compatible with each other unless the man and the woman talk, discuss and share.

Dear Man: So true. Yet at the same time, we feel like we should be complete within ourselves. It’s important to acknowledge what we have, otherwise we don’t know what we require.

Dear Woman: And it’s not stereotypes. Not all men are strong and all women emotional.

Dear Man: Absolutely not! Sometimes the female is the strong one and the man brings the emotion. It’s knowing how to co-op. In farming, one person plants, another waters and God and Nature give the increase.

Dear Woman: So why are we so damn afraid of this?

Dear Man: We’re taught to look at each other sexually, not practically.

Dear Woman: I can see that. Sometimes I’m just nervous talking to a woman because I’m afraid…I don’t know…that she doesn’t find me attractive.

Dear Man: What can be more attractive than an intelligent exchange? Or the realization that somebody has brought some information to you that completes one of your goals?

Dear Woman: So what can we do to initiate this co-op?

Dear Man: I think what stumps people is that in order to become strong, you have to know where you’re weak. And to use your weakness is to learn to recognize what you need before it’s pointed out to you.

Dear Woman: I think I could actually do that, especially if I had a friend to remind me when I was stumping around advertising my ego instead of being honest about my limitations.

Dear Man: Men and women were meant to cooperate–joining together to operate a plan that is only enhanced by their dual efforts.

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G-Pop’s Coming … November 24, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2077)

G-PopThree hundred and thirty-three days ago, I checked out of a Red Carpet Inn in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, climbed into my big, black conversion van and set out on my fourteenth crossing of the United States to share my life and heart.

I had just finished a three-week stay with family and friends for Christmas and had completed recording my latest album. The process of being with these lovely folks was exhilarating, enlightening and challenging.

Exhilarating because it’s always a welcome reminder to my soul that I was miraculously a patron and contributor to the formation of what has turned out to be a glorious gathering of geniuses and goofballs.

Enlightening because they continue to surprise me with both their achievements and progress in maturity, which varies in speed from the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars to the common inchworm.

And challenging. Even though I made a promise to all my friends, children and all the folks they have introduced into our conclave, granting them autonomy and individuality, I am a human being and occasionally I will see them take on attitudes or ideas which I find obtuse.

But when you blend exhilarating, enlightening and challenging all together, you get more “yea” than “nay.”

And I have to admit, as I drove across I-75–Alligator Alley–to begin “Tour 2013,” I was a bit wistful and maybe a little melancholy about leaving, to ship off to projects and people quite unknown.

I know my family loves me. I know my friends feel the same. But it isn’t quite like it was when they relied on me for their sustenance and needed my approval to gain permission to use the car keys on Saturday night.

Honestly, it’s much better the way it is now than when our relationship could quickly be tainted by a dust-up or a festering fussiness.

But as I prepare to join my kin in the Nashville, Tennessee, area for Thanksgiving, I know they will want to ask the normal questions:

  • How are you feeling, G-Pop?
  • Do your knees still hurt?
  • How much do you have to use the wheelchair?
  • Tell us a story about your trip this year.
  • Are you going to go out again?
  • Do you ever get tired of it?
  • Do you miss us?
  • Did you lose any weight?
  • Are you getting exercise?

You see, some of the questions are natural and others are based on the fact that as they become more adult, they also view me as getting older and decrepit. So sometimes it’s difficult for me to understand why they anticipate my taking a sharp left turn into “geriatric,” when they know I’m still writing, sharing, singing and performing all across this great country.

But after all, they’re just people. They really need me to be a grandpa–and I’m more suited to be the aging Grand Poobah of a gypsy band.

What will I tell them?  What will I say when they ask me, “G-Pop, what have you learned?”

Well, you see, I learned …

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Click for details on the SpirTed 2014 presentation

Click for details on the SpirTed 2014 presentation

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.

click to hear music from Spirited 2014

click to hear music from Spirited 2014

Freeland … September 4, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(1996)

FreelandGlancing at my calendar, I realized that I am heading off tonight to Freeland.

I was struck by the name. The two most overused words in the English language, in my opinion, have to be love and free. “Love” because we feel that we express greater devotion by inserting it to display our favor, and “free” simply because it sounds very American and establishes our autonomy. Facts are, love is not an emotion without a commitment and free is not a decision to stubbornly express your desires.

To be free is to know the truth, which then has the ability to make and form you into a vessel that is uncomplicated.

I giggle sometimes when I realize how difficult it is for movie makers to portray the English as the villains in the American Revolution. After all, the British weren’t raping women, spraying poisonous gas or burning down cities in their conquest of the Americas. They over-taxed, put soldiers in people’s homes when they probably shouldn’t have and took for granted that these new colonists were loyal to the crown.

But they wanted freedom–all thirteen colonies of ’em. What they got was a release from British control … left to themselves.

This is why the American experiment continues today. We’re still trying to get the truth to make us free. We have made some horrible transitions:

  • Although we wanted freedom to make our own choices, we didn’t give it to the Native Americans.
  • We insisted on states’ rights to continue slavery, without considering God-given grace for the black man and woman.
  • Segregation continued in this country up until 1964 and we still evaluate one another based on so many different criteria that granting universal freedom to all the populace at any given moment is a perpetually angry, if not bloody, discourse.

So as I head off to Freeland tonight, I want to communicate a very simple principle: to be free is to embrace the truth and not be afraid of what it reveals.

Because even though the information may be startling at first, it WILL always have its day–and it is better to have welcomed it instead of barring the door.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about personal appearances or scheduling an event

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