Scribblings From The Sane Asylum...whistle

I was watching a football game today and they delayed the game while the Referee unfroze his whistle. Did make me grin realizing just how important that whistle really was. Seems there are not a lot of extra whistles laying around. You would think the Ref. would just grab a spare one from a warming cabinet. Who makes whistles anyway? Looks like the company would advertise, like Nike. Some nifty little whistling commercial. You know a happy little tune. Whistle while you work kind of thing...

Wet your whistle or is it whet your whistle? Easy to get that confused. Whet your appetite comes to mind as being correct, but I have not used that term in a number of years. I've been around three score and ten, and my guess, I could count the times I've used the term on one hand.

I’ve  seen both “whet your whistle” and “wet your appetite,” and neither correct. Most people’s lips don’t need to be any sharper, and appetites aren’t aroused by giving them a good soaking.

Wet Your Whistle...Seems this phrase has been around for a while. Don't really think there's a hidden meaning in wet—probably some ole Saxon word meaning moist, quench or liquid. Whistle is a little harder to decipher. It may refer to a person’s lips or throat. I think it came from a time when pub regulars used whistles to order more drinks.  I would bet a whistle was part of the mug, built into either the rim or handle. I went digging on the web and could find no example of Ye Olde Whistle Mug. I'm sure one wet ones whistle before one whistled? I know you just can't whistle with dry lips. A word of caution, don't wet your whistle in freezing weather.

Now to whet your appetite is almost the opposite. Whereas wetting your whistle quenches your thirst, whetting your appetite, sharpens. Whet, probably another ole Saxon term. Blades are whetted by whetstones. Appetites are whetted by tasty morsels or glimpses of interesting or desirable things. Like...bring me some corn nuts or moose jerky to whet my appetite. Another word of caution. It's best to eat coconut while you still have your teeth. I know that has nothing to do with what we are discussing, but it did cross my mind.

I did a very unsophisticated test on the Internet and Googled “wet your whistle” and had 426,000 hits, the majority directed towards drinking. “Whet your whistle” resulted in 421,000 hits, the majority of the answers related to stimulating further thought or experience processes. Now you have a good basis to go scratching around for more information and draw your own conclusion on this important discussion.

I asked my friend Jess B Rambling about this subject, as I often do on the more puzzling aspects of life.  Jess is anal about placing language in its proper order and knowing when to use whom. He said "whistle was a metonym." "Kinda started out as one meaning and just morphed into another." Makes a lot of sense to me...just an ole Saxon morphing-ism.

I was around this crazy ole uncle years many years back. I recall when he used the term " I'm going to whet my whistle", it meant he was going to relieve himself. See how I'm being appropriate and not using the word pee? I'm just that way. Don't want to offend anyone...:)

Did you know the opening in a whistle where you blow is called a fipple ? Hell I didn't. Never thought of it. I know I'm glad the ref's whistle had so much spit it froze up. Learned something new, got to talk to an old friend, explored the deep recesses of my mind, even pondered on Uncle Rufus for a spell. Hell, I think I will design a little whistle koozee warmer. Jess, how do you spell Koozee?

Not half that bad on a good day...Doc

Discovering Ourselves...the pain of an unlived life

The Pain Of An Unlived Life...

The unexamined life is surely worth living, but is the unlived life worth examining? It seems a strange question until one realizes how much of our so-called mental life is about the lives we are not living, the lives we are missing out on, the lives we could be leading but for some reason are not. What we fantasize about, what we long for, are the experiences, the things and the people that are absent. It is the absence of what we need that makes us think, that makes us cross and sad. We have to be aware of what is missing in our lives — even if this often obscures both what we already have and what is actually available — because we can survive only if our appetites more or less work for us. Indeed, we have to survive our appetites by making people cooperate with our wanting. We pressurize the world to be there for our benefit. And yet we quickly notice as children — it is, perhaps, the first thing we do notice — that our needs, like our wishes, are always potentially unmet. Because we are always shadowed by the possibility of not getting what we want, we learn, at best, to ironize our wishes — that is, to call our wants wishes: a wish is only a wish until, as we say, it comes true — and, at worst, to hate our needs. But we also learn to live somewhere between the lives we have and the lives we would like.


"We refer to them as our unlived lives because somewhere we believe that they were open to us; but for some reason — and we might spend a great deal of our lived lives trying to find and give the reason — they were not possible. And what was not possible all too easily becomes the story of our lives. Indeed, our lived lives might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless tantrum about, the lives we were unable to live. But the exemptions we suffer, whether forced or chosen, make us who we are." Adam Phillips, Missing Out: In Praise Of An Unlived Life..

The Human Conservancy Field Office

Field Notes...

Today's psychology, as a collection of theories, concepts, and techniques, has attempted to help individuals and the society realize relief from mental problems solving methods that do nothing to increase ones understanding of the role of thought. This has led to the misperception that rituals, techniques or other placebos are the route to change. Thus, by creating the illusion of change through altering the form or formate through which people express their insecurity, negative feelings, and dependencies, psychology has unwittingly contributed to its own inability to progress as a science and as a field of study. There is nothing to be found in studying and explaining the attributes of placebo sugar pills, water injection, or psychotherapeutic rituals, because in the end it is the human beings level of understanding and ability to think that brings results.

The field of psychology will take a new and exciting direction when we begin to look directly toward the mental power we as humans possess. Once this new wisdom is formulated and shared with people, the benefits will spill over into our society to help many people looking for relief from emotional dis-ease. Mostly from their own fear anxiety and recurrent life of self destructive behaviors that seem just out of individual control. Life Adjustment issues I call them.

This direction is also the one that will help the most people in the long run become better humans. Whether they are talking about improving the quality of their own individual reality, or possibility that of a society or even an  entire humanity, the principle is the same. The only barrier to accomplishing these feats are those of thought. It is the knowledge of this fact that will allow human beings to successfully break the perceptual, emotional, and behavioral barriers that we all struggle with.

It's a beginning...but now the idea must mature into a reality. Our evolution of humans being human as a science will emerge. After all, consciousness is now being studied as a mass, something akin to gas and other quantities that cannot be seen. Our evolution will emerge as a willingness to accept something new, to listen to someone saying that the world is round rather than flat; that the earth is not the center of the solar system; that energy, matter, and space are alloted. Or perhaps by shifting our focus away from the manifestation of people's problems and move to the principles of thought, reality, consciousness, and emotions we will see our connection to mental well being. Society may just find the route to its own wisdom.

Human Ecology, The Human Conservacy, a new way of being human, a new humanity...it's time, it's a possibility...well that's what I'm thinking on this day...Doc