Good Morning Digital Neighbors and Friends! More fun with words from the Little Book of Lost Words! Buckle up buttercup!! Strap on your big boy or girl pants!

Shivviness - noun / shiv-ee-ness / Nineteenth century English
The unpleasant or itchy feeling that comes from wearing new underwear.

Who doesn't like that obligatory phone call to thank Grandma a day or two after Christmas for the new socks or underwear? The shivviness of the new tidy-whities didn't matter, thanking Grandma did! While we all knew it didn't have to be your favorite gift for Christmas, you better thank her or you won't be able to sit down in your new underwear.

Gratitude for things typically not seen as fun by children is a good behavior to learn if once wants to grow past the pull of self-interest or self-preoccupation. I am not saying that all the phone calls to Grandma were the magic ticket to selfless behavior, but they were steps in the right direction. Learning to realize that things have value over their ability to entertain or distract is a good life lesson. Life is not all fun and games, and even if it were all fun and games we would find ourselves bored with the lack of challenge and stimulation. Or would we?

Perhaps some settle for a life of distraction and diversion instead of engagement and meaning. Nervously looks around at other users of social media I like fun, but I like meaning much more. I appreciate good distractions, but I treasure growth and engagement. Well, I should treasure it over and above distractions and entertainment, but that is not always the case. It is hard to shake off the cultural evangelism that entertainment and distraction have immense value when we pay entertainers the most and we clutch distractions closely to our hearts in the form of our precious glow screens. I'm trying to fight my addiction, but it isn't easy and it is subtly invasive. Convenience - it is a drug almost as powerful as infatuation. Not all the giddiness and giving of undue merit and affection, but rather an ease of use that is as comfortable as an old pair of undies.

Much like a body bloated with sugars and carbs, so a soul/mind bloated with distraction and entertainment becomes sluggish and unhealthy. The crisis of boredom is an self-inflicted reality as far as I am concerned. There may be times when we are forced to endure boring episodes of life because of work or education, but a life of boredom is a self-inflicted reality. Bored, look in the mirror. More than likely that person is the prime inflictor of boredom.

Life is charged with potential discovery & meaning. It is not always an easy path, but it is always a worthwhile one. Life is not an unending assembly line of meaning & discovery, but it should be more common than distraction and entertainment. We know what we are encouraged to seek, who we are taught to admire and how we should strive to emulate them. Entertainers, while fulfilling a good role in society, are far from vital and too often pretentious and inflated. Not all, there are noticeable exceptions since they stand apart from the herd of paraded egos that populate entertainment. I know, I am channeling my inner curmudgeon, but he hates his imprisonment and imposed politeness. I have had an attitude about entertainers since I was a wee lad. They were people I appreciated but rarely admired. I guess I think and feel about them the same way many think and feel about clergy, fair enough. 🤔 Bad religion is a plague on humanity. Bad entertainment is an insidious parasite on culture. Since the marginalization of religion in the West, politics and entertainment have become the replacement in the lives of many.

Shivviness - itchy, scratchy and not right just yet. With time they will become comfortable. What will you become comfortable with, excessive entertainment and distraction, or a more balanced diet of meaning and growth with some seasoning provided by limited entertainment and distraction? I am not saying I am a good practitioner of this message, but I want to be.