More of Jonathan Every Day
Jonathots Daily Blog
Entertaining inspiration with a humorous twist
Jonathots, Jr. Daily Blog!
A Thoughtful Way to Start Your Day — (in a sentence or two)
Words From Dic(tionary)
Cring channels wisdom from the world-famous J. R. Practice to discover his (often humorous) take on what each word in the dictionary actually means…
TRANSCRIPT
Produce! PROduce!
Produce PROduce!
Production.
The producer of PROduce will produce production.
“You can say that again.”
“The producer of PROduce will produce production.”
I think I should stop saying it now.
A misconception. That is different from a conspiracy, you know. A misconception just means that somebody thinks something that’s not really true, rather than somebody invents something that’s not true and tries to make people think it.
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. Some folks would disagree with me. They would insist that the sense of entitlement—the foolish pride that often sprouts in the human race—has been fostered by those who like to see us at odds with each other.
I don’t agree. I think it all goes back to bedtime stories. The goal was to make your kids go to sleep during them, but just in case they stayed awake for the ending, the writer made sure it was happy, inclusive and never showed a hint of enough reality to scare the little kid into staying awake all night.
So that’s what we do in our society. We want everybody to feel good about themselves, so we work really hard to make up reasons for why we are the way we are. The conventional misconception is that if Earth were a garden, you would be cauliflower, I would be green beans, that lady over there would be lettuce, the fine-looking gentleman there, a potato. And each one of us would grow separately in our row, expressing our distinction from head to toe.
But here’s the problem: we’re all the same.
We’re all the same plant. We all come from the same place. We’re not cross-breeding; we’re not joining up with dogs, cats and oxen. (I don’t know why oxen came to my mind… I suppose I thought it would be interesting if that particular cross-breeding came up with “humoxen,” and ended up sounding like an antibiotic…)
No, we don’t cross-pollinate.
Cross-pollinate. What would that be?? POLLINATE!
No. We’re all tomatoes. We have slightly different colors, smooth skin, and when you open us up, we’re a garbled mess inside—all sorts of jelly, goo, little compartments…
But on the outside, we’re tomatoes.
The reason I say this is that where the distinction comes in is not in trying to become a cauliflower, but in where you decided to use your tomato.
The choices are endless, right?
Some tomatoes become ketchup. Others, soup. Some, salsa. But they’re all tomatoes.
The danger of being a tomato is that no matter what shade you may be, there is such a thing as 
being a ROTTEN tomato. And rotten tomatoes aren’t good for anything, even though sometimes on the outside, they still look like tomatoes. Isn’t that weird?
There are certain aspects of being human being that are the same for all of us. They don’t change for anybody. When we think that these parts of life are negotiable—things we can avoid because of our prestige or culture, then the whole thing begins to fall apart. What does it take to make us good tomatoes? To be solid human beings?
Because when I share this with you, you must understand that the opposite of this, which is often prevalent, leaves us arguing, fussing, attacking one another, making tons of excuses, and ultimately, just failing.
NUMBER ONE
I need to know so I can grow, and therefore sow
Flat-out, there are just things I don’t know. There are things that stand in the way of knowledge. Arrogance, for instance. Since arrogance thinks it knows, why seek to know?
Prayer. Some people think it’s a lack of faith that would cause us to try to learn more.
Even education stands in the way of knowing because we become convinced that we’ve already accumulated enough to draw a conclusion, and we end up turning our back on the missing part that would make things work.
I stand before the entire human race and say I need to know. Why? Because I don’t know. And if I don’t know, I can’t grow. And if I don’t grow, there’s no reason whatsoever that you should believe that anything I say, do or promote is worth giving one second of attention to.
When something is working, it is growing.
Sometimes we grow in faith, sometimes we grow in science, sometimes we grow in size, sometimes we grow in understanding.
But there are parts that are moving toward a better outlook and a better result. But I can’t grow like that until I admit I need to know.
And once I establish that I can grow by what I now know, then I’m prepared to sow. I’m prepared to try things. I’m prepared to offer suggestions. Mostly I’m prepared to offer my assistance and backing to those around me.
I become a good tomato.
I’m not trying to be something different from everybody else just so I can claim I’m different.
I’m trying to find my tomato, so I can decide where I want to invest my tomato—whether it’s going to be making picante or catching it a little early and having fried green tomatoes.
The first step in becoming a good tomato is I need to know so I can grow, and therefore sow.
Number 2
If I’m humble, even if I bumble, I don’t need to tumble.
The reason we end up looking foolish in life is because we actually refuse to admit that the very last thing we did—that thing that just happened—was a mistake. And the reason we don’t want to do that is because humility—being humble—has been cast, in this day and age, as a weakness.
When you’re proud you have to back it up and be right. When you’re humble, you get the chance to try, and if you bumble, there’s no need for you to tumble and be out of the game.
We have people in government, religion, entertainment and in business who are so cocky that every time they have one little hair out of place, they are criticized.
No tomato can stand that amount of pressure.
If I’m humble, I can bumble and still not tumble.
So, I need to know so I can grow, and then I’ll be ready to sow. And if I’m humble, even when I bumble, I haven’t put myself so high on the pedestal that I’ll tumble.
To put this in common everyday English, Humpty Dumpty would have been fine if he hadn’t sat his ass on that high wall.
I was sitting here realizing that if you cross-breed—hybrid—a tomato and a potato, you get a pomato. Or is it a totato? Pardon that interruption.
Number Three
IT IS CLEAR
It is clear—you see what I’m saying?
When you admit you need to know—which allows you to grow and gives you the right to sow your opinions as having some value—you can then be humble, which means even if you bumble you do not have to tumble and be cast aside.
At that point things become CLEAR. Right now, things are muddy. Things are cloudy.
So much has been represented that there is an inability for any of us to find clarity. But at this point it becomes clear, Mr. and Mrs. Tomato, wherever you are, that if you use good cheer, you can conquer your fear. So what does it take to be a great tomato—a great human being?
I need to know so I can grow
Which will make me ready to sow
For if I am humble even if I bumble
I don’t have to tumble then it is clear
When I have good cheer, I can conquer my fear.
Fear is what causes us to believe that we have to be so different from each other to have any identity at all.
I don’t know where you’re headed. Are you going for the soup? The catsup? The spaghetti sauce? The sliced tomatoes?
Or are you gonna do the salsa?
But the good news is, if you learn how to be a good tomato, a good human being, you’ll carry the flavor that is necessary to make you valuable wherever you go.
And the better news is, when we stop trying to be something we’re not, we can actually begin with confidence, to share what we’ve got.
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