Sunday, August 27, 2006
Cariņo: Caps, lower case, delete
By Linda Grace Cariņo
Paradigm Shift
I'VE been lately cleaning up my cell phone phonebook and find myself quite unthinkingly doing some strange things. I am editing some names and numbers out, updating some other numbers, and re-writing, if you will, data. Spelling is improved (the wireless world being one where one can actually choose how to spell -- or to not spell, is more like it), codes and nicknames are given or altered, etc., and, most significantly, name entries are entered in caps or lower case.
Family members are written in all caps, first names or code names only. Code names: these hopeless monikers family members give each other, i.e., Piggy, Tigs, Doņa. Saner entries are Mamar, Tamidala, Kubz, PAO. Close relatives, friends, and colleagues who are as family also get all caps. All caps, in my book, are Priority One entries.
Priority Two entries are written in as one-name entries. You know them well and are in constant communication with them for various reasons that you don?t need their family names. But where the Priority One Group is in all caps, these are written in with first letters only capitalized. For example, our laundress is written in as Elsa. She is very important to our household, so she is the one-name Elsa entry. Lesser Elsas have family names attached. Which leads me to Priority Three.
Priority Three entries are names of those in my life who matter but who need a family name listed or else I won't know exactly who they are. Elsa Gaviola is the seamstress I sometimes go to. She is written in as Elsa G. Another Elsa is written in as Elsa Canute. I don't remember who she is. I'm not sure why her number is in my book. Methinks I've also never called/texted her; neither received calls/texts from her. Guess it's time to delete this entry.
Editing our cell phone books is like editing our lives. To edit the books, we need to determine what entries are really important, which ones just important and to what degrees they are, and which entries have no relevance to us. These lattermost sometimes may have been in all caps, sometimes capitalized, sometimes lower cased. Sometimes you don't even know how they got into your book. Delete them kindly?
As in life, let go of entries that have not kept up with your growth, your progress, your world. Be they concepts, people, things, places, whatever. But bless them as you do so. You never know when they just might re-enter your consciousness, requiring ALL CAPS at that.
(August 27, 2006 issue)
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