Call Things by Their Real Name – Be What You Are.

 

When Elder Parley Pratt came up and over his namesake canyon toll-road in the late 1840’s, he named the giant meadow he found – Parley’s Park.  A ‘Park’ was a mountain man term for a high mountain meadow, like Park Meadows, Winter Park or South Park, and not a place to play, live or put your car. 

“We don’t get up ta ‘Park’ too much anymore” said the Summit County ranchers years ago, “too many Mc Mansions and rich hippies”. The old timers called this place ‘Park’, like we call it Heber, and dropped the City part.  Deer Valley’s Snow Park was called Frog Valley before it was drained for lakes, lodges and Parking lots.  That ‘Park’ was the place with the meadows, streams and wetlands.  The city, mines and ski resorts would come later.  This place would grow and change but the name would remain the same.  Park City, paradise paved and a place where winter is now shorter than summer used to be, Can we let it become No-Snow Park or No-Park City?

Personally, when I was small, they called me Ginty, a name my Irish nanny gave me.  When I was in grammar school, they called me Little Lindon following in my big brothers’ footsteps.  In High School I was the philosopher Lindonian and in College I added Rex as the king of Lindonian, but you don’t get to pick your own nick names.  When I got out of school I was called an Engineer on my business card, even though I didn’t know squat.  I was a very Civil Engineer building ski resorts where the slopes face north, and the condos face south.  Then I was called a Dam Inspector, but that sounded too pedantic.  

Getting more involved in the dam design business I called myself a Dam Safety Engineer.  In the winters. I got more involved with weather modeling and called myself a Hydro-Meteorological Engineer even though I couldn’t say it, let alone spell it. Then I became an Assistant State Engineer, of what I wasn’t sure, but it was a nice Title. Finally, focusing on water and admitting that’s what I liked and was good at, I just called myself simply a Hydrologist and owned it. 

It took me a long time to figure out what I was and what I wanted to be, gaining wisdom by experience, no just osmosis.  People and places make us what we are.  You are what you read.  You ‘are’ your soul, and you just ‘have’ your body for a short while.  We become what we are, deliberately and accidentally, but admitting what that is can be the hardest part.  We’ve heard of ‘be where you are’ to be present, or ‘be who you are’ to be self-accepting, and finally ‘be what you are’ to admit to what you have become.  Decide what to be and go be it.

Historically we obscure  what we do with names and titles downplaying what we really are.  Remember they started calling Garbage Men, Sanitation Engineers.  Killer air quality is called fog or smog, haze or PM10 by fake weather readers.  Climate change is called natural chaos by big oil to help deny, diffuse, delay, deflect or diminish it.   Sweatshop delivery warehouses are idealistically called Dream Fulfillment Centers, and your eventual last bed is prosaically called Hospice Care. 

Now instead of being a pedophile, they can call you a Congressman and Cabinet Member or even President if you are a sex offender. It is even more essential during these trying times to call things by their real name. Titles, names and respect are earned and not just bestowed.  You are what you do, not what you say you will do.  We shouldn’t call a narcissistic huckster a King.  WOKE actions are scoffed at but it is still essential to call these designations what that are: civility, kindness, politeness and inclusiveness. 

It doesn’t matter if you are a Vegetarian, Transsexual, Republican or a Buddhist, what matters is that we are more honest and self-accepting of what we really are, and that we call things by their real name.  I’m a Hydrologist, smog is pollution, climate is changing, and our con-man is a clown.  A Park is a beautiful mountain meadow and not a Disney Land destination, cash register megalopolis.  Let’s realize what we are and where we come from and try to incentivize what we realize.  Be what you are.