Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Zen of the New Year

"There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence." -- Meister Eckhart

I think about this Meister Eckhart quote at the end of the year. For some mysterious reason, to humans an imaginary line is drawn through the time that is celebrated as New Years Eve. There is the granite-like sensation of past and future and we are really only fully aware for a brief moment of the present. And it often times reflects in our faces joyfully. Or sadly. What our consciousness is feeling at the moment of transition is what waves to the world. Similar to the Greek comedy and tragedy theatre masks--smiling when one mask is chosen and frowning when the other is used.

What mask will I wear when the clock strikes midnight?

When that clock does strikes twelve on New Years Eve, people kiss, hug, cheer, raise their glasses in toast, exchange presents, often even sharing these personal gestures fully with perfect strangers at that moment in time. That precise, present moment.

It is potentially the single greatest expression of a mass Zen-like moment that takes place all year. Though it may be at times and with certain people be fueled with alcohol, it still works.

The New Year may be all about resolutions and changes and promises to ourselves and to others, but it is really that moment that counts. When we recognize ourselves, captured in amber for that moment in time.

I want piles of amber moments to climb down from when my time is up. I have a couple handfuls already.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Feet

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.--Oliver Wendell Holmes
I sat down across the table from my wife after a grueling road-trip of meetings over the last couple of weeks which included a car-deer accident that resulted in a total loss to my vehicle. Away from home for the last 4 days and 3 nights, 30-plus hours in the car alone, suffering through a poor choice of a book on tape (Simon Schama's, A History of Britain, Volume III, Snore!), five meetings and Michigan's ever challenging upper peninsula weather--it was just good to have my butt in a familiar seat that wasn't hot or moving.

Contemplating what I thought of the new haircut she was sporting--I like it--we caught up on things that happened to each of us during our time away. I then remembered an interesting dream that I had had the night before I was to return, and shared it with her. I said, " I dreamt that you were on this extended trip--a month or so-- and that you kept sending me these pictures on my phone of your feet. Sometimes they were on the ground, propped up on things, left foot alone, right foot only, both feet together and even the occasional one with people touching them. And always at different locations, like you were traveling around all the time." She was grinning at me as I was telling this, obviously enjoying where this was going.

She interrupted me (not rudely I would add) with the obvious question on her mind, "Did I have nail polish on them?" I should have saw that question coming. She wanted to make sure those feet of hers looked good in my dream.

This is where it got interesting.

"Yes, you did, but different polish in every picture. Sometimes multiple colors on the toes with the occasional toenail sporting an intricate design or I even remember one resembling a face staring into the camera from your big toe." She must have spent a lot of time working on those toes during her travels. I have seen the process first-hand and seems to be time-intensive and smelly. Not the feet, the polish odor.

So how do I interpret such a dream--not that it is all that important to have a interpretation--to understand what my unconscious was doing that night?

I think I just missed my wife very much...her feet as well.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Life's Plane Trip


"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

My wife has been working very hard at understanding her person, the unique and special human being that she is. Why…I haven’t quite figured out. I find her already to be levels above me in emotional intelligence, intellectual intelligence and just simple goodness. If anyone should have an understanding of themselves I would have bet the bank it was her. Perhaps it is wrong to be the standard of measure for her. No, I know that is wrong and would be a self-centered attitude on my part to cultivate. But I believe it must come from the desire that lurks in our dark cellars that whispers that we are broken somehow and we need to be fixed.

It gives me a scratchy feeling that I am somehow wrong. Like a joke that might be a bit offensive (aren’t most jokes slightly offensive on some level?) and it leaves the teller or the listener a bit uncomfortable. That’s how life seems to strike me at times, strangely uncomfortable. Or leaves me feeling “comfortably numb” as the Pink Floyd song can be heard in the recesses of my mind. It makes me wonder what lies at the end of the universe; after all, doesn’t everything end? But in my mind that has only the five basic senses—touch, taste, sight, sound and smell—to process the reality that it faces, it withholds the greater mysteries that trouble me without answers.

When you roll a ball across a table, it reaches the edge, falls into a tangible space filled with air, till it strikes the ground. Then it may roll or bounce a bit until it comes to rest or encounters a wall or table leg where it will bounce off that or come to rest. Eventually when it has used all of its energy you will find it at rest against something substantial…in this example, the floor. There it will remain until a new force is added to it to begin moving again. Or, until it is picked up and set again on the table. Everything about it makes sense because it is processed by my available senses.

Now shoot a beam of light into space. It will travel through the distantness of that space…forever. Will it ever encounter the end of anything? The end of everything? And how can it reach the end of everything? At the end of everything is there something else? Einstein said something like it will eventually circle back and pass itself in time. In what I see—what I can process—there is always something following the last thing. When I was a kid, I repeatedly had a troubling dream about this stumbling question of forever. Infinity. That and another dream of a huge dinosaur coming towards my house with thundering footsteps of destruction. Oh, and then there was the dream of the shifting desert sands…

So my guess is that my wife is just learning how to land her plane better. I could use some help with that as well. Flying it better would also help. It seems to always land but some of the landings are rougher than others. And someday the flight may not have any ground under it and what a mystery will then unfold, more than likely opening up to a new sense that my human mind cannot comprehend on my human time of existence.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Buried Deeply Away Till It is Gone, Yet Is Forever

We bury love,
Forgetfulness grows over it like grass;
That is a thing to weep for,
not the dead.
-- Alexander Smith (no relation)

I want to break down a poem, a verse, a thoughtful assemblage of words that are working to express emotion. That emotion can be painful to the mind and be of a torturous nature.

“We bury love,”
Love can be buried, yes, but can it ever go completely away from our thoughts? Quietly we bury the pain caused by loss. Perhaps it is a loss that was only a dream inside our heads, a fantasy, a world of our creation that was a dimension that is unknown to nature. We try to say goodbye to love in an effort to preserve integrity of our memories. Why else do we hold on to people who cause only pain in our lives? We grasp on to the love that existed before the pain, before the betrayal, before the self-destruction.

”Forgetfulness grows over it like grass;”
How green are our cemeteries, jutting with marble headstones. Proclaiming the departed’s name, statistics of birth date, day of passing from this plane and perhaps a brief verse of significant fact to try and explain the body beneath the sod. Or perhaps a stone with significant artwork to ferment the viewers mind with some thought of wonderment. But as the grass covers the shovels work, the forgetting begins, the bad memories begin to fade and the green covering makes one stare inside their head at the powerful memories of meaningful joy that were shared. Flowers may even rise among the grass and add a bit of color.

“That is a thing to weep for,”
I remember the first time I thought of my Grandmother some time after her passing. I had a memory as I drove by her house but I could not remember what her face looked like easily. Concentration on this only seemed to make it fuzzier. It took a digging out of a recent photograph of her to implant a picture to my memories of her. It happens now with all my relatives that have passed on. They seem to have the appearance of the last photograph that I viewed of them. I wonder if this is normal. What did people do before the advent of photography? Is this why people first began to have portraits painted and hung in their dwellings? Reminders to their heirs of what was gone, a visual record of sorts? Forgetting what someone looks like that we loved is enough to make you weep over it.

“not the dead.”
I will refuse to cry over the dead anymore. But I will weep for the forgetting that happens at the same time as I try to remember everything—good and bad as hell memories--before I have my own carpet of grass.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Sh*tMyHusbandSays


“We may with advantage forget what we know.”—Publilius Syrus
I finished a phone call with my daughter the other evening and went about the business that I was doing before she called me, watching my fish and snails in the aquarium and packing away my football officiating gear for the season. I will preface this with the fact that she (my daughter who lives about 50 miles from where I live) was going to be in my neighborhood for a week in the near future doing training for her job, and she wanted to know if she could come over for dinner one evening. A simple conversation, no?

Well, apparently not when it involves me communicating with other people. My wife, loading the washing machine, said to me as I was walking by to get a drink of water, “Do you know what you told Georgia?”

I thought I had remembered. I was the one doing the conversing. But I was apparently going to find out from her what I thought I already knew. Maybe I should get a beer instead? 2 beers.

My wife said, “You told her “Call me next week and tell me when I will be around and we can get together.”

Really I thought—then—“really”, I said to my wife.

“You do that all the time”, was her unemotional reply.

Really? I talk and make no sense? How long have I been doing this?

“She knew what you meant”, she added, “we always do.”

We? Not just her, but the all-inclusive "we" of friends, family, and strangers I am prone to talk with.

Was I really forgetting how to talk and was making others understand me in a nonsensical way?

I told her she should start keeping track of these things, maybe start a website like the guy at http://www.shitmydadsays.com/. Maybe call it Sh*tMyHusbandSays.com.

Just a thought.

Note: Publilius Syrus, was a Latin writer of maxims, from the 1st century BC. He was a Syrian who was brought as a slave to Italy, but by his wit and talent, won his master’s favor and was freed and educated by him.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Leave Me Alone!

"Speak the truth, but leave immediately after." ~Slovenian Proverb

I am beginning to suffer frustration at the hands of this blog. I start out with an idea and it seems like it may be a positive effort but then it always ends up coated with mud and slime. Angst seems to be taking over my typing fingers, independent of where I want to go. Subconscious directions are leading me around like I have a ring in my nose. I want to gore something but that damn ring keeps getting yanked and I end up on the other side of the barn. Mad and hurt at the same time.

Maybe it is election season doing this to me.

Every direction I turn there is someone out there—on billboards, radio, TV and lawn signs—telling me about why they should be trusted with my vote. And this year it seems to mostly want to save me money on taxes, healthcare and other “essential” services that our government provides. Actually these services are funded by me as a taxpayer. Then I look at the ones already in office--the ones that are shaking my hand with one hand and have their other hand inside my wallet—and I realize how foolish it is to trust any of them. Have any of these Yo-Yo’s balanced a checkbook? Worked at a real job at some point in their life?

See, my typing fingers are doing it again.

I try to think happy thoughts. Take baby steps. Breathe.

SCREAM!

Friday, October 22, 2010

Balance and Indifference

And if you cannot remain indifferent, you must resolve to throw your weight into that balance in which the fate and condition of man is weighed. -- Lajos Kossuth
What a difficult choice it is to stand up and do what is right. How scary is it to risk important security blankets of your thoughts, words and deeds that you have surrounding you. How utterly frightening it can be to cope with a change that gets thrust upon you. It can feel like a sucker-punch to the guts—painful and lasting—slowly mending if it ever completely does. If you’ve ever had bruised ribs, compare the pain and healing involved.
So much of how we react is tied into the personality of people. The same incident may want different responses to heal it—curl up in a ball, cry, grow angry, feel physical sickness, punch something--personally done them all, sometimes over the same conflict.
But after the initial reaction wears off, what do you do? Well I would look closely at Lajos Kossuth’s quote that I led with. Quit thinking of yourself and start thinking about others, how to improve the conditions of the planet and the human beings that have to live on it. Many of them truly are suffering and are abused and hungry and sick.
Or, I suppose you could remain indifferent. But before you decide that course, Google Biafra, Auschwitz or your local food bank.

Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva; September 19, 1802 – March 20, 1894 was a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of Hungary in 1849. He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Hide and Trick the Treaters

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."-- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3


This is true. I could not make this stuff up. Seriously.

The United States Department of Agriculture is giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to use marketing tricks to encourage kids to pick fruits and veggies over cookies and french fries.

Some of the ideas include hiding chocolate milk behind plain milk, putting the salad bar near checkout, placing fruit in pretty baskets and accepting only cash as payment for desserts.

“I’m sorry, cash only for the croissant.”

They could have given me $2 and I would have told them the same thing. This is why my mom used to hide the Christmas cookies from us. But really, the key word to what the USDA is encouraging is “trick” and I find that quite scary. Will they start piping subliminal messages during school announcements when they are telling the kids the featured “good food” on the day’s menu? Chocolate milk is bad…eat your salad…desert will make you fat.

The dirty trick of a treat we used to get at Halloween was the apples and popcorn balls. I could get apples anytime stolen from the neighborhood Catholic retreat house orchards (will probably burn in Hell for those youthful offenses) and stale popcorn balls were no treat. And then the food safety risks of those foods destined most of them to the trash bin. Wrapped candy was more desired than produce.

At least we got exercise while running around collecting candy on Halloween. After all, you had 2 hours to hit every house in the town, sometimes twice if you came up with a creative second costume that disguised your identity enough to fool your neighbors.

So remember what food was like in the past. Chocolate milk tasted like chocolate. We could eat Wonder Bread around peanut butter and jelly (made with real sugar). Cap’n Crunch cereal could get you high in the morning before school. And we ran like banshees till the street lights came on.

So keep control of the past by remembering the good things we had so we can guide the future.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Wren In Doubt


 A House Wren! Those were the words with an exclamation point that popped into my head as I stood looking through my wife’s binoculars, the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds in my left hand. Mystery solved!
The “mystery” began this past, endlessly-long Michigan winter. My wife and step-daughter decided to decoratively paint some craft-store bird houses to display around the house. The paint was artistically splashed on and when done, my wife declared that hers looked like a clown house. Seeing it, I had to agree. It did share characteristics of a circus clown…color, design and even the shape. Deciding that it failed to live up to the standards of the house decoration that was envisioned, it was delegated to be repainted later, and traveled about the house until reaching its final winter resting place—my wife's gardening bench in the garage.

During the remaining long winter months, the birdhouse became covered with a growing mass of various garage items of my disorderly placement. With the spring gardening season fast approaching and a rather stiff talking to by the wife about “my junk” on “her” bench, I took action to put my things in their proper place. Clearing the gardening bench of my clutter, I uncovered the birdhouse and knew immediately what needed to be done. I attached a clip to the eyelet on the top of the bird box and hung it from a low branch of the silver maple tree behind the garage. “She’ll hate it hanging there,” I thought mischievously, admiring my work.

Later that day, I proudly pointed out it’s placement in the tree, thinking that this woman of class and good taste I’m married to, would immediately ask me to remove it from our yard, pointing out the travesty of hanging it where all could see. However, she simply stated, “It doesn’t look too bad there…But no bird will ever nest in it.” Staggered by this, I thought, “We’ll see,” and as I asked her if she had seen my car keys anywhere I contemplated my next move.

Spring arrived, and along with it, the songbirds. But not a blade of grass or twig entered the tiny, round entrance of the birdhouse. Birds busily sang and built and ate bugs and birdseed, but all shunned the clown bird house. Directly above it on the maple branches, a robin built its nest. Cardinals occupied our evergreen bush with their nest of grey-speckled eggs. Our bluebird box (bluebird-free for eight years) hosted its annual family of white-footed mice and a nest of angry hornets. But nothing took notice of the possibility offered by my wife’s brightly painted birdhouse.

Then, early in June, as I sweated and pushed my lawnmower past “clowny” the birdhouse, I was startled to see a twig sticking out of the entrance. Stopping the lawnmower (I look for any excuse to take a break from this soul-killing experience), I peered into the small, circular darkness and observed that it was indeed the start of a nest. A scattered mass of twigs and grasses covered the bottom of the box. This development thrilled me slightly, and as I continued to crush the life out of me with more mowing, I made a mental note to tell the wife.

Now the remembering to tell might seem easy, but fast approaching 50, it has become challenging, and she was not immediately available to tell. Fortune offered me a reminder when I nearly bumped my head on the birdhouse on my way inside to clean up. Once inside, I grabbed a pen and a Post-It note and wrote, “A bird built a nest in your birdhouse,” and sketched a small outline of the sparrow-like bird that I envisioned must be setting up housekeeping. I placed the note on the counter where I was sure she would see it and promptly forgot about it.

That very night, Mother Nature, being the cruel mother she can sometimes be, visited upon us a vicious spring storm--with wind and rain and tornadoes--tossing branches, leaves and bird nests from the trees. And typically, out went our power. So out came the generator to save the basement from flooding, perishables from perishing and tropical fish from facing northern climate temperatures which would have surely left them belly-up in a matter of hours. As I was running extension cords to the house, I noticed an unfamiliar birdsong. I followed the sound and spied an energetic little grayish bird stretching out all of its roughly four-inch body and singing in the branch above the “clown” birdhouse. Loudly he sang, jumping from branch to branch repeating a happy song. Then he darted to the nearby pole of our badminton net, stretched out and sang and sang and sang.

I could only assume this energetic new arrival was behind the nest-building. But what kind of bird was it? I strained to see but could only make out a small fuzzy gray. I now have to point out that most of my trouble seeing the bird is because I’m near-sighted and dislike wearing my glasses (when I can find them). So, my only notable observations at the time were of a small, gray bird busily singing a happy tune and darting from branch to branch to badminton net pole and that its proximity to the birdhouse indicated it may be responsible for the beginnings of the nest.

Strangely, I remembered to tell my better half about the nest-building when she returned before the Post-It note was discovered. (Later, she mentioned the “cute little bird drawing” on the note.) To my disappointment, she took the news with much less enthusiasm than I expected. In retrospect, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to top a weekend fly-fishing on Michigan’s Pere Marquette River with 11 other women, showered with attention from multiple male guides with all their talk of hackles and tight lines and exotic aquatic insects. And the vision of me welcoming her home, unshowered for two days due to the still noticeable lack of electricity, did not help matters. Her question after I told her the news was, “What kind of bird is it?” I wasn’t ready for this question. “I shouldn’t have been painting the porch,” I thought. “I should have spent my time in an effort to identify the bird and have the answer ready,” but years of marriage helped me file it away rather than say it.

My ego bruised, I turned to the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds and waited for my chance to identify the bird.

Now, caring about identifying songbirds is a recent development for me. I felt I was fairly good with the red ones (Cardinals), yellow ones (Goldfinches), blue ones (Blue Jays and Bluebirds), black ones (Crows, Starlings, Grackles) and mixed colors (Red-winged Blackbirds, Red-bellied Woodpeckers)--as well as all the waterfowl and upland game birds I have hunted. Lately though I felt a bit more pressure to identify every bird I came across. I can trace this need to identify things directly to my wife who recently began keeping a nature journal. Anyone who has ever spent time with a two-year-old will understand the adult version of this type of curiosity when embarking on a new hobby or activity. My wife's questions brought out a need of mine to answer them and has led to a large personal library of books to help identify the smallest gnat to the tallest tree in Michigan’s air, land, or inland seas.

Her new hobby led me to take a great deal of pleasure in bringing her things to sketch and write about. Bird feathers, black walnuts with squirrel teeth marks, pine cones, broken bird eggs, strange looking leaves, dead butterflies from the grill of the car—all I have proudly given her to draw. It's like the male crow that collects shiny things and takes them home to Mrs. Crow.

So that night, armed with Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds, I thumbed through and identified several possibilities based on my previous fuzzy observations. The next morning, the little bird was singing away on the badminton pole. His song was a bubbling musical series of sharply whistled notes of “Chek,” I grabbed the field guide and the binoculars I had left on the kitchen table, proud of how prepared I was. There it perched, grayish brown with barred wings and a light throat, a light eye ring, yellowish legs and beak, just as described in the field guide. As it met all the criteria of the House Wren, right down to the described song it was singing, I considered the bird identified, categorized, named and proclaimed good. A House Wren. When my wife appeared, I proudly announced the news.

“House Wren,” she said, “What kind of name is that?”


The House Wren
Troglodytes aedon

The House Wren is a common bird found in backyards across the country. This little brown bird loves nothing more than to take over all the birdhouses where it sets up its territory. It will destroy the eggs of other nesting songbirds as well as its own species, sometimes taking over that nesting site for itself, but often just being destructive and nesting nearby. Often a “wren guard” is placed on nesting boxes to prevent them from entering and destroying Bluebird eggs. It loves to eat small terrestrial invertebrates (spiders and insects, with over 95% of them considered pest species by experts) found by gleaning surrounding leaves and shrubs. The male may have more than one mate at a time, splitting his time between families. Similarly, the female wren may leave its eggs and take up with a second male to start a new brood and leave the first male to rear his brood alone. It has one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the new world—from the tip of South America in winter to the northernmost region of Canada in summer. It is a common sight in backyards…If you just take the time to observe.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Solitude

“In solitude, where we are least alone.” -- Lord Byron


Byron gets it. The voices in our heads are the ones that come out and scream at us loudest when we are alone. I get it at night. I hear they are hard to squelch when people are trying to meditate, trying to reach enlightenment. I remember being down on my knees praying in church and they made an awful racket at times. Definitely not the voice of God or the Devil.

The voices were not people but more of a collective orchestra of passionate discord. Drums of memories and horns of worries and string sections of possibilities. I know it wasn't the choir or the organ because I would choose the music-free mass offered on Sunday morning. I really never cared that much for church music despite the fact my own mother played the organ at the church I attended. I was proud that she played so well and the congregation enjoyed her tunes but rare was the hymn that pleased my ears. "Morning Has Broken" was one I did enjoy. Cat Stevens did that old English hymn justice when he sang it on the "Buddha and the Chocolate Box" album. Probably my music likes were corrupted by all that devil rock and roll I listened to. Maybe that was where the noise in my head came from. Perhaps all that resounding guitar and drum and bass line playing. Loud too.

But the solitude that invades my head can take on my forms.

It can be intoxicating. With vigorous ideas and beliefs and dreams that it believes my body can accomplish. A drunkard it is, bragardly and boastful to my inner souls desires.

Other times, though rarely these days, it is a bitter tonic full of anger and frustration. Aimed at people, places, things, responsibilities. I assume that those type of voices mellow as you get older, as you taper down on the emotions that dominate you in your youth. The same stuff that makes you think bungee jumping off a bridge might be a good idea.

But mostly now I hear the whispers of truth that solitude allows me to see clearly. The voices work to quiet and settle my mind so that it can focus and refocus on the important task of happiness. Clarifying the perceptions of the world that I am encountering with my body.

Although my mind tends to be a very noisy place, when I look hard enough and seek out the corners of tranquility that are hidden there, it is those quiet and still places that lead me to truth.

Friday, October 1, 2010

The Church in the East

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

Verse by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

The powerful verse from Rilke illustrates a profound quandary that all of us face in our lives regarding changes. The words speak less of an actual physical leaving, but more of the spiritual leaving that takes place in our hearts and how it affects the ones surrounding the “victim” of this spiritual encounter. I see this leaving in others as well as feeling it in myself. Fearful am I at times when I recognize them--worrying about the possible outcomes of the journey.

I have seen my children, my wife, my job, my marriage, my belief system, all travel the road to the “Church that stands somewhere in the east” at some point in time. I have not lost those things, they only traveled a measured path that needed to be ventured along. Loves bonds still held—sometimes stretched—but still fondly attached.

I have also experienced the death inside my own house. I have smelled the rotting sense of deathlike loss and doubt. Fear has stalked and lurked around me with challenging fierceness. I feel my children looking for what I failed to give them as a father. What I was incapable of giving to them at times. I never failed to love, but I failed to care enough at times to forgive myself the failures that I suffered.

Personally, I seek the “church”, die far from the “church” and bear witness to the journeys of others to the “church.” And I will forget and be forgotten as well.

From Wikipedia: Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926) was a Bohemian–Austrian poet and art critic. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Condition: Loneliness


"Be warned: If you allow yourself to see dignity in someone, you have doomed yourself to wanting to understand and help whoever it is."--Kurt Vonnegut

How often have we judged people by their outward appearances? By their manners or lack of? Their haircut or grooming habits? The way they speak: with an accent or a lisp or with a strange sounding voice?Admit it, as human beings we all do it.

I would also put forth this reason why it seems to me more and more that people are judging others by standards that are arbitrarily invented to keep themselves comfortable. We have lost a bit of the extended families that we once were a part of. Yes, we are more lonely. I look around and I see this unconscious longing to overcome the loneliness that has crept slowly into peoples lives. A loneliness that in reality they are creating for themselves. They express this to others on Facebook. They practically cry it out for everyone to see. But that medium does not allow for a cure of the condition. It may actually enhance the feelings of loneliness. Do they think that "Look at all the people I am connected to, and I am still all alone?" That is what I hear and see. Facebook makes me sad. I feel the empty conditions--their longing to be loved--of some of the people I care for.

I will share an example of my own experience. I have officiated high school football for more than twenty years, and for most of that time, I encountered the same coaches and worked with a steady group of fellow officials. They would come and go due to life changes but there was always a core group.  That all changed 2 years ago and the whole group imploded. It happens to work groups just like it happens in families. A painful leap that is growth but leaves a feeling of emptiness.

I still love to officiate but now I have to embrace a new group. A group that I did not understand and actually thought I may not get along with. I had some preconceived notions of some of these characters from previous encounters at meetings, work at scrimmages as well as fellow officials opinions of them. In otherwords, my inside was telling my outside it was not possible to get along and have fun like I did in the past. So I plowed ahead. Fearful. Worried. Cautious. Longing for what I had lost when my little officiating "family" was no more.

But after working a few games with this new bunch of guys, I believe now that I was wrong. And I would bet that the other people that were going to work with me for the first time were probably experiencing the same thing. I hope they will feel better now about it like I do. Now I want to learn from them and become a cohesive unit. I want to continue to understand others.


And lastly, a simple recognition of the conditions leading to hopelessness--to loneliness--probably was personally cured by one of the nicest texts I ever got, a simple "Miss you, Papa."

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Humanistic Economics


"Call a thing immoral or ugly, soul-destroying or a degradation of man, a peril to the peace of the world or to the well-being of future generations; as long as you have not shown it to be uneconomic you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow, and prosper." -- Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher


A man's got to earn a living to get by in this world. But I have begun to take the approach that we should carefully control where we spend our resources to obtain what we need to be happy, provide for our family and support our community.  And community can be as large as you feel like defining it. 

Many major religions speak of the "community of man" in the broad context of the many "souls" that people the planet.  They look at the global development of their mission.

The flag wavers talk of "America" as the border of their focus. Buy American. Support Our Troups. America: Love It Or Leave It. Wonder what the American Indians would think about these slogans?

People in my home town say we need to narrow it down to our own local businesses. The ones that can outlast the Walmart and the Meijer stores.

But the one thing that I really try to do is find people that want to do things and are economically challenged. I found a couple reliable shade-tree mechanics that can help me when the projects get to hard for me with a car or truck I need repaired. Heck, they even work on my old John Deere Lawn mower at times. They are people that I can talk to--at length--about the vehicles problem. I can buy the parts at the local auto parts store and they charge me a fair price to install them. Or I can call them and talk about my problem and they can sometimes lead me to a simple fix on my own. These guys didn't go to school to be mechanics, they learned it by tearing down and building cars for mud bogs and racetracks. They seem to understand the soul of automobiles, if they have one. I believe my Jeep Grand Cherokee has one and it is headed straight to H#%@ when I finally pull off the road for the last time and put a bullet through its heart.

They are also schooling me. Showing me a way of looking at things. Helping me conquer the fear that always seems to proceed a major repair that I undertake. They have stopped by my garage when I reached a sticky spot to guide me along. They have shown me how to weld, use a torch and how to use heat to loosen parts. They have been customer support on the phone. They have "humanized" getting my stuff fixed.

I feel good about handing money over to people like that versus the dealership and the auto repair joints that I have dealt with in the past. They almost think of being paid as an afterthought. They love the challenge of auto repair. They love to talk about cars and their experiences with them. They smile and laugh about what they have done to help you. And they are the actual person that has done the work. Not the service manager with the manicured nails and the computerized billing that confronts you when it comes time to pick up your car.

So invite your mind to look for ways you can reach out to people rather than businesses. Find someone to sell you your meat from a farm and a butcher that can cut it the way you want it cut. Buy some produce from a roadside stand. Go to those garage sales that pop up all summer. Or find your own shade-tree mechanic, they are around every corner.

And find something that you can do for others that will fill you with the sense of accomplishment when you benefit others.

Wikapedia definition of Humanistic economics: Humanistic economics focuses on human economic activity as being social and altruistically constructed, not just individualistically and selfishly derived. The importance of the ethical individual living within a vibrant local community, not merely as a lone wolf nor as a consumer of mass culture and production on a global scale, is often stressed. The importance of accounting for externalities (items not always put on the economic balance sheet like pollution or loss of biodiversity) are other key concepts.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Organization Disaster Case


“Electricity is really just organized lightning.”—George Carlin

My wonderful (a true understatement) wife is perhaps one of the most organized people in the world, at least the known world of “Me”. She is accurate with scheduled appointments. Prompt to do assigned or needed tasks for work and pleasure. All things have a place and she is able to find them with outstanding ease of effort. I also benefit when I need to borrow something of hers as she can either point out its location, or, if it is an item I have used in the past and retrieved, I know where to look…if I remembered to put it away properly.

Then there is the recent case with my back-up staple gun.

Now it will be important to back up a bit and explain my approach to organization. I approach it with a lack of understanding that my brain no longer files away storage locations of things with the clarity that it used to have. A brain that used to run like a brand new computer works more like a Commodore 64 computer from the early 80’s. Google it if you can’t remember that “state-of-the-art” device. Basically it works slowly like it is infected with a virus. Scrambled as well and needing to be de-fragmented like the hard drives of computers. Projects are lying around in various states of completion and incompletion.

• weed wacker that needs a throttle cable (waiting for the part to come in the mail)
• 2nd weed wacker that needs repair if I could figure it out (trying to find the manual)
• boat seat needing to be reupholstered and repaired (trying to find my second staple gun)
• baseball officiating gear that needs to be stored and football officiating gear that needs to be found (just need to take the time to do it)
• garage door that is crooked when it closes (this could take an engineer or a professional garage door mechanic)
• a 1962 Chevy Nova II (more like a skeleton of a car at this point)
• a basement room with drywall hung and first mud applied (trying to find the motivation to plaster)
• fish tank that needs cleaning (just need to take the time to do it)
• lawn tractor #2 won’t start (battery, starter, solenoid?)

The list just goes on like a bad romantic comedy. Or a slow action film.

But when I think about things and put them in perspective, the broken and lost stuff is old like my brain. Old stuff needs to be fixed. Stuff that hasn’t been used in years is gathering dust in spots around my house like my knowledge of college calculus, dwelling in some far-off corner of the gray matter in my skull. So my brain needs to be fixed too. Brain dust is covering it. Picture that if you can. Need to find a “brain-duster-off-er.” I kind of feel like George Carlin looks in the above picture. Or maybe I just need to quit putting so much pressure on it and give it a break. Let it just go where it wants to go and stop forcing it to work so hard. Maybe like water it will flow to the lowest point, scouring itself out while it races to the sea of knowledge.

I would apply Leo Tolstoy’s following quote to the brain as well as to the body as he inferred: “Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.”

I truly do hinder myself with a desire to remember everything, I need only remember what is available to me, close to my mind’s surface.

And I almost forgot, the back-up staple gun was found where I last used it. In the toolbox I take to the rifle range to attach my targets down range.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

How to Forget?

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.--Henry David Thoreau

I need to learn a new skill.

A skill that can help me to be able to see things in a truer light. A light that casts a shadow of truth on objects, people and thoughts. I must learn how I can make space in my cluttered, unfocused mind and that restless spirit of mine that troubles and toys with it. I seem to be seeing many things in new perspective. Bright, new visions. As I am growing older, aging and evolving, the universe of my memories is growing crowded and confused.


I look around me and I am surrounded by so much that talks to me of what I have done in my life. There are the bookshelves filled with the volumes I have read. My favorite authors, collected and shelved for me to see, take down and turn to that certain passage that pleases. A snow goose mount from a special hunt with dear friends. Pictures and autographed baseballs and elephant bookends.

But perhaps I should begin to remove some of these things. Take the books I probably won't read again and donate them. Give away my drawings and art that lies flat and unviewed. Mostly forgotten things. Unused. Should be discarded. Simplify a bit more.

What I truly need to develop is not the ability to remember more, but the ability to forget. Give up certain ways and things. That would bring a peace to me and allow more joy to work it's magic on my life.

Gary Ryan Blair, "The GoalsGuy®", kind of sums up what I am contemplating when he wrote, "Learning is about more than simply acquiring new knowledge and insights; it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlived its relevance. Thus, forgetting is probably at least as important as learning.”

Let the forgetting, begin.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Karma…or Is It?


"According to the karma of past actions, one's destiny unfolds, even though everyone wants to be so lucky.”--Sri Guru Granth Sahib

They are cute little industrious critters. Enthusiastically scrambling around the edges of the woods, up the bird feeders and diving under the deck. Excavating tunnels throughout the planters surrounding our house and devouring or disrupting the root systems of the plants my wife and I cherish in the landscaping surrounding us. Industriously destructive is their true essence.

And every spring and early summer, the population of them surges to the point of overflowing in the area surrounding our house and yard. Such is the plight of rural dwellers.

Chipmunks. Gophers. Ground squirrels. Oh my! (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself from using a cheesy rip-off from “The Wizard of Oz”)

So population control measures need to be enacted around our residence, and since the critters don’t provide much meat and I am not partial to killing without consuming, I broke out the Hav-A-Hart live trap and proceeded with control measures. Catch and release style. Now it should be noted here that my record of gopher trappings the previous year was 11 total chipmunks and a small possum that wedged its way into the trap. Don’t eat possum either. Catch and release.

This spring and summer I was well on my way of reaching that previous years mark--and possibly breaking it as well--the way they were throwing themselves at the sunflower-seed-as-bait suggested by “The Wife” when my bread crumbs were not drawing much action. However, this bait did lead to a male cardinal and a red squirrel falling victim as well.

Now my method of relocation is to hop on my bike and ride about a half mile to a stretch of road where no houses are present. I then release them to hopefully take up residence away from civilization. Then I ride my bike home triumphantly. And here is where karma comes into the story.

Number 12 was reached in early July, a milestone in chipmunk catches for the season. So with “catch” accomplished I went on to the “release” stage. After peddling down the road the required distance and releasing the quarry, I turned home with trap in right hand and left hand on handlebar. About 50 yards from the release site, a chipmunk dashed out in front of my bike and I instinctively applied the brakes with my left hand. Now if you ride a bike, with handlebar brakes, you may realize that when only the left brake is applied, only the front brake is engaged. This locks up the wheel in the front and immediately flips you over onto (in my case) the asphalt surface of the road. Then the bike continues its tumble and lands on top of you even as your fall was broken by the live trap and road surface.

I lay there and began to wonder why I felt no pain. I must have fallen just right.

But I know in the distance I heard the chattering of the chipmunks I had released, saying “gotcha!”

Now about the chipmunk: Eastern chipmunks mate twice a year, in early spring and again in early summer, producing litters of four or five young. They are prey and predator both, as they are consumed by an assortment of larger predators and when not eating nuts and seeds will eat bird eggs, nestlings and small mammals like baby mice.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Random Bothersome Things


When people bother you in any way, it is because their souls are trying to get your divine attention and your blessing” --Catherine Ponder

Here are some random things that bother me. Perhaps I will feel better if I write them down. Therapy. Also, I will note that the gal in the picture at the top of this blog entry isn't Catherine Ponder. We'll get to the half-naked Lydia Guevara and her carrot bandoleers in a bit.

Fencerows…or the present lack of them and the removal of them
On my way home from work, I drive along a road with a fence row that borders our local airport. It was getting a bit overgrown with some autumn olive but from what I could see, posed no significant air traffic risk to the planes landing and taking off. For the last 3 years, I would see my first—and the only so far--Eastern Meadowlark working along this fence row and the field that it edged. It also was where the Redwing Blackbirds first returned in the spring to begin their territorial dances awaiting the female of the species arrival. Unfortunately, this past spring marked the demise of the overgrown fence row. Some genius must have only concluded that this was not the neat appearance needed in a rural area. So out came the chainsaws and manpower and trimmed it up like a residential lawn. So our county gained a more uncluttered, less natural view of the asphalt landing strip and lost a song of a relatively rarely seen bird in these parts.

Ernesto Che Guevara T-shirts being worn by anyone, let alone the celebrities
Why do people have to look at a mass murderer’s image on T-shirts? Think of it as a Cuban version of despots like Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot. Would we see actor Johnny Depp sporting that profile on his chest? Carlos Santana dedicating songs to Manuel Noriega? Even my favorite organization to hate, one that exploits anything with disgustingly nauseating ad campaign approaches, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), found that Che’s twenty-something granddaughter, Lydia, was a dedicated vegetarian and enlisted her to pose for ads that reminisce visually the feel of the revolutionary’s time. The tag line of the ad: “Join the Vegetarian Revolution.” How many vegetables must die to suppress us carnivores? She posed sans clothes of course. Nudity, sex appeal, and serial killer imagery. Genius. Oh, and Hitler was a vegetarian as well. Where's his PETA poster?

Turn signals
People who don’t use turn signals, “Nuff said.

People who don’t understand the U.S Constitution
We live in the greatest country in the world. Remember to love what we have and to love the rights of others to live here with what they love. Not a single thing in the United States Constitution talks about what citizens can’t do in the pursuit of happiness. It spends most of the time explaining what the elected government can’t do to its citizens. Think of it in the manner of Kings are not elected by the citizens, they seized their power by suppressing them. Remember that when your representatives seek to pass a new “law.” They were not elected to be lawmakers; they were elected by us, their constituency, to represent us in the different branches of government. I try to remember whenever one of those elected officials says they are going to give us something, it is time to start searching which of my pockets they are going to take it from.

Share your annoyances with me in the comments section, I bet we share many of them.

I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.” –Winnie the Pooh

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Gotta’ Have Heart

"Deer flies are vicious painful biters that are relentless in their pursuit of blood to the point of a meal or death". --Unknown
I’ll give it to the deer flies: they sure have heart.

This observation came to me as my wife and I ran down the trail along the river for a summer evening run. Well, actually it would be more like a creek, but they call it a river trail. Mosquitoes have been sort of bad this early summer, but we hadn’t run into the biting deer flies yet in any great number on the runs. With mosquitoes, as long as you keep moving it is generally hard for them to take up a grip on the skin and bore their vicious hole into your skin. Deer flies are a completely different matter.

This relative peace all changed as we ran through a new section of trail, just being developed, that cuts through a small section of woods. The deer fly hordes denizen was breeched by us in this route, at this time of day, and the little ba@*!#ds commenced their attack. Now I luckily had on my new breathable hat which effectively covers up the bald spot opening at the top of my head that is the preferred target of the deer fly. Warm, sweaty areas that are moving tend to draw them “like flies.” You could be running naked I swear and they only would want to lodge in and around the hair on your head. When I don’t have a hat on the deer flies bounce and bounce repeatedly on my head causing me to begin to slip into insanity. Tap. Tap. Tap. Swat-miss. Tap. You get the picture. Diving in, attaching to flesh and proceeding to use their razor edged mouth to drain your blood into their eager mouths. And bug spray, I think it is like ketchup and mustard to deer flies, just a topping to the blood they are sucking from the wounds they inflict.

Well, back to this tale. We came out of the woods and were enthusiastically joined at this point by several flying companions, whose soul purpose was to eat…US! But for some reason they were much more interested in my wife’s lovely, long brown hair so prettily flying about her as she ran. I think they may have been attracted to the bright yellow shirt she was sporting, a top that before the run I had commented on what a nice color combination it was combined with the blue shorts. Think maize and blue, University of Michigan. Go Wolverines! Little did I suspect it might be the team colors for those nasty insects.

I took off my hat and began swatting the circling demons from around my darlings head. I swear when I hit them with the crushing blows it either just made them madder or they were split in two and doubled the intensity of their attack. As I was doing this, I noticed that they had no interest in my head at all. Then I suggested maybe if she ran fast she could shake ‘em, which was a dangerous suggestion this late in a run with fatigue a factor. God knows what would have come on us if we for some reason tired and had to slow to a walk. I pictured two corpses found along the trail by strangers passing by, corpses drained of blood through hundreds of seeping wounds. But she tried the sprint move and I only think it got the flies blood competitively flowing.

So I offered my hat to the wife. After much cajoling for her to “just take it,” she did. This seemed to ease her discomfort caused by the flies and they still were ignoring me mostly. Eventually, the farther we found ourselves from their lair, the attacks subsided and we were able to peacefully finish the run, ironically among the living in a cemetery.

Here is a remedy for deer flies that just might work:
http://www.flypatch.com

Here is a great blog on the deer fly:
http://naturejournals.blogspot.com/search?q=Deer+Fly

From Wikipedia:
Deer flies (also known as yellow flies) are flies in the genus Chrysops of the family Tabanidae that can be pests to cattle, horses, and humans. A distinguishing characteristic of a deer fly is patterned gold or green eyes.
Deer flies are a genus that belongs to the family commonly called horse-flies (Tabanidae). They are smaller than wasps, and they have colored eyes and dark bands across their wings. While female deer flies feed on blood, males instead collect pollen. When feeding, females use knife-like mandibles and maxillae to make a cross-shaped incision and then lap up the blood. Their bite can be extremely painful, and allergic reaction from the saliva of the fly can result in further discomfort and health concerns. Pain and itch are the most common symptoms, but more significant allergic reactions can develop.
They are often found in damp environments, such as wetlands or forests. They lay clusters of shiny black eggs on the leaves of small plants by water. The aquatic larvae feed on small insects and pupate in the mud at the edge of the water. Adults are potential vectors of tularemia, anthrax and loa loa filariasis.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Dazzled With Jargon

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon. -- David Ogilvy
Here is my message to everyone or anyone who cares about others sanity.
 
Cut the crap.
 
Please, when you explain something, try to use terms "normal" people with any kind of brain can understand. Don't talk down to us to try to make yourself sound important or more educated or vastly more worldly than the rest of us. Keep what you are saying interesting and keep our attention. I don't want to wish I had had five extra cups of coffee--no, a whole pot of Java--to try to stay attentive to what you are relaying to me.
 
Entertain us with a story, don't dazzle us with all the jargon and scientific names of what you do, how you do it and what equipment you use. Make us sit in awe of your work. Show us examples with words and gestures. Trace the object you are describing with your hands in the air between us. I can picture it if you keep my interest.
 
I also don't want to just hear all your success stories. Don't just leave out the errors and mistakes. Tell them as well, the many or few wrong turns, blind alleys and the twists of fate that put you where you are. Led to how you got there. We all make mistakes and blunders, shout them out to us. It only makes you more human and lovable when we can see your warts. We truly need to know how you have learned from mistakes and made a better world for your neighbors, family and the rest of the planet.
 
This goes out to the guys that know all the specs from the manual and want to give them to you...I just want a simple understanding how it works. Instruction please, simplified.

And if you can't talk to me without making me feel like an idiot, just point to what I need in the aisle or even send me down the road where they are as dumb appearing to you as I seem. You don't probably have time to lower your brain to my level. You probably have some theorem to resolve or technical manual to dissect that would hold your interest.

I will go hang out with the ditch-diggers. We will always need ditch-diggers. We can talk about shovels.

You must learn to talk clearly. The jargon of scientific terminology which rolls off your tongues is mental garbage. -- Martin H. Fischer

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Tiger By The Tail

I've Got A Tiger By The Tail, it's plain to see;
I won't be much when you get thru' with me.
Well, I'm a losing weight and a turnin' mighty pale.
Looks like I've Got A Tiger By The Tail. -- Lyrics from Buck Owens I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail
How many times have we had a tiger by the tail? This metaphor could sum up most days for me. There seems to be these little things that if you let go of them long enough they are going to turn right around and shred you.

Some of those tigers you have to really grip on to and some you forget you are even grasping a tail at the time. Only do you get reminded you are holding them when you let go and are surprised to be staring something dangerous in the eye. Can’t probably out run it. To strong to win a hand to hand fight with. Your arsenal of weapons are too small caliber to take it down--even with a well placed shot.


On the other hand, some of those tigers that you have by their tail don’t want to turn around and devour you. Some of them would make like the wind and breeze away if they could. Meaning if you would let them go. Release the tail, release the tiger, release the pain, release the doubt, release the fear, release the memories. For anyone that ever has water-skied, it is the same feeling as when you release the rope when you come to the end of the circling behind the boat. As long as you hold on you are under the control of the rope, the boat pulling it, the “tiger.” Release yourself and you skim the surface ever slowing until you come to a stop and sink into the water. Or crash into something or catch your ski and do a face first header into a not very soft surface that water can be at times.

So try to determine the type of tiger you have a hold of. They could be a combination of the two types as well. I have had a few that when I let them go they turned around and kicked the s#@t out of me and then left for parts unknown. I bandaged myself up and kept on going.

What is my alternative?

Here are the rest of the lyrics to this great song by the recently departed Buck Owens. Here is a You Tube link to a performance of his. Enjoy.

I've Got A Tiger By The Tail, it's plain to see;
I won't be much when you get thru' with me.
Well, I'm a losing weight and a turnin' mighty pale.
Looks like I've Got A Tiger By The Tail.

Well, I thought the day I met you, you were meek as a lamb;
Just the kind to fit my dreams and plans.
But now, the pace we're livin' takes the wind from my sails
And it looks like I've Got A Tiger By The Tail.

I've Got A Tiger By The Tail, it's plain to see;
I won't be much when you get thru' with me.
Well,I'm a losing weight and a turnin' mighty pale.
Looks like I've Got A Tiger By The Tail.

Well, ev'ry night you drag me where the bright lights are found;
There ain't no way to slow you down
I'm as 'bout as helpless as a leaf in a gale;
And it looks like I've Got A Tiger By The Tail.

I've Got A Tiger By The Tail, it's plain to see;
I won't be much when you get thru' with me.
Well,I'm a losing weight and a turnin' mighty pale.
Looks like I've Got A Tiger By The Tail.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Opposites


The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. -- Elie Wiesel

I am troubled by the word "indifference." As in Wiesel's above quote, he blames it for almost everything that could happen that is bad. In the world. In our beliefs. In our way of living. How many times a day do we casually say "I don't care" about things we are asked? Or "I don't know" as an answer to an inquiry about something. That is indifference to the importance of the person asking the question, requesting dialogue. It is a discarding of that moment, instead of capitalizing on an opportunity to love.

I think it was Wiesel that said something about how while he was interred in Buchenwald as a Jew during WWII, that he quit believing in the Jewish God. That was his awakening, how to believe in a God and also believe in such a place as the Nazi death camps. Both existing at the same intersection of historical time. His own self, his eternal soul, present at this place and time. He perceived the God of his faith as indifferent. I have thought the same thing at different times in my life. When my son's close friend was killed on a motorcycle at the age of twenty. How could such a painful sentence be handed down to his parents. How could "love" and "God" fit in to the scheme of that incredible grief that surrounded that moment?

So agree with Wiesel, indifference is our enemy. We cannot allow indifference to claim another endangered species, another abused child or a planet that will offer an unhealthy environment for the next generation. Our indifference cannot condemn the future.

I want there to always be tigers, clean air and a God.
 
Former Buchenwald prisoners - Elie Wiesel's face is visible on the second row, fourth from the left, by the vertical wooden beam.

This May Take a While...If I Have That Much Time


"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'." -- Charlie Brown.

This happens to be a fate that I often bring upon myself...this recounting of what went wrong.  Sometimes it is what I said wrong. I am often not a smooth communicator and stumble badly over what I mean to say, getting more and more frustrated as I blabber along. Digging a hole. Not quite deep enough to hide in but plenty deep enough to still have my head sticking out to be taken off. Sort of like that game where you bash the groundhog over the head if he sticks it out of the hole. Or the shoot-the-duck game at a carnival. Me being the unlikely or unlucky duck flying by in the hail of lead shot.

A lot of times it is just a simple matter of getting in over my head. Thinking that I can handle it. Forgetting that I have no experience of a particular skill or job. Something I find myself doing often...staring from my back up at something I have no idea about under a car or truck. Trying to figure out some way to say something meaningful about an asked question where I don't feel like a clown or an imbecile with the answer. Many people can spout off anything and they are believed, they have the gift of communication right on the tips of their tongue. I feel jealous sometimes. Then they will eventually, in many cases, appear truly as an empty vessel, devout of real understanding and knowledge.


I now critically look at every thing that I hear or see. It is painful at times. I want to believe but my illusions have been so slowly shattered over time to not allow belief. I have forgotten and discarded what I once took as faith. Trashed it. Now it is overtaken by worry and stress and concern about how to dissect it for the truth. I want to so very bad believe, as a child does, but without a mind full of snake oil. Victim of a Flim-Flam Man.
Am I worried about being wrong or being found out that I am wrong by others? A fraud? My own version of a Snake-Oil Salesman? After all, don't I offer and ask often times in this Blog for you to think about deep, wondrous, troubling things? Or am I just troubling others with my angst?

The cartoon of Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football come to my mind. If I was going to kick the football and you were holding it, would justice be served if you pulled it away as I kicked it? You, being my worries. I know I have felt that urge to yank it and watch others stumble if only at times to assist Karma with a little action. It feels so deliciously wrong to think that way, yet it persists.


Destined to lie on my back and look up at the mistakes. The ones I made and the ones that are to come. *Sigh!*