What the Hell?

 Nobody gets up one fine Spring morning and says: "Wow, is my life great.  I'm healthy with a wonderful spouse and beautiful kids.  Got a nice house and two new cars.  My career is on fire and I'm well liked at work - my boss is even eyeing me for a promotion.  What the hell . . . . I think I'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous."

If you're wondering if you have a drinking problem you probably have a drinking problem.  People who aren't alcoholics don't sit around wondering if they have a drinking problem.

I'm a reformed A.A. dabbler.  I dabbled when I came in.  I pursued the half-measures recovery technique.  I did as little as I possibly could and drank; then did a little, tiny bit more and drank; I did this over and over and over again, drinking each time, staying sober a little longer each time, until I was All In.  I was out of ideas.  I knew I needed to be doing what you folks were saying to do.

I was on a cruise once where a passenger that I had gotten to know came down with a GI tract infection.  On a cruise ship the crew responds to an illness of this type in roughly the same manner as they would to someone found strapping on a suicide belt full of nails in one of the communal bathrooms.  They confined him to his room and threatened to eject him from the ship at the next port if he tried to leave for any reason whatever.  I could not overstate how upset I would have been had this happened to me.  He shrugged his shoulders.  He was fine.  He got a lot of reading done.  See?  There are people who naturally make the best of an unwelcome situation.  Freaks.  Total freaks.  I would have been planning a break-out.  I would have taken the gamble.

Anonymity is humility.

Service is freedom.

Part of The Group

"Unless we discuss our defects with another person, we do not acquire enough humility, fearlessness, and honesty to really get the program.  We must be entirely honest with somebody, if we expect to live happily in this world.  We must be hard on ourselves, but always considerate of others.  We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character and every dark cranny of the past.  Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we can look the world in the eyes." 

One of the greatest gifts of Alcoholics Anonymous is that feeling of belonging, of being in the right place, of 'getting it.'  I sort of get it some of the time.  Things sort of make sense . . . some of the time.  But I never feel like I'm floating by myself in deep space without a helmet on.  And this connectedness began to happen for me after I did my first Fifth Step.  I shared all of the deep, dark secrets that were eating me alive and lived to tell the tale.

I've been having some back troubles.  I've had them before and most people my age have them from time to time but when it's me having the pain?  Well, sir, most unfair and how do I get it to go away as quickly as possible?  I think those kinds of thoughts while simultaneously holding in my head the belief that this is the One, this is the time where it's going to be forever, never, always.

I brought this up on a phone call with one of my friends yesterday; a guy who cheerfully takes a ton of good-natured abuse from me.  He listened patiently and then started in with the perspective, wondering why he was talking to me instead of to someone with financial problems or a cancer diagnosis or an addicted child.  I took it.  He was spot on and he's a good friend and I knew it was coming, so I took it.  As a guy who dishes it out I better be able to take it.  I felt better for having shared what was bothering me and better for hearing some perspective.

One of our members in good standing was attacked Saturday by a mentally ill transient who hit her in the head with a tire iron.  Knocked three teeth out, broke her jawbone, etc. etc.  I texted with her a bit this morning.  The tenor of her responses was 1. Gratitude for the incredible outpouring of love that has come her way and 2. Balance in her expectations for how long the pain will last and how to best handle it.   It was a very inspiring exchange for me.  Grateful that I'm not alone, that I have this support network to tap into, and grateful that I have the tools to handle whatever comes my way.  I no longer have to maneuver through life all by myself.

"Happiness cannot be sought directly; it is a byproduct of love and service.  Service is a law of nature.  With love in your heart, there is always some service to other people.  Little acts of love and encouragement, of service and help, erase the rough places of life and help to make the path smooth.  If we do these things, we cannot help having our share of happiness."

Random Thoughts From A Funny Book

Society, as a rule, did not trouble anyone pushing a shopping cart.  The further a cart was taken from the store where it belonged, the more deference was paid to the possibly unstable individual who had taken charge of it.

Deceit had kept them young whereas the truth had accelerated them practically into decrepitude.

What if she were a homeless person and lived here?  Annabel had never gone in for the fad of caring for the homeless, although Alice said there was a great deal to learn from them in the way of resourcefulness.  They would come into Green Palms, the local nursing home, at lunchtime and pretend to be visitors helping their loved ones eat lunch and instead would eat the lunch themselves.

He felt as resourceful as the Cub Scout he had once been.  He hoped all his cub mates were dead, the little bastards.  They were always going on camping trips and catching chipmunks under pots and setting fire to them with white gas. They were always hanging around canals and shooting arrows into manatees, pretending they were whales.  Once they’d even captured a Key deer by lobbing baseball bats and stunning it.

But when they moved Steve to a private school he became a kind of heavy-metal Bartleby (he preferred Black Sabbath).

They were unaccountable, shadowy figures, practically bearded in Alice’s imagination, bearing peculiar half-priced gifts like peppermint foot cream or battery-operated lights you clipped onto books or socket-wrench sets.  She’d never heard of an effective or efficient godparent.

She walked quickly, sometimes breaking into a run, through the gullies and over the rocks, past the strange growths, all living their starved, difficult lives. Everything had hooks or thorns.  Everything was saw-edged and spiny-pointed. Everything was defensive and fierce and determined to live.

The idea that there was some spirit out there who paid for teeth—what was it constructing anyway? What was its problem?

Her father, over the years, had gotten progressively smaller.  He was shrinking fast, though he’d been holding at jockey size for the last month or so.

Euphoric Recall

Thorough: Painstaking and careful not to miss or omit any detail.

Honest:      Scrupulous with regard to telling the truth; not given to swindling, lying, or fraud.

"We who have accepted the A.A. principles have been faced with the necessity for a thorough housecleaning.  We must face and be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us.  We therefore take a personal inventory.  We take stock honestly.  We search out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure.  When we see our faults we list them.  We place them before us in black and white.  We admitted our wrongs honestly and we were willing to set these matters straight.  We reviewed our fears thoroughly."

Somewhere in the literature there's a suggestion that in our daily meditation we ask that our thoughts be directed away from self-pity and dishonest or self-seeking motives.  Shit fire.  Those are my three biggest areas of specialization.  I'm intrigued by the fact that a lot of the time when I'm lying and self-seeking and feeling sorry for myself I don't even know I'm doing it.  We try in Alcoholics Anonymous to avoid these behaviors - behaviors that are so ingrained in our personalities  that when we try to root them out and avoid them they adapt and transmogrify into subtler, more devious iterations of the defect.  When I got sober I worked on stopping the obvious lying that I was doing.  That made sense.  But repeatedly I found myself telling old stories and anecdotes that I wasn't sure had even happened.  "Did I really do that?" I'd think.  The human brain does a great job of taking memories and altering them to fit our current impression of ourselves.  If you work hard at being kind to everyone but engaged in some bullying or gossip when you were drinking your brain may very well take this memory - one that is in opposition to how you see yourself today - and change it so you don't have to consider this bad behavior.  I suppose this is some kind of coping mechanism.  Sometimes a public figure will get caught telling a falsehood about something in their past and our immediate reaction is to shriek: "Liar!"  Maybe so - there are a ton of liars out there, especially people in the public eye - but maybe they're embarrassed at this past behavior and their brain has obliterated the memory.  This knowledge doesn't fit their current impression of themselves.  The brain fills in a lot of blanks.  It smooths things out.  Life is hard enough without having to recall bad behavior over and over. 

 Euphoric recall, indeed.

The point here - if there is indeed a point - is that our inventory needs to be thorough.  It needs to be ruthless.  It needs to be undertaken with an attention to detail that we could not have imagined previously; indeed, were incapable of undertaking.  We need to look beyond the hurt in any situation, especially when we've been hurt by a person, place, or thing, and find our part in the upset.  It's there if we're thorough and honest.  And it's the only part that we have any control over.

Prayer and Meditation

From our 11th Step prayer and meditation meeting this morning we uncovered (again) and remembered (one more time) these thoughts . . .  

"And let's always remember that meditation is in reality intensely practical.  One of its first fruits is emotional balance.  And in A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question.  They are matters of knowledge and experience.  All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own.  They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability.  And they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in the fact of difficult circumstances."

That's for me.  I'm a good, practical, technical Germanic type - I don't do anything without proof that it's going to make a difference.  And I'm awfully stubborn and willful so I like the flat, unequivocal statements made: these are beyond question and matters that have been proven by our knowledge and our experience.  You will find strength and wisdom and peace of mind.  No "maybes" in those sentences.  Nobody is asking me to weigh in.  I'm being told how it is and not asked if I disagree.

"Our immediate temptation will be to ask for specific solutions to specific problems, and for the ability to help other people as we have already thought they should be helped.  In that case, we are asking God to do it our way."

Here a few qualifiers pile up quickly: ". . . if it be Thy will" and "Thy will, not mine, be done" and ". . . knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."  Getting the drift?  You can pray however you want, ask God for anything, get real outrageous even, as long as you understand that Something Else has the best plan, whether you can see it at the moment or if you don't agree that it's indeed the best plan.  No one really cares what your plan is.  

Another potential pitfall . . . 

"Why can't we take a specific and troubling dilemma straight to God, and in prayer secure from Him sure and definite answers to our requests?  Quite often ... the thoughts that seem to come from God are not answers at all.  They prove to be well-intentioned unconscious rationalizations."

Rationalize:    Attempt to explain or justify (one's own behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate.

Well, I'm not sure about the well-intentioned part.  Or the unconscious part.  I think a lot of the time we know exactly what we're doing - trying to get God to do what we want.  I do know a ton about the rationalize part.

I am pretty sure that when someone - especially some religious professional in a fancy suit - tells me the facts about God and what God is or isn't . . . I back away.  These people are often crazy.  I don't think God plays favorites when he reveals his truths to people.  I think they're accessible to everyone.

"Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is the sense of belonging that comes to us.  We no longer live in a completely hostile world.  We are no longer lost and frightened and purposeless.  The moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will, the moment we begin to see truth, justice, and love as the real and eternal things in life, we are no longer deeply disturbed by all the seeming evidence to the contrary that surrounds us in purely human affairs."

Now THAT'S a Promise.

The Fellowship

Fellowship:  Friendly association, especially with people who share one's interested.

Lonely:       Sad because one has no friends or company; sad feelings that come from being apart from other people.  

"But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful.  We meet frequently so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek." 17

"To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends - this is an experience you must not miss."  89

"But even Bacchus boomeranged on us; we were finally struck down and left in terrified loneliness.  Almost without exception, alcoholics are tortured by loneliness.  As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down."  151

Bacchus is the Roman god of fruitfulness and vegetation - his Greek counterpart is Dionysious.  Did not know that.  I thought he was the god of alcohol or wine.  This is why I look shit up.  Who knew?

Terrified!  Tortured!  Shivering denizens of a mad realm!!  Jesus, please keep that chilling vapor the hell off me.

This image is a woodcut from 1782 by an engraver named John Warner Barber.  King Alcohol is not a new phenomenon.  Note the skeleton standing next to him - this dude is the King's prime minister.

I jotted down these notes for a short lead I'm doing next Monday at a meeting where the secretary reads a few sentences or a paragraph out of the Big Book and makes this the topic of the meeting.  It made me think of how terribly isolated we were when we were drinking.  Some of us were noisy good fellows who wanted to be the center of attention and some of us were cowering in the corner but it didn't matter - we felt alone.  The phrase "The Fellowship" is used lots and lots of time in the A.A. literature.  We know how important it is to be connected with others.

Lurking Seaweed

Lurk:  To remain concealed in order to ambush.  (Ed. Note:  I love this definition!  Lurking thoughts of drinking alcohol.  Outstanding.)

"None of us like to think that we are bodily and mentally different from others.  This delusion that we are like other people has to be smashed.  If we have admitted we are alcoholics, we must have no reservations of any kind, nor any lurking notion that some day we will be immune to alcohol.  What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink?  Parallel with sound reasoning, there inevitably runs some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink.  There is little thought of what the terrific consequences may be."

The topic of today's Zoom meeting was how to tell the difference between God's will and my will.  I didn't know there was a difference.  I thought if I wanted it then God would naturally fall into line with my wishes.  Apparently not.

Go For It

"Our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove that we could drink like other people.  It has been definitely proved that no real alcoholic has ever recovered control.  Over any considerable period of time we get worse, never better.  There is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic.  Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever."

I'm not sure how well-accepted all of this would be to the general public.  There is definitely a sense that we trend self-righteous in The Rooms and there is definitely an acknowledgement from many of us that there's some truth to this.  The idea that no alcoholic ever recovers control and that we can't ever drink normally is pretty extreme.  That being said it is the gospel truth for most of us.  I have tried every method to drink normally, to regain control, to control it even a little bit and have failed spectacularly.  But I think most of us with some Time avoid these stark pronouncements to new people.  They seem controlling and smug.  I think most of us say things like "Here's what we do - you're more than welcome to give it a try and we'll help but if something else makes more sense by all means go for it."

Drink Coffee - You Can Sleep When You're Dead

Defiant:  Full of a disposition to challenge, resist or fight; someone who resists to conforming to what is asked.

"Belief meant reliance, not defiance.  As psychiatrists have often observed, defiance is the outstanding characteristic of many an alcoholic.  Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and we think, wiser."  (Ed. Note: Children of Chaos would be an excellent name for a Serbian Black Metal band.)

When I drank/used I was a walking, talking garbage disposal.  If you could take it, drink it, or smoke it I did it. 

I heard this again this morning: "God speaks to me through you guys - God doesn't speak to me directly."  I've never been too comfortable with people who think God speaks to them directly.  They're usually pretty creepy people.  They're usually pretty entitled. It's like they're name-dropping.  So you think you're so special that God will only talk through you?  Goodness, how about that shit?

Drink lots of coffee - do stupid stuff faster.

"We are people who would not normally mix.  But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful."  I believe one of the great strengths of Alcoholics Anonymous is that people of all stripes and colors are tossed together in one big, chaotic melting pot.  If I had to sit around and listen to people who sounded like me all the time I'd gouge out my ears with a serrated grapefruit spoon.  When I was trying to get sober in Indianapolis I had a sponsor who would periodically pick me up and drive me to meetings in different areas of town, trying to get me out of my little privileged bubble.  I got to listen to people who didn't look like me or who came from very different backgrounds and experienced a different kind of upbringing - this stuff really helped me cement in the idea that I'm just one of the crowd.  I heard these people say good things.  I used to compare myself to everyone, deciding whether I was better than you (rare as that was I would look down my nose at you) or if I was not as good as you (and resent the person that you were).

Drink coffee - you can sleep when you're dead.

Tale of Woe

"You can make use of your mistakes, failures, losses, and sufferings.  It is not what happens to you so much as what use you make of it.  Take your sufferings, difficulties, and hardships and make use of them to help some unfortunate soul who is faced with the same troubles.  Then something good will come out of your suffering and the world will be a better place because of it.  The good you do each day will live on, after the trouble and distress have gone, after the difficulty and the pain have passed away."

And the information bludgeoning continues . . . 

The payback for me chortling at my atheist friend and the onslaught of religious/spiritual messages he's enduring right now has - I believe - led to a personal onslaught of messages for me that are emphasizing the message of "There are no good things and there are no bad things - there are just things."  I actually take a lot of comfort in this thinking . . . that things can be painful and pleasant is easily discernible but the important nuance and often frustrating message is that I simply do not know how the outcomes of these painful and pleasant things are going to change me.  I feel like such an ass when someone is telling me a tale of woe (Ed. Note:  Tale of Woe would be an excellent name for a Finnish Slash Metal band) and all I have is "Wow, you're really going to be able to help someone someday."  The other super annoying (Ed. Note: In SoCal people like to add "super" to everything - this coffee is Super Good.  It's very annoying.) bit of advice is "Boy, you're really taking a lot of good action."  Fuck action - I want results - favorable results.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Sorry . . . Or Not.

I have a sponsee who is a committed atheist.  He's also a committed Buddhist.  I know, I know . . . quite the party trick to hold those two seemingly contradictory thoughts in one small space.  I've been riding him pretty good the last week or so because the daily meditation book we both read has been hammering on the theme of spirituality and a higher power and it has been using the Big Book as the hammer.  As you know the literature has a whole ton of writing about these topics.  The founders knew if anything was going to trip us up it would be the "god thing."  And, just so you know, he can handle my hammering - I'm a pretty conventional Christian and all of this god stuff is starting to get on my last nerve.

"When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.  When we see others solve their problems by simple reliance upon some Spirit of the universe, we have to stop doubting the power of God.  Our ideas did not work, but the God-idea does.  Faith in a Power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstration of the power in our lives are facts as old as the human race."

Sorry:       Regretful or apologetic for an action.

Amends:   Compensation for a loss or injury.  

I love to parse these definitions with my fellow trudgers in recovery.  Sorry is sort of a word thing, or it can be.  I was sorry all the time when I was drinking.  I wasn't sorry for my actions, mind you - I was sorry that I was uncomfortable or locked-up because I got caught for my actions.  I try not to apologize today unless I mean it.  And, more importantly, I try to change my behavior so that I don't keep doing the thing that I have to apologize for.  Words are cheap - actions have a cost.

"Who are you to say there is no God?  This challenge comes to all of us  Are we capable of denying that there is a design and purpose in all of life as we know it?  Or are we willing to admit that faith in some kind of Divine Principle is a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend?  We find a great Reality deep down within us, if we face ourselves as we really are.  When we find this Reality within us, we are restored to our right minds."

Affogato

Faith:  A conviction about ideas or belief without empirical evidence, experience, or observation. 

"People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about.  There is a wide variation in the way each one of us approaches and conceives of the Power greater than ourself.  Whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference.  These are questions for each of us to settle for ourselves.  But in each case the belief in a Higher Power has accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible.  There has come a revolutionary change in their way of thinking."

I like this idea of faith is conviction without proof.  I like the saying "Who are you going to believe?  Me, or your lying eyes?"  Faith is a strong belief based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.  We come in here demanding proof that there's a God.  Sorry, people, we don't got it.  We got proof that something is working but don't ask us to sit down and sketch out a working model or grab a book and open it up to a well thought out thesis.  We're flying blind and something about the seat of our pants, whatever that means.

From a similarly skeptical friend I rec'd this text: "So why aren't we sitting around enjoying an affogato (a couple of shots of espresso poured over a scoop of gelato - a sugar and caffeine assault on the senses if there ever was one) while making wry observations on the state of the world while neatly evading our own problems?"

My response was polite and similarly wry while thinking that it was a stupid question.  Criticism of other people, places, and things comes easily - self-reflection, especially the kind that reveals uncomfortable personal defects is a lot more unpleasant and better left hidden in the darkness.

Disaster. Death. Doom.

Atheist:  A person who disbelieves in the existence of gods. ( Gods!  Lots of Gods!  A million of 'em!  I think the Greeks and the Romans had the right idea - just throw together dozens of them and make them all fight and drown in their own flaws, act like dicks and psycho bitches, and if you conquer a people just throw their Gods in there, too.  The more Gods the merrier!!  For goodness sake the Hindus have 33,000,000 Gods.  If you can't find a God in there you're nuts.)

Agnostic:  A person who claims neither faith or disbelief in god.  (Someone who is lazy.  Can't commit.  Don't get involved with someone like this.)

Disaster:      An unforeseen causing great loss, upset or unpleasantness of whatever kind.  (I like that 'whatever' is in there.)

Doomed:     Assumed to suffer death, failure, or a similarly negative outcome.  (Death is definitely a negative outcome.)

Dilemma:    A difficult circumstance or problem.

The three Ds of these passages.

"To one who feel he is an atheist or agnostic, a spiritual experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster.  To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face.  But we have to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life - ore else.  Lack of power is our dilemma.  We have to find a power by which we can live, and it has to be a power greater than ourselves."

"We of agnostic temperament have found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power.  As soon as you can say that you do believe or are willing to believe, you are on your way.  (On your way!)

Quit fighting.  Quit trying to control it or understand it.

Really Ridiculous

 So I celebrated a 34 year Alcoholics Anonymous birthday yesterday - or anniversary as we used to say in the Midwest.  I went to a Zoom meeting that I attend regularly and thought I would get a chance to show off a little bit - I had my acceptance speech sort of cued up - only to find that it was one of those meetings where they don't celebrate A.A. milestones.  I had to laugh.  This ego-deflating stuff happens all the time.  I'm glad my god has a sense of humor.  Sometimes the secretary forgets to ask if there are any birthdays to celebrate.  Some groups only celebrate once a month so if you don't attend on the prescribed day you're shit out of luck.  When I was in Cincinnati there was a woman there who had the same sobriety date as me but had been sober ten years longer so no matter how impressive my time was, in my own mind, there was someone there - she attended the same group of meetings as me, natch - who had a lot more time than me.  Ego.  Deflation.  I'm still laughing at that one.

Today I went to the Keep It Complicated group to announce my milestone.  As I was driving down I thought: "Fuck, 34 years, that's ridiculous."  Every year the number sounded more and more noteworthy to me until it just got sort of abstract.  34 years.  What does that mean anyhow?  The time kind of lost all context.  I used to be suitably impressed at 20 years or 27 years but once people hit their 30s they seemed kind of old and out of touch.  People who have been sober over 40 years are freaks or liars.

A couple of my friends knew of the birthday and made a special effort to show up.  I did not, in my defense, bandy this information about to try to increase attendance, like I was selling books or trying to increase my social media likes.  Some of us wait until Saturday to announce their day because the group attendance really swells.  I am way, way too humble for that.  My humility is legendary, unparalleled.  There were about 20 people there.  Some are close friends, some I've known for my entire time in SoCal, a few are new enough that I've only recently met them, and . . . . and . . . . amazingly enough there really weren't any people there that irritate me.  I said this . . . with my mouth . . . this morning, to some appreciative and knowing chuckles.  We really can be irritating people

The SoCal tradition is to allow the birthday boy or girl to make a few remarks before the meeting officially kicks off.  As I was droning on about nothing in particular I started to choke up a little bit.  As a reminder: I'm a good German, dispassionate, logical, analytical, unemotional, controlled.  I'm not opposed to crying; I don't try to choke back my tears when they want to come out; I'm simply not that emotional.  But I am constantly amazed at what a blessing it is to have so many people so intimately involved in my life, to be so loved and to be able to love so many.  It is a gift of life that too many of us don't get to enjoy.  I felt piggish, gluttonous, lapping up all of those good feelings.

Really ridiculous.

Ants!!

After a blazingly successful winter/spring anti-ant campaign - distinguished by a BRUTAL concentration on leaving no food out - the ants made an incursion last night.  I was on it.  I've learned that the point of ingress is critical as that is where the scouts come back to time and time again.  This time they found a crack around the kitchen window frame which I assaulted violently with cleaner and insect repellant.  Walking outside I actually found the trail of ants up an outside wall and into the crink.  Frankly, it looked a little lazy to me.  I'm circumspect with poison bug spray in the room I prepare food but outside?  I let the poison rip.  Looks all quiet on the western front this morning . . .  but I've got ant radar working overtime.

Thought it was important to keep everyone in the loop.

The SoCal ants are an unusual breed: they aren't big, fat, easily squashed ants that die with a satisfying pop and they aren't big, aggressive biting ants with claws and pincers.  They're little, tiny, hard to see, swarming ants.  I have a mottled brown and tan kitchen countertop that makes it hard to see the ants individually but when they're swarming you look down and it appears as if the whole surface is in motion, wiggling and dancing.  It's unsettling.  The popular narrative is that - because we get so little rain - they're looking for water.  I think this is bullshit.  They're never attacking water in a plant container outside.  I suppose they're searching for food but a better explanation is that they're assholes sent to earth to make a fussy guy like me pull out his hair.

We had another ant incursion last night. Weirdly enough, the ants were trying to infest the grounds container of our automatic espresso machine.  I did not see that one coming. I was all over them - I think they're gone again. But the fact they went for damp coffee grounds is somewhat disturbing.  If they're going to stoop to damp coffee grounds what's next?  There seems to be nothing off the table.

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed in the ants and I know I'm courting disaster saying this.  Kind of like mentioning that we haven't had an earthquake here in a while.  If I leave out a knife with jelly on it and the ants find that, and swarm, great, my bad, but damp coffee grounds?  Isn't that like dirt?  I throw the damp grounds in the garden all of the time.  Why don't they just go there?

Wanted you to know there was another probing attack last evening.  There was a sizable crowd milling around maybe a whiff of a spill on the countertop after having entered the house from somewhere behind the stove.  It looked pretty desultory.  I mean . . . if I leave some honey on a plate then bring it on.  But the shadow of an indeterminate spill?

This attack was repelled with Lysol.  I was out of the woods.

Then, this morning, a thick line of ants heading over the counter and into the sink where they were furiously assaulting a couple of scraps of potato that had gotten caught in the sink stopper.  This was bullshit.  This reeked of desperation.

Talk Is Cheap

 I have one of those personalities characterized by being dismissive of given authority.  I see a lot of stupid and untalented people who have a lot of power and status and prestige.  Lots of these people have these advantages through circumstance and inheritance and mistake and not through the result of their own efforts.  Fie on them, I say.  Just because you're The Man doesn't mean I have to respect you or do what you say.  You have to prove to me that you're The Woman by your actions, not by your words.  Talk is cheap.

As you can imagine this attitude has caused me some serious work problems over the years.  And some marital strife.  SuperK says I'm the most stubborn person she has ever met, that if it isn't my idea I won't do it.  I open my mouth to argue, then think: "Damn.  She's got me there."  But I do watch how she acts.  If she gives me some advice on how to change my behavior I'm prone to argue.  If her behavior demonstrates how to improve my circumstances I'll change my behavior.  On the sly, of course.  I don't want her to think she's better than me.  It's just the same with Alcoholics Anonymous.  Your long-time sobriety is no guarantee of admirable behavior.  Don't tell me - show me.

In the St. Francis Prayer there's this line: "It's better to love than to be loved."  There's also something about striving to understand rather than to be understood.  There's a lot of other irritating stuff in there, too, most of them asking me to think of others before I think of myself.

I've been pondering the extreme levels of strife that characterize our society right now.  It has been a distressing time for most of us.  Some of this strife is leaking into our Program as well, I fear, which is understandable - we are a microcosm of wider society, after all.  I believe the advantage we have is that we should, at least in theory, be able to hold our tongues and listen to an opposing point of view, no matter how strenuously we disagree.  I disagreed with everything you people said, strenuously, when I first came in to The Rooms, only to find out that you knew what you were talking about, more or less, and that when I quit trying to convince you that you didn't I learned a lot of good shit.

After all we are people who wouldn't ordinarily mix.  This diversity is a source of great contention and a source of great strength.  If I disagree but still listen and try to understand I learn some great truths.

The Tremendous Fact

"The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution.  We who have found this solution to our alcoholic problem, who are properly armed with the facts about ourselves, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic.  We who are making the approach to new prospects have had the same difficulty they have had.  We obviously know what we are talking about.  Our whole deportment shouts at new prospects that we are people with a real answer."  Big Book, 'There is a Solution,' P. 18.

If you're unsure if you're an alcoholic ask yourself this question: "Have I ever been to, or am I now in, a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous?"  If you can answer yes to either of those posits, especially if you're sitting in a meeting discussing this very topic, you're an alcoholic.

People who don't have a problem with alcohol don't wonder if they have a problem with alcohol.

There are many, many reasons not to pray.  Please keep these reasons to yourself.  We've heard them all.  No need to repeat them.  We know that you can't "prove" there's a God.  We are aware that the world is full of sickness, death, cruelty, injustice, injured puppies, lost championships, and band breakups.  We don't know why these things exist.  We believe it isn't our business to know, that the answers may only be in the mind of God . . . and we're aware of the irony in suggesting that people who are struggling with the idea of talking to God talk to God about why he won't let you know what He's up to.  We know that there are many unhappy lives that are the direct result of unfortunate birth and uncontrollable circumstances.  We know all this.

"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer.  Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit."  12&12, Step Eleven, P. 98.

I heard a guy say this about his ability to hold a conversation with another person.  He was referring to his own though process: "Hurry up and finish what you're saying so that I can talk."  Man, a dude of my type.

A Design For Living

Bitter:              Harsh, piercing, or stinging.

Blot:                 To obliterate; to cancel out.

Intolerable:      Not capable of being endured.  

"We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives; one was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other was to accept spiritual help.  We became willing to maintain a certain simple attitude toward life.  What seemed at first a flimsy reed has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God.  A new life has been given for us, a design for living that really works."  Big Book, There Is A Solution, P.P. 25-28.

Since I'm a word guy I usually dig Bill's flowery, florid, overwrought writing style.   And since I'm a mystical guy I believe that the words - as they ended up in our literature - are there for a reason.  I mean . . . c'mon . . .  bitter and blotting and intolerable.  That guy is not heading for a good outcome

There's an old joke about a drunk who is wandering near the edge of a cliff, gets too close to the edge, and stumbles over.  Halfway down he catches hold of a small branch jutting from the surface.  He's hanging there, arms tiring, looking up at the top of the cliff impossibly far away, then down to the ocean crashing on the rocks dangerously close.

"Help," he tweets.

"I can help you," booms a booming voice.

"Who is it?  Who's there?" he asks.

"God.  It's God, and I can help you.  But first you have to let go - you have to let go of the branch, and I will help you."

The drunk ponders this, his fingers slipping, strength waning, resolve weakening, death imminent.

"Is there anyone else up there?" he yells.

I have been to several meetings recently - I often take notes on comments that resonate with me - where the theme of "difficulties are opportunities to grow" has been the focus.  Or, an AFGA, as a friend says: Another Fucking Growth Opportunity."  Troubles are okay.  I hate this kind of lesson-imparting.  I want to be given things, not to earn them.

Buddha, Jesus, and Gandhi - They All Agree!

I suggest that today you just let it rip.  Go for it.  Try something new.  Go someplace you've never been.  Order the haggis.  Things probably aren't going to work out the way you think they're going to, anyway.  All your planning will be for naught.  You're going to get old and decrepit and die and I say that with a great deal of cheerfulness and optimism.

"While alcoholics keep strictly away from drink, they react to life much like other people.  But the first drink sets the terrible cycle in motion.  Alcoholics usually have no idea why they take the first drink.  Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied, but in their hearts they really do not know why they do it.  The truth is that at some point in their drinking they have passed into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of no avail."

I have an anniversary coming up next week - or Birthday as the Left Coasters  call it.  34 years.  I think of gratitude when another year rolls around and not because I'm actually grateful, necessarily, but because I've been taught that if I practice being grateful, that if I at least pretend, then actual gratitude follows.  I like the idea that our recovery follows this path: actions, speech, thinking, spirituality.  When I was getting sober I was tasked with making a Gratitude List each night.  I was not grateful, actually, for most of the stuff I wrote down but the repeated action of noting them, in writing, with pen and ink on paper, seeing them there in front of me, in black and white, every day, started the process of feeling grateful.  Then I started to talk about gratitude and ditto the insincerity but - again - the repetition brought the feelings to life.  Now, today, I find my mind quickly readjusts when I'm not happy about something.  I can almost hear the gears clanking into action - "I hate that guy" - whirr, clunk, clink - "boy, is my life good."

An off-repeated mantra of mine follows.  Feel free to do something else.  I believe that most people tend towards ingratitude.  Alcoholics, of course, take this tendency to the nth degree and - frankly - with some justification because our diligent and sustained efforts to fuck everything up have added a lot more items to the Problems category than to the Blessings one.  Life is tough and scary.   I understand that we're more likely to worry about our health or the safety of our kids or that bill coming due in the morning than to ponder the delicate beauty of a blooming rose.  I get it.  Makes sense.

"What you think you become."  Buddha

"As you think, so you are."  Proverbs 23:7.

Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.  Gandhi.

Snow Job

All:        Every one of.

Most:    A large amount of.  

(Ed. Note: Clearly there's some wiggle room.  If I said I want to eat "most" of the M&Ms you could reasonably assume there would be some portion of the candy left.  If I said I ate them "all" you probably wouldn't go looking for any leftover M&Ms and - if you did - it would be a fruitless, meaningless, useless quest.)

"Made a list of all the persons we had harmed and made direct amends to them all."  Step 8.  As you can see the word "all" is used twice and the words "most" or "many" are conspicuously excluded while "some" is not even considered.  I must assume that this is deliberate on the Founder's part.  "Made a list of some of the people we had harmed and made glancing amends to some of them or most of them, depending on how righteous you feel."  This does not have the same oomph as the original.

Allergy:  A reaction by one's immune system to something that does not bother most other people; any condition of hypersensitivity to a substance.

"We have an allergy to alcohol.  The action of alcohol on chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy.  We allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all.  We cannot be reconciled to a life without alcohol, unless we can experience an entire psychic change.  Once this psychic change has occurred, we who seemed doomed, we who had so many problems that we despaired of ever solving them, find ourselves able to control our desire for alcohol."

Obsession:  A persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; an obsession with something is an unhealthy, extreme interest in it.

"The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us; first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process.  12&12, Step One, P. 22.

If I ever start a craft beer company I'm going to call it "An Allergy and An Obsession."  

More:  In greater number, quantity, amount, or proportion. 

I have a disease of More.  It doesn't matter whether it's a thing or an activity or a thought, once I get rolling the hole expands and I have trouble shoveling enough in to fill it up.  It doesn't matter if it makes me feel better or worse or if it's good for me or bad for me or if I enjoy it or hate it . . . The only thing that matters is that I get more of it.

A woman on the Zoom meeting used the word Snow Job to describe what she was doing to delude herself sometimes.  "Boy, that's probably not a good phrase," she mused afterwards.

Ralphie and The Mouse

An anecdote . . . 

Ralph is one of my neighbors here in our Older Persons community.  I like Ralphie just fine.  He and I are both swimmers so I run into him in the pool in the morning.  Ralphie is a raging extrovert and a bitcher.  Ralphie bitches about everything.  When there's something he doesn't like in the community he tells the harried site manager in-person and follows this up with an email to her AND to her boss.  As you can imagine he's not a favorite of the site manager.  He's also a great repeater of stories so I get to hear about the things that he's upset about over and over.  I could care less about most of these things.  To me they're incredibly minor.  I don't care how often the garbage can in the exercise room is emptied.  So I sit in the hot tub with a vacant look on my face and nod over and over, like one of those novelty dogs you see on the back ledge of old sedans.

Today, as I tried to sneak past the exercise room (he rides a stationary bike before getting into the pool) he waves me in.

"Hey," he says.  "I was in here yesterday and there was a rat in the pool."

"No way," I said, glad that if I was going to hear about some minor infraction it had an arresting beginning.

"Yeah," he continues.  "I get into the pool and there's this rat swimming around, trying to get out.  So I go into the clubhouse and get a cup and fish him out and toss him onto the pool deck.  The son of a bitch turns around and gets back into the pool.  Then it heads for the deep end, swimming underwater."

I don't have a lot of rat background knowledge.  I'm imagining one of those huge brown or black rats you see in horror films.  

Ralphie then tells me that he shrugs and swims his laps.  

"You're kidding me," I say.  I'm trying to imagine this overweight old guy swimming so slowly I have no idea how he stays up, in the pool with a huge black rat that is swimming around underwater, like some rogue Soviet-era mini-sub.

"Yeah," he continues. "So when I'm done I scoop him up again, toss him back on the deck, and the son of a bitch makes a beeline for the sauna and dives right in."

"You.  Are.  Making.  This.  Up," I said.  I think he was trying to be semi-serious, trying to get me to finally show some outrage over the problems in the community,  but with each turn of the tale I broke into laughter.

"Yeah," he says.  "But when I get over there?  No rat."

We walk over to the hot tub and look down.  It is rat-free.  

I said: "See that plastic disc inset into the concrete over there?  There's a filter basket under it.  It filters out stuff from the hot tub.  Maybe the rat got sucked into the recirculation intake."  Fair disclosure: I made all that stuff up and I had no idea what was in there.  I encouraged him to investigate.  He prys open the lid and peers in.  He gets a stick and prods around.

"Just stick your hand in there," I suggested helpfully, moving to the other side of the hot tub.

There the little guy was, swirling around.  Looked like a mouse to me.

Here in California, the two rat species that invade homes and businesses most often throughout the year are Norway rats and roof rats.  Both of these rodent species will eat anything from fruits and grains to meats and even insects!

Our Hats Are Off

Sometimes when I'm just sitting here I'm being productive.

I believe that The Program allows you to become the person you were always meant to be.  It takes a while.  When I was getting sober you couldn't get me to say anything in a social situation and now you can't get me to shut up.  I believe that today, more or less and for better or for worse, I'm the man I was meant to be.  Very satisfying and very terrifying.

Good leader at the morning meeting today.  He's a man I met when we first moved to SoCal.  I liked him immediately while simultaneously thinking: "I don't think this dude quite understands what we're trying to accomplish here yet."  I was right - he went back into the gloaming, drank for a while and staggered back in with an earnest vengeance.  He's cooking with gas right now.

For those of us bedeviled with anxiety alcohol was a tremendous discovery.  It worked - it really did! - even while I vaguely sensed I was being none too smart.  It's like shooting a syringe full of novocaine into the damaged knee of a running back and telling him to get back on the field.  He could do it but it wouldn't work out well for him in the long run.  It takes a lot of diligent effort to overcome our anxieties like . . . you know . . . normal human beings.  It's not helpful to overwhelm them with drugs and alcohol and simply pretend that they don't exist.  That's just nudging the problems further down the road and hoping that they magically absolve themselves all on their own.  Sometimes waiting is a good strategy but often it is not.

When I drank I was tired all the time but slept poorly at night.  I had to drink to doze off - which was less and less effective the longer I drank - and then the hangovers made me lethargic the next day.  A good strategy for being miserable all the time.  Today I sleep like a dead man and I'm disturbingly chipper when I'm awake.

Don't worry about saying good things in a meeting.  No one is listening to you.  They're thinking about themselves.  They're formulating their remarks.  You aren't as important to them as they are to them themselves.  One of my earliest leads at a meeting was at a halfway house in Cincinnati.  I was standing on a dais in front of 50 or 60 guys.  At the time I was even more terribly impressed with myself than I am today, also a disturbing thought.  I was going to rock the crowd with my profound insights on recovery.  The scales were going to fall from their eyes and everyone would get sober.  They'd talk about this "amazing guy who told me what recovery was meant to be" for years and years.  What I didn't realize was that attendance at the meeting was mandatory.  If it had been voluntary there would have been about 5 people there.  So when I started to share it was immediately obvious that no one was listening save for a few dudes in the front row.  And I don't mean they were politely sitting there - people were talking, sleeping with their heads down on a table, reading the newspaper, playing cards.  I was really knocked off my feet for a couple of beats before I remembered that the lead was for me - it was me telling my story so that I could hear it.  Me staying sober was the only important thing about that lead.  I am always hopeful that someone likes what I say but the important thing is me staying sober.  When I say that I'm an alcoholic it isn't for your benefit - it's an auditory reminder that I need to hear often.

"If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about-face and drink like a gentlemen, our hats are off to him."  Big Book, More About Alcoholism, P. 31.

I need to remember that I'm not in charge of saving anyone.  We shouldn't tell someone that they have to stop drinking.  Because they don't.  But if they want to stop drinking then we can show them a Program that has had some pretty good success.  I'm happy to talk to someone who has been dabbling in Alcoholics Anonymous but I draw the line at initiating the contact - if you're drinking, fine, but you're on your own.

Meditation, Baby

 I went to a 11th Step Meditation meeting this morning where several passages that emphasize prayer, meditation, and/or self-examination are read out of "As Bill Sees It."

You want a good meeting?  Read out of the books . . . .

Here are some of the principles mentioned in today's passages that resonated with me . . . 

Our troubles are not something to get upset about.  Everyone has troubles and that's that.  Troubles are part of life and I'm going to have them and so are you.  Moreover, if we look at troubles as a learning tool then we handle them better.  We know there's a lesson there that needs to be absorbed.  At the very least my surmounting my difficulties is going to make me uniquely positioned to help another alcoholic down the road.

There are some irritating people out there.  There are a ton of irritating people out there.  Most people are irritating.  I'm irritating most of the time.  Stop focusing on what you find irritating and, more importantly, stop trying to fix the other person.  That person is fine - the problem is with you.

Pausing when agitated.  Pausing is good.  Pausing is not overrated.  I've saved myself more problems by waiting a beat and then not saying or doing what I want to say or do.  Nobody wants to hear my opinion about anything.

Human nature steers us to problems and difficulties.  I really believe that unlike most of the crap I write.  It must be some innate, in-bred coping mechanism.

Sometimes when I pray I'm just saying the words.  I don't always believe what I'm saying or believe that the prayer is going to change anything.  The words - often used and much beloved - come out flat and listless.  No matter - it's like taking a bad swim.  A bad swim is better than no swim.  Even when the words don't have any real meaning I think saying them helps clear up a channel to my Higher Power that may be clogged with fear and frustration.

Do Be Do

"Psychologists are turning to religion because just knowing about ourselves is not enough.  We need the added dimension of faith in a power outside of ourselves on which we can rely.  And clergymen and rabbis are turning to psychology because faith is an act of the mind and will.  Religion must be presented in psychological terms to some extent in order to satisfy the modern person."

"Of necessity there will have to be discussion of matters medical, psychiatric, social, and religious.  We are aware that these matters are, from their very nature, controversial.  Nothing would please us so much as to write a book which would contain no basis for contention or argument."  Big Book, "There Is A Solution," P. 19

The founders must have spent a couple of hours bent over laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming down their faces, when they put these words down.  If you try to change the brand of coffee used at a meeting there will be much swearing and hard resentments, and a couple of bare-knuckled fistfights.  I can see members stiffen noticeably if someone says Jesus or Muhammad or The Buddha.  I hear intractable people maintain that any kind of medication, even those prescribed by a physician and given to people with a serious mental illness, disqualifies that person from sobriety.  So this is why we don't identify as a member of a particular religion or political party, we don't opine on gun control or abortion, we don't let any of these outside issues in.  We're amazed that this whole wonderful movement doesn't spin out of control and crash into the sun when we stay away from controversy - we can only imagine how short-lived A.A. would have been if we had been less strict.

Be:  To exist; to have real existence, to be alive.  (Ed. Note: I really like that the definition uses "real existence."  I assume this is to differentiate from fake existence.)

Do:  To perform the tasks or actions associated with (something).  (Ed. Note:  I really like that they add "something" to the definition.  Do something!  Do anything!  Just do it!)

"Refilling with the spirit is something you need every day.  For this refilling with the spirit, you need these times of quiet communion, away, alone, without noise, without activity."

Writing about my struggles with slowing down and waiting is going to be an eternal task.  It is deeply satisfying and deeply frustrating to go slow.  It feels like I'm not accomplishing anything.  I feel better when I go from here to there or when I can see tangible results of my efforts, like a poorly stained cedar deck. And this is even when the meditation, the sitting, the being, produces such great results.  I feel better even when I think I've done a shitty job of it.

Bupkis

 It has been quite a wild ride here.  Everything has been quite the wild ride.

I have been talking to people about the trip cancellation and their responses, by and large, validate why it is that we need to talk to people.  We introverts - we introverted alcoholics - cannot be trusted to be left alone with our brains.  I don't know what's going on up there, that's for sure.  It's a crappy neighborhood.

In my enfeebled state I've been picking up the pace on phone calls to my Alcoholics Anonymous friends.  When told of my plans to cancel our trip the response has been uniformly positive; as in "I'm glad to hear that" or "You're doing the right thing" or "I wondered if/when this was going to happen." 

"The serenity to accept the things I cannot change."  Makes me laugh at all my efforts over the last few days to make this happen.  I pushed and I pushed and I fingaled and compromised and tried to find wormholes to squirrel through to get my way and . . . pfft! . . . bupkis.  Now, in my defense, it is not a problem to keep after something - the problem is when you can't find a way through and up and over but you still insist on forcing the issue.   When I was laboring over the computer last night, frustrated and tense, it was as if a giant spotlight flicked on: "Huh.  I don't think I'm supposed to do this."  Like it was some giant revelation.  Like I was at my tenth baseball game when I hate baseball (not really - I love baseball), complaining that it wasn't a football game, when the realization came that I should stop going to the baseball stadium.  No amount of work or compromise could change this fact.

Willie Says!

 So . . . I'm having a little back issue here, not unheard of in a man of my advancing age.   Still . . . . I don't like it.  It is not what I want to have happen . . . to me.  Whenever anything like this happens I think of one of my favorite family of words: forever, never, always, etc. etc.  I can be a dramatic dude with a limited ability to put things in perspective.  Makes me think of that expression  ". . . the serenity to accept the things I cannot change."  It's a good expression.  Irritates the hell out of me most of the time because I'm a guy - we fix things.  We don't wait for things.  We're in ACTION.

We have a cactus in our front yard called an ocotillo.  It's a thin cactus that puts out a number of thin arms from its base that shoot straight up.  There is a humming bird that has decided that he or she is going to periodically sit on the very top of the tallest strand and look around as the cactus sways in the wind.  It's preposterous to look at but I think that ruby-throated hummingbird may be god.

I am also in the throes of cancelling a much anticipated hiking trip to England.  The entry requirements are just too onerous and malleable and confusing.  Take this test, take that test, self-quarantine, quarantine in a government approved lodging for 10 days at $1800 per person, everything changing almost day by day.  What happens if I test positive for CoVid before we leave or get the bug while I'm there or run into someone sick on the plane who is asymptomatic?  It reminds me of driving around without a seat belt on: I've never had a car accident so I assume my next trip will also be accident-free but - boy - what a chance to take with some potentially horrific consequences.

I was sitting at the computer yesterday trying to figure out how to navigate through all of the tests and requirements, frustrated as hell at all of the conflicting evidence, and I thought: ". . . the courage to change the things I can."  I started to cancel shit this morning.  I know, I know - dude doesn't get to go to England boo hoo hoo.  Still, a quality problem that is affecting me deeply.

I've told a few friends that the trip isn't happening.  On the phone today Willie says something along these lines: "Yeah, well, that's probably a good idea.  You're probably making a smart move."  This is why I talk to people - something that I can't see past or through is blindingly obvious to someone else who doesn't have any skin in the game.

Let There Be Light

God:  A deity or supreme being; a supernatural, typically immortal, being with superior powers, to which personhood is attributed.  E.G, Gawd!

Spiritual:  Of or pertaining to the spirit or the soul.

Soul:  The spirit or essence of a person usually thought to consist of one's thoughts and personality.  Often believed to live on after the person's death. (spooky.) 

This is a rabbit hole of ineffable dimensions and depth.  A most enjoyable rabbit hole.

From a treatise I've been studying that is discussing the connection between god, spirituality, and tech-generated Artificial Intelligence:

"Spirituality, whether pursued via faithfulness, tradition or sheer exploration, is a way of connecting with something larger than one's self."  I gotta tell ya . . . that is one of the best descriptions of spirituality I've ever heard.

"At the end of the day, A.I. is just a lot of math.  It's a lot, a lot of math.  It is intelligence by brute force, and yet it is spoken of as if it were semi-divine."  Tech worker.  It's interesting to think about computer algorithms, learning at the speed of electricity, watching you type on your computer, learning, learning, remembering everything, everything, then taking that information and delivering content back to you to influence how you behave.  Is that god-like?  Is it smarter than you?  Or are you merely being overwhelmed by the brute force of electronic computing power?  In any case something more powerful than you is directing how you behave and how you react to things.  That's pretty powerful.

Issac Asimov and an adapted science fiction story:  "A group of scientists create an A.I. system and ask it, 'Is there a god?'  The A.I. spits out an answer: 'Insufficient computing power to determine an answer.'  They add more computing power and ask again, 'Is there a god?'  They get the same answer.  Then they redouble their efforts and spend years and years improving the A.I.'s capacity.  Then they ask again,"Is there a god?'  The A.I. responds, 'There is now.' "

"One of the fundamental functions of A.I. is to create groups and to create categories, and then to do things with those categories.  Traditionally, religions have worked the same way.  You're either in the group or you're out of the group.  You are either saved or damned."  So is your computer your god?  Is it telling you how to think?  Are you trying to please your computer?  You're telling me you have trouble with the concepts of powerlessness and a power greater than yourself while you blithely stare at your computer screen?  Please.  Can you even hear yourself talking?

In the Bible the first act of God was to create light.  "Let there be light."  God did this.  God created this light.  Today, I can lounge in my barcalounger and tell Siri or Alexa to turn on the light and the light is turned on.  With my voice.  Am I god?  Am I God?  All was in darkness and then there was light.

I might be god.  I don't think I'm the only god but I may be one of them.