The Same Old Stuff In One Neat Package

I spent some time yesterday with my best friend in the whole world, Hope the Dog.  I'm lying.  My best friend in the world, actually, is one Little Stevie Seaweed, but that goes without saying.  Anyway, the reaction of this animal to my presence is one of the most heart-warming things that has ever happened to me.  It's an absolute explosion of love.  It is love expressed physically.  She acts like she thought she was never going to see me ever again every time she stops by.

Which brings me back this morning to one of my favorite go-to topics: what the hell is love anyhow?  In my family of origin it was such a restrained emotion, very defined and doled out with great discretion and reluctance and only to people who fit a narrow criterion.  Don't get me wrong - I knew I was loved but it was often flat and dull and emotionless, something that was expected of everyone,  befitting a conservative, religious family.  This is what I had when I was launched out into the broader world.  Aware of the concept but constrained between tight guardrails.

While I began to tell people that I loved them in a much more relaxed way several years ago it was the death of my sponsor Ken that really rocketed me into the Fifth Dimension.  I've spoken about the details of his death before - this deeply Catholic, profoundly conservative guy whose beliefs offended me so much that for a few years I spent more time arguing with him than looking for the similarities in our respective programs. This changed after a while and we had a great friendship.  It was when he was close to death at the end, bedridden, taking morphine for the pain, that he began to say that he now understood God as an expression of pure love.  This really struck home with me; so much so that I now use it as a suggestion to anyone struggling with the idea of God or a Higher Power.  With a little Hope the Dog imagery thrown in to make it even simpler.  Who can get pissed at the idea of pure love? 

Later I had this interaction with a man who was a good friend many years ago, a man that I hadn't spoken with for thirty years, maybe more.  Someone asked him if he knew me and he replied: "Yes, he's a good friend.  In fact, he's one of my best friends."  This struck at my core - like Ken's awakening - rocketing me into a different (and better, c'mon!) interpretation of love.  My buddy talks about this incredibly long, incredibly thin, but incredibly strong thread that connects old friends over time and distance, that it's hard to snap this thread even with disuse.  

I have gotten to the point where love takes on so many different forms and guises.  I can't tell you how deeply, deeply satisfying this is.  It has allowed me to step out of the restrictive box and begin to tell all kinds of people that I love them.  It has shown me that there are so many forms and types of love with different degrees of intensity and intimacy and this freedom has allowed me to feel and also to express this weird-ass emotion much more freely and with a total unconcern as to whether it's reciprocated or expressed.  None of my business what you're feeling.  I sense it most of the time but not always and I am so okay with that fact.  Other people undoubtedly have their own definitions of what it is that might not jive with mine.

Hey, how about that shit?

I try to jot down one special thing I'm grateful for every day and I'm struck by the fact that it is almost always a live human being.  There are a few dead human beings in there and the occasional great travel experience or delicious type of cake but it's mostly people I see or talk to and where I can express this emotion.  It's the essence of life, isn't it?

Back to Saint Frank: "To seek to love rather than be loved."

Seaweed: On the Move

Moving too much; doing too much; and feeling like it isn't enough.  It's who I am.  It has taken me a long time

Touching people by giving them some space.  These people fall in my sweet spot.  I'm not effective when I try to direct the actions of other.  A.A. is not the military.

It used to be that quiet scared me.  I didn't know what to do if I wasn't active.  I think that I perceived stillness and inactivity as laziness and when I was able to finally slow down a little bit my whole outlook on life and my overly optimistic schedule began to change.  I've discovered peace and contentment in listening to music, taking walks, talking with friends.  My constant busyness was an effort to find this peace and contentment outside of myself instead of discovering well-being inside myself.  

I find value in the most difficult of circumstances.  I find the answers to the mysteries of my life in what I don't do well.  In the places of my struggles and vulnerabilities.   Difficulties and weaknesses often lead me to the very thing I need to learn.

Not Entirely Buying This . . .

Our Saturday meeting is much larger than the weekday meetings.  I went yesterday - I led the meeting, in fact, so, yes, it was a tremendous meeting - but I confess that most of the time about half the stuff I hear doesn't rock my world.  A lot of people talk for too long and a lot of people are far too boring and I know the general schtick of a lot of them (as they know my general schtick) so I can almost speak in their stead I know their message so well.  Fortunately, my recovery program includes the meeting, the meeting before the meeting, the meeting after the meeting, and any social activities I enjoy with other recovering members - walks, coffee, and such.  One of these is a stroll on the beach with a guy I'd say I'm unofficialy sponsering-ish.  He has a sponsor and is engaged with him but it never hurts to hear a different opinion, especially if it comes from me.

He talks often about women he knows in The Fellowship.  He's married, happily so, with a family, and has not acted improperly as far as I know - and really what do I know?  we're great liars after all - but I'm struck with how often this is the main topic of our conversations.  He doesn't talk about his children or his work but he does talk about these women.  A lot.  Almost every time.  Every time, if I think about it.

Anyway, here are the questions I'd have him ask someone expressing similar behavior and feeling similarly uncomfortable about it:

Why are you talking to women after the meeting?

Why aren't you talking to men?  I understand it's normal and healthy to talk to both men and women but it should be like a ratio of three to one and you rarely talk about the men so I'm guessing that's not the ratio you're shooting for.

Are you talking to the older women with lots of sobriety or are you heading to the cute, young, single women?

Why are you getting phone numbers of women? And once again I'm guessing its the young women and not the old timers?

At my morning meeting there were probably ten to twelve guys with under six months of sobriety.  Talking to any of them?  Getting any of their phone numbers?

If I had a video of you talking to these women would I see an aggressive body stance - too close, holding eye contact for too long - and hear any words that could be considered suggestive or ambiguous?

There's an anecdote in The Big Book about the fact that our freedom from alcoholism means we can go to places that serve alcohol or where drinking will be present - situations that in the past would have meant that we would inevitably get drunk - IF we can affirm that we have a sound social or business reason for being there.  We're reminded that if we suspect we might just be looking for a frisson of the old excitement of drinking and drunkeness, a contact high so to speak, then we'd be better off staying away.

My experience is that if someone is talking about something that there's a reason for that.

Guts V Veneer

"In our estimation, most other people are happy, some supremely happy.  But are we thinking this because we are making comparisons?  Envy and resentment of other people keep our eyes focused outside ourselves where nothing is ever quite the way it looks.  There is great contentment in minding our own business.  We can correct what needs correction, make amends if we need to - but let the questioning go."

I've always enjoyed the reminder that I'm comparing my insides - the raw, unfiltered emotions and fears and wants that I have - with someone else's outsides - a carefully curated and refined act that always contains a lot of justifications and misdirections meant to present to the world the presence of a wonderful, fascinating human being.  I'm comparing my guts to your veneer.

Never winning that fight.

Must Do or Should Do?

I'm speaking with an old friend who has some long-term sobriety but who has drifted away from any kind of spiritual and recovery practice.  On our weekly phone calls he has thrown a lot of topics at me in a short period of time; so many that I can only speak to a few of them at a time.  I like that I can sit down later on and type up what I hope is a more complete summary of all that came to my mind during the call.  The following is an example:

"I find that I often see what applies to me and relates to my experience after I let thoughts percolate in my mind for a while.  That being said this may or may not apply to you but it is definitely part of my story.  As a Great Thinker, as an Intellectual, and I use that latter phrase as a stand-in for someone who enjoys thinking and not so much as someone who is smart although I am smart as shit.  Just ask me - I'll confirm it.    

I'm glad to hear that you are writing.  I encourage this practice.  I had/have a tendency to hold too many thoughts in my mind at the same time and this can be paralyzing.  I cycle through them over and over without . . . you know . . . doing anything, taking any concrete action.  When I was working and back at my desk the first day after a vacation I'd look at the pile of paperwork, contemplate all of the voice mails and emails, and freeze, unsure how to do it all at once, right away, perfectly.  I got into the habit of making a list - two lists, in fact -  of Must Do and Should Do actions.  It helped to see it, concretely.  It helped organize it in a physical way.  Then I'd do the first thing on the list, to the best of my ability, and often be furious that I couldn't resolve it immediately (person not at their desk, person too busy to talk, person needing to check with someone else).  I learned to take a deep breath and then move on to Task Two.  I did what I could and then I moved on.  I took an action.

There are, of course, no chapters in the Big Book called "Into Thinking" or "More About Thinking"  or  "How We Think."

I find myself getting a little overwhelmed when I hear all that you have going on in your life.  You've got some quick fixes and some big projects.  If one of my tasks is Take Out the Garbage I take out the garbage.  If another is Run A Marathon or Improve My Relationships then that's going to be a long-term project.  The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Peace out.  And my goal is always to try to share my experience, strength, and hope.  If it's applicable to your circumstances, fine.  If not, go talk to someone else and see if what they've got to say makes more sense."

 

 

 

No Pain - No Gain

I see that as I get older I'm not gaining more and more wisdom of many things but concentrating that wisdom into fewer and fewer concepts or facets or facts of my exististence.  There's a woman I know who studies fungal parasites.  She has a doctorate in fungal parasites.  A late dear friend was a doctor who was a famous authority on the skin-world barrier in infants.  I mean, c'mon.  Skin keeps shit out.  You give lectures all over the world on this?  I can sum it up pretty accurately: Skin keeps good things in and bad things out.

Anyway, every time I ponder the wonderful mystery of taking pain and turning into a blessing I'm astounded at how profound a concept this is.  I have a positive genius for turning pain into suffering.  

"Pain is Inevitable - Suffering is Optional. "  Little Stevie Seaweed.  

I have a positive genius for trying to ignore pain or believing that I can exert my will and force the pain into pleasure.  I cut my finger with a knife yesterday.  Did not care for the sensation.  Pain.  I can learn from the experience but the pain is going to come get me from somewhere, from so many sources, that I better get better at managing it and not be so worried about how to avoid it.  

"No one here gets out alive."  Jim Morrison

I imagine that I can change the world and then be happy.  But it's not by changing the world that I'll find happiness and awakening but by transforming my relationship with it.  Very often what nourishes my spirit the most is what brings us face to face with our greatest limitations and difficulties.  Again and again and again I have to remember that Wisdom is Knowledge + Experience.

Here's a Tibetan take on the subject: "Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and suffering on their journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion may be truly fulfilled."

Today I can look back on what I perceive as the greatest tragedies in my life and see how those experiences led me to this time of my life and this time of my life is without a doubt filled with more contentment and peace than any other time that I can think of and I think of other times a lot.  

"No pain - No gain."  Mike Ditka (Actually I have no idea who said that but Mike Ditka came to mind first.)

The Benefits of Pain

"Every spiritual life entails a succession of difficulties because every ordinary life also involves a succession of difficulties, what the Buddha describes as the inevitable sufferings of existence.  The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.  As we follow a genuine path of practice, our suffering may seem to increase because we no longer hide from them or from ourselves.  When we do not follow the old habits of fantasy and escape, we are left facing the actual problems and contradictions of our life."  Jack K

I've always liked the acronym SOBER - Son of a Bitch, Everything's Real.  I've always liked the reminder that one of the great benefits of being sober is that we get to feel everything again and one of the great irritants of being sober is that we get to feel everything again.  Suffering is not something to be avoided or suppressed or changed.  It's suffering.  It's the nature of things.  Human beings suffer from time to time.  That's how it has always been and that's how it's going to be and I don't get to avoid that.  Sorry, Seaweed.  Do something with the pain instead of pretending it's not there.