One Red Cent

In one of my meditation books the theme this morning was the assurance that when I've learned to be happy with myself, inside, then I will be much, much happier with the outside world.  I've learned that the stuff outside of me is not the stuff that's going to make me happy, deep down inside, for when I attach my happiness to that outside stuff then I make my happiness contingent on that stuff and that stuff is going to let me down, eventually.  Don't get me wrong  - there's nothing the matter with stuff.  I have a shit-ton of stuff and I enjoy a lot of it but I know that the enjoyment is contingent on my peace of mind.  Lotsa miserable rich people out there.

When I was getting sober in Indianapolis one of my first sponsors was a successful stock broker who drove a big, white Cadillac and he had a wife and kids and a nice house in a nice suburb.  He was a kind, kind, spiritual man with a big heart and he was also pretty blunt dealing with new twerps like me.  I would hear him talk about how important it was to improve myself from within, that the outside stuff was only window dressing that would never make me deeply happy and I was occasionally tempted to say: "Yeah, well, why don't you give me your car then, you sanctimonious prick."  Luckily, I was too afraid of him at the time to say such a thing but, on second hand, I bet he would have responded with a big belly laugh.  The shit we learn . . . .

Update: I sent a message to Detox Girl yesterday and did not hear back.  Obviously, I have not seen her at a meeting and she's been out of the hospital for a week.  While this is sad and does not make me happy I'm not surprised and I'm not upset.  Remember the Coke machine analogy vis-a-vis Seinfeld?  Most of us can't just walk up and tip it over - we have to get it rocking back and forth a few times and then it goes over.  Maybe she stays sober forever; maybe this is an important but not final step in her journey into sobriety; and maybe she never gets it.  None of that is any of my business.  I helped for my sake.  I gave without any expectation of return.  And for a couple of weeks I was in touch with the young woman who jumped in and did a lot of the shitty, hard work with Detox Girl.  I tapped on my phone from the comfort of my meditation chair and I spent a few hours in the ER.  Maybe the blessing for me was getting to know my friend better?  Maybe the blessing was listening to the insight of SuperK when we got out of the hospital as she shattered - no, not shattered, tempered - my Savior Complex when she observed that Detox Girl seemed to be kind of blase about her hospital experience.  

All good stuff.  All stuff I need to grow.  Stuff that means something and didn't cost me one red cent.

Space Between My Thoughts

"Today I still enjoy getting the approval of others, but I am not willing to pay the price I used to pay to get it.  I will not bend myself into a pretzel to get others to like me.  If I get your approval, that's fine; but if I don't, I will survive without it.  I need to feel a strong and helpful sense of myself.  Such an awareness doesn't happen overnight, and no one's self-awareness is permanent."

A.A. Daily Reflections

I used to be an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.  Today, I'm an egomaniac with a superiority complex.  I said that at a meeting today.  I thought it was clever and totally hilarious.  A couple of twitters.  Maybe a chuckle or a chortle or two but that was it.  Cretins.  I will not dumb down my wit and sink to the level of my audience. 

Or maybe it wasn't that funny.  Maybe that's it.

"With awareness, we realize there is a deep silence that exists behind all of those voices, in that space between thoughts."

Toltecs

I love the imagery of a space between my thoughts.  I love the imagery of all those voices.  They're talking all the time but not into between my thoughts.

"Yet many of us are waiting for some goal to be reached, some status to be attained before we can begin enjoying our lives.  We say things to ourselves like, 'I will be happy when I get this job/accumulate this amount of money/have this relationship.'  There is nothing wrong with wanting to attain or achieve certain things, but if we make our  happiness conditional on reaching certain destination points, our life will become a series of goals to obtain, with each one failing to deliver the  promise of happiness we envisioned.  Happiness can only be found in the present moment, not at some imaginary place in the future."

Toltecs

An Embiggened Spirit

Plain Language Big Book speaketh thusly: 

"If we are able to embrace new ideas and discoveries, why not new views on God?  After all, we were struggling with our lives at just about every level.  We truly needed help.  We were having trouble with our relationships, we couldn't control our emotions, we felt miserable and depressed.  We couldn't earn money or hold onto jobs, we felt useless and afraid, and we were unhappy.  We couldn't even help other people.  If connecting with a Higher Power could help us solve even a few of these problems,wasn't that worth exploring?  Of course it was."

I have a rotating, constantly evolving and changing grouping of friends that I keep in my thoughts while I'm in my Quiet Time.  I am remembering a woman whose daughter is undergoing treatment for a particularly tricky and malignant type of cancer; a man who is fighting stage four cancer himself; a man whose sister died suddenly from a heart attack; a woman who is drinking again and mostly unresponsive after accumulating seven years of sobriety; a man in the midst of a maybe long-term relationship break-up who was waffling and dithering about going through with a trip to Belgium alone instead of - as planned - with his maybe, maybe not significant other and who went after some encouragement from me; SuperK who is dealing with the slow-motion, long-term fall-out of losing a much beloved brother-in-law to cancer (Ed. Note: Don't you love the phrase "losing" to describe death?  I cannot think of anyone more difficult to "lose" than a dead person.  He or she is right where they were when they died unless you've moved them somewhere else); a few A.A. sons and daughters who are moving through a variety of situations and challenges that we all have gone through and are of no great import in the long run; and, of course, Detox Girl who has been quasi-responsive when Chloe and I get in touch with her but has not reached out on her own and is not to my knowledge attending any meetings or recovery groups of any kind.  Eventually we all have to do some work or we're going to keep getting what we've always been getting.  It can be tragic standing on the firing line of alcoholism.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."

Jebediah Springfield.

Fun Facts About How Useless Humans Are

The hierarchy of humans in the natural world . . . .  

We're slow and we're weak.

We have incredibly thin skin that can be easily damaged.

We cannot tolerate cold temperatures for long and prolonged high temperatures are quickly fatal.

We can't climb, fly, swim, or jump.

The average human being is far slower than a hippopotamus, rhinoceros, or elephant.  Bears you can just forget about and any big cat is going to blow by you like a missile.  If something is chasing you save your breath because it's going to catch you.  You're slower than a warthog for chrissake and I don't even know what a warthog is.

We have big brains.  Massive, humongous brains and we're social animals that have learned how to cooperate.  That's our advantage.

Given all of this is it any wonder that we're fearful, anxious, neurotic creatures?

Source: Africa Geographic

Source: Africa Geographic

Zorba, A.A., and the Toltecs

There's a passage in the novel Zorba the Greek where the main character runs into an old man planting a tree and asks what he's doing.  

"You can see what I'm doing.  I'm planting a tree."

"Why are you planting that tree?  You're never going to see it bear fruit."

"I live my life as if I'm never going to die," the old man says.  

As Zorba walks away, a faint smile on his lips, he thinks: "How strange.  I live as if I'm going to die tomorrow.'

There's an old adage that I try to follow: Plan as if I'm going to live forever and live as if I'm going to die tomorrow.    Keeps me in the moment.  Am I going to rage against the machine if today is my last day?  Am I going to waste my last moments angry at someone who didn't use their turn signal?

Here are the Toltecs: "We always have a choice.  I can change things with just one choice.  If I like the way something is going, I can keep doing it.  If I don't like it I can change it."

Unbelievable!  Who would have thought this?  It's too stupid easy to be true!

Keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting what you're getting.  Works both ways, doesn't it?

To continue: "Living a life of awareness takes work.  The discipline required to become a master requires constant practice.  And it gets easier to keep a discipline with time."

Gimme The Ball

I have been in touch with Detox Girl a few times since she was released from the hospital and by "been in touch" I mean "I'm reaching out to her."  When SuperK and I were in the ER with her my wife told me that she felt like our prospect was oddly not as upset or horrified as she should be, that it felt like a case of yadda yadda yadda been there, done that.  This I needed to hear.  I think I was a little bit bedazzled at my contributions to this whole situation.  When Detox Girl was sharing some stories about her family and co-workers initially I found myself on her side completely.  Now I'm beginning to see that she might have burned so many bridges so many times that their reactions are the appropriate ones.  At first I was outraged that her ex was trying to gain sole custody of their children and that her mother was on the ex's side.  Now . . . I dunno.  A twenty-nine year old who needs a shot in the morning to stop the shakes?  Maybe not the best option for taking care of a two year old.

 I try to approach new people with the attitude that I may be providing the last little nudge that gets them into recovery while staying aware to the very real possibility that they may never sober up.  The answer, thankfully, is usually somewhere in between.  I'm in charge of the giving but I'm not in charge of the receiving.  I meditate daily on the concept of Unconditional Love - I can reach out to a new person with the flimsy reed of sobriety but I can't grasp it for them.  I try to stay aware of the success percentages in the recovery world.  I want to be of service as often as I can without becoming jaded over all the failures.  I'm giving to the new person and I'm the one who benefits, ultimately, most of the time, but I'm not giving because I expect something in return.  Still weird to verbalize this.

My sober friend who has been doing the heavy lifting in this drama has a very young son who plays T-Ball.  She says that when the ball is in play all of the boys try to get to it and they become very frustrated if someone else beats them to the punch.  She said once her son threw his mitt at the boy who got there first.  I'm still laughing about this.  Sounds like a bunch of alcoholics, doesn't it?  No concept of team work.  "He's on your team!"  "Fuck that - I want the ball!

Slogging Seaweed

The mild weather I get to enjoy in SoCal allows me to open a window in my meditation room most days.  It's early when I first sit down so it's quiet outside.  Then some particular kind of bird begins to stir and makes this repetitive chirping noise.  Chirp, chirp, chirp.  The cadence and rhythm changes from time to time, getting faster and more strident, slowing down.  Could be the alarm on an old clock radio.  Next, another different kind of bird starts up with kind of a whirring noise.  Brings to mind a big, flying cricket creature.  So those two guys are welcoming me to the day.  It's quite dark at the onset and I really enjoy seeing how the light slowly changes.  It's pitch black - depending on how big the moon is in its waning and waxing cycles - and then the day starts to brighten up.  Slowly, very slowly.  I can perceive a change in the light.  Initially it's more of a suggestion of brightening.  It's a little brighter . .  .  . kinda . . . sort of.  There are road noises coming from outside the community or there are not.  This changes based on the wind direction, I think.  We get fog often overnight and this can deaden the noise completely.  Some days I hear every truck and car hissing by my window and some days there's nothing.

How weird is the concept of giving?  I still don't get it intellectually.  It seems like a win-lose situation.  I give.  You get.  I haven't completely shaken off my zero sum mentality.  There's six pieces of pie and if I grab three of them .  . .  well . . . tough shit for you.  Snooze ya lose.

SuperK and I spent a couple of hours yesterday in a room off the local ER sitting with Detox Girl.  She was through the worst of the detox but she was still shaky.  My sober daughter was there most of the previous day as Detox Girl was in the worst of it.  Vomiting, shaking, that kind of shit.  A room off an ER isn't that great a room.  The chairs suck.  The ambiance leaves a lot to be desired.  The traffic in the hallway consists of sick and injured people going to and fro.  There is not a lovely aromatic smell wafting about.  I'd rather be somewhere else if I'm talking about my own personal comfort which is the only comfort I care much about.  At least I wasn't rubbing the back of someone upchucking.   But I understood in my bones that I was putting money in my serenity bank.  I was not thinking about myself, I was not pondering the return on investment.  My sober daughter has two small children at home and I told her that I knew she wasn't jotting down in a ledger every nice thing she does for her kids so that sometimes in the future she can whip it out and say: "Hey, you were acting like a brat so I made you pancakes even though I was tired so you owe me."  I know love doesn't work like that.  If it's not freely given . . . well . . . it's not really love, is it?

And on the other hand I have to be prepared for the very real possibility that I breathed in hospital smells trying to be helpful to someone who very well may be drinking the day she gets out of the hospital.  Alcoholism works like that.  I still cannot believe that I sobered up lo these many years ago.  It's a slog.  Most of us are poor sloggers.