Okay, Just Books, Then

Crime and Punishment.  War and Peace.  Right and Wrong.  Good and Evil.  Is a lie a bad act when it spares someone's feelings?  When it damages someone's reputation?  When it spares me, myself, and I some discomfort?

I have been under some internal mandate of unknown origin to continue to pare my life down.  Stuff.  Whew, stuff.  Stuff has so much promise in the acquiring and can be so disappointing in the possession.  I was digging through some drawers that contained several pounds of paper that I have been hauling around for years - fifty years in some cases - and never rereading.  Newspaper and magazine articles about the glory years of the Cincinnati Reds, scorecards from Spring training games when I was deep in my addictions and still getting away with it, a few books and pictures and cards.  Memorabilia.  I can say with certainty I have not looked at any of this stuff in 30 years and to say it has been 40 years wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.  I didn't read all of it this time and I know I wouldn't take it back out anytime soon, so I boxed it all up and took the package to the Post Office to mail to a friend who still follows the team like I did in my teens, aware that there is a lower rate for sending books through the mail.  While the package didn't technically contain books it did contain paper with words written on them.  What is a book anyway?  If I took all of the newspaper clippings and put them into a binder would that be a book?  Maybe the Post Office should have a manuscript rate.  This is on them, not me.  If you buy a lamp you get a twenty page pamphlet tell you, for instance, not to plug the lamp into an electrical outlet and take a shower so it's not too much to ask the Post Office to put some thought into their Book Rate.  Spell it out!

I'm an individual who is a slave to logical behavior.  I hate things that don't make sense, that aren't logical.  I like numbers.  One plus one equals two and that's that. There are generally ways to do something that are better than all the other ways to do something and when this is the case - not always but pretty often - I push back when I'm asked to do something the way that isn't the best.  To wit: I set the package down on the counter and told the old guy working that it contained "books and papers."  This was not true and this means, technically, I lied.  It contained papers.  I took the concept of a "Book Rate" and modified it somewhat to fit my concept of what could be shipped under the guise of a "book."  I didn't want to pay the much higher rate you have to pay to ship other shit and I decided I could change the facts in my favor.  A little twisting and bending and jamming and forcing, heating those facts up until they melt a little and can be reconfigured to my liking.  The guy looked at the box and said: "If you take the papers out I can give you a much better rate."  I looked at the box and pondered a moment, fighting back a low-grade urge to explain how the United States Post Office could do things better.  He wanted me to cut the box open, take some stuff out, seal the box back up, mail it, take the papers home and repackage them and then return to the Post Office to mail the papers.  I took a beat and then said with a straight face: "OK, it's just books."  What the fuck, right?  All I was going to do was take the package to another Post Office and tell them "Books - just books" because I'm not stupid, right?  And what was the guy going to say: "Sir, you just said it's books and papers."  I didn't see it happening.  I played the odds.  I made the calculation he wasn't going to get into it with me.  He just wanted to make it to lunch time so he could eat his baloney and cheese sandwich in the break room, not argue semantics with stone-cold liar sociopath.

The guy processed the order.  He wasn't unpleasant but he wasn't chatty, either.  I told him one thing and then I told him another and he knew one of them wasn't true so he knew he was dealing with a liar.  Not a horrible, evil liar but I didn't come clean with him.  You know, I didn't care.  His organization was illogical and inefficient and being a slave to the truth was going to inconvenience me.  The cost was $8.50 instead of $30.50 so that helped my calculus, too.  I was effusive in my praise of his service that morning.  I felt/feel no guilt about what happened.  Get your shit together, Post Office.

I told this story to SuperK when I got home.  I didn't perceive it as being anything that special or out of the ordinary and pretty typical of something I might do or say and she lost it, collapsing with laughter.  It surprised me, actually.  Like "shit, maybe I am a psychopath."  

I told her that she just bought an entire year of bad behavior with her reaction.

God! Dog! Palindrome!

 There are four stages to life: youth, middle-age, old age, and "You look great!"                                     Unknown (but pretty goddam funny)

You do enough.  You have enough.  You ARE enough.

You are not alone.  You are loved unconditionally.  You are supported.  You are strong.  You are ENOUGH.

One meditation visualization that I hear often and just as often forget is to imagine that there are roots emanating from the bottoms of my feet and entering the ground and traveling through every bit of this earth and intermingling with the roots of every other person, connecting me with all of them.

I'll toss in this ChatGPT summary of animism, a topic I've investigated in the past and one that continues to fascinate me even though I'm not really sure how to incorporate it into my own personal, learned and installed root system:

Animism is the belief that spirits, souls, or a living essence exist not only in humans but also in animals, plants, natural features, and sometimes objects such as rivers, mountains, rocks, or even tools.

Key ideas of animism include:

• Nature is alive and spiritually significant.
• Humans are part of a larger community that includes animals, plants, and other beings.
• Relationships with these beings often involve respect and reciprocity.

Animism is found in many Indigenous and traditional cultures around the world, including among some Native American, African, Australian Aboriginal, and Asian peoples.  It is often considered one of the oldest forms of religious belief.

Every time we travel we pick up a few rocks from wherever we end up.  I'm assuming I'm not supposed to do this but as with many things I'm not supposed to do I do it anyway, partially because I have a great deal of respect for rocks - they're amazing things that have been around for a long time - and partially because it connects me to an old friend from high school who was also a rock guy.  And with SuperK's geologist brother who knew a lot more about rocks than I'll ever know and who passed this love on to his sister who passed it on to me, a gift I'm deeply grateful for.

Rocks!

I felt the presence of The Divine as deeply as I've ever experienced during our trip to Antarctica.  Man, that place got into my bones.  Man, that was a beautiful place.  God - or Dog - was oozing out of that place.

When we got back from our last trip the Mexican rescue dog who lives next door and who loves me with a love I cannot fathom glimpsed me for the first time since our return.  She lost it.  She looked like a demon possessed.  She was bouncing and thrashing around so much that she lost her balance and fell heavily on her side - it looked like it hurt to me - but she just hopped up and continued to thrash.  You tell me there's nothing divine in that?  You tell me that isn't the essence of love distilled?

God!  Dog!  You notice anything similar there!?!

Actions V Intentions For the Fiftieth Time

People are watching what we do.  They judge us by what we do.  I was under the illusion that people judged me by what I said I was going to do.  Even worse, I hoped that they judged me by what I was thinking I was going to say that I was going to do.  I was a hell of a guy in my own mind and it was just too bad that you didn't live up in there, too.  What we say and do matters, even if we don't realize it.  It's not the intention that matters - that's just a starting point.  But, hey, even failure is part of recovery.  Failure doesn't define us - it's what we do afterwards that defines who we are.

The Toltecs have their own take on this: "Many of us have spent years creating stories about ourselves based on other people's ideas and expectations, then we struggle through life trying to live up to these false images that we agreed to.  But there comes a point when you say to yourself: "This is who I am - no story needed."

I've added a guided meditation to my morning Quiet Time routine.  Some of them are good, a few are great, and some of them rub me the wrong way.  The quiet, breathy, murmuring voices, using words like gently and nourishing.  Yeech.  "Mindfully take a gentle, nourishing breath of clean, energizing air."  Brother, give me a break.

And how about chakras?  I try to keep an open mind on matters of spirituality but the chakras are more than I can handle.

1. Root Chakra  — Base of the spine
   • Associated with survival, stability, grounding.
2. Sacral Chakra  — Lower abdomen
   • Associated with creativity, pleasure, emotions.
3. Solar Plexus Chakra — Upper abdomen
   • Associated with confidence, willpower, personal power.
4. Heart Chakra — Center of the chest
   • Associated with love, compassion, connection.
5. Throat Chakra  — Throat
   • Associated with communication and self-expression.
6. Third Eye Chakra  — Between the eyebrows
   • Associated with intuition and insight.
7. Crown Chakra  — Top of the head
   • Associated with spirituality and higher consciousness.

From a spiritual perspective, practices such as meditation, yoga, breathwork, chanting, and visualization are often used to balance or awaken the chakras.

From a scientific perspective, chakras are not recognized as physical structures or measurable energy centers in the body. They are generally understood as spiritual, symbolic, or psychological concepts rather than anatomical ones.  In traditional Tantra, chakras were primarily tools for spiritual transformation and meditation, not simply centers associated with personality traits or emotional wellness. 

One thing I find fascinating is that the concept of chakras is found in many original texts but they've changed and modified over the centuries - at their essence the same but morphing into many different forms.  A relatively modern invention is assigning colors to each chakra center.  In my background the Bible is the Big Kahuna; a book that is essentially the same but has changed and been modified over the centuries as well.  So wherever your spiritual traditions or practices lead you let them lead away - you can find spiritual mentors or advisors that help immensely but at the heart of the matter they're human beings, too, with all kinds of prejudices and shortcomings.  Beware the teacher who is cocksure that they're all that and never wrong.  These people, in my estimation, can be the biggest fuck-ups out there.

Here's a visualization technique I like: A blue sky with clouds drifting across it.  The sky is my mind - always there, never changing - and the clouds are my thoughts - coming and going, changing constantly while not affecting the essence of the sky itself.  Within the sky but not the sky.

Let's Try the Red One

"Remember - you are not a helpless bystander to the tyranny of your mind."

Toltecs

 

Reflecting on my day I'm now much more conscious of how much time I spent talking about myself or focusing attention on myself or my issues.  SuperK went out to lunch with some friends from her golf league and got stuck to a woman who asked her not one question (just back from Denmark!) while prattling on and on in great detail about herself.  Borrrrringggg!  I'm not sure what I would have done but then I'm not as nice as my wife is - she actually cares what other people think about her.  But I know that I'm not so important that I need to keep a constant watch over myself.  I can stop watching myself and start noticing others.  I can continue to discover the world around me.

"One must do more, think less, and not watch oneself live."

Sebastien de Chamfort

"Sometimes we have habits or practices that cause us pain, yet we continue to do them.  This is because that same action also brings us comfort in some way.  Being honest with ourselves in this regard is key to knowing whether or not we really want to change them."

Toltecs, again

This is an alcoholic, pondering the ruination of his life, fully aware that he simply cannot drink and survive, pouring the next drink.  He has learned what the problem is; he is aware that there is a solution; but he doesn't change his behavior.

"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.  The sensation is so elusive, that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after time differentiate the true from the false.  To them, the alcoholic life seems the only normal one."

Doctor's Opinion, The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Homer Simpson, in an effort to get free cable, climbs up a utility pole where he finds a red connection and a green connection.  He attaches the cable wire to the green connection - makes sense - and is promptly shocked into next Wednesday.  "Hmmmm," he muses.  "Must be the red connection."  For a second time he gets the shit shocked out of himself.  Frazzled, he pauses, smoke rising from his singed hair, and states, with some purpose and confidence: "Let's try the green one."  and is promptly knocked right off the pole.

This is an alcoholic pondering the next right move as he looks back on an endless stream of bad choices, before deciding to try the alcohol solution . . . one . . .  morrrrre . . . tiiiiime . . . 

The Tony Morgan

"Ask yourself the most important question: 'Who am I?' "  Who you are is who you are at the center.  The answer is beyond all knowledge and cannot be expressed in words.  Meditate on this today."

Things go better for me when I'm honestly looking at myself.  Sometimes I have trouble with the "honestly" part.  Sometimes I need voices from outside my own head to chime in.  Others can see my self-righteous dishonesty without prejudice.  Who likes to admit to being a jerk?  And sometimes I'm fully aware of my defects and just don't give a shit.

An example: when I was finally getting on my feet financially - I'd like to say "back on my feet" but I had never been anywhere near on my feet - I was pleased to be able to buy some clothes that didn't make me look like a schizophrenic drug addict listening to eerie, ominous voices audible only inside his own head.  Not Saks Fifth Avenue clothes - Eddie Bauer clothes, Lands End clothes.  Not fancy stuff, just adult-ish stuff, reasonable looking, no tears or rips or stains.  Anyway I bought this lightweight vest.  I still have it.  The quality is excellent, it's water-resistant and lightweight which makes it great for traveling, it has a little bit of style.  Not long after I bought the jacket I wore it to a meeting.  Across the room what did I see but a friend wearing the exact same vest.  Here's the thing: he was not an especially fit friend and he looked kind of like an over-stuffed sausage in the vest.  He did not flatter the vest, the very same vest I was wearing, and  I'm not saying I was rocking the vest but I looked better in it than he did.  For a moment I felt like going outside and stuffing my vest into a garbage can.  He had ruined the spoils of war that I had finally begun accumulating.

As I said I still have the vest.  I don't begrudge Stuffed Sausage Guy his vest, either, and I hope he still has it.  As I continue to judge my spiritual progress or lack of I'll share the fact that the vest has long had a name - The Johnny Morgan - and it is always and only called The Tony Morgan as in: "Hey, SuperK, have you seen The Tony Morgan?"  "Yes, The Tony Morgan is in the wash."  That kind of fairly gossipy humor.

Still makes me laugh, though.

I'm trying to get better.  I'm better than I was.

"Life has every right to say no to our endeavors.  We are judging and rejecting ourselves before life has had a chance to express a choice.  This self-rejection stops us from living the life of our dreams and keeps us trapped in disillusionment.  When life says no to us, as it inevitably will sometimes, we respect that choice also, without self-judgment." 

Angry Guy V Inappropriate Guy

I have a friend in A.A. who has a temper.  It's a guy, naturally, and I'm talking about quite the temper.  Take a swing at you, scream obscenities kind of temper.  Scary temper.  I've watched him make great progress in his recovery, so much so that he now works as an intake counselor at a drug rehab center.  Early in his journey he threatened a coworker at his place of employment and was promptly fired - even though he didn't carry through on his threat his company had a policy of no violence, actual or implied.  Kind of unbelievable that companies have to actually make a policy like that.  It doesn't speak very well of the society we live in.  Anyway, he paid the price, learned from it, and has continued to grow.  For a while - quite a while - I'd usually ask him how he was doing with his anger management.  He reported in but I didn't think he especially appreciated the nudges.  It's almost as if I was saying: "How's it going, you fuck-up?"  But we're close enough that I felt comfortable poking at his sore spots, at his deficiencies and defects, and he was savvy enough to listen.

At the meeting yesterday he came into the kitchen area as the meeting was getting underway where I was waiting for the kettle to boil and provide me with hot water for my tea - cursed secretary made coffee but didn't take care of the tea drinkers, curse her, although does any red-blooded A.A. member really trust anyone who chooses tea over coffee? - and he was boiling mad.  He overheard one of our other members make a couple of jokes that he thought were disrespectful to women.  This guy has also made a ton of progress in his recovery but his jokes are sometimes funny and sometimes they make me wince a little.  Not terribly inappropriate but not what you'd like to see in someone growing spiritually.  Early on this guy talked a lot about money and women, clearly reliving what he thought were past successes in the money and and sex department to someone who could not have cared less.  Anyway Temper Guy got in Inappropriate Guy's face about the comments.  My job, I thought, was just to get Temper Guy to calm down.  Which I did, so hooray for me!  Temper Guy then said: OK.  I need to make amends" which pretty much floored me.

I like to see this kind of progression, this kind of growth.  While I was happy he didn't take a swing at Inappropriate Guy he coulda kept his mouth shut.  Progress is incremental and it can be painfully slow.  Next time maybe he'll throw down a slew of curses mentally while keeping quiet.  The goal, of course, is not to react with anger at all.  Lofty goal, indeed.  The funny thing is that Inappropriate Guy took the amends well and 'fessed up to some maybe, kinda, not-so-great behavior on his part.  So what do I know?  While I do believe that kindness and positive reinforcement work best most of the time sometimes we need to have someone point out clearly bad behavior.  Maybe my gentle tolerance for the off-color stories was interpreted as tacit agreement or acceptance of the behavior.  Maybe some direct commentary, honest, face-to-face, was necessary.

At Costco yesterday I was waiting - with my turn signal on - for traffic to clear so I could enter one of the lanes running between the parking spaces when the guy behind me sounded his horn.  First of all, never go to Costco on Friday, which is apparently their busy day.  Actually, that's it - there's no second of all.  There is a point, however, which I may or may not get to eventually.  Here's the action: SuperK said: "Did that guy just beep at you?" and then we both burst out laughing.  Old Seaweed has grown, too, from someone who would have stood on his horn while flashing the bird to someone who would have left his horn dormant while cursing mightily to someone who laughed merrily.  This was not easily attained behavior.  This took time.

My Little Man's an Idiot

"Facts are stubborn things."

John Adams

"Ain't we got all the fools in town on our side?  And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?
Huck Finn

I got a text yesterday from a friend in The Program - a friend who is not effusive in their emotions - asking about the wisdom of sponsoring a person of the opposite sex.  The conventional wisdom is that this is not a great idea.  We can have good intentions and still allow attention from - in some world, in some life - someone who might be a possible mate to sway us and color our emotions.  I work like Hercules trying to stay neutral when I'm dealing with another person and I try to stay neutral even though I have a strong opinion and even though I'm a genius who is always right and should be appointed The Supreme Leader of the Universe and of All Its Many Life Forms.  That would be a tough thing to fit on my name tag but I still like it.  My M.O. is to ask questions, to refer back to a passage or story in The Big Book that might apply, to encourage the uncertain questioner to get feedback from lot of other alcoholics and to sit quietly, listen to that small, still voice.  My desire to run The Show, to tell other people how to behave, to imply that I have All The Answers can overwhelm my Intentions.

There's a Seinfeld episode where George is struggling with a decision and Kramer tells him to listen to the Little Man inside - what is the Little Man saying?  George: "My Little Man doesn't know.  (Comedic pause.)  Ahhhh, my Little Man's an idiot!"

Yes.  My Little Man can be an idiot, too.

Then, because my Morning Meditation currently includes a story out of the latest Grapevine, I read this: "I don't actually know what's best for anyone else.  That's my ego.  It says what's right for me is right for all.  How freeing this knowledge is, this wisdom.  I, an alcoholic, have had a spiritual awakening as the result of working A.A.'s Twelve Steps, one which gives me a very good sober life.  That doesn't mean I need to tell anyone else what they should do.  How scary, too, to my ego at least. It means simply being available for a fellow alcoholic, rather than being in command or control.  It means a lot of letting go."