Little, Tiny, Teeny Stuff

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -- Confucius.

I bet Confucius wasn't getting ready to go anywhere when he said this. I bet he had just eaten a good breakfast and was puffing on an opium pipe, reading the sports page. I've seen pictures of Confucius. He doesn't look like a exercise enthusiast to me.

I like the idea of taking little baby steps. My inclination is to visualize something, then abandon the idea immediately if I can't become the world record holder at whatever it is I'm pondering. I'm trying to figure out how I can run a thousand miles without stopping or sleeping. I'm doing this while I smoke a cigarette and avoid any training. Or actual running, for that matter. It doesn't occur to me to walk around the fucking block. It occurs to me to cross the finish line first in the next Olympics. And because it's obvious to even me that I won't be able to accomplish this, I fire up another butt.

I like to vote. Not really, but it might wreck my cool image if I admitted otherwise. How about I do vote after many, many years of not voting. My justification was that I've never voted in an election that was decided by a single vote, so what's the point? That and I didn't feel like setting down my beer and joint and walking a couple of blocks to actually cast my ballot. It never occurred to me to be part of a process.

Sometimes I talk at meetings and sometimes I listen, and often I sit there like a lump on a log taking up space, daydreaming. But I'm in the system and I think that makes a difference. Maybe I'm there so that somebody from out of town or a new person has a meeting to come to. I'm so wrapped up in what I'm taking away that I forget the idea is to give something back. My decision to come, even on those nights when I don't want to, may have consequences for someone else.


Have you ever seen someone talking on a cell phone while checking out of a store? What an asshole. It's forgivable that this act of self-centered rudeness is delaying other very important people like me. What is egregious is that someone is treating another human being like a piece of wood. How hard is it to smile, look the other person in the eye, and say something nice? I have gotten a lot of good vibes from doing that, and sometimes from cute chicks, although they may just be trying to move the slightly off-kilter hipster doofus through the line and out of their immediate vicinity.

It's all little stuff.