Mold Condos with a Toilet View

SuperK and I are taking a long drive today with a friend of hers from The Program - a very nice lady - to see a lawyer.  This poor woman has some serious problems with mold in her condominium, a result of water infiltration that the seller didn't disclose when she bought the place.  As you might expect, there is a hell of a lot of buck-passing and finger-pointing and side-stepping when it comes to assuming responsibility for the moisture, and this is some serious moisture.  There is no need to access a moisture expert to see whether or not the condo has a mold problem - the mold has begun building skyscrapers because all available real estate is currently occupied.  Mold spores are getting serious money for studios that have a partial toilet view.

Her friend is single, a somewhat tentative woman who has been battling to get the problem fixed for several months and has, as a last resort, decided to consult a lawyer.  As you can imagine, I don't want to do this, fearing the loss of all my valuable free time, what with all of the . . .  well, I'm not that busy.  The first thing I did was request all of her correspondence under the guise of being helpful when I suspect that what I was really doing was trying to find a reason to postpone or cancel the appointment, claiming lack of due diligence.  The friend has put a lot of work into this and I was stymied in my attempts to Not Be Of Service, which I think is one of our most important Steps.  Step 87, I think: "Sought to hide instead of helping others."

I have this image of me Being of Service in a very dramatic fashion.  You know, donating a million dollars anonymously to the Hospital for Blind, Orphaned Victims of a Terrorist Attack and Some Such.  But take a few hours for moral support?  Pfffffttttt.

Usually I do the right thing, after first exhausting all other possibilities.

One Potential Defect

Obsession:  A compulsive or irrational preoccupation; an unhealthy fixation; influence or control by evil spirits without possession.

We had some work done on our home a short time ago and it went very well, no doubt helped by the fact that I was banned from the immediate premises most of the time.  Men - real men - using tools - power tools - to do construction work on my stuff is nerve racking.  I would trust a brain surgeon to do microsurgery on my brain sooner than I'd trust a guy with an electric power tool to cut up some wood - I can visualize microsurgery easier than I can visualize someone fucking around with a dowel or a shim, especially if a soffit is involved.

The job went well.  There was one defect - one potential defect - that I have, of course, honed in on as if I'm some kind of powerful, military-grade homing device.  It is something that I have a great deal of skill doing - finding defects, shortcomings, and problems.  I tried to ignore the potential defect, knowing intellectually that it was a bad emotional reaction to a very good situation, like fretting over the dent in the fender on my cherry-red Ferrari, if by "cherry-red" you mean "tarnished silver" and if by "Ferrari" you mean "Subaru."  It really stuck with me, though.  I've been in a bit of a funk the last week or so.  I get into funks sometimes that it takes a while to get out of.  Sometimes I know the raison d'etre of my funks and they can be justified, but most of the time I'm wigged out about some little thing that doesn't add up to a hill of beans.

I did my best to make the stupid obsession go somewhere else.  I've learned some little tricks in The Program that they often work well so that the stupid obsession sticks out its thumb and hitches out to LA, leaving me in peace.  But sometimes the stupid obsession gets the best of me and I can't get it to go.  This was such a case.  There may be some other things going on that I'm not acknowledging but I may just be in a down biorhythm or a funky astrological phase.  How do I know?

Finally, I broached the subject with my wife.  She was aware of the minor defect, although it didn't bother her like it did me, befitting the normal member of our hobbled duo.  Still, she agreed that it was something that at least could be addressed.  I suggested calling the guys that did the work at some point, then I called right away, wondering what was going to be different a few hours or days later besides a few more hours of pointless fretting.  The guys agreed to come out and look at the defect, even suggesting a couple of potential fixes on the phone.

I'm telling you what - stuff in my head is stuff misplaced.  GET IT OUT of my head.  This should be my motto.  My head can fashion a diamond into a turd.

Instincts on Rampage

Rampage:  To move about wildly or violently.

I think that "Instincts On Rampage" would be a great name for a movie.

I attend literature meetings regularly as part of my recovery regimen.  Here's a few quotes that have struck my funny bone recently:

"Instincts on rampage balk at investigation."  I enjoy the concept that I need to learn how to live with my instincts.  I can't get rid of 'em and I can't let 'em run the show, but there has to be some balance in there.

The chapter we read was discussing the 4th Step.  It suggests that we do indeed have plenty of defects, our vigorous denials notwithstanding.

"We shall claim that our serious character defects, if we think we have any at all, have been caused chiefly by excessive drinking."  Yeah, this is always a popular excuse for the drunk - if I could just slow down my drinking then I'd be a fine chap, and because I'm such a fine chap then there's no need to do any of these bothersome inventories.

"Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people - people who really need a moral inventory."  Nothing better than blaming someone else for my bad behavior.  

"We thought 'conditions' drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand . . . "  It's everybody!  It's everything!  It isn't me!

Oh, brother.

A Firestorm of Dropping Hats

I took a call from a good friend of mine from The Program the other day.  He was mildly agitated.  I can relate - I'm mildly agitated at the drop of a hat and most days it's a veritable shitstorm of dropping hats, pork pies, fedoras, and berets in the Seaweed household.

My friend is going to be returning from a tour to Cuba in a couple of months.  Unfortunately, the plane arrives at the huge Vacation City airport close to midnight - but luckily for him the package also includes a limo ride home, the only caveat being that the receiving address must be within 50 miles of the airport.  His home, unfortunately, is 55 miles from the airport.  And there you have it - the Unfortunatelys have it over the Luckilys,  two to one.

Normally what I try to do is to help agitated people go over options - usually when I'm agitated I'm not thinking clearly and I overlook obvious solutions to my problems.  My friend is smart and wise, two qualities with which I have only a passing knowledge, and I was not able to uncover a solution that he hadn't already considered.

I flashed back to Shorty picking me up at The Old City airport at 2 AM, on short notice, in a driving rainstorm, providing me with a bag of healthy snacks, before delivering me to my sister's house, far, far out of his way.  He offered to do this, graciously, under no obligation and no duress, and I thankfully accepted.  I didn't beg and he didn't offer anything that he wasn't comfortable offering.  I would have bore him no ill will if he hadn't picked up the phone.  It was ridiculously kind, but kind in a way I've come to expect from my Program friends.

"I'll pick you up if you can't figure out a solution," I said to my Cuba friend.

He laughed.  "I didn't call to ask for a ride," he protested.

"You didn't ask for a ride," I pointed out.  "I offered one.  Look - keep trying to find a simpler solution but if nothing works out I've got your back."

I hope what this does is take the stress and the pressure off of the problem.  Maybe this is one of those cases where a solution to the problem is going to present itself eventually, with a little time and patience, and I hope it does, frankly, because I don't want to drive somewhere in the middle of the night to pick this SOB up.  But if not, he's got a solution.

Seek god - serve others.

Huge, Bleeding Wounds

I've had a few more conversations with my Old City sponsor.  It has been a weird experience talking with someone so frankly about death and dying.  I have no experience with this whatsoever.  I had no experience with talking about any problems when I was drinking.   In fact, I was awfully offended when people suggested that some of my problems were . . . you know . . . real.   Don't tell me things aren't going to work out.  You think I want to hear that things aren't going to work out?

I used to pretend that:
Problems didn't exist - "Steve!  You seem to be bleeding from a huge wound on your forehead!" "Naw, I'm good." 

Problems would go away, maybe by praying to god to remove said problems right goddam now - "God, o god, fix this huge bleeding wound on my forehead and I'll never do this ever again."

I was being picked on because I had problems that were usually of my own making - "Why me?  O, god, why me? Why doesn't someone else have a huge bleeding wound on their forehead?"

It's always the man in the mirror looking back at me.  That dude always seems to be around when things aren't going my way.

I hope these talks are helpful for my sponsor.  My experience is that Earth People aren't great in talking about problems.  It does make me feel very grown up, kind of looking the tiger in the mouth.  I still don't like problems.  I still wish they'd go away, maybe infect someone else.

Paranoid Is a Great Song by Black Sabbath

I'm sitting at the coffee shop today - drinking coffee that I bought from that coffee shop . . . and you know what bugs the crap out of me?  There are a bunch of restaurants right around the corner from this multi-national, fantastically wealthy coffee company, and sometimes when it's really busy some of the overflow people come with their restaurant lunches and sit at the coffee shop tables and DON'T BUY A COFFEE!  Really annoys me.  It doesn't seem to annoy any of the coffee shop employees which is kind of annoying.

Paranoid:  Exhibiting extreme and irrational fear or distrust of others.

The point I started to make  - should you care to know the point what that point may be  - is that this scraggly looking kid blows by the table and asks for a buck so he can take the bus.  I fish out four quarters and fork 'em over.   "Thanks, man, you're a lifesaver," says the kid.   Kid disappears, leaving me to wonder did he mean six-bag of cheap beer bus or couple of joints of cheap pot bus?  I'm kind of paranoid that way and kind of not grateful for any of the good things that I have so I immediately assume I'm being taken advantage of and for a buck!  A buck!!  Nearly 1/3 of the cost of my coffee.

I read my paper.  I drink my coffee.  I turn around and look across the street and see scraggly looking kid sitting at the bus stop.  

D'oh!

This is SO Vexing

Frustrate:  To disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired.

I have a dear old friend that I've kept in touch with over the years, often having philosophical talks about life and The Big Picture.  I've tried to pass along the tenor of the stuff I've learned in The Program without getting too preachy or self-righteous.  This dude is often frustrated by life - aren't we all? - but doesn't have the spiritual tools to deal with these frustrations like we Program People do.  He's a very disciplined man in most aspects but still, I can't adequately convey the message that spiritual development is all about the practice. There are so many things that don't display progress when I look at them short-term - the very same things I don't want to practice because I can't see the easy progress.  "This is a waste of time," I mutter.

Here is our latest exchange:

Friend: Money is about keeping score, at this point, in the lives of big-time business people, isn't it?  And the more the money, the more the focus.  Like the difference between a penny-ante poker game and the World Series of Poker.  The same with power.  In my career, I got somewhat proximate to Big Power... never to Big Money.  I was very cautious around it.  It seemed to me that it could burn you to a crisp if you miscalculated or misunderstood it.  But there was no denying its fascination.  And, I also learned, that there is nothing easier than appearing modest if you have power or are riding in the sidecar with power.  What is harder is to show dignity and generosity when you are in a lesser position, a position of supplicant, a position of underling.   

I don't think there was anything in the way of my spiritual development when I was working full-tilt.  I have found that retirement offers no opportunity for spiritual development that wasn't available to me when I was working full-tilt.  The one thing that retirement has definitely offered to me, in terms of spiritual development, is unsought, unasked-for, unwanted challenges of trauma, disappointment and confusion.  I am well read enough, of course, to know that many philosophers and Bodhisattvas would respond to that by saying: "Oh, how excellent!  Exactly the signs that your retirement is going to bear fruit."

Me: Ah, yes, the frustration of life.  As I'm sure I mentioned many times before I think The Program has taken the simple, ancient spiritual principles of "Seek god - Serve others" and made them applicable to drunks.  It's certainly not new stuff.  So I ask myself at the end of each day: "Have I attempted to grow spiritually - in a way that makes sense to me - and have I sought to be someone who is thinking about others instead of obsessing about myself?"  I set the bar low - a crappy session of meditation is a good effort.  Did I smile at the clerk at the gas station?  Did I say something welcoming to someone at a meeting that I may or may not like?  Did I make dinner for my wife even though I didn't want to?  Am I putting myself in a position to make life better for others rather than thinking about how they, the world, the cosmos, could make life better for ME?  It's hard, of course - we're all self-centered by nature and looking to satisfy our own instinctual demands.  Each minute that I spend trying to get what I want and trying to avoid what I don't want is a minute that I'm overlooking all the good in my life and failing to appreciate how my difficulties are leading me to someplace I need to be, even though I may not want to be there.  The guys I hung with when I was getting sober would counter my never-ending stream of bitching about the unfairness of life by saying: "You've been running the show for 30 years - how's that been working out for you?"

I probably have shared this section from one of our main books, one that really resonated with me, that put a practical bent on the ancient spiritual principles: "The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear - primarily fear that we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded.  Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration.  Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands.  The difference between a demand and a simple request is plain to anyone."

I do love these books.

Sullen Seaweed

Sullen:  Having a brooding, ill temper; sulky; gloomy; dismal; foreboding.

So my Vacation City relative - a lovely person - who drives me bonkers about 50% of the time is back in The Old City visiting my family - a group of delightful folks - who drive me absolutely bat-shit about 78% of the time and every one is getting along like they're family.  These folks are all kind of chatty, sentimental, up-beatish folks except when they're telling me I'm going to die from Ebola or a mountain lion is going to eat me or someone got mugged and died in the city I'm going to visit soon.  But they like to do the same things so they get along very well.  Instead, they get me some of the time - an introverted, mildly depressed, somewhat sullen outlier.  Is anyone surprised that the visits don't go that well when I'm involved.

Funny, that.  This is why I don't pretend, ever, that the problems exists anywhere but with me?

Damn Steps, Anyway

Principles: Fundamental assumptions.

SuperK pointed out one of my many shortcomings yesterday, and it's a particularly glaring shortcoming.  As a general rule I keep my mouth clamped shut during these episodes, rare as they are.  A good rule of thumb for me is this: "If someone thinks that you're a fool, open your mouth and remove all doubt."  As another general rule I find that when someone that knows me well and loves me a lot and has my best interests at heart finds something in me lacking that there's usually an element of truth in it, often a big, honking element.  But because I don't like to be criticized and I don't like it when someone ferrets out one of my shortcomings I tend to want to react, and the problem with that is I overreact.  Thus: speaketh not until one has digested the message.

I was asked to lead my 7AM meeting today.  Ain't it amazing that we're asked to share an optimistic message of hope and redemption just when we need to think of things in a hopeful and redemptive fashion?  My early days of sobriety were spent in a city that offered Step meetings, an occasional Big Book meeting, and not one goddam discussion meeting.  I'll tell you what - it made me figure out how to interpret the dreadful minutiae of my sorry existence in a new light.  Nothing like having a self-centered money, sex, and/or power crisis and showing up some place where people are talking about The Steps.

When I lead a meeting I almost always pull out one of our two main texts.  I read from the 8th Step - the section where it talks about my tendency, when confronted on bad behavior, to try to turn the tables around and point out the bad behavior, real or imagined, of my confronter or, just as slimy, to protest that I haven't behaved badly at all, despite shiploads of evidence to the contrary.

Then I read from the 10th Step - the part where it . . . well, here it is: "Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint.  This carries a top priority rating.  (Ed. Note: our founder has a tendency to say the same thing over and over because that's the only way to get anything through our thick skulls.  To wit: the first objective by definition carries a top priority rating - that's why it's first.  It would be 10th if it wasn't a top priority).  When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot.  Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.  We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious power-driven argument.  The same goes for sulking or silent scorn."

I'll tell you what again - having to work these Steps and practice these Principles can be one huge pain in the ass.

This isn't a huge conflict and it isn't an especially novel one so we'll get through it fine.  Te lesson I've learned is to stay low and tread lightly until the irritation I feel has ebbed and waned somewhat.  I'm an idiot most of the time but I'm an absolute psycho when I'm pissed. 

Point - Counter Point

Potential:  Existing in possibility, not in actuality.

My friend Little Westside Jonny bought a new car recently.  He researched it to death and drove a couple of salespeople right up to the brink of insanity if what he's telling me is true, no sure thing.  However, this is not the point.  The point is not what he may or may not have done to innocent car salespeople or how accurate, truth-wise, his accounting of the events may be but rather that he bought a car that he had thoroughly researched, driven more than once, and sought expert counsel on, and still experienced buyer's remorse for a couple of days.

"That sounds about right," I remarked, an expert in buyer's remorse myself.

As I may have mentioned we have been doing some work on our home.  The guys doing the work are good friends from The Program, guys who are working away on The Steps and the principles of recovery, guys I trust.

I ask myself this: why, then, do I suspect that they are lying, cheating pieces of #$!!?

I answer this-a-way: Because money is involved, a lot of money in my little world.  There are a couple of things that have really stuck in my craw consistently over the years, and one of them has been money.  I can't explain why.  I have enough money to be comfortable.  I've been hosed out of my money almost never.  I don't begrudge the wages I'm paying these men.  I can afford the work that they're doing, and doing very well.  My Higher Power put me in jobs that I never, ever would have thrived in had I continued to drink and drug.

Still . . . . something HAS to be amiss.

As the job was nearing completion a couple of complications came up that definitely cost me some money and had the potential to cost me more money.  I paid the definite money - it seemed reasonable - I balked at the potential money - it did not.  Now mind you the potential money was just that - potential.  In the future, maybe.  Not yet fact except in my twisted and diseased mind.

What I do is what I always do: begin a series of hypothetical discussions, arguments, and conflicts in my mind.  No one is there but me - me, talking to someone who is not there, over and over and over I go, rehashing facts and theories, parrying thrusts, developing counterpoints, coming to a reasonable conclusion sometimes and sometimes ruining a friendship over a few dollars.  All in my mind.  All upstairs, a tempest in a teapot.

What happened is what usually happens: nothing.  My friend asked for no extra money.  I am trying not to lie when I say that I spent 3 or 4 hours having this discussions with myself, preparing for something that never happened.

Good use of my time, yes?

Not Not Stealing

Steal:  To appropriate without giving credit or acknowledgement.

And then there's Astya: Non-stealing.  Not taking that which is not given.

I know that I spent a great deal of time patting myself on the back because I wasn't a bank robber or shoplifter.  I spent a lot of time congratulating myself for not being an absolute scumbag.  That's why a lot of us keep looking for new places to hang out and new people to hang out with.  There was a lot of "if I ever get as bad as THAT guy, then I'll quit drinking" talk going around."

But I did a tremendous amount of low level stuff.  I took office supplies, I didn't pay all the taxes I should have paid (9th Step rectified) or repay all of the money I borrowed (since corrected), I made long distance phone calls on company phones, that kind of stuff.  Little stuff that doesn't really count as stealing as long as you have the moral rectitude of Charles Manson.  And I stole thousands of hours of time from employers, doing non-work during working hours.  How about peace of mind?  Do you think I stole any peace of mind from my family and friends and bosses?

Shit.

I'ma  great justifier.  I can take acts that are clearly illegal or immoral or unjust and convince myself that I'm justified in my behavior.  The "well, they're not paying me enough" or the "well, everybody gets away with a little tax fraud, and mine is so small compared to the guys who are really cheating."  While it may be marginally better to steal a little than to steal a lot, it's still stealing.  It's like lying that way - you're telling the truth or you're not.

Take Care of Your Esophagus

Stuff:  (Slang; informal) Substitution for trivial details.

I was talking to Willie today about his original sponsor, a man who passed away in peace and with dignity, sober for many years.  I shared about a in-law who came to the end of his life in a total panic, trying to right many years of selfish behavior at the last minute, begging friends and family to give to him the affection and care that he withheld from them.  It isn't hard to figure out who puts a lot of energy into a spiritual way of life and who doesn't.

A few years ago I wasn't feeling very productive so I put together a list of what I considered my most memorable accomplishments.  I revisited this list recently after reading the obituary of a high school classmate who died recently of esophageal cancer (Ed. note: never a good sign when someone you partied heartily with in high school dies and Ed. note redux: always suspicious when someone I partied heartily with dies of an esophageal affliction - alcohol seems to have an affinity for afflicting the esophagus).  This guy had a lot of "stuff" to put in his obituary - president of this society and member of that foundation and so forth.  Always make me wonder if I've done enough. and I've NEVER done enough.  I'm a guy looking for reasons to feel bad.

I'm impressed with the general tenor of the dreaded gratitude meetings in our Fellowship. There's a lot of gratitude for things that don't rank very high on society's Gotta Have list - no Corvettes or ocean-side villas or stuff like that.  My list was all about people and my relationship with a higher power who helps the world make sense.  Don't get me wrong - I've a lot of nice stuff and I thank my higher power for it every morning, before I get out of my easy chair, but it's the people that make life worth it, and the experiences, and the fact that the world really does kinda make sense.

who da thunk it?

In an Instant

A lot of time I take my life for granted.  It's a fragile thing, really, being alive.  Our bodies are amazingly resilient but that spark can be snuffed in an instant.  Pondering the rogue cells running amok in my sponsor's body or my Amazing Unicycle Trick the other day has made me stop and think, appreciate how easily it can all go away.

I was cruising down an empty, flat, straight, dry highway several years back, early in the morning, heading to a factory in some small town.  There was a pick-up truck ahead of me.  I watched as the truck drifted just onto the grass in the highway medium, the driver perhaps distracted by a phone or the radio, or maybe he dozed off.  He over-corrected to get the vehicle back on the pavement and doing so at a fairly high rate of speed caused the truck to start fishtailing.  As I put on my brakes I watched in horrified fascination as the leading edge of the right side of the truck started to lift off the ground.  It was odd seeing something that heavy start to fly - my brain didn't have an experience to compare it to.  And it was another slow-motion brain event - I clearly remember everything in great detail. 

The truck got just about high enough, started to pirouette,  and then it went over on its side and started to roll over and over and over.  It made a noise I couldn't calculate - a big metal-on-cement boom, boom, boom, shit and glass flying up into the air.  The truck crossed the two lanes, luckily free of traffic, and disappeared over a small grade on the side of the road, big clumps of grass and mud flying up into the air, coming to rest against a metal retaining fence.

I pulled off the road and waded through thigh-high grass until I got close to the truck, pointing away from me.  I could see a young man - a kid, really - sitting in the driver's seat.  I'll tell you I didn't go too close - if there was a mess in there, and that was a real possibility given the violence of the crash, I didn't want to be any part of it.  I'm no EMT.  Luckily, he was banged up but not seriously hurt.  I got him to turn the engine off and get out of the truck, afraid that it might burst into flames.  By that time another few cars had stopped so I climbed back into my car and continued my commute.

I don't know what I was doing when the great fish-tail started.  I'm pretty rigorous about not using a phone when I drive and if I'm falling asleep I pull off the road and close my eyes for 10 minutes.  I've seen the aftermath of too many car accidents to take any dumb chances.  Still, I was shook up for a day or two.  I paid REAL close attention to my driving, I'll tell you that, until I began to drift back into my typical lazy habits.  That could have gone another way.

Glad to be alive and in one piece this fine Saturday morning.

An Ionosphere Dichotomy

As I was dealing with the trip emotional hangover and the Amazing Elevating Bicyclist emotional hangover I continued to meditate each day.  I'll tell you this - it's a lot more fun meditating when everything's going well.  It's a lot easier sitting with your thoughts when those thoughts are pleasant and happy.  But when I'm upset about something it really sucks sitting there feeling those feelings, especially since one of my goals in life is to quit running away from my feelings.  I used to try to make bad things go away as long as "used to" means "still."  Now I try to take a look at them dispassionately, not dividing them into categories of good or bad, only recognizing them as feelings.

I don't like feeling crappy.  I like feeling good.  That doesn't make me different from most people but it sure hinders my spiritual development, and I've sure taken this tendency way up into the ionosphere.  Somewhere in our literature is the suggestion that we stop running from pain as if it's the plague - it's a normal part of life, just like death, and I'm going to be one unhappy SOB if I think I can get out of here without feeling my fair share.

The good news about being sober is that you get to feel your feelings again.  The bad news is that you get to feel your feelings again.  This is called a contradiction.  Maybe a dichotomy.  A separation or division of one thing into two things containing apparently incompatible or incomprehensible principles.

Hybrid

Hybrid:  Something of a mixed origin or composition.

SuperK and I bought bikes a few months back.   I spent a lot of time on a road bike back in The Old Town in the day, hunched over the handlebars, racing imaginary people who weren't actually there, eventually putting enough of a hurting on my back and my knees and my wrists that I had to give up the sport.  This time around I bought a hybrid bike which means I don’t know what it means.  In my mind a hybrid bike would be part bike part hovercraft but this particular vehicle is supposed to stay on the ground and doesn't have any engines or wings or anything.  I sit a lot more upright on the hybrid which is easier on my back although I admit I look ridiculous – I’m tall as it is and the bike has to be pretty tall itself so my knees aren't dragging on the ground so I look like I’m riding a bike on stilts or one of those 10 feet tall unicycles.

So SuperK and I are tooling along when I’m startled by a car approaching on my right.  I reach down and slam on the brakes which was not the right thing to do.  Putting on the brakes would probably have been OK but the slamming of them became problematic in a hell of a hurry.  Apparently I have pretty good brakes because the bike stopped like right now, my momentum and high center of gravity causing the back wheel to come suddenly and alarmingly off the ground while the front wheel pretty much stayed put, leaving me in the position of looking like I was some kind of demonic unicyclist attempting to burrow into the earth.  The rear tire was way up in the air and I was looking straight down at the asphalt.

“Uh-oh,” I thought.  "This doesn't look right."

It really is true that when you get in those situations threatening serious bodily harm that your brain kicks into an odd slo-motion-ey state.   It was almost as if I was thoughtfully pondering the possible outcomes one by one.  Luckily or skillfully or something the back wheel re-entered earth’s atmosphere with a bang; I did not go over the handlebars onto my face or my head; and I managed to make a controlled landing on my right side.  It wasn't especially pleasant, mind you, but it wasn't catastrophic.  I banged up my right knee and the bike’s rear wheel but didn't break anything valuable or that couldn't be fixed.

For the next couple of days I felt depressed, as if I had done something wrong.  Wrong as in bad or evil or incompetent.  I had made a mistake, as I do each and every day, except this one had the potential to have a more serious outcome.  I’m still dealing with the emotional hangover.  I’m trying to think good thoughts: I could have messed up my pretty face or I could have hurt my beautiful face or . . .  well, you get the point.  The same thing happens to me when I get sick - I get depressed because I think I've failed somehow.

I pray each day that my thoughts are free from self-pity, worry, remorse, and self-seeking motives.  Sometimes I really have to work hard at wrenching my thinking out of the negative and into the positive.  Is it really true that there are people out there who start off each day with a sunny outlook?  

If that's true it would be very, very freaky.

Judge Harm

Harm:  That which causes injury, damage, or loss.

One of our Steps: "Made direct amends to such people (those we have harmed is the implication from the Step directly proceeding) wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."  In the detailed explanation of this Step we find this caution: "It does not lighten our burden when we recklessly make the crosses of others heavier."

I get this.  I'm so eager to feel better myself that I don't care how my behavior might harm someone else.  If there's a Step that requires some counsel from a good sponsor it's this Step.  Please, please don't go rushing into the amends process without talking to someone wiser than you.  These people weren't hard for me to find - I could pretty much tap the first person I saw on the shoulder and get some advice that made more sense than the pablum I was spooning into my own personal hat.

And from the Precepts of Social Discipline:
"Ahimsa: Non-violence.  Not harming other people or other sentient beings.  Not harming oneself.  Tolerance even for that which we dislike (Ed. Note: Ack.  Gack.)  Not speaking that which, even though truthful, would injure others."

Spirituality is spirituality.  It's not a new concept and it's not a particularly clever concept.  I mean, really, do you have to pick up a book or go to a building to listen to someone preach to figure out that it's a good idea to be nice to other people?  One of the reasons our Fellowship has thrived is because we do a very good job trying to follow some very basic advice without wrapping it up with any formal wrapping paper.