The Old is the Best

Relax:  To calm down; to make something loose; to make something less severe or tense.
Calm:  Peaceful, quiet, especially free from anger and anxiety. 

My Quiet Time is a work in progress, always changing, hopefully expanding.  There are some tried and true techniques that I rarely change, prayers and mantras and affirmations that I find helpful, that I have always found helpful, and there is a constantly evolving list of Quiet Thoughts du jour.  This is as it should be.  I find it comforting to repeat something that is meaningful to me while recognizing that these regular touches may lead me to a place where I'm just repeating stale words and not listening to the meaning.  There are some things that I should always be grateful for and there should be some new things in the gratitude list, too.  Otherwise I'm saying "thank you for giving me good friends blah blah blah" - words with no meaning.  Empty sentiment.

I would like to be calm and accepting.  I would like to be content with what I have.  I would like to see what I have accomplished each day and not focus on things left undone.  It's all OK.  Take it easy.  These are my new additions.

Sad that after 30 years in The Program I have to remind myself of the most basic, elemental concepts  -  concepts that we tell newcomers to help them get the most tenuous toehold on recovery.

Maybe this is keeping it simple.

Action Jackson

Act:  To do something.  (Ed. Note: Pithy, that).

I have to laugh every time I recall the words that inevitably came out of the mouths of my Program buddies when they were listening to me talk about how stressful all of the death and dying had been: "Wow.  Sounds like you're taking a lot of good action."

This is the experience, strength, and hope that is bandied about as a pillar of our recovery community.  Not very profound, is it?  I wasn't looking for a vague affirmation that I was on the right track 9 I was looking for The Solution.  I wanted answers.  I wanted to be told what to do, not listen to guys toss out fairly obvious suggestions.  

"This is what you should do, Seaweed."  That kind of stuff.  Nobody had anything.  Nobody had shit.  Yeah, what did I expect and as it should be.  We're a bunch of amateurs trying to keep movement going in the forward direction.  Sometimes my recovery is like trying to drive a fast car really fast on an icy road. I never really feel like I'm in control of the process 9 I'm just trying not to kill myself.   A lot of people asked if I was doing a lot of things I was already doing.  I was hoping for something revolutionary, some new paradigm of thinking.   I got the same old crap.  But then again I'm also the guy looking fora new cure every time I get a cold.  "Drink plenty of fluids.  Get enough sleep.  Take two aspirin."  700 years of medicine and this is where we are.

I signed off with my therapist yesterday, and she agreed with this decision.  I went every week for a while, eventually tapering off to once a month.  I have also discontinued my participation in the biweekly grief group.  These two things were pillars of my journey out of the loss depression; that and finally coming clean with my friends in recovery.  It wasn't as if I was deliberately trying to hide what was going on - it was that I was oblivious, an occasional pitfall of long-term sobriety.

"I'm handling this OK, I'm still handling this OK, I'm still handling this OK, wow, am I fucked up."

Often I found that I had to sift through a lot of wheat and chaff before I got the nugget of wisdom I needed for that point in time.  Often it surprised me.  I didn't see it coming.  I didn't see how the timbre of the discussion was going to lead to the discovery.  Then again I'm the guy who wants to be in control of the process.  I want to take a series of discrete, logical steps to get through something in a linear, controlled fashion.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Intelligence and Willpower

Action: Something done so as to accomplish a purpose.

"We are certain that intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee success in the world we live in."  12&12 p 37.

I had the distinct and great honor of sitting down with a new-ish guy today and talking about The Program.  He has been active in The Fellowship but really hasn't gotten down to the Working The Steps part.  I can wholeheartedly identify.  I spent an amazingly useless chunk of time going to a lot of meetings and pretending like I was in recovery.  I was doing better than when I was drinking but I was doomed to eventual failure, and fail I did.  The Program is all about working the steps.  This is what we do.  We don't think about working the steps.  We work them.  There are no chapters called "How It Thinks" or "Thinking With Others."  It's enough with the thinking already.  We're good thinkers.  We sit by ourselves and think great thoughts and never get sober.  We don't have anything left to prove with the thinking.  We're established thinking superstars.

I don't think my friend believes he's too smart to get recovery but I surmise that he's frustrated that he can't figure out the solution to the puzzle he has been living.  I really believed that I could study the problem then employ my not inconsiderable willpower to applying the solution and Voila! Sobriety!  He appears to be willing at this point.  We all get frustrated eventually with the magic pixie dust technique where some vague Sobriety Fairy sprinkles your head with a white powder that looks suspiciously like anthrax and you're miraculously cured.  I always wanted to be struck sober.  I didn't want to to do the work to get sober.

I had a sponsor early on who, frustrated with whatever bullshit I was currently dispensing, exclaimed: "Go home, fill up a bucket with soapy water, and scrub down your kitchen walls! Do something!  Do anything!"  

As I was renting this made no sense at the time.  

Humble Brag

Humility:  A modest or low view of one's own importance; freedom from pride or arrogance.

This is a good definition.  It's worthy of its own meaning.  I don't like the definitions of humility that imply that I'm not important, preferring the interpretation that I'm not that important, that I'm not any less or more important than you are.

Sometimes people mistake my confidence for arrogance except for the times when I am . . . in fact . . . arrogant.

To be humble is to serve others and to ponder their well-being as well as your own.

To be humble is to be aware of your strengths as well as your weaknesses.

So today I no longer believe that I'm more important than you are.  I do, however, believe that I'm better than you are.

Humility is remaining teachable, knowing that you don't have all the answers.

I think I'm teachable.  I'm also pretty sure I have all the answers.

If you think you're humble you're missing the point.

Being humble is having a Porsche but not telling anyone about it. Or taking the subway even though you're worth $100 million dollars.  That's humble.

One of these pithy aphorisms is mine - the rest have been shamelessly plagiarized.

Older, Not Old

The Five Stages of Grief: Denial - Anger - Bargaining - Depression - Acceptance.

DABDA!  I like how we try to fit everything into an acronym.  Or maybe that's just me that does that.  I'm assuming the web page I accessed probably has more extensive information on DABDA but who cares, really?  Who came up with this crap is what I want to know.

1. Denial – The first reaction is denial.  In this stage, individuals believe the diagnosis is somehow mistaken, and cling to a false, preferable reality.
2. Anger – When the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals.  Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"; "Why would this happen?".
3. Bargaining – The third stage involves the hope that the individual can avoid a cause of grief.  Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made in exchange for a reformed lifestyle.  People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek compromise.  For instance: "I'd give anything to have him back." Or: "If only he'd come back to life, I'd promise to be a better person!"
4. Depression – "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die soon, so what's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?" During the fourth stage, the individual despairs at the recognition of their mortality.  In this state, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors, and spend much of the time mournful and sullen.
5. Acceptance – "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it; I may as well prepare for it."
   In this last stage, individuals embrace mortality or inevitable future, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event.  People dying may precede the survivors in this state, which typically comes with a calm, retrospective view for the individual, and a stable condition of emotions.

OK, there we go.  It seems to me that this is mostly about how an individual deals with personal grief and not the misfortune of others which shoots to shit the entire premise of this post.  This inconvenience will not stop me or slow me down or cause me to pause and reflect but rather to plow ahead, full speed which is . . . after all . . . the best speed.

I was in a technical training with a man from Austria who was trying to help me understand a piece of electronics which I had absolutely zero chance of ever understanding when we veered into a discussion about how to stay awake when one felt sleepy while driving.  This is the only thing I recall from that training.  You may speculate on how many units of this electronic device I successfully sold.

"I just go faster," he said, matter of factly.

Yeah.  What else is there?  The fear of the dangers of high speed driving kept me awake many, many times.

Anyway, I have clearly moved out of the heavy and depressive fog that clouded my vision after my father died.  And my mother and my sponsor.  And I began to struggle in earnest as the dark pall of mortality began descending ever closer to the person I care the most about in the world.  I see where I had the depression part and I feel like I'm in the accepting part, but where the hell were the denial, anger, and bargaining parts?  I must have blown right through those parts.  I must have been traveling at full acceleration to get to the depression part which is . . . after all . . . the most painful part and consequently the part that I enjoy most.

The good thing is that I have found some balance in the fierce battle between getting old versus you're not that old.  There is some validity in both.  I had veered too sharply into the "I'm Old" state.  I'm glad to be out of that state.  I'm also glad to have some perspective in the getting older part.  A couple of times on those trails from hell in Kauai I thought: "I'm a little too old to be doing this."

And I was right.

Changes

Change:  The process of becoming different.

It's important for me to be jolted out of my routine.   Travel jolts me out of my routine.  My routine becomes a lot more enjoyable once I've been forced out of my routine.  I'm so much of a control freak that being made to step out and try new things is very important to my mental health.  I'm always amazed at how surprised I am at my experiences when compared to expectations of my experiences.  Things that I look forward to often fall flat while stuff that seems ordinary often amazes. 

I hate change and I love change. 

I'll say this: I am usually dissatisfied in a vague way at the end of the day.  I feel this way about Hawaii, too, a sense of things undone, not accomplished overwhelming at times the satisfaction of all that we did.  It's never enough with me.  I'm never satisfied with what I've done.

Happy Bitching

Analogy:  A relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations . . . especially when used as a basis for explanation or extrapolation.

I think that today I'm going to bitch in a thoughtful, reflective way; not the venomous bitching, bitching with evil intent that I prefer.  Happy bitching.  Pleasant, low key, positive, optimistic bitching.  Yeah.  All right now.

I hold tight to the analogy of a country music fan attending a heavy metal concert.  It can be a good metal show and hats off to the hick for trying to expand his or her horizons > we all need to try new things from time to time < but opinions are not likely to be swayed.  Country music is not heavy metal music and never shall the twain meet.  I've been listening to heavy metal music for almost fifty years.  There is precedence for me liking heavy metal music while simultaneously holding on to the "country music sucks" attitude.  I've been at hybrid music festivals that had country music stars performing on auxiliary stages and I recognize the talent and the appeal of the music, it just doesn't tickle my music funny bone.

If you like baseball don't go to a football game.  The problem isn't with the football part, it's with the you going to the football game part.

By now you've probably gotten the point.  SuperK sticks her fingers in her ears when I try to offer up an analogy on any subject.  You don't have this luxury.  You'd have to stick your fingers in your eyes although I guess you could turn off your computer, too.

Anyway, re: Hawaii . . .  The issue wasn't with Hawaii, which is a very fine and lovely place, it was with the Seaweed family visiting Hawaii.  It really is for people who like beaches and pools, untucked T Shirts and flip flops, long afternoons sitting at bars drinking beer.  I personally hate sand.  I try to never touch sand.  It is impossible to get sand off of you once it is on you.  I don't mind dirt or mud, just sand.  Gritty, sticky, lodged in your shoes sand.

At home I have been careful to keep my responses noncommittal about Hawaii.  No one wants to hear bitching about a vacation in Hawaii unless the bitcher has been assaulted or nearly drowned.   

  

Complaining For The Sheer Joy Of Complaining

Bitch:  To criticize spitefully, often for the sake of complaining rather than in order to have the problem corrected.  (Ed. Note:  This is an outstanding definition.  I love the concept that to bitch is to complain only for the sheer joy of complaining and for no other reason.  The bitching person doesn't even want to solve the problem.  Brilliant.)

And because Bitching Is My Life . . . . 

And because I can't come up with a form of bitching more joyous than bitching about an experience in Hawaii . . . 

The condo/time share complex we stayed out had a presentation every morning where five or six vendors would come in and give a brief presentation of their tours and services.  It was actually helpful to get an overview of the kinds of activities available.  There was this one dude whose company offered a combo tour that included a plane ride and a boat trip, with stops at a couple of landmarks, all in a chauffeured van that held eight or ten people.  The price was pretty reasonable and it seemed to be a convenient way to include a few different experiences in a hassle free fashion.

The one niggling concern I had was that the guy giving the presentation (and running the tour) was kind of schmucky.  He was sort of a cross between Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield, and you young people can look those references up.  He would say things like: "Sir, where are you and your wife from?  If that lady sitting next to you is actually your wife wink wink yuck yuck yuck."  It seemed to me that about a third of the old people in the room thought this was hilarious while the rest of us were rolling our eyes.  I signed up for the tour because I didn't think that he could keep up that stale and inane banter for seven and one half hours, and boy, was I wrong about that.  By the end of the day I was pondering jabbing sharp objects into my earholes, hoping that I could damage my eardrums enough to drown out the sound of his voice (his electronically amplified voice) once and for all.

"Where's Seaweed?"

"Oh, he threw himself out the door a couple of hours ago, right at the crest of that mountain precipice.  The last we saw of him he was still plummeting, with a big smile on his face."

The real problem was that it was raining that day.  Nonetheless, Henny loaded us all into his van, drove a couple of minutes down the road, then started calling the air and boat tour operators to find out if their portion of the day was still viable.  Which they were not.  I thought this was a sneaky rip off; we were prisoners in the van at that point with no way to escape. Henny filled a good chunk of time driving us around to easily accessible and fairly obvious overlooks, droning on and on like an evil clown sadist.  As we were to learn at the end of the day Henny must have made much of his income on tips because he began to shamelessly harangue us (amplified, electronic) about the size of his tip by drawing an analogy about how much you should tip a hotel valet to park your car, and comparing this to how much work he did, what with all of the driving us around to see things that we had already seen, in the rain.

Well, at that point I had smoke coming out of my ears, and I have pretty big ears.  We disembarked from the van and I kept walking.  The thought of giving this man any more money strained all credulity.

As I got about twenty feet from the van, moving purposefully away, Henny actually shouted after me: "Seaweed.  What's the matter?  Didn't you have a good time?"

"No, not really," I replied, over my shoulder.  

I had to give him his props.  He harangued me for a tip and then he harangued me when I didn't tip him, in front of everyone else, and I'm really seriously good about tipping.  I tipped everyone else on the trip and no one else asked me to do it.

I will never, ever forget Henny.  He was a highlight, of sorts.  In Hawaii.

Seaweed, Unwise

Relax:  To calm down; to become less severe or tense.

A friend of ours from The Program drove us to the airport for our Hawaii flight.  We were discussing what SuperK and I were going to do once we arrived on the island.  I was throwing out ideas about hiking and biking and snorkeling and kayaking and taking helicopter rides and digging for gold and wrestling wild boars, shit like that, when he said: "You know, you could just relax."

I paused for a couple of beats, pondering whether or not I should say what I really wanted to say, mindful of the concept of "restraint of pen and tongue," not that this ever stops me.

"Fuck relaxed," I offered.  "I don't do relaxed."

I said this in good spirits but without a trace of irony.  I wasn't being silly.  I was being honest.  My friend laughed.  He knows me and my sense of humor so he wasn't too surprised at the comment.  Lack of relax means I get a lot done.  It also means that I'm not . . . well . . . very relaxed.  Being calm is a strenuous exercise for me.  I have to work very, very hard at relaxing.  It's actually easier for me to dig ditches in sun baked Georgia clay than to sit in a chair and relax.

Type A, baby.  I'm at war with everything, all the time.  24/7 as the young people say.

The island of Kauai actually contains a pretty severe ecosystem.  There's a lot of rain which means a lot of mud and it's warm and humid which means, in conjunction with the rain, that the vegetation does not fuck around.  A wiser man might ponder all of the beautiful sand beaches and decide that heading their way was the better option.

Wise: Showing good judgment or the benefit of experience.

We have opted for several pretty tough hikes in this pretty tough ecosystem.  "Apocalyptic" is a word that I throw around too much but it sort of holds some water here.  I can hike when it's hot and when it's cold and when it's raining.  I can climb steep hills and come back down.  But slogging through slick mud lathered on sharp lava rocks has been quite the challenge.

Yesterday we opted for the Kayak ("2 miles down a gentle river") / Hike ("1 mile to a beautiful waterfall with a pool for cooling off") Experience.  A wiser man would have handed over the fifty five dollars per person, let the beefy guide punch him in the nose, then gotten brunch.  

The leisurely start to the tour featured a slog upriver (for those who aren't nautically inclined this is against the current which is not the way you want to go, generally speaking) with the flipping the kayak experience about halfway.  I had no idea it was so easy to flip a kayak.  It was a remarkably fast experience, sort of like slipping on ice.  One second you're upright and the next you're under the kayak, watching your Wet Sack float back down river.  There is nothing quite so amusing as a gangly middle aged man watching his wife paddle after the Wet Sack while simultaneously trying to reflip the kayak and then get back into the kayak.

Fair enough.  No one drowned and no shit was lost.

The trail was not muddy.  The trail was mud in standing water, slick mud in deep water that frequently reached mid calf, with tree roots and rocks obscured in the mud.  About 10 minutes into this part of the tour I heard SuperK mutter something about "just getting through this or just getting out of here alive or just gutting my husband with a fish boning knife."  Something along those lines.  I didn't quite catch what she said but the tone was venomous.  There was so much mud that we weren't able to wear our expensive, engineered hiking boots but rather water shoes that were designed for walking on sand.

We made it to the pool alive and I took a dip in the icy water after I stumbled and pitched over the rocks to get out to the middle.

It was fucking refreshing.

Anyway, we made it back alive with a great story to tell about an experience that sucked, frankly, while we were doing it.  I think this was a case of a tour company that had a full tour booked not wanting to cancel the tour.  I think they should have been more forthcoming about the conditions.  There was a nice Korean couple with two mildly overweight boys along, and they were not prepared for this experience.  The boys were the highlight of the tour as they slipped and slid in the mud in their completely inappropriate footwear, unspooling a continuous stream of Korean dialogue as they went along.

What to do today . . .