That Kooky Buddha

Grasp:  Seize and hold firmly.

"Suffering I teach, and the way out of suffering."  The Buddha

Here suffering does not mean pain but the profound discomfiture which we experience when all our attempts to remedy or evade pain prove futile.  Not that what we have to work with is not the cause of our discomfiture (the pain itself - mental, physical, emotional) but how we experience it (that is, our sense of discomfiture) - not what is afflicting us out there, but what it feels like in here, in the mind.  

"The more you think about it, the more you talk about it, the further from it you go.  Put an end to wordliness and intellection and there is nothing you will not understand.  For what can words tell of that which has no yesterday, tomorrow, or today?"  Ancient Ch'an scripture

There is a lot of thought put into the concept of aging.  As there should be, of course, though me thinks overly much for many people.  However we could easily substitute pain or discomfort in its place, making the problem and the solution more accessible to everyone.  It's all grasping.  Holding on to something, some thing, some person, some idea, our life force, our always diminishing life force, under constant attack from the constant march of time.

The Buddha has taught that everything changes, and many Buddhists repeat that teaching as a patent truism.  But suppose we were to rephrase those words to say: "Everything we love and cherish is going to age, decline, and eventually disappear.  This truism takes on a different coloration and urgency.  It's all going to go, the Buddha is saying, all of it - everything that matters to us.

Sobering.  Sobering, and incredibly freeing.

Small Comprehension

"As we persist, a brand-new kind of confidence is born, and the sense of relief at finally facing ourselves is indescribable.  These are the first fruits of Step Four."  P 50 12&12

The first time I ever really took an honest, unvarnished look at who I was happened as I attempted a moral inventory.  That phrase - "moral inventory" - sounds sinister and inflexible, like I'm sitting on a hard pine pew in a freezing, stark New England church, a severe man with a scowl on his face lecturing me about death and sin and the unquenchable fires of hell.  Maybe we should change the Step that has a gentler tone: "Dude, do you know who you are?  Maybe you could take a closer look?  Dude?"

"But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most.  The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being."  P 53 12&12

Occasionally I'm blindsided by one of these "OK, I'm not fucking around here" phrases in our literature.  Most of the time I can tease out some nuance but not is sentences that say: Total Inability."  The jackhammer implication is that I have no interpersonal skills.  Was it any wonder that I was unemployable, undateable, and right off any guest lists?

"We have not once sought (Ed. Note:  The editor notes the word 'once.'  The editor notes this implies 'zero' attempts.  To paraphrase: 'We have never . . .') sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society.  Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide underneath it.  This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us.  Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension."  P 53 12&12

SuperSonic Stevie

Urgent Message from the CDC:  Excessive drinking can cause short term memory loss.  Also, it can cause short term memory loss.

Give:  To make a present or gift of.
Take:  To get into one's hands, possession, or control, with or without force.

One of my favorite spiritual topics: Giving versus Taking.  I have always had a rough idea what it meant to be a giving person.  I aspired to being that kind of person and often believed that I was, but deep down inside I was suspicious of my motives.  Probably because my actions were so shitty.  It's like seeing a guy with a gun and bag marked "Loot" or "Swag" outside of a jewelry store that has an alarm clanging.  Whether or not he intended to rob the store is of no important.  The cops are going to judge him on his actions.

There's a passage suggesting that we judged our behavior by our intentions while the world was looking at our actions.

I do know that I learned about giving and service in The Program.  While service is a spiritual concept it was a concept too nuanced for me to perceive at the start.  If someone had tried to explain that spiritual actions lead to a spiritual experience I would have looked over their right ear with a 1000 yard stare.  But if I saw someone with a bunch of time swabbing out a coffee pot after a meeting . . . for free . . . and with no recognition from anyone unless it was an oldtimer complaining because the job was being bungled I thought: "Hmmmm.  MUST be something going on here," especially because the coffee-swabber, taking incoming fire, was happy.  I was drinking coffee someone else made and not cleaning anything and I was miserable.

Like many things in my life that have improved since I entered The Fellowship the concept of service has become clear only after I started trying to be of service.  Telling me that I will feel better if I start doing thing for other people with no expectation of a quid pro quo sounds like bullshit.  Then some particularly cruel sponsors suggest doing these nice things anonymously.   That still sounds like total bullshit.

But . . . there you go.

I have a friend who went to the Air Force Academy and spent his time in the military flying supersonic jet fighter planes before heading off to a major airline where he now flies 747s.  He tells the story of trying to fend off a persistent sponsor who was prodding him to finish his 4th Step: "Let me get this straight: you can fly a jet at 500 MPH 300 feet off the ground, and you're afraid of starting your writing?"

Sort of ended the conversation, I would imagine.  I hope my pilot buddy wasn't flying his plane upside down, too.

Defective Seaweed

Defect:  A shortcoming, imperfection, or lack.

I have some tried and true techniques I use when I'm unhappy about something.

"The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear - primarily fear that we would lose something 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."  12&12 P 76.

I'm impressed at the beauty of that statement.  Essentially, if I got it then I'm afraid I might lose it and if I don't got it then I'm afraid that I'm never going to get it.  THAT is an all-inclusive statement.  THAT gives me the ability to be pissed off about everything.

So I look at the irritant and decide if I'm not doing something I need to be doing or if I've done everything I can so I need to chill out?  I don't like paying income taxes: never have and never will.  The chances of me not paying taxes and getting away with it is not very high, so I've come to peace with the fact that I have to do something that I don't want to do and - magically - the force of the irritant lessens.  I get into the "Eh, whatever" phase more quickly.

Another technique is to set up some extreme boundaries and then work inward toward the middle which is where I'm much more likely to end up.  As an example I could suggest, say, this starting point on the negative end: "I'm going to die alone on the street, in horrible pain, both physical and mental, from a vicious and incurable disease.  The authorities will just toss my ravaged body into the nearest dumpster."  OK, not too plausible.  Compare this with "I'm going to find 100 million dollars and then start driving my Ferrari down to a local airstrip where my private jet will ferry me around the world."  OK, also implausible.   Both options are possible but unlikely.

I play around with the negative side of things with more intent.  I find that I'm less worried about improving my stake in life - which is pretty goddam good - then I am about the horrible, vicious, agonizing possibilities that I'm sure will befall me.  This is human nature.  We're prone to protecting ourselves against dire outcomes.  There are, of course, lions and tigers and bears out there, Oh My!  But eventually I work myself into a more plausible worst-case scenario and toy around with it for a bit, get comfortable with it, until I reach the stage where I can say: "If that's as bad as it gets then I'm going to be fine."

Finally, finally, finally I have to look for the positive in everything.  It's there.  I can assure you it's there.  I can make almost every situation palatable if I find the positive.

The Road Not Taken

Scot Free:  (Ed. Note: "Scot" is a word found in a number of languages and is traced back to the root meaning "tax."  So scot free literally means you don't have to pay for something that you don't want to pay for, anyhow.)

Sometimes we experience big, profound shifts in our lives, transformational events that fundamentally alter our reality.  It's like two continents crashing together.  I remember learning in the grief groups I attended after my parents died that an important step in the grieving process was to come to accept the concept of a "new normal."  Apparently a lot of us - often subconsciously - refuse to release the dead person, hanging on to the impossible belief that everything can go back to the way it was.  Combine this with our tendency to re-imagine our decisions and choices when we're faced with an unpleasant outcome, to try to figure out what we could have done differently to avoid the unpleasantness.  Intellectually, this is bullshit, of course.  As Jim Morrison said: "No one here gets out alive."  But, still, we wonder what might have been if we had gone to the doctor earlier or taken a left turn instead of a right turn.

It doesn't work that way.  It's all god's: your loved ones, your friends, your job and cars and house, your money, you for chrissake.  If god wants it god is going to take it.  A lot of the things that happen were destined to happen no matter how many buttons you pushed and how many levers you pulled.  That's life.  That's how life works.  Do any of us melt with gratitude at the end of the day because we took the highway instead of the byway because the later route would have led to certain death in a fiery crash?  Well, I do, of course, but you can aim higher than my emotional reaction to things.

I ponder this as I'm processing through the societal changes caused by CoVid 19.  I found myself sketching out some scenarios as to when things were going to "get back to normal," whatever the fuck that means.  Like what I do would be considered "normal."   I project 3, 6, and 12 months into the future and try to visualize how life would appear, with the goal, of course, of getting back to the way things were because in my blessed life getting back to the way things were is a pretty sweet place.

Perhaps some things are going to be irrevocably altered.  I'd like to get back to the way some things were when I was 20, too.  It would be nice to put on a jock strap and running shoes and take a nice hour run this morning, too, instead of laboring around the neighborhood on a slowish walk.  My back and knees and hips and ankles might have something to say after a run.  I'm in good enough shape I could pull it off but I might not be able to walk tomorrow.

I'm now imagining certain aspects of my life as having a different tint and hue and tone.  If there are things that I want to do that I will not be able to do as we move on I'll be OK.  I'll even come to accept it even though right now I want to bulldoze through any obstacles that are standing in the way of me getting what I want.

I also like to populate the extreme ends of the spectrum with scenarios.  On one end we quickly find an effective vaccine and develop a robust herd immunity and life begins to look like it did a few months ago.  On the other end the virus proves almost unkillable and mutates so often and so effectively that being in public is going to remain potentially hazardous for an extended period of time.  

So . . . two unlikely scenarios.  But where do we end up and when do we end up there?

Don't Come Back Here

One of the old-timers at our meeting this morning worked as a bartender for a couple of years in sobriety.  Some of her funny stories reminded me of a memorable share I heard early on in my sobriety.  I was in a clubhouse in Lexington, Kentucky.  This was before no smoking bans became ubiquitous and this was right smack dab in the middle of tobacco country so there was a serious cloud of smoke in that room.

A guy who had been sober forever at that point in the 1980s told of taking a phone call from a guy in a bar.  He went over to help out and his first suggestion was that they get down on their knees - right in the bar - and ask god to take away the obsession to drink.  As they were leaving the bartender grabbed the arm of the old-timer - and in my recollection of the story he was polite about it - and said: "Do me a favor - don't ever come back here."

There was also a guy there today who just started to come to meetings recently - after all of the church closures - so he has yet to attend a live meeting.  I think of how hard that must be, how important that face to face fellowship was to me at the start, still is to me today.  Then I think that if you are ready to get sober you can overcome all obstacles.  Reminds me of the paragraph in The Big Book where the founders point out that the alcoholics who left for service in World War Two suffered even fewer relapses than those who were safe at home.

We can do this.

Our Founders' Mentors

I've mentioned this dude named Richard Peabody who published a book called "The Common Sense of Drinking" in the early 1930s.  He was the first guy to propose that there was no cure for alcoholism and he was a big influence on Bill W.  I like the fact that so much of The Program was gleaned from other sources.  Bill was the practical one.  I get the sense that Dr. Bob brought a lot to the table in the spiritual realm - he had a library full of religious and spiritual books that he read voraciously.

I came across these passages in Peabody's book - see if there is any hint of our written inventory, our Fourth Step, in here . . . 

"Keeping a notebook is another helpful way of objectifying the work.  He copies into his notebook those ideas which he has marked in the books that he has read.  Thus he creates a personal reference book which should stimulate him by precept, warning, or inference toward better control  and more mature behavior.  This book he should turn to frequently for the purpose of refreshing his mind with his new system of philosophy and as a means of correcting any negative suggestion which he may have absorbed."

Write.  Write and review what you have written.  Something happens when we write.  We're generally honest - it makes little sense to lie when you're the only person who's going to see the writing - and our pens take odd, surprising detours, leading us to revelations that are unexpected.  We are liberated.

On the potential for relapse which is addressed repeatedly in The Big Book and the 12 & 12.

"In the beginning he is particularly apt to get good results, because, although e is very near to the latest expression of the habit he is endeavoring to conquer, the treatment is colored with novelty and enthusiasm.  When this wears off, as it is bound to do, he may become lazy and uninterested if he has not taken pains to prepare his future mental attitude, though the method that this laziness will take will be a premature conviction that he is already cured.  Experience has shown that relapses come about in this way and not because of the accumulation of an irresistible thirst through a period of abstinence.  As a matter of fact, in no case yet where a relapse has occurred has the patient told me that it resulted from overwhelming temptation in spite of conscientious work.  In each and every instance it was frankly admitted that the carrying out of the therapeutic measures had been allowed to slacken some time before a drink was actually taken."

Keep doing the work.  There is no end point.  There is no Longtimers Club where you get to smoke cigars and act like assholes or, if there is one, I haven't received an invitation.  This is why I always tell people who are celebrating anniversaries that the next year is the hardest.  Each year is usually easier but it can get harder to do the work diligently.

On willpower . . . 
"Willpower is most decidedly necessary, but after the first month or tow it is used chiefly as a force to compel the patient to carry on his work.  If it is blindly directed against the habit itself, however, it can be described as will power fighting with its bare fists.  If it is used in conjunction with writing, it is all the lines of will power armed with an assortment of weapons with which to coerce an errant mind."

Zooming Along

My buddy Willie gave a Zoom lead for one of my California meetings yesterday from the comfort of his office in Columbus.  That's a tough challenge, talking for 45 minutes to a group of mostly expressionless and often distracted people.  One of the problems with Zoom is that you lose the feedback that makes the sharing so salutary.  The other problem, of course, is that people engage in activities they'd never do in meetings: walking around, looking at a screen off to the side (and yes, you're not hiding anything when you do this).  You tell a joke and you get a bunch of stone-faced people, muted, half of whom are looking at their phone.

I had to laugh at the flow of his talk.  He's a musician.  His sensibilities were on raw display.  It was like watching someone compose a piece of music: he'd go off on a thread, abandon it to come back to a core theme, veer off in another direction for a while and really get into it, wander back to the first thread, one he didn't like intially, and add a little something that made it work, and on and on.  Dude was all over the place.  It was a good talk but it was chaos.

When I give a lead - a good, logical, technical, German engineer - it's like watching a bolus of plastic pellets move down a production line before ending up as a rear view mirror for a Buick.  No wasted motion, no detours, A to Z, baby.  Efficient and precise.

Thank god we are so diverse.

I've been going to meetings for 34 years and I'm still amazed when I hear something I haven't heard before.  In the last week I heard three new things.

As you search for your conception of a Higher Power it's not "I'll believe it when I see it" but the other way around: "I'll see it when I believe it."  Make a start on your spirituality.  Don't think about it too much.  You'll get there.  Fake it.  Try anything, try everything.

As we try to find a Higher Power attendance at meetings is so important: "God doesn't talk to me directly - he talks to me through you guys."  This was from a man who I watched logically resist every attempt to find his Higher Power.

About prayer: "Prayer doesn't change God - it changes the person who is doing the praying."  I like this one because my Program stagnated a bit because of my stubborn refusal to pray for the longest time, preferring the much cooler meditation.  Also important but more powerful when combined with prayer and the self-examination inventory.

Instincts on Rampage

A searching and fearless inventory.  I don't know about you but I was terrified doing my first inventory.  There was absolutely nothing fearless about it.  I was thorough - I literally put every human being I had ever encountered on that list - but I didn't like doing it.

Honest:  Scrupulous with regard to telling the truth; not given to swindling, lying, or fraud.

On one side of our AA coins - given for yearly anniversaries - are these reminders: Honesty; Openness; Willingness.  My coin should say: Swindling; Lying; Fraud.  THAT would be honesty.

Thank god that AA kept the word "honest" out of all of our Steps.  I was incapable of honesty.  I wanted to be honest and I would have told you I was honest but I had been bullshitting myself for so long that I had no clue what was real and what wasn't.  I clearly remember telling a story about getting a ticket jaywalking in downtown Columbus, OH, well into my sobriety, before I remembered that I had heard someone else relate that incident.  I thought it was so good I incorporated into my experiences bank and told it for so long it became real to me.

"Hmmmm, I don't think I ever did that," I remember thinking.

I did, however, get a ticket by a real hard ass cop for crossing a side street against the light.  I was riding to the post office to mail some resumes - too high to drive a car - without a shirt on.  I can still see the name of my bike - Motobecane - in the slot marked "vehicle."  It was cold sitting on the slimy vinyl back seat of the cop car, a/c blasting, sweat running down my torso, as the dick wrote out the citation.  Must have been a slow business day although my pony tail and general slovenly appearance might have triggered some animus in him.


Excuse Number One:
"We shall claim that our serious character defects, if we think we have any at all, have been caused chiefly by excessive drinking."

Defects?  What me?

Excuse Number Two:
"Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people - people who really need a moral inventory."

I like the phrase "other people."  It's vague and inclusive.  "Who did this?!"  "Other people" or "some other people" or "a ton of other people" or "those other people."

"Instincts on rampage balk at investigation.  THAT is a great turn of a phrase and  also a great name for a hard rock band: Instincts on Rampage.

We also can offer up "collision of instincts" and "instinct run wild," which wouldn't be that great of a band name but would be a great title for a shit reality show.

Action Stevie

Action:  Something done so as to accomplish a purpose.
Purpose:  A target; an aim; a goal; a result that is desired.

I've not had the best attitude the last couple of days.  Everything is annoying me.  While I realize that on my best days 80% of everything annoys me this is still an unacceptable uptick on my Irritation Scale.  It's when The Program and the people populating The Program become universally annoying that I'm really irritable, and I need to take some Action!!  So I drove inland and took a big, honking, exhausting hike up into the mountains.  I knew I needed to wear myself out physically - when I'm gasping for oxygen and wincing at knee pain I have a hard time pouting - and I knew I needed some nature - hard to stay mad when the birds are singing and you're worried that a panther is going to leap out of the bushes and sever your jugular.  

I'm not making that last part up.  I really do worry about panthers (or are they mountain lions?  Panther sounds cooler).   I'm also worried about ticks and biting black flies which absolutely ate me alive on my last hike.  Snakes, strangely enough, don't bother me at all.  A woman passed me on the trail today when I was taking a blow, one of many.  She didn't seem to be having the respiratory problems I was having.  We nodded politely at each other and she disappeared around the bend.  Ten minutes later she came walking back my way.

"I wanted to ask your advice," she said.  "What do you do when there's a snake on the trail?"

I laughed.  She mistook me for a guy.   You know - someone who can do guy things and that is definitely not me.

"Well, ma'am," I said.  "I sneak up behind the critter and I grab it and wring its neck.  Then I cut it up, wrassle up some potatoes and onions, fry it all up, and that's some good eatin.'"

The snake was long gone by the time we retraced her steps.  I was exhausted at this point so her company for the last half hour of the hike was a welcome diversion.  My experience with snakes is that they are in a big hurry to get away from people.

Anyway, when I'm annoyed I usually find that I am not accepting what I have right now.  I find the right now lacking.  Even worse is when I can't find anything wrong in the right now so I go out into the future and imagine something wrong happening there.  It hasn't even happened yet and I'm pissed off about it.  So here I be . . . fighting, fighting, fighting to get my way.  

"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol."

Dude at the meeting this morning - the meeting that was pissing me off - was called upon to share and this is what he said: "I spoke yesterday so I'm going to pass my time to . . . "  This is called leading by example.

The section we read out of the Big Book was about the actor who wants to run everything.  "Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show . . . If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do what he wished, the show would be great.  Life would be wonderful."  The implication is that the actor is trying to play god.  Pffftttt.  I wasn't trying to play god, I knew that I was god.  In fact, I may be god.  Not the necessarily, but a god.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: no one wants my advice, even the people who actually ask me for my advice.  They just want me to listen, to be a sounding board, as they try to work things out in their own mind.  People are going to do what they want irregardless of what my opinion is.

Another suggestion we hear is to try to get in the middle of the pack, of the herd, because it's the stragglers that get picked off.  The problem for the new person, of course, is to convince them that this is a pretty good herd.  I was looking for a different herd.  This herd didn't look particularly promising.

Nature Ascendant

Probably the biggest irritation for me at the moment is that I don't get to indulge my traveling sweet tooth.  This is such a privileged problem that it's embarrassing to even write the words.  It's along the line of being devastated that your long-time Ferrari mechanic has retired.  Anyway, this exchange was triggered in a conversation with a friend today.  I am glad for my experiences.  Such a blessing.

In most of the places we've visited we've been able to at least get in the ball game with the language, but not Asia, although after a few weeks you could pick up the cadence, hear similar sounds drawn out or bitten off differently.  One of our favorite experiences was being in a train or plane or bus where a native guide was speaking or there were automated messages playing - we could read or watch the sites going by while the voice was droning away so that it became part of the background, like Muzak.  Then all of a sudden a combination of sounds would burst into my consciousness as a distinct English phrase - Absolute Chevrolet!  Diving sense! - before the Japanese or Chinese or Vietnamese would seamlessly pick up again.  It was especially weird if I was dozing off.  It would snap me back to full consciousness immediately.

I went for a long hike up in the foothills of our local mountains this week.  A couple of years ago we had a violent firestorm move through our area.  It destroyed a ton of homes and absolutely scorched huge swaths of wilderness.  I got up there a month or so after the fire when there were still hot spots smoldering here and there.  Some of the smoke was coming from the root systems of large trees that had been immolated - the fire was so violent that it actually didn't stop after it vaporized the tree but would burn down underground into the roots.  The earth itself had turned glass-like.  The dirt had been subjected to such extreme heat that if you stepped off the trail (which I did only once - it was important to let nature have plenty of leeway to heal itself) it crunched, like there was covered by a thin layer of ice.

This area has some groves of trees following the paths of small creeks and streams but is mostly covered with low-lying native shrubs and bushes.  After the fire most of the bushes were gone - completely gone - only blackened branches poking up.  Some of the trees had vanished; some had been partially burned, green sections weirdly mated with charred trunks; some were untouched; and many had their lower branches burned off, the upper sections blithely waving in the breeze.  The fire did what it wanted unless the trees had other ideas.  But the fire was the big dog.  The fire was ascendant.  The wind that day had been powerful, blowing at 50 or 60 MPH.  A fireman I know told me that when the wind is blowing like that they just get out of the way.

At the time I noticed that many of the blackened bush skeletons had small spurts of green growth at their bases.  A whiff of hope wafted over me.  Two years later the scene is amazing.  Most of the bushes are in the process of regenerating, thick greenery pierced by the still standing black branches.  Rebirth.  The trees are a mixed lot - some of them look as good as new; some have vibrant sections mated with dead tree; and some have fallen, indeed are still falling recently.  They tried but in the end were unable to overcome the damage.  And because we had a wet spring the ground is covered with green vegetation and tons of flowers.  Not the thick covering you would see in a more temperate climate - this is a semi-arid zone, after all - but still a lot of flowers clinging to the hillsides, a lot of color.

This hike has a lot of climbing involved so I'm able to burn off some of my naturally occurring and very irritating nervous energy and burn it off while I'm in nature, two things that are very calming for me.  I miss my daily swims and look forward to picking them back up when the gyms reopen but I'm choosing not to dwell on this, preferring instead to enjoy frequent hikes.

The Problem V The Solution

Surrender To Win

Fight:  To try to overpower; to fiercely counteract
Surrender:  To give up into the power, control, or possession of another.  (Ed. Note: Think Higher Power here.)

I hope my recent musings - a lot of them triggered by observations and reflections of the current pandemic - haven't come across as political.  If so, I apologize, as that's not my intent.  I have no idea what's best for me most of the time so I certainly can't predict what the best course of action for an entire society should be.  However, my experience in recovery has been that if I try to migrate from the Real World back into the Recovery World then everything is just fine . . . .  I solve problems - I don't create them or aggravate them or concentrate on them

Anyway, there are a fair number of us who don't like the way things are playing out as we try to fight the virus as a society.  Fair enough.  I'm not thrilled with everything, either.  But in Recovery World I perceive that my choices are awfully limited.  I can voice my opinion, understanding that if I do so I risk conflict.  I can not say a word and risk having my opinions overwhelmed by people angrier than me who are screaming invective at the top of their lungs.  Engage but detach.

Engage:  To interact socially; to interact antagonistically.  (Ed. Note: Interesting how the transitive versions of this verb are sorted by the dictionary people into two very different categories.)
Detach: To disengage.  (Ed. Note: HaHa, that's pretty funny.  The exact opposite of engage.)

There are no instances, in my experience, of famous, inspirational coaches.  rallying the troops to pull off an impossible last minute comeback by shouting: "OK, guys, c'mon, get out there and surrender!!"

Do: To perform; to execute.
Be: To exist; to have real existence.  (Ed. Note: Man, this shit is great.  I'm amusing the hell out of myself this morning.) 

I am in this constant struggle to learn how to simply Be.  I can Do.  Oh, I can Do, alright.  All motion is easier than sitting calmly even if it's stupid motion.  It can be uncomfortable sitting with oneself so why not get up and move!  I'm not saying moving isn't good but that sitting, being has a lot going for it, too.

I'll Take Myself Too Damn Seriously If I Damn Want To

Rule:  A regulating principle.
Regulation: To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law.
(Ed. Note:  I like how "rule" has regulation in its definition and "regulation" has rule in its definition.  Pretty gutless, in my opinion.)

Rule 62    "Don't Take yourself too damn seriously."  This Rule - found in Tradition Four in Alcoholics Anonymous - has a pretty funny origin and certainly a very instructive one.  In the early days of AA a group of well-meaning but misguided members thought about building a big AA clubhouse that would combine treatment, financial help, and an venue for socializing.  The whole project blew up when they put together an initial list of "rules" to guide its operation.  Yep.  61 of them.  THAT shelved the project and gave birth to our famous Rule 62.

It's interesting that in our society everyone hates rules and regulations . . . except for the ones that benefit an individual directly.  THEN it's a good rule and/or regulation.  It makes sense.  Everything would fall apart without it.  It's in everyone's best interest.  When I point out the exceptions, the flaws, how almost every rule and regulation comes at the expense of someone else I either get a blank stare or an impassioned argument.  And I find that those of us who benefit the most from all our rules and regulations seem to be able to pick out the few that are inconvenient and blow them up into monstrous monsters while blithely tootling along, protected and enriched by the good ones.

Jesus, suck it up a little.  We live in a society - a very free society that allows us to do almost everything we want but not everything we want.  I learned all of this Me Versus us stuff in AA.  The Steps are suggested - I don't have to do them if I don't want but my success is at risk if I don't.  And, The Traditions aren't chiseled in stone, either, as long as we're not injuring other groups or AA as a whole, but most of us would be upset if I plopped down a boom box in a meeting and started blasting Sabbath's "Into The Void."  It doesn't say I can't do that anywhere in the literature but the rule that prevents it is a good one.  My behavior is regulated and my freedom is curtailed, thank god.  I don't have to listen or pay attention, I can show up late or leave early, I can talk at every meeting long after the timer goes off, and I can go to the bathroom when someone irritating starts to drone on and on - tons of freedom - but I have to behave in a way that keeps our society functioning.

I'm finding The Solution in the Zoom meeting format.  It's not exactly what I want but it's a good substitute.  I'm attending meetings in far off locales, including getting to sit in on some that are held in places where I lived in the past.  I'm getting to ask old friends to chair a Friday Step meeting where I'm the temporary internet secretary.  And I'm getting to a meeting every day.

That's a pretty good solution.

Angry Seaweed

Angry:  Furious; irate; seething; infuriated; incensed; livid; apoplectic; murderous; incandescent; steaming; at the end of your rope; hoping mad; splenetic; wrathful. (Ed. Note: Man, that's a lot of synonyms.  Kind of like the Eskimoes having 418 names for snow and 1 word for hot.)

Some people like to be told what to do so they're drawn to strong personalities.  I'm not that person.  I can't work The Program that way.  No interest in being in charge of your recovery.  I don't want the credit if it works out and I don't want the blame if it doesn't.  Pick up the toolbox and get to work.  Not only is it uncomplicated there's a very detailed set of instructions in our literature.

I was talking to a friend yesterday who doesn't always respond immediately to everything I say.  I like this character trait.  I don't think she isn't listening - I think the information is being processed.  I don't need immediate feedback all of the time because immediate feedback is often wrong.  Again I say - fast is always fast but frequently incorrect.  I do this all the time and sometimes I'm accused of being bored by the conversation or even of not listening.  I wish I had a small neon crawler sign on my forehead that would - when appropriate - say: "Buffering . . . Buffering . . . Buffering."  That way people would know I'm engaged - I'm just processing.

Reminds me of the time I was listening intently to a bookstore owner who interpreted my intensity as incipient deafness.  "Can you hear me, sir!?" she shouted at me.

"I can hear you fine," I chuckled.

More pandemic musings . . . 
I'm always amazed at how angry people can be about everything.  Especially people who live out on the ends of the spectrum.  Some of my friends are furious that they aren't getting to do exactly what they want to do all of the time and some of them are furious that other people are doing exactly what they want to do with seemingly little regard for the welfare of others.

Hey, if you want to be pissed off you can find something annoying to obsess over.   

Possibly, Plausibly, Probably

If I want to look on the bright side - a dicey proposition, that - I propose that negativity can be an asset, surely a good motivator.  The idea that what I've accomplished isn't quite enough, that I could have done more.  I shake my head, chuckling sadly, remembering sitting in my car after a sales call where I sold something and feeling dissatisfied that I didn't sell more.  This kind of thinking can be a burden but it can also drive accomplishment.

Possible: Able but not certain to happen; neither inevitable nor impossible.
Plausible: Conceivably true or likely.
Probable: Likely or most likely to be true; likely to happen.

I do run over, in my mind, a gratitude list and then intone a series of positive affirmations every morning in my Quiet Time and by "every morning" I mean "some of the time."  Every morning sounds better.  I try to think through what is possible and what is plausible and what is probable.  Everything is possible; some things are plausible; and fewer things yet are probable.  When I drift mentally into some future catastrophe it's helpful to step through these categories: can it happen?  how likely is it to happen? is it going to happen often?

I spend a lot of time in possible.  When I'm imagining catastrophe it's not the best place to reside.  There is a lot of wild, stupid stuff in possible.

Thought for a gravestone: "NOW I'm socially distanced."

Unique: Being the only one of its kind. (Ed. Note:  You cannot be very unique or a little unique or extremely unique.  You are unique . . . or you are not.)

I'm the Temporary Zoom Meeting Secretary for the Friday 12&12.  I can say with great certainty that I'm the only person in the world currently holding that position.  I am truly unique.

My friend Willie ran the meeting for me this week.  At the end of the meeting we pause for a moment for secretary announcements: who had anniversaries, were there any visitors, how to get a Big Book, that sort of stuff.  I never miss the opportunity to abuse people in front of other people.  If it's just you and me you've got a prayer to get out with fewer wounds but if there's an audience I let 'er rip.

"Willie is one of my oldest AA friends," I said.  "His technique is to call, talk about himself for 15 minutes, then tell me 'he's going to let me go.' "

SuperK said: "You shouldn't make up stuff like that."

Make up?

Pick Up The Phone

I was having a day yesterday.  Not a good day and not a bad day, just a day.  It could have gone either way.  I didn't have a lot of tolerance for anything and I could feel the slipperiness of my mood, like I was standing on an icy sidewalk.  I had an attitude teed up and ready to go and for no good reason, actually.  Everything was fine except for the usual general free-floating anxiety that is often around, exacerbated by social isolation and the fact that I'm not getting to do exactly what I want to do exactly when I want to do it.  As I've droned on and on about I'm a dude with a nature and a nurture that tends toward negativity and pessimism.

I took a call from one of my buddies in AA and we shot the shit about nothing in particular.  I could tell he was in a good mood as we kicked around ideas, talked about our spouses and friends and like, topics that, if we chose, could have devolved into a bitching session.  My friend had a good attitude about everything and it buoyed me up, allowed me to step off the icy sidewalk and into a warm house.

I kept saying: "See?  That's solution-based stuff."  I could see that he was talking the optimistic, positive view about everything.  While I often do this - not always.  This is why we pick up the phone.  You don't have to have a big problem or a complicated issue to discuss.  You call and someone gets helped.  Frequently both people get helped so pick up the phone!

At the end I did say: "OK, I've had just about enough of all this happy solution-based shit so I'm going to hang up now."

Destiny!

Negative:  Often used pejoratively; pessimistic; not seeing the bright side of things.
Positive:  Favorable; optimistic.

Hmmmm.  I wonder which one of those definitions is most apt for me?  Hmmmm.

Nature:  The innate characteristics of a thing.  What something will tend by its own constitution to be or do.
Nurture:  The environmental influences that contribute to the development of an individual.

Who am I, anyway?  What is fixed and what is changeable?  What should I accept and what should I assault with my will? 

To Thine Own Self Be True.  This is the only thing on one side of our AA birthday coins (or anniversary coins, depending on your geographical location); the coin you're supposed to fish out of your pocket unexpectedly, surprising yourself,  when you're really trying to fish out some change to pay for a drink and if you're trying to pay for a drink with spare change you've probably already spent your entire paycheck so go home already.

I'm a negative dude.  I'm wired negative.  I think a negative thought initially much more often than I think a positive one.  And I grew up in a family where the mood was fearful and pessimistic.  That's me.  That's who I am.  That, to some extent, is my destiny.

On the other hand I can choose to switch the narrative around.  Pull the old switcheroo.  I know my tendencies and I have tools to move the thoughts from the dark basement into the sunlight of the spirit, should I choose to do so, should I remember to do so, and I'm happy to report that I usually do.

Destiny:  A predetermined state.

I also want to point out that it's a big part of the human experience to protect yourself by imagining a bad outcome.  It's harder to get eaten by a panther if you are on high alert for a panther attack.  So I'm not totally weird and out of line.

I also want to point out that people that are trying to ferret out problems tend to be successful people.  We head off problems by anticipating them.  This can be a good thing.  This can also be a mental and emotional curse for the overachiever and The Rooms are packed with overachievers.

I know I ramble on about this too much.  It's clearly an important topic for me.

Tell Me

I am stuck on this idea of me as an independent, self-reliant individual and me as an individual who is part of something bigger than me.  The Steps and The Traditions usually give me some hints.  The Steps allow me to be the master of my domain, to reference an episode of Seinfeld, to follow my own instincts as long as I'm not hurting other people.  Mostly I can do whatever I want.  I can't bring my boombox into a meeting and listen to Black Sabbath, Volume 4, but I can get sober any which way I choose.  The Traditions allow any particular group to do whatever it chooses as long as it doesn't affect other groups or AA as a whole.

This stuff translates so well into moderating my behavior in the social world I inhabit.

More Midwest V West Coast Program reflections . . . 

In the middle of the country sponsorship was a hands-off proposition.  My sponsor was someone who had to listen when I called to complain about everything and a good source of advice about The Steps and recovery in general but he - all of the hes I had - never positioned himself as an authority or a guru.  These guys told me what they did - implying that they had no idea what I should do - and they encouraged me to talk to lots of other guys.  That way I got a consensus of how people approach recovery  and I learned about The Steps and The Big Book by going to . . . you know . . . Step and Big Book meetings.  Here the sponsor is expected to sit down with the newcomer and read through the Book paragraph by paragraph, stopping to give very specific instructions about the text.

I never liked this technique so I don't do it.  I have trouble remembering to put on clean underwear each morning so I'm going to tell you what to do?  I don't think so.  I spend half my day either looking for my phone or my wallet so I refrain from giving someone relationship advice.  But I can see the benefit - you get to grill someone on how they have worked their way through some pretty confusing things and you get grilled by someone who is sitting right across from you, looking into your lying eyes.

Remember: at some point I'm going to fail you.  I'm too flawed not to.

More Deep Musings

I've been thinking about the difference between what's best for me and what's best for the various communities that I engage with.  As you can imagine I'm awfully interested in the former - so interested that I usually forget there's a latter.  I figure out what's best for me and then the hell with everybody else.  

Some of this inclination is okay, of course, as long as I don't get too carried away with it.  I do have a sense of being a part of something today whether that's a member of The Program, of my neighborhood, of my city, of my country, of the human race.  I calculate how my actions are going to affect others and modulate them accordingly.  I don't just do whatever I want.  I hate being told what to do so much that I never stopped doing anything that I didn't want to stop doing.  You want to get some sleep?  Tough shit - I want to blast some Judas Priest.  Deal with it.

A lot of this has been fired by the great CoVid-19 pandemic.  Am I overly afraid or am I truly concerned about others as much as I am about myself?

I've also been thinking about confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out information that validates what we already believe and ignore those things with which we disagree.  This sort of goes hand in hand with the backfire effect where individuals hang on to something that they believe ferociously, resisting all attempts to prove them wrong, hanging on despite the fact that they have been proven wrong.

And then there's optimism/pessimism bias where people overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes (especially if we're in a good humor) and to overestimate the likelihood of a negative outcome (especially if - you guessed it - we're upset or afraid).  There have been brilliant psychological experiments put together that prove these theories, too.  The docs aren't making this stuff up out of thin air.  We like to win but we hate to lose even more.  One study I enjoyed contrasted how conservatively people behave given the possibility that they might lose $100 with how aggressively they act to try to win the same amount even though the odds were exactly the same in both cases.  

Have you ever noticed how the news you are fed on electronic platforms either stokes your sense of well-being or fires your sense of outrage?  I have to remember that social media is being developed and tweaked by brilliant scientists who have advanced degrees in behavioral psychology.  They're smarter than me, they can tap into unlimited amounts of information about me, and they work 80 hours a week.  If I think I'm not being swayed and manipulated by these people I'm Ozzy Osborne.  And the thing that makes all this tweaking and manipulating so insidious is that social media companies have instantaneous access to huge amounts of information every day.  Each time you click on something it's recorded and this information is used to make the next page you look at even more inviting, right down to the size and color of the letters.

Why all this, anyhow?  Because I'm prone to outrage when things are going my way, when they're stable and somewhat predictable.  When things are uncertain and changing day by day I find myself driven to consume more and more, to get the latest and greatest, even when things don't change nearly as much as I think they are.  I'm hungry for facts so I absorb data that hasn't been vetted or proven.  Bullshit data, in other words.

Sometimes fast is good and sometimes fast is just . . . fast.

Doing What I Want To Do

Society:  A long standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior, and artistic forms.

Individual: A person considered alone, rather as belonging to a group of people.

I've learned a lot about these two constructs from my time in AA.  I spent my drinking days in a state of fierce independence.  I was my own group.  I did what I wanted to do.  Although I paid lip service to considering the well-being - mental, emotional, physical - of other people I always defaulted to doing what I wanted to do.  I didn't want to hurt you but if I did?  Oh, well.  Better luck next time and I would have been appalled and offended if you had suggested this to me during that era.  I considered myself thoughtful and caring.  My intentions were to be thoughtful and caring but my actions suggested otherwise.

Then I joined Alcoholics Anonymous.  Here I've found a unique melding of individual freedom and social responsibility.  I'm given the freedom to do whatever I want to do with the unspoken implication that what I want to do probably hasn't been working or I wouldn't be looking for a new way of doing it.  The Steps are suggested.  You don't have to do The Steps.  You're free to do whatever you want and if it doesn't work out - if it continues not to work out - that's not the fault of AA.  AA isn't going to punish you by consigning you to more misery - your ignoring spiritual principles will accomplish that.

That being said we also have The Traditions, a set of suggestions that help us govern the behavior of our individual groups.  Here again AA allows each group to do whatever the fuck it wants to as long as it doesn't hurt other groups or AA as a whole.  From time to time over the years I've contacted our central office to ask a question about some aspect of group behavior I've found troubling or offensive and each time the phrase " . . . of course the actions of your group are only governed by the will of that group as a whole."  In other words do whatever the fuck you want to do.  If it doesn't work out, if the group doesn't thrive or breaks apart into venomous warring factions, it won't be the AA structure dishing out the punishment - it will be a failure to adhere to The Traditions.

Individual AA members come and go and individual AA groups come and go (although the later is less common because we make better decisions as a group of individuals - crazy ideas are tossed out more quickly).

So here we are as a society dealing with the first serious pandemic in 100 years.  There is a ton of discussion about respecting society as a whole, especially our more vulnerable members, and respecting our individual rights.  As with most aspects of my life I can see extreme positions on each end of the spectrum meeting in a big gray area somewhere in the middle - a middle where I usually find a reasonable answer.  On the one hand it's preposterous to suggest I can do whatever I want to do: I can't drive my Very Expensive Car 140MPH on the freeway or discharge a clip of ammunition in the direction of some whiskey bottles I've set up on a wall in my back yard or blast Black Sabbath at volume 11 in the middle of the night.  On the other hand it's preposterous to suggest that some entity can give me minute directions as to how to live my life.

Again, I say - Balance!

Slalom Seaweed

As I slalom through the first worldwide pandemic in the last 100 years I need to remember that I have a program to help me manage the chaotic situation.  I also have a lot of years practicing solution-based living.  You know - trying to find the good in everything.  It's there.  I just can't always find it or don't recognize it when I see it or, mostly, can't be bothered to pry myself out of The Problem because apparently I really, really like being mired in the negative.  It's comfortable.  It's familiar.

I find myself annoyed at people who are bitching about everything right now.  Man, there are some unhappy people out there, some dissatisfied people.  I feel like I'm trying to talk to a spoiled teenager who's bored and in a bad mood and completely resistant to anything I have to say.  I've gotten in a couple of arguments when I try to steer the conversation to something more positive.  Yes, I get it - this is a pain in the ass.  I'm not getting to do exactly what I want to do exactly when I want to do it and this is terribly, horribly unfair to me, Stevie Seaweed.  I also know that my railing against a set of circumstances that I don't like and that are out of my control isn't going to change anything, except for my mood.  I tend to do this more than is good for me and it's no wonder - I've a long history of resentments based on the fact that I'm not getting my way.

My tendency is to assume that there are some unhappy people out there but I'm also trying to remember that this is a lot more stressful for some of us than for others.  I haven't lost a job; I'm not living on the edge financially; I'm not treading around kids or a spouse who is suddenly stuck at home with nothing to do.  My life has been affected in ways that I regret but I'm going to get through it.  I've actually written down possible scenarios for three months, six months, and nine months in the future, imagining how things might shake out if the situation doesn't change appreciably in those time frames.  

Drinking Dreams

Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.  --  Lao Tsu

I had a using dream last night.  I've found that as I've gotten older I'm beginning to remember my dreams more and more, something that has been incredibly rare over the years.  I know I'm dreaming but the contents have remained opaque to me.  Anyway, I was at a New Year's party where there were some old friends from high school and, more significantly, their parents.  These were not my favorite parents but there I was at the party hugging them and telling them how much I loved them.  I feel sort of two-faced about this people-pleasing bullshit but then again maybe all of my recent writing about love is sinking in and I'm trying to stay on a more positive path.  Practice what I preach.  Your thoughts become your actions, maybe?

SuperK and I avoid violent or disturbing videos in the evening.  I find those images take root in my head and come out in crappy sleep patterns.

Anyway again, I left the party in the dark, slipping and sliding on ice covered walkways as I tried to find my car, an all-too real image from my past that still makes me shudder in disgust.  The next thing I know I've just taken a big hit of powerful weed and it's working.  I'm feeling fiiiiiiiiiiiine.  It's now light outside - I have a strong aversion to dark and a deep love of bright sunshine - and, while it's still winter, the snow is melting and the sun is warming the air  - I have an even stronger aversion to cold - and I've done all this hugging and kissing and loving and the pot is working fine, just the way I always wanted it to: a little something to take the edge off, to relax the ball of intensity that is rooted so deeply in my head.

Whenever I think I've got this thing licked . . . .  

Happy or Sullen? YOU Make the Call.

Happy:  Having a feeling arising from a consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment; enjoying good of any kind, such as comfort, peace, or tranquility; experiencing the effect of favorable fortune.  (Ed. Note: it's interesting that the concept of happiness is found in the etymology of many languages and almost all of them reference "fortune."  As in "it's the luck of the draw."  Not exactly a ringing endorsement for any efforts personally to be "happy" because it seems to me to be a matter of luck, at least to a certain degree.)

Fortune:  Destiny, especially favorable.  (Ed. Note: OK, that's a little better, the implication being that although your happiness is random destiny but at least it tends favorable.  Still the connotation is that happiness is tied to shit out of your control.)

Destiny: A predetermined fate. (Ed. Note:  OK, that hurts.  Back to a complete assurance that happiness is totally out of my control.)

Sullen: Having a brooding ill temper; gloomy; dismal; foreboding.  (Ed. Note: I threw that one in just to be a dick.)

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.  It is founded on our thoughts.  It is made up of our thoughts.  If one speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows one, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the wagon.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.  It is founded on our thoughts.  It is made up of our thoughts.  If one speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows one, like a shadow that never leaves.

(Dhammapada 1-2 

The Dhammapada is the earliest known collection of the Buddha's sayings.  I know I spend a lot of time writing (and thinking) about happiness.  It is so ingrained in my being that it's hard for me to quit thinking about whether or not I'm happy and how happy am I and what can I do to get really happy and omigod! what if my happiness goes away?

Good thoughts are so important.  Thoughts of others, not of myself and my own circumstances.  

The First Truth is that suffering, pain, and misery exist in life.  The Second Truth is that this suffering is caused by selfish craving and personal desire. The Third Truth is that this selfish craving can be overcome.  The Fourth Truth is that the way to overcome this misery is through the Eightfold Path.

The Four Noble Truths, baby.  Take that.

As a general rule happy people make me nervous.  You know the type - always smiling, bubbling even, giddy, giggling, ready to go out and have some fun, some fucking fun.

Give me a break.  Go have fun somewhere else.  Give me a deep, brooding, intense person any day of the week.  More problematic from time to time but a lot more oomph to the personality.  Much more interesting.  

Man walks into a bar with two chickens, a running chainsaw, and a copy of Franz Kafka's "The Trial." -- "Charlie, give me two double scotches and call the police."

Catch 22

"When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away.  From that moment on, I have not had a single compulsion to drink.  And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me.  I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment."  Big Book P. 417

Acceptance:  Belief in something; agreement; assent.
Approve:  To regard as good; to commend; to be pleased with; to think well of. 

This is one of the most quoted passages from the Big Book.  I understand that the man who wrote the original story - Dr. Paul - came to regret his choice of words because it seemed to imply that everything was always just fine when in fact he was trying to emphasize that the solution to everything is an inside job.  If I see someone kicking the #*#!! out of a puppy I'm not going to say: "Well, everything is right in god's world."  The point is that when I'm unhappy with something I can do something to try to change it or I can step back and accept that I can't do anything to change it.

Acceptance does not signify approval.

More on releasing things . . . 
I've always understood the Eastern philosophies to emphasize impermanence.  It's healthy for me to understand that I'm not going to be here forever.  The Buddha is saying that it's all going to go, all of it - my stuff, my family, my friends, me - so what exactly are you holding onto?  I know that sounds grim in some respects but it's also very helpful.  I don't have to worry about what I have or what I don't have because it's all dust in the wind.

Grasp:  To grip; to take hold; seize and hold firmly.

I keep coming back to the idea that the tighter I hold onto something the more control it has over me: stuff, family, people, money, my health.

"The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear - primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded.  Living on a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration."  P76 12&12

That's one hell of a Catch-22.

Seaweed: Lazy Pescatarian

Smash: To break (something brittle) violently; to hit extremely hard.

"The delusion that we are like other people, or presently might be, has to be smashed."

Delusion:  A false belief that is resistant to confrontation with actual facts.

"This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience."

Bitter: Harsh, piercing or stinging.

I have a tendency to just throw quotes and word definitions up there when I'm feeling lazy.  Actually, I do believe that the words in our literature are a mixture of relentless arguments among our early members and divine inspiration.  I think that they are there for a very specific reason.  And I say this as a dude who really doesn't buy into the idea that god visits some people and gives them and only them guidance.  Sure, some people are inspired and this is a spiritual gift but I choose to believe that divine intervention is accessible to all of us who are seeking a spiritual path.

"But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge."

"We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective though during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be."

Problems Steve

Problem versus Solution.  

"We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up and out, and who wish to share that knowledge of that way with all who can use it."  P 125 12&12

In the Big Book and 12&12 the word "problem" or "problems" occurs 71 times - the word "solution" occurs 20 times.  How about them apples?

"What is the solution?"  "There is a solution."  "The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have found a common solution."

Flowers versus Weeds, a cautionary Medieval morality play, circa 840 AD.
We have a little garden area outside of our home.  KK does the planting and arranging and I do the maintenance: watering and transplanting and weeding and such.  I often do a survey in the early morning and find myself looking for weeds to pull and dead branches to cull instead of appreciating the really pretty cool plants that we favor, plants that are well-adapted to our Mediterranean climate.  Problems, problems, problems.

I'm always scouring the literature for potential names for the death metal band - the Norwegian death metal band - that I'm thinking of starting even though I don't play any instruments and can't read music and have the worst, most toneless singing voice in the history of the world.  Still, the literature, full of Bill's writing, an odd mix of a repressed Victorian imagery mixed with an axe-swinging, mace-wielding, boiling-pot-of-hot-oil-pouring Medieval apocalyptic tone is full of excellent suggestions.

How about these:
Children Of Chaos
Chill Chokedamp of Fear
The Four Hideous Horsemen (the drawback here is that I'm going to be restricted to a four person band which isn't actually that bad - the old power hard rock ensemble: bass, guitar, drums, vocalist.  Think Led Zeppelin on methamphetamine.  No fucking organs allowed.)
The Tremendous Fact (this might be more of a wimpy prog rock band from the 80s - lots of denim and flannel and overwrought, emotional lyrics).

Chokedamp: (another word for blackdamp)  Blackdamp is an asphyxiant, reducing the available oxygen content of air to a level incapable of sustaining human or animal life. It is not a single gas but a mixture of unbreathable gases left after oxygen is removed from the air and typically consists of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapour.
Blackdamp would also be an excellent name for my band.

"A chill chokedamp of fear and frustration fell over the group." P 149 12&12

How about this for Problem versus Solution?  Love people for who they are and not for who you want them to be.

Yeah, ridiculous, right?  Take people and mold them into who you want them to be by exerting the tremendous force of your iron will.

THAT'S a fucking solution.

You Need To See It MY Way

Practical: Being likely to be effective and applicable to a real situation; able to be put to use (Ed. Note:  I like the addition of the adjective "real" here.  Apparently one can't be practical in unreal situations.  What kinds of non-real situations are they thinking about?  "Sorry, but that isn't a practical way to go about building a spaceship.")

Theoretical:  Abstract; not empirical.

I'm always trying to apply the lessons I've learned in recovery - the spiritual lessons which I need to remember are "intensely practical" - to what is going on in my corporeal life.  It's one thing to sit down in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee, close my eyes, and try to get closer to my Higher Power, but another thing altogether to apply the lessons I learn when some asshole in a Porsche cuts me off in traffic.

I don't like doing anything that isn't practical.  If it doesn't help me in some tangible way I won't do it.  I always loved that my work gave me the opportunity to watch complex pieces of machinery make something - there was very little wasted motion and things were done as quickly as was practical.  Show me it works and I've learned to give it a shot.  Isn't this how most of us start in sobriety?  Looking askance and aghast at a room full of what are obviously idiots and deciding that their lives look better than your own?  "Might as well give it a shot," we mutter.  "Whatever I've got going on isn't working."

Remember: "The spiritual life is not a theory - we have to live it."

An example of something intensely practical is me keeping my mouth shut.  I don't know why I think that everyone wants to know what I think about everything.  Nevertheless I'm always telling people what they're doing wrong.

The Pandemic of 2020 is - if by "is" you mean "should be" - providing me with a great opportunity to keep my mouth shut combined with a great opportunity to try to see both sides of a very difficult situation as well as the opportunity to keep my trap shut . . . oh, wait . . . . I said that already.  Honestly, being patient enough to try to see where people I disagree with are right is a great blessing of my recovery.  And to at least pretend that I don't know everything.  And to find the balance in all of this.  We're probably overdoing but we'd probably be in worse shape if we were doing less than we are.

See how easy this is?