Like, Whatever, Dude

This is from today's Daily Reflections, our A.A. approved literature where members comment on an idea or concept from our Program that resonates with them personally: "When I uncovered my need for approval in the Fourth Step, I didn't think it should rank as a character defect.  But today I still enjoy getting the approval of others, but I am not willing to pay the price I used to pay to get it.  I will not bend myself into a pretzel to get others to like me.  If I get your approval, that's fine; but if I don't, I will survive without it."

I know this is a big theme in my own personal reflections.  I also know I have to guard against a little bit of self-satisfaction, a little smugness, in this approach to the world, as if I'm a "I do whatever I want" kind of dude.  That approach leads to selfishness and insensitivity.  However, one of the greatest freedoms I've been blessed to receive in my recovery is that I'm not so dialed into what you think of me.  I enjoy approval; approval often means I'm behaving pretty well so there's that; but if I am acting unauthentically, if I'm not being Stevie Seaweed, then . . .  then .  . . what the fuck, you know?  It's uncomfortable moving through life changing my behavior and beliefs so that you'll like me.  Most people like me or they're neutral, detached, and that's all well and good and is as it should be.  And there are a few people - I hope it's only a few - that find me off-putting.  Why would I think this is not the normal state of affairs?  If everyone finds me irritating then maybe I can take a longer look at my behavior but as long as it's a smallish subset of people that seems pretty reasonable.  Again, there are people out there who are popular and well-liked but leave me with that foul, metallic taste in my mouth.  Why this is shall remain a mystery but it seems to be the way of the world.

It's Enough Already With All of the People

Today after the morning meeting I spent some time working the room as people filed out.  This is really my favorite part of the meeting.  The "meeting" part can be tedious and long-winded sometimes and it pains me to say that if by "pains me to say that" you mean "doesn't really pain me to say that."  I'm not stating for a fact that some people are tedious and long-winded but they sure as shit strike me that way from time to time.  Some people interpret the three minute timer as a suggestion similar to the one that everyone should always stop at a yellow light.  It's not a three minutes for everyone else timer - it's a three minutes for you timer.  Other people interpret the three minute timer as a mark that needs to be hit before they stop talking.  It's not a marker indicating that you have to completely fill up the entire three minutes.  It's a timer telling you that holy shit, you've talked for three minutes in a room with thirty people.  I like to hear myself talk as much as the next person but three minutes?  That's the Gettysburg Address for chrissake.

I'm way, way off topic here.  The topic isn't self-righteous indignation although that is probably one of my Top Five topics.  Anyway, I try to track down people who have something going on that I perceive they may want to expound upon at more length than is seemly during the meeting itself.  I like the back and forth of a one on one conversation.  I try to be the last one to leave the meeting room so that anyone who wants/needs to talk gets the opportunity to do so.  Then, as I made my way down to the beach, I had an hour conversation with an old friend from high school; a guy I love dearly and enjoy talking to immensely but c'mon, an hour?  That's Einstein solving the Theory of Relativity for chrissake.   I had mentioned to a great friend from the meeting that I'd be available for a cup of coffee if he wanted to unburden himself a little about a life issue that was really sticking in his craw.  When I hung up the phone with my high school friend, verbally exhausted, I texted this A.A. friend  that I was headed his way and could meet but since his window of opportunity was pretty narrow that day I'd be fine postponing until he had more time.  My fervent wish that he would want to postpone.  Nothing but love to both of these guys but the post-meeting conversations and an hour phone call put me about an hour and a half over my Tolerate People time limit.  To my consternation he was worked up enough that he really wanted to meet that day.  I was simultaneously flattered to be of service as an A.A. long-timer and annoyed that I was going to be involved in another long conversation that wasn't primarily about me.

Hey, don't worry: I survived.

Paintings and Music

One of my favorite pursuits in my retirement has been trying to increase my knowledge of art and in this musing by "art" I'm referring mostly to paintings.  SuperK and I spend the occasional few hours in art museums and both of us find this time to be immensely enjoyable.  For me it wasn't always like this.  I felt that I needed to "appreciate" a particular painting and that I needed to spend hours and hours looking at every painting in a museum.  This bored the shit out of me, temporarily ruined my back and feet, and left me a foul, metallic taste in my mouth.  In short, I was not eager to hurry back to a museum.  It was an odious chore.  I felt less than intellectually and physically exhausted.  It was not the definition of fun.

Today we like to linger in museums but only for a few hours and then we go take a walk outside, letting the feeling of the art wash over us, bubble up with impressions and recollections that needed some time to marinate before the significance and beauty became apparent.  Today we give ourselves permission to like something or to shrug our shoulders and say "meh."  I find it helpful to read a few paragraphs about the artist in question because this can provide insight as to what he or she was trying to accomplish, and then I can reflect on the piece through the filter of information that experts with more knowledge on the subject than me have.  Other than that I take what I like and leave the rest.

I'm much more knowledgeable about music than I am about art.  I like some kinds of music and some kinds I don't.  I love the blues and I can't stand country music.  I'm not suggesting that one is better than the other but that one releases endorphins into my bloodstream and one doesn't.  I can read about country music until the cows come home and still never become a country music fan.  Don't know why this and don't care.  I listen to what makes me happy.  I don't struggle with country music trying to "understand it" or to "appreciate" the artist.  It doesn't move me.  Why should I subject a painting to a more stringent analysis?

Ghosts in the City of Death

As we discuss the Fourth Step more Promises are expressed  . . . 

"Once we have taken this Step, withholding nothing, we are delighted.  We can look the world in the eye.  We can be alone at perfect peace and ease..  Our fears fall from us.  . . . we begin to have a spiritual experience.  The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly."

"If you don't break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?  

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten - that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire."

Kabir, mystical Indian poet

I love the image of an apartment in the City of Death.  I can't imagine many nice apartments in that city.  I'm not wondering whether or not I should be on Zillow looking for an apartment in the City of Death.  I love the image of ghosts helping you along after you die, doing things for you then that you should be doing now.  I'm not afraid of ghosts but I don't really want them helping me along.  In my mind they don't appear as particularly helpful in the pursuit of anything.  I will express again the continuing personal revelation of discovering in every spiritual path that I investigate, in every way, shape, and form, the reminder that all we have is right here, right now.  Don't be nice tomorrow.  Don't do anything tomorrow.  Don't be nice today because the reward is down the road, after you die.  What's the fun in that?  If being nice is a chore that I only undertake in anticipation of eternal bliss my life is going to be a slog in the mire.

"We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us day and night."

Jack Kornfield

The Pied Piper

The compartments we create to shield us from what we fear, ignore,and exclude exact their toll later in life.  Ya gotta pay the piper.  In fact, ya gotta pay the pied piper.  Apparently not just any ordinary piper.  I, personally, have never paid any pipers anything.  

As usual I distracted myself.  The piper in question (pied is an word dating from the Middle Ages meaning multicolored) promised to lead a plague of rats that were enamored of his piping out of the town of Hamelin, Germany during the Black Death when fleas that infested the rats carried the virus that caused the devastating Black Death were responsible for countless deaths in the town.  The piper did his work but the town reneged on his payment.  The piper took his revenge by piping a shit-ton of the town's children out into the wilderness where they were never heard from again.  Funny how a lot of these old children's stories are really quite grim when you dive into them.

Where was I?  My point is that without knowing it my spiritual practice can easily continue a pattern of fragmentation in my life if I set up artificial divisions defining what is sacred and what is not.  If I call certain practices, prayers, and religions "spiritual" and exclude everything else.  I try to remember always that there is a great interconnectedness in life.  Between the hearts and minds of people but also with all living things, animal or vegetal.  I mean trees talk to each other through their roots or through the air.  How is that not spiritual?      

A Tibetan teacher with the really simple name of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche put it this way: "Spiritual materialism is how we can imitate the outer forms of spiritual practice, its costumes, beliefs, culture, and meditations to hide from the world or bolster our own egos.  The wholeness and interconnection with all life is the mark of a mature spiritual being."   

Thy Will Be Done

It should be noted that "thy" is a stupid way to say "your."  Unless you are heavily invested in nineteenth century religious literature which I can bet is not something you're heavily invested in.

Bombard:  To assail vigorously or persistently; to attack (a place or person) continuously with bombs, shells, or other missiles.

I like the second half of the definition better.  "The best defense is a big offense."  I don't care what you're saying because I'm going to say more than that.  And with more vigor and ire.  Defend, deflect, deny, attack.

It is when we try to make our will conform with God’s that we began to use it rightly.  Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.  We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God’s intention for us.

At no time had we asked what God's will was for us; instead we had been telling him what it ought to be.

I was hoping that at some point I would be provided with a special red alert phone that connected directly with God so I could lay out my do's and don't's for the day. I cannot find this phone. I have never been able to locate this phone. In fact, I'm more likely to lose a phone than locate a direct phone line to God.

We had not even prayed rightly.  We had always said “Grant me my wishes” instead of “Your will be done.” 

Gimme Gimme Gimme! Now Now Now!

We consider our plans for the day.  Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision.  We relax and take it easy.  We don’t struggle.  We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action.

We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only.  We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped.  We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.

. . . we try to ask for those right things of which we and others are in the greatest need.  And we think that the whole range of our needs is well defined by that part of Step Eleven which says ‘. . . knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.’ 

This whole idea of thinking about other people really sticks in my craw. It's really an unfair request to make of me. I have no interest in doing this and I have no experience in doing this and I have an elevated skill set that enables me to think about myself at the expense of others. It's hard to stop a battleship under full steam. (I'm the battleship here. That's me.)

This, of course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development.

Shape-Shifting Seaweed

"More than most people the alcoholic leads a double life.  To the outer world he presents his stage character.  This is the one he likes his fellows to see.  He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it."

Bill W must have been a theater buff because he uses the analogy of an actor or a director in a few different spots.  It's a good image.  We're great at trying to run the world and we're masters of presenting an image to the outside world - a false image more often than not.  I know I was a mystery to most people when I was drinking because I was a mystery to myself.  I didn't know what I liked and what I didn't like so I shape-shifted into whatever I thought you liked or didn't like.  I spent so much time doing shit I didn't enjoy because it seemed to be what other people were doing, and vice versa.  It took me a long time to figure out who I was and that's an amazing fact to ponder in a thirty year old man-child.

It's Not Them - It's You

As I read through our literature from time to time I'll jot down a phrase or sentence or paragraph that stands out and then try to organize these thoughts in a way that suggests a theme. The following quotes are in the category of "I need to work on me and not on you." Even though you're probably an idiot and I didn't do anything wrong and if I did it didn't hurt anyone but me and don't get me started on how crappy YOUR behavior is/was/will be, etc etc etc

There's a lot of stuff about how we react when someone else does actually behave poorly and how we should change so that we are actually the more tolerant, loving, and understanding individual instead of the one overreacting and attacking. Try it sometime - it ain't easy.

The one idea repeated more than once in the literature is that we should remember that other people can also be "sick." I don't like that word, personally. It gives me the opportunity to feel superior to someone else. Sometimes people make mistakes or they're having a bad day or they've had to be around me for years and years and it's finally enough, you know? I can't stand myself half the time so how other people put up with me is beyond human comprehension. I've always liked the qualifier of "broken." That, I believe, is a better description of Little Stevie Seaweed than "sick." Sick is not outrageously inappropriate, mind you, just not something that stimulates my imagination like the idea of being all busted up and ruined when I walked into The Rooms.

Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes.  Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person entirely.  The inventory was ours, not the other man's.

The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.  To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got.

The moment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with another person, our emotions go on the defensive.  To escape looking at the wrongs we have done another, we resentfully focus on the wrong he has done us.  This is especially true if he has, in fact, behaved badly at all.

Our present anxieties and troubles we cry are caused by the behavior of other people . . .   To see how erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time.  We could perceive them quickly in others, but only slowly in ourselves. Or if my disturbance was seemingly caused by the behavior of others, why do I lack the ability to accept conditions I cannot change?  If I am unable to change the present state of affairs, am I willing to take the measures necessary to shape my life to conditions as they are?  

Finally, we begin to see that all people . . . are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means.

We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.  Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick, too.

Either we had tried to play God and dominate those about us, or we had insisted on being overdependent on them.

It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.  They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so.

I'm Afraid of Fear

I was in the kitchen heating water for my herbal tea infusion before yesterday's meeting - and, let me say, there's always fricking coffee ready but apparently our feckless morning secretaries can't plug in my fricking hot water pot, goddammit - when one of my woman friends said this: "I had a dream last night and you were in it."

I thought, quite smugly: "Goddam right I still got it."

She continued: "We were traveling around and we were going to A.A. meetings everywhere we went."

I thought, somewhat less smugly: "Why would I think I now had something I didn't ever have when I was still young enough where having it would have been at least plausible?"

Fear:  An unpleasant emotion that arises in response to perceived dangers or threats.

Don't you love the adjective "perceived?"  How much of my fear is in my own head, fabricated organically because I think I'm going to lose something I already have or I'm not going to get something that I want?

Here's one of my favorite passages from The Big Book concerning fear: "This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives.  It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it.  It set in motion trains of circumstance we felt we didn't deserve.  But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling?"

This section is from the chapter "Into Action" which details over and over and over again how the goal is to quit looking at others and start looking at ourselves, for like the first goddam time in our lives.

Don't you love that Bill W is describing fear using the imagery of a seamstress?  Talk about an anachronism . . .   Don't you love the image of an "evil and corroding thread?"  I love the idea of my clothing containing an evil and corroding thread.  I love the idea of the fabric of my existence crawling with evil and corroding threads.

Fear: An emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by the desire to flee or fight).

Still Looking for that Mirror

Self occurs 169 times in the A.A. literature.  If you add selfish, selfishness, and selfishly tack on another 20.  No one has ever called me Mr. Perceptive but I'm sensing a trend here.  Others rings in at a cool 150.  Not quite the oomph  of the 200 mentions of self but not shabby, either.  There's probably some nuance with others in that the word is likely closely associated with self; as in we're so selfish we almost never think of others.

Luckily for us, our guiding principles stress over and over that we are only responsible for one person and that's where our responsibility ends.  We take care of our own business and leave everyone else alone unless it's blindingly, glaringly obvious we can be of service.  In all cases we're encouraged to look at our part in every, little, fucking thing and to leave everyone else the fuck out of it.  You'll see this idea repeated over and over because we don't want to look at ourselves.  It's painful to mess up and then take responsibility for it.  It's easier to blame someone else and it's really easy when, in fact, the other person messes up and everyone is going to mess up from time to time.  How about giving the other guy a break?  How about taking a deep breath and letting it go - whatever it is - instead of laying on the horn or running your mouth?

Resolutely:  Admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering.

"Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done us, we resolutely liked for our own mistakes.  The inventory was ours, not the other man's."

See?  Two short sentences and other shows up twice.  It's relentless

Squandering Seaweed

Squander:  To waste something (especially money or time) in a reckless and foolish manner.

"The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.  To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got.  It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.  To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while."

Honestly, I quit paying attention after the first sentence.  That thought is enough for me to build a robust life around.  You're wrong!  Admit it!  The second sentence implies we're suppoused to get beyond this belief.  Pfffffttttt.  Pshaw.  I'm right!  Admit it!

But then I need to ponder a life of futility and unhappiness.  I need to ponder a life where I squander worthwhile things.  I'm really quite done with squandering.

Peace of Mind

"We became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs.  More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life.  We enjoyed peace of mind.  We began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter."

"(Problems) seem like difficult yet mundane parts of life to get over with so we can become peaceful and do our spiritual practice.  But when we bring to them attention and respect, each of those tasks has a spiritual lesson in them.  Difficult cycles are everyone's practice."

Extreme Riots

"So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.  They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so.  Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness.  We must, or it kills us!"

Yeah, so although our troubles are of our own making, basically, we still feel that we must vigorously disagree with such bullshit.  Finding a mirror and looking at my own reflection, once again.  (Did you know that the mirroring process was first developed in the islands surrounding Venice and was so protected and so valuable that anyone who tried to leave and spread the technology was put to death?  Think of THAT next time you look in the mirror in your ongoing attempts to find out who is the source of all of your problems.)

A helpful but painful possible rite of passage for alcoholics would be the breaking off, the mangling, of both index fingers.  The "pointing at other people, places, and things fingers."  The "it's not my fault - it's your fault" fingers.

An extreme example of self-will run riot.  I like the words "extreme" and "riot."  We're not being described in touchy-feely terms.  We're rioting.  I've never heard a riot described in positive terms.  A calm riot.  A friendly riot.  A group of people rioting in a pleasant and welcoming way.

Riot:  A situation in which a large group of people behave in a violent and uncontrolled way.

Whew.

Extreme:  Excessive, immoderate, inordinate, extravagant and/or exorbiant behavior which goes far beyond a normal limit.

OK, so my self-will, which is rioting, is doing so in a grotesquely excessive way.  It's not a small riot.  It's a riot that is really out of control, involving cudgels and batons and Molotov cocktails and those things where a big, steel ball with spikes coming out of it is attached to a chain and swung at people's heads.  

THAT kind of riot. 

Me, Myself, and I

"Selfishness - self-centeredness!  That, we think, is the root of our troubles.  Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.  Someteimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt."  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous P. 62

Self:  One's own person; your sense of who you are, deep down; used to describe how someone acts or feels.

In that fragment of a paragraph from The Big Book the root "self" is used six times.  Do you get it?  Do you see the truth, the irony of what the problem is?  Do we have to say "self" one more time to get it through your thick head?  It's you.  The problem is you.  The problem is not them or it.  I realize how frustrating this sounds.  I realize that it's hard to change course after a lifetime of looking for the source of your problems outside of yourself.  And to make it worse we propose that the solution is going to be found in a Higher Power or power greater than yourself that exists separately from your own consciousness.   More on that later but first take some duct tape and secure your index fingers firmly to the palm of your hand so that you quit pointing those fingers at someone or something else.

"Whenever I'm unsure as to what the problem is I go find a mirror."  Little Stevie Seaweed

Peeper Frogs in Rural New York State

"Whatever the Great Spirit has made is holy.  A mountain, a tree, the whispering stream is holy.  So much has been lost in the translation that we are inclined to pick apart what another thinks is holy and good.  Our limitless connection to all that is holy can give us a great comprehension ofof peace and health and all that is needed.  If we follow the much-trodden path, believing that to be holy we must be poverty-stricken, downcast, and victims of an angry God, we are fooled.  The idea that we can earn our way overburdens us.  When we put it all down and turn toward the Light, sweet grace is poured upon us."

Cherokee Lady

I will repeat my contention that if you are having trouble connecting with a Higher Power head out into nature and take a look, a listen, a whiff.  A friend of mine who lives in rural New York sent me a note today about listening to the emerging peeper frogs making their early Spring racket.  Cold in the morning, warmish in the afternoon, the definition of Spring.

"The view of the human being as a miserable, creature, forever shackled by original sin, gave way to a vision of the free, autonomous, creative being, whose nature was innately good and whose faculties were unlimited."

A synopsis of the Humanist Italian Renaissance movement from the Harper Atlas of World History

Regret:  Feeling sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity).

If you made a generic list of things describing a typical guy and a corresponding list for women and didn't put a header on the lists and then described me without revealing my gender . . . most people would say: "Oh, woman, definitely.  No doubt about it."  While one of our excellent suggestions for new people in Alcoholics Anonymous is "boys with boys and girls with girls" I do find that - not being too guy-like - that I often feel a stronger connection with the girls and I say that in a totally dispassionate way.  I have no agenda while really understanding the mindset of a woman over a man.  Men come in pissed and resistant and aggressive while women are often ashamed and remorseful.  Most of the men I sponsor are so hard on themselves that I can't bring myself to even raise my voice a little.  Those men who need a good kick in the ass should look elsewhere because I'm more of a pat on the shoulder kind of character.  

Anyway, one of my favorite after-the-meeting questions to a hesitant newcomer is "If you had shared what would you have said?"  I find that inevitably unleashes a fire hose of commentary, indicating that the newcomer had something they wanted to share but was too intimidated to speak up.  "I didn't have anything to say," they'll often comment, to which I reply: "I don't have anything to say, either, but I talk all the time."  There's a brother and sister who have started attending the meeting.  The guy . . . I don't know about yet.  I'm not sure he's in.  He speaks about how busy his life is right now - and in his defense he is indeed busy - but I've heard too many people over the years use the excuse that they'll ramp up their Program after this, that, or the other is taken care of.  Nobody let that stuff get in the way of their drinking so I'm skeptical of the reasoning.  The point is - and I do eventually get to the point after a lot of distracted rambling bullshit - I asked the sister what she would have shared last Saturday and I heard, as she talked a mile a minute, regret and remorse and guilt about not being a good mother and worrying that her recovery responsibilities were taking away from her family responsibilities and on and on and on, and while I try not to give advice, I had to interrupt and say: "Stop that."  Jesus H. Christ, woman, stop that.  Life is tough enough without beating yourself up.

The Actor

 "The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.  On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good.  Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show, is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.  If only people did as he wished everybody, including himself, would be pleased.  Life would be wonderful."

I say this all the time in meetings: "When I'm appointed Ruler of the Universe THEN everybody will be happy."  Barely funny the first time you hear it but after three or four times it's definitely pointless and fairly obvious.

The Big Book continues:  "Is he not a victim of the delusions that he can wrest happiness and satisfaction out of this world if he only manages well?  Our actor is self-centered - ego-centric as people like to call it nowadays."

It's perplexing that when I try to be happy, when I seek out my own happiness, then I find no satisfaction.  But when I'm focused on the happiness of others life takes on a deeper meaning.  And all of this begs the question of why I think I know what's best for someone else?  I'm having trouble finding my wallet half the time.

A Fairly Obvious Analogy

I enjoy the imagery of looking at things, at life, as if I'm standing on the bank of a river flowing by.  I can perceive the river as a fixed force.  It's the river.  It has been there a long time and it'll be there tomorrow.  Or I can perceive it as always changing.  It is, after all, bits and pieces of water going by so that I'm looking at something different all of the time.

I try to be present when I'm in a meeting.  Hell, I try to be present all the time but that's not going to happen so I have come to rely on that hour when I'm planted in a seat in Alcoholics Anonymous, paying attention . . . well, trying to pay attention.  All my problems, all my horrible, terrible problems and bedevilments are going to wait patiently and assault me once I walk out the door.  If I let them, that is.  Right Here, Right Now really comes into play when I'm in The Rooms.  Why I take these flights of fancy that whisk me off into some dystopian future is one of the great mysteries of my life.

"There is always a way.  Solutions will not come when we are hanging onto the problem for dear life.  When we back away and get a better perspective, the chances are good for more than one solution - we can choose.  We are known for insisting on the wrong answer - believing the way we see it is the only  way.  But if something knocks our hand loose from its clinched position, ideas can flow out like water from a hose.  When we cease to heave and sigh and begin to let our imagination work, it can reach into areas that our ordinary knowledge doesn't have.  It should be an act of anticipation - a great expectation that the Great Spirit is putting the answer where we can find it this very moment."  Cherokee Lady  

Heave and Sigh.  Man, that's great.  That should be on my tombstone: "He Left Heaving and Sighing."  Dazed and Confused. 

"We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us."

"We are often surprised how the right answers will come . . . "

Both passages from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Music and Art Reveals a Greater Sense of God

"Actually we are fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God.  It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there.  We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up."

Some kind of . . .  Some form or other . . . Those are some equivocating words.  Lotta wriggle room there for those of us who are resistant to the "god thing."

On one of my meandering thrift shop experiences I found a book called Great Painters and Great Paintings.  Three sections with the first slice focusing on the artists who started a movement called post-impressionism.  I was familiar with all of the names but only superficially aware of their styles and impact.  I've read a page a day and then will randomly call up some of the works of each artist, lingering on the painting without trying to "understand" it or "interpret" it.  I try to enjoy it.  I see what effect it has on me.  If I don't care for it I shrug and move on.  If it does talk to me I'll linger for a while, maybe zoom in so I can see the brush strokes or the way the colors interact or wonder how someone could create using a pallet knife instead of a brush.  The few pages of background on the painter I'm admiring is enough to explain their impact on art, how they studied and what they studied and why they paint like they do.  I read, absorb a little, then look at a painting.  These were clearly men touched by something larger than life.  They were almost uniformly disparaged or ignored during their lifetimes, the brilliance of what they did not apparent until long after they were dead and gone.  They were often deeply flawed and isolated individuals, simultaneously certain and unsure about their efforts but not overly concerned about what the public thought of their work, continuing to forge onward despite any negative reviews.  When we go to an art museum now we restrict our visit to an hour and a half, no longer.  We barely touch on all the art displayed but this slowness makes sure we let what we are seeing soak in a little bit.  I forget most of what I've seen not long after the visit but the otherworldliness of the art sticks with me.  Often the act of looking doesn't provoke an impact until later on after my conscious and my subconscious has a minute to reflect and ruminate and digest.  The beauty touches me in a way that I am unable to explain logically.  It's bigger and badder than what I can see with my eyes or read in a book.  It's God-like to my way of thinking.

There was a share from a brand new guy who went to a classical music concert and remarked on the transition that occurs when the orchestra finishes tuning their instruments - a disjointed, chaotic sound where the instruments aren't in harmony, fighting among themselves to be heard - and began to quiet down and get ready to create as a whole.  I liked the analogy of how this can apply to my thinking: all these thoughts bouncing around in my head that'll eventually come together and make sense if I'm patient enough, waiting and seeing, instead of trying to force the issue.   Because I'm big on forcing stuff.  I'm cocksure that I've got it all figured out.

You know . . . sometimes I'm in harmony and sometimes I'm tuning up.

Keeping It Simple and Doing My Part

Jack asks these heart attack questions: "As you reflect on your spiritual life you can ask yourself: What do you know in your heart about the truth of life?  Do you actually need more knowledge than this, or is this simple fundamental wisdom enough?  What keeps you from living simple truths you know?"

Well, I guess the title of his book is "A Path With Heart" after all.  It makes me reflect on my oft-repeated saw that wisdom is a combination of knowledge plus experience.  I'm real big on the knowledge part.  I figure if I do enough research I can figure anything out, but the nature of my constantly developing spirituality balks at restricting any growth I want to achieve to only this facet.

At 68 years of age and 37 years of sobriety I see my role in Alcoholics Anonymous as a father figure as much as anything.  I reflect often on how the older men in The Program helped me navigate the real world when I was getting sober because I did NOT have any idea what was going on in the real world, preferring instead to hallucinate within my own disturbed pseudo-reality.  They were calm and thoughtful, never critical or hectoring, mostly just listening to me talk instead of telling me what to do.  Most of us know that telling a new person what to do is the definition of futility.

I have become friends with a couple of women at my morning meeting who are roughly the same age I was when I got sober.  Both of them are in the two year range and thriving while still tilting at windmills with their little wooden swords, certain they can slay the dragons all by themselves.  One of the women is a lot like me in many respects - an overachiever who believes she is underachieving, with a high, hot motor driving her relentlessly forward, always trying to move fast and break things, and a sunny disposition geared designed to make sure everyone loves her.  She is very social and has a lot of friends so my connection with her is mostly a reminder that she might want to slow the fuck down a little bit.  Both of her parents are active, high-bottom alcoholics so perhaps I'm able to show her some perspective devoid of any familial judgement about her behavior.  Mostly, I just let her swirl.  She'll stop swirling or she won't and it's way out of my sphere of responsibility.

The other woman is so constructed that I don't identify with much of her approach to the world.  She does have that "don't tell me what to do" attitude I find so charming in young people plus she takes my Death Metal or Stoner Rock suggestions and actually listens to the shit so that puts her in a favorable position in my hierarchy of People Who Are Worth My Time.  However, she's very emotional and that is so not me.  I've learned that she has a father who is part of the long-term homeless population and that she rarely communicates with him.  Her aunt lets the family know if anything dire has happened but that's the extent of her contact.  Her mom lives with a boyfriend who's a recovering addict.  My friend seems to get along with those two okay but it's not something she talks about very much so I'm assuming she isn't overly close with either of them.  I've gotten quite close to her over the last two years - she once informed me that she's not one of my A.A. daughters but that she's my favorite A.A. daughter.  I laughed out loud when she said this but I'm getting the impression that it may really be true.  I find that I can serve the role of father/mentor/old person/spiritual advisor with young women more than young men and I can say that with no shame or ulterior motives.  I'm not a A.A. guy-predator type and I'm so wrinkled that I'm now invisible to anyone under 40 in any case but I think my general demeanor is more comforting to the girls than to the boys.  I'm not much of a boy once you get past the reproductive organs so I don't easily connect with the boys.  I'm a wuss is what I'm trying to say.

I have been pondering the comfort I seem to be providing to a woman who doesn't have a father to talk to and is probably wary about confiding in someone who's her father's age?  I have no agenda except to serve as a sounding board and to be a calming, regular presence in her life.  You know what - I am just an ass in a chair at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous!  It's as easy as that!  Just listen!  No one wants my advice on anything!

I cannot tell you how much this makes my heart sing.  I don't even care if it's true or not.  It's not a lie if you believe it.

Over and Over and Over Again

I'm amused at how often themes pop up in a suspiciously repetitive way.  I'll read something about a personal inventory, for instance, and then the idea of looking closely at myself will show up in a few different sources from wildly varying disciplines.  I find with a close reading the Alcoholics Anonymous reveals itself to be quite repetitive.  Bill W and Doctor Bob knew alcoholics don't listen very well so they said the same few things over and over to make sure something sunk in.

To wit: "This is the time to talk kindly to ourselves.  When time begins to depress, some time alone is not a bad thing.  And there's nothing wrong with being alone.  Who is better company than we are?  Who is more important to our well-being?  Never say it is not worth the trouble to celebrate alone.  When we are good friends with ourselves, we are good for others.  Every person knows that it is important to enjoy a time of perfect solitude and celebration.  We need to know that when we all come together we will have something to offer - ourselves."  Cherokee Lady

And then right next door: "If we had been seeking strength through control over ourselves and others, we discover that was only a false version of strength, that truth and inherent strength appear in moments of deep silence and wholeness when we rest unshakably with things as they are."  Buddhist Dude

For a number of years I had as my company about six hundred and thirteen screaming, gibbering maniacs living in my head.  I found it almost impossible to be alone.  I would go to a meeting every  day after work and I would sit in the mall on Saturday just so I could be doing something.  I could not tolerate the silence.  Music was always playing.  I needed sound to drown out these idiots.  Today I'm happy to say that my life is - to my way of thinking - a healthy mix of people and no people.  Human beings are by nature social beings so time spent with others is healthy and normal.  Human beings by nature irritate the shit out of me most of the time so sitting quietly with myself is healthy and normal.  Too much time alone and I get jiggy and too much time with others and I get murderous.

If I read one more thing about solitude being healthy I may get real murderous.

It's Not MY Fault

I'm a defensive son of a bitch.  I play a mean defense while subscribing to the maxim that the best defense is a BIG offense.  Whenever I behave badly I have a tendency to cycle through a tried and true - albeit old and tired - process of justification.  The Big Book lays this out better than I ever could when they describe how we respond to the charge that our drinking is a problem.  We say I'm only hurting myself so leave me alone.  We say we're taking care of our obligations so we have a right to "have fun" in our down time.  We say we're drinking because of the behavior of other people.  We're not instigating - we're reacting.  Never admit a fault and when the fault is so apparent that it's embarrassing to pretend it's not then point the finger elsewhere.    

I will never forget the story of the Speeding Driver.  I've told this story so many times over the years and changed the circumstances so often to indulge whatever whims and flights of fancy are driving my actions that day that I no longer remember if it happened to me and someone passed these thoughts my way or if it happened to someone else and I spoke from high atop my lofty moral soapbox or whether I just made the whole thing up.  Anyway, someone gets a speeding ticket after blowing by an obvious speed trap, going 75 MPH in a 55 MPH zone.  Everyone around the driver is speeding, too, so it may be that the radar picked up an adjacent car.  Unlikely, but possible.  The driver has been on this road hundreds of times, always speeding, but never getting a speeding ticket.  Doesn't really make it okay to speed but does show the mindset: "I get away with this all the time so I'll get away with it again."  The aggrieved driver calls his sponsor who asks: "What was the speed limit?" and then, armed with this information, following up with: "How fast were you going?"  The final segment of this devastating trilogy was silence.

My initial reaction is usually to fight the charges.  If I can keep my trap shut long enough to avoid feeding my balls through the wringer I get to the point where I apologize and strive to do better.  That's my part.  That's all I should do.  Everything else is self-justifying bullshit.

Looking Inside Myself

"Do not be satisfied with hearsay or tradition, with legends or what is written in great scriptures, with conjecture of logic, or with liking for a view or disliking it, or saying, 'This comes from a great master or teacher.'  But look in yourselves.  We must be a lamp unto ourselves, we must find our  own true way."  The Buddha.  

Booda Booda!  Jambooda!

"Spiritual practice can never be fulfilled by imitation of an outer form of perfection.  This leads us only to 'acting spiritual.'  Our heart naturally longs for wholeness, beauty, and perfection, but as we try to act like the great spiritual masters, we impose their image of perfection on ourselves.  This can be very discouraging, for we are not them.  Doubts may arise in our spiritual practice.  This practice may feel more like manual labor than a labor of love, and the images of perfection we hold will leave us more discouraged with ourselves and our practice."  Jack Kornfield

"It is our very search for perfection outside ourselves that causes our suffering."   The Buddha, dude.

"Liberation arises when we are without anxiety about nonperfection."  The Third Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Longtan Chongxin

"Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath."  The Fourth Album by Black Sabbath

"Whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference.  Experience has taught us that these are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried.  They are questions for each individual to settle for himself."  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

"The state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time."  The Second Law of Thermodynamics

I am amused and heartened by the consistency with which the idea that each individual needs . . . should . . . could . . . look inside and find an idea of greater power that works for them . . . makes sense for them . . . doesn't piss them off too much.  I'm too lazy to try to find the exact quote but the jist of it is that the Realm of the Spirit is wide and accommodating and that there's a great deal of ease and flexibility provided to each of us as we try to figure out a Higher Power that works.

Hanging On and Letting Go

"Sadness clings like dust particles, and makes us think there is no other way to feel than sad.  But what makes us sad?  Is there something tangible that we can deal with?  Or is it just everything - and yet, nothing in particular?  At times, there is a sorrowing of the soul, the deep-seated knowledge that all is not well, and things are getting worse.  No one respects anyone else and when will it cease.  How can we be happy when there is so much wrong around us?  This is our  chance to be a seed of happiness, a spark of hope, a star that someone can look to and follow out of a dark place.  Sadness is a symptom that is contagious - but so is faith and cheerfulness."  Cherokee Lady

Some things deserve to be remembered - others to be forgotten.  I need both - remembering and forgetting - to keep myself balanced.  Remembering some of what was wrong so as not to repeat it and forgetting some of what was right so I do not wallow in it.  Every day is a day of picking up and setting down, catching hold of what I want and letting go of what I do not need.  

It's What YOU Believe

So sayeth Jack Kornfeld: "To make spiritual practice come alive, we must discover within ourselves our own way to become conscious, to live a life of the spirit.  Religions and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart, not idealistically, not without difficulties, but in the very midst of our humanness in our life on this earth."

So sayeth The Big Book:  "As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction."  

Alcoholics Anonymous was so aware that talk of God would be controversial that the founders came up with dozens of different ways to describe the whole Higher Power thing.  "You don't like God?  Fine.  How about Creative Intelligence?  Or Spirit of the Universe?"  I've met plenty of people who get their backs up when the word "God" is mentioned but I've never heard anyone pitch a bitch over "Spirit of the Universe."

Continuing: "Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God.  Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and effect the  contact with God."

I'm always struck by how often different philosophies and religions (not the monotheistic religions of course - Islam, Judiasm, and Christianity have rules, baby) encourage us to take a few breaths, relax, think good, peaceful thoughts, and see what pops up.  

That's God , baby, you did it.

Keep Talking

A brand new dude talked recently about having suicidal thoughts and runaway anxiety attacks.  This kind of thinking, although common in new people, is not normal and it is definitely not healthy.  This is not the kind of thinking one should keep to oneself.  I'm struck at how often people who have the courage to bring this stuff up are quick to brush it off by saying that they didn't have any serious thoughts about actually carrying it out, but I don't buy that.  I think it's a self-justification to try to gloss over the abnormal behavior.  Healthy people - reasonably healthy people - don't linger on these thoughts.  This isn't the same thing as a teenaged boy getting rejected by a teenaged girl and throwing himself on his bed, certain that life isn't worth living.  That's okay.  An adult man battling anxiety is not in a good space if he is thinking this through past the overly dramatic phase.  Planning on taking your own life is the first step in taking your own life and this is not a goal of our recovery program.  

The first thing is to talk about this with someone else.  Anyone else.  These thoughts, unspoken, can take on a life of their own and gain terrible power.  It's not hard to find someone in recovery who'll identify with anxiety and the occasional suicidal flight of fancy, as morbid a flight as it is - just touch the person to your left and to your right and you'll probably be two for two.  And just as importantly, go get some professional help.  I would never take medical or psychiatric advice from people in a meeting.  There were fifty people at this meeting and I know almost all of them and I am certain there weren't any doctors or counselors in there.  See a professional!  Our book talks about how much help is available from pastors, doctors, psychiatrists, and how rarely we ask for this help.  It also reminds us that these are controversial issues.

Art and Music and Nature and Hope The Dog God

I often think of coming to understand that wisdom is experience plus knowledge.  I know I talk about this a lot.  Maybe that's part of the aging process - winnowing down what's important, what's significant, to fewer and fewer things that have greater and greater importance.  Maybe that's why we have half a dozen short phrases hung on the walls of our meeting rooms.  Keep it Simple, One Day at a Time, Live and Let live, and Let go and Let God.  You could build a pretty good life on those four slogans.  Lotta "lets" in there.

When I was early in my sobriety I attended a men's spiritual recovery retreat a couple of times a year.  I took a lot of good from my Christian upbringing but was overly concerned with the threats and warnings, the demand that I do Good or suffer for all eternity on a Lake of Fire.  This was not a great message for an anxiety-ridden depressive going through puberty and trying to figure out who he was..  A Lake of Fire!  What the hell?  Who came up with this crap?  So I drifted . . . 

At one of the retreats the retreat master, a crowd favorite, Father Tim, spent some time talking about the Second Step and the trouble a lot of people have coming to terms with the concept of a Higher Power.  Backs stiffen, hair bristles, hands are thrown up in angry despair.  Father Tim made some hands-on suggestions.

Go outside.  Be outside in the natural world.  The retreat center was on a large campus with open fields and stands of trees, all of it bordered by a small river carved into the surrounding hills.  This is why monasteries were built on cliffs and in the mountains and by the ocean.  It's easier to feel awe when surrounded by such beauty.  Sit outside and listen.  Sit outside and feel the air on your skin.  No phones.

Listen to music.  Listen closely.  Pull up a video of a great guitarist or pianist and watch their hands move over the strings and keys.  I'm not a musician so I confess at being confounded and astounded that someone can make those kinds of sounds, can remember how to move their hands and fingers to make those kinds of sounds.  Look up the African Kora.  It looks like a cross between a harp and a banjo and a stand-up bass and had to have been formed in the mind of someone on mescaline.  It's incomprehensible to me that someone could see this thing in their mind's eye without a nudge from beyond.

Look at some art.  I know only a little about art but still the otherworldliness is apparent at a glance.  I looked at a few paintings by Paul Gauguin this morning.  I realize that what he painted came about after a lot of studying of perspective and colors and composition but he also clearly had a talent that was far beyond what anyone could teach.  He was largely ignored while he was alive - like a lot of great artists he was ahead of his time - but today he's recognized as a master.  I'd like to have one of his discarded paintings today.  I remember like it was yesterday strolling around a modern art museum in Helsinki, Finland several years ago and finishing our visit in a room that had three paintings by three of the great artists in the Impressionist Era - I can't even remember who the painters were - but these paintings blew the room up.  I'm sure the art in the rest of the museum was of a high quality but these were spiritual miracles.  It almost felt like they were illuminated by kleig lights.  Klaxons started blaring.  It was that obvious to us that these were several notches above.

And, no mention of a Higher Power is complete without the obligatory mention of Hope the Dog God.  That animal .  . . .   That animal is in the moment.  That animal has internalized what it means to love rather than be loved.  I can hear that animal screaming: "Omigod - it's Seaweed!  Omigod Omigod Omigod.  He's back!  I wasn't sure he'd ever come back!"  I could hit that animal with a stick and it would beg for my forgiveness.  You trying to tell me my Higher Power isn't lurking behind those Mexican street dog eyes?  

Bullshit.

Doomed to an Alcoholic Death

"That's what this book is about.  It's main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.  Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, are not sufficient, they fail us utterly."

I often ask newish people if they know why the Big Book was written.  The answer, inevitably, is no, not really, at which point I suggest they begin reading from the beginning until they find the answer.  Which comes on page 45 in the chapter There Is A Solution."  I don't think they very many people follow my suggestion but maybe it gives a few of them a start on the text.

"To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face."  This always cracks me up.  Another reminder that our desire to drink is stronger than anything.  Death . . . or a spiritual awakening?  How is that a question, even?  Insanity, a mental institution, a slow, lingering spiral downward, or finding a power greater than yourself?  Incredibly, astonishingly, at the beginning most of us hesitate at the choice.  This insanity is in the same vein as my rationale that I was too busy to dedicate myself full time to my recovery while acknowledging that I always found the money, I always found the time, and I always ignored the consequences when I wanted to drink or use.  Few and far in-between were the times when I was not able to justify my addictions.

Trying to Mind My Own Business

To wit and as an example . . . 

I am back swimming again after a three year abscense.  I am pleased to say that it took me a couple of strokes to confirm that it is indeed like riding a bike.  Today, Sunday, I sat in the hot tub for a few minutes to loosen up before crouching down on one side of double lane to catch the attention of a woman who was swimming there.  When she reached the end I inquired as to whether I could share the lane.  She was one of those fit, grimly determined people that make up a portion of the members of any exercise facility, sort of slogging along joylessly and vaguely dismissive of your efforts, arrogant about theirs.

"Sure," she said.  "Did you just get out of the hot tub?"

When I answered in the affirmative she added: "Maybe you should take a shower first."

Several possible responses occurred to me:

1.  Nodding and then beginning to swim, saying nothing.

2.  Responding: "Maybe you should mind your own business."

3.  Escalating the whole matter with this clarification: "Maybe you should mind your own fucking business."

4.  Asking if she worked there - no? - then wondering if she had appointed herself as the pool police.

5.  Walking ten paces to the shower and rinsing off.

I'd say that about 34% of the people who get in the pool don't rinse at all and I'd say one in twenty rinse after sitting in the hot tub.  I mean . . . you're in a hot frappe of chemicals and human wastes and sweat and then you lower yourself into a warm frappe of chemicals and human wastes and sweat so I'm not sure what the post-soak/pre-swim rinse accomplishes anyway.  I smiled wryly and walked over to the shower, turned it on, waited until she began to swim again, and then dropped into the pool next to her, hoping that the hot chemical residue would drift into her lane and cause her to develop ocular ulcers or scorch some other sensitive part of her body.

Honestly, I didn't really care.  What do I care?  It took me less than a minute to salve her outsized sense of self-righteousness and at no cost to myself.  "Seek to understand rather than be understood."

Terrifying Step Work

I was at a meeting yesterday where the topic sort of devolved into a discussion of the Fourth Step - a through and searching personal inventory, written down on paper, using words, to prepare for the terrifying Fifth Step where we speak words, out loud, to a living human person who isn't deaf and understands the language that we're using - and also the Ninth Step - making direct amends to those we had wronged but only if there is no collateral damage of innocents.  No one comes into Alcoholics Anonymous eager to do these Steps.  No one who has been sober for any length of time whatsoever discounts how incredibly valuable doing them has been to their peace of mind.

"But of the things which really bother and burn us, we say nothing.  Certain distressing or humiliating memories, we tell ourselves, ought not to be shared with anyone.  These will remain our secret.  Not a soul must ever know.  We hope they'll go to the grave with us.  . . .  (But) this practice of admitting one's defects to another person is, of course, very ancient.  It has been validated in every century, and it characterizes the lives of all spiritually centered . . . people."

I had a wonderfully peaceful Quiet Time prior to this meeting.  One of those times where I was able to sit quietly and be where I was.  This is not an easy skill to acquire -  for me, anyway - and it has taken a long time and much practice to attain.  But, man, to sit quietly!  I did not know or understand how wonderful an experience that is, sitting in the moment and not jetting out into the future where terrible things are happening to me or wallowing in the messy bogs of my past, relitigating old grievances and regretting not letting loose little cruel witticisms that didn't occur to me at the time to justify how terribly I had been treated.  And I was aware, listening to people talk about these Steps, how they were so necessary for me to get to that place.

Lotta work, this recovery and spiritual growth business.  Well worth it.

Not An Easy Choice My Ass

"To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternative to face.  If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago.  But our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly."

I've always loved the mental construct of what happens when you tell an new person that they have two choices: To continue drinking and using, living a painful and remorseful life, before ending up  in an institution or a grave, or accepting a spiritual solution to the alcoholic problem, and then watching the individual struggle to make a decision.  "Uh, can I get back to you on that?  The answer isn't clear at the moment."   Jeeee-zus H. Christ, are you kidding me?

Waddling Down the Quay

As you might expect from a legendary and life-altering trip memories and reflections on my time in the African and Asian developing world bubble to the surface at odd and unexpected moments.  I continue to be struck by these two thoughts: 1. Man, were the people in these places great - happy, resigned in a dignified way, eager to please, and 2. Man, do we have it good here in the developed world.  You know how you can take your good health for granted and then you get sick and feel like shit for a while and when you recover it feels great to just not be sick and you think: "Man, why do I take my robust health for granted?  I'm going to stop doing that." and then you stop doing it anyway?  

I mused today about a port we visited in Malaysia.  To reach the tour buses the passengers had to walk down a long jetty passing a restaurant and some shops along the way.  Hundreds of passengers.  On the way back to the ship after our tour we stopped at the outdoor restaurant for a coffee and the legendary hookah experience.  I could have had a free coffee on the ship and some free canapes or appetizers or crudites or finger foods or whatever the fuck they served us and I could have avoided the always somewhat uncomfortable experience of navigating the ins and outs of a restaurant in a foreign country: how do you order, how do you pay, does anyone speak English, am I going to eat/drink something bilious that will lead to projectile vomiting, those sorts of thoughts.  We stopped and had a wonderful, wonderful cultural experience, highlighted by the attention paid us by our bright-eyed and amazed child-waiter from Pakistan, who absolutely wallowed in the attention we paid him, clearly eager to interact with us but nervous about his English skills and wondering what level of dismissive we might be as wealthy Westerners.  His boss, a mildly racist Indian, sat with us for a while.  I didn't know what anything cost beforehand and was, of course, amazed at how little the bill came to, as I tipped like one hundred percent because the bill was so ridiculously small.

Here's the most striking fact of this encounter: we literally watched dozens and dozens and scores and hundreds of cruisers walk by and no one else stopped.  No one.  Not a single person.  I don't know how I interpret this: fear of a cultural encounter, arrogance about their place in the world, a desire to save a few dollars by eating the safe, paid-for ship fare in a safe, comfortable, familiar setting?  To me they missed the whole point of being in a foreign place by waddling from a cushy ship to a cushy tour bus to a curated tour and they back again.

The Taking and the Giving

"We cannot see everything from beginning to end.  Life is too large to see that far.  Sometimes it seems we have to give more than we receive.  We sometimes have to reach beyond what we really want to do, or take part of someone else's load rather than see them break down.  We may lose sight of God, but God never loses sight of us.  The scales balance out and we see that we cannot get less than we give when the gift is our best.  It is impossible.  We cannot love more than we are loved."

More crossover from another spiritual source.  It's all so connected.  I often feel put upon by life, that I'm getting SCREWED, that it's all unfair.  Pffffftttt.  I'm just lucky I don't get what I deserve.

Silence is Golden

Here's my acid test for speaking to someone else and this is especially salient when I disapprove of this individual's behavior:

Does it need to be said?

Does it need to be said by me?

Does it need to be said right now?

I mentioned this friend who seems to be overly preoccupied with women.  I thought long and hard about how I could broach this subject with him without violating the tenents of my most important personal codes: Stay the fuck out of everyone else's business.  With many of my insignificant and minor conundrums I ask my god to help me act if and when such a time arrived and, otherwise, keep my trap shut.  Usually, this time never presents itself, validating another of my personal codes: No one wants your opinion.  Consequently, not saying anything is often the wisest thing I can do.  So I get my jacket out of my car on Saturday and we don't even get across the street before he starts quipping on the topic.  You know .  . . sometimes the message about what I should  do comes in loud and clear.

"What could be more tiring that seeing ourselves in whatever direction we turned?  If we had nothing to challenge our views, would we ever think more deeply, rise higher?  It is not our  differences that make the difficulty in the world but our prejudices against difference."  Cherokee Lady

I get this.  I surrounded myself with other dysfunctional people to mask my own dysfunction.  I enjoyed bitching with these ne'er-do-wells about how The System was screwing us, how The Man was out to get us.  I didn't have a Voice of Reason saying something along the lines of "Fuck you talkin' about?"  or "Fuck's the matter with you?"  Trenchant wisdom along those lines.

Insanity

Some passages from More About Alcoholism:

"I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk.  I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart."

"Parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink."

"Our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened."

Insane:  Exhibiting a severely disordered state of mind; mentally deranged; very stupid, crazy or dangerous.

Are you picking up on a theme here?  Crazy behavior.  I vaguely sensed I was being none too smart when I got into my car to drive home from the bar where I had twelve beers.  That kind of thing.

Fire!

I can usually find some commonality with everyone I meet.  I can almost always find this with an alcoholic, recovering or not.  And then there is that subset of people with whom I share a scary amount of emotional genetic DNA.  These are the people that I feel like I can help the most.  These are the people with whom I can share parts of my self that I believe will really resonate.  These are the people who teach me the most about myself.

I have a young friend in my meeting who burns energy like a mouse on meth.  Tries to accomplish way too much way too fast.  While I admire the get-up-and-go I shake my head at the agita that this need-for-speed can produce.  I'm in that subset of people who do a lot and berate myself for not doing more.  I'm not even sure what I'm trying to accomplish at this point.  I'm fucking retired for chrissake.  In one of my journals I have a long English to graduate students, for chrissake.

BTW, agita was one of those words.  See how I snuck in it this morning?  Angst would have worked just fine and it's a word that's much more recognizable.  Am I pushing myself to learn or am I trying to sound smarter than I think I am?  Whatever.

I've always loved the fire analogy.  Fire is elemental and is neither good or bad.  It's fire.  It doesn't have a personality.  You can light ten candles and the fire is exactly the same in each candle.  You can use the fire to cook your food, heat your house, and take a nice, warm shower.  You can also scorch all the skin off your face, burn your house to the ground, and reduce everything in the Pacific Palisades to smoldering rubble.  Same fire.  The scorching fire isn't bad and the warm-shower fire isn't good.  It's how I apply it.  

It's the same thing with my high personal motor.  I can get a lot done and I can make myself neurotic by berating my shortcomings.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

She asked me why.

So I went ahead and told her.   R.L. Burnside

I cannot turn my face away from the concept that wisdom is experience plus knowledge.  I was always pretty good with the knowledge part of things while woefully lacking in the experience part of things.  Or perhaps I should say grasping and digesting the experience part of things.  I would eagerly learn about something and then ignore the lesson until I had punished or rewarded myself with the consequences.  Even that was not enough some of the time as evidenced by the repeated beatings I administered to myself.

There Is A Solution

Some stuff from the Big Book chapter entitled "There is a Solution" with special attention paid to the excellent, excellent descriptive words that kooky megalomanic Bill W chose to use . . . 

" . . .  drinking careers  . . .  "

Career:  A profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling; a person's progress or general course of action.

Don't you just love that he calls our drinking a "career?"  I know I ejected two promising careers used in the colloquial sense as a job path because my interest was more in the lines of excessive drinking.

"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.  The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.  Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death."

Obsession:  A persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea.

Astonish:    The emotional impact of overwhelming surprise and shock; astounded.

Persistent: Continuing firmly or obstinately in a course of action despite difficulty or opposition; continuing to endure over a prolonged period.

Illusion:  A deceptive impression of reality.

I will refrain from pursuing a deeper investigation into the concepts of a "gate of insanity or death."  These concepts stand on their own merits.

"The delusion that we are like other people . . . has to be smashed."

Delusion:  A false belief about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary; something that is believed to be true but that is actually false.

Smash:  Violently break into pieces.

I love that there are kind of two classes of verbiage: the mental illness contingent (insanity, delusion, obsession) and the vigorous action contingent (smashing, pursuing, deceiving).

... pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.  Over any cosiderable time we get worse, never better."

Incomprehensible:  Impossible to understand; unintelligible.

Over any considerable time we get worse, never better.  That is as good a line as I've found in The Big Book.

Off The Rails

The instant something offends me I'm off the rails.  Resentment surges through me and nothing is going to satisfy me.  The guy who didn't use his turn signal?  To the guillotine!  We learn how to rate people and systems - and how to berate them.  The easiest thing in the world is to look at someone and say what we would have done had we been in their place.  But I suspect I wouldn't know what to do either until I found myself in the same place going through the same things.

The Same Old Stuff In One Neat Package

I spent some time yesterday with my best friend in the whole world, Hope the Dog.  I'm lying.  My best friend in the world, actually, is one Little Stevie Seaweed, but that goes without saying.  Anyway, the reaction of this animal to my presence is one of the most heart-warming things that has ever happened to me.  It's an absolute explosion of love.  It is love expressed physically.  She acts like she thought she was never going to see me ever again every time she stops by.

Which brings me back this morning to one of my favorite go-to topics: what the hell is love anyhow?  In my family of origin it was such a restrained emotion, very defined and doled out with great discretion and reluctance and only to people who fit a narrow criterion.  Don't get me wrong - I knew I was loved but it was often flat and dull and emotionless, something that was expected of everyone,  befitting a conservative, religious family.  This is what I had when I was launched out into the broader world.  Aware of the concept but constrained between tight guardrails.

While I began to tell people that I loved them in a much more relaxed way several years ago it was the death of my sponsor Ken that really rocketed me into the Fifth Dimension.  I've spoken about the details of his death before - this deeply Catholic, profoundly conservative guy whose beliefs offended me so much that for a few years I spent more time arguing with him than looking for the similarities in our respective programs. This changed after a while and we had a great friendship.  It was when he was close to death at the end, bedridden, taking morphine for the pain, that he began to say that he now understood God as an expression of pure love.  This really struck home with me; so much so that I now use it as a suggestion to anyone struggling with the idea of God or a Higher Power.  With a little Hope the Dog imagery thrown in to make it even simpler.  Who can get pissed at the idea of pure love? 

Later I had this interaction with a man who was a good friend many years ago, a man that I hadn't spoken with for thirty years, maybe more.  Someone asked him if he knew me and he replied: "Yes, he's a good friend.  In fact, he's one of my best friends."  This struck at my core - like Ken's awakening - rocketing me into a different (and better, c'mon!) interpretation of love.  My buddy talks about this incredibly long, incredibly thin, but incredibly strong thread that connects old friends over time and distance, that it's hard to snap this thread even with disuse.  

I have gotten to the point where love takes on so many different forms and guises.  I can't tell you how deeply, deeply satisfying this is.  It has allowed me to step out of the restrictive box and begin to tell all kinds of people that I love them.  It has shown me that there are so many forms and types of love with different degrees of intensity and intimacy and this freedom has allowed me to feel and also to express this weird-ass emotion much more freely and with a total unconcern as to whether it's reciprocated or expressed.  None of my business what you're feeling.  I sense it most of the time but not always and I am so okay with that fact.  Other people undoubtedly have their own definitions of what it is that might not jive with mine.

Hey, how about that shit?

I try to jot down one special thing I'm grateful for every day and I'm struck by the fact that it is almost always a live human being.  There are a few dead human beings in there and the occasional great travel experience or delicious type of cake but it's mostly people I see or talk to and where I can express this emotion.  It's the essence of life, isn't it?

Back to Saint Frank: "To seek to love rather than be loved."