K.I.S.

"The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not."  

George Bernard Shaw

Look to the Elves

When I was newish I was occasionally asked to give a full Lead or talk in front of a group.  The talk is an opportunity for you to share what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.  Early on most of us have a whole shit-ton of "what it was like" and very little beyond that.  I had a run where I would talk about each of The Steps in order and what they meant to me.  While this can surely be a good way to approach the Lead - after all, we're getting sober in a Twelve Step Program - it also showed a little too much hubris on my part.  Like I was some kind of expert on working The Steps.  A guy in Chicago watched me floundering around, in and out, drunk and sober, and said: "I don't know what you think you're doing but it isn't working."  The first time I decided to exhibit some humility and do a Lead the way you're supposed to I started to get depressed as I listened to myself drone on and on, interminably, camped in the "what it was like" section way, way too long.  "Someone should put this son of a bitch out of his misery," I thought, while I was talking.  Ultimately, it was good for me to listen to myself go over my drinking history in such gruesome detail.  It dispelled any notion that I might not be an alcoholic or even that I was in the  category of High Bottom drunk.

A wise man once said: "The three most important things in life are: be kind, be kind, be kind."  Rat Boy is always rooting through the junk he has in his backyard and I'm hyper-sensitive to any noise he makes.  Sometimes I can't even hear what he's doing over the drone of an air conditioner or a leaf blower but I'm really transfixed by the suggestion of noise coming from him.  I don't think he's a bad dude.   I think he's a fuck-up.  He's living in his mother's old mobile home in a senior park and he doesn't appear to have a job.  While I'm being pretty kind and patient I can always go further.

Remember: everyone is always doing his or her best.

Remember: everyone is thinking about themselves.  No one is thinking about you.  No one is doing anything to you.  They are obliviously crashing along through life with the tools they've been given.  Just like you.  My drunken actions weren't directed at anyone.  I was just drinking and ignoring collateral damage.

Because I believe in the concept of synchronicity I am not amazed when concepts gather together and present themselves to me on any given day.  My other daily meditation book today had these thoughts: "The elves that came in the middle of the night to repair a child's broken toys knew without seeing the results that they were creating happiness and gratefulness in another.  We can do the same for others.  We can decide to be more caring, to watch for opportunities to reach out to others."  Those elves were pretty good dudes.  You could do worse than be an elf.

I'm in Dr. Bob's Story in the Plain Language Big Book.  A couple of sentences popped out as being germane to my life:  "From childhood through high school, my parents forced me to go to church."  Dude, I'm hearing that.  "My whole life was about doing what I wanted to do, without thinking about the rights or wishes of anyone else."  Dude, I am definitely hearing that.  I always liked the fact that Dr. Bob attended the University of Michigan to study pre-med and the professors got together to tell him that going forward they'd be just fine without his presence.  Boy, did that ever happen to me at Ohio  State University's College of Optometry.  I remember those last awful sessions with brutal clarity.  "Go away and don't come back," was the tone the dean used.

Kiss at K.I.S.

"She is drawn to the happy crowd inside, who laugh at their own bad luck and understand hers.  The open expressions on everyone's faces, the light in their eyes, and the exciting and welcoming feeling in the house tell her that she is safe at last."

Plain Language Big Book of A.A.

There's another Chicago A.A. transplant that comes to Keep It Simple.  We had adjoining chairs this morning separated by a support pole in the K.I.S. church basement and Mike reached around the pole to pick up his book, getting awfully close to me in the process.  "I thought you were coming in for a kiss," I whispered.  "Later," he whispered back.  "When we're alone."  After the meeting, responding to some quip or other that I made, he re-quipped: "That's it - no kiss for you."

August 19

"Patience is more than a virtue.  It's the ultimate test in powerlessness.  Patience means waiting for people, places, and things beyond our control.  Patience means letting go and trusting that a Higher Power is in control."                                                                                                                                        Daily Reflections Book

I am in the section of the Plain Language Big Book called "A Vision For You."  I was reading this morning about the growing excitement everyone was feeling when The Fellowship was gaining some momentum and they estimated that there were a hundred people who had recovered.  100!  I go to a meeting that has a hundred people who I would call regular members.  Anyway, my sobriety date is August 16, 1987 which is the last day I used drugs, more or less.  It was getting a little foggy at the very end so I'm not absolutely sure of the date.  My last drink was on Easter Sunday of the same year and for some reason I've apparently never looked up what the exact date was.  So I did that today and was flummoxed and flabbergasted that it was April 19, 1987, exactly one year to the day before SuperK took her last drink.  We've been together a long time so this hitherto unknown coincidence blew us both away.

Ganesh Is The Best God

I have spent far too much of my life letting my relationships with other people - my perception of these relationships, anyway - define who I am instead of letting go of what other people think of me.  Today . . . I don't really care.  That doesn't mean that I don't want to be loved and appreciated, that I stop trying to develop good, caring relationships or that I believe I can behave in unkind and unethical ways and still be comfortable in my own skin, but that people are going to come up with their own idea of who Seaweed is and I can't do anything about that.  Their ideas may be spot on and they may be way off the mark but it's all none of my business.  Today I work very, very hard at allowing other people to be who they are.  It takes a ton of stress off my overworked mind to let everyone live their own best life.  The miraculous payoff for me personally is that I've been able to detach more and more from their opinions of me.  I cannot emphasize enough how freeing this is.  I get to be me and not some articifial construct of who I think you want me to be.  It has become second nature for me to quickly slough off a perceived slight or disrespecting and think: "Oh, right, that has nothing to do with me.  That's their deal."  I don't have to engage or justify.  I go back to the incident with the woman in the pool who told me I'd better take another shower after sitting in the hot tub for ten minutes.  I quickly cycled through an angry response to a long conversation where I convinced her that she was an idiot to saying: "Whatever."  That was her.  That wasn't me.

The Toltecs talk about the process where parents, teachers, and society teach young people how to fit into the collective Dream of the Planet by using a system of rewards and punishments.  I bought into this perceived reality where these beliefs, world views, concepts of success, and moral codes were absolute truths rather than just agreements made by previous generations.  It doesn't mean that they're all defective and need to be tossed into the dustbin but that I don't have to hew to all of them.  I get to be me.  I don't have to "fit in."  I get to look inside and follow my own instincts of how to behave and respond.  The Toltecs detach from the opinions of others primarily by practicing the Second Agreement: "Don't take anything personally."  This is the understanding that nothing other people say or do is actually about you - it's entirely a reflection of their own mind.

God, for instance.  Whew, that's a big ol' can of whoop ass.  Humans have been chasing the idea of a Higher Power forever and this concept is always changing and it's remarkably different across cultures and regions while having some remarkable similarities.  The Christians and Jews and Moslems have this stern god and there's only one of them and what he says, goes.  There are 1.2 billion Hindus in the world who worship many gods but one of the main god-figures is called Ganesh.  Ganesh has four arms and an elephant head and is often sitting on an elaborate throne dressed in elaborate clothes.  You could spike a four year old's OJ with LSD and give him crayons and some paper and he might draw something like that.  One point two billion people!  There may be 500 million Buddhists alive who revere a fat dude who is mostly naked and has a vapid, vacuous grin on his face.  Frankly, he looks stoned.  Five hundred million!

Who gets to choose which is the "right" God?  Not me, that's for sure.  My God is sort of an amalgamation of a lot of different things but, I'll tell you this, he's in a good mood.  He's quick to praise and slow to anger, quick to compliment and never criticizes.  Who wants to believe in a pissed off God?  That's fear, that's control, the need to make people do what you want them to do.  My God is lazy and sarcastic and likes Black Sabbath and sneaks the occasional cigarette.

Rock a bye, baby, in the tree tops.                                                                                                          When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.                                                                                         When the bough breaks the cradle will fall.                                                                                           And down will come cradle, baby and all.

Here's a visual from a Simpson's episode:  Marge is putting baby Maggie to bed and she begins to sing this lullaby.  Maggie begins to peacefully fall asleep as a thought bubble in the background shows her in a cradle that is rocking gently in the top branches of a tall tree.  She's smiling and Marge's voice is melodic, comforting.  The line about the branches breaking begins to worry her and then the final thought bubble shows the cradle with Maggie in it speeding through the branches on its way to smash up on the ground.  She's terrified and after Marge kisses her and turns out the light we see her wide-awake eyes as she sucks furiously on her pacifier, too agitated to sleep.  

Who comes up with this shit?  What deranged, Dark Ages nanny came up with this song.  It should be in a compilation called "How To Make Sure Your Infant Can't Fall Asleep."

From the chapter "A Vision For You" in the Plain Language Big Book: "They can't imagine their life without alcohol.  And some day, they won't be able to imagine life with alcohol or without it.  They won't want to imagine life continuing at all  A person who reaches this place will experience deep and extreme loneliness.  We say they are at the 'jumping-off place.'  They will wish to end their life."

The last time I drank I consumed a large, huge volume of 12% cream ale.  My recollection is a case of it.  I was too drunk to walk and my speech was thickly slurred.  Fair enough but the wicked catch was that I experienced not one minute of relief.  I was aware - no oblivion - and awake.  At some deep level I must have understood that the game was over.  I must have understood that it was recovery or misery.

"It is the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It will help you find relief from boredom and worry.  Your imagination will come alive.  Life will mean something at last.  The most satisfying years of your life lie ahead."

The Saturday morning Keep It Complicated meeting is larger than normal.  I picked up a new guy who doesn't have a car - I didn't have to say a word because he talked a blue streak the entire ride, confirming the strength of my morning serenity which is the outcome from the calm, peaceful life I have - and we got to the meeting early.  The room was pretty quiet and it got louder as more members arrived.  Not bad loud - joyful loud, good energy loud, happy loud.

I like that loud.

Seaweed: Minor God

Setting my intention for the day.

Realizing I have no idea what my intention is.

Wondering why I listened to a guided meditation about setting my intention after finding out I still don't know what my intention is.

How about staying in the moment?  Right here - Right now.

How about building your own God?  Like he's a Tinker Toy.  Or an Etch-A-Sketch.  Try different combinations until you get one you like.  Then it's your God.  Maybe it's me.  It could be.  I think I'd be a pretty good God.  Why not me?  I return time and time again to the Bill Murray line in Groundhog Day when he's trying to figure out why the day keeps repeating in an endless loop.  He wonders if he's God.  His alarmed and skeptical co-worker says: "Let me get this straight - you think you're God?"  Bill says: "I didn't say that I'm THE God.  Maybe I'm A God."  I'm pretty sure that I'm part God.  God-like.  A minor God.  Not the lead.  Maybe I'd win Best Supporting God at the Oscars.  I'm too selfish to be the lead God.  I'd be skimming some good will and cash off the top of anyone I'd try to help in my role as minor God.  A consigliari.  A Gal Friday.  A fixer.  Got a problem?  Give me a call I'll see what I can do.

The worst thing about my church God - admittedly a pretty good God in most aspects - was that if I didn't believe everything God said or - especially - if I behaved badly then I was going to Hell.  This seems like an overreaction to me.  I'm a gossip so I'm going to Hell?  I'm lusty and selfish so I'm going to Hell? You install a powerful sex drive and then toss me into Hell for being lusty?  Holy shit, that's messed up.  There's no punishment from my current Erector Set God.  My life was pretty Hellish before I got sober.  I think I've done my time in Hell, served out my sentence, so now I'm shooting for Heaven.  Heaven-ish, anyway.  Someplace nice.  California weather with Missouri prices.

My God is kind of a doofus.  One of those characters that I thought was missing a few marbles when I ran into him.  The kind of doofus who had a goofy smile on his face while his hair was on fire.  He was trying to put it out -  he's not that doofus-ey - but with an amazing amount of good cheer.  "Hey, sometimes my whole head catches on fire so this is no big deal."  This so reminds me of Alcoholics Anonymous and the laughter and buzz of good vibes that hits us when we go down the stairs and burst into a church basement full of recovering idiots.

The Guy Formly Known As Rat Boy

Negativity Bias is a cognitive bias that results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events. Negativity bias occurs even when adverse events and positive events are of the same magnitude, meaning we feel negative events more intensely.

I get it. Life used to be hard and dangerous so we constantly scanned our environment for bad shit. I eat a tasty apple - great. I eat a poisonous mushroom and spend three days wracked with diarreha and a high fever - I remember that with amazing clarity. The problem for me occurs when I start spending all of my time imagining that bad stuff is just around the corner when - in fact - bad stuff isn't present in my life nearly as often as good stuff. Mindfulness helps me slow down and detach and look around. I see the good more easily and put the bad in perspective more quickly. I need to quit scanning for problems so often and start noticing what's right in front of me. A good example is The Guy Formly Known As Rat Boy (apparently management came down on him and the wood has mostly disappeared - wood that we surmised served as Rat Condos) is now Electric Saw Guy. He's building something back there. SuperK thinks he's one of those massive fuck-ups who doesn't have much of a job but fancies himself as some kind of visionary creative type. Cutting wood makes a distinctive noise. Here's the thing - the noise is rare and intermittent but I find myself tensing up. Is his car there? What's he doing now? It's quiet but he's probably going to start up soon. Right? Right? The end result is that I'm waiting for a problem - admittedly, goddammit, not that big of a problem - that doesn't usually happen.

Happiness is not hitched to things going my way but arises out of life itself.

Loss Aversion is another cognitive bias, one that is closely lined with the negativity bias, where the pain we experience from losing far outweighs the perceived benefits of acquiring the same amount. If I find $50 I'm kind of happy but if I lose $50? I'm turning the world upside down to find that $50.

Dee-Fense! Dee-Fense! Dee-Fense!

"When we stay in our safety zones where we feel comfortable and secure, we become firmly entrenched in a this-is-who-I-am mindset.  From this perspective, the worst thing imaginable is change.  The structure we've put so much time and effort into maintaining would all go away, and that would be terrible.  I have formed strong attachments which I am loathe to shatter.  I have confused this external thing or state of mind with who I am.  So . . . when the external circumstances change . . .  as all things do . .  .  how do I react?  When I've placed my sense of self in these things or this mindset what I do is try to defend it.  I argue for it.  I have to come up with definitions and meaning."

The Toltecs

Have you ever talked to a new person who's in the midst of burning their entire world down and been amazed at how they struggle to justify what they're doing?  It's talking to an insane person.  It's talking in a foreign language to an insane person.  When I'm so attached to a thing or a relationship or a lifestyle that I can't imagine changing it then the result is Suffering with a Capital S.

I like the idea of wearing the world like a loose garment.  I like the imagery of floating out of my head, up above my body, and looking down, watching myself interact with the world.  Most of the time I'm behaving reasonably but some of the time I'm an idiot; an idiot I cannot see well when I'm up inside my own head.  When I'm floating skyward I can see the whole scene from a larger perspective.  Not just my own stupid perspective and stupid it can most certainly be.

Mother Goose Speaketh

 For every ailment under the sun,                                                                                                          There is a solution or there is none.                                                                                                              If there be one, try to find it.                                                                                                                          If there be none, never mind it.                                                                                                                      Mother Goose

C'mon man, if Mother Goose speaks you best listen up.  It's fucking Mother Goose!

What difference does it make if things are left undone tonight?  Will it matter ten years from now?  Nothing is so important that we should carry tension and worry into our relaxation time.  What's important is our ability to accept the day's events by the time we're ready to sleep.

Everyone is afraid - it's what you do with the fear that counts.

Let life live through you.  Say "yes" to life.

Spending money on other people makes you happier than spending money on yourself.

Barney Gumbel

There's a theory in psychology called Confirmation Bias.  This is a tendency for humans to seek out people and sources that confirm what they already believe.  This is most apparent in politics, of course, where many of us look for "news" sources that say what we want to hear.  It's an efficient way to justify the stupidest, most ridiculous viewpoints.  Consider a group of drunks sitting at a bar at two in the morning, complaining about their spouses and their jobs and the courts and the general disorder in the world.  Show this to a impartial third party and they laugh and shake their heads at the insanity.  We drunks would shake our heads right back at the doubters.  We're with people who think that sitting in a bar at two in the morning is a great, great idea and they confirm our insanity.

There's a great scene in a Simpson's episode where Barney comes to in Moe's Bar after a long bender, complaining about the state of affairs, and then he looks down at his arm which has a handcuff that is attached to the door of a police car.  "And where the hell did this come from?" he asks.

His two fellow barflies respond: "Haven't you always had that?" the first one says.  "Yeah, I can't really picture you without it," says the other.

That's confirmation bias.  Listening to people saying what you want to hear.

"We are sure that God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.  We cannot believe that this life is meant to be full of sadness and tears, although it used to feel that way for many of us.  Now we know that we made our  own misery.  God didn't do it.  So we take care not to go on creating more misery.  If trouble comes to us, we use it as a reason to think about the wisdom of our Higher Power."

Plain Language Big Book PP 118-119.

Quoting People Wiser Than Me

"The lesson I learned is that if you have all the fresh water that you want and enough food to eat then you don't have anything to complain about."

Eddie Rickenbacker (An airman shot down over the Pacific who spent three weeks floating in a lifeboat before being rescued.)

"The more attached you are to something, the more your vision is obscured and narrowed, sometimes to the point at which you are convinced that there is only one way to proceed.  Your attachment to a specific belief cuts off your ability to see beyond that one possibility."

The Toltecs

"Many of us have spent time thinking that our spirituality makes us superior people.  Eventually, we see that this is childish.  That attitude is replaced by a great sense of purpose, and a growing understanding of the power of God in our lives."

Plain Language Big Book PP 116-17

Spiritual Awakenings

 I wanted to write today about the concept of a spiritual awakening.  A good starting point is to Google something and shuffle through the responses, see if anything catches my eye.  One of the frequently searched terms if you simply type in "spiritual experience" apparently is along the lines of "am I having a spiritual awakening or spiraling into  psychosis?"  Did not see that coming.  (laughing, shaking my head emoji.)

Seriously, though, a spiritual awakening is characterized by a deep change in how a person feels, thinks, and sees reality.  Those of us so blessed will often display a clear mind, one that allows us to feel a deep sense of calm, joy, and love.   We feel grounded.  We know who we are and we stay connected to everyday life in a meaningful way.  We grasp the concept of humility in a deeply insightful way.  We feel more humble and this allows us to be kind to other people.  There is a profound shift in consciousness and a growing realization that you are not just your everyday thoughts, emotions, or ego, but part of a deeper, infinite awareness.

These spiritual awakenings may include a questioning of long-held beliefs and a strong need for occasional solitude.  We find an increasingly heightened intuition and begin to feel a deep, genuine empathy which leads to giant improvements in our relationships.  Peace in everyday life becomes not just a possibility but a reality.  We lose interest in material things.  OK, nobody loses all interest in material things - More money!  More sex!!  More power!!! - but we're able to keep those drives in a reasonable balance.

Here's a personal example of what I believe is a benefit of having some kind of spiritual awakening:

I always tip food service professionals.  In my humble opinion it's ridiculous that wealthy corporations try to shift their employee's compensation off of their balance sheet and into their customers' wallets but when I am elected Ruler of the World I'll get that squared away.  I bought a drink from a Starbucks that was inside a Kroger.  I paid with a credit card and was confused that there was no way to add a tip to the charge.  I opened my wallet which contained approximately zero dollars and then noticed that there wasn't a tip jar, either.  I asked the barista about this and she said that because the coffee shop was located in a Kroger that their policy of no tips took precedence.  I can understand this - you don't want cashiers and stock personnel hassling shoppers for money - but I wasn't thrilled with this policy.  I talked with the woman a bit about the difference between a no tipping culture and a tipping culture and agreeing that every employee should be fairly compensated for their work.  She was calm and reflective about the situation while agreeing that a little more money would be nice.

I left with my coffee.  (I should add that I was only at the Starbucks because the line at my regular spot was too long and I'm a busy, important guy.  That didn't stop me from using their bathroom before I walked home even though I didn't buy their product.)  I went to the bank and got some cash and walked back to the Starbucks.  I asked for some inspiration on timing and what an appropriate response would be.  The barista was alone so I stopped and said: "Excuse me, miss, but when you turned around this fell out of your pocket" and I dropped ten bucks onto one of the inventory boxes.  (Balance is my best friend!  I wanted to give her $5 but I could have given her $20 so the tenner was a good choice.)  She looked at me with a confused expression before she got it.  A smile and a mouthed "thank you" and I was down the road.

This was a few days ago and I'm still living on the fumes of the experience.  While the money was appreciated I bet that it was the kindness, the recognition that she enjoyed the most.  It's wonderful to feel seen, to be noticed.  I try to learn people's names and to remember a little, tiny speck of information about them so I can inquire after their pet or their family or their schooling.  I definitely do NOT talk on my phone when I'm in line.

I Intend to Make Sense

Intention:  A plan to do something.  It is what you mean to do and not what you actually do.  Or as it has been said with some beautiful snark: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."  The hidden purpose, heart motive, or inner will behind a person's thoughts or actions.  In psychology there's a keen interest in the fact that before we take any action - even something as pedestrian as getting up from a chair or taking a sip of coffee - we have to intend to do it.  I find this an arcane concept and not worthy of my attention until I'm reminded that the benefit to me of being aware of such an ordinary intention is that it helps me to pause and consider before I act or speak and this is a big, big help when I'm getting prepared to do something more weighty than drinking a cup of coffee.  That's a joke, of course - there is nothing on God's green earth more important that coffee.  If I can't smoke a joint or drink whiskey I'm telling you that coffee is all I got.

The daily reminder I remind myself of is that the world is going to judge me by my actions even though I would love to be judged by my intentions.

Acting with intention means making conscious, deliberate choices aligned with your core values and goals, rather than reacting on autopilot or impulse.  How many times in my drinking/using life did I hear someone ask me: "What were you thinking?" as we discussed what stupid thing I had just done or what stupid thing I had just said.

In spirituality, intention is the core energy, the why or inner state of being behind your thoughts, words, and actions.  It's a conscious choice to align your personal energy with a higher purpose, love, or truth and serves as a blueprint for how you move through the world.

I don't always understand what's going on when I consider these weighty questions.  I lived in a world of Impulse - Action where thinking or planning wasn't foremost in my mind.  Consequences?  Bleh.  Figure out how to correct the damage later.  I'd rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

My muse, sponsor, and spiritual advisor Homer was defending against some criticism by arguing that his plans were well thought out as the animators opened up a thought bubble inside Homer's brain which showed someone passed out on a broken Merry go round that was slowly circling in the wind, rusty gears complaining.  I get it.  For someone who considers himself a deeply profound thinker I was living on a remarkably shallow plane.

To set a spiritual intention I find it helpful to find a quiet space, to clear my mind with deep breathing, and reflect on the inner qualities and energy that I want to embody.  Intention begins when a thought or desire meets a goal; a goal predicated on human needs or wants.  It's gotta be so deep inside us!  My meditation practice helps me get into the brief, flickering space where what I want clangs up against how to do I get it.  Are the getting actions going to be pure or evil-ish?

Intentions are responsible for initiating, sustaining, and terminating actions and are frequently use to explain why people engage in a certain behavior.  I feel like all of this is trying to explain how a thought begins.  What happens to set off that electrical spark and get things moving?

I think I should intend to watch an episode of The Simpson's to take my mind off all of these unanswerable questions.  I'm sure Homer explains it somewhere.

Negativity Bias

"For us, material well-being always followed spiritual progress; it never came first."

The Plain Language Big Book P 113  

Dammit!  That is SO unfair.  If I had a lot of material stuff then I'd be more inclined to do spiritual stuff.  If I'm not going to get a lot of nice stuff why the hell would I work on my spirituality?  A wise man once said: "The more expensive the chair . . . the more profound the meditation."

"Another principle we live by is this: We do not share the private or secret experiences of someone else unless we know they will feel okay about it.  Usually, we just stick to our own stories.  Any person may criticize or laugh at themselves, and other people may laugh along.  But criticisms coming from another person create the opposite reaction.  We alcoholics are sensitive people.  It takes some of us a long time to outgrow that troublesome trait."

The Plain Language Big Book PP 113-14.

I am famously sarcastic among my friends and neighbors.  I guess also among my enemies and competitors to be honest about it.  The point is that I get away with it - mostly because it's so over the top and transparently kind but also because I can take a punch, a shot.  I'm an idiot!  I know I'm an idiot!  So if you want to call me an idiot I'm with you, dude.

Repeating myself, saying the same over and over, saying the same thing using slightly different words, I adhere ferociously to the maxim that I don't say anything about anybody that I wouldn't say if the person was standing right next to me.  I don't want anyone to accuse me of talking shit behind their back.  If I can't say it to you I don't think it should be said. 

Negativity bias is a cognitive bias that results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events.  This bias occurs even when adverse events and positive events are of the same magnitude, meaning we feel negative events more intensely.  Most of our instinctual responses to the world were hard-wired in when the world was a much more threatening place than it is now.  We had to worry about starving or freezing to death or being eaten by something large that had lots of sharp teeth.  The fact that most of us are no longer in those kinds of circumstances hasn't eradicated that instinct.  I've always considered myself a negative, suspicious person.  Hurray for me and no shit!  I'm a survivor.  I can see now that my eyes are opened - or opening, at least - that most of us are like that although I tend to take things way, way too far.  One study suggests that we need to hear something positive six times for it to really take hold while we get the negative thing on the first attempt.  The fact that most of us have a negative bias suggests that all the positive people have been eaten up.

Not me, man.  Nothin's going to catch me today.

Forgive? Never!

It's an interesting word, forgiveness.  It's an interesting concept.  Before I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I had very little grasp of what it meant.  I had absolutely no concept that the magic of forgiveness is what it does to me.  While it can be a real gift, a real blessing to the person I'm forgiving there's no guarantee that it will change that person's life - the guarantee is that it will change my life.  This is the basis of A.A.'s action Steps: admitting my faults - my faults - and then admitting to another person where and when I've behaved poorly with no expectation that this will be well-received or that I will be forgiven by the other person.  The whole idea is to set myself free and to leave the reaction of the other person entirely up to them.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.

I guarantee very few things but here's a doozy and ironclad to boot - you are not going to be able to change the past.

It's the intention to forgive that's important.  It frees me from having to actually forgive someone in that moment.  That can be hard.  If I want to forgive someone who has harmed me - or who I think has harmed me - I can at least start with intending to forgive them and I have found that the forgiveness will come, the resentment will fade, the freedom will manifest itself.

A resentment is like eating poison and hoping the other person will die.

I have found this to be true - that there is no one alive today that I think owes me an apology.  I hold very few resentments and when I do I don't hold them for long.  This, naturally, has some nuance.  It doesn't always hold up under the withering light of inspection.  But mostly I'm at peace with other people.  And, critically, I don't have anyone that I need to apologize to today.  When I fuck up I take care of it, right then, right there, stat.  I cannot abide with that feeling of guilt.

Screw Guilt.

Forgive is a word that arose in the 5th century or so in England.  So not that ancient a word.  Maybe we knew how to do it and what it meant intuitively but the concrete concept is not that old.  The Biblical concept is to release, pardon, or forgive a debt.

Forgive:  To forgive means to stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone who has done something wrong, choosing to let go of the desire for punishment or revenge; it is a persona choice to release negative feelings, rather than a requirement to forget, excuse, or reconcile.

 A true apology is a repair process; it requires taking total responsibility for a mistake, acknowledging the pain caused to the other person, felling sincere regret, and committing to changed behavior so the action is not repeated.

The Past, The Present. and The Future

We don’t remember every single thing that has ever happened to us.  There’s a mistaken belief that it’s all in there somewhere and that if we could only properly and efficiently access the memory files then we could relive each instant of our lives.  Our brains are too smart for this.  Our brains fill in cracks.  The simplest analogy is our eyesight - there’s too much going on in the world and it’s happening too fast so our brains fill in the gaps.  There are plenty of studies done on people who have had retinal tears or an optical disease that deprives them of a chunk of their eyesight but they’re unaware of this - the brain combines the images of both eyes and glosses over the missing visuals so that the person manages well enough.

What’s even more interesting is that our brains seem to screw around with our memories to make them conform to our current perception of ourselves.  For instance, if you were cruel to an animal long ago and you’re no longer cruel to animals that sets up a dissonance in your head.  You’re uncomfortable with the fact that you were cruel.  It’s incompatible with the image you have of yourself so your brain begins to subtly alter this memory so that you think you didn’t behave the way you actually did.  Often this dis-remembering leads to some outrageous and easily disproved lies.  We look at people who have been caught making something up with our mouths agape and our eyes agog.  “How could he/she think she could get away with that bald-faced lie?” we think.  It may very well be that the person isn’t lying but rather listening to the crap his/her brain has made up.  Some people, of course, are actually lying.  There are lying liars out there.

Our brains have a lot going on.  The speculation is that some of this rewriting of history is a way to make sure that we don’t go absolutely batshit crazy.
Life gets lifey sometimes. If you keep doing what you've been doing you'll keep getting what you've been getting.
Time is seen differently backwards and forwards. Write your own obituary.  Being productive versus being on vacation.

Evolution

Our community is reserved for people who are over 55.  People over 55 are a famously crotchety bunch.  Many of us are way over 55 and most of us are retired.  So if you're still young let me say this: do not fuck with old, retired people.  We don't have anything to do except keep an eye on our neighbors.  A critical eye.  We look out the front window and if we see someone we don't know we say: "Who's this?  What's he doing?" We don't like noise or messes or big dogs and we loathe children with all of their yelling and running around and making a racket.  Ironically, as people age they express a great deal more happiness and satisfaction in their lives but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who'd admit to that.  If you move into a community for older adults you'll find that there are more rules to follow than you can imagine. There are rules for infractions I don't know what the infractions are.  I assume they're made up infractions.  I assume that most of the rules - many of them seem petty and obvious - came into being because someone violated a common sense practice.  For instance, you are not allowed to wash your car in you own driveway, having instead to take it to kind of a washing bay.  I, personally, do not do this.  Call management and complain if you will but I'm not going to drive my car with all my car-washing gear and wet chamois and soaps somewhere else to do the washing.  There are car-washing establishments if I want to drive somewhere else.  I'm a pretty good neighbor and I get along with my neighbors so no one has ratted me out yet but I see some fluttering curtains.  They're keeping an eye on me.  They know what's going on.

Anyway, one rule is that you can't work on boats in your driveway.  Boat Guy did this.  And you can't store bags of crap in your backyard and - guess what? - there's the birth of Garbage Bag Guy who is the same Guy as Boat Guy which is doubly irritating while also being convenient when you finally get fed up enough to rat someone out.  You're supposed to have plants in your little front yard but the weirdos across the street don't do this but I don't care.  I like them.  The man next door is pretty deaf so from time to time he'll blast Mexican music while he's grilling skirt steaks or whatever tough, inedible meat he likes to grill.  Fair enough and no harm, no foul.  My car is loud when I head off to the Keep It Complicated meeting early in the morning.

So Boat Guy/Garbage Bag Guy has been storing a lot of wood and other random garbage-ey crap in his backyard which is definitely not allowed.   We shrugged and let it pass . . . until we had our second rat infestation in the crawl space under our house.  I have no proof that his crap is the genesis of the rats but if I was a rat a big pile of musty, dark wood might make a nice home to raise my rat family.  SuperK has now christened him Rat Boy which is an excellent nickname.  An excellent third nickname which is one nickname too many.   No plants in your front yard?  Eh.  Loud salsa music sometimes?  Meh.  Rats under my house which are expensive to eradicate?  Fuck that.

Assumptions

Assume:  To accept something as true without proof (commonly held definition); to pretend to have a different name or to be someone you are not, or to express a feeling falsely (how interesting!).

I assume most people are idiots while assuming the identity of someone who doesn't think most people are idiots.  A Win-Win for Seaweed!  The evolution of words can be so interesting.  Assume was a Latin word that roughly meant to take on oneself but evolved into this more sinister meaning over the years.  An assumed identity.  I assumed that I knew what the fuck I was doing.  No one else assumed this but I assumed I was fooling them.

There is a very human tendency to write a story based on assumptions.  I see someone in a Porsche I assume they're rich.  I see someone digging a ditch I assume they're not smart.  I see . . . I see . . . I see . . . There was a man in Cincinnati who had more sobriety than I did but no front teeth.  He dressed in clothes that suggested a life of manual labor.  Arrogant prick that I am I created a persona for this guy and I was way, WAY off.  I took the time to get to know him and this dude read more that me and I read a LOT.

The Toltecs warn against this tendency of our flawed minds to filter everything through our past experiences, to supplement new information with these existing beliefs and experiences.  And voila! we know the future!  Assumptions based on past experiences can wreak havoc on our lives.

If I draw two thirds of a triangle on a piece of paper or an incomplete circle or half of a bicycle most people will finish the picture in their minds based on what they have already experienced.  I assume this satisfies some ancient instinctual impulse but it also can lead to mistakes in our awareness.

Because I love thinking about the human mind, trying to understand why we do what we do, I'll toss in something called the Action Bias which is the tendency to choose some action over doing nothing.  The best example is a soccer goalie defending against a penalty shot.  The goalie will almost always try to anticipate an attempt to the left or to the right and dive in that direction while - statistically - standing in the middle of the goal is going to give him or her the best chance to block the shot.

Eck-wah-NIM-eh-tee

Equanimity:  (In many spiritual traditions) A balanced, stable state of mind that remains undisturbed by life's ups and downs.  It means meeting pleasure and pain, praise and blame, or success and failure without clinging to them or fighting with them.  It is an alert, caring presence and not emotional coldness.

The Eight Worldly Winds: (In Buddhist traditions) Gain and Loss.  Pleasure and Pain.  Praise and Blame.  Fame and Disrepute.  Equanimity lets a person watch these shifting conditions pass by without letting emotional storms control their actions.  

True equanimity cares deeply while staying non-reactive.  This doesn't mean doing nothing - it means creating the clear mental state needed to make wise decisions.  It's the liberating quality that  allows us to keep our hearts open and balanced, quiet and steady, in the midst of life's inevitable vagaries.  We don't scream "Foul!" when things don't go our way and we don't sit there with a self-satisfied look on our faces, nodding smugly, when we get what we want because we don't know what we want, most of the time, and even when we get it we're just going to want more.  If that's not frustrating enough sometimes when we get what we want it doesn't work out in our favor in a real meaningful way.

I'm reading a Mark Twain novella right now which is centered around a dude named Satan.  Not that Satan, who we all can agree is a pretty bad dude, but a nephew named after his uncle.   Nephew Satan is slumming around on earth, really quite dismissive of humans and their often cruel, self-centered natures, always preferring the company of animals who he believes have purity in their actions and intentions.  In the course of his wanderings he befriends three young boys and tries to teach them that all of our actions mean something in the long run, that if we get what we want that it may cause incalculable suffering later on.  As an example, he tells the boys that one of their friends is going to sneak out of the house one evening and then drown in the river while attempting unsuccessfully to save a child who was swept into the current.  The boys are bereft and ask Satan what they can do to change the course of events so that their friend stays alive.  Satan agrees to do this but only if they will allow him to show them how their friend's life will play out in this changed reality.  The friend contracts polio and lives for many years, bedridden and in pain, trapped in an iron lung and the small girl is forced into a life of prostitution when her parents are killed in a train accident.  The lesson is we are not assured that if we let our puny human minds decide the future will  improve.  It is the reminder that we need to stay present and enjoy every minute, doing the best we can to be good, decent people, certain in the knowledge that life is unspooling in a manner that we'll never be able to comprehend.

Equanimity is a profound quality of strength and evenness of mind undisturbed by emotional upheavals.  The ability to maintain an inner balance and calm, no matter what may be happening around us.  We try to strengthen our observation skills so that we may see and understand the whole situation instead of one little part.  The Pali word is upekkha which means "balance" and it refers to our ability to arrest the mind before it falls into extremes.

"When you listen to the voices in your head, do you hear words of fear and judgment and stories that cause inner conflict and struggle?  Or do you hear words of support, unconditional love, and self-acceptance?"

The Toltecs

Root Canals!

 Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment on purpose and without judgement. It is the basic human ability to be fully aware of where you are, what you are doing, and how you feel, rather than being overly reactive or overwhelmed by thoughts.

Mindfulness means maintaining a moment by moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment through a gentle, nurturing lens.  Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them.  Without believing, for instance, that there's a "right" or "wrong" way to think or feel in a given moment.  When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we're sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.  Life slows down.  I make better decisions when I'm listening for that small, still, inner voice instead of careening down the freeway at a hundred miles per hour.

This is from a Hazelden meditation book: "Today we can slow down the pace and notice the things around us."  More mindfulness.  More reminders to be present.

The Toltecs: "If I see working through the filter of 'I want to" it is because I have placed my intent in that direction; I am working willingly.  Remembering this makes all the difference in the world.  Recognize you always have a choice, and once you've made a decision, follow through without  resistance.  You don't 'have to' do anything; but do choose to do many things, for many different reasons."

I dunno.  This is one lovely intent but it's pretty tough to willingly go and have a root canal.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a conscious, voluntary decision to let go of resentment, bitterness, and anger towards someone who has hurt you.  It is aimed at personal peace and emotional healing rather than forgetting the offense or reconciling with the wrongdoer.

Forgiveness is not forgetting the event but releasing the emotional hold that it may have over you.

Forgiveness is a release of resentment and anger.

Forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which one changes their feelings and attitude toward the offender and in so doing overcomes the impact of the offense, including negative emotions like resentment and a desire for vengeance.

Vengeance!  Vengeance is mine!

Forgiveness helps me.  It releases me.  I try to compare the impact of a wrong done to me with the slow, grinding pain that I endure while plotting revenge for that wrong.  It's a slaughter.  It's not close.  

Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing will annoy them more.

This is all plagiarized from brilliant thinkers and seers and sages across time.  Except for one little bit that's mine.  How hard is it to forgive and how wonderful the benefits!  That we're shocked about this is what's shocking.  How easy it is to nurse a grudge, to feed it well, keep it warm and safe while it grows from a mouse to a T-Rex.

Ozzie and Montaigne and Ralphie . . . Sitting in a Tree . . . .

Sometimes things make sense and sometimes I'm clueless.  I'm clueless more often than I'd like to be but I'm encouraged by the fact that I'm not always clueless and that some of the time the bouts of cluelessness aren't absolute.  I was lost in the wheels of confusion.  I was the guy that other people were watching and saying: "That dude has no clue."

Here's a side note: for a while when I was struggling to come to terms with the concept of a Higher Power I considered using Ozzy Osbourne.  I was vaguely aware that this wasn't a great idea but being vaguely aware of anything was a big step up from being completely clueless.  I figure I could do worse.  Here are sample lyrics which explain why he was even a candidate:

Lost in the wheels of confusion,

Spinning through valleys of tears.

Eyes full of angry delusion,

Hiding in everyday fears.

I heard these lyrics and they buried themselves deeply into my subconscious immediately.

Ironically, most of the lyrics were written by the bass player Geezer Butler who was a seriously religious kid and seriously considered entering the priesthood.  Go figure and before you judge someone in a band called Black Sabbath mayhaps you should keep an open mind.

Sometimes I have a topic which I write about and sometimes I don't.  So here I am writing about Black Sabbath in a blog ostensibly about recovery.

Okay, let's go deep:
"The height of wisdom is to take things as they  are . . . to endure what we cannot evade."
Montaigne

Lest you look down your nose at me for worshipping Ozzy Osbourne consider this quote from Montaigne, one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance.  He wrote in the 16th century which was a long time ago to be so smart.  Basically, this quote is a forerunner to The Serenity Prayer.  Have the wisdom to understand what you can do and what you cannot.  It's not always action.  Action is easier than waiting.

I once had a T-shirt that had two vultures sitting on a tree branch, one of them quipping: "Wait?  Dammit, I want to kill something."

"What must I do is all that concerns me - not what people think.  It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after our own - but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now Ralphie was writing in the 20th century and so was Ozzy and Geezer so there's that.  Ralphie has as a core philosophy that the natural world was a living, spiritual canvas where God, humans, and the universe were deeply unified.  How cool is that shit?  I tell people all the time that if you're having trouble establishing your own personal Higher Power connection go outside in as quiet a place as you can manage and look around you, have a listen, because there's a lot going on and much of it is pretty cool.

"I greet the ups and downs of life's journey with unconditional love for myself and the people in my life by understanding that I am only truly alive in the present moment:  the future is a projection that does not exist."

The Toltecs

Error . . . . Uhhhhh . . . . One Day at a Time!

Negative Seaweed

"I grew up to have my father's looks, my father's attitude, my father's posture, my father's opinions, and my mother's contempt for my father."

Jules Feiffer

Negativity Bias: The human tendency to give more attention, weight, and value to negative words, experiences, and information than to positive ones of the same level.  They're more psychologically intense.  If you eat a good pear - it's delicious! - but if you eat a bad piece of meat - you're dead!

Starting out with a bad attitude, a suspicious one.

Tomorrow I have a cardiologist appointment in the morning and a dentist appointment in the afternoon.  I'm feeling some negativity here.  And I'm swimming before the appointments which doesn't count as a positive experience.

Luckily, we are not our thoughts.

I'm Listening . . . .

The awesome power of bouncing ideas off of another person, maybe someone you don't always agree with or with someone that you definitely disagree with.  Just listening to what someone with a different viewpoint has to say is an example of how I can practice extending grace.  It's important to have these exchanges of ideas.  Sometimes someone else has a better approach than me.  I have to remember that I thought a life of drug and alcohol use was a good - was the only solution to my angst and depression - when all it did was worsen the symptoms without addressing the root causes.  We need each other and we need our Higher Power to grow.  Talking back and forth sharpens and challenges each person's faith.

I've been edgy the last many days.  Hey, it happens.  Lean into the edgy.  Look at the edgy.  What is the lesson the edgy is trying to teach me?  My struggles occur when I try to get what I just think is the cause of the edginess into a chokehold and wrestle it to the ground, subdue the edgy.  I find my discomfort is heightened when I'm "off" somehow and don't exactly know why and, when this happens, little, minor upsets take on gigantic proportions.   I need to remember that an elephant is a mouse built to an alcoholic's specifications.  I am a certified Master Explosives Expert when it comes to taking something small and making a big explosion.

Originally the A.A. Program was built around Six Steps - not Twelve - but Bill, the Master Complicator had to double the total and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that Twelve is more than Six.  A lot more.  Twice as many.  Some of us occasionally simplify recovery to Three salient points:  Find God, clean house, help others.

My minister friend: "One result of the genuine bedrock Christian principle that all are welcome and all are forgivable, redeemable, is that it makes me more accepting of people who I once sneered at.  (Ed. Note: Good word, sneer is.  Sneer: A look, smile, or remark that shows scorn, contempt, or lack of respect.)  (My friend veers religious here, maybe more religious than I'm comfortable with but he's a minister for chrissake . . . )  "Christ showed me, made it ok for me to admit I'm as messed up as anybody, one of the most freeing feelings one can have .  . . not having to pretend to be so perfect or so normal, and this made me 100% more comfortable in my own skin."

How incredibly important it is to learn the skill of listening!  I had very little grasp of the concept of listening to someone else because I was so consumed with talking, with making sure I was getting my point across, I was being heard, that you understood me.  How many times have I heard a story I've heard once or twice or many times before.  Most people just want to be heard.  Most people figure things out on their own and the act of someone listening while they talk things out is all that's necessary.  I used to think they wanted my advice, they wanted me to tell them what to do, to solve their problems, this dude who needed a haircut and was obviously half-drunk and fully-high, THAT'S the dude who's got all the answers.  Sheesh.  The ego!  I have been cleaning out and organizing some old photos and occasionally I'll come across one of me where the image is so alarming I'll let out a yelp.

More Damn Grace

I think about meditation a lot.  I practice regularly.  I suck at it.  I have no idea how to do it effectively or how it's supposed to look.  And that's okay.  That is exactly what meditation is, sort of a clueless wandering awareness.  To me an apt analogy would be beginning to lift weights or to train for a marathon.  The important step is the first one - take a light weight and lift it or strap on a pair of running shoes that cost way more than is necessary for your first run.  There won't be any awareness of having taken a step toward a goal as you wheeze your way along, barely making it around the block, but without that initial gasping and choking for oxygen you sure as shit aren't going to get yourself in shape for a marathon.  I know in my personal meditation practice what has happened is that I find that I'm much calmer, much more present as I move through my day.  I'm not really aware of this calmness on a breath to breath basis but I know that life seems slower, more manageable, less alarming as the result of the meditation.  I don't jump to wild conclusions and act rashly - or as rashly, at least - as I used to.  People don't piss me off to the same degree.  When something pleasant happens I'm present enough to enjoy it and when something unpleasant happens, some pain or noxious stimuli or unwelcome encounter, I'm usually fine with it, not following it through to some wild, implausible conclusion.  "Eh, whatever" is a typical response.

Because I'm an Analogy Guy and because some of the teachers that I follow thrive on analogies, trying to give our tiny, rational minds some insight on how to approach meditation, I enjoy the imagery of little things changing while big things remain impermanent.  Sitting by a river and watching the constantly changing flow of water while noticing that the river is still a river - the water changes but the river endures.  Or watching clouds drifting across the sky, here for a moment and then gone, but the sky isn't going anywhere.  Lost in my thinking I'm drifting along through the clouds but then I burst through into the clear sky, into the sunshine, and voila! the sky is still there!  The clouds - my thoughts - are changing and intruding, as they should and they always have and they always will - but the sky - my awareness - will always be with me.

I talked to my old, dear friend yesterday - a retired banker and a retired pastor and how about the discord in that imagery? - about prayer and meditation.  It was so much fun to bounce ideas off of each other, his religious practice and my secular practice based on the non-traditional way that is Alcoholics Anonymous, and to see how much continuity there is between the two efforts, both of us, I think, striving to get to the same place, a place of love and understanding and perspective.  We talked about sweet, sweet grace and while I can get my dander ruffled a bit when I hear someone emphasize grace as a gift that an all-powerful God doles out I also listened as he emphasized how important it is to grant ourselves grace.  How many times I've listened to new people beating the shit out of themselves while trying to urge them to give their own damn self a break.

Gotta tell you that it was deeply, deeply satisfying to bounce these huge concepts off of another person - love and grace and the nature of God - not always agreeing but listening and pondering and finding many more points of agreement than of disagreement.  I'm quite taken with the imagery of water flowing down a river - the river doesn't change even though the water is constantly changing or watching clouds float by . . . the clouds move along but the sky is still there, is always there.