Off We Go Into The Wild, Blue Yonder

Sometimes I take long trips to far away places.  When I figure out door-to-door times the figure of 24 hours comes up.  If I feel like can spend a bunch of time concentrating on the discomfort and lack of sleep and disorientation and inconvenience of such a long voyage.  I looked up the details of Charles Lindberg's first non-stop transoceanic flight recently - 33 hours and that was a solo flight.  It wasn't like he could catch a quick nap or anything.  I go a lot farther than he did and in relative comfort.

Maybe I should spend more time concentrating on the positive and not so much time pondering the negative.  I'm happier when I do that.

Here's the long form of Tradition Twelve from the Plain Language Big Book: "The last Tradition says that we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that anonymity is an idea that has huge and important spiritual significance.  It reminds us that our principles are more important than our personalities.  It helps us remember that we must remain truly humble at all times.  Staying humble helps us never take for granted our great blessings.  It means we will always be able to live in thankful contemplation of the Higher Power who watches over us all."

Squat

One of our more complicated Keep It Complicated members is a bit of a doozy.  He has been erratic and unpredictable which doesn't exclude him from our membership, that's for sure.   I think I heard that he had been in a bad car accident but that's unconfirmed.  He might have been a heavy drug user - some of the stuff making the rounds out there right now is scary stuff - or he might just have some kind of emotional or mental deficiency.  For a while when he shared every third word out of his mouth was effing this and effing that and was more storytelling than recoverytelling.  I myself have been known to drop an F-Bomb - even in a meeting - but when it's overused it can get tedious and I have to keep in mind that it's going to be offensive to some people.  He was called out about this at a meeting a while back and he reacted in a dramatic way - slamming out of the room in a hurricane of obscenity.  We didn't see him for a while but now he's showing up again.  He seems a lot calmer, a lot better.  I make it a point to always say hello to him but other than that I've been keeping my distance.  Dealing with someone like that is best left to our younger, beefier members.

Our Saturday meeting is larger than on any given weekday.  During the secretary's announcements before we pray out the woman who has that commitment on Saturday made a point of thanking this man for showing up early and setting up the room, no tiny task for a group that averages close to 60 people.  He got a round of applause and it was evident this attention really pleased him.  Then, as happens in our Fellowship, he won the raffle for a year's subscription to the Grapevine, our meeting in print.  For the gambling addicts among us that's a one in thirty-six chance.  The room erupted with applause and hoots and hollers.  Now our boy had a big smile on his face.  He's the kind of person that's vaguely off-putting so I wonder/worry about the effects of loneliness and isolation in his life.  Who knows?  Maybe he's got a big family and a wide circle of friends?  Still, I was glad to see the inclusiveness of Keep It Complicated.  Sometimes the meeting gets under my skin for being too gentle and accommodating, and then I see the effects on someone who needs to be handled with gentleness and accomodation.  

You know what I know?  Squat.  Squat is what I know.

At Peace, At Rest

"Rest is not a matter of doing absolutely nothing.  Rest is repair."                                                             Daniel Josslyn

I try to listen to my body.  It sends me subtle messages then not so subtle messages and then it screams loudly that I need to slow down, to rest.  I don't think resting necessarily means doing nothing.  It can be slowing down my pace, becoming less active, less tense and intense, saying "enough is enough."  I read an essay from an introvert who struggled to explain to her extroverted husband why she needed bursts of solitude and quiet: "When you see me sitting, looking out at the lake?  I'm doing something.  I know it looks like nothing but that's not the case."  Quietly recharging the mental and emotional batteries.

The Plain Language Big Book includes this phrase in its description of Tradition Twelve: "It reminds us that A.A.'s principles should guide us, not what individual members say, do, think, or believe."  Love it.  I always struggled when I heard "principles before personalities."

This Is The End, My Friend, The End

The father of my dear sincity friend, Spandex, succumbed to the inevitability a few days ago, a father with whom he was close.  Spandex is about twenty years younger than me so I can share my very real recollections of how the loss of both of my parents and my A.A. sponsor of twenty-five years - more of a everyday dad than my real father - affected me.  If a parent lives to a reasonably ripe old age the loss brings into sharp reflection that there really is an end game here.  People are going to get older and get sicker and then die.  We can speculate all we want about What Comes Next but there are no known examples of anyone cheating The End here on earth.  Death is a very real, very defined thing.  The person is gone and that, my friends, is that.  I try my best to live a good life and to treat people well because at some point there's not going to be a chance to correct wrongs, to make things right.  Some regret is going to be inevitable but let's all try to keep our side of the street squeaky clean.  Let's avoid those "I shoulda done this" and those "I shouldna done that" to a dull roar, to an absolute minimum.

I was at the endodontist yesterday to have a root canal redone - should I call that a re-root? - and this was the second root canal that had to be redone.  The endodontist shrugged when we were talking about why this was happening.  Sometimes stuff doesn't work out.  Sometimes people get cancer.  Sometimes people abuse their teeth for their whole lives and suffer no adverse consequences and sometimes people (Me!  That people!) floss and brush and water-pik and get regular check-ups and my teeth shrug - meh - and fall apart.  And I'm aware that at my age the ability of my body to repair itself gets more and more tenuous.  All I can do is to take good action and - when things don't work out the way I want them to - sit quietly with the results and learn whatever lesson is there for me to learn.  The doctor and I yesterday briefly talked about the misery that almost always occured to the few people who made it to my age who 100 years ago.  No novocaine.  No implants.  Crappy antibiotics.  No pain killers if a tooth needed to be extracted.  I'm assuming most older people were walking around with half of their teeth gone, gumming their gruel in the morning.  My jaw was damn sore last night - so what?

Thanks to Jim Morrison and The Doors for today's title.

Om Mani Padme Hum

Meditation Tone Number One:

Om Mani Padme Hum

An ancient Sanskrit mantra that translates as "The Jewel is in the Lotus."

Meditation Tone Number Two:

Om Shanti Ananda

Another ancient Sanskrit mantra "Om, Peace, Bliss."

Sanskrit is an Indo language that is four thousand years old and serves as the primary sacred language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

Om is a sound described in Hindu scriptures as being the primordial sound of creation.

I like Tone Number 2 better.  I'm not sure how the realization that the jewel is in the lotus makes me calmer and more present.  It is a little longer and more pleasant to the ear.  Too many clanging, hard "n" sounds in Number 2 which harshes my buzz somewhat.

There's a bit in a Simpson's episode where the hypocritical minister Lovejoy is glossing over the details of Apu's Hindu faith.  Apu says: "I'm Hindu!  There are a billion of us!"  The Reverand says: "That's super."

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."

Willa Cather

I can learn to be more accepting of my surroundings, the circumstances of my life.  I can learn to grow no matter how difficult it may seem.  Such growth can enrich my life and make me stronger so I don't break with the weight of problems or difficulties.  The trees are fixed in place so if the soil is crappy and rocky or there's a lack of moisture they have to deal with it.  They can't go someplace else where things are better.  I continue to marvel at the fact that in a healthy forest all the different species strive to thrive and prosper but they're also helping and being helped by the other beings around them.  They talk to each other if there's an insect infestation.  They dump their nutrients into the soil when they sense there time is up.  Oak trees aren't considered ancient until they reach four hundred years.  And they're not the oldest tree species by a long shot.  Maybe we should pay more attention to the trees?

Love, Love Me Do

"Intead of simply experiencing love, being love, our narrators explain how love should feel: what makes us worthy of love; who should love us and how they should express it; what we need to do or achieve to love ourselves, and what others need to do to receive our love in return."

 

Seek to love rather than be loved.     

"When we begin to believe society's analysis of what love should be and we become attached to that belief, we begin to impose it on ourselves and others, thus creating a distorted reflection of love.  What has really happened is that we have just made love conditional."

Love people for who they are and not who you want them to be.

Sometimes I see people at meetings looking at their phone.  That's there business, I guess.  I don't do it and they're not asking me if it's a good idea if they should do it so my example is all I can offer.  I read about the results of a study done that tried to quantify how effective multi-tasking is.  The technique was to ask the subject to read while simultaneously listening to someone speak through head phones, and then to test them to see how well they absorbed both sources of information.  Unsurprisingly, they did a shitty job remembering the information coming from either source.

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.