Principle: A fundamental assumption or guiding belief.
"What does 'principles before personalities' really mean? It means we practice honesty, humility, compassion, tolerance, and patience with everyone, whether we like them or not. Putting principles before personalities teaches us to treat everyone equally."
The funny thing about meetings is that they shall not run eternal. I've been grousing about a regular meeting of mine for an uncomfortably long time. The meeting is just fine, mind you, it's that I've allow it to get under my skin. From time to time I find that my impression of a group becomes dominated by personalities rather than by principles. I start to concentrate on the individual who's speaking instead of what the individual is saying. The message is colored by my pre-conceived notion of what the person is going to say. I'm willing to bet that if you provided me with the written text of a share that annoyed the shit out of me when it was being shared by someone who is annoying the shit out of me I'd be fine with the content. Sometimes I find myself closing my eyes and concentrating on the words so that my focus isn't affected by an annoying person. Irritating the shit out of me.
This general flaw runs in most of us and I say this to apply a thick salve of self-justification on the oozing sore that is my intolerance.
Over the years my meeting schedule changes periodically, but only after I've let my intolerant resentments free to rape and pillage and burn. I change - my schedule changes, my Program has different needs and requirements, I'm a different person, at least marginally - and the meeting changes - new people come, old people go, formats are tweaked. So it's time to try something different.
It's so hard to try something different.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Saturday, April 13, 2019
Saylor Park, West Virginia, Northern Wisconsin
I'm in an interior lobby of a big chemical plant. July heat and humidity percolating outside. Big, noisy A/C unit pumping dry, cool air about. I'm vaguely discontented. I have a moderate sized bomb in my briefcase. Waiting for the right moment. I kick off my wingtips and shinny up a dilapidated, rusty downspout. Hanging on with one powerful forearm, I remove my tie and affix the incendiary device to the crossbeam of a critical piece of chemical process equipment. Sweat pours into my eyes as I pause for a second and watch blood pulse in an engorged vein, sinews and tendons grotesquely distended. I swing down the gutter with chimpanzee-like dexterity and melt into the gloom.
Ever been here? Nice people. Major poverty. Little towns, dead or dying, hunched in valleys, clusters of ramshackle trailers and huts twisting along the spines of ridges. There appear to be a fair number of fires - the destroyed buildings are left to collapse in on themselves in a sad, reflective way. Great mining complexes abandoned, rusting in hollows stripped of vegetation. The houses following the roads share space with rivers or streams and ubiquitous railroad tracks. Long, long trains pound by, 3 or 4 or 5 locomotives pulling an endless line of coal cars.
Johnsonville, WI. The Johnsonville Sausage plant, second shift appointment. I pull into town well after dark on a brutally cold night after having made my way down narrow country roads pinned between piles of snow left by the plows, heaped 10 feet high - it was almost literally like driving in a tunnel. Huge clouds of steam billowed out of the plant, the smell of cooking meat, bright arc lamps bathing the facility in a weird, yellow glow. Johnsonville was small, dominated by the plant. I paused on the hill above town, looking at the monstrous sausage-maker, looking at the bar across the street with seductive neon beer advertisements glowing in the windows. There were a few pick up trucks parked in the snow-covered lot. Nothing else was moving anywhere. The steam would drift straight up for a while before a gust would drive it down and across the road.
I thought about it more seriously than I would have liked.
Ever been here? Nice people. Major poverty. Little towns, dead or dying, hunched in valleys, clusters of ramshackle trailers and huts twisting along the spines of ridges. There appear to be a fair number of fires - the destroyed buildings are left to collapse in on themselves in a sad, reflective way. Great mining complexes abandoned, rusting in hollows stripped of vegetation. The houses following the roads share space with rivers or streams and ubiquitous railroad tracks. Long, long trains pound by, 3 or 4 or 5 locomotives pulling an endless line of coal cars.
Johnsonville, WI. The Johnsonville Sausage plant, second shift appointment. I pull into town well after dark on a brutally cold night after having made my way down narrow country roads pinned between piles of snow left by the plows, heaped 10 feet high - it was almost literally like driving in a tunnel. Huge clouds of steam billowed out of the plant, the smell of cooking meat, bright arc lamps bathing the facility in a weird, yellow glow. Johnsonville was small, dominated by the plant. I paused on the hill above town, looking at the monstrous sausage-maker, looking at the bar across the street with seductive neon beer advertisements glowing in the windows. There were a few pick up trucks parked in the snow-covered lot. Nothing else was moving anywhere. The steam would drift straight up for a while before a gust would drive it down and across the road.
I thought about it more seriously than I would have liked.
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
The Three Instincts
Money, power, and sex, indeed.
I left the meeting this morning and drove to a nearby gas station. I have a leak in one of the rear tires on my Very Expensive Car. Needless to say - the tires are also very expensive. Everything on this car is very expensive. The idea was to fill the gas tank and then top off my leaking tire. One would think that a better idea might be to replace the fucking tire instead of driving around topping it off, bit by bit, worrying whether or not today will be the day when the leaking tire will be all leaked out, but then one would be wrong.
I found the air pressure on the air pump system to be suspect. Indeed, when I tried to fill the tire it seemed to me that air was exiting the tire rather than entering it. Indeed, when I got back into the car the automatic tire pressure monitoring system - god only knows what that feature cost me - indicated that the tire had less air in it than before. At this point I should note that a few months back I took the car into a tire store and had the tire repaired - it held air for a short while but was back to its old tricks in no time at all. I also let them put nitrogen into the tire instead of air for a $5 premium. I don't recall what advantage was purported to accrue from this move but suffice it to say that all of the $5 nitrogen is long gone, vanished into the atmosphere, replaced with ordinary air pump air, which is also vanishing regularly. I should also note that I use this particular gas station because they provide air for free instead of asking me to put 75 cents worth of quarters into a slot that activates an air pump.
I then drove to another gas station which I found charged $1.50 to use their system. This was unacceptable so I drove across the street to another gas station where the system also required a $1.50 donation. Still unacceptable but now I'm getting annoyed. I pull out and enter the freeway, headed for a fourth gas station that I know that also provides free air. I figure I've burned up $4 worth of gas at this point. My Very Expensive Car gets shitty gas mileage.
The air pressure system at this gas station also seemed suspect. In a implausible turn of events it, too, drained air from my leaking tire, triggering a Flat Tire warning on the car.
At this point I simply sat in my car for while. We talk in The Fellowship about the Three Great Instincts: Money, Power, and Sex. Or the Three Esses if you will: Sex, Security, Society. While I've made great progress on all three of these it's apparent to everyone that a great amount of work still remains. It's apparent to me that when I get moving forward with too much speed that I burn up a lot of energy foolishly.
The fifth gas station charged me $1.50 to fill up my tire. I was happy to pay.
"We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves."
I left the meeting this morning and drove to a nearby gas station. I have a leak in one of the rear tires on my Very Expensive Car. Needless to say - the tires are also very expensive. Everything on this car is very expensive. The idea was to fill the gas tank and then top off my leaking tire. One would think that a better idea might be to replace the fucking tire instead of driving around topping it off, bit by bit, worrying whether or not today will be the day when the leaking tire will be all leaked out, but then one would be wrong.
I found the air pressure on the air pump system to be suspect. Indeed, when I tried to fill the tire it seemed to me that air was exiting the tire rather than entering it. Indeed, when I got back into the car the automatic tire pressure monitoring system - god only knows what that feature cost me - indicated that the tire had less air in it than before. At this point I should note that a few months back I took the car into a tire store and had the tire repaired - it held air for a short while but was back to its old tricks in no time at all. I also let them put nitrogen into the tire instead of air for a $5 premium. I don't recall what advantage was purported to accrue from this move but suffice it to say that all of the $5 nitrogen is long gone, vanished into the atmosphere, replaced with ordinary air pump air, which is also vanishing regularly. I should also note that I use this particular gas station because they provide air for free instead of asking me to put 75 cents worth of quarters into a slot that activates an air pump.
I then drove to another gas station which I found charged $1.50 to use their system. This was unacceptable so I drove across the street to another gas station where the system also required a $1.50 donation. Still unacceptable but now I'm getting annoyed. I pull out and enter the freeway, headed for a fourth gas station that I know that also provides free air. I figure I've burned up $4 worth of gas at this point. My Very Expensive Car gets shitty gas mileage.
The air pressure system at this gas station also seemed suspect. In a implausible turn of events it, too, drained air from my leaking tire, triggering a Flat Tire warning on the car.
At this point I simply sat in my car for while. We talk in The Fellowship about the Three Great Instincts: Money, Power, and Sex. Or the Three Esses if you will: Sex, Security, Society. While I've made great progress on all three of these it's apparent to everyone that a great amount of work still remains. It's apparent to me that when I get moving forward with too much speed that I burn up a lot of energy foolishly.
The fifth gas station charged me $1.50 to fill up my tire. I was happy to pay.
"We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves."
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Marriage, Slavery, Running Chain Saws, and Me
"Marriage is slavery."
Someone told me that yesterday. Or maybe it was "Marriage is like slavery" or he was suggesting that "Marriage Slavery" would be an excellent name for a rock band. In any case it was an outstanding comment about a sense that came over him one day, unbidden. He had been discussing with another divorced guy the possibility that he might one day again marry. Now that his kids were gone he admitted to being increasingly open to the idea, only to be told: "No, I don't think so. I don't see it happening." That was an even more outstanding comment. He was bested in the commenting department, with prejudice.
This was all tongue-in-cheek, humorous banter between life-long friends that was mostly funny but had an uncomfortable grain of truth in it. Sort of like when I say that I never think about anyone else because I'm too busy thinking about myself. It's a joke but it's truthey. I think a great deal about other people but it pales in comparison to the time I spend reflecting on my own circumstances.
To the suggestion that I stop doing this I invariably reply: "But I'm so fucking interesting!" Who would I think about? You? Please. It's me or I'm taking a nap.
Today a young guy at the meeting showed me this huge, long, gnarled scar, running from his hip all the way up to his armpit. That's a long way and it wasn't a thin white scar, either - it looked like someone took a machete to his torso. It was an angry, aggressive scar. It spoke of big violence
"Apparently it's not a good idea to climb up into a tree with a running chain saw when you're on heroin," he said, with very little irony.
OK, I think that tops the marriage is slavery meme. Gotta love this Program.
Someone told me that yesterday. Or maybe it was "Marriage is like slavery" or he was suggesting that "Marriage Slavery" would be an excellent name for a rock band. In any case it was an outstanding comment about a sense that came over him one day, unbidden. He had been discussing with another divorced guy the possibility that he might one day again marry. Now that his kids were gone he admitted to being increasingly open to the idea, only to be told: "No, I don't think so. I don't see it happening." That was an even more outstanding comment. He was bested in the commenting department, with prejudice.
This was all tongue-in-cheek, humorous banter between life-long friends that was mostly funny but had an uncomfortable grain of truth in it. Sort of like when I say that I never think about anyone else because I'm too busy thinking about myself. It's a joke but it's truthey. I think a great deal about other people but it pales in comparison to the time I spend reflecting on my own circumstances.
To the suggestion that I stop doing this I invariably reply: "But I'm so fucking interesting!" Who would I think about? You? Please. It's me or I'm taking a nap.
Today a young guy at the meeting showed me this huge, long, gnarled scar, running from his hip all the way up to his armpit. That's a long way and it wasn't a thin white scar, either - it looked like someone took a machete to his torso. It was an angry, aggressive scar. It spoke of big violence
"Apparently it's not a good idea to climb up into a tree with a running chain saw when you're on heroin," he said, with very little irony.
OK, I think that tops the marriage is slavery meme. Gotta love this Program.
Monday, April 8, 2019
Working With Seaweed
The topic at my meeting today was "Working with Others." Apparently the idea is that doing something for someone else without expecting a treat in return is helpful somehow.
I hate thinking about other people. It seems like such a waste of time. There's not enough time in the day for me to think about myself let alone fit someone else in. Ponder the facts - each day has 24 hours and I need 8 hours of sleep, leaving me a total of 16 hours to get everything else in my life accomplished. I need at least 18 hours a day to think about myself properly. Anything less than that then I feel less than. I feel cheated, ignored, adrift and alone. My choice is to sacrifice sleep or to suffer from a lack of self-absorption.
Luckily I've come up with a solution - I have begun recruiting other people to think about me, too, and I am not making this up. I send text messages out all the time with this simple question: "Are you thinking about me?"
The responses have been gratifying. Most people are thinking about me or they apologize for failing their responsibilities while committing to thinking about me on the spot, starting right now. Or they're lying. I don't really care. If I think they're thinking about me that's all that matters because my thoughts are reality. What I think IS.
In fact, to hustle people along, I've made myself available as a temporary god. The accepted technique in The Program is to get a sponsor and because this can be daunting to a newcomer we offer a temporary sponsor option - just start to work with someone until you're comfortable asking someone else on a more permanent basis.
This scut work is beneath me so I've suggested, to anyone who will listen to me, an increasingly small list of people, that I'll serve as a temporary god rather than a temporary sponsor, a more exalted position that permits me to demand that people think about me.
As our book points out "the difference between a demand and simple request is apparent to everyone."
I hate thinking about other people. It seems like such a waste of time. There's not enough time in the day for me to think about myself let alone fit someone else in. Ponder the facts - each day has 24 hours and I need 8 hours of sleep, leaving me a total of 16 hours to get everything else in my life accomplished. I need at least 18 hours a day to think about myself properly. Anything less than that then I feel less than. I feel cheated, ignored, adrift and alone. My choice is to sacrifice sleep or to suffer from a lack of self-absorption.
Luckily I've come up with a solution - I have begun recruiting other people to think about me, too, and I am not making this up. I send text messages out all the time with this simple question: "Are you thinking about me?"
The responses have been gratifying. Most people are thinking about me or they apologize for failing their responsibilities while committing to thinking about me on the spot, starting right now. Or they're lying. I don't really care. If I think they're thinking about me that's all that matters because my thoughts are reality. What I think IS.
In fact, to hustle people along, I've made myself available as a temporary god. The accepted technique in The Program is to get a sponsor and because this can be daunting to a newcomer we offer a temporary sponsor option - just start to work with someone until you're comfortable asking someone else on a more permanent basis.
This scut work is beneath me so I've suggested, to anyone who will listen to me, an increasingly small list of people, that I'll serve as a temporary god rather than a temporary sponsor, a more exalted position that permits me to demand that people think about me.
As our book points out "the difference between a demand and simple request is apparent to everyone."
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Down in a Hole - Feeling So Low
Hole: A hollow place or cavity; a pit; an opening in or through a solid body; a rent; a fissure.
I'm on Day 4 with no coffee.
I suspect that very few people know exactly what this means. The importance of this would be hard for a non-hole person to grasp. I could say, as a fairly accurate approximation, to any queries: "Hey, I'm on Day 4 of not breathing. How do you think I'm feeling?" Seriously, if you gave me the option of quitting coffee or quitting the intake of oxygen into my body I would have to find a quiet place so that I could think about it for a while. Death from asphyxiation or no coffee? Hmmmm. Let me get back to you on that.
(I apologize for a brief digression . . . As a baseball guy I have to point out that "hole" can also mean "the rear portion of the defensive team between the third baseman and the shortstop." I wonder why that came to be known as a hole.)
So the whole point of the hole is that I am full of them, and they are bottomless. I cannot throw in enough stuff to fill them up. Trust me - I've tried. I am trying. I have a history of throwing in things that are clearly bad for me, like alcohol and drugs and cigarettes. I try to fill them with things that are not, in their essence, bad for me, like exercise and sex and coffee and work. I have no Halfway setting. I'm all in or I abstain. I'm stopped or I have the accelerator mashed to the floor, and I'm holding on for dear life as the car careens just on the brink of disaster. This would be alarming for most people - it's a comfortable state of equilibrium for me.
If you could manage to only smoke a couple of cigarettes a day your body would be fine. How wild is that? I haven't puffed on a butt for 33 years but if I had one this morning I'd smoke a pack by the time I crawled into bed. How wild is that?
My friend who committed suicide has been on my mind. He had some big holes, too. One day the size of his holes overwhelmed him. I don't know if he finally decided it was too big or if he got tired of shoveling shit into it.
The thing with me and caffeine is that it doesn't even make me feel good - it makes me feel worse. But the thing with filling holes is that it's not about feeling good or feeling better - it's about feeling different. I don't want to feel the way I feel. I want to feel something else. Something is missing so I chuck shit at it, willy-nilly.
I'm having a cup of off-brand Orange Pekoe Black Tea right now. I can't definitively say where it came from - we have a box of all kinds of teas snagged from hotels all over the world - but I bet it came from my mother's kitchen. This tea is probably 47 years old if that's the case.
Yummm. Delicious.
I'm on Day 4 with no coffee.
I suspect that very few people know exactly what this means. The importance of this would be hard for a non-hole person to grasp. I could say, as a fairly accurate approximation, to any queries: "Hey, I'm on Day 4 of not breathing. How do you think I'm feeling?" Seriously, if you gave me the option of quitting coffee or quitting the intake of oxygen into my body I would have to find a quiet place so that I could think about it for a while. Death from asphyxiation or no coffee? Hmmmm. Let me get back to you on that.
(I apologize for a brief digression . . . As a baseball guy I have to point out that "hole" can also mean "the rear portion of the defensive team between the third baseman and the shortstop." I wonder why that came to be known as a hole.)
So the whole point of the hole is that I am full of them, and they are bottomless. I cannot throw in enough stuff to fill them up. Trust me - I've tried. I am trying. I have a history of throwing in things that are clearly bad for me, like alcohol and drugs and cigarettes. I try to fill them with things that are not, in their essence, bad for me, like exercise and sex and coffee and work. I have no Halfway setting. I'm all in or I abstain. I'm stopped or I have the accelerator mashed to the floor, and I'm holding on for dear life as the car careens just on the brink of disaster. This would be alarming for most people - it's a comfortable state of equilibrium for me.
If you could manage to only smoke a couple of cigarettes a day your body would be fine. How wild is that? I haven't puffed on a butt for 33 years but if I had one this morning I'd smoke a pack by the time I crawled into bed. How wild is that?
My friend who committed suicide has been on my mind. He had some big holes, too. One day the size of his holes overwhelmed him. I don't know if he finally decided it was too big or if he got tired of shoveling shit into it.
The thing with me and caffeine is that it doesn't even make me feel good - it makes me feel worse. But the thing with filling holes is that it's not about feeling good or feeling better - it's about feeling different. I don't want to feel the way I feel. I want to feel something else. Something is missing so I chuck shit at it, willy-nilly.
I'm having a cup of off-brand Orange Pekoe Black Tea right now. I can't definitively say where it came from - we have a box of all kinds of teas snagged from hotels all over the world - but I bet it came from my mother's kitchen. This tea is probably 47 years old if that's the case.
Yummm. Delicious.
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Da Buddha
"Suffering I teach, and the way out of suffering," proclaimed the Buddha. Here suffering doesn't mean pain but the profound discomfiture which I experience when all of my attempts to remedy or evade pain prove futile. It's not the pain that's important - it's how I experience it. My sense of the pain.
It's all going to go, says the Buddha, all of it.
"When afflicted with a feeling of pain those who lack inner awareness sorrow, grieve, and lament, beating their breasts and becoming distraught. So they feel two pains: physical and mental. It is just like being shot with an arrow, and right afterwards being shot with a second one." Da Buddha
"The more you think about it, the more you talk about it, the further from it you go. Put an end to wordiness and intellection and there is nothing you will not understand. Stop talking and stop thinking and there is nothing that you will not understand." from the ancient Ch'an scripture On Trust in the Heart.
I have spoken, but in vain; for what can words tell
Of things that have no yesterday, tomorrow or today?
It's all going to go, says the Buddha, all of it.
"When afflicted with a feeling of pain those who lack inner awareness sorrow, grieve, and lament, beating their breasts and becoming distraught. So they feel two pains: physical and mental. It is just like being shot with an arrow, and right afterwards being shot with a second one." Da Buddha
"The more you think about it, the more you talk about it, the further from it you go. Put an end to wordiness and intellection and there is nothing you will not understand. Stop talking and stop thinking and there is nothing that you will not understand." from the ancient Ch'an scripture On Trust in the Heart.
I have spoken, but in vain; for what can words tell
Of things that have no yesterday, tomorrow or today?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)