Slalom Seaweed

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

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

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

Drinking Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

Happy or Sullen? YOU Make the Call.

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Dhammapada 1-2 

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

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

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

The Four Noble Truths, baby.  Take that.

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

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

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

Catch 22

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

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

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

Acceptance does not signify approval.

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

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

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

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

That's one hell of a Catch-22.

Seaweed: Lazy Pescatarian

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

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

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

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

Bitter: Harsh, piercing or stinging.

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

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

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

Problems Steve

Problem versus Solution.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THAT'S a fucking solution.

You Need To See It MY Way

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

Theoretical:  Abstract; not empirical.

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

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

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

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

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

See how easy this is?