Cool Prayer

More about prayer, my new favorite thing to do, even though I am far too cool to pray, being more of a very cool Eastern philosophy meditation guy, which I can't do worth a shit . . . 

The problem with my praying pre-Program was that I prayed at things; I was a Prayer On Demand kind of guy.  I knew what I needed to be happy and I asked to get these things post-haste or, better yet,  to have impediments to my happiness removed.  Generally speaking I'm more interested in avoiding pain than obtaining pleasure, although it's a close call.  The Book addresses this deficiency: it says that we may ask for anything whatsoever as long as we add the qualifier: Thy Will Be Done.  Or: Your Will Be Done.  Or: Dude, Whatever seems cool to you.  There's also the suggestion that we can pray for whatever we want as long as what we get is in some way a help to others; this seems like a total waste of time to me, seeing as I'm pretty detached from the well-being of others, worried that it may take some of the pie off of my plate.

My uncool mother, who I've never seen meditate but who prays a lot, says that it's OK to ask for whatever I want.  She thinks my god or higher power isn't too worried about my selfishness.  She doesn't think I'm going to pull the wool over god's eyes.  The praying is for me - it's not for god.  That made me mad until I tried it and found it worked just fine.  I do believe that if I add the They Will Be Done to the end of whatever outrageous crap I'm coming up with I have my bases covered.  That phrase is kind of like Liability Insurance - it covers all ills.

Now, how can I make praying cool?

A Logical Linkage

Our Steps suggest that it is quite helpful to pray and meditate, and also to engage in self-examination.  There's a sentence in the 11th Step - I confess to being unable to locate it with a lazy and cursory search so I'm forced to paraphrase - that says that although all three of these practices are wonderfully helpful the real power is when they're logically interlinked.

I do the self-examination thing on a daily basis.  You're reading my self-examination at the moment.  It's very revealing.  I do it because it's hard for me to bullshit myself when I'm writing.  I can do it when I'm talking and trying to impress someone but frankly I don't see the point when I'm all by myself writing.  I also try to meditate although this usually evolves into a nap or a wild sexual fantasy or a careful, detailed accounting of some terrible vengeance I'm going to wreak on someone who definitely deserves it.  Meditating is cool - it's done by cool people who study Eastern philosophies and travel to Bhutan to do it.   Praying is not cool - it's done by nice people who dress up once a week and all go to church together.  As a cool guy I've been working hard on my meditating and slacking on the praying, with predictable results.

My head is usually full of crap.  There are a lot of people yelling and screaming and generally causing a lot of mayhem.  When I meditate I try to slow down and ignore the mongol horde.  Praying is more like trying to talk over the gibberish, like when my sister was pissing me off when we were kids, and I would stick my fingers in my ears and make a lot of squeaking noises.

I did some praying over the last few days..  Helped me out.

Wait:  To be, remain, or delay in expectation or anticipation of; await.

I have been grooving big time on the Crisis List.  I should have done this years ago and not simply told other people to do it and then not do it myself.  I write down the date and then I write down what's bothering me.  Some days I'm clean - nothing to List.  Some days I have quite a List that I have to clean up.  I find that about half the time - and I'm totally making up this percentage - the item listed requires some kind of concrete action on my part and about half the time - this percentage is completely accurate - I have to Wait.

If I wake up and my tooth is killing me then I need to call the dentist.  That's the action that's required on my part.  Of course, I don't have to do this or I can delay the action because I'm afraid.  I do both of these things from time to time.  That's why items keep reappearing on my List.  Frankly, if I don't take the action then it's my own damn fault.  My dudes don't give me much support when I'm not doing something I should do.  That's on me.  "You're bitching about that again?" they say.  "Weren't you supposed to do something about that?"

If I call the dentist and the earliest he can see me is late afternoon, then I have to Wait.  I've taken the action and now I have to be patient.  It's funny how things that require patient waiting often change a lot and often they just self-correct.  That's why I wait, even though I don't want to.  I'm much more into quick, rash action.

Interesting how I came up with the dentist as an example.  That guy hasn't been on the list like 25 times in the last 27 days.

Anxiety:  A state of being uneasy, apprehensive, or worried about what may happen; misgiving.

I don't think there is a concept more fascinating to me than anxiety.  I've looked up the definition of anxiety more than any other word in the last several years, and I've looked up a LOT of words.  The big qualifier in that definition is may.  May implies a possibility of indeterminate likelihood.  There is not the slightest assurance that a thing is going to come about, making the worry a big #$!! waste of time.

Fear I get.  Fear is primal and it is helpful.  Fear is looking in a dark cave and hearing an angry growling sound, and not going in.  Fear is seeing my fellow caveman assure me he can fly and ending up smashed up on the rocks below, deader than a doorknob.   Fear keeps me alive - anxiety makes me miserable.

I've been enjoying my Crisis List.  Nothing has come of anything on that list and some of the stuff is ridiculous in retrospect.  Some of it is patently ridiculous when I write it down.

"Really?" I say to myself as I project some ridiculous, implausible outcome.  "This is how you're going to spend your time this morning?  Worrying about this?"

Alcoholics.  There isn't a bright, sunny day that I can't ruin with my anxiety.  I can worry about anything.

Go ahead.  Give me a try.

Little Johnny

I marvel at how solving problems makes such a big difference in my life.  I still laugh at my  belief that I might be able to get out of things without experiencing any problems.  Getting through challenging things has done so much more to shape my character than getting what I want.  

My friend, Little Westside Johnny, is coming for a visit.  Maybe my Old City sponsor is sending him out to spy on me;  given my history of lies and deception a little checking-up isn't a terrible idea.  It's more likely that no one else is thinking about me at all.  This seems about right when I consider how much time I spend thinking about myself.  It really isn't necessary for anyone else to waste any of their time pondering my circumstances.  

Little Johnny and I did some pretty extensive traveling together in the day.  We were reminiscing about a few of the more memorable trips, one being to a country in the Middle East that was a few ticks past our comfort zone - we didn't see another foreigner the entire time and the tourist infrastructure was sketchy at best.  We followed that up with a visit to a remote, remote camp in the Ecuadorean Amazon.   We were out there.  It took many hours by plane, jeep, and dugout canoes to get where we ended up.

These weren't comfortable trips in a physical sense and they were emotionally draining as well.  We both experienced anxiety attacks.  Yet both of us agree that these may be the two best vacations that we ever took.  With the stress and the overcoming of the stress came intense satisfaction.  We achieved something - we got somewhere.

Also, some of the greatest lines in my life came out of these trips.

Little Westside Johnny, bent over, gasping for air, ankle deep in mud and swamp water, gobbling Hostess cinnamon buns and pretzels in a desperate attempt to consume enough calories to keep up with all of our much younger comrades: "I'd give up my entire 401K to get airlifted out of here."

Silent Seaweed

SuperK and I are getting ready to head south for a few months this winter.  We rented a small one bedroom apartment for our trip, fairly close to some family members who seem eager to have us visit, an oddity in my family - normally they're looking askance at what I'm doing.  I've also been talking to my distant immediate family who are suggesting that they're going to come and visit.

The thing about my family is that we're not a close-knit group.  We love each other and wish each other well but we've never spent much time together outside of fairly standard holidays.   When I lived only a few miles away in The Old City I got visits every 8 or 10 months.  After much angst and self-searching and introspection I attained some acceptance about this.  I saw my part in it - I saw my major part in it.  I've mentioned that all of these folks see the world through a similar lens, and then there's me: I don't have a lens of any sort.  I don't think they find me disagreeable, just odd and confusing, and since I am odd and confusing I can't get too worked up about this.

So the point is that the chances of my elderly parents traveling by jet airplane 3000 miles to visit me is . . . ahem, remote.  I believe that they believe they're coming but it ain't happening.  My mother asked today, during a phone conversation that I was barely listening to, if they could stay with us for a couple of days when they visit.  I guess they plan on spending the rest of the trip that they're not going to take with my cousin who has a real house with extra bedrooms and who inhabits the same planet as my folks.

"Sure,"  I said.  "That'll be great.  We'll have to get a hotel room when you're here because we only have the one bedroom place."

Comments like this reinforce the opinion of many if not all people that I should simply try not to speak.  I believe my mother is irritated that I didn't spend the additional 50% that it would have cost me to rent a place with an extra bedroom or two or three in case family members who aren't coming anyhow do come and want a free place to stay.  It's not that I don't want them to stay with us - it's that there isn't any place for all of us to sleep.

This was all counterproductive.  It didn't go anywhere good.  I could hear SuperK yelling from the back room: "Say yes!  Say yes!!"  But I had already spoken, and was still speaking even though I was thinking: "Why am I speaking?"

This permitted my mother to switch into martyr mode, a many layered affair with nuance piled on top of nuance, perfected after years of practice.  This gives her an excuse not to stay with us or to cancel the trip that she isn't going to take anyhow.  What's so irritating is that my parents have plenty of money.  They never spend any of it and they're still saving for god's sake, at 85 years old.  They're probably saving up for jet skis or a snowmobile.  I don't get it.

I don't get it, alright.

Counseling

Sign on an office seen last night walking home: "Northwest Counseling: Specializing in individuals, couples, and families."

SuperK: "Glad she's got it narrowed down to everyone in the human race."