Fudge Factor

In my never-ending pursuit of justification for my bad behavior - "but it's not my fault!" - I offer up this scientific tidbit . . .

There has been a large scale study conducted to test people's perception of their own honesty.  40,000 individuals have participated in this particular test so far, ensuring that there's a pretty good sample and that most bias has been eliminated.  In the study individuals were asked to take a test containing 20 questions and then to grade themselves on how many they got right.  They self-reported this to the proctor and were paid $1 for each correct answer, after which the test was destroyed in a paper shredder.  The catch is that while the shredder makes a lot of great shredding noises it has been altered so that only the edges of the test are destroyed.  The papers and then fished out and the results are compared - how many did each person get right and how many did they say they got right?

As you might expect a few individuals went big in the falsehood department and collected a nice payday.  Mostly, however, people just slightly exaggerated and took home a few extra dollars: 75% of the test takers lied.  You're probably thinking the same thing I'm thinking: "Not me.  I wouldn't have lied."

Go ahead if that makes you feel better.

Here's the interesting catch: if you add up the money that the big liars collected it's a pittance compared to the total amount that all of the little liars stole.

I know that I have a tendency to justify small wrongdoings.  My justification is particularly sweet when I compare my behavior to the really bad people.  Fact of the matter is that far more damage is done by all of us little wrongdoers than by the few big wrongdoers.  So the next time I want to lie just a little or fudge just a touch maybe I can think back on this, see that it's really me that's the problem.

On The Hook For A Ferrari

I was lingering outside the morning meeting today, talking with a friend, when a guy strolls up and asks about the meeting.  He was scruffy, clearly on the streets.  We explained that the meeting had ended but that we were there every day at 7AM.  He launches into his life story, unbidden - he has had enough, he is through, he has had it.  Henry and I both had sport coats on so he mentioned that he was a "professional guy," too.  I'm amazed when someone on the tail end of a bad bender tries to impress us.  It's the beat up drunk looking in a mirror and seeing Brad Pitt.

I told him that there was a noon meeting every day at the downtown clubhouse, about 3 blocks away.  By the park.  Right down the street.

He looked vaguely in the direction of downtown.  

"Oh," he said.  "Way over there?"

I wondered if he had some pressing appointments that day but I kept my mouth shut.  I texted Henry later and told him I'd buy him a Ferrari if that guy showed up the next day.  There's a big, big difference between saying something and doing something.

Big Red-Faced Jean

Cyclical: Recurring at regular intervals.

In The Old City I had nicknames for a few people.  They were sometimes pretty literal, like Golfer John or Doctor Steve.  Often, they were a little snarky, like Big Scary Todd or Little Scary Jeff or Big Red-Faced Jean.  This is the origin of my original nickname: Horseface Steve. As a man obsessed with what other people think about me I've always wondered how someone who doesn't know my last name paints a picture of me: "You know, Steve!  Kind of has a big horseface."  

See why I meditate?  It's a way to avoid judging or categorizing perfectly fine people.

Some odds and ends that have been popping up over and over  . . . 

There is a lot of suggestion that what I find when I meditate should just be left alone.  So often in life I want to change what I find instead of trying to see that these things are as they should be.  I need to try more diligently when I consider something - people, especially - to see what's good there instead of looking at someone as an obstacle to be moved or fixed.  In one of the Buddha (Ed. Note: Buddha = Generic god figure - I'm not trying to convert anyone here) visualizations I sit on a cushion, my mother on my left and my father on my right, looking at the generic god.  In front of me are all the people I find distasteful.  We're all looking at this image of goodness and trying to get lost in the goodness.  We're trying to understand that all sentient beings want to be happy and free from pain and misery.  I see these people as simply trying to get better instead of trying to figure out how to banish them to a damp dungeon hewn out of solid rock.

And how about linear versus cyclical thinking?  I'm a fine product of The West, trained to look at a task as having a start and an end.  Get it done.  Finish it up.  My meditation practices keep suggesting that I see life as a repetition.  There's nothing that I have to get right.

The important thing is the practice.  One of my meditation apps shows icons for other people who are currently meditating.  It's kind of cool imagining me sitting on my porch here in Vacation City being joined by thousands of other people all over the world.  This is the community I want to be a part of.

I'm re-reading The Big Book of my chosen religion.  For those of us who are followers of the three monotheistic religions - Christianity, Judaism, Islam - there is inevitably a lot of stuff about exactly how and why the main god is the main god.  I wish there was some more editing in this book.  I'm down with the main god being the main god - it's enough already with the reasons and threats, I'm on your side - and would like to see some more positive parables and shit like that. Good stories, you know?  Stories that tell me how to live well.  This is much more interesting to me than the vaguely sinister tone that creeps in from time to time about why I damn well better get on board with who exactly is the main god.

Bruce

There's a guy who often stands at the end of the driveway disgorging people from my local Starbucks - the driveway is disgorging people, not the guy.  He looks somewhat healthy, not too old, capable-ish.  He has a sign proclaiming hunger and a desire to work, a sign festooned with the standard American flags and the words "God Bless," a curse or a command I can't say.  I toss him a buck or a handful of change every now and then.  I don't participate in the endless debate as to whether people like this are lazy scammers or truly in need.  I used to speculate - invariably deciding that I was being screwed -  but it made me more cynical than I normally am, and I'm fucking cynical.  I realize that there are folks that take advantage of the system but I also think that they're in the minority.  If I assume that the particular folk in front of me is a deceiver then I deprive myself of the opportunity to help someone who really needs help.  I don't think I'd sleep very well if I spent all my time looking at people suspiciously.  I've decided to just assume that whoever I'm dealing with is on the up and up.  That doesn't mean I always fork over the change but that I'm going to trend generous.  If I give out a couple of bucks a week and it all goes to bums and reprobates who cares, really?  The peace of mind that $100 would buy me, thinking that most of us are good, decent people would be . . . well, it would be so big I can't at the moment even calculate it.  Just because I spent my pre-recovery life as a big, fat liar on the make doesn't mean that that's SOP.

I started parking my car in the lot that puts this guy in-between me and my coffee.  I started talking to this guy.  Bruce.  First of all, he's mostly there but everyone's not at home.  I don't see too many jobs where he's going to thrive and not because he's lazy, rather that he's struggling with some human interaction issues.  And he does have a part-time job - Tuesday and Thursday with a landscaper - and would like to work there full-time.  I don't feel like some social engineer here, either, or that I'm a huge-hearted dude really making a difference.  I just don't want to be suspicious and paranoid, preferring to assume that we're all doing the best we can rather than ascribe under-handed motives to every Tom, Dick, and Harry.  Moreover, I've opined at length over the theory that the more I try to hold onto my loose change the more power it has over me.

BIS-foh

One of the Big Scary Financial Organizations (or BIS-foh-s) transferred some funds around, following an inner muse, a whim, that I cannot comprehend.  They sent me a piece of paperwork telling me that they had done this, thoughtfully including account numbers and dates and transaction information.  I could not, however, see where the money was AT when I logged into my account. The fact that it was a pitifully small sum didn't relieve me of the responsibility of tracking the machinations.

I made the call.

"Yes," someone told me (I no longer get names as I can't seem to hold anyone accountable).  "The money is in your account - we just transferred it into a different account that you don't have access to.  This is why you can't see the money when you log in to your account."

This stopped me right short.  As much as I love witty repartee I couldn't respond to this coherently.  I got the sense that it was a new account of some sort, even though the old account was working fine, except for the not sending me the money to put into the new account problems I've been having.   I don't remember what I said although the thought crossed my mind to suggest that I would be the person who should logically be able to see what's in my own account. I didn't say this.  These people are absolute masters of circular logic.  They have hired PhDs trained in psychology to devise a never-ending series of semantic traps.  Have you ever talked to someone who is clearly insane?  Talking more slowly or more loudly or at great length doesn't work because the insane person can't grasp simple facts.  

This is what I've been doing.  These people are clearly insane. 

Tiny Conical Hats

When we were in Vietnam we took a bike ride through a rural village.  At one point we swerved off of the rutted streets and cruised along a narrow dirt path that snaked along the top of a dike separating the flooded rice fields, sharing the track with cows and people and other bicyclists.  I stood my ground with oncoming humans but the cows were afforded exclusive right of way. They didn't appear too worried about coming out on the losing end of a bike v cow collision. One of the two combatants, I think, would have made an abrupt change of direction, and I didn't like the look of the water standing in the fields.

Anyway, every hundred yards or so there would be a few small temple-looking structures.  We were informed that they were the graves of ancestors, Old Ones from the nearby villages.  I liked the thought that every morning the workers would pause and tip their conical hats to their forebears.  I'm trying to do that in my Quiet Time each morning.  I extend a specific shout-out to mom, dad, and Kenner, and then I tip my pork-pie to everyone who made me who I am today.

Don't dwell in the past but don't forget it, either.

P.S.: Our Vietnam bike ride was with 5 or 6 other people and a Vietnamese guide.  We picked up our bikes at a rental shop and they were pretty much in the kind of shape that you would expect for a third world country.  Moreover, I'm tall and the Vietnamese are not, so even though I took the biggest bike available, I still looked like a brightly colored clown riding a tiny, clown novelty bike, my knees actually extending above my head when I pedaled.  I lost ground quickly to our entourage, a situation that was exacerbated by the fact that my bike was stuck in the highest gear, leaving me to pedal furiously with almost none of the kinetic energy being transferred into forward motion.  I fell further and further behind.  Eventually, the tiny woman leading the tour - Fang - traded bikes with me.  I was a little red-faced about this, thinking she was doing just fine with my shit bike when a motor-scooter scooted by me, a bike propped on the handlebars.  The driver quickly switched out the defective bike for the new one, chattering with our leader, and off he went.

Only in Vietnam.

Avoid The 'Noid

Many years ago Dominoes Pizza unleashed an ad campaign called "Avoid The 'Noid."  The 'Noid was this little figure dressed in a superhero costume who caused all kinds of problems with the pizza delivery process.  He had a machine to smash the pizza box down onto the pizza, techniques to slow the delivery of the pizza, leading to a cold, glutinous product, and other hijinks and bedevilments.  The 'Noid had a high-pitched, staccato voice and he was quite the disruptive imp, lovable, really, in his predicament-making.

Pretty funny, right?

Turns out there was a dude in Georgia whose last name was Noid.  He was not a healthy man.  He believed that the ad campaign was directed at him personally, like Avoid The Seaweed.  Noid loses it, takes some hostages at a Dominoes store (demanding that his prisoners make him a pizza which he eats during the seige) before the standoff ends.

This is me.  This is my world view.  I believe everyone is thinking about me.  I believe I am the center of attention.  I am not a healthy man.

A 'Noid - annoyed.  Get it?