The Dark Side

What we sometimes forget is the main ingredient that brought us all the excitement we experienced today in the 8:30 spin class and that is the person that was the proximating cause of it all. It was the woman who took Jessica’s bike away. Now if it were Kristen’s class this would never have happened because the only thing we would have seen is the backside of “Big Brazil” exiting the studio. 

Funny it takes the “dark side” to rally us and bring us together. It happens all the time we need to have a sense of purpose to galvanize our focus otherwise the everyday life takes us away on a jaunt that has no real excitement. But it’s more than that; it takes people that are living the unlived life.  What is the unlived life? The life of not settling for average, not settling for second best not wishing anything for someone else that we don’t want for ourselves. 

Today we wanted to love Jessica and shower her with our affection and the setting of Tripp Doherty’s class is the perfect setting because it couldn’t happen anywhere else. We can be joyous in other places but no one can take an exercise class and make it a human experience like Svengali can. 

We're Busy Doing Nothing

Perhaps I will just keep a log about my heart and record my medication ingestion as well because like most people they do forget their prescriptions at times but I can ill afford that when my heart beat is at stake.

So being Monday the 30th Memorial Day I fortunately had the good fortune of remembering because I did not have the ‘rush’ of my day as I struggle with the song that typifies my working life so often and that’s “We’re Busy Doing Nothing Working the Whole Day Through”.

And now Tuesday has resulted so far in no episodes as well. So far so good. Which reminds me of a line from Laurel & Hardy. Who are they you might ask? Well just google it and find out.

Paperwork

Here we are in the 21st Century and you would think that paperwork would be a thing of the past. You would think that. But the insurance industry has not only not progressed into the virtual world of inputting documentation into an electronic format but has increased the amount of paper that has to be filled out in a process that is more antiquated than the typewriter itself. 

Who is the miscreant? It can only be the legal profession that has escalated the proliferation of endless reams of waste because who else can I blame? It’s not the sales desk that’s for sure. I remember talking to a home office employee some 8 years ago and he told me that we would be a paperless office within a year. Well millions of pages later we are still mired and progress is just a lucid dream. 

Lifering

The difference between people comes down to the fear that they feel in their own hearts. I believe that everyone would love to think of someone else first I really do! However, we become enmeshed in our human frailties and hold onto to the expectation that the universe will not care for us when we let go. No one seems to realize that there is always a net.  Clutching to our imaginary life rings does not provide the safety we think it affords. If we are to “drown” that fate will arrive whether we put safeguards in place or not. More than likely it’s not our turn to lose something we think is important for our emotional survival because it wasn’t ours in the first place. 

Double Speculation

I absolutely love this concept because I don’t think I have ever heard it spoken of before until I stumbled on it one day with some very close friends when we were engaged in prognostication about what we all wanted in our vocations in life. 

A very close confidant reminded me of it today when she said: Well if she does this then you might do that. This is a perfect example of double speculation.  The first is: If she does this, the second: then you might do that. How often are we engaging in this practice, which has absolutely no basis in reality? True we can assume that if it’s happened before this could be classified as a chain of events, it is not double speculation, but predictable behavior instead. Double speculation gets us in trouble because we often cut ourselves off by imagining things that would not have happened and in turn ruin what can be the most exciting things in our life. 

Deliberate Thoughts

As I drive I often think how inconsiderate we are. For instance why is it that we fail to signal when making a turn or changing lanes? Is it so much of an effort? What is it? Is it just laziness or is it as I suspect that we are just so self absorbed that we just don’t give a damn about anyone or anything except what is going on in our world?  I know that I have to stop myself from getting angry and not take it personal when someone doesn’t signal when if they had, I could have proceeded on my way. It’s hard not to take it personal though because it is happening to us but it’s not really because had we left the house sooner or a minute later that driver would not have crossed our field of vision. It still pisses me off and there are times when I want to castigate the miscreant but am helpless to do so. I just have to let it go. 

And those drivers that when approaching the intersection seem to speed up way past the limit when we are making a turn in front of them. If they were driving at normal speed we make the turn well in time before they have to brake. I see this all the time and they get indignant and blow their horn so as to make their hostilities known to us. I know I have been guilty as well when the turning light interval is gone I continue with the turn holding up the oncoming lane that has been waiting for the turning arrow to go dark.  Only today the light turned green for me  and if I had proceeded a second sooner I would have collided with the driver making a left running the red light. Somehow I think that more egregious than my inconsiderateness of extending the turning light but we are all in such a hurry to go nowhere most of the time. Yes there are times when we have a genuine need but those are very rare indeed. 

And my biggest pet peeve is the smoker who likes to throw his butt out the window and not use his or her ashtray. God do I hate that. The road is their garbage can and it galls me that people think they have some inalienable right to flick their butts out open windows. A filthy habit to be sure and one that I can pontificate endlessly about since I do not smoke. And those that litter may be the worst of all as I wonder what their house looks like. 

Rocks and Hard Places

Women sometimes ask questions they don’t want the answer to.  They probably get enchanted with the question. It’s our job as men not to put ourselves between a rock and a hard place.  The truth might leave us with a slap in the face and a lie brings on eyes lit like a ferocious fire.  What to do?  A question with a question is the way to sidestep these queries. Something like: I know you have a good reason why you are asking me that, would you mind telling me what it is?  If she says: I just want to know. You can stop take a deep breath and tell her you love her and say that if she really needs an honest answer, that you need time to think about it because you know that it’s obviously important to her.  She might not like that response but she will respect you because you took the time to think about it and just didn’t fire off an answer you thought she wanted to hear.   

The Real Man Up

I think that a man transitioning into the world of spiritual awareness is not quite as big a stretch as one might imagine. Since men have been accustomed to being alone with their thoughts since the dawn of time, providing any key that will unlock the door of isolation is not only welcome and needed but also essential if men are to maintain their masculine identity.

Because what is it to be male in the 21st century?  The rules have certainly changed through a number of factors.  Gender neutrality, political correctness, women’s liberation, equality between the sexes and simply the change that technology and time have effectuated emasculating men and what were their traditional roles were. Even the media continues to man bash us and propagate the notion that we are just imbeciles in pants.  The question becomes what is it to be masculine and is it necessary anymore?

That of course is a debatable question and quite frankly not for women to answer. We as men must decide that in order for us to flourish in the world modern we have tasks to undertake that we have never considered before. One of those ventures is in the realm of spiritual awakening. When we begin to be put in touch with our feelings as our female counterparts seem to have first dibs on, we need to take a page out of their range of emotion file and give it the manly technique of never making it a tool to manipulate people but an acumen that allows us to become fully male unencumbered by the constricts of the now conventional wisdom that we are mainly here for just one thing. I for one am tired of hearing the new age phrase of “Man Up” because it is so one sided as a way for women to use us one dimensionally. When we take on becoming spiritually aware we take that ploy away from the world at large.

The Epidemic

I remember a friend of mine who owned the first cell phone that I ever saw back in 1983. It was a DynaTAC 8000x made by Motorola. Even the name sounded like it weighed a ton.  It actually weighed two pounds and measured 13 inches x 1.75 inches x 3.5 inches versus for example the RAZR that weighs a mere 3.5 ounces measures 3.9 inches x 2.1 inches x 0.5 inches. But it cost $3,995 (almost $9,000 in today’s dollars) and its nickname was “the brick”. And it had a measly 30 minutes of talk time before it needed a 10-hour recharge. Just imagine that subscriptions were 12.4 million in 1990 and last year they were 4.6 billion. 

Who’d a thunk that a clunky invention like that would become the pervasive life force that it has become today.  I until recently could not understand why we needed Internet access on our phone when our laptops or desktops were available at home or in our office. Someone knew something and the profit for the cell carriers that have remained is obscene and is  only surpassed by the Oil companies and of course their gouging of consumers is a another story. 

What is my point here after the history lesson? What is now a seeming necessity has also become lethal like DWI and probably has the addictive powers second to maybe nicotine. You think not? Certainly we have seen while driving a car in front of us veer off slightly as the motorists head seems lowered not focused on the road. That’s because he or she is texting an extremely important message to a loved one or family member. Of course I am being facetious here because in the world of instant gratification even e-mails are not quick enough for our insatiable desire to communicate electronically. It has even put our face-to-face relationships in jeopardy because as you sit in restaurants and other eateries you see people sitting across from each other not talking but busily tapping out communiqués that preempt live conversation. 

Everywhere I go virtually everyone has a cell phone in hand at the ready. What is alarming too is that people are not only putting others at risk while driving but even crossing the street, entering buildings or simply walking down corridors the head is down focused on what is transpiring on their cell phone. I find it amazing that people walk as if they had their eyes closed and if I don’t have my head up I will walk right into these people. 

Talking on the cell phone while driving without a hands free apparatus is well documented but with the added feature of texting the danger is elevated to egregious levels and its an epidemic that not only threatens lives but places innocent drivers at risk as well. 

Of course there is less danger on foot or to a lesser extent when we are sitting on our posteriors but just like the Walkman, which began this pandemic of isolation, the cell phone threatens relationships to the breaking point.