A conversation between stress and anxiety (challenge by Erin)

A sunny day, heat rising gently from the stones of the earth, tempered by grassy patches.  Long stretches of rough, gently sloping hills in turn soften the otherwise oppressive shards of mountain shooting up to stab at the sky.

Two people are walking, one large, one small, from a distance their forms blend naturally into their environment, as the sun washes the colors of their brown-grey clothing into the surrounding terrain.

The larger of the two, a square-jawed woman who seems to be chewing a strip of bark in the back of her mouth, drags a sheet of metal behind her, harnessed to her by a multitude of ropes, wrapped partially in bulky canvas to prevent what would otherwise be a terrible racket as the metal scraped against the rock.

"We'll get there long before sunset," she says grimly, sweat slowly escaping the bandana on her brow.  "But we won't be done yet, not by a long-shot."

Her companion, a wiry, nervous man, slightly taller than her but far narrower and lighter and insubstantial in almost every respect, sways at her words, as if tossed gently by the wind.

"You're too confident," he says, head bobbing and glancing side-to-side like an ocean-tossed soccer ball, "There's still a chance they could find us.  And besides, this is wildcat territory.  Cougars.  Mountain lions.  Packs of bobcats."

"Cougars are mountain lions," she snaps, "and bobcats don't hunt in packs.  Why are you making this worse than it is?  We're already going to be up all night digging as it is."

"If we're lucky."

The woman spits, a fibrous, red-brown wad of something, but continues chewing.  "I don't have time for this.  You're the one who insisted on coming.  You want to be here?  Then help.  Grab the gear off my load.  I don't expect you can manage this whole panel, but at least you can take the shovels and picks."

The man veers abruptly away from her.  "No, no, no, you need me too much for that.  You don't want me to be weighed down.  Who'll warn you about mountain lions?  Carrying the shovels will be too distracting."

"I don't give a rat's ass about mountain lions!"  She grunts, plodding steadily onward under the strain of her load, "If some big cat bothers us I will walk right into it and take it down with me.  Then I'll get back up and keep walking, and all that's behind us will be a smear with whiskers."

"You're not that heavy."

"My boots are."

Silence now, but for the loud scrape of the sheet of metal dragging against the rock.

Eventually they reach one of the rocky outbursts, a textured wall with a long, vertical crease almost suggesting a cave.  With a final, mighty heave, the woman lifts the harness off her back, and leans the whole set-up against the stone wall.  With a great sigh, she sinks to the ground.

"Now we rest," she says, reaching with one hand to ungracefully empty her mouth of its contents, and with the other to pull her bandana over her eyes.  "We'll finish soon enough."

As she drifts off to sleep, rapidly and wondrously, the man ambles over to her rig, withdraws some tools: several blades and a piece of wood.  He quietly settles down to the ground near her, and, slowly but with spirit, begins carving and shaping the wood.  He smiles, noticing for the first time that he is excited for the trials to come.

A cruise to the Bahamas and CocoCay with some of my best friends! (Jennifer)

A cruise to the Bahamas?

* * *

Lately I've been getting a little bit overwhelmed with 'work-mode'.  As I've been trying to save up money for a big trip in late July, I've embarked on three individual business plans, and I'm working my butt off trying to make them all work out.

I've been self-coaching twice a week, giving myself homework assignments which I complete at coffee shops between actual work shifts at my office or at the school.

In the meantime I'm still maintaining a social life, with all its accompanying planning and schedule juggling, I'm still planning to take a couple expensive classes AND go visit my father before I leave on my trip.

In short my brain is constantly in budgeting-mode, scheduling-mode, and marketing-mode.

It's exhausting.

It's also very new, because as many of you may know, I've spent much of my life being the local expert in 'kicking back my feet and being a minimalist of effort...an ethical hedonist who plays all day and works only enough to pay the bills.'

So, this muscle of consistent productivity?   What a great muscle to be developing!  I've been wanting to build it for a while.  But I'm tired.  Muscles need a rest.

They need...a cruise.  To the bahamas.  With some of my best friends.

Here's what I've started doing:

In the morning, I sip a metaphorical daiquiri before even getting out of bed.  I lay there and I ask myself, "What feels good right now?"  Maybe my left foot feels nice and warm and happy.  Maybe my chest feels loose and relaxed from a long sleep.  If I notice my mind racing towards my next appointment, I'll ask "what feels good about that?"  and enjoy the rush, the energy buzzing through my system.  Then I'll enjoy the warm left foot again.

Once I've really savored the peace of that morning daiquiri, I'll get up, and slowly, with nice full breaths, start moving.  Maybe write a blog post, maybe play some music.  Take it easy.  A morning cruise.

Eventually I'll be working again, chugging along through the day- but here and there, if I feel that intensity getting overwhelming again, I'll pause, look outside, notice the distant icebergs and the tropical trees and the dodo birds flying around me, and ask again "what feels good right now?"

Come evening time, I'll start doing the same routine.  If I'm lucky I'll have a friend to cuddle up with and watch a movie, or to grumble and vent about life.  Maybe I'll ask them to scratch my head.  Because every cruise should have a massage or two.

They Look As If They Were Painted (Nicole S)

They look as if they were painted.  The leaves on that plant were so beautiful, they couldn't be real.

* * *

About 7 years ago, I met a friend, let's call her Janine.  We hit it off at a party, and for a short minute, I thought maybe we'd end up dating.  We went on a few maybe-dates (you know what I mean, you're hanging out, and in the back of your mind, trying to figure out if it's actually a date or not), got to know each other, and then somewhere along the way, I realized, it wasn't gonna happen.

I don't remember the exact turning point:  maybe it was the fact that she was thinking of moving pretty soon, maybe it was the fact that she was a Capulet and I was a Montague (that's a recipe for disaster), but on some level my hesitation could be summed up by this:

I felt that she expected me to show interest by putting a move on her, and that she didn't want me to a put a move on her.  Like, that was the script that she was waiting for- and it wasn't a script she liked, but one that she was resigned to.  I wasn't willing to play that game: I don't want to put a move on someone who isn't into it, so I didn't.  And she started dating other people, and that was that.

We became friends, and in a world of guys who want nothing but snooky, I got to be the guy who didn't want snooky (not from her, anyway).

Somehow I thought, as she complained so often about how "all guys just want one thing" and "if they don't get it, they'll leave", that eventually she'd realize that I was a guy, that I wasn't getting (nor asking for) favors of any kind, and that I was sticking around.

If at this point you're worried I'm going to give the "but I was a nice guy" speech, don't worry.  This is a new version of that speech, because instead of saying "but I was a nice guy" I'm going to say, "but I was a nice guy"---

---because when I finally said to her, "you say all guys want is sex, but you realize, I'm a guy, and I'm not trying to get sex" she made a dismissive gesture and said "yeah, but you're you."

Which I took to mean:  "Because you haven't tried to get with me, you must not be a normal guy, and therefore you exist in a category all of your own, and men are still pigs just as I've always known."

Which to be honest was sort of emasculating, and pretty darn frustrating, because I am a sexual person, I am interested in 'getting with' ladies, and I do make moves.  Just not on people who don't want it!

It's almost as if after a lifetime of seeing plants with ugly leaves, she saw a plant with beautiful leaves
and said, "those leaves are so beautiful!  They look as if they were painted!  They must not be an actual part of that plant."

"Aaron is such a cool guy, he's never made unwanted moves.  He must not be a real guy."

I wanted to be at least one counter-example in a sea of shitty dudes, but instead I became my own nation:  The women, the men, and the Aaron.

This was a good reminder that trying to fix people without them asking for it really isn't going to work so well.

I can only hope she took a picture of me and posted it on Facebook, so that people could then write in their blogs about me.

Metaphorically.


((edit:  this post has so many parallels to the "I was so good to her, why didn't she sleep with me" trope out there, that I want to be very clear:  I never intended to sleep with this person.  I was not being nice with an agenda, not even to 'fix' anything.  I was just being myself.  My frustration was not from horniness but from being excised from my gender due to my lack of disrespectful horniness!))

Mother's day celebration: Ethiopian style. (Denise)

Mother's day:

1. a day of the year (in the US, the second Sunday in May) on which mothers are honored by their children.

Ethiopian:

    a native or inhabitant of Ethiopia, or a person of Ethiopian descent.

When I was thinking about going to college, I ended up choosing between two very different paths:  To the north, there was Western Washington University, and to the south was the Evergreen State College.

Western was this beautiful, art-filled campus in Bellingham, an incredibly cozy little town. The dorms were classy, the buildings modernly tasteful, and the girls distracting.  It was everything I could hope for in a college experience.  Had I gone there, I probably would have majored in Physics, which would have required me being in school for 4 years, and accruing that much debt.

Evergreen, on the other hand, was a cement oasis in an otherwise lush forest of green.  Old, blocky buildings added definition to the paved pathways winding around campus, and the only art piece I remember offhand was a giant 'swinging bench' attached to a big A-frame of metal.  It didn't swing.

The appeal to Evergreen was the freedom:  As I already had two years worth of college credits under my belt from going to community college during high school, there were no required classes to take.  Evergreen has no majors, so there was no need to declare one.  Each quarter, I could take any class I wanted, following my evolving passions to my hearts content.  And, I'd graduate in only two years.

What would an American do?

Well, that question can be answered with a metaphor:  It's mother's day, and you're deciding what to do to celebrate.  Conventional tradition would say "waffles and orange juice in bed."  But maybe you don't want waffles in bed.  Maybe you want to eat with your family.  Maybe you're in the mood for something savory, not sweet.  And maybe you want to actually go out, do something new.

So you don't look to "American Convention", you look to reality: the whole barrage of options and opportunities available to all the people of the world, all the cultures, traditions, and creative expressions of the 7 billion neighbors we currently enjoy.

And you decide to celebrate Mother's Day Ethiopian style.  Because it fits, and because it sounds delicious.

They say that America is a melting pot, but that's their metaphor.  I say that the world offers us a richness of options available for delightful consumption, if we just look.  

Let's have Mother's Day, Ethiopian style.

The fact is, I'd already gone to massage school:  I'd taken a 6-month program that qualified me to make $30-$60+/hour once I really dived into it.  I'd taken that program because I didn't know if I'd have a job waiting for me when I graduated.  And the cost of that 6-month program was negligible compared to even the cheapness of a state school.

I'd eaten Ethiopian without even realizing it.

And because I was so satiated, I didn't need to gorge myself on 4 more years of physics study, hoping that it would make me big and strong for the rough and tough world out there.

Instead I opted for the tapas bar:  I went to Evergreen, with its ugly, plain, cement canvas, and painted my own ideas, studying physics, calculus, literature, ethics, language, sociolinguistics, and creative writing.

Sometimes I wish that I'd had the waffles.  Waffles are sweet, crunchy, and they leave you in a happy food coma, still in the comfort of your bed.

But regardless of what the right choice was, I love that I live in a world where I can eat Ethiopian.  

Accidental Flirtation (Prem)

Humanity. What a lovely thing it is. Full of human interactions to be treasured and, well, misunderstood. And with all this big hooloo about sexy time, it's no wonder that one of the big misunderstandings of our world seems to be about flirtation. "You like me?" "No, you like me?" "No, you flirting?" "Wait, you flirting?" (translated from caveman)
I was at a dance class once, and found myself practicing a new move with a randomly selected young woman. Perhaps she was attractive, but that's not the point. After successfully completing a simple move, I turned to her with a smile and dryly said, "We're HOT!" Her face blank, she responded,
"Thanks; I'm married."
Ah, no! Ah, I said We! WE'RE hot! No, no...damn. There's no recovery from that. From...from what? A silly statement intended to build camaraderie? That was certainly unforgivable!

But you know, none of this is really real, right? It's all just a metaphor.

A metaphor for misunderstood feelings.

What's that? That's not a metaphor? It's an example? Oh, I'm sorry, I knew that, I was being abstract. Didn't you get that? My bad. Or is it?

So here's the question: Whose job is it to understand? And, is it even possible? I mean, how clear do I have to be? "Hey, when you and I just successfully pulled off that dance move just a moment ago, I was pleased with how well we did, and wanted to include you in the celebration of our skill by remarking that we are really hot, as in, on fire, which is a popular slang term for being awesome, which means, we did well. I'm not hitting on you. You're attractive, but I'm not interested. I'm here with a girl. Over there. We're hitting it off pretty well, but I don't know how she feels about me. Anyway, nice job with that turn."
That's clear, right? No room for confusion there. Except for the blatant disregard for social conventions.
The other extreme of course, would be silence. A smoldering gaze of appreciation. Or a slight smile. The tiniest of indications of your thoughts or feelings, and then the hope or assumption that the other person will magically pick up on what you mean.
Strangely, that seems to be far more common. For such a verbal species, we can be surprisingly non-verbal when it comes to emotional expression. And yet- how often do we get confirmation on this? How do we actually know our message is read?
I mean, she could have said, "Yeah, we are!" And I would have gone home satisfied that I'd had a nice moment. But who knows what she was thinking. Maybe she meant "Yes, we're both very attractive, so let's get it on!" or "Yes, I'm hot, but you are too. Aw, mutual compliments!" or "Yes, we DID do well!" or "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I've found that agreeing with people makes them smile more!"
My point? My point is that no matter how clear or vague you are, it seems like there's the possibility of misunderstanding. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes you never know, and other times you actually ARE on the same page.
Finally, just to throw some more muck in the bucket, I want to point to the possibility that, as empathetic creatures, we are on the same emotional page a lot more than you might think...that when you feel that *zing* with a pretty person, they DO feel it too. That when you think *my god, this is a kindred spirit* they do too. That when you think, "this silent moment on the ferry with an old man I haven't exchanged a single word with is magical", he's feeling the magic. BUT, and here's the muck, BUT we are all such different people with different backgrounds, that though we share that same emotional link, our conscious interpretations could be totally different.
You feel warmth, and think love. She feels the same warmth, and thinks lust. You'll feel the magic on the ferry and think, fate. The old man feels the magic and thinks, "finally, someone who doesn't just blather on about sunsets." You have an incredible conversation with someone and you want to see them again tomorrow, the next day, and every day. They think, "What an incredible conversation! I never want to see that person again, so it can never be tarnished."
The emotion and the intellect. They CAN contradict each other, or at the very least, make things complicated. Like two circles in a Venn diagram, overlapping to varying degrees depending on the subject. Things Which My Emotions Perceive/Desire, Things Which My Mind Perceives/Desires. And the space they share? Maybe that's intuition. Maybe that's your gut. Or maybe it's something entirely different. I'm not sure, but it seems like a good sweet spot to shoot for.

I'm getting off-topic, I know. Let's try to bring it together. Things can be confusing. You WILL be misunderstood. You can try and clarify things to varying degrees, and I highly recommend the attempt. But there WILL be misunderstandings, and you won't every truly know if you've been understood.
Could there be freedom in this realization?
Could we accept that no matter what we do, there's the possibility of confusion, and so train ourselves to express things in the way most natural, most comfortable, to us? To speak or act our truths so clearly and so promptly that we'll feel no regrets or self-judgment regardless of our reception?
Can I look her warmly in the eyes and say "That turn was awesome."?
Can you turn to the old man and quietly say "Thank you for that" before leaving?
Can you go to that girl at the bar and say, "I think your dress looks incredible on you. Also, your eyes sparkle."
How would that feel?
Or could there be a way to escape the ambiguity and misunderstanding? That would be even better, I think.

So. This whole post is a metaphor for burning your hand on the stove. Sometimes you just don't know it was hot, no matter how many people warned you, no matter how red it looked. Are you stupid? No. Are you blind? No. You just convinced yourself that it was ok to touch it, and that it was good to touch it. That's what we do. That's what we're good at. The trick is to convince ourselves to do things we love, to touch things that will heal us and brings us happiness. And maybe sometimes burning your hand is exactly what you need.

Cheers.

Citrus (Calico)

"To a person with a lemon, everything looks like a dish that needs citrus-garnishing."

You might say that I'm stretching it by relating a metaphor of an aphorism which is likely intended to be metaphorical, but I might say, "screw it, it's my blog", but with love, and only a hint of power-trip.

I read a book recently, called "Loving What Is". It's sort of book of wisdom, talking about letting go of your beliefs about things, and about what should be, and instead embracing reality. The focus of this book is a technique known as Byron Katie's (the author) Work.
After a few months of using this technique, and from it finding more reprieve from emotional duress than anything I'd come across before, as well as getting tons of epiphanies about life, reality, and my own thinking, I became "the person with the lemon".
Anytime anybody was upset, be it friend, family, colleague or client, my first instinct would be to either recommend them the book or teach them the technique. It haunted me. I wanted everyone to use it. I felt like the world would be so much better, that people would be so much happier.
Of course, this line of thinking utterly went against the principles of the book, in that I was stuck on this set of beliefs that people were upset, that they shouldn't be upset, and that the technique would help them.

People who win the lottery often go bankrupt.

People with high-speed internet phones will google things all the time.

Really fat people will, er, that is, I'm not sure.

The fact is, when something is on our minds, we apply it to everything. Just like the guy who has been recently dumped will advise all his friends based on things that happened to him in the course of the relationship, we use the tools we have, be they physical or intellectual. We use the tools that are at hand.
This can, perhaps, give us some empathy for the broken records among us. My experience with Loving What Is helps me understand door-to-door proselytizers. Their motives, while perhaps offensive to some of us, may be very good and loving. I was surely irritating to some friends as I kept citing this book over and over ad nauseum, but I think they all understood that it was something I thought would help. (would it? Just because someone saved my life by pouring a bucket of water on my head when I was on fire doesn't mean I will cure my friend's measles by doing the same. However, that's a whole 'nother post.)

I think the interesting place to take this is not questioning the lemoneer for the lemon frenzy- after all, they have lemons, of course they want to use them. Instead, how did the lemons get into their hands?
How is it that this particular book stuck with me?
Why did the rice-eater buy so much rice?
Why did the very fat person eat so very much?
Is it all fate, and luck of the draw, or do we have pre-propensities?
If I hadn't found this book, would I be spouting on about some other technique, or making on up of my own?
Would the rice-bagger instead have found themself in excess of another grain or food-item?
When the lemoneer have been sour-seeking in other ways?
(nothing more on the very fat person)

It's sort of question of nature vs. nurture, or chicken and the egg. We are what we think, we act on what have have or what we can do- but how did we find the thoughts, find our abilities?

Perhaps, this is...the true nature of the soul?




Or perhaps I'm skipping a whole lot of basic child psychology theories. It doesn't matter. I really want some lemonade right now. It just, seems like the thing.

Co-coaching (wikipedia)

"Co-coaching is the structured practice of mutual exchange of coaching support among peers. This can take the form of a range of practices. One form involves each individual taking turns to be coach in half hour sessions."

I'm thinking about the stars and the moons, the planets, the comets, the celestial orbs and swirls which make up our night sky. Each one has something to teach the others, coaching them into certain orbits, encouraging certain momentums, weighing in their advice, amassing movements of wisdom and propelling one another into paths of synchronicity. They take turns: Sometimes Mars looms close and takes the lead, influencing strongly with the gravity of his persona- but then he'll zoom away, join the chorus, and it will be Mercury, or the Comet, or any number of other voices.

I'm thinking about politicians and hobos, friends and strangers, salesmen and grocery clerks. Everybody scratching their own paths into the woodwork of the world, but each coaching the others in windows of time, some long, some brief. "Have a nice day" said with warmth, "Danger Level Orange", "This will change your life," "I think you should stop and think before you tell her," "What are you wearing?"

The beauty of co-coaching is that it's the coaching of peers. We cannot ignore the affects of Joe Salesman anymore than we can ignore the charm of Venus. But we can take their pull and run with it, using it to direct our own paths, trusting that even if one coach is utterly inaccurate in his suggestions, that world is still a hospitable, synchronous place.

Bellybutton Lint (Melissa)

--My challenge, from Melissa of Bobo-isms: Blog on bellybutton lint, and be subtle.

People are multi-faceted. It's a good thing. When you meet me, you'll first see my body, my posture, then you'll hear my voice, then my words; you'll see the face I present, that social projection, and then you'll start getting to know who I am behind that projection. Eventually you'll begin to get to know my deeper self, you'll encounter my hidden strengths, my weaknesses, my eccentricities; my habits, beliefs, inspirations. You'll see different things, different aspects of each of these things, all the time, as I'm always changing, and forever undulating under the light of your perception. I swagger and meander, I shoot for the stars I am stellar. And so are you. All this applies to you too.

One thing you may not see for awhile is my belly button.

--

"We've got some promising applicants, Jim," Gary Kreller, CEO of Towder Inc. said to the VP, "and one of them stands out above the rest: Kyle Orion Turner-Gorder. Aside from his bizarre name and completely meaningless initials, his resume shows him to be exactly what we're looking for."

Jim Peters nodded. "Except, he's got some bellybutton lint."

"Oh?"

"Yes. His references are excellent, but when I called his previous employers I found that he'd been pulled into some company drama. Nothing dramatic, and nothing caused by him, but, there were some problems."

"Well," Kreller said with a forgiving shrug, "Companies have their drama. The important thing is that he wasn't the instigator."

"Well, no one asks for bellybutton lint, sir, but the choice to wear the sweater without an undershirt belongs to the wearer. He's been involved in company dramas at multiple companies. He always gets involved. He's doesn't propel it forward, but he doesn't avoid it either."

"Ah. A man who doesn't clean out his bellybutton."

"I'm not sure if we want a man who doesn't clean out his bellybutton. And especially not a man who doesn't learn to wear undershirts."

"Well, I guess Kyle Orion Turner-Gorder is out of the picture."

--

I don't have any skeletons in my closet. Nothing so dramatic as that. I imagine you don't either. What I do have, is a bit of bellybutton lint. Some things happen to me, and I don't consider them to be serious issues, so I'll allow them to continue happening without taking steps to prevent it. Much like bellybutton lint. Oh, we'll clean it out every once in a while. Get our life in order. Buck up. Resolve conflicts. But is it really worth it to us to change our habits? To wear that undershirt? To seek out lint free garments? It's just lint, after all. It doesn't even come from us. Merely incidental.

Bellybuttons, I'm told, can be a little sexy. You're seeing someone's vulnerable areas, seeing into their private life. Finding a bit of lint can be charming and endearing. What if you found lint every time you looked? You might start to wonder, why is this person's bellybutton always lint-filled?

But don't wear an undershirt for others, wear it for yourself. Just like having a clean room can lend some sanity to your life, so too, subtly, can having a clean bellybutton.

And guys, don't whip out your lint on the first date.

Pete Lammons (wikipedia)

"Peter Spencer Lammons, Jr. (born October 20, 1943 in Crockett, Texas) is a former professional American football player who played tight end for the American Football League's New York Jets, winning the AFL Championship with them in 1968, and playing in their victory over the NFL's overrated champion Baltimore Colts in the third AFL-NFL World Championship game. He also played for the NFL's Green Bay Packers."

Tight end. That title would only be funny to someone who knows next to nothing about football.
I have seen a dozen quarterbikes spike a basket, so clearly it's not funny to me. *snicker*

Pete Lammons. He played football. He played football for the Jets, and won! He helped them defeat the 'overrated Colts'. He also played for the Packers. He was in both the NFL, and the AFL. You've heard of him, right? Let's go:

"Son, love is complicated. They say life is like a box of chocolates, because you never know what you're going to get. But love, love is like Pete Lammons. It can be pretty great, it can help you win in life, but you never know how long it's going to play for your team. That young Harvey is making the moves on Christy? Well, like Pete, love is great for defeating those young colts, but only if you use it right. You can't rely on love, you can't use it exclusively, or else you'll injure it and it will spend the rest of the season limping around. Love is an important player, but it's a member of the team, and you treat it as such. And son, love will play for the other team, but that's ok, because, like Pete, love gets around, and every time love loves, it gets stronger. Maybe Pete played for the Packers a bit, but if and when he went back to the Jets, you know he was stronger and more skilled."

I've heard it argued that we can only truly love one person, or only be in love with one person, at a time. Maybe there's truth to this- it would be tough to be actively head over heels with two+ people simultaniously. But I don't think love is restrictive. If someone loves you, and then they turn and love someone else, the instinct can be to think, "Oh no! Less love for me!" But I'm starting to think that the more someone loves, the better they are at it. A weird thought, but, I think it's true.
The argument to this could be forms of love. If Pete gets a contract with the Packers, he might play a pick-up game with the Jets for fun here and there, but he's not going to be their main man anymore, and he probably won't go into the competitive bloodlust that he does in a 'big game'. If you're dating Joe Johnson, and he turns around and marries Jamie Lou, one can imagine his love for you will change a bit-- or does it? Maybe it's just the expression of that love?

If you're dating your best friend, and she breaks up with you, but keeps spending every day with you, keeps doing everything you used to do together aside from the sexy times, is that really so tragic? What have you lost? Are you afraid of losing her later, to some other man? But she loves you! She clearly loves you! If she loves another dude also, well, she may have less time, but will she have less love?

I don't know where I'm going with this one. Let's ask Pete, then I'll sign off.

Pete is playing for the Jets, and it's great. They beat the Colts. Then he leaves the team, and signs a contrat with the Packers. Maybe he still comes back for drinks with the Jets, hangs out with the guys, but he doesn't play with them anymore. The Jets aren't hurt for playing- it takes them some time, but they find a new player to replace Pete. And they aren't hurt for missing Pete, 'cause he's still around. It was fun to play football with Pete, but the fact is, they still get Pete, and they still get football. The main loss is, less TIME with Pete. But Pete made the choices that he wanted to make, so though the get less Pete, they get a happy Pete. The assumption that comes with anyone on the Jets regretting that Pete is off the team, is that had Pete stayed it would have been the same. But once Pete decides to leave, even if you disband the Packers so he has no place to leave to, he ain't gonna be the same.
No one holds down Pete Lammons.
No one holds down love.

And I know I used Pete as a metaphor for both love, and the lover, but think of it as an opportunity to comment...

Study Question: What is the difference between love, and the lover?

Ziao!

The 2000 Catalan motorcycle Grand Prix (wikipedia)

"The 2000 Catalan motorcycle Grand Prix was the seventh round of the 2000 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season. It took place on June 11, 2000 at the Circuit de Catalunya."

If you were there, it was everything. The rumble of the bikes, the cheers of the crowd, the scent of gas and dirt in the hot, summer air- but it was just one round of a 16 round racing season, one season out of about sixty so far. It was one of those days that consumed your world, your mind; a day where your heart beat to the rhythm of the engines, where you hungered for speed and were parched for victory.
It was one of those days- well, it was a one of these days. A day. 24 hours. We do this all the time. Day, day, day, day, every day a day. But the 2000 Catalan motorcycle Grand Prix! That was special! Well, maybe, but it was also a day.

June 11, 2000. I hate to rhyme 'sailboat' with 'boat' but that's what I'm going to do: The Cicuit de Catalunya's Grand Prix represents, yes, a day.
When you're in it, it's everything, but if you step back, it's just part of a greater whole: Your life. History. Eternity. Or is it? Which is real, the moment, or the spectrum? The physical, touchable, adrenaline-pumped present, or the dry, intangible timeline?

"Oh, Kenny Roberts Jr. got 25 points! Sure beats his 10 pointer last round!" We can look back into the past, laugh and regret, or make bets on the scores of the future (I've got my money on Kenny's retirement, whatever the heck that means).
Many people spend much of their lives considering which action will have the most positive benefit for their future, or pondering which of their past actions were mistakes, and how things may have gone better.
The alternative, of course, is to sit on the edge of your seat, all day, immersed fully in the experience, then go home, sleep, immersed fully in your blankets (unless it's hot). You'll make bets on the future if you feel like it, but that's hardly going to be what consumes your thoughts- the drive to the race, the race, and the drive home from the race are far too exciting to be worried over what will happen tomorrow.

But, but, but, people argue- the 2000 Catalan motorcycle Grand Prix was only one round! You've got to consider the whole picture if you want to enjoy it fully. Not to mention make sure you have tickets for every race, good seats, snacks, and the full backstory of every rider. If you just show up you'll be lucky if you make one round.
What about life plans? What about careers? What about choosing a major for school or deciding whether you should stick with the stressful job in order to get the promotion to the job you've wanted all along? These are all decisions which pertain to the future. Decisions where you assess your goals, your knowledge of yourself and the world, and make your best guess for how to get what you want in the most painless and expedient way possible.

Look to the riders. We can assume that they are pretty damned present as they ride their bikes, and I'm going to guess, just guess, that the winners are the ones who prepare most efficiently without worrying too heavily. They tune up their bikes, stretch their muscles, drink their water, and get a full night's sleep. They prepared, but they remain present. Am I presuming? Yes. I have no evidence whatsoever to support this. But I'll bet, statistically, that I'm right.
You can live in the moment and make plans. But they aren't plans, they are movements. The plan of a mindful person is an action. "I like to know things," she thinks, and she sits down to open a book. "I like to win," he says, and he double checks the connections on his bike. "I like the sciences," she says, and she registers for a college course in mathematics. And when his wife comes in with hot cocoa, he sets down his wrench and he drinks it with her, because he loves his wife, and he loves his cocoa.

Am I idealistic? Yes. But let's start with the beautiful extremes, find the flaws, and then back it up a bit into a delightful, functional life philosophy. We could do this with social and political structures as well, and it has been done- but that's a subject for another day.

I invite your comments on this. Tell me where the holes are, and I'll see about filling them up.

River Kym (wikipedia)

"The River Kym is a river in Cambridgeshire, England. It flows through the village of Tilbrook, to Kimbolton, and joins the Great Ouse at St Neots."

Are you feeling lonely?  Confused?  Spiritually dry?  Turn to Wikipedia for unlikely but full-hearted support.

I've never seen a lonely river.  The clatter of water against rocks and branches, the ten thousand drops flying into the air and caressing the surface of the water as the fall back down in that infinite cycle.  Excitement, enthusiasm, peace, poise- these are the qualities which make up a river.  It's just one river, but it's never alone for its component pieces and for the millions of life-forms it supports and nourishes by its very existence.

I've never seen a confused river, either.  Rivers are directed, focused.  They follow the path of least resistance, allowing the pull of gravity to shape their riverbeds and to temper their flow.  If two paths seem equal, there is no hesitance, no indecision- the decision is made be reality, in that moment.  Sometimes the river will split for a time, creating two different, equally zen flows, or the physics of the situation will become apparent and the river will continue along one path.

It splits, and it merges, it becomes part of greater rivers, it joins the ocean, and never is it more or less lonely, for it isn't lonely at all.  It is rich, and solid in its ambiguity, it is eternal in its impermanence, each moment it is different, yet each moment links perfectly and seamlessly to the next.

Some rivers pass through villages- they are witnessed, appreciated, and played in by people.  Others spend their whole existence amidst nature, more quietly supportive of the earth.  These rivers each exist in precisely the way reality is set-up, they do not argue with it, they do not wish for change-- change is everpresent, and as perfect as could be asked for.

I don't want to slap a quiet pond here, so I'm not going to go on much further.  Try considering this in context with your own life, though.  Each moment, you make the decision which best fits who you are and what reality is presenting to you at the moment.  There's never cause for regret, because your choices have always been the right choices for that moment.  New choices will be made in the future, also according to your everchanging nature, and everchanging reality.

  Your existence is rich, and dependent on nothing.  You are a force of nature as much as anything, powerful, unstoppable, unpredictable, and beautiful.  And yet you are steady and pure, and help shape the beautiful organization of reality.  

  I'll let you go on from here.

(p.s. I'm not saying anything about the Great Ouse.)

Afraha Stadium (wikipedia)

"Afraha Stadium is a multi-use stadium in Nakuru, Kenya. It used mostly for football matches and is the home stadium of Ulinzi Stars of the Kenyan Premier League. The stadium holds 8,200 people and opened in 1948."

Your ears are a multi-use stadium, receiving information for the known yet foreign land that is your psyche. It is used mostly for searching for specific information and is the home sensory organ for intellectual exchange and connection to your environment. The ears can process thousands of different kind of information,
and they opened the day you were born.

You think I'm joking? Football is as specific, inane, and ridiculous as sports come (this from someone who has never sat through a football game, nor who really understands the rules. I am at least aware of my prejudices in this field), and yet its rules come nowhere close to the minute criteria our brains use to filter what we hear.
Depending on our mood, our chemical state, our desires, our values, whether it is day or night, whether we are hungry or thirsty, we will hear and interpret a million different things from the exact same set of sounds.
I'm going to make up a statistic: We only register 1 out of every 1000 things that we hear. Only 1 out of every 1000. I'll repeat it one more time so you forget I just made it up: We only register, we're only consciously aware of, one out of every thousand things we hear.
And yet we have the conceit to think we really know what's going on?
We have the gall to think, not only that we know what's right for ourselves, but what's right for others?
We can't even process all the sensory input we receive in our own lives-- we don't even receive the sensory input from the lives of others, yet we still think we know what's best for them.

There are 8,200 people in Afraha stadium when it is full. Do you think they all know each others' names? If they did, do you think they'd be able to then deduce the names of the spectators in Safeco Field? In the Yankee stadium? Do you think they'd be able to accurately state the motivations, the reason why each person came to Safeco Field to see the big game? No. Nor would they care. They are at Afraha stadium to watch the Ulinzi Stars play football, and that's what they do.
Enjoy the sound of the waterfall, but don't think that everyone's problems would be solved if only they came and listened to the waterfall in the exact same way and for the exact same reasons as you.

I went for a walk today with a good friend of mine. She talked to me about how much she's learned lately by not speaking. By not speaking all the 'good advice' she had in mind to her children, she learned how they grow and learn on their own. By not criticizing her friend she learned to hear the unseen truths behind her friend's actions. When I listen to somebody with the intention of really listening, with the intention of understanding them, connecting to them, hearing their emotions, their motivations, without any ulterior motive other than to hear- I learn so much, and grow so much. As soon as I have a personal stake in it, the listening becomes tainted and filtered and I grow seperate and distant.

The Afraha Stadium in Nakuru, Kenya is a multi-use stadium. It's primarily used for football, but very, very functional for a wide variety of other games.
Kazam!

Opera Pia Dei Poveri Mendicanti (wikipedia)

The Opera Pia Dei Poveri Mendicanti was a service offered in Italy in the 1500s. Apparently Jesus' teachings included something about 'helping the poor and the weak' so the ruling patricians of the time organized hostels, infirmeries, and orphanages in order to do just that.

"The plan was to ameliorate the poor through discipline, education, and by finding them sufficient work; thus, helping the people escape their perpetual poverty in a modern sense."

The girls were kept outside the city, and the boys within. Interestingly, among the organizers, the women were frequently criticized for wasting money on "lavish festivals and dinners".

Ok. There's plenty of options here, but let's break it down and then build it up: A service offered at the latter end of the middle ages, honoring a higher power by helping the weak. A gender divide placing women seperate from the population centers while nevertheless allowing them to create community with their lavish festivals.

Well, that's just confounding!

But here's what I think:

The Opera Pia Dei Poveri Mendicanti is a young girl, taking care of a small dog given to her by her parents. "You have to learn responsibility if you want to grow up," said the parents, and what little girl doesn't want to grow up? Some children will ignore the dog, figuring that they can please their parents in other ways, by dressing nicely, cleaning the house, or saying "Good morning, wonderful parents" each day. They don't realize that it is not the parents who make the child grow up, but the child. Taking care of the dog isn't a chore with adulthood as the payment, but a step down the path. Just as the girls of the Opera are kept seperate from the city while the women throw parties to support it, so too does the little girl befriend her dog in private while her mother invites her friends over to meet him. In a sense, the pressure created by the visiting adults drives the little girl further into her possessiveness of the canine, seperating her from the adults yet paradoxically pulling her down her own unique route towards adulthood.

The beautiful thing about a metaphor is that it can go both ways. Though it's clearly the Opera which represents the little girl as opposed to the other way around, we can also gain perspective into religious charity by looking at the little girl. Do we get into Heaven by pleasing God enough that he lets us in, or is Heaven, like adulthood, a place/state that we come into naturally, in our own way, in our own time?
Contraversely, if we take the metaphor in its proper direction, and look at the fact that the Opera was a modern attempt (modern to those in the 1500s at least) to ameliorate the situation of the poor, then we can also posit that the first little girl to take care of a dog did so after seeing unhappy, uncared for dogs for all too long, and perhaps witnessed her parents' unhappiness there. Like the ruling patricians of the time, the little girl realized that the dogs would need to be taken care of, and so she did her best to do so.
That's hardly a significant insight. I'm going to have to apologize, I'm overhearing a fellow playing middle-man over the phone to conflict resolve between two friends. One more step towards heaven, one more step towards adulthood. Loud, noisy, beautiful steps which are distracting me from my intentional stumble towards hopeful epiphanies.

Let me remark more honestly, avidly, on metaphors, cutting out a bit of the bullshit that I've been spouting (sincere, well-meaning bullshit, please don't get me wrong).
I've long thought that a two-way metaphor has a lot of potential. Clearly it's kind of a joke to say the the patricians and the poor are a metaphor for the little girl and the dog, because the relevant thought here is that about pleasing god/pleasing the parents. But if a metaphor's direction is from the simple to the meaningful, then what if we find meaning in the simple? What if valuable lessons about parenting could be learned by watching Sixteenth Century rich attempting to please their god? And we've already seen that they can: As parents, we need to realize that child-raising is not about getting our child to do what we want, to please us, to agree with us, but to help them find their own path to adulthood. This is why we might get them a dog, even when we may prefer say, a pet rock. This is not to say that parents, or God, cannot have a personal relationship with their children, but that the joy from an interpersonal connection is a part, but not necessarily a whole, of the assisted path towards adulthood.
Yes, I may have strayed back into the b.s.-ing towards the end there, but forgiveness is a virtue and I'm tired, so please forgive me. However- please-
encourage growth; do not selfishly hoard affection and power.

Unless that helps you grow, of course. Far be it for me to tell you your best path.

Professor E.A. Smyth (wikipedia)

"Professor Ellison A. Smyth was the creator and first head coach of the Virginia Tech Hokies college football program. He coached the team in the 1892 and 1893 college football seasons."

The first primary leader of a system of projects, in the past. Well, clearly our friend Ellison A Smyth represents God, the head honcho behind many forms of life, volcanic eruptions, and natural laws. "For he coachethed the team for two years of recorded history, and wheneth the history stopped being recorded, his voice felleth silent to all but the avid fans."
You ever wonder why the last chapter of any given religious text seems to be the last time anyone hears the voice of God? I suppose it makes a sort of sense- after all, any time God speaks is worthy of writing down. The question still stands, however, why did God stop speaking in the fifteenth century, or two thousand years ago, or five thousand years ago as the case may be, depending on your holy book?
There's a million answers to the question out there already, but I think old E.A. can answer it best for us:

In 1892 Virginia tech's score was 1-1-0
and in 1893 it was 0-2-0
and the total score was 1-3-0

Time doesn't have much meaning, in the context of eternity, but every project needs a beginning. The coach comes in and gets the ball rolling, plants the seeds of the future, makes his influence known. After that, he lets his students and colleagues take over, and shifts into his roll as a quiet advisor, available for those who wish to come to him personally, but no longer speaking publically except on very special occasions. The question of how many years it has been is irrelavent- rather we should ask ourselves, "how shall we play the game now?"

And may I say, Wikipedia seems to have an awful lot (2, so far) of very short 'random articles'?

Essonistis (wikipedia)

"Essonistis is a genus of moths of the Noctuidae family."

Gosh. I don't think it could get any clearer than this. We live in a world of unknowns, but our minds work overtime to put names on all the bizarre and complicated faces. Putting things into categories within categories we hide them away, never fully facing the fact that we don't even fully understand that which we're categorizing. Like Adam, we hope that naming the unknown will give us power, but instead it leads us to think that we know something when we haven't even seen its true face.
Give me a world without names and I'll give you a planet full of very observant, very attentive human beings.

I admit this post highlights my own ignorance. If I were an entomologist I'd have laughed and said "This Wikipedia article (and a short one it is!) clearly represents Confucian ideals, for we have long and hard studied the Noctuide and the Essonistis to find out their proper fit and association with one another, and have refined to, literally, naturally, a science." This hypothetical entomologist version of myself also apparently has a leaning towards the eastern philosophies.

But I'm not an entomologist, and to me Noctuide and Essonistis are a nearly random if intriuiging collection of vowells and consonents, and that just shows me one more example of naming the unknown. Introduce me to a moth, teach me her ways. I don't want to know your name, I want to know your heart. Well, maybe I'd settle for a story about your hobbies...

As this is my first post, I should clarify something off the bat, for ye critics:
When I say "Metaphor" I am not limiting myself to "You are a ray of sunshine" style metaphors. I fully intend to use entire shittons of similies, analogies, allegories, comparisons, pseudo-psychoanalytical dream interpretation...anything I feel like.

Like a dog pawing through the garbage for a snack, I have a goal that I'm reaching for, but I'm not picky. Unlike the dog, I expect each sandwich wrapper I consume will unwrap within my stomach to reveal a lotus blossom, raising me towards enlightenment (or at least a sharper intellect) and with luck, entertaining you.

That being said, goodnight.