I Musta Got Lost

Today, I got lost in the woods. I am not talking in metaphors here, I am talking about an honest to goodness fucking lost without knowing where I was and not sure if I would survive, lost in the goddamn woods.

It all started out so idyllically with a wander down a trail in the Wolf Creek Preserve, hoping to catch some nice pics with my brandy new slightly used Sony RX100 camera. I figured, how the hell could I get lost on a marked trail through a relatively confined preserve of forests and waterfalls? So I headed out with no compass, no light, no matches, and no map. All I had was a sweatshirt, a Carhartt hat, a pair of gloves, and my trusty camera. The trail markers were strangely white, then yellow, occasionally blue, sometimes red, and sometimes nonexistent. Nevertheless, I persisted.

At one point, I crossed a road into another section of the trail and figured, hey, I can always hear the cars and just walk towards them. So I followed the random markers deeper and deeper into the wilderness until I came to what I can only assume was Wolf Creek. There were a bunch of beautiful waterfalls, bridges and streams, that allowed me to exercise my new camera in a most exuberant manor.

It all went to shit when I started following the creek to get some up close and personal shots of the waterfalls. After I finished that little side trip, I sorta lost track of which randomly colored trail marker that I was following. I decided that white was the preferred color and followed that for about an hour, until I realized that I was just walking in circles. The walking in circles thing dawned on me when I passed a picnic table for the third time. It was at this point that I realized that the sun was going down. The thought that came to mind was "Holy shit I am going to die curled up in a frozen ball next to a mossy log!"

Now in upstate New York in January, the sun sets at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Upstate New York kinda sucks for winter unless you are a skier or a masochist. It is all pretty gray, dull, snowy, cold, and muddy. I started to panic. So with aching knees and frosty nipples, I started jogging down the trail. It was only then that I realized I was exercising the definition of insanity by repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result.

Finally I saw a different trail marker and decided to follow it instead of mindlessly following the infinite white marker loop. This broke the Twilight Zone-esque cycle and allowed me to ultimately end up at the trail head, collapsing at my car just as the sun was setting.

So what did I learn from all this? Pretty much not a fucking thing other than maybe next time I’ll bring along a box of matches and a cell phone. And maybe a space blanket. And maybe somebody else that I could kill and eat if I had to.

The Road Less Traveled

Apparently, a certain well known poem is now in the public domain. According to an article that I read on copyright law, the poem below is now owned by the public and not any particular author. So the question is, can I now claim that I wrote it?

Maybe the biggest stick in the craw of the now nameless author of this little missive, is that any part of this poem can be used to hawk anything from ladies panties to Snoop Dog’s next album title. “Easy wind and downy flake” could be a new line of toilet paper or bathroom fart mask spray. As for me I shall just embrace the words “Miles to go before I sleep” as a life motto and move on.

I am he as you are he you are me as we are all together. And on top of all that, I am the walrus and you are the egg man.

Goo goo g’joob

So in light of that thought, I give you this poem which we now all own. It is now part of us and we are part of it.

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

Ya Can’t Change the Past, Dumbass

Consider for just a moment what you are doing right now. Now consider what that is going to look like to you thirty years from now. I’m not talking about reading this goofy blog, I’m talking about what the hell you are doing with your life. When you look back on what you did with your life thirty years from now, will you be happy, proud, ashamed, guilty, or just plain stupefied at the stupid stupidity with which you wasted this awesome opportunity?

Everyone, I think, at some point worries about their legacy. I often read of a President being concerned about their legacy. Usually this concern comes to light during the last days of their administration. My contention is, that is exactly the wrong time to start worrying about your legacy, since that is exactly the time at which you can’t do a fucking thing about it. 

So what is a person to do? I don’t have a frigging clue. As the scripture says

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

But I gotta ask, if I'm a mist that vanishes, why should I be concerned about my legacy? I mean really, legacies only last a little while, unless you're George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. The rest of us poor saps will have a legacy like unto my old grandpa. His legacy will only last a generation or two and then we'll all even forget where the hell he was even buried. That my friend is you and I. Our kids and grandkids will remember some of the stupid shit we did and said, bury us, and then forget to tell their kids where we were buried.

I'll leave you with a song. Sing it Doris!!

Old Man Noises

I have suddenly realized that there are an increasing number of old man noises that seem to be emanating from my aging body. Certain people in my direct orbit have made me painfully aware of this phenomena. Initially, I sloughed the whole concept off as utter folderol. Recent events, however,  have bitch slapped me into realizing that the world is just full of old man noises.

The YMCA men's shower is the central clearing house for old man noises. Being retired, I tend to head over there in the late morning, which as it turns out, is the time at which every other old bastard heads over there for a workout, a shave, a sauna, a whirlpool, and a shower. The tiled shower room is like an old man noise amplifier, in that ever grunt, groan, and fart is amplified to coliseum volumes. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that at least half of the old men at the Y are on respirators, walkers, colostomy bags, and oxygen tanks. The rest are so inflexible that any attempt to bend over, sit down, or stand up causes a gasp of pain. All of these noises are a symphonic cacophony that reverberate off of the tiled walls of the men's shower.

There is also a strange phenomena that occurs with old men. That phenomena is the repetition of behaviors, phrases, and noises that are designed to drive everyone in their direct orbit completely insane. All of that annoying shit that your parents laid on you when you were a kid? It turns out that it is hereditary.

There is a short, rotund, Italian fellow covered with tattoos who has an unbelievably annoying habit of making a loud girlish squealing sound whenever he sees someone that he even vaguely recognizes. Why does he do this? No one has the balls to ask him. I am pretty sure he has been doing this his entire life and probably inherited the behavior either from his parents or some drunken aunt that was equally annoying.

While I am on the subject of the YMCA, I must briefly touch on the petri dish which they call the whirlpool spa. The body fluids that flow through that thing, I am sure, would scare even the toughest resident at the local nursing home. In an attempt to minimize the chances of a lawsuit, the staff at the spa pour increasing amounts of chemicals into the pool, resulting in a nice soak in the boiling bubbling vat of Clorox. This almost certainly assures that only the most virulent strains of ebola can survive in the pool.

Why the hell do I go to a place that disgusts me so? I don't have an answer other than - what don't kill you makes you stronger. I'm thinking that in a couple of years I'll be ready to compete on American Ninja Warrior or maybe on Ultimate Fighter.

Karmic Justice

One of the fears we all have, regardless of age, sex, or religion, is prison. We”re all told from birth that prison is a really really dark and dangerous place. This is all reinforced by the endless list of prison dramas where young men are “shivved” because they reached over the plate of a fellow inmate. Even worse, becoming someone’s “bitch”
is the ultimate threat. No, no, no, you do not want to end up in the “federal pound me in the ass prison”.

Now why would an old white guy who has never been to jail, let alone federal pound me in the ass prison, want to discuss this in a blog post? I dunno, it just seems to be ever present in the political discussion with the endless cast of questionable characters passing through the current administration.  I sorta feel that it would be poetic justice that the politicians that always seem to metaphorically pound us poor bastards in the ass would be threatened with the same treatment but in a much more personal way. I am pretty sure that they all have the same fear as I. It is innately injected into our psyche by prison movies and TV dramas. Names like Alatraz and Rikers Island conjure up visions of shivs, prison riots, and shower sex. Maybe it is just my eternal belief in karmic justice for bad behavior.

It could be that karmic justice is the main driver for all the religions of the world. We all wanna believe that the asshole that stole our lunch money in high school will get it in the end.

This brings me to Newton’s Third Law - for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I realize that Mister Newton was talking about the real world, forces, mass, yada yada yada, but I believe that the law applies to life in general as well. Lemme give ya some examples.

You have a stomach ache - what did you eat last night?
You have lung cancer - how long have you smoked?
You crashed your car - were you drinking or maybe talking on a cell phone?
You’re in prison - what crime did you commit?

I know, I know, everyone in prison is innocent. Unfortunately, the list of people that believe that is generally limited to your mother and the ACLU. The rest of us see it as karmic justice for evil deeds or a cosmic example of Newton’s Third Law.

But what about the dude that always seems to get away with shit? He or she lies, steals, and cheats but always comes out smelling like a rose. I guess that’s where the religion thing comes in.

Maybe there are showers in Hell.

So This is Christmas

Christmas has dribbled away like the last drops from my cup of Maxwell House. It is somewhat of a melancholy realization that Christmas just ain't what it used to be. Used to be that the gifts were piled to the sky, kids woke you up at 5 AM on Christmas day, and then harassed you in endless fashion until you allowed them to tear into their gifts.

Now when our kids were young, we had exactly four Christmases. The first occurred on Christmas Eve at "Gramma's House". Of course, there were two "Grammas", so we'll just designate this one as Gramma #1. Gramma #1 always had a mountain of presents, including a few gag gifts. Gramma #2 not so much. Christmas day had the other three Christmases and involved a bunch of driving around.

Christmas morning at our house started out with the utter chaos of kids running down the hall screaming at 4:30 AM to roust us and drag our bleary eyed asses down the stairs. We always tortured the kids by forcing them to read a few Bible verses from Luke before they could tear into the gifts. Like Tom Petty said - the waiting is the hardest part. Oh, and there were also lots of donuts. Donuts are great immune system boosters, loaded with powerful anti oxidants (or is that maybe anti psychotics). In any event, donuts work wonders on your attitudinals.

Gramma #2's house involved present opening, followed by a big old lunch and some gabbing. The mountain of presents was a little smaller here but the lunch was always great. The last Christmas was at my brother's house in the evening of Christmas day. This one was always a bit anticlimactic, but it did involve copious amounts of booze, so that always made it A-OK in my book.

Now here is the melancholy part. I am at that stage where there are no "kids" anymore (or yet), since we have no grandchildren (yet) and all of the nieces and nephews are pretty much all growed up. Christmas now involves handing out a bunch of checks and a few presents, followed by lots of eating and lots of booze.

Now that I think about that some more, what the hell am I bitching about?

Why don’t you just tell me the name of the movie you have selected?

Way back in the before times, when engineering school was foremost in my mind, I took a couple of courses in control systems engineering. Control systems engineering studies the modeling of dynamic systems and the design of controllers that will make such systems behave in some predefined way.

It makes use of complex mathematical equations involving Laplace transforms and other arcane mathematical representations long faded from my aging mind,  but I digress.

A simple example of a control system would be the thermostat at your house controlling the furnace and air conditioner. As the thermostat is adjusted, the heat goes up, or down, or shuts off as the temperature in the house changes to match the setting on the thermostat.

Recently, I have discovered a practical use for the primary tool used in this necromaniacal field, called the Transfer Function. A transfer function is a mathematical representation that is used to describe inputs and outputs of black box models. I think that this approach can be used to look at the suitability of a government to meet the needs of the people it serves.

The inputs are from we the people in the form of votes and representation, the black box is composed of the machinations of our government in action, and the outputs are the real changes in our social and economic systems. When the electorate detects unfavorable societal change, they vote to correct the government by electing different representation.

But here is the kicker, if there are no such changes in outputs no matter what the inputs are, I propose that there is no need for the inputs.  Q.E.D.

To put this whole discussion into layman’s terms, if our government just does whatever the fuck it wants, no matter who we vote for or who gets elected, why do we need voters or representatives?

And then again, mayhaps I thinks too much.

Thoughts on the Subject of Thinkology

Watching the Wizard of Oz for the eleventeenth time and noticed for the first time that the Scarecrow’s seeming brilliance after receiving the Doctor of Thinkology degree stating

The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side

is complete bullshit. I do conclude something that appears to be proven out in the real world though. If you state anything with enough confidence And bluster, any idiot will believe you. This here idiot was fooled for approximately 50 years, until today. So there you go.

Sadly, this theorem about human behavior appears to be rolling out in real time today.

The Simplest Conclusion is the Correct Conclusion

There is this hypothesis called Occam's Razor. It goes something like ... the simplest explanation is the most probable. Or maybe in the words of Theodore Woodward, the guy who cured typhoid fever, "When you hear hoof beats, think of horses and not zebras".

Well, the hoofbeat I am hearing today is that of an overwhelming societal sickness that is eating our brains.  That societal sickness is social media. It creeps up on us slowly and eventually consumes our every waking hour. The first realization of the advancement of this sickness occurred when my cell phone started telling me the number of hours, minutes, and seconds that I was spending in the form of screen time. This number has been creeping up for months. The main culprits, at least for me, are news apps and Facebook. The worst part of the whole thing is that these wounds are completely self inflicted. After all, twas I that installed this shit on my phone. So now I suffer on at the hands of me.

I has met the enemy and he is us.

Now when I first got a cell phone, it was a convenient tool to keep in contact with my pals and business associates. Then came the apps. Then came the weaponization of the apps. Now we read that the weaponization of the apps was used for nefarious purposes, including world domination. Well, enough is enough. I have had all I can stands and I can's stands no more. I am on a mission from God hisself to wean myself from the machine world.  The only way is to rip it off like a band aid, or in my case, rip it off like a strip of duct tape across my hairy balls.

I start today with the goal of nuking the most significant time waster from my life by deleting the Facebook app off of my mobile devices. I've deleted a couple of pages that I owned and will soon delete my Facebook account.  I feel better just writing this shit down, kinda like a giant carbuncle is being lanced on my butt. Stay tuned for more, as I have decided to spend more time writing these inane missives for the enlightenment of the masses.

Signed
The Soon to be Free Me

Paste Eaters

Philosophical thought for the day - Once you are caught eating paste, you are branded a "paste eater" for the rest of your school years. 

For the "word curious" - A “paste eater” in the original literal sense is a small schoolchild (usually male) who develops a fondness for the taste of the white paste traditionally used by students in the lower grades to glue bits of construction paper together.

I Yam Outraged

I am outraged, you are outraged, the whole damn world is outraged. The adage that “old age is an excellent time for outrage” appears to ring painfully true. I do not remember ever being outraged as a young person. The older I get, the more easily I become outraged by any person, place, action, or thing that my morally superior ass feels that it is morally superior to. But why? What is accomplished by moral outrage and who the hell even cares that you or I are outraged?

Outrage seems to manifest itself a lot in politics. The president, the congress, or some community leader shows up on television and proceeds to blather on about the morally outrageous behavior of some other dumb ass. So what and who cares? You’d think that there would be some positive feedback loop that keeps us on the moral outrage train, else why would we continue to be outraged? I think that it all revolves around blocked goals and our personality traits. We’ve all met a terminally angry person, a narcissist, a pacifist, the easy going dude, and the competitive dude. Each of these different personality types reacts in a different way when they are frustrated or their goals are blocked.

Recently, I have found myself outraged between 2 and 20 times each and every day. When did this all start? There must have been a certain birthday or world event that caused my outrageous state to commence. It may have been  911 or it may have been the Kennedy assassination, who the hell knows. This has all lead to a condition we will call “outrage fatigue”.

Outrage fatigue is the condition where one experiences hopelessness, apathy, and cynicism as they are overwhelmed by the woes of the world. Social media may have had its genesis in outrage. We can be anonymously outraged in an explosive expulsion of shit spew with virtually no consequences. The equivalent behavior would be flashing the finger at some guy that cut us off in traffic, driving off in a cloud of heifer dust with a smug smile of satisfaction on our lips.

Mark Zuckerberg may well have had the first thoughts on a design for Facebook while watching Bill O’Reilly.

Poverty and Greed

What can I say about poverty? It seems to me that we all think we are poor to some extent. A wise old drunkard once told me that feeling rich is all about desiring less and not about wanting more. Desiring more and then obtaining the object of your desire makes you feel rich, for a minute. But soon, you are wanting something else and again feeling poor, since wealth is relative. Greed is not just about having more, it is all about having more than your friend or neighbor or family member. So how to get out of this infinite loop?

I have a friend in the car business. He says that people often come into the dealership and put him through the paces, only to later discover that they are up to their asses in debt already, bankrupt, or behind on payments for their existing loans. And still they want more, bigger, better, along with the associated prestige of owning such. Same goes for the latest cell phone and all of the other dressings of perceived wealth. Why do we do it? What advantage is there to having more while others have less? My suspicion is that there is some sort of evolutionary advantage to greed. If you have more, your chance of survival would be better. I realize that having a better cell phone or car does not necessarily increase your odds of survival, unless we look at how these things are marketed. Marketing is all about creating a perceived need and then fulfilling that need. A review of a few Mad Men episodes is quite instructive here. With that all in mind, let’s head to the animal kingdom. As it turns out, the animal kingdom is slathered with greed.

The greediest of all animals is the wolverine, so that is where we will focus. The scientific name for the wolverine is “gulo gulo”, the Latin word for gluttony. The wolverine is a voracious eater and is feared by virtually every other animal. It has been known to fight off cougars, packs of wolves, and bears. It also will steal food from virtually any other animal and then despoil the leftovers by spraying it with a mist from the anal gland composed of carboxylic acid and other noxious substances. This acidic mist actually accelerates the spoiling process. Why you ask? The reason is that a wolverine doesn’t want any competition. By being generous with the leftovers, the wolverine would be potentially bulking up the competition for his food sources.

So I think this gives us a very clear definition of greed. It is not just having more than the next guy. It is also seeing everyone else as competition for the object of your greed and doing everything you can to ensure that your competitors are disadvantaged in that competition.

Ever wonder why a billionaire still wants more? Objectively, it seems that they have way way way more than they could ever use in a gazillion lifetimes. The only explanation this poor desktop philosopher can come up with is that they need to make sure that none of the rest of us poor saps can ever have the opportunity to compete with them.

I’ll leave this all with an inappropriate song lyric snippet.

With a rebel yell, she cried “more more more” - Billy Idol

Smarter Than the Average Bear

Yogi Bear claimed to be smarter than the average bear. I am not sure that the average bear is all that smart to begin with. This was just Yogi’s way of saying that he had that special street smart edge on all those that would be out to interfere with his way of life. It didn’t really matter that his way of life involved stealing picnic baskets from unsuspecting campers, Yogi was just out to survive. And why not? All of humanity had conspired to tame nature and destroy the poor bear’s ecosystem. In the mind of Yogi (and all of the other average bears), the end did justify the means. In this case, the ends were the survival of beardom and the means were stealing pic-a-nic baskets.

Which brings me to the topic du jour, when do the ends really really really justify the means? As I watch television and observe the actions of humanity, it seems to me that virtually every action performed by man, beast, or politician is a “good and proper” action in the mind of the action doer. However, there are always unintended, or possibly intended, consequences that are in no way “good and proper” to the casual observer. I suspect that Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Sadaam Hussein, Idi Amin, Osama Bin Ladin and the endless list of now deceased and deposed douche bags thought that their actions justified the means right up to their untimely ends.

Taking this all down a notch, let’s have a look at the regular old man on the street. Everyone thinks that the ends justify the means. The last time you cut someone off in traffic to get to your destination 34 seconds sooner, did the ends justify the means? How about letting someone anonymously have it on social media just because you were momentarily pissed off by something that they said? I’m not even sure what the “ends”are in this case, other than to make you feel .00005% better about your superior ass self. And don’t get me started on the actions of governments. Since when does changing some other peoples religion or political system justify bombing their sorry asses into oblivion? And how is that more high minded than some person stealing so that they can eat or get high or do whatever they do that makes them happy?

Ok, ok, enough. I’m pretty sure that even Ghandi was a prick some of the time. Unfortunately, we all take a couple of hit points against our soul every time we justify an end with some asinine means. I just hope I have enough soul armor to survive to the ultimate end.

The Average American

Coffee, that most wondrous and essential of drinks. The same bean is delivered to eager Americans in so many forms. Latte, espresso, cappuccino, Americano, macchiato, and a plain old cup o joe are just a few. I love coffee! It is paradoxically relaxing and loaded with a stimulant called caffeine. Just the word “coffee” makes me feel better. Top that off with a donut and you have the breakfast that every American has come to know and adore. Which brings me to what’s on my mind today; fat ass Americans.

I recently read an article about the “average man”. Someone analyzed the information from the Center for Disease Control’s database of anthropomorphic data, and constructed a description of the average man on several continents. The conclusions are not very flattering. It turns out that the average American is a 35 year old, 5 foot 9 inch tall guy weighing 195 pounds with a 39 inch waist and a Body Mass Index of 29, just one notch below the definition of obesity. On top of that we are shrinking. Sixty years ago, Americans were the tallest in the world. Now we are three inches shorter than the average Dutch man, who clocks in at 6 feet. In fact, several years ago, the Dutch were compelled to increase the building code standards for door frames. Anthropologists are suggesting that the average Dutch man could be 6 feet 3 inches tall within the next 50 years. Looking at a couple of other countries is even more disturbing. France and Japan were also part of the analysis and came in with a relatively svelte Body Mass Index in the mid to low 20s.

This has all been tied to lifestyle and diet as we turned from chopping down the wilderness to create this great nation, to a bunch of fat asses sitting on our recliners, drinking coffee and eating donuts. I used to think that plain donuts were the diet version of a donuts, so I could pretty much eat as many of them as I wanted. I wuz wrong. The entire donut cornucopia that is the Dunkin Donuts menu weighs in at around 350 calories per donut and has the same effect upon my otherwise girlish figure.

So what are the conclusions that came be drawn from this discussion? So what if we are a bunch of fat bastards? Maybe that is just us enjoying the fruits of our labors, taking a well deserved victory lap around the planet.

Somehow I don’t think that is the way the rest of humanity sees us. Shrinking vertically and expanding horizontally is a great analog to the way that America is perceived. As we stick our noses in everyone else’s business, either with endless foreign interventions, or economic and political demands, our stature in the world is ever diminishing while countries like Germany and  China move into the driver's seat. Maybe that is just the way it has to be, as one moral compass blows a fuse, some other moral compass rises to fill the gap.

Enough of this ranting diatribe, my coffee is getting cold. I leave you with a song.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is the only holiday that has an impact on everyone, regardless of race, creed, sex, religion, political affiliation, or dietary predisposition. You might see this as an imbecilic statement, thinking, erroneously, that it is a Christian holiday and only affects adherents to this most Americanized of religions. But you my friend would be wrong.

To not be impacted by this holiday, you would need to hide in a hole from November to January with no access to television, radio, the internet, mail, transportation, weather forecasts, stores, houses, and people. A Ted Kosinski-esque life would need to be your new religion in order to avoid all of the folderol associated with this holiday. And the movies man, the movies! Every possible character, both real and imagined, have had their Christmas tales shoved into our faces. Grinches, elves, good Santa, bad Santa, Scrooge, Rudolph, Frosty, and Ralphie have all had and continue to have their day in court.

And don’t get me started on the house and village square decorations. My neighbors spend endless hours running strands of lights from the peak of the house to the basement windows. Each year they try to outdo each other in hopes of showing up on the nightly news or receiving a citation for causing the biggest drain on the electric grid. Then there are the giant blowup Frosties and Santas that show up on the lawn, only to appear days later as ill defined blobs of crinkled up plastic as they slowly deflate.

Nature itself is not immune to the season. The harvesting of real trees and the use of artificial trees both have a measurable impact on the environment. Thirty million Christmas trees are sold in the US each year and 350 million are currently growing, awaiting their inevitable fate of sacrifice to the great solstice god. A quick Google search reveals that about 2 percent of all trees planted in the US per year are harvested and consumed for this one holiday. And why the hell do we take a perfectly good tree from the outdoors and put it in our house for a few days, only to later toss it into a great Viking Funeral at the city dump? What has a tree got to do with a baby being born in a manger 2000 years ago anyways?

Why? Why oh why oh why is this the only holiday that has such an impact on humanity? Some would say it is the love for one another or the reverence for the birth of the savior of the world. I beg to differ. Let’s just put it on the table now. It is unbridled avarice. The insatiable greed for riches, the inordinate, miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth. I am not talking about you and I specifically, although that is certainly where it starts. It is greed from the top of the food chain all the way to the bottom. From the companies and individuals that want more money and profit to the little kid that tears open every gift under the tree in less than 93 seconds, we are all guilty.

Perhaps I am being a little too Grinchy here. Maybe this is just the way the world needs to work in order for us all to be gainfully employed and to live our lives. Maybe Christmas is really the heart that beats and drives our survival in a capitalist world. I looked up the economic statistics around Christmas. It turns out that 19.2 percent of all retail sales can be directly attributed to Christmas and without it, we would all be 19.2 percent poorer and probably a hell of a lot less happier. Christmas, I suppose, is just a necessary evil that we must all endure in order to survive.

I hope this little missive has brightened your day.

Merry friggin’ Christmas to all.

Tom Bombadil, A Horse with No Name, and the Unquenchable Thirst

Blah blah blah, interspersed with short phrases that catch my attention. That is what it has all become. When did life turn from an excitement to rise and shine to this dull state. My mind often drifts back to the good old times of my youth when there was always some fresh adventure to engage in. Often that adventure turned out to be not quite as adventurous as it was when it first popped into our tiny little cerebellums, but the anticipation, oh the anticipation. One particular adventure comes to mind as I sit here on my comfy couch (cue the flashback soundtrack).

Pleasant Avenue wound its way from south to north out of our little town. There were houses occupied by grumpy old folks interspersed with an elementary school and rolling hills. Out behind the aforementioned crotchety old bastard houses were a creek and some huge grass and brush covered hills. It was into these hills that we decided we needed to head, so as to map out the old Chisum trail to God knows where. It was into these hills that myself and my good best buddy, Tom, would head on one bright summer day during our school vacation. We were both huge fanboys of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and would regular imagine ourselves as two wandering Hobbits in search of adventure. Many of these adventures would start out at Tom’s house on Mason Street. Heading down Mason followed by a right onto Pleasant Avenue and we were on our way.

A slight diversion is in order here. What the hell is school summer vacation all about? We hoped and prayed all year that we would live long enough to experience it. And then the minute that it started, we dreaded the day when it would end. It is strange to me that my memories are almost exclusively of summer vacation from the age of about 8 to 12. This brings to mind the question of “what is the purpose of elementary school?” Based on my experience, our time would have been much better spent somehow infusing our summer adventures with the gaining of knowledge. On the other hand, forget that I ever said that. It is apparently just the mental meanderings of a senile old bastard. Let kids be kids, as they say. There is a theory in the US that kids should not be “overstimulated”, and personally, I am grateful to the simpleton that developed that theory. Thanks for noticin’ and back to our adventure.

It was a hot and humid summer day, dead quiet, and at the absolute peak of the school summer vacation schedule. It was on days like this that even the birds stayed wherever birds go when it is hotter than a witch’s tit in a brass bra. As we headed up Pleasant, we could see the distant hills beyond Matthews Creek behind a row of old geezer houses. About a mile up the road we identified a likely back yard to slither through and up into the hills, the home of Grandpa Pavlus. A short secondary flashback scene is required here to set the context.

Mark and Gary Pavlus were two of the kids in the Crescendoe Road “Hood”. Their dad was a large and scary man, from a little kid’s point of view. Their mom was a stately woman who worked as a nurse in the local hospital. Mark was always the more testosterone loaded of the two, and in fact had a mustache by the age of 11. Gary was the more intellectual of the two. I guess that is just the way that DNA works, by compensating for some shortcoming in the populace.

Generally speaking, a kid never interacted with other kids parents unless it was to get an ass whooping. Case in point: Mark and I had a fight one day on the way home from grade school. Whilst we were engaged in fisticuffs, Mark’s mother ran up the street behind me, grabbed me by the nape of the neck and hauled me into the air. Let me tell you, nothing scares the bejesus out of a young boy like an angry mother protecting her cub.

Their grandpappy lived on Pleasant avenue and was generally friendly to neighborhood kids walking across his lawn to enter the wilderness that lay beyond Matthews Creek. I was pretty familiar with the path through the yard, as I had been through this yard a couple of times with the Pavlus boys. One of those times, I had stepped on a mud hornets nest and gotten stung about eleventy two times by mud hornets. Good old Missus Valentine had patched me up by coating the sting spots with a mixture of baking soda and water. Not sure what that was supposed to do, but the cool water sure soothed the sting.

So off we were across Peepaw Pavlus’s backyard in search of adventure. We crossed Matthew’s creek by skittering over a few random rocks that man or nature had placed conveniently as a walkway over the creek. The creek was not that wide and we could have probably done a running broad jump to cross it, but we chose the less athletic route so as not to soak our sorry asses or possibly land on a nest of mud hornets. Mud hornets is nasty sneaky creatures in that they nest in the ground, erupting like a screaming geyser of death when some unsuspecting nitwit stomps on the entry hole to their nest.

Up into the hills we climbed. These were not steep hills, more like gently rising mounds that were covered with grass and scraggly bushes. We saw all sorts of plants, animals, and even a couple of horses as we scrambled over the scrub brush. The fact that we were huge fans of Tolkienish life had no small amount of influence on our seemingly inane behavior. We’d shout various exclamations from the Lord of the Rings as we jogged through the hills. Tom Bombadil was one of our favorite minor characters in that book, so we would often invoke his name. As the sun reached its zenith and made its way towards mid afternoon, we lounged around on the hill that overlooked our hometown. We were loving life.

We had to leave and head on home in order to avoid the inevitable ass kicking that would result from being late for dinner. The strange thing is, our parents gave not a single shit where we were all day. This was back during the age of free range parenting, in which parents allowed us to run around like free range chickens as long as we did not interrupt their lives with our whining needs.

Our journey took a nasty turn at this point. Unfortunately, we had neglected one key necessity when we had headed out that morning. We had filled our little packs with Snickers bars, but had not brought any water. My most vivid memory of this trip was how unbelievably thirsty I was. This singular condition is probably the reason that this whole trip is so vivid in my memory, now almost fifty years in the past. We were both dehydrated and stumbling by the time we made it back to Tom’s house, where we guzzled down water from the hose attached to the side of his house.

All of this talk of marvelous journeying and suffering travelers brings to mind this snippet from a song by America. I do always endeavor to end with a pithy observance or a pointed  poem, so here goes.

“On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound”

The Angst of Living a Memorable Life

All of my writing starts with a thought. My thoughts today involve entering a new phase of life. That new phase revolves around retirement and the lack of constructive activities as I wind my way to the ultimate resolution of life. After spending my entire life as the slave to another master, this new phase is theoretically one in which I will be my own master. Is that ever really true? As Bobby Dylan said, probably too many times as he often does, you gotta serve somebody. Well let me tell you, that somebody at this point will need to be yours truly.

And so, thinking about that new phase a few months ago, I decided to embark upon contributing my narcissistically self serving view of scientific knowledge back to the community by taking a teaching job at a local community college. It was all fun and games until I came to the stark realization that this was way too much like work. Believe me, when you are in a position that requires massive amounts of thankless preparation followed by endless hours of teaching, grading, and whining from angst ridden young people it is not nearly as glamorous as one might believe.

And so, now, after four months of that, I have decided that the new phase must commence. Whatever will I do with my endless supply of leisure time? Maybe the better question is, what makes me truly happy? Although booze certainly makes me happy, I am not sure that spending every waking hour drinking is the best solution to long term happiness. After all, most of my relatives went down that path, and I cannot say that any of them were very happy.

Music makes me happy, and playing music makes me happy. Playing music in front of people has sometimes made me happy as well, so I think I will continue doing that. Organizing bands and getting gigs used to make me happy as well. But these days, that particular activity causes me to be way too anxious.

Actually, I am sensing a theme in all,of this drivel. Whenever an activity involves some sort of anxiety, I am not happy and want to run away like a little mouse. My nature does not allow me to quit, so I just let the anxiety build until I can develop a smooth and non bridge burning escape route. I just can’t live with myself if I don’t let things resolve in a non destructive way. So maybe that is the answer. Pick things that require no deadline, involve little or no anxiety, and require no resolution.

Trying to think of activities that meet these criteria sounds like a reasonably non anxiety laden activity. I suppose I could spend my days developing such a list, but that seems a little circular in its logic. Nonetheless, I feel I must at least make a pass at developing such a list. So here goes

Hacienda on the beach in Panama
Playing music for myself and nobody else
Golf
Drinking
Reading the great works of literature
Writing short stories
Writing in my blog
Writing a novel
Yoga
Songwriting
Travel
Driving aimlessly around the country
Driving purposefully around the country

I suppose that these are the very thoughts that make us to long for the romantic. It may be that the relief from the anxiety and annoyances of life is the only thing that makes anyone truly happy.

The Cash Shall Trickle Down Like Mana from Heaven

Let us try a little thought experiment. We'll call it "Thought Experiment 1", since I am feeling particular creative today.

 Say that you have a neighborhood kid that rakes your leaves every year and that you pay him a whopping ten clams to do an extra good job. Suppose that you get a wonderful tax break that knocks you from the 25% tax bracket down to the 15% tax bracket. What are the chances that you will now say; "Hey, I be rolling in dough. I am gonna give that raking dude a huge raise. In fact I may hire a whole team of raking dudes and pay them extra out of the goodness of my monetary windfall elated heart."

I think we all know the answer to that question. Now let's move on to "Thought Experiment 2".

The aforementioned and somewhat wiser raking dude says to hissef; "I am not getting paid enough. Ten clams is what they used to pay raking dudes back in the 1970's and it is now 2017, I deserve a raise". The young dude gives you this pronouncement to which you respond; "What are you some kind of nut? Why should I double your pay when I can find raking dudes galore in the neighborhood?"

The raking dude takes it to the next level and gathers all of his raking dude buddies. They all agree that twenty clams is the going rate for raking lawns. And so the first raking dude union is born and you my friend are either going to rake them all yourself or possibly end up face down on the lawn with the paddles of life strapped to your ass.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not a "union guy" but I do want to point out the complete lack of logical thinking that permeates our country's leadership. I suppose that raking could be outsourced or done by migrant labor, but it seems to me that is also a temporary solution.

Eventually everyone demands a higher raise. Shit I keep writing these stupid blog posts and am getting paid nada.

Gumpism

I would like to propose a new school of philosophy based upon ideas expressed in the 1994 comedy, Forrest Gump. Note that there was also a book by Winston Groom entitled Forrest Gump which I do intend to read some day, but being the simple lazy ass man that I am, I shall use the knowledge that I have rather than put forth any effort to provide a complete background to my coming rant.

The philosophy of Gumpism shall involve complex explanations and insights into the words and actions of the various characters in the movie. Now I knows what you are going to say. How can one build a philosophy based upon a fictional portrayal of a book of fiction? I propose to you that it happens all of the time. Baskin Robbins had 31 flavors originally, which evolved or devolved into the bazillion flavors we have today.

There are countless Christian denominations, all based on interpretations of a book that is translated from other languages that the adherents don’t even know or understand. King James, New International, New King James, American Standard, and the list goes on. Then there are the versions that are based on other interpretations or even new revelations that someone just made up, like the Mormon Bible or the New World Translation used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Each one of these religions is the result of someone deciding that someone else’s interpretation of some version of one of these books is not right or heretical. Why else would there be Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Greek Orthodox, United Methodists, and Pentecostals each with multitudinous adjectives added to their names to differentiate them from the herd. Adjectives like Orthodox, Reformed, First and Second, Open, Free, and International are freely prepended onto the denomination so that their truthiness can be made manifest. I am also sure that the same can be said of every other major religion, based on principal number one of Gumpism (see below for the principals of Gumpism).

I said all that to say this: Gumpism is just as valid as any of these other religions or philosophies, since who can say that all of this other shit is just not made up as well.

OK, now that we have that out of the way, on to the Gumpian Way.

Principals One of Gumpism

Principal number one of Gumpism is as follows, Stupid is as stupid does. A working definition of this Gumpian proverb:

A person's imbecilic statements and actions, rather than their actual IQ, define his or her stupidity in the eyes of others. It is truly the stupid shit that you do in the presence of others that defines you.

This is found to be true throughout the wondering world. Just go to any business meeting and observe. The person that yaps the least is generally seen to be the wisest person in the room. As some wise ass once said - “Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”.

Principal Two of Gumpism

Principal number two revolves around your place in the world. You are less significant than a wart on a toad’s ass when viewed from the context of the gigantic universe. This thought is summed up by the response given to the traditional Gumpian greeting of  “My name’s Forrest, Forrest Gump” by an Army recruiter.

 "Nobody gives a hunky shit who you are, puss ball. You're not even a low life-scum-sucking, maggot, get your ass on the bus, you're in the army now!."

And this bit of sage wisdom from Lieutenant Dan

“Get down! Shut up!”

A quick reality check. The mass of all humanity is equal to about 1 trillionth the mass of the earth. On top of that, humanity has existed on Earth for about 200,000 years versus the 5 billion year age of the Earth.

That's about .004% of the time the Earth has been spinning through the cosmos. If you had a 10 foot pole that measured the total history of the world, we would be here on the last 5 thousandths of an inch. The Earth was here long before we popped out of the cosmic colon, and it will be here long after we become the victims of the second law of thermodynamics.

So really ... do the machinations of the crazed cuckoo characters inhabiting this planet even matter in the grand scheme of things?

Principal Three of Gumpism

Principal three revolves around the randomness of life. This seems to be a recurring theme in Gumpism, as the Prophet Hissef Forrest is a parodox of imbecilic success at all he does. He just seems to fall in a flower bed every time he is headed for a pile of doggy doo doo. Forrest claims this principal came from "His mama". Perhaps in the same way that Mary influenced Jesus, Mama had a similar influence on the Prophet Forrest

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get."

And the related principal espoused by Forrest

"I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. Maybe both is happenin' at the same time."

As far as the chocolates go, I have found that occasionally you will get a chocolate
wrapped in gold foil that has a mouse turd hidden in the center.

That’s a Spicy Meat-a-ball

One of my favorite foods as wee lad was canned Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs.

A little research reveals that Hector Boiardi founded the company in 1928. During WWII, the company was commissioned to produce army rations.

After the war, the company was sold and kept right on producing this delightful product so that the poor saps that worked there wouldn’t lose their jobs and all of us boomers could get acquainted with canned and processed meatballs.

So there ya go. It’s good for cuts and bruises and tastes like turpentine.

Inertia Is ...

According to the Rs, we will all soon be rolling in giant piles of gold like Scrooge McDuck.

And according to the Ds, we will all soon be stuck picking cotton in the fields and scrounging through trash cans for uneaten McDonalds hamburgers.

I can also assure you that if the Ds were in power, you could just reverse the argument.

The reality is that, as always, the truth is in the middle somewhere and we will all continue to bitch no matter who is in power.

In physics class, we learned about a property of matter called “inertia”. Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion.

This property has also been used in political science to describe societal change.  The best predictor of the state of a system at time T+1 is the state of the system at time T.

Thank God!!!

I’m Down for the Count

Philosophical observation for the day

So I decide to do a little research on Count Basie. I start typing in Google "Count" and the Autocomplete in Google gives me the top picks.

Count Chocula
Count Dracula
Count Dooku
Count Olaf
Count your blessing
Count of Monty Cristo
Count Duckula

Google support gives this helpful insight into these auto completions

"The search queries that you see as part of Autocomplete are a reflection of the search activity of users and the content of web pages."

The fact that a majority of people and web pages in the world are referencing information on Count Chocula is a sign that civilization is poised on the edge of collapse.

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste

According to astronomers there are 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Of course that number is just a guesstimate, since "observable" is defined by an itsy bitsy teensy weensy yellow polka dot telescope that is careening through space above us at 4.72 miles per second.

Multiplying that by the number of stars in the "average galaxy" -  100 million - gives us 2 followed by 20 zeroes number of stars. But wait, there's more!! That is just the observable universe and we can only see the light that has reached us. Others estimate that the number of galaxies is more like 10 trillion, give or take a few trillion.

It also turns out that the "average number of stars in a galaxy" is exactly that, an average. Some galaxies have a trillion stars and some have just a few stars.

On to talkin bout planets. Estimates are that there are about 100 billion habitable planets in our galaxy alone. Astronomers are finding more every day as the technology gets better. So the number of habitable planets in the galaxy is ... you do the math, as my slide rule ain't long enough. Let's just call it "a shit load" of potential alien cultures in our galaxy alone, all fighting for dominance of their worlds.

On top of all of this, we have been spinning on this tiny orb for but a brief nanosecond relative to the age of this universe. I mean really, if we are seeing light now from stars that are billions of light years away, one must conclude that the age of our universe is at least billions of years, since light travels at a constant velocity of, well, a light year per year.

I said all that to say this ... you and I are insignificant microscopic bacteria relative to the vast petrie dish of activity that is our universe. The great economic, military, and political powers of our world will exist for a blip of time and be forgotten and washed away by the passage of time and space.

#quityerbitchin

I end this all with a point and a poem

The blowhards of today and the legacies that they vainly build will soon enough be worm food, buried beneath the star dust that pours forth from the universe.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

I'm tired and it's a lot of baloney

One of the truly great philosophers of the 20th century is a fellow with the mysterious moniker of "Bancini". He didn't say much, but when he did, people listened and stood in awe of his insightful commentary on the human condition.

Bancini spent the majority of his adult life as a voluntary resident in the booby hatch. We get introduced to Pete Bancini very early in the only work that references this character ... One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. The first time we hear from Bancini, he lays a very heavy line down with the words

"I'm tired. Whew oh Lord. I'm awful tired".

Now a quick analysis of this deep truth reveals that the existential crisis and subsequent boredom of humanity, leads Bancini on a search for truth through a higher power. Nurse Ratchet's response reflects the lack of compassion and empathy in all of humanity when she says

"Someone go sit beside Mister Bancini. Quiet him down so we can start the meeting". 

We are all treated like this from birth, the first time one of our parents would prefer watching Seinfeld or playing canasta over reading us a bedtime story. Stick a binky in the kids mouth ... that'll shut him up.

Later in the book, we gain more insight into the Bancini character when he says

"I can't help it. I was born a miscarriage. I had so many insults I died. I was born dead. I can't help it. I'm tired.".

So, stomped and abused, we travel through life until we get to that final stage, which I feel that I am now at. That is the point at which we realize that this whole world is wrapped up in a selfish and narcissistic condition to which there is no final solution. We are all so wrapped up in ourselves that we cannot take a moment to consider the point of view of "the other".

Technology has accelerated this sorry condition by allowing us to submerse ourselves in a virtual world of made up shit. What is that made up shit you ask? Games, made up internet stories (like this one for example), pornography, and the opinions of the loudest mouth in the room.

I leave this depressing diatribe with probably the most important and insightful words from the mouth of Pete Bancini.

"I'm tired and it's a lot of baloney"

I have a dream

I have a dream, in which I am writing a novel. In that dream, the words tumble from my fingers in
coherent sentences, completely immersing my audience in a world that challenges the way that they have thought about their very existence.

In reality, the words flow off of my fingers in drubs and drabs and only briefly engage my tiny audience in bad puns and derogatory self deprecating humor. Such is the world of reality and self delusion.

Nowhere does reality collide with self delusion more than in the world of golf. In that fruitless endeavor, every player thinks that they are a far better player than they actually are.  Standing over the first tee, the typical player waits for the fairway to clear, only to hook the ball into the trees about fifty yards away. A chip from thirty yards off the green flubs to about eleven inches from where the ball was struck. A three foot putt stops two feet short of the hole. All of these sad attempts are immediately followed by various four letter obscenities and a thrown or dropped club.

Such self delusion begs the question "Why?", as in "Why oh why do you get so pissed since it is obvious that you totally suck at this?"  It's true in virtually every endeavor. Playing a musical instrument, playing a sport, some obscure hobby, a test a school, and on and on. Everyone thinks that they are better at something than they actually are. And then when they fail, oh my God! It's as if the world ended, and almost always someone else's fault. So again why?

I think that it all goes back to yer mama.  When you failed as a wee tot, didn't you look to mama to pat you on the head and comfort you? Mama was always an enabler. We are engrained with the thought that failure is not an option from a very young age. Take that and the genetic coding to propagate the species to survive and you have the perfect recipe for an optimist. Only by adhering to the Eastwoodian philosophy of "A man's got to know his limitations" can we successfully navigate the whitewater raft ride that is called life.

As always, I must leave you all with my insights about what I have just enlightened you with. Well this time, I just need to rant a little.

You probably think that this little missive is about the sorriest attempt at eloquent prose as you have ever read. That is just the fault of your puny weak loser mind trying to comprehend the eloquent insights that I have just espoused. You snotty nosed heap of parrot droppings! I feel sorry for the future of our world.

Imaginary Money?

The thought has recently occurred to me that the value of money is completely in our minds. Money has value because we all really really really WANT it to have value. It is an article of faith that has been imprinted on all of humanity that a US dollar is actually worth something. In this version of reality, it is a religion.

Now I know whatcher thinkin' ... if you really thinks that, hand me over yer plethora of clams and move on with yer life. Sadly, I can't do that because pretty much my whole life revolves around "thought experiments" and, as such, have no basis in reality. But bear with me, as I have some further evidence to support my seemingly inane conclusions.

Let us say that you and I are engaged in a game of Monopoly, that bastion of capitalism played by children and adults throughout the wondering world. Now one thing that I think you will agree with is that while we are playing in this version of reality, US dollars ain't worth shit. You would, in fact, sell your very soul for a handful of these fake looking multicolored moolahs whilst battling me for world domination. So in this alternate reality, our religion is that of Rich Uncle Pennybags, with his associated version of legal tender.

All of this philosophizing, makes me wonder how the hell we got to this sorry state. My conclusion is that we are all lazy sombitches. We've created this imaginary story about money so that we don't have to carry around a bag of cabbages or watermelons or Big Macs.

Apparently others have thought long and hard about this question, as I found the book below with a quick search on Amazon. I always think that the simplest answer is almost always closer to the truth than some advanced mathematical mumbo jumbo. But for those that gotta know, here it is.

Why is there Money?
Walrasian General Equilibrium Foundations of Monetary Theory
Ross M. Starr, University of California, San Diego, US

Theater of the Absurd

Thinking today about the absurdity of life. What makes a person want to live after all? Is it a hope for the future, that you have something that you must accomplish? And if you accomplish it, what then? A scientist hopes to discover something novel, an engineer hopes to invent something, a doctor hopes to cure someone, and on and on.

The religious viewpoint is much the same. It too involves a hope or possibly even a perceived knowledge of a future state. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have a vision of a future state involving bliss, happiness, closeness with God, 7 virgins, eternal riches, blah de blah blah.

This "mechanical life" marches from Monday to Sunday, rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Once we are in the grip of this cycle, we have reached steady state, and call it "living". But again I ask, why? This is the essence of the absurdity of life. We have essentially invented a reason to go on living, since the alternative is unthinkable and painful.

I recently read an essay by Albert Camus entitled "The Myth of Sisyphus" in which he says

Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness.  It awakens consciousness and provokes what follows. What follows is a gradual return into the chain or it is the definitive awakening. 

We all want that ... the definitive awakening, but are too fearful to stop WTF we are doing to experience that awakening. It is far easier to just keep turning the crank, the path of least resistance. Which brings us to Sisyphus.

According to the Greek myth, Sisyphus is forever doomed to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, only to have it roll back down to the bottom each time he reaches the top, kinda like a shitty golfer stuck in a sand trap. The idea is that there is no worse punishment than to be trapped forever in this futile labor.  Once you reach the top, there is great joy, followed by incredible despair.

But wait!! What if, instead we see Sisyphus as a workman that is toiling towards the goal of moving that rock to the top of the mountain. Each step a more joyful victory than the last. At the bottom he has the victorious journey to look forward to, and, at the top, he has the victory of attaining the goal. The struggle itself is enough to fill his heart with joy. One can imagine Sisyphus happy and victorious. The point at which Sisyphus realizes that there is a "joy in the journey" is his "definitive awakening".

This, I think, is the essence of living in the moment.

On a somewhat related note, I have always wondered how ants feel when some snotty little bastard kicks their ant hill into a giant cloud of dust.

Forward Into the Past

Don't know about you, but I sure spend a lot of time contemplating the past. Not in the sense of what might have been or mistakes that I might have made, but more like reliving things that I had enjoyed. It is a wistful nostalgia that ignores the bad and focuses on the good. You know ... the good old days when things were way more betterer than they are right now.

Well today I would like to focus on the future. It seems that I look upon that with much anxiety and dread. Pretty sure this is all related to uncertainty, almost always related to decisions that others are making. Do I have control over those decisions? Of course not, so why do I worry? Who the hell knows. What are those decisions being made by others? Could be job related, or money related, or love related. The rulers of the universe and kings of industry are always making decisions that will certainly impact me and mine, but again I have no say or control. So why the anxiety?

There is a verse from the Bible that seems applicable, so I think I shall quote it here.

"Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes" 

I like that a lot ... a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

So from one mist to another, I bid you adieu and good day.

My First Car

Sitting here at the car dealer getting my inspection sticker renewed on my car and my mind drifts back to my first car, a puke green 1966 Volkswagen Beetle with a moon roof.

I know what you're thinkin' .... What? This guy is way too cool to have owned such a POS. At the time most of my friends were hippies or hippy wannabes. We all attended the same community college and either hitchhiked, rode bikes, or drove a POS car. So this car fit right in.

At age 18, I did not have a driver's license. Most (all?) kids today get their license at 16, but not so in my era. I dunno why this is. Maybe all parents have had enough of their kids at that point and are just trying to accelerate the launch cycle out of their house. My parents were not the "let's teach the kid how to drive so that he can make his way in the world" type. As a result, I had never driven a car. So, there was a need for a driver with prematurely advanced abilities to teach me the ways of the road. Enter James T Wiley (Coyote).

My good buddy James T Wiley (Coyote) was the impetus behind me getting my first car. He drove me around in his POS Chevy to a local used car lot that was just chock full of other POS cars. There in the middle with a golden shaft of light shining down upon it was the car of my dreams; a 1966 V-Dub with the retractable moon roof. Who cares that it was puke green and ran like a coffee can full of marbles? It was the perfect car with the perfect view of the stars at the perfect price - $100. According to the lot owner, this was his son's car, only driven to college. This was obviously bullshit, but I swallowed it whole like the dumb ass that I was.

James showed me the ropes of driving this car, along with how not to grind the gears or burn out the clutch. Drove it around illegally for a few months until I got my road test passed, and I was on my way. I loved this car but later graduated to some more grandiose POS, whose make and model escapes me right now.

The car was sold years later to a VW aficionado named Ritchie. Knowing the legacy of VW Beetles, I can say with some authority that this car is still being driven around today in one form or another. I prefer to think that perhaps the motor was salvaged and used to power a surveillance aircraft in Nicaragua.

In the Middle of Nowhere

We all know where we have been, since that cannot be changed. Some say that they know where they are going, with their lives all mapped out before them. But is that really ever true? Shit changes, that is just a fact.

There may be some parallel universe somewhere in which people are able to travel in the 4th dimension of time, but for now we are trapped in time with no way forward or back, except to wait or reminisce. Probably explains our wistful/nostalgic conundrum.

There is a field of mathematics called "Chaos Theory" that can be summed up by what is called the "butterfly effect". What the hell is that?, you innocently ask. 

The butterfly effect describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state, e.g. a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.

I bring this up, because sometimes you have no control over the circumstances or behavior of some other system will affect your system. I mean, who knows? A bull farting in Venezuela may impact your next flight to Las Vegas or your next job promotion.

I said all that to say this ... we are all stuck in the middle of nowhere on a path to who the hell knows where.

Sing it Charley!!