The Fracture

Chasm, by Kevin Shea, May 2017

No one tells you that little drama would have a huge part in the fracture of life, in the foot bones of the soul while it slams the brake pedal to the floor in a bid for control. That cliff edge is close and getting closer.

No one tells you that of course this is not your beautiful house, this is not your beautiful wife, because they never belonged to you in the first place. Of course, this is what the imps in your head whisper to you as you try to fall asleep.  No point in asking through sobs "How did I get here?" because you truly don't grasp it all. And sometimes the shittiness of life means you will not be told by those who swing the hammer.

No one tells you that the cleavage plane of mid-life won't be rewarded with that supermodel armcandy in the leather bucket seat. No, you won't get that as comfort, cold or otherwise. What you get is waking up in what feels like a down-at-the-heels luxury hotel, unsure of where you are, and cursing at the asshole cat who can't leave the mini-blinds alone.

You ask yourself, if this is a hotel, why is there a cat here?

Because right now, it isn't a hotel, it is a hiding place. The cat is along for the ride, and you can't help but be thankful for a companion with whom to gaze into the chasm you have to cross.

Two Years Before the Mast or Something Like It

8:06 PM. Night is falling earlier on this slow slide into fall. A mirror of my days, methinks.

Monday, October 7th is an anniversary of sorts. The day will mark two years since I last plied the profession of architect full-time. Well, with one very small exception, plied it any time, to be precise. The demon of this particularity caught up to me in broad daylight. A mental mugging, minding my own business at a stoplight.

Hardly seems fair, I know. Enormous effort has been expended in the past two years, first on searching for a position suited to my training. Then when that became increasingly fruitless, Sisyphean even, my efforts were slowly diverted to searching for a position suited to my skills and interests.

You see what I did there? With the "training" segueing into "skills and interests"? I knew you could.

It was an inevitable transition, in hindsight. Anyone who has been laid off more than once knows that looking for a job is a full-time job. Old habits die hard, and I was up early and working the job lists and directories and cold-calling and frankly it ground down my resolve and self-esteem to the point where I had no energy to even be desparate anymore.

I was, though. The sheer effort in looking for an architecture job, with no results to show for it, haunts me even now. It is draining to think about it. The knowledge that no one seemed to be interested in a talented, skilled and licensed architect with 20+ years of experience (i.e. Yours Truly) is a puzzling and disheartening burden to carry. At the time, it was all I had and all I knew how to do.

Not that I have forgotten how to do it, mind you, but I have had almost no arena in which to practice it. So in essence I gave it up. I had to, so I could focus on other ways to preserve my sanity and hopefully make money. Thus, writing and photography began to eclipse what I was trained to do. Possibilities formed in my mind, of an intersection between the Want To and the Must Do sides of the coin of life.

I can say I have had some minor successes in that regard. I have exhibited in a local gallery, made some contacts in the art world, garnered some part-time work in photography, sold a few prints. So there are signs of encouragement. The writing has not had the same level of interest, it continues to be a slow go, but there have been some nibbles.

Still, the hard work continues. My figurative heels are sore and bleeding from all the nipping they endure, courtesy of the imps and demons that seem to shadow me, messing with my dreams. I fight them off as best I can, but every so often the shield slips and they get through.

Today at a stop light, a chunk of the sky fell on me and I flinched. Breathing hard through a squall of panic, my mind reeled over and over, thinking I must be nuts for trying to make so much out of nothing. The voice (you know the voice) whispered from the backbrain cave that maybe it would be best to give up carving a new path in this old jungle, when there is a perfectly good path somewhere behind me.

All I need to do is turn around, retrace my steps, and I can put down the machete. The path back there is dusty, rutted and beaten down. The rocks in it, the thorns flanking it, well they can't be as bad as the unknown overgrown thickets I am thrashing through, can they? It would so much easier to go back, would it not? Simply trade the promise of uncharted territory for the drab security (which is not so secure) I used to know?

The light changed. The breath wooshes out of my lungs. The car rolls forward, I make the turn, and try to put the past behind me. Two years before my own personal mast have taken me over strange new seas and into uncharted lands fraught with promise. It would be a shame to give up the ship when there is something wonderful on the horizon.

On What We Could Be Doing

Dear readers, I know my posting of things has been rather sparse, and for that I offer my regrets. The usual suspects are involved: life events, job search pressures, the endless search for food and revenue. I do not offer them as excuses, only factors. But those factors alone do not account for my relative silence.

No, it is more. Two things at odds with each other.

It is the Buddhist idea of "mindfulness" versus the overbearing, seemingly endless paranoia and violence of the culture surrounding me in these here United States. I'm at a bit of impasse as to how to resolve the tension. It is giving me tremendous food for thought, yet stifling my creativity and energy.

I am trying to practice mindfulness (the awareness of one's body, one's feelings, one's thoughts and perceptions, and consciousness itself), because I am becoming aware of how it may help me in my quest for inner peace. It helps me realize peace and appreciate beauty in ways that escaped me as a younger man.

But it has made me more aware...of everything. Or almost everything. This means that the overload of information from events over the past two or so years, such as vitriolic politics seemingly devoid of reason and the horrific acts of gun violence (and the continued willfully irrational fallout from both) have strained my internal resources close to the point of non-functioning.

This makes me sad.

When I consider all the wonderful things we could be doing with our time, like caring more for our fellow humans, creating beauty, working constructively for a better future for all of us in this supposedly free society in contrast to what actually happens (violence, hatred, partisanship)...I lose energy and motivation.

There is much beauty to be had, love to be shared, yet we spend our time building walls, digging trenches and tearing down others. So many advantages and blessings, squandered.

Bah. It is winter and I am feeling tired. I am mindful of that, and know that it will pass. Perhaps the practice of mindfulness will teach me to celebrate what I can do, rather than mourn what others cannot seem to do. This is my hope.

Suffrage (Sunday Meditation #24)

This morning it hit me that it has been less than 100 years (92, to be exact) since women gained the right to vote in this country.

It has been less than 50 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
...less than 50 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965...

...yet there are those who still refuse to believe there is much work to be done.

This election cycle all we seem to hear is "economy, economy, economy"...but still there are those who want to exclude and disenfranchise human beings due to their skin color, sex and/or gender orientation.

In a particularly dark bit of thinking, I couldn't help but think that those who feel their income, personal taxes and the price of gasoline take precedence over civil rights and equality under the law...will always be slaves.

Yeah, it's the economy, alright. But more importantly, now and forever, it's human beings that matter.

Road Fell Away (Sunday Meditation #22)

October 7th, 2012. The Year of My Discontent.

It has been a year since it happened. 365 days around the Sun, back to where I started, only older. One year ago today, I was laid off from my job. The third time in as many years, a trifecta of monumentally dubious distinction. The honor is mine, but I would happy to have not been...graced...by its presence.

The preceding year has been one of growth and retreat, shock and joy, fear and contentedness. It has been singularly fruitless in the furthering of my career as an architect. Never have I expended so much effort in pursuit of work with so little return. The frustration and despondency have sometimes encased me in a portable sphere of emotional gel, on occasion. Thick, sticky and suffocating.

I am learning to breathe for the sake of breathing. Because I must. Because I exist independently of my education and training, my professional obligations and notions of self-worth appended thereto. It has to be that way, because I was myself before the world tried to define me.

Is there wisdom is this struggle of mine? Is there anything to be learned from this equinoctial year of professional disconnection? I hope so. But I cannot tell you yet what knowledge I have gained, my friends. I can tell you this: that moment when the wheels leave the pavement may well be one of the single most important defining moments of a lifetime, even if we don't recognize it.

Driving the straight and open path is easy, and not necessarily edifying. It is what we do when the road falls away that reveals so much more about ourselves. It may be time to let go of the wheel and trust I hit the pavement at the proper angle when I land.

Mouse

Nibbling pumpkin seeds
Brown grass scraping bare belly
Gray Cat watches, schemes

Breaking The Smith

Tobias watched his hands shake, considering again the dread he felt facing the forge. His breath steamed in the crystalline air of an early winter. The cold outside sent sluggish spikes of pain through his belly, belying the intense heat of the almost white-hot coal. The smith picked up his hammer and tongs, spitting into the blaze.

"Another winter of this," the rugged hulk of a man muttered, "and I'll throw myself into that forge." He sighed heavily in a sort of barking cough. The knot in his belly failed to disappear.

Tobias hefted the tongs in his left hand. The Jovian weight of the hammer tugged at his right hand and arm, but was no match for the bulging muscles shaped by years of pounding metal. Hands rough and large, scarred by embers and red-hot iron. The smith stared at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. The resentment he felt for his hands flared bright in his mind. Today it felt like hatred.

Tobias choked back an oath. His hands were always dirty. No amount of scrubbing with sand or, when he could get it, pumice could seem to clean his hands. Nails perpetually grimy and creases in the skin like trenches filled with graphite. He simply wanted clean hands.

If he never again had to breathe in the fumes of smoldering coal and burning straw, Tobias reckoned he could be a happy man. The only way he knew to fix that was to find another trade. The village, he knew, wouldn't let him. They needed the things he made, that was true. But not as many of the villagers were willing to help out now and again. Not as many would want to get soot ground in their skin to do something useful.  The smith scratched the back of his head with the tongs, wondering at the willingness of others to have someone else be saddled with the dirty work.

"No more," Tobias grunted, "no more. The hammer and the anvil about near to killin' me, and I reckon I've had my fill."  The words sounded loud even above the low roar of the forge.  Red highlights flickered on the burnished iron of the anvil, impish eyes beckoning the smith from where he stood.  The anvil. Tobias squinted at in a sudden burst of desperate inspiration. He had been between the hammer and the anvil near all his life since he became a man, and his heart was sick from it. The horn of the anvil seemed to glow, and Tobias knew what to do.

He walked over to the anvil, dropping the tongs and transferring the hammer to his left hand. The right hand he laid on the face of the anvil. The cold iron stung the palm of his hand, which trembled slightly as he raised the hammer high over head. His breath held when the hammer reached the apex of the arc. Slight spasms coursed up and down his arm.

Tobias drew in a lungful of the freezing winter air. The hammer began to swing down, slow at first then blurring into a dark silver arc. The hard steel crashed into the back of the smith's right hand. The cracking of bones mimicked the crackling of the coals. Tobias bellowed, a gored ox falling to its knees with blood spraying out to stain his apron and coal-dust blackened snow on the ground around the stump on which the anvil sat. The big man fell to his knees, screaming and crying, with tears tracking silver runnels through the coal dust on his face. He began to smile. Blinding pain laced with sweet relief flooded through his gut. The smile turned into a laugh.

"I'll not be a smith no more, Lord, I'll not be a smith!" he shouted, "I'm free!" He passed out.

Folks from the village began to crowd around, drawn by his screams, and frightened by the enigmatic smile of the giant with a ruined hand.

Forks, Branches and Right Path: The Search

“If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist.”
― Neil Gaiman

Thanks, Neil.  Like I really need the reminder that I may be a decent poet (but I can't be objective about that), and that I may never be a novelist. (sigh).  These days, I'm far from inspired.

I have been chewing on this bon mot for a few days.  There has been much going on in the alternate universe that is Gumbo's Brain, much of it fueled by the relentless pressure of the Job Hunt.  As the saying goes, looking for a job is a full-time job. It isn't physically strenuous, but mentally, it can really abrade the contact surfaces, you dig?  On the good days, it is a faint fatigue on the soul.  On the bad days...well, then it is like a big bag of wet cement laid across the head and shoulders.  It is heavy, and it presses you into the floor.  A big bucket o' suck, it is.

So what does that have to do with being a novelist?  Nothing and everything, I suppose.  My current job search has to play to my resume in order to have the most chance of success.  The search has to cleave closely to my documentable (i.e., 'paid and credentialed'), and that is nowhere near the territory of a novelist.  So there is the Nothing.

Tantalizingly, there are a number of conceptual parallels between writing and architecture.  There are also many direct intersections.  A lot of what I do (did) as an architect involved writing.  Writing notes, reports, specifications, proposals, estimates, you name it.  A careful describing of all sorts of things, written in dense paragraphs and splashed across brochures, coded into permit applications and construction cost spreadsheets.  There is a certain need for attention to detail and language and craft, even if much of it was technical and not truly creative.

"Being A Writer" is my big idea, an alternate path to gainful use of my time; becoming a Novelist would be the culmination of a dream-seed that has been germinating in my head for some years now.  I hadn't considered it as a full-time pursuit, because of the necessity of the real-life job.

A job that went away last October.  Leaving me in a free-fall of which I am still not in control.

This leads back to the Everything I mentioned above.  I am now at a crossroads.  I have been searching for a job in the field in which I have training and credentials; as a matter of common sense and necessity, I am obligated for it.

As a matter of survival and adaptability, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that I have to make a transition from writer to Writer, if I want to keep the wheels turning.  I must consider blazing a new trail, climbing a new cliff.  It is a new world order, and I cannot keep going back to the same things, performing the same actions, and expecting a different result. 

I'm weary, dear friends.  The drain of my predicament (but make no mistake, I know it could be worse, and I'm glad it is not) has me at an impasse.  I am in a creative slump, I am horribly unsure of which way to go, there are threads I cannot grasp.  I know what I have done, and could continue to do; I cannot abandon the field but it is mostly barren at the moment.  I know now what I could do, if only I had the energy, fortitude and most important of all, the imagination to forge a path into pastures new.  Alas, my imagination is choking on the splinters of the present.

This is maddening.  There has to be a way forward, there just has to be.  If only I could find the right path. If only I could write the novel that fuels my dreams.

Momma Ain't In The Big House

Today was a ridiculous cliche, couldn't look out the window or listen to the sounds of the day without feeling like I was stuck in the middle of an old-school country song.  If my mom had gotten thrown in prison, I believe the day would have come full circle.

I had woken up with a bad headache, feeling a bit sickly with a stuffy nose and that washed out lethargy that often precedes a cold.  The little bit of sunshine we had around here disappeared before the morning was half over.  The sky turned the color of a old ash pail.  My house turned chill and grey.  Admittedly, part of that is due to my stubbornness at not cranking the heat so as to enable making it through winter on only one tankful of heating oil.  Even with an undershirt, a shirt and sweater, jeans and socks, it was still cold. A dampish, steely feeling that worked itself into my bones.

The rain that had been predicted for later in the afternoon started before noon, something I did not pick up on until I finally snapped out of the fog I was in, staring out the window at my neighbor's house.  The little dots I was seeing? Hey, those are raindrops!  Yeah, I'm observant like that.

The morning was full of sighs and ennui, Internet time wasting, and some half-hearted soul searching.  I listened to the rain, drummed my fingers on the table.  I went off the rails a bit, not really sure of what to do next, what obstacles I should try to remove.  It then hit me hard: it was now just over three months since I was let go from my job.  Three. Months. And no prospects, yet, for a new one.

Three. Goddamn. Months.

I put my head in my head in my hands to keep it from hitting the table.  That was when I began to hear the faint strains of a mournful steel guitar in the back of my mind.  I chuckled, a bitter laugh, when I thought about the fact that I don't have a dog, either.  So I could say it was missing.

To ice that particular cake, as I sat there writing the country soundtrack to my life, I heard from across the river valley the plaintive sound of (you guessed it) a train horn. "Really?" I said to myself, looking up at the ceiling, "I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself, and there's a frickin' TRAIN out there?"

It was at that point I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.  Here I was feeling ill on a cold, rainy day, lonely and jobless and without a dog or a truck, listening to the train fade away in the distance.  If Hank Williams or Johnny Cash had come on the radio about then, I probably would have wet myself.

As it was, though, I sat there and quietly stepped away from the edge of the darkness, smiling and thankful that my mom was at home and not in prison.

The Shakes

Bobby Sack grunted, reaching for the bucket by the side of the bed just in time to catch the foulness gushing from his mouth.  He coughed like a geyser, trying hard not to puke on the bed again.  His head hung weakly over the edge of the bed, his sweating face inches away from the sick.  Even in his nauseated haze, that offended his sensibilities.  Flashbacks to some of the worst he endured in the infantry, back in the Burmese jungle, and he realized he just couldn't take it anymore.

Peeling leeches the size of pencils off my legs was nothing compared to this, he thought.  Time for it to be over.  In his line of work, booze made for bad business.

Two dry heaves later, Bobby rolls over on his back, the bucket like a vile bell dangling from his fingers.  He set it down gently so as not to spill it.  The ground-down carpet was in bad shape, he considered, but adding the contents of his stomach to the filth would just be insult on injury.  Bobby blinked slow, a lizard in the heat.  His stomach cramped and he winced.  The flies, goddamn flies, why they gotta be so loud? he thought.

Heat. The room reeked of hot sick and sweat.  The ceiling fan was moving but the air was so thick the fan seemed like a joke.  Bobby slapped at the bedside table, desperate for a smoke.  The cellophane of the packet crackled like static, bringing a momentary recall of combat radios and call signs.  "Fuck me," Bobby rasped up at the dusty plaster on the ceiling.  One day to the next job, and he was a hot mess.  He brought a cigarette up to his lips, hands trembling like palm fronds in rotor wash.  He cursed as he singed the tip of his nose.  It was a minor miracle that the damage wasn't worse.

Bobby looked at his hands.  The shaking was worse, much worse, this time.  The last job he had nearly ditched on because of the shakes. The voice started up in his head, another diatribe waiting to happen. Can't.  Can't do it this time, either, the words tracking neon-like across his mind. But what choice do I have?

Outside in the street, a screech of tires followed by the brassy blare of horns.  The sound wave pierced the thin wall of the cottage, driving a subzero spike of pain through  Bobby's head.  A wave of nausea wracked his body as he clutched his temples hard to keep himself from puking again.  The throbbing nearly drowned out the argument going on.  Bobby could not make out what they were fighting about; it sounded like Thai but his fluency was just enough for him to order a beer and politely turn down a hooker's come-on.

The trembling in his pain-wracked, wiry frame subsided.  The noise faded away as the dispute seemed to be resolved.  Bobby took another drag, coughed on the harshness of the Vietnamese tobacco, and slowly sat up.  His feet bracketed the bucket.  The surface of the vile liquid shimmered slightly under the influence of some small tremor Bobby couldn't feel.

Standing up slowly, he picked up the bucket, holding it gingerly as he padded slowly to the small closet under the steps that held a toilet and a sink.  On the way there, his glance caught the glint of sunlight on the battered aluminum gun case he had set down beside the antique wicker cabinet holding the few clothes he kept.  His steps faltered, briefly, and one hand reflexively grasped at his sunken belly.

Bobby shook his head to clear it.  The bucket shook, a thick slopping sound rising to his ears.  He started to cry and continued on to the toilet, emptying the bucket.  Flushing the ancient bowl, he watched the foulness swirl away to nothing.  The bucket he rinsed as best he could, in the sink, while he sobbed.  He felt a dark kinship with the bucket, it not being lost on him that they were both battered, dirty vessels, never quite clean.

As he swabbed out the bucket with a dirty rag, Bobby told himself that maybe, just maybe, this could be the last job he ever had to do.  And when he was done, he would never have the shakes again.

Contender Blues

The bubble popped and I snapped awake.  Years, gone, and where did I wake up?

I had one of those moments today, of ennui spiced with dislocation, and a dash of mild anxiety.  It was induced by a chance encounter via email.  The email came from a professional networking website and it was chock full of catalysts and memory triggers in the form of "what-have-you-done-since..." blurbs.  The past come back to nag me.

The feeling of being underwater has been intense in the nearly four weeks since I was let go from the job.  Some days I wander around immersed in the sensation.  I put it aside most of the day, as I had my darling daughter  with me, and it was good.

But that email brought it all back.  I scrolled through the page, looking at all the people who had been somewhere and done something and it was at the end of it that the bubble popped.  I started as if awoken while sleepwalking.  It took me a brief pause to collect myself to remind me that I was on the couch staring at the laptop screen.  I was home.

Home, and wondering just what it is that I had been doing all these years.  Picking through the battered scrap heap of my career life to try and piece together that which I could point to and say: I Did This, And I Am Wonderful.  The pickings, it seemed to me, were too thin.

Leaning back into the sofa cushions all I could think was that I need to get my stuff together.  I need to do something worthwhile and soon, as I have metaphorically been sawing off the limb behind myself.  Its only a matter of time before that limb cracks.  I need to hurry.

I need to rev the engine, pop the clutch and damn the torpedoes.  I need to get somewhere, fast.

Glistening Edges

So you may have guessed by now, I haven't felt much like writing lately.  A few random bursts here in October, plus some handwritten stuff in my little black notebooks (for me, not thee, at this time) and in a new journal I'm keeping.  The streak is over, too, last entry for my More Than A Year Of Daily Writing went up on October 8th.  Officially I topped out at 375 straight days of posting.  Not sure how I managed that.

But mostly, I haven't felt the ambition to write.  Most of the ideas I've had I decide really weren't that blog-worthy, and for the remainder I haven had little energy to pursue them.  I have been too tired to return replies, as my poor record with responses to everyone will indicate.  It's because of the "cold black space with the glistening edges"* that has broken open my personal space-time continuum: getting laid off, the subsequent job search and the attendant money crisis created thereby.

This particular black space has not taken complete control of my life, but its presence is sucking up a lot of energy and attention.  It makes me tired.  I have to crank up the personal PR machine, again, start "rebranding" myself again, and it inflicts upon me great vexation.

I know I am capable, and smart, and good at what I do.  I'm also tired of having to explain that over and over.  It's draining and does no good for my morale.  Fighting for balance and security so frequently, well, that is no way to live a life.  I am not really a magician, and my hat may be out of rabbits.

The upside is I have people who love me, who care about me and are helping me in ways practical and spiritual.  I truly would not be able to sustain myself without their help.  I am grateful for the support, emotionally and otherwise. There are other things I am grateful for, too, including the many readers I have here on Irish Gumbo, and I may write a little more about that stuff later.

For now, I'm going to get some rest, and say thanks to all those who believe in me.  Thank you.

---

*Bonus points and a Gumbo high five if you can tell me the song from which that lyric was taken, and the band.

Select Carefully Your Mood Music

Gray skies, cool breezes and rain late in the day.  Had my windows open from morning into night.  They still are, and the crickets murmur of everything and nothing.

Ordinarily I dig these kinds of days.  Today was no exception, up to a point.  That point was up until those small shadows detached themselves from the clouds overhead and came down to settle around my heart.  The rain was floating them.  Listening to "It's A Shame About Ray" by the Lemonheads did me no favors.

Raindrops and Ray sounded too much like angst and regret.  That is a soundtrack I can do without. 

Small Things

Tonight, I am grateful for toast, and butter to put on it.  I bow my head before the toast.

I'll Not Be A Pr*ck

September 2, 2011 - Mind akimbo.

Mind wandering, careening back and forth across the pavement like a wheel that fell off a bus.  All because I was directed to do something that would have made me seem like a prick.

What I was directed to do was not illegal, immoral or unethical.  It did not go against the tenets of my profession.  It was nothing major, but just the same...it would have made me seem like a prick.  All because someone else was acting like one, but was "too busy" to do the thing itself.  I was acting on earlier directions, following instructions and exercising my professional discretion to get things done.  When I relayed the news that the information we sought would probably not be available in time to get it into the project, I was directed to give an ultimatum to the person providing the information: get it to us by X, or have your name removed from consideration.

An ultimatum given for no other reason than it could be, flexing muscles for the sake of flexing.  I asked if that was really necessary, given that the issue in question would not delay the project, could easily be added after it went out (when it was apparent that other, bigger things will have to be added), and was it worth it?

I was rewarded with spite, pissiness and dismissal.  I was told "never mind, I'll do it myself".

On a late afternoon in September, I was directed to do something unnecessary, that would have made me look like a prick.  All in the service to another's apparent insecurities.

I didn't do it.  I'll not be a prick as a surrogate for someone else.  Never again.

It Ain't Easy Being Mahayana

Wasn't that what Kermit really meant?

Ah...probably not.  Maybe.  I don't know.  It could be that our little green frog friend was more prescient than he knew.  I was singing that song recently, but 'green' wasn't the word that I was looking for during my day.  The world, it seems, wants too much from me and I don't know if I can maintain my composure.

It may have been the cars on the road what made me think it.

Events in my life over the past decade have changed me, at least a little.  I have striven to be more patient, tolerant, understanding and compassionate.  The increase in this learning rate jumped when my daughter was born, and then increased sharply within the last three years.

But, still, I gripe.  I curse.  I question the motives and intelligence of my fellow human beings on a far too regular basis.  I cannot seem to break the habit.  This troubles me, because to maintain the cynicism and 'worldiness' that passes for social aptitude in this modern world is increasingly beyond my pale.  I can do it.  But it degrades me and exhausts me.

I know because of the irritation I feel at the idiocy I witness on the road, the overbearing demands of a service oriented industry (in which service sometimes is confused with 'servitude'), the numbing over stimulation of a 24/7 news/entertainment complex, the sheer restlessness of highly populated areas always under construction...

Increasingly I feel disconnected from that modern life, because of the crassness, vapidity and anxiety it cannot seem to do without.

Gah.  Look what I have written.  Sometimes, dear readers, I see my words, know them to be a reflection of my mind, and I cannot escape the notion that I am a foolish man.  Foolish, maybe, because I expect the world to be something other than what it is.  If only, if only, I could tell you what it should be.

Then, perhaps, enlightenment would be close behind.

He Will Not Leave

On my travels to and from Virginia, I am always interested by the number of churches I pass on the route I usually take.  There are many, of different stripes of Christianity (I have yet to see any synagogues or mosques) in many buildings ranging from modest structures to authentic Colonial-era churches made of brick and slate.  One thing that is common is the number of signs I see, sporting religious messages or homilies, announcing intent or proclaiming an aspect of faith.  Most are relatively benign, but this past weekend I saw one that gave me pause and made me wonder.  It read:

God will not leave those that trust Him.

 The first thing that occurred to me was the implication:  That means that God might leave those that do not trust Him.  Which seems to me to be a repudiation of what I have been told is true about God.

God loves us all, right?  He will take care of us, right?  So what do you do when you experience things that seem to be evidence that God has left you?  Why would anyone trust a god that proclaims unconditional love for you, yet lets life abuse us at times?

Why would I trust a god like that?  Especially knowing that even though He proclaims to love me no matter what, He would leave me because I have reasons to mistrust Him.  If mistrust is a human trait, one that God created (because He created us, according to some beliefs), why would He leave us for expressing our humanity?  Especially when grounded in very real feelings of anxiety and fear?

I shook my head to clear it, and accelerated down the highway to put some distance between me and doubt.  Resolving that conflict would have to wait for another day.

On The Importance of Knowing Where To Find Your Hammer

One of the most important rules of carpentry, especially that which puts the humble nail front and center, is to always know the location of your hammer. 

Come to think of it, that is good advice no matter you do in life.

Keep an eye on your hammer, no matter what form in which it manifests.

Pharm Boy

Boy, hey boy, I'm talkin' to you
Are you slow or just stupid?
What's in the bottle, boy?
Candy, is that candy you got there?

Funny, they don't look like sweettarts
what with the letters and they numbers
Hey, don't get upset, I'm just looking
Ha, ha! Look at 'im jump, like a dog!

Whatsa matter, boy? Why so mad?
It ain't like you gonna die, 
you don't eat your candy, right...
Hey, hey, boy, why you shakin' like that?

Oh, shit, Jimbo, his eyes, lookit his eyes
Never seen 'em roll like that on anyone
Boy! Hey, boy! Open your eyes!
(Let 'em go, he's puking or spittin' or something)

Boy writhes on the ground, clawing, reaching,
for the candy, the only candy he eats
a private label pharamcopeia the only book
his gray matter can read

Dirty tablets pushed into a greedy mouth
he lies in the dust and sun, wondering
about his circumscribed life,
longing to leave the pharm

Thursday Quantam Activity: Eeyore's Blues

It's a slow night here in the republic of Gumbolia, and by that I mean I'm feeling slow.  Another 11-hour workday, and if I were a lady my name would be Erasmus B. Draggin.

I'm tired, and a little ground up.  Life and work have been rather stressful lately, and I reached a point where I felt like I didn't want to write anything, because I didn't think I had anything worth sharing.  Too many disappointments do not a jolly fellow make.

I was even considering packing up the blog and calling it quits.  For me, now?  That's like saying I don't feel like eating.  Because when I don't feel like eating? That means something is very wrong.

The problem is, this writing imp has its claws in me deep.  Even when I swear I won't write or don't need to write...I always find myself writing something anyway.  Every. Damn. Day.

Too bad its mostly disjointed episodes and random spasms of my overheated conscious and subconscious.  I have yet to find the thread, the true thread, to tie it all together.  This is my life in a nutshell.  It's like that lyric in the new Bright Eyes song, where Conor Oberst sings "My life is an inside joke, and no one will explain it to me...".  Yep, he nailed it.

Someone, please explain it to me.

So, in that tradition, I'll close with something semi-random, another thought on my "Temple" post from earlier this week.  I found the comments delightful and intriguing, and I thought everyone should know the genesis of the post.  I was inspired by some passages I had just read in the Bhagavad-gita*, regarding attachment and anxieties associated thereto.  The exchanges between Lord Krishna and Arjuna were fascinating to me, and in turned inspired the statement by the student.  That I used the term "God" when referring to the supreme being is a product of my upbringing in a Christian faith; we tend to fall back on what we know.  However, the use of God was a stand-in for the divine, no matter what faith.  I could have just as easily said Yhwh, Allah, Krishna, as I wasn't going for a specific faith.  Indeed, in the Bhagavad-gita, the form of address for Krishna changes from time to time, albeit as different names for the same being.

Be that as it may, I thought it was an interesting take on an age-old question.  Think, think, think...

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*The version in question is "The Bhagavad-gita: As It Is" presented by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.  I was directed to this, and received a copy through, the kind efforts and generous spirit of Braja Sorensen, whom many of you are familiar with through 'Lost and Found in India'.  I started reading it last year, got distracted and set it aside until the beginning of March this year.  I had begun re-reading "Walden" by Thoreau, and in it he mentions having himself read the Bhagavad-gita, which in turn reminded me that I had it on my bookshelf.  And so the great wheel turns...