Saturday, February 19, 2005
Why does boredom exist?
I can see being bored if you're stuck in a situation where you have to pay attention to something monotonous, such as a math lecture or a business meeting, but how is it POSSIBLE to be bored when you can do what you want? When did we lose the ability to entertain ourselves, even when we have homes full of gadgets to "help" us?
Why was "help" in quotes? Because I think that things that encourage us to be passively entertained, such as TV and stereo, and that provide endless entertainment choices with no effort, like the computer, the videogame system, or, again, the TV, have robbed us of our ability to have fun the way our parents, grandparents, etc used to do effortlessly.
It wasn't that long ago that people used to gather at friends' homes every evening to play cards and shoot the breeze, or sit on the porch with drinks and snacks and shoot the breeze; if folks weren't getting together with others, they were building or otherwise creating something (my mother used to do embroidery, for example) or reading... boredom wasn't on the menu. Nowadays, in addition to all the traditional pastimes, we have hundreds of TV channels, thousands of DVD's available for rent and purchase, new music and movies of every kind coming out all the time, magazines dedicated to every possible interest, bookstores the size of warehouses, more videogames than we could ever learn to play, and so much stuff available online that it would take pages to describe it all... and people are BORED. Have we lost our MINDS, or has the sheer volume of fun things to do simply overwhelmed us and prevented us from really enjoying any of it for long?
When someone tells me they're bored, I ask them, "Did your TV, stereo and computer all break down today?" *I* have dozens of albums I love that I haven't listened to in YEARS because I have no time to just sit and listen, I'm so far behind in my reading that I'll never catch up, I never get to see even the most intriguing movies until they get to HBO, where I can watch them while doing 5 other things, and my bookmarks are bursting with interesting websites that I'll never get to browse even if I stop needing to sleep; I wish there were enough hours in the day for me to do everything I'd like to do, and to run out of things to do every once in a while so that I'd have a chance to BE bored... but then again, I wouldn't be, because there's always new stuff to do, and, even if there weren't, there are all sorts of interesting lines of thought that I can spend DAYS at a time thinking about... I'm just not CAPABLE of being bored no matter how much free time I have.
It kills me that people who should be thrilled with the choices they have for THEIR free time have lost interest in all of it and are wasting their lives being bored; I wish I knew the way back to having fun, but you can't MAKE someone have fun, or train or program them to have fun... things either feel fun or they don't. I'm guessing that if you were to spend a year in a cave with nothing to do, EVERYTHING would seem fun after that; are any of the bored people out there willing to do without stimuli long enough to get their joy back?
Robert Heinlein used to say that it was amazing how many people wish for immortality who can't fill a rainy Sunday afternoon... and he said it before DVD's, the internet, videogames, and even cable TV existed, before we as a nation became so hooked on nonstop, right-now, effortless, and often passive entertainment that we don't know what to do with ourselves anymore to make our free time pleasant. The REALLY scary thing about this is; what happens when we RETIRE, and no longer have work to take up the majority of our time?
Why was "help" in quotes? Because I think that things that encourage us to be passively entertained, such as TV and stereo, and that provide endless entertainment choices with no effort, like the computer, the videogame system, or, again, the TV, have robbed us of our ability to have fun the way our parents, grandparents, etc used to do effortlessly.
It wasn't that long ago that people used to gather at friends' homes every evening to play cards and shoot the breeze, or sit on the porch with drinks and snacks and shoot the breeze; if folks weren't getting together with others, they were building or otherwise creating something (my mother used to do embroidery, for example) or reading... boredom wasn't on the menu. Nowadays, in addition to all the traditional pastimes, we have hundreds of TV channels, thousands of DVD's available for rent and purchase, new music and movies of every kind coming out all the time, magazines dedicated to every possible interest, bookstores the size of warehouses, more videogames than we could ever learn to play, and so much stuff available online that it would take pages to describe it all... and people are BORED. Have we lost our MINDS, or has the sheer volume of fun things to do simply overwhelmed us and prevented us from really enjoying any of it for long?
When someone tells me they're bored, I ask them, "Did your TV, stereo and computer all break down today?" *I* have dozens of albums I love that I haven't listened to in YEARS because I have no time to just sit and listen, I'm so far behind in my reading that I'll never catch up, I never get to see even the most intriguing movies until they get to HBO, where I can watch them while doing 5 other things, and my bookmarks are bursting with interesting websites that I'll never get to browse even if I stop needing to sleep; I wish there were enough hours in the day for me to do everything I'd like to do, and to run out of things to do every once in a while so that I'd have a chance to BE bored... but then again, I wouldn't be, because there's always new stuff to do, and, even if there weren't, there are all sorts of interesting lines of thought that I can spend DAYS at a time thinking about... I'm just not CAPABLE of being bored no matter how much free time I have.
It kills me that people who should be thrilled with the choices they have for THEIR free time have lost interest in all of it and are wasting their lives being bored; I wish I knew the way back to having fun, but you can't MAKE someone have fun, or train or program them to have fun... things either feel fun or they don't. I'm guessing that if you were to spend a year in a cave with nothing to do, EVERYTHING would seem fun after that; are any of the bored people out there willing to do without stimuli long enough to get their joy back?
Robert Heinlein used to say that it was amazing how many people wish for immortality who can't fill a rainy Sunday afternoon... and he said it before DVD's, the internet, videogames, and even cable TV existed, before we as a nation became so hooked on nonstop, right-now, effortless, and often passive entertainment that we don't know what to do with ourselves anymore to make our free time pleasant. The REALLY scary thing about this is; what happens when we RETIRE, and no longer have work to take up the majority of our time?
Friday, February 18, 2005
Are you SCARED?
Think how many times people have been manipulated into doing things by someone asking if, or suggesting that, they were scared... as if being scared of something, generally something anyone with a brain WOULD be scared of (or at least anxious about, but "anxious" isn't a powerful enough word to manipulate with), was a horrible thing. Actually, the sorry truth is that the same people who don't judge against those who engage in bad behavior DO judge against those who hold back from doing stupid (and sometimes dangerous) things even after being goaded about it, which might in theory be horrible if you care about their opinions... but I digress.
It's astonishing how quickly even otherwise intelligent people will leap into action if someone asks if they're scared... even if the action in question isn't one where fear could actually be involved, like reading an article by someone with different political views. I'm proud to say that, even as a kid, this one NEVER worked on ME: If the action being referred to was dangerous, I'd say, "That's dangerous, and only a stupid person would do it... and I'm NOT stupid." When I got a little older, I'd add, "But, if YOU'RE stupid, then YOU go ahead and do it." If there was no danger, and thus no possible fear, I'd say, "There's nothing here to be scared OF, and I'm not going to do it just because you SAID I was 'scared.'" If someone kept after me, I'd keep saying "no"; it's always amazed me how quickly OTHER people cave in under repeated sniping, because nothing bad happens to you if you DON'T give in.
Adults often have a backup line to use on those who don't fall for the first one, such as "why don't you just do it?"; my reply to that is "Because I've decided not to." Occasionally, I'll hear the more subtly manipulative, "Can't you just do it because I asked you to?"; my reply is, "Sure... just as soon as YOU agree to do what *I* ask YOU to do"... no one's ever taken me up on that one, lol.
Another angle is, "You SHOULD do it"; my reply, given with a laugh in their face if they're being really pushy, is, "Who are YOU to tell anyone what they 'should' do? What are your qualifications to tell other people how to live their lives?" I'm still waiting to see if anyone's got a comeback for THAT one.
Then, there's the old grade school standby; "Everyone else did it/does it/is going to do it." My response is always, "I don't do things just because other people do them; I think things through and decide what's right for me."
There's an easy, rock-solid rebuttal to EVERY attempted manipulation of this type; I don't know why more folks don't use them, but I strongly recommend it... why let people get away with asserting that sort of control over others?
I guess the big question is; WHY are some people so eager to force others into doing whatever random stupid thing has come into their minds? I've never for one second had the urge to try to use any of these sorts of ploys to make anyone do something, so I'm at a loss; what's the payoff? Are some people just so pitiful that they get a thrill if they can, GASP, get someone to do some trivial thing by uttering the right phrase?
It's astonishing how quickly even otherwise intelligent people will leap into action if someone asks if they're scared... even if the action in question isn't one where fear could actually be involved, like reading an article by someone with different political views. I'm proud to say that, even as a kid, this one NEVER worked on ME: If the action being referred to was dangerous, I'd say, "That's dangerous, and only a stupid person would do it... and I'm NOT stupid." When I got a little older, I'd add, "But, if YOU'RE stupid, then YOU go ahead and do it." If there was no danger, and thus no possible fear, I'd say, "There's nothing here to be scared OF, and I'm not going to do it just because you SAID I was 'scared.'" If someone kept after me, I'd keep saying "no"; it's always amazed me how quickly OTHER people cave in under repeated sniping, because nothing bad happens to you if you DON'T give in.
Adults often have a backup line to use on those who don't fall for the first one, such as "why don't you just do it?"; my reply to that is "Because I've decided not to." Occasionally, I'll hear the more subtly manipulative, "Can't you just do it because I asked you to?"; my reply is, "Sure... just as soon as YOU agree to do what *I* ask YOU to do"... no one's ever taken me up on that one, lol.
Another angle is, "You SHOULD do it"; my reply, given with a laugh in their face if they're being really pushy, is, "Who are YOU to tell anyone what they 'should' do? What are your qualifications to tell other people how to live their lives?" I'm still waiting to see if anyone's got a comeback for THAT one.
Then, there's the old grade school standby; "Everyone else did it/does it/is going to do it." My response is always, "I don't do things just because other people do them; I think things through and decide what's right for me."
There's an easy, rock-solid rebuttal to EVERY attempted manipulation of this type; I don't know why more folks don't use them, but I strongly recommend it... why let people get away with asserting that sort of control over others?
I guess the big question is; WHY are some people so eager to force others into doing whatever random stupid thing has come into their minds? I've never for one second had the urge to try to use any of these sorts of ploys to make anyone do something, so I'm at a loss; what's the payoff? Are some people just so pitiful that they get a thrill if they can, GASP, get someone to do some trivial thing by uttering the right phrase?
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Point of view part 2
Today, I saw something awful on my patio; a RAT. When I saw the little scurrying body, my first thought was that it was the squirrel, and I was HORRIFIED to see that it was a rat instead... especially since my husband had gone off leaving the back door standing open AGAIN today, only a few yards from where the rat was seen (GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR). My reaction to seeing a rat rather than my little angel boy got me thinking:
Before we started being visited by our much-loved ground squirrel (which I wrote about in my post of 1-24-05), my husband used to refer to squirrels as "rats with fluffy tails" and "rats with better publicity"; as outraged as I always was by that sort of thing, he has a little bit of a point... looked at objectively, one small rodent IS very much like another. Why do people in general loathe rats and think squirrels are cute? Point of view.
To a hawk, for example, a rat and a squirrel are pretty much identical; furry little meals. In our most primitive days, we looked at them the same way; if we could kill it, we'd eat it, and we didn't analyze it or think in terms of some critters being "dirty" and some being "cute." Where the difference arose is when we started having stores of food; rats would come into a cave, or a hut, to steal food, and a squirrel wouldn't. Rats would also chew up all our stuff, and squirrels wouldn't. As we got more advanced, the press for rats got worse and worse: Rats would infest our homes, so we started seeing them as vermin. Rats would eat our garbage, and that made us see them as "dirty." When their close association with us, and their unfortunate tendency to harbor fleas which carried diseases deadly to humans, combined to wipe out countless thousands of people in various plagues, we came to see them as utterly despicable... all while the worse a squirrel ever did was steal seeds from birdfeeders. The rats didn't change, our point of view changed... and therein lies a powerful message.
The way we view spiritual matters is greatly affected by factors that have as little to do with the truth as the sort of fleas rats get has to do with what a rat is like. One of the biggest problems this causes is in the division most religions make between their beliefs and those of so-called "primitive" peoples; things like animism, "faith healing," and divination have been spurned as "pagan," forcing those of us who want to see as much of the truth as possible to have to learn "remedial spirituality" to catch up to where we WOULD have been had we not, in our arrogance, decided that cultures with less technological advancement had to be wrong about everything.
Getting past the roadblocks caused by my point of view is STILL a struggle for me in some areas; I look at things like astrology and numerology, for example, and my immediate reaction is "what a bunch of nonsense"... but I used to think that about animism, too, until I read what Brian Goodwin had to say on the subject (see my post of 3-16-04), and I'd probably think that about spirits and psychic abilities if I hadn't experienced them for myself, so I KNOW I need to try to give these sorts of things a fair shake. ANYTHING that a substantial # of people believe about how the universe works needs to get a fair, objective chance to show its stuff; the truth, after all, is likely to be more unbelievable than any of us imagine.
Before we started being visited by our much-loved ground squirrel (which I wrote about in my post of 1-24-05), my husband used to refer to squirrels as "rats with fluffy tails" and "rats with better publicity"; as outraged as I always was by that sort of thing, he has a little bit of a point... looked at objectively, one small rodent IS very much like another. Why do people in general loathe rats and think squirrels are cute? Point of view.
To a hawk, for example, a rat and a squirrel are pretty much identical; furry little meals. In our most primitive days, we looked at them the same way; if we could kill it, we'd eat it, and we didn't analyze it or think in terms of some critters being "dirty" and some being "cute." Where the difference arose is when we started having stores of food; rats would come into a cave, or a hut, to steal food, and a squirrel wouldn't. Rats would also chew up all our stuff, and squirrels wouldn't. As we got more advanced, the press for rats got worse and worse: Rats would infest our homes, so we started seeing them as vermin. Rats would eat our garbage, and that made us see them as "dirty." When their close association with us, and their unfortunate tendency to harbor fleas which carried diseases deadly to humans, combined to wipe out countless thousands of people in various plagues, we came to see them as utterly despicable... all while the worse a squirrel ever did was steal seeds from birdfeeders. The rats didn't change, our point of view changed... and therein lies a powerful message.
The way we view spiritual matters is greatly affected by factors that have as little to do with the truth as the sort of fleas rats get has to do with what a rat is like. One of the biggest problems this causes is in the division most religions make between their beliefs and those of so-called "primitive" peoples; things like animism, "faith healing," and divination have been spurned as "pagan," forcing those of us who want to see as much of the truth as possible to have to learn "remedial spirituality" to catch up to where we WOULD have been had we not, in our arrogance, decided that cultures with less technological advancement had to be wrong about everything.
Getting past the roadblocks caused by my point of view is STILL a struggle for me in some areas; I look at things like astrology and numerology, for example, and my immediate reaction is "what a bunch of nonsense"... but I used to think that about animism, too, until I read what Brian Goodwin had to say on the subject (see my post of 3-16-04), and I'd probably think that about spirits and psychic abilities if I hadn't experienced them for myself, so I KNOW I need to try to give these sorts of things a fair shake. ANYTHING that a substantial # of people believe about how the universe works needs to get a fair, objective chance to show its stuff; the truth, after all, is likely to be more unbelievable than any of us imagine.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Point of view
American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) based the following poem on a fable which was told in India many years ago:
The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
" 'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
http://www.wordfocus.com/word-act-blindmen.html
This poem has been in my mind all day today, and it makes a powerful point; the forces of the unknown aren't visible to us directly, making us the equivalent of blind people trying to grope around and make sense out of what little we can perceive. The thought has belatedly come to me that there are very likely many aspects of karma that I'm utterly unaware of, because I've seen no evidence of them; perhaps, as in the poem, MOST of the aspects of karma have escaped my notice so far. It's an awe-inspiring thought.
Which PART of the "spiritual elephant" we "see" is as important of an issue as how much of it we perceive; it's all a matter of point of view, like in the poem. The thing about point of view, though, is that, although it's always limited, it can be CHANGED, so that we can see more to add to what we saw before... and then, it can be changed again, so we can see still more. At least in theory. This is why I've tried so hard to see the validity of the beliefs of all religions, but I need to do more than look at the "visible" part of spirituality in order to see the truth; I need to find totally new angles from which to observe karma, although I'm not sure yet how to do that.
If you're sure that what YOU see in the spiritual realm is all there is, consider the rainbow; you've seen rainbows all your life... but do you know what the back side of one looks like? The answer is; a rainbow doesn't HAVE a back side. Don't believe me? Try this: Have someone point a garden hose up at an angle, turn the water on, and make a "spray" out of it; then, you stand with the sun behind you and shift position until you see a rainbow. Once you've got it, keep your eyes on it and start circling around it; once you get past the point of seeing it nearly edge-on, it will "vanish," because the sun HAS to be behind you for the physics involved to produce the rainbow This is shocking to witness, because it seems impossible for something to not have a back side to it, but it teaches a valuable lesson. It also points to an equally valuable question; what shocks might be in store if I can manage to get around to the "back side" of KARMA?
The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
" 'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
http://www.wordfocus.com/word-act-blindmen.html
This poem has been in my mind all day today, and it makes a powerful point; the forces of the unknown aren't visible to us directly, making us the equivalent of blind people trying to grope around and make sense out of what little we can perceive. The thought has belatedly come to me that there are very likely many aspects of karma that I'm utterly unaware of, because I've seen no evidence of them; perhaps, as in the poem, MOST of the aspects of karma have escaped my notice so far. It's an awe-inspiring thought.
Which PART of the "spiritual elephant" we "see" is as important of an issue as how much of it we perceive; it's all a matter of point of view, like in the poem. The thing about point of view, though, is that, although it's always limited, it can be CHANGED, so that we can see more to add to what we saw before... and then, it can be changed again, so we can see still more. At least in theory. This is why I've tried so hard to see the validity of the beliefs of all religions, but I need to do more than look at the "visible" part of spirituality in order to see the truth; I need to find totally new angles from which to observe karma, although I'm not sure yet how to do that.
If you're sure that what YOU see in the spiritual realm is all there is, consider the rainbow; you've seen rainbows all your life... but do you know what the back side of one looks like? The answer is; a rainbow doesn't HAVE a back side. Don't believe me? Try this: Have someone point a garden hose up at an angle, turn the water on, and make a "spray" out of it; then, you stand with the sun behind you and shift position until you see a rainbow. Once you've got it, keep your eyes on it and start circling around it; once you get past the point of seeing it nearly edge-on, it will "vanish," because the sun HAS to be behind you for the physics involved to produce the rainbow This is shocking to witness, because it seems impossible for something to not have a back side to it, but it teaches a valuable lesson. It also points to an equally valuable question; what shocks might be in store if I can manage to get around to the "back side" of KARMA?
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Valentine's Day
Most women look forward to Valentine's Day; most men hate it. Men in general dislike occasions where they're expected to come across with appropriate cards and gifts; they see high expectations in the women, and thus a high probability of failure... despite the fact that it's not remotely difficult to buy a card or gift, especially for someone you presumably love and know well. Valentine's Day is by far the easiest occasion to buy stuff for, as we all know what constitutes a romantic gift, and we'd be hard-put to ever forget with every ad showing us and every store bursting with special displays; despite that, men seem to dislike it more than every other gift-giving occasion put together... I think it might be the idea of being "forced" to be romantic, as opposed to doing it when they feel like it (which in many cases is never, granted).
Today, my husband did ok with the card; it was moderately gross, but in a funny way, and that's about par for the course for us. To beat the V-Day rush, he got me a Godivas and a giant balloon early; the flowers will be a day late because they inflate the prices on the 14th, and it's hard to find flowers I like because of all the roses (which I do NOT like). He did well with the gift, too, although that's mainly because he was prompted in advance; he didn't buy it until today, delaying my dinner an hour in fact, but at least I got both it and the card today... he's usually at least a week late with one or the other.
He doesn't mind buying stuff for me, although his timing is always off (as with everything else he does); where he always flops is with spending "couple time"... lots of guys balk at this, but he goes above and beyond. Most women complain that the man just planted himself on the couch with the remote and considered it couple time because the woman was in the room; MY husband, who has plenty to say on a variety of topics when I'm on the phone, on the way to use the restroom, deeply concentrating on writing something, or trying to watch a movie, will have NOTHING to say when we're supposed to officially be spending time together. Today, as soon as he finished his dinner he ran to take a nap; he asked me to get him up at midnight, but it took 3 tries and over an HOUR to get him actually vertical. Then, after a brief sojourn in the bathroom, he sped by me (I was in the family room) to do the dishes; once he'd used up as much time as he could in the kitchen, he disappeared... and, when I finally went looking for him (calling to him is useless, as he has headphones on and punk music blasting), he was messing around on the computer. I prompted him about the promised couple time, and, a few minutes later, he joined me in the family room; he laid down on the floor about 10 feet away from me and closed his eyes... and just laid there, not saying a word. Needless to say, when someone has that sort of rude and disrespectful attitude, I don't play into it by trying to drag pleasant conversation out of them, nor did I buy into his claims of having nothing to say, or allow him to give a speech on the subject; going on and on about why he supposedly can't think of a single thing to say does NOT count as couple time. I let him lay there and waste an hour and a half, at which point he went slinking off, complaining that *I* should have done the talking, in other words that I should have tried to force a conversation out of him, so that he could lay there in silence, speaking only when badgered to respond, and could then complain that I bombarded him with a monologue... which, not being new at this, I did NOT oblige him by doing.
Within a week, he'll be complaining that we're not spending any time together... sigh.
We've got another one of our many anniversaries coming up, and I've announced a new plan to make that day better; between now and then, every time he interrupts me to talk about something, my reply will be "write it down," and then when the next attempt at couple time commences, he'll have a LIST of things to say, and no excuses left. He of course protested the idea, but, when asked which was more important, his being able to talk the moment he thought of something or doing more during couple time than laying silently on the floor, thanks to his behavior he had no choice but to make having topics to talk about for couple time the top priority.
Marriage is NOT easy, and is frequently not fun either; to make one work... well, it helps to have a less problematic partner than I do, but in general you have to use your head, keep track of their behavior patterns, and figure out how to make things work better. If you're unwilling or unable to do that... you won't have to worry much about things like Valentine's Day and couple time.
Today, my husband did ok with the card; it was moderately gross, but in a funny way, and that's about par for the course for us. To beat the V-Day rush, he got me a Godivas and a giant balloon early; the flowers will be a day late because they inflate the prices on the 14th, and it's hard to find flowers I like because of all the roses (which I do NOT like). He did well with the gift, too, although that's mainly because he was prompted in advance; he didn't buy it until today, delaying my dinner an hour in fact, but at least I got both it and the card today... he's usually at least a week late with one or the other.
He doesn't mind buying stuff for me, although his timing is always off (as with everything else he does); where he always flops is with spending "couple time"... lots of guys balk at this, but he goes above and beyond. Most women complain that the man just planted himself on the couch with the remote and considered it couple time because the woman was in the room; MY husband, who has plenty to say on a variety of topics when I'm on the phone, on the way to use the restroom, deeply concentrating on writing something, or trying to watch a movie, will have NOTHING to say when we're supposed to officially be spending time together. Today, as soon as he finished his dinner he ran to take a nap; he asked me to get him up at midnight, but it took 3 tries and over an HOUR to get him actually vertical. Then, after a brief sojourn in the bathroom, he sped by me (I was in the family room) to do the dishes; once he'd used up as much time as he could in the kitchen, he disappeared... and, when I finally went looking for him (calling to him is useless, as he has headphones on and punk music blasting), he was messing around on the computer. I prompted him about the promised couple time, and, a few minutes later, he joined me in the family room; he laid down on the floor about 10 feet away from me and closed his eyes... and just laid there, not saying a word. Needless to say, when someone has that sort of rude and disrespectful attitude, I don't play into it by trying to drag pleasant conversation out of them, nor did I buy into his claims of having nothing to say, or allow him to give a speech on the subject; going on and on about why he supposedly can't think of a single thing to say does NOT count as couple time. I let him lay there and waste an hour and a half, at which point he went slinking off, complaining that *I* should have done the talking, in other words that I should have tried to force a conversation out of him, so that he could lay there in silence, speaking only when badgered to respond, and could then complain that I bombarded him with a monologue... which, not being new at this, I did NOT oblige him by doing.
Within a week, he'll be complaining that we're not spending any time together... sigh.
We've got another one of our many anniversaries coming up, and I've announced a new plan to make that day better; between now and then, every time he interrupts me to talk about something, my reply will be "write it down," and then when the next attempt at couple time commences, he'll have a LIST of things to say, and no excuses left. He of course protested the idea, but, when asked which was more important, his being able to talk the moment he thought of something or doing more during couple time than laying silently on the floor, thanks to his behavior he had no choice but to make having topics to talk about for couple time the top priority.
Marriage is NOT easy, and is frequently not fun either; to make one work... well, it helps to have a less problematic partner than I do, but in general you have to use your head, keep track of their behavior patterns, and figure out how to make things work better. If you're unwilling or unable to do that... you won't have to worry much about things like Valentine's Day and couple time.
Monday, February 14, 2005
An astounding example of "pure karma"
I have a dear friend who's one of the best people I've ever known; it would literally take HOURS to describe all the people she's helped, all the charities she's worked for, all the time, effort and financial sacrifice she's undergone to assist anyone who needs it... she's even saved several people's lives. She's had terrible health problems for about a decade that started when she was living in the home of a despicable woman who repaid my friend for the endless favors she'd done for her (including countless hours of free childcare) by betraying her in a uniquely grim way; her aggressive young son pushed my friend down in the kitchen, breaking her elbow in 2 places... and the mother LIED and told all their mutual friends that my friend was making it up, was telling awful stories about an innocent little boy, despite the fact that the child freely, PROUDLY, admitted to having done it. It's no surprise that my friend's immune system evaporated under all that stress and upset (as is all too often the case, many friends who should have known better immediately turned against her, grrrrrrrr), and then she was mis-diagnosed by the doctors, went without treatment for the worst of her illnesses until an article *I* read in a magazine showed us what she had, got poisoned by some herbal remedies an alternative physician gave her, got nerve damage from acupuncture... writing this down, I can barely believe that all of this happened to one person.
That's not the amazing part, though; despite her pain, despite being partially paralyzed, despite the stress, despite not knowing from one day to the next what her health would be like, despite having to move back in with her parents at an age when other people are moving OUT and getting their careers going, she NEVER changed on the inside; her caring, her willingness to help people, her selfless giving of her time and energy, her passion for charity work, and her innate goodness remained the same. I've been in AWE of how she's plowed steadily on when most people would have just lain in bed whimpering, and of how she managed to continue to believe that karma would eventually make good on all of it (she's a Christian, but tends to look more to karma than directly to God... she's not as clear as my other "Christian metaphysicist" friend is as to what the connection is there, she just is sure that they both exist). Oh, she had her occasional moments of despair, as she's only human, and when this happened she'd call me and I'd reassure her that her time was coming, that she had a HUGE load of good karma due her, and when it came it would lift her up higher than she ever imagined.
She has now been officially "lifted"; she called me with the news today.
She has many friends that she's met from her fund-raising efforts, and through one of them a sequence of events that seems right out of a movie got her face to face with someone who is VERY important in international politics; someone with whom she hit it off BIG TIME, and in the blink of an eye, my friend is traveling all over, meeting important people, getting on a first name basis with senators, going around in limos with bodyguards, attending Hollywood premiers and being bombarded by people who want her to do this, run that, come to this gathering... this woman who lives with her parents and hasn't been able to hold down a real job since her health collapsed has suddenly become SOMEONE.
She's having to get a passport for the first time in her life, because already TWO trips to a foreign country she's always dreamed of visiting have been set up, all expenses paid, AND for which she'll be getting $ for doing a variety of tasks. She's having to go to 2-3 events a DAY on the weekends, she's had to give up every shred of personal or private time because she's being pulled in so many ways by people and organizations that are too important to turn down... it's to the point where I'm becoming concerned for her health, because she's not getting enough rest and nutrition, she's literally THAT caught up in this whirlwind. Everything she ever dreamed of, and a hundred times more, has all been handed to her RIGHT NOW; it's the most incredible avalanche of karma I've ever seen.
Although she agrees with my advice for her to start getting massages and drinking those icky nutritional drinks to build herself back up, she's speculating that she's going to be healed now, now that the positive energy is sizzling all around her; I certainly hope this is true, and her belief in it might MAKE it true, only time will tell... I think that the miracles are nowhere near being over yet, and I told her so. She was expressing her amazement that all of this had happened the way it did, as she's the sort of person who stays in the background, never trying to push herself forward to take credit for the things she does, never trying to get anything back from people... and the fireworks went off in my head, because this is EXACTLY the concept expressed in the movie "Magnificent Obsession" (my original post about which was on 1-30-05), the idea that if you did good things without any expectation of receiving anything back, wonderful things would happen to you. I told her about the movie, about how it led to new spiritual insights for me, and she agreed with the idea that generating that sort of positive karma, and keeping your karma pure by not becoming bitter and hateful and miserable when bad things happened to you, would in fact lead to... the sort of things she's experiencing currently.
Is it a coincidence that so soon after I had that epiphany, a real-life example showed up? Nope. Is it a coincidence that this woman who has given nonstop her entire life, with a pure heart, is now receiving beyond her wildest dreams? Nope. Is there any doubt in my mind that the timing of this is karma's way of showing me that I'm on the right track? Nope. :-)
That's not the amazing part, though; despite her pain, despite being partially paralyzed, despite the stress, despite not knowing from one day to the next what her health would be like, despite having to move back in with her parents at an age when other people are moving OUT and getting their careers going, she NEVER changed on the inside; her caring, her willingness to help people, her selfless giving of her time and energy, her passion for charity work, and her innate goodness remained the same. I've been in AWE of how she's plowed steadily on when most people would have just lain in bed whimpering, and of how she managed to continue to believe that karma would eventually make good on all of it (she's a Christian, but tends to look more to karma than directly to God... she's not as clear as my other "Christian metaphysicist" friend is as to what the connection is there, she just is sure that they both exist). Oh, she had her occasional moments of despair, as she's only human, and when this happened she'd call me and I'd reassure her that her time was coming, that she had a HUGE load of good karma due her, and when it came it would lift her up higher than she ever imagined.
She has now been officially "lifted"; she called me with the news today.
She has many friends that she's met from her fund-raising efforts, and through one of them a sequence of events that seems right out of a movie got her face to face with someone who is VERY important in international politics; someone with whom she hit it off BIG TIME, and in the blink of an eye, my friend is traveling all over, meeting important people, getting on a first name basis with senators, going around in limos with bodyguards, attending Hollywood premiers and being bombarded by people who want her to do this, run that, come to this gathering... this woman who lives with her parents and hasn't been able to hold down a real job since her health collapsed has suddenly become SOMEONE.
She's having to get a passport for the first time in her life, because already TWO trips to a foreign country she's always dreamed of visiting have been set up, all expenses paid, AND for which she'll be getting $ for doing a variety of tasks. She's having to go to 2-3 events a DAY on the weekends, she's had to give up every shred of personal or private time because she's being pulled in so many ways by people and organizations that are too important to turn down... it's to the point where I'm becoming concerned for her health, because she's not getting enough rest and nutrition, she's literally THAT caught up in this whirlwind. Everything she ever dreamed of, and a hundred times more, has all been handed to her RIGHT NOW; it's the most incredible avalanche of karma I've ever seen.
Although she agrees with my advice for her to start getting massages and drinking those icky nutritional drinks to build herself back up, she's speculating that she's going to be healed now, now that the positive energy is sizzling all around her; I certainly hope this is true, and her belief in it might MAKE it true, only time will tell... I think that the miracles are nowhere near being over yet, and I told her so. She was expressing her amazement that all of this had happened the way it did, as she's the sort of person who stays in the background, never trying to push herself forward to take credit for the things she does, never trying to get anything back from people... and the fireworks went off in my head, because this is EXACTLY the concept expressed in the movie "Magnificent Obsession" (my original post about which was on 1-30-05), the idea that if you did good things without any expectation of receiving anything back, wonderful things would happen to you. I told her about the movie, about how it led to new spiritual insights for me, and she agreed with the idea that generating that sort of positive karma, and keeping your karma pure by not becoming bitter and hateful and miserable when bad things happened to you, would in fact lead to... the sort of things she's experiencing currently.
Is it a coincidence that so soon after I had that epiphany, a real-life example showed up? Nope. Is it a coincidence that this woman who has given nonstop her entire life, with a pure heart, is now receiving beyond her wildest dreams? Nope. Is there any doubt in my mind that the timing of this is karma's way of showing me that I'm on the right track? Nope. :-)
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Memory=reality
You know who you are, and who all the people in your life are. How do you know? Memory. If you get amnesia, you won't remember who they are, or who you are, and no amount of looking at photo albums and such will tell you; if your memory is wiped, unscrupulous people could in theory tell you ANYTHING about yourself and your life, they could even fake up a bunch of photos without too much effort, and you'd believe it... because your concept of reality comes from your memory, and without your memory you don't know WHAT reality is.
What if the entire omniverse was just created 5 seconds ago, complete with the 6.1 billion people on this planet, and all of us were created with a full set of memories; how would we KNOW? We wouldn't, because memory is all we have to judge what's real; if we remember it, we believe it's true, even though we're all aware that false memories are easy to create, and if we do NOT remember something happening, whether the something is the creation of the omniverse or a message being left on our answering machine, as far as we're concerned it never happened.
I finally saw "The Forgotten" today (no surprise there, right, lol?), and what makes it so terrifying is that we all understand that if some sort of beings DID have the ability to erase memories, to replace them with new memories, and alter the very few records that exist of what we do (and for most things we do there are NO records), they could play us like a virtual reality game, and we'd never know.
Do you ever wonder why we aren't always seeing ghosts, or aliens, or angels, or whatever else it is that some people say they see all the time? What if we ARE seeing them, and they're just altering our memories to make us forget? What if, every time you have that "goose walked over my grave" feeling, it means you saw something astounding and it didn't quite alter your memory fast enough, leaving you with a chill seemingly from nothing?
No, I'm not saying that's the way things are, I'm just mulling over the fact that we plain don't KNOW what's really going on in the omniverse, because all we have to "prove" the existence of 99% of what we think is real are memories... and we usually don't remember more than a tiny % of what we've done in any case. Can you remember what you had for lunch 5 months ago? How about 5 weeks ago? Heck, most people couldn't remember for 5 DAYS ago... it wouldn't take much work to alter our memories on minor things, would it? They probably wouldn't even have to alter the memories of those around us, because it's not like we go around asking for confirmation of things we remember; we just assume that whatever we remember is true. Even if you DID ask a friend, people have differing memories of things all the time, and no one thinks twice about it; we each believe our own recollection of events, and life goes on.
In at least one area we KNOW our memories are fooling us; quantum physics shows us that time does NOT work the way we think it does, and in fact may not exist at all... so, our memories, which tell us that things happened in a certain sequence BASED on something called "time" that we think exists a certain way, MUST be at least somewhat inaccurate. I can't describe HOW they're inaccurate, because I can't imagine a reality with no time, or a different sort of time... and this shows me how limited the human brain is as a tool for understanding the omniverse. Still, it's the only tool we have, so all we can do is realize that things aren't always as we perceive them, that things exist which we can't perceive at all... and that it IS possible that forces we can't name are influencing our gray matter, distorting not only our memories, but our perceptions as well.
I'm going to hope very hard that Discover magazine has some articles on the latest discoveries about the true nature of reality in the next few issues; this is going to drive me NUTS until I can get a better handle on it.
What if the entire omniverse was just created 5 seconds ago, complete with the 6.1 billion people on this planet, and all of us were created with a full set of memories; how would we KNOW? We wouldn't, because memory is all we have to judge what's real; if we remember it, we believe it's true, even though we're all aware that false memories are easy to create, and if we do NOT remember something happening, whether the something is the creation of the omniverse or a message being left on our answering machine, as far as we're concerned it never happened.
I finally saw "The Forgotten" today (no surprise there, right, lol?), and what makes it so terrifying is that we all understand that if some sort of beings DID have the ability to erase memories, to replace them with new memories, and alter the very few records that exist of what we do (and for most things we do there are NO records), they could play us like a virtual reality game, and we'd never know.
Do you ever wonder why we aren't always seeing ghosts, or aliens, or angels, or whatever else it is that some people say they see all the time? What if we ARE seeing them, and they're just altering our memories to make us forget? What if, every time you have that "goose walked over my grave" feeling, it means you saw something astounding and it didn't quite alter your memory fast enough, leaving you with a chill seemingly from nothing?
No, I'm not saying that's the way things are, I'm just mulling over the fact that we plain don't KNOW what's really going on in the omniverse, because all we have to "prove" the existence of 99% of what we think is real are memories... and we usually don't remember more than a tiny % of what we've done in any case. Can you remember what you had for lunch 5 months ago? How about 5 weeks ago? Heck, most people couldn't remember for 5 DAYS ago... it wouldn't take much work to alter our memories on minor things, would it? They probably wouldn't even have to alter the memories of those around us, because it's not like we go around asking for confirmation of things we remember; we just assume that whatever we remember is true. Even if you DID ask a friend, people have differing memories of things all the time, and no one thinks twice about it; we each believe our own recollection of events, and life goes on.
In at least one area we KNOW our memories are fooling us; quantum physics shows us that time does NOT work the way we think it does, and in fact may not exist at all... so, our memories, which tell us that things happened in a certain sequence BASED on something called "time" that we think exists a certain way, MUST be at least somewhat inaccurate. I can't describe HOW they're inaccurate, because I can't imagine a reality with no time, or a different sort of time... and this shows me how limited the human brain is as a tool for understanding the omniverse. Still, it's the only tool we have, so all we can do is realize that things aren't always as we perceive them, that things exist which we can't perceive at all... and that it IS possible that forces we can't name are influencing our gray matter, distorting not only our memories, but our perceptions as well.
I'm going to hope very hard that Discover magazine has some articles on the latest discoveries about the true nature of reality in the next few issues; this is going to drive me NUTS until I can get a better handle on it.
