Thursday, July 12, 2012

Can I have a 2nd Opinion? Ok, You're Ugly as Well!


I'd like to thank the people who invented the premise that bad things can only happen on Friday the 13th. It tends to make people more pensive in their actions if only for one out of 365 days in a year, and that's only if you're prone to put any credence into the premise. Albert Einstein worded it simply, "Time only exists so everything doesn't happen at once". For those people with real life experience and a bit of insight or hindsight, time line speed is what changes a ride on a merry go round from a frolicking event that a child remembers fondly into something akin to 'shaken baby syndrome', an event that a child will probably not remember too fondly if at all considering the damage that can be done. They're the same motions and movements, just forced into a shorter time frame making those actions more jarring and injurious.

While traversing life's floor routine you're only as stable as you were completing your last action as you head into your next action, depending on your rate of speed and recovery time between those actions. Landing a bit askew in your footing and you're not in a perfect position to focus on your chosen future path, and in life we've been told that our movements should be a fluid perfect motion, our actions to be exacting and occurring as though planned in advance with the absence of effort. This is the performance we want all to be witnessed and attempts to disguise imperfections should go unnoticed to anyone else's perception.

If you land your last event on shaky ground take the time to regain your posture before your move ahead to your next endeavor. This pause may or may not go unnoticed by only your perception but your future landings will be more precise to the one's who continue to watch your performance in life.

This entry may be buried in pretension but it's not hard to understand why we don't always land where we're supposed to, why we don't have proper footing when instigating our next move, and why we find ourselves landing outside our targeted mark as often as we often do. We're not perfect machines and this is something we should be aware of and never have to apologize. That we move in any direction is by choice and not by force of anything other than ourselves. That we continue to recover and pursue our direction in spite of variables we cannot control is courageous and that we all do it at our own pace or not at all if that is our choice is our individualism. That no one can credit himself for  all of someone else's success or put blame on someone else for all of his own failures is more than likely factual. That no one has the right to judge what is a success and what is a failure to anyone but themselves is even more likely factual.




The next time you land poorly in life? Don't look at the calendar, look at the position your feet are pointed.






Wednesday, July 4, 2012

"So you think you have Demons?" - A Survival Pamphlet


I was thinking of a friend we'll call Molly for anonymity's sake that I hadn't talked to for years and then was remembering that I probably wouldn't hear from her anymore for a plethora of reasons that seem to ooze effortlessly from my mouth during conversation. I guess sometimes when you don't know what to say, going with your gut instincts and spouting whatever comes into your head first can have it's repercussions. 

One of the many now famous conversations that pass through my head when I lie awake thinking about everything like I do have me convinced that humor does have it's limits even though I believe it will always be my compulsive urge to find it in any given situations. It can be summed up in this brief dialogue.

Molly - "So, you know how I told you my Mom has breast cancer? Well, we just found out that my Dad has lung cancer. He starts his radiation treatments a week after my Mom has her surgery and starts chemotherapy".

Me - "Wow, you're parents really DO enjoy doing everything together, huh"?

It was supposed to be a take on how they were probably the most functional couple I've probably known up until then or maybe even now; After how many years and how many successes and failures and children and Christmas's they were obviously still very much in love. Even Mr. Idiot with the long hair, beard, and glasses could see that. Add in that Molly's Dad was a very attractive guy, a little tidbit that I was constantly reminding Molly whenever it seemed oddly appropriate, it'd be no surprise what my comment would be on my next visit after both parents had entered into their mutual chemo/radiation treatments and would settle into the 'Edith and Archie Bunker' chairs in the living room they watched tv from, ate dinner at, and watched life pass by next to each other within radiated hands distance at any opportunity given to them. You really can't make this shit up. They are that close. 

"So, now you're Dad's 'hot' in more ways than one, ain't he?" - Even I wince when I remember saying that one.

That I take away a lesson from this now broken beyond repair friendship is important. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely convinced the lesson should be 'You can make fun of my parents' cancer, but please stop telling me how attractive you think my Dad is'... I think the lesson I came away with should be "Hey, I stopped your sadness long enough to divert it to anger at me, and I got you laughing during a very stressful series of moments in your life because it's something I'm good at".

Before you ask, both of her parents fully recovered and now spend all their free time still enjoying each others' company while chances are Molly and I will never speak to each other without yelling and free associating some clever adjectives to define how we may or may not feel about each other until we wish each other dead in one awful way or another. If there is a bright side, neither of us has ever wished cancer on the other. We both still care at least that much about each other.