Category: Uncategorized

Happiness and Compassion

3 years ago I was homeless and obviously deeply unhappy.  And that was when I found out something about myself and maybe about all humans.  I was less generous and less compassionate when I was homeless.

I was more willing to contemplate harming someone to gain an advantage of safety or money.  I was more willing ignore the needs of other people to my own advantage.

I was aware of this and I didn’t like it in myself.  Because I was deeply non functionally depressed, which by its very nature made me unable to really change much, it was hard to grapple with this sudden change in what I considered my essential personality.

I have always considered myself compassionate  and empathetic.  I consider inclusion and participation and caring to be the very foundations that have positively changed the world.   But when I was  unhappy and afraid and my existence felt threatened – I was NOT compassionate.  I was selfish and self centered.

As my life improved, I was able to refocus myself on what I still consider to be my true self and that horrible willingness to hurt people to gain an advantage disappeared.

We would do well to consider that when we look around the world and see so many acts of violence and senseless emotional pain inflicted by one human on another.  All humans are complicated messes of emotions driven by both outside factors and internal damage.  It is very easy to condemn those who steal or hurt people.  They are wrong.

But they are also suffering, those people who cause so much pain.

Perhaps, instead of condemning them and ostracizing them and creating nightmarish prisons, we should consider how we can help them.  Because the rock bottom of the world is not the place where you create productive and compassionate people.  It’s the place where you create monsters.

P.S.  I’m late on this – I just couldn’t help but say this when I read the prompt on 1000speak for compassion.

Experiencing Art

I mean that as more than just going to a show and staring at Paintings.  That is experiencing it, and that used to be how I thought it was to be experienced.

And then in early 90’s I discovered a different type of experience.  Something that was more immersive.  Something that touches you more deeply and that sears itself into your memory as a result.

I went to visit the Dale Chihuly exhibit at Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center.   Its nearly impossible to describe it.  Chihuly put together an experience for his viewers and then he forced them to feel it.  You walked into a long tunnel where the very low ceiling and the walls were completely filled with individual shaped sculptures.  Each one part of a collective whole that was the piece of art.  Each individual piece was lovely.  But that wasn’t the art.  That wasn’t the experience.   The experience was wandering quietly through a multicolored hall without an apparent end, with colors almost floating in front of you.   That was a moment when I stopped thinking about anything but the moment.  I was there and nowhere else.  All of my brain was focused on experiencing that moment.dale-chihuly-artist038

Many years later I went to see the Bellagio’s ceiling piece, because when I describe that exhibit to people they always mention it, but it’s just a faint thing – too high, and not immersive.

I also went to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg.  Not too long after it opened.  There was a room there, filled with enormous silver pillows that floated.  You walked into the room and you could play with the pillows – hit them about and just be part of the art.  It wasn’t crowded that day and there was only one other person in the room. Everything stopped in that room.  It was a simple silly thing, but I stopped worrying about being late, I stopped wondering about lunch, I stopped thinking and I was just pleasantly in this place – with silver balloons. 1479035742_ba1677d6fc_o

That is the gift of experiencing art in an immersive way.  It removes you from the observer and makes you part of the magic.  A magic you will remember for a lifetime.

The person who magnetized the screwdriver

THAT person deserves a Nobel Prize.

Possibly the Peace Prize.

The total level of aggravation that was reduced in the world by this one small innovation was immense.  Awkwardly placed screw hole destined to make humans scream in frustration.  Fixed by magnet.  Dropped screws rolling into deep black holes previously unknown in the home.  No longer an issue.

When was the last time your life was that impacted by the Nobel Prize winner?

Never.

But the person who magnetized the screwdriver.  That person.  A HERO.  A Damn Hero.

Demeaning People with Mental Illness

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on yet another Veterans Administration scandal.  The local facility was manipulating the appointment wait times by taking every appointment and then cancelling appointments last minute because they couldn’t accommodate the appointments they took in order to prove they had no wait time.

The article highlights that one veteran attempted suicide after his mental health appointment was cancelled for 4th time.  The following is an excerpt from the VA’s report:

“the veteran stated he used the cancellation of his appointments as an excuse to act out and attempted to harm himself. He said he regrets his actions and that he received help and now has follow-up appointments.”

What the ever living fuck? EXCUSE???? NO. Just NO. A person who is attempting suicide should not have their actions shamed with the term EXCUSE. Nor to have the term “Act Out” used in relationship to those actions. Act Out. A term often associated with misbehaving children.

Do they say that pain caused by mental illness is a childish behavior? Apparently Yes.

Do they say that resultant condition of suicide attempt is an aberration of bad behavior and therefore must have an EXCUSE? Apparently Yes.

People need to recognize that mental health is not just bad behavior or character traits. It’s a serious disorder of the brain. And its deadly. And treating it like it’s just a character flaw that should be apologized for is just make it worse. It is demeaning and part of the culture of shame that makes people hide their illness rather than seek help.

The problem of the VA’s appointment manipulation is bad.  But the hidden and far more insidious problem is that they are treating potentially fatal illnesses like they are bad behaviors in children.

I don’t even have enough calm of mind to describe how wrong this is.

Things my dad told me…

When I was growing up my dad said:
  1. Eat that, it will put hair on your chest.
  2. Are you wearing perfume, you smell like a $2 hooker.
  3. I wonder what those poor bastards on shore are doing?  (when we sailed away from a harbor.)
  4. Get a degree in computer programming.  It’s the future.  (1977 to my sister, but I wish I had listened to him.  I got a degree in English Lit.)
  5. Children are to be seen and not heard.
  6. I used to swim with bow legged women.

My father had three daughters.  He expected all of us to go to college.  He expected us to work when we graduated.  He didn’t say that, but it was planned for.  What do you want to do when you grow up, where do you want to go to college were conversations.

It wasn’t until I graduated from college in 1988 that I realized that this was not a normal expectation.

He didn’t treat us as girls, but neither did he treat us as though he wished we were boys.

I don’t think he ever said anything that made me feel I was limited in my options by gender roles.

Some people have service animals for coping with their mental illness

Animals that will make you hold their paw if you are anxious, or will stop you for self abuse, etc.

I have an Enabler animal.

Lily loves it when I am home and in bed because then she can cuddle with me. So she actively puts herself on me, refusing to move when I want to and makes it harder for me to get out of bed.

She trained herself, so that part was saving me money, I guess.

I’ve had a bad week and decided to take off Thursday and Friday so that at least when the implosion of my Depression happened I wasn’t calling off work.  Lily approves.  I’m not sure if I do.

It’s almost like I’m supporting the depression when I plan for the implosion, but I also know intellectually that the implosion was coming, whether I asked for the days off or not.  The only difference was whether I proactively handled it better for my job.

And this does at least keep the depression from using an unexcused absence as fuel for a bonfire of self hate.

And also Lily enjoys it.  And frankly, it’s all about Lily.  She knows it, I know it and we are all better off if everyone agrees on the state of things.

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Learn by Harpiya

-LEARN-by Harpiya

Lost: Sense of Humor

I don’t get April Fools.  It’s a variation on practical jokes that I also don’t get.  But stupider – because of course we all get that its April 1st. so….

I don’t think I have ever laughed at the implausible, the elaborate, the stupid, the mean or the subtle lies that get told in the name of “good humor”.

I’m not sure what its point is.  Indeed, no one is even sure how we started doing this particular tradition.  Scholars speculate, but no one seems quite sure.

I suppose it’s good in that it’s participatory and it reinforces those group bonds we have when we all agree that this is a thing we do at a particular time.  But I find it particularly pointless.

Its only agreeable trait is that it doesn’t appear to be commercialized the way so many of our holidays are.  It truly is a non-money making celebration.  If celebration is what you would call a world wide day of tricking people.

Anyway.  Enjoy the day.  I guess.

Canadian Geese.   

goose201I am not a fan.

I used to think they were nice until I worked someplace that had three ponds, two in front of the entrance to the building, requiring me to navigate a narrow path that held a multitude of geese.   And that’s when I realized that Canadian Geese are really just militant bat shit crazy birds.

Trust me on this.   They are evil and they plotting to take over the suburbs.  It’s just a matter of time before they are elected to government positions.

DON’T be fooled by adorable pictures.  These are asshole birds.  AND they have no self regulation on their sanitary habits.  In other words, geese poop all over the damn place.

I have advice for those of you young novices on how to deal with goose patrols.  NEVER show any weakness.  NEVER.  Look them in the eye and keep walking toward your objective, even if they are in the way.  They expect you to walk around.  But that is weakness.  Do not do it.  They will move.

If you show weakness they will attack for arbitrary reasons that no doubt seem valid in their brains.  But since their brains are the size of peanut, we can assume there is no valid reason.  So don’t show weakness.

If one attacks or shows aggression, it will mark you to all the others.  So never show weakness.

I’ll be honest.  It is only the strictest sense of animal loving integrity that stops me from buying a shot gun and slaughtering them wholesale.  They are dicks.

Life seems sweet in other worlds,

Ripe with fungal dew in this one.

Bravery is facing the fungus and making it home,

Ignoring the sweet thyme scent of other worlds.

Life is more real here or there,

But not in the fight between the scent and the dew.