Unfair Fights

   I'm thinking about life.  My life, your life, and the kid on the shore of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala 20 years ago who ran circles around me, singing, "Un quetzal la foto, un quetzal la foto!"  Translation: "Give me a penny and I'll let you take a picture of me!"  It's thinly-disguised begging.
   I used to ride my bicycle on the streets of Phoenix, mostly commuting to work.  Invariably, a vehicle would speed by me at 50 m.p.h., leaving a comfortable (for him) three inch gap between his 4000 lb. vehicle and my 30 lb. bike.  This situation would spin me into an insane and alternate reality, much like I'd imagined "black-outs," described by recovering alcoholic/drug addicts (until I mixed tranquilizers and vodka I'd never experienced that kind of a black-out).  Instead of seeing black, however, my world would go deep red, deep red mixed with black.  Toxic rage would fill my body, livid adrenaline causing my legs to pump the bicycle pedals furiously in an effort to catch up to the offending vehicle (sometimes a city bus), drag the driver out of the vehicle, pummel the life out of him, or die trying.  To describe my condition as angry, would be like describing a tsunami as strong.  When the rage subsided, I felt only fear and disbelief that I was capable of such an intense emotion, and that it could manifest so quickly.
   As I've heard others share their life stories in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've realized that life is not a fair fight.  It's not fair for any of us, worse for some than for others, but unfair nevertheless.  Some of us think we've found a weapon to level the playing field in the form of alcohol and other reality-changing substances.  This works for a while, at least in our perception, but it's a cruel deception.  We are only temporarily diverted from the problems life presents us, and in the end our chemical arsenals turn on us, and the battle becomes even more one-sided.  It's like the burglar who takes the baseball bat out of my hands and proceeds to bludgeon me to death, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but the end is the same.
   Across the ages men have found a way to make the unfair fight of life a fair one, and that is to cease fighting.  Acceptance of a power greater than ourselves and submission to life on life's terms are all that's needed to level the playing field, because, in the end, the real battle happens in the space between our ears, and nowhere else.  If I am able to calm and still my spirit and ask for help, the bullies drop their sticks and stones and wander off to find new victims.