Wait a tick. Didn't you mean "sacred cows?"
No. I meant cattle who are afraid. You know, terrified bovines. I've seen fearful canines, felines, even equines, but there are no scared cows, even in the company of the Duke of Depravity.
One morning, several sunrises ago, I awoke with bits and pieces of a dream I'd been having, involving a social function where people were milling about the grounds of a large edifice, some institution with lots of columns and porticoes - like a school or a church - and vast open lawns.
I, too, was strolling about with a group of five or six people, engaged in easy conversation, enjoying the perfect weather and fading sunlight. Among us was one Mr. Adolf Hitler - yes, THAT Adolf Hitler, complete with goofy little cookie-duster mustache and Nazi garb - and we seemed to be giving him a tour of the grounds. In the dream, I kept wondering why no one was addressing the "elephant in the room." so to speak. Aware of a bit of history, I kept thinking, "C'mon, people, this is Adolf Hitler, the fascist responsible for murdering millions of innocents, the genocidal sociopath with ambitions of world conquest, remember?
When I finally gathered the courage to whisper my concerns privately to individual members of the group, the responses were surprisingly uniform. "Ah, lighten up, man, that was more than six decades ago, a different century. Give the guy a break. I'm sure he's sorry and he's moved on, probably did some work and got in touch with his character defects. We all make mistakes. We just have to move forward and get on with our lives."
I didn't know what to think. Now we were spreading out a blanket and commencing to break bread with the Fuhrer, the master of malevolence. A pariah picnic? I mean, where's Vlad the Impaler, Nero, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin?
Fortunately, I woke up. Dreams are weird.
28 January 2011
26 January 2011
Ego
I can talk, but I can't speak very well. I can type, but my writing is mediocre. I can listen, but I don't often make listening my intention. I can read, but I choose to do many other things that, in comparison, are a complete waste of time.
Talking, listening, reading, writing. Two active and two passive activities.
For as long as I can remember, I've wondered about my place in the world. Who am I? What's important?
I grew up with a great deal of exposure to the Bible, and I was thinking of how impossible it seems to escape ego, to think and act in any way that doesn't somehow promote self-interest. Yesterday, I thought about the Ecclesiastical conclusion that "all is vanity." Although at the time it was written, vanity was probably synonymous with futility rather than ego, I feel pretty sure the two concepts are closely related.
Distill life down to its simplest form. Imagine all of the vanity being boiled away, and only the essence of life dripping into a bowl. What remains in the bowl is survival.
I watched the President's state of the union address last night with my son. A gathering of human beings, but I could not see the iceberg. I could only see the tip above the water. The words, the faces, the expressions and actions of the participants were visible, but the innumerable thoughts were not.
I hope the men and women who lead the United States of America have found a way to escape ego, and that their efforts do not, in the end, result in futility. I have hope that with each successive generation, like the Colorado River carving the Grand Canyon, we survive, and our children imagine and create a new world, a world of patience, tolerance, and above all, kindness.
Let's strive to find a way to beat our swords into plowshares.
Talking, listening, reading, writing. Two active and two passive activities.
For as long as I can remember, I've wondered about my place in the world. Who am I? What's important?
I grew up with a great deal of exposure to the Bible, and I was thinking of how impossible it seems to escape ego, to think and act in any way that doesn't somehow promote self-interest. Yesterday, I thought about the Ecclesiastical conclusion that "all is vanity." Although at the time it was written, vanity was probably synonymous with futility rather than ego, I feel pretty sure the two concepts are closely related.
Distill life down to its simplest form. Imagine all of the vanity being boiled away, and only the essence of life dripping into a bowl. What remains in the bowl is survival.
I watched the President's state of the union address last night with my son. A gathering of human beings, but I could not see the iceberg. I could only see the tip above the water. The words, the faces, the expressions and actions of the participants were visible, but the innumerable thoughts were not.
I hope the men and women who lead the United States of America have found a way to escape ego, and that their efforts do not, in the end, result in futility. I have hope that with each successive generation, like the Colorado River carving the Grand Canyon, we survive, and our children imagine and create a new world, a world of patience, tolerance, and above all, kindness.
Let's strive to find a way to beat our swords into plowshares.
23 January 2011
Rocket Science
I've always wondered what my number is. You know, that IQ number.
One day a few years ago I spent several hours with an intern at a psychologist's office taking a variety of different tests designed to reveal my IQ mystery. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the intern moved on and so did I before I could prevail upon them to give me my number. The only feedback I got was from a therapist who told me, "Let's just put it this way, you're too smart for your own good." I took that as a compliment. It wasn't.
I never did particularly well in elementary or high school, but I managed to squeak by with minimal effort. There would be comments from educators from time to time like, "Gee, Mike, you're really capable, why don't you apply yourself?" I wasn't even sure what they meant by "apply yourself," but I do remember having a sort of thinly disguised contempt for education in general because I couldn't see any practical use for it. "Motive" is the force in "loco-motive" that pushes that big, long, heavy train down the train tracks, and this loco student couldn't seem to muster any motive for taking notes or finishing homework.
College was different. By the time I got serious about "higher learning" I was in my early thirties, and I had several motives to move my train down the track. I had a family and an ego to support, and besides, it cost me real money out of my own pocket. The motivating pain of being hit in the wallet is probably superseded only by being cold or hungry. I did well in college. I rarely got anything but an A.
Now. Lest you make the mistake of thinking there may be a hidden genius in this story somewhere (I certainly made that mistake), let me paint for you portrait of some of the more "geniusey" things I've done.
When I was 19 I had a dirt bike, a Husqvarna 250, that I liked to ride in the desert around Phoenix. As I prepared for a ride one day, I noticed that the chain on my motorcycle was all gummed up with a paste of grease and pulverized dirt, aka dust. So of course, I began to think of how to remove this impedance to my bike's performance and the solution immediately presented itself. Gasoline! Gasoline dissolves grease. Warm gasoline would surely be preferable to cold gasoline, but how to warm it up? I know! I proceeded to fill a large cooking pot, a stock pot, with about two quarts of gasoline, dropped my chain in it, placed it on the natural gas stove top in the kitchen, turned on the burner, and went back out to the carport, about 20 feet away through a side door of the house.
Presently I went back in the house and noticed that the pot of gasoline I'd placed on the stove was boiling. That's probably hot enough, my superior intellect reasoned, so I touched the handle on the pot. The next thing I remember was a loud noise and mushroom cloud of fire about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle that shot up to the kitchen ceiling, curled back toward me, and in the process removed my eyebrows and arm hair. This had not been part of my master plan. Once I realized I hadn't been killed or seriously injured in "a freak gasoline boiling incident," I ran outside, grabbed the garden hose, and extinguished the conflagration that used to be my kitchen.
While the harm to my body was minimal, the economic consequences, at least to the insurance company, were considerable. Charred paint hung in long strips from the ceiling, and the cabinets were damaged. What did I learn from this experience? Gasoline boils!
Fast forward to the early '90's. It's Friday morning and my eldest child, Kelly, and I have come back from breakfast and are looking for something to do before it's time to head off to school and work. The family trampoline was always good for a few thrills, but this morning I guess I needed a little more than the usual woo-hoo. "Hey, Kell," I suggested, "Let's move the trampoline over next to the playhouse and jump off the roof of the playhouse and do butt-bounces!" One tiny detail I neglected to factor in: there were railroad ties (part of our landscaping) under the trampoline.
We climbed to the top of the playhouse roof, about 12' above the trampoline mat and, not wanting to be a thrill hog, allowed Kell to jump first. She did, and bounced off the mat, butt first, with an exclamation of glee. I followed and, as I outweighed my young daughter by about 100 lbs, the laws of physics demanded that my sorry ass depress the trampoline mat considerably further, and my tailbone was introduced to the railroad tie lying in wait beneath the mat. All I could do was lie on the trampoline and groan in pain and tell Kelly to have Mom call my friend John Rhodes, a physical therapist. Later that day, X-rays would show a vertebrae had cracked, a chip missing from the corner. Narcotic pain pills didn't save me from my worst night of agony ever, not from the broken spine, but from the trauma to the abdominal muscles. What did I learn from this experience? Choose a heavier partner to go first when leaping from high places!
These days, I'm content with not knowing my number. Maybe it's better that way.
One day a few years ago I spent several hours with an intern at a psychologist's office taking a variety of different tests designed to reveal my IQ mystery. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the intern moved on and so did I before I could prevail upon them to give me my number. The only feedback I got was from a therapist who told me, "Let's just put it this way, you're too smart for your own good." I took that as a compliment. It wasn't.
I never did particularly well in elementary or high school, but I managed to squeak by with minimal effort. There would be comments from educators from time to time like, "Gee, Mike, you're really capable, why don't you apply yourself?" I wasn't even sure what they meant by "apply yourself," but I do remember having a sort of thinly disguised contempt for education in general because I couldn't see any practical use for it. "Motive" is the force in "loco-motive" that pushes that big, long, heavy train down the train tracks, and this loco student couldn't seem to muster any motive for taking notes or finishing homework.
College was different. By the time I got serious about "higher learning" I was in my early thirties, and I had several motives to move my train down the track. I had a family and an ego to support, and besides, it cost me real money out of my own pocket. The motivating pain of being hit in the wallet is probably superseded only by being cold or hungry. I did well in college. I rarely got anything but an A.
Now. Lest you make the mistake of thinking there may be a hidden genius in this story somewhere (I certainly made that mistake), let me paint for you portrait of some of the more "geniusey" things I've done.
When I was 19 I had a dirt bike, a Husqvarna 250, that I liked to ride in the desert around Phoenix. As I prepared for a ride one day, I noticed that the chain on my motorcycle was all gummed up with a paste of grease and pulverized dirt, aka dust. So of course, I began to think of how to remove this impedance to my bike's performance and the solution immediately presented itself. Gasoline! Gasoline dissolves grease. Warm gasoline would surely be preferable to cold gasoline, but how to warm it up? I know! I proceeded to fill a large cooking pot, a stock pot, with about two quarts of gasoline, dropped my chain in it, placed it on the natural gas stove top in the kitchen, turned on the burner, and went back out to the carport, about 20 feet away through a side door of the house.
Presently I went back in the house and noticed that the pot of gasoline I'd placed on the stove was boiling. That's probably hot enough, my superior intellect reasoned, so I touched the handle on the pot. The next thing I remember was a loud noise and mushroom cloud of fire about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle that shot up to the kitchen ceiling, curled back toward me, and in the process removed my eyebrows and arm hair. This had not been part of my master plan. Once I realized I hadn't been killed or seriously injured in "a freak gasoline boiling incident," I ran outside, grabbed the garden hose, and extinguished the conflagration that used to be my kitchen.
While the harm to my body was minimal, the economic consequences, at least to the insurance company, were considerable. Charred paint hung in long strips from the ceiling, and the cabinets were damaged. What did I learn from this experience? Gasoline boils!
Fast forward to the early '90's. It's Friday morning and my eldest child, Kelly, and I have come back from breakfast and are looking for something to do before it's time to head off to school and work. The family trampoline was always good for a few thrills, but this morning I guess I needed a little more than the usual woo-hoo. "Hey, Kell," I suggested, "Let's move the trampoline over next to the playhouse and jump off the roof of the playhouse and do butt-bounces!" One tiny detail I neglected to factor in: there were railroad ties (part of our landscaping) under the trampoline.
We climbed to the top of the playhouse roof, about 12' above the trampoline mat and, not wanting to be a thrill hog, allowed Kell to jump first. She did, and bounced off the mat, butt first, with an exclamation of glee. I followed and, as I outweighed my young daughter by about 100 lbs, the laws of physics demanded that my sorry ass depress the trampoline mat considerably further, and my tailbone was introduced to the railroad tie lying in wait beneath the mat. All I could do was lie on the trampoline and groan in pain and tell Kelly to have Mom call my friend John Rhodes, a physical therapist. Later that day, X-rays would show a vertebrae had cracked, a chip missing from the corner. Narcotic pain pills didn't save me from my worst night of agony ever, not from the broken spine, but from the trauma to the abdominal muscles. What did I learn from this experience? Choose a heavier partner to go first when leaping from high places!
These days, I'm content with not knowing my number. Maybe it's better that way.
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