Not Much

     I had a "less than" attack yesterday.  "Less than" attacks are kind of like anxiety attacks, except I don't feel anxious, I feel inferior to some standard (artificial or otherwise) I think I should have attained as a person.  It happened, of course, after I began comparing what I know about myself to what I know about someone I don't really know.  Almost everyone I know, including friends and relatives, falls into that category of people I don't really know.  Hell, it's hard enough to "know thyself" as the ancient Greek aphorism exhorts.  How the freak am I supposed to know you?
     So, great.  I've survived 53 estival months in the Sonoran Desert and still haven't learned to tell that lying moron that lives inside me to go pound dirt when he starts accusing me of being a slacker, of not being successful enough, of doing the things I shouldn't have done and neglecting the things I should have done.  Makes it hard to keep an inflated ego alive with that little bastard screaming in my ear.
     Fortunately, I've learned that these "less than" attacks are temporary, they are feelings and they will pass.  I've learned that it's okay to feel inferior for a little while, but I can minimize those feelings as they try to work their way into my behavior, as they inevitably do.
     Perhaps the best antidote for "less than" attacks lies in the old axiom that the best defense is a good offense.  I can take the offensive and look for someone to help, to do something for someone without looking for compensation of any sort.  Magically, my feelings of inferiority evaporate when I love another person in a practical way.
     Much of my energy in the past 17,000 or so hours  has been spent in various efforts to enhance or protect what I thought other people thought of me.  Many, if not most of these people didn't think much of me to begin with, but that truth was unknown to me and besides, it would've been too painful to accept had I known it.
     There are things I like about being middle-aged.  When I start to worry about what others think of me, I remember they don't, at least not very often.  Most of my illusion of physical attractiveness has dissipated as parts per million in a sea of younger people who look at me like I have a third eye in the middle of my forehead.
     Am I different from you?  Well, yes and no.  I don't believe all people spend so much time in amateur self-analysis or delusional introspection.  But I think many others do, and so there are those with whom I connect on that level.
     Today I'm going to spend some more time in my back yard, like I did yesterday, with the bright sun and brilliant blue sky.  The dogs play and sniff and lie in the sunshine.  I trim trees, pick up the cuttings and leaves, and try to make the yard look a little better than when I began.  That it what I will do for today, because today is all I have.

    

There Are No Scared Cows at a Picnic with Hitler

     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.

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.