I'm NOT Going to Teach You a Lesson

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about “justifiable” anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self righteous folk? For us... these are dangerous exceptions.  We have found that justified anger ought to be left to
those better qualified to handle it."

Anonymous, "12 Steps and 12 Traditions" (emphasis added)

   I'm angry about rising taxes today.  I want to start my own tax revolt.  I want to start a revolution, storm the political palaces, demand immediate reform and threaten violence... and then I remember...

"When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant
evaporates on the spot. One unkind tirade or one willful snap judgment can ruin our relation with another person for a whole day, or maybe a whole year. Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven argument. The same goes for sulking or silent scorn. These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness. Our first job is to sidestep the traps. When we are tempted by the bait, we should train ourselves to step back and think." 

Anonymous, "12 Steps and 12 Traditions" 

   The need to sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut arises much more often than I'd like.  In fact, I don't like it at all.  I'd prefer to never practice restraint, and that's at least part of the reason I need to do just that.

   I have no lessons today to teach anyone, but I have a lot to learn.  I've got a lot of growing up to do, in part because I've chosen to avoid the things that might have helped me grow up in the past.  Things like hard work, pain, and yes, patience, tolerance, and kindness.

Don't Kid Yourself

I'm still here.

You're not following me, I'm following you.  I'm out here in cyberspace and I'm watching.  That's how I learn lessons from the fire.  That's how I evolve.

By the way, in my humble and amateur opinion, "evolution" is not a dirty word.  Nor is "sex."  I think those two things are somehow tied together, but I'm still thinking about that.

Brought to you by the guy who thought computers were a fad, sorta like hula hoops and Nehru collars and those little plastic yellow signs that dangled from the rear window of cars and read "Baby on Board."  Oh.  Okay.  I didn't know you had a baby, so now that I know, I'll completely change my driving habits...

On an unrelated note and several thousand years ago, a bunch of bipeds formed societies and decided killing someone else, anyone else, for any reason, is a bad idea.  Oh, some of the societies dabbled in it "for the good of the society," but most of them eventually dropped it completely.  Just seemed hard to justify... saying "don't do this" and then doing it.  Yes, I'm talking about capital punishment.  It's stupid.  Let's quit doing it.  I don't care if it's Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, or Bernie Madoff.  You don't kill sick people, and these are/were sick people.  Keep them away from everyone else and get on with being kind, patient, and tolerant.

Peace on earth, good will toward men.  Sounds better when Linus says it in the Charlie Brown Christmas movie.  But I still like it.

Happy Valentine's Day: Love Stinks

²¹"I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies."

Amos 5:21, Old Testament of the Bible

    The God of the Old Testament apparently found Israel's professed love for Him, ostensibly demonstrated alternately through partying and piety, to smell like rotting flesh in the summer sun.  Several millennium later, the J. Geils Band may have stumbled upon more truth than humor in the these A.D. 1980 lyrics from a song and album titled "Love Stinks":

You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can't win
And so it goes
Till the day you die
This thing they call love
It's gonna make you cry
I've had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
(Love stinks)
Love stinks yeah yeah 

     I'm gonna get right to the point this Valentine's Day.  I'm not preaching, I'm passing on a lesson I've learned the hard way, from my mistakes.  I can chase that feeling of lovestruck euphoria until I fall asleep for the last time and I'll never get anywhere near love.  I may get lust, infatuation, obsession, or worse, I may get a lot of people to cosign my bullshit and tell me how well I've chosen.  But I won't get love.

     I'll find love when I make a decision to love another person and follow through with loving actions.  Patience, tolerance, and kindness seem like good places to start.

     Looking for that special someone who thinks like me, someone I connect with, someone with whom I have chemistry, turned out, for me, to be Grade A baloney.           
     Years of sunrises and sunsets, filled with countless opportunities to love, were lost on me.  I would not have, maybe I could not have, recognized love had it fallen on top of me.  The result was a profound disappointment, the disappointment that only unmet expectations can engender.      
     I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point after my fourth decade on this little blue planet I made a conscious decision to let go of my expectations and begin to accept the ones I'd been given to love without any conditions, people I didn't choose in the first place - my mother and father, my sister, then outward in concentric circles... my extended family, my neighbors, coworkers, those who share my city, my state, my country, the world.  Learning involves a daily decision to love through loving thoughts, words, and actions.
     All of my best ideas about how to "get" love proved futile, for just that reason.  I was giving to get.  I still do that sometimes, and guess what?
     No love, just stink.

Happy Valentine's Day