Next Time, I Swear I'm Not Coming Back

Click on the little word balloon thingy in the lower left corner to read the captions.

Greg:

The leaves turning on the maple tree across the street is making me pine for summer. I hardly got in any hiking this year. One of these days, when my dowsing stick finally hits the underground money stream, I'm going to hike my ass out of here and never come back.

When we went up to Deer Park in Olympic National Park this last time, I almost didn't come back. At one point John and I were sitting on top of Blue Mountain sharing the same fantasy. (You were somewhere downhill, avoiding the altitude.) In this fantasy, we call our wives, tell them to sell all our stuff, and to come meet us up there in the mountains where we belong. We live happily ever after. Cue sunset. Roll credits. (But who delivers the Indian food? You won't survive without Indian food. Or cable. Just sayin'. -Ed.)

That same mad, lycanthropic euphoria bubbles up every time I go into the mountains, the mania that wants me chuck it all and not come back. You know, like Col. Kurtz, but not quite so batshit homicidal crazy and stuff.

When I hiked out to Skoki Lodge in the Banff NP backcountry last year, my inner Amish almost got the upper hand and kept me there for good, too. If it were not for my very sane, very-disinclined-to-bathe-in-ass-freezing-mountain-streams wife, I’d prolly still be there, picking my teeth with a marmot or warming my hands over a blazing hiker.

Speaking of being on top of a mountain, I understand your concern about how I like to hang near the edge of the biggest drop-off I can find. I’m only doing it for therapeutic value. Honestly. I started going up into the mountains to help overcome anxiety. As folks like myself who have an anxiety disorder often do, I was becoming afraid of heights. Anxiety disorders often "morph" to include basic phobias. (The five basic phobias are water, spiders, snakes, heights and small spaces. And, if you're male, that list may include commitment. -Ed.) While I was educating myself on how to get over anxiety, I found out that the best way to deal with a phobia is through exposure. (Not of one's loins and whatnot, but exposure to the phobia-inducing stimulus.) So I started getting myself up as high as I could reasonably get without standing on the ledge of a building or filling a recliner with helium.

I’m not afraid of heights anymore, that’s for sure. But now it’s kinda like I have to get a little dose of the medicine that cured me every once in a while, lest it wear off. Call it a “booster shot”. At least I’m not doing anything truly goddamn crazy, like mountaineering. Mountaineering is not my bag, and and I’ll tell ya why. There are certain activities I abjure, chief among them:

• Falling into giant icy crevasses.
• Eating the dead.
• Sustaining frostbite injuries. (I've actually done this one before. I frostbit my face in 1984. Parts of it turned all black and fell off. And it fuckin' hurts like you would not believe.)
• Having a pulmonary embolism for dinner.
• Wigging out on hypoxia.
• Pooping in a bag.
• Starring in a book by Jon Krakauer.

These are all things that you either must do or may wind up doing if mountaineering is your cup of freeze-dried tea. But please don’t confuse me those peak-hopping, ice-axe-wielding bag-shitters. The things that I like aren't usually found where you find alpinists, f'rinstance:

• Fragrant alpine meadows.
• Piney pine trees.
• Surly marmots.
• Tranquil mountain lakes.
• Lunch.

In other words, if it's below the tree line, count me in. Likewise, if trees won't live there, why should I go?

The other reason I'm belaboring the distinction is because some hiker recently took a couple-hundred-foot drop and creamed himself into human chip dip on a pile of granite. This was of course covered in the paper which of course means Dad read it which of course means he gave me several stern warnings and admonitions (replete with the appropriate finger-stabbing of the appropriate story column in the local paper) about doing the same to myself. So I had to give him the requisite assurances that Mister Salad Bar Item was (or at least fancied himself to be) mountaineering whereas all I do is hike. I don't even use ropes. Hell, I wouldn't tie myself to something I liked, let alone some mountain.

Okay, so if I've done nothing more than set the record straight (assuming it needed to be set straight), me = hiker, not mountain climber. Hope that puts you at ease.

Picking up dog turds not as fun as it sounds

Before the monsoon season strikes (I mean strikes and any harder than is has already struck for the past few months of our goddamn soaking wet 58-degree "summer"), I'm trying to get things in and about the yard put away. This includes dog turds which - come to find out - are not as water soluble as you would think. I've been finding chalk-white turd carcasses all over the yard, or "turd bones", if you will. And come to think of it, there's no way our wee little Corgy can produce that many boluses. She must be recruiting help. She's not asking you to chip in, is she? If so, help me out and use a trowel. Or just scratch like a cat.

Hauling rat-pee-covered insulation to the dump not as fun as it sounds

Since I was over at E's house dropping off some stuff that she so graciously offered to store for me, I counter-offered to help haul another load of that rat pee covered insulation and wallboard that you tore out of her basement. I only mention this because I made an interesting discovery while at the transfer station. You know how I keep all those fancy essential oils in my truck so I can mix my own air fresheners? (Yeah, I do, so what? Shut up!) Well bitter almond oil effectively cancels the crushing, mephitic redolence that only a steaming hot garbage dump can produce. Might be a good thing to keep in your lunchbox next time you want to carry along another ptomaine-laced hot dog. Might make it easier to choke down.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Massive Tribal Dump

Give that man a job. Seahawks seventh round draft pick
Justin Forsett ran like a cat dipped in turpentine last night
in the 'Hawks preseason 29-26 OT victory over the Bears.

Greg:

I'm glad you finally got to witness first hand the huge screaming steaming drinking throbbing mass that is a Seahawks game at Qwest Field. Granted, it was only a preseason game, and therefore was only "sports orgy lite". Still, it made our backup QB Charlie Frye's foibles - the interceptions and whatnot - no less rage-inducing. (If he were more competent perhaps we could get "World's Most Athletic Human" Seneca Wallace out where he should be, catching passes instead of backing up Matt Hasselbeck.)

But I have to tell you, every year at the first game when the players come flying out of the tunnel to all the smoke and fire and beer-gurgling fanfare, it reminds me of the scene in "Gladiator" when the fighters are brought up into the light of the coliseum for the first time and all nearly crap their loincloths over the sheer fucking size of it all.

Now you also know how oh-so-very-goddamn loud it is. Again - it was only a preseason game, so it was "ear-splitting lite". Increase that cacophony by a factor of 2.5 and you get an idea of what a post-season game is like.

Now that you know what I mean when I say that I find it quite satisfying to take a gigantic emotional dump in public, and to do so without consequences, and to have it be an expected behavior. Also, as you pointed out, to not just take an emotional dump individually, but tribally as part of the tens-of-thousands-strong screaming steaming drinking throbbing mass. (SSDTM for those of you who need an acronym for everygoddamnthing if it gets more than two mentions. I'm looking at you, Microsoft. -Ed.)

If you know me as well as you do, dear brother, it begs the question how I, who never had the athletic inclination to throw my voice fer Winchell's sake, would become a frothing sweating screaming flailing fan of football. (Or FSSFF. Not the second mention yet. I know. I'm just getting ready. -Ed.)

Easy. I think football is a dharma. It represents an integral concept of this difficult and oft-confusing life that is represented in my favorite fuckin' haiku of all goddamn time from Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828):

It is a dewdrop world

Surely it is

And yet

And yet -

Football is only a concept. (Oh yeah? Try convincing Bears backup QB Caleb Hanie that the 600-pound sack of man-crete that flattened him last night was a concept. I'm sure his chiropractor would like to hear that too. -Ed.) (Quiet you! -TRG.) It is what it is - to flog a hackneyed football interview phrase - because we all agree that it is. The fans, the players, the coaches, the ticket scalpers - you get the drift. It only has as much importance as I interpret it to have. I scream until I hyperextend my pyloric valve in anger when our backup quarterback Charlie Frye throws an interception, but I do so by choice. If it were, say, Bears QB Rex Grossman throwing the interception, I would shriek with glee and dispense high-fives to everyone within high-fiving range.

I find it enjoyable to become a FSSFF (Nice! -Ed.) because it is one of the few times in life when I am conscious of the emotional choice. In the rest of my life, it's not like that. Someone tells me shocking news and I startle. People die and I weep. My brother grieves and I despair. The cat pukes on my bedspread and my heart is filled with blackest rage. All of these things, though they seem appropriate to the situation, arise spontaneously and therefore seem as autonomic as a sneeze.

All these emotions, however autonomic they may seem, arise from values that I possess: the worth of my bedspread and the importance of my brother's well-being, for instance. These could be subject to emotional choice as well. I could choose to help others breathe through their upsets as I breathe through mine, to listen compassionately when my brother grieves, and transform the urge to punt the cat into compassion for his dyspepsia. (Or if you must punt the cat, punt him delicately and with loving-kindness. -Ed.)

But I will always rage over the foibles of Charlie Frye, because as Issa put it so succinctly two hundred years ago:

It is a preseason game

Surely it is

And yet

And yet -


Cheers, -Thaddeus

The Church Of Crunch

Namaste, Motherf#$%er! The Buddha of Violent Compassion drops
220 pounds of enlightenment on Cardinals kicker Mitch Berger.

Greg:

I took time off from being a mold farmer to attend Sunday's Seahawks v. Cardinals NFC West Divisional Championship Extravapalooza at Qwest Field ("Home Of The Loud Crowd"). I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me to be able to go to games, especially games where a hardcore Nichiren Buddhist like Seahawks kick returner Josh Scobey delivers the full weight of karma to Cardinals punter Mitch Berger in his own end zone, resulting in a safety for the Seahawks and instant enlightenment for the entire crowd of 68,000 (see above). Ironically, (...or not. -Ed.) Qwest Field is where the Dalai Lama will be laying down the hits on happiness and compassion next April. Believe me, I'll be screaming my guts out from the 300-level on that day, too. I predict that he will sack ignorance for a loss. I can hardly wait to see his end zone dance. (Wait, the Dalai Lama plays both offense and defense? No wonder he won the Nobel. -Ed.)

Digression: I heard this great bit in a standup routine once. "Why is it that football players blame themselves when they do poorly and thank God when they win? Just for once I'd like to hear a player say, 'I was doing great until Jesus made me fumble.'"

Which brings me to the subject of sports and religion as the two things seem to be inextricable. And I'm not talking just during player interviews. I submit as evidence Exhibit A below:


Exhibit A: The Reverend Leonard Weaver, who coincidentally plays fullback for
the Seattle Seahawks, resists tacklers like he was a solid steel I-beam rooted
in The Jesus. He had four receptions for 56 yards on Sunday as the Seahawks
beat the Cardinals to clinch the NFC West...with yours truly propelling his
team to victory by screaming his guts out from section 342, row EE, seat 1.

I mean check it out, what was that crazy basketball game those Aztecs used to play? (Mayans, but who's counting? -Ed.)And weren't all those games to the greater glory of the god Chocolatl or something? And the Olympics - weren't they also for the greater glory of the Divine Residents of Mount Olympus? And now football - isn't pretty much everything that happens in football for the greater glory of The Jesus? I have no answer for that, nor do I have further musings. Although I find it interesting how at the end of each football game, a large contingency of players from both teams gather at center field to pray. One presumes that because they're praying en masse, it is a group effort of peace and compassion. Maybe it's not. Maybe they're all praying something like, "Lord, whensoever we see these muffuckers here present up in our house, may we rain Thy vengeance upon them, and tear they muffuckin' heads off fo' sho' next time. We ask this in sweet Jesus name. Amen." (It reminds me of a line from the Civil War film Glory: "May I fight with the rifle in one hand and the good book in the other." -Ed.)

Sylvia Boorstein gives a nod to football fans in her book "It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way To Happiness". She dispels the notion that we (meaning Buddhists) are all about serenity and equanimity 24/7. We don't watch sporting events hoping that just the best team will win. Buddhists get as wound up about competition as just about anyone else, and it's perfectly okay to do so. Gelugpa monks go after theological debates like they were being televised on WWF Smackdown. Besides, there's nothing in the dhammapada about not freaking right the hell out over sporting events, like when some douchebag official destroys the sanctity of the Super Bowl by making a spate of doubtful calls. (Still bitter? -Ed.)

Likewise, I think it makes a huge difference when you choose to recognize both fandom and the game itself as dharma. Then football becomes a play that has the power to reveal the deepest values of nature, just like anything else would that you choose to recognize in that way. Football, fans and all, has no inherent reality, and is purely a contrivance based on arbitrary rules. And upon close inspection, (introspection?) I could say my life is pretty much the same damn thing. (Put. The Bong. Down. -Ed.) But in either case, it doesn't keep me from screaming my head off when I feel moved to do so, either in real life or at Qwest Field. The difference is that I often forget that real life is just a play as well.

I'm glad that I didn't forget that while my basement was flooding all to hell last Monday. As we were mopping and bailing, I said to Aaron (mostly to remind myself) that we should probably nevermind the rug, the walls, and the other tangible losses for now. I said the most valuable thing we probably had at that moment was our sense of humor. (Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how'd'ya like the play? -Ed.)

Speaking of play, I have to work now.

Cheers, -Thaddeus

You Can Be Happy For Just Six Bucks

Author Richard Carlson looks nothing like this dashing fellow, who is the
actor Richard Carlson. You may remember him from such classic films
as "Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D". It is rumored that when he died
in 1977, he willed his lower lip to Angelina Jolie.

Greg:

By now you're well acquainted with my fascination for the whole self-help genre especially when it comes to anything with "happiness" in the title. So you won't find it surprising that when I found a new bookstore to frequent in my new neighborhood, I went straight to the self-help section and picked up a priced-to-move pre-owned copy of Richard Carlson's "You Can Be Happy No Matter What".

I always wonder what the story is behind books like that winding up in used bookstores. Is there someone out there who applied every lesson in this book and felt it was their duty to spread the joy? Or was there some disillusioned sourpuss who tied it to a rock, drove by and hucked it at the front door of the place with a note taped to it that read "This is total bullshit"? Either way, I'm glad for the fact that it wound up there and I only had to spend about six bucks on it. Thrift is something that makes me happy no matter what. (Except when it comes to kitchen appliances, apparently. Perhaps you'll get lucky and some disillusioned sourpuss will drive by and throw an AGA range at your front door with the same sort of note taped to it. -Ed.)

So here's my take on it. "You Can Be Happy..." is worth reading and there are some valuable lessons in it. Carlson presents one idea that is especially enlightening, and that is that thinking is a voluntary function. From a cognitive science perspective that's true, although it does not seem to be true in our subjective experience as we don't seem to question our thoughts much. They just seem to happen. But by the same token we all know that we can stop thinking about something if we try hard enough. I side with Carlson on this one. Drawing on the vast calico of piecemeal knowledge that I have retained as a cog sci enthusiast slash pseudo intellectual slash autodidact slash dilettante, I can't find anything to refute that point. I can tell you that emotional and thought patterns are both unique to the individual and habituated. But that doesn't make them autonomic or intransigent any more than, say, smoking is. We tend to experience our propensities as hardened facts of life. One look outside yourself will tell you that assumption just ain't true.

This is also akin to an idea that I first read in "The Art of Happiness" by HH The Dalai Lama. It is that pain is an inexorable fact of life that arises from being human and having a nervous system. However suffering on the other hand is an emotional choice that you make about your pain. I can't even begin to tell you how much that the idea of emotional choice has influenced my life. Who the hell knew there was such a thing? I mean, c'mon, don't your emotions just happen to you? (Short answer: nope. They're learned, practiced, repeated, and ingrained. They're almost anything but automatic.) Anyway, reading those two words juxtaposed was like hearing a note from a five hundred pound singing bowl. I nearly shat my zafu.

Anyway, before I go off on another scatological digression, let me get back to Carlson's book. He divides his approach into five principles: the principles of thought, mood, separate realities, feelings, and the present moment. I already mentioned the core of the "thought" principle. The "mood" principle is that our moods fluctuate and that in different moods we feel and react differently in response to the same stimulus. (That word always makes me think of the sensation you get when you stick a9 volt battery in your mouth. Mmm! Stimulus! -Ed.) "Separate realities" means that other people think and feel differently that you do. Before you dismiss this as a "duh" realization (which I did, wholeheartedly), make yourself aware of it the next time you find yourself thinking "Jesus Brain-Injured Christ, that is the most retarded thing I've ever heard" in response to some pearl of enlightenment that falls out of the mouth of one of your co-workers or the president or that one guy at the gas station who always calls you Carl. We tend to look at our own way of thinking as right and others' as wrong, whereas it's less rage inducing to think of those two things in terms of our way of thinking and their way of thinking without the good/bad qualifier.

Moving on, "feelings" states that our emotions work as a biofeedback mechanism that tells us how we're doing from a psychological standpoint. In other words if you feel shitty, you're doing shitty. And "the present moment" is learning to keep ourselves from being distracted by negative ruminations and projections, or anything that takes us out of the present moment for that matter.

Yeah, sure, to you and me this is mostly "duh". But speaking for myself, it's a really good reminder and can be a pretty good gauge of how well I can repeat this stuff versus how well I live it. Like the difference between the appraised and market value of my house, there is always going to be a gap. It is always good to be mindful of the gap.

So where does it fall short? In the same place where every self-help book falls short and that is in the edge cases. (The downfall is to assume that you're an edge case every time you don't agree with something. You see it in AA all the time. "Oh that doesn't apply to me because I'm a special case" is a favorite rationalization of the addicted. It's more constructive to really take a hard look at the ways in which these things really do apply to you.) The principle of separate realities is fine until you come across somebody who genuinely wants to do you harm. Then the picture becomes more complex. I doubt that anyone who put up with years of verbal and emotional abuse from their spouse would solve that problem simply by believing in that principle, although it might go a long way to lessening the effects of the abuse. In fact, it might even speed your departure from a harmful situation. "S/He thinks I'm a target for any abuse s/he cares to dish out, and s/he's welcome to her/his opinion. However, since it's just their opinion and not mine, I don't have to live with it. And putting up with this bullshit day in and day out is for the birds. I'm young. I still have my figure and all my own teeth. So fuck that thick necked chump, I'm out."

The little dog just crowed. It must be morning. Let me wrap up by just saying this. I agree that thinking is a voluntary function, and I think this book is totally worth the six bucks I spent on it if not more. It's an easy, fun read and, thanks to some disillusioned sourpuss, is on the shelf at your local used bookstore right now.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Happiness Is Wood

Fig 1: A cross-section of old growth happiness. In the future,
we may be able to practice sustainable happiness practices, and
not rely solely on harvesting irreplaceable old growth stands.
(You said "practice practices". Idiot. -Ed.)

Greg:

I had another realization about happiness (You don't say. -Ed.), and its relationship with other emotions and I thought I'd pass it along.

While doing my "three things" exercise, I suddenly realized that one of the three things that made me happy that day was writing down my three things. That seems like a paradox, but I'm perfectly okay with that. It's as though practicing happiness begets more happiness. That's kind of a "duh" realization, I know. But you'd think there would be a diminishing return in that control structure somewhere. (E.g., in psuedocode it might read like: "practicing happiness will make you happy UNLESS OR UNTIL some douchebag comes along and fucks up your day. CASE NEXT: Continue practicing. CASE ELSE: beat aforementioned douchebag soundly about the head and shoulders.") As a point of logic, though, it seems that if you practiced happiness regularly and without interruption, you would create a perpetual state of mental well-being that was unshakeable.

From my experience, it seems that's possible, but looking at my day-to-day emotional life, I know that's not the case. Not yet, anyway. For instance, last night we were getting ready to go out the door to the theater ("West Side Story" at the 5th Ave - not a bad show as it turned out), and I couldn't find the tickets. Did I undertake a serene mental recapitulation of my actions in order to recall where the tickets might be? As the French say, "Oh FUCK NO!" I ran around the house ripping stuff out of drawers and turning pockets inside out while hurling epithets and verbal assaults on everything and everyone including but not limited to mine own creator. I was on the verge of giving the dog a cavity search when lo, the tickets didst appear to me, verily in the spot where I left them. But where was my happiness then? Where was that unshakeable feeling of "everything's going to be okay"? I should've probably turned the house upside down looking for that instead of the tickets. As it was, once I had the tickets were in hand, I was instantly ashamed of how I had acted.

Maybe all of that is fodder for practice, too. As I said in my last letter, dealing with frustration seems to be the next big challenge in this whole quest-for-happiness thing. And in trying to ameliorate anger and frustration in order to gain happiness, I've come to realize that anger and happiness are not opposites. Not that practicing happiness doesn't go a long way as a prophylaxis against anger and discontent. It does. But it's like comparing apples and horse apples. They're completely different. (Glad you pointed that out. After the last time we had lunch, I was beginning to wonder if you knew the difference. -Ed.) I'll save the whole point-by-point explanation of exactly how they are different for another letter. Just suffice it to say for now that the only thing they share in common is the rubric of emotion, and that's where the similarity ends.

Anyway, getting back to the paradox (or tautology, if you will) that practicing happiness is a way to be happy. The fact that writing my three things is one of the things that makes me happy reminds me of that old saying about how wood warms you three times: once when you cut it, once when you split it, and once when you burn it. Likewise, happiness warms you three times: once when it happens, once when you recall it (like when you do the "three things" exercise), and once when you share it. That doesn't roll out quite as smoothly as the thing about wood, but you get my drift.

I tried explaining all of that to Teresa this morning. She waggishly replied with, "So happiness is wood." This only led to a back-and-forth exchange of very naughty puns, each more titillating than the last, and none of which are fit to reprint here. But just let me say this. While wood by itself may not be happiness, it can be a very important ingredient of happiness in consensual relationships between mature adults. Ahem. (A phrase containing the terms "spank" and "plank" also comes to mind. -Ed.) (Quiet you. -TRG)

Okay now I'm embarassed.

-Thaddeus

Happiness: The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

Nobel Laureate Konrad Lorenz attempting to induce an aggression
response in a goose by blowing his stinky-ass pipe smoke in its face. The
goose later ripped off his beard and crapped on his nice new shirt.

Greg:

I feel like chokin' a fool. Lawd, lawd does I feel like chokin' a fool!

And through that statement, you may have guessed that our Cognitive Science lesson for today is on Dollard and Miller's Frustration-Agression Hypothesis. Put down your tuba and peanut butter sandwich and stop readjusting your frilly under-drawers and listen, dammit. This is important. The lives of thousands of customer service professionals are at stake.

Ready? Begin.

Way back in 1939 when everyone was nice (except maybe Hitler), a buncha eggheads (Dollard, Miller, Doob, Mowrer, et. al.) got together and worked out this crazy idea that frustration and aggression were inextricably linked. According to them, aggressive behavior was a response to what they called "goal frustration". In English, that meant that if you have a goal in mind, and you try to achieve that goal but you can't, you respond with aggression in order to achieve that goal. They said that pretty much all aggressive behavior could be explained that way.

Okay. So. A few years go by and a bunch of critics call bullshit on that, so Dollard et. al. come out with another paper that says, "Dear Chumps: We didn't say that aggression was the only response to frustration; we said that aggression was one kind of response to frustration. Love forever and - seriously - go fuck yourself. Dollard et. al. PS: We spent all the grant money on bathtub gin. Ha ha ha on you."

Konrad Lorenz - remember the guy with all the geese following him around? That guy - he was another one who studied aggression in animals 'round about the same time as Dollard and Miller. In his book "On Aggression", he hypothesized that aggression was a natural drive that had to be slaked by acting out from time to time. I say bullshit. First off, he worked with geese, and everyone knows that geese are the most predeterminately pissed off animals in the universe. Second, I'd like to meet him and his geese some Friday night down at the Fight Club. I've got something they can slake!

Look, I'm not saying that Dollard and Miller were right or they were wrong. (I am saying that Lorenz was wrong, though.) What I am saying is this: it seems that dealing with frustration is my next great hurdle in this whole happiness thing. The "3 things" exercise has worked out swimmingly. I highly recommend it. It seems to be a panacea for a whole spectrum of neuroses...half a dozen of my own, at least. (At this very moment somewhere in New York State, a certain Dr. C. J. Spezzano is higly amused. -Ed.) My state of mind is generally pretty - what's the word - "chill" I think is the correct clinical term. But every once in a while, specifically when I'm in some sort of frustrating situation with some public utility or Internet service provider or contractor or - well pretty much anyone you have to deal with to - what's that word - live, I find myself thinking very aggressively if not acting aggressively, and that certainly doesn't make me happy. To wit, the Death List that I have recently composed which consists of several public institutions and enterprises that have stymied my attempts to live a calm and peaceful life. Chief among them (with their various transgressions enumerated for your edification) are:

My Mortgage Company: who just this morning sent me on a circuitous jaunt through PhoneLand and the Valley of Being On Hold because they got my Social Security number one %$#@ digit off.

My Phone Company: who still have not flipped the tiny, tiny switch that makes my downstairs phone work, despite my manifold entreaties and requests...not to mention the fact that they just doubled my phone bill instead of halving it and combining it like they said they would...and don't even get me started on how &^%$ing long it took to get my service hooked up in the first place.

My TV Company: who...aww Christ, I don't even want to say it. The appointment is for between 1P and 5P. They show up at 9:30P, whistling a merry tune. Then they don't even install my...arrrrrrrgh. Choke, hell!Where's my gun, goddammit?! (You're a pacifist. Remember? -Ed.)

My Various Contractors and Service People: who, while they're very cordial and congenial and do good work, I still have to...every time I call they don't...and then I have to...arrrrrrrrgggggggh! I said where's my gun goddammit!!?? The big gun! The one with the knife on the front of it and the part that sprays poison!! Find it!! (Gun, hell. You need some booze! -Ed.)

Okay, there's more but I gotta stop. Otherwise I'm going to have to get someone to stand on this blue vein on my forehead to get it to go down.

Frustration is a part of life. That's just a natural fact. (Or a Noble Truth, if you like. -Ed.) If there weren't any frustrations, that would mean that things happened exactly the way you wanted them to every single time, and all you'd have to do was blink to get anything you wanted, and then where would you be? That's right. You'd be a ditzy blonde living in a tiny bottle, polishing the chrome on Major Healy every time he turned around. (You youngsters ever watch "I Dream of Genie"? -Ed.) And how's that a way to live? Fuckin' no thanks. The interesting thing about life is that it has some randomness and surprises to it, and that's what makes it ossum. Can't have surprises without frustrations. They're flipsides of the same thing.

But how to deal with the frustrations when they arise? It always seems to me that they're so sudden and unexpected that you're stuck in the middle of one before you can say "I need to kill a fool". And since these little, petty things seem to be the only obstacle left between me and a constant state of happiness, it seems like if I get this one solved I'll be doing pretty goddamn good. Plus, I'll be able to pass the savings on to you! (And by "petty" I mean for example that it was the TV guys that showed up late. It's not like I was waiting for a dialysis machine or rabies vaccine or something. That would be totally worth getting freaked out over.) And the solution must be at least slightly more complex than "just chill the hell out". It seems that frustration is one of those autonomic responses, like startling, sneezing or grasping at donuts. Or maybe that's just me.

Awright. So that's the next "assignment" that I'm going to give to myself: come up with a way to disarm frustration. But in the meantime, any suggestions that you have would be more than welcome. Remember (he said, polishing a .303 Enfield with a drop sight), the lives of thousands of customer service professionals hang in the balance.

Cheers, goddammit!

-Thaddeus

Ruminating: It's Not Just For Cows Anymore (Happiness Part 10)

Joy may be fleeting, but self-loathing and doubt are
lifelong companions. Just ask my editor. (Props to my homey
Marc Chagall.)

Greg:

Remember that "happiness experiment" I was doing, the one where every night, I'd write down three things that had made me happy that day? Well I decided that I'd stop doing it for a while to see if any of the benefits that I had received from doing the exercise would disappear and if I'd go back to my old cycles of thinking. I got some interesting results.

By the way, this is how I help combat animal testing. I do experiments on my own brain rather than, say, a Rhesus monkey or, say, my cat. My own brain is less expensive, is right here where I can reach it all the time, and I don't have to clean up any poop. I foresee a glowing, cruelty-free future where all psychology students will do the same. I also foresee a future of totally wigged-out zombies who roam the earth in search of research grants so that they can feast on the sweet, sweet money inside them. But that's a discussion for another time.

So did I go back to my old thought cycles? Yes and no. The "lows" in my day-to-day mood never returned. I never had what I would term a "bad" day since I started the exercise or since I took a break from it. There was always something positive, some accomplishment that I sensed in the back of my mind. The feeling of "everything's going to be okay", even if it was only slight, never went away whether I was doing the exercise or not.

However, I did go back to ruminating quite a bit. As I've said before, I believe that rumination is at the center of every neurosis, so that covers pretty much everything except maybe the schizophrenias, brain damage, and organic disorders. I also think that rumination must be in large part a chemical process in the brain. I know that it can be controlled by the same supplements that help defeat the over-firing of neurons that occurs in the locus ceruleus of people like myself who suffer from panic disorder. (Think of over-firing as a sort of "feedback loop" that doesn't stop when it's supposed to.) Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is an over-the-counter supplement that works pretty well, but if you take too much of it or take it for too long, it inhibits your ability to...oh what's that thing? The thing that you do when there are thoughts in your head? Oh yeah...THINK. And that...ummm...what's that thing where something's really bad and you hate it? Oh yeah...BLOWS.

Don't even get me started on Elavil, Norpramin, Xanax, Valium, or Imipramine. I think those should all be reclassified in the PDR as Schedule IV Dick-Wilting Barbiturates. (Was that crude? Beg pardon.)

But back to the point. Since I stopped doing the exercise, any kind of...how shall I say this...negative stimulus, whether it was general stress (traffic, work, and the myriad daily frustrations) or specific stress (my ex-wife calling me names - everything from "sub-human", "complete failure" and "sperm donor" to "faux Buddhist"), caused me to go off into wild tangents of rumination, sometimes lasting for days.

(Hey, cut her some slack. At least she didn't call you "motherfucker" this time. Although I can see how her calling you that, while it may have been intended as hurtful, borders on comically tautological. -Ed.)

(Oh yeah. Hilarious. But c'mon, don't make fun. People who are that pissed are not having a good life. Don't contribute to the suffering. That ain't right. -TRG)

(Oh dude, c'mon that was AWESOME! I even threw in the word "tautological"! That was fuckin' SWEET! That'd get you hella points in Scrabble! -Ed.)

(May I continue? -TRG)

(Whatever, ya fuckin' faux fuckin' Buddhist fucker. -Ed.)

(Thank you for giving me an opportunity to practice. Namaste. Now onward. -TRG)

And I don't mean ruminating just a little. I mean quite a bit. On the upside, it wasn't the old, negative kind of rumination, like "how can I retaliate? or "on a scale of one to a billion, how hateful can I feel?" Instead it was more along the lines of "what is the best, most ethical way to handle this?" And then afterward ruminating ad infinitum on whether I handled the situation well or not.

Well I've pretty much decided that whether it's ruminating on good things or bad, ruminating at all - if it doesn't have any specific outcome - is a pretty huge waste of brainpower, not to mention a phenomenal waste of time. It's like putting your car up on blocks and revving the hell out of it in neutral. Even if you engage the clutch, nothing is going to happen. In the meantime it's a huge waste of fuel - and with gas prices being what they are this Memorial Day Weekend and what with the Global Warming and all the drowning of the polar bears and whatnot, and all the stinky of the exhausty fumes blowing into the neighbor's yard while he's trying to have a barbecue, and then him getting all aggro with the threats and the dog and the shotgun...well, you can see how ruminating just makes it bad for everyone.

Okay. So. Yeah. Here's the good part. Just one day of doing the happiness writing exercise brings all that unnecessary rumination to a tire-barking halt. I know because I resumed the exercise. It was like Baby Jesus poured out a mighty flood of calm that immediately extinguished my brainfire. The experience was truly phenomenal. It's as though the action of focusing on things that made you happy even for a moment completely negates the brain's ability to ruminate. It's as though you can't be miserable and happy at the same time. Shocking I know. (Whatever, ya fuckin' faux fuckin' failed cognitive scientist. -Ed.) (Namaste. -TRG) It's also probably something that Big Pharma would hate for you to find out, but there you are. If doing this simple exercise is all it takes to elevate a person's general mood and inhibit if not altogether stop neurotic ruminations, then Big Pharma is going to go broke. And I know there must be something to this because I performed this experiment on the most jacked-up brain I could find: my own.

Cheers, (Whatever. -Ed.)

-Thaddeus

Best. Week. EVER.

Man, what a jerk! It may surprise you to know that a lot of
people thought the Buddha was a douchebag of simply epic
proportions and told him so to his face quite frequently. Good
thing they did and he talked about it, otherwise I'd have no
idea what to do when it happened to me. Blessings come in the
strangest packages.

Greg:

I've had the best week EVER. You couldn't top it if you tried. And when I tell you everything that has transpired, you're gonna thing I'm being facetious, or nuttier than an acre of squirrel crap, or grasping your frilly underdrawers and giving them a firm tug, or all three. Let me assure you I am not. I'm totally serious.

Don't get me wrong. Nothing good happened. And a bunch of stuff happened that was quite arguably bad, or would at least make a minor saint wring his or her stigmata-covered hands in despair. But it was still the best week ever because I didn't forget to practice the Dharma!

Look, c'mon, I'm not holding myself up as a paragon of patience or virtue. I've been pretty much a hypertrophic bleeding heart at the parade of my own pity most of my life. And I still may very well be. But at least I'm figuring out how to not make myself or others suffer for it. And that, dear brother, is the very first step on the Eight Fold Noble Path. (Or not. You prolluby oughtta go back and read "Buddhism for Dummies" again. -Ed.)

So here's what happened. I gots a whole list.

A few days ago, I got two crowns way back in the hurty part of my mouth, way back where the ear canal connects to the hurt bone. First they stabbed me in the facial nerve when they were delivering the anesthetic (felt like somebody had clefted my chin with a flaming tomahawk), and then they just kicked my ass for fun with every tool in their arsenal of ultimate pain for a couple of hours. They put one mammoth temporary crown over both teeth, giving me a gigantic dinosaur tooth to crunch on stuff with, which would be ossum if I were seven years old and still liked to eat saplings, but is not so cool when I'm forty four years old and like to eat blazing hot lasagna...which doesn't feel so good on an inflamed double-mammoth-crown. So the pain wakes me up at night, and not just the pain, but the whoomp-whoomp-whoomping in my ear because the whole area is as inflamed as the Middle East. So what do I do? I sit. I breathe. I try to remember other people who are also in pain. I try to visualize them all. I don't try to make my pain subside. I just sit there and observe it, and let that pain build more empathy within me for all those other people - like Michael Coates, that guy in the paper I sent money to so he could get his teeth fixed. Why just sit there and observe the pain and use it to generate empathy? Because the Dalai Lama said to. That's what he does when he's in pain. Who am I to argue with that? (Hey, look at what I found! Wikipedia tells me that aspirin was invented in 1899. I bet they're still making it. Maybe you could eat one and sleep at night and dream of all the other people who are sleeping, hmmm? -Ed.)

And then - well I won't bore you with how I spent more than four hours on the phone with Qwest trying to get the long distance at my new house to work. Everybody does that. If you haven't spent four hours on the phone with Qwest, you're just not living a human life.

And the DirecTV guys have been showing up (or not showing up) at my house at all crazy hours. They were supposed to come over between 1PM and 5PM one day. They showed up at 9:30. That's PM. And it wasn't even on the day they were supposed to show up. I made 'em go away. Then on the day they were supposed to show up, they called and said they had a hangnail or terminal ennui or some damn thing, and so they'd have to reschedule me. So I said, sure fine, why not Tuesday night between 6 and 8? And they said why 6 and 8? And I said because I like even numbers. So I get a call this morning - Tuesday morning - at 9:45, which is in no way an even number or night - from a DirecTV guy saying there was nobody at my house to let him in except this one crazy guy who was digging in the backyard for no apparent reason. And I thought "Hey! Great! That contractor I hired showed up to do the excavation!" So me and the DirecTV guy had a big laugh over all the miscommunication and he said you have a great attitude and I said hey, it's my TV not my dialysis machine so who cares? If I miss The Daily Show my kidneys won't fail. And we laughed some more and when I went home for lunch, lo and behold there was a satellite dish perched up on my roof. Finding humor is practice, too.

Is there more? Mais oui.

I got a letter from the IRS telling me that they were disallowing my IRA contributions, and that I owe another $2,211 in taxes for 2005. But if I freaked out over it, that'd mean that I was attached, right? So I didn't. S'just money.

But that's okay.

My ex-wife sent me an email. That doesn't happen every day. She was asking for something, and I thought that when I declined her request I was being pretty reasonable. I said I'd rather take it up with the person it concerns, which was not her. She, on the other hand, did not share my view, and returned to me a raging screed that was awesome (as in it inspired awe - I'm no-shit serious here) in its terrible majesty. As I recall, no portion of my person, heritage, parentage, profession or religion was left unassaulted. (She left out your complexion. I mean, get some dermabrasion for that keratosis, wouldja? -Ed.) You may think I'm poking fun or trying to capitalize humorously on someone who has enraged themselves way beyond reason, but in all seriousness I'm not. First of all, it's pretty apparent that you have to hate somebody pretty bad to disparage their religion as false, call 'em half a dozen names like "phony", "sperm donor", "miserable life entity", a "blind fool", sub-human, and then compare them to George W. Bush. (Surprisingly, no common swear words were used. What the fuck is up with that? -Ed.) I mean you have to sit down and think through what would hurt the worst, and then spend time crafting it into a letter. Malice aforethought. Again, I have to remind you, I'm not making a joke here. So what do you do in a case like that? How do you reply? Even more to the point, why would you reply to someone who is trying to impress upon you in a very specific and exhaustive if not catholic manner that they hate you - as though they were vaulting all their energies into describing the breadth of the sky?

Illuminating point: I have a card on my desk that sits right next to my computer. I read it every day about a million times. I don't think of it as an adage or a bromide. I take it absolutely to heart. It reads:

"Every day, think as you wake up, 'Today I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive. I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others. I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.'" -H. H. The XIVth Dalai Lama

So, instead of answering rage with rage, I figured that if I really wanted to make difference, I'd have to take that moment to become the peace I wanted to see in the world. You can take refuge in the Dharma only if you can remember to. Again, I can't say that I'm Joe Serene or that I'm the best Buddhist in the world. I get mad, I'm self-centered, I'm short-tempered with people, and I think badly of others sometimes. Christ, I cut people off in traffic yesterday! (Man do I suck!) But at least in this one case for one moment - in the middle of a week like this one, no less - I remembered the Dharma and tried to practice it as well and honestly as I could. (My reply to her is below.) It gives me a little hope that I can do something about the only thing that I can really do something about, which is me.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

L~-

Your opinion is yours, your insults are yours, your anger is yours, and your hatred is yours. However you choose to act on those things is up to you. I can't share that with you, take it away from you, or return it in kind. Nor do I need to defend myself against any of it. Also, it would be wrong of me to try to change you or change your mind and not accept you the way you are. You may believe that you hate me, but I think the fundamental reality is that I am your best friend, and you are mine.

I've never been called names like that or had someone slur my religion until your last email. Being Jewish, you probably have had people slur your religion to your face, and not being Jewish, I can only guess how awful it makes you feel. When I feel like somebody is really trying to make me feel bad, instead of getting really wound up over it, I think of a newspaper story that I read once. I've reprinted it below.

"...try to empathise with the person who harmed you. The Dalai Lama believes that no-one is congenitally evil. He believes that all of us have a right to a certain measure of happiness, and, remember, even people who love you will hurt and sometimes betray you; it doesn't necessarily mean you should sever the relationship.

If these things seem difficult, think of forgiveness as a gift to yourself. The Dalai Lama calls this an 'enlightened self-interest'. No-one benefits from forgiveness more than the one who forgives.

Whenever the Dalai Lama talks about forgiveness, he likes to use the example of Lopon-la, a Lhasa monk he knew before the Chinese occupation. Lopon-la had spent 18 years in a Chinese prison before he was released and came to India.

The Dalai Lama told me: "For 20 years I did not see him. But he seemed the same. Of course he looked older. But, physically, OK. His mind still sharp after so many years in prison. He was still the same gentle monk. He told me the Chinese forced him to denounce his religion. They tortured him manytimes in prison. I asked him whether he was ever afraid. Lopon-la then told me: 'Yes, there was one thing I was afraid of. I was afraid I may lose compassion for the Chinese.'

Namaste,

-Thaddeus

Up His Nose

...and believe me, he means it.

Greg:

Want to try something that's just nuts? Stick a Q-Tip up your nose. Seriously. That is some freaked out shit. I did it this morning. It was like I'd taken a tiny sheep or a bunny or something and put it on a ramrod and stuck it in my snout. And then my eyes got all watery and my head got all swimmy like I had just sneezed. It's nothing like sticking your finger in there. Q-Tips have no sensory structures - nerve endings and whatnot - like your finger does. You have no clear way to judge how far you put that thing in there until it's way too late. I swear to the Patron Saint of Otorhinolaryngology (...which is Saint Blase. I'm not shitting you. Google it if you don't believe me. -Ed.), I poked myself square in the frontal lobe. I nearly retarded myself by doing it, and it was a retarded thing to do in the first place. Is that what they call a paradox?

But retarded or not, using a Q-Tip is just a great way to clean your nose. Your finger has all kinds of microscopic beasties on it, but a Q-Tip is made from Cherub Down. It's sterile. You could get impetigo or gout or some other eighteenth century disease from picking your nose. Or somebody could bump your elbow and you could inadvertantly self-lobotomize. And don't even get me started on the time that I stuck the vacuum cleaner hose on my beak and nearly collapsed a lung.

You may well ask what I was expecting to accomplish by sticking a Q-Tip up my nose, and I may or may not tell you. But it's a well-known fact that I've been nasally fixated since I was a wee one. Remember how I used to jam cotton in my nose when I was a kid? Jesus Paint-Huffing Christ, you'd think somebody would've called a social worker or something and said, hey, this kid's packing his nose like he's fixing to ship it to China. Maybe there's something wrong with his brain.

Well we both know how that turned out, don't we? I switched from balls of cotton to fistfuls of cocaine, and by my mid-twenties I had turned into a disc jockey. Everyone knows that cocaine is a gateway drug for broadcasting abuse. If I were an adherent of a 12 step program, I might think that this morning's escapade with the Q Tip was a relapse. As it is, I regard it as acting out - a form of stress release, if you will. I've been doing this house-hunting, mortgage-brokering, contractor-wrangling, paint-chip-selecting, Ikea-safari-ing way too long. I can't drink booze any more because I've already proven to everyone within chundering distance that I'm just plain bad at it. So what opportunity do I have to act out my self-destructive-yet-benignly-weird tendencies that seem to bloom when I'm under stress for protracted periods of time?

Speaking of which, Teresa and I were down at Ikea the other day. (You don't say. -Ed.) As is to be expected when a couple is going through something stressful, like - oh I don't know - buying a house, we were sniping and bitching at each other and getting short tempered. And suddenly it dawned on me that nothing, not even buying a house, was worth souring our relationship over. I mean, c'mon, I go around preaching this happiness stuff like my poop was made out of sunshine, and do I remember to practice it when it counts? Well not always, but at least this time I did. So I told Teresa that while I'd been waiting pretty much most of my life to own a house, I'd also spent a good chunk of my life looking for the girl of my dreams. And lo, here she was. I considered myself one lucky Son of the Lineage to have met her. (It's a Buddhist thing. Google it if you don't believe me. -Ed.) But if owning a house meant fighting with the girl of my dreams, it was totally not worth it. In fact, I told her I'd rather lose the earnest money than be unhappy with her. So yeah, we kinda refocused our perspective on this whole house thing. While we feel fortunate to be on the brink of home ownership, the truly important thing is our happiness.

And that's why we're installing morphine-dispensing Tickle Me Elmo dolls in every room of the house.

I kid! I'm a kidder!

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Happiness Pt. 6.5: I Won The Lottery. Again.

THAT'S HOW I ROLL. First thing I'm gonna buy when I hit the Lotto jackpot
for real is a sweet setta wheels just like this bizzad bizzoy right here.
Dudes at the Starbucks driveup window are gonna crap every corner of their
pants when I glide up for my short drip in this ride. Oh yeah. And then
I'm gonna give the rest of the money to world peace. Amen.

Greg:

I won the damn lottery. Again. Well - wait - not the whole thing. If I'd've matched one more number, we'd be having this conversation at 600MPH on the Bonneville Salt Flats in the front seat of my solid gold rocket car. But anyway, for the third time in less than a year, I won $1,000 in the Washington State Lottery. Fu, the guy at Uwajimaya who sells me my tickets, gave a little squeak and exclaimed, "That's three times! You're the luckiest person I know!"

So what's my secret, assuming I have one? Well it's like this. I do have a lottery-winning secret. However it's not the reason that I keep winning money literally by the thousand-fold. Here's what happened:

Way back in ought-one when I was going to Seattle Central Community College on the state's dime, I was forced to take math against my will. Unbeknownst to me - or to the gnomes who run my checkbook - I had hidden powers of mathematical wizardry that suddenly bloomed under the tutelage of my many, many math teachers at SC(3). So yeah, I'm hanging out in the math lab one day, (Just saying that makes you a certified nerd. -Ed.) and I'm all talking smack about how the lottery is not truly random because if it was you would not be able to plot a bell curve on the results (which you can). No number would have a better chance of being drawn than any other number. It would be pretty close to a flat line. And Nick, the Uber-Math-Geek (If math smarts were pectoral muscles, he'd have an 80-inch chest. -Ed.) says no, it's truly random. I'm all like, "Hey Nick, why'n't you go blow a quadratic?" And he's all, "Why'n't you suck my rational equation?" And our professor goes, "Yeah, real mature." So I says to him I says that I had a way to prove that it wasn't random, and I was going to go do it, and when I did, he would have to wear a t-shirt every day in the math lab that said "THADDEUS GUNN'S KUNG FU IS THE BEST - and I, Nick, am his bitch for life".

So I got a spreadsheet of all the results for the Washington State Lottery Lotto game from day one up to the present, and I listed them all out in descending order of how frequently each number was drawn. I drew a median line through the results, thus creating a set of the top 50% most frequently drawn numbers. Then I wrote a simple Visual Basic program (OK - now you're a certified nerd with a gold star. -Ed.) that would randomly draw sets of six numbers from that pool. I would draw five sets of six numbers this way, and then create a control set which was drawn randomly by the Lotto machine at the store where I bought the tickets. So what I wound up with for every drawing was ten draws: five by me, five by the machine.

After doing this for three months, I calculated (with my bitchen new math skills) that my draw set won over five times more often than the control set. What I mean is that it won something - any prize level from $1 to $75. I wasn't shooting for winning the whole damn thing. I just wanted to influence my frequency or chances of winning anything. So it looked like I was right, that the lottery was not truly random, and that meant that a person could indeed influence their chance of winning a prize. Nick would be my bitch for life. Of course he poo-pooed the whole thing and told me it didn't mean anything, to which I replied that he should probably drive a Fibonacci equation into his rump at high velocity.

Nick now works as a Programming Titan for some company that prints money by the silo-full especially just for him. On the weekends, he crushes numbers with his 80-inch pecs at the Pike Place Market. (The tourists love it. -Ed.) He also drives a solid-gold rocket car. I, on the other hand, do not.

So yeah, so I've been doing this "experiment" for...oh more years than I can count now (Six. -Ed.), and my draw set still beats the control set five-to-one in number of wins. However - here's the rub: the control set, though it wins five times less frequently, wins - and I have calculated this mathematically - way way way WAY more $money$ than my draw set. The three times that I won $1,000, it was the control set that won. Same with the times that I've won $150. My draw set wins $1, $3, $5 and $20, like, all the time. But the big duckets come from the control set.

Ancillary-yet-interesting note: On my "three things" list the night that I won for the third time, I wrote, "Won $1k in the lottery again. Although I didn't mind winning, it didn't make me as happy as I thought it would."

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Happiness, Pt. 6: Gettin' My Dawdle On

Meet my new role model. Droopy Dog is the pace car in my rat
race.

Greg:

I sent an email to that guy you asked me about - Max Hong, the guy who was relocating to Seattle. I said yeah sure I can show you where to score fat, gnarly buds with big red hairs, captain! I've been hooking foreigners up with ganja since '87 and I've got the t-shirt to prove it. Just say the word! I hope this did not offend his Korean sensibilities.

PSYCHE! I did no such thing. Actually, all I told him was that I've lived here for 20 years and had no plans of leaving my White Supremacist compound on Whidbey Island.

PSYCHE AGAIN! Good God man, you are so easy! Freakin' just look at you! You're all wigging out because you think I probably told this guy about how your strange affection for your tuba (and proclivity for having sex in barns while the brass section of the London Philharmonic watches) made you the model for the main character in Peter Shaffer's gritty psychological drama Greguus. Look, if he knows about that it's because he reads the paper. I didn't say anything. So chill. Eat a donut. Carbohydrates are a calming food. Or that's what Dr. Max Hong tells me.

Speaking of chill, this happiness experiment that I've been doing on my brain since November has caused me to chill in the most delightful ways. Here's an update. Doing the "three things" exercise really does work incredibly well for something that seems like such an insignificant gesture. However it does work a whole lot better if you do it right before you go to sleep. I know this because I was having a hard time staying awake and writing in my journal each night while I was in a state of repose on my TempurPedic Coma-Tron 3000, especially if I'd just eaten dinner not long before. As you know I get up at 4AM every day, so laying on the world's most comfortable mattress with a gutful of pasta at 9PM was proving to be a knockout combination. Even trying to avoid premature narcolation by writing while sitting upright at the dinner table didn't work so well. Half the time I was doing a full on neck-wilt followed by a face-plant right between the pages of my Moleskine. Most of my journal entries started to look like "1. Getting a check fro~~ #20a;slkjd ~~~~~~~~~. Snnrrrrrrrrrrfff." And then there'd be a stain on the page that looked like the Shroud of Turin would look if Jesus had been wearing glasses. So I started to do the exercise first thing in the morning which is just about the only time my brain works anyway. I have to admit, it's a great way to start the day, but the persistent mood-elevating effect from it began to ebb after a couple of weeks, so I decided I oughtta go back and do the exercise the way it was prescribed. I figure if I don't eat anything after 2PM, I should be able to stay awake long enough in the evening to get it done. I'll let you know how that turns out. Since I have a tendency to obsess on pudding at about 2:30PM every day, I believe accomplishing that will take a great deal of fortitude that I may in no way possess. We'll see.

I've continued doing the other exercise, the one I created to do in the morning, that one about "Three Things To Look Forward To Today". That one has been working out really well and works exponentially better than any "to do" list I ever wrote in my life. Stuff that I write in this list actually get done. Who'd'a thunk?

But the best side effect (or is it direct effect?) of this whole experiment is the across-the-board deceleration of my life in general. To wit, I have begun to dawdle, to dawdle well, and to dawdle often. Example: usually when I go hiking or snowshoeing on the weekends, I like to be the first person on the trail so I can enjoy the silence unperturbed by dogs, children, adulterers, fastpackers, sullen teens, Fat Grannies, Ozzie fans, and other representatives of the various phylums, classes or species tributary to the H. fartknocker evolutionary branch that might be found in the deep woods of the great northwest. I'm usually making everyone's life a living, shrieking hell by prying them out of bed at an UnGawdly hour on a weekend morning and making them rush to the trailhead. Not so anymore. Last weekend I was content to let the group gather at its own speed, then meander its way to the trailhead at a pleasant - dare I say floaty - pace. It was so much more relaxing than my usual way of doing things. The general texture and pace of the day reminded me of a rather pleasant week I spent in a Canadian hospital smacked out of my gourd on morphine. Everything had the languid, beautiful tempo of a still, warm autumn day, or...say...Hempfest. But this time I didn't have to have my appendix removed to enjoy it. What's more interesting is that this deceleration took place apparently without my volition. I didn't plan it. I just woke up one day, stopped giving a rat's ass, and started moving at a more organic pace...say the speed of a carrot...or perhaps even dirt.

Now I'm assuming, mind you, that this is the result of the exercises that I've been doing and not the result of the gradual evaporation of my precious life-giving fluids as I approach and overtake middle age. I'm convinced it's the former because of the proximity between the initiation of the exercise and gradual entanglement of my limbs in the giddy molasses of sloth. The fact that I can bench three times what I could when I was twenty, not to mention the vexing new growth of insolent black hairs on my chest where there were formerly none, both indicate that the bung and stopcock on my hormone barrel is getting - if anything - more leaky with age. At this rate I should be the strongest, slowest, most hirsute 80-year-old you've ever seen.

And speaking of geriatrics, I was surprised to find that not only is Jack LaLanne still alive and jumping at age 92, but another pugancious nonegenarian desperately wants to kick his ass. I thought that guy had stopped pissing people off and jumping-jacked his ass right into Forest Lawn decades ago. Apparently not. Well if he's still around when I'm 92 (which would make him 140), I'd probably like to take a crack at slapping the gums out of his mouth, too. I can see it now. I'll throw one punch and it'll take half a day to land.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Flying Blows

Big Heavy Sweater. You might think it was
really ossum to sit next to Hemingway on the plane...
that is until he got his itchy pretzel dust and
stinky rum sweat all over you.

Greg:

I've made a psychological breakthrough. I've managed to upgrade my irrational fear of flying to fully rational hatred of flying. As The Bard once quoth, How doth flying blow? Let me count the ways.

OK - so here's how this came about. I had to fly down to San Francisco for work a couple days ago. I was sitting in the waiting room at my gate - you know, the one with the screaming kids (what do they do, import choleric infants from 18th century England and stick them with pins or something?); crackling, unintelligible PA announcements; scoliosis-inducing seating, and That One Guy Who Stares At You The Whole Goddamn Time (is he on airline payroll, I wonder?). I was starting to get some anticipatory anxiety, something that I've learned to recognize as easily and detachedly (Hey, nice word! -Ed.) as you might recognize a stomach ache. I've been dealing with it and an entire spectrum of related and ancillary anxieties since you dropped me off at the nuthatch that one night back in 1984. Suffice it to say, I've also learned to deal with it for the most part. So yeah, I'm feeling the clench train pulling into the station and so I figure I'll listen to the fear of flying audio course that I always take with me to impart some rational wisdom to my irrationally-twitching brain. And then I just said to myself, "Y'know what? Fuck that. And not just fuck that. Capital FUCK capital THAT. I don't wanna be that "guy" who has that "thing" that he has to treat all the time. That's a lot of work and a bunch of BS." So I just quit. And I wasn't fearful anymore. And that was pretty much it. Done. Quit. Stop. No mas para yo. Goose egg. Empty set.

So now that I was no longer distracted by thoughts of falling out of the sky in a flaming, tangled mass, I was free to experience the splendor of traveling aboard a modern aircraft.

It sucks. It's not nice at all. Who in their right mind wants to be bombarded with cosmic rays while trapped inside an aluminum sausage? And it's loud, it's stuffy, and that 110% real faux leather they make the seats out of - why, if one were to break wind against it, it would most certainly make a mighty cracking sound like two razor strops colliding at supersonic speed. Papp!! Imagine the embarassment. (Speaking of which, ever since I wrote that bit about farts, the traffic on this clog has not abated even for a day. Google Analytics shows me that they're reading what will become known as The Dear Gregory FartBlog in Malaysia this evening.) I suppose I could go on to whine about the pretzels they gave us which were - and I crap you negative - the size of the nail on my pinky finger. But it all seems so pointless. Flying is what it is - a suffocating, claustrophobic hell peopled with people who get their people sweat all over you because you're crammed smack up against 'em in a 600 MPH autoclave of human misery. And neither you, nor I, nor all the magical pixie dust in Baby Jesus' coke bullet is going to change that. I've been working on this "happiness" thing, and it seems really counterproductive to dwell on that which induces agony, y'know?

But here's the ape in my ointment. I have two more round trip flights coming up in the next two months. I got tickets to go to two full days (two days!! ) of teachings from His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama (we call him The Big D) at the Graham Civic Center in San Francisco at the end of April, so I gotta fly down to that. But I figure either way, if I go down in a flaming ball or land safely but all schmutzig with people sweat, I was on a pilgrimage to see The Big D so I'm pretty much a shoo-in for nirvana.

Oh yeah, and then I'm going backpacking in Yellowstone at the end of May, so again, I'm going to have to fly not once but twice both ways for that. You can only fly from Seattle to Boise and then straddle an angry gnat to Jackson. They won't send you direct. I'm sure that the fine people of Wyoming put the kybosh on direct flights, citing the danger of their fair state filling up with steers, queers and hobos from Liberal Ol' Seattle if such a thing were allowed. (Hey - wait a minute... Actually... There was a movie about... Oh never mind. -Ed.) But again, whether it's a flaming ball or people sweat, I was on my way to Yellowstone so I'm pretty much a shoo-in for the Happy Hunting Grounds. (Think again, kimosabe. -Ed.)

But that's it, though. No more flying for me after that. I'd probably have to fly if I were going to Europe or something, but I'll probably never make it to Europe because I don't believe it exists. That's just some story they made up to scare us when we were kids. ("Little Thaddeus, did you know that in Europe they have a toilet that shoots water right up your hiney?" "Eeeeewww! I hate Europe!")

And if I go to Bhutan, I'll just take the train.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Why Am I Such A Total F@#king P&%sy? And Other Profane Musings

Dear Baby Jesus, how can I quit being a such a total fucking pussy...
and how come I swear so fucking much? Hallowed be thy name,
A-fucking-men.

Greg:

I've slipped and hit my head this morning on a brick of self-hatred which resulted in an effluvium of profanity, much like hitting one's head on an actual fucking brick might cause. Bear with me.

Have you seen me lately? If not, look up. I'm the guy in the picture. I look like a potato made of Silly Putty. And my standing curl form is horrible. Plus - Jesus, wouldja look at my moles? What am I, a Dalmatian or something? Plus plus, I'm weak. I'm a total - well, you know what.

Hang on, I'll be done in a minute.

Oh yeah. And I'm convinced that I set a horrible example as a father. There's that, too. Here's what set this off. Aaron's been sick for - oh I don't know, long time now. Nothing acute. Just feeling like a stack of shit on top of a bunch of mystifying symptoms. He's been to the doctor a few times now and they've turned up nothing - nothing in the bloodwork, nothing in the throat culture, no underlying pathology detected, nothing. I keep telling him that it's the beard, that he has toxic mold living in his beard, and that one day it's going to eat his whole head while he's not looking. My comments, of course, are borne out of beard envy. I cannot grow anything more than mange if given a month, whereas he can grow all of Fidel Castro (including the fatigues, the hat, and the cigar) practically overnight.

I mask my true concern with humor, of course, as no one likes to see their kid be sick. Did I say concern? I meant neurosis. Did I say neurosis? I meant a clawing, burning, self-immolating obsession with a mantra that goes "OM - ifIweren'tsuchahorriblefathermykidwouldn'thavethisproblem - OM"

You know what would probably be a good thing to do right now? That ABCDE exercise that I'm supposed to do for that University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology study that I'm part of. (Duh! -Ed.) I really don't think this whole "my kid's problem is all my fault" thing is going to do me much good in the long run, and may even result in me looking more like a fucking potato more than fucking ever. (I can think of at least two things fucking wrong with that statement. -Ed.) And it will probably only wind up annoying the h - e - double - ski -boots out of Aaron. You remember how I showed you this exercise previously using Lange as an example. The point of the exercise is to disarm pessimistic thought patterns by citing contrary evidence and then generating alternatives. Anyway, lemme give it a shot. But be forewarned. Like malaria, it'll probably get worse before it gets better.

Adversity (the bad situation): Aaron is still sick despite several trips to the doctor and negative test results.
Beliefs (what unrealistically pessimistic beliefs do I have about the situation): 1. That it's never going to end and there will be nothing I can do about it - just like his mom was sick all the time, just like my mom was sick all the time, just like I felt sick all the time when I was a kid. It's hopeless. There's never going to be a definitive diagnosis. Or worse, some well-meaning medic is going to doom him with some dubious and contentious illness (like fibromyalgia, a term that some people in the medical community believe is a wastebasket diagnosis). Or even more worser still, some really idiotic and well-meaning medic is going to tell him that he has MS or cancer - like they did to me. (You're fucking kidding me, right? -Ed.) (No, I am not fucking kidding you. -TRG) 2. This never would have happened if I had set a healthier example. When he was growing up, I was always Smokey McDrunkenstein, always complaining about my health and doing very little about it. A great role model for a healthy kid I was not. I may have changed my ways, but that's not going to make much of a difference now. I've gone and saddled my kid with a bunch of sickness behaviors and not a single wellness behavior. It's my fault, I tell you! My fault!
Consequences (what happens as a result of harboring those beliefs): I swear a lot. And I feel like a big steaming turd of poo. I'm generally angry and irritable and no fun to be around. I feel like I'm snapping at everybody, including Aaron. I feel like I just went and undid all the work I did on my happiness. My nose is stuffy.
Dispute (disarm pessimistic thinking with specific, concrete examples): What am I, nuts? Turn that frown upside down! For starters, Aaron isn't my mom or his mom or me. He loves his job, so he's not using illness as an excuse to blow off responsibility. How he handles either his wellness or his illness will be authentic to him. He has an excellent network of friends, so he's not dependent on me for...well pretty much anything, come to think of it. It's not my responsibility to prevent, cure, or over-parent him. He's a grown-ass man (Point of proof: awesome beard. -Ed.) and will make his own decisions. I can go ahead and relieve myself of a responsibility that wasn't even mine in the first place, and stop driving myself nuts.
Energization (a word they had to use to be consistent with the alphabet theme): My head feels clear, I don't feel as tense, my thoughts are no longer racing. However, I still look like a potato.

Well, three out of four ain't bad I guess. Thanks for listening.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

The World's Happiest Guinea Pig

Matt Lange, drinkin' up all the
f-in' Sunny Delite.

Greg:

Now I've gone and done it. I went and signed up to be a participant in a gen-u-wine psychological experiment being conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. You may know U Penn as the home of the Quakers football team (I shitteth thee not, friend) who finished the ought-six season with a peaceful, fair and equitable 5 and 5 record against such college gridiron giants as Yale, Harvard, and the Bucknell School of Yeoman Faggot-Making. Quaker football, it appears is a veritable juggernaut of mediocrity.

But you may not know the other U Penn, home of Dr. Martin E P ("Ever Publishing") Seligman, former head of the American Psychological Association and me-proclaimed Jolliest Fucker In The Universe. He's a positive psychology maverick-slash-edifice he is, and one of my personal heros. The Authentic Happiness Website resides deep in the sunny heart of the U Penn InterWebs, and is a swell place to get a well-rounded view of what the hell all this positive psychology stuff is about.

Best of all, you can sign up as a research participant for authentic happiness studies there. If you go to the website, there's a jolly little banner in the left column asking for participants that practically begs you to click it. Of course I could not resist, and better yet did not resist, and so here I am. They gave me an assignment which I have been pursuing semi-diligently ever since. Here it is in a nutshell: (Copyright 2006 Martin Seligman, all rights reserved, I'm jolly but don't make me come down there and kick your ass you goddamn plagiarist, world without end, amen.)

It's called ABCDE. It's a journaling exercise. First you think back on an Adversity that occurred during the day and write it down. Then you write down your pessimistic Beliefs about the event, and write down the Consequences that you suffered because of those beliefs. Then you Dispute those beliefs using specific, concrete evidence, and in the end describe the Energization that you felt as a result of disputing your beliefs.Let me give you an example. For purposes of illustration, I will pretend that I am my friend Matt "Douchebag' Lange of Buffalo, New York (go Bills).

Adversity: My fuckin' sister drank all the fuckin' Sunny Delite again.
Beliefs: She doesn't fuckin' care if I fuckin' die of thirst and scurvy. Where's the fuckin' love?
Consequences: I got really angry and decided to take revenge by taking all her fuckin' diet pills and washing them down with her fuckin' half-rack of Tab.
Dispute: Oh wait. There's the Sunny Delite. It was behind the Tab. How wrong I was. And I just ate all that... Uh oh...
Energization: ENERGIZED?! ENERGIZED?! MY HEART IS ON FIRE AND THERE ARE WEASELS IN MY DUODENUM! HELL YES I'M ENERGIZED!!

See? Pretty simple. I don't know if it was because of this exercise or whether it's the nexus of all of the three exercises that I'm doing simultaneously that has caused me to chill ever-so-slightly over the last couple months. It's not that I don't get mad. I do. It's just of much shorter duration with long periods of chill in between. I got mad as a wet hen covered with wet hornets on Monday, but it only lasted exactly 17 minutes. For comparison, I once got angry in 1977 and stayed mad until 1983. This is a big improvement.I'll keep you posted on further developments.

In the meantime, go visit the Authentic Happiness site and take a few of the tests. You may find out that you're happier than you think.

Cheers,-Thaddeus