Legacy...

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
~Henry David Thoreau~

So, my therapist asked me, yet again, what it was that I was so afraid of. And I responded, once again, that my greatest fear seems to be insignificance. Weird, huh? I mean, when one believes in heaven and hell and cherubim and seraphim, or in the unending wheel of life and lives, what transpires in this one may not be a big deal. But, when your life philosophy consists of "you're born, you live, you die," things in the here and now take on a certain immediacy and relevance that is inescapable and can be a bit weighty at times. Hence my, what? Intensity? I've been accused of that trait, and think it fits...

However, my eastern teachings instruct me to live fully in the moment, and my intellect tells me this is indeed all we can do. And my recovery program tells me that the two primary motivators of any addict are fear and resentment. By definition, fears are of the future and resentments of the past, so what generates our destructive behaviors is very much a failure to live in the moment. Nah, I'm not really more complicated than anyone else. I just think too much...

The mission, of course, is to lose the ego, that artificial construct of self that is the repository for shame, fear, pride, ambition, avarice, and so forth. As we move closer to this goal, we see that we are part of something larger, and larger yet - a family, a community, a race, a species, an ecosystem, a solar system, a universe. How significant can I or anyone else expect to be in light of this realization. Crazy, huh?

So I thought I'd run off a quick inventory of significant accomplishments little old insignificant I have accomplished, to refer back to whenever I start beating on myself for living a meaningless life...

• I have two wonderful children who are my pride and joy, who seem to have absorbed what few good traits I have and precious few of the bad, which are legion. While it looks at this juncture as though they may choose not to propagate (a position I held at their ages as well), they will touch many lives during the course of theirs, and what they've learned will be passed on in ways great and small. I read somewhere recently a saying, "You don't fully die until everyone who has known you, or who has known those who knew you knew you have died." I like that thought a lot...
  
  
• I have been married for almost 30 years to a very patient woman. I have been a pretty shitty mate in a lot of ways (alcoholism not being an enhancement to any partnership), but we have managed what more than half of couples don't, and have added to each others lives more than we've taken away. I'm not proud of many of the things I've done, but am of this accomplishment and of the fact that, as husbands go, I've been a pretty damn good one...
  
  
• I've involved myself in my various communities effectively - serving on commissions and committees and as an elected official. I think now, looking back, that much of this was really driven more by ego than by a true sense of service, but I comported myself well in these instances regardless of the motivation, and enhanced the lives and efforts of those I served. Lesson - you can do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
  
  
• I've learned and taught through my actions both advocacy and the value of persistence. This has been mostly in the political arena, stretching back I now realize more than 25 years. I involved myself in local politics when my eldest was still an infant, helping chase religious proselytizers off the public school campuses, fighting developers encroaching on our private property rights, helping elect school board members, and later fighting for the rights to fair and responsible representation in partisan battles. I know that my words and actions inspired others to act, to become more involved, to establish organizations and to run for and serve in office. I have actually played a significant role in changing laws from the local to the federal level, including petition/referendum regulations here in Texas and campaign finance regulations at the federal level. And many of these accomplishments were achieved through efforts that on their face were failures...
  
  
• And many more accomplishments large and small that I've not dredged up and wouldn't bore you with anyway, today. Little helps, assists, likes and loves, lessons learned and taught and lost. One could become obsessed with taking inventory. I shan't..
  

The moral of today's saga, then, is really pretty simple. The only way one's life can have no significance is if one doesn't live it. The more we live our life, the more significant it will be. The more we interact with others, touch their lives and allow them to touch ours, the more firmly and durably enmeshed in the fabric of existence we become. I have beat myself up too much, I know, characterizing myself as a rock sitting inert on the shore of a pond. In reality, I have been a veritable handful of gravel, flinging myself (or flung by an unseen hand) to hit the surface of the pond of life in myriad spots and in varying weights and at multiple trajectories to set off more ripples and waves than I can possibly imagine. How many ripples, where they go, what they touch? These don't really matter. Its hitting the water that matters...

So, I am recommitting to my quest to abandon my ego, to live in the present moment, and to stop allowing my fears and resentments to dictate my actions. And, somehow, I am going to get my appropriately insignificant self realigned to serve for the sake of serving, to live for the sake of living, to love for the sake of loving, and to leave the seeking of fame and glory to others. All of these will be new experiences for me, and I can only do them in the present. Sounds like quite an adventure. Will keep you posted...


Oh, and, lest you worry that I spend too much time scouting around my bizzaro mind and variegated soul, I would remind you that my old friend Socrates famously said,"The unexamined life is not worth living," to which I've taken the liberty of adding, "...and the unlived life is not worth examining."

Namaste...

Sex & Cooking

How do I let you people talk me into these things? What? I didn't? A cheap ploy to attract readers? I never...

Okay, yes I did. And so I will. The simple fact is that I do both. Enjoy both. Occasionally excel in both. Sex & cooking we're talking about here, remember? Most often, I'm sure, I'm just barely above average at both. See, I'm just like you and told you that from the get go. Didn't I? Well???

I'm really letting this blog thing drive itself a bit, being all Tao and Zen and into therapy and recovery and whatnot. It is seldom that I know when I start where its going to wind up, but on this one I actually had a few thoughts prior to pitching the notion, so this could prove interesting. Also, while its not exactly intentional, I'm pretty sure you're going to at some point pick up a recurring Mars/Venus theme over the course of my ramblings. No, I am not a misogynist and am getting tired of hearing that. If a woman is a bitch she's a bitch, just like a guy who's a bastard's a bastard. Get over it. (By the way, who else knew that the term "son of a bitch" was just about the worst possible thing a Native American could call someone? They had no worse words for another human being. That's what I heard somewhere, anyway...)

Point being, I love women, don't hate or revile or mistrust women any more than I do men. Recognizing that generalizations are always dangerous and inaccurate, I am willing to say that I generally have very little use for men, the majority of whom (here in Texas and the U.S. anyway) are generally shallow, narrow minded, dually focused (sports and sex), and of no appreciable value to society that I can see. Does this make me, in fact a misandrist? Hmmm...

I've only recently come to question why I have for so long held women in higher esteem. I really hope its not just about sex. Very disturbing, that. Anyway, the fact that I consider and called the "ladies" who bedded down with married Tiger "hos" doesn't mean I hate women. I just think they're hos, that's all. Pretty skanky for the most part, too. Hustler fare, if you know what I mean. What the hell was he thinking? Not about cooking, that's for sure...

Okay, fine. Here goes...

First, it is my observation that men and women approach both cooking and sex very differently. Some of this is societal - women are "expected" to cook, ergo its a chore and who wants to do chores? I know very few women who claim to love to cook. I know a number of men who love to cook, myself among them. Why? Partly I'm sure because we don't have to - its voluntary, unexpected, not demanded. I mean, I may be a little strange in this but I've actually shoveled dirt for a living, dug ditches and such, so, as a result, I really don't enjoy doing it now, even in my own yard. The wife digs (little holes for little plants) and I cook. So, lets accept that men who love to cook, as likely as not, don't have to, and that women who would prefer not to cook take this position largely because they're expected to. Cook that is. Some people like to live in the box, and some outside of the box. Nobody, however, likes to be put into the box. Do we?

And regarding the mess? We men would love to be able to cook without making a mess. The point of cooking, however, is to interact with the food, feel the the ingredients, revel in the stirring and sifting and chopping and dicing and mixing and tossing and smelling and tasting and all the other wonderful activities that constitute joyful food preparation. If the object of an activity is "to not," as in, to not make a mess, then you bring a very negative mindset to the whole effort and really kill the whole spirit of festivity. In an ideal world, the meal that results from our unbridled zeal will be wonderful and splendid and tasty and hearty, and all recipients will so enjoy it that they will gladly join in afterward to clean up the battlefield. In an ideal world. While the chef takes a nap on the couch...

In our house, the wife handles the baking. I can't do it. Baking has too many rules, precise measurements, meticulously orchestrated sequences of events. You have to hold your eyes a certain way and control your breathing and don't shake the stove or cut a fart or do anything else to disrupt the machine-like flow of predictable events. No wonder women are devastated when their souffle falls or cake collapses or filling doesn't set or some other catastrophe results despite all their precise efforts. Trying on bathing suits is tough on self esteem? Spend a day baking! Jeesh! Hell, when our chili is off or the steaks aren't exactly right, we just toss half a beer or a splash of bourbon on it or in it and the other half in us and call it good. Life's too short, people...

And sex? Don't get me started. Okay, so we've already started. Deep breath...

Men and women are different. Okay, there, I said it. And men are to cooking as women are to baking. (That's a junior-high middle school math allusion for those of you thinking it had a slightly familiar ring.) We all approach everything we do from our own self-conscious perspective - its unavoidable, and not necessarily selfish. We men are like a steak or a chicken or a pot of chili or a fresh salad. There's nothing complicated about a man and, from a qualitative standpoint, man sex is pretty simple. For the vast majority of us, the worst sex we ever had wasn't bad, and the very best was about 2.5 times better than the worst. We're just that way - uncomplicated. Toss us on the fire, flip us every once in a while, a dash of this and a dab of that and everything's good.

Women, on the other hand, not so much. Outside of the space shuttle or the CERN particle accelerator, women are just about the most complicated contraptions on the planet. So woman sex is like baking. A lot like baking. Much of the cause of this is that 80 percent of a woman's sex organs are between her ears, the balance distributed equally between the sweet spot which bears no further mention (except to say its complicated as hell too!) and about 72 other spots on her body, the vast majority of which most men don't even know exist. (This complex configuration is, of course, the exact opposite of a man's, which is simple to the point of imbecility - hence requiring virtually no effort to deliver the perfect repast - from the man's point of view.) This marked difference means that, in woman sex, almost all of the sifting and stirring and mixing and seasoning and all of the other things that it takes to pull off the perfect meal (metaphorically speaking) are ideally performed in all sorts of places besides the one or three where most men are inclined to focus their attention. And very, excruciatingly contextually dependent. And ladies, you don't exactly come with instruction manuals or cook books or how-to classes, ya know?

Now, now friends. Don't be depressed or distressed. There is good news for those who've hung around this long. Men can and do in fact learn to cook without making a huge mess, and to clean up after themselves when there is one. We can also learn to bake, and a lucky few may even learn to enjoy it (although I've never personally met any.) And women, you can learn the joy and abandon of cooking spontaneously, tossing in a little of this or that just because it sounds interesting, despite the fact that it's not in the recipe, or maybe getting totally wild and pulling the first ten things you find out of the fridge and pantry and making a meal of it with no recipe at all, because you're not afraid to fail, because there's no such thing as failing. Who needs a recipe anyway, remember? Add a little Tao to our cooking - go with the flow. Enjoy the process and don't be overly hung up on the final result. And for both, start with a clean kitchen and finish with a clean kitchen...

And as far as the sex goes? Just keep trying different recipes, different ingredients, different techniques. Men, work a little harder to be more complicated, sometimes our simplicity makes us seem, well...simple? And remember that women aren't actually trying to be complex, they're just that way. Keep in mind that a positive and giving attitude goes farther than just about anything towards making sure the oven is at the right temperature, the ingredients are properly mixed, and the meal will be enjoyable to all. Ladies, open up and lighten up and enjoy the experience without trying to make it fit a recipe or agenda or schedule? Remember, who needs a recipe? Again, go with the flow. And don't be shy about directing we poor simple men through your complexities. Remember, most men really do want to be, metaphorically speaking, great cooks or bakers.

Finally, I would encourage everyone remember two simple maxims. First, nobody has a good time if one party is trying to bake while the other is trying to cook, at least in the conventional kitchen. Not enough cooking implements, room, counter space, etc. If you try it, you'll likely have a poorly prepared meal and too much angst for anyone to consider either the cooking or dining experience enjoyable. And secondly, a meal is not complete until everyone has been served and filled to their individual satisfaction. So, with that...

Bon Appétit!

Author's Note - This is a blog, not a magazine. If I ever do outside research, it is unlikely that you'll know. If I ever cite specific facts or figures, they will be properly attributed. Ergo, it is safe to assume that whatever you read here is fully and completely the product of my twisted little mind. Hope you enjoy!