Riding With God

So, I was riding my bike along the river as I do most Sunday mornings, sweating and pumping and daydreaming a little, I suppose, when, suddenly, a voice spoke to me very clearly. “Watch out for that chuckhole!” Instinctively I swerved, knowing that it didn’t matter to which side. If the voice had said “pothole,” I’d have likely panicked, but chuckholes are by definition pretty small. The danger was easily avoided. And so began today’s talk with God…

“Where are you?” I asked. “I am here,” God replied. “There has never been a time or a place that I could not so answer, to those capable of asking.”

Recognizing this as a unique opportunity, I decided to be bold. “I had a few things I’ve wanted to talk to you about. Do you have a little time to visit while I ride?” “Of course,” God replied. “I have all the time in the world.”

“Keep your eye on the path,” God said gently. “Oh, so you know I’ve been studying Taoism and Buddhism?” I asked. “Of course,” God replied. “There is nothing about you that I don’t know.” Suddenly I felt the surface change beneath my wheels as the ground suddenly transitioned with a bump from smooth pavement to rocks and grass. I snapped my focus back to my course, and realized I’d continued straight when the track turned. I wrestled my bike back onto the trail, worried that I’d broken the connection…

“Like I said,” God chuckled. “Keep your eye on the path. Your Buddhism calls it ‘Right mindfulness.’”

“Oh, thanks,” I answered. “I was afraid you’d left me.” “I never leave you,” God said. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. You are part of me, and I am all of you. How could I leave you?” Hmmm, food for thought, I thought to myself. “One would hope so,” God replied.

“Keep your eye on the path,” God repeated, as I nearly missed a monstrous dip in the roadway. “Or else park your bike and be still. You’re making me nervous.” “Really?” I asked. “No, of course not,” God laughed aloud. “I was pulling your leg. I don’t get nervous – that’s a human frailty and I don’t have such weaknesses.” “Oh,” I responded meekly.

“You’ve done walking meditation,” God said. “Think of this as riding meditation. Pay sufficient attention to your course, and the balance to our conversation, and ignore anything else that comes along.” “Do you think I can do that?” I asked. “You can do anything your mind and body will allow,” God replied. “This is well within your capabilities.” Woo hoo, God expressing confidence in me. Talk about a pick-me-up…

“So, tell me what you want to talk about,” God prompted. “Don’t you know?” I asked half jokingly, not considering at the time I might be putting myself in line for a smiting. “Of course I do,” God replied. “And don’t be a wise ass. You’re the one who formulated this exchange as a conversation, and I’m finding it interesting. If you don’t want to talk, just say the word. I’ve got plenty of other things I can be doing.” “No, no,” I pleaded. “I’m sorry for smarting off and I do want to talk, really I do.” “Ok, then,” God said. “Let’s talk.”

“Well, yesterday at my AA meeting the topic was faith and forgiveness,” I began. “I’ve gotten fairly good at forgiveness, I think, but have never been big on faith. I mean, to me it’s a weakness – nothing more than a combination of baseless belief and human will. Am I wrong?”

“Are we having this conversation?” God asked in an amused tone. “Well,” I stammered. “It certainly seems to me that we are. But it’s all in my head, really. Isn’t it?” “And what has that got to do with anything?” God asked. “Everything that you know and think you know or have seen or heard or experienced or ever will experience is in your head, now isn’t it?” “That’s where I process and save these events,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, does it?” Of course not,” God laughed aloud. “The whole ‘realism’ versus ‘idealism’ argument, eh? I find it quite amusing. I mean, not that it is totally without validity, but humans have an entertaining habit of taking valid philosophical constructs to hilarious extremes. Don’t you think?”

Suddenly I had an epiphany as if struck by a bolt from the blue. “You laughed,” I shouted. “And that’s not the first time.” God snorted at this. “Of course I laughed,” God gasped while regaining control. “Why wouldn’t I?” “But, that means you have a sense of humor,” I exclaimed. “That’s a human emotion.” “Is it?” God suddenly turned serious. “Isn’t it?” I replied. “”Well of course not,” God chuckled again. “Many sentient beings have a sense of humor besides humans. Have you never watched animals play tricks on one another? Of course you have. Cats and dogs and monkeys and squirrels and birds. And these are only a few in your world. Humor and laughter, or what you call laughter, is universal. The best human word for it is joy. All of higher beings capable of emotion experience this, precisely because it is one of my primary characteristics.” “Really?” This was starting to get quite interesting…

“So, do you get sad?” I asked. “No, that one is more rare,” God replied. “I know what your sadness is, of course, because it is part of me. And other beings both in your world and others feel sadness. But, no, I don’t feel sadness.”

“What about anger?” I asked. “Nope, no anger.” “But the Bible talks about you being a wrathful and vengeful God,” I challenged. “Oh, please,” God laughed again. “Do you believe everything you read?” “But the Bible is your inspired word, according to its believers.” “You are toying with me,” God said. “This is a good time for you to be thankful I am not the vengeful God of your human Bible. You don’t believe the Bible, or the Koran, or the Torah, or any of the other scriptures of any of the world’s religions, and its disingenuous for you to pretend to defend them.” “So,“ I replied. “None of them are true?” “All of them have truths in them,” God explained patiently. “But no, none of them are fully true, and how could they be?”

Confused, I asked God to explain.

“First, you need to slow down a bit. You're pulling ahead of your friends and they'll think you're trying to leave them behind. Friends are important to you, you know." True, I thought. "True dat," God laughed. "I really like that expression."

"Now, keep your eye on the path,” he directed. “And I’ll explain the tiny bit about me that you’re capable of understanding.”

And so I rode and listened…

Happy Is as Happy Does...

So, I don't think I've mentioned that my recent college graduate got himself a full-time job peripherally related to his field of study less than a month after finishing classes. In this economy, we grown-ups know how big a deal this is - had to explain it to him, as they don't teach gratitude, appreciation or "whew" in college these days. I think he gets it, though...

He's always been the one I've worried about - a sensitive lad who I never understood and largely ignored during his formative years because I didn't understand him. He's never shown an ounce of ambition, other than aspiring to be a benevolent ruler of the world during a relatively brief phase he long ago outgrew. Prior and since, he's pretty much lived in his trash strewn cave with a pair of headsets on, gaming or surfing or playing one of his axes or video gaming - emerging to eat, iron pants and shirts (yeah, not sure what that's about), and meandering off to school or work.

He's worked part time since starting college - one of these grindingly reliable workers who had the good fortune to land a work-study data entry job which allowed him to utilize his 9,000 wpm error-free keyboard skills while only using .ooo374 percent of his grey matter...

Since he started preschool, it has been a daily ritual for me to ask him how his day had been. And since he started preschool, if he chose to respond at all, the answer has been along the lines of, "Okay," or "Hmmmm," or some unintelligible grunting noise. Some rituals exist for rituals' sake, you know. I've kept it up through his college years, and when he started working. I asked because I cared, and wanted him to know I cared. And I accepted his answer because, well, what the hell else was I going to do? Beat it out of him? I was a pretty shitty father, but even I know that's not the way to go. Only time will tell how badly I fucked him up - he won't admit it yet. He really does seem to be doing pretty well so far. In his own way... (He hates my elipses, so just threw a few in to get his goat.)

Oh, did I mention he is astronomically brilliant? No? Sorry. He's astronomically brilliant. For the longest time I worried that he would be the world's smartest person getting by in life by spitting on windshields and asking for quarters. I'm hoping/thinking I was way off on that one...

Anyway, he's been at his new job for a few weeks now, so, keeping the ritual alive, I ask him every evening how his day was. And every evening the answer has been along the lines of, "Okay," or "Hmmmm," or some unintelligible grunting noise. Life can be interesting that way, you know?

So I decided to step it up a notch the other evening, and asked, "But are you having fun?" To which the world's smartest kid, who like his father doesn't seem to much have fun, but who is thankfully not getting by in life by spitting on windshields and asking for quarters, answered, "If you're not having fun, maybe you should be doing some other kind of work." See? I told you. Smart kid, eh?

Of course, I was dumbstruck. Speechless. Shocked. Amazed. Confused. The whole idea of having fun at work and enjoying what I do for a living is pretty alien to me. I mean, I'm apparently not very happy anyway, something that I've only recently come to realize. And I've been working pretty steadily since I was about ten years old. And yes, I'm a grinder, too - vacation is an alien concept, and I rack up unused PTO the way most people collect pennies as pocket change. And its not like I've never had an enjoyable moment working, because of course I have. Why hell, I'd even go so far as to say that in four decades of working I've probably been excited to go to work at least, oh...maybe...twenty or thirty times. Maybe? Hmmm....

But let's not dwell on how sad it is to be me. Because really, it's not. I'm a slow starter, but I'm starting to understand that there might be some happiness in my future, possibly even while working. Maybe? But recently I've started figuring out at least a little bit how and where to find it - happiness, that is, outside of work for the most part. On the happiness count, I'm feeling pretty good about the going forward part of my life - have never been very adept at looking back and have no immediate plans at improving that skill set...

Rather, let's dwell on how excited I am that both of my kids have made it to adulthood remarkably well-balanced, given the rather useless influence I was on their lives. They are unencumbered by unwieldy relationships, unhealthy addictions, unplanned progeny, unwelcome criminal records. Woo hoo! We win!!!

And let's focus on the fact that they realize there is way more to life than work, but that, as they are possibly going to spend the majority of their waking hours for the next few decades working, they should at least be doing something they enjoy and which gives them some satisfaction. I can only imagine that they, two very sharp youngsters, came to this realization by growing up in a household with two parents who spent the majority of our waking hours working, and who for the most part seemed generally unhappy doing what we did. I guess when I think about it, I managed to convey something valuable to them despite my myriad parental shortcomings. I didn't have any way of teaching them how to be happy, because I've not yet quite figured it out even now. Instead, through an unintended but apparently effective exercise in negative reinforcement - by discouraging them from following in my footsteps, I perhaps taught them how to not be miserable. I suppose there are worse places to start out one's working life...

Knowing something and turning that knowledge into meaningful action are two entirely different things. I've long appreciated Thoreau's observation: "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." To date, I have. Going forward, I won't. I'm hopeful my kids won't either. Very hopeful.

I love you, my darlings...

Just Like Riding a Bicycle…

It was recently brought to my attention that I’ve not written anything about sex in a while. So sorry. And no, I’ve not given it up, exactly. You see, the wife had some pretty major “girl surgery” a few weeks back, and in deference to her tender state during her recovery (and at the insistence of her overly jovial physician), we’ve taken a little break from, err, well…you know. I think we’re at around T minus ten days or so. Not that we’re counting or anything. But, they say its just like riding a bicycle…

Ok, confession time. This post isn’t about sex. Yep, that was just a cheap marketing ploy to drag you in after my extended absence. But it is about bike riding, and life, and how the two kind of sort of relate to one another…

I went on a nice ride this morning, as I do every Sunday morning. Which, now that I think of it, used to be reserved for having sex. But that was a long time ago, and that ritual only lasted for, oh, say, a decade or two. Addicts are into ritual, in case you didn’t know. We get pretty damned cranky when our rituals get interrupted, truth be told. Now that I know I’m an addict, I’ve made it a point to replace bad rituals (no, not sex – that’s a really good ritual) with good rituals. No, other good rituals, you know? Since it’s gotten hot I’ve started going for long rides early on Sunday mornings, letting the little woman sleep in as late as she wants and then enjoy a leisurely tryst with her New York Times crosswords. Yes, we adapt with age, don’t we?

Anyway, I often ride alone, which is how I’ve gone through much of my life. Didn’t know I was alone, what with being surrounded by people who love me and all. Kind of imagine rolling down the road on a bike but with a fortress wall attached to you. Lots of weight, tough to get up hills or slow down once you’re headed downhill, and about as aerodynamic as a brick. I’m working on that…

Sometimes I ride with an old friend who is generally more interested in talking politics than he is in riding long and hard, which is ok because we both know what the deal is at the outset. He’s a great guy, in good shape despite being a bit older than me, and I try not to ride him into the ground. I do push him, though, and he’s usually only good for about half the distance I usually go. We know that going in, too, so nobody’s feelings get hurt…

Today, though, I rode with a new friend. She belongs to a group I visit with regularly, a bunch of whom have taken up riding recently. I like to think I’ve been a little bit of an inspiration to them in this regard – know they’ll all be happier and healthier for it. If it turns out I wasn’t, I’m trusting they’ll humor me in my dotage and allow me to keep believing it. I know they’re giving up smoking one after another, and that’s a good thing regardless of their motivation. I don’t take any credit for that, but am happy for them. Nothing better than a long ride or run or just a stint on the treadmill to allow the body to get your full attention regarding how you’re treating it…

Anyhow, my new friend has only been riding for a couple of months, I think she said. Quit smoking and took up riding – an excellent plan. I’ve developed the theory that it is always easier to give up a bad habit if you immediately replace it with a good one. I remember when I gave up smoking at twenty years-old – kicking a 3 pack-a-day habit that had started more than a decade earlier. Hey, I never told anyone I was a good kid. I wasn’t, believe me. Anyway, the first day I threw them away (flushed a half-carton down the toilet if memory serves), I immediately began running something like two miles a day. To the gym. Where I’d shoot hoops for an hour, lift weights, roast myself in the sauna. Nope, not a halfway guy, me. It worked. What can I say?

Ok, I digressed again. Sorry…

So, anyway, I took her on a section of the trail she hadn’t been on before, and did my best not to push her, although I think I did a bit. She’d done 20 miles yesterday, and back-to-back when you’re starting out can be tough. She did great, and we had a nice visit. Learned a little about each other and I was gratified to learn that she’s a moderate Democrat, as am I. We laughed that it just seems to never fail that if someone is happy and caring and fairly well educated, this is the camp they’re likely to be in. No offense to my seemingly happy educated friends who don’t know yet this is where you’re headed. We’re coming out of some rough times and some have developed bad habits. You’ll get there and we’ll be waiting for you…

Anyway, when she ran out of gas I saw her back to her car, reloaded my water bottles and headed out to a section of the trail I’d never been on. Turns out it wasn’t too well suited to the road bike I was riding, so I had to take it easy to save my tires. And I had to navigate unfamiliar territory a bit by feel. But I picked up familiar landmarks along the way, worked my way from lost to found, and made it back to my car, rack and home without any untoward incidents. And life kind of works that way, doesn’t it?

Like most kids, in these parts at least, I grew up on a bike. Okay, well, not really. Actually, I was one of the late bloomers, having suffered a couple of nasty wrecks when I was 5 or so, following inappropriate directions from an older brother who I now know was dead set on killing me in the nest, but which I didn’t realize at the time. As a result, I didn’t get into riding in earnest until I was probably about eight, but then I focused on making up for lost time. I got to where I could ride a wheelie on my old sting-ray for blocks, and pretty much nobody would race me. I bought my first 3-speed with my paper route money when I was about ten, then moved up to a Dawe’s Galaxy British touring bike when I was twelve or so. It cost me $300, I remember. My mother raised holy hell and my Dad said, “He earned his money he can spend it however he wants.” Thanks, Dad. And boy, did I ever put some serious miles on that thing…

Then…hmmm. Now that I think of it, I quit riding bikes about the time I started thinking about sex. I got so busy then with sex and drinking and drugs and music and acting the fool, riding a bike never again crossed my mind. As a matter of fact, prior to a couple of years ago, I think I only took one semi-serious ride on a bike when I was about 30, outside of demonstrating techniques for my daughter who turned into a serious kid rider in the neighborhood for a short while, and my son who never did get the hang of it and can’t ride to this day. Interestingly, she’s an excellent driver, while he really, really needs to live someplace with efficient mass transit. Am not sure whether there’s a correlation or not, but maybe…

Anyway, my thought between the correlation of bike riding and life goes something like this:

We can choose to ride alone, or with friends. For most of us its probably best that we do a little of each. It doesn’t seem right to drag someone, particularly a novice, down a path we’ve never been before, but even more wrong to not ever explore something new. They call it getting in a rut for a reason, and any cyclist who has been around awhile knows what I’m talking about, and how much this is something to avoid. When I first started into my spiritual studies, I remember an author suggesting that the best route is to travel a path that someone has been before, because it’s been proven. And I’m comfortable riding in someone’s wake for a bit, but can’t buy into the notion that this is by definition the best route to the destination, nor even that his or her destination is the right destination for me…

When we’re not riding alone, it is good to ride with old friends from time to time, but also with new friends. They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but I’m not sure that’s always the case. Sometimes I feel like talking politics, and sometimes I know he needs to. And sometimes old friends will find a shaded trailway out in the country the ideal time to share some current pain or achievement. Riding with new friends, though, gives us a chance to expand our horizons – to learn new things about others we didn’t, and in the course of that maybe learn a little about ourselves. It allows us to empathize with where they are in their development, perhaps assist in some small way, to be reminded of where we are in our own and how we got there, and to take stock of whether that’s where we want to be…

And while we’re riding through life, we learn how important it is to keep our eye on the road, but not to become so fixated on the course we fail to appreciate the pair of mallards wheeling in for a silent landing on the mirror surface of the river, the squirrels chasing each other merrily up a tree, the beauty of a thunderhead towering against a crimson sunset or the shimmer of the first break of dawn in the east as we set forth to beat the heat of the day. We learn to appreciate the power of the wind, fighting us or helping us along, and to take advantage of the long downhill to gather speed without losing control, with the momentum from the plunge and our weight on the pedals pressing us up the next challenging climb, adjusting our efforts and gearing and breathing to make the summit and see what lies beyond…

And then, of course, there’s always sex…

Anchors aweigh

To "weigh anchor" is to bring it aboard a vessel in preparation for departure. The phrase "anchor's aweigh" is a report that the anchor is clear of the sea bottom and, therefore, the ship is officially underway. ~Wikipedia~

So, following my wife's birthday dinner last night, my youngest was in our room jabbering about whatever it is he jabbers about when he's half baked (I tend to only half listen, and in this case was half paying attention to the conversation he and she were half having while I was half reading a book and half watching television - one of those evenings, you know...), when he suddenly stopped, grinned that goofy grin of his, and stated laughingly, "I have a job." The half realizations of the half stoned...

By all the measures I've adopted to gauge milestones in my life, I think I've officially reached one. Probably a big one. My wife and I are both gainfully employed, very nearly debt-free, and have manged to raise two wonderful children who are both college graduates, both now gainfully employed, both healthy, neither in trouble with the law, burdened with unwanted progeny or encumbered in complex relationships. We have helped them build sound vessels in which to navigate the tumultuous seas of life, and they are pulling slowly away from the dock to which they've been tethered for more than two decades. Admittedly, they're still puttering around the harbor and tying back up to our craft from time to time, but like baby birds testing their wings, they will continue to flitter further and further from the nest, and soon we'll see them disappear over the horizon, headed off on their own adventure, setting their own course and guiding their own vessels through life. Fair sailing, sweethearts...

To complete this tortured analogy, I think we need to imagine ourselves players in Kevin Costner's Waterworld. You see, our "dock" is in fact nothing more than another slightly larger, slightly more solid vessel, bobbing gently on the sea of existence, anchored well but affixed firmly to nothing, for there is nothing firm to which we can or should seek to affix ourselves. And the anchor we chose to let down more than twenty years ago to stabilize ourselves while we engaged in the boat building and sailor training business is one that can be drawn up at any time. And now we are very nearly at that point where we must decide what our next destination is, hoist our sails, head our bow quartering off the prevailing breeze, and get underway. The only other choice is to sit in this same spot on the vast infinite sea of life, bobbing up and down gently at times, and storm tossed at others, but always at the mercy of whatever intentionally or unintentionally floats our way. And that would be a waste of potentially favorable breezes, no?

There has lately been a lot of talk in the news about Abby Sunderland, a 16 year-old who was raised on the water and whose parents launched her on a global circumnavigation that came up short when her mast was snapped by a giant wave. I feel sorry for her and for them as regards the aborted voyage, but am happy for both that she survived and is coming home safely. What a splendid adventure, and all I can say to the critics is, "Shut the fuck up!" My god, to have raised such a brave and competent young lady and entrusted to her such a spectacular journey speaks volumes on the positive side for the whole family. A 16 year-old young woman is in the prime of her life - Joan of Arc was heading toward leadership of an army at this age, for goodness sake. Abby's skills were certainly sufficient to the task she chose. Bad things happen in the sea of life, and even more so on the actual ocean, where giant waves not only snap small craft masts but swallow whole enormous vessels full of experienced sailors. That she was able to survive this lesson and have it inform the balance of her existence is a wonderful gift that most of us never experience - certainly at so early an age. It didn't kill her, so will make her stronger...

I pray that my two young allegorical sailors don't make the avoidance of challenge the cornerstone of their lives, but rather seek adventure and new experiences and to suck every morsel of living they can out of the brief years they've been allotted. I want them to keep their vessels solid, practice their craft and hone their skills, learn to read life's rips and eddies, understand the stars and and tides and currents and prevailing winds. I want them to chart their own courses and steer their own vessels and appreciate the diverse cultures and experiences that will come their way. And most of all, I want them to keep us posted from time to time on their whereabouts and conditions, to know that we will do the same, and that they are welcome to rendezvous from time to time wherever we happen to be in our travels, and to tie up or sail alongside for a bit if they are inclined. And if they get caught in a storm, lose their sails or masts or lines, and find themselves foundering, to know that we'll get to them if we can, and help them refit, stock up provisions, and get back underway. Because, after all, that's what we sailors do...

So, anchor is stowed and we're tacking to port. Let's do this thing...

Juxtaposition...

So, Thursday night my son was fiddling around on the wife's laptop at the kitchen table, and opened some conversation with me about a governmental initiative ongoing regarding shareware and piracy and BitTorrent and a bunch of other things that I really don't understand, which quickly devolved into his shouting screed against government, the futility of citizen activism, and "why the hell should I vote when there's nobody to vote for..." Ah, the angst of youth...

I'm jealous, of course, as at his age I'd only voted in one election, and then not intelligently or with any passion or great conviction. I just felt, headed into my first legal opportunity to vote and already part of the green machine, that if my employer was going to stick an M-16 in my hand, a .45 on my hip, and a few grenades hanging off my flak jacket and send me into harm's way, the least I could do before shipping out was to vote. I didn't really understand how government worked, the roles or functions of political parties or lobbyists, or much of anything else. We were only slightly beyond Viet Nam and Watergate, and the standing of government in the eyes of the average teenager or any age voter for that matter was at a record low. Maybe even lower than right now...

My boy, on the other hand, was raised in an intensely political household, grew up the son of a political activist and Congressional candidate, and was responsible for building and maintaining a campaign website that was recognized at the time by a national political magazine as one of the best in Texas. Not bad for a then 12 year old, eh?

And now my youngest offspring, a decade later and after spending his life subjected to voluminous information unimaginable in my youth, constant exposure to the 24 hour news cycle, unlimited access to commentary and dissection on every stripe of matter, and political discourse across the spectrum both electronically and in person, was sitting in my kitchen expressing a somewhat reasoned angst against politics and government and the system and "the man" that hearkened back to those halcyon days of the rock era of my youth. Man, did we have great music in the 70s, or what?

I found myself trying to calmly explain to him the sometimes subtle distinctions between battles and wars, strategy and tactics, progress and perfection, participation and apathy. These aren't easy distinctions to argue with a young man who is measurably brighter than I or his peers ever hoped to be, with a mind like a razor and a passionate indifference to the efficacy of government. Only a couple of years ago, while so many of his age group, with my and others' unsubtle encouragement, were fervently supporting the candidacy of Barack Obama, this one was dripping with cynicism and scorn for "another corporate lackey," based on the seemingly irrefutable argument that a successful participant in the corporate exercise of contemporary American politics can be nothing but. The whole notion of having to vote for "the lesser of two evils" sits and sat poorly with him, and while he did vote for my candidate, it was reluctantly, and might not be repeated any time soon.

I reminded him that, while I'd failed in my 18 month campaign, a battle I'd had with the Federal Election Commission, the immediate outcome of which precipitated the whole disastrous exercise, was ultimately decided in my favor and has significantly improved the ability for an average Joe candidate to wage such a battle going forward against entrenched and monied incumbents - no small feat. I also reminded him that another battle I'd lost on its face has resulted in a significant rewrite of Texas political petition regulations, with the end result being that dozens of local option elections which hitherto would have been defeated have proven successful over intervening years. I even reminded him that, while Barack Obama had been handily defeated in my overly red home state, that we had cut the traditional GOP victory margin in half here, potentially marking a tidal change that might help unseat the incumbent Governor and mark a major shift in the state's political course. Or maybe not...

My rationale for making all these arguments was to try and encourage the lad to retain some focus and to remain involved and to care - something he's never been too big at. Which made me recall that my own apathy at his age and for more than a decade beyond was born of ignorance - a lack of concern coupled with a relative lack of information. And I then realized that his is born of the exact opposite - too much exposure, information, understanding. And yet both sets of contributing factors had brought us to not so different situations - my voting blindly in relative ignorance only because I felt it was my duty, and his refusing to participate in a dirty system over a too fine understanding of its reality. Neither being a healthy approach or winning recipe for the maintenance of a civil society...

And the final thought I had walking away from this exchange was a sense of wondering at exactly what point I had developed the patience and acceptance of nuance and imperfection that is the hallmark of an old man. And pondering whether somehow the distinction between knowledge and wisdom might somehow be contained in the answer to that question. And imagining what sort of man my son would grow up to be, and the nature of the world he would come of age in. And I remembered back to the cynicism of my own youth when I was of the conviction that bringing a child into the shitty world I lived in back then would be tantamount to a mortal sin. And I wondered how different we really are, and how much alike...

You win some...

So, kind of a frustrating week at work. Yes, I know I don't blog about work, except it was my font of enlightenment this week. Life is like a box of chocolates, you know?

My business, by the way, is human trafficking. Yes, really. In my professional life I'm an executive recruiter - a headhunter in everyday parlance. Its been an interesting and sometimes lucrative gig, but obviously tough in an economy that spent last year shedding jobs at a record pace, with this year seeing an uptick, but only slightly. Now we're eating bugs instead of sawdust, if you catch my drift. Enough to live on but nowhere near enough to thrive on. Our industry has shed roughly half the folks who were in it at the start of 2008, and not a one is eating as well as they were back then. It is a tough job in the best of circumstances, and these aren't those...

Anyway, Thursday morning we were nearing the end of a long week of negotiations on a high-level deal I was brokering. In my business these days, every deal is tedious. Clients are reluctant to spend top dollar in a market that is supposedly awash in qualified desperate talent, and candidates are busting their humps trying to get all they can from the deal, reluctant to cheaply turn loose of their bird in the hand, if you catch my drift. Trying to get all they can from someone who doesn't want to spend a penny more than required. Are you feeling the disconnect yet?

This project was made more tedious by the fact that the hiring company, while strongly financed, is effectively a start-up in a very precarious sector in which the talent pool is quite sparse, and the candidate they'd finally settled on was passive - meaning he is gainfully and securely employed by a sound company and wasn't looking for a new opportunity when I found him, with very strong compensation and benefits, and with no real threat to his position. To use the a sock-hop analogy, he was the handsomest boy in the room by far, albeit one quiet and quite comfortable standing in the corner by himself watching everyone else spinning and gyrating and making fools of themselves on the dance floor...

Without going into details, he knocked the socks off his suitor, to the degree their socks were knockable. They had multiple visits by phone and in person, and a love fest ensued. Earlier in the year they'd settled on two other prospects not from my stable, but had been unsuccessful in their approach to either, which is why I was invited into the game. This go-round they informed me they had settled on my candidate, setting aside other contenders and confident they could get him into bed or up to the altar or both. Neither party would be super specific in how far they were willing to go to get the deal done, as, if you'll recall, the buyer is reluctant to pay and the seller is reluctant to sell. He was open about his top concerns, and these were shared with the client, who crafted a fairly generous offer for the market and their richest to date by far. Unfortunately, it only responded weakly to his three major concerns, while offering a few perks that he liked but hadn't asked for, and which he didn't value overly highly. Uh-oh...

Without boring you to death with detail, suffice to say that the week which could and should have been spent in hearty celebration of a deal well done instead devolved into protracted and intense bargaining, with both parties talking past each other, acting on their own fears and concerns rather than listening closely to the other and seeking to find a workable middle ground. Sort of like Washington, now that I think of it...

On Thursday morning, while conversing with my client, he said, "You must have the worst job in the world. You get the right people together, share information as best you can to help make the deal work, but in the end you have absolutely no control over the outcome. None." Welcome to my world...

In my last conversation with the candidate yesterday, he told me I'd been wonderful to work with, that it had been an interesting experience, and shared his view that nobody had lost anything in the process. In the end the client had just proven unwilling to adequately address his concerns. The client indicated that they remain impressed with my work - said that he was proud of their effort and of the package they'd offered, which was indeed impressive, and that the candidate was unreasonable. And so, after a process which took more than three weeks of intensive closing activity following a months-long search, the candidate was right where he started with little likelihood of advancing his career in the exponential manner this opportunity afforded. The clients, proud of their steadfastness, remain without a Chief Operating Officer. And I am left in the dust with nothing to show for my efforts...

I told a few friends yesterday evening that I really wished I still drank, as this would definitely have been one of those evenings, if ever there was one. Instead, I sat in my Friday night AA meeting and listened more closely than usual to the Serenity Prayer we open with: "God, grant me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change, the strength to change those things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Amen.

On God and stuff...

I begin by apologizing for taking last weekend off. I know a few of you really look forward to seeing what sort of drivel I'll spew each weekend - hope you found a satisfactory substitute. It was Memorial Day weekend after all, and we have been having a bit of a rocky time around the old homestead, and the Mineral Wells Trailway did beckon me and my bicycle, and...well, sometimes, we all just need to take a break from whatever habits we form, be they good or bad. Habits, I think, are by definition confining - sometimes comforting and sometimes destructive, but in any case limiting if we allow them to be. But here I am, back for another round...

So, I'm pretty sure that way back toward the beginning of this thing I probably mentioned the corollaries between AA and Buddhism. Yes? Now I always fret a bit about describing myself as a Buddhist, because I have friends who are real Buddhists - sitting zazen and reading sutras and following the Noble Eightfold Path. I'm not one of these, and may never be. And I'm sure I have alcoholic friends who will argue whether I am an alcoholic at all, given that when I finally decided to quit I quit, and that while few who knew me prior to a year ago would recognize me without a drink of some sort in hand or nearby, thankfully far fewer ever saw me totally shit-faced, which didn't happen often but was never a pretty sight. Or experience. For me or anyone near me. My alcoholic doubter friends are, as a general rule, not in the program...

The appeal to me of both AA and Buddhism, and even more so Taoism, which probably more accurately describes my spiritual path, is that they are decidedly non-hierarchical, have suggested readings and texts but nothing accepted rigidly as the infallible scripture, and have rules, if you can call them that, which are so simple and malleable they hardly count as rules as all. Nobody baptizes you into the fold, and nobody can kick you out. The whole load is on me, or you, the individual practitioner, and we own alone whatever successes or failures we achieve in either medium. Pretty empowering, huh? If we do well in these circumstances, its a major ego-boost, right?

Which is interesting, because the most crucial corollaries between recovery from addiction and The Path are a heightened sense of awareness and the absolute elimination of the ego. These are the objectives, anyway. Now some in AA might argue with me on this, and as I don't argue this could prove frustrating. Sorry...

We hear in our meeting rooms with great regularity, "Give it over to God." For those of us successfully recovering in the program but who aren't believers in a conventional God model, though, what many of us hear is, "Get out of yourself already." The God thing can be a real challenge for many, and I think that's too bad, because the point is not so much to have a powerful omnipotent vigilant being to watch over us and take up our individual burdens when the need arises, as it is to recognize and admit our insignificance and inability to, on our own, overcome the vast forces of the universe outside of our selves, or the greater challenge of the ego we confuse as our selves. So, the ego is the enemy, and full awareness is our ability to recognize the enemy when it rears its head, ignore it as the fallacy it is, and accept our connectedness with the universe in all its manifestations. I guess I've often thought of the separate stand-alone God man created in his image to be sort of a manifestation of humanity's ego, but that's probably a philosophical discussion best left for another time.

So, what's my point? Well...

As I am rapidly approaching the one year anniversary of committing to making alcohol powerless over me, and accepting myself to be powerless over alcohol without help, I continue to stumble soberly along the spiritual path, seeking a keener understanding of myself, an awareness of and growing disdain for my ego, a sense of connection with all manifestations of the universe, a desire for a simpler and saner life coupled with a grudging acceptance of the one I have. Daily I come upon answers to questions asked and unasked, but each one spawns another. It is as when we develop more powerful telescopes and microscopes and other investigative tools and techniques, and come to realize that the better we see, the more there is to see. I detect no lessening of this phenomenon in my own physical or spiritual life, nor in the endless quest for understanding that too small a contingent of mankind is engaged in. And so, recognizing the incredibly finite nature of my mortal existence, and hoping to derive as much from it and contribute as much to it as I can, I am settling comfortably onto the path which reveals itself to me each day, a path which is connected to all other paths, which connects me to all other beings, which meanders through and is dependent on the totality of the universe seen and unseen. And I am committing myself to being grateful every day for the gift of my human life, for self-awareness despite the fallacy of the self, and for a mind and spirit that allows me to put it all in a wonderful wondrous harmonious context and to marvel at its fantastic intricacies.

In closing, let me say that in sharing these meager thoughts I do not intend to belittle any reader's belief in some particular manifestation of God. I am comfortable in my own lack of understanding of the unknown and unknowable, and pray the same for all my friends. For some God is Allah, and for others the Judeo-Christian God as portrayed by Charlton Heston or James Caviezel; for some Vishnu or one of his pantheon of lesser Gods. Many consider earth to be God, or Mother Nature. My wife, who was raised Jewish, is certain that God is a Golden Retriever, and who am I to say otherwise? The point is that, for the addict or alcoholic, or really for anyone of curious mind and searching spirit, the image we conjure up to establish a relationship with our higher power is insignificant relative to our having that relationship. I love to paraphrase a quote I once read but can't now lay my hands on, attributed to Buddha, perhaps from his dialogue with Ananthapindika, in which the Buddha is reported to have said, "There is so much in life that we can know, and so much that we can never know - it is best to focus on that which we can know."

Following is a light rewrite of the traditional 12 steps that I generated in my earliest days, to help me get beyond the "God thing" which too many in need find a barrier to joining the program that has helped so many. If it helps you, feel free to adopt it as you own.

12 Steps to Sobriety for Non-Christians, Atheists and Agnostics

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to align our will and our lives with our Higher Power.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to our Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Became entirely ready to allow total alignment with our Higher Power to eliminate all our defects of character.
7. Humbly aligned ourselves with our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through study and meditation to improve our alignment with our Higher Power, seeking only knowledge of our proper role in the Universe and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.