Wow, it's only day five, and the well of ideas is already beginning to look like 30 straight days of 90+ weather in July in Ohio. Of course, that would never happen. Plus I'm really in a ticked off mood today, what with the government collapsing and all, but I promised myself this site would remain upbeat regardless. We have enough virtual cesspool in our lives with which to deal.
I like that. Let's make VCP the new syndrome for everything in our lives that feels like a virtual cesspool. "Lunch today, Tom?"
"Nah, I've got a touch of VCP."
Luckily for you, I have some experience at turning crap into creme brulee. When I was performing stand-up in the mid-eighties in Los Angeles, I had to be able to turn it on at the drop of a hat. You don't want to step in hat droppings, trust me.
One night I was to perform in the 10:30 slot at the Comedy Store. Just hours before I had experienced a miserable break-up with my girlfriend of 18 months. We were both in tears and I felt like I had just slipped under a steamroller, before being pounded by twenty angry chefs with meat tenderizers. My eyes were puffy and red and I kept stepping on my bottom lip. As a desperate maneuver, I scrapped my A material and ad libbed about five minutes worth of my break-up on stage. I had one of the best sets of my career. To this day, I am convinced that every person in that audience believed I was making up the break up story, right down to making my eyes puffy. I used the material for months afterward.
After all, where do you think most comedians get their material? They are largely neurotic. In fact, I am fairly confident that my normalcy prohibited me from being a more successful comedian. Gabriel Iglesias has based an entire career on being 400 pounds. He's set for life. If he ever pulls a Jared, his career will be finished. Anybody remember Joe Piscopo? He became serious about bodybuilding and instantly was dubbed unfunny.
From 1987 to 1991 I hosted a morning radio show--two years in Marion and two years in Parkersburg, WV. As my daughter will attest, I am not a morning person. To paraphrase a popular Folger's jingle, "The best part of waking up, is going back to sleep." Did you sing it? It helps if you sing it. Meanwhile, back at the story. For four years, I had to wake up before the sun did. It started enthusiastically at 4 a.m. for my first gig, and not-so-gradually waned into 5:30 by the time I got to Parkersburg. I did my show prep for the next day after my show, and winged the rest of it.
The point is, regardless of how miserable I felt on the way there (which was every morning) I was able to adopt the demeanor of Barney the freakin' purple dinosaur by 6 a. m. None of my faithful listeners had a clue that I essentially felt sleepy for four years. Case in point. A young lady called one morning and asked, "How are you able to be so cheerful every morning?"
"Multiple overdoses of Xanax," I replied. She laughed.
To this day, I can't tell you how I developed a penchant for turning it on and off. Oh, yes, I could downshift just as easily when my radio day was over. I attribute it to the survival instinct. Think how funny Darwin could have been if he had discovered humor was nature's catalyst for survival. What did the monkey say to the man fixing his bike chain? Excuse me, sir, is this your link? Would have killed at the Dayton Courthouse Laff Stop (site of the Scopes monkey trial).
You know what? I feel better. Try it sometime. Take your worst day and realize how absurd life is and that you can't do anything about it. Share your misery with friends. If they are having a bad day too, I guarantee they will laugh at your misery, and they will feel better. It's the Robin Williams version of paying it forward. And if you should develop an act out of your misery and you become famous, I expect ten percent.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Down with Brown
I propose to eliminate the color brown. That's right. It should be outlawed. I know it seems like a drastic measure, but I have my reasons, and everyone must take a stand. Nathan Hale took a stand. John Hancock took a stand. Rosa Parks took a stand. O.K., she took a seat, but you get my meaning.
Let's consider the two organic elements in nature's vast array with which the color brown is most associated--dirt and defecation. See? It's not a pretty color. You hear people speak of pastel blue or pastel yellow, but there's no pastel brown. There's bright green, bright red and bright pink, but bright brown? I think not. That's because you can't improve on something that isn't a color to begin with. Oh, sure, people try to couch brown among various shades like tan or taupe or ecru, but it's all brown. Remember, as fancy as it sounds, ecru begins with ecchh!
It has other derogatory connotations as well. What do you call someone who sucks up to the teacher? That's right, a brownie. When the electricity isn't functioning properly, we experience a brown out. That can't be good. No person wants to be associated with the color brown. When you go to the beach, are you trying to get a brown? No, it's a tan.
Then there's the whole issue with the Cleveland Browns. Don't get me started. Yeah, the media led you to believe the team left town because of Art Modell, or money, or stadiums, or some such nonsense. We all know the real reason was because they couldn't stand the color any more. Now we can't change the name of the team out of respect for its founder, Paul Brown, so they had to move completely out of town to change the uniforms. The Baltimore Ravens, clad in purple, quickly won a Super Bowl. And what of the current Cleveland Browns? 'Nuff said.
Even words that rhyme with brown conjure up negative images--down, frown, clown. When you can't afford an elegant lunch, you have to brown-bag it. And when you want to hide a dirty magazine, it comes in a plain, brown wrapper. That's because the disgusting color draws attention away from what's in the wrapper.
Brown's problem is it aspires to be black. The next step below the exalted black belt is, of course, a brown belt. A brown-out isn't nearly as dramatic as a black-out. Black is pure, but you have to mix orange with black to get brown.
Even the dictionary is unflattering to brown. Brown rice is defined as unpolished, brown sugar is unrefined, brown paper is described as coarse, and a brown study is a "reverie in which one is unaware of surrounding persons and things." In other words, brown is out of touch with reality. Webster wouldn't lie.
So, having stated my case so eloquently, I am certain you will agree that brown has no useful function in society, and should simply be removed from our consciousness. I am unwilling to compromise on this issue, because, let's face it, there is no gray area here.
Let's consider the two organic elements in nature's vast array with which the color brown is most associated--dirt and defecation. See? It's not a pretty color. You hear people speak of pastel blue or pastel yellow, but there's no pastel brown. There's bright green, bright red and bright pink, but bright brown? I think not. That's because you can't improve on something that isn't a color to begin with. Oh, sure, people try to couch brown among various shades like tan or taupe or ecru, but it's all brown. Remember, as fancy as it sounds, ecru begins with ecchh!
It has other derogatory connotations as well. What do you call someone who sucks up to the teacher? That's right, a brownie. When the electricity isn't functioning properly, we experience a brown out. That can't be good. No person wants to be associated with the color brown. When you go to the beach, are you trying to get a brown? No, it's a tan.
Then there's the whole issue with the Cleveland Browns. Don't get me started. Yeah, the media led you to believe the team left town because of Art Modell, or money, or stadiums, or some such nonsense. We all know the real reason was because they couldn't stand the color any more. Now we can't change the name of the team out of respect for its founder, Paul Brown, so they had to move completely out of town to change the uniforms. The Baltimore Ravens, clad in purple, quickly won a Super Bowl. And what of the current Cleveland Browns? 'Nuff said.
Even words that rhyme with brown conjure up negative images--down, frown, clown. When you can't afford an elegant lunch, you have to brown-bag it. And when you want to hide a dirty magazine, it comes in a plain, brown wrapper. That's because the disgusting color draws attention away from what's in the wrapper.
Brown's problem is it aspires to be black. The next step below the exalted black belt is, of course, a brown belt. A brown-out isn't nearly as dramatic as a black-out. Black is pure, but you have to mix orange with black to get brown.
Even the dictionary is unflattering to brown. Brown rice is defined as unpolished, brown sugar is unrefined, brown paper is described as coarse, and a brown study is a "reverie in which one is unaware of surrounding persons and things." In other words, brown is out of touch with reality. Webster wouldn't lie.
So, having stated my case so eloquently, I am certain you will agree that brown has no useful function in society, and should simply be removed from our consciousness. I am unwilling to compromise on this issue, because, let's face it, there is no gray area here.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Life is Like a Bag of Potato Chips
I have a philosophy. Well, it's not so much a philosophy as it is a credo. No, it's not really a credo; it's just a saying. Actually, it's more of a lame excuse. But it's mine, nonetheless. Ok, it's not even mine. I stole it.
My philosophy of life is: Some contents may have settled during shipping. Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's the potato chip company's excuse for selling you half a bag of potato chips. And it works. We buy them anyway.
We have all bought into the concept that some of the contents may have settled during shipping. How do we know this? I'm no physics professor, but it seems to me that a potato chip doesn't weigh very much. Why should it settle so much during shipping? If one was shipping a bag full of bowling balls, now I could see those contents settling immediately to the bottom of the bag. And if they filled the bag of potato chips to begin with, there wouldn't be any room for them to settle, would there?
All the potato chip companies do it (except Pringles), and I'm pretty sure some companies do it with other merchandise as well. I buy my MegaMan 50+ multi-vitamins every three or four months. It says 120 count, yet the bottle is little more than half full. I actually counted the vitamins to make sure there were 120. Yes, I'm that much of an idiot. The bottle was little more than half full! What's the point? Do I feel like I'm getting a bigger bottle? No, I feel cheated. So, if all these companies can get away with this, why can't I? My excuse for everything from now on will be: Some contents may have settled during shipping.
The next time my girlfriend asks me to pass the bag of chocolate chip cookies and the bag is empty, when she gives me that look I will simply reply, "Sorry, dear. Some contents may have settled during shipping."
When my daughter asks for money and I give her two dollars, she's going to say, "That's all?" I'm going to say, "Some contents may have settled during shipping."
When Anthony Weiner was caught literally with his pants down on those web posts, he could have avoided total humiliation. He could have said that he didn't actually drop his pants; some contents may have settled during shipping.
I think this mostly occurs with my brain. I'm 56 years old. I have shipped a lot of information into that tiny brain in my day, and when the inventory gets too high, I must export some things. Then again, there is information that is still in there, but I have trouble digging it out. Those are the contents that have settled during shipping.
Sometimes I'll catch myself in the mirror coming out of the shower. I look at my stomach. Boy, some of those contents have sure settled during shipping. I turn around to catch a glimpse of the other end. Whoa! More contents; more settling. A number of women my age seem to complain about settled contents in certain areas too, but decorum prevents me from mentioning those areas.
So, the next time the IRS decides to audit you and you just can't put your hands on those receipts, just tell them that some contents may have settled during shipping. Somewhere, there must be an IRS agent with a sense of humor.
Incidentally, my blog is a little short today. Oh, well, some contents...
My philosophy of life is: Some contents may have settled during shipping. Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's the potato chip company's excuse for selling you half a bag of potato chips. And it works. We buy them anyway.
We have all bought into the concept that some of the contents may have settled during shipping. How do we know this? I'm no physics professor, but it seems to me that a potato chip doesn't weigh very much. Why should it settle so much during shipping? If one was shipping a bag full of bowling balls, now I could see those contents settling immediately to the bottom of the bag. And if they filled the bag of potato chips to begin with, there wouldn't be any room for them to settle, would there?
All the potato chip companies do it (except Pringles), and I'm pretty sure some companies do it with other merchandise as well. I buy my MegaMan 50+ multi-vitamins every three or four months. It says 120 count, yet the bottle is little more than half full. I actually counted the vitamins to make sure there were 120. Yes, I'm that much of an idiot. The bottle was little more than half full! What's the point? Do I feel like I'm getting a bigger bottle? No, I feel cheated. So, if all these companies can get away with this, why can't I? My excuse for everything from now on will be: Some contents may have settled during shipping.
The next time my girlfriend asks me to pass the bag of chocolate chip cookies and the bag is empty, when she gives me that look I will simply reply, "Sorry, dear. Some contents may have settled during shipping."
When my daughter asks for money and I give her two dollars, she's going to say, "That's all?" I'm going to say, "Some contents may have settled during shipping."
When Anthony Weiner was caught literally with his pants down on those web posts, he could have avoided total humiliation. He could have said that he didn't actually drop his pants; some contents may have settled during shipping.
I think this mostly occurs with my brain. I'm 56 years old. I have shipped a lot of information into that tiny brain in my day, and when the inventory gets too high, I must export some things. Then again, there is information that is still in there, but I have trouble digging it out. Those are the contents that have settled during shipping.
Sometimes I'll catch myself in the mirror coming out of the shower. I look at my stomach. Boy, some of those contents have sure settled during shipping. I turn around to catch a glimpse of the other end. Whoa! More contents; more settling. A number of women my age seem to complain about settled contents in certain areas too, but decorum prevents me from mentioning those areas.
So, the next time the IRS decides to audit you and you just can't put your hands on those receipts, just tell them that some contents may have settled during shipping. Somewhere, there must be an IRS agent with a sense of humor.
Incidentally, my blog is a little short today. Oh, well, some contents...
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
I might be full of crap...but I might not.
Today's entry is inspired somewhat by my older brother (see yesterday's comments), and somewhat by my desire to continue my string from yesterday anyway. My younger brother once paid me one of the greatest compliments I have ever received. He said, paraphrasing, there are a lot of people who have acquired knowledge but no sense of what to do with it. There are some people with insight who have no knowledge base. There are very few who have both. You have both.
Needless to say, I was taken aback by his own perspicacity (chortle), for being able to recognize mine was his gift. Facetiousness aside, he makes a valid point. Without the analysis of all the facts I implored you to memorize yesterday. it's kind of like the difference between the Sphinx and a pile of rubble. In the latter, the materials are there, but there is no vision.
Many folks like to quote the profundities of great thinkers of centuries past. I refuse to do so to the point of being obstinate. It's not an arrogance in believing that they have nothing to tell me; they certainly do. It's more that I enjoy the ride of discovery for myself. I squeal with delight (yes, like a little girl) when I experience a revelation triggered by my introspection, or extrospection for that matter. It may have been something that Immanuel Kant discovered centuries ago, but I'm much more likely to treasure and remember the insight at my own hand.
This leads me to the area of my expertise--media communication. It is wonderful, awesome, exponentially progressive, and dangerous. Consider the following time-worn axioms. Which are true?
If you decide to test my answers, let me point you to a starting place. It's called snopes.com. The site is specifically designed to debunk urban legends like the above. But don't take it at face value either. The feature I like best about the site is that they attribute sources, so you can continue the research yourself. Consulting multiple sources is the key to ascertaining the truth. Hey, my own axiom! Let me repeat. Consulting multiple sources is the key to ascertaining the truth.
Thanks to television, satellites and the Internet, we can acquire knowledge instantaneously. Consider what is happening in the Middle East and northern Africa right now. That is largely a result of social networking. That is the wonderful side of the media. The ugly side is that bogus information spreads just as rapidly. Did you believe Microsoft was going to send you a check if you forwarded an email to ten friends? Did you believe you had won the Nigerian lottery? Did you believe you could rescue a martyred diplomat and be given 14 million pounds for your Christian deed? And all you had to do was give them your account number?
These are extreme examples but unsuspecting dupes are falling for these and similar ploys every day. What's worse is the pundits (a misnomer if I ever heard one) are spewing forth garbage every minute under the guise of news. During a lecture to my media law class once, I told the students to consult multiple sources. A student regurgitated my message to me in an essay, proudly boasting that he consulted Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly every day. The sad truth is that he was being serious. Technically, he had me. Those were multiple sources. Politics aside, what is frightening to me is that he confused those sources with journalists. Believe it or not, true journalists aspire to accuracy, objectivity and truth every day. I know because I, along with a thousand ethical colleagues, train them every day.
The most dangerous words in the English language come from your friends on a regular basis. "I heard that..." Whatever follows is likely to be incorrect, yet you will relay it to a dozen or so friends because it came from your friend. In this respect, I am from Missouri, the Show Me State. I now find myself doubting virtually everything I hear second hand. Someone once told me that Food Network star Paula Deen was from Pennsylvania and her accent was made up. It took about two minutes of researching and corroborating to find that she is from Atlanta.
So far, these are innocuous examples, but consider how your sheepish decisions affect our nation and the world. In 2002, we believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because our government told us so. We started a war based on that assumption. Whether you believe the war is just is not the point. The point is legitimate journalists spread the misinformation like wildfire.
Read. Watch. Listen. Learn. Don't just have an opinion. Have an informed opinion. Don't repeat what the so-called pundits say and certainly don't repeat what your friends say without doing the research. Perhaps most important of all, don't listen to me either. I might be full of crap.
Needless to say, I was taken aback by his own perspicacity (chortle), for being able to recognize mine was his gift. Facetiousness aside, he makes a valid point. Without the analysis of all the facts I implored you to memorize yesterday. it's kind of like the difference between the Sphinx and a pile of rubble. In the latter, the materials are there, but there is no vision.
Many folks like to quote the profundities of great thinkers of centuries past. I refuse to do so to the point of being obstinate. It's not an arrogance in believing that they have nothing to tell me; they certainly do. It's more that I enjoy the ride of discovery for myself. I squeal with delight (yes, like a little girl) when I experience a revelation triggered by my introspection, or extrospection for that matter. It may have been something that Immanuel Kant discovered centuries ago, but I'm much more likely to treasure and remember the insight at my own hand.
This leads me to the area of my expertise--media communication. It is wonderful, awesome, exponentially progressive, and dangerous. Consider the following time-worn axioms. Which are true?
- You should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day.
- You musn't swim for at least an hour after eating.
- Toilets in the southern hemisphere swirl in the opposite direction.
- If you eat Pop Rocks while drinking Coke it will explode in your stomach.
If you decide to test my answers, let me point you to a starting place. It's called snopes.com. The site is specifically designed to debunk urban legends like the above. But don't take it at face value either. The feature I like best about the site is that they attribute sources, so you can continue the research yourself. Consulting multiple sources is the key to ascertaining the truth. Hey, my own axiom! Let me repeat. Consulting multiple sources is the key to ascertaining the truth.
Thanks to television, satellites and the Internet, we can acquire knowledge instantaneously. Consider what is happening in the Middle East and northern Africa right now. That is largely a result of social networking. That is the wonderful side of the media. The ugly side is that bogus information spreads just as rapidly. Did you believe Microsoft was going to send you a check if you forwarded an email to ten friends? Did you believe you had won the Nigerian lottery? Did you believe you could rescue a martyred diplomat and be given 14 million pounds for your Christian deed? And all you had to do was give them your account number?
These are extreme examples but unsuspecting dupes are falling for these and similar ploys every day. What's worse is the pundits (a misnomer if I ever heard one) are spewing forth garbage every minute under the guise of news. During a lecture to my media law class once, I told the students to consult multiple sources. A student regurgitated my message to me in an essay, proudly boasting that he consulted Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly every day. The sad truth is that he was being serious. Technically, he had me. Those were multiple sources. Politics aside, what is frightening to me is that he confused those sources with journalists. Believe it or not, true journalists aspire to accuracy, objectivity and truth every day. I know because I, along with a thousand ethical colleagues, train them every day.
The most dangerous words in the English language come from your friends on a regular basis. "I heard that..." Whatever follows is likely to be incorrect, yet you will relay it to a dozen or so friends because it came from your friend. In this respect, I am from Missouri, the Show Me State. I now find myself doubting virtually everything I hear second hand. Someone once told me that Food Network star Paula Deen was from Pennsylvania and her accent was made up. It took about two minutes of researching and corroborating to find that she is from Atlanta.
So far, these are innocuous examples, but consider how your sheepish decisions affect our nation and the world. In 2002, we believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because our government told us so. We started a war based on that assumption. Whether you believe the war is just is not the point. The point is legitimate journalists spread the misinformation like wildfire.
Read. Watch. Listen. Learn. Don't just have an opinion. Have an informed opinion. Don't repeat what the so-called pundits say and certainly don't repeat what your friends say without doing the research. Perhaps most important of all, don't listen to me either. I might be full of crap.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Welcome to Me
As I begin my three-step, cookie-cutter set up of my blog, it occurs to me that this is among the most egomaniacal of adventures. What on Earth would possess me to entertain the notion that anyone on Earth would be remotely interested in my thoughts for the day? And the answer came to me like a bolt of lightning or the proverbial light bulb balloon above your head. It's my incredible ego! Now that that's cleared up, on to substance.
Let's start with the title--of my blog, not this entry. I apologize profusely if you looked up the word "contemploration" and found no entries. Mea culpa. It is a portmanteau (love that word) I created to inject a unique quality into my writing. The two sides of the suitcase (if you looked up portmanteau) are contemplative exploration. To explore without forethought is for the brave hearts of pioneers and teenaged boys. I do nothing without overanalyzing. It's my nature; it's my right; it's my bane.
OK, today's thoughts. For those who don't know me, I will provide a little backdrop. More than five years ago, I lost my wife of 18 years to a heart attack and my brother of 45 years to cancer--three months apart. Yes, "yikes" is the appropriate response. Since then, I have gone through the process of rehabilitating and reinventing myself. It is a work in progress. But through this tragedy, I have learned many lessons. I am a strong if not stubborn self-healer. As the old joke goes, when asked where the self-help books were located, the clerk replied, "If I told you, what would be the point?"
Maybe it's no Who Moved My Cheese?, but here are today's suggestions for making yourself better.
1. Get smarter. Learn something new everyday, and not serendipitously by sharing gossip at the water cooler or watching another Law and Order rerun (you're also acquiring misinformation through both efforts), but intentionally and purposefully. You don't have to be a bookworm or a nerd to do this. It doesn't even require much time. I recently found a website that was an aid for teaching middle school geography. It contained quizzes, and in about three or four weeks, I learned all the capitals of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and the provinces of Canada. Go ahead; test me. I was surprised at how many I knew, but it took about a half hour a day and it was fun. Now this may be of no interest to you. That's my point. Find something that is. You'll feel smarter, and you didn't have to study organic chemistry to do it.
I also memorized the presidents in order. Maybe you'll like that one. You can find any of a number of LEGITMATE sites on the Internet to soak up. It is rote memorization. We are all capable of it. It doesn't require a Mensa IQ. Granted, it is just facts, but I think you'll find it encourages contemploration on your part. You may, as I did, begin exploring philosophy and astronomy as you learn the names of the great thinkers, or the moons and constellations in our galaxy. Imagine being able to converse with authority about the Big Bang Theory when the ubiquitous debates arise over evolutionism vs. creationism. You can do more than reply, "you're a stupid head."
I will admonish you that there is a downside to becoming smarter. You may become angrier. As you listen to others' uninformed opinions, this may disturb you. What a great segue to my second point today.
2. Release the anger. As I have grown older and many of my loved ones have died, I find my knee-jerk anger kicks in (pun intended) much more easily. I am watching episodes about the brain on Nova right now (PBS) and learning more about our synapses and grey matter, I may find an answer for this anger-with-age syndrome. I am 56, and I don't recall getting as angry about simple things in my twenties and thirties. If you have had the same result, please comment.
My sternest admonishment is not to spring into action based on these twinges of emotion. This includes: don't yell at the customer service person who is not responsible for the screw up; don't post something on Facebook that you will regret later; don't take it out on your kids, your spouse, or your friends, and please, please, curb the road rage. Even laying on the horn or the hackneyed digital gesture could land you in a world of hurt. We all make mistakes driving. Yes, ALL. Believe it or not, empirically I have come to the conclusion that the drivers who scream, gesture and honk the most are indeed some of the worst drivers. They are driving too fast and tailgating in an effort to get nowhere and inevitably will be pissed off when you "cut in front of them" (slows them down) or hit the brakes. Think hard about this. Is this you? Sorry, I digressed.
How do you release the anger? For me, yelling at myself seems to work. No one catches schrapnel in the process and I feel much better. I will sometimes sit in my car and reprimand myself for something stupid I did earlier that day. I can take the yelling and it often corrects the behavior. Getting physical also helps. If you have a partner handy, 'nuff said. If not, go for a run, ride, walk or better yet, punch something long and hard. I do know that anger is the result of bad chemicals released in your brain, and physical activities may release bursts of seratonin, the happy chemical in your brain. Punch something soft. Wood and concrete are not good choices. Pillows and couches are.
Join me here for what I hope is a daily entry, and help me to learn with your own comments. This is part of my daily therapy, largely because I don't have $150 an hour to give to a professional (psychiatrist, not streetwalker). Let's suck the marrow out of life together.
Let's start with the title--of my blog, not this entry. I apologize profusely if you looked up the word "contemploration" and found no entries. Mea culpa. It is a portmanteau (love that word) I created to inject a unique quality into my writing. The two sides of the suitcase (if you looked up portmanteau) are contemplative exploration. To explore without forethought is for the brave hearts of pioneers and teenaged boys. I do nothing without overanalyzing. It's my nature; it's my right; it's my bane.
OK, today's thoughts. For those who don't know me, I will provide a little backdrop. More than five years ago, I lost my wife of 18 years to a heart attack and my brother of 45 years to cancer--three months apart. Yes, "yikes" is the appropriate response. Since then, I have gone through the process of rehabilitating and reinventing myself. It is a work in progress. But through this tragedy, I have learned many lessons. I am a strong if not stubborn self-healer. As the old joke goes, when asked where the self-help books were located, the clerk replied, "If I told you, what would be the point?"
Maybe it's no Who Moved My Cheese?, but here are today's suggestions for making yourself better.
1. Get smarter. Learn something new everyday, and not serendipitously by sharing gossip at the water cooler or watching another Law and Order rerun (you're also acquiring misinformation through both efforts), but intentionally and purposefully. You don't have to be a bookworm or a nerd to do this. It doesn't even require much time. I recently found a website that was an aid for teaching middle school geography. It contained quizzes, and in about three or four weeks, I learned all the capitals of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and the provinces of Canada. Go ahead; test me. I was surprised at how many I knew, but it took about a half hour a day and it was fun. Now this may be of no interest to you. That's my point. Find something that is. You'll feel smarter, and you didn't have to study organic chemistry to do it.
I also memorized the presidents in order. Maybe you'll like that one. You can find any of a number of LEGITMATE sites on the Internet to soak up. It is rote memorization. We are all capable of it. It doesn't require a Mensa IQ. Granted, it is just facts, but I think you'll find it encourages contemploration on your part. You may, as I did, begin exploring philosophy and astronomy as you learn the names of the great thinkers, or the moons and constellations in our galaxy. Imagine being able to converse with authority about the Big Bang Theory when the ubiquitous debates arise over evolutionism vs. creationism. You can do more than reply, "you're a stupid head."
I will admonish you that there is a downside to becoming smarter. You may become angrier. As you listen to others' uninformed opinions, this may disturb you. What a great segue to my second point today.
2. Release the anger. As I have grown older and many of my loved ones have died, I find my knee-jerk anger kicks in (pun intended) much more easily. I am watching episodes about the brain on Nova right now (PBS) and learning more about our synapses and grey matter, I may find an answer for this anger-with-age syndrome. I am 56, and I don't recall getting as angry about simple things in my twenties and thirties. If you have had the same result, please comment.
My sternest admonishment is not to spring into action based on these twinges of emotion. This includes: don't yell at the customer service person who is not responsible for the screw up; don't post something on Facebook that you will regret later; don't take it out on your kids, your spouse, or your friends, and please, please, curb the road rage. Even laying on the horn or the hackneyed digital gesture could land you in a world of hurt. We all make mistakes driving. Yes, ALL. Believe it or not, empirically I have come to the conclusion that the drivers who scream, gesture and honk the most are indeed some of the worst drivers. They are driving too fast and tailgating in an effort to get nowhere and inevitably will be pissed off when you "cut in front of them" (slows them down) or hit the brakes. Think hard about this. Is this you? Sorry, I digressed.
How do you release the anger? For me, yelling at myself seems to work. No one catches schrapnel in the process and I feel much better. I will sometimes sit in my car and reprimand myself for something stupid I did earlier that day. I can take the yelling and it often corrects the behavior. Getting physical also helps. If you have a partner handy, 'nuff said. If not, go for a run, ride, walk or better yet, punch something long and hard. I do know that anger is the result of bad chemicals released in your brain, and physical activities may release bursts of seratonin, the happy chemical in your brain. Punch something soft. Wood and concrete are not good choices. Pillows and couches are.
Join me here for what I hope is a daily entry, and help me to learn with your own comments. This is part of my daily therapy, largely because I don't have $150 an hour to give to a professional (psychiatrist, not streetwalker). Let's suck the marrow out of life together.
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