Nest

Here’s a cliché observation: you spend the first two decades, more or less, of your child’s life trying to get a moment’s peace from them, but then, all of a sudden, the tables are turned and you’re trying to get them to hang out with you for even a minute.

Cue the cheesy Harry Chapin song: “Cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon…”

Of course, it’s not all bad; there are increased opportunities for day drinking and you can extend that practice into the evening with impunity.  Also, no more having to attend Curriculum Night at their school.

But it is a little lonely to be sure.  After all, you’ve spent countless hours just being their for your young one and now they no longer need you; what to do with all this time on your hands?

You could take up needlepoint or model airplane building.  You could help out at the local soup kitchen.  You could write short essays about your experience that few may ever read.

Traditionally, I believe, one takes this opportunity to begin nagging one’s child to have children; you start pushing hard for grandkids.  I’m not quite ready for that, although I’m sure I’ll be an ace grandparent; I already have the collection of Pendleton wool shirts needed for the job.

One of the main things about this new phase of life is how clearly it illustrates the futility of all existence.  If you’ve done your job as a parent halfway decently, you’ve effectively worked yourself out of the picture. 

The whole point of the exercise is to render yourself superfluous.  And for those of us who have long harbored suspicions about the essential absurd pointlessness of the human condition, it really brings it home: perhaps the entire reason any of us are here on planet earth is to be done with the whole thing.

Admittedly, I’m being slightly morbid here; but why not?  I certainly have the time for it.

Weird

Human beings are strange creatures.  We congregate in places where we can pay to derange our consciousness slightly and watch images move around a flat screen as proof positive of an artificial reality, and then we care about what happens as if it really matters.

What?

I know, from days of watching football like this, that no one really determines the outcomes; we are all an expression of a huge tidal wave that could be construed as an expression of the eternal intermingling of various forces. 

It’s nice when your team wins, but rooting for that to happen is kind of like cheering for the sun to rise—not necessarily something to be frowned upon, but surely something that has no more effect upon the outcome than does wishing for tomorrow to come.

How strange it is to be so powerfully motivated by pictures of mere ideas; nearly none of it matters in the least, and yet so much of it seems like that’s all there is.

When you juxtapose what you really care about with what’s only a slight preference, it’s easier to see that the former only differs from the latter in your own heart; you can observe others being ridiculously excited by what you disdain; that’s both reassuring and humiliating, depending on your sense of humor about yourself.

Change is inevitable and yet, what qualifies as change keeps changing as well.  Just when you think you have something figured out, you realize that you don’t, which means that you do, which means that you don’t, get it?

The idea that it would be better not to have been born at all seems correct here, but given that we have been, then what is one to do?  May as well make the best of things, even if what is, in fact, superior, remains a logical possibility.

It ends up being what people care for, weird as those all things that we care for may be.

Naturally

My dog sleeps around sixteen hours a day, so I’m not going to feel bad about languishing in bed until nine, when I didn’t go to sleep until midnight.  Granted, she is the equivalent, in human years, of age 77, so I probably ought not to compare myself to her too much, but I can take from her behavior some inspiration—although not when it comes to sniffing the behinds of other dogs.

There’s no doubt that any of us could be a better person—even the Dalai Lama probably reads some trashy fiction from time to time; the point is to calibrate one’s goodness with an appropriate level of self-interest.  Maybe I can take from the religious model a kind of tithing standard: if I spend ten percent of my time in meaningful pursuits, that will be sufficient.  Thus, if I’m awake for sixteen hours on a given day, all I have to do is do something worthwhile for about 100 minutes.  Supposing my yoga practice takes an hour and a half or so, then, I’ve only got ten minutes I need to account for.  Doing the dishes a couple times eats that up, so I’m good nearly every day.

To tell the truth, I don’t really know why I worry about whether or not I’m doing anything worth doing anyway; shouldn’t it be enough to simply be a reasonably nice person who feeds his dog and doesn’t make babies cry?  After all, even on my worst days, I’m far more admirable than your average Republican Presidential candidate and a far less of a drain on the planet’s natural resources than probably nearly any Nascar driver.

It seems to me that one of the most effective strategies for satisfaction and well-being is to lower one’s standards; instead of aspiring to greatness, competent mediocrity will do; rather than feeling bad at not having achieved my dreams, perhaps I can be satisfied that I’m not living a nightmare.

Future

The future is my enemy.

In fact, it’s my number one adversary, way ahead of all others, including physics, luxury SUVs, and brunch.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the future, my life would be immeasurably easier.  I’d never have to worry about—well, anything, actually.  All my concerns have to do with what’s going to happen or not happen and if there were no future, then no concerns, voila!

Think about it: everything that’s worrisome, from the prospect of a hangover tomorrow morning, to the possibility of being broke and on the streets a few years from now takes place in the future.  All those things that bedevil you and keep your eyes fixed wide open on the ceiling at three in the morning are events that have yet to transpire—even the concern that you’ll be exhausted from lying awake all night belongs to the class of things that will only eventually occur.

If weren’t for the future, we’d all be able to live in the present; we could eat or drink whatever we want, kiss or hug whomever we felt like, do or not do anything we pleased without the prospect of any prospects.  The perfect in-the-moment life!

Anyone who’s seen the movie Groundhog Day knows what I’m talking about.  (Anyone who hasn’t seen it should immediately; it’s arguably the greatest film ever made.)

Once Phil Connors, the jaded, egoistic television weatherman, realizes that he’s living the same day over and over again and can’t die or be killed, he becomes completely liberated.  He stuffs his face with pastries, drives his car on the railroad tracks, and steals a bag of money from an armored car—each of those an item on my own bucket list!

Fear of getting fat, or of dying, or of going to jail: future events that prevent me from living life fully,

So, to the future, I say a big “fuck you!” 

I’m not gonna live by your rules anymore!

Thing

Writing is the only thing worth doing, or at least, it’s the one thing that, after I’ve done it, I feel as if I’ve spent my time well.

Compared to an hour of poking around on the internet, sixty minutes of trying to put my ideas down on (virtual) paper makes me feel as if I’ve actually done something, even if it’s something that no one else will ever read.

I still harbor the illusion, though, that my post-retirement income will be earned as a writer; I imagine that people will pay me for my words, given that they will be emanating from such an old man.

Or maybe I’ll just be dead and won’t have to worry about it.

It’s deeply confounding how much the future oppresses us.  It doesn’t even exist, and yet it’s constantly making the life that I lead today, in this moment, much more difficult.  It’s weird to worry so much about something that’s imaginary; I don’t, for example, find myself being overly concerned with unicorns, or leprechauns, or compassionate conservatives.  And yet the future, a similarly non-existent entity, bedevils me constantly.

Many people are troubled by the past; not me.  I’m enough of a determinist to cut myself a reasonable amount of slack for the choices I’ve made, given my intuition that I couldn’t actually have chosen any differently.  The future, however, seems to offer more possibilities, hence more possibilities for failure.  I realize that the choices I make or don’t make today, (even if they’re not really choices in the most robust sense), will determine what my life is like in the years to come.  Consequently, I feel like my potential for fucking up is quite high.  In fact, almost anything I do will result in an outcome far less than ideal.

So, ultimately, as far as the future is concerned, it doesn’t really matter what I do right now; may as well get stoned and buy a lottery ticket.

Remember

I’m sure there are things I’m supposed to be doing, but for the life of me, I can’t recall what they might be.

I know that when I wake up at 3:30 in the morning, all sorts of responsibilities descend upon me; that there’s nothing I can do about any of them makes it all the more likely I’ll be beset by them; however, ten hours later, when I’m in a position to make phone calls, run errands, and take care of things I could be taking care of, I can’t come up with anything pressing.

Sure, there’s probably some dry-cleaning to be dropped off, and, in all likelihood, something on one of my bikes needs to be fixed, but other than that, I’m stumped.  Whatever it was that seemed so important in the wee hours can’t even rise to the level of my conscious awareness at the moment.

Maybe it was something I’m supposed to buy or perhaps there’s an appointment I need to be making.  It could be I need to write a letter to someone or potentially, I should be doing some cleaning; that I can’t bring to mind any specifics seems odd— given that there was an endless number of such activities running through my brain as I tossed and turned under the covers.

Certainly, there’s some fact I’ve forgotten to look up on the Internet; no doubt I needed to know who won the Academy Award for Sound Design in 1956 or something like that, but at them moment, I’m simply not bedeviled with the need to know any such thing.

Maybe I’m forgetting that I’d planned to write to an old friend or that I needed to schedule a dentist appointment.   Could it have something to do with the car?  Or my bank account?  Or home maintenance of some sort?

If it really were all that important, surely it would come to mind, right?  So why worry?  Just forget about it.

Mush

I used to have a fine mind. 

It’s not like I was Einstein or anything, but I was certainly smarter than your average bear; I got excellent grades throughout my educational career; I was able to write lucidly on any number of topics; and I could hold forth at length on subject with real philosophical import, making reference to influential thinkers in the field and drawing conclusions that were as insightful as they were creative and original.

These days, it’s all I can do to follow the directions on a package of Top Ramen.

Years of overindulging and underacheiving have effectively smoothed out many of the vital folds in my brain; synapses that once fired like crackling summer lightning, now sputter damply; back in the day my grey matter glowed fiery red; these days you’d be hard pressed to record a glimmer on an EKG affixed to the frontal lobes; my stream of consciousness is reduced to a trickle; when my mind races, it never even leaves the starting blocks.

I suppose I should be bothered by this, but fortunately, I’m just too dumb to care.

Intelligence is probably overrated anyway; it’s not like the brain surgeons and rocket scientists of the world are enjoying themselves more than anyone else; it’s not even clear that their contributions to humanity are that much better than the rest of ours.  I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to add several dozen points (back) to my IQ; on the other hand, what’s so great about being smarter if you’re not happier?

Perhaps if I hadn’t wreaked such havoc on my cognitive abilities, I’d have an answer to this question; maybe when my mind was younger and suppler, I’d be able to wrap my brain around this inquiry and come up with a solution to it.

Alas; it’s not to be.  There is one good thing, though: no one ever asks me anymore, “If you’re so smart, how come you’re not rich?”

Crash

Another day, another crisis in the stock market.

I’ve seen this movie before, in 1987, 2001, 2008, for example.

Am I worried?  Certainly.  Will I do anything about it?  Probably not.

Meanwhile, fires are burning up Eastern Washington.  And the largest piece ever recorded of the Greenland ice sheet just fell off into the ocean.  NASA says that an asteroid won’t slam into earth next week, but I don’t believe them.

We’re doomed! 

Or not.

If I didn’t have a newspaper or the internet, I wouldn’t know that I ought to be so frightened; as I sit here on my couch this lovely late-summer morning, the world seems fine.

Little do I know.

My dog seems sanguine about the day’s events; she’s enjoying her breakfast, so at least, I think, I don’t have to worry about an earthquake in the next hour or so.

This is another example of the future attacking the present.  Right now, everything’s reasonably okay, but if things keep going this way, then we’re fucked.  But one of the big reasons they might go this way is because we fear they will.  So, we’re probably fucked whatever we do.

I’ll be okay just so long as I can still have a cup or two of coffee in the morning and an opportunity at some point during the day to ride my bike.  A dinner that includes carrots would be nice, too.

I just don’t have the energy to totally freak out and lose my shit over the prospect of all the terrible, awful things that are and/or could be happening in the world.  Maybe this marks me as an ostrich with my head in the sand.  Or perhaps I’m just a worm who lives underground all the time.

What I do know is that no matter what my reaction is to these turn of events, it won’t make any difference as to whether they happen or not.

So, what, me worry?  Not much.

Mordant

Although I may be lying to myself, I claim I’m not afraid of death.

Dying, sure, especially if it involves losing control of my bowels, is scary, but being dead, not so much.  When I’m gone, I’m gone, and while it pains me to imagine how my loved ones might feel (and I do stress “might”) at not having me around, the idea of my own non-existence isn’t, I think, all that troubling.

If, by an expected turn of events, my consciousness perseveres after my body dies, and I continue to have experiences of some sort, then I wouldn’t really be dead, would I?  So, to fear that eventuality (which, frankly, I don’t) wouldn’t really be to fear death; it would be to fear the next stage of life.  And since I’ve already admitted that the prospect of a painful demise is frightening, I don’t think this commits me to a fear of death, either.

Of course, I could be just kidding myself; it’s entirely possible I’m unaware of my true feelings or maybe I’m simply so terrified that I’m able to convince myself of something that isn’t the case at all.  That’s a reasonably scary prospect, but one that doesn’t really give me the shivers either.

Being dead actually sounds pretty sweet when you think about it: no more bills to pay, dental appointments to keep, and contrary to the way most horror movies portray it, no need to cut your hair or fingernails ever again.  Picture a nice, long sleep never broken by the morning alarm clock.

I’m certainly in no big hurry to meet my demise, but at the same time, I can’t say I won’t welcome it when it does arrive.  I like the way those old sadhus in India did it: they’d just take a seat and wait for the grim reaper to appear, nothing scary about it; they’d already seen the nastiest life had to offer; death could be no worse.

iConsume

My new shopping app—iConsume—makes Amazon’s software obsolete.  Whereas the tech-giant’s algorithms can make recommendations for consumers based on choices they’ve made previously, my program identifies what you want before you even know you want it.

Moreover, it then buys the item for you, uses it, and eventually throws it in the trash after it breaks, two days after the warranty runs out.

In short, iConsume takes all the work out of being a consumer; it does the consuming for you, enabling you to make you vital contributions to the global economy without having to lift a finger—essentially turning “single-click” shopping becomes “no click” at all.

Think about it: everything we buy has a life cycle.  You begin by coveting it; then, depending on your penchant for procrastination, you eventually purchase it; there’s a honeymoon period (after a bit of buyer’s remorse); soon enough, though, you’re no longer in love; and then, finally, it stops working (literally or figuratively), and out it goes in the garbage.  Each transition point in this process represents mental or physical energy that needs to be expended; iConsume takes care of all this for you; and with automatic payments, as well!

Remember when you bought the food processor and did all that online comparison-shopping before making your decision?  And then, after your purchase arrived, didn’t you use it two or three times the first few days you had it, only to move it to the back of the closet where it now languishes, unused except for the occasional once-in-awhile pesto or hummus?

With iConsume, that whole process is entirely automated.  Since it’s inevitably what happens, why not?

IConsume will particularly appeal to young professionals working for companies like Amazon; with iConsume, they can work harder while consuming more efficiently.

But best of all will be for the staff at iConsume; iConsume will do the shopping that makes their shopping possible; thus, at last, achieving the goal of rendering humans superfluous.

Similar

Here in the Midwest, where it’s so hot and humid that you glow with a sheen of sweat just from strolling around the block, people, it seems, like to be more alike one another than different.

Today in Madison, WI, for instance, which is “move-in day” for student housing, innumerable parents in pick-up trucks are unloading their children and those youngster’s possessions at countless apartments all across town and what’s striking about it—apart from the abundance of winter sports gear that come along with the kids—is how similar are all the versions of the families: Dad is wearing cargo shorts; Mom has on capri pants, and junior (male or female version) sports a tank top and a grimace. 

Surprisingly (to me, anyway) is that the college-age person is the one offering up rules: “That isn’t the way it’s done,” says the child as father double-parks in front of the apartment.  Mom just wants to make nice and feel confident that her darling has ample dishware, so she doesn’t say anything.  Eventually, the young one relents, carries a box or two into the new abode and soon the stack of possessions migrates from automobile to vestibule while tempers remain as heated as the metal shelves baking in the sun.

Oddly, no one seems to minds that everyone does it the same way; apparently, the social pressures to conform are powerful enough that even the next generation prefers that the previous one acts like the one before that; mom and dad get props for toeing the line, clearly one that has been drawn long before any of the current artists came along.

Out West, where I come from, everyone wants to be different, which is, I suppose, just another way of trying to be the same.  Maybe the model around here is more authentic; maybe ultimately humans strive to not stick out; surely, as hot as it is, the sensible thing is to hide in the shade.

Odious

I don’t like myself very much right now, which is actually surefire evidence that I care more for myself than I’m willing to admit.

If I didn’t hold such an exalted opinion of myself, I wouldn’t mind that I’m not living up to my own particular standards, so in thinking poorly of myself, I’m actually arguing that I’m a better person than I appear to be which is, after all, a fairly narcissistic conception of who I imagine myself to be.

It’s like the so-called “Paradox of the Rakehell” in which we recognize that paradoxical nature of feeling bad for having done something shameful.  When I do so, I end up feeling a little bit better because I recognize myself as the sort of person who has finely-developed enough sensibilities to feel poorly when he acts badly.  I feel good for feeling bad, in other words, when I should, strictly speaking, only feel bad.

So here, as I silently castigate myself for not being more industrious, more altruistic, or more generous with my time and money, I’m implicitly holding myself up as an ideal of some sort; I’m claiming that I’m such a good person that I can judge myself as a lesser one.  See what high standards I have?  See how refined are my attitudes?  See what an exemplary judge of character I am?

Of course, I’m also making an assessment of this very behavior, as well.  I’m judging myself for judging myself, and in doing so, making a case that I’m even a better person than the one who merely judges.  It’s an infinite series of ever-higher levels of admirableness, none of which I can ever, by definition, attain.  And yet, in recognizing the hopelessness of this endeavor, I confidently assert that I’m always one step above where I appear to be.

None of this really makes me feel any better about myself, but as we’ve seen, the worse I feel, the better I am.

Nothing II

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to talk about nothing, because as soon as you do, it becomes something.

For instance, if I set out to sing the praises of a day on which I did nothing, then suddenly, automatically, I’ve turned it into an aspiration, and, before you know it, it’s become a project with deadlines and deliverables—no longer nothing; now it’s something.

I try to sit on the couch and do nothing, but in doing it, I’ve done it, and there you go, I’m busy all over again.

The trick is to plan for doing things and then not do them; thus, you create the empty space that gets to be filled in with more empty space; or something like that.

It’s not simply a matter of failing to live up to expectations; the true test is to have no expectations whatsoever—without expecting that to be the case at all.

Ironically, when you do certain things—watch television in the daytime, bite your nails and spit the leftover clippings on the carpet, read mystery stories—you’re actually doing less than if you simply sit quietly and stare at the tip of your nose.  The more you do, the less it matters, anyway.

Of course, nothing that anyone does is really anything; even the efforts of the greatest artists in history will eventually be erased by the march of time and the eventual explosion of our sun.  When earth is subsumed by the Red Dwarf our star will become, all these many somethings will be reduced to nothings, so why not just get it over with now?

I had plans for the day, but they’ve come to naught; I was going to do something, but now I’ve changed my mind.  Thus, for a brief period, at least, I have managed to do nothing, at least insofar as it represents an alternative to something that would have been something.

And that, unfortunately, is something, isn’t it?

Something

For the remainder of the summer, I’ve resolved to do at least one thing every day in the way of simplifying, cleaning, or just generally de-cluttering things around the house.  So, for instance, yesterday, I took a load of stuff to Goodwill; the day before, I re-organized my downstairs bookshelf; and the day prior to that, I pulled a few weeds.

I was thinking dump run today, but the car is unavailable, and I’m too lazy to bike it, so I might just make due with taking some old and/or broken computers to the recycling place.

Of course, it’s all “tip-of-the-iceberg” stuff; if I really wanted to make a dent, I’ll drive a bulldozer into my basement and begin digging.  After three days, I might be able to claim success, but only if I agreed to overlook my bike shop.

The source of most of the clutter in my house and life is a kind of vague optimism about the future.  I hold on to things with the idea that I might need them someday.  A set of road bike wheels that may come in handy should I want to inexpensively build up a new bike; some clothes that could be useful if I’m ever going to run in the Iditarod; a shelf of books that I hold onto in the slim hope that I might return to graduate school and finish my Ph.D. 

What’s the point?

I want to end my life, as did the traditional sages of ancient India, with just a few simple possessions: my glasses, a pair of shoes, and a couple hundred million dollars in the bank.  In order to get there, I’d better start winnowing my collection of footwear as soon as possible.

I have three pairs of Chuck Taylors: my good ones, that I can wear to school; the crummy ones, for mowing the lawn, and the moldy ones, for…what?

Hey, found my one thing: into the trash they go!

Poisoned

Everybody knows that “food poisoning” is a euphemism for "hangover."  It’s like when the newspapers reported that San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum was unable to appear at the team’s World Series victory parade due to “flu-like symptoms.”  It’s not surprising that if you take a bath in champagne while simultaneously swilling it straight from the bottle that you’ll wake up the next morning feeling a little sick; whether you call it “flu-like symptoms” or “food poisoning,” we know what you mean.

So, naturally, I felt a little suspect begging off of a meeting at school yesterday due to “food poisoning,” but, believe it or not, I really was suffering from the effects of something I ate, not some things I drank.

It’s strange when consuming what is intended to nourish you ends up doing the opposite.  Soon after my Monday evening meal of tomatoes, bread, cheese, and pickles, I was kneeling over the toilet giving back the contents of my dinner to the porcelain god.  I was up pretty much the entire night disposing of the contents of my belly in both directions and spent all day Tuesday going from one reclined position to the next, weak as a kitten, as they say, but with none of that furry creature’s requisite cuteness.

I’m wondering about the evolutionary provenance of listeria or whatever else it was that gave me such distress.  If I were some bacteria that wanted to pass on its DNA efficiently, you’d think I’d be adapted to make my host feel well, not awful.  Wouldn’t it make more sense of “food poisoning” gave a person extra energy and a fuller head of hair?  If that were the case, it seems like people would much more consistently eat spoiled cheese or, as in my case, tomatoes that were over the edge.

But perhaps this is already what happens; purged as I was, I did, after all, have an excellent yoga practice this morning, so there.

Accomplished

My baby girl just turned 18 years old, so, the way I figure it, I’m done now with being a parent.

Of course, I’ll bail her out of jail as needed and continue to finance her higher education, but when it comes to the day-to-day responsibility of seeing that my child grows into a competent adult who can feed and clothe herself, I’m pretty much finished.

She’s graduated from high school, has a job, and can drive a manual transmission automobile.  (She’s also brilliant, beautiful, and has a great sense of humor, but I can only take partial responsibility for that.)

We’re not going to kick her out of the house or anything, (nor will she even have to pay rent), but things are different with another adult now living in the house.

For one thing, I don’t have to keep the pot vaporizer hidden so carefully downstairs.  For another, I probably don’t have to be so conscientious about not eating the last half bagel.  But most importantly, I can now stop worrying about the Child Protective Services ever coming to take her away—what a load off!

It’s seems only yesterday that she was a tiny little baby who could rest her head in my hand and sleep on my forearm—but perhaps that’s the fault of the aforementioned vaporizer.

Of course, she’ll always be our little girl, even as she goes out into the world and does great things, (especially if those things are incredibly lucrative and she makes it a point to send money home.)

I also know that, in my heart, I’ll always be her dad, which mean, among other things, that in my heart, I’ll always be able to drink beer in the afternoon and take naps on the couch.

It’s amazing to think that it was less than two decades ago I was changing her diapers; even more amazing is that it may only be that long until she’s changing mine.