Great news, boys and girls! I figured out how to write myspace blogs using Google Chrome! This is actually good news and bad news. It's good news because Mozilla Firefox has decided that it wants nothing to do with me today so it's just not starting up at all. It's bad news because now I have no excuse not to write this blog. Have I mentioned that laziness will be the death of me (if I don't kill it first)? But wait, there's more (more good news, that is)! I've just reached a major milestone in my life. I just recieved the first pair of pajama pants of my adult(ish) life.


That's right, my own pair of pajama pants. Combined with the robe my Auntie gave me for christmas, these pants will allow me to laze around the house more effectively than ever.

That was the intro, here's the blog: (Did I just invent a new catchphrase? Maybe)


Do you know what's awesome? Selfishness is awesome. Fuck you if you disagree; it is. Why is selfishness awesome? Because everything we are and everything we do stems from our attitude towards ourselves. (Hyperbole? maybe.)

Now, I've always been a pretty selfish person, but in 2009 I'm going to take it to a new level. I'm going to give 2, maybe even 3 squirts of piss about myself. If you know me at all, you probably know that I don't give 2 squirts of piss (to paraphrase oso) about anything (or anyone) so for me to give 3 squirts of piss about myself, that's big news.

There's actually been several things that have influenced me towards this latest revelation. First of all, I've been going (on and off) to a weekly meditation gathering (for lack of a better word) at the East Bay Meditation Center. The way this particular shindig works is that each week, we (in this case, people of color) get together and meditate for 30 minutes (7:00-7:30) and then discuss whatever the chosen topic for the day is. The last time I went to one of these meetings, the topic of the day was The 5 Precepts. As the wikipedia article I just linked to explained, "the Five Precepts (Pali: pañca-sīla; Sanskrit: pañca-śīla)[1] constitute the basic Buddhist code of ethics." In other words, they're kinda like the 10 Commandments or the 42 Principles of Ma'at or whatever arbitrary number of virtues/laws/affirmations your favorite religion endorses.

I left EBMC with several things to think about that night, but one of the things that stuck out for me was the bit about selfishness (Finally, he gets to the point!). The "instructor" of the session, Spring Washam, made a point of emphasizing that the purpose of the 5 Precepts is to increase the joy and contentment of the person who follows them. The effect on other people is nothing more or less than the effect of being around a person who's reduced their suffering. According to Spring, I only had to improve my own self. The effects of my improved self would then spread to those around me, without any real extra effort on my part.*
The other thing that pushed me in this direction was my health. I'm out of shape, my asthma is always lurking right below the surface, and my diet currently consists of about 90% pancakes and syrup (on some days, it's all I eat!). Now I don't want to make it seem like I suddenly had some uncanny motivation to start improving my health. In truth, I was quite prepared to ignore my health for the forseeable future and let the ill effects catch up with me when I'm an old man. I was actully following that plan with great success until my body decided to stage an intervention. Over the past few months, I've been beset by everything from hemmorhoids to a sudden-onset case of the flu. It's as if my body is trying desperately to remind me that the things I do to myself (most notably the things I eat, drink, smoke or otherwise ingest) do have ill effects. After 20 years of willful deafness, I think I'm finally prepared to listen.

Now for some irony:

I think that everyone around me may come to appreciate my newfound commitment. After all, if I make myself a happier person, I may be able to make the people around me happier. If ever there was a win-win situation, that would be it.





*I am not saying that you can improve the world around you without effort, only that that effort must be focused inward.