I told my dear friend Deidre that if she wrote about her strengths( I was going to tag her if she didn’t anyway J) that I would write about mine. She followed through and now I’m completing my part of the bargin. Here's the deal: I shared mine with all of you. Now you need share some of YOURS with me.  

I once heard the Pulitzer Prize winning author E. L. Doctorow, mention that he knew a writer was just fine when they told him they were struggling and didn’t know in which direction to go. Strange how life only makes sense when it doesn’t. At least it’s that way for me. My lack of understanding makes me curious and forces me to grow, rather than trusting what I know, I’m forced to trust in what I don’t, as a result, new qualities emerge in me and the world looks again mysterious and interesting. After all, the world is only as deep as we are; for we are the lenses through which we see the world.

Want to grow read a book you wouldn’t have considered before, watch a movie you might not like. Intentionally place yourself in new situations and scenarios, question what it is you’ve always assume to be true? Fill yourself with questions until you too become a question. Do what the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron advises: go to those places that scare you. It is in these spaces you know that you are most alive. It is these spaces that also give rise to new places within yourself, marvelous new regions of your personal cosmos catching fire and blazing into being.

There’s something fascinating about all of this, the constant collision between continuity and change between the old and the new, how it is these nebulous and elusive places so fragile and tender soon solidify and grow tangible and strong giving us new aspects of our self, new capacities and new shores on which to explore gleefully like a child.

This mysterious place that exists in name only, myself and yet what am I, where am? Where do I stop and you begin? I don’t know exactly. Can’t say with any definite certainty where you start and I begin. It seems the uncertainty principle applies to me as well. But we can identify ourselves approximately. 

That being said, I promised to share my strengths, as I see them, with you:

1 Complex and complicated:

 I’m a mansion with many rooms. I’m a blend of contradictions, light and shadow swirled together in many intricate and abstract ways that are fluid and illusive. I have a spiritual orientation but can be very irreverent; I am profound and profane. If I had to describe myself I’d say I’m a postmodern collage- all types of disparate pieces that fit together in ways that are not immediately perceptible, but with repeated viewing reveal an underlying symmetry and internal order.

2 Intelligent:
 I love to contemplate the world in all it’s crazy grandeur. Ideas and abstractions are what interest me. I love to dissect and analyze turn things over in my head and look at them from a myriad of angles and direction. I read Nietzsche and Kierkegaard for the hell of it. I love to contemplate the patterns that connect. I love studying literature, cinema, mythology, and psychology to name a few. What can I say I’m a Geek.   

3.Curious and Inquisitive: 
 I believe whole-heartedly in Rilke’s imperative to live the question. I’ve never met a question that I didn’t like and I find myself asking them repeatedly of myself and of the world at large. I love to question underlying assumptions and the dogma that too often poses as truth. The world wants answers. I on the other hand want like one of my favorite authors, Milan Kundera, only questions.  

4.Open-Minded:
I try to consider all aspects of a situation and honor all viewpoints even if I don’t agree with someone. I think all opinions regardless of how ridiculous are worthy of consideration. I find that wisdom comes in the most unlikely of places.      ....

5. Creative and Artistic:
 I’ve spent more than my fare share of time on stage in many different roles. I studied voice for 5 years and minored in music in college. I write poetry now and then and love to write dram, be it for the screen or stage. There is nothing more exhilarating then a beautiful turned phrase, a revealing line of verse, or a clever line of dialogue. I have a poet’s weakness for symbols and find them living everywhere. 

6.Passionate:
“Follow your Bliss,” said the mythologist Joseph Campbell. While I think Campbell’s advice is a bit unrealistic, a life without passion, without something that moves your soul, is for me, not worth living. I have several things I’m passionate about these days: writing, reading, making a difference in whatever way I can.

7. Free thinking and opinionated:
 I am “independent of the good opinion of others” and arrive at my own decision based upon my personal understanding of things. I’m not easily swayed by those around me and don’t really concern myself with the joneses. Though not as outspoken as some, I have no problem sharing my opinion when I feel I need to take a stand.  

8. Reflective and introspective:
I am by nature introverted and introspective. I reflect on why on do what I do seeking to better understand my tendencies, both good and bad and become more self-aware. I seek to actualize all my potential in an effort be the best person I can be.  

9.Generous and Compassionate:
I am generous with time, money and presence. I have on more than one occasion given anonymous gifts to some of coworkers and even strangers. Others suffering bothers me and I try to do all I can to assuage it. I am sympathetic to people’s plight and while I might not condone a person behavior I can empathize with their person.

10. Silly and Funny:
Although people may think I’m ultra serious I can assure you I’m not ( Just ask Deidre.)  I love to laugh and will go out of my way to have others share in the fun. I can be witty, sarcastic and at times just plain silly especially when I’m playing cranium J. I love a good comedy be it sophisticated British humor and wit or just plain wild and outrageous like in the movie “old school”  

I woke up feeling strange today. There was nothing wrong with me but then again there was nothing right. It was a state that I couldn’t exactly figure out, an as of yet unidentified state. Perhaps it was the beginning of a cold. But no cold had ever felt like this. I wasn’t certain what it was. Could it be something more serious, the beginning of something sinister? Unlikely, but you never know with these things. So I decided I would keep a watchful eye on things even while I went about my daily doings. I watched as I made my bed for any signs of mental  malingers, as I washed my dishes even as I watched the basketball game.

I went for a walk out at the mall and then decided to stop in at the bookstore. I made my way through the aisles, back to my favorite section, turned the corner and smack. I ran right into this man. I was stunned. I looked at him briefly and couldn’t help but stare at the man’s strange appearance. Clad all in a black robe, with sweater and hat, and a long Hasidic Jew beard, but a Jew he was not, for roped about his neck was a large silver cross. I stared at him for a few seconds in shock. The encounter only lasted a few seconds before he regained his bearing and was gone.

I looked in my hands to find a book. He must have accidentally handed it to me and I simply didn’t notice it with all the commotion. I looked about for him, but saw no signs. So I thought I would simply put it back on the shelf. I looked down at the book. The book was open and turned to a page.         

“You are in great danger” the chapter on the page began in bold, black letters. “You  don’t know this, of course, because you like the millions of other citizens on our planet are largely unaware of your surrounding and as a result your life. You have yet to experience life “as it is” and because of this are destined to remain in a state of unknown desperation. You have been hoodwinked by the state of pseudo-happiness that a consumer society conditions you to believe is the real thing.” But if you just give it a while the paragraph continued you would surely experience “life as it is,” unhappiness.

But rest assured, the book told me it had a reliable method for rescuing me from my as of yet unknown state of unhappiness. Could this be it? Could this be what that annoying tickle in the back of my throat and that odd not wrong/not right state of mental blankness was all about? Did I have an emerging case of unhappiness?  I was puzzled and confused.  I closed the book, searched for title amidst all the other books and put it back in its proper place amidst all the other books on the shelf.

I had never considered myself an unhappy person, and yet this book was certain I was. I grew curious I looked at the titles of several of the other books on the shelf. Future Happiness, Total Happiness. The Seven Steps to Happiness.   I never knew that people were starving for happiness, there were as many different types of Happiness as there were types of people!  I started to read some of the books. Happiness one book tells me is easy. Another book tells me that happiness is hard. Still, another says the key to happiness is to be grateful. Be grateful for my state of unhappiness? Now how is that? What I’m looking for is salvation, a solution to my unhappiness not a way to continue it.

But this book assures me that if I simply learn to live it with it, it will disappear on its own(Obviously, this author hasn’t read any medical literature on the spread of germs and viruses.) Still, another book tells me that I need to delay my happiness, that my problem is really the result of impulsiveness. Translation: I needed to suffer just a little more before I’d arrive at Heavens Door. No another book appropriately entitled Be Happy Now insists that I simply need to be present, that Happiness is passing me by that it’s all around us, invading me, now even as I stand here reading this book, that I couldn’t help but be happy, that is, of course, unless I wanted to be unhappy. 

But if I’m happy but really unhappy because I’m not really happy how can I want to be  unhappy when all I really want is to be happy because I’m really unhappy? And I can’t recall being “invaded” by happiness before, but I know what happiness feels like and this, child, ain’t it. All of this makes no sense to me at the moment. In fact, I’ve never felt so unhappy as when I read these words! I feel a bit like a Dr’ Seuss character standing at one of signs with 15 different destinations posted on it, the signs all going this way and that while in front of me lay roads that zigged and zagged and went all kinds of ridiculous directions. HELP!! 

Happiness was so much easier just a few hours ago. Until thenI did my thing and that was that. I rode my bike. I went my way in the world with certainty and happiness. I frolicked about without a care in the world.  I didn’t need to delay it, I didn’t need to be it (which, coincidentally, takes a lot of DOING) and I didn’t need to create vast maps with specific happiness destinations in mind. I just did it and that was that. But now the innocence is gone. Of course the innocence is only my own “indifference to life” as one of the authors might put it.

I wonder if anyone else who came to this aisle felt as overwhelmed and confused as me. I wonder if the girl I saw tentatively reaching for a book caught the absurdity of it all and felt like she too had just ventured into the self-help twilight zone? Could it be that happiness is not the problem that it is our quest for happiness that left us unhappy, that all the theory, solutions, proposals, and ramblings only lead to more confusion and more conflict and thereby more unhappiness?

Is there really a need for happiness or is it some type of conspiracy. Am I really, truly unaware of how I delude myself or do books about delusion create the delusion? After all, if you’re going to have a buyer, you need to have a market for your product. What better way to do so then manufacture desperation, anguish, and  suffering. I’m hoping to arrive at some definitive answers. But all I’m left with, at the moment, is more questions, vastly more. And no answers in sight.  No answers anywhere, anywhere….. 

Does anyone know a good book on the subject I can read?

It’s a hard thing to realize you are not where you want to be, that your life is not what you suppose it to be, that all this while you were living a superior way by inferior means.  The cruelest truth is that delusion can inspire you just as easily as reality. So be warned. It is not in our nature to question. To do so would be to put an end and we don’t want ends, we only want shiny beginning, new ones, honey and sunshine-that’s what we need to sustain ourselves. And so we continue to do what we do because we can do nothing else.

Because although we imagine that we are in control of our life, because we’ve been convinced by the myriad of advertisings that we are unique and free individuals, for the vast majority of us we are not. Our lives are whimsical, not in a light and bright sense, but only in the sense that they are not dedicated to principle but at the mercy of our whims, of our desire to escape whatever we find as dreary and destitute. But the dreary and the destitute are not the death of us, the desire to escape it is. These days death comes disguised, like a mob hit man with a smile on its face and does it’s work slowly and unnoticed.

 These days the dreary and the destitute might represent the only source of our salvation, the tiny crack in the mask of minutia, which might lead us to freedom if we only had the constancy to remain unmoved and undistracted. For we’ve come to live on substitute freedoms and suck down the marrow of the good life and find its not too good, but of course by that time it’s too late. We’ve grown too accustomed to our comfort and convenience to find our way out. Instead we live a substitute life and slowly watch our lives ebb away, laughing all the while, because we never held in our being enough discontent, enough restlessness and doubt, to make a clean break of it and put an end to the madness that we call living.

What is the difference between living and dying?  The answer these days has become so clouded by the desire for ease, everything reduced and rendered palatable for those without strength and force of will. Words that once echoed genuine wisdom seem to be hollowed out and hold no truth at all. “Whatever doesn’t kill us make us stronger” or “Everything happens for a reason” words that one time meant something but in the age of new age fundamentalism only serve to move us further from the truth. So these days no one “dies” they simply pass into to a new dimension, retain a new form, death after all is not death, not really. We’re all dying, all giving way to gravity and that monster/bandit time, but death as the wisest say is simply “an illusion.” If I don’t get it right this lifetime, we’ll “I’ll have eons more to perfect my life.”  Just knowing this and knowing that we are not alone in our adventure somehow softens it, makes it more acceptable and makes it absolutely certain that we will take no decisive action. Whether we strive or we stumble makes no bit of difference.  Our serenity is assured.

Or is it? What if we knew we were dying? What if death was not some blue flower off in an idyllic distance but a raging fire in the here and now, come at last to purify us our pettiness and doubts, making certain that every moment was put to maximum effect.  How could we not change when change is all we have left? When growth at last is our only chance at salvation, how would the world look different to us? Would we still squander our precious instants, waiting for some imaginary Godot to render our lives meaningful and intentioned or would we be like a frugal spender investing only in those moments that created true emotional wealth.  Would we look after our time the way a banker looks after his money? When there can be no more tomorrows, where can we hide- in one last cliché about the future?     

I have to begin this speech with a confession: when I was younger I never understood you. And I never wanted to understand you.  I dismissed you because you didn't choose to live a life that was more adventurous, more daring, more demanding and productive. I had always assumed life was about accomplishment and success. It was you who taught me differently.  You showed me what life was truly about-loving, caring, and most importantly sharing with others.  Looking back you were the one who had the dream life, not I.   

You were able to thrive and to grow in those things you considered most important.  You always walked around with an immense smile on your face. I remember the first time your wife was expecting how excited you were to become a "proud papa." You ran around telling everyone who was in earshot how your life had finally found a purpose and you sought out to raise your boy Travis to be a man. You found meaning in performing your social function and as a result you were rewarded with a happy, clean life with none too little happiness and joy, the kind of joys that would otherwise make this life unbearable. 

When someone asked you a question, you would tell them straight away in an honest, good-natured and humble manner.  You didn't mince words but you didn't demean either. You always saw the good in others even when there was plenty of bad to be had. You didn't seek out complexity and it rarely found you.  You managed to live your life relatively free of the psychological encumbrances that can cripple a man.

But you still found time to volunteer at the homeless shelter. You worked everyday 5 days a week for 12 hours so that your wife and kids wouldn't go wanting and you never spoke once of resenting this life you'd chosen, not once.  It was simply what husbands and fathers do, you told that terminal bachelor Hastings at the bar that time.  And on your daughter's 21^st birthday many were there to hand out shots, but you were there with your fatherly advice on how to party responsibly.

And when the Johnson's cat Frodo went missing, it was you who organized a search party because you can stand the thought of those kids not being without their cat.(Everyone was so relieved when the little devil had stowed away on the good humor truck.) You did it because that what you did. When others said why, you said why not. You acted.  And what you lacked in charisma you made up for in tenacity; what you lacked in intelligence you made up for in tenderness.

I never told you this but I marveled at the love you and Sherry had one for one another and how you were able to maintain not just the respect but the love of your children. You instinctively understood that real community was "bonded by love" and affection, not likeness. And you sought to instill that sentiment in each of your children--Travis, Victoria, and even your prodigal son Dennis.  You once said that compassion and care were the only thing that separated us from the animals.   

You made me want to be a better person and I'll never forget you.  Goodbye my friend.   

I found this kicking around and thought I could work it into a blog. I don't think it's to bad..  If anyone knows how to fix the font in the last few paragraphs please let me know.. I've tried to get it back to normal but it's just not working at the moment. 

Thx for reading,

JJ

I'm struggling to understand what precisely freedom is.  Is it simply a political space? Is it a personal space? Is it mental space and what about a sexual space? nd then what about a spiritual space where one is free to conduct one's life as he or she sees fit?. One thing is for certain our freedoms have slowly been eroded by the massive intake of media and minutia.  

All space for rent has been used up and a worthless idea taken up residence. Rather than fill your head with emptiness individuals would rather fill it up with something anything, until freedom itself becomes nothing more then an instinctive compulsion, an act of uncompromising acquisition. Acquire this bit of materialism, acquire that; acquire, acquire ideas, ideology, and turn your mind into a menagerie of mindlessness and fill in all blanks, all gaps. Until freedom itself become unfree.  

The alternative is far too terrifying to even begin to consider that you could somehow in this tiny expanse expanse, this nothingness, that exists within your brain give birth to something new and unseen. That you could give rise to something, startling, something stupying and altogether liberating.  

Free at last to be a person, free at last to be what it is you were meant- create and unleash, destroy and remake. This is the journey. This is road, not grandiose living but miniscule dying, bit by bit, dying that leave us broken and as a result stronger, more capable, more kind, more, dare I say it, human? That is what the world needs more than ever a human being, one who is alive and passionate and vital.

But that would require the most terrifying act of all: the death of you. Are you willing? Are you able? Are you able to systematically destroy the imaginary boundaries and barriers that you've used to consecrate your being? And define yourself not on the basis of limit but on the basis of the infinite? Or the realization that what keeps you in place is from a certain perspective unreal, illusory?  

This doesn't mean-as some new age notables have it- that you can warp space/ time, defy the laws of physics and somehow bend reality to your will. But it does mean that through precedence you can reset the mental machinery which gives rise to the material. After all the life you lead is simply the actualization of your own unconscious manifestation of abstraction.  And it does not mean that you will not encounter formidable obstacles that will test you in every way possible, that the pain of life will seep in to your soul and threaten to undo you.

You, like all human beings are not immune to pain, but should you allow that tiny emptiness to open, you will transform the pain and make it your dearest ally.( I'm not refrerring to the "no pain, no gain" crowd who seem to look for ways to practice acceptable forms of masochism.) But to simply seeing pain as part and parcel of the act of living. And see as Napolen Hill reminds us that the seeds of opportunity are hidden inside every failure, every one of them.    

Deidre got me.. So he you go... Since it's thanksgiving I'll give my friends the day off with this one. 

Q. Who did you last get angry with?

A.I don't get angry. I'm a spiritual person and spiritual persons don't get angry. H'mm, let me think a coworker who didn't like it when I told another coworker I'd look something up for her after my lunch break

Q. What is your weapon of choice?

 A Colt 44 Peacemaker. A real man's toy. Truthfully, compassion, care and intelligence.

Q. Who was the last person who got really angry at you?

A. A girl whose profile name is Sustanibility on OK cupid.com. She didn't like the email I sent her. I think I may have been a little rough.

Q. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily?

A. Yes and no.  I think some grudges are not meant be let go of easiliy. But mostly I can do that.

Q. What is one thing you're suppose to do daily that you haven't

A. There's nothing I need to do daily. Weekdays I need to go to work. But beyond that I would say be kind.

Q. What is the latest you've ever woken up.

A.  I once slept the entire day away. And I wasn't sick or drunk.

Q. Name a person you've been meaning to contact, but haven't?

A. My Aunt Rose. I need to let her know about a Christmas gift for my parents I picked up for her.

Q. What is the last lame excuse that you made?

A. I don't have excuses only reasons for not doing something LOL. I can do this later...

Q. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through?

A. The better question is how many have you watched.  Let's see there is the Oreck Air Purifier (got one of those), The colon cleanse, the no money down, the Magic Bullet blender. I really liked the old school ones with the math program and the speed reading course.

Q. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock this morning?

A. I don't use an alarm clock, but I fell back asleep about 3 times.

Q. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice?

A. I'm not a yuppie. But I do drink Chai at borders on occasion.

Q. Are you a meat eater?

A. Yes, but would like to go sans meat

Q. What is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one sitting/outing/event?

A. I don't know. I was too hammered to see straight. Suffice it to say it was enough to give me the bed spins and leave me in the prayer position in front of the toilet for the rest of the evening.

Q. Are you comfortable with your drinking and eating habits?

A. I don't drink these days and I don't generally overeat so that would be.....yes.

Q. Do you enjoy candy and sweets?

A. Yes, but I'm not compulsive about them.

Q. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought, "lunch"?

A. This is a stupid question.  NO but I did think dinner? Seriously.... if I did would I admit to it. I vote to remove this question.

Q. How many credit cards do you own?

A. Enough...

Q. If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it?

A. Invest a large portion of it in something stable for now. Give some to charity. Pay off my parents house. Have a big ass party for all my fellow myspace friends.

Q. Would you rather be rich or famous?

A. I'd rather be significant and know that I've contributed something uniquely my own to make the world a better place.

Q. Would you accept a boring job if it meant that you would make megabucks?

A. I'd do the job just long enough to get a sizable bank account then retire. 

Q. What's one thing that you have done that you're most proud of?

A. I adapted a book into a short play that was performed for our department at work. Was told the sentiment expressed in the work was "exactly what are trying to do" here, four years later I was let go. 

Q. What's one thing you have done that your parents are most proud of?

A. I played Seymour in the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Both of my parents were very proud. I graduated from college with a BA in History. 

Q. What thing would you like to accomplish late in your life?

A. Become a Philanthropist. That means I have money to give away.

Q. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place?

A. Yes, sometimes I do. Especially if it's things I think I do very well.

Q. Have you ever entered a contest of skill, knowing you were of much higher skill than all the other competitors?

A. NO, not that I can remember. I once took a German course that I knew was below me..

Q. Have you ever cheated to get a better score?

A. Yes, I have. But not in the last 24 hours. Just joking...  

Q. What did you do today that you're proud of?

A. I wrote out a draft of my 2009 goals. I smiled because everyday is a good day.

Q. Not counting movies and such, how many people have you seen naked?

A. Had to know the sex question was coming

More than 1 and less than X.

Q. How many people have seen you naked.

A. More sex questions. More than a few but less than a google.

Q. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a person of your chosen sex during a normal conversation?

A. Not in conversation but definitely caught myself taking a peek. 

Q. What is your favorite body part of a person of your gender choice?

A. Eyes. The eyes are the window to soul so they say.  But I do like to stare at other parts too.

Q. Have you ever had sexual encounters (including kissing/making out) with multiple persons?

A. NO. Unless you include my multiple personalities. I've got quite a few..  

Q. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute?

A. NO.

Q. What item of your friends would you most want to have for your own?

A. Can't think of anything. Maybe more aptitude for math?

Q. Who would you want to go on "Trading Spaces" with?

A. No one. I can't stand that show.

Q. If you could be anyone who existed in the world, who would you be?

A. ME myself and I. There's only one.

Q. Have you ever been cheated on?

A. Yes, but who hasn't

Q. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own?

A.I wished I had more hair..

Q. What inborn trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself?

A. I wish I were more fearless and disciplined.

Q. What Deadly Sin...

  Q. Do you do the most often?

A.      Sloth

Q. Do you do the least often?

  A. Gluttony

Q. Is your favorite to act on?