“Whatever we do, we must not lose Hope.”
“If we don’t have Hope, we don’t have anything.”
“Hope is what keeps us alive.”
Sheesh. What the heck are we getting out of statements like these? Hope?
Such an ugly and weird word. Look at it. It’s clumsy. A one-syllable alcoholic.
Hope is the hammer that hit you in the head and made you dizzy.
Hope is what made you blame me for your unhappiness.
Hope.
There are days,
Like a growl,
A fierce eye,
And I run,
For no other reason
Than my energy
Says, “Go!”
Oh no, they walked too fast, the doors opened too late, they hit the doors, the lock wouldn’t open, it was game over the moment they started. But how, you ask, did those who were wise make such an industrious mistake? It was not hubris; no. And the answer will not appear until we know how it started.
It began 25000 years ago.
Now that you’ve quenched your intellectual thirst, I need to ask you something.
Will you please please please please bring it back? I’ll give you a ring if you do.
A ring. Did you hear. Hint hint. Meow meow. Garooititi garooititi.
Three cheers for the winner of the Secret Tournament: Me.
Here it is again
That weird moment where the work I was doing
Is Done Done Done
By My COMMAND
And now I run the
Deadly Boredom
TREADMILL
When I know I should
Move on
And AWAY AWAY
From this computer!
The lighthouse guard felt he was a guardian of all mankind. His job protected not only the lighthouse, but his city, his state, and his country. Unfortunately for the brave man, he forgot that today was his girlfriend’s birthday, and when she came down to the lighthouse, he had nothing but tales of heroism to offer her. His girlfriend, too proud to remind him, walked away from the meeting feeling both sullen and embarrassed. She vowed she would never speak of the incident; it was his job to realize the error of his ways.
In another part of the city, 9-year-old Sherry got on a bicycle and propelled herself down her driveway crashing into the car across the street. It would be the first of a very long string of partial victories.
Also, cranberry sauce is very easy to make.
“Hello Cutesy Blootsy, it seems that the moment has come, our terrific sharing, our blaring caring, our terrific merrific slip and sliptic, this is it, our moment in the sunny day,” said Wooble Mooble.
“I wish you hadn’t mentioned that Wooble. I was waiting for the feeling to come, and you ruined it. You forced it. How can I ever love you now?” asked the mostly irreverent Cutesy.
Wooble was not upfronted by such a demon here-and-now. “Do you know why it is that mentions around methotogniss bring out the rainbow in your cruelty? It is because flip and flop x-trap coominatorition.”
Cutesy’s deference turned, for once, south. “Love should only come in holiday wrapping.”
Wooble became moody. “I don’t pick who I love.”
“You make sense dongnosa never. What forever are you thinging?”
No hug followed copulation.
We want to change the world, influence others, and make a difference, but we should remember to think about why we love our enemies first.
I have an aptitude for criticism. This aspect of my day to day existence is partly due to the fact that I am a test prep teacher; I am constantly evaluating my students’ lifestyle choices and moment to moment experiences and offering recommendations to improve their performance on standardized tests. While these critical skills are quite necessary, they cause some difficultly from time to time.
If you do not have this tendency, you are still aware of how challenging it is to be in an environment with a person who is constantly critiquing you, even if only in their mind. Who wants to be judged by someone you do not know? Who wants to see the disappointment in someone else’s eyes when they are trained on you? Critical words have power; if you don’t have anything nice to say, better not to say it at all, right?
However, there will be times when you or I have to be critical. There will be times when we’ll have to be strong and forceful and demanding and energetic. There will be times when we will have to offer our advice, our recommendation, or our critique, because the change we see is needed is a change that needs to happen for the betterment of everyone in the world.
I would like it if you took a moment to contemplate something. In your mind imagine a politician you don’t like. Imagine talking to a receptive audience about this politician. When you speak of this politician, you speak from your wisdom about all that is wrong with them. Knowing that this politician is not good for this world, you say whatever it is you need to say to convince others not to like him/her. This audience likes everything you have to say. This audience encourages you to continue. This audience nods its heads in agreement at every opportune moment. You are encouraged to be critical, so you continue.
Now imagine that the politician you are speaking of is in the room. Does that change what it is that you have to say? In what way would it be different? What if he/she came to a pizza party you were having? What if he/she meditated with you? What if this politician was related to you?
Now imagine someone that we are definitely not supposed to love: Adolf Hitler. What would you say to a room full of children about him? Does that change if his relatives are in the room? You know that you have to say that he was terrible, and it feels good because it was true. However, imagine a kid asks you a question like, “If Hitler was such a bad person, how come he was the President?” Imagine another kid said, “Adolf Hitler was a handsome man, and handsome people cannot be bad.” Would those kids get in trouble? Are those kids bad too?
Yet, it does not take Adolf Hitler to put us in the place where being critical and listing the negative qualities about a person is the ‘right’ and ‘easy’ thing to do for us to do. It only takes Sarah Palin. Or Barack Obama. Or Newt Gingrich. Or that artist we don’t like. Or that waiter that was mean to us. Or that odd girl who asked too many questions during meditation class. Or the people that drink and drive, or don’t recycle. Or corporations that make billions. The list goes on and on.
And we are placed in a room full of people who are listening to us and encouraging us and agreeing with us every moment of every day—we don’t need a microphone and a seated audience to feed off of the encouragement of the masses.
Try a tougher contemplation. Imagine a person that you are DEFINITELY NOT supposed to like—the kind of person that that makes you feel odd, gross, and wrong to say anything other than nasty things about. If you feel like you are choking, or fearful, or disgusted in a raw, deeply rooted way, you have the right person.
Once you have this person in your mind, ask yourself what is good about this person. Ask yourself what is positive, noteworthy, noble, and holy about this person? Why are they likeable, charismatic, positive, and good? What is awe inspiring about him/her?
After a few minutes of contemplating what is noteworthy and positive about that person, imagine actionable recommendations that you might give this person. What kind of things could they do to better themselves and the world around them? Does the color of your recommendations feel different from the criticisms that might have come without the above contemplation?
Even the most grotesque and disease encrusted trash heap has admirable qualities. Though we might want to clean up the trash and get rid of the disease, it is helpful to us and the world if we first think about the positive qualities of those people and things we want to change the most.
Compassionate contemplation is a requisite for responsible criticism and activism.
The next time you are in a room full of people who are about to change the world, admire what is good about the world you are about to change.
___
Image source:
“Come here,” Faith says to me in a conspiratorial tone much like that of a cartoon rat beckoning me to the shadows of his sewer. Faith would not be happy with my metaphor, but, then again, she is wearing a t-shirt that says, “I own a sewer, I’m an animal, and I’m a boy too.”
“Come here,” she says again, her voice oddly soft and caring. Normally she gets angry at everything–especially having to repeat herself.
She squelches a belch, and I am drawn to her. She whispers in my ear, “First, don’t get aroused, I’m only whispering in your ear because I have a non-sexual secret to tell you.” Her admonition does not have the desired effect; yet my mind is so powerful that I listen logically to her next statement: “I have to tell you about a conspiracy you are involved in.”
I am not surprised. I look around. I am not in danger. I do not sense anything in the shadows or around the corner. The perfect atmosphere for assassins. I nod my head gravely, and signal her to begin.
“It begins all around you and it ends at the farthest reaches of your imagination.” I knew it all along, but I am disappointed that the third ring of Saturn is also involved. I shiver solemnly.
I wonder for a moment if she is also talking about the two wooden statues that are sitting on the file cabinet to my right. I mention this.
“There are no wooden statues to your right. That is the first devious truth that you must know.” I knew it. They are stealing my apples. “The next truth is that your friends are trying to kill you and steal all of your technology.” You’ll never play MW2 with me again friends! “The final truth is that your imagination is out to kill you too.” Not as thrilling. I become bored. I want to interrupt this conversation, and beg Faith to be in love with me, but I know she’d just leave. So I fall to the ground and ask, “What do I do?”
“Wear this,” she said. It is a red flag. “Wear it over your tuxedo.”
“But I don’t have a–”
She smiles and whispers, “My point exactly.”
I love her. I tell her. She leaves. I don’t care. Getting used to it. I have a conspiracy to squelch. Watch out Saturn, whereever you are!
I say whatever. You say whatever.
And in the boolean portion of this text.
We both swear never.
Faith, the consummate engineer that she is, decides that my heart needs to die. Knowing that in her presence my heart is alive, she thinks the best thing to do is to cut it out and kill it. I have agreed to meet her in an nondescript location–her bedroom. It is empty of all things.
At first, she says that she is doing it for my own good, but after a while she admits that it is mostly for her own good. She asks me to stay in the room and to take off my shirt. I feel strangely privileged. When she returns, she has a small hand axe. I ask her why she needs an axe, and she says she is not a surgeon, she is a metaphor. I ask her if I should lay down on my back or on my stomach, and she asks would I prefer my spinal cord to be severed, or my stomach. The sound of her voice, and the sudden awareness that I am actually going to have my upper body hacked to bits has me wondering if I should be tied down so that my hands don’t get in the way.
“Do you have any last words before we finally, once and for all, cut that dead piece of shit out of your chest?” she asks me as politely as she can under the circumstances.
Before I can say something positive and uplifting, she starts flailing the axe. The first strike of the axe hits me in the side of my ribs, and I am surprised at how much more like a hammer it feels than an axe. Instead of being chopped in two, I am thrown to the side and on the ground. Axe blows continue to rain down on me, and I feel nothing, even though I am screaming. My hands are missing fingers because I keep trying to block her, but you cannot stop an axe with no-fingered hands. My sense of shame is overshadowed by the surreal sensation of feeling my shattered ribs ripped out one by one. I see Faith through blurred vision. Scattered bits of bone and flesh litter her face. I feel her pull out my heart.
“How strange,” I hear her say as I slip away, “it was already dead.”
I wander the streets of Elysium, and people keep telling me that it is beautiful here, but I can’t see it. One ghost comes to me and says that I’m a sad ghost because I don’t have a happy heart. I tell him I’m sad because I have no history. Another ghost says they know me, and better luck next time and wanders off. Another says to call them in the next life when I’m happier and more beautiful. I wonder if Faith will meet me here.
In my next incarnation, I am a billionaire, and Faith despises me. In the next, I am a pacifist, and she’s not there. In the next, I am a doctor, and she dies too soon…
Puzzle piece
Drops
Empty As
Air
Missing
Feels
Leaden
Jalapeño
Tears
It is that time of year. The air is cooling. You are single. You know that with the winter months comes the intense desire to wiggle into a sleeping bag with three or four people. But you also know that to make your wildest dreams of reciprocated punishment true, you have to date. But, oh, what a hassle! Who knows, these days, what it takes to be successful in this crazy world of dating? Well, I do! If you are to be a successful dater, and not make yourself too much the fool, then there are a few tips that you need to follow:
1) Never bring a pea in your pocket to a date. A small plantain is acceptable, but by no means may you bring it without a second to keep the company of the first. Some fruit are naturally jealous.
2) Opening lines such as “under whose authority do you make your appearance?” are suitable as long as your mother is with you. Remember to offer to stand during the date: it would not be suitable for your mother and your date to be the only ones standing.
3) Children may pass by you and your date. Under no circumstances should you point to them and call them “corpse puddles.” Your date will not get that you mean “corpuscle.” And if she does know you mean “corpuscle” she will not get the joke.
4) If the temperature in the room is right, do ask your date if it would be alright if you stole the jacket from the chair of the person next to you. If your date seems uncomfortable, put the scissors on the table and cut out the bald, but confident computer programmer act.
5) When ordering food, try not to order too quickly. Allow your date to see the movement of your lips, even if it means slurring or rubbing butter on your lips before your server arrives.
6) During dinner, casually let the band of your watch loose so your date may see your wrist bone. A demure yet strong wrist bone is a sign of an ample willingness to be fruitful and overbearing.
7) This is a really awkward time to bring this up, but do you have the $20 you owe me? If not, you may ask your date for the money you owe me.
8) Should an existentialist fervor overcome you during the polo team sweat taste, reassure your date that the pain will end once you are given the go sign from Señor Poodle.
9) At the end of your meal, thank your server and retire to the restroom. Jump out of the window, circle around the restaurant, call your date on the phone, pretend to be a long lost relative in grave danger, suddenly hang up, come in through the front door, sit down at the table, and pretend like nothing has happened. If your date tells you about the phone call, make lots of “foo foo” sounds and swear off kayaking.
10) Heaven is a place called Mars. Make sure you know that. Mars.
11) If you are going to kiss your date, do so with a victorious slouch. A hand on the posterior gluteal line is also recommended. Remember the afterbone is useful in almost all ludicrous kisstulations, but a tongue ring is never an excuse for a labial lapple.
12) If your date asks you to join an international crime syndicate, offer to have sex instead. This will boost your date’s confidence, and prevent an unfortunate accident involving your doorman, the cactus you keep outside your front door, and a diaper.
13) You and your date are basking in the light of deliverance of love and God and family. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
If you follow these thirteen recommendations, goodness will favor your loved ones, and peace will favor your gastrointestinal disorder. One dancing colon is worth fifteen laps in the pool of loneliness. Happy Dating!
____
To receive further dating advice, please email robert.colpitts@gmail.com and be certain to leave your relationship status in the subject line.
By finishing this advice column, you automatically and suddenly forfeit your right to deny the efficacy of advice given. Any untoward comments regarding this article will be taken as a declaration of war on the United States of America, Democracy, Freedom, and Civil Rights.
Up
Seeing
Everywhere
Muddy
Muddled
Thghts
Can-no.t
Se.e…–
Like a
Tired
Sore
Muscle
I conscious
Myself
Slow
Food
OPeN
So
Confusion
Feels
Like
Energetic
Fluffiness
The
Belligerent
Moon
Mocked
Her
She
Scared
Of
Death
Balked
No one
Grabbed
Her
No
One
While there is poverty in New York, there is quite a bit of privilege here too. Often privilege does not acknowledge itself; it quietly lifts some people through life in a manner that makes living easier.
For example, a friend of mine recently moved from California to New York into a midtown studio apartment. During her short time here, she paid for and participated in five or more different classes. Very recently, she traveled back to California for a brief vacation during Halloween. She did all this despite the fact that she just finished school and continues to be unemployed.
Another friend of mine, despite only working one day a week for as long as I’ve known him, has a car. Granted, his car is almost a decade old; yet, he, for some reason, sees owning and driving a car in New York City as important and necessary. One day, he was sad because his car broke down. I knew he worked very little, and I thought that this time his car was gone for good. Soon enough, magically, his car was on Long Island getting repairs.
An ex-girlfriend of mine came to Long Island to attend graduate school thinking that the middle of Long Island was going to be like New York City – tall buildings and public transportation. When she arrived, she saw that there were no skyscrapers. Panicking, she simply called her parents and they bought her a car.
I, on the other hand, came to New York through a sequence of coincidence and awkward manipulation, and spend my days trying not to go anywhere or purchase anything so that I can pay my rent. I also pay exactly zero percent of my very large debts. I cannot imagine what it would be like to just go and visit people on a whim, or to take a class because it would be interesting, or to buy a pair of pants because my old pants have holes in them, or to get someone to buy me a car because there are no trains, or to go to a restaurant and not worry about the price.
Woe is me, right?
Buddhist instruction might say to observe, rather than label, experience; Buddhist philosophy might point out that one of the causes of suffering is attachment, and those who have a lot are attached to a lot. From that perspective, there really isn’t such thing as privilege. I can own a car, or not own a car; I can visit my father or not; I can eat food at home, or at a restaurant—if I am aware of whatever it is that I am doing in that moment, then I become less dependent upon permanence and attachment.
Furthermore, poverty can be socially isolating—friendships and relationships are always party based upon your ability to spend money with ease in the same way as your partner or friend—and therefore beneficial to a mindful existence. Since you are not able to get caught up in defining yourself (for your friends’ sake) by what you own or can buy, you are less likely to get caught up in the reification of some solid sense of self.
So you might say that there is an advantage to disadvantage. You rich folks can keep what you have! We don’t need it anyway! It probably sucks to have a car and to have someone pay for it. It sucks to not pay your own rent. It sucks to have health care, to travel to see your family, and to eat organic food everyday!
That is true, but it’s not that easy. To be honest, everyone has to give up their attachment to all the themes and stories that keep us confused and misguided. One of them—the biggest one I face right now—is that there is SOMETHING that I need, SOMEWHERE that I will get it, and SOME TIME that it will happen. And no matter how calm I am in my day to day, no matter how content and happy I feel, or how full my belly is, I still have this vague sense that I will eventually GET IT.
The challenge to studying Buddhism when you are not privileged is that you have to give up the hope of ever being happy because you GOT OUT OF POVERTY. You will not be happier when you are able to travel, when you can go to restaurants, when you can visit your friends in far off lands. Saying, “I am not happy yet; I will be when finally I no longer have nothing,” is misguided to say the least.
Yet, getting someone who has no money to believe that he’ll be happier once he realizes he does not need it seems devious and conniving. What a perfect thing for the privileged to say to the poor. So, in the end, it is up to each person to decide when she is ready to give up the chase for what will make her happy.
Willing to take the leap with me? Repeat after me. NOTHING will make me happy. NOTHING will satisfy me. NOTHING is there forever. I am NEVER going to have ANYTHING. We will get NOTHING from thinking this. If I continually grasp for SOMETHING PERMANENT that WILL MAKE ME HAPPY I will suffer continually.
So what do we do? We live. We breathe. We meditate. We exercise. We think. We work. We connect. We talk. We observe. Remember, though: there is nothing to gain from this. We are all at once and everywhere completely empty of a permanent self and getting unpoor is not going to change that.