Part of what I do with my time is to travel to Lawrence once a week to open up the local AA hall for a meeting. It’s early in the morning, and frequently, I’m the first one there. For several months, there’s been a fellow usually waiting at the door. This in itself isn’t so unusual—I’m usually rolling in right at the meeting time—but the guy, we’ll call him K. has been there nearly every week for several months.
A lot of homeless people come to this gathering, especially during the winter. The reasons are obvious. We have heat. We have coffee. Hell, we have chairs. It’s an improvement, generally speaking. Quite often during the late summer and fall months K. and myself were the only ones in attendance, so I got to ask some questions of the guy.
My first observation of K. was that he was at the least above average intelligence. That didn’t surprise me at all, and I consider it a given that most people who can’t deal with themselves or others as it relates to addiction have this quality. It further seemed to me that the fellow had the capacity to work, and he had the ability to understand a line of reasoning in a constructive way. The context of the situation must be considered here: Most homeless persons have failed one or more of these tests by this point, leading naturally to their homeless nature. Those cases are easily understood.
I started asking K. about the logistics of homelessness. This all started back when the weather was nice, and I was essentially sleeping outdoors myself. (On the screened-in porch. I do have screens. And a roof.) “So, K., tell me a little about your camp.”
K. went on to tell me how he’d hooked up a working plumbing system at their camp (pumping water from the Kansas River, an on-site purification system, and waste delivery back), rigged up a makeshift shelter with a metal roof out of scrap materials he’d found around town, and how he’d tapped into the power lines to provide the camp with electricity. Hell, it sounded as good as a home, to hear him tell it!
“But don’t you miss having a home?” I’d ask the fellow.
“Not really. I don’t know what else I’d have that I don’t already get.”
And so it was. I’d found a motherfucker who simply preferred being homeless to having a home. The guy certainly wasn’t criminally insane—he just didn’t need the hassle. So I thought for a very long time.
Over the holidays, K. went out and got himself all drunked up. He’s come back to the club since that event, and is again a regular at the morning meetings. And one day, K. started talking about the events that led up to his drunkenness. “I probably would have been all right if it weren’t for those Autobots,” he explained to those in attendance.
He went on to explain that the Autobots, when they delivered him to their ship, had very different views about drinking, drug abuse, and domestic violence than the other people gathered there in the room. And the Replicants—he couldn’t really even tell if they were Replicants at all, or Autobots in disguise, but they certainly had their own ship. He could probably handle the Autobots without the Replicants, or vice versa. But both at the same time seemed like a real bitch to K.
They talk to him all the time. The only way to shut them up is to do what they say. And he’s not making this shit up. Autobots and Replicants are as real to K. as the sunrise and sunset to everybody else staggering around this rock.
Okay. This makes sense now. Schizophrenia can be a real bitch. Sometimes a person needs a helpful reminder of the very simplest of things for which we can be grateful.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Answer to Why
Tim:
Perhaps some of what I was trying to convey was lost due to my inability to stop yelling on the phone. Sorry about all that, but I was just this morning asking myself a stupid question that started with “Why.”
“Why did I take that advice?” was my question just before you had called--and I still, just today, took unsolicited and poor counsel from someone who has less knowledge on the subject than myself. And so I was angry. At me.
It’s been my experience that 99% of all anger is self-directed. There are outward projections of anger all the time—but almost all of it is misdirected. I don’t discount that 1% of anger that is rightly directed toward injustice. That happens, and such is life. It’s an acceptable risk to the human experience.
“How do you get over that anger?” you asked. I think my advice was to stay the hell out of the situation. I should also add that you should never take any advice from a person who doesn’t know shit about the subject. It’s poor policy on a personal and professional level. No one wins—not even the person doling out piss-poor advice. Part of the problem here, obviously, is that the people giving out piss-poor advice aren’t usually aware they’re doing so. You’re fortunate here to be dealing with me, as I’m not an authority on any subject at all. I don’t know shit. I still don’t have anything like a handle on my temper, but I’m not sure that’s even an anger thing right now. Maybe that’s more a cabin fever thing.
Now, I really don’t even know your situation, but I think you know how I would handle/not handle it. Even the most optimistic outsider would assume rightly that my means of coping are pretty shitty on a personal level. I’m okay with that for the moment, but I’m working at it constantly. For good reason.
And, I’ve demonstrated through a very concrete example of my experience just today that resulted in listening to advice.
That being said, maybe we can move on to the “Why.”
As a word, “why” doesn’t fucking cut it for me any longer. There is almost never a right answer, or even if there is a right answer, it can nearly always be disputed. I DON’T FUCKING CARE WHY. If you wanted to know the number one reason I haven’t had a drink in a year and a half, I think I can tell you this: It wasn’t to impress myself. Or my friends and family. I’ve tried to do that for my entire life and been an utter failure at virtually everything I’ve touched. The main reason I’ve been able to stick to and accomplish any fucking goal in my life to this date was to ignore that one fucking word: WHY. Now, if you’re sitting there asking yourself, “Why does he think that,” or “Why is he telling me this,” just stop reading right now. Lost cause. That fucking word, “why” can almost always be substituted with “how” and the result is a concrete blueprint for a general understanding of almost any situation.
And you might notice I said “situation” above. I don’t have any problems. Problems are for mathematics, and they imply a unique solution. In life outside of the applied sciences and mathematical fields, a unique solution is rarely a qualifier for the questions one faces on a daily basis. Substitution of situation for problem in language and application on a daily basis is another coping skill—This is the reason I asked you to make a pro and con listing. The pro/con list helps to gain an understanding of any situation exactly as it relates to you in the moment. When I look at similar assessments in my life, I try to select the path that least shits all over those around me for whom I have some mutual concern. This works in business, and in life. It’s good policy.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that I think that you probably need a new dose of semantics. Then again, you should never take unsolicited advice.
Perhaps some of what I was trying to convey was lost due to my inability to stop yelling on the phone. Sorry about all that, but I was just this morning asking myself a stupid question that started with “Why.”
“Why did I take that advice?” was my question just before you had called--and I still, just today, took unsolicited and poor counsel from someone who has less knowledge on the subject than myself. And so I was angry. At me.
It’s been my experience that 99% of all anger is self-directed. There are outward projections of anger all the time—but almost all of it is misdirected. I don’t discount that 1% of anger that is rightly directed toward injustice. That happens, and such is life. It’s an acceptable risk to the human experience.
“How do you get over that anger?” you asked. I think my advice was to stay the hell out of the situation. I should also add that you should never take any advice from a person who doesn’t know shit about the subject. It’s poor policy on a personal and professional level. No one wins—not even the person doling out piss-poor advice. Part of the problem here, obviously, is that the people giving out piss-poor advice aren’t usually aware they’re doing so. You’re fortunate here to be dealing with me, as I’m not an authority on any subject at all. I don’t know shit. I still don’t have anything like a handle on my temper, but I’m not sure that’s even an anger thing right now. Maybe that’s more a cabin fever thing.
Now, I really don’t even know your situation, but I think you know how I would handle/not handle it. Even the most optimistic outsider would assume rightly that my means of coping are pretty shitty on a personal level. I’m okay with that for the moment, but I’m working at it constantly. For good reason.
And, I’ve demonstrated through a very concrete example of my experience just today that resulted in listening to advice.
That being said, maybe we can move on to the “Why.”
As a word, “why” doesn’t fucking cut it for me any longer. There is almost never a right answer, or even if there is a right answer, it can nearly always be disputed. I DON’T FUCKING CARE WHY. If you wanted to know the number one reason I haven’t had a drink in a year and a half, I think I can tell you this: It wasn’t to impress myself. Or my friends and family. I’ve tried to do that for my entire life and been an utter failure at virtually everything I’ve touched. The main reason I’ve been able to stick to and accomplish any fucking goal in my life to this date was to ignore that one fucking word: WHY. Now, if you’re sitting there asking yourself, “Why does he think that,” or “Why is he telling me this,” just stop reading right now. Lost cause. That fucking word, “why” can almost always be substituted with “how” and the result is a concrete blueprint for a general understanding of almost any situation.
And you might notice I said “situation” above. I don’t have any problems. Problems are for mathematics, and they imply a unique solution. In life outside of the applied sciences and mathematical fields, a unique solution is rarely a qualifier for the questions one faces on a daily basis. Substitution of situation for problem in language and application on a daily basis is another coping skill—This is the reason I asked you to make a pro and con listing. The pro/con list helps to gain an understanding of any situation exactly as it relates to you in the moment. When I look at similar assessments in my life, I try to select the path that least shits all over those around me for whom I have some mutual concern. This works in business, and in life. It’s good policy.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that I think that you probably need a new dose of semantics. Then again, you should never take unsolicited advice.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Drivel
There are few things in life less rewarding than reviewing a year’s worth of emails. I discovered one of those things this weekend, when for business, I was obligated to review a year’s worth of another person’s emails. I’d stayed out of the account for several months, because it’s not my personal business to make any judgments whatsoever what’s going on in another person’s life. In this case, it became my business, because the person I’m referencing here shares with me a business (read: moneymaking) interest.
A person tends to discover how massively stupid just about any behavior can appear with the passage of time. I have no idea whatsoever I was thinking about a year ago, even though my electronic messages conveyed I was thinking about something, and I sure didn’t bother censoring how it happened to come out. Cover-ups and deceptions aren’t my strong suit these days, and I’m still no good at biting my tongue. Consequently, my messages become briefer, although they are much more thought out these days. I’m not sure that’s helpful for anyone who has relations with me at all. I haven’t the slightest interest in talking about anything. I don’t have any real interests—at least those that would interest anyone else. Hell, I’m not even interested in what I’m writing right now. At all.
In the end, I don’t think that matters much.
It seems that development and progress should be the real goals in life, but right now, I just want to eliminate absolutely everything from my “to do” list. No one has created that list for me, thank god, but I still feel some obligation for its completion. I don’t even have a list written down anywhere. I’m aware of the tasks at hand, and their relative assignment of importance in my mind. Not that any of that is important either—it’s not. It’s just that the creation of a physical list would only add one more item to its itinerary—that of removing the completion of items from the list. A vicious cycle. Then I’d have to create a new list…but would I do that before I had the chance to put the creation of a new list on the fucking list??? A person could get stuck in a hell of a pattern here…
I need to shut up now. Someone might come back in a year and discover that a dipshit was keeping an electronic record of madness.
A person tends to discover how massively stupid just about any behavior can appear with the passage of time. I have no idea whatsoever I was thinking about a year ago, even though my electronic messages conveyed I was thinking about something, and I sure didn’t bother censoring how it happened to come out. Cover-ups and deceptions aren’t my strong suit these days, and I’m still no good at biting my tongue. Consequently, my messages become briefer, although they are much more thought out these days. I’m not sure that’s helpful for anyone who has relations with me at all. I haven’t the slightest interest in talking about anything. I don’t have any real interests—at least those that would interest anyone else. Hell, I’m not even interested in what I’m writing right now. At all.
In the end, I don’t think that matters much.
It seems that development and progress should be the real goals in life, but right now, I just want to eliminate absolutely everything from my “to do” list. No one has created that list for me, thank god, but I still feel some obligation for its completion. I don’t even have a list written down anywhere. I’m aware of the tasks at hand, and their relative assignment of importance in my mind. Not that any of that is important either—it’s not. It’s just that the creation of a physical list would only add one more item to its itinerary—that of removing the completion of items from the list. A vicious cycle. Then I’d have to create a new list…but would I do that before I had the chance to put the creation of a new list on the fucking list??? A person could get stuck in a hell of a pattern here…
I need to shut up now. Someone might come back in a year and discover that a dipshit was keeping an electronic record of madness.
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