And Then I Remembered this Blog…..Hypocrisy Averted

Lately life has been simple and relatively sans stress.  The kids are healthy, wife still tolerates me, work is moving along, and my 1999 Dodge Dakota continues to defy the grim reaper and stack up miles….good news right?  I thought so too, until I realized that stress forms the kernel of annoyance, and from that annoyance springs inspiration for this Blog. So no stress equals no Blog, but the Blog reduces stress, so no Blog equals more stress.  

This is not quit a complete circle of thought, more like a spiral. Head on it looks complete circle, add a little skew and you can see it degrades forever.  It took me some time and several failed Blog entries to grapple with this enigma but eventually I found inspiration in something positive. Then, “it” happened, and poof the stress monkey returned, and with it, annoyance and inspiration. Welcome to the Crazy Train Thought Spiral….please keep your appendages within the car at all times, and seat belts secure!

Sitting down to write I fired up the TV for background noise.  It landed on channel 23 which due to my ghetto cable is the documentary channel.  Not National Geographic, but gritty college student, art deco, trust fund documentaries.  Sometimes they are really compelling, other times infuriating. On screen was an attractive girl of college years walking in a throng of people, I looked up just as the off screen camera man called out to her and asked for an interview.  The girl smiled and said “sure.”  The antagonist, still off-screen, then began a series of questions which trapped this poor girl, it went something like this….

“Are you a Christian?” “Yeah” She smiles unaware the trap is already closing. “So why are you here tonight?” “To party with friends, and have some fun” Camera zooms out a bit, “Why did you dress like that?” She had on a tank top and blue jeans, nothing scandalous. “I look good. You have to look good around here, gotta see and be seen, giggle giggle” “Do you ever look lustfully at others?” “What?” She says perplexed. “Do you ever look at other people with lustful thoughts in your mind?” The girl lights up, beams a smile. “Hell yeah, I look at my boyfriend, he’s hot, I look at him! Have you seen him!” and she tries to pull him on camera.  The trap is sprung. “The bible says it’s a mortal sin to have lustful thoughts, you are committing adultery looking at others!” She kind of wrinkles her brow at the camera, and is about to say something when…”Do you think you will meet Jesus when you die?” Timidly, “Yeah.” “What makes you think that?” “Because I have a good heart. I’m a good person, I have morals and values and I was raised right.” Bam! You can almost hear the snap of the trap doors, the click in the antagonists head, Got her….He quotes some verses and says, “That’s pride, the bible says no one is good enough, you can always be better.  You have just admitted to two mortal sins, still think you’re a good Christian?” “You better change your ways! If you want to enter heaven!”

By this point I’m raging, screaming at the TV for the boyfriend to crunch the antagonist, or for the girl to walk away….nope, she looked devastated, so I turned it off.  I imagine the antagonist to be a kid, good looking enough to engage the girl in conversation, but too ugly for TV….I can see him now, dressed in Khakis and a blue button down, with a pin of some sort on his lapel. Completely socially awkward outside of the cloistered home schooled upbringing and marathon Sunday mega-church services where they have break out sessions to discuss the devil in Disney movies and how “Will and Grace” wrecked the American values system. I have seen this guy at airports.  He was on a mission to save the heathens, but started with ruining this random young woman’s evening….

Still seething but determined to write my positive blog, I notice a few emails. Like a double tap to the solar plexus after a head shot, the emails are religious based forwards, one starts out with a scripture quote, the other is a sappy something good happened after I prayed story.  I didn’t ask for this.  You can block unwanted spam, but an email from someone you know is another story.

The positive Blog is now dead; I have a mission….it’s time to get even!

My plan was to gather the non-Christian equivalent of the emails I received, hit reply to all, and laugh maniacally while wringing my hands.  Two can play at this game! 

Nope! Fail! Cue the crashing airplane sound.

It seems that there is a huge dearth (Is “Huge Dearth” an oxymoron?) in Googleable material that replicates what I received, built upon other religions.  Especially those that are non Judeo Christian…..Initially undaunted, I turned to the atheists.  While I found atheist literature, I ran headlong into the atheist conundrum…..If you write a book about what to believe, and use it to tell/ convince/ educate others, you are practicing a religion, which is kinda against what the atheist are standing for.

Boom, impact….no parachute.  The plan was doomed.

I then set out to write a scathing rebuke….insisting that while I believe religion is an excellent framework for discussing culture and society, and that I think a free give and take of ideas is essential….what I have experienced is not a free give and take.  People are not broadcasting their opinions, waiting for the response, jealously excited to digest those of other religions.  They are preaching, evangelicalizing, they have made up their minds and their hearts, ears, and eyes are closed to others.  I wanted to rave on about how I don’t broadcast my ideas unsolicited, and pry into their inbox. I had a great closing about how the world would be a better place if you had your beliefs and I had mine, and we could talk about them (when asked, over a bottle) without trying to force a dogma on each other…..just think of the lives that would be saved. I had this all worked out.

And then I remembered this Blog…..

Propagated on your page without you asking for it, the Blog is a billboard. Some stop to read it, others skip it, but you kinda end up reading it anyway as you speed along. The full weight of my hypocrisy was teetering over my head, I could see it there like Wile E. Coyote in the Looney Tunes.  If I hit send they had me.

So here we are…..rather than use email, I’m using the Blog, I would rather tease my adversaries on the same playing field than get squashed by my own apparently boundless hypocrisy.

Oddly it feels good to be bound up in the spiral….it gives me something to vent about. The Venturi Effect definitely applies to stress venting, and it helps one little blog exhaust more than the weight of the words alone.  Remember if you insist on proselytizing your opinions and beliefs you should in the least be willing to tolerate others when they return the favor, I have learned the lesson, you have been warned.

This concludes your ride on the Crazy Train Thought Spiral, please embark on the rest of your journey. 

K.I.S.S.

 “Is not a kiss the very autograph of love?” (Henry Finck) 

Sorry this isn’t that kind of Blog.  So emphatically, no, not now. I’m not gonna get all Prime Time FBI super smart Jeffersonian Bone Doctor on you. No denying that kind of kiss exists briefly in fleeting moments throughout life, and forever in Sandra Bullock movies. But today, right now, while you’re reading this, KISS is an acronym.  Keep It Simple ____. The beauty of this acronym is its scalability, a spectrum…..Keep It Simple (Sir, Silly, Stupid, Sh_thead) you get to pick your last S, the idea is the same the impact varies.  KISS is my new mantra.

Thirty minutes before we left from our 6^th and last family holiday overindulgence fest, the kids spotted snow.  Flakes sped through the flood light cast onto the garden and were magnified in size and impact as they slowly and steadily coated the summer picnic table.  The boys stood still for the first time all day and took it all in, waiting, anticipating, until it was too much.  With a half of an inch of snow on the ground, they erupted into a frantic wave of hands and feet, coats and gloves, floundering to be the first into enough clothing to escape the grandparents’ grasp and get into the snow.

It was astonishing to see kids who regularly take 10 minutes to tie a shoe, speed dress into extra layers and gladly don hats, without so much as a parental whimper.  Usually that kind of speed requires liberal use of the verbal cattle prod.  Not tonight, they flew out the door, ran into the spotlight, and stopped.  Transfixed by the light?  Nope.  Mouth open, Head inclined, Tongue out they chased the flakes trying to catch one as it fell.  It was comical to watch, because the same light that allowed them to see the flakes hurt their eyes causing them to squint exaggeratedly, while waving and bobbing their heads.  They looked like they were trying to do a Stevie Wonder impersonation, sans piano of course.

They saw me watching them and called through half frozen lips “Da oo gotaa ca oughide. Is nooo! (Dad you gotta come outside! It’s Snow!) Really, I was just as excited and for a few moments forgot the snowy 2 hour drive ahead of me, forgot about the unpacking of the car, the added cookie weight on my midriff, the pain in my back, forgot about life in general and spent time doing my own Stevie Wonder impersonation. (Catch that visual!) Snow has a distinct taste when you catch it directly, slightly bitter with just a hint of metallic overtones; you can almost taste the coal.  Life was good.

This is truly one of life’s simple pleasures.  The polar opposite of the first walk in the grass with bare feet come spring. When it comes to pleasure, simple is good. Problem is, simple is hard to attain.  Holidays do their best to wheedle us out of the simple plan into monumental “Plantzilla” like events that require matching ribbons, special plates and boisterous hellos. As parents and children all, we want our kids to have special memories, to enjoy their childhood, and I think we all fall into the “Plantzilla” trap, each event; each year has to be a step up from the previous.

Does it? 

Stop for a moment and think about your favorite childhood memories. Ok, were they complicated? Do you remember your 7^th birthday party because the plates matched the napkins and the cake, and your mom had M+M’s with your picture on them?  Or because you had a waterfight with ice water?  For me all my favorite memories are simple, hot dogs on a stick, snow fights, swimming in the creek.  You get my point.

2011 was a long year, and while we have things to look forward to in 2012, work, vacation, stuff to complicate.  I remain determined to Keep It Simple and remind myself it’s not so much how fancy the time is, but how much time you have.  Interestingly, the less time you spend making things complicated, the less stress you have and the more time you have to enjoy it.  Which is a bit of a worm turner to say the least. So while I currently rate myself at the far right of the keep it simple spectrum (see the list at the top of the page) my goal is to end the year someplace between Stupid and Silly.  

(Not sure if I intended the Right to be Sh_thead and the Left to be Sir, but now that I read it, and ponder the double political entendre, seems like a bit of a Freudian slip.)

Since you have to know I have no idea who Henry Finck is or was. I have to admit to digging up the quote online, which was kinda interesting journey in its own right. As gift dear readers, below are a few of the more interesting KISS quotes I found.  Thought you might find useful considering Valentine’s Day is around the corner.  Feel free to use them on a loved one….might help with another simple pleasure.

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.  ~Ingrid Bergman

A kiss that speaks volumes is seldom a first edition.  ~Clare Whiting

 I am in favor of preserving the French habit of kissing ladies' hands - after all, one must start somewhere.  ~Sacha Guitry

I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day.  I haven't had time for tobacco since.  ~Arturo Toscanini

http://www.quotegarden.com/kisses.html