Author Archives: treetrunkrick
Why…
For all the talk of changing gender roles why don’t we see more women with moustaches on television?
The toughest yards
For those who write, whether for business or pleasure, is there a congenital condition that drives them (us!) to put chalk to slate, pen to paper or finger to touchscreen?
Writing, in whatever form, with whatever instrument, is meditation to me.
I meditated upon the benefits of organised sports when I covered high school sports for the Huntsville Times newspaper in the mid-90s.
I meditated upon the benefits of technology when I wrote computer code, starting in the 1970s entering opcode for microcontroller systems built in my and my friend’s basement.
I meditated upon symbolic writing when I drew artwork or made stop-action animation in the past few years.
Meditation is still a perplexing activity to me, as strange a label as chemicals listed on a shampoo bottle (“I’m putting what in my hair?”).
Writing and meditation are interlinked and mysterious, as they should be.
I receive emails written by anonymous people, covering topics that are the same to me but in apparent opposition to each other, including ones from a group called the Presidential Prayer Team (“Mobilizing America to Pray”) and ones from a group called the Brights Network (“illuminating and elevating the naturalistic worldview”).
Is meditation simply one way amongst many to learn?
The older I get, the more I realise the less I know.
I want to believe I am personally wise but keep opening myself up to letting the wisdom of strangers and friends/family enlighten me, taking time every day to reflect upon my ignorance.
If meditation is how to handle ignorance, I am happy.
But I don’t want to take time to heal!
Of two types of love — love acted upon and love written/spoken about — which is most important?
This afternoon, as the musical group named Committed sang the song, “Mary did you know?,” the large stage production called the Living Christmas Tree displayed behind them, I silently cried in the dark, tears running down my cheeks, unable to stop myself from remembering, as I go through some important changes in my life, that my father is not here to enjoy them with me, with my mother, with my family, with friends…
I don’t want to miss my father.
I want him to be here and continue the healing process that he and I were going through together as fellow adults, no longer father and young son.
Of course you can see I do not always get what I want.
I get what I need.
I need love.
Love is provided to me by all of you, some of you more personally connected to me than others just as you are more personally connected to other people.
As a node in the net, as a set of states of energy spinning fractally from the Sun, I am here accomplishing many goals.
I accomplish them because I have the woman with whom I’ve shared the major ups and downs in my life, the woman I legally call my wife — my friend, my companion, my partner.
I accomplish them because I have friends, new and old, from Mike to David to Abi to Jenn to Gilley to Richard to Joe to Tony to Cary to Sandy to Tobin to Sherman.
I want to feel independent of hurt and loneliness, not needing my friends and family to lean on.
As I said, I do not always get what I want.
I get what I need.
I need love.
I need to lean upon you guys for love and support right now during this time in my life, as blessed as I am with abundant, clean water to drink, a house to sleep in, a safe neighbourhood to live in, plenty of food to eat, and good roads to travel.
Help me realise it’s okay to say I’m human.
In my subculture, we celebrate the time around winter solstice by saying Merry Christmas. I wish you well regardless of how you label the time when our planet is at this point in our orbit around the Sun, regardless of your assigning religious significance to such a celestial position or not.
Peace on Earth and good will toward all — that is as good a Christmas present as I can give you this year — may you give and receive the same to others!
Committed, the Living Christmas Tree, Live
Saturday afternoon architecture
Would you rather…
Would you rather pursue, be pursued, play hard to catch or ride the train to work?
Do you trust your computer’s hard drive is spinning for your sake and not the sake of some other entity to your detriment?
I want to wax poetic surfboards today but a storyline, especially new insight into a character, waits for my typing skills…
Designed on Mars, Manufactured on Earth
I am a humble person but not selfless.
How do I reach the point of selfless service for not only my species but also Earth-based lifeforms?
The answer, in this case, is easy — serve others before serving myself.
I reduce the size of the self, this “I,” until me is nearly pointless.
One way is to return to Lee and his friends on Mars in the future, leave the present behind, show where life will be when we live offworld.
That way, I avoid the temptation to talk about subjects of which I have limited knowledge and no expertise.
Tomorrow, my wife and I will attend a showing of the Living Christmas Tree, with special guest Committed, an a cappella group that won the Sing Off reality TV show a few seasons ago. Reminds me once again when my wife and I saw Boys II Men Take 6 in the same concert with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, going from a cappella to instrumental in the same evening on stage at UAB campus many years ago.
Xemit
Three sounds my ears-to-brain connection cannot easily distinguish from the other: the roaring sound of a jet flying high overhead, the sound of hard plastic wheels of a baby carrier my neighbour pushes down the street, the sound of the heat pump through the house walls.
Soon, I shall be back on course, having achieved an important goal, and can return my character Lee to his Martian settlements.
What is the difference between meditation and prayer?
My GP M.D. gave me a book titled The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
As I flip through it, I ask if the difference between meditation and prayer is like the difference between Ubuntu Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Since everything around me is the illusion I want it to be, then I get to choose to say what differentiates meditation from prayer, taking into consideration all the billions of folks like me in order to keep my illusion in relative peace with itself, more and more free of unnecessary conflict as the measured changes between sets of states of energy we call days pass by.
Understanding that the semipermeable membranes we call cultures filter how the changes pass from one set of billion to another.
In this meditative moment, I let contradictory thought patterns pass through each other with ease, able to watch them reverberate out of phase with each other secure in my beliefs that who I am is who I am and who you are is who you are, no need to feed natural levels of insecurity, happy to build up our healthy level of support for our comfort zones.
I used to fear not having the right answer for questions, quite possibly due to my school-age training when being a people pleaser meant wanting to provide the learned responses to questions taught to us by our authoritative, grownup teachers, and get immediate approval from them for my support of the teachers’ participation in the education system upon which they depended for their livelihood, mental health and social acceptance.
The path toward my eventual demise takes many detours.
Luckily, despite some of my unhealthy habits, I am, at 51+ years of age, healthier than I should be.
According to new guidelines, there seems to be no more reason for me to take the blood pressure and cholesterol lowering medication that had been prescribed for my former unhealthy habits.
If I paid for three months’ worth of the medicine and have used a month of it, should I go ahead and finish what I have, throw it away or give it to someone who might could use it (I love the colloquialism of that last phrase)?
Regardless, it is, as the whisper said, time for me to step up to the plate and be a man.
Tonight, I take an important step in that direction, having postponed this step because of a habit in my childhood of being ornery to keep a small distance between myself and my father’s stern shadow hanging over me, matching passive-aggressive response to passive-aggressive paternal discipline system.
What happens next is a series of decisions that divert/reduce childish/immature behaviour and encourage childlike wonder/amazement in accomplishing mature tasks.
All while focused on a major event 13286 days from now.
How will I include my sardonic/sarcastic/wry humour in this new direction I’m taking? Perhaps by saying it’s time I pass the zeitgeist humour making to others so I can spend more time on timeless issues in which humour is incorporated at a less obvious level, in the whole shape of society rather just in sarcastic throwaway headline news.
I don’t have a ready answer and I’m learning it’s okay to say I don’t really know what’s going to happen next.
I am secure in knowing uncertainty is a key component of my future.
Is that the difference between meditation and prayer?
Is meditation simply accepting the here-and-now as it is and prayer a request for a certain change to occur?
No, that’s not it. In both cases, gratefulness is accepting what is and being thankful for it. Meditation may be a request for peace in a troubled life.
How about if I just lean my head back and take a quick nap?
Smiles all around
Thanks to the happy faces at Taziki’s; Jennifer at Marshall’s; Paige at Pier One; friendly people at Coldstone Creamery; Molly and cook at Anaheim Chili; Dana, Anna, Jay, Josh and Kelly at DBA; Jenn at Madison Ballroom; Mandy, Patrick, Jessica and Jenn at Club Rush; Allen at Walgreens.
treetrunkdings 