Thursday, October 31, 2013

The Part Where I Turn 29 Again and have Amazing Insights on my Life Thus Far.


Hey there, what's up.  I just had a 30th second 29th birthday!  Look at me, I'm almost grown up!

Actually, a few weeks ago I got really sick and so my otherwise impeccable blogging, diet, and running regime took a major hit and I am now fat and saggy, and definitely feeling like I'm 29 again.  UUUUUUUgh.  Okay well anyway.  Here is my spouse and I, out at dinner where we enjoyed fine tastes and fine company.  Anyone else live in Montana?  We ate at the Silk Road, which is basically our go-to fine dining restaurant, at least when Scotty's Table is closed which it is on Mondays because apparently Scotty's Table thinks it's an ART MUSEUM.  That's how classy they are.  They're so classy they're closed on Mondays.




My part has meandered over to the far left of my face, just like when I was a toddler.  This either indicates that I'm still young like a joyous little fledgling, or it means my body is retreating towards death, and it'll be diapers again in just a few short months.  Well.  Maybe they make a cream for that.

So then we went bowling even though I haven't done that since I was in Girl Scouts, -brownie scouts?  Was that what that was called?  I hated those bitches.  That should have been my first clue that I wouldn't be hanging out with girls much later in life.  They just talked about cookies and hair and who was using all the colored construction paper!  Guess who it was?  It was me!  Because I had a vision, dammit, and not even a weird face or detrimental shyness was going to get in the way of that!  Which I suppose remains the case today, nearly three decades later.

We were pretty classy about it, though.  The bowling I mean.  Several days later, I still have The Big Lebowski theme music stuck in my head.  While we were playing, I was pretty much pretending that I was a semi-competent gangster do-gooder who could look awesome bowling, though none of that ended up being the case in this particular situation.  A nice lady came out from the bar and gave me a free shot of tequila to celebrate my birthday.  She said something about how it sucks to celebrate only with guys, which is what I was doing, and I didn't understand why I needed to take a shot about that.  But then, the Girl Scouts ruined me to women so... Oh also it's Montana.... so maybe she thought I was a multi-mannned whore.  Huh.  I hadn't thought of that.

Well anyway.  I am a whore for one man and one man only, and that man is the slickest looking bowler this side of the Mississippi, and not just because he's holding all the beer.




I mean also, look at that concentration.




So then we commenced with our awesome Big Lebowski-ness.






I have awesome shoes!




And awesome friends.








OH YEAH!  So the reason this blog post exists is because my Dad got me a new digital camera!!!  I am so freaking excitE you guys!  This will open a whole new avenue for what I can do here.




You will soon learn that I have a big hard-on for blurry photos.











Here's another, isn't it GLORIOUS?  I could desktop background the shit out of this shit.  (Don't tell my Mom I talk like that.)




In my nearly three decades on this earth, there are some things that I have learned about life.  I would like to briefly share those with you here.

1.  Shuck your pride and just say you're sorry when you've done something wrong.  Try not to do it again, and forgive when forgiveness is needed.  You will save yourself a lot of trouble and heartache if you just do it right off the bat.

2.  Don't get stuck in a habitual view of self pity and victimhood.  Fate brings what it will, and we may be dealt a terrible hand from time to time.  But choice is something you will always have, so if you're living a hell, then make the choice to stop doing what isn't working for you.

Oh yeah, and don't complain about things, that's just annoying to everyone else.

Unless you're Graham or myself, and you/I are gossiping about annoying habits of people we know.  Hmm?  No we don't do that.  And neither does anyone else......

3.  Don't hurt others, or at least try your best.  (but say you're sorry if you accidentally do!)

4.  Have make-up sex before the fight.  That way, by the time you bring it up for discussion, you're not irrational and angry about it.  You can just say, "oh hey I wanted to let you know that ______sort of bothered me. I know you didn't mean it that way, but just be mindful that it can come across as hurtful when you say it," and your lover will say, "oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I will do better," and then you can have second make-up sex to make sure the healing is complete.

I think I read that in the Bible.  There's like a whole section on healing.





5.  And have fun.  Not everything has to be as serious as you insist on making it.




Uuh, oh and yeah.  I believe I have referred to this blog/page as a web comic on occasion, but as you will see, I'm not entirely sure what it is yet.  It's going to be a series of things, highly visual in nature.  If you know me in real life, you will probably think less of me after reading my posts because I give an inaccurate portrayal of prudery and unwavering compassion for my fellow man.  I guess that implies that the alternative is that I am a multi-manned whore who hates a select group of planetary residents.  That's not accurate either.  As stated earlier, I am a whore for one man, (though that doesn't mean that he can whore me out) and I am rather fond of the company of most non-predatory and/or non-scaled animals.



And here's our band photo.





YAY!  Look at how much fun it can be to be 29 again!  You can do it too!  You can be anything you want to be.


Thursday, October 24, 2013

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

The Worst Case Scenario Game

I have this thing sometimes, where I assume the worst will happen, even if it is less likely to occur than something positive. This might classify me as being a negative person. Contrary to the charges, I actually believe myself to be a positive person, even in the face of unwavering impossibility. Why is that you ask? Well let me explain.

I believe, deep down, and I think as a desperate response to the condition of human awareness, that everything will ultimately turn out all right. Even if it didn't turn out as expected, we can persevere through our new found realities and find a way to make it all worth while. Why would we bother doing all that? Because well, what else are we going to do? Get angry, get an ulcer, get cancer, and die in excruciating horrible pain? NO WAY, that would be terrible. 

Of course that's pretty easy to say. It has occurred to me that there might be a reason for why I always jump to the most negative scenario, especially when faced with a particularly stressful or anger-inducing circumstance where my ability to find a less catastrophic range of possibilities has been compromised.

For one thing, I live in America.
Well all right there's more to that statement. I live in America, which is a christian nation for the most part. And that's fine, I'm not here to attack anybody, I would just like to point out the psychological phenomenon that goes along with being raised christian in a christian nation. This is that, as a wee little one who doesn't inherently know right from wrong, good or evil, we learn about this old man in the sky who is watching everything we do and think to judge whether we deserve eternal hellfire or a big'ol spiritual hug.

I want to clarify that this is a lesson and a culture that develops an emphasis on judgment of your goodness, directly concerning you, and not the collective community. Therefore, God is watching YOU. God is concerned about YOU. Do YOU legitimately belong in this church? Are YOU worthy of receiving God's grace? That's an awful lot of emphasis on YOU. If you're interested in the alternative cultural or spiritual outlook, look into a region called Asia.

 So anyway.
Now I grew up in one of the original thirteen colonies, and so in addition to living in the United States, I also absorbed much of the Puritan/Quaker/Mennonite kinds of ideologies which remain prevalent in the area today. I always thought of it as a very closed, tight-lipped sort of culture, where everyone is delicately maneuvering around their various embarrassments, lest they be judged by their neighbors or by God. This is opposed to say, the wild west where everyone has a gun and loves shooting everything they see, even if it's not moving. Well you know, you've got to make sure it's dead.

All of this ultimately shaped my personality of course. Since I was so special to deserve such intense scrutiny from my God and my community, I took it to be fairly universal. EVERYONE was ALWAYS looking at me, judging me, and I'm the kind of person that really doesn't appreciate that sort of attention and so from early on I began to neurotically analyze my every move and thought lest I be judged. For example, I became a terrible student. I couldn't ever just straight up test my knowledge. I had to freak out about what would happen if I did poorly, or even mediocre, which essentially thrust a tranquilizer into my brain and I did even worse than I feared I would do.








 
I can't place blame solely on my culture though.  I think a lot of it comes from what you choose to surround yourself with too. The kinds of people you talk to, or what you talk about,
 

the things you're drawn to for entertainment or what you peripherally absorb day to day,



 


or what you choose to fret about, though it may be beyond your control.




As we grow up, there are things we learn that work for us and things that don't, and that's really what continues to shape us into adulthood. You don't want to get stuck blaming your lack of forward momentum on excuses from the past. Those things are OVER! Thank god, right? The present is the time to see what's here and what's on its way to you now, every day.

So I've grown up to be very skilled at expecting the worst (which by the way requires a lot of imagination which enhances cognitive function so it's not all bad.) And I've found that this tends to make my life miserable on certain occasions, like when I'm trying to act like an adult. Particularly if I'm nervous about having to do something, the worst case scenarios get out of control and I'm nearly crippled with terror. 

So I've implemented a new game for myself. It's very simple, and it goes like this:

If you insist on going down that road of all the virulent possibilities, then you have to come back in the opposite direction. All the WAY in the opposite direction. So, the more negative the scenario, the more positive the other direction has to go. Likewise the more improbable the negative, the more improbable the positive. Or, if you really see no positive outcome, then there isn't a negative outcome either! It's a game of imagination and probability and will grow your brain nice and big.

Here's a pretty common scenario. You need to give a public speech, be it for your job, class, product promotion, whatever. You arrive appearing like this:

 

but are suddenly struck with fear and doubt, 

 
and perhaps imagine this will happen:

 
So, either it does, and you lose your job, your chance at a promotion, a grade, respect of your comrades......
Well see that's no good. So let's start over.

You're preparing to give a speech and you're a
 

and despite your nervousness, you are strong enough to muscle through it and shine.



 



And they're blown away! They love you, they're so impressed! You got a job offer! You got promoted! You got a book deal! Who knows! Holy cow!

 
Sometimes though, you're just in a funk, and you're afraid just to be afraid. You brain is bored, or you're feeling ultimately hopeless or whatever self-destructive concoction your mind has come up with. This is when you get the plague of what-ifs that begin to prevent you from doing the things you want to do.

For example, you think, “I'd like to go take a walk in the forest by myself and get some me time and clear my thoughts BUT WHAT IF A MOUNTAIN LION ATTACKS ME and rips out my throat and eats my intestines while I lie there watching him and I defecate all over myself and then that's how they will find me and that will be my legacy, that's how I'll be remembered because I died in a horrible way.”


 
By the way, worrying about everything causes the body to self-destruct, which is another horrible way to die.
I mean in the clinical sense.

But what-ifs can have great outcomes too! What if you went for a walk in the forest to have some you time and clear your thoughts but found that you weren't alone at all? You encounter a family of mountain lions and because of your innate sense with animals you can communicate with them that you're friendly and they're friendly, and they invite you over for some nice dead rabbit. You become great friends, you're the godfather of their little mewling and send money when he has school fundraisers, and visit over the holidays, and come out for their community mountain lion barn raisings! …..I wonder what that entails in mountain lion terms exactly.....


 


What if you're always afraid of flying because you think there's a very real possibility that the plane will crash? What if it's going down and you can't get to the exit and you're burning alive and the prominent sound is the desperate screams of the passengers and you lose your phone so in the last precious few seconds of your life, which you would have used to call your beloved to tell them that you love them, instead that opportunity is robbed of you and you will die alone and in pain.



 


But what if you get on the plane, even if you are afraid that it may crash, and by pure coincidence you're seated next to your greatest living idol? The two of you get to talking and you really hit it off. They are totally intrigued by your personality and skills and invite you to work with them on a project. You gain unseen success in your field, thanks to their advice and your hard earned talents and devotion towards achievement. You become close friends and spend Christmases together, you call each other for child rearing advice, and are life long companions who reach the highest tier of your abilities and dreams. Your life is made and after a long, successful, and happy life, you die feeling fulfilled and accomplished.



 


They say that you're defined by what you do, not what you think. Perhaps some of it comes down to what you think, or maybe that's where it starts.




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