Audio (MP3): 20180625 - Post mortem, Bourdain

The thing that I had a hard time wrapping my mind around with Anthony Bourdain’s suicide is that I kept thinking he was supposed to be above all of that. I wanted not to be surprised but I really was. I felt let down at first regardless of what I said.

I don’t have the kind of heroes or as many of them as I did when I was a teenager but Bourdain may have been the closest thing I had to a celebrity hero as a grown-up.

From the time he was a teenager, through his 20s and 30s, on into his 40s and 50s, and then even in his 60s I admired and respected his different phases and who he ended up as a human being.

With his death I kept thinking annoyed, “you don’t give up.”

When people lose their hope it can sometimes rub off on us. There’s nothing good enough out there to look forward to kinda thing. When the future’s not bright and the struggles of everyday are too much then what’s the point?

I never saw Bourdain as wondering what the point was though. Or running out of hope. But then again I only saw what made it into his TV shows.

Kinda sucks that real-life heroes are only humans, too.

#anthonybourdain #allislost #diariespodcast

#photos #flowers

I’m going to change my order name to George. As in Costanza.

#photos #seinfeld

Finally took my thermostat from the 1980s to the 2018s 💪

#photos #homeimprovement

Here Sara and I are attending the Live Art Series Presents: Project Bound Dance at Water Street Studios.

Also, that’s her “yeah right” face for when I say something that may have been possibly borderline ridiculous.

💃🕺 #photos #sara

Audio (MP3): 20180622 - Unless I'm a celebrity gardener

Not long ago I was reading an article wherein the author said that people aren’t going to care about what you’re doing. Like if I plant a wonderful garden people aren’t going to come from miles around to see it. They won’t throw flowers and shower me with attention.

Unless I’m a celebrity gardener, nobody will care.

How the author believed it did work was like this: if I care about you and your garden then you in turn will care about me and my garden. Of course there’s no black and white rule that you can apply to all people or all situations but I do think there’s a lot to be said for me caring about you and you reciprocating.

All the people that subscribe to my magazine, I’ve established relationships with them. Showed a true interest in them as human beings. And not because I want them to subscribe but because I legitimately care about them and their lives. Because people can smell a rat.

I don’t want to go off on a ratty tangent but I do know that my life is much bigger, much more meaningful when I get to experience another person’s sorrow and happiness. And as a bonus I get to have people care about me and my pursuits. Humans are special. Valuable creatures. If I want to be treated as such then I better do my part.

It’s not always easy to stop and listen to what people are saying when we have plates in the air spinning but what I’ve found is that being there for another’s triumphants becomes so much more fulfilling than experiencing mine own.

Okay, I’d like to think myself all that and a bag of chips but I’m not that spiritual. I don’t fully engage all the time with everyone else’s wins.

However, when I do life is pretty good. Another’s joy will lift up my soul and foster my own creativity. My struggles aren’t that impossible and my plates don’t spin nearly as fast.

And if the china falls, whatever.

#relationships #advancedsoul #diariespodcast

Prayer without meditation is like planting seeds and leaving the flowers to bloom alone.

#photos #flowers

#photos #desserts #allislost

How many of y’all believe in hypnotism?

Wait. How many have actually been bonafide hypotized?

#inothernews

Audio (MP3): 20180620 - Red faced robot

So I have this thing that I’ve been doing ever since I was a teenager. It’s not a healthy thing and I’ve struggled to let go of it ever since I stopped drinking.

Most of the time I don’t even realize I’m doing it until after I’ve already done it.

In the last several weeks I realized just how bad the behavior is. How it takes me out of the moment and distracts me from all that I have and all that’s truly important.

So I’ve paying attention in life and seek not to put myself in the situations that prompt my bad behavior in the first place. And I pray for graceful nudges to keep me on the right spiritual path. Me being who I am, it’s all too easy for me to wander off on a self-seeking tangent.

And I’m proud to say that I’ve done fairly well at not doing it.

What is it you may be wondering? That is another very good question but it doesn’t matter.

Anyways, what really sparked my attention to this behavior is that I had somebody do the same thing to me recently. After I’d been doing my best not to do it. And it didn’t feel good. It was a real eye-opener of just how bad it can be when you’re on the receiving end. Karma defined if you will.

And then in related news, what the real story is, is when Sara told me that she didn’t believe in karma.

The notion that karma is false hasn’t left since. Maybe karma is dogma, a made up law to keep people in line for fear of cosmic reprisal.

And then I thought that Sara’s most likely a spiritual revolutionary.

Karma keeps me out of the moment, keeps me waiting for yesterday’s falling dominoes to finally catch up and knock me down in the present. It feeds my suspicion and keeps me thinking that I don’t deserve nice things. Because of the bad things I’ve done.

Karma also gives us a reason “why” and typically that’s never important. To our internal struggles.

What is important is me being the best me that I can be. In the here and now.

#photos #robots #advancedsoul 🤔 #diariespodcast