Audio (MP3): 20200325 - like a fatalistic mist

3:46 am: God, I am so sick of being awake.

6:37 am: Just because you stop talking about things doesn’t mean everything’s okay.

An x-boss of mine and I would argue and argue about things. And we’d argue about the same kinds of things over and over again. Architecture, database modeling, how to reply to emails. Crap that was important for sure and some crap that wasn’t.

For the longest time I would back down because he was my boss and I worked for him, even if I felt that he was in the wrong. He wasn’t the healthiest tool in the shed. Not saying that I am either but I do try in earnest to balance on the spiritual beam.

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I shared this with Jimi earlier tonight. I sometimes question the musicianship of the modern era but when I hear tracks like this, I know it’s alive and well.

The simple acoustic riff, the harmonizing group vocals and piano… I love everything about it. If I could sing as he does I’d never talk.

And their off the street/don’t care/everyday slouching outfits and video shot phone style. And they pulled it off live.

I don’t relate with the lyrics in the here and now but there have been times when people hated me. And I didn’t understand why. And then I felt like I owed them an apology.

And of course my favorite lyric:

I know I can be dramatic.

#musicvideos

Day before yesterday I posted…

It seems as if there are almost too many things that we’ll never get over.

We just learn to live with them.

…and I’ve been thinking lots about that whole topic ever since.

Some of you may know this story and some may not.

I was married for a brief era in the mid 90s. My wife at the time was pregnant and she carried our baby the full nine months. When she was due we rushed to the hospital and then something went horribly wrong.

They took Kathy to another room and had me and her family over in some waiting area. I could hear the baby crying and crying. Medical staff was running back-and-forth. A lot of commotion for sure. And then it was over. The baby died 15 minutes or so after she was born.

The loss of a child, the unexpected death of a loved one, traumatic physical injury, those types of pains are things we never get over. They just become part of who we are. Our life stories shape us, define us. We are who we are because of what’s happened while we’ve been alive.

Every time I hear a story about a child dying it almost always makes me sad. It pulls at my heart strings because I can relate. I think about being in that hospital with Kathy in the middle of nowhere Iowa and the emotional earthquake that changed everything. And the aftershocks are still with me not because I haven’t prayed for acceptance or processed my grief. It’s because it’s part of my story now. There’s no getting over it. There was no quick solution for dealing with the flood of feelings that came afterward.

In related news I read once that our parents’ memories can be passed to us genetically. Not like vivid, detailed recollections but more subliminal feelings, maybe subtle intuitions. When I read the article I thought, “fuck… our experiences are literally fused into our DNA.”

My feelings of loss can even resurface unexpectedly when I’m having a great moment with Maggie. I always wanted to be a dad and my first chance was taken away from me. Abruptly. Am I going to get over that? No. Don’t ever ask someone to. Pain of that magnitude will stop when it’s done working you over. My part is just to process and carry on.

Sometimes life works out how we want and sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s never about the outcome. It’s about the experience. It’s the shifts in our soul that offer to make us bigger people. We learn how to love and support each other.

When we look back over our lifetimes they’ll be overflowing with memories. Some good, some great and some bad, and others horrible. That sudden death helped make me be the best dad that I can be for Maggie. I know that it has.

Don’t be quick to discard life defining moments. We need those experiences to build better lives in the here and now.

Keep living, peeps. Keep loving. No matter what. ❤️

#photos #maggie #advancedsoul #theleftovers

Audio (MP3): 20190604 - A fist full of padlocks

Video (MP4): 20190604 - A fist full of padlocks

I knew this guy once. Well, I still kinda sorta know him now but we’re not really friends. I’ll call him Tim even though his name wasn’t Tim.

Why am I thinking about Tim on this 4th of June? Because these awful hostilities would come out of his mouth. And sometimes they were directed at me and sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes I could tell their direction and sometimes I couldn’t.

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Audio (MP3): 20181010 - He was a nervous, jittery guy

Years ago I used to work with this client, aliased Jack, who would continually get on my nerves. He wasn’t a bad guy but every now and then he would email^[1] me a question, looking for an answer to something we’d been over and over again.

I would read his email and think, “Why the fuck are you asking me this? We’ve already talked about it. More than once. I got better shit to do than repeat myself. For the third time.”

I saw the email conversations as nothing but ridiculous.

No, the world’s not gonna blow up if you click that button. If it could blow up, my annoying little friend, you wouldn’t be able to see the button, let alone click the fucking button.

Obviously customer service doesn’t run in my blood. I like talking with my friends and family but I’m not a big fan of talking to people when I “have to.” By and large there’s little interest in me to hand out warm fuzzies to the clients. I like to write code at work, not give hugs.

So back to Jack.

I was thinking about him this morning because thoughts come and go, as they do. He was a nervous, jittery guy. Anxious pretty much every time I spoke with him. He would often get five steps ahead of me when we were reviewing his projects and I’d be like, “dude, slow down.” I would actually call him “dude” which is my polite way of saying “you moron.”

But time equals clarity and so I tend to think with those calls and emails what he was after was reassurance. He was looking to be comforted in someway if you will. Don’t make that weird because it’s not. But maybe he was homosexual, I don’t know.^[2]

I doubt if him wanting a professional “hug” was a front-burner thought. It’s not unusual for people to create little messes in their mind, get themselves all worked up and bent out of shape, and then lean on somebody they trust. Someone who’ll tell them it’s okay, that everything’s fine. Someone who’ll offer solutions to their problems.

And then life can be right for a moment.

I don’t know for sure that’s what was up with Jack but it’s what I’m inclined to think.

Being in touch with what other people are feeling or needing is not something that comes naturally to me. I’m a man, not an empath. I have to consciously pay attention to those around me or else I’ll be content in my own imaginary land of Hobbitses and/or Synthetics.

That will sometimes get me in trouble, too.

Here’s a quote by David F. Swink:

Having poor empathy skills can lead to serious consequences. It can lead to conflict born of misunderstanding. Without it we can feel lonely within a relationship. Lack of empathy can cause companies to make catastrophic blunders that alienate their customers or employees and it can even incite violence.^[3]

Hopefully I’ve never incited violence. I do have the occasion thought of hitting someone on the head with a hammer though.^[4]

Thinking about Jack in the here and now it’s easier to see where his antics were coming from, hindsight being 20/20 and all that. There’s nothing I can do about that relationship now but I can maybe carry a little extra empathy into my present day interactions with Jill, aliased of course.

Last paragraph: sometimes we make amends to someone by being a little bit nicer to the next guy.

1. He stopped calling me once he figured out I always sent him to voicemail. ↑

2. I was being silly just then. ↑

3. Source: I Don’t Feel Your Pain: Overcoming Roadblocks to Empathy. ↑

4. Again, I was being silly. ↑

#advancedsoul #relationships #diariespodcast

Audio (MP3): 20180829 - The 5 gallon bottle was empty

Today when I was driving to work I was thinking about the water cooler there. Yesterday morning when I got in the 5 gallon bottle was empty. At one point in my career I would’ve thought, “who do I have to blow to get somebody to change the water?”

Yesterday I didn’t think that at all. I just changed the water bottle so I could fill my glass.

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I was never a big fan of change. I hated it.

But once I got comfortable with the idea, and then started fully expecting it, when change did come along it wasn’t that bad. And in the here and now, most days I look forward to it.

Stagnation leads to a stale life.

#photos #flowers #advancedsoul

Audio (MP3): 20180725 - In this icecapade parade (or life became balanced)

Video (MP4): 20180725 - In this icecapade parade (or life became balanced)

Wherein fate is for people who have given up, part 3 of 3.

I’m going to jump right in because this story is already long enough in my head. And it’s taken far too long to write. I’ve grown weary of fate and all that it doesn’t have to offer. I’m ready for closure.

So there’s this lady I kinda work with, helping with a project of hers. I get the feeling she got a few dysfunctional nuances about her. Most likely some anger management issues stoked by a little low self-esteem.

My heart goes out to her every now and then, when I see her socially wobbling. My own self-esteem has been a struggle for more of my life than I’d like to admit. So sometimes I want to give her a shoulder to lean on until she can find her balance. Watching people wrestle with and within themselves is heartbreaking.

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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.

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Audio (MP3): 20180529 - Speaking of consequences and desperation

Alcoholics can related to this. I’m not sure if others will…

But one of the things that made it so easy for me to continue drinking was that I never had any real consequences. I never was in jail for more than a day or so, the bank never threatened to take my house. My jobs were always more than supportive and somehow I still have all my fingers and toes.

It’s not that I didn’t think about the consequences. I could think about them all day long, but if it were in my head that I was gonna drink, there was simply no stopping me. I didn’t resist at all. There was no debate, no trying to convince myself it was the wrong thing to do. I never tried to talk myself out of it. All of that internal yammering was too painful and willpower is nonexistent when I’m drinking. It was easier to just give in, give up, quit fighting a fight I’d never win.

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