The Case Of My Missing Jeans

I can’t seem to understand it. No matter how hard I try, I am unable to make sense of it. I’ve looked everywhere. I have pulled every piece of clothing out of my closet. I have pulled all of the pounds and pounds of tangled clothing from my wife’s closet. I have looked in the various storage closets in my house. I have pulled out the washer and dryer so I could see if anything was behind them. I have even gone so far as to clean out my cluttered and cobweb infested garage, just in case I somehow managed to leave my jeans in there.

Before I fall asleep at night, I lay wide awake feeling the weight of the backside of my head on the pillow. I can not seem to stop thinking about this. The thoughts loop around and around in my mind. Where could the jeans have gone? When did I last wear them? Is it possible that I could have left them someplace else even though I rarely ever take off my pants when I am not at home? Is it possible that jeans or any kind of pant for that matter can just get up and walk away, all on their own? There are an infinity of possibilities that the limited human brain is incapable comprehending, maybe it is possible for jeans to just get up and walk away? Did I mistreat my jeans? Did I do anything that would make my jeans want to leave me? This goes on for what feels like hours before I am able to stop thinking and get some sleep.

One of the reasons why the disappearance of my jeans is so upsetting to me is that they were my favorite. I spent over $150.00 dollars on them because from the beginning I knew they were exceptional quality. The material of the jeans was so soft, stretchy and the cut was slim. They made me feel like I still had some sex appeal when I wore them. Jeans have a way of making the person feel more true to themselves and when I wore these jeans I felt deserving. Maybe this is the reason why I wore these jeans several times I week. It was one of the few things that I owned that I felt like I deserved. It was as if our paths were meant to run right into one another. So why would these jeans just go away?

Maybe it is a very real possibility that they did not go away at all. Instead, maybe someone else took them. Maybe my jeans were stolen. Anything is possible in this day and age that I am living in. People break into other people’s homes all the time. No one feels like they need to deserve anything anymore. It is a free-for- all and whatever a person can get there hands on, whether they deserve it or not, becomes their property. Maybe jean theft is on the rise? I have not read about or heard any reports of jean theft but maybe these crimes go unreported, just as I have not reported the disappearance of my jeans to the police. It is an embarrassing situation to report the disappearance of your favorite pair of jeans, so maybe everyone just remains silent. But it still does not discount the very real possibility that there could be a thief on the loose who stole my jeans.

But maybe I am being paranoid. Maybe this paranoia is a result of my previous over usage of marijuana. A vestige of that drugged out time in my life that still remains in the here and now. Just as it is possible that my wife is not having an affair or that my friends do not talk poorly about me when I am not around, it is equally as possible that my jeans were not stolen. There is the very real possibility that my jeans just got and left me. Maybe they felt like they were worn too much. Maybe they got tired of being stretched around. Maybe they did not like the laundry detergent that I washed them in. Maybe the drier was just too hot. Who knows. I am tired with keeping myself up so late, night after night thinking about why.

The reason why I think it is a real possibility that my jeans ran away from me is because I often see them on various men around town. This has happened a handful of times at the record store and café that I go to. I will be listening to a record or reading a book and then look up and notice that there is a man wearing a pair of jeans that look exactly like mine. I know that it is possible that these men could have bought a similar pair of jeans as mine but in these few instances the jeans that I have noticed on other men, look exactly like mine. They have a stitch coming undone in the same location. The butt of the pants is discolored and worn just as mine were. There is the same semen stain near the bottom part of the crotch. There is even an identical, small tear in the corner of the left hand back pocket.

As much as I wanted to confront these men to see if they were in fact wearing my jeans, I never did. I suppose I avoid conflict or I am too shy to approach complete strangers and accuse them of wearing my jeans. How would that conversation start anyways? “Excuse me, where did you get your jeans? Could I have a close look at them?” No, I do not think that would go over well. So it is a possibility that one of these men is the thief that I was thinking could have stole my jeans. I am aware that this is a very real possibility. Or maybe my jeans ran away on their own volition and found their way into one of these men’s closets. Why my jeans would prefer one of these men over me is a mystery to me, especially since none of these men seem to have even a slightly decent fashion sense. Maybe one of their closets was just a more enjoyable place for my jeans to hang out. I really don’t know.

I am starting to accept that my favorite pair of jeans are gone. It is difficult to accept loss, especially when it is something or somebody that you really felt like you deserved and earned through unpleasant toil. I have a hard time accepting that I will never again feel the feeling that I felt when I had my jeans on. I suppose I am not fully ready to let go yet. Maybe I am not starting to accept the loss of my jeans. Every night I am still waking up in the middle of the night, getting out of bed, grabbing a flash light and looking through all the various closets in my home. I have a feeling that I am not going to be able to sleep the night all the way through until I solve the case of my missing jeans.

The Thing About Being Brad Pitt

(Even his name is in my spell check)

The thing about being Brad Pitt is that everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to know him. The moment he flashes across a television or movie screen our collective consciousness says “Hey look it is Brad Pitt!” I presume that this happens more than with any other living person (yes, even more than with Barack Obama). Brad Pitt is the person to meet. He is the one person who no matter where he goes is always greeted by a mass of anticipating and adoring hands waiting to touch his. American royalty? Maybe. The most popular guy in school? Without a doubt.

The thing about being Brad Pitt is that this must not be easy. It’s like dogs who love you because you feed them. They always want to be around you because of the possibility of food. It doesn’t matter who you truly are, how you behave, what you say or how you look. Dogs will excuse all of this because they know you got the food. For human beings Brad Pitt is the food. It has nothing to do with who he is at a deeper level. All that matters is that is Brad Pitt. Everyone wants to meet that guy they have seen in all those movies, tabloids, interviews and news clips. That guy. Not the moody guy with a stomach ache who occasionally yells at his kids and harbors a deep need to be left the hell alone.

One problem that Brad Pitt has that almost none of us ordinary folk do is that everyone wants to meet him. Everyone wants to draw him in. Everyone lights up in his presence. Everyone puts their best self forward when meeting him. Everyone is trying to manipulate him into liking them. Everyone is hoping that maybe, just maybe, Brad Pitt will become their personal friend. That he will remember them. This kind of worship must get as tiring as dealing with my dogs who are always standing at the door with a sad face on, waiting, hoping for food.

Most of us experience the opposite. The only people who pursue us with that kind of interest are creditors and enmeshed parents. When we walk down the street we are often an impediment or an object of attraction to someone who is going the other way. When we are noticed by an acquaintance or a colleague they will often stealthily cross the street to avoid crossing our path. Out there we are just another body, a person to be controlled, glanced at, judged and often avoided. Brad Pitt experiences the opposite phenomena. The moment he appears, gravitational pull takes over and bodies and minds are propelled by a force that is often out of their personal control. People come alive, for sometimes the first time in months or years when in his presence.

I’m writing about this while drinking my morning cup of coffee. I am sitting in front of the fire and my house is silent. I have a long day at work in front of me. Several people have already canceled their appointments with me (I imagine people never cancel a meeting with Brad Pitt). The reason this subject is on my mind is because last night I made the mistake of leaving the television on in the background. I heard a news story about Brad Pitt appearing at some film opening and I also heard the excitement level of all the voices on the television elevate by a hundred percent. Even the newscaster’s voice became absent of the usual drone tone. Much to my surprise I got up from what I was doing and went to see if I could get a glimpse of Brad Pitt. I wanted to see what he looked like now and also see the phenomena that occurs when he is in other people’s presence. I suppose there is a part of me that feels like I know the guy since I grew up watching him grow up. I can see the trajectory of my aging process through his films and interviews. As I watched all of the Hollywood elites smiling, standing with an erect posture (no one was slouching) and waiting to hug Brad Pitt or shake his hand- I stood at the television, just like I everyone else I imagine, for a brief moment, experiencing that one thing about being Brad Pitt.

Now Tweeting

I have decided to climb up into the massive monolithic Twitter tree (short of breath), find my own isolated branch and start tweeting to whomever may hear: https://twitter.com/mindmirror7

How To Feel Awkward At Work Without Feeling Bad About Yourself

An ability to tolerate feeling awkward for long stretches of time, is a main skill that is required of so many contemporary jobs. It is such a necessary part of most jobs that there really shopuld be more training in how to deal with these often dehumanizing feelings. Whether you work for In And Out Burger, IKEA, Starbucks, Banana Republic, The Gap, The Apple Store or you work as a stripper or a professional- so many contemporary jobs involve long stretches of time where you are just standing there or sitting there feeling like an idiot. This feeling could be equal to embarrassment or a feeling of being in a position for which you don’t want to be in but have to be in for the money. Other people identify you as a person who cares about particular things that deep down you really could care less about. This is what often creates feelings of awkwardness.

Everyone has got to earn a living. Never has it seemed more difficult and expensive for individuals to make ends meet than it currently is. Whether it means spending five days a week wearing some ridiculous employee identification badge as a necklace over your shirt or dressing up in a ridiculous and dehumanizing uniform (such as the ones In And Out Burger employees are forced to wear), nowadays people are practically forced into taking certain jobs just so they can earn a buck. But please keep in mind- it is better to be made feel awkward by a job you could care less about but gives you a few bucks in your pocket than to feel awkward because you are broke.

When you are not uplifted by your employment, when who you are deep within is not in alignment with the work you do for money in the world, chances are you will often feel awkward while at work (maybe even after work also). We all know what it feels like to feel awkward. It is that feeling that generates thoughts like: What the fuck am I doing here?, This is embarrassing, I do not want to be seen in the way that people are seeing me, I don’t like this, this feels weird, What should I do now?, I can’t wait until work is done. There are so many different kinds of thoughts that feeling awkward creates. It would take me hours to write them all down. It is just important to understand that feelings of awkwardness are a fundamental part of most jobs. You are not a failure or a loser for feeling this way. Your life is not a mess. You are just living in the modern world.

Yesterday I went to IKEA to purchase a modern looking bookshelf. I saw several IKEA employees, dressed in their IKEA uniforms, standing around with forced smiles on their faces, trying to acknowledge the imperturbable costumers that walked past them. There was one young, female employee who caught my eye. Her red ponytail stuck out of the back-end of her hat as she smiled awkwardly at the costumers who walked past. She said “Hello, welcome to IKEA,” to everyone. By looking at her you could tell that she was really uncomfortable but also really needed the money. I am not sure if she felt uncomfortable because of just having to stand there and be ignored and feel like a jerk for money or if she felt uncomfortable because of just having to stand there and be ignored and feel like a jerk for money. Maybe it was a combination of both.

I felt for this young lady and my shopping experienced was somewhat darkened by old memories coming back to me about when I worked in similar awkward positions. It is no fun for anyone.

After IKEA, I stopped at In And Out Burger for some fries and had my order taken by some poor bastard who was paid to stand around in the parking lot dressed up as some kind of exiled cook in a shiny white kitchen uniform. As he took my order his cook’s hat fell off his head and in an act of pity and guilt I quickly opened my car door and picked it up for him. I could see the feelings that awkwardness produces in his eyes as he looked at me and said thank you. As if I had not had enough, I then went to Starbucks for a cup of afternoon coffee (which, I did despite the fact that their coffee tastes like chemicals) and the young man behind the register seemed to feel so awkward taking my order that I felt incredibly awkward just telling him I wanted a medium coffee. I tipped him two bucks, which I hoped would help smooth things out.

Feeling like you don’t belong, feeling like you have to do something that you do not want to do, feeling like you have somehow failed because of the things that you do for money are all a normal part of being a working individual in today’s economic climate. I know it sucks but it is just the way it is. It is as apart of the contemporary working world as apple pie is apart of the American mythology. The amount of employees and business owners who are working for the money so that they can afford some kind of cultural legitimacy and dignity far exceeds those who are working and earning money in a position which is a reflection of who they really are and exactly who they want to be seen as. The vast majority of working individuals no longer strive for this freedom or authenticity in through their work, now they just fill up on it when they watch TV and go to the movies.

At some point you have to ask yourself: Why feel bad about feeling something that is a normal part of the world within which you live? It is like feeling bad about the air quality where you live or feeling bad about the laws that you have to abide by. What is the point? These things are as much apart of the climate you live in as blood is apart of your body. Feeling awkward in your job position is a big part of what it means to have a job in today’s world! Granted someone who is standing around in an In And Out Burger uniform will feel these feelings to a greater degree than someone one who is working as a psychotherapist, a realtor or a tax accountant but I assure you that all of these jobs come along with a fair amount of awkwardness. Those lucky people who have found a form of paid employment, which is without any feelings of accompanying awkwardness, are lucky only because they have successfully escaped from the slavery-like-qualities that are an acceptable, normal and consensual part of today’s wage earning world.

The Narcissist Test

Ready?

Yes.

How are you?

I’m fine, thank you.

Ready?

Yes.

Ok. Do you get agitated or angry when people do not do what you want them to do?

Yes.

Do you get angry when other people doubt you?

Sometimes, yes.

Do you think that you are the center of the universe?

Often times, yes.

What I mean is, are you obsessed with yourself? With your idea of the world?

Yes, I guess so.

Do you often judge others who are different from you?

Yes, I do.

Do you often consider other people to be idiots?

Yes.

Do you think that people who follow sports are idiots?

Yes.

Do you often think that you are somehow smarter, wiser, more superior than other people?

Yes.

Do you often tell people closest to you and others what to do?

Yes.

Do you prefer wearing shorts or pants?

What does that have anything to do with this?

Please answer the question.

Pants.

Do you become easily bored if the conversation is not about you?

Yes.

Do you use the word “I” a lot?

Yes.

Do you often tell others what you think they should do?

Yes.

Does it bother you when other people tell you what to do?

Yes.

Do you give your opinion when your opinion has not been asked for?

Yes.

Do you eat a lot of carbohydrates?

Really?

Please answer the question.

Yes.

Do you often feel upset that you have not achieved or accomplished a higher level of economic success?

Yes.

Do you feel hurt, irritated or angered when people do not do what you think would be best for them to do?

Didn’t you already ask me this questions?

Please answer the question.

Yes.

Ever feel like you are being nice only because you know that you have been mean or inappropriate?

Yes.

Do you find it difficult to listen to others?

Yes.

Do you find it difficult to listen to others without formulating a response in your head?

Yes.

Do you find it difficult to let other people do whatever they want without needing to tell them what to do?

No.

Do you feel like you need to fix people?

Yes.

Oh gosh.

Excuse me?

Nothing, sorry. Do you get angry or at all upset when your house is not kept clean?

Yes, but I am trying to get better about that.

Do you expect someone else to do the cleaning?

I expect others to help out and keep the house as clean as I would like it to be. But I am not a Nazi about it.

Yes or no please.

No.

Do you get mad when you feel like others are not maintaining the level cleanliness that you want in your home?

Yes.

Do you often feel like you need to re-educate the world?

Yes.

Do you think that people are often out to get you somehow?

Yes.

Did you have a father or a mother who has/had narcissistic personality disorder?

Yes.

When people do not do what you want them to do, do you hold a grudge?

Yes.

Do you feel like they deserve to be punished for letting you down?

Sometimes.

Yes or no please.

I can’t give a straight yes or no response to some of these questions.

Next then.

Ok.

Do you have a difficult time not feeling angry?

Sometimes, yes.

Are you ever able to be loving and supportive of others even when they do not do what you want?

It is difficult. Yes.

When you are upset with others do you withhold love or stonewall them?

I am afraid so. I do not like that I do it but it often seems difficult to control.

Please just try and answer yes or no. I do not need any explanations or justifications.

Yes.

Do you have a hard time displaying empathy or compassion for others?

I do, yes.

Is it easy for you to show the emotion of love?

No.

Do you often feel bad about yourself?

I suppose so, yes.

Do you feel like you need to maintain complete control or else something could go really wrong?

Yes.

Do you care about how others perceive you?

Yes.

Do you often go out of your way to make yourself look better off than you really are?

I think so. Yes.

Do you not like others whom you think do not like you?

Yes.

Do you have a hard time respecting others who do not share your values?

Yes.

Do you judge others who are different from you?

You already asked me that.

Please just answer the question yes or no.

Yes. Often.

Do you have unresolved anger towards your mother or father?

Yes.

Which one?

Both.

Do you think that the things you have to say are very important?

Yes.

Do you think your opinion matters?

Yes.

When you do not like someone is it difficult for you to hide it?

Yes.

Do you judge others a lot?

I think I do.

Yes or no?

Yes.

Do you have a difficult time experience happiness for any length of time?

Yes.

Does something often happen or does someone often do something that you feel is wrong?

Yes.

Do you resent others who do not share similar interests as you?

I suppose so.

Yes or no?

Depends on the person.

Next question.

Ok.

Do you often feel angry at others and/or the world.

Yes, I suppose so.

Do you envy others whom you perceive as being more successful or more accomplished than you?

Yes.

Do you spend a lot of time trying to distract yourself from yourself?

Yes.

Do you often experience the emotions of frustration and irritation?

Aren’t they the same thing?

Please answer the question.

Yes.

Do you try to create a positive image of yourself in the world that may not be true to who you really are?

I don’t know, that is a good question.

Yes or no please.

I really don’t know.

Do you often experience feelings of failure?

Yes.

Are you often unsatisfied with things as they are?

Yes.

Are you controlling with money, meaning are you cheap?

Yes.

Do you derive pleasure out of giving freely to others?

Not really.

Ok sir, that is the end of the test.

How did I do?

You are a narcissist.

What?

Yes, you are a narcissist.

Oh come on, that can’t be! And besides what the hell does wearing pants or shorts have to do with being a narcissist?

The research shows that the vast percentage of narcissist do not like wearing shorts and eat too many carbohydrates.

Shit.
….

How bad is my narcissism?

I have seen worse but it is bad enough.

What can I do about it?

I don’t know, I just administer the test.

Remembering Joan Quigley. 1927- 2014.

I remember that she always sat alone in the dark restaurant where I worked as a waiter, nine years or so ago.

I remember that the restaurant was in downtown San Fransisco and was called Cafe Andree, named after the poet Kenneth Rexroth’s wife.

I remember that Cafe Andree was attached to The Hotel Rex, a literary hotel named after Kenneth Rexroth.

I remember that she was hiding out in the hotel.

I remember that she was always really well dressed and looked like an east coast aristocrat.

I remember that her hair always looked as if it had been professionally done.

I remember she was always reading the newspaper and was happy to talk.

I remember how she spoke like a well written English Literature novel.

I remember that she always said thank you and smiled at me.

I remember wondering if she was coming on to me.

I remember that she said she was going to do my astrological chart but can not remember if she ever did.

I remember that the restaurant was often slow and I would sit down and talk with her.

I remember the first time that she told me that she was Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s personal astrologer while Ronald Reagan was in the white house.

I remember that I thought she was making that up.

I remember when she told me that she set the time for summit meetings, presidential debates, Reagan’s 1985 cancer surgery, State of the Union addresses and so many other things.

I remember when she told me that Nancy Reagan would consult with her before Air Force One could take off.

I remember when she told me that there was a private line set up just for her in the white house and that she would consult with Nancy Reagan several times a day.

I remember how upset she seemed with regards to never really receiving the recognition she felt like she deserved, since the Reagans wanted to keep their personal astrologer a secret.

I remember having a hard time believing her.

I remember looking her up on-line and finding out that she was indeed the Reagan’s personal astrologer.

I remember thinking how cool it was that I was getting to know her.

I remember spending several evenings a week talking with her.

I remember that she was often in a state of terror.

I remember that she felt very alone.

I remember that she felt like people where after her.

I remember that she thought that maybe it was the Illuminati.

I remember that she would often talk about how America was being taken over by a small group of very wealthy men.

I remember how she talked about how everything in America was going to get worse and worse, that individual freedoms were being taken away.

I remember that she was always afraid of being killed or kidnapped.

I remember when she took me out to lunch at a prestigious San Fransisco restaurant that she loved called Garibaldis.

I remember when she took my then wife and I out to a nice Italian food dinner in North Beach.

I remember that she spent the entire dinner talking about who she thought was after her and the take over of America.

I remember that she felt like we were all in great danger.

I remember that her eyes were always looking around the room.

I remember drinking a lot of red wine that evening and staring at the Joan Miro prints on the walls.

I remember being happy that she bought dinner because I did not have any money.

I remember that one of her credit cards was declined and becoming really concerned that my then wife and I were going to have to buy dinner.

I remember the last time I saw her she gave me her book entitled, “What Joan Says, My Seven Years As A White House Astrologer To Nancy And Ronald Reagan.”

I remember that I never read the book.

I remember that my then wife and her mother were supposed to meet Joan for dinner in Santa Monica several months later but Joan canceled at the last-minute.

I remember the frantic message that she left on my then wife’s voicemail.

I remember that she was coughing a lot and sounded very ill and afraid.

I remember wondering if she was in danger.

I remember that I never heard about her or from her again after that.

I remember last week wondering about what ever happened to Joan Quigley.

I remember wondering if she was still alive.

I remember hoping that she was still alive and doing ok.

I remember thinking that a lot of what she spoke about happening in and to America, has been happening.

I remember feeling glad that for a brief period of time, I got to know Joan Quigley, President Reagan’s secret astrologer.

 

 

 

 

How To Do Nothing At All

Doing nothing is not for the weak-willed. It is one of the more difficult things a person can do in her or his life. In a culture that is built upon the premise of distracting ourselves from ourselves, doing nothing is one of the most radical acts. Doing nothing requires the capacity to tolerate going against the ingrained values that everyone in a capitalist culture has accepted to be true. It requires the ability to step outside of the proverbial box. If Kierkegaard was correct when he wrote about how our impulse to escape the present by keeping ourselves busy is our greatest source of unhappiness…..well then it might be of some benefit to us to start finding a way out of that always invisible but always present box.

In the suburban Los Angeles neighborhood where I live, everyone is always hard at work. There are constantly cars, ambulances, trucks, motorcycles, fire engines and cop cars speeding down the road on which I live. Gardeners, tree trimmers, construction workers, city officials, bike riders, joggers and homeowners seem to all be constantly pushing themselves towards some sort of illusive edge. The downtown area of my suburban city is always bustling with frenetic business. Restaurants, stores, cafes and movie theaters are all alive with the rhythmic pounding of social activities. Airplanes continuously fly over my home making their descent into LAX. Plants and trees are the only living creatures that seem to stay still for any length of time around here. I realize it is 2014 and if you want to survive with some degree of domestic comfort you can not act like a plant or a tree (then who would be able to sell you something?), but in those moments where I do not need to be working I still find that it is incredibly difficult to stop, do nothing and feel good about it.

I am building a nothingness box to escape from the cultural box. I read about a particular poet who lived in San Francisco and he was trying to design a nothingness box. He wanted to build a box that could counteract the forces of doing and busyness that were always all around him. Every time he sat down to be still (which I hear is a fundamental thing that a poet needs to be able to do) he felt like he needed to do something. For him it was usually to go to the bar, socialize, look for a lady to have sexual encounters with and get drunk. He found it difficult to write poetry in a city that was always trying to pull him out and his idea was to build a box within which he would be able to feel still enough to write poetry. I am not sure if he ever managed to complete building his nothingness box but I do still have a sentence from one of his notebooks that I wrote down in one of my journals: Boredom … protects the individual, makes tolerable for him the impossible experience of waiting for something without knowing what it could be. He wanted to build a box within which he would be able to comfortably wait for something.

This is the most difficult part of taking on the task of doing nothing. Dealing with the boredom and the accompanying need to do something that is soon to arise. Granted the sense of boredom and the fear of missing out will be stronger for someone who lives in a happening city or is addicted to Facebook and Instagram (the great contemporary distractors) then it would be for a person who lives in the countryside and is not interested in social networking. But the main reason everyone fears doing nothing for any length of time is because of the boredom (absence of productivity) that they will eventually feel. But what do we end up losing? I can not help but think of what the writer Cheryl Strayed said: The useless days will add up to something… These things are your becoming. When we do not have useless days, we never really get to become anything. We just end up getting led around.

I like what the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips wrote about boredom. He wrote: Boredom: that state of suspended anticipation in which things are started and nothing begins, the mood of diffuse restlessness, which contains that most absurd and paradoxical wish, the wish for a desire. This is exactly what boredom can feel like. A state of restlessness where a person finds themselves no longer being pulled by desire. A state of suspended anticipation, waiting for something to happen. This is what makes doing nothing difficult for so many people (including myself). They (I) just cannot tolerate the feeling of being in a state of suspended anticipation. It’s too uncomfortable, too boring. But call it what you will, you can know that you are doing nothing when you feel exactly this way.

Obviously a person who was raised in a capitalist-based culture needs to develop the capacity to be in this state of suspended anticipation. In capitalist-based cultures, the moment a person feels like they are in this suspended state, they will freak out. They will feel like they are not being productive enough and as a result will experience feelings of fear and shame. They will feel like they are missing out on all the fun, which they equate with missing out on their lives. Whether it is to check the phone, read something, work on something, go on-line, watch something, go out somewhere, worry about something- the way we are conditioned in a society that values doing something, is to freak out the moment we feel like we are doing nothing. We feel at risk of losing our value.

Currently I am working on re-wiring my more capitalistic conditioning. I am learning to tolerate the experience of boredom and suspended anticipation. My dog seems much more advanced in being able to tolerate and enjoy the experience of doing nothing than I am- so I use him as my guide. I watch him and study how he rests. I realize the inherent value of being able to be bored. I know that being bored and doing nothing has a plethora of rarely discussed and often ignored benefits. Being bored and doing nothing are just as good for a person as jumping into a pond of healing, mineral water is. It is like taking a bath in a substance that puts a person in direct contact with the experience of life. And it is this substance that generates the experiences we find most desirable in life: happiness, satisfaction, creativity, peace and presence.

I bought a large cardboard box from Home Depot and I lined it with several layers of tin foil. Today I will be applying styrofoam sound boards to make the inside of the box as quiet as possible. I will then put a layer of pillows on the ground and also make sure that there is no way for the light to get in. I will then place my nothingness box in my backyard so it sits on the grass and soaks up the earth’s grounding energy (I may have to put a tarp over it because of the sprinklers that go off every morning). I want to complete the project that the obscure poet may not of ever found a way to finish. It is within this nothingness box that I plan on learning how to be bored. I will spend at least two hours a day inside it doing nothing. I will just sit there and be. I may let my dog come in with me, since he already knows the way. Once I feel like I have been able to stop the compulsions to do something, or to at least comfortably live with the pull towards doing without needing to give into it by checking my phone, cleaning my house, listening to music, watching TV, having sex, socializing, working, going for a drive or checking my email- then I will know that I have started to benefit from doing nothing at all.