How To Escape A Drama-Filled Society

Living in a drama-filled society can be exhausting and draining for anyone. It’s no secret that drama often causes unnecessary stress, anxiety, confusion, distraction and it can be difficult to escape. But not impossible. There are a few steps you can take to remove yourself from the morass of drama and create a more peaceful, stress-free life.

1. Identify the sources of drama:
   The first step in escaping the drama of your society is to identify its sources. It may be certain friends, family members, or co-workers who create drama. Alternatively, it could be social media or news outlets that stir up emotions and create angst. When you identify the causes of drama, it’s easier to avoid them.
2. Limit your exposure to drama:
   Now that you’ve identified the sources of drama, take steps to limit your exposure to them. For example, if you have a mentally unstable sister who constantly involves herself in your drama thus creating even more drama for yourself, you may need to distance yourself from her or set solid boundaries. Similarly, if social media causes negative emotions or triggers drama, delete the app or take a few days off.
3. Surround yourself with positivity:
   To counteract the negativity and drama of your society, focus on surrounding yourself with positive people who bring you joy and make you feel good about yourself. I realize that positive people can be superficial and dull. This may mean eliminating friends who don’t share your values and interests or making time for self-care activities that lift your mood and counteract all the soul-destroying drama.
4. Practice mindfulness and self-care:
   Mindfulness practices such as meditation and deep breathing can be helpful in reducing stress and anxiety. Self-care activities like taking a hot bath, reading a book, journaling, stretching, cleaning, listening to music, being naked with another human, hanging-out/doing nothing or going for a ponderous walk can also help reduce the impact of deadening drama on your life.
5. Focus on what you can control:
   Finally, remember that while you can’t control the drama in your society, you can control your reactions to it. You may feel like being distracted from everything but focus on the things you can control, such as how much time and energy you devote to drama, and let go of things you cannot control. By taking ownership of your own life, you’ll reduce the impact of drama and create a more peaceful and interesting existence.

Escaping the drama of society takes effort, diligence and discipline but it’s worth it to create a more fulfilling and stress-free existence. By identifying the sources of drama, limiting your exposure to them, surrounding yourself with positivity (that is not superficial or dull), practicing mindfulness and self-care, and focusing on what you can control, you can escape the drama and create a more relaxed living situation for yourself.

The Late Man. Post #424.

I’m late for everything. Dentist, therapy, dinner, lunch and business meetings. I am late on bill payments, bank deposits, email replies, car tune-ups, car-registration and work deadlines. My dogs go several days without food because I am late to buy their food. I am late to buy myself groceries. I am late to getting myself in better physical condition, eating a healthier diet and visiting doctors for general check ups. I am late to watering my plants, cutting my toe nails, doing my dishes, laundering my clothes and filing my car tire (which is almost flat) with air.

I am a late man.

I am late for everything. I am late to wash my car. I am late to floss my teeth. I am late to do all the things that I need to do to have better oral and sexual health. I am late to write a novel. I am late to write anything. I am late to having a career as an author. I am late to becoming the man I want to be. I am late to telling other people that I love them. I am late to getting the dried leaves and dead branches off the roof of my house (the leaves are currently causing the roof shingles to break apart).

I am a late man. Late, late, late, late.

I am late to organizing my life. I am late to keeping a daily journal. I am late to going for long walks every morning. I am late to finishing several projects I have started. I am late to listening to all the records I want to listen to. I am late to finish writing this. It is as if being late is a fundamental part of my biology. Being late seems to be imbedded in my neural operating system. A way of being that I was born into. I was late to being born. Doomed from day one. My mother says I took 15 hours longer than expected to show up. Is it true that the way in which we are born determines our fundamental behaviors for the rest of our lives? I think so.

With my therapist we discuss lateness. My therapist also struggles with being late. I have been working with her for almost a decade and I do not think that she has ever been on time to one of our sessions. This is ok because neither have I. Because my therapist is late, I can tell that she is hesitant to really talk about what it means to be late. She fears exposing too much about herself to me. I understand. She fears that I would see her as a flawed human and thus no longer trust and desire her psychological guidance. She doesn’t know that the more flawed she reveals herself to be, the more I trust and desire her psychological guidance. She is late to knowing this.

Most humans are late to everything. Everything important at least. Even the ones who are on time to appointments and meetings are late to almost everything else. They are late to knowing themselves. Late to achieving authentic human happiness. Late to love. Late to figuring out their life’s meaning. Late to learning how to appreciate the people in their lives. Late to knowing how they hurt others. Late to realizing that taking care of themselves is being kind to others. Late to not being so deeply self-absorbed. Late to knowing how to properly floss their teeth. Late to being sexually comfortable. Late to taking care of their bodies. Late to feeling comfortable in the nude when around other people. Late to being the directors of their own lives. Late to spiritual understandings. Late to not feeling bad after masturbating or having non-traditional sexual experiences. With medical improvements, most people these days are even late to their own deaths.

Everyone is late.

Knowing that everyone else is late makes me feel better about being a late man. The difference between myself and other on time people is that the ways in which I am late make my struggle to be on time, more transparent. Being late to meetings and appointments gives me away as being a person who struggles with showing up on time in every other aspect of my life. People assume that if I am late to appointments and meetings, I must be late to learning what it means to be a healthy and responsible human being. I think they are wrong. People who show up on time to meetings and appointments are just better able to hide how they are late for everything else in their life. Even though everyone struggles with being late for most things (especially the important things like love, health, flossing, guilt free sexual fulfillment, generosity, kindness, being naked and happiness) those who are on time to appointments and meetings get to appear like they “have their shit together.” Obviously, this appearance could not be further from the truth.

I am late to buying new underwear and socks. I am late to career development. I am late to committing to a career. I am late to being financially independent. I am late to having a hairstyle that I am comfortable with. I am late to being comfortable with my physical appearance. I am late to being able to be vulnerable with another human being. I am late to authentically being a nice person who is not sometimes faking being a nice person. I am late to being able to turn to a stranger who is sitting at the table next to mine while talking really loudly and eating with mouth open and being able to let her know that she is talking really loudly and being really obnoxious. I am late to accepting the conditions of my life as they are. I am late to not feeling guilty. I am late to giving before getting. I am late to inner peace. I am late to transparency. I am late to telling people what I really think. I am late to not caring what other people think. Obviously, I am late to all the important stuff.

My therapist tells me to be patient. That I have made massive improvements over the past ten years. My therapist tells me that gradually I will be more and more on time. That being on time is not something that happens on time. Being on time takes time and happens in stages. My therapist tells me that because I am working on my inner self so diligently, everything will gradually fall in line. These are the fruits of long-term psychotherapeutic labor, she tells me. I trust her. I am on time to more things in my life now than ever before. Especially love, inner peace, kindness and sexual fulfillment. Also economic independence and not caring what other people think. More and more I am on time for these things, no longer as late as I once was. But I am still late to appointments and meetings. I don’t know if I will ever be on time for these things. Maybe it is a fundamnetal genetic flaw which escapes all attempts at correction. What is important is that I try. That I keep trying to be on time. That I do not retire until there is nothing left in me but bones, blood and an empty space where my will once was. This is what my therapist tells me. This she says is how I will be an older man who is more on time in life.

No longer late.

A Few Things I Forgot To Tell My Therapist

I spoke to my therapist for my allotted fifty minutes today. Because I did not feel like driving to the office I spoke with my therapist on the phone. I was sitting in my garage staring off into space for most of my conversation with her. I did not have much to say and it was one of those conversations where what I did say did not seem to accurately mirror the feelings that floated around inside of me. As time floated forward I tried to speak of things that I knew I needed to talk about- but no matter how hard I tried I just was not in the mood to talk about myself. I had spent most of the morning and afternoon alone in my garage- the silence had over taken me and I just could not get into the psychotherapy flow. However, once I got off the phone and a few hours passed, I realized there were several things that I forgot to tell my therapist.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I have been spending a lot of time, too much time, calling myself names like “idiot,” “stupid,” “jerk,” “fool” and “asshole” (to name a few). Accusing myself of doing the wrong thing or of being in the position that I am in life and punishing myself for it. I know of no greater psychological pain than to chronically punish ones own self. When I engage in this kind of internal torture I fall into a kind of depressive limbo where getting things done feels as difficult as solving that rubik’s cube thing that was popular in the 80’s. I spend my days hovering around like a hawk with its wings spread in the sky- but going nowhere. It looks effortless up there but in here it is requiring a lot of  energy, so much so that when it comes time for bed I am asleep before I am able to turn out the lights.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I spent all day yesterday counseling one of my old students who was on the verge of committing suicide. She is 18 years old and ran away from home over a year ago. Her father was abusive and her mother enabling. She refuses to return to the homestead and has been left living on couches, struggling for cash (can not get a job because she does not have a green card even though she was born in America) and a few months back managed to almost take her life. She is suffering from a terrible affliction- hopelessness. She feels alone and like there is only one exit. I could relate with her- it was frightening how much I could relate. I made her and myself write down this passage from a Langston Hughes poem:

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
…And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now —
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Talking about my problems today after hearing about hers felt futile. I have a roof over my head, people who love me, a couple of dollars in my bank account, a dog, a cat, a phenomenal therapist and a lover who takes care of me, really who am I to engage in self-absorbed narratives? A part of me thinks this way at least. The other part of me agrees with the Buddha. Life is suffering= rwe all suffer (some are better than others at hiding or repressing their suffering) and even though my life situation may be better than many others my emotional pain is still very real and deep. Even though I have much to be grateful for there is still this uncomfortable emotional pain. There are still splinters.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I have not shaved in over a week because I do not care what  look like. Where once I took a great deal of concern and care with regards to my image- I now give it maybe twenty minutes of thought a week. Shaving is often the first beauty practice to go when one loses interest with their image. The next thing to usually go (for a man at least) is the flat stomach and my tummy is beginning to take the shape of a round ball.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I have started to talk with birds that skip around and sing in the branches of the tree that sits just outside my bedroom window (more about this large oak tree later). It is only fair- they sing to me and I talk to them, thank them. I have also started reading them poetry at night. This is an exercise that I have been doing the past week. I will drink a bottle of organic white wine, smoke one of my fathers cigars and then rather than turn on the television I will go outside and read poetry to the birds whom I can not see sitting in the trees but I know they are there. Some of them start to sing as I am reading to them.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I have been drinking alcohol everyday. Alcohol seems to create just the right kind of alchemical reaction within that thing that is often refereed to as a soul. I like and need its temporary effects. I have also been doing Yoga almost everyday- just to assuage my guilt. However I am no fool. Drinking wine and beer on a daily basis is a Faustian bargain- short term gain for long term pain.

I forgot to tell my therapist that most of my socks have holes in them and my underwear is becoming tattered as well. I know that I should care about these things– but I do not put much importance in things anymore. I have learned that things come and they go, why try and get rid of the holes?

I forgot to tell my therapist that I cry everyday.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I have resorted to hugging trees for consolation.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I would rather spend my time with a dog than a human being.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I am spending a lot more time now just being present and having little concern for the future.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I am neglecting many things that should get done.

I forgot to tell my therapist that my lover is feeding me well, caring for me and that I enjoy the time that I am spending with her. Life does feel much easier now.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I feel claustrophobic in the shower.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I have this strange compulsion to dress in a black suit and walk around the country club in which I am currently staying.

I forgot to tell my therapist that I now know what was meant by “dark night of the soul.”

Oh, and finally I forgot to tell my therapist about this large oak tree. The one that sits just outside my bedroom window and is making this deep, long, languorous, yawning sound every time even the slightest breeze blows. The tree sways from side to side and has started to rub up against the house. I can see where it is putting pressure on the wall besides my bed. The sounds it is making are hunting, melancholic- so beautiful to my ears. It is as if the tree is trying to tell me something and I just keep carefully listening hoping that one day soon I will find out.

The Counting Man

I count everything. There are 17 dirty dishes in my sink. My bed has 3 unmade sheets on it. I have 7 pair of shoes in my closet, 11 pairs of pants, 4 jackets and 16 black t-shirts. This morning there were 403 oat grains and 82 almond pieces in my bowl of oatmeal. Outside my window there are 9 trees and one of the trees has around 674 leaves on it. Two days ago I sat by the window of my house from 9am until 6 pm and counted how many people and cars passed by. There were 1,209 cars and 11 people on foot. This is how I keep myself pre-occupied during the darkest time of year. I do not know how my need to count things developed since I never particularly enjoyed mathematics. I prefer words over numbers but for some reason around this time of year I have this very deep desire to count things. When I read the New York Times in the morning I will count how many times certain words are used or how many stories there are about violence or the economic recession. Maybe counting is a way for me to feel informed. I am a solitary man and it could be that counting is my connection to a world that exists outside of me.

Every morning when I awake I do a twenty-minute meditation. I count my inhalations and exhalation all the way up to ten. When I get to ten I count backwards until I reach 0. I repeat the process until twenty minutes is up. My therapist believes that my obsessive counting is the result of my morning meditation. She says that the practice ingrains in me a connection between peace of mind and numbers. Maybe she is not wrong because it is true that right before Christmas, when the skies turn black- I notice that I begin to slip into a slight depression. My anxiety seems to be more active than any other time of year and counting everything maybe a way for me to calm myself down. When I finished the therapy session the other day, I told my therapist that she had 94 books on her shelf, 17 pictures on her wall and 12 wrinkles on her forehead.

Yesterday I killed over 3,035 ants that were crawling around in my bathroom. I had no choice. I am not a violent man but ants all over my soap, my towels, my toothbrush and the toilet paper is intolerable. I felt guilt after I killed so many ants so I set a limit for myself today. There are still ants all over my bathroom floor and ceiling but I have decided that I will not kill them all. I will exterminate 2,000 of them. I will spend the afternoon counting and killing. Once I reach 2,000 ants I will let the rest go for the day.

For dinner last night I ate lentil stew and managed to eat 1,023 lentils. It takes longer to eat when I have to count every lentil that enters my mouth. But maybe, just maybe this is why counting is good for me. Whether I am killing, eating or breathing counting forces me to slow down, to become present in the moment and be completely focused on what I am doing. I can not say I dislike this about counting. Normally I go through my life with very little awareness of my present moment experience. I am pre-occupied by what I need to get done, where I need to go, how I need to be- like a hamster chasing its own tail. Counting seems to wake me up from this never-ending dream and forces me to be here now.

My wife has been exercising in the other room for 41 minutes. I have been writing this for the past 28 minutes. I am using two fingers to type. The electrical heater by my feet has been on for 92 minutes. I have tried to count the rain drops that are falling outside of my window but so far it has been nearly impossible for me to get an accurate count. There are just too many rain drops to capture. Today I plan on going for a walk. I will walk for 80 minutes and during that time I want to count every single thought that enters my mind. I will divide these thoughts into two categories positive and negative thoughts. I want to know how many of my thoughts are negative and how many of my thoughts are positive. I can not take credit for this exercise- my therapist had the idea. She has observed that I tend to be a pessimist who sees the glass as half empty. Her idea is that possibly if I can become aware of the flow of negative thoughts through my mind I will be better equipped to turn these negative thoughts into positive ones. Since I want to be a positive person, who exists in joy rather than despair, I have been doing this exercise for the past few days. Yesterday I had 609 negative thoughts and 98 positive ones during an eighty minute walk.

I am assuming that once spring arrives I will no longer have the obsessive need to count- but for now I am surrendering to the obsession. I enjoy counting in the same way that a person enjoys their work. Counting keeps me preoccupied and distracted from thinking about too many other things. Like the Hindus, I also believe that thought is one of the most toxic elements that exist within a human being. Thought torments us and drives us around in the same way that a motor controls a car. When I am fully immersed in counting I am no longer thinking. I am in what certain scientists refer to as a state of flow. Clarity, peace of mind and focus take the place of habitual thought and it is habitual, unconscious thoughts that cause a person to lose control of their life. So I will continue to count. There are 13 unpaid bills, 8 pens and 2 notebooks on my desk. There are 9 plants in my writing room and 11 sticks of incense on the table besides my desk. There are 6 strings on my guitar, 1,902 dollars in my bank account and now at the end of this narrative I have written 1,083 words.

Writer’s Block

I have just been made aware by an astute reader of this blog that five weeks have passed since my last post. I was not aware that it had been that long since I have a tendency to get caught up in the gusty winds that swoop through my mindscape- often rendering me unaware of the rhythm of passing days. Weeks blend together and before I know it a month has passed. My five-week absence from this blog is simply the result of a bout of writer’s block. My friends and acquaintances all seem to be fortunate enough to be suffering from minor colds and flu’s, while I have had to suffer the long-lasting pangs of writer’s block. I imagine that not being able to come up with any cohesive piece of writing for a writer must be akin to the suffocation an asthmatic feels in the middle of an asthma attack. However, I have every hope that soon this block will dissipate and I will be re-immersed in the process of story writing. For now I thought it appropriate to post a short story that I wrote a few years back on the subject of writer’s block. I tried for a year to get this story published, without any takers (after just re-reading it I can see why, but it holds a dear place in my heart). So for the past year or so it has sat in the darkness of my desk drawer, until now.

 

Writer’s Block

I have been staring at a blank page for most of my life. I have done all I can with not just my left hand but also my right. I have tried yoga and long walks. My therapist recommended to me that I take up singing. So I have done this each day. I have taken cooking lessons, taken up meditation, started burning incense, moved to the woods, eat vegan, and participate in S&M parties. I do a head stand every morning for thirty minutes and chew sugarless gum throughout the day. Still there is little evidence of a writer on the paper before me.

Since the age of six I have dreamed of becoming a writer. My parents took my sister and I on a family outing in Napa Valley. As we were driving along a desolate country road I noticed a small cabin. A man sat smoking what looked like a pipe on the porch. I asked my father about who that was and he said, “probably a poor hermit or failed writer.” From that day forward I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

Thirty-three years later and I am still unable to write. People ask me what I do and I use the noun, writer. When I am asked if my work can be read I utilize the pronoun, aspiring. It is a course that I navigate with trepidation. “Will I ever write anything?” is a question that lingers in my head like a chronic migraine. It hurts. And every so often I take aspirin.  Days before my father passed away I assured him that I would one day be able to make a living as a writer.

“But you don’t write.”
“I can’t but I will.”
“When?
”I try every day.”
”Son, when will you see?”
“When I write.”
“But you can’t write.”
“I will.”
“Son you can’t be a Writer if you don’t write.”
“I will write.”

My father passed away with a knot in his gut tightened by my incapability to pragmatically reason. Every day I look at a blank page and am reminded of my failure. I see emptiness and small circuitous hints of a letter. I have become so acquainted with the color of a blank page that I can tell time by the way it reflects shadows. Each morning, I sit at my desk to write my unfulfilled potential off the page. Still nothing comes. I sit there and breathe deeply. I straighten my back as if that will help awaken an idea. “Maybe, it will slip through my spine and out onto the empty page, and then there will be the story,” I think. A narration so profound, that my career as a writer will be unleashed.  But my spine is tight from all my hunching and my right hand has been waiting to write a word since my left hand refused to wait anymore. “It is a lonely heart that has no hope,” my father once told me.

I visit my therapist in town twice a week. She is a skinny woman who suffered from anorexia most of her life. Years of struggle have carved lines into her face and make her an asset to those who face similar struggles. She slowly eats a banana while we commune. I am confident that she can help me because of her past. She always allows me to stay longer then my allotted fifty minutes.

“Have you been singing?”
”I sing every day, mostly in the shower or on a walk.”
“How does it make you feel?”
“Good, I forget about my Writer’s block.”
“Have you been thinking about new ways to live your life?”
“I have.”
“What have you decided?”
“To think less.”
“This is why I thought singing would be good.”
”It helps me to stop thinking.”
”It is your thoughts that keep you blue.”
”I see.”
“Do you still do head stands?”
“Every morning.”
“Do you still think about your father?”
“All the time.”
“One day you will change the story you tell yourself.”
“I want to write my story.”
“You will.”

After therapy, I drive my old truck back to the house in the woods feeling renewed and hopeful. The story that I tell myself is slowed down. The thoughts in my head are not as filled with failure and doom. There is space for better thoughts to appear. But the page remains blank. It sits there upon my desk like a neglected pet awaiting my return. I tell myself only a matter of time and I go to work doing other things. I keep myself busy with household chores and I keep introducing myself to strangers as a writer.

“Want a good story,” she said to me dressed in leather straps that barely covered her holly trinity (breasts, thighs and ass). I pictured it happening differently but decided to go along with it anyways. The party was filled with middle-aged voyeurs gathering around small dungeons set up with enough equipment to imprison the primordial god Eros. I followed her into a section called The Den Of Inequity and felt the air around my head grow warm. She told me her name but I have since forgotten. All I really remember is a small hole on the bottom of her foot that she told me was the result of an accident.

“You want to play, right?” she asked me, wanting to assure herself that I was certain about the consequences of my decision. “I want a story,” I replied with a hint of fear in my voice. I took off my shirt, pants and underwear and was dressed in leather briefs. ”I’ll give you the story of your, life pervert man,” she said as she strapped my wrists and ankles to a disinterested wooden board. After being lashed, electrocuted, stepped on, spit on, spanked, tied upside down, laughed at, called coward, whipped, humiliated and then applauded by a group of spectators- I got dressed and anticipated the story I may finally have to tell. I drove home quickly so as not to forget.

Nothing wanted to come out, despite the sores and bruises, which I hoped would help me to remember. Not even and, if or but. I struggled to remember any words that could describe the feelings that I experienced. All I seemed capable of thinking was “its got to be good.” There was once again no story to be written on the blank page. No words willing to lend themselves to the perfection that I demanded to describe my experience. It was as if words had renounced the man before he could even give them an opportunity to live. I was not frustrated but becoming hopeless again.  In my head I wanted to live but on the page I could not exist. For one hour that evening I lay on my couch with ice over various parts of my naked body feeling like a failure.

“Why did you let her do those things to you?”
“You are my therapist, not my mother.”
“I understand but it is important that I know.”
“Because I wanted a story.’
”You wanted a story?”
“I thought that an experience would give me something to write about.”
“And did it?”
“No.”
“And why do you think this is so?”
“I am not sure.”
“Maybe its because you can not stop telling your self the old story.”
“What old story?”
“The one we talk about here.”
“I do not understand.”
“The story of hopelessness, failure, guilt, worthlessness.”
“Oh.”
”Maybe when this story goes away you will have a new story to write.”
“Maybe.”

That afternoon I went to my cooking class and then stopped at the market. In the evening I went to a yoga class and a bookstore. I purchase a popular book about water. The premise of the book was strange and had nothing to do with anything I had ever thought. It was a book written by a Japanese scientist who studied the ways that water molecules responded to thoughts. He photographed water crystals and studied how they formed in relation to various thoughts or words. He observed that positive thoughts or words formed beautiful water crystals while negative thoughts or words created ugly and deformed water crystals. His conclusion was that since human beings are mainly a collection of millions of water crystals, the thoughts we have and words we use create our health and disease.

For dinner I made a pizza and read the book by candlelight. Outside the silence was loud enough that I could hear it vibrating in my ears. I chewed my food without the sensation of eating and quickly made my way through the book. I thought about the story I told myself and noticed the scenes from my life that lined up in my mind as if on paper. It was a story of unfulfilled potential that went all the way back to my fathers remark: “probably a poor hermit or failed writer.” It was a negative unraveling, a self fulfilling prophecy that was born in me the moment that I decided to become a hermit and a writer thirty-three years before. My water crystals were destined to grow deformed. I went to bed that night thinking that my father had unknowingly put a curse on me. I talked about it the next morning in therapy.

“Do you think this realization is true?”
“I do.’
”Your writer’s block is the result of your fathers curse?”
“Maybe not a curse, but a negative imprint.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I am toxic water.”
”Toxic water?”
”Yes, I am polluted and filled with deformed water crystals.”
“You read the book about water?”
“Yes.”
“And what did it reveal to you?”
”That I can change.”
“So you see how the story you tell yourself creates your life.”
“Creates deformed water crystals.”
“Yes, and these deformed water crystals are you.”
“I see.”
“Change your story, change your life.”
“Easier said than done.”

I don’t know if the writer’s block will ever go away. I stand on my head every day and I try to think pleasant thoughts. Rather than seeing the block as a silence that is permanent I see it as an opportunity to express potential. Recently, I have been experiencing a strange phenomenon. When I wake in the morning and sit before the empty page I look into it with the determination of an artist. I am fascinated by its depth and dimension. Outlined in vague print is a vision of my new story, fully realized on the blank page. There it is before me, a story written in the most beautiful prose. It is a story that will continue on indefinitely until the end of all blank pages. Every writer that has ever lived and failed to write is apart of this story. It is the story of my entire life.

The End.

Off The Bottle

1.

The waitress approached me and said, “sir- everyone is staring at you.” She had a look of concern on her face and for a few seconds I had no idea what she was talking about. She then looked down at my chin and it was at that moment that I realized I was sucking on a bottle. I took the bottle out from my mouth, thanked the waitress for her concern and then looked around the restaurant at all the eyes that were focused directly on me. The eyes were of all different sizes, some round others more triangular. They all seemed to be saying “how could a grown man suck on a bottle like that in a public place? You should be ashamed.” I understood their condemnation. It must of been unnerving for their eyes to see me, a grown man, sucking on a bottle. I nodded my head in acknowledgment of their contempt and then I stared at the empty beer bottle sitting on my table.

 

2.

Sucking on bottles has become a real problem in my life. Last week I was almost fired from my job as a bartender because I was sucking on a wine bottle while working behind a busy bar. I suck on bottles unconciously and I am usually the last person to find out tha there is a bottle in my mouth. Until the waitress pointed out to me that I was sucking on an empty beer bottle I was in a no man’s land of empty, spaced out thought. I was like an infant suckling on his mother’s nipple- blissed out, content and without a worry in the world.

When I was a year old I refused to give up my bottle. At an age where most of my peers were moving on from the bottle I still wanted to keep mine in my mouth. Whenever it was not there, I would let out a rattling cry disturbing enough to worry the neighbors. My parents kept the bottle in my mouth well beyond my sixth birthday simply because they could not find a better solution for my developmental flaw. They assumed incorrectly that eventually I would outgrow my bottle fixation in the same way that  outgrew my obsession with pulling my pants down in public.

I have seen various specialists and therapists for what came to be called my “regressive suckling attachment fixation.” In seventh grade I worked with a particular specialist who had my parents tape my mouth shut for three hours after dinner- every night for one month. If I took the tape off more than three times in one month I would not be given the reward that I was promised- a puppy. For three hours a night I would watch television or read with my mouth taped shut because my parents deeply believed that the specialist’s theory could solve my bottle fixation. His theory was that by spending three hours every night without a bottle in my mouth the attachment fixation would be broken. The bottle and I would get bored of each other and grow apart. The first few days after the end of the month the specialist’s theory worked. I was no longer interested in keeping a bottle in my mouth all the time. I remember one night watching television with my parents without the bottle in my mouth and my father said “thank goodness that shrink was right- my son is not going to be a cock sucker.” I believe it was the next day at lunch that I found an empty coke bottle and began sucking on it.

I am now almost forty years of age and I still have a bottle in my mouth most of the time. When I read, nap, go for a walk, watch television and meditate I enjoy a bottle in my mouth. My wife, who is agitated by my fixation, has tried to diffuse what she calls “my self-demeaning-negative-obsession” by forbidding me to suck on a bottle when I am in her presence. I try and respect her wishes but it is not easy. Often times when we are watching a movie or out to dinner my anxiety will act up and I will need to excuse myself and go into the bathroom and suck on a bottle for a few awhile.

 

3.

The waitress brought me my check and I paid with cash. She gave me a sympathetic smile that seemed to be reserved for those whom she pitied. I put on my jacket and looked once more around the restaurant. A few eyes still suspiciously fixated upon me. One older lady seemed to be deeply offended by what I had done and was indignantly shaking her head in disapproval of me. I felt the sting of paranoia as I wondered if it was safe for me to leave the restaurant alone. I stood up, took a deep breath and without caring if anyone saw what I was doing- I took the empty beer bottle off the table and stuck it under my coat. As I cautiously walked out the front door of the restaurant I could swear that I heard an older, raspy voice yell, “ain’t it time that your mama showed you how to get off the bottle!”

 

Breasts Not Bombs

I happen to be a lover of breasts. I am also adamantly against bombs. This morning when I was on a walk and dealing with various thoughts of impending doom- I had an idea. Why not start a non-profit organization called Breasts Not Bombs? The value of the idea was greatest in its ability to get my mind off of obsessive thoughts of impending doom. Rather than thinking about my own death, I was able to focus upon the visual imagery of breasts. These breasts belonged to no women in particular but rather they were universal breasts belonging to all women.

As I walked through the park with an image of youthful breasts swinging around in my head- I found that the anxiety that I was suffering from moments ago had passed. There is something about the image of breasts that calms the central nervous system. Breasts are nurturing, comforting, cooling and there is not a person on earth who is not calmed by the presence of a breast. I was suddenly able to make sense of my chronic desire to look down women’s shirts or seek out strippers and stare at their breasts. I am seeking repose or release from the chronic anxiety that seems to be upon me day and night. I am looking for breasts to calm my frazzled nerves in the same way that a person who is about to drown searches for a life preserver.

As I watched the morning sun come up over the tall looming redwood trees I realized that I not only had an erection but that a non- profit organization like Breasts Not Bombs could possibly save the world. It was the German Psychiatrists Wilhelm Reich who said that “if man could just have a daily orgasm or be allowed to fondle a naked woman everyday, then all the wars and terrible violence of humanity could be avoided.” Men would not want to fight- because the release of sexual energy would allow them to feel rested and calm. Myself, being a daily orgasamer, happen to agree with Reich’s theory. I am a very non-violent man who has yet to throw a punch or harm another fellow human being in any direct way. I have always known that this is mainly because I am always thinking of naked woman and masturbating. If Breasts Not Bombs could stimulate this same feeling in the majority of men on earth- than maybe I could find a way to avert the constant violence on earth that I so strongly stand against. This could win me the one thing I have always longed for- a Noble Peace Prize.

I would have to find thousands of woman who would be willing to not only walk around with out shirt and bra but also be willing to allow men to fondle their breasts. These woman would have to be connected with their maternal instincts and realize that what they where doing was sacrificing their own sense of feministic decency for the larger good of humanity. By allowing men to play with their breasts- they would be effectively changing if not saving the world. As I returned to my home ready to begin the work of establishing my own non-profit, I grew a bit disconcerted with my ability to gather so many women who were willing to sacrifice themselves for a larger good. In our contemporary American war culture, where breasts have become taboo and hidden from view like the Dead Sea Scrolls- how the hell would I find a thousand women willing to bare their boobs and save the world? I have always believed that where there is a will there is a way….and the rest of my day was spent creating a plan to make my will a reality.

Sometimes It’s Fun To Get Lost

It’s like jumping over time. Tricking space. Being lost is the most immediate way to be free. This is why I try doing it as much as possible in this modern world where every one pretends to be found. I prefer not knowing where I am. Not knowing which way to go. Even when I know where I am I pretend that I am without a clue. Being lost for me is a form of salvation- a way to escape from the narrow confines of day to day life. A way to turn things on mute. When I am lost I am stuck in wonder. There is no wrong that I can do and I am free from all the critical judgements of my mind. Being lost for me is a form of therapy, a way to understand myself outside of time and space.

Certain individuals always say to me that they are worried because I always seem lost. “How are you going to maintain a normal job or have a family if you are always lost?” I am often asked. My employers look at me with concern because they are unsure where they can find me. It fills people with trepidation when you spend a lot of time being lost. They feel like they don’t know where to find you and this jeopardizes their own sense of safety and control. I am often faced with questions in the form of condemnations about being lost. “You are so forgetful you know?” or “When are you going to take responsibility?” I often times know that these judgements being expressed towards me are the pontifications of someone feeling out of control. But my intention in getting lost is not to make people anxious or worried, rather I get lost because it is fun.

It is hard to have fun when you get older. Fun can be worn out just like a pair of jeans. We need to drink more or eat more in order to feel the same pleasure that we did when younger. But one form of fun that has never thawed out for me is forgetting where I am. I have been doing it for years and the older I get the better I become at being lost. I relate this kind of fun to the pleasure an enlightened person must have being enlightened. When I am at lost I am free from the responsibilities and familiarities that dictate the course of my normal life. I no longer have to pretend and I enjoy the knowledge that no one around me knows who I am. Nothing seems to matter to me when I am lost other than the moment which I occupy with complete mindfulness. It is almost as if being lost for me is a meditation. An opportunity to set my perpetual thoughts aside and remain focused on the knowledge that I am finally free.

My Idea Of Fun

“I am worried that you are not having enough fun in your life,” my wife said to me. “I have had too much fun in my life and now I am having fun not having fun,” I replied. She looked at me like one does when they know that you are lying to yourself. I considered what I had just said to her and then realized that I did not know what I was talking about. “When you go out and have fun, it sustains you into the future. It makes your life a little easier to handle.. a little more enjoyable to live,” my wife said. ” I have fun staying home and reading, writing or watching a movie. I don’t feel the need to go out to have fun,” I replied- but then I thought about what I said. “Am I really having fun staying in all the time, do I really even remember what it feels like to have fun?” I asked myself. “I think you are afraid of fun,” my wife said as she kissed me and left for another evening out with friends that I once again elected myself out of.

I have been staying home a lot lately. My wife goes out and has fun quite often but I stay in. I make up excuses and tell my wife that I have work to do. In reality I am avoiding the world. All through out my twenties and early thirties I indulged in the world. I went out night after night and indulged in what people like to commonly refer to as fun. I socialized, drank too much, smoked weed and went off on insane adventures that lasted until the sun came up. When I turned thirty I decided that friends were a waste of time and I began having fun alone. I spent my weekends and a few weekday evenings and afternoons in various strip clubs where I knew no one and no one knew me. In the darkness I somehow felt complete in my solitude and as I watched naked women dance for me upon a red lit stage- I was the happiest man alive. I would end my evening in massage parlors where I received shiatsu and a hand job- and then return home early the next morning and sleep until noon. This was my idea of fun.

Now that I am married I have lost touch with a feeling of fun. No longer can I hang out in strip clubs and massage parlors without ending up with a twelve pound suitcase filled with guilt and shame. It ain’t worth it. I hate keeping secrets from my wife so I have broken up with my idea of fun. I have few friends that I enjoy spending time with and solitude has become my favorite form of company. Last weekend when my wife and I went on a dinner date with another couple I felt like a man who was wasting his time. I drank too much so that I could force my self to have fun. All I really wanted was to be at home swimming around in the pages of a book.

“You are becoming reclusive and a curmudgeon,” my wife told me the other day. “Why because I don’t like to have fun?” I asked. “You don’t like to do anything,” she said. “That is not true!” I protested quickly. ” “Though doth protest too much…when was the last time that you had fun?” she asked. “I had fun last night being at home alone watching a movie and doing some writing,” I said. But then I thought about what I said. Was I really having fun being home night after night watching movies, writing and reading? Or has doing these things become my idea of fun because I have forgotten how to have fun? Have I given up on fun because I know that it only lasts for a brief period of time before you are right back where you were before that fun began? Fun drops you off right where it left you- stuck in the middle of your life (and usually with a hang over). Is this why I have given up on fun?

And then I realized that my idea of fun was no fun at all. I have become discouraged with fun, I have lost hope in fun. After decades of having fun I am still stuck in the realities of my life. I got tired of the fun ending. No matter how much fun I had the night before my life was still awaiting me in the morning. By refusing fun, I have learned how to stay present in my life. This way I am not disappointed, I am not let down. Fun for me is kind of like a lover who is always making you feel bad in the end. After years and years of this maddening relationship I have broken the cycle. I have left fun for the reality of my life. I have left fun for quiet evenings at home- a relationship that I feel is more dependable and certainly more consistent. “That’s my idea of fun,” I told my wife as I tried to describe why I was no longer interested in having fun.  “Well do not forget,” my wife replied, “tomorrow night is your sister’s birthday and we are going to go out illuminate ourselves out from this funk you live in and have some damn fun!”

An Invitation To A Beheading.

I used to love sitting alone in a chair and reading a good book. Nothing brought me greater pleasure. I would read a novel a day while enjoying the background sounds of birds chirping and cats meowing. Nothing was as effective in diminishing my stress and anxiety as a good book. No matter how bad the conditions of the world or my life- the printed words on a page could lift me out from my psychological squalor and re-plant me in a space of wonderment. I look back upon these times with utter envy. I even become emotionally enraged towards the man I was in my twenties. I am not only jealous of the large chunks of time that he had to drift of into the pursuit of knowledge but I am furious that it has all gone away.

Now I cannot read a book without having to get up and do something after twenty minutes. I become aggravated, nervous and I am distracted by these demons that seem to be hovering over me and disrupting my concentration. My thoughts begin to race and I struggle to stay focused upon what ever story or non-fiction work I have chosen to read. But no sooner than I can get past a few pages is there the loud voices of little demons that whisper scary things into my ears and poke sharp objects into my chest making me fearful what might happen next. I try to tune them out and push them away with positive visualizations or a smile- but they are ferocious and do not easily relent.

I know nothing good lasts forever, but there are still so many books left that I want to read. I want to return to that time when I could read peacefully for hours, day upon day- without the little brats whispering in my ear: “is your heart beating irregularly?” or “shouldn’t you be doing something more constructive.” Some times these little demons keep shouting things at me like “watch out, watch out- your head might explode!!” or “run, run, run for your life…death is coming, ha ha!!” My own inner monologue is not loud enough to silence these intruding voices and rather than continuing to read I give up and go do something else.

I have not been able to read a book from front to back for months. These little intrusive demons are getting the best of me. They also sneak into my head when I go for walks and drive my car. If I am not constantly reciting a mantra in my mind or singing a song- they will sneak into my silence and cause me great anxiety and grief. The little demons are wearing me down, forcing me to drink more wine and taking me away from the one thing that has always been of great importance to me- my intellectual life.

Without my practice of diligent daily reading my intellectual acumen has become as watered down as a cheap cocktail. I have not been able to think or write upon the great themes of philosophical dialectics or cultural theory like I had once planned upon doing. I have not been able to write great novels that compare with the best of works by Tolstoy, Kafka or Bernhard. I have not been able to go into my career as an honorable college professor who specializes in Ontology and Samuel Beckett. Rather- to defend myself against these little demons and attempt to save my own life I have had to go towards the New Age. I have had to practice meditation, do Yoga, recite mantras and start wearing beads and stones to defend myself against negative energy. I have had to seek out healers and been told by many that I must get out of my mind and start to become more grounded in my body. The very thing that I put so much work into cultivating has become my demise. My intellect has become the very portal from which these demons can access my nervous brain causing me such scary afflictions as to make me consider taking medication. These voices and disruptions get louder and louder every day- if it continues I may send out invitations to my own beheading.

photograph by Keith Purdy.

How To Stop The Mind From Having Thoughts Of Impending Doom.

Maybe I am alone in this one, but does anyone ever feel as if their mind is playing tricks upon them? Do thoughts: negative thoughts, bleak thoughts, horrifying thoughts, terrorizing thoughts- ever enter your mind without your permission? Do they cause you to shake and tremble at times- as if the end is all to near? Do these thoughts keep you awake at night, force you to drink and keep you confined to your house on certain days? Do the thoughts prevent you from traveling, loving and experiencing joy? I could go on and on but for the sake of my own anxiety I will stop here. I will stop here because I have pointed out enough symptoms of intrusive or unwanted thoughts of impending doom.

I once knew a devout Buddhist who told me that thoughts of impending doom should be welcome to one. We should be open to them and celebrate them because they give us an understanding of our mortality, which in return allows understanding the impermanence of all phenomena. Train the mind he said- and you will be free. Years later, I have trained the mind with therapy and meditation but to little result. Thoughts of impending doom grab me in the moments that I am least prepared and send me into a mystical flight of fear that I am convinced (in the moment) I will not survive. If I have these thoughts while on a bridge- I will avoid the bridge- if I have these thoughts while in bed I will sleep on the floor. If I have thoughts of impending doom while on a walk, I will try to avoid walking. It seems as if I am becoming more knowledgeable about avoiding my life than I am about living it.

I have had thoughts of impending doom for many years now and I thought that by now I would have the answers about how to control these antagonists or even better- abolish them from the mind. But I am no where closer today than I was five years ago in understanding how to live free of such anxiety provocations. I have learned to accept my fate as a man whose mind plays tricks upon him without any concern for his wellbeing. I have come to see my mind as a mass of tissue that is committed to destroying my bodies tranquility. Just today while I was on a walk in a cemetery I suffered a sudden burst of negative thoughts that sent me to the ground where I tried to gain control of my self. I was convinced that I would die and I muttered a few words of a prayer. The thoughts passed and I returned home to do some research on the web about how to stop the mind from having thoughts of impending doom.

I came upon an essay by Martin Luther King. It was an essay about overcoming fear and it talked about courage as the only way to overcome fear. Martin talked at great length about the courage to face death as if it was upon us now. I thought about this idea of courage as being a possible palliative against the thoughts of impending doom. After all- it takes courage to suffer the fate of a silent fury that has no desire to let you be. It takes courage to stand up to your doomish thoughts and convince yourself during your darkest hour that every thing is okay- maybe. I wonder if when Martin was dying from a bullet wound he felt fear? Or maybe he was courageous in the face of death- and rather than holding on to this thing called life he was able to let go, with courage.

And this friend’s maybe the answer. Let go. Accept your fate with courage and with each thought of impending doom- let it go. Now I have never been able to do this and I would be a hypocrite if I said I could. I can’t and I won’t. Letting go is something I seem incapable of doing because I am a Jewish (Jews have a notably hard time letting go. Why this is I am uncertain). When I feel death to be near my knees rattle and I loose control of utilizing any of the wisdom that I have gained from reading, workshops or therapy. I become terrified; because I do not want to die, and I hold on with the force of a man that is unwilling to let it all go. And I wonder is this my main problem? The root of my chronic thoughts of impending doom? “ It is only in courage that the man/woman who stands rooted in fear can be free,” Martin said. “And freedom is only the ability to walk through your fear.” Maybe I’ll just avoid walking for a while.

No More Awards, Please!!

I just received notification for an award that I received today. The award is for ” Blog With Least Amount Of Weekly Readers” and I must say that I am surprised. I have always thought that having ten to twelve readers or “hits” a day was fairly decent. I was proud of my weekly rating of around seventy hits. But when I received this award for “Blog With The Least Amount Of Weekly Readers,” I did some research. I found that successful blogs receive over 10,000 hits a day and mediocre ones receive at least 500. 500!!!!! Since I have started this blog I have gained many awards for things like “Most Ridiculous Content,” “Most Depraved Blogger,” “Blogger In Need Of Most Psychological Assistance,” “Least Commented Upon Blog,” and so forth- but this most recent award has really opened my eyes! I mean I have been writing, laboring and living in the dark thinking that ten or so hits a day was decent!

All I had to do to receive the reward for “Blog With Least Amount Of Readers” was push a button and what I won was three private phone consultation with a blogging service that could help me acquire more readers. It is a pity prize, a reward that is intended to patronize the awardee. So I will not follow through with receiving the free consultations but I will ask one final time to Please….stop giving me these humiliating rewards!! I write not to be awarded but rather to release my numerous thoughts and emotions into the digital void hoping that some semblance of a life form will answer with various solutions for my existence here on earth. Some days, I stay away from this blog because I am afraid of what I might say and instead decide to keep it all in. Now that I know that 10 or so hits a day is nothing to be proud of I may change my strategy…but like I wrote in the awardee comment box when I accepted this last award “It is not about quantity…but rather quality. If I can affect only one reader with the things I write than I would rather have one reader than 10,000.” But Please….to whomever this may concern- NO MORE AWARDS, please! These awards are causing me to question why I spend my time blogging and taking a toll upon what little self confidence I have left (please read my last post entitled “The Trappings Of My Mind” for more information upon my psychological state at the moment).

The Trappings Of My Mind

My mind has been doing things without my permission for the past few years. It began with very subtle thoughts such as “you should steal this,” “you are a failure, “you can’t breath,” or “you might have this disease.” I tried not to pay much attention to the workings of my own mind by smoking weed and drinking two bottles of red wine every day. Whatever it took to put these mischievous thoughts out of my mind- I did with a passion. But life went along as it normally tends to do and everything changed including the thoughts in my mind.

Now I realize that all human beings suffer from the condition of negative thinking but I believe there are variations of effect. Some people are able to immediately transform their negative thoughts into positive ones and others are able to ignore the thoughts that enter the confines of their own mind. Others, who are not so fortunate- may be dominated, overcome by the negative thoughts that their minds generate. They look towards food, drink, chemical substances, television, film or novels to distract themselves from the negative thoughts that have a tendency to colonize their minds. These distractions work for an allotted period of time but the negative thoughts seem to return with a fervor and force that no amount of inoculation can put down.

This is where I have found myself these days. I have met with nueroscientists, psychiatrists, chiropractors, and healers all to try and garner some support around gaining some control of my own mind. I have done daily exercises to turn down the left side of my brain and turn up the right side. I stand on my head every day for twenty minutes and I eat alot of fish which has been said to balance out the right and left hemispheres of the brain. But still at different times of the day the negative thoughts come at me like a wave which is determined to drag me under. What is a man to do when his own mind is working against him?

The past two years I have made many changes in my lifestyle. I no longer steal, cheat , lie or act without a motivation to be loving (most of the time). I exercise every day and I make every attempt that I can to sing or hum when I walk and to meditate when I sit. My hope has been that by using my mind in positive ways the negative thoughts would start to fade away like fog around noon time. Instead, the better and more hole I become- the more intense is the volume of my negative thoughts. It is like there is a devil in between my brain cells.

Nowadays, my negative thoughts seem to have been mainly centered around death. Every time I get comfortable or relaxed there appears in my mind an agitating thought about my own death. I see myself dying in various fashions and the thoughts are so vivid that the ensuing apprehension and fright stimulates my heart to beat rapidly. My body constricts and I have to fight against the impulse towards flight. The negative thoughts have become so frequent and strong that I have almost rendered myself powerless in controlling them. When a negative thought comes in which I see myself having a heart attack or being hit by a car, all I can do is take deep breaths and tell myself to relax. What is a man to do when the most dangerous place on earth is within his own mind?

When I sit in meditation, drive my car, go for walks or do just about anything- I am filled up with these intrusive negative thoughts. They scare me out of being ambitious in my life and instead I feel pity for the man I have become. I have grown depressed and conquered by these thoughts which have invoked a silent fear which resides just beneath my chest. There is really no place that is safe for me so I have taken up prayer (I am still trying to figure out to whom I am speaking). I eat less and take foot baths before I go to bed in the hopes that this mini baptism will perform the miracle of eliminating these negative thoughts. But instead my mind is a living entity that has its own set of rules which I am to weak to defend against. It is like the nueroscientist told me “as a result of many years of suffering from anxiety, worry and hypochondria-sis your left brain is at war with your right brain.” “What can I do about this?” I asked him. “The only thing that I know of is prayer,” he sternly replied.

So I pray, I sing, I stand on my head and I try to act with an intention towards love rather than hate (most of the time). I am doing all that I can to gain control of the workings of my own mind without giving myself over to medication, surgery or a Buddhist monastery. I work hard not to manifest the fears that I carry around inside my head and I have even started volunteering some of my time (to keep my mind off my thoughts) to help suicidal illiterate soldiers who have lost limbs in the war learn how to normally function in society. Sometimes when I talk to these veterans about the war which is raging in my own terrified mind they seem to be the only people who understand what is going on. “Ya, it is like a kind of post traumatic stress disorder that you are suffering from,” one soldier told me who had lost both legs in Iraq. ” “Rather than fighting in an actual war you are suffering from the terror that your own mind is generating…you are in a perpetual trap,” the soldier said. I could not have agreed more with his comment and to this day all I think about is how I can survive the trappings of my own mind. “What can I do?” I always ask but no one seems to know. “If only there were more answers, I would not be in the situation I am,” one suicidal soldier replied.

Man Of Miracles

I’m a mess. This morning I awake with my left foot swollen to three times its size and my wife crying in the bathroom. Our electricity is going to be shut off in three days because of unpaid bills and our cat is suffering from fierce scrape wounds to the nose and head. Last night at dinner my wife and I spent two hundred dollars because we drank and ate so much so that we could forget about all the difficulties present in our life. It was fun but now we are both hung over and broke. My house is cold and my job is starting to give me chest pains. If only I could jump into a hole and bury my head. I am a mess,

…..my father sent me an article today about debt. I have more debt than a mountain has weeds. Sending me an article on debt is like sending a cat and article on language. A cat has no words to speak and I have no cash to pay off my debts. I wrote him back a letter telling him that if he wants to help me with my debt, send cash, otherwise let me be. My car has two big dents in it and every time you push on the brakes there is a sound of metal. My wife is frustrated with me for the large amounts of stress my way of life brings to her. If I was only able to find a way to have balance and be happy, she keeps telling me. The roof of our home allows rain water to fall on the floor and currently some workers are banging away beneath my desk trying to fix an broken floor beam. I feel as if inside of me there is a boiling pressure cooker than at any moment could pop. I am a mess,

…I have rent due and not nearly enough money to pay it. My refrigerator is filled with aging food and my liver is aching from all the booze I have been consuming. Panic attacks have been a daily occurrence and usually before bed at night I think about death. I am filled with unmanifested dreams and am always feeling like nothing is good enough. My wife cries in the bathroom all through out the day and the only solid pleasure I seem to be able to find is masturbating to porn on the internet. My chest is always tight, my mother is always concerned about my well being and I am three years away from being 40. I am a mess,

…I nap a lot ion the afternoons and have a hard time climbing out from bed. I do not remember my dreams and I often eat burnt toast for breakfast with a boiled egg. I am addicted to email and have been writing people that I do not even know for help. Yesterday, while driving across the bay bridge I had a terrible panic attack which made me feel like death was sitting upon my shoulder. I tried to jump out from the moving vehicle, but once again my wife saved my life. I have experienced very little success already I have been afflicted with two chronic diseases, one which could be fatal. My wife and I seem to fight constantly and I can not stop looking at other women because it is another form of fleeting pleasure for me. I spend all my money on books (that I never read) and food and often dream about prostitutes and flying through the sky. The mattress I sleep upon is old and almost undone and my bedroom collects dust like a garbage can collects trash. I am a mess,

….my sister is an alcoholic who thinks that Arabs are going to take over the country. All around me are signs of affluence but I struggle for every dollar I earn. I am underpaid and overworked and like all lower income people I am taken advantage of time and time again. I am tired of it all and seek out a solution. I think about suicide, killing sprees and self mutilation but none of these answers would I be capable of performing. All day I have been looking for another job, but there is nothing I am interested in doing. My back hurts from writing out my soul so much and I am suffering from chronic diarrhea and palpitations because of my nereves. All I want to do is eat and drink to forget about the pain. I go from meal to meal as if I trying to erase the desperation that I feel in between. There are wars being waged, poverty all around, starvation and injustice walking through the air and I am a mess. Such a big mess that I have no clue as to how to clean it up,

….I have thought about buying guns, mops, towels, and blankets all to clean up the mess that I am. I have thought out self help solutions and consulted with great gurus. I have prayed, meditated and walked on pilgrimages for miles a day. I am out of shape, winded when I walk up stairs, afraid to ride my bike because of various cardiac issues and wondering around my home like a zombie who has been beaten by the struggles of the world. If this was not enough I see ghosts, spirits and can look deep into peoples souls. I know what you are thinking before you think it and I am aware of the truth. I can see through time and I know what the future will bring and so I try to preoccupy myself with various forms of pleasure and sleep so I do not have to think about it. In one more day I will be done, done with this way of living. I will change and do what I have to so that I am not all messed up. I will use a broom or mop and clean myself up so that you will see all that I can be. I will get a haircut and seek out the help of psychologists and chiropractors. I will brush my teeth put on my best face and find a decent job. I will stop complaining about my situation and accept all of this as the way life is. I will stop envying the sucess of Brad Pitt or Johny Depp and try to enjoy my job as a Teacher, my bank account with a small balance and my freezing cold home. I will think positively and learn to identify my good feelings from my bad ones,

….in one more day I will become a man of miracles…. but today just let me be a mess.

Why Women Talk To Cats

I have always wondered why women talk to cats? Ever since I was a child I have took note of this strange phenomena. My grandmother would sing in Yiddish to every cat she passed by and often formed relationships with certain ones that she would invite over to her house on Sundays. Both my mother and my sister always talked to cats and I remember growing up with the both of them more preoccupied with talking to our two cats then they were with talking to me. I became annoyed with my sister and mother at a young age because whenever they would begin a conversation with cats it would be in a whiny childish high pitched tone that even as a young man I found concerning. But as I grew into the man I know seem to be today, I noticed more and more women who talked to cats.

Maybe there is a closer connection between the feline constitution and the feminine constitution? Maybe women are more tapped into the sensitive and delicate world of the cat? I have always thought of cats as very emotional creatures, and if it is true that the female is the most emotional species on the earth than this would provide an interesting connection between cats and women. I often wonder why it is that women have always talked more to my cats then they have to me, and I am just starting to learn that the answer to this may be less mystical than I have always imagined.

I have had girlfriends, wives and mistresses all of whom talk in strange childish tones to cats. They stop everything that they are doing and talk delicately with the cat as if it is their baby. They ask the cat the same questions that they would ask a human being. “How are you doing today Lilly?” or “Do you like the way the tree smells?” my wife always asks our cats. I think to myself, “does she expect that the cat is going to say I am fine thank you, and yourself?” or could this be a sign that my wife may be loosing touch with reality (since Alzheimer’s does run in her family). However, I try not to judge and I just presume that she feels good communicating with cats, just like all the women I have ever known.

Today I was walking home from the bookstore when I happened upon a rather attractive women dressed in a tight black skirt who was talking to a cat. The cat rubbed its feline fur all over her ankles as I heard the lady saying, “why are you such a nice cat…why are you such a nice cat? How come you are so beautiful and smart?” I waited for a moment to see if I could not hear some kind of response from the cat, but I heard nothing. My curiosity got the best of me and as I passed her I stopped and said “Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a question?” “No not at all,” she kindly replied. “Why are you talking to a cat?” I said. She seemed surprised for a moment and then provided me with a vague answer, “because I love cats.” I thanked her for her vague response and continued on. As I got a few feet away from her she added, “don’t you know that cats are a woman’s best friend?” And then everything made sense to me.

If dogs are a man’s best friend than why not assume that women should also have a four legged creature to call their own? Cats are not only independent and patient but they also embody some of the finest qualities of the female species. They are not only graceful in their movements but cats carry themselves with a kind of confidence that seems to be a familiar trademark of most if not all women. Cats are proud and seem to embody a certain warmth that I have only found before in the womb and women. If cats share certain qualities in common with women that define their relationship than what may this say about man and his best friend- the four legged beast?

So women talk to cats because they have something in common. They share a spiritual alliance with the feline species that no scientist could ever understand. Both cats and women get something from one another that no other source can provide. What this is I am uncertain, but I am willing to admit that it may have something to do with love and respect. When I returned home from my walk to the bookstore I found myself greeted by my two cats, Lilly and Monk. Before I realized what was going on I found myself asking them both how they were doing and what they were up to. Suddenly I realized that I too was talking to cats!! For a moment I contemplated what this realization could mean- but I sat down with both cats upon my lap and they both began to tell me about how men and women have more in common then I might think.