Who knew country artists could be so Buddhist?

How many times have you heard someone say
"If I had his money I would do things my way"
But little they know
That it's so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind

Once I was wading in fortune and fame
Everything that I've dreamed for to get a start in life's game
But suddenly it happened
I lost every dime
But I'm richer by far
With a satisfied mind

Money can't buy back your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely or a love that's grown cold
The wealthiest person
Is a pauper at times
Compared to the man
With a satisfied mind

When life has ended and my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones, I'll leave there's no doubt
But there's one thing for certain
When it comes my time
I'll leave this old world
With a satisfied mind

"A Satisfied Mind" - Porter Wagoner

Bridging the gulf of sloth

As I was walking to work today I passed by my apartment complex's trash compactor and epiphany struck. The compactor is a simple mechanism: a large bin with a door in the side to put the garbage into, once the door is closed does the device begin its compacting. But outside this modern convenience was a bag of trash sitting in front of the open door. The impression it leaves is that it was effort enough to get the garbage to general AREA of the compactor, but to lift it 3-4 feet to put INSIDE was a little too much.

And I got to thinking - what is it in human nature where it's easier to leave something in front of where it needs to go rather than put it away? This happens all the time, people will put their garbage on TOP of a public garbage can rather than IN it, dishes manage to make it NEAR the dishwasher, etc.

(I'm not claiming to be immune to this kind of behavior, either, just ask my girlfriend.)

But it's like there's a hidden mental barrier in us that gives us the motivation to put something in the general vicinity of where it goes rather than putting it away completely.

Like the Monty Hall of my subconscious

My dreams have been extremely bountiful as of late. For the last two weeks there has been rarely an evening where my sleep isn't populated with some theme of me getting a new job or winning an enormous jackpot. One evening I dreamt I won $100,000 from a slot machine, the next I was at a job interview where they said: "Actually, we were pretty impressed by your resume and the application test you took when you got hired on, so this interview is really just a formality to make sure you're compatible with our company."

(In fact, last night I was hired for a position that required Japanese language skills and I suddenly started speaking it fluently.)

Now, while I am thrilled to be having a series of dreams where pennies are raining from heaven, I am concerned about the hidden message my subconscious is telling me. Is it my hidden insecurities telling me that the only way I'll come out ahead is in my dreams? Or is my hindbrain telling me "Look, I know you're going to be returning to work at that soul-sucking job, so here's a pleasant image to wake up to so your day doesn't totally suck."

I've been getting out of the habit of attaching divinatory or prophetic outcomes to my dreamings. I did that recently and I ended up more disappointed than Walter Mondale after he had invested in Betamax. Just because you dreamt that you had a threesome with two supermodels doesn't mean it's going to happen.

A: "I just dreamt I won the lottery, so I'm cashing out my life savings to buy tickets!"
B: "I dreamt I took a dump and a small mouth bass came out. I'm thinking I shouldn't have had Taco Bell last night."

(Note to karma: this is not me saying that I would not like a better job and/or a butt-ton of money)

The human psyche isn't a terribly rational thing at all. The logic your emotions take would be called "fuzzy" by many and "twisted" by most. But if you want to get REALLY irrational, you tap into the subconscious - it's like an autistic kid with an IV drip that randomly fluxes between sugar, heroin, amphetamines, and dog quaaludes. With a lot of the shit that's happened in my life I've learned not pay attention to what my subconscious is telling me, and then disregard it. There's nothing wrong with a gut feeling, but if you're gut feeling gives you answers like Brittany Spears after too many Jäger-bombs, it's a good idea to temper it a bit.

Creative kegel exercises

I consider myself a pretty creative and artistic guy. But my current dilemma is this: most of my creative inspiration comes to me at moments where I can't apply it. For example, I'm at work right now, but I know the only thing I'll be able to write at length is the current journal entry. That is because of two reasons:

1 - I work in a call center. I know a lot of people who have managed to get their "work" done at work, but they're also employed in positions with little to no oversight. I wish I were that lucky, the management here must've taken their training course at Stalag 17. I can be surreptitious with my blog only because I've mastered the art of Alt-Tab long ago.

2 - By the nature of my work, I am chained to my desk like an oarsman in a slave barge. Overall this means that I don't have very much control over the amount of free time I get between phone calls (sometimes it's an hour, other times it's seconds). One thing that frustrates me as a creative individual more than anything is having the flow of my creativity interrupted. Just ask anyone who has approached me in the middle of my writing - if they're lucky I'm merely reproachful, otherwise I may very well tear their throat out with my teeth.

For small, fluffy pieces (like this blog), it's no big deal if I get interrupted, I know that I'll return back to it eventually. And if I lose my work, it's no big deal. But for some of the things I REALLY want to be doing, I want to be able to put my full attention to it without fear of being sent to HR for snarling at my manager when she interrupts me to discuss my work performance.

The Return Of The Native

But unlike the Thomas Hardy novel, I'm a little too early for Guy Fawkes Day.

I'm kinda-sorta returned back to Tribe, but not with the previous fervor I have had in the years past.

It's been about January since I last seriously signed in and much has changed for me. (Not all of it bad, before you flinch.)

I feel a bit odd getting back to here. It's like going back to high school after summer break - you know where things are, but still are unsteady on your feet.

You maniacs!

This is a good new/bad news kinda post here.

First - the bad news.

The reason why I've been conspicuously absent from Tribe is kinda twofold, but the main reason is that they finally blocked the site from my workplace - for no other reason than that they need my work environment to be a "no fun zone." I'm still taking steps to find better work, but right now they've been derailed by something that I'm going to explain in the next paragraph.

The good news.

I've been admitted into college. I'm currently enrolled at Marylhurst Univeristy with the intention of then going to ITT Tech to pursue a degree in Drafting. There's a huge demand for draftspeople nowadays so I figured it'd be nice to change gears before finally getting onto what I want to be studying - film.

Feel free to message me on tribe (the messages show up in my email account) or PM me for my email addy. Sorry about the silence - I'm still posting Aaron's Board Of Bad articles at aaronsboardofbad.blogspot.com/

My Xmas wish.

Dear Santa/St. Nick/Sinterniklaas/Baby Jesus/Papa Noel/Father Christmas/Old Man of Winter/etc.

What I need more than anything is a better job that respects my desire to continue my education and isn't intimidated by it. I'm tired of interviewing with places and having the response be "Well, we need you to be flexible in your scheduling to meet our needs, so going back to school is probably going to conflict with that."

That's it, that's all.

Something for Christmas

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
They'll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all gods graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by the Prince of Peace
And they call him by the Savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worshiped in
From a temple to a robbers den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.

"The Rebel Jesus" by Jackson Browne

To the last I grapple with thee.

When we think of the word "addiction" we usually have specific images in mind of what that person can be addicted to. In general we usually associate addictions as centering around substances or actions that have some euphoria attached to them. It's easy to see how someone could get addicted to the numbing intoxication of alcohol, the escapism of narcotics, the heart-racing thrill of gambling, and so on. Very rarely do we think of the more subtle processes that one can get addicted to.

Munchausen Syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which a person feigns illness, injury, or some other misfortune in order to gain attention and sympathy.

It is also an addiction to being victimized.

In the eyes of someone with MS, their life is a tale of tragedy and woe on par with an epic written by Dostoyevsky. In their mind they've been the target of abuse, neglect and fraud in addition to their constant struggle with whatever chronic ailment is bothering them that day. They have the tendency of taking advantage of people's better natures and once someone demonstrates empathy and generosity to them, the person is hooked.

In a way I can see the attraction. The idea of having someone always there to take care of our needs and wants out of a feeling of generosity is pretty insidious. Not only are people dropping everything to take care of you, but superficially there's nothing tyrannical about it. Most people have a hard time believing that someone would go out of his way to hurt himself in order to garner attention. Think about it - we don't go around assuming people are crazy, so what person in their right mind would lie about having cancer?

I recently read an article about a woman local to me who is suspected to have had a form of MS called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. ( wweek.com/editorial/3406/10148/ ). Where people with MS inflict pain on themselves, MSbP sufferers externalize their trauma on another person - usually someone they care for, so it's the cared one who has autism, cerebral palsy, etc. And again the attention is given to the caregiver at that person's expense.

(Now MSbP is currently being debated in the psychiatric field as to whether it truly exists or not. Mainly because the way someone with MSbP treats their child is essentially abuse - mental and physical. Most of what supports the existence of MSbP is anecdotal evidence.)

Reading it got me thinking: In what ways am I addicted to the idea of being a victim? There are quite a few I can name off-hand (and am not going to go into just yet.) But thinking about it made me realize that self-pity is nothing more than another form of self-victimization, it is a means of hurting myself to keep myself in a center of attention (both positive and negative).

The more I let go of the parts of me that keep me victimized, the more aggressive they become at wresting attention from me. It's a difficult process - the idea of slinking back to the place where I started from seems as easy can comforting as slipping into a warm bath sometimes. Ultimately I realize that it's a fear of being unnoticed that has kept me where I have been for so long. By being the center of my own personal 3-act play I've got a lot of sympathy, but unfortunately theatre is a very limited medium, once you've stepped to the forefront there really isn't anywhere to go.