Shadows, shapes, and shades of grey

Magic!

Just saw the movie What the *bleep* Do We Know? and found it to be inspiring and comforting and provocative all at once. Has anyone else out there seen it? My partner seemed to think it was silly while I kept saying yes, yes, yes, yes... not to him but to the movie, to myself, and to the universe I am a part of.

One of the yesses was that I was given yet another affirmation about the magic of astrology. Although my devotion to studying astrology has waxed and waned over the almost 30  years that I've been studying, my belief has not. I sometimes see myself as one who needs proof of things, but not astrology. Why it is ... I guess the word is real, or legitimate or viable... was shown  to me tonight in a new light in the movie. There is so much that we can't see, that we can't know... yet the power of a word or a touch or a thought can be huge, upon ourselves and upon others. We choose, we create... we make a difference, one way or another. Somehow, there are invisible forces or influences upon us - our place in relation to the solar system -. and I know I am not explaining "why astrology works" here... its hard to put it into words. So what's the point of all this? To convey and share my awe of the magic of it!

If anyone is interested in chatting about astrology... I'd love to hear from you. I do do professional readings (I've just started again after a few years of focusing mostly on study) but I'm looking here to find some like-minded people who speak the language of astrology.

There is so much magic in the world around us... and there is so much awful stuff, too. I'm feeling that with a little more focus on the beauty, the magic, the synchronicity, and the awareness of the effect that negative thinking can have on ourselves and others, perhaps we can make a difference. Ya' gotta start somewhere!

posted by: brightlight at 14:41 | link | comments |

Changes...

As I sit here wondering how to begin, knowing that the theme is Change, my mind is flooded with snippets of songs like Turn and face the strange changes... and jackson browne lyrics... and peter gabriel... It's like my mind runs on cliches sometimes or I can't quite get to the thoughts that are my own cos I've been so inundated with lyrics all my life... none of which quite sum up the essence of my own thoughts or feelings but are like a fabric woven of words that is a backdrop to my life

My own (non-lyric) thought is:  I of all people should have known that the words "nothing every changes" which went through my head constantly for years was an impossible untruth, perhaps even an outright lie I told myself because everything changes. I should know, why? Because I'm an astrologer (among other things) and astrology is the Study of Change. Maybe I told myself that Nothing Ever Changes because I was unwilling to take a chance on making changes. Because I was afraid of making a mistake or of losing something valuable. Time and again I'd assess the pros and cons, the risks vs. the benefits. I'd do it on paper but it was never black and white, it never added up to a decision, a right answer. I went on like that for a long time... until I made a choice.

Hindsight being 20-20 and all that... I see that things were changing all along. I was changing but damn it was slow. I finally made a choice: to change a relationship from married partners to co-parents and who knew what else would remain or evolve from the former relationshp - friendship? Enemyship? Something unknown. Nor did I know how my own life would change or my daughter's life either.

The moment in which I chose, made the decision, has been perhaps the most important and pivotal moment of my life, but I could never have forseen the emotional and psychological and spiritual transformations that would follow. That was three years ago. Now I am able to see that change is constant, inside and out, even when things seem incredibly Stuck.

Maybe I should have called this Bad Marriages instead of Changes... but really I dont want to focus on all that negative crap. Yeah, there was very little real communication and there was a lot of conflict. Since then, I've learned that I was "trained" to anticipate conflict and that the conflict would usually result in several days worth of glares and sneers and just generally nasty behavior in my direction. I couldn't see beyond the ins and outs of what caused the conflicts, whose fault it was. I've learned since then that it doesn't have to be like that. I have to admit that part of the reason I'm blogging about this is because I want other people to know this. Seems like about half of the people I know are in marginally happy relationships. I know its hard and there are reasons its hard to end a relationship (helluva lot harder to divorce than it is to marry... hmmmmm). But there are people out there who ARE open to communication, who won't tell you that the NBA draft or the Super Bowl or a nap are more important than you. When I tell people that I've discovered this, they listen to be so attentively, almost as if they want some secret formula I've divined.

Why do people become so unkind to one another and what happens to us when we are involved in these horribly unkind relationships? I believe you don't really know until you're out, you don't understand how beaten down you've been. That's why it's so hard to end them - it's just the way you are, the way life is. I remember periodically searching for remnants of hope and love in the last few years of my marriage, again and again. Sometimes I'd see little glimmers and I'd build them up so as try to honor the Vow, the Commitment. But like the shore is eroded by the constant battering of the waves, I was worn down... and finally had to admit there were no more glimmers. I thought for a while that maybe I was just incapable of loving, but now I know that my heart is actually alive and well. The fear of being treated with contempt and disdain has been replaced by the joy of loving and being loved and not just this one man I'm wildly in love with but all the people who are dear to me. Giving and loving and appreciating begets more giving and loving and appreciating.

Change IS possible and constant and, sure, sometimes life hands you major challenges, but the story is not over until your heart stops beating. There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world... and I wonder sometimes if it will ever end and if I'll ever make a real contribution toward ending it. But for the moment, I hope that I can make just a little difference by sharing my happiness with a smile. Incredibly corny but... 

Pass it on!

posted by: brightlight at 17:46 | link | comments (2) |

Of nurses and nooses and nasty surprises

I admit to having my best laugh all day when I read ,

this stuff is deadly

we know what must go
my body accepts it
red pee i might have
the tube is now empty
 and i can soon leave

Actually, the laughter had already begun but at that point I lost it. Who the heck makes rhyme out of this stuff????

Yup, I was there when she advised that the pee might be an unnatural shade color so when he went to pee in that $8000 foldaway stainless steel toilet that I thought was so cool, so airplane bathroom-like in that compact super-efficient supersanitary (is it really sanitary on airplanes or is it just that blue water that gives you the illusion) way that airplane bathrooms are...  I had to see for myself what shade that red liquid became after interacting with his own fluids. Was I disappointed? Well, the stainless steel surface made it a little hard to tell exactly what color it was but it definitely was not your average run of the mill yellow. Was it worth “the price of admission?” No. In fact, there has not been a single moment that I can recall in the past two and a half weeks that makes this sudden turn of events worth it. Yeah, sure, I always want to see my baby more than we can manage cos of work and daughters and such, but not like this. Nope. Take back the cancer, whoever you are who put it there and I'll gladly wait out the next however long it was gonna be til we can figure out how to live under one roof and hold each other every night all night.

The price of admission... what is it, what has it been? How much ought one pay to go on a a roller coaster ride like this one where the peaks and valleys are about having momentary views of your whole life, like seeing through both a telephoto lens and a macro lens at once, in between long moments of gazing into the eyes of a man I've known for almost two years and continue to feel amazed at my great fortune at having found him. It did not take this illness to make me feel this way . I admit it... I have been basking in his affection and his attention and in indulging in showing him my love without hesitation for a long time now.

It just takes on more meaning cos I had to face the possibility that I could lose him. Lost a friend to cancer not too long ago, a very close friend  since I was 17 and it was fast and unbelievable and I miss him still. But that's not what this is about -  this isn't melanoma and everything about it is different in fact, including me. I've learned a lot over the last couple of years and I know there is no place for fear and, actually, fear is destructive. If I fear, it is of the unknown and there is a big unknown – none of us know! - but I really don't think this Thing is gonna get him. No. Besides, its not time. We have more time together and maybe it was somebody's or something's plan to have us go through this challenge together, for me to learn more about me about him about us about life. I didn't ask for these lessons but if I'm supposed to learn something else I will.

So yeah, day to day has been needles and tests and statistics and fluids and pain management and plans and holding each other all night long. Its about learning even more, crash course almost,  who he is, what he's made of (in more ways than one) and he will learn that about me too. This phase of our lives will be something we look back on some day and I hope that it is even with gratitude. Maybe we are supposed to slow down and take a closer look at what we have, at what's important – not just us personally but the bigger ways.

My lover, my partner, my soulmate, my best friend made me laugh tonight ... we laughed hard together over what he wrote here and I feel so very blessed to have actually been there and shared all that with him (everything short of sharing those poisons, smile). Nurse Betty... she is an angel indeed and a pretty one at that who is exceedingly good at her job in many ways. He may get sick from all that stuff she put in him today, but at least he can't associate her with any of what he goes through. She is too Good for all that.

On that note, Goodnight Nurse.
Thanks for helping my baby smile today.

posted by: brightlight at 05:02 | link | comments (3) |

Two sides to every coin?

Sometimes I want to blog about a lot of things and sometimes it seems like its all the same thoughts over and over - I keep coming back to the theme of “black and white.” I wonder if its because I like to think that my points always have some validity even if later it turns out they’re “wrong” because after all maybe there is really no wrong, just shades of grey in the realm of right and wrong. (Heh-heh, you wanna argue with ME?)

But, nah, I don’t believe that because I know there are some things that are definitely wrong… such as taking what doesn’t belong to you, like in the movie Boys Don’t Cry which I saw last night. Rape is wrong. That’s taking what doesn’t belong to you. Black and white.

Yet, there are psychiatrists or attorneys out there defending the rapist because he was not sane at the time or because he was raped as a child or because he was provoked. Maybe not so that he gets “off the hook” completely but so that he doesn’t get as severe a punishment as he might.

(Don’t read further if you’re planning to see the movie and don’t know want to know the ending.) There was an issue in that movie that was less clear to me. “Brandon” presented himself as a man though he had the body of a woman. He invited (for lack of a better word) a woman to fall in love with him on the premise that he was a man. At one point I so felt like he (Brandon) was ripping her off. (Maybe it’s because I’m decidedly heterosexual and I projected that I would have felt ripped off if I found out that the man I fell in love with had the body of a woman?) Was it wrong for him to do so? In the end she fell in love with him and was in love with him even knowing who he was. She was conflicted, yes, but she clearly loved him. I really can’t decide about this aspect of the story. By the end of the movie, I didn’t so much feel that he was ripping her off because of my empathy for the profound issues he had about his sexual identity. But it was his lying about everything that got him into so much trouble. Lying is wrong, yes? But then, maybe you can blame society for his lying, since society (especially THAT society in Texas) sometimes will not tolerate the truth.

Now some folks might have an issue with my calling him (Brandon) he when he is physically a she, but I feel that he is owed that respect because I think that we create ourselves in many different ways and who am I to tell some corporate executive who used to be a homeless person for example that they have no business being an executive when deep down they are no more than a homeless person. Maybe that’s not the best example… perhaps someone out there can offer me a better one. 

Perhaps my fascination with “right and wrong” and “black and white” has to do with my awareness of how muddled life in the 21^st century has become. We have choices that people wouldn’t have dreamed of a hundred years ago. The word boundary has become so very popular in the past couple of decades, but boundaries are not etched in stone and walls sometimes serve to keep people separate. A boundary sometimes has to be altered if one is to grow and change and love and be loved.

Yeah, there is no rulebook that applies anymore although I think that the 10 commandments are still pretty good guidelines, but what if your father rapes your little sister, do you still honor him? Hell no. No… there are not too many people we can look up to anymore. Turns out almost everyone has something kind of ugly in their past. Yet, if not for the internet and television we wouldn’t know a lot of what we know and we could just carry on with our fantasies about how great our “heroes” were and feel proud and happy and not ask so many questions.

I wonder what a real hero or leader in the 21^st century will look like.

 

posted by: brightlight at 20:21 | link | comments (1) |

 

LUCINDA!!!

Not too often that I turn into a fanatic, but I have been refanatacized (pardon me for taking liberties with the English language) by seeing Lucinda Williams and her band yesterday. They played For Free (!) in a gorgeous spot right in the heart of my blessed little city -  San Francisco – in Stern Grove.

It’s hard to describe what it is she does to me… but I wish I could share it, viscerally, with all of you (who enjoy this sort of thing, that is). She is raw, she is ecstatic, she is dark, she is sexy, she is sweet, she is sad, she is beautiful. She’s not the most awesome guitarist or the most awesome vocalist ever to grace the musical world. She just does what she does and does it to a lot of people… many of whom showed up hours early just to get a secure place to relax in through the show.

Perhaps I’m just the sort of person who likes to be moved the way I felt moved today… maybe other folks would disagree, those that might rather sit quietly in their chairs (which was discussed a few blogs back, now that I think about it) would disagree. But maybe their souls could be permeated too!  Maybe they’d have to get up and move the way a lot of us did.

Yeah, I need these moments more and more as I get older. And apparently so did a lot of other folks today.

Thanks Lucinda!

posted by: brightlight at 17:25 | link | comments (2) |
music

Black and White

Been thinking about writing about this oh-so-commonly-used phrase for a while. I think it was already percolating when I set up this blog and called it Shadows, Shapes and Shades of Gray.

Many thoughts have passed through my mind as I’ve considered those words… like, to what should this phrase apply? What is ever really black and white? We take photographs in black and white and they reveal nuances that might have been missed if they had been in color. Color might have distracted us. Perhaps it’s in the shades of grey that we come to understand or feel something about what was captured in that moment. Without that bright purple or blue blouse, we may notice something about the expression on the face that we would have otherwise missed. Our eye is drawn to something other than the red lips or rosy cheeks… we see a little tension in the muscles around the neck and the shoulder. We understand the moment… differently.

But I digress.

Black and white… makes me think of “life and death.” That seems to me to be the one thing that should be represented by this phrase. Everything else has its nuances. I can get into black and white thinking sometimes around the subject of crimes that ought to be punished, no ifs ands or buts. Like violent crimes perpetrated on children. Kill those fuckers. Hurt them, harm them, make them pay. To me, that’s black and white thinking. No time or reason to allow for nuanced-thinking like “Oh, but he is mentally ill” or “He was abused as a child” or “An eye for an eye is barbaric.” Yeah, I can get really vehement about this sort of thing, what to do to really coldhearted criminals. But I’m not sure what I “really’ think about this stuff and thankfully its not ME that has to decide these matters. I have no desire to be a legislator (or even a juror, though they say it’s my responsibility to serve and I’m sure I’ll have to, someday). I’m too understanding. (Usually.) People say I tolerate a lot, accept a lot, get stepped on a lot. Perhaps because I don’t see things as black and white. There’s so often something to be explained or better understood. (Please don’t misunderstand me – I’m not really interested in an eye for an eye-type punishments and stuff like that… Just… sometimes… its seems like extreme measures would be an appropriate response to extreme crimes)

But … life and death? You’re either dead or alive. Why do I think so much about how life and death is the one thing that is so black and white? Yes, I have had to deal with death more closely in the past year than I have in all the years I lived before that. Death has a lesson to teach about living. About how to look at life and about how to love. If I could just bring that with me to every moment, to every interaction… Practice compassion and tolerance, remember that the moment is precious… Of course, I’m only human… sometimes that idiot driver with the cell phone glued to his eye who just cut me off is not on the receiving end of my compassion as I blast him with my horn.

I’ve lost two people in the past year. I’ve gotten somewhat used to it. Their photos are right here beside me. One was my age (47). He died because cancer consumed him. He was so full of life… I don’t fully understand how it is that a man of such vitality is not still here with us. He was my friend for 30 years. Where did all that vitality go? Poof. That’s it. Black and white. He was here. Now he’s not.

Lorelei is another story. She was 17. She was killed in a car accident. No drugs or drinking, just an incredibly negligent mother (the mother of the 16 year old driver, who survived as did the other passenger in the front seat). Lorelei’s boyfriend was killed, too, his arm broken in many places as he tried to hang on to her when the car started spinning. The driver had had her license suspended because of two moving violations (one was for speeding at 90mph!! ) That tragic night, her mother gave her the new Ford Mustang convertible because her car was out of gas (supposedly). Huh? She wasn’t supposed to be driving! Argh. Don’t let me go on.

Every day, Lorelei’s parents and her little brother awaken to this very black and white reality that they will never see Lorelei again. I knew her (but not well enough) since she was about 2. I will be attending her high school graduation next Friday… her diploma will be accepted by a girl who’s heart was broken by her death. She would have graduated with honors. She was loved by so many. She’s gone.

Everything pales in importance in comparison to life and death matters. I rarely thought these kinds of thoughts until my friend died and Lorelei died.

Aside from life and death… I think I can only try to love and to forgive and then love some more. Including myself. What and who we choose to love… we can’t justify in terms of black and white. This person is worthy of love, that person is not.  There is so much judgment in the world. It bothers me. All the –isms (racism, sexism, etc etc etc). All the ignorance. And they’re not even blissful in their ignorance!

Wow. I’m really glad I finally sat down to write this. I’m feeling more focused. I would love to hear what the phrase “black and white” means to you. I know there is more to be learned.

posted by: brightlight at 19:02 | link | comments (2) |

Time to Blog… feels like a luxury to have the time and the privacy to do it. Surely the phone will ring any second. Feels like “the thing to do,” although I’ve only been aware of having the option to spend time blogging for a few weeks now and it still doesn’t come so easily to me. But, I’ve written letters and “journaled” since I was pretty young, so I am familiar with this feeling of desiring to write. Public writing though? That’s new.

Thing is though, I mostly lost the desire to journal a while ago. Maybe it was partly because there was a part of my life I knew I couldn’t share with people, except one on one, in confidence, so ink and paper wasn’t safe. I also felt like I outgrew the need to pour out and sort out every feeling I had just for the sake of recording it and – what - maybe looking back and having some greater insight into what was going on than I had at the time. It was somewhat cathartic to write when I was younger. But it didn’t change anything… I have come through a lot of difficult times and some of the stuff I used to write about was whining and complaining about how miserable my marriage was. That being over… <smile>… I realize I no longer want to have anything to whine about. I don’t want to have to complain! Goddamnit! I admit I don’t always feel perfectly happy and cured of whatever made me want to write all those times…. But I choose now to not to complain and to dwell a lot less. Maybe its just getting about a little older… 20’s and 30’s are behind me now…  Those of you beyond those times are probably nodding in agreement now… yeah, we sure did whine sometimes in those years.

So anyway… (a phrase I have sworn for years to stop using – grin),  I named my blog “shadows, shapes and shades of grey” cos that says something about how I See and Think and Feel. I am a photographer (by hobby), and I came to Motime thinking that blogging would help me better understand what it is my brain and senses and heart are seeking and how they seek and how images contribute to what I think and feel. Writing seems to help fine tune some of my senses and makes me think about how differently we all see things but also how differently I see things or feel about things from one day to the next. I’m fascinated by all the nuances, by all the changes. Seems like sometimes everything is going by so fast… and it’s all kind of grey and fuzzy and then sometimes it’s all so bright and clear and colorful.

Kind of like how when I started writing my last blog entry about raising my daughter I thought I was going to be exploring and sharing about how I selfishly yearn for more time to myself, how I feel selfish at times, and by the time I got done writing I realized I was writing about how attached I am and have always been to my daughter and who knows how I’m going to feel day to day.

I only know that right now I have a little space at home while she is out at a play at her school… I have an hour til I have to pick her up. Sort of wish I didn’t have to… the whole parking place thing in this city can be a drag at times…  But it’s okay, too. I don’t resent it. I’m aware that being a 24/7 single mom is a drag in ways, but she’s off to college in two years so I know I better make this a time I will remember as having done the best I could to show up with love and affection and attention.

So I could be working now (self-employed I am, so there is always something I could be doing to make another $), or I could be cleaning the house, but instead I am indulging myself and writing and listening to a new CD my bf recently gave me that I haven't had the time adn space to indulge in either. 

Fact is that I have been feeling a little out of sorts the last couple of hours… about something that happened to someone I’m close with. I’ve had the words Black And White on my mind the last few days since it happened and thought about writing just about that… I think I will. Soon.

 

posted by: brightlight at 02:43 | link | comments (3) |

Raising children and living our own lives: two things which at times seem completely incompatible to me and at other times seem as natural and easy as though I were born to do just that.

My daughter was born prematurely (6 ½ weeks), but she was an oxymoron in that she was a big preemie. We hadn’t completed the birthing classes (some variation on Lamaze, as I vaguely recall) and she was born in L.A. – 400 miles from home – which meant that my trusted OB/gyn was also 400 miles away. No family or friends there really to provide any kind of real support – the phone to my family 3000 miles away was my lifeline.

I was suddenly a mother, sooner than I had planned, and I never once stopped to think about how the huge responsibility that this helpless barely five-pound thing in my arms represented. I only knew I needed to hold her and try to get her to start nursing and protect her from the sometimes inept hospital staff and keep her warm and change her clothes and diapers.

I thought she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. When I look back at photos, I see me looking kind of ragged (but blissful) and a baby that was sort of oddly shaped – an elongated head from the delivery and legs that hadn’t yet gotten used to being even in what most of us think of as fetal position. She was a scrawny thing. But love is blind and she was hungry and she grew and I nursed her some more and she kept growing and to me she remained the cutest and best baby that ever was.

I didn’t work much for the first 18 months of her life so we were together nearly constantly and I carried her and held her and wheeled her and sang to her and recited poetry to her. I still never stopped and thought, “Wow, this is a responsibility, being a parent.” I never wished for more space (except that I longed for more sleep and wished she would sleep and nap more regularly). Fact is, I lay there smiling at my husband the night that condom broke because I knew I going to be pregnant … When my water broke the night before she was born, I was alarmed, but again felt serene and confident on the way to the hospital… looking out the car window at Jupiter twinkling brightly at me so close to a huge full moon right on the horizon.

It wasn’t until she was about two that I began to think of how I had grown a sort of appendage. She was still a hungry and nursing girl and I was aware that I was one of the few moms around who made it past the first year still nursing. Around the world, there are many cultures in which mothers nurse their young for several years or until the next baby is born. Not us Americans. The breast has sexual connotations and the thought of a woman sharing it with a toddler is apparently obscene to some people. But I KNEW it was the right thing for my baby. She thrived. When she sick with pneumonia at age 27 months, it was nursing that got both her and me through it.

Sometime before she reached age four, I began to wish for a little independence. Of course she was already weaned (I know some of you were imagining the worst) and I was weaned of nursing her. We maintained a close physical relationship for a long time – morning and nighttime “cuddles” – a great way to start and end the day. Plenty of hugs in between, but less and less over the years. She was in day care and afterschool and there were times I made choices to work late, or go out with friends. I didn’t enjoy life at home with my now ex-husband very much. So I acted like we were raising her separately some of the time. Not the kind of upbringing I had wished for her or imagined, but so it went.

Now that baby is 16. I still take great pleasure in feeding her and watching her “grow.” I sometimes struggle with feeling selfish, wanting to get on with my own agenda, wanting my time alone, my space away from her. Plenty of room to feel guilty for that stuff, for wanting to have my own life.

Perhaps some people are “wired” differently. Perhaps some people never put themselves first, once they have children. But we ALL only live once. We all get to do the best we can.

I’ve arranged for her to go to Sweden and Europe this summer for about three weeks… and I know I’m giving her a great gift, and I know I’m giving myself one too. I have a feeling I’m going to feel a little like an important part of me is missing, but I also know that its not like an amputation. That happened to some dear friends of mine in November when their 17-year-old daughter was killed in a truly tragic car accident. My appendage is going off to do a little more growing on some foreign food and culture and I think she will thrive just like she did on my milk when she was a baby.

Yeah, I think I’m going to be living my own life for a few weeks this summer while raising my daughter from afar. I think we’re both ready.

posted by: brightlight at 03:11 | link | comments (6) |

Writing about Thinking about Writing...

I've been thinking about writing a lot and thinking about writing has me thinking about thinking.

Which reminded me of some lines from a song from a long time ago:

"Sitting around thinking
Thinking and thinking
And it ain't doing me no good.
Well I thunk and thunk
Couldn't think of anything better.
I tried and tried
Trying ain't doing me no good..."

These lines (not so well known from Jefferson Airplane) it turns out don't have all that much relevance to what I've been thinking (nor does the rest of the song), but now they're just stuck in my head, so I thought I'd include them, just for fun or for no reason at all or cos I really like the word THUNK.

Anyway, back to thinking about writing and thinking about thinking.

I have some questions.
Does everyone think about the same amount?
Do some people think more in pictures, some more in words?
Does the way we think vary with or because of IQ or whether we're left/right brained or... ?

More importantly (to me, at least):
Do some people manage to separate thought from feeling more than others?
Is that something that's learned, if they do?

What I'm getting at is... how is it that some people are so much more deeply affected (emotionally) than others by various things (works of art, music, words, other people's sadness, beauty, ugliness, cruelty, etc.)? How does it happen that some people can just continue on their merry way, not look back, not continue to feel? (I'm not just referring to cold-hearted politicians, believe it or not, but to people who just don't seem to go through a lot of emotional changes about stuff. This may be you!)

Sometimes I think it is a blessing to be able to do so. Sometimes I think I've spent my lifetime trying to toughen up, stay in the "cognitive" realm, not let my thoughts affect my feelings. But I don't want to stop feeling, this inner voice protests! Feeling is what makes me a good friend, a loving mother, a passionate lover (and more!). I want to touch and be touched, physically and emotionally.

Perhaps its all just a question of balance... perhaps that's all any of us do, control or measure our feelings when they start to emerge, lest they get out of hand, start to dominate our day, distract us from the tasks at hand.

There was more I wanted to say, but now the time allotted to write is gone... so I'll go ahead and post this, lest I think too much about it while it sits here for a few more hours and later decide not to post it. Looking forward to hearing from you thinkers and feelers out there.

posted by: brightlight at 18:01 | link | comments (4) |

Which things are really risky?

 

Jaywalking? (Support your local government. Jaywalk.)

Eating foods preserved with nitrates? (They say we might live longer cos we’re preserving ourselves.)

Eating foods that are contaminated with pesticides? (Why do so many people have cancer these days?)

Working really hard? (Did I read somewhere that Type A people suffer from more stress-related illnesses?)

Not working out enough? (You’ve got to breathe hard if you want to live long.)

Working out too much? (It’s important to relax, I hear.)

Worrying about how much you work out? (There’s those stress-related illness again.)

Worrying about your relative risks of cancer and heart disease and stroke? (Well, I can eat butter cos its not as carcinogenic as margarine, but it then I’ll have a heart attack. I can take aspirin every day, but I might get an ulcer. I can eat whatever the heck cos I’ll probably get hit by a car tomorrow while jaywalking.)

 

Feel happy, live longer, die anyway.

 

Follow all the rules but the piano falls on your head.

 

Somebody is making a lot of money writing down all the rules people ought to be following that may or may do them any good in the long run.

 

Cheer me up.  Shed some light on the absurdity of it all.

posted by: brightlight at 14:36 | link | comments (4) |

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