It's a Beautiful Day for a RANT

Time to cut loose, let the hair down, a bit. Fridays roll around too quickly; I can tell I'm a gettin' old.

So I've had this topic rolling around in the head a while. I hate even to address it, because then that means I have to admit a fundamental horror.

I am affected, not immune.

So, what's the topic? Blogging, and Ownership.

OK, so here's the deal. Somewhere along the evolutionary pathway, we evolved abstract reasoning. To have object constancy. To be able to paint non-physical realities in our minds and operate from them.

And what happens is: the more our minds interdigitate into virtual worlds, the more those worlds become our functional reality.

I suppose it started with object constancy, and plain ol' hearing. We figured if we could still hear something, but not see it, it still existed. A predator slinking behind a boulder, that sort of thing. Soon, if we saw it, then didn't, we also realized it was still real, but out of sight. Even if we didn't hear it. And then, if someone told us there was a predator behind the boulder, but we had neither seen it nor heard it, we learned to believe them.

Yada, yada, yada, skip to the modern Industrial Revolution and inventions like the telegraph, then radio, then television, and, finally, the Internet. Each of these mediums provided us a stream of data describing a reality we could not sense with any of our physical senses, but that was real in some other location or realm. So, we acclimated to realities that we could not actually experience.

But then, as is our twisted nature, we started tweaking reality, for manipulative purposes (Pun wasn't intended, but it's pretty good, isn't it?). Presenting false realities, as entertainment - things like that. We acclimated to those as well, and some of us were not discerning enough to realize they were false realities. Soon, we would swallow any reality presented to us in virtual form, and subconsciously take it in, as reality, but somewhere else.

And a funny sort of evolutionary thing happened. We began to internalize these virtual realities. We began to fantasize that they were, indeed, our realities. That we were party to them, and had ownership. Sometimes we felt the distance, between our actual world and our virtual reality. But we convinced ourselves that we could adjust, adapt, will, control, until we would eventually actualize those realities. It will happen, if only... Ergo endless re-runs of The Parent Trap. Every broken-home kid felt if they watched it enough times, something magical would eventually happen, and their own painful life would resolve from fragmentation. If only...

And yet another step, too. We not only internalized these realities - whether they were real somewhere else, or manipulated versions of something actually real, or just plain fabricated - we began to act on them. We turned our actual realities into a function of that virtual reality.

Classic example is the relationship the pathetic woman enters with the felon behind bars, who tells her anything she wants to hear, to manipulate her. She goes on to marry him when he's paroled, and we read the story of her murder in the paper, six months later.

Nowadays it's the meeting or dating over the (wireless, LOL!) wires, the Internet. We are so convinced of the presented realities we believe in, we do drastic, life-changing alterations to our actual realities, to meld our actual realities into the fantasy virtual reality.

Another example in the news lately is Baby Grace, the dead toddler resulting from her mother moving in with a batterer. The mother had "met" and "fallen in love with" this abusive man over the Internet. The virtual reality in the mother's mind, about the man on the other end of the wires, was nothing like what actual reality turned out to be.

And, oooooooooh, the world of blogging.

On the blogger's end, we have this fantasy of a world of rapt readers, hanging on our every word, extracting our pearls of wisdom, reveling in our uniqueness. And we are beguiled into writing things that we would never externalize in our physical reality - baring our souls and thoughts, forgetting the actual exposure to which we are opening ourselves. We abnegate reality, and function in our magical bubble, where we can let loose with abandon, and it will feel so... therapeutic. It's indulgent.

The other side is just as disturbing: the readers. They follow us bloggers with integrated attention, internalizing us with each new entry. Before long, they "know" us, and all about us. Before long, they know better for us, than we know for ourselves. Before long, they must act on it, and presume to tell us what to do, how to be. To tell us what they know, about us, that we don't realize about our self. How they could improve - better manage - our reality.

Virtual realities are one area where we are seduced into denial. Denial that it isn't real, or may not be. Denial that what we want, how we paint the picture, may not be actual truth, or anything like it. Denial that words can have no cohesive meaning in reality, at all. Denial that we can't distinguish that which is real from that which isn't.

It's a scary phenomenon, if you think about it. The problem is most people don't want to think about it. They want to stream their virtual realities into their heads, without an actual reality check. They just want to accept what they think is offered, and do not want to do the work of thinking about it, critically, in active mode.

So all y'all. Guilty as charged, at times. I have to labor to remind myself of these things on a regular basis, and still fail many times.

But, at least I've thought about it.

Don't EVEN get me started on Second Life.

End Rant.

-The Traveler

On Skills, and Mechanisms

For all the pontificating and posturing that I do, I'm really a fly-by-night operation.

For example, I cruise through life, mostly ever alert, waiting for a cue, a spark, to launch me off on something. It's not like I sit down and think, "What am I gonna think about, today?"

I'm a type who doesn't like to know what the day is gonna hold. I don't like agendas; they make me itchy and restless and claustrophobic, because it means the path is already defined for me, and that restricts my illusion of freedom, of discovery. OK, so I'm an adventure junky. I get off on all realms.

But I digress, which happens often. LOL.

So, I'm reading a post this morning, and the Where's Waldo brain kicks in, and this term pops off the page to me: coping skills. And off to the races goes the mind. Coping skills.

Immediately, the mind starts grinding out a discussion about skills, and how that word is linked to coping, but it's not the only one that is, and here's why:

The word skill implies, um, well, let's look it up in the thesaurus:

accomplishment, address, adroitness, aptitude, art, artistry, bag, cleverness, clout, command, competence, craft, cunning, deftness, dexterity, dodge*, ease, experience, expertise, expertism, expertness, facility, finesse, goods*, handiness, ingenuity, intelligence, job, knack*, know-how*, line, makings, mastership, mastery, moxie*, one's thing*, profession, proficiency, prowess, quickness, readiness, right stuff*, savvy*, skillfulness, sleight, smarts*, stuff*, talent, technique, trade, work

Now, LOL, aside from a few (bag, goods, line, etc - HA!), most these words suggest that skill is not a passive event but rather an active one that takes some forethought and determined action, with a sort of plan to it.

That a skill is not a default action, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

So, I was reading about how the addict in recovery loses their main coping skill, and I'm immediately struck that this is the wrong marriage of terminology. The word mechanism pops to mind, at that moment. The addict has lost a coping mechanism, but it was a default behavior and therefore not a skill per se, but rather a mechanism.

I rather like that word, mechanism. It implies machinery - something that is not cognizant but rather mechanical, automated, apart from anything sentient. Something that can be set in motion and it goes on its own, unattended. Something that is independent of a person - any operator can get mechanism going if they are told what switch to pull.

But skill is different. Skill is something you must learn, and with practice. It is a marriage of your mind, with work, and practice. It is something, indeed, one aims to improve, and master. It is dimensional - you can have different levels of a skill, of the same skill. You may be a lousy gymnast or a world class one, for example. Skill is somewhat personal, and individual; it may contain nuances, creativity, and flair. It's, in my mind, a totally different beast from mechanism.

So, you can see where I'm going with this, I'm sure.

Our job, traveling, is to weed out the coping mechanisms, and replace them with coping skills.

And to do so, we must be mindful that one is a default action, the other a learned, determined action. So, again, our challenger Time comes into play. Normies spend their whole lives developing coping skills to one extent or another. Many of them are not so very successful, or close to mastery. Addicts, on top of this, spend many years off the merry-go-round of this learning curve. And one day, they wake up, on the path to sobriety, with decades of Time gone by where the learning curve for coping skills was abandoned.

Two facets then slap the face of one in recovery: Acceptance, and Payment. Ouch, damn! On both accounts.

First, our challenger, Acceptance. Yes, years were lost, opportunities were not used, skills were not developed. And now, an awakening that we need skills - that we no longer want mechanisms. That nothing is free, unlike what our addictions used to try to convince us. Everything has a price, period. We can't just escape, avoid, run. We have to Accept the reality that it's not easy, and it is expensive, and this is the only reality. Acceptance is always a challenge to me, and I suspect it is for others, as well.

Second, Payment. So, to get from point A (mechanisms) to point B (skills), we're gonna have to pay. And we're gonna use two currencies, neither of which is much exchangeable: Time, and Work. We cannot trade a mechanism for a skill without Time, or Work.

But, take heart. While the labor can be toilsome, we win, in the end. Because these payments are investments. They return on the payment, with interest. We are no longer toiling through each day for miserable survival. We are planting a harvest that will yield richly. In joy. In relationships. In quality of life.

So, what's the take-home? The moral of our ramblings? The daily application to life?

For me, it's that I now know that every morning when I get up, I have the same reality. And that reality is that I may or may not Arrive anywhere, today. But Life costs. So, today, I'm gonna have to put in a payment. In Time, and Work, toward my goals. I may not pay off anything today, but I'll be that much closer.

You see, it's all in the expectations, how we view our daily lives.

OK, time to get to work, folks. I have bills to pay...

-The Traveler

Damn the Beavers

So, I'm out walking this morning, and pick up a Wall Street Journal, as is my habit, and there on the front page is an article about how we're shooting ourselves in the foot with corn-based ethanol. One of the points of the article was that the net effect is raised food prices for the masses of poor, who, of course, can least afford it.

And a concept that has been bubbling in my mind for a while surfaces, and I start the day's pondering.

On Fairness.

And how life isn't. But how it is an expectation with which we've been brainwashed, and by which we live.

They lied to us, as children. A lot. And I don't think it was helpful. They would have done better to tell us the harsh truth, about how life works. To warn us of the potholes of life, and how unforgiving they can be. So we could learn to respect those potholes, and not loiter near them, carelessly, flirting with danger.

The mass media infuse us with misinformation, ever streaming to us data that suits their purposes, not reality. Idyllic life. Perfect bodies. Everyone smiling and blissful in a white picket fence setting. Abundance. Harmony.

Hardship, and the drama that goes with it, is for entertainment, ratings. But REAL people, the person YOU should aspire to be, are in the commercials, and joyously successful in every respect. And, I might add, with little effort. It just is. Don't think about it.

Maybe I'm a slow learner, or stupid, but it took me a long time in life to realize that the Beavers were a fantasy. And Ozzie and Harriet. And the Bradys. That nobody's family was truly like that, least of all a blended one. And don't even get me started on My Three Sons with Katie and triplet babies living with her single father-in-law and his uncle, perfectly, while her husband attended college. That every conflict could be neatly resolved without resentment by just the right simple wisdom from a totally sync-ed-in parent in a two-minute talk. That real intimacy wasn't needed - only pre-packaged triteness, clothed in way-above-average WASP-ish looks.

But Darwin was much closer to the truth, about our species, our reality. We are a dark and selfish race, looking out for number one, even on a mass or corporate or national level.

Life isn't like a set of justice scales, where things are evenly balanced, and if you screw up on one end, you need only balance just the same amount on the other end to re-equilibrate.

Quite the contrary. Life is built more on a snowball system, if you're a cartoon. An activation energy system, if you're a chemist. A static coefficient of friction system, if you're a physicist. There are thresholds that, when crossed, take quanta more reparation than the energy first used to cross them. Emotionally. Financially. Socially. Legally.

And in the smallest ways, too.

For example, a few months ago I was filling a prescription. Because of the cost, I asked for ten instead of thirty, as it was out-of-pocket expense for me. I thought this would save me money. But when I paid, the ten cost nearly as much as thirty, because they jacked up the price per unit due to buying an odd amount. This, on top of the fact that medical services are much more expensive to those that self-pay, because we do not get group pricing, even if we pay cash-on-the-spot for services rendered and the medical services providers pay virtually no administrative costs to spend months chasing their money through an insurance company. And those that can least afford it pay the most. It's not fair... it's Darwinian.

Let's look at credit cards. A single late payment can send one into a whole different stratum of interest rates and fees. Hell, a late payment on an unrelated utility bill can send one's credit card into a whole different stratum of interest rates and fees. And they are severely punitive. Once one falls into that hole, it is very difficult to climb out. The interest and fees snowball and add to each other until hopeless debt is accumulated. And those that can least afford it pay the most. It's not fair... it's Darwinian.

Let's look at trust, and the addict. Through the course of their addiction, they lost the trust of those in their lives (the sober ones, at least). They breached a threshold that caused irreparable damage. Never will their word hold the same integrity, even after years of correction. And well into correction, a single lapse can crumble a base of rebuilt trust, back to nearly ground level, in a moment. Once burned, twice shy. Not: once burned, healed, burn me again and I'll heal again, ad infinitum. Much more like: three strikes and you're OUT.

So the addict has to work harder, for the same trust, once on the other side of the threshold. It seems their descent into the pit may have been a roll down a steep incline, but their climb out is the vertical face all the way. And when they hit sobriety with earnestness, all the damage comes home to roost, in their face, right at the time when trust is most expensive, and everything else is jacked up in "cost," too. It's a harsh reality, but doesn't budge. I don't know if it's fair, or not, but it is Darwinian.

So I know I sound all somber, and bleak, but really I'm not. I'm just thinking, out loud, about a concept that we were robbed of, as children.

That concept is important for us to learn as adults, even now.

The concept is that the set-up of expectations is key.

If you set up your expectations well, you will be better able to manage them down the line. I know, I know, the rooms say we are not to have expectations. Well, sorry, that's like perfect adherence. Never gonna happen. Let's work in reality-based thinking. We ARE gonna have expectations. So, let's learn to set them up and manage them the best we can.

Expectations gone awry are the root of many an addiction, many a codependent behavior, many a dysfunctional/unhappy person. How many times have you heard the storyline in the rooms of "I was self-medicating to ease the pain" - as though it's an entitlement that we should feel no pain? Classic expectation we have been brainwashed with through the media: Life should be easy, and painless, and if it's not, there's something drastically wrong with me.

Expectations gone awry lead to the illusion of entitlements. And when entitlements are not fulfilled, this provides excuses for thinking, behaviors, and actions that are not aligned with reality. It's like trying to build a structure on top of a spherical foundation rather than a cubic one. It's one big wobble, if the expectation is wrong, and doomed to disaster.

Maybe it's semantics. Maybe expectations are those goals that are not reality-based, but rather fantasy-based. Maybe the adjustment is to make sure we build goals, and not expectations.

Now, don't think I'm gonna tell you how to do this. Figure it out. You have it within you. Thing is, it takes active mode, in your mind, not passive.

But that's a whole other post...

-The Traveler

On the Currency of Time, and Trust, and Terms

I wrote in a comment not long ago about Time being its own currency. It was one of those insights that just popped up in the moment, that took me several days of pondering to really appreciate. So here, I want to think it out a bit more, in writing.

And by Time being its own currency, I mean that it's not one easily traded out, exchanged for something else. That we pay by Time - to make progress and undergo changes and earn things - and there's not much way to cheat it. If you think about it, we live in (at least) four dimensions, the first three being the three dimensions of space and the fourth being Time. We experience reality as a streaming through Time.

Some of us try to exchange Time, for thinking. (Guilty, as charged, yours truly, here...) We mistakenly believe that we can think our way to a place or position faster, and shorten Time. Or perhaps buy our way faster, by good works or volume.

And sometimes - get this one - sometimes, we just plain go into denial, believing we've made the growth we want to have made, when we really haven't, because we haven't put in the Time, yet. We are a manipulative, snivelling, conniving species, aren't we? We try to exert control over Time, rather than Accept it for what it is, and pay our dues.

In my own experience, I have recently lost profound trust for a person who was once extremely close to me. They are no longer close to me because of this very reason - that they egregiously breached the most basal trust, a boundary that is absolutely non-negotiable to me. And in the process, there was profound damage to very vulnerable parts of me, that are taking -- what?? -- Time, to heal. Time, to grieve. Time, to change. Time, to figure out what I own of that situation, and what to do about it, in myself. Time, to do the work, on myself.

It's not that I'm a hateful and begrudging sort. It's that I have Executive Rules of being, and one is that if you are systematically dishonest with me in a big way, I have no choice but to excise you. No choice, and no negotiation, if you breach The Barrier. I don't say this with feelings of hatred, or revenge. It just is. I can't expect to keep myself well if I'm entwined with a diseased, infectious sort.

When I look at trust, I find two components.

One is elemental, and that is: the item in question lines up with the expectation that the proposing party presents.

One is temporal, and I call that Track Record.

For me, Trust is not only the result of elemental integrity per se, it is also the result of a pattern of elemental integrity over Time.

And, Trust is dimensional. By that, I mean it has depth. The amount, the depth, of Trust I allot to you is a function of the quality of elemental integrity and the Track Record you have built with me (or, conversely, I have built with you).

So: integrity, consistency, longevity.

Trust is a lot like sobriety. Maybe they are essentially the same thing, really - one is an intangible form and the other a tangible form of the same principle. (I know, I talk a lot about tangible and intangible, because this is a concept I think God uses - leverages, cleverly - for a lot of irony, and this is one thing I'm fascinated with lately...)

Both Trust and sobriety require Time to build a solid base. And one fall can erode all the progress, back to square one, in a moment. They're both rather binary - black or white. On the wagon, or off. Then the building, and clock, start over again, until the Track Record is built-up, again over Time.

Let's use a stone building for analogy: One can only wreck and bomb it so many times, before it simply cannot be rebuilt structurally sound, again. And even one devastation, if the wreckage is fragmented enough, can render rebuilding virtually impossible. Well, for us. Thank goodness this is a program with a Higher Power, whose influence can surpass our abilities.

I'm at a year out now, from this particular Trust wreckage. It yielded circumstances that sent me back into an unmanageable life, and back to Step 1. As I reflect, with frustration, I can't feel the progress of the year most of the time. The pain doesn't seem to have subsided much. The progress seems so slow. I want to focus on misery rather than gratitude.

But I have become aware, now, that part of the roadblock for me is my failure to Accept Time. My continued illusion that I should control it, with skill. My stubborn insistence to define it, in a timeline, with expectations.

Because I'm not where I think I should be, one year out from this trauma and series of events. I want more progress, and less price.

But, at least I see it, now. And for that, I'm grateful. Now, I can re-define Time, as a goal. To Accept it.

God's timeline, not mine. I'm coming to Terms, with that, finally.

-The Traveler

On Comfort, and Courage

Back to pattern-extractor mode.

The compulsive brain is largely seeking escape. So it uses a variety of diversions - compulsions - to distract itself, to achieve escape.

I could write a whole thesis on escape from what, but I think the Cliff's Notes version is we escape from existential angst, and from pain of loss. And these are only resolved by embracing our spiritual side. For me, that means surrendering to the fact that there must be a higher power, even though the reality at times eludes me, and I have no choice but to make a decision of faith, and keep attentive to indirect evidence.

So, back to the compulsive brain. It lives in a frenzy of escapism, ever ricocheting off surfaces, trying to solve a paradox - how to calm itself, so it can focus on the real issue at hand. The problem is, the process itself can become debilitating. It calms itself by revving up the compulsions. And they have nasty side effects. Fear. Shame. Uncertainty. We can get stuck in an endless, unresolving loop, bouncing from compulsion to emotion and back again, only to repeat the cycle.

Sometimes, we need another person to step in, in the flesh, and interrupt the cycle.

Observation from the sidelines hasn't the same power.

There's a lot of hardball in the rooms. But I have a softer stance. I always thought it peculiar, when some religions would sit back and watch one of their own die of a medical disease, stating "if God wanted to cure them, He has the power, so we leave it entirely up to God..."

I always thought that God gave us tools. Free Will. Intellect. Judgement. Now, we don't always use them wisely, or in an altruistic fashion. But, we have them, and they can be used thusly. I think God works by design, so He must have administered these for a purpose. For us to learn to use, for good.

I believe in modern medicine. If I had a child with leukemia, I'd let the hospitals give my child chemo. Objective evidence shows that their chance of survival would greatly improve. I'd say that the development of chemo is the result of the gifts God gave us as a species: Free Will, Intellect, Judgement. So why not use them? Why think we have to force God's solution, saying only He can do a direct intervention?

Where am I going with this?

Comfort. And Courage.

There's a use, a place, and a time for the old-timer, hard-line, hardball gruffness in recovery. Denial needs some pretty good help, seeing itself in the mirror. We in recovery have great doses of denial, and we share in common a wake of destruction from poor living, wrong choices, bad behaviors. We bought them, we own them, we are responsible.

But I believe that there is the other side of that spectrum, too, the other end of tough love. It's called comfort. It takes Free Will, Intellect, and Judgement to administer. But it has its place, too.

Wrongly applied, it masquerades as enabling, as codependent behavior. But don't throw the baby out with the bath water, here, folks. If you get to know the profiles of people in the rooms, people in recovery, compulsive brains, you will see, even in yourself, that most have had life experiences devoid in comfort, ergo self-calming, escapist behaviors.

So when you run into someone who is working as they should, facing their denials, or at least actively digging around to root them out, and who is still in a frenzy of fear, I believe God uses us as ballast, for our fellow sufferer. We need to zoom out, and really look at the 12th step, what it means, how it plays out in different forms. Helping the fellow sufferer.

It may be more popular, and, frankly, easier or more self-promoting/protecting to spout canned wisdoms, wordy solutions. But sometimes the situation calls for putting ourselves out there a bit more, to come out from behind the protective mantle of usual protocol. To give something which costs us a bit.

The cost is courage. Putting oneself out, where the possibility of criticism exists. Taking a stand, moving into territory - that neutral zone - where most avoid to go. Putting aside one's own fears of rejection, or of being judged, or mistaken, and doing that which the heart directs - to offer comfort.

Comfort to a fellow sufferer need not be enabling. It is the act of reaching out, acknowledging pain, offering to hold a hand through the pain for a moment in time, offering to walk a bit beside another, in their journey. It is vastly different from telling someone what to do. It is vastly different from taking ownership of their responsibilities. It is telling them what they are: acknowledged in their pain, of value, redeemable, with hope.

And if you feel fear, wanting to reach out, but afraid of what others may think, that others may criticize your actions or misinterpret them through the filters of their own minds, know that this is one of the challenges God presents us. He asks for courage, sometimes. He wants us to invest ourselves, take risks, in order to grow.

So if you find opportunities around you to comfort your fellow sufferer, think carefully what to do, before defaulting to the easy, safe route of recitation. Use your Free Will, Intellect, and Judgement. And Courage. Sometimes, it's the best action, to touch another sufferer, and let them feel another human being.

Push past your fear.

-The Traveler

HQFT: Wanna Be Happy?

This is SUCH a simple sentence. But think about it.

The pathway to happiness isn't getting what you want, it's doing what you love.

OK, so let's parse it out, a bit. I have to do this for myself, because I think there's a whole lot going on here, and I need to see it, think it through, for myself. You're just along for the ride, if you're reading.

First impression: Things.

OK, so happiness isn't about things. Getting what you want, whether it be a thing tangible, or a thing intangible. Such as that white picket fence and house, or prestige. Thing about things is: as soon as we get the one we want, the ratchet re-sets on the next one up the conveyor belt, ergo you never arrive.

Second thought. Wanting.

That the act of wanting implies that if we get the object of that want, that some equation is solved. Let's think about lottery winners. They got a whole lot of what most people think they want. Most of them are desperately unhappy, and lose more than they gained, only a few years after the windfall. A whole thesis could be written here, but this is fast and raw, so I'm gonna leave the details up to you, later.

Third: Doing.

An action, not a thing. Funny, how actions are limited to the present tense. The only time when we really live. That, to be happy, we have to be doing, and doing means living in the now. So, happiness is contingent on us living -- when?? -- in the now. Not the past, not the future. Dang, never thought I'd be back here so fast, after yesterday's ramblings. Guess it's really true, that HPs put us right where we need to be, each moment. There's that present tense, the NOW, again. I really need to pay attention to this, yes, people?

Fourth. To do, to give, to produce... is to receive.

There's a little song going on, right now, in my head, by the Second Me, and it's singing "Step 12!! See, I told you so!" and doing a funny little dance. I was taught in college that all truth is one truth, and if truths seem to contradict each other, it's just because we don't have enough of the big picture, yet, in our understanding. But that ultimately there is only one reality, one Truth. Hm. Like, I need a Higher Power, to make sense of my life - why I live, and how I should live. And, now, the getting is in the output. That's what this is saying, I think.

Hmmmmmmmm. I need to crawl off and think, a whole lot, about this sentence. Like about a year or two. Maybe that would do it.

Or maybe just a moment, like now.

-The Traveler

RrEeClOaVpEsReY --> RECOVERY, relapse

As I was driving myself to "drunk church in the diner" today, I was thinking about the zoom-out. What do I want the big picture of my life to be, and what goals should I be defining, to help me in my next right steps?

I'm a systems sort. I want to operate from the big picture, with an understanding of the entire machine, not just be told to punch the red button when a widget comes down the line. I'm not one to like hiking tree-to tree. I want to aim for the mountain, orienteer a straight path, not one that is inefficiently zig-zag, or mistakenly in circles.

I remember well, orienteering in the Outward Bound type program I underwent. Being lost in Upper Peninsula Michigan bogs, with basically no quality information, 50-year-old-obsolete topo maps, and only given vague directions where our goal was for the night. Our leaders would take a topo map each morning, point to a place, and tell us that, until we reached that destination, we were not eating, stopping, or camping for the night. May not sound that stressful, but believe me, it was.

The maps were purposefully outdated, and showed roads where none existed, trails where none existed, dry land where now was bog. And, to top it off, the first day, they dumped us all out from the back of an enclosed flatbed pickup freight truck in the darkness of 4 am, and drove off, after an all-night commute to get there. They never told us where we were, only handed us one map per group, and we had to guess where we were, based on our ability to read the topo map and compare it to our actual terrain.

And keep in mind that, from ground zero, one cannot necessarily tell which hill is tallest, whether there is another hill there, or there, behind the ranges in front of them blocking their view at ground level. We often had to hike there, to see, to guestimate our topography, as we conjectured it might be, according to the maps.

Some days, we were so deep into bog forest, that we only knew the sun was setting, but couldn't tell which direction; its location was diffused by the tree canopy and impenetrable foliage above. We couldn't see the hills surrounding us, for the forest. Things are never as easy as they seem, on paper, or in our minds' eyes. Reality bites.

One of the hardest parts of the program was the not knowing. The other hard part was the knowing that our leaders did know, but wouldn't tell. It was a special kind of mind-fuck, as we were desperately thirsty, aching-exhausted, blistered, and starving each day, in that order of importance.

Like being tripped out, but dead-sober, at the same time.

They would watch us make a screw-up that added hours to our hike for the day, and say nothing. It drove me nuts, not to know, but know they knew. And, to be powerless about it.

We could only set provisional goals, hoping we were correct. Once we reached our provisional goal, we prayed to be right, so we could stop, cook water, rest while it cooled, and DRINK. Change the moleskin on our blisters, dry our bog-wetted sodden feet and boots and socks. Gnaw our hardtack until our stomachs quit growling. And then, set up camp, and escape to blissful unconsciousness.

But, if we were wrong, about our provisional location, we were just told so by the leaders, and told to re-start, then and there, goal not accomplished. So we never knew, until we spent the day laboring toward a provisional goal and achieved it, whether it was the end of the day, or a cruel second beginning. Talk about punishment....

Thing is, with a concrete goal, it's much easier to endure, because you focus on an end point. Every minute of agony is focused on achieving that end point, and relief. But when you know that your end point might just be a mind-fuck, it's in itself a mind-fuck, and that SO plays with your head, you can't believe it, unless you've endured it.

When we were deep into bog underbrush, it was like hiking through a privet hedge - so dense our hands were six inches in front of our faces, pulling at the hedge, finding a way to climb through, with backpacks. In this terrain, there is no navigating by hills, or ravines, etc. You trust the compass, and find a tree you can see 50 feet in front of you, estimate how many degrees off your goal direction it is, then head for that tree, and hope your degrees off is accurate, so you don't orienteer your way into a big ol' circle, through the bog branches, with wet, aching feet. And you feel a twisted joy if a spot opens up, such that you can see a tree 100 feet ahead of you, and it's pretty much in the right direction you need to go. A major landmark, for orienteering.

Is any of this metaphor hitting home, with recovery, folks? I am reminded back to those days, now, with how my life goes. Oh, how it reminds me.

OK, let's reset to the beginning of our tale, today.

That it's about time for me to take a disciplined look at what I'm doing, and think about some goals. I let things swim around conceptually in my head a lot of times, and sort of sleaze past actually defining important things. But I need to find myself some landmarks, for orienteering - can't just wander aimlessly. Whatever landmarks I can reliably use to orienteer, the bigger and farther, the better.

I remember the horror some days, of being chosen to be the orienteer-er of the day. Because, if you screwed up and led the group in circles, by tiny mis-calculations off to one side each time, too many times, you were not well received. And, it happened, more times than I want to remember.

Recovery is a lot like this, with relapse built in, such that we land back a few spaces - tired, and fed-up, and wanting to vomit expletives at life on life's terms. Sit down, and give up. Wail in self-pity.

But we all do it. Relapse, on whatever scale - whether it's full-blown going out, or smaller things like stinkin' thinkin' oozing back into our habits - is inherent to recovery. I doubt anybody has a straight path, and doesn't circle sometimes.

But there are things we can do, to orienteer better, to do our part. Having a sponsor, and using them appropriately, is like a compass. Sticking with winners, and learning their lessons, is like choosing tall, unique trees for orienteering - easier to keep in sight, to get to the next micro-goal in our path. And keeping in mind that some days, our provisional goals will prove to be mirages, that, once we get there, we may be asked to start all over, even in our state of exhaustion. Yes, mind-fucks are inherent to recovery, and we must accept this, and be bolstered to get past them with our tools.

These things I keep in mind, to stay the course. The wilderness ain't easy, but you can get through it. I did it once, years ago, in a physical sense. This time it's a different iteration, but the same principles apply.

And now, I'm off to think more in depth about my particular goals. Perhaps I will write about them later, but this is long enough, already.

-The Traveler

Much Ado About Nothing... Or Is It?

Do you ever have that experience where you read something, or experience something, and it just sort of fleets by you in the moment - not noteworthy - but then later you find yourself steeped in reviewing it? You push it out of your thoughts, but it revisits itself anon?

That something in that "nothing" loomed large, and seized your subconscious, and has been working its way up to emerge into conscious thought, like some sort of deep boil underneath your skin?

I was reading about staying in the moment the other day, and I glossed over it. Yeah, yeah, nice, fine. I went on to something more interesting - with movement, with story line, with angst, with color. There was nothing there to THINK about - staying in the moment. It's not a sexy concept. It's dry, and boring. End of idea.

And yet, it wasn't.

Ever since then, I've been realizing, slowly, how deficient I am in this.

Perhaps it's the lefty side of my brain, that is always evaluating, planning, projecting into the future. Setting goals and breaking them down into a hurdles course I see ahead of me. I personally live predominantly in the future, and the present is just the starting block, an instant with the gun as I twitch in anticipation.

And on the other hand, the righty-brain in me spins nostalgic, and tragic, and theatrical, on the past. It replays the past with different filters, ever looking at what was, pondering how I got there, and why I chose that path, how things unrolled. At how I was made, what things happened to me, what experiences I had, such that I am what I am today.

I bring my ponderings up to the present, and as soon as I get here, I re-set back, again, and play it over in a slightly different iteration, and study it, again.

To me, the past and future are full of flavor, texture, and richness. But the present is tediously slow, and one-dimensional. I just never want to dwell in, stay in, the present. I think it's because there's a certain amount of discipline required. It's easy to wax nostalgic in the past, or launch dreams of what if, in the future.

You can work with agility in either, indulging creativity. But the present is what it is, and must be accepted. It's not negotiable. I don't like that, so much. And so I avoid it, I've come to realize.

Now there's a paradox: avoiding the present. The only place and time where you can actually be. LOL.

They talk in the rooms about having a foot in the past and a foot in the future, leaving us to piss on the present. I've heard that many times, and it never resonated with me, that it was my mode. Denial reigns supreme.

It's curious how denial works. We are so comfortable, and blind in it. Like the shock after a trauma, when one feels no pain. And then some day, the bubble pops, and we see things differently, all of a sudden. Like a slap in the face, awakening us. Hellooooooooo, pain. Shit!

I realized that the entire family Thanksgiving dinner, and the surrounding time socializing, I was preoccupied - I know not what with. But I realize that I was not there, at all. I had conversations, yes. But I was off thinking of other things with my Second Me, and somehow meaningless drivel was going back and forth between myself and the other party while I was far away. I didn't care what they were saying. And I don't remember, either. It wasn't registering on my value scale. It was merely noise.

How profoundly ungrateful of me, I have come to realize.

Staying in the moment means you feel the things in that moment, are attentive to them. And I should have felt grateful, for my life, for these people. I should have taken time, and energy, to listen to them, to connect, to enrich, to encourage. Instead, I passed the time, got myself into the future, where I wanted to be. Again, I know not why. Just because it's my habit to gloss over the present, rather than inhabit it.

I'm grateful to have this realization, and need to discuss it with my sponsor. It's not the way to live. It's not the way to treat those around me. It's not how I should allot value.

And now, you're bored, having skimmed through this dry entry, and itching to get onto another blog, where maybe there's some titillating angst. But I'll bet this will surface, later, and you'll find yourself thinking about it, too.

You let me know.

-The Traveler

My thanks to BoyGrowsUp, for getting me to think about it. Unlike yesterday, sometimes I don't mind, when what goes around, comes around.

HQFT: I Feel a RANT Comin' On!!!

OK, so the toxic state of waaaaaaaaaay too many blood lipids has worked its way off, helped this morning by a large dose of diet coke and no more food, and the cloudy mental state is clearing. The espresso machine is warming up, as I type.

I'm cruising through some blogs for fun (I do a wide variety of cruising, you might be shocked at just exactly what I look at, heh heh.... Oh, but I digress...) I think FIOS service is enabling, truth be told.

And I hit a page, and yet ANOTHER cheesey little sticker appears, some self-administered blog award sent - re-recycled - on to another blog-buddy in their circles, and then the responding post of effusive thanks, etc.

Did I just never get properly socialized? I thought by this age and stage in life that I had made it to adulthood, but this made me feel retro-launched right back into junior high. Those types of things make me want to hurl, and repeatedly.

Because they are meaningless, and not discerning.

I mean, if you want to encourage or support someone, say something meaningful, with content, unique to them. This act of spraying out cutesy blog award stickers means nothing, they go around and come around and are just another iteration of the junior high popularity game. Does this never go away? UGHHHHHHH!

When we waste our lifespans on that which is meaningless, and, worse yet, base our self-esteem on lauding that is also meaningless, what does that say about us as people?

I like this quote my sponsor recently shared with me:

Say what you mean, mean what you say, say it with love.

And to that, I would add, use your OWN WORDS. Don't be so lazy to use pre-packaged junk food.

Oh, and in case you think this is sour grapes or some such thing, you would be mistaken. I was the kid off to the sidelines, watching that popular group do all their doings, but I wasn't the kid longing to be part of them. They never appealed to me, at all. I was just morbidly amused at their chatterings and cluckings. That's why I even bothered to watch them.

And now, I'm going to edit some of the blogs on my cruising list. I have quality control. Yeah, I'm feeling edgy today. That's what toxic eating seems to do to me, or the hangover from it, at least. BWAHAHAH!!

Ah. I feel MUCH better, now.

Two outta three ain't bad, I guess. I'm not exactly brimming with love, here.

-The Traveler

And Now, Back to our Regularly Scheduled Program

First off, I ran across this article about decision making, and my new goal is to become a "satisficer."

OK, so on to the real deal - today's brain seizure.

So I've been thinking about something Marc said a while ago, about us humans evolving to become codependents as a species, but that we've outgrown its usefulness, so now it's an obsolete flaw. And I was extending this Darwinian thinking onto the idea of the Itty Bitty Shitty Committee in our heads (IBSC, a term not coined by me, origin unknown, but I first was introduced to it here in this most excellent story).

There's the second mind concept (of mine), the little-devil-and-little-angel-on-the-shoulder concept (of cartoons), and then this concept of the IBSC which, as far as I can tell is analogous to what some shrinks call the inner negative voice (I'm thinking Robert Firestone, in particular, and his books on Intimacy). I think they're all the same phenomenon.

I digress here a bit to say that in my experience there's the main mind, that we function with on an aware level, all our waking hours, and then a singular second whatever-you-want-to-call-it voice, in our heads. I've personally never had multiple other voices, even though I joke about them.

So it boils down to Main Conscious Me, and Second Me. They often dialogue when making a decision, such as "should I or shouldn't I?" and that sort of thing. When they disagree, we feel angst, and then anxiety. When they coalesce, we feel depression, because that darned Second Me tends to be the pessimist, the negative one, and they only then coalesce when the Main Conscious Me is also down in the dumps. Which is why Firestone calls Second Me "the negative inner voice," and not just "the inner voice."

So my question is, why is it that anyone's Second Me is pretty much universally negative, in the human condition? And why does Second Me carry so much power, in our internal dialogues? If we could easily stomp out its voice with Main Conscious Me, then nobody would need a shrink. But we all do....

I was reading a post last night that was displaying an avatar. The person was bemoaning how awful they felt, looking in the mirror, hating what they saw, how they looked. But looking at the avatar, which showed a picture of that person, there really was nothing to complain about, at all. Yet the power of their Second Me superseded all reality, even on such tangible matters as looks.

We all have those experiences, where Second Me tells us negative things that aren't really supportable, and yet, we believe it - that is our default. According to Firestone, this is a rather universal phenomenon, and one of the main reasons we cannot attain intimacy, because we are stopped - put into defensive, closed-off posture in psycho-protective mode - by our Main Conscious Me's reaction to the negativity of the Second Me.

So, back to Darwinianism. Could this feature of human nature, the negative Second Me, be a result of survival of the fittest? That, in our phylogeny, we had to always think the worst, be ready for disaster, failure, assault, in order to be the fittest to survive? Was this characteristic beneficial, evolutionarily? If one is Darwinian, then it must have been, as it's now present, and therefore must have had an advantage to evolve with us.

And have we outgrown it? Now that we don't need to assume a Sabre Tooth is gonna slash us from behind, or our neighboring Neanderthal tribe is about to take our territory, is this characteristic still operative, or is it vestigial? One could argue that workplace politics render it quite needed, still. The stabs in the back may be virtual rather than actual, but can still threaten our survivability.

I think I just answered my own question. Yes, it must still be operative.

So now, I need to crawl off, and think how I could take the power of this Second Me, and turn it in a direction that is useful. Take what tends to add friction to my growth path, and turn it into propulsion. Time to think about some laws of physics, now. Or maybe geometry - twisting shapes one, into a different one.

Hmmmmmmm. I know. Too cumbersome to ponder. But like I said, I can't help what happens, in my mind. You'll have to forgive me.

-The Traveler

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words; These are Worth a Million

Look, and hear the million words. Click here.

'Nuff said.

-The Traveler

Lurleen

We interrupt the normal, stodgy programming to finish up our meme EXTRAVAGANZA.

Since I have a whole two readers of my ramblings, and both memed me this week, I am finishing up my obligations and then must take my snickering off into a corner and regain my composure. I'm not allowed to have this much fun; it does things to my brain, and not good things, I might add.

So today's entry is for Marc. I do give you credit for making it optional. But then you had to go and make me post it here, where it's totally out of character...

And since it was optional, I took liberties. I am not good at following directions, particularly when you drive me into a right-brained state of manic free-flow creativity (is that what it was?). So I pretty much just went with "Lurleen" and that was all I needed to be off to the races. I mean, "Lurleen" was so delicious... I just had to.

So the optional meme details, which I did not follow very well in letter but I think I did ok in spirit, are here.

DISCLAIMER: I am under no obligation to participate in additional memes, unless they are screamin' funny or of enduring value or make me twist my mind in ways that entertain me. Or you pay me enough. Something like that.

Oh, and by the way, Marc, I'll consider ghost art an optional image meme. You don't have to follow my instructions, either, in letter, but do try, in spirit. I want to see what that righty-brain and photoshop fingers do with the idea...

So here goes, "LURLEEN":

Hot DAMN, Jimmy-John, Daddy was right when he said theres places where folks aint like us!

I figgered Callyfornya is a lot like Texas, being its west and all, but it aint much like home atall. It might be west, but it aint south, and it damn sure aint home. Theys lots of sun but it aint so hot here somehow and people are all so purty it aint natural. The women folk don't do their hair up right and theys look wild and unkept, not all sweet and ready for their man like home. Some of theys do have nice purty yeller hair tho. Real nice.

But what gits me more is them menfolk, some of them are more purty than the gals! They even look like em. No hair on theys bodies, long purty hair in ponytails or just plain loose and the like on theys heads, and faces like babies - real smooth-like. I don't know, Jimmy-John, but some of theys may be movie stars. They say Callyfornya's just plum packed with movie stars.

Those gal-boys be a runnin round all greased like brown injuns with little boy toys like skates and skateboards. That part aint bad, the injun part, it's the part with them mens wearing gal stuff. Earrings, and studs in theys nose or lip or I even seen one wearing a hoop like ring in his nipple, Jimmy-John! Now don't tell me that don't hurt. Why would a man want to do that?

And sometimes, I cant tell whose the gal and whose the man! Thems the ones that really bugger me. It downright scares me, I say. And Jimmy-John, don't you tell Daddy or Momma, but I seen two together, if you catch my drift, two of the same, not like God wants men, or ladies. Right out in plain sight.

Now I know what Daddy was saying, theys places where God is, and places where God stays clear on account the folks aint right. Now I seen what that is, Jimmy-John, and that be gonna stick with me, when I git home.

Daddy warned me to be wise, that home is best, and best not to mix with folks we don't know, and aint like. I seen what Daddy means, now, Jimmy-John.

All y'all can rest quite now, I be home in a wink, and then I don't figger on comin back here. No, sir. One time be fit for me. We should a done stayed home, at Six Flags, like Momma done said, not been all fancy for them babies to see Micky Mouse. I will say the babies did like it. I just glad theys to
bitty to see them, like I did.

I think Daddy was best, Jimmy-John. Stay by folks you know, dont try and git fancy. We done paid all that much to see freaks, haul ourselves half acrost this country just to wish we was back home.

Now, what sense is that, Jimmy-John?

I will say travel did make me a right bit smarter.

See all yall soon, and tell Momma not to worry, now. But Jimmy-John, the other things, don't be telling Daddy an Momma. Just let it be.

Lurleen

Games People Play - This One's for You, Boobfruit

Oh, man, I always SUCKED at those. I was the kid who was off on the sidelines, minding my own business, when all the groupies were snickering and plotting. Not in a loser/wallflower sort of way, though. I just always hated social games. I can't even stand wearing a garment with a logo on it.

So it's with great respect for Chris, that I will engage, here. And I don't even know seven bloggers to tag, so forget that part. Plus, I have all sorts of Executive Rules, one of which is I categorically don't forward any chain type things. Maybe this will change, in blogdom, for me, but for now, I bow out of that part. Hey, one out of two isn't bad, for a first effort.

Here are the seven, in the interest of not boring readers with too much ado. The details of the meme are in this link.

Seven things I've learned in Recovery

1. Displacement works. And, it can facilitate healing. Instead of slamming doors, and repressing or ignoring or avoiding something, I'm learning to actively displace it. Take something destructive, or painful, or negative, and actively displace it with something constructive, or joyful, or positive. This can actually be engineered, and it works. I spent a lot of time convincing myself that it wouldn't work, and it was a stupid concept, until I tried it, and it worked. Sort of analogous to surrender. It's a bit counter-intuitive to my instincts.
2. I have many more compulsions than I realized (thank goodness for #1, then). And they're dynamic. I get one taming down, and another pops up, rears its ugly head. Sort of like that arcade game where you whack the gophers. Only thing is, I'm a systems sort, so I want to find the plug, and unplug the power, rather than just stand there and whack heads. I would rather endure pain than spin wheels. I just hate wasting my lifespan. Maybe not unplug, but install a dimmer switch or something.
3. For all our terminal uniqueness, we are basically similar. If you zoom out to the cosmos, we all are about the same size and IQ from that perspective. All of our issues fall within a same realm. We're fairly small. Problem is, we live on the micro-scale, and don't discipline ourselves to look at the forest for the trees. Terminal uniqueness is ubiquitous. Perhaps that is what our souls are, that part of us that we feel unique, that we cling to, as us alone.
4. I had to reject "God" to find God. One of the biggest things for me in recovery is Permission. I have to allow myself Permission to do things that go against my ingrained background, to get past the things that are blocking me. I hold to my own Executive Rules too tightly, and it's holding me back. I need to give up those Executive Rules, because I've ostensibly reliquished being the Executive.
5. I have to learn the concept of God knows best. I thought I understood it, but I still don't. This is particularly pertinent when I see someone go out, all the way out, to the end. I know what I need to do is acknowledge that God is that person's HP and knows what's best for them, even if it means taking them out, and leaving wreckage and pain for all who are left behind in their lives. Damn, that is a hard lesson, and one that I know I need to learn, but haven't yet. I may be faking that one, until I die, not sure I will ever make it. I still think I know a better way, for them. "C'mon, God, do it this way..."
6. I see fear differently, now. I now know it isn't to be avoided, but embraced, even if I don't want to, because it's only through it that I am strengthened and developed. Now I actively think about it, rather than just knee-jerk avoid it, or repress it. Now I try to embrace it, push into it, find the core and lesson.
7. Recovery adds dimension to people. Rather like popcorn in a microwave. A whole lot like popcorn, in a microwave. Think about it.

Probably not much new in there, but, hey, I did it. Under cringe, I might add. Only for you, C.

-The Traveler

On My Ass in a Sling, Where it Belonged

I think back years ago to a rappelling experience I had, and how the lessons learned in a moment have stayed with me all this time.

I was engaged in an Outward Bound type program, three weeks in length. It was in the muggy, mosquito-infested bogland of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in August.

After a couple weeks of sleep deprivation, starvation, and soreness, we were led to the top of a cliff face. It was truly vertical. Looking down below, one saw the upper reaches of the forest canopy as if it were a field of hunter green popcorn. It was a surreal sight, the scale of depth. I would have imagined such a sight in Borneo, but not in Michigan.

Our hardened guides unpacked the climbing gear. We captive minions could feel our blood pressure rising as they proceded to give us a tutorial about rappelling. I remember almost nothing of what they said, except "blah blah blah trust the harness blah blah blah."

On the other hand, I vividly remember the feeling I had while they said it - a steady sinking dread infused with nausea, resonating into a crescendo of panic. We were all stoic, and macho, but I guessed I wasn't the only one feeling this way inside and masquerading as brave outwardly.

At the conclusion of their rather short lesson, they paused, and asked for the first "volunteer." Now, mind you, we were on an "educational" program, being graded, and we knew that nothing, NOTHING, in the program was considered optional in order to pass. These were the days before cell phones, and all we minions had been stripped of any personal items at the onset of the program, anyway. So, it was cooperate, or be left in the wilderness with a contingent of very, very stressed, angry "team members" who would have to make up for any deficit you displayed.

This came into play later in the day, when, after rapelling down the cliff face, we each were to climb back up it, balayed by an exhausted partner, above. And anyone who froze in fear halfway up was either stuck on the face, as long as it took to get unfrozen, or was pulled up as dead weight by the partner - neither option would ingratiate.

I don't remember who "volunteered" to be the first over that face. I only remember it wasn't me in the starting position, or several of the slots thereafter. I remember watching the agony of several team members making their first rappel. We others coaxed them, cheered, and vicariously regained sphincter control as each made it over the edge and finally entered the free-hanging state. It didn't look so terribly bad, from the peanut gallery.

And then, my turn came. I was a bit bolstered by then. I had to save face, keep stoic, as always, as is my way. I "saddled up" into the climbing harness, fed the lines through my petons, and headed backwards toward the edge, holding the lines taut in my deerskin-gloved hands.

There was a clash between the racing panic in my mind and the damper my brain-brakes slammed down to deal with the stress. It put reality into a time warp, for those moments. It seemed like days in time it took for me to go over that edge. I held the primary rope in my hands, arms rigid with my elbows slightly bent, backing up toward the cliff, rope straight and horizontal. It was sort of ok as I leaned back over the edge, until that moment.

Those of you who are good at math, or are navigators, will get my description, here. As I headed toward the edge, my predominant vector was horizontal, and my arms didn't have much weight load to handle. But as I went farther back, and started to tip over that edge, there was a sudden point where the predominant force vector changed to vertical, and my arms exponentially struggled with the increased weight load, because I was holding the weight on the line, and not letting the harness take it. And so, as I felt the load coming, and fast, I froze, at that point where the vectors changed by 90 degrees.

As if under water, I could vaguely hear the coaching of the leaders, and the coaxing of the team members, "keep going, you're doing fine.... just let go...."

But, I couldn't. I knew if I passed that point where the vectors made that 90 degree transition, my arms would not be able to hold my weight up. My mid-brain - with its reptilian instinct for survival - kicked in and put the motor centers on hold. It took all I had to call up the cortex to override it, and head straight into fear.

I won't drag out the description here, except to note it seemed like forever for me to reach my moment. I leaned back, sure my arms would give out, terrified of plunging to death. And I pushed past that fear point, both mentally, and physically, into that moment, into the vertical vector.

At that moment, my arms did give out. I was not able to hold my weight; muscle fatigue caused failure. The lines jerked upward, taking my hands with, as they were still attached.

What happened next was a life-defining instant, y'know the kind of moment that is burned into your memory, ever after. Before the line was yanked from my hands, the slack was taken up, and the harness kicked in. It was only a matter of about six inches of line. There was a slight bounce as my dead weight hit the line.

My ass was truly in a sling. But that sling had saved my ass. Instead of letting the line and the harness take my weight, I had been trying to hold it myself, with my arms.

It took only that moment, when I felt the harness do its job to know that I was totally at the mercy of that harness. But it could be trusted, and I needn't try to hold myself, any longer.

Once I felt all of my weight swinging over the edge in that harness, rather effortless, now, rappelling was great fun, euphoric even. I had made something simple be very difficult, by not trusting, and trying to do it my own way. I wonder if I'll ever feel that same freedom again, as I did that moment I felt the harness doing its job.

I don't think I need to explain the moral here. Let go. Let God. Just make sure your ass is in that sling, first. LOL

I think if I ever get presented the chance to bungee jump, I'll pass, though.


-The Traveler

If You Were All Knowing, Would You Create Codependents? Or Maybe Better Titled, "Why I Love the Drunks' Secular God."

OK, I can only handle stodgy thinking so much, then I have to cut loose a bit. I do sit around and ponder the universe, and God, and all that stuff, but my pea brain just can't do it on a sustained basis. Good thing I didn't want to become clergy.

Sometimes, I need to let the brain play with an idea. Like, if you think about it, the human race is inherently codependent. I mean, look what we did to God.

Start with the premise that God is ALL. Wise, Loving, Powerful, Knowing.

We humans couldn't just leave it at that. Nooooooooooo, we had to flush Him out more, make a too-complicated set of characteristics, and rules. Then, of course, we couldn't agree, because we all KNEW BETTER THAN THE NEXT GUY, so we started evolving different religions, about this all wise, all loving, all powerful, all knowing God.

Then, we gave him different names, and said if your name wasn't my name, then your God wasn't real. Only mine is.

We argued about the "finer points" of our God(s) and soon OUR ideas about God became justifiable reasons to take from others, condemn others, tell others what to do, and, even, kill others. All in the name of an all wise, all loving, all powerful, all knowing God.

And, as time wore on, we got more and more bizarre about it. Eating habits, whether we could use electricity or not, when we were allowed to have sex... just rather bizarre things. We are a strange race, we humans.

We claim to know things that we couldn't possibly know, and then make decrees based on this "knowledge." I guess what I'm saying is that religion is inherently codependent.

I had fought with this idea for decades, nearly coming to the conclusion that there just wasn't any God. But it's a little desolate out there, to live life with no larger purpose, and for there to be no difference between good, and evil. I mean, what's the point? And yet, I had been so turned off by religion, because it made me lie to myself, and made me feel shame when I tried to be honest with myself. I did not know the things they told me were True. And I knew I was lying if I said I believed them. But if I didn't, then I "didn't believe." I just never could get it. Am I just stupid, or something?

And yet, if there were no God, why are we essentially spiritual beings? We all feel our souls, if we are honest. Even the die hard atheists. They fight God, because they feel their souls. Otherwise, they wouldn't care so much. But, they do.

So, we're spiritual, and have souls. That, I think I get. All the other criteria, and rules, and exclusions... those I don't get. I could really rant on this for days, but I think you'll understand without the extra words.

So when I hit the rooms, it was the first time I felt at home with God.

First off, I didn't have to know what He was. I just had to have my own understanding, which, in my case, is an un-understanding. And I'm sort of OK with that.

Secondly, I saw changes in people for which I could find no other explanation, except that some spiritual power had effected changes in them. They themselves claimed it was not of their doing, and since the changes were in them, they ought to know, I figured.

Thirdly, nobody could tell me I was wrong, what I thought - about this God that I had never met, Who had never spoken directly to me, and who lives in a different realm, a virtual non-physical existence.

So, as I have been obsessing on all things codependent of late, as that's my latest mental iteration, it started to form in my mind that the God of religions is really a codependent system, where humans are the codependents and spend their energy telling everyone else How God Is. But the Drunks' "Secular God," as I like to think of Him, is still able to be simple, and encompassing rather than exclusionary.

That's the God I want.

But what I still don't understand is why God would create us so inclined to become codependents. And the worst of it is, that our codependent natures ruined Him. Now there's divine irony. He must have a reason for it, but I sure don't understand why...

-The Traveler

God Ain't No Codependent

It's not like I pick what the brain churns on, as I wake up. Today's waking thought was that God ain't no codependent.

OK, so, at least the God of my un-understanding had some role with getting me here on this earth, that I call "creating" me, and then He sort of has this ability to influence events such that my life is influenced.

So, if we accept that God is behind the creation of us people, then we look around at what He made, and how the system works.

Now, one of the things that I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around is this concept of Free Will. I'm not smart enough to understand why this would be the best way to create us people, but that's what God did. I just have to accept it, I guess.

Perhaps it's that God is a creative, artsy type, and creating beings with Free Will is more interesting because it's a dynamic rather than static creation. Or perhaps there is some cosmic wisdom that Free Will enables in a larger system, down the line, like the concept of redemption from a fallen state.

It does seem to me that one of the most powerful forces I've personally seen is this redemption, particularly in the rooms. Unbelievable bottoms, and then people taking that intangible step of admitting, and turning over, and then this not-rational launch to what was previously Not Possible: sobriety.

At any rate, He went on to create not only the elements but also the system they are within. And the way it appears He engineered it is with these things called Natural Consequences. You do something, and depending on what you do, Something happens. And the Something is somewhat rationally predictable; it's not random.

So if you think about this system, and think on our lives, you will then see that He put this system in motion and LET IT GO. He's not interjecting Himself everytime we're about to make a screwy decision. He lets the system work, allows the natural consequences.

I ran across this hilarious version of the 12 steps, translated into codependecy:

The Twelve Steps To Codependency

1. We admitted we were powerless over nothing—that we could manage our lives perfectly and those of anyone else who would allow us to.
2. Came to believe there was no power greater than ourselves and the rest of the world was insane.
3. Made a decision to have our loved ones and friends turn their wills and lives over to our care, even though they couldn't understand us at all.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral and immoral inventory of everyone we knew.
5. Admitted to the whole world at large the exact nature of everyone else's wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to make others straighten up and do right.
7. Demanded others to either shape up or ship out.
8. Made a list of all persons who had harmed us, and became willing to go to any lengths to get even with them all.
9. Got direct revenge on such people wherever possible, except when to do so would cost us our own lives or at the very least a jail sentence.
10. Continued to take personal inventory of others and when they were wrong, promptly and repeatedly told them about it.
11. Sought through bitching and nagging to improve our relations with others as we couldn't understand them, asking only that they knuckle under and DO IT MY WAY.
12. Having had a complete physical, emotional, and spiritual breakdown as a result of THESE STEPS, we tried to blame it on others and to get sympathy and pity in all our affairs.

I don't see too much of my God, in the above.

However, I sure do see one particular person "close" to me...

-The Traveler

From the Mouths of Old Guys

Man, that AAAY-rush guy is really something. Today he was talking about guilt. This was in the context of a step meeting on the 8th step. (Made a list of people we had harmed and became willing to make amends.)

And the nugget out of his shaky mouth: Inappropriate, dysfunctional guilt happens when we expect ourselves to be perfect.

Sometimes, we are fully willing to make amends, yet are wracked with guilt. He said that once we have turned it over to our HP, and are fully willing to make amends, guilt is no longer appropriate.

We have to acknowledge that we are human, and not perfect, before we can learn to accept and love ourselves. Only then can we love others, and make amends effectively.

Another long-term-sober guy said something I liked, too. That there are different categories of amends, timing-wise. Immediate, near future, out in time, "never-gonna-happen!"

He went on to say that as we clear out the first batch of "immediates," then everything moves a notch. That what were "near futures" move closer to "immediates" and so on. And that in the process, some "nevers" that seem impossibly hard to do at the beginning become possible later on as we progress down the pathway.

We change, as we travel.

Food for thought.

-The Traveler

HQFT: Highlighted Quote For Thought

On occasion I'll put in a Highlighted Quote For Thought, something I've run across. I will paraphrase them at times.

This one is about toxic codependent behavior, something close to me.

Well, here goes:

Learn the difference between holding a hand,
and chaining a soul.

On Second Minds, and Fantasy Thinking

One thing I will tell you about me is that I have a compulsive brain. Big surprise, I know. Like, now that I started this blog, my mind wants to churn out thoughts. This can't be good for me.

I go through serial obsessions. Sometimes they are projects, sometimes topics, sometimes rituals. Right now, I'm deep into a few topics. I spent the summer reading up about intimacy, and then that sort of morphed into reading about codependency.

Did you know that pretty much most addicts, when they are uncovered from their actual addiction, are codependents? Because the root of both is the compulsive brain.

Anyway, so the other day I noticed in my peripheral vision the book, Codependent No More sitting on the kitchen bar. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I seem to have at least two minds at work all the time. The regular one, and a sort of secondary one. It's highly annoying often, and distracting. Or maybe that's my subconscious, but it floats much closer to the surface than in other people. Because for me, I'm conscious of what that second mind is doing, all the time.

For example, the other day I was talking to a woman after a meeting, telling her something I had learned in another meeting that I made note of for her, pertinent to her situation. So I'm standing there talking to her about this, and my second mind is evaluating the structure of her face, as a sculptor would. Not in a sexual way, but rather looking at the lines, seeing what great lines her facial bones and the shape of her eyes had.

The second mind is saying, "Wow, look at that jawline, nice. And that hollow of the cheek is so pronounced, very proportional to the jawline. The strength of the angle of her jawline is just right, too, strong, but yet soft, too, and adds a really nice frame to her face. That nose - with the slightly long but very straight bridge - makes the face, combined with the moderately angular jawline and the hollows under those great cheekbones. And the curve of that upper eye rim... swooping and serpentine, hooded over those brown eyes... I'll bet she has no idea how her facial elements pull together."

All while I'm trying to express this idea about the timeline of sobriety, using my primary mind, and mouth. It's so distracting. Since I've only ever been in my own head, I have no idea whether this is experienced by other people. I don't tend to talk about these sorts of things, face to face.

So I walk past this Codependent No More book on the bar counter, and my second mind starts laughing. I haul up my primary mind, which was focused on where I was going, as I was on my way out the door, bring it to the forefront, and I realize why. That title is rather like a book Curing Addiction.

Sorry, neither are ever gonna happen. Fantasy thinking. We could call them Manage Your Codependency, or Manage Your Addiction, but they are simply never going to be gone. I much prefer the title of another book I read recently, that is much more truthful: Fear of Intimacy.

Now there's an accurate title. LOL!

-The Traveler

On the Law of Lomonosov-Lavoisier, and Growing Up

OK, now that I either have your attention, or categorically lost it, what is it? I'll save you the Google, and tell you.

The law of Lomonosov-Lavoisier is also known as the law of conservation of mass. Simply put, in a closed system, you can dink around and change things from one thing to another, but the amount of mass stays constant. (And hint: our heads are closed systems.)

I heard a really old guy speak recently. He was probably in his 80s, his speech was slurred and slow, and shaky. I was distracted by this, as he sat behind me, and I kept thinking he was drunk. I didn't realize how old he was, because I couldn't see him. Finally, I turned around to see him as he spoke, and for some reason that enabled me to hear what he was saying. And his message was entirely sober, and sage. I'm so glad I turned around.

He was long-term sober, but retired. Something had changed recently for him, not sure what, and he had returned to meetings. Large sections of his schedule had opened up from whatever it was he used to do, and he found himself with big blocks of time, and nothing to fill them, and our old friend addiction was beginning to quietly knock, bump him in the shoulder, whisper imperceptibly in his ear.

He was AAAY-rush (don't forget to roll your tongue, on the R), originated from the Dublin area, and after all these years you could still hear the lilt, and brogue. My imagery-ish mind immediately began to paint pictures of his clan - heavy pub drinkers, doorway drunks. It was probably tainted by another AAAY-rush woman I had heard speak a bit longer, ago. Tough old gal, she has watched her husband die of alcoholism and was currently on her fourth of six sons in the process of dying from the disease. She was noting that it gets expensive, that by then none had money for their own funerals, and she had to pay for them. And this was her reward for sobriety. Did I mention that sometimes I don't understand God? That was another time.

So anyway, the old AAAY-rush guy is rambling on, and he says this word: replace.

And for some reason at that moment, my brain starts working, again, my auditory centers fire up and begin to process the input, and send it out to the cortex for meaning.

What the guy was saying was that he had come to recognize his compulsive nature. That he had all these compulsive parking spaces that needed to be filled, and he had historically filled them with drinking, or work. And now they were devoid of both, and empty, and screaming for attention.

This guy had the insight to realize that our nature, whatever the flavor of compulsive brain we have, is to fill our lives with compulsions. Substances, behaviors, thoughts, whatever. And that it's a matter of filling the parking spaces, to stay sober. But that we could choose what to park, there.

Maybe this is why God put the bombs in our heads, our compulsive brains. People in this club have a much bigger parking lot than normies, it would seem. Big, huge, over-the-top parking spaces for hummers, stretch limos, 18 wheelers, and, hell, jet airplanes. We don't do anything on normal scale. There's a lot of space there, to use, in a compulsive brain.

But what if the curse were also the blessing? Remember, the God of my un-understanding is a funny, and ironic guy. And smart.

What if we were to fill those parking spaces with service? That is the conclusion this guy had come to, and he was in the meeting, thinking about how he could replace his old nemesis with service. Man, did that get my attention. I was ashamed for judging him so quickly, based on an aging voice.

I talked to him after the meeting a bit. You see, I have a bit of AAAY-rush blood in me, too. And I could see the sparkle in that old guy's eyes, behind that sagging, spotted, softened skin. He was entirely sober.

So the message here today, having to do with the law of Lomonosov-Lavoisier? God built our parking lots, whatever they are. Our work in sobriety really isn't how to change the parking lot, because that's beyond our control. We have compulsive natures. We will not get rid of them. We will have to feed them somehow, and gain control. Our job is to re-fill the pavement, with good stuff. Maybe instead of a parking lot, we should hold a friendship fair, and open booths. Who needs all those gas guzzlers, I don't.

Time to grow up, and replace the old, with the new.

Except for the old AAAY-rush guy. We'll keep him.

-The Traveler