Notes from the Petting Zoo

I’ve heard an aphorism a few times, which I’ll probably butcher in the paraphrasing:

“One ought to meditate upon one’s life for half an hour each day, unless one is very busy, in which case a whole hour.”

This has stuck in my head a lot, and even though I don’t spend the specified time in reflection, I do notice that once we make a conviction, or try to make a conviction to ourselves, the Universe has a certain way of offering, er, “temptations”.

I don’t think this is something new the Universe is offering us. I think this is what’s been flowing by us all the time, like water under a bridge, and by making our conviction, we are forcing ourselves to SEE the thing that causes us to make that conviction. Up until that moment, we’ve let this or that trouble hook onto us however it fit, but at the moment we made that conviction, we vowed to not let that happen again.

So, instead of invisibly hooking on, those troubles and flaws and problems scrabble along our sides, squealing and mewling, unable to find purchase. They cry out “What will you do without meeeee?” as they are drawn onwards, and — if we’re not careful — we’ll take them in and comfort them, because we are accustomed to the feel of their hooks.

This is what I think is happening. This is what I think the aphorism means by “unless one is very busy…”.

This is what I think helps the conviction strengthen.

I had the opportunity to see a slight variation of that this morning, exchanging notes with a friend. I wrote “I try to be a decent fellow where possible, unless it’s impossible, in which case I try extra hard.” It felt like the same sort of thing, and just as useful.

Until it doesn’t feel useful anymore, in which case it’s really useful.

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The best kind of advice is something that tells you what you know already, in a way that doesn’t make you feel stupid, and that comes from someone you can blame if it goes wrong.

People who get this simple formula right are usually treated like gods. Or politicians.

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I think it’s a funny sort of Universe where we are easily able to see the solution to someone else’s problem, no matter how identical it is to the unfathomable puzzles of our own lives.

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I’ve never liked that our greatest enemies are portrayed with weaknesses. I’ve never liked that somehow, human ingenuity, human spunkiness, human luck, or simply the property of being human can somehow overcome even the worst of enemies. Enemies traditionally have an Achilles heel and this, somehow, seems like the most egregious form of cheating imaginable.

There are more lessons in losing then there are in winning and the idea that we can somehow beat or overcome a genuine predator is not only laughable in the extreme, but — after a few minutes of reflection — quite a grave and disturbing notion. What are we learning, with this pathological need to always win? Nothing.

More importantly, we are patting ourselves on the back falsely, hoping beyond hope that if we can beat up our straw men and each other with sufficient ferocity, then perhaps our artificial battlefield will serve as a warning to any real predators out there — be careful! Mankind is a nasty thing and will always win! Notice those heads on stakes! (not too closely, though, or you will see they are just cardboard)

We are fooling ourselves and living complacently with our endless ability to beat every enemy we are willing to create.

We are doomed.

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If the coffee at my day job doesn’t improve, I’m going to switch to drinking my own urine.

I wonder if I put up another airpot next to the coffee airpot, labeled “urine”, if people would try that, you know, just as a change-of-pace.

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Let’s face it — are there any problems that can’t be solved with the proper application of an industrial wood chipper?

I didn’t think so.

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I find myself wondering how someone thought up the coffee enema.

I understand people do it, and they speak well of it, but, but…

Somewhere, someone must have said “Hey, why don’t you shove that cup of coffee up your ass!” and someone else must have thought “Well, you know, that might not be a bad idea…”

Or maybe they were running the enema machine and ran out of Traditional Enema Juice and were desperate to fill it with anything and just happened to have a fresh hot cuppa joe nearby and one thing led to another and…

Or maybe they figured if their ass was dragging, their ass needed coffee?

Still, it all seems so crazy. I cannot think of a reasonable way someone might conclude “Coffee! Ass! From a squeezy-bag! Now!”

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