I was voted, "Most Likely to Succeed," by my high school graduating class. Well guess what, bitches? That was a serious George W. Bush vote there. Democracy does not always work as it should.
I have an Ivy League degree and work as a delivery driver.
I'm not going out like this, though. The renaissance is underway. I would prefer for my son not to ever realize that his father is a loser, and I figure the best way to prevent that "oh my god my dad's a loser" moment is to actually stop being one.
Buddhist philosophy is certainly more timeworn and valuable to self-improvement than any self-help literature. In a secular society, and a society that does not understand the concept of spirituality because of its obsession with the dogmatic precepts of organized religion, we confuse eastern spiritual philosophy with the questionable specificities and mumbo-jumbo that we have seen growing up in church.
Well I preach this to you today my brethren: No matter what my Scientologist friend has to say about it, the cultish proselytizing and ritualistic nonsense of religion as many of us know it has zero to do with truth; but a reasonable person can find nothing but truth in the core concept of mindfulness that we see in Zen Buddhism.
Stepping away from the Buddhism rant, I'd like to tell a story from last night, actually primarily for the sake of humor; then I will do my best to prove it relevant to what is discussed above.
I ran into a lady last night that I've been hanging out with, basically in the same sense I would hang out with a dude -- meandering conversation, booze, and no make-out session at the end of the night despite my best efforts. (This is a different person from the one I mentioned previously in this blog; if that person is reading, it has been I think three weeks since I have seen the person discussed in this post, so no, the particular content of this post does not verify my status as a man-whore, though I will blow you for a lead role in your low budget horror movie, just please be careful with my hair, I just got it done.)
She was out on a quasi-date with another guy -- I have run into them a few times before, and they stopped to speak with me for a minute. She said that she is working to save up money for a solo trip to Spain and Italy -- she expects to go there in about six months. I asked her if the "retards" she is working with (she works with developmentally disabled adults) would appreciate her saying, "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya," and running off to Europe. (I did not actually say that last line; it just occurred to me that that would be an amazing goodbye note to scrawl and leave with a developmentally disabled person-- very to-the-point.)
She responded by calling me a dickface (I can't remember the last time I was called this particular term), and then self-deprecatingly and sarcastically attempted to justify her departure after all these people have become dependent on her, emotionally and otherwise (but what are you going to do, I mean, Spain and Italy aren't going to tour themselves).
(Here comes the point where I try to make the story relevant to the above discussion.)
The discussion about developmentally disabled people and my mockery of them was certainly egoistic, which runs contrary to Buddhist philosophy, a philosophy which I do believe to be fundamentally sound. Joking is one thing, but self-importance is delusional because everyone is one -- we are all part of the same energy. United we stand, United we sit, United we groan helplessly for more morphine on our deathbeds; United yet distinct, like different little fingers on a great big hand with shitloads of fingers on it.
I feel handicapped a lot of the time-- and I think I am in certain ways, it's just a matter of severity.
And again I preach to you my brethren: I am not handicapped. I am handy-capable. I remind myself of this with a physical mnemonic device-- it will be my beacon of hope during my personal renaissance. I will wear a cape at all times. It will feature the handicap logo that we see in parking spots, etc., with an X through it. The cape will come in handy to remind me that I am cape-able, and that my handy cape proves that I am cape-able. Furthermore, during my renaissance, I will never wear a baseball cap, so that I don't accidentally start to think that I'm in fact handy-capped, at least as handy-capped as I am handy-capable if not more.
Hm. Clearly I am a dickface. It is not the easiest thing in the world for a comedian to get into Zen Buddhism, because inner peace and a barrel of monkeys seem to be diametrically opposed. But dammit, I will not be stopped. I will not just orient myself toward mindfulness. I will train the monkeys as well.
