How Many Clowns Does it Take?

Maybe it’s the effects of over one hundred odd daily blogging comments.  Where my imagination has just been exhausted. 

For whatever the reason, the thought that just maybe I need to revisit why I write has arrived; more specifically blog. 

   Perhaps it’s due to having my concentration disrupted with the need to focus on other things beyond commenting on flittering ideas and concepts?   I hit this point of thinking, I just didn’t have anything I wanted to say anymore. Like crying so much over a topic that suddenly I realize I’m tired of crying.  But in this case it was addressing thoughts that flitter in and out of my skull and then comment about them as affected living.  I thought, perhaps I wanted to write because I had an unfulfilled need to be recognized ~ and heard. If I could capture that then I’d feel appreciated and through those feelings associate feeling accepted?  You see, I was a psychology major, I learned about such things.  I studied enough to get mixed up on symptoms and what they meant, or could mean; finding situations as a sort of co-conspiracy between DNA and the environment. 

   I’m more prone to consider behavior as something that either doesn’t matter because my genes are against me, or that my living situation is such that I’m unable (or unwilling) to make sweeping changes to my environment.  Then there’s testing and more testing to suggest there’s a correlation but no cause, as in defining with certainty, one thing is the culprit, and that’s to be sure; which brings me to my favorite default suspicion of ~ it all depends. 

   Sad part about that last one is there is absence of answers to all of life’s really important questions.  Be it law or physics the bottom line always bolts down to the notion of ‘it depends’. Which is just another way of shrugging shoulders and muttering “I don’t know”

   I was going to send a note off to my writing buddy, but realized that most times when I do that, I either alarmed others about my mental wellness or I get responses of Pollyanna gibberish that make me physically ill.  Note to self, never tell anyone my truth unless I want to invite their version and we’ll have a fest of hurting one another’s feelings over misunderstanding.  Or if I have to be honest about anything personal, always end it with ‘it depends.’ (aka emergency exit)  That way I’m shielded from overly concerned fixers who want to give me advice they themselves never follow. 

   When I was younger I used to resort to humor to get out of this dark place. Then discovered I was raised in a house where humiliation was the source of humor.  When I realized that, I realized being a hack-bully was no real life calling and best to leave it behind.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  I read once where humor relied on three main principals:  The unexpected, irony, and absurdity.  So when I tried to fit humiliation into the mix, the best I could do was to surmise that the unexpected injury of others was ironic to the absurd idea that people cared about other people’s welfare.  Another study I read concluded that laughter was an emotional release from excessive stress.  So humor was the release value, if you will, of living terror.  That kind of makes sense when I think about riding a roller coaster or when I asked for a date. 

   Ours is a never ending quest to get control of that incessant giggling before we make a fool of ourselves.  I know it’s coming, but I’d like to believe that if mercy were related to any comic principals, it’d be irony of it all.  A bus load of clowns is not funny to the infinitum degree; it’s just spontaneous combustion waiting for oxygen to burst into flame.  As the ancient text tell us, that in life, learn to breathe.

I, am amazed at how many times I had to revisit this comment and convert ‘we’ into I. [just when the pie hits me in the face]

Picture fades to black.

Unpunished Good Deeds

As children, we learn to ask our mentors “why?” tools for understanding the adult world in which the young must learn to navigate. As we mature, it would be best to ask when faced by the unexpected, ‘How can I use this? Or ‘What can this mean?”

More often than not most will remain arrested in the comfortable childish realm of dependent servitude to others with “why?”

   “Why did you do that?”

  “Why did you say that?”

Then there is the consummate situational exclamation of

   “why me?” 

This introduces the sardonic commentary on the frequency with which acts of kindness backfire on those who offers them. 

“No good deed goes unpunished.” 

  It has been attributed to several noteworthy people: The accomplished American screenwriter, producer, and film maker Billy Wilder; the famous banker, industrialist, philanthropist and art collector Andrew Mellon; (for whom the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania carries his namesake), and the renowned Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde.

  Beyond crediting who spoke the profound observation, the case remains virile and present; so many efforts to do good for others turns out in disaster. (Wizard’s second rule, the greatest harm can result from the best intentions).  A good example of this would be for the Catholic parishioners in the Spanish town of Borja who had hoped for a resorted century-old painting of Jesus Christ by Elias Garcia Martinez, a 19^th century painter.  The painting hung in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church, in Borja, near the city of Zarogoza for more than 100 years.  The culprit was an elderly woman who tried to touch up the weathered ‘ecce homo’ which translates to “behold the man” fresco herself.  She claimed to have had the best intentions and even permission from the parish priest.  Art historians are meeting soon in the church to discuss how to repair the painting.  Many say the damage may be irreversible.

When I read the story I was, like many other art lovers, appalled with the news. Another antiquity destroyed, I thought.  Then slowly I discovered that the hidden gift may be that that the incident galvanized interest.  People will make it a point to see the painting that was defaced.  Of course there’s little that can be said for the sake of the painting, but volumes for the sake of cherishing antiquity.  Something taken for granted will become valueless.  Only in loss can we appreciate presence.  Sadly, this is our method of learning how to cherish. 

  So instead of asking “Why did this happen?” where no suitable answer will fulfill a sense of anguish over loss, we can ask “What can I learn from this?” As for art, learn to take particular care of what we have and keep it well. 

   Now take that premise one step further and apply it to our living, breathing, moments.  If we remain unaware of the treasure, will we treat it casually from our delusion of abundance?  If we keep each moment as a sparkling possibility to do something wonder-full, then are we not all enriched?  If a good deed punishes, then what is the punishment but liberation from a delusion?  And disillusionment leaves us

Only the actual: I can work with that.

Blind to Our Surroundings

There was a study conducted by scientist, Donald Simon and Christian Chambris, in which they had people observe a one minute videotape that consisted of three people wearing black shirts and three wearing white shirts in a gym passing a ball. The observers were charged with counting how many times the white shirts passed the ball to one another. During the film, a person wearing a gorilla suit walks onto the middle of the floor, waves their arms, pounds their chest, and walks off the court.  50% of the people watching the film did not see the gorilla. 

   Another professor added a factor.  In his instructions to the candidate audience, he told the viewing audience that past results showed a distinct difference in gender observations; the percentage of those seeing the gorilla dropped even further.  Lastly, the subjects were given a single drink, far below the driving drunk limits for most states, only .08, and the numbers dropped even further down.  What they concluded was that contrary to popular belief in which our eyes are drawn to the unexpected, it was determined that as we concentrate, what happens is, we are so focused we tend to become attentionally blind to most everything else around us. 

   This explains how often in car accidents people claim, "I didn't see him, he came out of nowhere".  Additionally, it explains how many people hit bicyclist and motorcyclist.  They were concentrating on looking for "CARS" and frankly in their concentration, did not see them. 

   In airline simulators, pilots can be so focused on reading their instruments during landing procedures that they fail to see a plane sitting on the runway; gives credence to the policy of no tolerance for drinking and flying.  

   I realize that every event has a precious pearl of meaning, and that in disillusionment we can find actual if we decline the option of self- pity.  Mentally I get that, and rejoice at finding facts that support clarity in feeling the robust health of freedom from fear.  But it remains a sorrow for me also to interact with those who are clinging to the notion of oppressive ownership.

Do I manipulate in order to make my point?  Am I seeking martyrdom by suggesting freedom that is not wanted?  There is a fine line of difference between tolerance and patience.  Tolerance is allowing misbehavior to rein for some justified (albeit it fearful) reason.  Patience is a disposition of concern and hope.  Even when hope is a positive delusion, it is a process of confident and conscious effort to allow change to do its magic.

 Now I ponder the same can be true to my attachment to my beliefs.  So blinded by my focus in making it work, that I fail to see what is real; right before my eyes

When exhausted one takes rest; it’s only rational