Editor’s note: For the sake of keeping the running time of my weekly Sunday missives as close to 5 minutes as possible, this multi-thought musing has been split up into two parts. While each part has some entertainment and/or philosophical value by itself, they truly need to be read as a whole. Be on the look out for the second part, tentatively entitled “Pants Epidemic,” next week.
Thought #1: This Year Is Off To A Great Start
Not to brag, but I think I finally got this “adulting” thing figured out. Maybe it was something about starting a new decade/score,1Despite what the haters might say, we don’t have to wait until 2021 for this to be true. See here: https://xkcd.com/2249/ but for me personally, 2020 got off to the best start for any new time period in my life.
In short, I had finally figured out how to get. My. Shit. Together.
Thanks to 2019, I had a decent amount of momentum in at least two key areas of my life. Career-wise, I was moving away from a life as a mediocre scientist, shifting significantly closer to being my own dang boss.
And speaking of half-assing things, my Half-Ass Keto(TM) diet had literally left me with half the ass I had at the start of 2019. On top of that, I had been pretty faithful to Planet Fitness, getting every cent out of my $10/month membership.
For the first time that I can remember, I could legit say that I was enjoying a much more fulfilled and enriched life on December 31st than I had been on January 1st.
Originally, “practicing better sleep hygiene” was all the more I was going to ask of 2020, but I was accidentally mindful for a day or two and that’s when shit really got out of hand.
For the sake of time (and to limit how long you have to listen to me #HumbleBrag), here is an abbreviated list of mature habits formed and/or personal accomplishments achieved since 01/01/2020:
- Started practicing qigong–an ancient Chinese meditative healing art–on a daily basis.
- Switched from Half-Assed Keto(TM) to a “Whole Foods Plant-Based” diet. Unfortunately I suffer from one of the worst side-effects: Vegan-Who-Simply-Will-Not-Shut-The-Hell-Up-About-Being-Vegan-itis. Also: I see that piece of meat in your mouth and I judge you with the judgement of a judgy cat.
- After seven years of living a shame-inducing life as a never-fulfilled item on my phone’s Reminders app, “Make A Will” was finally crossed off. And, in a sense of true and beautiful symmetry, we accomplished this feat on the Elder’s 7th birthday, nonetheless. After all, there is nothing like the birth of a child to motivate one to perpetually put off getting their estate in order.
- The Kansas City Chiefs finally won the Super Bowl. About ----- time.
- Asked for and received an electric toothbrush for Christmas; actually used it on a nightly basis.
- Got around to framing some fancy flower drawings we procured on our trip to Paris last spring…
- …and hung them above our TV in our living room, finally bringing some life to the previously barren wall, and also creating a bit of of much needed Zen (see photos below).
- …and more!
I intentionally chose qigong and pictures of flowers as bookends for this list. Why? Because a key theme here is that Zen breeds Zen. The more space you give your mind to think at a higher level, the better chance you have at making core life decisions in a thoughtful manner, ranging from your daily habits to your diet to the little details of the environment with which you surround yourself.
More importantly, you can have the confidence that those decisions are worth the effort–because you’ll probably need all the mental energy you can muster to spend the rest of your life pretending bacon never existed.2Actually it’s cheese that I miss the most. BY FAR.
Honestly, though, I’m finding myself going deeper into this subject than I want to right now. Yes, just when I’m on the verge of actually saying something meaningful, turns out I’m just digressing. I do want to talk about the philosophy of life decisions at some point, but alas that’s not for today.
In summary: mindfulness can be a precious cycle:3vicious cycle pun the more you give a sh!t, the more your sh!t comes together. It may have taken a half-life for me to get there, but ----- it feels good to be here.
The point of the story is don’t believe in fate–it’s your life, write your own script!
Thought #2: Who Wrote This Anyways?
I have a sneaking suspicion that my “own personal Jesus” is partially illiterate. Or at least His Non-Gendered Cosmic Parent is. When reading the story of my life, one can’t help but wonder if anyone had thought to proofread His/Her handiwork for typos before publishing it, so to speak.
I know, I know. Only 2 seconds ago I just beseeched you to “write your own script.” That beseeching notwithstanding, much of my script has already been written, so it’s not too insane to think that Act 2 will follow some of the same tropes as Act 1. Just humor me on this one.
Where was I? Oh right, I was commenting on the sloppiness of the penGodship I observe in my own life.
I can only imagine the conversation overheard at the multi-verse book club, in which a group of gods from other universes have unwittingly chosen my biography as their window into how ----- runs things in this one:
“Hey…I think G0d might have misspelled his wife’s name. Why is there an ‘o’ in there? That can’t be right.”
“Oh, yeah? Have you seen this character’s choice of names for his daughters? Who does G0d think He/She is? George R.R. Martin? You just can’t go and make up names like that!”4Don’t forget that the Younger SHOULD have had ‘Val-‘ in front of her given name…
“And our hero’s hometown is ‘Rolla’?!? Isn’t that just ‘Raleigh’ spelled phonetically? I mean, c’mon G0d, if you’re going to take ‘creative liberties’ can’t You try to at least be a wee bit creative?”
“Well, for those of you who read all the way to the end…surely he died with a noose around his neck, right? Is it just me, or does that make way more sense than…”
“…than ‘death by hangnail‘? Yeah, somebody definitely needs to find themselves a new editor.”
Welcome to my life folks. Oh, that’s right–you’ve been reading this blog, so you already know how things go around here. In that case, welcome back!
Sadly, though, it’s true. Could I ever be so fortunate as to shed this mortal coil with the dignity of a criminal? Nah, that would make too much sense.
I mean, I’ve already had one close-call that really rose to such levels of absurdity and asininity that I’m actually a little disappointed to find out that it wasn’t My Time To Go then.
The current favorite to be my method of passing? That would be getting a blood infection from a hangnail, and that’s what takes me out. That tracks a bit closer to the current arc of my life than any old chronic disease, natural disaster or car accident. Or pandemic. Yup, I’m putting my money on infected hangnail.
You may be thinking that I say this flippantly, merely for comedic effect. But I have actually sat and imagined all the ways my life could play out to its end.
And in almost every scenario I have the same two final thoughts go through my head:
“You’ve got to be ----- kidding me.”
…followed immediately by two brief words, so succinct and grossly out of character for me, uttered as I give in to the inevitable absurdity of it all:
“Of course.“
To be continued (kinda)…
Content created on: 17/18 April 2020 (Fri/Sat).
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