Path to Enlightened Insanity

I’ve been frustrated with ability of some of the people around me to actively live their lives, instead of letting the circumstances around them live their life for them.

Let be be clear, there is merit in knowing things aren’t great that the current situation will get better or it will pay off in the future. There is no merit in knowing the world is crappy and just plodding long.

Its really simple, pretend the circumstances are a raging bull at you. Now you can do that wussie stuff of waving a red sheet in front of its face and playing with it but still letting the bull get its way somewhat, or you can stand in front of the bull grab its horns and heave it up and throw it down on to its side and do what you want to do with it. Maybe that is just move the bull past you so it can still run, but you’ve still taken control of the situation.

Two cases of flag waving.

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Case one. I know of an adult in my life who “owns” a house with a mortgage. As a result of circumstances beyond her control there is no equity and there will likely never be any equity in the house. The mortgage payment is almost three times what she could get a luxury apartment in the same city. (It is actually a better deal because your rent payment includes upkeep, whereas the mortgage payment does not.) A majority of the house is not actively used and is there for “viewing purposes.” The bull is running by her and shes waving the flag at it. Instead if she wrested the bull by the horns she’d say “well forget this” and move into the luxury apartment and let the banks have the house. (Mind you her credit is screwed already, a repo on a house won’t make it much worse.)

Case two. I have a friend about my age, who lives in a nice large city. Again pays too much for his living quarters (Having a nice house does not make you happy, period. period. Period. PERIOD.) Is in a miserable living situation and he complains about being lonely. But. on his off days he stays at home. You either do something about it, grab the bull and go after it. Yeah its a bitch but living isn’t always fun nor easy.

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Don’t get me wrong, I love both of these people, but I’m frustrated to see them unhappy. If I showed them any more compassion and understanding for their situation I’d have to be threatening them with a 2×4 to make changes. I’ve not yet reached this level of concern, but I’m almost there.

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Change is a bitch people; uncertainty is one of the worst things in the world for us sometimes. (I know I’ve only got eight more hours of work then I’m unemployed, without a job to follow.) But, uncertainty also has the possibility that something really great will meet us in the future, we just have to see it out find it and go throwing the situational bull around.

So if you’re in a quandary, unhappy or unsure, get yourself out in front of the bull and change it. Don’t wait for someone else to do it, nor let yourself get gored in the stomach. Take it by the horns and throw it so its better for you. Who knows where you’ll end up? I hear they’re hiring bull fighters in Mexico.

I feel empty. Not in a teenagery angst way. Its more like I’m a blank slat, waiting to be painted after dusting off lots of junk.

I want to be filled but with what I’m not sure. I want to have something enjoyable something lovely in my life to occupy my time and mind.

Its partially I’m in limbo. CSD is done come Sunday morning and Citi hasn’t come in yet and filled that space. Not that its a job that makes me feel filled, I’m just so used to holding everything at arm’s length and keeping all my projects behind the dam so I can deal with the now, my job and those really important things. I’ve got a damn for no reason and little desire to breach the dam.

I’ve been screaming to have me time and now that I have it I’m at a loss on how to use it. I need an entertainment director.

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I feel that I should aim for something bit, but I don’t have the motivations at the moment. I have like four “semi-major” projects that need work. But I’m not sure any of them will fill me.

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Ack, time to get another coffee that’ll fill me.

I’ve decided on the new name of the eJournal.. The new name:

Path to Enlightened Insanity via Defacted Musings

After reviewing all the names and looking at which ones people liked, (Thank you Lisa and Dianna) I decided the best way around it was to combine two names. Its like me and this writing because, well its long, not quite to the point and a bit vague.

As for what defacted means, I’m not sure what exactly it means. I tend to think of it as “abstracted from fact” and given that its not in the dictionary I’m coining it now. Boy this is so much fun!

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As for getting the name on it its going to take me a few days. I was planning on using Friday and Saturday to do a rework of the website in general, but I’m in Atlanta taking care of a friend. So the whole thing is going “naked” tonight until I put new CSS on it..

I hate thinking about cups. You see I walk out and the cup is half full, and I sit for a moment and a half and it gets to be half empty really quick.

That said the interview went well. (Except at the moment I have red fingers from fingerprinting, eh oh well, at least it ain’t getting everywhere)

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I hope I’m not getting too much of the bullshit line. I really really really really do. Citi actually seems to recognize that their people are an asset to be nurtured. (God I feel like a crack addict, buying into the story thats being sold to me.)

But heres the thing. Its not in marketing speak which signals to me its real not fake. I heard Jeff (a manager at Citi) talking in his own voice, not a stilted measured corporate voice. Wow. I’m so used to CSD’s corporate bullshit speak that an actual human in a management position talking to me in his own voice just seems well to awe-inspiring. (It doesn’t hurt that the setting sun is shining into my eyes making it all that more revelatory.)

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I just don’t like the idea of leaving my friends at CSD. They’ve been my nightly family for nine months. (I’m half tempted to get all the full timers to apply here, get my $500 referral bonus per person and screw CSD. That would be nice.)

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One final note, given the homophobic comments I found strewn across copies of The Advocate at work last night, I feel happy to move to somewhere where sexual orientation is explicitly in the non-discrimination policy. (Although I never got my orientation to sexual, but oh well. When can we stop getting euphemistic and just call it what it is, its not sexual orientation it is “persons sexually attracted to the same or both genders.” See? No more euphemisms.)

Somedays I really hate fighting an uphill battle.

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I was taking a lunch break for someone and at the station next to the one I was at I saw a few copies of The Advocate. Bored, I went to look at them. Unfortunately I found that they were defaced with homophobic epithets.

I wish someone had come up to my face and called me a fag, at least then I could deal with it; I’m stuck stabbing in the dark at no one right now.

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Its much easier to say than to do. I’ve got strains of my Candle Light Vigil Speech running through my head. I keep hearing myself say “that one incident was allowed to happen here in our community.” (I’m such a narcissist.) I know my reaction to this should be to get out there and educate and make positive change from this incident but I would like nothing more than a shouting match or a honest discussion with who did this.

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Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

I dunno, but if you only look at the top of a mountain and cut off the bottom, it looks like a molehill. Whatever the matter I have to do something.

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Ack, I’ve ran out of steam.

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Oh by the way the incident mentioned in my Candle Light Vigil speech was a bumper-sticker defacement, that was a mountain out of a molehill.

A voice entry via infone. (Yes I know audblog does the same thing with better integration, but I don’t want to subscribe.)

Voice Entry

I’ve decided the eJournal needs to be renamed. Its far to generic a name. I’ve been reading other eJournals and they all have funky names that seem a bit more about their creator, their content and they’re fun!

I also want to do a “relaunch” of sorts for January 3rd, which is the starting date of Nick’s eJournal.. Hell its time to get movin on!

So here are some ideas!

• Brain Dump
• Typed Runs
• Mental Diarrhea Dump
• Nick’s Toilet
• Flush Flush (play off Boing Boing)
• Defacted Musings
• The Uncontrollable Urge
• Your mother doesn’t clean this
• NMFF Cleaner Crud
• Anything that ain’t fit to print
• The Clifton Times
• Still rumblings
• The non homo-blog
• Nowhere near gay central
• Gladly off Central
• The Unfiltered Dump
• Path to Enlightened Insanity
• Drivel Source
• The Colon Speaks
• Unending Drainage
• The Maddening Drip
• The Maddening Dribble
• The Loopy Fest

Suggestions or favorites accepted!

I need to stop acting like I’m quitting this job.

I’m acting like I’ve already gotten the Citiphone job already, like calling the division by its proper name and waxing about the beautifully and pleasantly designed building. (What I should be saying is that I’m shocked and appalled that they’ve charged me so much interest and spent it on this building but I’ll say if you gotta charge interest you might as well build a building like they’ve built.)

But I’ve already started on being a crappy employee no more goodie two shoes for me. I’ve been taking 20 some minute breaks (they’re supposed to be 15) and I took 11 minutes (I get 9) of Personal Time (known as P-Time) to take a really big crap. (see I can’t even get that right, I was doing C-time but using P-time.) In addition I was playing tetris on my phone while using C-time. (Everyone should do something to occupy the brain while C-timing, the colon knows what its doing, let it do its business, just like you should restrain your little kids from following the plumber or cable man around while they’re doing their business.)

But back to work, after my colonary diversion (yes, yes, yes. I’m gay. I know I put too much thought down there, but look at it this way, you’re the one reading about my C-timing habits, now if you like it or not you must admit that takes skill, for further examples of my efforts see Shitting is not an Olympic Sport)

But back to the crapper, I mean prison-err work. (I just serve my time in 8 hour chunks, besides that I’m convinced its worse than prison…)

Okay refocusing back to the job. I’ve been doing bad things, leaving when I’m done with the place, even before my shift, not coming in when I don’t feel like it. I mean I could do something really bad like call in a bomb threat or something like that but they don’t take those seriously. (Well at least no one searched the building.) Its not necessarily true that the grass is greener at Citiphone (or redder and bluer) but one hopes given the economy and pissed of card holders who owe too much that they take bomb threats seriously. (or maybe they don’t and you just get a $500 bonus for getting the “special” call of the day. (Hey terrorism has to pay someway, if ya ain’t gonna pay ransoms you might as well pay your employees some of the money saved.)

You see they get in a tizzy over nothing, I mean don’t they realize I have instructions to make a do-it-yourselfer nuclear bomb lying around on a computer somewhere? (Yes I do, The internet is wonderful, and I must remember to wipe that hard drive before disposing of it and/or the FBI’s visit.)

Speaking of the Federal Blunder Institute, I wonder if they have a file on me? I mean haven’t they kept any of their Hoover installed traits? (Besides clean carpet.)

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Okay now given that I’ve shown myself as a truly deranged individual willing to go to any hights for a cheap laugh you’re thinking, that if Citiphone ever reads this they’ll never hire me right?

I think not — I mean wouldn’t you want an employee working in collections that can turn any bad situation into something resembling a shiny depleted uranium bullet that won’t kill the victim but just wound their pride, if they read it online?

Well at least thats what I’d do, but then again I’m a P-C time obsessed nut who just randomly spouts random drivel, that random people on the net read.

There now don’t you feel important?

As this holiday season has approached, I’ve been debating and attempting to understand the meanings and core of this holiday. It is no longer the fun filled morning that it was when I was a little youngin in Binghamton, New York.

I’ve been discouraged by the commercialism that proliferates this holiday, and people’s willingness to be persuaded into showing their emotions by buying.

As someone who could no longer honestly can profess to be a Christian this search has taken on new meaning and urgency. I am inspired by the fact that many religions and cultures hold a celebration of lights during the winter months, and value them as a time to come together and celebrate the bonds we’ve formed as family and friends. While we take this one day to stop and acknowledge the bonds that make us family, friends and human beings, it should only be a reminder of those precious bonds and the value that they are to us in our lives. Nothing exists within a vacuum, and neither can we humans exist without the connections of family and friends. They are what makes us human and what makes life the precious thing that it is.

In that tradition I bring you little snippet about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah.

With best wishes for a great year!

Nick

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Holidays for All Ages: The Hanukkah Story

The Rev. W.U. Saunders

The Christian Festival of Christmas nearly coincides with the Jewish Festival of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is a Festival of Lights. It is the Jewish celebration of religious freedom. In 165 B.C., Judah the Maccabee overcame the Greco-Syrian armies under the leadership of Antiochus IV, who were occupying Palestine. One of the Maccabees’ first acts after reconquering Palestine was to rededicate the Temple, particularly the new altar. Their feast of dedication lasted eight days. On the first day, only one candle was lit; on the second, two. On the eighth day, eight candles were lit.

This morning we shall light all eight, and, as in the Jewish custom, we light each candle with a special thought.

1. The first we light in memory of the dedication and the courage of the Maccabees who gave their lives for freedom.
2. The second we light conscious of the precious gift of family.
3. The third we light to rededicate ourselves to the study of our traditions, knowing that learning and understanding secures our freedom.
4. The fourth we light remembering that only through hope is our life illumined and made creative.
5. The fifth we light with the pledge to share our wealth with those in this world who are starving, who are oppressed, who are sick, who are afflicted by prejudice.
6. The sixth we light in rededication to the ancient task of securing religious freedom in our world.
7. The seventh we light in the cause of respect for our fellow human beings in all corners of the globe, in the cause of brotherhood and sisterhood.
8. The eighth we light in rededication to the search for meaning and the quest for a full life. We trust that throughout the coming year, we may constantly strive for the ideals of freedom, charity, family, study, hope, and fellowship.

Taken from a selection from Celebrating Christmas, edited by Carl Seaburg.

From REACH 1996 – http://www.uua.org/re/reach/families/holiday.html

I’ve had a wish to feel Schadenfreude (pleasure obtained from the troubles of others) recently. (For a good song on the matter listen to Avenue Q (iTMS|Amazon))

Its not a very stoic thing to do, when other people have troubles it should be a reminder of the troubles that can face us all, not an occasion for rejoicing.

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I’ve been in that sort of blah mood lately. Kevin would say its because I don’t have a Christmas tree up. I would put them up, but the house feels like Alaska without the mineral resources. Its really this vast wasteland of sorts, a field broken promises and the past. I just don’t want to take any ownership over my dad’s house, at least not more than I have to. I feel like a tenant everywhere I am, unwilling to set down anymore roots than I’m required to set down.

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I’ve had more than enough opportunities to feel Schadenfreude. I got a call from my mom this morning, she has handbell practice this morning, and she is performing tonight. But, the conductor is out of town because her husband needs a bone marrow transplant for leukemia. There are dead mice on our back porch. (Now there is a case of unfair subsidies, our cats both get fed at the house, then they feast on various backyard creatures, which haven’t had the resources of being fed.)

I think its not that I want to feel good because someone else is feeling bad, but more along the lines that i just want to feel good period.

I dunno. I’ve got a date Friday, that should be fun. Although he sounds like as much of a depressive as I am. Oh hell, misery loves company right?

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Now hows that? A double horizontal rule! Whee!!! I’m living on the dangerous side now. Geeze. I’m resorting to cheap formatting to take a risk.

I wonder why we’re programmed to take risks? I mean real risks. Not cheap formatting risks.

Risks can be really fun, you can get a great rush off of them, especially when the risk pays off. When it doesn’t you still get a rush, just in the opposite direction.

In some ways that is how we move forward. You could argue that our ancestors that took risks were more likely to survive and thrive in general.

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I’ve not been taking risks. I’ve been calling the social/psychological place that I’ve been in the womb, essentially a mode of being where I take as few risks as possible and incubate. I’m getting pretty restless. I guess you could say I’m attempting to kick my way out of the womb.

I just don’t know what to take a risk on. I am so weary of the triple failure that I experienced in January, that I don’t want to take too big a risk. When I told a friend of mine that I applied for the Citiphone job in Cincinnati she asked me, “Why just move to Cincy? Why not move somewhere you really want to go?” I don’t want to fail big. I don’t have the emotional resources to fail big at the moment, nor the fiscal resources. (Although, I’m always amazed when I need to I can find money.) If I move or commute to Cincinnati, Dayton is still only 45 minutes north.

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I read Shawn’s entry Early Christmas today. He seems so happy. I originally thought the schadenfreude title when I read that. There is a part of me, who wants him to hurt really badly and I want to be the one with schadenfreude. I should be happy because he’s happy and part of me is happy. Its the same with Brad. DOES ANYONE ELSE FEEL CRAPPY?????

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This is not the best time of year for me. In a week there is New Years, which for the past two years have been the start of bad things for me, both with Marcus and Shawn. Christmas is a reminder of how much we’re manipulated.

The eye opener to the manipulation matter was my 1998 school trip to New England. It wasn’t that we went to New England as much as that we cut ourselves off from the media and lived in really close corners. Much of my journal from that trip works through determining how much of our brains we actually own and how much of our brains are owned by marketers. (They didn’t come up with the term “mindshare” for nothing.) I honestly don’t know how much of my brain I own and how much is the domain of society and marketers. (The only way to really determine this would involve unethical experiments, which is why we don’t know. If WWII had lasted a bit longer Mengle could’ve gotten the answer, but I doubt he was interested in such questions.)

But back to Christmas, what is annoying is that we’re in a shopping and feeding frenzy right now than for no better reason because we’ve been told to be in a shopping and feeding frenzy right now. Come next month we’ll be getting advertised to death about getting out of the debt we racked up shopping and losing the pounds we ate onto ourselves.

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I must admit even I have had trouble resisting the urge to buy gifts. At least I’ven’t gone on anything of a spree only spending about $200 on gifts for 13 people. (Another way to put it is I spent about 24 hours at work to buy gifts. This excludes all the extra time I put in assembling my gifts.)

This begs a bigger question, what is an agnostic doing giving Christmas gifts? I could say out of tradition, the rest of my family gives christmas gifts, and I was brought up Presbyterian so its not like I’m unfamiliar with the holiday.

But, I prefer a different explanation one given by some anthropologists to explain the clustering of important holidays in the winter; I give gifts on Christmas to participate in the primary holiday of light during the winter, in an attempt to brighten the days of those around me.

I sure know I need it.