#365Gratitude Day 335: I live at the center

There's this verse of the Tao te Ching that's eluded me for a while.  Until now.

“5

The Tao doesn’t take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn’t take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.

The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

Hold on to the center.”

— http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html

What center?  What the heck was Lao-tzu talking about.  Recently I've been dealing with something really stressful, helping out a friend.  I'll be honest, it's been making me just sick.  I'm worried for my friend, see bad outcomes around every corner, want to solution for them.  It's draining, tiring, suckwork.  (Yeah, it's a word.  I just made it up.  Deal.)

"When you think everything is someone else's fault, you will suffer a lot.  When you realize that everything springs only from you, you will learn both peace and joy." -- Dalai Lama

My friend's been suffering too.  Like, tons.  I pointed this thing out to them, based on a quote by the Dalai Lama.  Here it is.

I was grateful to share it with my friend on Tuesday.  It's like a double-shot gratitude, because I'm grateful for it myself, today.  THAT CONCEPT IS WHAT THE VERSE IS TALKING ABOUT.

I'm the center.

So are you.

People talk about how they are happy (or unhappy), like it's an intransitive verb.

For my non-grammar-obsessed readers, transitive verbs have an object.

Examples:

• Mako hugged the shark.

• Valentalae prepared the rødgrød.

• Amelia knitted the yarn cthulu.

Whereas intransitive verbs don't.

Examples:

• Mako cheered.

• Squee awoke from her nap.

• Rachel felt happy.

But here's the thing - that last one is slippery.  Happiness is something you feel and also something you do.  That's what being at the center means.

I am grateful for this knowledge, this responsibility, and this ability.

#365Gratitude Day 334: Roof. Us.

Monday night I went to leave the house to go food shopping.  I got down to the garage, and felt a sudden cold drip drip of water on my head.  This happened while I was inside the garage.

Not good.

I went to the market anyhow, but before I did I texted my family to tell them what was up, and that I was calling our landlord.  I also stopped to talk to our next door neighbor, whose house is sort of on top of our garage.

Turns out she was having a problem with her washing machine, and said problem was leaking into our house.

A whole lot of sturm und drang occurred next.  Emergency visits from the water company, maintenance crews, water shut off at the neighbor's house, a lost dog (neither of ours), just all sorts of utter crazy nonsense.

Five days later as I write this, things are still up in the air.  But, because I went to leave the house, I caught the problem before it could have been much worse.  And, we still have a roof over our heads.  It's going to get fixed, and it's going to work out.

That's because ultimately, everything changes.  Everything works out.  It doesn't necessarily work out well. (For example, a lot of my sister-in-law's precious keepsakes for her children got soaked and might be permanently ruined.  That completely sucks.)  

But the good news is that there is always more news.  No one and nothing stays the same.

#365Gratitude Day 333: I'm thankful you're not sorry

Brother shared a brilliant cartoon with me today.  It's all about being thankful for what people have done to be kind to you, instead of damning yourself for receiving the kindness.

It's about saying thank you to people who support you, instead of sorry that you're a burden to them.  For my VI readers, ping me and I'd love to read the cartoon panels aloud to you.  Don't be sorry you called me, I'll be thankful you did.  See how that works?

#365Gratitude Day 332: A man on a mission (actually 2)

On Saturday I decided to go for a longish walk.  I was feeling post-Thanksgiving sluggardly, and wanted some exercise.  I wasn't up to full out running though, so instead opted for a 5 mile walk-hike sort of thing.  I got my running gear on, headed out the door, with a plan to walk some VERY hilly roads not too far from the house.

Along the way I got the brilliant idea to do two Ingress missions.  A mission is a sort of pre-planned map of portals to hit, to hack in a certain order.  It's something the game has had for ages, but which I've just never bothered with before.

It was really, really fun.  One of my missions was at a nearby college campus.  I've been there before for the occasional drive-by portal, but not really walked the campus.  

These birds were on their own mission, apparently.

I passed this beautiful fountain, that was absolutely surrounded by wild geese.  I actually stopped to watch them watching it, for a few minutes.  It was sublime.

After I finished my mission of invisibly tapping pretend interdimensional portals like the responsible grownup I am, I bopped off campus and walked to a nearby shopping center to do similarly there.  Then walked back home again, for a roundtrip total of just over 5 miles.

I burned a ton of calories, and felt great.

Sometimes this adulting thing isn't all that hard.

#365Gratitude Day 331: Rachel and Carol and Carol and Carol and Susan Lucci

I spent my Friday after Thanksgiving hanging out with our girl Rachel.  We just hung around the house, not doing much anything in particular, except for one thing.

Rachel has a tradition of watching as many different versions of A Christmas Carol as she can find.  We watched...

• A musical version starring Kelsey Grammar (very good)
• A very, very old black and white version made back in 1938, starring Reginald Owen (amazing)
• Ebbie, about Elizabeth Scrooge, as played by Susan Lucci. (cute)

We had plans to watch Scrooged with Bill Murray (a personal favorite of mine), but those got waylaid by bingeing a few episodes of a really cute show called The Librarians.

It was just nice.  I've written before that I struggle a bit with the holidays.  I have some very mixed-feelings about Christmas in particular because of my prior history with it.  But every holiday season I do my best to find the good in the season and enjoy it.  Sharing Rachel's tradition was a great new addition to that.