#365Gratitude: Fish dinner

The other night I got home late, after a long workday.  I was dreading making myself something, which I thought I might have to do, because I was really tired.  My recent conversion to being a pescetarian isn't something my family shares.  So sometimes we have stuff that I can eat too, and sometimes I'm on my own.

And sometimes they surprise me.

Not the actual dinner, just a nice picture

This was one of those times.  Missy made me an awesome dinner of some breaded, baked fish, with lovely veggies on the side.  I was totally surprised, totally hungry, and totally grateful.

#365Gratitude: Kaizo Trap Attitude

So I was trying to explain this concept to my friend William the other day, the idea of practice.  We were specifically talking about being present, being mindful.  I was saying how once you awaken to mindful practice, that it becomes work, a constant discipline.  You don't have to do it forever though, I joked to him, just until you're dead.

Haha, so funny, right?

Then I saw this amazing animation, by the animator Guy Collins.  It's about a girl and her boyfriend, who are sucked into a video game that's a "Hope Spot", or Kaizo trap.  We've all played these sorts of games before - you fight hard and get to a safe spot, and then WHAM! die and have to start all over again.

Here, watch it.

It's an amazing video.  You watch the girlfriend, and right from the beginning, she struggles.  She's pulled on in, and dies, horribly.  The look on her face when she's "reset" shows that it clearly fucking hurt.  

She gets back up.  She goes again.  And dies.  Then does it again.  And again.  And again.

Each time she dies, she grows more skilled, has more knowledge, progresses.  Eventually, she moves in a manner that's almost eerily, inhumanly fluid.  She gets far, very, very far.

Until she reaches that kaizo trap.  She thinks she's safe, thinks she can rest, thinks that the game is giving her a break.

Nope.

There's no break.  She dies.  Painfully.  Horribly.  But this time, she doesn't just reset.  She's given a choice:

- Exit the game, back to the comfort of her living room (leaving her boyfriend stuck in this hellish nightmare)

- Go all the way back to the beginning.

She's tired.  The prospect of doing it all again is daunting.  But she narrows her eyes, and with a grim, fierce, almost joyful determination, she chooses to continue.

That is practice.

#365Gratitude: Nothing doing

So, about two weeks ago, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died.  I wasn't a big fan of his.  But this isn't really about him.  

It's about me, and what I need to do about some scandal around his death.  What am I going to do about some people really celebrating it, while others insist he was somebody's something (father, brother, son, husband, whatever) and that glorying in a death is wrong?  What am I going to do about the uproar people are making around conservative politicians trying to block a new appointment by the president?  What am I going to do about all these very strong opinions and invective everyone's throwing around?

I know exactly what I'm going to do about it.

Nothing.

I don't have to do a thing.  Seriously.  Whether people glory or not, doesn't matter.  Whether people are upset that the conservative politicians block a new appointee?  Don't care.  

Let me be clear about what I mean though.  If a politician, for their agenda, blocks the president from doing their job, then they're most likely not a politician I'll be voting for when it's my time to vote if they stay or go.  There's no amount of shouting, or anger, or disagreement that will change that.  I just want them to do their job.  

Similarly, I'm okay that some people glory in his death.  I'm equally okay that others are horrified by this.  Why?  Because I don't need people to be any different for the world to be fine just the way it is.  

I'm aware of what actual action is, and what's just complaining.  Which sounds like I'm complaining about complaining.  

But I'm not, I swear.  

Every time something like this comes up, and the public catches on fire, and people want everyone to know what they think, it just furthers my own resolve that I don't need to be involved in that.  It's a taoist thing, called wei wu wei.  In english it's sometimes called "effortless action" or "the action of nonaction".

Here's maybe a better example about it.  I could fret really hard about whether the sun is going to come up again in the morning.  But I don't have to.  Odds are pretty good, it will.  And if a giant meteor hits the earth, or an alien spaceship hits the planet with a Spaghetti Ray, transforming us all into a savory pasta dish, well, then that's it, game over.  If the sun does not in fact come up tomorrow because of a cataclysmic incident, well then I'll make sure to do the thing I have to do - which is most likely, die.

So, I don't have stress out about it too much.

This isn't fatalism, or laziness, or resting on one's laurels.  I do have my politics, I do vote, I do try to do positive action to make positive changes in the world.  But I also know that I don't know everything, and that I really have no idea how things are going to turn out.  So I'll just hang on, stay present, and do my best.

I'm really grateful for that.  It saves me a lot of grief.

#365Gratitude: Baconope

The other day we went out for burgers and a movie.  By a movie, I mean The Revenant (which was amazing, and awful, and awfully amazing), and by a burger, in my case, I mean a salmon burger, because I don't eat meat anymore, but still eat fish.

After I polished off my grilled asparagus, because grilled asparagus, Missy offered me some of her fries.

As it happens, my favorite kind of french fries is Missy's fries.

Except these fries, somehow, by accident, wound up having a tiny piece of bacon in them.  I didn't even think it was bacon at first.  It looked like a like crispy fry bit.  So I popped it in my mouth, chewed it, swallowed it.

Only as I was already chewing it, and in mid-swallow, did I realize what it was.

I used to like bacon.  I wasn't some sort of bacon-maniac, but I did enjoy it.  A fellow vegetarian friend of mine told me once that after they'd stopped eating meat, on the few occasions when they had had it again, it didn't taste good to them.  They described it as tasting sort of dirty.  Not dirty like illicitly forbidden, but dirty like, has-mud-on-it.

I don't know if that was how I'd describe that little bit of bacon, but I can tell you this - I didn't like it.

I found that really surprising, and kind of validating.  I've lost the taste for it.  I'm kind of glad.

#365Gratitude: Never give up...

Last Friday I was working from home, and just stuck on something.  It was related to a javascript function, and the particulars of what I was trying to do and why it wouldn't work don't really matter.

What matters is that I got my teeth into it.

I refused to be denied.  So I dug in, researched the problem, and plowed on through.  I ate an almost afterthought lunch, sat at my desk, and just ground through the problem.  I would not be denied.

Other plans I had for my day fell clean off the table.  

Eventually, I had a breakthrough.  I figured it out.  And then, implemented my change everywhere throughout the system.  I wound up working late to get it just right.

It felt damn good.