#365Gratitude Day 294:It's not about me

I was talking with Squee and Moliére this morning on my morning workout walk/run/aardvark/whatever, and for some reason we got talking about modes of cognition, and the ability to take someone else's perspective.

My brother Spacey told me about this story he uses to assess his own child's perspective taking abilities.  In the story, Kid A (not the radiohead album) has a favorite quarter in a piggy bank, that he shows to Kid B, then leaves the room for some reason.  While Kid A is off someplace (maybe talking to Thom Yorke on the phone), Kid B takes the quarter and puts it in his pocket.

Here's where the cognitive development test comes in.  In the story Kid A comes back in the room, and shakes the piggy bank, it's empty.  This is the part where Spacey asks his kid where Kid A thinks the coin is.  If his kiddo says "It's in B's pocket", then they don't have perspective taking skills yet.  If they say "He doesn't know." then they can see things from Kid A's perspective.

At least, I think that's how that thing goes.  I know he reads these, so if I got it wrong, he'll let me know.

Anyhow, I'm telling Squee & Moliére about this (and just noticed that they're collectively S&M, which is really pretty funny), and it brings up this old memory of mine, from when I was five, and didn't have great perspective taking skills yet.

I was watching Romper Room, which I loved.  My mom called me for lunch.  Being the good kid I was, I obediently switched off the television, and went and had my lunch.

As soon as I was done, I rushed back to switch the television on, excited to get back to what I had been watching, to pick up right where I had left off.

Keep in mind, this was 1976.  (Yep, I'm that old.)  TV didn't do that back then.  So when I turned it back on, of course something else was on.  I want to say it was Louis Rukeyser's  Wall Street Week, or something equally horrifying, but that's maybe just me painting a terrible picture.  I was disgusted and outraged to find out that television kept on going, even when I had to pause for a sandwich.

I laugh about this memory now, but I was really upset back then, in the way that only very young children can get upset about things.  The very big lesson there, a lesson that I've been learning since is that I am not the center of the universe.  

While I was busy eating my PB&J with the crusts cut off, all sorts of other things were happening in the world, which had nothing to do with me directly.

It's still like that.  While I'm writing this post, people all over the place are eating breakfast, making coffee, calling their children to breakfast, tying shoelaces, getting cash from ATM's, fantasizing about having telekinetic powers (ok, I'm doing that one too, now.), and singing that awful Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen song under their breath.  (Sorry.)

The thing I'm grateful for about this is the perspective and peace it brings me.  With all this stuff going on, when things happen directly to me, whether good or bad, I know not to take it personally, because it's not really about me.

#365Gratitude Day 292:It could have been worse, deer

On my way home tonight, a mysterious something hit my car.  I had no idea at the time what it was.  I was driving past a not-so-nice neighborhood, near my rather nice neighborhood when the car shook and shimmied, and then I heard my driver's side rear window shatter.

At the time I thought maybe it was a ne'er-do-well trying to carjack me.  So I got the heck out of there.  After a quick mile or so drive to a gas station, I pulled in, and proceeded to calmly call the police, my family, and my insurance company.

I got a little freaked out waiting for the police to show, so I drove home to my warm, safe, house with its nice big well-lit garage.  Missy, Marybeth and I circled the car examining it, but not actually touching it, in case it had been a person trying to do something bad.  A police officer did eventually show, and took pictures.

I pointed out what looked like some whiskers stuck to the car window.

The officer agreed they looked like whiskers, not glass scratches, but said she wasn't about to touch them.  I said I would, once she'd taken pictures.  She did, and I did.  Yep.  Whiskers.  

That relieved me, since I'm generally not the sort of person who wants to hurt other people.  (Or animals, but if you gotta pick, animals are better.)  Then she drove away to check out the scene, and to the best of her determination, it was a deer.

Who, plucky bastard that he was, got up, and left the scene.  He's still out there somewhere.

Thankfully, this is more a pain in the ass than a tragedy.  I've got good car insurance, and a small deductible.  I didn't hurt any people.  Tomorrow I'm going to take my car someplace to get repaired.  It shouldn't take too long.

I'm grateful.

#365Gratitude Day 285:Help!

We all know the lyrics. ​

​Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being 'round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won't you please, please help me

I like helping people.  In kink circles I do it often. But at work, nowhere nearly as much.  I have this co-worker they're struggling to learn something new. I've been giving them some guidance for a week or two. 

Honestly, it hasn't felt like it was enough help. But I was wrong.  Today we sat together, and I showed them this one particular something they had been struggling to understand. I watched as they went from bewildered to got it .

Then we had this awesome chat exchange.  

 Me: Excellent!$co-worker, I’m thrilled.  I feel like you’ve made a big jump forward.It’s starting to click for you, isn’t it?

$ co-worker: Yes, thanks to your help and guidance

Me: Awww, thanks.

Man, helping someone else is the best feeling. 

#365Gratitude Day 284:Now, go practice

My girlfriend Squee and I live almost 800 miles apart, but we're really good at meshing our lives together at a distance.  We schedule time to go visit one another.  We send each other care packages.  We have little routines for all sorts of things.  Once a week we have a over-the-internet game night, where Missy, Squee, and I play electronic board games together and just spend time with one another.  

And we talk, a lot, about everything and nothing.  (That's really important, to do both of those things.  It's all the little ways in which you get in a partner's head.  So, we share our triumphs and tribulations with our jobs, talk about the vicissitudes of our friendships, goals, dreams, everything.)

One of the neat effects of that is it's a kind of mental sifting of all sorts of things.  Old memories come up, get dusted off, revisited, shared.  I'll stumble across a book I like, a movie, talk about a food I'm cooking, or an old song I like.

We were experimenting with a Skype replacement today, an app called Duo, made by Google, that's good for 2 person video calls.  The video got all out of whack, like an old poorly dubbed karate movie.  (Those movies have a horribly politically incorrect but funny name, they're called Chopsocky movies.) We both laughed about it, and I told her how it reminded me of this song I like, that I hadn't thought of in ages, that was a fake chopsocky movie as a song.  I told her I'd seek it out again, I couldn't quite remember who made it.  I bet it had a video too, and that it would be a hoot.

Well, I did.  And it is.  It's "Ninja Tune" by the band Hexstatic.

It's amazing.  See and hear for yourself.

#365Gratitude 280: Sometimes when you work out you don't give a %#!£

Caution: This one's a little gross.* 

There's this lesson every long distance walker/runner learns early on. Go to the bathroom and get empty before you go.  

The consequences of not doing so can be disastrous. 

There's a saying about scuba divers: there are two kinds. Those who have  already thrown up on the boat, and those who have yet to do so .

Running has something similar. Feel free to use your imagination.  

Anyhow, this morning I was about 1.something miles into my usual out-and-back workout when I realized that I might have a problem.  

As I commented to Squee & Moliére on the phone, "there go any running intervals for today." 

It was still a good workout. Sure, I've worked harder before. And will in the future. Today, I didn't give a crap** that my workout was suboptimal.  

There's no place like home

 * Hey, you read this of your own free will, buddy

** Well, until I got home, thank goodness