#365Gratitude 315:Boundaries

One of the great things about working out, is that part of how I do it helps my mind as well as my body.

Often when I swim, I listen to philosophy lectures.  Today it was an Alan Watts lecture on the wisdom of the ridiculous, a lecture about Chuang-tzu. 

A big point that Watts made has to do with the boundaries we see between ourselves. What he said was "all boundaries are held in common." What that means is that part of how I know who I am, is because I'm not you.   However at the same time, boundaries are where we meet, where we join.

The example that he gave for this was sitting outside at night, looking up at the stars, and feeling how very far away they are. Millions of miles from here, and billions of years ago, that light shone forth that we're only seeing now. 

But that's us, too.   The light that comes from our world shines in a multitude of night skies elsewhere.

In a manner of speaking we are everywhere.  We are everyone. We are everything.  

If you need a little more down to earth example of that, I've got one from this morning. 

When you're swimming laps in a pool, and you've got one of those plastic divider ropes, separating your lane from the one next to you, whose divider is that? Is it yours? Does it belong to the person in the next lane?

Yes.  

#365Gratitude Day 314:The sweet embrace of the unknown

So, yeah.  President Trump.  I'm one of a very large number of people this morning who feel "like I was thrown into a dumpster from a moving car being driven by a giraffe high on PCP."

Sometimes, we all have that moment where we're walking through the house, in the dark, in the middle of the night, and we bang our toe against something.  It hurts.  And for a moment, we sit down and grab our toe, and worry that perhaps this time, it's not just sore, but maybe broken.

And maybe for a little while we wear shoes in the house, or decide that maybe we don't need that fig newton and slug of milk right from the carton in the fridge in the middle of the night.  (Hey, it's my house.  Don't judge.)

And we keep going.

That's the whole point of this blog.  We don't start anything.  We don't stop anything.  We just keep doing.

There's a zen story about it that's my favorite.

This one.

Let's keep going.

#365Gratitude Day 304:Pleasantly Unpleasant "music"

I stumbled across this oddball thing, that's made me laugh over and over again.  

It's covers of music featuring a flute played, well, in the most shitty way possible. It's discordant, jangly, off-key, terrible and completely wonderful.  

It's so gut wrenchingly bad, that it's funny. I can't listen to more than a few seconds of it without absolutely busting out laughing. 

Here's the first one I found.  

I love laughing. I love making other people laugh. This stuff is going to get a whole lot of play from me.  

#365Gratitude Day 301:Farting & Litter Boxes

Ok, so I'm sure your very first reaction is:

How the hell can you possibly be grateful for either of those things?

Well, because they're more than what they smell like.

My friend Moliére called me up this morning to ask me a sort of silly question.  He's a cat person, as am I.  Not like we have tails and pointy ears and chase little balls around, we just both have cats and really, really love them.

So, his question: "When you're cleaning the litter box does it ever feel like you're working in a zen rock garden?"

Know peace.  Or pieces.. of poop

I laughed.  That shit is funny.  (womp womp)  

But then I got into a big conversation with him about how actually, there really is a kind of zen there, one which I've talked about for years with my brother Spacey.  I even call it "cat poop zen". When you're a cat person, you love all the cutesy funny things they do.  The way they chase the laser pointer, or want to attack your shoelaces, the derpy faces they make when they sit on your chest and look lovingly in your face.  You also take the bad with the good.  My cat Yang likes to claw the steps.  Yin forgets how sharp her claws are and is always trying to lovingly stroke me with her paws when I'm in bed.  Sometimes I sleep naked.  You do the math.  Sometimes Yang overeats (because Yang), and then proceeds to throw up in gobs like a t-shirt cannon at a sporting event.  Yin makes an AWFUL sound in the middle of the night that when translated into english comes out as "HEY WAKE UP... I'M ABOUT TO LEAVE A HAIRBALL FOR YOU... SOMEWHERE."

And of course, there's the litter box.

But I love my cats.  They're like my children.  And while in the moment all those things kind of suck, they also really don't suck.  Because they're part of the package deal.

"Thanks for being such a good friend!"

Farts are like this too.  In my entire romantic, dating history, I've always known a relationship really was going to be successful when the person I was dating was able to fart in front of me, and vice versa.  Farting is like the gross universal connector amongst humanity.  Everybody farts.  And nobody looks like a rockstar when they do it.  Some time in the recent past Queen Elizabeth farted.  Somewhere in the White House, our commander-in-chief has cut the presidential cheese, and will do so again.  It makes us human.

I certainly do it.  Fairly often.  Around Missy plenty, too.  It helps me know I'm just a fragile, imperfect person, like everybody else.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a littler box to go scoop.

#365Gratitude Day 300:Good luck around 2:30

My wife Missy has been going through a series of what you might euphemistically call "dental misadventures."  It's been one bad thing after another. ​

This most recent thing turned into a painfulnd expensive procedure she has to have, which was due in large part to a mistake the dentist made.  I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty specifics for many reasons, but the whole situation has been awful. 

But this morning, it got better, much better. The practice got in touch with her, agreed to pay entirely for a related procedure, and allow us to pay our part in pieces.  

Missy texted me about it just as I got to work, and her relief over the whole situation was palpable .  I'm so glad she can get to the end of all this awfulness quickly, and that the dentist showed us compassion.