Awakenings: I Found a New Drug

 

As fond as I am of self-medication in the pursuit of Enlightenment, Ecstasy, Pleasure and/or Sexual Frenzy, I have to credit my physician for recommending what’s proving to be the Magick Bullet, or Missing Link… the last missing piece of the puzzle; this enigma that will lead me back to my one true home…eventually.

I do not say that in arrogance, but rather with a feeling of eventual certainty, a feeling more than a belief, although like quantum theory, an infinite series of repetitions will eventually introduce a mutation that will trigger a different result….

Yes, I know that I could also be describing the definition of Insanity (…like that’s such a bad thing, but if you don’t already know, it’’s not all that it’s cracked up to be), but the truth is that because of a change in a legal maintenance prescription medication, I was able to “Observe the Observer” long enough to recognize a serious error in my behaviors triggered by feelings that were altering my judgement, based on misperceptions that have existed as far back as I can recall.

I had finally repeated the error often enough to recognize the hidden flaw.

And surprisingly, it’s not a psych med, although it does seem to make just about everything work better.

(It’s also not an amphetamine.)

I just finished my third week.

And even if I am no longer able to take it somewhere down the road, or the effect wears off, the Insight that it has provided will remain, but do you remember a movie entitled “Awakenings”?

What I don’t know is whether or not I will still have the enthusiasm that triggers real Dharma Action.

There is something about uncertainty…a kind of edginess that I have learned to crave once again.

To be willing to Jump into the Fire…or the volcano, if the situation dictates it.

(And I didn’t have to fall in Love, Infatuation, or even a Crush.)

Go figure.

But the Proof of the Pudding is in the eating of the pudding….

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei 

さよなら絶望先生

(Goodbye, Master of Despair)

Namasté

नमस्ते

Sukhino Bhava

सुखिनोऽभव)

Chazz Vincent

03/31/2020

 

Sayonara Y’all!

Time Zoned Out

 

Last Sunday after I poured myself a cup of coffee, I sat down to wait for the drugs to take effect.

I remembered we were supposed to set the clocks ahead one hour last night to adjust for daylight savings time, which officially changed at three AM.

For no real reason other than synchronicity, I suddenly imagined a test question not unlike many we have struggled with over the years, except that it tests a different sort of knowledge than SAT’s or ASVAB’s.

Although the math is elementary, it is a very tricky question (unless you have ever lived in Terre Haute, for instance).

For what it is worth, here is the conundrum:

A man who lives in Terre Haute, Indiana decides to travel to Chicago for the weekend.

He leaves at five PM Eastern Standard time.

The trip from door to door takes approximately four hours. His watch reads Friday, nine PM when he arrives.

Because the “Illiana’” border is the dividing line between the Eastern and Central time zones, he notices that local time is an hour earlier than his watch indicates.

Because he will be there all weekend, he decides to set his watch to Central Standard time.

On Saturday, at eleven o’clock PM Central Standard time, he departs Chicago to go back to Terre Haute.

After the crosses the border, he remembers to re-set his watch ahead one hour to adjust back to Eastern Standard time.

On the way home he listens to WGN, Chicago.

At three AM Central Standard time, the announcer reminds his listeners to set their clocks ahead one hour, as this is the official  time for changes from Standard to Daylight savings.

When he left Terre Haute on Friday, he was on Eastern Standard time.

When he arrived in Chicago, he adjusted his watch back one hour to adjust for Central Standard time.

On the way home, at approximately one AM Central Standard time, he remembered to set his watch ahead one hour to adjust back to Eastern Standard time, but two hours later, he was reminded to adjust his time ahead one hour to adjust for Daylight Savings time, which he does.

(This is were it starts to get tricky.)

When he arrives back in Terre Haute, his watch now reads five AM.

He stops to get breakfast at a truck stop just off Highway 41, and discovers that the clock above the grill reads four AM.

He assumes that the establishment has just neglected to set the clock to adjust for Daylight Savings time, but he is wrong; the official time in Terre Haute is in fact four AM.

The announcer in Chicago correctly announced at three AM Central time to adjust for Daylight Savings.

Granted, at three AM Central Standard time, it was in fact two AM Eastern Standard time, but that factor would not affect the eventual outcome of the time in either zone.

(After all, most people set their clocks ahead  an hour before they go to bed, but even if you waited until you got up, the worst thing that would happen might be that you missed church, which may be why they do it on Sunday.)

This is what we know:

The return trip took four hours, just like it did on Friday.

He had correctly remembered to re-set his watch ahead one hour shortly after he re-entered the Eastern time zone, and later followed the radio announcer’s correct instructions to move the time ahead an hour to adjust for Daylight Savings time.

Why was he wrong?

What was his error?

What is that awful smell?

Now I realize that it is highly unlikely that even one hundred people might read this post, but if you just did, and can figure out this problem, please respond.

Thanks.

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

03/17/2017

Realization

 

So Sad
to realize
so late
I had it
all wrong
since before
I can even remember;
this life
into which
I was born
so blinded
by what was
so obvious
to everyone
but me,
and from which
escape
seems
almost impossible,
yet as close
as a realization
yet to be
perceived
or
acknowledged.

Namasté
नमस्ते
Chazz Vincent
03/02/2016

On Letting Go, Part XI: Blame and Excuses

We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.

How many people do you know who would describe themselves as satisfied in terms of their lives?

The paradigm that seems to drive many people’s lives is “One’s grasp should exceed their reach.”

I am no stranger to the concept, but I have seriously marred some of the best stages or phases of my life due to my inability to remember to smell the roses while I am still in the garden.

No matter what I am in the midst of doing or trying to achieve, I am infused with this sense of Angst and Frustration because I find it very difficult to enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done…because it will never be quite perfectly executed….and because there’s always more….

I have a way of focusing too much attention on some real or perceived hidden flaw or imperfection in my work, or the tapestry of my life as a film noire.

For as long as I can remember, it has been my artistic expressions, whether in Music, Art. Photography, Film, Video, Multi-Media, or Writing that have been the driving force in my life, my purpose…my raison d’être.

 

To me, the activities of daily living are more like watching the Dead doing the St. Vitus Dance to waves of endorphins and polypeptides.

My Love and Sex lives reflect the same preoccupation with artistic, philosophical and creative expression…(needless to say, often to the chagrin of those who aspire to love and understand me).

My attention seems forever drawn to what could be somewhere over the next hill.

Yet years later it will seem like a grand romantic adventure to which I wish I could return…so why am I so unhappy?

Many years ago, a very dear lifetime friend said “I sometimes think that even on the clearest and most perfect days, your attention will be drawn to a dark cloud off on the horizon, saying ‘…eventually, we are going to have to deal with that…’ “.

At the time, I took it as a compliment to my foresight and vision.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized that she was lamenting on how I could ruin a moment of bliss with pessimism and negativity.

I have known her almost all of my adult life. We started as lovers but her lifelong friendship is unique to my life experiences with the exception of my wife. Only one other female relationship (or marriage) has ever lasted for more than six years.

She is the most successful person I know, and seems to possess a quiet satisfaction that I envy, despite the fact that she is no stranger to tragedy or disappointment.

…But back to the original point.

Several decades ago, I found myself proclaiming that I felt that it was time to get serious about my life and make something of myself, and perhaps achieve the satisfaction of artistic and financial success, a vow I seem to be compelled to renew every few years.

Money comes, money goes; jobs come and jobs go, but the work of one’s life remains. For me, my Art is my Life.

With the exception of my current compulsion for writing, my creative life has been in a flat spiral ever since I became preoccupied by some measure of financial security (which was almost completely fear-based). It has left me broke and nearly despondent at times.

(Just as it seems as if the digressions will never end, the snake bites its own tail…the Uroburos returns….)

Although I have been frequently led astray by others, and distracted from my real or imagined goals and dreams, their part in the failed processes was minor, compared to my own incredibly bad judgment.

There is a word for sound judgment, and it is referred to as Sapience. It is the cognate from which the term homo sapiens is derived.

Without it, we are just a bunch of Talking Monkeys, and I am their spokesperson.

Whenever I find myself beset by “…a sea of troubles…” and contemplating how to “…put an end to them…”, I meditate.

This last time around, my focus was on “Who am I?…”Who is asking this question?”

I am the one who is tired of singing only torch songs.

I am the one who is tired of settling for less.

I am the one who is tired of doing things I do not love to do.

I am the one who is tired of withholding my candor to simply keep the peace I never seem to find anyway.

I am the one who is tired of not being myself, or not trusting the results of my own actions to take me where they will. Better to die gloriously in battle, roaring like a lion than to be led whimpering like a lamb to slaughter.

I am the one who vows to embrace the results.

If I blame anyone else for the dissatisfaction I feel, I am once again relinquishing control over my life. It is only in accepting responsibility for my present condition that I can exercise some degree of self-determination.

Excuse-mongering and blame are like a co-dependent dysfunctional couple who never seem to be able to stop making excuses for themselves and blaming each other for their own misery.

Next time you feel defensive and find yourself declaring that something was not your fault, better think again….

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, charted by unrealistic expectations and lined with lame excuses.

The I in Failure comes well before the U.

Of course it is always your own fault ultimately, whether it be a failed marriage, a career, or your dreams, but there are so many factors (aside from poor judgment) beyond your control from which there is No Escape that we might as well learn as early as possible to view our lives with enough Loving-Kindness and Acceptance to learn from our mistakes and move on to make new mistakes as we learn to forgive so we can forgive to learn.

However…when I was a rescue paramedic, more than once I heard statements like:

“There I was, just standing there minding my own business (in a bar, or on a street corner in Ft. Lauderdale or Key West)…and from out of nowhere, this guy comes up and….”

or:

“I was trying to reach the top shelf, but the chair wasn’t quite high enough, so I stacked a couple telephone books on top of each other and suddenly…”

or:

“No I don‘t want to press charges…he was just drunk…I know he loves me and he’s the father of two of my children, and I got no place else to go…it was my fault for nagging him about losing his job…” (for being drunk) “…and I don’t work…because…and….”

Who hasn’t heard: “I just have so much love to give…I can’t understand why I am so alone.”

(Much of it is not beyond our control.)

I’ve heard it said that at least seventy-five per cent of what happens to us is random; whether you were born a Kennedy or an orphan in Calcutta is beyond your control, but it is what you do with the other twenty-five per cent that determines what will become of each of us.

I have a strong suspicion that it is our past and present Karma that determines the first seventy-five per cent. We just don’t recognize the connection.

The dog chases the bone.

It is said that the elephant is the only animal that can remember all of his past lives, and stands alone contemplating his Karma.

There are no good excuses, and blame is what distracts us from that realization. It is the difference between fault-finding and trouble-shooting.

The sooner you learn to forgive yourself, the easier it is to forgive others and accept responsibility for your life and your condition.

You don’t have to be kind, but you don’t have to be cruel either.

Just be real.

 

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

10/09/2015