Author: Ricardo

Of course, the issue isn’t really about cheese and ice cream.  It’s about congruence.

What you believe and what you do should line up.  We’re humans, so we slip.  We’re far from perfect, so our performance is far from perfect.  It’s expected.  It’s part of the program.

I think you run into a problem when there’s too much slippage, when the gap gets too big.  The threshold is different for everyone, I’m sure, and the triggers are just as individualized.  The point is that we all get there from time to time, to this place of incongruence.

That’s when we have to take action.  And action can be a hard thing to take.  It all depends on how much incongruence you can stand.

I’ve had a hard time writing these past few days.  I am not sure why, exactly.  I think part of it has to do with all the stuff going on in my life, but, really, that’s a load of crap because we all have “stuff” going on all the time.  So, really, I should never be able to write anything.  That’s obviously not true.  There must be something else going on, then.

I love writing.  It feels good to do it.  I tend to chuckle when I read some of my humorous stuff again.  I get all pensive when I read some of the more thought-provoking reflections again.  I can pretty much write (and talk, really) about anything given very little notice.  I suppose I can play a game by ripping a headline from the news and writing about that.  That would work.  It would give me material about which to write.  But that’s not what’s keeping me from my keyboard.

I think the real reason I’m struggling is because my brain is scrambled.  No, I’m not taking hard-core drugs.  I’m not drinking excessively.  I have not sustained a physical injury.  My brain is just…scrambled.  I suppose it’s more accurate to say that my thought processes are sub-optimal at this particular juncture in time resulting in the overall cognitive net effect of my brain being or given the appearance of being or substantially causing to give the impression of being…scrambled.

What causes the human brain to become enscramblified?  I will tell you what does: dairy.  That’s right, dairy products cause the brain to become scrambled.  Cheese and ice cream, to be exact.  Cheese and ice cream.

How can this be?  How can cheese and ice cream cause a grown and educated man of 40 years to suffer from such a brain-related affliction?  I have a master’s degree, you know?  I am a Master of Business Administration or an MBA, as it is known.  I also have a Bachelor’s degree.  I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthroplogy.  I really do.  A BA in Anth, and an MBA.  How do you like that?  Impressed?  You should be.  I would have a “minor” degree in Human Development and Family Studies, too, but the department didn’t offer such a degree when I was in school.  I think they do now.  I suppose that’s evidence that I was more dedicated than the next cat because HE or SHE got a carrot for their troubles.  I didn’t get shit.  I just got the satisfaction and experience associated with dedicating that much time to a subject I found fascinating.  So there.  

And, seriously, I hold a “Master” sorta degree for Business just because I spent a few years going to classes?  What about the whole “10,000 hours” thing?  I didn’t spend 10,000 hours studying and practicing an art.  It didn’t take me 10 years of experience to get me where I needed to go.  It took me a few hundred hours and 3 years to get that degree.  I’m not dissin’ the degree, mind you.  You should still be impressed.  I’m just saying…maybe “Master” isn’t the right term, you know?

ANYWAY, back to the cheese and ice cream.  My brain’s scrambled, and it’s making it hard for me to write.  I think I know the reason why, too.  You see, I am 40.  At 40, as I’ve mentioned before, I am looking ahead at the decades I have left and asking myself, what now?  What now?  This line of questioning has had the very peculiar effect of making me examine everything through a lens of cheese and ice cream.  Cheese and ice cream.  I have to tell you: cheese and ice cream do not make a great lens.  Of any kind, in any way.

Cows make milk.  Humans take cow milk and make cheese and ice cream.  Cow milk is food for baby cows.  When a cow becomes a mommy, it makes milk.  It makes milk because the baby cow requires milk to survive.  When the baby cow is just a few hours old, it starts drinking it’s mommy’s milk.  This goes on for a while.  Then, a human comes and takes the baby cow away.  They attach some metal tubes to the mommy cow’s nipples (called teats) on their boobies (called udders), and a machine starts sucking milk from the mommy cow.  They do not give the milk to the baby.  Instead, they add chocolate powder to it and make ice cream.  They also let some get old and make cheese.  Yay, cheese!   Long after the baby cow even needs it, the metal tubes keep sucking the milk out of the mommy cow.  But don’t worry, the baby is off to a feedlot, anyway.

If the humans are not careful, the cow gets an infection in their teats and udder from all the milking called mastitis Some cows get gangrenous mastitis which can lead to necrosis of the tissue.  Google it.  Look at some pictures.  It’s disgusting.  If you think they catch all that and keep it out of your milk supply, you’re nuts.  Thank goodness for pasteurization, huh?

So, there you have it: cheese and ice cream.  I love cheese, and I love ice cream.  They are so damn yummy.  But cheese and ice cream are made from the nourishing, life-giving, love-fluid created by a mommy cow for it’s baby.  We take that away from the baby and keep it for ourselves.  We keep so much, in fact, that we artificially extend milk-producing period for a post-partum cow.  Milk, milk, milk.  

That’s the source of the scrambling.  I think about the cheese and the ice cream and the baby cow and the gangrenous mastitis…I think about it all and wonder, “What the HELL are we doing, people?”  Who decided that drinking the baby food of another species was a swell idea?  And who decided that treating animals this way made sense or was humane in any way?  Don’t cite the Bible, please.  There is nothing in there about chocolate cookie dough ice cream, I promise.  

Chances are, I’ll eat cheese again in my life.  And ice cream.  That’s what scrambles my brain.  There are the things I know and the things I do.  Every now and then, they don’t line up, and it scrambles my brain.  I am 40.  There must be more lining up.  Perhaps I have decades left.  Even if I do, time will slip away from me.  It already has.  I’m 4 months into 40.

At 40, there must be more lining up.  

Speaking of scrambled, have you ever read about what they do to chickens…

I am trying to figure out if the world was a better place when it was smaller. We say that it’s a small world and that technology has made it smaller, but I don’t think that’s true. I think the planet is small and that technology makes the smallness of Earth within the framework of the expansive universe totally apparent. But I also think that the world of information and possibility and communication is incomprehensibly huge. It is huge and getting huger. And this makes our tiny planet seem absolutely enormous.

There is too much to know and too much knowing at our disposal. It is distracting. It is debilitating. This has gotten me thinking that maybe things were better when world seemed smaller than it does today.

Then I realize that the fundamentals of being human haven’t changed, so the distractions of today were present yesterday, albeit in different form.

Things weren’t better when the world was smaller, they were just a little different

Where does the magic happen?  

Where do you perform your magic?  And by that I mean, where do you go, literally and figuratively, to do your best work, your best art?  You’re bound to have a place that gets your creative juices pumping.  You can probably think of the perfect storm of circumstances that result in you being able to quickly and completely reach a state of flow.  Mood music might help.  Or maybe silence is better.  Perhaps there’s a corner of your room you can tuck yourself into to get your mind cleared and ready for inspiration.  Or maybe it’s outside.  Maybe there’s a path or a bench or a rock by a small river to which you retreat to open yourself up to the Universe.

Think about what it takes to get you…there, to that place.  Not sure how you get there?  Experiment.  Chances are that you already know, subconsciously, how to do it.  When you find the formula, write it down.  When you’ve done that, you’ve essentially bottled lightning.  That’s real power. 

Unleashing it becomes a simple matter of finding the key elements that you can replicate anywhere, at any time.  It sounds impossible, I know, but you hold the keys to unlocking your inner, creative Tasmanian Devil. 

It has never really been about the thing or the place or the ritual that makes you feel powerful.  The power isn’t outside of you.  The power is always inside. 

It has only ever really been about having the confidence in your own ability to do your magic.  The magic happens wherever and whenever you choose to practice it.

Sounds like a stupid question, doesn’t it?  I sort of feel stupid for asking it.

What is “fun”, anyway?  I suppose there’s an element of subjectivity to however it’s defined, but I think one common characteristic upon which most people would agree is that fun is as much a feeling as it is a cognitive sensation.  When I say “feeling”, I mean like an emotion.  So, fun is a sensation…a tingling of the physical form…and an emotion…a tingling of the spiritual form.  Fun, then, is something you experience with your entire being, with physical and spiritual parts, in unison.

So, do I have the right to have fun?  Sure.  Of course I do.  We all do.  How often?  That’s largely a matter of choice!  

Now, here’s an even better question: do I have the right to have fun at work?  Better still, do I have the right to expect to have fun at work?  Surely, I don’t.  There can be fun moments, but the idea of ALL of work being fun is simply juvenile.  At some point, we have to grow up and recognize that work is about performing for your employer so that you can earn your wage.  Your wage, in turn, fuels the rest of your existence.  On your time, you have fun.  On company time, you produce.

The only problem is that I want to have fun at work.  I don’t want to experience an occasional fun moment.  I want to experience that physical and spiritual tingle every day when I sit down to get crackin’ at the whole work thing.  I want the work itself to be thrilling.  I want my day to whoosh by in a flow-induced blur.  I want there to be so much fun involved that I laugh as I retire for the day, recalling all the damn fun that I had.  

Stupid, I know.  Immature, I know.  Unrealistic, I know.  That’s me: stupid, immature, and unrealistic.  And I aim to stay that way.  I reserve the right to remain idealistic and hopeful.

You bet your ass I have the right to have fun, at work and outside of work.  That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it.  Do you know what?  You can, too.

I felt a lot older than 40 today. I went to a chiropractor. It had been well over a year since my last visit. I let time get away from me.

This doctor is new to me as my previous chiropractor moved farther north. This “new” guy is local, so, naturally, we switched to the new guy. His style is different from the other doctor. He focuses a lot of his attention on soft tissue. The previous guy did, too, but this guy is all about the soft tissue work first, then the adjusting. It’s a different take, and I’m intrigued.

So, cutting to the chase, he worked me over pretty hard. It highlighted to me how far my body has tightened up after just one year. I am not doing nearly as much for my body as I used to, and even then I wasn’t doing nearly as much as I should. Since then, something else important happened: I turned 40. All the parts got older. I’ve got to look for the warranty.

I am reminded of the words of my friend, Conway, on the eve of my 30th birthday: “Just wait until you turn 40.” He warned me about aches and pains and creaking parts. Now I’m 40.

Crap.

Whatever I started doing after my last post on the subject…not enough. And, unfortunately, I am reminded of the words of Sam Roberts: “As you get older, you have to get healthier just to maintain the status quo.”

Crap.

Tonight, I am tight and achy and feeling a lot older than 40.

To be honest, it took me a really long time to “get” Memorial Day.  I don’t know if it had to do with the fact that I grew up as an American in a foreign country or what, but Memorial Day was just a day off of school and nothing else.  I lacked the community that provided the proper context for even beginning to understand why we, as Americans, take this day to pay our respects to the men and women who have died while serving in the US Armed Forces.

I don’t know if that community is any more or less prevalent these days, but what I do know is that there is enough context in my life these days to warrant taking a few moments to feel gratitude and give thanks to those who died in service to the country.  I’ll forgo the debates about what military action is justified or unjustified, which wars are noble and which are for profit, and whether or not the men and women in the Armed Forces have represented their country appropriately.  Heaven knows there is enough of that kind of discussion these days, particularly out here in the Chicago area on the heels of the NATO summit this month.

Instead, I’ll just say that I am reminded that many good men and women choose to serve their country in good faith and with noble hearts.  They believe that what they are doing is in the best interest.  Their experiences while in service may change their minds, but I honestly believe that most go about their business and perform their duty out of a genuine desire to serve a worthwhile cause.  I am surely far from being worthy of judging any of them, so, instead, I dedicate a moment of stillness and silence in my heart for the sacrifices they made and for the price that they paid.

I know that there are many ways in which the value of proper planning might manifest itself, but this most recent example in my life is a pretty good illustration of why you should plan for stuff.

I got sick.  Nothing life-threatening, mind you.  I’m just in the midst of a bout with a virus that has decided to take up residence in the sinus cavities of my skull.  It’s going around.  My wife got it, too.  She’s mostly on the mend.  I’m still peaking, if you will.  I suspect the worst has passed or will pass shortly.

But I failed to plan for this.  It’s not like you should plan, specifically, on getting sick, but you should expect life to be disruptive.  I didn’t.  So, I stumbled.  Yard work suffered.  I got behind on my writing.  I doubled my stress at work because I didn’t give myself enough fluff time to get something ready for tomorrow.  I’m ready now, but the extra effort nearly sent me back to my bed with sneezes, a stuffed-up head, and the beginnings of a mean cough.  All that because I failed to plan.

Thank you, dear Universe, for the reminder on the value of proper planning.

Today, my socks and underwear fit really well.  Some days, one or the other doesn’t.  On bad days, neither do.

You can get away with socks and underwear that don’t fit well because other people can’t see them.  As for your outerwear, it’s harder to hide something that doesn’t fit the right way.  People notice.  Some might even speak up.  If nothing else, provided you’re not totally oblivious, you’ll probably notice yourself…eventually.  At some point, you retire the item that doesn’t fit.  If you need to do so, you replace it.  You go to a store, try a new one on, and buy it.  Or maybe you go online to Land’s End, like I like to do, and just buy another of the same thing you bought last time.  Maybe you choose a different color.  Maybe you don’t.  Regardless of how you do it, when an article of clothing, from foot to crown and all points in between, doesn’t fit, you get rid of it.  Done.  Gone.  Change.

Then why on Earth should you put up with the non-literal things in your life that don’t fit?  If right thinking and right action are important aspects of achieving happiness in life and helping others, surely, so is right fit.

I had a conversation with a good friend recently that took me down the rabbit hole of choosing for ourselves again.  Except this time, I focused on one of the more powerful choices we can make in life: choosing ourselves.

So many layers to this, but the train of thought took me somewhere specific.

We spend our whole lives waiting to be chosen, then Death chooses us, and I can only imagine that choice being the one choice we really weren’t really looking forward to.

We wait to be chosen from the time we are but wee humans assembling in our first classrooms.  It start there and pretty much continues on through adulthood.  We wait to be called upon in class.  We wait to be selected for a dodgeball team in gym.  We wait to be asked to Homecoming or Prom or even out on a date.  We wait for acceptance letters from colleges.  We wait for callbacks to auditions.  We wait for job offers.  We wait for promotions.  We wait for new career opportunities.  We wait to be rated by a boss who may or may not have a clue about how good you are or are not at your job.  We wait for the voting results on American Idol.  We wait to see if our constituents will elect us to office.  We wait and wait and wait.  During all that waiting, somebody else is choosing.

Here’s the novel idea: choose yourself.  Don’t wait to be chosen.  Don’t rely on the external validation.  Trust me, I get it: validation from others feels good.  It’s another one of those things built into the Human System.  We can’t help ourselves.  What we can do is choose to override the programming, at least partially.  We can minimize it.  We can take the very difficult but very important step of choosing ourselves.

For fuck’s sake, nobody else is going to choose you.  If they do, it’s because choosing you serves their purpose.  Nothing wrong with that, really, because we all do it to one extent or another.  The crime is when we hang all of our hopes and dreams, the possibilities for our wonderful future, on the choices of other people.  It’s crazy.  Really, really crazy.

Don’t just choose for yourself, my dear, dear fellow human being.  Choose yourself.  Can you try that?