Perfectly F*cked Up People

diet The shortest diet book ever written would be on one page, or maybe a leaflet, five steps, a salutation, a sentiment of caution, and a note of encouragement for the future. Step I – Sleep more. Step II - Eat less, but more from the outside loop of the grocery store. Step III - Drink more (spring) water. Step IV - Exercise more. You’re welcome. Warning! Any deviation from this regiment will result in unfavorable yet predictable outcomes. Proceed at your own risk… Now go enjoy your life! exercise I love to exercise while playing a sport. Not a fan of exercise, for the sake. I like practicing, but not exercising. So maybe I love playing rather than training. I made over a mile of zig zagged trails through giant oak groves, creek beds and fields. As much as I tried, I couldn’t walk the trails for exercise. I could build the shit out of them, but then to use them, “naw.” I needed a destination – a goal or something to do. I wasn’t at peace, to say the least. So much for the moment. “This sucks,” I muttered. I sat down to think, quietly. Moments later, the idea fluttered across the scrolling screen in my brain. Disc golf course! Maybe the akashic record spoke to me. Maybe it was the collective conscious. Maybe I found the moment. Could have simply been a good idea based on my past. Whatever happened I love my disc golf course. I don’t exercise, I play. love I know when love is around, and when it’s not. I love to feel love in my life. I can’t tell what’s missing or what’s present. A feeling from another person, maybe. For one to love another they must expel a vibe. They must feel toward the other. The feeling must be received. Love is the way people make us feel, I guess. They put it out. We pick it up. Reciprocation occurs. Reciprocation must occur. We must know the feeling for the other is mutual. If not, it’s something else like, lust, respect, admiration, adoration, jealousy comfort, control, or awe. Love is abstract, brilliant, confusing, and dreadful when it leaves. It would be the saddest, if it never arrived. If what you thought was love, left, how would you know you had love at all? I suppose the only way to know is when it returns. people Earthlings. Our race. Different. I’ll bet we all look pretty similar to the life forms out there watching us. Prejudice against earthlings. We assign isolated behaviors from our past to the present. Sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. A new person or situation is a clean slate. Be open. A new experience or person is an education. Education comes from anywhere, anyone, anytime if… we want to see it. See broadly. Define slowly. Categorize wisely. Let everything we’ve ever experienced, and everything we’ve ever done and not done, guide us. Allow our collective, objective experience evaluate the present. “And for crying out loud,” to quote my mother, “Just don’t be a dick.” She couldn’t have been more right with spot on advice for my brother and I. To follow the profoundly elegant quote from my mother with another genius, Albert Einstein. He asked the most fundamental question a person can ask of themselves, “Do I view the universe as a hostile or kind place?” Are people filled with anger, hate, and fear of one another or is the universe a place filled with people that are connected as one, and linked by the potential for positive experience at any moment? It makes a difference how we answer that question. It may be the only relevant division among humanity. Are you or are you not, “a dick,” to quote my mom. She had to speak to us like that. We were heathens. It’s what God, the Bible, Joseph Campbell, A Hero with a Thousand Faces, Homer, The Odyssey, Buddha, Sutras, Muslim, Qur’an, Hindu, Bhagavad Gita, George Lucas and Star Wars and every great tale have in common. They’re epic stories about the infinite battle of good and evil. Our lives are epic battles between positive and negative energy. Good and evil. To be or not to be, “a dick.” That is the question. I’ve let anger go so I can meet people with kindness, patience and compassion. I let my heathenistic ways go. race I used to race bikes. I used to run races. I’ve raced people, but not by race. If you’re going to think about race, think about a race car, frog race or a speed skating race. We’ve made race an indicator of something and turned stereotypes into facts. I was five. A black chair slipped out. I fell. Kids laughed. Since then, I hate all black chairs. I never sit in one. A black chair let me down. Embarrassed me. Hurt me. I hate black chairs. All black chairs! “I stood one day for 8 hours because there were only black chairs.” Racism is programmed. The only way to truly see a person is to see them based on our individual experience, not our experience with everyone else that looked like them, or sounded like them. They are an individual. For an opinion to be valid it needs to be our personal experience by which our opinion and interactions are based. Anything else would-be prejudiced. Acting on it is discrimination. It doesn’t matter what your father, or mother, or siblings thinks. Start by assuming they’re cool and want to be. I mean trust your instinct but be fair and open. Still, no matter who is in the van handing out candy, don’t get in.