Shoulding All Over Ourselves

I promise a better update, and soon, but the last week has been a challenge of paying attention, listening to what goes on with my heart, and challenging the "shoulds" that I've been trained to believe: 

I should be reacting to my mother's death a certain way, I should be feeling certain things and should be demonstrating those feelings in a socially-expected and socially-acceptable manner (weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes), and my family should be doing certain things with regard to my mother's death.

Now I should go back to work.  And that's not a conditioned "should" -- I actually have to earn a living here.

"It's Different For Girls" - Joe Jackson

Just because this one is fun.  And true. Well, at least for me.



What the hell is wrong with you tonight?
I can't seem to say or do the right thing
Wanted to be sure you're feeling right
Wanted to be sure we want the same thing

She said, I can't believe it
You can't, possibly mean it
Don't we, all want the same thing
Don't we
Well, who said anything about love?

No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
(Don't give me love)
No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
You're all the same

Mama always told me save yourself
Take a little time and find the right girl
Then again don't end up on the shelf
Logical advice gets you in a whirl

I know, a lot of things that you don't
You wanna hear some?
She said, just give me something
Anything
Well give me all you got but not love

No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
(Don't give me love)
No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same

Who said anything about love?

No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
(Don't give me love)
No, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
(Don't give me love)
No, no, no, no, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
(Don't give me love)
No, no, no, no, no, not love she said
Don't you know that it's different for girls?
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same
You're all the same

Natalia Zukerman

Natalia Zukerman

Because she's an incredible finger-pickin' guitar player.

Because of that coffee-with-a-little-bit-of-cream voice.

Because you listen to her music and can't pinpoint just exactly kinda what precisely is her genre.

Because she's musical royalty.

Just because.

Oh, just listen because.

Shenpa

A very long and fascinating talk about getting "hooked," by Pema Chodron.  Along the same lines as "attachment."

On Having Buttons

"When Our Buttons Are Pushed"

Each of us has "buttons" -- areas where we are sensitive.  When our buttons are pushed, we fly off the handle, blaming the other person for upsetting us. But our being upset is a dependently arising process.  We contribute the buttons, and the other person does the pushing.  If we didn't have the buttons, others couldn't push them.

Our buttons are our responsibility.  As long as we have them, someone will push them, especially since they are big, red, and flashing.  Our buttons are so sensitive, that even if a person walks by, the breeze from his passage will trigger our button's detector and our alarm will ring, "That person is offending (harming, criticizing, deceiving, manipulating, cheating, etc.) me!"  Although many times people have no intention of harming us, our buttons get pushed just because they are so sensitive.

We need to do internal research, asking ourselves what our buttons are and why we are so sensitive in those particular areas.  Our sensitivity generally has to do with attachment.  If we are able to identify and then reduce our attachments, our buttons shrink.  Then even if someone wants to push them, doing so is harder.  Realized spiritual beings have no buttons left to push, so no matter how others treat them, they do not become upset.

We may think that if someone deliberately insults us, it's correct to be angry. However, such thinking is illogical.  We would be giving our power to the other person, in which case his intention -- which we cannot control -- would be governing our happiness and suffering.  Whether or not another person wishes us ill does not matter.  We still have a choice whether to be offended.  The less we are attached, for example, to praise and reputation, the less miffed we will become, because our mind will not interpret situations as personal assaults.

Thubten Chodron
"Working With Anger"
2001

On Art and Suffering

Since moving to New York, she had been gradually abandoning her old ideas about the nobility of suffering. The more suffering she witnessed -- and the New York art world was wormy with it -- the less she subscribed to it. Some pain came with the territory, of course, but most suffering artists were narcissists, she was starting to believe. Narcissistic artists seemed attached to agony, to the writhe and the whine, to the yowl, the howl, and the botched suicide; their fits of despair (preferably in public) carefully timed to impress the seriousness of their aesthetic upon critics and collectors. In the past, she'd embraced the suffering artist image, she supposed, but in her heart she had always considered artisthood more of a privilege than a curse, and those to whom the creative life brought only misery, she now invited to go into food service. The world could always use another waitress, another fry cook.

Tom Robbins
"Skinny Legs and All"
1990

Random Definition: Beguile

be·guile
tr.v. be·guiled, be·guil·ing, be·guiles

1. To deceive by guile; delude.

2. To take away from by or as if by guile; cheat: a disease that has beguiled me of strength.

3. To distract the attention of; divert: "to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming" (Abraham Lincoln).

4. To pass (time) pleasantly.

5. To amuse or charm; delight.

I find it interesting sometimes that the most commonly assumed definition of a word is frequently lowest in the hierarchy of definitions.

Take this word, "beguile.". You tend to think of it as something good, right? And generally feminine. Her beguiling smile, etc.

We think that describing someone as "beguiling" is a compliment. But you'd have to consider the source, and possibly even facial expressions, I guess. For if someone super wordnerdy described, say, Angelina Jolie as beguiling, but with a sardonic twist to his mouth, the presumed definition would be, "conniving husband stealer." But if the same person said it with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, it would mean that Angie is the most captivating example of human flesh ever.

Just a random thought about a silly little word.

Perfect Happiness

On a hot New York Saturday, sometimes your choices are this: 

Or this:

Which doesn't really leave much choice, does it, except getting on the subway and heading to the beach.

A hot, sunny low-humidity day, on the beach at Coney Island with my unread book on one side, a thawing bottle of water on the other, and four guys set up next to me with loud salsa music playing. They all have gourds and cowbells and other percussion of sunshiny music and they are jamming away.


Salsa -- perfect New York street music.

Coney Island -- perfect New York place.

I look around me and everyone is moving their shoulders, their feet, their heads, their fingers, in time to the music, then I look over at the guys and they flash their perfect white smiles at me while nodding along to the music, never missing a beat -- perfect New York moment.

I do believe this could fall under the category of "Perfect Happiness."

Portland was nice, but like most of my infatuations, short-lived and in retrospect, really, well, white. Give me New York City's cafe-au-lait complexion any day.

On Work and Results

Do not depend on the hope of results.  You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and achieve no result at all, if not, perhaps, bring about its opposite. And as you get used to this idea you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.

Thomas Merton

On Values and Priorities

The following reflections can help us stay grounded in reality and conscious of what's truly important:

1.  I have been blessed with a life in which I can do many things to further my own happiness and the happiness of those around me.

2.  Life is short; there is no time to waste.

3.  The journey through life isn't supposed to be easy; it's supposed to be real.

4.  Our karma is the one thing we carry with us always.

Lama Surya Das

"Wild West" -- Joe Jackson

"Wild West"
Joe Jackson

Out to the west there’s a trail that leads somewhere
And a call of the wild that takes some people there
Through Monument Valley to California sun
From New Amsterdam to the way the west was won

Well years will go by when you won’t get nowhere
You’re cold and you’re tired and you’re free and you don’t care

You keep pushin’ on when your friends keep turning back
You keep building towns and laying railroad track
And things get crazy and you have to use that gun
And you wonder if this is the way the west is won

But keep thinkin’ that way and you won’t get nowhere
’cause you got a right just to get where you’re goin’ to
Gotta keep runnin’ gotta be the best
Gotta walk tall in the wild west

You keep on the move or you try to settle down
And there’s strangers from further and further away in town
And you give them some tools and they know what must be done
And you knowwho's the boss and you know the west was won
And they say . . .

Where I come from, you can’t get nowhere
I’m breaking my back for some opportunity
Making my fortune and I’ll take it all home
Tell my kids about the wild west

And there’s still beauty as the flowers bloom on desert sands
And there’s still hope as the sun rises over the Rio Grande
But it’s so crowded now and nothing’s simple anymore
And they’re still knocking at your door

You hear guns in the night and you hope they’re not for you
’cause a dog eats a dog then he eats his master too
In the land of the free and the not so often brave
There’s both love or money now choose which you will save

But . . . keep thinkin’ that way and you won’t get nowhere
’cause you got a right just to get where you’re goin’ to
Gotta keep runnin’ gotta be the best
Gotta walk tall in the wild west

I Speak to Fewer People

I have been in touch lately with my inner self, the fruit picker who lived all those years in a motel. I shaded my story so it proved everything I did was by intention. After each love affair, each participant received a little gift. I mean someone always said: You didn’t really love her. I speak to fewer people than ever. No matter what it looks like—I say this every chance I get—something divine is going on. And wonder: Is it? I’d like to lose a little weight. Just the same, the marriage had its good points. I still can’t tell you what I am known for. I’m easily shamed. On my walks I hope to meet someone interesting, someone I have been headed toward all my life, or simply someone without too much guile, a friendly person with a little intelligence. Maybe we will walk along together, talking about romance or trucks.

Charlie Smith
"Word Comix"

"Every Time You Go Away" -- Hall & Oates

Every Time You Go Away
Daryl Hall

I'm not posting this song for any reason except it totally kicks ass. And I'm too lazy and jetlagged right now to do more than fuck around on youtube.

It's not the sugary-sweet pop version by Paul Young, but the original, gospel and soul version sung by the guys who wrote it. There's a "Live at the Apollo" version on youtube as well, complete with GE Smith (I always forget he was H&O's guy before he was SNL's guy), but I kinda prefer the tempo of this one.

Daryl Hall kills it. This is blue-eyed soul.

Curtis Salgado's version out there on Rhapsody is pretty good.

And frankly, if you come back and say you like the insipid Paul Young version better, then well, I'll have to break the news to you that you either have no soul -- or you are some kind of girl. (For some reason, I find girls tend to like the sugar-pop versions of songs better than the grittier versions of songs. Why is that? Has anyone ever done a study of that?)

A Disclaimer

So in case anyone's out there getting conceited about the song choice lately, get the fuck over yourself.  These are songs I happen to love, and if you want to reverse-project them onto yourself, that's fine, too.  But, no, they aren't about you, you narcissist.

"Waiting For My Real Life to Begin" -- Colin Hay

"Waiting for My Real Life to Begin"
Colin Hay

Any minute now my ship is coming in
I'll keep checking the horizon
And I'll stand on the bow
And feel the waves come crashing
Come crashing down, down, down on me

And you said,"Be still, my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in"
Don't you understand?
I already have a plan
I'm waiting for my real life to begin

When I awoke today suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path
And up this cobbled lane
I'm walking in my own footsteps once again

And you say,"Just be here now
Forget about the past
Your mask is wearing thin"
Let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I'm waiting for my real life to begin

Any minute now my ship is coming in
I'll keep checking the horizon
And I'll check my machine
There's sure to be that call
It's gonna happen soon, soon, oh so very soon
It's just that times are lean

And you say,"Be still, my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in"
Don't you understand?
I already have a plan
I'm waiting for my real life to begin

On a clear day
I can see, see for a long way

On a clear day
I can see, see a very long way