Sea Monkeys

It’s been another busy week. After working 12 days in a row, I had two days off. The first day was spent mostly having my van serviced, but I managed also to walk 10 miles, then go to the gym and run 2 more, lift weights, etc. The second day was spent with friends and getting my van tested and inspected so that I can drive legally. No time for shopping or other activities.

No shopping in stores, that is, but I have made some online purchases. One of them was sort of a coincidence. I had just visited the ThinkGeek website, and I noticed that one of the offerings there was for Sea Monkeys. I had Sea Monkeys as a boy, and I remembered enjoying caring for them. For the uninitiated, Sea Monkeys are a trademark for a certain species of brine shrimp (artemia salina, if memory serves). Still, I am long past the days of my boyhood, but I felt compelled to purchase this thing just the same.

I took the Sea Monkey kit to work. Because I work in the evenings, I am often alone there. I love to have pets. I like having living beings around me. The Sea Monkeys are growing now; there are perhaps two dozen of them in the small aquarium provided in the kit. They are roughly the size of the head of a pin, perhaps .3 mm long.

Why is this important enough to write about? I don’t really know, but I do know that all life is precious, and perhaps I am just pleased to witness the lives of these creatures as they are played out on my desktop.

Other news: I have been corresponding recently with a woman who I met online. Her writing intrigued me, and I wrote to her. We have been corresponding since, and now she would like to meet me. She lives just less than 100 miles away. I am looking forward to meeting her. She adopted a young girl from Cambodia, probably saving the girl’s life. She describes the girl as a “wise old soul,” and I suspect that she is right. I am glad the girl lives with her now, without having to worry about life in the orphanage or land mines. All life is precious.

I am enjoying the building excitement of my trip to Texas. I may have stopovers with friends along the way. On the way back, I plan to see some of my friends from Iraq. Most of us made it back alive. I will be glad to see them again. All life is precious.

Tribulations

So it’s been another long stretch (what, two weeks?). I’ve had reason to write, but I’m on another long, 12-day work stretch. I work from early afternoon and I don’t get home usually until around 10 p.m. Usually, when it’s this late, I only have the drive to make my supper and check my e-mail, etc., and watch TV. In the mornings, I try to do something productive, like work out, but it all depends upon the circumstances.

But I am trying to stay active. I have already signed up to run the Army 10-miler in DC in October. I am also going to ride my bicycle in a century ride (100-mile) in August. I couldn’t do either of these things right now, but I have been going to the gym and I am running and riding.

I am truly looking forward to my vacation in June. This week, there have been many challenges. I received a ticket for running a red light (my fault, but the light changed so fast and I hit my brakes, but I had already entered the intersection). So I accept that one. Then I received a ticket for expired tags. The problem here is that they are usually sent to me in the mail, but this year I hadn’t received them, and with all that’s been going on (separation, new apartment, etc.), I just didn’t notice my tags had expired just 10 days before I received the ticket. Eh… how about a little grace period or something? Then, I received a notice to pay $75 worth of parking tickets that I hadn’t received. Turns out my son never paid his tickets from 2003, and they’re coming after me for the money. I finally just had to laugh about it all. I spent way too much money on clothes, etc., this month, so this serves me right.

I’ve also had several other unexpected bills, and I’ve suddenly lightened my bank account by some $1500 this month (beyond the rent and food). And my van needs servicing and possibly repairs. Small things that can add up.

Life has been somewhat curious of late, as I find myself alone more often. I think God has a lesson here for me, but I haven’t quite put it together yet. Perhaps it’s just that I should get out more if I truly love people, but with my schedule, there really isn’t a good time to get out unless I have a day off, and this month I’ve only really had one so far. Perhaps I need to spend more time understanding the meaning of selfless detachment. Or maybe I just need to think about getting over myself.

I am almost done with the book by Robert Thurman (I know, I’m a slow reader). He listed some tenets, and the last one made me smile. If nothing else, he said (and I’m paraphrasing), just be happy. I smiled, and then felt instantly better. I was walking to work today and noticing how few people were smiling, and hoping they would feel better. I like to sort of size people up now and think about how I would feel giving each of them a hug. If there would just be a little more happiness and more hugging in the world, I think we could solve a lot more of humanities problems.

It’s late, and I don’t even know if I’m making sense anymore. But if anyone actually reads this note, I would like you to just try it sometime: Walk down the street and imagine embracing the people you come across. Honestly, I have to confess that I often size people up and think about how I would handle a fight with some of them, perhaps it’s something about my upbringing and training, but I feel much better about myself and everyone else when I imagine the embrace. And then the little problems don’t seem quite so big.

The purpose of good and evil

Wow, so it's been a long time since I've posted. Let’s see, where did 19 days go? Well, there have been some long runs of workdays (up to 12 days without a day off). I’ve actually only had one weekend since the 18th, and I had quite a lot of activity packed into those two days. So I guess writing wasn’t in the cards.

Oddly, I am at work, writing about how work got in the way of my writing… oh well.

A week or so ago, I had another realization, which is the basic nature of good and evil. It’s really so simple that I’m not sure why it didn’t occur to me before. I think my perspective has changed. Essentially, good is the force that keeps things together (creates) and evil is the force that breaks them apart (destroys).

Anyone reading this post by now has probably just shrugged her/his shoulders and said something like, “hello… knucklehead!! That’s nothing new!”

But the truth is, I’ve always thought of good and evil as sort of two huge energy forces, poised for conflict and vying for control of the cosmos. In a way, that’s true, but the conflict is really so much closer to home. I used to think that, when we die, we join the force of good (or evil, such as the case might be) and then take up arms for the cause of our destiny.

But the battle is here and now; it is upon us. The question is, how do we fight? The battle is not only here, but it’s everywhere; it is infinite.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I guess the point I’m getting at is that all beings are part of the “fabric” of matter and energy, those elements composing the universe. We must realize that our “purpose” in life is to work as a force for good, doing our part to save lives and bring true happiness to the universe. The forces of evil want to tear this community down, create anarchy in the universe and make sure everyone feels alone.

Why is happiness important? I used to think that happiness was a selfish sentiment. This is because I believed in happiness in the material and personal sense. It was all about me and the things that made me happy, and therefore happiness was just selfishness in a pure form. But have you ever been truly unhappy and depressed? How much good were you able to accomplish when you were in that state of mind? In fact, looking back, I realize that those times I was truly unhappy were the times when I was most selfish. I was depressed because I felt alone, because I wanted attention or because some other expectation of mine wasn’t being met.

True happiness, on the other hand, comes from feeling loved and wanted and important and a part of life. It comes from realizing that each of us is an integral part of a very large, indeed infinite, community upon which we exert much more control than most realize. If you are happy, you can influence so many more beings with your positive energy. When you are truly happy, you don’t think about yourself, but about others because you are fulfilled. The happiness you project comes back upon you in greater quantity as it influences those around you, and thus radiates on in a perpetual cycle.

I have a friend who suffers from depression and has contemplated suicide in the past. I worry about her because she has had a recent spate of unpleasant experiences: her brother-in-law was killed, and then her mother fell ill and is now effectively brain dead and waiting to die. I would like to help my friend and I know feeling sorry for her and sharing my sadness about these events will not help her. Misery loves company only because it likes to wallow. So I will simply let her know that she is not alone, and make myself available to her. Hopefully, she will allow me to share some of my happiness with her.

And now I realize that there was an error in my last post. I wrote that suffering is a given and there is nothing we can do to stop it. I no longer believe that. I can do something, my small part to end suffering. First, I can avoid my own suffering by realizing that the physical life here on Earth is not all there is. Life is energy, a spiritual force if you will, and energy and matter cannot be destroyed. So my life will not end when my human body gives out. Second, I can influence others through my happiness and thereby ease their suffering.
Try it sometime. For starters, try smiling through all your day’s events for just one day. People around you might think you’re being silly, or they might think you’re faking it (or maybe that you’ve simply gone crazy), but they will still become more cheerful or giggly. I’m not saying it’s all this simple, but a simple, genuine smile definitely will help you become more happy, and it will help others, too. And a happy person is far less likely to go and shoot up a school or kill his neighbor or drown her children.