Tag: self-awareness

The Office of the Presidency

Read on Facebook. Stolen immediately.

Charles Pierce is credited as the author of this opinion. His short but thoughtful review of past Presidents’ behavior are contrasted with the current POTUS’s behavior. Trump’s lack of empathy, lack of vision, lack of manners, insights, and intelligence were again displayed. He is a base and craven individual.

As Charles Pierce shares.

“In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, “And we shall overcome.” I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh’s madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.

“And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

“The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.

“Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don’t have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.

Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn’t he a funny man? Isn’t what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now.”

– Charles Pierce

Yet, Trump and his supporters believe that this clownish behavior makes America great again. Their vision for America is appallingly short-sighted.

History will not be kind to Trump and his minions.

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Wednesday’s Political Thoughts

Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for President of the United States in 2024.

The GOP candidate, Donald J. Trump, reacted strongly, ‘truthing’, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”

That reaction is symbolical of Trump’s maturity and life approach. Such behavior probably posts Ms. Swift’s case for not supporting Trump.

What prompts me to think about it and write about it is another writer asking via a headline, “Opinion: Why is Trump picking a fight he can’t win with Taylor Swift?”

Matt Lewis is the author. He writes a reasonable column about a reasonable question, if the subject, Donald J. Trump, was a reasonable person with reasonable self-control.

But Trump has shown himself not to be a reasonable person. He’s revealed himself to be petty. He’s demonstrated that he lacks self-control. The governor on his mental processes seems seriously damaged.

And that’s why he should not be POTUS: because he can’t stop himself from instigating and pursuing petty fights. A petty person is not what we need as the leader of our nation.

Vote Blue in 2024.

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Puzzles and Writing

Okay, here comes a little humbragging.

My life isn’t challenging. I retired from the military, so I have a pension egg that comes in each month. I worked for a few startups when I retired from the mil. Tyco and IBM bought them. I made stock off those deals, and my nest egg ballooned. In other words, I’ve been lucky.

Challenges amount to coping with cats, dealing with modern life, helping my wife in her adventures, maintaining things, writing novels, and doing puzzles. Writing novels was a desire delayed as I stayed in the military to retire and have a pension, and then stayed with companies to get stock options and build a nest egg, so I don’t feel guilty now pursuing my writing dream. Puzzles are a pleasant diversion. I do a few online every day, something to pump up my endomorphs so I feel good about myself.

There’s also the jigsaw puzzles. They started in 2019. We were on vacation at the coast. A puzzle was there and we worked on with another couple as a social activity. It was fun. Early this year, pre COVID-19, we decided to do more. They were a pretty diversion during cold and dark January days. My wife likes them in theory but finds herself discouraged by the struggle to find the pieces and make it all fit together. I, though, find tremendous satisfaction in fitting those pieces together and making it all come together. Is it any wonder that I think of novel writing as being just like puzzle solving?

I’m almost finished with the Christmas puzzle. We didn’t finish the Halloween puzzle until November. I then joked that we need to start the Christmas puzzle in November so it’ll be done by Christmas.

Well, it’s almost finished. Four percent remains. It’s a thousand piece puzzle; you can do the math.

While I was doing the puzzle, I was contemplating how much it is like my writing process, and my work process. I used to work alone in my tasks as an IBM analyst and service planner. People would give me problems or ask my opinion, and then I’d work alone, come up with answers, and feed it back to them. I enjoyed those challenges and learned how much working alone entertains me.

With those issues in IBM, I used to gather facts and insights, then walk away from it for a while. The length of time varied. Then, something would come together in my brain and I’d go back, attack and finish it. I also did the same in my final years in the military. Although I’d been in command and control, I was appointed a special assignment as Quality Air Force advisor to the commander for my final two years. A one-person office, I worked alone, setting up the curriculum, then teaching it to the base population while facilitating team building and strategic planning in parallel. It was fun.

That’s also how I do Sudoku puzzles each day. Bring them up, take a look, close it, and walk away. Then I come back and do it later.

The jigsaw puzzle is also like that. Finding an area to focus on, I’ll consider the finished image, where I’m at, and the pieces that remain. Then I walk away. Returning later, I discover that I can fit several pieces together, click, click, click, click.

(And this is where my wife and I have moved apart on working on the puzzles. I have my style, whereas, she tries fitting them piece by piece, picking them up and trying them until she finds one that fits. That’s so counter to my style, it irritates me. But, I’m an easily irritated person. That’s probably why I worked alone, too.)

That’s often how my writing process works. The character is HERE; the story is HERE; what must happen NEXT? Wander off, do tedious chores, wash the car, play with the cats, drink coffee, etc. Then return; sit; type. Walking and my pre-COVID-19 writing process was built around this. I’d walk to a coffee shop, then write, leave, think about what’s to be next, and then do it again the next day.

When it works — with puzzles, computers, analyses, writing, whatever — it is beautiful and rewarding. When it works, it feels like magic.

BUT —

You knew it was coming. It’s not always like this in any of these cases. My success with that process leads to overconfidence. I attempt to manipulate and hurry the process. I think I can force myself to see and do at will. I then end up overthinking everything, losing confidence, and stalling.

I’d learned that before. That’s why I developed my walking and writing routine. But when it was cut out from under me with the pandemic restrictions, I was at a loss. How do I do what I used to do without doing what I used to do? Doing the puzzles helped me understand myself, yet again. Developing that insight into myself was rewarding. Keeping it in mind is yet another challenge. It basically amounts to relax; take your time. Trust yourself. Be patient. And always, always stay positive and persistent. Go back when you fail, regroup, and try again.

Looking back at previous blog posts, I’ve learned this all before. Oh, boy.

Got my coffee. Ready to give it a go and write like crazy, at least one more time.

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And Again, and Again, and Again

He talks to his wife across the house,

demanding answers that she doesn’t give.

She doesn’t hear him, and he gets mad,

again, and again, and again.

He trips on the cat in the dark,

and curses the cat for not learning.

He goes the same way, every time,

again, and again, and again.

He leaves the lights on and the water running,

and complains about the waste,

and argues about whodunit,

again, and again, and again.

He sleeps the same times,

and does the same things,

eats the same food,

and complains the same ways.

Goes to the same places,

listens to the same tunes,

watches the same tube,

and hears the same news.

Then he complains that nothing changes?

Again, and again, and again.

 

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The Difference

He used to tell himself, “I’m feeling lucky today.”

It happened a few times a year. Feeling lucky, he’d rush out and buy lottery tickets.

Nothing was ever won. He began re-thinking his process. He wasn’t buying tickets because he felt lucky, but because he was feeling unlucky, and was hoping he could change his day, his status, his life. Once he understood that difference, well…it made a huge difference in how he lived.

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Temptations

It’s hard staying disciplined today. I’m going through through my monthly cycles*, and I’m on a creative high. Sounds good, but…

My imagination has too many ideas about the novel in progress, rendering the process more difficult and challenging. Through my muses or myself, I’m besieged with new what-if scenarios. Each demands to be considered and incorporated, or discarded. Once a path is chosen, my fingers dash over the keyboard in mad hammering. As scenes and chapters are finished, new ideas jump in again.

The problem isn’t having ideas about the story or characters, or a writing block. The problem is that there’s so many ways to tell the story, so many choices about what to write. It seems like an enviable situation. Don’t be fooled. Knowledge gleaned from writing other novels has informed me, too many ideas can end up with a messy, messy novel. I know that I can write it all up and edit and revise, but I think that writing along the wrong paths dissipates the novel’s essence. Besides that, my puny brain struggles to keep everything straight. Adding more complications…well, complicates that process. The challenge is to find the best path and keep focused on it despite the temptations to stray, and some of them are very, very tempting.

Got my coffee. Know what time it is? Yep, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

Note: my spectrums – the mood shifts from happy and optimistic, to dark and pessimistic and the energy levels that rise and fall – seemed monthly, perhaps driven by hormones, tides, or some other causes. My imagination runs on like cycles, as do my emotional and physical energy. Yes, some call this all hokum, others think of them as pseudo-science, but it’s something that I experience. Being aware of them helps me manage the dark times.

3

Tunnel Thoughts

Mutterings of a harsh and mean nature whipped around him. All of it wasn’t about him, although that omniscient and omnipotent unseen ‘they’ kept forking him more than anything else.

Although he’d been going straight, a tunnel had swerved over him. Light became dark, up became down, and all became meaningless, a perfect mood, if you’re in an abused porta-potty — which he wasn’t, although, “in his mind,” quote, unquote, everything that he touched was shit, as was, in fact, everything that he’d ever done or had tried to do, and the world was hastening down the sluice, so, Good God, what’s the fucking use?

The obvious remained a quicksilver truth until he saw, damn, this is where I’m at. Make no sudden moves and keep your words to yourself. Be wary of the tunnel animals. They’re real and they’re not, but their teeth and claws are sharp. Keep going as straight as you can. The tunnel will swerve again.

It did, pouring him into sunshine on a smoked-filled day, letting him breath again, even though the air was polluted with particulates. Just been that time again, when he was going through a tunnel.

1

Zombie in the Mirror

It’s easy to notice holes in my sock. Although I put them on mindlessly, the difference in color, the sock’s small size and the focus I use to put on my socks (even if it’s a recurring practice that I can do in my sleep) help highlight the message to the brain, “Hole.” Then debate commences about whether wearing a sock with a hole in it is acceptable on that day. I usually do, unless I’m going through an airport, visiting someone’s home who require shoes be taken off at the door, or trying shoes on. Other than those times, I’ll keep wearing it unless a toe sticks through it. That physical impression disturbs me.

Most other things about my dress aren’t noticed by me. I barely notice my hair when I brush it. I’ve become more thoughtful about my shaving because I became curious about it, but clothing? Naw. Others must point out the holes in a shirt, a stain, a frayed collar, a tear in my jeans. I’m the zombie in the mirror, practicing life by rote. I like those comfort habits. Comfort clothes. Comfort food. Sandwiches for lunch. Sandwich is a big comfort food.

Unfortunately, as written here before, my body and wheat’s relationship with it is becoming abrasive. I let myself go the other day – hell, the other week – and enjoyed sandwiches, chile relleno pie, zucchini muffins, pizza, even a couple veggie cheeseburgers. On top of that were IPAs and Amber Ales, and blackberry cobbler.

Symptoms of wheat overdose arose. I was eating like a zombie, not thinking about my intake, and following zombie routines about what I ate, where I went, and what I didn’t eat. Bloating began. My waist swelled. Shorts grew tighter. I was phlegmy each morning. I developed a baby bump. Joints started aching. Sleeplessness rose. Energy, focus and concentration dipped. And finally, when the urine was a meager trickle, I recognized what I’d done.

So I vowed it all off. No wheat in any form, I told the zombie in the mirror. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Sandwiches….”

“What’s Michael’s favorite food?” a friend asked my wife.

My wife laughed. “Sandwiches.”

I couldn’t argue, as habits and history supported her. So that’s where I was, giving up sandwiches, pies, beers, for a while, wheat in any form for a while. Was not fun. Most know how it goes: try not to think of something, try not to do something, and it grows like the blob to dominate your brain. Or so it happens in my brain.

But it worked. Sleep and urine returned (not at the same time), pains faded, concentration, energy and focus returned, bloating dissipated and my waistline dropped.

It’s not fun, giving up wheat. It’s not a permanent thing, either. I’ll have beer again, and eventually other things. I can indulge in these things with wheat, in moderation.

I just need to watch out for the zombie that I can be.

 

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