The Consequences Of Thirst

Passing off eccentricity as class requires some effort. I probably should have learned how to do something. You know- a craft. A trade. By the time I was twenty, I figured it was probably too late.

Here are a few that I knew would never work:

Indy car racing

pornography

town drunk

medicine

law

welding

painting

At this point I have scooped mud from the hulls of barges, squirt hot sauce into bottles, written an automotive column. Oh, yeah- I did that love & fashion column for awhile, too. Laundered money for the Russian mob. Don't judge me- I thought I was promoting concerts.

Mostly I have stuck to endeavors that don't pay much. Well, don't pay anything, to be accurate. I'm a geographer! Nobody told me that the reason that thrift stores are full of globes is because somebody changes the name of a country every month or two.

Just within the last six months I have come to consider myself a philosopher. Thought it would look good on a resumé. Well, who pays the philosopher? What about my benefits? My pension?

My preaching thing has mostly just hurt my social life. I believe pretty much everything I preach, though, and I'm proud of that.

You know, I was always a little suspicious of those celebrities who didn't seem to have an occupation. Orson Bean. Monti Rock III. Arlene Francis. Dick Clark.

The indignity of being an unknown who doesn't do anything stings.

I'm glad I've opened up about this with you. I feel better.

And Many More- Who's Minnie Moore?

Man can't live without meaning. I believe Jung said that, or something close. While I know enough not to argue with smart folks, I don't know that I believe much in the concept of meaning. Nobody spends more time than I do searching for it. Well, sir, if that doesn't describe the ultimate waste of time, I don't know what would. I might as well take myself snipe hunting.

Evil exists in man's imagination. Some responsibility, huh?

You can't do much about other people but you're in charge of you. I should know better than to tell anybody what to do, but I suggest you spend your time loving. They will laugh at you. Check to see how happy they are.

How Happy's Too Happy?

In the grand design, happiness has a purpose. Yeah, much as I hate to break it to you, your "creator" has no interest in your self actualization. The only reason giddiness is in the recipe is to serve as the carrot on the stick. That's right- you the mule.

"Happy" exists to keep you on the treadmill. You get a better grade, you study harder. You get a raise, you stay later at the office. That pretty girl in algebra smiles at you, you start to bathe on a better schedule.

Now, I gotta' say, I get tired of being a fly in evolution's ointment. Eccentricity doesn't pay well and it won't get you into a pirate krewe! Just kidding- the job has the same prestige as hillbilly philosopher. Failed Lothario. 

With too much caboose and little locomotive left, it doesn't really matter.

The fact is, I'm too happy. I never wasted much time struggling with the illusion that a gold record would make me whole. Oh, I always lusted for the unobtainable princess. For decades they seemed to have ended up in my arms. By the time they figured out the bounds of their misjudgment, I knew that it was never meant to be. Do I need to mention that I'm the end of my hereditary line?

As you know, I'm way too good at sad, too. That's another blog.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

Boots and Sandspurs

Seekers search for truth. Imagine the arrogance of someone who thinks he may find it. Yeah, I know. I used the masculine pronoun for the seeker. I tend to associate arrogance with men.

Occasionally, truth seems to open itself to my scrutiny. It all seems so very obvious when it does. Like the proverbial dog who catches the car tire, I never know what to do with it.

When I was four or five, I would take the little thermometers off the cardboard desk calendars and bust them on the floor. Then I would entertain myself trying to pick up the little balls of mercury. Sometimes I would manage to hold onto one between my fingers. Not having any plan for what to do with the magical substance, I would ultimately put it in my mouth.

You can call me a seeker. A mercury eater. I hope you won't refer to me as arrogant. That hurts my feelings.

Easy Virtue and Rusty Zippers

By the time that you've lived with gravity long enough to be intimate with it, the stuff has turned on you- melting jaw lines to jowls. Time, I'm sorry to say, isn't on anybody's side. Oh, it's not betting against you, either. It's just some weird concept that we've made up in order to deal with life. I won't make fun of your religion if you won't make fun of mine.

Maybe wisdom is just acceptance. 

Most of us have bargained for love. We bluff, we deny, we lie, we withhold. That's not love, now, is it? We're holding out for the "real thing" and we're offering counterfeit goods in return. What was that last line that all four Beatles performed together? Oh, yeah:

And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Handsome and Wide

Looks like the chickens have come home to roost, whatever that means. I mourn the loss of so many of my own beliefs and convictions. Any faith that I invested in mankind has been frayed, slowly, over time.

Animals? Now, that's a different story. I find the argument over animals possessing souls ludicrous. By my definition, animals most certainly have souls. Animals communicate with me. Always have. If they're not communicating with you, I might suggest that you're not listening. 

If this seems juvenile and simplistic, I'm not talking to you.

Bumper Cars Blues

A doctor once told me, "Everybody dies of a heart attack. Get hit by a bus, your heart stops beating and you've died of a heart attack." Yeah. I guess.

Using this line of thinking, living is dying. Get used to it. Get good at it.

Sometimes I had trouble enjoying myself at the fair. I was always worried about having to go home.