Ball of Confusion or Kiss My Assets

Iwanna learn patience, and I wanna learn it right now.” That’s right, that’s my friggin’ mantra: “Patience: right now.”

I mean, how many things in my/your/ our everyday life conspire yes conspire to keep us from obtaining spiritual growth, peace, harmony, and all the other crap that it will take for us to be able to settle damn down and be simply “happy.” It’s like a conspiracy: from your phone alarm thinking that it’s tomorrow (or yesterday), to spell-check thinking you said f**k instead of flock, or your phone fielding a call from someone who wants to give your car “one more chance to renew its service warranty,” or the password that you’ve been using for six years being deemed invalid, so you need a new one with twelve or more letters including, but not limited to: “one upper case, one lower case, one numerical symbol, one weird at the top of the keyboard symbol, one of your pet’s names, the numerical equivalent of the last blood pressure that you had taken, and your mother’s maiden name” (now, “prove that you’re not a robot by picking out the telephone poles in this photo”).

You misplace your car keys, your Amazon package is porch lifted, you get a notice for jury duty, your favorite place to get coffee is closed (suddenly) on Mondays, and your new route to work includes three School Zones and two construction detours. Is the universe really trying to piss you off? Yes, it is.

Listen, the entire universe is locked in a battle of good against evil; it’s beside the point that evil is kicking our asses. We, as heroes, are being distracted from joining the struggle by forces that continue to distract us from participating in the conflict. Your landlord is selling the house that you’ve been renting, the air conditioning in the car just quit, your coworker just came down with COVID, and/ or your actions at work have now been considered “micro-aggressive” because you called someone an “a-hole” (because they are), and you’ve been sent by HR to a “sensitivity training” seminar.

In the normal, dysfunctional world, the way things work is that the boss gives the man a bad time, the man comes home and gives the wife grief, she then takes it out on the kid, the kid kicks the dog, and the dog bites a neighbor (me). The universe works the same way, but you’re above that you’ve found a ‘happy place” that helps you to reconnect with your center your spirit, your calm, your patience.

There’s conflict in the world: there’s war, real people are dying and displaced, and there’s hunger, disease, disruption, and despair. People are hurting, evil rides rampant, children are being gunned down, the government doesn’t care to, or is just too impotent to act.

Hunger, injustice, civil liberties, and socalled rights are being trampled on, and unnatural disasters that are mowing down people’s lives and property have become commonplace—global frickin' warming. Name it, we got it.

We’ve had a choice, and we’ve taken it. We can take mud up to our chins and, then, either swallow it or spit it out, and we’ve chosen to spit it out. We speak out, we vote, we act out, and we’re vocal in our views. We have values. Evil does not care. Peace, love, and understanding are fodder to be mowed down like the idealists before us, to be worn down, to be tested and bested. What do we do? We recharge and move the needle forward.

Everyone who believes in freedom and justice needs to recharge. My advice is to find your happy place and visit as often as possible. Early on, my happy place was wearing myself out with drugs, alcohol, and rocking ‘n’ rolling until I couldn’t see straight. But one quiet night, in a strange place, I looked up and saw a sky full of stars and found a real “happy place.” Now, when I feel disconnected from my patience and peace, I go to one of my happy places. I realize that I will never solve the world’s challenges and can only do my small part by being a good person, an example, and a revolution/evolution of one.

A happy place is not a place of distraction; it is a place where you find peace and strength within yourself returning to its normal high functioning level. Here are a few examples:

Take a long walk or hike, by yourself; speak to no one. Read a book about some protagonist’s adventures—one who uses wit to overcome malice. Go sit under a tree. Go for a swim. Make a pot of spaghetti sauce (enough for twelve). Go to a big store and peruse the aisles and wonder at the things people buy. Put on some quiet music and listen or sit still, let the crazy horses’ band of thoughts gallop wildly until they’re exhausted. Get down on your hands and knees and visit the small flowers that grow unnoticed. Watch bees and butterflies. Commune with your cat. Roam a museum and don’t analyze the works found there just enjoy looking. Go to a coffee house where you know nobody and have a tasty pastry. Take a nap. Recharge.

Sound simple? It’s not. Most times we’re being knocked about like a pinball in an arcade game, and it almost becomes reflex to keep thinking on our feet, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, tacking into the wind, racing with the rats, and runnin’ with the devil. Go easy on yourself and everything will get done eventually. Concentrate your energy on the challenge of the moment. Namaste and all that nonsense, and, as Mister Natural says, “keep your sunny side up."