I don't mind if there's clutter in my life. It always assures me that I have something to do.
DB - The Vagabond
******************
Well, look who's here.
_____________________
Ah, the games we play, the tricks we play.
I might as well have a job I don't like. Monday through Friday I spend in a state of dread and stress trying to get this law suit settled in a satisfactory manner. Every time I think I have a loose end tied up it pops out somewhere else. I'm surrounded by threats and starving for information. I can only get slivers of it at a time. I don't know what's going on in the court or out of it because there isn't much people can tell me yet. I know about courts. The court is a contest between two sides in which only one side knows the rules.
While facing the dread of some other document showing up at my front door and facing it alone, I have a hard time dealing with anything else. Almost everything in my life has to wait. So when the weekend comes I can relax somewhat. But it usually takes me until Saturday evening before I start seriously thinking about anything else. I'm glad to be an American, But sometimes it's hard when the law allows the rich to sue the poor for money.
I woke up at 6 a.m. this Sunday in order to listen to one of my favorite radio programs: Sunday Morning Opera, with Sandy Steiglitz, WPRB, Princeton, New Jersey. (She'll make an opera lover out of you.) I used to go on the air when I was a morning DJ. Now that I'm retired I let Ms. Steiglitz do it for me. The apartment was cold when I got up. I have theoretical heat. There's a thermostat. The radiator clicks a little bit and it heats up the carpet next to it. That's it. So I went looking for the heater I bought last year when I was shivering.
There's nothing like searching for something to tell you how much chaos you have in your home. There's nothing like focusing your mind on a problem that demands to be solved to show you how much unnecessary mental and emotional baggage, doubts, fears, confusions, dreads, overlooked duties, forgotten responsibilities and unfinished work is lurking in the dusty corners. Until the trouble is over it will just have to wait.
DB - The Vagabond
__________________
Pray.
****************
WEEKEND QUESTION
This is your last chance.
Summer is almost over, Autumn is on the way (check your calendar if you don't believe me). Answers to the SUMMER QUIZ will be posted on the first day of Autumn, tomorrow. But then the AUTUMN QUIZ will start. And that's where you come in.
Your mission is to provide me with a question, or two or three, for the AUTUMN QUIZ. You may enter as many times as you wish (no proof of purchase necessary) but you have only today, so get cracking. There are only 4 responses so far.
The decision of the biased, curmudgeonly judge is final.
The winner not only gets his/her question posted for the season, but also gets to sit on my front porch and listen to me ramble on for hours about nothing in particular.
Good luck.
DB
Showing posts with label dread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dread. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, November 21, 2008
Healthy Handling 11/21/08
The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.
Captain J. A. Hadfield
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you want to be a worrier there a great many things to worry about If you don't have enough write me, I'll send you a list.
Indeed, worrying, fretting, fearing are some of the most energy wasting things the poor human can do who is afflicted by them. To be sure there is a time to worry. But as Tom Ainsley, the horseplayer, says "The time to worry is before you place the bet, not after." Worrying about things over which you have no control is a foolish activity.
Things can go wrong. So what? Worry won't prevent them from happening. But, "the thing I greatly feared has come upon me." We can manufacture trouble for ourselves by fretting and fearing, because if and when it does occur we won't be in the right frame of mind to deal with it.
My mother was a prime worrier. If my brother wasn't home when he was expected, she would immediately start pacing the floor and saying that she knew something terrible must have happened to him. When he finally did arrive, maybe 15 minutes later she would start scolding him for making her worry. If one pointed out to her that she made herself worry, she wouldn't understand it.
If he was going to be very late he would always call, and when the phone rang she would pick it up with a feeling of dread.
Watching her suffer so much from this malady, I tried to grow up as a non-worrier. I don't pass myself off as a "great" man but I can certainly understand what Capt. Hadfield is talking about. It isn't what happens, it's how you deal with it that matters. And you have to be in a calm, restful frame of mind to deal.
As an actor I learned, thanks to my teacher, to be relaxed on the stage. I was at home there. One evening trouble occurred during a performance. There were two similar scenes in the play, one in the first act and one in the second. And, you guessed it, we accidentally skipped into the wrong act. One by one panic began to appear on the faces of the other actors as they gradually realized it. I saw and heard what was happening and was able to make up a short speech that returned us to the proper cue to resume the right scene. It wasn't a brilliant, purple prose speech but it did the job.
There's an event the jazz pianist Herbie Hancock tells about Miles Davis. They were playing a set together and Hancock accidentally played a chord which had nothing to do with the piece or the key they were in. Davis calmly played notes around it that brought it into the piece.
The restful mind is the best.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Captain J. A. Hadfield
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you want to be a worrier there a great many things to worry about If you don't have enough write me, I'll send you a list.
Indeed, worrying, fretting, fearing are some of the most energy wasting things the poor human can do who is afflicted by them. To be sure there is a time to worry. But as Tom Ainsley, the horseplayer, says "The time to worry is before you place the bet, not after." Worrying about things over which you have no control is a foolish activity.
Things can go wrong. So what? Worry won't prevent them from happening. But, "the thing I greatly feared has come upon me." We can manufacture trouble for ourselves by fretting and fearing, because if and when it does occur we won't be in the right frame of mind to deal with it.
My mother was a prime worrier. If my brother wasn't home when he was expected, she would immediately start pacing the floor and saying that she knew something terrible must have happened to him. When he finally did arrive, maybe 15 minutes later she would start scolding him for making her worry. If one pointed out to her that she made herself worry, she wouldn't understand it.
If he was going to be very late he would always call, and when the phone rang she would pick it up with a feeling of dread.
Watching her suffer so much from this malady, I tried to grow up as a non-worrier. I don't pass myself off as a "great" man but I can certainly understand what Capt. Hadfield is talking about. It isn't what happens, it's how you deal with it that matters. And you have to be in a calm, restful frame of mind to deal.
As an actor I learned, thanks to my teacher, to be relaxed on the stage. I was at home there. One evening trouble occurred during a performance. There were two similar scenes in the play, one in the first act and one in the second. And, you guessed it, we accidentally skipped into the wrong act. One by one panic began to appear on the faces of the other actors as they gradually realized it. I saw and heard what was happening and was able to make up a short speech that returned us to the proper cue to resume the right scene. It wasn't a brilliant, purple prose speech but it did the job.
There's an event the jazz pianist Herbie Hancock tells about Miles Davis. They were playing a set together and Hancock accidentally played a chord which had nothing to do with the piece or the key they were in. Davis calmly played notes around it that brought it into the piece.
The restful mind is the best.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
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