Where, when and how did my life take such a drastic turn? I remember that at an early age all I ever wanted was to be liked, so I was an exceptionally well-behaved child. Later I discovered that if I made people laugh they’d like me even more. The die was cast. My career as a ersatz entertainer was launched. I had them eating out of the palm of my hand and began to believe all the nice things people said about me, and all the cute comments the cute girls wrote in my high school yearbook (“Stay as sweet as you are”, “To the funniest guy I know”, “Don’t ever change”).
Things began to change. I grew up in a small, quiet town in southeast Texas in the late 50’s, early 60’s. It was the end of the school year, the last days, when, typically no book learning ever took place. But something big took place: my civics teacher, Mr. Rector brought in an l.p. he was very excited about and wanted to share it with us, so we listened to music. He played Bob Dylan (“Freewheelin'” if I remember correctly). I was hooked. I was amazed. I was slammed to the ground and stomped on by this man, by his strange music, and by his unholy lyrics. Imagine! The man who had been charged with teaching us how our government works is punctuating his lessons by planting the seeds of protest in us! In all honesty, it took me decades to see the irony here, but the seeds had been planted; the damage done. Thank you, Mr. Rector, wherever you are.
After graduating high school, followed by a semester at the local Institute of Technology (a B.A. major — accounting was my goal), I, instead joined the Navy, intending to make that my career, as my father had done. So, off to San Diego for boot camp and “A” School, where I learned my specialty: Interior Communications Electrician (running wire for telephones, bells and whistles and such). Then, the North Bay Area, Vallejo, CA for nuclear power school, where I met my first wife, who began The Awakening: this was, after all, the San Francisco Bay Area in the middle 60’s. It was a far cry from the sleepy town of “Boremont”, TX. Six months in the high deserts of Idaho followed. That’s where the Navy’s reactor training facility was located — in the desert, where there’d be few civilian casualties in case one of us fucked up. Then I was sent to serve on the greatest warship mankind had ever known, the ship I had read about in Popular Science as a kid, the ship I was about to step foot on after a short chopper ride from the ship that ferried me there in the South China Sea — the USS Enterprise CVAN(65). My job now was to operate the nuclear reactors that powered this mighty ship on its mission to launch heavily armed jet fighters/bombers, whose sole function was to bomb the shit out of the Viet Cong (and any non-combatants who might happen to be nearby — collateral damage, they were called).
My life veered giddily to the left. The Big E (as she was called) returned to her home port in Alameda, CA, across the Bay from San Francisco, when our tour to Vietnam ended. It was the Summer of Love. LSD, pot, more Bob Dylan. The seeds planted in Mr. Rector’s civics class were sprouting like crazy. I protested the war even while in uniform. I protested being in the Navy, where I was prevented from letting my hair grow to my shoulders. So I got a smart lawyer and an un-hip psychiatrist and was honorably discharged a year and a half before the end of our contract. Now I could really let go. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll as far as the eye could see. There were no limits.
I learned to read Tarot cards; became a member of an “interdimentional studies” group; became a father; got a divorce; lived in a three-storey wood and glass pyramid overlooking the Pacific about 75 miles north of San Francisco (just north of Jenner by the Sea). I meditated; learned Polarity treatment; got my BA in Business Admin (which I only ever used to do my own taxes, which got pretty complicated in my later years, so I guess the degree was worth the effort); and, of course, more sex, drugs and r ‘n r. Much later I did the est Training, but that wasn’t until I left Nor Cal for my hometown again (to care for my aging, sainted mother, austensibly; but really it was to be with an old flame I’d left there long ago) I always thought it funny that I never did the est Training while living in the est heartland — it’s kind of like the native New Yorkers who never made it to the Statue of Liberty. The truth is that, having moved from the land of enlightenment back to the land of endarkenment, I desperately needed the life preserver that was est.
Fast forward forty years. That’s actually how it seems (fast forwarded), for I struggle to remember a great many of the details of those forty years. They say that when faced with death, your life flashes before your eyes. As I have slowly approached death, at the speed of life, however, my life seems to be slowly erasing itself before my eyes. Days bleed into more days. Events pile up in a forgotten savings account. My second wife is still with me (God knows why) and still encourages me in whatever idiocy I undertake. It took every mistake I ever made, every wrong turn, every stumble, every sane and insane thought I ever had to get me to this point.
They say that life is what you make of it. This is what I’ve made of mine. My life is blessed.
Month: January 2016
My Reason to Believe
There are many times when, in the face of arguments against believing, I choose to believe anyway, thereby exposing me to what might be believed to be a lack of common sense.
My reason to believe is as varied as the articles of belief that are presented to me. It is in my nature to want to believe. It seems far more productive and valuable to believe than to not believe. Of course, before I cast my vote, I, like anyone who takes voting seriously, will weigh the merits of the offered proposal against the consequences of disbelief. That’s only common sense.
There are many times when, in the face of arguments against believing, I choose to believe anyway, thereby exposing me to what might be believed to be a lack of common sense, although common sense isn’t necessarily the greatest thing since sliced bread that it’s held up to be. (Incidentally, what do you suppose was the greatest thing before sliced bread?) In any event, for me to believe in something in the face of overwhelming argument to the contrary, is for me to take a stand. “The very nature of a lunatic”, you might say. Perhaps, perhaps not, depending on what you believe.
Sometimes, to rebel against the herd mentality, sometimes to prove my own mental superiority, sometimes just for the thrill of being contrary, I must stand for who I hold myself to be and for my ideals and for Humankind as a whole, as did Copernicus when he insisted, regardless of the consequences, that the earth was not the center of the Universe; just as Socrates stood up to his prosecutors for his teaching methods, and just as the round-earthers stood up to the flat-earthers concerning the shape of the world. All these people held a belief that flew in the face of the “reality” of the time and were later, not only vindicated, but, more importantly, revered for their foresight.
In conclusion, I may be crazy or I may be right, but I choose to believe in order to stand for who I am in this world of billions of others. If I am eventually proven to be a visionary, all the better.
Well, duh.
Science Catches Up
Recent scientific research has just concluded that a person feels better, emotionally and physically, when smiling, a fact assumed by most, based solely on personal experience, and, yet worthy of scientific verification. Furthermore, the study found that this magically uplifting benefit, i.e. feeling better, was experienced by subjects even if the smile was forced, a relatively new idea for many, at present, and a more significant finding than the first.
Which brings me back to “Well, duh.” The knowledge that one feels better when smiling, even if the smile is artificial, has been around for millennia and can be found in many different cultures and religions (I am certain that if I had bothered to research these assertions at all, I would have been proven correct; it would have been a waste of time, so I omitted the effort altogether). I do know, based on the the Spiritual fellowships in which I have been involved, that techniques are designed and utilized for the sole purpose of producing a smile. I, myself, some forty years ago wrote a children’s poem to spread the word:
“Our Smiles
A smile is something fun to wear,
it does so many things,
We should always put it on our face,
like we put our fingers in our rings.
When we go out a smile should be
a part of our apparel,
Just like our shoes & just like our socks
& the part right in my hair-el.
Here are some things that smiles can do
for you and those around you,
A smile can do so MANY things,
It surely will astound you.
1. A friend may come to you one day
downhearted with a loss,
But he will fly off happily,
Upon your smile, of course.
2. You know that old man
who lives down the street,
The one with the face like a prune?
Well, you just give him your finest smile,
and he’ll light up like the moon?
3. When you’re sad & feeling bad
& YOU’VE forgotten how to smile,
Raise the corners o’your mouth an inch,
& your spirit’ll raise a mile!”
(“Lessens” by Michael Oster, unpublished, 1976)
I can now rest easy knowing that science has finally come around to my way of thinking.
Who am I, and Why am I Here?
Cosmic Question or Not?
We’ve all asked ourselves these questions many, many times. I answered them for myself, in the form of my “Inaugural Blog” (the one and only before this one). It was pretty much a mission statement in response to questioning my motivation to blog, to whit: I want to open eyes, unplug ears, awaken “the sleepers from their sleep and rouse the slumberers from their slumbers”. (Pretty slick if I can pull it off, eh?) Ultimately, I want you to go over to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell,” I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” (“Network”,1976). I want you to look at the ugly side of life as we’ve allowed it to become. All those other things I said in my previous blog are still more or less true; some are still even valid, but they’re just commentary. As the great rabbi, long ago stated the sum of the bible in one sentence, he said, “Do unto to others as you would be done unto. The rest is all commentary.”
Thoughts by an Old Hippie Curmudgeon 