As I reflect on goals achieved, those perpetually being set, and the length of time that it seems to achieve them coupled with frustrations at the various delays – some reasonable and some not so much – I have to wonder to what extent are these two things so different? 

They are clearly different when compared to a person’s reality or status quo. They are both forward looking. To what extent though does one lead irreconcilably to the other; or if reconcilable, to what extent, and specifically, how?
Is ambition without greed “settling”, and what makes greed bad inherently? There is clearly “bad” greed, but is all greed bad? Id “obsession” “good” greed? Obsessions can be bad, but many good things have come from obsession, which is also known as “persistence”. 

Is ambition deemed good to the extent that it is ultimately bridled by finite resources and time, or energy? In other words, do these tire or become exhausted before arriving on the precipice of greed?

I just read something that elicited a thought: the things we do to feel better, are often in conflict with what it takes to be better.

If you want to feel better, you might stay on the couch, watch tv, and eat snacks all day. Maybe drink. If you want to be better, you might go to the gym. 

If you want to feel better you might go outside and run around with your friends or spend all day messing around on facebook, but if you want to be better you might read something informative, study, do homework, or work a little harder in/on your career.

Interestingly though, the more you do to be better, the more you’ll eventually feel better. I would then refer to that as “conflict resolution”, improving your being, exploring your feelings.

Today is the one week anniversary of the worst massage I have ever had in my life. I’ve been experiencing a little tightness in my back and shoulders of late, so instead of meeting friends for drinks as some might, I decided to really treat myself to an evening free of knots. The place I normally go was full with a wait of over an hour (this was an impromptu decision, thus no appointment was made). The place I ended up is a few doors down. I’ve been there before under similar circumstances and was not impressed then either, but I could get in without too much of a wait. Still, this time managed to be worse.

The masseuse managed to convince me that she had fallen asleep shortly after she started by planting her elbow into three spots in my hamstring and effectively not moving at all for a minute on the third. I turned to look back and she started moving again. This is a hard profession for those people. I appreciate that. Take all the breaks and water you need, but once the clock is ticking on my massage, I believe it reasonable that whips should be a-crackin’. Does the fact that she effectively took a nap on my right leg make it the worst massage ever? Not at all.

She eventually tired of drilling my hamstrings and began prospecting along my spine. Not the muscles along my spine – my actual spine. Anyone who has ever even HAD a massage, WITNESSED a massage, or has any sensitivity toward spinal injury and the basic joys of mobility would appreciate that this is bad form. I pretty quickly suggested that she stop pressing directly on my spine the way she was doing it. It happens I’m sure and plenty of people have successfully gotten up and walked away, but my idea of being paralyzed does not involve a Friday evening respite from the tensions of the world.. and in fact, I have no ideas about being paralyzed besides that I don’t want it to happen to me.

She then rubbed my back in a completely unorganized and confusing way akin to 6 year-olds having dipped their arms in baby oil up to their chests and having been instructed quite specifically to make a mess. She was all over the place. When I was in Beijing, I had what is called a “blind massage”, which is simply a massage given by a blind person. As you might imagine that person’s senses were heightened, and he seemed to appreciate the power of appropriate and purposeful touch. Last week’s effort reminded me of a “blind massage”, but in name only.

She quickly grew tired of slathering my back with oil or perhaps she simply ran out of her half gallon allotment, and then pulled my boxers down as if preparing for a spanking of some sort. She did not linger, mercifully; and I was reluctant to get oil all my clothes, so I relented and simply let sleeping dogs lie, as it were. I was face down just for the record. Thus far does this sound like the worst massage ever, at least in a developed country where the purpose is other than torture? Probably not quite yet, but just you wait.

As she ping-ponged from one part of my body to another, she eventually decided that it was time for me to have my arms pulled over my head as if I was trying to create the thinnest and longest possible me. She then began to rub my ribs, working her way up to my armpits. I sensed the dangerous hilarity only inches away and began to balloon. I had gone from confused and annoyed to being on the verge of exploding with laughter, a truly uncommon position for me (on all counts). Lo and behold, she hit “detonate” with the wiggle of a finger and I erupted. I sounded like a person trying to spray as much water as far as possible while keeping his lips firmly pursed and sealed. It was so loud that I startled even myself and I knew it was coming. She screamed at the sudden movement and sound. She had been looking at an unmoving and face down me for at least 30 minutes at that point. We both laughed. I kept laughing. The whole thing was so ridiculous. People in the others rooms had to have wondered what on earth was going on with those curtains drawn. I was behind those very curtains and still had no good answer.

I attempted to compose myself, but the peace had been completely interrupted and life within the confines of this massage as we had known it was over. Forever. Nonetheless, we carried on. She soon disappeared. Shortly thereafter, I heard the sounds of someone trying to gather up the material that they would rather clear from their own chest, followed by the sound of coughing. It was probably was not her. Anyway. She returned. Rather quietly in fact, but for the plop onto the cushion on each side of my head. She had hot stones.

Hot stones are not to be toyed with. They are hard and they are hot. They are to be handled expertly; by experts, preferrably. At this point, I had serious doubts that this woman had ever even seen a massage being delivered before. The thought of her handling hot stones didn’t bother me in the slightest. The thought of her putting them on me on the other hand made me sweat prematurely, even though it was hard to know if I was just greasy. The fact that she said “Aye!” when she picked them up certainly worried me further, but I was resigned to having possibly two hot stone scars to remind me to set up appointments in advance at the other place. Being able to stand the heat no longer, she dropped them on my back. The slathering of oil was a welcome buffer, but they were certainly quite hot. Anyone who has ever had a massage with hot stones knows that generally they are rubbed all over the back on one side until the heat is exhausted, then flipped over. She flipped them over repeatedly on essentially the same part of my back like hot potatoes that she could pass only to herself, but wanted nothing to do with. I suffered more psychologically than physically. I was still fairly giddy for the explosive laughter and full of adrenaline, so I probably felt the sting slightly less. Felt it I did.

Soon it was done. I slowly rose and looked around my prison after she had left, probably to go lick her blistering paws and rest her arms. I gathered my possessions. She had tacked my boxers back to my waist, fastened with the glue of baby oil which had in fact, quite possibly saved my life. It was definitely the worst.

Rhyme of Another Summer Afternoon

It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Since the last time there’s been more global unrest, there have been terrorist attacks, plane crashes, people being murdered for believing in Jesus, unarmed black men getting shot in the back by police. But hey, some people call that Tuesday. Today is Friday. TGIF. I’m on a train. 

There’s a lot going on personally, should you care to know. Two weeks ago I spent ten days in Denver, my old stomping grounds and I got to spend time with several dozen dear friends, almost all one on one. Coffees, breakfasts, brunches, lunches, drinks, dinners, drinks, talking. Spending time. One on one. Great catch ups. I miss the place, but probably not enough to move back. Just enough to go back more often.

But I’m on this train. A train cutting through the misty and wet Friday that is colder by far than Denver was in March. It’s colder in NY than Denver. And harder. But I like it. So many trains. I was probably 20 before I first rode a train. Now it’s where I think and read for meaningful portions of my day.  Trains are where I contemplate why we do what we do and go where we go. 

A lot of games get played on the train. A lot of games get played in the world. 

I’ve watched a lot of indie flicks of late. By “of late” I mean that I haven’t been watching much television at all which is my custom. But when I do it’s either binging a show like Mad Men or House of Cards OR watching something indie or foreign. Bitter Moon was especially cruel. My first Roman Polanski film, which seems to fit what little I know of him. Last night I started a poorly rated spanish film called Madrid 1987. I have a third left. It’s pretty bad, but I’ll finish it. Polanski is in there somewhere I suspect. What are some of your favorites?

There’s another thing much larger and impactful and towards which I’ve been working, and for a long time, that may be finally maturing. Almost four years of iterations and venturing into the unknown coming to a head coming to the light. More to come. 

Still on the train. 

The German pilot who intentionally crashed a plane this week with 150 souls on board was a terrorist. Some people have bristled at that contention, I believe inexplicably. “Terrorism” should be defined by much more than the driver of the act (meaning both actor and motivation), and should include the consequence. It must also incorporate scale. I grant, however, that the definition is not subject to a bright line test. 

In thinking about this for example, I wondered whether the demise of the Branch Davidians and those in Guyana under Jim Jones qualified as acts of terrorists? I conclude that they do not since the deceased were mostly there by their own volition and for the most part participated in their suicides or suicidal actions. Certainly, there were some murders interspersed, but overall few surprises. Perhaps the element of surprise should be factored in to definition. I went on: Are school shootings as we know them acts of terror? Would they be if we substituted those pimply, maladjusted, adolescent middle and upper class Americans for similarly disturbed Arab or Somali teens? Beyond “motivation” and “actors” must be “consequence”. In employing that standard, there is greater clarity. 

The world has been conditioned to see terrorists through the lens of specific religions and geographies, even a predominant age and gender. The political, social, or religious motivations are used as a definitional crutch, as well as a blinder. If the pilot was a non-religious Algerian would we be more prone to use the “T-word”? Conversely, don’t some Muslims also get depressed? Were one to get drunk, drive the wrong way and hit and kill a group of pedestrians, would the world not more readily call that an act of terror or a “lone wolf attack” even if it pertained more closely to a personal shortcoming and individual action? There would be no macro motive, just the selfish act; yet the T-label would stick quite firmly. 

Some people are eager to call this a suicide or to at least have that factored in prominently as a descriptor of this situation. Suicide is distinguished and certainly distinguishable from Murder-Suicide, for example. Society recognizes that the two are not the same, and acknowledges the victims, even putting them first in the label. I believe that crashing a plane resides much further along that spectrum, and that “suicide” is reasonably dismissed from the conversation at a ratio of approximately 150 to 1. In the symbolic act of remembrance, and in the garden of my mind, I have planted 149 trees. 

I am empathetic to those in distress and who feel that suicide is an appropriate or only remaining response to the life they live, but my empathy has clear bounds. In fact, it becomes indiscernible, not only at the ratio of 150 murders to the one suicide, but due to the qualitative impact and ripple effect of the thousands of lives directly shattered as a result. I would much rather that you not kill yourself, but if you must, please do so quietly. 

That man was whatever he was, but he is and shall remain a terrorist. 

http://youtu.be/4odVS-2_xso

The first track I heard last night at Charcoal (Denver Restaurant)

http://youtu.be/nYpVIDPAePM

This track reminds me of walking by an Express or Abercrombie. I heard it in Hugo Boss which I suppose is marginally better. There must be some psychology to spending a few bucks more and dance music – even the money in your pocket can’t keep still. 

Enjoy. 

“if something has to be advertised, you don’t need it.” – Russell Brand (Messiah Complex)

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/this-woman-created-gorgeous-coloring-books-for-adults-and-so