Found this on a quick web search, a quick bit of wisdom to help you have a happier day leading to a happier life ~ Rev Kane
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No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
This will be a short post tonight, it’s a horribly sad post. Almost ten months into the pandemic, even with vaccines being distributed, my fellow Americans will not take the responsible actions to protect their fellow citizens. As such, we didn’t socially distance for Halloween, for Thanksgiving, for Christmas or for New Years Eve. I know, you did, it’s always somebody else who didn’t. But the numbers are undeniable, a significant number of Americans are not appropriately social distancing. So the pandemic is raging in America, closing in on all of us, in the last month I’ve had several colleagues who have not only tested positive but have also been ill.
The triple-triple that I refer to is a day with over 300,000 new infections and over 3,000 deaths in one day. Basically the equivalent of the 9/11 massacre and the number above is a 14 day average. So a 9/11 every day for 14 days. But we’re not treating it with that level of severity, somehow, the majority of Americans are ok with this, it is incredibly sad. This is just the front end of the anticipated holiday spike, it will get worse. Hospitals in Southern California are basically out of ICU space, many hospitals in the bay area are not far behind. I fear within the next month I’ll be doing a post called the quadruple-quadruple, 400,000 new infections and 4,000 new deaths daily. What a sad day that will be, wear a damn mask, social distance, wash your hands, it’s just that simple to keep from killing someone’s grandmother.
To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man. ~ John Updike
I have these moments when I just get so incredibly fed up with all of the obligations and responsibilities that I have. When I’m just tired of being beholden to others. Then after a minute I remember, in fact, I have no responsibility or obligation to anyone. Any obligation or responsibility I have, I have because I’ve chosen it.
I know, you don’t believe me yet, so let’s get into it. Of course you have an obligation to your parents right? No you don’t, they chose to have a child, and if you have children, so did you. So you chose to create an obligation to raise, feed, clothe and educate that child. Why would your decision to do that obligate that child to do anything for you. Now, for most of us, we choose to feel obligated to our parents. My mother, a single mother who raised three children, carried a burden that she had not planned on taking on, being a single parent. Given the sacrifices she made in that role, I’ve decided to take on an obligation related to her. If I had decided not to be obligated to her I wouldn’t have one. I don’t have the same obligation to my father. No one and nothing has come down from the sky and forced me to have one to him, it’s simply our choice.
We choose these obligations in our life, the decisions and actions of obligation are solely within our control. Now, as we’ve discussed many times, every action, and inaction has a consequence. As much as we are happier when we ignore them, we often feel pressured by social norms and expectations. So yes, if you decide you have no obligation to your parents, your siblings and society may feel negatively toward you for that choice, but you do have that choice. Very often we feel hemmed in because we’re not willing to pay the price for choosing not to be obligated when society feels we should have one.
So if you’re feeling over obligated, if you are sick and tired of being responsible to others, remember you have a choice. There will be costs and consequences, but you can choose to pay those, instead of being obligated. And like with many things in life, what should drive your choice is a cost-benefit analysis to determine which choice is best.
One place we may have the least amount of control in terms of obligation is at work. This is one place where there is something that controls our obligations and provides consequences. Your job description and evaluations. At work you’re obligated to do certain things and your evaluations are there to enforce that you meet those obligations. So I understand why many of us feel very overwhelmed in that environment. However, ultimately, even at work, you’ve chosen that obligation. Although it often seems daunting, you can quit your job and get another. I know, given the choices I’ve made in my life, I typically quit my job every three years and take time off to travel. It’s always a little bit frightening, you worry about how hard it will be to get another job. But in the end, I always have, it’s always worked out. So you too have that choice, it just takes thoughtful planning and you could choose to leave your job as well.
So when I have those moments of feeling overwhelmed by all of my responsibilities and obligations I stop, realize it’s all a choice and that helps. But I’ll let you in on a secret, because it really all is a choice, I have a little fantasy. I think about the fact that there really is nothing stopping me. I can load up my car, empty my back accounts and just drive away. Sure, that’s when that cost-benefit analysis thing usually keeps me from doing just that, but I could if I wanted to, and that’s enough to make me feel a little better about my life. Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
I love Doug Draime’s work, the writing is good but the attitude is better, and even more than that is the honesty that comes through. I’ve always been drawn to poets who don’t sugarcoat what they see in the world but come at it full and hard. I first encountered Doug’s work in The Outlaw Poetry site. When I first started writing poetry I figured it had to be terrible because it didn’t rhyme or talk about the beauty of nature or God. It was discovering poets like Bukowski, Draime, Sapphire and more recently, Warsan Shire that made me realize my perception of poetry had been severely limited by my education.
Here are several pieces by Doug Draime, have a read, if he catches your fancy you find his work for sale on Amazon or more directly for his chapbook Dusk with Carol
and other chapbooks through KSE as well as a selected collection from 2012 that I’ve just ordered.
One Day’s Settlement of Chaos
The dream still lives in the
center of chaos, despite
the continual bombardment
in the world around me,
of people
with Hannibal and Hitler-
like ethics, plundering and
devouring the earth.
Yet, the flowers
reach up, purple and yellow
approaching the
fence top, in glorious
pure beauty.
I relax on the porch, drinking a
beer, thinking of the amazing
contradiction.
Illuminating Information
They talked about “art” as
…..if it was some
…..perfect glistening
…..thing like a diamond
…..after the mining
…..and cleaning
I swept the floor
…..as they talked
…..I took out the trash
…..washed the dirty glasses
“Art” without the blood
…..and torment
…..Mickey Mouse
…..without the mouse
…..turds.
After they left I
…..cleaned the ashtrays
…..scrubbed the toilet
…..waxed the floor
…..did what I had to do.
“Art” had nothing
…..to do with their lives
…..“art” was a good movie
…..a concert in the park
…..created and performed
…..by people with masters degrees
…..and winter homes
…..in Arizona.
I clocked out
…..bought a couple beers
…..and went home
…..tomorrow was another day
…..of illuminating information
Literary Expert
The guy was an “expert”
……….on poetry.
He was a famous poet &
………the magazine quotes
him saying that a poem “can’t be
……….totally honest, or it’s
………………..not a poem.”
He said good poetry is partly
……….honest and party bullshit
…..(I’m paraphrasing). He has taught
at a college somewhere in Iowa for
…..30 years & has
……….20 or so books out,
& he doesn’t have a brain in his fucking head. But he
…..doesn’t offend
anyone & I’m certain
people nod knowingly when he reads
………those little gems.
Chances are he has never written anything close to
honest poetry & therefore, never had to risk anything,
…..except maybe in the “literary” sense
…..(whatever the hell that is).
Everyone has a right to their own opinion about
………what poetry is suppose to be,
even if they’re lying to themselves, because
of course, that’s what good poetry
………is all about
Pretending the Apple Pie is Fresh
Pretending what can only be pretended
in the hollow cave of
a diseased mind, and laughing
like a crater on the moon: dead and
deep and treacherous.
War mongers and whore mongers
dine with presidents and kings
on lavish tables.
Meteors and broken stars are buried
beneath the junkyards of the world.
Dignity is something sold on back streets
and in dark crevices.
No matter how often flowers wither and
die in the presence of politicians,
no matter what the earth is destined to
spew out of its bowels, no matter what price
the death of innocence,
the horror continues unchecked by the
appointed and elected guardians of society.
Legions march heads-up past the viewing stand
where the decked-out
dignitaries are seated with chests full of medals,
wearing thousand dollar suits, their wives
smiling beside them
like vampy Vegas whores.
The Suits Won’t Go Away
I’ve seen these Suits
with dead faces,
since I was a
kid. I remember
closing my eyes tight,
after looking
at an insurance salesman
or a preacher ( how do
you tell the difference? ),
and praying he would not
be there
when I opened
my eyes.
I still do it at times with
CEO’s in their
designer suits, and generals
in battle dress: death arrayed
in ribbons across
their breast.
I shut my eyes tight still,
at morticians and talk show hosts,
and lying politicians,
with a hint of color in their
Porky Pig neckties.
Not to say, though, that all
men who have worn or who wear
suits are on my shit list.
Camus looked fantastic in a suit.
Presley wore suits with an unmistakable cool.
Miles and Coltrane and Kenneth Patchen
wore suits.
And Einstein wore a black rumpled suit
with impeccable class.
I admire men like that who happened to
have worn suits!
Men who have something to sell
other than
war, mind control and
spiritual stagnation.
I know the Suits will not go away,
no matter how long
I close my eyes and pray.
It’s been the same since
the white race rose to power.
The Huns were Suits, and down
the line, Hitler.
Many of our leaders imitate him,
wearing his Suit of death:
perfect fit, no tailoring
needed.
Happiness is Poetry: Ashe Vernon
Beauty is when you can appreciate yourself. When you love yourself, that’s when you’re most beautiful. ~ Zoe Kravitz
The first and most important thing in being happy is to be happy and accepting of yourself, we can all be our own worst critics and sabotage our own happiness from within. Tonight a little tour around the web, starting with some links about image. Give em a read and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
So first off, no one is immune to having their physical self criticized and scrutinized, here’s a link to a piece about an unretouched image of Cindy Crawford that surfaced.
From Tiny Buddha.com, Increasing Self-Esteem & Happiness
From Pathway to Happiness.com, Insecurity and Confidence
The Art of Building Self Esteem
From the Huffington Post, Happiness is Loving Yourself
Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home… it’s your responsibility to love it, or change it. ~ Chuck Palahniuk
So a new little writing experiment for the blog. I’ve been wanting to find a way to do some free writing as practice. And I’ve been wanting to capture the moments in my life that have brought me true happiness. I need that little pick me up right now with everything going on in the world and no real chance to travel. So, some writing about happy moments in my life, hope they bring you a little happiness too.
During the last non-COVID Halloween, two years ago, I was able to attend Halloween in Brooklyn with my brother’s family. Brooklyn, and particularly the neighborhood in Brooklyn Heights where my brother lives goes all out for Halloween. Kane street is known for it’s famous impaled pumpkin fence. I actually got to speak with one of the owners while he was impaling some of the pumpkins, super nice guy and a really cool little tradition.
One of the reasons, beyond trick or treating with my young nephews, that I wanted to be there was that my brother’s neighborhood closes the streets to traffic and is literally inundated with thousands of trick or treating kids. It’s glorious madness and is fully embraced by the neighborhood.
My little nephews were three and five and my brother and I took them into the madness of trick or treating in Brooklyn. My older nephew had it all down, he knew what to say, he knew to hold out his basket, and to the thank people. And even though he’s not the biggest guy, when there’s candy on the line he’s verbal and aggressive and fit right in with the scrum-like crowd of trick or treaters.
My younger nephew is not as verbal as his older brother. Also being pretty young we had to explain the process. Say trick or treat, hold out your basket, thank people and move on. Two out of three was about where he maxed out, it was adorable, at times he’d hold out the basket and say thank you. At other times he’d say trick or treat but not hold out his basket. Being an adorable and seemingly a shy little guy people loved him. At one stoop, where a mob of older kids just swallowed him up and shut him out, I had to air lift from the scrum and pull him out. The lady waved at me, as the scrum passed she called him back and loaded him with candy. At another stoop where he got the basket and thank you but forgot to say trick or treat a lady absolutely fell in love with him and gave him two huge handfuls of candy. He even made eye contact with the lady on one quiet stoop and the lady called him over and loaded him up. When we got over to her I realized she was actually an actress from a show I watch.
But without a doubt my favorite part of the night was walking down the street, him holding my hand, as my little nephew kept up a constant verbal description of everything we were seeing for two hours. Look Uncle Mike a spider in a web, a purple pumpkin a witch and a broom. He was on sensory overload and just had to describe everything. I think my littlest nephew is going to be the next storyteller in our family, taking the baton from his uncle. As soon as he got home he began relaying the full two hour description of everything to his mother. It was a really special night, and one I had hoped to repeat this past year, here’s hoping for 2021.
Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you. ~ Neil Armstrong
At the time I’m writing this approximately 345,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus and almost 20 million have been infected. Also, a new variant of COVID has been detected, a new mutation. This is not even remotely unusual, viruses mutate frequently, unfortunately this most recent mutation apparently is more transmissible than the earlier variants. Not more virulent, just more transmissible. So it means that it will be easier to get infected but not more likely that you’ll die from the disease. However it’s a numbers a game, and even if it’s not more deadly, if people get more easily infected, more will get ill, more ICU’s will get flooded and lose capacity, and more people will die.
But there’s light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, several vaccines have either been approved or are in the approval process, people have begun to get vaccinated. What I want to talk about tonight is the overconfidence many people seem to have about what’s happening. As the vaccines were approved, politicians, as they will do, made grand statements about the speed in which people will get vaccinated. It’s important to keep in mind that the only vaccines currently approved need to be given to each person twice. So if there are two million doses, one million people get vaccinated. Politicians pronounced that by the end of 2020, twenty million Americans would get vaccinated. Here, on January first I can tell you the number is between 2 and 3 million. So we missed out target by about 87%.
The problem isn’t with the pace of vaccinations, it makes perfect sense that doing this type of rollout would have a lot of logistical difficulty. Particularly doing a rollout around the holidays, when hospital staffs are stretched to the maximum at the height of a pandemic. The pace will certainly pick up through the new year as additional staff are hired, the holidays are over and the logistics begin to get worked out. The problem is the impact that the initial misinformation has on people. There are roughly 330 million people in the US, about 210 million adults, and 120 million children. Let’s focus on just the adults for this conversation. We’ve heard a lot from politicians about having everyone vaccinated by summer. So that’s 120 million people vaccinated in six months. For that to happen, we need to vaccinate 20 million people per month, ten times the rate we achieved in January. If we talk about even wanting to vaccinate older children that number goes up to 25 million per month.
I work in education, and all across education there is a lot of discussion about school in the Fall of 2021 being relatively normal. That would mean a large percentage of the population being vaccinated, enough so that social distancing requirements could be relaxed. This is what has to happen for schools to be able to fill classrooms, as classrooms don’t fit full capacity while maintaining six foot distances between students. Now those of you who are logically and mathematically inclined are likely thinking, hey buddy, school doesn’t start until Aug/Sept so you really have 8 full months to get everyone vaccinated. The problem is that schools and colleges need lead times to prepare for whatever mode of education that they are in. You can’t just wait until August first to decide what you’re doing. Is it possible that we’ll get there? Absolutely, is it likely? Well, let’s look at that.
In addition to the logistical issues that I’ve mentioned, we have a few additional issues to face. The first is that for one of the vaccines specialized freezers are needed and if the vaccine temperature comes up to room temperature the doses have to be used within 48 hours or be discarded adding to the logistical puzzle. There also are some issues with getting the vaccine raw materials in order to meet production schedules. Finally, there is the issue of vaccine hesitancy. In fact, even some health care workers have been hesitant and have refused to get the vaccine. Now, additional vaccines are in the approval process and certainly they will help with the issue.
So what I want to make sure people do is not flip the switch so fast and assume all of this is over. We’ll be wearing masks at least until August and in fact, given social gatherings over the holidays, we’re likely to see up 90,000 deaths just in January. So be vigilant friends, and don’t make that mental jump just yet. It’s not good for your psyche or your happiness.
Every year is an artificial starting point, you can begin on any day at any time you chose. We just use the first day of the calendar because it’s convenient. So let’s be convenient tonight and use the calendar. It’s always good to reflect on what has gone on before. So to review my own goals for the last year I can say I met my non-traveling year standard level of readership for the Ministry of Happiness, 15,000 page views. In overall health terms I did ok, my blood pressure is good, I’ve been working out but I had hoped to be 185 pounds by year end. In fact on January 1st I was 189, so I missed, but I was 197 a year ago so I did ok, particularly in a crazy year. That crazy year added a lot of stress and I’m a stress eater. Not in that I eat more, but less healthy. When things are stressful I have a tendency to turn to carbs that make me feel good, a nice plate of pasta, a rice dish, pizza or a nice big hunk of cake. Which is why my big miss for the year was in getting my blood sugar under better control, that didn’t happen, I even ended up on medication.
The most important thing to remember is that those successes and failures are just facts, not value judgements. I missed a goal, that doesn’t make me a failure, it just means I wasn’t successful in that small aspect of my life. The overall, repetitive annual goal for me is always the same, be better next year than you were this year. So as long as I, and you, make strides forward on that, then it’s been a good year and for that reason, 2020 was another good year.
Now let’s talk about getting this year started. First, let’s address the idea of resolutions and why goals are not resolutions. Honestly, I’ve always found resolutions to be bullshit. They are nice ideas we toss around, play with for awhile and toss away, no big deal, we’ll stop drinking, eating chocolate, lose weight, etc…all over again next year in January. Goals are different. Good goals are well thought out, have metrics, plans are put into place. So, I’ll lose weight is a resolution. I will eat smaller portion sizes, get more active by working out three times a week and counting calories. While also weighing myself regularly and establishing how many pounds to lose will constitute success, is a goal. When setting goals I like to establish two levels, success and my aspirational goals. So for me, for 2021 one of my goals is to continue and improve my running. So first, I have a goal to run 150 miles next year, that’s the base level of success. That’s means 3 miles a week for 50 weeks which gives me a couple of weeks to not have to run at all. My aspirational goal is to run 200 miles, if I achieve that I’ll be very excited. What this does, is give me a baseline, and if I can maintain my baseline it also gives me something to shoot for as well. I have another goal with my running, I want to run a 5k this year, which means a continuous run of 3.2 miles. So far, I’ve done a 2.4 mile run, so it’s a goal that I hope is achievable multiple times this year.
Now a lot of people reading this will chuckle at my goal only being to run a little over three miles continuously. Quite understandably it’s not very far, I get this. I’m a hiker, my best day on a trail with a full pack has been 22 miles, by comparison a 3 mile run is small. But I hate to run for the sake of running. I only ever did it, voluntarily, for the first time last March. So, starting to run for the first time at 55, and not liking it to start with, makes it a task I’m pretty resistant to. More than a physical test, running for me is a mental achievement. It’s about changing my own personal internal narrative to make me receptive to doing it, motivated enough to consistently work it at and embrace the necessity of running, my goals and the health benefits that can be conferred by doing it.
It’s often good to create, whenever possible, synergy between your goals. I have a long-term goal of formalizing something I do informally. I have been providing informal life coaching services for years and as I move toward retirement I want to formalize that practice into a business for both personal life and executive coaching. As part of that, I am currently taking a course to become certified in Neurolinguistic Programming techniques, effectively learning how to change my own, and help others change their own, internal scripts. So my first test of this knew knowledge and skill is to adjust my internal script related to how I think about running. So this new course and training will help me not only reach a long-term goal, but help me with a current short-term goal. It’s also making the training more relevant to have a real-world, real-time issue to test it on.
So, let’s get 2021 started and work on achieving our goal of being a better human in 2021 than we were in 2020, irregardless of what the world throws at us. And here’s hoping you have happier days in 2021 my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Smile every chance you get. Not because life has been easy, perfect, or exactly as you had anticipated, but because you choose to be happy and grateful for all the good things you do have and all the problems you know you don’t have. ~ www.marcandangel.com
So I’ve been traveling and was rolling through Kentucky recently, my granny grew up on the Kentucky border and being in this area always takes me back to my families Appalachian roots. What this typically means for me is returning to really simple ideas and actions in life. So as I was driving today I starting thinking about the simple things we can all do to be happier in our lives. So here’s a little list, nowhere near exhaustive but a few thoughts for you to chew, give a try and hopefully help you have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Be nice to people – Don’t become a door mat, but whenever give people the benefit of the doubt, if you do you’ll be pleasantly surprised more than you might imagine.
Make time – Make time for those things that are truly important. We are all too busy in our lives but so much of what we do has no meaning, don’t wait for a “life event” some tragedy to make you reconsider what you do with your time.
Don’t be so reactive – This has become ever harder to do with technology, it is all too easy to encounter ideas and attitudes that make you want to explode, take a breath and let it go. Even as I write this people are ignorantly commenting on the city I live in. I could jump in, point out their ignorance but all that will do is start an online argument, add some stress to my night and nothing would be accomplished.
Spend time with good people – This one is particular hard for me, I’m a gypsy and my friends are scattered all over the world. It takes effort, sometimes a great deal to get together but the only person in charge of whether or not it happens is you and your friends.
Finally, smile – it’s amazing what a smile can do.
Happiness, the Minimalist Mind and Hiking the Appalachian Trail
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. ~ Lao Tzu
Many years ago I started studying Tai Chi and Chi Qong with an instructor in Sacramento. It was a stressful time in my life and I started doing Tai Chi as a way of forcing myself out of the office and as a method of relaxation. I did well with learning the basic forms and movements of the style and the class did have the desired effect of helping me relax. The side benefit of studying Tai Chi was the beginning of starting to look at things from an Eastern perspective. There were two very important things that we addressed early on in our class, the first being pace. We discussed the impatience of Western society and in particular the United States. The first move we practiced for two nights and the class was growing impatient, myself included, we wanted to move on to the next move. Our instructor laughed at us, when he was studying in China they practiced this same first move for two months before moving on to the second.
The second topic we studied was the idea of cultivating subtle energies and recognizing the subtle in our lives. This is another area in which our culture is very different from the East, our lives are not about the subtle in the United States. For me in particular this topic hits home, I’m not subtle, I hit life straight on and I don’t do it quietly or subtly. Maybe this is part of my heritage, my upbringing, hell maybe it’s genetic coming from my Irish and Italian roots. Either way, noticing and cultivating the subtle is something I need to personally work on.
In our life here in America we do not live subtly. Those of us in cities deal daily and constantly with a high level of noise and distraction, we move quickly from appointment to appointment, we eat fast food, we drive fast and we live fast. A local news station is currently advertising by using a woman who talks about not having thirty minutes for the news which is why she loves that they give all of the important news and weather in the first eight minutes. Really, we can’t spare thirty minutes a day to know what’s happening in the world?
Noticing and cultivating the subtle is not just simply about slowing down or smelling the roses it is about truly settling. Settling means coming to a full stop, like a quiet and calm pool of water where the water is so calm that all particles are allowed to sink to the bottom leaving the water clear and still. This is the meditation I practice at night, trying to bring peace and clarity to notice the subtle in my life.
We have talked a lot here at the Ministry of Happiness about the big things, things we can do to be happy. Today I ask you to consider settling to find peace and clarity so that you can see clearly, notice the subtle beauty in your life and find happiness. Have a great and happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
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