Bundled up

As a person, a mere mind/body, I’m a bundle of memories and habits, fears and desires, obsessions and aversions, likes and dislikes. This is just a temporary arrangement. I am not a carry-on.

Under the influence

Consumer culture proclaims that happiness is having things and doing things. The advertising industry has from the dawn of its existence parked its considerable haunches on this belief. But having things and doing things is the opposite of happiness. True happiness has no reason.

Nostalgia at 130 kph

There I am, rocketing along in my nicked-up C30 Volvo, belting out the chorus to Jeff Healey’s Angel Eyes: So tonight I’ll ask the stars above / “How did I ever win your love?” / What did I do / What did I say / To turn your angel eyes my way. To fully appreciate this, you have to understand that I can’t sing. The choir master at the boarding school I briefly attended asked me to sing softly. Healey died at 41 from the same cancer that stripped him of his eyesight at age two. What a mensch.

Good morning, Viet Nam!

Hey there! Buddy, speaking! Yessir, your ego! Your pleasure-seeking pain-avoiding wired-for-business hyper viper! Yes, it’s me! Me as you! The voice in your head that never shuts up! That likes and dislikes, desires and fears, judges and labels, worries and wonders, remembers and imagines, plans and organizes, reacts and repeats?! So times a-wastin’, dude! Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er!

ERs

Plainly and simply, an emotional reaction is never justified.