D. Gardner

Everyone has to deal life if their own way.  I am constantly surprised how difficult shifting things in life can be.  For instance, my job has been in a stagnant stage for eight months.  Once my former boss left it seemed that was the beginning of the molasses phase.  The harder I work towards moving forward the more viscus the molasses becomes.  There is a new option to get out of the mire, however it’s more like someone is adding honey to the mix, with the promise of adding water to the mix in six to nine months.  Because there aren’t other options I am heading in that direction.  Mostly because a glimmer of hope is better than no hope.   Why is new opportunity fraught with so much insecurity?

With most new situations there there is a certain amount of excitement that is involved.  For me, the excitement is there because I feel like an explorer a, a pilgrim, a pioneer.  Even if millions of people have walked the path before.  I love to breath in the new smells, sites and sounds.  Some how it makes me feel more alive.  I am amazed how those feelings do not accompany familiar places.   A few years back I was attending a conference in San Francisco, one evening after the daily conference meetings were over I traveled back to Sacramento.  It had been almost 20 years since I had been there, as I arrived in the areas I had stomped as a High School kid, the familiarity overcome the sense of energy that I was hoping work accompany a trip back in time.   When I arrived at the High School where I graduated It looked almost exactly like I remembered from 20 years ago.  The feelings of familiarity seemed a weird time warp that had transported me 20 years into the past.  Almost as suddenly as the I was wisked to the past I faded back to the present and I drove back to my hotel in San Francisco.

With Facebook I get a glimpse into peoples new experiences and It’s fun to see they are experiencing the same feelings of explorer, pilgrim and pioneer.  Even with really old places.

It seems everyone needs a different form of therapy. Some eat ice cream , some talk and some need some sort of institution. I have several forms of therapy; one is eating, another is music and many times mine therapy is church.

Eating is only good sometimes. Especially after after an hour or two of swimming. Sometimes I feel myself getting depressed and losing hope. I look at what I have eaten over the past four to six hours, if I have been swimming earlier and I haven’t had anything to eat that is when I go for some chocolate and a burger. That always seems to lift my mood. Other times things are more serious and eating doesn’t lift my mood I have to go for something more drastic. These times require I put forth more effort and start finding ways to help other people. This is where I turn to the church and start getting outside my own desires in an attempt to lift my mood. The despair I feel that requires behavior modification recommended by the church is usually deeper and last longer than the despair food can correct.

There are also a couple of other things that bring on positive mood changes. These are things that only occasionally can be a positive mood changer. One of these things is sex. However, the work required to have sex boost my mood almost always is more work and mental risk than may seem worth it. Occasionally, maybe once or twice a month, music can bring some comfort.

If you are going to listen to music get some good head phones.   Here are some killer headphones for cheap.

Will there ever be a correction?

Last night I was driving up to weber canyon and I turned on Sirius XM and was listening to a program where Tony Hawk the skater legend was the host.  He had Jack Black and Tenacious D as guests.  It was entertaining listening to them talk about different things.  It was interesting to me they talked about Trey Parker and Matt Stone the creators of South Park.  Tony and Jack marveled at how they had targeted the Scientology but had abandoned them to target the Mormons, both had seen the Book of Mormon show on Broadway.  They also both commented it was funny, but that even their most hard core friends felt uncomfortable at times during the show.

They played a couple of the new Tenacious-D songs.  I was surprised a the vulgarity, both the swearing and subject matter in the songs.  I remember in High School how scandalous it was when I heard the Violent Femmes song with the F-word.  There were a few subtle references to taboo issues in music in the 80’s.  Now it seems there is no restraint.  Musicians, TV shows, and movies all of the entertainment industry is about seeing how sensational they can be.  However, nothing seems to be sensational anymore it’s just a world living in the lowest degree of slim possible.

I wonder if there will be something that turns this all around and society moves back to the soft and sensible.  It seemed that after World War II there was a move towards better things.