Octopodes and The Ostrich

Did you know that the proper plural for octopus is "octopuses"?  At least that's the most widely accepted plural.  Technically, the word "octopus" comes from the GREEK word "oktopus" and the true plural would be "octopodes."  Like awk-TAW-poh-deez.  Which brings a mental image of an eight-armed gladiator or a pimped-out cephalopod holla'ing "awktawpohDEEZ NUTZ!"

Other fun facts about animals.  Did you know that you can't get warts from touching a toad?  Or that a mother bird won't abandon her chicks if a human touches them?  Or, my personal favorite, that penguins don't fall backward when they look up at airplanes?!  Last, and most relevant to me, ostriches don't really bury their heads in the ground to escape or hide from danger.  It's a total myth.  They do bury their eggs in the sand and peek in now and then to check on their progeny, but they never actually jam their heads into the ground for safety.

This last one blew my mind.  I've long-identified with the ostrich of old.  In fact I've patterned my approach to life's difficulties after its clearly effective yet apparently false strategy.  Just shut your eyes real tight and wait a while and the problem disappears.  It's like magic.  And it works for everything.

Anytime a difficult conversation or conflict comes on, don't say anything you really mean or feel.  Just apologize and agree with everything the other party says.  Cut yourself off when you are about to say something honest and real.  Bite your tongue and nod.

If there is a bill that has to be paid or a project to be done with a looming deadline, just don't think about it.  There are so many more positive things you can put your mind to!  Like TV.  Or FOOD.  Coincidentally, if you don't want to clean the kitchen or do the dishes...then don't!  Just shut your eyes tight and pretend it's clean.  If you wait long enough it will magically happen!  Same thing with yard work and house cleaning.  Just close your brain and wait.

You don't really need to return rented videos or library books.  Just hold onto them.  Eventually the phone calls stop and nobody will bother you again.

You don't actually have to register for the draft.  What the hell is the point of that?  The army is obviously not for me so I'll just blow it off.

If I don't want my parents to see my report card I'll just hide it in the closet.  POOF!  Problem gone.

Right?

DISCLAIMER:  If you are a fellow ostricher and happy to be so, read no further.  Spoilers ahead!  Minds are fixin' to blow.  Ready?

The kitchen doesn't actually clean itself!  If you wait long enough, someone more responsible than you comes up behind you and cleans it.  And likely resents you for it.  By that time the alfredo sauce has cemented itself to the bottom of the pot and needs a blowtorch and chisel to come off.  There is no force on earth that can get Raisin Bran flakes to detatch from a bowl if it sits long enough.  And grass doesn't cut itself.  It just grows and grows until it chokes itself out and dies.

When people stop calling about a bill it's not because they don't want your money anymore.  It's because they've shut your account down and you're at their mercy.  Good luck using that VISA that is 120 days past due.  Now the financial special forces are onto your ass and your credit is fooked for life.

Blockbuster didn't forget you owe them a rental return.  FUN FACT: In the "olden days", people had to travel to "video stores" to rent movies instead of paying the $15 to buy them.  You would pay money to borrow a movie for three days, then return it when you were done!  Or if you failed to return it you could simply buy it.  For $49.

Mom will find your report card and you'll be grounded for the remaining two months of summer because your grades sucked and you hid them.  

Hypothetical Situation:  Let's say it's 1989 and you have a school paper to write on a famous person from history.  You go to a public library and they give you a card that allows you to "check out" a book called, oh...let's say "Joe Louis: The Brown Bomber".  You get this book for two weeks.  You read it and write your paper and get an A!  Now you just need to return the book.  But no one is forcing you.  You didn't pay any deposit so what's the point?  Way too much effort here.  Just forget about it and pretend it doesn't exist and you'll never have to think about it again.  Flash Forward to 2004 and you want to go to the library to check out CDs to illegally copy by the dozens but you can't because you've still got to return The Brown Bomber and your card is frozen.  You can buy the long-forgotten book for its current value that has tripled over time, or you can invent an elaborate story about how your identity was stolen and someone else named Peter Tyler Pearson checked out The Brown Bomber in 1989.  The latter totally worked.

Oh, and it turns out that registering for Selective Service, aka "The Draft" wasn't optional after all.  Good luck getting any kind of federal loan or assistance if you failed to register.  I've never been through more hoops for anything in my life.

Bottom line, DON'T OSTRICH.  It is painful.  There is no sense in not just doing shit when it needs to get done.  I don't think I was lazy.  I think I just didn't care.  There wasn't any real-time accountability.  And it is the absolute worst practice imaginable for communication and relationships.  Say what you mean.  Speak what you need.  Hold your ground.  Know yourself and respect yourself enough to insist on your right to feel and think and want things.  Be perfect in your speech.

I am new to this concept.  Truth and authenticity at the cost of comfortable environment is scary.  But I believe it's crucial to a happy, healthy life.  I can't just sit back and pretend my body and mind don't need work.  They won't fix themselves.  I have to actually do something about it.  The concept of doing important things now or being straightforward and strong in life may seem so simple for non-ostriches.  But my avian brethren get it.  It feels complex and difficult and scary and, frankly, sometimes impossible.  But it's not.  Difficult?  Sure.  Scary?  Yes.  But it's not complex and it's not impossible.

It Gets Easier

I can come off as elitist.  Especially when it comes to film and music.  And sometimes television.  I embrace this snobbery and I actively look for new tunes, flicks, and shows to experience.  The one place I’ve never really gone when it comes to entertainment is in the animated stuff.  I have never seen a single episode of South Park, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama, etc.  I avoid anime like the plague.  Those weeaboo scare the bajeezus out of me.  I’ve done some Simpsons in the past and I laughed like an idiot, so there’s no real reason I should avoid such highly-rated, universally-loved programs.

While cruising Reddit I came across an interesting post in r/getmotivated that referenced a current animated TV program called “Bojack Horseman.”  I thought the post was clever and I decided to give the show a try.  I love Will Arnett’s humor so I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed.  It is hilarious, cringy, and bizarre...just as I’d expected.  What I did NOT expect, however, is the poignant insight into serious life issues like anxiety, depression, abandonment, usefulness, and self-worth.

Bojack is not a “horseman” in the traditional sense of the word.  He’s not a man on a horse.  You’ll not see him participating in the Olympic Modern Pentathalon anytime soon.  Bojack is actually an anthropomorphic horse that stands on two legs and speaks english.  He is a horse...man.

In the 1990s, Bojack was a wildly popular television star.  The lead character in the network hit “Horsin’ Around.”  During his hayday (best pun ever?), Bojack lived it up.  Parties.  Women.  Booze.  Constant attention and fame.  And the love of a media-crazed world.  But now, 25 years later, Bojack struggles.  He tries to maintain an outward appearance of bravado and panache, but in reality he is quite sad.  He feels abandoned by the fans that once adored him.  He struggles to maintain friendships.  And he really struggles with self-worth.

I can identify with Bojack.  I think on one of thousands of levels, we all can.  Everyone knows what it’s like to be disappointed and sad.  I’m sure I'm not alone in having felt old or ugly or fat.

A scene from the Season 2 finale of Bojack Horseman hit me like a freight train.  Bojack is unhappy with his physical form and has decided to start exercising.  So he goes out for a run.  He is struggling.  It’s hard.  “Oh God, lungs on fire...running is terrible.  Everything is the worst.”  After a short period of time he can’t go any farther and collapses on the ground, exhausted.  As he’s pleading “Oh my God, Oh my God” through tight-shut eyes, a random character called “Jogging Baboon” appears over him and delivers this incredible bit of insight:

THIS IS IT.  This is the secret to everything in life.  I’m convinced of it.  It applies not just to physical exercise, but to every other difficult aspect in life.  I’ve been trying guided meditation.  It’s rough.  I have a hard time focusing and relaxing. But it’ll get easier.  I just have to do it every day.  I’ve been struggling with balancing nutrition intervals.  But it’ll get easier.  I just have to commit to it...every day.  When my thoughts take me places that I don’t like, I have to just remember that pulling them back in WILL get easier.  I have to just commit to doing it every day.  That's the hard part.  But it will get easier.  I am investing in myself.  I am rewiring my perspective.  I am re-evaluating and reframing relationships.  I am relentlessly pursuing happiness and freedom.  And all of these things take WORK.  Tiny steps that need constant attention and the dedication to do them every day.  That’s the hard part.  But it’ll get easier.  And once it becomes EASY, I’ll be right where I want to be. I'm documenting my progress here.

I have a feeling this life lesson from a talking, animated, jogging baboon is going to change my life.  Help finds a way to find you.  Sometimes from the most creative of places.

The Fog

I've been having an out-of-body experience lately.  As if an unseen hypnotist snapped his fingers and brought me out of a murky trance.  I strain to recall faint details and vague emotions from a strange time.  As time passes it becomes painfully clear that I was the hypnotist.  The trance was self-imposed.  And it had been going on for a very, very long time.  I call it The Fog.

I resent The Fog.  It's full of ethereal apparitions that are negative versions of myself.  And there are thousands of them.  They represent shame, fear, laziness, sorrow, anger, helplessness, hopelessness, cowardice, and an overwhelming sense of weakness.  I realize not all of the past is negative.  But I've sifted the good from the bad and isolated The Fog for what it is.  And I am determined to lift it.  Pierce it.  Forget it.

Recovery from extended hypnosis has significant challenges.  Old habits die hard.  In The Fog, every version of myself struggled with crippling co-dependence.  I've had that issue for a really long time.  Feels like forever.  The target of my co-dependence has shifted to different people or things during my trance, but it was ever-present.  I also became apathetic and found ways to assign blame.  In The Fog, I am a wonderful victim.  I was vapid.  I was hollow.  I was Lester.

Ironically I wrote a post called Don't Be A Lester years ago during my parents' divorce.  The whole idea was to grab life by the nutsack and live it.  Don't hoard wishes.  Use them.  In an odd, creatively reframed way, I became Lester myself:

Lester by Shel Silverstein

Lester was given a magic wish

By the goblin who lives in the banyan tree, 

And with his wish he wished for two more wishes—

So now instead of just one wish, he cleverly had three. 

And with each one of these

He simply wished for three more wishes, 

Which gave him three old wishes, plus nine new. 

And with each of these twelve

He slyly wished for three more wishes. 

Which added up to forty-six—or is it fifty-two? 

Well anyway, he used each wish

To wish for wishes ‘til he had

Five billion, seven million, eighteen thousand thirty-four. 

And then he spread them on the ground

And skipped and sang, and then sat down 

And wished for more. 

And more… And more… They multiplied

While other people smiled and cried

And loved and reached and touched and felt. 

Lester sat amid his wealth

Stacked mountain-high like stacks of gold. 

Sat and counted—and grew old. 

And then one Thursday night they found him

Dead—with his wishes piled around him. 

And they counted the lot and found that not

A single one was missing. 

All shiny and new—here, take a few

And think of Lester as you do. 

In a world of apples and kisses and shoes

He wasted his wishes on wishing. 

I didn't hoard wishes.  I hoarded fear.  Instead of apples and kisses and shoes I chose anxiety, depression, and sadness.  Yes...I chose to be sad.  I didn't know it at the time.  The Fog does that to you.  Like a funhouse mirror, it bends and contorts you into something strange and odd...but you don't feel any actual change.  And over time, you just accept your reflection for what it is.  I missed so much.  And I chose it.

With each passing new day I am feeling stronger.  More independent. The Fog is thinning.  Light pierces it every so often.  It won't be gone overnight, but I know what has to be done.  I have to accept the fact that I was never a victim of anyone but myself.  I don't need anyone to facilitate my happiness.  I chose to be weak and sad.  And it is just as easy to choose to be strong and happy.  There are honest-to-god, scientifically proven ways to achieve happiness.  If you don't like your body and the way you physically feel, there is a solution.  If you don't like the way you feel emotionally, there are tools.  If you don't like lying face down in the muck, then get on your goddamn feet.  I am perfectly confident that I will be happy, and that decision is made independently of anyone or anything but ME.

I have a plan.  I have a partner and mentor.  I am joining Fitness Connection today after work.  I am eating healthy and watching my calories.  I am cutting way back on adult beverage consumption.  I am playing piano and reading books.  I started an open Instagram account to document and track my metamorphosis, @bastardo_magnifico.  I find accountability when I involve others.  And yes... I shall be one magnificent bastard.  And soon.

As for Tylester, he's still in The Fog, protecting his hoard of miserable things.  And he can keep 'em.  He looks a lot like me.  But he's not me.  His eyes are dark and sunken.  Mine are bright.  And getting brighter every day.

Invictus

BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul.