Enlightening Nonsense

.

“Excuses are like assholes. Everybody has one, and they all stink.”

—Unknown, but should have received a Nobel Prize for this!

.

I was at a GYNO [See GYNO at http://rebelyogi.com/gyno] and dancing to the drummers’ beats and having my ovaries checked, I bumped into Parakeet, who has completely blown off any and every attempt I’ve made to invite her to anything I have been doing, or to take a yoga class together, or to go for a walk, or even to offer a response when I’ve told her something like, “I feel disrespected by your last blow-off and only in part because you didn’t swallow.”

A little history to bring you up to speed…

I used to go to Parakeet’s Freedom Dance events, where you dance blindfolded and somehow this was supposed to jack up your mojo or something. I found out that Parakeet and Roach were good friends. I also found out that her husband had what the medical doctors call a “terminal illness” and that she and him were butting heads because he didn’t want to tap into all of her resources, which included natural healers and centers of which she had affiliations.

I had written a piece called Muggers and Murderers [See http://rebelyogi.com/muggers-and-murderers.html] where I had talked about my desire to have a man-to-man talk with her husband and what I would tell him and sent Parakeet the link. I actually wanted her to see that I saw the deeper issue that he was holding onto and that I cared about her enough to honor her by sharing this important story with far-reaching life lessons to my illiterate audience.

In her defense, this issue was so close to her heart that of course it probably felt a little like I had anal raped her without any lube. She got from the piece that I was saying that her reaction of being upset by her husband’s decision was weak and wrote me an email pretty much saying, “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my personal matters out of your un-blog.”As I was still talking to Roach back then, to state the obvious, she ripped me a new one—but only after she read the piece, had no comment except that she liked how I had named her friend Parakeet and wanted me to come up with a different name for her than “Roach.” I’m guessing it was only after she talked to Parakeet that she decided to drill for oil in my buttocks. Had she drilled the week before when I spent the weekend at Fire Island she might have struck it rich.

I wrote Parakeet back (as email is the only communication anyone seems to want to have with me) that if my partner had a disease and didn’t want to fight it naturally, I would yell, beg, scream, cry and then yell some more. I would probably then have a nice meal and regroup for my next yelling, begging, screaming, crying, yelling streak and that I didn’t think she handled the situation in any way that was weak.

I explained to her that what I was saying in the piece was that I would talk to him about exploring the real issue that he has for not seeking help from her multitude of resources, which probably has to do with a trust issue, and that because I only cared about consciousness and not saving his life—and I was a manly man and not one of those New Age femifags—that I could probably connect to him and discuss the source of his block better than those who were so close to him that love might be clouding their ability to support him in any decision he made and to just encourage him to be conscious in its making.

Most people feel defensive when they are not supported. If I told my mother, “I’ve decided to take up smoking” and she said, “You should NOT take up smoking!” I would immediately go into an hour-long argument about how smoking would allow me to explore an aspect of myself I never touched because of her and my father’s brainwashing that smoking was somehow bad for you. Knowing my mother, she would just say, “Good. Enjoy it,” probably hoping it would give me lung cancer and I’d die and no longer be a pain in her ass. That response would probably have me answer, “Maybe I won’t,” until I realized that because I have no health insurance, my parents would be bankrupted because of the hospital bills and the smoking would accomplish its only purpose for me—to irritate my mother—and then I’d light up.

I thought that Parakeet and me had washed the slate clean, and by this I don’t mean bathing Fred Flintstone’s boss, as much as that has always been a fantasy of mine. Because of a multitude of issues I had with Roach, I just figured that Parakeet was blowing me off because of some bullshit loyalty to a friend.

I kind of got used to being blown-off by her. I’m not saying it didn’t still hurt but it was like in prison how after you get sodomized a couple of dozen times, you can basically take it in the ass without even putting “Shawshank Redemption” on pause. What I have not learned how to adapt to is bullshit.

So when I saw her the first time at the last GYNO, she gave me that fake L.A. acknowledgement that expressed, “Wow, I haven’t seen you in awhile! What a pleasant surprise. Uh, no, I don’t want to pursue a conversation. Ba-bye!” While lame, I almost expected it from her. It was the second interaction that surprised me and caused me to puke in my mouth and swallow it and reflect back to what I had eaten at lunch that was both chunky and chewy.

We passed by each other in a narrow stretch and it was basically just her and me. I told her that I was a little disappointed that she hadn’t responded to any of my invites or even just my hellos. She said, “I was in L.A.,” as if that made any more sense than answering, “Who’s that woman in bed with you?” with, “Sometimes when I drink a Slurpee really fast I get brain freeze.”

I said, “Oh, that’s right, Governor Schwarzenegger did away with email in California.” We didn’t really say anything more than, “I think I’ll get more kombucha” and parted ways. I was annoyed she would insult me with that “The dog ate it” excuse. Even “The dog ate it” makes sense why one would not be able to hand in his paper. Her answer was more like telling the teacher, “My dog sniffed it.”

When we passed by each other again I had to say something. “You know, I’ve always been straight up with you. I’ve never given you anything but the truth.” I suddenly had that feeling that I get every time I open my mouth, that perhaps it would be best for everyone involved if I kept my trap shut. As opposed to just plowing ahead like I usually do and then realizing that my thought was right, I broke off long enough to verbalize, “I’m thinking that this is going to get me into more trouble than it’s worth.” But then I fell back into my comfortable groove of uncontrollable spouting. “I mean, telling me that you didn’t respond to my emails because you were in California? I know you’ve been busy, working on your book and all, but come on? That is just a totally lame excuse.”

She shifted suddenly from being an L.A. poser to a drug-user begging for change who after enough grilling finally came clean that she was an addict. “You’re right. That was dumb. I’m sorry. I don’t have an excuse. I just lamed out on it.”

I was in a dilemma. She kinda-sorta apologized but it had nothing close to the “throw yourself at the mercy of the court” appeal that I was looking for. “I just had hoped to share with you some of the stuff I’ve been doing, so that you could see me in action and what comes through me.” I guess I still wanted a chance to be taken seriously after Roach and others had seen and treated me like a joke.

“I appreciated it, all your ‘Sister P’ emails,” my term of endearment for her, which previously was short for “Parakeet” but now is short for “Pussy.” She went on to say that it wasn’t because of the piece I had written awhile back. I didn’t feel like getting into the fact that I already thought that, like her now ex-husband, was pretty much dead and that I thought it was her soldiering loyalty to Roach that was why she had been an ignoring bitch. So instead we parted ways and once again I felt that I was more authentic than anyone in the so-called “spirituality” movement, not because I’m so authentic but because they are all just so full of shit.

Why are people so afraid to say things as they are? Why can’t we just admit, “Sorry, I fucked up”? This guy at a gym I freelance out of asked me for the third time if I had looked up his martial arts teacher online. I told him, “Look, I have to admit I didn’t. If nothing else, at least I’m not a lying pussy like all those so-called ‘spiritual’ people. And, so we are clear, by ‘pussy’ I am referring to that skanky snail slugging away between a woman’s legs.”

I had donated a certain amount of money for my admission to the last GYNO and to get a free pair of sneakers, not because I was in any way a charitable guy but because my current sneaks had pretty much worn through and since the money was going towards a charitable organization, I could justify dipping into my charity fund to supply the dough. To hell with the orphan kid that my money was helping to feed in Ethiopia; he can go back to his sand and camel dung diet for a single month without any hardship.

About a month later, I contacted the girl who runs the GYNO who I had known from a Native Ritual Weekend I had attended in Pennsylvania a couple of years back, asking where the fuck my shoes were. She told me that I would be getting a coupon in the mail. I was like, “After a month?” I figured someone must have dropped the ball, like the man to the left of me did during the circle-jerk the other night.

The very next day, I received a bulk email saying that for those of us who were due sneakers, “The check was in the mail and I won’t cum in your mouth.” I found that a bit serendipitous but whatever. It was the line blaming the Post Office for the delay that just downright irritated me.

.
I wrote back my GYNO contact and said, “What was with the pussy excuse in the email?” I received some feminist bullshit about how it was wrong to talk about a woman’s vagina in a derogatory way. I was a little baffled. I hadn’t even thought about a cunt, snatch, bearded clam or hairy taco in the least. I wrote her back that “pussy” was as in pussycat meaning “wimpy” and that she must be bleeding from her rotten tuna slit to write such a comment. I added that her taking what I wrote to mean I was referring to a clit-slit was probably as assumptive of me thinking she was beyond the spiritual posing I’ve seen in the New Age but I guess that we were both wrong.

But I digress; her being a Femi-Nazi with no sense of humor is not the point. It was the lame, “Blame the Post Office” bit that put my balls in a vise.

…

True “spirituality” is having the balls to stand up and express your true feelings or actions without an attitude of self-righteousness, defensiveness, lying or excuses. I don’t see this in the worlds of the New Age and yoga posers. I see a bunch of people who take a million classes and workshops where they OM and contort and learn how to smile on the outside while being miserable on the inside—and even teach these workshops—who still act like complete pussies the minute a human interaction presents itself where they just may have to say, “Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t handle that the best way. Sorry.”

I prefer an honest douchebag to a phony New Age yoga poser any day. At least you get what you pay for—a cheap $5 hooker. A New Age yoga poser will cost you a week’s salary (which in my case is still $5) and then just lie there motionless watching Jersey Shore while you fuck her from behind. I’ve had more honest interactions with an old sock and a bottle of Jiffy Lube than from most of the people who wear a neon “SPIRITUAL” sign on their backs, when the only sign on their backs they should be wearing is either “KICK ME” or “PLACE BEER HERE.”

.

“One who is not at ease with himself cannot be at ease with anyone else. And one who does not love himself, who is hiding himself, cannot be loved by anyone else.”

—Osho from Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy (p. 120)

.

REFLECTION:

Why is it so hard to say, “You know, I think I was wrong”? Why are we so invested in being “right”? Does being “right” ever really even make you happy? If you’re “right” with your girlfriend, you won’t be getting any that night, or that week, or that year (if she’s your wife, she’s already not giving you any.) If you are “right” with your boyfriend, he will be giving you one-word answers for the next day—and then he’ll forget all about it and watch Nascar.

Is it possible that being “right” is thought of as making us somehow “better”? Like, “Gee, I know that and you didn’t. I am right and you are wrong. Nanny, nanny, poo-poo!” The only thing being “right” feeds is the ego. And having a big ego is nothing to poo-poo about.

MEDITATION:

Imagine a situation where you are wrong and called out on it. In the first scenario, fight against the outing as strongly as Tom Cruise denies he’s gay. After that round, reflect on how you felt during and after the melee.

On the second time through, imagine just saying, “You know, I think I was wrong on that one. I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t have a real answer for you so I said some bullshit and now I regret it. Sorry about that.” Notice how you feel when you say this. Maybe like a bit of a douche but notice how you feel afterwards. Suddenly you are free from the interaction. No part of it is dragging you down. In fact, you may even feel empowered, like, “You know what, that wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe next time I won’t feel the need to be such a pussy!”