Zone

I just spent the last hour watching YouTube videos of Frank Caliendo.




What I like most about this video is the sound of everyone, including the TV crew, laughing their asses off. I too need a lozenge.

Neither Here Nor There

In recent years, I've been trying to understand the Why of traveling. If it is simply to see one more place than what has already been seen, then one could just keep seeing place after place, and not really know why. It would be like gluttony.

If it is to go to a better place than where I am, then why don't I live there already? If I yearn to be there, then I must not be happy where I already am. And if I think that that place is unreachable, then I have resigned myself to my own limitations.

If it is to understand a different way of life, then what's wrong with trying to understand the people in my own neighborhood? And if I assumed that the farther I travel the more variety I will see, then I am diminishing the potential of my immediate surroundings.

Last week, I think I found what might be a good reason to travel.

I have my reasons for living where I live. Where I live has its good points and bad points. The good points must outweigh the bad points, or else I wouldn't be here.

Other people have their reasons for living where they live, and they think that their location's good points also outweigh the bad points.

By understanding and embracing why people live where they do, I am forced to accept the fact that where I live is not the best place in the world. By understanding and embracing why I live where I do, and others like to visit here, I am forced to accept the fact that where they live is not the best place in the world either. I am forced to accept the fact that the concept of "best" or "better" does not really exist.

This understanding diminishes my perception that the choices I make are better than those of others. In turn, this understanding diminishes my own importance. As my own importance is diminished, the burden to maintain my own importance becomes lighter.

By traveling, I lighten the burden of my own importance.

The Least

Yesterday was Good Friday. While driving, I noticed the car washes had more than their usual number of Friday cars. I then remembered that it would be Easter Sunday tomorrow, and maybe a lot of people were getting their cars ready to go to church.

I remember growing up, always wearing my best clothes to Easter Sunday mass. Sometimes I would even buy a special "Easter" suit, with a jacket and slacks and sometimes even a vest, an ensemble that I had just bought specifically for that occasion. I remember wearing my best tie, my best shoes, my best, most expensive watch.

I remember seeing other people also wearing what seemed to me their best clothes on Easter Sunday. I remember seeing others who weren't dressed as nicely, and wondering to myself, "What's wrong with them? Why didn't they come prepared?"

It's been a while since I wore a suit to Easter Sunday mass. It's been a while since I wore a tie, or a watch, or a brand new pair of shoes. I find myself dressing comfortably and wearing brown.

Yesterday, my friend and I watched Diane Sawyer's ABC News Special that examined prostitutes. The program mentioned that probably 75-90% of prostitutes were sexually abused as children. The overwhelming majority of them grew up with little to no education, little to no financial support, little to no real family, and are, in a word, stuck. Almost all of them said that if they knew of a way out, they would take it in a heartbeat.

During the commercials, my friend and I talked about others in the world--how many, if not most, of the homeless people in America have some sort of mental disease. How 25% of the homeless are veterans of war, a good number of them also with mental disease. How the current recession and lack of jobs will probably drive even more women to become prostitutes.

The program showed how prostitution is most commonly found in poor neighborhoods, or on the outskirts of casino towns. How the men who solicit prostitutes have their own problems, a lot of whom are in a desperate state of mind. Some of the women who have escaped their old way of life mentioned the importance of self-esteem. Some of the men who were caught soliciting prostitutes said the same thing about themselves.

At the end of the program, Diane Sawyer specifically mentioned that yes, the show is being televised on Good Friday. She mentioned that Jesus was known to have walked and talked with prostitutes, as well as thieves and beggars, and anyone else who were, in a word, stuck.

Since last night, I've been thinking about a passage from a song that I've heard many times at church:

"Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me."

Let Us Have Faith

I began my day calling my spiritual big brother on the phone, to engage him in a 30-minute existential conversation, even before I had my morning coffee. During the conversation, we talked about the current state of the country, including the massive education and government layoffs in California. I mentioned to him that it seems there is no secure job nowadays. Only a few years ago, people talked about three areas that would probably offer security: healthcare, real estate, and government. That isn't true any more.

And then my big brother e-mailed me this quote, from Helen Keller's poem, Let Us Have Faith:


Security is mostly superstition
It does not exist in nature
Nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing
To keep our faces toward change and
Behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.


Later in the day, while my beadmaker friend and I watched the movie Akeelah and the Bee on TV, she reminded me of this quote from the movie, originally written by Marianne Williamson:


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The Competition

In the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, the young chess prodigy's teacher tells his student that in order to win, a champion must regard his competition with contempt. The champion must believe that he is the only one who is worthy of winning. Only with that attitude can one continually win every match.

In an old Twilight Zone episode, an aging, alcoholic gunslinger who used to be the fastest gun around, got help through an elixir that allowed him to be as fast as he used to be. Before every match, the gunslinger would take a sip from a small bottle of the magic potion, and draw faster than his opponent. In his last match, the aging gunslinger faced a younger challenger. As they were about to draw their guns, each saw the other drink from his own bottle of the magic potion. They end up shooting each other in their shooting hands, forcing both to retire from gunslinging.

In another Twilight Zone episode, a baseball team recruited a robot as their pitcher. The robot was perfect, striking out every man he faced. But baseball rules require that a player has to be a human being, so the team installed a heart inside the robot to make him officially a human. After the new heart was installed, the robot pitcher could no longer strike out any batters, because he felt sorry for them and didn't have the heart to do it.

In the current bestselling book The Secret, a person can do anything, have anything, be anything he or she wishes to be, as long as he or she is in the right mindset and mode of living. The book cites stories of people turning their lives around in a matter of days, or weeks, and at the very most, a couple of years. In short, the book says that anyone can have anything he wants.

Whenever someone asks the Dalai Lama how long it takes to be enlightened, he says it could be immediate, or it could take days, or weeks, or lifetimes, or thousands of lifetimes. There is no specific time limit to reach enlightenment.

In the movie War Games, the computer calculates dozens of ways to engage the enemy in order to win a nuclear war. In the end, the computer decides that the only way to win is not to play the game.

At the end of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, the young chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, after having made an amazing move, realizes that he is a few moves from an ultimate win. Knowing this, Josh reaches out his hand to offer his opponent a chance to end the match in a tie, instead.