High and Mighty versus...

Tiger Woods is the latest casualty in a never-ending list of The Fallen.

Here he is, the best at his field, a Billionaire, married to a swimsuit model... the perfect man everybody aspires for... and he gets taken out by what appears to be ego. Money and power goes to their heads. It's called temptation. The devil exists.

The funny thing is that it also happens to a lesser extent to the average guy. I'm sure Tiger Woods gets a million temptations for every one of mine. If you go by percentages, he was bound to fall.

I'm not the best in my field, although I'm very good. I'm not a billionaire, although I do well, I do not know any swimsuits models, although I did score a trophy wife once (or she me) when I was a socially awkward young man, so I understand the lift to the ego that leads to succumbing to temptation.

No, I don't know if I'm getting hit by angel or devil, so I play it conservative. My solution has been to limit my exposure and thus minimize temptation. T. Boone Pickens, the oilman, says that the higher a monkey climbs a tree, the more people can see his ass. So I stay in the brush below, doing my thing... I'm pretty high up at work but refuse further promotion, so I get an awful lot done. Every now and then a lady smiles at me... I must remind her of her grandfather... and I ignore it. The love word comes up occasionally and I respond that I love her like a sister. I watch out for games and my favorite word is no. I don't look for "it," I apologize if the wrong impression is taken, and I bolt. And a dear old lady runs my favorite hangout; so I do not flirt with waitresses... it would be like flirting with my mother.

It may seem like a lot of work to constantly monitor and be aware of what I'm doing... to stay in stealth mode... but it's nothing compared to the loss resulting in a fall from grace. God exists too.


- © 2009 by Willy

Co-Co-dependents

Tomorrow night I'll be attending my co-dependent group's Christmas party. A very interesting and terrific set of people with the same problem... and thus much in common with me. I normally avoid parties, but I look forward to seeing John, Chad and the rest of the entertainers.


They say a pessimist sees a glass half-empty, an optimist half-full, but the kind and giving person... a co-dependent... looks for someone who might be thirsty. My challenge has been to properly channel this character feature, and my support group has helped me do this. I constantly ask myself "And whose need is that?" and remind myself to "Detach." Life has been easier lately, although it had been both heartbreaking and wonderful. Some days I fought for my life, just like everyone else, but I've lived it fully.


- © 2009 by Willy

P.S., the codependent crossed the road to help the chicken make a decision, so watch 'em cars if you're one of us.

Best Things in Life

The best things in life are not things.

I got up early this morning to go hike my favorite trail in fresh snow. It was enough snow to make it pretty but not enough to make streets difficult. Two fat tires and two wafflestompers beat me to the trailhead, but secondary trails were virgin snow. I enjoyed the crisp air and the solitude, I wrote my name in yellow on snow, and I resolved to hike and bike more often... no matter the circumstances.

What a beautiful way to pass the morning.


- © 2009 by Willy

It's In My Nature

A scorpion asks a frog for help crossing a river. Intimidated by the scorpion's prominent stinger, the frog demurs. "Don't be scared," the scorpion says. "If something happens to you, I'll drown." Moved by this logic, the frog puts the scorpion on his back and wades into the river. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog.

The dying frog croaks, "How could you? You know you'll drown!"

"It's in my nature," gasps the sinking scorpion.

_______________

This fable of The Scorpion and The Frog is also a lesson on misplaced trust, on the limits of logic, on not escaping the insuppressible nature of things, and more:

What was the incentive for the frog to even entertain help carry that scorpion? NONE! It was not just the scorpion's nature that's in question here but more so it is the frog's nature to blame. That frog should not have helped in such an event with a clear eventuality. Wasn't this the co-dependency on the frog's part that sank them both? YES!

It is what it is, I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam. THIS co-dependent frog must question everything. I must fight my nature and do just my own... cross the river solo, and not help the scorpions. Kindness has its limits, clearly, and so I have my demons to fight.


- text © 2009 by Willy

Outplay Them

"Excuse me... do you have the time?" said one of the two young men in front of the mall's record store this morning.

Translated it means "Hold on there until my buddy blindsides you. And, by the way, do you wear a Rolex?"

I said "No" forcefully and kept a fast pace. He wanted to know when the store opens. I said a second "No." He walked after me in frustration as I kept him in my peripheral vision, but finally stopped.

The next step would have been to press the button on my switchblade.

This was early on a Sunday morning, while walking the mall due to inclement weather. I carry my handgun at night but seldom go out then, and haven't been in a bar in a decade or two. I haven't had an incident like this in years and years. I live in Podunk and we have little crime.

I'm 60 years old and so many pounds have transferred from my chest to my gut that it seems I've gotten to the point that I no longer repel punks. I remember the good old days when some road rage idiot would get out of his car, I got out of mine and he stopped cold, mumbling while he got back in.

The truth is that I can no longer fistfight nor run away, so my options are down to being more aware, reducing opportunities for incidence, and increasing the counter-lethality to match.


If you can't outrun them, outplay them.

But if I cannot evade, outplay or outthink them, I will shoot.




- text © 2009 by Willy