Working Vacation

I am helping my daughter with her two-month-old son this week, as she starts work. I was supposed to be the third-shift bottle feeder so that she can sleep, but grandson slept through the entire night last night... for the first time. So, this is going to be easy.

I fixed, cleaned and installed (I don't idle well) and went bicycling. Since I about ran out of things to do already, I realize that I am going to have a relaxing vacation.

I did not rent a car this time. During the day, besides resting, I am either out on her bike (sometimes running errands) or walking the neighborhood... having fun.

This is a really good and relaxing vacation.

- copyright 2012 by Willy

Control

I know how to control a machine, but how do we control ourselves? How do we bridle back our actions and emotions? Throttle down? Control our anger? Invoke self-discipline? Govern ourselves properly? Stay on the straight and narrow? Meditate and pray? Diet and exercise? Not cross the line? Not ask for a phone number?

Good questions, but ones with no apparent answer... if we read the paper or examine ourselves for flaws and urges.

A lot has been said lately on this subject with the recent demise of Cosmo’s publisher, and comparisons to Playboy. Both of these magazines are the antithesis of self-control, with their prime axioms being seduction philosophy and lack of inhibition. Sex sells, but it also brought plenty of drama and misery in this battle of the sexes, and produced plenty of casualties.

I still get temptation... like yesterday... but put me down for diet and exercise and hold the drama.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, amen.

- © 2012 by Willy

Struggling Is Good

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were allowed to go through life without obstacles, it would cripple us... we would not be as strong as we could have been. Struggle is growth.

I'm mentally and physically tougher today because I've often struggled with work, kids, relationships and injuries. Relationships have been the toughest... I told my ex that I'd rather get shot than divorced. Monday I will effectively struggle with dozens of difficult people and scores of email where forty years ago I was struggling to know myself. Today I struggled pressing 100-lb dumbbells but twenty years ago it was 20-pounders, and in a week I will struggle with days of all-day hiking where fifty years ago it was the second lap around the track. I accept and even welcome these struggles.

Unlike Popeye, I am what I am, but that's not all that I am. Life will continue to hammer and strengthen me.


- © 2010 by Willy

Accept

I've long known that people aren't machines, and that relationships aren't equations.


That thought comes up often. Whenever I meet a difficult person (I dealt with two of them at a wedding yesterday), my thoughts automatically go to the fact that I'm glad I live alone with my machines. I tolerate rude people for a short time but am glad that I don't have to deal long-term with them... I go home and they go to their unfortunate spouses.

Relationships only work if you can stand the pain, and I won't. I detach. My life is full, exciting, tiring and surprising, but there is no longer room for the excitement of adversity. I'm truly thankful that I am where I am. It has been an active choice. Relaxing solo is my great joy, and adventure is my excitement.


- © 2010 by Willy

Worry vs Courage

"The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm within that endangers him, not the storm without." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's amazing what we can do when we try... both in body as well as in mind. But it is in the mind that we fight our battles, and it is the mind that pushes the bodies. Whereas worry and fear keeps us awake at night, faith, belief, courage and valor reformat us to generate the energy needed to make it possible.

Ghost from the past have reappeared, both physically and in remembered words, but I no longer listen to that negative self-talk that cluttered my head from old criticism. I chose to replace it with my message... that I can do just about anything. I will not be scared off by the ghosts nor by the poison they have spread, but will hold my head high in spite of it and laugh at them. I'm still fighting my demons but my goal is to refuse to acknowledge that they are lurking about. I think about how much stronger the struggle made me, not how much it hurt. I turned that page. I have set my goals, I do right, and do not fear. I believe in myself.

Get out of my way, ghosts.

- © 2009 by Willy

Keep Quiet

T. Boone Pickens once said that the higher a monkey climbs a tree, the more people that can see his ass.

Visibility has its drawbacks. You are a big, obvious target that others can not only sling mud at but shoot down too.

I like where I am. It's amazing to me how much power I have from the bottom. I can get a lot done without getting seen. And I don't get shot at.

The key to my mental health is to keep my head down. Survival is to say nothing and to try a little to look like I might know what I'm doing, which I do. I just keep quiet, and get things done.

All the monkeys up high spend most of their time and effort throwing mud at each other, and sometimes one of them gets killed. People can be such asses.

Not for me!

- © 2008 by Willy
.

Using The Weapons

Teddy Roosevelt had common sense when he said "Speak softly but carry a big stick." Got to have the weapons, but also the common sense to know which one and whether to use them.

John Kennedy averted war in the 1961 Cuban missile crisis.

This a world full of bullies. Nobody respects a defenseless person or a weaponless country. In the Central L.A. riots a few years ago, only those who brandished iron stayed whole. Thus, as a nation, by keeping both tactical and strategic weapons, logically, we should be able to avoid strife. Politically, that didn’t happen… we screwed up in the second Persian Gulf war.

The problem is subjective judgment.

When do you shoot?

So, then, the other side of the issue is a need for common sense and for using our hearts and minds, not initiating nor escalating but maintaining a good defensive posture. A balancing act. Can’t design common sense into a weapon. Can hardly find any common sense among our population!

And thus we need a mix of weapons AND the right individuals with the common sense to use them properly. And that is The Big Deal in politics… who has common sense? Where's the next Statesman? It's just the world at stake! This is an election year! Yikes! It's scary!

- © 2008 by Willy
.

Reality

Pigs do fly, hell does freeze over, and we do eat our words, on a regular basis. At least I surely do. It seems that emotions do prevail over logic, or that form trumps function, and that the unwanted and impossible happens. Some of this is bad... and some of it is good, depends on how you take it. The skyscraper that survives an earthquake is not the strongest but the most flexible. Ditto for trees in a hurricane.

It's sometimes difficult for me to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, and thus understand what's happening. The best laid plans do sometimes fail, and it seems that setting and following some goals is fruitless as compared to waiting for opportunity. Maybe the key is to be flexible... to be prepared and to be ready... so that when opportunity knocks... or the hurricane happens... AND we recognize it... we can deal with it.

When a badass in a meeting spews his bile, it does absolutely no good to confront him, but instead it's best to keep your cool... and be flexible... like the tree in a hurricane.

It's an attitude.

When you realize that you are not significant to your significant other, then be flexible... roll with the punch, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, stand up tall and smile. Yes, much easier said than done here too.

Engineering teaches to identify and assess, develop solutions, implement them, and evaluate results. And sometimes it works (luck!), but most of the time, the intricacies of each of those simple words make it impossible to do, and flexibility... trying out many different solutions... is the way. Or at least works great with machines.


Like the bumper sticker on redneck pickup trucks: Reality Happens. The key is to recognize it, and bend like a tree... in your own grove!




- © 2007 by Willy
.

Nightmares

I have had a few recurring nightmares. When I was a young man, I worried about my work responsibilities in getting my engineering projects to succeed, and at home in raising and supporting a family.

From day one I was in a hurry to fly, even though my wings were just not there yet. I concentrated and tried sooo hard! Consistency, time and patience helped... I eventually did grow the wings and I soared with eagles... or at least other swan.

Nowadays my work worries are non-technical... getting everyone covered... and my immediate home stresses are to get on with my life.

One recent personal concern is how close I came to marrying my ex. She appeared innocent but was horrid. A profligate spender, she drove me crazy with demands and criticism, wanting everything her way with no compromise. I was insignificant to her. My recurring nightmares of finding a stranger in the house were based upon her inviting other men over, which was the last straw in a series of cruelties. Who gave her the right to be cruel to me? With her actions she hurt me but set me free. If I had married her, I would have put a gun to my head, which is exactly what she wanted, in issue being my will. How did I fall in love with THAT? And how do I prevent this nightmare from happening again?

I guess that we all stumble in some sort of way. We're not perfect. In mind and in body sometimes we stumble because of somebody else and sometimes it's our own fault. And when we do, it's usually painful. One solution is to stop the world and get off, quit dealing with people and go solo here too. In running, bicycling and triathlons, there's usually a crash at the last hundred yards to the finish line... if you are racing with other people. It seems, no matter what, that emotions and exuberance take over from the rational thinking process... and we crash and burn. Stumbling, in general, is a common concern and nightmare of mine and of many others.

Others have nightmares too. Another recurring nightmare shows me the results of somebody's lack of planning at work. I am a very good planner and even better multiplexer, which is why I am so busy with multiple tasks (I wear 5 hats), and can't understand somebody else's lack of planning. My workday is an orchestrated daylong heart attack, with little time to catch my breath before some "problem" pops into my office needing their shit unclogged. Most of these disasters could have been avoided if the guy had thought ahead to look around and plan. I now have several rolls of toilet paper in my office to hand out to THOSE people. I also tell them that lack of planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Let them have their own nightmares, instead of passing them to me.

Solutions? Besides going it solo, plan, and not be a co-dependent... two things I do to fight my nightmares are my daily prayers and my weekly massage. Massage is heaven on earth. Not only does it help my mind's anxieties, but also it fixes my beat-up body. I couldn't do my hiking, riding and lifting without it. Thanks, Jan.

Freud said that every dream is a wish. In between nightmares... in between tough parts of my life... I do have some wonderful, warm, peaceful dreams and great sleep. I have started to get these again, my favorite being slowly flying above nature's majesty. I wish for peace and calmness, solo.


- some of this © 2007 by Willy

Cultural Conflicts

The fish out of water gets eaten. A foreigner out of his culture clashes. And although he might not reach as tragic an end as the fish, his tragedy lasts a lifetime. Nobody adjusts completely.

The bottom line is that to properly develop ourselves, we must develop proper communications... and to do that we must know each other well.

Its amazing how much of what we do is based on culture... from how we wake to how we sleep. Most other cultures wake naturally to daybreak. Here we get up in the middle of the night to an annoying alarm clock and possible heart attack (although the Yankee work ethic is obviously more efficient). At night, other cultures bring out the wine and talk around a table, bonding, but here we eat Doritos and hush the spouse to watch TV.

Occasions are completely mind boggling to foreigners. A Valentine's Day card seemed as committal as a diamond ring when this 11-year old boy got a certain smile from a little girl named Jo.

Putting down the foreigner has been a staple of TV for a century. It's amazing too how much bias there is against other cultures, and how little we care about it. Instead, we laugh at the jokes and thus put down others. There are an awful lot of bigots out there... and most of them don't look like bigots, or admit being one.

The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish literal translation read "Are you lactating?" Did somebody not explain that translations must carry culture? Evidently not.

It happens the other way around, too... Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

Foreigners truly do end up in the melting pot, but the sadness is that by then much permanent personal damage is done by ignoring culture... both coming and going.

-©2007 by Willy
.