I like this simple two-letter word that is used in a myriad of ways. I think it has a deeper more poignant meaning than the other two-letter words like it, of, on, or, at. While necessary words, they are lazy words compared to if. For example, people substitute the word it instead of explaining something in detail.
If, like my friend said the other day, “is an active word.” It, the word if that is, is often used in mathematical equations, one of my least favorite school subjects by the way. For example, if 5 is added to 3 what is the answer? Of course 8. If can also be used in much more complicated math problems, but the problem is the moment I start to get into those types of problems I break out in a sweat and my breathing becomes shallow. In short, the beginnings of a panic attack. So I will leave it here with the simple example.
It is quite amazing how our past experiences inform what we do and who we are today. We are not the same people and yet they do collectively make us into some sort of character. After watching a four part series on Punk Rock I was taken back to the days in which I was a punk and realize in many ways still am. Outwardly I struggled as a teenager with the usual being uncomfortable in my skin and internally with the raging hormones and philosophical battle of having grown up in a catholic family with all the guilt that came with it.
Along comes PUNK just at the right time. The words and energy conveyed in the music, and countless number of shows I attended were just what I needed to break free of the rules and all that shit that was bogging me down internally. It needed to be expressed. Fueled with music, energy from others and alcohol it was a perfect concoction. I still felt uncomfortable in my own skin, but I could blend in and let the music take me away. I spent countless hours lying on the floor of my bedroom with headphones on cranking and disappearing into the music. It was freedom.
After a period of time the lyrics and attitudes associated with the movement sunk in and really became a part of me. I still had to sell out and do all that one needs to do to sort out what fits best in life, all the while being informed by my punk rock roots. I still had it. I had to go through the phases of feeling too young to be a punk, but knowing deep down I still had the attitudes without the look.
Fast forward many decades and the roots of my character are still connected to punk and have informed my decisions to not participate on certain levels any longer in the American dream, which I tried, corporate life, which I tried, car culture, which I have not done in quite some time and even paying taxes. I pay them, just not in the country of origin.
I was on some level informed by the experiences of my punk days and the decision to move to Japan and no longer participate in the American culture. In Japan, as ironic as this may sound, I can blend in and not participate in the in a way that would be expected of me if I were living in the US.
I have been thinking about instinct lately. We all have it in and it comes in different forms. For some it is a feeling, others a voice and others see it in words or pictures. It really depends upon the type of character and how we are wired. I am sure most have experienced it and never knew what it was. I do think it is something that comes from the heart. And yet so often we all live in our heads intellectualizing everything. This may in part have to do with habit, and rather than feel it out, wait for an answer and guidance from the heart we go to our heads – a direct line to our egos. The result, we allow our egos to guide our lives. Then everything we do reinforces the stories of who we are, and we hold on to them throughout our life building up a fortress against instinct.
Instinct is a part of our lives and yet so often we squelch the feeling. Even if we get that inner urge, we turn away from it and put ourselves up in our heads. We get the feeling and then boom up in our head to intellectualize, justify, rationalize or defend. Of course I am speaking from direct experience. I realize these days that I really do not want to speak of anything I know nothing about. I used to be able to talk a good game about anything.
I am finding it is more skillful to just speak of things I have experience with. It serves others because they can feel the place in which I am speak from. Just like building up a habit of avoiding instinct, we can find a way to get back to the place of the heart and develop a skill of paying attention to it. It takes work, practice and presence in order to be in that place. The key is to know how to discern when you are in your head or not.
For me it starts as pressure and a feeling in the heart that eventually leads to words, but on occasion it can be visuals as well. And when it comes it feels like jumping into a river and riding the wave for as long it is meant to be. It is an invigorating feeling being in touch with the heart. It is a place I would like to live in as much as I can, and wish this for everyone. There is on occasion experiences of weak moments in which I want to please the intellect or what my friend in NYC would say, “the lower chakras.” I find that if I want to continue to do that, and it is my choice, then I would over time slowly squelch instinct by constantly overriding it.
I have had a lot of friends during my lifetime. Only some are still around and most others have faded away. What I wanted to write was “I have a lot of friends and still do,” but that is just not reality.
As I have gotten older I realized there is a direct correlation to time on earth, age and friendship. I never thought this mathematical-like way of thinking would somehow relate to friendship. What do I mean by this mid-life crisis-like epiphany? The kinder gentler way of putting it is, the older I get the less friends I have. I don’t mean that because I am older my friends have died off, although that is one equation that exists. However, the requirement for that one is that you must be in your 70s, 80s and if you are lucky enough 90s. I am not there yet. What I mean is that I reached a point in my mind, not consciously at first, that with each addition to my age the less time I have on this earth the more important it is to have less friends. I do not mean this in a mean-spirited way, although it could be misconstrued to be. I just don’t have time to waste is what I mean to say.
Now I must confess, I set this whole thing up to this moment so that I could use my favorite middle age word – squander. I do not want to “squander my life”. There I said, and it feels good. I could use this word all day. But if I did it would certainly lose impact. So I only use it on special occasions. I have purposely never looked up the meaning of this word. I have only gleaned its meaning in the context of Buddhism, whether from a book I have read or someone using it during a dharma talk. Does this only exist under the guise Buddhism? I would definitely perk up if it had been used in another context like say, finance. The announcer – “now don’t squander your money on needless purchases”. It would certainly work in that context. However, there is something to the phrase, “don’t squander your life” which has a deeper meaning than “don’t squander your money.” Not knowing the exact dictionary definition has meant I have had to feel out the meaning of squander. And the first word that comes to mind is waste, or in this case don’t waste or more to the point, don’t waste your time.
I rarely get nightmares. Come to think of it I don’t dream very often either. I wonder why that is? I like to think that dreams and nightmares are our psyche’s way of working stuff out on the inside, and what we experience when it hits our consciousness are the stories we see while we sleep. I am not sure and I don’t think anyone is 100% sure of this. If it has in fact been proven to be true, then because I have not had dreams of any kind in over five years, I must have it all figured out.
Now that in and of itself is a scary thought. Can you imagine having it all figured out by age fifty-four? Then what do you do? I mean after you have all the answers what do you do with your life from that point on? Walk around as if you have all the answers? What fun would that be? Really what would be the point of going on living? Now don’t worry, this is not some kind of suicide note, just because I wrote “I got it all figured out,” and “What’s the point of going on living.” I have far too much to live for and love life. Besides that, I did actually have a nightmare.
I will say the nightmare was scary. So scary that when I started to tell the story to my nine-year old son the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Describing it to him, I conjured up the image of my childhood home where the story took place. He picked up on the vibe of fear and started to feel the impact of the nightmare and became scared. So much so that when asked by his Mom to go to his room to get dressed for soccer practice, he refused. That is a testament to the strength of this nightmare or my storytelling ability or both.
I must confess that I have not gone into grave details yet about the nightmare for fear of raising the hairs on my neck again. I cannot promise that it will be all that scary to you because it originated in my subconscious and not yours, Anyway, I will try my best. And yet still I hesitate, frozen in fear. Ok not really, but hesitant, that’s for sure.
I am the same age I am now and find myself in my childhood home, a small postwar 3-story home in a middle class suburb of Minneapolis. Built for a family of three we were a family of five – Mom, Dad and three boys. As we got older the house felt more and more cramped. The reason, there were only three bedrooms – two on the first-floor and one in the attic.
The attic was where the three of us slept for the first ten years of our lives. It was an interesting place. The sharp angled ceiling thanks to the V shaped roof made for a peculiar feeling. The L shaped room ran the length of the home and yet large enough to accommodate the three of us – a bunk bed for my younger brothers and being the oldest a single for me. Windows on both ends of the room allowed for both morning and afternoon light, which made it bright and cheery throughout the day. I am not quite sure who chose the carpeting, but it was a small block shaped pattern blue tone color. It was an odd combination when contrasted against the typical 1970s light wood paneled walls. It did add an overall pleasantness to the unique space.
There were the four doors that opened into rarely used storage spaces. These tiny rooms when opened emanated nothing but blackness. At the time, our imaginations went wild whenever we opened them thinking ghost or goblins resided behind the doors. We dared one another to go in and stay as long as possible with the doors shut. I do not recall anyone ever going over the one-minute mark.
When reaching our fright threshold we signaled to one another with a loud scream when it was time to open the door. I remember that all-encompassing feeling of dread once the doors shut. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It was comforting that I could still hear brothers voices, but not enough so to make it past one-minute. To this day I do not know if it was our imaginations or there was some unseen entity lurking behind the doors.
This is why I believe my nightmare had such an impact. Well that and the storage space at the top of the stairs was the scariest of them all. I cannot speak for my brothers, but this particular space’s creepiness factor was off the charts. Whenever I opend those doors to put something in storage I would get so spooked and threw whatever it was and slamming the door as quickly as possible.
Continuing on with my horrific ordeal that took place while I slept, I stand before the bedroom door with a cardboard box in hand. I open the door and start to walk up the stairs leading to the bedrooms and storage space reaching the top without incident. As I closed in on the storage space door fear began to seep in. I am not sure if it was my childhood memory causing this or something real lurking behind the door. All I know is the objective is to put this box in storage. Reluctantly opening the door, at first glance I see nothing but darkness. As my eyes adjusted I could make out a blue quilted blanket lying on the ground in the shape of a body. I shrug that off as my mind playing tricks.
Because the storage space is small the entrance is as well. Now that I am an adult I have to get down on my knees and wiggle my way in so I don’t hit my head. On my knees I breech the threshold where darkness meets light. I just need to get myself in about a half a foot. Once there I can put drop the box, get out, shut the door and be done with it. Just as I am about to put the box down, the blanket in front of me moves ever so slightly. “It’s my imagination again,” I say out loud.
The topic of global warming came to me during an early morning bike ride along the trustworthy Tamagawa River that runs on the outskirts of Tokyo. Tucked in on my bicycle behind a not-so-powerful moped reaching a speed of 40 km (25mph), in an instant the image of my life as a 16 year old in my hometown of Edina, Minnesota popped into my mind.
My first decent bike was a 10-speed Trek and main mode of transportation. While I was excited to have a cool bike, all of my friends had mopeds. Edina was a middle, upper middle class community and at the forefront of cool and fashionable items to have – mopeds, Adidas shoes, Ralph Lauren and Levi’s. I had a bicycle, Adidas knockoffs and JC Penney Garanimal brand clothing. Consequently, for the longest time I felt I had the short end of the stick. Over time I reconciled the poor me syndrome and even came to see that it was a good life and learning to appreciate what I had.
As often was the case back then, my friends would call me up on the dial up phone, “hey Al,” they called me Al (like Al Gore) in those days, “We are going to so and so’s house, wanna go?” I was glad to be invited despite having a ten-speed bike. We gathered at a prearranged meeting place. Arriving with their spiffy looking mopeds resembling heaven’s angels off we’d go. Before hitting the road, my friends would have to first start up their mopeds. I on the other hand got a head start with my bicycle. After a few minutes they would catch up and zoom past without slowing up. The onus was on me to stay close. I quickly learned the best way was to jump in behind one of the mopeds and use the draft to maintain the same speed. Often my friends would gun the throttle to try and drop me, but the faster they went the easier it was for me to lock in my position. They were quite impressed.
As I reflect on this period of my life I realized just like the other Al that I was combating global warming long before it was fashionable. This must have been just around the time Al Gore started to make global warming his life’s purpose and long before “Inconvenient Truth.” Everywhere I went I rode my bike. Not only was I an unsuspecting pioneer, but this was also training for when I would eventually become a semi-professional bike racer a decade later. Unbeknownst at the time, the experience would also influence my thinking and choices later in life, and to this day.
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Growing up my dad and I used to sit in our dank, musty basement watching westerns almost every Saturday evening. While any western would do, we were both drawn to the spaghetti western style of Italian director Sergio Leone, (also known in Japan as macaroni westerns) and the early days of Clint Eastwood. Gunfights aplenty, I loved the standoff with two men ten paces apart ready to duel. The quicker draw lives. And the close up shots of scraggly bearded, dirt covered, cigar-smoking gunslingers was cool. I think it was one of the reasons why my dad had a beard and smoked cigars. And why I have one. No cigars these days though. Later on thanks to a university class on Japanese films, my allegiance to westerns switched to Samurai films.
Samurai were sword wielding military warriors loyal to their lords—daimyo during the Edo period (1603-1867). Much like a gunflight with a dual between men, the difference being a sword, and rather than a bullet ending your life in seconds flat, the sword fight was much longer ending your life with a precise slice to the mid-section. My favorite director Akira Kurosawa made Samurai movies such as “Yojimbo” (1961) and his most famous “Seven Samurai” (1951). His lead actor was Toshiro Mifune, whose onscreen charismatic presence exuded masculinity rivaling that of Clint Eastwood. Like Eastwood one look conveyed a depth of meaning and power without saying a word – Let the dual begin.
If there were a dual in the town where I reside, here’s how it would go down. High noon in Koganei city. A busy four-way stop lit intersection. A stone throw from my home. Two men fifty paces (twenty five meters) apart stare each other down. With nimble hands, both are at the ready to draw their weapons of choice. One is dressed in black skin-tight shorts and matching shirt resembling a deformed Ninja with bulges where bulges are not meant to be seen and holds behind his back what at first glance looks like a six shooter, but is upon closer inspection a six inch silver, phallus-shaped item. The Ninja’s nemesis standing short and frail, dressed in a white workman’s outfit with a bandaged right leg holds a cane concealing this centenarian’s weapon of choice—a mini Samurai sword. Squinting like Mifune, the centenarian sizes up his opponent, the tick, who is half his age and happens to be me. I attempt to meet his stare in an Eastwood-like manner. Thanks to the dust that has blown in from a passing car ends up in my eye causing rapid blinking and breaking the tension. Who will make the first move? Who will live to tell the tale?
What the Mifune-like character doesn’t know is that the tic’s weapon is nothing more than a compact bicycle pump unable to cause any egregious injuries. What the tic doesn’t now is that despite Mifune’s advancing age his sword wielding ability can gut a man’s mid-section with one smooth swipe. That would be my midsection meeting his sword causing a gaping wound. At first the skin tries to hold its place, but thanks to gravity doing its work the weight of my internals begins to seep causing the wound to widen. First to see the light of day my intestines, followed by the contents of my stomach and that morning’s breakfast, muesli and a partially digested banana. I double over trying to keep it all in its original locations. Futile. The blood streaming between my fingers makes everything too slippery to grasp. What had once been a clean city street is now crimson colored and littered with my insides. This grim portrait of violence I have painted for you is something that never happens on the streets of Tokyo. However, I do have an incident in which I would like to regale you with that does include me and a centenarian. While I wasn’t gutted in the end, in this real-life showdown, I would not have made Clint Eastwood proud.
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IF
