Hard-Drinking Employee Needed

Quite some time ago, I wrote that I was thinking of being friends with someone and then decided not to be (or if not, that’s what I should have written), which has caused our frequent meetings to be awkward. For a while, we said hello and nothing more, which was OK, but then one day I forgot that we usually said hello and so didn’t (it’s amazing how easily one can forget what, these days), and then we never said hello again, and it was uncomfortable.

She had made a good effort to mend fences after doing something that wasn’t necessarily bad, but had startled me unpleasantly, and so I felt kind of not so good about being the party most responsible for the mildly strained mood that has prevailed for some months.

Finally, last week I asked her if she had a few minutes, which she did, and I told her that I’m sorry for how awkward things have been, and that while I think we probably would not have success with a one-on-one friendship, I am all in favor of having a civil, even cordial, relationship in the current context, and also that I appreciate all she did to try to make things better.

I also apologized in particular for the day I forgot it was our custom to say hello; I said I was sorry that I didn’t have all my brain cells pointing in the same direction at the same time.

She was very warm and gracious—she said she understood what I meant about the brain cells—and I know things will feel easier in the future.

My meditation teacher talks about being “the witness for the prosecution”—focusing on what people have done wrong and how they, or we, should be condemned. It’s so easy to do. Many an engrossing ten-minute block can be whiled away thinking about someone else’s shortcomings (I can usually get through mine in a minute or two; of course, I have the most practice thinking about mine), but nothing worthwhile comes of it.

It doesn’t really feel good during, it doesn’t feel good after, and establishing unhealthy thought patterns brings many ill effects, including harmful words that slip out before one knows it. I don’t want to be the person who can so readily list what is wrong with others. I don’t want to be the person who can’t forgive, so I am glad, finally, to have cleansed my conscience at least in this particular regard, and I look forward to smiling and saying hello to this person next time I see her.

It would be great if everyone I knew met my every qualification, but better still if I can exercise the forgiveness muscle often enough that it can be employed when needed.

Plus the “it’s OK as it is” muscle, which really makes a huge difference. Here I must quote the Third Zen Patriarch:

“The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction,
however, and heaven and earth are
set infinitely apart.”

It is so true. I am practicing saying that such-and-such is OK as it is. OK as it is, and maybe even deserving of gratitude.

In another case of estrangement (I know you are startled I could have two) which has caused me much anguish over a much longer period, the other week, I found myself affirming that it was OK as it is, and further, offering thanks for a situation which may turn out to be the grindstone that removes parts of my personality that aren’t doing me much good, anyway.

It has certainly occasioned much reflection on where I went wrong, which I think is fruitful to an extent and then not, when it becomes self-flagellation. After I offered the thanks, very spontaneously I felt true remorse for a remark I had made that, in retrospect, was unkind and critical, so I think finally letting go of “This cannot be” is a good thing.

It also occurred to me that getting some practice in enormous losses is a fine thing, because sooner or later, we will lose everything, including ourselves.

I now have an answering machine because my parents sent me their old one. That’s the only way to get a decent answering machine now: your parents have to send you one.

It actually is also a tad murky, so I conclude that some digital machines just don’t work well on a DSL line, but I think it will do the job satisfactorily, until Hammett knocks it onto the floor.

I spoke to P. recently on the phone. He said this:

“I’d like to get a job with a stipend.”

“Like what?”

“Alcoholic.”

“You can get a job being an alcoholic and they’ll give you a stipend?”

“It’s possible.”

I realized later that since he is a (sober) alcoholic, he meant he would like someone to pay him just for being himself. That’s funny—that’s the job I want, too.