Everything with John
I used to have a really good friend named John. (And yes, this one time, I’m using a real name.) I often wonder what happened to John. Please do not recommend that I use the internet to find him. Do you understand the futility of googling someone named John? Maybe I should hire Dawg the Bounty Hunter. Just don’t rough him up, okay? I want our reunion to be joyous.
Something happened yesterday that make me think of him. Then I felt sad that he still isn’t in my life. Big time. Cry.
The memory trigger was a tweet by one of the supremely important people I follow. (They are all important. Why else would I be following them?) It was a bit of humor about the classic “everything” sale where some items are excluded. See? That’s not “everything.” It’s just the kind of thing that would set John off.
The “everything” sale has feasted my soul for years. It must have been decades ago when I first became aware of this phenomenon. A department store (that used to exist at the time) had an “everything” sale. The fine print, of course, excluded things like: linens, housewares, electronics, automotive and jewelry.
I remember thinking: What the hell else is even left in that store? Certainly nothing I ever wanted.
My mind grappled with the illogic of it all. How, in the greatest country the world has ever known, can an advertiser come out and issue baldfaced lies in the name of profit? I assumed some government agency would swoop in like Inigo Montoya and say, “You keep using that word. I dunna think it means what you think it means. Prepare to die!”
But that never happened. A little naive innocence in your guru died that day. There is no truth fairy.
In that vein, I now present three short stories involving my friend John. Enjoy.
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My nine-pound hammers
This is my scheduled Tuesday post, but as I sit here and write this, it is still Monday morning before work. It’s a special period of time I like to call The Dark Time. I just woke up and before I know it, lickity split, I’ll be back in the shit hole.
The act of going to work has a physical and emotional impact on me. The closer it gets to 9am the more ill I feel. And on Mondays this effect is especially pronounced.
Because I love my job so much I thought this would be a good time to share a couple of videos about work.
As we all know, those of us who work full time have to face certain realities. The first is that in a typical week, “work” is the single most important aspect of our existence based on the amount of time. As far as hours are concerned, work is rivaled only by sleep. If you think about your week as a pie chart, things like spouses and family are inconsequential slices compared to work and sleep. And one of the smallest slivers that can be found in that pie? Time spent doing things we enjoy and voluntarily get to do. In other words, the time we spend doing what we choose to do. For most of us, that’s the smallest part of the whole damn week.
So it is important to step back and evaluate our existence from a different perspective. How is work working out for us? Is it meeting our needs? Or only those of the boss?
It’s a surprising idea to think that we can take more ownership of our work experience and proactively make it better for us. This idea is explored in the first video.
In the second video, some important questions are raised. Why is it required for employees to go to places called offices which are actually obstacles to work getting done? How is it possible to get more work done? And who and what gets in the way?
So, the theme of this Monday morning post is fittingly: Work. It’s what’s for dinner. (Or something like that.)
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/1069
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/1014
Strange days indeed
Source: Wikipedia
Nobody Told Me
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed, strange days indeed
… most peculiar mama
… most peculiar mama, whoa
I’ve just been feeling that we’ve been having some strange days lately and it made me think about John Lennon.
I know some young folks who say the don’t like the Beatles. Personally I think they are missing out on a lot.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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