Get Mellow

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If I had been given a 14% chance of living to five years after my Lung GVHD diagnosis instead of a 13% chance, I would have then had to call my little self-help book HOW NOT TO DIE: In 14 Easy Steps instead of 13.

And as the additional step to keep one alive, I would have added “Get Mellow,” because I have learned throughout my years that life is stressful — it is even more so when your health fails you. One has to take action to keep it cool or the stress just compounds the damage.

In addition to prayer and meditation, I listened to many different varieties of relaxing music to get and stay mellow. However, once I found this Tibetan Bells video it became The One and Only.

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to it.

But, seeing how the stress levels seem to be rising…

It’s time for me to once again… Get Mellow.

OMMMMM

 

Shackled To History

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Back in the wonderful Nineties (Nirvana, 2Pac, The Matrix, Fight Club, etc…), I took a break from my normal Navy telecommunications gig to spend a few years in a special assignment as an Equal Opportunity Advisor.

To become qualified as an EOA, I had to attend three months of very intense and in-depth training at the military’s Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute at Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Let’s just say becoming an EOA is not the typical choice of an extremely White and WASPy dude like myself; so, due to the lack of other white, WASPy dudes like myself enrolled at the institute, it was one of those rare times in my life where I was in both the racial and gender minority for any significant amount of time.

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The Purpose of Pain

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When it comes to physical pain, it’s purpose is hardly in question: It focuses us to where our immediate attention and action is required.

We accidentally rest our hand on a hot stove top burner and, without our sense of pain, our hand, if it weren’t for our sense of smell, would become cooked well enough to serve up at the next meal.

We could laugh at this, but sadly and horrifically there are some who do not experience the sense of physical pain due to a rare condition known as congenital analgesia.

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Why Write, Dammit?!

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The Writing Hand

I’m not a very good writer, by which I don’t only mean it in regards to what I’ve written, but also and mostly to how I’ve written.

The act of writing pains me and I’ll pretty much do anything mostly legal I can to get myself out of it. I guess the best way to express how I feel about writing is: I don’t like having to write, but I truly love having had written.

But still, I don’t really know why I do feel the need to write except that there is some unidentified force and/or source beyond my reach and comprehension that obliges me to do so.

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Poetry is for Girls

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I may occasionally write the junk, but rarely do I read it.

And it is not because I don’t like it that I rarely read it…

It’s because it, the really good stuff anyway, is so durn hard to read.

I’m talking Poetry here…

Poetry with a big, bold capital P.

And it is so hard for me to read (And by read I mean read. I mean really digging into the poem and fighting through the initial confusion and the complicated and often archaic words. I mean, not just reading the poem, but studying it and trying to close the gap in time from when the poem was written to when the poem is being read by learning about the poet and where and when and why and how he or she is from and where and when and why and how he or she lived and then coming to my own understanding of what I think the poem means and then trying to apply that meaning to my own life and where and when and why and how I live it. That’s what I mean by read.) because it takes more than a little bit of effort to read it.

I certainly don’t have time for all that junk.

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Realm of the Benevolent and Its Loss of Hope

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More weird, rambling, forgotten writing recently found while rooting ’round the cluttered Draft files folder. I don’t remember writing it, ergo, I have no idea why it was written. However, as it appears to be a philosophical dilemma regarding torture, and, as torture has been one of the Freak Show promotional devices, I guess that kind of makes it relevant to today. Right?

Realm of the Benevolent and Its Loss of Hope

Or

The Significance of Being Earnest about Torture

 

You and your anointed line, the ancient Realm of the Benevolent, a most modest and compassionate line of monarchs if ever there was one, has ruled royal over all of the Earth’s bountiful domain from time immemorial. And while your realm has always been one full of Peace and Plenty, a new dark day has dawned upon it, for the Sorcerer of the Vile has finally united the Universal Forces of Evil against you and your humble people.

Spells by the Sorcerer have been cast, enchanting many of your brave and trusted nobles and subjugating them and all whom they lord over under the Forces of Evil. With so many of your own nobles now aligned against you, your realm’s existence is being threatened like it has never been threatened before. Your blood could be the last of your majestic line’s to flow.

One of your most valiant and strong amongst all your nobles, whose enchantment is yet unbeknownst to you, managed to storm the Chamber of the Grand Council of Goode while in session and kidnap your most trusted advisor and lifelong friend and one whom to all is known simply as Hope.

Hope has always been there for you for as long as you have ruled. Without her by your side, you feel lost, helpless. Defeated.

For days you hear nothing of Hope’s fate until finally a most horrid of dark riders on a most horrid of dark horses brings word straight from the Sorcerer of the Dark himself that he is willing to allow Hope to live, but only if you, like so many of your enchanted nobles have, swear a subjugating oath of fealty to him of the Vile.

And you have only until the Hour of Eight to do so.

Luckily, amidst your despair at the loss of Hope, word arrives from a messenger of the yet clear-headed and un-enchanted Lord Squarejaw that he and his loyal guard have captured a close confident of the Vile Sorcerer and one whom Squarejaw is certain knows where Hope can be found. But time is short and as of yet no answers are forthcoming from the Vile allegiant and Squarejaw fears and that there is only one way to get answers from his captive before the reckoning Hour of Eight strikes. And that way is through… torture.

For Hope’s sake, what do you, you in all your benevolence and grace, do?

~ Bring your ancient and noble line to an end by subjugating yourself and your realm to the Sorcerer of the Vile and his Forces of Evil, thereby letting Hope live?

~ Continue to resist the Sorcerer of the Vile and his Forces of Evil, thereby letting Hope die?

~ Sacrifice the ideals and principles of your ancient bloodline and Realm by ordering Lord Squarejaw to torture the Vile allegiant in the hope that the captive will provide the information that will enable you to save Hope before the Hour of Reckoning?

 

Fake News is so Poe-thetic

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I read an Edgar Allan Poe story today entitled The Angel of the Odd.

It’s a fun, fast, Kafka-meets-Twain, easy to forget kind of read.

But what is most memorable to me about the story is that it is entirely set up around the protagonists drunken dismay over what we would call the “fake news” of the day…

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The Murky Link Between the Russian Cyber Threat and My Novel

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This is a link to the live recent Senate Intelligence hearing regarding “Russian Hacking and Cybersecurity.”

This is a murky link.

This is a link to The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor, my book about the harsh realities of life in the navy during the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell era.

What is the relevance of the murky link between the two?

Probably none.

But you won’t know for sure unless you watch the hearing to understand why the Russian hacking of our cyber space is threat to our sovereignty and read the book to understand why intolerance and bigotry is a threat to our humanity.

#prettymurkyright

COPING with #CANCER?

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Hey! How about that?!

Our good friends over at COPING With Cancer magazine featured an excerpt from my little book HOW NOT TO DIE: In 13 Easy Steps in their recent edition.

Pretty cool, no?

Yes, indeed.

You can learn more about the magazine and all the good folks there doing God’s work here.

You can learn more about my book here.

You can check out the post the book was inspired by here.

And you can learn how I feel about pink as the color of cancer here.

#cancerisjustastateofmind
#peace