Even Nice Kids Can Be Dicks From Time To Time...

... yes, even me.  I know!  Stop gasping, you'll hyperventilate, pass out and hit your head on something.
I could not live with the guilt.
Back en pointe, like the pretty Black Swan I am...
I was excited, but scared, to go away to Boy Scout camp when I was 12.  How would I do it, not possessing the skillset to throw a ball, run, pretend to like sports, or poop in the woods?  Actually, to be fair, I did like pooping in the woods until the episode of Poison Ivy Penis visited my Netherlands.
But three weeks of forced swims, unfortunate softball, making of whistle lanyards and Tandy wallets, and hundreds of verses of "There's A Hole In The Bucket, Elijah" was a hard sell for me--other than the swimming, which I loved (even though your arms and legs would get tangled in green bottle brush type pond weeds and turtles would nip at your legs...), I was a defective boy.
God knows I had the intense desire to be good at ANY of those things, but it just wasn't in my DNA.  It woud have been like asking my mean counselor to recite lines from Man of La Mancha.  Wasn't gonna happen.
Slightly softening the horror of away camp was the fact that my best friend, Billy Cirilli--great name huh?--would be there with me.  He was a great boy at all things boy, and I by association, seemed like a normal enough kid to have around--just not someone you'd want on your team.  Ever.
The first week wasn't soooo bad, even though I missed my parents a lot, but I stiff upper lipped it.  Here, enjoy evidence of my state of mind:

Enter weeks two and three.
Hell.  Pure hell.  Some mean spirited, closeted counselor decided I must be gay since I sucked at baseball.  The torture began. Making me do jumping jacks by myself in front of 100 kids, which, in retrospect would have been fun to watch as I was approximately the shape of a polka dot.  Having to run with my arms over my head until I couldn't anymore, crying which seemed to be the funniest thing many people had ever seen.  Watching the counsellors eat my special lemon cookies my mom sent in a care package...
Pants being pulled down, being stared at going to the bathroom--it was like auditioning for the role of choir boy.
Around week one and a half, my spirit broke and my rage turned away from the tormentors and toward my parents.  THEY enlisted me in this hell, they drove me there, they didn't rescue me.
Well, I still felt it important to reach out to my family and thank them, let them know I was still alive.  Here's postcard two:

What a nice kid huh? I found these when my Mom was at home in the final stages in hospice and showed them to her, and she laughed until she wept.  So of course, I immediately framed them and put them up in her room. She woke up every morning with a grin and a chuckle--even in the final stages of a brutal cancer.
Thank God the humour nullified some of the angry brat and reminded one of the universal misery that we have all gone through at some point.  And brought moments of joyous reflection.
Camp seemed less awful in golden sepia memory.  That I liked.
That said, Counsellor Closet WAS a jerk and I hope he learned some compassion.  Or died a slow, firey, painful death.
Oops.  I thought I was better.
Oh well.
PS. It's cut off a bit, but there is a lovely 'PS I hate you' along the side.

Posted via email from hermesalchemist's posterous

The Melancholy Optimist, aka To Coin a Phrase.

The Melancholy Optimist.

If one were to judge my state of mind by reading my blog, they might think I was sliding the slippery slope into a pretty dark depression. I don’t think that’s the case. I think my general nature is that of the melancholy optimist. Yes, I do acknowledge I have a light, upbeat, positive and open side, and I equally acknowledge I have a dark, hidden, restless, sad and solitary nature as well.

Bipolar? Nope. Been tested. Extraordinarily Gemini in nature, the Goofus and the Gallant? Definitely.

I prefer to think of it as both sides of the same coin. Duality, polarity noted by Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu and the basic tenet of alchemy, as noted by Hermes Trismegistus.

Hermes aka Hermes the Thrice Great, was “a divine fountain of writing, Hermes Trismegistus was credited with tens of thousands of writings of high standing, reputed to be of immense antiquity. Plato's Timaeus and Critias state that in the temple of Neith at Sais, there were secret halls containing historical records, which had been kept for 9,000 years. Clement of Alexandria was under the impression that the Egyptians had forty-two sacred writings by Hermes, encapsulating all the training of Egyptian priests.” (From our friends at Wikipedia…).

One of these writings was the Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, an ancient text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its transmutations. (Thanks again, wiki.)

One of Hermes’ findings was the Law of Polarity: All things are dual in nature. Opposites are identical but different in degree. All things are balanced in their extremes of opposition.

So I guess I’m just being true in acknowledging that I am dual. Jung felt it was only after one truly embraced their darkness or shadow side that one could fully evolve.

"The task of midlife is not to look into the light, but to bring light into the darkness. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” ~Carl Jung : Alchemical Studies

I think you might have gotten the gist that I like the mystical answer. Astrology, psychics, philosophy and metaphysics. Religion, karma, intentional destiny and chaotic fatalism. All are attempts to make sense of our world and the events around us.

While I love the idea of karma biting the bullies on the ass and giving the good guys an extra slice of pie, I also have tried to grasp the reasons behind seemingly senseless acts of cruelty, violence, illness and loss happening to kind, compassionate people.

Is it possible in the quest for meaning that the lesson is that there is no meaning? That seems too fatalistic. If everything is one’s destiny, then would there even be a point in getting out of bed or making a decision? Fate said you were going to have peanut butter for dinner. Why break your back for a steak?

This philosophy would appear to take away any sort of responsibility for one’s life. It’s attributing what happens around us to prewritten destiny. One’s action or nonaction would have been fated to happen. Hey does this mean I can eat like a pig and never exercise again? I must have been meant to be a pig!

Okay then. Where does this place the power of positive thinking, creative visualization, prayer, and changing your thinking, changing your life? At exact opposites. If focused intention could wish away any challenge, would anyone die, be sick, have their favorite team lose the Super Bowl?

In a really half assed attribution because I can’t remember which of David Sedaris’ writings I read it in, he pictured a God sitting around deciding who would win the Tony Award and when to make the foliage peak in Vermont.

If all prayers were answered, there would no death (unless some creep prayed for someone’s death…), there would be peace, enough food for all, no disease or debt, seven day weekends, and our Christmas dinner would have a hell of a lot more Hermes, Goward, Tewksbury, and Martins around it, as a pack of adored dogs and cats begged for handouts (unless they could pray for their own little all you can eat mouse and bone buffet…).

So maybe this means that life may be a mixture of reasonable and unreasonable, fair and unfair, justified and unwarranted.

What has prompted this whole thought train or derailment, as cynics might view it, is my trying to make sense of the basketful of challenges I have been given.

Am I working through some horrific karma? Was I Klaus Barbie or Vlad the Impaler in another life? A puppy puncher and braid puller? An antecedent of Britney Spears? God forbid, the inventor of Spam? Doubt it.

So why the sickness, the debt, the loss? To learn important lessons in order to evolve? Because it was destined? Because I manifested it?

Or is all this ‘poor, poor me’ pity party mentality simply caused by the insanely Self-obsessed monkey mind thinking everything that happens around us is about us? That seems really egocentric self-important.

Lots of questions. And I guess it boils down to, the more I learn the less I know. And I am guessing that’s a lot to know.

Duality as One.

“What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear? Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.

Empty your mind of all thoughts.

Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don't realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow. When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king.

Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death comes, you are ready. The great Tao flows everywhere”

Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching as translated by Stephen Mitchell

"We are not amused..."

Fugee, upon hearing that Helen Mirren won best actress for The Queen, sniffed his nose and sighed. I think living in a Victorian has given him a Queen Victoria complex.

Royalty. So temperamental.