I strive to make this blog more than a compendium of carping cavils, a cellar of acidic whines, a half-full glass of luke warm dysphagia with a dyspepsia chaser, despite an often robust appearance to the contrary.  

We all have our complaints, which sometimes must be shouldered out of the way before better things can come in to play.  Some of these posts are just grunts I put my shoulder into, to allow me to do something more productive.   Sometimes setting some galling absurdity into a few short paragraphs helps me move forward, though I am always happier when a post can help someone else move forward too, or allow some gentle, or even vicious, reader to pause and consider something from another perspective.  

It is a blessing to recall, when pressed, the blessing of all this; the gift of life.  The senses that sense, the limbs that work, the interactions with those we care about, the things we love to do.  Life is hard and grim, or easy and fascinating, partly depending on what we are undergoing and partly the result of our perspective.  

We learn now of a happiness gene, some people born genetically predisposed to feel good, be chipper and positive.  These types are apt to burst into song, because of the presence of a gene on their twisted coil of DNA.  We have long known of a predisposition to melancholia and other qualities that drag on the spirit.  A happiness gene, there’s a delightful fucking thought!  God bless the happy.

The narrative of a successful life is constant and pervasive: it is a busy life filled with tangible and regular achievement.   Hardly time to sit down in this tightly programmed life, let alone brood, and certainly not about problems well beyond your power to help solve.  On the other hand, those too busy to brood… I don’t know about them.  

Seems to me a person who doesn’t have time periodically to ponder things outside their own life is missing something.  On the other side, a person who has only time to ponder is clearly not doing enough with their life.

It’s possible that I have mastered nothing but the art of rationalization.  I have found the thing I most want to do with my life at this point:  be in a room full of kids who don’t have a chance and watch them excited about feeling like they have a chance.  Becoming a finger pointing to a world of creative possibilities.  

By the time these at-risk kids are grown up, if they make it to adulthood, water might be too expensive for them to afford anyway.  The oceans may have reclaimed cities everywhere, the world might be more like Mad Max than anything else.  The odds are clamorously against anyone who does not avail themselves of every advantage their life offers them.  The odds are always tilted against fairness and decency on any kind of large scale, particularly with a multiform mass media megaphone droning “fuck them!” 24/7.  Self-interest and the profit motive rule the world, Mr. Fucking Ahimsa-face.

“Slaughter sides!” screams the skinny kid on the team of losers, looking at the muscular, athletic giants chosen for the other side.

“Yeah, you got a problem with that, squirt?”  A game’s a game.  The game must be played, the hand dealt must be smelt.   

“The one who smelt it, dealt it.”  False, but at least it’s got a bouncy rhyme.

I’m rambling a bit here, and have to get back to my busy schedule, time is money and chop chop and all that rot, but take a few seconds to breathe one deep breath and let it out slowly.  

Seriously.  Take a moment and breathe, just once, deeply.

I’m doing it now. 

Nice.   Few things compare to that, my friend.  

Now, let’s take a quick look at some accidental, if minor, delight, provided by our friends in the world of professional sports.