Holding On Tight Onto A Dead Sky

Eight: Kitara.

Brilliant video.



Hopefully brilliant live.

But I'm Not

Seven's the one from 2010 that put roots down into my heart while I tromped around in the 2011 snow.

Just Bees And Things And Flowers

Six. Because I long for the fuzzy heat that is how this song feels.

The Discipline To Let Things Play

Five: Finally, an indie rock white guy.

I'm 20 Feet Tall

Four.

If I/Get off my knees/I might recall/I'm 20 feet tall

Better Things To Do

Third on a no-particular-order Best Of/Sort of.

Did I say ten? That may not happen--I got better things to do, like soak up this mama's experience. Mmm. Hmm.

Whether You're High Or Low

Another entry in the Best Of/Sort Of Past-stakes.

Ain't That Some Shit?

File this in my random and belated Top Ten of the last year (Or So):

Here, There, And Everywhere

This is wisdom and logic I wish to remember in the coming year. I want to preserve it somehow from the ephemeral din and rude wit of Facebook, so I'll save it here, too.

Countering Stress and Depression

by Dalai Lama on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 4:25am

At a fundamental level, as human beings, we are all the same; each one of us aspires to happiness and each one of us does not wish to suffer. This is why, whenever I have the opportunity, I try to draw people's attention to what as members of the human family we have in common and the deeply interconnected nature of our existence and welfare.

Today, there is increasing recognition, as well as a growing body of scientific evidence, that confirms the close connection between our own states of mind and our happiness. On the one hand, many of us live in societies that are very developed materially, yet among us are many people who are not very happy. Just underneath the beautiful surface of affluence there is a kind of mental unrest, leading to frustration, unnecessary quarrels, reliance on drugs or alcohol, and in the worst case, suicide. There is no guarantee that wealth alone can give you the joy or fulfilment that you seek. The same can be said of your friends too. When you are in an intense state of anger or hatred, even a very close friend appears to you as somehow frosty, or cold, distant, and annoying.

However, as human beings we are gifted with this wonderful human intelligence. Besides that, all human beings have the capacity to be very determined and to direct that strong sense of determination in whatever direction they like. So long as we remember that we have this marvellous gift of human intelligence and a capacity to develop determination and use it in positive ways, we will preserve our underlying mental health. Realizing we have this great human potential gives us a fundamental strength. This recognition can act as a mechanism that enables us to deal with any difficulty, no matter what situation we are facing, without losing hope or sinking into feelings of low self-esteem.

I write this as someone who lost his freedom at the age of 16, then lost his country at the age of 24. Consequently, I have lived in exile for more than 50 years during which we Tibetans have dedicated ourselves to keeping the Tibetan identity alive and preserving our culture and values. On most days the news from Tibet is heartbreaking, and yet none of these challenges gives grounds for giving up. One of the approaches that I personally find useful is to cultivate the thought: If the situation or problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it. In other words, if there is a solution or a way out of the difficulty, you do not need to be overwhelmed by it. The appropriate action is to seek its solution. Then it is clearly more sensible to spend your energy focussing on the solution rather than worrying about the problem. Alternatively, if there is no solution, no possibility of resolution, then there is also no point in being worried about it, because you cannot do anything about it anyway. In that case, the sooner you accept this fact, the easier it will be for you. This formula, of course, implies directly confronting the problem and taking a realistic view. Otherwise you will be unable to find out whether or not there is a resolution to the problem

Taking a realistic view and cultivating a proper motivation can also shield you against feelings of fear and anxiety. If you develop a pure and sincere motivation, if you are motivated by a wish to help on the basis of kindness, compassion, and respect, then you can carry on any kind of work, in any field, and function more effectively with less fear or worry, not being afraid of what others think or whether you ultimately will be successful in reaching your goal. Even if you fail to achieve your goal, you can feel good about having made the effort. But with a bad motivation, people can praise you or you can achieve goals, but you still will not be happy.

Again, we may sometimes feel that our whole lives are unsatisfactory, we feel on the point of being overwhelmed by the difficulties that confront us. This happens to us all in varying degrees from time to time. When this occurs, it is vital that we make every effort to find a way of lifting our spirits. We can do this by recollecting our good fortune. We may, for example, be loved by someone; we may have certain talents; we may have received a good education; we may have our basic needs provided for - food to eat, clothes to wear, somewhere to live - we may have performed certain altruistic deeds in the past. We must take into consideration even the slightest positive aspect of our lives. For if we fail to find some way of uplifting ourselves, there is every danger of sinking further into our sense of powerlessness. This can lead us to believe that we have no capacity for doing good whatsoever. Thus we create the conditions of despair itself.

As a Buddhist monk I have learned that what principally upsets our inner peace is what we call disturbing emotions. All those thoughts, emotions, and mental events which reflect a negative or uncompassionate state of mind inevitably undermine our experience of inner peace. All our negative thoughts and emotions - such as hatred, anger, pride, lust, greed, envy, and so on - are considered to be sources of difficulty, to be disturbing. Negative thoughts and emotions are what obstruct our most basic aspiration - to be happy and to avoid suffering. When we act under their influence, we become oblivious to the impact our actions have on others: they are thus the cause of our destructive behaviour both toward others and to ourselves. Murder, scandal, and deceit all have their origin in disturbing emotions.

This inevitably gives rise to the question - can we train the mind? There are many methods by which to do this. Among these, in the Buddhist tradition, is a special instruction called mind training, which focuses on cultivating concern for others and turning adversity to advantage. It is this pattern of thought, transforming problems into happiness that has enabled the Tibetan people to maintain their dignity and spirit in the face of great difficulties. Indeed I have found this advice of great practical benefit in my own life.

A great Tibetan teacher of mind training once remarked that one of the mind’s most marvellous qualities is that it can be transformed. I have no doubt that those who attempt to transform their minds, overcome their disturbing emotions and achieve a sense of inner peace, will, over a period of time, notice a change in their mental attitudes and responses to people and events. Their minds will become more disciplined and positive. And I am sure they will find their own sense of happiness grow as they contribute to the greater happiness of others. I offer my prayers that everyone who makes this their goal will be blessed with success.

The Dalai Lama

December 31, 2010

Published in the Hindustan Times, India, on January 3rd, 2011

Lady Rockford, Children At Your Feet

On a Thursday evening this past August I met my friend at the Oak Street Beachstro after work. It was late in the month, so instead of the brutally humid air, perfumed by pungent storm drains, that typifies early August in Chicago, the night was mild, gentle. September was just hours away.

My friend and I sat at a table from which we could watch the lake and the bristling palm trees that the Park District stuffed into dumpster-sized planters. The Beachstro is an open-air bar/restaurant that aims for a louche, Margaritaville vibe but still serves a market price filet and mixes Manhattans for the septugenarian retired bankers and anestheslogists and their preserved wives who live in the high rises overlooking Lake Shore Drive -- a world away from the metallic bikinis and Eighties cover bands just up the coast on the big fake boat at North Avenue Beach. A temporary sun deck perched on the edge of a manmade beach that's overshadowed by skyscrapers, it's, in a word, an anomaly. I like it because it is one of the few places one can sit next to the water in Chicago in a chair, at a table, and with a drink.

We met there a few times over the summer this year, a tradition we started in 2009 when my friend realized that her friend is the general manager there. That's a boon when you want to sip Coronas by the lake at Gold Coast prices. We'd been catching up for an hour or so, discussing, as she and I are wont to do, this road called life and its curves and potholes. We were chatting with the aforementioned manager, as direct and polite a guy as you'd expect to manage a restaurant at the crossroads of city beachfront and old money and nouveau riche, when a middle-aged British lady woman approached our table to speak with him. She was determined to express to my friend’s manager friend that the service at the Oak Street Beachstro was very good. Very good.

She had more to share than how much she enjoyed the salmon dinner, this fiercely positive Mrs. Londoner-now-in-Rockford, IL-who-is-really-an-Essex-girl (just like the famous chef Jamie Oliver "—well, he is an Essex boy," she told us). In fact, Lady Rockford ("that's what they call me," she told us) appeared with downright creepy timing: just after an almost-perfectly-round pink moon rose out of Lake Michigan, and just before an unexpected ten-minute fireworks display over Navy Pier nearby.

Once she vowed that the Beachstro's service was among the best she'd experienced, here or in England, it turned out that Lady Rockford was there to remind us of a few things. How gorgeous the night was, how we are leading charmed lives, how we are blessed here in America, because she has done food service work in the Ukraine (?) and they are really hard up over there, they have nothing, and we have everything. We are blessed! She was put out by her parents at age fifteen, you see, and so she went up to London and worked. She knows the value of work, learned it then, yes indeed, she did. Especially when she worked in the Ukraine, because let me tell you, they have it pretty bad in the Ukraine. Bad.

“I work hard. You work hard! I can tell you all work hard, and here you are, enjoying how hard you've worked in this wonderful place!” Her eyes looked into each of ours.

I started to get cold chills from the utter aptness of oracular oration, because just moments before, my friend and I had been discussing how towering mountains of bills and people who don’t get us are ultimately outweighed by the opportunities we have and the people who surround us who do get us and the joy within the continual task to learn to understand ourselves.

“Look around you,” Lady Rockford said, “just look at this. We have it good!”

So I did. I saw the moon gently lighting a path on the water, the river of headlights on Lake Shore Drive, the dark, trapezoidal Hancock Tower. I saw the palm trees springing out of their sturdy flower-filled planters, thriving there on the concrete, and I could hear the lake’s waves lapping at the manmade beach. I saw things made and placed where they don’t belong, but somehow still fitting there.

Then the moment dissolved, and refocused into a more typically absurd encounter with a garrulous stranger. Lady Rockford described her one spectacular U-turn in the middle of Michigan Avenue, which I think happened when her husband’s retina detached (?) and they had to go see the “amazing” doctor in Water Tower Place who was just “amAZING" and took such good care of him and that’s how Lady R learned to drive in downtown Chicago, don’t you know?

I'm not one to question good fortune (or I try not to be), and I think mysterious ways should be left to be mysterious, lest they be so dissected and diagrammed that they become normal. But as I rode my bike home beside the lake, still holding its moonpath to the horizon, with the city glittering behind me and the final fireworks winging overhead, I suddenly thought of how Emily asks the Stage Manager in the play Our Town, “do human beings realize life as they live it? Every—every minute?”

No, Stage Manager replies, "The saints and poets, maybe they do some."

But I think some of us ordinary human beings do. Not every minute, of course. And, actually, not even as the final minutes of a year tick away. I think it's a compulsory act, the December 31 realization, the kind of taking stock that happens before medical exams and weddings and living room furniture purchases.

But some of us maybe can realize in random minutes during the 14th or 9th or 36th week of the year, when the leaves on a tree are blown just so, or a toddler smiles in the airport, or when a chattering stranger and the moon and the fireworks and the manmade mountains inexplicably align.