So I was having this discussion earlier with my brother about my philosophy of life, and I realized I’d never bothered to note it down, completely, on, errr, paper.
So here it is:
In the first place, pretty much every year since almost forever for me has been a journey of growth, either mental or experiental or emotional. One year I lost my dad, but spent six months drinking ourselves silly and watching cheesy TV shows while he died. I learned more about the man in that six months than I’d learned about him my entire life until then. One year I fell in love for the first time, and for more years after that I was broken-hearted. I made a lot of money and I said to myself “I was poor before, and if I am poor again tomorrow, then that, too, will be a new adventure.” Then I was poor again, and it was an adventure.
One time I spent a year flying to San Jose on Tuesday, and flying back the next Thursday. In San Jose was calm, utter calm. I had a couple friends with I hung out with once or twice a week, and spent the rest of the nights eating a fine dinner and reading Terry Pratchett novels unil two in the morning with a steady supply of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a pipe beside my bed. The weekends I spent at the beach in Santa Cruz, or in the redwoods at Big Basin.
When I came bgack to Austin, I walked into a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week party. Telecommuting is hard when there’s 110-decibel music pumping out of the living room speakers at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning, but I coped. Like the Narrator, I became the calm little center of everything. I’m mostly a Taoist, but there was a certain Zen purity to it. Not that I was pure; I was far from it, but that’s a whole different blog entry, destined for the other side of the statute of limitations.
One time I (checks statute of limitations) spent a whole summer eating acid with Dan (no, not that one) and Lanie Bear. Me and Dan started out with this idea to built a huge rail gun, to get rid of all this stuff we didn’t like. When I explained that we’d need a rail gun which could generate infinite energy in order to accomplish this, the plan changed. At one point, there was a plan to equip monkeys with backpacks that would, when they pressed a button in a large crowd, give them a treat. Another plan involved clonging baboon super-soldiers in a subterranean complex, and equipping them with motor-cycles and machine guns.
Ultimately, we rejected all these ideas as impractical, and decided that the simplest thing would be to get a lot of wood, and build a window, which, if large enough, would presumably lead into another universe. Then, all the stuff we didn’t like could simply be thrown out the window. Most things were destined to go. Certain things, like Lanie, and circles, and orange juice, could stay.
One night I was sitting out under a starry sky with Dan, staring at the firmament and Milky Way, and I said “when we get rid of everything, we should keep that.” Dan said “Oh, yeah, we’re keeping that. It’ll stay just the same, except for all those little twinkly spots.”
That’s about the same time Dan came to the conclusion that he was God (although, technically, that happened on a beach in Corpus Christi, when he realized he could change the color of the sky and sand at will). I shortly informed him that he was wrong, a mere imposter, and that I was God and you were all here for my entertainment.
Sometime after that, after I’d discovered that It’s more fun to be a wise-ass than a smart-ass, we came to our senses and realized that, rather than throwing all the many things we didn’t like out the window, it would be a lot easier to simply jump through the window with the things we like–and that, my firends, is the current plan.
We just need a lot of wood.
Somewhere in there, we also alighted upon a group life philosophy, perhaps the first I ever articulated. It was this: “fuck ‘em.” It was really that simple. If people weren’t as involved in you as you were in them, then, hey, no hard feelings, but when it comes down to it, fuck ‘em. You gotta look out for number one, because otherwise, who’s going to be left to look out for everybody else?
So, fuck ‘em. We came up with two principles to guide our actions: 1. In fucking them, make sure you are not inadvertently* fucking yourself. 2. Proceed to fuck.
Lanie and Dan added their own third principles: 3. Fuck ‘em twice, and 4. Fuck ‘em in the mud, just so they know.
I never more than half bought into both of ‘em, although I must admit number four sounded like a lot of fun.
Somewhere along the way I learned not to sleep with other men’s wives. Not that I ever didn’t know that; I’m just saying.
I give you this long and meandering tale so that you will understand that I’ve followed a very long and strange path to the place I got today. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve hurt a few people. I’m sorry for that, I really am.
It was all a learning process for me, though, and I really try my very hardest not to repeat the same mistakes twice. I like to think that the help and support and laughter that I try to bring to people’s lives in some way makes up for the times I’ve been a complete ass.
I am a Taoist, after all.
So the simple thing I’m about to say, it may not apply to you. It’s certainly not something I’ve come by easy or always effectively lived by. But at this point in my life I feel I should have certain principles that I strive to abide by. They’ve treated me pretty well over the years, and they are these:
1. When you wake up every day, ask yourself, “what did I do to deserve this?” If you can figure out the answer, and do something about it, it will be a happier question when you ask it tomorrow.
2. Whatever it is you do–wait tables, valet, repair computer problems, design software, clean sewers–do the best job of you can of it, every day. Soon, your diligence will pay off in the form of a job you like even more than the one you’re doing now.
3. Think about the things you do–your job, principally, although this goes for everything–and how it affects people’s lives. Does it make them better? If not, make it so, and once so, evaluate your decisions based on the effect it will have on the happiness of others. By maximizing the happiness of those you touch, you’ll maximize your own happiness.
4. Occasionally, just occasionally, break rules 1 through 3.
Thank you and good night, ladies and gentlemen.
*–Yeah, we said inadvertently, what of it?
