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RANTS AND MUSINGS

There are some things in life that warrant the odd scream, let's face it stupid people do stupid things.  Here are a few of my favorite Rants, Raves and Musings as well as some deep thoughts for all of you deep thinkers.

SMELLING SALTS

THE TASTE BUD PARADOX

RANTS

PERSPECTIVE...AND WHY IT IS SOCIETIES COSTLIEST COMMODITY.  THINK OF ALL THE TIMES THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN A STEP BACK AND SAID "WOW THAT REALLY PUTS LIFE INTO PERSPECTIVE"...I'M BETTING THAT THE EVENT THAT CAUSED YOU TO SAY THIS IS A TREMENDOUSLY SIGNIFICANT ONE, WHETHER IT BE THE SICKNESS OR LOSS OF A FRIEND, A TRAGIC ACCIDENT OR A CLOSE CALL, PERSPECTIVE DOES NOT COME CHEAP, BUT WHEN USED AS A TOOL FOR RE-EVALUATION IT IS TRULY WORTH EVERY CENT.

JEALOUSY...ONE OF MY FAVORITE TOPICS, THERE IS NO LOGICAL REASON FOR SOMEONE TO EVER FEEL JEALOUS AND I AM GOING TO EXPLAIN WHY.  FIRST ASK YOURSELF IF YOU LOVE YOUR PARTNER, IF THE ANSWER IS YES, THEN THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO YOU SHOULD BE HIS/HER HAPPINESS.  THIS BEING THE CASE IF YOUR PARTNER TALKS TO SOMEONE ELSE, DANCES WITH SOMEONE ELSE OR BECOMES FRIENDS WITH SOMEONE ELSE WHO MAKES HER/HIM HAPPY SHOULD WE NOT BE HAPPY FOR THEM? TAKE THINGS ONE STEP FURTHER PERHAPS YOUR PARTNER EVEN FINDS SOMEONE ELSE THAT HE/SHE DECIDES THEY WOULD BE HAPPIER WITH, ULTIMATELY SHOULDN'T YOU BE HAPPY FOR HIM/HER, GIVEN THAT YOU LOVE THEM AND THAT THEIR HAPPINESS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU?  THIS IS WHY PEOPLE WHO TRULY LOVE EACHOTHER SHOULD NEVER BE JEALOUS OF ONE ANOTHER.

BANKS....THEY GOT YOU COMING AND GOING, IRONIC THAT THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT NEED THEM ARE THE SAME ONES THAT THEY DON'T WANT TO HELP.

SLOW GOLFERS ....OK, YOUR NEXT SHOT IS PROBABLY NOT WORTH  800,000 DOLLARS, SO PLEEEAASSSE HURRY UP.  YOUR WASTING MY TIME AND THE TIME OF THE PEOPLE BEHIND US.  IT TAKES 2 SECONDS TO SWING A CLUB AND UNDER AN HOUR TO WALK 5 KMS, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT YOU MAY HAVE TO LOOK FOR THE ODD ROCK (15 MINS) AND SPEND SOME TIME WITH THE BAR CART (1HOUR) BUT EVEN SO,, GIVEN AN AVERAGE ROUND OF 85, THAT'S STILL ONLY ROUGHLY 2 HOURS AND 21 MINUTES TO PLAY A GAME OF GOLF.  ANY MORE THAN THIS AND THERE'S A SPOT FOR YOU ON TUESDAY MORNINGS (NO BAR CART THOUGH).

ICE IN DRINKS....IT DOESN'T COST MUCH AND IT WILL MAKE YOUR CUSTOMER THINK YOUR MAKING TRIPLES INSTEAD OF DOUBLES AND SAVE YOUR EMPLOYER SCADS OF MONEY IN MIX, A GOOD DRINK STARTS AND ENDS WITH A LOT OF IT.

ROAD BLOCKS....WHY IS IT THAT 4 POLICE CARS AND SIX OFFICERS ARE NEEDED TO WRITE ME A TICKET FOR A $12 INSPECTION STICKER BUT WHEN MY HOUSE GETS BROKEN INTO AND A BUNCH OF STUFF GETS STOLEN, AFTER TWO HOURS AND 3 CALLS TO 911, I GET ONE OFFICER, A BUSINESS CARD, A FILE NUMBER AND THE IMPRESSION THAT I WILL NEVER SEE MY SHIT AGAIN.

MANNERS...AND WHY DO KIDS HAVE NONE?  TIMEOUT THIS.  WHEN I WAS KID WE ALL KNEW THE IMPOLITE BRAT BECAUSE HE WAS RARE, NOW WE KNOW THE POLITE KID FOR THE SAME REASON.  PLEASE, THANK YOU, MR. SMITH, MRS. SMITH, YES SIR INSTEAD OF YUP AND NO MAAM INSTEAD OF NAH..........IS IT REALLY THAT HARD TO SHOW SOME RESPECT.

YIELDS AND MERGES.....THIS IS A YIELD SIGN   THIS IS A MERGE SIGN     CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF THEY DO NOT MEAN THE SAME THING.  MOST THINGS THAT LOOK DIFFERENT USUALLY ARE.      IN THE EVENT THAT YOU FIND YOURSELF YIELDING OR HEAVEN FORBID STOPPED AT THE BEGINNING OF A MERGE LANE, LEAVE YOUR CAR IN DRIVE, GET OUT, RUN AROUND TO THE FRONT OF THE CAR AND LAY DOWN. 

CHEAP PEOPLE....I'LL CONCEDE THAT SOME PEOPLE HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO BE 'CHEAP', BUT FOR YOU BUGGERS GOING TO YOUR GRAVE WITH YOUR FIRST DOLLAR AND A COUPLE MIL IN THE BANK....SHAME, SHAME, SHAME.  I AM GOING TO HAVE A GREAT TIME WATCHING YOUR KIDS BLOW ALL OF THAT HARD EARNED MONEY AND FOR ALL THOSE TIMES YOU SLIPPED OUT THE SIDE DOOR WHEN IT WAS YOUR ROUND, I'LL GET IT BACK TWO TIMES OVER FROM YOUR OFFSPRING.

SIDE BY SIDE DRIVERS....YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.  WHEN DRIVING ON A FOUR LANE HIGHWAY IF YOU ARE IN THE FAST LANE AND THE GUY NEXT TO YOU IS IN THE SLOW LANE AND YOU BOTH HAVE YOUR CRUISES SET AT THE SAME SPEED, NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU TRAVEL YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO  PASS EACH OTHER, LET THAT LONG LINE UP OF CARS IN YOUR REARVIEW BE A CLUE THAT THE TWO OF YOU ARE HOLDING UP PROGRESS, MOVE OVER.

AIRLINE TRAVELERS....WHY IS IT THAT NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES THE STEWARDESS SAYS "PLEASE REMAIN IN YOUR SEATS UNTIL THE PLANE HAS COME TO A COMPLETE STOP AT THE GATE", THERE IS ALWAYS A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO START STANDING UP BEFORE?  WHAT'S THE RUSH, YOU COULD HAVE STOOD UP AND STARTED GETTING READY TO DEPLANE 10 SECONDS AFTER TAKEOFF, BUT NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY YOUR NOT GETTING OFF UNTIL THE PLANE IS STOPPED, THE DOORS ARE OPENED AND THE 43 PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU ARE GONE.  HAVE A SEAT AND RELAX.

MUSINGS AND OTHER BITS….

    The trouble with life is that the 80 odd years between the time you are born and the time you die is not nearly long enough to figure everything out.

If the sun is a star and every star in our sky could therefore be a sun and every star in our sky that could be a sun could then support a solar system and if every star in the sky that could be a sun supporting a solar system could have a planet like earth orbiting it, how many other planets are there out there like earth given that there are billions of stars in the sky?  How about thousands of other planet earths?

Six centuries ago, prior to Columbus ’ discovery of the Americas , what did people think when they stood on the shores of Europe peering west into the sea of vast blue water?  I’m betting they thought the exact same thing that the majority of people think today when they lay in their backyards and look skyward into the blackness of the night, that what we know is all there is. 

I’ve always had a lot of questions about religion and thought a lot of the scriptures in the bible, if taken literally, were quite often improbable and more than a few contradictory with each other (how many sons did Abraham have any way).  Besides if half the people on earth believe in God and the other half believe in Allah, who is right and who is wrong, or are God and Allah the same person seen through different eyes, although neither side would admit that this were the case?  In any event, I do believe that church and God fill a tremendous need in society, simply because it provides two very important things to A LOT of people, hope and answers.  

If you have completely committed yourself to god and the church and believe without question all that is written in the bible, then you have all the answers and all the hope that one could ever require to sidle through life, after all when it’s all over you're going to heaven.

What about chance and circumstance, every millisecond of every second of every minute of every hour of every day of our entire life presents a multi tined fork in the road for which we must choose a tine,….having chosen the tine we are now in the next millisecond presented with a new fork with new tines that are completely different from the ones we would have been presented with had we chosen a different tine in the previous millisecond.  Our life is what it is simply because of choice

Melissa asked me out on our first date, today we are married, had she not asked me out would we be married?  Together we had a beautiful daughter, where would she be had Melissa not asked me out?  

Watch closely what you do for the next 60 seconds and become aware of every choice you make, now look back on those choices and ask yourself, had you made different choices where would you be and what would you be doing.  It's amazing how many choices we actually make without realizing it.  The only time that we do not make choices is when we are sleeping, but we did choose to go to sleep.  Sometimes even when we are sleeping we are still making choices in our dreams.  Why is it that when we look back on our dreams when we are awake that some of the choices that we made and the results they produced seem so bizarre?  

The moral being,  choose wisely.

True Love….what is true love, if it is finding your perfect ‘soul mate' than I would go as far as to say that the chances of finding true love are very slim.  Take my case in particular, lets generously say that I have met (conversed) with 5,000 potential true loves, this would mean that I have but 3,500,000,000 more to converse with before I have sifted through the rest of the possible true love candidates on the planet. Further to that, once I have interviewed the 3 ½ billion of them, I have to hope that I am also her true love otherwise I’ll be in a real bind, knowing that my true love exists but that she loves someone else.  Things really go amuck if you factor in those billions of stars in the sky and all of those other potential earths and the potential true loves who inhabit them. 

To me true love is someone you can’t imagine living without, someone who helps you wander through this escapade called life, someone who is strong, supportive, enduring….beautiful on the inside and out, to the eyes that you see through, someone who creates more happiness than frustration, a friend for the duration, someone you can count on, someone like Melissa.

Death …having had the proverbial “near death experience” I have an outlook unlike most, save those who too have had a near death experience or have been faced with their own mortality due to serious illness.  I do not fear death and know that I never will, I will however fear being alone or more to the point leaving the people I love alone.  We are all going to die, as are our friends and our friend’s friends, this we can only count on, not control, unfortunately people die. 

As a result of my experience with death, on a personal level I have become very cold and practical, almost unfeeling and unaffected by death.  On the contrary, to the nth degree I have a renewed energy about life and how to best enjoy my time here. 

I will spend every ounce of momentum in my body to put a smile on the face of a friend, to make his days and mine the best they can be, to organize events, go to dinners, have party’s or to simply enjoy each others company, but when that friend passes I will not feel sadness, and I am unsure why.

A personal experience with death does have one very significant benefit, it gives you instant and life long perspective, picking the tines of the forks in the road becomes much less confusing when you have perspective.  Decisions are much easier, problems less significant and priorities much different.  In an instant everything in your life that you considered intangible before now has value.  Some of the things that you once felt were insignificant, now are not, conversely the things that you previously held in the highest regard may no longer matter.  To death I owe this debt of gratitude, as you have made my life infinitely better than it ever could have been had you not come along for that short visit in ’91, looking forward to the rematch in 50 years.

THE PRICE OF THE 4TH TV.....A portion of our excess should be spent where it will bring the greatest result. For example, if we have a choice between adding a 4th TV to our home or helping out someone who could really use it, ask yourself which will have the biggest impact. 

In life we always wait for things to go on sale so that we can save money, because in our thinking, the less we have to pay for something the greater the value we see in our purchase.

To an extent we can follow this logic and say if the $500 dollars we are going to spend on our 4th TV brings us 70 'units' of 'happiness', but this same $500 is used to aid a needy family through the holidays, or help a young person play hockey for a year, or send a child to camp in the summer, brings them 200 'units' of 'happiness' then we have maximized our $500 by adding 130 'units' of happiness.
In TV buying terms, this actually would be equivalent to getting that $500 dollar TV for $270. 

The obvious downside being: that you are not going to be able to watch TV while on the dunny, the upside: is the real possibility that you have positively altered someone's life forever, all for the price of a 4th TV.

THE TASTE BUD PARADOX

It’s like a little hidden trick, perhaps a slight snicker from above that says “with everything there is a price, how much are you willing to spend?”  When it comes to people of wealth I feel especially sorry for those who are born rich (Hilton, Ritchie), for they have clearly been put at a disadvantage of having way fewer taste buds to start their lives out with than their ‘normal folk’ counterparts.  At least those people who start out poor and then become rich (Oprah) can reflect back on the time when they had nothing.  They once had a whole lot of taste buds and can say “remember when”. 

We all have taste buds, they are used to distinguish flavors' and to make food more appealing to us, and they are after all the real reason why we enjoy eating as much as we do.  They are also the basis for our appreciation of it.  What most people don't realize is that 'taste buds' control a lot more than just the flavor of food, they also control the flavor of life.   Honestly, is there anything more rewarding than satisfying a craving?  You know the part where your whole body goes “Ahhhhhhh” whether it be for food or something else that we desire.   What would life be like without cravings and the drive to satisfy them, what would it be like if everything tasted the same and we had no discernable way to truly appreciate what it was we were enjoying? This is the basis for the Taste Bud Paradox.

It is easiest to explain in this way, our appreciation (AP) for something is a function of our desire to have it (D) divided by our ability to get it (A), D/A= AP.   If we are rich our ability to get what we want, whether it be a car, a house, a painting, a new watch or any other monetary item is very high, conversely, however if we are poor our ability to get this same item is usually  very low. As a result, given the above formula, there is a significant appreciation difference between a rich person and a poor person.  In the end, although both people may have  received the same item, the poor person will inevitably experience an infinitely greater amount of pleasure and appreciation. 

Does the man who purchases his second Ferrari derive as much appreciation or pride as the teenager who has saved up for two years to purchase his first $2000 car?  Does the millionaires $20,00 Rolex enrich his life as much as the paperboys $125 Timex that he has been saving up for all summer?  Does 3 weeks on the French Riviera at a cost of 30k bring more happiness and enjoyment to the silver spooned newlyweds of a billionaire than a $1500 one week all inclusive trip to Cuba would for a hard working middle class couple?  The answer is no.  In every case I will argue that the opposite is true, because the less 'fortunate' person still has a great set of Taste Buds that they can use to truly appreciate what they are experiencing and be thankful for it.

The worst case scenario in the Taste Bud Paradox is the person who has so much money that he or she can literally have anything that they desire (Buffet, Gates) and their ability to acquire any item they want is infinite ( %100).  How can they possibly establish any appreciation for what they have, after all it holds no real value.  How do they ever feel fulfillment, pride or satisfaction?  I guarantee that it does not come from monetary items; these are impervious of any true value in the hands of someone that did not have to ‘exert effort' to get them. 

What of desire (D) at this level, is desire not driven by the sub conscious knowledge that something is almost unattainable?  Do we not desire more what we can not have or at least realize that we must work very hard to attain?  If there is nothing that we can not have what would we truly desire?  Does owning that 200 foot motor yacht provide a greater sense of pride and appreciation to the man who purchased it than it does to say his hard working captain who sails it for him?  Probably not.  I’m betting the Captain has way more appreciation, pride and internal fulfillment from the yachts luxuries than the owner could ever dream of.  Once again does this seem fair, why should the lowly captain be the beneficiary of all these wonderful internal feelings of pride and appreciation while the owner who outlaid the 50 million to purchase the Yacht sits in his state room and frets over why his humidor is not working properly and his linens are wrinkled, all the while completely ignorant of the fortune and luxury that surrounds him?

This is the cruelness of the Taste Bud Paradox.

So, in the end, does this mean that all rich people are unhappy?  No, not really, but I will say this, everything has its price and the price of wealth is ultimately going to be your taste buds.  Is it better to be rich or poor is a decision for each person to make individually.  But I do believe the Paradox exists, and I believe it was created for a reason.  In the end the best bet is to find fulfillment in other places.  Monetary items whether you are rich or poor will rarely provide the long term benefits that something as simple as friendship or family can.  Happiness is a conscious decision, made within, by you, not by someone else, but having quality people in your life sure makes finding it a lot easier.

Ideally, the best scenario in my mind would be to be born poor, become rich, be blessed with a really, really good memory and have more friends than dollars and the help of a loving family to help keep track of them both.

SMELLING SALTS

Once again yesterday I found myself 10 minutes away from doing something I was suppose to have done 10 minutes ago, so naturally I was in another one of my hurried states as I headed out to pick up Ryan at her day care.  Life has been busy, business a little slow and the pressures of day to day existence everything that one would expect.  Sometimes it’s easy to become overwhelmed with all that there is to do in the run of a week and as a result come down with a mild case of ‘why me-itis’.

Winter had finally decided to begin its exit in our area which should be an emotional bonus, but the weather is still cold, grey and damp, and that’s the excuse I have chosen to explain my mood of late, after all if Shakespeare can use it to set the tone, why can’t I?  It’s not quite full out exasperation or depression but more or less a mild case of the blahs; I really do believe that a change of seasons will do that to you.  In any event, life has been a bit dreary, so when you add to it the fact that I am late getting to where I am suppose to be the last thing I needed to see on the long straight stretch of road ahead were 9 cars stopped behind a school bus as it moseyed along letting off its passengers.

I’m all for public transportation and school buses but why must they stop every 5 houses to let out kids two at a time, what's wrong with letting the little buggers out all at once and having them walk for a bit?  After about the sixth stop in 500 feet I could feel my face starting to flush.  My mind kept flashing back to when I was a child and we all got off as a neighborhood group and were faced with lengthy walks to get home. 

In any event, the last stop before the bus turned down a side road was the clincher, it just sat there, for what seemed like 10 minutes, with the red lights flashing and the stop arm fully extended.  I tried to peer over the roofs of the 9 cars in front of me to see what was up, occasionally glimpsing in my rearview to take some solace in the fact that there were another dozen or so cars piling up behind me that were experiencing the same agonizing delay.  As the seconds ticked by I began to notice the odd person in the procession edging in frustration to the side of the line to try and get a better glimpse of what it was that was taking so long.  I was getting ready to scream, the flush in my face was turning to a sweat on my brow, being 10 minutes late was lengthening into 20 and it was all caused by this bus full of lazy ass kids who couldn’t walk a few hundred feet to their houses but instead required door to door service. 

Finally the flashing lights on the bus turned off, the stop sign swing arm returned to its normal home tucked neatly along the side and we were once again underway.  I fully expected to pass a very large group of kids walking down the side walk, that was the only reasoning in my mind that could possibly explain why this stop had taken so long, but oddly enough that was not the case.  Actually, at this stop there was only one child that got off, and unfortunately for her she was not walking. 

In an instant all of the anxiety, dread and anger that I had been feeling in the previous moments  were completely gone, vacated by the sight of a little girl being guided by her father up a rickety old wheel chair ramp to their home. It was clear now that the few fleeting minutes that to me had seemed like 10 were filled with the actions of a loving dad hurriedly trying to get his disabled daughter and her wheel chair off of the bus and safely home.  I'm sure he was aware, aware of the long line up of cars behind them and aware that he needed to work fast so as to not hold up all of those 'busy' people.  He probably felt flushed too, but for a different reason.  

Who was I to be feeling inconvenienced, to be getting angry at being late or frustrated at being stuck behind a school bus, I don’t know what anger, frustration or depression is, if something as trivial as the changing of the seasons or running late can make me feel all of these emotions how would I be at dealing with day to day life as a 7 year old confined to a wheel chair?

As I began to slowly roll past their home I found myself now fixated on the two of them, I watched intently as her dad and her crested the top of the ramp and began to disappear inside their house, as they started to cross the doorway he leaned her chair back just slightly, enough to bring up the front wheels and allow them to scoot over the lip of the door frame, at the same time her head swung back with the slant of the chair and he leaned down and gave her a quick playful kiss, a ritual the two of them probably shared in each and every day.  Although I could not see her face I knew that she was smiling, smiling at this kiss from her dad, smiling at being home safe and sound and smiling because she was alive and she was loved.

I knew this because I was smiling too.