F Is For Family... Right?

It's also for philosophy. Hey, they sound the same. Give a guy a little artistic license, here, will ya? Oh, and money. Lots and lots of filthy lucre.

Saturday, August 28, 2004

 

Why don't family problems get any easier? Take three women, one very unstable, self-conscious and fairly cynical man and four (yes, I said four) cats and shove them into a small apartment. Add an extremely limited budget because of artistic endeavours, disabilities and poor money management skills in both adults. Stir in bipolar disorder(manic-depression), attention deficit disorder(ADD), social anxiety disorder, attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder(ADHD), borderline personality disorder(BPD) and sprinkle various health problems all around(argh). Now, mix in mistakes, biases, teen and pre-teen angst, old emotional wounds, temperamental artistic moodiness, more than one major life crisis per household member and dysfunctional symptoms beyond counting. You'd think that the entire Inland Empire would have been brought to it's collective knees by now. I don't think the Philadelphia Project spawned this much raw ordinance.

This morning I'm just reeling from the backlash of my inability to handle it all with a spring in my step and a smile on my face. I want to be a better person, for the love of God and all that's holy! I want the wisdom of the Dalai Lama, the foresight of Nostradamus, the compassion of Mother Theresa, the level-headedness of Siddartha, the social consciousness of the Pope and the patience of Gandhi... and I want it right now, d****t!!! Every time I turn around I'm more angry than I truly should be and sharing it with everyone around me. What the hell?!?!

Let's face it. I'm inadequate. I need to be a super-human superhero. The best I can manage is to be a quasi-human with good intentions. I don't wish anyone harm... but I hurt them anyway. The Buddhists believe that life is suffering, both mental and physical. They also believe that the truest forms of happiness that exist in life are found in friendships and family. It just never occured to me that all of those traits could coexist in the same apartment.

So what do I do? Well, I'm trying to find comfort in the Taoist philosophy of Wu Wei (literally translated: "do nothing") that when you do nothing everything gets done, in it's natural fashion. It refers to the fact that in nature, what I feel is simply an example of the perfection of God's creation, things get done exactly as they were meant to get done. Here's a little excerpt from a favorite tomb, The Tao of Pooh:

"The Wu Wei principal underlying T'ai Chi Ch'üan can be understood by striking at a piece of cork floating in water. The harder you hit at it, the more it yields; the more it yields, the harder it bounces back. Without expending energy, the cork can easily wear you out. So, Wu Wei overcomes force by neutralizing it's power, rather than by adding to the conflict. With other approaches, you may fight fire with fire, but with Wu Wei, you fight fire with water."

In that vain, I have to remind myself that I'm trying too hard. I need to be... just be. That means be myself, be content with life and all it's blessings and try to remember that I'm actually very lucky because I don't deserve the things that I have.

There, I feel better.

Now it's time for a top ten, because I know that education and enlightenment are important to all of you. After all, it is the "rage of enlightenment." (Don't use that... it's been copyrighted by some think-tank in England... I checked.)

The Top Ten Philosophies That Didn't Make It:

10. Skroo Yu: based on the ancient teachings of Scottish free-loaders.

9. Qis Mai Gritz: this may actually have been started by Genghis Khan and the mongol hords but the earliest instances were recorded at a greasy diner in Arizona.

8. What Are You Lookin' At?: pugilistic in nature and started before recorded history, more recently it's practiced widely by people like Sean Penn, John McEnroe and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

7. Oohpz: the eastern mystics postulated that in every social circle there is one person who will inevitably find the most expensive thing in the room and knock it over.

6. Jhusst Schoodt Mi: inevitability in all its permutations can bring even the most robust of us to the conclusion that it's time to get medieval on your own a*s.

5. Looz Ehrz: another from the eastern philosophers who studied communal living and discovered that they themselves should really get out more.

4. Mah-Succor: this is a rarely discussed off-shoot from the Islamic practice of "jihad," that literally translated means "struggle" not holy war. Mah-Succor, literally translated, means "I'm suffering from PMS and you've pissed me off."

3. Knodt Mi: from a Welsh phrase that means "know thy self" the philosophy teaches that it's okay to do anything... unless you get caught.

2. Gogh du Hel: in the anals of history there have been so few true philosophies that came out of the French Impressionist period. This one teaches that the annoying earn the right to be relocated to a warmer after-life.

and the number one philosophy that didn't make it:

1. Aye Haight Yu: practiced by the early druids and passed down through all European cultures this philosophy manifests itself amongst teenagers when asking their parents for things they obviously know they can't have.