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eleven

2004-10-07 - 11

Thank you and I'm so grateful to all the sober well wishers who sent me gifts and messages on the super information highway; it was an excellent birthday, unlike last year when I didn't even go to a meeting. One of the messages I was sent by the email was this one.

"Slow, Simple, Beautiful, Loving

There is a close connection between slowing down, living simply, and bringing beauty and love into our lives.
The economist E.F. Schumacher made a deep impression on millions of people with his book Small is beautiful and I have often thought of writing a companion volume called slow is beautiful.
As George Barnard Shaw used to ask, how is the person traveling three hundred miles per hour more civilized then the person traveling three miles per hour?
I am not a champion of poverty - no one anywhere should have to live in poverty - but I am a champion of simplicity. To me the simple life is beautiful, artistic, and esthetically satisfying. It produces the maximum effect with a minimum of means. Far to often our modern technology, despite its ingenuity, produces just the opposite, the minimum effect with the maximum of means. According to a saying in my mother tongue, Malayalam, we are using a sword to cut a ribbon.
This is not an issue for governments or corporations to solve. If every man and woman will try to simplify life in accordance with their needs and the context in which they live, they will find they have plenty of time to love.
Although "love" has become a common word today, it is frequently used without any understanding of what an uncommon thing it really is. People talk about falling in love like falling in a manhole. It's not at all that easy. We need time, a slow pace, and a simple life to gain some understanding of what love is."

Ecknath Easwaran

And this is a great tune by Toby Keith.

"I Love This Bar

We got winners, we got losers
Chain smokers and boozers
And we got yuppies, we got bikers
We got thirsty hitchhikers
And the girls next door dress up like movie stars

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

We got cowboys, we got truckers
Broken-hearted fools and suckers
And we got hustlers, we got fighters
Early birds and all-nighters
And the veterans talk about their battle scars

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

I love this bar
It's my kind of place
Just walkin' through the front door
Puts a big smile on my face
It ain't too far, come as you are
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

I've seen short skirts, we got high-techs
Blue-collar boys and rednecks
And we got lovers, lots of lookers
And I've even seen dancing girls and hookers
And we like to drink our beer from a mason jar

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Yes I do

I like my truck (I like my truck)
I like my girlfriend (I like my girlfriend)
I like to take her out to dinner
I like a movie now and then

But I love this bar
It's my kind of place
Just trollin' around the dance floor
Puts a big smile on my face
No cover charge, come as you are
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

We got divorcees and a big bouncer man
An old jukebox and a real bad band
We got waitresses and we got barflies
A dumb-ass and a wise-guy
If you get too drunk just sleep out in your car

Reason number 672 why

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Play it on out boys
Beer-thirty's over
Got to take it on home

Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
I just love it"

11 years and a day ago I prayed a few things, one for help with stopping drinking, another one to be able to look around at inanimate objects and not get freaked out by their invasiveness, they were almost like dark looming people, especially this one particular pair of shoes. I looked at them and it hurt to think about them. No thought was safe, all thoughts were subject to distortion and most strangers wanted to kill me, especially the plumber, I was sure. I broke out in a sweat when he was trying to fix the sink and he had no idea of the inside job I was needing. People were not to be trusted, and I had become afraid of even my friends and acquaintances. I was also sure no one knew any of it, until one hangover morning when one of my fleeting party passerbys said

"You can't keep living like this Ohell."

I didn't know he could see through me that way, but now I knew that many more of them did too.

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