Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Tuesday, September 30, Untrustworthy memories

Post 1285, Day 273 of 2014
- 1,369 days since I started this blog -
Daily Comment
Don't-you-hate-it-when-that-happens Dept: I had a great topic for today's Daily Comment, but I forgot it.

So, let's look at memory, for a second.

First of all, there's a difference between memory and recall. 

Everything around us, all events that occur, every perceptual stimuli, creates a memory. I'm pretty sure (but not certain), that the creation of a memory is marked by a physiologic change.

However, recall is another thing entirely, because, just like any perceived event, it is subjective, both in which memories can be accessed, and, once active, the perceptual filters that frame, re-frame and edit all our recalled memories.

I don't trust my memories to be objectively accurate, so see no reason why, in the absence of a recalled memory, I can't just make shit up. And, I admit now, I do that.

I 'remember' when this started: On New Year's Eve, 1972. I was at a party (I used to attend many New Year's Eve parties each holiday night) and got into a discussion with an interesting guy. He seemed pleasant and interesting, so I introduced myself and asked him his name.

I still cringe when I see his face. He looked at me and said, more or less, you're kidding, right, asshole? You know me!

Another friend I was traveling around with that night gave me a dig in the ribs, and a look that said, what's up? I was bewildered. I looked at him, gave a sheepish laugh, and said, I don't know, blame it on the drugs, or something, but I can't recall where I know you from, or your name.

My traveling companion got me out of the party quickly, and dressed me down, telling me how I had hurt this nice guy's feelings. All I could say was, even though we'd hung out at college on an almost daily basis for a year, and even after I had been told his name, I had no recollection of knowing this guy.

From that point forward, I have never relied on my memory, and look for more 'objective' or at least 'agreed-upon' interpretations of what I remembered. When I hear a version of an event that is different from how I recall it (happens a LOT!), I might offer my version, but I always try to couch it in terms of my recollection, not how it might actually have happened. At least, in my head.

Our perception of reality has no objective validity, and neither do recalled memories.

It makes me wonder if I really did have an idea for today's Daily Comment. I think so.

But I could be wrong.
 

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 Food and Diet Section
2014 Daily Weight
Today's Weight:          207.2 lbs
Previous Weight:         209.2 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:       - 2.0 lbs

Diet Comment
Post-weekend good eating means a nice pullback from the temporary gain.


Food Log 
Breakfast
Eggs scrambled with kale, peppers and onions, side of bacon.
Lunch
Tuna salad and baby kale, baby spinach, chard and cole slaw mix.
Snack
Quest bars.


Dinner
Turkey patty with spaghetti squash. Not shown: celery with home-made mayonnaise, Ezekiel 4:9 Flax toast with guacamole.
Snack
Quest bars.


Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 96+ oz.

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Monday, September 29 Be happy

Post 1284, Day 272 of 2014
- 1,368 days since I started this blog -
Daily Comment
Let the good times roll.

Happiness is a decision, right? I think it works better as a positive decision ('I am happy now') than as a negative ('I won't let things make me unhappy'), but maybe they're equally effective/ineffective.

Because I'm not sure. 

A few years ago, and a few years after hitting a low point, another negative came my way, and I just decided that going forward with optimism and a positive attitude, assuming that difficulties perceived in the present were temporary, enabled me to endure a period of unemployment and insecurity without worry or fear.

And I did the near-impossible: Landed a good job at age sixty during a terrible economy/employment period. It took a little over three months, and I suffered almost no financial setback. 

And I've been happy. I am happy. Sitting in my cubicle at work writing this, I'm feeling kind of 'up'. When I don't pay any attention to how I'm feeling, I smile (so I'm told - I'm 'famous', locally, for smiling all the time, especially when I'm playing music).

I'm certainly grateful, but also aware that this is a different kind of happiness than what I've been pursuing all my life - it isn't always joy, it isn't always orgasmic. Rather, it is a sort of balanced happiness, or a happiness that comes from a sense of balance. A sort of acceptance that whatever is currently going on allows happiness.

It isn't a possessive happiness, either. It doesn't feel like an acquired or earned happiness.

More like a discovered happiness - it was there all the time, I guess, and right now, it is exposed yet not vulnerable.

And it will change, but still be happy.
 

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 Food and Diet Section
2014 Daily Weight
Today's Weight:          209.2 lbs
Previous Weight*:        205.6 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:       + 3.6 lbs
                         * Friday, Sep 26
Diet Comment
Oh, the weekend. Things took a turn for the too-bad beginning at a slightly rushed before-gig dinner eating fried haddock (fail!) on a bun (fail!) with fries (fail!). And went south from there. Nothing to do but make this a better week.


Food Log 
Breakfast
Quest bars.


Lunch
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, celery, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend. And a Quest bar.

Dinner
Pepperoni and cole slaw.


Snack
Quest bars.


Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 112+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

Friday, September 26, 2014

Friday, September 26, What, me worry?

Post 1283, Day 269 of 2014
- 1,365 days since I started this blog -
Daily Comment
Mad magazine was, for reasons I don't understand, lumped in with comic books and forbidden to me when I was a child.

Reading friends' copies, I was always delighted at the 'adult' humor that my parents (mainly my father, I'm guessing), found too juvenile and tasteless to condone. That being said, I have no evidence at all that either one ever read a single copy.

I think it was a matter of money. I think a lot of my parents' parenting decisions revolved around a 'scarcity' mentality regarding the family finances. Comic books and non-serious magazines were discouraged (except for Classics comics, thank goodness, because they were totally awesome), and weren't things the children were allowed to spend their money on.

As adults, however, they had no problem with science fiction magazines, 'culture' magazines (New York), or newspapers - I think we might have been allowed comics if the New York Times included a comic strip page, instead of the single-pane political cartoon that appeared occasionally.

I did my best to disguise this in my own parenting decisions, maybe bending over backwards into the area of over-indulgent. I think that's better. The value of frugality may have been missed somewhere along the line, but not carrying the burden of worrying about money (a worry about the future) all the time strikes me as being just as valuable, if not more.

It took numerous occasions when not having any money was a present problem, and gaining and losing wealth, for me to work this out.

This little ramble started with Mad magazine, and here's the reason why: Their mascot Alfred E. Newman's motto: "What, me worry?" 

I should have learned that as a kid, and didn't.
 

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 Food and Diet Section
2014 Daily Weight
Today's Weight:          205.6 lbs
Previous Weight:         206.6 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:       - 1.0 lbs

Diet Comment
This has been a good week from the diet point of view. Losses every day! No fails!


Food Log 
Breakfast
Eggs scrambled with kale, peppers and onions, side of bacon.
Lunch
Chili: Organic beef, black beans, tomatoes, chili spice, raw cacao, stevia-inulin blend. Not shown: Cole slaw.
Dinner
At Rudy's in Oswego: Fried haddock on a hamburger bun with french fries.


Snack
Quest bars.


Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 92+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Thursday, September 25, Eat dessert first

Post 1282, Day 268 of 2014
- 1,364 days since I started this blog -
Daily Comment
Talk about the weekend ending with a thud!

One of the participants at Saturday's reunion had a stroke, hemorrhaged, and died last Monday, less than 48 hours after we were talking about the glory days.

Another 'eat dessert first' moment for me when I heard (yesterday). 

Change is the only constant, and you have to be open to whatever comes your way, and try your best not to let your fears (remembrance of things that happened to you in the past, or dark predictions about the future) prevent you from seeing what is going on in the present.

That's not easy, ever, at least not at my current level of personal evolution - or it is, and some of those same fears are preventing my seeing that.

When I meditate, I'm there. When I play, I'm there. The rest of the time? I'm kind of stuck in intellectual knowledge of where I should be, but interactivity seems to keep me locked into learned patterns that may or may not have relevancy, may or may not be helpful.

Thus, I can't be grounded in the here and now, and thus, my relationship with the present is compromised.

That's where the mistakes come from. That's where sadness, anger and fear come in.

My dead friend seemed very happy when we last spoke, and was very glad to hear that I was too.

I'm glad we left it like that.  
 

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 Food and Diet Section
2014 Daily Weight
Today's Weight:          206.6 lbs
Previous Weight:         207.0 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:       - 0.4 lbs

Diet Comment
It's a mini-trend in the right direction.


Food Log 
Breakfast
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, celery, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch
Quest bars.


Dinner
Chili: Organic beef, black beans, tomatoes, chili spice, raw cacao, stevia-inulin blend. Not shown: Cole slaw.
Snack
A Quest bar.


Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 102+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!