The Marshmallow Experiment

If you haven't seen this video yet, watch it now.  Like, right now.  I'll still be here when you get back.

Done?  Okay, good.  Yesterday's post was pretty heavy and I feel like I need to balance it out by at least starting this one with something light.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not done processing through the fallout, but I'm at least in a bit better mood than I have been for a few days, and I'm ready to get on to something less serious and dense.

I saw this video last night after I got done 'blogging and it gave me a lot to think about in light of recent events.  For one thing, it basically sums up the entirety of Wednesday night for me in a few short minutes.  I'm not sure which kid I looked like most at which moments, but between driving to three different grocery stores and pacing their beer aisles for 20 to 30 minutes a piece, all while actively talking to myself, I'm sure the expression on my face was more than slightly similar to several of them.

Even though it's a couple years old, I'd never seen it before.  A webcomic I frequent talked about it in a recent podcast, referencing behavior in their own kids and saying they have no concept for the future.  That idea is funny to me, like every little kid is sort of like that guy from "Memento," constantly stuck in the present with no ability to connect their current situation to any sort of meaningful experience.  I thought about kids as caricatures of the adults who created them, or maybe even self-parodies of the adults they would become.

It's cute and funny to watch little kids struggle through the inner-turmoil of delayed gratification, but it's something else entirely to think of those same children, years down the road, seated in front of a beer or a cigarette or a crazy ex-girlfriend who cheated on them.  There's something innately hilarious about the idea that a child would suffer such anguish for something as trivial and cheap as a marshmallow, but how many times have I allowed myself to run the gamut of depression over a job I hated or a girl I didn't really love or some possession that I didn't have the money for.  I think the truth is less that children can't comprehend the future and more that adults just develop a taste for something other than sweets.

I guess that's the thing that makes me sickest about lapsing.  In total, I went off the radar for less than 36 hours and I was only out maybe $40 by the end of it.  Admittedly, I don't exactly have $40 laying around to waste right now, but this is coming from a person who spent $200 a bar tab for three people in less than four hours.  In short, I've done a lot worse.  The thing I'm really kicking myself for, though, is not just how easy it is for me to buy in to the lie that I'll be happy if I get whatever it is I think I want, but how often that temptation shows up in my life and how often I fall for it.  I don't stop to think that what I want may not be good for me.  I don't consider how often and easily "things" will break and how nobody ever cares about your job as much as you do and that people will always let you down in some way or another.  It's like the adult inside me dies for a minute and all that's left is a kid and his marshmallow.

I dunno... it's a cute video and I like it, but it made me think a lot.  Just thought I'd share it with you guys.  G'night, all.  Here's hoping for a better tomorrow for all of us.

- P -

The Last Few Days

Somewhere between being totally out of practice and not wanting to write about the only things going on in my life, it looks like January is going to go down as one of those "two-post" times where there's a traffic spike mid-month when I actually do post, but everything else is just two or three people checking to see if I've died or something.  For the record, I am not dead.  I just smell a little funny.

There's not a really great segue for it and I don't have some plucky lead-in, so I guess I'll just go ahead and say it: I lapsed last week.  After one year, one month, 28 days, 22 hours (and some change) without a drink, I got a running start and jumped off the wagon.  I wish I could say there was some huge difficulty in my life that pushed me over the edge, but there really wasn't.  It was a combination of a bunch of little things that just kinda caught up with  me, I guess.  It's kinda like the way a tornado works.  There have to be certain and specific weather conditions in place for a funnel cloud to actually form, and even more certain and specific conditions for it to touch down, more specific ones to perpetuate it, etc.  Everything lines up in just a certain way and, suddenly, the sky's all dark, the wind is blowing every which way, and this massive storm is now ripping through everything in its path and cutting a swath of destruction through what used to be a really nice neighborhood.

I remember actually seeing the aftermath of a tornado up close when I was in high school.  I was at a church camp in Nebraska and there had been one that cut right through the middle of the campground.  What used to be this really nice, heavily wooded path had a weird, ominous feel because of all  these big, beautiful pine trees that had been knocked over only a few days before and the camp hadn't had the man-power to get it cleaned up.  It was crazy how odd it looked to see all of these more or less healthy trees uprooted and lying on the ground, like my brain could only handle the thought of one or two old and rotting stumps and wasn't prepared to see this instead.  Also, just thinking about the strength of something that could tear down that many trees was kinda scary.  I've grown up in Texas all my life and have "survived" a number of tornado warnings/watches, but I still don't think I can really wrap my head around the idea of a spinning cloud that rotates with a wind speed anywhere between 100 and 300 miles per hour.

Regardless, I didn't sit down to write about tornadoes.  I guess, ultimately, my point in all of this is that I've pretty much spent most of the last year studying/battling my drinking as a phenomenological object and not really examining (or, at the very least, doing anything meaningful to try to affect change in) the factors that created it.  I can sit and talk about how I've used my drinking in the past to punish myself or to self-sabotage my life, but I can't really tell you why.  For one thing, I don't really have any good reasons as to why, but for another I don't really want to.  I don't want to admit to living a life that isn't meticulously planned and diligently executed.  I don't want to say that I have a drinking problem because I have a living problem.  I don't want to have to look people in the eyes and tell them that I made mistakes that are responsible for their pain and I don't have anything to give them to make up for it except an apology.  I don't want to have to come to the table and admit that I can't make any promises about who I am and what I'll do because I'm weak and unpredictable.  I don't want people to know that my word is next to worthless.  I want to act in a trustworthy manner and have people like me.  I just don't know how to stop doing and feeling the exact opposite.

I took my last drink Thursday night around 10:30.  I'm not sure why the time is important, but I remember during the first go-round feeling it to be a very vital and necessary detail.  I feel discouraged and sad that I fell down this way, but as my friend Cliff told me Friday morning when I called to 'fess up to it, I can't really change what happened.  I can only start where I am with what I have in front of me and work my way out from there.  I don't have any excuses and I'm not really even sure they would make much difference if I did.  I will say this, though: I need to be really careful not to take my sobriety for granted.  I may have worked really hard to get where I was before I kicked it all over, but I didn't earn it and I certainly don't deserve it.  For someone with a drinking problem, sobriety is a gift and a blessing and I never should have thought of it as anything else.

I'm going to try to make February a more consistent 'blog month, but who knows what will happen.  I'm closing January on a good note, though, and I can be proud and find hope in that.  I love you all.  See you 'round...

- P -

Hello, 2011, You're Right On Time...

...three weeks after the actual occurrence.  God, what a terrible way to ring in the new year.  Better late than never, I suppose, but jeez... it's like I graduated from college and forgot how time works.  Some days I feel as though the best I can ever hope for is to apply direct pressure and hope that time doesn't bleed out completely before the paramedics arrive.  I guess this is what all those old people were always trying to tell me about enjoying my youth while I have it, but I can hardly see how this could be enjoyable.

Regardless, it is a new year and with it come new opportunities.  Over the course of the last month, I've had to slough through a death in the family, the holidays, and moving, three of life's biggest stresses that I can think of off the top of my head.  Despite feeling myself to be behind or at some kind of disadvantage for having squandered the first three weeks of the year, I'm not going to apologize or make excuses for it.  I spent three weeks relaxing and getting settled in to my new apartment, sort of taking a break and recovering from a really hectic month of December, but I'd really like to keep from making it four.

I shaved my head on Monday night as part of a cleansing ritual for the new year.  I hate making resolutions and trying to convince myself that I'm turning over a new leaf and everything is going to change and be different effective immediately, because a.) it's never true and b.) it's such a waste of energy.  There's little use for me to talk about what I'm going or ought to do, because it never seems to turn the corner into actual behavior.  I feel like shaving my head is a good physical metaphor because it's kind of a down-to-business action for me.  I have a lot of hair that takes time and effort to manage (unless I'm going for "The Lyle Lovett," which still requires a nightly shower and sleeping on it just so to come out right), so cutting it all off is kind of a reminder to stop fussing around about the aesthetics of my life and get down to action.  I dunno, maybe it's dumb, but I like it and it works for me.

Also, I meant to say something about the idea of resolutions.  I always scoff at making resolutions because everybody always makes the same ones: I'm going to quit smoking, lose weight, exercise more, etc.  I hate anything that's pre-packaged or expected.  But I always seem to end up making them, because I always think "Why not?  It's just as good a time as any to <fill in the blank with whatever thing I'm trying to do/quit doing>."  But there's always this slump that happens toward the end of January where it's been three weeks and I've either abandoned the willpower necessary to not do whatever it is I was trying to quit or lost traction on the new thing I was trying to start and only ended up doing once or twice.  I'm a pretty easily discouraged person anyway, so being confronted with my own inability to make a decision and stick with it pretty much guarantees a week of puttering around my apartment in a bathrobe and eating nothing but carbohydrates and simple sugars.

I've been thinking a lot, though, about the principles around which my life is centered, and I think that's why resolutions don't work for me: I'm expecting some out-of-the-blue decision to compensate for a lack of discipline in whatever area of my life I'm trying to change.  I want to chart my success at a 45-degree angle of growth (or better) and not have to experience any sort of setback or overcome any kind of difficulty.  I feel like I should start developing better principles in my life, ones that I work hard to live by and afford myself enough grace to fail and be okay when I don't.  So what if I don't floss every day or lose as much weight as I wanted by my target date?  Who's going to punish me for my failure?  What difference does it really make?  If I floss more than twice a month for the entire next year, that'll still be more consistent than I ever have been in my life.

I saw The King's Speech recently and if you haven't seen it, you should.  It's about King George VI working to overcome a stutter in the years leading up to World War II.  Besides being a great film with superb actors in it, I really like the idea of a stammering king.  There's something attractive to me about seeing someone wrestle with what it is about their lot in life that qualifies and/or disqualifies them from being effective in it, I think maybe because of what I just described about myself.  It's hard for me to remember, sometimes, that I am the sole authority when it comes to making decisions in my life.  There is a way that is right and good and godly, to be sure, but I'm the one with his finger on the button.  I'm the one who has to decide what today is going to look like.  I'm the only one with any control over how orderly and productive I am.  And if I'm not as productive as somebody else thinks I should be, or if they think I did it all wrong, then to hell with them.  I don't know why I can't hold that thought in my head longer than five minutes at a time, but sometimes it's good to be reminded.

I'm back, baby... whatever that means and whatever it looks like from here, it is what it is and it will be what it will be.  Until next time... Tata!

- P -