Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason

You hear it every time you get dumped by a lover, lose a job, lose anyone or anything: Everything happens

for a reason, a convenient faith-based salve to "explain" the inexplicable.

Of course, some things happen for a reason. You cheat on your girlfriend, you're gonna get dumped,

you punch out your boss, you're gonna get fired. Simple cause and effect.

But the people who believe in and blab out EHFAR don't put much faith in cause and effect or rational thought or seeking the truth or science or chaos or randomness or luck.

Everything happens for a reason because everything is controlled by the will of God.

Give it up to Big G, keep the faith and eventually all the shit that happens will turn to shinola.

Never mind earthquakes, hurricanes, genocides, droughts and terminal diseases.

God did it. We're off the hook. We've got no control, so we're out of control.

Put it in a box and tie it with a pretty pink ribbon. Nothing's really my fault.

Hitler, Stalin, Torquemada, Custer, Dick Cheney, Bernie Madoff. The Devil made 'em do it.

But how do you explain the reason for sudden death? A change of heart? Winning Lotto?

There is none.

Call it fate, chance, luck, bad luck or "I have no fuckin' idea".

For most of us, all we can control is ourselves and how we react when the bad shit happens.

Reasons? They're blowin' in the wind.

"All You Need Is Love"

So said The Beatles. But other groups disagree: "Love Stinks", "Love Hurts", "Love is a Battlefield". Who's right? Who's wrong? Both and neither.
Love, in the same day, can be our greatest joy and our greatest pain. After food and shelter it's our greatest need. Yet, at any given moment, at any period of time, many of us can't find it, or, having found it, find it fleeting. We kill for love, love kills us. Love conquers all, love conquers you. We give it and get nothing in return. We sacrifice everything for it and wind up with nothing.
Occasionally, it works. We fall in love and it lasts.
Today is Valentine's Day, which, along with Mother's Day and Father's Day, is another stupid, once-a-year
commemoration that's meaningless to all but the clueless and telephone, chocolate and greeting card companies.
Social pressure, corporate profits and media madness strike again.
But what about the real thing? Real love. The love expressed in 90% of music, literature, philosophy, art.
Does it exist? Can it ever be "real"? And how do you know if it is?
You don't.
Just as you can't really ever completely know anybody, the one you love will always remain a mystery.
Does he/she or doesn't he/she? It's a gamble. And, like most gambles, it's based on nothing more than a feeling. A hunch. A racing heart. A fire down below.
It's scary. It's risky. Could even be dangerous. But if you find it, and it's real, it is all you need.
So be brave. Go for it!
And don't save it for Valentine's Day.

We're All Human

It's 2010 and relations between men and women are worse than ever. The only men and women who seem genuinely "happy" are gays and lesbians. For the rest of us, single or married, every day signals another battle or loss. After 40 years of feminists vs. male chauvinists, working women vs. working men, soccer moms vs. soccer dads, Mars vs.Venus, equal pay for equal work, stay-at-home dads, greater educational opportunity for both women and men, post-feminism, on-line dating, speed dating, couples therapy and a million books and articles about how to get a man, get a woman, get a life, one "wrong" look or word can trigger anything from raging arguments to murder.
What hath society wrought?
To many, problems between men and women are as old, and predictable, as Adam and Eve. After all, we're
totally different species, right? Men want the toilet seat up, paper over. Women want the toilet seat down, paper under. There's no rhyme or reason, it's just the way it is, we're different. Mars and Venus.
Men like football, video games, cheeseburgers and gratuitous sex. Women like the arts, cooking, romance, and meaningful sex. Or so the cliches go.
But neither gender is a cliche, though almost everything we're taught about each other as kids, from our parents to the media's relentless bombardment, says we are. Sure, through "enlightened" communication and experience, we can diminish the "differences", but for too many of us, men are men, women are women, and never the twain shall meet. (For the record, most singles stay together less than a year and the divorce rate is still 50%).
So how do we bridge the gender gap?  I say, forget about gender. Men aren't from Mars and women aren't from Venus. We both live on planet Earth. And until we see, feel and understand each other as human beings, with all our gifts and faults, nothing's going to change.
To take it a step further, let's deal with each other as individual human beings. Nothing is sillier than hearing someone say, "I love women" or "I love men" or the converse.
Stephen Stills got it right: "Love the one you're with".

The Pursuit of "Happiness"

About twenty-five years ago I was having lunch with my friend Brad at an Irish bar on Second and 51st. Brad, originally from Troy, NY, had gone to Virginia as a History major, then taught high school there
after he graduated.  While teaching, he wrote a history textbook that Virginia secondary schools are probably still using. At the bar, he was an ad copywriter like me, working at the same agency as my ex. I liked Brad the minute I first met him, and besides being one of the nicest people I ever met, he was also one of the smartest.
As was our habit, between bites of our cheesebugers and gulps of Guinness, we discussed the state of the world, the nation and whatever movie, book or hot piece of ass we'd happened to encounter. That day, discussing early American history, I came up with a theory. Call it "Jefferson's Biggest Mistake". As the author of The Declaration, as the most brilliant and polymathic mind of his time, one phrase of his, I suggested, has created more psychic pathology, more envy, more greed, more selfishness than any single phrase in American history: "...and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS...".
"Life, Liberty...", yes. Absolutely. Those first two words are what this country was founded on. But "the pursuit of happiness" was just wrong-headed, and ill-fated, right from the get-go.
Let's start with the word "happiness". "Happy", the adjective from which "happiness" derives, is
a poor substitute for the word "joy". Happy is sappy, joy is JOY! Joy is intense but momentary, like life. Happy implies lasting joy, unlike life.  Ask any European what "happy" means to them and they'll laugh in your face! It's just a silly, naive English (American) word. "Happiness" goes even further by implying a state of being. There is no such "state of being". Unless we all walk around with smiley faces like some mass asylum for village idiots! Couple "happiness" with "the pursuit of" and substitute "happiness" with "money" and you've got what America has become: Greedy, selfish, arrogant, envious, ruthless, delusional, intolerant, priggish, small-minded, profit-seeking at any cost.
Sure, there were, and are, millions of enlightened Americans who don't equate "happiness" with "money" or accept the word "happiness" as some sort of entitlement. But the few who don't are massively outnumbered by those who do, the rich and powerful, the poor and powerless. Brad thought my analysis was "brilliant". Maybe.
But twenty-five years later, "brilliant" analysis is less meaningful than ever. Every damn aspect of this culture has gotten worse. From Reaganism to Wall St. to political corruption to George W. to Cheney to Iraq to
Afghanistan to the Great Recession to "reality shows" to Fox News to "celebrity idolatry" to Facebook to Twitter to the death of music and publishing and reading to Tea-Party Republicans to a "do-nothing-in-spite-of-Obama-Congress" to "is-there-anyone-out-there-with-a-functioning-brain?", this country is a festering dunghole of misanthropic ooze. I got mine, loser. Fuck you. I got squat, dickwad. Fuck you, too.
Happiness! Pure unadulterated, unalterable, unreasonable, unsubstantiable, unconscionable happiness!
Ah, Tommy, you must be rolling in your grave!

"But You Look Good!"

I swear this happened in a span of about ten minutes.

Last week, I'm in my local gym, where I've worked on and off for twelve years,

most recently as the Fitness Manager, until I was fired by my District Manager, 

the reputed great-great granddaughter of Adolf Hitler. I'm in the gym, free of charge,

because of the good graces of my former General Manager, Jim. He knows and

understands the nature of the corporate beast. He also knows Hitler's granddaughter,

who, by the way, has left the company to raise her second demon child.

Anyway, I walk in, and at the front desk is Melissa, a very cute and sexy receptionist

who always liked me and who I hadn't seen in months.

"Arunas, how are you...?"

"Well, I still don't have a job, two jobs I thought I had I don't, my unemployment is running out,

my car's transmission is dying, I need a hip replacement, no med insurance, I'm $30,000

in debt and last December I turned sixty-fuckin'-three!"

That's a bit too much bad news for anybody to swallow, especially someone who knew me

when I was "the shit".  But, she paused for a moment searching for a response, looked at me

and said, "But you look good!"

I laughed, and ten seconds later Maria, a former training client, walked by.

"Arunas, how are you...?"

"Don't even ask...I still don't have a job, two jobs I thought I had..."

"I know it's tough out there..but you look good!"

Across the front desk, another former client, Larry the Lawyer, was getting off an elliptical machine. Larry, unlike most of his breed, is a nice, sweet guy.

"So, Arunas, howya doin'?"

"Oh, Jeez, I still haven't found a job, now I need a hip replacement, the car's dyin'..."

Larry didn't miss a beat. Sympathetic, hand on chin, deliberating...

"But you look good!"

Over the past month, I've heard "...BUT YOU LOOK GOOD" at least five other times.

What is that?

I think it comes under the category of  "a-thing-to-say-when-you-don't-know-what-to-say".

But, in my case, it also happens to be true. I do look good. Especially for an old geezer of

sixty-three. Attribute it to good genes, an optimistic, sometimes arrogant "devil-may-care","never-say-die" attitude, intense exercise, running and sports for most of my life, long and short periods of
intense love and sex, enthusiastic masturbation, two packs a day (cigarettes then, little cigars now),
megatons of drinking, whatever!

Point is, "I am what I am, I'm Popeye", the ironman. (If only I could find my Olive and keep her).

Who knows what's next? Will I find a meaningful job? Will I make enough money to survive and be

able to pass some on to my son? Will I finally find the peace of mind to write "the book"?  Does

or should anyone really give a shit whether I'm around or not? Who knows?

But I look good!

"Mindless Positivism"

There's a new disease in America. And it's spreading like wildfire. Insidious and unnamed,

it's a disease of delusion, devoid of reality or feeling. I call it "Mindless Positivism".

Talk to a Wall St. banker, a corporate sales manager, a celebrity, a tea-party Republican

or even your smug, comfortable next-door neighbor, and you'll catch it.

Got no job? Got no money? Over 60? Can't pay the mortgage? Another kid on the way?

In deep debt? Crippled with cancer? No med insurance? No problem!

Just think positive!

Just think positive. I hear it and read it every day. From friends, acquaintances,

former co-workers, strangers just met, media assholes, politicians, religious nuts,

rich people and celebrities.

It's the thing to say when you've got nothing else to say. Occasionally, I even say it

myself, like some mindless mantra that's magically going to transform my life

from misery to bliss. I'm in control, I'm the power of the Universe, God loves me,

I can do anything, if I just think positive.

Bullshit!

The greatest motivator known to mankind is fear. And fear is negative.

So I say, "Think negative."

Afraid of losing your job or finding a new one? Afraid you may lose your savings?

Afraid your wife or girlfriend is leaving? Afraid of ever finding new love?

Just tap into "The Power of Negative Thinking" and I guarantee you'll get up

off your ass and do everything you can to make the good stuff happen.

Or, if you're like "The Dude", you'll stay on your ass, suck a little weed, and let

what happens happen. (Not recommended for the fiscally or mentally challenged).

Negative thinking (fear) promotes positive action. If a hungry wolf sees you as dinner,

you're not gonna stick around to pet it, you're gonna bolt. Even if you're Dude-like,

characterized by benign inaction, your inaction is still action, in the same sense that

a "no comment" is still a comment.

Positive thinking is mindless because it's all about faith. And faith is all about fate, belief

and surrender to some higher power, even when, as hucksters like Anthony Robbins

would have you believe, that "higher power" is yourself.

So this new year, this new decade, figure out what you need to do to survive and thrive,

and, to quote the greatest ad slogan in history, just do it!

If you're not stupid, retarded, illiterate, a Christian fundamentalist, a "life counselor",

a corporate CEO, a sales manager, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump or comatose, keep on

truckin'.

If you're any of the above, think positive.