A bartender would ask me, “What’s your pleasure?” …
We have all heard of millionaires in the entertainment world who break the law, doing illegal drugs, badly. On my blog I sometimes post open letters to a music millionaire, Derek Sivers, whom I came to know not from his business acumen but from his being a blogger extraordinaire.
Happily, Derek is free from addictions, even from the simple one of keeping mints in his car. He said so in his blog essay, “Quitting Something You Love.” (Link) For that post he received over eight hundred comments. I liked comment # 264:
Sean Halle (2016-12-29) #
70 emails a day, wow. I know many people who seem driven by being valued. That amazing feeling when someone is truly moved by what you’ve done for them. That drug of seeing that you matter, and have had a positive influence on someone else’s life.
Blog. If Sean’s comment seems a little fuzzy, well, such is the informal nature, almost a virtue, of blog comments. Some would say that blogs should be informal too. To which I reply: Maybe informal in tone, but never to be written without great care, grasping for the utmost self respect towards writer and reader.
Right now, Derek could be doing the millionaire “lying on the beach” thing, yet it is obvious, and heartening, how he spends so much time and energy on every single blog post. No wasted words. For my part, I approach such craftsmanship indirectly, by enforcing on myself a 900 word limit.
Drug. My eyes caught the word drug in Sean’s comment. I don’t mind sharing that I’ve attended 12 step meetings, “including” (the word means “not limited to”) open-to-the-public Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, at one time I was honoured with a key to a “clubhouse” where all sorts of people, in all sorts of self help groups, met to share their “strength, hope and experience.” One of the hopes they shared was (in my garbled memory), “No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.”
As the earth turns, that clubhouse is gone; I no longer attend meetings; I fully enjoy this harsh winter even as I rejoice in the coming of spring. I know that “everyday life” is as important as any drug. As famous blogger Mark Manson noted, “once in a lifetime” thrills should happen only on, say, 5 versus 95 normal days. Because it is only normal life that makes such experiences have meaning. Mark says “Don’t be fooled by social media.” I say, “Anyone who gets high every single day, and finds “the high life” as meaningless as dust and ashes, may relate to Mark’s advice.”
You don’t need a weekly meeting to know what Sean calls “the drug of seeing you matter, and have had a positive influence on someone…” As the calendar turns over into a new year, we can, as we all know, have a daily influence during our “normal 95 days,” for example: Wish someone a ‘good morning,’ pet their dog for them, hold open the door, shovel snow at the doorway, and the list goes on.
One asks: “Yes, but what if I’m feeling reclusive, saying, “bah humbug!”
One answers: “We all have our off days… Of perhaps 5 out of 95… But if you want to feel that way all the time, then I have some dusty bottles in the cellar you can have; it sounds as if you need them more than I.”
No, I’m not an alcoholic, meanwhile, they say you can meet the most amazing people in a bar. Strangers say the strangest things: I met a lady in a Cowtown bar once who told me she had made very good tip money in Banff. And as fast as the tips came in she spent it all on cocaine. So: One day she decides to go straight. Attends her first CA meeting: Cocaine anonymous. (There’s NA in town too) Well, she takes one look at everybody else, doesn’t want to go back, and quits cold turkey. I guess sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Unlike her, us normal neurotics, if we find ourselves addicted, might “need a few meetings” to get straight. There is hope.
And yes, there’s also hope for non-addicts who love an addict: A spouse can still “have a life.” According to legend, the wife of an alcoholic got fed up, threw her shoe at him, and screamed, “If you want to die, then die, but I’m going to live!” And she started Al-Anon for spouses and relatives. (There’s meetings in town)
As the revolving earth brings a new year into sight, let’s not have any new resolutions that are influenced by grandiose social media. Normal life is fine.
Ok bartender, here’s my pleasure… In everyday life this year, if you pass me on the Cowtown sidewalk, I hope we exchange a warm western “Good morning!” Because we both matter.
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Sean Crawford fuzzy comments are OK,
In Marlborough Country
December 2020
TV Note: At the clubhouse we set up a small portable TV to show a movie with James Woods and James Garner about the miracle of AA. We crowded to watch. And when it was over I noticed my shoulder was wet. A lady had cried.
Is my title “link-bait?” Maybe yes, for trying to spread some basic information. Surely no, not for trying to get people to be fans of my blog. Because: This post has my usual “enjoy the ride” unstructured flavour. Since strangers don’t share my taste in such blog essays, no “link-baited folks,” will care to look at any older posts.
