A basic tenet I’ve maintained here, is that one’s feelings are largely independent of one’s circumstances; and that one can typically choose how to feel, no matter what one’s circumstances are.
Well, maybe not always.
But for sure, feelings come on that one will not like, that have no relationship to anything that’s happened in the real world. How to deal with them?
Tuesday afternoon at the library, instead of doing anything on [church obligations], I spent time with several articles that could have been predicted to make me angry. I’ve forgotten specifics about them, and Net History from the library terminal isn’t available to me here. The deal is, I recognized an appetite for darkness; “The Itch.” Similarly yesterday, yesterday morning, once I realized I really had nothing to do that day, I became intensely angry and prone to look for ways to act out that anger; e.g. by finding more such articles to fume over. Went through some more of the same last night, albeit presence in the shower saw it all go away.
All this in the face of my goal of being perpetually happy and cheerful and an emanator of light and joy.
Continue reading * Appetites for darkness; befriending the shadow self.
(Originally posted 08/04/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 12/27/18.)
Officer Nasty works security at the library. He doesn’t wait for trouble to happen or for someone to ask him for help. Instead, he constantly patrols the whole place looking for people who may be breaking the rules, so he can put them out. He walks up and down the narrow aisles of the computer center to see what you have on your screen. He comes into the men’s room hoping to catch someone in the act — act of what, I can’t imagine. You get the picture.
(Originally posted 07/28/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 02/14/19.)
It’s been a long time since I last considered this; maybe because, for some months, there haven’t been that many jerks among us at the shelter. Whether the “spirit” I breathe out has anything to do with that, I don’t know.[1] But I was in the shower 07/01/12 and overheard that they’d run out of wash cloths, and that brought this to mind.
Just being a nice guy earns me concrete, practical rewards.
A number of mainstream people help me financially who definitely would not help a jerk.
If we’re in the smoke pit and I need to bum one, I’m far more likely to get one than would a jerk.
Last summer, there was a shortage of wash cloths, for reason that people were stealing them. At first, if you weren’t one of the first 40 to shower, you wouldn’t get one. Then it became 30. Then 20. Several guys, it turns out, actually donated wash cloths. I donated 15. They all disappeared.[2]
Some guys come to the clothes window and every day, it’s:
Continue reading * Practical advantages of being a nice guy
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