Fragments For Rent

We had just finished dinner tonight and it was the fourth quarter of the Texas A&M-Alabama game when my 7-year-old daughter started rooting against the Aggies. I told her if she didn't stop she wouldn't be getting dessert.  Does this make me a terrible dad or a true Aggie? I vote both. And, yes, she stopped because she knows better to call my bluff.

Am I sad the Aggies lost? A little. I figured their defense was pretty terrible so I expected a loss but was hoping against reality most of the game (especially after being up 14-0). Very happy they came back to make it respectable. Besides, I was cured from Battered Aggie Syndrome (BAS) last year and I did not relapse today.

I am working on two long posts at once. I have few more posts already planned in my head. I bet you are so PUMPED about that. I am.

Ready for the fall weather to start. Texas sucks sometimes. Actually, a lot of the time but don't remind me.

I had one of those Aerosmith songs stuck in my head a few weeks back (I can't remember if it was Amazing, Cryin' or the other one). So I ended up watching the whole Alicia Silverstone trilogy videos. Man, such great videos.  Brought back memories of staying up late in my room, hoping the videos would come on because Silverstone looked so cute and well, truthfully, they are a great songs. Go ahead and look them up on YouTube. I'll wait.

Well, what's the point of talking about it without pictures? I always used to cringe at that belly button piercing scene. I have  this weird thing about not wanting anyone to touch my belly button. Just found out I have a slight case of Omphalophobia, the fear of bellybuttons, or more exactly of people touching my bellybutton. Just a slight case though, I can't say I would get nauseated if someone touched mine, I just get really uncomfortable. Happy to know I am not the only weirdo in the world.  

 

Ok, are you back?

Ahem...

I had a dream last night that I was in line at a greet-and-meet with Weezer to promote their "new album" that doesn't exist entitled "Strange Children" (not too shabby a title if I may say so myself). I was in line with two pals of mine and I was basically a whole douche as I was talking trash about modern Weezer and how much better they used to be.

ADOLESCENT GOLF MEMORY FLASHBACK TIME

I watched the A&M game at my folk's house and during a commercial my Dad checked in on some golf tournament. One of the dudes flipped his club on the ground after a bad shot. This brought back my memory of playing a par-3 golf course when I was 13.  Why was I playing golf? I dunno maybe it was my idea of REBELLION at the time. My friend Adam and I borrowed our dad's clubs and Adam's mom dropped us off one Saturday morning.  After two or three holes, I missed a gimmie putt and I pounded my putter into the green about four times.  To be fair, it might have been five.

Of course the owner just happened to be driving by in a golf cart and he lays into me. "How could I do this? Why didn't I have self-control?", etc. etc. He went on to say if he knew any better "he ought to kick us off his course". In fact, as I remember it, it was this mention in his tirade that gave him the idea to kick us out. And there we were, expelled from a golf course because I threw a tempter tantrum on the 3rd hole.  Adam had to call his mom to pick us up and we started walking down the road before she got there because we were just too embarrassed to stick around any longer.  I don't think I ever told my parents because I knew I would get in trouble. 

Ta-Ta for now.  Here's a racist Superman cartoon from the 1940's because, you might be a history teacher and want to show the kids what it was like back in the day. Either that or you're a racist.

Blissed Out

When was the last time you felt bliss?  Not happiness or contentment, but actual bliss.  Be sure to exclude sex because that’s too easy.

A recent episode of Radiolab explored this very question (although not with the sex qualifier).  In the show they discussed the story of Aleksander Gamme  - who had been on an  expedition in Antarctica.  As he traveled to his destination he left packages of supplies and occasionally food for his return trip.  As he made his way back he had forgotten at which of the drops he had left the food at. He was wondering if he had any food left and he was very hungry. That’s when this happened after he had not eaten in two days:

For those of you too lazy to watch the amazing video, he did find food in his last drop.  Cheezdoodles, to be exact and his response is classic. He is blissed out on junk food.  His expressions (especially those when he is just staring with his mouth agape in shock) are priceless.

Anyway, back to the question about bliss....when I first heard it, I just kinda pushed it in the back of my head as I was listening to the podcast and grading some quizzes.  Later on I starting thinking…when was the last time I felt “bliss”? I thought of the typical answers – when I got engaged?; at my marriage ceremony?; when my kids where born?  Nothing stuck though. Sure, I was happy in all of those moments but Cheezdoodle Bliss? No, not really.

It seems like if bliss can exist at all - it could only begin when your sense of self awareness becomes lost in a blissed-out moment.   In most big moments like getting married - you're too self-consciously aware of "the moment"  to be in bliss. I recently watched the DVD of our wedding and I look extremely uncomfortable and on the brink of tears.  Although I don't remember feeling exactly that way, I do remember being super-aware of everything like my brain was trying to record and store that moment forever. It wasn't exactly bliss.  

Then it came to me as I was driving home from work. I remembered the last time I experienced bliss. In fact, I could even recall the date (11/10/12) and even down to the exact moment.  

Here it was:





So you might guess I am an Aggie from watching the above video (class of '99).  The interception clinched an upset of the #1 team in the nation.  Texas A&M hadn't been this good in decades. When the season finished we were ranked in the top five for the first time since 1956.  When the season started most Aggies would have been happy with a winning record, which made everything that followed a little bit sweeter. Even before this particular game, I knew this team was special. When I witnessed the interception, I jumped up and down in my living room and laughed like a high-pitch hyena. My 6 year-old daughter told me that my laugh was "terrifying". Terrifying or not and as temporary as it was....it was...bliss. 

It struck me that sports offers these spontaneous, unconscious, self-forgetting, moments.  Isn't that what mystics enter in meditation, worship, prayer, etc. Religions offer individuals ways to subsume themselves into a larger consciousness or understanding.  You can forget and feel forgiven, come before the divine and forget your burdens, worries, fears, sins, insecurities and just...be. 

Whenever I am at church and I see people do this  I wonder - how can they be doing this? How do they turn off the part of their brain that feels foolish or self conscious? Granted I wasn't raised in a church that did this so that explains a lot. However, it's not just raising the hands in the air - it's everything. I always feel like the kid in class who doesn't "get it" (or maybe everyone else is just faking it). 

I've always craved to have a religious experience like that and yet my self seems to always stand in the way.  I'm over thinking, over analyzing and I just can't make my brain stay still. I could blame my culture and the fact I was raised on corn syrup, I have ADD (no, not really but maybe) or watched too many cartoons growing up, but I think this problem is larger than culture. Getting over ourselves is a problem all humans have encountered. You might even say that's why religious practices were created - to create possible fleeting moments of bliss. 

Today, we're less religious and more distracted. Maybe that's why there are so many sports fans and sex fiends -- we're addicted to the rush of feeling bliss. It's the only way we know how to forgot our selves.