Sunday, November 24, 2013

Gratitude Readjustment: Free Anti-Depressant!





For thousands of years, mankind (and woman-kind) had one technique to relieve sadness or resolve unpleasant situations: Get off their tired butts and do something about it.


The discovery of alcohol introduced another technique: stay on your butt and get drunk. This works wonderfully in the short run, but, based on personal research, makes everything worse at last.


The modern “anti-depressant” pill seems like an improvement. You still don’t have to solve life’s problems, ‘cause you no longer give a fiddle-dee-dee. More self research, la-la, no thanks.




There are ways to live happily, without booze, doctors, or pills. One is to smoke pot of course, but wiser-than-us governments won’t allow the use of this ancient, natural, low-priced medicine. Regarding research, I invoke Da Fif’.


Less obvious for the lazy, the too-busy, and those of us slowly going insane, is another ancient way, of actually striving to make our lives better. Hard work sucks, but it works. Also, you may have to admit you are wrong about something, or stand up and confront someone else who is; neither generally regarded as pleasant.


Jerome AZ, defunct neighborhood southeast of town, on mine property. Yes I was trespassing.


For today, here’s an easy short-cut: try being grateful.


It may sound gay, but when I quit whining about what I ain’t got, and be glad of what I do got, I instantly feel better. Gratitude is nature’s anti-depressant. It works well and costs absolutely nothing. I am an enthusiastic proponent. When grateful, you are no longer part of the buy-and-sell equation.


Face it: most citizens of Disunited States, one of the wealthiest empires in the history of mankind, are spoiled crybabies. Lifetimes of advertising make most folks feel like they are missing something. Every media image is designed to fuel our longing for more more more. Happiness is just around the corner if we buy their shiny things, they imply; but it always stays just around the corner. Boo hoo!


 
But compare your life to the ugzillion cavemen (and cavewomen) who came before. Or most of the so-called “third world.” Or our own after the First Great Depression who begged, stole, or starved. We now live like kings, like gods even, with our many magic doo-dads and massive industrial food production!


Happiness is wanting what you’ve got, since you so seldom get what you want. Man’s needs in nature haven’t changed in the last hundred thousand years; if you aren’t cold or hungry, you are as happy as you need to be. If you have no joy, more crap won’t help.


"The Patriarchs", northeast of the Village of Oak Creek


Rather than wasting time bemoaning your Used Crap Store dress, think kindly of the sewing-for-below-living-wage slaves who have less than your nothing. If no car nor bus fare, smile ‘cause you have legs that still go (a gratitude classic!) Rather than griping about your greasy dishwashing job, enjoy the delicious leftovers the rich folk leave. Bung-hole co-workers aren’t worth your hate, thank the gods you aren’t married to any of ‘em. Despised dilapidated trailers still blessedly block blizzards (barely!)


You get a free anti-depressant every day you declare Thanksgiving! So take that made-for-the-merchants unholiness and call it your own. Our ancestors went to a lot of trouble trying to build a country where everyone could get along and have fun. They fought for our right to party! In their honor, let us graciously sing and dance and love and poot and be happy, to the best of our abilities, every day!

South of Prescott, Hwy 89


 %$#@!

Nov. 29 on this side of the pond: http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

%$#@!

The Beaks Of Eagles

An eagle's nest on the head of an old redwood on one of the
    precipice-footed ridges
Above Ventana Creek, that jagged country which nothing but a
    falling meteor will ever plow; no horseman
Will ever ride there, no hunter cross this ridge but the winged
    ones, no one will steal the eggs from this fortress.
The she-eagle is old, her mate was shot long ago, she is now mated
    with a son of hers.
When lightning blasted her nest she built it again on the same
    tree, in the splinters of the thunderbolt.
The she-eagle is older than I; she was here when the fires of
    eighty-five raged on these ridges,
She was lately fledged and dared not hunt ahead of them but ate
    scorched meat. The world has changed in her time;
Humanity has multiplied, but not here; men's hopes and thoughts
    and customs have changed, their powers are enlarged,
Their powers and their follies have become fantastic,
The unstable animal never has been changed so rapidly. The
    motor and the plane and the great war have gone over him,
And Lenin has lived and Jehovah died: while the mother-eagle
Hunts her same hills, crying the same beautiful and lonely cry and
    is never tired; dreams the same dreams,
And hears at night the rock-slides rattle and thunder in the throats
    of these living mountains.
                                    It is good for man
To try all changes, progress and corruption, powers, peace and
    anguish, not to go down the dinosaur's way
Until all his capacities have been explored: and it is good for him
To know that his needs and nature are no more changed in fact
    in ten thousand years than the beaks of eagles.

 
Robinson Jeffers

%$#@!

Relevant Old Fart Cartoon Wisdom:

“But Charlie Brown, it’s Thanksgiving. One of the greatest traditions we have is the Thanksgiving Day football game, and the biggest most important tradition of all is the kicking off of the football!”

                                               --Lucy Van Pelt

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