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I had never seen Rebecca with a guy before, so I never knew what kind of guy she went for. I spent all that time in my car telling myself I am not a nobody, that I am somebody, and then seeing that guy I knew I had been deceiving myself. He looked like a Disney cartoon prince, and I looked more like Old Yeller. What a shot to my ego. Just as I was feeling sorry for myself, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around expecting to see Rebecca. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t her! But it was a woman, so that’s a start. And it appeared she wanted to talk, and not just ask me to kindly get the hell out of her way. “I saw you from across the room,” she said. “Oh really?” I replied. “That’s disappointing.” “Why’s that?” “Because that means the invisible cloak I bought specifically for tonight is a sham. I was suspicious walking out of the store with an empty hanger, but the salesman assured me it was the best invisibility money could buy.” “I always thought being poor and having no money afforded you the most invisibility,” she said as she started laughing. “Well then I guess it goes to show that you don’t need to spend money you don’t have just to stand out by blending in. Or something like that.” “Something like that,” she said. “Anyway, my name is Dora J. Arod, and I saw you over there and I got excited, because you look like that one actor—you know who I’m talking about, because you must get it all the time.” Yes! So somebody does think I’m handsome and in possession of movie star looks. “Which actor are you referring to?” “Not sure his name, but he was in Armageddon, Big Fish, and Con Air.” “Oh!” I said, “Ben Affleck?” “Ben wasn’t in Big Fish or Con Air.” “Damn,” I said. “Hmm well I’m not sure who you’re referring to then.” “It just hit me,” she said. “Steve Buscemi. You look like Steve Buscemi!” I don’t remember what I said to that, but after giving it much thought, I will say that she is crazy. I do not look like Steve Buscemi. Steve Buscemi is a much more handsome man than me. ↗
#big-fish #con-air #confidence #crazy #disney
Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss. They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference. It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now. A foraging wild creature, intent above all upon survival, is as strong as the grass. ↗
Dennis had imagined that he and Beth would be one of those couples who never quarreled, that when they weren't kissing they would be laughing or lying in each other's arms, serenely, deliriously happy. He could never have imagined that she would make him so crazy angry he would scream at her in front of their friends. But in that instant, he learned a little about love. ↗
Truth is hard-hearted and unrelenting, too clear, precise; a lie is much more imaginative. ↗
#clear #dejan-stojanovic #hard-hearted #imagination #imaginative
My son used to believe that he could look at a plane in flight and make it explode in midair by simply thinking it. He believed, at thirteen, that the border between himself and the world was thin and porous enough to allow him to affect the course of events. An aircraft in flight was a provocation too strong to ignore. He’d watch a plane gaining altitude after taking off from Sky Harbor and he’d sense an element of catastrophe tacit in the very fact of a flying object filled with people. He was sensitive to the most incidental stimulus and he thought he could feel the object itself yearning to burst. All he had to do was wish the fiery image into his mind and the plane would ignite and shatter. His sister used to tell him, Go ahead, blow it up, let me see you take that plane out of the sky with all two hundred people aboard, and it scared him to hear someone talk this way and it scared her too because she wasn’t completely convinced he could not do it. It’s the special skill of an adolescent to imagine the end of the world as an adjunct to his own discontent. But Jeff got older and lost interest and conviction. He lost the paradoxical gift for being separate and alone and yet intimately connected, mind-wired to distant things. ↗
It’s clear that if we use the mind attentively, mental power is increased, and if we concentrate the mind in the moment, it is easier to coordinate mind and body. But in terms of mind and body unity, is there something we can concentrate on that will reliably aid us in discovering this state of coordination? In Japan, and to some degree other Asian countries, people have historically focused mental strength in the hara (abdomen) as a way of realizing their full potential. Japan has traditionally viewed the hara as the vital center of humanity in a manner not dissimilar to the Western view of the heart or brain. I once read that years ago Japanese children were asked to point to the origin of thoughts and feelings. They inevitably pointed toward the abdominal region. When the same question was asked of American children, most pointed at their heads or hearts. Likewise, Japan and the West have commonly held differing views of what is physical power or physical health, with Japan emphasizing the strength of the waist and lower body and Western people admiring upper body power. (Consider the ideal of the sumo wrestler versus the V-shaped Western bodybuilder with a narrow waist and broad shoulders.) However, East and West also hold similar viewpoints regarding the hara, and we’re perhaps not as dissimilar as some might imagine. For instance, hara ga nai hito describes a cowardly person, “a person with no hara.” Sounds similar to our saying that so-and-so “has no guts,” doesn’t it? ↗
