Meditation:
God is funny. If you don’t believe me read the book of Jonah. And if you don’t believe in Him, call it The Universe or Fate or whatever you want.
A lot of times God is actually making fun of you. But not in a cruel way. God is never cruel. It’s in a way that spurs you on to growth. See, in my journal post yesterday I wrote about getting mad at people in traffic. And today I left for work with plenty of time to be punctual, even early, and found myself parked on the freeway in short order. My 15-minute commute became 45 today. And pardon my French, I was fucking pissed about it.
I hate traffic. Not a deep or original thought I grant you, but one that is interminably recurrent nonetheless. Traffic to me is a kind of microcosm of the disgusting selfishness we can all be prone to and the broad inhumanity of man. The seeds of mass atrocity are probably planted in the soil of resentment while one is stuck on the highway. People will endanger others and themselves to gain a couple cars’ worth of position to save a few seconds, if anything, and generally disregard the consequences of their actions, feeling entitled to do so all the while. If you want to get a daily dose of misanthropy just drive around in rush hour.
But it’s funny in a darkly ironic kind of way, isn’t it? That I had to put to the test the advice I dished out to myself and others just yesterday? I imagine God laughing to Himself like “Oh hey, wise guy, you’re using traffic as an example of a way to develop morally? Have some traffic.”
You have a fork in the road when this happens. You can get mad (which I did for a little bit) or you can laugh along with God. Because it is funny what happened today. And so I got to reflecting about what I said last post and what I could do in the extra half hour I was stuck on the road to make good use of this time. I thought about what might be up the road, if maybe someone was seriously hurt. I prayed for these hypothetical people. That’s not meant to sound precious, but I do really want them to be okay, deep down, in spite of my surface irritation, and it’s a way to take my mind of myself, which in these situations only makes things worse. I got thinking about the other drivers who might have their jobs put in jeopardy by being 30 minutes late when the worst that will happen to me is my boss will be a little snarky. I prayed we could all just cut each other some slack rather than get all angry or drive through at 45mph on the lane line on a dumb sport bike like some jackass did while the rest of us were waiting with various degrees of patience.
Of course, when I got to the accident it had already been cleared and it was a classic case of people rubbernecking and holding everything up. But am I really above that kind of behavior? I don’t know. I don’t have a morbid interest in slowing down to look at car accidents but I’m sure I do some other kinds of semi-voyeuristic things vis a vis the suffering of others. That’s something to be on the lookout for. And the accident itself, though it had been cleared, looked nasty. One car was overturned completely, two other were totally smashed, and there was a smattering of kids toys on the shoulder. God forbid anything should have happened to the kids whose toys they were, were they injured or worse in the crash. I prayed in earnest then, and my anger about the situation faded completely. I didn’t see any ambulances but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there earlier. And then I thought about all the small ways we harm each other with our petty expectations and our stupid selfish decisions. Maybe it was just some fluke, but you can’t help but wonder if somebody making a selfish lane change decision caused all that suffering. I don’t know. I won’t know. But there’s something instructive here. And all you can do is your best to control yourself. To laugh at how dumb it was for you to get upset at all (I don’t know if this is in a movie already, but my behavior made me think of a scene where someone is in a gunfight and worrying about whether they left the oven on or the garage door open). Laugh at how delightfully ironic it is that you got caught in awful traffic the day after you were essentially preaching about it. Maybe something terrible happened to those people today, maybe not. But cliche as it is, we laugh to keep from crying. Gallows humor is a needed palliative. And then I thought of this quote, which is so deeply true and important to me:
We have to learn to laugh at the absurdity of circumstances, at how stupid we can be, at the often-incomprehensible strangeness of providence. After enough time, we have to learn to laugh even at tragedy. I’m not convinced there is another way to triumph over our struggles.
Viewing:
Embrace the DNF (did not finish) and be free. Life is too short to watch bad movies or read bad books. This is related to the humor issue because I have a bad habit of watching stupid comedy movies in an effort to decompress at the end of the day. That intention usually fails because lots of movies just simply aren’t funny. Maybe one day soon I’ll stop sticking my hand in that fire.
In this case I started Let’s Be Cops. I won’t be finishing it. The premise could make for an excellent movie, but the execution is terrible. The jokes are forced and try to manipulate you into laughing by having the characters laugh onscreen or by being pointlessly shocking (and failing a lot). The chemistry between Wayans and Johnson is decent, but if you want that you can just watch New Girl, which is pretty good until all the Ross and Rachel characters actually get together and it starts to suck because millennial screenwriters usually are terrible at writing compelling relationships, I think because they have this fantasy of being eternal DINKs.
So yeah, pass on that one but it made me think of another recent watch, Midnight Run, which is hilarious and a joy to watch. And part of what makes it so good, apart from DeNiro almost never missing, is the juxtaposition of the petty and mundane with the serious and tragic, sort of like what I was saying above. DeNiro and Grodin play a grizzled and jaded cop-turned-bounty-hunter with a heart of gold and a hapless but principled embezzling-for-charity mob accountant, respectively, on the run from mafia hitmen. The whole thing is an excellently written and expertly acted blast, but just as an example of the principle I’m talking about, there’s a scene where DeNiro is telling his quarry, Grodin, about opening a restaurant when he collects the bounty from turning Grodin in and the accountant launches into a lecture about how poor of an investment eateries are. It is laugh out loud funny because they are fleeing the threat of death in the process of this conversation. That is the humor I like. It is funny because it is a profound look into human nature and the inherent silliness we are often prey to. So, skip the crummy buddy cop romp and watch Midnight Run, it’s great. 4.5/5 Stars.
Writing:
Still chipping away at my current novel. Word counts might be paltry today as I have some contract content work to do that is boring beyond belief and soul-sucking. But like I said yesterday, every step counts and is cause for being easily pleased. And to the other freelance work, a lot of stuff we have to do in life just plain sucks, and we try to remember we are doing it to support our families or ourselves in the way the workaday world is structured. Reality just isn’t set up in a way where we are constantly living the dream. I don’t have any profound wisdom with that other than keep trucking and keep your head up.
Reading:
I haven’t read anything yet today, so I’ll be chugging along later in the same Nora Roberts book, Black Hills. Last chapter was a good mini-cliffhanger so I’m looking forward to it. Nora paces really well. Something to learn from.
Ciao:
That’s what’s on my mind today. Hope it’s entertaining and somewhat useful to you and I’ll see you tomorrow (probably, it’s daily(ish) after all). If you wanna chat in the comments I’ll keep an eye out. Have a great day, folks.
I absolutely despise traffic and driving in the city. I will go miles out of my way to avoid stop lights. I will drive a zig-zag course through little known streets to get away from lights.
On the few times that I've had to go into the city, usually to take my daughter to art class, I've mentally cursed at every light I had to go through.
One afternoon, I had an almost perfect run, all the lights I had to go through were green, there was no traffic at the stop signs, and then I hit the stupidity that is a blocked road. I had to laugh and shake my head. "Good one, sir. You got me."
oh well, it was good while it lasted.