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Journal rdewald's Journal: Being admired, radical acceptance and March Madness. 18

Journal by rdewald

I have a Starbucks admirer. There's this cute young woman who works at a Starbucks I frequent who remembers what I ordered the last time I was there, comes over and asks me if that's what I want and then has it (or whatever I told her I wanted) ready for me sometimes before I've even paid for it. I don't remember ever talking to her or anything like that, but she greets me like a friend with a big smile and kind words every time I see her. To other people she's just sort of normal-friendly, surely the kind of countenance that Starbucks seeks to imbue in all of it's staff, but she treats me like getting the opportunity to make my caffe americano is one of the real perks (pun intended) of her job--big smiles, warm greetings, lingering glances while I am in line.

Its nice but I don't understand it. Do I know her? She is young enough to be my daughter, hispanic, petite. Is she related to a patient of mine? Further, why does this make me uncomfortable?

My first thought is that she thinks I am someone else. I keep expecting that she will realize her mistake at some point and I am drawn to comfort her when she does. I just don't get it. Maybe this is how good-looking people's lives are. I don't know, I've never been one.

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What if everything is exactly as it should be? Think of everything going on in your life with which you are dissatisfied and consider for a moment what it would mean to you if you somehow were told by God or some other final authority that it's all planned this way, that all of this crap is designed to get you where you are supposed to go.

Try it for a moment, it is a fun exercise.

-----

MARCH MADNESS!!!

Some may remember that I am a devoted college basketball fan, my team is the University of North Carolina TarHeels, my conference is the ACC. Sunday I will post a bracketology JE, but I can give you some hints and some dark horses.

Two of the top seeds are over-rated. Duke and UConn are where they are in the rankings because sports writers want to be right. Neither or them will hold up at the dance. Duke almost got beat by Miami today, their game is all about Reddick, when he goes cold they are a mid-25 team at best. UConn DID get beaten by Syracuse, beaten by sheer force of desire, Syracuse wanted it more. That's not what champions are made of.

Villanova is strong, so is Ohio State, so is Gonzaga, yet, like Duke, their game is all about Morrison. The dark horses? SIU and West Virginia do not get the attention they deserve. Also, college basketball is a physical contest, and Pitt is big.

Stay tuned.

This discussion was created by rdewald (229443) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Being admired, radical acceptance and March Madness. More

Being admired, radical acceptance and March Madness.

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  • There was a Babylon 5 espisode where Marcus says "You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
  • A very dark horse! Though it would be the first time in history that all three major NCAA sports championships were held at the same time by the same school.
    Yeah. A VERY DARK HORSE. But in the race.
  • i wonder if i'm thinking this wrong, but i often think--without any supernatural connotations--that everything you experience in life can have an impact on your future direction. even if you're in a crappy situation, you usually have a choice to get out of it somehow or another. that crappy situation need not be permanent, but you can learn from it nonetheless. that whole idea of "what does not kill me makes me stronger" comes to mind.

    so, in any particular moment, that's where you are--it really couldn't
  • If everything is exactly as it should be, then I am also supposed to try to change that. My attempting to change the grand scheme is in fact, part of the grand scheme.

    I do believe that things will work out in the end, but only if I allow it to happen.

    So not quite fatalism, just faith.
    • Right, your desire to change things is one of those things that is exactly the way it should be. That's the "radical" part of the exercise, it includes everything, including your dissatisfaction, i.e., you imagine that you are supposed to be dissatisfied. As I imagine the exercise, the only thing that you change, and then only for a moment, is that nagging notion that things are broken somehow, that things might not be working out for you.
  • what it would mean to you if you somehow were told by God or some other final authority that it's all planned this way, that all of this crap is designed to get you where you are supposed to go.

    Try it for a moment, it is a fun exercise.

    Hm. Losing a baby and being unable to get pregnant again despite doctor's assurances otherwise doesn't seem like an acceptable way to get me to go anywhere. Not the problems getting pregnant so much, but killing babies to teach me lessons is totally off the charts.

    By whi

    • Wow, you're right, that does take all of the fun out of it. However, does it take the value of the exercise with it? I don't know. I'm not going to pretend like I know this kind of grief, I don't.

      I am so sorry for your loss. I'm also sorry I don't have any answers, I wish I did.
      • However, does it take the value of the exercise with it?

        "Going there" makes me very angry (and I'm very deliberately holding it at arms length as we discuss it now), so I'm not certain. I don't think the anger has much value.

        • And to clarify a couple of things....which I should have thought about before hitting submit the last time....

          1) I do think that there are things for me to learn from the experience, I just don't think that there's any "intention" or "plan" or otherwise behind it.
          2) The anger is not still anger at the loss, that is pretty far behind me. The anger is at the idea that it *could* be "intentional" for whatever version of intentional you wish to apply. In the sense that I'm "meant" to learn from it, as opposed

          • Let me share with you one vitally important lesson I have learned in my journey. Anger is a vital, enlivening force that give me the energy to change things that need to be changed. There might not be a more useful emotion for me in my life.

            I used to disdain and stuff anger., I used to think it was useless. That was because I would hold it in and push it away until it began to leak out in other ways or I would explode and do something completely inappropriate and self-destructive. It wasn't until I rea
            • Anger focussed on something that can be changed, I would agree can be a good motivating force. Anger at people (not you nor anyone here) who presume to know "why"....the only constructive change I see there is to simply walk away from them, and the anger doesn't help that, much. The hurt does just as much to motivate walking away. And anger at the universe itself will simply eat me alive if I let it take root, because I cannot change the random cruelties...and thinking more about this, it's arguable that
    • i'm with you. The end DOES NOT justify the means.

      Random, i can accept, and even embrace. We would have no compassion if we felt that people suffered only because they deserved it.

      But deliberate... no.

      If it were deliberate, somebody would have a fuck of a lot of explaining to do.
  • UConn DID get beaten by Syracuse, beaten by sheer force of desire, Syracuse wanted it more. That's not what champions are made of

    wait, but i thought that *was* the definition of a champion, the one who has the heart and works to get what they want... and if they wanted it more, and pulled together as a team to get it, i'd say that makes them a champion, or at least the stuff of what makes a champion.
    • Yeah, my rhetoric was unclear. I meant that UConn was the team lacking the elements of championship. Syracuse, because they wanted it more, embodied that element. I just used too many pronouns with ambiguous referents.
      • ding!

        i understand now. gotcha :)

        just an aside, i am not now, nor have i ever been a cowboy. should i have been one, i sure as shit wouldn't be posting to slashdot, as cowboys typically don't spend a considerable amount of time behind a computer. instead, as the term alludes to, they spend most of their time with cows, and horses and being outside and wearing weird hats and things like that. clearly, taking a good long hard look at myself, i can plainly see, without question, i am no cowboy, and yet, slashco

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