December 2009
The Way It Should Be
Submitted by junglemonkey on December 5, 2009 - 10:30pmI wanted to be a writer from the time I was little. When I wasn't reading, I was writing, and when I wasn't reading or writing, I was making stuff up and telling it to whoever was listening (as an adult, we call it "having a great imagination," but when I was a kid, they called it "lying through her teeth"). My efforts were normally greeted with pats on the head and "aren't you cute" sort of comments, but I learned early on that my very best efforts garnered the same amount of praise as my worst, which led me to believe they were less than sincere.
The Introvert in Public
Submitted by junglemonkey on December 20, 2009 - 10:10pmI was at FedEx with my kid the other day, and when we left, she observed that I'm not as antisocial as I like people to believe. The gentleman in front of me in line talked to us for a while about the benefits of living in such a small community. He was friendly and voluble and in the holiday spirit, and it felt good to be smiling and passing the time in line. Once at the front of the line, I talked a bit to the clerk, who was helpful and friendly (even when he mistakenly rang up my 12-foot roll of bubble wrap at $51,000).
Virtual Bank Line: Gardening & God
Submitted by junglemonkey on December 27, 2009 - 10:44amI realized this morning why my dreams never seem to have a real beginning. It's because my dreams are complete worlds that have history and memories of their own. I'm in one place or another because earlier in dreamtime, I made a decision to be there. The people with me were somewhere else before, and those memories are part of the package. It's why I love my dreams.
Suffering for Happiness
Submitted by junglemonkey on December 30, 2009 - 10:29amAs a Buddhist living in a Western country, I feel caught between two
very different definitions of "happiness." Both traditions insist that
happiness is something worth striving for, a lifelong goal, but the
similarity ends there. Westerners are pummeled with images of the good
time they should be having all the time. Childhood should be an endless
birthday party, college should end with a spouse and large crowd of
lifelong best friends, one should wake up every day so excited to be
alive that they spring out of bed. For Buddhists, "happiness" is