by N. K. Peske
Samuel Johnson
As I look back on my greatest adventures in life, I realize that most of them would never have happened had I stuck to the straight and narrow. Like the time I wandered into the Sail and Rail down by the freight yard, a real man’s kind of bar where your elbows stick to the tables and the smell of fine draft blends congenially with industrial disinfectant. And they don’t serve frozen daiquiris.
I sat down next to an old salt who sucked down Wild Turkey like he was born with bourbon for blood, and after about the eighth round, he got kind of talkative. He told me about his stint as the owner of a Shanghai bordello, a profitable establishment very similar in style to the Sail and Rail, which had been financed for him by some guy named Vic the Throat. He never told me how Vic had earned his name. I was only on my fourth bourbon, and perhaps he deemed me unworthy. And I never did get the moral of the story, but he taught me a great card trick, which I use all the time at poker parties.
Life is full of wonderful mysteries for those willing to check out the side streets. Just be sure to set your car alarm.
BEING IN CHARGE
It is a fine thing to command, even if it be only a herd of cattle.
Miguel de Cervantes
As born leaders, we think that we must do it all. How self-centered of us to think we are the only ones who can get it done and get it done right!
Of course, I’m not talking about highly complex tasks calling for an expertise that only we can bring to bear on a particular project, like grilling burgers. I’m talking about jobs that we could delegate. Like hot dogs; it’s impossible to screw those up. I mean, they’re precooked.
The thing with hot dogs is if you cut them in half, then you’ve got it knocked. It’s pretty much a matter of even heat distribution, and that’s it. Burgers, on the other hand, have to be finessed, or they go dry on the outside and raw on the inside. Also, you have to be pretty handy with a spatula to turn those quarter pounders without leaving an eighth of a pound still stuck to the grill.
So the idea is, leave yourself free to focus all your attention on the tough stuff, like burgers, and be man enough to let your wife turn the dogs.
Besides, if she screws it up, she’s gonna eat them anyway. I’m certainly not going to. Do you have any idea what they put in those things?
INTEGRITY
[T]his above all: to thine own self be true …
William Shakespeare
I wonder. Have I sacrificed my integrity in the race to get ahead? Am I opting for peace in the home over peace of mind? Am I listening to my mate when I should be listening to myself? Am I going to give in and paint the ceiling, or stand firm and go golfing like I planned?
Every day presents another opportunity to betray myself. Do I get up when my alarm rings or stay in bed until I’m not tired anymore? Do I get on the train to work, even though I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than commute one more day? Do I buy Billy braces or that rookie Ernie Banks card? Do I wear the new starched oxford or the soft flannel, with the precisely engineered ventilation system in the elbows, that I’ve spent fifteen years weathering to perfection? Do I live my life sitting up, when I’d much rather be lying down?
It is easy to forget to listen to myself. I gobble up these bits of integrity slippage like potato chips, and no one can eat just one. How important it is to stop and look at what I’m doing. What a relief to realize that underneath the pile of orthodontist bills, I can still find my self-respect ready to reconnect with me just as soon as I am willing to sit down and take a load off.
So what if my life resembles a garbage dump? I like it that way.
FEELING OVERWHELMED/
DISAPPEARING
In managing human affairs, there is no better rule than self-restraint.
Lao-tse
From the moment we wake up till we drift off to sleep hours or minutes later, we are bombarded with information to be processed. We begin to feel machinelike, computing it all: Which side of the street can I park on this morning? Is this recycling day, or tomorrow? Is today clean underwear day, or is it next Tuesday?
Then we reach for the morning paper, and there is nothing but more bad news. John Elway still hasn’t won a Super Bowl. Another supermodel is dating a rock star instead of us. Rain is predicted for Saturday and Sunday. It’s a bleak forecast all the way around; no wonder we feel overwhelmed.
As Men Who Do Next to Nothing, we are only just taking baby steps toward learning the process of prioritizing, allowing ourselves to block out the trivia, to exercise self-restraint in our encounters with reality. Is it really important to know the name of our senator or if there is right on red in this state? I don’t think so.
When we clean our mental houses, we find serenity, along with a half-dozen dust bunnies and last month’s Visa bill.
REALITY/FANTASY
Ever let the fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
John Keats
People who are “experts” on the subject tell us that one of the danger signals of poor mental health is losing the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. A sick man, they tell us, builds a fantasy and then moves right in.
We Men Who Do Next to Nothing must learn to ask ourselves and our mates, “Yeah, and so what?” What is wrong with living a fantasy? Who would rather live real life as a systems analyst when he could live a fantasy life as Eddie Vedder? Who needs to sweat real blood to make the mortgage payments on a prefab suburban dump when he could live in a fantasy palace of his own design, rent free? What is the big deal about reality, anyway?
It’s not that we don’t perceive reality, we just choose not to live in it.
SILENCE/INNER PEACE
Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.
Thomas Carlyle
When we still our minds, we may find inner peace that renews and strengthens us. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll catch a few much needed, well-deserved winks, which is certainly far more valuable than some abstract spirituality thing.
Frankly, few things stimulate my spirituality more than my wife talking to me. Somehow she inspires me to clear my mind of thoughts, still my brain waves, and cease all mental activity. I enjoy this inner peace, and I am calm as I bond with my Higher Power within, at least until she severs my cosmic line of communication and demands that I actually answer her.
Silence is the sound of our Higher Power calling us. Noise is usually my wife.
RESPONSIBILITY
Is life worth living?
Samuel Butler
As men, we have been raised to take care of our families. Yet down deep, we often have a secret wish that someone else would take care of us. Frequently, we wish we could be stowaways instead of ticketed passengers on the garbage scow of life. Who wants to pay for a ticket on a trash barge, anyway? Come to think of it, they should pay us to ride. We ought to get a salary just for agreeing to exist.
Unfortunately, life is a nonprofit organization supported solely by volunteers, but as volunteers we do have options. For one thing, we can exercise some choice over our destination. We can demand that the scow go someplace besides, say, New Jersey. For another thing, we have the right to pick and choose the tasks we undertake. For instance, we can decline to scrub between our toes or, in fact, to scrub anything at all. We don’t have to separate glass and cans, and they can’t make us provide for our families or contribute to a more humane global economy. We’re volunteers, so what are they gonna do … fire us? Dock our pay?
To participate in our lives does not mean that we have to go to New Jersey.
ANGER
@#*!! +@**%#@!!
Axl Rose
Anger is a powerful force. When we become truly enraged we may feel overwhelmed by the force of our feeling and attempt to bottle up our emotions. Inevitably, though, our anger builds to the boiling point, and we explode, often with disastrous results. We get fired. We get thrown out of bars. We get blood on the carpet.
How much better it is to expres
s anger at the moment we begin to experience it. There are so many opportunities to let off steam and avoid nuclear meltdown, if only we would avail ourselves of them.
Say your secretary misspells a client’s name or misplaces a preposition. Say your wife serves your dinner and the broccoli’s cold. Let them have it. You’ll all be better off in the long run if you get those feelings out. And the best part is that next time your broccoli will be hot.
It is the angry young man who gets the multimillion-dollar recording contract and the groupies.
TRANQUILLITY
Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement.
Alfred North Whitehead
Sometimes people confuse peace and tranquillity with catatonia. In fact, although many of the outward symptoms are similar, they are very different states of being.
Tranquillity comes after watching eight solid hours of NBA playoff action, during which you move nothing more than two eyeballs, a right index finger, and occasionally a vocal cord or two. Peace comes when we still our minds and our bodies, when our jaw hangs slack, when our boxers bag down along with our hopes for the future. Peace comes when we relax, let go of the guilt and most of the sensory awareness of our surrounding environment.
Come to think of it, we might be giving catatonia a bum rap.
FOCUS/CONCENTRATION/
PRIORITIES
My hobbies are hooking up stuff to see if it works, and beer.
Joe Walsh
Have you ever watched Minnesota Fats play pool? He has total focus. He knows he has to block out everything around him so he can sink that next shot. He knows what his priorities are.
When we try to focus like this in our own lives, people around us tell us we are rude and inattentive. They don’t appreciate the intense concentration it requires to work out the Sunday Times puzzle, tie a fly, or eat a chili burrito properly, savoring every bit and feeling it work its way through our lower intestine.
Of course we didn’t notice we knocked over the ashtray, and now the cat is chewing on last night’s cigarette butts and tracking ashes all over the new carpet. Actually, we hadn’t noticed that burn mark in the middle of it, either. Or the mud we must’ve tracked in—it is mud, isn’t it?
The point is, we’ve got to focus to get important tasks done. These magical moments when we give our complete and undivided attention to a task put us in touch with our Higher Power. We can get in touch with the carpet cleaner tomorrow.
Focusing allows me to be at one with myself and my own little world. I think I’ll stay there for a while. I think the rent’s cheaper.
EXPLORATION
… to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Mission of the USS Enterprise
Not just to go, but to go boldly. I think that means never asking for directions. It means that when faced with new adventures in life or major decisions, such as whether to go left or to go right, we must boldly go left, without relying on maps or lame instructions from gas station workers who can’t even navigate gas through a hose.
We must not be afraid of the unexpected intersections of life, even if we’ve passed one three times in the last half hour. This could be a new shortcut. In a sense, we know where we are going. I mean, knowledge is relative, as are the directions to Aunt Sally’s. Funny, but I don’t remember passing that burned-out building last time or circling the airport parking lot three times, but memory, too, is relative.
Life is what happens while you’re circling the airport.
SELFLESSNESS
He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.
William Hazlitt
The arrogance of our disease fools us into thinking that selflessness means denying our own egos. But if we give up our egos, what is left?
How can we offer anything to anybody if we abandon ourselves? And think of what a loss to the world it would be if we could no longer offer it our unique and special gifts.
Who would keep our wives in line, curb their spending, instruct them in how to stack the refrigerator so that nothing ever drips on our beer cans? Who would tell our secretaries that “occasional” has two c’s and one s? Who would tell our kids that a liberal arts education is a waste of time? Without us, they’ll be studying useless stuff like Shakespeare or something they call “communication,” which, it seems to me, no college in the world can teach you.
Obviously, without our intervention the world would run amok. I’m going to speak up more often.
I have a lot to offer others, and I’m going to make sure they know about it.
THOUGHTS/OPINIONS
To lie still and think little is medicine for the soul.
Friedrich Nietzsche
How many times have we heard it said that we men are creatures of the mind, that we are logical, linear, rational, and left-brained? Could this be true? Are we truly better thinkers than women? It is certainly nice to think so.
Maybe, as heirs to this intellectual tradition of men, we should put our minds to use. Maybe we should work toward envisioning and creating a better world. Maybe we should fulfill our potential as intellectual adventurers, cognitive conquerors, mental world movers. But then again … maybe not.
Today, I will not clutter my mind with thoughts.
INTEGRATION/SELFHOOD
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
Oscar Wilde
People tell me I’m selfish because I put my needs before the needs of others. She doesn’t like it when I opt to watch the bout on Tuesday night instead of going to Aunt Marilyn’s funeral. She gets incensed because I like to save old boxes in case I have to move in a hurry one day. She grows irate because I saw no harm in borrowing the shower curtain to use as a tarp on a camping weekend. Hey, water’s water, right? She disapproves because I figure if you can’t see it, it’s not there, so why clean it or pay for it? Who cares what’s behind the refrigerator? When am I going to use medical insurance?
As a result of this impervious and all-inclusive disapproval, we Men Who Do Next to Nothing can sometimes get the idea that we are unappreciated. Guilt can rain on our parade of confidence and self-esteem. But men are more than the sum of their character flaws, and the world would be a pretty dull place if there were no secrets behind the refrigerator. We are like rainbows, adding contrast and excitement to a world of women workaholics who have never had the guts or the imagination to sleep under the stars on a shower curtain.
Today, I own up to myself. I own myself, and I could own a lot more if Aunt Marilyn had left me something in the will.
GROWTH
[T]he crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
William Blake
Somehow, we all harbor the secret hope that if we can just get ourselves together, if we can finally work out all our issues, plumb the depths of our strengths and weaknesses, and get a grip, then at last, life will leave us alone to catch a few solid z’s before the bout starts.
What a shock it is to realize that, like my wife, life never lets up, never leaves me alone, no matter how much money I make, no matter if I clean the garage five times a weekend and finish every household project I’ve begun in the last ten years—it never, ever, has the common human decency to leave me alone for just five minutes. Just when I think I’m free and clear, and I’ve settled back onto the couch, it’s something else again, like the lawn, or the plugged-up chimney, or the unpaid electric bill, or a new sin tax. It’s always something.
How much easier it would be to just avoid growth altogether, to toss away our emotional twin blade and remain spiritually unshaven.
To grow and to change is the normal state for human beings. I am a human being. Maybe there’s something I can do to change that.
HINDRANCE/COMPLETION
God keep me from ever completing anything.
Herman Melville
We are often told that there is a purpose behind life’s tribulations. There are people who would have us believe th
at we grow from the challenges that confront us and that every obstacle we hurdle increases our character. These people are women.
We Men Who Do Next to Nothing know that there is no use slugging it out with what is obviously preordained anyway. These things are prearranged by our Higher Power. Who are we to question what is obviously in the cards?
Women don’t understand this kind of reasoning. They think that if we don’t get a promotion, swing the vacation time, or finance the mortgage, it’s our fault. “You got yourself into this, now you can get yourself out” is a common catchphrase, as if we had something to do with what is going on around us. As if it is really within our power to confront the forces at work in our lives.
It is best at times like these to tread a line of least resistance. True, life isn’t fair, but neither are women, so nod your head, grunt occasionally, but if she insists on action, let her do it.
An obstacle isn’t an obstacle until you try to overcome it.
COURAGE
Of all the thirty-six alternatives, running away is best.