RIGHT NOW IN the United States of America and many parts of Earth, it is The Holidays! A supposedly great thing about the United States of America is the idea that there is Freedom, so if you go by that precept, then We (The People) are Free to go ahead and enjoy ourselves all The Holidays we want, all the way down to enjoying Zero! So Happy The Holidays, and Happy the paradoxically non-Holiday Void, which, I contend, if enjoyed in a certain way, is like a Holiday! From Holidays!
I don’t understand Buddhism, but that wouldn’t bother a Buddhist, right? Like, I’d say it’s a Religion, but it’s kind of a Religion of Not Having Anything, so I might wanna say it’s a Philosophy, all about how nothing lasts forever and you should just Relax, or deeper still, paradoxically Meditate into a state of non-being, or something? Anyway, a Buddhist practitioner would be cool with whatever my approach might be, as long as it’s not Destructive, because that’s not cool. Don’t you think being Cool is a big part of The Buddha, or at least, like, laid-back? You could do a lot worse in Life than spending some time attempting to emulate a Buddha, hah?
The furthest I got into Meditation was when I went to Yoga classes, and the teacher told us to relax and if we had a Thought, we should imagine that it’s floating along on a river, and you shouldn’t dwell on it, just let it slide on by. My problem was every time they said that part of the class, about how “Hey, you might have some Thoughts, so just let them pass,” it would trigger a brain-tape-clip of the song “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones, and there’s a version of the song where Mick Jagger is doing this spoken-word thing, voicing an imaginary dialogue about how he is miserable, with the Missing of You, and he says his friend tells him something like “You been strung out for too long, girls will come and go, they’re just like streetcars,” and that damn tape-loop in my head always tripped when the yoga instructor would say, “Thoughts will appear, just let them pass, like they are on a river, acknowledge the thought, and let it go by,” and in my brain I’m like “Dammit, was that part of ‘Miss You’ on the album, where he says ‘streetcars,’ or was it on the 8-track version, or the 12″ single? Goddammit!” So I never achieved mastery of the Letting Thoughts Go By part of my Yoga practice because of all my important Thoughts.
I got into Yoga because I gots the misery in my back, and stretching is good for your back, but really, my back hurts mostly because I could stand to lose a few pounds, which brings me around to Exercise, to get myself in shape. My mom always used to say, “Well, round is a Shape.” Do you have a favorite shape? I mean, if I had to pick between Round and Square, I would say Round is definitely my fave shape. Round is nice, right? No offense to Square or Cube or Triangle or Pyramid or, you know, Dodecahedron, etc., but I like Round, or at least Rounded. Like the Featured Image for this week’s Mr. Wrong column, did you see it? How great is that, eh? When I see a Rounded, Oblong-type shape in a wrapper like that, it brings me Joy. What could be in there, huh? That could be a Burrito, or maybe a Sandwich! Good times. It’s wrapped up like a Present, which brings me back to whatever the hell I was talking about, namely, The Holidays. Have One! Or don’t, whichever way you go, it will be great, enjoy!