Brainless

 There is a saying that says, "Empty your mind, pick up a pencil and draw" and the purpose of this is tactical in nature in the sense that one must focus on the task at hand and to remove as best one can, of all outside distractions (there are many). This also applies to anything a person does that involves their intentional focus, not just drawing, although it is a principle I teach art students. 

Like I said, this rule applies to many things but the spirit behind it involves activity, not passive mindlessness.

• Watching TV
• Doom-scrolling
• Social media
• Gossiping
• excessive phone use

I was listening to an interview about how devices and A.I. are doing things for us that we used to have to do for ourselves and the interviewee thought how great it is to have it because it gives him less to think about but immediately after he said it, I recognized that something in that remark didn't quite jibe well with me. 

"It Gives Me Less to Think About"

Isn't thinking what sets humans apart from animals? The greatest works of humankind begins by thinking to solve problems or to be creative. 

• The polio vaccine
• the four minute mile
• The abolition of slavery
• Landing on the moon
• The Sistine Chapel
• The horseless carriage
• Notre Dame Cathedral
• Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3

All originated in the human mind as an independent, free thought, an idea originating in the gray matter of the human mind and not in an electronic device. 

The goals of the forces of evil is to get people to empty their minds so the void can be filled with less than valuable things. 

"Let the robot do it"

That's why, knowing full well A.I. can do my work for me and probably make it way better, aesthetically speaking, than I will ever be able to do, I will only do it myself. Most of the time I won't even check it using A.I. and it's not because I'm a stubborn, crotchety old man who doesn't like new-fangled gadgets. It's because I like the way I do it, mistakes and all. How much value would Leonardo's Mona Lisa possess if it was done by Grok?

I've drawn some things and someone would say to me "Let's see what A.I. can do with it!" My immediate response is a decisive "no". Why would I want to see what a robot can do to my creation? 

Along those same lines, there is an argument about the ethics of using things like the self-checkout lanes at the grocery stores and most of the people that vow they will never use them, because they want to "support the employees", are the same people who  gladly use ATM machines to do bank transactions instead of going inside the bank to let a person do it. These are also the same people who would let Chat GPT create an illustration for them instead of employing a person to do it. Better still, these people will let A.I. write a book, illustrate it and design the cover and then they say, "I wrote this book".

Changing the World in 8 Days

What am I spending time on?

I read a book early last year and it wasn't the best book I've read, but it had good information and recently, I went to look for it on my bookshelf, but to my surprise, I couldn't find it. I thought to myself, 

I know it was no treasure, but I couldn't have donated it to a thrift store already, could I have? 

It was a newer book, and I didn’t dislike it so I began to search for it with no luck when I had the brilliant idea of cataloging all my books so I could easily check to see if a particular book was still in my possession without turning my house upside-down. So, during the course of trying to get a foothold on this new year’s objectives, I was distracted when I began searching for a book I thought was in my collection.

 I have my daily tasks all laid out which will take time to complete, and for the last couple of days I have been cataloging all the books I own. So, instead of tending to my daily non-negotiables, I'm spending time recording every book in the house! It reminds of the story Zig Ziglar talked about when a guy he once met told him he had memorized every name of every county in every state in America. Ziglar thought it was an extraordinary claim so what else could he do? He asked him to prove it and sure enough, the man did it.

 Ziglar thought it an amazing mental achievement, but he said to himself, why spend so much time, mental capacity and energy on such a useless endeavor? What possible good could come out of knowing the name of every county in America? Wasn't there something he could spend his time on that would be more beneficial?

 That’s what I'm asking myself. I just spent lots of time cataloging all my books and for what? Couldn’t I have better spent my time on something else, something more beneficial related to my process of getting better results?

 It's that damned Marine mentality, again, that was tattooed in my psyche all those years ago. We were always expected to achieve immediate and consequential results, without exception and without excuses. I still hear that drill instructor in my ear.

Grace Please

However, there is another side to that coin, one that is a little more merciful and gracious to me.

  It's very early in the year, just a little more than a week into it and here I am already berating myself for neither meeting all my objectives I've set nor being awarded my rightful Pulitzer Prize for writing.

 I'm going to have to give myself some time, especially since some of the particulars of my daily non-negotiables are new to me.

 The fact is I can't change the world in 8 days. It may take a little more time.

Merry Christmas to me?

 

Part of my job is to be at company Christmas parties not as an employee, but as part of the entertainment. In case you're not aware, I draw caricatures of the employees.

 I must admit that some of these revelries are quite impressive as a result of the deep pockets of the corporation and sometimes I feel not only out of place but it’s as though I walked onto a set of a Hollywood production like The Godfather or The Great Gatsby because of the opulence and elegance of the venue.

I also have a confession. I sometimes feel envious of the attending underlings because they are having so much fun and they partake of the outstanding dinners prepared by first class chefs (I snuck a bite of some boiled crab and it made my toes curl) and receive the gifts and bonuses from their company.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm advocate of running self-employment but I sometimes would like just a taste of the other side. When I have those inclinations, it’s usually only for the duration of the event and I can focus on my own, again, afterwards.

Then I’d  begin thinking about it. There have been times in days past when I was part of a company that did Christmas parties. Certainly, they may not have been as posh as the ones described above but they were very nice indeed, but what was the ultimate price I paid for the privilege?

I might save the long answer for another time but, in short, I lost control of my future, my personal goals, my hopes for the future. The parties were forgotten about the next day, and the Christmas bonuses are long gone. In fact, when my apparent usefulness to the companies was through, I was tossed aside and coldly left without a means of income without regard to my needs or the needs of my family. Some party, huh?

So, as a quick reminder to myself, I earn more money in the two or three hours of drawings that I’m providing for the company that hired my services than I used to make all week as an employee and for the privilege of attending their Christmas party.

No thank you.

 

 

A Most Unforgettable Christmas

It's customary for stateside military personnel to take furlough during Christmas week to visit their families back home and as a young U.S. Marine, when not deployed, I too would follow that convention, but not always.

This part was the same

Military furlough is not unlike the traditional vacation time of any civilian job in that one gains more leave days the longer they’re in and it was typical for us to gather and save as much furlough in order to ensure we had time off during the holidays and I was no different.

This Part was different, though.

But it was a long time ago, when one year, I and some friends stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, decided to forgo furlough that year during Christmastime and remain there on the base and take our leave, later, when everyone else returned, usually after New Year’s Day.

Left Behind

There were about four of us, and we watched what seemed to be the entire population of Marines at Camp Lejeune depart for home. Lejeune was a ghost town as we were the only four out of the entire battalion to remain there and we practically had the whole base to ourselves. I’ve often wondered what would happen if the country was attacked during Christmas because there would be no military to defend the country.

During that quiet week, we still had to report in uniform every morning to the officer on duty but afterwards we were on our own. No training, no formations, no duties, no physical training, no inspections, and no watches other than the occasional guard duty but it was a small price to pay, and I must admit it was one of the most unforgettable, and fun, Christmases I ever had.

Say "hello" to our friend, Jim

We spent the week with a case of Jim Beam, going into Jacksonville at night to paint the town red, taking a couple of days to go fishing at nearby Catfish Lake and since we ate most of our meals at the chow hall, we didn’t spend any money on eating out. We also had no cars and our transportation to and from town was by bus, so we had no worries about driving conditions.

It was a great bonding experience for the four of us who still keep in touch to this day.

When the holiday was over, and everyone else reported back for duty, the four of us put in our leave requests as planned and off we went to celebrate a new year, not at home, but in Montana, which was another unforgettable experience, but that’s another story.

 

I Almost Joined

We landed at the San Diego airport in the middle of the night and went to the designated area reserved for Marine recruits and waited. I was part of a group of about 25 other recruits, still in our civilian attire and we still had our hair.

Eventually a Marine Staff Sergeant, built like he was chiseled as Greek statue, came from out of the dark, accompanied by a slim corporal, walked decidedly over to a waiting podium, and firmly placed paperwork on it.

The corporal said to us, "Form two single file lines in front of the staff sergeant's podium."

We all then groped our way toward the podium, not knowing what was coming next. The square jawed staff Sergeant looked up and said with authority, "When you hear your name you will answer 'here', and from now on, your first and last words will be 'sir'."

He looked at his list and began calling role, "Anderson". We all heard the recruit respond with a low and careless "here", and at that, the staff Sergeant looked up in shock and yelled, "You don't listen well do you! Did I not just say the first and last word out of that filthy suck of yours will be 'sir'!" 

My eyes grew wide.

He continued, "Get the shit out of your ears and listen up! ANDERSON!" This time the recruit answered, with the standard "Sir, here, sir!"

I began some alarming self-talk, saying to myself, "Oh, my god, here I am in the middle of a strange airport in the middle of the night, and this Marine is yelling and cussing at this guy! What have I done? Is it too late to change my mind? Why do I keep doing this to myself?"

Needless to say, it was too late, and it was the first encounter of the adventure of a lifetime. I was to go on to see, and experience amazing things over the next several years. I established bonds with other Marines that still exist today, after all these years. Nothing I do, nothing I say, nothing I think, isn’t somehow tainted with Marine green.

The experience was unique and the only ones who can relate to it are actually not veterans in general, nor even, most of the time, other Marines, but rather the very Marines who actually went through it all alongside me. 

I am rather guarded on the subject because many people often say things like, "I almost joined the Marines" or "My uncle was in the Marines so it's like I was a Marine too." And then there is always the ones who think they understand the life of Marines because, "I read how tough it is, so I understand"

No, they don't understand, and there is no way they could, no matter how many stories they hear from relatives, or videos they watch, or books they read. It's like me trying to understand what it's like to go through childbirth; I can listen to my wife, and other women can tell me what it's like, and I can read about it, or hear about it, but I never gone through it. I can listen politely but understanding what it's like is not within my capabilities.

We had a phrase when I was in, "If you ain't been there, shut the fuck up". This was a simple and frank way of saying if someone hasn't done what they're talking about, then they don't know what they're talking about.  

I can't count the number of times over the years the people who have never been in, ceaselessly blather on to me about what they think they know. Not only do I find them a total bore but it's also highly offensive to me. Who are they to tell me what it's like?

If you're in business for yourself, how often have you heard someone tell you how to run your business, who themselves aren't in business and have never been in business?

"If I was in business", I've heard them say, "I'd run it this way, or that way." When I've heard this phrase over all the years in which I've worked for myself, I would have liked to have answered, "If you ain't been there...." as they proceed to their warehouse job or cubicle, underpaid, underwhelmed, and complaining.

Don't most of us self-employed, instead, just smile politely and say little in response? 

Drag me to Hell

 I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that more often than not, people would prefer to make others as unhappy as themself. Misery loves company but it seems that instead of people simply going out and finding others just as miserable as themselves, they would prefer to make the person they are with just as sorrowful. This has very often happened to me.

• Me: "I love Halloween."
• Other: "Halloween is satanic and all that candy isn't good for you."

Writing is another thing I like to do, and I'm often seen jotting things down in a notebook I carry with me. "Why do you have to write everything down?" I've been told. "Be like me and just keep it in your head."

Of course, I also draw, and it's common for me to be callously chastised for doing so. Here are a few remarks I've heard over the years:

• "You shouldn't be drawing. You need to focus on your work, instead!"
• "Drawing while someone is talking means you're not paying attention."
• "Quit drawing and get a real job."
• "Everything you do has drawings all over it."

I've often been derided for various other things like:

• Reading in general
• What I read
• Wanting to be alone
• Not talking
• The way I talk
• The way I open the curtains
• The way I work
• The way I walk

Sometimes people tell me that I shouldn't be so happy and remind me why. 

• "You may feel good now but wait till you get to be my age."
• "This month may be good but what about next month?"
• "You may really like apple cider, but all that sugar is going to make you fat."

I know I'm not the only one who goes through this, and I've even discovered it's a condition related to psychological concepts with real names. 

Misery loves company

There is no explicit technical term for this malady, but this common saying is often used to describe someone who attempts to drag others down into their own unhappiness. Psychologically it can stem from insecurity, jealousy, or a desire for validation. When a person is miserable, they feel less alone or threatened when those around them also feel bad.

Schadenfreude

This impossible-to-pronounce German word means taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. If a person's goal is to actively inflict unhappiness on others simply for their own satisfaction, they are experiencing schadenfreude. It's a key part of toxic and sadistic behavior.

Crab Mentality

This phrase or metaphor describes a way of thinking best described as "If I can't have it neither can you." The name comes from the observation that if you put crabs in a bucket they will easily escape, but any crab that attempts climb out is pulled back down by the others. A person with this mindset will sabotage your happiness or success so you don't see above their own level.

My Own,
Little Ole' Me, Viewpoint

I think the most common reason people are habitually cynical is because of pride. People want to be seen as intelligent, wise, and worldly. Even successful and happier people can be found to be negative toward others because they want to be seen as the person who has the answer. It's the, if it worked this way for me, then it'll work that way for everybody, condition. It's the person who gives unsolicited advice just to be lofty in other's minds.

The best way I found to deal with them is to just let it be, don't argue with them and possibly even confirm it in their own mind, much like in the spirit of Dale Carnegie. But sometimes I'll just tell the other person to "Shut-up!"

Mindset Again?