2, 4, 6, 8

Patterns can be simultaneously exploited and revered; they can remain unadulterated or be subject to retooling, scrupulous and not so.  We cling to them pathetically at times but they also create origins for new spiderwebs.  I put these notes, these words, and these instruments together, for reasons that may seem perfectly clear to me.  So much so that sometimes I feel my patterns betray me.  Our brains love them and society quickly snaps up anything that can be packaged neatly in single-serving, 100-calorie bags.  Advertisers sell feelings after all.  The product disappears, trailing off in a prattle of side effects in eight point font.

Click Here to Turn Off Commentary

     Unfortunately (according to some), we live in the world of conceptualization and reference.  Wired in a particular fashion, we go about business as usual without so much as a passing thought as to the nature of reality (or our experience of the so-called 'reality').  There are many distractions.  Perhaps these distractions have euphemistic names and do not even appear as distractions.  Life itself is distilled into a chronology of distractions.  This is the problem with history: Charlemagne, the War of 1812, the debut of mustard gas.  Moments are replaced with the dates of battles.  The dates of what we think of as pivotal moments.  We all have these.  But I can't help but wonder if I was absent from some, maybe most, of my own.  I'd have done better to turn off director commentary in the film of my life which should not and may not even exist in the first place. 

The Joy of Sets

     All day, I dream about sets.  Matching sets, jet sets, Mandelbrot sets.  A group of related objects bracketed (and therefore corralled).
     I'm being a bit facetious; my tastes are more free range (though I do love fractals in all their transhemispheric glory).  To have a set is to have a set of things not in the set in question, the "everything else."  Therefore, it would seem a set's identity lies not in its contents or non-contents but in its inclusion/exclusion criteria.  Perhaps this line in the sand is false, or at the very least, subject to change when it encounters a wind.

Blame the FitBit?

     Business is bad.  Gone are the cookbooks calling for lard-laden dishes served up by a smiling brunette with a bob and a smile that says "Yes, Dear."  How does she keep her figure?  Perhaps it is the relentless vacuuming, in high heels nonetheless.  Really stretches those calves. 
     No, people are forsaking the casserole for the salad, trading the remote for the dumbbell, and chewing gum in lieu of smoking.  They are tracking their steps/miles/kilometers/furlongs with those ubiquitous, sleek watch-like bands.  Taking the stairs, biking to work, drinking kombucha and organic green tea...unfiltered, unprocessed, unadulterated.  Raw is the new cooked.
     As a weight-lifting, asana-striking, mostly vegan vegetarian, what am I complaining about?  After all, we're all on board now on this waste vegetable oil powered bandwagon sipping hemp lattes and trading essential oils! 
     It's business, my business, namely working in a procedural area of the hospital.  If no one needs their heart fixed, I don't work.  Thankfully, due to habits inherited from my Depression-era grandparents and an overall lack of interest in many material possessions, I haven't had to resort to eating Ramen noodles or pawning action figures.  In fact, I have become richer.  Not in money, but in time, a most precious natural but nonrenewable resource.  I can't put hours into my 401k but I can invest in myself, cheesy though it sounds.
     So here's to the next small ration of time.  Time to dust off old projects, start new adventures, plot new mayhem, and get ripped (to the extent that I can with peanut butter shakes and a limited amount of intrinsic testosterone).  If what I unleash seems better kept in the dungeon, blame the FitBit.