Destiny Do-Overs

 Knowing Your Destiny

Part 8 of 30

This is by far my least favorite side of the whole scheme of Destiny, karma, and what have you; it's total icky poo poo. I just hate the thought of anyone suffering, except of course, understandably, outright wholly impure evildoers. And I even wonder about them. Were their crimes -- maybe lying about me in 8th grade -- really that serious? There’s certainly worse things. Some so bad they’re defined and judged the same around the world, with only minor differences, as real downers. And if you get on that slide of existence, it’s all downhill, one heck of a ride to the bottom. And when you get there -- ouch! It’s bumpy -- the ride’s just started and you haven’t yet reached the bottom, but down, down, down you plummet, and even then you're still plumbing the shallower depths, let us say.

If it were up to me, I’d have an inert eternity or milder cleansing eon to get everything squared away. Then you’re good to go, and hopefully -- as Deity I always keep my fingers crossed -- you’ll learn your lessons from the past and reenter the world with all the virtue befitting some of my older aunts. Who if they ever did a bad thing in their whole life, it was merely too much focus on their virtue, which was great and clearly a thing to be proud of. But that's also a slippery slope, which I’m glad I’ve never succumbed to, because that would be very very bad. Strictly off limits, a "don’t do it" kind of thing. Plus, don’t even think of it, or someone up-there or down-there or out-there is gonna get you...

In this scheme of things -- see the graphic -- those who suffer worst are the ones with the greater weight of karma. It's a point system, where for every good thing you do you get a plus point, and the opposite for the bad. Occasionally you hit one of the lesser jackpots -- sins of omission or commission -- and the bells ring and a more considerable payout gathers in the tray. “Look! 400 years of good! Let it ride!” Or “Damn! 200 years of flickering flames, darn the luck! Oh well, may as well get it over with.” Followed by a plunge into the dark depths and apparently rotting to death on the banks of the Styx. Not exactly ambrosia.

OK, who do we have in this unpleasant rogue’s gallery of Destiny? Yes, the usual suspects, Hunger, Disease, Crime, and Despair, reaching their nasty hands out to those nearly in their grasp. It’s all sad, I know, but it could be any of us, if karma, as sketched out above, is any consolation. And usually it’s not. But the good news -- it’s great news! -- is that you’ll be out of all that at some point and on your way to a brand new Destiny. Let’s say it takes 10,000 years till your next incarnation. Suffer that relatively brief time and you’ll be back in the saddle, riding high, with huge optimistic hopes, a positive outlook. But it might be only 5,000 years, or even split that in half! A penalty, yes, but next to nothing compared to 10,000 years. Which itself is a drop in the bucket if you figure the 10,000 could've been 20.

My advice, always do your best and you won’t be so worried about it. Anything less than 100 years of suffering and you’ve got something good enough to be proud of, of course without actually being proud of it.

Dies Of STDs, Returns

Part 17 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

This is a true story -- it is truly a story -- of a guy I once knew. Many of the details are fiction or close to fiction to drive home various points. Plus, I’m trying not to be so explicitly accurate that he thinks he's entitled to compensation, and of course I don't want him suing me for damages.

That's the way stories go, too. They’re either so boring you can’t do much with it. Or so interesting that they want a piece of the action. To which I say, if they wanted a piece of the action they should’ve stayed in the relationship, freely letting it all hang out and getting it on, instead of demurely withdrawing and then bragging to me about their experiences sexually and now with their abstinence, as though I haven’t got enough problems of my own. If it makes you feel good, take the whole thing with a grain of salt. And if it does you any good, that’s my joy.

Anyway, my friend’s experiences, the sex stuff, was so foolhardy, so completely demented, and for a guy with a high denial IQ so lascivious, that he literally died from pleasure (1) mixed with (2) the diseases attendant on certain unapproved, unwise practices. To get any more explicit than that would make me physically ill, and I’ve already had the dry heaves three times just with the intro.

But to literally die, that does something to me, going really the whole gamut, from physical sickness to spiritual euphoria. It’s either completely true about the afterlife (which is what I hope for) or the disease he contracted gives that illusion (six of one, half dozen of another). The last time I checked on the guy, and I occasionally see him at the pharmacy getting his various pills, he was still having all the symptoms, afterlife tales and the more cautionary stuff of back alleys. Still chasing that high and that low.

What would that be like? I often wonder, to be supine in the tomb, then to be ascending to heaven? All because you’re too much a horn-dog to forego a little bit of pleasure? One thing’s for sure, with my fear (which is my native saving grace), I’ll never know, unless it hits me the way I hope it hits me, when I die. The sensation of alpha jerk that Hendrix may have had. (Google “alpha jerk” and you’ll see the link.) In short, there’s two sockets/holes, death and life. In the experience of being there, in this surmise of Hendrix, he may have said, “I wonder if I can die.” So he supposedly tried it, the alpha jerk came on him and he 'slipped on out.'

My friend has apparently already been to the afterlife, but he keeps coming back, getting it on with various people, and maybe catching another virus or disease and going to the grave, over and over, world without end. Someday I’ll tell him goodbye and that’ll be it. But I’ll never know it’s it till he quits coming back. And if he keeps coming back I'll have to reassess.

Mother's Brewing Company

I was just inches from the Mother's Brewing Company's truck. Leading me to think, Everybody's gettin' in on the act! With their own brewing company, since beer is so extremely popular, and has been ever since they overturned Prohibition.

Beer was never popular at our place, though, growing up. The idea of my mother having her own brewing company would be ridiculous. She hated even the existence of beer and never had a good thing to say about it. Grandpa was a mean guy when he was drinking, and Mom said he used to keep a bottle stashed in the outhouse and she'd pee in it occasionally. Which might've been what made him mean. I'd be mean, too, if someone pissed in my hootch...

But mothers aren't all equally made. Of course there's mothers who are up for anything. Which has to be the story behind this mother starting her own brewing company.  But can she stand the competition? Does she even foresee it? From father and the children.

That's the set-up. We now have a scene where mother walks into the room and says she's got her own brewing company, Now we're all set. But father isn't one to be shut out, since he's the man and thinks he's in charge; I've got the damned schlong and it'll be a schlong damned time before you get the best of me! He walks into the room and says he's got his own brewing company, too, Father's Brewing Company. Bold move, especially when he announces, Now we're all set, our family's complete. Because that only rankles the kids, who immediately get together with their pals -- the boy's club and the girl's little clutch of friends. The kids step into the room and announce they've also started breweries, the Son's Brewing Company and the Daughter's Brewing Company. Now, at long last, the family is complete. Everyone's got something they're in charge of.

I like this part. To me this is where it gets interesting. Because it shows it's basically endless. No sooner does it pass the lips of the girl that "Everything's complete" when through a series of doors come Grandma and Grandpa. Who announce that they also now have brewing companies of their own, or the intention to start them. Being shortsighted, however, through the same set of doors appear their parents, older Grandma and Grandpa, with older Grandpa cackling, "Don't put the cart in front of the horse; you're not putting one over on us!" Brewing companies for one, brewing companies for all!

Never let it be said that I myself am shortsighted. I'm nothing like this older Grandpa, who's thinking Now all is complete just because I and older Grandma have our own brewing companies. I can see the implications, with an even older Grandma and Grandpa -- withered and badly bruised from decades in the afterlife -- coming through the door, with even older Grandma cackling malevolently, "Not so fast! You've forgotten us that fast?!" It's true, why wouldn't they also want their own brewing companies?

OK, it goes on like that, even older Grandmas and Grandpas popping in from the afterlife, each generation looking worse than the one before. Until, when you get back too far the degeneration into corpse soup is so pronounced that someone just opens the door and flings in a bucket of slop. It's about there that the generations' desire to have their own brewing companies comes to an end.

The Most Beautiful Thing

I see a picture like that and my heart goes, "Bing bang boom, gimme gimme something like that, exactly that, that and in that same quantity!" It tells of plenty, like the horn of plenty. I can see the end from the beginning, of course -- it's one of my talents -- but I have enough short-term optimism to set all finitiude aside and say, "Yes, that will do me for a good long while."

Maybe it goes back to when we used to play grocery store, that we always wanted enough, a supply that did not quit. Or just the fact that everything that we have in hand, like the bird in hand, is that much we don't have to scratch for later. In fact there's no scratching, because the vital things of life are taken care of, freeing us to pursue the deeper matters of the spirit. And that's often been what's kept me from the spirit, the sense of lack, needing to get out on a zero degree day to procure toilet paper.

How tough it can be, too, to walk the bazaars, haggling over this much toilet paper. "Who do you think you are, needing that much, while everyone else goes without?" "I know, I know, on the face of it it looks like security issues, kind sir. But sell me this quantity and you shall not see my sort in your exalted shop for a good long time. I will husband each roll, I will keep it above the encroaching floods, I will say 'I shall use this much and no more!', everything knowing its limits, being divinely decreed."

That makes it right. Something that right can't be wrong. To have this much, arms full in hand, and to have it stored on the shelves, properly displayed, in the secret closet, to look at like Midas' millions, that's good. When I first see it, O how I linger, setting aside what I'm usually thinking of, the gnawing reality of finitude. But without really trying, I do mentally posit the limits of this stash. Six months if I'm lucky. I'm turning aside my fellow man for a six month supply.

But to each his own, right? One man hoards fine whiskey, or wine? Artwork, gold, valuable collectibles. Survivalists have their canned goods and ammunition. Learned old men hunch over tomes by their personal fire, guarding their treasure. Trolls are guarding bridges against goat encroachment. "There's gold in them thar hills!" someone cries, and everyone goes running. Except me, I'm not running for that gold, when I've got what I need right here in hand. Call me a Renaissance Man, appreciating the necessities.

I believe someday I will be endlessly happy, in the great forever. This stash of toilet paper goes a ways toward the fulfillment of that day, pointing to it. Were I to have not just these but another dozen rolls, that would be something of a topper, but I'm not sure I'd be happier. Tell not the looters! Maybe they'll never figure it out, even if I fail to make an appearance in the public square like everyone else, clamoring for rolls and using the communal cob chained to the bucket. I will be sly, making periodic appearances, trusting that the supply back home is safe for those moments.

Such worry only attests its worth. Because mankind, his back pressed up against the wall, is always smart. He know this is what he wants. And must have. And that's the rub. I spoke of looters. I hate it, but when desperation runs high, it's obviously easier to be found out. They could cry, "There he is! Get him! We divide the spoil, a little for you, a little for me!" Sorry to end on a down note.

But rejoice today, friends, for the stores are still full of it!

Tiny Came Back As A Toilet Brush

I'm crediting this post to the influence of an adult education class I took at the community college a few months ago. Otherwise, I doubt I would've ever thought of it. I actually wasn't thinking about it ... it came like one of those flashes; you know how the brain works, no rhyme or reason to anything.

The class wasn't any big deal, nothing special. Probably everyone's taken it at some point. Certainly it's common enough, your everyday garden variety class on "Past Lives -- Intuitive Evolution." But it was sort of fun, a pleasant enough way to waste some time in the winter months. I just didn't think much about it after.

The funny thing about the class was how often everyone came to the "discovery" that they were famous people in their past lives. I think we had three different William the Conquerors, out of about 25 people! A couple U.S. presidents were in attendance, and of course Einstein. The rest of us were a little more reserved. If we thought we were famous years ago, we kept it to ourselves. My own thoughts about me, I'm sure I was a peasant, and in my non-human lives I can remember being a mollusk. Seriously. I picked up a dried empty shell by the lake the other day and once upon a time I think I knew the guy.

Anyway, today the class came to my mind when I had to do some spot cleaning on the toilet -- you probably know what I mean -- and I felt some intuitive sensations in the handle of the brush. Sounds crazy, I know, but a flash came to me, which was from the "intuitive evolutionary" part of the class. The flash, then a dawning awareness, then an absolute certainty, was the freaky knowledge that my toilet brush is the present life-form incarnation of a guy I used to know in high school. He came back as a toilet brush! Believe me, I know how it sounds, but if it weren't true, why would I have thought of it?

I held the brush, trembling -- having used it first -- and this guy's image came into my mind as clear as anything. And it's not even a guy I knew that well. I don't even remember his real name, just his nickname, which was Tiny. He was one of those big guys who got the ironic name of Tiny. Like Big Tiny Little, the barroom, honky-tonk piano player who used to record for Decca Records.

And it makes a certain amount of sense, the whole thing of him now existing as my toilet brush, because Tiny was a scourge toward me. How fitting it is that his karma would be such that he would reincarnate and devolve to a basic non-living (it appears) household implement for me to use. And, please, before you write in, don't blame me ... he brought it on himself.

I hadn't actually even heard that he died, because like I said, I don't even remember his name ... it might have been Don, or Clint, or Kenny, something like that. No, there was a different guy named Kenny who hated my guts. I haven't run across Kenny's soul yet. He's probably still living. I'd Google him but I'd have to destroy my computer if I found him. He was another scourge, much worse.

Tiny wasn't as bad as Kenny, but still he was bad enough. We were only in one class together, and there must have been plenty of time for talking among ourselves, because I remember him always being on me for some reason. This is embarrassing to say, in a way, because Tiny had a thing about masturbation ... know what I mean? He mentioned it all the time.

He was a huge guy, so that probably had something to do with it. He used to accuse me of various things and ply me for information on masturbation. What I'm saying, I hope you realize, is 100% true. Beyond that, he insulted me in various ways, probably because I actually was small and his name of Tiny had something to do with him being such a behemoth. He definitely saw me as a victim ... which I obviously was. I didn't have the confidence -- or sufficient knowledge on projection and karma, etc.  -- to be able to tell him, "Yeah, but someday you'll be a toilet brush and I'll still be a man." If only I'd known!

So there I was, this morning, with Tiny in my hand! I thought, Oh my God! I've used him a hundred times and didn't know it was him! But today was so completely different. I had the intuitive flash. I realized it was him ... and my reaction was something like this: I felt weird about it, the terrible conditions Tiny's been living in all this time...

You know how it is with toilet brushes. They have a holder. You use it and stick it in the holder, which always has about a quarter inch of water from previous days. I look down at that holder every time and think I should clean it. But then I don't, because what's the use? ...  it's only going to get wet again. Plus, it'd mean having to touch it, then having to wash my hands for 20 minutes. Still, it's like a little cesspool of germs, down among the rest of the muck, the occasional pubic hair, etc., very disgusting. This is where a guy should have maid service.

OK, how do you think I treated the toilet brush once the flash came to me that it was Tiny back from the dead? Did I use him with malice? Did I put him through the paces? Did I slam him back into the holder with the water? No, I didn't do any of that. I used it as normal, then put it back in its place as normal. One, I don't want to break it and have to waste money for a new one; I might get someone I don't even know. But, two, I am a merciful person. Mercy is my Number One rule. If they ever build a monastery in my memory, mercy will be their basic thing.

At this point, I don't really have any living enmity toward Tiny. Even though he was older than me at the time, I think two grades ahead, he was still just a kid. He had to be around 18. His brain hadn't really entirely formed ... and I don't know that it ever did. He was a bully, yes, but maybe he had troubles at home. And as far as his own self image, being huge and being called Tiny, then whacking off and having to torture other kids out of his guilt, let's say, the whole projection thing, he had more problems than he knew what to do with.

So, no, I haven't got it in for Tiny. And as far as his return, his devolution, his reincarnation as a lowly toilet brush, I did not consciously have anything to do with that. How soul entities are reincarnated, divvied out, is clearly not my department.