Money & The Skids of Destiny

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 19 of 30

One of the hottest topics in Destiny studies is -- and it's a perennial -- “Does Money Grease the Skids of Destiny?” Of course the question's a real natural in a money-based society (mad, hungry, lusting, even loathing of money), as most of them are.

It’s a good question, because, after all, money greases the skids of everything else. I can barely go to the grocery store without money greasing the skids of me buying food, paper towels, and an occasional piece of candy. I get to the cash register with my sad baby blue eyes and twisted lips, begging without words for them to allow me to pass through without paying. But whether they don’t understand the quandary or merely pretend not to, it never works. I’m sure, though, with some of the kind checkout ladies, that if they were in charge of the store they’d be happy to let me through with virtually everything. Or maybe not.

I show up with my stuff, though, and it’s always the same, the ringing of the cash register, buzzes, beeps, all of them scanning my things through some sort of glass mounted on the counter and the cash register keeps track of what I owe. The only time I haven’t had to pay was in a roundabout way, the day I found $100. I asked 10 people sequentially if they’d lost $100 and they all said "Yes," so I figured everyone’s lying about it; if they can’t quote the serial number it’s mine. None could, so I got $100 worth of groceries that day for free.

That’d be a good entry in my study of Destiny. How Destiny happened to see me coming that day and greased the skids with $100, but has failed to see me coming a million other times. It's a mystery. I’m still working on it. My preliminary assumption is Destiny wants to help me once in a while -- once in a blue moon --  but it doesn’t want to help me to to the extent that I might ever take it for granted. I actually had the same thing happen as a kid, but back it was just one dollar. And from that moment on, every time I was in that store I checked the same place. Now the whole facility is torn down, I could go back and roughly find the same spot in the dirt. There might be a pot of gold waiting for me. But my faith isn’t enough to take me there, because now it’s hundreds of miles away.

To find $10,000 would be a great destiny. And of course $10,000 isn’t that much money these days. But if you find $10,000 you about have to turn it in. My first thought would be the bills are marked, they fell out of an armored car, they’re part of a heist, etc. And if you kept it -- which I suppose you could keep it for 20 years and it might be different -- you’d have a multitude of problems in the meantime, everything from fear of being caught to fear of someone stealing it from you.

Say worse came to worse, I would hope friends would appear out of the woodwork to help me. But if Destiny’s ever that kind, it'd be news to me.

Destiny Out of Whack

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 18 of 30

It’s the same old story all through our lives, and a sad one. We think we’re doing OK compared to everyone else, then it turns out everyone’s so far ahead of us it’s ridiculous. And I realize we shouldn't ever compare ourselves with others -- who supposedly have troubles of their own -- but it’s hard to do when it's like you're slipping away, perhaps going down the old drainpipe. What's going on?

Destiny could very well have something to do with that. If you’ve ever said, “Why me? Why me all the time? then you know what I’m talking about. And the more you say it, 10-12 times a day or more, the more likely you're really resonating with the idea that you’ve slipped so far down the tube that you could disappear from sight. While the average guy -- apparently no better than anyone -- breezes by, setting a new pace for even younger guys than himself.

I like to think Destiny isn’t such a thing, and that I’m as good as anyone, just to use me for an example. I know a lot of people sense the same thing, the slippage they’ve noticed in the “race of life.” Maybe you even got a head-start, were born on 2nd base as the phrase goes, but in recent years, days, and even hours, you’ve noticed that you’re not as far ahead as you thought. Instead you’re bummed out, everyone else is out of sight and you’re lagging, then dragging.

Well, I've heard the more you worry about it, the worse it gets. Especially if you’ve been recognized by others -- more than just your own thoughts -- as a real go-getter, setting the pace, never lagging, never dragging. Everyone can have a hard day, but then it might become a few in a row, then a nasty couple months, then a year where up is down, until your life is known as a giant goose egg, a zilch, a nothing, the pits. At your most optimistic you're getting lemons.

Usually Destiny sets the pace and we follow, I believe that. But there can be times of lagging and dragging in a physical or perhaps greater way. The technical term for it is “out of whack” or "out of order" or "down for the count" or "in the crapper." Others are skating by or going at a comfortable pace or even leaps and bounds. And you wonder why. As I said, the reasons could be anything, all the way from secret sins of the flesh -- and I think you know what I mean, you devil -- to merely the natural wear and tear on your hold on Destiny.

It's easy to imagine that Destiny gives up the ghost like everything else, and so whatever reserves we have goes to some more deserving person. In the illustration, perhaps check out the old granny figure, so lithe and bouncy, it seems like she may have just now received a healthy dose of someone’s Destiny, and it'd be that of the lagging, dragging guy if I had to guess.

Nasty Destiny "What Ifs"

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 17 of 30

As I teach in one of my advanced lessons -- and I think I can hint at it without giving away the greatest secrets -- Life is so often like a giant wounded bear in the cave of the world, seemingly about to breathe its last, but then somehow it struggles and continues with labored breathing while barely hanging on. Destiny has similar problems.

Just the continuous problem of everyone’s individual destinies, trying to keep those in sync on a macro level, then with the necessary interplay with everything from microorganisms all the way up to space aliens, with their own problems (mostly tentacle cancer) even while threatening our complete obliteration, keeps Destiny jumping. You’d really think Life could be a little more secure, sort of the way it feels when we wake up refreshed after passing a pleasant night with good sleep. But what does morning bring, all too often? Well, they’re not selling newspapers with the latest triumphs of the Garden Club, that much is clear...

So we’re torn, our psyches ripped right up the middle, with the consequences of something. Fate? Destiny? Yes, but it's the sad truth that Aliens Have To Eat Too. If we get as good as we give -- and I was munching earlier on a candy bar that gave its life as a breakfast substitute for me, along with coffee beans once minding their own business on the vine -- we have to be prepared to accept that oblivion could be our next stop. That’s the macro level. Then the individual terror sets in. You’re hepped up, the next guy’s beside himself, screams lead to social jostling, then push comes to shove, and pretty soon we’re up against it, the limits we once considered so firm.

As a destiny counselor, you might think I live for this kind of chaos. And, yes, I’ll give you that much, it’s definitely good for business, but remember, I too have to live. And the more the problem is something merely suggested on the individual level for those willing to pay to hear how to tinker their destiny back into line, the better. But when it’s everyone going ballistic at the same time, that’s a two-pronged challenge, crazed masses of people in an apocalyptic nightmare running roughshod over the careful teachings of destiny counseling, and my eventual challenge of ever bringing sedation to enough people to restore an orderly clientele, who for all I know may have been herded over a cliff to their demise. On the one hand, yes, I can accept that was their destiny. But then what? Like aliens, I also have to eat.

If it ever happens that Destiny reserves are indeed up against firm limits, we'll have no choice but to look to the World Emperor -- Long May He Live -- and face our destiny. The way he cuts to the chase with bad news and leads us, calming the bitter turmoil of the masses and all dreadful consequences, so we shall face that destiny if it happens. Indeed, long may I live, too, and may those nightmares be delayed for the rest of my life. Amen?

Destiny Smothering The Sick

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 16 of 30

Idea: If you can’t clear a plugged nose, whatever….

Those in the healing profession know their heritage, that the progress over the years including the cures we take for granted were purchased at a price, involving life, death, sickness, health, and taking chances. These days we might be fooled into thinking the healing arts are set, but it’s still true a lot of it has an iffy nature. Notice how they still make you sign documents with small print that they're not responsible if you die blowing your nose.

The smothering experiment seen here was a scheme of Destiny, toying with them, wondering if it would allow them to live. That's how we'd imagine a strong-armed Destiny, thrusting its hand into situations to bend circumstances to its overriding will. With death for the sniffles or a stronger life after a series of heart attacks.

As I recall this incident in detail, Destiny did force them to ease up, allowing the patient to begin breathing again. But, alas, later that night, as if to drive home its point more vividly, its point being its sovereignty, Destiny took him. He literally caught his death of cold.

The doctor and nurse spent those agonizing hours playing penny poker. And they had some pretty thrilling hands, too, and wagers. Because each was so full of the spirit of Destiny that neither thought they could lose. So it was a series of incredible full houses, straight flushes, pairs and trios of aces, etc.

As it turned out, then, the doctor lost a million dollars and the nurse was able to retire before the evening was over. Which left the doctor alone at the helm. (He had begged the nurse to tie his hands behind his back for two reasons, that he wouldn’t lose money and that would not give into temptation and experiment on the near-smothered patient.

But everything was out of his hands, he sat their musing. He felt ever so subtly a gust of Destiny blow under the door. Then as he observed the situation, he was amazed when the same gust, moving back, pulled the patient’s breath out of his body, not entirely lifeless, thanks to the mercy of the same Destiny.

Then, eerily, Destiny paused and turned, and the doctor suddenly felt his own breath leave his body! He clutched at this throat with a definite desperation, you know, the way you do when you’ve had the air knocked out of you or you've got a really bad sore throat. In this case he felt his body go cold and turn blue. Then as something of a malicious threat and a reprieve, his oxygen was restored and the good-hearted cackle of Destiny could be heard mocking him. Taunting him, as if to say, “You should’ve bet more on that full house I gave you so you could’ve taken the nurse to the cleaners.”

The Destiny Biz Monks Trade In

 Knowing Your Destiny

Part 15 of 30

An old monk I happened to meet the other day -- it was foreordained -- brought forth an idea after I sketched out some of my theories on Destiny. It was actually his encouragement of me on the subject that led to this "Knowing Your Destiny" series. So let me give a symbolic tip of my good old pith helmet (made of straw) to Senor Lao Matsui for everything, his help, encouragement, opinions, intuitions, and the shared wisdom of the masters, including, I guess, little old me! How about that, me, a pipsqueak everywhere I go, a master!

That’s pretty good company to be in, but I don't know what they think. But I did what I could, what anyone would probably do, shook his hand profusely, gave him my friendliest smile, and had him sign the typical waiver I carry to allow me to publish his ideas without remuneration, him giving up all rights to me "for educational purposes,” i.e., for eternity, all rights reserved, don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.

Actually, that’s just the business angle and of course Brother Matsui and I parted as good friends. I followed his lead in all the bowing, because it’s not something I normally do (definitely no scraping) I hope he received all my bows in the spirit with which I gave them, which was simply reciprocal and imitative, my people frankly having never bowed to any mortal man. I'm the first. And he was very cool which made it a little easier to violate the family standard.

It’s always amazing to me, though, when I meet one of these native types with their endless reservoirs of folk knowledge, wisdom, quaint sayings, postures sitting, standing on one leg, hands in various prayer gestures, and summoning rain, clouds, whatever the garden needs. Bug spray maybe. I definitely always love how these guys talk -- mincing little words delicately chirped, always with the quaint sayings, very terse, memorable, and to the point. Mother Earth this and that. The wise soul believes thus and such. Signs point to yes, then to no, then to who knows, are there any objections? Certainly not before we dig into a plate of treats.  

Anyway, with the graphic I tried to incorporate some of the very cool jive he was trying to pass off on me, and it actually did feed my soul. Although I can’t remember the whole explanation, something about trying to keep balance with your weight. At first I thought he meant I needed to lose a few pounds, then I got the definite feeling that there’s something about balance, this, that, the other thing, all of it very cool. Finally, all was rescued when the plate of treats arrived.

I wasn’t sure about any of it, really. But I pointed to myself a number of times and said, “Me!? This has to do with me!?” Indeed the focus was on me, with what you see in the graphic, various weights and measures, package one, package two, big, little, enormous, all out of balance, Whatever Lao Matsui said about me, I nodded eagerly, hoping to get something monetary that’d help pay the bills, but that was a disappointment. Instead he had what appeared to be a four-pronged system. Which I guess I can summarize as This, That, The Other Thing, and One Other Thing makes four.

What a blessing it was. Amen.

One Badass Destiny

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 14 of 30

Anyone who knows me knows there's one major flaw in my personality, among all the obvious minor things, that tends to turn people off. And I end up alone. To put it briefly, There isn't really anything I want to go out and do, because no matter what it is, something could go wrong. They say the end of prevention is wasting your life.

Yes, I know all the arguments, along with the gifts and curses of persuasion, what it’s like to hear people wheedle and beg, pleading to the point as it were of great drops of sweat on their forehead, trying to put in greater perspective for me what the opportunities of life are, and, concerning a person's whole being, making the point that from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, Life is a terrible thing to waste. O, the things I’ve heard; I’ve heard it all! If only they'd breathe that hot air into a hot air balloon, they’d soon have the world’s record for height and longevity, and with a steady crosswind typical of the upper sky, would be in the running for Vacation of the Year. But count me out, I’m not going to crash and burn for anyone's vainglory, no sir.

I actually have very little respect for anyone who does anything. And speaking of vainglory, it’s called that for a reason. You have to be some existence-hating fool to fall for vainglory! The word "vainglory" tells the whole story from “Once upon a time” to “The End.” And when I face my end -- and people have told me that I’ll face a lonely and justified death by my obstreperousness in the face of life’s compelling opportunities -- I hope to have the last laugh, alone in the glories above while the supposed “thrill-seekers” are writhing below, allowing me the final word: “There’s what your life of activity has given you, serious payback, really blowback, with every shiny temptation from your lying lips made up of some of the hot air that made your presence so loathsome to me and your end so justified.” I might tinker with that for greater dramatic effect.

So let’s think of what some of these supposedly desirable “badass” destinies people prefer. Of course a complete survey of the terrain is necessary to make the full case, but I’ll give just a brief sketch of their justifiable demise. The most common summary runs something like this: They thought it’d be A-B-C. They’d open themselves to this experience. Then a mild consequence results, perhaps rejection (which would’ve been preferable) or acquiescence. And so all parties are stripped down to their skivvies. The lights go dark, everyone’s feeling their way, tumescence and detumescence are experienced, the lights come back on and someone has substituted a gorilla for the girl! You’re mauled to death, in addition to being tagged “a bad lover” by a gorilla, no less, and as you’re flitting to the afterlife you behold a horizon full of angels showing thumbs-down, a hideous yet common sign of rejection.

If you're such a “badass,” maybe it’s not your fault that your destiny has badass qualities. And naturally you rejected my caution. But let me plead with you on this one point, whatever you do in your personal life, and no matter who it is with, please use protection. This world is bad enough, we don’t need any cross-pollination between man and gorilla. We passed that barrier back in the old days of evolution.

The Hounds of Knowledge

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 13 of 30

I’m still mourning the passing of an old professor I knew years ago, and thinking of the anguish I felt when he met his ultimate destiny. Mostly because of everything that passed with him, being a man of great knowledge. That was his pride, really, not just knowing things but being able to interpret it for us dunces. (Instead of saying his real name and reopening old wounds for his family, I’ll give him the name Prof. Jimmy.)

From the very start I knew Prof. Jimmy was someone special. We had the first day of class, then coincidentally I ran into him in the stacks of the library. I startled him and he quickly slid a volume back into its space. And pushed the bookcase over, I guess to block my path.

I’ve thought many times about that and how to understand it. I resolved to keep a low profile in order to learn his ways. I was as hidden and obscure as was possible around him. I’d find him occasionally slipping into a quick convocation with like-minded people. And there was a hidden pattern of behavior -- nods, winks, and other gestures -- when they were together. The weird thing is how they covered their tracks, closing doors, obscuring corridors and chutes they may have been in, and, yes, tipping over bookcases.

The more I thought of it, the more I realized how he was compromising our general destiny. As a half-assed student, a very poor student, I used this as a valid excuse for my failure, Prof. Jimmy’s failure on his mission to teach, based no doubt on many other hidden shenanigans.

You know what this did for me? It really was a great excuse, allowing me to enroll at multiple places. I'd just trot out the memories of Prof. Jimmy and immediately be accepted. But I was never much of an academic success, again, thanks to those shenanigans. I got a lot of sympathy, which was great. Because, look at me, how could I be expected to learn when the professors (this one) pulled so many tricks? How could I be expected to do well on any final exam with my trauma? I always lived in fear that there was some trickery involved, something to trip me up and make me fail.

The real tragedy is all I might’ve accomplished had Prof. Jimmy not been such a dope. I might’ve found the cure for cancer, which, even though I’m always looking for a cure, there are still aspects of it that are just out of reach. It was definitely Prof. Jimmy who slowed me down.

The overall lesson from such a travesty is for all of us to bemoan the obstruction of knowledge. The world deserved better, but Prof. Jimmy spit in its face and told it to eat cake. As for myself, this lesson has made me resolve to always -- 100% of the time -- reveal any knowledge I might have that would do others any good. And so my call to professors today is “Unleash the Hounds” of knowledge, and let that be your living destiny, not taking the things you hold dear to your heart to the grave, but sharing them even today with a world extremely dumb and bound to stay that way, given its own choice.

His Eyes Set On Destiny

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 12 of 30

In my travels 'round The Big City, I've several times had the opportunity to engage in conversations with others. I met this guy, anyway, and in few days I hope to say a few things about a local monk who also turned me on to some really deep jive on Destiny. Both guys -- even though they’re both guys from around here -- could not have been more different. This guy was distinctive for the piercing fire in his eyes; he definitely doesn't have the gene for lazy eye. He was also distinctive for the force behind his opinions.

No doubt he would object to calling anything he said mere “opinion,” since he lives only by Truth and Truth alone. I kind of doubt his outlook and yet at the same time envy him. How great it must feel to be so certain of everything, not just your own destiny but the destiny of the whole world, the whole cosmos, the whole kit and caboodle and Tyler too! Like a guy I once met hitchhiking as a kid who said people in Texas only drive two speeds, zero and 150 mph. It sounds impossible but he was so certain of it I still can't possibly doubt him.

Anyway, let's get to it, here are some of the pithy (yet deep and forceful) teachings passed on to me by my John Brown-like acquaintance. I’d like to just note one more thing about the guy, his burning eyes. We were at DQ, me trying to eat a hot fudge sundae while agreeing more or less with everything he said, and him basically doing brain surgery on me with his piercing eyes -- it was endless and uncomfortable -- staring into my eyes with a rare heat, literally melting my sundae and making me uncomfortable in other ways too. The neck of my shirt mysteriously squeezed me till my eyes bugged out. I was kind of mad about the melted sundae. But still managed to drink it in a couple gulps.

HIS TEACHINGS:
-- Nothing is ever what it seems. The truth you think is the truth isn’t. The truth you can’t handle.
-- There’s a force bigger than anything imaginable always forever pulling all the strings.
-- Only he and a few trusted others -- “the elders” -- know what it’s all about.
-- You should do a virus scan on all email.
-- Never get your shots.
-- Up is down and down up and both are conspiracies.
-- Potty-training makes boys effeminate.
-- Dishpan hands is a media hoax invented to pay for soap operas.
-- It’s reasonably tough to distinguish Shit and Shinola. Most people can’t. (I had him here, since I recently studied Shinola.)

He had a few other extraneous points but these made up his basic doctrine, what he’s pinning his whole destiny on. In a way, yes, he definitely has it going on. I wish I could be more like him. The certainty would be great. Then the burning eyes, the judgmental fervor, so much like the typical Episcopal priest it’s uncanny, with his divine ability to see through to the very core of all things, definitely a street corner prophet if ever I've seen one, with utter trust in existence and only one fear, hellfire for everyone else.

An Obviously Bad Destiny

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 11 of 30

I’m so glad I’m not this guy, but instead have kept my nose fairly clean and record clear. But not Danny, so disappointing to the old judge or parole officer who befriended him before he did anything unforgivable. (Of course everything is forgivable, but they still put you to death if it’s extremely bad. “I forgive you, now get your rearend in the gas chamber.” Or electric chair, as here, if you don't like gas.

I probably should address the whole issue of capital punishment, to the extent that any of my opinions are interesting to anyone. The truth is, when you’re a social mover and shaker like me, everything’s of interest. Just like I had to weigh in on some other issues one day, including my opinion on women driving. Of course I grew up a long time ago when women driving was a subject that spurred a lot of debate. My opinion has evolved from a stern absolute prohibition to a more liberal outlook, being OK if she’s male-certified.

Anyway, my opinion of capital punishment has similarities and some differences. If I hear someone speak on the subject, against it, I’m against it. But every time something heinous happens -- and you know the types of crimes horrible people commit -- I’m for it. It doesn’t really bother me if people are locked up forever instead of capital punishment. But if they’re executed, it’s not like I knew them in the first place. I have problems of my own to worry about.

Maybe Destiny needs to have its say too. Destiny’s opinion is probably, "Whatever happens I did it," although I have a hard time with that at least on the surface. Because I certainly feel like we bear some responsibility for the good and the bad we do. If Destiny does it all, nothing I do good is really anything and nothing bad. I frankly don’t do much of the bad, barely anything intentionally, so it really could be in the crazy hands of Destiny. The good I do, though, it’s mostly just an absence of doing bad.

I live a normal life, not stepping on people, looking out for people, trying to do good, trying not to do anything I’d be blamed for. But if Destiny has a part in it all, that frees me up. If I caused an accident, I’d just hope Destiny is fully insured. But really where is Destiny when you need it? It evaporates like a puff of smoke, leaving the rest of society holding the bag.

Usually when the implements of capital punishment make a physical appearance, everything is squared away and in place for the penalty to happen. If I were guilty and up for capital punishment, I think I’d be stoic about it. Think of the shots you got before every school year. It only hurt a few seconds, whereas life in prison is one crappy thing after another for decades. Definitely worse than dying.

Suck It Up, Loser

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 10 of 30

In my years as a Destiny consultant, there's been many rewarding moments as you’d imagine. But then it's like everything in my life, it goes to crap and I can barely cope with the static I get from people. Leading me to commiserate with anyone nearby nice enough to listen, and some even seem to understand, “People, aren’t they the worst?!”

It’s kind of funny, though, how generally unwilling people are to agree with me. Which always brings me up short because I usually go out of my way to see everyone's point of view. It rankles me a bit because I thinking the obviously best way in life is to find what you have in common, but some of these halfwits are obviously functioning from somewhere in their lower nature, not smart enough to agree but too dumb to put up a fitting argument. Basically, and I know it’s harsh to say, these are the people who, left to themselves, say, in Africa, would be the first ones cooked.

So, yes, Destiny studies demands a kind of intuitive common sense, common sense informed by continual influxes (and backwash counts) of intuition. Which incidentally is one of the things that makes it hard to convey to others, because you’re forever coming up with seemingly impossible people, troglodyte personalities on the verge of getting-it but always losing it. What’s the solution? You just have to stand back and let Destiny get them, and so you see it, another funeral procession, which always looks completely pathetic on the freeway, unlike the days of my youth in the country when a decent procession was respected on a more peaceful thoroughfare. (If a funeral procession's on the freeway, it's a farce.)

This isn’t to say that I think people’s Destiny is merely to accept imminent oblivion; they’re continuation until now has shown that their Destiny isn’t just to fall dead and blow away. Which is a grace to them. And a grace to the rest of us as well, since we can take constant comfort in the idea that we will more typically be above the hazardous fray so common to unenlightened man. I don’t know what to do about it. Until I come up with a better solution, I’ll just console myself by charging them double anytime one of them comes around for a consult.

I’m common-sense enough, though, to just want to lay the truth on the line and let them deal with it. That’s what my doctor did when I had a broken leg. He told me in no uncertain terms, no matter what I wished for, to turn back the hands of time and avoid this fate, I had to wait the same six weeks like everyone else just to have the leg X-rayed for progress in healing. And I didn’t kick against him, at least with that leg.

For these Destiny-deniers I’m also blunt, “Suck it up, dingbat! It’s called Destiny for a reason! If you come to me and agree when times are good, don’t tire me out when times are bad. I never promised you a rose garden, and I had, I would’ve rescinded the offer long before now.”

Destiny Gave You Lemons

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 9 of 30

We know it’s proverbial, sometimes life gives you lemons. Which, unless you successfully make lemonade for a living -- I tried it as a kid and made about a dollar -- you're better off going into apples. The proverb about lemons refers to their sour side and your destiny. You take a big suck off a lemon and the first thing you’ll do, your lips and mouth collapsing on themselves, is pucker up. Your brain knows it's coming, but when those sour drops meet a mouth in equilibrium, they're not disturbed by the brain. Your whole system responds to the lemons with an attitude of “That’s nasty!” 

Someone told me a long time ago that if you get too much lemon juice in your mouth -- the straight stuff -- it can badly affect your teeth, as in messing up the enamel, and I guess that makes them more prone to decay. Fortunately we didn’t get too many lemons when we were kids, because I couldn’t have taken it. My teeth are already fairly bad, and so for anything involving lemons I'd need a bunch of toothbrushes. More often I avoid lemons, actually whenever possible, and even lemon drop candy isn’t that great.

If we're talking about generally negative life events and not literal lemons, that could be your destiny. It's one sour thing after another. And you're spinning your wheels, desperately trying to make "lemonade." But what for? Certainly not to drink yourself. But to put your skills to work, whatever negative bent they've taken, to make the most of your life, even if to now it's a negative output. It's done all the time. But if this is really what you choose to do, I'm not too sure I'd want to know you. It's sort of like, saying, "Yeah, they're bad for me, but that doesn't keep me from making a profit off the suffering and misery of others. Maybe I can find a bunch of desperate guys downtown, get them hooked on lemonade, make a great profit, and if their teeth fall out, that's their problem."

Of course business works that way all the time. "Buyer beware, anything for a buck, it's their funeral." To a certain extent we know it's wrong, but there's very little regulation (as far as I know) involving lemons. Kind of weird. If you made airplanes that were guaranteed to crash, we wouldn't stand for a policy of "Buyer beware." Too much danger for the common good, clearly, whereas if you immediately lose the enamel off your teeth and have to gum bread for the rest of your life, that's something the overall system doesn't care about. I personally hate exploitation like that, but like I said, I tried to sell lemonade as a kid, so I'm just as guilty. Except I was unsuccessful, saw the error of my ways and repented, and immediately closed up shop until heroin became popular.

It's true that I favor certain restrictions on behalf of personal welfare -- I'm mentally half-nanny -- but naturally you can't save everyone forever. Maybe it's their destiny to be served lemons, lemons, lemons everyday, all the time. Lemon-flavored bread, cheesecake, steak sauce, everything you can think of right down to the lowly lemon-flavored turkey drumstick. All those people have to make a living too, and they don't know one mouth from another. You have the bad teeth, you have to make your own choices.

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.

Goodbye Dear Walter

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 7 of 30

What can you say about the destiny of a guy working in a big building with hundreds of other people, who when the building caught fire managed to be the only person killed while those hundreds of others escaped? My first reaction would be to say there was something wrong with him, a screw loose somewhere for him to fail in such a massive way. All you have to do is tag along with the others, sort of the buddy system, and get out.

But it's like everything: There's always one. You might be trying to bring a meeting to an end so everyone can go home. It seems you've reached consensus and everyone's happy with the proposals and plans. Until one guy pipes up his own foolish opinion about what they should do, and you have to break out into groups for one more session. The boss says, "Let's put our heads together, let's stick with it, do it for the team!"

That's what Destiny's like. The building erupts in fire. 99.9% have the escape routes memorized, and know how to walk calmly in single-file and keep their eyes open to danger, never taking it for granted that something terrible can't happen. Because it can. Then when the fire comes, everyone makes it. Everyone but one guy, who's by himself, clawing the walls like an idiot instead of maintaining a calm demeanor. Maybe he was in the upper reaches of the building and it was a freak thing. There's lots of reasons someone could be that guy.

Walter happened to be a guy with lots of absences. He'd had a sick spell for a few years and so he wasn't quite up to speed on the safety plan. If people didn't see him, it was because they were used to him being gone. Then when the fire broke out, they just assumed everyone made it when it wasn't so. I would put it a little differently: When Destiny saw its opportunity, it took it!

The first lesson we can learn is not be absent so much. The stricter the absence policy, the more likely people will be safe in the long run. It's a great incentive plan: Don't be so sick or you might die. Of course management is afraid of being sued for firing people who are legitimately sick. But because of their leniency, Walter assumed that when push came to shove he’d be OK. In this case he should have been sick, but he was well enough to work the very day of the big fire. A destiny twist. No one was looking for him!

And like his sicknesses, his body conspiring against him, the fire seemed to conspire against him as well, picking the very day he'd be alone on the top floor going through some files. The task was twofold, move everything from this room to that room, and everything from that room to the first room. So stuff was piled everywhere. That's the whole tangle Destiny can make. You can have one room with two rooms’ full of stuff, at times terribly blocking doors, covering exhaust fans, and making a dangerous situation worse.


The other lesson we can learn is not to be like Walter. So many things conspired to put him in the absolute danger zone, just out of reach. You couldn't have planned it. Or could you? Spend your time a little more wary, aware that your next breath could be your last. Because someday it will be ... unless ... unless you make sure things your destiny's always good. Bear down on it and make it happen.

The Diary of Destiny

 Knowing Your Destiny

Part 6 of 30

Cue the eerie music, an accusatory drone. Our man of destiny, Joe Mattuck, knows in an instant the hottest spotlight shines on him, a guilty man so very used to the shadows. He’s heard of spotlights, like everyone, but it’s not until you stand in the full beam that you know how utterly stark it is, especially at this close proximity. The heat, so very toasty, unpleasantly so, compounds the intensity with his own burning guilt. "Why'd I steal that doughnut when I was 5?"

The voice of Destiny then, in every way a menacing, all-knowing presence, speaks from somewhere, as though the voice of every man's conscience. It calls him by name and Joe feels himself getting hot, very hot under the collar, with the first signs of a sweaty downpour beading-up on his forehead, becoming within seconds a literal spillway of self-incrimination and guilt. Joe thinks, "I'll be sloshing my way out of here, if I don't drown first."

It's always the same on Destiny's arrival, offering its calling card and standing on ceremony. There's no preliminaries, no warm-up act, no pussyfooting around, no perfunctory Miranda rights, no excuses of mistaken identity, no DNA check. It doesn’t matter if you’ve burnt off your fingerprints with acid, or if you’ve somehow fooled Santa Claus, or if Father Murphy’s carried you on his back, or if you’ve been knighted a saint of the Church. If you’re guilty, Destiny knows. And closes in on you, as close as your own swampy breath, your confused DNA, and your throbbing boom-chicka heartbeat, which becomes progressively, steadily louder, thump, thump, thump, boom-chicka until the querying porch lights of neighboring homes as far as 10 miles away twinkle on and off in wonderment, a kind of hush all over the world.

Only then does Destiny speak, its voice disembodied, an ethereal patient monotone, completely under control and persistent, knowing you're cornered with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Every hiding place, down to the minute space between the wallpaper and the wall, is closed to you. Destiny speaks your name again -- "Joe Mattuck." Maybe the FBI couldn’t find you, the CIA, the KGB, insurance salesmen, junk calls. Even mosquitoes on hot summer nights wondered where the hell you went. Your own sweat didn’t know where to look, pooling up in vain near a neighbor’s basement door, in a desperate struggle to find donor pores in which to maintain its survival.

“Joe Mattuck,” Destiny says. Again, there’s no rush, it drones on, recounting from its own enormous Diary of your life, your great guilt. (cf. Diary of Destiny, Vol. 894, page 1249ff.) It’s a horrible recounting and you remember every lascivious moment right down to that supposedly cleansing ritual of you and the guys burning their underwear on that camping trip when you were 12. And telling one another, “We’re free and clear, guys, the evidence is gone!”

Remember, Destiny plays no favorites. It could happen to you!

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Based on the old radio drama “Diary of Fate.” Its 25 episodes are available free online.