Caught in the Undertow

My car got towed this morning courtesy of the Carlsbad Police Department.  The reason: my auto registration is six months overdue and by law is susceptible to impound.  I suspect that I'm not alone in my circumstances.

Six months ago it would have only cost me $60 to register my car.  But six months ago I barely had money for food or gas.  Now without transportation, I'm unable cash the check that I received yesterday a recent job, unable video that book interview and cooking demonstration next week.  I don't know how I'll gather the funds to pay the multiple parking citations to reclaim my car and the late registration fees.  All for the lack of a paltry $60.

I could have asked friends for that registration fee, avoiding all of this.  But how many times have they already been asked by me or others they know.  With other acquaintances in more need than myself, how is it even possible for me to ask?

Too old and overqualified, I've been unemployed for the last 4 years, scrambling for odd jobs and relying on the generosity of friends to make ends meet.  When forced to scramble, unfortunate choices have to be made about which bills get paid and which ones don't.  Yes, there have been good days, but they have since become fewer.

The begged question asks, "Why doesn't he just get a job?"  I wait for an answer to another question: "Why are they unwilling to hire me?"  Even a dishwasher position requires 2 years experience.  Somehow I've joined ranks of the non-employed: unwanted and uncounted.  I've "re-invented myself" and have become an "entrepreneur." But in this economy, who would by my wares and services.  Being an entrepreneur today is much akin to being a subsistence farmer or indentured servant.  With car impounded, I'm not even that.

I look into my wallet, only to see four dollar bills.  My checking account is overdrawn.  The cat wants food.

Mine is but an eddy in the worldwide economic undertow that has consumed countless, otherwise unsuspecting people.  Those who are able and willing, but are stymied for a reasons beyond their control.  We've found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, thrashing to keep our heads above water with no lifeguard in sight.  I wonder how many cars like mine got towed today.

This happen to me on two previous occasions under the same circumstances, so I knew that the towing was possibility.  I accept by responsibility and the consequences of my choices.  The foolish lesson had been learned, but the personal financial difficulties simply could not prevent the additional teaching.

Still, looking at the plight of others around the world, I remain among the lucky ones.  What could $60 mean to them?

While ranting to the officer (it was time I get it off of my chest), he kept saying how sorry he was to hear it, how he was just following the law.  Lip service?  Perhaps.  The tow truck operator was just doing his job, wasn't he?  Making a living when others cannot.  It's all that can be done.  All part of the undertow, becoming more and more difficult to escape over time.

Who Are America's Jobless?

UPDATE (11.03.11)
The car is back in my possession and it's registration renewed...but not without some surprises.

For Our Children

Sadness and disappointment was all I could this feel this morning after learning of the attack by Israel upon the Gaza flotilla for humanitarian aid. What motivates us to do what we do, and for whom do we do such things? In part as a meditation for myself, I produced a piece last Fall that I entitled "For Our Children."




The story: I was scouting out a park location for an upcoming when I bumped into Janet and Paul Tooby. They were setting up for their afternoon picnic in support of The World March for Peace and Nonviolence. By that time The March had already begun earlier that month in New Zealand and was to end at Punta de Vacas, Aconcagua, Argentina on January 2010. I liked them and their cause, so I promised to return with my camera to record the day's events to help their promotion of The March.

I had not heard of The March until that day. In my interview with Paul, I was surprised to learn that there was little awareness of The March in the United States as compared to the rest of the world. Not that there was absolutely no recognition by communities throughout the U.S., but from a media standpoint it didn't seem to warrant much coverage.

The picnic was only modestly attended. I wanted to think that the blustery weather turned people away and not that "peace" had become somehow unfashionable. And yet the mood was buoyant and the sense of fun, family & peace-creating were there.

I really liked how Janet expressed her desire for peace. So even if one person chooses to think this way, there will always be the possibility of overcoming any self-centered mindset.

© Richard Aquino, 2010

In Pursuit of Happiness

Note: This was written a year ago for a spa industry magazine. I don't think it ever got published.

Life can be experienced as a meditation. Put another way, life can be experienced completely free of stress. These sound like bold and unreasonable statements, yet they represent the most fundamental and truest state of being human. It’s what we know as the experience of being happy. We don’t have to become “enlightened” to understand this, but it does mean that we have to give it some attention, should this way of experiencing life interests us.

Our everyday existence is fraught with things that help us create stress, and therein lies the key: we alone create stress. We can casually watch a situation unfold before us, while the person next to us becomes completely panicked over it. For the same event, one person creates stress where the other does not. The experience of stress is completely optional. Yet it’s not always clear that this is so, that other choices can be made. It’s here that the practice of meditation is useful.

Meditation is simple. When distilled from its many definitions, meditation is nothing more than paying exquisite attention to simple things. We can give that kind of attention to something familiar to us, like our breath. By doing that, we create a way of watching how our mind operates, watching how it creates a myriad of things, including stress. As long as we are alive, we have our breathing. If we can find even a single breath to give our attention to, we have a meditation.

But as a start, it’s useful to consider at least a couple breaths at one sitting. That gives us the time to notice things. In trying to give our attention to the breath, we’re going to become aware of…our thinking! Thinking seems to insert itself despite our intention to just pay attention to the breath. The power of meditation is that it provides us with a contrast: we begin to see not only how pervasive our “day-to-day mind” is, but how that compares to the experience of “silence” as we singularly hold our breath to be the most important thing on our mind. Our mind becomes still, but our thinking doesn’t go away; we’re simply not distracted by that thinking.

The stillness allows us to see how our distracting thoughts lead to feelings and emotions, how they in turn connect to memories, how the ingredients mix together to form a story, how the story starts to drive our reactions. Observing ourselves in the act of becoming distracted, we can see exactly how and what we create through our own story-making. Then we notice: we can actually choose to be distracted by our thinking or not.

We become increasingly familiar with the story/stress creation to where we can interrupt the process at any point simply by finding our attention with the breath. We notice that the process can be interrupted sooner, that takes less and less effort to do so. There comes a recognition that we can return to that state of calm and being at peace that is meditation in a breath-moment. The life experience is being transformed.

Meditation practice is much like fitness training: just as no single trip to the gym makes us stronger and aerobically fit, no single meditation will make our lives stress free. Any form of training takes time. More importantly, our new fitness follows us out into life; it doesn’t remain in the weight room or on the treadmill. Our meditation training allows us to know immediately when we’re being distracted; it also allows us to know that sense of calm for longer periods of time. As this “meditation fitness” follows us out into our lives it begins to influence not just ourselves, but others as well.

Those who would annoy and irritate us cannot do so because that story is no longer valid. Confrontations defuse themselves when we decide not to participate on those terms. People notice our calm and are in turn calmed by it. Facing challenges in an authentically stress-free way, we become a model of behavior that others would wish for themselves. Our words carry farther and deeper because people listen to a voice that comes from a truthful center. By crafting a life experienced as a meditation, we craft a different and hopefully better world to live in.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote: "Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy." That is the experience of happiness: to see life as it is and be genuinely happy, no matter what life presents to us. Stress dissolves away, since it is an uninteresting story to start with. Through meditation, this spiritual happiness is ours to know, ours to enjoy, ours to share, and is only a breath away.


© Richard Aquino, 2008