It Baffles Me

When it comes to selecting a life partner, I have always been puzzled when it comes to the question of why we choose the person we choose. As for myself, I can completely understand why not every woman on the planet would find me enrapturing. I have never followed society's guidelines concerning relationships. Heck, I break out in a cold sweat whenever I hear the word "marriage". It's been that way with me all my life. On top of that, I can get pretty silly sometimes, even annoyingly silly. On the other hand, I’d like to think that I am generally personable, considerate, and fairly even-tempered. There are a lot of guys that do not have those three simple attributes. In fact, there are more than a few men who have none of them.

Take one of my co-workers, for example. I swear the guy is almost completely personality-free. It isn’t that he is a bad-tempered guy, it that he is a no-tempered guy. One day his car was in the shop and his wife came by to pick him up. I left the building before my sullen coworker, and it gave me the chance to exchange a few words with his wife on the way to my car. I discovered that she was a very nice, very pleasant woman. In fact, I was shocked. After the brief chat I went to my car, dropped into the driver’s seat and just sat there for a moment trying to figure out what a charming, affable woman was doing going through life with what was basically a mannequin with a pulse. Maybe she just wanted to be left alone her entire life. Maybe that was it.  

Many years ago I was set-up on a blind date with this very becoming woman. When I first laid my eyes on her I thought I was seeing an angel. The trouble was; she seemed almost completely incapable of thinking. It wasn’t that she was an airhead. Airheads have something. At one point during the evening I attempted some pretty solid self-deprecating humor. She never said a word, never cracked a smile. As pretty as she was, as far as I was concerned the evening could not end soon enough. Heck, she probably was thinking the same thing, assuming she was thinking at all.

Down the street from me a ways lives a couple consisting of an obese white woman endowed with various tattoos, and a young, muscular, black man. There is a child involved. I often see the woman sitting on their front steps chain-smoking cigarettes. I have wondered what brought the couple together, what the relationship is like, and the prospects for the union twenty years down the road. I know nothing about the relationship, they might be very happy, but I can’t help feeling sorry for both of them.

A few weeks ago I ran into a friend of mine at the grocery store. We play basketball together on Saturday mornings. He’s about forty, as is his wife, who was with him there in the store. He introduced me to his spouse and then he and I chatted for a moment or two. The guy is a smart but somewhat farcical, consequently our brief conversation wandered into the inane. Nevertheless, his wife’s kindly eyes never wavered from her husband’s face as she listened intently to his every word, and a sweet smile left her lips only when it was overtaken by a poorly suppressed giggle.

 

Point is; there are a lot of relationships that do not appear to make any sense at all, at least not to me, but then there are other relationships that seem to have found, well, perfection. It's truly baffling. 

How Much Sentimentality?

I’m about as sentimental a guy as there is. I’m big into nostalgia. I go to all my class reunions. I wouldn’t miss one. Every single Facebook friend is an ex-classmate, no family members, no non-classmate friends. As sentimental as I am, sometimes I think I can go too far. The subject comes to mind because I’m about to give some old clothing to the Goodwill, and to some of it I have a sentimental attachment. But that’s just it; I probably shouldn’t.

Take my beige suit, for example. It started out over two decades ago as an inexpensive suit. Now it is an inexpensive, out-of-style suit. The thing is; I wore it to my 20-year class reunion, which was over two decades ago. Not only do I specifically remember wearing this suit to the reunion, I have a couple of photos of me in it. So because I wore this cheap suit to a reunion, it now has sentimental value. How far should sentimentality go, anyway?

Back in the 80s I played quite a bit of golf. When the weather was cool, I would play golf in this ugly, dark brown sweatshirt. Not only do I still have this unsightly garment, but I hate to give it to Goodwill because I can remember playing golf in it with my late father. My level of sentimentality is just plain silly. Sometimes I think it can almost be a sickness.

A long-time, boyhood friend of mine recently found a piece of paper dating from our childhood. On the paper is a record of our slot cars’ elapse times, measured around a slot car racetrack. The track was set-up in my friend’s basement, those many decades ago. The date on the old, slightly yellowed paper is 11/6/65. My friend asked me if I wanted the old piece of paper. He said if I did not want it he was just going to throw it away. I have to say that I was shocked that he could even think of simply disposing of this bygone jewel. Naturally I told him that I wanted it. I have known my friend forever, and I was well aware that he has never been particularly nostalgic or sentimental, but I had no idea the scope of his deficiency. In this one area we are pole opposites.

There is a ton of old crap that I would never even consider getting rid of. Things like a junior high pennant, my high school graduation tassel, and my draft registration card, not to mention countless photos and ancient birthday cards. But I’m going to say farewell to the ugly sweatshirt and the archaic, beige suit. However I am going to keep the piece of paper with the slot car information. I think that’s a fair compromise to my unfathomable sentimentality. I can only hope that some needy man purchases that old suit, and appreciates it. Who knows, maybe some down-on-his luck guy will buy the outfit to wear at his wedding. Can you imagine the sentimentality he would have for it?

One cheap, new, beige suit

One cheap, old, beige suit

One pitiful, golfing sweatshirt

Slot car records from long ago

A bit of homely nostalgia

God and Rational Thinking

I don’t too often see myself as any great paragon of rational thinking. My thought patterns are generally fun-based. I usually think of things in the manner that allows me the highest level of cognitive amusement. But every once in a while I display some actual analytical thought.

A few days ago I was talking to a friend and coworker who was shot while driving near a tough, gang-infested neighborhood. He was an innocent bystander if ever there were one. The bullet passed through the side of the car door and struck him in the midsection. He was able to drive to a nearby hospital where he underwent some emergency surgery to stop the internal bleeding. My coworker spent a few days in the hospital and missed about two weeks of work. When he returned he described exactly what happened. He then concluded his story by stating that God had obviously been watching out for him, and had saved his life.

I listened with interest to my friend’s narrative but when he brought God into the mix, my rational thinking went into gear. See, to my way of thinking, if God figured into the near-tragic event, then why didn’t He arrange it so the wayward bullet missed my co-worker entirely? If God’s hand was involved in the whole ordeal, my analysis would be that God was upset with my friend enough to want him wounded, but not so upset as to allow that wound to cause death. Unlike my coworker, I definitely would not thank God because a gunshot wound happened to be non-fatal. If someone were to shoot me in the foot without provocation, would I thank that person for not shooting me in the head? I don't think so. I would hold God to that same standard.

In my attempts to abandon my atheism and again become a theist, it is just that type of objective thinking that gets me into trouble. And I’d love to once again be a Christian, a real Christian, a believer, but I can’t seem to do it. My brain keeps getting in the way and ruining it.

The reality is; there is far more evidence that extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth than there is evidence of a god. There is really no evidence that there is a god, but there are photos of flying saucers, albeit dubious photos. So, logically, if a person is going to believe that there is a god, that person should by all rights also believe in extraterrestrial beings. It has to do with objective thinking, and standards of evidence.

There are a lot of positive things I can say about being an atheist. I don’t have to pray. I don’t take time out to bow to any superior being. I can eat what I want any day of the week, all year around. But I’d make all the required sacrifices if I could be emotionally comforted by a god, even if that god were just imagined. The trouble is; just when I’m making some headway into convincing myself that there really is a god, something comes along and derails all the progress, something like a non-fatal gunshot, and someone’s irrational interpretation of it.    

   

Jim Examines Olympic Competition

I like watching the Olympics. Not surprising, I enjoy The Games for different reasons than some people. Not all my reasons are so different however. Like most people, I like to see the underdog win. I don’t care if the athletes are American or not. I’d prefer the U.S. basketball team lose if the opponent is lowly Liechtenstein. It could never happen, of course, but I’d like to see it. But I am patriotic enough that I do not want an American athlete to lose if he or she is a slight favorite. If however the American is playing a decisive underdog, I’m pulling for the underdog. I guess I’m more sympathetic than I am patriotic.

I enjoy seeing a world-class athlete fail, especially if the failure is embarrassing. I’d get a kick out of a weight lifter splitting out his shorts while squatting into a press with three under pounds resting in his hands. Such an occurrence would be a real hoot. I’d probably replay it a half dozen times. On the other hand, in the subsequent interview I’d love to see that same weight lifter redeem himself by displaying some grade-A, self-effacing humor. If a world class weight lifter would ever split out his shorts while in competition and go on to make light of it, I’d be his fan forever. I’d immediately apply to be his Facebook friend.

I’m over sixty now and I still do athletic stuff. (I almost said that I am still “athletic”, but I caught myself.) I play basketball once a week with a bunch of guys, every one of whom is younger than I am, some younger by decades. Though I still do athletic stuff, I no longer compete, technically speaking. I quit competing when I was about thirty years old because I suck at almost anything resembling a sport. I am awful at tiddlywinks. I am pitiful at Twister. When it comes to athletic competition, I have always been an unfailing loser, if you can excuse the conflicting terms. Still, I have always enjoyed playing. So I play without actually competing.

If you’ll look at any big sporting event you will notice that there are usually far more losers than there are winners. In the Olympics yesterday I saw a swimming final that featured eight swimmers. Since it was a final, there were probably a number of quarterfinals races, semifinals, etc. I wouldn’t want to guess how many swimmers started off competing for those three Olympic medals. Fifty perhaps? And that does not include all the various national trials just to get to the Olympics. The reality of sports is; in the end there are more tears shed out of sadness than there are tears shed out of joy.

There are those athletes who are happy just to be in the Olympics. I’m speaking about those athletes who know that they have little chance of winning and consequently have drastically lowered their aspirations, often to the point of having no competitive aspirations at all. All I can say to these athletes is, well, welcome to my world.