Thursday, January 7, 2021

Stupid Stuff What I have Done and am not afraid of the powers-that-be knowing about it...

 It's a new year, wooooo.... Time to reflect on past stupidities and things I shouldn't have ever done and laugh because I am still alive!  Ima Survivor!! WOOOOO!!!!

You know, those things that, when the moment of clarity occurs, usually due to some deep-seeded guilt track running 24/7/365 like an eternal 8-track of guilt and doom and guilt?  What? You don't have an endless 8-track of embarrassing moments and guilt running constantly?  Lucky you.  But me?  Some days it's hard to hear from all the snippets of stupidity that constantly flow.  Thank God the Tinnitus is so darned loud, it almost drowns out the Guilt and Stupidity.

Ever have a dream of showing up dressed wildly inappropriately?  Well, I used to have a fear of showing up at school in my pajamas.  So, of course, one day, half sick out of my head, feverish, I went to school in my py top and regular pants.  And it was in 4th Grade.  Still have daymares - visions of that whole thing - popping up. Yeah.

Ever wonder what it's like getting your headgear smashed up by someone with wayyyy too much pent-up rage?  Been there, done that, and yes, painful.  Here I am, 8th grade, in a math class of 'normals' (I went to a school system that was 'phased.'  Really Smart - Phase 5, Smart - Phase 4, Normal - Phase 3, Abby Normal- Phase 2 or lower..) and because I was sick during Phase testing, I got stuck in a Phase 3 class.  Where I was bored.  Made an A while reading books in class bored.  And I had bad teeth, so, off to the orthodontist for me.  Bad enough to require external head gear (remember those?  horrors...) And so I, by my mere presence, allergy-kid, nerd, head-gear boy, apparently peeved off the class slope-head thug boy and he hit me so hard he popped off 1/4 of my fittings and mangled all the wire and the headgear into one massive avant-guarde arte sculpture.  Yay.  NO.  That required going to the orthodontist and getting all the wires from the fixtures cut off, new fixtures added, everything rewired, new head gear, lots more rubber bands and the whole 9 yards of pain and suffering.  And the worst part?  The School determined it was 'My Fault' due to me only being the 10th person assaulted by said individual that school year.  And so School punished me.  Two weeks suspension for me, none for him.  Ah... the glory of justice.

Things like that.

Or, during an especially productive lung-butter session in February of 10th Grade, it was time for those pesky Presidential Physical Fitness tests.  Yay.  Not.  So, it's actually friggin cold outside, aggravating my Spring-ish session of really really really bad allergies and low-level pneumonia, and we're out at the track getting ready to do all the running, jumping and other inherent stupidity while I'm running at 1/4 lung volume and the Coach says for me to 'hustle' and 'run' and 'pick up your feet' and because I am moving like I have no oxygen in my system and am even more uncoordinated than normal, he sends me off to 'run a lap' (seriously, not barely able to stand, so 'run a lap.'  Yeah... Thus ever hatred for coaches and other athletic-trainer types...) And I take off, and he yells at me, so I turn my head to see what he's yelling at me about now and somehow I manage to entangle myself in a hurdle.  Well, it got me out of the 'Test' that year.

Then there was the time after PE in 11th Grade... changing clothes, it's day 2,485,492 of 'Torment the skinny geek' and maybe day 30 of random punches just for fun and I've had it.  Turn around, Rage takes over, and I shove the star Quarterback through his locker.  While the Coach is watching.  Why Coach didn't stop StarQB from hitting me still escapes me to this day. When Coach yells at me for reacting, I distinctly remember telling him at a rather loud volume to copulate elsewhere and cease living or something like that.  When going up to the Asst. Principal, who assigned fault to me because I wasn't on the football team, I distinctly remember telling her to go ahead and paddle me, as it isn't worse than what the jocks at the school have been doing to me all year long.

Things like this haunt my thoughts to this day.

Then there's the laughing at a show while everyone else is solemn or crying.  What? What did I do wrong now?

Playing 'who can blow out the candle' during Stations of the Cross - for all y'all non-Catholics out there, in every Catholic Church there are 14 Stations of the Cross, where each station represents one act during the whole Passion of Christ, from Judas turning on Jesus to him dying on the Cross and entombment.  During a Stations of the Cross the Priest goes and says a prayer at each station, escorted by two altar boys carrying candles.) So me and my co-altar boy played 'Who can ALMOST blow out one's candle.  Note: ALMOST.  Because actually blowing out one's candle is a SIN and will receive divine retribution by the officiating Priest smacking the back of one's head.

See?  Sometimes I actually earn my guilt-track.  Not always, but...

I even feel somewhat guilty for hitting people too hard in the SCA.  Which is weird, because until I grew up (and out, unfortunately) I was a 90lb weakling, or a 140lb weakling (big thighs, I've always had big thighs...sigh...just the rest of me caught up with my thighs... double sigh...)  One time, using a rattan spear, I stabbed a guy in the chest.  Which was and is acceptable.  But.. Rattan, being a giant grass, gets positively springy in warm humid environments, like Florida in the summer.  So I gacked him, the pole bent, he leaned back, tension released and I inadvertently knocked his helm off by the pole becoming linear again.  Which apparently hurt.  Which made me feel bad.

So I got rid of my rattan spear, converting it into rattan swords.. and fixed up a fiberglass spear (no flex at all, much better) I retrained to only gack the opponent's body and no face shots.  Which got people bitching at me for hitting them 'too hard' on the body or limbs, where there were no prohibitions as to how hard one can gack, well, not supposed to do full-power shots to the enemy's gonadial region.  (Of course, the fifth time some 'experienced' and 'acknowledged as good' fighter blew off a series of more and more powerful blows, I did kind of pin his wedding tackle to a tree.  Jerk. But do I still feel guilty and have guilt-trips over the first incident? Yep.  

Still feel guilty when I shifted... well, you know, when you hear someone in an automatic-shifted car not being able to stop the car and horrors happen?  Well, I learned on a manual shifter.  And then transitioned to an automatic.  So here I am, driving my dad's 1972 Olds 98 (with the big arsed 454 engine, more POWER!!!) with my dad riding shotgun and, well, to my ears it's time to shift (those having driven manuals know that sound) so I reach over onto the steering column and shift.  The car.  To another Gear.  Which was REVERSE. While going 50 miles an hour.  Car stopped in, maybe, 20 feet.  No perceptible damage, but a train's worth of guilt.

So... That whole 'I can't stop my car' bullscat?  Just shift to reverse.  It works even on computer-controlled cars.  Car may never work right again but you'll be alive...

Then there's all the times I spent poorly and wasted money... Lots of guilt there.

Losing jobs?  Guilt.

Losing the house?  Guilt, that one will last way past my passing.

Losing my temper at my wife?  No doubt guilt.  At least two to three tracks of that 8-track just associated with stupid things I should have never said to Mrs. Andrew.

Guilt for not listening to Mrs. Andrew and not listening to my inner fears and guilt, and moving out to BFE when we had a chance. (On the other hand, not being 20 minutes away max from 1st rate hospitals most likely would have meant Mrs. Andrew would not be here, so... well... but.. still guilt.  And now that the nation is going to turd-world status, more guilt.  Especially as the natives outside have no problem making noise, playing their damned not-music so loud while parked in the parking lot doing drug deals and other signs of a civilization that's fallen.)


Do you have a guilt-track?  If so, does it play intermittently or is it set on permanent loop?

24 comments:

  1. Every.Day.Of.The.Year

    But Jesus paid it all and all to him I owe...

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    1. Oh, I am so thankful that Jesus came along and gave us adult-level forgiveness. I would be so screwed if we were still under Old Testament forgiveness.

      Especially lately, when bad thoughts seem to be so darned easy to have.

      Like... parcing out the actual definition of 'Biblical murder' so's I can be clear where the line is... Grrr.

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  2. Yep. I'd like to take back every hateful or stupid thing I blurted out, but most of all I want to never have bought a motorcycle.
    No motorcycle means no motorcycle accident, and no accident means no concussion with amnesia, and that means no lingering worries about the long term effects of the concussion.

    On the other hand, the other soundtrack has a bunch of stuff playing that I'm really thankful for, and I can usually turn up the volume of that track.

    Once in a while though, the negative things stack up.

    A wise man said, "The other person's problems don't seem large from where you are standing. But the other person doesn't have the luxury of your viewpoint."

    Good post, and now I have to ponder for a while.

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    1. Without a motorcycle, my wife would never have had her accident (before she met me) and never basically lost 5 years of her life to bad medical treatment and then experimental medical treatment (you can all thank her for testing out those external fixiters (the rods and framework) that screw into your pieces parts and hold them together.) Without all that pain and suffering I would never have met her. And the worst thing was, she was hit by a drunk incompetent driver with no insurance with no valid tag on a road that was bad and surrounded by ground oystershell and deep drainage ditches. She had no where to go. Totally not her fault, except she was riding a motorcycle.

      But... Screw donorcycles.

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    2. I was not under any influences, I had my headlight on, and the weather was clear.
      She "didn't see him" and this was long before the days of cell phones.
      Except for a quality Bell helmet, the outcome would be different.

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    3. Yup. Amazing the inability of motorcycle to be seen by car drivers.


      Then again, I've seen motorcyclists who couldn't see a pickup-truck.

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  3. I have the Platinum Collectors Edition, Director's Cut, autographed and certified.

    Romans 7

    21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

    Be glad you have a heart of flesh, that feels the stab of conscience; too many have a heart of stone. For penance, go dig a moat, fill it with Tilapia, Barramundi and Watercress, it is a thing of beauty and and joy.

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    1. If I was to dig a moat, I'd fill it with snapping turtles, alligators, gar, pike, killer geese, broken glass...

      And, unfortunately, the apartment management would be somewhat peeved at me.

      So... I rake and scoop dog squeeze, rake and pick up garbage, rake and drag fallen limbs to the woods, rake and clean up drug debris that is showing up since the one lady decided to open up her apartment as a flop-house to her drug-addled friends (and, yes, she's pregnant with some unknown father out there, smokes, and I think still does drugs even though she's on a 'treatment release'.)(I have one of those trusting faces that people tell me the most intimate things when I don't want to know, which really sucked in High School as I was the shoulder all the ultra-hot chicks cried on, darnedit....)

      Then there are all the people I need to kill because Florida has 'medical marijuana' and our local sheriff and police chief decided they'd no longer bust people for openly smoking marijuana so now I am finding marijuana residue all over my parking area.... Grrrr...

      Moat. Or foss. Foss with Chevaux-de-fris and Storm Poles (sharpened stakes sticking up, and sharpened stakes at the top of the inside laid horizontally to stop idiots from climbing up and over too easily...) Maybe a haha. Couple fougasses (low level explosive charge pushing basically cluster ammo or oil out (to be ignited by a secondary charge....))

      And, really, it is The Lord that holds me back. Haven't quite yet committed any venal sins bigly. Thought about it a lot, will face The Lord and Judgement for what I've done. But things lately outside my apartment have made me sure think about what venal sin is... I think a lot of people are thinking along those tracks right now.

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  4. I tend to just ignore mine.

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    1. Can't. I was constructed with Catholic Guilt, which is institutionalized guilt that can't be ignored. How can you ignore anything when it's Jewish Guilt taken to the extra level?

      Jewish Guilt: Oh, your mother, poor soul, what would she think about you doing XYZ, God rest her soul! (But.. she's still alive...) Yet you're killing her with what you do.

      Catholic Guilt: Same as above, except slather "HE died on the Cross for you to do this?" ***WHACK***

      It's the surest sign of proof, besides the fact that Mary was Jewish and HE was a Jewish carpenter (and a rabbi, maybe) that Catholicism evolved from Judaism.

      So, no, can't ignore it. Not even the tinnitus drowns it out. It's there 24(23 or 25)/7/365(366). Has been, will be, probably still going on even if I ascend.

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    2. I don't mind the guilt, it helps keep me on the straight and narrow. Probably made me a better person as a kid and therefore a better adult.

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    3. I don't mind the guilt as long as it keeps itself to low levels. When it becomes the loudest thing in my head? That's when it takes over and it stops me.

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  5. Beans, my mind is loaded with them. It is a daily, constant battle. I have a far greater list of the "stupids" than the "I got it right". The absolute biggest? Probably quitting my job to start a business which I did not understand as I should have which cost me literally tens of thousands of dollars, my house, and eventually caused me to move halfway across the country from my family.

    Presidential Fitness Award. Man, that brings back some memories...

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    1. Me it's the not-quitting-when-I-should-have that gets me.

      And, yeah, I understand the purpose of the PFA, just was sickly and couldn't ever do it. Now, if they gave me a bike to ride? I could do that all day, even when wheezing and turning blue from not enough oxygen. But any other coordinated activity? Nope, not in my wheelhouse. Though, for some strange reason, I was always able to do more situps faster than any of the 'athletic types.' Weird. But, of course, doing more faster meant I would get beat up. Which happened pretty much any school day ending with 'Y' so, well....

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  6. Ah guilt, not a common emotion with me. While I have made many mistakes in my time on this good Earth, there is very little that I regret. Could I have made better choices at times? Sure, but feel guilty about it? Nope, it ain't in my nature.

    I am driven by the winds and tides of this existence. The vicissitudes of life will cause me to alter course on occasion, but I have always simply striven to be productive and provide for my family. God has the controls, everything else is spindrift.

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    1. The problem is, God handled the controls over to us, except for the really big things like before we're born and after we die. He set up the Universe, gave it form, rules, function, and then said, basically (a long time after we've been around) "Here's the keys, don't screw up too much, M'kay?"

      Which is why we now have some religions (those with really positive messages that tend to focus on Christianity) shut down over a bad, worldwide cold, while other 'religions' (that seem to focus on NOT Christianity) are openly supported. To the extent that Satanic signs can now be put on headstones of soldiers.

      Fallen world. I can only do my best to lift up my part.

      As to guilt? It is in my nature. Way too much. "Coulda, shoulda, woulda" are a big part of it. And sometimes those and memories of what I've done do paralyze me. It's what it is.

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    2. Playing "shoulda could woulda" can destroy you.

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  7. Your daymarez and insecurities gave me a chuckle, because I had those too, in spades. Too bad it takes a while to develop confidence because if we had as a youth, the confidence and security that we have today, we would have kicked ass in life, or at least had a less stressful childhood.

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    1. Oh, here I thought you were using your Leet Com Skilz... :)

      And, yes, confidence. It took me learning how to fight and hurt people to give me some confidence. I mean, if the Jocks don't like fighting me, then that says something..

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  8. When my guilt track starts up, I stop it with one of two thoughts:
    1. I was a child back then, and when I became an adult I gave up childish ways.
    2. I am not God, so it's really dumb to try pretending that I can be perfect. As noted above, I'm forgiven, not perfect.
    Works for me, but I can't say how effective it would be for others.
    Frank

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    1. As a follow-up - somewhere in the back of my head, there's a faint voice saying "quit goofing off, and get back to work". Could have come from either parent, as both subscribed to that philosophy :)
      Frank

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  9. Thank you, Beans.
    My father, the ultimate Jewish mother, would say (using his saddest face and without saying ever saying that he expected so much better of me) "Don't worry about it, it had to happen or "OK, just try to avoid doing it again"
    My mothern OTOH, would turn over in her grave - this was long before she ever got there.

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  10. YOWIE, Beans.....You sure we're not related? I'm also a Roamin' Catholic, though these days I prefer to just say I'm a Christian. Too much Catholic Guilt running around in my noggin. AT LEAST two tracks on each of my tape(s) {you do have more than just one guilt tape, don't you?} are strictly that stuff....

    Never athletic, either. Going to Catholic grade school, where we had "Recess" in place of any meaningful "Physical Education" classes didn't help much. My Dad was on-the-road a lot when I was little, -AND- there were few kids my own age to play with in the sparkling new neighborhood we lived in, so no chance to learn any "team" sports. Did terrible in high school. Got D's in Phys Ed 'cause I just.couldn't.do.the.stuff, even though I tried. Kept me off the Honor Roll, which wasn't a Big Deal to me, but upset my parents. Senior year, several of the jocks I was tutoring went to their coaches and asked if maye, pretty please, could they recognize my contribution to the sports program, and maybe (please?) give me a "C" to finish the year with? It worked, and I got a "C" 2nd semester, Senior year.

    Got lots of other things I'm not proud of to fill out the roster; broken marriage, lost houses, lost jobs, lost self-respect, and a litany of other things.

    So yeah, got several dozen tapes that run in the background continuously, randomly swapping out at times and confusing the currently running guilt-trip scenario.

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