A New Beginning

glad you made it through. When my mind is racing i can't read. I'll do the same thing. I'll read 2 pages and realize that all i did was recite the words mentally while my mind was on anything but the meaning.

I'm lucky because my family isn't petty when it comes to each other. The holidays have always been a blast aside from when my parents split. I was pretty bummed to be away from them this year. It made it harder not to have anyone here with me. If I couldn't get out there to see them I always had my wife and now my daughter. They were up in Idaho, and it's not like I'd have wanted the ex here anyway. It was pretty lonely and ty even though I was with my friend's family. After I got home I just sat here trying to read, but all my eyes did was look at the print. I didn't absorb a single word. It definitely could have been worse, but was still pretty rough.

You too bbr, enjoy the rest. I'm still recovering from the carbs i ate. I want to boycott all food based/themed festivities in the future.

What if, instead of food based, we had all sport based festivities. Where everyone had to partite. And instead of small talk and family bickering, everyone had to talk about the real issue they faced in life.

It's hard not to think that we live in a completely fake, artificial society. We get stressed and go through a lot of trouble just to eat together, bicker, and engage in frivolous meaningless smalltalk. WTF?

/endofrant

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving Day!

Long work week here. Enjoy the weekend.

nef, i had no idea.

I have read 2 books by Tenzin Gyatso: World of Tibetan Buddhism and Mind in Piece and Comfort. I found his language to be a bit advanced for a beginner though. I was lucky to have read them after reading other buddhist material. The Buddha was definitely a list man. The 4 noble truths, the 8 steps to enlightenment, The 10 this, the 6 that, the 5 parts of the 3rd step etc etc. I was lucky to start out with some more light reading.

The Three Pillars of Zen would be a great read to start out with.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Pillars-.../dp/0385260938

Zen is the merge between Indian Buddhism and Chinese Taoism. Like Taoism, it places emphasis on personal experience and realization over reading and understanding scriptures. Zen is a great place to begin a path of self realization.

The above book is very cool in that it contains personal accounts of enlightenment experiences (referred to as kensho or satori). It is definitely an entertaining read even if you take nothing spiritually whatsoever from it.

When I need enlightnement for inner peace, I actually look toward buddhism. I particularly like a few books my Tenzin Gyatso (the current dalai lama)..."The power of compassion," and "transcendent wisdom" are my favorites.

Yeah, I need to read something a bit more enlightening when I finish The Road. That's not exactly a laugh riot. And yeah, I feel you on the sitcom. Both sides are absolutely devout and judge each other. Gets funny but tense.

I would like to read a bit more on the philosophies and religions. If there are a few books you could recommend I'd love to give them a shot.

Half mormon and half athiest? Sounds like the plot of a sitcom.

I hate that you are feeling so alone. I can remember getting out of detox and coming to an empty home. Empty of people and furniture. 2 stories and a basement with just a bed and desk in my bedroom. Hardwood floors in almost every room so every little sound echoed the emptiness. The only things that got me through it were episode after episode of X-Files (feel free to laugh) and reading about eastern philosophies and religions. The whole eastern thing helped me relate to the world in an entirely different way. It's hard to quantify just how much our perceptions about everything are dictated by our somewhat unevolved greco roman heritage.

I wasn't thinking I'd be feeling much about Thanksgiving, but the last two days have had me pretty down. I always miss my family, but since they're so far away, I'm able to keep that as background . This year I'm really missing them. I don't have people to cook for, and I always loved doing that. I won't have Quinlan, I don't have my wife (I'm pretty ok with that part, but I miss the family feeling), and I'm going to go to my friend's brother's house just so I don't feel alone. I like his family just fine, but they're half Mormon, half Athiest, and there's always tension. I went to the worst meeting I've ever been to last night and walked out feeling like I needed a shot. Total downer. I'm becoming antisocial and sometimes feel awkward around people I know but don't know well. I've never been like that. If I need to or want to talk to someone I usually just go right up and talk to them. Now I feel like some herb that stutters and feels self-conscious. The last time I did the holidays on my own I kept numb and had my bad pack of friends to keep me company. Now it's me, an empty house, and the tv that Quinlan broke, the little bugger. I know I'll be fine, I just needed to get that off of my chest. It's just kind of been hitting me hard the last couple of days.

Larry David is hilarious! Just saw the Woody Allen movie "Whatever Works" with him and Evan Rachel Wood. He plays a real so and so.
We already had our Thanksgiving, but yeah the holidays are hard. I used to dread them because my whole family would get so stressed out and crabby.