Luv you dad.

Well here we are faithful Heavy Levity blog follower, September 21, 2021 and yours truly is now fifty and one years of age. As the religious say in america, holy shit. 

First the facts: I'm a mess mentally...and have been for a long time. Angry, bitter, incompetent, lazy, not too bright, unintelligent, redundant, with a touch of pedant at best and a slap across the face at worst. But on the bright side, I completed a half-marathon on Saturday morning with a time of 1:46:53. (My last half was in 2017 and I finished in 1:51:17.)

Tis funny because I think platonic dualism is the cause of much suffering but in a Leibnizian fashion, my mental suffering helps my almost best of all possible worlds running.

I kid.

Second the fun: my coworkers presented me with a card and sang a lively happy birthday. When I told them it was reminiscent of how they used to sing it at Chi Chi's...NONE of them even knew of Chi Chi's.

Funny haha and funny old-as-hell. I didn't think it was like I was talking about a printing press or a phonograph machine but I guess I went and dated myself.

Third the love: The fam didn't have time to celebrate over the weekend with all the activities and I was happy my wife gave me the four plus hours to get out in the morning, run, and not get back until around 10 or so, while she took all the tots to gymnastics and baseball. And today doesn't bode well because I am gone from about 8 to 8 and the mornings being absolute chaos trying to get everything and everyone together and out the door on time.

But get this: I'm walking my daughter from the car to the check-in table at daycare and I ask her, "You gonna do a good job today?" And in just the cutest fashion in the world, as only she can say it she says, "Yes." But she hangs on that s for just a little bit and it comes out with an unmistakable yesss. So cute and endearing. But it gets better.

Then, she says, "Luv you Dad." Oh man, I lit up like an xmas tree. Totally unprompted but totally accepted and completely needed. 

And with four words, I tell you, one of the best birthdays ever.

This Means, The End

I am near the end of Stanley Elkin’s The Franchiser.

I started the book because I learned that David Foster Wallace was heavily influenced by it.

I’d read Elkin had Multiple Sclerosis. The Franchiser suffers from M.S. and near the end Elkin writes:

“I almost forget my teeth have goose bumps.”
“Goose bumps?”
“This M.S. is no respecter of feelings. It blitzkriegs the nerves, gives your hair a headache. You think there are splinters in your eyes and the roof of your mouth has a sunburn…

And this reminded me of Heidegger. Who would have thought that I would get so much mileage out of Being And Time –a book I read in the Spring of 1992!? -for an Existentialism Course.

I remember the professor for the course stressing the point that we often look past things, like tools, until they break down and we have to look at them, not as a means but as the end.

Heidegger provided this distinction: ready-at-hand and present-at-hand

I like the Alan Dix’s description here:

ready at hand — when you are using the tool and it is invisible to you, you just focus on the work to be done with it

present at hand — when there is some sort of breakdown, the hammer head is loose or you don’t have the right tool to hand and so start to focus on the tools themselves rather than on the job at hand

Your hair, doesn’t usually have a headache.

We use our bodies as means to ends –to get us here and there, to lift this and that.

We never, well, rarely, look at it or treat it as the end.

But it is.

And we do take it as the end, when it starts to break down. The Elkin passage shows just when you, we, might start to take account of our body.

Remember the year I read Being and Time?

1992

I was 22.

I am now 46.

I have, recently, had to take account of my body. Good lord I have taken account of my body.

I try to work out consistently. I ran a half-marathon in late April, and under two hours.

Not bad for a biped like me.

Then, about two weeks later, two gluttonous weeks of “sure, I’ll have another bowl of Dark Cocoa Karma before bed, why not?” I felt a little twinge in the ole lower back.

Don’t worry about it, a little twinge. What would Dad do? He’d go to work.

So I kept going.

Then there was the morning I could barely put on my shoes.

Then another week of pain.

And thoughts/images on an infirm me, unable to play with my kids start rummaging around up there; unable to chuck the apple? Unable to rassle or epic tickle fest?

I think not.

Vigilant I will be. Observant of my intake and output.

Because my body is more than a means.

I mean it.

The End.

Converastion With Das Man

What’s on my mind lately?

“Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.”

Not really, I don’t’ have any money.

What is on my mind lately?

I turned 46 September 21^st.

4 years away from being 50. I majored in math.

Ran 3 miles this morning in 23:45. But on a treadmill so not exactly an 8:00 clip.

Still not bad considering I am 46 and that a substantial number of people never exercise.

Never?

Never.

But I still feel that a substantial number of those never-exercisers are better than me.

Das Man: Why?

They make money.

Das Man: Why is money the measure of a man?

Society tells me?

Das Man: Society tells you Brittney Spears is a musician, old people are worthless, and that the best way to sell a burger is hinting at a threesome. 

Das Man: Why would you listen to society?

The volume?

Das Man: Turn it down.

How?

Das Man: Put your attention elsewhere.

Is this the part where you tell me my worth isn’t measured by dollars or yearly salary or material wealth and that if I just focus on my worth in terms of warm relationships and strong interpersonal bonds, that I’ll find my value is high?

Das Man: No, your value is still low because you don’t have warm relationships and strong interpersonal bonds because you’ve been too busy being bitter about your fiduciary fuck-up-edness to invest in relationships. I think they call this a vicious cycle.

Is that some sort of new spinning cycle? Will it allow me to work out so hard I forget about being a worthless piece of shit?

Das Man: It depends.

On?

Das Man: How much you listen to society body shaming you into worthlessness if you aren’t’ ripped with triceps for days and pectorals that peak and abs you can wash clothes on.

Seems like society doesn’t want me to be happy.

Das Man: Society is inanimate, it doesn’t “want” anything. 

The better question is what do you want?

A threesome.

Worry

I know some of you are worried about me getting old.
Too late.
I used the word "gosh" in a conversation this morning.