I Really Want To Make This Shot

 

It took me a while to locate my book on the Japanese art of decluttering; amidst all the clutter in my room.

I've been trying to establish a daily routine of sorts, which consists of me at least cleaning the kitchen at the start of each day.

It's hard to pinpoint the start of a day that might have me having slept for about 8 hours after being up for a couple days straight. Maybe I need to find some text about the importance of a regular sleep schedule.

The old schedule of busking every single night, along with producing a steady stream of a couple hundred bucks each week, would have me returning home at around 2 in the morning. This had been consistent enough so that, even now, I can often find Harold the cat at the back door to the building shortly after the street car that passes at around 2:05, passes. I wonder if that particular car makes a uniquely identifiable sound or if it is just the fact that it stopped to let me off that drew his attention. I'm not sure about the internal clocks of cats but I do know that at around 2:05 a.m. I can find him waiting to come inside and eat.

When I wasn't drinking, I could unwind after busking and be in bed shortly before sunup, and then be up at high noon, which occurs at around 1:30 in the afternoon here, due to where the time zone lines have been drawn.

I strongly suspect that if I practice the art of decluttering, it will yield a less stressful and more productive life. A clue to this is the fact that, each successive day, after waking up and cleaning the kitchen, I have been forging ahead and tackling one more task, which usually involves putting something away, out of sight, in a closet or a drawer. As an extension of the clean kitchen, with the uncluttered counter and the shiny sink, I have been encroaching upon other areas. Putting all my busking gear up, rather than leaving the empty guitar case and backpack strewn on the couch or on the rug seems to give me an additional benefit -there seems to be less distraction in my mind as there is less to process.

Certain things are taken for granted, like drawings hung on walls that I walk by every day but never "see." But yet, if one of them was to disappear, I suspect the empty space would become conspicuous.

The Jordan Peterson video of his interview of Newt Gingrich that I posted a short clip of yesterday included Newt using the example of the Alcoholic's Anonymous people's "12 step program" to illustrate a point, which was basically that the last 10 steps are dependent upon the acceptance of the first 2. Without admitting the problem and acknowledging that you are powerless to affect a solution of your own volition, and then accepting that there is a higher power that must be surrendered to, then the rest of the steps become useless.

This "higher power" is left to the broad interpretation of the alcoholic, so that he doesn't stumble over the same thought constructs while are of no use to him (see step one). I guess this is so that, even atheists can avail themselves to its agency. 

I knew an atheist, once, named Richard Conlon as a matter of fact, who shot pool "professionally." He told me that sometimes (as luck might have it) he would find himself in dire predicaments where he teetered on the brink of being in over his head. While feeling that his luck was due to change; he may have had to gamble his food money for the upcoming week, or maybe even his car, in order to break even. 

He said that, although he didn't believe in "God," there was something that he fell back upon when his path took him through that particular valley in the shadow of darkness. 

Faced with those circumstances, the would close his eyes and communicate to something unspecified; words such as "I really need to make this shot!" This had saved him from imminent ruin on more than one such occasion, he said. It also taught him to be more careful "the next time." I got the sense that there was some element of "bargaining" involved in the process, as far as one can bargain with a non entity.. 

He was clear on the fact that he wasn't talking to any huge man in the sky, nor anyone anyone affixed to a crucifix.

But bargaining is a function of the same thought constructs deemed to be useless by step 1, so that it is more of a surrendering to what is to be; and an acceptance which could be simply stated as: maybe it's time for me to go without food for a week, or "maybe It's best that I don't own a car at this point in my life.

I recently entertained the notion that maybe the maintenance of this very blog is like a millstone around my neck and that it was somehow putting me at a disadvantage. Perhaps it was fostering a feeling of accountability to my readers that was not helpful to me. I was leaving myself open to the possibility of shutting it down and quitting blogging. Then, I encountered the Jordan Peterson video, which reminded of the A.A. thing, which I decided to give some consideration to; and before i knew it, I was motivated to find the Japanese art of uncluttering book, which seemed to be right in step with all the other things and, all I can say is that I have written this here post, and haven't quit blogging as of this writing, at least.

I also felt a tinge of loneliness earlier and found myself craving the human contact that is often found when busking at the Lilly Pad, or at least saw it as an antidote to that loneliness, and an alternative to the fellowship of Sacred Heart residents who have all gotten their free government money and have descended into various deprivations and debaucheries.
 

I guess I really want to make this shot...