This New Year, This New Decade

With the new year fast approaching I recently told my son that I am enthusiastic to get my life together with the help of some good old fashioned new year's resolutions.  "You say that every year," he said.  "And then you just revert back to your usual self within a few days."

"But this year will be different," I said.  "This year I'm extra focused."

"That's what you always say," he said.

Maybe so, but I still think this year will really be different.   

You see, January 1, 2010 will not only be the first day of the new year but also the first day of the new decade.  Woohoo!  Sounds exciting, heh?  But seriously thinking about it, I have to ask myself why?  With that day fast approaching, I have to honestly ponder, why does it give me a shot of anticipatory enthusiasm?  

Is it because I will not only be able to make new year's resolutions but new decade's resolutions as well?  I mean, I want to change my life for the better and get closer to my true potential for sure, but why is it that the start of the calendar year always gives me added hope to do so?  Why couldn't I get the inspiration to better my life and turn over a new leaf at any arbitrary time?  How about Tuesday, December 22, for example?

Perhaps it's because we live our lives according to how we divide and measure time incrementally through the use of a calendar.  Or perhaps it's because all living beings are innately programmed to have a dose of energy for everything that resembles a new start.  Sayings like, "Start with a clean slate in the morning" always had a special appeal to me for some reason, like the dawn of a new day always brought me hope after a decent night's sleep.

This coming new decade has certainly made me think about how fast time is truly passing by in my life.  When the decade of the "ots," or whatever people will finally figure out to call it, started in the year 2000, I was 35-years-old.  No spring chicken no doubt, but as the decade ends and I stand at 45-years-old, it now sounds mighty young to me.  When this next decade ends and I clock in at 55 (if I'm still around by then), 45 will also sound whipper-snapper-ish for sure.  That being the case, I want to take full-advantage of my "youth" while I still can.  And no, I am not having a mid-life crisis.  I don't even know when mid-life will really is because I have no real idea how long I will actually live in this current body.  

Anyway, no matter how I analyze it, I am stoked about this new decade and really really really want to get my proverbial shit together in every possible way.  No need to get into the details, other than to say this pertains to every category of my life.  Will I be able to get it together?  Will my new found enthusiasm waver as it does every year- at least according to my son?  Or will this new year and new decade finally be the catalyst for lasting and positive change?

Hopefully, I won't be performing this same old song and dance when I'm 55.  Hopefully, I will really have some good momentum by then and feeling even better than I did when I was 35, or even 25 for that matter.  What I mean to say is, time will really be running out by then to make any major improvements.  Of course, when and if I get there, there will be somebody older telling me how young I really am.  Whatever the case, there's no better time to realize that the time is now.

It's Very Safe Riding With Me- Even When I Multi-Task

 

 

As I was driving home last night from Miami at rather high speeds, I was thinking.  You know,  I'm one of those guys who is against texting and driving for other people but think it is okay for myself.  Call me arrogant, puffed-up, overly sure of myself or whatever, but I just can't help myself.  My mind is way too restless and I am very confident that I am quite capable of doing it without any ill results.  I also Facebook, eat, talk on the phone, floss my teeth (not really) and even occasionally read (really, but very very carefully).  Sometimes I drive with my knees, so my hands are free for other important tasks, like air guitar or some other such imperative activity while listening to music at very high volumes.  Sometimes, I may close my eyes (for the shortest amount of time) to get into the lyrics more.  The lyrics are very important to me.

Once in a while, I even sleep with one eye shut and the other one as much as half-opened.  I only do this because I've heard how rest is so important for your health and I'm all about that.  I'd say I've easily driven at least one million miles in my life and still have not caused even one incident, what to speak of an accident.  Don't say that there's always a first time because that is one of the most inaccurate cliches of all time.  Is there always a first time to get Aids? How about skiing through a revolving door?  No.  You know why?  Because not everyone gets Aids or  skis through a revolving door in their lifetime- that's why.  Besides, for me, driving for five hours or more at a time just seems like a big waste of time if I am not allowed to multi-task.  

Now that we have that out of the way, I don't want to see you doing any of the things that I do.  And I sternly warn you, if I see you doing it, I'll probably call the police on you.  You know why?  Because I don't trust that you're capable of it, and I'm very concerned with other people's safety.  Sure, I myself may wander off the road once in a while, but I have the reflexes of a cat and probably twice as many lives as one.  I have absolutely no proof that you do, though.  So don't ever say that you are willing to take over the driving while I get rest.  Do you really think I would be able to sleep with you at the wheel?  You, who are so lacking in confidence to multi-task while you're driving?  No way Jose.  I feel much safer with myself at the controls, thank you very much.

In fact, it's really so safe riding with me at the wheel, that I don't think there's any need to ever wear your seatbelt.  I would advise you to, though, just in case there's a blue moon out that night and six or seven cars simultaneously make a mistake, and I'm only able to dodge all but one of them.  But don't worry, as you have probably surmised by now, I'm also a prudent guy and safety is definitely a serious issue for me.

The Serenity Prayer, Being Here Now, and Wading in the Cesspool

Yesterday, I ran over some glass and noticed a couple chunks of rubber missing from the side of my front passenger tire.  The tire is only a month or so old.  The one it replaced exploded while I was driving down I-75 a month ago.  I'm going to leave Miami around 4 pm today and hope everything will be okay during my long return back to Gainesville.

I haven't written any blogs for some time now.  My writing has mostly been feeble attempts at poetry.  I guess people live their lives in cycles, and now that I have a little time, I would like to express myself in more of a diary form.  

I don't even know what to say to describe the way I have been feeling lately.  I think one's emotional life is important enough to dedicate some words to because it is directly connected to the quality of one's overall life.  I think my basic problem is not accepting what I have to accept.  In other words, everyone has things to do in routine life that they have to do.  Not accepting doesn't just mean refusing to do it, but can also mean not putting forth one's best effort or being lethargic or unenthusiastic about it.  It can mean failing to focus and thus doing a shoddy job.  It could mean one's mind is in another place.  That one is mentally rewinding or fast-forwarding too much because they don't want to be there.  

There are a lot of causes for this phenomena, and it kind of smacks in the face of the famous serenity prayer, which of course requests god to grant the petitioner the strength to change the things one can, accept the things one can't and the wisdom to know the difference.  Sometimes we have the knowledge, but out of stubborn foolishness we don't concede.  Sometimes, we don't know what we can or cannot change and we sit in a stupor of limbo, not appreciating the life around us at the moment.  Other times, we mistake what we can change for what we cannot and surrender to the inertia as real opportunities pass us by.  Still, at other times, we have a "never say die attitude" for a lost cause and never move on with our lives.

I don't know which of the above negative stances has been affecting me more lately, but I suspect they are all acting on me to one degree or another.  The result is probably that I lack appreciation and gratitude for the situations I am being given and thus am failing to "be here now," as the saying goes.  If I was honest, I would have to admit that in nearly every category of my life, I feel like I am barely getting by and doing a sub-par job in the process, I might add.  How can you do your best job at anything if your mind is always somewhere else?

Procrastination has shown it's ugly face more than ever in my life this last month.  As the beginning of a new month is just about here, I feel it is imperative that I get my proverbial act together and start focusing on the things that I can to make my life better, as well as all the people who I have some peripheral influence on, in at least some small way.

Without getting into the details that make a piece of writing so much more interesting (sorry readers), I want to get the hell out of this current rut and start living my life again the way I am used to living it.  If it takes clawing my way out of whatever hole I'm in, then I am committed to doing it.  I have a number of ambitious plans on the agenda and I'm not going to get anywhere with them while wading in the cesspool.  Details and positive updates to hopefully follow...

Changing Times

I've got a lot of different accounts that are protected by various user names and passwords.  There is my ATM card, my credit cards, online banking accounts, my cable company, my Facebook and MySpace accounts, several email accounts, school accounts, etc, etc.  As it has been said so many times before (my way for apologizing for the cliche´that I'm about to write), the list goes on and on.  Despite all of the above, and I could list many more, I somehow can remember all my different user names and passwords off the top of my head, although sometimes it takes a little while if I have not utilized them for some time.  It's really a crazy world that we live in.  It's got me spinning around a little.

When I was growing up,  life was not that complicated.  We didn't have all these various accounts that could be accessed online with all these secret codes.  Nor, of course, did we have all of the technology of today.  Let's see, if I drifted back to when I was about eight-years-old, to the year 1972, for example, what could I remember about then?  I may be exaggerating but I swear that simple calculators were the size of toaster ovens and cost about $500.  There were no video games- not even in the arcades.  Pinball machines were the thing.  Cable TV did not really exist until a few years later.  Goal posts in the NFL were at the goal line and there was no such thing as overtime.  There were no fax machines, or mobile phones.  No VCRs or DVD players.  No cruise control or even micro wave ovens.  We didn't get ours until around 1976 and it was considered newfangled and space-age, man.   Still, somehow we thought things were really advanced with trash compacters and window air conditioning and whatever other new thing someone had recently obtained on the block.    

I remember when it was a big thing to get a hotel room with a phone and a color TV in it.  Or should I say motel room?

As kids, it seemed we had more freedom also.  Before I turned ten, I would regularly disappear with my brother and friends all day and come back around nine at night with not even a phone call in between.  My parents had no idea where we were but that seemed to be the norm back then.  If some kid's parents expected them to call, we thought they were very strict.  Sometimes we would drive for miles on our bikes and no one would bat an eye.  

These days, either it has become a more dangerous world or there is just more media attention in that regard.  Whatever the case, parents are far more protective of their children than they used to be.  While I think there's good reason for that, I also think that kids growing up today do not experience that same sort of adventure and freedom that kids of my generation experienced.

Back to how life has become so complicated.  Sometimes I think I should write all the login information down but experts warn you not to do that.  I could give every account the same user name and password but experts warn you not to do that too.  In essence, they expect you do have all these different letters and numbers in your head without writing them down.  As you get older, I suspect it will be a little harder, although I have not experienced that yet...I think.

Anyway, I haven't written for awhile and in my return I'm rambling but I think there is a point to all of this.  Life is different than it used to be.  It didn't happen overnight but it kind of gradually just crept up on me.  I'm okay with it.  I'm not a super-fast texter or computer aficionado or anything but I don't really care how much society changes.  I like the way things used to be to a large extent and I like the way things are now to a large extent as well.  There are certain things I could do without in both eras but I don't really care that much to tell you the truth.

The main thing is that I understand through all these changes I have essentially stayed the same person.  My viewpoint may be a little different and the cells of my body have completely changed several times over but I'm still me.  Just recently, I was thinking of my many childhood memories before I turned five and not just thinking about the events but what my consciousness was like then.  I didn't think about things like sex or death like I do now but the person inside that little body was still me,  somewhere in there.  And I guess I will go on being me even with the changes that are to come.  For example, vinyl records were the thing back then, but then came 8-tracks, cassettes and cds.  Now it's pretty much digital music.  But it's still music.  

I suspect I'll see some more changes in the upcoming years, in fact I'm sure I will.  They will be so gradual that I won't notice so much but when I look back, it will be like, whew, remember that?  Time really has passed!  Yes, time passes and things change but I have remained the same, essentially.  Logically, I also conclude that I will somehow exist after the big change for me, the death of my current body.  Don't know where I will be after this lifetime but I'm pretty sure I'll be somewhere, in some land where changes are still taking place.  Of course, I'd like to go to a place with a little more security and continuity but that discussion is for another place and another time.  I hear you have to gradually qualify yourself to go to a place like that.

My Continuing Edumacation

I've been on the road now for a little over a month and have gained three pounds.  When I started on my diet/exercise regimen in February, I weighed in at a whopping 249 pounds.  Looking at the pictures now, I don't know how people could even stand being around me.  I was Gargantuant.  I certainly cringe to look at those photos now.   I guess they liked my personality or something.  In just three months, I was able, through diligence and hard work, to shed 43 pounds and get down to a more respectable 206.  Admittedly, the rigors of the road and traveling with an even more enthusiastic eater, have been a bad influence on my regimen.  It seems almost every time I want to eat more healthy, the man is stressing cheese.  Despite that fact, I'm happy traveling with Dhrits because he's such an easy-going, interesting and entertaining person.  I just need to be more personally willful.  Weighing in at 209 pounds is all right for now but it is not something I am happy with long-term.

Now, if you have looked at my daily pictures, with all the restaurants documented that we have visited as posted on Facebook, you would probably be surprised that I have only gained three pounds.  I certainly was when I stepped on the scale this morning.  I seriously thought that perhaps I had gained somewhere in the vicinity of 15 or 20.  But considering the fact that I was hitting the treadmill semi-regularly in the first two weeks and I still do my fair share of walking, I have been able to slow my growth-poundage-rate down.  Also, I think my metabolism has sped up from all the regular running and weight-lifting I was doing before this trip commenced.

I am now determined to get more serious again.  All is not lost and I am a man who has been always able to bounce back from adversity.  Double Garga-Power!

This coming Monday, I will finish my Meteorology online class and be only one more class away from being able to graduate from Santa Fe College.  Hopefully, by August I will be done with my Genetics class and clear the way to enter Journalism College at UF in the fall.  I was not able to register for classes in time to take a Photo Journalism class this coming fall but I'll be sure to be on my toes to get into one in the Spring of 2010.  I love carrying the camera with me and plan to buy a digital SLR before I go to L.A. in late July for Kuli Mela and Ratha Yatra.  All work and no play makes Gargs a bored boy so I have decided to go to the West Coast for a week's vacation or so.  You know, see some old friends, good for the soul.  I'll be traveling with Glani, Govinda, Shyam, Radha and Vrn at various times during the trip.  Shyam, Radha and Vrn have never been there before so it will be fun to see their happy faces taking in new places.  To take a few days off and hang out at the Ratha Yatra after-party and walk around Manhattan was also good for my soul.  I have to say, I'm much more of a city person than a country person.  I mean, I appreciate the country but I really like social and cultural stimulation.  

I'm trying to strike a balance between work and play.  Actually, I'm one of those guys who shoots for work being a pleasure.  In mu mind I'm always pulling for pleasure.  After all, that's the natural state of the soul.  Hopefully, that will become a reality for me more and more in the upcoming chapters of my life.  I think my continuing edumacation is key.

Temple Gargectdotes Part 1

Once in the mid-80's, I was reading synonyms for the word stupid out loud from a thesaurus to Dheera and Rom Roy while sitting in the temple president's office.  We were in a giddy mood and my friends started laughing hysterically.  For some reason, words like lame-brain, imbecilic, out-to-lunch, nincompoop and moron seemed particularly funny that day, I don't know why.  Anyway, as I kept reading, they kept laughing louder and louder.  Finally, Dheera fell off his chair, and rolled on the floor holding his side and screaming with water coming out of his eyes.  It was therefore sobering when Vijitatma appeared at the threshold, Bhagatavatam volume in hand and a grave look in his eyes.  "What's all the noise about?" he asked.  "Gargs is reading from the thesaurus for the word stupid," Dheera said, his laugh petering off.  "You should hear some of these."  "Do you Prabhus realize that I'm trying to read the Bhagavatam in there?" Vijitatma said pointing to the guest room, "And you guys are in here making nonsense noise like frogs simply attracting the snake of death."  Surprised, Rom Roy meekly responded "I thought we were just having some good clean fun."

Bhakta Steve Pitts was frequently seen around the Boston temple in the early 80's.  Steve was a nice enough guy from Derry, New Hampshire who had a bit of a hunch back and talked out of the side of his mouth.  People thought he looked a lot like Popeye.  He had been around ISKCON since the mid-seventies and regularly reminded the new devotees about it.  "Prabhu, I've been around this movement a lonnggg time," he often said.  "Way back to the days of Nityananda in New Talavan."  Then he would look into your eyes quite seriously, pause and say, "I've got some free advice for guys just starting out like yourself:  You keep your mouth closed and your ears open and you'll find out who your friends are."  On another occasion, I heard him giving some similar advice to week-long member Bhakta Breton after his usual New Talavan preamble, "Don't do any service for the senior devotees.  You're in this for yourself."

Steve, in case you haven't figured it out by now, wasn't exactly all there.  He had drank paint-thinner recreationally before he joined, albeit in low doses.  "I knew what I was doing," he said.

Once, during japa period, my brother Kesi and I were sitting against the temple wall chanting as Steve paced by us, walking around the temple room floor again and again.  When he was almost in front of us, he stopped and shook his head violently, vibrating his lips and making a high-pitched wailing noise.  Kesi and I looked at each other and tried our best to contain our laughter.  When he came around again and did it for the second time my brother asked him.  "What was that, Steve?"  "Symptoms of ecstasy, Prabhu," he answered in a most serious manner. "Symp-toms of ecs-tasy."  

My Current Funk

The road has the potential of making an animal out of you.  Long distance driving, followed by work and then figuring out the basic necessities of life.   Solving the food problem everyday, for example, is one such dilemma.  Where should we go today?  Not pizza again.  Chinese sounds okay.  Italian would be cool but all that bread at night.  It gets Garg-xhausting. Life has also been an endless stream of checking in and out of hotels, packing and unpacking, and missing my life lately.  I have school work to do and I'm often so tired that I put it off to the last minute.  It takes me a while to wind down at night and my brain is not functioning properly enough to do any real challenging thinking.  In the morning, I vegetate in bed for some time until I finally get the ball rolling and do something productive.  The most disappointing thing for me has been my lack of hitting the gym out here.  I've only done it about four times in ten days.  I have to get back on the ball and not let things spiral out of control.  I do get exercise when I'm working but all the stopping and going is not the same.  I've been only out here for ten days, man but it feels like it's been months.

As I eluded to before, one problem is, after I work hard all day, I want some kind of reward in the form of eating.  It is not easy to not eat at night out here.  There are a lot of good veggie-restaurants for sure.  The formula is one for potential disaster.  A possible reversal of all these months that I've worked hard to attain- namely my loss of 43 pounds prior to this trip looms in the precarious future.  So far, I haven't gained any weight out here but I know I am losing my momentum a little.  I can't let an occasional fall off the wagon make me discouraged and give up my goals in this connection, though.  Intermittent lack of strictness has to be factored into my life and I have to allow myself failure sometimes.  Two steps forward and one step back is perfectly acceptable.  Even one step forward and one step back is passable when you are trying to survive out on the road.

Today, we are in the Philadelphia area.  Sunday we were in Hartford.  Before that we were in Baltimore, D.C. , Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore and D.C., in that order.  Dhrits and I get along fine.  I do the driving because I feel comfortable with it.  I know my way around up here and I've driven a few million miles in my life.  I'm very good at it.  Dhrits is older. He'll be 58 in a few days but he still has a lot of energy, considering his age and girth.  He is pretty funny too.  For the most part he is easy-going and laid back.  He is content if he gets the remote in the hotel room.  I'm not interested in it.  I will be interested when the new episodes of True Blood start in mid-June, though.  He watches the NBA playoffs, which I am happy with on in the background while I write.  I would be just as happy with classic movies but I don't care so much what's on.  I adjust myself according to who I'm with.  He makes a lot of political commentary.  He is very anti-Republican, which is a-okay with me.  Every time he starts watching Fox News for a second he says, "I'm not going to watch this and increase their ratings," and then suddenly changes the channel.  When I told him we have to be part of the Nielson ratings to matter, he just shrugs it off.  By the way, I am in love with the Democratic party by any means,  but hey, nothing is perfect in the material world.

Right now I have a B-average in Genetics and an A-average in Meteorology.  I've fallen behind a little in Meteorology but the professor understands and has cut me a little slack.  It is a Summer-A course, so it is jammed packed with work considering it only lasts six weeks. Each exercise lasts several hours. I'm not a science guy, so it is not something I look forward to doing several times a week.  As I said, I'm often very tired after the activities of the day, so surrendering to science exercises is not something I get ramped up about.  I have to catch up on that stuff today, as some papers are due in a day and it looks like we'll either be traveling to the Buffalo area or Saratoga Springs tomorrow.  Either way, it's a long haul.  It's suppose to rain for the next few days, so we bought about 120 ponchos each to sell in case of that eventuality.  

When I was regularly writing this blog, I think it was more interesting because it was filled more with daily anecdotes.  I fear it is becoming a bit of a boring cursory overview about how I feel at any particular moment concerning the last week of activities.  In short, devoid of details, I dread that I'm losing my edge.  I need to re-sharpen myself and shake things up a bit.  I must snap out of my current funk.