Unemployed

While I don’t really want to write (or think) about this I suspect that this will be one of the most important days in my life; I just lost my job as a car salesman.

“Why” doesn’t matter—

...oh yes it does! “Why” is at the very crux of the changes that are coming about in my life! The reason I lost my job is because I wasn’t doing it very well! And the reason I wasn’t doing a very good job of it is because, despite 30 years of doing it, I just wasn’t very well qualified to do it!

I’ve written thousands of words about “inner nature” and acorns into oaks and all manner of reasons why people should not attempt to slip into glass slippers that just won’t fit. I am not emotionally/mentally equipped to sell things and the mediocre results I’ve attained over the many years I’ve tried to do it are testament to that fact. So here I sit today, for the first time in nearly 15 years, not a salesman! I should feel liberated, but I do not.

One door has been closed and another opened. Behind the first was a mixed bag of results; financial support for a wonderfully rewarding life with the woman of my dreams tempered with feelings of mediocrity and self betrayal. But like a trip to McDonalds, despite the mediocrity of the product there was at least the comfort of familiarity.

I’m staring wide-eyed now into what lies beyond the threshold of the second door. It is empty in one sense; there are no results to evaluate as of yet. But what I can see is hope and promise and opportunity. And there’s a glass slipper; by God, I think it’s a 9 ½ D!

Pain and Pleasure; Some Freudian Psychology for Ya'

After a scathing review of "Jerry-Grinkmeyer.com" on the SBI forums, I've spent the last few weeks rebuilding it as "A Personal Growth Journey". The site is based on "Conversations with Katherine" a vicarious account of the lessons I've learned on my own journey back to sanity. Following is one of my favorites; it based on Sigmund Freud's  "Pleasure Principle" and gives great insight into why we behave the way we do. Have fun and learn...

 The Pleasure Principle

(Warning! This is a rather lengthy and highly un-academic essay on Sigmund Freud's "Pleasure Principle". But I believe that if this is new material to you you'll leave with some powerful new understandings of why you do what you do; I hope you enjoy it!)

Sigmund Freud's "Pleasure Principle" states that behind all the complexities of human behavior our motivation to do the things we do comes down to two simple statements:

1. We want to feel good.
   
2. We don’t want to feel bad.

In other words, what we do (or don't do) is motivated by our desire to experience pleasure and avoid pain. Pretty simple, eh?

And once you wrap your brain around this concept you can not only begin to understand why you’ve done the things you’ve done up to this point in your life but you can start using the inherent power of this simple tenet to make radical changes now. Let’s examine further.

Joe and Jim are both attorneys in the same law firm. At the end of this day they ride down the elevator together, go to the parking garage, get in their cars and head home. Joe stops at a sports bar and orders a double Scotch and some chili-cheese fries. Forty-five minutes and three cigarettes later he returns to his car and continues his journey. Upon arriving home he greets his family, fixes another double and enjoys a few more cigarettes before dinner. It’s Friday and to celebrate the end of the work week Joe has requested his favorite dinner—fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans with pieces of crisp diced bacon. When the table is cleared of the dinner dishes his wife presents him with another request, a big piece of chocolate cheesecake. Joe fixes a Scotch, retires to the family room and eases into his favorite chair. By 10 pm he’s pretty tired from the work week but decides to have a little snack before retiring for the night. He throws a bag of popcorn into the microwave and while it’s cooking melts three tablespoons of butter to pour over it. After picking through the un-popped kernels at the bottom of the bag Joe licks his greasy fingers, smiles and utters quietly to himself, “This is the life!”

Jim stopped on the way home, too. Dinner wouldn’t be ready for a couple of hours so he went to the gym and spent forty five minutes on the treadmill. He grabbed a bottled water on the way out and used it to wash down a granola bar he kept in his glove box. When he got home dinner was almost ready, giving him enough time to change out of his suit and put on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt. His wife had fixed chicken, too. She’d cooked it under the broiler after marinating it in lime juice and Old Bay seasoning. She served the chicken with brown rice to which she’d added dried shitake mushrooms, and steamed broccoli seasoned with dill and Butter Buds. For dessert the family enjoyed fresh berries crowned with a generous dollop of fat-free Cool Whip. Jim checked the TV schedule and found nothing very interesting so he decided to catch up on his reading. He spent the next two hours with “Conversations With Katherine”, an inspiring tale of a middle aged underachiever and his rise to self actualization. Around 10 o’clock Jim fixed a small bowl of Special K and went to bed.

Despite the diametric opposition of these two scenarios the behaviors exhibited by Joe and Jim are motivated by the same things. Both find their lifestyles pleasurable and it’s safe to say that each would find the other’s somewhat painful. How did you feel as you read the two? Were you attracted to one and turned off by the other?

Joe is an intelligent man and fully aware of the dangers of his smoking, drinking, eating habits and sedentary lifestyle. But in his mind the pleasure he gets from those behaviors far outweigh the risks and potential disastrous consequences of his unhealthy habits. And frankly, he enjoys his vices so much that he just plain doesn’t pay attention to the warnings he hears. But suppose Joe went to the doctor and heard something like this: “Joe, you’re three cigarettes away from lung cancer. Two more drinks and you’re your liver will start shriveling up and dying from cirrhosis. Your cholesterol is so high that if it weren’t for the color your blood could pinch hit for the Crisco your wife uses to fry her chicken. If you don’t make some changes in you diet real soon you won’t need to worry about lung cancer or cirrhosis; your heart attack will render those moot as soon as you hit the floor dead as a doornail. You need to start exercising, too. Your feet, by the way, are fine.”

Joe knows he has to make some radical changes right now or he will suffer the ultimate consequence, an extended dirt nap. So on the way home from the doctor he stops at a sports bar to consider his options. “Hey Joe, what’ll it be?” asks the bartender. “One Scotch, and make it a double,” Joe replies. “And here, throw these away for me.” Joe pulls two cigarettes from the pack and hands the barkeep the remainder. “And I’d like an order of fries—plain, no chili or cheese.” Joe then moves uncharacteristically to the solitude of a booth to consider how he’s going to make these changes. He thinks about all the things he’ll have to give up; goodbye Scotch, goodbye ciggies, so long fried chicken and bye-bye Miss American pecan pie with 8% milkfat ice cream on the side. Exercise? You talkin’ about the stuff I did in boot camp? Why don’t I start sleeping in a tent, too; that would make this torture so exquisitely complete! He nibbles on a fry and tells himself “I can do this, I’ve got the willpower!”, which of course he does not.

If Joe relies on will power alone he’s going to leave his wife a widow and his kids fatherless real soon. Joe doesn’t stand a chance of making the lifestyle changes he needs to and here’s why: Joe views making these changes as painful, and his brain is programmed to avoid pain at all costs. As long as his focus is on quitting the anticipation of the pain in doing so will prevent him from accomplishing the things he needs to accomplish to save his life. Quite a conundrum, eh? Let’s imagine another scenario in the doctor’s office and evaluate its potential effects on the changes Joe needs to make.

“Joe, you’re three cigarettes away from lung cancer…” And so on. But rather than send Joe into battle against the entire Philistine army with a Red Rider BB gun the doctor continues, “I know how painful it can be to say goodbye to your destructive friends so I’ve put together a video or two that I believe will get you off to a good start. Would you care to view them before you leave?” Joe, shocked by the prognosis he’s just received, would at this point be willing to view an endless loop of the national convention of the Red Hat Society singing “It’s a Small World After All” if it would spare him the agony he was facing. So he follows the nurse into a small room, takes a seat and watches the most horrific 15 minutes of video he’s seen in his life.

He sees pictures of once-pink lungs now blackened by years of tar inhalation. Decrepit bodies of patients on their death beds appear, tubes in their arms and mouths, faces contorted in pain as the agonizing death throes of lung cancer overtake them. There are interviews with people who’ve lost tongues, lips and larynxes, all begging the viewer to quit smoking while there’s still a chance to avoid the pain and suffering they now endure. And always there’s the refrain, “I never thought this would happen to me.” As the video comes to an end Joe meets Roger, a middle aged man like himself who made the decision to quit. He hops off his mountain bike, introduces himself and walks over to his waiting family, all standing beside their bikes and smiling as if they’d just passed through the gates of Heaven. “Becoming a non-smoker was the most important decision of my life,” Roger assured the camera. “Next to getting your teeth bleached,” Joe thought. Roger continued, “If I can do it so can you. Do it for yourself, (camera pulls to wide shot of adoring family) and do it for them!” At the end of the video Joe, ashen faced and trembling, stumbles into the hall and encounters the nurse who led him to this chamber of horrors. “Are you okay, Joe?” she asks. “I’ll be fine, and I think I’ll forgo any more videos today,” he tells her. “And you’d better call a janitor—I barfed in there.”

What are Joe’s chances of quitting now? While it’s sure to be challenging, I’d say they’re a whole lot better than before he sat in the doctor’s little theater. Prior to viewing the video Joe’s focus was on the pain of quitting his bad habits and as we’ve discovered, your brain is going to do anything it can to help your body avoid that pain. But now there’s been a turning of the tables. If Joe were to light a cigarette his brain would scream “Stop! Don’t do it! You’re going to turn our lungs black and we’ll get bed sores from lying comatose in a hospital bed while waiting to die!” Joe’s change of focus from the pain of quitting to the pain of not quitting has increased the odds of achieving his desired outcome immensely. But there’s an important nuance that Joe has to discover to put him on his way to quitting for good.

Notice that we’ve been talking about pain and pleasure. To really put warp thrust behind our behavior modification the two need to work in tandem. Joe is being effectively driven away from his destructive habits but once he’s out there all by his lonesome where is he going to go? A little boy gets angry at his mother and runs away from home. After what seems like an eternity to the little tyke (and in reality is about ten minutes) he discovers a sobering fact: he has no place to go. So despite his anger at Mom he sucks it up and walks back through the door to his house. How many battered wives leave after an abusive episode only to return a few hours later after facing the reality that they just left the place that has been their sanctuary for years? Both the little boy and the abused wife reason that as bad as it is, at least it’s familiar. They are willing to put up with the anxiety at home rather than face the uncertainty of an unknown future. In other words, the pain of the familiar is better than the pain of nowhere to go.

But what if they had a place to go, a place that offered a pleasurable alternative to the anxiety at home? Sure, you could offer the boy a life at Disneyland and he’d come back to Mom and Dad but what about the battered wife? What if you could say to her “Leave the painful situation at home and I will provide you with a safe and comfortable place to stay. You’ll be fed, clothed, housed and loved in an environment that will allow you to flourish. And in time, the pleasure of your new situation will render the pain of the old a distant memory.” Wouldn’t that be more effective? It’s time for Joe to have a chat with his pal Jim.

SCENE 1: At the office water cooler Monday morning.

“Jim, I’ve got a big problem.”
“What’s up, Joe?”
“I gotta quit smoking, quit drinking and start exercising. I gotta start acting like you or I’m going to die real soon.”
“Ha! Where should I send the flowers?”
“Jim, you self-righteous prick, can’t you see I’m asking for your help?”
“I know, Joe, and you know I’m just kidding. So you’re going to have to trade in your lounge slippers for some running shoes, eh?”
“Yep, and frankly it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. How do you do it? I mean the diet, the exercise, the apparent lack of killer vices?”
“Joe, by the time I got out of college I wasn’t that different than you are now; I had a lot of the same bad habits. I barely got accepted to law school and when I did I thought of what an incredible opportunity was before me. I’d grown up poor and becoming a lawyer was, to me, a dream come true. So I made up my mind that if I was going to spend my life in this career I was going to suck every morsel of gratification out of it for as long as I possibly could. And to do that I had to get healthy.”
“Jim, you were a party boy?”
“Yes, Joe, I was; and a pretty good one at that.”

“But like I was saying, I took a chance that ‘healthy boy’ would be better than ‘party boy’. I quit smoking and drinking and I started exercising and watching what I ate. Within days I was feeling better. I lost 15 pounds the first month; I was more alert and I could walk up a flight of stairs without my heart pounding. The longer I got into this new lifestyle the more distant my destructive addictions became. And you know what? I became addicted to something else; to feeling good—no, feeling great! Joe, I’ll tell you right now; if you decide to keep on living you will never, ever regret your decision.”

Joe studied Jim as he talked. Jim was lean and handsome and Joe remembered a time when he was too. “Now,” he thought, “I’m fat, hung over most every day and a couch potato with one foot in the grave. Good thing I’m still handsome!” Jim’s words conjured images in Joe’s mind. He saw himself pumping iron at the gym, sweat pouring down his face and burning his eyes—men think it’s cool to sweat. He imagined running effortlessly through his neighborhood, waving at his envious male friends while their smitten wives peered through the blinds as his Adonis-like body glided over the pavement. He heard the passionate moans of his wife as he pulled her closer to his rock-hard pectorals.
“Joe—are you listening to me?”
“Uh, yeah, of course I’m listening to you! Jim, I wanna do this; will you to help me get started?”

Now Joe has a place to go. He can run from the home of his old habits, slam the door behind him and walk right in to a brand new manor that’s flooded with glorious sunlight and the sound of Beach Boys music—Joe loves the Beach Boys. He has envisioned a bliss that will give him a second powerful weapon in changing his behaviors. Visions of intense pain drive him away from his old ways and the anticipation of a healthy and virile new lifestyle draw him like a hungry dog to a bowl of Alpo.

Will Joe succeed? Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But with these powerful associations to pain and pleasure his odds are significantly better than when he left the doctor’s office. Unlike you, Joe is not aware of the psychology behind the changes he’s about to make. But if he were he’d bring to his arsenal two more simple tools he already owns—pen and paper.

Why do things that seemed so important to us last week seem less so today? Why do New Year’s resolutions become a reminder of our inability to change after a few short weeks? Because we forget. We envision the weight loss, the benefits of quitting smoking, the joy we’ll receive from spending more time with our families; and then we forget. Our familiar old patterns creep in and offer us a place of familiarity and comfort and the enthusiasm for our resolution fades quietly into the background as the actions we promised to take are not taken. In order for our resolve to persevere our actions must become habits and new habits take time. While trying to create them our old habits offer resistance by promising the comfort of that which is known and unless the new associations to the new pleasures we desire are reinforced, the sirens of our old behaviors will do their best to lure us back to complacency. That’s where pen and paper come in.

There’s power in putting words on paper. Maybe it’s the effort; maybe it’s the primal nature of recording thoughts for posterity with ink on papyrus. Whatever it is, bringing your pain/pleasure associations beyond the ethereal realm of thought and into the physical world has power. And by reminding ourselves of the pain/pleasure associations we’ve envisioned we once again greatly increase our chances for success.

I like 3x5 cards. They’re big enough to hold plenty of words and small enough to stick in a back pocket for reference when needed. If you’d like to use a sheet of paper, that’s fine. If you do I’d suggest that you put it into a binder that you keep with you during the day. Now it’s time to leave our fictional fat man and for you to do your homework.

Pick something you’d like to change. It could be a bad habit like smoking or biting your fingernails, or it could be a life altering change like a new career. It doesn’t matter which you do first, they’ll all get their chance soon enough. Just pick one and do the exercise before you leave this chapter! At the top of you 3x5 card or piece of paper write a statement that will elicit powerful, painful associations. For example:

“If I don’t stop (smoking, drinking, biting my nails), then:”
“If I continue to (stay in this relationship, remain in this career, ignore my dream), then:”

Now begin listing all the things you can think of that will bring you physical or emotional pain if you don’t change your behavior. Make them strong and compelling. Do Internet research if you need to find gruesome pictures or discourses. Make your reasons real, personal and painful!

Now, on another sheet of paper write a statement that will elicit powerfully pleasurable associations; you knew that was coming, didn’t you? Examples:

“Now that I’m an ex/non-(smoker, drinker, nail biter):”
“Since (changing careers, leaving that relationship, pursuing my dream):”

Like before, it’s time to list all the pleasurable feelings you are going to experience as you change your behaviors and begin taking control of your life. Notice that our statements are in the present tense. That’s important because I want you to start experiencing your pleasurable feelings right now! And when you do you’ll become addicted to the way you feel. Use lots of adjectives to describe what your new life is going to look, sound and feel like.

Pick as many areas of your life that need changing and do this exercise for each one. When you’re finished you’ll have a stack of cards or paper that you can refer to anytime you need to give your motivation a kick in the butt. Keep your writings close to you so you can add to them when a new pain/pleasure association comes to mind. At the very least, read them every morning and every evening before you go to bed. As you read the powerful statements you’ve created they will become deeply engrained in your psyche and you will be amazed at the transformation you are able to affect in your life. This is powerful medicine for making real changes but remember: reading about doing the exercises is not enough. So get busy and do it!

This is a Test of a Cool New Program

It’s called “Live Writer” (Beta) and is brought to us by our friends at Microsoft. It will allow me to insert a hyperlink to My Website a photograph of one of my wife’s ponies, video, maps and more. If you like this and would like more information, google “Windows Live Writer” and download it for free!

Jerry's House

At the End of a Hunt

As is typical with my pointer, Karl’s day was a mixed bag of brilliance and embarrassment. There was no denying his passion for the task at hand; his points (once he settled down) were more intense and steady than I’ve ever seen from him and his energy seemed boundless. As further testament to the dog’s desire he at one point began to run after a Cessna he saw flying south of us—thought for sure it was the “catch of the day”.

So now I sit in reflection and evaluate the hunt (as I typically do) thusly: how did the dogs do? And it troubles me that that question is spiritually askew. But like it or not, I tend to live vicariously through my dogs while in the field. I want my companions to be impressed with their performance, and I want them to tell me what great hunters my dogs are. If they do I feel good about the day; if they don’t, I assume that the dogs’ erratic performance (some degree of which is almost guaranteed) has somehow diminished the quality of their experience afield. And I then flagellate myself for not being a better trainer. But even in these circumstances when I’m apologizing for the flushed-out-of-range birds and the busted points I’m secretly cherishing the time I’ve spent with my 4-legged hunting companions without regard to their mistakes or my friends’ evaluations. I’ve had the pleasure, no, the privilege, of sharing with them a moment of sheer bliss; they with noses full of intoxicating bird scent and me, well, just watching them enjoy themselves. Henceforth, that will be enough!

The Jerry Grinkmeyer Invitational Bird Hunt

“Gentlemen,” I announced, “I’d like to welcome you all to the first annual Jerry Grinkmeyer Invitational Bird Hunt!” I’d prepared a lengthy speech in which I would proclaim the righteousness of this hallowed event, introduce the significance of each of the attendees, make some comments about how it was not about us but about the dogs, then reveal the intricate logistics of who would hunt with whom, where, how, etc. My introduction was met with an attitude of dismissal, which I took as a warning not to get all full of myself; some of them had heard me pontificate before. “Alright, alright, here’s the plan. We’ll all walk up to the cemetery as a group and let these hounds blow off some steam. John, you come with me and Casey. We’ll hunt the east half of the cornfield, the rest of you can hunt the west.”

I shouldered the Auto-5 and started toward the cemetery, Casey and John close behind. “Come on Jake, let’s hunt ‘em up!”, said Oscar, and I turned to see the pointer, headed due north, disappear over a little rise with Karl in hot pursuit. “Shit! He’s headed straight for the fencerow”, I said to Casey. We’d planted several birds in the cover along the fence, hoping to give Oscar and the boys some realistic shooting opportunities toward the end of their trek. Logistics be damned, the hunt was under way!

That was the last I saw of Karl for a while. He’d gotten a snootfull of that bird and his trigger had been tripped “Come on, let’s head east”, I said, intent on following the plan I’d outlined. “He’ll see I’m gone and come looking for me”. But he didn’t come. I whistled and yelled and seethed internally but nothing would deter him. . He was like the berserk Marine with the cartridge belts strung across both shoulders and the machine gun sweeping down legions of Viet Cong, oblivious to danger, oblivious to everything but the task of seeking out and destroying his prey. I was frustrated, embarrassed and angry. We’d spent countless hours marching countless miles just to avoid this very situation. I watched him, 200 yards distant now, as he vacuumed the corn stubble and the edge of the woods. His movement was controlled frenzy, fluid, graceful, and totally focused. I was torn between wanting him with me and wanting to catch and wail the tar out of him.

I continued east, as per my plan, with Casey and John for a while, but the yells of excitement and the sound of gunfire in the distance were too much. “I’m going after him”, I announced, and headed off to join the fray and reclaim my pointer.

Karl hunted with me for a while, but not really. He hunted for Karl and it was our job to keep up with him. He pointed brilliantly and pointed staunchly, and Riley retrieved with the fervor and maturity of a dog that had had many more birds shot over him. We retired to the trucks after and hour or so to take a break. Karl passed Hershey’s syrup from his rear end and puked bile. Later that day I would loose him in the woods, intent on tracking down a wounded cock pheasant. John, Ira and I spent 15 minutes combing the leaf strewn floor to no avail. I called Karl when we’d thrown in the towel, listened for his rustling through the woods, but heard only silence. He was still on his own, I figured, and there was nothing I could do to get him back other than trust his homing instinct to find me when he’d had enough.

But as I stepped over the trampled barbed wire fence that separated the woods from the corn, I heard the unmistakable squawk of a pheasant about 15 feet to my left. I made my way over to the source of the bird’s plea for help and found Karl standing locked and loaded over the bird. He’d apparently tracked the cripple through the woods and driven the now flightless bird into a clump of brambles. I dispatched the wounded pheasant, hugged and petted and fussed over Karl, and removed his e-collar. All was forgiven, and a sense of pride and love and admiration swept over me. “Sometimes”, I thought, “it is indeed hard to see the forest for the trees.”

I enjoy the fancy guns and the rugged clothes, the nature walks and the fellowship of hunting with a good friend or two. But at the core of my love for hunting is my love for the dogs that accompany on my outings. And I say with no reservations whatsoever that were it not for the dogs, all the accoutrements that hang in my closet or on my wall would be disposed of or relegated to another use and my hunting career would cease. It is a rare pleasure to have the opportunity to watch one of God’s creatures at their very best, doing that one thing they were designed specifically to do with near perfection. And that is what I witnessed from Karl that Sunday.

It is a modern convention, I suspect, to introduce things like discipline and handling into the pursuit of wild game. Our progenitors who hundreds of years ago used their canine companions to help send gamebirds to flight were in the fields for an entirely different reason than I. Their very lives depended on the meat they would gather, and there was certainly no concept of sport. Consequently, I have to believe that had some 1700’s bird hunter been in the field with my ‘disobedient’ dogs that day they’d have regaled their family with recollections of the efficiency of the dogs and the passion with which their supper had been presented to the gun.

Karl’s helter-skelter meandering was a lesson in passion. “Live with passion!”, proclaims Tony Robbins, and he gives the techniques that one can apply to develop this powerful tool in their lives. Hogwash! Passion is not intellectual, it is primal. It is the outward and uncompromising expression of that which is basic and unique to our nature, that thing which drives us to a greatness that is our destiny, that thing that most of us will never have the insight or courage to personify in our own lives. It is the power of an unknown and universal force we call ‘God’ flowing directly through us, unrestrained and uninhibited. Passion is a Mozart symphony, a Jordan slam-dunk, Microsoft, Inc., a young Mohammed Ali pummeling an aging Sonny Liston. Passion is not effort so much as it is surrender to the inevitable.

Late in the day Karl walked beside me through the corn stubble, exhausted from his efforts, and looked up at me with his pale green eyes. It was almost apologetic, that look, as if he was trying to make me understand why he behaved the way he did. I set my shotgun on the ground and bent down to hug him. “That’s okay boy, you did great today. You’re a good boy and a great hunter.” I understood and I forgave him. He trotted off to my right where Oscar and Dave were walking the edge of the woods looking for one last shot while I shucked the last of my shells to the ground. It was over for me this day but not for him. “Karl’s locked up, he’s got one!”

An Excerpt From "Conversations With Katherine"

On Sunday morning Rudy awoke to the sound of rapidly flapping ears and the feel of warm dog breath on his arm. The ears would be Karl’s and the breath belonged to Gracie. They were mounting a full frontal attack on his peaceful slumber but he was not going to give up without a fight. He opened an eye just enough to get a look at the alarm clock; had they seen the whites of his eyes the dogs would have commenced their victory dance. It was 6:45, the middle of the day for the attackers but still too early to rise and shine for Rudy. He played possum, hoping Joan would relent and get up to let the dogs out. He did not yet realize that his snoring had driven her into the front bedroom and she’d already withstood the canine attack without surrendering to their persistent “bothering.”

Rudy was just falling back to sleep when he felt his warm slumber-nest being aggressively disassembled. Karl had a blanket firmly locked in his jaw and was tugging backwards in short bursts, a little grunt escaping his mouth with each pull. Gracie stood behind him, no doubt offering encouragement in dog language. Rudy had been surprised and amused by Karl’s antics many times since the German Shorthaired Pointer joined their family over 12 years ago. But this little trick went beyond amusement and made a half-awake Rudy burst into laughter. He conceded defeat and got out of bed to let the dogs outside.

It was still dark but the waning light of a full moon made the three inches of freshly fallen snow sparkle and shine like a disco ball. His mood buoyed by this display of natural beauty, Rudy decided to get dressed and go to the barn to feed the horses. Their primary caretaker, who was still asleep in the front bedroom, would be pleasantly surprised and grateful she did not have to brave the morning cold.

Rudy went to the front closet and pulled on his parka and gloves while Karl stood beside him whining in anticipation of the as-of-yet undetermined adventure they were about to share.
“Gracie, you’d better call the vet. It’s obvious that Karl is suffering,” Rudy teased. When they reached the barn Rudy went to the breaker box on the wall and threw the switch that turned on the lights. His heart jumped as he looked toward the stalls. The horses were standing head-to-head and to their obvious glee someone was scratching their noses.
“Hello, Mama.”
“Hi Rudy; how ya’ doin’?”

“What happened to that cute little elf hat you were wearing; Pinocchio want it back?”
“That’s pretty funny, Rudy. Perhaps that rewarding career you are so desperately seeking has to do with telling funny jokes in smoke-filled rooms.”
They both chuckled and Rudy appreciated the light-hearted mood, though he suspected more serious discussion was in the offing.

“Does this mean I’ve successfully completed my assignment,” he asked.
Kay had turned her attention away from the horses and was squatting in order to dole out some petting to the curious dogs. Rudy remembered when they met on the stream how she and Gunner had hit it off. As if on cue she asked, “What became of Gunner?”
“He died on a brutally cold winter morning,” he replied. “A week before I noticed that his belly was blowing up and I figured he was full of worms so I took him to the vet. Dr. Grass met us in the lobby and I gave her my worm diagnosis; she looked at me like I was from Mars and pulled me into an examination room. She drew some blood and scheduled a return visit for the next day.”

“Joan came with me and the doctor explained that his problem was a long way from worms; he had liver damage and she speculated that less than 10% was still alive. She told us we could take him to the vet school at Purdue and spend $1500 with no guarantees, she could try to treat him with no guarantees, yada, yada, yada. I thanked her for her diagnosis and guaranteed her that Gunner would live out his days surrounded by love, not lab coats.”

“Gunner deteriorated rapidly. A few days after our second visit to the vet I followed him outside to witness his morning constitutional. When he finished he took a few wobbly steps forward and then, apparently exhausted, he sat on his haunches. I let him sit for a few minutes in the snow, then called him to follow me. He tried to stand but couldn’t; he whined softly and gave me ‘the look’.”

“Joan called Dr. Jantzen, the vet who’d amputated his leg, and asked if he’d do the honors; he said he would have it no other way. I called a friend who is in the landscape business and asked if he could get his hands on a backhoe. He explained that while he could easily find one, the ground was frozen 22” deep and nothing short of a nuclear warhead could penetrate it. Without me telling him why I needed a hole in the ground he expressed his condolences before hanging up.”

“Joan and I built a roaring fire in the wood stove and piled up blankets for the three of us to lie on. We hugged and petted Gunner, telling him what a wonderful dog he’d been and what a privilege it had been to share time on earth with him. Dr. Jantzen arrived with an assistant and they joined us in the family room. He’d put down a couple of Joan’s horses and I’d learned that he would not administer the injection until told to; after a few minutes I looked at him and said ‘It’s time’. Gunner died peacefully and as I looked around the room I saw tears in both the doctor’s and his assistant’s eyes. I wondered if Dr. Jantzen cried every time he put a dog to sleep, but I knew how special Gunner was to him and guessed that he did not. It was a fitting tribute to a great dog.”

Kay pulled an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the end of her nose before wiping tears from both eyes.
“You were indeed fortunate to share time with such a wonderful creation, Rudy,” she said. “And I believe I can confidently say that about Karl and Gracie, too.”
“There can be no doubt about that, Mama,” Rudy agreed, noting that he had never told her their names. “Uh, Mama; about my assignment?”

Kay stood and brushed copious amounts of dog hair from her jeans as Rudy took a seat on a hay bale.
“I told you I’d see you again when you had, and here I am!” she said cheerily.
“I wasn’t sure,” said Rudy. “I finished the letter and I didn’t hear from you. I thought maybe I’d…”
“Saying goodbye was the assignment, but writing your letter had no inherent value. The value was in the lesson you learned.”
“I’m lost; what lesson did I learn?” Rudy asked.
“Think, Honey. What decision did you make as a result of your tirade against Grace?”
“I decided to run my life,” he answered. ‘I am accepting responsibility for my life, both past and future, and any results that I get from now on are due solely to the decisions I make and the actions I take.’ That’s what I told Joan; so that’s the point of this exercise!”

Rudy had a ‘eureka’ moment and Kay’s expression acknowledged her pleasure that he’d ‘gotten it’.
“Did you see my letter,” he asked timidly.
“Yes Rudy, I saw it,” she answered without comment.
“Pretty vile, eh?”
“It was pretty much what I expected.”
Rudy continued, “So what did you think of it?”
“I think you have a good grasp of sentence structure and grammar; in particular, profanity. And it was certainly honest; I didn’t detect a hint of a lie.”
Rudy was grateful that she did not pass judgment on him; or if she did, she kept her feelings to herself. He decided to file the letter in the recycle bin of his mind. Kay walked across the barn and sat on the hay bale next to him.

“So Rudy, how does it feel being in charge? Do you miss your helper?” Kate teased.
Rudy ignored her question and asked one of his own.
“Mama, I bet you’ve asked me that two hundred times; ‘how does it feel.’ Why is that so important to you?”
“I’m taking your emotional temperature,” she replied. “Your feelings are the thermometer of your emotional state. In fact, Honey, if you look closely at why you do what you do you’ll find that the reason is always ‘feelings’.”
They were facing each other and when Kay finished Rudy stared silently into her eyes, hoping to find an interpretation of the Chinese she was speaking to him. “What!?”

“Rudy, what was the first thing you did when you got home from work last night?”
“I said hello to Joan and the dogs.”
“After that?”
“I fixed a big, fat Scotch.”
“Why Scotch; I mean, if you wanted something to quench your thirst why not fix a big, fat glass of water?”
“Trust me, Mama; it had nothing to do with thirst-quenching. It had to do with chilling out after a day at work.”
“’Chilling out’; what does that mean?” Kay asked.
Rudy knew she’d haltered him once again. But like the horses who quietly chewed the hay he’d thrown them Rudy knew that once the apparatus was attached there was no use trying to resist the pull of the person on the other end. He followed her lead and replied obediently,
“Chilling out means relaxing; and you already knew that, Mama.” She ignored his barb and continued her instruction.
“And relaxation is…?”
While a second ‘eureka’ moment sent snaps, crackles and pops through his brain Rudy replied, “A feeling!”

Rudy had taken the bait and Kay prepared to set the hook.
“Why do you lug all that heavy equipment around so you can play music with your friends?”
Rudy was smiling and looking through the barn door toward the breaking dawn. A globe of orange light was just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon.
“Because playing music makes me happy.”
“And happiness is…?”
“A feeling. I’m beginning to see your point,” said Rudy.

“Okay Rudy, let me ask you another question.” Rudy was enjoying the Q and A session and eagerly agreed.
“Remember the story you told me about Grace bloodying your nose at the dinner table?”
Rudy grimaced and answered, “Yeah; but I’d rather not!”
“Why not?”
“Because it upsets me; it makes me angry.”
“And anger is…?”
“Wait a minute!” he said. “You told me that we do what we do because we enjoy the feelings we get. I don’t enjoy being angry and I thought we, that is I, had said goodbye to Grace; why you bringin’ her back up?”
“I didn’t say we do what we do because we enjoy the feelings. I said that we do what we do because of feelings; there’s a difference.”
She’d dodged the ‘Grace’ part of his question but clarification of her premise was more important at the moment.
“And I suspect you’re about to clarify that difference?”

“Rudy, human behavior is complex; you’re beginning to learn that. But the reason we do the things we do is really pretty simple. The reward of every action is a feeling. If you believe that taking that action will bring you pleasure you will step up to the plate and take your best swing. But!...” Rudy listened carefully as she was about to make an important counterpoint.
“…if you believe that taking that action will cause you physical or emotional pain, they’ll have to drag you kicking and screaming from the dugout. You want to avoid pain and experience pleasure.”
Rudy stood and walked toward Jack the horse while digesting what she’d just said. He scratched a grateful snout and said, “Seems kind of hedonistic to me.”
“I suppose it is,” she agreed, “but be that as it may it’s the way your brain works. And understanding that principle can bring real power to your quest for your ‘self’.”

Rudy found her use of ‘self’ interesting. It implied that he was not currently himself, which begged the question ’Who am I?’ His head was beginning to swim and he made a mental note to return for an answer. But he now knew that Katherine’s visit involved more than checking to see how taking responsibility for his life was going.
He turned from Jack, faced her and folded his arms over his chest in preparation of receiving more pearls of heavenly wisdom.
“Please continue.”

“How do you feel about dieting?”
Rudy sometimes found the simplistic nature of her questioning annoying and whished she’d just get to the point. But he knew she was in charge and played along anyway.
“No good.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“It means giving up stuff I like to eat, like ice cream and bratwursts and Snickers bars.”
“And I find that painful,” he added playfully.
“And since you find it painful, what are your chances of succeeding at dieting?”
His annoyance of a minute ago faded as the implications of what she was teaching him began to reveal themselves. He smiled and answered, “Not good.”
“Okay. Now, what could you do so that your dieting regimen became pleasurable and your chances of success increased?”
“I could change the way I think about dieting. I could think about the health benefits or how buff I’d look to the babes. I could start looking at brats and Snickers as poison—naw, that ain’t gonna happen!”
“Very good, I think you’re getting the hang of it!” Kay said.

“Rudy, any time you’re having trouble doing something you know you should it’s because you are associating pain with taking that action. Pain avoidance is a primal survival mechanism that’s part of your DNA, and your brain will do anything it can to avoid it. If giving up a bad habit means sacrifice to you, you will interpret doing it as painful, sabotage your efforts and fail; your brain just will not allow you to continue doing something that hurts.”

“On the other hand, if you can associate pleasurable feeling with breaking the habit your likelihood of success increases considerably. Does this make sense to you?”
“Yes,” he replied, “absolutely.”
Confident that Rudy had grasped the pain/pleasure concept Kay set out to put it to practical use.

“Honey, tell me something you do on a regular basis that you find painful.” He did not have to contemplate an answer for more than a couple of seconds and said,
“My job. I hate my job.”
“Tell me what you hate about it,” she continued.
“Waiting on people is what I hate the most. Every time I approach a customer I think of the rejection that I’m likely to get; rejection is painful.”
“And why would they reject you?”
“Because I’m a frigging car salesman; they don’t trust me and they think I’m going to rip them off.”
“Are you?”
“No; I’m honest to a fault, if anything.”
“What else do you hate about it?”

“It’s beneath me. I should be doing something important, not selling cars.” Rudy bowed his head in embarrassment as he spoke. He was telling the truth but ashamed of his arrogance. He expected Kay to challenge him but she did not; she’d found the pain she was looking for and forged ahead with the lesson.
“Why don’t you quit your job and do something important, then?” she asked
“I can’t quit my job, I’m married to the money. And I don’t know what important thing I’m supposed to be doing, at least not yet.”
The second part of his answer could be addressed later; Kay needed to drive home her point and spoke to the first.

“If you can’t quit your job it might help if we could find a way to reframe what you do so that it would be more fun, do you agree?”
“What do you mean by ‘reframe’,” he asked.
“Look at it in a new way, a new light or a different perspective,” she answered. “How does it make you feel when you do something, anything well?”
“It makes me feel good, of course.”
“Then how about this; what if, rather than waiting on customers with the intention of selling them a car, your intention was to do the best you could at giving the information they needed to make an intelligent car-buying decision. And what if your reward was, rather than money, the satisfaction of having put forth your best effort.”
“That’s brilliant, Mama! Instead of being a car salesman I become a teacher or a counselor; I like it! I’ll give it a try!”

When he and the dogs returned to the house Joan was up and waiting for them in the kitchen.
“Did you guys feed the horses for me?” She asked with exaggerated enthusiasm which brought Karl and Gracie running to her, tongues flailing and tails wagging. Rudy answered on behalf of all of them,
“Yes, in fact we did!” Joan produced two dog biscuits and handed them to two grateful dogs.
“Thank you all!” she crooned.
Rudy reveled in the early-morning joy and camaraderie of his family and told Joan,
“It was our pleasure!”

Lessons Learned From Guitars

Some of us can’t leave well enough alone. We look at a perfectly good incarnation of a designer’s vision and see beyond the safe waters of what it is and into the turbulence of what it could be. Harleys are a great example of this. I bought my first in April of 1982 (long before they’d shaken their bad-boy image) and before the end of summer I’d removed the tanks and fenders and had it repainted. It was still mostly the designer’s vision but it was now unique, different from the thousands of mass produced clones; it was mine!

I fell victim to the same affliction several years ago with guitars. Almost any guitar player will tell you of the one they pulled off the wall and knew that it would never return to its undistinguished place amongst its inferior peers. Mine was a 2000 Fender Precision bass. It was light, resonant and played like a dream. I knew we were meant for each other before I even fully cradled it. There was only one problem—I hated the color. It was a natural finish, glossy polyurethane over a beautifully grained two-piece ash body. It looked very 70’s, a time that Fender aficionados consider to be a dark time in the company’s history due to poor workmanship. And of course there was disco, too.

I thought I’d get over the color thing but just like my Harley the bass was a clone. So I decided to paint it. Internet research led me to a bountiful source of information on how to paint a Fender bass in pretty much the same manner of the masters of old, before the EPA declared lacquer a killer of humans. I’d decided on a sunburst, where an amber tint in the middle allows the grain to show, then fades into a darker and darker finish as you reach the edges. I was cautioned that it was folly to make your first attempt at a refinish a sunburst but it was too late to turn back, I’d already created a picture of the classic finish in my mind.

I gathered together my supplies, cut a template for the burst and headed for the barn to begin creating my masterpiece. I sprayed the amber tint first; it came out fine so I shot a couple coats of clear lacquer to lock it in place. Wet paint is a dust magnet so you can imagine the challenges I faced in a barn. But my Internet instructor told me to let it dry and sand out the imperfections. I waited a couple of hours, hit the dust particles with sandpaper and promptly sanded through my amber tint. What to do? I stripped the body and started over.

My second attempt got me as far as shooting the darker burst but my airbrush sputtered and deposited globs of brown paint where it hadn’t been invited. So I stripped it and started over. And then I screwed it up again. Finally, after my fourth attempt, the guitar body looked like what I’d envisioned several weeks ago when I started. I shot 15 coats of clear lacquer over a period of three weeks stopping numerous times to sand out drips, runs, dust and an occasional bug. But I knew that despite my many errors I was learning and getting closer to my bass guitar.

Once the appropriate number of clear coats are down the sanding begins. At this stage the paint texture is similar to that of an orange, hence the term “orange peel”. I flattened the irregularities of the surface with #600 grit and proceeded getting the surface smoother and smoother using progressively less abrasive grits of wet-dry sandpaper up to #2000. I spent many hours doing this and would guess that I did nearly 10,000 strokes on my way to creating my special bass. Once the sanding was finished I moved on to three different degrees of polishing compounds, all rubbed by hand. And then one day it was done. I attached the neck, wired the electronics, put on the strings and set in its stand so I could just step back and look at the finished product. I’d seen it a thousand times before in my mind’s eye but it looked even better now than I’d imagined.

I’ve painted several guitars and basses since then and each time the procedure was the same. First, I’d envision the guitar in my mind. I’d see how it looked and I’d feel the pride of accomplishment that would be mine when it was done. I’d hear my friends’ compliments and see myself holding and playing the instrument. It’s never been a “when I’m done” kind of thing, it was always as if I was enjoying these feelings right now. With each guitar there were mistakes that had to be corrected causing me additional work and delaying the time of completion. But I never got frustrated and I never felt like any of it was work. My wife has been asking me to sand and refinish the top of her Aunt Carol’s old dresser for 30 years and I just can’t bring my self to do it. All that sanding would be work, and I have enough things to work on around the house as it is. But 10,000 strokes with sandpaper on a guitar I’ve dreamed of; nope, that’s not work, it’s fun!

Building guitars has taught me this: if I can clearly define and envision a goal, if I can propel myself forward towards my goal by experiencing the feelings right now that will be mine when the goal is accomplished, I will achieve it. And when I encounter the inevitable problems and frustrations I will move ahead as I will not be able to abandon the joyous feelings I’ve experienced so many times already. The process of achieving my goals will require effort and learning new skills but none of this will feel like work as it will be a labor of love. Painting guitars has reminded me that everything I’ve accomplished in my life, both good and bad, started as a thought, a tiny seed in my mind and through my attention, imagination and feeling was nurtured into a very real thing. Painting guitars has taught me to emerge from the fog and realize I have a choice as to what occupies my mental space. Painting guitars has taught to be aware of the seeds I choose to nurture.