Is There A Heaven For An O.J.? A Meditation On Passing Thoughts
The transience is what makes them useful.
Welcome to the Monday, we got fun and games. We got everything you want, and honey, we know the names. Monday, welcome to the Monday watch it bring you to your knees, knees.
First, I wrote this week’s edition on paper to ground myself and get back to basics. It’s so easy to lose oneself in technology: Laserdisc, Nokia phones, Sega Genesis. Sometimes, it’s essential to return to your roots and remember why we’re all here. Try putting pen to paper when you get a few minutes. You won’t be disappointed.
We all know how beneficial journaling can be, and I highly suggest getting out there and finding a journal that makes you want to write. Also, look for a pen with smooth action and an ergonomic design. Stay away from Bics, the North Korea of pens.
Writing with a pen and paper opens up one's mind to all manner of creative ideas. I came up with some article ideas while free-writing with a pen the other day. Some of the standouts were:
Former Scumbag Absolved After Having a Daughter, Local Pervert Reinvents Himself With Crossfit and Anthony Bourdain’s Resignation Letter From Applebee’s.
Were they all winners? No, they weren’t, but the point is getting the ideas on paper before they vanish.
One of the best parts about having a newsletter, besides the groupies, is that it forces you to consider thoughts that would have otherwise been considered passing.
To create writing of this caliber week after week, one must be prepared to pontificate on all manner of topics, from the grand to the disturbed.
Everyone has passing thoughts. We don’t know where they come from or why we think them, and some can be inappropriate. Just the other day, I thought about Scottie Scheffler kissing Jordan Spieth on the sixteenth green at Augusta. Why? I can’t tell you, but it happened.
The key is not to be too hard on yourself when thoughts like these pop into your head. They’re only passing, after all.
The idea for today’s issue was a passing thought about passing thoughts. Except this time, when the thought came to me, instead of letting it leave, I grabbed it by the tail, held it down, and cut it open. The thought screamed and thrashed about, but I had to gruesomely examine it so I could have something to write about.
The passing thought kicked me in the stomach and got loose, but I caught it and sat on it.
“Where did you come from?!!?” I bellowed.
Passing thoughts speak in a fragmented language that sounds like you’re listening to a damaged CD. The words come out like a string of cheap fireworks, and only until you calm yourself can you slow it down long enough to understand.
I softened my tone and asked again. The passing thought said, “I come from…inside…your…butt.”
I rolled my eyes. Classic passing thought response. I let it go, and it flew out of my mind to parts unknown. What I took from that interaction was that not even passing thoughts know from whence they come or, for that matter, where they’re going.
I think this is why passing thoughts feel comfortable taking up temporary residence in our heads. They relate to us as we share the same uncertainties.
Buddha spoke at length about passing thoughts. He said our minds must be as porous as Joe Biden’s Southern Border. Boom. Got you again, Joe Biden. We must welcome all passing thoughts, good or bad, examine them, and send them on their way. Our minds should remain empty but welcoming places.
Much like a pitcher used to hold liquid, the emptiness makes it useful.
What you want to avoid is a passing thought, getting too comfortable, and overstaying its welcome like an eight-hundred-pound gutter punk that gets stuck on your toilet. He’s in there, eating everything in your house, getting fatter and greasier by the minute, and soon, not even the fire department will be able to remove him.
A negative passing thought can take root and become rather difficult to expel.
“But what if the fat gutter punk thought is a positive one? Wouldn’t you want it to stick around?”
I’m glad you asked. No, no, you don’t.
Thoughts, much like teenage turtles, will mutate. It’s their nature. They come from the belly of an ever-evolving universe where the only constant is change. What begins as a thought like “I like the way I look” will twist and alter your mindset into “I’m so hot. Everyone makes me puke.”
While this is an extreme example, it’s entirely possible if you give passing thoughts enough time to gestate. It’s like getting stuck behind a Budget moving truck and reading the word “Budget” repeatedly until it loses all meaning. Soon, your positive thought will become so embedded that it, too, loses its original meaning. The value of a passing thought is its transience.
I let a passing thought hang around for much of my adult life. It got cozy and reminded me daily what a loser I was. It took considerable effort to get it out of there, and even now, I’m still finding little keepsakes it left behind.
Keeping any passing thought in your head after you’ve harvested what you need from it is a recipe for disaster.
This week, take a second to unpack the next passing thought that comes your way, whether it’s malevolent, complimentary, or as trivial as “cow milk has pus in it? Gross, but I need it for my Golden Grahams.”
Even if it’s something you don’t want to think about, ruminate on it briefly before letting it go. You might find the passing thought loses some of its power and stays away longer if it’s an ugly one.
After I regurgitate these ideas on you, the beloved members of the GNM community, I’ll let them go and prepare myself to snag the next passing thought dumb enough to venture into my mind. So, thank you for reading my passing thoughts on passing thoughts.
Until next time.