I'd be happy as a kitten just as sure as you are shittin' if I only had a brain in Normal entries

I usually think of this song on the first of December. Careful what you listen to; here in my dotage my memory has room only for song lyrics and the distant past. I misremember these lyrics; it’s always the first of December and not the 10th of January. Not really a big deal, no one knows what I’m talking about half the time.

People are nice to me, they smile and nod. I used to think it was because they were embarrassed that they were unable to track. Now I think if embarrassment plays any part at all it’s at my untrackability, arcane, archaic, esoteric and eclectic references. It would be kind of cool if there was a cohesiveness or chronology or, like a parable, there were some fine point or moral at the end. Yeah, no. Song lyrics and the ghosts of events.

One of the simple tricks of neuro linguistic programming is to change the image to suit. If for instance some terrifying image of a grown up standing above your child (you as a child) makes you, I don’t know --- afraid to succeed or some other shrink thing --- you photo-shop it in your mind, fade back, shrink the grown up, raise your child. I owned this book from the guy who sort of took the credit for NLP, it was basically a lecture written down. I liked the name of the book; using your brain for a change. Normally I don’t like puns in a title. It had been a gift.

Funny that, the best of self help sort of trends and fads are all shit you inherently know. That’s even truer of diet crazes. Most every adult knows; eat healthy stuff, eat less, exercise more. Yet America will support several diet fads simultaneously and put a lot of money and brief fame in the pocket of the man, woman, child or dog that says chocolate or kibble or grapefruit with brewer’s yeast or eating only meat will somehow make you happy and give you six pack. They mean your abs; nobody gives you a six pack of beer.

You would think the language alone would make folks stop and think; Hmmm self help, perhaps the emphasis is on Self. I’m not sure why I’ve bitched about this recently. I don’t really think all of those things are a scam or the doings of some sucker-born-a-minute capitalist. I don’t even think of capitalism as a dirty word. I don’t have a problem with money. It’s a little scary that so many people feel so lost that self-help fads can prosper.

I think in a fundamental way there’s a lot of people who believe happiness is a real goal and if you throw money at something you’ll achieve happiness and it probably does work for a little while. Happiness might be a faulty premise. I suppose it might be cool to be happy all the time, I think it probably isn’t. I think a full range of emotions is not only achievable all on your own (we pretty much come equipped with those things) but a more reasonable goal. Like tummies a lot of people are never going to be quite satisfied, expecting that somewhere there’s a whole community of happy svelte folks. If there is they are hiding and I suspect with just cause.

We use the phrase ‘Eye of the beholder’ as though someone else, some shadowy figure like they (e.g. the ubiquitous they; they are always putting me down, they are holding me back, they are out to get you, and so on and so forth). Truth is each and every one of us is a beholder 24/7, we are the eye of the beholder as sure as they are. The saying could be “Beauty is in my eyes”. There is a fallacy too, one that drives the diet industry, that beauty somehow is happiness.

Snake oil but wizard of Oz snake oil. Those of you with sheepskin on your wall know good and god damned well the scarecrow didn’t get any smarter with a diploma. Frank Baum decided he’d tell you anyhow; make damn sure the point was not arbitrary. The heart did make the tin man happy, but it was a placebo. Not saying the Wizard was a con man though Frank Baum said it, he also said all that shit worked, it was the fruition of the quest, it was the desire alone and doing something about it that gave everyone what they wanted. You’ll notice too that Frank, not a commie or a socialist, didn’t charge Dorothy or the Critters for the cure

Happy twenty three shopping days until Christmas. If you’re looking for presents for me I’m registered with the wizard, I want a brain, courage and a heart under the tree, but, and mo0st importantly, I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.