Monthly Archives: December 2008

of the past year in no particular order:

• The House on the Rock
• The Spa
• Mozzarella in thirty minutes
• La Fusta (always)
• http://www.nanowrimo.org/ (winning, after two years of failure)
• Babies (hi Domenic and Sebastian!)
• Carina’s Wedding.
• being a tourist in New York City again.
• and of course the dear departed stoop barbecues.
• what am I forgetting?

According to Buddhism and Britney Spears, suffering comes in a couple of equally painful forms. There is suffering because you don’t have something you want. And then there is the more upsetting suffering because you got something you want and now you are terribly afraid it will go away and you won’t have it anymore.

That about covers the human condition. We are perpetually bouncing between these two. Oh and then there is suffering because you have something you don’t want, like really bland doughy pizza or cancer. So you have to get away from the things you don’t want and hold on desperately to what you do want and then you become exhausted and have to run away to a seaside town where you have no friends.  And the pizza is terrible anyway.

Britney hasn’t offered any solutions that I’ve seen. But Buddhism suggests behaving like a casual tiger. That is, powerful, confident but not arrogant, calm and discerning. And, “totally aware of karma.”

I think this means that whatever you do, driving around drunk in your SUV, shaving your head on national television, getting involved with a married man, etc. although these actions provide temporary relief, they tend to bite you in the ass in pretty short order. The Casual Tiger says, hang on a second there. Think this one through before you pick up those car keys, or that phone.

What about all those times when you see a tiger ripping out the throat of, say, a quite meek looking deer? Is that tiger Meek? Is that casual? For the tiger, yes. The tiger has considered all the options and repercussions, and followed its inspiration to slaughter the deer. Go, Casual Tiger!