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5 Signs You Might Be An Adult

March 5 By logan

When I was a kid I used to think adults had some sort of secret knowledge. My Dad never seemed to feel shy. My Mother never seemed to be at a loss for words. My teachers might be boring but they never seemed scared. Adults knew how to fix cars, get a mortgage, start a business, while in comparison everything I did seemed tentative, half-assed, silly. I wondered when I would be ushered into the club of adulthood, when I would know the secret, when I would get my shit together.

Well it turns out the answer is never. It never happens. There is no secret. You’re always making it up as you go along, and so is everybody else. Sometimes your shit works out, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s got nothing to do with how old you are. Your doctor, astronauts, and the President of the United States are just as fucked up as you are and yet, somehow, things still seem to get done.

It’s not that nobody knows anything. Some people are really good at stuff, especially if they’ve been doing it for a long time. That’s one of the great things about getting older: just by dint of simple repetition you get good at whatever it is you do a lot. Which is one reason you should pick something good to get good at when you’re younger. But young people are terrible at picking things to do, so many of us never get really good at the things that would make us feel the best.

But that’s okay too, as the first sign you might be an adult is:

1. You’re Comfortable With Who You Are

This is one of those things people say, and when you’re younger it sounds like bullshit, like something old people think, which it actually is. But young people don’t know shit because they lack experience. When you get older you come to realize that everybody’s in the same boat: everybody fucks up at least half the time. Everybody tries and everybody fails. The sheer weight of evidence shows you that you’ve been trying your best for 40 years, so you start to cut yourself some slack. You’re a person, too: why would you want to be a prick to yourself all the time?

To younger people this appears as a kind of confidence, and I’m confident that it sort of is.

2. You’re grateful

It’s impossible to get young people to be truly grateful, because they’re really selfish, and they often haven’t lost anything serious yet. Even little kids who’ve grown up in awful, war-torn environments seem to bounce back really quickly. When you’re older you’ve lost a bunch of shit, you’ve had your heart broken a couple of times, some people have died on you. You know a little bit about the world and you realize how precious good things are, so you’re grateful for what you have. (If you cling to things and get too materialistic all the good effects of this are lost – you’re not really grateful, you’re childish.)

3. You don’t want to waste time

To an infant, a day or a week is an eternity – so much experiencing and learning is going on that time crawls by, almost as if there were no time. But the older you get, the shorter a month gets. To a middle aged person, five years goes by rather quickly. Time actually speeds up with age and the accumulation of lived experience. This means that if you are thirty, your life is much more than a third gone: it is maybe 80 percent gone. If you are fifty, it is 95 percent gone. There’s not nearly as much time left as you thought there was.

Norman Fischer, Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

When I was in my late twenties and early thirties, I was addicted to the Civilization series of computer games. I could quite happily devote ten, twelve, even twenty hours to a campaign and it was fun. I read about Civ, I practiced it. I got really good at it.

There’s no fucking way I’m ever going to sit down to another ten hour game of Civilization in this lifetime.

4. You’re more tolerant

When you’re younger you labor under the illusion that, with the proper effort, everything will turn out the way you want it. This is partially your parents’ fault: they quite rightly try to encourage you by telling you that the world can be yours if you just work at it. And they’re kind of right. Except it turns out it’s the work that counts, not the result.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever met someone who wasn’t trying their best. Often their best was kind of shitty, even terrible. Often their best actually fucked up my own life in some way. But I truly don’t think I’ve ever met someone whose desire was to do their worst, whose motivation was “Do Evil.” (Let’s be clear: people do terrible things. But even if their desire is to “do something terrible” it’s because they think that it will be good for them. So their intention is to do something good, but it’s terrible, because it’s completely selfish.)

So I’ve come to understand that people are at the mercy of causes and conditions. When they do something terrible it’s because they thought it was the right thing. So, not only did they fuck everything up, but they fucked everything up when they were trying to make everything better!

Poor people.

5. You’re scared of teenagers

Well, maybe not so much teenagers, but people, mostly men, from the ages of about 18 through 25. This is because these people, again, especially the men, are the stupidest and most dangerous creatures on the earth, maybe all the Earths. Who knows why? They just don’t give a shit.

Idiots who don't give a shit. — Young men who don’t give a shit.

But adults do give a shit. It’s kind of the defining characteristic of adulthood. You’ve got kids, or some shit to do, and you know how precious life is, and how rare, and you’re more tolerant and grateful, and you don’t want to waste time recovering from a brain injury because some drunken bro called you out in front of a nightclub on a Saturday night.

So, because you’re comfortable with who you are, you keep an eye on them, and maybe a wide berth, and you let that shit slide.

This Guy Ate An Avocado…And You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!

February 10 By logan

Some time in the last century a friend of mine offered me some of her avocado.

No, thanks, I said. I don’t really like them.

Her eyes grew wide. How can that be? she asked. They’re so good.

I don’t get why people make such a big deal about them, I said. They’re bland. They don’t taste like anything. There’s nothing special about them.

But how can you not love that light, creamy, green taste? she pressed. It’s so rich and delicate at the same time.

She handed me the avocado and a spoon. Go ahead, she said. Try it again.

I didn’t hate avocados. They didn’t disgust me. And she seemed really sincere. So I thought, What the hell? And tried it.

And the windows were opened and the light came in.

Of course there was a light rich, creamy flavor somehow deep and delicate at the same time. But it wasn’t new. It had always been there.

It was the taste of an avocado – and I had tasted it before. I’d always known it. But I’d been looking for something else, something more obvious. Maybe something sweet or sour or salty, something intense.The avocado was none of these things, but it was extraordinary as it was. I just had to see that, and take it as it was. There was nothing extra needed – it was there all along.

It makes some people nuts when you say they’re perfect as they are. They feel pretty shitty a lot of the time, and they’re 20 pounds overweight, or they can’t stop smoking, or they’ll never finish that novel, or whatever the fuck it is. They can’t get their shit together. So when you tell them they’re perfect it seems idiotic, it sounds like bullshit.

Because they aren’t what they want to be, or what they hoped they would be, and time is running out!

And there’s no getting around it: life is a litany of disappointments. You lose everything you love, and you die at the end.

True story.

And Death is so scary! It’s awful. Death is Darth Vader. Death destroys worlds. Everything frightening is frightening because it threatens us with death, even when we don’t see it that way. Even if we say we’re afraid of losing our job, or losing our wife, or losing our minds, it’s all death. It’s the loss of ourselves.

Because everything threatens us. Life is a stranger’s sojourn, and we’re never at rest. To be alive is to be uncomfortable, and to be imperilled. When we’re lonely we long for love, and if we find love we’re afraid to lose it. And often we do lose it, despite our best efforts or, worse, as a result of our best efforts, because our best efforts were not what the beloved wanted.

And other people are always happier than we are, or better looking, or they have more money.

So, you know, when you tell some people they’re perfect the way they are, they just think you’re mocking them, or that you’re full of shit.

But, regardless, each of us is perfect and pristine, an unfolding miracle, exactly as we are.

The problem is that our consciousness, the faculty that makes us so successful, that thrust us into unfettered dominion over the beasts of the earth and the fish of the sea, and endowed us with the vision and the tools to create the Alphabet, the Electric Light, and Two and a Half Men, has brought with it this illusion of a Self that is separate from the rest of the universe, that travels through it and is threatened by it.

And because this Self is so small compared to all that is, because deep inside we know that we die at the end, we have to spend our short lives propping up and defending this illusory ghost.

But it never ends. It’s never good enough. It can never be good enough. And we see everything from the inside, from the ghost’s point of view, from the grave.

And the world doesn’t care, and it doesn’t help us. It doesn’t take us seriously. It keeps throwing shit at us, and taking our stuff away. We can’t keep anything, and nothing works for long. To protect ourselves we have to fix everything. If we can just organize our shit we’ll be okay.

Because we’re never satisfied, the world is wrong. We need to fix it, to fix it, to fix it.

Take a second, right now. Just stop, and take a breath, and feel the breath within your body. Cool through your nostrils and throat, gently swelling through your torso, warm and full in your belly.

You will have felt some part of that. Even if you are racked by suffering and sorrow, there is some part within you that is at peace.

How can you reach it?

You can breathe again, and watch the breath, and feel it spread through your body.

You can rest for a moment, for the span of a breath, just a few seconds. Feel the tingling in your toes or the top of your head, feel the warm luxuriant suchness of your torso, your belly, your chest. It’s just there – it just is. Feel how you are. Don’t back away.

You can let the pain go – there will be time for it later.

Don’t neglect the simple pleasure of being, the simple peace of being. Don’t neglect the miraculous fact that you are here, and that the time is now.

Do you see? It’s right here in front of you. Everything you’re looking for.

Look closer…

Do you see?

How To Turn Your Life Around

December 17 By logan

I remember walking in the grey west coast winter, trudging like a man on the way to the guillotine, the only consolation that soon I would be able to have a drink. I was suffused with anguish and fear like a sponge soaked in poison.

And I remember, quite distinctly, and with an echo of the words in the dark cellar of my mind, the feeling of a fist closing around my heart.

We act as if a given moment is defined by certain emotional content: whatever it is we happen to be feeling. “I feel sad = I am sad = this is a sad time = the world is sad.”

None of these statements is completely true.

Well, you might argue that “I feel sad” is necessarily true, and it depends how precise you want to be. I won’t argue with you if you say you feel sad.

Hey, man – feel however you want to feel!

It gets counter-productive when we identify with the emotion. “There is sadness” becomes “I feel sadness” becomes “I am sad.” Once you’ve identified with the emotion, once you call yourself that, your mind closes down to everything else that’s happening.

And what else is happening?

Every other thing in the Universe is happening. Birds are being born, sharks are eating little fish, plants are sprouting, someone is being kissed, a revolution is being planned, someone has locked their keys in the car, a star is exploding, a dog is chasing a ball.

And all along the Universe within you goes down just as far as it goes out. And it goes out so far that the light from the edge hasn’t reached us because the Universe isn’t old enough.

And the Universe is really fucking old.

Why, then, fixate on the ephemeral wisp of energy that makes you say you are sad? When you could just as easily say, “I am Everything. Everything is me.”

The Time I Didn’t Punch Jian Ghomeshi in the Face

November 21 By logan

I almost punched Jian Ghomeshi in the face once, but not for any noble reason. No, I almost punched him in the face because of his taste in hand towels.

It was in a Halifax bar some time whenever the fuck ago. A pretty long time. Before he was on TV, I think, or had his radio show. His only real credit then was as a member of Moxy Fruvous, so he probably wasn’t able to lure too many women on the strength of fame alone. I remember him looking pretty much exactly the same, though. Say what you want about the guy: he’s kept himself in pretty good shape.

Then again, I imagine myself to look pretty much the same as I did then, and this is almost certainly false. My wife tells me I’m much better looking now.

Anyway, I took a dislike to Jian from the start. In fact, I disliked him before he sat down, because of his shitty band and because I assumed him to be an exemplar of a kind of trendy, entitled Toronto smugness which, let’s be honest, he really was. I was probably pretty drunk, though, too, because I was often drunk then. But not blackout drunk, because I remember it.

My girlfriend had known him in Toronto, so they talked about Toronto shit. As I remember he was pretty friendly and charming but I had set myself against him so I didn’t give a fuck.

There was nothing Jian was going to do to get me to like him.

The only thing I really remember from the conversation was that Jian was having trouble finding hand towels for his new condo. He wanted some shade of purple that I guess was in short supply, towel-wise. And that kind of thing just made me mental back then.

Who gives a fuck about hand towels?

Jian’s in so much shit now. Dismissed. Disgraced. He had a pretty good run there for a while but it’s hard to get too famous in Canada, and there’s usually something embarrassing about Canadian celebrities.

Nickelback.

Celine Dion.

That Labatt’s Blue-Players Light kind of guy who sings the Sinatra songs.

(Actually that guy seems mostly all right. I think he’s just some dude with a very smooth voice they started to give buckets of money to. But I need three people so I’m leaving him in.)

And how famous was Jian, really? I mean, he’s probably twice as famous a creep as he ever was a public radio host. Even within Canada I imagine he was extremely well-known in a small sliver of the population and barely recognized by the country at large.

I don’t know, though. I haven’t checked on that. And I don’t know what normal people are like anymore.

Still, here’s the thing: I quite liked Jian’s show. I haven’t listened to it in years, but for a while there I downloaded it every day and listened when I walked the dog.

I was dubious at first, because of Moxy Fruvous and the towels and shit, but I must’ve noticed that he’d interviewed someone I liked or something like that and, anyway, I liked it. He was smarmy and smug and he did this really terrible promo that went, “In Canada, we love our hockey, we love our beer, and we love our arts.”

(And if you can’t see why those words delivered in that mannered radio voice contain within in them all that is awful about Canadian culture in general and the CBC in particular then you are blind, my friend. Or American, and don’t give a shit.)

But, regardless, I liked that show. I don’t know if Jian was trying to seem cool, but he seemed like a big enthusiastic nerd. I mean, he was in Moxy motherfucking Fruvous. How cool could he be?

And I had quit drinking and gotten out of a failed marriage. I had a girlfriend (who would become my new bride, my true wife.) And I had started meditating and studying the Dharma. My cynicism was melting away. I was opening up to enthusiasm. Jian did some pretty good interviews. He seemed sincere. He stood up to Billy Bob Thornton. (Although he was too smug in the aftermath. And the parochial nationalistic satisfaction of his listeners kind of ruined it. Billy Bob was a bit of a dick, but he came off looking better in the end. America’s cool, no matter what.)

Canadian Indie Rock Band

““You’re meeting the Who’s Who of Canadian indie rock!” he whispered into my ear enthusiastically. I had no idea who they were, but most of them had cool beards.”

So said the writer of that hatchet job article. I remember feeling sorry for J. Ghomeshi when I read that. I cut him a lot of slack for trying and I wanted to be more forgiving, and the writer seemed spiteful. I mean, you could see he was a tool, but he didn’t seem scary or violent. We all have our peccadilloes. I’ve misread signals and liked girls who didn’t like me, and I certainly wouldn’t want every stupid, venal thing I’ve ever said to be reported on the Internet.

But I also took some satisfaction. There was some Schadenfreude, to be sure. Part of me didn’t want to be forgiving, or cut any slack. Part of me still wanted to punch Jian in the face for talking about his ridiculous hand towels, for being so shallow just like everybody else. Part of me would’ve loved to get paid a bag of money to talk to people on the radio. Part of me wanted him to fail.

Me me me me me me me.

And of course now that article seems, if not prescient, then certainly more fitting. We know he’s bad now, so we can say any kind of shitty things we want, because we’re not like him.

J Ghomeshi has a rough road ahead. He will have to learn what it is to be shamed, ostracized, and despised. If he’s lucky and wise he will take those lessons and do something to redeem himself. And then he will know what it is like to be redeemed. It is to be hoped he will own up to his transgressions, and make some sort of restitution to the people he has harmed. He can say he’s sorry. And maybe they’ll forgive him. At least he will have tried, if he truly does.

But people don’t seem to do that very often. We notice and are proud of them when they do, because it gives us hope for ourselves, and because it is so rare.

In my own life I have already learned the lessons of cynicism, selfishness, and alcoholism: I know what that kind of life is. Now I’m trying to learn what it’s like to be positive, optimistic, and sober, and to transcend my own selfish interests. I don’t know if I could learn the second lessons without learning the first.

But that night in Halifax I was just being petty and small, poking at a stranger for my own selfish reasons. Making the world slightly shittier.

And my victim behaved with a certain dignity, even some kindness. The misdeeds we know of lay ahead of him then. He might have turned aside…or maybe not…

At any rate, he didn’t.

Sam Harris & Joseph Goldstein in a Buddhist Blood Match to the END

October 30 By logan

Sam Harris just posted this awesome conversation between him and Joseph Goldstein. If you don’t know who either of those people are, what the fuck is wrong with you? No, seriously — did you grow up under a rock?

Just kidding. There are innumerable reasons you might be so ignorant.

Regardless, if you have any interest in meditation or just wonder why anyone might continue doing something so boring and hard, this conversation is golden. Check it out!

Or remain forever a helpless pawn of Hatred, Desire, and Delusion…

How to Stop Beating the Shit Out of Yourself

October 22 By logan

Peaking on acid, about to freak out, I opened the window for air.

“Yeah, buddy, you should jump out the window. Do us a favor!”

Keith had been needling me all night long. He was smart, with a good sense of humor, so his mockery was strong, but he never came right out and said anything openly shitty: I couldn’t tell if he was really being a total prick or if I was just imagining things. And if you’ve ever been that high you’ll know the feeling: you think something is happening but you’re not really sure…

…and the topic is potentially embarrassing so you don’t really want to bring it up…

…and if you do bring it up you can’t really say what you mean and people just look at you…

…and you can’t tell if they’re just looking at you kindly or if all along have they’ve felt you’re a complete fucking tool and it’s only now coming out.

Anyway, at this moment it became clear that Keith had been after me all night long, but we were all friends, more-or-less, and it was kind of weird for him to be picking on me for no obvious reason.

Of course now I can imagine many reasons he might’ve disliked me: I could seem like an arrogant prick sometimes, and even though I already had a girlfriend I’d been sleeping with this girl Keith knew and had probably been generally callous about the whole thing, and Keith was good friends with another local band with whom we had this sort of unspoken rivalry: they were the Beatles and we were the Stones (or, as the singer of that band said, they were a sneaker band and we were a shoe band.) And even though that band was several orders of magnitude more popular and successful than we were, we came on like we were the Stooges crossed with the Gun Club, and that brand of not-give-a-fuckery was not guaranteed to endear oneself to the citizens of our quiet little town.

So I think it’s quite likely Keith was just trying to bring me down a peg.

The thing is, though, that I was already quite convinced that I was a piece of shit and that nobody liked me, so it was no great achievement to make me feel bad about myself. So ha HA Keith (not his real name,) joke’s on you!

I already felt like jumping out the window!

I don’t know where this feeling came from, but I can pinpoint the first time I was aware of it. It was in a church basement in Butte, Montana in 1982, at a family reunion with my mother’s people. (Good folks, all of ’em!) I had recently fallen in love with punk rock and, the night before we left, cut my own hair in the style of John Lydon.

Chris Logan, 1982. (Actually John Lydon, 1977.) — Me (Not really.)

My mother, god bless, didn’t make a big fuss, but I must’ve looked terrible…and here I was with my fucked up head and my ripped up t-shirt, surrounded by all these red-blooded, corn-fed American teenagers with bright white smiles and nice hair.

They were all very nice to me but I wanted to die. I just couldn’t talk. I felt like a different species, alone in that room. And not only alone, but strangely pitied and despised.

And the feeling that I am a freak and a flake has never since left me, though to meet me you’d probably assume I felt like the wise, kindly, handsome, charming, confident, middle-aged citizen I present to the world.

I don’t really care about that any more, though: I don’t believe everything I think and I don’t listen to everything the voices say. (To be precise: I only listen to the voices when they’re speaking English.) (Just joking! The voices hardly ever speak English any more.)

I don’t really think I’m a piece of shit and I don’t even think it makes sense to think I’m a piece of shit. It doesn’t make sense to think that I’m anything all the time. And although I frequently disappoint myself (in fact I probably disappoint myself daily about some stupid shit or other) on the whole I think I’m just fine the way I am right now. And you are, too.

You’re fine the way you are. Right now.

Do you see?

But when I say “You’re fine the way you are,” it’s important to be clear exactly what I mean. Because you might actually be completely fucked up. Which is fine! But that doesn’t mean you want to stay that way.

You’re fine the way you are because everything that has happened to you, in fact everything that has happened to everyone, in fact everything about the life of the Universe up to this moment has conspired to make you precisely the way you are. And there is absolutely nothing you can do to change the past.

It’s gone. Kaput. Into the Time Hole.

Finito.

So in that sense you are obviously completely fine because there is no other way for you to be at this moment.

So get off yourself, for Christ’s sake!

However, nothing about this suggests that you are in a desirable state or one that is conducive to flourishing or that you need be resigned to it or that the way you are is the way you will always be. The usefulness of knowing you’re fine is that you don’t need to waste a bunch of energy feeling shitty about yourself or bemoaning past failure.

You can immediately dispense with the illusion that you are inherently bad.

Which is good to know! Because this kind of fruitless self-loathing is a terrible time sink, and you can pour your whole life down that drain. Don’t do it! Accept that you’re fine, that the past is gone, that you have this moment to work with and that with every new moment you are reborn.

You’re fine, love yourself, accept the world as it is and love everything…

…but by all means quit drinking, or cheating on your wife, or resenting your husband, or stealing from your boss, or treating your employees like shit, or envying rich people, or despising poor people, or hating brown people, or loathing white people, or whatever other bullshit keeps you from thriving with an open heart and bringing light and love into the world.

Try that, why dontcha?

Riot cop photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghany

We borrow this life…

September 28 By logan

“We receive our life, we borrow this life, and an infinite number of organisms support us in living. Once we notice this embeddedness we feel compelled to act and face the world from a place of gratitude and responsibility—to work and study deeply, to practice in every moment, to smile, to own our own anger and jealousy, to not waste time.” -Gesshin