Enough?

I am not a minimalist person. Not because I don’t want to be or that I don’t see the value of it, I was just never very good at it. For years I have collected books and even though I would never give up my collection it is to the point now where I have to constantly weigh my choices of if I have space for all the things in my life. Not just physical space, but mental and emotional space as well.

I was reminded of this the other day when I was given the opportunity to acquire a new Samsung Tablet for next to nothing. Naturally I was very tempted and after tinkering with it and realizing how sleek and powerful it was, there was no doubt that this tablet was worth a lot more than I was going to pay for it. But there was something that just didn’t seem right. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. After a few days of thought I finally figured out what the issue was. Now that I am older, I feel like this happens more and more and I am still not very good at recognizing it. So, let me tell you a story that I refer back to in times like this.

Many years ago, prominent writer’s Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five) and Joseph Heller (Catch-22) were at a party that was hosted by a billionaire on Shelter Island, NY. While there Kurt leaned over to Joe and said:

“Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?”
To which Joe calmly replied “I’ve got something he can never have.”
Kurt playfully asked him “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

I think about this all the time. I believe that the concept of having enough and knowing when one has enough is truly the key to being happy in this life. Think of all the people you have seen or met who have less than you, but are just as happy as you are. I know that I can think of plenty. What is really interesting is that I know many people who have a lot more than I do and are not nearly as happy as I am… I bet you do to.

There is no doubt that there is a certain kind of fulfillment that comes from acquiring things, I feel that with my book collection. But there is an overflow where it is too much. Too much to care for and too much to care about. This is the point where instead of something making life easier or more joyful it adds more problems and complications. At least in me, this causes Decision Fatigue and wears me out in a way that I cannot shake and it just makes me crazy.

After remembering all of this it was easy to see that this Tablet, although incredible, did not have a place in my life and it was something that I had to pass on. My goal is that when I find myself in the position of choosing between want and need, I will always think back to this story and ask myself “Do I already have enough?” Because so far, I am constantly surprised at how common it is that I think back to that small memory and remind myself that yes, I have enough.

Except for books… I need all of those.

Obviously not THAT sorry.

Two weeks before Christmas in 2019 there was a blackout across 3 cities in my area. All told, the blackout lasted for only about 6 hours, and it was kind of nice to pull out the flashlights and candles. At some point in this, I even decided I would go to the gas station, which are powered by generators during power outages, and buy myself some water. When I got to the gas station, I learned that I was not the only one who knew they were open because the place was packed. The way that the cashier’s station is set up is like a horseshoe with four stations around the bend. However, of the four only one of them was open.

The kid at the front of the line was having some kind of issue and I could see that he knew that he was holding everyone else up. I was the fourth person in line and the person in front of me was a large angry looking black man. I didn’t know if he was genuinely angry, or if that is just how he looks all the time, often referred to in the name-calling industry as RBF or Resting Bitchy Face. Either way, he did not look like someone who wanted to talk to anyone.

Well, little did any of us know. but there were actually like 6 other employees in the building and after about 3 minutes one of them came and open another register kitty corner to the one whose line I was in. I, being the fourth person in line, waited to see if anyone ahead of me would change lines. The second person in line left for the new register and I again waited to see if the man in front of me would go. After about 30 seconds I figured that he was content to be where he was, and that meant that I was free to move to the new register without hurting any feelings. However, as I walked around the half circle, another register, the one that was directly behind the one I was previously waiting in, opened as well. Since I happened to be right there when she opened it, I figured I would just claim my spot. After all, it seemed like it would be pretty strange to go wait in a line while this one was completely open, so I put my stuff on the counter.

Once my transaction was completed, I realized that the water that I bought was actually damaged. So, I told the cashier that I was going to go trade it. To which she replied “We normally just sell damaged drinks because it doesn’t affect the taste” I found myself thinking how do you know that it doesn’t affect the taste? Do you try them? Also, I think I am more concerned about things getting into my water than I am about the taste. Don’t they say that botulism has no taste?

As this was going on, I heard the man in the line next to me, the first one to open up, say “sorry, do you want to come over here?” I looked up and to my surprise I saw that the kid who was having troubles was still up at the register and still having problems. Behind him, the black man shook his head in an angry and upset way at the man in the line next to me.

I went to trade out my drink and as I passed the man I said “Hey, I’m sorry that you got kind of skipped in line there” knowing, as I said this, that there was very little I could have done about the way the chips fell. I couldn’t force him to move lines, fix the kid at the front’s issues or make the cashiers help him first. I could have offered that he take the spot in the line that opened right in front of me, but I think that would have been far more awkward than kind. All I could really do, is what I did.

He snapped his eyes at me and glared angrily before saying
“Obviously you aren’t that sorry.”
I said, “Well, I feel b…”
He cut me off “No, you obviously aren’t that sorry!”

I looked at him confused about his use and emphasis of the word ‘that’ and said “You could have gotten in that line; it wasn’t a big deal to me. I was fine…”

“No!” He snapped, again cutting me off. “If you really were that sorry, you wouldn’t have cut in line.”
“Cut in line?” I said confused. Remembering that the line did not exist before I walked into it.
“Yes! Right in front of me!” He said like some unspoken law of gas station lines had be completely violated.
He started toward the door as he said “I don’t even know why you apologized; you clearly weren’t even that sorry.”
Confused by this bizarre situation I said “Look, I do feel bad, but your right, I am not ‘THAT‘ sorry.” making air quotes over the word ‘that’ as I said it.
“I didn’t know that my level of sorry was being measured in this apology… I put it at about a 4! A 1 after this bizarre tantrum of yours.”
“Whatever, Man!” he spat and he stormed out.

I really try to mean the things that I say, and really only apologize when I feel bad about something, my fault or not. Before this day I didn’t know that I needed to have a specific amount of sorry to apologize about something. But I think after this incident, I will give it a number.

I will say: “Your cousin died? I am sorry, like a 4!”
“No, I liked your cousin… A 7! I am sorry a 7.”

If you like stories with strange interactions with strangers, check this one out: Kill them with kindness.

Mean Little Girls

There is an interesting phenomena that I have seen a few times in my life that I thought I would share with you. On multiple occasions I have heard mothers tell stories about their teenaged daughters being unkind, but in a good way. Sometimes, even going so far as to refer to them as bitches, but saying it as if it were a desirable trait that they aimed for when raising the child.

Let me give you a real life example of this that a woman told me about a day that she spent with her daughter. “We went to a soccer game and on the end of our bench there was an older couple. We had to walk past them to get to our seats, and the old couple stood up and let us pass. We ended up having to go past them two more times, but on the last time the older man wouldn’t get up at all. We had to squeeze our way by. So, in passing my daughter gave him a hip nudge and hit his drink with her big butt and spilled it on him. She is such a bitch, I love her.”

Now, in this story the daughter was 15 years old, but what is really strange about it was that a normal person, you or I, would have thought “oh, perhaps this older gentleman cannot get up. Perhaps he is physically not able to stand a third time.” But to these two, their thought was that he was being spiteful towards them and deserved to have his drink spilled on him.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t a person want their daughter to be kind, nice and loveable? Why have times changed so much that now the desired feature that a mother craves in her child is for her to be unkind?

Want to know what I think? I think that most little girls model themselves after their mothers and that mother really feels shame for this trait, but pretends that she is proud of it in an attempt to justify the fact that she was just a bad mother.

Titles

I always find it odd when I encounter people who have a close friend or someone they like so they call that person by a family name, such as brother, even though they are not related… Or they make friends with someone who is older, so they call them dad.

The words brother, sister, dad, mom: these are not status levels of how close someone is to you. These are titles to define how someone fits in a blood relation with others. You can have a brother that you don’t like at all, but that does not change the fact that they are your bother. You could have someone that you love, and it does not make them your sister. Don’t believe me? Go look the definitions up (http://www.merriam-webster.com/).

Good Dog?

It always confuses me when I encounter someone who talks about how good their dog is, and it goes something like this: “He can sit, he comes whenever I call him, he loves kids… Oh, and he would bite anyone who tried to break into my house.” … wait, wait, wait… Did you just say that your “good” dog would go out of its way to attack a human being? That is your definition of good?

Let me tell a true story to help put this into context. I was at my friend’s house and he was showing me pictures of a large Doberman Pinscher that his family owned when he was an infant. As they all sat around reminiscing, he was talking about how good the dog was, and they all shared the same general story. I guess when he was in his crib the dog would go into his room and guard him. Anyone who would come in, the dog would make sure to scout out before allowing them to enter. He said that if they did not pass his “tests” the dog would not let them in, and even get aggressive. They all smiled and said “what a good dog”. I sat, confused by this. And said, “Wait you are saying that if someone that the dog didn’t know walked in, it would potentially attack them?” Proudly they all said yes.

“That is not a good dog!” I said. “That is the very definition of a BAD dog! You are saying that people who did not come over so often that the dog would intimately know them, it would attack and injure them!” They all looked at me in confusion, so I continued. “So, if your 75 year old grandmother who, let’s say, had never been there before came by and went in to see you, the dog would attack her… Plus, you are saying that a dog that is a constant threat is welcome in your home around an infant child. AND, the dog makes you do extra work, since you would have to escort someone in to see the baby… Not to mention if the dog did bite someone, you would then have to deal with all of the legal mess that would follow.”

I saw the cogs working in all of their heads, but in the end, they had decided that that is what dogs are for… IT IS NOT!!!

Let’s put this in another context. Let’s say that I had a nice brother who lives with me, but one day you unknowingly approached our safe, which held something that meant a lot to us. So, my brother, using his protective nature, walked in and beat the shit out of you. Do you think that anyone who has half a brain would stand there and say “oh, good brother! He’s such a good brother!” No! It’s not okay to inflict pain on others for such a foolish reason. Why then is it okay for a dog to bite a human?

Now, you always have one half of the people who say that dogs don’t know better, they have an instinct about them. These people are wrong. Bad dogs don’t know better. Good dogs, the kind that are trained for these types of things, understand that protecting a house simply involves alerting the person who is there. You think that your dog’s bite is going to stop someone. Go read about people who make their careers out of breaking into houses. The only reason that they don’t break into houses with dogs is because they bark, not because they bite. I can tell you now, that if I wanted to get something done, and there was an aggressive dog there, it would not stop me, and if it came at me, I would not spend more than 20 seconds either scaring it off, or killing it.

Always remember a few things about dogs. Dogs rely on smell, emotion and vision to identify a person, they don’t remember you by your face like we do. We know this because we know that they don’t see the same way that we do. A dog is not going to remember your grandmother who comes around every 3 years… A good dog will protect a house by alerting the Alpha of the pack. A good owner will establish themselves as the Alpha of the pack. If someone did want to steal my baby, but I had a Good guard dog who alerted me, they would not get far.

Always remember this about being robbed: If it has to happen, better to come home and see that things are taken and your dog hiding safely in the corner, then to come home and see that things are taken and that your dog is dead.

 

Take my word for whatever you think it is worth, but just to add some context… I trained dogs to be adopted for the humane society for over a year. Most of these dogs were aggressive, but it was my job to determine if they were able to one day be called a “Good Dog”.

Advertising

So a while back, I was on the freeway in the fast lane on my way home from work. In my rear view mirror, I saw massive red truck coming up on me fast. It was being driven by a man who was about 35 and who was not happy with me only going 80 in a 65 MPH zone. He whipped his truck  into the carpool lane and tried to speed past me, but instead was met with the various cars that were already occupying that lane. Seeing that he was not going to make it in front of me, he slammed on his breaks and through his arms in the air like it was the fault of the driver in front of him.

At this point he could have gotten back in my lane and gone around me the other direction, but this was not his plan. Instead he wanted ME to slow down in order to let him in. He was stepping on and off of his gas peddle, aggressively trying to force his way in front of me. This must have angered or spooked the driver in front of him since the driver quickly slowed down. Well, you can imagine how mad and reckless this made the man in the red truck. So he did the last thing that he thought he could to help him achieve his goals… He put his hand out of his sunroof and and flipped me off.

Now, this isn’t strange to me. I come from Utah, a state full of the nicest people in the world and the worst drivers in the country. What was strange though, was what I saw on his back window and he tore off down the road; it said “Nate’s full service landscaping: There for you when you need us” … Now, let me ask you, if you owned a business and paid for a sticker to be on your vehicle, wouldn’t you then consider that vehicle to be a potential advertisement? And if so, wouldn’t you Not want that advertisement to offend and/or jeopardize the lives of your potential clientele?

Well, a few months ago, a class mate and I started to talk about a business she had and I told her that I once owned a lawn care business. She was actually excited to hear this and told me that her mother needed someone to mow her lawn and asked me if I knew anyone who could do it this summer. My mind quickly jumped to my old freeway companion Nate so I said “Yes, does she only need her lawn mowed? Or does she need someone to flip her off on the freeway as well?” She looked at me confused, so I held my ground and followed up by saying “Sometimes they do both… I hear.” She said “I don’t think she would like being flipped off at all.” “Ohhhhhhh!” I said, “Then the guy that I am thinking of would not work out.”

Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that your actions, no matter how small, are simply forgotten about. And if you are going to own a business, be professional in all things dealing with your business… Or at least don’t act like an asshole in your company truck.

The Darkest Movies I Have Ever Seen

For as far back as I can remember I have been an avid lover of horror and darkness. Because of this I am often on the search for a really good scary book or movie. But my favorite is when I can find one that is more than just a horror, it is also dark… Really Dark! Many of the movies on this list I have seen a few times and they have become my go-to movies when I feel like I want to indulge in that dark feeling.

This is a list that I will add to over time and I find more of these dark gems!

So, here is my list of The Darkest Movies I have Ever Seen:

Black Death: Oh, Oh! This movie is great! Dark, but great! It follows a band of the Catholic Bishop’s soldiers in 1348, who are sent to locate a village which is claiming to be unhindered by the plague sent by God (the Bubonic Plague). However, in their journey, the band encounters thieves, religious zealots, plague bearers, fake witches, and some real ones. The journey is dark and definitely points out some of the weakest moments in human history as people everywhere are trying to find anyone to blame for the pestilence… anyone! However, when our heroes come face-to-face with a side of the world that believes that God is a killer rather than a savior, they find themselves in real ‘cold water.’ (You will get that joke when you watch it) It is an awesome ‘Christian vs Pagan’ story. Are they necromancers or just happy villagers? You be the judge… and what an Amazing end this movie has. Well worth a watch!

Gamer: It cannot be stressed enough that movies that deal with the not so distance future are generally dark in their own way. In this movie video games have become so advanced that they are played with real people as the in game character. So, in First-Person Shooters, they play with convicts who really get shot at and really die. But this is not the darkest part of the movie. There is a very popular (to the underside of society) Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) where you play as another person… So there are a lot of dark happenings for people who have insatiable sexual desires, or for those who want to hurt others. Many fantasies are fulfilled when people don’t have to be responsible for the body that they are occupying… It’s very dark.

The Road: As I said above, for the most part I would and have watched many of the movies on this list more than once. However, this movie is not one of those. This movie is incredibly dark and left me with that hopeless feeling for a long time after I watched it. This movie deals with a not-so-distance, post-apocalyptic future where we follow a man who is trying to keep himself and his young son alive. As they make their way to the coast we are gradually shown a world which has run out of food. As our main characters slowly starve they encounter multiple groups of people, all of whom have resorted to cannibalism… among other things… to stay alive. Again,                                         it is very, very dark.

Repo Men: As I have said before, most movies that deal with the not so distant future have a tendency to be that kind of dark that only comes from a horribly corrupt civilization. This is a movie where the medical world starts to be run by a corporate conglomerate that is selling people artificial body parts at prices that they cannot afford, yet to turn them down would mean death. When the people default on the payments the company sends repo men in to get the body part back, only to sell the part to someone else and repeat the process… That is insanely dark!

Running Scared: This is a movie that deals with a few intertwining dark stories. But, one part is that a child, who is running away, gets picked up at an ice cream shop by a man, woman and two children. As his story goes on we find out that the children don’t belong to the parents, but were actually also picked up with the promise that they would get ice cream… Later we see that the man and woman have done this many, many times before. Their plan is to molest and then dissect the children… It’s very creepy and dark.

Snowpiercer: This is another dark movie that takes place in the future where 17 year earlier the governments of the world attempted to solve global warming but just made it far worst. So our story takes place on a train that is capable of running indefinitely and holds the last remaining humans. However, they are divided by those in the front, who get to enjoy amenities that are extremely lavish by any standards and those who live in the back, which is much more like a prison. As the story escalates we start to see our protagonists in an evil light and our antagonist as the heroes of humanity… But trust me, in between it is a whole lot of dark terrible stuff and well worth a watch!

Sucker Punch: This movie is a bit odd because unlike many other dark movies, this one is all over the place. It has great action, good music, a brilliant grand master like character and pretty woman being total bad asses… Sounds great, right. So why is this one so dark? (This will be a bit of a spoiler) As we follow Baby Doll and her friends on their adventures, we are only watching what is in her mind. In other words, we are seeing what she is using as a coping mechanism for the horrors that she is facing in the asylum that she was wrongfully placed in. This movie starts and ends very dark.

Valhalla Rising: (No relation to the book by the same name) This is an insane movie that I loved! It follows a warrior named “One Eye” who is held captive by a highland clan who makes him fight to the death various times against numerous foes. He escapes and gets his revenge before he meets up with a group of Christians who believe they are sailing to the holy land to fight in the crusades, but actually end up somewhere far more dangerous. This movie has the darkest feeling of any movie that I have ever seen. But, like I said before, I loved it!

Vanilla Sky: This movies is all around dark. It gets crazy at about the half way mark, and then just progresses to a dark that went straight to my core. I honestly cannot say much about this movie without giving away what makes it good… So you’re on your own with this one. Just know that I would never watch it again, not because it was too dark, but because it was a long and dirty mind-rape that I don’t have time for a second time in the future. But, unlike most dark movies it ended very well.

 

Thank you for  checking out The Darkest Movies I Have Ever Seen. This is a post that I will continue to update and I would love to know what dark movies you have seen and how you rate my list. Let me know by leaving a comment… I absolutely love them!