Another Lunch Ramble

 

... So, in yesterday's post I ended up talking about how Fr. Keith helped me recognize that the sin I was feeling within myself was actually the sin of fear.  Why I was feeling the need to consider refraining from my pipes was that I was feeling worry and fear about the potential harm they may be causing me.  Living in fear for something I was choosing to do could be considered a sin.  

I am appreciative to both Fr. Keith and Fr. David for the insights that they helped me to find.  Fr. Keith also told me that he was not fearful like I appeared to be about smoking a pipe.  For him, it was just what was a part of his day-to-day life.  

* * * *

The recognition of this idea from Fr. Keith was instrumental in my refraining from my pipes at the start of Lent almost three years ago.  I was not so much quitting my beautiful, wonderful pipes and pipe tobaccos (although that was the effect), but instead my effort was to try to not purposefully engage in an action that ultimately was causing me fear and anxiety, because that duality of doing something that I know causes me fear/anxiety is wrong... is a sin... and is something I should reform in myself.  

* * * *

So, the current question is... why did  I have this fear arise? That is the question of the day. 

Well, for a lot of decades and a lot of years I did not have this fear.  I was much like Fr. Keith, in that my smoking a pipe was just a part of my day-to-day life.  It was a part of my life that I truly enjoyed. 

My pipes and pipe tobaccos always helped me to amplify the positives.... happy times were more happy with my pipes, calm contentedness was more calming and more contented with my pipes, joys were more joyful, strong and dutiful work was stronger and with more meaning and purpose, kind actions from me felt even more kind, my patience seemed more vast, my focus was sharper, my life was more alive.  

And, my pipes and pipe tobaccos always helped me to sooth the negatives.... sadness was smoother and less harsh, pain was quieted, griefs were less chaotic and more understood, and difficulties were easier to navigate.  

But... I think that as I have aged, there has been a growing awareness (hmm... not really the right word.... I have always been aware.... I think perhaps a "growing presence" may be more apt) in my mind of the very fragile, finite nature of my time here on Earth.  I have had this manifest in a bunch of ways that I can recognize and probably some that I do not recognize:

1.  Weight.  For much of my life I was what could kindly be called "chubby".  As a kid, when I graduated from high school I weighed 222 pounds.  I basically was that weight for most of my adult life other than a brief period in graduate school where I "slimmed down" a bit to around 200.  But, for a period of my life, when things were especially hectic, I was close to 300 pounds.  This close to 300-pound period was a span of about perhaps four years and then I lost some weight and was fairly close to "normal" at 230-235.  But, in this middle-aged period of time, I did also KNOW that I was still NOT at what was a "healthy" weight.  According to the health and wellness goals associated with the Body Mass Index, I was still considered overweight.  And, I knew this overweight status, was associated with increased risks for heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, etc. as I further aged.  When I came to that "growing presence" in my mind, I began to try to fix my bad behaviors in this regard.  This is how now, for the last almost 15 years, I have been in a "normal" BMI range where my weight has been between 160 and 175 pounds.  It took a helluva lot of effort, it took a lot of change of myself, and it was damn hard at times, but I thought it was something I should do to try to maximize the time here I can potentially have with those that I love. I worked to lose ~130 pounds of myself to achieve this normal BMI.

2.  Exercise.  I was never much of an exerciser during most of my life.  But a while before I actually systematically began to try to reach a normal BMI, I also began to realize that I was missing out on a lot of life with my family by being a quite sedentary person.  And, I began to feel obligated to fix the errors of my ways, even though it was not initially something I enjoyed.  I started out by walking for exercise.  I did this in spurts for a few years where I would walk and then stop walking for a while, walk again for a period of a month or two and peter out again.  But, at about the same time as I started to feel that "growing presence" in my mind, I realized that in order to "fix" a failing, I really had to become damn doggedly determined in my focus, and my actions.  This idea of damned, dogged, determination and grit and unalterable perseverance was what I had to find in myself in order to be able to succeed in earning my Ph.D.  Now, I had begun to realize that this same intensity of focus, this effort, though pain, through sadness, through anger.... had to be the mode I would adopt for trying to muscle myself through something that was hard, something that seemed insurmountable, something that seemed beyond who I was.... truthfully.  It seemed to be the only way I could figure out on how to fix something was wrong in myself.  

Now, as an old, grey-bearded geezer, I run 52 miles a week.  I ran 10 miles this morning on a damn treadmill!  It is my attempt to try to become a better me.

I am quickly running out of time to spew thoughts for today.  Again, I apologize, but these are my deeper inner thoughts, for good or bad.  As Pat mentioned in the comments yesterday, I do seem to have a number of fears.  I am not sure, but I think most of us do, deep inside ourselves.  I know that on the "surface" in my day-to-day world, most do not see this aspect of me (I sure as hell hope not, anyhow).  In my day-to-day, I think I do not seem as all-over-the-map as I do here.  I think I am more of a calm, sage fellow compared to here.  I think I am what is needed of me.  But here.... here you see much more the inner workings of my mind.... you see my insecurities, my failings, my faults, my grief.  Both are me, but you are seeing more of my inner struggles.  

I have to write more tomorrow instead.  I need to get back to cyborging after this brief (albeit, a spewing respite).  So, I guess all of what I have written highlights the fear I feel, and this growing presence of fear of smoking a pipe and how this was a fear that I COULD do something about but that I did not, was the sin I was trying to rectify.  I am trying to slay fear.  But, there is more. Hopefully tomorrow.

PipeTobacco