What Do You Do When You're Sick of the Whole World?

I watched the news yesterday morning after my sleep apnea study and it was downright depressing. Admittedly, it had been a bad night without my CPAP while they were collecting data, so I wasn't really bright-eyed and bushy-tailed while sitting in the waiting room eating my oatmeal. But in the half hour I sat there, the local media gleefully trotted out pundits and film clips aplenty to justify the rioting that's been going on in Baltimore the past few days because white people support cops and thus are abusing black people. Then they spent the last half of the newscast explaining how religious people like me were causing health problems for gay and lesbian people because of our belief that homosexual behavior is a sin. I had to leave and get out for a walk in the fresh air to try and get my sense of perspective back.

A friend posted a note on Facebook saying she was "really disgruntled with mankind & need a reminder there's still lots of good out there."  I know how she feels. Here is my suggestion for anyone who is kind of feeling fed up with it all.  At least it's what works for me.

Look around your kitchen. Find something that doesn't work well, a pan that sticks, a can opener that's dull, knives that won't hold an edge, a mixer that is inadequate. Go out and buy a replacement - new and better. Get yourself a Kitchen-Aid with a dough hook, a set of eversharp knives or one of those $10 deluxe can openers. Get yourself a set of glass tupperware containers. I love those. The other day I found that buying a small $11 Paula Deen frying pan made me rejoice in the ingenuity of human beings. I needed a little pan that I could do an egg in without having to wrestle the big old monster stainless steel one I use for big jobs. I replaced my sticky Wok with one that the Chinese veggies slide right out of and only requires a light application of olive oil.

For guys who don't cook, look around your garage or shop. Go get yourself that tool that missing from your toolkit or replace something that doesn't work well. Get something for yourself that will make your work easier and more fun.

It's silly how happy stuff like that makes me. I can go out and buy a pair of thick warm socks in winter and walk around the house in them all day long grinning stupidly. Last week I bought myself a model sailing ship and every time I think about working on it, it makes me smile, even though book deadlines have kept me from doing anything on it yet.

Take the dog for a walk in the early morning with the sun slanting through the trees. I take a deep breath and just listen to the breeze murmering in the tops of the Douglas firs. I can feel my heart relax. I can feel my soul smiling.

Turns out it's not the big things we think we need - fancy vacations, new cars, the fanciest houses or cocktail parties with the best people. It's sharing a joke with an old friend on Facebook. It's calling your kids to find out how they're doing and to tell them you love them without any strings attached. It's the last page of that chapter you've been working on. It's plunging into a lake in the summer and swimming out a ways just to put yourself in a quiet spot, away from the shore with the arch of blue sky overhead and the cool water wrapped around you like a hug. I like paddling a canoe out on the river or a lake. It's pretty cheap to do and immensely satisfying if you know how to paddle well.

Any day I spend sitting on a porch with someone I love watching the sun go down; maybe playing my guitar with my feet propped up on the porch rail....that's a good day.

If you're sick of human beings, go to a website called Godvine. The videos there will make you smile and will at the same time make you feel a lot better about people. It's the upside of the Youtube phenomenon that we not only capture the bad things that happen, but we also capture the good side of the human race - the side that blesses, not curses; that sings; not complains; that loves, not hates.

Life is too good to let the people who are miserable drag you down with them.

© 2015 by Tom King

Bony Fingers and the Suppression of Happiness

Iranian "Happy" dancers arrested and forced to apologize publicly.

Six Iranian young people were arrested and forced to humiliate themselves on Iranian TV for the seditious act of creating a video of Pharrel Williams' breakout hit "Happy" and posting it on Youtube. The video "Happy in Tehran" went viral on Youtube almost immediately and within hours the culprits were identified and arrested. Of course, world opinion went promptly against the Tehran cops - particularly the police chief - and Twitter broke out in a rash of calls for the kids' release.

A lot of folks on the left expressed dismay that any government agency could be so anti-happiness and decided that Republicans must be responsible somehow.~

It is to laugh.

Except, of course, in Tehran.

Look. None of this surprises me. There are always going to be people out there, who can't stand to see others happy. I think it's because they are so busy clawing their way to the top they don't have time to be happy themselves. Lets face it, in order to achieve a state where you have so much money and power that you are financially, socially and politically secure takes a lot of work. Happiness suppressors work so hard to climb their way up into the privileged classes, because they think this will provide them with great security and that this high level of security will, somehow, make them happy.

When it does not, it makes them grouchy old curmudgeons (look it up). So when these would-be rich and powerful people see, to their horror, people with little money, no power and no social standing cavorting about being "Happy", it offends their sense of rightness. This is not how they thought the world should be. Their world works on a simple formula:

• Rich and powerful = Happy
• Poor and powerless = Sad

Any other formula deprives these guys of their joy at having achieved superiority to other mere mortals. So, of course the would believe that people cavorting around being happy without having had to suffer, compromise, lie, cheat and steal their way to their own elevated status must be doing something evil. This evil is by definition, a threat to their own exalted status,therefore it must be stopped.

It's hard for people who depend on external things to make them happy to tolerate happiness in people who lack money, power and influence. It throws their whole worldview out of kilter.


We used to get that a lot with the bony-fingered old people in church who though our kid songs were just way too bouncy to be religious. Tehran doesn't have a monopoly on people with the strong desire to rain on someone else's parade, particularly if their own parade going badly. There's always one in every crowd who appoints him or herself the official party pooper.

Such people should be arrested and thrown into a bouncy castle with a box of Oreos. Perhaps it would do them some good.


Just one man's opinion.

Tom King © 2014

Happiness and Joy: Why is America a Sadder Place Than It Used to Be?

© Floyd Scholz, Master Carver

I wound up in a discussion with some banjo players recently about happiness and joy. A recent study found that the United States, the world's entertainment and fun leader and arguably the wealthiest in the world (how else could we afford that much debt), ranked a mere 21st in "happiness" among all nations. Ironically, Iceland, a land of perpetual winter, with a population ranked nearly the highest among nations for alcoholism and seasonal affective disorder ranked number 1 in "happiness".  Given that a pint of beer costs what most people make in a day there, one has to be pretty determined, not to mention hard-working to have an alcohol problem in Iceland.  So why, asked one wag, aren't we happier than we are?

At the risk of offending ardent feminists, I'm going to comment on this matter. I believe it has something to do with sex - not the kind you have mind you, but the kind you are. Men and women ARE different. The thought police like to say we're no different, but we are.  Scientists once tried to prove it was just how we were raised by giving girl children building blocks and other boy toys and by giving boys Barbie dolls and play houses when they were toddlers in order to demonstrate that it was all about environment.  What they learned was that building blocks are useful in building the accouterments for hosting tea parties and in building play houses and the toy people to live in them.  They also learned that if you bend Barbie at the waist and grasp her by the legs, she makes a serviceable gun and playhouses are good cover in a firefight.

Happiness is experienced differently for different people.  Men, a congenitally goal-directed lot find happiness more frequently in pursuit sports, combat sports and games and in hobbies which produce something like woodworking, hot-rod building, gunsmithing and comet-spotting.  Women, on the other hand are biologically hard-wired to create and nurture family circles tend to find happiness in social activities, collecting, making stuff for others and things which serve to make those around them happy with some sort of relative uniformity.

I worked as a recreation therapist for many years and found that women gained more therapeutic benefit from activities that met this need to create balance and fairness and nurture happiness in the entire group. Even when I had girls going along with boys in horse-back riding activities, the boys were all about racing, positioning their horse farther ahead in the line, exploring trails. For the girls it was more about the social aspects of the trail ride. Even when they engaged in "racing" it was usually more about establishing a social bond than it was about winning the race.  The only times I ever got hard-nosed competiton with girls was over boys or when it was my happy circle vs. your happy circle. 

My contention is that as women in American culture have moved into leadership roles, they've brought with them this need for everybody to be happy (a good thing in healthy families) into the culture itself. We've become less about what we accomplish and more about how we feel as a result. But I think men and women are wired one way or the other, whether you believe God did it or some lengthy evolutionary process. I think as women have brought their need for everything to be a win/win into the public square, it's changed the game.  I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. I am saying that it explains the rise of progressive socialism (the political need to make everyone happy and equal) and the increasing difficulty we have as Americans with being happy.

It seems that for women to be happy, everyone around them must be happy or their joy cannot be complete. It is why women take hostess duties so seriously. Biologically, they need for everyone at the party to be having a good time or they cannot be happy themselves. Don't confuse happiness with joy, however. 

When Christians talk about joy, it's a different thing than happiness, which is more transitory. Joy is a transcendent experience - a confidence in the outcome of life. Joy is something we get when we've made sense of our life story and gained peace with who we are and what we are. If we gain joy, then happiness comes far more easily to us. As Nehemiah said, "The joy of the Lord is my strength."

There are those who accept the feminine ideal of happiness - everyone being okay - who also have come to the mistaken conclusion that in order for everyone to be happy we all must be equal. By "equal" they take it to mean "the same". Unfortunately, for that theory, making everybody the same (uniforms, equal pay no matter what job you do, same houses, same transportation, etc.) sameness seems to have have exactly the opposite effect.


Perhaps our problem is that Americans have lost their joy. Perhaps, where once we were certain that life would get better and that there was some meaning to our sojourn here on this earth, we have come to think of life as either an arbitrary crap shoot, the result of random chance and random evolution or, worse yet, the result of exploitation and manipulation by the privileged class. I think that's an artifact of the rise of the introduction of a pervasive post-modernist philosophy into our culture. Post-modernism rejects the idea that things will get better and that life has meaning. There was a poster/bumper sticker that was popular in the 70s and 80s that proclaimed, "Shit happens!" The underlying message was that things just happen arbitrarily. There is no meaning; no grand purpose. You can't do anything about it. The supposedly wise among us, the university professors and television pundits, proclaimed it a realistic view of the world and many in our culture accepted it uncritically as truth. Our cutting edge films and television shows these day reflect that emptiness and despair.

It's as though the whole country has developed bipolar disorder and swings alternately between despair and mania - neither of which are any fun let me tell you. It makes sense that it should be so, if, as the gurus say, life is meaningless.  Fortunately, there is still a sizable core of Americans left who believe life does mean something, that we ARE going somewhere good and that playing the banjo on the back porch is plenty fun and expresses our inner joy thank you very much.

Just one man's opinion,

Tom King

© 2013 by Tom King

Whiskers on Kittens - The Good Life in Lists




The woods in the morning - definitely on my list!

We’re all fascinated with lists. Pick up the TV remote and cruise through the cable channels. It’s the top ten this and the top 50 that from the top to the bottom of the channel listings. Even the inimitable Mary Poppins had a list of her favorite things.

If you were to sing about your favorite things just now, it’s not likely to include raindrops on roses or doorbells, though you might rather enjoy those things. You might mention hot dogs and baseball, bikinis on beach babes or the smell of new shoes. Everybody’s got something that tweaks their nostrils or warms the cockles of their hearts.

Psychologists have learned that smells are powerful memory triggers. The other five senses can draw old memories out of your head as well – for good or ill. If you’re not careful, if you’ve lead a traumatic life, if you’ve experienced something horrific, it’s a good idea to learn to control the brain’s troubling little popups or you can wind up a basket cases, curled up in your bed trying to avoid seeing, touching, smelling, tasting or hearing anything.

One way to take control back is a little trick I learned inadvertently when I was a kid. I make lists of things I like. This morning I was out walking with Daisy and, as is my habit, I began experiencing the walk as though for the first time and making myself aware of the sights, smells, and even the tastes of things around me. I started listing all the things I like about a morning walk with my dog. Here’s a sample of my favorite things from today - in order.

1. The cool autumn breeze on my face and the smell of autumn.
2. The bit of blue sky peeking out between the clouds and the little shafts of warm sunlight that poke their way down through the trees ever once in a while.
3. The sweet taste of rain fat blackberries, plucked straight off the vine.
4. Daisy’s warm breath against my leg where’s she’s sniffing at the dog treats in my pocket and hinting shameless for a little snack.
5. I like the sound of the big planes taking off from McCord Air Base just down the road.
6. I like the crunch of gravel along the path through the woods where we walk.
7. I get a kick out of watching Daisy’s ears come up when she spots a squirrel or a fat rabbit and the way she gets down on her belly like a commando to try and sneak up on them.
8. The squirrel sitting on a limb after taking refuge up the tree as he sits and chitters at Daisy, just as mad as an old wet hen. Funny stuff.
9. The pumpkins and tombstones in people’s front yards where they’ve decorated for Halloween and the arrow sign in someone’s flower bed that points east and says “Diagon Alley”. Even more fun is two doors down another neighbor has a similar wooden arrow that points west to “Hogwarts”.
10. I even like the raindrops against my face that send Daisy and I hurrying toward the house to avoid a good dousing.

That’s my ten fav’s just for today. Yeah, my life’s a mess right now. I’m still looking for a job. We’re a week from being homeless and I haven’t found us a place to live yet. We're broke and Sabbath may be the last chance I get to go to church for some time, Sheila’s sick and my knees hurt. But for just a bit, life felt good and sometimes that’s all you get in a day and it’s enough.

I remember the passage from Robert Browning’s poem that I learned in Mrs. Creel’s English class:

The year’s at the spring,

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in his Heaven -

All’s right with the world!

I suspect He is in his heaven and all is right with the world after all, if we could just look at things the way God does.

In the meantime, I’ll remember the cool rain against my face and the taste of fresh blackberries and smile mysteriously. Somebody’s bound to wonder what in heck I’ve got to be grinning about and that's something else I enjoy.

© 2012 by Tom King