Tag Archives: Q&A

Tuesday Tuneup 115

Q. Where would you like to be?

A.  In a place of less clutter.

Q.  What kinds of things are cluttering up your place?

A.  Lots of things.   But we can begin with WordPress.

Q. What do you mean?

A.  I don’t have much of a commitment to blogging.   At least, not in its current form.   And the idea I keep having on how to expand and enhance this blog seems unwieldy.

Q. Unwieldy?

A. Yes.  The idea is to post six times a week with different themes on each day of the week.  But this is unwieldy.   It gets in the way of others things that I not only can do, but that I must do.   Blogging is not something that I must do.   And it ceases to be enjoyable or worthwhile, when it is done out of a sense of obligation.

Q. Obligation?

A. Obligation.   Take the gratitude list I made yesterday, for example.   It took me a good hour to come up with five things I felt comfortable with posting online, five things for which I was truly grateful.   But I wouldn’t let go of the task, because I felt obligated.  

Q. Who is obligating you?

A. No one other than myself.  But the point is, if it’s become such an obligation, why do it?

Q. Why do you do it?

A. Two reasons that I know of.  One is habit.   The other is hard to describe, but it comes from my dad.  He was very disappointed in me, because I was the first-born son, and I was supposed to follow in his footsteps.  But I wasn’t cut out to get into the things that he was good at, the things he was trying to teach me.  He also intimidated me, and I had trouble concentrating when he tried to teach me something.  So he wound up very often shaking his head in disgust and saying, “Andy, I’m afraid you can’t do ANYTHING right!”

As a result, I have become a person who won’t give up, even when I’m beating a dead horse.  I keep trying to please my dad.  I keep trying to “get it right.”

Q. Is that why you keep on blogging?

A. Well, it’s why I keep thinking I’m ever going to accede to a six-day-per-week strict schedule.   I could maybe keep blogging every now and then, like say posting an essay of some sort, when I really think I have something to say.   But all this other stuff — it just gets in the way.

Q. In the way of what, Andy?

A. In the way of the fact that I’ve got a musical to produce.   I don’t know if anyone will ever produce it, but I’m passionate about the prospects thereof.  To focus on the production of the musical, something’s got to give.

Q. But what about balance?

A. What about it?

Q. You can’t spend all your time working on your musical, can you?

A. Of course not!   In fact, the musical’s done.   Just a few more bits and pieces to get it ready for complete packaging and submission.   But it’s essentially done — I could submit it now, and supply the loose ends later.   I can balance all that out with things that don’t take up so much time and energy as blogging – especially when I find I can’t keep to the six day schedule anyway.   That is, it’s very difficult to — and not very rewarding when I succeed.

Q. Why not?

A. I feel that, no matter how many times I try to make the blogs tasteful and not too personal, and no matter how many times I try to make social statements and not personal statements, personal statements still leak through.

Q. What’s wrong with that?

A. I’m trying to get a musical produced.   Does the world need to know my personal issues?

Q. Does the world read your blog?

A. Not right now, but they will if I actually get my musical produced.

Q. So what’s your solution?

A. People can find my piano pieces by subscribing to my YouTube channel, and I strongly encourage those who have enjoyed my gratitude lists to create their own.  Counting one’s blessings is a valuable tool for the sustenance of well-being in a challenging world.   My articles may be read wherever they are published, and I can continue to communicate with the five or six people who faithfully read my blog through other interfaces.

Q. May I ask a final question?

A. Only if it’s final.

Q. Isn’t your musical about a personal issue of yours?

A. Not at all.   But you’re just going to have to read the script to find out.

The Questioner is silent.

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Tuesday Tuneup 98

Q. What’s happening now?

A. Self-doubt.

Q. Isn’t that a good thing?

A. What do you mean?

Q. Well, why should you have any faith in yourself?

A. Why should I not?

Q. Are you not completely flawed far beyond your capacity even to know it?

A. That’s what the Bible says, yes.  But still, I think in practical reality, it somehow doesn’t help for me to grasp how completely incapable I am.

Q. But isn’t God fully capable?

A. Well sure He is.  But so what?   God’s not going to come down and tie my shoe for me.  There are some things a person just has to do for themselves.

Q. How many times has God come down and helped you find a missing item?

A. Many times.  Sometimes I just shout out: “Where’s my glasses?” Then I find myself looking straight at them.   But He still won’t help me tie my shoe.

Q. Are you having a problem tying your shoes?

A. Not anymore.  Not since I’m no longer being ridiculed about the way I tie them.

Q. Who used to ridicule you?

A. Oh, the kids on the playground.

Q. Wasn’t that a long time ago?

A. Yeah, but it stuck with me.

Q. So what did the kids say when they ridiculed you?

A. Apparently, I’m throwing some kind of extra movement into the tying of the shoe that doesn’t need to be there.  They laughed because I don’t tie my shoes the right way.   I only tie them my way.

Q. But your way still works, doesn’t it?

A. More-or-less.  I do notice I have to bend down and retie them a lot.

Q. And what else do you notice?

A. Sometimes I forget to tie them entirely.  I just go about walking with them untied.

Q. Then what happens?

A. Depends on whether I’m alone or with another person.  If I’m alone, I just wait until there’s a logical place to tie my shoe without having to bend down all the way to the ground.  Like, you know, a fire hydrant.  Then I tie my shoe using the hydrant.

Q. What if there’s another person with you?

A. Usually, they notice that my shoe isn’t tied, and they tell me to tie my shoe.

Q. What do you do then?

A. Well, I certainly don’t tie it just because they told me to!   I usually respond with an expletive, adding that I’ll tie my shoe when I’m good and ready.   

Q. Do you have issues with authority?

A. I have issues with people issuing direct imperatives, yes.   Especially if they are not an authority, but an equal.

Q. Are authorities not equals?

A. I suppose they are.  They just don’t act like it.

Q. So you dislike not being treated as an equal?

A.  Dislike doesn’t say it.  I despise it.  We’re all equals and no one has the right to treat someone as a subordinate.  Unless, of course, you’re in the military or some other form of hierarchical structure to which you’ve signed on.  And in such a case, you asked for it.

Q. You did?  What if you got drafted?

A. Good point.   I’d have escaped to Canada, myself.

Q. Might you still?

A. Might I still what?

Q. Escape to Canada?

A. At this point, that would hardly be an escape.  More like a practical maneuver.  But I doubt they’d let me in.  I think I have to marry someone there, or something like that.

Q. Would you like to marry someone from Canada?

A. Sounds pretty romantic, but probably unlikely.    

Q. What about a marriage of convenience?

A. I wouldn’t know anything about those.  I’ve only been in a marriage of inconvenience.

Q. What was inconvenient about it?

A. Uh — conflict of lifestyles.   But aren’t we getting off the subject?

Q. What was the subject?

A. Something about equality and authority.

Q. Ah yes, how could I forget?

A. I have no idea.

Q. So — as I was saying, do you dislike being treated as an unequal?

A. Of course!  Who likes to be treated with condescension?  

Q. Why is this on your mind?

A. Something disturbing that happened a few days ago.   An unpleasant interaction with an old friend of mine.

Q. Who did not treat you as an equal?

A. Well – triggered the memory thereof.  The memory of —  almost never being regarded as an equal.  A time in my life when I just accepted the uneasy fact that most people looked down on me, as though I were despicable.

Q. Why would you have been despicable?

A. Uh — homeless — and homeless in the Big City.   It’s cold enough in the Big City to begin with.  When you become homeless, you find out just how cold it can be.

Q. But you’re not homeless now, are you?

A. No I’m not.

Q. Why are you so hung up on the past?

A. That, sir, might be the most important question you have ever asked me.

The Questioner is silent.  

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Tuesday Tuneup 92

Q. What’s happening now?

A. You again?

Q. Why do you ask?

A. You left me alone last Tuesday. Why couldn’t you leave me alone now?

Q. Am I that much of a bother?

A. Never mind.

Q. What’s on your mind? Why are you being so weird?

A. You know what Tuesdays are like.

Q. Aren’t they usually your busiest, most stressful day?

A. Usually.

Q. Then why aren’t you always so weird, every single Tuesday?

A. You know the answer to that.

Q. Something about the election?

A. That, and a general sense of powerlessness.

Q. What do you do when you feel powerless?

A. Me? Well, ordinarily, I think of positive things.

Q. Can you think of any?

A. On this day? I’m hard-pressed. Within forty-eight hours, irrespective of the outcome of the election, it will be end of life as we know it.

Q. May I quote you on that?

A. Please spell my name right.

Q. Where have we heard this before?

A. Heard what before? About spelling my name right?

Q. No no – where have we heard you say your quote about the outcome of the election?

A. Oh – I said it once before. I said it earlier this morning.

Q. To whom?

A. I believe it was to Sally Hindman, the director of Youth Spirit Artworks.

Q. What had she said to you?

A. She said “We will get through this.”

Q. And then what did you say?

A. I said: “Within forty-eight hours, irrespective of the outcome of the election, it will be the end of life as we know it.”

Q. Is that all you said?

A. No – I added something else.

Q. What?

A. I said: “But you’re right. We will get through this. For we are the Human Race.”

Q. Do you believe that?

A. We’ve gotten through everything so far. The Human Race has an uncanny ability to pull itself together just in the nick of time. We’ve done it throughout history. We may bicker and procrastinate until it’s down to the wire — but when we need to, we pull together.

Q. What about now?

A. What about it?

The Questioner is silent.

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