Real Joe

I don’t currently own a street bike — I borrow them from sympathetic buddies once or twice a year — but I subscribe to Cycle World and try to keep up all-things motorcycle-related.

So when I’m perusing the mag and staring at the photos, my desire to own 3 or 4 different types of bikes lights up, with the mental image of how I would look riding them lurking in the background.

I’m often willing to put up with some pain in order to have an ego-orgasm and riding a motorcycle can sometimes qualify. For last year’s Real Joe Fry-Your-Ass Tour to Balltown, Iowa I rode my friend Larry’s BMW sportbike… a magnificent machine, but a nut-cruncher. And the previous year’s Freeze-Your-Ass Tour to Wisconsin I rented a Harley Sportster. For a great treatise on motorcycle ergonomics and the pain threshhold often required, see this article that appeared in the NY Times in October: Uneasy Rider: But to gird himself for the 350-mile ride home from a rally in New Hampshire last spring, Mr. Klerk said, ”I loaded up on Motrin.” He needed painkillers because the one design element missing from his motorcycle — and from thousands of new and pricey others — is ergonomics. ”My bike looks fantastic, which means it rides like hell,” said Mr. Klerk, a 43-year-old welder.

The cool factor.

This phrase jumps out at me whenever I’m reading a review about something — usually a tech gadget of some kind — as I try to reach a decision about what to buy.

This week, I’ve been trolling for information about the new Treo 600, a cell phone/wi-fi PDA/camera/MP3 player combo that’s getting rave reviews.

So while I try to weigh the pros and cons, there’s an image that creeps into my brain in which I see myself showing the gizmo to others and harvesting the oohs and ahhs. And it’s more compelling than whatever logic I might use to justify the purchase.

I took an unscheduled break in postings here to both work on my Small Business Blogging book and launch my companion site to Real Joe.

I’m calling it Ego Orgasms: One guy’s pursuit of mistaken mental pleasures. [Expired domain]

I’ve been thinking more about how it helps to think of God as a force, a law of the universe, much like gravity… and what problems are created when we think of God as a Being, no matter how Supreme.

The more I treat God as an underlying force to be relied on and to act in harmony with — like gravity — the more peace I experience in my daily life. I don’t need to make a leap of faith to believe in gravity, even though it can’t be detected with my senses. When I’m in synch with gravity, I move about without problems — with joy, even. When I’m not in synch with it, physical pain pays a visit.

Likewise, I don’t need to make a leap of faith to believe in God as an underlying force, even though God can’t be detected with my senses. When I’m in synch with this force, I experience peace — life without troubles. When I’m not in synch with it, psychological suffering pays a visit.

And here’s the interesting and tricky part: when I realize I’m psychologically suffering and that therefore means I’m out of synch, all I have to do is put myself in an “asking for insight” frame of mind. And then listen. Wait. Grab some solitude. And then ideas and help come. Every time. No leap of faith required. Reliable as gravity.

It’s tricky because “asking” in our culture implies another person being asked — in this case, God — which tends to trigger an image of God as a person. And when help comes, the tendency is to be grateful to That Person. Feel Loving. To want to Worship. Which, for most of us (not all), sows the seeds of a mental trap, that God cares about/loves me, therefore he/she/it is looking out for me, therefore good things are going to happen, therefore I’ll get what I pray for. And then life shits on me and I feel betrayed and quit seeking God as a source of strength and guidance.

None of this is original thinking from me. It’s mainly my making sense of the message in the book Coming to Life: Traveling the Spiritual Path in Everyday Life by Polly Berrien Berends.

Kent Nerburn included an excerpt from his letter to a young woman in a weblog posting last week. The excerpt ends with this:

“You seek absolutes, and though God is surely an absolute, God’s presence often is not. It is hidden in intimation, or cloaked in metaphor, as subtle as a whisper or a rustling of wind, at first almost inaudible and imperceptible, inseparable from ourselves. Only gradually does it burst forth full throated into music and song. And even then, it can recede at a moment’s notice.

I’d agree that this is how we often come to experience God’s presence but I’d argue that it’s our lack of perception, mental noise, and failure to learn how to listen that makes God’s presence appear to be fleeting. It’s always there for us to rely on. Like gravity.

FYI, I created the photo above using the nifty Church Sign Generator.

Real Live Preacher’s blog is getting to be so popular that it’s creating a temptation. He writes: “You know, it would be so easy to let this blog be the biggest thing in my life. So easy. I love to write, AND I’m getting more affirmation than I ever have before. So yeah, it’s tempting to start thinking that Real Live Preacher is my life. But it isn’t. I’m a pastor and a web designer and a husband and a dad. I even have some real live friends that I like to hang out with.”

Chuck, of The World According To Chuck, finds a metaphor: “But I’m stronger now, in an essential way. I’ve reached 45 years just in time to figure out who I am, or might be, and my father is dying. His strength is ebbing as mine is cresting, and suddenly this morning I had my metaphor.”

Kent Nerburn on A writer’s voice: “What I thought I might offer you tonight is a glimpse of two of the voices in which I have recently been writing… And if you are someone who writes yourself, or dreams of writing, think about the voice you use. Whatever it is, you must hone it and clarify it. It is the instrument through which the music of your heart or mind is played.”

I do think about my Real Joe voice, but I’ve tended to think of it as one instrument. It might be many.

A guy named John Gilliam has just launched a reflective weblog about his life called John of God’s Debris. He writes in a tone I can hear. See his first two posts about his marriage, here and here.

I’ve added him to my blogroll.

I’m on the stair climber machine at my local club. In walks a guy who’s a much better racquetball player than me, one who I play occasionally and who always trounces me.

I say hi to him and he says hi back and marches right by. I’ve not seen him in a month or two. I don’t remember if he knows I’ve had surgery or not. But regardless, I’m a nobody to him, a not-worthy competitor and therefore not-worthy of informal conversation.

Guys like this stick in my mind long after the rebuff has passed. I’ve been dissed and it bugs me. I occasionally have a daydream that involves me beating him, an ego orgasm fantasy in which he increasingly gets mad at himself for losing to, in his mind, an inferior player. But I’m no longer inferior. I beat him every time, or at least push him to his limits if I do lose. Ultimately he shows respect by engaging in lockerroom banter with me around other guys. I’m accepted. It’s climax time.

It lasts for a while but then it happens all over again when I play in the state tournament and the guys playing at a level above me seem to treat me the same way.

The obvious flaw in this mental strategy: there is always somebody better to reckon with, even if you’re world champion.

Not so obvious flaw: there are plenty of guys at every level who, despite inferior skills, are liked and treated with respect by guys who are better than they are. I can think of two friends who come to mind.

So the implication is that it’s something I’m doing or not doing that either A) contributes to their dissing me; or B) creates the impression that they’re dissing me when in fact, they’re not. They’re simply reacting to how I’m treating them, that they’re above me and that I have to gain their respect through competition instead of being genuinely interested in who they are.

It’s been a little over a month since my ACL surgery. When people I’ve not seen for a while ask me how I’m doing, I say “I’m healing” which prompts them to ask what happened, which then gives me the opportunity to tell them I hurt it playing racquetball. My brain: Are you impressed? I don’t want you to think that I tore my ACL doing something geezerly like stepping off a curb.

“It’s going to be a boring winter. No snowboarding.” My brain: Are you impressed that a guy as old as me snowboards?

And of course, once I have this ego orgasm, I’m soon trolling for another one with whoever’s the next person I’ve not seen for a while.

The downside? I don’t really listen to them, notice them, appreciate them, take interest in them. I’m too focused on getting my mistaken idea confirmed with an ego-orgasm… that I’m somehow not tough enough, not man enough, that I’m seen as a wimp. I know the history of this mistaken idea, but still, its power to affect my daily actions amazes me.