A Fool's Errand

    Sometimes we get in our own way, we get in our own heads. I know that I do. Life and thought can be frustrating when we get in our own brains in gloomy fashions, our negative mental constructs, analyzing or scrutinizing our own efforts and person, our whole existence, being self-critical like that.

    I go along in life; I can feel less confident or less secure... I can go back in my mind over time, over decades, and see examples of coming up short, messing up, failing, embarrassing myself or others. I can paint myself as a loser, a guy who cannot get enough right.

    It can be a downer to beat myself up, like I am a living, breathing, Charlie Brown. More the anti-hero than the hero, if you know what I mean. We all love and empathize with this lovable loser, this cartoon bald kid with a loving dog and a peaceful life. Made by a kind and thoughtful writer, Charles M. Schultz, may he rest in peace. Many of us have loved his works. His art and messages. Characters and character.

    Miguel de Cervantes of Golden era Spain created a powerful character, by many of the literati the world's first novel and its errant knight anti-hero and fool, the wayward and psychologically challenged Don Quijote, who traipsed across the landscapes fighting windmills that were dragons, pursuing his lovely enchantress who was in fact a woman of ill-repute. He was a man of delusions, far beyond the normal man or woman with dreams and hopes of unrealistic grandeur.

    Perhaps being pessimistic and cynical, jaded and down, is a better and healthier alternative? Charlie Brown has lower expectations, but does not see the world through rose-colored glasses like Sally does with her love interest Linus.

    Love. One of those crazy notions that possesses us so much, so much of the days and nights. Conversely, hate can be another dominant emotion that is hard to shake loose from. Both strong feelings can overwhelm us. Worse still would be looping between them both. Which we can do. Do high, too low. Some in some extremes call this manic thinking and often the subsequent behavior.

    A funny comedian, who later became a real-world senator of Minnesota, played a self-help guru on television (Saturday Night Live), where one of his go-to phrases is "Stinkin' Thinkin'". Something to stop.

    And, as I could go on about this subject of self-critique, to self-loathing or other spirals of negativity, I did want to counterpose with religions that help us base ourselves, and others, or simple secular models and philosophies, good counseling, psychiatric or professional counselors, therapists, support people of all ilk and pays. Chaplains, pastors, priest, yoga and meditation new age healing meisters. Okay, that last part was a little cheesy.

    Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, perhaps for children Mr. Rogers, and a million other mental health and erstwhile self-esteem and mental health folks, to include the late, great Richard Simmons, fitness hero who was silly but motivating. He died this past summer, and I felt connected to him a couple ways because of the Army, believe it or not.

    Truth for me, is normally stranger than fiction.

    Religion is good, and can be superior, really. For me, for millions. Billions, at this point. 

    My heroes have lived and died waging higher laws, like Jesus Himself, or Joseph Smith Junior, or Abraham Lincoln and other martyrs such as Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King.

    These are heroes; they are the ones that they say to not to get too close to, because otherwise they no longer remain high in our esteem. Their human frailties lower them in our personal and collective esteem.

    Kind of like us, us self-criticizers, living in our own skins so much, we are easy targets to beat up on, way too much. We can be our own worst critics and enemies of hope and positivity.

    Yes, that is probably what happens. We get a little too hard on ourselves, down on ourselves, and we have to do other things to get some distance, some time away from our own shortcomings and poor traits.

    God would have us lift ourselves up and look to Him. We need to be uplifted, raised from our own constraints, mental and physical, and rise from our lowly ashes of the mind and be cleansed, or purified, or sanctified, by the higher power or powers that be.

    I know Buddhists that believe in these principles, and I know many more monotheists that use these methods and processes to be over, or overcome, our earthly or worldly limitations and imperfections.

    We need to be raised up. No longer to wallow in the doldrums and low points.

    We must ascend. We shall. And hope to live better, and cleaner, and finer.

    No more Peter pessimist. Charlie Brown will turn over a new leaf and become a strong, confident man.

    We pray and carry on.