Home   Journal Page   Music Journal   Tai Chi Journal   Astro-Journal   Restaurant Journal

5-19-08: The Ambiguity of ‘Must’

So my Person has had his first acupuncture treatment – ‘yin deficiency ‘ – taken his 1^st Royal Jelly with the miraculous results – ‘on the road to recovery’ – ‘God Bless Chinese medicine’ and so forth. Further affirming my healing spirit: First R, a fellow waiter, had left a message on my machine on Thursday: "When are you coming back. There is plenty of work for 1, if not 2, waiters." Then A, the manager of the Casket, called me on Friday: "I just wanted to confirm that you're ready to begin working again." – "Definitely. Feeling much better. Thanks." – "Good. Glad to hear you're recovering. Then I'll put you on the schedule for next Friday and Saturday.” These interactions occurred on the Thursday and Friday before my first Acupuncture treatment #1. So Saturday I begin taking the Royal Jelly and my Person’s life is set to return to normality. Little did I know what trials & tribulations were still in store.

Simultaneous with the Birthday Breakdown my Person began exploring Lulu.com, a self-publishing website.

“Perfect – Meant to be – I can’t believe this – Too good to be true – Set up just for me. God is good.”

So my Person begins delving into the self-publishing world – taking the Royal Jelly – incorporating yin time – modifying his diet (no coffee, wine, or spicy foods – too yang) and exercise (not so intense or driven when it came to Tai Chi or swimming). Body & Mind are beginning to heal at long last. There’s hope for the future. I begin to see myself alive in the next decade. Previously there had just been a nebulous blur.

However Lulu hadn’t been perfect – just like any new program. I had already run into quite a few glitches, which I had somehow surmounted.

The first hurdle had to do with converting my file to a 6X9 format – normal book size, I did not want an 8 ½ X 11 book – the size of a standard piece of paper – not a novel.

Not one for instruction manuals my Person, after searching aimlessly for quite some time, had finally discovered how to turn his Word document into the preferred 6X9 size. Hooray! Hoorah. But then came the seemingly inevitable frustrations.

“Damn! Stupid file won’t load on to Lulu, Aurghh!”

Take a deep breath. Slow down, Remember what Bernard the acupuncturist said ‘Unexpressed anger is your enemy. It both depletes your yin, which you need to build up, and weakens your yang. Anger is false high. A lot of drama which wastes energy that you don’t have.”

Muse: “But we must go this direction. It doesn’t matter if there are thousand foot precipices on the right – a steep rock wall on the left – and a rotting path before us – this is the Way. Going back won’t help. All the roads we’ve traveled have already crumbled. You can’t go back. Everything we’ve done together leads here. Don’t resist. Proceed forth. Face your self. There is no other way.”

Self: “”Aurghh! But this Path makes me angry, which is bad for my health. But the path I’ve taken has already degenerated and I’m running out of food. I can’t go back – even if I wanted to. Aurghh! I must go on.’

“Awk! What’s this on the screen? ‘Lulu can’t load your file. You must have .doc on the end of your file.’ <Rage> But my fuckin’ file doesn’t have .doc on the end. What’s the problem? <Anger – Fury! > Must destroy something. Maybe myself.”

“Chill out. Not good for your health – Why not call tech support?”

“And admit defeat? I’d rather die.”

“You’re on the road to self destruction, if you don’t chill out.”

“<Sigh!!> All right. I’ll seek tech support.”

Typing onto the chat site setup for dialogue: “Lulu says it can’t upload my files because I must have .doc on the end of them. But I don’t have .doc on the end. In fact I’ve deleted it whenever I’ve discovered it.”

Tech support: “I don’t seem to understand what the problem is.”

To myself: “<Rage! Idiot! > <Take a deep breath. >”

I type: “It says I must have .doc on the end of my files, but I don’t.”

<Light bulb! > Duh!

“Signing off, Thanks for your assistance, I think I’ve figured out my problem.”

In his diminished sate my Person had interpreted the ‘must’ in a negative sense – “Lulu can’t upload your file because you ‘must have a ‘.doc on the end. [Remove it and it will be fine.] Instead of, we can’t upload your file because your file doesn't have a ‘.doc’ on the end, which it ‘must’ have.

“Ha, ha!”

Easy to laugh at my stupidity – now. But then it weakened and sent me into a fury. Anyway and so on and so forth. The next problem, which led to much more severe repercussions, was even bigger and not of my own creation - no misunderstanding here.