Author: Fred Blahnik

Sad but true:  Very often the only item that can be carried away from a monumental financial blunder is a hard lesson earned.  Lost money sometimes cannot be retrieved and on all-too-frequent occasions the financial drubbing one incurs cannot be ameliorated to an appreciable degree either.  You are left holding an empty bag containing nothing more substantial than a shitload of proverbial “experience”—the same onerous stuff those graybeards and dinosaurs and fossils who hang out down at Louie’s Café every morning drinking coffee and playing dominoes love to take turns expounding upon for seeming hours on end—and that definitely doesn’t seem like a fair, equitable trade-off from a mile-high perspective.  Yet it’s all you’re gonna get out of an ugly transaction gone unmercifully wrong, so you might as well crunch down on that bitter pill in your mouth, learn the basic life lesson to be learned from every calamity, and quickly move on to other more pressing and less dispiriting matters.  Stewing over past mistakes never rectified them, but doing so needlessly steals from the diminishing pool of time facing every mortal human being on Earth’s crust, which is code for anyone reading this.

…..and we somehow rendezvoused at this specific place and this specific point in time, through no conscious decision on our part, and we found ourselves, for better or worse, falling in love as the sun shone down upon us and the days spiraled out of control not unlike dandelion fluff being relentlessly buffeted  by a late spring gale.  We were simultaneously struck by a bolt of lighting, but this bolt of lightning energized both of us with a measure of affection that we had never come close to experiencing before in our short lifetimes.  Time held virtually no meaning to us and earthly concerns held even less.  We existed in a vacuum that blocked out all niggling nuisances such as when, where, why, and how.  The world didn’t stop spinning for my lover and me that fateful May but it may as well have; we paid no attention to minor details like night and day, eating and fasting, chasing after money during the workweek, acknowledging close family members and associates, and paying homage to a Divine Being whose presence could never be ascertained.   But little did we know—my lover and I—what the far-off future held in store for her and me, and when you stop to think about it…..that’s probably a very good and prudent thing too for two wholly virginal people so hopelessly besotted with one another before the twin monsters of heartbreak and  cynicism inevitably wreak their vengeance by burrowing deep into human consciousness….

…..he’s a user.  I can’t think of anything better to say about him.  He uses people for his own selfish purposes, which is about the worst thing that can be said about anyone.  He’s a user extraordinaire, and this fact doesn’t seem to bother him one bit either; he’s absolutely nonplussed by his perpetual transgressions.  Who knows?  Maybe the guy doesn’t have a conscience.  Maybe he’s emotionally retarded.  Maybe he isn’t even personally aware of this glaring character flaw of his, but I suspect otherwise; he’s too intelligent to miss something so obvious.  I prefer to think the lecher knows exactly what he is doing—how he is constantly using and exploiting trusting, gullible people—and doesn’t care.  That’s right, he doesn’t care one iota or even feign common decency by pretending to care on those not-infrequent occasions when he doesn’t give a rat’s ass and won’t hesitate to express his (non)feelings through both pharyngeal and body language……

Tell your story.  After all, it belongs strictly to YOU.  No one else can relate a tale in exactly the same fashion as its creator.  Which is the RIGHT fashion, inasmuch as you gave life to the thing, so it answers to you and you alone.  Don’t let others sidetrack you with serial criticisms and snide comments.  There will always be naysayers in life—these negativity merchants are every bit as ubiquitous as mosquitoes on a muggy summer evening—but they don’t matter one iota in the big scheme of things.  They are no more relevant or consequential than ants at a picnic.  Irritating as hell, yes, but grossly irrelevant.  Tell your story in the exact manner it pops into your head, and then sleep easily at night.  This story is YOUR creation, YOUR baby, YOUR indentured servant…..and anyone who claims otherwise is a shameless usurper.  Forget about those obnoxious people, okay?!  They are nothing more than a pack of bumptious miscreants.  Nothing more than immaterial assholes…..putrid slime at the bottom of an unpumped cesspool.  Be true to yourself and your unique inspirations, and if you abide by this sublime advice rest assured that you will habitually do right by yourself and slumber well in the evenings.  Tell your story to its rightful conclusion, and pursuantly climax this narrative with the requisite appropriate punctuation mark, whether that be a period, an ellipsis, an exclamation mark, or even a question mark if no resolution is possible in context.  You are now done; your job is complete; your finish line has been reached.  You have honored your God-given abilities and done well.  Sleep trouble-free tonight, My Friend, for you have definitely earned that paramount right.

As boatloads of money continued to pour in following the death of his loved one, he stopped to reflect for a moment on the irony and incongruity of being gifted with money as some sort of feeble, hapless surrogate to offset his indescribable loss.  People closest to him were attempting to crudely countermand the priceless gift of life which had just been snatched away from him in an extraordinarily cruel and unexpected fashion, but their gambit wasn’t working; it wasn’t working at all.  But that should come as no surprise.  Obviously cash offerings weren’t working; obviously their well-intentioned gesture wasn’t gaining traction and never would; obviously this stratagem was condemned to fail, and fail badly.  Money is no proxy for life and never will be, and they of all people should know that.  Money is man-made while consciousness is divine; the two reside on opposite ends of the intrinsic value spectrum and are not fungible in any way, shape, or form.  To even suggest otherwise, however unintentionally and with benevolence as the admitted driving factor, was little different than rubbing a tub of  salt into his deeply felt wounds.

…..and it needed to be done, begged to be done, had to be done ultimately…..so she went ahead and did it.  End of story.  Things happen to us adventitiously and we respond to them the best we know how.  No rationalizations, no lame excuses, no pie charts and fancy algorithms showcased in a formidable Power Point presentation—no detailed explanations—are generally necessary.  You step up to the plate and do what you have to do at the time with the arsenal of unique personal skills you have available to you and then let the chips fall where they may.  Sometimes you may hit a home run, sometimes you may double down the left-field line, sometimes you may reach base on a puny bunt single, and other times you may strike out (Hopefully hacking away unapologetically!), but you always want to be swinging the bat and you always want to be involved in the game as an active participant.  And, you know, this baseball metaphor probably serves as the best mantra for life as any that can be conjured or simply expressed…..

The biggest regrets in life are definitely not those things you tried and subsequently failed at doing.  Contrarily, the biggest regrets in life are those things you never had the courage to attempt in the first place.   You simply never bothered to stick your oars in the water.  You simply never bothered to open the door to the next room, let alone the one after that.  You simply never bothered to dance unless the dance floor was already teeming with other couples.  You simply never bothered to draw outside the lines for fear of being scolded.  You simply never bothered to walk the tightrope without a secure safety net in place beneath it.  You simply never bothered to venture into any dark room without the aid of a powerful flashlight.  You simply never bothered to bet on yourself when the stakes were at their all-time highest. You simply never TRIED.   Regrets like these gnaw at your guts as the past recedes into the distance at an ever accelerating rate while the future—Yes, the time left in your life and thus the only time that authentically matters!—shines with markedly less luster than during days gone by.  Trying begets memories.  Not trying leaves behind nothing more than a hollow sensation at the very core of your soul.

In the Belly of the Beast

By Frederick J. Blahnik

So without any explanation I abruptly and unexpectedly found myself entrapped within the belly of the beast

With obviously no place to turn for help in this dark and despicable place…..

And no one could hear my muffled screams either, even when I screamed from the very bottom of my lungs, from the very bottom of my essence, from the very bottom of my soul……

I was all alone in an impossible place facing impossible circumstances

The world as I knew it was over…..

Time stopped then…..

The world stopped turning…..

My life was effectively over.

And yet, just when the end was in sight—Not close, mind you, but plainly IN SIGHT!—and things could not have looked any bleaker, I discovered inner peace…..

That’s right, just when my life was on course to be effectively over, I connected intimately with my inner being…..

And this…..this is what my inner being told me at that harrowing, transcendent instant:

Be strong, Fred, you need to be STRONG now!!!!!

Stronger than tensile steel, stronger than the most massive elephant, stronger than the gravitational field of Jupiter, stronger than the hand of God…..

Stronger than you have ever been in the past!

Way, waaaaaaayyy stronger than you have ever been in the past!!!

Strength comes in many forms and iterations, and you must look deep inside yourself to find the strength you need in any particular moment or circumstance…..starting RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Sometimes there is no one else around to help you and then you must conjure the strength to save yourself…..

Sometimes “YOU” are the only option remaining…..

And thus I resolved to elevate myself to this hitherto impossibly giraffine level of strength.

And just at that instant—just when the end had come for me and my time as a living, earthly creature was set to expire, the beast shuddered involuntarily and regurgitated me out of its belly with a resounding convulsion.

Back into the earthly realm; back where the bizarre episode first started

But wait…..had I ever actually departed this verdant place or was it all some sort of grotesque dream???

Had it all been real?  Had these events even taken place??  Had I been dreaming all along???

Who knows???  Who can tell?  Who knows what the real truth ever is?

I didn’t then and I guess I never will know the correct answer either.

Yet I suddenly found myself not only alive, but divinely enlightened as well.

And I certainly do not plan on squandering this invaluable, newfound information…..

I have miraculously been granted a second chance at life and I surely don’t plan on wasting it…..

This is a bona fide miracle, this rebirth, this rising from the dead, this reenactment of a phoenix, and from this day onward I promise to carry forward a new perspective as my inseparable partner…..

A perspective based on faith…..

A perspective based on optimism…..

A perspective based on rejuvenation…..

A perspective based on enthusiasm and altruism and selflessness and alacrity…..

A perspective based on the most transcendent emotion of all, that being love…..

And finally, a perspective based on…..based on…..based on…..based on…..based on…..based on…..based on…..STRENGTH……….yes, towering, annihilating, all-conquering personal strength just as I was coached by that inscrutable, supernatural entity garbed in invisible clothing during my transitory stay in the belly of the beast!!!!!

…..he didn’t like goodbyes, didn’t like them at all.  And why should he?  Why should anyone??  Goodbyes are intrinsically sad…..mournful…..theatrical…..emotional in a negative way…..overly climactic…..overdone in general.  So why then go through the stupid tradition of honoring and paying homage to formal farewells as though they are requisite to maintaining a valid relationship?  Well, the correct answer is you don’t.  Just walk away next time.   Plain and simple.  No silly questions, no heart-straining hugs, no teary farewells.  Just walk away sans awkward embraces and words of parting.  The body of work—the scaffolding of a stalwart relationship, if you will—should have been constructed long before a departure of ways  becomes imminent.  A solid relationship should be built around the core and not the extremities.  Accordingly, treat that relationship with a confidence level commensurate with same and dispose of the dramatic severances which are hallmarks of inherently unreal classic movies and dripping with a cultural mystique that is arrantly undeserved…..

Today is a new day, unlike any that has come before it.  It is a completely blank slate, and as such I can do whatever I want with it provided I don’t violate the rights of others.  This new day comes unencumbered by past fears, prejudices, and mistakes.  It is an opportunity to reinvent myself if I don’t like what I see in the morning mirror.  That person facing you in said mirror is every bit as much a chameleon as those sneaky little lizards you see crawling around on the walls of Mexican vacation villas; either can change dramatically when confronted by vexing circumstances.  Facing a virgin day is like heading off into an inscrutable and unexplored wilderness, with all of the anticipation and excitement and wonderment such a journey should engender.  Today is a new day to explore—all by myself if I so choose or with others if that is my predilection—and I feel undeservedly blessed to have been handed something this sacrosanct.  I understandably and thusly do not plan on wasting it, if for no other reason when the grandfather clock hanging on the living room wall over there strikes midnight for the day I am currently experiencing—this divine gift from God worthy of genuflection and exclaiming hosannas from the most lofty mountaintops—it will henceforth be extinct and there will never be another one to replace it.