Author: Fred Blahnik

An “expert” is anyone who voices a strong opinion when they are more than fifty miles away from home. It doesn’t matter one whit whether they know anything about whilst they speak; all that matters is their degree of certitude and the novelty of their alien presence in a tightly-knit, traditional community paralyzed by stasis and blind tradition.

A committee is a random group of people assembled to hammer out a consensual agreement. No uniformity, no matching fabrics, no shared vision.  Once everyone has thrown in their ten cents worth and a single common denominator has been revealed amongst this very diverse group of individuals without offending anyone and without unnecessarily bruising any member’s feelings, hours if not days have been wasted, while the worth of their eventual watered-down edict could easily be squeezed into the nest of a bantam hummingbird.

…..and the long-awaited day finally arrived like a prophet bearing gifts, yet she found the anticipated elegance and pulchritude of that lonely, beleaguered day fell far short of her lofty expectations. Her admittedly excessive enthusiasm was dashed.   The day felt rather ordinary, vapid…..not that much unlike any of the others which had preceded it.  And right then and there she was struck by an epiphany, one that would stick with her as her constant companion for the remainder of her days on Earth:  Every day IS exactly the same in character as the one which comes before it–twenty four hours in length and bounded by the sun’s appearance and subsequent disappearance on each of its ends–and thus it was entirely up to her to shape the thing in the manner in which she would like to see it unfold.  It was the substrate, the putty, the globby paper mache; she was the sculptor assigned to oversee this construction project on a regular, ongoing basis.  And with that life-changing realization came some overdue peace of mind—a natural tranquilizer which would help define her disposition and outlook on life from that pivotal point forward…..

Use the following philosophy/litmus test before starting any sort of project in your lifetime, however small: What if I decided NOT to do this activity?  Is it immanently productive?  Who will this particular project impact, either in a positive or negative fashion, or worse–Will it impact no one at all?  Does this activity I have in mind constitute good, efficient usage of my limited time here on Earth?  Is it going to contribute anything of value to my happiness, or the happiness of those I love most, in any significant way?  And lastly, but most importantly:  Would it make any difference in the big scheme of things if I simply did not do this task or activity at hand and moved on to something altogether different?!?!  Will my non-participation have a negative impact on anyone or anything???  Might this endeavor have a lasting impact on humanity, however miniscule…..or not?  (Hint:  Making one’s bed every morning like an obsessive hamster churning away on a spinning wheel is a classic example of time simply being wasted egregiously in a meaningless non-activity; so too are a multitude of the household and yard chores we feel compelled to do blindly and without thinking every day of our lives, i.e. mowing your lawn twice a week, raking up every fallen leaf, washing clothes compulsively, doing dishes each and every evening following supper, etc. etc. etc.).

…..and the new reality quickly became the old reality, and things that just days ago seemed fresh and exciting now seemed dull and unbearably tedious. Why is this so?  Why do things become humdrum and pedestrian so quickly?  How can a life morph into a dreary existence after but a handful of spins on the carousel?  Once the shine wears off an apple, it no longer begs consumption.  Once you’ve been to Paris, your second and third and fourth views of the mythical city are not nearly as special.  Once you move past that nuclear first impression of her unparalleled beauty, her warts speedily become visible.  Same thing with life.  Once an experience has been sampled for the first time, it no longer holds the same allure that attracted you to it in the first place.  I guess you could say life is coldhearted and eminently lackluster because of this, yet that characterization does not do it sufficient justice and greatly oversimplifies its ethereal underlying meaning…..

There was no light in our Universe for the first two hundred years after it was created, only darkness. The first stars didn’t “turn on” until after two hundred million years had elapsed.  Two hundred million years!  For two hundred million years, the place we now inhabit was nothing more than a vast expanse of Negro nothingness……a pitch-black vacuum devoid of anything to illuminate our cosmic landscape.  And then—as though by “black” magic–the first stars started blinking on to show the way for that which followed.  Think of said scenario the next time your future looks so bleak there doesn’t appear to be even so much as a soupcon of light entering your life.  Because if you had lived at a much earlier time in the history of our Universe……there was no light and consequently no dreams or visions to carry mankind forward…….

Opportunity cost–easily the most important economic concept of all to know, yet one that is trickily difficult to understand. Capsulized, opportunity cost is the expense in time one incurs by doing something when you could just as easily have been doing something else.  Commuting to and from work in the mornings and afternoons is the classic example of opportunity cost.  You may save a ton of money upfront by purchasing a cheap house way out in the exurbs, but in the long run that shitload of time you spend on commuting–time that could have been spent doing something more productive or more enjoyable–must be factored into the final financial equation.  Time is truly money, more valuable than money even–everyone agrees on this fundamental point or at least they should–and if you choose to spend sizable blocs of your personal time performing menial activities in order to “save” money, said is no different than tossing one hundred dollar bills onto a roaring bonfire.

For all of you whiners and bitchers and decriers out there, it is exponentially better to be five percent alive than one hundred percent dead. Be thankful for your very existence, even if it may be a shortchanged, compromised, undermined version of someone else’s.  Everyone is NOT created equal; this point should be breathtakingly obvious, yet it should not be a reason for excessive chagrin and teeth-gnashing.  Don’t obsess over fairness and equity; just be grateful for your sentience and your acuity and for the magic which unfolds before you every moment of every day of the year.  Not everyone is equally blessed–True true true!!!–but then again only a microscopic percentage of fused egg and sperm cells ever reach the terminus of a birth canal.  You lucked out on that account given the fact you are here reading this passage, so stop bitching about the things you are missing out on in life and begin focusing on the positive things that you are currently experiencing instead.  Trust me, there are A LOT of them out there, and if you cannot see them it is only because you are too busy complaining and not looking very hard!

Emotional scars take longer to heal than physical scars. Truthfully, some never heal at all.  Given enough time, physical scars will pull together, gradually fuse along the edges, create a nice smooth symmetrical zipper of off-colored flesh, and remain that way for perpetuity.  Emotional scars, on the other hand, fester and roil and never want to congeal; at times it may seem as though their various components have settled their internal disputes and reached some sort of shaky compromise, yet those same bed partners frequently resume hostilities and pull apart at the first hint of affective turmoil.  Emotional scars live on forever as volatile, pulsating, stricken entities minus any real recipe for permanent reconciliation.  Physical scars live on forever too, as, well……well, merely as routine physical interruptions on otherwise homogenous skin.

Being a tiny minnow testing your wits against the mighty ocean is far preferable to being a big fish claiming dominion over a tiny pond. One takes a large measure of courage; the other–a pronounced absence of same.  Obviously one’s comfort level holds at a steady equilibrium when you settle into constantly familiar surroundings, but that lazy condition also defines the word “stagnation”.  Limited or no personal development is the obvious outgrowth of a sheltered, static existence.  Just as a stagnant backwater breeds all varieties of pestilence, a stagnant, never-changing existence breeds ignorance, bigotry, and closemindedness.  The only way to truly challenge oneself is to put your head right on the chopping block and pursuantly not flinch even one iota when the dreaded ax begins to fall.