Enter Thought Here

Have you ever seen someone look at you and wondered what they were thinking?  Maybe they are someone you know.  Have you ever just gone up to that person and said, “Hi” just to see if you were right?  That happens to me all the time.  I’m the one that gets approached.  It happens to me a lot.  I hope it isn’t because I am staring.  If I was, I didn’t do it on purpose unless you look like a Wal-Martian.

If anything it’s because I was spacing out.  I guess I am just an approachable person.  The other day I had this guy come up to me (at Wal-Mart) and asked where the place was that was printed on my jacket.  I guess that was a legit question since it was my softball jacket from Japan.  It wasn’t in Kanji or Katakana, it was in English (Misawa Jets).  I guess he wanted to beat me if I was as NY Jets fan or something.  No worries about that, I am a Pittsburgh Steeler fan and I had a few pounds on the guy.  I told him it was a place in northern Japan and I played softball and this was my team jacket.  I guess I confused the guy.  He said, “Oh, OK” and walked away.

Have you ever actually run into someone you knew though?  You see them and you do the polite head nod or the timeless peace sign.  But what if they are in the same isle or right there beside you? Ugh, the stupid questions you get when that happens.

Yup!  Hunting elephants.  WTH!  I guess it’s just one of those awkward moments when you don’t really want to talk but societal rules make you say something.  I guess I can’t really complain about this that much.  I like to talk to people.  I even do the “Dap” and man hug with my best of friends whenever and wherever I see them.  I’m just that kinda guy.

I like to people watch.  I love trying to guess what they are thinking or what they do in life.  I am probably almost always wrong but it’s fun.  Ever try making up a conversation of those you see while watching people talk?  Ha, you can make some crazy ish up doing that.  It takes a little practice.  I think it helps to have a good sense of humor to do it.

I think it’s fun to try and figure out people.  I really like to guess what they are thinking.  I always ask.  You never know what you are missing out on.  And if you don’t tell me what you’re thinking, well, I will just “Enter Thought Here.”

So here is a homework assignment:

Well, I just want you to leave me a comment, who am I kidding?  Give me one of your random thoughts.  No need to be witty or cute.  It can be on anything.  If you want, you can give me a random thought to write about as a topic.  Grading of homework will be subjective…….good luck!

Something to Sleep On

So here I am, again, not sleeping.  Tonight I thought I would try and experiment (on myself).  Looking at my bedroom and seeing the layout I wondered why it was set up the way it is.  The bed is against the wall and the TV on the other side of the room at the foot of the bed.  Everything is centered on their respective wall.  There is still plenty of room to get into the two closets on the left side of the bed.  But the room is so large I feel so far away from the bedroom door.  I wondered why I chose to put the bed on the farthest wall from the door.

Tough question since it was a habit passed on from my family and I believe my wife’s family as well.  And I’m sure if you look at your bedroom, you will find that your bed is probably as comfortably far away from the door as well.  But why?

I want to take this question a little further.  I want to know why we sleep with our heads at the farthest point from the door as well.  It’s weird isn’t it?  You probably never thought of the question before either.  I know I haven’t.  There was no need to.  I believe there is also another consideration to look at as well.  Some people go all out and have bedroom sets that include headboards and footboards for their bed and dressers and hope chests and chairs and blah, blah, blah.  Well I don’t.  So I am looking past what looks best in the room decor.  I get that a headboard looks best up against a wall; that is a no brainer.  I want to know why we can’t sleep with our heads pointed toward the center of the room or towards the door.

So here it is.  It’s a safety behavior (fight or flight action) that has been passed on to us from generations ago.  I want to say that because we have learned to never turn our backs on the unknown.  I know I feel much safer when I can see what is coming at me.  But it’s dark so who can see anyway?  But it’s still a comfort thing.  I know when I was a kid I used to see figures in the dark.  I can still see that one dark figure standing by my dresser holding a pair of shinny scissors telling me it was time for a haircut.  And this was way before the Freddie Kruger movies came out.

But I think it is a known fact that monsters can’t get you if you keep your bedroom door open.  Duh!  And forget about the dogs protecting me.  They are bigger chickens than me!  Another thing to consider is the amount of covers you have on your bed.  Everyone knows the more covers the better protection.  But that is kid stuff, right?

So here was the experiment I tried last night/morning.  I moved my bed to the middle of the room and laid with my head as close to the door as possible.  I only had 1 blanket and my dogs took that from me a few minutes later after a few tosses and turns.  They are the definition of cover hogs…..ugh!  The experiment was a success, in a way.  I was unable to fall asleep with my head so close to the door.  I heard every creek, pop, and bump in the house.  No way was I going to fall asleep.  That and I was freezing my butt off.  So, back to the wall went the bed.  I even found that I wasn’t comfortable until I put my back to the wall side too.  Geez!  I really messed myself up.

So here are my closing thoughts and they only lead to more questions for me.  For me sleeping as far away from the bedroom door is essential, period.  Yes there are other things to take into consideration such as the layout of the room.  But even that had to be for a reason.  Why are the widows where they are?  And why are the closets on this wall and not that?  Of course there is a logical layout to a house but again it had to be through trial and error.  Just like in Braveheart, who wants a guy on a horse riding into your room without you seeing it happen?

How about my married readers out there?  Any of you spend the night flopped over the side of the bed trying to escape the snoring partner who loves to cuddle?  That definitely limits where the bed can be placed as well.  But the best solutions I have found is to stuff your significant other/ brother/sister under the bed (feed the monsters), prop the bedroom door open (night light in hall – mandatory!) and chain the closets closed.

I don’t mean to write this so no one can ever sleep again.  And I’m not trying to scare you either.  I just want you to think about why you do the things you do in life.  And if you still can’t sleep, I found that a 5mg Melatonin tablet does the trick, sometimes.

Sweet Dreams!

Something To Think About

Hello Everyone!  Sorry for this late post but I have been fighting a migraine headache today and just can’t stare at a computer very long.  So instead of leaving you all hanging I want to share something I wrote one night when I couldn’t sleep.  It might seem a bit scattered but that is what happens when you write with insomnia.  Enjoy!

The Question

Have you ever wondered what would happen if what you believed in wasn’t real?  Now I’m not going to bring in the topic of religion because that sparks too many debates and this is not what I want to focus on in our discussion.  What I’m talking about is what we have in our possession in today’s world.  All of these great gadgets that our ancestors could never have dreamed of existing are what I’m specifically targeting.

Let’s look at the most used of our belongings, the automobile.  What if for a second you stopped believing in the process that makes the car run.  You no longer believe that fuel burns in such a way that causes an explosion that creates a chain reaction that turns all of these things in the engine that then moves all the other mechanisms in the car.  Just for a second.  Think about it.  What would happen to the reason you were in the car to begin with?  What would happen to you?  Take this a little further and imagine that because you don’t believe in the miracle of the combustion engine or any engine for that matter.  What if you believed you were smarter than your brain’s function and thought that if you didn’t drive the engine would work?  So you take a bus.  But because you don’t believe in the invention the bus won’t run either.  All because you started to ask the question, “If what makes this function, isn’t so.”

Billions of people take for granted that what we have, is supposed to be.  I hate flying and for the reason I described above.  What if all of a sudden because I questioned the whole process of flight the plane ceases to function and plummets to the ground?  Well, I guess you all would be glad because you wouldn’t have this Doubting Dan in existence and you would be able to fly again.  So let’s take this a little further.  What if because one person questions the invention, any invention and at any point in time, it will no longer be a useful instrument in our lives?  I often think of this question.  It could be because I am worried that I will wake up one day and the house I thought I was sleeping in no longer is there.  Or the TV, the computer, the radio or any of my everyday items I use is no longer there.  All because what I thought was real, really wasn’t because I no longer believed in our ability to have made such an item to work.

Everyone who reads this will probably just shrug it off and say I’m crazy.  But think about it for a second.  The most powerful thing in our lives is our brain.  What if we just have not tapped into the power of negative thought and its potential to do evil?  We see what happens when we say negative things to each other.  We see hate and dislike everyday of our lives.  We pay people in our businesses to do the statistical analysis on when things will go bad.  We always look at the negative things in life but never really talk about its effect on what is around us.  Oh yes, we do worry about how it might affect us individually but not to our entire surroundings.

I like to use movies when describing some things to people just because more people can relate to what is being discussed.  I love scary movies.  I can’t get enough of them.  I’m not sure if it is the scare or the thrill I get when the bad thing gets the stupid teenager.  But I do know that because we believe evil exists we have these themed movies.  Where did this thought even originate?   I believe it is because of negative thinking.  And negative thinking to me is a root of evil and that is why we have these movies.  Take for example zombie movies.  Someone was messed up enough to think, “Hey, what if all of a sudden the dead will no longer be dead and they will walk among us and eat us if they catch us.”  Now the genera has been taken way past the innocent black and white “oh it only happened for a night” to it is a total inhalation of the human population on earth and only a few live to suffer a lonely existence among the living dead.

We like to see the innocent get taken down.  I think here in America that is one of our favorite pastimes.  We also watch the evening news to see what horrible things happened while we were out.  We love to hear about how public figures fail and ruin their lives because of mistakes they make based on greed or lust.  And what is with this obsession with people reading the obituaries?  Don’t you think if you really cared about someone you would know if they died or not?  So why are people reading these things?  I say it’s because we want to know who we outlived.  And isn’t that a little evil?

What am I really trying to say through this whole thing?  I think I really want us as a race, and that is the human race if you are confused, to look at what we do in the world.  Look at what consequences our thoughts and actions lead to.  Negative people breed negative thoughts.  Negative thoughts lead to negative actions.  Negative actions lead others to not believe in what we have accomplished in our lives.  Think about it.

Evil rises from the ashes of the negative doings of one’s negative thoughts.