Gusher

I’ve been better about blogging every day but missed yesterday. I’ll blame therapy as it serves something of the same purpose for me. The thoughts bounce around my head with such force that they hurt if I don’t let them out. Right now, my thoughts are on bacon. I ran out of bacon about a month ago. I ran out and first couldn’t shop because I was in isolation. Then every time I went to Aldi they were out. I am spoiled and want their premium thick cut bacon. If I found a good sale someplace else I’d have bought it, but I didn’t. Yesterday they had one package left and it was hiding. You couldn’t see if standing in front of the case. I had to bend down to see what was at the back of the box on the bottom shelf. I grabbed it. If anyone had tried to take it from me I would have been like Frodo when Smeagol tried to take the ring from him. If anyone succeeded in stealing it, I would have hates it, hates it forever. Guess what I had for breakfast this morning. I made breakfast extra special and had a bagel with butter along with my bacon and eggs.

The second purpose for my expedition was to get new reading glasses. In the last few weeks, I lost one pair and broke another. I like having five pairs, one for the bedroom, living room, bathroom, backpack, and ready to grab with my keys. I could live with three but was not happy. The discount store across the street from Aldi has the best reading glasses. They were out! They’ve been out for a month. So, what happened an hour ago? Another pair broke. It was one of the pairs I bought someplace else. They are not as sturdy. Now I’m down to one pair for the house and one in my bag. It’s so hard being me. Do you know what else is hard? I ask friends to come over and cook me meals or do my laundry and they never do! Can you believe these people call themselves my friends? As Dylan sang, “You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend/When I needed laundry you just stood there grinnin'”. Dylan understood.

A lot of those thoughts that bounce around my head are praises that come up in gushes. I’m a gusher, you might have noticed. So far I’ve gushed about breakfast. I gush about The Expanse every week when I see it. I have a radio show, Gord’s Gold on Folk Music Notebook devoted to gushing about music. I don’t just gush to the world; I gush to people about themselves. I always worry about how they will take it. I tell people that I love them. I told them why I love them. I tell how great that thing they just did is. It’s all spontaneous and all sincere. I think of it as not filtering myself, except I do. There are gushworthy people that I don’t gush to. Whatever unconscious signals they put out tell me not to. I know it can be awkward being on the receiving edge of a gush. One musician gushed at me and I responded by saying I did nothing special, just gushed about her. I then caught myself and said, “We have a mutual admiration society.” That’s the truth. The praise I am ambivalent about is those that I feel are insincere. I shouldn’t accuse anyone of being insincere without proof, and I don’t, but it still the suspicion is still there in the back of my mind. As I’m a firm believer in the Copernican Principle, that we are not in a special position as observers, I get afraid that some people feel the same way about me.

Have I lost everyone in the layers of references? I hope not. I did make a conscious decision to err on the side of giving praise and against being reticent. I know how good sincere spontaneous praise feels and want others to feel that. The paradox is that if it said for the purpose of making the other person feel good it doesn’t work, at least not on me. That’s why I emphasize the spontaneity.

There is now a part of me of saying, “Oh no, people are going to read this as digging for compliments!” Don’t do that. I get plenty of compliments, I’m suggesting that you not be shy of giving praise to others. Let musicians know how they affect you. Don’t wait until after someone dies to sing their praises. When you find something you love, let the world know. Don’t worry that nobody else cares what you think. Buzz is nothing but the sum total of individuals praise. Praise feeds off each other. When you praise something those around you are more likely to praise it, and not just to you. It’s a nonlinear process. I’m just one voice, but I’m not in the wilderness, I’m in a community. The howl of the lone wolf leads to the howl of the pack. The howl brings the pack together.

Your depression is connected to your insolence
and refusal to praise. Whoever feels himself walking
on the path, and refuses to praise–that man or woman
steals from others every day–is a shoplifter!

The sun became full of light when it got hold of itself.
Angels only began shining when they achieved discipline.
The sun goes out whenever the cloud of not-praising comes.
The moment the foolish angel felt insolent, he heard the door close.

Rumi