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Compassion is a good word. There are many dimensions to it. The obvious one would be feeling sorry for someone when they are not doing well. This could be due to illness or stress. But I’ve found a form of compassion in everyday life that has serious benefits. And that would be feeling good for people when things are going well for them. This is may seem completely obvious on paper. But in practice and when practiced in honesty it is a beautiful thing.

It feels like the opposite of jealousy, the opposite of coveting. It is the opposite of the feeling of being left behind.

When I lived in San Francisco, I remember a time when I was cultivating energy and was just blundering into it headfirst. As a person who prefers to understand things through experience, this felt like the only way at the time. There was a distinct conversation that I had with a close friend. I said something like, “The girls around here are getting too beautiful. I want to go away, somewhere secluded. I need time.”

I would see couples and have confused emotions. On one hand I would miss companionship. And on the other hand I had a distorted sense of self and attachment. The whole external-internal world resembled a Sloppy Joe sandwich instead of an orange. As barriers that once acted as pillars of support eroded away, I was faced with the notion of having to repair a cracked and unfinished foundation.

Over time, I’ve found that I was creating my timeline. The stress was coming from my own fear of time itself. Hours in the day, days in the week, years in a life. This type of time has little value and is for machines. When we do work, we are imitating machines. That is a good thing. But to set life goals to this type of time means that I was accepting a system that I didn’t even understand. This is similar to handing over an existence to a set of rules, just for the sake of not wanting the responsibility of actually owning the existence. Because if you don’t own your own existence, then somebody else does.

So when I see beautiful women now. I feel good for them. There’s some admiration and a little sizzle, but the coveting just seems ridiculous. This is even if they are wearing sweaters or something sexy. It doesn’t really matter.

The same works for couples. There is a feeling of almost relief and gladness. By people finding happiness and adding to the cycle of life, we all benefit. This is a good thing.

So where is the compassion? Well, first the compassion had small roots in the self. I had to feel good for my own small steps in life. Letting little victories seem like benchmarks toward a great goal set the framework for actual goals that I did not even originally envision. This was self compassion.

And in engaging in this form of compassion, I was and do feel good for others when they are feeling good. It is a way of amplifying and multiplying what is already there…What should be there, and what always be there.

-Tyler

Hot Dog Regret

I’m not going to disclose the hot dog manufacturer who produced these monstrosities. This is because overidon.com is not a website about negativity. But this story must be told. Today I was on my way to the gym and my mom got home from Yoga. I told her I was going to leave and she begged me to cook her some hot dogs. Since, I was on my way to the gym and hadn’t had lunch yet, I decided that I would eat a couple hot dogs myself as well. I started up the grill and opened the package. “OH COOL! 2X sized hot dogs, these are going to taste great. And they are supposed to be extra high quality. Maybe these will actually have some meat from a mammal in them!” I put the jumbo hot dogs on the grill. The large plastic package could only hold four of the hot dogs and I didn’t want to put a lone hot dog in the freezer because I knew I’d eat two of them and my mom would have at least one.

After thoroughly cooking the hot dogs I summoned my mom and told her that the dogs were ready to be eaten. We both ate a dog and then I went to eat a second hot dog. Everything was fine at first but then I realized that I wasn’t feeling too good. What was the problem? I’m a 31 year old man who works out every other day and has a very fast metabolism. I’ve been eating hamburgers and other food in large quantities in order to keep up with my internal stomo-furnace and I thought hot dogs might add some extra nitrogen to the flame. Nitro makes cars go fast so why not me?

Well, after a few minutes from the 2nd jumbo dog, I started feeling really bad. Not bad enough that I thought I was going to get sick, but I felt that I needed to go to the gym IMMEDIATELY and try and get this stuff either integrated into my body or sweated out pronto. Then my mom asked me if I would go on a run to the pharmacy to pick up some heartburn medicine. This afternoon was heading downhill…fast.

I then took the hot dog plastic packaging from the trash and looked at the nutritional information. It said that the suggested serving size was ONE hot dog only. And I ate two. I was worried. Then I read the fine print. It said that each single jumbo hot dog was 44% of the day’s suggested sodium content! This meant that in literally 15 minutes I ate 88% of my total sodium intake. No wonder I felt horrible. I knew hot dogs were salty critters but nearly half of one’s sodium intake in a single dog, not counting the bun?

When I was on my way to the gym, I usually grab a cup of tea from Starbucks and chat with the baristas for a couple minutes. This way I can walk to the gym and have something warm to drink on the way there. I was talking about the salt content of the hot dogs with the barristas and I said I felt like I was having a salt overload. And he said that I was going to turn into a pillar of salt with all the sodium decadence. If Gomorrah was hot dog land then I’m in big trouble.

At the gym, I began my workout on the StairMaster. In just 10 minutes of level 7 step workout I seriously was 80% more drenched in sweat than normal. I could have opened my own Gatorade store with all the electrolytes my pores were excreting. I was afraid to do my normal heavy sit-up regiment because I didn’t want to barf.

When I was discussing the situation with the girl at the reception desk at the gym, I told her that I was going to tell my mom, “We are not doing this again.” It was as if I was giving myself my own hot dog intervention. This is serious.

-Tyler

Someone once said:

“The best things in life are free.”

Ice cream is not free.

Ice cream is expensive.

Earlier today I was trying to find Sumerian text translations. And I remembered that I used to have a bookmark for such a site. But since my old computer crashed, I no longer had them.

I searched, “sumerian” in the search box on this very website and I found a few articles on that subject, including an article I wrote on an Electronic Text repository of such translations. I followed a link and found a very enjoyable piece that was about 5 or so pages on wisdom passed down from a Sumerian father to son. It was insightful and beyond excellent.

-Tyler