Marshmallows in Potholes

In the late 1960s, Stanford researchers conducted a Marshmallow Experiment with 4-year olds. A marshmallow was placed on a table and a child was told the researcher would be right back and that if he or she could resist eating it, the researcher would bring back another one.

But only if they resisted.



There conclusions: gratification delayers were more successful in adulthood, had higher SAT scores and had fewer problems with addictive behavior.

I'm not sure I would've lasted long enough for the door to close.

Follow up research indicated that low-delayers, as they're called (sounds insulting, kinda: You're such a low-delayer), can change. Follow up research identified differences in brain activity between the two groups. High-delayers were more active in the pre-frontal cortex. Low-delayers, somewhere near the core where instincts take place.

In more recent studies, researchers have concluded the effect of meditation on brain activity and found measurable changes, including structural and dynamic processes. While they do not specifically link results to the marshmallow experiments, they concluded the changes could affect "addiction, mental disorders, and ADHD...".

You know, things a low-delayer can relate to.

We all have experience with low-delayer behavior, that moment when we say, Screw it, I WANT THAT NOW. That out of body experience where we don't feel in control, we eat 17 donuts, have just the one cigarette, the drink, a forbidden kiss, or something else. Fill in the blank.

Every day offers us an opportunity to work with that. To practice with I WANT. To notice the thoughts and experience the bodily sensations that accompany them.

To allow life to unfold. To not get in its way.

And if we practice, truly, it's not change that happens.

It's transformation.

A Sleeping Serial Killer

They come for me.

They know I've killed their kind. Murdered, coldly. Flush them them, grind them under my heel. I'll wipe their guts all over and not think twice.



I was asleep. Dreaming, deeply. I was in a shantytown and the walls were crumbling and the holes revealed maggots and grubs. The people even had bugs crawling out of their hair, long since given up trying to kill them. They live with them. I ended up in a pit where bareknuckle fighters--

SPLAT.

Something landed on my face.

At some level, I knew it wasn't part of the dream. Something landed on my real face, in the flesh. And I knew what it was.

Not completely awake, I lay still, sensing the dark the room. I couldn't let it escape or there'd be no sleeping the rest of the night, not with it in the room. Nor would my wife. In a black room, eyes closed, the ceiling fan blowing, I snatched at my pillow only a few inches from my head.

Halfway to the bathroom, I wondered if this was real life. Did I just dream this? Is there really something in my hand? Did I just do that?

I threw the contents in the toilet. There, swimming freely, wings splayed, was a fully grown cockroach. I flushed him from the world. He could haunt the sewer system, but not our bedroom.

I didn't tell my wife. She'd never sleep again.

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

The Annihilation of Foreverland

The Starbucks Experience

$1.82

I can't help look at the receipt for a cup of joe I can make at home for 10 cents. My wife reminds me I'm paying for the experience. The Starbucks Experience.

Non-offensive music.

Cushy chairs.

Bubbling baristas.

I'm dropping my daughter off at camp, I've got 2 hours to kill. As much as I cringe over the receipt, it's the perfect place to go knock out some writing. The employees seem very happy. I mean, super happy. That's part of the Starbucks Experience. It came with my cup of medium roast joe with room for milk or cream.

The Starbuck Experience is heightened when a guy in line tells the guy behind him to go back to Jersey. They argue traffic. I try not to look. Sadly, it ends there. The Starbucks Experience does not include bare-knuckle fighting.

The baristas seem unperturbed by the near melee. Still super happy, I don't know how they do it. But then one barista asks another one - one with long pigtails - to throw a muffin or scone or chocolate-crammed cake funnel into a toaster.

Pig-tails says, "You want me to THROW it in, or PLACE it in?"

Barista number one says this. "Whatever."

I didn't think it was possible, but the Starbucks Experience just got better.

I Am My Mother

All my life, I've watched my mother spontaneously fall asleep in all places. When the bell strikes 8, she'll be unconscious on a couch, in a chairs, in a movie. Name it, she'll sleep on it. One second she's awake, the next she's mashing her face into her palm.

Mom (right) face-mashed asleep 45 years ago.

She's fallen asleep in mid-sentence, more than once. No joke.

Mom. Still face-mashing.

Now I have joined the club.

Take a week of early rising, add a dash of heat, 3 pounds of Italian food and mix in 3 beers (okay, 4) and stir. This is the recipe to becoming my mother.

We were with friends at a restaurant. Afterwards, we stopped at our house for a closer. I just wanted to sit down. I remember laying on the floor with the dogs. I vaguely remember laughter, something laid over me. Something flashing. Half an hour later, I came to (barely).

There were pictures of stuffed animals on my shoulder, blankets over my head. There were pictures of friends posing next to me. They were laughing. I had sleep-face. I fell asleep while talking to my wife.

If this was college, I'd be missing an eyebrow.

The Sword and the Cute Little Turquoise Shirt

I was at a softball camp. It was a sea of bat-wielding, glove-bearing females. A game got started. The coaches were shouting and clapping and people were stomping and sliding. I asked my sister-in-law which one was the head coach.

She's the one with a sleeveless turquoise shirt and white shorts that go to the knees.

Oh. Turquoise. And something else. And... could you point at her?

All I know is people were wearing clothes. That's it. No colors or styles or brands. Hell, I couldn't tell you if they all had both eyes. There were people on the field playing softball and they were wearing clothes. That's all I took in.

Action, first. Details, second.



A reviewer once commented on my writing. She pointed out the difference between male and female authors.

FEMALE AUTHOR
Jake stood 6-foot. His tan scalp beaded with perspiration that tracked into his ice-blue eyes. His callused hand rested on the hilt of his weapon, the gold rings glittered with rubies and emeralds clicking on the metal handle in a rhythm not to be mistaken for nervousness. But anticipation. His fingernails were chipped, broken and soiled with blood. The same blood smeared across his blue tunic that fit snugly across his chest. The leather boots -- the heels worn through -- strapped up to but not over his knees. The nostrils of his wide nose flared. He smelled an enemy. The rings tapped the sword as he unsheathed it...

MALE AUTHOR
The sword is 4' long. Jake cut the other guy's head off with it. 



I suppose she has a point.

Drunk on Numbers

Hello. My name is Tony. I'm addicted to numbers.

I ran a free promo for The Annihilation of Foreverland on Amazon. Before I did that, I was selling 10, maybe 20, a month. Days would go by with the same number of sales. Forget making money, I couldn't give them away.

Amazon's free promo changed that.

Day 1: 9,500 copies, downloaded.

Day 2: another 5000.

Day 3: add 3,500.

18,000 people have my book!

Here's where the addiction kicked in. Every time I refreshed my reports, the numbers grew. I mean every friggin time. There were times I refreshed immediately, I'm talking 3 seconds, and the numbers changed. I sat on the couch, shouting to my wife: there goes another 10. Ooo, that was a big one, 22. Holy crap, 30! I just moved 30!!!


The spiral of addiction got a grip on me. I became jaded, I needed more. I needed confirmation the whole world wanted this book. A million wasn't enough. If I didn't move a book every second, then something was wrong... SOMETHING'S WRONG... THEY HATE ME!!! 


There was a problem. I took control. I only check the numbers 5 times a day now. That's absurd -- only 5x a day -- but that's down from 30,000. I'm not cured, but I'm managing my addiction. I'm drinking beer, not whiskey.


I'm 4 days out of the free promo and sales -- real sales, the kind that makes money -- have picked up. The numbers aren't rolling in when they were free, but they are moving. I'm making money. The book is getting recognized. I've received great reviews -- even an email from someone out of the blue that never heard of me and LOVE THAT BOOK. 


I can deal with that.


My name is Tony and I'm addicted to the numbers.


And I hope it gets worse.

Playing in Traffic

A Zen teacher once compared sitting practice to a busy road.

Before practice, we're standing in the middle of traffic. Cars are swerving and trucks honking and we're hopping from one foot to the other trying to stay alive.We're always one step away from roadkill. It can be overwhelming. Sometimes depressing.

Hopeless.




But then we sit. We practice to clarify of our life, our understanding. We learn to be present rather than caught up in headlights and shiny colors. And, slowly, our view changes. We see the traffic from above. We see the patterns, of where it's been and where it's going. And the more we practice, the higher our viewpoint becomes.

When I read a novel, my viewpoint is hundreds of feet above the road. My perspective is fresh and new. Pristine. I see the story unfolding and the characters developing. I notice the plot holes and character inconsistencies. I can point out typos. I can tell what needs to change.

As a writer, though, I'm toeing the white line.

All I see are trucks and cars. I smell the exhaust and hear the tires grinding pavement. It's what makes it a joy, but I have no perspective. I'm in the middle of it without a view and that's what makes writing difficult.

These ideas, these characters and stories are in my head and they make perfect sense to me because I can see them and hear them. How can I get you to see and hear them, too? When am I saying too much or not enough? When am I just boring?

Good writers play in the traffic and make it look fun.