Sour Mind Grapes

Life is generally good. It hasn't always been this way, and things could certainly change in the future. But at the present moment, my affairs are pretty peachy. I won't comment on yours because any number of terrible things might have happened recently in your life. Hopefully they haven't, but fortune is fickle and bad stuff goes down all the time. Serfs revolt and loot your granaries, an ex-wife gets custody of the purebred Arabian racing stallion, Poseidon sinks your pleasure yacht.

But I haven't been forced to deal with any of those problems lately. Or even more common calamities like the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or the foreclosure of a cherished family home that Great-Grandpa Tom built with his own two hands. I can safely say that life is good in my corner of the world, as I fidget in my chair and knock on every piece of wooden furniture within arm's reach.

So then, as the proverbial bartender once asked the horse, why the long face? Because lately I've been feeling kinda low. As depressive funks go this one has been pretty benign but it still sucks eggs, for lack of a more eloquent phrase. I don't like being sad. At least, I think I don't. But then again, I wouldn't trust me farther than I could throw myself, which I would imagine is approximately zero inches, although I've never tried. Maybe some part of my subconscious gets its rocks off on bumming out. And if that's true for me, it is probably true for (at least some of) you, too.

All of us have dozens of stories frolicking around in our heads all day long, little rapacious bastards feasting ceaselessly on our mind grapes. They're produced by some mysterious internal narrator that everybody recognizes but few can locate. Mark Nunberg, my meditation teacher in Minneapolis, likes to say that these stories are the product of unhelpful habits we've carried for years, the end result of our inability to let go of past misfortunes and misguided attempts to find easy explanations for complex issues.  He says that, if we want to actually become happy and compassionate people, we can try to recognize the mental narrator when he starts and allow him to pass by without latching on to his message. We don't have to push him away, or prevent him from popping up like a cranial Whack-a-Mole, but we simply don't have to believe the stories he's telling. Like the way most people handle FOX News.

Last week, as my existential funk deepened and became obnoxious instead of amusing, I decided to give Mark's approach a try. When you're new to the meditation/Buddhism game, as I am, it's really easy to slip back into old habits without noticing. The wagon is mighty slippery and fall off-able. But as the great philosopher Ice Cube once commented, life ain't a track meet - it's a marathon. Plenty of time to get back in the race, and might as well get started now.

I decided the best strategy was humor. Also, self-deprecation. Because the self is the Ego and there's nothing that the Ego hates more than someone laughing at it, much like a teenage girl or a person trying to tell you about the Austrian school of economics. Ferris Bueller warned us against taking life too seriously, and despite Matthew Broderick's underwhelming track record since 1986 I still accept him as a credible source.

Thus, "Rich White People Problems" was born. I don't know where the phrase originated but it has become a very helpful mantra (in the colloquial sense), and I see no shame in benign plagiarism.. Those four words, stuck together, sound funny to me and always produce a smile, just like Facebook memes and "Shit _______s Say" videos don't. I try to remember it whenever I feel annoyed during the day - try to remember to breathe deep, understand that things are relatively fantastic, and slap on a grin, even if it feels forced. Fake it 'til you make it - the body can't recognize the difference 

So, in closing, here are some of the notable "Rich White People Problems" I've encountered lately, dignity be damned. I have, for at least several moments, been legitimately upset about all of the following. With any luck, a public display of my problems' triviality will hamper my Ego's subsequent forays into Negative-Nancyhood.

Rich White People Problems: Jan. 1 - Feb. 26

• A lady cut in front of me in the bakery line. She is buying at least twelve individually wrapped snacking items; I am buying a single loaf of bread. Now she is asking for a discount, and her conversation with the clerk is taking a long time.
• My 2nd favorite pair of jeans has a red marker stain that won't come out.
• I had to take pictures with my kindergarten class for a student's birthday, and the photographer-wench insisted that we make a series of cutesy Korean hand gestures.*
• There was no new episode of Modern Family this week.
• Contrary to multiple advertising posters' claims, the "Mexican Taco Pizza" at Pizza Maru contains no jalapeños, very few chopped red peppers, and entirely too much processed ham.
• None of the musicians that I like ever come to Korea, except for that one time that Eric Clapton came last year, and he didn't play enough stuff from the Yardbirds/Cream era.
• Why does this restaurant ruin a perfectly good omelette by smothering it with cold ketchup?
• The school's cook claimed that foreign teachers were using all the milk to flavor their coffee - I don't even drink coffee, but I'm still insulted that we as a group were blamed for a milk shortage.
• Most of the foreign films I downloaded don't have working English subtitles.
• According to several sources, my incoming class of kindergarteners is poorly behaved, mostly incompetent, and has a 7:1 boy-to-girl ratio.**
• It's too goddamn cold outside.

*To be honest, I'm still somewhat bitter about this one. If anyone has ideas for helpful strategies, I'd appreciate them.

**Ditto, except more so.

Permed Kindergarteners and Benevolent Apathy

His eyes are really big for a Korean kindergartener, which should make him cute, but they are annoying me. They are staring at my eyes, and I don't know how to make them stop. The rest of his head is obnoxious too. Seven year olds with perms make me uneasy. Males with perms cause the same reaction. I don't like it when the two subgroups are combined. His nose is runny and a hand is moving up to wipe away the snot. Now that same hand grabs my leg. This is gross, but I don't have the energy to object too strongly.

We are sitting in a large room at our school, and the Song Contest is almost over. Two more classes to go. He's pulling on my pant-leg pretty urgently now; maybe he has to go to the bathroom. This kid has already had one bladder-control malfunction on my watch, and I'd prefer that he not piss himself in front of the lady who signs my checks. I really wish he'd just sit still and shut up though, so I'm going to ignore him and hope he loses interest.

A Korean co-teacher leans over and says, "He really likes you." I like it when she speaks in short, information-rich sentences, because I often have trouble understanding her. So in most cases brief declarative statements like this are a relief because I don't have to spend five interminable seconds trying to analyze what she said, guess what she actually meant, and respond somewhat appropriately. She's really nice so I don't want to make her uncomfortable by letting her know how utterly confused I am after 75% of our conversations.

 I'm not sure what she means here, though, because how do you know if a kid actually likes you or is simply incredibly starved for adult attention?* I've worked at two schools so far, with a total of probably forty co-workers. Some of them have been really warm, nurturing, pleasantly outgoing people. A sizable number have been pretty beige, and a few have been downright frosty. All of us get hugs in the hallway, though. And, like arrogant old housecats, children will climb into your lap whether they are wanted or not, so long as your lap is more comfortable than the floor.

*When did I become an adult, and how did this happen without me noticing?

So I'm skeptical that this kid actually likes me. His dad has been "away on business" since I started six months ago, which could mean one of four things: 1) Dad actually is working overseas, 2) Mom and Dad are divorced, 3) Dad is doing that we're-not-gonna-live-together-or-have-any-real-relationship-but-I'll-keep-paying-your-bills-as-long-as-you-don't-cause-me-public-embarrassment-thing that happens in countries like Korea sometimes, or 4) bear attack. The kid probably just wants a male authority figure to acknowledge his existence. Isn't that what Freud or Jung or Nietzsche or some other creepy old Germanic fellow would say?  In any case, a good chunk of my brain thinks the kid has no more emotional connection to me than I do to toilet paper. Sometimes I need it, and if it's not there then life sucks, but no single roll has any special importance. Any soft, pliable tissue will do fine.

Still, I'm holding his hand and dragging him back to the classroom. I think he's trying to skip, but his legs are really short and he's kind of chubby and for someone with such a low center of gravity he has terrible balance. I guess he's sort of bouncing now. So it's more like escorting a large, whiny basketball with arms down the hallway. I'm looking down at the kid and feeling kind of annoyed; I feel this way about him maybe ten or fifteen times a day. Sometimes he'll redeem himself by conjugating a verb correctly or remembering what month comes after February. Also, when he can tell I'm annoyed, he likes to plop himself down on the floor, wrap both arms around my shin, and gurgle, "I love Nick Teacher." Once in a while this is endearing but usually it just makes me stumble and get more irritated.

I'm still trying to figure out if this kid really likes Me as I cram a pile of notebooks into his cheap, school-issued green backpack. I'm wondering if he will remember Me after I get out of this soul crushing dump in a few months. I spend a few thoughtful moments contemplating how the replacement teacher will be compared to Me, while simultaneously helping this uncoordinated mini-lout pull on his mittens and hat and tragically girlish jacket. Then he's ready to go. 

"Bye-bye Teacher!"

"Peace dude - catch you tomorrow! Don't let the snow leopards eat you on the way home!"*

We're smiling a lot and laughing - I'm not sure if my own laughter is forced or genuine. Compelling arguments can be made for either side. But I'm showing the right signs, at least. He'll be back tomorrow, and we'll have pretty much the same set of interactions, and once again I'll be thankful that sometimes our thoughts have no impact on how we actually live our lives. 

*This is the way I actually speak to my kids. I'm not sure why I haven't been fired yet.