Half & Half

        In response to the comments made on my post dated December 17, I will paraphrase David Lee Roth, who paraphrased somebody else:

You know you’re really onto something when half of the people really love what you’re doing....And the other half think you’re a complete jackass.

        I’m just getting warmed up.

        Happy Holidays.....

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and the jackass half of wrongs) Reserved.

Confessions Of A Blizzard Junkie

       I’m writing this from the Holiday Inn in Salem, New Hampshire. What am I doing up here? Simple. I’m an addict. And this is where my fix is.
        No. I’m not chasing the dragon. I’m chasing the storm. Hi. My name is Clint. And I’m a blizzard junkie.
        Admittedly, this is an peculiar addiction. There aren’t any meetings for it, anywhere. I’ve never met another member, and I’ve never even heard anybody else cop to it. Even the twelve steps are inapplicable.
        But this is an addiction. And I hope I never kick.
        Like every kid, as a boy I found the snow to be absolutely magical. Most people lose their fascination and excitement for the snow as they get older. Not me. My wonder and passion for it has actually deepened.
        I understand why people don’t like snow storms. They’re another disruptive element in an already hectic life. They screw up plans, throw a wrench in the schedule, take up precious time, and often have detrimental financial implications.
        There are a million reasons to hate the snow. And only one reason to love it. But that one reason, well it’s a whopper.
        The snow changes my experience of life.
        Whenever it snows, I experience life on a whole new continuum. It’s like being on a different planet, or existing in some strange fantastic parallel universe. Everything looks different. Sounds different. Smells different. Feels different. Both physically and metaphysically, the landscape is radically altered.
        Whenever it’s snowing, I’m certifiably happy and positively joyous. All because of some white stuff that falls from the sky. Tell me that’s not magic.
        This latest run to inject snow into my life was a rather impulsive decision. Although I contemplated chasing this storm for a few days, the actual decision to get up and do it was made on the spur of the moment. Cape Cod had just received a healthy dose of some premium product on Friday. I figured that I’d be satiated. But when I woke up on Sunday, and the forecast was rain, I started jonesing. I could feel the gremlin on my shoulder saying “Just a few short hours away, there’s a winter wonderland. You have to be in Boston on Monday anyway. Go on. Do it.” Within moments of hearing that voice, it was Gee-Oh. Game Over. I was gone within an hour.
        I realize that this sojourn into white may seem totally ludicrous to most. And I’m well aware of how illogical it is. But thankfully, I don’t base every decision on logic.
        Is storm chasing an efficient use of resources? Nope. Is it certifiably crazy? Maybe. Is it inspired action? Oh Yeah, Baby. And whenever I live from inspired action, I’m lead to life’s treasures. One way or another.
        I like to think of myself as a big picture sort of person. And the big picture is that whatever I could have gotten done by staying home can get done another day. It’s still going to be there. But the snow storm is ethereal. Transient. Weather Witchcraft. Like lightning in a bottle. To catch it, I have to operate from a sacred place. From an artist’s place. Where imagination is more important than knowledge. Where my heart and soul lead my mind and body. Where inspired action is far more valuable than reason or logic.
        So I chased the storm and entered my whimsical world once more. I’ve been here all day. I never regret doing that. Especially this time of year.
        Snow. The other white drug. Want a hit?

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a snow storm worth of Wrongs) Reserved

Clint's Mind Fuck Tours, Inc.

Note: I wrote this several days ago. It was going to be yesterday’s post. But the Dark Side was strong in me yesterday, and I was compelled to do something different. When I can articulate where I was at when I posted yesterday, I'll share that. Thanks for reading.

        Another bout of mental necrophilia. This time about something completely different. And like a bus that lies about where it’s going, when I hop on this mind fuck tour, I think it’s about somebody else. Or something else. So off I go, and before I know it, it’s clear that this is about me. So I end up in a different place than I thought I would. The destination is never the one that flashes on the marquee on the front of the bus. And as many times as I take this trip, I’m always surprised by that.
        Clint’s Mind Fuck Tours, Inc. has been around for as long as I’ve been able to think. I’ve tried to take this line to solutions a million different times, and it always fails me. It promises me a safe trip in the form of guided action. It guarantees resolution through adept problem solving and analytical know how. But once I get on, it’s a nightmare. And where it takes me, if I let it, is hell.
        Maybe it’s time to change bus companies.
        I’ve made progress in that area. Before, I would get on this bus and ride it until the end of the line. Sometimes the trip would take weeks. And when I reached my final destination, I would have no idea where I’d been. Worse, I’d have no idea where I was. So I would convince myself that the trip was a good one, and that I ended up where I wanted to be. I had to do that then. Because I wasn’t aware enough to understand what had happened. And I wasn’t strong enough or wise enough to admit that I had just made a colossal blunder by taking this fuckin’ bus. Again. Denial was my only option then.
        It’s not now. Now I’m learning that this ramshackle tour company is not the way to travel.
        Clint’s Mind Fuck Tours, Inc. is therefore going out of business. But as much as I want it to, it’s not going away overnight.
        I still take it far too often. But I don’t stay on as long. I know now where this bankrupt operation is taking me, and I get off quicker.
        Previously, I was just a passive passenger on this juggernaut that was speeding through life, running over whatever it had to to get where it wasn’t going. And whatever it couldn’t run over, it just swerved around. Just like in the movie “Speed”.
        When I let my reckless mind take me on this ride, it’s an awful trip. It’s painful, and disruptive, and it takes me out of my current life and into my past. My very painful past, where I didn’t have the tools or the support I have now. Where I was a different person who did life differently. It sucks me back in and does everything it can to convince me that I’m back at camp, or alone at school, or any one of a million different traumatic scenarios that are no longer applicable. My mind does not want to recognize that I have grown beyond that. It wants to keep me stuck there. And sometimes I let it. And when I do, it hurts so much I can get lost in the pain. Completely lost. “Gilligan’s Island” lost. “Lost” lost.
        My mind also loves to predict the future, but it’s usually wrong. Does that stop it? No way. It actually encourages it, because it wants to eventually be good at predicting the future and therefore get it right. Because my mind can’t stand failure. So it tries even harder. Gathers more information, devotes more resources to figuring it out, takes up more space. All of which generally just takes me out of life and fucks me up.
        When I catch myself and choose to step off of this nightmare bus ride, I have the opportunity to connect to something else. I give myself the chance to connect to something that can take me where I need to go.
        Deep within me, there is a center that knows where I need to be and has what it takes to get me there. That’s Clint’s Heart and Intuition Spiritual Tour Bus Line. But getting on that bus is not easy for me. Not yet.
        That bus is still sometimes hard to find. I have to first get on the Mind Fuck bus and realize that I’m going nowhere fast. I have to go through all of this pain to realize that I’m on the wrong path and that there’s another route available.
        I’m in transition between these two routes right now. Letting go of the old ways is still very difficult. Sometimes it feels impossible. Like an addiction. I’m not used to the route yet. It’s still a great unknown. And as much as I know it is the way, I don’t completely trust it.
        That’s why I keep getting challenged to trust. I keep being presented with opportunities to do it different because, fuck, I need the practice. I’ve got forty plus years of doing it the old way. If I’m going to get better at taking a different path, I better learn to travel down it, and travel it as often as possible. I hate that about this work, but I know it’s true.
        So here I go, closing one company and starting another one. A better one. One that can take me where I want to go. One that enriches my life, instead of distracting from it.
        And just like starting a new business on the outside, starting a new one on the inside takes a lot of work. It takes the support of those around me. It involves taking risks, sometimes incredibly big, scary risks. It takes faith in myself. It means following my true inner voice, when other voices inside of me and outside of me tell me that I’m crazy.
        And it takes love. Love of self. Love of others. Love of life.
        Amazing to me how it always boils down to that.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a bus full of Wrongs) Reserved

FUCK YOU GOD.

That's what I've been screaming all morning. That's how I feel. That's today's post.

Heart Body

       A few days ago, somebody reminded me of how resilient the heart is. How it can be broken, sometimes repeatedly, and still come back to love again. I have recently learned how true that is. My heart exercised it’s resiliency when I finally allowed it to be torn apart.
        This is counter intuitive. And for myself, being a personal trainer and long time exercise fiend, it’s double-secret-probation counter intuitive. I’ve lived according to the axiom that you make something stronger and better by building it up. When it came to my heart, I interpreted that as fortification. Make it harder and tougher, at least on the outside. To build a strong heart, one that could deal with heartache, I had to fortify it so that it could withstand the blows of life. Or the sharp deadly arrows of another.
        Looking at that philosophy now, it’s clear to me how flawed my strategy was. Because I wasn’t building a stronger heart. I was building a stronger wall around a heart that I thought was weak. The way a garrison would build a fort around a town full of children.
        And my heart was, and still is, like a child. Or should I say, like a happy, well adjusted child. Playful and open, ready for the next...whatever. Excitable and wild. Spontaneous and sincere. Passionate, and absolutely gushing with what it can do. Wanting so much to give and receive love.
        My heart was always that way, but the fort I had built around it didn’t allow that light to shine through enough. Like a child who isn’t allowed to come and play, my heart yearned, but was denied it’s sustenance because my walls were keeping too much out. And too much in. It’s what walls do. And they did their job. But the child of my heart was still inside, suffocating. Starving. Lonely.
        My whole life, I thought the way to a strong heart was to protect it by building a a fort around it. But I was wrong. The way to a strong heart is to open it up and let it do what it was created to do. Put it out there and let it run and create and feel. Let it go unfettered and see what it can do. Use it. Let it exercise. Let it love.
        Like a twist on the old “child for the path” metaphor. Don’t prepare the journey for the heart. Prepare the heart for the journey. By letting it out.
        So, actually, my exercise analogy is totally applicable. Because instead of protecting my heart with walls, or with a suit of armor, I let let it run free. I let it dance and play. I let it go and see where it takes me, as anyone regularly reading this blog can attest. Wild at heart. And just as children get stronger and healthier and happier by doing that, so does my heart. And therefore so do I.
        I’ve worked out for thirty years, since I was fifteen. Up until very recently, I subconsciously related to my body as a veritable suit of armor. A encasement that would protect a very tender place deep inside of me. Now, I still work hard at building a strong, healthy body. But my relationship to the process, and to what I’m building, is radically different. No longer a suit of iron, I look at my body as well conditioned vehicle that’s carrying very precious cargo. That shift, not only in my thinking but in how I relate to myself, has allowed me to build stronger, healthier, freer, dare I say more beautiful, body. Certainly a body better suited for my life.
        No longer used to protect. Or defend. My body now serves the purpose of being a vessel through which I carry all of myself into the world. A spaciously limited but metaphysically vast movable home that brings it’s practically limitless contents with it, wherever it goes. Nothing else on earth can do that. Nothing that humans have ever created. No inanimate object in the universe. Only the body. How fuckin’ exquisite.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a body full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Click on the photo abpove to see more portrait shots of yours truly done by a great photographer named Jernnifer Devlin. Click HERE to go to her website.