SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The weird thing about writing is that it forces you to constantly monitor your thoughts, translate them into words, and then figure out what they mean. (To you, and to others.)

Going through our daily lives, our thoughts come and go, drifting through our minds with a random, relentless rapidness (alliteration alert!) that would be almost comic if so many of them weren't so strange and unclassifiable; we usually don't stop and take stock of them. (Unless you're seriously into Buddhism, of course, where you can sit and chill in the lotus position, keeping mental score of what you think about all day long. Could be scary.)

We think something, then something else, then something else. That's what life is -- a succession of thoughts we try to grasp hold of, then clarify. I can be sitting here typing a post about writing, and suddenly I'm thinking about one of the teachers at my elementary school, Miss Watson, large and kind, calmly sitting in the centre of a circle while a group of kids shrieked their way through 'Kumbaya'. I wasn't planning on writing about her; wasn't thinking about her at all. But there it was, that blast from the past, and what does that mean? What neurons or photons or protons or whatever-they're-called are firing their synapses off in my brain? And what compels us to put them down in concrete form?

I think writing is like speech, which means it's freakin' bizarre, is what I'm saying. What goes on in her heads is somehow transferred to our fingers (tapping keys) and our lips (forming shapes). Out comes something approaching, hopefully, wisdom or insight or, most of the time, if we're lucky, comprehension.

And how much of these thoughts bopping around in our heads do we control? It's interesting, because I think, to a certain degree, we can control our emotions. (I just remembered that Jenn at www.1ljenn.blogspot.com had a similar post about controlling your emotions awhile back, I think, so maybe I'm unconsciously-and-now-consciously stealing her idea. Not a good thing to do from a future lawyer, I know, but...) If we are sad, we can pop a Jim Carrey movie into the DVD player. (If you think he's funny, of course.) If you're angry, you can try and think warm, soothing thoughts. If you're happy, you can think of even happier thoughts and continue in your state of bliss.

In other words, you can will your emotions; I do believe that. You can choose which emotions to have, at which time. (By no means is this easy, or always possible, but I think when we feel ourselves in a funk, we tend to dwell in that funk, make it our home, hang a mental sign on the door that says 'do not disturb'; when we are happy, we do what we can to stay happy.)

But thoughts?

Thoughts are formed by the colour of the sky and the song on the radio and the latch on the door that won't stay latched and the slow and steady trickle of snot that is sneaking its way down your nephew's face against his will and the sound of popcorn popping and the fact that your foot on the brake thankfully, one could say miraculously, pushed down just in time, right on time, avoiding the slightly annoying autistic kid crossing the road who would, otherwise, have been toast, buttered and jammed, and the myriad and multiple other things that control and contain and liberate us on a yearly, monthly, weekly, hourly, second-by second basis. (Not that that autistic kid was annoying because he was autistic, of course, but because of the fact that his mother always dresses him in a bright green coat that makes him look not like Green Lantern, which would be cool, but Kermit the Frog, which is decidedly uncool. And did you know that Sylvester Stallone has an autistic son? Close to my age, actually. And do you see how stupid and cracked my thoughts can get?!? Somebody stop me...)

All we can do is see what comes up and out of our heads, try to figure out what to do with them, and then see how they affect the (so-called) real world around us.

And hope they don't do any damage.

THE C.I.A., DREW CAREY, POLITICS, ST.ELSEWHERE, AND WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOUR BOSS JUST... AIN'T... LISTENING TO YOU

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."

-- Drew Carey

The C.I.A. is America's elite intelligence service, conspiring and plotting and planning with some pretty shady characters in all corners of the globe, known for its covert, relentless attempts to achieve whatever it is that it wants to achieve, at whatever the cost -- so I was pretty surprised to see its new director, Porter J.Gross, basically whining about his new job in public.

The other day he gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where he mentioned how he had to spend five hours a day simply preparing President Bush's daily security briefings; he also said: "The jobs I'm being asked to do, the five hats that I wear, are too much for this mortal." He went on to mention that he's not exactly sure what his duties are, given all of the new intelligence apparatuses that are now being established.

Doesn't this strike anyone else as supremely, possibly galactically, weird?

Bush thinks so -- he went to C.I.A. headquarters yesterday for some much-needed morale boosting and damage control.

Think about it. Put aside the fact that the C.I.A. has a pretty strong, secure image it has to uphold and maintain. Put aside the fact that its new director is basically saying he's stressed, overworked, can't handle it. Just think of it from the 'new job' angle -- can you imagine the CEO of McDonald's, Procter-Gamble or Toshiba reading a speech where he states, quite clearly, that the demands of the job are too much for him to handle. I've never heard of that, anywhere, by anyone. Is he shooting himself in the foot?

Maybe not.

Before travelling abroad, I was basically politically ignorant, but I now I try to follow what governments say and do, and why. (I'm usually wrong, but...) And I'm starting to think that politics is all about the signals you send. It's all about indirection.

So brand-new-CIA-director Gross says publicly, at a major event at a major institution, that his job sucks big time, and he's not sure what he's supposed to do, and what signal does that send to Dubya?

It says: We're in trouble here. Things aren't working. And if you aren't going to pay attention to me, I'm going to say this publicly, loud and clear, plain and simple. Maybe his whining was a ploy and a tactic; seems like it, anyways.

I just find this fascinating. (But I also found the final episode of St.Elsewhere fascinating, too, so there you go. The thing is, it actually was a really weird episode, because it turned out that the whole hospital, the whole series, for that matter, all took place in the imagination of a young autistic boy who stared for hours on end at a little shake-em-up-and-watch-the-snow-fall-Christmas-thingee that held a tiny building that looked exactly like the hospital. It was all a dream, the whole show. Haven't seen the series since I was a kid, but I remember liking it even then. Denzel Washington started out there. Canadian comedian Howie Mandel was suprisingly effective in a dramatic turn. But what the hell was that snow globe about, anyway?)

Politics is a big game that involves money, power and death. Assassinations. Coups. The media. Even fashion. (I'm serious. Imagine Laura Bush strolling out onto a stage dressed like Courtney Love. People would freak out. Actually, the same thing would happen if the opposite occurred, too, only there would probably be more beer involved. And crystal meth. Not that Laura doesn't partake in a little of both now and then.)

And sometimes, if your boss isn't listening well, all you have to do is give a speech.

And then call it a day, take Drew Carey's advice, and head on over to the bar. There'll be a lot of folks waiting for you.