Oh Great GURU!!!

I like the word “guru.” I like the idea of gurus, and I believe that gurus are important. I don’t associate the word with some kind of undesirable lifestyle or something. That’s dumb. I have already pointed out that I do not like experts. Gurus–good. Experts–bad.

So I’m weird.

My great guru, Shamus Young, wrote this wonderful blog post which says a lot of things I wish I had said. In fact, I wish I had written the piece. But I didn’t. That’s what a guru is for. It’s not about finding a resource that’s a good place to find information. That would be an expert and they’re only worth today’s going rate on the expert exchange. A guru, on the other hand, is a font of infinite wisdom. There is no shortage. Why dig a well when there is water flowing everywhere?

One way I can emulate my guru is to share some of my personal business on this blog. Yeah. That’s a good idea. So I’m depressed. I have battled with “clinical depression” off and on for years–usually when I hear the word “clinical” said with a straight face. *Shudder*.

It’s not an easy thing to write a bad novel. It’s an exercise in agony to write a good one. I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself. I’ve lost all sense of perspective. Anyway, the strain of writing is not what you might think it is if you deliver microwave ovens and do custom kitchen delivery for a living. You probably figure that writing is easy work–money for nothing and chicks for free.

Well, you be wrong. Serious writing is like going into therapy and actually doing the work. To begin to write something of merit is to hang your soul out the window and leave it for the crows to peck at for a few days.

In a way, I’m sorry I started this. But, having written over 150,000 words and clearly moving in on the end of the book (the first in a series–oh lord) I’m going to press on. I hope this provides a tiny bit of an explanation as to why my blog entries appear to have been written by someone with a demanding, full-time job, even though I’m anything but.

I need my plastic model kits. It’s not a “want” or “like” thing. It’s a big part of my keeping my head screwed on straight. Thanks to my guru, I’ve been able to see that this isn’t really about the latest high-tech after-market goodies from some formerly soviet country–it’s more personal and serious than that.

I can put off, avoid and delay my “model building time” in the name of manly virtue and “getting things done” but that IS NOT SMART. I will pay tomorrow. If I stay away from the workbench, I risk serious emotional trouble. I understand that they have pills for this sort of thing. I took some of them for a while, until I realized that I have an allergy to them. My allergic reaction is to turn into a true sociopath. Hell, I enjoyed it– but it’s not a good way to go. For many reasons. You understand the “sociopath” part, right?

Fortunately, I realized what was going on, I literally flushed the pills down the john like a scene from a movie, and I swore off SSRI’s for the rest of eternity.

Seriously. I did.

Now, I keep my mood under control using a number of good, wholesome, ways to keep mentally and emotionally fit. One of those ways is plastic model kits. I feel the pressure to “measure up” to internet perfection, but I can’t really be bothered to attempt it. My work here is really just a stab in the dark–hoping that somebody will learn a few things that I learned the hard way. I’m just passing it along.

But the number one objective, the prime directive, is to keep my head in a happy place and if I build bad models to do it–then I’ll just go right on ahead and build them. The badder the better. At a certain point, putting other work ahead of “me time” is not just counterproductive, it’s dangerous. I need, from time to time, to stop screwing around and do some model building. It isn’t optional.

We don’t live in an enlightened age as far as mental health is concerned. We are living in dark ages. But if you can get a good, solid grip on your own situation, including that stuff that you need to deal with and all the ways that you feel better, then you are way, way down the road to having what is called “a positive outcome.”

The Ouragan just bummed me out every time I looked at it. I guess I can’t build Israeli equipment until the situation in the middle east changes. Got that?

So here’s Mr. Hasegawa Hurricane. Battle of Britain.

Nice. Low stress.

Great decal sheet. Anybody says one word about “thick decals” gets banned.

God. That felt good.

3 Replies to “Oh Great GURU!!!”

  1. Yeah. I’ve been messed up since age 19. I have tried to thank everyone who saved my life on multiple occasions over the years. Anyhow modeling, yes it is great therapy for me. I finally think I have tapered off OCD kit buying and even made a list of stuff to sell. I’d say the best thing in a long while was restoring two Aurora WW1 kits I built back in the 50’s. I share your insight about old guys kits ending up in estate sales, a soul fate like Limbo I guess, I’m not catholic by the way.

  2. So I learned something about heroin Addiction they don’t teach in school … in Gregory Roberts novel ‘Shantaram’, in which he tells of his last struggle with Heroin. The reason it’s so incredibly hard to go ‘cold turkey’ … Heroin depletes all the serotinin in the brain… so when you stop the Heroin your mind-body goes into total physical and mental pain, cause there’s nothing left to make life bearable. It takes three weeks to start making serotonin.. three weeks that few people can survive.

    1. During one of my adventures I ended up spending some time in a California jail. I overheard– didn’t see– some poor miserable fellow coming off heroin. The sound alone was enough to scare me away from opiates for the rest of my life, and I’m not THAT easy to scare!

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