Missives from Samsara

My kind friend picked us up from our hotel to take us to the airport, but when I opened the back of his car to fetch our luggage, my heart hit the gas pedal. Missing was my suitcase with all my clothes. Anyone who has known me for a few decades knows this is the sort of thing I did a lot in my 20s. Since then though, I’ve become pretty good at not being forgetful or absent minded.

With my heart still working overtime I called the hotel from the curb and was disappointed to hear (after an excruciating wait on hold before a human got on the line) that they didn’t have my bag. That made no sense. My buddy provided good advice: call ‘em back in half an hour once you’re at your gate. Once we said our goodbyes and headed into the (quite lovely and small) Santa Barbara airport, I was in full Dharma Practice Mode, focusing hard on ‘letting go’ of what I was not in charge of any more. Honestly, I thought I did a pretty good job, though my wife would likely disagree with that assessment. Compared to me ten or twenty years ago, I was definitely handling things relatively well in my head.

Once we got some grub and found a spot of wall to hunker down at, I called the hotel again. This time they said they had the bag and would be happy to send it back to me UPS and that they’d use the credit card info they had on file. The cascade of positive feeling that flooded my body upon hearing the good news was better than I anticipated it would be. I’d liken it to the experience I had seeing Rush outside Philly back in 2004 and realizing after an amazing 9 songs in the first set, that I still had YYZ, The Trees, The Seeker, and One Little Victory left in the first set. Pure bliss!

Needless to say I feel grateful that my absentmindedness didn’t cost me too much. I will also go forth with more vigilance and spacial awareness, at least until this lesson has faded, as they all do. Shout out to Santa Barabara too, for coming through with the save. My friend’s helpful vibes and final text from yesterday sums up my departing sentiments exactly.

Today was the day one of the nine Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court is visiting my school. Pretty freaking cool! Problem is, I came down with a gnarly cold on Tuesday. I ended up taking Wednesday off from work but I spent a fair bit of bandwidth worrying about what to do if I was not feeling great when I woke up this morning.

On the one hand I realized seeing Justice Jackson speak in person with my AP Gov students is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. On the other hand, I knew I didn’t want to get anyone sick and I certainly didn’t want to get any sicker. There’s also the fact that once we were are in the library, we couldn’t leave and come back because a live radio program was broadcasting the talk.

This morning, like I always do, I went into my ‘Stoic and Buddhist Wisdom” Notebook LM and asked it to give me some helpful reminders. Part of today’s response is below. The first bit of advice, specifically the part about irrational fears, landed perfectly because it spoke to the niggling worry I had all day yesterday about how things would turn out today. The bottom line, I was reminded, is that spending mental energy yesterday worrying about how today would play out was not wise. Both the Stoics and the Buddhists argued against getting caught up in worries about things beyond our control. Indeed, I felt better enough to go to school today so my worries about missing the opportunity were for naught. Had things gone the other way, that would’ve been alright, too.

My daily reminder protocol spits out simple advice, but it was very helpful to hear this morning.

More on the Justice Jackson visit in the coming days.

I was at the mall with my kiddo today and we wound up in a Sephora to get something my kid needed. When making the purchase, I was asked for my phone number. I declined, and was asked for it again. I declined for a second time. I was then told I could ‘share my points with someone else." I didn’t know what the clerk was talking about and I think my politeness meter had declined somewhat noticably (at least that is what my child told me once we’d left). I realize this sort of retail experience is common. Nevertheless, it seriously grates. Indeed, over the years I have evolved a habit of not sharing my personal info with brick and mortar retailers because I don’t trust them.

When I got home I did some poking around and wouldn’t you know it, apparently Sephora (owned by European luxury giant LVMH), was busted in 2022 by the state of California for mishandling customer data. According to the article linked here, “Sephora failed to tell customers that it was selling their personal information, failed to allow customers to opt out of that sale, and didn’t fix the problem within 30 days as required by the law, even after it was notified of the violation, state officials said.” Shocker.

My experience at the mall was a good reminder that distrusting large retailers is probably a good idea.

Tomorrow is the start of Lunar New Year, celebrated by billions of people around the world. I know very little about the holiday and celebration, though I have picked up a few things from teaching, as I have always taught a large number of Vietnamese-American kids.

This year is the Year of the Fire Horse, not to be confused with the usual Year of the Horse. According to a description I found online, the Fire Horse “symbolizes speed and freedom…[and is] is associated with dramatic, chaotic, and revolutionary changes, favoring bold, fearless, and proactive decisions over cautious ones.” With AI, global climate change, rising authoratarianism, and America’s obvious decline, I’m a bit wary of ‘dramatic, chaotic, and revolutionary changes.’ Oh well, we’ll see.

I happened to be born in the Chinese Year of the Pig. As an American, that sounds pretty awful, but I poked around a bit and discovered that it isn’t as bad as it sounds! See description below from www.chinesenewyear.net