And his good friend Harvey...

There's a new client at work...

He has a friend named Andres that has been known to occasionally exert a bad influence on the client in question. Apparently Andres helped get him involved with drugs, and later with crime, assisting the client in some of his illegal hijinx. As it turns out, Andres doesn't actually exist. At least he doesn't exist in the mortal plane you and I now occupy. Now, I've had a lot of clients in my time, some highly functional, some not as much, but this is the first time that I've been around a person that doesn't exist, unless you count taking pictures with Santa at the mall when I was a kid. Add to that his interesting habit of standing around for about 30 seconds before responding to a question, and we've got a real challenge on our hands!

On Friday afternoon, while I was looking forward to the weekend, I was standing near the client not really saying or doing anything, and he turns to me and says, "He's taken pieces of me that I'll never get back." Then he turned and walked away. I may not forget that for a long time... "He's taken pieces of me that I'll never get back."

*shakes head*

The Birth Of Words

So Ansley was discussing on her blog whether or not it was alright to feel pride in your work... and I must admit that my first reaction was more along the lines of "well duhhh...." But that made me think about the meanings of the words that we have, that we use, or even don't use very often. There's an exchange in the Matrix Revolutions that makes me think about that. Neo is speaking to Rama, who is, in fact, a computer program:

Neo: I just have never...
Rama-Kandra: ...heard a program speak of love?
Neo: It's a... human emotion.
Rama-Kandra: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies. I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?
Neo: Anything.
Rama-Kandra: Then perhaps the reason you're here is not so different from the reason I'm here.

They go on to discuss Rama's daughter, Sati, and how Rama is attempting to save her from her fate in the machine world, concluding with:

Rama-Kandra: That is our karma.
Neo: You believe in karma?
Rama-Kandra: Karma's a word. Like "love". A way of saying 'what I am here to do.' I do not resent my karma - I'm grateful for it. Grateful for my wonderful wife, for my beautiful daughter. They are gifts. And so I do what I must do to honour them.

See, here's the thing. I'm bilingual, so I understand that words that we use are mere verbal constructs wrapped around an idea, thought, or concept that we're trying to communicate to another person. Words fail us. English is a delightful language, but can it really describe karma? There are words and phrases that I used often in Japanese that just don't translate into English. I imagine there are lots of things that work like that. I wonder why God made a world in which only small portions of the inhabitants are able to effectively communicate one with another? I speak the same language as my wife and we have a hard enough time seeing eye to eye as it is!

Life or Something Like It.

I work, come home, spend time with the wife, and on the weekends we try to have a little adventure. I read, I think, and I play a bit. Sadly, I haven't blogged about it. My job makes me question my view of the world. This is not a bad thing. I like having a different sense of perspicacity. I ask myself questions I've never asked before, and I see things from a different view that I've never had to consider.

Things like:

When should a person be forgiven? I mean for doing truly awful things... The Doctrine & Covenants and Bible both say that there is no forgiveness in this world or the next for someone who commits murder... but I actually know some murderers now. Who am I to say they're not worthy of that? Where does mental illness come into play? Is there really such a limit to something like the atonement? The scriptures say yes but my heart doesn't seem to agree. I have no conclusion.

Are some people not worth the effort to help? I have a wide variety of clients who take their recovery and treatment to a varying degree of seriousness. Is it not more effective to spend more energy helping people that deserve it? But on the other hand, doesn't everyone deserve a chance... the same chance?

It may sound negative, but I like that I have a job that stretches and challenges me emotionally, professionally, educationally and mentally. My wife is glad that I work at a place that appreciates me, as opposed to a vampiric institution like Northwest Behavioral.

New Toy.

So, I wheeled and dealed and canoodled and got myself a new iPod.



So you might be asking "Wait, didn't you already have one, goofball?" and the answer would be... Yeah, but this one is NEW. Old and busted versus new hotness. They retooled the iPod line, and this one had a couple cool new features for the same price ($300) as the one I got last year. The new iPod 5th Generations are thinner, lighter, come in a color other than white (finally), have a much larger COLOR LCD screen, can play VIDEO, and hold 10 gigs more than the original entry model... basically everything that made my iPod cool just got cooler. They're new enough that my old one was still selling for a decent price on ebay, so I made most of the purchase price of a new one from that. So now it's ticking away here as I upload my entire music collection. Gosh... these things are so cool! The saying is "I thought I was happy, then I got an iPod". I like being able to carry every song I've ever downloaded and every CD I ever listen to in a cool looking sleek device that weighs 4.8 ounces and is only .4 inches thick!