Back to the basics, more deeply

Recently I finished reading AA's "Big Book" for the first time after 30 years of sobriety. The fact that it took me so long is evidence of just what a stubbornly individualistic jackass I can be, but also of the fact that I've had a lot to read and do during those 30 years and also the fact that it's really not meant to be read in one fell swoop. Reading the personal stories of the alcoholics whose lives were changed by AA one after another -- even when spread out over weeks or months -- gets rather repetitive. Reading them individually, sprinkled into life as it is being lived -- as I have over time in various meetings when they are read aloud -- that offers the possibility of magic.

The first part of the book, the core written by Bill Wilson back in 1939, that is truly special. He wasn't a great great writer and it's not always brilliant, but then it wasn't supposed to be. It is deadly earnest and from the heart and it changed a bunch of people's lives, which is all that matters.

It's also an interesting document insofar as it gives insight into what it was like to live in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. At some level I'm pretty amazed at how much one could fuck up and keep a job and/or marriage before getting the boot. Though most of the alcoholics eventually do run into trouble, just enough trouble to realize they need help, and they know full well how fortunate they are to get it.

Now I am on to reading something else I've had on my shelf for a long time but never read: the King James edition of the Bible. In fact, it's the same physical book I was given in childhood at St Phillips in Durham which has followed me around all those years. So far, so good. I'll report back.

I am also following up on a meme I've seen on the internet that sounds interesting. I've been regularly doing sit ups and push ups all through the pandemic after my morning meditation while the coffee brews. Somebody on YouTube suggested that doing 100 push ups a day for a month would have a meaningful effect on one's physique. I am one day into this program and am putting it out here on the blog to encourage myself to stay at it.