I read a nice entry in Al Cosgrove's blog, thought I'd copy this."A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. "It's overfull! No more will go in!" the professor blurted. "You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.""
I had a Zen-like experience recently. I was taking the bus, pondering about (more like mourning) my recent troubles with relationships. And I was thinking of George Clooney's comment in Vanity Fair about dating. This is what the article quoted him as saying.
“Here's the great thing about dating,” Clooney says. "You get to start over and go, 'I'm a really nice guy.' And, by virtue of saying it, you can be it. You can actually decide, O.K., now I'm a really nice guy. "
After couple of months of playing the drama queen in the Manfield Chronicles, where I've incarnated through the vindictive bitch, the sour grape, the emotionally challenged rainman and Miranda Priestly (Devil Wears...) I've tried to step back, dissociate and see the big picture. And on the bus, I took the comment from Clooney, and decided to be the nice guy on my next date. However, instead of going on a new date, I decided to hit the reset button on my past one.
Is it working? Well, I'm a nicer guy at the least. Rest, time will tell.
The picture accompanying this blog entry is from one of my most favorite movies of all time, and from one of the scenes that I've played in my head over and over again so many times that I can almost recite the scene line by line. The movie is Out of Sight, and in the scene, J.Lo and Clooney have met at a bar, and are trying to pretend not to know each other. The entire script is available at Drew's Script-O-Rama, but I'm quoting the banter that I play in my head. Enjoy.
- Can I buy you a drink?
- Yeah, I'd love one. Sit down.
- I'm Gary.
- I'm Celeste. It takes forever to get a drink.There's only one waitress.
- I can go to the bar.
- Oh, don't go.
- Are those guys bothering you?
- No, they're fine.I mean, you just got here. Here, help yourself.
- You like bourbon?
- I love it.
- We got that out of the way. Tell me, Celeste, what do you do for a living?
- I'm a sales rep,and I came here to call on a customer, but they gave me a hard time 'cause I'm a girl.
- Is that how you think of yourself?
- As a sales rep?
- As a girl.
- Yeah, I don't have a problem with it.
- I like your hair. I like your outfit.
- Actually, this is my second favorite outfit. I had a first favorite, but it got ruined and I had to get rid of it.
- You did?
- It smelled.
- Really? Having it cleaned didn't help?
- No. So tell me, Gary,what do you do for a living?
- How far do you want to go with this?
- Don't say anything yet. I don't think it works if we're somebody else. I mean, Gary and Celeste, what do they know about anything?
- Well, this is your game, I've never played before.
- It's not a game. It's not something you play.
- Well, does this make any sense to you?
- It doesn't have to. It's something that happens. It's like seeing someone for the first time...like you could be passing on the street, and you look at each other and for a few seconds... there's this kind of a recognition... like you both know something. The next moment,the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it. And you always remember it, because it was there, and you let it go, and you think to yourself, "What if I had stopped? If I had said something?"
- What if?
- What if? And it may only happen a few times in your life.
- Or once.
- Or once.
