I cut a guy I've known since 1978 out of my life.

[lenny]

I called J last night who I have known since 1978 when he was a really nice guy. I lost touch with him for a number of years and he changed and became vicious. He prided himself on making people cry in different offices where he worked as a consultant. He tried to get a waitress fired when I last saw him in 2009. I couldn’t believe it. I apologized to the waitress and said J was never like that before. J was in the street smoking a cigarette and blamed society for being crazy. His girlfriend at the time said he had been acting like that a lot. He hit her for telling his brother he was doing drugs which he had promised to stop taking and she left him, rightfully so.

I think J has poisoned himself with too much alcohol, cocaine, cigarettes over the years. He claims not to remember when we when we first met in 1978 in Israel. I know that cigarette smoking shrinks the frontal cortex of the brain.



Cigarette smoking causes brain shrinkage, and the more and longer a person smokes, the greater the damage is, according to a new study. Loss in brain volume raises the risk of cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Smoking cessation can help stop brain shrinkage, but it cannot be reversed.18 Dec 2023

If you want to read more you can find it here. It is a good reason to help relatives and friends to quit smoking cigarettes.


https://www.google.com/search?q=cigaret ... e&ie=UTF-8



I got sick emotionally from the call. It’s exacerbated by this virus and the stress of this insane war the last 13 months. I would like to make peace with Iran but they want to annihilate this country and have wanted to for decades.

I had cut J out of my life last year and then gave him another chance. I have had a virus for a week from doing too much exercise when I was on the verge of getting sick. I have been using hard training as a way to deal with the stress of this crazy place while we wait for Iran to launch the next attack which could be nuclear. There is no way to leave Israel now. The planes are all booked. I have a flight to Miami and it’s hurricane season until November 30 so it is probably no safer than Israel.

I will probably survive a nuclear attack since Iran does not have that many nukes (if they have any) and am too far from the intended impact zone (Israel military intelligence in Tel Aviv.) I read this
https://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Nuclear-Attack
and have enough food, water and supplies for a number of days and followed the instructions. I am not worried about it but am doing what I can. If I die then I am fine with it. I am 75 and would rather die than live with missile fragments and in pain and incapacitated for the rest of my life. There was a photo of a car with a missile in it a couple of miles from here. I have had to race to the special protective room in the middle of the night recently due to incoming missile alarms. I can get calm with deep breathing but this is very draining after 13 months of this war which has been a tragedy for all sides.

During the call, J said I was always sick emotionally which was not true and basically blamed me for his illness because I support Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Trump who will take away his health care. I was not even able to vote in Calfornia where I am registered (as if my one vote mattered) because the last I place lived was torn down and the county shows I never voted.

i don’t know how sick J is cause his brother told me months ago that J has a rare blood cancer which is under control and makes up stories depending on who he talks to. All J’s doctor visits are accompanied by his father who tapes all the visits. J has told me many different versions of the same story so I don’t know what to believe about how sick he really is and if Trump will cut off Medicaids which he claims is what is paying for his numerous doctor’s visits. I think he is a hypochondriac who is worried about global warming and a host of other issues he can’t control. He basically mindfucks himself at least with me and projects the worst possible outcomes as if they are all happening now. There is a really interesting book that describes this in detail.


This is the description from amazon.com.

At last, the missing piece of the dysfunctional puzzle. It is not enough to understand or even relive our childhood traumas. Dr. Wolinsky shows us how we continue to recreate those traumas in our adult lives and how to stop creating them. Every uncomfortable emotional state, and many psychosomatic symptoms, are also states of trance. Trance is the "glue" that holds the problem in the present moment. Learning to identify the kind of trance state beneath a problem or symptom gives us the tool that finally dissolves the glue. This book offers a gold-mine of resources for those who suffer from dysfunctional patterns of behavior or for anyone who feels stuck in an undesirable emotional or addictive state. Learning to step out of the trance states that create our problems and symptoms is to learn to step into the present moment at last free of the baggage from our past.

I have used this book in the past which helped me a lot and started to again. For the good of my mental health I decided to cut J out of my life permanently. I blocked his phone calls and his emails. I wrote my wife that if he calls to say i left the country and she has no idea where i am. I did try to be a friend but this is too much. he is a sick disturbed person who makes himself sick emotionally by focusing on negative things beyond his control and imagines they are all happening now at least it seems so from the call. I can not put up with him any longer. In northern California where I lived until 1996 I wanted to cut him out of my life and my wife said you can’t. This was the last straw. It made me think of this song I first heard in 1968 by Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXX5hsnENG8

It hurts because I have known him on and off for 46 years. My best friends in this life are from the dorm at Columbia University who I met in the fall of 1967 are dead. Two are dead and two fortunately are still alive. One lives in Athens Greece who I’d like to see before we die.

Life goes on until it doesn’t. It seems like yesterday that I met these people and a million years ago. Time passes much more quickly than it used to despite all the meditation, deep breathing, Chi Gung I started doing again. There haven’t been waves in weeks so I haven’t missed much.

Bram
I have been practicing waveki.com for the front side take off and have improved and can’t wait to start surfing again. Hope you catch some good waves.

[Bram]

Lenny,

Wishing you safety and good friendship in Israel!

Three times, I've ended a friendship over words or actions that I felt were irredeemable. One time, I brought up a decades-long habit a friend had that I found unacceptable. He chose to avoid taking responsibility for his actions. Was I right in any of these situations? I don't know. Were all these relationships toxic? Yes. Are the rest of my relationships toxic? No.

Hope you get to see your friend in Athens :)

Amazon links don't seem to work on my browser. Could you post the title and author?

Great job practicing WaveKi! Any carve boarding?

[lenny]

Bram
see PM

[Bram]

Responded.