Heet-bod-da-doot and a Club Brained Root-a-toot-toot Too

I am feeling a little self conscious now, with these sudo-words and all... I don’t know if I can really use them in something as serious as a blog. Well, let’s give it a try anyway.

Root-a-toot-toot is a word that my mom used to say to me. I think it had something to do with a train—maybe from the little train that could story that I remember. Root-a-toot-toot, right up over the last pass and down into the little town, or something like that.

Heet-bod-da-doot is another story that, regrettably, I was not able to discover until my life was almost 50 years over. It goes crudely like this: if I talk to Hashem in my prayers, why can’t I talk to him as if he were my friend, walking next to me? That is the general idea that comes down from Rebbe Nachman of Breslau. I am sure I am butchering up the idea since I have such a casual relationship with this subject... actually, I guess that is the point, isn’t it?

So, on the way home from work the other day (I seem to be using that lead-in a bit too often), I had a chat with Hashem. It felt weird at the time to call him Hashem, you know... ‘THE NAME,’ so I ended up just skipping ‘the name’ altogether. I found out that when I asked a question, I got an answer... and then another question too. When I answered the question, I had another question to ask, and so on. I figured out why it took me half of my life to figure out that there was something I was supposed to figure out, instead of just asking why all of the time. I also figured out what true enlightenment must be. I know, I know, it sounds sooooo.... corny!

So, if we were able to use more of our brains, since each of us only uses a fraction of it as it is, we would be able to store vast amounts of information in our heads—way more than any super-computer. If this were possible then I would be able to, not only notice, but to know why something like a little black and tan bug with one missing leg was sitting on a leaf of a plant just outside my house and across the street. That bug would have a reason for its existence in my universe and I would be able to understand what it was trying to tell me. This idea would expand out to every single thing within my perceptual reality. Everything would have a specific purpose that I was to learn and grow from, exponentially...

As it is, I feel like a cave-man with a club. All I notice are the things that I trip over as they, in slow motion and one at a time, bite me in the butt. As well, I only notice them as I am stumbling to regain my footing while trying to scrape up the leftovers of what I was supposed to have learned. I can only imagine what it would have been like for some of the great Torah scholars or even people like Albert Einstein. I think he used a bit more of his brain than most of us and seemed to, not only notice but, understand a bit more as well. He was still looking for the math to substantiate a universal theory, or something like that, when he moved on to the next world. Universal—everything is connected—everything has a purpose...

Ultimately, I was always meant to be here at this time. If I hadn’t screwed around so much when I was a kid, I would have known things like why I met my wife. As it was, I was still reeling from screwing around so much and had to make up for lost time. I spent about 15 years asking why... all the time. Now I am almost 50 and am starting to realize how much I missed and am going to have a hell of a time trying to catch up!

The more we know, the more we know that we don’t know,

The more we know that we don’t know, the more we want to know,

The more we want to know, the less we need to know...