I’m sipping coffee and feeling irritated by something I read. I decide not to rant about it, and sit quietly reflecting on it instead. Words can come later. It makes sense to “get my head right” before I start blathering foolishly about something I’ve had an emotional reaction to, but about which I lack clarity of thought. All in good time, eh? Other voices can lead with emotions, I’ll sit this one out for a time.
… This is sometimes a difficult choice to make…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve taken the day off work to handle a project with the help of the Anxious Adventurer, wrapping up the move of household goods between storage units. The clock is ticking, but there’s only the largest items left, and we’ve got a truck for all that. Soon. For now, I sit with my coffee and my thoughts.
I am thinking about language, and the way it functions, which is to say “by agreement”. Without a shared understanding of the definitions of terms being used, there is no reliably good communication. No “understanding”. How often do you pause a contentious conversation to clarify the meanings of key words and phrases? How often do you verify that you and those you are conversing with have a shared understanding of what words mean? Conmen, grifters, “marketing experts”, and all manner of manipulative individuals, rely on the likelihood that we can be persuaded to think or behave in some useful way based on what we thought we understood them to have said, without clearly understanding what they actually meant by the words they used. Just saying it’s generally a good idea to check in on such things, to verify shared understanding of words being used, and to avoid being misled by misused language.
I watch daybreak arrive, thinking my thoughts. Lovely quiet morning, so far. Soon enough it will be time to begin again. Already.
A friend asked me a question, and asked for “some steps, you know, some basic practices” because they were “freaking out with all this chaos and scary shit going on” (I know, me too, right?). I said I’d do my best. I hope it helps. ❤
Where does this path lead?
Sometimes it’s a difficult journey, this “life” thing, eh? It doesn’t have to be has difficult as it sometimes seems. It is an unfortunate truth that we often complicate our situation needlessly, sometimes through poor decision-making, sometimes through lack of clarity in our thinking, sometimes just because we have feelings and don’t reliably deal with those skillfully. But, the good news is that we do actually have choices, and tools at our disposal (like critical thinking, perspective, and non-attachment). We can take things a step at a time…
Start where you are. Any journey is more difficult if you are trying to begin from somewhere other than where you actually stand. Honest self-reflection, acceptance, and making a point to test your assumptions and reality check your expectations is really useful.
Breathe, exhale, relax. Maybe you don’t have “a meditation practice”. Maybe you don’t need one? It’s reliably helpful to “take a minute” to calm yourself when you are stressed out. Change your perspective or your environment, however briefly, and break out of your rumination or your stress spiral. Let small shit stay small. Let things go that you’re getting hung up on, if only for a little while. Take a break. Walk away from it.
Take care of your “fragile vessel”. Such a simple thing – self-care really matters, particularly when life feels hardest. Are you getting enough rest? Are you eating healthy meals? Drinking enough water? How about a shower and some clean clothes? Have you taken prescription medications that may affect your feeling of wellness (or failed to take them)? Are you in pain – and are you doing something to ease that, if you can?
No media, no doomscrolling. This one is a small thing, but a big deal; if you’re already stressed to the breaking point, feeling overwhelmed, or struggling to manage the details in your life, I promise you that reading the news, or doomscrolling endlessly through various feeds on your device(s) is not helpful. Put it down. Silence your notifications. Put the device on Do Not Disturb. Walk away from the tether that ties you to constant demands for your attention. Go outside. Take a walk. Read a book. Sit down over a cup of tea or coffee with an actual human being out in the world and have a conversation. (See point 2.)
Put things into perspective. This one is both difficult and easy. Easy to say, sometimes more difficult to put into practice, just being real with you. Your perspective on a difficult moment may be filtered through the lens of the stress you feel, or prior experiences that weren’t really quite the same. You may be struggling with your chaos and damage, and past traumas may be coloring your understanding. Take a step back. (Don’t take dumb shit personally.) Consider the moment from more than one angle. This one moment, right here, is unique and unrepeatable – and it will pass (good or bad). Let it.
Practice non-attachment. This is a practice that sometimes has some poignance (at least for me); let it go. Just that. Whatever it is, don’t cling to it. Let it go. If you lost the thing you cling to so tightly (whether it is an object, relationship, or sense of identity), things might change, sure, but – wouldn’t you (most likely) be okay if you allow yourself to be? We sometimes cling so tightly to something that isn’t even quite real. Some of what hurts us most we’ve completely made up – it’s safe to let that shit go.
Practice gratitude. I’m not even kidding. I’m also not suggesting that being grateful for the struggle itself, or the pain you’re in, or this complicated moment is the goal. Not at all. I’m suggesting that being grateful for other things, the small wins, the pleasant moments, the little joys, the handful of things that are reliably part of your individual good fortune has real value. It’s difficult for anger, anxiety, or sorrow to compete for one’s attention with heartfelt gratitude. Authenticity matters, and gratitude can’t be “forced”, but there are likely to be quite a few little things for which you are truly grateful. Make room for those. Reflect on, and cherish those. It may give you a firm foundation to stand on before you…
Take the next step. Life is a journey. Most of our path we walk alone. Sometimes we’re fortunate enough to share the journey, but it is still our journey. We’re each having our own experience. Walk on. Sure, have an eye on where you think you’d like to get to, but understand an important detail; the journey is the destination. Do your best to be the person you’d most like to be, moment to moment. Make those choices – the ones that allow you to walk your path, authentically.
Be here, now. Spend less time on regret (the past is behind you) and worry (the future has not yet happened and may not be whatever you fear it might). Be present, in this moment. Now. This takes us back to point 1, you may have noticed… “start where you are”.
As with so many journeys, it isn’t always clear where the path leads.
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. You can begin again. Each time you stumble, pick yourself up, and begin again. Each time you fail, learn from that experience. You’ve got this. It’s your path, your journey, no one can handle this one better than you can.
Staying on the path is a choice, and there are verbs involved.
Are you “one of the good guys”, or are you just an asshole? (Are you familiar with Wheaton’s Law, and it’s history? There’s even a rap song celebrating Wheaton’s Law.) These are trying times, you’ve got choices. You can choose to be “one of the good guys” in some legitimate and authentic way, beyond whatever half-assed self-serving measures you may be inclined to rationalize, or you can truly make a difference in the world around you. It’s something to think about. I’m not telling you what to do – hell, maybe you are already one of the good guys, already doing your best every single day to make the world just a little better…? If so, I thank you for that. It can’t easy.
…I know I definitely don’t find it “easy”; there are verbs involved…
On Saturday, apparently, national park rangers at Yosemite flew the American flag upside down from El Capitan. For real. Wow. Freakin’ park rangers engaging in visible protest in a relatively bold act of civil disobedience. I feel a certain amount of civic pride as an American to see that. I wish them well.
…Park rangers and librarians, the superheroes of the 21st century…
These are emotionally trying times for people. It’s important to avoid rationalizing terrible behavior by those in power. It’s important to check every fact. It’s important to call out liars for their lies. It’s important to hold on to our kindness, compassion, and wisdom. It’s important to remember that every human being hurt by terrible policy and bad acts are indeed human beings, worthy of dignity, of care, and of being treated equitably and respectfully. People ahead of policy. The goal should not be set based on “acceptable collateral damage” when we’re talking in terms of human lives, human quality of life, and human rights. Figuring out how to treat people sufficiently well may be a question to be answered, but there is no question whether to treat people well. That seems, to me, like minimum basic human decency. Just saying. Do better.
Also? Stop electing assholes into important public offices. (This should probably go without saying.)
I sigh and sip my coffee, and think about a far away friend dealing with his own shit, figuring out his own path. No map. So many choices. It’s easy to become distracted by the chaos and bullshit going on in the world and overlook the little things (the simple joys, the solvable problems), but there’s so much less any one of us can do about the chaos of the world – besides vote with care, and speak truth to power, and do our own humble best to avoid being a major asshole ourselves – and losing focus on the things within our own control ultimately adds to the sorrows of the entire fucking world. It’s a weird puzzle, isn’t it?
Simple pleasures can be so satisfying.
The weekend passed gently, and I spent it mostly focused on hearth and home. Time well-spent. Simple joys like home-cooked meals, and a tidy house can really add up. It was worthwhile to invest my time and emotional energy in the activities of my own life, and I spent very little time on matters outside my own home, family, or community. (Enough to be distressed by what absolute raging assholes some people can be, and saddened by how easily so many otherwise well-intentioned people can be bamboozled by powerful or wealthy jerkwads. Yes, I’m being intentionally crass and disrespectful of such individuals – they do not deserve better. They have earned my disrespect and my loathing. It upsets me too much, and there is so little I can do about it in any obvious way, I have to be careful to avoid letting it overwhelm me.)
I did notice something while I was out and about on errands, though, and it’s not the first time. A particular petty bit of fraud (maybe “dishonesty” is more accurate?) that I find distasteful; “student driver” bumper stickers on cars used and owned by, being driven by, people who are definitely and obviously not “student drivers”. It was awhile before I caught on to this particularly petty fraud. Why would someone do this? It is dishonest. It is a lie. (I mean, unless you’re actually a student driver, obviously.) What is the point? These sorts of “little” cheats undermine a person’s entire ethical foundation. Why do that? (Go ahead, I’ll wait…) How does a person justify this particular lie? Every time I see it, I wonder. Every time I see it, I know I am seeing someone I can’t trust to be honest and true. I wonder if the people who use this “strategy” understand that they’ve sold out their integrity? I think about it awhile and sip my coffee. Humans being human, it’s likely that such people have found some way to rationalize their behavior. Just as people who vote a monster or a fraud or a rapist or a dictator into office likely find some way to rationalize their terrible choice, even as the consequences of their choice become clear to them in painful ways they did not (or refused to) see coming.
I think my point is that we’re all making choices, and the choices we make do say something about who we each are. The outcome matters. My question is, are you “one of the good guys”? Are you even trying? Are you thinking critically about your own decision-making? Do you consider the potential consequences of your actions, not just for you, yourself, but also for the people around you – and the other human beings in the world who may be affected by what you may choose? Could you do better than you did yesterday? Better than you’re doing right now?
I am waiting for the sun, a bit impatiently. I don’t have to wait; it’s a mild morning after a rainy night, and my headlamp is right here. I’m choosing to wait, and I’m not in any hurry. The sense of restless energy and impatience aren’t so much a choice as they are a temporary state of being. Feelings. Sensations. Emotions. I observe them, but don’t make decisions based on them. I choose the quiet waiting. I am eager for the day, and in pain, but neither of these things are decision-making details. They merely are what they are, part of the experience of this moment in all its unrepeatable richness. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I wait.
A smattering of raindrops falls briefly, tapping the roof and windshield of the car excitedly. The shower passes quickly. It’ll be another fifteen minutes or so until daybreak. I’ll start down the trail then.
I sip my coffee content with the waiting, thinking my thoughts, experiencing this moment. It is enough. Each sip of my coffee carries along with it the scent the barista wore today. Where her perfumed fingers had pressed the lid down onto the cup securely, the fragrance lingers. Flowers mostly, and a hint of something classic I can’t name, and each sip makes me wonder again what the name of the perfume is. It is familiar and I can almost remember it.
…At intervals, brief rain showers pass by as I wait…
I don’t bother looking at my news feed. This isn’t the day for that and it has no power over me. No anxiety. No chaos or damage. No anger, frustration, or drama. Just a quiet watchful moment, waiting. It’s a pleasant beginning to a new day and it is enough. Later I’ll run some errands, work on finishing the move from one storage unit to another, and get some routine housekeeping tasks out of the way, but none of that needs my attention now.
Eventually, a new day.
Day breaks, gray and rainy. An enormous flock of geese, uncountably large, passes overhead, unconcerned with the rain. Me, though, I continue to wait – grateful I’m not out on the trail already, caught betwixt rain showers out in open. Now I wait for a break in the rain, watching daybreak become dawn. I smile, content with things as they are. This too is enough.
I look over my writing. “First person, singular,” I think to myself, unbothered by that. I check for spelling mistakes, with care. I breathe, exhale, and relax. It is a new day, a new moment, and a new opportunity to make my choices and live my life. I am here, now, and it is enough. I smile and sip my coffee. This too will pass; moments are fleeting.
Last week’s snowstorm feels like a long time ago, not the short 4 days that it was. The long weekend I was so fortunate to enjoy stretched time and gave me an opportunity to really rest, to get a few things done, to enjoy my Traveling Partner (and my life) – and I took full advantage of it. I stayed up later. I slept in a couple times. I even took an afternoon to dive into a long-waiting personal project to do with sorting and filing and tidying up my many digital images of my art work. That was incredibly satisfying. I cooked a couple of really good meals. I enjoyed breakfast or brunch with my beloved each morning. Time well-spent. It wasn’t “fancy” or costly or exotic, it was just… mine. I needed that.
This morning I woke to my artificial sunrise and prepared to head to the office. I didn’t notice until I was almost half way into my commute that I had somehow set my wake up time to… 04:00. Good grief, really?? I definitely did not need to be up that early. No traffic, though… pleasant, quiet drive.
Now I’m at my desk, drinking my coffee, trying to stretch enough to feel… different than I do. I don’t know what I’m going for, maybe, but I think “comfortable” would be good. I feel unexpectedly sleepy, in spite of the coffee (because of it?). I didn’t sleep particularly well last night. I am paying for that, and the early wake up, in physical discomfort and restless sleepiness. My back aches with my osteo-arthritis. My neck aches from degenerative disk disease. My headache is with me this morning, too. My shoulders feel tight in spite of adjusting the height of this adjustable desk several times. The delicious relaxation of the weekend gives way to the subtle tension of the work week. I stay away from the news; it’s all pretty bad, and none of it is “new information”. It’s all stories about shitty people doing terrible things to make a name or profit for themselves, in some cases out of nothing more than pettiness and spite, other people standing around wringing their hands and not doing much of anything helpful about any of it. The usual. Human suffering. Human greed. Human cruelty. No superheroes.
…And I’m fairly fucking over hearing about Elon-fucking-Musk. I mean, seriously? That fucking guy. How he’s managed to con so many otherwise rational-seeming people is just beyond me. Why keep giving him more money for products he will not ever make? Can we not also let him tear down our fucking government? Are his substantial and obvious conflicts of interest not enough to make that clearly a terrible idea?! Fucking hell. Just how fucking stupid and gullible are we?
I pause my writing to hunt for a tissue in the quiet empty office. Noticing how good it feels to actually move around, I wander a bit, and take a walk around the building, outside, stretching, and taking deep breaths as I walk. I bring my attention back to “now” – where I am. This moment, here. Daybreak has come, dawn is here, the sunrise is imminent. It is a new day, filled with new opportunities. I amuse myself with observations of how good self-care sometimes feels. Funny that it can feel so hard to make time for those practices…
I sigh to myself and return to my desk, along with my aches and pains. Typical shit. Most of us deal with some measure of pain, some of us deal with more. It’s part of the human condition, and I try not to take it personally, and also do something about it and get on with my day. I smile fondly when my thoughts return to my Traveling Partner. I hope he gets the rest he needs. (He’s also been sleeping poorly.) I look at my calendar, check over my email, plan my workload for the day… It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 