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In Other Words

May 1, 2020 //
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I write. I have friends and associates who write. I read. I read less than I’d like, managing to read rather a lot, anyway. I don’t read as many books, as often, as I’d like to. I read more repeats of new articles I’ve already read than I would prefer.

…Did I mention I have friends who write? I’m not talking about unedited grammatically challenged stream-of-consciousness rants lacking factual basis, theme, or novel content. I have friends who write deeply, in a nuanced, fluent fashion. Friends who think deeply. Who consider life in the context of what they understand of the world. Thinkers. Artists. Creators. Scientists. Musicians. Actors. Librarians. Great content written by people I personally also consider to have great minds. So… why am I not reading more of that? How fucking rude. I know, for a fact, that several of them read my writing.

…Where is the reciprocity?

I frown and sip my coffee. I think about the accessibility of great writing, great conversation, and great thought. I think about the ways in which we are now drowning in more data than any one human being can consume or comprehend. Choices are needed. A method. A way to filter out the noise.

In the digital age, the great writing of friends and associates gets buried in my feed. Instead of being a conversation among friends, wits, and intellects, attempting to be “well-read” has become more like being seated in a crowded diner, than talking together intimately over coffee. The demands for my attention, likes, clicks, and views has some diner-like qualities, intensified and made surreal. Imagine the waiter coming around insisting that I review the menu, yet again, while touting various recipes as cures for this or that – every 5 sentences or so. Strangers interrupt the conversation because they think one of us looks like someone they know, but start a lengthy conversation about how mistaken they are – in spite of not knowing me or the person with who I am attempting to converse. Passersby might interject how they’ve overheard something “just like that” this one time… or something totally different, in spite of not being asked an opinion. Each attempt to connect and develop a deeper conversation is interrupted – by salespeople, by the demands of strangers, by peculiar marketing. Uninvited extras. Distractions. “Reminders”. Notifications. So much continuous “communication” that we don’t even talk about “reading the news” so much as “checking our feeds”. Obnoxious.

The density of incoming “information” is a distraction from the things I want most to be informed by. 😦 How to resolve that? I wonder about it as I sit over my coffee… writing. The thread of what is most important (to me) frays, breaks, is lost… How do I regain that thread?

I have a moment of clarity. (Nice start to the morning.) Unsubscribe from trivial bullshit, marketing, and things I don’t want to be bothered with. No guilt, no excuses – what matters most to me , matters most (in this instance). Then? Subscribe to the writings of the writers I most want to read, directly, such that those are things coming to my email inbox, instead of marketing bullshit from retailers I happened to have purchased something from, once. Wow. That seems too easy…

Read what matters most. Reconnect. Is it that easy to take back my time and consciousness? I guess I’ll find out…

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized, Words

Humans Being Human

April 29, 2020 //
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It’s early. Some yoga. Some exercise. Some coffee. The day begins slowly. I watch a video that illustrates human failures; it doesn’t matter which one. Humans being human. Humans pointing out failures. Humans reacting badly to having failures pointed out. Fail sauce just everywhere. So human. This coffee is good. I pause a moment and ponder good coffee vs dreadful coffee, and how often the only obvious difference in getting one or the other is a matter of human effort, and the success or failure of that effort. Humans being human, sometimes the coffee is… not good, at all. 🙂

Yesterday was a strange day. I mean, pretty normal in most respects, until a hastily, carelessly, place canister of fuel (for camping) dropped from a high shelf and whacked my Traveling Partner in the head. His day was disrupted, just as my work day was ending. There was definitely some bleeding involved, and our evening was spent nursing each other’s individual discomfort (he was injured, and the stress and anxiety of his injury resulted in an unexpected wholly unnecessary headache of migraine proportions for me), and we spent our shared time hanging out quietly. Pretty sure we had something for dinner… I don’t recall what. It wasn’t an important detail. What is important is how well we cared for each other. That really matters.

I woke ahead of the alarm, listening to my partner’s breathing for a few minutes before I got up, feeling safe and loved. That matters, too. It’s a nice way to begin a new day… although I could so easily just go back to sleep, this morning. I yawn, and laugh quietly.

Another day begins. I’ll be delighted for it to be utterly routine in all respects, no excitement required or sought. lol It’s still so early… I finish this coffee, and consider making another. It already feels like time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Sometimes More Than Others

April 28, 2020 //
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Yesterday was sort of hard. Weirdly so. A bit as if I had sand in my consciousness; I felt sort of “rubbed raw”, cognitively. Uncomfortable. Unpleasant. Aggravating. Those words describe my experience, and also describe my sense of myself, pretty much all day. It wasn’t fun, and more than frustrating; there was not any clear reason to feel the way I did. My outlook for much of the day was “just don’t”. I felt a little aggressive, a little prone toward anger, and getting past, through, or around it was the entire day’s challenge.

…Eventually, it “worked itself out”. Sometime past the end of the work day, I “got my head right”, and enjoyed a pleasant, quiet evening with my Traveling Partner. I sip my coffee, this morning, and silently acknowledge the difficulties the day had presented. Then, I let all that go. It was yesterday. New day ahead of me. I woke early, but this coffee is good, and this room is more tidy than yesterday. Comfortable. A bit chilly, and I’m okay with that. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. Another day, another chance to begin again.

I breathe. Exhale. Relax. Time spent on meditation feels well-spent.

I look over my “to do list”, and also review the “done” list that sits below it on my desktop as a “sticky note”. “Celebrate the Achievements!”, it says at the top. I’ve gotten a lot of little stuff done, and a handful of bigger projects are completed or in progress. Productive. 🙂 I allow myself a moment to feel pleased about that. I catch myself yawning, and glance at the time. Time passes so quickly, sometimes. The work day ahead is already about to begin…

I finish my first cup of coffee, ready to begin again. 🙂 Tomorrow? Already behind me. Today? Still ahead. It’s a good moment for beginnings.

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Categories forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Perspective and Practice

April 26, 2020 //
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I’m currently playing Portal. It’s not a new game. I’m likely the wrong person to ask whether it is a “hard” game. It hasn’t been especially frustrating, which I had worried about before I started. I’m enjoying the experience of playing it, which feels good. I admit, I’m currently stuck on a level, but honestly, I’m okay with that. I’ll get it figured out. 🙂 I keep at it. Nothing screams “restart” like being stuck on a particular challenge in a video game. Good news; life works this way, too. Stuck? Start over. Begin again. Take another approach. Try again. Give it a rest and come back to it later. 🙂

The worrying about the challenge was a bigger challenge that the challenge itself. There’s a lesson in that. lol

Video games are another rich source of living metaphors, for me. I enjoy that, too.

Fish swim in the “big” aquarium (size being very relative; it’s only 30 gallons). Shrimp scuttle about in their smaller aquatic habitat. My betta slowly recovers from recently jumping out of the aquarium; it’ll be weeks before he’s “well”, I suspect, but he’s doing okay. I hand feed him each day. He seems to welcome that. The world beyond these walls continues to make its way around the sun. The world continues to figure itself out in this time of pandemic. People continue to both disappoint me mightily, and also to impress me beyond expectations with their humanity, compassion, and will to do more/better. Life at home is still a puzzling mix of “how is this any different at all?” and “wtf – why this? why now?” My partner and I enjoy the opportunity to share experiences, projects, conversation, and to explore topics of shared interest more deeply. We help each other. We’re both in acceptably good health, enduring little more than routine middle-age-y sorts of concerns. We’ve got a lot to be grateful for.

I slept in this morning. My coffee is good. Yoga in the morning as the sun began to rise. It felt good to move and to stretch. Later today, I have an errand to run out in the world. I no longer look forward to such things, I just prepare myself, and get them done, and quickly return home. Meditation felt joyful and effortless this morning; the world seemed to be sleeping, and all was quiet. The news is too bleak and weird, lately, to bother with on a pleasant Sunday morning. Instead I sit down to write, and end up sipping coffee and watching fish swim for some while, instead. I’m okay with that.

…In general, “in real life”, I’m okay, generally. 😉 I hope you are, too.

I look around my studio… there’s much to do, to achieve the state of order I feel most comfortable within. My eye falls on my “to do list”… I add a couple things. I sip my coffee. I think about the day ahead, and find my mind wandering. I breathe deeply. Exhale. Relax. I pull myself back to this moment – it’s a lovely one, worth enjoying. There is no need at all to complicate it beyond what it is, right now. I glance at the aquarium next to my computer tower. I know what I’m going for, with this day; “calm waters”. A “steady state” of contentment and ease. No “waves”. No “strong current”. Just this moment, right now, and a state of gentle, slow, flow. 🙂 Achievable. With practice.

I smile into my empty coffee mug. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Challenges

April 24, 2020 //
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We’ve all got them, right? Challenges. Things that are “hard” for us, as individuals. Those don’t always make sense to anyone else – we are each having our own experience. Some things take time, or practice, or self-work overcoming some internal resistance to change. Some things are just… complicated. We have baggage. History. Perspective that is uniquely our own, however much someone else feels they “get it completely”, we have to do the work to “get it” ourselves.

…We have to do the work ourselves. Yep. There are verbs involved. 🙂

I’m looking at playing a new (for me, sort of) video game, with the intent of later sharing that experience with my Traveling Partner. I don’t expect this to be an “easy” undertaking. It is a game that requires specific things of me that I am not very good at, and also struggle to learn or master because they land right in the “thinking holes” that result from my brain injury. Some things I learn pretty well and easily. Some things I learn with effort, over time, with considerable repetition. Some things… I learn, eventually, then lose almost overnight if I am not practicing every day, then learn all over again… with effort… then lose… then learn it again… then lose it, again… over and over until finally pure frustration with having to explain to yet another person, one more damned time, that no, I don’t remember how to do that, and yes, I’m aware we “used to do this together all the time” and no, I don’t expect to pick it up again immediately… and omfg. Shit. I’ve got baggage full of this particular… challenge. lol I gotta let that go.

The peculiar learning challenges that result from my brain injury are weird and persistent, and in a small way part of the awesome that – taken as a bundle of characteristics – are part of this person I am. Over time, I’ve learned to accept that some things are potentially forever out of reach simply because the investment in time and repetition to learn and relearn them as often as necessary to ever become “learned” exceeds the value in the resulting knowledge.

…I’m hoping this particular game is worth overcoming the challenge. I am eager to enjoy the shared experience doing so offers. I’m less eager to deal with the frustration of having to explain my frustration. I’m less eager to listen attentively to someone else’s pointers on overcoming this particular challenge, most particularly when they don’t have this challenge, so… how do they expect to share something with me that overcomes what they don’t experience? It’s a very human thing to want to say “I know exactly how you feel…”. It’s rarely true. As commonplace as so many experiences actually, we each experience those quite differently. Part of being individuals is… being individual. Unique. Being different from one another in small ways, even though we share so much DNA in common, is also an exceedingly common human experience. 🙂

So… I face the challenge with some eagerness, and also with some reluctance – it’s the nature of real challenges, isn’t it? I take a deep breath, and a sip of my coffee, and prepare to begin again.

…I’ll probably have to begin again a bunch of times. I’m ready for that – it’s part of the experience. Well… no more stalling. It’s time to begin again. 😉

 

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Frustration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being
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