Kittens and Crabs

Life is about more than just figuring out what your thing is. That's important. You need to learn what you like, what you are suited for, that also adds value to the world. You need your dreams, goals, Vision. But once you have that, there are two ways to pursue it. And even before you have that very clear, there are two ways to pursue whatever it is you've decided to pursue, even if you're not sure it's the be-all end-all (which I'm not sure it ever is. Life is constant change except for one thing.)

You can pursue your dreams like a retracted hermit crab inside a soft, pink, cozy, terry-cloth shell. You are slowly inching towards your dreams and goals, but you are constantly seeking comfort, seeking to protect your tender parts from pain, from loss, from the feeling of being bad at something, or making a mistake, or being publicly embarrassed. In this configuration, life is all about comfort and avoiding discomfort. Generally associated with a fixed mindset. It's not actually very comfortable most of the time because if we ever stop to honestly ask ourselves how we're doing, there is the distinctly uncomfortable feeling of living well below our potential. Of squandering life. But then we snuggle in deeper to our soft terrycloth shell and watch some netflix or surf facebook and distract/numb ourselves to the unease.

The other way is like a wet kitten in the wind. Our beautiful hair is plastered against us, and our scrawniness is visible for the whole world to seek. We're shivering a bit, perhaps from the cold, perhaps from the fatigue we feel as we take wobbly step after wobbly step, often falling, always eventually standing up and continuing on. This is not the comfort mode. It's not possible to maintain long-term unless you are working from a growth mindset. Without the strength provided by that perspective, your energy is quickly depleted by self-judgment, anxiety, and the like. But with a mind that is kind to itself the journey soon becomes less shaky, less cold. And the previous feelings of discomfort that came when the softshell hermit crab are gone, replaced by a deep, rich, anchoring contentment that you are living a good life.

I suppose someone might say, "who wants to be a wet kitten?!" But the kitten is not always wet. Usually it is playing, warm and dry. It's just that the litmus test is: what happens when you get wet? Do you become the kitten or the hermit crab? Likely what you do when wet (when obstacles and challenges come, or you're doing something your not (yet!) good at) is what you do even when you're dry, for the most part. The hermit crab is slow moving even when dry, always with an eyestalk out looking for the next bit of water coming its way. Perhaps hermit mode is better for the few things that actually require great caution in life. But overwhelmingly, we go into hermit mode for things that are not truly life-threatening. Things for which hermit mode is not a helpful response.

If we look hard enough, we can all find at least some areas in our lives where we are adventurous kittens, rather than timid hermit-crabs. Find those things that you love to do, that you feel comfortable and confident doing, that you can play at, and not worry about whether you're doing "good" or "bad." Use them as templates for the other areas of your life. Apply those kitten skills and ways of thinking to your inappropriately-hermity areas so that you become more and more kitten-ish day by day.

For me, the kitten areas that stand out are improv dance and writing/creating. I think about how free and playful and unconcerned with failure I am in those areas, and try to take some of that into the rest of my life.

I'm trying to apply this especially to teaching and dating, two areas I have noticed I am very hermit-ish about, and that seem to require kitten-mode to do well. I'm working on it. Wish me luck.

Not that short, actually. Beings of pure energy. The 94 year old grouch.

This is going to be a short one. I think. And perhaps a bit worse-spelled than usual, since I don’t currently have easy internet access, so I’m writing it on TextEdit. Oh how I love simplicity.

Anyhoo. The vacation has begun in earnest. One truly remarkable thing has happened, and the rest is par for the course. I’m currently writing this from the study of my sister's house in Maryland, which I’m visiting for the first time. Luckily, the kids were gone when I and my parents arrived, so I was able to nap unmolested my small inquisitive creatures composed of pure energy. And now I even have a few moments to try and write a blog post. I doubt I’ll have much free-time over the next two days, as I’ll be spending them with either adult or larval relatives, or in hypersleep after a full day of uncle-ing.

And then I’m flying on Monday, so if I want to get it done by the weekend, now’s the time.

Enjoying the sweet anticipation of being reunited with some of my oldest and dearest friends, back in the ‘field.

So, the remarkable thing: vacation has started, and I have not yet gone into complete functional shut-down. normally at this point all I would want to do is hide away in my room on my computer until hunger or fire forced me away from my cave of solitude and mindless entertainment, completely drained of the willpower to so much as answer a work-related email unless it had the immediate urgency of putting out a fire that was consuming all the hair on my head.

But no, I’m ready to go. I’ve given myself permission to take the time I’m traveling off from work, but if I find myself with free-time, I actually look forward to using it to get some of the classwork done and out of my mind. I’m entering this break not totally exhausted.

Why? HOW? What can I do to repeat and continue this new development? I’m trying to reflect and mine all the possible variables that might be responsible for this change.

Perhaps how I’ve decided to stop working around 7 pm and give myself wind-down and social time, giving myself a hard-stop to when I have to be on and working. Perhaps how I’ve been keeping myself connected weekly with friends who recharge me socially, making that an iron-clad self-care habit. Perhaps it’s how I’ve been really working the growth mindset angle that I’d mentioned earlier, and that makes even things that I’m bad at, much less anxiety-producing and exhausting. Perhaps how I’ve started applying some mental contrasting/WOOP to activate my “necessity to act.” Perhaps it is the secret sauce that comes from focusing on keeping divinity/spirit/God in my awareness, with love, striving to listen and scrupulously follow the voice of my conscience, and committing to that endeavor 100%. That above all is my best guess at what lead me to experience the truly miraculous in my life, and seems to be the main ingredient in the secret sauce of Grace.

Perhaps I”ve said the word “perhaps” too many times in that sentence. But these are all just potential answers. I’ll have to experiment further to find the elements that are making the biggest difference.

In any case, it’s HUGE. I’m pretty pessimistic, and in fact I often self-describe myself as a cynical grouchy 94-year-old man. I’m more likely to understate than over-state. But this shift is really big. It is a phase shift. The difference between mostly being anxious and afraid and not doing the things that make my life meaningful, and being excited and relaxed and happy and doing those things with relative gracefulness.

The old man must add: we will see how long and how reproducible this thing is. It could all fall apart in twenty minutes. But I have seen and experienced a new possibility, and so I can at least set a course for being in this mode more regularly, even if it is fleeting.

My current hypothesis is it is mostly caused by really working and practicing the growth mindset, and the attitude of surrender and dedication (and therefore also transfer of responsibility) of my actions. And the general mix of the huge amount of high-quality self-improvement and spiritual literature I’ve been not just consuming, but digesting and integrating. Well, my rate of integration could still be higher, but it’s above zero, and that's the most important step.


In other news, I’ve all but decided that my next move is going to be back to FF. Though decided is a bit of a strong word. It was the answer that keeps coming up when I ask, in the silence of my own heart.

OK! Next time I write I’ll probably be back from my travels and super tired from traveling.


Take care, keep on flying, and don’t give up on your dreams. Just try some new strategies, if your current plan of attack isn’t working.

upcoming itinerary, grublets, voyeurism of the mundane

OK, the date's are set: This Thursday, after a half-day of classes, I will, perhaps directly from school, drive to my parent's house. Thence, Friday, I will drive with my parents to Maryland, outside of DC, to my sister's house, wherein her wee grublets dwell, hungry for avuncular holiday fun™ in the same way that zombies are hungry for brains or pirana are hungry for whole cows.

After two days of the poignant mixture of heartwarming moments, physical exhaustion, and the larger than normal pallet of smells that come with newish human beings, I will be flying out Monday from there unto the land of corn, soy, and CAFO's, yea, even unto the farthest reaches, to the island of art walks, yoga studios, and cool people, named Fairfield. Hopefully, there will be someone at the airport to pick me up. Almost certainly there will be someone. Hopefully, it's a friend and not a $100 driver service.

Then, it's as much friend time as I can pack into the next six days. There's even a high school reunion, not for a particular year, which I'm excited to attend. It is fascinating seeing what has happened to people I know from school. I think the one I've gotten the most of a kick from, is a fellow student who really was not a fan of school, and who I think many people might have dismissed, but who actually ended up being a pretty successful entrepreneur, in addition to taking over a successful family business. We all love the underdog story, and I'm no different. I think we like to believe that we can surpass the expectations the world has for us. When we see someone else doing that, we think, "maybe I can too." Or we get jealous and despise them. So I'm told. I'm pretty good at celebrating other people's successes; I don't generally go into the whole jealousy/envy thing. It's basically poisoning yourself to spite someone else, so if I can avoid it altogether, which I can, that seems like a strong play. We all have our weak areas, but that's not one of mine.

Oh, that's a fun question to ask at parties: what's your "favorite" sin (as in "the seven deadly sins")? Good conversation starter.

Anyhoo, I think it's about time I wrapped up this post. People keep congratulating each other and me on "finishing" but if you want a realistic time frame on when I'm going to finish, it will likely be no earlier than January 15th. I'm not going to have any time to do my various papers etc. this week, since I'm still in my internship and will just barely be scraping by keeping up with the assignments that absolutely need to be done now, to be done well. Then I'll be busy with family and friends until New Years (which is when I fly back.) Then I'll have one more week of internship (I got sick, so I need to make it up.) Then I will have a chance to focus on the papers etc. that need to get done. And that should take about a week of focused work. Perhaps a little longer.

I'm sure I will make a jubilant announcement when I am well and truly done.

Anyhoo, if you're a Fairfield friend, I look forward to seeing you. If not... I hope you've enjoyed this unostentatious, slice-of-life voyeuristic experience.

Happy holidays  ^_^

Living Somewhere Nice

On December 6th, I returned home to find out that I and my housemate's packages had been opened, hers had been stolen, and mine had been left. I'm insulted. What, mail theif, you don't like my comic books featuring Indian mythology? You have bad taste!

The next day, I went out onto the balcony to enjoy a little bit of nature and fresh air, and discovered that my foldable chair had been stolen. Clothing, money, booze, I can understand. But my chair? That's just a spiteful move. That's like the people that keep leaving their dog's poop on the (often not well lit) sidewalks. Self-centered, lazy, uncaring for anyone else's experience of the world. These are the people that are destroying the world people! The chair stealers and poop-leavers.

I didn't end up wanting to stay outside on the balcony/porch anyways though, because the people living downstairs were outside smoking again.

I am giving Brattleboro Vermont in general and Elliot Street in particular and 186 Elliot St. in especially particular a bad review on Yelp. Or I would if you could use Yelp for such things, and I had lots of spare time. My lease ends February 1st and I can renew it, and I had been considering staying for a bit, but you know what? I don't think I shall. I think I'm out of this living arrangement at the first convenient date.

I've been thinking about where I want to live for the next sizable chunk of time, and also in a more long-term way, about where I want to live forever, or until I die, or until society collapses and I have to run away to the forests and eat tiger-nuts and tree bark.

I'm making a little list of important things for wherever I live:

• Nice nature within a short walk that I can decompress in and stroll through
• A community of spiritually mature, spiritually active, kind people who I admire, to bring out the best in me and help keep my forward momentum in that trajectory
• Sufficient best friends that I've got at least one available to talk with when needed
• A job that fits me

I think that about covers it the absolute necessities for my happiness. I would prefer a small chill college town, or something akin to it. An ecovillage thing would be awesome. Really lush, pristine nature would be wonderful. 

But those points are a bit down on the list. I'm trying to make it a short list. Just the things that I know add the very most to my happiness, or detract the most when I don't have them. I need to prioritize, because it's unlikely I'll get everything I want.

I suppose I should do something like that for romantic partners. I've made long lists of all sorts, but it might be more helpful to understand what are the few things that are truly essential to a sustainable and generally great relationship. The stuff that's not likely to just get better with time and work.

For example:

being a literal gorilla. Relationship counseling's not gonna help that one.

OK, that's all you get for this week. No more soup for you! I've got a million... well, at least thirty, at a rough estimate, things I should do by yesterday or earlier. Not that I'm going to get much of them done at 6:30 pm Sunday night, but I may get one of them done now, and there is probably at least one thing that's really important to get done now.

Oh, I know, plane tickets! I'm planning to fly down to Fairfield around Christmas to New Years, and I assume plane prices are just going to go up.

So yeah, if you live in Fairfield, and you want to pick me up at the airport, you will get my company and conversation, gas money, at least one meal, plus any reasonable amount of money you want, if you desire additional compensation. If you know me, you've got my email, let me know if you're interested. I should have specific dates and times soon.

Death, self-compassion. Schools out! (soon)

I have a little checkpoint in my list-manager (where I try to keep all the things I need/want to do organized) that says, "check 'regular review' folder." It's a red folder, with scraps of paper, that have really good advice and reminders on them. It's been quite a while since I've gone through it, and I was prepared to throw out a lot of it. But I threw out almost nothing. There was a lot of good advice and inspiration in that folder.

I think I have a lot of good advice for myself, hard-won, and I tend to forget it. Or it gets mixed up with the less useful advice I have for myself. I give myself lots of advice. I like to think of it as being in continual beta. (not my analogy, but I like it.)

Beta testing is what game and software developers do when a program is mostly ready, to work out the bugs. They play with the program, test for bugs, and then report the bugs and glitches and inefficiencies, to the programmers, to be fixed. My life is in constant beta. I'm continually reflecting on how I'm doing and how I can improve.

Some people might think that's an unpleasant way to live, but that's only true if I get judgmental or impatient. The real truth is, I feel happiest when I give myself the time to reflect on what is working well and what is working poorly, and come up with possible solutions for the buggy areas.

I don't believe in final death, just bodies being discarded like old clothes so new ones can be put on, so death, though scary in a biological, visceral sense if faced with a hungry tiger, offers me no existential dread. Given a functionally immortal existence, the only true fear, as Marcus Aurelius put it, is, 'not death, but never having lived'. Though I might add "also, things being really awful for a long time."

Am I growing? Am I making my life more and more worthwhile? If so, then that is success, whatever the outcomes. If not, then I've just wasted my time, my life, this moment.

Here, I'll share a few of the tasty tidbits from the red folder:

In bold sharpie, on a bright pink sticky-note: Remain HUMBLE

A print-out of Bronnie's article on "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying"

Some notes on shame vs. guilt (too long to write it all out. Shame is focus on self, toxic, Guilt is focus on behavior, helpful, because you can do something about it.
Shame fertilizer: secrecy, silence, judgment.
Shame pesticide: Empathy ("me too") self-compassion, common humanity, mindfulness.

Notes on a one-on-one I had with God about how to do discipline with my kids.

Notes on an important lesson in a dream I had with God in it where I was going to the bathroom rather than talking to God.

Many more. But now time to go.


Also, I'm still sick, apparently. Though my head is much clearer. But I still am getting random stomach things. Though I tried sitting up straight instead of curling up into a ball and it went away. Possibly related?


Two more weeks of classes! Woo!
Then another two weeks of internship. Oh.
Also a week or so of finishing all the assignments. Um...

But! Winter break! No more assignments! Time to sleep and play and be warm and cuddled with friends and family!





Anyhoo! The next phase is soon approaching! I must figure out what it is! And buy plane tickets if I'm going anywhere.

Much love, dear friends and family,
-I

Don't Fix (neuter) Yourself: Growth vs. Fixed Mindsets

Perhaps this will be a short post. That's the intention.

OK, some simple life updates, for the friends who want to ask, "what's up?"

I'm a little bit sick. Some kinda stomach thing. I'm taking the day off from school/work. (what do you call it when it's an internship where your teaching? I'm a teacher, so it's more like work, but I'm doing it as a student teacher, to learn, for my master's degree, so it's more like school...) Hopefully I'll be able to rest and get better quickly.

I'm having a bit of an attack of the lonely distractables. That's where I feel lonely and end up being distracted instead of getting work done efficiently. I've been getting some work done, a definit improvement from the past, when it would be none, but still, something that needs work.

One of my more useful distractions has been reading through most of Carol Dweck's book, "Mindset" which is a lovely book that I recommend to basically everybody, or at least all the people with fixed mindsets. Which is most of us. And anyone who is interacting with kids, because it's so important for them. I don't know that I can summarize it better than she herself can, so here's a link to her TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve/discussion#t-60070

If you don't have time and want a super quick version:

Fixed mindset: my abilities are static, they don't change. This means if I do bad on something, I am just bad at that kind of thing, I might as well give up, and I'll do anything to look like I'm good at things.

Growth mindset: my abilities change and grow with use, like your muscles grow at the gym. By persevering and experimenting with new strategies, I can get better at just about anything I want to. And challenges are the main way that I grow.

And it should be no surprise that growth mindset in almost all cases (I keep saying "almost all": it's because there are a few specific cases where it's not helpful, according to research, for instance, your sexual preference or sexual identity: thinking you can change that if you just work hard enough at it apparently doesn't lead to good things, it leads to feeling really bad about yourself.) those who have a growth mindset (or are switched into having a growth mindset by the researchers, which seems to be a fairly simple matter most of the time) perform MUCH better over the long run, showing significant improvements while the fixed mindset group tends to stagnate or even deteriorate.

Hopefully that gives a thumbnail sketch of it.

Bottom line, for me, is that though I've known about this for a long time, there are a few blind spots that I have, where I most definitely have a fixed mindset, and it leads to trubs. The ones that really come to mind are my personal character growth, teaching, and relationships. When I'm looking for it, the signs become obvious: I avoid challenge and doing things that are likely to fail the first time. I feel bad when things don't go right and I retreat. I feel like I am less for having failed, or not knowing what to do.

I don't mean to say I feel that way all the time. Sometimes I get into a growth mindset about those things, and it feels way better, and I perform way better. But those are areas where I frequently do slip back into the old crusty ways of believing I have a fixed ability and my results determine the quality of my character.

It makes me sad how fully I used to believe that about character. When I was in my early teens, I was trying SO hard to have an ideal routien, to be a really good student and person, and when I found myself not meeting my expectations again and again, I quickly started feeling like it was impossible for me to improve, that this was as good as I could do, and it was horribly depressing, and sucked the tremendous energy I initially had right out of my sails. Now at least, though I may still have the remnants of the habit, I know the truth is much different, so when I find myself falling into that dark place, I can remind myself that I'm falling into a belief that is not true, except that it's self-fulfilling.

Then I just need to remind myself of all the ways I have grown, and of that whole mindset that I do so well when I'm in the creative groove with improv dance or writing: enjoying the challenge, not taking mistakes and constructive criticism personally, just using them in a good-natured way to improve what I do, and all that with a sense of play. I can do that very well with some things. I just need to realize that it's true of pretty much all the things.



It really shouldn't be, at this point, but it was a little revelation the other day when I realized I had a very fixed mindset about getting distracted and not doing the things that are really important in my life. I felt really bad about those times, but a much better approach would be to just look at them as great opportunities to learn and grow stronger in those skills.

Easier said than done when in the midst of strong emotions that have been triggered, but worth fighting for.

Love to all of you, dear friends and family,
-IO

Remember you must die (The heavy-metal of classic philosophy)

Durning the online class I teach, and throughout the last...two weeks, at least? I think? I've been thinking a lot about my inevitable mortality. This flesh shall not last. To dust shall you return. Beware the ides of March. Does this taste funny to you?

It may surprise you, but as I taught the wisdom of death to my students, their comments were on the peace it brought, and the love it inspired. It did not surprise me.

Memento Mori is a primary dictum of the Stoics, and of the Sanatana Dharma. And of not just one, but several of my teachers. I think my favorite phrase currently is, "there are two things you should never forget; death, and God."

But there are many other good ones:

"I am grateful for the fact of my death: it has made my life possible."

and,

"...when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."


I didn't suggest to my students that they morbidly obsess over death. Rather, I suggested they imagine looking back on their life, from their deathbed. From that vantage point, what is important becomes much clearer. For me, the only things that really seem to be the love I made and shared. The time spent warmly with friends and family. The choices I made that resonated with that iron string of truth and rightness in my heart. The ways I was of service to others, and the time I spend in earnest all-out endeavor to be living in the vast mystery and beauty of the Great Mystery, Brahmin, Godhead.

What really doesn't matter: the times I tried at something and failed. The dumb fluff I read and watched, the time I spend worrying about anything at all, the time I spent ruminating about anything at all, the time I spend being jealous or angry or petty or self-deprecating, the time I spent feeling bad for/about myself.

Wisdom from the deathbed: you never regret taking risks for things you care about. You always regret playing it safe because you're afraid of rejection or what other people will think or failing, with those same things you care about. You never regret letting those you care about know how much you love them. You (almost) always regret the petty vindictive things you do and say and think about others.

I could go on, but it's much simpler to just remember you will die, and take that death-bed perspective, and all the wisdom is yours for the taking, tailored to whatever specific event you're looking at.

In addition, lately, I've been trying to make a habit of using it to help me make tough decisions, to enhance my willpower. I imagine my deathbed self, rousing himself, looking at me with his piercing haunted eyes, and screaming at me not to waste the present moment. I've yet to implement it fully, I've been kind of busy and exhausted for installing new habits, but it's on the dock for super worthy habits to install. If you're curious of my list, it looks like this:

The very most important practices that I am working on turning into habits:

1) keeping an awareness of God with me at all times. Two main practices, namasmarana, and dedication of action
2) Self-compassion, and self-confidence
3) keeping awareness of Death with me at all times, especially when I am tempted to not practice the above two.

Number one has been ongoing for a while, number two is a bit new, and number three is even newer. Really, I only have the mental bandwidth to implement one new habit at a time, and number one is it. Three is in support of that, and two is right now just a short exercise I'm trying to do at least twice a day for a few minutes.

Live long and make each moment matter
-I

(In case you don't get the Blue Oyster Cult reference in the picture at the top)

Kind and truthful, beautiful and brutal: Self-love and awesome video games with friends

Another short one. (Perhaps. We will see.)

I'm so happy to be seeing and spending some time with friends regularly. It is such a positive experience. Though the staying up late to do so is really too bad, as I definitely also have better days when I go to bed really early and get up really early and do my regular morning rituals. It's hard to describe how comforting that is, to have my morning all set up, and have time to take care of all the things I need to prepare for.

I started reading the intro's to some books on teaching on Amazon, one about Finland and teaching, and it seems that it is possible, in some circumstances, to do a really really good job teaching, and only work 6 hours a day, and be able to leave your work at home when you go home. That sounds really good to me and I want to read that book and see how I might do that. I know one thing for sure: the work-life balance I have right now is absolutely insufferable in the long run. I'm only tolerating it now because it is extremely temporary, but what kind of message do I send to my students if I am horribly overworked and stressed out? What kind of environment do I create? No. I will find another way. Life is too precious to spend it unhappy. I'm all about working hard on what I love, but not so hard that I stop loving it.

I played Cuphead with the friends I'm hanging out with. It is AMAZING. It is local co-op, which is the very best kind of video-game playing. The kind where it's really just about doing something fun with friends. This game is so incredibly well done... I should just link to a video of it or something. It's like playing through a super old animation.

If my computer could run it, I would likely be playing it right now, so I suppose it's good it won't. It is "brutal" only in that it is extremely hard. I don't know how many times we've died, trying to defeat the various bosses. A lot. But that doesn't make it less fun. I'd say it makes it more fun. Because when we finally get good enough to beat it, it is deeply satisfying. It feels like a real and noteworthy accomplishment.

I am continuing to work on myself, in regards to self-love and trust. I feel very supported by the universe in this work, with friends, mentors, and the universe in general supporting, reminding, guiding me. And I feel my old crusty beliefs slowly being worked apart, like a knot being teased loose. I have a hard time even imagining what my life will be like, with that fairly central wound healed, but I think it will be pretty incredible feeling. It is linked in with so many things, including my feelings of loneliness, when they pop up. I can imagine feeling like I'm always with a best friend. Since, at that point, I will be acting like a best friend, too myself.

I spent a little time this morning, just patiently hearing my doubts and explaining to myself how there was no reason to be harsh and unkind to myself. No good reason at all. And really letting that clear truth sink in deep, not just superficially. Understanding of the heart, not just head.  I'm going to have to do that repeatedly. I've already forgotten again. But it is doable, and worth doing. And if I keep doing, I think I will stop forgetting.

The Truman Show

If my life were a TV-show it would be a self-deprecating, faux-after-school-special, edu-tainment sitcom called, "Learning From Failure, with Isaac Neva"

(I've decided that my stage name is "Neva" Has a nice ring to it. The open syllable at the end is round and friendly, and it sounds like "never" which is a fun name: Mr. Neva, Mr. Never. Kind of like "Mr. Nowhere Man")

Winter is coming. Checklists for better living. Chinese Ladybug friend.

I'm a bit tired, in general. I'm quite busy. I've created a little stack of note cards, the top one says "Emergency Distraction Checklists" and below it are a series of different checklists for things to try for various distraction problems. Inspired somewhat from my own brain, somewhat refined by my skim-through of "The Checklist Manifesto."

Seems like a genuinely useful idea. We shall see. It's simple, which I like.

That's all for this week. Even posting this at all is a challenge. I'm writing it in the few minutes between waking up, meditating, and going to school. I maybe be doing it instead of showering. But that would be ok because the heat isn't working currently. I really hope it starts working by tonight, because it's going to get freezing. I also hope I can get snow tires on my car this afternoon, because the winter it is a'coming.

On a cute note, a ladybug/Chinese-ladybug (which seem to be hardier and more likely to bite) is keeping me company, crawling around my desk.

That's all for this week folks. Might have more time next week.

The Nadi Leaf Chronicles Chapter 4

A small...irony, is perhaps the wrong word. Yesterday at my internship school, special guests came in and we studied leaves and made leaf animals. And this morning, an Indian astrologer in Bangalore looked through a bunch of old palm leaves with writing on them, looking for one that had my name and my parents names on it.

You'd think that they could have organized it alphabetically... rather than by thumbprint. Or at least alphabetically within thumbprint.

So, for those following along at home, you may recall I already had one session, where this guy went through a bundle of leaves (it's not quite as extravagant and old-fashioned looking as giant banana leaves being slung around. I think I described it in a previous post. Here, some pictures from the internet:



Anyways, he went through the whole bundle and didn't find one that matched me, so he said he'd send off for a few more bundles and get back to me when they arrived. I had to contact him, but his current secretary is way more responsive than his old one, so we got an appointment set up quickly. Within a week, I think. Waaaay better.

Anyways, I got up early, 5:30 am, (Indian time difference means it's going to happen at awkward times) and set up my computer in the bathroom as it was the only room that wouldn't be bothering my housemate that early in the morning. He proceeded to read through the bundle, again, not finding anything close to a match. He told me he'd call back in fifteen minutes or so (which meant somewhere around 35 minutes. But hey, as long as he actually calls me back, I'm good. Though I did call them again after 30 minutes to check in on how they were doing/make sure they hadn't forgotten about me like the first time.)

He came back with yet another stack, and we did the whole process over again. Nothing. I was prepared for this outcome. He said, he's getting some more leaves around December, so he'd send me an email to make an appointment before December 25th. And if we didn't find anything by then, I was supposed to wait for a year before trying again. I will, of course, set a calendar reminder, to remind him, in a few weeks, in case he forgets to contact me.

At this point though, it does seem that the forgetting is benevolent, not an intentional slight. I'm also becoming increasingly strong in my belief that this is not cold reading. I've recorded our sessions so I can look back at them to analyze, but I'm not sure it's necessary. If this is cold reading it's the most inept and inefficient cold reading I've ever seen or heard off. If I was cold-reading, I'd do it in one session and get them out of my hair, or coming back to pay for another session. The guy doesn't seem to even be keeping track of my answers. He keeps asking if I'm in the medical field, or my parent's names start with certain letters. But not different letters, the same letters. To all intents and purposes, it really does look like he's reading from the leaves. And he doesn't really follow up on things that are kinda similar, but not right on. And he's spent quite a lot of time on me. We were going until, what, 7 something? Over an hour. So, if we ever do find a leaf that is a good match, I'm pretty confident that it will actually be because the leaf is a good match, not just him making up stuff.

Whether I actually have such a leaf, under my thumbprint, in his collection, to be found, is another matter entirely. I remain resolute in my self-protective pessimism. But I will keep looking, dear readers.

End of current installment, in "Adventures in Disappointment" By Isaac Nevas and Univers.

The Nadi Leaf Chronicles, Chapter 3

One more quick update: tomorrow morning, at 5:30am EST, I'm scheduled for my second Nadi reading, since at the first one, the guy went through the whole sheaf of leafs and didn't find me.

Am I excited? hopeful? I figured I should catch my thoughts now, as they will be unavoidably tainted after the experience.

I have low expectations. Though I am very much aware that these things are sometimes super amazingly accurate and real, I'm also aware that cold-reading is a real thing as well and perhaps more common, and this may in fact just be that, or some mixture of that and the real thing. Do I actually expect them to find it? Expect is a strong word. I'm open to the possibility, but at this point, after so many disappointments, I'm no longer jumping up and down like a puppy. I'm kind of in the stance of, "yeah, I know this may never end up happening. That's ok. I don't expect it or feel entitled to it. But I'll stay open to the possibility if the universe chooses to provide it."

I'm doing amazing things transforming my life and bringing my dreams to fruition through hard work and courageous trust and surrender to my highest self and my experience of God, which grows more rich and warm/loving day by day. I don't need a leaf to tell me what my future will be. I will make it, together with the Creator, and it doesn't matter so much what that ends up being, what is important is the process itself, that I live with dignity and integrity, moment to moment. That's what's important, that's what matters, that's the really important magic, the magic that has the potential for the greatest positive effect on my or anyone else's life, even if it is less flashy than a leaf having me and my parent's name written on it five thousand years ago.

Perhaps this is just sour grapes, but as Dan Gilbert (or Gilbert (sour) Grape, as I feel like calling him) has discovered, that synthesized happiness is just as real as the happiness we think should be real, so why complain about it?


(here's the video again, if you don't want to click the link)

Producers

Everyone is always producing something.
But sometimes all we're producing is poop.

Not so pretty

I am exhausted. This is only the first of four weeks where I am working Monday through Sunday. And already I am bone weary. More and more grey hairs. I have so little mental and energetic space to think, to reflect.

I'll be fine, but a grim, soldier's stare kind of fine. I'll be alive, generally functioning, but ragged. My brain is sluggish. It's only two more months, and I'm all done, flung out into space and the unknown to find my own way. It would be easy to just grit my teeth and dream of winter break and freedom, but I don't want freedom. I want to be an awesome teacher. I want to learn how. And I'm not going to be doing very good learning, with my brain percolating like a lazy slug through my skull. So much precious opportunity that I can't grasp. I want more time to reflect, to plan, to improve, but all I've got are little bites as I run from one thing to the next. I'll do my best while trying to maintain some semblance of balance. But I don't think it's gonna look pretty.

Furiously

I somehow managed to not post last weekend and not even realize it. I thought I already had, but I have a notification on google calendar that tells me to post every week, and it wasn't checked off, so I double checked, and lo and behold, I actually had missed it entirely. Better late than never.

I am furiously beating back the seemingly endless mass of stuff that needs doing. I'm doing this while trying my best to be kind to myself, and get periods of deep rejuvenation. I'm pumped up on self-help books, so currently I'm rocking it, but that's never a sign that I won't crash right back down. However, I'm hoping that by

a) Treating myself with kindness and doing my best to make sure my rest time is actually restful.
b) Listening to my own sense of rightness, balance, and importance

I will be making those inevitable down parts less intense, and faster to recover from.

I'm also working furiously on re-training myself not to avoid unpleasant tasks. By creating the (fairly accurate) story that all the things I want are on the other side of my comfort zone, and the challenges and failures and pain are the very fuel that will lead me to my goals, I seem to be slowly changing my behavior towards discomfort. I am, as always, using a bunch of nifty tools that I've found, to help me do this. In fact, one of the books I'm enjoying using is just called "The Tools."

The other thing I'm doing is kind of short-changing everything that's non-essential. Giving it the minimum I can bear giving it, and moving on. Since I sometimes have perfectionistic tendencies, this still doesn't result in garbage. But it does help me focus more time and energy into the more important tasks.

Since blogging, though fun, is rather low priority compared to "become awesome teacher" and "graduate" I'm afraid it might get the short shrift, especially at times like this, where I don't have a specific post trying to burst out of me like some beautiful alien spawn or parasitic wasp larvae.

So... I think I'll just leave you with that image. Much love to you, dear friends, and have a good week.

(reminder, if you are signed up for emails and can't see the video below, go to the blog website.)

Devotion

This morning during my sacred time (a Tom Brown term: time to connect with nature and God, relax, appreciate, do a little spiritual workout, and prepare for the day.) I saw something good enough I need to share it. I suppose I should also mention about a week ago during another sacred time I saw a skunk walk right in front of me. They walk funny. Kind of a hop-lope.

Anyways, there was an older woman, bright pink dress, dark blue jacket over it. She was round and small, with a short gait and a waddle to her walk that made me suspect some chronic pain and stiffness in her knees/hips. I'd seen her walking along the sidewalk before; she's a local, and friendly. But then the remarkable thing: following, about a hundred feet behind her, was a grey and white cat. Stomach saggy like female cats sometimes tget after being neutered. And it was following her like a little duckling that didn't want its mom to notice. It paused a few times to look around at things it was curious about, and see if it had been noticed, but then continued on, following the women out of sight down the sidewalk. Something about that warmed my heart. That cat must love that old woman. Cats are not the kind of animal to follow someone, certainly not for so long, with such focus. Fifteen or so minutes later, as I was finishing up, I saw the woman walking back along the sidewalk in the other direction, and the cat was still following her. It had gotten a bit closer, but then seemed to realize this and waited until the distance was back to normal.

I was just reading about bhakti, the heartfelt, all-consuming, personal connection and attachment to divinity. That cat seems like a nice illustration.

Sick

I am sick. The kind of sick that has me blowing my nose every few minutes with a headache that won't quit.

Enforced vacation. So I'm sleeping, drinking tea, listening to books on tape while I lie in bed too uncomfortable to get all the way to sleep.

I'm getting to listen to a great book on tape, called, "The Tools" by Phil Stutz and someone else. One of the tools involves working with your "shadow" in the Jungian sense, so perhaps that's where my play on words for the title comes from.

And since I am well and truly tired, and accompanied by an Athena-esk head-pain, I shall leave it at that for the night.

I hope you're feeling better physically than I am.
Moral remains high ;-)

-I Out

Lexiholism

I have a writing problem.

Heres the problem:

I write.


I know this may not sound like a problem. And in fact you are correct, it's kinda ok. But it's also kind of like having a drinking problem. Once I get started, I can't stop myself. I can't just "have one drink." I can't just "write a quick blog/post/email/journal entry." I'm wondering if what we call professional writers are actually kind of the equivalent of alcoholics who've found a way to get paid to drink. Writing is kind of an unhealthy process. To complete a book, writers are locked away, mentally degrading, for months, sometimes years, neglecting food, family, exercise, hunched over a computer/typewriter/paper/clay tablet, scratching out our mad rantings as if the letters were firey brands inside us that we were trying to get out before the burned us to death.

When I write, there is some creature inside a cage inside me, that is scrabbling and gnawing at the bars and yowling, trying to get out, and it won't stop until I've gotten it out or exhausted myself to the point where I don't care about the barking anymore.


I just had a champion afternoon. A champion day. I got up at 4:45 without an alarm, despite going to bed at like 10 the night before (which looks like it's going to happen again tonight.) I did my spiritual workout, physical workout, etc, I did my work, focused throughout the day, took 15 minutes for a walk in the forest and a half hour for dinner, and worked through the evening. This was a...14 hour work day, I think. I'm pumped, I'm ready to do it again. But...

But the only reward I'm getting for working like a dog, is that tomorrow, I can do it again. The reward for the work is just more of the work. This is ok when the work is worthwhile. But some of this work is utter bull-ninny. Some of what I've done benefits no one, and merely uses up my precious precious time here, alive and on earth.

If my reward for being a productivity samurai is just more work, then it must be work worthy of a samurai. Only then is it a reward. Otherwise it's a punishment.

Also, I need to find balance. This routine, though fun, is not maintainable. Rest is important. And enjoyable.

Mortification

I had a horrible nightmare a few nights ago.

It was the tail end of one of a series of very vivid, long-form, intricate dreams I've been having basically every night for the last... I don't know. Week? and a half? Anyways, It was just about time for my graduation or something. Some friends and I had been working hard to put on a play, that I'd done a fair bit of the writing on. I had an important introduction and an even more important grand finale (that did some riff's off Hamlets "to be or not to be" speech) that I had done most of the writing for and it was gonna be great.

Except I hadn't memorized my lines.

There was a huge auditorium of people, who were right next door, about to move over to our auditorium, after seeing the graduation of a younger school level of people, and it was show time.

No matter, undaunted, I looked at my master script, that I'd made to work on my lines, but had never gotten around to. It was beautiful and intricate, made out of leather with special ink, and parts of the leather were cut out to hold the individual words, and there were some sections with extra flaps of written on leather for parts that repeated. I could at least use that as a cheat sheet, to help me through the performance if I lost my place.

But suddenly I found that all the words were gone. many of the leather pieces with words on them were missing, leaving holes in the document, and with the rest, the words had just been washed away or something. The show was starting. As the other performers, who all HAD memorized their lines, like, good, responsible team members, covered for me and just went on without the introduction, I desperately but determinedly looked for a printer to print out a copy of the last draft of the script on google docs. It wouldn't be as good, but it would be something.

The printer wasn't working.

I went over to another room and begged the use of their printer. Finally, I had the paper, tucked away, ran back to the performance. I pulled out the sheet to begin last-minute cramming before my fast approaching epic conclusion.

The paper was dirty, worn thin, as if it was thirty years old, and slightly damp, as if I'd been sweating so much that it had gotten through my pockets onto it, and the words were almost entirely gone. Faded, washed away, I don't know.

I was mortified.

With nothing but a few snatches of the emotional gist and some Hamlet in my head, I strode onto the stage, trying to give it all the passion I could muster. Two teachers/mentors I'm currently working with, Teri and Lynne, both extremely accomplished, hardworking and well-prepared, were there, Teri in the audience, watching, Lynne, my co-operating teacher in real life was, I think, the director of the performance in this dream, looking on from the wings. I stumbled and made up what must have been a pretty horrible improvisation, pouring all my intense frustration into the performance to at least give it emotional power.

I was so frustrated. Frustrated at myself for not being prepared, and frustrated at the universe, that was so utterly, unrealistically screwing me over no matter what I tried to do to get prepared. And of course under that was the intense fear and anxiety and shame of going up in front of a bunch of experts whom I know and respect and giving a horrible performance entirely due to my own laxity in preparation. Something I could easily have avoided if I'd just learned my lines ahead of time like everybody else.

I woke up submerged. I was straining my muscles to burrow myself into my mattress, likely to try and dig a hole I could crawl into and expire. Heart pounding, I felt like I'd just had a bucket of water dumped on me, I was sweating so much.

It's been a long time since I've had a nightmare that intense. Normally I can escape or fight the danger. There was so much anger, in the form of frustration. I was trying so hard, and things were working out so badly at every turn. And underneath that anger was the incredible discomfort of being so publicly, shamefully unprepared.

So, this is all to give you an idea of my waking life, because somehow, what I'm going through these days had produced such a dream.

I feel like I am not working hard enough. I am not preparing sufficiently for my tasks at hand. And I'm worried (terrified perhaps, says my subconscious?) that I will be getting my just desserts for this negligence, ergo something like what happened in my dream. I will be found out, and my gross, ungrateful sloth will be displayed for the whole world to see.

Let me give you some perspective here: things are not that bad. I'm doing fine. External observers would not be terribly worried or offended or find my level of negligence unusual. Probably most wouldn't even think to label it negligence.

But like my exquisite soliloquy, I have the potential to create something so good, if I'd just put in that basic preparation... it feels like a deep wrong to not do so.

Being a bit more compassionate to myself, I've got A LOT of stuff on my plate, I'm doing all right at it, and it is exhausting physically, mentally, and emotionally. I'm isolated, which is hard for me, as I really thrive and depend on my close friends and family for the support and connection and warmth that are so vital to my happiness (and which leads to high levels productivity.)

I need to chill out my expectations for myself to a more reasonable and less perfectionistic level. Challenging, but not demoralizingly impossible.

I'm working on self-compassion. Reading some books, practicing talking to myself and backing myself like I'm a dear friend, rather than some #$%hole whose constantly messing up my life.

It's a work in progress.

But in the meantime, at least I can be entertained by some of it, like these dreams, which are hilarious in their... how to say it. Archetypal, melodramatic, almost cliche clarity. I normally have weird dreams. I've certainly had nightmares, but I think this is the first one that would be at home on some 80's daytime TV sitcom.

Here's to all those moments in life when we feel this way:

And to being able to look back at it and laugh our pants off. What else are you going to do about it? Cry? Hide? Life is messy and imperfect and it's all improv. Be kind to yourself, keep on chuggin', and don't take it too seriously.

😉

-I Out

It's business time. Also, I'm ready to have my weekend now. Wait, tomorrow is Monday?...

This is (I hope) going to be a short one, and here's why: Five hour class yesterday, Five hour class today, and a one-hour class I taught and so spent another couple hours preparing for. And then a deep, long conversation with my spiritual accountability buddy.

The Caterpillar is not dead, in fact, I think the day or two when it was not moving was because it was undergoing a mini-transformation into something twice its previous size. It then kept growing every day until it was swoll and resplendent in its jewel-like, plump cuteness. It got so big it was nomming on the stems of the dill plant like it had been nomming on the fine leaves. Then a bunch of other cool stuff happened (I do have pictures, if I remember and have time I'll post them at some point.) and it is now part-way through the transformation where it will eventually shed its caterpillar skin and become a chrysalis.

I feel that this series of events is symbolically linked to my own transformation, as I undergo uncomfortable but ultimately positive changes. I'm not a hundred percent sure what the changes are, but I don't think the caterpillar knows exactly what it's becoming either.

I think my transformation has to do with self-acceptance. More of it, specifically.

Yup, managed to keep it short. Not that I want to deprive you of my long rambling verbiage, but I'm quite sleepy.

Business hours are over:

https://youtu.be/WGOohBytKTU?t=3m12s

(this link starts the video near the end, which is what I'm referencing with my sign off, but the entire video is quite funny and worth the watch from the beginning if you're so inclined. Flight of the Concords. The lyrics are slightly not safe for work? It's pretty tame; it's a comedy song and uses no bad words, but it is about "business time.")

Caterpillar, Choices, Time

I was going to post something Sunday, but life got crazy. I even had it partially composed in my head. But no time, and now the week continues to march ever forward. Suffice to say I went to the farmers market and bought some dill because there was a swallowtail caterpillar on it, and I'm keeping it with some of the fennel by a window. I'm a little worried because when I first got it, it was eating like crazy, all the time, and now, I keep checking, but I'm hardly seeing it eat at all. This brings back memories of the class guinea pig, and my lizards, and my mice, and my sister's rabbit. And there's probably some other creature under my care that I've forgotten about. But the animals were pretty uniformly unhappy with me as their overlord. The mice and rabbit became anti-social, the lizards and guinea pig died. (the guinea pig died when I brought it home for the weekend.)

What will happen to our brave caterpillar friend? I've named it Dilly, because of the dill, but I think it's a male caterpillar, due to the coloration.

In other news: something has reminded me of my young angst/loneliness/self-deprecation. It's interesting revisiting it. It's a stronger negative emotion than I'm used to, and it doesn't seem to be caused by anything specific in my environment, so I can only assume it's something deeper/older than the current goings-on. I'll keep processing it as best as I know how, and lean on friends and family to remind me that I'm not actually alone.

I've got pictures and video's of the caterpillar, but do I have time to upload them? Let's see.

Look's like the answer was yes. Enjoy! 

See ya next week. I didn't even have time to mention the beautiful gibbous moon or the police officer who picked up a bag of drugs or maybe just someones bagged lunch from the park next door. Ah well. Need to eat and do homework. Or maybe just sleep. That seems to be happening a lot. Having to choose between homework completion and sleep. I choose sleep! Usually. I think this makes me a bad grad student, but a happy person.

-IO

The parts of God we are

"People are the parts of God that aren't fully satisfied."

-Isaac, quoting Malinda, quoting Isaac



This is a short post. School must be starting up again ;-)

Sorry I don't have time for anything longer. I may miss it even more than you. As I write, I often think of you, on the other side, listening, and it feels a bit like I am sitting with a friend. Perhaps that is one of the secrets. I do this so that you can feel close and cozy, but also so I can feel that. Reminds me of my current self-improvement todo list:

-more intimate, nourishing moments of love and connection with people
-less self-criticism and judgment
-instead, more self-compassion and support
-the usual (making my various spiritual weight-lifting exercises throughout the day more frequent)

Love, always love;
-I

Being Self-Critical and Fight Club

Just a short one (probably. That's the intent at least.) One more in service day tomorrow, Monday, and then school starts up, and classes start up. Working on not being nervous about it. And on getting all the essential things done and ready. Most of my room and work area are set up and organized. Things seem pretty good in general.

I keep being reminded by people, by the universe, that I'm really hard on myself, and it's not a good thing. I was reflecting on what need that fulfilled--being hard on myself--and I think a large part of it is protective, counterintuitive as that may be. You see, as bad as ripping myself apart may be, it pales in comparison, in my mind, to other people criticising me. We're not talking about little pointers, which are fine, but the idea of someone really laying into me about all my problems...you know, actually it doesn't seem so bad, now that I think about it.

Anyways, if I preemptively tear myself down, there's nothing for other people to do. I suppose it's like being surrounded by some menacing thugs who are about to beat me up and responding by beating myself up. They will probably just leave me to it, as long as I'm really going at it. And then at least I'm in control. I can avoid the really tender areas. I don't have to worry about something really bad happening to me, as long as I'm hurting myself somewhat.

Makes me think of this scene from Fight Club: (just the first 10 seconds or so from where this link cuts in:
https://youtu.be/eCKRI2wEw7I?t=1m43s

(though I found this scene first, which is also similar):

To be clear, I'm not saying I think this is a bright idea. But that seems to be much of the subconscious impetus.

The other element has more to do with self-love. And by that, I guess I mean self-appreciation. Self-worth. Unconditional acceptance. And not being able to do that so well. At the root of it is the question: am I loved and accepted, as I am? Even with all the parts of me that I think are not so great. The parts that go on Netflix binges and procrastinate my most important actions. The lazy parts, the callous parts.

Intellectually, I am clear that the universe, or God, as I call it, does indeed love each of us unconditionally, totally. But... on a heart level, a felt level... well, I don't feel that way. How does one change that? It's not something that can be answered intellectually, perhaps. I have to find it, feel it out, within myself.

It's like being blind in a room with an exit somewhere. I can intellectually think about what I've been told, for exiting the room. But ultimately the best that can do is give me strategies to try, or directions to try. Straight up directions won't necessarily work since I don't know what direction I'm facing. I have to start walking around, bumping into stuff, getting the feel of the layout. Maybe then some of what I've heard will make sense, "Oh, that's the chair they were talking about. That's the fridge. I guess I'm in the south west corner, I need to head left then?" And I can eventually feel out the door and step through it. Like that, I've got to feel around in my own heart and experience for what radical self-acceptance and compassion and forgiveness feels like.

But it's clearly important. So I guess I'll focus on that until I've got the hang of it.

With love,
-IO

Light as a feather, heavy as an anvil

I have arrived back at my apartment, and my subconscious understands that this means I am truely getting close to school starting up again. I feel the demands of time hammering down on me. Homework. Preparation. People to contact. Getting the apartment ready. Time sensitive odds and ends. And that familiar anxiety that accompanies being a new teacher. There is so much to do. So much. I have no hope of doing it all, and I'm ok with that.

What troubles me is when I find myself focusing on some minor task that is really more of a distraction than a useful thing. The problem is that my environment is surrounded with objects that call out to me to be fixed. As if the objects in the room were truly animate and had small, childlike physical voices that are calling for my attention. Asking to be moved or have their problem resolved. I sit down to get started on one task, and in the middle I am distracted by a second. And in the middle of that one, I'm distracted by a third...

After having just come back from the sweet, relaxed, feel-good experience of Fairfield Iowa and hanging out with my longtime friends, this feeling is starkly contrasting. I like a slower pace of life. I like being surrounded by community.

My protection is a little piece of paper I carry with me and write down these things so I won't forget them, and so I can go back to work, with that particular voice, quieted.

On my morning run/exploration, I saw a feather in a parking lot that was floating in midair. Not rising, or falling, or moving left or right. I marveled at it. tiny, fluffy, as if held in place by an invisible being. I wondered what could account for it, and then slowly it started to descend, straight down, not even swaying side to side. I put out my hand, took a step or two forward, and let it fall into my outstretched palm. Magic.

Brattleboro is all sorts of interesting. Just on this one morning walk, I found more intriguing places than I can count on one hand. All of them closed, since it was both Sunday and early in the morning.

I had an interesting set of dreams too. Unusually lucid and vivid. In one, I was kissing an unknown but pretty girl, enjoying the intimacy and warm fuzzy feeling of the act, but then I remembered that I needed to find a girl with whom I had that warm fuzzy feeling via just talking and interacting, and I set out to try and have a conversation with her and see if we were compatible personality-wise, as people who could become best friends. My brain seemed to have difficulty generating such a situation on cue, like when I try to read books in my dreams, and I think I woke up. Shows where my mind is at. Being best friends is one of the things to look for in a potential romantic partner, so says some of books I'm reading. The problem is, it becomes so much more difficult to just be myself and find that out, when I'm in the awkward position of trying to 'date' somebody. It's like trying to act natural while you pay rapt attention to everything you are doing. Possibly impossible.

Well, off to do more work.

-IO

Sweaty palms and teenaged awkwardness. Wisdom from the love lab. Dovetailed endings and beginnings.

Short post. It's been super nice to spend time with dear longtime friends in Fairfield. I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately. I feel like my many-year voyage of getting myself on track with the whole job/work element of being an adult is past the hump part. It had been my main focus for the last several years. At least five or six years. But I finally feel like the train has been lifted onto the appropriate set of tracks, and now the main work is just maintaining the engine with coals and following the turn signals.

So now I'm turning that stubborn and relentless (but slow) focus towards relationship. To that purpose, I'm doing what I always do when I want to get good at something: I look for the best possible teachers in the field and get to work learning from and implementing what they have to say. (Though the first step, which at least from my current perspective seems like the biggest one, is the initial stages of just finding, identifying, and getting to know someone who would be a good fit. A process that seems unreasonably intimidating.

In any case, one of the cools experts I've found is John Gottman, and here's pretty condensed video about his whole shpiel:

Furniture assembly, home appliance reviews, and entering doors: more interesting than you'd think

Well, I'm mostly done moving my stuff into my new apartment, which is to say most of my stuff is set up and placed on my book shelves etc and the rest is in boxes of unsorted disaster under my new loft bed. My room is small, so at the suggestion of my dad I went to Ikea and got a loft bed, which is like a bunk bed but for adults. Or college students, at least, if not adults. There is something deeply satisfying about being up high. It makes my bed feel kind of secret and protected. Like a tree fort.

In any case, it was quite a to-do, getting the enormous boxes of mettle into my car, out of my car, and then putting the whole thing together. On the first page of the instruction manual was a picture like this:



and I began to feel trepidatious but determined. My housemate is moving in this Sunday, and she is having family and friends help her move in. I thought about the difference between us. She was relying on the power of friends and community to help her when help was needed. I was stubbornly trying to do everything on my own and would probably end up with a hernia or concussion, unconscious on the floor, with no one to help me or call the hospital. A bitter, self-imposed isolation, like some love-child of Thoreau and Oscar the Grouch.



Anyhoo, as I was banging around, trying to hold the seven foot mettle guardrail perfectly level and guide it into place with one hand while attaching it to the bedposts with screws at shoulder level (I wonder what my upstairs and downstairs neighbors thought of the hours-long deafening sounds of metal crashing against mettle and furtive grunting.) I had a brilliant artistic and business revolution:

Xtream Ikea Assemblies!

The show would feature professional or amateur assemblers, taking on, by themselves, projects that instructions say require two, three, or, in the elite rankings, four people. Contestants would be ranked on speed and efficiency, with extra points for style. The professional assemblers could do some truly remarkable things, rigging up pulleys out of the cardboard boxes to hold things in place and remotely adjust their position. The amateurs would be hilarious as they sweated, tried to hold up things with one leg while screwing something in elsewhere, and cursing themselves for missing a step as they struggled to undo things with similar levels of acrobatics. (I was practicing the amateur version as I assembled my bed.) The whole thing could be a promotion for Ikea, who would likely never agree to the idea because of the legal ramifications of endorsing utterly unsafe assembly practices.


The other brilliant entertainment idea I had came while thinking about how to overcome my stinking, toxically mildewy carpet. Apparently, it had already been gone over with a carpet cleaner, but if that's true, it must have left the carpet wet and then re-mildewed in the process. In any case, I was thinking about getting a dehumidifier. And then thinking about how ironic it was, that in the summer we try and dehumidify, and in the winter we try and re-humidify. Then the idea hit me:

Consumer Reports: Blood Sports

Instead of namby pamby point by point comparison and standardized stress tests, machines would be pitted against each other in a single elimination round, no holds barred fighting tournament, similar to battle bots:



except with common household appliances.

For example, humidifiers would be pitted against dehumidifiers, put into a small, sealed room, and run continuously until one of them broke down or (hopefully, for ratings) exploded like a knocked over fire-hydrant.




Finally, I'm staying with my parents at a nice b&b, with a porch I can walk out onto. However, the second door is one of those giant glass ones, with nothing but a huge pane of glass surrounded by a kind of three-inch frame with a door handle. Except there's no glass in it, so it's simpler to just step through the opening. Despite having tested it with my hand, every time I step through it, there is a clenching sensation in my lower torso, as if it's tensing for impact. My eyes refuse to believe my mind. Perhaps the situation is calling up previous times I've banged into glass not-portals in the past and looked like a prat.

So I took advantage of the situation and now step through the door with gusto, fully intending to crash my way through a glass barrier like some kind of crazy person and/or action hero.

Up, up, and away!
-Isaac

Another short one

I just want to get something out before it's Tuesday. Packing and moving all day. Tomorrow I'll Be all out. The place I'm moving into is still fairly dirty so it won't feel like home until it's gotten some serious love, and cleaning will be a little more time consuming since I'll already have my stuff there. I'll have to clean a section, move my stuff there, and then clean the section where my stuff was. Enjoying a book on tape on my way to and fro.

What is wealth? I sat by a stream in the pine barrens this last week and what I experienced there was more beautiful than any piece of artwork ever made. People pay millions of dollars for paintings by great masters, when far greater works of beauty can be found for free. Though we are destroying them, with our factories and shopping centers and housing developments.

What makes someone rich? I just read that according to some psychology research on happiness, being time rich is far more beneficial to happiness than being money rich. Meeting basic needs and such makes a big difference, but after that, you will be more wealthy exchanging extra money for extra time. I haven't looked in depth at that, but I assume you need to have something worthwhile you'll be spending the time on. Loved ones, being of service, creating and enjoying beauty.

More and more psychology is exonerating my viewpoint that the modern world is totally insane, and most people are chasing dreams they've been sold on TV that won't even make them happy, or will provide only the briefest of highs, before returning them to the dull hell they have created for themselves that they are constantly trying to ignore via our ubiquitous glowing little screens.

The bad news is that many people are going to die, cursing how much of their life they wasted. The good news is, it's possible to live a different way. There truly is deep beauty and joy and meaning to be found and had in life. It's not an impossible dream. But it is a challenging one.

Well, our stories of heroic quests wouldn't be very interesting if it was all super easy.

'night :-)

-Isaac

Communication...From beyond the grave! wooOOOoooo...

When I say "grave" what I really mean is, from beyond time and space. Beyond space natch', because you are accessing this from whatever point in space you are at, via your interwebs, not my current space, as I'm typing this. Time... well I guess the same argument could be made for time, since you are reading this at your current time, rather than when I am posting this...

OK, now that I've thoroughly negated my whole point, what I'm trying to say is, because I won't have easy access to my blogger account until late on July 29th, I'm setting up my robot minions to post this automatically on Sunday, so there is a post happening next week (this week? last week? depends when you read this I guess.)

Since it hasn't happened yet, I'm just going to make a few predictions that are probably safe:
-TBJr's class is awesome, what the hey, how does he keep making every class so fresh and so clean (clean).
-I hate mosquitos and ticks so, so much.
-I am dirty, sweaty, and tired deep down to my brainstem and my bones.
-I feel like I'm home, and I'm so happy to get to swim in the paradisiacal little swimming hole surrounded by stately cedars, bright green sphagnum moss, cute little pitcher and honeydew plants, and the medicinal, magical tea-colored water of the pine-barrens.
-Tracker folks are big-hearted and awesome, I love them.
-Abducted by aliens, but they were cool.

OK, I still really really need to pack now, so I'm going to say good by, again.
From... Beyond the Space-Time

-IO

Cue Travel Montage Music

It's already late in the week. And it's about as late as it can get, for this post, as I'll be leaving for the pine barrens for a Tom Brown Jr. course in about an hour.

I would have thought, at some point, the summer would have gotten less busy for some significant length of time, but I think the days I spent studying for my tests were about as much break as I'm going to get. Maybe the week and a half that I'll in Fairfield Iowa will be more relaxed. Except, I've got lots of work that I have to do for the soon approaching school year, so I'll be bringing that with me and working whenever I'm not spending time with friends.

In case you're curious, that trip will happen around August 6-19th, though I've still got to figure out the exact dates (and how I'm traveling. I was assuming car, but considering how pressed I am for time, if I can find a cheap plane ticket, that might be a better idea.)

So, perhaps I'll have some exciting stories around the end of July, when I come back from my Tom Brown Jr. stuff. But for now, all I can think of is how much stuff I still have to do before I leave.

Talk to you later, dear friends.

Stay Crunchy ;)

(That's the name of my awesome travel-montage/dance-breakdown music below. Enjoy.)

schedule

This serves as both the blog post for this week, and the explanation of why the blog post for this week isn't something longer or more creative.


My Schedule for the next few weeks:

• By Monday of next week (17th) (Or sooner. The sooner the better): have apartment for next year.
• This Wednesday: teacher certification test #2.
• Saturday: teacher certification test #3.
• All other time this week: Studying or apartment-hunting.
• Sunday: Tom Brown online class.
• Tuesday: drive home, pack for classes.
• Next Wednesday (the 19th): drive to NJ for a week and a half in the pine barrens of brain-melting Tom Brown Jr. classes, ending the 29th.
• 29th: drive back to NH.
• 30th and 31st: frantically move everything to the apartment I've hopefully signed a lease on.
• August 1st-3rd: sleep.

Gerunds, infinitives, and subordinating conjunctions

Work work work'n away. Actually having a lot of fun learning the stuff I was shaky on, using Khan Acadamy. Maybe too much fun. But hey, I'm learning grammar! Finally! Why did it take this long to actually learn it? I think it was just taught in a boring and unfriendly way in grade school, and I never learned it there, and from then on all the teachers just assumed I knew it.

Main observation: there are A LOT of unfriendly jargon words used to describe things. But what they are describing is not so unfriendly. There is a lot though, that I don't know. But really, I've gotten along fine without it, simply by doing the "does it sound funny" test. But every now and then, a writing teacher would say, "you can't make that a sentence, it's a gloop-ity-glargle-phraxis (I'm trying to give you my experience, though I now know what the actual word is.) And I would be confused because the sentence sounded just fine, and never really understand why it was wrong.

Now I know that many of those were dependent clauses that I'd made into sentence fragments and though we use them all the time in speech, they are technically not "proper" written English. But I also know that, because they are used in speech, they are fine for informal writing, or as dialog. You just have to know what you're doing. And that's why they always passed my "does it sound ok?" test but often got caught by my writing teachers.

Also, I'm learning all sorts of juicy tidbits, like how it's ok to start sentences with "but" (or more generally, with conjunctions. (I had to look that word up. Grammer-speak continues to elude me) and end them with "for" (or more generally, prepositions.) It's true! See for yourselves (yourselves: 2nd person plural reflexive pronoun):

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/parts-of-speech-the-preposition-and-the-conjunction/types-of-prepositions-and-phrases/v/terminal-prepositions-prepositions-the-parts-of-speech-grammar

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/parts-of-speech-the-preposition-and-the-conjunction/correlative-conjunctions-and-starting-sentences/v/beginning-sentences-with-conjunctions-the-conjunction-the-parts-of-speech-grammar

Job Security

People who want certainty in their life should become accountants.


"‘Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes," 
         -Christopher Bullock, The Cobler of Preston, (1716)