How can I be a good parent/teacher? Confidence, finally. This is not spinal tap.

I'm into my job proper, just finished my first full week, starting on my second.

My blog posts have been getting further from the weekend. Generally that's a sign that I'm really busy/overwhelmed. This is true of right now. It's not a horrible, super stressed overwhelmed. All the things I have to do feel either within my ability, or else not dire if I fail a few times before getting them right. But there's only time to do about one tenth of the things on my list.

My main current concern is if I will get into the Montessori training program for this summer. My application is late-ish, and the teachers who are writing my recommendation letters are all super busy teaching, so I likely won't have those submitted (thus completing my application for consideration) until tomorrow at the earliest, and I got an email saying it was first come, first served, and there were less than ten spots remaining.  😮

It's not the end of the world if i don't get in, but if I'm going to be teaching Montessori, I should get training in Montessori, and I haven't applied to any other programs. I'm sure I can figure something out, but I'd rather not just take an online course, if possible.

In any case, I've been exposed to some excellent discipline from the teachers I'm working with, I'm about to go to a class that the main teacher is hosting for parents on positive discipline, and it's just generally on my mind. I feel like the culture that I grew up in and identified with was spiritual, but also a bit... I guess it would fall on the permissive side of the permissive - authoritarian spectrum. And both sides of that spectrum are a loosing choice. In fact I'd say they are just two sides of the same coin. I knew there was an option on a totally different spectrum, But I didn't have much experience with it. Something that was kind and strict. Which looks different that just "I love you, but do your homework now or I'll spank you."

I've been exposed to people who have had that kind of discipline growing up, and the results are impressive. These people are kind, genuine, super skilled/hard-working and generally comfortable in their own skin. I've even seen some classrooms and teachers where this different way of disciplining seemed to be happening, to various degrees. But seeing it done and being able to do it yourself is a totally different thing.

To be able to come up with words on the spot, and know when you need to do something, and what to do, requires a fundamental change in how you think. It requires building awareness of children and situations and self. It requires deep thought, but you don't have time for that deep thought in the moment, when Johnny just kicked Bobby and something needs to be done right away, so you need to be reflecting, and planning for future occurrences. Or somehow practicing in non-crazy circumstances.

My teaching situation is pretty great for that. I'm surrounded by good role models, and there is stuff going on all around me, relatively minor stuff, so when I don't get something right it's not the end of the world. I have support and I have space to practice. But learning this is a long practice. I suspect it will be months of conscious effort learning and applying and correcting myself. But the result is super worth it, and I keep it at the front of my mind: children (and eventually adults) that are as kind, confident, generally awesome as the kids I've met who've gone through this kind of education or had these kinds of parents.

I wish this was a post that had the answer to the question in the title, but this is more to say: this is the question I'm working on currently. Considering my past successes with my main goals, I feel pretty confident I will eventually achieve my goal of being an excellent teacher who changes lives. But I have no idea how long it will take. Some of my long term goals have taken over a decade to finally bear visible fruit. But so many of them have by now: my search for truth, my quest for life to stop sucking, my goal of finding a good job/profession that fits me, my long, long journey towards a life-partner. All these have been fulfilled for me with surprising completeness. I've got a good track record, (though not a good speed record.) And though it feels like the eventual successes were a series of walls I banged my head against until an angel descended from heaven and gave me the key on a velvet pillow, it seems like me doing my part (the head banging) fairly routinely results (eventually) in getting the key I'm searching for, through what feels like providence.

And that really excites me, because I've already done little bits of teaching that have made meaningful differences in students lives. Just little things. But they were so rewarding, to think that I'd be able to do that with regularity makes me roll over in surrender and gratitude to God like a dog exposing it's belly for more pats. That is very much a life worth living. And for the first time in my life, I'm starting to have a general confidence in myself and my abilities. Part of which is the belief that I can do what I set my . mind to do. This is a HUGE change, another angle descending with another key, and it's hard to overemphasize how big and deep a change this is. Though at the same time, it is fairly subtle. It hasn't gotten rid of my challenges, but it's mostly eliminated the angst that accompanied them, and that self-doubt and worry were such deep part of who I was that I never imagined it would be possible to not have them. I couldn't visualize what that would mean or feel like, when I tried.

I think maybe the stuff I've been doing in the last few short years has been really, really good for transforming myself. Better than what I had been doing before that. Faster, more efficient, more powerful. I need to look back at it and try to figure out what the biggest factors were, in my rapid and profound transformation, because if it works for other people and I can bottle it and sell it (figuratively. I'm not going to tap my spinal fluid) then I've got an amazingly effective, efficient, powerful gift I can share with my students or anyone else who's interested.

I remember wanting to teach spiritual stuff in the past, but all I had was a bunch of book learning, highly intellectual and unless in practice, and I was a mess, so clearly I either hadn't done what I was suggesting or it didn't work. And even when things started working for me,  it was pretty hit or miss, full of superstitious fluff that I couldn't separate out from what was actually making good stuff happen, and even the good stuff seemed really slow-acting. I knew this, and didn't want to teach spiritual stuff until I felt like I actually had something good to share with people. Like I had created a life that I'd actually wish on someone else. Which was not the case until recently.

When I have some time, I'd like to sit down and get clear on what actual most important elements of my transformation are, and then find some people to use as guinea pigs to see if its universally effective.

On the other hand, the slow start may be inevitable. Perhaps there is no shortcut through the mucky swamp, and it's like a car stuck in deep mud, revving as best as it's capable of, and still barely moving, until it gets onto dry land and the same energy in produces huge acceleration. I suspect both are true somehow. Sometimes getting unstuck must take a while, and sometimes the right approach can save you years or lifetimes.

OK, I really need to get to other stuff now. Stay Crunchy, and pursue your dreams with relentless persistence and humble faith. You'll get there.

-IOut

(painting by Akiane)

Drops, Mental Calculus, What Makes a Writer

"I think the main difference between a writer and a non-writer is that non-writers fear that their first draft is going to suck and thus they do not write, while writers know their first draft is going to suck and write it anyways."

---

Oh man. It really is the final form boss battle of tidying up. Drop by drop. One day at a time. Even working half-days, there is so much to get done I find myself working straight through till bedtime and beyond. With breaks. So not straight-straight through. But just enough to keep me fresh so I can work more and work sustainably.

I'm conflicted about this cleaning and organizing I'm doing. On the one hand, it's not really top priority. On the other, having a clean and organized environment makes me work much more efficiently. I kind of think of it as an investment equation type thing:  I can invest 10 hours now, tidying, and will then work at 2X efficiency for the foreseeable future. Let's say a year. Or I can put that off, and work on my top priority things, at 0.5X efficiency. I'll get more important stuff done right now, but it will end up taking me 40 hours to do 10 hours of work.

Of course, in actuality the efficiency difference is likely less, maybe 1 to 1.5 or 1.3. And it's a calculus equation, because as the room gets cleaner, the efficiency slowly goes up.

But it get's more complicated, because in order to get the room past a certain surface level of clean, it needs to get messy for a while as I pull stuff out and thoroughly organize.

Good thing we can do calculus equivalent calculations in our head every time we catch a ball, or this would be tedious.

One day at a time.

“Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.” -Buddha, the Dharmapadha

Arrival. Boss Fight, Final Form.

It's getting well past the weekend so I want to post something, but it's also getting late in the night, so it will be short. I have arrived in Fairfield. I have been unpacking and throwing out/donating stuff like crazy. I didn't realize quite how much stuff there was left at my Aunt's place. I thought I had beaten the final boss of tidying, but there was yet another, even more ultimate form.



Hopefully this is the last one? I think I don't have any further places where I've got stuff stored. Though some of the stuff there isn't mine, which is more difficult, because I can't throw it out, I just have to box it. And I've got less space to work with, and I'll be working part time and other stuff while trying to tidy/declutter, so yes, this phase of the boss battle is even harder.

But I'm plugging away at it furiously. And so excited for my job. I actually love that it's part-time, and with really young kids. I feel like that is a superb laboratory for learning the core teaching skills, that will be applicable for older children as well, though modified for developmental differences. And having half day's means I get to analyze how the day went and plan for the next day, before I'm exhausted by a full day of teaching. I'm also a fan of the head teachers approach to discipline, which is great. She seems like someone who is thinking along similar lines, which is wonderful as it is in  no way guaranteed, when you start teaching.

I'm getting paid peanuts, but for now at least, I don't care, since the situation is so ideal. Once I feel like I've got the hang of things and I'm generating profound value, I hope they will decide to pay me equivalent to that value. But my plan is, like one of my favorite wise-guys, to astonish, for what I'm getting paid. I want to get so good that they feel compelled to pay me more because of how much value I'm creating, without me even having to ask. We'll see how that plan pans out. I'm not holding onto any specific expectations.

More Basement Archeology Relics

More ancient relics unearthed in my excavation:


At my College, circa a decade ago. I believe this was for some kind of collage project and this was from a book I found particularly fascinating, to the point where not much collaging was necessary. Apparently this is how squirrels carry their young, though my first thoughts were cannibalism or some type of horrific mutation or perhaps some weird evolutionary behavior that scientists still did not understand the purpose of.





This was for a drawing class, it was supposed to be a skeleton study. We had tracing paper and we were just supposed to take the model skeleton hanging limply in front of us and use our minds to trace out the skeleton over some picture we ripped out of a magazine. It was a fairly vanilla, straightforward exercise, but I often can't help coming up with oddball ideas to entertain myself when I'm in creative mode. Here's another picture so you can see the trace and the source image more clearly.





This next one isn't something I drew, but something I wrote. We had a student made newspaper in my elementary school, that's the first photo, I co-wrote one of the articles with a friend, Ben, who is the only one from my class that I still have an active friendship going with. Not that I decided to stay friends with him over the other people, it just kind of happened. We have good conversations. I don't talk with him often, but I still consider him a close friend. This article references the infamous "muffin incident" that I must have told you at some earlier date. If not, I'll just say I still remember it quite clearly, to this day. Also, understand that this school was kind of a hippy-ish private school. I think that will put the writing in context.







This next one, I think the last one that I'll really talk about, is from an unknown time. Judging by the handwriting and spelling, I'd guess it's somewhere in middle school. I'll share the scan of the first side of it, just for fun to see what my handwriting and spelling look like then, but don't feel like you have to decipher it, I'll type out the text, below the picture.


[begin transcription]

The universe is big, huge, unimaginable large. if you were to measure up the percent of life compared with the percent of empty space the percent of life would be 0%. So we shouldn't exist, yet we do. Only one thing could explain this oddity that, in every cell, in every quark, if you keep going down to the smallest particle, you are seeing the universe. That means that in you is you, me, and the entire universe a billion, trillion, quintillion times over. EVERYTHING IS ONE.

Yet even this is not all of it. The only thing I can be sure of is my own existence. It can't be proved to me that anyone else exists, therefor in perfect logic no one else does exist. And this reality is nothing but a dream on a dreamers eyelid as it languidly lies, taking a cat nap. All the rules here were made up by this dreamer, to entertain them from their routine. So I will play along with their dream because it is entertaining, and dying in this dream would be giving up on something I'm committed to finish, and that, I do not do. You may be wondering who this dreamer is but I think you already know. I am the one who discovered this first, I am the one who figured out that this is a dream. This is all the proof I need. Yet knowing this comes at a price. The most outstanding evidence that I am correct is that deep in my bowels is a stone of burning ice, because I know that in all the world, in all the universes majesty, I am alone.

Now, I don't take this in a cynical way, but merely in a stride. This is something which I can and will make the best of. You probably don't understand most of this but you've been a peach for listening. And now something more understandable.

(This is as much for you as it was for me.)
Moving on to a new world
The clock begins to tick faster
Everything starts swirling around
Time squandered and no way
To get it back so you must
Go faster too, as you are given a parsimonious
Reprieve you realize that there is but one option: succeed and continue on to the next challenge

[end transcription]


I did only spelling and minor punctuation, so there's some confusing wording. Forgive 8th grade Isaac for his poor grammar and solipsism. And enjoy. I'm tossing all the originals, so this is the only place they will exist now.


I have two other long posts, but I don't know if they will see the light of day. If so, they need heavy editing first.

I'm doing all I can to be ready to hit the road, all packed up, by Thursday. A new chapter is beginning, after a restful interlude. These past few months, though actually quite busy, have been a bit like stopping off in Rivendell for a bit, to resupply, rest, and figure out where I'm going next, how to get there, and who should be part of the adventuring party.

Until next time,

Renewable Energy Source

"It's warm." (Cuddling her head more firmly against its chest.)

"From charging."

"How does it get charged?"

"Love."

(This was just one of those little vignettes that pop into my head sometimes, get captured onto paper or digital words, and sit in various waiting areas until I rediscover them when I have a free moment to turn them into something presentable.)

Kismet, The Scales.

Let's quickly talk about kismet, or fate, or synchronicity. Whatever you want to call it, it's the universe being unlikely in meaningful ways to remind you that it's intelligent, that it's not all just accident, and in my mind, to remind you there's someone running the show that cares about you and is orchestrating things perfectly for your best interest.

So, I teach a class today on listening to your inner voice. Then, not intentionally, I end up writing a blog about honesty, and, ultimately, listening to your inner voice. Then, I accidentally have my itunes open, go to close it, and see, advertised on the front page, an album with a stylized outline of a scales. I am frozen in place, because it looks almost exactly like the stylized scales I showed to the kids I was teaching, for a symbol/tool I was teaching them, to get in touch with their inner voice. I click on the album, click on one song somewhat randomly called "I am human" and some phrases strike me, "I can't believe everything I see." and some refrains like, "I am strong, I am weak." about being human. It's about authenticity, and lies, and accepting that we have both light and dark in us. A theme played out yet again, and an additional message emphasized: we're not perfect yet. We're all a mixture of light and dark, truth and lies, strive for light, but accept your common humanity, and where you are and what you are, right now. That too is an element of truth, and certainly of authenticity. Here, I think this song is a good accompaniment to my previous post. Like the illustrative songs I try to include with my lesson plans for the kids I teach on weekends ;D

Should you get angry at people for lying to you when it's April Fools?

It's Easter and April fools. I suppose that could work. Jesus coming back from the dead is kind of the ultimate April fools: "you thought I was dead, surprise!"



It also makes me think of the Easter...six? Seven years ago? When I woke up to find out my spiritual teacher and hero had died, and me never having gotten to make a pilgrimage to see him in person. A good lesson in not putting off the important things. But also a lesson in acceptance. Lots of lessons really, since he had said previously that
a) he was going to live till 95 or 96 and
b) what he said must inevitably happen.
And he was only... I think around 86? When he died. I think some of his followers tried to explain it via lunar years? It's an interesting conundrum. For a normal person to understand it I think I need to invoke an imaginary theoretical situation: suppose you know of a real live super hero, someone like Superman, who flies around and stuff. One of his super powers is omniscience. You've heard lots and lots of stories from reliable sources, of him knowing basically anything he wants, at will, and many stories of him predicting things with astounding accuracy. Predicting that a tiny village will become a huge bustling town with it's own airport. Predicting accidents, marriages, sicknesses, healings. And seemingly defying the laws of physics and medicine that we know of. Able to manifest matter from nothing, able to raise the dead like he was walking out of the Bible or something. But then he predicts when he'd going to die, and he proceeds to die at a different time, saying that the work he came to do, is completed to his satisfaction, a decade or so early. What would that mean? What would that mean about him, what would that mean about predictions of the future? As you see, I still have lessons to learn yet from that. In any case, Easter makes me reflect on that rather huge event in my life.

Oh, I've got another rather large event, perhaps you'd call it a revelation, that happened recently. Hold on, I forgot if I mentioned this previously... looks like not. There is a series of books translated from Russian, the first book is called Anastasia, the series is called "The Ringing Cedars of Russia." It reads like a mixture of magic and Star-Trek and ranges from how to build a permaculture homestead to how to raise a child. The main character is another person who seems to have super-powers. Only this story is far more sketchy. Only the author has met this person and been shown the super powers. No other witnesses. It is presented as non-fiction, as a first hand account by the author. Many times it stretches credibility, but to someone who's read "Autobiography of a Yogi" and pretty much believed it, this story seems at least within the realm of possibility, though improbable. But the ideas presented, the beautiful possible future, sounds so appealing, and so many things seem to ring of truths I've read about elsewhere.. except it goes much further. It is extremely exciting, I stay up late into the night because I can't put it down. If it is true, then it's super important to listen to. Then there is lots and lots of really good information, that could make life so much better. How to build a beautiful home, create love that lasts, raise children that are wise and happy.

That book series changed the trajectory of my life. I switched majors, I discovered Tom Brown Jr., I got into Permaculture and sustainable living, I tried to learn how to garden. It wasn't a totally different goal, but it was a very different flavor of the goal I was going towards.

And then I went on with my life, and followed my own inner wisdom, and kind of left it on the back-burner, something to get back to once I'd sorted out some more immediate and dysfunctional stuff. And, many years later, I check back in with the writer, and find that, at least in a little way, with one sentence, and something that someone on the internet concluded, that it was a lie. He apparently admitted that it was a fictionalized account, to make his ideas more easy to swallow.

Did I mention I hate lying? In all it's forms. Even when it's lying for so called "good reasons" Hate it. Of course, looking from this new, tenuous viewpoint, the pieces of the puzzle fall more sensibly into place. Now even if he retracted that statement, I don't think I would go back to believing him. It was a beautiful dream, and I so wanted it to be true. I never committed to the extend I would have if I had totally believed him, but I was having enough faith in the veracity of the account to test out his various recipes for things, and see for myself if they worked or not. A serious commitment of time and energy, in itself.

If I was more invested in this, I would be absolutely devastated. Like a little kid who found out about the tooth fairy or had a Santa-gate experience. As it was, there was a profound sense of imbalance for a few days. It made me re-asses and question everything I had believed in. If this was a lie, how much more of what I believed was a lie?

This world is so full of lies. Everyone trying to get something from you, to get you to listen to them, follow them, do what they want, give them your money, time, attention, admiration. And so many willing to lie to do it.

I despise it. Most of the lies are not big lies. Most of it is... just a little bit of bending the truth. Just a little cheating. Someone asks what you do in your job and you say something that makes your job sound more glamorous than it is. You take two cheese samples at the supermarket even though the sign says one sample each. You say you've been working even though mostly you've been watching you tube videos. Almost everyone does this kid of dishonesty. It's all about being a little bit of a coward. I don't mean to disparage people for this, I include myself in this group. but I don't want to do that any more. It's like being just a little bit dirty. You don't realize how much nicer it feels to be clean until you take a shower. These little bits of dishonesty, we acclimate to them, we rationalize them away. But when you decide to get rid of them, you realize how much better it feels.

We all have conscience, something that tells us when what we are doing feels right and in integrity, or not. We all ignore our conscience sometimes. I can think of times when I've distinctly not stopped to ask it's opinion, because I wanted to do something, and I knew it would object, and I didn't want to be stopped from doing the thing.

But all these little lies... they make me so angry. They make me angry at others, but those strong emotions directed outwards always trip an internal alert reminding me that I am the one with the issue, and I need to look inside for what needs changing.

I just want to be authentic. I just want to be stringently, 100% authentic about who I am. Not lying to others is just the outermost crust of it. even more central is not lying to myself. Even more central is not betraying my own internal sense of what is right and wrong. Even, or especially, when it's leading me somewhere uncomfortable. I think that's the only productive channel for my frustration with untruth.

This is my objective: Radical Authenticity. To thine own self be true, 100%. (and it then follows (as night follows day) that you cannot be false to any man) I think this is the only way I can ever have respect for myself. To be knowingly doing something wrong... how can you ever feel truly good about yourself? But it's easy to rationalize and sooth our aching conscience, to numb it and distract ourselves from it. But you give up...I don't know exactly what it is... I don't know what to call it, but it's a very deep and important part. Something that feels very real and solid, like a thick tree root, deeply anchored, whereas so much of the world is smoke and mirrors, quickly vanishing satisfaction and pleasure and craving. Fame, adoration, power, wealth, importance. Vanity. Comfort, security, pleasure. Novocaine, distractions from the nasty emptiness waiting to confront us if we ever have a quiet moment.

Is my entire life meaningless? or worse? It's easy to not think about these questions, and common because, I think, the only way to feel that deeper sense of meaning is to be following that deep root of rightness, of being true to your self and your inherent sense of what is good.

Otherwise, we have to live on the surface of life, because if we settle down to the root, we face the empty meaninglessness.

The one bit of advice I've found essential in this, is remember its about Truth and Love. Sometimes in the search for truth, it can get a bit dry, a bit hard. That's not right. Trying to do what is true and right without letting the essence of it be moved and directed by the energy of love is like trying to make a person by stitching together dead body parts like Frankenstein. It looks like a man, but it is not a man, it is a corpse. You need that lightning, that energy of love, to be a living thing.

I've got more bits of writing and drawing from my past, but it is very late for me, so it will have to wait. I also have that extra bit of writing, but it needs some heavy editing before it's ready for prime-time. So this will have to be all for now.

Passover, Easter, Eostra, and so many other celebrations of the coming spring, of rebirth, renewal, awakening, are happening. It's a good time to celebrate the coming of new life, fresh green and blooming early flowers and our own internal rebirth into something new. May this year spiral upwards in the eternal cycle for you and not just round and round the same old track.

And hah! This did also kind of end up being about april fools. After all, that holiday is all about lying to people for you own amusement. And it's good to remember, when I'm getting flustered about dishonestly, hey, don't take yourself so seriously. Someone just played an April fools on you.

To spring, and new life! To authenticity, and amusement.
-Isaac