Motivation/Organization. House Preparation/House Deterioration.

 I don't have much further exciting news right now, but it's already Monday and I don't want to get behind on these again.

The house is coming along nicely, the floors are basically all done. There's some minor tasks the carpenters are still doing, fixing doors and such, and a fair amount of painting left to do, but we're getting very close to move in time!

Oh, and the pipes to the sink appear to have froze again, perhaps partly because one of our furnaces stopped working. Good thing we've got 3 for some crazy reason!

I'm working on a habit that I've been wanting to install for a long time, but never had the time/energy to stick with long enough to get it running on autopilot. Basically it's just having a system that stays up to date on all my tasks and reminders, and keeps them organized in a way that nothing falls through the cracks.

That involves a bunch of habits though, from the habit of always writing down things, to the habit of always processing all those odds and ends I wrote down, along with any other sources of incoming responsibilities or tasks etc. like emails and physical mail. And the habit of regularly reviewing all these lists I'm making so I'm actually staying aware of what I need to do. And, I think, the habit of keeping the lists simplified, so they don't get too long and become overcrowded with things I want to do but don't actually have time for now.

I focused on it and actually got this system up and running for a few weeks, and it felt amazing. But then life happened and I didn't have the time to keep it updated and then it stopped working. I suspect that may end up happening again in the future, so I'll need some plans in place for how to modify the system into something simpler when I don't have much time, but I think just getting familiar enough with it, and making it enough of a habit, should solve most of the problems, even when I'm pressed for time.

I also have a plan in the works for creating some robust motivational structures, to keep me focused and making progress on my most important goals. I need to do a bit more research, and then some planning, but my goal is to have that set up by next week. And that will be exciting, I'll likely use this blog as part of that, so you'll get updates on how that experiment is going, as it progresses.

That's all for this week, take care and love to all of you friends and family who are reading

😊👋

-IO

Experiment 1: Success!

 I have news that is both small and big. But it's good news, so it doesn't really matter the size. As I said, it felt like it was time to start taking some actions. I've digested quite a lot of information and deep thoughts on what makes for a great job and how to find work you love/are good at. I've processed a lot of that information, doing some exercises when suggested, thinking about what elements of someone's ideas apply to me. Going over some of my past notes and tests and such collating some of the themes that have come up consistently. 

One of the common suggestions, was to figure out what you like to do, by doing things. Because we are not good at predicting, or even remembering clearly, what really makes us happy. Not that we are always wrong, but if you're wrong 50% of the time, that means your brain is only as good as using a coin to predict it.

So, I used my coin-brain to narrow things down a bit, and today was my first mini-experiment, which was a great success. I thought I would try doing something similar to what I'd done in some of my fondest memories of enjoyable work, in my college creative writing teachers class, a mix of writing and drawing, and added in the element of positive psychology/personal transformation, choosing a topic I wanted to teach some of my students about.

At first, I opened various ipad drawing apps that I'd downloaded, trying them out, looking to find one that was frictionless enough to use for my rough-draft thumbnail. after about 15 minutes of that, I paused and considered that this did indeed feel like work, and was not giving me energy, but draining it. I then switched to analog: just some printer paper on a cardboard backing, a pen, and a highlighter in case I wanted some color, and began sketching out a rough draft of the educational comic.

An hour later, I paused because it was time to wrap up for the day (and write this blog post) and, making a note in my small "work I Love" journal, realized that this did indeed meet my criteria with flying colors. It did not feel like work, and it gave me energy. I'd love to somehow be getting paid to do this kind of thing. Which is I guess, what writers/artists strive to do.

Now, I'm not done with my experiments. The next part is going to be a little more difficult to test out because it involves other people. But I don't want to stop, because there is a whole other element to the dream job I sat down and imagined, that involves actually teaching others, and/or presenting the things I created.

But this is a very encouraging result. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find and identify things I loved doing, even once I started experimenting. As I'd mentioned before, there was a part of me that was afraid to even try the things, whispering in my ear that it would just show me that there was actually nothing that I loved doing, and so I would be stuck back where I started, having wasted my time.

That seems not to be the case, which is wonderful.

There are still plenty of unknowns, not least of which is "how do I make a living doing this?" which has its own roller coaster of ups and downs and voices of doubt and figuring things out. But, having something that I know I love to do, and that not everybody loves to do (there are apparently a lot of people who get writers block, who are afraid to just create stuff and share it, or can't think of what to create) would be hugely motivating. I need a bit more experimentation obviously, not just with other possible elements of my hypothesis-job, but with doing what I've already discovered I like to do, over time, to double check that my enjoyment holds up long-term.

But, it's already encouraging:

a) there is stuff I love to do

b) I am capable of identifying things I really like doing and things I don't like doing, without too much trouble (probably. again, need to do a long-term check. But results are promising)

That makes the first step goal of "finding work I love" (that uses my stregths etc.) seem possible.

And if that goal is reached, it makes the second (final-ish?) goal of "...and get paid enough doing it to support me and my family" possible. And, knowing what it's like to do work I love, to know that exists, will I think, make me highly motivated to do whatever I need to do to make it happen.

So, I'd say that's pretty great news, but I should season that with a grain or two of salt, knowing there's still a long way to go, and I have perhaps just taken the first step on that journey, after reading a bunch of guidebooks and planning my trip for weeks.

But still: weeeeee!

Until next week and with Love,

-Isaac

P.S. I thought I'd include a photo of page one of my thumbnail first draft of the comic, for your enjoyment:

Taking action. House preparation in full swing. Internal naysayers.

 OK, back to our normal weekly posts. I seem to be swinging rather between ecstasy and anguish, between "yeah, I can do it, I can figure out what I want to do, be great at it, enjoy my work and get paid a respectable amount for it" and, "I'll never figure it out and I've wasted my life till now and am continuing to waste it until the point when I decide to settle for a job I dislike that pays the bills, that is worse because I waited too long to try and get it. I should have become a computer programmer or something secure like that. Now I'm going to be a port-a-john cleaner who also has to watch 50 people's out of control children at the same time."

But mostly I'm determined and optimistic. That is my general MO with important goals. Keep at it and keep experimenting with methods, if what I'm doing isn't working well. As long as I'm continuing to take meaningful steps forward, it feels pretty good.

Lots of stuff is happening with the house! We may really be able to start moving in by the end of the month! Today the floors have started getting installed, and the walls getting painted. We've already got the electrical fixed up, and the plumber has already fixed most of the leaking faucets etc. It's all happening! Suzannah has been a whiz organizing the contractors, and doing some of the work that she can do, herself. It's gonna be great to have more space to move into, and the prospect of staying put for a while, to make creating a nicely organized system worthwhile. There are still a few things that will need to be fixed later: an AC unit that's broken, and a large picture window where the frame has rotted and so it's sunken down, but those are spring jobs.

Perhaps I can take some pictures of what's going on and add them to this post.

On the work front, I've begun to reach out to potential leads. I still don't feel quite ready: I haven't finished working through the 80,000 hours website, or my lists of strengths or things I enjoy doing, but I've both felt the call to take more actions, and been overtly advised to do so from several sources, so I'm going ahead with it. Ready fire aim.

OK, here are some pictures of the floor that's getting installed, and one of the closets that's just been repainted. 

See you next week!

Cute cat videos, sweaty AI overlords, and poorly made websites.

OK, I'm finally all caught up with this one, it's for the last weekend, but I realized the previous one's I'd made hadn't finished posting, so in order to not interrupt the order of things, I'll schedule this one to publish after that, even though I've already written it.

 It is actually getting easier to share videos. But it's been a while since I've done so, and it's taken me over an hour of fiddling around to try and get what I want. Vertically filmed videos are apparently harder (impossible?) to handle for iMovie. And I switched mid-movie to horizontal, so I had to cut the video's into two sections. It's not terribly hard to do either of these things, once you know how, but, I did not know how, and could not figure it out on my own, and so had to search the internet for help. Which I did not get, surprisingly.

It used to be that if you had a problem, you'd just google it. But this time google's search results were crammed with irritating buggy advertisements on poorly made websites with unhelpful advice. I eventually figured out a work around from a video that didn't explain what I needed to know, but from which I could infer a potential solution because of something I saw on their screen.

So, know that I have paid for these cute cat videos, not only in blood and pain (cat tongues are surprisingly rough, to say nothing of the claws.) but time and the suffering associated with searching horribly designed, add-infested, poorly written and irrelevant websites for the answer to tech questions.

This reminds me of something very interesting that I just heard from a friend who writes for a technology magazine. They said that their job would probably be obsolete in a few years, as AI is already able to write passible articles (with a human editor, but human writers need to go through an editor as well, so that's no different) Granted, the AI did not actually test out the tablet or whatever it was writing a review for, it just read all the other reviews that had been written, and aggregated it or something. But apparently the magazine editor said it was plenty good enough to be published, with some editing.

That's... I've heard many times that AI was going to be replacing a lot of people's jobs in the not too distant future, but I think that story, coming from a friend I knew, really made it strike home. And we're then going to have a problem... if AI puts a huge number of people out of work, and we don't have other jobs for them, what happens? Or will there be a new set of jobs, where we are basically the underlings of our AI masters, sweating away in a sweltering, dark, humid room forever mopping their towering, hot metal carpaces with ice water to keep them at the appropriate temperature to do all the computations necessary to run the world?

It could get pretty dystopian pretty quick.

Kinda makes one want to get in early on the AI train so you can be an AI programmer rather than one of the moppers. Not really one of the jobs I'd been thinking about in my job search though.

Anyhoo, cat videos I promised and cat videos I hath delivered. Feast on the cuteness and be sated. These are unlisted, so the only way to find them is with these links. Feel free to share them if you'd like.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/iu6WgXNsT0U

Part 2: https://youtu.be/oTik2Q1YIz4

I wonder what would happen if I tried to get an AI to write one of my blog posts? Kinda curious...

-I Out

The end and the beginning. Now.

 Ok, sorry about last week (maybe not actually sorry? I think part of me wants to see the expressions of people swearing when something I wrote ends on a cliffhanger and they want to read the next part, and then laugh hysterically. Perhaps I am a little bit evil after all?)

But, I'd already written a bunch and it seemed like it should be split up into a new post.

So, picking up where I left off:

I raised my hand.

Actually, I raised my hand two or three times. You know that shy person hand raise, halfway raised, not wanting to be overly insistent. But I got missed. Then I saw someone raise their hand and stand up, quickly, when the previous person had finished. So then I did that. Opposite of shy person hand raise.

I'm not sure how to describe this next part, I could write pages and pages about what was going on in my own head, and write out the specific conversation I had, but nothing I write can capture the days of build up and the power of what ended up happening.

If you meet me and want to know more, ask and I'll tell you more of the depth of it. But it is also such a personal event, that it feels private, so even the limited audience of this blog feels too public to go into the depths of it.

Well, time to give it a shot. I raised my hand, and stood up like I wanted to be seen. I got called on, got a mic. I was already starting to feel a bit light headed. Even just this much was a victory already, but now I was ready to go on. I said that I had questions I wanted to ask, but even more important was the act of simply raising my hand and talking to this person who was kind of symbolic for God in this situation. More than symbolic, it was almost the feeling of it, energetically like doing that. Not even 'like' doing that. I felt like that was what I was doing. Saying to God, "yes, here I am. I'm stepping into your light, to be seen, maybe judged. I'm willing for you to see all of me, even the embarrassing bits, because I want you, want to be with you, near you, even if it means I have to endure you looking right at all the darkest and most embarrassing parts of me.

I said something about what I had been going through, with my fear to be seen, realizing it was ego, and so going in the opposite direction that egoic fear was telling me to go, taking a step towards God, towards my highest Self. And they said something like, "and look, you take one step towards me... I take all these steps towards you." and they had moved across the lecture hall right next to me.

There was more, that wasn't even the height of it, but that's all I'm going to share here, in specific. But to summarize, it felt like I had exposed myself, totally vulnerable, and it had not been terrifying, but grand, and I had not been judged, but loved. And I think again that is a good symbol of how God actually works. And again it wasn't just symbolic for me it was experienced. My questions were answered, but mostly by myself, and I was radiantly alive, and authentic, and open. It felt like I'd been reborn. There was a book I read, a good book, called "coming alive" and that is a good description for the feeling. Like my passion for life that I had as a child had died or fallen asleep for years and years, and I thought it was dead for good, but it had come back to life.

All well and good. Wonderfully good. But such highs of spiritual experiences inevitably pass, at least in my experience. However, what was not something that would just fade away, was the understanding of that step I took. That one step, through the barrier of fear, towards...Light.

OK, I think that's a poor explanation, but I'm not sure I can do better. And this is getting long, but I'm not going to give you another cliffhanger. There was something I did, when I stood up tall and raised my hand. It was a symbolic energetic act. It was saying, God, I want to move towards you. More than saying, it was doing. It was moving towards God. In so doing, I was moving towards fear, discomfort, possible pain, that stood in the way, or even was the way, to God. (and you can substitute True Self, Atma, Allah, Truth, or such things, as you feel called, for "God" if that's more comfortable or feels better for you, I'd consider it fundamentally the same.)

It was an act of willingness, to be uncomfortable, to be exposed, for the sake of... not just moving closer to God, but for the sake of following my heart. What I wanted and felt deeply right. Allowing myself to want what I wanted, and ask for it, and pursue it. To be myself, authentically, rather than hide who I really was, to please others or keep them from being displeased.

All of that, and more, and I know what that movement is now. Towards. And what it feels like to take that step, towards, even when it feels uncomfortable. And I have a memory, a handle, as I said earlier, on that feeling, on that movement, to remind me how to do it, should I forget. To remind me what it feels like, and what the outcome of doing it is (hint: really really good).

If it were always as easy to take that step as it was that day, and the days that followed, life would be incredible beyond description and I would be firing off like a rocket ship into unimaginable awesome creations.

However.

The high always comes down, and the works inevitably get gummed up again, despite how hard I try to keep them clean. It's ok though. Now is the time for the real work. Getting that engine, that step after step walk towards, working even when traveling through difficult terrain. Mud and muck, rather than skipping through the field of daisies and dancing fairies that was the spiritual retreat. Things are not always clear. Sometimes I forget. But at least I can remember. At least I know how to take that step. And hopefully, with practice, I will get better and more frequent with remembering to take that step towards, each moment.

I'm not sure what to do about the clarity thing. If I don't know which direction towards is, I can't take that step. What was previously crystal clear not sometimes requires deep meditation and prayer to gain clarity. Hopefully that is something that will improve with practice as well. I think so.

Aaaand, that's my story. Experience. Aha moment. Now you maybe know why I wasn't sure exactly what to call it, and why I said it was a very important moment in my life. Perhaps I should say, is a very important moment, since it continues to be, and the wisdom of it gets lived, in the current moment, now. Always now.

Raise your hand if you like being sneakily diverted from your spiritual path by your own mind

 OK, part 2/the ending (maybe, we'll see how long it ends up going)

So, the final night, the spiritual teacher was taking questions. Lots of questions. I had been wanting to raise my hand, I had questions I wanted to ask, especially about my job search, but again, I was afraid that this person with their keen intuition and awareness would see right through me and scold me for 'being bad.'

However, I had at some point that day realized that the part of me that didn't want to be seen by this probably enlightened individual was my ego. Ego in the enlightenment sense, the false sense of I that is afraid of it's own dissolution (which will happen with enlightenment, since that's the realization of your true self.) and so, somehow, is able to act like a very intelligent saboteur to your attempts at enlightenment. It's kind of fascinating how it seems like there is a second living entity within you that is sabotaging you from your goal of enlightenment, when in fact there is just your own mind, no one else home, but it really does feel like there is someone working against you sometimes. Perhaps I should say me, I don't know if you experience this.

However, many people on the spiritual path do. Whether it actually feels like someone else in your head fighting you or just your own unhelpful patterns, the fact is there's often great resistance to doing things that would move you powerfully towards your own self realization. And apparently, the closer you get to enlightenment, the more tricky, subtle, and in some ways powerful, this inner enemy becomes. Perhaps it's simply that you've seen through all the simple tricks, so they may still be getting triggered, but they're not stopping you, so when something finally does stop you, it's because it's something really powerful. Theory. Anyhoo:

I realize that the part of me that was afraid to raise my hand and be seen, was my ego, trying to keep me from doing something that might significantly diminish it. And that felt like fear. But that voice was the last thing I wanted to listen to, because it was (is) diametrically opposed to my #1 most important goal in life, being the world's greatest cheese connoisseur. 

Joking :-) 

It's enlightenment. It's always enlightenment.

Anyways, if there is a voice diametrically opposed to my #1 goal, then unless it learns reverse psychology (not so far), if it tells me to run away and be afraid of something, that is most certainly not what I should do.

So, my ego is afraid of raising my hand and talking to the enlightened person? Then I'm definitely going to do it.

So I did.

End part 2 🤣

When the cat's away, the mice will play. Obvious advice + right time + right person = wisdom. 2B continued...

 Alright, let's start with with the life altering experience (I know, I know, you really just want the cat video. Good writers always save the best for the finale though.)

I'll try and give a brief summary so there's some context. Leading up to the spiritual retreat, Suzannah had been away on a trip herself. And, if you've ever heard the saying, "while the cat's away, the mice will play," well, that what what was going on. If you haven't heard the saying before, your welcome, it's a good one. I had gotten off my nice routine and was mostly playing around, which was fun at first but then as the late nights built up and I started feeling unproductive, became a bit...less fun. 

If you've every felk kind of energetically...gunky, you know what I mean. Like the opposite of coming off of a really deep and powerful meditation retreat. I should maybe mention that the low was still a lot higher than it had been in the past, thanks to a lot more self acceptance and compassion. Still, not great.

So, it was great news that I was going to the equivalent of an energetic car wash and tune-up. However, when I got there, I had this feeling of... perhaps unworthiness? It was like I was afraid the spiritual personage leading the retreat would be able to see all the goofing off and not listening to my inner voice that I'd been doing, and I was trying to keep my head low so I didn't get scolded.

The idea that sticks out representative of this, and then the interaction I had with a wise person who helped me begin to turn my state of mind around, is as follows:

At one lecture, the spiritual personage said something like, "if you are really sorry, don't apologize; stop doing it, never do it again!" 

I'd heard something like this before, but this time I had a strong reaction, which was, "I can't make that promise." I was sad about that fact, but it was a fact. I could put in a really strong effort to stop doing it, and to never do it again, but chances were, given past performance, I would do it, or something like it, again at some point. Present Isaac could not control far future Isaac. And it made me feel kind of sad and defeated. Then, I ran into the a kind person who was helping to run the event and they took the time to ask how I was doing, and who I actually told how I was doing, rather than just giving the common, "find-and-you" of polite and shallow society, because I knew they were actually interested in knowing. We chatted for a bit, and I told them what I had been thinking and feeling, and they said something simple, but very helpful. 

Again, in my own words and to the best of my memory, something like, "perhaps that's ok, and you just do the best you can now. We all make mistakes, I made a big mistake myself just yesterday." The words gave me permission to let myself off the hook for the future, and for perfection, to focus on what I could do, now. From that point on, things went better and better, until the last night of the event, where the big 'aha!' happened.

Aaaaand, that seems like an appropriate point to pause, since this has already gone on past the "short" length of blog post.

See you in a few days!

-I

Life altering experiences, cliffhangers, funny cat videos

Alright, as of this writing I still have 4 posts to catch up on (It was two but then I got further behind) so we're going to have another session of writing that get's broken up into pre-schedualed posts through the coming week or two.

I haven't written anything new since I want to the spiritual retreat/program in mid December, and during that event I had a... realization? Revelation? I don't want to say "experience" because, though there certainly was a pretty awesome experience, the sensations and intensity of that died off pretty quickly, and even the extreme lucidity died down rather quickly after I got back home, but there was something about the experience that was one of those "once you see you cannot unsee" kind of things, perhaps a eureka moment, that felt like it fundamentally and rather profoundly changed the way I was able to approach things, and gave me a strong handle that allows me to access a fundamental aspect of the lucidity I got, any time I remember to use it. It's not the same as going into a spiritual high any time I want, but it is a way to be in radical integrity with my self, "to thine own self be true" kinda thing, despite fears and discomforts about how I might look to others, for example.

This is going to have to get it's own post, maybe two, so I'm sorry (but also kind of amused in the way authors are when they leave a chapter ending with a hook. But not leaving a book on a cliff-hanger, you won't have to wait that long. I'm occasionally mischievous, not cruel)

I also have a funny cat video (or two, depending if I have to split it up because of reorienting the phone) because it seems like lots of people are having rough times these days, and sometimes a funny cat video is worth more than a guided meditation, for creating joy in the world.

See ya next time, which should be in about two days, if everything goes as scheduled.