The unnatural second layer of being. Beautiful plants.

 Also here's last weeks post, because I'm trying not to fall more behind than the six or so blog posts I'm already behind.

It's pretty great seeing all the plants blooming and growing and leaves budding out. My favorite time of year. I really want to eat some dandelion greens while they're still young and tender, but I've got to be careful because we sprayed around the house for ants (Suzannah's prerogative) and we have cats (which like to pee outside in the mulch, one of the places the dandelions grow). Pee I can wash off, but pesticides I really don't want to mess with. The unfortunate complications of a modern forager.

One thing I'm thinking about (but won't have time to elaborate on here): I've been noticing... for lack of a better word, the masks we wear. That's not quite the right word, but it's like a layer on top of and covering the real person. It seems like it has something to do with being self conscious, worrying what other people will think about you, judging yourself based on external standards, deciding to do things based on external standards. It makes people have stage fright and act unnatural in many ways, vs. just being true to their nature, like animals and small children are good at. But it's more complicated, because adults are more mentally complex, and that can't be avoided, and shouldn't be.

I think it's linked to the 'felt sense' stuff as well. all tied together.

OK, that's all for now.

With love to you, dear friends and family

-I

Death and Taxes, 2025 edition.

 Two papers and taxes due right around April 13th-15th, so this is a particularly busy time.

That means, this is this weeks post.  Hah!

Frozen Buds. Meaning. Karma Yoga.

 Alright, new week, I am at least not going to get further behind.

As I get better at being organized, focused, prioritized, and productive, something else becomes more clear: doing all those things is not going to make my life feel meaningful. It's useful to have those skills and habits, but it's unwise to do them with the expectation of fulfilment and happiness, though they can reduce stress.

So what is it that I can focus on, that will lead to feeling like I am living a worthwhile, meaningful, purposeful life. That just fundamentally, feels good?

Current hypothesis is a mixture of the habit of following my felt sense of rightness (talked about in some previous posts) and the approach to action ("karma yoga") advocated for in the Bhagavad Gita. Haven't talked about that so much recently, but I should probably do a post on it, as much to clarify for myself, as for anyone reading.

OK, that's another short one for the week. Spring is here but it's going back to winter each night, the crazy storm system mostly left us alone, aside from some heavy winds and a bit of thunderstorm, thankfully. I wonder what the fruit trees will do, with all the highs and lows in temperature. That might end up freezing the buds or flowers, and then they wouldn't have fruit.

Happy spring to all,

-Isaac

Budding

 I wonder what it was that got me so behind on my blogs. It wasn't that I had especially less time than usual. It seems more like, when I'm really pushing to add something new into my life, like integrating a realization, adding in a new habit, pushing to complete a big side project, that a lot of my regular optional things tend to get pushed to the side.

I've been working on a few things, which I think have been bearing fruit, and which have been taking that energy and focus. I've been trying to work through a bunch of my little miscellaneous small tasks that fill up my todo lists. I've also been trying to work with more rigor. That just means, instead of spending time goofing off, I'm spending it on things that matter. If I'm taking a break, I'm doing something good, like playing or quality time with a friend or Suzannah, or a walk outside, etc. I'm not just 'killing time,' like on an app or solo game or fun but not actually that good book or a netflix series. I still do it, but I'm doing it less and less, to a satisfying degree. Most of the things that are currently 'wasting' my time, are not conscious choices I'm making anymore, but things I accidentally get sucked into and then go "whoops" once I surface for air. And even those, I'm getting better about. Though I still do it all the time. Lots of distance to travel yet. But feeling movement.

The key difference is when I have a break or something (like spring break which just happened), a good chunk of time. Rather than squandering my days, I'm spending more of that time, working on tasks that I've put on my lists, as important things I really want to get done. It feels fantastic, to be focused and checking off my lists and choosing what I work on intentionally. And it's not cutting into my quality fun and rest time. In fact, somewhat the opposite, as I'm practicing being more disciplined about wrapping up work at a set time, so it doesn't bleed over into time I've set aside for quality connection or play.

There is a whole mix of factors that I've been working on, and may be helping me with this (hard to tell which or which combo is actually making the difference). Practicing with my 'focus' mental muscle. Challenging my beliefs about 'not having enough time,' exerting/practicing my willpower, self-control, leading to more willpower and self-control. Practicing my love, self love, trust, and faith. Connecting more intimately and lovingly with Spirit, the Higher Consciousness. And what I mentioned earlier, connecting to and letting my felt sense of rightness guide me. Whatever it is, or all the confluence, it feels good.

Maybe some of it is just how nice spring feels though. It's beautiful out! Sunshine, refreshing breezes, birds chirping, new plant life budding and sending up green shoots.

The Silver Maple catkin buds have opened, probably sending out the little baby seeds, but too far away to see. I identified two songs of the bluebirds we have around, which was a treat. usually I don't get to see clearly which bird is making which sound. Bluebirds have a really unusual song. And then another, more crow 'caw' like bird call. I think a magnolia tree on my morning run route, is getting ready to open its buds. There is so much going on now after the months of hibernation, it's hard to keep track of it all, but fun to try.

OK! Two blog posts down, six to go. 🤣

-I Out

Amazing Levels of Behind-ness

The level of behind-ness on my blog is kind of amazing. I don't know if I've ever been this behind. Or maybe it's just that I've got a task manager keeping track of it and adding a new one to my list every week. In any case, it's super behind, so it's definitely time to use my handy escape clause that I built in right when I set the weekly requirement for myself: my blog posts can be super short. They can be one word, I think. Maybe I should check what that original post said. In any case, something like that.

This was originally from when I was thinking about habit formation, and the idea that just doing a tiny thing, consistently each day, was a great way to form a habit, that could then turn into something I did automatically, and which could then be expanded to take a little more time.

In the spirit of that, perhaps instead of doing a whole bunch of blog posts one after another, I should just try doing one every day for a bit, to catch up. Then some will be shorter.

Though often, once I get on a roll, I have additional ideas and so I end up writing more. That's perhaps part of the problem, as I shy away from writing when I've got other stuff I want to get done, because I know I can lose a lot of time to it. I think that's one of my strength/weakness things, where it's just a feature of who I am, and depending on the situation, could be either a strength or a weakness.

I think that we should find those things in ourselves, and try to shape our lives so that they end up acting as strengths, as much as they can. (And that we do so in service to something bigger than ourselves, and something that brings goodness to the world and those in it.)

Snow, Stir-Friday (Wednesday), Time Flies

 I looked at my task manager, and it had like 5 entries for "Blog" listed (it automatically creates a new one each week) and I thought, "no, that can't be right, it hasn't been that long since I blogged last." and then I looked at the date for my last blog and realized, oh, yeah, it actually has been that long. So... I should get on that, I suppose. Sorry for the long delay in postings. Somehow it's been hectic enough that I haven't found time to do it? Seems so. There's been a lot of things like that, and it doesn't really feel like things have gotten less hectic, but I do feel like I've finally caught up a bit. Some of the fullness of time has been doing Pancha Karma with Suzannah, and traditional and kind of intense Ayurvedic health regime and cleanse, which was kind of all consuming, with school still going on in the background. Honestly, this has gone back so far I don't really remember why I was so busy. But, I'll try and do a series of rapid fire blog posts like I did last time, to try and catch up.

Interesting to reflect that somehow that is what my life is looking like these days. Not sure what that means.

Hey! it's snowing! right now! It hasn't snowed like this (at all?) this winter, so I'm enjoying the beauty of it.

The view outside my office window:

Thought it's a snow day for many school children, my school is on zoom, so we still have class, and my work happens at home anyways, so it is not slowed or reduced.

I think I'm going to make a mandarin orange sauce Chinese style stir fry tonight, to celebrate being off the Pancha Karma restrictive diet. But I'll have to venture out into the snow to get some ingredients before can make it. And I have to get the brown rice cooking now, so it will be ready in time for dinner. Brown rice takes a long time in the rice cooker.

More posts to follow shortly I hope. But maybe not this weekend, as there is still a bunch that needs to get done by Sunday.

Stay safe and warm out there,

wishing you joy, love, connection, and meaning,

-Isaac

Accepting the limitations of my time = peace, self-awareness, effectiveness

Continuing on the theme of aha moments via "felt-sense navigation and self-analysis," it recently hit home more deeply, how my time issues are creations of my own mind. Not that I'm making up the idea that there isn't enough time in the day to do all the things I want to do, that's pretty true. But the suffering associated with that.

It struck me, that I'm living in a fantasy land, where maybe if I try hard enough or use the right strategy, I will be able to get all the things done in the amount of time I have. But of course, that's not likely. And me clinging to that fantasy and trying to make it happen, isn't very productive. It means I'm spending a bunch of time trying to 'figure it out' rather than just doing what I can, in the time I have.

It also makes me mispriorize stuff, because I'm clinging to the delusion that I can get my huge list done today, so I might as well just start wherever and work my way down. If I was being more realistic, I would look at what is most important to get done, and start with that, because I know it's unlikely I'll get most of it done. The at least I'll have gotten the important parts done.

This makes me think of the idea behind the book "Four thousand weeks" https://a.co/d/3Sp9sJM

Which is in part about accepting our limitations, especially in terms of time.

Working from a more realistic expectation about time, how much I have, and how much things will take to accomplish, makes for better planning, and confronts me with the tradeoffs I have to make, beforehand, when I'm still big picture and thinking clearly. Rather than trying to adjust when I'm entangled in the middle of something and feel the need to finish it in an overly-attached, muddle-brained state. Or choosing my next task from a tired, narrow focus perspective in the middle of the day when I'm in doing things mode.

I think a lot of my planning about my day-to-day routine comes from a wishful thinking perspective. Then at the end of the day when I'm confronted with failing to follow through again, I feel like I'm lousy, rather than seeing the truth: I doomed myself to failure from the start, like a bad boss who insists on a project deadline that's half of what you know you actually need, because he either doesn't understand your work at all, or is just thinking about what he wants, not what you need.

This understanding, plus the additional self-awareness check-in's throughout the day ("how did that go? What would I do differently if I could?") Prompted by my "felt-sense navigation and self analysis" mindset, feels like it's nudging me towards more useful practices and choices. Sometimes it makes me stop beating myself up, because when I ask "what would I do differently?" I realize it actually was a decent choice, and it's my "should voices" coming from external sources that are making me think otherwise.

OK, that's another blog done, almost caught up. I think I'll stop for the day, time to do some other important work that I'll feel good about doing in hindsight 👍😊🙌

With love and wishes for your happiness,

-Isaac