Dreams, Nightmares, Waking Life.

For some reason Google's Chrome web browser is working poorly as of late. there are several pages, including blogger itself, that just won't load unless I use safari. Perhaps it's some weird mixture of chrome plus other stuff on my computer, but it's odd and mildly frustrating. I expected better of you, google. I don't like having to open a second web browser just to get basic services. And I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong. I've gone through most of the non-time intensive general fixes and they've done nothing.

I recently had two interesting dream experiences.  a bit ago, after talking with one of my friends who loves and practices lucid dreaming, I learned a cool new skill. He had mentioned that it is generally true that the more lucid you get in your dreams, the more likely you are to wake up, but there are techniques lucid dreamers have to keep themselves from waking up. He didn't go into details, but one night when I started lucid dreaming (becoming aware that I was dreaming) I decided to try out something to see if I could keep myself in the dream, rather than having the lucidity pop me out, like it always does.  I let my mind start drifting, trying to relax, not think so hard, get a bit less lucid. My body started floating in the dream, passing through walls, and getting more fuzzy, and then it worked, I lost some lucidity, but was able to maintain enough to control the dream still with suggestions of what I wanted to do, and have a much longer and more satisfying romp through dream land than I think I've ever had previously.

So many of these mind things remind me of 1984, the book, and it's word for "doublethink": the ability to hold two opposing, contradictory ideas simultaneously. I guess there's also a section in "the name of the wind" when Kvoth is learning magic that is like it. It's a certain kind of relaxation you need to maintain, while holding your intention, that allows it to percolate deeply. I don't think there's any short-cut, I think it just comes from working with that kind of stuff, intention and intuition and prayer, long enough that you have a bunch of successes, and so have faith, and also familiarity with spiritual states of mind, so when they happen you don't automatically go "oh wow, look at that, it's happening" and then get totally out of it, in your excitement. (similar to how people who have trouble falling asleep often wake themselves all the way up when they start to feel like they're falling asleep.)

The second dream phenomena was just last night. I had a dream that it was a mixture of several different schools alumni reunions. my grade school, high school, undergrad. And my childhood crush from grade school didn't show up, and I was feeling this crushing sadness, realizing I would never see her, never get to make up for never having told her how I felt. the sadness and loss was deep powerful in that way dreams sometimes are, far stronger emotionally that I ever feel while awake, these days, and I was bawling for what felt like ten or fifteen minutes, on and off, grieving. It was kind of cathartic. Perhaps it says something about my current situation that I'm not conscious of.


In other thoughts, teaching is weird. I am exhausted and long for Christmas break. And each week, long for the weekend. Normally, that's a sign you don't like your job, but it's that doublethink thing again: I both really care about and like my job, and at the same time want to run away from it and escape to a tropical island for a few months to rest. I feel what I'm doing is important and valuable. often I get to be of service in a way that feels really good. But also it's profoundly exhausting and draining in a very thorough way, physically and mentally and spiritually. I've never been the natural born leader type, and I kind of have to take that role to do my job properly, as a teacher. There is a level of inherent responsibility with the position that I find daunting. There is a lot of things I need to learn, practical things, nothing I can get by reading a book. And until I get them, I don't think I can be the kind of teacher I care so deeply about becoming. Plus there is so, so much work that I should be doing, after my official paid work days end, to be doing what I would consider a satisfactory job. But I am so totally fried by the end of the day, I can only do a small fraction of the easier parts of that work.

It's uncomfortable and exhausting and sometimes discouraging. But I also can't think of anything I could be doing that is more important, and there are many things that I'm doing reasonably well with, that actually feel good, despite the areas in need of improvement. And at least for now, I still have hope that with time and effort, I will improve at a satisfactory rate.


For now I will just keep pushing in the most intelligent way I can.

-I Out


Waking Life (a cool strange movie, and part of the reference in my title): http://www.openculture.com/2014/12/richard-linklaters-waking-life.html



an unrelated but cool picture I found while looking for the above pic:

The end of Thanksgiving. Family, Gottman, and the importance of letting go of attachments.

Well, Thanksgiving happened, I traveled, I got to spend time with my family which was very sweet. I feel like my relationship with them has only gotten better and better over the years.

Probably similar to that old Mark Twain Quote:

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."

Clearly the joke is that it was actually Mark Twain who had grown in those seven years. And likewise, I think my parents have always been kind and wonderful, but I've gotten a lot better at being  kind and wonderful back, and appreciating them properly. Same with the rest of my family.

It was mostly really nice to finally see my Girlfriend, but we got into a little bit of intense talk, a result of me feeling like I couldn't broach the more serious topics via email, and so this was my only opportunity. But we worked it out pretty well, I think. I made use of some of what I'd been learning from John Gottman's books and that was really helpful. Still, it was sad to have some of our brief time together be less than joyful. But now I know it's ok to bring up the serious issues via email, so that's a relief. Though one thing that has be down is her adjusted time-frame for when she'll have time for more than a quick text at night: probably not until at least the end of her schooling. That's 2.5 more years. And then after that, if she gets a job, it's probably going to be super busy for that as well. I was prepared to wait it out patiently for a year, though it would hurt, but that's some bitter medicine to swallow. I'm not sure what it means for the relationship, but in certainly means I need to re-evaluate. I still think she is amazing and would make a great partner... but I need a bit more time of actually interacting with her to confirm this. And I don't know when I'll get that time. Could be years.

I'm feeling down, due to that. And anxious, about starting up teaching again. Always seems to happen, first day back to school after not teaching for a bit. No school yesterday, because of a blizzard. Thank God; I was so tired from all the activity and travel, I slept in for a total of like 12 hours. I think I was also mildly sick.

But now we start up again. I realized that a big part of my anxiety and then fatigue from teaching is I've got a big attachment to being great at my job. Nothing wrong with wanting to do your job well, but it's the whole equanimity thing: be equal in success and failure, pleasure and pain. When you, when I, try and cling too tightly to something being one way, or pushing away something else, it makes me unbalanced, unhappy, and unproductive.

I noticed this particularly with my creative endeavors, like acting and improv dance: it is when I'm not afraid of failure, when I'm not attached to success, that I take risks and have fun in a way that is very effective and productive. When I get to worried about failing, I clam up, get too conservative, stop having fun, stop being as focused and energetic.

I hope someday I can have the same kind of fun teaching, as I do with improv dance. That took many years though, and lots of practice, improving my skills. So I suppose I should be patient with myself, in this current area... though, on the other hand, I was able to get into that state even from early on, with improv dance.

I think it's more of a mental block than an impossibility. But it's harder than dance because it's not just something I'm doing for fun, it's my job, and there are a bunch of other people involved. Much bigger responsibility. More planning needed. More people involved, more complexity, more challenges, higher stakes. Makes sense that it would be more challenging.

Alright, back I go.
On the plus side, the pressure keeps me focused and working hard, which I like.

Much love to my loved ones, and well-wishes to all of you.

(my email subscription widget says there's like a thousand emails signed up to get this, which seems insane. I'm assuming I'm reading it wrong or it doesn't notice when it gets unsubscribed or something. the idea that many people are interested in reading my little tea conversations does not compute, so I generally try to forget about it and just write like I'm writing to a few close friends and family.)

Deer. 3:30am wake-up. Gratitude, excitement, designer jeans.

“I’m feeling as distressed right now as your stylish designer jeans"

(random made-up quote)

I stood and stared at a deer that was in my yard this morning for a minute or two. I was just going outside for my early morning walk/run, and it was a little adolescent, still not full grown. It was less than ten feet away from me, but I guess because I didn't startle when I saw it, and I'm very quiet, it was startled by the sound of the door opening and closing, but not moving because it wasn't sure if I'd seen it, I guess. meanwhile, I got to marvel at it's beauty and cuteness, basically as long as I wanted, as it occasionally looked around, mostly still. I eventually had to move because I had lots of things to do this morning, but it was quite a treat.

(this is not my deer, but it looked similar. maybe a little older, and it was snowy out, like this picture.)

I'm working on a program to improve my touch typing. I have high hopes that I'll get quite good at touch-typing using this program, simply because I find the process of touch typing quite relaxing. I put on some classical music, and just get to zone out while my fingers move in fine synchrony like the symphonies I'm listening too. For a long time, the tap tapping of keys and the complex, muscle memory dance of my fingers skipping across letters and making my thoughts form on paper... er, screen, has had a soothing effect on me.

I think my favorite times with this was when I was ranting to myself in my private journal on apple's simple text program, which happened to have a fairly robotic sounding text to speech feature. I would rant and rave, typing as fast as I could, not caring about the massive amount of typos, streeeeeeaching out words and using lots of ALL UPPERCASE and exclamation points!!!!!!! to get across the vehemence of my impotent rage at my condition, myself, my world etc. some people have primal scream therapy sessions, I had a primal journaling routine. Then I'd have the text to speech robot try and translate my stew of swears, passion, and drawn out letters, and laugh out loud at it.

But even when it wasn't quite that intense or satisfying or humorous, the process of typing out my free flow thoughts has been quite satisfying and soothing to me. handwriting, though great for retention of what is written, cannot hope to keep pace with a racing mind, whereas typing, as long as you don't care about spelling, errors, etc, can kind of keep up, most of the time.

So in any case, the practice itself is enjoyable, which I think is a key to getting good at something.

From what the research says, it takes a lot of practice to get really good at something (though it takes far less to reach a state of competency, the whole thing kind of leveling off like a logarithmic graph.)



For those people putting in 4+ hours every day to achieve eventual mastery, they'd better enjoy the process itself or they'll probably never make it.


In other news
I'M SO HAPPY!

Why? Because in one more day I will be on Thanksgiving Break! This means
a) I get a good five days of at least semi-rest before going once more into the breach (work).
b) I get to see my girlfriend in person, after many many months.

It's also always nice to spend time with my family. I quite enjoy them. I love my immediate family especially, but I love my relatives too. They are such. diverse group, in their personalities and beliefs and preferences, and yet they all have a common thread of wanting to do good. And they all care about family, and try to be accepting of other people's differences. I may not have lots to talk about with many of them, who have different interests, but I still love them and appreciate them, and enjoy their company.

I guess I'm a little nervous, bringing my girlfriend. They're super nice and welcoming, so I don't think there's anything to worry about, but I hope they get along and she feels welcomed and comfortable and they like each other. You can always be hospitable but you can't control your reflexive response to someone, that's just... I don't know what to call it, resonance, compatibility, chemistry. That's generally talked about in terms of romantic partners but there's an element of it among all acquaintances. Best friends are people you have really good compatibility/resonance with. And what makes people really good friends... I'm not sure. It might be very similar to what makes people compatible romantic partners, minus the sex parts.


Welp, I'm going to go pack what I can and get as prepared as possible for my trip Wednesday morning. I'm already tired and I want to make sure I can go to bed super early tomorrow night, because I have to get up REALLY early to drive to the airport and catch my flight. It's at... 6:20am I think? and I'm about an hour and  a half away. so...  I should leave around 4am. So I should get up around 3:30 am so I can brush my teeth etc. That's pretty early even for me.

It's going to be nice to not have the intense energy consumption required of teaching for 5 days, but I also kind of wish I had more free time during this break, to work on all the various projects I want to work on. With traveling and spending time with family and my GF, there's going to be very little time to actually get ahead with any work. I'll have to wait till Christmas break for that, I guess.

On the positive side of all this super heavy work, I think it is good for me, especially as I learn to navigate the stressors with less anxiety and worry. Even without excessive worrying, there is still a fairly intense pressure to perform at a high level, and that's pushing me to be more efficient and more dynamic. It's really the weekends, where I don't feel like every minute is precious, that my good routines fall apart. And that's fine, because I always have the week to whip me back into shape, and then try again next weekend, dragging more and more of that focus and efficient dynamism into the tasks I want to get done on the weekends (one of which is deep rest and recuperation, so don't worry too much about me burning out by overworking on the weekends, I'm trying to take that into account.)

That's our tea for the week!



Much love,
Isaac

Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving

I said there might be days (weeks) like this, where all I have time for is a brief few paragraphs.

I'm looking forward to thanksgiving break. I'll likely get to see my girlfriend, who I haven't seen in person since we met that fateful night a little under a year ago. So that's very exciting.

And this week is parent teacher conferences Friday, so while there is work, it is a much mellower, less exhausting work. And then just two days in the next week, and I get a nice long break. That is happifying to look forward to.

Though I'm continuing to try and figure out how to make my job sustainable; I'd rather look forward to the school days and be sad when I can't teach on the weekends. I think it's possible. What's getting in the way? I think part of it is my perfectionism and fear of doing a bad job. That causes a lot of useless anxiety and guilt. I think I'd be happier and less stressed/anxious, and probably a better, more playful teacher who tries more things, if I was better at self-compassion and not worrying about things I can't control, past mistakes and possible future mistakes. I can stay aware and alert and do my best without the worry and guilt. Mostly they just get in the way.

But also I want to spend a bit more time studying. Studying books etc. on teaching, classroom management, taking more time to think and plan and problem solve. And figuring out rest/work balance, so I feel well prepared but also not burnt out from overworking. Those are all things I'm thinking about in my spare minutes as I try and tweak my life to be more joyful and myself to be more effective at my job.

Love, happy forthcoming holidays,
Isaac


P.S. I'm reminded of some TED talk wisdom on buying happiness. Aside from giving to others, one of the best bangs for your buck is to plan something you're looking forward too. Then all the time leading up to it, is also enjoyable, as you savor and think about what you're going to do. So I'm savoring my future thanksgiving break, now as well.

Healer heal thyself. Odysseus pro strats vs Sirens. Mud, vacations, and psychic showers.

Again I find myself past the weekend, writing my blog.

On the plus side, I put some serious energy and thought into recuperation and purification, and it seems to be working. I'm not doing any less work, in fact, I'm doing more work.

But what I've changed is I'm using all the tools in my arsenal, from precommitments and implementation intentions, to Odysseus contracts and social accountability, to steer myself towards some more rejuvenating recovery time. Mostly on the weekends, but a few minutes during the week as well.

First off, I tried asking the friends I was hanging out with Friday and Saturday night, to help me leave and go to bed earlier. I'd call that an Odysseus contract. (I wonder if I need to explain that more completely. yeah, probably.)

An 'odyesuss contract' comes from the part of the Odyssey where Odysseus is about to sail by the sirens. he's curious what their song is like, to be able to lure men to their deaths, but he also doesn't want to die, so he has all his sailors plug their ears with wax (the best kind of Odysseus contract/precommitment strategy) and tie him up to the ship mast, with very clear instructions not to untie him, no matter what he says, until they are clear of the sirens. They sail by, the sirens, sing, Odysseus yells and begs his men to let him go, they don't, and then they're clear. So the idea is, set things up, so when your willpower is weakest, you have other things in place to make sure you're steered in the right direction.

In my case, some friends who will help remind me that I really do want to go to bed on time, and also, by reminding me, implicitly state that it's OK for me to leave (which is one of the reasons I end up staying later than I mean to: I feel bad about leaving.)

That worked very well. The next hurdle was when I got home, actually going to bed. This part didn't work great, but I did set clear intentions, and it went better than the previous week, and way better than the week before that, so hopefully it's a good pattern.

I then set implementation intentions and pre-decided that Saturday morning was for getting some of my Montessori training essays done (at least two) and then do some spiritual purification. I actually did a full on half-hour long guided meditation to energetically and emotionally cleanse myself, among other things. It's hard to get myself to decide to do something like that, once the weekend actually roles around and I'm physically and emotionally exhausted, but deciding in advance what I would do and when, made it much easier (though still far from perfect, for example I didn't get the essays done until the afternoon) in addition to just a few minutes of some other meditations and techniques to help clean myself.

This is something I postulated was important, and it seems to be confirmed. I've heard many of my friends who do therapy, or energy work, or even massage, mention that they have to clean themselves after a day of working with clients. some of what they work with is like cleaning mud off people, and in doing so, eventually you get mud on you, and you need to make sure to give yourself a shower at the end of the day. I think teaching is like that. You are interacting with all of these people, some of which have a lot of emotional mud on them, and you're trying to help clean it off, direct them towards better choices, build self esteem, comfort, be compassionate, problem solve, inspire, discipline. It is sometimes like trying to clean off some very sticky mud from someone. A cleaning job that you have to work at for weeks and months, perhaps years.

When I realized that my own energy was getting dirty and I started doing something about it, it made a big difference. It's still a super intense, demanding job, I still feel anxiety sometimes, and I am tired and brain-fried by the end of the day. But taking even a little bit of time, to consciously do things that clean me up, emotionally, energetically, makes a very big difference in the quality of my life.

Which means I can be more present and compassionate for the kids, and have more energy to do the seemingly endless tasks that need doing. And have a bit more energy for facing the truly challenging tasks.

But it's just the first week of this, so perhaps too soon to tell. For now I'll keep working at it, since it seems to be doing good things.

And I can't wait for Thanksgiving, and even more so, Christmas break. Oh how I crave a longer weekend. If you are a new teacher or know a new teacher, the first year being really intense is a real thing. (and I've heard that can continue to be intense through the second year as well), be compassionate with them/yourself.

With Love,
-I Out

Whoops! Stress, Recuperation, The over-tired baby.

Wow, I had completely forgotten about this, until someone reminded me of something else I was supposed to write, that I had completely forgotten about.

I don't have much more to say than that, really. Every day after work I feel like one of those asfalt flatteners has run me over.


I'm trying... well, many things. I'm trying to figure out how I can work and not feel like that at the end of the day, or if that's even possible (is it how I'm approaching it, or is it just a building up endurance thing, or some of each, or something else entirely?)

And how I can get enough recuperation that I'm somewhat fresh for the new day, and not so run down by the weekend that I'm too tired to even rest properly. (is that what "overtired" means?)

I appreciate the motivation that this job gives me to push myself. I appreciate my kind, funny, supportive, skilled coworkers. I'm grateful for getting to do something that feels meaningful to me. And I'm grateful for getting to work with a bunch of kids who I love. I'm grateful for many, many things about my job, and my life overall.

But I'm also going through what I think is the fairly universal first year teacher experience (TM) which is a quite stressful ordeal. Anxiety, self-doubt, deep exhaustion. They are things, they are real. I'm handling them as best I can, and I believe I'll come out the other side, I just need to keep going.

But yeah, it's a lot. Many aspects of my life are falling away because I just don't have time or energy for them. I'll try and keep up this blog if I at all can, but it seems possible that I may wake up one day and realize I haven't posted here or even thought about it for a few weeks, because too many other things have crowded it out of my tired brain.

In any case, peace be with you, may your lives be filled with light and goodness, and may you find goodness and gratitude even in the bitter parts of life: if not for the pleasure they give you, for the learnings they impart.

With love to all those dear to me, and a general benevolent love to the unknown persons who've accidentally somehow stumbled upon this,

^_^

-Isaac

The best medicine

humor, as the saying goes.

I think I'm on the edge of getting sick, but I'll be a hog's belly before I just let that happen. People try all sorts of potions and remedies to avoid and return from being sick, but really I think the most effective things are the simplest. But not the easiest. Getting enough rest, for example. Simple, but much harder than popping some pills.

Being happy. Simple. But not something you can force. It's a subtle game, to both respect and honor whatever feelings you have, and at the same time, relentlessly shift your focus back to gratitude, hope, love. If you don't properly honor your present moment internal state, you get repression, which is super unhealthy, and unpleasant. If you don't consciously choose to focus on gratitude and such things, you can get stuck in a dark bog of negativity, where the negative thoughts feed on and echo themselves in a negative spiral.

I'm still figuring out the balance for myself. But as with all things, as I consciously work on it, I'm getting better. Better at genuine positivity in my life, no matter the situation.

There's a saying, I think it's from an ancient Greek philosopher, "nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Perhaps you have qualms with that, but it would certainly lead to an interesting discussion, no matter where you fall on the matter.

I don't think it's as simple as deciding to be happy, since we're dealing with our subconscious and emotional minds as well, that don't just obey our every command. But I do think our beliefs and paradigms and interpretations are what shape our experience of life.

So I'm working on consciously shaping mine. It's slow going, but so are most of the amazing things I've done or had done to me in my life so far.

I know something must be up with my body, because I'm planning to go to bed as soon as I possibly can, and rather than dreading laying in bed with my mind whirring and nothing to do, I am euphoric at the idea. I think I could go to sleep right now, and it's 7:30. I feel so grateful for sleep. Thank you for rest, for peace, for health and strength, and for a biologically enforced break.

Good night and good week, all. Stay healthy, if you can.
^_^
-Isaac

And here's some "medicine":