In the last two weeks:
Visited a friends newly made and inhabited beehive and learned about the complex reproductive and social/work structures of bees. Spoiler, it's not at all a good analogy for what the "the birds and the bees" is supposed to be an analogy for. It's totally alien to our human way of doing things, and even our anthropomorphization of bee's is fairly incorrect. I won't go into detail, but it's probably worth researching if you're interested in weird science.
Started working in earnest on the homework that is due for my Montessori training come summer. Just finished a story of a mathematician, or in this case, mathematical theorem: Bayes Theorem. (probably too advanced for any but the oldest and smarty-pants-est of the elementary kids, but really fascinating and a fun challenge to try and tackle, for any that it does appeal to. And an essential understanding for statistics and probability, that few people really understand.) In any case, while researching its uses, which include creating high quality AI's, I stumble across the AI generated pictures of celebrities that don't exist. They are super high resolution and impossible to distinguish from real pictures and people. It's... I don't know how to feel about it. Cool, fascinating, creepy, worrying. Looking at the progress of what AI's can do over the last 7 years or so, it's like watching an artist progressively getting better at drawing until they are photo-realistic. You're going to be able to fake... anything. They've animated the mona-lisa, to make a video where she's talking. Fake news just became way harder to distinguish. You could have video's of trusted people doing and saying things they did not do. Generated by AI's.
Fascinating fact: one of the most powerful AI structures is what they call... I forget the name... GAN's? oppositional networks: that is, one AI tries to make a realistic face, and the other tries to spot the fakes. You have them grow in proficiency at about the same rate, so they're both learning from each other and getting smarter from each other. This takes out the human element, where you need a real live person telling the computer, "no, that looks weird." And so the evolution can happen much more rapidly. Another fascinating thing they're doing, is... again, I forget the exact name, but self-awareness programs, where the program checks in with itself, about what it's already done, to help it figure out what needs to happen next and if it makes sense in the context of the whole (whole picture, in this case)
Suzannah made pizza! Normally we get a frozen pizza and add our own toppings, but this time she made the dough from scratch. It came out great! I love having such a creative person as my partner. She's been gardening, making things carpenter style, knitting... I feel like she is even more into my homestead/permaculture lifestyle that I've dreamed of, than I am. Certainly in her actions, though I took a break from pursuing that to get clear on my job situation. At some point, when that's settled down, I look forward to getting back into that kind of stuff more. I'll probably come at it more from the primitive skills and permaculture perspective, which is very complementary. We are very complementary, in so many ways. It's something I often think of with gratitude.
Everything is blooming and sprouting. It's beautiful, it's no longer cold, but also not hot. It is the most beautiful time to be in Fairfield.
The deer are eating Suzannah's garden, despite an extensive fence. She is preparing to shore up defenses. Really what we need is a friendly neighborhood cougar to hunt them. Their population is out of control.
I'm so greatful to have a bit more time that usual, even though I'm back to work. I've had a backlog for so long, it feels wonderful to finally be making headway with it, rather than just adding to the pile. I think as a society we work too much. It's not healthy. Not healthy for our bodies to sit that much, or healthy for our families to have so little time for them. Not healthy for our society, or earth, that gets neglected in the face of overwhelming personal concerns.
At the same time, I think there are some people who have figured out a system whereby they delegate, ignore the unimportant, and efficiently do the important, and somehow manage to get everything done on time without chaos or burnout. I'd like to become one of those. I think I'm working at it, but it's currently not top of my priority list, though perhaps it should be, since it's one of those foundation skills that will translate into better performance with everything else I do... kind of like I set out to learn how to learn/grow effectively a while ago, and learning that skill has been incredibly helpful for the rest of my life. (Though there's still plenty of improvements I could still make)
OK, I think that'll be all for this week. Take care everyone. It's a strange time: we have lots of extremes: some people are out of work, doing nothing, some are working harder than they've ever been with an extra serving of stress. Some are having a vacation experience, others are on the verge of death, or worried about the death of a friend or loved one. Nobody knows what to do, or what's going to happen. But we still have each other, we can still go for a walk under the blossoming fruit trees. We can play and laugh and count our blessings, we can help each other and love each other, though mostly from 6 feet or more away.
Love and peace,
-Isaac
Monday, April 27, 2020
Lists, Aristotle's vice of excess and deficiency, Birth, Death
I think the list format is efficient and fun for getting a lot of happenings and flavor to you without a lot of text, which is perhaps good for both of us. So here's another one.
The past two weeks:
Found out that one of my closest teachers/friends from my graduate program died last year of cancer. Goodby Terri, your passion, compassion, and insight lives on in my mind and heart.
Close friends just had their second baby. Name: Gaia.
More than most things, I feel like birth and death mark the passage of time powerfully. There is a reality to it. Something significant has changed. Strong emotions are interwoven into the event. Hope, wonder, celebration, grief, reflection.
I'm working on balance in work and having fun. Previously I was fairly all or nothing, working for months without a real break and then binging fun things for days on end. This approach is not the most healthy, though it does avoid the difficulty of starting something fun and then having to stop it. But I think it's time to improve that ability.
Makes me think of the psychological concept of "hot brain, cool brain." In brief, we have two modes of functioning. Hot brain wants rewards and enjoyment now, and doesn't think about future repercussions, it is emotional. Cool brain sees the future results of our actions, it plans and delays gratification, it keeps us from being impulsive. Both are important. A life with no play, with no enjoying of the present moment, is a bit sterile and cold. A life without thinking of the future and pushing through difficulties for some worthwhile goal, is shallow and often full of regret.
Which makes me think of another concept I heard that I really love. It comes from Aristotle via Brian Johnson (he runs "Optimize")
The vice of excess and deficiency:
It goes like this: every good quality/activity has a certain balance, the "right amount," or balanced application. If you have too much or too little, if you apply it without common sense and balance, the goodness becomes badness. Like the idea that the difference between medicine and poison is dosage (and I'd add, context)
For example: Enthusiasm: good when balanced. When too little, it's depression or apathy. When too much, it might be mania, overzealousness, or burnout.
Another example from my community: Meditation. Right amount: awareness, peace, focus. Not enough: stress, 'noise', superficiality. Too much: escapism, ungrounded, physical deterioration.
Pretty much anything you think of as a virtue or something good, would benefit from being run through this excess/deficiency algorithm to keep it in the healthy, balanced zone. Though what that is will vary from person to person.
I have more to list, but I've got two weeks to make up, so I'll continue this on another post.
The past two weeks:
Found out that one of my closest teachers/friends from my graduate program died last year of cancer. Goodby Terri, your passion, compassion, and insight lives on in my mind and heart.
Close friends just had their second baby. Name: Gaia.
More than most things, I feel like birth and death mark the passage of time powerfully. There is a reality to it. Something significant has changed. Strong emotions are interwoven into the event. Hope, wonder, celebration, grief, reflection.
I'm working on balance in work and having fun. Previously I was fairly all or nothing, working for months without a real break and then binging fun things for days on end. This approach is not the most healthy, though it does avoid the difficulty of starting something fun and then having to stop it. But I think it's time to improve that ability.
Makes me think of the psychological concept of "hot brain, cool brain." In brief, we have two modes of functioning. Hot brain wants rewards and enjoyment now, and doesn't think about future repercussions, it is emotional. Cool brain sees the future results of our actions, it plans and delays gratification, it keeps us from being impulsive. Both are important. A life with no play, with no enjoying of the present moment, is a bit sterile and cold. A life without thinking of the future and pushing through difficulties for some worthwhile goal, is shallow and often full of regret.
Which makes me think of another concept I heard that I really love. It comes from Aristotle via Brian Johnson (he runs "Optimize")
The vice of excess and deficiency:
It goes like this: every good quality/activity has a certain balance, the "right amount," or balanced application. If you have too much or too little, if you apply it without common sense and balance, the goodness becomes badness. Like the idea that the difference between medicine and poison is dosage (and I'd add, context)
For example: Enthusiasm: good when balanced. When too little, it's depression or apathy. When too much, it might be mania, overzealousness, or burnout.
Another example from my community: Meditation. Right amount: awareness, peace, focus. Not enough: stress, 'noise', superficiality. Too much: escapism, ungrounded, physical deterioration.
Pretty much anything you think of as a virtue or something good, would benefit from being run through this excess/deficiency algorithm to keep it in the healthy, balanced zone. Though what that is will vary from person to person.
I have more to list, but I've got two weeks to make up, so I'll continue this on another post.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
A list for early spring
This is kind of a placeholder post. I stipulated when I began this blog, that some weeks I might only have time for a sentence, but I'd try to post every week. I think I subconsciously feel like that's not enough, which makes me post less often.
In any case, last post was for two weeks ago, this post is for this last weekend. I will do it Kenko style, as a simple list.
Spring things I've been noticing:
buds expanding, green at the seams
succulent new shoots from bulbs
increased squirrel activity
a nest of baby bunnies in a leaf pile
tiny ants invading the house from all quarters
the smell of spring rain
birdsong in the morning
long days
tiny new leaves on the bushes
tasty-looking dandelion greens
the smell of fresh cut grass
In any case, last post was for two weeks ago, this post is for this last weekend. I will do it Kenko style, as a simple list.
Spring things I've been noticing:
buds expanding, green at the seams
succulent new shoots from bulbs
increased squirrel activity
a nest of baby bunnies in a leaf pile
tiny ants invading the house from all quarters
the smell of spring rain
birdsong in the morning
long days
tiny new leaves on the bushes
tasty-looking dandelion greens
the smell of fresh cut grass
Check-in. The nerds have been training for this. Respect for teachers.
It's been over two weeks and thought I don't have a lot of time, I feel like I should post something short in case anybody is worrying because of the radio silence. So far, we're fine. Getting used to quarantine and all the new routines has taken some time and is continuing to. But that is always the case when my life changes and I have to adapt to a new set of circumstances and learn how to thrive in them. I'm starting to get there, and am enjoying the beautiful spring weather we've been having. A bit cold at the moment, but the sunshine and fresh new growing things always puts me in good spirits.
I'm an introvert and a gamer, so being quarentiend is not a big deal for me, socially. It's been easy enough to move Friday night games to an online format, and I'm with my fiancee, so I've got someone to cuddle. Which is frankly more positive social interaction than I've gotten for years, before we got together, when I was just single, working through my Masters and such. And thankfully we're still allowed to go out for walks, and we've got a yard out back, so I'm pretty set, if things stay as they are.
I do wonder how long things will stay as they are though. It seems signs point to this quarantine lasting for a while, in which case, you've got to wonder if some of the various systems that are being stressed right now will break down. I suspect we will be generally ok. We have power, we have food.
It is however, quite the wake-up call for me. I've taken a number of classes with Tom Brown Jr., on nature survival, the philosophy of living with the earth, and with some classes he's talked more about disaster preparedness, and this really makes it strike home in a real way: that can happen to me, not just other people. And once it's hit, it's not a good time to start preparing for things. You want yourself well prepared before things get hairy. So I'm thinking to myself: do I have potable water? do I have food? Do I have way of meeting up with family if I can't use my cell phone? Do I have a plan if X, Y, or Z happens? Food for thought, and more than thought, action. Climate change is a thing, and that means more and more uncertainty about the world around us. Things are going to keep getting more tumultuous until we change how we do things, and for a while afterwards, due to the momentum of such a large system. To not be prepared for that is the illogical thing. Though it's normally easy to do, because we end up complacent, overwhelmed with our normal day-to-day lives.
But now, with many of us having extra time on our hands, is a perfect opportunity to reflect and plan. Do you have a rendezvous point for family, where you know to meet up if something happens and communication lines are down? Maybe you want a little victory garden for food security (and stress reduction, gardening.)
Also, some of you now have more time for things that are most important to you: family, passion projects and hobbies, maybe a spiritual practice. You may have more time for these things now. If your a parent struggling with children, that may not be the case. You may just have a newfound respect for the teaching profession.
Heaven and Hell are often a matter of perspective, and while there are certainly scary things going on in the world, and things to be careful of, there's always good that can be found in the situation at hand. I've yet to encounter a situation where I couldn't do that, even if it was just, "this is unpleasant, but teaching me something valuable."
Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, pray for those who need it.
Love,
I
I'm an introvert and a gamer, so being quarentiend is not a big deal for me, socially. It's been easy enough to move Friday night games to an online format, and I'm with my fiancee, so I've got someone to cuddle. Which is frankly more positive social interaction than I've gotten for years, before we got together, when I was just single, working through my Masters and such. And thankfully we're still allowed to go out for walks, and we've got a yard out back, so I'm pretty set, if things stay as they are.
I do wonder how long things will stay as they are though. It seems signs point to this quarantine lasting for a while, in which case, you've got to wonder if some of the various systems that are being stressed right now will break down. I suspect we will be generally ok. We have power, we have food.
It is however, quite the wake-up call for me. I've taken a number of classes with Tom Brown Jr., on nature survival, the philosophy of living with the earth, and with some classes he's talked more about disaster preparedness, and this really makes it strike home in a real way: that can happen to me, not just other people. And once it's hit, it's not a good time to start preparing for things. You want yourself well prepared before things get hairy. So I'm thinking to myself: do I have potable water? do I have food? Do I have way of meeting up with family if I can't use my cell phone? Do I have a plan if X, Y, or Z happens? Food for thought, and more than thought, action. Climate change is a thing, and that means more and more uncertainty about the world around us. Things are going to keep getting more tumultuous until we change how we do things, and for a while afterwards, due to the momentum of such a large system. To not be prepared for that is the illogical thing. Though it's normally easy to do, because we end up complacent, overwhelmed with our normal day-to-day lives.
But now, with many of us having extra time on our hands, is a perfect opportunity to reflect and plan. Do you have a rendezvous point for family, where you know to meet up if something happens and communication lines are down? Maybe you want a little victory garden for food security (and stress reduction, gardening.)
Also, some of you now have more time for things that are most important to you: family, passion projects and hobbies, maybe a spiritual practice. You may have more time for these things now. If your a parent struggling with children, that may not be the case. You may just have a newfound respect for the teaching profession.
Heaven and Hell are often a matter of perspective, and while there are certainly scary things going on in the world, and things to be careful of, there's always good that can be found in the situation at hand. I've yet to encounter a situation where I couldn't do that, even if it was just, "this is unpleasant, but teaching me something valuable."
Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, pray for those who need it.
Love,
I
Monday, March 30, 2020
Unicorniversery
So much has happened. Tomorrow is my anniversary with Suzannah. It doesn't feel like a year has passed. I wake up every morning and get to cuddle my best friend. And again before I go to bed at night. Every day is made better, just as it has been in the past, when I got to spend some of it with a best friend. But I get to do that all the time now. It's wonderful, and hasn't gotten less wonderful, a year later. Not even a little. What an incredible blessing.
Today is Unicorn Gate, as we dubbed it, represented by The Last Unicorn. A movie we watched together a year ago, thinking it would be a romantic childhood nostalgia trip. It was not. In case you've forgotten like we'd forgotten, the last unicorn is weird and sad and creepy. The whole thing feels like it's on drugs. That first official date ended feeling weird and uncomfortable, with a stomach ache from dinner, and then there was an awkward and uncomfortable first kiss.
We call it Unicorn Gate because, like Watergate, it brought to light a whole bunch of stuff that had been brewing underground. When we finally were able to talk about it, it dissipated. There is all the expectations and the posturing and trying to be someone we're not, associated with the initial courtship dance, and this brought it all up to light. And once it was voiced, and we were out of the uncomfortable expectations and just being real, being ourselves, it became clear that we really liked who that real person was. I say we, but since I'm writing this, I want to give myself credit and say I saw that real person and relationship a while before this event. But Suzannah needed it, to clear away her uncertainty. For me, it was a walk several weeks earlier, that we've dubbed "Possum Magic" for reasons that would be clear if you knew the story. (but that's a story for another day.)
In any case, as we reflected on the yearly return of Unicorn gate this morning, during this pandemic, I said something like, "let it remind us that sometimes the best things come from the seemingly worst." Sometimes you need a bad first kiss and break-up to realize you really do like someone. Sometimes if you totally surrender controle and trust God completely with the outcome, trust that no matter how bad it looks right now, it is all for your best, then everything turns out better than you could ever do, or ever did, trying to control everything with your spindly little ego arms.
So, here's to the power of Unicorns, and trippy, uncomfortable-feeling 80's fantasy films. And the power of things we think are bad, things that feel bad in the moment, to actually bring about great good. No "fertilizer," no flowers.
Today is Unicorn Gate, as we dubbed it, represented by The Last Unicorn. A movie we watched together a year ago, thinking it would be a romantic childhood nostalgia trip. It was not. In case you've forgotten like we'd forgotten, the last unicorn is weird and sad and creepy. The whole thing feels like it's on drugs. That first official date ended feeling weird and uncomfortable, with a stomach ache from dinner, and then there was an awkward and uncomfortable first kiss.
We call it Unicorn Gate because, like Watergate, it brought to light a whole bunch of stuff that had been brewing underground. When we finally were able to talk about it, it dissipated. There is all the expectations and the posturing and trying to be someone we're not, associated with the initial courtship dance, and this brought it all up to light. And once it was voiced, and we were out of the uncomfortable expectations and just being real, being ourselves, it became clear that we really liked who that real person was. I say we, but since I'm writing this, I want to give myself credit and say I saw that real person and relationship a while before this event. But Suzannah needed it, to clear away her uncertainty. For me, it was a walk several weeks earlier, that we've dubbed "Possum Magic" for reasons that would be clear if you knew the story. (but that's a story for another day.)
In any case, as we reflected on the yearly return of Unicorn gate this morning, during this pandemic, I said something like, "let it remind us that sometimes the best things come from the seemingly worst." Sometimes you need a bad first kiss and break-up to realize you really do like someone. Sometimes if you totally surrender controle and trust God completely with the outcome, trust that no matter how bad it looks right now, it is all for your best, then everything turns out better than you could ever do, or ever did, trying to control everything with your spindly little ego arms.
So, here's to the power of Unicorns, and trippy, uncomfortable-feeling 80's fantasy films. And the power of things we think are bad, things that feel bad in the moment, to actually bring about great good. No "fertilizer," no flowers.
Monday, March 23, 2020
From far away to real and now. Self-care and Other-care. Stories to tell the kids.
Oh, I thought I was two weeks behind, but I'm actually approximately on schedule. I guess it's felt like a long week. I think a lot of people can related. There is probably quite a bit of shared experience between people right now. What's it like, staying at home all day?
I'm actually quite happy about that part of it. Right now, I was scheduled to be practice teaching during my spring break, but I actually get to take it! I'm thinking about how much I want to spend on video games and movies, and how much I want to spend, catching up on work. I suppose I'm lucky, in that I have perhaps years of backlog of stuff that I could work on. I'll be back to work remotely come next week, but I could easily spend a couple months working through all the todo's I've got stored up in a list, and another couple years on the creative projects I've written down to work on "some day." So I don't have to worry about boredom. I treasure days or weeks like this, where I have the time to work on these things.
I almost never get a chance to really sit down and play a game, but I've kind of turned the work I have to do into a game. There is great satisfaction in setting goals for myself and then ticking them off. There is something about the realness of that which usually trumps computer games, even when the computer games are beautiful works of art, akin to a painting and a novel and a symphony that are synced to an interactive sport, all put together. In many ways, that's what the best computer games are (except you don't actually get to move your body much, like you would in a real physical sport.)
Even so, the game of real life is usually more satisfying. Often with video games I end up being more of a taster. It's why I like buffets so much: you get to try a tiny bit of a whole bunch of things, decide what you like most, and have more of that. I think I would have fun as a review writer: I like to research, try things, analyse, and write my thoughts.
In any case, often I just have time for a taste, but perhaps I'll have a little more time this week.
I spent a good part of monday of last week cleaning and being super productive, imagining that's what my break would feel like, and then the rest was setting up and doing stuff for my students and parents for home-school stuff, since our school is closed.
I was hoping to do that for a full week now that spring break is actually here, but I've got a weird stomach bug that's keeping me low energy. I don't know what the heck it is. It's not intense, but my stomach feels 'tender' pretty much all the time, and if I eat too much, I get a full on stomach ache. I tried fasting one day and that was really bad, I felt weak and got dehydrated and it didn't seem to improve anything, so I'm just eating lightly and taking it easy, hoping my immune system will fix things. Not sure what else there is to do about it. But kind of a bummer, when I want to be going full steam ahead with all the stuff that's been put off till now. I'll have to settle for half steam, until it's better. It's been dragging on for... maybe 6 days now. It's a bad time to get a weird medical thing, because I don't want to go into a hospital if I can help it. Objectively, it's not that bad, but these kind of things are always worse when you couple them with the unknown: Is it just a weird stomach flu? Is something wrong with my stomach and it's not going to get better until I get medical help? When will it be over it?
I just got in digital line for a phone-call doctor visit. There are, as expected, unusually long lines for that, and half of the intake questions seemed to be covid related. I half expect her to pick up the phone, discover I'm not asking about covid, and hang up on me in disgust. Or else be relieved to have something different to think about. We'll see how it goes. Can they diagnose me effectively just over the phone? Perhaps I should have just called a cousin or friend who's in the medical profession? My experience with western medicine with these kind of minor chronic things is not good, but it seems like the responsible thing to do.
It's been a crazy few weeks, hasn't it? I went to Chicago to practice teach, and had to turn around and drive back two days later, because the schools closed the day after my very first day teaching. The whole world is seemingly in lockdown, except for those who are on the front lines, doing medical stuff or providing needed services, like food and gass. I'm sure their lives have just gotten way more stressful. What used to be relatively average jobs, stress wise, like groceries, have become super intense suddenly.
And the rest, who have to stay at home, are having to deal with economic worries. Business owners are worried about losing their businesses. Others, their jobs. People are rushing to stockpile food and other staples.
The world suddenly doesn't seem as safe and stable as it once did. The reality of the fragility of our systems is kind of hitting home. Even though it doesn't seem like this is close to the straw that breaks the camel's back, it is making it clear that such a thing could happen, even hear, in the US. It makes me think of the first time a really close friend died. Death seemed kind of foreign, far away, not real. After that happened, it suddenly became real. Death itself became real. We human beings are not good at being motivated by emotionless facts. We need personal stories, emotions, for something to move us, most of the time. A cool calculated analysis that says our systems are reaching a breaking point in the next few decades doesn't motivate many to change. But a tragedy striking close to home does. Perhaps this will be a bit of a wake-up call to people. I know it is for me. It makes me think of the need for resiliency and self-sufficiency, among families, groups, communities. I already think about the need for change in social and environmental policies and practices and have for many years. Perhaps more people will realize it now.
In the meantime, you may want to get some exercise every day, and spend time outside in nature, even if it's just your backyard. Being inside too much certainly makes me go a little weird in the head, I assume some of you are the same. Just in general, I hope you all take care of yourself. Stay aware and don't pretend nothing is happening, but also, it's ok to enjoy life now. You don't have to be anxious just because that's fashionable these days. A lot of you probably have a bunch of time on your hands: that's great! Any hobbies or skills you've always wanted to learn? Books you've wanted to read? People you've wanted to get back in touch with? How wonderful that we have the internet to connect us to others, even using live video. For free! And practically infinite resources for learning just about any skill you could want. Grow a garden, learn a language, or an instrument. Or, like me, just catch up on your todo list.
And keep yourself emotionally sound. panic and anxiety won't help you. Stay socially connected, even if you're physically distancing. Do your top self-care activities, be it dancing, meditating, playing games with friends, getting enough sleep at the right time, eating well. We all have our own top things that help us have a good day. Now more than ever it's important to practice those things.
Stay connected to your community, your tribe. We need each other especially during stressful and uncertain times. And if you are feeling down, as one of my friends reminded me, one of the best things to do is help someone else. Take the focus off yourself, and see what you can do to make someone else's day brighter. Give a loved one or friend a call, or a nice email, or a funny cat photo. Send a few bucks to a relief fund that's doing something good. Pick up something for an older or at-risk person. In serving, we are served.
Take care everyone. Life is not going as usual, but it's these unusual moments that we end up remembering for years to come. These are the stories we tell to grandchildren.
I'm actually quite happy about that part of it. Right now, I was scheduled to be practice teaching during my spring break, but I actually get to take it! I'm thinking about how much I want to spend on video games and movies, and how much I want to spend, catching up on work. I suppose I'm lucky, in that I have perhaps years of backlog of stuff that I could work on. I'll be back to work remotely come next week, but I could easily spend a couple months working through all the todo's I've got stored up in a list, and another couple years on the creative projects I've written down to work on "some day." So I don't have to worry about boredom. I treasure days or weeks like this, where I have the time to work on these things.
I almost never get a chance to really sit down and play a game, but I've kind of turned the work I have to do into a game. There is great satisfaction in setting goals for myself and then ticking them off. There is something about the realness of that which usually trumps computer games, even when the computer games are beautiful works of art, akin to a painting and a novel and a symphony that are synced to an interactive sport, all put together. In many ways, that's what the best computer games are (except you don't actually get to move your body much, like you would in a real physical sport.)
Even so, the game of real life is usually more satisfying. Often with video games I end up being more of a taster. It's why I like buffets so much: you get to try a tiny bit of a whole bunch of things, decide what you like most, and have more of that. I think I would have fun as a review writer: I like to research, try things, analyse, and write my thoughts.
In any case, often I just have time for a taste, but perhaps I'll have a little more time this week.
I spent a good part of monday of last week cleaning and being super productive, imagining that's what my break would feel like, and then the rest was setting up and doing stuff for my students and parents for home-school stuff, since our school is closed.
I was hoping to do that for a full week now that spring break is actually here, but I've got a weird stomach bug that's keeping me low energy. I don't know what the heck it is. It's not intense, but my stomach feels 'tender' pretty much all the time, and if I eat too much, I get a full on stomach ache. I tried fasting one day and that was really bad, I felt weak and got dehydrated and it didn't seem to improve anything, so I'm just eating lightly and taking it easy, hoping my immune system will fix things. Not sure what else there is to do about it. But kind of a bummer, when I want to be going full steam ahead with all the stuff that's been put off till now. I'll have to settle for half steam, until it's better. It's been dragging on for... maybe 6 days now. It's a bad time to get a weird medical thing, because I don't want to go into a hospital if I can help it. Objectively, it's not that bad, but these kind of things are always worse when you couple them with the unknown: Is it just a weird stomach flu? Is something wrong with my stomach and it's not going to get better until I get medical help? When will it be over it?
I just got in digital line for a phone-call doctor visit. There are, as expected, unusually long lines for that, and half of the intake questions seemed to be covid related. I half expect her to pick up the phone, discover I'm not asking about covid, and hang up on me in disgust. Or else be relieved to have something different to think about. We'll see how it goes. Can they diagnose me effectively just over the phone? Perhaps I should have just called a cousin or friend who's in the medical profession? My experience with western medicine with these kind of minor chronic things is not good, but it seems like the responsible thing to do.
It's been a crazy few weeks, hasn't it? I went to Chicago to practice teach, and had to turn around and drive back two days later, because the schools closed the day after my very first day teaching. The whole world is seemingly in lockdown, except for those who are on the front lines, doing medical stuff or providing needed services, like food and gass. I'm sure their lives have just gotten way more stressful. What used to be relatively average jobs, stress wise, like groceries, have become super intense suddenly.
And the rest, who have to stay at home, are having to deal with economic worries. Business owners are worried about losing their businesses. Others, their jobs. People are rushing to stockpile food and other staples.
The world suddenly doesn't seem as safe and stable as it once did. The reality of the fragility of our systems is kind of hitting home. Even though it doesn't seem like this is close to the straw that breaks the camel's back, it is making it clear that such a thing could happen, even hear, in the US. It makes me think of the first time a really close friend died. Death seemed kind of foreign, far away, not real. After that happened, it suddenly became real. Death itself became real. We human beings are not good at being motivated by emotionless facts. We need personal stories, emotions, for something to move us, most of the time. A cool calculated analysis that says our systems are reaching a breaking point in the next few decades doesn't motivate many to change. But a tragedy striking close to home does. Perhaps this will be a bit of a wake-up call to people. I know it is for me. It makes me think of the need for resiliency and self-sufficiency, among families, groups, communities. I already think about the need for change in social and environmental policies and practices and have for many years. Perhaps more people will realize it now.
In the meantime, you may want to get some exercise every day, and spend time outside in nature, even if it's just your backyard. Being inside too much certainly makes me go a little weird in the head, I assume some of you are the same. Just in general, I hope you all take care of yourself. Stay aware and don't pretend nothing is happening, but also, it's ok to enjoy life now. You don't have to be anxious just because that's fashionable these days. A lot of you probably have a bunch of time on your hands: that's great! Any hobbies or skills you've always wanted to learn? Books you've wanted to read? People you've wanted to get back in touch with? How wonderful that we have the internet to connect us to others, even using live video. For free! And practically infinite resources for learning just about any skill you could want. Grow a garden, learn a language, or an instrument. Or, like me, just catch up on your todo list.
And keep yourself emotionally sound. panic and anxiety won't help you. Stay socially connected, even if you're physically distancing. Do your top self-care activities, be it dancing, meditating, playing games with friends, getting enough sleep at the right time, eating well. We all have our own top things that help us have a good day. Now more than ever it's important to practice those things.
Stay connected to your community, your tribe. We need each other especially during stressful and uncertain times. And if you are feeling down, as one of my friends reminded me, one of the best things to do is help someone else. Take the focus off yourself, and see what you can do to make someone else's day brighter. Give a loved one or friend a call, or a nice email, or a funny cat photo. Send a few bucks to a relief fund that's doing something good. Pick up something for an older or at-risk person. In serving, we are served.
Take care everyone. Life is not going as usual, but it's these unusual moments that we end up remembering for years to come. These are the stories we tell to grandchildren.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Interesting Times
My personal news shall be delayed for a bit longer, due to the global news. It's getting a lot of coverage. It's not personally scary for us youngins, but for all of us who have parents and older relatives and friends, it's still scary. And it's stressful, thinking about what is the right thing to do, day by day, and being on super high alert as we try and do our work.
I don't envy the officials that are in charge of making decisions right now. They are having to weigh the usefulness of certain measures against how disruptive the measures are, and when to implement them. And combat rumors and misinformation and panic and stress. And get the most important info out, and keep it from getting lost in the noise.
My practice teaching got canceled because all schools closed, so I drove 5 hours to Chicago and back two days later for nothing. And packed for nothing, and now have to unpack and organize myself again. Lots of wasted energy, but that's a very small inconvenience, many people are facing bigger ones.
Hey, on the plus side, I get to actually have a vacation. I was planning on working through spring break at my practice teaching site, like I did last year, but I can't, so I actually get a week off. Yay!
Though I don't know how long spring break is going to be. It seems possible, perhaps likely, that school will not reopen right away, though we'll still be sending homework packets for the kids to make sure they don't fall behind, when things do close down.
The closings and disruptions are something that can't be helped. But people there's an air of fear and stress o'er the land that isn't helping anything. What we need is solidarity and mutual support. Even if we're physically distancing ourselves, we need to stay in contact and supportive, not just of physical needs, but social and emotional. We are all human beings, we have things and people we love, we are in stressful and uncertain times. We fear the unknown, and that makes us close down and lash out. Like one of my kids who sees a spider, is afraid, and responds by trying to kill it. If you can, try to shift out of the fear. Stay alert, follow the protocols, stay safe. The spider isn't going to attack you, just leave it alone or get a teacher to catch it in a cup and let it outside.
At the very least, realize this is stressful and you need to try and take care of yourself mentally as much as physically. Stay connected (maybe via video chat rather than in person), do yoga, whatever works for you. Be careful, be informed, and be kind.
There is a quote, that is supposedly a traditional Chinese curse, but upon researching, appears to just be one of those things that got created anonymously and attributed to someone else: "May you live in interesting times." We are certainly doing that.
Stay safe out there. Your in my heart.
-Isaac
I don't envy the officials that are in charge of making decisions right now. They are having to weigh the usefulness of certain measures against how disruptive the measures are, and when to implement them. And combat rumors and misinformation and panic and stress. And get the most important info out, and keep it from getting lost in the noise.
My practice teaching got canceled because all schools closed, so I drove 5 hours to Chicago and back two days later for nothing. And packed for nothing, and now have to unpack and organize myself again. Lots of wasted energy, but that's a very small inconvenience, many people are facing bigger ones.
Hey, on the plus side, I get to actually have a vacation. I was planning on working through spring break at my practice teaching site, like I did last year, but I can't, so I actually get a week off. Yay!
Though I don't know how long spring break is going to be. It seems possible, perhaps likely, that school will not reopen right away, though we'll still be sending homework packets for the kids to make sure they don't fall behind, when things do close down.
The closings and disruptions are something that can't be helped. But people there's an air of fear and stress o'er the land that isn't helping anything. What we need is solidarity and mutual support. Even if we're physically distancing ourselves, we need to stay in contact and supportive, not just of physical needs, but social and emotional. We are all human beings, we have things and people we love, we are in stressful and uncertain times. We fear the unknown, and that makes us close down and lash out. Like one of my kids who sees a spider, is afraid, and responds by trying to kill it. If you can, try to shift out of the fear. Stay alert, follow the protocols, stay safe. The spider isn't going to attack you, just leave it alone or get a teacher to catch it in a cup and let it outside.
At the very least, realize this is stressful and you need to try and take care of yourself mentally as much as physically. Stay connected (maybe via video chat rather than in person), do yoga, whatever works for you. Be careful, be informed, and be kind.
There is a quote, that is supposedly a traditional Chinese curse, but upon researching, appears to just be one of those things that got created anonymously and attributed to someone else: "May you live in interesting times." We are certainly doing that.
Stay safe out there. Your in my heart.
-Isaac
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