Things

In school, one of the things that used to keep me awake was the wondering over how much of me was myself, and how much of me was made of parts that I incorporated from other people. I wondered whether there was a particular thing that I could point to that was myself, since I felt that there should be. If not, then who/what was I?

Now, I feel the situation has almost reversed. It feels almost easier to consider myself as an aggregate, refracted expression of experiences and preferences.

It seems natural that any one Thing is itself an organized, interdependent collection of other things.

Collective perspective

I am a dendrite in the mind of humankind

peripheral

Some things

like the sun,

the pleiades,

and certain creatures

are best seen when not viewed directly -

- and all for different reasons.

shoot for the moons

Sometimes,

I think of the goals I have, and the things I am trying hard to accomplish.

At times, it is frustrating and discouraging to think of the targets I have not hit, or the small ways that I have failed and fallen short here and there that I can see will add up to me not being able to complete the final leg in a series of tasks. I see effort after marathon effort stopping short of the finish line or falling off and stalling along the way. It is easy to feel that even if I've gone nearly the whole distance, I'm still just as far from achieving the finish as if I'd never started. If only I'd been able to do a little more. You either finish or you don't.

A couple of friends have independently expressed to me that I am somehow a good reminder to them of possibilities for their own lives. And sometimes, gazing up at all the luminous satellites that I have failed to hit, I've wondered where on earth they're getting this idea from. Perhaps other people that I consider 'successful' and whose accomplishments I admire feel the same way.

But then, as I turn away from the sky to make my way home, I notice my trail is actually lit by the glowing pieces of many unexpected stars that came down while I was aiming for the moons.

fear worth fearing

A friend of mine wrote about the mist. It is the mist that gets inside you and blinds you, so that you cannot even see yourself, let alone the way out of the mist. You might not even see the mist.

I wrote a response to her post:



Wow, this makes so much sense.

Just last night, I was talking with a friend, jokingly about how we should make normal-colored glasses to make things appear normal. (In the way that there are rose-colored glasses to make things appear.. rosy). I suggested making terrible-colored glasses out of the joke that glasses which made things 'dark' would probably be black.. and therefore... (punchline:) already exist as sunglasses.

But then we started thinking of actually what color 'terrible' might be (so as to make other things 'terrible-colored). And before I really knew what I was saying, I said it would glasses that were smudged or foggy, but you wouldn't be allowed to take them off.

I was surprised to find that I had actually begun to frighten myself with the thought because I knew what I was reminding myself of.

Reading this, it makes perfect sense why.
(Have you watched Hedgehog in the Fog yet?)


This is why we will have awesome lives.
We are afraid of something worth being afraid of, and we know to avoid it at all costs, because any cost is worth avoiding it. And I think it is easier to see fog from a distance than from within.

Thanks for posting this.

April 18, 2010 12:19 PM

can't always get what you want

I remind myself that humans rarely know how to want what is good, myself including.
This is comforting and makes it much more easy to accept and adapt when things don't seem to go as desired.
I remember long ago when I considered the reason that prayers aren't always answered is because humans don't often ask for the right things.


However, it also reminds me of a faith I used to trust more reliably.

You get what you need.
(but you do have to try)

yin and yang

Oh yes, that's right. Neither extreme is desirable, and neither to be excluded, but it is an appropriate balance.

Not gray. Black and White negotiating.

There is a place for both of them.

Obstacle course

He traced a short line segment on the table with his finger.

"Our parents get us from here, to here. They teach us the basics."

He he traveled the short distance with another finger, then indicated the vast tabletop fanning beyond the endpoint of the line.

"After that, we're on our own. And," he said, peppering the table with jabs like a minefield from another finger, "it's all an obstacle course from there."

The expanse of the tabletop stretched arbitrarily in all directions.

"We got to make our own way through the obstacle course. There are all these obstacles out there, but there are things you can do to make it easier on yourself.

Some we can go over,
some we choose,
some just come at us,
some we can go around,
some we avoid,
some ... are just there.


Some people use intuition,
[some use impulse,]
some have a plan..."

I looked at the empty table covered in an imagined landscape of boulders ... some to choose, some to avoid, some are most easily approachable in a certain order. I imagined trying to steer or coast on the thin path of my life as it wound through the terrain.

feeding habits

Someday,

perhaps I will be able to say that I used to expend a lot of effort choosing very carefully exactly what to say for fear of missing my target,

but then I realized that whether or not people understand has very little to do with the content they are given.

People are blind, and will see only what they are prepared to see, regardless.



And when I really understand this,
I will know that however someone responds to something is at least as telling of where they are coming from as it is of how well I spoke. I can only anticipate so much, and then, as much as I wish to be an architect of these things, my half of the bridge is built. Whether I can be met with open understanding is a condition of the hearer more than an evaluation of me as a speaker, although of course I will try to be flexible to the condition of my audience.


When I understand this, I will be able to tell whether corn or pearls are called for. I will learn from the response what the feeding habits are. If that's not what I've got, I will accept retention of the things I cannot express or share. People don't accept what they can't recognize. Of course swine will insult what they can't eat.

And, I won't mind, but I will feel alone.

Oracle at 112 5th Ave

I was walking with a friend in New York City when this vertically-scrolling column caught my eye.

Enjoy yourself because you can't change anything else

The sign was speaking to me. And it was relentless.

Aspiring for love is stupid

Even your family can betray you

Extreme self-consciousness leads to corruption

Fear is the greatest incapacitor

I'm glad that my friend was there too, because he began reading aloud from the display. Otherwise, it would have been easy to think that I was seeing some kind of hallucinatory prophetic vision.

Freedon is a luxury not a necessity

Giving true reign to emotion is an honest way to live

Keep your life in flux

Hiding your motives is despicable

I kept semi-expecting the quotes to begin repeating themselves, but they never did. They only began sounding perhaps more political. I kept reading and hearing the words in the rising voice of my friend.

It is man's fate to outsmart himself

Is Liberation dangerous? Only when overdue!

Let it explode. Run with it. Don't control or manipulate

Grassroots agitation is the only hope

It is sometimes better to die than to continue

I considered that it might be good practice to read these things out loud from time to time.


As with everything of course, add salt to taste.




(* We asked some people emerging from the building what sort of building it was. They replied, Barnes & Noble)

perspective

Everything seems better when you have a good vantage point to look back from.

This is another good reason to seek good vantage points.

Reminders from The Dog Whisperer

Cesar Millan, appears in a show called The Dog Whisperer

Cesar coaches dog owners in how to manage themselves to the benefit of their dogs' good behavior.
Referring to how to handle dogs with troubled histories, the owners learn,

"What happened [earlier] doesn't matter"

and to proceed by focusing on the question, "What do you want to create?"

To encourage owners to continue with what they've learned, he says, "remind yourself of the things you did well."

I like his attitude towards teaching and learning. When the owners succeed in following his directions with their dogs, he congratulates them, saying "I want to reward you with more challenges".

Some of the advice he has regarding dog ownership is just generally good advice for conducting oneself and being aware of others. Here, he offers some thoughts on Energy as Communication.

From the few cases I saw, it seemed that it wasn't necessarily that extra or special measures had to be taken to counteract the dogs' prior negative experiences, but that the dogs responded very well for having a calm and stable leader that would just handle them and their current situation for what it was, and who let them know clearly and fairly what was expected of them.

All the information of how to proceed, even from a difficult situation, is right there in the present for someone who can interact, listen, and move.

walls make categories

This post will probably only make sense to myself.
I am posting anyway because I need to process it. Perhaps someday I will find more readily human-intelligible words.



I need to remind myself to be entirely myself rather than assembling myself from various chosen categories (although, it is helpful to consult previously-established categories in creating myself).

I don't need to dig up my history in order to determine my present or my future.

I don't need to apologize, but to absorb, grow, and adapt.



Sometimes, I think that the way I try to be reminds people of categories that I didn't intend. And this sometimes concerns me when I realize that the way I choose to conduct myself can affect other peoples' categories as well. Some walls are good to cross, but sometimes walls are there for a reason. Some walls divide, others organize, others are practical. Some are wise, others are temporary.

I know that I sometimes draw lines in sands that didn't need to be divided. And, when waters meet over walls I thought I saw, and two categories seem to contradict, the only thing I know to do is learn.


and yet, this is the year of the Tiger, not the year of the Stingray.




a small basket of what I hope is helpful sanity:

A similar and helpful thought from Sam

A Thing

I believe that this first homework assignment from Tom Wieting has contributed much to the landscape of my thoughts over the last four years.


Do we say that a thing is what it is, because it does what it does, or that it does what it does, because it is what it is?




And to think I thought I could answer it just once ...

a Shel Silverstein Story

This is a great story:

The Missing Piece Meets the Big O

by Shel Silverstein

no resignation

I have been playing with the concept of

"no resignations"

as a substitute for the phrase

"no regrets"

since I have begun to believe that living according to a rule of 'no regrets' puts pretty high stakes on the chance that I will risk and lose, which I think is actually counterproductive for me. Also, I have known myself acting out of an avoidance or fear of somehow still harboring regrets, despite the fact that it is often difficult to anticipate what things I might or might not regret and to inform my decisions with that anticipation.

(I am speaking very much in the first person because I am aware that others may perceive the reminder 'no regrets' in a more personally useful manner. It has lost its use for me, possibly encouraging me to take rash actions in the name of not regretting.)

I like the concept 'no resignation' because it prods me to, whatever the situation, not give up. not give in. To the best of my abilities, my actions (whatever direction) will be choices. I will not suffer or cripple myself in advance for the sake of things that I cannot know whether or not I will regret ahead of time.

But I will do my best to not leave myself at the mercy of my situations, but to make what seems to be the best choice at the time and not to resign to circumstances making the decision for me.
If I regret one of those decisions, so be it.

Love is

Someone once told him, and he passed it along to me:

"Love is a constant attempt at understanding."


It reminded me of what I thought I'd learned from the lyrics of Fleetwood Mac's Landslide


A willingness to seek and understand, especially amid constant change, I think, implies a willingness to be transformed, since new understandings change and develop a person in different ways.

So, with help from The Alchemist I add:
"Love is a willingness to be transformed."

Death to my deathbed

A while back, in March? or so,
over the dinner I owed him at Lili's in exchange for prior talk, 牛肺, and 水具鱼,...

We'd been talking about various philosophies and different useful texts,

I explained about the characters in the Conference of the Birds and though he hadn't read it, as I listed off some represented traits he added '... and the bird that wants to understand why this particular route is being chosen and what the significance to flying over this river is...' which I identified with all too clearly.

Later, we spoke of choices and motivations.

I really don't want to have regrets, I told him,

Sometimes I try to think of myself on my deathbed looking back,
and try to anticipate whether I will regret something.
I really don't want to feel like I would.
Sometimes living for no regrets seems like a lot of pressure.


Well,
he said, after a pause.
You know what I think you should do to the self on your deathbed?

... kill her?

kill her.


We both took a drink from our water.

The Blues is Survival Music

...The blues takes joy and tragedy and plays them both the same. It affirms by saying I WILL sing and dance my life, and make what hurts feel good by acceptance in transcendence. It makes what feels good even better.

-Wynton Marsalis, Commencement Speech at Northwestern
Full text of intended speech

Soak up this rain even if it's rainin'.

E

(The cure for Passion is Eternity)


(Brilliant guitarist and songwriter Danny Schmidt, "This too shall pass.")