I've moved my blog to WP: idefiningi.wordpress.com
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
November 5, 2016
dance (n., v.)
I’ve taken many a leap in coming here - to London, and to every unfamiliar experience and mysterious space that I’ve explored over the last year. But tonight was the first time that I consciously realized what it is to have leapt not in a singular direction, but simply, outward. It’s what I’ve done here gradually, and it really hit me today.
I just came back from my second 5Rhythms class, what I foresee becoming a Thursday night ritual that begins and ends with a thirty minute walk to and from a lovely church in Holloway. What occurs in between, I’ll venture to describe as a kind of reverie of movement.
I won’t get into specifics (you can google it), but I will share some reflections, having just come out of a class, glowing with sweat, tired and empty yet quite full and very much alive.
We hold emotions in our body; that’s something I’ve slowly come to realize in my mindfulness practice. When we’re still, we become aware of this and vipassana has taught me the benefit of observing the physical manifestations of emotion to help us detach from it. When we move - consciously - through yoga, any meditative exercise, dance - I think we allow this energy to be released, harnessed, expressed and given form; shaped into something that is more than just ourselves - and that too, helps us detach a bit.
The 5Rhythms class isn’t really all that structured, yet there is a method to the madness as about forty people of all ages and sizes flail around freely in the open space in all sorts of contortions and shapes. The movements - whatever the movement - fall into one of the 5 bodily rhythms (what I think are intrinsic and quite natural for us to dance to when we let go): flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness - and these give the mess of bodies a form. We move as separate beings, often with eyes closed, usually not touching, yet we manage to fill the spaces in between each other - with our energy.
I recall my first class last week, when I first walked in to the dim lit church, the high ceilings punctuated with strings of small lights hanging across from each wall. I admired the space. And it took some time, as people started moving to the undulating music playing, to admire not each dancer, but the group as a whole. As the music picked up, and the movements became more pronounced, it was a welcome challenge for me to drop judgment, of others and myself. To stop caring what it all looked like but instead dance with the passive intention to fall into the wave, be carried by it, until all I could is just feel it.
The music plays and we move along to the crescendo, uplifted and lifted and further lifting until we give way to the gradation of rhythms that brings us back to stillness as the music slows down.
One thought I had, as I sweatily rocked from side to side, my arms limp until I had stopped moving altogether: Even stillness is movement, it is the essential pause between one action to the next; except we are more conscious of it. Dancing, I think - when we shed the vanity and the tempting performative aspect of it - is really a tuning into the stillness that creates a rhythm. Sometimes the rhythm is too quick for us to meditate on it, but it’s there. And when we dance, we are aware of it, just not as actively. Perhaps that’s what eventually leads us to fall into trance (from Latin transire “cross over”, associated with the word transient) - when we can follow along deeply enough that we not only dance to the sound but to the silences in between, bridging them with our body.
I found it somewhat odd that the word dance itself - from Old French dancier - is of unknown origin, posited to have come from Low Frankish dintjan, “to tremble, quiver.“ Somewhat melancholic an etymology, but perhaps not surprising given (says google result from Live Science): “dancing was a way for our prehistoric ancestors to bond and communicate, particularly during tough times.”
Previous to “dance”, the word sealtian (Old English) was used, from the Latin salire, “to leap”. Interestingly, this is associated with the word salient, whose denotation of describing something "prominent, striking” was first recorded in 1840, from “salient point” (1670s), which refers to the heart of an embryo, as it seems to leap.
And there it is, what I felt all along. A leaping out of myself, a cognition of my centre, my heart, which with each movement found its way to beat more outward, seemingly synchronised with the music. Sometimes as the music played and I moved with it, it was hard to tell whether it was me dancing along or the music responding to my movements. A sort of mirroring to the point that it’s hard to separate the two. I searched further on google on the origins of dance and quickly learned that our ability to dance to a beat comes from our unique ability (that we only share with some birds, not even apes) - to mimic sound.
And last but not least as I go further down my wormhole…. a beat in music is defined as “a transient grace note, struck immediately before the note it is intended to ornament. The beat always lies half a note beneath its principal, and should be heard so closely upon it, that they may almost seem to be struck together.” [The British Encyclopedia, London, 1809]
And there you have it. A bunch of chaotic ideas that thanks to a burst of momentum, I’ve wrought into flowing form through the interconnectedness of words, a lyrical dance of sorts, slowly coming
March 30, 2016
alone (adj., adv.)
alone (adj., adv.) from Old English all ana “unaccompanied, all by oneself”Apart from having a lot of time to myself in London surrounded by new friends, I’ve also spent some time by myself exploring other cities as well - cities like Vienna, Dublin, Berlin and Copenhagen. All these trips have involved visits with close friends, yet even so, I’ve still been quite aware of my unique, very personal, lone experience outside the shared experience, (which I of course cherish).
As I’ve gotten older and past my mid-twenties, I realized a noticeable shift towards relishing in experiencing things with myself. I value others no less; I think I just value myself more.
Even at times when my aloneness turns to loneliness, I remind myself I am not by myself. I remind myself I have a special moment - to be with myself. And these moments are truly sacred.
This is all quite opposite to how I once dealt with aloneness. I had fears of being alone for many years. And not necessarily fears of just being “alone" in life in general but of being “by myself” at any given time and space.
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| From an exhibit at the Tate Modern, "Performing for the Camera," exploring the ways in which we perform and manipulate who we are even in modes that appear to be realistic, voyeuristic, documentarian. |
A very extroverted person, I put in many efforts to be constantly with and around people. It was always easy for me, as I don’t get anxious around new people, groups, and I find it rather easy - and enjoyable - to “organize” other people into my life. I’ve also been very fortunate to have a really strong circle of people around me to draw from, in my eager mission to share my time with others, preferably loved ones.
Of course, I didn’t just pull others in to share in joyous experiences. At times of difficulty, indecision, restlessness or anxiety, I’d instinctively reach straight out to a friend or parent to grasp them for blind support, to pull them in so that I didn’t have to feel out the situation all on my own - and at certain times, to drag them right down with me because I didn’t have the clear judgment required to allow them to pull me up.
Oftentimes, it would all turn unnecessarily dramatic or would sap us both of energy because I couldn’t present a fair picture of what was wrong. And why? Because I hadn’t spent any time really assessing the picture more objectively for what it truly was. Many times the problem was me rather than the situation, or at least, it was much more simple than it seemed from the centre of my emotional storm. And how are we to ever have this clarity if we don’t take a moment to reflect?
For some people it’s harder to make room for time to be with themselves, especially at times of difficulty. I was one of those people. But in some ways, being forced to take things on (physically) alone, by moving out alone a few years ago, moving away alone more recently, and moving around as a traveler alone in spurts over many years, has taught me to appreciate being
No one can bring more insight to an experience you are living than you. By taking moments to listen to our inner thought processes, by spending time observing our given situations, we build more perspective on the situation and on ourselves in it. In a way, we make ourselves the object rather than the subject.
ye (pron.) Nominative plural of 2nd person pronoun þu (thou); Interestingly, the article ye was in fact an archaic way of writing the (þe), where the “y” character replaced the “thorn” (þ, representing the sound “th”), to accommodate printers at the time.I’ve learned to love to be with myself even when it’s tough. And I’ve learned to volunteer the time to be with myself and reflect, which has made me more attune to my feelings and where they’re really coming from. It enables me to find out what I can actually do about a difficult situation - if anything - before I engage someone else. And if I find that I can’t figure it out on my own, I know I am far more likely to be objective - and receptive - about another’s opinion when I do reach out.
National Express bus from Luton, March 28th, 9:55pm.
Originally posted on life.actually.tumblr.com.
January 8, 2016
know (v.)
Spent an afternoon with Mike at the National Gallery attending a free piano concert, as part of the final days of the Goya exhibit. Before the concert, we walked through the rooms as he explained the context of many of the paintings, sharing personal and historical anecdotes, coloured with facts and names.
I am always in awe of people like Mike, who can retain so much information and draw it out at a moment's notice to fill in the gaps of story, which forgetful people like myself leave unfilled when philosophizing about the meanings behind cultural artefacts and the like.
Though I can navigate the systems of the modern world and its many (digital) repositories of knowledge, it had me reflecting on how much I actually know (or rather, don't...or rather, what it is to know at all in today's day and age).
Over coffee earlier in the day, we had spoken about education (Mike being a teacher), and the direction of pedagogy today as a result of technological advances.
Plainly put, we criticized more modern methods whereby the onus is more so on the teacher to teach than it is on the student to learn. (I recalled popular terms at my last job at the university such as "flexible learning", which may be a reflection of this philosophy.)
I agree, in part, with the thinking that discipline and work ethic are essential to learning, and that this is something that can't be taught - it must be willed and practiced by the student from her desire to learn. It made me wonder about the balance in education between cramming the brain full of information versus bringing forth wisdom from the student.
But what is to know? I have learned a lot in my life, from living and from studying hard. But much of what I've been taught in school I have not retained. I cannot list, with much degree of certainty, any number of historical details, which I assure you are required to piece together if one wishes to attain a certain level of sophistication in conversation about say, pretty much anything. This is likely because sophistication requires a knowledge of context, which can be a struggle to weave around an idea if you lack information or the ability to connect essential dots.
I notice this a lot when it comes to art - without knowing the evolution of society, the timeline of social changes, it’s hard to ascertain what it meant then and what it means now. What was once a “revolutionary” perspective or technique? Or reflective of that time, or critical, cynical, or metaphorical in relation to the reality of then? Without a point of reference, it’s hard to comment or form any kind of opinion. Increasingly so, my point of reference has been Wikipedia. (There isn’t a lot wrong with this; but it’s not way to have a conversation.)
Like the ballet earlier this week, this evening’s piano concert was my first. The music, as I closed my eyes in the grand hall with its high arches lined in gold with grandiose portraits of important people of the past watching over us (whose names I do not know without a google search), made me, again, think about education, learning, knowing. My ear was growing accustomed to this new sound: Goyescas, subtitled Los majos enamorados (The Gallants in Love), a piano suite written in 1911 by Spanish composer Enrique Granados. As I listened, all I could make reference to was jazz and typical sounds of "classical" music I had heard before. This was different, but I wasn’t sure how. The program mentioned rubato. I had to look it up. (Do you?)
However, it pulled something out of me. I felt I was learning something even if I couldn't find the words to talk about it intelligibly thereafter (hence, this blog post..I apologize!) But I was learning - to experience. And the Stoic in me is mostly satisfied with that.
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| Piano concert at the National Gallery |
Though I can navigate the systems of the modern world and its many (digital) repositories of knowledge, it had me reflecting on how much I actually know (or rather, don't...or rather, what it is to know at all in today's day and age).
Over coffee earlier in the day, we had spoken about education (Mike being a teacher), and the direction of pedagogy today as a result of technological advances.
educate (v.) late Middle English: from past participle of educare "bring up, rear, educate", which is a frequentative of or otherwise related to educere "bring out, lead forth," from ex- "out" + ducere "to lead".
Plainly put, we criticized more modern methods whereby the onus is more so on the teacher to teach than it is on the student to learn. (I recalled popular terms at my last job at the university such as "flexible learning", which may be a reflection of this philosophy.)
I agree, in part, with the thinking that discipline and work ethic are essential to learning, and that this is something that can't be taught - it must be willed and practiced by the student from her desire to learn. It made me wonder about the balance in education between cramming the brain full of information versus bringing forth wisdom from the student.
But what is to know? I have learned a lot in my life, from living and from studying hard. But much of what I've been taught in school I have not retained. I cannot list, with much degree of certainty, any number of historical details, which I assure you are required to piece together if one wishes to attain a certain level of sophistication in conversation about say, pretty much anything. This is likely because sophistication requires a knowledge of context, which can be a struggle to weave around an idea if you lack information or the ability to connect essential dots.
I notice this a lot when it comes to art - without knowing the evolution of society, the timeline of social changes, it’s hard to ascertain what it meant then and what it means now. What was once a “revolutionary” perspective or technique? Or reflective of that time, or critical, cynical, or metaphorical in relation to the reality of then? Without a point of reference, it’s hard to comment or form any kind of opinion. Increasingly so, my point of reference has been Wikipedia. (There isn’t a lot wrong with this; but it’s not way to have a conversation.)
Like the ballet earlier this week, this evening’s piano concert was my first. The music, as I closed my eyes in the grand hall with its high arches lined in gold with grandiose portraits of important people of the past watching over us (whose names I do not know without a google search), made me, again, think about education, learning, knowing. My ear was growing accustomed to this new sound: Goyescas, subtitled Los majos enamorados (The Gallants in Love), a piano suite written in 1911 by Spanish composer Enrique Granados. As I listened, all I could make reference to was jazz and typical sounds of "classical" music I had heard before. This was different, but I wasn’t sure how. The program mentioned rubato. I had to look it up. (Do you?)
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| Sometimes the only way somewhere is through a "passage" - even if you don't know its name. |
know (v.) Old English cnawan, "to know, perceive; acknowledge”
January 1, 2016
solution (n.)
[Originally published on my Life Actually blog, one day into 2016, GMT.]
In some ways, it doesn’t feel like the end of a year. One part of it may be because I feel like I cut a new chapter in November and so it doesn’t quite feel like something new is beginning.
Some part of it may have to do with the fact that despite all my efforts, I got sick on Dec 31st thanks to a string of big nights out (I’m talkin’ 10am returns home) around Christmas. I wound up mostly staying in (at least by the city’s standards), having the mellowest NYE to date. I woke up with a sore throat and wound up on the couch at my roomie Tara’s parents place, reading and drinking mulled wine under the Christmas lights, then falling asleep for three hours to the sounds of Ben Hur on the TV. I eventually made it home with Tara where we continued with the lounging and lemon tea drinking, and after a short ringing in of the new year with my dad and his friends down the road, I walked home, had a bath and went to bed. Somewhat disappointing given that I’m finally living in a city that really knows how to ring in the new year; but at the end of it all, it’s all the same; another arbitrary night in the calendar, marked there to remind us to reflect on a period of time and create some intentions about our future.
I feel I’ve been doing this kind of thing, this reviewing and reflecting, non-stop since I moved here, though, so no hard feelings in retrospect. It’s been an active process for me for the last, dare I say, year - and this is something I want to emphasize as I create my “resolutions” for 2016. And by resolutions, I mean re-solutions.
So much of our life is bound by habit. What we do repeatedly becomes our life. For this reason, I think the best resolutions we can make are those that make us question the things we do that take up a whole year’s time (and eventually a whole lifetime).
What is the substance of our year that forges our long-term outcomes? How do our repeated ways of behaving/reacting reflect our embedded ways of thinking? It should be about challenging ourselves to leave particular patterns behind so we can reinvent and solve our current discomforts, problems or tribulations.
Diminishing our philosophy of life to a “list of resolutions” is amiss; it’s an active evolution not a line-up of dead-end intents and attempts (and eventual surrenderings).
In light of this, I’m looking at last year’s resolutions to see what I can take from them, regardless of their ‘status’ or ‘expiry.’
(Of course there are 10.)
1. Travel to 5 new places. I realize now you can see new places every day without going anywhere. Really. (For example, even after 20 years of living there, I saw Vancouver for the first time this year in many ways.)
2. Get more of my work published. I realized all I really wanted was to write freely, maybe move someone with my words - even if it was just me.
3. Move to a new city to bring visible changes in my life. I realize now it wasn’t so much about learning to adapt to a new place as it was about seeing what parts of me wouldn’t change.
4. Keep running to stay healthy and fit. I’ve learned that fitness is not an end in and of itself, but rather a byproduct of and catalyst for emotional wellbeing. Excercise helps me stabilize my thoughts and emotions and I’m getting better at making the sound decision to exercise even when I’m not feeling mentally and/or physically up for it, which is a challenge.
5. Keep a gratitude journal - and I did. But I learned that showing gratitude is more essential.
6. Take professional development courses. I learned that you need to apply new knowledge to actually learn it though. One way I did this, when lacking the option at work, was by teaching it to others.
7. Save $7,000. This as an arbitrary number, but as far as arbitrary savings goals are concerned, any number is better than zero. You never know when you may need to cash in; what important time it’ll buy you later; what act of desperation it’ll quell, what peace it will give you (unfortunately, but realistically) that will help you make the better decision.
8. Read a minimum of 12 books. In the last six months, I’ve read only half of two. And these have made more difference than a fat pile of top 100 listers. (Infinite Jest, A Guide to the Good Life)
9. Get closer and more deeply connected to my parents and my closest friends. In the process, I made friends out of my parents, I fell in love with a friend, and I certain friends became like family.
10. Do something out of my comfort zone. I chose bellydancing, which culminated in a performance in front of 350 people. Suffice to say, trying something out of your comfort zone doesn’t bring it into your comfort zone. It just makes you see how well you handle discomfort.
For the first time, my new years resolutions aren’t top-of-mind or clear to me. Perhaps it’s because the plates have shifted so much below my state of being with this move to London that everything feels like a new habit to be formed. I am reconfiguring a lot of myself this year…so in a year’s time, all I ask of myself is that I do this mindfully, gently, thoughtfully. That’s all; and it’s a whole lot.
In some ways, it doesn’t feel like the end of a year. One part of it may be because I feel like I cut a new chapter in November and so it doesn’t quite feel like something new is beginning.
Some part of it may have to do with the fact that despite all my efforts, I got sick on Dec 31st thanks to a string of big nights out (I’m talkin’ 10am returns home) around Christmas. I wound up mostly staying in (at least by the city’s standards), having the mellowest NYE to date. I woke up with a sore throat and wound up on the couch at my roomie Tara’s parents place, reading and drinking mulled wine under the Christmas lights, then falling asleep for three hours to the sounds of Ben Hur on the TV. I eventually made it home with Tara where we continued with the lounging and lemon tea drinking, and after a short ringing in of the new year with my dad and his friends down the road, I walked home, had a bath and went to bed. Somewhat disappointing given that I’m finally living in a city that really knows how to ring in the new year; but at the end of it all, it’s all the same; another arbitrary night in the calendar, marked there to remind us to reflect on a period of time and create some intentions about our future.
I feel I’ve been doing this kind of thing, this reviewing and reflecting, non-stop since I moved here, though, so no hard feelings in retrospect. It’s been an active process for me for the last, dare I say, year - and this is something I want to emphasize as I create my “resolutions” for 2016. And by resolutions, I mean re-solutions.
solution (n.) from solvere "to loosen, dissolve; untie, release, detach; depart; unlock; scatter; explain; dismiss; accomplish; remove,“ from PIE *se-lu-, "to loosen, divide, cut apart” (see lose).
So much of our life is bound by habit. What we do repeatedly becomes our life. For this reason, I think the best resolutions we can make are those that make us question the things we do that take up a whole year’s time (and eventually a whole lifetime).
What is the substance of our year that forges our long-term outcomes? How do our repeated ways of behaving/reacting reflect our embedded ways of thinking? It should be about challenging ourselves to leave particular patterns behind so we can reinvent and solve our current discomforts, problems or tribulations.
“We’re creatures of habit and we’ll get used to anything. I want to make sure I get used to the right things in this life. And however fast or slow it moves, one day, we’ll all eventually agree that it went by too fast. [Year by year, day by day, but really, all gone in a single blink.]” - me, 2 months ago
 |
| The years melt into each other... |
Diminishing our philosophy of life to a “list of resolutions” is amiss; it’s an active evolution not a line-up of dead-end intents and attempts (and eventual surrenderings).
In light of this, I’m looking at last year’s resolutions to see what I can take from them, regardless of their ‘status’ or ‘expiry.’
(Of course there are 10.)
1. Travel to 5 new places. I realize now you can see new places every day without going anywhere. Really. (For example, even after 20 years of living there, I saw Vancouver for the first time this year in many ways.)
2. Get more of my work published. I realized all I really wanted was to write freely, maybe move someone with my words - even if it was just me.
3. Move to a new city to bring visible changes in my life. I realize now it wasn’t so much about learning to adapt to a new place as it was about seeing what parts of me wouldn’t change.
4. Keep running to stay healthy and fit. I’ve learned that fitness is not an end in and of itself, but rather a byproduct of and catalyst for emotional wellbeing. Excercise helps me stabilize my thoughts and emotions and I’m getting better at making the sound decision to exercise even when I’m not feeling mentally and/or physically up for it, which is a challenge.
5. Keep a gratitude journal - and I did. But I learned that showing gratitude is more essential.
6. Take professional development courses. I learned that you need to apply new knowledge to actually learn it though. One way I did this, when lacking the option at work, was by teaching it to others.
7. Save $7,000. This as an arbitrary number, but as far as arbitrary savings goals are concerned, any number is better than zero. You never know when you may need to cash in; what important time it’ll buy you later; what act of desperation it’ll quell, what peace it will give you (unfortunately, but realistically) that will help you make the better decision.
8. Read a minimum of 12 books. In the last six months, I’ve read only half of two. And these have made more difference than a fat pile of top 100 listers. (Infinite Jest, A Guide to the Good Life)
9. Get closer and more deeply connected to my parents and my closest friends. In the process, I made friends out of my parents, I fell in love with a friend, and I certain friends became like family.
10. Do something out of my comfort zone. I chose bellydancing, which culminated in a performance in front of 350 people. Suffice to say, trying something out of your comfort zone doesn’t bring it into your comfort zone. It just makes you see how well you handle discomfort.
For the first time, my new years resolutions aren’t top-of-mind or clear to me. Perhaps it’s because the plates have shifted so much below my state of being with this move to London that everything feels like a new habit to be formed. I am reconfiguring a lot of myself this year…so in a year’s time, all I ask of myself is that I do this mindfully, gently, thoughtfully. That’s all; and it’s a whole lot.
December 3, 2015
pause (v.)
[Disclaimer: Not for the faint of heart. This one's really all over the place...]
If I’ve learned anything from not working for a month (for the first time in five years....) is that time moves much more slowly when unemployed - and that working, whether you love it or not, speeds things up. The fact that it took me a pause from work, the not doing of anything to ponder what exactly it is that I am doing, made me look this one up. Interestingly enough, the verb itself "to pause" came from the noun:
People everywhere complain a lot about work - particularly those working in environments and structures they don’t agree with. Walking through the financial core of London the other day made me reflect on some tragedy of the human condition - our urge to climb, to have, to get elsewhere only to find that ‘the top of the world’ isn’t really the top. It may be more about depth, I think.
The only way to combat the pity I feel for those who overwork themselves, often to the detriment of their health (we hear the Wall Street stories and suicide rates in corporate climbing...) is to think their work is their choice. But I do also wonder how voluntary it is. From afar, it may appear like a glass cage, a cubicle trap; but from the inside, you adapt. We are creatures of habit after all. And creatures of survival.
These characteristics coupled can quickly turn one small decision into a big life change. Days turn into long hard hours, which can quickly turn into a long hard life. And the way to keep that from happening is gaping things open a bit and becoming more reflective - pausing, even if for a moment, to become more mindful.
Judging from conversations with new friends here when speaking about their work and office cultures, I wonder about that; I wonder how many people reflect on what they are spending their long hours (or any hours) doing and what it’s all really for; what it’s really worth. Do all the rules make sense (must a lunch hour be only between 12-1?…How much do grandfathered-in policies actually improve productivity? What is my paycheque going towards? - and I won’t get into politics of where our taxes go here.)
Do we pose the questions necessary to derive meaning from the things we think we want and have to work for? Or do we avoid it because we fear it will unravel the puzzle and start asking us about our needs?
(I'm making assumptions here and know I come from a place of privilege; it's a luxury in a way to be able to pause and appreciate one's work relative to the rest of the world. Not all work can be a easily enjoyed, but I do think it can be done with integrity and this increases its value and one's appreciation of it.)
For those of us in the same corner from which I speak, those of us privileged with opportunity and more choices than most, why do many of us still complain?
Don’t be mistaken in thinking I have qualms about working hard. Contributing to the activity of culture and society is important in our self-establishment in the world. Work is a remedy to the symptoms of the alternative, (like existential nihilism (!) or chaos, which isn’t sustainable on an individual or a social level).
And don’t get me wrong; long hours can be good; and there’s nothing wrong with dedicating your entire life to work either. So long as you reflect on it and do make it a conscious choice. Without that I think it’s hard to derive enoughhappine joy from work. It may also give you the impetus to, at the very least, complain less and be a more positive energy in the world - and make other people’s work better. To all those who complain about their work without seeing what else it makes possible for them, to those in positions of power who ignore the potential for positive change in their office cultures to make them more...dare I say, human, and to those who just mindlessly don’t care much....I urge you to be more mindful about it.
And for those who do think and work mindfully and ask the tough questions, is the answer you come up with something you can truly live with? Can it stand the true test of time, all those long hours...and the many more that await us?
(yah this post is so nutty that I even have a poem)
We are all trapped by whatever life we live - this is a reality;
Whether we be bankers or bonkers
or hipsters or hippies
or immigrants or ignorants,
Madonnas or Marys,
or teachers or preachers or any kind of creatures….
We are all puzzle pieces, I think.
In order to fit in, each of us must conjoin with the other puzzle pieces around to form a picture, a whole, something that makes sense from some wider perspective.
Are you doing that? I don’t mean, fitting in; we all do that; I mean actually looking at what it is that you are creating when finding your trap and living in it?
If I’ve learned anything from not working for a month (for the first time in five years....) is that time moves much more slowly when unemployed - and that working, whether you love it or not, speeds things up. The fact that it took me a pause from work, the not doing of anything to ponder what exactly it is that I am doing, made me look this one up. Interestingly enough, the verb itself "to pause" came from the noun:
pause (v.) mid-15c., from pause (n.) and from Middle French pauser, from Late Latin pausare "to halt, cease, pause," ultimately from Late Latin pausa.The experience of a hiatus encourages reflection and inspired in me more effort to continue pausing and reflecting, even while incredibly busied with adapting to a new life here in London.
hiatus (n.) 1560s, "break or opening" in a material object, from Latin hiare, "to gape, stand open," from PIE root *ghai- "to yawn, gape. "Sense of "gap or interruption in events, etc."All of this thinking has come at a time when I spend quite a bit of time talking to people here about their work. While I'm navigating my job search and making contacts, I'm balancing it with enjoying the time I have to not have to be anywhere; but I know that finding work is essential, and on more days than you'd think, I envy those who have somewhere to be (especially with work Christmas party season on the horizon). But, I also hear many Londoners complain about “working long hours” a lot. On this subject, I’ll wax poetic for a bit. (Oh yes, I am in a position to speak about employment in a city I just moved to and am not working in yet...)
People everywhere complain a lot about work - particularly those working in environments and structures they don’t agree with. Walking through the financial core of London the other day made me reflect on some tragedy of the human condition - our urge to climb, to have, to get elsewhere only to find that ‘the top of the world’ isn’t really the top. It may be more about depth, I think.
The only way to combat the pity I feel for those who overwork themselves, often to the detriment of their health (we hear the Wall Street stories and suicide rates in corporate climbing...) is to think their work is their choice. But I do also wonder how voluntary it is. From afar, it may appear like a glass cage, a cubicle trap; but from the inside, you adapt. We are creatures of habit after all. And creatures of survival.
These characteristics coupled can quickly turn one small decision into a big life change. Days turn into long hard hours, which can quickly turn into a long hard life. And the way to keep that from happening is gaping things open a bit and becoming more reflective - pausing, even if for a moment, to become more mindful.
Judging from conversations with new friends here when speaking about their work and office cultures, I wonder about that; I wonder how many people reflect on what they are spending their long hours (or any hours) doing and what it’s all really for; what it’s really worth. Do all the rules make sense (must a lunch hour be only between 12-1?…How much do grandfathered-in policies actually improve productivity? What is my paycheque going towards? - and I won’t get into politics of where our taxes go here.)Do we pose the questions necessary to derive meaning from the things we think we want and have to work for? Or do we avoid it because we fear it will unravel the puzzle and start asking us about our needs?
puzzle (v.) 1590s, pusle "bewilder, confound," possibly frequentative of pose (v.) from Old French poser "put, place, propose," a term in debating, from Late Latin pausare "to halt, rest, cease, pause."I am no expert in the psychology of the workplace, but I have read research on how happiness is the ultimate motivator. The bottom line is that happiness boost the bottom line, which regardless of how we actually feel about the systems in place, if we can find joy in our work somehow, it's a win-win for everyone.
(I'm making assumptions here and know I come from a place of privilege; it's a luxury in a way to be able to pause and appreciate one's work relative to the rest of the world. Not all work can be a easily enjoyed, but I do think it can be done with integrity and this increases its value and one's appreciation of it.)
For those of us in the same corner from which I speak, those of us privileged with opportunity and more choices than most, why do many of us still complain?
Don’t be mistaken in thinking I have qualms about working hard. Contributing to the activity of culture and society is important in our self-establishment in the world. Work is a remedy to the symptoms of the alternative, (like existential nihilism (!) or chaos, which isn’t sustainable on an individual or a social level).
chaos (n.) late 14c., "gaping void," from Greek khaos "abyss, that which gapes wide open, is vast and empty," from *khnwos, from PIE root *gheu- "to gape, yawn."And it’s not just about money. Whatever the work (tending a garden or tending a hedge fund), it is in our pursuit of activity, of experience, of doing more, living more so we don't get bored, and ultimately, of survival - in spirit and body. I think, we forget this all too often.
(Also, meaning "utter confusion" (c. 1600), extended from theological use of chaos for "the void at the beginning of creation" in Vulgate version of Genesis (1530s in English). The Greek for "disorder" was tarakhe, however the use of chaos here was rooted in Hesiod ("Theogony"), who describes khaos as the primeval emptiness of the Universe, and in Ovid ("Metamorphoses"), who opposes Khaos to Kosmos, "the ordered Universe.")
And don’t get me wrong; long hours can be good; and there’s nothing wrong with dedicating your entire life to work either. So long as you reflect on it and do make it a conscious choice. Without that I think it’s hard to derive enough
And for those who do think and work mindfully and ask the tough questions, is the answer you come up with something you can truly live with? Can it stand the true test of time, all those long hours...and the many more that await us?
(yah this post is so nutty that I even have a poem)
We are all trapped by whatever life we live - this is a reality;
Whether we be bankers or bonkers
or hipsters or hippies
or immigrants or ignorants,
Madonnas or Marys,
or teachers or preachers or any kind of creatures….
We are all puzzle pieces, I think.
In order to fit in, each of us must conjoin with the other puzzle pieces around to form a picture, a whole, something that makes sense from some wider perspective.
Are you doing that? I don’t mean, fitting in; we all do that; I mean actually looking at what it is that you are creating when finding your trap and living in it?
trap (n.) "contrivance for catching unawares"It doesn’t matter what it is; it can be any box, but don’t get caught up in someone else’s wrapping and bows, otherwise you may find your long hours will wrap up quick and you’ll bow down to your own mortality with a buyer’s remorse; regret. A puzzling picture of what your life became instead of what you made it be but taking the time to....pause and reflect and become more aware.
October 3, 2015
step (v., n.)
Today, I signed my last rent cheque and just like that another milestone passed and I am one step closer to London.
Thinking about this on my way to work made me recall a chapter from DFW’s Infinite Jest. Near-death-turned-desperate long-time addict Don Gately learns that to arrive at a goal - like sobriety - only requires simple steps and training the mind to continue, to follow through. To take hold of something when you feel there's little to go on.
In the book, a fellow Ennet Recovery House resident offers Gately an analogy to help him deal with his doubt that prayer and AA-crafted internal dialogue will help him eventually drop the poison. The analogy? A Betty Crocker instant-cake mix. You follow the instructions and though you don’t really know the intricate details and chemistry of how the ingredients wind up turning into a cake in the end, you follow the instructions on the side of the box and can count on the fact that you’ll wind up with an edible cake as the end result.
You don’t necessarily have to have faith nor trust in that the steps will actually lead you to that ideal result, your dreamed-up destination or situation; all you have to do is start and follow the steps thoroughly, until one day you wake up sober, relaxed, and wondering how you ever doubted the process in the first place.
The last week has been a bit of a blur for me, as I’ve been mostly dealing with the logistics of moving - the paperwork. I handed in my resignation at work with a pretty heavy heart; I signed a sublet agreement with my friend Sam that marked a new chapter for the both of us; and yes, of course, I handed over that final October rent cheque.
I realize from the very start of all this back in August, when I made my decision to move away, it’s been mostly an act of going through the motions. Namely, getting through paperwork and rewiring my brain to spin this into an adventure rather than an ordeal; a continuation of a journey rather than a departure.
My heart hasn’t always been in every step, but I go through with each one anyway, one at a time, because I know if I proceed and tick the to-do boxes despite my emotional setbacks, I’ll eventually board that plane. I'll eventually wake up in London eating cake and feeling pretty okay about the whole thing....right?
Only one way to find out, I guess... Onto the next step...
+This cheesy over-used thing that you've probably been thinking about all along and which gets to the brunt of what I'm trying to articulate in far fewer steps...(ha!)
Thinking about this on my way to work made me recall a chapter from DFW’s Infinite Jest. Near-death-turned-desperate long-time addict Don Gately learns that to arrive at a goal - like sobriety - only requires simple steps and training the mind to continue, to follow through. To take hold of something when you feel there's little to go on.
step (v.) Old English steppan (Anglian), stæppan (West Saxon) "take a step," from West Germanic *stap- "tread', from PIE root *stebh- "post, stem; to support, place firmly on". The notion is perhaps "a treading firmly on; a foothold." Figurative meaning "action which leads toward a result" is recorded from 1540s.
In the book, a fellow Ennet Recovery House resident offers Gately an analogy to help him deal with his doubt that prayer and AA-crafted internal dialogue will help him eventually drop the poison. The analogy? A Betty Crocker instant-cake mix. You follow the instructions and though you don’t really know the intricate details and chemistry of how the ingredients wind up turning into a cake in the end, you follow the instructions on the side of the box and can count on the fact that you’ll wind up with an edible cake as the end result.
ingredient (n.) early 15c., from Latin ingredientem "that which enters into" (a compound, recipe, etc.), p.p. of ingredi "go in, enter," from in- + gradi "to step, go."
You don’t necessarily have to have faith nor trust in that the steps will actually lead you to that ideal result, your dreamed-up destination or situation; all you have to do is start and follow the steps thoroughly, until one day you wake up sober, relaxed, and wondering how you ever doubted the process in the first place.
The last week has been a bit of a blur for me, as I’ve been mostly dealing with the logistics of moving - the paperwork. I handed in my resignation at work with a pretty heavy heart; I signed a sublet agreement with my friend Sam that marked a new chapter for the both of us; and yes, of course, I handed over that final October rent cheque.
 |
| Paper: One of the many ingredients of life. |
I realize from the very start of all this back in August, when I made my decision to move away, it’s been mostly an act of going through the motions. Namely, getting through paperwork and rewiring my brain to spin this into an adventure rather than an ordeal; a continuation of a journey rather than a departure.
My heart hasn’t always been in every step, but I go through with each one anyway, one at a time, because I know if I proceed and tick the to-do boxes despite my emotional setbacks, I’ll eventually board that plane. I'll eventually wake up in London eating cake and feeling pretty okay about the whole thing....right?
Only one way to find out, I guess... Onto the next step...
+This cheesy over-used thing that you've probably been thinking about all along and which gets to the brunt of what I'm trying to articulate in far fewer steps...(ha!)
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
- Lao Tzu
September 20, 2015
dream (v.)
I came across a piece of writing today and it articulated a feeling that for some time I couldn't quite find the words to describe - until now. It pinpoints the feeling I initially had when I ended a long-term relationship a couple of years ago:
Sometimes you mourn the fact that you never got to dream together at all. No specific plans for the future, no particular defined commitments, no hard realities that come from dealing with what's to come in that unknown future because you haven't given yourself/yourselves permission, and are riddled with the weight of a future in which you are alone, without them.
It's a strange thing being aware that as you grow with a person you're also nearing a specific end date; that with each gain and step closer towards them, you're simultaneously also getting closer to leaving them. (This is something I've known far too well ever since I booked my flight a couple of days ago).
Sometimes, there's an end date that forces you to be in the present much more than is usual; this is because the only future together you have is one where, well, you're not together, (so thinking about it makes it somewhat..oxymoronic, gut-wretchingly cataclysmic). Though all relationships are destined to end with the inevitability of passing time, this mindfulness and focus on the now is quite contrary to how many of us lead (or want to lead) romantic relationships: with delusional dreams of romantic "Forevers." Dreams that keep people together through the nightmares of life; ludicrous, irrational, but a tempting play to be a part of, nonetheless.
Or maybe, it's like experiencing a storm (this resonates right now given the windstorm that just hit BC). There's something very temporary running through but you also know that once it's passed, it will leave permanent marks. Stuff gets uprooted, truths fly more freely, the present experience envelops you, maybe makes you fly, too, (or just whirls you about and makes you fall...hard). But you get up and temper the storm by seeing it for its beauty; you enjoy the little lulls between the gusts so that you don't go reeling; you try to float for a bit unperturbed and remind yourself when reality hits that there's always something to be weathered, accepted, learned, and try to pull lessons from the hard realities.
When you're aware that things are finite, your appreciation grows, too. In the realm of relationships, you restrain your ego and its selfish proclivities; you stop risking miscommunications and wasted efforts that come from vain silences and ambiguous texts, the playing of games and the overthinking. You ask. You tell. You cut to the heart of things with less fear so as not to not waste time - because with all things acutely finite, time is of the essence.
It'd be great if we could apply this sense of urgency more readily in life, no? To wake to the fact that all our experiences are singular, unique, first and last, all finite, temporary, being weathered by time... all the time.
Undoubtedly, we'll all wake up and it'll be time to leave. For some things in life, the departure date is more certain; for others, it's just waiting far off in the hazy distance. Before then, (because it's always when not if,) rather than completely delude ourselves with dreams of distant uncertain futures and forevers, why not try and better acquaint ourselves with what is at our fingertips and appreciate the dream that's already happening here and now...?
I fear waking up of course out of fear that he won't be there. But what if he is and we can dream together, if not into distant dreamy futures, just one day.. one more moment at a time?
"One of the difficulties of leaving a relationship is not so much, at the end, leaving the person themselves — because, by that time, you’re ready to go; what’s difficult is leaving the dreams that you shared together. And you know that somehow — no matter who you meet in your life in the future, and no matter what species of happiness you would share with them — you will never, ever share those particular dreams again, with that particular tonality and coloration. And so there’s a lovely and powerful form of grief there that is the ultimate of giving away but making space for another form of reimagination." - David Whyte, "The Journey"And now, amidst a time when I am slowly preparing to leave Vancouver for a re-imagining of my own if you will - it's also helped me articulate a feeling I've been having more recently:
Sometimes you mourn the fact that you never got to dream together at all. No specific plans for the future, no particular defined commitments, no hard realities that come from dealing with what's to come in that unknown future because you haven't given yourself/yourselves permission, and are riddled with the weight of a future in which you are alone, without them.
It's a strange thing being aware that as you grow with a person you're also nearing a specific end date; that with each gain and step closer towards them, you're simultaneously also getting closer to leaving them. (This is something I've known far too well ever since I booked my flight a couple of days ago).
Sometimes, there's an end date that forces you to be in the present much more than is usual; this is because the only future together you have is one where, well, you're not together, (so thinking about it makes it somewhat..oxymoronic, gut-wretchingly cataclysmic). Though all relationships are destined to end with the inevitability of passing time, this mindfulness and focus on the now is quite contrary to how many of us lead (or want to lead) romantic relationships: with delusional dreams of romantic "Forevers." Dreams that keep people together through the nightmares of life; ludicrous, irrational, but a tempting play to be a part of, nonetheless.
dream (n.) Old Frisian dram, Dutch droom, German traum, perhaps from German cognate trügen "to delude," from de- "down" + ludere "to play" (see Latin ludicrus, "a game, play")It's an uncanny feeling this inevitable loss - however close or far in the future - but once you embrace it, it can also make things all the more wonderful. You actually liberate the relationship from the delusion of infinite time by being more concerned with what happens now. And the less time there is, the more tempting this becomes - mostly because it's the only way to operate and continue enjoying each other's company. You live in the moment and take all there is (and all there ever is is what's there right now). Some would call it denial or avoidance. But I say, it's closer to living in a dream.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
- Shakespeare, The Tempest
Or maybe, it's like experiencing a storm (this resonates right now given the windstorm that just hit BC). There's something very temporary running through but you also know that once it's passed, it will leave permanent marks. Stuff gets uprooted, truths fly more freely, the present experience envelops you, maybe makes you fly, too, (or just whirls you about and makes you fall...hard). But you get up and temper the storm by seeing it for its beauty; you enjoy the little lulls between the gusts so that you don't go reeling; you try to float for a bit unperturbed and remind yourself when reality hits that there's always something to be weathered, accepted, learned, and try to pull lessons from the hard realities.
temper (n.) Old English temprian ‘bring something into the required condition by mixing it with something else,’ from Latin temperare ‘mingle, restrain oneself.’ Sense development was probably influenced by Old French temprer ‘to temper, moderate.’
When you're aware that things are finite, your appreciation grows, too. In the realm of relationships, you restrain your ego and its selfish proclivities; you stop risking miscommunications and wasted efforts that come from vain silences and ambiguous texts, the playing of games and the overthinking. You ask. You tell. You cut to the heart of things with less fear so as not to not waste time - because with all things acutely finite, time is of the essence.
It'd be great if we could apply this sense of urgency more readily in life, no? To wake to the fact that all our experiences are singular, unique, first and last, all finite, temporary, being weathered by time... all the time.
tempest (n.) from Old French tempeste, from Latin tempestas and tempus ‘season, weather, storm,' (see temporal, "temporary"). Sense evolution is from "period of time" to "period of weather," to "bad weather" to "storm." Words for "weather" originally were words for "time" in languages from Russia to Brittany.
Undoubtedly, we'll all wake up and it'll be time to leave. For some things in life, the departure date is more certain; for others, it's just waiting far off in the hazy distance. Before then, (because it's always when not if,) rather than completely delude ourselves with dreams of distant uncertain futures and forevers, why not try and better acquaint ourselves with what is at our fingertips and appreciate the dream that's already happening here and now...?
I fear waking up of course out of fear that he won't be there. But what if he is and we can dream together, if not into distant dreamy futures, just one day.. one more moment at a time?
September 6, 2015
stranded (adj.)
[The announcement's official - that I'm moving to the UK - so I can post this now. From September 6th]
This weekend, I learned that I've approached the "final" weeks of my time in Vancouver all wrong, or at least, in part.
I've had this idea that the next couple of months have to be filled with as much time with doing as many of my most favourite things with my most favourite people because time is ticking. I want to make as many new memories with them, in some valiant effort to solidify those relationships even more, give them more definition so that when I look back on them from miles and time zones away, they're less likely to look faded and distant. So that I don't feel stranded out there, in big ol' London, but instead, warmed by the embrace of those relationships and the moments that made them possible.
strand (v.) Figurative sense of "leave helpless," as of a ship left aground by the tide, is first recorded 1837. 1620s, "to drive aground on a shore," from noun strand.
- This year's long weekend, like all others since my decision to move, I planned on spending with those I care about most. It didn't go as planned though. Ironically, I got stranded, unable to find the evasive sign - and campsite - where my friends had set up shop for the weekend. I had no tent, and had driven for 4 hours (getting a wee bit lost having never been to Pemberton/Strawberry Point before).
- Stranded is being "left without the means to move from somewhere." Yet, ironically, being stranded this weekend has only given me more means to move away from Vancouver; it has given me more strength and confidence that it'll all work out.
 |
| Sometimes when we most think we have a chosen destination, we wind up places we never thought possible. |
- Yesterday, all signs were pointing down. I found myself driving on a very dodgy logging road, at KM 14 beyond the point where my friends had said we were camping. I knew they weren't there, as I had walked the shores looking for them and later found that I had cell service there - and knowing they didn't, meant they definitely weren't there. After some time at Strawberry Point, I got back in my car and decided to continue along the shoddy gravel pot-holed road, tires bumping hard and lifting dust behind me until I reached - and passed - the point where my cell lost service. Slowly rolling forward in my Corolla trying to avoid a flat tire, I stopped every car in sight to inquire, yelled "Ally or Andrew?" at every campsite along the shoreline, but...zilch. I eventually had to turn back, the sun sinking slowly and my faith dwindling along with it.
 |
| The smoothest patch of that logging road. |
- I made it back to Strawberry Point and the beautiful campsites there on the beach...and found an incredible group of people who had helped me out when I had first showed up on my search. Before I knew it, we were drinking around their massive bonfire, dancing to country music, talking and cooking up sausages at 4am, partying like old friends. By the next day, I was calling it "our campsite" and we were frying up potatoes in bacon fat on the grill together like we'd done it a billion summers before.
 |
| Who knew being stranded could look like this... |
 |
| Stranded? How about found. |
 |
| And just like that, even more ready for what tomorrow's tides will bring. |
- Eventually, and one day soon actually, I'll feel like
I'm sliding, lost in a new place wondering why I ever bothered to pluck
myself out of a wonderful place and relocate myself - and I'll
remember my drive home today, reminiscing on an unforgettable camping
adventure that showed me there's so much magic out there in the world to
be found, and that sometimes you have to trust the uncertain, move
toward the unfamiliar, and touch the edge of something to actually feel It.
strand (n.): Old English "shore, beach," from Proto-Germanic *strandaz (Old Norse cognate strönd "border, edge, shore.)
-~-
And as a final note, because, yes the universe works in mysterious ways...After I wrote this tonight, a good friend came over and I was telling him about how all my thinking of moving started around the time I came back from India last June. I mentioned, that perhaps, sometime, when I feel ready to venture back (or move elsewhere) after London, that I'd take myself back to India, visit the south this time, and round out the experience I had, a closure of sorts. Just as I was saying this, I felt the strands loosen from my wrist and I caught it, the worn and torn bracelet that I've had around my wrist since that temple visit in Varanasi...
 |
| A new chapter. My #IndiaThreads finally fall away after a very full and filling 14 months since a Hindu priest tied them around my wrist in Varanasi... |
August 8, 2015
deprivation (n.) My first floating experience
After rolling out my thoughts in my last post about my meditative practice of "wallowing by walking" (i.e. indulging in thoughts about my personal drama with scenic backdrop so as to stay a sane citizen), I realize much of this thinking came not only from one of my walks, but from the effects of my first "float" in a sensory deprivation chamber. Sounds scary. And it was - at least, until I floated.
My First Floating Experience
I climbed into the tank and shut the door with quite a bit of enthusiasm and excitement given a chance to lie in quiet for 90 minutes. I didn't realize though how claustrophobic I would feel - and not necessarily as a result of being shut inside a tank of saline water in complete darkness.
My First Floating Experience
I climbed into the tank and shut the door with quite a bit of enthusiasm and excitement given a chance to lie in quiet for 90 minutes. I didn't realize though how claustrophobic I would feel - and not necessarily as a result of being shut inside a tank of saline water in complete darkness.
deprive (v.) mid-14c., from Old French depriver, from Medieval Latin deprivare, from Latin de- "entirely" (see de-) + privare "release from".
Losing sight and sound meant losing sense of space and time, two things that give us evidence of our existence. "I am here and I am now." Except without outside markers and stimuli to orient me, I became the compass; the "here" and the "now" became much more... conceptually tangible in a sense. In floating physically, my body melted into its surroundings and I became numb to it (a bit of an oxymoron maybe). I instead became, simply, a floating series of thoughts. Completely released of my body and the physical world and its stories, I was left with myself, with memory as my only guide back to my identity.
private (adj.) late 14c., "not shared, individual; not open to the public;" from Latin privatus "set apart, belonging to oneself (not to the state), peculiar, personal;" past participle of privare "to separate, deprive," from privus "one's own, individual," fro *prai-, *prei-, from root *per- "forward, through."
trance (n.) late 14c., "state of extreme dread or suspense," also "a half-conscious or insensible condition, state of insensibility to mundane things," from Old French transe "fear of coming evil," originally "coma, passage from life to death" (12c.), from transir "be numb with fear," originally "die, pass on," from Latin transire "cross over" (see transient).Perhaps it was the most privacy I've ever felt - because for a time, I couldn't even access myself. Time just moved without me for some time (ha!), until my internal clock woke me in the darkness, just moments before the sounding of the music that marked the end of my 90-minute session.
transient (adj.)c. 1600, "transitory, not durable," from Latin transientem "passing over or away," from trans- "across" + ire "to go" (see ion (n.) - 1834, coined by chemist Michael Faraday, from Greek neuter present participle of ienai "go, walk." So called because ions move toward the electrode of opposite charge.)
magic (n.) late 14c., "art of influencing events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces;" from Old Persian magush, "to be able, to have power" (see machine (n.)- Middle French c. 1540s, "structure of any kind")
float (v.) from *flot-, extended form of root *pleu- "to flow" from pluvial, from Greek plein "to navigate."
August 5, 2015
wallow (v.)
I sometimes think our modern-day, over plugged-in lives don't afford us a lot of opportunities nor incentives to dive into our thoughts and observe them in greater depth. We blame the distractions that throw us into so much spotlight that we think the best course of action is shutting everything off - be it our devices or our brain, meditating till ideas just wash away in the dark. "Simply breathe in and out, forget the dramatic tides and just be."
But what of those cathartic releases that we can only experience if we wallow in our thoughts and our personal experiences? What of the tidal crashes that erode cliffs into beautiful shores from which we can enjoy the ocean so that we can see it's not such a scary monstrous thing?
There's lots of talk about mindfulness, of this benefit of taking time to let our thoughts free flow in - and out - of our line of awareness. I think this helps us create a scale for observing experience so that we don't sink from giving relatively unimportant things too much weight; but I think there's value in plunging into our dramas, too, chasing our thoughts and indulging in them, because the stories, shallow in the existentialist scheme of things, keep us afloat.
Experiences, I find, always increase in their value when we take a moment to plunge deep and wallow - "indulge in an unrestrained way in (something that creates a pleasurable sensation)." Sometimes we get through our lines too fast, the scene ends and we move on to the next without realizing this is all happening "live" - right now and only now. Wallowing allows us to to look back, knowing now what we wish we knew then, that what we experienced - whether good or bad - is never to be experienced again in quite the same way.
As a storytelling animal, I am tempted to string together a tale of my doings and re-tell it to myself and to others. It gives me a clear line to follow, even when it's crooked or faded. Most of us are like this.
We all want to indulge in our story and its arcs. (It's what gave rise to status updates, I'm sure.) It places us somewhere, when the everywhere is hard to figure out. It lets us feel we are directing when the acting gets tough. It gives us the lead rather than the inconsequential role of a prop in the background.
I do feel a constant tension, though: While I am urged to plunge into life, busy with acting and stage managing my complicated play, I'm also increasingly and undoubtedly reminded of the curtain.
There's a space where there's some comfort to be found, though - and I get there by walking for extended periods of time.
During my trips of walking and wallowing, (with a soundtrack playing as a backdrop to my internal drama,) I finally get to wallow in my experience. I invite nostalgia to take me to my bittersweet past and I let worries and hopes take me to those "somedays." I get out of the Now despite being incredibly present in a sea of people.
And I think this keeps me sane. It lets me cry over banalities when I've been too busy to cry and it lets me turn things over in my head until they lose meaning and I no longer feel like wallowing. Maybe that's what Boethius was getting at.
Every time I walk, though, I hit a wall eventually - that curtain; the dreaded fourth wall when I catch myself narrating and the illusion (and truth) is revealed; the embankment that keeps out the waters until reality spills over: That really, it's all kind of.. small in relation to that immense "story" we too often think too little about - the story in which ours are only a chapter or a line, perhaps a pause between typos, a drop of ink in an unfathomable ocean.
But the wheel keeps turning, I guess. My walks tend to eventually remind me that I'm really just on a hamster wheel like everyone else, getting nowhere really, however slowly or quickly I go. It's a bitter pill to swallow but the best I can do is use the knowledge as consolation. It's easier to navigate the ocean with a turbine. The alternative is getting swallowed up.
But what of those cathartic releases that we can only experience if we wallow in our thoughts and our personal experiences? What of the tidal crashes that erode cliffs into beautiful shores from which we can enjoy the ocean so that we can see it's not such a scary monstrous thing?
There's lots of talk about mindfulness, of this benefit of taking time to let our thoughts free flow in - and out - of our line of awareness. I think this helps us create a scale for observing experience so that we don't sink from giving relatively unimportant things too much weight; but I think there's value in plunging into our dramas, too, chasing our thoughts and indulging in them, because the stories, shallow in the existentialist scheme of things, keep us afloat.
Experiences, I find, always increase in their value when we take a moment to plunge deep and wallow - "indulge in an unrestrained way in (something that creates a pleasurable sensation)." Sometimes we get through our lines too fast, the scene ends and we move on to the next without realizing this is all happening "live" - right now and only now. Wallowing allows us to to look back, knowing now what we wish we knew then, that what we experienced - whether good or bad - is never to be experienced again in quite the same way.
wallow (v.) Old English wealwian "to roll," from PIE root *wel- "to turn, revolve," with derivatives referring to curved, enclosing objects (e.g. volvox - "genus of fresh-water algae" with Sanskrit cognates, valate, "turns round," ulvam "womb, vulva"). Figurative sense of "to plunge and remain in some state or condition" is attested from early 13c.We should roll in our thoughts every once in a while - roll around like children in the mud before an uninhibited skinny dip or pants-down getaway. We should strive to find the time to sentimentalize, over-complicate, patheticize (new word) our experiences and our telling of them so that we can infuse them with the meaning - and the value - we long to find in life, in general.
As a storytelling animal, I am tempted to string together a tale of my doings and re-tell it to myself and to others. It gives me a clear line to follow, even when it's crooked or faded. Most of us are like this.
We all want to indulge in our story and its arcs. (It's what gave rise to status updates, I'm sure.) It places us somewhere, when the everywhere is hard to figure out. It lets us feel we are directing when the acting gets tough. It gives us the lead rather than the inconsequential role of a prop in the background.
I do feel a constant tension, though: While I am urged to plunge into life, busy with acting and stage managing my complicated play, I'm also increasingly and undoubtedly reminded of the curtain.
There's a space where there's some comfort to be found, though - and I get there by walking for extended periods of time.
During my trips of walking and wallowing, (with a soundtrack playing as a backdrop to my internal drama,) I finally get to wallow in my experience. I invite nostalgia to take me to my bittersweet past and I let worries and hopes take me to those "somedays." I get out of the Now despite being incredibly present in a sea of people.
And I think this keeps me sane. It lets me cry over banalities when I've been too busy to cry and it lets me turn things over in my head until they lose meaning and I no longer feel like wallowing. Maybe that's what Boethius was getting at.
I get to process the thoughts in my head, afford them some credence and value for a time, before I whisk myself away onto the next scene or let their fabricated meaning fall away in a meditative moment. After all, it's about moving on by walking away a victor over our thoughts. (Though, I admit it feels better to give them a fighting chance every once in a while, than to win by always idly standing by in peaceful resistance until they just go away.)
- roll (v.) c. 1300 "turn over and over, move by rotating"; late 14c. as "to move (something) by turning it over and over;" from Old French roeller "wheel round," from Latin rotula, diminutive of rota "wheel".
- walk (n.) c. 1200, "a tossing, rolling;" mid-13c., Meaning "manner of action, way of living" is from 1580s; hence walk of life (1733). "easy victory," 1838, such as one that happens in the absence of competitors, when the solitary starter, being obliged to complete the event, can traverse the course at a walk. Transferred sense of "anything accomplished with great ease" is attested from 1902.
Every time I walk, though, I hit a wall eventually - that curtain; the dreaded fourth wall when I catch myself narrating and the illusion (and truth) is revealed; the embankment that keeps out the waters until reality spills over: That really, it's all kind of.. small in relation to that immense "story" we too often think too little about - the story in which ours are only a chapter or a line, perhaps a pause between typos, a drop of ink in an unfathomable ocean.
But the wheel keeps turning, I guess. My walks tend to eventually remind me that I'm really just on a hamster wheel like everyone else, getting nowhere really, however slowly or quickly I go. It's a bitter pill to swallow but the best I can do is use the knowledge as consolation. It's easier to navigate the ocean with a turbine. The alternative is getting swallowed up.
swallow (v.) Old English swelgan "swallow, imbibe, absorb." Old High German swelahan "to swallow," German schwelgen "to revel"), probably from PIE root *swel- (1) "to eat, drink". Sense of "consume, destroy" is attested from mid-14c. Meaning "to accept without question" is from 1590s.
July 30, 2015
decide (v.)
Decisions decisions.
But really, in the imperative. Do it. Decide.
We fear making a move for fear of finding out that our move "forward" only brought us back to where we started. But, you're never really where you started. If we don't move at all, well, we will have not moved anywhere. Wherever we go, at least we may have done a little skip and a hop, or a dance, or a stumble or a puddle dive in the process. More interesting than just standing around, right? And the worse case scenario is you're left with a few scars from the many little cut offs you made as you carve yourself into the best version of yourself.
It's an inner struggle but once you get there it's a feeling of relief. A ridding of something - sometimes that something is more like a tumor, a dead weight; mostly, whether malignant or benign, you're leaving behind what you know to get to know something you don't. Usually it's simply putting familiarity to rest.
Literally speaking, a decision is a"cut off" - A cutting off from the alternatives, from the options you didn't choose; or maybe it's a deadline, one that none other than Time made you slowly broach and forced you to finally settle on something.
decide (v.) late 14c., "to settle a dispute," from Old French decider, from Latin decidere "to decide, determine," literally "to cut off." Sense is of resolving difficulties "at a stroke." Meaning "to make up one's mind" is attested from 1830.
Regardless of what brought it on, if the decision is to feel good, the cleaner the cut the better. A cut from uncertainty requires a bit of don't-look-back mentality. You take the back-and-forth tangly self-doubt and face it head on with some shears. It can be a very intent, meticulous process like an operation or a quick flick of the wrist; or it can be a completely debaucherous, reeling ramshackle of a scene as you throw yourself into decision alley, eyes closed, and take the gutting into your own hands.
Some decisions are a done-deal straight away but you wait to become acquainted with the results; others hit you before you even realized you made the decision in the first place. Some decisions demand endurance to become real, requiring long follow-throughs and follow ups; you have to ensure you've actually done the thing you decided to do, and not just passively prayed it would happen just because you decided it should.
Ultimately, you have to cut to the chase.
Maybe you're tiredly gnawing at the dead weight until it completely falls away; or maybe you just flicked the darn alternative off the table a bit too abruptly and now are left with crumbs of regret. But any way you slice it (sorry getting pun-happy), you have to own the results that domino from your decision - whether you're peacefully observing the waterfall or drowning right in it. You have to let go of the ifs and buts and what-could've-beens.
Ultimately, you have to cut to the chase.
Maybe you're tiredly gnawing at the dead weight until it completely falls away; or maybe you just flicked the darn alternative off the table a bit too abruptly and now are left with crumbs of regret. But any way you slice it (sorry getting pun-happy), you have to own the results that domino from your decision - whether you're peacefully observing the waterfall or drowning right in it. You have to let go of the ifs and buts and what-could've-beens.
The deciding factor may be fuelled by a muddled intuition, but there should be at least some reasoned thought process present to settle your inner dispute. Without it, I think it's hard to rid yourself of the self-doubt that will eventually come later when you start retrospectively dissecting the whole darn thing - because most decisions are hard and what's ahead of the fork takes some time getting used to. You need an honest recognizing that, yes, some degree of risk or uncertainty is tolerable.
We fear making a move for fear of finding out that our move "forward" only brought us back to where we started. But, you're never really where you started. If we don't move at all, well, we will have not moved anywhere. Wherever we go, at least we may have done a little skip and a hop, or a dance, or a stumble or a puddle dive in the process. More interesting than just standing around, right? And the worse case scenario is you're left with a few scars from the many little cut offs you made as you carve yourself into the best version of yourself.
Ideally, reason found reason to give you enough clarity to decide on something that's tearing you in two. And sometimes that's the biggest piece - jerking yourself out of analysis paralysis, (gently if possible), because you realize a clean, thoughtful cut is better than losing your mind until the indecision-making rips you apart anyway.
July 18, 2015
flighty (adj.)
[En route to LHR, July 17, 4:15pm, Bulgaria time]
I'm feeling an immense feeling of...flightiness on this flight. (This is the tightest thought I've strung together since I boarded the plane in Sofia.) After much thinking, (often in daydreams while on transit) about my life in Vancouver, my family origins, and my travels, layered over and over in my brain - first in an orderly fashion, then spun out of control into a perplexed pirouette of folded thoughts resembling DNA chains - I feel entrapped in a tower of my history looking out into the skies of endless potential and vast opportunity. But it's a flimsy structure this tower, which quickly vanishes with the realization that I am uprooted regardless of where I am, leaning away and towards elsewhere, always.
Whether at home, kući, or in transit, I feel I'm always taking flight - because what is below is crumbling, whether because of unforecasted forecasts or because I danced and stomped too hard. Sometimes when I jump into these thoughts, I soar effortlessly in the smooth silken skies naked against the air that lifts me, pulled into the welcome embrace of some mystical vacuum made up of dreamy ambitions; other times, I ascend off a cliff, dragging upwards the whopping weight of my wings as I flail against the winds over me; usually I am with a flock but really, I fly solo regardless of conditions.
When I think of home in this very moment, my bookcases in Vancouver, like Tetris building blocks begin to crystallize in my mind, heavy and grounding, their titles defining who I am now in some way; but I also think of the two little hook holes I noticed in the tall Austrian doorway of our Marijin Dvor apartment when I recently visited with my dad, the chipped paint around them seemingly now the only surviving sign of my baby swing and my early childhood there. I could go on with my many visions of home, but I won't, because their sentimental nature tells me that really, I feel most at home in my heart: this place in which I perpetually seek - and find - shelter and comfort. And the same place which always draws me to check out yet again and board another plane and fly.
When I think of home in this very moment, my bookcases in Vancouver, like Tetris building blocks begin to crystallize in my mind, heavy and grounding, their titles defining who I am now in some way; but I also think of the two little hook holes I noticed in the tall Austrian doorway of our Marijin Dvor apartment when I recently visited with my dad, the chipped paint around them seemingly now the only surviving sign of my baby swing and my early childhood there. I could go on with my many visions of home, but I won't, because their sentimental nature tells me that really, I feel most at home in my heart: this place in which I perpetually seek - and find - shelter and comfort. And the same place which always draws me to check out yet again and board another plane and fly.
flight (n.) from Proto-Germanic *flug-ti-, from PIE*pluk-, from root *pleu- "to flow"; an "act of fleeing," c. 1200, flihht. To put (someone or something) to flight "rout, defeat" is from late 14c.
I, like many of my peers, sometimes ponder making a home somewhere new one day. As I sit here on this plane, I flightily fancy the notion that when I land, what if London were my final destination rather than the in-transit scrimmage line it has been every time thus far? I get this gruelling suspicion I would find nothing new here, albeit a new time zone where I can force a timeout and prove to myself that I can withstand the fluctuation in pressures, and adapt - but this is perhaps the only true remedy for this flighty, dreamy feeling. However unfamiliar a place, in due time, habit undoubtedly will form, setting it's own watery roots through me and into wherever I stand, settling me in.
Yes, eventually morning rituals and sleepless searches for entertainment take shape - regardless of culture or climate. A mirage made of familiarity appears like clusters of cloud, cushioning our seat in the world: a self-made ("homemade") delusion that yes, "I have arrived." And then I'm ready to fly again, lifted by the same cloud that shrouds my vision.
But all this is beautiful consolation, an answer to that deep-set sense of feeling astray and uncertain, a discovery and reminder that we are citizens of the world if we want to be - that I can be at home anywhere, no everywhere, so long as I feel confident in my ability to be open, to adapt.
But a soft landing requires practice.
Yes, eventually morning rituals and sleepless searches for entertainment take shape - regardless of culture or climate. A mirage made of familiarity appears like clusters of cloud, cushioning our seat in the world: a self-made ("homemade") delusion that yes, "I have arrived." And then I'm ready to fly again, lifted by the same cloud that shrouds my vision.
But all this is beautiful consolation, an answer to that deep-set sense of feeling astray and uncertain, a discovery and reminder that we are citizens of the world if we want to be - that I can be at home anywhere, no everywhere, so long as I feel confident in my ability to be open, to adapt.
But a soft landing requires practice.
The unknown and unseen beckons us to deport ourselves from what is near and to cut the strings, if only for a futile moment so that our imagination can take flight before the mortal anchor brings us down again. So take flight! Feel ephemeral, light, despite the weight of this world. Take your flights of fancy, however near or far...
flighty (adj.) 1550s, "swift," from flight (n.1) + -y (2). Sense of "fickle or frivolous" is from 1768, perhaps from notion of "given to 'flights' of imagination."
June 24, 2015
wake (n., v.) Reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Excuse the lack of punctuation etc in this entry as I am curentlz typing ona tinz foreign keyboard, where the punctuation marks are hidden in super/subscript, require multi-digit ctr-alt-function-whatever motions and manz kezs have been swapped (mhm),semicolon,, I have little patience (at the cost of you, my limited audience, I know) - but if i were to stop and correct, i would do so at the expense of slowing down an insurgence of thoughts that come in the wake of my experience with a combination of things ill share with you below.
I had another lucid dream a few nights ago, likelz brought on bz jetlag, mz waking at 4am, reading Infinite Jest for an hour or two before falling into a buzzed numbing of sleep where i continue being awake. it was a failed attempt at a luciditz with full control, but i retained enough awareness of the fact that it was a dream to struggle in it and not be able to give in to the story unravelling, couldnt fall into the trance and rest my mind with body. instead, i lay awake watchful.
Waking from such dreams, where i have not reallz been entirelz ,asleep, is a strange feeling. I recall these dreams as real happenings, zet they bear no ,real, consequence on my life, albeit the emotions thez carrz on through to me in mz fullz wakeful state.its tiring being awake.
I had another lucid dream a few nights ago, likelz brought on bz jetlag, mz waking at 4am, reading Infinite Jest for an hour or two before falling into a buzzed numbing of sleep where i continue being awake. it was a failed attempt at a luciditz with full control, but i retained enough awareness of the fact that it was a dream to struggle in it and not be able to give in to the story unravelling, couldnt fall into the trance and rest my mind with body. instead, i lay awake watchful.
Waking from such dreams, where i have not reallz been entirelz ,asleep, is a strange feeling. I recall these dreams as real happenings, zet they bear no ,real, consequence on my life, albeit the emotions thez carrz on through to me in mz fullz wakeful state.
wake (v.) "to become awake," a Middle English merger of Old English wacan "to become awake, arise, be born, originate," and Old English wacian "to be or remain awake," (Gothic wakan "to watch", from root *weg- "to be strong, be lively" (cognates: Sanskrit vajayati "drives on;" Latin vigil "watchful, awake," vigere "be lively, thrive"), Middle Dutch wachten "to watch, guard;" Meaning "a sitting up at night with a corpse" is attested from early 15c.
- >Its tiring staying awake, too.
“The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion. Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions. You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again.”
- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
(or. the "endless war against the self you cannot live without.")
But we battle on I guess. the words of a dear friend, JS, brought me some consolation this morning.
The most i can do is yes, narrate it, leave words in my wake and let my enduring internal dialogue turn to script so that i can document my state as i live, wherever it is i find myself on the spectrum of sleep and wakefulness. thoughts gett lost but those that survive remind me that the onlz thing real to me is my voice, mz abilitz to attach expressions to these insurmountable ideas, anchor them in this space and in this time, and continue that effortless struggle to reason myself into motivation enough to continue, to change, grow, do, something as an alternative to a crippling confusion , tickling uncertainty, an infinite jest that without the dream would otherwise leave only room for a laughter, maddenning and unsatisfying in nature. and thats one thing i dare not relinquish: my sense of humour.In ten, twenty years or even next week we’ll look back on right now and think that what followed was inevitable. Don’t forget the uncertainty and unpredictability of today and how you are fighting for every decision, every accomplishment, and every outcome. We’re all surfing on the edge of an ever advancing reality and it’s easy to forget that even when life seems the same what comes next is always new and every minute forward must be earned, lived, and will ultimately be left in your wake for yourself and others to recall and narrate.
humour (n.) Middle English: via Old French from Latin humor ‘moisture’, from humere, humid. The original sense was ‘bodily fluid’ (surviving in aqueous humour and vitreous humour ); it was used specifically for any of the cardinal humours, wence ‘mental disposition’ was thought to be caused by their relative proportions, to determine state of mind. This led to a sense of "mood, temporary state of mind" (first recorded 1520s);p.s. im still not going to copzedit this entrz. it makes the madness - or humour - more convincing. You decide.
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