Time Warping

Time has a funny way of disappearing so easily sometimes, and dragging on other times. I am itching to write a new entry but cannot yet get to it. Today I start my new job, which I am so grateful to have.

Until I can do a proper entry, here is a happy picture:

Jump for love!

Walls

Yesterday I came up against a number of walls - regarding my creativity, socializing and making myself known. 

It’s clear that I’m having fears about being social within my new context. Right now, my social inclination is to discuss my struggles and the goals I am setting in motion despite my fears. I’d like to get feedback on the clarity of those goals and suggestions about how to better take the reins to make things happen. I’d also be interested to hear about others’ processes - what struggles they are going through in achieving self-expression, what inspires their discussion with other people, how they motivate themselves to bring something out of nothing, etc.

Those sorts of conversations don’t typically happen when you meet someone for the first time, in my experience. It’s true, though, that the Bay area possibly has a wide population of people that are receptive to such conversations - and there are exceptions elsewhere too. But I feel stuck, and don’t feel overly motivated to go out and socialize with people because I worry that more often than not, I will encounter people who don’t really want to understand the person they are talking to.

This feels a little like I’m waiting for the perfect situation to come around and am not willing to work with and adapt to a situation. Of course someone I meet may not be a dear friend the first time we interact, but it can still develop into something wonderful - I see that. So I recognize that I am using the excuse that people are a certain way, coupled with my insistence that I really do prefer to be alone, to keep myself from moving forward. I’m faced with a motivational struggle.

Sometimes I am really focused and intent on bringing something into being; wanting to come out west and refocus my creative practices is a good example. Other times, I worry that what I am intending on bringing into being isn’t really what I am passionate about, because if I were, I wouldn’t be able to question it at all. At these times, my ego jumps into the mix and tells me that I can just sit back and not worry about it - if I just don’t do anything, I won’t have to face any fears or doubts. 

Maybe so, but there won’t be any progress either, and I’ve experienced stagnation. I know I don’t enjoy it, but in fear of risking myself I find myself trapped in a tricky game - take a chance with the possibility of failure (but also success), or choose defeat so I can be in control of the outcome. 

Put like that, I'd never choose the game. But yet I keep playing it. 

Of course I enjoy being by myself, but I do enjoy people as well - and I’m going to be involved in social interactions whether I initiate them or not. So it’s a matter of choosing to be an active participant in a social interaction, rather than pretend that I’m not there and lose that something that can be gained from every human connection. 

So many things, easier written than done. 

Another area where I am maintaining my stuck-ness is in the realm of expression and play. I’m having a really difficult time motivating myself to sit in my room and let whatever comes out of me express itself. I’m hesitating to see the ugly, frustrated, chaotic side of myself and I know that’s keeping me from full and balanced expression. It’s scary to do, and so hard to motivate and not distract myself since I am the only one around to hold myself accountable. It’s harder to insist on personal accountability when the level of fear is increased. So I’m trying to figure out how I can best face those sides of myself. 

Breaking down walls. That’s really the conversation I want to have with everyone I meet. How do you break down walls in your life? It’s different for everyone, of course, but everyone has to face them. Face them or deny their existence and end up feeling out of control and helpless, in stagnation. If I don’t break down these walls I’m only headed towards the latter and I really should be scared of that more than anything else. 

I'll probably break through rather than walk through, but this is a cool sculpture

Hybridizing

It's becoming more and more important, as we globalize and dive deeper into the web community, to improve our capacity to see things from multiple vantage points. It's not so simple as it once was to have a single tradition that is not influenced or altered by another, as we have exponentially increasing interactions with other cultures and countries. 


I think it's really beneficial for people to feel encouraged to experiment with the possibilities of assimilating other perspectives/morals with their own. That's not to say that we need to become one hive mind or global community, but since we have access to one another in ways we never have before, consideration of alternate values should be prioritized.  It would be just as acceptable to me for someone to consider all of the other options and still decide they want to go the way of their ancestoral traditions, as it would for someone to decide that they want to incorporate different cultural elements into their lives, creating something of a 'hybrid culture'. The thought process of consideration in and of itself opens the mind to a way of thinking that enhances human development. And, of course, it increases tolerance. 


It would be better to take the reins and have a say in how our lives fit into this expanding community and consequently smaller and smaller planet, rather than resist and lose faith in a stubborn refusal to see other possibilities.


I've been speaking culturally, so far. But now I want to shift the conversation completely and go the sci-fi angle (I've been reading a lot of sci-fi lately). One of the major science fiction considerations has always been - what makes a human, human? Is it our empathy and complex mental processes? Is it our physical bodies? Our cultural diversity? Our technological intelligence? A question that is becoming more and more important to answer.


It's clear that on average, our society (and I'm talking about the Human Society at this point, not just one country) is willing to accept technological advances. The Internet and cell phones are the two major indicators of this. On the Internet, we are exposing ourselves to the rest of the world - learning everything we can about everyone else, and allowing our information to be available to whoever wants to search for it. Cell phones connect us instantly face-to-face with whoever we desire, and they now contain all the information we previously could only get from computers. If we are willing to embrace these sorts of technological advances that are ever-increasingly controlling our day to day functioning, we are opening the door for the soon-to-come technologies that will not only be a part of our lives technically, but literally. 


When we start to introduce chips and implants that can connect us to other people or the world in different ways, this is where the question of humanity will begin to really take shape. Instead of these machines being able to respond to our word and do our necessary tasks for us, what if those machines were inside of us and we could control them internally? 


Or even more simply, what about people with robotic limbs? Those that have lost limbs and have a machine in place of what used to be flesh and bone? Are they still human? What if there was a chip that could be placed in the brain that could cause functionality in a person with disabilities? Are they still human? What about clones? Are they human? Are the the same human? And the toughest question yet - if a person could somehow put their personality or DNA into a chip that was then placed in another body (perhaps robotic)- are they still human? Are they the person in the chip, the combination of person and body, or no longer human at all? 


I love thinking about this issue, and it can be fun since it's mostly theoretical right now. I still have a lot of reading to do, of Kurzweil and others regarding the Singularity, so I will continue this discussion as I go deeper and deeper. But when this all becomes reality, the weight and seriousness will increase significantly. 


As our western culture tries to stay the same and live as long as possible, while doing as little as possible (for example- not needing to know where anything is because the GPS will take me where I need to be) we are asking technology to take the reigns for us. Not only does this seem like a dangerous step towards making ourselves dispensable in the universe, but when we succeed in AI technology and really begin to question what is a 'human-like' being, I see slavery becoming a tough issue once more as well. We keep fighting the same battles to define our humanity, just in different forms. Are we coming any closer to a conclusion, or are we meant to repeat the same histories and eventually be succeeded by our creations rather than our offspring?  


I just finished a book series by Dan Simmons - Endymion and the Rise of Endymion - and they are just incredible. One of the things it discusses is that in order for the human species to survive, we must evolve the nature of our evolution. The human species, as it has been defined for so long, must change completely. In fact, we need to adapt and become different species, not just different cultures and different races. 


It’s pretty great to think of many human species instead of just our current one.  Of course, active space exploration would really be the starting point for this, since that's when we would have many different atmospheres and lifestyles to adapt to. Right now we can only evolve so much - but hybridizing ourselves by placing computers in our bodies is a start, on our single planet. 


Since we aren’t looking at a long enough timeline it’s easy to pretend that we are suited for survival and we don't need to consider other species or forms of the human, and don't need to worry about defining what makes us human. In reality, denying this need is making it less and less likely that our species can survive on its own. 


For now, we’ll keep musing, talking, inventing, and calibrating our moral compasses. Hopefully, after enough consideration and open discussion, we will be able to extend our timeline out to where we can boldly stand up and face the survival of our humanity. 

www.mondolithic.com

Sickness

Being sick today isn't like it used to be. I remember being so excited for sick days when I was young. What was better than staying home from school, eating a ton of soup (that was usually made for me), and watching as many movies as I could possibly handle?

Slowly, as I got older, I began to become frustrated because I didn't 'have time' to be sick. Of course it was nice to relax my mind and get a full night's sleep to break up the monotony of stress and 5 hour sleep sessions. However, while getting better, I was only thinking about time I was losing and the extra work I would have to do when I was feeling at least functional enough to be active again; waiting until I was fully better wasn't even on my radar.

Well, this time around I've gotten somewhat lucky. I've gotten sick after my trip, thanks to the wonderful array of fall allergens that are native to the east coast, but it's fallen on the free days I have left before my life starts to really take shape out here. So I can be thankful for that.

Then, I was feeling excited about the prospect of having time to read, write, play guitar, and just generally lounge around and feel creative. A little too hopeful of a thought, I realized. I've got the wrong idea of my blossoming creativity if I expect days when I am bedridden to be my most productive. I find it exhausting to play guitar, and headache-inducing to read anything, and when I try to watch movie after movie my body gets uncomfortable from lying down for so long.

So, to reduce complaining and to make a long story short - I'd love to be writing a different blog entry but I am not feeling up to it. I hope to be at a point tomorrow where I can at least muse on something more exciting.

What my day has been like

Keeping in Contact

I went east this past weekend to visit friends and family, and it's amazing how I lost time. I didn't write, exercise, or practice music as much as I would have liked, and was mostly in a jet-lagged daze the whole time. Even though I gave all my time to others this weekend, I didn't get to see everyone I wanted, or for the amount of time I would have liked. It was really nice to have the moments that I did have, though. 

This is the sort of situation that I have trouble balancing - spending time with loved ones or spending time alone with my creative pursuits. It doesn't have to be an either/or, but with all those other small details that demand time in our lives, sometimes it becomes difficult to keep a balance of having both growing equally and consistently. 

Dedication to keeping in contact with the people in our lives can be a full time job. There's family - I don't have a huge family, but it doesn't keep me from not being consistent with keeping in touch with them and I can't imagine if my family was really large - current friends, long lost friends, acquaintances, networking contacts, co-workers, doctors, and all of those other people that leave messages on our voicemail that we hope to call back but don't always get to right away. 

We have Facebook and other social media outlets, where you can stay in contact with people on a completely different scale and spectrum but they don't really solve the problem, in my opinion. One way to let a whole lot of people know at once what's going on with you without having to speak to them directly is to update your status. Perhaps that's better than nothing at all, but to me that's impersonal and not a meaningful connection to those people in our lives. A status update takes another minute or two out of my day, and I still need to call all of the people I had to call, before I let the internet community know where I was deciding to eat my dinner. 

Sending messages to friends and loved ones online is a step in the right direction, so I won't trash all of what the social media outlets offer. I'll send messages when I think of a person that I really would love to speak to that I haven't in awhile, or if I have something to share with them - but I'm not the sort of person who signs on every day to see whose birthday it is so I can send them a Happy Birthday message, or to see what a person changed their status update to so I can comment. If you are a loved one, I will do my best to text you on your birthday, and I will do my best to keep up with your life, but it's only a few days each month that I sign into my account and I'd rather just talk to you in person the next chance we get. Of course, it takes me awhile to call people back and even when I do, the process starts all over again for the next time we communicate. 

Perhaps then it's natural that I see power in those relationships that can sustain not communicating for awhile and still hold strong the next time we speak. Things get crazy and life gets busy - when I really need to speak to a person I usually do. There are a ton of people I think about daily and wonder how they are, but I also am working on prioritizing my mental presence in my physical world so I don't always get to the place where I can ask them. 

I know that not all people feel this way. That's been the problem, I think. Some people will not hear from me and assume that I don't care for them and they will lose interest in contacting me as a result. Some people need constant communication in order to feel like there is something there. But I think love and bonds of friendship are stronger than that. And just because I'm not calling doesn't mean I don't care and don't think about you. 

I have sustained a number of friendships without much communication. And in many ways, the ability for our friendship to maintain despite this is what tells me that I am lucky to have that person in my life. To think that they are completely dedicated to their life and finding their happiness, just as I am mine, even if it means that our lives are no longer as close physically, makes me feel tightly connected to them. Real love and friendship depends on autonomy.

I could still do better with my communication, though, and I will continue to work towards it. Today though, I need to reconnect with my personal, creative time. 

It's lovely out today - I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

Science and Spirituality

I recently interviewed for a job at a psychiatric facility, to be a coordinator for a non-invasive anti-depression treatment. While I was in the interview, I realized that I was engaged and continually asking questions about their company. I found myself much more interested than some interviews I've been on. It's happened a few times that the interviewer will ask me if I have any questions to ask them, and my mind goes blank because I'm not inspired by the job. Realizing that this was something I was interested in more than just for money, I began thinking about what sort of subjects most energize my mind.  


I've always found psychology to be fascinating, but I haven't yet decided whether I want to set my trajectory towards primarily scientific explanations and solutions rather than spiritual. In fact, moving out to California enhances the likelihood that I'll become new age-y and ditch scientific thought altogether (mostly joking). But just as being extremely organized in a town full of disorganized artists can be a benefit, so can having a scientific mind in a primarily spiritual environment - if I'm willing to consider the whole picture.


Thinking about depression, I could comfortably say that many of the mood disorders, panic disorders, and depression are due to a weakness or an incorrect wiring in specific nerve centers of the brain. This is not a disease like some other psychological diagnoses - and I'm certainly not claiming that all psychological disorders fall under this category. In any other animal other than the human though, this flawed assembly would lead to pretty rapid termination - humans, however, have created for themselves leeway when it comes to Darwin's 'fittest'. 


The faulty wiring is due to a variety of factors, but the more pertinent concern is that the organism (a.k.a. the depressed human) is not existing in a way that is consistently maintaining and improving their state of life. The inconsistency causes a person to become blind to their need for survival; their need to find the most beneficial way of living, which improves their quality of life and allows them to feel most authentic. 


This is where the drugs come in, in the scientific world. For medicines such as anti-depressants, the formula is obvious - when you take the medicine you feel good. When you don't take the medicine, you feel bad. Clearly, this doesn't solve the long-term issue. But here's where my medical opinion diverges from the 'system': like any transformative drug - be it prescription anti-depressants, prescription anti-anxiety medication, hallucinogens, or even marijuana - the point is not to become dependent on them and allow them to redefine your life. The point is to see what possibilities there are for an evolved existence, working towards a higher quality of life that you hadn't previously been experiencing in your habitual, stagnated self. 


I'll try to clarify further. When a person takes an anti-depressant and feels good, that shows them that their body really can feel good and happy, and not only when they take the drug. They might think it's only possible with the drug because the person is scared to take on the responsibility of finding the reality where they feel good all by themselves, but that's false. When a person has seen and understood the possibility of what they can experience, that is the moment where they have the ability to break off from the substance and go on a personal quest - if only they accept that they have the strength to do so. 


If you are a negative person with terrible self esteem, 'but' and 'can't' are probably two of your favorite words. 'But' is dangerous because it can be used to justify a negative thought - "BUT I'm not saying I'm feeling negative, I'm just expressing how I initially reacted with a negative thought! It's not the way I am!" See the trap? Now imagine setting a goal to in effect re-wire your mind by not allowing the words 'but' or 'can't' to come out of your mouth. Everything has to be in the context of possibility, and nothing negative will be expressed about yourself. Do you think that eventually you will change the way your mind thinks? Without a doubt. You become a more positive person by disciplining yourself to stop falling into self-pity. This is an example of a first step that can be taken, on the road to reconfiguring your life.


So are the drugs useful at all? This is a bit of a double-edged sword. They have the potential to be useful for the reasons I've just stated. But, the fact that so many people take anti-depressants and never get off them only means that people are encouraged to let go of the reins on their life and allow the drugs to do the work. It would be one thing if the people were presented with the option of how they could really re-create their lives after they've experienced what is truly possible for their happiness - but they usually aren't. Doctors wouldn't make money if they encouraged their patients to take control of their own lives and health. The unfortunate part is, most people don't want to take control anyway. They'd rather just be dependent on the prescription drug than have to really focus on understanding how their body is functioning/malfunctioning. 


As for spirituality, a lot of what I've been experiencing recently is energetic work and meditation - a focus on how the energy flows through my body and recognizing the ailments that occur when energy is trapped. This to me relates exactly with what I've been saying - if certain energies are not flowing correctly through the body, it could be skipping over energetic impulses that were long ago weakened and forgotten about. Using meditation to calm the mind's reactions to immediate stimuli, and to experience personal energy and it's response to/effect on all energies around it can result in the same benefits. Add some conscious language work in there to focus on the way a person is perceiving and sharing themselves with the world in a social context - they're in great shape now. And the good news is, this sort of practice will result in long-term benefits, not the temporary results that anti-depressants will offer. 


I've been diligently working to reframe my mind based on the ways I've personally allowed it to weaken, and I'm going to keep on doing it - persistence and strength is the key. Courage, also. 

The Immediate Mind

As a runner, it would only be natural to share a metaphorical anecdote (can you use 'metaphor' as an adjective? Can those words be paired together as one noun? Probably not, but anyway...) about running - in relation to my thought process.

While running today, I decided that I was going to try not to think of anything - use a simple meditation to allow my eyes to see the woods that I was running through, my nose to smell the air, my lungs to take in breath regularly, and generally be present with a quiet mind.

I think I lasted a few minutes. Then, maybe 10 minutes later I realized that I'd started thinking, planning, calculating, and I missed the transition somehow. So I reign the beast in, tugging harshly on the leash of my giddy thought-tangent-puppies, and work on calming my mind once again. Suddenly I'm back, but this time I feel the switch. I am deeper in my body, my body feels more real, and I'm present.

The interesting thing: suddenly my lungs and body set off "I'm-not-going-to-last-as-long-as-I-just-thought-I-would!" and "Woah!-sudden-intensity-added-to-this-process" alarms.

Where this lead me is to an understanding of productivity. When I am present and focused in the moment, I am working hard and getting results. At this point my process also involves the increased work of constantly having to reign my mind in and remind myself, "you can be enjoying this more fully!". Regardless, when I accomplish something in this mindset, it is from a deeper place - a place of strength, power, and creativity. It is harder, and it should be.

What I accomplish when I'm scattered/busy/work-driven and in what I am going to call my "Immediate Mind" is excessive and seemingly productive, but shallow. I can think about meaningless scheduling, details, numbers, and sketch out ideas I don't follow through on, running for two miles without realizing it, but I'm not getting the same workout as I do when I begin thinking about something more powerful. Then my body is more fully engaged; I might run less of a distance, but the quality of my run has vastly improved.

Quality, not quantity - I can sum this entry up into those three words.

The word "quality" is quite amusing to me. In 6th grade I had a teacher who always was licking his lips. He must have had some sort of Dry Lip Syndrome or something, because every other word he was sticking out his big ol' tongue and circling it around the front of his face. And I'm not just talking about a dainty lip moisten. This was a face lapping.

And his favorite word to say to us - Quality.

It might have been his favorite word because he could do the face slobbering while saying the word at the same time: his tongue would emerge while saying the 'L'.

So anyway. I guess the tongue was distracting me from the validity of his respect for quality.

If it takes longer to gain knowledge and skill, so be it.  I'm going to find my creativity through re-learning patience.

I want to more consistently drink from a much deeper well.

Breathe Deeply