Today is my in-between day in the midst of two vacations.  And on that day, I’m working, I’m filing court paperwork, and I’m blogging.

So a few headlines from the last week or so:

1. Toyota Prius.  I love you.  Your sleek design, your smooth transitions, your silent presence.  I love the innovation of the cup holder, the push button start that briefly makes me wonder if I’m driving or doing laundry.  I am enthralled by the little leaf symbols that pop up on my screen to show me how eco-friendly I’m being.  I love the interactive displays and the roominess.  It was the best experience to rent a Prius during my vacation and worth the extra money.  I now know what I’m saving up for.
2. Chrylser 300.  Weird.  Huge.  But plenty of trunk space.  It seems somehow wrong to show up in a car looking like this to one of the largest gatherings of subculture campers in the USA.  But if I’m anything, I’m paradoxical.  And therefore, this will probably be the best choice.  It gets the same gas mileage as what we were going to rent afterall.  I think I’m still mourning my prius. I’m certainly glad that all the gear will fit in though.  Yay!
3. Pro Se Divorce Services.  Now that my paperwork is finally filed and I no longer have to deal with this character, I am relieved to report that I have a date for my divorce, even though Pro Se Divorce Services screwed up almost all the paperwork, and created the crazy scenario I had to go through to get my paperwork done in time before it was dismissed.  Never use him.  I will be writing a complaint elsewhere when I get back.  All I have to say is that someday, I will laugh at all this.
4. Seattle. Pike’s Place Market was really neat, and the peaches were second only to the apricots.  Lordy, were those good.
5. Portland. This city is green in more than a few ways.  Three hours in Powells is not enough.
6. Black Rose Book Collective.  What I thought might be some vegan recipes was actually an anarchist cookbook pamphlet.
7. Pacific Northwest.  Beautiful land, unlike an area I’ve seen.  Olympia, Portland, Seattle, Fort Flagler, Fort Worden…and more.  Socially, perhaps just a New York with a different ocean.  There was an odd sense of entitlement in this area that seemed to mirror the East Coast.  A reactionary, pioneering sort of attitude that says, “Out there is good.  Follow our rules or we’ll make your life miserable.”  Activism is closer to evangelism here. Great ideas, innovations and movements.  Sometimes, the intensity is a bit much.
8. Guy on the Bike Who Rode Past Us on the Right Side as We were Making a Right Turn.  Dude.  You were so nearly dead.  That was not cool.  I don’t care if you live in Fremont.
9. Pennsic.  The effort required leaves something to be desired.  However, I wish I was there already.
10. Tandem Kayaking.  = Relationship Testing.  We passed, although there was a rocky start.
11. Fort Flaglerites.  Inspiring, friendly people who make a good family.  I’m glad to have spent so much time with them.
12. Dude Who Grabbed my Partner at the Airport.  Because we like to believe the best of people, we will assume that your aggressive nature was a unconscious response to believing that we were stealing your bag.  But you might want to look into that hidden aggression.  We’d appreciate if you’d assume the best of us as well.

I shall see you all in a week or so.

 From this speech he gave in Madison on July 19th.

“First of all, we must be clear about what we mean by compassion. Many forms of compassionate feeling are mixed with desire and attachment. For instance, the love parents feel of their child is often strongly associated with their own emotional needs, so it is not fully compassionate. Again, in marriage, the love between husband and wife -  particularly at the beginning, when each partner still may not know the other’s deeper character very well - depends more on attachment than genuine love. Our desire can be so strong that the person to whom we are attached appears to be good, when in fact he or she is very negative. In addition, we have a tendency to exaggerate small positive qualities. Thus when one partner’s attitude changes, the other partner is often disappointed and his or her attitude changes too. This is an indication that love has been motivated more by personal need than by genuine care for the other individual.”

I think when we use the word “desire”, it can be equated to mean “desire for connection”.  For a connection to someone else, striving to make positive what is negative.  Striving to be supportive of growth.  And being so enabling that you become smothering.

Ok, that was a geek reference if ever there was one.  However, I couldn’t get it out of my head, so that’s the title.

I did something finally that I hadn’t ever done before, but always had been talking about.  I performed bellydance solo.  Not as a solo in part with other dancers, but as in stepped up and - with the support of my friends - did my own thing, to my own music, with my own costuming.  And it was significantly different from things I’d done before.

It was surprisingly refreshing and frightening at the same time.

It’s amazing how different I feel now.  It is as if doing that changed some wiring inside me. I had been avoiding it for the longest time - not that I couldn’t dance solo on an impromptu basis, at haflas, at gatherings, around bonfires.  But I went to an organized event and danced cabaret-tribal style in a cabaret-tribal costume and made something my own. 

It was NOT perfect, by any means.  But it was not horrific. 

And now I’m scheduled to do it again at the end of August - which frankly freaks me out.

Everytime I have a dance weekend, I contemplate the enigmatic world of bellydance.  I wonder what I am doing here in this corporate world, sitting in front of a desk when I could be drilling, shimmying, choreographing.  Is this how everyone is when they immerse themselves in their art?

This last weekend was very much the same - but also very different.  This weekend marks a change in how I go forward.  I will be dancing with others, but I will also be pursuing a solo existence.  And I’m not sure how necessarily to balance both worlds evenly. 

 Why is it so hard to go solo on a project?  What is it in me that will go to the end of the earth for a group project, but when it is just for me, I end up settling for something that gets me through it without TOO much shame.  Why can I sacrifice my time and put all my creativity into something that is a manifestation of a few people, but not able to do the same for something that comes just from within me?

I don’t know, but I have a feeling I’m going to find out.

Le danseuse est mort.  Viva la danseuse!

This may seem to conflict with one of my previous posts.  I hope I can disabuse you of that belief quickly.

A comment to my divorce post really struck home with me.  I’ll repeat the specific line here:

“In our culture, we have learned to be insensitive to anything but the mask of happiness.”   

In letting this thought tumble on permanent press in my brain for a bit, I think I agree with it. 

When someone is upset, we try our best to “cheer them up”.  When we are feeling low, the recommendation is to think positively and have hope/faith/belief that things will be OK.  When someone is dying, or has died, we are expected to be stoic, strong for others, mourning quietly. 

If you’ve ever seen the series Six Feet Under, the first episode draws your attention to how silly this seems. 

Do we adequately acquaint ourselves with pain?  How do we navigate the delicate balance between whining and acknowledging unhappiness? 

We tend to think poorly of those who display unhappiness or are honest about their issues - we look at them as less successful, less equipped to deal with life, less adjusted.  The moment your personal dissatisfaction affects your ability to be cheerful, you should be seeking a therapist, or getting an anti-depressant.   We use phrases such as:

• Keep a stiff upper lip
• Keep your chin up
• Look on the bright side
• Cheer up - things aren’t so bad
• Don’t let it get you down
• Think of/Focus on the positive
• Keep your glass half full
• Nobody likes a gloomy gus
• Leave your problems at the door
• Look for the silver lining

Does this incessant happy-seeking really help us?  Or would we be better served embracing our negative emotion, experiencing it, and then learning from it? 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for mass depression.  I have talked about the negative voices we deal with, and how happy people tend to think more logically, and many other things that point to happiness as being a factor in our decisions and how successful we feel. 

And it is true that even pretending to be happy can actually help you BE happier - you can trick the brain into releasing the chemicals you want.  In fact, according to Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist, we can choose a happier, more peaceful state of being (Nirvana Anyone?) by using more of the right side of our brain.

What I’m saying is that without the embracing of the bad things that happen - without being present with those feelings, accepting and recognizing them - we significantly impair our ability to be truly happy.  Instead, we are putting on the “mask” of happiness: pretending things are good when there really are issues.  Holding our feelings inside of us - or more often these days - taking a medication to feel “normal”.  Our Zoloft world is even-keel, understandable, and keeps us out of the emotional highs and lows so that we know where we “should be”.

Or if you aren’t happy, don’t try to find a way to be happy with what you have.  Find what makes you happy - at all costs. Someone realizes they are unhappy in a “must be happy” world sheds the current skin of where they are, what they do and seeks all new things, looking for happiness externally. 

Is it any wonder that relationships are harder to keep together?  If neither person knows how to deal with pain or unhappiness, when difficulties arise it is that much easier to withdraw  and discard the perceived source of unhappiness than to look within oneself and feel that pain - and work through it.  Dealing with our pain might teach us enough to deal with future issues, or recognizing  a problem too big to overcome before it infests too much of our lives. 

Perhaps the issue lies not with how much we work on our relationship, but how much we do not work on ourselves.  It was Gloria Steinem who said:

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.”

Working on ourselves and allowing us to feel what is really there might help us to be better partners in our relationships.  Instead of the mask of happiness we currently feel is expected, we would be ok with showing our own expression.  We might be more comfortable with being authentic. 

Being authentic might just lead to lasting, fulfilling relationships.  And perhaps we might just be that much closer to true happiness.

Edit: a TED Talk regarding the nature of happiness with Dan Gilbert.  Funny that Penelope should include this in her post yesterday when I am writing about this.

You’re enjoying your morning java when you notice a book on a table nearby.  It has a post-it note that says, “I’m Free!” 

You pick it up.

You’ve just experienced a Book Crossing.

On the inside of the book you’ll find a BCID - a Book Crossing ID number that identifies this book.  This book may have just entered the world, or it may be a seasoned traveler.  Now it has made its way to you.  The motto of Book Crossing?  Read, Release, Repeat.

Over 600,000 people around the world have become members at BookCrossing.com (it’s free for basic membership) and have registered books they have released into the world to share with others.  When someone finds a book, they are able to log onto the website and post a journal entry saying that a book was found, and where it was released next.  The goal?  Get our hands back into books, and sharing with each other. 

It’s really easy, and can be pretty fun.  There’s no guarantee that someone will find your book, or if they do, follow the instructions included.  But you’ve still made a difference.  And of course, you can get as involved as you’d like, or follow the basic four steps:

1. Pick one of your books-one you have read or one you haven’t read.
2. Click on “register book” under the “My Shelf” tab. [If you can’t see the “My Shelf” tab at the top of the page, you may need to log in to the site.] Follow the prompts to register the book and generate a BCID (BookCrossing ID).
3. Write the BCID in ink inside the cover. Add a label or write the BookCrossing info. you can add some additional markings, stickers, notes, etc to make the book noticeable, if you wish.
4. Release the Book.

Then you can check back and see who has found your book.  And if you wanted to go find someone else’s book, you can by using the same website to find what books have been released in your area. 

This is such a great idea that I ordered several release packets.  We have some other ideas for it as well that might prove to be useful - and even prove to make more of a difference. 

Why do I always find the coolest things when I’m busiest? 

So, the next step has been taken in the goal to become more eco-friendly.  You might think we bought a Prius as I’ve been alluding to for some time.  However, as much as I sin daily by coveting my neighbor’s Prius, I saw this little number and fell in love.  (Yes, my avid readers, that color is KIWI GREEN.  Did I mention that I shiver with joy when looking at it?)

It’s not a tiny step.  It isn’t a step at all - it’s a perspective change to think, “HEY - I could take my bike if I planned for a little extra time.”  It seems an easier step to take when your vehicular transport has recent been smooshed and you are trying not to spend your 401(k) on gasoline and downtown parking. 

Flaws in such a beautiful kiwi green plan?

1. Safety. Biking does not save you from future car accidents.  I would say “duh” here, but I think I thought it might be safer to be smaller and be able to dart in and out of traffic easier to avoid oncoming collisions.  However, one notes on one’s very first ride that cars care even LESS about you, and make a concerted effort to zoom past you to “avoid” hitting you.  However, that sort of behavior is what causes these sorts of accidents.  Yie.

2. Gear. It saves you from spending money on a car, which is sort of a blow against materialism - right?  However, it is VERY easy to start slipping down the slope of “gear”.  Once in love with a bike, you might do anything for it - such as contemplate purchasing $200 satchels, the perfect baskets, and even bells and whistles.  And don’t forget valve covers! 

Did you just say VALVE COVERS? Yes…yes I did.  Oh, the depths of consumerism reached in the attempt to become more environmentally conscious are numerous.  Consumerism isn’t evil, but when one of your goals was not to spend so much money on buying or operating a car, “outfitting” a bike starts to fill in that gap pretty quickly.  This coming from a woman who never spent more than $100 on a bike before now.

3. Helmets.  I’m not sure what to say about these except that I have a natural, inborn hatred of these things that stems from my youth in rural communities.  If you wore a helmet, you were obviously a sheltered kid who hung from your momma’s apron strings.  However, it only makes sense when commuting to work and dealing with flaw #1 above.  Still…I put the darn thing on and I’m instantly transported to a time when my grandmother made me wear a swimming cap.  It’s a hard thing to swallow.

4. Weather.  This is another “duh” moment, but since I’m in the middle of a flooded county, I might go ahead and mention that you are constantly concerned with what the weather might do.  40% chance of rain no longer means slightly wet pavement to be concerned about.  When the storm hits, you are stuck whereever you are.  And I’m a new enough bike commuter that my lofty goals of riding to work this morning were quashed by the merest sprinkling of rain.  I’ve got to determine a way to still bike to work when the weather is not 70 and sunny. 

5. Bike Locks.  People are wonderful beings with the potential for great goodness and kindness.  They are also quite capable of being rat bastards.  I now own a bike lock that is heavier than my bike.  At least I’ll be building my arm muscles at the same time, right?

6. Communication.  Once of my intentions with this bike is to ride with others.  However, what was once a “Turn here so I can show you this nifty place I just thought of,” in a car is now me saying, “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” when the person leading me has randomly cut across traffic down a different road than where I thought we were heading.  I didn’t catch up for a bit because, well, I had to either turn around or go to the next block.  And in between there, neither of us knew exactly where the other one was.  This is a combination of using proper hand signals and paying better attention.

7. Stuff.  Transporting stuff will never be the same on a bike.  Nice try, but no.  Things jingle and make noise, and I’m not so certain that my original idea for bringing my laptop home on my bike would be a good one.  And I was very excited to consider a coffee-holder on my bike for imbibing while coasting to my place of employ.  Now I’m wondering if I wouldn’t spill boiling hot tea all over me every time I tried to drink it.  Add in that the overall amount of stuff you carry with you will have to be cut back, and the bike starts to look a little uncertain.  Good luck bringing in treats on Friday!

8. Appearance.  This might sound shallow, but it is more important how you dress when on a bike, and also harder to maintain a quality appearance.  With a car, you can pop in - drop off your mail or the dog or whatever - and get back home without imposing your morning hairstyle and flannel pajama pants on anyone.  With a bike, you are visible to the world. 

This also connects with weather item in that you have to be prepared for the fact that you have no climate control.  So commuting to work, I can’t wear my suit.  So I carry it with me.  That won’t stop the fact that I’m sweatier than the flanks of a raging bull and any deoderant and perfume I once used is now gone with the wind, so to speak.  This translates into having to bring this stuff with you, which further translates into taking that into consideration for your finite amount of space for the stuff in #7.  My goal to solve this is to bring an extra set of stuff to work so that I can “freshen up” there.  But there’s an additional cost I’d not considered.

None of these things is a deal-breaker, really.  There are ways around most of them, and practice will smooth out the edges.  In many ways, it isn’t that different from taking the bus - which I did for several years.  I’m really excited, actually, to start commuting this way.  It’s just another way that “being green” takes a little more thought than buying a recylcing bin.  It really requires you to take a look at how you do things, and each step in the process.  But I believe that in the end, it will be worth it.

So, I’ve been quiet for a few days.  Learning lessons.  Not new lessons, but old, powerful lessons.

I was in a mind-altering car accident this weekend.  As in, should-have-died level of accident.  At a standstill in traffic, a car plowed into us from behind going 50-60mph, pushing us into another car.  I do not remember the airbags deploying, but when my eyes opened, there they were, flattened sacks.  The above is the remains of the car.

We all walked away basically together - no limbs broken or gone, and major body functions still in tact.  We are in the process of dealing with the medical fallout of all of this.

Geeks - I feel as if I have a better understanding of what one might experience in one’s first time ever plane-shifting.  Or if someone forcibly tried to pull me through a wormhole in space.  I think that might feel like this car accident - where all the molecules around me are suddenly squished together.  There’s this moment of intensity, a moment of compaction where sound is so dense that it no longer is sound - it is more akin to silence.

So, that’s what happened on my way to the Madison Farmer’s Market.  Right now, my life feels achingly misaligned, like the bones in my back.  It is as if every cell in my body knows that something has changed, but no one can see that from the outside. 

This situation has imposed, rather perilously, several life lessons upon me that I thought I’d share that, while pertinent to the car wreck, are also pertinent to life.

• Impatience is unnecessary.  No one needs to anywhere that fast to sacrifice the well-being of oneself and others.  That goes for work and personal life - pushing something to the limit of its speed will result in poor results.  And you won’t have enjoyed the ride.  And the path taken often makes a difference in how successful the achievement is. 
• The body is amazing.  Not only did it do all the necessary processes to ensure that I would be at my most flexible, but it also conveniently blocked out the few seconds of my head hitting the airbag and seat that I really didn’t need to know.  Thank you selective memory during traumatic events.  If my brain can forget the traumatic seconds of a car accident, then I can teach my brain to forgive and forget other things that hold me back.
• Your life can change in the blink of an eye, and without your permission.  And being flexible, able to go with the flow will always be helpful.  This is a great analogy for dealing with change.  In an accident, if you see it coming, you tense up and the damage is always worse.  In life, this can be compared to stubbornly holding onto the past as long as you can before letting go.  There’s an art to recognizing inevitable change and following it when it comes instead of making it drag you through hell.
• Did I mention change happens without your permission?  It gives new insight to me, who is someone who strives to always be in control.  If I can never be truly in control, then perhaps I am wasting energy in that direction that could be more appopriately focused in achieving my goals.
• In the same vein as not being able to control what happens outside of me, there’s a degree of chaos in trying to control what is inside you.  It is a delicate balance between nature and nurture, and be careful what label you assign to each feeling.  I don’t WANT to feel anxious right now, but the chemical imbalance as a result of the accident doesn’t give me that option. 
• Your perception can completely change without anything visible occurring.  I went back to my job and back to my life, and nothing changed externally.  But I feel completely changed internally -for good or for ill.  I think this is something that many people experience when going through a difficult time.  The rest of the world may not fit the new you, and the person you thought you knew might not be there anymore.  And it only takes a split second.  Take the time to find out what has changed, and where your heart lies. 
• The things you come back to in a traumatic event are the things that you need to keep paying attention to.  Those are the things/people/beliefs that really matter in your life.
• Sometimes you need to forego asking “Why did this happen?” and move straight to, “What do I do now?”  Too much time spent with the former question causes fewer options to be available when you reach the second question.  The Why is historical and nice to have, but what matters more is who you are and what you want NOW.

And what I want right now is sleep.  Good night all.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” - Oscar Wilde

Tell me. What do you do for a Living?

I’m eager to know.  Because I don’t think what we do for a Living necessarily is our “job”, or even our “profession”.

I was thinking about this one morning, discussing with Jizo-Sama regarding the titles we take on willingly, or don’t allow ourselves to take on.  That’s a whole OTHER post.  But it sparked something in me about the fact that we label ourselves all the time, but almost always about our job or profession.  Joe is a plumber.  Sue is an Administrative Assistant.  Mr. So-and-So is an Attorney, and Ms. So-and-So is a Graphic Designer.

But that’s not really what we do for a Living.  That’s what we do for existing.  For bill-paying.  Some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that would qualify as “living”, or even get to do their preferred “living” actions within the confines of their job.  Perhaps Mary Smith loves to write, but does it within her annoying Copywriter job.  She could probably ditch the other aspects of her job, but it allows her to do one thing she LIVES to do all the time.

But the majority of us put up with corporate world in order to Live a certain way, to Do certain things.   They rarely have anything to do with concepts we associate ourselves with, and even more often these days, have little to do with what we studied in school. 

I find it interesting that we ask a seven year old what they want to BE.  They are allowed to BE anything.  When children get older, we ask them what they want to DO.  Now we have narrowed it down from dreams to interests and hopes.  At adulthood, we don’t even deal with the term “want” anymore.  What DO you do? 

That’s like asking: What do you do now that you’ve given up your dreams and interests?

I’m reminded of Fight Club where Tyler says, ”You are not your job.”  I am not my job, but I willingly take on those labels specifically when people ask me what I do for a living.  But in reality, that says so very little about me.  In fact, it says near to nothing. 

So I asked myself: what do I do for a Living? Not my job, but my dreams and joys.  What do I do to experience life?  What would I call myself? 

Thinker. Dancer. Writer. Blogger. Singer.  Lover. Pennsic-goer. Reinactor. Traveler.  Seeker.  Retail Therapist.  Activist.   

So what is it that you do for a Living? 

These things can always be looked at several different ways.  After listening to WNYC’s RadioLab on “Where Am I?”, I was very uncertain about the brain’s role in religion and spirituality, and how we might create the “proof” for these beliefs.  When the brain loses track of the body, experiences similar to “near-death experiences” occur.  Perhaps these situations are merely a reaction of the brain being confused? Does this call into question other spiritual experiences as really being physical manifestations of some issue, misinterpreted as something esoteric?

Then Dr. Taylor has this stroke of inspiration, which I’m reposting here.  She was featured in the New York Times just last week.  According to Dr. Taylor, nirvana is attainable by choosing to behave and perceive using more of one’s right hemisphere.  There isn’t clarity of exactly how one is supposed to go about doing that (perhaps you need to buy the book?) 

But it is an interesting proposal.  Add in the RadioLab information, and the question becomes even more convoluted. 

First - is it merely an electrical stimulus of the brain we are perceiving as peace? 

Second - does it matter? Does the fact that one can choose to be in nirvana make it less desirable to attain?  Less of a challenge?  I mean think about it - part of the method of attaining nirvana was to let go of the physical - and now we have some indication that nirvana is purely phyiscal?  A matter of making synapses happen more on the right brain than the left.  Does that alter our understanding of most metaphysical teachings?  Meditation?

Perhaps spirituality has less to do with what’s OUT THERE as opposed to what’s IN US, and how we connect to others. 

Anyway - have a look.  (If this video isn’t working for you, go here.)

I was sent this earlier today:

Edit: By the way, the webcomic for this is hilarious, and all geeks should get on this asap!