Slow and Steady January 18, 2009

photo by Jerry L. on flickr

I subscribe to a blog called Zen Habits. And I’m glad I do. Its author, Leo Babauta (lives on Guam, married, 6 children, runner, vegetarian, writer) writes some pretty good “stuff” about: achieving goals, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits.

In his latest post, he links to another author, Ian Newby-Clark (Habit Guy) of My Bad Habits who wrote this article about the Power of Gradual. Here is a exerpt:

Try this as an experiment. Make a tap leak ever so slightly—maybe a drop every half minute or so. Put an empty bucket below it. Now, go on with your day. Forget about the tap. Actually, I don’t need to tell you to forget the tap. You just will. Sometime later, stroll by the bucket. Holy heck! There’s a lot of water in there. It might even be overflowing (the author will not be held responsible …). That’s the Power of Gradual. It’s the effect of a small thing happening over and over (and over) again.

read more…

On and off I think about this topic and every time I stop and look back, I have to agree that things typically don’t happen overnight. Sure, sometimes we have to make drastic decisions. Sometimes we DO have to just quit that job from one day to the other because we just have had enough. But when it comes to goals and dreams…the age old “take it one day at a time”, “step by step” is probably one of the most profound suggestions that exists. I used to be a lot less patient. I used to get frustrated with myself (mostly) because I expected semi-instant results. Also, being a chronic procrastinator, I have often accomplished projects in the last minute. I can remember so many times in College when I had final papers to write and of course I’d wait until the day before it was due to work on it. Sure, an all nighter lead to an intensity that surprisingly turned into genuine interest in the subject matter. This, without fail (every time) would frustrate me to no end. Why? Because I’d realize that if I had just started my project earlier and worked on it a little bit every day, I would have written an A+ paper. (sidenote: I have to admit though that I do well under pressure and sometimes come up with my most creative results in that manner)

And so lately I have been reminding myself more and more to do a bit every day of whatever I want to achieve. If it’s cleaning my apartment: instead of spending an entire day cleaning every corner of the apt and usually never finishing because I am SO exhausted (oh, and distracted)…clean the living room one day, the bathroom the next day, the kitchen…
If it’s posting on my blog, preparing photos to upload to flickr, posting on facebook, keeping in touch with friends…a bit every day/other day will get me to where I want to be.
With my desire to become a better writer (oh yes!): write every morning…a page, two pages…but WRITE! As a friend of mine writes to me in encouragement: THE VOICE will come…
And especially with my long term goals…again and again I come to the same conclusion: don’t expect instant gratification. Be patient and stick with it. And I find that it does work. The key (at least for me) is consistency. Especially if they are more abstract goals (such as “becoming a better writer”)…you just gotta keep at it…but in a gentle and underwhelming way.

I am not a parent, but I know that many parents have the desire to “be a better parent”. This is a huge topic…and yet so simple. I believe that nowadays too many parents think they have to do “big” things with their kids to make them happy or prove to themselves that they are good parents. Wrong. I find that the best parents are those who spend a bit of quality time every day with their children, who stop every once in a while and just listen, who watch a movie with their kids, who sit and have a meal as a family (an endangered species)…just little things here and there, simple, nothing extravagant…that to me is what makes a parent rock.

As I was searching for something else on google, I also came across this article, The Oak Tree vs. the Microwave, on a blog called Succcess.org. And sure enough, it talks about the same subject of instant gratification, the need for patience, the nurturing of dreams, ideals and goals.
Here is an excerpt:

There are many young adults today completely lost. Totally disillusioned and frustrated.

So many fine young men and women in their 20s, 30s, and even 40’s who’ve lost touch with the natural maturation process of personal development and personal success. These individuals seek instant gratification. They want success, and they want it now! The phrase, “paying your dues” unfortunately, doesn’t register or doesn’t apply to them . . . or so they think.

Why? I’m thinking you can go ahead and blame it on the microwave oven. Yes, the microwave oven. Think about it, these same “kids” are now adults and they’ve only known one thing — instant gratification! Need a quick meal? Pop it in the microwave. How about some leftovers – throw it in the microwave. The trusty microwave has now made the concept of “waiting” obsolete.

read more…
And so it is with everything. Even finding these articles and blogs. The beauty of the internet is that we can find (if we search) all sorts of interesting things that help us take these slow steps. Every day a little bit and eventually our bucket of life WILL fill with clear, refreshing and tasty water…

It’s a Voyage of Ideas ~ Henry Miller’s Bathroom Monologue January 6, 2009

Part 2

Part 3

My Eyes January 6, 2009

Correspondences in space and time with strangers who become familiar beyond the daily societal habits of one’s life. We become each others’ confidantes and audiences with eyes wide open and dreams of poetry. Attracted to a way of writing, to an intensity of the soul that we somehow are not afraid to expose. There is an element of time that exceeds all boundaries of awkwardness and expectations. Silence which allows each of us to be genuine, to “think before you speak”, to dig just a few steps deeper into the hallways of our inner world. Opening doors that lie invisible in the rushed daylight.

In the peaceful darkness of contemplation, however, I peak over to the right, take a few steps, place my hand on the rusty knob of a redwood door and open it as though it had always been there. I don’t know that I had never seen it before. It opens slowly and I have to push it harder — the loud squeek almost frightens me as I look around to make sure I don’t rattle too many neighbors. I expect to find total darkness, spiderwebs and dust. I enter and my heart beats too loud. The moment I let go of the knob the room begins to brighten as though someone had placed a rising sun inside it. Reds and oranges and yellows taint the high-ceilinged walls of this now bright and happy room. I take one more step and the heavy door slams shut behind me. I am no longer frightened. A calm rushes over me and as I stand in the middle of the room, I can no longer move my body. My arms are heavy and try as I may, I can not lift them.

It is my eyes. All my senses gather in my eyes. And their abilities are multiplied…I am transfixed…almost floating.

I think I must be dreaming but it is daytime and I am awake. And I am writing.

Colors dance around and through me. Images appear and disappear on the walls and ceilings. Words shoot through my throat, my knee, my abdomen. Ancient history and universal infinity discuss the meaning of the word “path” with Buddhist philosophy near the window. I hear mumblings of multiple conversations around me and I catch words here and there. My eyes listen — they feel — they taste — they touch — they smell. I close them. I take a deep breath. I smile and open them again. I am on my couch, listening to the hissing of the heater and the bells of the cable car. I close my eyes, hoping to return to the happy room. I don’t. I open my eyes and I am here. I am writing. And the only word I can end this sentence with is: POTENTIAL

International Philosophy January 5, 2009

Monty Python…just pure genius!

The many faces of Communication December 3, 2008

Lately I have been thinking more and more about the difference between communicating with people via letters/email/chats versus verbal communication. I don’t think anyone would ever consider me a poor verbal communicator, but even I find a huge gap between the two. In the past year or so, I have been communicating a lot more via emails with people who have a lot to contribute intellectually, spiritually, artistically…these people live far away from me. At times I imagine what it would be like if I sat across a table with these same people and we “talked” about the same things we write about. When I do that, I get a cramp in the depths of my belly. I get scared. I look at myself and think I may be a fraud.

Why? Because I don’t think I can go to the same depths as I do on paper. or at least I haven’t in a very long time and I’m afraid I may have unlearned it.

So is written communication just different? and that’s ok? When I write I lower my inhibitions. Sort of like when I have, say, two full glasses of wine. I say more of what I think. I don’t fear intimacy. Not physical intimacy, but mental/emotional/spiritual intimacy. I “go there”. I am more poetic. And so are they/you.

If I talk to someone, it takes a lot longer for me to feel comfortable enough to “go there”. It’s all that damn non-verbal communication. The way a person speaks, the voice, the intonation, the looks, the way they move their hands, the way I move my hands, the gaps of silence and how desperate I/we are to fill them…all that crap makes me a bit nervous and distracts me from everything I can achieve when i am by myself at my computer responding to an email.

Perhaps I am just not used to it anymore.

The free-flow of inner language gets stuck somewhere. It’s like a facade that makes us say stupid things, that makes us laugh nervously…we sometimes feel like real idiots.

But maybe it isn’t really like that. Maybe it would be just as free-flowing as it is on paper. I don’t know. I will need to find out eventually.

And perhaps that is why it is easier to find like-minded people online. Most of these people I communicate with I know in person. We just live far from each other. A few I have never met but we have clearly found a common thread which is usually artistic/life affirming and questioning/spiritual/poetic….I also have not really found such people here, where I physically live. Therein probably lies the real clue.

I will keep thinking about this topic and will eventually test it out.

I’d love to hear what others think of this.

How to deal with anger… September 20, 2008

from The New Yorker, August 2008 edition.

Choices we make August 26, 2008

Written while sitting, as usual, at my favorite cafe (Trieste) one evening. It has been a few weeks since I have written in my blog and this does not promise to be uplifting and positive. It is how I have been feeling lately, for the most part. But being that I am quite the optimistic, positive, life-affirming being (you wouldn’t think that from reading this, would you?)…it is just me sharing all sides of…ME. Trying to be real:

I should be feeling the waves of passion rushing through my veins. But I don’t. I am a bit warm from the wine. So it is “fake” of some sorts. It’s a beginning. A bumpy beginning. A zigzagonal beginning. A rebirth. A dying. I am beginning to shed the old layer of my worn out self. I don’t rush it. I haven’t until now, so it’s not the time to start changing these ways of mine.

People sit — busying themselves with their own egotistical life moments. We are all ego-driven, self-centered narcissists. We choose partners, friends, children who will feed our needs. Our needs to be heard, to be paid attention to. To compensate or perhaps even maintain the level of attention we’ve received as infants: really the only time our true needs are met voluntarily. Our entire life we spend searching for partners who satisfy this longing — ideally it is a perfect balance — a match between the actor and the audience. Ideally, this partnership is interchangeable. When it is, we live in peace. We float in the illusion of having found happiness. For a while. And if we are strong and true to ourselves, we look in the mirror at some point and weigh the odds. And we ask ourselves the question: am I really happy? Can I continue on this path for the rest of my existence?

It is always a risk to ask this question. We may dislike even the act of having to look deeper into the answer. But once we do we must be willing to jump off the high cliff — down into the fog of uncertainty and fall into the muddy waters of loneliness…and freedom…and authenticity. Or we make a choice to stay in what we convince ourselves to be the best we can or want to do. And we choose to work at it — we look at each other and say: you are worth it. But we choose to stay because it is the lesser of two evils.

Discovering Eugene O’Neill July 15, 2008

Should I confess that I have never read ANY of Eugene O’Neill’s plays? That I didn’t even know he was a playwright? That I had heard his name but didn’t know ANYTHING about him until last night at about 1am when I couldn’t sleep and changed channels to PBS’ American Experience? Well, I guess I just confessed.

Holy shit! How did I miss this experience? I love and constantly long for moments like this. Again and again I must realize that I will never catch up with the endless amount of creativity that is out there…these amazing people who have lived before us, live in our lifetime that have the spark of insight…and that if I am lucky enough to gather them into the library of my own life and experience they are what makes me a better, creative, open person. They are what gives meaning to my life. Yes, I knew nothing about Eugene O’Neill. But now I do. And now I want to read and see his plays. This series on PBS, American Experience, has managed to spark my interest into understanding what makes this man immortal and wanting to learn from him.

Never ever will I feel like I know enough. I know there is still an endless array of texts, biographies, plays, movies, songs that are waiting to be discovered by me. Waiting for me adopt them into my consciousness.

For today, I give my own little tribute to Eugene O’Neill and I want to share this part from the end of the documentary. Here is the transcript copied from the website:

Narrator: In the climactic fourth act of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, in one of the most beautiful and quietly moving passages O’Neill ever wrote, Edmund struggles to put into words the ephemeral sense of connection with something larger that had sometimes come over him while at sea.

Performance, Robert Sean Leonard (Edmund): I was on The Squarehead, square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself, actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint’s vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason. It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death.

Robert Brustein: Well, there’s that beautiful moment in Long Day’s Journey when Edmund begins to reflect on the time when he was at sea, and he found God, or what he thought was God in the quiet and the silence and the coming together of all the elements. And his father sits and wonders at this and says, “There’s a touch of the poet in you.” And he says, “No, I’m not a poet. I don’t even have the makings.”

Performance, Robert Sean Leonard (Edmund): No…I couldn’t touch what I tried to tell you just now. I just stammered. That’s the best I’ll ever do. Well, it will be faithful realism at least. Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people.

Robert Brustein: It is so painfully honest in the way that O’Neill begins to admit his own defects as a writer, recognizes that he’s not eloquent, that he doesn’t have the gift of the poet, he only has “the makings,” as he says. In recognizing that, O’Neill becomes a real poet at last, and not a stutterer, not a stammerer as he says he is in that play. He begins to soar and it’s impossible to see that play without being profoundly moved by it and also moved by the eloquence of it.

numb to the desire to live a genuine life July 1, 2008

This morning I woke up early, as usual. I made my coffee, went to the bathroom, drank my glass of water, turned on my computer, checked my email, responded to some, saved some for later…at this point I usually make a decision. Should I stay at the computer and work on a project? Do some morning writing? Lie down on the couch and turn on the TV? Lie down on the couch and read a book? Most of the time I decide to read a book. Except I just finished a book which I loved: Kafka at the shores by Haruki Murakami ~ I read it in German! …and so now I have a few other books I am reading at the same time, but none of them that are really capturing my attention.
So I stand there, in the middle of my living room, as I so often do when i am not sure what I should do (remember, it is VERY early in the morning…my morning walk, for instance, doesn’t happen for another hour or two). I’m turning in circles, both physically and mentally. And then I decide to open one of my cabinets that has more unfinished, unread books. I “randomly” grab one: Being Zen by Ezra Bayda. Ok, I think. let’s see where I left off last time.

Oh…I was only at page 9! Didn’t get too far with that one…

I lie down and begin the chapter at page 9. It is called: Fast, Cheap and Out of Control.

I read. I keep reading. Something inside me begins to stir. My eyes read faster than they are used to. Whoa! Yes! Exactly! Yes!
And then I stop reading for a moment. I think to myself: hey! this is speaking exactly to what I have been struggling with in the past months. Hell! My entire life! Words I have been using to describe my recent state of being/thoughts/desires: numb, genuine life, authenticity, fears, control, comfortable and safe…
Hey Ezra! How did you know that I had to pick up your book and read this particular chapter?

So I keep reading and immediately as I finish this chapter, I think of a few people I know who would appreciate reading these words as well. So I get up and I begin to scan each page. I am excited. I feel like a question I have been asking very recently has been answered. Or at the very least, what I suspected is being given to me in words on a page.
When you feel stuck, when you feel fear, when you feel numb, when you are so afraid to take steps in your life towards what you know with certainty is a more genuine life: what do you do? how do you do it? How do you get out of your MIND, out of your “too much thinking” mode and just DO IT? How do you step away from numbness, from fears, from too much self-control…how do you walk away from the attraction of what is safe and comfortable into the risks of a truly genuine life…into a more authentic life?

At my last therapy session (yes, I am back in therapy), I was asked to just close my eyes and see what I feel. See what images come to mind. Feel. Not think. Feel. Not think. I am a very ‘feeling” person, but I don’t really allow myself to just feel. I protect my feelings with my analytical mind. I control what I don’t know or understand with my ability to distance myself from it by thinking too much.

And so…Ezra gives me a clue. He talks about self-observation. I think: HEY! that is what I do all the time! But then, he immediately explains to me the difference between objective self-observation which is neither analytical nor judgmental. It observes as from a distance. It is not introspection, it is just awareness.

I think I understand. I need to learn to take one more step back and not try to hold on too tightly to understanding WHY I do what I do. Watch it, notice it, observe it, yes, understand it…and then, let it go. By holding on to it, I am placing labels on my personality. But the reality is that our personality, our being is not stagnant. It is not a lion that one can tame. It is in constant transition, change, growth. I understand my problem: I hold on so tightly to self-analysis out of fear of losing control. I do not dare to take the next step. The step that says: yes, that is me. ok. Accept it and move on.

I need to learn to take the step. Move on.

Ezra tells me that meditation can help me:

Until we learn to observe ourselves objectively, we will remain prisoners of our substitute life. Yet as we live the practice life, looking with increasing honesty at all the ways that we’ve held ourselves back in fear, we can also begin to experience the freedom of stepping outside our protected room and into the genuine life that awaits us.

Here are the pages I have scanned:

George Carlin ~ we’ll miss you! June 29, 2008

“The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying — lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else,” ranted the comedian whose routines were studied in graduate schools.

“But I’ll tell you what they don’t want,” Carlin continued. “They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers — people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they’re coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.”

For more of the article I got this from, go to:
George Carlin, American Radical

or…check out this video: