Finding ways to help out the earth...

Today is Earth Day, hopefully some of you will take the time to assess the decisions you make on a day to day basis that have an impact on the Earth. Sometimes I wish that "progress" had brought us to a different state of being. One of harmony and peace with the earth and with others.

We spend so much of our time in individual or corporate pursuits that we become isolated from others and lose the ability to think and communicate with each other. There are times when I feel like it would be nice to have discussions with my family and friends and find everyone dispersed and unwilling.

In any case this is the world that we live in, whether or not you believe in global warming, care about the extinction of a variety of animals and plants, or the cleanliness of your community it makes a difference.

So find a way to help out the planet, I'm going to buy me a Nifty Nabber, it looks like just the thing to help me to help out the earth!

Unger Professional Nifty Nabber, 36”

Working, a blessing and a curse

This week I have been working late every day. It's due to our company's Quarter End where they give no quarter to meet their ends.

I find it difficult to be stuck at work, I have an active mind and I'm constantly thinking of new things that I want to do so it is hard to stay focused sometimes.

Work is a force to focus you on a task, it is a requirement, no getting out of it. It is a means to an end and that end is not necessarily the end that you desire.

Working for a company is in some ways a privilege and a burden. In life there are many things like that, to gain the privilege of earning money you exchange the burden of going to work at a certain time, staying however long they require and doing what they want you to do. In exchange you earn a certain amount of money.

It is hard for me to listen to motivational pep videos where they are urging you to "follow your dreams," "do what you love," and then the theory is that you will be successful and never work a day in your life because you are doing something fulfilling and it doesn't fill like work.

There is a big part of me that wants to jump on board with these ultra peppy huzza talks but another more cynical part of me thinks of all the projects that I have started and not followed through on. All of the things that I love that aren't necessarily going to earn me any money. Is it negative self talk? Self doubt? or is it reality?

Freedom!

Much of my life has been spent in the pursuit of freedom, I could also say in the pursuit of fitting in.

Opening my eyes in the morning is a restless battle between the world of dreams in which I am trying to find a satisfying solution to the drama of my dreams and the "oh shit" moment of realization that it is time to get up and get ready for work.

Depending upon the amount and quality of sleep of the night, or the amount of parental guilt that I'm feeling at the moment I will either get up and make some sort of breakfast and then take a bath before getting ready for work or I will nestle deeper into my pillow and silence the alarm until the kids come banging on the door for a ride to school. My dear Patrick has taken on this duty at times for which I am simultaneously grateful and yet aware that I should drag myself out of bed and do myself.

I view the world as a tableau of events, a glaring bathroom light (which I switch off as quickly as possible), a fuzzy outline of the refrigerator, desperate gulps of water as the night has dehydrated me and the fresh new light of day breaking over the mountain, street and trees. I've decided to simplify my life by wearing the same type of clothes every day. Dark jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. Why? Honestly there are just so many decisions that we have to make everyday that it can get exhausting. I want to be creative and classy in my choice of clothing but I hate buying things just to buy them, I feel like I need to have enough time and money (and to lose a few pounds) to buy good clothing that fits well. I dislike doing things when I can't do them well. I put off a lot of things for this reason. So it's simple clothing that I've chosen to go to, one less emotional decision to make.

I do what I have to do because I want to escape the expectations of others. I want to be free to set my own schedule, to do what I want to do and learn what I want to learn. I feel like I will only be able to do this when I am no longer trapped in the necessity of providing for shelter, food and warmth. In other words when I own a home outright and don't have to work too hard to have enough money to pay for everything. My world is thus reduced to the bare minimum that I need to get through life until I am free. Like a slave buying their freedom by carefully saving all that they make until they've paid off their slave debt.

I've had too many years of fearing for my family's financial security that it has become an obsession for me. I panic sometimes that I cannot be competent enough at my job to stay employed, and sometimes I am so tired of what I am doing that I cast about trying to find some new interest that I can develop and earn money from. Though at this point I fear that I cause myself to lose focus by trying to learn so much and do so much. So I am trying to narrow down the scope of what I want to learn so that I can relax with what little time I have left after work.

Therefore I am the barest version of myself most days. When I have time by myself I am therefore very determined to try to fit all of the rest of what I want to do into it. Thus I ignore people and social obligations because I feel like I have so little time to exist. I have so many things I want to do, I become paralyzed by all of the options and this is something I have struggled with all of my life. I have piles of little unfinished things because I am always feeling pulled this way and that, obligation or desire to appease someone else. That is the most uncomfortable feeling for me, I would rather not feel obligated to appease someone, rather I want all of my attention or affection to come from a place of authenticity, if it is dragged out of me it doesn't feel right. I do care about other people, I do want to do things for my family and my friends but if it doesn't come from my decision to be selfless and caring it really makes me feel upset and resentful.

That's about all I feel like writing tonight on this subject. :)

SG

Do I fit in?

I've been more aware recently of my feelings of... being an outsider, a fraud I guess you could say. This is something that I've read of as a sentiment often shared by women who reach a measure of success, we never feel good enough.

I struggle with the feeling that I am still battling my own naivete, that I need to be more shrewd, more competent. I know I have passed through the trials of school lectures and tests and yet I feel as though there is no way for me to put what I have learned (if I have learned it) to good use.

I walk a line between the world of business men and woman and feel I lack the competence and even the right sense of style to succeed in that world.

Then I question whether or not that is the right world for me, if I would be better off in a comfortable place doing what I feel like doing.

Yes I feel like an outsider. Not a housewife, to encumbered by the concerns of supporting my family to worry about decorating much, or discussing my children (much). I don't have the energy to worry over everything my kids are up to, I wish I could be around and take them places. I wish I could go to their class and help out. I wish I could deep clean my home, keep it really tidy (never been the best at that), fix things that are broken and paint where the walls need paint. I am an outsider to the housewives.

To the business world I am an outsider, the men I know sit around and discuss football and go golfing together, the women dress well and go out to lunch.

I wish I had the time to exercise enough that I was trim and had the time to shop so that I could be stylish. I suppose some day in the future I will have the time for this...

I'm not sure how to push past these perceived boundaries and be more of who I am, feeling secure in myself rather than in the perception that I must be some other way in order to fit into the social order.

I enjoyed watching "The Greatest Showman" because of the message that was conveyed. Stay true to who you are, be proud of what you are, fit in by being who you are. Plus the music was incredibly powerful!

I probably shall continue feeling different and questioning if I am doing the right things in life. That can't be helped, I suppose it is part of the human condition.

SG

Christmas Reflections

I am in a reflective mood today, it has been a beautiful Christmas day. It snowed last night bringing a touch of snow to make it a white Christmas. I slept in, hallelujah! My children were all here, enthusiastic, and quite happy with all of their presents, thus Christmas has been a success for me. I have spent most of the day reading and relaxing at my parents house. Any time I am presented with the opportunity to do nothing but just be with my loved ones, with no expectation of things that need to be done is a good time to me.

Different thoughts have been floating past my consciousness throughout the day and I wish I had captured them, I think there were some real gems of wisdom and insight among them, but alas I did not take the time to write them down.

I fear that  a lot of times I have needed to make a quick decision in matters that really counted but the decision I made was the one I wish I hadn't made. It seems like later on I was forced into making harder choices because of small decisions that were less than ideal. So I've always feared quick decisions, yet sometimes they've turned out well.

I find that there are many pieces of wisdom that serve as a counterpoint to my thoughts. I will think something uncharitable and low and then recriminate myself for it because I am striving to do better. I am striving to accept my limitations as well as those of others. I try to stop the recriminations of my conscience against my own actions. For I am a harsh critic of my own thoughts and actions. Deserving or not.

I've always been a harsh critic of myself, for some reason it is difficult for me to just allow myself to just accept who and what I am. I suppose in a way it is what prompts me towards improvement, but in another way I am never true to myself. I feel like there is this better version of me that I should be... like it is just out of my reach and that there must be something that I can do that will let me reach it.

In the same way I suppose I have always had a high expectation for others, though at the same time I've always made provision for their shortcomings. I reason it out in my mind a circular thought leading from irritation to explanation to reconciliation hopefully without them ever being the wiser to my thoughts. It's tiring though sometimes...

I want to be the sincere, thoughtful, open-hearted heroine that others find so endearing. My actions and motives are put through a whirlwind of thought though before coming out the other end, I suspend my judgement, and act after careful consideration (most of the time). All of this is tiring, I wish I wasn't quite so analytical, but that is what I am.

I love people though, I love them a lot. I've always wanted the best for my siblings, for my children, for my parents, for my friends. I've always wanted to somehow find the magic key that unlocks and relieves the hurts they have suffered, somehow, help them improve their lives so that they will find greater happiness. Because somehow I've always been able to see beyond the barriers that people put up to hide behind and I've always seen that there was so much potential for them. Both thoughts are unnerving  and not necessarily helpful so I've stopped trying as hard as I used to. Which sometimes makes me feel disconnected from myself.

One other honesty before I stop writing tonight. I know that most days I am living but I am not alive. I turn myself into an automated robot that get's up, ready and to work so that I can come home and do it again and again and again... it is only on days of seemingly endless freedom and solitude like today that I find I am able to breath and think. I wish there was a way to always have that freedom, but I've not discovered it. I wish I could.

SG

What would be said of me...

I've thought sometimes, what would people say of me if I died today? The things that I have accomplished in my life are things that I would never have dreamed for myself to have accomplished.

Would they say, she has traveled to different places, Australia, Ireland, Germany and Austria. She loved to travel! 

Is it enough to say that, to reduce those experiences down to a statement so simple. What did it mean to me that I have traveled? The answer is that it means more to me than I can express, I feel so lucky to have traveled so far and seen for myself the differences and similarities between people. Yet, these trips came about because of other desires. To meet a man in Australia who engaged my mind in deep conversation, to see one of my favorite cousins get married in Ireland and to seek out my cousin (her sister) who married a German man and lives in Frankfurt. All of these destinations were unexpected to me, I wish that I could have spent more time in realizing the grandeur and significance of the places I visited but each trip was short so all done in a whirlwind and only later after the trip was complete did I look back and think about the places themselves as much as my goal of connection with friends and family.

Perhaps those who know me might say that I was beautiful. They will look with their eyes on the person they know. 

Could they ever know the way my own eyes saw myself? The visions of who I wanted to be and what I wanted to be? My insecurities and those things that I liked about myself?

They might praise my scholarship, I pushed on through school even though it all looked daunting. I am proud of putting in the hours to get where I am but in some cases regret the time that I wished I had to do other things, to be another person.

Would they describe me as kind? A good mother? Wise? Probably. 

I feel as though there is more to me than can ever be reduced to words, there is more that I would have my children learn if I could. I wish I could pass on all that I know and have learned but I think that our lives, our experience and knowledge is not something easily transferable. We wear out our patterns of living as we go along and these patterns cannot so easily be picked up by the younger generation. We can no sooner step into their shoes as they in ours. Though I do look at my children sometimes and think of how much I wish I could just make things easier for them. A wise gardener knows that sometimes the strongest plants face the most adversity. 

SG

I and We

I, a word of self identity.

Our consciousness and conscience.

All I am, all I have, my sole possession.

I walk alone, playing the game, creating what I can.

Can I gain more I? Can I be more?

I am alone

Until I find you

I, linked with you, aware of each other’s awareness.

Briefly, WE exist.

WE are more! Spark and inspiration, WE create!

I value WE

Yet I defend I

I am the only one who can.

Ah time, that thief of my life

I relate to the world through a rich inner thought life. Thoughts stir around in my head all day, some mundane, some poetic, all of them almost always lost in the shuffle of my everyday busy life. Sometimes that is quite discouraging because it feels as though I am a shell walking throughout my day doing my work and existing in each moment reduced to a robotic routine, the meaning of life distilled into droplets of interaction with other human beings and there is a deep hunger there. I am interested in people, I want to sit down and probe the depth of their thoughts and find out what makes them tick. I tried to do that with a friend as we took walks together but I found that she held a shallow pool of interesting thought and didn't seem to be driven like I am towards constant improvement and seeking after knowledge. This was discouraging to me and though I am still good friends with her, I still find myself lacking a thought partner, something that I am used to though so I've retreated to the familiar territory of books and TED talks, anything that gets me to think outside of the ordinary humdrum of life. I find that when I read I analyze the way that the author has set up the book, how they are developing their characters and plot. Though without the time to work on my own book I despair at ever creating my own work of fiction. I'm not uncaring towards people, however I find it hard to maintain relationships with the depth of friendship that I prefer because the demands of time on my life make that possibility low. I am selfish a lot of times, I know. I am also frustrated because of the many things I want to do with my time that I cannot because I am a responsible adult type person. Well, I've got more to write but I am being called away... goodnight.

SG

The Flickering Spirit of Christmas

My thoughts this year as we gathered for Thanksgiving centered around the way that our traditions as a society have morphed over the years.

As a child we are questing out understand how things are. There is an unquestioning acceptance of things as though the way things are is the way they've always been. We do see that in the past our parents and grandparents didn't have the same kinds of things that we have, less obvious is that our parents and grandparents had different types of traditions than what we have. 

The feel of the season vs. what it felt like when I was little

Distance 

Business

Agriculture and commerce vs. big business

Simple decorations vs. opulent, chintzy decorations

Expectations for our acceptance in society now vs. then

Habits that are valued now vs. then 

Corporations and commercialization has taken over the 

Authenticity

It is one of the great mysteries of life that we try so hard to predict what the future will bring yet fail so often at our predictions. Or we cannot fully see what the signs and portents of things mean and we are ever questing out to have certainty in our lives but certainty is a thing that none can have. 

I've always sought to have authentic relationships with others. To be myself and let others be themselves but there is a part of me that isn't satisfied with that. When I was young I yearned to have the acceptance of others, yet part of me wanted to control others as well. I wanted on the one hand to let others be and on the other to help them change in ways that I thought that would be good for them. So that was the paradox of my own identity, to be myself, to resist to change when others wanted me to change and yet to want to change others if I thought there was something better for them. As a mother I find that I want to help my children find their paths, yet part of me wants to stand back and let them find their paths on their own. There is a balance, how much should I interfere, how much should I try to guide. Where do I draw the line.

I see that life is not the way that I want it to be, I see society faltering in the whirlwind of capitalism, consumerism, by the will of other men and they are the ones guiding the path, they are the ones directing the choices that we can make, taking away other choices because competitors would take profits away from them. I feel the squeezing on all sides, and I look around and find a uniformity of things, a narrowness of mind and a sameness of people. What is sad is that we don't realize this, all of the world is trickery and gimmick. Perhaps it is the pattern of our brains, our hard wiring to imitate what we see and to do what we think is expected of us and to content ourselves with it. 

I seek to write more than the mundane, to be more than the tarnished image that I have of myself. To be better but not judge myself harshly. 

Seeking purpose

Some thoughts that have been plaguing my mind lately revolve around purpose in ones life. I watched a documentary about some Hasidic Jews who are trying to leave the community they grew up in, turning their back on the beliefs and traditions of their upbringing. The Hasidic Jewish community living in the New York area, as described in the documentary, keeps their members tied to them by issuing a strict set of rules for the community members to follow.

These rules effectively keep the community members in ignorance of how the rest of the world functions and limits the ability of members to make decisions other than those handed down to them from their leaders. The people that were highlighted in the documentary (on Netflix) outline their struggles and reasons for leaving. They have valid reasons (in my opinion) to leave and seek out a different path but in the eyes of their community they are damning themselves and would lead their children astray if allowed to do so.

One thing that stuck with me, besides the difficulty of leaving something that you have always known, is the difficulty in finding purpose. I too struggled with finding a purpose to life when I left behind many of the beliefs I grew up with.

People speak of purpose as though it is something to be found, handed down to us from a sentient being who designed the world to have meaning. They hope that if they can find their purpose then their own lives will have meaning. I don't fault them for trying to find meaning or purpose in life, only I believe that when these things are not readily apparent to us then it can cause anguish, as though finding peace comes from finding purpose.

I propose a different way to regard life and our purpose. We let go of the need for an explanation for everything, we don't need to know why in some cases, we just need to know what is.

I heard this concept from a Ted Talk, I believe, though I can't find it at the moment. We spend a lot of emotional energy trying to figure out why something happened when a lot of times even if we understand why, it isn't going to help us find peace.

Accepting that you don't have to have all the answers frees you to move forward and choose to be happy in spite of everything.

Just a few thoughts for the day...

SG