A Few Thoughts About Quality Of Life

Let me get right into it: we have been defined in the economic image of consumerism. Of course there are other parts of the definition; we are a generous nation, we love our freedoms, we tend to be fast moving, we have a spiritual sense, etc. But beneath it all there has been a cloning of the "gotta get money" gene into our social DNA.

Thankfully that gene isn't in our original stem cells, but if those who want to be even bigger fat cats could, they would insert it into every corn flake in every supermarket in every state, city, town, village, and hamlet in America. In fact they would want that desire to be added to the basic instincts such that everyone would have three basic instincts: survival, procreation, and "gotta get money."

And having been defined that way, we grow so accustomed to define and appraise others with the same financial yardstick that we come to think of it as the natural way of things. But I don't think that is the way it has been all along. There has, I suspect, always been throughout history an awareness of how well one person is doing vis a vis their neighbors. That is understandable since we are hardwired to live and travel in packs. If their pack is doing better than our pack, then we want what they have, etc. It's a survival thing.

In the really old days those comparisons might mean do they have more food than we do, and are their hunting grounds better than ours? Have they been able to stay warm during the winter months? Do they have a means to keep their fires going?

Nowadays the comparisons are much more superficial. We don't need twenty questions to assess how others are doing. I was going to say we don't need twenty questions to assess how we are doing...but I'm thinking that we really have to do our financial self-assement in comparison to the "well-being" of others. More on that later, but for now, because the self worth part is determined on getting more and then that is coupled at some mythic time in the future when we will have enough and then we can live the really good life and never have to worry any more about having enough of - you got it - moola.

Let's see, what are the basic dozen questions we need answered to see how we are doing in comparison to others? Some are resolved in "conversation" and others are driven by visuals.

Where do you live?
What do you do for a living?
How far do you travel?
How do you travel?
What clothes do your wear?
Who is your mate (and all of the same questions about the mate)?
Where have you gone for vacations?
How successful do you appear?
How well do you express yourself?
Do you seem confident?
How good do your teeth appear?

Hmmm, I don't know that we will need the dozenth question, or even the baker's dozen question.

For right now, I'll stop. Perhaps you could add a few more. And I'll expand on this later, I promise, because to stop there is to just put us into a nasty despondency based on shallowness. And expand we must; expecially in these troubled financial waters we are observing.

Later.

Choosing To Be Placid Amidst All The Hustle And Bustle

A little time lapse photography captures it nicely.



Addendum: Appreciative thanks go to Dougald Hine, Proxima, and Steve Williams for their assistance in helping me to embed the video directly into this post.

It turns out to be ultra simple: In the bottom right corner of the original video there is a button for menu. Click that, and then select embed and then select copy to clipboard. Then in the body of your post, in "Edit Html" view, paste the HTML code from the clipboard, and then publish post directly from the Edit Html button on Blogger dashboard...easy peasy.

Just Say "No!" to More Stuff

There's that old bumper sticker which says: "He who dies with the most toys wins."

It used to be good for a quick chuckle and a sardonic smile. Now it's not worth spit.

I was building two 4-foot square wooden frames for my square foot gardening project several weeks ago. I'm not much of a handyman, but I know how to screw pieces of wood together. I had a drill and drilled 48 holes. That was the "easy" part - "easy" in the sense that little "labor" was involved and it "didn't take much time."

Then came the actual screwing of the screws. (I don't know how else to word that so it will have to just stay in the post.) The screws were about 2" long and 48 were involved. I knew I had a screw driver (powered by me) and I thought that it would be efficient if I had an electric screwdriver. A debate followed in my mind as to whether this was a good time to buy one - after all I would be able to use it to assemble the frame "in no time at all" not to mention how I could use it for all those other projects which are always around the corner. Or was this another invitation, an opportunity to do it simply and to not buy yet again another some-thing which will eventually be sold at a yard sale, but not until it has collected dust for several years.

It turned out, I am pleased to say, to be an easy choice. My pockets remained heavy, no gas used to go to the mall to buy the gizmo, no time "spent" traveling (traversing would be a better word) to and from, no throwing away of more plastic and cardboard and paper, no warranty form to fill out - oh, did it feel liberating.

I got down to the business of using the screwdriver. I knelt and stretched. I used my fingers, my wrist, my forearm, my elbow, my upper arm, and then switched arms. When I got uncomfortable I stopped for a few minutes.

My son Andrew stopped by and I said: "hey, you wanna give me a hand?"

He said: "Sure."

Actually he gave me two hands and we threw in some conversation to hold the whole thing together even better. He even lent me some back muscles to help carry the frames from the garage to the upper level of my back yard. (It's even sweeter when he stops by and looks at the tomato plants growing in the frames - more history-making than I had anticipated - try and buy that at the mall!)

We grow when we put mind and effort and concentration and ingenuity into figuring something out; when we put our own chosen effort into our actions. Ran was talking about that a while back in his entry of May 21-23. Eleutheros was also referencing it on his blog when he talked about the tyranny of the mind set of: "Git 'er done (quickly)."

I've known for decades that consumerism is destructive. It's a parasitic meme which repeats and replicates itself over and again. And like any good parasite it feeds on it's host without outright killing it. If it kills the host slowly all the better since it can itself survive longer. And what parasite would give a second thought as to how the host continues to pay and pay and pay. But as I was saying in my last post on "It's more than just putting on the brakes" the "not buying" is incomplete - it has to be coupled with the life and living that has a way of taking root in those other spaces

Yes, I'll just say "no thanks, but could you pass me a little more time and a lot more of no-things." It's really just fine with me, when it's time for me to pass on, if I don't have all those toys.

I guess I'm shifting towards a "keep it simpler" kind of guy.


*****

From Wikipedia: "Cultural change necessarily involves resistance to change. The term Luddite has been resurrected from a previous era to describe one who distrusts or fears the inevitable changes brought about by new technology. The original Luddite revolt occurred in 1811, an action against the English Textile factories that displaced craftsmen in favor of machines. Today's Luddites continue to raise moral and ethical arguments against the excesses of modern technology to the extent that our inventions and our technical systems have evolved to control us rather than to serve us and to the extent that such leviathans can threaten our essential humanity."

And from http://www.primitivism.com/index.html : "Primitivism is the pursuit of ways of life running counter to the development of technology, its alienating antecedents, and the ensemble of changes wrought by both. This site is an exploration into primitivist theory, as well as various works that contribute to an understanding of the tendency."

Rushing In My Dreams - Balancing Act?

In my last post I talked about procrastination.

During the week or two before writing that I became aware of several dreams in which I was rushing. There was no particular place that I was rushing to. No particular task to accomplish. Not running from anything. Just rushing. Just the feeling of pressure that comes from rushing.

It may have been related to the fact that I was procrastinating with those reports and that led to a feeling of "having to get something done." Maybe that's it; in my daytime consciousness I was doing a fairly good job of pushing the task out of my mind - and then in my sleep / dream time world, it shows up as the concrete abstraction (how's that for juxtaposing two words) of just plain rushing - without any specific content.

But another thought also occurred to me. That was that with any change there is an inevitable backlash which tries to re-establish the original state of affairs.

In my situation, I started this process when the words "I will rush no more" became my mantra by applying them in an ongoing, daily, and gradually expanding manner. The "ongoing" was important because to not do that it would just become another incomplete experiment in living and I've had enough of them already. The "daily" was important because that has a more cumulative power and helps to maintain momentum. An analogy would be with exercise. It's better to do some exercise every day than to save it up for extended periods of exercise every few weeks or so. As we all know that is the surest way to increase injuries and then that will set the person back even further.

And the "gradually expanding" was important because that both makes it real and that also makes it much more interesting and "alive."

I also wanted it to be gradual to forestall the inevitable backlash. The bigger the initial change, the more abrupt it is, and the more radical it is the bigger will be the pushback. It is as if the force of habit of the original lifestyle suffused with rushing and mindlessness and consumerism has a life of its own, and if you push hard, it will push back hard. Isn't that one of the basic laws of physics - every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It's not just physics. That's also life.

Another way of looking at this is that a person or a system tends to keep doing what it's doing unless it is acted on by an unbalanced force. (If all the forces are balanced, i.e., equally counteract each other, than the object / system will either remain stationary or will continue at it's same rate of speed and in the same direction it's headed.)

The strategy I adopted was to apply an unbalanced force combined with the principle that "the slow way is the fast way." You could call it a stealth approach the goal of which was to allow for change of very well ingrained habit clusters (lifestyle, society-style) by keeping the change beneath the radar so the pushback would be (almost) avoided.

To go back to the dreams now, I wondered if the mindless rushing in my dreams was a signal that "the old way" was "creeping" back in?

And then an interesting thing developed. When I made this connection, the dream sequence ceased ( - at least so far.) My further thought was that now the new system (I will rush no more) is well established and the pushback from the dreams (unfocused rushing) is a "threat" to the new and more prized system and therefore I / it wants to neutralize the potential resurgence of the old system.

Neat.

This Writing Stuff Can Be A Bit Risky

The last several entries I have made have been decidedly on the heavy side. I've been writing about spacing out, psychological shock, talking about difficult things, pandemics and social isolation, etc. But, what can I say, that's what I've been writing about and that what has been on my mind.

Also, I've been visiting two additional websites which look at themes which fit the "bad times, they be 'acomin" genre. One is Sudden Debt and is devoted to the shenanigans in the world of finance and the persistent question about how long the present bubble can continue before a major correction occurs. The other is Generational Dynamics which is about a way of looking at the world of trouble that the world is in, and how, when one looks at history from the point of view of the impact which successive generations have on the course of history, interesting patterns evolve which may be useful in predicting trends in current times.

John J. Xenakis, the author of GenerationalDynamics, posted a comment on my entry entitled: "A Little Technorati Drum Roll Please..." (2/14/07). In it, he states: "I like to tell people that what's coming is coming, and it can't be stopped by any politician or anyone else, any more than a politician can stop a tsunami. You can't stop it, but you can prepare for it. So I tell people this: Treasure the time you have left, and use it to prepare yourself, your family, your community and your nation."

Powerful words. It reminded me of James Kunstler's encouragement to "enjoy the abundance while you can still have it." It also reminded me of a line in one of my previous posts where I said: "I wonder if Climate Change gives a hoot as to whether Mr. Cheney says that the American Way of life is not up for discussion."

So, I started thinking about those words and my recent topics, and I pushed the uncomfortable factor into the land of Murphy - of Murphy's Law - but on steroids. By this I mean, I started wondering about really bad scenarios and what John said about not being able to stop what's coming. The three scenarios were economic collapse, the pandemic, and a world war over oil - all happening approximately at the same time and the phrase "The Perfect Storm" popped into my head. It's a little like writing my own personal Stephen King novel in my head and then finding that I was drawn into it too uncomfortably far.

What happened was that I propelled myself into a perfect little storm in my mind and that became a little like a black hole in my consciousness which was absorbing my attention and my mind. I found that I was becoming more grim by the moment, I was thrown off "my game," and there was a background uneasiness about it all which made me restless. The whole storm was heightened by feelings of uncertainty.

It was unsettling, to put it mildly. And that is one of the reasons why I have been inactive on my blog for the last few weeks. I just knew I had to get myself out of the morass which I had created in my mind. (That is not to say that The Perfect Storm couldn't happen in external reality, but that it was not present in actuality, and I had become victim of my own internal virtual reality (mind) exercise. If you remember from one of my previous posts, I said that what happens in the mind influences the body and the emotions. And that's what happened to me over these last few weeks.)

I'm happy to say that "I'm back" and regaining my natural balance points and accustomed compass readings and can now start to talk about that process. To be continued...

The Continuing Saga of Television Withdrawal - or: "I must be getting better"

I watched just enough TV yesterday to see the Patriots pull off a sweet win over San Diego. Sweet.

Then, and this amazed me, I completely forgot about the 2 hour first show of the season for "24." That used to be one of my must-see shows. But in the early days of the (internal) change last year I found myself turning it off more and more frequently. Watching the adrenaline junkie feed his addiction for more adrenaline and watching him doing whatever it took to accomplish his task, twitching all the time, and having all that all doled out in 15 minute "cliff hangers" just got to be just too much.

Let's see, they had action - non-stop; betrayal - ongoing; torture - in the name of what choice do we have; an opportunity to break every law you can think of - in the name of expediency; torture and brutality - did I mention torture and brutality; governmental incompetence - well maybe not too far off that mark; and non-stop miraculous recoveries from just about every life-altering accident you could imagine. What's not to like?

I publicly apologize to my wife for a season or two of getting hooked into that program and telling her: "not now honey." The only lame excuse I can come up with is that I was suffering from television addiction.

"They" are so good at it. The marketeers. Here is what I think is their master trick: they hook you in the same way as they do for potato chips, ice cream, movies, must-have gadgets...they identify a deep need / wish / desire and then they offer all kinds of sizzle which "promises" to fill that need. And the interesting thing is they are able to do that from the first bite or the first viewing.

Well, they sort of meet the need. I think what they do is create an experience in such a way that you have a sense of the need being met - momentarily. And then the only way you can go further is to come back for more. And, you got it, they have the coming attractions for that program and for other programs of the same genre. Open mouth, shut mind, bite the hook and ask for more.

Of course this all has to be done with much hoopla so you don't think too much about it. If you did think about it you would find a better way of entertaining yourself and then maybe you wouldn't feel so empty. The emptiness has to be perpetuated to keep you coming back. That must be a bit what it's like to be hooked on crack.

Tonight, the truth must be told, I turned on "24" for about 3 twitches of the adrenaline junkie, one car crash from which both people walked away without so much as a stretch of the neck or back, driving to endanger multiple innocent people, terrorists all over the place, a gun shot wound, home invasion, a secret package, and .... oh yes, thank you Lord, I found the sanity to push the off button.

My wife said....approximately: well, no I'll leave that out.

Oh, and yes, I filled the artificial void encouraged by the TV world with this posting. Yes!

(Oh, #2, did I say the Patriots won last night? Sweet.)

Go give a hug to someone.

A Seemingly Quiet Pause

I haven't posted anything for several days partly because of the Holidays and, well frankly, I've been indulging in some laziness.

But there's a further reality here and that is that there is so much I want to express, and the topics are so important, that I am having difficulty choosing which ones to go with first.

A peek into the queue in my mind:

Reactions and thoughts about the video "the Future of Food." The implications for going towards an organic diet become more and more important. Kitchen gardens will similarly become more important for self-sustainability and health and well-being.

Questions about the peak debt and peak oil. Along this line I have been reading a blog: SuddenDebt and anyone who is thinking about the financial picture of the U.S. and the world would do well to take a look and give some thought to what is presented there. By the way, I left several comments on that site as: SimplyTim

Along the line of "waking up" and "elevator pitches" I have been wondering if large numbers of people are simply in trance states, and if that is accurate how that comes about and what people can do to come out of that state. (One definite hunch that I have is that television may be one of the major portals both into, and out of, those states.)

Stay tuned.

"What if, just what if..." Scenarios

I've been thinking about putting up some "what if" scenarios on my blog as a way of stimulating thinking and discussion about how things could change, sometimes almost in an eyeblink, and what the impact of those changes would be for individuals and also for large groups, even societies. In doing this I walk a fine line because I don't want to produce unnecessary anxiety in those who are prone to excess anxiety. Yet, this type of "exercise" may sharpen our appreciation for the abundance we presently have, and also to recognize the fragility of this complex system when a pivotal piece of the whole is no longer available, or is jeopardized.

The first topic comes from a presentation made by Dmitry Orlov and entitled: Closing the Collapse Gap. In it he discusses the collapse of the Russian empire at the end of the cold war, and then makes a general statement that one of the lessons of history is that empires come and empires go. They all go, and some of them collapse fairly rapidly. The collapse of the Russian empire was a clear case in point.

He then asks an interesting question: "what lessons could the United States learn from the Russian collapse?" He explores that question through a "compare and contrast" process. In walking you through a series of slides he draws some conclusions which are disquieting to say the least.

Let me take just one of his observations. He says that the suffering experienced by the Russian people was terrible. No doubt about that. But he also says that as bad as it was, it in a sense was made easier because of several factors. For example, he says that they had no expectation that the Russian government would come to their rescue. They never had that expectation based on decades of experience. After the collapse they experienced terrible despair and apathy and confusion but they knew they would have to deal with it on their own. There was to be no "methadone" for them in that crisis; it was a "cold turkey" withdrawal. By contrast, he observes that in the U.S. there is a pervasive sense of entitlement and also a belief that the government will come to the rescue of the country, no matter how big the crisis or disaster. He questions that possibility given a sudden collapse and as a result feels that the suffering would be even more profound here.

For the purposes of this posting I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him. I am wondering out loud in the shape of "what if, just what if...?" For me, it fits in with James Kunstler's thesis elaborated in his book: The Long Emergency. It also heightens my desire to develop realistic self-sustaining practices and to develop connections with like minded people, to be a part of developing neo-communities. Finally it motivates me to continue to reduce my debt level, and to seriously cultivate a life of conscious simplification and non-overconsumption as a strategy for positioning myself for coming through difficult times. And if those difficult times don't come (in my lifetime,) then I will still have enormously enriched the quality of my life and the life of my family and community.

I encourage you to look at his presentation. I feel I can almost guaranty it will rivet your attention for an hour.

Let's see what discussion / comments come from his observations.

Addendum: 1/16/07...In the text above I said that for the purposes of this posting I was neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Mr. Orlov. The rest of the story is that it is my considered opinion that he is bringing our attention appropriately to pivotal issues which deserve our attention...now. It is my opinion that hard times they be a'comin. I'll be writing more about this.

Societal "Know How" and Memory

I have been thinking about the implications of "peak oil," climate turbulence, quality of life and how to shift from living life on a cultural treadmill of running to just stay "caught up." Then I started thinking about some practical steps to increase my sense of self-sustainability. That led me to a startling conclusion. I realized that I have no cultural knowledge of how to grow any - ANY - of my own food. None, zero, zippo, nada!

I've put down some grass seed and a year ago I threw some clover seeds on my lawn. I was jokingly saying that I was going in the direction of biodiversity. I suspect I did that also because it reminded me of my good friend Gil who died last year; he had clover all over instead of grass.

But it also got me thinking that if I can throw down some seeds and let them do the work on their own and then enjoy seeing them grow and spread, then maybe, just maybe I could do something similar with a vegetable garden. Bright guy that I am (at least in my own mind) I figured that it can't be all that hard and that made it easy for me to keep coming back to it in my mind. Then I started asking people if they had gardens or if they grew any of their own vegetables and I sat back and watched their faces breighten if they did. I would ask questions like how big an area would you need for potatoes, have you ever considered asparagus, which herbs do you grow, how do you keep chipmunks from eating the roots, etc., etc. With every answer I received I filed it away in my mind and my "possibility mind" said maybe, just maybe I could do it.

Sounds funny doesn't it. I'm a fairly accomplished person. Clearly well educated in an academic and professional way. But the simple step of taking this step towards growing my own food seems so big by comparison. I guess that's why I'm saying that we are at risk of losing cultural awareness of how to do these things which are SO basic.

My parents didn't teach me how to grow vegetables. I never saw them do anything like that. Maybe that's where the broken connection was made even more broken. If I can learn to do this maybe then I can pass my new found knowledge on to my children and to others. It will show that it is possible. Of course I know it is possible, yet it seems like such a big step. The image that comes to mind is that of a rock formation on the Maine Coast (Nubble Point) where I saw a child hesitating to step from one part of the rock to the other even though they were separated by only a foot. The problem was that the child was looking down into that foot-wide divide which was many feet deep. The cross-over is easy - once you've done it. Before that it's surprisingly more troublesome. The knowledge that it really is not that big of a deal makes it more difficult rather than easier until you take that step.

On a slightly different note I came across a reference of a seed depository which Norway is establishing to ensure that our world does not lose the diversity of seeds which our planet already has. What are they thinking of which leads them to do this?

Cultural memory will not be found in the supermarket. Seeds once lost in the Amazon may well be lost forever if it were not for what the Norwegians are doing. Gardening is just gardening until no one remembers how to do it. Then we would be in deep compost.

By the way, I have found the book called: All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and also the website http://Pathtofreedom.com to be invaluable. They have taken me many steps forward in having a plan laid all out for me for putting a garden in my back yard this spring. I will wait and at the same time I can't wait.

By the way #2, if YOU have this knowledge, pass it on to several others. Don't wait. You may take it for granted but take it from this guy who has never had a green thumb that it is important to share your hard earned know how with others.

Seed Depository Reference: http://www.dep.no/lmd/english/news/news/049001-210044/dok-bn.html

Struggling vs. developing my voice in these blog entries

When I look at my last post I know what I am saying but it also seems too complicated. When I'm talking with someone directly I am more to the point. I'm ok dealing with complex issues, in fact, I really enjoy them but only if I can find a simple design contained within the complexity. But when complexity becomes complicated, well, yuck!

Writing for my blog is a new process for me. It's like I'm still finding my "voice" and my primary drum beats. It's ok that I don't have it all together already in the sense that this is just the way it is. Trying to get it right - right away - misses the reality that this process develops over time. Grappling with something is fine and actually fun for me. Struggling, a habit I know too well, is self defeating. Struggling ultimately reinforces the trying, not the learning. Struggling puts more energy into the struggle and it is all an energy game.

The strategy which makes sense to me is to catch myself as soon as I can in the struggle, and then acknowledge the struggle, watch it for a few moments, then "release it." " How to release," you ask? By letting go, by bringing your attention to your next exhale. Do that for a few moments / minutes / decades and then place your energy on something which draws your attention and which is appealing. That way I / you are not putting more energy into a process which has already stopped being a lively experience. It takes practise but it is a way out of the struggle.

In that way then, the struggle becomes a cue to watch and experience differently. It becomes an opportunity to lighten up and then the struggle is accepted for what it is, a short circuit which blocks further and easy development. A struggle is then just part of the process, like a punctuation point which gives a hint that there is rushing going on, a trying to make it go faster. Better to ease off the throttle and shift gears before getting back on track. Better yet to refresh the compass direction before setting out again.

I feel better now.

And the gift from this is an awareness that the original intent is still there:

• To talk about shifting consciousness from rushing and hurrying to a pace dictated only by the reality of the current situation and not impaled on the demands of the external system, which for sure seldom has my / your best interest at the forefront of their agenda.
• To hear from others about how they came to a shifting point and how they followed through with it.
• To recognize and share information about the perilous times we are in from the point of view of impending changes which will occur to our society as climate change continues and the peak oil process progressively plays out the reality of how utterly dependent we have become on that substance.
• To recognize how we have been ultra conditioned to over-consume and to hand our lives over to specialists and how we give away our life-time to make money to pay for all that.
• To reconnect and rediscover basic skills necessary for self and group sustainability.
• To explore how people form new circles of common interest around the sustainable process.
• To integrate complex issues and to say it in plain english.
• To cultivate our inner sense.
• To clarify our values.
• To live the good life and to be in harmony with our surroundings

I suspect that should keep me busy for a while.

An unexpected dividend - no pressure in a pressure situation

Here's the scene: I'm checking out at a self serve checkout aisle at B.J.'s. It's my second time through one of these "time-saving" alternatives to the regular checkout process. Every checkout line was long except for mine. I lucked out!

It all looked fairly easy and I'm sure it is after you have done it several times. My turn came and since I had only one item it seemed a cinch that I'd be through lickety-split. Yeah, right!

Off to a good start, the machine recognized my B.J.'s card. Then the system seemed to break down for me. I think it was because I put my debit card in first instead of scanning the item, or the reverse of that. Not to worry, the machine assured me that a sales person was coming to assist me. Not so. I noticed people shifting to my left and made the mistake of looking over. What had been the shortest line was now, you guessed it, as long or longer than the others. We need to insert in here an audio sound for pressure building up but I don't yet know how to do that.

I go through the process again. Same outcome. Then several scenarios raced through my mind. 1. Just walk away from the checkout line. 2. Take the item - a package of flashlights and throw it against the wall. This had a feeling of an impending volcanic eruption. 3. You'll love this one: Take your time, there IS no rush, and figure it out.

Drum roll please; 3 was it. (1 was still a contender and 2 was tempting) It wasn't like standing my ground. I wasn't sighing or doing things to make nice-nice to the waiting hordes. I just took my time. I figured it out and after I got my receipt I turned to those in the line and said: "I think a round of applause would be appropriate." No clapping (sigh, it would have been a perfect ending) but I did get a "that happened to me last week."

As the title said, this was a delightful dividend from continuing with the "I will rush no more" mantra.

P.S. The flashlight was one of those windup models which don't require batteries. This particular model had a mode where the white light flashes and there are two side panels which have red lights which also flash as a hazard light for the car. Neat.

P.P.S. As I was leaving the next person in line was having as much trouble as i had. If I had cards made up I could hand them out - and then make a quick exit in case they are considering option 2.

It begins - the short version

It started about a month ago when the phrase "I will rush no more!" popped into my head. It came somewhat out of the blue, but not really since I have been thinking about quality of life and pace of life for some time now.

But the phrase caught and summarized a significant part of my thinking and it was easy to remember - that's a big plus. I started to put more energy into it by sharing it with some others and the response was very positive. They listened. They "attended" and became receptive and seemed to be trying it on for size for themselves, and wondering how that would manifest for them.

A few weeks ago I read an article in the Boston Globe about the trauma unit at Boston Medical Center. A senior nurse, Patty Harrison, was quoted as saying: "You're always so close to death here, I walk out of here with an appreciation of life." It reminds me of Don Juan of Carlos Castenada fame, who suggested that a person of intent, of power, chooses to make "death his ally."

I believe he was talking about cultivating a sense of immediacy, a sense of presence, a kind of fear and trembling and awe and mindfulness all rolled into one. A willingness to be, to do, and to move, at times fast, but not to rush.

Then last night I had a dream in which I was on the shore. I saw a "buoy" off shore a bit. Then I was on a wooden deck jutting out into the ocean with an old friend. The "buoy" was just about to hit against one of the pilings and I knew that could create problems but it was just bumping up to the structure. The water then was much closer to the deck and in the dream, I was looking at a very large wave which was coming right towards me. I took a breath and found myself saying "make yourself into a compact ball and see if you can ride it out."

I guess this was me connecting with an original part - the "boy" - in a context of a sea-change moment.

Let's just see how all this rolls and bounces.