#gratitudeNow: I’m pro context

My contemplation today was about a superpower I have come to realize I have. Don’t get too excited, I’m not going shopping for a cape or anything, because everyone has this same power.

It’s the ability to selectively turn on or off my awareness of context.

I’ll give you a bunch of practical examples, all from this morning.

First, as I showered I put on an Esperanto podcast, to see if I could understand it. I really couldn’t I could make out about every eighth word. That made me feel a brief stab of futility at the past couple of months worth of study I’d been doing.

Then I mentally fiddled with my context dial. I stepped back to see I have only been studying a few months. Since I started I have completed around 300 little Duolingo lessons. Roughly 80 hours of study. My friend Maddy and I now regularly text each other in the language.

Tio estas damne mirinda.

So, context matters. It’s good to stretch towards goals, and there’s no crime in my finding I’m not there yet for something I’m stretching for.

A bit later I get in the car and head for work I’m very proud of myself for getting out the door around 6:30, and feeling like a grownup what’s capable of doing all the grownupping what one can do.

As I drive, I make the mistake of missing my exit off the highway and wind up doing a nice little 18 minute or so detour.

I’m lamenting this on the phone with my girlfriend, MJ as I drive.

But I still manage to park at the office at 7:30, right on target.

As I review the drive and what I could have done differently, again I fiddle with my own perception of context. This time, I turn it basically off. People make mistakes, that’s human. But I did get out the door early, with having had breakfast too. I got to work exactly when I wanted.

Ahhh.

As I walked in the door, both applications of context awareness struck me simultaneously, and started this contemplation.

I’ve known for years that I am not my thoughts. But this part is actually new to me. By treating my own mind like a tool, something I can use mindfully I can change my perceptions of myself and everything I do.

Woah.

#gratitudeNow: Sweet Beef Money Niece?

So as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been teaching myself Esperanto using Duolingo. It’s quick and fairly easy, something I do every day for around 15 minutes at least.

I really really like Duolingo. It’s free to use, unless you opt in for the pro version. I never realized before that it was a sort of open source language school. So much of their content is free.

Yes, they are a private company. But they’re clearly doing good in the world.

I know that in the month or so I’ve been actively using it, I am definitely learning. I’m able to read and write on a very rudimentary level in Esprinto already.

I first got the app a couple of years ago to try to learn Spanish. An ex of mine was married to a man who mostly spoke Spanish. I thought it would be a good idea for me to learn it too. That went by the wayside, but I still had the app and my account when I got bit by this new bug .

So about that goofy post title. For the most part I find the way Duolingo teaches me to be really smart, and on the nose. Instead of drilling grammar rules into me, it teaches me words and simple phrases.

Every once in a while though the app really surprises me, in a couple of ways. Sometimes the example Frases it wants me to translate are really odd, or are wonderfully inclusive and progressive. Just recently I translated a bunch of sentences about Adam and his husband, and Sophia and her two boyfriends.

One of the ways it teaches you is by having you select potential words for a phrase out of a pool of choices. Whenever I do this is zero in quickly on what I think are the correct terms. Sometimes after I’m done I take a look at the words that are left in the pool.

More often than not what’s left over is completely ridiculous.

Just now, laying in bed, I was taking a lesson where the phrase was: La edzino de mia frato estas mia bofratino. That is, My brother’s wife is my sister-in-law.

What was left over? You guessed it: sweet beef money niece.

#gratitudeNow: Enry Hiccups

I’ve got the enry, got it bad. ​

That is, I’ve got New Relationship Energy, going with my new girlfriend, MJ.​

​I could (oh heck I ​am​) gush to you about how she’s beautiful, smart, witty, and soooo sexual.  All true. But the thing I most appreciate about her is that we are firmly oriented toward one another.

I feel like she’s this fantastic book I can’t put down, and just need to stay up reading.  She’s told me repeatedly she feels the same way about me.  It’s this positive feedback loop of mutual admiration and exploration.  And, for the skeptical among you, it’s not all bubbles and sunshine. We explore our ouchy places, ways we’ve been hurt before, ways we have hurt others.  We are doing the deep dive. ​

​And each and every time growing closer and getting happier about it. What we’re doing feels like the loving opposite of the scene from ​How to Train Your Dragon​ where Hiccup’s dad asks him “Can you just stop doing... this?” To which Hiccup replies, “​YOU JUST POINTED TO ALL OF ME!​”

​We keep pointing to all of each other and saying how much we love it. 

#gratitudeNow: Been A While

It’s been a while.

I was chatting with a new friend today, someone I met through the Camp Crucible chat, and showed them this blog.

Which I realized I had not updated since January. That’s been on my mind lately Brother and I were talking about my blog the other day and he lamented how much he missed it.

My new friend, let’s call her M, is a mindfulness fan just like I am. We had this amazing chat about how mindfulness pervades our lives, and the many ways it can be helpful.

That got me thinking and wanting to write here again even more. It’s been a while for many things for me, that I’ve begun to focus on again.

Here’s a few:

• Since January I’ve been actively working out and food journaling to get in shape.

• I’m headed back to Camp Crucible this month.

• I’m open to new connections with other people. I don’t need them, I’m just open to them.

I’m fascinated by the fact that while I’m a different person than I was before, I CAN pick up things from the past and embrace them again. After several months of swimming, I’ve started walking on a treadmill and also hiking, which I’m new to.

There’s this thought I’m struggling to express properly. I’m grateful that while things change, while I change, nothing is ever truly lost. Nothing’s thrown away in the rubbish bin. It’s just put behind me, made part of my past. Those prior experiences, interests, connections, and relationships help inform the me-that-I-am-now, which is really the only me that there is.

I’m grateful for all that’s happened. And all that is happening.

#gratitudeNow: Someone to overwatch me

There’s this thing that C. S. Lewis said, about how when he grew up he put aside childish things, including the worry over enjoying things which are childish. I find that really applies to me. I’m a busy, busy guy. I have my side business, my writing, my demanding day job, the podcast, and of course my relationships because I’m poly.

In the past, I’ve lamented that sitting on the couch and playing video games is garbage time, and wasteful. But after sitting and thinking about it, it really isn’t.

Overwatch is a heck of a lot of fun. It’s a social outlet too. I have some very nice friends through the game whom I enjoy playing with. The nature of the game is inherently collaborative. It’s about as close as I’m ever going to get to being on a sports team.

Over the several years I’ve been playing it, I’ve really grown my skill at it too. I know that staying grouped up is better than playing alone. I know that the healers/support should stick with the tank, while the DPS (damage per second) folks flank around. I know how to use the environment to enhance my own play style.

And, most importantly of all, I know that engaging in something I enjoy, in moderation and balance is emotionally good for me.

It’s taken me ages to figure all this stuff out.